And how much better to die in all the happy period of undisillusioned youth, to go out in a blaze of light, than to have your body worn out and old and illusions shattered.
It is time for thee to be gone, lest the age more decent in its wantonness should laugh at thee and drive thee of the stage.
[Lat., Tempus abire tibi est, ne . . .
Rideat et pulset lasciva decentius aetas.]
I don't. I look my age; and I am my age. It is the other people who look older than they are. What can you expect from people who eat corpses and drink spirits?
If I had been helping the Almighty when he created man, I would have had him begin at the other end, and start human beings with old age. How much better to start old and have all the bitterness and blindness of age in the beginning!