History and Art

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Facts are but the Play-things of lawyers, - Tops and Hoops, for-ever a
-spin
. Alas, the Historians may indulge in no such idle Rotating.
History is not Chronology, for that is left to lawyers, - nor is it
Remembrance, for Remembrance belongs to the people. History can as
little pretend to the Veracity of the one, as claim the Power of the
other, - her Practitioners, to survive, must soon learn the arts of the
quidnunc, spy, and Taproom Wit, -that there may ever continue more than
one life-line back into the Past we risk, each day, losing our forebears
in forever, -not a Chain of single Links, for one broken Link could lose
us All, -rather, a great disorderly Tangle of Lines, long and short,
weak and strong, vanishing into the Mnemonick Deep, with only their
Destination in common.

The Revd Wicks Cherrycoke, Christ and History

    History, Literature, and the practitioners of both are tangled in
lines cast deep into Remembrance. History may be considered an objective
series of public events, and Literature may be regarded as an Art that
represents, or ignores, or fictionalizes these events. And history may
be considered a narrative, and its relation to literature may be more
reciprocal, and our sense of the nature and significance of narrative
may influence our sense of historical patterns and their meanings and
vice versa.

Pip Magwitch