222 What We Lose 



that we feel like new men in the old, and that to 

 retain it would be like keeping new wine in old 

 bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the 

 fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon re- 

 tires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus, also, the 

 snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy 

 coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for 

 clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. 

 Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false 

 colors, and be inevitably cashiered at last by our 

 own opinion as well as that of mankind. 



When I ask for a garment of a particular form, 

 my tailoress tells me gravely: " They do not make 

 them so now," not emphasizing the " They " at all, 

 as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the 

 Fates, and I find it difficult to get made what I 

 want, simply because she cannot believe that I 

 mean what I say that I am so rash. When I hear 

 this oracular sentence, I am for a moment ab- 

 sorbed in thought, emphasizing to myself each 

 word separately that I may come at the meaning 

 of it, that I may find out by what degree of 

 consanguinity "They" are related to me, and 

 what authority they may have in an affair which 

 affects me so nearly; and finally, I am inclined to 

 answer her with equal mystery, and without any 



