One of my amusements, a mournful one I admit, upon these fine spring days, is to watch in the streets of London the young people, and to wonder if they are what I was at their age.

There is an element in human life which the philosophers have neglected, and which I am at a loss to entitle, for I think no name has been coined for it. But I am not at a loss to describe it. It is that change in the proportion of things which is much more than a mere change in perspective, or in point of view. It is that change which makes Death so recognisable and too near; achievement necessarily imperfect, and desire necessarily mixed with calculation. It is more than that. It is a sort of seeing things from that far side of them, which was only guessed at or heard of at second hand in earlier years, but which is now palpable and[Pg 129] part of the senses: known. All who have passed a certain age know what I mean.

This change, not so much in the aspect of things as in the texture of judgment, may mislead one when one judges youth; and it is best to trust to one's own memory of one's own youth if one would judge the young.

There I see a boy of twenty-five looking solemn enough, and walking a little too stiffly down Cockspur Street. Does he think himself immortal, I wonder, as I did? Does the thought of oblivion appal him as it did me? That he continually suffers in his dignity, that he thinks the passers-by all watch him, and that he is in terror of any singularity in dress or gesture, I can well believe, for that is common to all youth. But does he also, as did I and those of my time, purpose great things which are quite unattainable, and think the summit of success in any art to be the natural wage of living?

Then other things occur to me. Do these young people suffer or enjoy all our old [Pg 130]illusions? Do they think the country invincible? Do they vaguely distinguish mankind into rich and poor, and think that the former from whom they spring are provided with their well-being by some natural and fatal process, like the recurrence of day and night? Are they as full of the old taboos of what a gentleman may and may not do? I wonder!—Possibly they are. I have not seen one of them wearing a billycock hat with a tail coat, nor one of them smoking a pipe in the street. And is life divided for them to-day as it was then, into three periods: their childhood; their much more important years at a public school (which last fill up most of their consciousness); their new untried occupation?

And do they still so grievously and so happily misjudge mankind? I think they must, judging by their eyes. I think they too believe that industry earns an increasing reward, that what is best done in any trade is best recognised and best paid; that labour is a happy business; and that women are of two kinds: the young[Pg 131] who go about to please them, the old to whom they are indifferent.

Do they drink? I suppose so. They do not show it yet. Do they gamble? I conceive they do. Are their nerves still sound? Of that there can be no doubt! See them hop on and off the motor 'buses and cross the streets!

And what of their attitude towards the labels? Do they take, as I did, every man much talked of for a great man? Are they diffident when they meet such............