Sports, Entertainment and Music Information

Like baseball, cricket is played between two teams, with a bat and ball

Bugles, drums and other loud music instuments were historically used on the battlefield for clear communication.

Another name for physical comedy is slapstick 

The Oklahoma Sooners scored a record 47 consecutive victories in the mid 1950's.

Opera is a form of musical theatre whose origins date back to Italy in the late 16th century.

Broadway in New York is known as "The Great White Way".

In 1940, an NFL record setting score was played when the Bears defeated the Redskins 73-0.

Popular singing sensation, Taylor Swift, was born on December 13, 1989.

One of the oldest forms of entertainment is storytelling.

In his MLB career.Nolan Ryan pitched 5.714 strikeouts.

The musical group "The Monkees" had their own weekly TV show.

"The Showplace of the Nation", aka Radio City Music Hall opened on December 27, 1932.

The most number of athletic records set by one person came between the years 1984 and 1994 as Sergei Bubka from Ukraine performed in pole vault competition.

The Rolling Stones are and were aways led by Mick Jagger.

The original Batman TV series starred Adam West and Burt Ward.

Earlier in his career, the PGA's Tiger Woods ranked World No. 1 for a record breaking 683 weeks.

The first top 10 hit recorded by Madonna was "Holiday".

Before video taping, kinescopes were used to record television to film.

As a defesive back, Night Train Lane made a record-breaking 14 interceptions in one NFL season.

The oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments are the drums.

Televisions were first sold commercially in 1928.

The MLB record for RBI's in one season was set by Hank Wilson with 191.

Whereas a concerto is scored for a specific instrument(s) that is backed by a full orchestra or larger ensemble, a symphony is scored for a full orchestra.

The first motion pictures to be released with people's voices were called "talkies".

On May 1, 1920, a game between MLB's Brooklyn Robins and Boston Braves was called due to darkness after 26 innings and 1-1 tie.

The piano was invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori in around 1700.

Cable television came into existence in rural areas that broadcast airwaves did not reach.

In 1936, the Chicago Bears recorded 6 different ties for a season of 7-1-6.

In music, a half note is called a minim.

What became television began in 1927.

Hack Wilson had a scored 191 RBI's in his MLB career.

"I Left My Heart in San Francisco" was one of Tony Bennett's biggest hits.

Jerry Mahoney was the dummy presented by ventriloquist, Paul Winchell.

In his 22 year career, Cy Young won a record 511 games.

The sound of the reed instrument in music is generated by air cauding a thin blade (the reed) to vibrate.

The last time actors went on strike was August 1 and 2, 1986.

In his career, Michael Phelps won 28 Olympic medals.

It is believed that music was first created by humans in the Paleolithic period.

At age 93, Clint Eastwood is directing the film, "Juror #2".

Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys rushed for an NFL record of 18,355 yards in his career.

At age 89, Frankie Valli of the Four Seasons has married his fourth wife.

"The Jazz Singer" with Al Jolson is considered to be the first talking, commercial motion picture.

The UConn women's basketball team have the league record for a winning streak with 111 games won.

Robyn Fenty is better known as Rihanna.

Broadway is also known as The Great White Way.

In 1962, Wilt Chamberlin averaged 50.4 points per game for the entire season.

The first opera in history is considered to be the 1597 work "Dafne" by Jacopo Peri.

The TV show and movie MASH was based on the acronym mobile army surgical hospital.

Jerry Rice scored 22,895 receiving yards in his NFL careeer/

The rock group AC/DC is immortalized on the tee shirt of Butt-Head.

The five Marx Brothers who were involved in show business were Chico, Gummo, Harpo, Grouch and Zeppo.

Night Train Lane scored 14 interceptions in one NFL season.

Francesco Stephen Castelluccio is better known by his stage name, Frankie Valli.

"Meet The Press" is the longest running, continuous TV program ever aired.

The NHL record for most MVP awards is held by Wayne Gretzky with nine.

The 1985 Grammy for Record of the Year was awarded to Tina Turner for "What's Love Got To Do With It".

The highest grossing R-rated movie ever released is "Joker".

Joe DiMaggio holds the record for hitting in consecutive games with 56.

The singing Gibb brothers took the stage name, the "Bee Gees".

Henry Winkler starred as "The Fonz" in Happy Days.

Rickey Henderson stole 1,406 bases in his career. 

Taylor Swift was discovered in 2005 as she performed in Nashville at The Bluebird Cfe in 2005.

In the movie, "The Transformers", the bad guys were named Decepticons.

The NHL's Wayne Gretzky racked up 1,963 assists in his career.

The 1998 Album of the Year Grammy was awarded to Bob Dylan for "Time Out Of Mind".

The first sci-fi movie was "A Trip to the Moon" in 1902.

The pop group ABBA was from Sweden.

The 1967 crime/drama, "In the Heat of the Night" starred Sidney Poitier.

                                    Fictional Stories

The Belly and the Members 
by Aesop 

 One fine day it occurred to the Members of the Body that they were doing all the work and the Belly was having all the food. 

So they held a meeting, and after a long discussion, decided to strike work till the Belly consented to take its proper share of the work. 

So for a day or two, the Hands refused to take the food, the Mouth refused to receive it, and the Teeth had no work to do. 

But after a day or two the Members began to find that they themselves were not in a very active condition: 

The Hands could hardly move, and the Mouth was all parched and dry, while the Legs were unable to support the rest. 

So thus they found that even the Belly in its dull quiet way was doing necessary work for the Body, and that all must work together or the Body will go to pieces. 

The Mountains in Labor Fable 

by Aesop 

One day the Countrymen noticed that the Mountains were in labor; smoke came out of their summits, the earth was quaking at their feet, trees were crashing, and huge rocks were tumbling. 
They felt sure that something horrible was going to happen. 
They all gathered together in one place to see what terrible thing this could be. They waited and they waited, but nothing came. 
At last there was a still more violent earthquake, and a huge gap appeared in the side of the Mountains. They all fell down upon their knees and waited. At last, and at last, a teeny, tiny mouse poked its little head and bristles out of the gap and came running down towards them, and ever after they used to say: "Much outcry, little outcome." 

Sleepy 

by Anton Chekov 

Night. Varka, the little nurse, a girl of thirteen, is rocking the cradle in which the baby is lying, and humming hardly audibly: 

“Hush-a-bye, my baby wee, 

While I sing a song for thee.” 

A little green lamp is burning before the ikon; there is a string stretched from one end of the room to the other, on which baby-clothes and a pair of big black trousers are hanging. There is a big patch of green on the ceiling from the ikon lamp, and the baby-clothes and the trousers throw long shadows on the stove, on the cradle, and on Varka… When the lamp begins to flicker, the green patch and the shadows come to life, and are set in motion, as though by the wind. It is stuffy. There is a smell of cabbage soup, and of the inside of a boot-shop. 

The baby’s crying. For a long while he has been hoarse and exhausted with crying; but he still goes on screaming, and there is no knowing when he will stop. And Varka is sleepy. Her eyes are glued together, her head droops, her neck aches. She cannot move her eyelids or her lips, and she feels as though her face is dried and wooden, as though her head has become as small as the head of a pin. 

“Hush-a-bye, my baby wee,” she hums, “while I cook the groats for thee…” 

A cricket is churring in the stove. Through the door in the next room the master and the apprentice Afanasy are snoring… The cradle creaks plaintively, Varka murmurs — and it all blends into that soothing music of the night to which it is so sweet to listen, when one is lying in bed. Now that music is merely irritating and oppressive, because it goads her to sleep, and she must not sleep; if Varka — God forbid! — should fall asleep, her master and mistress would beat her. 

The lamp flickers. The patch of green and the shadows are set in motion, forcing themselves on Varka’s fixed, half-open eyes, and in her half slumbering brain are fashioned into misty visions. She sees dark clouds chasing one another over the sky, and screaming like the baby. But then the wind blows, the clouds are gone, and Varka sees a broad high road covered with liquid mud; along the high road stretch files of wagons, while people with wallets on their backs are trudging along and shadows flit backwards and forwards; on both sides she can see forests through the cold harsh mist. All at once the people with their wallets and their shadows fall on the ground in the liquid mud. “What is that for?” Varka asks. “To sleep, to sleep!” they answer her. And they fall sound asleep, and sleep sweetly, while crows and magpies sit on the telegraph wires, scream like the baby, and try to wake them. 

“Hush-a-bye, my baby wee, and I will sing a song to thee,” murmurs Varka, and now she sees herself in a dark stuffy hut. 

Her dead father, Yefim Stepanov, is tossing from side to side on the floor. She does not see him, but she hears him moaning and rolling on the floor from pain. “His guts have burst,” as he says; the pain is so violent that he cannot utter a single word, and can only draw in his breath and clack his teeth like the rattling of a drum: 

“Boo–boo–boo–boo…” 

Her mother, Pelageya, has run to the master’s house to say that Yefim is dying. She has been gone a long time, and ought to be back. Varka lies awake on the stove, and hears her father’s “boo–boo–boo.” And then she hears someone has driven up to the hut. It is a young doctor from the town, who has been sent from the big house where he is staying on a visit. The doctor comes into the hut; he cannot be seen in the darkness, but he can be heard coughing and rattling the door. 

“Light a candle,” he says. 

“Boo–boo–boo,” answers Yefim. 

Pelageya rushes to the stove and begins looking for the broken pot with the matches. A minute passes in silence. The doctor, feeling in his pocket, lights a match. 

“In a minute, sir, in a minute,” says Pelageya. She rushes out of the hut, and soon afterwards comes back with a bit of candle. 

Yefim’s cheeks are rosy and his eyes are shining, and there is a peculiar keenness in his glance, as though he were seeing right through the hut and the doctor. 

“Come, what is it? What are you thinking about?” says the doctor, bending down to him. “Aha! have you had this long?” 

“What? Dying, your honour, my hour has come… I am not to stay among the living.” 

“Don’t talk nonsense! We will cure you!” 

“That’s as you please, your honour, we humbly thank you, only we understand… Since death has come, there it is.” 

The doctor spends a quarter of an hour over Yefim, then he gets up and says: 

“I can do nothing. You must go into the hospital, there they will operate on you. Go at once… You must go! It’s rather late, they will all be asleep in the hospital, but that doesn’t matter, I will give you a note. Do you hear?” 

“Kind sir, but what can he go in?” says Pelageya. “We have no horse.” 

“Never mind. I’ll ask your master, he’ll let you have a horse.” 

The doctor goes away, the candle goes out, and again there is the sound of “boo–boo–boo.” Half an hour later someone drives up to the hut. A cart has been sent to take Yefim to the hospital. He gets ready and goes… 

But now it is a clear bright morning. Pelageya is not at home; she has gone to the hospital to find what is being done to Yefim. Somewhere there is a baby crying, and Varka hears someone singing with her own voice: 

“Hush-a-bye, my baby wee, I will sing a song to thee.” 

Pelageya comes back; she crosses herself and whispers: 

“They put him to rights in the night, but towards morning he gave up his soul to God… The Kingdom of Heaven be his and peace everlasting… They say he was taken too late… He ought to have gone sooner…” 

Varka goes out into the road and cries there, but all at once someone hits her on the back of her head so hard that her forehead knocks against a birch tree. She raises her eyes, and sees facing her, her master, the shoemaker. 

“What are you about, you scabby slut?” he says. “The child is crying, and you are asleep!” 

He gives her a sharp slap behind the ear, and she shakes her head, rocks the cradle, and murmurs her song. The green patch and the shadows from the trousers and the baby-clothes move up and down, nod to her, and soon take possession of her brain again. Again she sees the high road covered with liquid mud. The people with wallets on their backs and the shadows have lain down and are fast asleep. Looking at them, Varka has a passionate longing for sleep; she would lie down with enjoyment, but her mother Pelageya is walking beside her, hurrying her on. They are hastening together to the town to find situations. 

“Give alms, for Christ’s sake!” her mother begs of the people they meet. “Show us the Divine Mercy, kind-hearted gentlefolk!” 

“Give the baby here!” a familiar voice answers. “Give the baby here!” the same voice repeats, this time harshly and angrily. “Are you asleep, you wretched girl?” 

Varka jumps up, and looking round grasps what is the matter: there is no high road, no Pelageya, no people meeting them, there is only her mistress, who has come to feed the baby, and is standing in the middle of the room. While the stout, broad-shouldered woman nurses the child and soothes it, Varka stands looking at her and waiting till she has done. And outside the windows the air is already turning blue, the shadows and the green patch on the ceiling are visibly growing pale, it will soon be morning. 

“Take him,” says her mistress, buttoning up her chemise over her bosom; “he is crying. He must be bewitched.” 

Varka takes the baby, puts him in the cradle and begins rocking it again. The green patch and the shadows gradually disappear, and now there is nothing to force itself on her eyes and cloud her brain. But she is as sleepy as before, fearfully sleepy! Varka lays her head on the edge of the cradle, and rocks her whole body to overcome her sleepiness, but yet her eyes are glued together, and her head is heavy. 

“Varka, heat the stove!” she hears the master’s voice through the door. 

So it is time to get up and set to work. Varka leaves the cradle, and runs to the shed for firewood. She is glad. When one moves and runs about, one is not so sleepy as when one is sitting down. She brings the wood, heats the stove, and feels that her wooden face is getting supple again, and that her thoughts are growing clearer. 

“Varka, set the samovar!” shouts her mistress. 

Varka splits a piece of wood, but has scarcely time to light the splinters and put them in the samovar, when she hears a fresh order: 

“Varka, clean the master’s goloshes!” 

She sits down on the floor, cleans the goloshes, and thinks how nice it would be to put her head into a big deep golosh, and have a little nap in it… And all at once the golosh grows, swells, fills up the whole room. Varka drops the brush, but at once shakes her head, opens her eyes wide, and tries to look at things so that they may not grow big and move before her eyes. 

“Varka, wash the steps outside; I am ashamed for the customers to see them!” 

Varka washes the steps, sweeps and dusts the rooms, then heats another stove and runs to the shop. There is a great deal of work: she hasn’t one minute free. 

But nothing is so hard as standing in the same place at the kitchen table peeling potatoes. Her head droops over the table, the potatoes dance before her eyes, the knife tumbles out of her hand while her fat, angry mistress is moving about near her with her sleeves tucked up, talking so loud that it makes a ringing in Varka’s ears. It is agonising, too, to wait at dinner, to wash, to sew, there are minutes when she longs to flop on to the floor regardless of everything, and to sleep. 

The day passes. Seeing the windows getting dark, Varka presses her temples that feel as though they were made of wood, and smiles, though she does not know why. The dusk of evening caresses her eyes that will hardly keep open, and promises her sound sleep soon. In the evening visitors come. 

“Varka, set the samovar!” shouts her mistress. The samovar is a little one, and before the visitors have drunk all the tea they want, she has to heat it five times. After tea Varka stands for a whole hour on the same spot, looking at the visitors, and waiting for orders. 

“Varka, run and buy three bottles of beer!” 

She starts off, and tries to run as quickly as she can, to drive away sleep. 

“Varka, fetch some vodka! Varka, where’s the corkscrew? Varka, clean a herring!” 

But now, at last, the visitors have gone; the lights are put out, the master and mistress go to bed. 

“Varka, rock the baby!” she hears the last order. 

The cricket churrs in the stove; the green patch on the ceiling and the shadows from the trousers and the baby-clothes force themselves on Varka’s half-opened eyes again, wink at her and cloud her mind. 

“Hush-a-bye, my baby wee,” she murmurs, “and I will sing a song to thee.” 

And the baby screams, and is worn out with screaming. Again Varka sees the muddy high road, the people with wallets, her mother Pelageya, her father Yefim. She understands everything, she recognises everyone, but through her half sleep she cannot understand the force which binds her, hand and foot, weighs upon her, and prevents her from living. She looks round, searches for that force that she may escape from it, but she cannot find it. At last, tired to death, she does her very utmost, strains her eyes, looks up at the flickering green patch, and listening to the screaming, finds the foe who will not let her live. 

That foe is the baby. 

She laughs. It seems strange to her that she has failed to grasp such a simple thing before. The green patch, the shadows, and the cricket seem to laugh and wonder too. 

The hallucination takes possession of Varka. She gets up from her stool, and with a broad smile on her face and wide unblinking eyes, she walks up and down the room. She feels pleased and tickled at the thought that she will be rid directly of the baby that binds her hand and foot… Kill the baby and then sleep, sleep, sleep… 

Laughing and winking and shaking her fingers at the green patch, Varka steals up to the cradle and bends over the baby. When she has strangled him, she quickly lies down on the floor, laughs with delight that she can sleep, and in a minute is sleeping as sound as the dead. 

Von Kempelen and His Discovery 

by Edgar Allan Poe  

AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of the summary in 'Silliman's Journal,' with the detailed statement just published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course, that in offering a few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen's discovery, I have any design to look at the subject in a scientific point of view. My object is simply, in the first place, to say a few words of Von Kempelen himself (with whom, some years ago, I had the honor of a slight personal acquaintance), since every thing which concerns him must necessarily, at this moment, be of interest; and, in the second place, to look in a general way, and speculatively, at the results of the discovery. 
It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from the newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it unquestionably is, is unanticipated. 

By reference to the 'Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy' (Cottle and Munroe, London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question, but had actually made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in the very identical analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue by Von Kempelen, who although he makes not the slightest allusion to it, is, without doubt (I say it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required), indebted to the 'Diary' for at least the first hint of his own undertaking. 

The paragraph from the 'Courier and Enquirer,' which is now going the rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the invention for a Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I confess, a little apocryphal, for several reasons; although there is nothing either impossible or very improbable in the statement made. I need not go into details. My opinion of the paragraph is founded principally upon its manner. It does not look true. Persons who are narrating facts, are seldom so particular as Mr. Kissam seems to be, about day and date and precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come upon the discovery he says he did, at the period designated -- nearly eight years ago -- how happens it that he took no steps, on the instant, to reap the immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must have known would have resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large, from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man of common understanding could have discovered what Mr. Kissam says he did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby -- so like an owl -- as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the 'Courier and Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make a talk'? It must be confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little dependence is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if I were not well aware, from experience, how very easily men of science are mystified, on points out of their usual range of inquiry, I should be profoundly astonished at finding so eminent a chemist as Professor Draper, discussing Mr. Kissam's (or is it Mr. Quizzem's?) pretensions to the discovery, in so serious a tone. 

But to return to the 'Diary' of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet was not designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the writer, as any person at all conversant with authorship may satisfy himself at once by the slightest inspection of the style. At page 13, for example, near the middle, we read, in reference to his researches about the protoxide of azote: 'In less than half a minute the respiration being continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' That the respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by the subsequent context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a minute, the respiration [being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually, and were succeeded by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' A hundred similar instances go to show that the MS. so inconsiderately published, was merely a rough note-book, meant only for the writer's own eye, but an inspection of the pamphlet will convince almost any thinking person of the truth of my suggestion. The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last man in the world to commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had he a more than ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly afraid of appearing empirical; so that, however fully he might have been convinced that he was on the right track in the matter now in question, he would never have spoken out, until he had every thing ready for the most practical demonstration. I verily believe that his last moments would have been rendered wretched, could he have suspected that his wishes in regard to burning this 'Diary' (full of crude speculations) would have been unattended to; as, it seems, they were. I say 'his wishes,' for that he meant to include this note-book among the miscellaneous papers directed 'to be burnt,' I think there can be no manner of doubt. Whether it escaped the flames by good fortune or by bad, yet remains to be seen. That the passages quoted above, with the other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the hint, I do not in the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet remains to be seen whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous under any circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind at large. That Von Kempelen and his immediate friends will reap a rich harvest, it would be folly to doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so weak as not to 'realize,' in time, by large purchases of houses and land, with other property of intrinsic value. 

In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the 'Home Journal,' and has since been extensively copied, several misapprehensions of the German original seem to have been made by the translator, who professes to have taken the passage from a late number of the Presburg 'Schnellpost.' 'Viele' has evidently been misconceived (as it often is), and what the translator renders by 'sorrows,' is probably 'lieden,' which, in its true version, 'sufferings,' would give a totally different complexion to the whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely guess, on my part. 

Von Kempelen, however, is by no means 'a misanthrope,' in appearance, at least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance with him was casual altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in saying that I know him at all; but to have seen and conversed with a man of so prodigious a notoriety as he has attained, or will attain in a few days, is not a small matter, as times go. 

'The Literary World' speaks of him, confidently, as a native of Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in 'The Home Journal') but I am pleased in being able to state positively, since I have it from his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the State of New York, although both his parents, I believe, are of Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way, with Maelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short and stout, with large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner noticeable for bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks, and acts as little like 'a misanthrope' as any man I ever saw. We were fellow-sojouners for a week about six years ago, at Earl's Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I presume that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or four hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the day, and nothing that fell from him led me to suspect his scientific attainments. He left the hotel before me, intending to go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was in the latter city that his great discovery was first made public; or, rather, it was there that he was first suspected of having made it. This is about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von Kempelen; but I have thought that even these few details would have interest for the public. 

There can be little question that most of the marvellous rumors afloat about this affair are pure inventions, entitled to about as much credit as the story of Aladdin's lamp; and yet, in a case of this kind, as in the case of the discoveries in California, it is clear that the truth may be stranger than fiction. The following anecdote, at least, is so well authenticated, that we may receive it implicitly. 

Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well off during his residence at Bremen; and often, it was well known, he had been put to extreme shifts in order to raise trifling sums. When the great excitement occurred about the forgery on the house of Gutsmuth & Co., suspicion was directed toward Von Kempelen, on account of his having purchased a considerable property in Gasperitch Lane, and his refusing, when questioned, to explain how he became possessed of the purchase money. He was at length arrested, but nothing decisive appearing against him, was in the end set at liberty. The police, however, kept a strict watch upon his movements, and thus discovered that he left home frequently, taking always the same road, and invariably giving his watchers the slip in the neighborhood of that labyrinth of narrow and crooked passages known by the flash name of the 'Dondergat.' Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced him to a garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called Flatzplatz, -- and, coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they imagined, in the midst of his counterfeiting operations. His agitation is represented as so excessive that the officers had not the slightest doubt of his guilt. After hand-cuffing him, they searched his room, or rather rooms, for it appears he occupied all the mansarde. 

Opening into the garret where they caught him, was a closet, ten feet by eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which the object has not yet been ascertained. In one corner of the closet was a very small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of duplicate crucible -- two crucibles connected by a tube. One of these crucibles was nearly full of lead in a state of fusion, but not reaching up to the aperture of the tube, which was close to the brim. The other crucible had some liquid in it, which, as the officers entered, seemed to be furiously dissipating in vapor. They relate that, on finding himself taken, Kempelen seized the crucibles with both hands (which were encased in gloves that afterwards turned out to be asbestic), and threw the contents on the tiled floor. It was now that they hand-cuffed him; and before proceeding to ransack the premises they searched his person, but nothing unusual was found about him, excepting a paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing what was afterward ascertained to be a mixture of antimony and some unknown substance, in nearly, but not quite, equal proportions. All attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so far, failed, but that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be doubted. 

Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went through a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was found, to the chemist's sleeping-room. They here rummaged some drawers and boxes, but discovered only a few papers, of no importance, and some good coin, silver and gold. At length, looking under the bed, they saw a large, common hair trunk, without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying carelessly across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw this trunk out from under the bed, they found that, with their united strength (there were three of them, all powerful men), they 'could not stir it one inch.' Much astonished at this, one of them crawled under the bed, and looking into the trunk, said: 

'No wonder we couldn't move it -- why it's full to the brim of old bits of brass!' 

Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to get a good purchase, and pushing with all his force, while his companions pulled with an theirs, the trunk, with much difficulty, was slid out from under the bed, and its contents examined. The supposed brass with which it was filled was all in small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a pea to that of a dollar; but the pieces were irregular in shape, although more or less flat-looking, upon the whole, 'very much as lead looks when thrown upon the ground in a molten state, and there suffered to grow cool.' Now, not one of these officers for a moment suspected this metal to be any thing but brass. The idea of its being gold never entered their brains, of course; how could such a wild fancy have entered it? And their astonishment may be well conceived, when the next day it became known, all over Bremen, that the 'lot of brass' which they had carted so contemptuously to the police office, without putting themselves to the trouble of pocketing the smallest scrap, was not only gold -- real gold -- but gold far finer than any employed in coinage-gold, in fact, absolutely pure, virgin, without the slightest appreciable alloy. 

I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen's confession (as far as it went) and release, for these are familiar to the public. That he has actually realized, in spirit and in effect, if not to the letter, the old chimaera of the philosopher's stone, no sane person is at liberty to doubt. The opinions of Arago are, of course, entitled to the greatest consideration; but he is by no means infallible; and what he says of bismuth, in his report to the Academy, must be taken cum grano salis. The simple truth is, that up to this period all analysis has failed; and until Von Kempelen chooses to let us have the key to his own published enigma, it is more than probable that the matter will remain, for years, in statu quo. All that as yet can fairly be said to be known is, that 'Pure gold can be made at will, and very readily from lead in connection with certain other substances, in kind and in proportions, unknown.' 

Speculation, of course, is busy as to the immediate and ultimate results of this discovery -- a discovery which few thinking persons will hesitate in referring to an increased interest in the matter of gold generally, by the late developments in California; and this reflection brings us inevitably to another -- the exceeding inopportuneness of Von Kempelen's analysis. If many were prevented from adventuring to California, by the mere apprehension that gold would so materially diminish in value, on account of its plentifulness in the mines there, as to render the speculation of going so far in search of it a doubtful one -- what impression will be wrought now, upon the minds of those about to emigrate, and especially upon the minds of those actually in the mineral region, by the announcement of this astounding discovery of Von Kempelen? a discovery which declares, in so many words, that beyond its intrinsic worth for manufacturing purposes (whatever that worth may be), gold now is, or at least soon will be (for it cannot be supposed that Von Kempelen can long retain his secret), of no greater value than lead, and of far inferior value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to speculate prospectively upon the consequences of the discovery, but one thing may be positively maintained -- that the announcement of the discovery six months ago would have had material influence in regard to the settlement of California. 

In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results have been a rise of two hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and nearly twenty-five per cent. that of silver. 

A Princess of Mars

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Chapter XXVIII

It was dark when I opened my eyes again. Strange, stiff garments were upon my body; garments that cracked and powdered away from me as I rose to a sitting posture.

I felt myself over from head to foot and from head to foot I was clothed, though when I fell unconscious at the little doorway I had been naked. Before me was a small patch of moonlit sky which showed through a ragged aperture.

As my hands passed over my body they came in contact with pockets and in one of these a small parcel of matches wrapped in oiled paper. One of these matches I struck, and its dim flame lighted up what appeared to be a huge cave, toward the back of which I discovered a strange, still figure huddled over a tiny bench. As I approached it I saw that it was the dead and mummified remains of a little old woman with long black hair, and the thing it leaned over was a small charcoal burner upon which rested a round copper vessel containing a small quantity of greenish powder.

The Oxen & the Wheels

by Aesop

A pair of Oxen were drawing a heavily loaded wagon along a miry country road. They had to use all their strength to pull the wagon, but they did not complain.

The Wheels of the wagon were of a different sort. Though the task they had to do was very light compared with that of the Oxen, they creaked and groaned at every turn. The poor Oxen, pulling with all their might to draw the wagon through the deep mud, had their ears filled with the loud complaining of the Wheels. And this, you may well know, made their work so much the harder to endure.

"Silence!" the Oxen cried at last, out of patience. "What have you Wheels to complain about so loudly? We are drawing all the weight, not you, and we are keeping still about it besides."

Hercules and the Wagoner

by Aesop

A carter was driving a wagon along a country lane, when the wheels sank down deep into a rut. The rustic driver, stupefied and aghast, stood looking at the wagon, and did nothing but utter loud cries to Hercules to come and help him. Hercules, it is said, appeared and thus addressed him: "Put your shoulders to the wheels, my man. Goad on your bullocks, and never more pray to me for help, until you have done your best to help yourself, or depend upon it you will henceforth pray in vain." 

A Haunted House
by Virginia Woolf

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure—a ghostly couple.

“Here we left it,” she said. And he added, “Oh, but here too!” “It’s upstairs,” she murmured. “And in the garden,” he whispered “Quietly,” they said, “or we shall wake them.”

But it wasn’t that you woke us. Oh, no. “They’re looking for it; they’re drawing the curtain,” one might say, and so read on a page or two. “Now they’ve found it,” one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. “What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?” My hands were empty. “Perhaps it’s upstairs then?” The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling—what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. “Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat softly. “The treasure buried; the room . . . ” the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?

A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burnt behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us; coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs. “Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat gladly. “The Treasure yours.”

The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.

“Here we slept,” she says. And he adds, “Kisses without number.” “Waking in the morning—” “Silver between the trees—” “Upstairs—” “In the garden—” “When summer came—” “In winter snowtime—” The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.

Nearer they come; cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken; we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. “Look,” he breathes. “Sound asleep. Love upon their lips.”

Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.

“Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly. “Long years—” he sighs. “Again you found me.” “Here,” she murmurs, “sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure—” Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. “Safe! safe! safe!” the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.”

________________________________

                                                                               Jokes 

The ocean says hello with waves.

Momsters buy their electronics at their favorite store, "Beast Buy".

The restaurant on the moon had great food but no atmosphere.

Fish keep their money in a river bank.

The only word in the dictionary spelled wrong is "wrong".

The math student bought some graph paper. Is he plotting something?

Knock, knock. Who's there? Boo.Boo who?  Why are you crying?

The bicycle refused to go any farther because it was two-tired.

I only get sick on work days because I have a weekend immune sysyem.

When Fruit of the Loom sued Hanes, it was a brief case.

Muffins spelled backwards is what you do aftwr you take them out of the oven.

Pay attention to your funny bone. It's humerus.

The Black-Eyed Peas can sing us a song but the chick peas can onle hummus one.

If you tell everyone about the benefits of eating dried grapes, you'll be raisin awareness.

Have you heard about the girl who didn't eat meat of have you never heard of herbifore?

Jack went to the paint store to get thinner. It didn't work.

Balloons are as expensive as they are due to inflation.

Oceans greet each other with waves.

A yardstick has three feet but cannot walk.

Never play poker at the zoo. Too many cheetahs.

A mathmetician's favorite sport is figure skating.

Two monkeys that share an Amazon account are "Prime-mates".

The student ate his homework because his teacher told him it was a piece of cake.

A telephone asks no questions but must be answered.

A sponge has holes but still holds water.

Birds fly south for the winter because its too far to walk.

A ghost washes his hair with sham-boo.

A ton of bricks weighs the same as a ton of feathers.

A photo is something that is taken before it is received.

Take a sick boat to the dock.

A river can run but it can't walk.

A lazy kangaroo is a "pouch" potato.

The origami teacher quit her job.  Too much paperwork.

A piano has many keys but doesn't open locks.

A shadow is often on the ground but never gets dirty.

The father of fruits is the "papa-ya".

Although a sponge is full of holes it still holds water.

A door is no longer a door when it's ajar.

Edam cheese is made backwards.

The triangle told the circle he was pointless.

The tomato blushed because it saw the salad dressing.

When a dinosaur passes gas it's called a blast from the past.              

                                                     Riddles

What is in Mercury , Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus but not Venus or Neptune? (the letter "R")

What word, when typed in capital letters, can be read the same upside down? (SWIMS)

What's the longest word in the dictionary? (miles)

Why aren't dogs good dancers? (because they have two left feet)

WHat would happen if we switched ounces to miligrams? (mass confusion)

When will you understand how lightning works? (when it strikes you)

What do you call a king who is only 12 inches tall? (a ruler)

What new talent does someone have who accidentally rubs ketchup in his eyes? (Heinzsight)

What do you call someone who invests in beef, vegetable or chicken stock? (a bouillianaire)

What do you call someone who refuses to date someone with nine toes? (lack-toes intolerant)

What is the result of pot-smoking cows playing poker? (high steaks)

How much does a chimney cost? (nothing because it's on the house)

How do you talk to a giant? (use big words)

What do you call two birds that are in love? ("tweet"hearts)

What can you put in a bucket of water to make it weigh less? (a hole)

What is at the end of everything? (the letter g)

What do bunnies do at the mall? (shop until they hop)

What can you hold in your right hand but not in your left hand? (your right elbow)

In which month do people sleep the least? (February because there are less days in it)

What is white and smells like blue paint? (white paint)

What runs but can't walk. has a mouth but no teeth, has a bed but can't sleep? (a river)

Why are fish so smart? (bebause they travel in schools)

What odd number becomes even when you take away a letter? (seven)

What is at the end of everything? (the letter "g")

What has three feet but cannot walk?  (a yardstick)

To what question can you never answer "yes"? (are you asleep yet?)

What currency is the heaviest? (the pound)

What do you call a fake noodle? (impasta)

How do you make "one" disapper? (add "g" and it's gone)

How do you keep a rhinoceros from charging? (take away its credit card)

What has 13 hearts and no other organs? (a deck of cards)

What is the richest nut? (a cashew)

What has a head, a tail but no body?  (a coin)

What five letter word has one left when two letters are removed? (one)

What five letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?  (short)

What is the capital in France? (the letter "F")

If two's company and three's a crowd, what are four and five? (nine)

How does the moon cut his hair? (eclipse it)

Why did the child cross the playground? (to get to the other slide)

 What is a three-letter word for mouse trap? (cat)

What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire? (frostbite)

What did the duck say as she was buying chapstick? (put it on my bill)

What type of tree can you carry in your hand?  (a palm)

What band never plays music?  (a rubber band)

What goes from Z to A?  (the word zebra)

Why can't a sailor ever finish the alphabet? (because he gets lost at sea)

When is a door not a door? (when it is ajar)

What sits in a corner but travels around the world? (a stamp)

                                                    ________

                                                   ----------------

                                                      Plays

                                                    Oedipus at Colonus
                                                      by Sophocles

  (final act)                                 

  ANTIGONE More must I hear? 

ISMENE Tombless he died, none near. 

ANTIGONE Lead me thither; slay me there.

 ISMENE How shall I unhappy fare, Friendless, helpless, how drag on A life of misery alone? 

CHORUS (Ant. 2) Fear not, maids— 

ANTIGONE Ah, whither flee? 

CHORUS Refuge hath been found. 

ANTIGONE For me? 

CHORUS Where thou shalt be safe from harm. 

ANTIGONE I know it. 

CHORUS Why then this alarm? 

ANTIGONE How again to get us home I know not. 

CHORUS Why then this roam? 

ANTIGONE Troubles whelm us— 

CHORUS As of yore. 

ANTIGONE Worse than what was worse before. 

CHORUS Sure ye are driven on the breakers' surge. 

ANTIGONE Alas! we are. CHORUS Alas! 'tis so. 

ANTIGONE Ah whither turn, O Zeus? No ray Of hope to cheer the way Whereon the fates our desperate voyage urge. 

THESEUS Dry your tears; when grace is shed On the quick and on the dead By dark Powers beneficent, Over-grief they would resent. 

ANTIGONE Aegeus' child, to thee we pray.

 THESEUS What the boon, my children, say. 

ANTIGONE With our own eyes we fain would see Our father's tomb. 

THESEUS That may not be. 

ANTIGONE What say'st thou, King? 

THESEUS My children, he Charged me straitly that no moral Should approach the sacred portal, Or greet with funeral litanies The hidden tomb wherein he lies; Saying, "If thou keep'st my hest Thou shalt hold thy realm at rest." The God of Oaths this promise heard, And to Zeus I pledged my word. 

ANTIGONE Well, if he would have it so, We must yield. Then let us go Back to Thebes, if yet we may Heal this mortal feud and stay The self-wrought doom That drives our brothers to their tomb. 

THESEUS Go in peace; nor will I spare Ought of toil and zealous care, But on all your needs attend, Gladdening in his grave my friend. 

CHORUS Wail no more, let sorrow rest, All is ordered for the best.

                                                      Brand
                                                        by Henrik Ibsen 

(final scene)     

GERD (looks at him with the greatest eyes).

Now I know you, haa!
I thought sua priest just now;
hiith he and the others i command!
The biggest man you're here is you.

BRAND.
No, I'm the smallest me.

GERD.
Show me the bugs in your hands!

BRAND.
Did it work?

GEKD. Nailers! Vert 'has you in your hair, deep wounds on your forehead thorn' thorns. Sunhan bore the cross tree! As a small amount of misinformation, I seemed to receive a guarantee that someone else was suffering death on the cross; - who knows then, you 're the Savior man!

BRAND.
Child, the sonar gave way!

GERD.
In my legs I fall.

BRAND.
Give up!

GERD. You shed blood that saves everyone.

BRAND. Relief for my soul I do not know for my own!

GERD.
This is a gun! Shoot -!

BRAND (shakes his head).
I'm looking for death myself!

GERD. You, the best of us! show your hands to the wounds but; you are the greatest of them.

BRAND.
Not like the cheapest worm in the country.

GERD (looks up; clouds evaporate).
Do you know where you stand?

BRAND (stares in front of him). I stand on the next porch; foot heavy, vertical road.

GERD (wilder).
Do you know where you stand?

BRAND.
The mists evaporate by evaporation.

GERD. Oh, and towards the sky points the Svarten hill!

BRAND (looks up).
So this "Icy Church" lie!

GERD.
That's where I got it!

BRAND. Now if you could only get far! - Oh, as if I miss a bitter day, the warmth of a pet, a thirst for church in peace, I miss a spring in the chest! (Bursts into tears.) I cried out, Jesus, often sua; embraced you never me; you passed me ain 'like an old word only; from the garment release, water washed repentance, give even a rag!

GERD (service). What is this? She cries, she, a tear rolls over her cheek, raises the steam warm, even the tomb curtains of the mountains melt a drop from it, (Trembling.) Why are you crying now?

BRAND (brightest, with a brilliant face and as if broken). The law, when you first win the frost, you get a summer day! Before, I wanted to be a painting on which the Creator writes; - now I want to be a poem that makes us eat glow. The ice is already breaking, tears are leaking, now I can weep the burden, the knees at the request to flex!

(Kneels.)

GERD (peeking up, saying quietly and timidly). There it stains again! Wickedly swaying the slopes of the mountains, the hills wings in motion. Now capture a moment of freedom when you just listen to it!

    (Puts the gun on his cheek and shoots; there is a thud like the
    thunder of thunder from the walls of a mountain.)

BRAND (jumps up).
Haa, who shot!

GERD. Now its like this! The bullet hurt, drops down, drops screaming! Hundreds of hawk feathers fly, covering the slopes; now it's growing, white! huu, it gets this far!

BRAND (falls to the ground). What a generation has broken, the boy will be judged.

GERD. It's like the vault of heaven grows when that one fell! Is it circling here, but I am no longer afraid; it's like a white dove -! (Exclaims in horror.) Huu, that thump thunderous!

(Throws into the snow.)

BRAND (presses under the attacking avalanche and shouts up). Answer, Creator, when death comes, is it no longer valid to have the will of man qvantum satis -?

(An avalanche buries him; the whole valley is filled.)

SOUND (shouts through thunder).
He is Deus caritatis !

                                                  Hippolytus

                                                     by Euripides

(opening scene)

Aphrodite
Mighty and of high renown, among mortals and in heaven alike, I am called the goddess Aphrodite. Of all those who dwell between the Euxine Sea and the Pillars of Atlas and look on the light of the sun, I honor those who reverence my power, but I lay low all those who think proud thoughts against me. For in the gods as well one finds this trait: they enjoy receiving honor from mortals.

The truth of these words I shall shortly demonstrate. Hippolytus, Theseus' son by the Amazon woman and ward of holy Pittheus, alone among the citizens of this land of Trozen, says that I am the basest of divinities. He shuns the bed of love and will have nothing to do with marriage. Instead, he honors Apollo's sister Artemis, Zeus's daughter, thinking her the greatest of divinities. In the green wood, ever consort to the maiden goddess, he clears the land of wild beasts with his swift dogs and has gained a companionship greater than mortal. To this pair I feel no grudging ill-will: why should I? Yet for his sins against me I shall punish Hippolytus this day. I have already come a long way with my plans and I need little further effort. One day when he came from Pittheus' house to the land of Pandion to see and celebrate the holy mysteries of Demeter, his father's high-born wife Phaedra saw him, and her heart was seized with a dreadful longing by my design. And before she came to this land of Trozen, she built, hard by the rock of Pallas Athena, a temple to Aphrodite overlooking this land since she loved a foreign love. After ages shall call this foundation Aphrodite-Next-Hippolytus.

 But since Theseus has left the land of Cecrops, fleeing the blood-guilt he incurred for the murder of the Pallantidae, and sailed with his wife to this land, consenting to a year-long exile from his home, from this point on the poor woman, groaning and struck senseless by the goad of love, means to die [40] in silence, and none of her household knows of her malady. But that is not the way this passion is fated to end. I shall reveal the matter to Theseus and it will come to light, and the young man who wars against me shall be killed by his father with the curses the sea-lord Poseidon granted as a gift to Theseus: three times may Theseus pray to the god and have his prayer fulfilled. But Phaedra, noble though she is, shall nonetheless die. I do not set such store by her misfortune as to let my enemies off from such penalty as will satisfy my heart.

But now I see Hippolytus coming, finished with the toil of the hunt, and so I shall leave this place. A great throng of his servants treads close at his heels and shouts, hymning the praises of the goddess Artemis. Clearly he does not know that the gates of the Underworld stand open for him and that this day's light is the last he shall ever look upon.Exit Aphrodite. Enter Hippolytus by Eisodos A, carrying a garland, with a chorus of servants

Hippolytus
Come follow me and sing of Zeus's heavenly daughter Artemis, who cares for us.

Hippolytus and chorus of Servants
Lady, lady most revered, daughter of Zeus, my greeting, daughter of Leto and of Zeus, of maidens the fairest by far, who dwellest in the broad heaven in the court of your good father, the gilded house of Zeus.  My greeting to you, fair one, fairest of all who dwell in Olympus!

                                                    The Cherry Orchard

                                                   by Anton Chekhov

 (opening scene)

LOPAKHIN: The train's arrived, thank God. What's the time?

DUNYASHA: It will soon be two. It is light already.

LOPAKHIN: How much was the train late? Two hours at least. I have made a rotten mess of it! I came here on purpose to meet them at the station, and then overslept myself... in my chair. It's a pity. I wish you'd wakened me.

DUNYASHA: I thought you'd gone away. I think I hear them coming.
LOPAKHIN:  No... They've got to collect their luggage and so on...
I don't know what she'll be like now... She's a good sort--an easy, simple person. I remember when I was a boy of fifteen, my father, who is dead--he used to keep a shop in the village here--hit me on the face with his fist, and my nose bled... We had gone into the yard together for something or other, and he was a little drunk. Lubov Andreyevna, as I remember her now, was still young, and very thin, and she took me to the washstand here in this very room, the nursery. She said, "Don't cry, little man, it'll be all right in time for your wedding."
My father was a peasant, it's true, but here I am in a white waistcoat and yellow shoes... a pearl out of an oyster. I'm rich now, with lots of money, but just think about it and examine me, and you'll find  Here I've been reading this book, but I understood nothing. I read and fell asleep.
DUNYASHA: The dogs didn't sleep all night; they know that they're coming.

LOPAKHIN: What's up with you, Dunyasha...?

DUNYASHA: My hands are shaking. I shall faint.

LOPAKHIN: You're too sensitive, Dunyasha. You dress just like a lady, and you do your hair like one too. You oughtn't.

EPIKHODOV: The gardener sent these; says they're to go into the dining-room. 

LOPAKHIN: And you'll bring me some kvass.

DUNYASHA: Very well. 

EPIKHODOV: There's a frost this morning--three degrees, and the cherry-trees are all in flower. I can't approve of our climate. I can't. Our climate is indisposed to favour us even this once. And, Ermolai Alexeyevitch, allow me to say to you, in addition, that I bought myself some boots two days ago, and I beg to assure you that they squeak in a perfectly unbearable manner. What shall I put on them?

LOPAKHIN: Go away. You bore me.

EPIKHODOV: Some misfortune happens to me every day. But I don't complain; I'm used to it, and I can smile. I shall go.  There...  There, you see, if I may use the word, what circumstances I am in, so to speak. It is even simply marvellous. 

DUNYASHA: I may confess to you, Ermolai Alexeyevitch, that Epikhodov has proposed to me.

LOPAKHIN: Ah!

DUNYASHA: I don't know what to do about it. He's a nice young man, but every now and again, when he begins talking, you can't understand a word he's saying. I think I like him. He's madly in love with me. He's an unlucky man; every day something happens. We tease him about it. They call him "Two-and-twenty troubles."

LOPAKHIN:  There they come, I think.

DUNYASHA: They're coming! What's the matter with me? I'm cold all over.

LOPAKHIN: There they are, right enough. Let's go and meet them. Will she know me? We haven't seen each other for five years.

DUNYASHA: I shall faint in a minute... Oh, I'm fainting!

ANYA: Let's come through here. Do you remember what this room is, mother?

                                                      Philoctetes 
                                                     by Sophocles 

First Scene

ULYSSES

At length, my noble friend, thou bravest son 
Of a brave father- father of us all, 
The great Achilles- we have reached the shore 
Of sea-girt Lemnos, desert and forlorn, 
Where never tread of human step is seen, 
Or voice of mortal heard, save his alone, 
Poor Philoctetes, Poeas' wretched son, 
Whom here I left; for such were my commands 
From Grecia's chiefs, when by his fatal wound 
Oppressed, his groans and execrations dreadful 
Alarmed our hosts, our sacred rites profaned, 
And interrupted holy sacrifice. 
But why should I repeat the tale? The time 
Admits not of delay. We must not linger, 
Lest he discover our arrival here, 
And all our purposed fraud to draw him hence 
Be ineffectual. Lend me then thy aid. 
Surveying round thee, canst thou see a rock 
With double entrance- to the sun's warm rays 
In winter open, and in summer's heat 
Giving free passage to the welcome breeze? 
A little to the left there is a fountain 
Of living water, where, if yet he breathes, 
He slakes his thirst. If aught thou seest of this 
Inform me; so shall each to each impart 
Counsel most fit, and serve our common cause.

NEOPTOLEMUS 

If I mistake not, I behold a cave, 
E'en such as thou describst.

ULYSSES

Dost thou? which way?

NEOPTOLEMUS

Yonder it is; but no path leading thither, 
Or trace of human footstep.

ULYSSES
In his cell A chance but he hath lain down to rest: 

Look if he hath not.

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