History is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises and absurdities, and so is our knowledge of it, but if we are to report it at all we must impose some order upon it. – Henry Steele Commanger, The Nature and the Study of History

Histories used often to be stories: the fashion now is to leave out the story. Our histories are stall-fed: the facts are absorbed by the reflexions, as the meat is sometimes by the fat. – Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers