Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
© Nick MacNeill, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
In Charles Dickens’s tale set around Mugby Junction, a man sees his life flash by like a ghostly train.
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By Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Charles Dickens explains the thinking behind Jesus Christ’s choice of friends.
By Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
A young English girl in Dr Johnson’s London struggles to share her gift for music.
© Olaf Tausch, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf paints a word-picture of heaven and the seraph-band that swoops and soars before the throne.
From ‘Lenin’ (1930), by F.A. Ossendowsky, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
As a last, desperate throw of the dice in the Great War, the Germans detonated an unusual kind of weapon in St Petersburg.
© Alexander Hoernigk, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Don Pedro’s brother John tries to ensure that the course of true love does not run smooth.