oom extracting liquid sweet."
Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye
On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake:
"O soul! in whom my thoughts find all repose,
My glory, my perfection, glad I see
Thy face, and morn returned."
PAR. LOST, V.1.

XXIII.--TWO OLD LADIES.

From my own Apartment, December 20, 1710.

It would be a good appendix to "The Art of Living and Dying" if any
one would write "The Art of growing Old," and teach men to resign their
pretensions to the pleasures and gallantries of youth in proportion
to the alteration they find in themselves by the approach of age and
infirmities. The infirmities of this stage of life would be much fewer
if we did not affect those which attend the more vigorous and active
part of our days; but instead of studying to be wiser, or being
contented with our present follies, the ambition of many of us is also
to be the same sort of fools we formerly have been. I have often argued,
as I am a professed lover of women, that our sex grows old with a much
worse grace than the other does; and have ever been of opinion that
there are more well-pleased old women than old men. I thought it a good
reason for this, that the ambition of the fair sex being confined to
advantageous marriages, or shining in the eyes of men, their parts were
over sooner, and consequently the errors in the performance of them. The
conversation of this evening has not convinced me of the contrary; for
one or two fop-women shall not make a balance for the crowd of coxcombs
among ourselves, diversified according to the different pursuits of
pleasure and business.

Returning home this evening, a little before my usual hour, I scarce had
seated myself in my easy-chair, stirred the fire, and stroked my cat,
but I heard somebody come rumbling upstairs. I saw my door opened, and a
human figure advancing towards me so fantastically put together that it
was some minutes before I discovered it to be my old and intimate friend
Sam Trusty. Immediately I rose up, and placed him in my own seat; a
compliment I pay to few. The first thing he uttered was, "Isaac, fetch
me a cup of your cherry brandy before you offer to ask any question." He
drank a lusty draught, sat silent for some time, and at last broke out:
"I am come," quoth he, "to insult thee for an old fantastic dotard, as
thou art, in ever defending the women. I have this evening visi