THE CHARM OF THE FAMILIAR
THOSE persons are happiest in this restless and mutable world who are in love with change, who delight in what is new simply because it differs from what is old; who rejoice in every innovation, and find a strange alert pleasure in all that is, and that has never been before. With little things as with big ones, this sentiment is the sentiment of our day. "Unrest," says Schopenhauer, "is the mark of existence," and the many trifling details of ordinary life evince on every side the same keen relish for novelty, the same careless disregard of the familiar. Especially is this the case with women, who feel less wistfully than men the subtle charm of association, and who have less sympathy than men for the dear, faulty, unlovely, well-loved things of their youth. No woman could have written those pathetic lines of Mr. Lang's on St. Andrews:
"A little city, worn and gray,"
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