I discovered, much to my discomfiture, that old age, far from ripening wisdom and mellowness, is too often fraught with senility, narrowness, and petty rancour. My enforced European inactivity left me enough time to read a great deal, including biographies and autobiographies. Moreover, I always lacked the necessary leisure for concentrated writing. “When one has reached a good philosophic age,” I used to tell my friends, “capable of viewing the tragedies and comedies of life impersonally and detachedly - particularly one’s own life - one is likely to create an autobiography worth while.” Still feeling adolescently young in spite of advancing years, I did not consider myself competent to undertake such a task. I was living my life intensely - what need to write about it? Another reason for my reluctance was the conviction I entertained that one should write about one’s life only when one had ceased to stand in the very torrent of it. Suggestions that I write my memoirs came to me when I had barely begun to live, and continued all through the years.