Whatever affects national character and destiny, whatever
accounts for national manners or confirms individual sway, is brought
into the record. Diaries, like those of Pepys and Evelyn, the tithe-book
of a county, the taste in portraiture, the costume and the play-bill
yield authentic hints not less than the census, the parliamentary
edicts, or the royal signatures; the popular poem, the social favorite,
the _cause celebre_, what pulpit, bar, peasant and beau, doctor and lady
_a la mode_ do, say, and are, then and there, must coalesce with
the battle, the legislation, and the treaty,--or these last are but
technical landmarks, instead of human interests.
Even our most generalized historical ideas are made emphatic only
through association and observation. How the vague sense of Roman
dominion is deepened as we trace the outline of a camp, the massive
ranges of a theatre, or the mouldy effigy on a coin, in some region
far distant from the Imperial centre,--as at Nismes or Chester! How
complete becomes the idea of mediaeval life, contemplated from the
ramparts of a castle, in the "dim, religious light" of an old monastic
chapel, or amid the obsolete trappings and weapons of an armory! What
a distinct and memorable revelation of ancient Greece is the Venus or
Apollo, a Parthenon frieze or a fateful drama! The best political essays
on the French Revolution are based on the economical and social facts
recorded in the Travels of Arthur Young.
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