Extracts from Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Literature’
For Jane Austen, the best education a father can give to his child is to befriend her.
Sir Thomas Bertram has lost both his daughters to unhappy marriages, and now has the unwelcome leisure to reflect on where he went wrong. He gave them a progressive education, he laid down the law; but what he should have done was to get to know them, and to win their trust.
A mysterious knight and an equally mysterious outlaw agree to preserve one another’s incognito.
The Black Knight has liberated the wounded Ivanhoe and his friends from Torquilstone, the castle of wicked Norman baron Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. Assistance came from an outlaw and his band of merry men, and though the two heroes each suspect they have penetrated the other’s disguise, they agree to drop the potentially embarrassing subject.
The colourful Foreign Secretary humbly accepted a lesson in manners from a local tradesman.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806) was a larger-than-life statesman in the time of King George III. He supported the revolutionaries of France and America, frequently changed political sides, kept a mistress (whom he secretly married in 1795), gambled to excess, and campaigned against slavery – a maddening blend of rascal and man of honour.
Richard Hannay tracks a German spy down to a French château, but Hannay’s sense of fair play gives his enemy a chance.
Richard Hannay and Mary Lamington are on the tail of a German spy, who has been posing as an English gentleman named Moxon Ivery during the Great War. The chase has led to a French château, where Mary has uncovered a cache of biological weapons, and now Hannay has surprised the man himself.
Abbot Elfric praised St Thomas for demanding hard evidence for the resurrection.
The Apostle St Thomas refused to believe reports of the resurrection of Jesus unless he saw and touched the risen Christ for himself. Some scold him for his ‘doubt’, but the English Abbot Elfric (955-1010) warmly thanked him for demanding such clear proof, and noted that Jesus was evidently expecting it.
A 9th century Irish monk scribbled some verses about a beloved cat into his copy book.
An anonymous ninth-century Irish monk – possibly Sedulius Scottus, driven onto the Continent by Vikings – penned a little poem about his cat Pangur Bán (Fuller the White) into his scrapbook, sharing the precious space with Latin hymns and noble quotations.