It is not for us to say that that
would be any better for us than to know merely what we do, for poetry
is elevating and entertaining, and stirs the heart; and who could make
poetry out of the columns of a newspaper, even though it were as old as
the times of the Pharaohs? Let us, then, be thankful for what we have,
and take the beginnings of history in the mixed form of truth and
fiction, following the lead of learned historians who are and long have
been trying to trace the true clue of fact in the labyrinth of poetic
story with which it is involved.
When the poet Milton sat down to write the history of that part of
Britain now called England, as he expressed it, he said: "The beginning
of nations, those excepted of whom sacred books have spoken, is to this
day unknown. Nor only the beginning, but the deeds also of many
succeeding ages, yes, periods of ages, either wholly unknown or
obscured or blemished with fables." Why this is so the great poet did
not pretend to tell, but he thought that it might be because people did
not know how to write in the first ages, or because their records had
been lost in wars and by the sloth and ignorance that followed them.
Perhaps men did not think that the records of their own times were
worth preserving when they reflected how base and corrupt, how petty
and perverse such deeds would appear to those who should come after
them.
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