“... that he had completed a book, in German, which ‘solved our problems finally’. (‘This may sound arrogant,’ he said, ‘but I can’t help believing it.’)The working title of the book was Der Satz (a word that evokes not only ‘sentence’ but also ‘set’ or ‘musical movement’). It combined philosophical boldness, of a kind that Russell ...”

“... introduction to NeoRealismo: The New Image in Italy 1932-60.* The political ideology of Neorealism may have been diffuse, in some ways Catholic and in others communist, but its mission was focused. The aim was to give a presence to those who had been invisible and a voice to the voiceless: the poor, the dispossessed, the unemployed, peasants, children and ...”

“... Sandhurst. A skeleton British military presence remained behind in the Gulf. In 2016, Theresa May pledged to increase Britain’s military commitments there, ‘with more British warships, aircraft and personnel deployed on operations than in any other part of the world’. In April last year, the Royal Navy reopened HMS Jufair in Bahrain – the base had ...”

“... immediate negative impact will be smaller, areas outside the South of England and urban centres may find it considerably more difficult to adjust because they are poorer to start with. That was one lesson of the financial crisis: London and the South-East were hardest hit, but they recovered much more strongly than less affluent areas. The value of the ...”

“... in the winter’s midnight; a voice that had consecrated songs to liberty and truth. Wordsworth may still have been thriving, not least thanks to the Lowthers, who a few years earlier had set him up as distributor of stamps for Westmorland (not a sinecure; there was work involved), but to Shelley he was dead, and should be mourned: ‘Deserting these, thou ...”

“... in the Wood crave the rainy, stained and soggy. Yet the later Murdoch was a hard-line Tory, who may well have been liberal in her aesthetics but was hardly so in her politics. She had right-wing views on most topics, and lambasted the work of Derrida while having only the flimsiest notion of what it was about. Not much warm-hearted jumble there. On the ...”

“... curvaceous wooden form strung like a harp which we gaze at in dumbfounded silence. These days, it may well be a drystone wall winding between trees before burying its end in a lake, like the great Norse serpent for ever drinking the world’s waters dry. Or a cairn on a Highland headland with a fire flaming inside it. Or a longboat made of stakes and stones ...”

“... the continent is to be saved it can only be with intervention from outside. And that intervention may have to be so comprehensive that it amounts to little less than informal recolonisation. This throws a strange new light on the decolonisation process which Africa went through – and which, in most cases, must now be judged a failure. It ...”

“... weed-killers and pesticides. The left-over straw of cereal crops and other roughage that may cost little or nothing is used, too, but lactating and pregnant cows and those fast-growing steers must also be fed more costly, more protein-rich concentrates, such as maize, oats, barley, grain sorghum, wheat, beet-pulp, oilseed or soya bean ...”

“... that some of the first and fiercest episodes in the Indian Mutiny played themselves out. On 11 May, rebelling sepoys of the Bengal Army crossed the River Jumna and called on the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah to serve as their protector. Next, they turned their attention to the British civilians who clustered in the area around the church, slaughtering the ...”

“... the establishment of some higher ethical concept.’ Consciousness of his honourable calling may induce the poet to present himself as at once dignified and eccentric – epithets which catch some aspects of Empson as a social presence. Part of his eccentricity must be an interest, unshared by most literary people, in the greatest imaginative ...”

“... will find yourself back with Odysseus (‘the nautical contrivances and tactics of the ancients may be observed in daily use … the Greek seas are still as fickle as ever’); in a country cottage you will find yourself entertained by someone who could pass for Homer’s swineherd Eumaeus. ‘Even the ferocious attacks of vermin, which soon find out an ...”

“... furious kind and is instantly sacked (‘Pfired! So I’m pfucked!’). He tells his girlfriend he may be interested in someone else and dumps her: ‘I feel it would be unphilosophical to do anything but submit to my freedom.’ He flies to Ecuador. He takes a supply of Abulinix – still in phase-one clinical trials – that has been pilfered by his medical ...”

“... streets), her hours are irregular, but when she appears she works with heroic tenacity. She may show up at midnight and scrub floors until dawn. She lifts the heaviest furniture without complaint. But through all this she keeps her distance, and won’t even accept a cup of tea. Impervious to praise, indifferent to her employers, she appears to work ...”

“... pessimism. True architecture, he pursues, buildings aglow with painting, sculpture and craft, may be impossible in an age bereft of faith and tranquillity. In which case the best that can be done is to give up on style and ‘architecture’ altogether and go for good, honest building. The ending of The Seven Lamps of Architecture vibrates through the ...”