“One can revisit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed”

The expression “One can revisit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed” offers a qualified answer to the disappointment of returning home: the past need not be restored for a return to be worthwhile. It emerges as a principle of expectation, tested by a traveler who finds his old home burned to the ground but can still meet the changed landscape with composure.

A Warning Against Returning

The passage first gives the maxim’s contrary wisdom a historical frame. It invokes Odysseus, who returned to Ithaca after years of wandering only to leave again, and Robinson Crusoe, who sailed back to the island from which he had once prayed to escape. Their departures suggest the hazard of reunion with a place remembered across a long absence: affection meets the pressure of time, and the remembered home cannot survive comparison with its altered reality.

The possible disappointments are concrete and cumulative. A landscape may seem less beautiful, cider less sweet, familiar buildings may have been restored beyond recognition, and old traditions may have given way to baffling entertainments. The returning person may also discover that a place once imagined as the center of a small universe barely recognizes him. The warning is not simply that places change; it is that memory can preserve an intimacy and importance the present no longer confirms.

The Ruined Home

The traveler’s return puts that warning to a severe test. A boy and a girl lead him along an old, overgrown road that curves through the landscape. After about ten minutes, the reason the mansion cannot be seen becomes clear: it burned down decades earlier. Only two tilting chimneys remain at opposite ends of a clearing, with traces of ash still dusting the ground.

In front of those ruins, the traveler does not show shock, indignation, or despair. He wears the same smile, at once wistful and serene, that he had worn upon seeing the overgrown road. This continuity of expression matters: the ruined mansion is not a pleasant restoration of what he remembers, but its absence does not undo the value of seeing it again. The return becomes possible because he encounters the changed place as changed, rather than measuring it against an expectation that the past should still be intact.

Expectation and Recognition

The expression therefore revises the broad warning rather than dismissing it. The passage acknowledges that long absence can produce disappointment, but refuses to make that outcome universal: advice grounded in history does not suit everyone. Its comparison of men to bottles of wine emphasizes how differently people may respond even when their origins are close in time or place. In this instance, the traveler’s response is neither triumph over change nor denial of loss; the wistful smile holds recognition of what is gone together with serenity before what remains.

The traveler’s route onward gives the principle a modest, concrete sequel. After wishing the children well, he walks to a village about five miles away. Many old landmarks have disappeared, but the inn at the edge of town is still there, to his great relief. He ducks through its front door, sets down his rucksack, and tells the innkeeper that he would like something to eat before taking a room. The burned mansion and surviving inn establish the return’s double register: change has erased the central home, while a familiar point of welcome has endured.

As a reflection on memory and homecoming, the expression depends on a distinction between return and restoration. The traveler can revisit the past pleasantly not because time has spared the place, but because he expects nearly every aspect of it to have changed. The ruins make that expectation unavoidable; the surviving inn shows that change need not mean total estrangement. The maxim’s qualification is essential: it does not promise that returning will recover the old world, only that a changed world may still be met without surrendering the pleasure of return.