iven an aspect of grandeur to a
class of composition unjustly regarded as of the second rank. Is it not
really more difficult to compete with personal and parochial interests
by writing of Daphnis and Chloe, Roland, Amadis, Panurge, Don Quixote,
Manon Lescaut, Clarissa, Lovelace, Robinson Crusoe, Gil Blas, Ossian,
Julie d'Etanges, My Uncle Toby, Werther, Corinne, Adolphe, Paul and
Virginia, Jeanie Deans, Claverhouse, Ivanhoe, Manfred, Mignon, than
to set forth in order facts more or less similar in every country,
to investigate the spirit of laws that have fallen into desuetude, to
review the theories which mislead nations, or, like some metaphysicians,
to explain what _Is_? In the first place, these actors, whose existence
becomes more prolonged and more authentic than that of the generations
which saw their birth, almost always live solely on condition of their
being a vast reflection of the present. Conceived in the womb of their
own period, the whole heart of humanity stirs within their frame, which
often covers a complete system of philosophy. Thus Walter Scott raised
to the dignity of the philosophy of History the literature which, from
age to age, sets perennial gems in the poetic crown of every nation
where letters are cultivated. He vivified it with the spirit of the
past; he combined drama, dialogue, portrait, scenery, and description;
he fused the marvelous with truth--the two elements of the times; and he
brought poetry into close contact with the familiarity of the humblest
speech. But as he had not so much devised a system as hit upon a manner
in the ardor of his work, or as its logical outcome, he never thought of
connecting his compositions in such a way as to form a complete history
of which each chapter was a novel, and each novel the picture of a
period.

It was by discerning this lack of unity, which in no way detracts from
the Scottish writer's greatness, that I perceived at once the scheme
which would favor the execution of my purpose, and the possibility of
executing it. Though dazzled, so to speak, by Walter Scott's amazing
fertility, always himself and always original, I did not despair, for I
found the source of his genius in the infinite variety of human nature.
Chance is the greatest romancer in the world; we have only to study it.
French society would be the real author; I should only be the secretary.
By drawing up an inventory of vices and virtues, by collecting the
chief facts of the pass