try to follow it on from Epsom Racecourse, and you entirely fail. The
soil is the same; the conditions of that soil are excellent for its
retention; but a year's work has taught me that there is no
reconstructing it save by hypothesis and guesswork from this point to
the crossing of the Thames.

What happened to all that mass of local documents whereby we ought to be
able to build up the territorial scheme and the landed regime of old
France? Much remains, if you will, in the shape of chance charters and
family papers. Even in the archives of Paris you can get enough to whet
your curiosity. But not even in one narrow district can you obtain
enough to reconstruct the whole truth. There is not a scholar in Europe
who can tell you exactly how land was owned and held, even, let us say,
on the estates of Rheims or by the family of Conde. And men are ready to
quarrel as to how many peasants owned and how much of their present
ownership was due to the Revolution, evidence has already become so
wholly imperfect in that tiny stretch of historical time.

But, after all, perhaps one ought not to wonder too much that material
things should thus capriciously vanish. Time, which has secured Timgad
so that it looks like an unroofed city of yesterday, has swept and razed
Laimboesis. The two towns were neighbours--one was taken and the other
left--and there is no sort of reason any man can give for it. Perhaps
one ought not too much to wonder, for a greater wonder still is the
sudden evaporation and loss of the great movements of the human soul.
That what our ancestors passionately believed or passionately disputed
should, by their descendants in one generation or in two, become
meaningless, absurd, or false--this is the greatest marvel and the
greatest tragedy of all.