“Après l’invention du blé, ils voulaient encore vivre A du gland.”

There is a prejudice against primitive survivals. Few men to-day persist in kindling their fires with the flint stock. The devotee who, in the twentieth century, invoked Apollo or prayed to Juno need expect scant sympathy. Manuscripts are no longer copied by hand, now that the printing press is everywhere available. The electric light has put out the feebler glimmers of thousands of tallow candles sufficient for our great-grandparents.

It had to be. We are being shoved along—willy-nilly. It is hard to kick against the pricks. The inventions of to-day leave behind the makeshift contrivances of yesterday. And to-morrow, the something newer that will be offered—at which we shall eagerly snatch—will find us as conceited and as unsatisfied as ever ! Hence the diffidence of many.

Men squatted on the ground until the bright genius arose to whom we owe chairs and sofas. Food was taken up with the fingers before seemliness suggested knives and forks. The strongest male carried off by force his mate until customs of wooing introduced refinements and sentiment into courtship and marriage. Grunts, scowls, nods and imitative gestures were the means of communicating ideas ere the wonders of language revealed a better way. And so forth.