It makes a man
human to live on these old humanized soils. He cannot help marching in
step with his kind in the rear of such a procession. They say a dead
man's hand cures swellings, if laid on them. There is nothing like the
dead cold hand of the Past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us
into the solemn flow of the life of our race. Rousseau came out of one
of his sad self-torturing fits, as he cast his eye on the arches of the
old Roman aqueduct, the Pont du Gard.
I am far from denying that there is an attraction in a thriving railroad
village. The new "depot," the smartly-painted pine houses, the spacious
brick hotel, the white meeting-house, and the row of youthful and leggy
trees before it, are exhilarating. They speak of progress, and the time
when there shall be a city, with a His Honor the Mayor, in the place of
their trim but transient architectural growths. Pardon me, if I prefer
the pyramids. They seem to me crystals formed from a stronger solution
of humanity than the steeple of the new meeting-house.
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