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The library opens before the street becomes busy. A student chooses a seat beside the window and places a notebook on the table. Outside, a delivery bicycle rolls past the bakery. Inside, the quiet sound of turning pages makes the morning feel unhurried.
Start practice →At the weekend market, baskets of apples stand beside fresh flowers. The seller explains which fruit is ready to eat and which will keep until next week. We choose only what we need, then stop for warm bread. The walk home feels shorter with a good conversation.
Start practice →A narrow path follows the river behind our neighborhood. After several rainy days, the water moves quickly around the stones. We pause on the bridge to watch a small bird search the bank. There is no need to hurry when the afternoon has no fixed plan.
Start practice →Our balcony garden began with three empty pots and a packet of seeds. Every morning, we check the soil before adding water. The first green shoots are small enough to miss, but soon new leaves appear. Growing something teaches us to notice changes that happen slowly.
Start practice →The old desk lamp stopped working on a winter evening. Instead of throwing it away, we took it to the neighborhood repair workshop. A volunteer found a loose connection and explained the repair. An hour later, the familiar light was shining across the desk again.
Start practice →We reached the station early and found our platform without rushing. The train passed fields, small towns, and a bridge over a wide valley. A child by the window counted red roofs until the next stop. Sometimes the journey becomes the part of a trip we remember best.
Start practice →On a clear evening, the family carried a blanket into the garden. We waited for our eyes to become used to the darkness, then looked for familiar patterns in the sky. A passing cloud hid the stars for a moment. When it moved away, the quiet view returned.
Start practice →The soup recipe looked simple, but we read it once before starting. One person washed the vegetables while another prepared the bowls. Soon the kitchen filled with a gentle, welcoming smell. At the table, everyone agreed that cooking together had been the best part of the meal.
Start practice →A new neighbor moved into the apartment upstairs. We met while carrying bags through the entrance and offered to hold the door. Later, a small note arrived with a thank-you and a name. A friendly building often begins with an ordinary moment like this.
Start practice →The first version of a small program did not work as expected. We wrote down the result we wanted and checked one step at a time. After finding a missing condition, we tried the same example again. A clear explanation of a mistake can be as useful as a quick solution.
Start practice →At the museum, a tiny handwritten letter caught our attention more than the largest painting. Its writer described a rainy journey and a meal shared with friends. The details were ordinary, yet they made a distant time feel close. We stayed to read the next letter too.
Start practice →Rain changed our plans for a long walk, so we spent the afternoon sorting photographs. Some pictures showed places we had almost forgotten. We added dates where we could and left a few questions for relatives. By evening, an unfinished album had become a new family project.
Start practice →Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?” So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
Start practice →There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
Start practice →In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
Start practice →The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next.
Start practice →First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled “ORANGE MARMALADE”, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
Start practice →“Well!” thought Alice to herself, “after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!” (Which was very likely true.) Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? “I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?”
Start practice →(Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.) Presently she began again. “I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—” (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) “—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know.
Start practice →Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?” (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) “And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.” Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again.
Start practice →“Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!” (Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?” And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat bats?
Start practice →Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, “Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?”
Start practice →She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.
Start practice →Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
Start practice →Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway; “and even if my head would go through,” thought poor Alice, “it would be of very little use without my shoulders.
Start practice →Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (“which certainly was not here before,” said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words “DRINK ME,” beautifully printed on it in large letters.
Start practice →It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Start practice →However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. “My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”
Start practice →“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”
Start practice →“Do not you want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife, impatiently.
Start practice →“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”
Start practice →“Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.”
Start practice →“Is he married or single?” “Oh, single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!”
Start practice →“My dear Mr. Bennet,” replied his wife, “how can you be so tiresome? You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.”
Start practice →“Design? Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes.” “I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go—or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better; for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party.”
Start practice →“My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.”
Start practice →“In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of.” “But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood.”
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