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No good can come of contemplating the sad, inevitable fact that once youth has passed `` a worse and worse time still succeeds the former ''.

But there are at least two reasons for contemplating one's mind in even a cracked mirror.

One is that there sometimes are real although inadequate compensations in growing old.

Serenity, if one is fortunate enough to achieve it, is not so good as joy, but it is something.

Even to be `` from hope and fear set free '' is at least better than to have lost the first without having got rid of the second.

The other reason ( and the one with which I am here concerned ) is that one thus becomes inclined to inquire of any opinion, or change of opinion, whether it represents the wisdom of experience or is only the result of the difference between youth and age which is as inevitable as the all too obvious physical differences.

One may be exasperatingly aware that if the answer is favorable it will be judged such only by those of one's own age.

But at least the question has been raised.

Many readers of this department no doubt discount certain of my opinions for the simple reason that they can guess pretty accurately, even if they have never actually been told, what my age is.

At least I should like them to know that I know these discounts are being made.