Youth, or childhood, or infancy, or any other epoch of life, does not abruptly cease and give place to another.

Their souls are gradually withdrawn as the light is withdrawn from the sky at evening, and a space of twilight renders the transition from one to the other perceptible only in the result, not in the process.

This I think is a view of the matter, that is corroborated by the testimony of our own consciousness, don't you, Mr.De Riemer ?" "On the whole, yes," replied Paul.

"And still, if she had said that the severing of her personality from that which succeeded it was sharp and clearly defined, so that up to a certain day, or even hour, her memory was full and distinct, and then became a blank, there are passages in my own experience, and I think in that of many persons, which her statement would have made comprehensible.

I think that to many, perhaps to all persons of reflective turn of mind, there come days, even hours, when they feel that they have suddenly passed from one epoch of life into another.