The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
The types and footprints of creation, imprinted on the rocks and
imbedded in the strata of the earth, giving knowledge of the existence
and habits of extinct species of animals, and teaching how geological
periods have succeeded each other, with their causes and concomitants,
are not so plain and distinct to us, as will be these daily effusions,
advertisements, and business notices of all kinds in the ordinary
newspapers of the country, to future generations of men, who shall there
seek to learn the successive and gradual steps by which the social
fabric shall be built up on the foundations of human thought and action.
Like the worm that crawls over the mud ere it hardens into rock; or the
leaf that fixes its form and impress in the bed of coal; or like the
bowlder that forms the pencil point of a mighty iceberg, scratching the
rocks in its movement across a submerged plain, destined to be upheaved
as a continent in some future convulsion; or like the coral insect,
which, in forming his separate cell, unconsciously assists in laying the
foundation of islands and vast regions of solid earth; we, the creatures
of the hour, all unconscious of the record we are making, leave
imperishable memorials of our existence and works, in the apparently
petty and fugitive contents of the journals which we read daily, and in
which we make known our business and our wants. Narratives and formal
descriptions may be one-sided, and may easily deceive and mislead; but
these indications, which will be preserved in the social strata as they
slowly subside in the ocean of humanity, carry in themselves perfect
fulness and absolute verity.
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