Mind Reader

Among the boxes that Conrad Black purloined from his 10 Toronto Street office all those many months ago, and now soon to be on display in Room 1241, is a file marked simply: “Musings.” Could this be the Rosebud we’ve been hoping for? Is this the file wherein Lord Black reveals to the world his innermost intimate contemplations on what its like being, well, Him. The very word promises the deep thoughts of a worldly, historical mind in active repose. (Not for the great man the more pedestrian “miscellaneous.”) One can only guess at their contents. What Napoleon might have done differently to turn things around at Waterloo? Where we might be had Patton marched on to Moscow? Whether the Nixon advance will be enough to cover Barbara’s new Manolos? If and when that file is opened it will no doubt offer a glimpse, per Wordsworth, into “a mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.”