Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Idiot was published in 1868. It is a famous Russian novel about the decline of Christian and moral values in a society preoccupied with money and social status. Dostoevsky is a noted author for his insight into human character and is most famous for his novel "Crime And Punishment".

His novel contains the passage:

"By reading the Apocalypse. She is a lady with a restless imagination. He he!. And I've noticed too that she has a great partiality for serious subjects, however remote they may be. She likes such talk and takes it as a mark of social respect. Yes, I am a great hand at interpreting the Apocalypse; I have been interpreting it for the last fifteen years. She agreed with me that we are living in the age of the third horse, the black one, and the rider who has the balance in his hand, seeing that everything in the present age is weighed in the scales and by agreement, and people are seeking for nothing but their rights - 'a measure of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny'; and yet they want to keep a free spirit and a pure heart and a sound body and all the gifts of God. But by rights alone they won't keep them, and afterwards will follow the pale horse and he whose name was Death and with him hell followed..."

The 100+ years of warfare started soon after this novel was written, with the British Boer wars, (1880-1881 minor war) (1899-1902 major bloody war) followed soon after with the first world war.