The life of a people or of a class is best illustrated by its domestic scenes, or by character sketches of the men and women who form a part of it. The historian is a species of mental photographer of the life and times he attempts to portray; he can no more give the whole history of events than the artist can, in detail, bring a whole city into his picture. And so, in this record of a life that is past, I can give but incomplete views of that long-ago faded landscape, views taken on the spot. It is hardly possible to do this truthfully without bringing myself into the picture,--a solitary traveller revisiting the scenes of youth, and seeing with young eyes a city and a people living in alm…
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