Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
By Christian Wilhelm Allers (1857–1915), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
On realising that he had the edge on his rivals, music publisher John Brand moved quickly to secure one of Haydn’s peerless Quartets.
Read
© Yair Aronshtam, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
While the owner is away, the men he has hired to tend his vineyard conspire to seize it for themselves.
By William Brassey Hole (1846-1917), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Agricola, tasked with subduing the people of Britain to Roman colonial government, persuaded them to wear servitude as a badge of refinement.
© 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.
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.