changes. Two months ago I remember the end of every day was celebrated by me with slappings on the back because I had by so much increased the sum of my enjoyment of Willows. I counted the hours I had had.
For a long time, now, I have counted those that remain.
When did I change my attitude towards time's advance? I do not know, but I know that to-day I regard its haste with despair.
Touching that much longer, more varied and even more delightful sojourn upon which I am engaged I have not, I fancy, yet reached the dividing point. Still (more than ever in the past two years), I hug the possession of my days as they are completed; not yet do I regard them as gone. Still I reach out to meet them as they come, welcoming them as good full friends, not frowning upon them as evanescent tricksters who dawn but to close. I hope to be doing the same when (and if) I am a hundred and forty. I can never see why that fellow Death should be permitted to spoil one's time here. Let him be content with his certain win or wins (for he commonly gets in more than one shrewd knock at a man). Physically, I admit him my superior, because I have to. I am not his match at all. I own it.
