let us bury him." And they put him in a hole, quickly, out of
their sight.

And when they have crept into their own little holes, and smugly laid
themselves down in their last long sleep, the future centuries will roll
the stone away and he will come forth again. For be it known: _That man
of us is imperishable who makes his century imperishable_. That man of
us who seizes upon the salient facts of our life, who tells what we
thought, what we were, and for what we stood--that man shall be the
mouthpiece to the centuries, and so long as they listen he shall endure.

We remember the caveman. We remember him because he made his century
imperishable. But, unhappily, we remember him dimly, in a collective
sort of way, because he memorialized his century dimly, in a collective
sort of way. He had no written speech, so he left us rude scratchings of
beasts and things, cracked marrow-bones, and weapons of stone. It was
the best expression of which he was capable. Had he scratched his own
particular name with the scratchings of beasts and things, stamped his
cracked marrowbones with his own particular seal, trade-marked his
weapons of stone with his own particular device, that particular man
would we remember. But he did the best he could, and we remember him as
best we may.

Homer takes his place with Achilles and the Greek and Trojan heroes.
Because he remembered them, we remember him. Whether he be one or a
dozen men, or a dozen generations of men, we remember him. And so long
as the name of Greece is known on the lips of men, so long will the name
of Homer be known. There are many such names, linked with their times,
which have come down to us, many more which will yet go down; and to
them, in token that we have lived, must we add some few of our own.

Dealing only with the artist, be it understood, only those artists will
go down who have spoken true of us. Their truth must be the deepest and
most significant, their voices clear and strong, definite and coherent.
Half-truths and partial-truths will not do, nor will thin piping voices
and quavering lays. There must be the cosmic quality in what they sing.
They must seize upon and press into enduring art-forms the vital facts of
our existence. They must tell why we have lived, for without any reason
for living, depend upon it, in the time to come, it will be as though we
had never lived. Nor are the things that were true of the people a
thousand years or s