Time can do so much

(Mark Twain wrote an open letter to Walt Whitman on the occasion of the poet's 70th birthday, May 31, 1889 )


To Walt Whitman:

You have lived just the seventy years which are the greatest in the world's history and richest in benefit and advancement to its peoples. These seventy years have done more to widen the interval between man and the other animals than was accomplished by any of the five centuries which preceded them.
What great births you have witnessed! The steam press, the steamship, the railroad, the perfect cotton gin, the telegraph, the phonograph, photogravure, the electrotype, the gaslight, the electric light, the sewing machine and the amazing infinitely varied and innumerable products of coal tar, those latest and strangest marvels of a marvelous age. And you have seen even the greater births than these; for you have seen the application of anesthesia to surgery-practice, whereby the ancient dominion of pain , which began with the first created life, came to an end on this earth forever, you have seen the slave set free, you have seen the monarchy banished from France and reduced in England to a machine which makes an impossible show of diligence and attention to business, but isn't connected with the works. Yes, you have indeed seen much--but tarry for a while, for the greatest is yet to come. Wait thirty years, and then look out over the earth! You shall see marvels upon marvels added to those whose nativity you have witnessed; and conspicuous above them you shall see their formidable Result--man at almost his full stature at last!--and still growing, visibly growing while you look. Wait till you see that great figure appear, and catch the far glint of the sun upon his banner; then you may depart satisfied, as knowing you have seen him for whom the earth was made, and that he will proclaim that human wheat is more than human tears, and proceed to organize human values on that basis.

Mark Twain