old man."

"And it looks but like sixty days, no doth it?" was the rejoinder.
"Thou and I, Lettice, by reason of strength have come to fourscore
years; yet is our life but a vapour that vanisheth away. I marvel, at
times, how our Anstace hath passed her sixty years in Heaven. What do
they there?"

"Dost thou mind, Joyce, Aubrey's once saying that we are told mainly
what they do _not_ there? Out of that, I take it, we may pick what they
do. There shall be no night--then there must be eternal light; no
curse--then must there be everlasting blessedness; no tears--then is
there everlasting peace; no toil--then is there perpetual rest and
comfort."

"Go on, Lettice--no sickness, therefore perfect health; no parting,
therefore everlasting company and eternal love."

"Ay. What a blessed forecast! Who would not give all that he hath, but
to be sure he should attain it? And yet men will fling all away, but to
buy one poor hour's sinful pleasure, one pennyworth of foolish delight."

"And howsoe'er often they find the latter pall and cloy upon their
tongues, yet shall they turn to it again with never-resting eagerness,
as the sow to her wallowing in the mire. There is a gentleman dwells a
matter of four miles hence, with whose wife and daughters I am acquaint,
and once or twice hath he come with them to visit me. He hath got hold
of a fancy--how, judge you--that man is not a fallen creature;
indiscreet at times, maybe, and so forth, yet not wholly depraved. How
man comes by this indiscretion, seeing God made him upright, he is
discreet enough not to reveal. `Dear heart!' said I, `but how comes it,
if so be, that man shall sell his eternal birthright for a mess of sorry
pottage, as over and over again you and I have seen him do? Call you
this but indiscretion? Methinks you should scarce name it thus if Mrs
Aletheia yonder were to cast away a rich clasp of emeralds for a piece
of a broken bottle of green glass. If you whipped her not well for such
indiscretion, I were something astonied.' Well, see you, he cannot
perceive it."

"Man's perceptions be fallen, along with all else."

"Surely: and then shall this blind bat reckon, poor fool, that he could
devise out of his disordered imagination a better God than the real.
Wot you what this Mr Watkinson said to me once when we fell to talking
of the sacrifice of Isaac? Oh, he could not allow that a loving and
perfect God could demand so horrible a sacrifice; and a