Forgiveness

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and start an uprising. Brown was tried and executed, and became a martyr for abolitionists. He is remembered in the song 'John Brown's Body', which was popular in the North during the American Civil War.

Patrick Henry Patrick Henry (1736-99) was an American political leader and patriot. A few weeks before the beginning of the War of American Independence he made a famous speech urging the American colonies to revolt against English rule. The speech contained the famous words: 'I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!'

She was very angry. Give her nails, she'd chew them up and spit tacks. 'I have a hard time respecting my parents. I have nothing but contempt for the way they were. I won't do that.' Her voice rang out. Echoes, shades of Patrick Henry. Admirable, no question.

KAREN KUEwsKi Wild Kat, 1994

Jim In Mark Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn (1884), Jim is a runaway slave who meets up with Huck and travels with him down the Mississippi on a raft. During the course of the book Jim is sold back into slavery and then rescued again by Huck and Tom Sawyer.

I was trying to tell you that I know many things about you—not you personally, but fellows like you .. . With us it's still Jim and Huck Finn. A number of my friends are jazz musicians, and I've been around. I know the conditions under which you l i v e - why go back, fellow? There is so much you could do here where there is more freedom.

RALPH ELLISON Invisible Man, 1952

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) was an American Republican statesman and the sixteenth president of the United States from 1861 to 1865. He is sometimes referred to as 'Honest Abe' or 'The Great Emancipator' on account of his involvement in the abolition of slavery. Although not an abolitionist himself, Lincoln viewed slavery as an evil and opposed its extension. During the Civil War he managed to unite the Union side behind the antislavery cause, and emancipation was formally proclaimed on New Year's Day 1864.

Messiah The Messiah (from Hebrew Masiah, meaning 'anointed') is the promised deliverer of the Jewish nation prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. In Christianity, the term is applied to Jesus Christ, and it is used allusively to refer to any person who saves or delivers others.

'Why did you say in the letter that you threw up all the time?' 'I was really talking about Mickey there. I was talking for him. He would never write, sergeant, though I pleaded with him. He'll waste away to nothing if I don't help, sergeant . . . ' 'You're a regular Messiah, aren't you?'

PHILIP ROTH Defender of the Faith, 1959

In the gallery of the old photographs she was always the same, staring out, while everyone else seemed disgracefully protean, kaftaned Messiahs, sideburned Zapatas.

MARTIN AMIS The Information, 1995

Moses Moses (c. 14th-13th centuries BC) was a Hebrew prophet and lawgiver. The Old Testament Book of Exodus relates how Moses led the Israelites out of

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balderdash,' added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, 'would have estranged Damon and Pythias!

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1886

Of course she thinks, since I'm Fontclair's groomsman, he and I must have been Damon and Pythias for years.

KATE ROSS Cut to the Quick, 1993

David and Jonathan In the Old Testament (i Sam. 18: 1-3; 20: 17) Jonathan, the son of Saul, and David, Saul's appointed successor as King of Israel, swore a compact of love and mutual protection: 'the love of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul'. When Saul grew jealous of David's popularity and sought to bring about his death, Jonathan repeatedly tried to intercede on David's behalf with his father.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Don Quixote, the hero of a romance by Miguel de Cervantes (1605-15), is accompanied and helped in his knightly adventures by his companion and friend, Sancho Panza. • See special entry

name given by Crusoe to the man that he meets on his island (on a Friday) after spending many years there alone following a shipwreck. The two become close friends and constant companions.

You're the one everybody envies, in that journalist crowd—you're not really aware of that, and you take it for granted that Billy should be your Man Friday.

CHRISTOPHER j . KOCH The Year of Living Dangerously, 1978

Three Musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are the three friends whose adventures with D'Artagnan are celebrated in Alexandre Dumas's novel The Three Musketeers (1844). They declare their comradeship with the famous rallying-cry: 'All for one, and one for all!'

And then Weary tied in with two scouts, and they became close friends immediately, and they decided to fight their way back to their own lines. They were going to travel fast. They were damned if they'd surrender. They shook hands all around. They called themselves 'The Three Musketeers'.

KURT VONNEGUT Slaughterhouse 5, 1969