The great Lord Acton once complained that Bishop Creighton treated morals far too lightly in his historical works. No doubt, fundamentally, Lord Acton was right. But it is a question of energy: to exhaust oneself in disapproval wastes so much, and—since all those strange figures are dead—does no good. No living person is likely to be improved by denunciations of phantoms, and as for the phantoms themselves, what purpose does condemnation serve? “Shrilling on the wind,” they go by; there is something a little comic in trying to rebuke them. Besides, it encourages us to think that we are better than they.
Charles Williams James I
But we find such a thrill in pointing out the real (or merely unfashionable) crimes of historical figures. Plus, they're safely dead, and can't refute you.
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