(no subject)
"Last winter I went down to my native town, where I found the streets much narrower and shorter than I thought I left them, inhabited by a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My play-fellows were grown old and forced me to suspect that I was no longer young. My only remaining friend has changed his principles and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My daughter in law, from whom I expected most, and whom I met with sincere benevolence, has lost the beauty and gaiety of youth, without having gained much of the wisdom of age. I wandered about for five days, and took the first convenient opportunity of returning to a place, where, if there is not much happiness, there is, at least, such a diversity of good and evil, that slight vexations do not fix upon the heart."
- Samuel Johnson
- Samuel Johnson