Evening star., 1932-01-27

Every one, high and low. Is attracted
by the reports of excavations of ancient
cities. An immense interest attaches to
them. This was most strikingly shown
by the discoveries In the tomb of King
Tut, as the ancient Egyptian ruler came
to be called, with our typical modern
nonchalance.
Subsequent excavations In various
parts of the world, however, have DEM
onstrated that this wide public interest
was no fash in the pan. Happily, one
does not have to be a scientist to be in
terested in such things.
Every one Is interested in human
beings, and the oldest ruins which have
been discovered speak Enthusiastically Of
them. There is no stone upturned
which does not tell eloquent tales OF
men and women.
This is a glorious sort of gossip. We
pry into the lives of people who lived
thousands Of years ago; We find that
they were strangely like unto ourselves
They had curiously wrought jars Of cos
metics, and dolls, and ornamental
combs.
In all things they were much as we
are, hence our natural interest goes out
to them, over the years, as If, indeed,
those years had never intervened.
"
These discoveries show the reader
that time Is still the unknown quantity
it always has been. Learnedly we talk
Of centuries, as If we really understood
them, but down In our hearts we know
that their passage remains q mystery.
Thousands OF years mean little more
to most people, no matter how learnedly
they talk about them, than do huge
numbers. With what an air men talk
of millions and billions Of dollars, when
very few OF them ever saw a thousand
dollar bill
Modern financial figures are astro-
nomical, and hence meaningless to
most Of us groundlings, VINO may be
just one jump ahead Of the poor house
Sometimes one may wonder honestly If
the men who handle them actually
understand them. Perhaps they do so
by considering them as units, thus re-
ducing unrealizable figures TO sums
more easily graSped.
1t is much the same with the years
Who is there who has not given him
self the mental iim-jams, as it were,
by attempting to read of the decline
and fall Of the Roman Empire, with its
names and dates, its Emperors, now in
PO"C4t AlON SOIlSt ALo VI LIE
seat Of government, its changes, it's In
cessant wars and slayings of human
beings.
What causes the most trouble in the
attempt of the mind to grasp all this
welter Of names, places and dates is the
realization, although perhaps not even
conscious, that the foundation of all
this was solid substratum of changing
millions upon millions of human beings.
The life of the individual Is so short,
and the term Of the race so long, evi-
IDENTIFY, that a merciful Heaven prevents
us from grasping the full evidences of
the same
The young man feels that he can
never die, and the old one ceases to
speculate about 1t, The passage OF time
is nothing at ALL In the beginning, and
ceases to be Of much concern in the
end. The young man feels as if his COL
lege years would never end, the oldster
goes back to them, and perhaps talks of
nothing else.
Only in the period which mankind
has agreed to call middle age" does a
man sometimes catch a fleeing idea, as
it were, Of the real passage of time.
Perhaps the only thought he brings