Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
By Edmund Blair Leighton (1852–1922), Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Every Sunday, the Englishman is raised to heaven by the choir, and then taken to her bosom by Mother Earth.
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© AJD, Geograph. CC BY-SA 2.0.
The Tudor mansion of Compton Wynyates is full of secrets and puzzles, some macabre, some downright peculiar.
By Gerard van Honthorst (1592-1656), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
David, fresh from another close encounter with Saul’s men, shares his advice for living a charmed life.
British School, ca. 1600, via the Royal Collection and Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Hamlet cannot understand what his mother could possibly see in his uncle Claudius.
© PaulTurner, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.
John Galsworthy shared his unease at the rise of two competing forms of national speech.
By Abid, son of Aqa Riza (fl. 1600s), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
The dazzling throne of the Mughal Emperors has vanished from history, but not before Abdul Hamid Lahori had seen it.