New-York tribune., 1908-08-23

fellows of the first six thousand years. Rameees
will march with Cesar, Caesar will commune
with Napoleon, and in the infinite perspective
behind they will march so nearly abreast that
only the keenest chronological vision will be able
to distinguish the days between.
And the antiquarian Of that far future day VIII
ponder and delve in effort to comprehend our
ancient civilization, and will praise condemn
it, according to his lights In either case he will
marvel at it and will sigh that he could not have
lived in these old, old musty days. He will bc
eaten with envy OF US who have dwelt so near to
creations dawn who had to battle with the
problems of distance and gravitation and cold
and electricity; who had to get along with i'm
perfect instrument and crude appliance because
our world was new. He will know something Of
the tablets and the papyrus we scattered IN
Egypt and Syria; something. too, perhaps, of
the parchments OF Greece and Rome; and there
may remain a tradition Of the perishabe printed
books which followed these things. Or did the
books first? 1t will be a question for de-
bate. How he will hunt and excavate for some
of the things are finging away, and VIII
cherish the tiniest fragment that will bear evt-
dence to old old story. How rich I fed
when 1 think of that. How privileged to Be
counted among the worlds pioneers, pitching
my tent and building my campfire with those
other early settlers, the Egyptians, the Phosni-
the first dry ground after the food.
And that is not all We shall be Mythology,
by and by. We shall drift back and back until
we blend with the Golden Age itself, dwellers Ia
Already tripping measures to the pipes Of Pan.
We shall hearkeu to the Oracle Of Delphi, we
shall gather the Apples Of the Hesperdes and
join with Jason in the search for the Golden
Fleece 1 have always wanted to live In that
time 1 have never quite realized that 1 belong
in it already, but those far dreamers in the per-
spective Of inftnity will realize it, and they win
link Us with the gods 1 am going to get ready
for that time when I shall be near enough to the
Golden Age to listen to the music Of Orpheus
and perhaps sail with Achilles to the Western
Isles
But we shall not remain always with the gods
Back and still back until We shall walk hand in
hand with the brOntosaUT cousin to the moa.
brother to the troglodyte- l suppose we shall
become mere geology after that-a fossil layer,
film of oblivion. The rnoderns Of 4 million
years hence will scrape lodges to find us, and
will put US into glass cases and perhaps classify
an ostrich How old, how incalculably
old, shall be then, The wLsest, the ,Glightfest
the most moral. the most strenuous among US
old fellows Of the first six thousand Will have be
come little more than trace in the Quaternary
formation. But what glory to lie even a trace
in d geological procession when it means that
you are lying down with the trlobite and the
troG odyte, and with those old first races of re-
corded history. il The silence of Creations sun
rise. How ought to hug ourselves. remen-
berng those chearly vulgar and perhaps fragile
moderns who will gIeediIy delye for US and
glOrify Us Il million years hence-We the discov-
erers, the pioneers, the conquerors-we ths
grand old ancierts of the earth!-From The
Point of View" in Scribners Magazine