Historical and Political Essays | Page 2

in which his special gifts have
most scope and the qualities in which he is deficient are least needed.
It is the fashion of a modern school of historical writers to deplore what
they call the intrusion of literature into history. History, in their
judgment, should be treated as science and not as literature, and the
kind of intellect they most value is not unlike that of a skilful and
well-trained attorney. To collect documents with industry; to compare,

classify, interpret and estimate them is the main work of the historian.
It is no doubt true that there are some fields of history where the
primary facts are so little known, so much contested or so largely
derived from recondite manuscript sources, that a faithful historian will
be obliged in justice to his readers to sacrifice both proportion and
artistic charm to the supreme importance of analysing evidence,
reproducing documents and accumulating proofs; but in general the
depreciation of the literary element in history seems to me essentially
wrong. It is only necessary to recall the names of Herodotus and
Thucydides, of Livy and Tacitus, of Gibbon and Macaulay, and of the
long line of great masters of style who have related the annals of France.
It may, indeed, be confidently asserted that there is no subject in which
rarer literary qualities are more demanded than in the higher forms of
history. The art of portraying characters; of describing events; of
compressing, arranging, and selecting great masses of heterogeneous
facts, of conducting many different chains of narrative without
confusion or obscurity; of preserving in a vast and complicated subject
the true proportion and relief, will tax the highest literary skill, and no
one who does not possess some, at least, of these gifts in an unusual
measure is likely to attain a permanent place among the great masters
of history. It is a misfortune when some stirring and momentous period
falls into the hands of the mere compiler, for he occupies the ground
and a really great writer will hesitate to appropriate and plagiarise the
materials his predecessor has collected. There are books of great
research and erudition which one would have wished to have been all
re-written by some writer of real genius who could have given order,
meaning and vividness to a mere chaos of accurate and laboriously
sifted learning. The great prominence which it is now the fashion to
ascribe to the study of diplomatic documents, is very apt to destroy the
true value and perspective of history. It is always the temptation of
those who are dealing with manuscript materials to overrate the small
personal details which they bring to light, and to give them much more
than their due space in their narrative. This tendency the new school
powerfully encourages. It is quite right that the treasure-houses of
diplomatic correspondence which have of late years been thrown open
should be explored and sifted, but history written chiefly from these
materials, though it has its own importance, is not likely to be

distinguished either by artistic form or by philosophical value. Those
who are immersed in these studies are very apt to overrate their
importance and the part which diplomacy and statesmanship have
borne in the great movement of human affairs.
A true and comprehensive history should be the life of a nation. It
should describe it in its larger and more various aspects. It should be a
study of causes and effects, of distant as well as proximate causes, and
of the large, slow and permanent evolution of things. It should include,
as Buckle and Macaulay saw, the social, the industrial, the intellectual
life of the nation as well as mere political changes, and it should be
pre-eminently marked by a true perspective dealing with subjects at a
length proportioned to their real importance. All this requires a
powerful and original intellect quite different from that of a mere
compiler. It requires too, in a high degree, the kind of imagination
which enables a man to reproduce not only the acts but the feelings, the
ideals, the modes of thought and life of a distant past, and pierce
through the actions and professions of men to their real characters.
Insight into character is one of the first requisites of a historian. It is
therefore, much to be desired that he should possess a wide knowledge
of the world, the knowledge of different types of character, foreign as
well as English, which travel and society and practical experience of
business can give, and it will also be of no small advantage to him if he
has passed through more than one intellectual or religious phase,
widening the area of his appreciation and realisations. He should also
have enough of the dramatic element to enable him to throw himself