IF THE RAGGED villager, trudging home from the market, could suddenly be lifted to the crest of a distant age, men would stop in their work and shout and run to him in delight. For they would no longer whittle down the man into the peasant, but find him full of the mystery and spirit of his age. Even his poverty and pain would grow great, released from the shallow insult of the present, and the paltry things in his basket would acquire pathetic dignity.