It must have struck
the good man with melancholy as he walked by many a London door, to
think how seldom it was now opened for him, and how often he used to
knock at it--to what banquets and welcome he used to pass through
it--a score of years back. He began to own that he was no longer of
the present age, and dimly to apprehend that the young men laughed at
him. Such melancholy musings must come across many a Pall Mall
philosopher. The men, thinks he, are not such as they used to be in
his time: the old grand manner and courtly grace of life are gone:
what is Castlewood House and the present Castlewood, compared to the
magnificence of the old mansion and owner? The late lord came to
London with four post-chaises and sixteen horses: all the North Road
hurried out to look at his cavalcade: the people in London streets
even stopped as his procession passed them. The present lord travels
with five bagmen in a railway carriage, and sneaks away from the
station, smoking a cigar in a brougham.
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