I am far too much in doubt about the present, far too perturbed .about the future, to be otherwise than profoundly reverential about the past.

Is this true or only clever?

I am far too much in doubt about the present, far too perturbed .about the future, to be otherwise than profoundly reverential about the past.

The true historian, therefore, seeking to compose a true picture of the thing acted, must collect facts and combine facts. Methods will differ, styles will differ. Nobody ever does anything like anybody else; but the end in view is generally the same, and the historian's end is truthful narration. Maxims he will have, if he is wise, never a one; and as for a moral, if he tell his story well, it will need none; if he tell it ill, it will deserve none.

It is the Mass the matters.

History is a pageant and not a philosophy.

Given Pounds and five years, and an ordinary man can in the ordinary course, without any undue haste or putting any pressure upon his taste, surround himself with books, all in his own language, and thence forward have at least one place in the world.