that has given me so much pleasure. Every man must have relaxation; often when wearied by the austerities of my mistress Poetry I take refuge in the amiable and charming companionship of my gossip History. No, I would not kill her. What I want rather is to put an end to the courtship of History by the more boastful of the Sciences, the hectoring kill-cow Biology, for instance, or the talkative and muddle-headed pedagogue Sociology. Let her come back to her father Herodotus and dutifully accept the mate he gave her—Literature. Love and a palace; she will find nothing but bickerings and a hut with any of the Sciences. But why should I write a history of Metaphor?
Hist. I will tell you in a minute. First, let me observe that no sane historian could accept your view. History is, no doubt, a composite of many things, but the views and renderings of individual writers are only superimposed on a basis of hard fact. Fate draws the outlines of the picture, the historian is left to do the colouring, no more.
Poet. "Hard fact!" And how has fact been hardened since the days of Sir Philip Sidney? Will you allow him to introduce you to yourself? "The Historian . . . loden with mouse-eaten records, authorising himself for the most part upon other histories, whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay, having much ado to accord differing writers, and to pick truth out of partiality, better acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the present age, and yet better knowing how this world goeth than how his own wit runneth; curious for antiquities and inquisitive of novelties, a wonder to young folks, and a tyrant in table-talk, denieth in a great chafe that any man for teaching of vertuous actions is comparable to him."
Hist. We have long ago given up the pretension of teaching virtue; so that shaft misses its aim. And no doubt it is hard toestablish
