English Tutor

The Fly By Katherine Mansfield “Y’are very snug in here,” piped old Mr. Woodifield, and   he peered out of the great, green-leather armchair by his friend the boss’s desk as a baby peers out of its pram.   His talk was over; it was time for him to be off. But he did not want to go. Since he had retired, since his . . .  stroke , the wife and the girls kept him boxed up in the house every day of the week except Tuesday. On Tuesday he was dressed and brushed and allowed to cut back to   the City   for the day. Though what he did there the wife and girls couldn’t imagine. Made a nuisance of himself to his friends, they supposed. . . . Well, perhaps so. All the same,   we cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves.   So there sat old Woodifield, smoking a cigar and staring almost greedily   at the boss , who rolled in his office chair, stout, rosy, five years older than he, and still going strong, s...

The Superannuated Man By Charles Lamb If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years of thy life–thy shining youth–in the irksome confinement of an office; to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to decrepitude and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite; to have lived to forget that there are such things as holidays, or to remember them but as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then only, will you be able to appreciate my deliverance. It is now six and thirty years since I took my seat at the desk in Mincing-lane. Melancholy was the transition at fourteen from the abundant play-time, and the frequently-intervening vacations of school days, to the eight, nine, and sometimes ten hours’ a-day attendance at a counting-house. But time partially reconciles us to anything. I gradually became content–doggedly contented, as wild animals in cages. It is true I had my Sundays to myself; but Sundays, admirable as the institution of them is ...

Dream Children By Charles Lamb CHILDREN love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were children; to stretch  their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle or grandame, whom they  never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear  about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times  bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene—so at least it was  generally believed in that part of the country—of the tragic incidents which they had lately  become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the  whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood  upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts, till  a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead,...

Of Studies By Francis Bacon Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.  Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by ob...

Freedom By GB Shaw What is a perfectly free person? Evidently a person who can do what he likes, when he likes, and where he likes, or do nothing at all if he prefers it. Well, there is no such person, and there never can be any such person. Whether we like it or not, we must all sleep for one third of our lifetime—wash and dress and undress—we must spend a couple of hours eating and drinking—we must spend nearly as much in getting about from place to place. For half the day we are slaves to necessities which we cannot shirk, whether we are monarchs with a thousand slaves or humble labourers with no servants but their wives. And the wives must undertake the additional heavy slavery of childbearing, if the world is still to be peopled. These natural jobs cannot be shirked. But they involve other jobs which can. As we must eat we must first provide food; as we must sleep, we must have beds, and bedding in houses with fireplaces and coals; as we must walk through the streets, we must have...