is peculiar to unexpected contact with the past, recognize them for what they are — some yards of scarlet cloth, scraps of tinsel and gold embroidery, a pair or two of tarnished epaulets, a sword without a scabbard, a dozen mock orders from some cotillon long since danced and done with — the playthings of the dwarfs we were. Ah me, how potent once they were! Now, all the most fanciful of us can do is pay them that trifling tribute. Their usefulness, even their charm, is gone forever. They are such stuff as dreams are made of, invalid, tawdry, and small, small, small, incomparably small!
But this is the work of years. It is only the children of our brains — ideas, ideals, opinions — which change so pitifully in a few short weeks that we may not even regard them with that tender regret wherewith we view the panoply of infancy, but instinctively draw back, and, if conscience did not stand sternly sponsor for them, would deny them for our own.
