the worthy Dead on whose labours we have entered, all care for the
future generations whose lot we are preparing; but some affection and
fairness for those who are doing the actual work of the world, some
attempt to regard them with the same freedom from ill-temper, whether on
private or public grounds, as we may hope will be felt by those who will
call us ancient! Otherwise, the looking before and after, which is our
grand human privilege, is in danger of turning to a sort of
other-worldliness, breeding a more illogical indifference or bitterness
than was ever bred by the ascetic's contemplation of heaven. Except on
the ground of a primitive golden age and continuous degeneracy, I see no
rational footing for scorning the whole present population of the globe,
unless I scorn every previous generation from whom they have inherited
their diseases of mind and body, and by consequence scorn my own scorn,
which is equally an inheritance of mixed ideas and feelings concocted
for me in the boiling caldron of this universally contemptible life, and
so on--scorning to infinity. This may represent some actual states of
mind, for it is a narrow prejudice of mathematicians to suppose that
ways of thinking are to be driven out of the field by being reduced to
an absurdity. The Absurd is taken as an excellent juicy thistle by many
constitutions.

Reflections of this sort have gradually determined me not to grumble at
the age in which I happen to have been born--a natural tendency
certainly older than Hesiod. Many ancient beautiful things are lost,
many ugly modern things have arisen; but invert the proposition and it
is equally true. I at least am a modern with some interest in advocating
tolerance, and notwithstanding an inborn beguilement which carries my
affection and regret continually into an imagined past, I am aware that
I must lose all sense of moral proportion unless I keep alive a stronger
attachment to what is near, and a power of admiring what I best know and