ly to destroy them, shall have
been crushed by the energies of the new world, will the proud nations of
the twentieth century, looking round on the plains of Europe,
disencumbered of their memorial marbles,--will those nations indeed
stand up with no other feeling than one of triumph, freed from the
paralysis of precedent and the entanglement of memory, to thank us, the
fathers of progress, that no saddening shadows can any more trouble the
enjoyments of the future,--no moments of reflection retard its
activities; and that the new-born population of a world without a record
and without a ruin may, in the fullness of ephemeral felicity, dispose
itself to eat, and to drink, and to die?

268. Is this verily the end at which we aim, and will the mission of the
age have been then only accomplished, when the last castle has fallen
from our rocks, the last cloisters faded from our valleys, the last
streets, in which the dead have dwelt, been effaced from our cities, and
regenerated society is left in luxurious possession of towns composed
only of bright saloons, overlooking gay parterres? If this indeed be our
end, yet why must it be so laboriously accomplished? Are there no new
countries on the earth, as yet uncrowned by thorns of cathedral spires,
untenanted by the consciousness of a past? Must this little Europe--this
corner of our globe, gilded with the blood of old battles, and gray with
the temples of old pieties--this narrow piece of the world's pavement,
worn down by so many pilgrims' feet, be utterly swept and garnished for
the masque of the Future? Is America not wide enough for the
elasticities of our humanity? Asia not rich enough for its pride? or
among the quiet meadowlands and solitary hills of the old land, is there
not yet room enough for the spreadings of power, or the indulgences of
magnificence, without founding all glory upon ruin, and prefacing all
progress with obliteration?

269. We must answer these questions speedily, or we answer them in vain.
The peculiar character of the evil which is being wrought by this age is
its utter irreparableness. Its newly formed schools of art, its
extending galleries, and well-ordered museums will assuredly bear some
fruit in time, and give once more to the popular mind the power to
discern what is great, and the disposition to protect what is precious.
But it will be too late. We shall wander through our palaces of
crystal, gazing sadly on copies of pictures torn by c