 It might be worse, by Anna Koromowit-Ritchie. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Bishop Paul said, For every bad there is a might be worse. When a man breaks his leg, let him be thankful that it was not his neck. Into what insignificance and misfortune we bewelled as unendurable suddenly sinks when compared with the crushing calamity that desolates the home of a friend. The hill-fire, whose far-shining signal light warns an army of the approach of a foe, fades into a mere rush-candle when compared with the angry jets of a liquid flame leaping from the heart of Vesuvius and threatening incalculable destruction. Beauty is heightened or eclipsed, size magnified or diminished, color changed, sound altered, the sense of pain or pleasure intensified or deadened by contrast. We were once forcibly struck by the philosophy of a friend who had disciplined herself whenever she was assailed by a crowd of tantalizing vexations or oppressive troubles to compare her trials with the severer affliction of some greater mourner. And to ejaculate mentally it might be worse. With that reflection came a sense of thankfulness that she had been spared a superlative evil. Friends and cheerfulness ensued, and she was preserved from falling into the common egotistical era of believing that the cross allotted to herself was heavier than that borne by any other shoulders. This friend was asked in what manner she first contracted the above-mentioned consoling habit. In answer she related the following anecdote. Our early youth was rich in promised joys and present blessings, but to this hope-blossoming calm succeeded a sudden whirlwind of trials, the loss of fortune, the treachery of trusted friends, the death-minusing illness of the nearest and dearest, her own failing health combined with the absolute necessity of daily encountering severest toil. She had been struggling with this accumulation of sorrows for a couple of years or more. She was weary of her ceaseless exertions, dispirited, full of repining, fearful of the future, thankless for the past, and fully convinced that her fate in life was the hardest ever apportioned to mortal. She had become a total stranger to that happy philosophy which vids the heart whose sun is low to borrow a smile upon the credit of a golden tomorrow. At this period she was so journeying in a western city to which her duty summoned her. There she constantly visited a charming family at whose fireside peace and content seemed to have raised destructible altars. But our friend says the sphere of joyous serenity by which that home was pervaded made her more impatient when she contrasted her own restless, wandering, unsatisfactory life with the calm existence of that dwelling's inhabitants. The lovely children of the hostess became much attached to this frequent guest. They flew to meet her like a flock of pigeons whenever she came, hung around her with a fondness that soothed her aching heart, and prattled about her continually in her absence. Several times while she was talking to these beloved little ones she noticed half-hidden by an open door figure that seemed to be watching her. If she moved to obtain a nearer view the form invariably disappeared. Day after day her curiosity was excited by this mysterious presence. Politeness closed her lips, for it was hardly possible that the mother and children should not be aware of what she was so conscious. Indeed, several times when she had related some hair-breadthed scape, encountered in her travels, a low sound like a murmur of sympathy or a suppressed groan from the direction of the concealed shape. At length curiosity conquered our friend's sense of courtesy, and one day she turned to her hostess and said, You know I am lamentably superstitious, and at this very moment my imagination is worked up into believing that there is some unearthly visitant near us. Do not think me very rude, though I fear I am, but pray do tell me who that is yonder. I can just see the waving of a white dress, and I have wondered over and over again to whom it belonged. The words were hardly spoken when an exclamation of pain struck upon her ear, and the slender form of a young girl covering her face with her hands was distinctly seen hurrying away. A dead silence ensued. The mother looked deeply distressed, and the children turned to her but did not speak. Poor Ellen, at last, she exclaimed. What a pity you have noticed her. She took so much pleasure in listening to you and watching you. Ellen, who is she? Is she one of the family? Yes. My husband's daughter, by his first marriage, a young girl is sixteen. She is an—and the speaker hesitated, and added in a tone of tender pity, an invalid, one sorely afflicted. But will she not come into the room and be introduced, if she cares to see me? I would like to know her. Do ask her to come. No. She cannot. She would rather not. It would not be possible to induce her, replied the lady, with an embarrassed air. An instant afterwards she turned the conversation. At our friend's next visit—and the next—there was no dress floating to and fro behind that door, no sound which betrayed an unseen visitor. But this unknown Ellen was constantly present to her imagination. Why did she appear no more? What was the mystery attached to her? Why could she not be seen? Tormented by these interrogatories of a curious spirit, the visitor ventured to ask her hostess how Ellen was. About the same, she replied gravely, she is not likely to be any better. Is her disease hopeless, then? Yes, perfectly so. And she conversed on other subjects. A few days afterwards the hall door chanced to be open when our friend called, and she entered the house without ringing or knocking. As she appeared, a young girl fled along the entry and rapidly melted the stair. Surely the step was not that of an enfeebled or hopeless illness. The form was very fragile, but did not lack a certain elastic grace. The face was partially covered by a white bandage, leaving only the eyes and brow visible, a pair of frightened blue eyes and a low brow over which the brown hair was carefully smooth. Was this Ellen? The guest told her hostess of the accidental meeting, and, taking courage, urged her to confide the nature of Ellen's affliction to one who already felt an indescribable interest in the youthful recluse. With no little reluctance the lady complied. Owing to the death of Ellen's mother, the child was trusted to a wet nurse. This unprincipled woman artfully concealed from the father and the physician that she was a victim to scroffula. The infant was a lovely healthy little girl, a fine promise, but the milk by which she was nourished, diseased, poisoned her blood. Its effects culminated when she reached her fourteenth year. Just at the age when a young maiden begins to value her personal appearance, the venom imbibed in infancy developed itself in a cancer in the nose, an affection of the throat which impaired her speech, and a disease of the eyes which threatened blindness. Her sufferings were intense beyond description. She was forced to submit to the most torturing medical treatment, and after a time the disease was in measure checked. Her sight was restored, her throat better, but the palate had been completely destroyed. Her voice had a guttural, discordant sound. Her nose was partially eaten away, and the disfigurement of her whole countenance was so shocking that she was barely recognizable. It might well make the beholder think, with a shudder, of the story of Akko of classical memory, who went mad when she viewed her own hideousness in the looking-glass, and almost fear that the same fate might befall Ellen. She lived in total seclusion, she fled from strangers, and had a mortal horror of any eye resting upon her, and if she went into the street she was so closely veiled that she could hardly breathe. She heard her younger sisters describing enjoyments which she could never share. She saw them grow in beauty, while her limitable deformity increased. She was morbidly sensitive to her own condition, and keenly felt the irremediable blight that had fallen upon her whole existence. Constant praddling of the children about their favorite guest had awakened Ellen's interest, and she so earnestly longed to see her that, at last, with their contrivance, she had stolen from her retirement and concealed herself behind the door of the drawing-room to hear and see unperceived. After listening to this piteous story, our friend warmly and treated that she might be allowed to make Ellen's acquaintance might behold and converse with her. The poor sufferer was, with difficulty, persuaded to grant this request, but at length she was led into the room by tender and devoted stepmother, who placed Ellen's hand in that of the stranger. Oh, what a terrible revealing of the possible miseries to which humanity might be exposed was this young girl's history to that stranger. Ellen's mercurial temperament heightened her affliction. She had quick sensibilities, ardent enthusiasm, a strong desire to love and be loved, to mingle with her fellow-beings, to shine, to enjoy, and yet life's commonest gifts to humanity were all denied to her. Still she was not wholly miserable. The seeds of piety, early inseminated in her mind, sprang up and bore fruit which nourished her spirit and prevented the mental starvation of utter despair. And one happiness at last was granted her. One unhopeful friendship became hers. She quickly formed a strong, almost idolizing attachment to the stranger, whose visits to the house were henceforth especially her own. When Ellen and her new friend were compelled to part, the wretched girl threw herself into that friend's arms, sobbing violently, and caught the hand lifted to dry her tears, and placed upon it a ring of gold, with a heart in the center saying, Oh, look at it often. Think of me often, often, often. It was strange to hear that harsh, hollow voice, tremulous with emotion, uttering such touching words, strange to see the dim, restless eyes so full of love and tears. Think of her often. Who could have forgotten her? The whole life of the being, on whose hand that ring had been placed, was changed by her intercourse with this stricken girl. As she gazed upon the simple token, she said to herself again and again, Ellen, Ellen, what are my sorrows contrasted with yours? What are my sufferings, sacrifices, privations, compared to the dreary blank of your joyless existence? I will never dare repine or rebel again. When I think of Ellen, I will always remember how much worse my trials might have been. Ellen's devotion to her friend strengthened even until the hour of her death, which took place some years later. They corresponded faithfully, and in her letters Ellen poured out her full heart. After the lapse of a few years they met once more. The storms had blown over the head of the one. Time had soothed some of her sorrows. Success had rewarded her exertions. Many a wound had healed. Many a broken link of friendship had been reunited. But the unmitigated gloom that surrounded Ellen was impervious of a single ray of joy. She grew feebler and feebler, her sufferings and her disfigurement increased, until the joyful hour when her master bade her fling off the poor mangled earthly garment of her soul and stand before his presence, robed in the eternal loveliness of her pain-purified spirit. Her memory was greenly preserved in the heart of her friend. The thought of Ellen blunted the sting of many an arrow, lifted the weight from many a burden, and taught her, with each new trouble to reflect, it might have been worse. End of It Might Be Worse Read by Kelly Taylor Nourishment of the Soul by Chung Tzu This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Chad Horner from Ballyclair, in County Hunter, Northern Ireland, situated in northeast of the island of Ireland. End of The Soul Argument Life too short, wisdom unattainable, accommodation to circumstances, liberty paramount, death a release, the soul immortal. My life has a limit, but my knowledge is without limit. To drive the limited in search of the limitless is fatal, and the knowledge of those who do this is fatally lost. In striving for others, avoid fame. In striving for self, avoid disgrace. Pursue a middle course, though she will keep a sound body and a sound mind. Fulfill your duties and work out your allotted span. Prince Huiz, cook, was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand, every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of his knee, every wish of rent flesh, every chick of the chopper, was imperfect harmony. Rhythmical, like the dance of the mulberry grove, simultaneous like the chords of the shing shu. Commentators are divided in their identifications of these ancient morceux. Well done, cried the prince, yours is skill indeed. Sire replied the cook, I have always devoted myself to Tao, it is better than skill. When I first began to cut up bullocks, I saw before me simply whole bullocks. After three years' practice, I saw no more whole animals, meaning that he saw them so to speak in sections, and now I work with my mind and not with my eye. When my senses bid me stop, but my brain urges me on, I fall back upon eternal principles. I follow such openings or cavities as there may be according to the natural constitution of the animal. I do not attempt to cut through joints, still less through large bones. For a curious parallelism, see Plato's Phaedrus 2.6.5. A good cook changes his chopper once a year, because he cuts, an ordinary cook once a month, because he hacks. But I have had this chopper 19 years, and although I have cut up many thousand bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints there are always interstices, and the edge of a chopper being without thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness into such an interstice. These words help to elicitate a much vexed passage from chapter 43 of the Tao Ti Ching. See the remains of Lao Tzu, page 30. By these means the interstice will be enlarged, and the blade will find plenty of room. It is thus that I have kept my chopper for 19 years as though fresh from the whetstone. Nevertheless, when I come upon a hard part, where the blade meets with a difficulty, I am all cautioned. I fix my eye on it. I stay my hand, and gently apply my blade until, with a hawa, the part yields like earth crumbling to the ground. Then I take out my chopper and stand up and look around and pause, until with an air of triumph I wipe my chopper and put it carefully away. Bravo! cried the prince. From the words of this cook I have learned how to take care of my life, meaning that which informs life, namely the soul. When Heisen, from the Kung-Wen family, beheld a certain official, he was horrified and said, Who is that man? How came he to lose a foot? Is this the work of God or of man? Why, of course, continued Heisen. It is the work of God and not of man. When God brought this man into the world, he wanted him to be unlike other men. Men always have two feet. From this it is clear that God and not man made him as he is. I was by God's will that he took office with a view to personal aggrandisement, that he got into trouble and suffered the common punishment of loss of feet cannot therefore be charged to man. Now, wildfowl, get a peck once, in ten steps I drink once in a hundred. Yet they do not want to be fed in the cage, for although they would thus be able to command food, they would not be free. And had our friend above kept out of the official cage, he would still have been independent as the files of the air. When Lao Tzu died, Qin Shi went to mourn. He uttered three yells and departed. A disciple asked him, saying, Where, you not, our master's friend? I was, replied, Qin Shi. And if so, do you consider that a sufficient expression of grief at his loss, added the disciple? I do, said Qin Shi. I had believed him to be the man of all men, but now I know that he was not. When I went in to mourn, I found old persons weeping as if for their children, young ones wailing as if for their mothers, and for him to have gained the attachment of those people in this way, he too must have uttered words which had not been spoken, and dropped tears which should not have been shared, thus violating eternal principles, increasing the sum of human emotion and forgetting the source from which his own life was received. The ancients called such emotions the trannels of mortality. The master came because it was his time to be born. He went because it was his time to die. For those who accept the phenomenon of birth and death, in this sense, lamentation and sorrow have no place. The ancients spoke of death as of God cutting down a man, suspended in the air. The fuel is consumed, but the fire may be transmitted. And we know not that it comes to an end. The soul, according to Chung Tzu, is duly nourished and not allowed to wear itself out with the body in the pursuits of mortality, may become immortal and return beatified to the great unknown whence it came. End of Nourishment of the Soul by Chung Tzu The Organ by Henry Ward Beecher From the Wit and Humor of America Vol. 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read for LibriVox by Dale Grossman. The Organ by Henry Ward Beecher At one of his weeknight lectures, Beecher was speaking about the building and equipping of new churches. After a few satirical touches about church architects and their work, he went on to ridicule the usual style of pulpit, the sacred mahogany tub plastered up against some pillar like a barnswallow's nest. Then he passed on to the erection of the organ and to the opening recital. The organ, long expected, has arrived, been unpacked, set up, and gloried over. The great players of the region roundabout, or of distant celebrity, have had the grand organ exhibition. And this magnificent instrument has been put through all its paces in a manner which has surprised everyone. And if it had had a conscious existence, must have surprised the organ itself, most of all. It has piped, fluted, trumpeted, braided, thundered. It has played so loud that everyone was deafened, and so soft that no one could hear. The petals played like thunder. The flutes languished and coquetted. And the swell died away in delicious suffocation, like one singing a sweet song under the bedclothes. Now it leads down a stupendous waltz with full brass, sounding very much as if, in summer, a thunderstorm should play, come haste to the wedding, or money musk. Then come marches, gallops, and hornpipes. An organ playing hornpipes ought to have elephants as dancers. At length a fugue is rendered to show the whole scope and power of the instrument. The theme, like a cautious rat, peeps out to see if the coast is clear, and, after a few hesitations, comes forth and begins to frisk a little, and run up and down to see what it can find. It finds just what it did not want, a purring tenor, lying in ambush, and waiting for a spring, and as the theme comes in cautiously near, the savage cat of a tenor springs at it, misses its hold, and then takes after it with terrible earnestness. But the tenor has miscalculated the ability of the theme. All it could do with the most desperate effort was to keep the theme from running back into its hole again, and so they ran up and down, and around and around, dodging, yielding, whipping in and out of every corner and nook, until the whole organ was aroused, and the base began to take apart, but unluckily slipped and rolled down the stairs, and lay at the bottom, raving and growling, in the most awful manner, and nothing could appease it. Sometimes the theme was caught by one part and dangled for a moment, and with a snatch another part took it and ran off exultant, until, unawares, the same trick was played on it. And finally all the parts being greatly exercised in mind begin to chase each other promiscuously, in and out, up and down, now separating, and now rushing in, full tilt together, until everything in the organ loses patience, and all the stops are drawn. And in spite of all that the brave organists could do, who bobbed up and down, feet, hands, head, and all, the tune broke up into a real row, and every part was clubbing each other one, until at length, patience being no longer a virtue, the organist, with two or three terrible clashes, put an end to the riot, and brought the great organ back to silence. The End of the Organ by Henry Ward Beecher. The Rescue of Pluffles by Roger Kipling This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Rescue of Pluffles Thus for a season they fought it fair, she and his cousin May, tactful, talented, debonair, decorous foes, were they, but never can battle of man compare with merciless feminine fray. Two and One Mrs. Hawksby was sometimes nice to her own sex. Here is a story to prove this, and you can believe just as much as ever you please. Pluffles was a subaltern in the Unmentionables. He was callow even for a subaltern. He was callow all over, like a canary that had not finished fledging itself. The worst of it was he had three times as much money as was good for him. Pluffles's papa being a rich man, and Pluffles being the only son. Pluffles's mama adored him. She was only a little less callow than Pluffles, and she believed everything he said. Pluffles's weakness was not believing what people said. He preferred what he called trusting to his own judgment. He had as much judgment as he had seat or hands. And this preference tumbled him into trouble once or twice. But the biggest trouble Pluffles ever manufactured came about at Simmler some years ago, when he was four and twenty. He began by trusting to his own judgment as usual, and the result was that after a time he was bound hand and foot to Mrs. River's rickshaw wheels. There was nothing good about Mrs. River unless it was her dress. She was bad from her hair, which started life on a Brittany girl's head, to her boot heels, which were two and three eighth inches high. She was not honestly mischievous like Mrs. Hawksby. She was wicked in a business-like way. There was never any scandal. She had not generous impulses enough for that. She was the exception which proved the rule that Anglo-Indian ladies are in every way as nice as their sisters at home. She spent her life improving that rule. Mrs. Hawksby and she hated each other fervently. They heard far too much to clash. But the things they said of each other was startling, not to say original. Mrs. Hawksby was honest, honest as her own front teeth, and but for her love of mischief would have been a woman's woman. There was no honesty about Mrs. River, nothing but selfishness, and at the beginning of the season poor little Pluffles fell a prey to her. She laid herself out to that end. And who was Pluffles to resist? He went on trusting to his judgment, and he got charged. I have seen Hays argue with a tough horse. I have seen a Tonga diver coerce a stubborn pony. I have seen a rioter setter broken to gun by a hard keeper. But the breaking in of Pluffles of the Unmentionables was beyond all these. He learned to fetch and carry like a dog, and to wait like one, too, for a word from Mrs. River. He learned to keep appointments which Mrs. River had no intention of keeping. He learned to take thankfully dances which Mrs. River had no intention of giving him. He learned to shiver for an hour and a quarter on the windward side of Elysium, while Mrs. River was making up her mind to come for a ride. He learned to hug for a rickshaw in a light dress suit under a pelting rain, and to walk by the side of that rickshaw when he had found it. He learned what it was to be spoken to like a coolly, and ordered about like a cook. He learned all this and many other things besides, and he paid for his schooling. Perhaps in some hazy way he fancied that it was fine and impressive that he gave him a status among men, and was altogether the thing to do. It was nobody's business to warn Pluffles that he was unwise. The pace that season was too good to inquire, and meddling with another man's folly is always thankless work. Pluffles's Colonel should have ordered him back to his regiment when he heard how things were going. But Pluffles had got himself engaged to a girl in England the last time he went home, and if there was one thing more than another which the Colonel detested, it was a married subaltern. He chuckled when he heard of the education of Pluffles, and said it was good training for the boy. But it was not good training in the least. It led him into spending money beyond his means, which were good. Above that the education spoilt an average boy, and made it a tenth-rate man of an objectionable kind. He wandered into a bad set, and his little bill at Hamilton's was a thing to wonder at. Then Mrs. Hawksby rose to the occasion. She played her game alone, knowing what people would say of her, and she played it for the sake of a girl she had never seen. Pluffles' fiancée was to come out under the chaperonage of an aunt in October to be married to Pluffles. At the beginning of August Mrs. Hawksby discovered that it was time to interfere. A man who rides much knows exactly what a horse is going to do next before he does it. In the same way a woman of Mrs. Hawksby's experience knows accurately how a boy will behave under certain circumstances, notably when he is infatuated with one of Mrs. River's stamp. That said, sooner or later little Pluffles would break off that engagement for nothing at all, simply to gratify Mrs. River, who, in return, would keep him at her feet and in her service just so long as she found it worth her while. She said she knew the signs of these things. If she did not, no one else could. Then she went forth to capture Pluffles under the guns of the enemy, just as Mrs. Kusak Bremel carried away Bremel under Mrs. Hawksby's eyes. This particular engagement lasted seven weeks. We called it the Seven Weeks War, and was fought out inch by inch on both sides. A detailed account would fill a book and would be incomplete then. Anyone who knows about these things can fit in the details for himself. It was a superb fight. There will never be another like it as long as Jacko stands, and Pluffles was the prize of victory. People said shameful things about Mrs. Hawksby. They did not know what she was playing for. Mrs. River fought partly because Pluffles was useful to her, but mainly because she hated Mrs. Hawksby, and the matter was a trial of strength between them. No one knows what Pluffles thought. He had not many ideas at the best of times, and the few he possessed made him conceited. Mrs. Hawksby said the boy must be caught, and the only way of catching him is by treating him well. So she treated him as a man of the world and of experience, so long as the issue was doubtful. Little by little, Pluffles fell away from his old allegiance and came over to the enemy, by whom he was made much of. He was never sent on outpost duty after rickshaws any more, nor was he given dances which never came off, nor were the drains on his purse continued. Mrs. Hawksby held him on the snuffle, and after his treatment at Mrs. River's hands he appreciated the change. Mrs. River had broken him of talking about himself, and made him talk about her own merits. Mrs. Hawksby acted otherwise, and won his confidence, till he mentioned his engagement to the girl at home, speaking of it in a high and mighty way as a piece of boyish folly. This was when he was taking tea with her one afternoon, and discoursing in what he considered a gay and fascinating style. Mrs. Hawksby had seen an earlier generation of his stamp, bud, and blossom, and decay into fat captains and tubby mages. At a moderate estimate there are about three and twenty sides to that lady's character. Some men say more. She began to talk to Pluffles after the manner of a mother, and as if there had been three hundred years instead of fifteen between them. She spoke with a sort of throaty quaver in her voice, which had a soothing effect, though what she said was anything but soothing. She pointed out the exceeding folly, not to say meanness of Pluffles' conduct, and the smallness of his views. Then he stammered something about trusting to his own judgment as a man of the world. This paved the way for what she wanted to say next. It would have withered up Pluffles had it come from any other woman, but in the soft, cooing style in which Mrs. Hawksby put it, it only made him feel limp and repentant, as if he had been in some superior kind of church. Little by little, very softly and pleasantly, she began taking the conceit out of Pluffles, as you take the ribs out of an umbrella before recovering it. She told him what she thought of him and his judgment and his knowledge of the world, and how his performances had made him ridiculous to other people, and how it was his intention to make love to herself if she gave him the chance. Then she said that marriage would be the making of him and drew a pretty little picture, all rose and opal, of the Mrs. Pluffles of the future going through life relying on the judgment and knowledge of the world of a husband who had nothing to reproach himself with, how she reconciled these two statements she alone knew, but they did not strike Pluffles as conflicting. Hers was a perfect little homily, much better than any clergyman could have given, and it ended with touching allusions to Pluffles' mama and papa, and the wisdom of taking his bride home. Then she sent Pluffles out for a walk to think over what she had said. Pluffles left, blowing his nose very hard and holding himself very straight. Mrs. Hawks be laughed. What Pluffles had intended to do in the matter of the engagement only Mrs. River knew, and she kept her own counsel to the death. She would have liked it spoiled as a compliment, my fancy. Pluffles enjoyed many talks with Mrs. Hawks be during the next few days. They were all to the same end, and they helped Pluffles in the path of virtue. Mrs. Hawks be wanted to keep him under her wing to the last. Therefore she discounted and his going down to Bombay to get married. Goodness only knows what might happen by the way, she said. Pluffles is cursed with a curse of Ruben, and India is no perfect place for him. In the end the fiancee arrived with her aunt, and Pluffles having reduced his affairs to some sort of order, here again Mrs. Hawks be helped him, was married. Mrs. Hawks be gave a sigh of relief when both the eye wills had been said, and went away. Pluffles took her advice about going home. He left the service and is now raising speckled cattle inside green painted fences somewhere at home. I believe he does this very judiciously. He would have come to extreme grief out here. For these reasons if anyone says anything more than unusually nasty about Mrs. Hawks be tell him the story of the rescue of Pluffles. End of the rescue of Pluffles by Roger Kipling. Stormship of the Hudson from myths and legends of our own land by Charles M. Skinner. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Read for LibriVox by Dale Grossman. Stormship of the Hudson by Charles M. Skinner. It was noised about New Amsterdam two hundred years ago that a round and bulky ship flying Dutch colours from her lofty quarter was careening up the harbour in the teeth of a north wind through the swift waters of the ebbing tide and making for the Hudson. A signal from the battery to heave to an account for herself being disregarded. A cannon was trained upon her and the ball went whistling through her cloudy and improbable mast. For timbers she had none. Some of the sailor folk talked of mirages that rose into the air of northern coasts and seas, but the wise ones put their fingers beside their nose and called to memory the flying Dutchman. The wanderer of the sea, whose captain, having sworn that he would go round Cape Horn in spite of heaven and hell, has been beating to and fro along the bleak, fusion coasts and elsewhere for centuries. Being allowed to land but once in seven years then he can break the curse if he finds a girl who will love him. Perhaps Captain van der Decken found this maiden of his hopes in some Dutch settlement on the Hudson. Or perhaps he expiated his rations by prayer and penitence. How be it, he never came down again unless he slipped away to sea and snow or fog so dense that the watchers and boatmen saw nothing of his passing. A few old settlers declared the vessel to be the half moon and there were some who testified to seeing that identical ship with Hudson and his specter crew on board, making for the Catskills to hold carous. This fleeting vision has been confounded with the storm ship that lurks about the foot of the palisades and point no point, cruising through Tappan Zee at night when a gale is coming up. The Hudson is four miles wide at Tappan and squalls have space enough to gather force, hence when old skippers saw the misty form of the ship steal out from the shadows of the Western Hills, then fly like a gull from shore to shore catching the moonlight on her top sails but showing no lanterns. They made to windward and dropped anchor unless their craft were staunch and their pilot's brains unvexed with liquor. On summer nights when falls that curious silence which is ominous of tempest, the storm ship is not only seen spinning across the mirror surface of the river but the voices of the crew are heard as they chant at the braces and halyards in words devoid of meaning to the listeners. End of Storm Ship of the Hudson by Charles M. Skinner. A Talk with a Wayfarer by Leo Tolstoy. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Chad Horner from Polly Clare in County Antwerp Northern Ireland, situated in the northeast of the island of Ireland. A Talk with a Wayfarer. I have come out early. My soul feels light and joyful. It is a wonderful morning. The sun is only just appearing from behind the trees. The dew glitters on them and on the grass. Everything is lovely. Everyone is lovable. It is so beautiful that, as the saying has it, one does not want to die, and really I do not want to die. I would willingly live a little longer in this world with such beauty around me and such joy in my heart. That, however, is not my affair but the masters. I approach the village. Before the first house I see a man standing, motionless, sideways to me. He is evidently waiting for somebody or something. I'm waiting as only working people know how to wait. Without impatience or fixation. I draw nearer. He is a bearded, strong, healthy peasant, with shaggy, slightly grey hair, and a simple worker's face. He is smoking not a cigar twisted out of paper, but a short pipe. We greet one another. How does old Alexey live? I ask. I don't know, friend. We are strangers here. Not I am a stranger, but we are strangers. A Russian is hardly ever alone. If he is doing something wrong, he may perhaps say I. Otherwise it is always we, the family. We, the artril. We, the commune. Strangers, where do you come from? We are from Kaluga, I point to his pipe. And how much do you spend a year on smoking? Three or more rubles, I dare say. Three, that would hardly be enough. Why not give it up? How can one give it up when one's accustomed to it? I also used to smoke, but have given it up, and I feel so well, so free. Well of course, but it's still without it. Give it up and the darkness will go. Smoking is no good, you know. No good at all. If it's no good, you should not do it. Seeing you smoke, others will do the same, especially the young folk. They'll say if the old folk smoke got himself beds us, do it. That's true enough, and your son seeing you smoke will do it too. Of course my son too. Well then give it up. I would, only it's so dull without it. It's chiefly from dullness. When one feels dull one has a smoke. That's where the mischief lies. It's dull. At times it's so dull. So dull. So dull, drilled he. The best remedy for that is to think of one's soul. He threw a glance at me, and at once the expression of his face quite changed. Instead of his former kindly, humorous, lively and talkative expression, he became attentive and serious. Think of the soul of the soul, you say. He asked gazing questionally into my eyes. Yes, when you think of the soul, you give up all foolish things. His face lit up affectionately. You're right, daddy. You say truly. To think of the soul is the great thing. The soul's the chief thing, he paused. Thank you, daddy. It was quite true, and he pointed to his pipe. What is it? Good for nothing rubbish. The soul's the chief thing, repeated he. What you say is true, and his face grew still kindlier and more serious. I wished to continue the conversation, but a lump rose in my throat. I have grown very weak in the matter of tears, and I could not speak. With a joyful tender feeling, I took leave of him, swallowing my tears, and I went away. Yes, how can one help being joyful, living amidst such people? How can one help expecting from such people all that is most excellent? End of A Talk with a Wayfarer by Leo Tolstoy. To Good a Housewife by Anna Cora Mawit Ritchie This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. What a lovely looking bride was rode a-fielding. What a spring-like aspect she had. What an embodiment of bloom and freshness she seemed. That round, smooth face, tinted like an apple blossom, that furlous brow, somewhat too low and narrow, but redeemed by rich clusters of chestnut curls, those cloudless eyes and velvety lips, theirs was the beauty of untried youth. Bute du diable, as it is too expressively called by the French. Then rhoda was so artless, so frank-hearted, so unsophisticated, just what Edmund Fielding most admired in womanhood. Charmed by the glittering surface of the stream it was but natural that he never dived beneath, to note what shells or pebbles lay within its channel, ready to be cast up by the surging tide of matrimony. He had yearned for the first pure, uncalculating affection of a guileless maiden, and that he had won. A man cultivated mine and highly intellectual taste he expected to find in his youthful wife a plastic, genial, and appreciating companion. But whether rhoda's mental attributes and the precepts instilled by a very ordinary mother had fitted her for such companionship were questions he never asked. That mother had but one distinguishing characteristic. She was a thrifty and notable housewife. In all other respects the term common place described her so fully that her portrait can demand no additional touches. Rhoda was flattered by Mr. Fielding's election, she admired his tall and handsome person, she was proud of his acquirements, and the slight touch of all with which his stately manners and evident superiority inspired her, only heightened her affection for woman like her heart was stirred by an irresistible impulse to look up fondly to what was higher than herself to love what she could lean upon as stronger and cling to as worthier. The newly married pair were starting on their wedding tour as I bade them adieu. Four years rolled on before we met again. Rhoda was now the mistress of an imposing mansion, pleasantly located in one of our largest northern cities. The drawing room which I entered to await her appearance had the air of cold luxury rather than habitable comfort. Costly chairs and sofas stood primely ranged against the walls, looking as though they forbade you to stir them. A few albums and show books were laid in a set way upon the center table, but no volume that appeared as though it were ever read was visible. Though I had called at the usual visiting-hour, some time elapsed before Rhoda ascended from the lower domestic regions where she had been occupied by her monage. She saluted me with, I'm right glad to see you. I was so busy I didn't mind being interrupted by you. This assurance rather discomposed me for it suggested a doubt which would not have otherwise intruded itself upon my mind. Rhoda ran on. This housekeeping takes up so much time, you know, and I always look after things myself. I placed in her hand a bouquet of fragrant freshly gathered flowers. You're very good, she said, taking them in a half-careless, half-reluctant manner. There was no expression of pleasure in her tone, and her doubtful look at the floral offering communicated a secret misgiving that had not politeness withheld her. She would have flunged the odorous wasms out the window. She fidgeted a moment, then rose hastily, and with considerable bustle procured a glass of water, remarking as she inserted the stem, I don't usually allow flowers in this room. They're such untidy things they drop about so and make such a litter. As she spoke she carefully gathered up the fallen leaves of a full-blown damask rose and threw them into the street, with an action which seems to say unclean. Her mean impressed me with a fear that even thus, through over solicitude, she had cast the flowers of her life away and left the bare stalk of utility unendorned by the foliage of taste or or the bloom of beauty. There was a working-day air about her, too strongly on avidance. Her dress was simple and serviceable, but it lacked the tastefulness which makes simplicity charming. Her hair was neatly arranged, but becomingness evidently had not been taken into consideration. With the freshness of her countenance much of its loveliness had passed away. What remained was obscured by total disregard of accordant colors and graceful arrangement of drapery. Her olden look of frank inexperience was displaced by a care-worn, fussy expression. Her buoyancy changed to restlessness. You saw at once that she magnified the most insignificant molehills in her path into mountains of trial, and veritably had become a female Don Quixote battling with domestic windmills. Just as she seated herself once more beside me, the loud yell of an infantine voice made her start up and exclaim, That's Jim! He has knocked his head again. He's always knocking that dreadful head of his. He'll be the death of me. And she rushed out of the room. By and by she returned, dragging after her, a robust little boy whose shining face and moist hair testified to a recent hurried ablution. I told you Jim had knocked his head. He's always knocking his head or cutting his fingers or lighting papers in the fire and nearly burning himself and his little sister up. I never get a moment's peace with the two. Have you no nurse then? I ask. Oh, of course I have a nurse, but I have no faith in servants. I never trust them. As to their having any idea of responsibility, it's out of the question. As she spoke, a neat-looking Irish girl appeared at the door and said, Baby's awake, Mom. May I take her up? No! Don't touch her, exclaimed Rhoda almost fiercely. I'll see to her myself. Excuse me a moment. And all she flew again with Master Jim, making desperate plunges at her gown and roaring lustily as he pursued her. The interval that now elapsed seemed very long. I earnestly desired to have a pleasant chat with Rhoda. To ask her numberless questions about herself, her husband, our mutual friends, but the object of my visit seemed likely to be frustrated. At last Rhoda reappeared with a plump, cheery-cheeked little girl in her arms. She did not exhibit, Baby, with that proud maternal delight, which is always beautiful to witness, but as though she felt overwhelmed by the cares and troubles of motherhood and quite unconscious of its joys, she told me what dreadful nights she had passed with her infants. She recounted all the horrors of teeth-cutting, described the numerous infantine diseases by which the young ones had been attacked, illustrating the effects of the various treatments by biographical anecdotes, related what difficulties she had encountered in keeping the scapegraces tidally dressed, mourned over their unreasonable proclivity to soil bibs and tear-frocks, and lamented their unnatural proclivity for dirty hands and daubed faces. The history of her nursery grievances had evidently not reached its climax when Master Jim rushed into the room balling out. Ma! Cook says she wants more butter for the pudding, and she wants you to know the coals nearly out. Dear me, dear me, how annoying, ejaculated Rhoda, with a face as full of distress as if she had learned of some actual calamity. What cartloads of butter that Cook uses, and what a quantity of coals she burns! I am always talking to her about the fire. It's blazing hot, I warrant, at this blessed moment. You must excuse me a moment. I am glad to see an old friend, you know, but household matters must be looked after, business as men say, business before pleasure. I'll be back in a minute. Away she went once more, and I heard her calling to the nurse to relieve her of the baby. A loud shrieking announced when the exchange was made, and that was followed by a more vigorous exercise of somewhat older lungs. Master Jim must have again indulged in that constitutional propensity for knocking his head. Then I could distinguish Rhoda's voice pitched in a high key. It sounded very like scolding, and how shrill that voice had grown. It was positively discordant, and we used to all think it so sweet. Another longer interval ensued, and then Rhoda entered the room once more, panting from her exertion. She was in the act of putting her purse, pencil, and tablets in her pocket. You see, I put down everything I spend. She began without apologizing for absence, and such a time it takes me. What with the children and the servants and the housekeeping, I have enough to do. I get no time to myself. Not even to read a little now and then? I ventured to suggest. Oh, dear, no. I never get a chance to open a book. Edmund does all the reading. He complains bitterly that I don't keep up with the literature of the day. Men are so unreasonable, you know, as if I had time for literature with a house and four servants and two children. But might he not read to you in the evening? That's just what he proposed, but I'm called out of the room so often it interrupts him, and it makes him nervous, and then I have so much cutting out and planning to do besides sewing that I can't listen. Then Edmund's always plaguing me to go with him and hear some lecturer or go to some concert or somewhere or another. But it's quite out of the question. I can't spare the time, but he can't understand it. You know, men never have any thought. He says he wishes I'd hire another servant and so be able to go out with him now and then. Isn't he unreasonable? As if I hadn't servants enough to plague me. Then, you know, men are so selfish. Would you believe it? While I'm slaving at home, he actually goes to places of amusement without me, and he says he needs recreation. But the idea of tormenting me to engage another servant. Why, do you know, my Kate and Martha both have followers, and I had to go down yesterday evening and turn the men out of the kitchen. Of course these followers get their supper here, and that's the reason there's always so little cold turkey left and the hams don't last longer. Rhoda rattled on in the same strain as long as my visit lasted. The rule and guardianship of her house and children wholly engrossed her mind, absorbed all other ideas. I talked to her of our old friends. She had not seen them. She had no time to visit. I related what had occurred to this one and that. She scarcely listened to the information. I spoke of music of which she was once so fond. Her sweet singing, Mr. Fielding, had especially admired. She had quite given up music, she said. She never sang except to put the children to sleep. I tried to turn the conversation to topics of the day. Rhoda might as well lived in Khamchakta for all she knew about them. I sought for a subject after subject that might interest her, but with no success. Her thoughts could not wander out of the little narrow sphere of her household, and yet only dwelt upon its vexations, not its blessings, its responsibilities, not its comforts. Other visits brought but a repetition of the incidents of this. I saw Mr. Fielding. He looked dissatisfied, desponding, disheartened. The instant he entered the house, Rhoda invariably poured into his ears a long history of her domestic bothers, made up of complaints about the smallness of the loaves brought by the baker, suspicions that the butcher cheated, discoveries that the cook sold the drippings, vexations at the breakage of the china fall by a minute account of the misdemeanors of the servants, the naughtiness of the children, the accidents they had met with during the day, the number of knocks received by Master Jim's head being religiously counted, and Rhoda's own fears for their health and morals. If, after a series of patient and considerate replies, her husband ventured to introduce other topics, she charged him with a want of feeling in disregard of her troubles, or else paid no attention to what he was saying. She met his entreaties that she should walk out with him by saying that she had shopping to do, and would go if he would promise to be very patient. The walk only extended half a mile down Broadway, yet it consumed three hours, chiefly passed in shops. Marriage had been a bitter disappointment to Mr. Fielding. He had looked for a companion and found a housekeeper and a nursery maid. Rhoda could not comprehend that he needed the society of one who could sympathize with and appreciate him, and that men demand appreciation almost more than they desire affection. She believed herself very thoughtful of his well-being, and, honestly considered that she discharged her duty towards him by keeping his house in order, no matter through what scuffing and scrambling by superintending the cooking of his meals and being irreproachable on the litanine, button, and stalking question. As a natural sequence of his mistake, Mr. Field will, in time, seek his pleasures away from home and grow more and more independent of his wife's society. She will feel herself neglected and join that large band of female railers who denounce matrimony and bemoan the miserable fate of wives in general and their own destiny in particular. And should she be asked the reason for this change in her husband's sentiments towards her, she would probably answer, with the air of an injured saint, that it will all be because she was, too good a housewife, end of, too good a housewife. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Once upon a time there was a charming young maiden who had two suitors. One of these, who was of a persistent and persevering nature, managed to be continually in the young lady's company. He would pay her a visit in the morning, drop into tea in the afternoon, and call her again in the evening. He took her driving, and he escorted her to the theatre. He would take her to a party, and then he would dance, or sit on the stairs, or flit into the conservatory with her. The young lady admired this man, but she wearied of his never ceasing presence, and she said to herself, If he were not always at my elbow, I should better appreciate his good qualities. The other suitor, who considered himself a man of deep and penetrating cleverness, said to himself, I will go away for a time, and then my fair one will realize my worth, and call me back to her. With a sad visage he made his adduce, and he exacted her pledge to write to him occasionally. But after he had gone she forgot her promise, and soon she forgot his very existence. Morals This fable teaches that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that out of sight is out of mind. The End of the Two Suiters by Carolyn Wells