“... of habituation form a prominent feature of Johnson’s moral writings. And in the same connection David Rawlinson has invoked those ‘compunctious visitings of nature’ which, Lady Macbeth recognised, need to be forestalled when stern business is afoot. Though they lived in violent times, the Macbeths were not habituated to the killing of ...”

“... in well-stocked libraries. A way of life that is in most essentials the exact opposite of a David Lodge novel, so that few of us care that the rest of the world smiles condescendingly at our shabby clothes, battered bicycles and collapsing brief-cases. And it is the job satisfaction that has gone. An increasing proportion of our time is devoted to ...”

“... had ‘already given wide currency to not fewer than 125 separate texts’. Another referee, David Masson, wrote that, ‘by his own unaided exertions’, Arber had ‘accomplished labours of editing and reprinting, such as might have tasked the united efforts of several Publishing Societies’. A surprising number of minor works are still only easily ...”

“... Most recent books in English on Argentine history are on economic history. On looking them over, readers who are not economic historians will probably reach the same conclusion as did J.O.P. Bland (better-known as the unwitting partner of the forger Sir Edmund Backhouse, the ‘Hermit of Peking’) after conscientiously preparing himself for a visit to the River Plate in 1916: ‘From the library catalogue point of view, the subject might well seem to have been exhausted ...”

“... At an opposite extreme is the kind of behaviour on which the American paedophiliac liberationist David Sonnenschien gives advice: ‘Most very young or small kids cannot and should not be penetrated by an adult penis or a dildo. Sometimes a finger is OK, but even with a finger lubrication is recommended. And watch those fingernails!’ On a purely ...”

“... ruthlessness in those pursuits. The Oxford first in History, accomplished with the guidance of David Hogarth, later a senior archaeological colleague, then a fellow officer, included a study of Crusader castles done in the field, which involved an examination of the Syrian citadel, Krak des Chevaliers, then little-known in Britain. This suggests ...”

“... particularly at the top. And shortly before the cabinet reshuffle the then employment secretary, David Hunt, actually spoke to the unions for the first time since anyone could remember. What that portended, of course, we will never know, since Mr Hunt has been replaced by the narrowest ideologue in the government; but it is unlikely that Mr Portillo will ...”

“... an opportunity to remark that he himself always bore the stigmata of an underclass. According to David Garnett, his hair was ‘of a colour, and grew in a particular way, which I have never seen except in English working men ... incredibly plebeian, mongrel and underbred ... He was the type of the plumber’s mate who goes back to fetch the tools ... the ...”

“... he felt the paper was becoming entirely an instrument of its owner’s business ambitions. So did David Leigh, the paper’s investigative reporter, who refused throughout to touch stories sourced by Rowland, even if he thought they were true. The clearest proof that all is not yet lost is this book ...”

“... of course highly topical. The publication of Aristocrats has more or less coincided with that of David Cannadine’s Aspects of Aristocracy: Grandeur and Decline in Modern Britain, which follows some of the themes of his earlier book, Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy. Tillyard’s modishly-titled contribution is an enormous account of four ...”

“... have heard’). ‘Barbara,’ Edmund Wilson decided, ‘is really a bad lot’: so bad that when David Pryce-Jones came to write his memoir of Connolly he thought it best to say nothing about her at all. On the other hand, it is part both of her disobliging character and its attraction that in compiling her own memoirs she does nothing to minimise her ...”

“... the contorted oaks and blasted trunks of the great Romantic – and Christian – painter, Caspar David Friedrich, and the drawings of his lesser contemporaries such as the illustrator of fairy-tales, Moritz von Schwind. There are enigmatic cherubim lurking in the vegetation, and Poe-like ravens and other birds of ill omen in the branches; the sulphurous ...”

“... entirely false. Joshua was not in hospital. When, after one specially unnerving inquiry, Benn rang David English, Daily Mail editor and Thatcher knight, to protest, he was told that the editor was at home, and could not be disturbed. Such double standards are the stuff of national newspaper editors. But where did the rumour originate? Perhaps from the same ...”

“... wavered in his view about how to defend them. Looking back over his work, Barry explains that like David Hume before him, Rawls has tried two arguments. The first, to which he’s been attracted, Barry believes, because it’s promised to produce a determinate result, is Glaucon’s, the argument from mutual advantage: we can gain more from co-operating with ...”

“... for military staffs to prepare war plans, or for governments to hint at the use of military force. David Spring shows that Russian leaders knew they had good political, financial, military and social reasons to avoid war, and that their hesitant moves towards army mobilisation were intended only to underscore a firm diplomatic stand, and to deter. The French ...”