X.
And this is the thought that comes to me in closing: I should like to have before me a lad of seventeen, well-bred and kindly, but ignorant of the human heart, as we all are at that age; and putting a friendly hand on his shoulder, I should like to say to him:
"Do you want to make sure of a peaceful and untroubled future? Treat your friends as considerately as you would a woman, for, believe me, every harsh word or ill-mannered act (however excusable, however long-forgotten) will return some day to pain and trouble you. Recalling my friends after all these years, I remember a quarrel that I had with one of them, a sharp word exchanged with another, the resolve, maintained for many months, not to speak to a third. Puerilities, if you like, and yet how glad I should be not to have to reproach myself with them! And, though I feel sure that they have made no more impression upon others than upon myself, how much I wish for an opportunity of convincing myself of the fact, of dissipating any slight shadow that may have lingered in the minds of my friends!
"When one's youth is almost past, and one thinks of the years that have flown so quickly and of those that will fly faster yet, of the little good one has done and the little there is still time to accomplish, the pride that set one against one's friends seems so petty, ridiculous and contemptible a sentiment, that one longs for the power of returning to the past, of renewing the old discussions in a friendly tone, of extending a conciliatory hand in place of every angry shrug, of seeking out the friends one has offended, looking them in the face and saying, 'Shall bygones be bygones, old man?'"