But  it  is  better  to  be  a  fool  than  to  be  dead.  It  is  better
to  emit  a  scream  in  the  shape  of  a  theory  than  to  be  en-
tirely insensible  to  the  jars  and  incongruities  of  life  and
take  everything  as  it  comes  in  a  forlorn  stupidity.  Some
people  swallow  the  universe  like  a  pill;  they  travel  on
through  the  world,  like  smiling  images  pushed  from  be-
hiQd.  For  God's  sake  give  me  the  young  man  who  has
brains  enough  to  make  a  fool  of  himself!  As  for  the
others,  the  irony  of  facts  shall  take  it  out  of  their  hands,
and  make  fools  of  them  in  downright  earnest,  ere  the
farce  be  over.  There  shall  be  such  a  mopping  and  a  mow-
ing at  the  last  day,  and  such  blushing  and  confusion  of
countenance  for  all  those  who  have  been  wise  in  their  own
esteem,  and  have  not  learnt  the  rough  lessons  that  youth
hands  on  to  age.  If  we  are  indeed  here  to  perfect  and
complete  our  own  natures,  and  grow  larger,  stronger,  and
more  sympathetic  against  some  nobler  career  in  the  future,
we  had  all  best  bestir  ourselves  to  the  utmost  while  we
have  the  time.  To  equip  a  dull,  respectable  person  with
wings  would  be  but  to  make  a  parody  of  an  angel.
In  short,   if  youth  is  not  quite  right  in  its  opinions,
there  is  a  strong  probability  that  age  is  not  much  more


CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH      297

so.  Undying  hope  is  co-ruler  of  the  human  bosom  with
infallible  credulity.  A  man  finds  he  has  been  wrong  at
every  preceding  stage  of  his  career,  only  to  deduce  the
astonishing  conclusion  that  he  is  at  last  entirely  right.
