In time the memory of the persons or facts which these stones were erected to perpetuate wore away; but the reverence which custom, and probably certain periodical ceremonies, had preserved for those places was not so soon obliterated.
Burke describes how the original meanings of monuments fade while their reverence persists over time.
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More from Edmund Burke
This was reserved to our time, to quench the little glimmerings of reason which might break in upon the solid darkness of this enlightened age.
In some people I see great liberty, indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
Every honest mind, every true lover of liberty and humanity, must rejoice to find that injustice is not always good policy, nor rapine the high-road to riches.
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