Robert Byron 
The Station 

The Station by Robert Byron is Byron’s in-depth record of his travels to Mount Athos, the spiritual heart of Eastern Orthodox Monasticism. Excerpt: ‘Letters from foreign countries arrive in the afternoon. Each envelope advertises a break in the monotony of days; each reveals on penetration only one more facet of a standard world. But latterly another kind has come, strangely addressed, stranger still within. ‘We learn, ‘ runs one, ‘that you are safely returned to your own glorious country and are already in the midst of your dearest ones, enjoying the best of health…’