446 MORE POT-POURRI 



may justly work our weariness ; yet infancy longeth 

 after youth ; and youth after more age ; and he that is 

 very old, as he is a child for simplicity, so he would be 

 for years. I account old age the best of the three, 

 partly for that it has passed through the folly and dis- 

 order of the others ; partly, for that the inconveniences 

 of this are but bodily, with a bettered estate of the 

 mind,; and partly, for that it is nearest to dissolution.' 

 I wish I could agree with Bishop Hall, but I do not. I 

 very often feel that quite the worst part of old age is 

 that it brings us near to dissolution. My sympathies all 

 remain with the young, and I only feel at times inclined 

 to cry out, with Thomas Moore : 



Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of Morning ; 

 Her clouds and her tears are worth Evening's best light. 



I fear everyone will think this is not at all as it 

 should be ; and I only feel it sometimes, and perhaps 

 even that won't last. 



This is good-bye, dear reader. Collecting these notes 

 has given me pleasure and also cost me trouble. I can- 

 not do better than close them by quoting what were 

 almost the last lines ever written by my kind friend and 

 brother-in-law, Owen Meredith. I owe him as large a 

 debt of gratitude as one human being can owe another. 

 It was due to his friendly advice and his kind encourage- 

 ment that my mind was saved from that sense of failure 

 and disappointment so common — to women, at any rate 

 — in middle life. He taught me how all ages have their 

 advantages, and gave me courage to go on learning, even 

 to the end. He always seemed able to see the line of 

 the other shore with a brightness not granted to me : 



My songs flit away on the wing : 



They are fledged with a smile or a sigh : 



And away with the songs that I sing 

 Flit my joys, and my sorrows, and I. 



