up against the lean years that must come at last, however long they may
be postponed by some special grace of the gods, which is, it is good to
remember, granted to some--the years when one has reluctantly to
accept that the lovely game is almost, if not quite at an end, and to
watch the bloom and abundance of fragrant young creatures pass us,
unregarding, by. And, indeed, it may happen that a man who has won what
is for him the fairest of all fair faces, and has it still by his side,
may enter sometimes, without disloyalty, that secret gallery of those
other fair faces that were his before hers, in whom they are all summed
up and surpassed, had dawned upon his life. We shall hardly be loyal to
the present if we are coldly disloyal to the past. In the lover's
calendar, while there is but one Madonna, there must still be minor
saints, to whom it is meet, at certain times and seasons, to offer
retrospective candles--saints that, after the manner of many saints,
were once such charming sinners for our sakes, that utter forgetfulness
of them were an impious boorishness surely unacceptable to the most
jealous of Madonnas. Public worship of them is not, of course,
desirable, but occasional private celebrations are surely more than
permissible--such celebrations as that "night of memory and tears" which
Landor consecrated to Rose Aylmer, or that song which Thackeray
consecrated to certain loves of the long ago--

Gillian's dead, God rest her bier,
How I loved her twenty years syne!
Marian's married, but I sit here,
Alone and merry at forty year,
Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.

So I, seated in my haunted restaurant, brought the burnt offerings of
several cigars, and poured out various libations to my own private