Now that The Old Republic's Beta Test Weekend is essentially over: Churchill on Modern Writing

"The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning. One specimen of this method will suffice:

"It is reasonably certain that a petty chieftain named Arthur did exist, probably in South Wales. It is possible that he may have held some military command uniting the tribal forces of the Celtic or highland zone or part of it against raiders and invaders (not all of them necessarily Teutonic). It is also possible that he may have engaged in all or some of the battles attributed to him; on the other [hand, this attribution may belong to a later date."

This is not much to show after so much toil and learning"

--- A History of the English-Speaking Peoples / Winston Churchill