Historians and Historical Societies: An Address at the Opening of the Fenway Building of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April 13, 1899J. Wilson and son, 1899 - 41 pages |
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Popular passages
Page 23 - It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Page 4 - Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
Page 35 - To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way For honour travels in a strait so narrow, W'here one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue: If you give way...
Page 14 - Looking to the distant future, I do not think that the Rev. Mr. Zincke takes an exaggerated view when he says: 'All other series of events — as that which resulted in the culture of mind in Greece, and that which resulted in the empire of Rome — only appear to have purpose and value when viewed in connection with, or rather as subsidiary to, the great stream of Anglo-Saxon emigration to the West.
Page 21 - But unhappily the life of man is now threescore years and ten ; and we cannot but think it somewhat unfair in Dr. Nares to demand from us so large a portion of so short an existence.
Page 23 - It may be doubted whether this huge accumulation of materials has been an unmixed benefit to history. Undoubtedly we know many things much more thoroughly than our ancestors. Still, in reading, for example, the later volumes of Macaulay or Froude, we feel sometimes that it is possible to have too much State-paper. The main outlines, which used to be the whole of history, are still the most important, and instead of being filled up and rendered more precise and vivid, they sometimes seem to disappear...
Page 25 - Once or twice I have had occasion to follow these authorities, — authors of standard historical works, — and in so doing have familiarized myself with the topography of the scenes of action they described, and worked down as best I could into the characters of those in command, and what are known as the "original sources " of information as to their plans and the course of operations. The result has uniformly been a distinct accession of historical scepticism.
Page 26 - ... present when I spoke the words I have quoted, having done me the compliment that day to leave his office that he might listen to me. The qualifying sentence was as follows: That among men of the closet and the historical laboratory are to be found military students of profound, detailed knowledge and great critical acumen, no one would dispute; least of all we, with at least one brilliant and recognized exemplar in. our own ranks— a man who never saw an army in movement or a stricken field,...
Page 38 - ... cataloguing. The problem of the future, therefore, is not accumulation ; that is provided for. It will go on surely, and only too fast. The question of the future, so far as the material of history is concerned, relates to getting at what has been accumulated, — the ready extraction of the marrow. In other words, it is a problem of differentiation, selection, arrangement, indexing and cataloguing. To-day we are like men wandering in a vast wilderness, which is springing up in every direction...
Page 25 - Usually bookish men who had passed their lives in libraries, often clergymen, — knowing absolutely nothing of the principles of strategy or of the details of camp life and military organization, never having seen a column on the march, or a regiment in line, or heard a hostile shot, — not taking the trouble even to visit the scene of operations or to study its topography, wholly unacquainted with the national characteristics of the combatants, — these " bookish theoricks " substitute their...