Section V Letters from the pen of Henry George and others

Abstract

Historians consider correspondence to be an important primary source, especially when they open the heart and mind of the sender and the recipient. They may reveal motives too deep for the spare writings of public discourse. But a historian must deal objectively with material that, in its spontaneous emotion, can be more deceptive than revelatory. And at times, it can be an intrusive undertaking, especially with love letters. An observation by the prominent nineteenth-century American historian Francis Parkman bears heeding:Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them. He must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes [or reads]. (Bartlett & Beck, 1968, p. 721)

Citation

(2009), "Section V Letters from the pen of Henry George and others", Wenzer, K.C. (Ed.) Henry George, the Transatlantic Irish, and their Times (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 27 Part 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, p. 485. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-4154(2009)000027B013