which gives upon the court-yard of the
hotel, another high up in the wall, a sort of
œil de bœuf, which lights, an otherwise dark
passage, and through which the garçon, who
skates about the staircases on brushes, can, if
he likes, look down upon me at any moment,
and is perhaps at this present observing
me, as I sit surrounded by manuscript and
enrobed in a dressing gown, so tattered and
torn that I am obliged to keep it locked up
when I am out of the room, lest its condition
should be noticed, and I should no longer be
respected in mine inn.

The costly and wadded robes de chambre
which immediately on the appearance of this
paper, the author feels convinced, will reach
the office of its publication in bales, will
—with the exception of that which comes
from his soul's idol, and which he will
recognise at a glance—be sold to defray the
expenses of his journey to Paris.

I saw then all the defects of my apartment
at first entering it. And yet, now
that I have been in it a few days, I have got
accustomed to them and almost like them.
Let the clock tick,—it has a cheery sound
that likes me well. Let the bed be short,—
it is so cold at night that I would not stretch
my legs out if I could. And let the garçon,
if he likes, inspect me from the Å“il de
bÅ“uf,—it will be company to me in my
solitude.

Again, the far-famed cookery of this town,
on my coming to it after a lengthened
absence, was new to me. Also how keenly
I detested it. So much so, indeed, sickening
of the sight of incomprehensible bills of fare,
and of solemn and jacket-wearing French
waiters, who expect you to take at least eight
dishes every day for dinner, I made, in my
utter hatred of these things, serious inquiry
after some place of English resort where the
steak of Britain should not be unknown, and
had even thoughts of purchasing half of a
ready cooked fowl which I saw in a shop-
window, and eating the same secretly in my
bed-room, with the aid of a pen- knife, sheltering
myself the while from the œil de bœuf
under the cover of my trunk, as boys eat
furtive pastry inside their desks at school. A
little time has elapsed—only two or three
days in fact—and now I would not accept a
cut out of the joint if it were offered me, and
I skip off to my favourite restaurant—the
Café Kag-mag—blithely.

Happy, happy influence of time and habit.
Of all the ingredients of which our natures
are made up, there is not one more indispensable
to our happiness than this, whose power
reconciles us, after a little use, to things we
shrink from when they come before us
newly.

Who has not had experience of this? Who
has not hated a new house or a new situation?
Who has not disliked new operas, new
plays, new ballads, and new songs, still getting
well accustomed to them he has grown to
love them, and to set them up in turn against
the newer still?  Who has not accepted new
fashions with a grudge?  Who does not dread
the arrival of new clothes? "Well, I never
can wear those things at any rate," has been
said, on the arrival of such wares, often
enough, I imagine, before now.

Who has not extended this dislike to
persons as well as things ?  Who has not
felt—when staying at some country-house
—a dislike for that newly arrived guest
who has come among us when we were all
just beginning to know each other well,
and were getting on together nicely?
Why, in a couple of days that new guest has
turned out the life and soul of the party,
and we would not be without him for the
world.

To speak of such obvious sources of misery
as new servants, new wine, new hats, or
new boots, would be to waste words upon
annoyances so well known that it is needless
to point them out, so universally acknowledged
that it is useless to dwell upon
them.

Nor is this tendency to shrink from what
is new confined to these smaller matters. Are
there not those who view with suspicion and
doubting eyes the approach of novelty where
it is most required, and who would arrest if
they dared and could the changes which are
needed most ?  Is not the new generation an
object of suspicion to them? Do they not
look upon it, as it springs up around
them, with jealousy and disparagement in
their regard? I have felt this temptation
often enough myself, and feel it still
occasionally.

"The very children," I have said to myself,
at such times, "the very children are not
what they used to be when I was a child.
Watch them at a play, or at a pantomime,
they don't enjoy it with the frantic rapture
with which I used to regard such things—
losing my appetite for whole days before a
play. Why, these little creatures have seen
through harlequin, and used him up ever so
long ago. I am not at all sure either that
they believe in grown-up people to the extent
they used. I remember a time when I used
to think that all adults were immaculate, and
that naughtiness was confined to children
of tender years, whereas I am of opinion
that I have certain small acquaintances, who
though at the present moment still subject to
the restraints of pinafores and to early
dinners, have yet a perfect insight into my
character, and criticise it fully."

Such are some of the reflections which I
have often been tempted to make in thinking
of the new generation and its characteristics.
Yet this is a state of things to which I hesitate
to object in altogether unqualified terms.
For I know that things must change, and
that perhaps this very blasé condition of
children, may cause them—since before they
are men and women they have used up what