Epiphany

For my independent study on British responses to the French Revolution, I am supposed to read Richard Price's "Discourse on the Love of Our Country" this week. Price's pro-revolutionary address, delivered in 1789, provoked a famous response from Edmund Burke, beginning the pamphlet war I will be studying.

To find the text, of course, I checked our library first. But it looked as if our only copy is on microfiche, and I did not want to bother with that. So I resorted to the trusty old information superhighway.

I quickly found a copy here. However, I then decided I wanted a slightly more authoritative source, so I tried Liberty Fund's Online Library of Liberty. But for some reason, I couldn't access the site. So I just printed out the Constitution Society version.

The next day, I tried Liberty Fund again. This time, I got through to its copy of Price's speech. And as I looked at that page, I made a discovery.

I already own a hard copy! Liberty Fund published the discourse in Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, which is sitting on one of my bookshelves right now.

I am not sure how to explain why this event had such significance for me. It represented vindication and hope.