Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/138

 called the dolours of the gout. The old brown sherry, only brought out at funerals and other rare festivals, but then indulged in copiously as the opportunity allowed, has found us out at last. For us his nuttiness, his richness, his dryness, are all mere abstract terms, voces et preterea nihil. No longer, charm he never so wisely with his choice selection of adjectives, those wondrously suggestive epithets of qualification and allurement, no longer dare we let his oily deliciousness gladden the palate of us upon whom Podagra has laid his dolorous finger. Henceforth life must be for us a stern fact, not to be laughed or quaffed away, but to be lived through and down and out. If we would seek for a moment to wander awhile into the shadowy rest-bringing bypaths of fancy