SOURCE: "The Conserving Myth of William Barnes," in Victorian Studies, Vol. VI, No. 4, June, 1963, pp. 325-54.

In the following essay, Forsyth probes Barnes's theme of the preservation of rural simplicity.

The view that a group of people hold towards their past is one of the controlling factors in their morals, religion, art, and intellectual pursuits, to say nothing of the sights, sounds, and actual feel of their daily experience.

Charles Frankel, "Explanation and Interpretation in History," in Theories of History, ed. Patrick Gardiner

I need not insist upon the social, ethical, and political significance of an age's image of man, for it is patent that the view one takes of man affects profoundly one's standard of dignity and the humanly possible. And it is in the light of such a standard that we establish our laws, set our aspirations for learning, and judge the fitness of men's acts...