Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
From the Tyne and Wear Archives. Public domain.
... I heard John Wesley sing. A visitor on the quayside on Sunday May 30th, 1742, would have stumbled into a crowd agape and a determined clergyman singing psalms.
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© Sailko, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
The words of the ancient Athenian lawmaker, on the limits of legislation, sucking up to dictators, and the crime of lounging about.
© Nigelj, Wikimedia Coommons. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Many problems in life and society would be eased if we were better at reading characters — especially our own.
By Achille Beltrame (1871-1945), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Governor Pitiorek assured the heir to the Austrian Empire that Bosnians rarely tried to murder the same man twice in one day.
© Tilemahos Efthimiadis, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Now that King Odysseus has failed to return from the Siege of Troy, the earls of Ithaca are eager to marry his lovely widow.
By Alex Bassano, published 1885. Public domain.
Frances Colenso admired the gallantry of the men who defended the fort at Rorke’s Drift, and the restraint of the men who attacked it.