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Alessandro Manzoni’s Farewell to Como
It’s no accident that Italy used to be many countries, as we discovered on a recent road trip around northern Italy. Even that subset of Italian landscapes is full of stunning contrasts. Mountains and sea and thousands of years of diverse horticulture create different environments wherever you go. The climate on the east of the Italian peninsula is drier and different to that on the west. The north is more influenced by the climate of the continent and the Alps. The south is bathed in Mediterranean waves and the Sirocco wind from the Sahara. Of course much is shared, and the swallows are certainly unfazed by such changes. For them…
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Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh
When Shoghi Effendi was a young man at Oxford University, he didn’t imagine that he would become the leader of the faith which his great grandfather – Bahá’u’lláh – had founded. What Shoghi Effendi wanted to do was translate the Baha’i writings into English. Accordingly, he was focussed on acquiring a mastery of English sufficient to adequately translate Bahá’u’lláh’s writings. Despite the many duties of his office as Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, an office he held from 1921 until his passing in 1957, Shoghi Effendi found time to realise the dream of his youth. One of his gifts to the Baha’i community, was an anthology of selections from Bahá’u’lláh’s writings known as Gleanings from the…
