I had just come in from the street. I had a letter in my hand. It was for my fellow-lodger a young girl who taught in the High School and whom I had persuaded to share my room because of her pretty face and quiet ways.
I had just come in from the street. I had a letter in my hand. It was for my fellow-lodger a young girl who taught in the High School and whom I had persuaded to share my room because of her pretty face and quiet ways.
The Alarm.
Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning.
MRS. BROWNING.
I had just come in from the street. I had a letter in my hand. It was for my fellow-lodger, a young girl who taught in the High School, and whom I had persuaded to share my room because of her pretty face and quiet ways. She was not at home, and I flung the letter down on the table, where it fell, address downwards. I thought no more of it; my mind was too full, my heart too heavy with my own trouble.
Going to the window, I leaned my cheek against the pane. Oh, the deep sadness of a solitary woman's life! The sense of helplessness that comes upon her when every effort made, every possibility sounded, she realizes that the world has no place for her, and that she must either stoop to ask the assistance of friends or starve! I have no words for the misery I felt, for I am a proud woman, and -- But no lifting of the curtain that shrouds my past. It has fallen for ever, and for you and me and the world I am simply Constance Sterling, a young woman of twenty-five, without home, relatives, or means of support, having in her pocket seventy-five cents of change, and in her breast a heart like lead, so utterly had every hope vanished in the day's rush of disappointments.
How long I stood with my face to the window I cannot say. With eyes dully fixed upon the blank walls of the cottages opposite, I stood oblivious to all about me till the fading sunlight - or was it some stir in the room behind me? - recalled me to myself, and I turned to find my pretty room-mate staring at me with a troubled look that for a moment made me forget my own sorrows and anxieties.
"What is it?" I asked, going towards her with an irresistible impulse of sympathy.
"I don't know," she murmured; "a sudden pain here," laying her hand on her heart.
I advanced still nearer, but her face, which had been quite pale, turned suddenly rosy; and, with a more natural expression, she took me by the hand, and said:
"But you look more than ill, you look unhappy. Would you mind telling me what worries you?"
The gentle tone, the earnest glance of modest yet sincere interest, went to my heart. Clutching her hand convulsively, I burst into tears.
"It is nothing," said I; "only my last resource has failed, and I don't know where to get a meal for to-morrow. Not that this is any thing in itself," I hastened to add, my natural pride reasserting itself; "but the future! the future! - what am I to do with my future?"
She did not answer at first. A gleam - I can scarcely call it a glow - passed over her face, and her eyes took a far-away look that made them very sweet. Then a little flush stole into her cheek, and, pressing my hand, she said:
"Will you trust it to me for a while?"
I must have looked my astonishment, for she hastened to add:
"Your future I have little concern for. With such capabilities as yours, you must find work. Why, look at your face!" and she drew me playfully before the glass. "See the forehead, the mouth, and tell me you read failure there! But your present is what is doubtful, and that I can certainly take care of."
"But --" I protested, with a sensation of warmth in my cheeks.
The loveliest smile stopped me before I could utter a word more.
"As you would take care of mine," she completed, "if our positions were reversed." Then, without waiting for a further demur on my part, she kissed me, and as if the sweet embrace had made us sisters at once, drew me to a chair and sat down at my feet. "You know," she naively murmured, "I am almost rich; I have five hundred dollars laid up in the bank, and --"
I put my hand over her lips; I could not help it. She was such a frail little thing, so white and so ethereal, and her poor five hundred had been earned by such weary, weary work.
"But that is nothing, nothing," I said. "You have a future to provide for, too, and you are not as strong as I am, if you have been more successful."
She laughed, then blushed, then laughed again, and impulsively cried:
"It is, however, more than I need to buy a wedding-dress with, don't you think?" And as I looked up surprised, she flashed out: "Oh, it's my secret; but I am going to be married in a month, and - and then I won't need to count my pennies any more; and, so I say, if you will stay here with me without a care until that day comes, you will make me very happy, and put me at the same time under a real obligation; for I shall want a great many things done, as you can readily conceive."
What did I say - what could I say, with her sweet blue eyes looking so truthfully into mine, but -"Oh, you darling girl!" while my heart filled with tears, which only escaped from overflowing my eyes, because I would not lessen her innocent joy by a hint of my own secret trouble.
"And who is the happy man?" I asked, at last, rising to pull down the curtain across a too inquisitive ray of afternoon sunshine.
"Ah, the noblest, best man in town!" she breathed, with a burst of gentle pride. "Mr. B--"
She went no further, or if she did, I did not hear her, for just then a hubbub arose in the street, and lifting the window, I looked out.
"What is it?" she cried, coming hastily towards me.
"I don't know," I returned. "The people are all rushing in one direction, but I cannot see what attracts them."
"Come away then!" she murmured; and I saw her hand go to her heart, in the way it did when she first entered the room a half-hour before. But just then a sudden voice exclaimed below: "The clergyman! It is the clergyman!" And giving a smothered shriek, she grasped me by the arm, crying: "What do they say? 'The clergyman'? Do they say 'The clergyman'?"
"Yes," I answered, turning upon her with alarm. But she was already at the door. "Can it be?" I asked myself, as I hurriedly followed, "that it is Mr. Barrows she is going to marry?"
For in the small town of S-- Mr. Barrows was the only man who could properly be meant by "The clergyman"; for though Mr. Kingston, of the Baptist Church, was a worthy man in his way, and the Congregational minister had an influence with his flock that was not to be despised, Mr. Barrows, alone of all his fraternity, had so won upon the affections and confidence of the people as to merit the appellation of "The clergyman."
"If I am right," thought I, "God grant that no harm has come to him!" and I dashed down the stairs just in time to see the frail form of my room-mate flying out of the front door.
I overtook her at last; but where? Far out of town on that dark and dismal road, where the gaunt chimneys of the deserted mill rise from a growth of pine-trees. But I knew before I reached her what she would find; knew that her short dream of love was over, and that stretched amongst the weeds which choked the entrance to the old mill lay the dead form of the revered young minister, who, by his precept and example, had won not only the heart of this young maiden, but that of the whole community in which he lived and labored.
Kritik der reinen Vernunft (2nd Edition) by Immanuel Kant
Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1st Edition) by Immanuel Kant
This carefully crafted ebook: "The Critique of Pure Reason: Base Plan for Transcendental Philosophy" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Critique of Pure Reason is one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy and marks a turning point and the beginning of modern philosophy. Also referred to as Kant's "first critique," it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and by the Critique of Judgment. In the preface to the first edition, Kant explains what he means by a critique of pure reason: "I do not mean by this a critique of books and systems, but of the faculty of reason in general, in respect of all knowledge after which it may strive independently of all experience." Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher, who, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is "the central figure of modern philosophy." Kant argued that fundamental concepts of the human mind structure human experience, that reason is the source of morality, that aesthetics arises from a faculty of disinterested judgment, that space and time are forms of our understanding, and that the world as it is "in-itself" is unknowable. Kant took himself to have effected a Copernican revolution in philosophy, akin to Copernicus' reversal of the age-old belief that the sun revolved around the earth.
These are such moral qualities as, when a man does not possess them, he is not bound to acquire them. They are: the moral feeling, conscience, love of one's neighbour, and respect for ourselves (self-esteem). There is no obligation to have these, since they are subjective conditions of susceptibility for the notion of duty, not objective conditions of morality.
She came to survive. He was born to rule. Fate made them mates. And that's where the nightmare began. Evangeline has spent her whole life on the edge, unwanted, unclaimed, and surviving in the shadows of Crescent Moon Pack. A omega by blood and an outcast by choice, she's learned to keep her head down and her scars hidden. But when her dying uncle asks her to enroll at Blackclaw Academy, a school built on bloodlines, brutality, and unforgiving rules..... she agrees. For him, not for herself. She expected whispers. Glares. Even cruelty. What she didn't expect was Ronan Nightbane. The future Alpha. Cold. Untouchable. Worshipped. Feared. And the one the Moon Goddess bound her soul to. Being his mate should've meant protection. Belonging. Destiny. But Ronan wants none of it. He rejects her in front of the entire academy. Mocks her. Marks her as nothing more than a mistake. A threat. A girl born of nothing, who means even less. But Evangeline? She doesn't break. Not for him. Not for anyone. Because the power buried inside her was never meant to be found. The truth behind her blood could burn the entire pack system to the ground. And Ronan, no matter how hard he fights it.... can't stay away. Their bond is poisonous. Addictive. Dangerous. And when war creeps closer and secrets claw their way into the light, he'll have to make a brutal choice: Reject her... or ruin them both.
Three years of marriage couldn't melt Theo's frozen heart. When an art gallery collapsed on Lena, he was off romancing another woman-lavishing her with a private jet. Three steel pins held Lena's shoulder together, but her heart remained broken. She filed for divorce and told everyone that he was impotent. Rising from the rubble, Lena blazed onto the design world's A‑list. She expected him to sail off with his true love-until Theo reappeared at her runway, pressing her against the wall. "Impotent, huh? Care to give it a try?"
Five years into marriage, Hannah caught Vincent slipping into a hotel with his first love-the woman he never forgot. The sight told her everything-he'd married her only for her resemblance to his true love. Hurt, she conned him into signing the divorce papers and, a month later, said, "Vincent, I'm done. May you two stay chained together." Red-eyed, he hugged her. "You came after me first." Her firm soon rocketed toward an IPO. At the launch, Vincent watched her clasp another man's hand. In the fitting room, he cornered her, tears burning in his eyes. "Is he really that perfect? Hannah, I'm sorry... marry me again."
Corinne devoted three years of her life to her boyfriend, only for it to all go to waste. He saw her as nothing more than a country bumpkin and left her at the altar to be with his true love. After getting jilted, Corinne reclaimed her identity as the granddaughter of the town's richest man, inherited a billion-dollar fortune, and ultimately rose to the top. But her success attracted the envy of others, and people constantly tried to bring her down. As she dealt with these troublemakers one by one, Mr. Hopkins, notorious for his ruthlessness, stood by and cheered her on. "Way to go, honey!"
Yelena discovered that she wasn't her parents' biological child. After seeing through their ploy to trade her as a pawn in a business deal, she was sent away to her barren birthplace. There, she stumbled upon her true origins-a lineage of historic opulence. Her real family showered her with love and adoration. In the face of her so-called sister's envy, Yelena conquered every adversity and took her revenge, all while showcasing her talents. She soon caught the attention of the city's most eligible bachelor. He cornered Yelena and pinned her against the wall. "It's time to reveal your true identity, darling."
He saved her. He was her fated mate. Her king and her protector. Until a single ritual shattered everything. Now she's a Lycan queen with no memory of loving him... And all she feels is hatred. Will his obsession bring her back... or destroy them both?
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