The persons concerned in consideration of
finished pleasure have on certain occasions a
little eternity, a leisure in life of brilliant colours,
a dense pattern long upon the smooth ceremony
of unconscious sex. We should call it the
perfect dusk, known also as to ebb in these
circumstances, shadows of an old man who
smoked cigarettes when grown mellow on such
a privilege. On this occasion a part of the after-
noon was left, itself delightful, and time for tea
with his face turned to a large cup, and now a
little feast of a different quality at this interval
for an elder, and what had waned was with much
circumspection votaries of when shadows were.

(text-mix/found in: The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James)