324 A FARMER'S YEAR 



story that would be ! A humble tale, perhaps a tale of little 

 things and obscure lives, and yet how fascinating ! When we 

 consider bygone ages we are apt to dwell only upon the histories 

 of distinguished individuals and the records of great and startling 

 occurrences. Yet these do not really make up the past. Notable 

 men are rare ; there be very few in any age who can lift their heads 

 and voices high enough above the raving crowd for the world 

 to see and hear them, and great events occur only from time to 

 time. But behind these Titans existed the dim multitudes of the 

 people those whose qualities and characters really fashioned the 

 nation for good or ill ; our forefathers, whose instincts and 

 strivings built up the empire we inherit, in whom lay the weight 

 and influence which brought about the revolutions of our history, 

 and from whom were produced those strong characters that carried 

 out their will and with whose names we are still familiar. But of 

 all these forgotten humble hordes there remains nothing but our- 

 selves, who, by the mysterious descent of blood, continue their 

 existence, and such poor memorials as are inscribed by some 

 long-dead hand upon this imperishable clay. 



What a strange instinct it is, by the way, that prompts men 

 to try to perpetuate some little token of their existence and 

 individuality upon substances not likely to be destroyed, in the 

 hope, I suppose, that in a far-off future age other men will unearth 

 them and think such thoughts as I set down upon this sheet. Is 

 it not, in fact, the feeble and half-unconscious striving or revolt 

 against the oblivion which awaits us all a weak but quite human 

 desire for recollection in the unshaped future, for recognition of 

 the fact that once beneath the same eternal sun they, the for- 

 gotten ones, were born, suffered, worked, and died ? In Egypt, 

 among the wreck of buildings reared thousands of years ago, I have 

 found such relics of those whose toil created them ; in breaking 

 up an old floor in these very rooms I have noted the name of the 

 carpenter who laid it rudely scrawled upon a board. And see 

 how the tendency continues. Myself, I remember writing my 

 own name, the date, and a Latin inscription, with the record of 



