Extracts from Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Literature’
Sir Edward Leithen finds himself revising his opinion of the ‘detestable’ Koré Arabin.
Sir Edward Leithen, a forty-something lawyer of great distinction, ran across Corrie Arabin at a dance party given by his cousin-of-sorts, Mollie Nantley. ‘The girl is detestable’ was his first thought. But after Corrie — or more rightly Koré, a Greek name — turned to him for help in resolving a legal dispute with Athens, Ned’s feelings for the young woman began to change.
Ahab, his mind broken by an obsession, at last confronts the enemy he has hunted so long.
Ahab, captain of a whaling ship, has been pursuing a huge albino sperm whale he calls Moby Dick, with an ever more deranged hatred. At last he has come to close quarters: he has boarded a small a boat, harpoon at the ready, and rowed out to face the object of his obsession while sharks circle in a frenzy of anticipation. Suddenly, the whale charges headlong — not at Ahab’s boat, but at the ship.
Hours after running away to sea, Robinson Crusoe was sorry he ever left home.
Against the advice of his affectionate father and the pleadings of his distraught mother, Robinson Crusoe, then eighteen, refused to study for the law and announced he would go to sea. This remained little more than a shapeless gesture of teenage rebellion for a year. Then one day a friend went to Hull for a trip up the coast to London in his father’s ship, and invited Robinson to come along for the ride.
Richard Cobden wondered how the architects of the British Empire had the nerve to accuse Russia of imperialism.
In 1854, British feeling was running high against Russia. That March, Britain had sided with Turkey in the Crimean War of 1853-56, and anxious journalists and politicians pointed accusing fingers at Russia’s military manoeuvres around the Baltic and the Black Sea, scolding her for her greed and disrespect for her neighbours’ sovereignty. Richard Cobden wondered if there was something amiss with his hearing.
The fandango is Spain’s most alluring national dance, and the story goes that even the most solemn clergyman could not resist it.
Jean-François de Bourgoing was secretary to King Louis XVI’s legation to Spain from 1777 to 1786, and served as Ambassador in 1792-93. The French Revolutionary government mistrusted him, but his diplomatic career revived under Napoleon. In 1807, he brought out a fourth edition of his popular study of modern-day Spain, first published ten years earlier, which included this account of the fandango.
Clever people have realised that it is easier to get people on your side by mockery than by persuasion.
William Paley complained that critics of Christianity no longer troubled themselves with civilised debate. Instead, they scattered sniggering remarks throughout popular and academic literature, in the hope of laughing the public into atheism; for their knowledge of human nature had taught them that scorn is far more persuasive than argument.