Extracts from Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Literature’
Leigh Hunt reflects on the civilising effect of the game of cricket.
Essayist Leigh Hunt was a cricket-lover, and panegyrics on the game and its health-giving properties pepper his writing. He was also of the opinion that those whose got out to play the game gained an appreciation for the countryside and a perspective on the world denied to many others.
A sportsman and an officer lays a wager that he can make a trigger-happy Irishman go barefoot in public.
It is a familiar scene: the legendary gunslinger in the saloon, the young upstart ragging on him, and a table of fellow-gamblers urging the reckless boy to think better of it. In this case however, it all took place in a coffee-house in Georgian London, and the upstart was a middle-order batsman for the MCC.
The scheming Iago warns Othello against falling victim to jealousy.
Othello, a General in the Venetian army, has promoted Cassio to Lieutenant instead of Iago; in revenge, Iago has hinted at an intrigue between Cassio and Desdemona, Othello’s wife. Othello is beside himself to hear more, but Iago teasingly clams up, as if worried about Cassio’s reputation.
Walking with his ten-year-old daughter on the beach at Calais, Wordsworth considers the energy of God moving in all things.
In 1792, a young William Wordsworth visited France and met Annette Vallon. The lovers had a daughter, Caroline, but were sundered when Revolutionary France declared war on Britain. Shortly before William married Mary Hutchinson in October 1802, with her encouragement William seized the opportunity of the Peace of Amiens to visit Calais for a seaside walk with his little daughter.
Sherlock Holmes turns to his brother for help when the case of a missing Greek proves unexpectedly troublesome.
A translator in London has witnessed what he believes is the kidnapping of a Greek man. Sherlock Holmes is frustrated by the lack of data, so he takes Dr Watson to see his brother Mycroft at the exclusive Diogenes Club. Mycroft, Sherlock claims, is an even better detective than he is.