Praeterita

I was in St. Augustine, Florida, last weekend, a beautiful little town on the north-eastern cost of the state. Its main claims to fame are the fortress and other buildings dating back to the mid-1500s -- quite unusual for the USA, obviously -- and the grand palaces built by several late nineteenth century robber barons such as Henry Flagler and Otto Lightner. The later buildings are impressive, actually. What turned my stomach was to see the things that Mr. Lightner put in the museum built to house his personal collection of loot. Lightner founded Hobbies magazine or some such, and the various bits of Victorian sculpture, crockery, and Pears Soap Advertisement oil paintings were clearly put together by that sort of character : the one who gets a certain reassurance by poring through catalogues of things, and feels that he has broadened his personality when he has noted down all the numbers of one particular type of train. In other words, most of the Lightner Museum's collection was...