“... the theologically orthodox doctrine Of eternal punishment of the damned? Let’s see. There may be sand among the pages Of a travel guide to Egypt or even a dead flea That once bit the ass of the mysterious Abigail Who scribbled her name teasingly with an eye pencil. June Evening The way that bat brushed my hair, It ...”

“... in ‘Mark Stafford’s Wife’ she is imitating Henry James, in ‘The Wheat’ she is imitating May Sinclair and in ‘The Fatal Fidelity’ she seems to be having a shot at W.W. Jacobs. Her first story, ‘Passed’, is the most impulsive and interesting of the lot. The subject is guilt. A respectable young woman hardens her heart when a prostitute appeals ...”

“... be thought to belong to a modern world in which ghosts need to be explained, and in which they may be explained as symptoms of a disordered mind, of ‘nerves’ and exhaustion. ‘He had been working very hard lately.’ This man, in 1911, a painter haunted by a model knocked down in the Fulham Road, had been expecting something, and ‘was enough of a ...”

“... flow.The problem is compounded by the often contrasting forms of competence in play. One writer may be an accomplished biographer, but without any real expertise in the field in which their current subject worked. Another may be a fellow specialist working on the same material and issues as their subject, but lacking any ...”

“... Passion and scholarship may enhance each other’s effects,’ E.M. Forster noted in his Commonplace Book with A.E. Housman in mind. Forster was always keen to reduce the incompatibles in life: Housman was less persuaded by such redemptive harmonies. He preferred the losing paradoxes to the winning ones: ‘ “Whoever shall save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life shall find it ...”

“... with the infirmities of old age.’ She is indeed ready to die, and it is a difficulty that Justin may feel that he has to do the same. In the Sudan she declares: ‘My time is up.’ She is infatuated with a handsome police chief, goes rather grimly to bed with him in the time he can spare from gambling sessions, and then kills herself. Justin goes back to ...”

“... Every year on 8 May, a young woman dressed in armour and carrying a white banner rides in procession through the streets of Orléans in north-central France. Dignitaries of Church and State join in commemorating an event and a life. The event is the French relief of the city, after months of siege by the English, in 1429; the life is that of Joan of Arc, a 17-year-old girl from Lorraine told by heavenly voices to go ‘into France’ and to rescue Orléans ...”

“... antithesis of globalisation it functions very differently: autonomous areas or spheres of activity may constitute local alternatives to capitalism and so limit its extent, but they are not incompatible with its continuation. In terms of political theory this is significant: ‘immunity from the service of capital’ (as Hobbes might have put it) is one, today ...”

“... enormous variations in languages, there are ‘unshakeable structures’ that ‘the casual eye’ may miss (the casual eye could be forgiven for thinking that hippos is hardly a ringer for as´va), but not the eagle-eyed Indo-Europeanist. West promises to spare us the technical details, but there is no other way to do the job right, and in fact he gives us ...”

“... were about its bias against the Tories and against the prime minister in particular – which may come as a surprise to anyone who observed the venting of Labour voters on Twitter (it may simply be that Tories are more likely to write to the manager). The BBC News website, however, remained the most visited news source ...”

“... in a recording studio and a band fronted by the Mael brothers is ready to work. They ask ‘So, may we start?’ and then, for the next four and a half minutes, sing a song called ‘So May We Start’ accompanied by the leading actors. This isn’t quite the beginning of the movie, since we have already heard Carax tell ...”

“... on earth that I had Covid-19 in the middle of March, that I had a positive antibody test in May and that I’m probably no more vulnerable than he is. But the letters keep coming. I somehow failed to become a statistic last year.I had hoped that proof I’d had the virus would be cause for celebration, perhaps some envy, and a thorough loosening of the ...”

“... a lot harder than we usually do about what it means to bear or bring up a child, and what a child may need to know or dream about its parents. In a wonderful scene, which I won’t describe in detail because I’d be giving too much away, the major issue becomes that of talking to children who are too young to understand speech of any kind. What do you say to ...”

“... figure at her side. It was an impression that Willy himself did nothing to discourage and may even have nurtured. He managed with consummate ease to give a sense of perfect loyalty and to induce, simultaneously, the niggling thought of what she’d be getting up to if he weren’t around. It was an impressive piece of political juggling. Now that the ...”

“... they might have been, considering Gabriele’s flat was raided by the Vatican gendarmerie on 23 May and several boxes of stolen documents were confiscated), but Nuzzi soon gets down to business. In May 2009, Dino Boffo, the editor of the Catholic paper Avvenire, suggested that Silvio Berlusconi ought to lead a more sober ...”