Books · Monarchies · Observations · Humour
Even as a child, reading this book, I was struck that after the Battle of the Alma the Duke of Cambridge says: "Another such victory, and England will have no army", and on the very next page the death of Nicholas I is reported. True, five and a
NB! · Books · Society · Humour
Please do not put library books in the microwave to kill coronavirus. The labels may catch fire. Amen
Archive · Books
Zhukovsky should be ashamed of himself; how am I worse than Princess Charlotte, that he should not write me a line in three years. Is it true that he is translating the Giaour? And I, at my leisure, am writing a new poem, Yevgeny Onegin, in which I am choking
Art · Books
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol. I
Architecture · Faith · Books · Observations
On my way to Zvenigorod and to Mozhzhenka I kept passing Bolshiye Vyazyomy, but could never bring myself to go and see it, though it lies quite close to Golitsyno station. One day, on a lovely spring morning, I got off the train and strolled over to the estate. I
Books · Paris
Ticket click. Cheek smack. A whistle and off we dashed to where, like herrings in the net of stockings, swim the globe-trotting ladies. Today he arrives an ugly brute of a fellow, and tomorrow just try to recognise him: in one go both the city and the mouth are
Faith · The East · Books
The wise, who have put away every thought of the fruits of their works, are freed from the chains of birth and pass to the realms of eternal bliss. When thy reason shall prevail over the gloomy weakness of thy heart, then shalt thou obtain all the knowledge that was
Books
Cold ashes of the dead have no defender but our conscience: all is silent around the ancient grave! Its deep stillness is broken only by the blessings or the curses of those who pass by and read the inscription on the tomb. What if we slander these ashes; what if
Books · Observations · Science · People
The Triumph of Historical Criticism: Overhearing, in What the People of a Given Time Say, What They Kept Silent About. Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky
Books · Monarchies · People
"We shall see time change our misfortunes." "That time is far off, for a perverse world will seek the means to oppose, unceasingly, the happiness of our days." Without hope, without illusions, and with prophetic accuracy, Anna Leopoldovna, condemned to confinement for the rest of her
Archive · Books · Observations
The cemetery and the graves, too, must be treated with care and reverence. It is neither fitting nor proper to carry into the churchyard all manner of rumour and gossip, of the kind on which the salons of the living subsist. Voeikov used to say: with the dead there is
Books · Mores · Humour
“The French are an ingenious and perspicacious people, who have deliberately chosen the path of evil. This shows itself in everything they have done over the centuries.” Evelyn Waugh