But what of the unfortunate few who, through some strange moral twist, are “complexionally propense” to sameness; who feel a passionate regret for what has been lost, and a passionate reluctance to part with what is fast slipping away; and who, as the great world rolls relentlessly on its appointed course, find themselves “forever broken on the wheel of time”? The journal of that stout old Tory, Sir Francis Doyle, betrays a strong dislike, not only for political upheavals, which are very uncomfortable and disturbing things, but for innovations of any kind. “Nothing can be so good as what is old,” says Mr. Lang; and Mr. Peacock tranquilly declares that all the really valuable opinions have been uttered a thousand years ago. Amid the noisy blare with which the trumpets of progress herald every move, comes thrilling now and then a note of protest from some malcontent who does not part so easily with the past, and for whom familiarity lends to every detail of life a merit and beauty of its own. It almost seems as if two-thirds of mankind were hard at work improving away the happiness of the remaining third, and bidding them at intervals to stop grumbling and appreciate the change. When it chances that these familiar details are associated in the mind with pleasures, early pleasures especially, the memory of which lingers with the sweetness of honey, then the pain of parting with them is utterly disproportioned to their worth. I have never been able to understand how people can rebind an old book, or reframe an old picture, if the book or the picture have been in any way dear to them for years. How strange and unfriendly these objects look in their new dress! How remote they seem from the recollections hitherto aroused by their presence! One of the minor grievances of my life is the gradual disappearance from the theatres of all the old drop-curtains I can remember since my childish days. Perhaps the new curtains are better than the old ones—I hear persons say as much occasionally—but to me they are simply hideous, because their native ugliness is unsoftened by any gracious memory of those far-off nights when, feverish with delight, I sat staring at the stretch of painted canvas, and anticipating all the joys that lay behind. There was no moment of transport equal to that which saw the slow ascent of the mystic veil, revealing inch by inch the enchanted scenes beyond; and I still believe that if I could behold once more those dear, familiar landscapes, some portion of the old, lost pleasure would return. Three curtains are indelibly associated with these hours of supreme happiness; and I recall them all three now as the most beautiful pictures in the world. One—and this, I think, was the first I ever saw—represented an Italian view, with a lively volcano in the background, and, in front, a long-legged shepherd lad reclining on the marble steps of a fountain, while his flock loitered lazily around.