“... philosopher Evagrius of Pontus cultivated inward prayer as an intimate pathway to God, and drew a fine distinction between meditation, which depends on external stimuli such as images and relics, and contemplation, when consciousness sinks wholly into its object and the contemplator experiences ‘nothing other than a loving, simple and permanent ...”

“... rank. But the laws were always shifting. In Leipzig, for example, where the annual trade fair drew visitors from all over the world and brought new looks from Paris and Florence and Turkey and India, there were strict regulations about ribbons and lace and silk, and who could wear an artificial braid in their hair or gold jewellery or ‘expensive belts ...”

“... Original Poetry; by Victor and Cazire, which includes some pieces written by Shelley’s sister Elizabeth, is a collection of amateurish lyrics, or ‘songs’, and Gothic fragments, as well as one wholesale plagiarism from Matthew ‘Monk’ Lewis. The presence of the plagiarised poem, probably added to fill out the volume, makes Shelley’s yearning to ...”

“... was burned in effigy while tea and cakes were served. Jane Austen, Mary Shelley and the young Elizabeth Barrett were among those who felt that as women they must support the queen. That a woman, a wife and a mother could be subjected to such public humiliation seemed to undermine both ancient ideas of chivalry and modern ones of emancipation. There were ...”

“... to construct an artificial relationship of confidence between the parties. Within a few weeks, Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, the president of the Family Division, basing herself in part on our decision, granted worldwide injunctions to prevent the tabloid press from carrying out its threats to expose the identities and whereabouts of the two boys who had killed ...”

“... when Margaret Simons, a professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, drew attention to it in her essay, ‘The Silencing of Simone de Beauvoir’. Beauvoir had offered Parshley no help; she was already hard at work on The Mandarins before he was half-way through his translation. Now Simons estimated that Parshley had cut at least ...”

“... horrible, and I almost felt that I did not want to go back – till, of course, I remembered Elizabeth Arden, my flat and the Savoy Grill.’ Reading both books in Liberia made me wonder whether hers isn’t the better. Journey without Maps is solemn and erudite; Barbara Greene’s version of the trek is clearer-eyed: ‘I knew perfectly well,’ she ...”

“... murders of William the Silent and Henri III and Henri IV of France; the attempt to poison Queen Elizabeth; the numerous plots, in both his kingdoms, on the life of James VI and I – for threats and rumours of regicide to place nations on recurrent high alert. In life and art alike, there was a special frisson to death by poison. In 1612 the death of ...”

“... public discourse in general. As Cyndia Susan Clegg writes in her studies of press control under Elizabeth and the early Stuarts, censorship had always functioned via a range of regulations and mechanisms; it was a ‘crazy quilt’ of overlapping measures (proclamations, statutes, ordinances, prerogatives) emanating from, or enforced by, ‘a disarray of ...”

“... The criticism of Humean empiricism, as Cora Diamond remarks in her preface, has always been one of Elizabeth Anscombe’s major preoccupations. It has indeed been one of her most remarkable talents to use the criticism of major philosophers with whom she is in strong disagreement to open up whole new ranges of philosophical inquiry. And in so doing she has ...”

“... as their own sovereignty, the overlordship of the peoples of the Upper Nile, but also – and here Elizabeth Monroe was almost certainly right in her excellent little book on Britain’s Moment in the Middle East – because Egypt was sick and tired of compulsory partnerships, which as in this case would bring British troops back whenever there was any trouble ...”

“... her memoirs. At one point, she considered publishing it, possibly with a preface by Mary Gladstone Drew, whose ‘spiky’ response inspired second thoughts. In the event, Margot decided to reserve her diary as a ‘hostage against misfortune, the one thing her children might be able to turn into money ... when times were hard’. Those children, ...”

“... attractive and were conscious that overseas territories such as Martinique and Guadeloupe drew such enormous advantages from their continued association with France. What killed de Gaulle’s idea was Ghana’s independence and the determination of every other Anglophone African territory to follow where Ghana had led. This meant that any African ...”

“... scholars to trace with great specificity the echoes, allusions and borrowings that this ex-slave drew upon to construct her novel’. If Crafts did get her literary education from Wheeler’s library, she was using it like a graduate student, not a slave. Critics have found echoes, thematic parallels, evocations, reminiscences and possible influences among a ...”

“... 85th birthday of Vaughan Williams, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament or the opening of Queen Elizabeth Hall, Day-Lewis obliged with an appropriate verse. These public poems are not very good: Day-Lewis was not by nature a rhetorician, and his public poetic voice was at best unconvincing, and at worst embarrassingly false (as in his unfortunate poem about ...”