I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words

Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.

What it values most of all is the sum total of events and the advance of civilization, which carries individuals along with it; but, indifferent to details, it cares less to have them real than noble or, rather, grand and complete.

Of late years (perhaps as a result of our political changes) art has borrowed from history more than ever.

From this, without doubt, sprang the fable. Man created it thus, because it was not given him to see more than himself and nature, which surrounds him; but he created it true with a truth all its own.

One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact.