This page has been validated.
184
CREOLE SKETCHES
drifted something into that little dusty bookstore.
Every great event in the history of the earth has contributed a something to those dusty shelves.
All nations and tongues are represented there; all the philosophers have riches there; and there all the poets have preserved their word-music.
As for the antiquarian, he thinketh much of these things; for he knoweth by heart the story of each book, and now rarely openeth any save new ones — works of this age of ours.
Then he saith —
"Pshaw! They call that new, and I have beheld the same in books that were written lo! three thousand years ago!
"The founders of the Semitic and Aryan religions knew these things; and forsooth these modern fools offer them to us as something novel!
