Ingersoll's Century History Santa Monica Bay Cities (Being Book Number Two of Ingersoll's Century Series of California Local History Annals), 1908, 1908a, Preface
The writing of history is not the thought or work of a day, but rather the diligent pursuance of a fixed and determined purpose. The writer of fiction may work from an inspiration based upon a fertile imagination; the newspaper writer is the chronicler of current events; the descriptive writer of travel pictures that which he then and there observes; but the historian makes a truthful record of the past, stating only that which has actually transpired. He indulges in no ideals, must be keen in discrimination, never self-opinionated or self-assertive, must be untiring in research, a faithful, patient, plodding gleaner of facts and an inherent lover of the truth. Lacking these virtues he is without his calling.