296  MEMOIR  OF  RXJFUS  CHOATE.  [Chap.  IX.
like  a  range  of  statues  in  an  enchanted  hall,  starting
into  something  like  life  as  a  talisman  is  applied  to
them  successively.'

"  I  know,  too,  what  interest  and  what  value  their
historical  element  gives  to  these  fictions.  Like  all  this
class  of  fiction  in  all  literature,  their  theme  is  domestic
life,  and  nature  under  the  aspects  of  domestic  life.
But  his  is  domestic  life  on  which  there  streams  the
mighty  influence  of  a  great  historical  conjuncture.
That  interest  indescribable  which  attaches  ever  to  a
people  and  a  time  over  which  dark  care,  an  urgent
peril,  a  vast  apprehension  is  brooding  ;  a  crisis  of  war,
of  revolution,  of  revolt,  —  that  interest  is  spread  on  all
things,  the  minutest  incident,  —  the  humblest  sufferer,
—  the  conversations  of  boors  on  the  road  or  at  the  ale-
house ;  every  thing  little  or  high  is  illustrative  and  rep-
resentative. The  pulses  of  a  sublime  national  move-
ment beat  through  the  universal  human  nature  of
the  drama.  The  great  tides  of  historical  and  public
existence  flow  there  and  ebb,  and  all  things  rise  and
fall  dn  those  resistless  forces.  The  light  of  the  castle
stormed  and  on  fire  streams  in  through  the  open  door
of  some  smallest  cottager ;  and  lovers  are  kept  asunder
by  a  war  of  succession  to  thrones.
"  To  one  of  his  detractors,  let  me  say  one  word.
