Extracts from Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Literature’
Marianne Dashwood sprains an ankle, but help is at hand.
Marianne Dashwood - young, impressionable and dangerously romantic - has gone for a walk with her younger sister Margaret, leaving her mother and older sister Elinor at home. On the way back she has slipped and sprained her ankle, but fortunately a young gentleman is there to offer her a helping hand.
Samuel Sidney, a Victorian expert on Australian matters, explained how cutting tax and regulation on Britain’s global trade made everyone better off.
Writing for ‘Household Words,’ Samuel Sidney, a rising authority on Australia, was full of praise for William Huskisson MP and his then-unfashionable free trade policies. Sidney believed that by adding new trade partners far beyond Europe, British business had raised living standards, cut prices and created jobs for millions worldwide.
A sympathetic understanding of the trials of other people is essential for getting along.
In his motivational book Character (1871), Samuel Smiles reminded us that getting along with others requires a willingness to pass over their weaknesses, faults and occasional offences, and gave the example of Queen Caroline Matilda of Denmark and Britain, sister of King George III.
To do one’s duty is to peep into the mystery of life, and taste reward from another world.
Samuel Smiles closed his book devoted to character with a reflection on doing one’s duty — meaning neither the bare minimum required by law, nor slavish obedience to authority, but the mysterious, often elusive task which God has entrusted to each one of us.
Was it an over-excited imagination, or an answer to prayer?
Jane Eyre has fled Edward Rochester’s house and arms in shame, after discovering he was hiding his insane wife in an attic. So when the Revd St John Rivers proposes a marriage of convenience followed by a life of self-sacrifice as missionaries in India, the heartbroken Jane gives the idea serious thought.
In John Buchan’s story about the Great War, Richard Hannay must watch as his friend sacrifices his life for the Allies.
In the Great War, RAF pilot Peter Pienaar endures being shot down, lamed and kept as a prisoner of war with the help of Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’. He has been free only a matter of days when despite his injury he steals a plane to take out the Germans’ flying ace Lensch, by ramming him in mid-air.