great grandfather, John Elderkin Waldo, said at Tolland, Connecticut, more
than a century ago: "Times are hard with us in New England. They will never
be any better until each farm laborer in Connecticut is willing to work all
day for a sheep's head and pluck," just as they used to do before the red
schoolhouses on the hills began to preach their doctrines of sedition and
equality. There could never be good times again, so he thought, till the
many again lived for the few.

It is in the saving of the few who serve the many that the progress of
civilization lies. In the march of the common man, and in the influence of
the man uncommon who rises freely from the ranks, we have all of history
that counts.

In a picture gallery at Brussels there is a painting by Wiertz, most
cynical of artists, representing the man of the Future and the things of
the Past. A naturalist holds in his right hand a magnifying glass, and in
the other a handful of Napoleon and his marshals, guns, and
battle-flags,--tiny objects swelling with meaningless glory. He examines
these intensely, while a child at his side looks on in open-eyed wonder.
She cannot understand what a grown man can find in these curious trifles
that he should take the trouble to study them.

This painting is a parable designed to show Napoleon's real place in
history. It was painted within a dozen miles of the field of Waterloo, and
not many years after the noise of its cannon had died away. It shows the
point of view of the man of the future. Save in the degradation of France,
through the impoverishment of its life-blood, there is little in human
civilization to recall the disastrous incident of Napoleon's existence.

_Paucis vivat humanum genus_: "the many live for the few." This shall