Agloe

On this day in 1843, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol first went on sale, published by Chapman & Hall. Dickens began writing the novella in September 1843, and finished it remarkably quickly, with the book ready for publication by December. A Christmas Carol centres around the cantankerous Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by the ghosts of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. These spectral visits reform Scrooge, convincing him to cease his cruelty towards his workers, and to embrace the spirit of Christmas. A Christmas Carol is indicative of general themes of Dickens’s work, namely his sincere sympathy for the poor and destitute. This Christmas story is a much-loved book, standing alongside Dickens’s other works like Bleak House, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and A Tale of Two Cities as some of the most celebrated pieces of British literature. A Christmas Carol has since become a quintessential Christmas story, and its message of kindness and compassion remains poignant.

On this day in 705, Wu Zetian, the only sovereign empress of China, died aged 81. Born during the Tang dynasty, she entered the court of Emperor Taizong as a concubine when she was 14 years old. After Taizong’s death, the new emperor Gaozong defied custom and chose the well-educated Wu to remain as his favourite concubine. She rose to become Gaozong’s empress in 655, after elimating the current empress by allegedly killing her own child and framing the empress. The new empress quickly silenced the elder statesmen who opposed her position on the grounds that she did not hail from the established aristocracy, with critics exiled and, often, executed. Emperor Gaozong was a sickly man, and frequently entrusted affairs of state to Wu, who managed imperial business essentially single-handedly. Wu was a capable leader, known for her sound management, her decisiveness, and her ruthlessness; these attributes won her the respect, and fear, of the Chinese imperial court. Her greatest accomplishments included agricultural and education reform, stabilisation of the imperial bureaucracy, and imperial expansion. Upon Gaozong’s death in 683, his son by Wu ascended to the throne, but, concerned by the machinations of his ambitious wife, Wu had him exiled and installed her other son as emperor. In 690, when she was 65 years old, the empress claimed the throne for herself, and ruled as a sovereign empress for 15 years. The question of succession led Wu to designate her exiled son as heir, rather than choosing a member of her own family, thus ensuring the continuation of the Tang dynasty. In 705, senior officials conspired to compel the aging Wu to yield power to her son. She accepted their demands and retired from the throne, dying in December of that year. Despite decades of condemnation as a vicious usurper, the achievements of Empress Wu Zetian, who defied the gender conventions of her day, are increasingly being acknowledged.

Getting to know, let alone finding your actual,truest self is a lot much harder than one may think or even dare to try 😫

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Wandsworth Common residence, London. Ensoul Interior Architecture.  (Those are skylights. O.O)

Well said.

― The Little Prince (2015) The Little Prince: Grown-ups! They never understand anything by themselves.

― Simple Simon (2010) “Don’t be so hung up on time or nothing unexpected will ever happen.”