CONCLUSION
And now I have finished. I have told of some of the things I have seen, heard, and felt. I have drawn upon my recollections just as one might draw tickets at a raffle.
From my earliest childhood I have always been greatly attracted by people much older than myself. They taught me things that I wanted to know but was too lazy to learn through books and from governesses, who generally appeared to me stiff, cold, and unsympathetic.
Ugly and whimsical child as I was, outsiders generally took a fancy to me, and, through their conversation, my mind unconsciously obtained the habit of meddling with serious questions which I very often felt to be beyond me. This habit of meddling with things beyond my depth has never left me, with the natural consequence (Heaven knows!) of frequent disillusionments.
Now I have to reverse the order of my youth, and find interest in the younger generation more than I did when I was a contemporary.
However, my raffle is closed. I hope that some words of mine have not been in vain. It remains for Russians and Englishmen to get to know each other. When they do, their friendship will be indissoluble—I know both.