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The following text is from Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1830 short story "Sir William Phips."
Few of the personages of past times (except such as have gained renown in fireside legends as well as in written history) are anything but mere names to their successors. They seldom stand up in our Imaginations like men. The knowledge, communicated by the historian and biographer, is analogous to that which we acquire of a country by the map, -minute, perhaps, and accurate, and available for all necessary purposes, but cold and naked, and wholly destitute of the mimic charm produced by landscape painting.
Few of the personages of past times (except such as have gained renown in fireside legends as well as in written history) are anything but mere names to their successors. They seldom stand up in our Imaginations like men. The knowledge, communicated by the historian and biographer, is analogous to that which we acquire of a country by the map, -minute, perhaps, and accurate, and available for all necessary purposes, but cold and naked, and wholly destitute of the mimic charm produced by landscape painting.