Show VANDALISM OF THE fancy what we should have had bad around us now if instead of quarreling and fighting oyer over their work worl the nations had bad aided each other in their work or if it even in their conquests instead of effacing the memorials 0 of those they succeeded and subdued they had bad guarded the spoils or of their victories fancy what euro europe would le be now if the delicate statues and temples e mple of the greeks it if the broad roads roada and massive walls of the romans if the noble and pathetic architecture of the middle ages had not been ground to dust by mere human rage you talk of the scythe of time and the tooth of time I 1 tell you time is less and toothless it is is we who gnaw like the worm we vie who smite spite like the scythe it is ourselves who abolish ourselves who consume we are the mildew and the flame and the soul of in man an la is to its own work as th the e moth that frets when it cannot fly and as the hidden flame that blasts here where w it cannot illume all these lost treasures of human intellect have been wholly destroyed by human industry of destruction the marble would have stood its two thousand years as well in the polished statue as the cliff but we men have ground aitto it to powder and mixed it with our own ashes the walls and the would have stood it is we me who have left not riot one tone stone upon another and restored its ss to the desert the great cathedrals of old religion would have stood it is we who have dashed down the carved work with axes and hammers and bid the mountain grass bloom upon the pavement and the sea bea winds chant in galleries ruskin |