Dauntless

On All Hallows' Eve, we remember the departed saints. It is a good alternative to Samhain.

The late and nearly-sainted Dauntless has long been a hero of mine; my great-grandfather was his student. But writing about him is difficult for that very reason. What can one write about one's heroes?

One duty of the historian is to tell the truth as much as it can be discovered. Another duty is to keep discerning how much truth there is in the truth, and how much cover remains to be discovered.

The first is a narrative duty; the second is an investigative one. The historian is a journalist of the past, with the frequent disadvantage that sometimes the sources are all dead and gone, whether human or otherwise.

And so a month after Adobe's commission, I am still mulling about whether the narrative I am telling about the Dauntless really is the truth — whether it is sufficient, whether it is adequate, whether it is correct, whether it is biased. Blah. And blah, blah, blah.

I want it to be true. Does that make me guilty of bias?