From Bismarck’s Reflections and Reminiscences, 1898:

At the time of my first stay at St. Petersburg, in 1859, I had an example of another Russian peculiarity. During the first spring days it was then the custom for every one connected with the Court to promenade in the Summer Garden between Paul’s Palace and the Neva. There the Emperor had noticed a sentry standing in the middle of a grass plot; in reply to the question why he was standing there, the soldier could only answer, ‘Those are my orders.’ The Emperor therefore sent one of his adjutants to the guard-room to make inquiries; but no explanation was forthcoming except that a sentry had to stand there winter and summer. The source of the original order could no longer be discovered. The matter was talked of at Court, and reached the ears of the servants. One of these, an old pensioner, came forward and stated that his father had once said to him as they passed the sentry in the Summer Garden: ‘There he is, still standing to guard the flower; on that spot the Empress Catherine once noticed a snowdrop in bloom unusually early, and gave orders that it was not to be plucked.’ This command had been carried out by placing a sentry on the spot, and ever since then one had stood there all the year round.

“Stories of this sort excite our amusement and criticism, but they are an expression of the elementary force and persistence on which the strength of the Russian nature depends in its attitude towards the rest of Europe.”

Examination questions from the final Classical Honours School at Oxford University, 1899 — “to have passed through it was the hallmark of a superbly educated man, and its graduates went on to rule the nation and, in that heyday of British imperialism, half the world too”:

• Sketch the history of the Syracusan democracy between the fall of Thrasybulus in 466 B.C. and the accession of Dionysius I in 406 B.C.
• Is it a fact that thought begins not with the term but with the judgement?
• Describe the circumstances which led to the Bank Charter Act of 1844.
• What were the leading characteristics of fourth-century tyranny?
• To what extent does history confirm Machiavelli’s views on mercenary armies?
• In what respects has Aristotle’s advance in psychology enabled him to improve on the moral theories of Plato?
• What account can be given of our perception of distance?
• What is the ground of the obligation to veracity?
• Trace the history of the principle of betterment in the English system of local taxation.
• Describe the relations of Rome with Numidia at different periods of history.

“The general assumption was that a man who had mastered this range of thought and theory could master anything.”

From Jan Morris, The Oxford Book of Oxford, 1978.

Between 1741 and 1760, when a baby was left at London’s Foundling Hospital, the staff encouraged the mother to provide some token that could be used as an identifying record — a note, a letter, or some other small object. Usually a piece of fabric was provided by the mother or cut from the child’s clothing, and these were attached to registration forms and then bound into ledgers.

Altogether about 5,000 babies received such tokens. The example above bears the message “This Silver Ribbon is desired to be preserved as the child’s mark of distinction.” (Ribbons were recognized symbols of love, especially in circumstances of loss and separation.) Today these pieces of fabric form the largest collection of everyday textiles surviving in Britain from the 18th century.

On the occasion of an exhibition of the surviving swatches at the hospital in 2010, University of Hertfordshire historian John Styles said, “The textiles are both beautiful and poignant, embedded in a rich social history. Each swatch reflects the life of a single infant child. But the textiles also tell us about the clothes their mothers wore, because baby clothes were usually made up from worn-out adult clothing. The fabrics reveal how working women struggled to be fashionable in the eighteenth century.”