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Updated: June 14, 2025
They have written a history in stone, from which a thoughtful student can supply much that is left out by the dry-as-dust annalists, for it is not only the history, but the actual result and expression, of the lives of the most gifted men of the Middle Ages. If we would read this history aright it is necessary that we should look at it as far as possible, as it was originally published.
"But the executors might have something to say regarding such an action," I remarked. "Executors be hanged! I saw them this morning, a couple of dry-as-dust old fossils city men, I believe, who only think of house property and dividends. Our duty is to solve this mystery. The executors can have their turn, old chap, when we've finished. At present they haven't the key, or any notion where it is.
History would be a very orderly affair, could the dry-as-dust historians have their way, and doubtless it would be thrillingly romantic at every turn if the novelists were able to control its current.
The long cramming of Hebrew, Greek, Latin and all things dead had driven out all the vim and enthusiasm of his youth; the dry-as-dust drill of the theological institution had filled his mind with arguments for the destruction of all other denominations to the entire exclusion of all common sense.
The sermon began one of those orthodox, old-fashioned, dry-as-dust sermons often heard in village churches, a discourse which sets out with a small point in Bible history, not having any obvious bearing upon modern thought or modern life, and discusses, and explains, and enlarges upon it with deliberate scholarship for about half-an-hour, and then, in a brisk five minutes, endeavours to show how the conduct of Ahab, or Jehoram, or Ahaziah, in this little matter, was an exact counter-part or paradigm of our conduct, my dear brethren, when we, etc., etc.
I tell you I tried hard enough; tried yes, slaved night after night; scribbling articles for those infernal magazines, to get my manuscript returned with thanks after nearly a twelve-month's detention; spelling over dry-as-dust briefs for a guinea fee, in order to post up some bloated Queen's Counsel, who treated me as if I were dirt, and pretended not to know my name.
It is this change of scene that makes French history so appealing to those who might otherwise let it remain in shut-up and dry-as-dust books on library shelves.
How I hated the great Joseph G. and the Spenserian metre, with its exacting demands upon the rhyming faculty. How I hated my own ignorance of modern Italian history, and my own eyes for never having looked upon Italian landscape, whereby historical allusion and local colour were both wanting to that dry-as-dust record of heroic endeavour.
He was a patient student, a faithful observer, a writer who did not begrudge time and care to the composition of large books on medicine, yet withal he was no dry-as-dust scholar, but eminently human in his sympathies with ailing humanity, and a strenuous upholder of the dignity of the profession to which he belonged.
"Good-by, old Dry-as-dust," he called with a wave of the hand and a rather sinister smile. "For God's sake no drink, Jerry!" I whispered tensely. "I promise," he said solemnly. "Good-by!" And while I watched, he swept noiselessly around the drive and was soon lost in the blur of the trees below. I walked slowly toward the terrace in the shadow of the trees, deep in bewilderment.
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