All we see or hear or feel, is old. Truth itself is old. Old and falling into disuse, too. Outside of what I am using in my business, perhaps not over two or three bales are now on the market.
Here in the primeval solitude, undisturbed by the foot of man, I had found the crumbling remnants of those who once walked the earth in their might and vaunted their strength among the powers of their world.
No doubt they had experienced the first wild thrill of all-powerful love, and thought that it was a new thing. They had known, with mingled pain and pleasure, when they struggled feebly against the omnipotent sway of consuming passion, that they were mashed, and they flattered themselves that they were the first in all the illimitable range of relentless years who had been fortunate enough to get hold of the genuine thing. All others had been base imitations.
Here, perhaps, on this very spot, the Aztec youth with a bright-eyed maiden on his arm had pledged lifelong fidelity to her shrine, and in the midnight silence had stolen away from her with a pang of vigorous regret, followed by the sobs of his soul's idol and the demoralizing, leaden rain of buckshot, with the compliments and best wishes of the old man.
While I was meditating upon these things, a glad shout from the scene of operations attracted my attention. I rose and went to the scene of excavation and found, to my unspeakable astonishment and pleasure, that the man had unearthed a large Queen Anne tear jug, with Etruscan work upon the exterior. It was simply one of the old-fashioned single-barreled tear jugs, made for a one eyed man to cry into. The vessel was about eighteen inches in height by five or six inches in diameter.
The graceful, yet perhaps severe pottery of the Aztecs, convinces me that they were fully abreast of the present century in their knowledge of the arts and sciences.
Space will not admit of an extended description of this ancient tear cooler, but I am still continuing the antiquarian researches,—vicariously, of course—and will give this subject more attention during the summer.