Although this isn’t universally true, I liked the idea that great changes can begin with the whispers of a few people.

From a compelling century-spanning historical fiction of the Austro-Hungarian empire from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the eve of the First World War. In fact, the change-making protagonists failed in their endeavours, but not for want of trying.

‘Mon cher ami, every great change in history began with the whispering of two or three.’

Source: Lajos Zilahy, Century in Scarlet (London: Prion, 2001), p. 81

Image credit: Changing the Letter by Joseph Edward Southall (1908), Birmingham Museums Trust at Unsplash. The subject is taken from the poem ‘The Man Born to be King’ from William Morris’s ‘The Earthly Paradise’.