Chapter I "The picture of Dorian Gray"

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light
summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through
the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume
of the pink-flowering thorn.
From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was
lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry
Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honeycoloured
blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed
hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now
and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long
tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window,
producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of
those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of
an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness
and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way
through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence
round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make
the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the
bourdon note of a distant organ.
In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the fulllength
portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in
front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil
Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the
time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange
conjectures.
As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully
mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and
seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his
eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison
within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might
awake.
"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," said Lord
Henry languidly. "You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor.
The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there,
there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see
the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not
been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor is really the
only place."
"I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head
back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at
Oxford. "No, I won't send it anywhere."
Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement
through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful
whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. "Not send it anywhere?
My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters
are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you
have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is
only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not
being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the
young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men
are ever capable of any emotion."
"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't exhibit it. I
have put too much of myself into it."
Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.
"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same."
"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you were
so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with your
rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who
looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil,
he is a Narcissus, and you-- well, of course you have an intellectual
expression and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an
intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of
exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one
sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something
horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How
perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in
the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of
eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a
natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your
mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose
picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is
some brainless beautiful creature who should be always here in winter
when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we
want something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter yourself, Basil: you
are not in the least like him."
"You don't understand me, Harry," answered the artist. "Of course I am
not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look
like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a
fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality
that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better
not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the
best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If
they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of
defeat. They live as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and
without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it
from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they
are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we
shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly."
"Dorian Gray? Is that his name?" asked Lord Henry, walking across the
studio towards Basil Hallward.
"Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you."
"But why not?"
"Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell their names
to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love
secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life
mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one
only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am
going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say,
but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life. I
suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?"
"Not at all," answered Lord Henry, "not at all, my dear Basil. You seem to
forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes
a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know
where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we
meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down
to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most
serious faces. My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact, than I am.
She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she
does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would;
but she merely laughs at me."
"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry," said Basil
Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. "I believe
that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly
ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never
say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is
simply a pose."
"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,"
cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the
garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that
stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the
polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.
After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. "I am afraid I must be
going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I insist on your answering a
question I put to you some time ago."
"What is that?" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.
"You know quite well."
"I do not, Harry."
"Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you won't
exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason."
"I told you the real reason."
"No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of yourself
in it. Now, that is childish."
"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every
portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the
sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is
revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured
canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I
am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."
Lord Henry laughed. "And what is that?" he asked.
"I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came over
his face.
"I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing at him.
"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter; "and I
am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly believe
it."
Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from
the grass and examined it. "I am quite sure I shall understand it," he
replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk, "and as
for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite
incredible."
The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilacblooms,
with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A
grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long
thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as
if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart beating, and wondered what was
coming.
"The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. "Two months
ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor artists have to
show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public
that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told
me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being
civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to
huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly
became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned half-way
round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt
that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I
knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality
was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole
nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external
influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by
nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so,
till I met Dorian Gray. Then--but I don't know how to explain it to you.
Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in
my life. I had a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys
and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was
not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no
credit to myself for trying to escape."
"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience
is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."
"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either. However,
whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used to be
very proud--I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I
stumbled against Lady Brandon. 'You are not going to run away so soon,
Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?"
"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, pulling
the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.
"I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people
with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot
noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once
before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture
of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered
about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard
of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man
whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite close,
almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was reckless of me, but I asked
Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless,
after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other
without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards.
He, too, felt that we were destined to know each other."
"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" asked
his companion. "I know she goes in for giving a rapid precis of all her
guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old
gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my
ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to
everybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I like to
find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as
an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or
tells one everything about them except what one wants to know."
"Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!" said Hallward listlessly.
"My dear fellow, she tried to found a salon, and only succeeded in
opening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did she
say about Mr. Dorian Gray?"
"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I absolutely
inseparable. Quite forget what he does--afraid he-- doesn't do anything-
-oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr. Gray?' Neither of us
could help laughing, and we became friends at once."
"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the
best ending for one," said the young lord, plucking another daisy.
Hallward shook his head. "You don't understand what friendship is,
Harry," he murmured--"or what enmity is, for that matter. You like every
one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one."
"How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back and
looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of glossy white
silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky. "Yes;
horribly unjust of you. I make a great difference between people. I choose
my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good
characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be
too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool.
They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all
appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? I think it is rather vain."
"I should think it was, Harry. But according to your category I must be
merely an acquaintance."
"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance."
"And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose?"
"Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and
my younger brothers seem never to do anything else."
"Harry!" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.
"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can't help detesting my
relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand
other people having the same faults as ourselves. I quite sympathize with
the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices of the
upper orders. The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and
immorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of us
makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves. When poor
Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite
magnificent. And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the proletariat
live correctly."
"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is more,
Harry, I feel sure you don't either."
Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his
patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane. "How English you are
Basil! That is the second time you have made that observation. If one puts
forward an idea to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to do--he
never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. The only
thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes it oneself.
Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity
of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more
insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in
that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his
prejudices. However, I don't propose to discuss politics, sociology, or
metaphysics with you. I like persons better than principles, and I like
persons with no principles better than anything else in the world. Tell me
more about Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?"
"Every day. I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. He is
absolutely necessary to me."
"How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything but your
art."
"He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely. "I sometimes think,
Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world's
history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the
second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the
invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was
to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to
me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from him, sketch from
him. Of course, I have done all that. But he is much more to me than a
model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have
done of him, or that his beauty is such that art cannot express it. There is
nothing that art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done,
since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in
some curious way--I wonder will you understand me?--his personality
has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode
of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now
recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form
in days of thought'--who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what
Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad--for
he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty--
his merely visible presence--ah! I wonder can you realize all that that
means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a
school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the
perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body--
how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have
invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only
knew what Dorian Gray is to me! You remember that landscape of mine,
for which Agnew offered me such a huge price but which I would not part
with? It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so?
Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me. Some subtle
influence passed from him to me, and for the first time in my life I saw in
the plain woodland the wonder I had always looked for and always
missed."
"Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray."
Hallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden. After
some time he came back. "Harry," he said, "Dorian Gray is to me simply a
motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is
never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is
a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find him in the curves of
certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours. That is
all."
"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?" asked Lord Henry.
"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of all
this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never cared to
speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never know anything
about it. But the world might guess it, and I will not bare my soul to their
shallow prying eyes. My heart shall never be put under their microscope.
There is too much of myself in the thing, Harry--too much of myself!"
"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is
for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions."
"I hate them for it," cried Hallward. "An artist should create beautiful
things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age
when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We
have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world
what it is; and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of
Dorian Gray."
"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only the
intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray very fond of
you?"
The painter considered for a few moments. "He likes me," he answered
after a pause; "I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully. I
find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry
for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio
and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly
thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I
feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats
it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his
vanity, an ornament for a summer's day."
"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger," murmured Lord Henry.
"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think of, but
there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for
the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild
struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so
we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our
place. The thoroughly well-informed man--that is the modern ideal. And
the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is
like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced
above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. Some day
you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little out of
drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something. You will
bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think that he has
behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you will be perfectly
cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for it will alter you. What you
have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and
the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so
unromantic."

"Harry, don't talk like that. As long as I live, the personality of Dorian Gray
will dominate me. You can't feel what I feel. You change too often."
"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are faithful
know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's
tragedies." And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty silver case and
began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and satisfied air, as if
he had summed up the world in a phrase. There was a rustle of
chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy, and the blue
cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like swallows. How
pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful other people's emotions
were!-- much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. One's
own soul, and the passions of one's friends--those were the fascinating
things in life. He pictured to himself with silent amusement the tedious
luncheon that he had missed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had
he gone to his aunt's, he would have been sure to have met Lord
Goodbody there, and the whole conversation would have been about the
feeding of the poor and the necessity for model lodging-houses. Each
class would have preached the importance of those virtues, for whose
exercise there was no necessity in their own lives. The rich would have
spoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the
dignity of labour. It was charming to have escaped all that! As he thought
of his aunt, an idea seemed to strike him. He turned to Hallward and said,
"My dear fellow, I have just remembered."
"Remembered what, Harry?"
"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray."
"Where was it?" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.
"Don't look so angry, Basil. It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's. She told me
she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help her in
the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. I am bound to state that
she never told me he was good-looking. Women have no appreciation of
good looks; at least, good women have not. She said that he was very
earnest and had a beautiful nature. I at once pictured to myself a creature
with spectacles and lank hair, horribly freckled, and tramping about on
huge feet. I wish I had known it was your friend."
"I am very glad you didn't, Harry."
"Why?"
"I don't want you to meet him."
"You don't want me to meet him?"
"No."
"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir," said the butler, coming into the
garden.
"You must introduce me now," cried Lord Henry, laughing.
The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight.
"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I shall be in in a few moments." The man
bowed and went up the walk.
Then he looked at Lord Henry. "Dorian Gray is my dearest friend," he said.
"He has a simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite right in what
she said of him. Don't spoil him. Don't try to influence him. Your
influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many marvellous
people in it. Don't take away from me the one person who gives to my art
whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends on him. Mind,
Harry, I trust you." He spoke very slowly, and the words seemed wrung
out of him almost against his will.
"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward
by the arm, he almost led him into the house.

Daniela García STORY

Up until October 30th, 2002, Daniela Garcia was 22 and had a comfortable life of a young woman growing up in Chile’s educated upper class. She was an excellent medicine student and was in the final month of her fourth year at PUC. She had a four year relationship with her boyfriend.

It was the time of the annual Inter-Medical School Games in Temuco. Daniela wasn’t sure she wanted to go because she was worried about a dermatology exam. But her classmates needed her soccer abilities. Finally she relented.

The train began the journey. Around 10 pm, two friends asked her to walk with them to the other cars. The walkway was not in place. Daniela followed her friend in the dark, took a step and suddenly fell.

She felt no pain. But she raised her head and looked: her hands, forearms and part of her legs weren’t there. .

She began to yell and scream, “Help me! Please help me!” A farm worker heard and helped her.

The crushing amputations by the train wheels made it impossible to reattach any of Daniela’s limbs. Then she was in a Santiago hospital, for six weeks and after this she traveled to the Moss Rehabilitation Institute at Albert Einstein University, in Pennsylvania. Dr. Esquenazi told her: “Your life will be what you do with it.” Six week later, Daniela flew home to Santiago with her family. Ricardo, her boyfriend was waiting to meet her at the airport.

Almost a year to the date of her accident, she re-entered medical school; she would be given no special treatment due to her own abilities. She was going to be a rehabilitation doctor.

In November 2003, she and Ricardo went to the stadium and told her story to millions of people that were watching Telethon. The next day the newspapers declared Daniela’s last-minute appearance had single-handedly catapulted the drive to success.

One morning she woke up with the compulsion that she must finish the book with her memories. She wasn’t sure it could be published but she wanted to try. “Elegí Vivir” rapidly sold out its first run. By 2008 it was in its 14th edition.

In March 2007, after the couple took a trip to Europe, Ricardo asked Daniela to marry him. In September 2007, the couple said their vows and then danced the night away. They plan to start a family some day.

Daniela finds there is little she cannot do. Daniela's goals are the same as before the accident: be a good medical rehabilitation, loving wife and someday a mother. Besides she has become the world’s first quadrilateral amputee physician.

Answer the questions with your classmate:

1. Do you think Daniela is a hero? Why?
2. Have you experienced something that changed your life?
3. Do you know someone that lived a similar experience? Write it.
4. What do you think is the most admirable thing that Daniela did?
5. What is your favorite hero? What did she/he do?

Cats LYRICS :)

1.- Jellicle song for jellicle cats.

Are you blind when you're born? Can you see in the dark?
Can you look at a king? Would you sit on his throne?
Can you say of your bite that it's worse than your bark?
Are you cock of the walk when you're walking alone?

Because Jellicles are and Jellicles do
Jellicles do and Jellicles would
Jellicles would and Jellicles can
Jellicles can and Jellicles do

When you fall on your head, do you land on your feet?
Are you tense when you sense there's a storm in the air?
Can you find your way blind when you're lost in the street?
Do you know how to go to the Heaviside Layer?

Because Jellicles can and Jellicles do
Jellicles do and Jellicles can
Jellicles can and Jellicles do
Jellicles do and Jellicles can
Jellicles can and Jellicles do

Can you ride on a broomstick to places far distant?
Familiar with candle, with book and with bell?
Were you Whittington's friend? The Pied Piper's assistant?
Have you been an alumnus of heaven or hell?
Are you mean like a minx? Are you lean like a lynx?
Are you keen to be seen when you're smelling a rat?
Were you there when the pharaoh commissioned the Sphinx?
If you were, and you are, you're a jellicle cat

Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
We can dive through the air like a flying trapeze
We can turn double somersaults, bounce on a tire
We can run up the wall, we can swing through the trees
We can balance on bars, we can walk on a wire

Jellicles can and Jellicles do
Jellicles can and Jellicles do
Jellicles can and Jellicles do
Jellicles can and Jellicles do

Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats

Can you sing at the same time in more than one key
Duets by Rossini and waltzes by Strauss
And can you (as cats do) begin with a C
That always triumphantly brings down the house

Jellicle cats are queen of the nights
Singing at astronomical heights
Handling pieces from the Messiah
Hallelujah, angelical choir


2 .-The Old Gumbie Cat.

I have a Gumbie Cat in mind
Her name is Jennyanydots
Her coat is of the tabby kind with tiger stripes and leopard spots
All day she sits upon the stair or on the step or on the mat
She sits and sits and sits and sits
And that's what makes a Gumbie Cat
That's what makes a Gumbie Cat!

But . . . When the day's hustle and bustle is done
Then the Gumbie Cat's work is but hardly begun
And when all the family's in bed and asleep
She tucks up her skirts to the basement to creep

She is deeply concerned with the ways of the mice
Their behaviour's not good and their manners not nice
So when she has got them lined up on the matting
She teaches them music, crocheting and tatting
But . . . When the day's hustle and bustle is done
Then the Gumbie Cat's work is but hardly begun
She thinks that the cockroaches need employment
To prevent them from idle and wanton destroyment
So she's formed from that lot of disorderly louts
A troop of well disciplined helpful boy scouts
With a purpose in life and a good deed to do
And she's even created a Beetles Tattoo!

For she's a jolly good fellow! …..Thank you my dears!


3.- The Rum Tum Tugger

The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat

If you offer me pheasant I'd rather have grouse
If you put me in a house I would much prefer a flat
If you put me in a flat then I'd rather have a house
If you set me on a mouse then I only want a rat
If you set me on a rat then I'd rather chase a mouse

The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat
And there isn't any call for me to shout it
For he will do as he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!

The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious beast

My disobliging ways are a matter of habit
If you offer me fish then I always want a feast
When there isn't any fish then I won't eat rabbit
If you offer me cream then I sniff and sneer
But I only like what I find for myself … NO.
So you'll catch me in it right up to my ears
If you put it away on the larder shelf

The Rum Tum Tugger is artful and knowing
The Rum Tum Tugger doesn't care for a cuddle
But I'll leap in your lap in the middle of your sewing
For there's nothing I enjoy like a horrible muddle!

The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat
The Rum Tum Tugger doesn't care for a cuddle

The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat
And there isn't any need for me to spout it
For he will do as he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!


4.- Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer
We're a notorious couple of cats
As knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians
Tight-rope walkers and acrobats
We have an extensive reputation
We make our home in Victoria Grove
This is merely our centre of operation
For we are incurably given to rove
When the family assembles for Sunday dinner
With their minds made up that they won't get thinner
On Argentine joint, potatoes and greens
And the cook will appear from behind the scenes
And say in a voice that is broken with sorrow,
"I'm afraid you must wait and have dinner tomorrow!
For the joint has gone from the oven like that!"
The family will say, "It's that horrible cat!
It was … Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer!"
And there's nothing at all to be done about that!


5.- Macavity, the mystery cat

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity
There never was a cat of such deceitfulness and suavity
He always has an alibi and one or two to spare
Whatever time the deed took place, Macavity wasn't there!

And they say that all the cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, Rumpelteazer, Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the cat who all the time
Just controls the operations
The Napoleon of Crime!

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity
He's a fiend in feline shape
A monster of depravity
You may meet him in a by-street
You may see him in the square
But when a crime's discovered then Macavity's not there!


6.- Memory

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again
Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again
Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I musn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin
…
Touch me
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is

Look
A new day has begun


7.- The journey to the Heaviside Layer

Up, up, up, past the Russell Hotel
Up, up, up, up, to the Heaviside Layer (x3)
Up, up, up, as the jellicles do
Up, up, up, up, to the Heaviside Layer (x2)

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

Before reading the short story, watch this video:

Now it is time to read the story that is in your book or you can read it here.

The Unicorn in the Garden

This fable is a classic one. Here you have the original story:

The Unicorn in the Garden

by James Thurber

Fables For Our Time

Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.

"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said,"ate a lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch."

The man, who had never liked the words "booby" and "booby-hatch," and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he said. He walked over to the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.

As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest.

"My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lilly," she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.

"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jaybird."

So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.

Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.


GLOSSARY


booby: in this context, a crazy person (probably from the name of a stupid extinct bird).
booby-hatch: a mental institution, a place where the insane are kept.
breakfast nook: a little side room for eating breakfast.
browsing: sampling or tasting here and there.
"crazy as a jaybird": extremely crazy or hopelessly insane
cropping: clipping or cutting close to the root.
cursing: using dirty or obscene speech.
"Don't count your boobies until they are hatched": from the American expression "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched", meaning "Don't count on things to turn out exactly as you planned them."
gloat: a look of malice or greed.
institution: a mental institution, an insane asylum.
moral: in this context, the "lesson" of the story.
mythical: relating to a myth, hence not real.
psychiatrist: a mental doctor
solemn: grave or serious
strait-jacket: an armless belted jacket used to confine the violently insane
subdue, subduing: capturing, seizing
unicorn: a mythical beast which looks like a horse with a horn in the center of the head.

Original video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1teJjX-smdE&NR=1

EVALUATION OF THE

BLOG PROJECT:

AUGUST 24TH

EXAMPLE OF MYSTERY STORY....

Addiction - A Family DiseaseTammy's writers craft project.

My newly developed love for wine was becoming quite repetitive. At a family dinner, I would take a bottle of wine, inhale the entire bottle in my room and quietly make my way downstairs without ever getting caught. The effects of the wine were no longer as strong and the smell wasn’t too appealing anymore, I knew that I needed something stronger and I knew exactly where to find it. I tip-toed down the stairs and through the hallway and made my way over to the kitchen. I opened the alcohol cabinet and had to stop and stare at how organized the bottles were. There were big black bottles on the right and small white bottles on the left. In between were red bottles, and blue bottles, big bottles and small bottles.It was a museum of alcoholic beverages that were too precious to be touched. I took a moment to glace at the bottles once more and picked up a clear bottle labeled "Finlandia" and carefully walked up the stairs into my room where the magic was about to begin. I continued this way for three years. I would open the cabinet, take a bottle and run to my room to experience that buzzing sensation I had when I had intoxicated myself. Hiding this routine from my family was a piece of cake. I would refill the bottles with water, and fill in the quarter of the bottle that I had drank to make sure that nobody would notice.

Tammy's writers craft project.

IMAGES TO BUILD YOUR STORY

Here you have some images in order to choose one to write your story:

RUBRIC

This is the rubric that will evaluate your blogs:


Blog Rubric

Name: ____________________________________

1. Posting mysterious news, pictures, songs, videos, etc. _______ (7 points)
2. Use of respectful vocabulary (no swear words) _______ (5 points)
3. Punctuality and responsibility _______ (7 points)
4. Creativity _______ (5 points)
5. Creation of a mysterious story that includes 150-180 words. _______ (10 points)
POINTS: 34 pts./_____ pts.

Grade:_________________

HELLO STUDENTS!!!

It is great to start this new adventure together. I want you to learn English, grow and go on dreaming :D

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” Ashley Smith