How Can My Old Photographs Fail To

In The Old Days, People Used To Risk Their Lives In India Or In The Americas In Order To Bring Back Products Which Now Seem To Us To Have Been Of Comically Little Worth, Such As Brazilwood And Pepper, Which Added A New Range Of Sense Experience To A Civilization Which Had Never Suspected Its Own Insipidity... From These Same Lands Our Modern Marco Polos Now Bring Back The Moral Spices Of Which Our Society Feels An Increasing Need As It Is Conscious Of Sinking Further Into Boredom, But That This Time They Take The Form Of Photographs, Books, And Travelers Tales.

In The Case Of European Towns, The Passing Of Centuries Provides An Enhancement; In The Case Of American Towns, The Passing Of Years Brings Degeneration. It Is Not Simply That They Have Been Newly Built; They Were Built So As To Be Renewable As Quickly As They Were Put Up, That Is, Badly.

Enthusiastic Partisans Of The Idea Of Progress Are In Danger Of Failing To Recognize The Immense Riches Accumulated By The Human Race. By Underrating The Achievements Of The Past, They Devalue All Those Which Still Remain To Be Accomplished.

Civilization Has Ceased To Be That Delicate Flower Which Was Preserved And Painstakingly Cultivated In One Or Two Sheltered Areas Of A Soil Rich In Wild Species ... Mankind Has Opted For Monoculture; It Is In The Process Of Creating A Mass Civilization, As Beetroot Is Grown In The Mass. Henceforth, Man's Daily Bill Of Fare Will Consist Only Of This One Item.

While I Complain Of Being Able To Glimpse No More Than The Shadow Of The Past, I May Be Insensitive To Reality As It Is Taking Shape At This Very Moment, Since I Have Not Reached The Stage Of Development At Which I Would Be Capable Of Perceiving It. A Few Hundred Years Hence, In This Same Place, Another Traveller, As Despairing As Myself, Will Mourn The Disappearance Of What I Might Have Seen, But Failed To See.