t readers would
interpret it differently. Some might see in it nothing but a sally in a
woman's quarrel, reading it with the accent of mere spite and
irritation. Then the tragedy, not perhaps without historic truth, would
be reduced to a loud comedy. Other interpreters might find in the
phrase the whole feudal system, all the chivalry, legality, and
foolishness of the Middle Ages. Then the drama would become more
interesting, and the poor queen's cry, while that of a mind
sophisticated and fanatical, would have great pathos and keenness. To
reach sublimity, however, that moment would have to epitomise ideals
which we deeply respected. We should have to believe in the sanctity of
canon law and in the divine right of primogeniture. That a woman may
have been very unhappy or that a state may have been held together by
personal allegiance does not raise the fate of either to the tragic
plane, unless "laws that are not of to-day nor yesterday," aspirations
native to the heart, shine through those legendary misfortunes.

It would matter nothing to the excellence of Schiller's drama which of
these interpretations might have been made by Mary Stuart herself at any
given moment; doubtless her attitude toward her rival was coloured on
different occasions by varying degrees of political insight and moral
fervour. The successful historical poet would be he who caught the most
significant attitude which a person in that position could possibly have
assumed, and his Mary Stuart, whether accidentally resembling the real
woman or not, would be essentially a mythical person. So Electra and
Antigone and Helen of Troy are tragic figures absolved from historical
accuracy, although possibly if the personages of heroic times were known
to us we might find that our highest imagination had been anticipated
in their consciousness.

[Sidenote: History exists to be transcended.]

Of the three parts into which the pursuit of history may be
divided--investigation, theory, and story-telling--not one attains ideal
finality. Investigation is merely useful, because its intrinsic
ideal--to know every detail of everything--is not rational, and its
acceptable function can only be to offer accurate information upon such
points as are worth knowing for some ulterior reason. Historical theory,
in turn, is a falsification of causes, since no causes are other than
mechanical; it is an arbitrary foreshortening of physics, and it
dissolves in the presence eit