The Defendant by G.K. Chesterton

There are two equal and eternal ways of looking at this twilight world / of ours: we may see it as the twilight of evening or the twilight of / morning; we may think of anything, down to a fallen acorn, as a / descendant or as an ancestor. There are times when we are almost / crushed, not so much with the load of the evil as with the load of the / goodness of humanity, when we feel that we are nothing but the / inheritors of a humiliating splendour. But there are other times when / everything seems primitive, when the ancient stars are only sparks blown / from a boy's bonfire, when the whole earth seems so young and / experimental that even the white hair of the aged, in the fine biblical / phrase, is like almond-trees that blossom, like the white hawthorn grown / in May. That it is good for a man to realize that he is 'the heir of all / the ages' is pretty commonly admitted; it is a less popular but equally / important point that it is good for him sometimes to realize that he is / not only an ancestor, but an ancestor of primal antiquity; it is good / for him to wonder whether he is not a hero, and to experience ennobling / doubts as to whether he is not a solar myth.

The matters which most thoroughly evoke this sense of the abiding / childhood of the world are those which are really fresh, abrupt and / inventive in any age; and if we were asked what was the best proof of / this adventurous youth in the nineteenth century we should say, with all / respect to its portentous sciences and philosophies, that it was to be / found in the rhymes of Mr. Edward Lear and in the literature of / nonsense. 'The Dong with the Luminous Nose,' at least, is original, as / the first ship and the first plough were original.