495.
Our Teachers.—During our period of youth we select our teachers and guides from our own times, and from those circles which we happen to meet with: we have the thoughtless conviction that the present age must have teachers who will suit [pg 346] us better than any others, and that we are sure to find them without having to look very far. Later on we find that we have to pay a heavy penalty for this childishness: we have to expiate our teachers in ourselves, and then perhaps we begin to look for the proper guides. We look for them throughout the whole world, including even present and past ages—but perhaps it may be too late, and at the worst we discover that they lived when we were young—and that at that time we lost our opportunity.