Without Lifting A Finger

"The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father feedeth them," he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary; "but no, they will take it their own way, they won't understand! They can't understand that all those feelings they prize so--all our feelings, all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary. We cannot understand one another," and he remained silent.

Michigan Summer Birds: The Green Heron. First time I've ever seen one of these reclusive beauties in Michigan (and the first time I've seen one in green giraffe mode:)). When Mother's pond was low (so he could stand in the water or on the steep bank) he came to fish (equals: to frog) for three days in a row, camouflaged by all the greens and browns, skittish as heck. When the rains filled the pond to the brim he disappeared. Is he eating at his private water hole in the woods? Or has he flown south? Come back, my little Greenie.♥️ TGIF. #rlswihart13 #michigan #michigansummerbirds #jacksonmichigan #summerrain #summervisitors #heronsofinstagram #greenherons #nature #beauty #poetry #tgif #ukraine🇺🇦🎈

Michigan Summer Birds: Sandhill Cranes in Jackson MI. #rlswihart13 #summer #michigan #birdsofsummer #cranesofinstagram #sandhillcranes #nature #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2023 #ukraine🇺🇦🎈

"Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand--that is what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me had I lived. But now it is too late. I know it!"

Like all the others near the speaker, Prince Andrew looked at him with shining eyes and experienced a sense of comfort. "But isn't it all the same now?" thought he. "And what will be there, and what has there been here? Why was I so reluctant to part with life? There was something in this life I did not and do not understand."

Prince Andrew could not have explained how or why it was, but after that interview with Kutuzov he went back to his regiment reassured as to the general course of affairs and as to the man to whom it had been entrusted. The more he realized the absence of all personal motive in that old man--in whom there seemed to remain only the habit of passions, and in place of an intellect (grouping events and drawing conclusions) only the capacity calmly to contemplate the course of events--the more reassured he was that everything would be as it should. "He will not bring in any plan of his own. He will not devise or undertake anything," thought Prince Andrew, "but he will hear everything, remember everything, and put everything in its place. He will not hinder anything useful nor allow anything harmful. He understands that there is something stronger and more important than his own will--the inevitable course of events, and he can see them and grasp their significance, and seeing...

While this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already passed Smolensk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon's historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the Russian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection, which regards all the past as a preparation for events that subsequently occur, the law of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A good chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the mistake to which he pa...

Kindle versions of my poetry books will be FREE: Aug 11 to Aug 15 (see second page). Not "Get 'em while they're hot" but "Get 'em while they're FREE." ;) READ MORE POETRY IN 2023!

Napoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist going to Dresden, could not help having his head turned by the homage he received, could not help donning a Polish uniform and yielding to the stimulating influence of a June morning, and could not refrain from bursts of anger in the presence of Kurakin and then of Balashev. Alexander refused negotiations because he felt himself to be personally insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army in the best way, because he wished to fulfill his duty and earn fame as a great commander. Rostov charged the French because he could not restrain his wish for a gallop across a level field; and in the same way the innumerable people who took part in the war acted in accord with their personal characteristics, habits, circumstances, and aims. They were moved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned, imagining that they knew what they were doing and did it of their own free will, but they all were involuntary tools o...

He felt that the condition he was in could not continue long, that a catastrophe was coming which would change his whole life, and he impatiently sought everywhere for signs of that approaching catastrophe. One of his brother Masons had revealed to Pierre the following prophecy concerning Napoleon, drawn from the Revelation of St. John. In chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it is said: Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. And in the fifth verse of the same chapter: And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. The French alphabet, written out with the same numerical values as the Hebrew, in which the first nine letters denote units and the others tens, will have the following significance: a b c d e f g h i k 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 l m n o p q r s 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 9...

Cassin's Finch @ Wrightwood CA. San Gabriel Mountains. (I'm in Michigan chasing cranes and visiting Mom.) Happy Monday!!!🎈 #rlswihart #sangabrielmountains #wrightwoodca #finchesofinstagram #cassinsfinch #nature #mountains #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2023 #ukraine🇺🇦🎈

When she did not understand, it was sweeter still to think that the wish to understand everything is pride, that it is impossible to understand all, that it is only necessary to believe and to commit oneself to God, whom she felt guiding her soul at those moments. She crossed herself, bowed low, and when she did not understand, in horror at her own vileness, simply asked God to forgive her everything, everything, to have mercy upon her. The prayers to which she surrendered herself most of all were those of repentance.

Pfuel was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion--science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth.

Almost in the center of it, above the Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant comet of 1812--the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable space, seemed suddenly- like an arrow piercing the earth--to remain fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.