Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/291

 There is something humourous in all this modern hurry-skurry; something almost grotesque in this desire for swift movement—this wish to save time and to stint work;—but there is something infinitely pathetic about it as well. It is as if the present Period of the world's civilization felt itself growing old—as if, like an individual human unit, it knew itself to be past its prime and drawing nigh to death, as if,—with the feeble restlessness of advancing age, it were seeking to cram as much change and amusement as possible into the little time of existence left to it. Two of the most notable signs of such mental and moral decay are, a morbid craving for incessant excitement, and a disinclination to think. It is quite a common thing nowadays to hear people say, "Oh, I have no time to think!"—and they seem to be more proud than ashamed of their loss of mental equilibrium. But it is very certain that where there is no time to think, there is less time to imagine—and where there is neither thought nor imagination, creative work of a high and lasting quality is not possible.

We, in our day, are fortunate in so far that we are the inheritors of the splendid work accomplished in the youth and prime of all that we know of civilization. No doubt there were immense periods beyond our ken, in which the entire round of birth, youth, maturity, age and death, was fulfilled by countless civilizations whose histories are unrecorded—but we can only form the faintest guess at this, through the study of old dynasties which, ancient as they are, may perhaps be almost modern compared to the unknown empires which have utterly passed away beyond human recovery.