Human Repetends

"Come!" cried Marston, "the story of your embodied ghost! Speak, thou
gloomy Pythagorean!"

"Most men," began Pontifex, "however roughly the world has used
them, can recall a period in their lives when they were absolutely
happy, when each night closed with the collection of new pleasures
tasted, when the progress of each day was cheered by the experience
of unlooked-for novelties and when the awakening to another dawn
was a pure physical delight unmarred by those cankering anxieties
for the fortune of the hour which are the burden of the poor, the
ambitious, and the intriguing. To most men, also, this gold time
comes, when the cares of a mother, or the coquettish attention of
sisters, aid to shield the young and eager soul from the blighting
influences of wordly debaucheries. Fortunate is he among us who can
look back on youth spent on the innocent enjoyments of the country,
or who possesses a mind moulded in its adolescence by the fingers
of well-mannered and pious women.