One Of The Pleasures Of Reading Old

There Are Some Feelings Time Cannot Benumb, Nor Torture Shake.

...and These Vicissitudes Come Best In Youth; For When They Happen At A Riper Age, People Are Apt To Blame The Fates, Forsooth, And Wonder Providence Is Not More Sage. Adversity Is The First Path To Truth: He Who Hath Proved War, Storm, Or Woman's Rage, Whether His Winters Be Eighteen Or Eighty, Has Won Experience Which Is Deem'd So Weighty.

Egypt! From Whose All Dateless Tombs Arose Forgotten Pharaohs From Their Long Repose, And Shook Within Their Pyramids To Hear A New Cambyses Thundering In Their Ear; While The Dark Shades Of Forty Ages Stood Like Startled Giants By Nile's Famous Flood.

Marriage, From Love, Like Vinegar From Wine-- A Sad, Sour Sober Beverage--by Time Is Sharpened From Its High Celestial Flavor Down To A Very Homely Household Savor.

I Am The Very Slave Of Circumstance And Impulse -- Borne Away With Every Breath!