--How few things there are that do not change their whole aspect in the
course of a single generation! The landscape around us is wholly
different. Even the outlines of the hills that surround us are changed
by the creeping of the villages with their spires and school-houses up
their sides. The sky remains the same, and the ocean. A few old
churchyards look very much as they used to, except, of course, in Boston,
where the gravestones have been rooted up and planted in rows with walks
between them, to the utter disgrace and ruin of our most venerated
cemeteries. The Registry of Deeds and the Probate Office show us the
same old folios, where we can read our grandfather's title to his estate
(if we had a grandfather and he happened to own anything) and see how
many pots and kettles there were in his kitchen by the inventory of his
personal property.
Among living people none remain so long unchanged as the actors. I can
see the same Othello to-day, if I choose, that when I was a boy I saw
smothering Mrs. Duff-Desdemona with the pillow, under the instigations of
Mr. Cooper-Iago. A few stone heavier than he was then, no doubt, but the
same truculent blackamoor that took by the thr-r-r-oat the circumcised
dog in Aleppo, and told us about it in the old Boston Theatre. In the
course of a fortnight, if I care to cross the water, I can see
Mademoiselle Dejazet in the same parts I saw her in under Louis Philippe,
and be charmed by the same grace and vivacity which delighted my
grandmother (if she was in Paris, and went to see her in the part of
Fanchon toute seule at the Theatre des Capucines) in the days when the
great Napoleon was still only First Consul.
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