We are at war. Every fiber in me should thrill to the President’s declaration of war against Germany, but here I have been calmly turning the pages of "The Description of a Maske", by Thomas Campion (S. Dunstone’s Churchyard in Fleetstreet 1607). It is a beautiful volume in excellent preservation, one of five brought in by a young man who is going to enlist. He inherited them from a grandfather, possibly an old fellow like you, who held them precious. I bought them eagerly, for I know where I can dispose of them, though I should dearly like to place them in my own shelves. We shall make a profit on them, and a handsome one. That is the sort of thought that runs through my head, Randolph Byrd, _aet._ 70, and that is the sort of man you were thirty odd years ago. You never were young in your youth, my fine friend. Perhaps you will grow younger as you grow older.
But that is not all. Above the sensuous pleasure in the books and overriding the thought of lucre, is the strange romance of Alicia and your namesake, Randolph Pendleton. It blasts all my previous conceptions of romance. Where is the color and the warmth and the glory of it? I had expected after their announcement of a few days ago that I should be bitterly engaged in watching a glorious April dawn that would blind me with its strange flames because it was not for me. Instead I seem to see only a somber murky twilight whenever I surprise those two in private colloquy. The mere thought of the possibility of Alicia loving me (fantastic arrogance!) was wont to irradiate my heart and to make me positively light-headed, so that I could scarcely withhold my lips from smiling publicly. But my young cub of a nephew seems haggard and obsessed by care, and upon Alicia’s eyes I have more than once observed traces of tears.
Were I in reality a parent instead of masquerading as one, I should no doubt endeavor to fathom this mystery. But you see, I am still, as always, inadequate. The truth is, I dare not yet talk to Alicia about her love. A little later, Randolph Byrd, a little later—when the pain is more decently domesticated in my bosom and will not fly out like a newly unchained hound. Meanwhile is it not best that I fasten my attention upon Thomas Campion his Maske?