One of the two incidents above referred to as marking that visit was this: In trading remarks concerning our ages I confessed to forty-two and Hay to forty.

Then he asked if I had begun to write my autobiography, and I said I hadn't.

He said that I ought to begin at once, and that I had already lost two years.

Then he said in substance this: "At forty a man reaches the top of the hill of life and starts down on the sunset side.

The ordinary man, the average man, not to particularize too closely and say the commonplace man, has at that age succeeded or failed; in either case he has lived all of his life that is likely to be worth recording; also in either case the life lived is worth setting down, and cannot fail to be interesting if he comes as near to telling the truth about himself as he can.