A Modest Reflection Upon the Passage of Time

It is a truth most universally acknowledged amongst the genteel members of our distinguished society that the passage of the years doth bestow upon even the most humble of souls a certain refinement of character and elevation of spirit, such as cannot be obtained through any other means known to man or providence. One must consider, with no small measure of earnest contemplation, that the very fabric of our daily existence is woven from innumerable threads of duty, honour, and that most sacred of obligations which binds us each to the other in the grand tapestry of civilised life. It is the solemn conviction of this author that no gentleman, howsoever elevated his station or considerable his fortune, ought ever to neglect the cultivation of those moral virtues which alone distinguish the truly noble from the merely prosperous. The drawing rooms of London and the country estates of our beloved England have long served as the theatres upon which the dramas of propriety, decorum, and the finer sentiments of the human heart are enacted with all the gravity and splendour befitting a great and industrious nation. Let it therefore be said that we who are privileged to inhabit this remarkable epoch bear upon our shoulders a responsibility of no trifling consequence, and that the manner in which we discharge our duties shall serve as the measure by which posterity judges our age.