We were not very anxious to undeceive
him, as the illusion gave him pleasure and did him good. Bolingbroke
says, after an ancient author, 'History is philosophy teaching by
example.'[10] With equal truth may we say that fiction, like that of
Maria Edgeworth, is philosophy teaching by emotion. It certainly
taught old G------ to be a better man, to leave much of the little
evil he had been in the habit of doing, and to do much of the good he
had been accustomed to leave undone.
Notes:
1. December 5, 1835, The date is misprinted '3rd' in the original
edition. See note 2 to last preceding chapter, p. 110.
2. A good view of the precipices of the Kaimur range, the eastern
continuation of the Vindhyan chain, is given facing page 41 of vol. i
of Hooker's _Himalayan Journals_ (ed. 1855).
3. The author's theory is untenable. He failed, to realize the vast
effects of sub-aerial denudation. All the evidence shows that the
successive lava outflows which make up the Deccan trap series
ultimately converted the surface of the land over which they welled
out into an enormous, nearly uniform, plain of basalt, resting on the
Vindhyan sandstone and other rocks.
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