West Saxon’s indignation

‘ But no decent historian ever does intend to state what he knows to be an error,’ said Phil, somewhat surprised at the warmth of the West Saxon’s indignation.

‘ I should think not indeed,’ said Wessex; ‘ no one but a thief intends to take what is not his own, and no one but a liar means to state what he knows to be untrue. But the historian of all men is bound by the sanctities of his office to what we call in Roman law summa diligentia. And to be thinking of his “pictures,” of the scheme of his colours and other literary effects, forms a most dangerous temptation to adopt the picturesque form of a story in place of the recorded truth. Unfortunately, as we know to our sorrow, the materials of the historian are of almost every sort — good, doubtful, and worthless; the so-called histories go on copying one another, adding something to heighten the lights out of quite second-rate authority; a wrong reference, a false date, a hearsay anecdote gets into accepted histories, and it costs years of labour to get the truth at last. If you ever hope to be a historian, you must treat historical falsehood as you would a mad dog, and never admit a phrase or a name which suggests an untruth private sofia tours.’

‘ Has not this purism been a little overdone? ’ said the innocent freshman. ‘I remember that Freeman once told us he could not bear to speak of the Battle of Hastings, lest some one should imagine that it began on the seashore.’

Replied the Bede

‘A fine example of scrupulous love of truth,’ replied the Bede, ‘and I wish that all histories of England had been written in a similar spirit. Can anything be more unscholarly than a readiness to accept a statement which we have not probed to the core, simply because it works up into a telling picture, or will point an effective paragraph? It is positively dishonest! And some of them will quote you a passage which you discover, on collating it with the original, has a blunder in every sentence, and a mistranslation in every page. If you write a romance, you may go to your imagination for your facts. If you write history, you should scrupulously extract the best contemporary record, and throw everything else into the fire. I sometimes wish that histories were not published at all in the current English of literature, but were plain and disconnected propositions of fact, like the cuneiform inscriptions of Daryavush at Behistun.’

‘Surely,’ cried Phil, with a laugh, ‘that would be a little dull! It would be a mere lexicon. No one could get up Facciolati or Littrd as we get up Herodotus. Besides, the enormous number of propositions, each of which might fairly be called “ truth,” would make history impossible even for the most prodigious memory.’

‘You forget,’ said the tutor, ‘that we treat history in “periods” of short or, at any rate, of manageable length. Nobody has any business out of his own “period,” and if he trespasses on to another man’s “period,” he is pretty certain to be caught. The “ periods ” in our schools are far, far too long, and encourage superficial and flashy habits of reading. I remember dear old Bodley, late Professor of Palaeography, who was before your time, saying that ten years in the fourteenth century was about as much as any man should try to master. He died, poor old boy, before his great book was ever got into shape at all; and perhaps ten years is rather short for a distinct period. But it takes a good man to know as much as a century, as it ought to be known. And one of our greatest living masters in history, with enormous industry and perseverance, just manages to write the events of one year in the seventeenth century within each twelve-months of his own laborious life.’