over
and done with, never to be recalled, had indeed gone to supply the
furnishing of that room!--And, after all, is not the most any human
creature dare hope for the more or less dusty corner of some museum
shelf at last? The passion of the heart testified to by some battered
trinket, the sweat of the brain by some maggot-eaten manuscript, the
agony of death, at best, by some round shot turned up by the
ploughshare? And how shall any one dare complain of this, since have
not empires before now only been saved from oblivion by a few buried
potsherds, and whole races of mankind by childish picture-scratchings
on a reindeer bone? _Tout lasse, tout passe, tout casse._ The
individual--his arts, his possessions, his religion, his
civilisation--is always as an envelope, merely, to be torn asunder and
cast away. Nothing subsists, nothing endures but life itself, endlessly
self-renewed, endlessly one, through the endless divergencies of its
manifestations. And, as Julius March was to find, hide from it, deny
it, strive to elude it as we may, the recognition of just that is bound
to grip us sooner or later and hold us with a fearful and dominating
power from which there is no escape.

Meanwhile, his occupation was tranquil enough, comfortably remote, as
it seemed, from all such profound and disquieting matters. For the top
shelf proved not very prolific of interest; and one book after another,
examined and rejected as worthless, was dropped--with a reproachful
flutter of pages and final thud--into the capacious paper-basket
standing on the floor below. Then, at the far end of the said shelf, he
came unexpectedly upon a collection of those quaint chap-books which
commanded so wide a circulation during the eighteenth century.

Julius, with the true bibliophile's interest in all originals, examined
his find carefully. The tattered and dogs-eared, little volumes,
coarsely printed and embellished by a number of rough, square woodcuts,
had, he knew, a distinct value. He soon perceived that they formed a
very representative selection. He glanced at _The famous History of Guy
of Warwick_; at that of _Sir Bevis of Southampton_; at _Joaks upon
Joaks_, a lively work regarding the manners and customs of the
aristocracy at the period of the Restoration; at the record of the
amazing adventures of that lusty serving-wench _Long Meg of
Westminster_; and at that refreshing piece of comedy known as _Merry
Tales concerning the Sayings and Doings