This phrase is likely a reference to Charles Lamb's poem "The Old Familiar Faces" (1798): "I have had playmates, I have had companions/ In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days/ All, all are gone, the old familiar faces." If so, it is also a poignant memory of his own family as Victor narrates this tale in which so many family members will be destroyed as a consequence of his own actions.