Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
© Theodore Scott, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Silas Marner, the weaver, plans to take a comforting look at his savings while he eats his dinner.
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By William Daniell (1769-1837), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
William Wordsworth comes back from France and realises with a shock what his own country has become.
By Adolph Tidemand (1814–1876), Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Pip receives a visitor from among the criminal classes, but his condescending attempt to play the gentleman rebounds spectacularly.
© Hari K Patibanda, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
A little anecdote about a schoolmaster who wasn’t as much of a Wackford Squeers as he appeared to be.
© ITookSomePhotos, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
A much-loved children’s poem, even if most of us struggle to remember more than a few lines.
By Edward Dayes (1763-1804), via the Yale Center for British Art and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Mr Pickwick has embarked on a tour of Kent, and this sunny morning finds him leaning over the parapet of Rochester Bridge, deep in reflection.