Early On The Next Morning

In The Middle Of The Sixteenth Century, Spain Was The Incubus Of Europe. Gloomy And Portentous, She Chilled The World With Her Baneful Shadow.

Four Men Are Missing; R., Sorel And Two Emigrants. They Set Out This Morning After Buffalo, And Have Not Yet Made Their Appearance; Whether Killed Or Lost, We Cannot Tell.

Faithfulness To The Truth Of History Involves Far More Than A Research, However Patient And Scrupulous, Into Special Facts. Such Facts May Be Detailed With The Most Minute Exactness, And Yet The Narrative, Taken As A Whole, May Be Unmeaning Or Untrue. The Narrator Must Seek To Imbue Himself With The Life And Spirit Of The Time. He Must Study Events In Their Bearings Near And Remote; In The Character, Habits, And Manners Of Those Who Took Part In Them. He Must Himself Be, As It Were, A Sharer Or A Spectator Of The Action He Describes.

The Monk, The Inquisitor, And The Jesuit Were Lords Of Spain,- Sovereigns Of Her Sovereign, For They Had Formed The Dark And Narrow Mind Of That Tyrannical Recluse. They Had Formed The Minds Of Her People, Quenched In Blood Every Spark Of Rising Heresy, And Given Over A Noble Nation To A Bigotry Blind And Inexorable As The Doom Of Fate. Linked With Pride, Ambition, Avarice, Every Passion Of A Rich, Strong Nature, Potent For Good And Ill, It Made The Spaniard Of That Day A Scourge As Dire As Ever Fell On Man.

France Built Its Best Colony On A Principle Of Exclusion, And Failed; England Reversed The System, And Succeeded.