And now Time, the humbler of proud beautiful women, had given him his revenge: the portrait, scorned and rejected when the colour and sparkle of life was in the face, had been looked on once more by its subject and had caused her to weep at the change in herself.
To return.

One wishes in these moments of meeting, of surprise and sudden revealings, that it were permissible to speak from the heart, since then the very truth might have more balm than bitterness in it.

"Grieve not, dear friend of old days, that I have not escaped the illusion common to all--the idea that those we have not looked on this long time--full five years, let us say--have remained as they were while we ourselves have been moving onwards and downwards in that path in which our feet are set.

No one, however hardened he may be, can escape a shock of surprise and pain; but now the illusion I cherished has gone--now I have seen with my physical eyes, and a new image, with Time's writing on it, has taken the place of the old and brighter one, I would not have it otherwise.

No, not if I could would I call back the vanished lustre, since all these changes, above all that wistful look in the eyes, do but serve to make you dearer, my sister and friend and fellow-traveller in a land where we cannot find a permanent resting-place." Alas! it cannot be spoken, and we cannot comfort a sister if she cannot divine the thought; but to brood over these inevitable changes is as idle as it is to lament that we were born into this mutable world.