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Lectures d'estiu

Claudius The God  

by Robert Graves

..."This puerile speech was applauded vociferously. Somehow nobody considered that Sentius had been one of Caligula's most notorious flatterers and had even earned the nickname of "The Lap-dog". But the senator sitting next to him suddenly noticed that he was wearing on his finger a gold ring with an enormous cameo protrait of Caligula in coloured glass on it. This senator was another former lap-dog of Caligula's, but, anxious to excel  in republican virtuosness, he snatched the ring off Sentiu's finger  and dashed it to the floor....." (pg 69)

©Robert Graves, "Claudius the God".1934. Penguin Books, 1979. 

 

 

A Passage to India

by Edward Morgan Foster

 

....."Professor Godbole had never mentioned an echo;  it never impressed him, perhaps. There are some exquisite echoes in India; there is the whisper round the dome at Bijapur; there are the long, solid sentences that voyage through the air at Mandu, and return unbroken to their creator. The echo in a Marabar cave is not like these, it is enterily devoid of distinction. Whatever is said, the same monotonous noise replies, and quivers up and down  the walls until it is absorved  into the roof"... (pg 144)

©E. M. Foster. "A Passage to India", 1924. Edt Penguin Books, 1979.

A tale of two cities

by Charles Dickens. 

Chapter 16: Still Knitting

..... Château and hut, stone face an dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well - thousands of acres of land - a whole province of France- all France itself - lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it...." (pg 187)

© Charles Dickens. "A tale of two cities", 1859. Edt. Pan Classics, 1980.

The child in Time 

Ian McEwan. 

..."The Official Comission on Childcare, known to be a pet concern of the Prime Minister's, had spawned fourteen sub-commitees whose task was to make recommendations to the parent body. The real function, it was said cynically, was to satisfy the disparate ideals of myriad interest groups - the sugar and fast-food lobbies, the garment, toy, formula-milk and firework manufacturers, the charities, the women's organisations, the Pelican Crossing pressure-group people - who pressed in on all sides. Few among the opinion-forming classes declined their services. It was generally agreed that the country was full of the wrong sort of people. There were strong opinions about what constituted a desirable citizenry and what  shhould be done to children to procure one for the future. Everyone was on a sub-commitee....." (pgs 9/10)

© Ian McEwan. "The child in Time", 1987. Edt Picador (Pan Books), 1987.

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