English stories

THE FOURTH CANDLE


T he Four Candles burned slowly.
Their ambiance was so soft you could hear them speak...


The first candle said, "I Am Peace, but these days, nobody wants to keep me lit."
Then Peace''s flame slowly diminished and went out completely.


The second candle said, "I Am Faith, but these days, I am no longer indispensable."
Then Faith''s flame slowly diminished and went out completely.


Sadly the third candle spoke, "I Am Love and I haven''t the strength to stay lit any longer."
"People put me aside and don''t understand my importance.

They even forget to love those who are nearest to them."
And waiting no longer, Love went out completely.


Suddenly...

A child entered the room and saw the three candles no longer burning.


The child began to cry,

"Why are you not burning? You are supposed to stay lit until the end."


Then the Fourth Candle spoke gently to the little boy,

"Don''t be afraid, for I Am Hope, and while I still burn,

we can re-light the other candles."

With shining eyes, the child took the Candle of Hope

and lit the other three candles.


Never let the Flame of Hope go out.

With Hope in your life, no matter how bad things may be,

Peace, Faith and Love may shine brightly once again.
Source from http://jsmagic.net/xmashope/

I think that it is a nice story so I want to share with you. I''ll very glad to read more stories from you

Kiddi_ese, thank you for opening this topic. It''s great.
I have one to share with everybody. It''s called:

The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin (1851-1904)​

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband''s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband''s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard''s name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken to time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister''s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of threes that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven''s sake open the door.
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life though that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had though with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister''s importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister''s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know that there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine''s piercing cry; at Richards'' quick motion to screen himself from the view of his wife.
But Richards was too late.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of joy that kills.
Được TrnHo sửa chữa / chuyển vào 10:23 ngày 16/10/2006

Hi all,
I would like to add some questions about the story I just posted. Ask yourself these questions after you''''ve done reading it. Feel free to answer them.
1. What happened in the scene in Mrs. Mallard''s room?
2. What do those images symbolize?
3. Did Mrs. Mallard really die from a "heart disease--of joy that kills."? If not, why?
Được TrnHo sửa chữa / chuyển vào 10:48 ngày 16/10/2006

This story has so many new words for me. It''s a sad story too.
1> Through the story, I see that Mrs.Mallard sat alone in her room and looked at the scence before the house.
2>The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly -> think about her husband and want to hear his voice.
3> I think that she dead. But your question make me feel that the right answer is "she didn''t dead".
My comprehension is not good. That''s all I know about this story. Share your feeling to me TrHo .

Hi Kiddi,
I am really glad that you had actually read the story because it is a bit long. Knowing someone has paying attention to it made me very happy . Actually, I learned this story from my Analysis Literary Forms class that I took, and I really liked it, so I wanted to post it. Here is what I got from the class discussion about the story:
1. What happened in the scene in Mrs. Mallard''''s room?
Yes, she was sitting in her chair in her room and looking outside through the window.
--> She could see in the open square before her house the tops of threes that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
2. What do those images symbolize?
As you can see from the above images, these images symbolize "freedom." How do I get that? The "new spring life" reminds us of flowers start to blossom, everything is new, everything is fresh, everything is starting a new life. In brief, everything, outside of her room''s window, is alive.
As you can see later on, "she said it over and over under her breath: ''free, free, free!''". This is the moment of truth, the moment she finds her utmost truth that she has been yearning for, yet not knowing what was it. However, "She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial." For that, she was still doubting about whether that is what she wanted most or not. Therefore, the answer got revealed in this next passage, "She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome." Yes, she would cry again if she sees her husband''s dead body, but she now has her own answer that she had been wanting for all those years while staying with her husband and could not have it, and that is freedom. So, "she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome."
Moreover, Mrs. Mallard also stated that she has loved him, but only for "sometimes."
--> And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Therefore, nothing matters now since she finds her true self of how she will carry on her life in the future so that she kept whispering, "Free! Body and soul free!" That is really a strong statement, body and soul free. Now, she is free not only physically but mentally as well. She has no one controlling over her. Her life is her freedom, and she could do anything to her body and soul, yet not being afraid someone would keep her away from it.
3. Did Mrs. Mallard really die from a "heart disease--of joy that kills."? If not, why?
As my brief analysis above, you could tell the answer for this question instantly. She did died at the end of the story, but the question of whether she died from a heart disease... or not is up to how we interpret the story.
No, Mrs. Mallard did not really die from a "heart disease--of joy that kills" as the doctor had stated. Why? I think the actual answer is she died from her''s husband''s "sudden appearance--of the fear losing her freedom that kills."

I read this story for my English class back in high school. Great story, kinda ironic at the end.

Hi everybody,
I just read this story from a site. Here it is:

THE DEAD BOY AT YOUR WINDOW
Bruce Holland Rogers​

In a distant country where the towns had improbable names, a woman looked upon the unmoving form of her newborn baby and refused to see what the midwife saw. This was her son. She had brought him forth in agony, and now he must suck. She pressed his lips to her breast.

"But he is dead!" said the midwife.

"No," his mother lied. "I felt him suck just now." Her lie was as milk to the baby, who really was dead but who now opened his dead eyes and began to kick his dead legs. "There, do you see?" And she made the midwife call the father in to know his son.

The dead boy never did suck at his mother''s breast. He sipped no water, never took food of any kind, so of course he never grew. But his father, who was handy with all things mechanical, built a rack for stretching him so that, year by year, he could be as tall as the other children. When he had seen six winters, his parents sent him to school. Though he was as tall as the other students, the dead boy was strange to look upon. His bald head was almost the right size, but the rest of him was thin as a piece of leather and dry as a stick. He tried to make up for his ugliness with diligence, and every night he was up late practicing his letters and numbers. His voice was like the rasping of dry leaves. Because it was so hard to hear him, the teacher made all the other students hold their breaths when he gave an answer. She called on him often, and he was always right.

Naturally, the other children despised him. The bullies sometimes waited for him after school, but beating him, even with sticks, did him no harm. He wouldn''t even cry out.

One windy day, the bullies stole a ball of twine from their teacher''s desk, and after school, they held the dead boy on the ground with his arms out so that he took the shape of a cross. They ran a stick in through his left shirt sleeve and out through the right. They stretched his shirt tails down to his ankles, tied everything in place, fastened the ball of twine to a buttonhole, and launched him. To their delight, the dead boy made an excellent kite. It only added to their pleasure to see that owing to the weight of his head, he flew upside down.

When they were bored with watching the dead boy fly, they let go of the string. The dead boy did not drift back to earth, as any ordinary kite would do. He glided. He could steer a little, though he was mostly at the mercy of the winds. And he could not come down. Indeed, the wind blew him higher and higher.

The sun set, and still the dead boy rode the wind. The moon rose and by its glow he saw the fields and forests drifting by. He saw mountain ranges pass beneath him, and oceans and continents. At last the winds gentled, then ceased, and he glided down to the ground in a strange country. The ground was bare. The moon and stars had vanished from the sky. The air seemed gray and shrouded. The dead boy leaned to one side and shook himself until the stick fell from his shirt. He wound up the twine that had trailed behind him and waited for the sun to rise. Hour after long hour, there was only the same grayness. So he began to wander.

He encountered a man who looked much like himself, a bald head atop leathery limbs. "Where am I?" the dead boy asked.

The man looked at the grayness all around. "Where?" the man said. His voice, like the dead boy''s, sounded like the whisper of dead leaves stirring.

A woman emerged from the grayness. Her head was bald, too, and her body dried out. "This!" she rasped, touching the dead boy''''s shirt. "I remember this!" She tugged on the dead boy''s sleeve. "I had a thing like this!"

"Clothes?" said the dead boy.

"Clothes!" the woman cried. "That''s what it is called!"

More shriveled people came out of the grayness. They crowded close to see the strange dead boy who wore clothes. Now the dead boy knew where he was. "This is the land of the dead."

"Why do you have clothes?" asked the dead woman. "We came here with nothing! Why do you have clothes?"

"I have always been dead," said the dead boy, "but I spent six years among the living."

"Six years!" said one of the dead. "And you have only just now come to us?"

"Did you know my wife?" asked a dead man. "Is she still among the living?"

"Give me news of my son!"

"What about my sister?"

The dead people crowded closer.

The dead boy said, "What is your sister''s name?" But the dead could not remember the names of their loved ones. They did not even remember their own names. Likewise, the names of the places where they had lived, the numbers given to their years, the manners or fashions of their times, all of these they had forgotten.

"Well," said the dead boy, "in the town where I was born, there was a widow. Maybe she was your wife. I knew a boy whose mother had died, and an old woman who might have been your sister."

"Are you going back?"

"Of course not," said another dead person. "No one ever goes back."

"I think I might," the dead boy said. He explained about his flying. "When next the wind blows...."

"The wind never blows here," said a man so newly dead that he remembered wind.

"Then you could run with my string."

"Would that work?"

"Take a message to my husband!" said a dead woman.

"Tell my wife that I miss her!" said a dead man.

"Let my sister know I haven''t forgotten her!"

"Say to my lover that I love him still!"

They gave him their messages, not knowing whether or not their loved ones were themselves long dead. Indeed, dead lovers might well be standing next to one another in the land of the dead, giving messages for each other to the dead boy. Still, he memorized them all. Then the dead put the stick back inside his shirt sleeves, tied everything in place, and unwound his string. Running as fast as their leathery legs could manage, they pulled the dead boy back into the sky, let go of the string, and watched with their dead eyes as he glided away.

He glided a long time over the gray stillness of death until at last a puff of wind blew him higher, until a breath of wind took him higher still, until a gust of wind carried him up above the grayness to where he could see the moon and the stars. Below he saw moonlight reflected in the ocean. In the distance rose mountain peaks. The dead boy came to earth in a little village.

He knew no one here, but he went to the first house he came to and rapped on the bedroom shutters. To the woman who answered, he said, "A message from the land of the dead," and gave her one of the messages. The woman wept, and gave him a message in return.

House by house, he delivered the messages. House by house, he collected messages for the dead. In the morning, he found some boys to fly him, to give him back to the wind''s mercy so he could carry these new messages back to the land of the dead.

So it has been ever since. On any night, head full of messages, he may rap upon any window to remind someone - to remind you, perhaps - of love that outlives memory, of love that needs no names.
Source: http://www.shortshortshort.com/
Được TrnHo sửa chữa / chuyển vào 11:40 ngày 18/10/2006

Another story from http://www.beliefnet.com/nllp/ChickenSoupSoul.aspx?date=10-19-2006&WT.mc_id=NL49
Saving Him
By Roger Dean Kiser, Sr.
BOYS HOME, read the sign over the entrance. Twenty years ago I had entered this one-hundred-year-old orphanage to install wood burning stoves in the dormitories so the children could have heat for the winter. Now, on this hot summer day, my wife Judy and I were coming to meet her friend Chelsey, who hoped I''''d be a surrogate parent to one of the boys there.
As we walked around the grounds, I noticed the old orphanage had really lost its luster. In the old gymnasium building, I could hardly believe the temperature was over a hundred degrees! The old air con***ioner had given out many years ago and there simply were not enough funds to have it replaced or repaired. Yet, the boys were playing basketball as if they didn''''t have a care in the world. As we stepped back out into the ninety-eight degree weather, it almost felt cool.
Roger, this is the young man I told you about," said Chelsey.
"Hi, my name is Bill." The fourteen-year-old extended his hand. His limp handshake felt like a rubber glove full of pudding. "Thank you for coming to visit my home."
"Well, I am very glad to be here."
"Miss Chelsey, can we show them our kitchen and where we eat our food?" asked Bill.
"Maybe some other time," she told him. He smiled, then turned and walked away. I watched him as he slowly disappeared around the corner of the building with his shoulders and head down. I knew very well what the young man wanted to show me . . . the only thing he truly owned . . . the chair where he ate his meals. I knew because that was the only thing I could ever call my own when I lived in an orphanage.
Chelsey said, "That is one of the nicest kids I have ever known. He has absolutely no one on the face of this earth except himself."
I excused myself and I walked into the bathroom. I locked the door behind me and bent forward on the sink. For about a minute I slowly looked at every wrinkle and sag on my face, yet it was still the face of that same little boy I was when I lived in my orphanage, almost forty-five years ago.
I groaned, "Roger, I don''''t know if you can do this again."
Then, I placed my right hand into my left hand and shook it. It was a bit firmer than that of young Bill''''s, but it still lacked the feeling of someone who felt they were worth loving.
Biting my lip, I stared deep into my own eyes and said to myself, "Let''''s go save that boy."
From out of nowhere came a great big wonderful smile.
Let there be no doubt that when we save a child we may also, in the process, save ourselves.

Let''''s share your love to homeless children ( maybe this is what the story imply )

Được kiddi_ise sửa chữa / chuyển vào 10:10 ngày 20/10/2006