What I find comical is the way I write notes to myself. My inner editor always insists that these notes be decipherable by others. Do I think some future historians will someday be combing through my papers trying to unravel the mysteries of the unheralded master? It's laughable and I didn't used to do it but sometimes I find my own notations so cryptic that even I don't understand them.
  In my defense let me say this, I am totally frustrated by not being able to sit at the knee of my dear departed father and find out what his life was all about. He left no clues. When he was alive he was a stoic.
  On the other hand my GGG Grandfather left a trace in the historical record. He was a military man of mid-level importance. How fascinating and insightful it is to discover some new letter or document about him at a national archive or museum. What a great guide through the 19th century he has become.  
  How sad it is to think of the personal things he left behind that have been lost by the family. I mourn them, not for their own sake, but for the illumination they shine on the lost lessons of the past.
  I truly believe that we have no  hope of learning from the past without giving art history equal importance with political history. People who have lived through an epic have a much deeper understanding of the dynamic social forces that controlled its convolutions than do even the most diligent students. The key to tapping into that deeper understanding is to focus on art history. To ask the question: "why did the "group thinking" of these people take this turn?" is to ask "What did people really feel in those days?"