With Edged Tools

“Of the same clay he maketh both the vessels that serve for clean uses, and likewise also such as serve to the contrary; but what is the use of either sort, the potter himself is the judge.”
TO JAMES PAYN A TOKEN OF SINCERE REGARD
Why all delights are vain, but that most vain Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain.
“My dear—Madam—what you call heart does not come into the question at all.”
Sir John Meredith was sitting slightly behind Lady Cantourne, leaning towards her with a somewhat stiffened replica of his former grace. But he was not looking at her—and she knew it.
They were both watching a group at the other side of the great ballroom.
“Sir John Meredith on Heart,” said the old lady, with a depth of significance in her voice.
“And why not?”
“Yes, indeed. Why not?”
Sir John smiled with that well-bred cynicism which a new school has not yet succeeded in imitating. They were of the old school, these two; and their worldliness, their cynicism, their conversational attitude, belonged to a bygone period. It was a cleaner period in some ways—a period devoid of slums. Ours, on the contrary, is an age of slums wherein we all dabble to the detriment of our hands—mental, literary, and theological.
Sir John moved slightly in his chair, leaning one hand on one knee. His back was very flat, his clothes were perfect, his hair was not his own, nor yet his teeth. But his manners were entirely his own. His face was eighty years old, and yet he smiled his keen society smile with the best of them. There was not a young man in the room of whom he was afraid, conversationally.
“No, Lady Cantourne,” he repeated. “Your charming niece is heartless. She will get on.”