Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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1069

The Economic Case for Time Off

Adam Smith encourages employers to restrict working hours to reasonable limits, for humanity and for profit.

Adam Smith urges employers not to tempt their employees to overwork. It leads to burn-out and a loss of productivity; and in the worst case scenario, the grasping employer must invest wholly avoidable time and money in training up a replacement.

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Picture: © Pauline E, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

1070

Viola Draws a Blank

Viola tries to tell Orsino, Duke of Illyria, that his beloved Olivia is not the only woman deserving of his attention.

Viola is pretending to be Cesario, a page-boy in the court of Orsino, Duke of Illyria. The Duke uses her as a go-between in his courtship of Olivia, but Viola has fallen in love with Orsino herself, and tries without success to interest him in the possibility of a rival.

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Picture: By Frederick Richard Pickersgill (1820-1900), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

1071

Ode to English Joy

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was commissioned by a fiercely independent Britain, and Beethoven was excited to oblige.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is today associated with the European Union, something of an irony as Beethoven loudly cheered on Britain’s resistance to Napoleon Bonaparte’s dreams of a Europe-wide superstate. Indeed, the Symphony itself arose out of a commission from friends in London in 1817, just two years after Waterloo.

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Picture: © Ian Patterson, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

1072

A World of Differences

Emma tries to reconcile her father to the unaccountable tastes of his nearest and dearest.

Mild Mr Woodhouse cannot quite forgive Mr John Knightley for carrying off his daughter Isabella as bride, even though he dotes on his little grandchildren Henry and John. It is left to Isabella’s sister Emma to calm his fear that the boys’ father is altogether too rough-and-tumble with them.

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Picture: Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Pubic domain.. Source.

1073

The Train of a Life

In Charles Dickens’s tale set around Mugby Junction, a man sees his life flash by like a ghostly train.

At the start of his railway-themed story ‘Mugby Junction’, Charles Dickens wants to tell us about the lead character, whom we know thus far only as a man with two black cases labelled ‘Barbox Brothers’. He is standing with the station’s sole member of staff on the otherwise deserted, rain-soaked platform at three o’clock in the morning.

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Picture: © Nick MacNeill, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

1074

Twelve Poor Men and True

Charles Dickens explains the thinking behind Jesus Christ’s choice of friends.

Charles Dickens’s ‘The Life of Our Lord’ was written ‘for his children during the years 1846 to 1849’. Many of the themes that animate his novels find direct and uncomplicated expression in its pages, including the importance of a loving home and inspiring role-models close at hand.

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Picture: By Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.