y be placed before the reader which will
perhaps be regarded as fanciful, but which, in all sincerity, I believe
to be sober sense.

In this life of ours which, under modern conditions, is lived at so
great a speed, there is a growing need for a periodical pause wherein
the mind may adjust the relationship of the things that have been to
those that are. So rapidly are our impressions received and assimilated,
so individually are they shaped or classified, that, in whatever
direction our brains lead us, we are speedily carried beyond that
province of thought which is common to us all. A man who lives alone
finds himself, in a few months, out of touch with the thought of his
contemporaries; and, similarly, a man who lives in what is called an
up-to-date manner soon finds himself grown unsympathetic to the sober
movement of the world's slow round-about.

Now, the man who lives alone presently developes some of the recognised
eccentricities of the recluse, which, on his return to society, cause
him to be regarded as a maniac; and the man who lives entirely in the
present cannot argue that the characteristics which he has developed are
less maniacal because they are shared by his associates. Rapidly he,
too, has become eccentric; and just as the solitary man must needs come
into the company of his fellows if he would retain a healthy mind, so
the man who lives in the present must allow himself occasional
intercourse with the past if he would keep his balance.

[Illustration: PL. III. Heavy gold earrings of Queen Tausert of Dynasty
XX. An example of the work of ancient Egyptian
goldsmiths.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]

[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._

Heraclitus, in a quotation preserved by Sextus Empiricus,[1] writes: "It
behoves us to follow the common reason of the world; yet, though there
is a common reason in the world, the majority live as though they
possessed a wisdom peculiar each unto himself alone." Every one of us
who considers his mentality an important part of his constitution should
endeavour to give himself ample opportunities of adjusting his mind to
this "common reason" which is the silver thread that runs unbroken
throughout history. We should remember the yesterdays, that we may know
what the pother of to-day is about; and we should foretell to-morrow not
by to-day but by every day that has been.

[Footnote 1: