The rejection of foreign adventurism derived partly from an awareness of the dynastic vulnerability of the Bourbon line, partly from the country's economic as well as its military fragility – and partly too from the increasingly evident limitations of France's traditional international allies.

In The Four Pillars of Wisdom, he devotes a well-deserved chapter to the financial press and its weakness for financial pornography—lurid coverage of star money managers.

It is a tradition. We must not be too much down on people who have been denied our own advantages. She spoke with an air of mild remonstrance. Vague charitablenesses were in her manner, and gentle expostulations.

Waiting for kettle to boil … So I Kondoed my recipe books