Un Paquet de Lettres [A Packet of Letters] (French)

Un Paquet de Lettres [A Packet of Letters] (French)

Droz, Gustave

Paris: Havard, 1880

1880

“A slight approximation to the veracious glimpses of history artistically presented, which I am indicating, but applied only to an incident of contemporary life is “Un paquet de lettres” by Gustave Droz. For want of such real, minute vision of how changes come about in the past, we fall into ridiculously inconsistent estimates of actual movements, condemning in the present what we belaud in the past, and pronouncing impossible processes that have been repeated again and again in the historical preparation of the very system under which we live. A false kind of idealisation dulls our perception of the meaning in words when they relate to past events which have had a glorious issue: for lack of comparison no warning image rises to check scorn of the very phrases which in other associations are consecrated.” “Historic Imagination.” Leaves from A Notebook (1868), p. 302 

Droz, Gustave, Un Paquet de Lettres [A Packet of Letters] (French), George Eliot's Reading, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/57334

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