Category: History
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The Most Dangerous Words
The most dangerous words are the ones that you think you understand. This is a trap of old books, where familiar words often hold strange meanings.
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The Feast of Hallowmas
You can tell the strange disconnect between the holidays of October 31 and November 1 by the fact that the first is popularly called Halloween, and the second All Saints’ Day. Hallowmas and All Hallows’ Day are among the other names for the church feast of November 1, and from these names, of course, Halloween…
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An Icon of Melodrama
If you consider the facts from a certain distance – objectively, even analytically – you would have to conclude that the image of a woman tied to the railroad tracks is grim. Tragic, even, if the evident intention is realized. We take it to be comical, but we’re not really to blame. The damsel in…
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Lazarus, Come from the Dead
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all. – T.S. Eliot, “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” In the last glimpse we catch of Lazarus, he is sitting at a dinner held in Christ’s honor, the object of the crowd’s curiosity and the target of a…