"retired," and for me as truly as for the retired tradesman, life is
over. I can look back upon its completed course, and what a little
thing! I am tempted to laugh; I hold myself within the limit of a smile.

And that is best, to smile, not in scorn, but in all forbearance, without
too much self-compassion. After all, that dreadful aspect of the thing
never really took hold of me; I could put it by without much effort. Life
is done--and what matter? Whether it has been, in sum, painful or
enjoyable, even now I cannot say--a fact which in itself should prevent
me from taking the loss too seriously. What does it matter? Destiny
with the hidden face decreed that I should come into being, play my
little part, and pass again into silence; is it mine either to approve or
to rebel? Let me be grateful that I have suffered no intolerable wrong,
no terrible woe of flesh or spirit, such as others--alas! alas!--have
found in their lot. Is it not much to have accomplished so large a part
of the mortal journey with so much ease? If I find myself astonished at
its brevity and small significance, why, that is my own fault; the voices
of those gone before had sufficiently warned me. Better to see the truth
now, and accept it, than to fall into dread surprise on some day of
weakness, and foolishly to cry against fate. I will be glad rather than
sorry, and think of the thing no more.

XXIV.

Waking at early dawn used to be one of the things I most dreaded. The
night which made me capable of resuming labour had brought no such calm
as should follow upon repose; I woke to a vision of the darkest miseries
and lay through the hours of daybreak--too often--in very anguish. But
that is past. Sometimes, ere yet I know myself, the mind struggles as
with an evil spirit on the confines of sleep; then the light at my
window, the pictures on my walls, restore me to happy consciousness,
happier for the miserable dream. Now, when I lie thinking, my worst
trouble is wonder at the common life of man. I see it as a thing so
incredible that it oppresses the mind like a haunting illusion. Is it
the truth that men are fretting, raving, killing each other, for matters
so trivial that I, even I, so far from saint or philosopher, must needs
fall into amazement when I consider them? I could imagine a man who, by
living alone and at peace, came to regard the everyday world as not
really existent, but a creation of his own fancy in unsou