May-Day is never allowed to pass in this community without profuse lamentations over the tardiness of our spring as compared with that of England and the poets. – Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “April Days,” 1861
The writing of histories – as Goethe once noted – is one way of getting rid of the weight of the past…. The writing of history liberates us from history. – Benedetto Croce, History as the Story of Liberty