“ Stephen has confined himself exclusively to Englishmen of the past. All this shows not only how rich England has been in men, but how studiously she has accumulated and preserved her records of “the great of old.” To an extent, the same is true of our own people and the people of those other American lands which share with us that immeasurable and inextinguishable debt to the heroic sailor of Genoa, for who shall say what devotion to high causes, what courage, industry, fortitude, genius, self-abnegation, and large capacity for great affairs are not here made permanent record of? ”

“ One can see where the work might have been made even better — a remark that is true, however, of every enterprise under heaven. Thus, men have been in Congress and yet they are not here. We look often times for description, criticism, and original comments, finding only the barest, baldest facts, which, though useful and orderly enough, are as uninteresting as baskets of chips. ”

“ America is some centuries younger than the land of the Angles, Scots, Picts, and Celts, and after it had been put on the maps it was some centuries waiting to begin the work of making noteworthy history and leaving convenient records of it. Already the English dictionary has proceeded down to the tenth volume, but only to the letters “Chal,” while the American work in one volume, though of somewhat larger size, has gone still further and reached “Cran.” ”