No one who takes the study of history seriously would argue that there are lessons in his death that in any practical sense could make a jot of difference. Part of the difficulty is not the remoteness of the death but that the human situation is simply too complex. The reason for studying history lies somewhere else. Think of the dying man dragged into a long boat, his life's blood redder than the crimson umbra of an eclipsed sun. One compelling answer is the story.
History is about imagining.
Imagine Alice farewelling her father and turning away as so many did. Or imagine Cook. But history allows us to wonder what it is we have done and what it is we could do. For history asks us to imagine those secret facts of human experience, of what we have made and unmade. Such a study of our past gives significance to yesterday and meaning to tomorrow because with history it becomes possible to think even of the future and accept with courage that what we are now will pass as surely as those yesterdays have passed.