Historical Essays

AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 TO THE FINAL RESTORATION OF HOME RULE AT THE SOUTH IN 1877
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1909 All rights reserved
Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1909.
Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
In offering to the public this volume of Essays, all but two of which have been read at various places on different occasions, I am aware that there is some repetition in ideas and illustrations, but, as the dates of their delivery and previous publication are indicated, I am letting them stand substantially as they were written and delivered.
I am indebted to my son, Daniel P. Rhodes, for a literary revision of these Essays; and I have to thank the editors of the Atlantic Monthly , of Scribner’s Magazine , and of the Century Magazine for leave to reprint the articles which have already appeared in their periodicals.
Boston, November, 1909.
President’s Inaugural Address, American Historical Association, Boston, December 27, 1899; printed in the Atlantic Monthly of February, 1900.
My theme is history. It is an old subject, which has been discoursed about since Herodotus, and I should be vain indeed if I flattered myself that I could say aught new concerning the methods of writing it, when this has for so long a period engaged the minds of so many gifted men. Yet to a sympathetic audience, to people who love history, there is always the chance that a fresh treatment may present the commonplaces in some different combination, and augment for the moment an interest which is perennial.
The Achilles of Homer was a very living personage to Alexander. How happy he was, said the great general, when he visited Troy, “in having while he lived so faithful a friend, and when he was dead so famous a poet to proclaim his actions”! In our century, as more in consonance with society under the régime of contract, when force has largely given, pay to craft, we feel in greater sympathy with Ulysses; “The one person I would like to have met and talked with,” Froude used to say, “was Ulysses. How interesting it would be to have his opinion on universal suffrage, and on a House of Parliament where Thersites is listened to as patiently as the king of men!”