The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
William Dewy runs into a menacing bull, but his soothing music doesn’t seem to be soothing enough.
In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Tess is milking a cow for dairy farmer Mr Crick (he remembered her mother, herself a dairymaid) and finding it rather restful. As she milks, the dairy lads and maids begin a song. ‘You should get your harp, sir’ ventures one lad, a little out of breath; ‘not but what a fiddle is best.’ And Mr Crick shares a story that shows just how right he is.
Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle explains what it is that defines a tyranny.
We tend to use the word ‘tyrant’ today with a mental picture of some apoplectic dictator raving and stamping. This is hardly adequate, and it allows much tyranny to pass unnoticed. Aristotle gave us a more carefully drawn word-portrait: of a man (or of men) whose goal is to keep a grip on power by systematically dividing, demeaning and disheartening the public.
Eusebius remembers the banner that Emperor Constantine carried into battle on the day he won his crown.
It was at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, on October 28th, 312, that Constantine — encouraged by the British legions — overcame his rival Maxentius and emerged as the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. In this passage, his friend and confidant Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, recalls what Constantine told him about his vision before the battle, and the banner that Christ told him to make.
Henry van Dyke wrote this for the sundial at Katrina Trask’s community retreat at Yaddo, New York.
Katrina Trask founded, funded and following a heart attack in 1913 lived at Yaddo, the artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York — her late husband, Spencer Trask, had been a Wall Street banker. One of her friends was Henry van Dyke, a professor of English literature at Princeton from 1899 to 1923, who wrote these lines for her sundial.
Plutarch argues that it when it comes to strong speech, less is always more.
Plutarch has been discussing at length (the incongruity has to be passed over) the annoyance of people who talk too much. The insatiable prattlers, he says, should consider how we admire men of few words; and he gave some examples, from the Spartans, who rebuffed Philip of Macedon, to the god Apollo, who would rather be obscure than wordy.