ances of profound
meaning and the slightest word either of us utters is a dagger which
pierces the heart of the other through and through. I stagnate in a
dreary calm. This then is the tranquillity of old age! The old man
possesses in himself the cemetery which shall soon possess him. He is
growing accustomed to the chill of the tomb. Man, according to
philosophers, dies in detail; at the same time he may be said even to
cheat death; for that which his withered hand has laid hold upon, can
it be called life?

Oh, to die young and throbbing with life! 'Tis a destiny enviable
indeed! For is not this, as a delightful poet has said, "to take away
with one all one's illusions, to be buried like an Eastern king, with
all one's jewels and treasures, with all that makes the fortune of
humanity!"

How many thank-offerings ought we to make to the kind and beneficent
spirit that breathes in all things here below! Indeed, the care which
nature takes to strip us piece by piece of our raiment, to unclothe
the soul by enfeebling gradually our hearing, sight, and sense of
touch, in making slower the circulation of our blood, and congealing
our humors so as to make us as insensible to the approach of death as
we were to the beginnings of life, this maternal care which she
lavishes on our frail tabernacle of clay, she also exhibits in regard
to the emotions of man, and to the double existence which is created
by conjugal love. She first sends us Confidence, which with extended
hand and open heart says to us: "Behold, I am thine forever!"
Lukewarmness follows, walking with languid tread, turning aside her
blonde face with a yawn, like a young widow obliged to listen to the
minister of state who is ready to sign for her a pension warrant. Then
Indifference comes; she stretches herself on the divan, taking no care
to draw down the skirts of her robe which Desire but now lifted so
chastely and so eagerly. She casts a glance upon the nuptial bed, with
modesty and without shamelessness; and, if she longs for anything, it
is for the green fruit that calls up again to life the dulled papillae
with which her blase palate is bestrewn. Finally the philosophical
Experience of Life presents herself, with careworn and disdainful
brow, pointing with her finger to the results, and not the causes of
life's incidents; to the tranquil victory, not to the tempestuous
combat. She reckons up the arrearages, with farmers, and calculates
the dowry of a child