There are two similar chapters in the King James Bible.
They are 2 Kings chapter 19 and Isaiah chapter 37.
The first 14 verses of each chapter are identical, word for word.
Literature
The End
Writers who committed suicide:
- John Berryman
- Hart Crane
- Will Cuppy
- William Inge
- Arthur Koestler
- Jerzy Kosinski
- Primo Levi
- Vachel Lindsay
- Sylvia Plath
- Anne Sexton
- Hunter S. Thompson
- John Kennedy Toole
- Virginia Woolf
“The real reason for not committing suicide,” wrote Hemingway, “is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over.” He killed himself in 1961.
Finnegan’s Ache
Who says Americans are uncultured? Every year on the last Sunday in April, Dedham, Mass., sponsors the James Joyce Ramble, a 10K road race in which each mile is dedicated to a different work by Joyce.
Professional actors dress up in period costume and read from the books as the athletes run by, making this the only theatrical performance where the performers stand still and the audience moves.
Hotcakes
Both Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince set records as the fastest-selling books in history.
“I Travelled Among Unknown Men”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth used to roam the hills and coast of southwest England on long night walks; eventually the local villagers began to whisper that they were spies for the French.
The government sent an agent to investigate; he reported that they were “mere poets.”
Casting a Shadow
When the Eiffel Tower was first built, it was regarded as an eyesore.
Guy de Maupassant ate regularly at a restaurant at the tower’s base — he said it was the one place in Paris he could be sure he wouldn’t see it.
Big Shoes
Michael Crichton, the author of Jurassic Park, was 6 foot 9.
Starting Early
A is an Abolitionist —
A man who wants to free
The wretched slave — and give to all
An equal liberty.
B is a Brother with a skin
Of somewhat darker hue,
But in our Heavenly Father’s sight,
He is as dear as you.
C is the Cotton-field, to which
This injured brother’s driven,
When, as the white-man’s slave, he toils,
From early morn till even.
— From The Anti-Slavery Alphabet, a children’s book printed for an anti-slavery fair, 1847
Evermore
Every year since 1949, a mysterious figure has visited the grave of Edgar Allan Poe on the author’s birthday, Jan. 19.
Early in the morning, a black-clad figure with a silver-tipped cane enters the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore, goes to Poe’s grave, raises a toast of cognac, and leaves behind three red roses.
He wears a black coat and hat and obscures his face, so his identity is unknown, but in 1993 he left a note saying “The torch will be passed.” In 1999, a second note said that the toaster had died … but since then a younger person has apparently taken his place.
“All that we see or seem,” Poe wrote, “is but a dream within a dream.”
A Bedtime Story
“At length, the moon arose in great splendour, and little Henry saw at a distance an old abbey, all covered with ivy, and looking so dark and dismal, it would frighten any one from going in. But Henry’s little heart, occupied by the idea of his mamma, and with grief that he could not find her, felt no fear; but walking in, he saw a cell in the corner that looked like a baby-house, and, with Fidelle by his side, he bent his little steps towards it, and seating himself on a stone, he leaned his pretty head against the old wall, and fell fast asleep.”
— From The Extraordinary Adventures of Poor Little Bewildered Henry, Who Was Shut Up In An Old Abbey For Three Weeks, A Story Founded on Fact, 1850