Carlyle, too

Tired of reading dull, prosaic, tell'em like you see'em prose? Read Carlyle. (But why is the cover so damn ugly? Best wrap it in brown paper):

Men have, indeed, been driven from Court; and borne it, according to ability. A Choiseul, in these very years, retired Parthian-like, with a smile or scowl, and drew half the Court-host with him. Our Wolsey, though once ego et rex meus, could journey, it is said, without strait-waistcoat, to his monastery, and there, telling beads, look forward to a still longer journey. The melodious, too soft-strung Racine, when his King turned his back on him, emitted one meek wail, and submissively -- died. But the case of Coadjutor de Rohan differed from all those. No loyalty was in him that he should die; no self-help that he should survive; no faith that he should tell the beads.

(Adds Szerb: Rohan lived on, to put it in poetic terms, like a winter tree waiting for some fairy-tale spring).