https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic en-gb Podomatic RSS Generator Tue, 23 Sep 2025 22:54:09 +0000 education, ,speaking, ,esl, ,english, ,comprehenson, ,news, Copyright 2025 Maggi Carstairs Listen to Poetry, Prose and News Articles in English Maggi Carstairs Ladymaggic@yahoo.com episodic false no https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/images/default/E-1400.png https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic Maggi Carstairs English Prose and Poetry Welcome to a smorgasbord of beautiful English Readings for ESL Students and listeners. Also created for the Hearing Impaired, and for those learning to listen to English Classical Poetry and Prose http://Activeenglishspeaking.com <a https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-02-24T00_22_27-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-24T00_22_27-08_00 Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:22:27 +0000 2013-12-09 2013-12-09 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-24T00_22_27-08_00 Maggi Carstairs johnathan,livingstone,seagull,part,6,audio,audio/mpeg,comprehenson,education,speaking,reading,prose,listen,esl,voice 350 false JONATHAN CIRCLED SLOWLY OVER THE FAR CLIFFS, watching. This rough young Fletcher Gull was very nearly a perfect flight-student. He was strong and light and quick in the air, but far and away more important, he had a blazing drive to learn to fly. Here he came this minute, a blurred grey shape roaring out of a dive, flashing one hundred fifty miles per hour past his instructor. He pulled abruptly into another try at a sixteenpoint vertical slow roll, calling the points out loud. “... eight ... nine ... ten ... see-Jonathan-I’m-runningout-of-airspeed ... eleven ... I-want-good-sharp-stops-likeyours ... twelve ... but-blast-it-I-just-can’t-make ... thirteen ... these-last-three-points ... without ... fourtee ... aaakk!” Fletcher’s whipstall at the top was all the worse for his rage and fury at failing. He fell backward, tumbled, slammed savagely into an inverted spin, and recovered at last, panting, a hundred feet below his instructor’s level. “You’re wasting your time with me, Jonathan! I’m too dumb! I’m too stupid! I try and try, but I’ll never get it!” Jonathan Seagull looked down at him and nodded. “You’ll certainly never get it as long as you make that pullup so hard. Fletcher, you lost forty miles an hour in the entry! You have to be smooth! Firm but smooth, remember?” He dropped down to the level of the younger gull. “Let’s try it together now, in formation. And pay attention to that pullup. It’s a smooth, easy entry.” By the end of three months Jonathan had six other students, Outcasts all, yet curious about this strange new idea of flight for the joy of flying. Still, it was easier for them to practise high performance than it was to understand the reason behind it. “Each of us is in truth an idea of the Great Gull, an unlimited idea of freedom,” Jonathan would say in the evenings on the beach, “and precision flying is a step toward expressing our real nature. Everything that limits us we have to put aside. That’s why all this high-speed practice, and lowspeed, and aerobatics ...” ... and his students would be asleep, exhausted from the day’s flying. They liked the practice, because it was fast and exciting and it fed a hunger for learning that grew with every lesson. But not one of them, not even Fletcher Lynd Gull, had come to believe that the flight of ideas could possibly be as real as the flight of wind and feather “Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip,” Jonathan would say, other times, “is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too ...” But no matter how he said it, it sounded like pleasant fiction, and they needed more to sleep. It was only a month later that Jonathan said the time had come to return to the Flock. “We’re not ready!” said Henry Calvin Gull. “We’re not welcome! We’re Outcast! We can’t force ourselves to go where we’re not welcome, can we?” “We’re free to go where we wish and to be what we are,” Jonathan answered, and he lifted from the sand and turned east, toward the home grounds of the Flock. There was brief anguish among his students, for it is the Law of the Flock that an Outcast never returns, and the Law had not been broken once in ten thousand years. The Law said stay; Jonathan said go; and by now he was a mile across the water. If they waited much longer, he would reach a hostile Flock alone. “Well, we don’t have to obey the law if we’re not a part of the Flock, do we?” Fletcher said, rather self-consciously. “Besides, if there’s a fight, we’ll be a lot more help there than here.” And so they flew in from the west that morning, eight of them in a double-diamond formation, wingtips almost overlapping. They came across the Flock’s Council Beach at a hundred thirty-five miles per hour, Jonathan in the lead, Fletcher smoothly at his right wing, Henry Calvin struggling gamely at his left. Then the whole formation rolled (continued) JONATHAN CIRCLED SLOWLY OVER THE FAR CLIFFS, watching. This rough young Fletcher Gull was very n... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-02-24T00_04_02-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-24T00_04_02-08_00 Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:04:02 +0000 2013-12-09 2013-12-09 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-24T00_04_02-08_00 Maggi Carstairs johnathan,livingstone,seagull,part,5,articles,audio,audio/mpeg,comprehenson,education,speaking,reading,prose,listen,esl,english,voice 149 false Fletcher Lynd Seagull was still quite young, but already he knew that no bird had ever been so harshly treated by any Flock, or with so much injustice. “I don’t care what they say,” he thought fiercely, and his vision blurred as he flew out toward the Far Cliffs. “There’s so much more to flying than just flapping around from place to place! A ... a ... mosquito does that! One little barrel-roll around the Elder Gull, just for fun, and I’m Outcast! Are they blind? Can’t they see? Can’t they think of the glory that it’ll be when we really learn to fly?” “I don’t care what they think. I’ll show them what flying is! I’ll be pure Outlaw, if that’s the way they want it. And I’ll make them so sorry ...” The voice came inside his own head, and though it was very gentle, it startled him so much that he faltered and stumbled in the air. “Don’t be harsh on them, Fletcher Seagull. In casting you out, the other gulls have only hurt themselves, and one day they will know this, and one day they will see what you see. Forgive them, and help them to understand.” An inch from his right wingtip flew the most brilliant white gull in all the world, gliding effortlessly along, not moving a feather, at what was very nearly Fletcher’s top speed. There was a moment of chaos in the young bird. “What’s going on? Am I mad? Am I dead? What is this?” Low and calm, the voice went on within his thought, demanding an answer. “Fletcher Lynd Seagull, do you want to fly?” “YES, I WANT TO FLY!” “Fletcher Lynd Seagull, do you want to fly so much that you will forgive the Flock, and learn, and go back to them one day and work to help them know?” There was no lying to this magnificent skilful being, no matter how proud or how hurt a bird was Fletcher Seagull. “I do,” he said softly. “Then, Fletch,” that bright creature said to him, and the voice was very kind, “Let’s begin with Level Flight .. Fletcher Lynd Seagull was still quite young, but already he knew that no bird had ever been so h... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-02-23T23_54_29-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-23T23_54_29-08_00 Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:54:29 +0000 2013-12-09 2013-12-09 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-23T23_54_29-08_00 Maggi Carstairs johnathan,livingstone,seagull,part,4,articles,audio,audio/mpeg,comprehenson,education,speaking,reading,prose,listen,esl,english,voice 339 false By the time they returned, it was dark. The other gulls looked at Jonathan with awe in their golden eyes, for they had seen him disappear from where he had been rooted for so long. He stood their congratulations for less than a minute. “I’m the newcomer here! I’m just beginning! It is I who must learn from you!” “I wonder about that, Jon,” said Sullivan, standing near. “You have less fear of learning than any gull I’ve seen in ten thousand years.” The Flock fell silent, and Jonathan fidgeted in embarrassment. “We can start working with time if you wish,” Chiang said, “till you can fly the past and the future. And then you will be ready to begin the most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love.” A month went by, or something that felt about like a month, and Jonathan learned at a tremendous rate. He always had learned quickly from ordinary experience, and now, the special student of the Elder Himself, he took in new ideas like a streamlined feathered computer. But then the day came that Chiang vanished. He had been talking quietly with them all, exhorting them never to stop their learning and their practising and their striving to understand more of the perfect invisible principle of all life. Then, as he spoke, his feathers went brighter and brighter and at last turned so brilliant that no gull could look upon him. “Jonathan,” he said, and these were the last words that he spoke, “keep working on love.” When they could see again, Chiang was gone. As the days went past, Jonathan found himself thinking time and again of the Earth from which he had come. If he had known there just a tenth, just a hundredth, of what he knew here, how much more life would have meant! He stood on the sand and fell to wondering if there was a gull back there who might be struggling to break out of his limits, to see the meaning of flight beyond a way of travel to get a breadcrumb from a rowboat. Perhaps there might even have been one made Outcast for speaking his truth in the face of the Flock. And the more Jonathan practised his kindness lessons, and the more he worked to know the nature of love, the more he wanted to go back to Earth. For in spite of his lonely past, Jonathan Seagull was born to be an instructor, and his own way of demonstrating love was to give something of the truth that he had seen to a gull who asked only a chance to see truth for himself. Sullivan, adept now at thought-speed flight and helping the others to learn, was doubtful. “Jon, you were Outcast once. Why do you think that any of the gulls in your old time would listen to you now? You know the proverb, and it’s true: The gull sees farthest who flies highest. Those gulls where you came from are standing on the ground, squawking and fighting among themselves. They’re a thousand miles from heaven — and you say you want to show them heaven from where they stand! Jon, they can’t see their own wingtips! Stay here. Help the new gulls here, the ones who are high enough to see what you have to tell them.” He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “What if Chiang had gone back to his old worlds? Where would you have been today?” The last point was the telling one, and Sullivan was right. The gull sees farthest who flies highest. Jonathan stayed and worked with the new birds coming in, who were all very bright and quick with their lessons. But the old feeling came back, and he couldn’t help but think that there might be one or two gulls back on Earth who would be able to learn, too. How much more would he have known by now if Chiang had come to him on the day that he was Outcast! “Sully, I must go back,” he said at last. “Your students are doing well. They can help you bring the newcomers along.” Sullivan sighed, but he did not argue. “I think I’ll miss you, Jonathan,” was all he said. “Sully, for shame!(continued) By the time they returned, it was dark. The other gulls looked at Jonathan with awe in their gol... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-02-23T23_42_01-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-23T23_42_01-08_00 Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:42:01 +0000 2019-06-17 2013-12-09 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-23T23_42_01-08_00 Maggi Carstairs johnathan,livingstone,sagull,part,3,reading,voice english,articles,audio,audio/mpeg,comprehenson,education,listen,prose,speaking,voice 298 false One evening the gulls that were not night-flying stood together on the sand, thinking. Jonathan took all his courage in hand and walked to the Elder Gull, who, it was said, was soon to be moving beyond this world. “Chiang ...” he said, a little nervously. The old seagull looked at him kindly. “Yes, my son?” Instead of being enfeebled by age, the Elder had been empowered by it; he could outfly any gull in the Flock, and he had learned skills that the others were only gradually coming to know. “Chiang, this world isn’t heaven at all, is it?” The Elder smiled in the moonlight. “You are learning again, Jonathan Seagull,” he said. “Well, what happens from here? Where are we going? Is there no such place as heaven?” “No, Jonathan, there is no such place. Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect.” He was silent for a moment. “You are a very fast flier, aren’t you?” “I ... I enjoy speed,” Jonathan said, taken aback but proud that the Elder had noticed. “You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.” Without warning, Chiang vanished and appeared at the water’s edge fifty feet away, all in the flicker of an instant. Then he vanished again and stood, in the same millisecond, at Jonathan’s shoulder. “It’s kind of fun,” he said. Jonathan was dazzled. He forgot to ask about heaven. “How do you do that? What does it feel like? How far can you go?” “You can go to any place and to any time that you wish to go,” the Elder said. “I’ve gone everywhere and everywhen I can think of.” He looked across the sea. “It’s strange. The gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel go nowhere, slowly. Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection go anywhere, instantly. Remember, Jonathan, heaven isn’t a place or a time, because place and time are so very meaningless. Heaven is ...” “Can you teach me to fly like that?” Jonathan Seagull trembled to conquer another unknown. “Of course, if you wish to learn.” “I wish. When can we start?” “We could start now, if you’d like.” “I want to learn to fly like that,” Jonathan said, and a strange light glowed in his eyes. “Tell me what to do. Chiang spoke slowly and watched the younger gull ever so carefully. “To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is,” he said, “you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived ...” The trick, according to Chiang, was for Jonathan to stop seeing himself as trapped inside a limited body that had a forty-two-inch wingspan and performance that could be plotted on a chart. The trick was to know that his true nature lived, as perfect as an unwritten number, everywhere at once across space and time. Jonathan kept at it, fiercely, day after day, from before sunrise till past midnight. And for all his effort he moved not a feather-width from his spot. “Forget about faith!” Chiang said it time and again. “You didn’t need faith to fly, you needed to understand flying. This is just the same. Now try again ...” Then one day Jonathan, standing on the shore, closing his eyes, concentrating, all in a flash knew what Chiang had been telling him. “Why, that’s true! I am a perfect, unlimited gull!” He felt a great shock of joy. “Good!” said Chiang, and there was victory in his voice. Jonathan opened his eyes. He stood alone with the Elder on a totally different seashore — trees down to the water’s edge, t “At last you’ve got the idea,” Chiang said, “but your control needs a little work ...” Jonathan was stunned. “Where are we?” Utterly unimpressed with the strange surroundings, the Elder brushed the question aside. “We’re on some planet, obviously, with a green sky and a double star for a sun.” Jonathan made a scree of deli(continued) One evening the gulls that were not night-flying stood together on the sand, thinking. Jonathan t... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-02-06T17_27_32-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-06T17_27_32-08_00 Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:27:32 +0000 2013-12-09 2013-12-09 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-06T17_27_32-08_00 Maggi Carstairs little,prince,antoine,de,saint,eupery,english,esl,listen,audio,audio/mpeg,prose,reading,voice 304 false On making his discovery, the astronomer had presented it to the International Astronomical Congress, in a great demonstration. But he was in Turkish costume, and so nobody would believe what he said. Grown-ups are like that . . . Fortunately, however, for the reputation of Asteroid B-612, a Turkish dictator made a law that his subjects, under pain of death, should change to European costume. So in 1920 the astronomer gave his demonstration all over again, dressed with impressive style and elegance. And this time everybody accepted his report. If I have told you these details about the asteroid, and made a note of its number for you, it is on account of the grown-ups and their ways. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him. If you were to say to the grown-ups: "I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof," they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: "I saw a house that cost $20,000." Then they would exclaim: "Oh, what a pretty house that is!" Just so, you might say to them: "The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists." And what good would it do to tell them that? They would shrug their shoulders, and treat you like a child. But if you said to them: "The planet he came from is Asteroid B-612," then they would be convinced, and leave you in peace from their questions. They are like that. One must not hold it against them. Children should always show great forbearance toward grown-up people. But certainly, for us who understand life, figures are a matter of indifference. I should have liked to begin this story in the fashion of the fairy-tales. I should have like to say: "Once upon a time there was a little prince who lived on a planet that was scarcely any bigger than himself, and who had need of a sheep . . ." To those who understand life, that would have given a much greater air of truth to my story. For I do not want any one to read my book carelessly. I have suffered too much grief in setting down these memories. Six years have already passed since my friend went away from me, with his sheep. If I try to describe him here, it is to make sure that I shall not forget him. To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend. And if I forget him, I may become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but figures . . . It is for that purpose, again, that I have bought a box of paints and some pencils. It is hard to take up drawing again at my age, when I have never made any pictures except those of the boa constrictor from the outside and the boa constrictor from the inside, since I was six. I shall certainly try to make my portraits as true to life as possible. But I am not at all sure of success. One drawing goes along all right, and another has no resemblance to its subject. I make some errors, too, in the little prince's height: in one place he is too tall and in another too short. And I feel some doubts about the color of his costume. So I fumble along as best I can, now good, now bad, and I hope generally fair-to-middling. In certain more important details I shall make mistakes, also. But that is something that will not be my fault. My friend never explained anything to me. He thought, perhaps, that I was like himself. But I, alas, do not know how to see sheep through the walls of boxes. Perhaps I am a little like the grown-ups. I have had to grow old. On making his discovery, the astronomer had presented it to the International Astronomical Cong... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-02-06T17_00_32-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-06T17_00_32-08_00 Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:00:32 +0000 2013-12-09 2013-12-09 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-06T17_00_32-08_00 Maggi Carstairs little,prince,antoine,de,saint,eupery,english,esl,listen,audio,audio/mpeg,prose,reading,voice 157 false It took me a long time to learn where he came from. The little prince, who asked me so many questions, never seemed to hear the ones I asked him. It was from words dropped by chance that, little by little, everything was revealed to me. The first time he saw my airplane, for instance (I shall not draw my airplane; that would be much too complicated for me), he asked me: "What is that object?" "That is not an object. It flies. It is an airplane. It is my airplane." And I was proud to have him learn that I could fly. He cried out, then: "What! You dropped down from the sky?" "Yes," I answered, modestly. "Oh! That is funny!" And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously. Then he added: "So you, too, come from the sky! Which is your planet?" At that moment I caught a gleam of light in the impenetrable mystery of his presence; and I demanded, abruptly: "Do you come from another planet?" But he did not reply. He tossed his head gently, without taking his eyes from my plane: "It is true that on that you can't have come from very far away . . ." And he sank into a reverie, which lasted a long time. Then, taking my sheep out of his pocket, he buried himself in the contemplation of his treasure. You can imagine how my curiosity was aroused by this half-confidence about the "other planets." I made a great effort, therefore, to find out more on this subject. "My little man, where do you come from? What is this 'where I live,' of which you speak? Where do you want to take your sheep?" After a reflective silence he answered: "The thing that is so good about the box you have given me is that at night he can use it as his house." "That is so. And if you are good I will give you a string, too, so that you can tie him during the day, and a post to tie him to." But the little prince seemed shocked by this offer: "Tie him! What a queer idea!" "But if you don't tie him," I said, "he will wander off somewhere, and get lost." My friend broke into another peal of laughter: "But where do you think he would go?" "Anywhere. Straight ahead of him." Then the little prince said, earnestly: "That doesn't matter. Where I live, everything is so small!" And, with perhaps a hint of sadness, he added: "Straight ahead of him, nobody can go very far . . ." It took me a long time to learn where he came from. The little prince, who asked me so many quest... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-02-06T16_49_08-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-06T16_49_08-08_00 Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:49:08 +0000 2013-12-09 2013-12-09 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-06T16_49_08-08_00 Maggi Carstairs little,prince,antoine,de,saint,eupery,e,english,esl,listen,audio,audio/mpeg,prose,reading,voice 268 false So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an accident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara, six years ago. Something was broken in my engine. And as I had with me neither a mechanic nor any passengers, I set myself to attempt the difficult repairs all alone. It was a question of life or death for me: I had scarcely enough drinking water to last a week. The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from any human habitation. I was more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Thus you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, when I was awakened by an odd little voice. It said: "If you please--draw me a sheep!" "What!" "Draw me a sheep!" I jumped to my feet, completely thunderstruck. I blinked my eyes hard. I looked carefully all around me. And I saw a most extraordinary small person, who stood there examining me with great seriousness. Here you may see the best portrait that, later, I was able to make of him. But my drawing is certainly very much less charming than its model. That, however, is not my fault. The grown-ups discouraged me in my painter's career when I was six years old, and I never learned to draw anything, except boas from the outside and boas from the inside. Now I stared at this sudden apparition with my eyes fairly starting out of my head in astonishment. Remember, I had crashed in the desert a thousand miles from any inhabited region. And yet my little man seemed neither to be straying uncertainly among the sands, nor to be fainting from fatigue or hunger or thirst or fear. Nothing about him gave any suggestion of a child lost in the middle of the desert, a thousand miles from any human habitation. When at last I was able to speak, I said to him: "But--what are you doing here?" And in answer he repeated, very slowly, as if he were speaking of a matter of great consequence: "If you please--draw me a sheep . . ." When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey. Absurd as it might seem to me, a thousand miles from any human habitation and in danger of death, I took out of my pocket a sheet of paper and my fountain-pen. But then I remembered how my studies had been concentrated on geography, history, arithmetic and grammar, and I told the little chap (a little crossly, too) that I did not know how to draw. He answered me: "That doesn't matter. Draw me a sheep . . ." But I had never drawn a sheep. So I drew for him one of the two pictures I had drawn so often. It was that of the boa constrictor from the outside. And I was astounded to hear the little fellow greet it with, "No, no, no! I do not want an elephant inside a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor is a very dangerous creature, and an elephant is very cumbersome. Where I live, everything is very small. What I need is a sheep. Draw me a sheep." So then I made a drawing. He looked at it carefully, then he said: "No. This sheep is already very sickly. Make me another." So I made another drawing. My friend smiled gently and indulgently. "You see yourself," he said, "that this is not a sheep. This is a ram. It has horns." So then I did my drawing over once more. But it was rejected too, just like the others. "This one is too old. I want a sheep that will live a long time." By this time my patience was exhausted, because I was in a hurry to start taking my engine apart. So I tossed off this drawing. And I threw out an explanation with it. "This is only his box. The sheep you asked for is inside." I was very surprised to see a light break over the face of my young judge: "That is exactly the way I wanted it! Do you think that this sheep will have to have a great deal of grass?" "Why?" "Because where I live everything is very small . . ." "There will surely be enough grass for him," I said. "It is a very small sheep that I have given you." He bent his (continued) So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an accident wit... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-02-06T16_05_21-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-06T16_05_21-08_00 Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:05:21 +0000 2013-12-09 2013-12-09 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-02-06T16_05_21-08_00 Maggi Carstairs little,prince,antoine,de,saint,eupery,e,english,esl,listen,audio,audio/mpeg,prose,reading 185 false Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing. In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion." I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked something like this: I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?" My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of a boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this: The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable. In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them. Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always say: "That is a hat." Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man. Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nat... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-01-09T16_52_32-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-01-09T16_52_32-08_00 Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:52:32 +0000 2013-12-07 2013-12-07 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-01-09T16_52_32-08_00 Maggi Carstairs jonathan,livingston,seagull,part,2,english,esl,listen,speaking,reading,voice,education,audio/mpeg 358 false SO THIS IS HEAVEN, HE THOUGHT, AND HE HAD TO SMILE at himself. It was hardly respectful to analyse heaven in the very moment that one flies up to enter it. As he came from Earth now, above the clouds and in close formation with the two brilliant gulls, he saw that his own body was growing as bright as theirs. True, the same young Jonathan Seagull was there that had always lived behind his golden eyes, but the outer form had changed. It felt like a seagull body, but already it flew far better than his old one had ever flown. Why, with half the effort, he thought, I’ll get twice the speed, twice the performance of my best days on earth! His feathers glowed brilliant white now, and his wings were smooth and perfect as sheets of polished silver. He began, delightedly, to learn about them, to press power into these new wings. At two hundred fifty miles per hour he felt that he was nearing his level-flight maximum speed. At two hundred seventy-three he thought that he was flying as fast as he could fly, and he was ever so faintly disappointed. There was a limitto how much the new body could do, and though it was much faster than his old level-flight record, it was still a limit that would take great effort to crack. In heaven, he thought, there should be no limits. The clouds broke apart, his escorts called, “Happy landings, Jonathan,” and vanished into thin air. He was flying over a sea, toward a jagged shoreline. A very few seagulls were working the updraughts on the cliffs. Away off to the north, at the horizon itself, flew a few others. New sights, new thoughts, new questions. Why so few gulls? Heaven should be flocked with gulls! And why am I so tired, all at once? Gulls in heaven are never supposed to be tired, or to sleep. Where had he heard that? The memory of his life on Earth was falling away. Earth had been a place where he had learned much, of course, but the details were blurred — something about fighting for food, and being Outcast. The dozen gulls by the shoreline came to meet him, none saying a word. He felt only that he was welcome and that this was home. It had been a big day for him, a day whose sunrise he no longer remembered. He turned to land on the beach, beating his wings to stop an inch in the air, then dropping lightly to the sand. The other gulls landed too, but not one of them so much as flapped a feather. They swung into the wind, bright wings outstretched, then somehow they changed the curve of their feathers until they had stopped in the same instant their feet touched the ground. It was beautiful control, but now Jonathan was just too tired to try it. Standing there on the beach, still without a word spoken, he was asleep. In the days that followed, Jonathan saw that there was as much to learn about flight in this place as there had been in the life behind him. But with a difference. Here were gulls who thought as he thought. For each of them, the most important thing in living was to reach out and touch perfection in that which they most loved to do, and that was to fly. They were magnificent birds, all of them, and they spent hour after hour every day practising flight, testing advanced aeronautics. For a long time Jonathan forgot about the world that he had come from, that place where the Flock lived with its eyes tightly shut to the joy of flight, using its wings as means to the end of finding and fighting for food. But now and then, just for a moment, he remembered. He remembered it one morning when he was out with his instructor, while they rested on the beach after a session of folded-wing snap rolls. “Where is everybody, Sullivan?” he asked silently, quite at home now with the easy telepathy that these gulls used instead of screes and gracks. “Why aren’t there more of us here? Why, where I came from there were ...” “... thousands and thousands of gulls. I know.” Sullivan shook his head. “The only answer I can see, Jonathan, i(continued) SO THIS IS HEAVEN, HE THOUGHT, AND HE HAD TO SMILE at himself. It was hardly respectful to analy... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-01-09T16_33_38-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-01-09T16_33_38-08_00 Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:33:38 +0000 2013-12-07 2013-12-07 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-01-09T16_33_38-08_00 Maggi Carstairs prose,reading,voice,english,esl,listen,jonathan,livingston,seagull 343 false The years ahead hummed and glowed with promise. The gulls were flocked into the Council Gathering when he landed, and apparently had been so flocked for some time. They were, in fact, waiting. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull! Stand to Centre!” The Elder’s words sounded in a voice of highest ceremony. Stand to Centre meant only great shame or great honour. Stand to Centre for Honour was the way the gulls’ foremost leaders were marked. Of course, he thought, the Breakfast Flock this morning; they saw the Breakthrough! But I want no honours. I have no wish to be leader. I want only to share what I’ve found, to show those horizons out ahead for us all. He stepped forward. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” said the Elder, “Stand to Centre for shame in the sight of your fellow gulls!” It felt like being hit with a board. His knees went weak, his feathers sagged, there was a roaring in his ears. Centred for shame? Impossible! The Breakthrough! They can’t understand! They’re wrong, they’re wrong! “... for his reckless irresponsibility,” the solemn voice intoned, “violating the dignity and tradition of the Gull Family ...” To be centred for shame meant that he would be cast out of gull society, banished to a solitary life on the Far Cliffs. “... one day, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, you shall learn that irresponsibility does not pay. Life is the unknown and the unknowable, except that we are put into this world to eat, to stay alive as long as we possibly can.” A seagull never speaks back to the Council Flock, but it was Jonathan’s voice raised. “Irresponsibility? My brothers!” he cried. “Who is more responsible than a gull who finds and follows a meaning, a higher purpose for life? For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live — to learn, to discover, to be free! Give me one chance, let me show you what I’ve found ...” The Flock might as well have been stone. “The Brotherhood is broken,” the gulls intoned together, and with one accord they solemnly closed their ears and turned their backs upon him. Jonathan Seagull spent the rest of his days alone, but he flew way out beyond the Far Cliffs. His one sorrow was not solitude, it was that other gulls refused to believe the glory of flight that awaited them; they refused to open their eyes and see. He learned more each day. He learned that a streamlined high-speed dive could bring him to find the rare and tasty fish that schooled ten feet below the surface of the ocean: he no longer needed fishing boats and stale bread for survival. Helearned to sleep in the air, setting a course at night across the offshore wind, covering a hundred miles from sunset to sunrise. With the same inner control, he flew through heavy seafogs and climbed above them into dazzling clear skies ... in the very times when every other gull stood on the ground, knowing nothing but mist and rain. He learned to ride the high winds far inland, to dine there on delicate insects. What he had once hoped for the Flock, he now gained for himself alone; he learned to fly, and was not sorry for the price that he had paid. Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull’s life is so short, and with these gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed. They came in the evening, then, and found Jonathan gliding peaceful and alone through his beloved sky. The two gulls that appeared at his wings were pure as starlight, and the glow from them was gentle and friendly in the high night air. But most lovely of all was the skill with which they flew, their wingtips moving a precise and constant inch from his own. Without a word, Jonathan put them to his test, a test that no gull had ever passed. He twisted his wings, slowed to a single mile per hour above stall. The two radiant birds slowed with him, smoothly, locked in position. They knew about slow flying. He folded his wings,(continued) The years ahead hummed and glowed with promise. The gulls were flocked into the Council Gatherin... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-01-09T16_01_11-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-01-09T16_01_11-08_00 Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:01:11 +0000 2013-12-07 2013-12-07 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2012-01-09T16_01_11-08_00 Maggi Carstairs jonathan,livingston,seagull,1.6,articles,audio,audio/mpeg,education,english,esl,reading 305 false That’s the answer! What a fool I’ve been! All I need is a tiny little wing, all I need is to fold most of my wings and fly on just the tips alone! Short wings! He climbed two thousand feet above the black sea, and without a moment for thought of failure and death, he brought his forewings tightly in to his body, left only the narrow swept daggers of his wingtips extended into the wind, and fell into a vertical dive. The wind was a monster roar at his head. Seventy miles per hour, ninety, a hundred and twenty and faster still. The wing-strain now at a hundred and forty miles per hour wasn’t nearly as hard as it had been before at seventy, and with the faintest twist of his wingtips he eased out of the dive and shot above the waves, a grey cannonball under the moon. He closed his eyes to slits against the wind and rejoiced. A hundred forty miles per hour! And under control! If I dive from five thousand feet instead of two thousand, I wonder how fast ... His vows of a moment before were forgotten, swept away in that great swift wind. Yet he felt guiltless, breaking the promises he had made himself. Such promises are only for the gulls that accept the ordinary. One who has touched excellence in his learning has no need of that kind of promise. By sunup, Jonathan Gull was practising again. From five thousand feet the fishing boats were specks in the flat blue water, Breakfast Flock was a faint cloud of dust motes, circling. He was alive, trembling ever so slightly with delight, proud that his fear was under control. Then without ceremony he hugged in his forewings, extended his short, angled wingtips, and plunged directly toward the sea. By the time he passed four thousand feet he had reached terminal velocity, the wind was a solid beating wall of sound against which he could move no faster. He was flying now straight down, at two hundredfourteen miles per hour. He swallowed, knowing that if his wings unfolded at that speed he’d be blown into a million tiny shreds of seagull. But the speed was power, and the speed was joy, and the speed was pure beauty. He began his pullout at a thousand feet, wingtips thudding and blurring in that gigantic wind, the boat and the crowd of gulls tilting and growing meteor-fast, directly in his path. He couldn’t stop; he didn’t know yet even how to turn at that speed. Collision would be instant death. And so he shut his eyes. It happened that morning, then, just after sunrise, that Jonathan Livingston Seagull fired directly through the centre of Breakfast Flock, ticking off two hundred twelve miles per hour, eyes closed, in a great roaring shriek of wind and feathers. The Gull of Fortune smiled upon him this once, and no one was killed. By the time he had pulled his beak straight up into the sky he was still scorching along at a hundred and sixty miles per hour. When he had slowed to twenty and stretched his wings again at last, the boat was a crumb on the sea, four thousand feet below. His thought was triumph. Terminal velocity! A seagull at two hundred fourteen miles per hour! It was a breakthrough, the greatest single moment in the history of the Flock, and in that moment a new age opened for Jonathan Gull. Flying out to his lonely practice area, folding his wings for a dive from eight thousand feet, he set himself at once to discover how to turn. A single wingtip feather, he found, moved a fraction of an inch, gives a smooth sweeping curve at tremendous speed. Before he learned this, however, he found that moving more than one feather at that speed will spin you like a rifle ball ... and Jonathan had flown the first aerobatics of any seagull on earth. He spared no time that day for talk with other gulls, but flew on past sunset. He discovered the loop, the slow roll, the point roll, the inverted spin, the gull bunt, the pinwheel. When Jonathan Seagull joined the Flock on the beach, it was full night. He was dizzy (continued) That’s the answer! What a fool I’ve been! All I need is a tiny little wing, all I need is to fol... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2010-11-22T16_17_06-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T16_17_06-08_00 Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:17:06 +0000 2013-12-06 2013-12-06 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T16_17_06-08_00 Maggi Carstairs jonathan,livingston,seagull,richard,bach,flight,flying,birds,seagulls,maggi,carstairs,articles,audio,audio/mpeg,education,speaking,reading,prose,news,listen,esl,english,voice 110 false 1.9 The voice faded, and Jonathan agreed. The place for a seagull at night is on shore, and from this moment forth, he vowed, he would be a normal gull. It would make everyone happier. He pushed wearily away from the dark water and flew toward the land, grateful for what he had learned about work-saving low-altitude flying. But no, he thought. I am done with the way I was, I am done with everything I learned. I am a seagull like every other seagull, and I will fly like one. So he climbed painfully to a hundred feet and flapped his wings harder, pressing for shore. 1.10 He felt better for his decision to be just another one of the Flock. There would be no ties now to the force that had driven him to learn, there would be no more challenge and no more failure. And it was pretty, just to stop thinking, and fly through the dark, toward the lights above the beach. Dark! The hollow voice cracked in alarm. Seagulls never fly in the dark! 1.11 Jonathan was not alert to listen. It's pretty, he thought. The moon and the lights twinkling on the water, throwing out little beacon-trails through the night, and all so peaceful and still... Get down! Seagulls never fly in the dark! If you were meant to fly in the dark, you'd have the eyes of an owl! You'd have charts for brains! You'd have a falcon's short wings! There in the night, a hundred feet in the air, Jonathan Livingston Seagull - blinked. His pain, his resolutions, vanished. Short wings. A falcon's short wings! 1.9 The voice faded, and Jonathan agreed. The place for a seagull at night is on shore, a... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2010-11-22T16_07_46-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T16_07_46-08_00 Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:07:46 +0000 2013-12-06 2013-12-06 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T16_07_46-08_00 Maggi Carstairs jonthan,livingston,seagull,richard,bach,flight,flying,novel,maggi,carstairs,articles,audio,audio/mpeg,comprehenson,education,speaking,reading,prose,listen,esl,english,voice 116 false 1.6 But victory was short-lived. The instant he began his pullout, the instant he changed the angle of his wings, he snapped into that same terrible uncontrolled disaster, and at ninety miles per hour it hit him like dynamite. Jonathan Seagull exploded in midair and smashed down into a brick hard sea. 1.7 When he came to, it was well after dark, and he floated in moonlight on the surface of the ocean. His wings were ragged bars of lead, but the weight of failure was even heavier on his back. He wished, feebly, that the weight could be just enough to drug him gently down to the bottom, and end it all. 1.8 As he sank low in the water, a strange hollow voice sounded within him. There's no way around it. I am a seagull. I am limited by my nature. If I were meant to learn so much about flying, I'd have charts for brains If I were meant to fly at speed, I'd have a falcon's short wings, and live on mice instead of fish. My father was right. I must forget this foolishness. I must fly home to the Flock and be content as I am, as a poor limited seagull. 1.6 But victory was short-lived. The instant he began his pullout, the instant he changed t... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2010-11-22T15_58_30-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T15_58_30-08_00 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:58:30 +0000 2013-12-06 2013-12-06 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T15_58_30-08_00 Maggi Carstairs jonathan,livingston,seagull,flight,flying,richard,bach,articles,audio,audio/mpeg,comprehenson,education,speaking,reading,prose,listen,esl,english,voice 89 false 1.3 It wasn't long before Jonathan Gull was off by himself again, far out at sea, hungry, happy, learning. The subject was speed, and in a week's practice he learned more about speed than the fastest gull alive. From a thousand feet, flapping his wings as hard as he could, he pushed over into a blazing steep dive toward the waves, and learned why seagulls don't make blazing steep power-dives. In just six seconds he was moving seventy miles per hour, the speed at which one's wing goes unstable on the upstroke. 1.4 Time after time it happened. Careful as he was, working at the very peak of his ability, he lost control at high speed. Climb to a thousand feet. Full power straight ahead first, then push over, flapping, to a vertical dive. Then, every time, his left wing stalled on an upstroke, he'd roll violently left, stall his right wing recovering, and flick like fire into a wild tumbling spin to the right. He couldn't be careful enough on that upstroke. Ten times he tried, and all ten times, as he passed through seventy miles per hour, he burst into a churning mass of feathers, out of control, crashing down into the water. 1.5 The key, he thought at last, dripping wet, must be to hold the wings still at high speeds - to flap up to fifty and then hold the wings still. From two thousand feet he tried again, rolling into his dive, beak straight down, wings full out and stable from the moment he passed fifty miles per hour. It took tremendous strength, but it worked. In ten seconds he had blurred through ninety miles per hour. Jonathan had set a world speed record for seagulls! 1.3 It wasn't long before Jonathan Gull was off by himself again, far out at sea, hungry, happ... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2010-11-22T15_39_21-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T15_39_21-08_00 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:39:21 +0000 2013-12-06 2013-12-06 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T15_39_21-08_00 Maggi Carstairs jonathan,livingston,seagull,richardbach,book,reading,novel,freedom,audio,audio/mpeg,comprehenson,education,speaking,prose,listen,esl,english,voice 119 false 1.2 He didn't know why, for instance, but when he flew at altitudes less than half his wingspan above the water, he could stay in the air longer, with less effort. His glides ended not with the usual feet-down splash into the sea, but with a long flat wake as he touched the surface with his feet tightly streamlined against his body. When he began sliding in to feet-up landings on the beach, then pacing the length of his slide in the sand, his parents were very much dismayed indeed. "Why, Jon, why?" his mother asked. "Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the flock, Jon? Why can't you leave low flying to the pelicans, the albatross? Why don't you eat? Son, you're bone and feathers!" "I don't mind being bone and feathers mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can't, that's all. I just want to know." "See here Jonathan " said his father not unkindly. "Winter isn't far away. Boats will be few and the surface fish will be swimming deep. If you must study, then study food, and how to get it. This flying business is all very well, but you can't eat a glide, you know. Don't you forget that the reason you fly is to eat." Jonathan nodded obediently. For the next few days he tried to behave like the other gulls; he really tried, screeching and fighting with the flock around the piers and fishing boats, diving on scraps of fish and bread. But he couldn't make it work. It's all so pointless, he thought, deliberately dropping a hard-won anchovy to a hungry old gull chasing him. I could be spending all this time learning to fly. There's so much to learn! 1.2 He didn't know why, for instance, but when he flew at altitudes less than half his wingsp... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2010-11-22T15_28_10-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T15_28_10-08_00 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:28:10 +0000 2019-05-25 2013-12-06 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T15_28_10-08_00 Maggi Carstairs you,are,not,alone,michel,jackson.,song,english,poetry,voice,speaking,esl,verse 205 false "You Are Not Alone" Another day has gone I'm still all alone How could this be You're not here with me You never said goodbye Someone tell me why Did you have to go And leave my world so cold Everyday I sit and ask myself How did love slip away Something whispers in my ear and says That you are not alone I am here with you Though you're far away I am here to stay But you are not alone I am here with you Though we're far apart You're always in my heart But you are not alone 'Lone, 'lone Why, 'lone Just the other night I thought I heard you cry Asking me to come And hold you in my arms I can hear your prayers Your burdens I will bear But first I need your hand Then forever can begin Everyday I sit and ask myself How did love slip away Something whispers in my ear and says That you are not alone I am here with you Though you're far away I am here to stay you are not alone I am here with you Though we're far apart You're always in my heart you are not alone Whisper three words and I'll come runnin' And girl you know that I'll be there I'll be there You are not alone I am here with you Though you're far away I am here to stay you are not alone I am here with you Though we're far apart You're always in my heart you are not alone I am here with you Though you're far away I am here to stay you are not alone I am here with you Though we're far apart You're always in my heart For you are not alone... Not alone ohh You are not alone You are not alone Say it again You are not alone You are not alone Not alone, Not alone If you just reach out for me girl In the morning, in the evening Not alone, not alone You and me not alone Oh together together Not not being alone Not not being alone "You Are Not Alone" Another day has gone I'm still all alone How could this be You're not here w... https://ladymaggic.podomatic.com/entry/2010-11-22T15_23_40-08_00 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T15_23_40-08_00 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:23:40 +0000 2013-12-06 2013-12-06 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ladymaggic/episodes/2010-11-22T15_23_40-08_00 Maggi Carstairs jonathan,livingston,seagull,recording,reading,listen,voicem,richard,bach,audio,audio/mpeg,comprehenson,education,speaking,prose,esl,english,voice 137 false 1.1 It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea. A mile from shore a fishing boat chummed the water. and the word for Breakfast Flock flashed through the air, till a crowd of a thousand seagulls came to dodge and fight for bits of food. It was another busy day beginning. But way off alone, out by himself beyond boat and shore, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was practicing. A hundred feet in the sky he lowered his webbed feet, lifted his beak, and strained to hold a painful hard twisting curve through his wings. The curve meant that he would fly slowly, and now he slowed until the wind was a whisper in his face, until the ocean stood still beneath him. He narrowed his eyes in fierce concentration, held his breath, forced one... single... more... inch... of... curve... Then his feathers ruffled, he stalled and fell. Seagulls, as you know, never falter, never stall. To stall in the air is for them disgrace and it is dishonor. But Jonathan Livingston Seagull, unashamed, stretching his wings again in that trembling hard curve - slowing, slowing, and stalling once more - was no ordinary bird. Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else. Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly. This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make one's self popular with other birds. Even his parents were dismayed as Jonathan spent whole days alone, making hundreds of low-level glides, experimenting. 1.1 It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea. A mi...