Classics Considered

By Andreas Tille (Own work) [ GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons By Aaron Logan (http://www.aaronlogan.com/ and http://www.lightmatter.net/gallery/albums.php) [ CC-BY-1.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons By AngMoKio (selfmade photo) [ CC-BY-SA-2.5 ], via Wikimedia Commons Kleuske at nl.wikipedia [ GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0 ], from Wikimedia Commons I went to Rome this summer; Hawthorne was my tour guide.  I saw catacombs, cathedrals, gardens, tombs, fountains, picture galleries, countryside--he described it all, with great detail.  And we met some interesting people, too. There was Kenyon, the American sculptor, studying the statuary and working on a portrayal of Cleopatra.  He's a "well-informed" gentleman, with an unfortunate tendency to go off onto long, philosophical discourses whenever he has an opportunity to do so.  It is very like him not to choose a Roman legend as his subject...wherever he is, his truest thoughts seem elsewhere. They revert...

Under Western Eyes (1911 ) by Joseph Conrad Overall rating :  5 out of 5 stars By his comrades at the St. Petersburg University, Kirylo Sidorovitch Razumov, third year's student in philosophy, was looked upon as a strong nature—an altogether trustworthy man. This, in a country where an opinion may be a legal crime visited by death or sometimes by a fate worse than mere death, meant that he was worthy of being trusted with forbidden opinions. Forbidden opinions...those are precisely what Razumov wishes to avoid.  An illegitimate son of a Russian nobleman, Razumov lives alone and has no expectations in the world, nothing except what he can earn through persevering work.  Content with his life, he tries to ignore the revolutionists on campus and instead turns his energy towards earning "the silver medal", by which he can better his academic standing.  But one day, he comes home to find an assassin hiding in his rooms, expecting aid in escape.  Razumov...