The Eve of the Revolution; A Chronicle of the Breach with England
- Pages
- about 208
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3.8 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
In this brief sketch I have chiefly endeavored to convey to the reader,
not a record of what men did, but a sense of how they thought and felt
about what they did. To give the quality and texture of the state of
mind and feeling of an individual or class, to create for the reader the
illusion (not delusion, O able Critic!) of the intellectual atmosphere
of past times, I have as a matter of course introduced many quotations;
but I have also ventured to resort frequently to the literary device
(this, I know, gives the whole thing away) of telling the story by
means of a rather free paraphrase of what some imagined spectator or
participant might have thought or said about the matter in hand. If
the critic says that the product of such methods is not history, I am
willing to call it by any name that is better; the point of greatest
relevance being the truth and effectiveness of the illusion aimed
at--the extent to which it reproduces the quality of the thought and
feeling of those days, the extent to which it enables the reader to
enter into such states of mind and feeling. The truth of such history
(or whatever the critic wishes to call it) cannot of course be
determined by a mere verification of references.
To one of my colleagues, who has read the entire manuscript, I am under
obligations for many suggestions and corrections in matters of detail;
and I would gladly mention his name if it could be supposed that an
historian of established reputation would wish to be associated, even in
any slight way, with an enterprise of questionable orthodoxy.
Nothing of note in Parliament, except one slight day on the American
taxes.--Horace Walpole.
There were plenty of men in England, any time before 1763, who found
that an excellent arrangement which permitted them to hold office in the
colonies while continuing to reside in London.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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