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critical art of detecting forgeries on the other
hand. To forge a book was not easy.
The Greeks, with slaves to do all their drudgery even of an intellectual kind,
polished their writings to a
point almost inconceivable to us; and to imitate
a great literary writer in any long piece was quite
impossible,— although philosophers might
be imitated. But with a short letter, the case was
different. All the forger had to do was to inform
himself minutely of all that was to be known
of a certain situation of a famous man
and he could produce a letter which the
librarians in Alexandria, while not perhaps
fully believing in it, might yet
not be willing to assume the responsibility
of rejecting. In that way, a good many letters