noon before
Indeed , nothing can be more true and natural than those Eastern expressions . I remember things that happened in my childhood as one remembers what one did this morning . What a lot of things I meant to do to-day ! And one runs out into the garden instead of setting to work , and it is noon before one knows where he is , and other people take up one 's time , and the afternoon slips away , and a man 's day had need be fifty times its length for him to do all he means and ought to do , and to run after all the distractions the devil sends him as well . So comes old age , the evening when one is tired , and it 's hard to make any fresh start ; and then we 're pretty near the end , at ` the last feather of the shuttle , ' as we say in Yorkshire . I often think that the pitiful shortness of this life , compared with a man 's hopes and plans , is almost proof enough of itself that there must be another , better fitted to his aims and capacities . And then -- measure the folly of not securing _ that _ !