Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
© Andrew Shiva, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Herbert Bury’s duties took him back to St Petersburg after the Russian revolution of 1917, but all he could think of was how it used to be.
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George Cruikshank (1792–1878), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
Piqued by the way French and German literati mocked the English, Charles Dickens urged his compatriots to be the better men.
By Fanny Stevenson, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public Domain.
Shortly after meeting Fanny Osbourne, Robert Louis Stevenson reflected on the different ways in which falling in love affects a man.
By Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Following a historic embassy in 1792-93, Chien Lung, the Emperor of China, despatched a haughty letter rebuffing King George III’s offer of trade.
By William Alexander (1767–1816), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Aeneas Anderson, who accompanied Lord Macartney on Britain’s first embassy to China, shared a tale illustrating the Qianlong Emperor’s notion of fair play.
From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
A Jewish man is left for dead by bandits, but help comes from a most unexpected quarter.