Pagan Papers-Kenneth Grahame

Life of Buddha by A. Ferdinand Hérold.This is more than a biography of the spiritual leader, they are lessons we all can learn from his life. Buddha’s journey and teachings are still relevant to our modern life.Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Laurence Sterne.After the bizarre textual antics of "Tristram Shandy", this book would seem to require a literary health warning. Sure enough, it opens in mid-conversation upon a subject never explained; meanders after a fashion through a hundred pages, then fizzles out in mid-sentence - so, a plotless novel lacking a beginning, a middle or an end. Let us say: an exercise in the infinitely comic. "There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words." Sterne calls his fine sensitivity to body language (as we now term it) "translation". Much of the pleasure to be had from this wonderfully engaging book comes from his unmatched ability to extract random details from the chaos of experience to create comic turns imbued with Feeling.Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Personal Anthology of Shakespeare by William Shakespeare.This personal anthology is my choice of speeches from Shakespeare that I enjoy reading (that I would like to have had by heart years ago!) and that seem to me to illustrate his unsurpassed use of language. He was a man who seemed to know everything about human nature and as Orson Welles said ‘he speaks to everyone and we all claim him’. I know that it has been said that ‘it is impossible to be a great Shakespearian actor without an idiosyncratic and extraordinary voice’ and this may be so, but that does not preclude ordinary mortals from reading, hearing and enjoying Shakespeare.Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Shining Gateway by James Allen.Students of the works of James Allen all over the world will welcome with joy another book from his able pen. In this work we find the Prophet of Meditation in one of his deepest and yet most lucid expositions. How wonderfully he deals with fundamental principles! It is as though he came back to The Shining Gateway, and, standing there, he reviewed all the way up which his own feet have traveled, passing over no temptation that is common to man; knowing that the obstacles that barred his ascending pathway, or the clouds that at times obscured his vision, are the common experiences of all those who have set their faces towards the heights of Blessed Vision. As we read his words now, he seems to stand and beckon to us, saying, "Come on, my fellow Pilgrims; it is straight ahead to the Shining Gateway; I have blazed the track for you."Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Art of Divine Contentment by Thomas Watson."The Art of Divine Contentment" is an exposition by the Puritan minister Thomas Watson of the text found in Philippians 4:11: "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." It examines the nature of contentment and how to live it out in the Christian life, both by answering questions regarding problems with contentment and by giving examples of practical contentment. It is a good read for people with religious or historical interests.Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Friendship by Hugh Black.The idea, so common in the ancient writers, is not all a poetic conceit, that the soul of a man is only a fragment of a larger whole, and goes out in search of other souls in which it will find its true completion. We walk among worlds unrealized, until we have learned the secret of love. We know this, and in our sincerest moments admit this, even though we are seeking to fill up our lives with other ambitions and other hopes. In spite of the vulgar materialism of our day, we do feel that the spiritual side of life is the most important, and brings the only true joy. And friendship in its essence is spiritual. It is the free, spontaneous outflow of the heart, and is a gift from the great Giver.Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

My Buried Treasure by Richard Harding Davis.The only part that is not true is the name of the man with whom I searched for the treasure. Unless I keep his name out of it he will not let me write the story, and, as it was his expedition and as my share of the treasure is only what I can make by writing the story, I must write as he dictates. I think the story should be told, because our experience was unique, and might be of benefit to others. And, besides, I need the money."Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Off-Hand Sketches by T. S. Arthur.Yet the smile will, in no case, the author thinks, be at the expense of humanity, good feeling, or virtue. Many of the incidents given, are facts embellished by a few touches of fancy. In all, lessons may be read that some, at least, will do well to lay to heart.Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

New Adventures of Alice (version 2 Dramatic Reading) by John Rae.After reading and re-reading the book many time as a boy and wishing that Lewis Carroll would have written another Alice In Wonderland Book, John Rae began imagining what that girl would have gotten up to if he had done so. Telling these stories to his children over the years, where they were enthusiastically received, he finally decided to share them with the world. And here they are!Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Nothing But the Truth by Frederic Stewart Isham.A young man, finding himself unexpectedly impecunious, attempts to improve his fortunes by wagering that he can speak nothing but the absolute truth for three weeks. He soon learns, however, that telling only the unvarnished truth can have surprising consequences. This 1914 novel of love, mystery, and misunderstandings, with amusing characters and plot twists, was adapted as a Broadway play in 1916, followed by six motion pictures: in 1920 and 1929; in 1931 separately in Spanish, French and German; and in 1941 starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. Frederic S. Isham was a writer of short stories, novels and plays.Featured on The Divine Comedy.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.