Penny Plain by O. Douglas
page 18 of 350 (05%)
page 18 of 350 (05%)
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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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