THROUGH A GLASS LIGHTLY
that that better part of me, that which I most loved and valued, has evanished from my life, so that I am now become a new thing. A degenerate regeneration has taken place, and a novissiinus homunculus reigns in the stead of the old Noah. Only a sennight since, and I was even as that dear man in the story, who, led by his host through flower gardens, stables, picture galleries and museums, in mute and earless apathy, murmured at the end of his itinerary, in reply to his disappointed conductor, that he cared for nowt but drink. And now—now I have become a teetotaller; arid the pity of it lies here, that I have become one not from conviction, but from constraint. For upon one of those nefarious days which come to most, and wreck not a few of us, it became a matter of necessity to
136
