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Penny Plain by O. Douglas
page 18 of 350 (05%)
disappointments, and lately it has seemed to me reasonable to
contemplate a common-sense marriage. A politician, wise, honoured,
powerful--and sixty. What could be more suitable? So suitable that I ran
away--an absurdly young thing to do at forty--and I am writing to you in
the train on my way to Scotland.... You see, Biddy, I quite suddenly saw
myself growing old, saw all the arid years in front of me, and saw that
it was a very dreadful thing to grow old caring only for the things of
time. It frightened me badly. I don't want to go in bondage to the fear
of age and death. I want to grow old decently, and I am sure one ought
to begin quite early learning how.

"'Clear eyes do dim at last
And cheeks outlive their rose:
Time, heedless of the past,
No loving kindness knows.'

Yes, and 'youth's a stuff will not endure,' and 'golden lads and girls
all must like chimney-sweepers come to dust.' The poets aren't at all
helpful, for youth--poor brave youth--won't listen to their warnings,
and they seem to have no consolation to offer to middle age.

"The odd thing is that up to a week or two ago I greatly liked the life
I led. You said it would kill you in a month. Was it only last May that
you pranced in the drawing-room in Grosvenor Street inveighing against
'the whole beastly show,' as you called it--the freak fashions, the ugly
eccentric dances, the costly pageant balls, the shouldering,
the striving, the worship of money, the gambling, the
self-advertisement--all the abject vulgarity of it? And my set, the
artistic, soulful literary set, you said was the worst of all: you
actually described the high-priestess as looking like a 'decomposing
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