see her. She says that as she passed
the threshold of the room she breathed a prayer, "O God, make me worth
seeing!" How often used one to desire to make an impression, to make
oneself felt and appreciated!

Well, all that uneasy craving has left me. I no longer have any
particular desire for or expectation of being impressive. One likes, of
course, to feel fresh and lively; but whereas in the old days I used to
enter a circle with the intention of endeavouring to be felt, of giving
pleasure and interest, I now go in the humble hope of receiving either.
The result is that, having got rid to a great extent of this pompous
and self-regarding attitude of mind, I not only find myself more at
ease, but I also find other people infinitely more interesting. Instead
of laying one's frigate alongside of another craft with the intention
of conducting a boarding expedition, one pays a genial visit by means
of the long-boat with all the circumstance of courtesy and amiability.
instead of desiring to make conquests, I am glad enough to be
tolerated. I dare, too, to say what I think, not alert for any symptoms
of contradiction, but fully aware that my own point of view is but one
of many, and quite prepared to revise it. In the old days I demanded
agreement; I am now amused by divergence. In the old days I desired to
convince; I am now only too thankful to be convinced of error and
ignorance. I now no longer shrink from saying that I know nothing of a
subject; in old days I used to make a pretence of omniscience, and had
to submit irritably to being tamely unmasked. It seems to me that I
must have been an unpleasant young man enough, but I humbly hope that I
was not so disagreeable as might appear.

Another privilege of advancing years is the decreasing tyranny of
convention. I used to desire to do the right thing, to know the right
people, to play the right games. I did not reflect whether it was worth
the sacrifice of personal interest; it was all-important to be in the
swim. Very gradually I discovered that other people troubled their
heads very little about what one did; that the right people were often
the most tiresome and the most conventional, and that the only games
which were worth playing were the games which one enjoyed. I used to
undergo miseries in staying at uncongenial houses, in accepting
shooting invitations when I could not shoot, in going to dances because
the people whom I knew were going. Of course one has ple