Logic, Like Whiskey, Loses Its Beneficial Effect

It Has Always Struck Me That One Of The Readiest Ways Of Estimating A Country's Regard For Law Is To Notice What Arms The Officers Of The Law Are Carrying: In England It Is Little Batons, In France Swords, In Many Countries Revolvers, And In Russia The Police Used To Have Artillery.

And Little He Knew Of The Things That Ink May Do, How It Can Mark A Dead Man's Thought For The Wonder Of Later Years, And Tell Of Happening That Are Gone Clean Away, And Be A Voice For Us Out Of The Dark Of Time, And Save Many A Fragile Thing From The Pounding Of Heavy Ages; Or Carry To Us, Over The Rolling Centuries, Even A Song From Lips Long Dead On Forgotten Hills.

And You Who Sought For Magic In Your Youth But Desire It Not In Your Age, Know That There Is A Blindness Of Spirit Which Comes From Age, More Black Than The Blindness Of Eye, Making A Darkness About You Across Which Nothing May Be Seen, Or Felt, Or Known, Or In Any Way Apprehended.

Humanity, Let Us Say, Is Like People Packed In A Automobile Which Is Traveling Downhill Without Lights At A Terrific Speed And Driven By A Four-year-old Child. The Signposts Along The Way Are All Marked "progress."

I Have Lived To See That Being Seventeen Is No Protection Against Becoming Seventy, But To Know This Needs The Experience Of A Lifetime, For No Imagination Copes With It.