Blaise Pascal wrote in 1670: ‘Had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have changed.’ Had he been writing today, his aphorism might have been an advertisement for a cosmetic surgeon, and it would have been the longer not the shorter nose that was the problem. Pascal, being French, must have been interested in food, and noses. E.H. Carr was almost certainly interes ...
(read more)
