Explore "The Lost Things" by Hilaire Belloc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I never remember an historian yet, nor a topographer either, who could / tell me, or even pretend to explain by a theory, how it was that / certain things of the past utterly and entirely disappear.
It is a commonplace that everything is subject to decay, and a / commonplace which the false philosophy of our time is too apt to / forget. Did we remember that commonplace we should be a little more / humble in our guesswork, especially where it concerns prehistory; and / we should not make so readily certain where the civilization of Europe / began, nor limit its immense antiquity. But though it is a commonplace, / and a true one, that all human work is subject to decay, there seems to / be an inexplicable caprice in the method and choice of decay.