HANGING ON
If it didn't all depend on me; if there was any one else to decide the destinies of Europe; if I wasn't bound to vindicate the Truth on all occasions, and shout down every falsehood, standing alone in arms against a sea of error, and holding desperately in place the hook from which Truth and Righteousness and Good Taste hang as by a thread and tremble over the unspeakable abyss; if but for a day or two;—it cannot be, I cannot let Art and Civilisation go crashing into chaos. Suppose the skies should fall in while I was napping; suppose the round world should take its chance to collapse into Stardust again?
SUPERANNUATION
'What an intolerable young person!' I exclaimed, the moment he had left the room. 'How can one sit and listen to such folly? The arrogance and ignorance of these young men! And the things they write, and their pictures!'
'It's all pose and self-advertisement, I tell you—'
'They have no reverence!' I gobbled.
Now why do I do it? I know it turns the hair grey and stiffens the joints—why, then, by denouncing them in this unhygienic fashion, do I talk myself into an invalid and old fogey before my time?