Here we must distinguish between the Lancelot proper and the LancelotGuenevere versions; so far as the latter are concerned, we cannot get behind the version of Chretien, - nowhere, prior to the composition of the Chevalier de la Charrette is there any evidence of the existence of such a story.
It is impossible to get behind the Christian uses, in which from the earliest times it was employed as the equivalent of the Latin sacer and sanctus.
The Azhar students not seldom enter government offices and even hold important administrative posts, but they never lose the stamp of their education - the narrow, unteachable spirit, incapable of progress, always lost in external details, and never able to grasp principles and get behind forms to the substance of a matter.
The value of the letters lies in the fact that in them we get behind Cicero and are face to face with the other dramatis personae; also that we are admitted behind the scenes and read the secret history of the times.
Where his written authorities are not palpably inconsistent with each other or with probability he accepts and transcribes their record without any further inquiry, nor does he ever attempt to get behind this record in order to discover the original evidence on which it rested.
