Now, I know it is myself, and stick to that.' He never showed any symptom of frailty, but kept stalwart and firm to the last; but they say he grew less talkative towards the end, and would listen to other people by the hour in an amused and sympathetic silence.
Only, when he did speak, it was more to the point and more charged with old experience.

He drank a bottle of wine gladly; above all, at sunset on the hill-top or quite late at night under the stars in the arbour.

The sight of something attractive and unatttainable seasoned his enjoyment, he would say; and he professed he had lived long enough to admire a candle all the more when he could compare it with a planet.
One night, in his seventy-second year, he awoke in bed in such uneasiness of body and mind that he arose and dressed himself and went out to meditate in the arbour.

It was pitch dark, without a star; the river was swollen, and the wet woods and meadows loaded the air with perfume.

It had thundered during the day, and it promised more thunder for the morrow.