⁂ Dearest and most attentive reader of this blog, I wish you health and greetings.
While I have you here, let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt a connection with the past that goes beyond mere interest, a desire deep within the human psyche to transport oneself into that very time or era? I often find myself wishing to taste, hear, see, and experience the past in ways not altogether truly available to the professional historian, who often restrain themselves to the limited data available in the primary source materials left behind from past events, filtered through academically cultivated layers of skepticism and diction often dry as bones. Not to say that I have any bone to pick with professional historians, only that, as a reader of history, my main objective is in some way however elusive or evanescent to truly feel the past, sense the days gone by, and inhabit the moment itself that is my query. I find that the best places to try to attempt this are indeed in the primary sources of the past, the newspapers, letters, art, recipes, etc. Yet I do not want to merely analyze the past for the sake of analysis, but to experience it, in whatever way I can, to inhabit, if even possible, a moment that has long passed centuries ago.
I truly love history, and feel often more at home in historical meditation than I do this waking world. If in some way you resonate with these sentiments, I welcome you to this my humble blog. I publish weekly upon the subjects of history, Latin, and literature. Likewise, I share for free my rather eclectic novel "the Yellow Cardinal" set in the years 1765-1776 in British North America, in which I have truly attempted the feat of capturing a subjective impression of the 18th century as it may have felt to those who lived it.
In the meantime, I am your most obedient and humble servant, C.B.