[CRUIKSHANK] PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 7 



associated with legends that are at best doubtful, and in some in- 

 stances have been proven to be untrue. 



Even the most recent history is not wholly free from such myths 

 and legends, which have received wide circulation, and whose origin 

 can scarcely be traced. I need only refer to the fables of the "Angels 

 of Mons," of the "Crucified Canadian," and of the devastating 

 effects of "turpinite." Already two good-sized volumes have been 

 published in France dealing with the "legends, prophecies, and 

 superstitions of the Great War." 



The propensity for fabrication and exaggeration, even among 

 writers of much talent and eminence, is by no means extinct. The 

 fact that it is sometimes combined with superior abilities and attain- 

 ments, and even with a certain sense of honour, is certainly a strange 



anomaly. 



It has been said very truly that Michelet turned the whole history 



of France into a symbolical poem. 



Gabriel Monod, on leaving the Ecole Normale, before visiting 

 Italy on a journey of investigation, called to consult Taine, who was 

 already famous as a writer and a lecturer at that celebrated training 

 college. Taine in an instant revealed to the young student his own 

 method of inquiry. "Take a seat, sir," he exclaimed. "What ideas 

 are vou going to verify in Italy?" 



Taine visited England to obtain material for his last volume of 

 the History of English Literature and met Frank Palgrave, a great 

 friend of Tennyson, to whom he began talking about that poet. 

 "Was he not in early youth, rich, luxurious, fond of pleasure, self- 

 indulgent?" he asked. "I see it all," he continued, "in his early 

 poems— his riot, his adoration of physical beauty, his delight in 

 jewels, in the abandonment of all to pleasure, to wine and—" 

 "Stop, stop," cried Palgrave, impatiently, "as a young man Tennyson 

 was poor, his habits were simple as they are now, he has never known 

 luxury in your sense, and if his early poems are luxurious in tone, it 

 is because he is a poet and gifted with a poet's imagination." Tame 

 seemed disconcerted, but thanked Palgrave and went away. When 

 the book was published he found Tennyson was still panited as the 

 young voluptuary and rich profligate of Taine's imagination. 



From his youth Taine's method of composition was to seek out 

 some general idea, formulate it, and then group about it in harmony 

 the results of his later researches so far as they agreed with his theory. 



Numberless are the romantic stories which have been fathered 

 on slight authority upon Napoleon, Washington, Lincoln, Sir John 

 Macdonald, and others, and but too readily accepted by the public. 



