“... of a physical crisis (appendicitis), which came on at the launch party for a friend’s novel – William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner – were interpreted as somatic manifestations of envy. But although there were gaps in his treatment, he went on seeing Kleinschmidt for five years. Then, in 1967, he discovered that Kleinschmidt had used material ...”

“... or Jesuit partiality, and from the tendency to ‘aggravate the vices of the Abyssins’ (who are Christian and to be distinguished from ‘Moors’, a word which in the Voyage usually applies to Muslims, though Johnson’s Dictionary definition in 1755 was merely ‘A negro; a black-a-moor’). He also praises the French intermediary, Le Grand. Johnson was ...”

“... where he discusses the concepts of ‘law’ and ‘grace’. Although he later states that a Christian ‘must also give due and proper respect to those above him in society’, it’s impossible not to perceive that ‘law’ and ‘grace’ are essentially irreconcilable. Inevitably, his Exposition is both political and theological, and his assertion ...”

“... that schools, churches and businesses move gradually towards reopening. Roger Severino, a Christian evangelist who is now the director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, says: ‘Governments have a duty to instruct the public on how to stay safe during this crisis and can absolutely do so without dictating to ...”

“... of the despairing wish that we could have been all-Arab, or all-European and American, or all-Christian, or all-Muslim, or all-Egyptian, and on and on. I found I had two alternatives with which to counter the process of challenge, recognition and exposure to which I felt subject, questions and remarks like: ‘What are you?’ ‘But Said is an Arab ...”

“... 17th centuries, alongside which later Viennese classicism appeared a bland retreat. When you hear William Byrd and Thomas Tallis for the first time, you don’t know where things are going; there are weird harmonies and tonal shifts, curious crooked cadences that loom suddenly from unlit verges. And such dissonances! In the cathedral, we loved to squeeze out ...”

“... his life. Frederick the Great died in 1786, to be succeeded by the notably unenlightened Frederick William II; and if the storming of the Bastille seemed to herald an enlightened age in France (‘I have seen the glory of the world,’ Kant said), the subsequent course of the Revolution was not so gratifying. A generation later, however, the amalgam of ...”

“... that ‘the summons has come.’ The Huxley boys were called back. Julia left a poignant, vaguely Christian note for her children in a notebook: ‘It is very hard to leave you all – but after these weeks of quiet thought, I know that all life is but one – and that I am going into another room “of the sounding labour-house vast of Being”’ (the ...”

“... has been largely successful). But the first festival was cancelled after only one screening (William Dieterle’s Hunchback of Notre Dame): Hitler had just invaded Poland. Two days later, France declared war on Germany. In 1946, backed by a socialist mayor, Raymond Picaud, and funded by the Confédération Générale du Travail (which still sits on the ...”

“... The Color of Truth*, the American scholar Kai Bird presents his study of McGeorge (‘Mac’) and William Bundy. These were the two dynastic technocrats who organised and justified the hideous war in Vietnam. Cold War liberals themselves, with the kept conservative journalist Joseph Alsop they formed a Three of Hearts in the less fastidious quarters of ...”

“... intended to be a serious point, but the point is made with a touch of what Forster’s friend William Plomer admiringly called his ‘lambent playfulness’, a habit characterised rather more severely by a friendly critic of Forster, John Beer, who remarks that language of this sort may war against the ‘serious point’. In an essay called ...”

“... was palpable in Holland in 1968, when the non-aligned group he was one of the leaders of, the Christian Radicals, became a political party, the Political Party of Radicals or PPR. A series of accidents led to his getting a seat in parliament and in 1973 he found himself, to his surprise, the minister for transport in a left-leaning coalition ...”

“... peddler of race science Charles Murray at events for Trinity Forum Europe, a conservative Christian charity.These men, together with other right-wing academics, reportedly began meeting in Cambridge shortly after Donald Trump’s election to discuss the threats to conservative values on campus, in particular the campaign for trans rights. Other key ...”

“... when his brother died in Indochina, Mme Simenon grieved thus: ‘What a pity, Georges, that it’s Christian who had to die.’ The residual need to please is sturdy. However, nothing in my personal or professional life pleased my mother as much as when Flaubert’s Parrot was nominated for the Booker Prize and a small photograph of her son, together with the ...”

“... new blonde, Lauren Bacall’ and concludes: About all that Howard Hawks and his writers (William Faulkner and Jules Furthman) and Bogart try to do is to set this arrogant neophyte off to the best possible advantage, to cover up her weaknesses – or turn them into assets – and to toss campstools under her whenever she wobbles. This in itself is a ...”