does this make me a bad historian?

[artyartie]

Do you remember my little midshipman from a few posts ago, who wrote to his father about becoming a politician?

Curious about what actually happenned to him, I googled his name, and discovered he died during the War of 1812. Today I finally read the letters of his last cruise of the Argus, and read more about his death. I'll probably make a full post on what I've found, but after reading it I just feel drained, like it was someone I knew who died, and not a 27-year-old Master Commandant who died almost 200 years ago.

My poor but very brave little midshipman.

Comments

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

You're not a bad historian - if you were you'd be pretending he didn't die.

I look forward very much to reading what you found out.

[grace-poppy.livejournal.com]

I think you're a good historian for caring so much about him. It might make you a bad statistician or something, if you were supposed to be concerned only with numbers of people killed in battle or something.

[twirlychelengk.livejournal.com]

No it does not, certainly. I think a detatched Holmes-like historian is less fun anyway.

[melroseplant.livejournal.com]

oh the middies. sad. sad. sad. I love them so!

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

Oh, middies.

You could perhaps steel yourself for extra writing by doing it in his memory?

[mayara13.livejournal.com]

That puts you ahead of some on the making history real for other people, which is what the best ones do, IMHO. Few people care about numbers, but most of us care about people, and that's what history's really about anyway, or at least, that's why I love learning about history but can't remember more dates than 1066, 1776, 1812, and 1919 (though how much I remember as to why I'd remember that number varies).