“... he grows older, he becomes more attached to the values of Athens as against those of Sparta: It may seem paradoxical to add that for that very reason my admiration for the spirit and institutions of this country grew incomparably stronger in the years 1939 to 1940, when I suppose the British showed the greatest fidelity in their history to the Spartan ...”

“... stage as it was in life. ‘Dear 338171,’ Coward wrote to the shy T.E. Lawrence in the RAF. ‘May I call you 338?’ Not are Coward’s theatrical putdowns (‘AMANDA: Heaven preserve me from nice women. SYBIL: Your reputation will do that’) as bitchy as some of the real-life improvisations like ‘Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow.’ Where Coward’s humour ...”

“... for the episode. On what was Lippmann’s realism based? We must rule out the disenchantment that may come with deep reflection on experience, just as we must rule out serious scholarship or learning. He cannot be said ever to have tried to identify the sources of US foreign policy, or even to have investigated the conceptual framework in which the nation ...”

“... not even against the jovial but ineffectual President of the UNLF Government, Binaisa. In mid-May, Obote’s key supporters inside the Front, who included the Army Commander, seized power, put Binaisa under house arrest and announced that the country was being run by a Military Commission chaired by Dr Obote’s friend and old Vice-Chairman, Paulo ...”

“... stress to excel as her father’s hostess and perhaps was nicer than she sounds (as even Lizzie may have been). We should bear in mind that a niece is not on oath to her aunt. Apparently Isabella half-hoped to see her letters published and wondered whether to introduce ‘some bursts of fine writing’, an indulgence best left to Viceroys. John Keay, the ...”

“... It makes an appropriate pendant to the books on Degas. Degas’s retreat from ‘finish’ may have had something to do with failing eyesight, but looking at the drawings (he said at one point that he would have devoted his life to work in black and white if he could have done so) or the sculptures made during his last years – figures in wax not much ...”

“... the question, but Barrett’s fear of her own aggressive energies and her drastic self-containment may well have had their analogues in the histories of other 19th-century female invalids. Of course the role could be adopted to a number of ends: among the most significant compensations it seems to have afforded Elizabeth Barrett was the freedom to devote ...”

“... in any way. Robinson, the Cape Times went on, should serve as a warning: ‘those who in future may acquire great wealth in this country will shudder lest their memories should come within possible risk of rivalling the loathesomeness of the thing that is the memory of Sir Joseph Robinson.’ It is ironic now to reflect that when Rhodes died he was regarded ...”

“... middle class, and this has no doubt caused many problems. A few Asians are back although some may be enterprising newcomers from the Indian sub-continent. However, the shops are mainly African-run. Some are amazing. One goes into a sizable store which sells cloth and the first impression is that there is a grotesque number of assistants. Wrong. Maybe ...”

“... are broad hints that Mr Sloane is Kath’s adopted child. And there are slighter hints that Eddie may be the father of Kath’s adopted child. The other candidate for fatherhood is Eddie’s adolescent friend, Tommy. Problems of censorship confuse things here. Eddie’s father hasn’t spoken to him for twenty years, after finding him ‘committing some kind ...”

“... have had to settle for a grandmother who did or didn’t try to suffocate her; a foster-father who may have raped her; 12, 13 or 15 abortions; perhaps a long-lost son. Even after her death, which now seems to have become more interesting than her life, the claims of Robert Kennedy, the Communist Party and the Mafia are undecided. On every point Steinem is ...”

“... plot involves power struggles of one kind or another, and its effectiveness, in part, may be gauged by the amount of intricacy and irony that goes into it. The Power trilogy is well-endowed in this respect, with every key move having a striking outcome. However, it displays some of the defects associated with the genre. The author’s approach is ...”

“... But division is well recorded in Scots from the early 15th century on. It is possible that Lorimer may have thought of his translation as a step towards establishing what linguists call a grapholect, a national written language which is used, as English is, by speakers of a number of different dialects, though no one speaker will draw on all of its lexical ...”

“... so far as Scotland’s predicament is a product of her own attitudes and responses, Gray’s work may achieve great things: it has all the requisite sympathetic humour, critical bite and moral authority to hector, cajole and enlighten. As for the imperial forces that have robbed Scotland of a market and slighted her human resources, Gray’s protest is ...”

“... later, when naming one of his most effective poems ‘The Penny Whistle’. Arthur Ransome in turn may well have recalled that poem, which evokes a charcoal-burners’ camp at night, when in 1930 he had the four Walker children, his ‘Swallows’, meet the two Billies, an ancient man and his elderly son, at work in the woods above their holiday lake. But ...”