. Pictures of travel; . ed inwriting, so that he seldom found his like. But Herr Nieder-kirchner would not believe that he was a Prussian, and ex-claimed, with a compassionate smile, Oh, get out! Heinsisted on believing that Immermann was a Tyroler, andthat he had fought in the war—How else could he haveknown all about it ? Strange fancies these of the multitude! They seek theirhistories from the poet and not from the historian. Theyask not for bare facts, but those facts again dissolved in theoriginal poetry from which they sprang. This the poets wellknow, and it is not without a certain misc
. Pictures of travel; . ed inwriting, so that he seldom found his like. But Herr Nieder-kirchner would not believe that he was a Prussian, and ex-claimed, with a compassionate smile, Oh, get out! Heinsisted on believing that Immermann was a Tyroler, andthat he had fought in the war—How else could he haveknown all about it ? Strange fancies these of the multitude! They seek theirhistories from the poet and not from the historian. Theyask not for bare facts, but those facts again dissolved in theoriginal poetry from which they sprang. This the poets wellknow, and it is not without a certain mischievous pleasurethat they mold at will popular memories, perhaps in mockeryof pride-baked historians and parchment-minded keepers ofstate documents. Greatly was I delighted when, amid thestalls of the last fair, I saw the history of Belisarius hangingup in the form of coarsely colored engravings, and those notaccording to Procopius, but exactly as described in Schenks INNSBRUCK. Photogravure from a photograph. <v ,. MUNICH TO GENOA 211 tragedy. So history is falsified! exclaimed a pedanticfriend who accompanied me, it knows nothing of a slan-dered wife, an imprisoned son, a loving daughter, and the likemodern fictions of the heart! But is this really an error ?Must suit be at once brought against the forger? No, Ideny the accusation! For they give the sense in all itstruthfulness, though it be clothed in inverted form and circum-stance. There are races whose whole history has only beenhanded down in this poetic wise, such as the Hindus. Forsuch lays as the Mahabharata give the sense and spirit ofIndian history far more accurately than any writer of com-pendiums could with all his chronology. From the samepoint of view, I would assert that Walter Scotts romancesgive, occasionally, the spirit of English history far moretruthfully than Hume has done; at least, Sartorius was verymuch in the right when he, in his supplement to Spittler,places those romances among English histor
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