Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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61

Believe Me

A loving parent doesn’t want her son to be a success; she wants him to be a fine human being.

In February 1878, Fyodor Dostoevsky received a letter from an anxious mother asking him how to bring up a child. Dostoevsky was taken aback, and told her plainly that she was requiring more wisdom than he was fit to give. In particular, her question “What is good, and what is not good?” left him almost speechless; fortunately for us, that left just enough speech to impart this touching counsel.

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Picture: By Ivan Makarov (1822–1897). Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.

62

A Great Writer

One author was a long way ahead at the top of Dostoevsky’s reading list.

In one letter, Nikolai Osmidov asked novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky whether he should believe in God; in another, he asked him what he should give his daughter to read. Dostoevsky found none of Osmidov’s questions easy to answer, but he was sure about one thing: the girl absolutely must read the novels of Sir Walter Scott.

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Picture: By Alexei Harlamov (1840–1925), Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.

63

Mrs Partington and Her Mop

The defiant Mrs Partington took on the full might of the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1831, the House of Lords rejected a Bill on the reform of Parliament, sent over from the House of Commons. Sydney Smith was strongly in favour of this Bill, but told a political meeting in Taunton that he was not too worried, as the Lords had set themselves a task even harder than Mrs Partington set herself in 1824. Mrs Partington? Let the Revd Mr Smith explain...

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Picture: © Ian Capper, Geograph. CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

64

Truth Lies Open to All

Nobody has a monopoly on the truth, neither the scholars of the past nor the scholars of today.

In Ben Jonson’s day, many theatre critics demanded strict adherence to the principles laid down by classical theorists. Modernisers scoffed, and allowed the ancients no place at all. The Truth, said Jonson, cannot be jealously fenced off like this, either for the critics of the past or for the critics of today. It belongs to everyone, like the village green. The critic’s job is to keep it all looking attractive.

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Picture: © Trevor Rickard, Geograph. CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

65

One More Pounce

A Welshman was not keen on handing over his employer’s money just because Tom Dorbel had a gun.

The following story was told by Captain Charles Johnson (fl. 1724-36), who is widely credited with kindling our national fascination with pirates and highwaymen. The captain tells it well but he is let down by affecting a Welsh dialect so near to being incomprehensible that I felt obliged to paraphrase the whole thing.

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Picture: © Auckland Museum, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.

66

The Greatest Mart Town of all Muscovy

Flemish merchants hoping to prosper in Russia’s commercial capital received a nasty shock.

In 1553, Richard Chancellor led an expedition to see whether the Northeast passage might be used to reach Russia, bypassing the jealous states of the Hanseatic League along the Baltic shore. The gamble paid off, and before long the English were rewarded by the chance to visit Great Novgorod, the founding city of Russia and the country’s commercial capital.

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Picture: © Konstantin hramov, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.