From a letter written in 1897 to the editor of the British newspaper the Daily Chronicle. The letter is included in The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde, published in…

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Lincoln’s private thoughts on fate, failure, slavery, and belief

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We often forget that the boundary between the United States and Mexico was not always where it is today. It used to be seven hundred miles farther north, following what…

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From advertisements taken out in African-American newspapers by former slaves searching for relatives. The earliest ads appeared in 1863. Villanova University and Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Philadelphia,…

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From descriptions of trees that Henry David Thoreau noted in his journals. The journal entries are included in Thoreau and the Language of Trees, by Richard Higgins, which was published…

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Only once have we elected a really ignorant man to the Presidency. Andrew Jackson was almost completely innocent of book-learning when he came to the White House. Furthermore, he was…

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For years, whenever I was in New Orleans, I used to run past an equestrian statue just outside the voluptuously green City Park. Though it is situated at a major…

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By Marcel Proust (1871–1922), from an essay included in Chardin and Rembrandt, which will be published next month by David Zwirner Books as part of a new series featuring exemplary…

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If we were writing for a prince with ready millions at command, we might take Lord Bacon’s estimate, and say that thirty acres are not too much for a prince-like…

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