autumnal 



How very nearly accurate is the boy's defini- 

 tion of truth as an attitude of the mind in which 

 we believe " what we know to be untrue," instead 

 of "what we do not know to be true." Where 

 knowledge comes in at the door, faith flies out 

 at the window. 



In many ways, with all our boasted knowledge 

 and ripe experience, we still behave with the sim- 

 plicity of childhood. Why, else, do we pay the 

 doctor when we are ill, instead of when we are 

 well, suspending his fees, as the Chinese are said 

 to do, so long as our health fails? 



A favorite author of mine has it that a sure test 

 of youth is the ability to eat a boggy bun just be- 

 fore a meal, and no doubt it is an excellent proof 

 of juvenility. But a surer and more general test, 

 I notice, is the cocksureness of youth. Doubts 

 only come thick with the ashes, when the beau- 

 tiful fire of hope and confidence is burning low, 

 and when our future looms behind us, when " cold 

 wisdom judges severely all that it can no longer 

 do, calls loss of appetite sobriety, the stagnation 

 of the blood the return of reason, and envious im- 

 potence the disdain of what is futile." I always 

 191 



