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Doing research with primary documents is an exciting process of discovery when the research is open to
the unexpected. I had just begun my work on America's lost generation of the 1920's, when I discovered
a batch of letters to F. Scott Fitzgerald from some woman named Sarah. "Dear Scott," I began to read, "I've
generally said to you what I've thought and it seems another of those moments. You ought to know at
your age that you can't have theories about friends. If you can't take friends largely and without suspicion
then they are not friends at all. I can't fight you on paper, but there are several very loose stones
in your basement rocking the house. Love, Sarah." Wow! Who was this outspoken woman I wondered? Maybe
Scott wrote letters to her in return. So began the seductive journey of research; one thing leading
to another and another. I discovered that Sarah and Gerald Murphy had left America for France to live
at their Villa America, where most of the prominent artists of the day gathered to talk about life and
art. "It was like fiesta," Earnest Hemingway said, "and everyone was so young." The joy of research has
to do with the quest for connections that reveal life's mysteries. The American writer, Henry James
said, "Be someone on whom nothing is lost". I hope you will join me this year in pursuit of those documents
of our lives that will reveal to us our very selves.