30 THEOPHOBIA AND NEMESIS 



developing this view. Of course we might, and 

 in some ways should, go back to the Reformation 

 and to the destruction of religion which then 

 took place. Let us, however, pass from that period 

 to a time some hundred and fifty years ago and 

 commence our investigations there, and in carry- 

 ing them out I propose to make considerable use 

 of the novels of different periods. 



It is a truism that very little but the dry bones 

 of history can be learnt from histories. 



Nowadays people are sick of reading about 

 more or less immoral monarchs, and more or less 

 corrupt politicians, and it may be suspected that 

 most of us have had our bellyful of wars now that 

 the recent contest has come to an end. What 

 one really wants to learn from history is how the 

 ordinary folk, like ourselves, were getting on ; 

 what their ideas were ; how the world wagged 

 for them. Such information we are much more 

 likely to get from memoirs and, since such works 

 have been published, from novels. The novelist 

 is not to be supposed to be committed to accept- 

 ance of all the remarks put into the mouths of his 

 characters, but, if he is of the second, not to say 

 the first flight (and, if he is not, he is not worth 

 quoting), his characters and the general tone of 

 his book will not be out of touch with the times 

 to which they belong. Since the novel came into 

 existence as something more than an occasional 

 rarity, it is the novelists and not the players who 

 are " the abstract and brief chronicles of the 

 times," and it is to them that we shall apply for 

 some of the information we desire. 



