Passages for reading. Read them out aloud. Paraphrase or précis them. Discuss them with friends. Does anything surprise or impress you? How does the author work your feelings? Would you use his words? How would you direct the scene in a movie — and who would your stars be?
On This Day
For Church feasts falling on September 8 in the New Style calendar, see The Feast of Nativity of the Virgin Mary and Finding of the Kursk icon.
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Abolition of Slavery
Heart-breaking tales of slavery, in which Britain played a shameful part; and heart-warming tales of Abolition, in which she played a courageous one.
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Free Speech and Conscience
Passages defending the right and obligation of every citizen to judge whatever is good and true, and to talk back to those who govern him.
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The USA
Tales from our cousins to the West, telling of their independence from Britain, their bloody civil war, and their runaway prosperity — and the slender thread by which it hangs.
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Poets and Poetry
Passages from English verse, from Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf to Shakespeare’s sonnets, Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, Kipling’s If and many more.
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Greece
Tales about the cradle of Western civilisation, from Socrates and the first democracies to the fall of the Roman Empire, the Ottoman yoke, and Britain’s part in the fight for independence.
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Discovery and Invention
Tales of scientific innovation and merchant enterprise, from steam power and life-saving medicines to new trade partners far away, and new ways to reach them.
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