In the Year Ten Thousand

Synopsis

The old man put his delicate fingers on the page. “A line of these words may have conveyed a valuable thought to a reader long ago,” he said, reflectively. “In fact, this book purports to be a history of the world up to the year 2000. Here are some pictures,” he continued, turning the worn leaves carefully. “This is George Washington; this a pope of a church called the Roman Catholic; this is a man named Gladstone, who was a great political leader in England. Pictures then, as you see, were very crude.

We have preserved some of the oil paintings made in those days. Art was in its cradle. In producing a painting of an object, the early artists mixed colored paints and spread them according to taste on stretched canvas or on the walls or windows of buildings. You know that our artists simply throw light and darkness into space in the necessary variations, and the effect is all that could be desired in the way of imitating nature. See that landscape in the alcove before you. The foliage of the trees, the grass, the flowers, the stretch of water, have every appearance of life because the light which produces them is alive.”

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