English Good Morning Quotes

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English. Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, Have in these parts from morn till even fought And sheathed their swords for lack of argument: Dishonour not your mothers; now attest That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not; For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!

I am illegitimate," she said distinctly, as if he were a foreigner trying to learn English. "You are a viscount. You can't marry a bastard." "What about the Duke of Clarence? He had ten bastard children by that actress...what was her name..." "Mrs. Jordan." "Yes, that one, Their children were all illegitimate, but some of them married peers." "You're not the Duke of Clarence." "That's right. I'm not a blueblood any more than you are. I inherited the title purely by happenstance" "That doesn't matter. If your married me, it would be scandalous and inappropriate, and doors would be closed to you." "Good God, woman, I let two of my sisters marry Gypsies. Those doors have already been closed, bolted, and nailed shut.

A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands knowing it is something that feeds him more than water. There is a plant he knows of near El Taj, whose heart, if one cuts it out, is replaced with a fluid containing herbal goodness. Every morning one can drink the liquid the amount of a missing heart.

Worship is our rehearsal for how to live today and how to glorify God in heaven. It is not merely a Sunday morning exercise meant to make us feel good.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against. By this morning's post I have received a pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he "felt impelled" to write it. I open it at random, and here is almost the first sentence I see: "[The Allies] have an opportunity not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany's social and political structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a co-operative and unified Europe." You see, he "feels impelled" to write -- feels, presumably, that he has something new to say -- and yet his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain.

But why do you want to talk to me?' He is going to say: 'Because you look so kind,' or 'Because you look so beautiful and kind,' or, subtly, 'Because you look as if you'll understand....' He says: 'Because I think you won't betray me.' I had meant to get this mean to talk to me and tell me all about it, and then be so devastatingly English that perhaps I should manage to hurt him a little in return for all the many times I've been hurt.... 'Because I think you won't betray me, because I think you won't betray me....' Now it won't be so easy.

God is a good paymaster; He pays His servants while at work as well as when they have done it;

Backward we are naturally to all good things, and it is a lesson of grace to learn to go forward in the ways of God.

Surely, if there could be regrets in heaven, the saints might mourn that they did not live longer here to do more good.

God loves the church with a love too deep for human imagination: He loves her with all His infinite heart. Therefore let her sons be of good courage; she cannot be far from prosperity.

One good deed is more worth than a thousand brilliant theories. Let us not wait for large opportunities, or for a different kind of work, but do just the things we "find to do" day by day.

Welsh Incident 'But that was nothing to what things came out From the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.' What were they? Mermaids? dragons? ghosts?' Nothing at all of any things like that.' What were they, then?' 'All sorts of queer things, Things never seen or heard or written about, Very strange, un-Welsh, utterly peculiar Things. Oh, solid enough they seemed to touch, Had anyone dared it. Marvellous creation, All various shapes and sizes, and no sizes, All new, each perfectly unlike his neighbour, Though all came moving slowly out together.' Describe just one of them.' 'I am unable.' What were their colours?' 'Mostly nameless colours, Colours you'd like to see; but one was puce Or perhaps more like crimson, but not purplish. Some had no colour.' 'Tell me, had they legs?' Not a leg or foot among them that I saw.' But did these things come out in any order?' What o'clock was it? What was the day of the week? Who else was present? How was the weather?' I was coming to that. It was half-past three On Easter Tuesday last. The sun was shining. The Harlech Silver Band played Marchog Jesu On thrity-seven shimmering instruments Collecting for Caernarvon's (Fever) Hospital Fund. The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth, Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth, Were all assembled. Criccieth's mayor addressed them First in good Welsh and then in fluent English, Twisting his fingers in his chain of office, Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand, Not keeping time to the band, moving seaward Silently at a snail's pace. But at last The most odd, indescribable thing of all Which hardly one man there could see for wonder Did something recognizably a something.' Well, what?' 'It made a noise.' 'A frightening noise?' No, no.' 'A musical noise? A noise of scuffling?' No, but a very loud, respectable noise --- Like groaning to oneself on Sunday morning In Chapel, close before the second psalm.' What did the mayor do?' 'I was coming to that.

Forever, Tom thought. Maybe he’d never go back to the States. It was not so much Europe itself as the evenings he had spent alone, here and in Rome, that made him feel that way. Evenings by himself simply looking at maps, or lying around on sofas thumbing through guidebooks. Evenings looking at his clothes - his clothes and Dickie’s - and feeling Dickie’s rings between his palms, and running his fingers over the antelope suitcase he had bought at Gucci’s. He had polished the suitcase with a special English leather dressing, not that it needed polishing because he took such good care of it, but for its protection. He loved possessions, not masses of them, but a select few that he did not part with. They gave a man self-respect. Not ostentation but quality, and the love that cherished the quality. Possessions reminded him that he existed, and made him enjoy his existence. It was as simple as that. And wasn’t that worth something? He existed. Not many people in the world knew how to, even if they had the money. It really didn’t take money, masses of money, it took a certain security. He had been on the road to it, even with Marc Priminger. He had appreciated Marc’s possessions, and they were what had attracted him to the house, but they were not his own, and it had been impossible to make a beginning at acquiring anything of his own on forty dollars a week. It would have taken him the best years of his life, even if he had economised stringently, to buy the things he wanted. Dickie’s money had given him only an added momentum on the road he had been travelling. The money gave him the leisure to see Greece, to collect Etruscan pottery if he wanted (he had recently read an interesting book on that subject by an American living in Rome), to join art societies if he cared to and to donate to their work. It gave him the leisure, for instance, to read his Malraux tonight as late as he pleased, because he did not have to go to a job in the morning. He had just bought a two-volume edition of Malraux’s Psychologic de I’art which he was now reading, with great pleasure, in French with the aid of a dictionary.

Everyone's here except for St. Clair." Meredith cranes her neck around the cafeteria. "He's usually running late." "Always," Josh corrects. "Always running late." I clear my throat. "I think I met him last night. In the hallway." "Good hair and an English accent?" Meredith asks. "Um.Yeah.I guess." I try to keep my voice casual. Josh smirks. "Everyone's in luuurve with St. Clair." "Oh,shut up," Meredith says. "I'm not." Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend. He lets go of her hand and gives an exaggerated sigh. "Well,I am. I'm asking him to prom. This is our year, I just know it." "This school has a prom?" I ask. "God no," Rashmi says. "Yeah,Josh. You and St. Clair would look really cute in matching tuxes." "Tails." The English accent makes Meredith and me jump in our seats. Hallway boy. Beautiful boy. His hair is damp from the rain. "I insist the tuxes have tails, or I'm giving your corsage to Steve Carver instead." "St. Clair!" Josh springs from his seat, and they give each other the classic two-thumps-on-the-back guy hug. "No kiss? I'm crushed,mate." "Thought it might miff the ol' ball and chain. She doesn't know about us yet." "Whatever," Rashi says,but she's smiling now. It's a good look for her. She should utilize the corners of her mouth more often. Beautiful Hallway Boy (Am I supposed to call him Etienne or St. Clair?) drops his bag and slides into the remaining seat between Rashmi and me. "Anna." He's surprised to see me,and I'm startled,too. He remembers me. "Nice umbrella.Could've used that this morning." He shakes a hand through his hair, and a drop lands on my bare arm. Words fail me. Unfortunately, my stomach speaks for itself. His eyes pop at the rumble,and I'm alarmed by how big and brown they are. As if he needed any further weapons against the female race. Josh must be right. Every girl in school must be in love with him. "Sounds terrible.You ought to feed that thing. Unless..." He pretends to examine me, then comes in close with a whisper. "Unless you're one of those girls who never eats. Can't tolerate that, I'm afraid. Have to give you a lifetime table ban." I'm determined to speak rationally in his presence. "I'm not sure how to order." "Easy," Josh says. "Stand in line. Tell them what you want.Accept delicious goodies. And then give them your meal card and two pints of blood." "I heard they raised it to three pints this year," Rashmi says. "Bone marrow," Beautiful Hallway Boy says. "Or your left earlobe." "I meant the menu,thank you very much." I gesture to the chalkboard above one of the chefs. An exquisite cursive hand has written out the morning's menu in pink and yellow and white.In French. "Not exactly my first language." "You don't speak French?" Meredith asks. "I've taken Spanish for three years. It's not like I ever thought I'd be moving to Paris." "It's okay," Meredith says quickly. "A lot of people here don't speak French." "But most of them do," Josh adds. "But most of them not very well." Rashmi looks pointedly at him. "You'll learn the lanaguage of food first. The language of love." Josh rubs his belly like a shiny Buddha. "Oeuf. Egg. Pomme. Apple. Lapin. Rabbit." "Not funny." Rashmi punches him in the arm. "No wonder Isis bites you. Jerk." I glance at the chalkboard again. It's still in French. "And, um, until then?" "Right." Beautiful Hallway Boy pushes back his chair. "Come along, then. I haven't eaten either." I can't help but notice several girls gaping at him as we wind our way through the crowd.

He soon perceived, however, that the battles which Sir Miles and the rest had waged against armed knights to win a kingdom, were not half so arduous as this which he now undertook to win immortality against the English language. Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted his people's parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.

In the  a beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was  b without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3And God said,  c “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance — not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations. The stretch of Hudson Street where I live is each day the scene of an intricate sidewalk ballet. I make my own first entrance into it a little after eight when I put out my garbage gcan, surely a prosaic occupation, but I enjoy my part, my little clang, as the junior droves of junior high school students walk by the center of the stage dropping candy wrapper. (How do they eat so much candy so early in the morning?) While I sweep up the wrappers I watch the other rituals of the morning: Mr Halpert unlocking the laundry's handcart from its mooring to a cellar door, Joe Cornacchia's son-in-law stacking out the empty crates from the delicatessen, the barber bringing out his sidewalk folding chair, Mr. Goldstein arranging the coils of wire which proclaim the hardware store is open, the wife of the tenement's super intendent depositing her chunky three-year-old with a toy mandolin on the stoop, the vantage point from which he is learning English his mother cannot speak. Now the primary childrren, heading for St. Luke's, dribble through the south; the children from St. Veronica\s cross, heading to the west, and the children from P.S 41, heading toward the east. Two new entrances are made from the wings: well-dressed and even elegant women and men with brief cases emerge from doorways and side streets. Most of these are heading for the bus and subways, but some hover on the curbs, stopping taxis which have miraculously appeared at the right moment, for the taxis are part of a wider morning ritual: having dropped passengers from midtown in the downtown financial district, they are now bringing downtowners up tow midtown. Simultaneously, numbers of women in housedresses have emerged and as they crisscross with one another they pause for quick conversations that sound with laughter or joint indignation, never, it seems, anything in between. It is time for me to hurry to work too, and I exchange my ritual farewell with Mr. Lofaro, the short, thick bodied, white-aproned fruit man who stands outside his doorway a little up the street, his arms folded, his feet planted, looking solid as the earth itself. We nod; we each glance quickly up and down the street, then look back at eachother and smile. We have done this many a morning for more than ten years, and we both know what it means: all is well. The heart of the day ballet I seldom see, because part off the nature of it is that working people who live there, like me, are mostly gone, filling the roles of strangers on other sidewalks. But from days off, I know enough to know that it becomes more and more intricate. Longshoremen who are not working that day gather at the White Horse or the Ideal or the International for beer and conversation. The executives and business lunchers from the industries just to the west throng the Dorgene restaurant and the Lion's Head coffee house; meat market workers and communication scientists fill the bakery lunchroom.

every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. The Seventh Day, God Rests GENESIS 2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host

l The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; [2]          l his mercies never come to an end;     23 they are new  m every morning;          n great is your faithfulness.     24  o “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,          k “therefore I will hope in him.”     25 The LORD is good to those who  p wait for him,         to the soul who seeks him.     26  q It is good that one should wait quietly         for the salvation of the LORD.     27  r It is good for a man that he bear         the yoke  s in his youth.

I had tracked down a little cafe in the next village, with a television set that was going to show the World Cup Final on the Saturday. I arrived there mid-morning when it was still deserted, had a couple of beers, ordered a sensational conejo au Franco, and then sat, drinking coffee, and watching the room fill up. With Germans. I was expecting plenty of locals and a sprinkling of tourists, even in an obscure little outpost like this, but not half the population of Dortmund. In fact, I came to the slow realisation as they poured in and sat around me . . . that I was the only Englishman there. They were very friendly, but there were many of them, and all my exits were cut off. What strategy could I employ? It was too late to pretend that I was German. I’d greeted the early arrivals with ‘Guten Tag! Ich liebe Deutschland’, but within a few seconds found myself conversing in English, in which they were all fluent. Perhaps, I hoped, they would think that I was an English-speaker but not actually English. A Rhodesian, possibly, or a Canadian, there just out of curiosity, to try to pick up the rules of this so-called ‘Beautiful Game’. But I knew that I lacked the self-control to fake an attitude of benevolent detachment while watching what was arguably the most important event since the Crucifixion, so I plumped for the role of the ultra-sporting, frightfully decent Upper-Class Twit, and consequently found myself shouting ‘Oh, well played, Germany!’ when Helmut Haller opened the scoring in the twelfth minute, and managing to restrain myself, when Geoff Hurst equalised, to ‘Good show! Bit lucky though!’ My fixed grin and easy manner did not betray the writhing contortions of my hands and legs beneath the table, however, and when Martin Peters put us ahead twelve minutes from the end, I clapped a little too violently; I tried to compensate with ‘Come on Germany! Give us a game!’ but that seemed to strike the wrong note. The most testing moment, though, came in the last minute of normal time when Uwe Seeler fouled Jackie Charlton, and the pig-dog dolt of a Swiss referee, finally revealing his Nazi credentials, had the gall to penalise England, and then ignored Schnellinger’s blatant handball, allowing a Prussian swine named Weber to draw the game. I sat there applauding warmly, as a horde of fat, arrogant, sausage-eating Krauts capered around me, spilling beer and celebrating their racial superiority.

Why was he constantly forming yet never executing good resolutions? Why was he so absent-minded, so lazy, so prone to daydreaming his life away? He vowed to read more seriously. He vowed to quit chewing tobacco. On July 21, 1756, he wrote: 'I am resolved to rise with the sun and to study Scriptures on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings, and to study some Latin author the other three mornings. Noons and nights I intend to read English authors... I will rouse up my mind and fix my attention. I will stand collected within myself and think upon what I read and what I see. I will strive with all my soul to be something more than persons who have had less advantages than myself.' But the next morning he slept until seven and a one-line entry the following week read, 'A very rainy day. Dreamed away the time.

Here’s a crash course in the economy,” said Hunter. “Americans get up each morning and go to factories and farms and fire stations and work their whole lives, creating actual products you can hold in your hands. Or some service that benefits. I mean, what the fuck’s that about?” “Work isn’t good?” “It’s the damn workers who crashed the economy.” “I thought it was you,” said Serge. “Don’t be a comedian.” Hunter started counting off on his fingers. “They lost their retirement accounts, their mortgages, their homes, even their jobs. Can’t these assholes do anything right?” “You on the other hand?” “We ended up with all the cash. And then the people turned to the government and went, ‘Holy shit! What happened to all our goddamn money? Do something!’ So the government takes even more money from the workers and—this part is absolutely priceless—they give it all to us again! Now you tell me who’s the success story.” “But what’s so hard about accepting free money?” “That’s exactly what I was thinking when half the country screamed, ‘I’ll kick your fucking ass if you give me health care!’ ” “Sounds too good for words,” said Serge. “It’s good enough for one word,” said Hunter. “Socialism.” Serge pounded the bar with his fist. “Fuck socialism.” “Don’t say that!” Hunter took a swig. “I love socialism.” “You do?” Hunter nodded hard. “Finest word in the English language. Just mention socialism, and everyone gets blinded by rage, takes their eyes off us and prints up T-shirts that insult the president.” Bleadoph raised his hands toward the ceiling in exultation. “Thank God he was elected!” “Forgive my ignorance,” said Serge, “but weren’t the bailouts socialism?” Hunter shook his head. “It’s only socialism if the money goes down, not up.” “A toast,” said Serge. “To socialism!” “To socialism!

I feel like finally, I’ve gotten it together: I’ve hit my stride. I can do this. So when I walk into school that cold January morning, holding Peter’s hand, full on banana pancakes, with a new job and wearing Margot’s Fair Isle sweater she left behind, I am feeling good. Great, even. Peter wants to stop in the computer lab to print out his English paper, so that’s our first stop. He logs in, and I gasp out loud when I see the wallpaper. Someone has taken a still of the hot tub video, of me in Peter’s lap in my red flannel nightgown, skirt hitched up around my thighs, and across the top it reads HOT HOT TUB SEX. And on the bottom--YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. “What the hell?” Peter mutters, looking around the computer lab. Nobody looks up. He goes to the next computer--same picture, different caption. SHE DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT SHRINKAGE on top. HE’S HAPPY WITH WHAT HE CAN GET across the bottom. We are a meme.

Sunday brunch is an easy, pleasant way to entertain a largish group, especially in the country. Americans who overslept invented the word brunch, but the ingredients and the casual atmosphere bear a strong resemblance to breakfast in an English country house or to a French midnight supper. The choice of menu can be as wide as the imagination. Practically anything goes — from hearty breakfast dishes such as filled omelettes, kidneys, chicken livers and bacon, sausages, and eggs Benedict. Something pretty in aspic, or a salmon mousse in a fish-shaped mold, makes a lovely centerpiece. Best of all, most of the meal can be prepared way ahead of time and it can be managed without outside help — if, that is, the hostess puts in a lot of work the day before and early that morning. People can wander in when they feel like it, so there’s no need to tint this one. Drinks are no problem. A big punch bowl with chunks of fresh fruit makes a nice starter, and mixings for bloody Marys, screwdrivers, or bullshots can be left on a table for guests to serve themselves. Of course there should be a big pot of very good coffee.

How is my English?” Tatiana asked Alexander in English. “It’s good,” Alexander replied in English. It was late morning. They were walking through the dense deciduous riverbank woods a few kilometers from home, with two buckets for blueberries, and they were supposed to be talking only in English, but Tatiana backtracked and said in Russian, “I’m reading much better than I’m talking, I think. John Stuart Mill is simply unreadable now instead of unintelligible.” Alexander smiled. “That’s a fine distinction.” He yanked up a couple of mushrooms. “Tania, can we eat these?” Taking them out of his hands and throwing them back on the ground, Tatiana said, “Yes. But we will only be able to eat them once.” Alexander laughed. She said, “I have to teach you how to pick mushrooms, Shura. You can’t just rip them out of the ground like that.” “I have to teach you how to speak English, Tania,” said Alexander. In English, Tatiana continued, “This is my new husband, Alexander Barrington.” And in English, Alexander replied with a smile of pleasure on his face, “And this is my young wife, Tatiana Metanova.” He kissed the top of her braided head and in Russian said, “Tatiana, now say the other words I taught you.” She turned the color of a tomato. “No,” she stated firmly, in English. “I am not saying them.” “Please.” “No. Look for blueberries.” Still in English. She saw that Alexander couldn’t have been less interested in blueberries. “What about later? Will you say them later?” he asked. “Not now, not later,” Tatiana replied bravely. But she was not looking at him. Alexander drew her to him. “Later,” he continued in English, “I will insist that you please me by using your English-speaking tongue in bed with me.” Struggling slightly against him, Tatiana said in English, “It is good I am not understand what you say to me.” “I will show you what I mean,” said Alexander, putting down his bucket. “Later, later,” she acquiesced. “Now, pick up your backet. Collect blueberries.” “All right,” he said in English, not letting go of her. “And it’s bucket. Come on, Tania. Say the other words.” He held her. “Your shyness is an aphrodisiac to me. Say them.” Tatiana, breathless inside and out, said, “All right,” in English. “Pick up your bucket. Let us go house. I will practice love with you.” Alexander laughed. “Make love to you, Tania. Make love to you.

Kershaw had long ago realized, apparently, that dealing with Brits was tricky. You had to listen to what a Brit was saying - which was invariably that he thought XYZ was a terrific idea and he hoped it went very well for you - while at the same time paying heed to the greasy, nauseous suspicion you had that, although every word and phrase indicated approval, somehow the sum of the whole was that you'd have to be a mental pygmy to come up with this plan and a complete fucking idiot to pursue it. After six years working with the Brits in various theatres he'd come to the conclusion that they didn't do it on purpose. The thing was, Brits actually thought that subtext was plain text. To a Brit, the modern English language was vested with hundreds of years of unbroken history and cultural nuance, so that every single word had a host of implications depending on who said it to whom, when, and how. British soldiers, for example, gave entire reports to their commanders by the way they said 'good morning, sir' and then had to spend half an hour telling them the detail, which was why the Brits always looked bored in briefings. They could sense the trajectory of the conversation, knew the bad news was coming now and the good news now and that there was a question on the end which needed thinking about. With a bit of work they could deduce the question, too, but they always waited politely for it to be asked so that no one felt rushed.

But Dave Wain that lean rangy red head Welchman with his penchant for going off in Willie to fish in the Rogue River up in Oregon where he knows an abandoned mining camp, or for blattin around the desert roads, for suddenly reappearing in town to get drunk, and a marvelous poet himself, has that certain something that young hip teenagers probably wanta imitate–For one thing is one of the world's best talkers, and funny too–As I'll show–It was he and George Baso who hit on the fantastically simple truth that everybody in America was walking around with a dirty behind, but everybody, because the ancient ritual of washing with water after the toilet had not occurred in all the modern antisepticism–Says Dave "People in America have all these racks of drycleaned clothes like you say on their trips, they spatter Eau de Cologne all over themselves, they wear Ban and Aid or whatever it is under their armpits, they get aghast to see a spot on a shirt or a dress, they probably change underwear and socks maybe even twice a day, they go around all puffed up and insolent thinking themselves the cleanest people on earth and they're walkin around with dirty azzoles–Isnt that amazing?give me a little nip on that tit" he says reaching for my drink so I order two more, I've been engrossed, Dave can order all the drinks he wants anytime, "The President of the United States, the big ministers of state, the great bishops and shmishops and big shots everywhere, down to the lowest factory worker with all his fierce pride, movie stars, executives and great engineers and presidents of law firms and advertising firms with silk shirts and neckties and great expensive traveling cases in which they place these various expensive English imported hair brushes and shaving gear and pomades and perfumes are all walkin around with dirty azzoles! All you gotta do is simply wash yourself with soap and water! it hasn't occurred to anybody in America at all! it's one of the funniest things I've ever heard of! dont you think it's marvelous that we're being called filthy unwashed beatniks but we're the only ones walkin around with clean azzoles?"–The whole azzole shot in fact had spread swiftly and everybody I knew and Dave knew from coast to coast had embarked on this great crusade which I must say is a good one–In fact in Big Sur I'd instituted a shelf in Monsanto's outhouse where the soap must be kept and everyone had to bring a can of water there on each trip–Monsanto hadnt heard about it yet, "Do you realize that until we tell poor Lorenzo Monsanto the famous writer that he is walking around with a dirty azzole he will be doing just that?"–"Let's go tell him right now!"–"Why of course if we wait another minute...and besides do you know what it does to people to walk around with a dirty azzole? it leaves a great yawning guilt that they cant understand all day, they go to work all cleaned up in the morning and you can smell all that freshly laundered clothes and Eau de Cologne in the commute train yet there's something gnawing at them, something's wrong, they know something's wrong they dont know just what!"–We rush to tell Monsanto at once in the book store around the corner. (Big Sur, Chap. 11)

I freely admit that the best of my fun, I owe it to Horse and Hound - Whyte Melville (1821-1878) "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English. Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, Have in these parts from morn till even fought And sheathed their swords for lack of argument: Dishonour not your mothers; now attest That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not; For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!" ... King Henry V 1598 (William Shakespeare) I can resist anything except temptation - Oscar Wilde (Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892) In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different - Coco Chanel When it comes to pain and suffering, she's right up there with Elizabeth Taylor - Truvy (Steel Magnolias) She looks too pure to be pink (Rizzo, Grease) I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow - Scarlett O'Hara (Gone With The Wind.)

An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked. “Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English. “Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked. “I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket. “But… What do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.” The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.” He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you could run your expanded enterprise with proper management. The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?” To which the American replied, “15-20 years, 25 tops.” “But what then, señor?” The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions señor? Then what?" “Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll in to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.

A fierce battle was taking place at Tobruk, and nothing thrilled him more than spirited warfare and the prospect of military glory. He stayed up until three-thirty, in high spirits, “laughing, chaffing and alternating business with conversation,” wrote Colville. One by one his official guests, including Anthony Eden, gave up and went to bed. Churchill, however, continued to hold forth, his audience reduced to only Colville and Mary’s potential suitor, Eric Duncannon. Mary by this point had retired to the Prison Room, aware that the next day held the potential to change her life forever. — IN BERLIN, MEANWHILE, HITLER and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels joked about a newly published English biography of Churchill that revealed many of his idiosyncrasies, including his penchant for wearing pink silk underwear, working in the bathtub, and drinking throughout the day. “He dictates messages in the bath or in his underpants; a startling image which the Führer finds hugely amusing,” Goebbels wrote in his diary on Saturday. “He sees the English Empire as slowly disintegrating. Not much will be salvageable.” — ON SUNDAY MORNING, a low-grade anxiety colored the Cromwellian reaches of Chequers. Today, it seemed, would be the day Eric Duncannon proposed to Mary, and no one other than Mary was happy about it. Even she, however, was not wholly at ease with the idea. She was eighteen years old and had never had a romantic relationship, let alone been seriously courted. The prospect of betrothal left her feeling emotionally roiled, though it did add a certain piquancy to the day. New guests arrived: Sarah Churchill, the Prof, and Churchill’s twenty-year-old niece, Clarissa Spencer-Churchill—“looking quite beautiful,” Colville noted. She was accompanied by Captain Alan Hillgarth, a raffishly handsome novelist and self-styled adventurer now serving as naval attaché in Madrid, where he ran intelligence operations; some of these were engineered with the help of a lieutenant on his staff, Ian Fleming, who later credited Captain Hillgarth as being one of the inspirations for James Bond. “It was obvious,” Colville wrote, “that Eric was expected to make advances to Mary and that the prospect was viewed with nervous pleasure by Mary, with approbation by Moyra, with dislike by Mrs. C. and with amusement by Clarissa.” Churchill expressed little interest. After lunch, Mary and the others walked into the rose garden, while Colville showed Churchill telegrams about the situation in Iraq. The day was sunny and warm, a nice change from the recent stretch of cold. Soon, to Colville’s mystification, Eric and Clarissa set off on a long walk over the grounds by themselves, leaving Mary behind. “His motives,” Colville wrote, “were either Clarissa’s attraction, which she did not attempt to keep in the background, or else the belief that it was good policy to arouse Mary’s jealousy.” After the walk, and after Clarissa and Captain Hillgarth had left, Eric took a nap, with the apparent intention (as Colville

When I swung open the door, there he was: Marlboro Man, wearing Wranglers and a crisp white shirt and boots. And a sweet, heart-melting smile. What are you doing here? I thought. You’re supposed to be in the shower. You’re supposed to be with the sex kitten. “Hey,” he said, wasting no time in stepping through the door and winding his arms around my waist. My arms couldn’t help but drape over his strong shoulders; my lips couldn’t help but find his. He felt soft, warm, safe…and our first kiss turned into a third, and a sixth, and a seventh. It was the same kiss as the night before, when the phone call alerting him to the fire had come. My eyes remained tightly closed as I savored every second, trying to reconcile the present with the horror movie I’d imagined just moments earlier. I had no idea what was going on. At that point, I didn’t even care. “Ummmmm!!! I’m t-t-t-ttellin’!” Mike teased from the top of the stairs, just before running down and embracing Marlboro Man in a bear hug. “Hi, Mike,” Marlboro Man said, politely patting him on the back. “Mike?” I said, smiling and blinking my eyes. “Will you excuse us for a couple of minutes?” Mike obliged, giggling and oooo-ing as he walked toward the kitchen. Marlboro Man picked me up and brought my eyes to the level of his. Smiling, he said, “I’ve been trying to call you this afternoon.” “You have?” I said. I hadn’t even heard the phone ring. “I, um…I sort of took a nine-hour nap.” Marlboro Man chuckled. Oh, that chuckle. I needed it badly that night. He set my feet back down on the floor. “So…,” he teased. “You still cranky?” “Nope,” I finally answered, smiling. So, who is that woman in your house? So…what did you do all day? “Did you ever get any sleep?” So, who is that woman in your house? “Well,” he began. “I had to help Tim with something this morning, then I crashed on the couch for a few hours…it felt pretty good.” Who was the woman? What’s her name? What’s her cup size? He continued. “I would’ve slept all day, but Katie and her family showed up in the middle of my nap,” he said. “I forgot they were staying at my house tonight.” Katie. His cousin Katie. The one with the two young kids, who had probably just gone to bed when I’d called earlier. “Oh…really?” I said, my chest relaxing with a long, quiet exhale. “Yeah…but it’s a little crowded over there,” he said. “I thought I’d come over here and take you to a movie.” I smiled, stroking his back with my hand. “A movie sounds perfect.” The busty, bronze mystery girl slowly faded into oblivion. Mike came barreling out of the kitchen, where he’d been listening to every word. “Hey--if you guys are goin’ to the movie, c-c-c-can you drive me to the mall?” he yelled. “Sure, Mike,” Marlboro Man said. “We’ll drive you to the mall. It’ll cost you ten bucks, though.” And as the three of us made our way outside to Marlboro Man’s diesel pickup, I had to bite my lip to keep myself from articulating the only seven words in the English language that were in my vocabulary at that moment: God help me--I love that man.

The first time Christina and Lachlan Meet ...Christina wasn't about to stop fighting—not until she took her last breath. Boring down with her heels, she thrashed. "Get off me, ye brute." She would hold her son in her arms this day if it was the last thing she did. And by the shift of the crushing weight on her chest, she only had moments before her life's breath completely whooshed from her lungs. The very thought of dying whilst her son was still held captive infused her with strength. With a jab, she slammed the heel of her hand across the man's chin. He flew from her body like a sack of grain. Praises be, had the Lord granted her with superhuman strength? Blinking, Christina sat up. No, no. Her strike hadn't rescued her from the pillager. A champion had. A behemoth of a man pummeled the pikeman's face with his fists. "Never. Ever." His fists moved so fast they blurred. "Harm. A. Woman!" Bloodied and battered, the varlet dropped to the dirt. A swordsman attacked her savior from behind. "Watch out," she cried, but before the words left her lips the warrior spun to his feet. Flinging his arm backward, he grabbed his assailant's wrist, stopped the sword midair and flipped the cur onto his back. Onward, he fought a rush of English attackers with his bare hands, without armor. Not even William Wallace himself had been so talented. This warrior moved like a cat, anticipating his opponent's moves before they happened. Five enemy soldiers lay on their backs. "Quickly," the man shouted, running toward her, his feet bare. No sooner had she rolled to her knees than his powerful arms clamped around her. The wind whipped beneath her feet. He planted her bum in the saddle. "Behind!" Christina screamed, every muscle in her body clenching taut. Throwing back an elbow, the man smacked an enemy soldier in the face resulting in a sickening crack. She picked up her reins and dug in her heels. "Whoa!" The big man latched onto the skirt of her saddle and hopped behind her, making her pony's rear end dip. But the frightened galloway didn't need coaxing. He galloped away from the fight like a deer running from a fox. Christina peered around her shoulder at the mass of fighting men behind them. "My son!" "Do you see him?" the man asked in the strangest accent she'd ever heard. She tried to turn back, but the man's steely chest stopped her. "They took him." "Who?" "The English, of course." The more they talked, the further from the border the galloway took them. "Huh?" the man mumbled behind her like he'd been struck in the head by a hammer. Everyone for miles knew the Scots and the English were to exchange a prisoner that day. The champion's big palm slipped around her waist and held on—it didn't hurt like he was digging in his fingers, but he pressed firm against her. The sensation of such a powerful hand on her body was unnerving. It had been eons since any man had touched her, at least gently. The truth? Aside from the brutish attack moments ago, Christina's life had been nothing but chaste. White foam leached from the pony's neck and he took in thunderous snorts. He wouldn't be able to keep this pace much longer. Christina steered him through a copse of trees and up the crag where just that morning she'd stood with King Robert and Sir Boyd before they'd led the Scottish battalion into the valley. There, she could gain a good vantage point and try to determine where the backstabbing English were heading with Andrew this time. At the crest of the outcropping, she pulled the horse to a halt. "The pony cannot keep going at this pace." The man's eyebrows slanted inward and he gave her a quizzical stare. Good Lord, his tempest-blue eyes pierced straight through her soul. "Are you speaking English?

Most of the cadets accepted an invitation to attend a reception at the Venezuelan Naval Academy in La Guaira. Don Silke and I had other ideas and figured on getting a cab to the capital city of Caracas. The ride would take about a half hour, if the car did not overheat going over the mountain pass on the newly constructed highway. The capital city had an elevation of 7,083 feet and we were at sea level. As we stepped off the gangway, I noticed two stunningly beautiful girls standing on the concrete dock looking at the ship. Neither of us could figure out why the girls were there. Perhaps they were tourists, but I would find out. Approaching them, I asked if we could help, but soon discovered that they didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak what seemed to be French. It could have led to an impasse but my knowledge of German saved the day. It turned out that both girls were from France and one of them came from the Alsace Province and spoke German. They were both quite bubbly and we soon found out that they were dancers with the Folies Bergère, on tour to South America. From what I understood, they would be performing in Caracas that night and could get us free tickets. It all sounded great except that we had to be back aboard by 10:00 p.m., since the ship would be leaving first thing in the morning. Rats! You win some and you lose some, but at least we were with them for now. Don and I offered to take them aboard for lunch. It all seemed exciting for them to board a ship with so many single men. Ooh là là. The girls attracted a lot of attention and the ship’s photographer couldn’t stop taking pictures. The rest of our classmates couldn’t believe what they saw and of course thought that we were luckier than we really were. For us, the illusion had to be enough and fortunately the lunch served that day was reasonably good.

Now that she knew she was boring and physically repulsive, even to a man who did spellchecking for a living, there was no harm in standing up and giving her tights and knickers a really good yank. Then she gingerly lowered herself back on to the sofa and stared at the toes of her black patent Mary-Janes until Celia and Yuri, her sister’s flatmate, sat down on either side of her. ‘How did it go with Martyn?’ Celia asked eagerly, replacing Neve’s glass, which she didn’t remember draining, with a full one. ‘It didn’t. Can I please go home now?’ ‘I told Celia that it would never work with you and that sub-editor,’ Yuri said conspiratorially. Douglas, Neve and Celia’s elder brother, insisted that Yuri was the most terrifying woman in the world, which was ironic considering who he’d married. If Neve hadn’t seen Yuri in her pyjamas practically every morning as she came up the stairs to borrow teabags, milk and occasionally a clean teaspoon, she would have been terrified of her too. Neve had never met a Japanese person with an afro before, or one who sounded like Carmela Soprano, courtesyof the language school in New Jersey where Yuri had learned English. If Celia hadn’t come back from New York a year ago with Yuri in tow and Neve wasn’t Celia’s older sister, which according to Yuri automatically gave her ‘eleventy billion cool points’, Neve wasn’t sure that Yuri would ever have acknowledged her existence. Or happily list all the reasons why Martyn from the subs desk wasn’t the right man for Neve. ‘He drinks shandy and he sweats a lot,’ she finished scathingly. ‘Hey, Celia, Neve can do so much better.’ ‘I just wanted to ease her in gently.’ Celia made her thinking face. ‘What about a male model? They’re not as out of reach as people think. Like, they’re dead insecure about their looks so the bar isn’t that high.’ ‘Thank you very much,

He arches a brow. “You know what Frank Sinatra says about people who don’t drink . . . that when they wake up in the morning, it’s sad, because that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.” He chuckles as he sips on his coffee. I smirk. “Your hero is wise, and you’re an old soul with the heart of a hipster.

And a good morning to you, Richard,” the Middle Easterner replied, in slightly accented English. “Are you finished with your exercise already?” The man nodded. “Yeah, just a quick run today. Probably head to the gym after work. Mind if I stretch while we chat?

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Once upon a time our politicians did not tend to apologize for our country’s prior actions! Here’s a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our great country. These are quite good JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk’s response: “Does that include those who are buried here?” De Gaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop. When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by George Bush. He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.” You could have heard a pin drop. There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?” You could have heard a pin drop. A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Germany and France. At morning tea the Frenchman complained that the conference should be conducted in French since it was being held in Paris. The German replied that, so far as he could see, the reason that it was being held in English was as a mark of respect to the other attendees, since their troops had shed so much blood so that the Frenchman wouldn’t be speaking German.

Once a plane crashed somewhere in the mountains, only a monkey who was traveling in the plane was left alive. Fortunately the monkey was intelligent enough to understand English and reply. The officials went to see the monkey in the hospital and had a talk with the monkey. Officer: “When the plane took off what were the travelers doing?” Monkey: “Tying their belts” Officer: “What were the air hostesses doing?” Monkey: “Saying Hello! Good morning!” Officer: “What were the pilots doing?” Monkey: “Checking the system” Officer: “What were you doing?” Monkey: “Looking for my people” Officer: “After 10 minutes what were the travelers doing?” Monkey: “Having beverages and snacks” Officer: “What were the air hostesses doing?” Monkey: “Serving the travelers” Officer: “What were the Pilots doing?” Monkey: “Handling the steering” Officer: “What were you doing?” Monkey: “Eating & throwing” Officer: “After 30 minutes what were the travelers doing?” Monkey: “Some were sleeping and some were reading” Officer: “What were the air hostesses ?” Monkey: “Make up” Officer: “What were the pilots doing?” Monkey: “Handling the steering” Officer: “What were you doing?” Monkey: “Nothing” Officer: “Just before plane crash what were the travelers doing?” Monkey: “All were sleeping” Officer: “What were the air hostesses doing?” Monkey: “Kissing the pilots” Officer: “What were the pilots doing?” Monkey: “Responding” Officer: “What were you doing?” Monkey: “Handling the steering !!!

Pressing a hand to her chest, Loretta glanced down in bewilderment. She had been so sure…Laughter bubbled up her throat. Aunt Rachel had missed? She never missed when she could draw a steady bead on a still target. Loretta’s throat tightened. The Comanche. She looked up, confusion clouding her blue eyes. He had shielded her with his own body? Waving his friends away, Hunter hunkered down and scooped a handful of dirt, pressing it to the shallow cut on his shoulder. Loretta stared at the blood trailing down his arm. If not for his quick thinking, it could have been her own. Survival instinct and common sense warred within her. She knew death might be preferable to what was in store for her, but she couldn’t help being glad she was alive. As if he felt her staring at him, the Comanche lifted his head. When his eyes met hers, the fury and loathing in them chilled her. He stood and jerked the feathers from his braid, wrapping them in his shirt. Never taking his gaze off her, he stuffed the bundle into a parfleche hanging from his surcingle. “Keemah,” he growled. Uncertain what he wanted and afraid of doing the wrong thing, Loretta stayed where she was. He caught her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. “Keemah, come!” He gave her a shake for emphasis, his eyes glittering. “Listen good, and learn quick. I have little patience with stupid women.” Grasping her waist, he tossed her on the horse and scooted her to the back of the blanket saddle. The hem of her nightgown rode high. She could feel all the men staring at her. Had he no decency? With trembling hands, she tugged at the gown and tried to cover her thighs. There wasn’t enough material to stretch. And it was so thin from years of wear, it was nearly transparent. The morning breeze raised gooseflesh on her naked arms and back. With a grim set to his mouth, her captor opened a second parfleche, withdrawing a length of braided wool and a leather thong. Before she realized what he was about to do, he knotted the wool around one of her ankles, looped it under his horse’s belly, and swiftly bound her other foot. “We must ride like the wind!” he yelled to the others. “Meadro! Let’s go!” The other men ran for their horses. Grasping the stallion’s mane, Hunter vaulted to its back and settled himself in front of her. When he reached for her arms and pulled them around him, she couldn’t stifle a gasp. Her breasts were flattened against his back. “Your woman does not like you, cousin,” someone called in English. Loretta turned to see who spoke and immediately recognized the brave who had encouraged Hunter to kill her that first day. His scarred face was unforgettable. He flashed her a twisted smile that seemed more a leer, his black eyes sliding insolently down her body to rest on her naked thighs. Then he laughed and wheeled his chestnut horse. “She won’t be worth the trouble she will make for you.” Hunter glanced over his shoulder at her. The fiery heat of his anger glowed like banked embers in his eyes. “She will learn.” With an expertise born of long practice, he lashed her wrists together with the leather. “She will learn quick.

Fables and Fortune Hunters An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked. “Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English. “Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked. “I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket. “But … What do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.” The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.” He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise with proper management.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?” To which the American replied, “15–20 years. 25 tops.” “But what then, señor?” The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions, señor? Then what?” “Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos …

Literature has sometimes flourished under despotic regimes, but, as has often been pointed out, the despotisms of the past were not totalitarian. Their repressive apparatus was always inefficient, their ruling classes were usually either corrupt or apathetic or half-liberal in outlook, and the prevailing religious doctrines usually worked against perfectionism and the notion of human infallibility. Even so it is broadly true that prose literature has reached its highest levels in periods of democracy and free speculation. What is new in totalitarianism is that its doctrines are not only unchallengeable but also unstable. They have to be accepted on pain of damnation, but on the other hand, they are always liable to be altered on a moment’s notice. Consider, for example, the various attitudes, completely incompatible with one another, which an English Communist or ‘fellow-traveler’ has had to adopt toward the war between Britain and Germany. For years before September, 1939, he was expected to be in a continuous stew about ‘the horrors of Nazism’ and to twist everything he wrote into a denunciation of Hitler: after September, 1939, for twenty months, he had to believe that Germany was more sinned against than sinning, and the word ‘Nazi’, at least as far as print went, had to drop right out of his vocabulary. Immediately after hearing the 8 o’clock news bulletin on the morning of June 22, 1941, he had to start believing once again that Nazism was the most hideous evil the world had ever seen. Now, it is easy for the politician to make such changes: for a writer the case is somewhat different. If he is to switch his allegiance at exactly the right moment, he must either tell lies about his subjective feelings, or else suppress them altogether. In either case he has destroyed his dynamo. Not only will ideas refuse to come to him, but the very words he uses will seem to stiffen under his touch. Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child’s Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox. Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia…to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country. The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy…good writing stops.

FEBRUARY 11 MORNING AND THEY RECOGNIZED THAT THEY HAD BEEN WITH JESUS. — ACTS 4:1 3 A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ. You have read lives of Christ, beautifully and eloquently written, but the best life of Christ is His living biography, written out in the words and actions of His people. If we were what we profess to be, and what we should be, we would be pictures of Christ; yes, such striking likenesses of Him that the world would not have to hold us to the mirror and say, “Well, it seems somewhat of a likeness”; they would, when they saw us, exclaim, “He has been with Jesus; he has been taught by Him; he is like Him; he has caught the very idea of the holy Man of Nazareth, and he works it out in his life and everyday actions.” A Christian should be like Christ in his boldness. Never blush to own your Christianity; your profession will never disgrace you: Take care you never disgrace that. Be like Jesus, very valiant for your God. Imitate Him in your loving spirit; think kindly, speak kindly, and do kindly, that men may say of you, “He has been with Jesus.” Imitate Jesus in His holiness. Was He zealous for His Master? So should you be, going about doing good. Do not waste time; it is too precious. Was He self-denying, never looking to His own interest? Be the same. Was He devout? Then be fervent in your prayers. Did He defer to His Father’s will? So submit yourselves to Him. Was He patient? So learn to endure. And best of all, as the highest portraiture of Jesus, try to forgive your enemies, as He did; and let those sublime words of your Master, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” always ring in your ears. Forgive, as you hope to be forgiven. Heap coals of fire on the head of your enemy by your kindness to him. Good for evil, remember, is Godlike. Be Godlike then; and in all ways and by all means so live that all may say of you, “He has been with Jesus.

Faith’s way of walking is to cast all care upon the Lord, and then to anticipate good results from the worst calamities

In the  abeginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was  bwithout form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3And God said,  c“Let there be light,” and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

What blessed trust—to trust Him whose power will never be exhausted, whose love will never weaken, whose kindness will never change, whose faithfulness will never fail, whose wisdom will never be overruled, and whose perfect goodness can never be impaired! You are happy, reader, if this trust is yours! So trusting, you will enjoy sweet peace now and glory later, and the foundation of your trust will never be removed

God is very good to those who trust in Him, and often surprises them with unlooked for blessings. Little do we know what may happen to us to-morrow. Chance is banished from the faith of Christians, for they see the hand of God in everything.

No sooner is there a good thing in the world, than a division is necessary.

Peace between good and evil is an impossibility; the very pretence of it would, in fact, be the triumph of the powers of darkness.

We set to work to bury people. We pushed them into the sides of the trench but bits of them kept getting uncovered and sticking out, like people in a badly made bed. Hands were the worst; they would escape from the sand, pointing, begging - even waving! There was one which we all shook when we passed, saying, 'Good morning', in a posh voice. Everybody did it. The bottom of the trench was springy like a mattress because of all the bodies underneath.

Not only had I eaten bacon, but I had done so in front of one of my Muslim friends. This seemingly insignificant act was incredibly liberating, allowing me to leave behind years of an unsettling discomfort in thinking of myself as Muslim. That morning, I underwent my own small but significant rite of passage — and I have never had a full English breakfast without bacon since.

Every time a believer mounts from this earth to paradise, it is an answer to Christ's prayer. A good old divine remarks, "Many times Jesus and His people pull against one another in prayer. You bend your knee in prayer and say 'Father, I will that Thy saints be with me where I am'; Christ says, 'Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.

Leaving the Connecticut River March 8, 1704 Temperature 40 degrees They marched until the captives could not take another step. Eben dragged Eliza half the way and Sarah dragged her the rest. Mercy and Joseph took turns hauling Ruth. That night they slept like rocks, and in the morning Mercy understood why bears spent the whole winter sleeping. It sounded good to Mercy. Perhaps it sounded good to the Indians too, because they did not leave camp. Instead, they built two fires, gathering an enormous woodpile. Joseph was stripped of his English clothes. Too torn and filthy to bother with, they were tossed into the woods. He was given a long deerskin shirt and leggings that hung from thigh to ankle, held up by cords strung to a belt. Then came coat, hat and mittens, all Indian. How dark Joseph’s hair was. How tan his skin. Joseph looked like a young brave. In a moment, the Indians did the same with Eben, whose coloring was very English, ruddy cheeks and straw-yellow hair. He did not look at all Indian, but in deerskin, he looked tough and strong and much older. The girls were nervous. They did not want their clothes stripped off their bodies, no matter how torn and filthy. But Eben’s Indian, Thorakwaneken, hoisted a flintlock musket and looked questioningly at each girl. Mercy could not imagine what he was asking of her. Eliza did not notice him or the gun. And Ruth was the last person to whom a sensible Indian would hand a weapon. Sarah, however, nodded. “I’m a good shot.” She took the musket from Thorakwaneken. Food was such a problem that even Joseph and Eben would be armed and sent forth to hunt. The girls would stay by the fire with enough wood to last for days, and Sarah to fend off wolves.

Let our gladness proclaim that we serve a good Master.

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good morning.

SALVATION BELONGS TO THE LORD! — JONAH 2:9 Salvation is the work of God. It is He alone who quickens the soul “dead in . . . trespasses and sins,”1 and He it is who maintains the soul in its spiritual life. He is both “Alpha and Omega.” “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” If I am prayerful, God makes me prayerful; if I have graces, they are God’s gifts to me; if I hold on in a consistent life, it is because He upholds me with His hand. I do nothing whatever toward my own preservation, except what God Himself first does in me. Whatever I have, all my goodness is of the Lord alone. Whenever I sin, that is my own doing; but when I act correctly, that is wholly and completely of God. If I have resisted a spiritual enemy, the Lord’s strength nerved my arm. Do I live before men a consecrated life? It is not I, but Christ who lives in me. Am I sanctified? I did not cleanse myself: God’s Holy Spirit sanctifies me. Am I separated from the world? I am separated by God’s chastisements sanctified to my good. Do I grow in knowledge? The great Instructor teaches me. All my jewels were fashioned by heavenly art. I find in God all that I want; but I find in myself nothing but sin and misery. “He only is my rock and my salvation.”2 Do I feed on the Word? That Word would be no food for me unless the Lord made it food for my soul and helped me to feed upon it. Do I live on the bread that comes down from heaven? What is that bread but Jesus Christ Himself incarnate, whose body and whose blood I eat and drink? Am I continually receiving fresh supplies of strength? Where do I gather my might? My help comes from heaven’s hills: Without Jesus I can do nothing. As a branch cannot bring forth fruit except it abide in the vine, no more can I, except I abide in Him. What Jonah learned in the ocean, let me learn this morning in my room: “Salvation belongs to the LORD.

On Monday mornings in nice weather, Diana would ask, “Where did you go this weekend, Mrs. Robertson?” She knew we made frequent trips outside London. Other English friends would tell us about their favorite spots, but Diana was not forthcoming with travel suggestions. At the time, I assumed that she might not have seen as much of England and Scotland as we did during that year. Diana enjoyed our enthusiasm for her country--its natural beauty, its stately homes and castles, its history. She must have smiled inside when I would tell her of my pleasure in the architecture, paintings, and furniture I saw in England’s famous mansions. She’d grown up in one! And she would always ask, “How did Patrick enjoy…Warwick Castle or Canterbury Cathedral or Dartmoor?” Patrick was a very good-natured sightseer. In return, I would ask, “And how was your weekend?”, leaving it up to her to say as little or as much as she chose. I would not have asked specifically, “What did you do last weekend?” She would answer politely and briefly, “Fine,” or “Lovely,” maybe mentioning that she’d been out in the country. Of course, I didn’t know “the country” meant a huge estate that had been in the family for centuries. Diana was unfailingly polite but sparing of any details. She considered her personal life just that, personal. She was careful never to give us a clue about her background. If she did not volunteer information, something in her manner told me I should not intrude. She may not have even been aware of this perception I had. I viewed her understated manner as appealing and discreet, not as off-putting or unfriendly. Clearly, Diana did not want us to know who she was. We may possibly have been the only people Diana ever knew who had no idea who she was. We welcomed her into our home and trusted her with our child for what she was. This may have been one reason she stayed in touch with us over the years.

The riches of His goodness are unsearchable; you will never be able to convey them or even conceive them. Oh,

FLETCHER: The truth is I don’t think people understand what it is I did at Shaffer. I wasn’t there to conduct. Any idiot can move his hands and keep people in tempo. No, it’s about pushing people beyond what’s expected of them. And I believe that is a necessity. Because without it you’re depriving the world of its next Armstrong. Its next Parker. Why did Charlie Parker become Charlie Parker, Andrew? ANDREW: Because Jo Jones threw a cymbal at him. FLETCHER: Exactly. Young kid, pretty good on the sax, goes up to play his solo in a cutting session, fucks up -- and Jones comes this close to slicing his head off for it. He’s laughed off-stage. Cries himself to sleep that night. But the next morning, what does he do? He practices. And practices and practices. With one goal in mind: that he never ever be laughed off-stage again. A year later he goes back to the Reno, and he plays the best motherfucking solo the world had ever heard. Now imagine if Jones had just patted young Charlie on the head and said “Good job.” Charlie would’ve said to himself, “Well, shit, I did do a good job,” and that’d be that. No Bird. Tragedy, right? Except that’s just what people today want. The Shaffer Conservatories of the world, they want sugar. You don’t even say “cutting session” anymore, do you? No, you say “jam session”. What the fuck kind of word is that? Jam session? It’s a cutting session, Andrew, this isn’t fucking Smucker’s. It’s about weeding out the best from the worst so that the worst become better than the best. I mean look around you. $25 drinks, mood lighting, a little shrimp cocktail to go with your Coltrane. And people wonder why jazz is dying. Take it from me, and every Starbucks jazz album only proves my point. There are no two words more harmful in the entire English language than “good job”.

Magnar wants to start a livery in Worthington. Horses and oxen. Your animal doctoring would be a big help to him.” Susannah had felt the young man’s blue eyes watching her all morning. She met his gaze. “Good idea. Homesteaders arriving by train will need teams. This is excellent grazing land. Your biggest problem will be keeping your stock from running off. Picketing takes time and fencing takes money.” “See. You know the business. You would be a big help to him. Teach him English too. You could live out here or build a house in town. Norwegians are good people. Dependable, treat their women well—” The Reverend cleared his throat. “I’ve asked Mrs. Mason for her hand.” Blood seemed to pound in her ears, but it was only Ivar pounding the table. “But Magnar wants to marry her!

Unless you're living in the best neighborhoods, Philadelphia is indeed everything David Lynch claims it is: a very sick, twisted, violent, fear-ridden, decadent and decaying place. Huyen was so shocked, she wanted to go back to Vietnam immediately. Only pride prevented her from doing so. Grays Ferry was sullen and desolate and everyone seemed paranoid. Saigon is often squalid but it is never desolate. Vietnam is a disaster, agreed, but it is a socialized disaster, whereas America is -- for many people, natives or not -- a solitary nightmare. If Americans weren't so stoic and alienated, if they weren't' so cool, they wouldn't be so quiet about their desperation. Huyen could handle poverty, but she had no aptitude for paranoia, the one skill you needed to survive in Philadelphia. In Saigon you dreaded being cheated or robbed; in Philadelphia you feared getting raped and killed. In the end, Philadelphia was even worse than Eraserhead, because it didn't last for 108 minutes but went on forever. As in Vietnam, Huyen sought comfort in American movies to escape from the real America she could see just outside her window. Every American home was its own inviolable domain, a fortress with the door never left open. The rest of the world could go to hell as long as there was enough beer in the fridge and a good game on TV. And utopia was already on the internet, why go outside if you didn't have to? In the morning, Huyen kept the door locked, bolted and chained, and watched Jerry Springer -- in his glasses and tweed suit the image of a college professor -- to learn more about Americans and improve her colloquial English. In the afternoon, she took a bus to the YMCA to attend an ESL class. At night, the couple barely screwed in the land of bountiful screwing. His wife was so tense, Jaded went back to masturbating.

And then. Astonishing. Again. As she was skipping up the back stairs on her way to the attic bedroom to fetch something, something innocent - a book, a handkerchief, afterwards she would never remember what - she was almost sent flying by Howie on his way down. 'I was looking for a bathroom,' he said. 'Well, we only have one,' Ursula said, 'and it's not up these-' but before the sentence was finished she found herself pinned awkwardly against the neglected floral wallpaper of the backstairs, a pattern that had been up since the house was built. 'Pretty girl,' he said. His breath smelt of mint. And then again she was again subjected to pushing and shoving from the outsized Howie. But this time it was not his tongue trying to jam its way into her mouth but something inexpressibly more intimate. She tried to say something but before a sound came out his hand clamped over her mouth, over half her face in fact, and he grinned and said 'Ssh,' as if they were conspirators in a game. With his other hand he was fiddling with her clothes and she squealed in protest. Then he was butting up against her, the way the bullocks in the Lower Field did against the gate. She tried to struggle but he was twice, three times her size even and she might as well have been a mouse in Hattie's jaws. She tried to see what he was doing but he was pressed so tightly against her that all she could see was his big square jaw and the slight brush of stubble, unnoticeable from a distance. Ursula had seen her brothers naked, knew what they had between their legs - wrinkled cockles, a little spout - and it seemed to have little to do with this painful piston-driven thing that was now ramming inside her like a weapon of war. Her own body breached. The arch that led to womanhood did not seem so triumphal any more, merely brutal and completely uncaring. And then Howie gave a great bellow, more ox than Oxford man, and was hitching himself back together and grinning at her. 'English girls,' he said, shaking his head and laughing. He wagged his finger at her, almost disapproving, as if she had engineered the disgusting thing that had just happened and said, 'You really are something!' He laughed again and bounded down the stairs, taking them three at a time, as though his descent had been barely interrupted by their strange tryst. Ursula was left to stare at the floral wallpaper. She had never noticed before that the flowers were wisteria, the same flower that grew on the arch over the back porch. This must be what in literature was referred to as 'deflowering', she thought. It had always sounded like a rather pretty word. When she came back downstairs a half-hour later, a half-hour of thoughts and emotions considerably more intense than was usual for a Saturday morning, Sylvie and Hugh were on the doorstep waving a dutiful goodbye to the disappearing rear end of Howie's car. 'Thank goodness they weren't staying,' Sylvie said. 'I don't think I could have been bothered with Maurice's bluster.' 'Imbeciles,' Hugh said cheerfully. 'All right?' he said, catching sight of Ursula in the hallway. 'Yes,' she said. Any other answer would have been too awful.

London in those years was a thieves’ paradise. There was no citywide police force: The London Metropolitan Police Department would be established only in 1829. The patchwork of local watchmen, marshals and constables that patrolled the city in Wild’s day proved eminently bribable: Thieves often sold their plunder directly to them, at an attractive discount, which kept them safe from the hangman’s noose. Capitalizing on prevailing conditions, Wild began to gather London’s foremost thieves around him. He set up shop in the parlor of a London tavern, where he presided over the boldly named “Office for the Recovery of Lost and Stolen Property.” Suppose an English gentleman awoke one morning to find his gold watch and silver snuff box missing. Calling on Wild in his “office,” he would be informed that Wild “had an idea where the goods might be found, or at least who it was that had possession of them,” and that they could soon be returned to their rightful owner—for a fee. “If the person questioned Wild’s integrity, or asked how he should know so much about the theft, Wild answered ‘that it was meerly Providential; being, by meer Accident, at a Tavern, or at a Friend’s House in the Neighbourhood, [he] heard that such a Gentleman had his House broken open, and such and such Goods Stolen, and the like.’ ” Needless to say, Wild knew exactly where the goods were, because they’d been stolen by one of his own employees. What he’d done, in short, was to perfect a kind of property-kidnapping for ransom. The system proved so effective that he did not hesitate to target some of the country’s wealthiest men and women.

Your feet will always bring you to where your heart is.’ She turned back to him, surprised. He smiled. ‘It is a Welsh expression, m’lady. Good morning.

1 There is no cry so good as that which comes from the bottom of the mountains, no prayer half so hearty as that which comes up from the depths of the soul, through deep trials and afflictions. They bring us to God, and we are happier; for nearness to God is happiness. Come, troubled believer, do not fret over your heavy troubles, for they are the heralds of weighty mercies.

What blessed trust—to trust Him whose power will never be exhausted, whose love will never weaken, whose kindness will never change, whose faithfulness will never fail, whose wisdom will never be overruled, and whose perfect goodness can never be impaired! You are happy, reader, if this trust is yours! So trusting, you will enjoy sweet peace now and glory later, and the foundation of your trust will never be removed.

All good things are found in the divine Comforter. Matchless consolation, infallible instruction, immortal quickening, spiritual energy, and divine sanctification are all mixed with other excellencies in the heavenly anointing oil of the Holy Spirit.

Muffins, teacakes, tea rolls, morning rolls, batch rolls, stottie cakes, wigs, birdies, huffkins, oven-bottom muffins, baps and cobs... It says something about us as a race, doesn't it? (But, frankly, I'm not sure what.) HORACE DAVIDSON, Ripon

Everything You Need to Do Freelancing One must possess some basic skills to do freelancing work. For example, a good computer, internet, and browsing should be well understood. Freelancing work is mostly hired by foreign buyers. In that case, you must have English speaking skills, know how to write good English while chatting, and keep practicing speaking English regularly. How to Get Work at Freelancing? Freelancing means being contracted to other people or companies and working as a contract. To do this, you need to have some special creativity in freelancing, which you can sell to clients as a service. How You Can Get Work: First, you need to select a freelancing platform from which you want to work. Decide in which category you want to make your career. Then open an account there, add your portfolio, and post it through a blog. Then start promoting your freelancing skills and talent. You can also get work by promoting your skills on Linkedin, Pinterest, and Twitter. Search for jobs based on your skills on various job forums (Upwork, Fiverr) and others. By doing these above tasks, you will get a job according to your needs, InshaAllah. Some Principles to Be a Good Freelancer: Time-sharing: You can create a timetable for when you will do a task. For example – You can keep morning time for various practices, afternoon time for study or other research, and night time for work. It will reduce the pressure on you. Eat meals on time: Never have irregular meals, if you do you will get sick very soon. And if you get sick, you can't work. As a result, you will suffer both physically and financially. So eat food on time. And remember, "Food first then Work". Don't Embrace Loneliness: People who are freelancing have to be alone most of the time. As a result, they cannot give time to everyone and become lonely. But you should never make this mistake. You will find time for yourself outside of your work to spend time gossiping with family or friends. How to Increase Your Workload: Increase work efficiency, and present the nature of work attractively and accurately. Quality of work will help you get additional work. Keeping the client happy at work is paramount. If you want, you can provide a little more service than the client asked to do without any charge. And can request you to give a 5-star rating. Clients may be happy with you for additional services and offer more work. Never overprice your work or service unless you are a popular freelancer in the marketplace. Please visit Our Website (Bhairab IT Zone) to Read more Articles related to Freelancing and Outsourcing. Thank You.

Here is what I believe: that the natural world- the stuff of our lives, the world we plod through, hardly hearing, the world we burn and poke and stuff and conquer and irradiate- that THIS WORLD (not another world on another plane) is irreplaceable, astonishing, contingent, eternal and changing, beautiful and fearsome, beyond human understanding, worthy of reverence and awe, worthy of celebration and protection. If the good English word for this combination of qualities is "sacred," then so be it. Even if we don't believe in God, we walk out the door on a sacred morning and lift our eyes to the sacred rain and are called to remember our sacred obligations of care and celebration. And what's more, if the natural world is sacred, and "sacred" describes the natural world; if there are not two worlds but one, and it is magnificent and mysterious enough to shake us to the core; if this is so, then we-you and I and the man on the beach- are called to live our lives gladly. We are called to live lives of gratitude, joy, and caring, profoundly moved by the bare fact that we live in the time of the singing of birds.

We know that for those who love God all things work together for good.” The Christian does not merely hold this as a theory, but he knows it as a matter of fact. So far everything has worked for good; the poisonous drugs mixed in proper proportions have effected the cure; the sharp cuts of the scalpel have cleaned out the disease and facilitated the healing. Every event as yet has worked out the most divinely blessed results; and so, believing that God rules all, that He governs wisely, that He brings good out of evil, the believer’s heart is assured, and he is learning to meet each trial calmly when it comes

t is good that there is One who is always the same and who is always with us. It is good that there

It is good that there is one stable rock amidst the billows of the sea of life. Let us not set our soul’s affections upon rusting, moth-eaten, decaying treasures but set our hearts upon Him who remains faithful forever. Let us not build our house upon the moving quicksands of a deceitful world but base our hopes upon this rock that, amid descending rain and roaring floods, shall stand immovably secure.

And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day.

though I cannot attain to that perfection of purity and truth that belongs to the Lord of hosts by nature as the infinitely good, yet I can set the Lord always before me and strive, by the help of the indwelling Spirit, to conform to His image.

Do you not know that your faith never looks as good in summer as it does in winter? Love is too often like a glowworm, showing but little light unless it is surrounded by darkness. Hope itself is like a star—not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity. Afflictions are often the black foils in which God sets the jewels of His children’s graces, to make them shine brighter.

to remember this in a country that has long been mesmerized by the romantic figure of ‘the renouncer’, even before the Buddha came along.6 My mother, however, was spot on in recognizing ‘my third stage melancholy’. During my second stage, I had felt as though I was waking up each morning, going to work, and feeding my family—only to repeat it the following day, as my children would after me and their children after them. What was the point of it all? Now in my third stage, I wanted to find a better way to live. Meanwhile, my friends and acquaintances were incredulous. ‘So, what is this I hear about wanting to go away to read old books?’ one asked me at a dinner party. ‘Don’t tell me you are going to turn religious on us!’ exclaimed another. My wife began to explain my idea of an ‘academic holiday’ to some of the guests, who reciprocated with suitable looks of sympathy. ‘Tell us, what books are you planning to read?’ asked a retired civil servant. A self-proclaimed ‘leftist and secularist’, who had once been a favourite of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, he had the gruff, domineering accent of an English aristocrat, not surprising in a former civil servant of the old school. I admitted reluctantly that I had been thinking of reading the Mahabharata, the Manusmriti, the Kathopanishad perhaps, and ... ‘Good Lord, man!’ he exclaimed. ‘You haven’t turned saffron, have you?’ The remark upset me. Saffron is, of course, the colour of Hindu right-wing nationalism, and I wondered what sort of secularism is it that regards the reading of Sanskrit texts as a political act. I was disturbed that I had to fear the intolerance of my ‘secular’ friends as much as the bigotry of the Hindu Right, which had become a force in Indian politics over the past two decades with the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Many an ancient patriarch has said with Joshua, “Not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass.”2 If you have a divine promise, you need not plead it with an “if”; you may urge it with certainty. The Lord meant to fulfill the promise or He would not have given it. God does not give His words merely to keep us quiet and to keep us hopeful for a while with the intention of putting us off in the end; but when He speaks, it is because He means to do as He has said.

Old England to adorn, Greater is none beneath the sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn. Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs, (All of a Midsummer morn!) Surely we sing of no little thing, In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! Rudyard Kipling, ‘Oak, Ash, and Thorn’ (1906) In Rudyard Kipling’s classic Edwardian children’s book Puck of Pook’s Hill, a faery apparition casts a spell over two children by brushing a clump of oak, ash and thorn leaves across their faces. They enter a time-travelling trance in which historical figures – Romans, Domesday-era knights, feudal barons – manifest themselves and spin rambling yarns of their exploits, battles, treachery and derring-do, all of which have taken place across the very land that now forms the kids’ adventure playground. This vertical exploded view of England’s pastures is Edwardian psychogeography, designed to instil a sense of the heroic history that has cut its furrows deep in the soil, sowing the seeds of a national psyche. Ushered there by Puck’s cunning wood magic, the greenwood becomes the gateway to an idealised England where the imagination runs naked and free, until the time comes to swish the oak, ash and thorn twigs once more, awaken from the English dreaming and return to … well, in Kipling’s children’s case, no doubt a piping hot tea of crumpets and scones, lavished upon them by a servile nanny.

Am I rooted in sincere fidelity and love to Jesus? If my heart remains unsoftened and unfertilized by grace, the good seed may germinate for a season, but it must ultimately wither, for it cannot flourish on a rocky, unbroken, unsanctified heart. Let me dread a godliness as rapid in growth and as lacking in endurance as Jonah’s vine; let me count the cost of being a follower of Jesus. Above all let me feel the energy of His Holy Spirit, and then I shall possess an abiding and enduring seed in my soul. If my mind remains as stubborn as it was by nature, the sun of trial will scorch, and my hard heart will help cast the heat the more terribly upon the ill-covered seed, and my religion will soon die, and my despair will be terrible. Therefore, O heavenly Sower, plow me first, and then cast the truth into me, and let me yield a bounteous harvest

I LEFT FULING on the fast boat upstream to Chongqing. It was a warm, rainy morning at the end of June—the mist thick on the Yangtze like dirty gray silk. A car from the college drove Adam and me down to the docks. The city rushed past, gray and familiar in the rain. The evening before, we had eaten for the last time at the Students’ Home. They kept the restaurant open late especially for us, because all night we were rushing around saying goodbye to everybody, and it was good to finally sit there and eat our noodles. We kidded the women about the new foreign devils who would come next fall to take our place, and how easily they could be cheated. A few days earlier, Huang Neng, the grandfather, had talked with me about leaving. “You know,” he said, “when you go back to your America, it won’t be like it is here. You won’t be able to walk into a restaurant and say, ‘I want a bowl of chaoshou.’ Nobody will understand you!” “That’s true,” I said. “And we don’t have chaoshou in America.” “You’ll have to order food in your English language,” he said. “You won’t be able to speak our Chinese with the people there.” And he laughed—it was a ludicrous concept, a country with neither Chinese nor chaoshou. After our last meal the family lined up at the door and waved goodbye, standing stiffly and wearing that tight Chinese smile. I imagined that probably I looked the same way—two years of friendship somehow tucked away in a corner of my mouth.

And best of all, as the highest portraiture of Jesus, try to forgive your enemies, as He did; and let those sublime words of your Master, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” always ring in your ears. Forgive, as you hope to be forgiven. Heap coals of fire on the head of your enemy by your kindness to him. Good for evil, remember, is Godlike. Be Godlike then; and in all ways and by all means so live that all may say of you, “He has been with Jesus.

Good God, man!” The major general exploded and thumped the well-padded arm of the chair with his fist, a length of ash fell from the end of the cigar and landed on the rug where Kruger nosed it quizzically to determine if it was edible. “This is not any other killing, this is a recipe for an uprising. The bloody country is on the brink of civil war and I’m damned if it will start in my patch on my watch. You will hold that inquest tomorrow morning... the longer this thing drags on the more dangerous it becomes.

The riches of His goodness are unsearchable; you will never be able to convey them or even conceive them. Oh, the breadth of the love of Christ! Shall such a love as this have only half our hearts? Shall it have a cold love in return? Shall Jesus’ marvelous loving-kindness and tender care be met with only faint response and delayed acknowledgment? My soul, tune your harp to a glad song of thanksgiving! Go to your rest rejoicing, for you are not a desolate wanderer but a beloved child, watched over, cared for, supplied, and defended by your Lord.

ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD. 3. Life. Animula, vagula, blandula. Life! I know not what thou art, But know that thou and I must part; And when, or how, or where we met, I own to me's a secret yet. But this I know, when thou art fled, Where'er they lay these limbs, this head, No clod so valueless shall be, As all that then remains of me. O whither, whither dost thou fly, Where bend unseen thy trackless course, And in this strange divorce, Ah tell where I must seek this compound I? To the vast ocean of empyreal flame, From whence thy essence came, Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed From matter's base encumbering weed? Or dost thou, hid from sight, Wait, like some spell-bound knight, Through blank oblivious years the appointed hour, To break thy trance and reassume thy power? Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be? O say what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee? Life! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good morning. 1825 Edition.

Little do we know what may happen to us tomorrow, but this sweet fact may cheer us—that no good thing will be withheld. Chance is banished from the faith of Christians, for they see the hand of God in everything. The trivial events of today or tomorrow may involve consequences of the highest importance

The law was a dispensation of terror that drove men before it as with a scourge; the Gospel draws with cords of love. Jesus is the Good Shepherd going before His sheep, bidding them follow Him, and leading them forward with the sweet word, “Come.” The law repels; the Gospel attracts. The law shows the distance that exists between God and man; the Gospel bridges that awful chasm and brings the sinner across it.

Josie! Time to wake up! Good morning, sweetie. Did you finish your English essay?

There was no opportunity to discuss his plans with Wynne that night, but the following morning he sought her out and issued his invitation. “It will give me great pleasure,” said Franz in a solemn voice, “it will give me great pleasure if you will dine with me tonight. I will telephone and order a nice dinner at the Grand Hotel and afterwards we will go to the Picture House. I see in the newspaper that Norma Shearer is there, and it says the film is very good.

MAINTAINING DOCTRINAL PURITY IS good, but it is not the whole picture for a New Testament church. The apostles wanted to do much more than simply “hold the fort,” as the old gospel song says. They asked God to empower them to move out and impact an entire culture. In too many places where the Bible is being thumped and doctrine is being argued until three in the morning, the Spirit of that doctrine is missing. William Law, an English devotional writer of the early 1700s, wrote, “Read whatever chapter of Scripture you will, and be ever so delighted with it—yet it will leave you as poor, as empty and unchanged as it found you unless it has turned you wholly and solely to the Spirit of God, and brought you into full union with and dependence upon him.”1