I have friends of both sexes
in Madrid and in the Basque provinces, who seem already like old
friends, because I have grown fond of them. As I face old age, I feel
that I am walking upon firmer ground than I did in my youth.
In a short time, what a few years ago the sociologists used to call
involution--that is, a turning in--will begin to take place in my brain;
the cranial sutures will become petrified, and an automatic limitation
of the mental horizon will soon come.
I shall accept involution, petrification of the sutures and limitation
with good grace. I have never rebelled against logic, nor against
nature, against the lightning or the thunder storm. No sooner does one
gain the crest of the hill of life than at once he begins to descend
rapidly. We know a great deal the moment that we realize that nobody
knows anything. I am a little melancholy now and a little rheumatic; it
is time to take salicylates and to go out and work in the garden--a time
for meditation and for long stories, for watching the flames as they
flare upward under the chimney piece upon the hearth.
I commend myself to the event. It is dark outside, but the door of my
house stands open. Whoever will, be he life or be he death, let him come
in.
PALINODE AND FRESH OUTBURST OF IRE
A few days ago I left the house with the manuscript of this book, to
which I have given the name of _Youth and Egolatry_, on my way to
the post office.
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