Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand,
The downward slope to death.
In every land I thought that, more or less,
The stronger, sterner nature overbore
The softer, uncontroll'd by gentleness,
And selfish evermore![ 27]
—Why do you smile?
MEDON.
You amuse me with the perseverance with which you ring the changes on your favourite text, in prose and in verse; and yet, to adopt Voltaire's witty metaphor, we are the hammers and you the anvils all the world over. But is that all? You need not have gone to Germany to verify that!
ALDA.