ad given place not to cynicism but to weary sadness. It was perhaps
unfortunate for myself that I had no cynicism.

Very well. In other words, a disinterested observer might say: You
became middle-aged--the common lot--and dyspeptic: the usual penalty
of sedentary life. But there is a difference. If middle age brings to
most, as no doubt it does, some failure of health and a notable
attenuation of aims, desires, ambitions, and zest, does it not also
bring some satisfaction in the present? I think so; at all events,
where, as in my case, it brings the outward and material essentials of
a moderate success in life. Now in my case, though the definite aims,
the plans for the future, the desired goals, had merely ceased to
exist, the present was Dead Sea fruit--null and void, a thing of
nought. Just where does my poor personal equation enter in, and how
far, I wonder, is all this typical of twentieth-century human
experience, for us, the heirs of all the ages, with our wonderful
enlightenment and progress? I wonder!

This, at all events, I think, is as near as I can come to explanation.
Yet how very far short it falls of explaining, of furnishing me with
the key which the making of this record was to provide!

However, the task shall not be shirked. At least, some matters have
been made clearer. I will complete my record--if I can.

THE LAST STAGE

I

'What do you aim at in your life?' I said to Sidney Heron one night,
when the first decade of the new century was drawing near its close.
Heron had dined with me, and we had continued our talk in my rooms. It
was a Saturday night, and therefore for me free of engagements.

'The end of it,' replied Heron, without a moment's hesitation.

'Ah! Nothing else? Nothing to come before the end?'

'Oh, well, to be precise, I suppose one does, in certain moods,
cherish vague hopes of coming upon a--a way out, you know, some time
before the end; time to compose one's mind decently before the prime
adventure. Yes, one cherishes the notion vaguely; but I apprehend that
realisation of it is only for such swells as you. I have sometimes
known thrifty bursts, in which I have saved a little; but--a man
doesn't buy estates out of my sort of work, you know. He's lucky if he
can keep out-- Well, out of Fleet Street, say, saving your worship's
presence.'

'Yes, yes; you've always done that, haven't you? A negative kind of
ambition, perhaps, but----'

'Oh, naturally, you must