achieving the latter is that it occurs to him to do the one thing, and that it does not occur to him to do the other. We are accustomed also to take for granted as a matter of course that we can keep the muscles of our intellectual faculties, so to speak, in good order by like means. We can keep our memory pliable by exercise. We can "keep up," according to the customary phrase, our knowledge of the various branches of learning we may formerly have acquired. But the side of us that matters incalculably the most, both as far as our own comfort is concerned and that of the companions of our daily life, that is the necessity of keeping our moral system in good order, ready to respond to any demand upon it, this, in some strange way, we seem absolutely to disregard. We are apt to believe that, in flat contradiction to the principles that we recognize as governing the rest of our being, our moral side will remain, without any conscious effort of our own, in that eminently-desirable condition to which we are conscious (even if we do not categorically formulate that consciousness) of having by the mere lapse of years attained. But in this we are probably mistaken. It is likely that in the moral order, as in every other there is no possibility of standing still. For if we would keep ourselves up to the level of our best possibilities, impulse, intention, and effort require to be renewed day by day, by conscious and repeated endeavor, as surely as the wear and tear of our bodies requires to be repaired by fresh, daily material, as surely as our bodily muscles require exercise if they are not to stiffen. But it is probable that in the majority of cases unfortunately that strenuous daily endeavor is wanting. And chiefly for the reason that, although we are more than ready to admit the necessity of arriving at a given result, we do not sufficiently consider the details by which we shall attain it.

I

I say this with extreme diffidence. am aware that most men and women in this country have been brought up according to the precepts of a very beautiful spiritual code, by which they, in all good faith, take for granted that their lives are governed; and I know also, and am glad to know it, that there are many whose daily actions are on broad lines governed by that code, in so far as it is possible to govern by it the lives of a time so absolutely removed from it by chronology, by racial temperament, point of view, and political conditions. But I have observed that even those whose constant thought is to live up to that spiritual code-I speak of them with reverent and genuine admiration-do not always seem able to carry out its broad, general principles in detail. I have noticed, to cite but one instance, that such a one who would take for granted the desirability of loving his neighbor as himself, or of rejoicing with those who rejoice, can yet be maddened, and not conceal the fact, at having to endure on some quite unimportant occasion the manifestation of his neighbor's uncongenial hobby. I have seen that he is apt thus to estrange that neighbor's affection, making the latter as well as himself sin against the precept we have just quoted. It was St. Theresa, I believe, who said that by thinking of heaven for a quarter of an hour every day one might hope to deserve it. I should doubt if the majority of those who are enjoying a comfortable middle age deliberately spend that amount of time in thinking of their own moral condition. And yet it might no doubt be well and profitably spent by each of us in endeavoring to translate into the terms of daily life some of the stimulating and noble maxims we have in the code we have been speaking of, as well as in the writings of the great moralists of every time, and in considering how by the light of them, we may make the best

of our relation to that tiny corner of the universe which constitutes our surrounding. And here lies a seeming difficulty-a seeming one, I say, for from the moment we recognize it we are on the road to overcoming it-that the occasions in daily life in which our fallibility finds us out, the fruitful opportunities for friction that are most likely to come in our way, appear to us so ridiculously out of proportion to those great moral maxims that it seems almost absurd to bring the one to bear upon the other. This discrepancy is bound to be a handicap in the attainment of that perfect character, with respect to which the middle-aged are, perhaps, at a special disadvantage, not because they are naturally more wicked than the young, but simply because they have unhappily no one who is entitled to point out to them their shortcomings. This is a terrible disability under which they labor; that they are no longer in regard to any one in statu pupillari. This may not sound at the first blush, perhaps, an altogether unpleasant condition; but there is no doubt that the human being who is not criticized is not corrected. Criticized, that is to say, to his face, and given the opportunity of comparing other people's views of what his conduct ought to be with what it actually is. As society is at present constituted, it is not the custom for one person to tell another, at the period when both may be supposed to have gone through one-half of their life with tolerable credit and dignity, wherein nevertheless that existence may have displayed shortcomings of which the offender was, perhaps, not aware. Such a comment, if gratuitously offered, would be offensive from contemporaries, intolerable from a younger generation, pardonable perhaps from an older generation still, from whom it would be accepted, however, with a kind of irritated indulgence, as being due to a general decay

of perception.

The only thing, there

fore, to supplement this lack of expressed public opinion is to exercise the most rigid self-criticism, if we would not have our peculiarities extend in every direction uncurbed. When I speak of the absence of criticism, I mean, of course, its absence as applied to the shortcomings of private life, not to those displayed in the light of day by persons who take part in public life, and who are bound to get a rough and ready (and, on the whole, tolerably just) all-round view of their own character, if they have calmness to examine and disentangle, and take the average of the evidence of friends and foes. It is not of these occasional helps to conduct that I am speaking. Nor have I left out entirely in my calculations the criticism incidental to daily family life, where, however, the wear and tear of circumstance, and the fact that such criticism is generally engendered in moments of collision, deprives it of some of its permanent value as an expresion of deliberate opinion. But when all this is said and done, it remains sadly evident that, arrived at this stage of existence, the only direction to which we may look for effectual help is, within ourselves. It is no good blinking the fact that this makes our task much more difficult. Compare the outlook, the condition of younger people in this respect, the greater chances that are given them, the greater help they receive in working out their perfection, even if they do not always make the most of their advantages. We had those chances, too, doubtless; we probably received as much help, and, I have no doubt, that in a more or less degree we profited by it. But were we told-many of us do not seem to remember it-that the struggle was to be a never-ending one; that when we left off being taught we should still have to learn; that from the moment we ceased struggling upwards we should insensi

bly begin sliding down again? That is what we need to realize, what we ought to make ourselves realize, at that moment when, our earlier impetuous onslaught on the interests of life over, we have leisure to look around us, and look within ourselves, by the light of the experience we have gained. Then it is that, some of the breathless claims of existence being satisfied, we find that conduct is the chief occupation that is left to us, and the most important of all. The young, on their first eager entrance into grown-up life, may well be forgiven if they do not sufficiently consider their words and actions, and watch the development of their own character and its effect upon other people; for they are, and they should be, far too busy perceiving, learning, expanding, choosing careers, love-making, wondering, yearning, distinguishing, to be able to concentrate their attention on mere conduct. This state of things also may, no doubt, have its drawbacks, but we will not dwell on them at this moment, for it is not the pitfalls incidental to youth that we are considering, but rather such as lie in the path of those older people, say between forty and fifty, for whom, in the eyes of youth nothing is left but a dull acquiescence, and such enjoyment of a senile kind as they may derive from looking on at the manifestations of the generation that is following them. But the problem, alas! is not so simple, as those same young people will find when, having in their turn, and almost without knowing it, made the inevitable step onwards, they find themselves, still enjoying a good deal of vigor of mind and body, standing where their fathers stood but now. No, life at this stage is not entirely quiescent, not wholly retrospective, does not occupy itself exclusively with looking on at others, young and interesting though they may be-it would be easier to deal with if it did.

What then is our outlook, arrived at that moment that is called middle age? What is the prospect visible from that stretch of level country? This time, when we are young enough to remember, old enough to foresee, is the time, if ever, to pause and look. It is good so at intervals to take stock of existence, as it were; it is well to realize where we are, and whither we are tending. That outlook, to be sure, is not the same in every case, and the factor that makes the great difference is whether we are looking at it from the point of view of another generation or exclusively from our own. The older people who are guiding others along the road feel, in a measure, actually responsible for its aspect; it no longer looks to them quite as it would look if they were wandering along it with no one else to consider. We all know how the mere fact of displaying a place familiar to us, be it only a garden path ten feet long, to some one who is seeing it for the first time, imports into our view of it something that makes us see it over again under a new aspect, too. There is a received opinion that those who have young people round them remain younger themselves, they are kept more in touch with a young point of view, and even join more in youthful pursuits; and in some respects, no doubt that is so. But it is well also to realize that the very fact of being surrounded with youth and its ardent pursuit of life, whether it be of ideals of illusions, or only of pleasure, may make us feel incalculably older, for it accentuates and defines quite clearly a difference which in the absence of that point of comparison may be only vaguely suspected. I remember hearing a girl of twenty say to a mother about twice that age-they were speaking of some third person of would-be sprightliness-"I'm so glad you're not vivacious. It's not nice to be vivacious when you're old."

Old! What a strange

sound that word has to those who, until they heard it applied to themselves, were hardly conscious of being no longer young! And yet it is, perhaps, not a bad thing to realize that there are people round us for whom we are a living epitome of the life on which they are entering, for whose conception of old age-even though formed, as it may appear to us, somewhat prematurelywe are responsible; people who, seeing us in that light, take for granted on our part a certain seemly dignity, which they rightly consider one of the attributes of the venerable. To be sure we none of us want to be venerable before our time . . . well, it lies in our own power to remain young, in all save the number of our years. But let us do it wisely. Let it be the absurdities of youth that we reject, while we retain its essential informing spirit. Youth can be manifested in other ways than by undue vivacity of demeanor, and we can keep it while we remain young in heart, in mind, in point of view, in adaptability, in energy, in usefulness, and above all-in Hope. That is the mainspring, the sense that there are still possibilities here below, whatever stage of existence we have arrived at. While there is Hope there is Life, is another and equally true form of the saying we have all clung to in our need. And the best thing that older people can do for the younger is, when these would fain look into the crystal ball of the future, to show them in it the image of a life lived in its fulness, enjoyed and made the most of to the end; a life that remembers the past without regretting it, that knows how to enjoy the present, and that dares to look forward to the future. And of these times, most of us will agree that the most important of all is the present. The future, however much we look forward, is bound to become the present before we have to deal with it, and it matters unspeakably to our happi

ness that it should be made the most of. This sounds an obvious platitude, but it is worth saying nevertheless.

I remember a most bitter disappointment of my early youth. We were going up, a large party, into some very high edifice, from which we were to obtain a peerless view. As we went up, we kept catching glimpses of the surrounding country, and of the prospect which we knew was awaiting us, and we called one to the other with cries of ecstatic surprise, to look as we went. But some of us made up our minds that we would not look at all on the way, but would wait until we got quite to the top, and could gaze all round us from the highest point attainable and see the glorious sight in its entirety. But alas! what was the result? Arrived at the top, we found a mist had arisen, and that view, which we had not looked at while we could, was entirely hidden from us, and as far as we were concerned remained so forever. This is not unlike what we are apt to do with our lives. Our minds, our hopes are so fixed upon what we shall see presently, the glorious surroundings that will be ours when we. get to the top (the top, save the mark!). that we have not the sense to look round us on the way, to make the most of every bright prospect we pass on the road, to know that it is not the fu-. ture alone that must be contemplated, but that the present and its outlook must be jealously made the most of as. well.

It is curious how long it persists, that habit of adjusting our existence, mainly with reference to the future. We are. insensibly thinking all the time what we shall do next, with the secret conviction that when we do it, it will probably set right any mistakes that we may have made or may be making. But it is what we are doing that matters more than what we shall do. And, above all, still more than what we are

doing what we are being. Let us realize that it matters supremely at this stage what we are, both to ourselves and others. It matters to those of our own standing with whom we are brought into daily contact by the necessitles of exacting mutual requirement, and, above all, does it matter to those who are younger, for to them we must give something to imitate. This is another terrible weight of responsibility brought us by the years, that we are expected to be able, ready, willing to set the example of conduct, as well as explain its theory; that we are supposed by the mere lapse of time to be qualified to impart to the younger people about us a satisfactory moral training. Is there anything else in this world that we should venture to teach under the like conditions? Ask a man of fifty who was a scholar in his youth, but who has unhappily been hindered by circumstances from continuing his studies, to coach a boy for a scholarship; he will say with reason he is too rusty. Ask a woman who once played the piano brilliantly, but does so no longer, to perform at a concert. She will say her fingers are too stiff. Ask a noted pedestrian who is out of training to come with you for a mountain climb, he will reply that he is no longer in condition. But ask a man or woman either, of the age in which, if only for the purpose of argument, I may be allowed to assume that the moral muscle has insensibly and unconsciously deteriorated, to direct a young mind and heart entering upon life, to coach the owner for the scholarships that are won through the teachings of experience, then, indeed, there is no question of hanging back. We are all of us ready to shower instruction, albeit of a most desultory kind, upon those whom an accident of chronology has made our disciples. For this branch of tuition, the most important of all, there is no need, it would seem, to keep ourselves LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 351

in training; we do not wait to consider whether by daily thought for the subject, by daily watchfulness of our own tendencies and our own deficiencies, our moral sense is still, so to speak, qualified to perform in public. Nobody raises that question. The position of guiding and exhorting others, the privilege of being looked up to, listened to, followed, which in youth can be acquired only by superiority, whether of merit, of endowments, or only of assurance, becomes ours with the efflux of time by prescriptive right; the mere number of our superimposed years can lift us to a sufficiently lofty eminence to speak from. Then it is that we are liable to fall into a great danger, that of propagating a moral code of a spasmodic and intermittent character, based mainly on considerations of our own idiosyncrasies, comfort or convenience, on the regrettable discrepancies we find between our own point of view and that of the persons we are instructing. It behooves us to guard against this danger. It behooves us, since we are each of us, so to speak, going to occupy a Chair of Conduct, to keep ourselves in a fit condition to do so by consciously making a daily and persistent stand against the deteriorating effect of the conditions which surround us at this stage. I am not speaking of the particular form of deterioration liable to attend each different calling or phase of existence, although I should like to try to realize and examine some of these in another place; for as surely as some forms of industry present special dangers, as surely as workers in lead or phosphorus are attacked by certain complaints that have to be specially guarded against, so certain is it that each form that our own particular existence takes has its own insidious danger, to watch for and guard against. It is at this moment of the more general pitfalls incidental to middle age