mportance of the present. The
archaeologist, he will tell you, is a fool if he expects him to be
interested in a wretched old bit of scrap-iron. He is right. It would be
as rash to suppose that he would find interest in an ancient sword in
its rusted condition as it would be to expect the spectator at Rheims to
find fascination in the nuts and screws. The true archaeologist would
hide that corroded weapon in his workshop, where his fellow-workers
alone could see it. For he recognises that it is only the sword which is
as good as new that impresses the public; it is only the Present that
counts. That is the real reason why he is an archaeologist. He has turned
to the Past because he is in love with the Present. He, more than any
man, worships at the altar of the goddess of To-day; and he is so
desirous of extending her dominion that he has adventured, like a
crusader, into the lands of the Past in order to subject them to her.
Adoring the Now, he would resent the publicity of anything which so
obviously suggested the Then as a rust-eaten old blade. His whole
business is to hide the gap between Yesterday and To-day; and, unless a
man is initiate, he would have him either see the perfect sword as it
was when it sought the foeman's bowels, or see nothing. The Present is
too small for him; and it is therefore that he calls so insistently to
the Past to come forth from the darkness to augment it. The ordinary
man lives in the Present, and he will tell one that the archaeologist
lives in the Past. This is not so. The layman, in the manner of the
Little Englander, lives in a small and confined Present; but the
archaeologist, like a true Imperialist, ranges through all time, and
calls it not the Past but the Greater Present.

The archaeologist is not, or ought not to be, lacking in vivacity. One
might say that he is so sensible to the charms of society that, finding
his companions too few in number, he has drawn the olden times to him to
search them for jovial men and agreeable women. It might be added that
he has so laughed at jest and joke that, fearing lest the funds of
humour run dry, he has gathered the laughter of all the years to his
enrichment. Certainly he has so delighted in noble adventure and
stirring action that he finds his newspaper insufficient to his needs,
and fetches to his aid the tales of old heroes. In fact, the
archaeologist is so enamoured of life that he would raise all the dead
from their graves. He wil