If It's To Be, It's Up To

There Are People Whose Society I Find Delicious; But When I Sit Alone And Think Of Them I Shudder.

There Are People Who, Like Houses, Are Beautiful In Dilapidation.

If We Shake Hands With Icy Fingers, It Is Because We Have Burnt Them So Horribly Before.

People Before The Public Live An Imagined Life In The Thought Of Others, And Flourish Or Feel Faint As Their Self Outside Themselves Grows Bright Or Dwindles In That Mirror.

This Nice And Subtle Happiness Of Reading, This Joy Not Chilled By Age, This Polite And Unpunished Vice, This Selfish, Serene Life-long Intoxication.