ABSTRACT
There is a strange discrepancy between the living picture of history in the making and the smooth record in the classified accounts. We see a big parade of “heroes,” but their companions who have inadvertently missed the opportunity to deliver a historic phrase or fire the first shot are refused admittance. There’s nothing to be said about them. Yet even the stern British lawmakers speak of the “incorporeal hereditaments” and place them alongside the marketable heirlooms. Modern biographers-our recent visitors Emil Ludwig for one, André Maurois for another-boldly inquired into the living soul of the past in order to restore the balance. On their pages the Valhalla of the great was enriched by a picturesque legion of “the unknown.” The obsolescent magic lantern gave way to the cinematographic camera, the still picture began to move.
