piece of symbolism as ever I had seen: and that was why I bought it for
my children and for my home.

There was a few pence change, but I did not want it. The person who sold
me the picture said they would spend the change in candles for St.
Patrick's altar. So St. Patrick is still alive.




The Lost Things


I never remember an historian yet, nor a topographer either, who could
tell me, or even pretend to explain by a theory, how it was that certain
things of the past utterly and entirely disappear.

It is a commonplace that everything is subject to decay, and a
commonplace which the false philosophy of our time is too apt to forget.
Did we remember that commonplace we should be a little more humble in
our guesswork, especially where it concerns prehistory; and we should
not make so readily certain where the civilization of Europe began, nor
limit its immense antiquity. But though it is a commonplace, and a true
one, that all human work is subject to decay, there seems to be an
inexplicable caprice in the method and choice of decay.

Consider what a body of written matter there must have been to instruct
and maintain the technical excellence of Roman work. What a mass of
books on engineering and on ship-building and on road-making; what
quantities of tables and ready-reckoners, all that civilization must