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Today is a gift - that’s why it’s called the present, or as Ella Wheeler Wilcox says, it’s the "privilege". This timeless poetical work of art is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s "All the World’s a Stage", for both poems chronicle the various stages of life, however, this one ends with an air of optimism and sage advice. The poem was first published in the early 1900s and is every bit as relevant today as it was at the time of its conception. "Life Is a Privilege" is a mental elevator laced with exquisite poetic devices. Nutritional psychological food for the soul.

"All the World’s a Stage" is a sobering monologue from Shakespeare’s comedic piece: As You Like It first published in 1623. This avant-garde, spoken word tour de force, is pontificated by the sombre Jacques in Act II, Scene VII. The content of his speech is not only a powerful instance of art imitating life, but also life imitating art, specifically a stage and the changeable drama which ensues. A thought-provoking masterpiece!

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning is a love poem by John Donne, first published in 1633. The premise of the poem focuses on two lovers who are about to part for an extended period. Donne wrote the poem for his wife prior to leaving for a trip to Europe. The poem is wonderful ear-food for the hopeless romantic.

This audiobook is useful for anyone who wishes to know more about search engine optimization (SEO) and how it can be used for improving your business and increasing viewer visibility.

Lady Susan is a short epistolary novel by Jane Austen, possibly written in 1794 but not published until 1871. Lady Susan Vernon, a beautiful and charming recent widow, visits her brother- and sister-in-law, Charles and Catherine Vernon, with little advance notice at Churchill, their country residence. Catherine is far from pleased, as Lady Susan had tried to prevent her marriage to Charles and her unwanted guest has been described to her as "the most accomplished coquette in England". Among Lady Susan's conquests is the married Mr. Manwaring.

Mansfield Park is the third published novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1814 by Thomas Egerton. A second edition was published in 1816 by John Murray, still within Austen's lifetime. The novel did not receive any public reviews until 1821. The novel tells the story of Fanny Price, starting when her overburdened family sends her at age ten to live in the household of her wealthy aunt and uncle and following her development into early adulthood.

The Secret Garden is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published as a book in 1911, after a version was published as an American magazine serial beginning in 1910. Set in England, it is one of Burnett's most popular novels and is considered a classic of English children's literature. Several stage and film adaptations have been made. The American edition was published by Stokes with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk (signed as M. L. Kirk) and the British edition by Heinemann with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson.

Once there was a Prince who wanted to marry a Princess. Only a real one would do. So he traveled through all the world to find her, and everywhere things went wrong. There were Princesses aplenty, but how was he to know whether they were real Princesses? There was something not quite right about them all. So he came home again and was unhappy, because he did so want to have a real Princess.

Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midlands town, from 1829 to 1832, it follows distinct, intersecting stories with many characters. Issues include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Leavened with comic elements, Middlemarch approaches significant historical events in a realist mode: the Reform Act 1832, early railways, and the accession of King William IV. It looks at medicine of the time and reactionary views in a settled community facing unwelcome change.

Poe prided himself on the variety of his subjects. This is his only tale that can possibly be read as a simple happy love story. Probably because of its superficial comedy — reminiscent of "Lionizing" — it has been more popular with ordinary readers than with professed critics.

About twelve o'clock, one sultry night, in the month of August, and during the chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen belonging to the crew of the "Free and Easy," a trading schooner plying between Sluys and the Thames, and then at anchor in that river, were much astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house in the parish of St. Andrews, London — which ale-house bore for sign the portraiture of a "Jolly Tar.

Von Kempelen and his Discovery (1849). First published in The Flag of Our Union, April 14, 1849. Created as a hoax during the California Gold Rush. 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.

"William Wilson" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in The Gift, with a setting inspired by Poe's formative years on the outskirts of London. The tale features a doppelgänger. The story follows a man of "a noble descent" named William Wilson. Although denouncing his profligate past, he does not accept full blame for his actions and says that "man was never thus ... tempted before".

"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe and a work of horror fiction. It was first published in 1842 in the literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, and is set very loosely during the Peninsular War between Spain and Napoleonic France (1808–1814), although it invokes the feared Inquisition of earlier centuries. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured.

The Paradise of Thieves was published in The Wisdom of Father Brown. This mystery is a real cliff-hanger. The great Muscari, most original of the young Tuscan poets, walked swiftly into his favourite restaurant, which overlooked the Mediterranean, was covered by an awning and fenced by little lemon and orange trees. Waiters in white aprons were already laying out on white tables the insignia of an early and elegant lunch; and this seemed to increase a satisfaction that already touched the top of swagger.

A stormy evening of olive and silver was closing in, as Father Brown, wrapped in a grey Scotch plaid, came to the end of a grey Scotch valley and beheld the strange castle of Glengyle. It stopped one end of the glen or hollow like a blind alley; and it looked like the end of the world. Rising in steep roofs and spires of sea-green slate in the manner of the old French-Scotch chateaux, it reminded an Englishman of the sinister steeple-hats of witches in fairy tales; and the pine woods that rocked round the green turrets looked, by comparison, as black as numberless flocks of ravens.

Both by calling and conviction Father Brown knew better than most of us that every man is dignified when he is dead. But even he felt a pang of incongruity when he was knocked up at daybreak and told that Sir Aaron Armstrong had been murdered. There was something absurd and unseemly about secret violence in connection with so entirely entertaining and popular a figure. For Sir Aaron Armstrong was entertaining to the point of being comic; and popular in such a manner as to be almost legendary.

"A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" is a fantastical short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. Set near Charlottesville, Virginia, it is the only story the author set in the state. It was first published in Godey's Lady's Book in April 1844. It was anthologized the following year in Tales, published in New York by Wiley and Putnam. In late November 1827, the unnamed narrator meets Augustus Bedloe. Because of ongoing problems with neuralgia, Bedloe has retained the exclusive services of a 70-year-old physician, Dr. Templeton, a practitioner of mesmerism.

"The Purloined Letter" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe. It is the third of his three detective stories featuring the fictional C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt". These stories are considered to be important early forerunners of the modern detective story. The unnamed narrator is with the famous Parisian amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin when they are joined by G—, prefect of the Paris police.

"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. An unnamed narrator suffering with alcoholism has a strong affection for pets, until he perversely turns to abusing them. In a drunken rage, he hangs his beloved black cat from a tree. He soon finds another black cat but develops a hatred for it as well. When he attempts to kill it with an axe, his wife stops him – and the narrator murders her instead, concealing the body behind a brick wall. But the cat, accidentally walled in with the corpse, alerts the police with its shrieking cry.