Extracts from Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Literature’
Richard Hannay was finding life in London a little slow until a self-confessed dead man walked into his rooms.
It is May 1914, and Scotsman Richard Hannay has recently arrived in London from South Africa. Hannay is bored, so when a strange American calling himself Franklin P. Scudder slips past him into his flat, he looks forward to being entertained.
The hero of Waterloo needed all his men to believe in him that day, but none believed in him more than his cook.
Charles Dickens’s ‘Household Words’ for 1851 recounted a summer visit to the site of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, where the Duke of Wellington masterminded the defeat of Emperor Napoleon. Some of the tales told by the guides were of doubtful authenticity, but Dickens liked this one about the Duke’s personal chef.
William Howitt had some advice for Victorian tourists hoping for an authentic experience at the battlefield of Waterloo.
The Battle of Waterloo in 1815 created a tourist attraction for patriotic Englishmen hoping to connect with the Duke of Wellington’s legendary victory. Some tour guides, Charles Dickens cautioned, were inclined to fantasise, but happily an authentic voice was on hand.
Cuthbert would not go to King Ecgfrith, so King Ecgfrith and his entire court had to go to Cuthbert.
Sometime after 676, Cuthbert left his monastery on Lindisfarne and retired to the nearby island of Inner Farne, with thousands of seabirds for company. His quiet retirement was to be short-lived, however, as he discovered following a rare trip down the coast to Coquet Island to counsel Elfled, the King’s sister, about the royal succession.
Richard Cobden asked Parliament to make a better effort to understand the Russian mindset.
Back in 1801, Napoleon almost persuaded Tsar Paul I to invade India. Further lobbying fell on deaf ears but many in London still believed Russia was poised to invade India, and even Western Europe. After pre-emptive wars in Afghanistan (1838-42) and the Crimea (1853-56), Richard Cobden urged Westminster to get to know Russia better.