To Be Occasionally Quoted Is The Only

Looking Forward Into An Empty Year Strikes One With A Certain Awe, Because One Finds Therein No Recognition. The Years Behind Have A Friendly Aspect, And They Are Warmed By The Fires We Have Kindled, And All Their Echoes Are The Echoes Of Our Own Voices.

The Discovery Of A Grey Hair When You Are Brushing Out Your Whiskers Of A Morning—first Fallen Flake Of The Coming Snows Of Age—is A Disagreeable Thing.... So Are Flying Twinges Of Gout, Shortness Of Breath On The Hill-side, The Fact That Even The Moderate Use Of Your Friend's Wines At Dinner Upsets You. These Things Are Disagreeable Because They Tell You That You Are No Longer Young—that You Have Passed Through Youth, Are Now In Middle Age, And Faring Onward To The Shadows In Which, Somewhere, A Grave Is Hid.

Yet Through All, We Know This Tangled Skein Is In The Hands Of One, Who Sees The End From The Beginning: He Shall Unravel All.

Every Day Travels Toward Death; The Last Only Arrives At It.

Thoughts Must Come Naturally, Like Wild-flowers; They Cannot Be Forced In A Hot-bed, Even Although Aided By The Leaf-mould Of Your Past.