Still there are circumstances by which a man is justified in pausing in the middle of his life to contemplate the years already passed.

One who has completed early in life a distinct task may stop to give an account of it.

One who has encountered unusual adventures under vanishing conditions may pause to describe them before passing into the stable world.

And perhaps he also might be given an early hearing, who, without having ventured out of the familiar paths, without having achieved any signal triumph, has lived his simple life so intensely, so thoughtfully, as to have discovered in his own experience an interpretation of the universal life.
I am not yet thirty, counting in years, and I am writing my life history.

Under which of the above categories do I find my justification?
I have not accomplished anything, I have not discovered anything, not even by accident, as Columbus discovered America.