on the objector, in the case of a Historical Romance we allow
ourselves to be hoodwinked, for, under the influence of a pseudo-
historic security, we seem to watch the real sequence of events in
so far as these affect the characters in whom we are interested.
How we seem to live in those early years of the Eighteenth Century,
as we follow Henry Esmond from point to point, and yet, in truth,
we are breathing not the atmosphere of Addison and Steele, but the
atmosphere created by the brilliant Nineteenth Century Novelist,
partly out of his erudite conception of a former period, and partly
out of the emotions and thoughts engendered by that very
environment which was his own, and from which he could not escape!

Well, to all such criticisms it seems to me there are ample
rejoinders. In the first place it must be remembered that History
itself possesses interest for us more as the unfolding of certain
moral and mental developments than as the mere enumeration of
facts. Of course, I am aware that the ideal of the Historian is
Truth utterly regardless of prejudice and inclination, but, as with
all other human ideals, this one is never fully realised, and there
is ever that discrepancy between Fact and its Narration to which I
just now alluded. This being so, I would ask--Is not the writer of
Fiction justified in emphasising those elements of History which
have a bearing on life and character in general? There is,
doubtless, a wise and an unwise method of procedure. One novelist,
in the very effort to be accurate, produces a work which--being
neither History nor Fiction--is simply dull; while another, who has
gauged the true relation between fact and imagination, knows better
than to bring into prominence that which should remain only as a
background. After all, there are certain root motives and
principles which, though they vary indefinitely in their