to give up the quest and turn aside to paths
where pioneers have cleared the way. There, at least, the whereabouts of
that fabulous well is known and the plummet is ready to hand.
Nevertheless, I resolved to struggle through with my task, in the
consciousness that the work of a pioneer may be helpful, provided that
he carefully notches the track and thereby enables those who come after
him to know what to seek and what to avoid.

After all, there is no lack of guides in the present age. The number of
memoir-writers and newspaper correspondents is legion; and I have come
to believe that they are fully as trustworthy as similar witnesses have
been in any age. The very keenness of their rivalry is some guarantee
for truth. Doubtless competition for good "copy" occasionally leads to
artful embroidering on humdrum actuality; but, after spending much time
in scanning similar embroidery in the literature of the Napoleonic Era,
I unhesitatingly place the work of Archibald Forbes, and that of several
knights of the pen still living, far above the delusive tinsel of
Marbot, Thiebault, and Segur. I will go further and say that, if we
could find out what were the sources used by Thucydides, we should
notice qualms of misgiving shoot through the circles of scientific
historians as they contemplated his majestic work. In any case, I may
appeal to the example of the great Athenian in support of the thesis
that to undertake to write contemporary history is no vain thing.

Above and beyond the accounts of memoir-writers and newspaper
correspondents there are Blue Books. I am well aware that they do not
always contain the whole truth. Sometimes the most important items are
of necessity omitted. But the information which they contain is
enormous; and, seeing that the rules of the public service keep the
original records in Great Britain closed for well-nigh a century, only
the most fastidious can object to the use of the wealth of materials
given to the world in _Parliamentary Papers_.

Besides these published sources there is the fund of information
possessed by public men and the "well-informed" of various grades.
Unfortunately this is rarely accessible, or only under conventional
restrictions. Here and there I have been able to make use of it without
any breach of trust; and to those who have enlightened my darkness I am
very grateful. The illumination, I know, is only partial; but I hope
that its effect, in respect to the twilight o