A FEW HOURS IN A FAR-OFF AGE.
CHAPTER I.
—Progress of Culture, RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
—Conduct of Life, RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
I STAND in the doorway of an immense building, which appears to be devoted to the display of antiquities. Many people are entering, although the morning is young. A magnificent scene is before me.
At last I see a city in which are combined grandeur, cleanliness, order and picturesque loveliness. Between this one and those of the nineteenth century exists a difference as great, if not greater, than between the latter and the loathsome lairs of our cannibal progenitors reeking with refuse of human remains. My mind power has so widened that I know more than can be here told.
The buildings are truly grand works of art. All stand on noble columns of great size and strength. I cannot recog-