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140 filth. But as decade after decade passes, the tone of our fathers' writings has gradually improved, until at the present day immorality of thought has ceased to exist, and purity and wisdom reign in its place. Not, my Specimen, that I want you for a moment to believe that we have now arrived at perfection—that is a goal we can never attain. And I think it is well it is so, for had we not got some greater and nobler object always in view, we should be like the climber of mountains who had nothing left for his ambition to attain—after having climbed the highest, he must either remain on the top or descend again to the level from which he made his start. Our mountain is one whose top we can never attain. We will get higher and higher, but as mortals, we can never hope to reach the summit.

"We differ much in duration of life from the people of your period. I think I am right in saying that in those days the average life of men was about forty years. Some, it is true, lived to one hundred, but these were I believe