The Epicurean

...
The festival was over; the sounds of the song and dance had ceased, and I was now left in those luxurious gardens, alone. Though so ardent and active a votary of pleasure, I had, by nature, a disposition full of melancholy; (...) My very passion
for pleasure but deepened these gloomy fancies.
For, shut out, as I was by my creed, from a future life, and having no hope beyond the narrow horizon of this, every minute of delight, assumed a mournful preciousness in my eyes, and pleasure...
This very night my triumph, my happiness had seemed complete. I had been the presiding genius of that voluptuous scene. Both my ambition and my love of pleasure had drunk deep of the cup for which they thirsted.
Looked up to by the learned, and loved by the beautiful and the young, I had seen, in every eye that met mine, either the acknowledgment of triumphs already won, or the promise of others, still brighter, that awaited me.
Yet, even in the midst of all this, the same dark thoughts had presented themselves; the perishableness of myself and all around me every instant recurred to my mind. Those hands I haaprest those eyes, in which I had seen sparkling, a spirit of light and life that should never die those voices, that had talked of eternal love all, all, I felt, were but a mockery of the moment, and would leave nothing eternal but ...

Dettagli