Two things stand out in Stevenson’s phenomenal but short life: the amount of time he was seriously ill and the amazing amount of travel he undertook in an age long before automobiles and airplanes. Stevenson wasn’t simply prone to... Read More

“Piano playing, be it ever so faultless, must not be considered sufficient.” Addressed to the Mozart performer, this is Brendel’s piece of advice in his first essay. Given that, one could say the famous pianist proceeds in the... Read More

There is a poignant silence to these photographs taken of Paris at the turn of the previous century. They are pictures of storefronts, alleys, parks, riverbanks, streetscapes, street vendors, sculptures, bridges, stairways, details of... Read More

During the first year of every new century, the ritual of the Mallard Hunt takes place in Oxford as a sort of homage to a duck found in an ancient drain in the fifteenth century. The point being, that what stands out most about Oxford is... Read More

The following accusation appears in the introduction: “We are, despite being awash in information, just as prey to misinformation, half-truths, gratifying superstitions, pleasing myths, and outright lies as any seventeenth-century... Read More

It seems fitting to do a retrospective of twentieth-century art just as the century closes, to assess our own time as we’re still in it. Which is what Lucie-Smith does in this collection of brief biographies of one hundred “great”... Read More

The term “flow” describes a state of mental absorption in which a person’s mind is so focused on a task that he or she loses awareness of both self and time. Or as writer Richard Jones describes it: “When I’m in flow, all of a... Read More

“The womb is an animal that longs to generate children. When it remains barren too long after puberty, it is distressed and sorely disturbed, and straying about in the body … it … provokes all manner of diseases.” This statement... Read More