CHAPTER XI 



ON A PORCH 



IT takes ordinary men like myself about forty 

 years to learn the alphabet of living. We 

 start in with a conquering sword, shouting 

 &quot; Excelsior,&quot; and mistaking intensity of emotion 

 for integrity of being. At ten we believe all 

 things ; at twenty we dare all things ; at thirty 

 we obtain all things ; at forty, we question all 

 things. If we arrive at fifty, we bow our heads 

 and are silent. We have arrived with many scars 

 at either a conclusion or a conviction. If by any 

 means we reach a conviction, it will be shadowed 

 by an enormous waste and tinged with a reproach 

 that we have missed the preservative equilibrium. 

 Ghosts of a lost condition peer and smile ironi 

 cally in our memories and glide through our 

 dreams. 



I suppose the ultimate punishment of man 

 in this world is the accomplishment of his desires. 

 In looking back at my summer in the solitary 



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