I suppose a good many people who, like me, cannot accept the teachings of any organized religion, or even conceive of anything one could call 'God', have nevertheless occasionally experienced some flicker of what seems to be the numen. To me it happens very rarely, but I still have a clear memory of its first occurrence, some eighty years ago.

All through my sixties I felt I was still within hailing distance of middle age, not safe on its shores, perhaps, but navigating its coastal waters. My seventieth birthday failed to change this because I managed scarcely to notice it, but my seventy-first did change it. Being 'over seventy' is being old: suddenly I was aground on that fact and saw that the time had come to size it up.