ying to shock his correspondent, in showing how naughty he could be.
One feels the same kind of shock as if one had gone to see the
Professor on serious business, and found him riding on a rocking-horse
in his study, with a paper cap on his head. There is nothing morally
wrong about it; but it appears to be silly, and silliness is out of
place behind a gown and under a college cap.

But the Biography of Bishop F---- opens up a further and more
interesting question, which I feel myself quite unequal to solving. One
has a respect for erudition, of course, but I find myself pondering
gloomily over the reasons for this respect. Is it only the respect that
one feels for the man who devotes patient labour to the accomplishment
of a difficult task, a task which demands great mental power? What I am
not clear about is what the precise value of the work of the erudite
historian is. The primary value of history is its educational value. It
is good for the mind to have a wide view of the world, to have a big
perspective of affairs. It corrects narrow, small, personal views; it
brings one in contact with heroic, generous persons; it displays noble
qualities. It gives one glimpses of splendid self-sacrifice, of lives
devoted to a high cause; it sets one aglow with visions of patriotism,
liberty and justice. It shows one also the darker side; how great
natures can be neutralised or even debased by uncorrected faults; how
bigotry can triumph over intelligence; how high hopes can be
disappointed. All this is saddening; yet it deepens and widens the
mind; it teaches one what to avoid; it brings one near to the deep and
patient purposes of God.

But then there is a temptation to think that vivid, picturesque,
stimulating writers can do more to develop this side of history than
patient, laborious, just writers. One begins to be inclined to forgive
anything but dulness in a writer; to value vitality above accuracy,
colour above truth. One is tempted to feel that the researches of
erudite historians end only in proving that white is not so white, and
black not so black as one had thought. That generous persons had a
seamy side; that dark and villainous characters had much to be urged in
excuse for their misdeeds. This is evidently a wrong frame of mind, and
one is disposed to say that one must pursue truth before everything.
But then comes in the difficulty that truth is so often not to be
ascertained; that documentary evidence is incomple