CORNELIUS O'DOW D. CHANGING HOUSE. ALMOST all of us know what it is to "change house" -to go off from our old haunts, the corners we have loved so well, the time-worn ways of home, and install ourselves in some new domicile, where everything is new, strange, and unsettled. There are few things in life so full of discomfort. The more a man sees of the world, the more is he disposed to believe that a certain routine-a sort of quiet monotony in the general tenor of life-is one of the choicest aids to happiness. In fact, until this same "dull monotony," as some would call it, be established, the real enjoyment of variety can never be experienced. There can be no furlough where there is no discipline. 25 The business of life, besides, requires that even the idlest and most indolent of us should have a certain method. There must be meal-times, and these, let me observe, are in a great measure the determining influences which render us active, energetic, and useful, or dispose us to sloth, neglect, and good-for-nothingness. Tell me when a man eats, and I will tell you when he works. We are, in a word, far more slaves to ourselves than we like to acknowledge; but I am decidedly inclined to believe that, on the whole, the servitude works well. Now the house we live in for a number of years cannot fail to exert a great influence over us. The same places impress the same trains of thought, till at last we give ourselves up to a ritual, in which the drawing-room, the dining-room, and the study are the masters, and certain inanimate objects, on which we scarcely bestow a thought, become our impulses and our directors. With a change of house all this is revolutionised. You have to plot out your home-that is, your life— anew. You have to discuss aspects and views, the points of the compass, and the prevailing winds-to balance with yourself the advantages of the rising against the setting sun-to think where you can sleep most profoundly, and dine most snugly; and above all, if a man of my own temperament, where you can install yourself in a so-called study, a spot |