man who creates and enjoys its use[389].
To apply such a mode of artistic presentation to material borrowed from more recent times, whose completed culture offers the strongest contrast to the heroic age above-mentioned, is always beset with extreme difficulty and liable to failure. Yet for all that Goethe in his "Hermann and Dorothea" has furnished us in this respect with an admirable masterpiece. Here an attempt will only be made to elucidate a few significant points by contrasting the same with a composition of similar type. Voss, in his famous romance "Louise," had depicted on much the same idyllic lines our human life and activity in a quiet circle of narrow range, if also marked with independent characteristics of its own. The country parson, the tobacco-pipe, the dressing-gown, the garden-bench, and finally our coffee-pot, have all of them here important parts to play. Coffee and sugar are, however, products, which are really here out of place; they belong to an entirely different world[390] throughout associated with all the varied ramifications of commercial and textile industries. This circle of country life is consequently not self-inclusive. In the beautiful picture of "Hermann and Dorothea" we are, on the contrary, under no necessity to demand such a consistency. As we already have pointed out in another connection, we find interwoven with the main threads of this poem, which is, no doubt, in its prevailing atmosphere entirely idyllic, the great political interests of the time, the struggles of the French Revolution, the defence of the Fatherland, asserted in a worthy way no less than with decision. The more limited scope of family life in a little country town is not so presented us as a whole which can even possibly remain in total ignorance of that mighty wave of the great world under stress of a real cataclysm of events, which is the view we are given of the pastor in the "Louise" of Voss. In Goethe's poem we have, on the contrary, by means of the interfusion of these great world-movements, within which the idyllic characters and events are portrayed, the picture of a life with a typical character of its own set in the frame of a world of more significant content; and the apothecary, who is here presented as the out-and-out Philistine, and who merely lives within the more narrow borders of that country life's surroundings, affected by that only, is excellently sketched for us with the good heart, but at the same time peevish isolation, which we find so natural. Add to this, in that which most closely touches the life of the characters thus portrayed, we find a particular emphasis laid on the fundamental aspect of this idyllic life as previously indicated in our former discussion of it. To mention one point only, we may observe that the host does not by any means drink coffee with his guests, the parson and the apothecary; on the contrary, to cite a line or two: Carefully brought in the mother the sparkling and glorious red-wine, Poured in the clear-cut glasses, with rimlets all polished of pewter, Brought in the green-coloured rummers, those goblets most fit for the Rhine-wine.
They drink in the fresh air what has been grown at home, of the '83 vintage, and withal in glasses that, as home-made, are just the right ones for Rhine-wine. A few lines further on our fancy is yet further kindled with the "streams of the Rhine river and its dearly-loved banks," and we are even introduced to the vineyard of the host behind the house itself; and, in short, there is nothing to arrest our attention outside the typical circle of a self-contented life which of its own bounty provides for its wants.
(_c_) In addition to both these types of human environment we must mention yet another in close association with which we all necessarily live. It is no other than the universally prevailing _spiritual_ surroundings of our life whether they be religious, legal, or moral, the organization of the State, that is to say, the constitution of the government, the judicial institutions, the family, the institutions of both public and private life, and all other social relations. For the ideal character is not merely to be portrayed in its relation to all that satisfies material wants, but as itself a focus of spiritual interests. It is certainly true that all that is truly substantive, divine, and essentially necessary in all these relations is fundamentally an envisagement of one reality. In the objective world, however, the forms under which this reality is manifested are various, and they are, one and all, involved in that which is wholly contingent in particular examples, and the conventional usages which are only valid for definite periods of time and distinct nations. In this variety of form all the interests of men's spiritual life receive an external embodiment of reality, with which every man is confronted in the customs, usages, and habits of society. Every man thereby, in addition to possessing a self-exclusive individuality of his own, becomes, in virtue of his association with such spiritual realities, even more a member of a whole cognate with and vital to himself than as a unit of that external world of Nature with which he is similarly conjoined. Speaking generally, we may attach to this spiritual association, of human life very much the same terms and significance we have already discussed in the foregoing sections; consequently we will for the present pass over the more detailed consideration of it, whose most important features will apply more strictly to another aspect of our inquiry, and will then be more appropriately discussed.
3. THE EXTERNALITY OF THE IDEAL WORK OF ART IN ITS RELATION TO A PUBLIC It is therefore necessary that art, as the representation of the Ideal, must embody this Ideal in all the relations to external reality we have above described, and thereby associate the inward possessions of character with the objective world. A work of art, however much in form it may be a self-including and harmonious world by itself, exists none the less as such an object, both real and particular, not _for itself_ but for such as _behold_ and _enjoy_ it, that is the Public. Actors, for example, in the representation they give us of a particular drama do not merely enter into converse with one another, but appeal directly to ourselves, their audience; and it is equally important that they make themselves intelligible under both these aspects. Every work of art is in fact a direct appeal to the intelligence of everyone who confronts it. Now it is indeed true that the real Ideal, as envisaged for us in the universal interests and passions of its gods and men, is so far intelligible to everyone as it gives us a view of its characters within some typical external world of customs, usages, and everything else that characteristically distinguishes it. But the condition of art we have above formulated makes it further necessary that this element of external reality is not merely one with which the characters thereby represented are harmoniously associated, but must be also one within which we ourselves to whom the work is addressed feel equally at home.
The appropriateness of the external environment to the characters enfolded within it must apply with equal force to our own attitude of mind in regarding both. But it so happens that from whatever period of the world's history the subject-matter of a work of art may be borrowed it will be sure to contain essential features, which are quite distinct from those which specifically determine other nations and periods. In other words artists of every description, whether they be poets, painters, sculptors, or musicians, select subject-matter from the Past, which in their particular state of culture and intelligence, ethical customs, usages, and the form of their government, differ from the civilization of the times they live in. Moreover, as we have already observed, this return upon the Past possesses the considerable advantage that in having thus recourse to memory instead of being face to face with all the facts of the present, there is an appreciable diminution of the material from which the artist selects his subject, and this he cannot readily dispense with. At the same time the artist belongs only to his own century, and it is in the ethical customs, modes of conception, and generally the intellectual outlook of that he lives. The Homeric poems Homer, to take him for once as the individual creator of both "Iliad" and "Odyssey," may have actually lived through or he may not; but in any case they are at least four hundred years later[391] than the time of the Trojan war; and further a period twice as long separates the great Greek tragedians from the days of the ancient heroes, who, as translated into the atmosphere of their own time, form the subject-matter of their poetry. It is just the same in the case of the Niebelungenlied and the artist who finally fused together the various saga which that poem contains into one homogeneous work. We may no doubt admit that the artist finds himself entirely on congenial ground when dealing with everything truly pathetic, either in the history of gods or men; but the external and actual conditions of that ancient world, whose characters and actions he endeavours to portray, have altered in essential features and become consequently strange to him. And further than this a poet creates for the sake of a Public, and primarily for his own nation and his time, both of which should be able to enter into such a work of art with intelligence, and feel at home in it. The most genuine works of art no doubt assert a further claim to immortality, a hope that they may continue to be a source of delight to all times and nations. But even in the case of works of the highest class it is none the less true that nations and times situated far away from those which produced them can only fully apprehend them with the assistance of an extensive apparatus of geographical, historical, and it may be even philosophical knowledge and the results of much critical investigation.
Bearing in mind these fundamental, and to some extent incompatible differences which characterize the various points of view from which a work of art must be regarded, the question arises what kind of form relatively to its external framework of locality, custom, usage, and generally any and every condition of religious, political or ethical significance a particular work of art should receive. Should an artist suffer his own times to pass from his mind altogether, and attempt only to secure the substantial appearance of the Past and what actually then existed, so that his work become simply a true portrayal of that; or is he not merely justified, but rather under an obligation, to pay an exclusive attention to his own nation and the life around him, elaborating his work with express regard to the principle that it should stand in harmonious relation to his own times? Or, to put the same thing in rather more technical language, we may propound the problem thus: Is the subject-matter of a work of art to be _objectively_ valid in its content as one entirely appropriate historically considered, or should such matter be treated _subjectively_, that is, in complete subordination to the artist's personal standpoint relatively to the culture and social conditions of his own time? We would rather observe that both these positions, if thus pressed unduly, land us in extreme conclusions equally false; and we propose now to examine them briefly that we may by their means elucidate a more satisfactory theory.
And we would consider three fundamental aspects which this problem suggests. We will _first_ examine what is implied in the above subjective assertion of the particular culture of the artist's own time; _secondly_, there is the question what may be regarded as exclusively and objectively true when we refer to the Past; _thirdly_, we have to consider what may still be objectively valid in the true sense, though we still have a representation and appropriation of material borrowed from a time and nationality foreign to that of the artists.
(_a_) Now to start with, if we consider this purely subjective assertion, it is obvious that when we press the position closely we are finally driven to exclude the objective embodiment of the Past altogether, and to maintain that artistic representation is exclusively concerned with the appearance of present times.
(_α_) Such a result may be doubtless, under one aspect of it, presented by mere ignorance of the Past. It is, then, rather the result of a _naïveté_, which is unable to feel the contradiction between the object itself and the representation given, or at least fails to bring the same to consciousness. Such a form of artistic presentation is therefore fundamentally due to lack of sufficient culture. We could hardly wish for a more vivid illustration of this than we find in the _naïve_ productions of Hans Sachs, who has, no doubt with a vivid freshness of imaginative vigour and spirit, as we may truly say, domesticated among us[392] our dear Lord and Father God no less than Adam, Eve, and the rest of the patriarchs. Here, for example, God the Father is portrayed as teaching a school in which Cain, Abel, and the rest of Adam's children--are the pupils, precisely as any pedagogue of the time might have done. He catechizes them upon the ten commandments and the Lord's Prayer. Abel knows his lesson as a pious and good boy ought to. Cain on the contrary behaves and replies to his teachers as only naughty and wicked boys would think of doing; and when it is his turn to repeat the commandments turns them inside out: thou shalt steal, thou shalt not honour thy father and mother, and so forth. A representation of much the same crude simplicity having for its subject the tale of our Lord's Passion used to be carried out in South Germany, was then made illegal, and has since once more been resuscitated.
In this Pilate is portrayed in the character of an insolent, rough, and arrogant official, the common soldiers much in the same familiar way our own might, offer Christ surreptitiously a pinch of tobacco; he disdains it, and they flatten it out on his nose. Vulgarity finds all the more jest in such an incident for the reason that it wholly conforms to its notions of piety and reverence, indeed calls up such feelings all the more readily through its immediate reference to that which it finds in its own world, thereby making more vivid its own sense of devotional fervour. No doubt there is a certain justification for this mode of translating, so to speak, the appearance and form of objective history into modern equivalents, such as we have found in our literature; and we may even attach a kind of greatness to the courage of Hans Sachs in making himself so familiar with God Almighty, and those old religious ideas that without the least vestige of impiety he could rivet them deep within the conditions of our most commonplace life. At the same time such an attempt is none the less a rude intrusion upon our feelings, and indicates lack of cultivation, inasmuch as it not merely disallows to the object itself a right to assert itself as it really is, but forces upon it a mode of appearance so directly contrary to that which it possesses, that the result can only impress us as an emphatic caricature.
(_β_) As an antithesis to the above type of subjectivity we find another equally supreme asserting itself out of sheer pride in its own culture under the belief that the views peculiar to its own times, its ethical customs, and social conventions are those alone worth preservation or acceptance. Owing to a bias of this kind it is quite unable to enjoy the content of a work of art until such a form of culture prevails in it. An illustration of this latter type is the so-called classical good taste of the French school. Everything that is here attempted must forthwith be Frenchified, and all that it presents under the form of any other nationality and more particularly with any reference to the Middle Ages is voted incorrect and barbarous and is cast on one side with absolute contempt. Voltaire expressed anything but the truth when he said that the French have improved the works of the ancient world. What they have done is to nationalize them; and by this process of recasting have corrupted them with every kind of foreign and angular quality of their own that such a taste as theirs could develop to any extent, requiring as it did throughout a culture absolutely based on court etiquette, and a conformity to conventional rule and generalization in both the meaning and mode of any dramatic work. Indeed, we shall find the trail of this abstraction of a superfine culture visible in the very diction of their poetry. Not a poet among them dare venture to use the word _cochon_, or add their own nomenclature to spoons, forks, and a thousand other simple objects.
Consequently we have roundabout definitions and circumlocutions. We cannot have our spoons and forks; we get instead an instrument of the hand which conveys our victuals in a liquid or arid state to the mouth; and this by no means stands alone. And with all its refinement their taste is vulgar to a degree; for the simple truth is that genuine art, so far from planing away and polishing its content to one flat and unruffled surface of generalities, is most of all anxious to set in full relief all that makes toward the well-defined characterization of life. It is on account of this very taste that the French can make less of Shakespeare than any other poet. And when they have attempted to work him up to their graces they have clipped off from him precisely that portion which we Germans find nearest to our hearts. For the same reason Voltaire makes merry over Pindar because he has made the remark, _ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ._[393] And, consequently, in their works of art they find it necessary to make Chinese, Americans, or the heroes of Greek or Roman antiquity all speak in one tongue and in one manner--that of their French court. Achilles, for instance, in the "Iphigenie en Aulide"[394] is nothing more or less than a French prince; and if we had no name to help us no one could conceivably discover one particle of Achilles in him. It is true that in the theatrical representation of this drama he was habited as a Greek, appeared at least in helmet and coat of mail; but at the same time his hair was curled and powdered, with broad hips through _poschen_[395], with red claws worked on shoes fastened on the foot with coloured ribbons; and what is more, the "Esther" of Racine was expressly popular in the time of Louis XIV, for the particular reason that Ahasuerus, on his first entrance on the stage, copied the appearance of Louis XIV himself, when he entered the great hall of audience. No doubt, in this transcript, there was a considerable admixture of the oriental luxuriance; but a Ahasuerus he was none the less fully powdered and wearing the royal mantle of ermine, and followed by a complete retinue of curled and powdered chamberlains got up thoroughly _en habit français_ with their wigs, their feathered caps under arm, their vests and hoses of _drap d'or_, with their silk stockings and red buckles on their shoes. All that the court and a select circle of the privileged few were only permitted to see _de facto_ was here open to all classes alike--the _entrée_ of the king paraded in the poet's verses. The writing of history in France is not unfrequently conducted on very much the same principle.
That is to say, history itself and the real objects of history are not the main purpose of the historian, whose interest is rather concentrated either on giving the government in vogue a lesson or teaching others how they ought to detest it. And in the same way there are a host of dramas which, either expressly throughout their entire content or in passing episodes, divert the attention to the events of the day; or, if passages occur in pieces which refer to former times presenting anything which may bear on matters of contemporary interest, the parallel or the contrast is deliberately emphasized with every expression of enthusiasm.
(_γ_) A third type of this personal treatment by the artist of his subject-matter may be sufficiently described as the separation of the same from all genuine artistic form whether it be characteristic of past or present works of art, a mode of production in fact which simply presents us with the entirely evanescent colour of "the man in the street" in his ordinary everyday action and vocation without adding aught to the same. In other words we may describe it as the bare counterpart of what the man of commonsense is conscious in the prosaic facts of life, that and nothing more. In such an atmosphere of prose no doubt everyone finds himself at home readily enough; or rather, he will only not find himself at home who takes up such a work with some definite conception of that which the very conditions of a work of art demand, and consequently is aware that it is precisely from this type of handling that Art undertakes to liberate us. Kotzebue, in his day, obtained all his popular effects through compositions of this kind, which aimed at nothing else but letting the general public both see and hear life's troubles and vexations, the pocketing of silver spoons, the risking of the pillory, or, to take particular characters, parsons, chamberlains, ensign-bearers, secretaries, and cavalry-majors, in their naked colours. Everyone might here recognize his own household, or, at least, that of some relation or friend, might see at a glance where in his own precious circumstances and aims of life the shoe pinched. An originality of this sort necessarily fails to stir any real sense or idea of that which is the vital content of a work of art, however much it may awake an interest for its productions in hearts that are wont to ask for so little and are so ready to put up with the commonplaces of so-called ethical reflections. We may conclude, then, that the artistic presentation of the facts of external reality under any one of these three types just examined is subjective in a one-sided way, that is to say, it wholly fails to present us with any adequate form of that objective world as it really exists.
(_b_) We next propose to examine a mode of presentation the reverse of the above, one which endeavours to restore us the characters and events of the past so far as may be with every local detail of their former environment no less than any and every ethical or other particular characteristic which formerly distinguished them. We Germans have particularly come to the front in this class of work. As a rule we are, in striking contrast to the French, the most painstaking recorders of all that is peculiar in nations other than our own, and consequently make fidelity to the characteristic usages, dress, weapons, and all such antiquarian detail appropriate to particular epochs and localities a first requisite of our art. Add to this we have the necessary patience to put ourselves to no end of trouble in the way of hard study in order that we may thoroughly enter into the modes of thought and perception which belong to foreign nations and centuries distant from our own, and make ourselves thoroughly conversant with all their peculiarities. This power of looking at facts from many and diverse points of view in order to both apprehend and comprehend the spirit of every kind of national existence makes us not merely tolerant in our art towards all that strikes us as exceptionally strange in foreign customs, but clamorous even to a painful degree in our insistence that we have before us accurate correspondence with objective truth down to the most insignificant detail. The French are, no doubt, full of resource and energetic, but, however highly educated and practical men they may be, such qualities do not increase, but rather diminish the patience which they possess for quiet and exhaustive study. Criticism is always of first importance with them. We Germans, on the contrary, are by nature inclined to accept any picture of real truth for what it is, and particularly this is so with foreign works of art. From whatever part of Nature's storehouse such may come, whether it is plants or other creations of foreign growth, implements of any kind or form, dogs and cats, even absurdities, we accept them all genially; and the result of this is we are able to be on excellent terms with modes of thought the most removed from our own, ay, sacrificial customs, legends of the saints and all the extraordinary follies that go with them, to say nothing of a host of other marvels equally surprising.
And for the same reasons it only appears essentially rational that in attempting to represent characters in action we should make their conversation and pursuits conformable to their own substance, that is to say, in strict accord with the times when they lived and their own national characteristics, whether regarded individually or in association with each other.
This fundamental idea that the objective truth of a work of art is established by virtue of the type of historical accuracy above described has obtained currency in comparatively recent times, mainly, that is to say, since the literary work of Frederick von Schlegel. From that time the importance of a first principle in literary criticism has attached to it; and further than this, it is asserted that our purely personal interest should above all restrict itself to the enjoyment we may derive from historical accuracy of this kind and the life it thus reproduces. Once accept these hard and fast rules and the conclusion is obvious that we are allowed no additional interest of any superior quality which an enquiry into the essential significance of any artistic content may or may not provide for us any more than we are permitted to derive any interest more vital to ourselves from aspects of such a work directly associated with the culture and aims of our own times. It is much on these lines that we find also in Germany, where the enthusiasm of Herder in this direction started a closer attention on all sides to the "Volkslied," a poetic inundation of national folk-songs imitating native tones of every sort of nationality whether it be the Iroquois, latter-day Greek, Lap, Turk, Tartar, Mongol, and many another; and, of course, it is assumed to be indicative of nothing less than first-rate genius[396] to possess the power of thus diving into the ways and ideas of other folk, and converting all we discover into poetry. At the same time it is clear that however completely your poet may work his way into and emotionally realize all this strange kind of world, it remains and must continue to remain for that public to whose enjoyment these songs are addressed as something very much aloof from it.
The truth is that such a theory, if pressed to its abstract logical conclusion, limits its boundaries solely to the truth of history in its formal accuracy, and by doing so neglects all consideration of the nature of Art's content and questions relative to its essential significance, just as it disregards every aspect of it in which the culture and resources of modern thought and contemporary life are asserted. But it is as impossible to detach ourselves from the truth implied in this theory as it is from equally important truths which it neglects; all equally claim satisfaction, and imperatively force upon us the necessity of finding a further solution in which the claims of historical truth may be reconciled with these rival aspects of truth in a very different way to that just examined. And this brings us to the third question we proposed as to the nature of that objectivity and subjectivity which can be fully sustained together as the reality to which a genuine work of art conforms.
(_c_) The point of essential importance which we should before all others wish to emphasize here is this, that no one of those various aspects of truth we have above indicated should be allowed a predominant significance such as would impair the relative force of the others; and, further, or rather notwithstanding this, historical accuracy pure and simple in external matters, such as local conditions, customs, usages, and social institutions generally, must receive in a work of art their due place, if a subordinate one, it being only right that the interest of mere historical truth should give way before that of a vitally true and imperishable content for the present no less than the past.
We cannot, perhaps, do better by way of explaining what we consider to be the true form of artistic representation than by setting up in contrast a few examples of some we take to be defective.
(_α_) Now, to start with, the presentation of the characteristic features of a given period may be entirely just, accurate, and impregnated with life, nay more, wholly intelligible to a modern audience, and notwithstanding fail to escape the ordinary atmosphere of prose, and present us with the real substance of poetry. Goethe's "Götz von Berlichingen" will alone furnish us with notable illustrations of this defect. It is only necessary to open the book at the first scene, which introduces us to an inn near Schwarzenberg in Franconia; the _dramatis personae_ are Metzler, and Sievers sitting at a table, two grooms by the fire, also the landlord.
_Sievers._ Another glass of brandy, Hans, my boy, and good Christian measure.
_Landlord._ You carry a glass that is never full.
_Metzler._ [_Aside to Sievers_.] Tell us that once again about Berlichingen; the Bambergers are in a pretty fume out there; ay, black as thunder (etc.).
The same kind of thing we find in the third Act.
_George._ [_Enters with a gutter-spout._] There you have lead and to spare; spot the target with but one half of it, and devil a soul shall get off, who is like to say to your Majesty, _Lerse._ [_Aloud._] A fine piece of metal.
_George._ The rain may take another road for all I care; a brave knight and a real good rain get through most things.
_Lerse._ [_Pours into glass._] Hold the spoon. [_Goes to the window._] There's one of those imperial cockades prowling about with his musket; they believe we have aimed a point too far.
He shall have a taste of my bullet, hot too and fresh from the pan. [_Loads._] _George._ [_Drops the spoon._] Let me have a look.
_Lerse._ [_Fires._] There lies the fool (etc.).
All this is exceedingly vivid, intelligible, depicted in perfect keeping with the situation and the characters portrayed. Yet for all that these scenes are both trivial to a degree and essentially prosaic.
All we get from either the matter or the form is just the ordinary man's way of seeing things and reality as it appears to him or rather all of us to some extent. We find the same tendency in many another of Goethe's youthful productions, which no doubt were deliberately directed against everything which previously had passed for the rule of the guild, and which sought for their most impressive effect by means of the nearness made clear to ourselves, an impression gained by the extraordinary grasp with which the poet's imagination and feeling seized upon everything. But the nearness was itself too near, and the vital content in part so petty, that such compositions ran constantly into mere triviality. We are most conscious of this kind of triviality in dramatic works when we see them on the stage; it is then that after being worked up to some excitement by all the concomitants of a theatrical performance, lights, well-dressed folk, and the rest of it, we expect to see something more than a couple of peasants, and troopers and a glass of schnapps thrown in[398]. This phase has mainly found its admirers in readers; it never had a long run on the stage.
(_β_) If we now consider our subject from an opposite point of view it may be admitted that we can sufficiently make ourselves acquainted with and assimilate the historical content of a former mythology and all that is most strange to ourselves in earlier conditions of state-life and national custom to secure through such an intimacy with, the general culture then prevailing a varied knowledge of the past. In fact, this acquaintance with the art, mythology, literature, _cultus_, and usages of antiquity is the starting point of our present system of education. Every schoolboy knows something about the gods and heroes of Greece and the prominent characters in ancient history.
It is therefore quite possible, in so far as they really enter into the imaginative life of our own times, that we may find enjoyment in the imaginative representation of such characters and interests. It is further impossible to predict whether or no such an intimacy may not be eventually carried equally as far in the case of the Indian, Egyptian, and Scandinavian mythologies. We may further observe that in the religious conceptions of all these peoples the Universal God is presented. The determinate form, however, of such conceptions, that is to say, the particular gods of Greece or India, are no longer _true_ for us as so personified. We do not believe in their existence, and the pleasure we take in them is derived from their appeal to our imagination. For this reason they stand entirely apart from our deepest emotional life, and we can imagine nothing more empty and cold than such exclamations we hear only too often in opera: "O ye gods!" or "O Jupiter!" or even "O Isis and Osiris!" And the folly of it all reaches its height when we have the wretched saws of oracular wisdom thrown in--and the opera can seldom get along without them--a position of dignity which nowadays for the first time in tragic drama is occupied by pure folly and clairvoyance.
The same criticism applies with equal truth to all other historical material relating to national customs, laws, and the like. Such historical fact is excellent in its way, but it belongs to the past; and when it has once ceased to have anything in common with present life it necessarily ceases, in spite of all our knowledge of it, to belong to us. We have, in short, no interest[399] in what has passed away on the mere ground that it once existed. What is historical can only truly be said to belong to us when it is the possession of the nation, to which we ourselves belong, or when we are able to regard the present as in a general way casually connected with the events in question, to whose continuous series the characters or actions represented are united by a bond of essential membership. For if we carefully consider the matter we shall find that the mere fact of being formerly bound together with the same external environment and