I have of late, dear Fox [George wrote], been thinking of you very I much, and of your strange but most familiar face. I never knew a man like you before, and if I had not known you, I never could have imagined you. And yet, to me you are inevitable, so that, having known you, I cannot imagine what life would have been for me without you. You were a polestar in my destiny. You were the magic thread in the great web which, being woven now, is finished and complete: the circle of our lives rounds out, full swing, and each of us in his own way now has rounded it: there is no further circle we can make. This, too—the end as the beginning—was inevitable: therefore, dear friend and parent of my youth, farewell.
Nine years have passed since first I waited in your vestibule. And I was not repulsed. No: I was taken in, was welcomed, was picked up and sustained just when my spirit reached its lowest ebb, was given life and hope, the restoration of my self-respect, the vindication of my self-belief, the renewal of my faith by the assurance of your own belief; and I was carried on, through all the struggle, doubt, confusion, desperation, effort of the years that were to follow, by your help and by the noble inspiration of your continued faith.
But now it ends—the road we were to go together. We two alone know how completely it has ended. But before I go, because few men can ever know, from first to last, a circle of such whole, superb finality, I leave this picture of it.
You may think it a little premature of me to start summing up my life at the age of thirty-seven. That is not my purpose here. But, although thirty-seven is not an advanced age at which one can speak of having learned many things, neither is it too early to have learned a few. By that time a man has lived long enough to be able to look back over the road he has come and see certain events and periods in a proportion and a perspective which he could not have had before. And because certain of the periods of my life represent to me, as I now look back on them, stages of marked change and development, not only in the spirit which animates the work I do, but also in my views on men and living, and my own relation to the world, I am going to tell you about them. Believe me, it is not egotism that prompts me to do this. As you will see, my whole experience swings round, as though through a pre-destined orbit, to you, to this moment, to this parting. So bear with me—and then, farewell.
To begin at the beginning (all is clear from start to finish):
Twenty years ago, when I was seventeen years old and a sophomore at Pink Rock College, I was very fond, along with many of my fellows, of talking about my “philosophy of life”. That was one of our favourite subjects of conversation, and we were most earnest about it. I’m not sure now what my “philosophy” was at that time, but I am sure I had one. Everybody had. We were deep in philosophy at Pine Rock. We juggled such formidable terms as “concepts”, “categorical imperatives”, and “moments of negation” in a way that would have made Spinoza blush.
And if I do say so, I was no slouch at it myself. At the age of seventeen I had an A-1 rating as a philosopher. “Concepts” held no terrors for my young life, and “moments of negation” were my meat. I could split a hair with the best of them. And now that I have turned to boasting, I may as well tell you that I made a One in Logic, and it was said to be the only One that had been given in that course for many a year. So when it comes to speaking of philosophy, I am, you see, a fellow who is privileged to speak.
I don’t know how it goes with students of this generation, but to those of us who were in college twenty years ago philosophy was serious business. We were always talking about “God”. In our interminable discussions we were for ever trying to get at the inner essence of “truth”, “goodness”, and “beauty”. We were full of notions about all these things. And I do not laugh at them to-day. We were young, we were impassioned, and we were sincere.