1897.] on the Picturesque in History. 321 



regard them as the most picturesque. The Great Rebellion and the 

 French Eevolution have furnished endless motives to dramatists, 

 novelists and painters, because they suggest possibilities of striking 

 contrasts, and afford available situations. The human interest is 

 then most intense, and our sympathies are most easily awakened. 



But though such times are the best for displaying individual 

 character, it may be doubted if they are the best for displaying 

 national life and national character. Indeed, they exaggerate differ- 

 ing tendencies which, in an ordinary way, work harmoniously 

 together, and force them into violent opposition. It is true that the 

 tendencies were there, that they rested upon certain ideas and made 

 for certain ends. But in the exigencies of a struggle they assumed 

 undue proportions and became one-sided through the apparent 

 necessity of denying any right of existence to the ideas opposed to 

 them. In short, national life depends on the blending of various 

 elements, and the co-operation on a large scale of efforts which, 

 regarded on a small scale, seem to be diametrically opposed. Periods 

 of revolution destroy this process, and make the apparent opposition 

 an absolute one for a time, so that the parallel between the individual 

 and the nation fails in this point. A crisis in the life of the 

 individual reveals his true character, because it compels him to 

 gather together the various elements of which that character is com- 

 posed and condense them into a decisive act. In the case of a nation 

 the contrary occurs. The crisis dissolves the bands which bind 

 national character together, and sets some of its elements against 

 others. All are equally necessary ; they must ultimately be recom- 

 bined and reabsorbed ; they do not really exist in the form in which 

 they show themselves under the exigencies of conflict. Revolutionary 

 epochs may be the most interesting, but they are not the most instruc- 

 tive. They may show us forcible characters, but these characters are 

 rarely attractive. They may emphasise natiooal characteristics, but 

 they do not show them in the form in which they really work. It 

 is true that a decisive choice will be made which elements are to be 

 dominant in the new combination. So far as those elements were 

 unknown and unsuspected before, the interest lies in discovering their 

 origin and the source whence they drew their power. The picturesque- 

 ness of revolutionary periods is really dramatic and psychological, 

 not strictly historical. 



We come back, therefore, to the position that history is pic- 

 turesque at those epochs when national tendencies are expressed in 

 individual characters, and when the consciousness of this fact creates 

 a literary study of those characters which is given in considerable 

 detail. It is worth while to go a step further, and consider what may 

 be learned from this fact. Perhaps this may best be done by 

 reference to the history of our own country, with which we are most 

 familiar. 



English history is not very picturesque. It has not produced a 

 large number of striking situations or of strongly marked characters. 



