It's a fine quote and it speaks to something important that Tom M honoured. But the subject has always been a complex one for me (as Bryan's quotes suggest). I think of Tom's Arts and Crafts essay that was the first thing I ever read on gca.com and that brought me here. It is certainly based on facts/truths, but it works -- for the reader -- because Tom weaved those facts into a compelling and cohesive "narrative". And to me, as soon as something becomes a narrative it becomes somehow "other" -- not that it still can't be "history", it can; but it becomes history "plus" something else, the something else being, in my view, "meaning". I think truths, one way or another, always "lead to" meaning...and therein lies the complexity. Because as soon as we are in the realm of meaning, we are entering, I think, the realm of personal "myth" (which I'm using as a synonym for a world view, i.e. the way we makes sense of the world and our experience, or some part of it). And sometimes a personal myth that gets shared and repeated often enough starts, over time, to take on the qualities of "legend".
Peter