Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
From the Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Alice experiences for herself the very definition of a pointless exercise.
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© David Pickersgill, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.
The cup of happiness is dashed from Jane Eyre’s lips.
© Ray Stanton, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.
The people of Lilliput are strangely small, but their ideas are bizarre in a big way.
© Chinpat, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
The great-grandson of William the Conqueror, whose knights assassinated Thomas Becket and whose family harried him to an early grave.
© Tony Atkin, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.
Brutus tells Cassius to act while everything is going his way, or be left with nothing but regrets.
© Zeynel Cebeci, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Persian star-gazers hasten to Israel for the birth of a royal heir, but find that King Herod has had his fill of them.