It is not the historian's business to be complimentary; it is his business to lay bare the facts of the case, as he understands them . . . dispassionately, impartially and without ulterior motives.
Source: Eminent Victorians, Preface 1918.
-- Lytton Strachey, (Mar 1 1880-1932), English biographer, critic; He opened a new era of biographical writing by adopting an irreverent attitude to the past, especially to the volumes of Victorian biography.