New-York tribune., 1908-08-23
AMONG THE ANCIENTS.
THOUGHTS on Our Status a Million
Years Hence.

Every time Theodore Davis uncOvers one
of those old Egyptian tombs in the Valley of the
Kings drop other matters to read about II ana
to look at the pictures of the various objects OF
ornament and service which have been dragged
from d cryptic darkness and silence of several
thousand years. And presently hnd myseh
vaguely irving to realize two things-the first of
these being the fact that the old races who ere
ated and filled these forgotten tombs really lived
and walked and We're busy, and perhaps consld-
cred themselves moderns, even We hurry up
and down and fuss over things and plume our
selves to-day.
1t is not so difficult to accept this idea Some
of the articIes-the furniture and fabrics, espe-
cially-are so curiousy like those on sale in our
present day department stores that L feel
tempted to invite those old first owners of them
to bring their latest patterns of French chairs
their sofa pillows and their embroidery pieces
and sit sociably with US in the circle Of modern
fty where they belong.
Then, suddenly, there sets in the second and
longer drift of thought-the effort to realize that
it is not they who moderns with US, but we
who are ancients with them in the very morn
ing of history. 1 want to engrave that second
fact a little deeper here. For my own closer ac-
ceptance of it 1 want to record here and now
that We are the ancients-as ancient as ever We're
those who walked the streets of Thebes or did
business in purple Tyre.
The story of mankind is still in its swaddlng
clothes. a record that is not above six thousand
wears long is a puny thing-a begnning-the
merest preface Of history. It may be that man
himself has existed longer than six thousand
years We have evidence-vOiceless evidence
that he has existed a good deal longer than that.
But we have no history of such existence Our
history begins with Adam and ends with the
present moment. It does not cover long span,
compared with other periods geologic and
astronomic periods-Or with those interminable
vistas that stretch down the ages which lie
ahead We do not know how long man has
really existed. and it is Improbable to guess
how much longer his race will continue but
there is a likelihood that it will last good deal
longer than another six thousand years 1t may
even last a hundred times that long. But if it
lasts only ten times six thousand, long before the
end of that allotment we of the first six thou
sand will all be ancients together, barely distin-
guishable in our separations Of race and time
The traveller standing at the end of the speed
ing train and looking down at the track sees
only the ties just below him in their proper rela-
ton as to distance, while those just behind
closing together like long bellows until they
blend into a gray line that stretches away to the
horizons rim And so do the days and the sea-
sons and the years go speeding under our feet
linking themselves SO closely that even the stu
dent of history, with vision trainedly acute, finds
It difficult to separate episodes and to distin-
gllish men. When sixty thousand years have
drifted by-a brief time, believe me-the earth
dwelIer of that day will need to dig deeply into
his reference to learn whether it was Abraham
Lincoln or Moses who led the Israelites to free
dom; whether it was Ulysses Of ithaca who was
conspicuous in the battles around Troy
American general of the same
We shall all be ancients together then. We old