From the Library

Byron began his somewhat erratic connection with Harrow in the boarding house of Henry Drury, recently promoted son of the headmaster. The young Henry Drury was also his tutor and so responsible for both his day-to-day welfare and his intellectual progress. Their relationship was to be tense. At this stage little about Byron seemed exceptional. The boys noticed that one of his gray-blue eyes was bigger than the other, the difference being that of a six penny piece in relation to a shilling, “so they at once called him eighteen pence.” Otherwise he seemed merely “a rough, curly headed boy,” veering between shyness and aggression. (

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Recent evidence suggests the importance of evaluating the health of households and not just the individuals who live therein. Sven Wilson at Brigham Young University analysed data from more than 4700 couples in their 50s gathered for the 1992 Health and Retirement Studies. He found that men with poor health were much more likely to be married to wives with poor health than healthy men. Only 2% of very healthy men had wives in poor health. In comparison, 13% of men with poor health had wives with poor health. Several factors seem to contribute to this correlation: people tend to marry …