The work upon which I have spent the best years of my life is at length finished. After two decades of uninterrupted toil, enlivened only by those small bickerings over minutiæ so dear to all scrupulous writers, I may perhaps be pardoned if I philosophize for a few moments on the functions of the historian.
There are, of course, two technical modes of approach, quite apart from the preparatory contemplation of the field. (This last, I might add, has been singularly neglected by modern historians. My old friend, Professor Spondee, of Halle, though deservedly eminent in his chosen lot, is particularly open to criticism on this ground. I cannot emphasize too gravely the importance of preliminary calm—what Hobbes calls "the unprejudicated mind." But this by way of parenthesis.) One may attack the problem with the mortar trowel, or with the axe. Sismondi, I think, has observed this.
Some such observations as these I was privileged to address to my very good friend, Professor Fish, of Yale, that justly renowned seat of learning, when lecturing in New Haven recently. His reply was witty—too witty to be apt, "Piscem natare doces," he said.
I will admit that Professor Fish may be free from taint in this regard; but many historians of to-day are, I fear, imbued with that most dangerous tincture of historical cant which lays it down as a maxim that contemporary history cannot be judicially written.
Those who have been kind enough to display some interest in the controversy between myself and M. Rougegorge—of the Sorbonne—in the matter of Lamartine's account of the elections to the Constituent Assembly of 1848, will remark several hitherto unobserved errors in Lamartine which I have been privileged to point out. For instance, Lamartine (who is supported in toto by M. Rougegorge) asserts that the elections took place on Easter Sunday, April 27, 1848. Whereas, I am able to demonstrate, by reference to the astronomical tables at Kew Observatory, that in 1848 Easter Day fell upon April 23. M. Rougegorge's assertion that Lamartine was a slave to opium rests upon a humorous misinterpretation of Mme. Lamartine's diary. (The matter may be looked up by the curious in Annette User's "Années avec les Lamartines." Oser was for many years the cook in Lamartine's household, and says some illuminating things regarding L.'s dislike of onions.)
It is, of course, impossible for me to acknowledge individually the generous and stimulating assistance I have received from so many scholars in all parts of the world. The mere list of names would be like Southey's "Cataract of Lodore," and would be but an ungracious mode of returning thanks. I cannot, however, forbear to mention Professor Mandrake, of the Oxford Chair, optimus maximus among modern historians. Of him I may say, in the fine words of Virgil, "Sedet aeternumque sedebit."
My dear wife, fortunately a Serb by birth, has regularized my Slavic orthography, and has grown gray in the service of the index. To her, and to my little ones, whose merry laughter has so often penetrated to my study and cheered me at my travail, I dedicate the whole. 89, Decameron Gardens.
PREFACE TO A BOOK OF POEMS
This little selection of verses, to which I have given the title "Rari Nantes," was made at the instance of several friends. I have chosen from my published works those poems which seemed to me most faithfully to express my artistic message; and the title obviously implies that I think them the ones most likely to weather the maëlstroms of Time. Be that as it may.
Vachel Lindsay and I have often discussed over a glass of port (one glass only: alas, that Vachel should abstain!) the state of the Muse to-day. He deems that she now has fled from cities to dwell on the robuster champaigns of Illinois and Kansas. Would that I could agree; but I see her in the cities and everywhere, set down to menial taskwork. She were better in exile, on Ibsen's sand dunes or Maeterlinck's bee farm. But in America the times are very evil. Prodigious convulsion of production, the grinding of mighty forces, the noise and rushings of winds—and what avails? Parturiunt montes ...you know the rest. The ridiculous mice squeak and scamper on the granary floor. They may play undisturbed, for the real poets, those great gray felines, are sifting loam under Westminster. Gramercy Park and the Poetry Society see them not.