re
and more a question of judicious selection and arrangement of fact,
rather than a mere hazarding of opinions, which, in many cases, can be
naught but conjecture, and may, in spite of any good claim to
authoritativeness, be misunderstood or perverted to an inutile end, or,
what is worse, swallowed in that oblivion where lies so much excellent
thought, which, lacking either balance or timeliness, has become
stranded, wrecked, and practically lost to view because of its
unappropriate and unattractive presentation._
_To-day, the purely technical writer may have little hope of immortality
unless he is broad-minded enough to take a cultivated interest in many
matters outside the ken of his own particular sphere. The best-equipped
person living could not produce a new "Dictionary of Architecture," and
expect it to fill any niche that may be waiting for such a work, unless
he brought to bear, in addition to his own special knowledge, something
of the statistician, something of the professed compiler, and, if
possible, a little of the not unimportant knowledge possessed by the
maker and seller of books, meaning--the publisher. Given these
qualifications, it is likely that he will then produce an ensemble as
far in advance of what otherwise might have been as is the modern
printing machine, as a factor in the dissemination of literature, as
compared with the ancient scribes working to the same end._
_The sentimentalist and rhapsodist in words and ideas is a dwindling
factor at the present day, and a new presentation of fact is
occasionally to be met with in the printed page. The best "book of
travel" within the knowledge of the writer, and perhaps one of the
slightest in bulk ever written in the English language, is Stevenson's
"Inland Voyage"--here were imagination, appreciation, and a new way of
seeing things, and, above all, enthusiasm; and this is the formula upon
which doubtless many a future writer will build his reputation, though
he may never reach the significant heights expressed by Stevenson in the
picturesque wording of his wish to be made Bishop of Noyon._
_This apparent digression into a critical estimate of the making of
books is but another expression of the justification of the writer in
the attempt herein made to set forth in attractive and enduring form
certain facts and realities with regard to the grand and glorious group
of cathedrals of Northern France._
_They have appeared as demanding something
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