Fragment: It is best to slip away...

Fragment from Murray, Margaret Alice. My First Hundred Years. London: W. Kimber, 1963. 

Though I ought to have regarded myself long ago as being on the shelf, I have deliberately refused to go on that uncomfortable flat resting-place, and continue to do some research, which I hope may be of use to other researchers. Now I would give a piece of advice to those about to retire from a post they have held for years. Never allow your colleagues to give you that heart-breaking ceremony "a good send-off", i.e. a big dinner followed by speeches in your honour, with possibly the presentation of  some object to which all your friends have subscribed. The recipient of these tokens of esteem and affection will know when he comes to reply that he is no longer a part of the organization which has been a part of his life, and that knowledge will try his self-control to its utmost limits. It is best to slip away without formality, and to stay away until your successor is firmly established.

Not having had "a good send-off" into limbo, and not liking the dullness of that dismal place, I set out to have a new career, and went out to Petrie's dig in Palestine...

page 105.