
The Fifth String<br > <br >
John Philip Sousa
Summary
The Fifth String by John Philip Sousa
The Fifth String by John Philip Sousa
The letters home to his family by Gerald Goodlake, a young officer in the Coldstream Guards, make remarkable reading. They vividly describe the ill-preparedness of the British Army and the dire conditions experienced by all ranks in the Crimea. Goodlake's views on senior officers were frank to say the least! Most important, Goodlake's initiative and courage in organising and leading what were 'Special Forces' were rewarded by the award of one of the first Victoria Crosses. Goodlake served in the Crimea from early 1854 to the end two years later.Show book
To say Edith Stein lived a remarkable life would be a dramatic understatement. Born in Breslau (then part of Germany) at the end of the 19th century, Edith was raised as an observant Jew, only to turn her back on religion right around the time World War I devastated the continent. In the wake of the war, during which she earned a doctorate and began working as an assistant at the University of Freiburg, she began reading the works of the legendary St. Teresa of Ávila, one of the most influential Catholic saints in history. As Stein continued to be influenced by St. Teresa, she was baptized as a Catholic in 1922 and began to turn her attention to becoming a nun. When she ultimately decided that would not be her path, she began to teach at a Catholic school in Speyer, a position she held until 1931. As it turned out, that period of time coincided with the rise of the Nazis, with Adolf Hitler working his way up the ranks of the Weimar Republic before taking full power in 1933. As the Nazis seized the reins in Germany and began implementing antisemitic policies, Stein’s Jewish background made her a target regardless of her conversion, and she had to quit teaching as a result of not being “Aryan” enough to qualify for a civil servant position. In the wake of that, she pursued her original dream by joining a Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne by the end of 1933, and she took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Edith and her sister Rosa would remain at Cologne until 1938, when their Jewish background compelled them to flee to a monastery in the Netherlands as antisemitic persecution intensified in Germany. They were two of countless Jews who fled Nazi Germany or attempted to ahead of World War II, but as fate would have it, they didn’t get far enough away.Show book
These are the faces that call me “mom,” the three children who made me a mother. When I started my journey into parenthood I never thought it would look like this. I never planned on having three adopted children, and I certainly never imagined that two of them would have Down syndrome. But like most of the things God does, once we stepped into the craziness and confusion of the unknown and unplanned, we quickly realized that we were indeed among the lucky few. When my husband and I decided to grow our family ten years ago, we were surprised to find that getting pregnant was not as easy as we had thought it would be. And as we navigated the ups and downs of infertility, God led us down the path of adoption. Of course, we would adopt! Not what we had originally planned, but certainly a wonderful option. But just as we began to get a comfortable grasp on growing our family through adoption, God introduced us to Macyn Hope, a very sick little girl with Down syndrome who desperately needed a family. As we continued to follow God’s calling, first with Macyn, and later with Truly and then August, we found ourselves further and further from the comfortable paths we thought our lives would take, and instead moving down some very scary, and often painful roads. Even though at times His plan seemed terrifying and even downright foolish, little could we have known how much goodness, blessing, and joy would flow out of loving these three little people He’s put into our lives. No, it’s not been easy: not the open-heart surgeries or the challenges of raising two children with Down syndrome or the complexities of dealing with birth-families or the struggles we’ve had with the public education system. But through it all, every new and uncomfortable situation has only proven to be another chance to see how very good God’s plan is for our lives and how downright lucky we are to be able to live it out. It’s only the lucky few that recognize that the most beautiful things in this life are often found in the differences. What some would see as misfortune, I’ve learned to see as nothing more than pure luck.Show book
My Secret Life, the erotic autobiography of a wealthy Victorian English gentleman has been described as 'the strangest book ever written'. Comprising one-hundred-and-eighty-four chapters and over one million words, the epic confessional describes in eloquent and explicit detail the exploits of a man (who refers to himself simply as 'Walter'), whose life was devoted to the pursuit of erotic adventure and carnal pleasure. Now for the first time in the history of this infamous erotic masterpiece, film composer Dominic Crawford Collins is producing a fully scored narration of the complete unabridged text. More 'audiofilm' than audiobook, each chapter and scene has its own unique musical accompaniment, reflecting the author's changing emotional landscape and offering the listener a truly immersive erotic audio experience. Vol. 4 Chapter XVI At the town of A***n*n. • At the railway. • The station rebuilding. • Diarrhoea. • The closet-attendant. • The temporary shed. • Ladies' closets. • A peep-hole. • Women on the seat. • Peasants. • Piddlers outside. • At the peep-hole again. • Onanism. • A male intruder. • The letter-box. • An infantine pudenda. • An impatient male. • The soiled seat. • Sisters. • A succession of backsides. • The female attendant. • Bribed and kissed. • Her husband's occupation. • Next day. • The peep-hole plugged. • Two young peasants. • Private inspections.Show book
George Washington slept, worked, and fought here . . . A historian’s guide to Virginia sites and landmarks associated with the Founding Father. Born in the Tidewater region, George Washington was reared near Fredericksburg and took up residence at Mount Vernon along the Potomac River. As a young surveyor, he worked in Virginia’s backcountry. He began his military career as a Virginia militia officer on the colony’s frontier. The majority of his widespread landholdings were there—and his entrepreneurial endeavors ranged from the swamplands of the Southeast to the upper Potomac River Valley. In this book, historian John R. Maass explores the numerous sites all over the Commonwealth associated with Washington—and demonstrates their lasting importance. Includes photos and illustrationsShow book
What happens when toxicity invades a life at every turn? A 1963 murder leads to a decade-long journey for a son to uncover truths about his family, an American town, and ultimately himself. In the "Crossroads of America," three active-duty US Army paratroopers commit a more heinous crime than the one they are trying to cover up. Their arrests and trial shock and divide residents of the town between those who see the soldiers as heroes and those who view them as cold-blooded killers. Author Dan Melchior unearths the story of Rudolph Ziemer, known by some as the "Queer Undertaker." Along the way, he uncovers forgotten often toxic stories involving the Cold War and the Jim Crow south, infidelity, addiction, bigotry, murders, and accidents all woven into the fabric of one woman's life as a laboring silk finisher. The stories link the Civil Rights era to World War II to the march of the MAGA movement and parallel the divisions and challenges facing America today. Journey along with Melchior as he discovers how one man's murder—someone he never knew—led him to a deeper understanding of his family, his beliefs, his country, and his triumphant relationship with his mom, a silk finisher.Show book