Explore "On Footnotes" by Hilaire Belloc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It is pleasant to consider the various forms of lying, because that study manifests the creative ingenuity of man and at the same time affords the diverting spectacle of the dupe. That kind of lying which, of the lesser sorts, has amused me most is the use of the footnote in modern history.
It began with no intention of lying at all. The first modest footnote was an occasional reinforcement of argument in the text. The writer could not break his narrative; he had said something unusual; he wanted his reader to accept it; and so he said, in little, "If you doubt this, look up my authority so and so. " That was the age of innocence. Then came the serpent, or rather a whole brood of them.