"Oh, didn't the ancients admire these things?" the lady exclaimed a little crestfallen.
"Of course they didn't," Lord Henry replied. "Hence, too, the ridiculous present-day exaltation of childhood, because children are stupidly supposed to trail 'clouds of glory' from whence they come, as that old spinster Wordsworth assures us. In fact everything immature or uncultivated is supposed to be sacrosanct. Of course that young man, Denis Malster, must be a sentimentalist, too, and he probably wants kicking badly; but it is not entirely his fault. The sentiment, as I say, is in the air. We are all threatened with infection. They had it in the eighteenth century in France."
"What can I do?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded.
"Nothing!"
"But I can't let Cleopatra fall about in all directions,—she'll kill herself."
"What did the doctor say?"
"Need you ask?"
"Prescribed iron and strychnine, I suppose. Or did he suggest cold baths?"
"No, as you say, he prescribed iron, quinine, and strychnine."
Lord Henry glanced at his note-book.