Passage From Phantom by Ivan Turgenev “I glanced downwards. We had now risen again to a considerable height. We were flying over some provincial town I did not know, situated on the side of a wide slo...

"It was the 15th of August, about eleven o'clock at night; thick clouds, portending a tempest, overspread the sky, and shrouded all light and prospect beneath their heavy folds. The extremities of the...

Bridge Over troubled Waters is one of my many favorite Simon and Garfinkel songs. The melody is great but I have always been captivated by several particular lyrics. "I will ease your mind" is one of those captivating verses. I find it to be a thought provoking expression given the context of the song. "I will ease you

There’s a small town about eighty miles south of Moscow called Tarusa —a quiet place of rolling fields, birch groves, and slow, winding rivers. It’s the kind of town that feels untouched by time, wher...

I was introduced for the first time to a book by Jack London over 60 years ago. Since that time I have read several of London’s works including “The Call of the Wild,” “White Fang and,” and “The Peopl...

“By the light of a dim, slender candle in an iron candlestick I made out a woman of perhaps thirty, sickly thin, wearing a dark old cotton dress, her long neck not covered with anything, her scanty da...

In Grimmelshausen’s Adventures of Simplicissimus, the protagonist is more than a lowlife rogue. He also functions as a philosophical argument in narrative form. The novel uses his life story to interc...

Dostoevsky’s short story The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877) explores several profound philosophical and existential themes, characteristic of his later works. The dream sequence presents an Eden-lik...

“Mr. Prokharchin” by Dostoevsky  “He was a thoroughly intractable person, a man of few words who had no time for small talk. He was not fond of those who proffered advice, and was merciless towards up...

Leo Tolstoy emphasized the importance of truth. His works delve into the significance of honesty and integrity in human relationships and society.

During the Harlem Renaissance, Aaron and Alta Douglas's Harlem apartment was one of the primary gathering spots for artists, writers, and poets. When asked, What was the Renaissance to you? Douglas re...

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