the quiet mind of the reader, to whom the action is presented, there is
such a repelling contrast, such a wide interval, that it is difficult,
nay, impossible for the latter, even to suspect a connexion. A gap
remains between the subject of the history and the reader which cuts
off all possibility of comparison or application, and which, instead of
awakening that wholesome alarm, that warns too secure health, merely
calls forth the shake of the head denoting suspicion. We regard the
unhappy person, who was still a man as much as ourselves, both when he
committed the act and when he atoned for it, as a creature of another
species, whose blood flows differently from our own, and whose will
does not obey the same regulations as our own. His fate teaches us but
little, as sympathy is only founded on an obscure consciousness of
similar peril, and we are far removed even from the bare suspicion of
such similarity. The relation being lost, instruction is lost with it,
and history, instead of being a school of cultivation, must rest
content with the humble merit of having satisfied our curiosity. If it
is to become any thing more and attain its great purpose, it must
choose one of these two plans: either the reader must become as warm as
the hero, or the hero must become as cold as the reader.

I am aware that many of the best historians, both of ancient and modern
times, have adhered to the first method, and have gained the heart of
their reader, by a style which carries him along with the subject. But
this is an usurpation on the part of the author, and an infringement on
the republican freedom of the reading public, which is itself entitled
to sit in judgment: it is at the same time a violation of the law of
boundaries, since this method belongs exclusively and properly to the
orator and the poet. The last method is alone open to the historian.

The hero then must be as cold as the reader or--what comes to the same
thing--we must become acquainted with him before he begins to act; we
must see him not only perform, but will his action. His thoughts
concern us infinitely more than his deeds, and the sources of his
thoughts still more than the consequences of his deeds. The soil of
Vesuvius has been explored to discover the origin of its eruption; and
why is less attention paid to a moral than to a physical phenomenon?
Why do we not equally regard the nature and situation of the things
which surround a certain man, un