Stratford Quotes

Or, even worse, calling Sal a monster. It’s interesting to compare your reporting about Sal to your recent articles on the Stratford Strangler. He murdered five people and pleaded guilty, yet in your headline you referred to him as a “lovesick young man.” Is that because he’s white?

I no longer believe that William Shakespeare the actor from Stratford was the author of the works that have been ascribed to him.

I'm not into those kind of rivalries. I remember standing out in front of Stratford, minding my own business. Carload of about eighty kids would pull up: 'STRATFORD SUCKS!' Am I supposed to run after these guys? I'd just stand there, you know. They'd back up. 'STRATFORD SUCKS! ...STRATFORD SUCKS!' I'd say, 'I know. I go there. You're wasting gas, man.

To be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality

The world is a fabric woven of mysteries, and a mystery is a provocation to our humanity that cannot be dissolved by googling a few more bits of information.

Tommy Stratford and Michael . . . something or other,” she says. “Are you worried I’ll like them better than I like you?” “That’s just not possible.” “Why? Because you’re so irresistible?” “No. Because you don’t like anyone.” Arsinoe snorts. “I do like you, Junior.” “Oh?” “But I have more important things to think about right now.

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623 two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. Source: Wikipedia

She decided at once that she and the boy were cut of the same bookish cloth, and could quite possibly become co-conspirators.

She fixed things that were broken, and then began fixing things that weren't broken, or broke things so they could be fixed in ways no one understood or found particularly convenient.

Should have upped his game,” Louis murmured as we stepped forward. “He took my magical design for Stratford and simply tweaked it in a few places. Worst case of fan fiction I’ve ever seen.

...Troy itself was disappointingly small. Like little more than your ordinary city block and a few stories in height, practically. Although now that I remember, everything in William Shakespeare's house at Stratford-on-Avon was astonishingly tiny, too. As if only imaginary people had lived there then. Or perhaps it is only the past itself, which is always smaller than one had believed.

Two of the few certainties of Shakespeare’s life are that his marriage lasted till his death and that he sent much of his wealth back to Stratford as soon as he was able, which may not be conclusive proof of attachment but hardly argues against it.

William Shakespeare: I have a wife, yes, and I cannot marry the daughter of Sir Robert De Lesseps. You needed no wife come from Stratford to tell you that, and yet, you let me come to your bed. Viola De Lesseps: Calf-love. I loved the writer and gave up the prize for a sonnet.

Damned woman. Ever since she’d dropped into his arms last night, he’d been tied in knots. On one hand, desire gripped him. On the other, the need to turn her over his knee until she admitted it was the same for her rode him. On the third hand, if he had a third hand, lay the question of who she was. Why had he never seen her out in society? But more important, why was he so conflicted over this rude, irritating girl? Hell, that was like five hands. He’d have to be Kali to decipher his response to Liliana Claremont. Geoffrey Wentworth, Earl of Stratford

The central idea of the present book is very simple. It is that education is not primarily about the acquisition of information. It is not even about the acquisition of ‘skills’ in the conventional sense, to equip us for particular roles in society. It is about how we become more human (and therefore more free, in the truest sense of that word). This is a broader and a deeper question, but no less practical. Too often we have not been educating our humanity. We have been educating ourselves for doing rather than for being.

Shakespeare is getting flyblown; a paternal government might well forbid writing about him, as they put his monument at Stratford beyond the reach of scribbling fingers. With all this buzz of criticism about, one may hazard one's conjectures privately, make one's notes in the margin; but, knowing that someone has said it before, or said it better, the zest is gone. Illness, it its kingly sublimity, sweeps all that aside and leaves nothing but Shakespeare and oneself.

I remember that Stratford Library book clearly and with great affection. It had that comfortably sprung, lived-in look that library books with a lively circulation always get; bent page corners, a dab of mustard on page 331, a whiff of some reader’s spilled after-dinner whiskey on page 468. Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us; how good stories abide, unchanged and mutely wise, while we poor humans grow older and slower.

Today, in a world with instant access to Google, we rely on the electronic web to supply everything we need, from historical facts to word definitions and spellings as well as extended quotations. All of us who use a computer are aware of the shock of inner poverty that we suddenly feel when deprived (by a virus or other disaster) of our mental crutches even just for a day or a week. Plato is right: memory has been stripped from us, and all we possess is an external reminder of what we have lost, enabling us to pretend to a wisdom and an inner life we no longer possess in ourselves.13

Riding in a carriage without an escort is modern. But traveling out and about unescorted is unheard of.

Maisie had never owned a book and couldn’t imagine rereading anything when time was so short and the libraries so full.

I have never thought that the man of Stratford-on-Avon wrote the plays of Shakespeare.

While the hyphenated name “Shake-speare” would appear frequently on title pages over the coming decades, it never appeared hyphenated in the Stratford man’s records.

England has her Stratford, Scotland has her Alloway, and America, too, has her Dresden. For there, on August 11, 1833, was born the greatest and noblest of the Western World; an immense personality, -- unique, lovable, sublime; the peerless orator of all time, and as true a poet as Nature ever held in tender clasp upon her loving breast, and, in words coined for the chosen few, told of the joys and sorrows, hopes, dreams, and fears of universal life; a patriot whose golden words and deathless deeds were worthy of the Great Republic; a philanthropist, real and genuine; a philosopher whose central theme was human love, -- who placed 'the holy hearth of home' higher than the altar of any god; an iconoclast, a builder -- a reformer, perfectly poised, absolutely honest, and as fearless as truth itself -- the most aggressive and formidable foe of superstition -- the most valiant champion of reason -- Robert G. Ingersoll.

It is immoral to question history and to take credit away from William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.” Immoral to question history—when inquiry is the very basis of the historical discipline!

They were pleased to eat more Nazis, although nervous about too many disappearances being noticed. More troubling, however, was the flavor. Nazis were nearly indigestible. The taste of hate was hard to swallow.

When capital has bumped up against limits to profit-growth in the past, it has found fixes in things like colonisation, structural adjustment programmes, wars, restrictive patent laws, nefarious debt instruments, land grabs, privatisation, and enclosing commons like water and seeds. Why would it be any different this time? Indeed, a study by the ecological economist Beth Stratford finds that when capital faces resource constraints, this is exactly what happens: it turns to aggressive rent-seeking behaviour. It seeks to grab existing value wherever it can, with clever mechanisms to suck income and wealth from the public domain into private hands, and from the poor to the rich, exacerbating inequality.

He always took his bicycle when he went into the country. It was part of the theory of exercise. One day one would get up at six o'clock and pedal away to Kenilworth, or Stratford-on-Avon—anywhere. And within a radius of twenty miles there were always Norman churches and Tudor mansions to be seen in the course of an afternoon's excursion. Somehow they never did get seen, but all the same it was nice to feel that the bicycle was there, and that one fine morning one really might get up at six.

I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme! I hate it, I hate the way you’re always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call. But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

When I was eight years old and was spending a weekend visiting my Aunt Libby Linsley at her home in Stratford on the Housatonic,” he wrote in his essay on Human Nature, “a middle-aged man called one evening, and after a polite skirmish with my aunt, he devoted his attention to me. At that time, I happened to be excited about boats, and the visitor discussed the subject in a way that seemed to me particularly interesting. After he left, I spoke of him with enthusiasm. What a man! My aunt informed me he was a New York lawyer, that he cared nothing whatever about boats—that he took not the slightest interest in the subject. ‘But why then did he talk all the time about boats?’ “‘Because he is a gentleman. He saw you were interested in boats, and he talked about the things he knew would interest and please you. He made himself agreeable.

And there on the piss-soaked cobbles, his back to the alley and his face to the wall, lay the object of their diplomatic mission: A sleeping drunk. Colt lay out his hand in a flourish. “Mr. Billings, may I introduce to you His Imperial Majesty Joshua Norton the First, Emperor of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico.

Your mum wrote that girls can do whatever," Ada continued. "Education. Profession." Mary, now fully engaged, put down her book. "My dear Ada, my mother wrote about how things ought to be, not how they are." Ada continued looking displeased, which made Mary go on. "Of course, how are things to be the way they ought, unless we make them so?

Nor can we be entirely confident how he pronounced his name. Helge Kökeritz, author of the definitive Shakespeare’s Pronunciation, thought it possible that Shakespeare said it with a short a, as in “shack.” It may have been spoken one way in Stratford and another in London, or he may have been as variable with the pronunciation as he was with the spelling.

Mathematics is the language of science-- but it is also the hidden structure behind art… and its basis is the invisible Logos of God.

Pardon?

Lindsay’s right,” Izzy says, collecting the leftovers. “Billie Jean is coming back for her. With a little help from his friends.” “So . . . so is this a horror movie now, or a teen comedy?” Brittney says. “It’s an afterschool special,” Izzy says, Hoddering her head over to study Billie Jean. “Know what the take-home message is? Don’t fuck with Izzy Stratford.

When Elizabeth Winkler wrote the Atlantic piece about other authorship, she received more hate mail than she ever had in her life. Shakespeare is not just a playwright; he’s practically a religion. Despite the gaps in his history, many highly intelligent people are still not willing to entertain any other explanation except that the man from Stratford wrote those plays solo.

the important thing, the real goal of study, is the ‘development of attention.’ Why? Because prayer consists of attention, and all worldly study is really a stretching of the soul towards prayer.

This is one of many reasons why it is such a shame to deprive children of exposure to the greatest writers in the English language. In the great writers one can see how words are charged with meaning.

When we reflect upon the works of William Shakespeare it is of course an amazement to consider that one man could have produced such a sumptuous, wise, varied, thrilling, ever-delighting body of work, but that is of course the hallmark of genius. Only one man had the circumstances and gifts to give us such incomparable works, and William Shakespeare of Stratford was unquestionably that man—whoever he was.

If education is about the communication of values, or meaningful information, and of wisdom and of tradition, between persons and across generations, it is important to know that it can only take place in the heart; that is, in the center of the human person. A voice from the lungs is not enough to carry another along with the meaning of our words. The voice has to carry with it the warmth and living fire of the heart around which the lungs are wrapped.2

No! I had too many variables! Two of those variables were actually the same variable, so I revised the equation and then it all made perfect sense!" Ada was truly excited. "You seem truly excited, Lady Ada," said Anna cautiously.

It is a modern mistake to think that great personalities can grow without being rooted in the rich soil of the past, in the memory of great deeds and in fidelity to promises made across the generations. Civilization is founded on covenants that cannot be broken without consequence.

While it does seem odd to found a religion in an ancient Egyptian Starbucks with a group of Jews debating Greek philosophy, this is precisely where our story begins: in the Paris-in-the-’20s of the ancient world, with artists and initiates inhaling the erotic perfume of dangerous ideas.

William Shakespeare. She knew him. They were,the three of them-Lucinda,Daniel,and Shakespeare-friends. There had been a summer afternoon when Daniel had taken Lucinda to visit Shakespeare at his home in Stratford. Toward sunset,they'd sat in the library,and while Daniel worked on his sketches at the window, Will had asked her question after question-all the while taking furious notes-about when she'd first met Daniel, how she felt about him, whether she thought she could one day fall in love. Aside from Daniel,Shakespeare was the only one who knew the secret of Lucinda's indentity-her gender-and the love the players shared offstage. In exchange for his discretion,Lucinda was keeping the secret that Shakespeare was present that night at the Globe. Everyone else in the company assumed that he was in Stratford, that he'd handed over the reins of the theater to Master Fletcher.Instead,Will appeared incognito to see the play's opening night. When she returned to his side,Shakespeare gazed deep into Lucinda's eyes. "You've changed." "I-no,I'm still"-she felt the soft brocade around her shoulders. "Yes, I found the cloak." "The cloak,is it?" He smiled at her, winked. "It suits you.

was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623 two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. Source: Wikipedia

The Christian story is both mythological and historical. That is because it concerns the historical incarnation of the One whom all myths represent. Thoth, Hermes, Apollo, and a hundred other gods are images of the Logos or Mediator whom Christians believe was born as a human child, died on a Cross, and rose from the dead two thousand years ago. 'By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God' (1 John 4:2-3). Nor does a 'literalist' belief in historical incarnation render imagination and the use of symbolism redundant - if anything it legitimizes them.

« -...sono andato nella Londra del 1610 e ho scoperto che Shakespeare era solo un attore con un secondo lavoro potenzialmente imbarazzante come ricettatore a Stratford. Nulla di strano che lo tenesse nascosto - lo farebbe chiunque. -Chi li ha scritti allora? Bacon? Marlowe? -No, è insorto un problemino. Vedi, nessuno ha mai sentito parlare di quelle opere, figuriamoci averle scritte. Non capivo. -Cosa vuoi dire? Non ci sono? -Proprio così. Non esistono. Non sono mai state scritte. Né da lui, né da altri. -Scusate- si intromise Landen, che ne aveva abbastanza -ma abbiamo visto il Riccardo III sei settimane fa. -Certo- disse mio padre -Il tempo è scardinato alla grande. Naturalmente bisognava intervenire. Ho portato con me una copia delle opere complete e le ho date all'attore Shakespeare nel 1592 perché le distribuisse secondo uno schema preciso. Questo soddisfa la tua domanda? »

La popolazione era presa costantemente d'assedio dalla tubercolosi, dal morbillo, dal rachitismo, dallo scorbuto, da due tipi di vaiolo (confluente ed emorragico), dalla scrofola, dalla dissenteria e da un vasto, amorfo assortimento di flussi e febbri (febbre terzana, febbre quartana, febbre puerperale, febbre navale, febbre quotidiana, febbre a macchie) così come di «frenesie», «mali impuri» e altre curiose malattie di vaghi e numerosi tipi. [...] Meno di tre mesi dopo la nascita di William, la sezione sepolture del registro parrocchiale della chiesa di Holy Trinity di Stratford riporta le sinistre parole: Hic incepit pestis, qui comincia la peste, accanto al nome di un bambino chiamato Oliver Gunne. L'epidemia del 1564 fu terribile. [...] In un certo senso, la più grande conquista di William Shakespeare non fu quella di aver scritto l'Amleto o i Sonetti, ma semplicemente di essere sopravvissuto al suo primo anno di vita.

A veneração que a grande massa culta reserva ao gênio é da mesma espécie da que os crentes dedicam aos seus santos, ou seja, degenera facilmente num culto pueril às relíquias. A casa de Petrarca em Arquà, a suposta prisão de Tasso em Ferrara, a casa de Shakespeare em Stratford com sua cadeira, a casa de Goethe em Weimar com sua mobília, o velho chapéu de Kant, bem como os respectivos autógrafos, são fitados com atenção e respeito por muitos que nunca leram suas obras, do mesmo modo como milhares de cristãos veneram as relíquias de um santo cuja vida e doutrina não chegaram a conhecer, e como a religião de milhares de budistas consiste muito mais na veneração a Dahtu (dente sagrado), até mesmo a Dagoba (Stupa), que o encerra, ou ao sagrado Patra (gamela), ou ainda à pegada petrificada, à árvore sagrada que Buda semeou, do que no conhecimento profundo e no exercício fiel da sua sublime doutrina. De fato, tais pessoas não são capazes de outra coisa a não ser ficar boquiabertas.

some people since the mid-nineteenth century have argued that William Shakespeare could not have written the plays that bear his name. These persons have put forward some dozen names as more likely authors, among them Queen Elizabeth, Sir Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere (earl of Oxford), and Christopher Marlowe. Such attempts to find what for these people is a more believable author of the plays is a tribute to the regard in which the plays are held. Unfortunately for their claims, the documents that exist that provide evidence for the facts of Shakespeare’s life tie him inextricably to the body of plays and poems that bear his name. Unlikely as it seems to those who want the works to have been written by an aristocrat, a university graduate, or an “important” person, the plays and poems seem clearly to have been produced by a man from Stratford-upon-Avon with a very good “grammar-school” education and a life of experience in London and in the world of the London theater. (Folger Shakespeare)

1595, Richard Field, fellow-alumnus of the King Edward grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, printed The lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by that grave learned philosopher and historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea: translated out of Greeke into French by James Amiot, abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings privie counsell, and great Amner of France, and out of French into English, by Thomas North. This was the book that got Shakespeare thinking seriously about politics: monarchy versus republicanism versus empire; the choices we make and their tragic consequences; the conflict between public duty and private desire. He absorbed classical thought, but was not enslaved to it. Shakespeare was a thinker who always made it new, adapted his source materials, and put his own spin on them. In the case of Plutarch, he feminized the very masculine Roman world. Brutus and Caesar are seen through the prism of their wives, Portia and Calpurnia; Coriolanus through his mother, Volumnia; Mark Antony through his lover, Cleopatra. Roman women were traditionally silent, confined to the domestic sphere. Cleopatra is the very antithesis of such a woman, while Volumnia is given the full force of that supreme Ciceronian skill, a persuasive rhetorical voice.40 Timon of Athens is alone and unhappy precisely because his obsession with money has cut him off from the love of, and for, women (the only females in Timon’s strange play are two prostitutes). Paradoxically, the very masculinity of Plutarch’s version of ancient history stimulated Shakespeare into demonstrating that women are more than the equal of men. Where most thinkers among his contemporaries took the traditional view of female inferiority, he again and again wrote comedies in which the girls are smarter than the boys—Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Rosalind in As You Like It, Portia in The Merchant of Venice—and tragedies in which women exercise forceful authority for good or ill (Tamora, Cleopatra, Volumnia, and Cymbeline’s Queen in his imagined antiquity, but also Queen Margaret in his rendition of the Wars of the Roses).41

Non esito dunque a dichiarare che reputo Tolstòj (eppure è un russo!) un ingegno creativo tra i più grandi che siano mai apparsi sulla terra; che onoro Anatole France (un francese!) come uno degli spiriti più alti del nostro tempo e come un narratore di primissimo ordine; che Maeterlinck (questo belga!) per me non ha perduto nulla della sua grazia e del suo incanto anche se veramente avesse scritto sulla Germania quelle strane cose che i giornali hanno fatto circolare sotto il suo nome. E dovrei ancora, seriamente, esprimermi su Shakespeare (questo inglese, giacché è nato a Stratford!) e dire che per me Shakespeare rimane sempre Shakespeare, dovesse questa guerra durare altri trent’anni? Un giorno, quando ritornerà la pace, noi dovremo pur ricordare, con stupore e angoscia, che vi fu un tempo in cui eravamo costretti a far sapere oltre i confini che ciascuno di noi ha sì amato la propria patria, ma non ha per questo dimenticato la giustizia, il senno, la gratitudine; né ha mai perduto, neppure in questa epoca mostruosa di confusione, un po’ d’intelligenza. (Arthur Schnitzler)

Bell treated his friend and colleague Watson generously. Though he had no legal obligations to do so, he awarded Watson 10 percent of the company, allowing Watson to retire rich at the age of just twenty-seven. Able to do anything he wanted, Watson devoted the rest of his life to just that. He traveled the world, read widely, and took a degree in geology at MIT for the simple satisfaction of improving his brain. He then started a shipyard, which quickly grew to employ four thousand men, producing a scale of stress and obligation way beyond anything he wished for, so he sold the business, converted to Islam, and became a follower of Edward Bellamy, a radical philosopher and quasi communist who for a short period in the 1880s enjoyed phenomenal esteem and popularity. Tiring of Bellamy, Watson moved to England in early middle age and took up acting, for which he showed an unexpected talent. He proved particularly adept at Shakespearean roles and performed many times at Stratford-upon-Avon before returning to America and a life of quiet retirement. He died, contented and rich, at his winter home on Pass-Grille Key, Florida, just shy of his eighty-first birthday in 1934.

POEM – MY AMAZING TRAVELS [My composition in my book Travel Memoirs with Pictures] My very first trip I still cannot believe Was planned and executed with such great ease. My father, an Inspector of Schools, was such a strict man, He gave in to my wishes when I told him of the plan. I got my first long vacation while working as a banker One of my co-workers wanted a travelling partner. She visited my father and discussed the matter Arrangements were made without any flutter. We travelled to New York, Toronto, London, and Germany, In each of those places, there was somebody, To guide and protect us and to take us wonderful places, It was a dream come true at our young ages. We even visited Holland, which was across the Border. To drive across from Germany was quite in order. Memories of great times continue to linger, I thank God for an understanding father. That trip in 1968 was the beginning of much more, I visited many countries afterward I am still in awe. Barbados, Tobago, St. Maarten, and Buffalo, Cirencester in the United Kingdom, Miami, and Orlando. I was accompanied by my husband on many trips. Sisters, nieces, children, grandchildren, and friends, travelled with me a bit. Puerto Rico, Los Angeles, New York, and Hialeah, Curacao, Caracas, Margarita, Virginia, and Anguilla. We sailed aboard the Creole Queen On the Mississippi in New Orleans We traversed the Rockies in Colorado And walked the streets in Cozumel, Mexico. We were thrilled to visit the Vatican in Rome, The Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum. To explore the countryside in Florence, And to sail on a Gondola in Venice. My fridge is decorated with magnets Souvenirs of all my visits London, Madrid, Bahamas, Coco Cay, Barcelona. And the Leaning Tower of Pisa How can I forget the Spanish Steps in Rome? Stratford upon Avon, where Shakespeare was born. CN Tower in Toronto so very high I thought the elevator would take me to the sky. Then there was El Poble and Toledo Noted for Spanish Gold We travelled on the Euro star. The scenery was beautiful to behold! I must not omit Cartagena in Columbia, Anaheim, Las Vegas, and Catalina, Key West, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, and Pembroke Pines, Places I love to lime. Of course, I would like to make special mention, Of two exciting cruises with Royal Caribbean. Majesty of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas Two ships which grace the Seas. Last but not least and best of all We visited Paris in the fall. Cologne, Dusseldorf, and Berlin Amazing places, which made my head, spin. Copyright@BrendaMohammed

Heart Speaks Unto Heart. This motto of the Blessed John Henry Newman, adopted from St Francis de Sales, contains the essence of a ‘philosophy of communication,’ which is also a philosophy of education. If education is about the communication of values, or meaningful information, and of wisdom and of tradition, between persons and across generations, it is important to know that it can only take place in the heart; that is, in the center of the human person. A voice from the lungs is not enough to carry another along with the meaning of our words. The voice has to carry with it the warmth and living fire of the heart around which the lungs are wrapped.2

We find this more cosmic aspect of the Marian archetype expressed in the person of Galadriel’s own heavenly patroness, Elbereth, Queen of the Stars, who plays the role in Tolkien’s legendarium of transmitting light from the heavenly places. It is to Elbereth that the Elves sing their moving invocation: O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees, Thy Starlight on the Western seas. Tolkien would have been familiar from his childhood with one of the most popular Catholic hymns to the Virgin Mary, the tone and mood of which are markedly close to that of Tolkien’s to Elbereth (see L 213): Hail, Queen of Heaven, the ocean star, Guide of the wand’rer here below: Thrown on life’s surge, we claim thy care— Save us from peril and from woe. Mother of Christ, star of the sea, Pray for the wanderer, pray for me. Starlight on the sea: for Tolkien a particularly evocative combination, as we have seen. Light shining in darkness, representing the life, grace, and creative action of God, is the heart of Tolkien’s writing.

Meanwhile, Matthew took the empty place beside Daisy’s. “Miss Bowman,” he said softly. Daisy couldn’t manage a word. Her gaze lifted to his smiling eyes, and it seemed that emotions sprang from her in a fountain of warmth. She had to look away from him before she did something foolish. But she remained intensely aware of his body next to hers. Westcliff and Matthew entertained the group with an account of how their carriage had gotten stuck in mire. Luckily they had been helped by a passing farmer with an ox-drawn wagon, but in the process of freeing the vehicle, all participants had been covered with mud from head to toe. And apparently the episode had left the ox in quite an objectionable temper. By the time the story was finished, everyone at the table was chuckling. The conversation turned to the subject of the Shakespeare festival, and Thomas Bowman launched into an account of the visit to Stratford-on-Avon. Matthew asked a question or two, seeming fully engaged in the conversation. Suddenly Daisy was startled to feel his hand slide into her lap beneath the table. His fingers closed over hers in a gentle clasp. And all the while he took part in the conversation, talking and smiling easily. Daisy reached for her wine with her free hand and brought it to her lips. She took one sip, and then another, and nearly choked as Matthew played lightly with her fingers beneath the table. Sensations that had lain quiescent for a week kindled into vibrant life. Still not looking at her, Matthew gently slid something over her ring finger, past the knuckle, until it fit neatly at the base. Her hand was returned to her lap as a footman came to replenish the wine in their glasses. Daisy looked down at her hand, blinking at the sight of the glittering yellow sapphire surrounded by small round diamonds. It looked like a white-petaled flower. Her fingers closed tightly, and she averted her face to hide a betraying flush of pleasure. “Does it please you?” Matthew whispered. “Oh, yes.” That was the extent of their communication at dinner. It was just as well. There was too much to be said, all of it highly private. Daisy steeled herself for the usual long rituals of port and tea after dinner, but she was gratified when it seemed that everyone, even her father, was inclined to retire early. As it appeared the elderly vicar and his wife were ready to return home, the group dispersed without much fanfare. Walking with Daisy from the dining hall, Matthew murmured, “Will I have to scale the outside wall tonight, or are you going to leave your door unlocked?” “The door,” Daisy replied succinctly. “Thank God.

Viewed as a barometer of inner being, the face is seen to produce certain effects in both self and other. By one set of criteria or another, whether ugly or beautiful, the face is seen as both natural and cultivated - and these terms are polyvalent, signifying, respectively, degradation or purity, artifice or grace. To cultivate a beautiful visage is to cultivate sound morals, and thus to be dutiful - which is why Dorian Gray is such [a] powerfully contradictory character. And the face is also and always seen as a barometer of the characteristics of a people, not just of a person - of the lower or higher development of the race.

... cooptation of the rhetoric of beauty, morality and duty into the realm of commercial life set in train the development of other rhetorics designed to sell growing numbers of products that promised both surface change and inner transformation.

Yes, I understand it’s 5 AM...Millie Watkins from the Medlin Creek Times.

I learned that money was the object of life, and I wanted money. I wanted the servants, the fine clothes, the respect in the street, and a horse of my own. I wanted to ride into Stratford and spit on Thomas Butler and his sour wife, to spit on all those who had told me to work harder, work harder, work harder. To wok harder for what? To become a carpenter? a cobbler? A glove maker or a ditch-digger? To be someone who was forever pulling my forelock? To be always bowing, snivelling and flattering? And so I began to thieve, and I found I was good at it.

No, no,

which to the right ended in a sharp corner, turning left.

Modern culture has disenchanted the world by disenchanting numbers. For us, numbers are about quantity and control, not quality and contemplation. After Bacon, knowledge of numbers is a key to manipulation, not meditation. Numbers are only meaningful (like all raw materials that comprise the natural world) when we can do something with them. When we read of twelve tribes and twelve apostles and twelve gates and twelve angels, we typically perceive something spreadsheet-able. By contrast, in one of Caldecott’s most radical claims, he insists, “It is not simply that numbers can be used as symbols. Numbers have meaning—they are symbols. The symbolism is not always merely projected onto them by us; much of it is inherent in their nature” (p. 75). Numbers convey to well-ordered imaginations something of (in Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s metaphor) the inner design of the fabric of creation. The fact that the words “God said” appear ten times in the account of creation and that there are ten “words” in the Decalogue is not a random coincidence. The beautiful meaningfulness of a numberly world is most evident in the perception of harmony, whether in music, architecture, or physics. Called into being by a three-personed God, creation’s essential relationality is often evident in complex patterns that can be described mathematically. Sadly, as Caldecott laments, “our present education tends to eliminate the contemplative or qualitative dimension of mathematics altogether” (p. 55). The sense of transcendence that many (including mathematicians and musicians) experience when encountering beauty is often explained away by materialists as an illusion. Caldecott offers an explanation rooted in Christology. Since the Logos is love, and since all things are created through him and for him and are held together in him, we should expect the logic, the rationality, the intelligibility of the world to usher in the delight that beauty bestows. One

Eyes closed, I conjured the great Churchill. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory . . . without victory, there is no survival. I wanted desperately to hop a bus to Stratford, to see Shakespeare’s house. (Elizabethan women wore

It is fine to live two different moments of time as one: that alone allows one to live authentically a single moment of eternity, indeed all eternity since it has no moments. It is as earth-shattering as Shakespeare's shock would be, presumably, were he to revisit some Stratford-on-Avon museum and discover that they were still exhibiting his "skull at the age of five." It is the jubilation of God the Father, one Being made two in his Son, and the perception the first term has of its relationship with the second term was bound to create nothing less than the Holy Spirit. The present, possessing its past in the heart of another, lives at the same time its Self and its Self plus something. If a moment of the past or a moment of the present existed separately at one point in time, it would not perceive this Plus something which is quite simply the Act of Perception. This act is, for the sentient being, the most profound enjoyment conceivable, one that is different from the sexual acts of brutes like you and me.

He quite certainly shouldn't care: and still he feels a hot sick bubbling in his gut, as if he'd drunk turned milk, or been on a drunken spree. Or been spurned in love, since damn fools seem to take that uncommonly serious, and stick knives in their guts over it all the time, in poems and plays. Romeo and Juliet, being one example, that he's read half a dozen times but never thought to see played out on the stage. Except that Ree took it into his head not a month ago, to take him to the theatre at Stratford to see it. The play's practically seditious when you think about it: Shakespeare's tale of forbidden love between a free-born human lad, and the high-born wolf-girl from the family that had owned then freed his father. At least old Will didn't go so far as to make the boy a slave, else he'd probably have found himself clapped in irons for thanks for his labour. Though of course as a wolf himself, for all his relatively low-status till he won fame from his quill, he'd less to fear than a human would have had. And even a wolf audience can sigh and dab their eyes over a tragic romance, between the two classes of men. As long as the powerless class gets no ideas of acting on that offensive gush of sentimentality.

The goal of the quest is not to retrieve a treasure but to lose one: the Ring must be “unmade” in the fire of its forging, cast into Mount Doom under the very eye of the Dark Lord.

Tolkien wrote of Frodo’s failure that it reflected the fact that the power of Evil in the world cannot, in the end, be defeated by us on our own, however “good” we may try to be (L 191). By implicitly denying the heresy of Pelagianism (the idea that we can become good entirely by our own power), Tolkien is simply being realistic about our situation in a fallen world. This is not pessimism, however; for while we cannot save ourselves, we can yet be saved.

And so, when Gollum bites the Ring from Frodo’s finger and falls into the Fire, this is the consequence of Frodo’s earlier (and freer) decision to spare Gollum’s life. The salvation of the world, and of Frodo himself, is brought about in consequence of the pity and forgiveness that he had shown to Gollum earlier

The scene is a triumph of providence over fate, but also a triumph of mercy, in which free will, supported by grace, is fully vindicated.

Each of us is an allegory, embodying in a particular tale and clothed in the garments of time and place, universal truth and everlasting life

coin valued at fifty pounds. Whenever I wished to cease working for the Stratford-Rices, I would receive my gold. In the presence of her attorney and her sons, she showed me a pouch with my name on the front and two gold coins.

His sudden need and urgency a reminder of how recently he’d been freed from the dark, from death. And how easily convinced he was it might try to reclaim him.

The Russian, new to Julie’s tongue, felt sensuous and exciting.

It is the memory of time that makes us old; remembering eternity makes us young again.

Lydia didn’t wait for Blair’s funeral. Their friends thought she was so traumatised by the event that she fled the country immediately. The truth was she was afraid it would be discovered that Henry killed his father. She wanted to take him away as quickly as possible to another country where Blair Stratford-Rice’s murder in distant Jamaica would never be speculated upon. She would take Leon with her, the only witness to Henry’s guilt and one of the few people who treated her son with kindness.

This son was also a grandson of the overseer. Yes, relationships could become complicated in those days, with the masters having children outside marriage by their slaves or by the local women. Okeke was that grandson’s name. He would be my age if he is still alive. For a few years he was educated and then he worked for Mr. Stratford-Rice. When times were hard Mr. Stratford-Rice went into the slave-trading business. They brought slaves from Cuba and sold them to countries that continued slavery. Sometimes when their cargo was low they took some easy pickings from the shores of Black River.

Okeke took Art O’Neill’s grandson, Akeem, and sold him.” For several moments nobody spoke. “There is a story that Blair Stratford’s wife, Lydia, hated her husband as much as their crippled son did. Fearing that the truth would be revealed – that her crippled boy had killed his father – she fled, taking the only witness, the overseer’s son, Leon O’Neill, with her.

A woman was hit and killed by a tram last night around 10:45 PM. There was no identification on her, but she looks to be in her mid-forties, with light brown hair and fair skin. She was wearing a purple coat and was barefoot. If you think you may know her or be able to identify her, please see Constable Stratford at Station Nine.

Lily Samson, The Switch, Outtakes & Quotes, shameless manipulation of. A one minute reading test I am dog --Dog, Marina Lewycka, Two Caravans, 2007 Allergies disclaimer: One must stress that this book is not intended for the unwashed masses: I delayed showering after the last switch. I’ve created a Pavlovian response: he must associate its floral sweetness with sexual fulfilment. Adam has a “Pavlovian” reaction to Elena’s BO? Bribes her with cake to lessen the wrath when asking Elena to wash? He frowns, seeing that I’m silent and trembling. ‘My perfume was weak; hers much stronger.’ I say, my temper flaring. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the usual wasteman chatting up yours truly in Sarf London would probably assume that a big phat slice of Marks & Spencer’s Strawberry Pavlova will get him into the lady’s knickers. Nope, she’s allergic to stupid. A merengue dessert will hardly cause a rash, but a moron makes her skin crawl. A female of the human species displayed an unconditioned response: shoved cream cake into the courting male’s face. Requested a substantial meal of Shchavel Borscht with hard boiled egg --Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Russian Cookbook for Love, Romance, and mating behaviours: Humans, 1904 Ding-dong! --Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Neutral Triggers & Conditioned Responses: Canines, 1907 It is I! I make the best Byzantine shchi to entice a female. --Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Dead Souls, Notebook (1841-1844), The Nose and other short stories Right! She turned her nose up at his advances: Idiot! I hate strawberries! --Seraphima Vasilievna Karchevskaya Pavlova, Mrs, My Husband and I – Memoirs The lady did not have a sweet tooth. Man didn’t do his research. This is a cleverly written book. So some of you, keen aspiring readers, please have your Oxford fictionary handy. Just saying! In the words of our hero: Bloody pricey...But God, it is a nice smell. Don’t you like it? And then he “squirts onto her wrist, playfully.” Shhhh.. Doctors Pavlov & Chekhov are not amused. Shall we shuffle the deck with these random quotes? One minute! Plenty of time is a full minute for a skilled bullshit dealer to shuffle themselves out of a gloomy Russian medical clerical predicament. Not tricky when Lily Samson gives treats: All around us are dog walkers, their expensive breeds racing about, barking and sniffing each other’s genitals. ..thinking it all through those awful dog ornaments she hated... feisty feminist...she simply hates them. Men are so stupid! And then.. She took another whiff and yet another. She sniffed him up and down like a dog before realizing what it was: the aroma of a woman’s cunt. --Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being Gratuitous use of one particular French vulgarism nested in the English language since the Norman conquest of 1066 is well demonstrated by this Milan Kundera translation. One has to wonder if the original 1984 edition contained the word “pizda”? It is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock. --Scholar Germaine Greer But of course a cunt, in French, as much as el coño in Spanish does not carry near enough as much uncouth weight as in English. The English language doesn’t exist. It’s just badly pronounced French. --Bernard Cerquiglini Quelle conne! Un con reste un con! --William Shakespeare, Last Words, Holy Trinity Church, Gropecunt Lane, Stratford upon Avon, April 23rd 1616

Anne Hathaway's Garden by Stewart Stafford In Stratford, lies a garden's tended hair, Two lovebirds, Avon swans, nested there. Anne kept counsel as Shakespeare's bride, United home and clan over distance wide. Pestilence, flood and war roared with fright, This English idyll thrived in the pastoral light, Rose, rosemary pruned with nurturing care, Floral Tudor fireworks, exploding fragrant air. The Bard, swansong past, returned to her, Wooed Anne with words, the heartbeat spur, To walk and reminisce among the green, Sparked a fire that life apart rendered lean. Anne Hathaway's garden outlived them all, Paralleled words, evergreen, as in virgin scrawl. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.

Anne's Will by Stewart Stafford Young Shakespeare set off to London town, To quill and ink his masterpiece plays, Still, Anne Hathaway grew anxious; Marriage and family rent twain ways. He vowed to send back funds to them, With a fledgling kiss, Will was gone, Tearful goodbyes of wife and daughters, Stratford shrank, cartwheels spun. The distance honeyed homesickness, The farther from hearth Will roamed, The capital's theatres awaited him; Words etched in stone in folio tome. The absentee bard kept his word true; Admirably providing for kin well, Through a bitter, lonely aftertaste, With only one truism to tell: "For, aye, where'er there was a Will, Truly, good Anne always hath a way." © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.

Most people do no want their perceptions challenged or world views rocked. When an excuse to dismiss comes along, which allows them to maintain unaltered the view that's served them thus far, more often than not, they will take it.

Mile End Road and Bow Road to Stratford, then to Chigwell and Romford, right across Bethnal Green and Canonbury, through Holloway and Kentish Town and thus to Hampstead Heath, or else south over the river to Peckham and Dulwich or westward to Richmond Park. It is a fact that you can

For Dickinson as part of a middle-class community anxious about female creativity, self-assertion, self-expression, and egoism, Shakespeare and Stratford may have been emblems appropriate to her own task as a writer: to achieve literary renown but also authorial disappearance.

I never saw a production at Stratford Ontario, Guthrie's own theatre, which he designed and developed from a tent and which was said to work wonderfully.

The Bard at Stratford Grammar School My balls art oft itchy and sometimes smelleth of cheese, O I wisheth I had a pussy to doeth with as I please.

a temporary solution to the city’s sectarian bloodletting. Now they were a permanent feature of its geography—indeed, their number, length, and scale had actually increased since the signing of the Good Friday accords. On Springfield Road the barricade was a transparent green fence about ten meters in height. But on Cupar Way, a particularly tense part of the Ardoyne, it was a Berlin Wall–like structure topped by razor wire. Residents on both sides had covered it in murals. One likened it to the separation fence between Israel and the West Bank. “Does this look like peace to you?” asked Keller. “No,” answered Gabriel. “It looks like home.” Finally, at half past one, Keller turned into Stratford Gardens. Number 8, like its neighbors, was a two-level redbrick house with a white door and a single window on each floor. Weeds flourished in the forecourt; a green rubbish bin lay toppled by the wind. Keller pulled to the curb and switched off the engine.

The oddly shaped man had introduced himself as a Mr. Abernathy, a wealthy friend of the family. "I'm a wealthy friend of the family," he had said. "Very rich. Friendly.

Her heart was behaving in a most peculiar fashion, as though it were holding its breath, wondering if it should crumple completely or take a leap of hope.

Maisie was next, and stepped up to vote. She wondered how many hands had trembled already today, holding their pencils over the ballots, with all the little boxes. Did most women take to their new, belated right with aplomb, or did they take their time, marveling over the beauty of it all, the silent speech that would be heard? Or did they think, like she did, that there was a long queue behind her and she had to get to work. She wrote a thick X, drew over it twice, and dropped the paper in the ballot box. That’s how you spell a shout. With an X.

I hear of boys thinking that a coal miner should be treated with the same respect as a landowner! And my own younger sister hopes to go to university and study medicine! She doesn't even wish to get married! These are the spoils of the so-called progressive mind. I love being spoiled [thought Maisie] We must defend our small island against those who would attempt to call it home, while having no right to it. We are the true Britons!

She perched on the club chair he indicated. The leather was probably repelled by her cheap wool dress.

With so few clothes to choose from, getting dressed was no quarrelsome effort. It was almost an argument for not acquiring more blouses and skirts, jumpers and jackets, else how much time would be lost in dividing and conquering them?

Give that woman an inch and she takes the entire British Isles.

It looks like they want to silence women and unions everywhere. And what's it for but money? People are awfully funny. Always thinking lots of money makes them special, and thus superior, and so they ought to exercise the superiority. It's a wonder they don't try to revoke the Magna Carta.

the story of a flatus research project carried out by the extremely appropriately named Colin Leakey, at a food science facility in Chipping Campden, near Stratford-upon-Avon.

It was the time of saying "Are we absolutely sure about this?" but it was also and more so the time of thinking it very loudly and not saying it.

Pound notes. Her previous pay packets had been so small she never received paper, only coins. Which she liked. Coins had heft and history. Their value was irrefutable. She liked the way they jingled in her purse. That was the song of solvency. The cheerful assurance that there would be food and comfort through the day. It was better than any hymn.