Pynchon-L history...

[Otto]

"Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in
Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within
the reach of anyone in Power,- who need but touch her, and all her Credit is
in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be
tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters,
Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide
her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her
beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government." (M & D, 350)