ABSTRACT
To the majority of men, we think we may safely say, the study of their fellow-men is the most absorbing of all studies, the problems of human character the most fascinating of all problems. We have tried to picture to ourselves the lives of our forefathers in manor-house and cottage, in monastery and market-place, to learn how they worked and how they played, what they ate and drank, and how they dressed; but most of all we want to know what manner of men and women they were. To this question we have not yet been able to give our full attention because we have been so occupied with trying to understand the conditions under which their lives were passed, but it is time for us to turn from the consideration of their environment to look at the people themselves. We have, at intervals, caught glimpses of them, and, in passing, have ventured to make a few suggestions about their characters; but these have, of necessity, been scattered and fragmentary, and now we wish to gather them together, and to add to them some information gained from other sources, so that we may, if possible, have a clear and comprehensive conception of them. But we confess that the thought of what we are attempting to do fills us with misgivings, for we realize how difficult it is to form an accurate estimate even of the people amongst whom we live; how, then, can we hope rightly to judge those whom we have never met? We are, however, a little reassured by the remembrance that in many cases we have records of their words and actions written by themselves or their contemporaries, and that in these their character is reflected as surely as it was in their faces and their voices when they were alive. But were the difficulties of the task far greater, and the encouragement to undertake it far less, we could not shirk it, because we should leave undone that part of our work which we think most worth doing, we should omit its raison d’être, we should have set up a picture-frame without any portrait in it.
