As We Grow Old We Slowly Come

Of All The Idiots I Have Met In My Life, And The Lord Knows They Have Not Been Few Or Little, I Think That I Have Been The Biggest.

The Pleasure Of The True Dreamer Does Not Lie In The Substance Of The Dream, But In This: That There Things Happen Without Any Interference From His Side, And Altogether Outside His Control.

The Cicada Sing An Endless Song In The Long Grass, Smells Run Along The Earth And Falling Stars Run Over The Sky, Like Tears Over A Cheek. You Are The Privileged Person To Whom Everything Is Taken. The Kings Of Tarshish Shall Bring Gifts.

I Was Young, And By Instinct Of Self-preservation I Had To Collect My Energy On Something, If I Were Not To Be Whirled Away With The Dusk On The Farm-roads, Or The Smoke On The Plain. I Begun In The Evenings To Write Stories, Fairy-tales, And Romances, That Would Take My Mind A Long Way Off, To Other Countries And Times.

In Those Days I Had Various Strong Inclinations, For Wine, Gambling And Cockfighting, And The Society Of Gypsies, Together With A Passion For Theological Discussion Which I Had Inherited From My Father Himself-all Of Which My Father Thought I Had Better Rid Myself Of Before I Married.