“Nothing, so it seems to me,” said the stranger, “is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life…. The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of—of things longer.”

The speaker contrasts youthful love—intense, immediate, and tied to life’s beginnings—with a later, seasoned love that has endured hardship and time. “Weathered the storms of life” suggests affection tested by loss, disappointment, and change, yet made deeper rather than diminished. The halting phrase “the beginning of—of things longer” implies that mature love points beyond ordinary chronology: toward permanence, legacy, or even a spiritual continuity that outlasts youth’s transient passions. Jerome’s framing through a “stranger” gives the sentiment a parable-like authority, as if wisdom arrives unexpectedly, inviting readers to value constancy and shared history as a distinct kind of beauty.