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246 NEW THINGS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
«^- Of Course Some Old Things Are Good: ...
friendship adds the Lope of all the rest to come . Tlie gradual development of charactertooand tlie outpouring of fresh ideas , are ,
, , to some people , worth even the solid reliability of old friendships . And they are very delightful , with perhaps more intellectual life in
them than emotional satisfaction—which last grows only by time . Delightful too is the politeness of new acquaintanceships . No sore
places are found out yet , and none are made : no old grievances can be brought forth , like skeletons from cupboards , when least expected :
no mutual condonements of mutual offences stand like threateningghosts between the twoever ready to start into aggressive life again .
, All is charming and very rose-colored , and the way whereon they walk together smooth as a bowling green . If this new' friendship
does not consolidate itself into the trustedness and loving loyalty of the old and tried , at least it has its day—and that a sunshiny one :
and does its work , which is all play . If not a food-grain of life , it is nevertheless a sweetmeat : and even the poorest man ' s
Christmas dinner is not complete without the pudding and the beef . What a new friend is in the comparative degree , that a new
husband or lover is in the supreme or superlative . While the loveaffair is in its gloss and sheen of newness , it is as much a matter of
hope as 'was that life-long friendship which we made last May and parted with for ever in December . All are in their best humours ,
as in their best clothes . Attentions pass like loving cups all round : never was there such refined politeness , never such exquisite high
breeding ; for is there anything so refined or subtile as love and the desire to please ? It is a magic flower time of life , without a thorn
among the roses , or a weed through all the garden . This is love , passing onward and upward to marriageand the culminating point
, of all , —the famous Moon of Honey . Alas ! alas ! that there should be a nadir to every zenith , an ebb to every now ! And now , let
us wait for a few years ; let us wait till , by very time and wear , the ilding has got tarnished and the flowers are all bruised and dead ;
let g us wait till the keen sharp lines are chipped and hacked , or the dainty white satins soiled and crumpled ; let us wait till the _yoiing
and timid bride spreads out into a lusty positive matron , with a high spirit and decided viewsand Jemmy Jessamy "becomes a
hard-, faced , money-loving old Turk ; and then let us say which was bestthe young love in all its gentle cares and pleasant shine , or this old
and battered habitude , with the rough , gruff , surly Jemmy , who smokes in the drawing-roomand is inexorable in the matter of
, allowances and bills . That rough , gruff , surly Jemmy Jessamy of ours , smoking out the beauty of the drawing-room curtains , and
burning round holes in the carpet by the lighted ashes of his cigar , sitting moodily in front of the firein dirty boots and unbrushed
, hair , and reading trenchant leaders , contemptuous of Lucinda _' s _intellect ; can he be the same man as the youthful dandy , in the
most irreproachable of waistcoats and patent leathers , who never wearied of his young bride ' s praises , or who was the model husband
If
246 New Things.
246 NEW THINGS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), June 1, 1859, page 246, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01061859/page/30/
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