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Historians are not writing fancy school essays; what they have to say is before them, and will get itself said somehow, being solid fact; their task is to arrange and put it into words; they have not to consider what to say, but how to say it. The historian, we may say, should be like Phidias, Praxiteles, Alcamenes, or any great sculptor.
The historians of that period relate that the idolatrous Russians were so terrified by this display of the divine displeasure that they immediately sent embassadors to Constantinople, professing their readiness to embrace Christianity, and asking that they might receive the rite of baptism.
I shall be able to call them all by name, to tell of the things they did and why they did them, and to connect their deeds with the world as it now is. I can't conceive of any picture-show equal to that, and all through my year with Shakespeare I shall be looking forward eagerly to my year with the historians.
The Angel of Death moves at no laggard pace when once he begins his march with his sword drawn in his hand. Thus far I have been quoting from, or referring to, authorities which are accessible to any one with an adequate command of books at his elbow the chroniclers and the historians named, the Foedera, the Rolls of Parliament, and such authorities as whoever chooses may consult for himself.
They esteem Plutarch highly, and were much taken with Lucian's wit, and with his pleasant way of writing. As for the poets, they have Aristophanes, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles of Aldus's edition; and for historians Thucydides, Herodotus and Herodian.
It is from them and their historians chiefly that the complaints of Iroquois cruelties have descended to us; but the same historians have not omitted to inform us that the first acquaintance of the Iroquois with triese colonists was through two most wanton and butcherly assaults which Champlain and his soldiers, in company with their Indian allies, made upon their unoffending neighbors.
Even when the king was scarcely so powerful as many of his chief feudatories, the great advantage which he derived from being but one has been recognized by French historians. To him the eyes of all the locally oppressed were turned; he was the object of hope and reliance throughout the kingdom, while each local potentate was only powerful within a more or less confined space.
Some historians credit Charles with deep and sinister designs, such as raising a vast Slav Empire to counter the growing ascendancy of Germany. This seems rather nonsensical. Charles was a good King of Bohemia, albeit German by race and French by upbringing, and was doing his best for his country.
No one can say in how far it is possible for man to advance in this way toward an understanding of the laws of history; but it is evident that only along that path does the possibility of discovering the laws of history lie, and that as yet not a millionth part as much mental effort has been applied in this direction by historians as has been devoted to describing the actions of various kings, commanders, and ministers and propounding the historians' own reflections concerning these actions.
Diaz, one of the historians of the events, who was present at the combat, expressed the astonishment felt by the Spaniards at the desperation with which the despised Mexicans had fought. "The Mexicans," he said; "fought with such ferocity that if we had had the assistance of ten thousand Hectors, and as many Orlandos, we should have made no impression on them.
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