The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (8.1896)

Poet and Historian
A Dialogue
By Walter Raleigh
Scene—An Academic Grove
" A7z'7iM^ZVZ^r DfYCTM '*).
Ill met by moonlight, proud Historian!
TA'VcrTzM. I admit that in venturing out in the moonshine I
am poaching on your preserves—which you share, by the way,
with the lover and the lunatic. But 7 am not of imagination all
compact; I have lungs, and I came out to take the air. My
Tfnt<?ry 7n"%<7 Hags.
No wonder; the history of Israel is thoroughly tired of
being written. I believe the first man who learned to scratch on
wax with a bamboo style began to write a history of Israel.
Suppose you were to vary the monotony by writing a Psalm of
David. I do not understand what you are driving at. Do you
hope to supersede the Bible ?
77bt. Your ignorance appals me. As a collection of authorities
and material the Bible cannot be superseded. As a connected and
philosophical history its pretensions are slender indeed. The
nature and meaning of events, the characters of men and women,
are very imperfectly appreciated by contemporaries. I have
rehabilitated