ABSTRACT
IN the web of the national life there are many threads, each of which forms a story in itself, and which, in a philosophic history, would be dealt with separately. Time, too, sweeps away a multitude of matters which were thought important in their day. It is usual to believe that it is the unessential which disappears, but it is quite possible that time is arbitrary and haphazard, and that trivial things sometimes remain while creative facts pass into oblivion. A chronicle like this must contain many things which the future historian will ignore, and among them facts may be dismissed in a word which later generations will regard as landmarks of history. But the daffodil still blooms when the empire has passed away and is forgotten, and who is to say which is the more important?
