; the splendors of the world have been proved null and
vain; its pomp, grandeur and magnificence are faded. A man has then
found out that behind most of the things he wants, and most of the
pleasures he longs for, there is very little after all; and so he
comes by degrees to see that our existence is all empty and void. It
is only when he is seventy years old that he quite understands the
first words of the Preacher; and this again explains why it is that
old men are sometimes fretful and morose.

It is often said that the common lot of old age is disease and
weariness of life. Disease is by no means essential to old age;
especially where a really long span of years is to be attained; for
as life goes on, the conditions of health and disorder tend to
increase--_crescente vita, crescit sanitas et morbus_. And as far as
weariness or boredom is concerned, I have stated above why old age is
even less exposed to that form of evil than youth. Nor is boredom by
any means to be taken as a necessary accompaniment of that solitude,
which, for reasons that do not require to be explained, old age
certainly cannot escape; it is rather the fate that awaits those who
have never known any other pleasures but the gratification of the
senses and the delights of society--who have left their minds
unenlightened and their faculties unused. It is quite true that the
intellectual faculties decline with the approach of old age; but where
they were originally strong, there will always be enough left to
combat the onslaught of boredom. And then again, as I have said,
experience, knowledge, reflection, and skill in dealing with men,
combine to give an old man an increasingly accurate insight into the
ways of the world; his judgment becomes keen and he attains a coherent
view of life: his mental vision embraces a wider range. Constantly
finding new uses for his stores of knowledge and adding to them at
every opportunity, he maintains uninterrupted that inward process of
self-education, which gives employment and satisfaction to the mind,
and thus forms the due reward of all its efforts.

All this serves in some measure as a compensation for decreased
intellectual power. And besides, Time, as I have remarked, seems to go
much more quickly when we are advanced in years; and this is in itself
a preventive of boredom. There is no great harm in the fact that
a man's bodily strength decreases in old age, unless, indeed, he
requires it to make a living