Much was left for the men of my earlier life to deal with.

The crude ideas of the first half of the twentieth century, when men were still oppressed by the fear of poverty, and did not look enough to the present pleasure of ordinary daily life, spoilt a great deal of what the commercial age had left us of external beauty: and I admit that it was but slowly that men recovered from the injuries that they inflicted on themselves even after they became free.
But slowly as the recovery came, it _did_ come; and the more you see of us, the clearer it will be to you that we are happy.

That we live amidst beauty without any fear of becoming effeminate; that we have plenty to do, and on the whole enjoy doing it.

What more can we ask of life ?" He paused, as if he were seeking for words with which to express his thought.

Then he said: "This is how we stand.