Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 01 (of 15), American (1)

Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 01 (of 15), American (1)

It has become a commonplace remark that fact is often stranger than fiction. It may be said, as a variant of this, that history is often more romantic than romance. The pages of the record of man's doings are frequently illustrated by entertaining and striking incidents, relief points in the dull monotony of every-day events, stories fitted to rouse the reader from languid weariness and stir anew in his veins the pulse of interest in human life. There are many such,dramas on the stage of history, life scenes that are pictures in action, tales pathetic, stirring, enlivening, full of the element of the unusual, of the stuff the novel and the romance are made of, yet with the advantage of being actual fact. Incidents of this kind have proved as attractive to writers as to readers. They have dwelt upon them lovingly, embellished them with the charms of rhetoric and occasionally with the inventions of fancy, until what began as fact has often entered far into the domains of legend and fiction. It may well be that some of the narratives in the present work have gone through this process. If so, it is simply indicative of the interest they have awakened in generations of readers and writers. But the bulk of them are fact, so far as history in general can be called fact, it having been our design to cull from the annals of the nations some of their more stirring and romantic incidents, and present them as a gallery of pictures that might serve to adorn the entrance to the temple of history, of which this work is offered as in some sense an illuminated ante-chamber. As such, it is hoped that some pilgrims from the world of readers may find it a pleasant halting-place on their way into the far-extending aisles of the great temple beyond. The year 1000 A.D. was one of strange history. Its advent threw the people of Europe into a state of mortal terror. Ten centuries had passed since the birth of Christ. The world was about to come to an end. Such was the general belief. How it was to reach its end,whether by fire, water, or some other agent of ruin,the prophets of disaster did not say, nor did people trouble themselves to learn. Destruction was coming upon them, that was enough to know; how to provide against it was the one thing to be considered. Some hastened to the churches; others to the taverns. Here prayers went up; there wine went down. The petitions of the pious were matched by the ribaldry of the profligate. Some made their wills; others wasted their wealth in revelry, eager to get all the pleasure out of life that remained for them. Many freely gave away their property, hoping, by ridding themselves of the goods of this earth, to establish a claim to the goods of Heaven, with little regard to the fate of those whom they loaded with their discarded wealth. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 16298
Author: Morris, Charles
Release Date: Jul 15, 2005
Format: eBook
Language: English