etail.

Which of you knows not of such transformation? Do you not see with your
own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction? Half
formed by the necessities of the time, a fact is hidden in the ground
obscure and incomplete, rough, misshapen, like a block of marble not yet
rough-hewn. The first who unearth it, and take it in hand, would wish
it differently shaped, and pass it, already a little rounded, into other
hands; others polish it as they pass it along; in a short time it is
exhibited transformed into an immortal statue. We disclaim it; witnesses
who have seen and heard pile refutations upon explanations; the learned
investigate, pore over books, and write. No one listens to them any more
than to the humble heroes who disown it; the torrent rolls on and bears
with it the whole thing under the form which it has pleased it to
give to these individual actions. What was needed for all this work? A
nothing, a word; sometimes the caprice of a journalist out of work. And
are we the losers by it? No. The adopted fact is always better composed
than the real one, and it is even adopted only because it is better. The
human race feels a need that its destinies should afford it a series of
lessons; more careless than we think of the reality of facts, it strives
to perfect the event in order to give it a great moral significance,
feeling sure that the succession of scenes which it plays upon earth is
not a comedy, and that since it advances, it marches toward an end, of
which the explanation must be sought beyond what is visible.

For my part, I acknowledge my gratitude to the voice of the people
for this achievement; for often in the finest life are found strange
blemishes and inconsistencies which pain me when I see them. If a man
seems to me a perfect model of a grand and noble character, and if
some one comes and tells me of a mean trait which disfigures him, I am
saddened by it, even though I do not know him, as by a misfortune which
affects me in person; and I could almost wish that he had died before
the change in his character.

Thus, when the Muse (and I give that name to art as a whole, to
everything which belongs to the domain of imagination, almost in the
same way as the ancients gave the name of Music to all education), when
the Muse has related, in her impassioned manner, the adventures of
a character whom I know to have lived; and when she reshapes his
experiences into conformity with the