Though it may have been, in certain of its parts, reconstructed incorrectly and small shards are missing here and there, history, by a well-read and descriptive author, like a Grecian urn, is a spectacle to behold; like man himself -- fascinating, seductive, intriguing, and spectacular. Maybe most are like me, I enjoy observing, at a safe distance, the follies and misfortunes2 of my fellow men. An author of history must adopt a method to gratify the natural curiosity that most of us have about the bloody events of times past. History, like all literature, must be written in a lively and descriptive manner. This is necessary, so to grip and hold the reader, in an effort, veiled and concealed as it might be, to teach a lesson or moral such that the reader might modify his view of the present and his forecast of the future. This, incidentally, is the principal reason that history ought to be at the core of any scheme of education. In this light, as John Morley observed, the actual twists and turns of the great historical happenings are not so important in themselves, "except as it enables me to see my way more clearly through what is happening to-day."

While its primary allure is like that of gossip, history is important because it is the story of the collective self, the story of passionate man. Fiction, coming as it does from the imagination of some fellow human being, does not have the same attraction, at least, not for me, simply because it is not true. What I need from my reading is to learn something, and while I shortly will come to listing the lessons of history, the principal lesson is this: that while the ages and the settings change, the actors in history are guided by the same passions of human nature: there is in all histories a similarity. As Emerson wrote in his Essays: "Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations."