The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
A half-starved cat is recruited by the Allies in the fight against Hitler.
In June 1941, some six months before the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbour brought the USA into the Second World War, the USSR declared herself for Britain and her Empire, at a time when European states from Finland to Greece had been unable to stem the Nazi tide. This little tale is based on events recounted by Ovadi Savich, originally in Soviet War News.
Some years before the Elgin marbles were put on display in the British Museum, rising artist Benjamin Haydon got a sneak preview.
In 1808, young Benjamin Haydon was an up-and-coming painter with a passion for lifelike figures. He had spent long hours sprawled on the floor painstakingly copying anatomical drawings instead of courting well-to-do patrons, and his father had declared him mad. Haydon called himself only exasperated: his attempts to paint Roman hero Dentatus were going badly.
Fame found Abraham Lincoln before he was ready for the scrutiny of the camera.
The Republican Party convention in Chicago, Illinois, on May 16th-18th, 1860, nominated lawyer Abraham Lincoln as candidate for the President of the USA, with Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as his running-mate. Some three years earlier, Lincoln (who had previously represented the city in Congress) had sat for photographer Alexander Hesler in his Chicago studio.
John Buchan, who was as close as anyone to the events, gave his assessment of how all Europe was plunged into war in 1914.
The Great War of 1914-18 was triggered by the assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand. But as John Buchan explains here, the war had been coming for some time. Germany was ambitious for empire, and that meant taking empire from her neighbours. She was also anxious, sensing military threats and economic competitors on all sides. Her wisdom was to strike first, hoping that if she did she would not have to strike again.
... I heard John Wesley sing. A visitor on the quayside on Sunday May 30th, 1742, would have stumbled into a crowd agape and a determined clergyman singing psalms.
In 1742, John Wesley extended his northern preaching tour to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a large, cramped city by the North Sea, founded on coal mining and the coal-trade of England’s east coast. Many areas were grindingly poor, and over time ignorance and want had so tightened their grip that violence and addiction kept areas such as Sandgate, down on the Quayside, utterly wretched. Naturally, it was to Sandgate that Wesley at once demanded to go.
The words of the ancient Athenian lawmaker, on the limits of legislation, sucking up to dictators, and the crime of lounging about.
In about 594-593 BC, Solon was tasked with ending civil strife in Athens. He abolished serfdom, placing the poor on a secure footing against wealthy oppressors. He facilitated inter-city trade and welcomed immigrant craftsmen, revitalising the economy. Finally, he overhauled the constitution, revoking the infamous laws of Draco and establishing a legacy that became the patrimony of classical Athens. Diogenes Laertius, writing in the early AD 200s, looked back on Solon’s career.