176 Bird -Lore 



examples. These men wrote down the simple daily doings of the time, 

 without intent to do anything but tell the truth and without any suspi- 

 cion that they were doing a great thing. These same journals are to- 

 day among the most treasured sources of authentic history in the world. 



I have written and spoken of this before, and have had more than 

 once to defend the keeping of journals. Several somewhat scornful 

 critics have asked: "Are there not enough commonplace records of com- 

 monplace things, why should you set a new army of scribblers to work?" 



I reply, "No man can daily write the simple truth of what he sees 

 in nature and leave a commonplace or valueless record. It will, of course, 

 be limited by his limitations, but every one, sooner or later, gets a chance 

 to observe something that no one else ever did — an opportunity that 

 happens but once in an age comes to him, and the opportunity is not 

 lost if he has the habit of record." 



How that record is to be of benefit can be illustrated thus: 



There was once a vast and priceless mosaic inscription that contained 

 the Truth, the one essential of human happiness. It was shattered to a 

 million pieces and scattered to the corners of creation. The pieces are 

 imperishable. Human happiness depends on the reconstruction of the 

 inscription. Every one who finds a little fact, however small, finds a 

 scrap of that mosaic. If he honestly brings it, just as he found it, to 

 those in charge, he is helping by that much. If he attempts to chisel 

 that fact to make it fit into one or two others that he may have found, 

 he is by that much hindering the ultimate restoration of the lost in- 

 scription. When enough are brought together, no matter how ragged, 

 they will fit each other — the right ones always fit, the wrong ones 

 never do — and when they are put together they will surely spell TRUTH. 



Now it is given to every one who uses his eyes to find some of 

 these fragments, and the best way to preserve them untooled is in a 

 sincere journal. 



Those who made such journals and such records a hundred years 

 ago were really providing material for Darwin and Pasteur, making 

 them possible; and those who do it to-day are in like manner prepar- 

 ing material for some other prophet, whose message to mankind is sure 

 to be yet more important. Each of these men took the accumulated 

 fragments, put them together and restored for us a section of the great 

 mosaic; and the latest restored part will be most important because that 

 much nearer the whole design. No one knows or can know who the 

 new prophet is to be, or when he is to come, any more than what will 

 he the new restoration; but we do know that his work must be founded 

 •on the daily observation of many observers, and will be great in propor- 

 tion as these are abundant and sincere, for he is only the master-builder 

 .and can do no more than his best with the material provided. 



