“‘The eyes that catch our eyes, and check our breath with sweet, delicious ecstasies
May be but line-marked eyes, with disillusion’d sight at fifty—
Tear-fill’d, and inward cast in age’s loneliness at fourscore years.
But shall we therefore fear to laugh—since jests grow old?
Or cease to garner for old age’s ease—since graveyards yawn alike for spendthrift and for thrifty?
Shall we fulfil, with homage of a loveless life, black Pessimism’s scold
That that we do matters as little, after the years we lease, as the worn idols to whom none now bow?’”
Emma Hartroff, pointing to the vacant place beside her, waved him to it:
“H’m!... Sit down, Aubrey.”
Aubrey sat down, and, lolling back comfortably in the corner of it, he spread himself out luxuriously.