I just now spoke of the sweetening process that authors undergo.

Do you know that in the gradual passage from maturity to helplessness the harshest characters sometimes have a period in which they are gentle and placid as young children?
I have heard it said, but I cannot be sponsor for its truth, that the famous chieftain, Lochiel, was rocked in a cradle like a baby, in his old age.

An old man, whose studies had been of the severest scholastic kind, used to love to hear little nursery-stories read over and over to him.

One who saw the Duke of Wellington in his last years describes him as very gentle in his aspect and demeanor.

I remember a person of singularly stern and lofty bearing who became remarkably gracious and easy in all his ways in the later period of his life.
And that leads me to say that men often remind me of pears in their way of coming to maturity.