Extracts

From Pascal’s Pensees (60 in the Lafuma numbering) with the Penguin translation.

From Edith Wharton’s A Motor-Flight Through France, speaking of the Amiens cathedral: On the symbolic side especially it would be tempting to linger; so strongly does the contemplation of the great cathedrals fortify the conviction that their chief value,…

From Dino Buzzati’s The Bogeyman from the recent collection, The Bewitched Bourgeois (originally in Corriere della Sera as FINE DEL BABAU and later reprinted as Il Babau in Le Notti Difficili) Thus it comes as no surprise that Paudi spoke of the matter [of

From a 1963 letter of Tokien’s (247 in the volume of letters) on the difficulties of putting the Silmarillion in publishable form.

My edition of A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (Picador Travel Classics – a collection oddly more modern-oriented than the name suggests, to me at least) includes a charming preface by Evelyn Waugh that is fortunately short enough to quote in full: Mr Eric…

From Arthur Schnitzler’s Death of a Bachelor (in the collection Night Games): “For God’s sake, read the ending,” commanded the doctor in a new voice.

From Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, a small comedic pause in between attempts to scale Mir Samir.

A masterful portrait of an attorney from Book 1 of Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book (1124-1161), this being the public defender for the man (and colleagues) accursed of murdering his wife.

From Richard A.

Found in a small selection of Thomas Merton’s work called Silence, Joy but originally from his The Wisdom of the Desert (Saying 38): Once there was a disciple of a Greek philosopher who was commanded by his Master for three years to give money to everyone…