APRIL 177 



the speaker's eloquence that he punctuates his impassioned periods 

 with 'Ah, that's true. You've got it this time, sir'; or 'Let 

 'em have it, the varmints ' ; or, ' Don't you be afraid, we'll see to 

 that.' With skill and care such a listener can be worked up by an 

 orator of experience till he becomes a fairly effective imitation 

 of the Greek Chorus. What is more, he is of considerable assistance 

 at a village meeting, since generally he is something of a reader 

 and a thinker, and represents a section of local opinion. 



Such things as accounts of political meetings of this character 

 sound trivial enough when set down in black and white, but to my 

 mind they have their interest, and perhaps those who read of them 

 a century or two hence, when everything is totally changed, will 

 be of the same opinion. How valuable to us are those scraps of 

 local information as to life and manners in past ages that chance 

 to have survived to the present day ! How eagerly do we search 

 through registers, or court rolls, or what not, to find anything of 

 human interest, anything that gives us an insight into the actual 

 life of times bygone, for, alas ! the endless processions of names and 

 dates tell but little. Why is Pepys so priceless an author if it 

 is not because, among other things, he sets ^own what he saw 

 from day to day, portraying with his pen the life about him, as 

 Hogarth portrayed it with his pencil, if in a more genial spirit ? 



Nowadays the novel is almost everything. If a matter is to be 

 read of, it must be spiced and tricked out with romance. But, 

 rightly or wrongly, I imagine that the generations to come will 

 study our facts rather than our fiction. It may be replied that if 

 they have a mind this way they can turn to the daily press of the 

 age whereof they wish to learn, but I think that the vastness of 

 such a task will appal the boldest. Doubtless commentators and 

 literary precis-writers will spring up who will boil down the events 

 of each past period for the benefit of their contemporaries, but, at 

 the best, all such narratives must lack the personal quality which 

 alone can make them entertaining. They will be to the future 

 very much what the church registers of three centuries ago are to 

 us to-day a mine for the curious to dig in and nothing more. 



N 



