“... The new paper’s name was originally suggested, strangely enough, by the Conservative leader Arthur Balfour. He proposed the Statesman, and the New was added because a Statesman already existed in India. (It still does, and those who have been inclined to bemoan the London magazine’s fate might reflect that there are worse ones. In recent years its ...”

“... inspired by allusions in Sappho’s poetry to an Adonis-like myth about the ageing Aphrodite and a young sun deity called Phaon (perhaps identifiable with Phaethon). The legend was widely known in post-classical times through an Ovidian or pseudo-Ovidian epistle, ‘Sappho to Phaon’, and assumed a central position in almost all later responses to the ...”

“... his cousin Charles Darwin, frequented the slave markets of Constantinople; he noted how delighted young African women seemed to be at the prospect of their impending enslavement. ‘They seemed as merry as possible at the prospect of being sold,’ he enthuses, ‘and of soon finding, each of them, a master and a home.’ He also ranked women he passed in the ...”

“... were given titbits to eat by their Irish tenants, who felt sorry for them. Like children in an Arthur Ransome or C.S. Lewis novel, they rambled unnoticed around the great house and were given to taking off on their bicycles up the main road to the nearby town. It is well known in the world of fairytale and post-Freudian analysis that it is not a good thing ...”

“... about the omnivore William Buckland, who found mole more disagreeable to eat than bluebottle, and Arthur Munby, known no longer for his poetry but for his oddity of sexual taste. But the famous Furnivall predominates, seen in ‘goatish contentment’ with waitresses, in political activity, in literary quarrels, half-making, half-marring the project. James ...”

“... Cupertino and Mountain View, who have begun (it is rumoured) to flutter Democratically about her. Young-Titan Tesla guys with entrepreneurial dream-teeth and a no doubt healthy obsession with other men.(They’re good boys at heart: their artisanal leather wallets are made from 100 per cent organic Niman Ranch grain-fed beef.) The rail-thin wives should be ...”

“... was the Irish famine. In Sydney he grew up speaking the language of the oppressor. But as a young Catholic with a failure for a father he had one conspicuous advantage among his handicaps. He was educated by the Jesuits of Riverview, who even in my time were still making sure that their pupils got plenty of learning rammed into their heads along with ...”

“... In an article on Arthur Koestler written in 1944, George Orwell suggested that the lack of imaginative depth in English political fictions, when these are compared with works of European origin, may be due to the fact that the English simply lack any experience of the totalitarian state: ‘The special world created by secret-police forces, censorship of opinion, torture and frame-up trials is, of course, known about and to some extent disapproved of, but it has made very little emotional impact ...”

“... sitting by the fire during the damp Irish nights, he liked to tell us boys – my sister was too young to listen – anecdotes about Parnell, whom he admired; and tales of junks and pirates, in which he escaped from brigands or captured prizes. Such images were too vivid to last, their over-bright tints fading into the dimness of nursery-stories that ...”

“... in 1942. When Iseult finally rejected him in the summer of 1917, he decided to propose to a young Englishwoman, Georgie Hyde-Lees. He wrote to Lady Gregory: ‘I certainly feel very tired & have a great longing for order, for routine & shall be content if I find a friendly serviceable woman. I merely know – we had our talk alone two years ago – that ...”

“... Council is busy and full of students who only leave when it closes at 8 p.m., and seeing these young Italians reading English books and magazines, watching videos and generally finding this a worthwhile place to be is immensely heartening. The British Council can still be thought a bit of a joke but like the World Service it’s a more useful investment of ...”

“... Essay on Man, and Spectator articles into Italian), and at 17 met her tutor and ‘first friend’ Arthur Collier, who taught her Latin and ‘formed my mind to resemble his’: ‘A Man who engrossed my whole Heart, & deserved it. Love (as it is falsely called) had no Share in the Connection, but nobody ever did feel more fond & true affection for ...”

“... rather than come to heel. So there was something to be said for the view of Philip Baker, a bright young Foreign Office official seconded to the commission (later, as Philip Noel-Baker, to win the Nobel Peace Prize), that ‘the PMC is the most enlightened and most progressive body the council has yet created.’ And the League itself had its merits. By Lake ...”

“... later, Cranmer rammed through both houses of Convocation the declaration that Henry’s brother Arthur had ‘carnally known’ Catherine of Aragon and so Henry’s first marriage was unlawful and he was free to marry Anne Boleyn (which he had already done in secret). Within a week, the busy new archbishop had also rammed the Restraint of Appeals Bill ...”

“... punishment to one of reform. The report also recommended the development of the borstal system for young offenders and the improvement of prison educational facilities. The argument for reform, however, conflicted with ideas of female depravity. Were women truly accountable for their actions? Were they redeemable? Did they have ‘higher ...”