Laughter, the nicest and most exciting subject
This endearing quotation is from the preface to the 16th century Treatise on Laughter (Le traité du ris) by Laurent...
My kinda cat – III
This is one memorable cat. Patrick Leigh Fermor had chance to observe the same big tom-cat every night in Athens...
Don’t try this trick at home
What a joy to read this sentence; there is no limit to the detail and originality of Thoreau's observations.
'A...
Home sweet home
In Patrick Leigh Fermor's telling of it, the Mani region of Greece comprises two harsh elements: searing sunlight and endless...
Parenting, then and now
This crisp and even cavalier telegram has a distant father allowing his four children to sail to an island...
The most miserable existence
Deprivation on the Danube, as viewed by a newly arrived governor during the Roman Empire, posted to a wine-less, olive-free...
Immortality by reading
This wonderful quotation was published in El Pais in the days following Umberto Eco’s passing. Wishing you 5,000 years of reading-endowed...
A big headache
In the age of supermodels, it was fun to read that the 17th century Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi complained to...
Freedom gained?
What is freedom? Options? Room for manoeuvre? Time? Carte blanche and blank cheques? Absence of censorship? Self-mastery? Purpose?
Recently I’ve...
As it sounded, so it looked
In the preface to his marvelous translation of Dante, Clive James mentions the poet's pithiness. I can't judge it in...
A rotting bog of security
In Kazantzakis' lively version of Christ's life, Jesus' mother wishes only that his spiritual struggles don't get in the way...
In praise of the slow, the deep and the difficult
Reading this, I am trying to figure out how to ‘restore the positive perception of certain almost lost qualities’ that...
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