But the men of learning are never satisfied till they annex the world. Still, if you are willing to extend yet further your conception of History, and to give up your besetting sin of politics for a time, I think we may come to terms, for I agree with something of what you say. If all other branches of knowledge, all the arts and all the sciences, all the religions and all the philosophies, are chiefly important as food for history, do not exclude your own pursuit. Write a History of History. Then we shall see how much of your vaunted stability you really can claim. We shall see whether Herodotus, Josephus, Matthew of Paris, and Gibbon were really employed at the same work, or whether it would not be better for History to drop the pretence of being a branch of exact learning, and to speak frankly of a Livy or a Michelet just as the picture dealer speaks of a Correggio or a Greuze. As for the philosophies, I make you a present of them; and the sciences, although no doubt they are useful, have not been long enough admitted within the circle of polite learning to have worn off their insolence and dulness—they are sadly underbred. I quite agree with you that books upon the origin of species ought to be included in a public library, chiefly that the curious of future generations may ascertain, if they are so minded, what the nineteenth century thought upon that question. But what do you say to my proposal? Will you write a History of History?
Hist. I will do so on one condition only. Will you write a history of Metaphor?
Poet. Certainly not. Why?
Hist. The object of your proposal seems to be to compel me to take the sting out of my own pursuit, or, like the scorpion, to turn on myself with it and commit suicide. Am I right?
Poet. More or less. But suicide is the wrong word. I should be sorry—no one sorrier—to be the death of a species of writingthat
