Sublime

David—Nobody expects God to choose a lowly shepherd to rule over Israel. David’s adventures are told in loving (and sometimes lurid) detail.

Sir Christopher Clitherow

Basel,

Mr Smith, a sea-officer of the small, trim, brisk, round-headed, portwine kind, once shipmates with Stephen in the Lively and now second in the Goliath, rode by on a camel, with his legs folded negligently over the creature’s neck to the manner born:

In situations like this, it is controlled chaos. I wish I had the code to unlock Michael’s mind. But no such code exists. All I can bring to the conversation are my heart and my trust that God wants me in the midst of this chaos. The imprisoned are the poorest of the poor. If the heart of God is to be found anywhere, it is to be found in the hole.

Like the entire British adventure in India, Curzon was at once pompous and vain, earnest, ruthlessly enterprising, and rigidly devoted to a mission of moral superiority.

Sadiq Khan.