It Is The Morning Now
Turned Evening And Seen In The West, - The Same Sun, But A New
Light And Atmosphere.
Its beauty is like the sunset; not a
fresco painting on a wall, flat and bounded, but atmospheric and
roving or free.
In reality, history fluctuates as the face of
the landscape from morning to evening. What is of moment is its
hue and color. Time hides no treasures; we want not its _then_,
but its _now_. We do not complain that the mountains in the
horizon are blue and indistinct; they are the more like the
heavens.
Of what moment are facts that can be lost, - which need to be
commemorated? The monument of death will outlast the memory of
the dead. The pyramids do not tell the tale which was confided
to them; the living fact commemorates itself. Why look in the
dark for light? Strictly speaking, the historical societies have
not recovered one fact from oblivion, but are themselves, instead
of the fact, that is lost. The researcher is more memorable than
the researched. The crowd stood admiring the mist and the dim
outlines of the trees seen through it, when one of their number
advanced to explore the phenomenon, and with fresh admiration all
eyes were turned on his dimly retreating figure. It is astonishing
with how little co-operation of the societies the past is remembered.
Its story has indeed had another muse than has been assigned it.
There is a good instance of the manner in which all history
began, in Alwakidis' Arabian Chronicle:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 163 of 422
Words from 44625 to 44885
of 116321
