All Passion Spent

Lord Slane is dead—what will become of his 88-year-old widow? The six children discuss this, and Lady Slane listens to all the plans and says, “I am going to live by myself.”

She goes on to say, “...I have considered the eyes of the world for so long that I think it's time I had a holiday from them. If one is not to please oneself in old age, when is one to please oneself? There is so little time left!”

“I am going to become completely self-indulgent. I am going to wallow in old age.”

And so Lady Slane rents a favorite house and makes new friends and reflects back upon her life and encourages her young granddaughter to make the choices she did not make, picking the choices of one's heart.

On old age: “The mind was as alert as ever, perhaps more alert, sharpened by the sense of imminent final interruption, spurred by the necessity of making the most of remaining time; only the body was a little shaky, not very certain of its reliability, not quite certain even of its sense of direction, afraid of stumbling over a step, of spilling a cup of tea, nervous, tremulous; aware that it must not be jostled or hurried, for fear of betraying its frail inadequacy.”

A little more on old age: “Those days were gone when feeling burst its bounds and poured hot from the foundry, when the heart seemed likely to split with complex and contradictory desires; now there was nothing left but a landscape in monochrome, the features identical but the colours gone from them and nothing but a gesture left in place of speech.”