West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1883-03-21
In Central Park.

ne characters OF history seem to
US like ghosts or the figures of
dream, az we read of those who con-
quered the world with armies, or
of those who swayed it by their elo-
quence, or of others who charmed it
by their songs. One more than
half believes it all, of course-in-
deed, does not doub. it; still there
is a vagueness about these stories,
an absence of reality, one feels and
and can not well resist. We long
for some fragment of the scepter,
some chips of the rostrum, some
scraps of the parchment that he'd
the songs, so that by means OF sight
or touch we may know that such
things have had an existence.
The obeliSk-Cleopatra's Needle
in Central Park, New York, a
solid shaft Of stone dating back
three thousand six hundred years,
written with hieroglyphics from
top to bottom, resting on bronze sea-
crabs covered with Greek inscrip-
tons, altogether puts back bone
into history which | must confess l
never felt before. The hleroplyph-
les tell tale of Egypt that not
many can read. The Greek in
scriptions on the sea-crabs bear tes-
timony to the removal of the shaft
from Heliopolis to Alexandria by
Augustus Caesar some twenty-five
years before Christ, it having stood
at Heliopolis seventeen hundred
years. 1t is not a dream, nor
fraction of one-there is too much
weight for that. 1t is positivism,
hard, heavy fact, an unimpeach-
able witness of fraction of the
past.
You may walk over to the Met
ropolitan Museum, few rods dis
tant, and feed your realistic soul on
more food of the same sort. Here
you will find gathered from all the
globe relics of antiquity-things
that were made and used by people
buried ages ago, and now brought
to light again. The remains Of
these people and nations now and
for ages asleep are known only by
their written history and by these
surviving fragments of metal, pot
terry, glass, or stone. Here are sew
eral huge stone collins, one from
Sicily, found fifty feet below the
present surface of the ground, be-
ing twelve feet long, four feet wide,
and two feet deep. 1t has heavy
lid, like gable roof. On the top
and sides are figures of men in
chariots drawn by horses; in low
relief, around the corners, are flow
ers. These ornaments are of Gree
ian, Egyptian, and Assyrian styles.
1t is $500 years old.
Another very interesting relic is
a large earthenware vessel, shaped
like pumpkin, having an opening
on the top. 1t iscapable of holding
from two hundred to three hundred
gallons. 1t is made Of clay and
burned like crockery, and, as the
description says, was FUSED to hold
water or a bin for grain, or with
the poor even for house. Such
was the tub Of Diogenes."
In the presence of such monu-
ments of the past-the towering
shaft with its mysterious writings,
the collins, the multiplicity Of vases
and lamps and earthenware vessels
one feels that he is realizing facts
which seemed heretofore like fam
cies. the manuscripts, many
times printed before reaching you,
have told you that these various
people have lived; but now you feel
as if you know that it is true. Your
hands, Thomas-like, have been in
the letters which the old Greek, or
Roman, or Egyptian cut with his
graver or made with his molds
your eyes have actually beheld the
shaft erected in that ancient "city
of the sum-" and you have gazed up
on the collins which some of the
mobiles of Greece were laid away for
their last sleep two thousand five
hundred years ago; the hollow yes