A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales

The se historical novels have taught all men this truth, which looks like a truism, and yet was as good as unknown to writers of history and others, till so taught: that the bygone ages of the world were actually filled by living men, not by protocols, state-papers, controversies, and abstractions of men.

这些历史小说教会了所有人一个真理，这个真理看起来像是老生常谈，然而直到被教导之前，历史学家和其他人都几乎不知道：过去的世界实际上是由活生生的人填充的，而不是由协议、官方文件、争议和人的抽象概念填充的。

Well, it seems to me that, parallel with this experience, is that which we gain, when, reading some first-rank romance, we encounter in its pages a figure with which History has made us more or less familiar.

嗯，我觉得，与这种体验并行的是，当我们阅读一些一流的小说时，我们在书中遇到一个我们或多或少熟悉的历史人物时所获得的体验。