Overdoing the Past 119 



alist that doubted the loud-mouthed patriot- 

 ism of Sam Adams was not wholly a fool. 

 England, later, would not have disappeared 

 from the map of Europe had Napoleon 

 gained Waterloo. There is no man living 

 who can prove that the world was the gainer 

 by the a&ual results of the world's great 

 contests. It is not impossible that we might 

 have gained more had the opposite occurred. 

 It is a matter of speculation only. What 

 our forbears did, if delayed, might have been 

 better done by their descendants ; and what 

 they failed to do, believing it a terrible 

 calamity, has never resulted in the direful 

 conditions they predicted. The world works 

 on in a pretty even way, though millions of 

 fretful creatures hurry to and fro as if its 

 weight were on their shoulders. What the 

 man of to-day exults over we may deplore 

 to-morrow, and that condition of affairs over 

 which he grieves to-day we may look upon 

 to-morrow as a blessing. We overrate the 

 importance of individualities ; we underrate 

 the world in its entirety. We can draw 

 endless conclusions from the lessons of the 

 past, but we cannot truthfully proclaim any 

 one of them as a demonstration. We can 



