diligence, accuracy, love of
truth, impartiality, the thorough digestion of his materials by careful
selection and long meditating, and the compression of his narrative into
the smallest compass consistent with the life of his story. He must also
have a power of expression suitable for his purpose. All these
qualities, we have seen, were possessed by Thucydides and Tacitus; and
we have seen furthermore that, by bringing to bear these endowments and
acquirements upon contemporary history, their success has been greater
than it would have been had they treated a more distant period. Applying
these considerations to the writing of history in America, it would seem
that all we have to gain in method, in order that when the genius
appears he shall rival the great Greek and the great Roman, is thorough
assimilation of materials and rigorous conciseness in relation. I admit
that the two things we lack are difficult to get as our own. In the
collection of materials, in criticism and detailed analysis, in the
study of cause and effect, in applying the principle of growth, of
evolution, we certainly surpass the ancients. But if we live in the age
of Darwin, we also live in an age of newspapers and magazines, when, as
Lowell said, not only great events, but a vast "number of trivial
incidents, are now recorded, and this dust of time gets in our eyes";
when distractions are manifold; when the desire "to see one's name in
print" and make books takes possession of us all. If one has something
like an original idea or a fresh combination of truisms, one obtains
easily a hearing. The hearing once had, something of a success being
made, the writer is urged by magazine editors and by publishers for
more. The good side of this is apparent. It is certainly a wholesome
indication that a demand exists for many serious books, but the evil is
that one is pressed to publish his thoughts before he has them fully
matured. The periods of fruitful meditation out of which emerged the
works of Thucydides and Tacitus seem not to be a natural incident of our
time. To change slightly the meaning of Lowell, "the bustle of our lives
keeps breaking the thread of that attention which is the material of
memory, till no one has patience to spin from it a continuous thread of
thought." We have the defects of our qualities. Nevertheless, I am
struck with the likeness between a common attribute of the Greeks and
Matthew Arnold's characterization of the Americans.