aphic/. The archaic letters would perhaps be unintelligible
to him, but he would look at the pictures with much the same interest
that we regard bushmen's drawings or the primitive clay figures of
Peru, and though his whole artistic seventy-sixth century soul would
be revolted at the crudeness of the colouring, surely he would
moralise thus: "Oh, happy race of primitive men, how I, the child of
light and civilisation, envy you your long-forgotten days! Here in
these rude drawings, which in themselves reveal the extraordinary
capacity for pleasure possessed by the early races, who could look
upon them and gather gratification from the sight, may we trace your
joyous career from the cradle to the grave. Here you figure as a babe,
at whose appearance everybody seems delighted, even those of your race
whose inheritance will be thereby diminished--and here a merry lad you
revel in the school which the youth of our age finds so wearisome.
There, grown more old, you stand at the altar of a beautiful lost
faith, a faith that told of hope and peace beyond the grave, and by
you stands your blushing bride. No hard fate, no considerations of
means, no worldly-mindedness, come to snatch you from her arms as now
they daily do. With her you spend your peaceful days, and here at last
we see you old but surrounded by love and tender kindness, and almost
looking forward to that grave which you believed would be but the gate
of glory. Oh, happy race of simple-minded men, what a commentary upon
our fevered, avaricious, pleasure-seeking age is this rude scroll of
primitive and infantile art!"

So will some unborn /laudator temporis acti/ speak in some dim century
to be, when our sorrows have faded and are not.

And yet, though we do not put a record of them in our Christmas
numbers, troubles are as troubles have been and will continually be,
for however apparently happy the lot of individuals, it is not
altogether a cheerful world in which we have been called to live. At
any rate so thought Harold Quaritch on that night of the farewell
scene with Ida in the churchyard, and so he continued to think for
some time to come. A man's life is always more or less a struggle; he
is a swimmer upon an adverse sea, and to live at all he must keep his
limbs in motion. If he grows faint-hearted or weary and no longer
strives, for a little while he floats, and then at last, morally or
physically, he vanishes. We struggle for our livelihoods, and for all