Sala-isms

Anxiously awaiting my trip to China, I have been drawn time and again to a quote by Victorian journalist, G. A. Sala. I don't think I could express my feelings any better than this:

"I am not so wisely foolish to imagine or to declare that there is nothing new under the sun; only the particular ray of sunlight that illuminates me in my state of life has fallen upon me so long, and dwells on me with such a persistent sameness, bright as it is, that I am dazed, and sun-sick; and, when I shut my eyes, have but one green star before me, which obstinately refuses to assume the kaleidoscopic changes I delight in. I must go away, I said. I must rub this rust of soul and body off. I must have a change of grass. I want strange dishes to disagree with me. I want to be scorched or frozen in another latitude. I want to learn another alphabet; to conjugate verbs in another fashion; to be happy or miserable from other circumstances than those that gladden or sorrow me now. If I could be hard up, for instance, on the Bridge of Sighs, or wistfully eyeing my last real at the Puerta del Sol; if I could be sued on a bill drawn in the Sanskrit character, or be threatened with arrest by a Mahometan hatti-sheriff's-officer; if I could incur perdition through not believing in the seven incarnations of Vishnu, instead of the thirty-nine Articles; if I could be importuned for copy by the editor of the Mofussilite, and not the Morning Meteor; if I could have the plague, or the vomito nero, or the plica polonica, instead of the English headache and blues, the change would be advantageous—salutary, I think. I am sure I should be much better off if I could change my own name, and forget my ownself for a time" (A Journey Due North, 2-3).