"You have to study a great deal to know a little."
Pensees et Fragments Inedits de Montesquieu
This cedar tree stands beside our neighbors' house. We have a companion on our side of the shared driveway. I once heard that people planted cedars near houses of our vintage for the good luck they were supposed to bring. American Indians held them to be sacred. The morning sun lights this shot and makes it easy to see the wound the tree suffered during a winter storm a year and a half ago. Years of exposure have bleached some of its red bark to a silvery gray.
I've done a set of posts reproducing parts of this diary and giving notes on people, places, and events that it names. The author was an aristocrat in England writing just before the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Married to an ambitious politician who opposed the government's coercive actions leading up to that rebellion, she was an articulate, self-confident, and intellgent witness to the major events and lesser incidents of her time. Here are links the posts: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh. I've also done the following posts giving what little I can surmise about her from reading the diary, the biography in which it's reproduced, and the few other sources that refer to her: Diary of Lady Shelburne -- Une belle Ladi Sensée, Diary of Lady Shelburne -- The Life of Sophie and William, and Diary of Lady Shelburne - Thomas Coulican Phoenix.
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