Extracts from Literature

Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Literature’

Blog

Copybook

Think & Speak

Games

KJV Bible

619
A Farewell by Charles Kingsley

A last goodbye breathes promise of a merry meeting.

A dying parent gives one last piece of advice to a beloved daughter.

Read

620
The Rainbow by William Wordsworth

God’s covenant of love is a fresh joy every time it appears.

William Wordsworth never lost his childhood delight in a rainbow: it was a kind of legacy from his youth to his maturity, from the time when (in his belief) the soul remembers the God who made it more clearly.

Read

621
By the Toss of a Coin by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Master and his brother Henry must decide which of them goes to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie.

It is 1745, and James - the Master of Ballantrae - and his younger brother Henry both want to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie. But one of them must stay at home and make peace with King George II, in case he wins, and James suggests a way of deciding who it shall be.

Read

622
Practice Makes Perfect by Jane Austen

Making friends is, like playing music, not just a matter of natural talent.

Elizabeth Bennet and Colonel Fitzwilliam have been teasing the Colonel’s cousin, Mr Darcy, about his stiff and awkward behaviour in company. Mr Darcy claims he cannot help it, but Elizabeth is having none of that.

Read

623
The Small Compass by Jeremy Bentham

The role of government in a nation’s prosperity is important but limited.

Bentham argues that while laws are necessary to protect security and liberty, government action should stop there: politicians can never do as much for us as we can do for ourselves.

Read

624
‘Stand out of my Sunshine!’ by Plutarch

Alexander the Great dropped a hint to his sycophantic entourage.

In 336 BC, the young Alexander, son of Philip II of Macedon, was just beginning his astonishing rise to be King of all Greece and Asia. Like all great men, he was surrounded by tittering hangers-on; one wonders if they quite got the hint he gave them here.

Read

Clay Lane The Copybook
About Clay Lane nicholas@claylane.uk

© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

June 18 NS

June 5 OS

Bad Day at Waterloo : Frederick Ponsonby’s involvement in the Battle of Waterloo began early, and it seemed to him that it went on for ever.
The Two Shakespeares : Arthur Clutton-Brock complained that idealising Shakespeare had made him dull.
Fairway : Use each noun below in two sentences, first as the subject, and then as the object of a verb.
England Expects : Lieutenant John Pasco not only flew the most famous signal in British history, he helped write it.
Running Late : Use these adverbial clauses in your own sentences.
Peggy’s Dog : Some lines from the comic verse of Thomas Hood, for reading aloud.
An Interruption : Report this conversation without using direct speech.
Tender Plants : Prince Albert regretted the destructive power of the Art Critic.
Lost for Words : Join these ideas together into a single sentence, using ‘although’ or ‘though’.
Loan Words : Match these words to the language they come from, whether Old Norse, Malay or Welsh.
Evidence : Join these ideas together to form a single sentence, using the relative pronoun ‘who’.
Fatal Vow : Robert Pierrepont called heaven to witness that he would never pick a side in the Civil War.
Lost and Found : What would you in these difficult situations?
Blog Latest

Clay Lane Home

Search

Blog

The Copybook

Think and Speak

Comfortable Words

Word Games

Featured Authors

Featured Subjects

Search The Copybook

About Clay Lane

Close Menu