Explore "Landtakers: The Story of an Epoch" by Brian Penton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When the historian reviews the chain of circumstances leading up to any given fait accompli he is moved to pity and contempt. The wilful blindness, the exaggerated fears, the stupid miscalculations of the obvious that have kept the actors running round in circles, starting at their own shadows, over and over again passing by, deliberately it would seem, the very thing they are looking for. They are not so much like wanderers lost in a fog as like children playing some macabre game of blindman's buff on the edge of a precipice. But, after all, how little the historian can understand. For him it is all a static picture, whereas for each of those frenzied creatures there was a multitude of conflicting hopes and longings to be reconciled within the unalterable space of each minute's sixty seconds.
-"Could McGovern have changed his mind? Could he not intend to do them harm?" So Emma questioned herself when another fortnight had passed in peace. The propitious moment for blackmail would soon be gone.