H. G. Wells Quote

Out of the litter of muds and gravels that makes the soil of the world we have picked some traces of the past of our race and the past of life. In our observatories and laboratories we have gleaned some hints of its future. We have a vision of the opening of the story, but the first pages we cannot read.

The Undying Fire, Chapter the Fourth, Section 1 (pp. 106-107)