Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/25

Rh to this or that statement, and then pass on to the more attractive and, in some sense, easier task of examining the writings of the man of whom we know so little. He may tell his readers that these dry bones are all that now remain of a form that was once noble in its perfection; that these mere outlines, more than half effaced, are all that Time has spared of the picture of a living man. For such a course he has a sufficient defence. He cannot give more than he has received. He cannot construct the life of a great man out of his moral consciousness.

Or he may venture on another and more hazardous task. He may attempt, as far as in him lies, to make the dry bones live, and to fill up the outlines. He may gather round the man of whom he speaks the scenery and the incidents of his time,—may ask his readers to estimate, and seek to estimate himself, the effect which contact with given men, familiarity with given places, the thoughts that were passing through men's minds around him, the political changes of his country, actually had, or may be supposed to have had, on a mind and character such as the writings of poet or philosopher show that he possessed. Of these two modes of treatment, it has been thought right, not without some hesitation, to attempt the latter. If, on the one side, the work is more interesting, and the result more life-like, there is, on the other, the risk at every step of substituting conjecture for fact,