My ignorance of everything beyond my own private bank account and stomach is due to the fact that I have selfishly and foolishly regarded these two departments as the most important features of my existence.  I now find that my financial and gastronomical satisfaction has been purchased at the cost of an infinite delight in other things.  I am mentally out of condition.

Apart from this brake on the wheel of my intelligence, however, I suffer an even greater impediment by reason of the fact that, never having acquired a thorough groundwork of elementary knowledge, I find I cannot read with either pleasure or profit.  Most adult essays or histories presuppose some such foundation.

Recently I have begun to buy primers—­such as are used in the elementary schools—­in order to acquire the information that should have been mine at twenty years of age.  And I have resolved that in my daily reading of the newspapers I will endeavor to look up on the map and remember the various places concerning which I read any news item of importance, and to assimilate the facts themselves.  It is my intention also to study, at least half an hour each day, some simple treatise on science, politics, art, letters or history.  In this way I hope to regain some of my interest in the activities of mankind.  If I cannot do this I realize now that it will go hard with me in the years that are drawing nigh.  I shall, indeed, then lament that “I have no pleasure in them.”

* * * * *

It is the common practice of business men to say that when they reach a certain age they are going to quit work and enjoy themselves.  How this enjoyment is proposed to be attained varies in the individual case.  One man intends to travel or live abroad—­usually, he believes, in Paris.  Another is going into ranching or farming.  Still another expects to give himself up to art, music and books.  We all have visions of the time when we shall no longer have to go downtown every day and can indulge in those pleasures that are now beyond our reach.

Unfortunately the experience of humanity demonstrates the inevitability of the law of Nature which prescribes that after a certain age it is practically impossible to change our habits, either of work or of play, without physical and mental misery.

Most of us take some form of exercise throughout our lives—­riding, tennis, golf or walking.  This we can continue to enjoy in moderation after our more strenuous days are over; but the manufacturer, stock broker or lawyer who thinks that after his sixtieth birthday he is going to be able to find permanent happiness on a farm, loafing round Paris or reading in his library will be sadly disappointed.  His habit of work will drive him back, after a year or so of wretchedness, to the factory, the ticker or the law office; and his habit of play will send him as usual to the races, the club or the variety show.

One cannot acquire an interest by mere volition.  It is a matter of training and of years.  The pleasures of to-day will eventually prove to be the pleasures of our old age—­provided they continue to be pleasures at all, which is more than doubtful.