So there are but few left; and we don't call those few GIRLS, but-- Ah, me! Here am I groaning just as the old Greek sighed Ai, ai! and the old Roman, Eheu! I have no doubt we should die of shame and grief at the indignities offered us by age, if it were not that we see so many others as badly or worse off than ourselves.

We always compare ourselves with our contemporaries.
[I was interrupted in my reading just here.

Before I began at the next breakfast, I read them these verses;--I hope you will like them, and get a useful lesson from them.] THE LAST BLOSSOM.
Though young no more, we still would dream Of beauty's dear deluding wiles; The leagues of life to graybeards seem Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles.
Who knows a woman's wild caprice?
It played with Goethe's silvered hair, And many a Holy Father's "niece" Has softly smoothed the papal chair.
When sixty bids us sigh in vain To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, We think upon those ladies twain Who loved so well the tough old Dean.
We see the Patriarch's wintry face, The maid of Egypt's dusky glow, And dream that Youth and Age embrace, As April violets fill with snow.
Tranced in her Lord's Olympian smile His lotus-loving Memphian lies,-- The musky daughter of the Nile With plaited hair and almond eyes.
Might we but share one wild caress Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall, And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress The long cold kiss that waits us all! My bosom heaves, remembering yet The morning of that blissful day When Rose, the flower of spring, I met, And gave my raptured soul away.
Flung from her eyes of purest blue, A lasso, with its leaping chain Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain.
Thou com'st to cheer my waning age, Sweet vision, waited for so long! Dove that would seek the poet's cage Lured by the magic breath of song! She blushes! Ah, reluctant maid, Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told! O'er girlhood's yielding barricade Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold! Come to my arms!--love heeds not years No frost the bud of passion knows .-- Ha! what is this my frenzy hears?
A voice behind me uttered,--Rose! Sweet was her smile,--but not for me; Alas, when woman looks TOO kind, Just turn your foolish head and see,-- Some youth is walking close behind! As to GIVING UP because the almanac or the Family-Bible says that it is about time to do it, I have no intention of doing any such thing.

I grant you that I burn less carbon than some years ago.

I see people of my standing really good for nothing, decrepit, effete, la levre inferieure deja pendante, with what little life they have left mainly concentrated in their epigastrium.