Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest thinkers in the world, began his career as an artist. Very little is known about Leonardo's early life. He was born in 1452 in the town of Vinci. As a boy, Leonardo showed a great interest in drawing, sculpting and observing nature.

    However, because Leonardo was born to parents who were not married to each other, he was barred from some studies and professions. He trained as an artist after moving to Florence with his father in the 1460s. It was an exciting time to be in Florence, one of the cultural capitals of Europe. Leonardo trained with one of the city's very successful artists, Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a painter, sculptor and gold worker. Verrocchio told his students that they needed to understand the body's bones and muscles when drawing people.

    Leonardo took the teacher's advice very seriously. He spent several periods of his life studying the human body by taking apart and examining dead bodies. While training as an artist, Leonardo also learned about and improved on relatively new painting methods at the time. One was the use of perspective(透视) to show depth. A method called “sfumato” helped to create a cloudy effect to suggest distance. “Chiaroscuro” is a method using light and shade as a painterly effect.

    Leonardo's first known portrait now hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D. C. He made this painting of a young woman named Ginevra de' Benci around 1474. The woman has a pale face with dark hair. In the distance, Leonardo painted the Italian countryside.

    He soon received attention for his extraordinary artistic skills. Around 1475 he was asked to draw an angel in Verrocchio's painting “Baptism of Christ.” One story says that when Verrocchio saw Leonardo's addition to the painting, he was so amazed by his student's skill that he said he would never paint again.

    Two men were sitting together in a plane. They were on a long journey. One of the men was a businessman. The other was a farmer. They sat without talking for a while, then the farmer said, “Let's do something to pass the time.”

     “What do you want to do?” the businessman asked. “We can ask each other riddles.” The farmer said, “You start.” “Let's make the rules first,” the businessman said. “That's not fair. You are a businessman with much knowledge. You know more things than I do. I am just a farmer.”

    “That's true.” The businessman said. “What do you want we should do?” “If you don't know the answer to a riddle, you pay me $100. And if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $50.” The farmer said. The businessman thought about this, then he said, “OK. That's fair. Who will go first?”

    “I will,” The farmer said. “Here is my riddle. What has three legs when it walks, but only two legs when it flies?” The business man repeated the riddle, “What has three legs when it walks, but only two legs when it flies? Mm, that's a good one. I'm afraid I don't know the answer.” He gave the farmer $100, then said, “Tell me the answer. What has three legs when it walks, but only two legs when it flies?” “I don't know.” The farmer said and gave him $50.

Cara Jumper loves the giant saltwater pond on her grandparents Swansea, South Carolina, property(房产). One January afternoon, her grandfather Coy Jumper piled ten-year-old Cara and her sister, Claire, six, and Emma, five, into his Pontiac Sunfire and took them down to the pond. He and the girls walked happily through the pines, checking traps. No luck—they were empty.

    As the sun disappeared gradually toward the horizon, the group turned back to head home. But as Coy walked along the bank, he was suddenly unable to put one foot in front of the other. Then Cara saw Coy walk unsteadily and fall backward into the pond's deep water.

    When her grandfather didn't surface immediately, Cara jumped in. With one hand, Cara grabbed the bank. With the other, she reached for her grandfather, making contact in the dark water.

    Coy had suffered a stroke(中风) the year before. Now Cara wondered if he'd had one again. Just 80 pounds to her grandfather's 230, she held his head and pulled his face out of the water. That woke him, but he was still dead weight. She managed to move Coy towards the three-foot bank and pulled him up onto solid ground.

    The winter sun had almost disappeared, and they were all trembling. Cara knew she'd have to get Coy to the car, a quarter mile away. She helped him to his feet. Coy slowly moved forward.

    Sixty feet from the car, Coy fell. From there, he crawled, dragging himself under a gate, to the car. His granddaughters helped him into the passenger's side, and Cara got into the driver's seat.

"I used to sit on my dad's lap and drive," she says now. Coy, too, she says, had let the fifth grader drive through the fields around the house. Still, she felt nervous, but she pushed on the gas and steered(驾驶) them the three miles home. "I was trying to get there fast, but I didn't want to get us hurt," Cara says. When she pulled the Sunfire into the garage, her grandmother, Esca was there to meet them.

Coy spent six days in the hospital recovering from a stroke. Says Esca, "If Cara hadn't helped, she might not have a grandpa anymore."

    Jane Austen has often been considered a woman who led a narrow, inhibited life and who rarely traveled. These assertions are far from the truth. Jane Austen traveled more than most women of her time and was quite involved in the lives of her brother, so much that it often interfered with her writing. Like most writers, Jane drew on her experiences and her dreams for the future and incorporated them into her writing. Her characters reflect the people around her; the main characters reflect parts of herself. In Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, Elinor Dashwood and Elizabeth Bennet reflect aspects of Jane Austen and dreams she had that were never fulfilled.

    The biographies about Jane Austen describe the facts of her life in a step-by-step manner. They tend to be repetitive since she did not leave behind a rich fabric of day-to-day life. Yet Jane Austen is known not because of the factual details of her life; she is not remembered two hundred years after her death because she had six siblings and was a wonderful aunt to her nieces and nephews. Rather, Jane Austen is remembered because of what she wrote. Only through reading her literature does one get a taste of the real Jane Austen, the Jane Austen who dreamed and made plans for the future that failed to materialize. Only by analyzing June Austen's characters do we get an understanding of the true author.

    Sense and Sensibility's Elinor Dashwood mirrors Jane Austen's strait-laced sense of propriety (礼节) and her concern and care about family members. For example, after her father died, Jane managed to gather herself together and send her father's pocket compass and pair of scissors to her brother Frank as a memento of their father. Elinor in Sense and Sensibility is the sister who holds down the family and discusses the practicality of situations. She too distributes cherished mementos of her father when he dies. Elinor is the sister who is concerned with the welfare of her relations and takes it upon herself to look after their well-being.

    Jane can also be considered the backbone of her family. After she dies, the family is not as close as they were during her lifetime. Jane became very close with two of her nieces, Fanny Austen and Anna Austen. She counseled them on men and marriage when they reached the age of choosing a suitor. She often helped with delivering her sister-in-law's babies. During her thirties, she lived with her brother Frank for several weeks. She cooked the meals for his family and cared for his children while his wife was confined to her bed. Like the character she creates in Elinor, she sticks by her family and helps them when they need her.

    Austen's life closely parallels that of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Austen begins the novel with the line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”. This statement reflects the opinion of the time that a woman had to be married or else she had no social standing. Just as Elizabeth and her sisters feel immense pressure to get married and procure a good match, so too did Jane. Until she was twenty-five she still retained a small spark of hope that she would one day marry and have children.

    The most significant similarity between Jane and Lizzy is their close relationships with their sisters. Jane and her sister Cassandra were extremely close. When they moved into a house in Chawton, they shared a bedroom. They were dependent upon each other and supported each other in all aspects of their lives. They supported each other's decisions and wrote to each other when apart. Lizzy and her older sister Jane were extremely close. They too supported each other's decisions and were always there for the other. They discussed suitors and marriage just as Jane and her sister must have done.

    All of Jane's female characters end up happily married, a state Jane herself never felt. A woman was defined in terms of her husband; if she did not marry, she had nothing. Well into her twenties, Jane still had dreams of getting married. When she was twenty-five, Harris Bigg-Wither, a brother of her good friends, proposed marriage to Jane. At first she accepted: she would become mistress of a large estate, and be able to ensure the comfort of her parents to the end of their days. Most importantly, she would have children and raise a family of her own. The next day, however, Jane reneged the proposal. She did not love him and did not want a marriage based on nothing but money. After this proposal, Jane gave up all hopes of ever having a family of her own. Instead, she fulfilled her dreams through her characters and found “passion” through them. All her characters marry for love (which happens to also be financially advantageous). They make Jane's dreams become a reality within her imagination. _____ . As children reflect upon the parents and often mirror aspects of their parents, so too did many of Jane's characters mirror herself and the people around her.

    Losing a wallet is one of those careless acts most of us have come across, at some point or the other in our lives. While most of us tend to move on after mourning over the lost necessities, there are a few lucky ones who get them back, with the help of the police or the generosity of the person who finds it.

    And then there is Hunter Shamatt, who not only got back his wallet but with some added happiness that was tagged along!

    Hunter was on his way to attend his sister's wedding on a Las Vegas-bound flight when he realized that he has misplaced his wallet, sometime during the journey. Hunter's family reached out to the Frontier flight to enquire if someone had handed it over to them. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the missing wallet.

    But wait. The story was far from over. Just a week after Hunter's sister's wedding, he received a package in his mail. And guess what? There was his wallet! Surprisingly, the wallet was not the only thing that was inside the package. It also had a handwritten note for Hunter which turned out to be a bonus! The piece of paper read,

    "Hunter, Found this on a Frontier flight from Omaha to Denver — row 12, seat F wedged between the seat and wall. Thought you might want it back. All the best.

    P.S. I rounded your cash up to an even $100, so you could celebrate getting your wallet back. HAVE FUN!!!"

    Moved by the touching gesture, Hunter's mom, Jeannie Shamatt, decided to write a post on Facebook giving a detailed description of the incident. She also urged everyone to share the post as she would like to meet and greet the person behind the act of kindness, personally.

    Now, thanks to the astonishing power of social media, the post finally reached the man behind the note. The man was identified as Todd Brown and it was one of his co-workers who made sure Jeannie Shamatt's post reaches his colleague. Jeannie turned to Facebook again to thank Brown and his family for restoring her faith in humanity.

    "I try to teach my children to do the right things in life, help people when you can regardless of the outcome. This story is more about restoring faith in people than anything. We hear a lot of bad news but not enough good news. I personally want to thank Todd Brown and his wife for restoring faith that there are amazing people out there."

    In my senior year of high school, I got a part-time job working at the local coffee shop. One miserable rainy day, Hank, one of my regular customers came in looking depressed and defeated. My co-worker and I asked what the problem was and if we could help, but he said he wouldn't want to tell any details. He just felt like going into bed, pulling the sheet up over his head, and staying there for a few years, and I knew exactly how he felt.

    Before he left, I handed him a bag along with his iced coffee. He looked at me questioningly because he hadn't ordered anything but the coffee. He opened the bag and saw that I had given him his favorite type of doughnut (油炸圈饼).

    "It's on me,"I told him."Have a nice day."

    He smiled and thanked me before turning around and heading back out into the rain.

    The next evening, when I was in the middle of making coffee, Hank drove up to the window. But instead of ordering anything, he handed me a single pink rose and a little note. I waited until I saw his Jeep leave the parking lot, then I ran to the back of the shop and read the note. It read:

    Christine,

    Thanks for cheering me up yesterday. It is so nice to meet someone that's genuinely sweet, warm and thoughtful and unselfish. Please don't change your ways because I truly believe that you will succeed. Have a great day!

    Hank

    As time went on, I did come across more complaining customers. But anytime I felt depressed, I thought of Hank and his kindness. Then I would smile, hold my head up high, clear my throat and ask politely," How can I help you?"