“... more than those who had formally embraced the dominant religion, had an affinity with the ‘Christian outlook’ that saw Protestantism as more a commitment to good order than to God. Both Stern’s parents were baptised, and although he seems never to have had much interest in religion, his sister did. She insisted on going to confirmation classes in ...”

“... now rarely viewed as anything but positive. In the era of rock and roll and of Philip Glass and John Adams, it seems normal and desirable for music to aspire to be a narcotic. We live in the time of the triumph of the ‘theatrocracy’ that Nietzsche deplored, in which we can find many descendants of Wagner’s favourite dramatic form, the pseudo-spiritual ...”

“... for the Balkans: Turkey-in-Europe and Ottoman Europe. Its inhabitants were in the main white and Christian, but in important contrast to the Middle East, the region was never colonised by Western powers, which allowed it to become the repository of any manner of fantastic imaginings. Goldsworthy explores this history of Western perceptions and prejudices by ...”

“... an instance of ‘Neo-Christianity’, meaning that it was an attempt to show you could still be a Christian without believing anything in the old way. Clearly Positivism was superior to this ignominy. The review attracted much attention, as did Harrison’s forthright views on other matters. Like Mill, he wanted to bring Governor Eyre to trial for murdering ...”

“... but even here his illuminating suggestions must be weighed against the distinguished essay by John Creaser in the Lindley volume which points, heretically and convincingly, to the ‘royalism’ of Comus, or at least of the occasion for which it was written. The radicals were apparently against ‘authoritarianism’ – but who was more authoritarian ...”

“... of family continuity. It may, more crudely, reflect the fact that the range of generally accepted Christian names was remarkably small. It is much too early for judgments on this topic, or many others, to be made with any hope that they will stand. These areas of human experience demand from the historian, not only laborious study, but also a sensitivity to ...”

“... often convincingly, to Shaw’s need to wish away the intrusion into Shaw’s infancy of George John Vandaleur Lee – or, rather, the intrusion of the suspicion that Lee had been the lover of Shaw’s mother and was, perhaps, Shaw’s real father. In the teacher-pupil (or sculptor-statue) relation of Higgins to Eliza Doolittle, Mr Silver persuasively sees ...”

“... dark grey suits (no pinstripes), blue plastic helmets, heavy-duty wellies and – apart from John Prescott – full zip millennial grins. Showcased by a long-focus lens that tactfully blurs the background of industrial dereliction. Britain is Working. Handson management. Optimism. Good humour. That stuff. A cross between a hobbled moon walk and Neil ...”

“... At 2 p.m. the first trucks arrived at the Fosse Ardeatine, a cave complex south of the city, near Christian catacombs dating from the late Roman Empire. On the command of a junior SS officer, Erich Priebke, the prisoners were led in, five at a time, hands tied. They were made to kneel at the far wall, then one by one they were shot in the back of the ...”

“... architects is essentially a list (Meades likes lists) of refined barbarians. The pantheon contains John Vanbrugh, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, S.S. Teulon, William Butterfield, Frederick Pilkington, Dominikus and Gottfried Böhm, Claude Parent, Rodney Gordon, Richard Rogers (in his Gothic moods), Zaha Hadid. Sometimes, as with the Communist emulator of the style of ...”

“... enormous bills), nouvelle cuisine was christened and publicised by the journalists Henri Gault and Christian Millau, and was, in Steinberger’s opinion, a genuine attempt to overthrow Escoffier’s ‘cuisine classique’. While Escoffier had once said ‘faites simple,’ classic French haute cuisine had evolved into a practice bound by rigid rules, based on ...”

“... as there are different views about the moral character of humankind. Suppose you accept the Christian view that the essence of our nature is religious, and thus that we attain our highest ends if and only if we consecrate our lives to God. Then you will believe that, in the words of Thomas Cranmer, the service of God ‘is perfect freedom’. Or suppose ...”

“... cows, hawking bread in the streets, scaring birds, bookkeeping for the parish overseer. Like John Clare, who escaped to the woods to read ‘Sixpenny Romances’ as a child, he loved books and hid them from stern elders who equated reading with laziness. Unlike Clare, he got money for books from stealing and used to squirrel away halfpence when he was ...”

“... sensibility in her fiction. Forbearance, gratitude, humility and an obligation towards others – Christian virtues – are meant to compensate for our shortcomings. Even the restless, selfish Wilmet, eventually recognises that life is ‘a glass of blessings’ – the title of the novel she appears in. (The quotation is borrowed from George Herbert, one of ...”

“... existed in a different conceptual universe, one in which icons and images didn’t just portray Christian belief but manifested it. ‘Rolling their eyes, moving their lips, gesturing and grimacing, these automata dramatised the intimate, corporeal relation between representation and divinity, icon and saint … The icons were mechanical but neither passive ...”