From: joe_f@verizon.net   
      
   Martha Bridegam  writes:   
      
   > Dates matter once you've decided to pursue a subject, as you already   
   > had done in the Dalton Trumbo case. When you have a question to   
   > pursue and a reason to pursue it, then of course precise details   
   > matter, and of course you go looking for inconsistencies in detail   
   > that may indicate something bigger out of place. Yes, of course. But   
   > first, you have to become engaged in the pursuit. You have to feel   
   > the old hunter's impulse -- Sherlock Holmes' "the game is afoot."   
   > That you don't get from memorizing dates.   
      
   Well, it works both ways.  If I hadn't known that certain things   
   happened in 1939 (that horrible year when, among other things, I   
   turned two), I wouldn't have made the inference that turned out to be   
   wrong.  It is very valuable to have a memorized skeleton to hang   
   things on -- to have enough dates on hand to suggest looking up   
   further ones.  I am mostly lacking in that, and perhaps Orwell was   
   better off in some ways for having had it beaten into him.  Because of   
   the pleasing symmetry in the 17th century, e.g., I still remember the   
   chant James I, Charles I, Cromwell, Charles II, James II, William &   
   Mary, Anne, and the Georges.  But in the 19th century I am lost.   
   Mostly Victoria, I suppose.  Of course, at St Cyprian's, if Orwell is   
   to be believed, the bones in the skeleton weren't even connected.   
      
   The value of pain in learning seems to be a party question, and is a   
   vexed one for spoiled brats like me; it would be amusing to know if it   
   has ever been considered dispassionately.  That scene in _Captains   
   Courageous_ where Harvey learns the ropes at a rope's end does have a   
   certain versimilitude.   
   --   
   ---  Joe Fineman    joe_f@verizon.net   
      
   ||:  You find out what's really wrong with an idea when it  :||   
   ||:  succeeds.                                              :||   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)