Everybody has one of those days when everything goes wrong. This is what happened to Harry.

    He got up one morning very late because he had forgotten to wind up his alarm clock（闹钟）. He tried to shave（刮脸）quickly and cut himself. When he got dressed he got blood all over his clean shirt, so he had to find another one. The only other shirt that was clean needed ironing（熨）, so he ironed it. While he was ironing it, there was a knock at the door. It was the man to read the electricity meter（表）. He showed him where the meter was, said good-bye and found that the iron had burnt a hole in his shirt. So he had to wear the one with the blood on it after all. By this time it was very late, so he decided he couldn't go to work by bus. He telephoned for a taxi to take him to work. The taxi arrived and Harry got in and began to read the newspaper.

    In another part of the town, a man had killed a woman with a knife and was seen to run away in a taxi. When Harry's taxi stopped outside his office, a policeman happened to be standing there. He saw the blood on Harry's shirt, and took him to the police station. He was kept till 3 o'clock in the afternoon before the police were sure that he was not the man they wanted. When he finally arrived at the office at about four, his boss took a look at him and told him to go away and find another job.

    After the sudden loss of her 5-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, Natalia Spencer felt she needed to do something to honor the little girl. That strong wish inspired Spencer to start what she calls a “Walk of Love”, a 6,000-mile trek (长途徒步旅行）along the British coastline.

    “Elizabeth particularly loved the beach and the sea and we visited the seaside a lot. After she passed away, I went to the seaside and it was the first time I had felt some comfort,” Spencer said. “I knew this was what I had to do. It was something I could do and it would somehow make life more bearable.”

    On Valentine's Day, Spencer began walking Durdle Door in Dorset, England, the last beach she took Elizabeth to before she became ill. So far, Spencer has journeyed about 1,500 miles, walking through Dorset, Cornwall, Devon and the entire coast of Wales. Every day, except Saturday, Spencer walks 20 miles. Often locals join her; many times they share stories about losing their own children.

    Everything changed for Spencer on Nov. 22, 2015. Spencer noticed Elizabeth was ill with what she thought—was a chest infection. But the girl's health worsened rapidly. Doctors diagnosed her with a life-threatening immune condition where the immune cells damage tissue and organ. This caused Elizabeth's organs to shut down and stopped the blood supply to her arms and legs. She was moved to Bristol Children's Hospital where she spent 18 days on life support before passing away on Dec. 10.

    After Elizabeth died, Spencer struggled. She stayed with friends because it felt too hard to live in a house with the memories of Elizabeth. In January, a friend encouraged Spencer to go for a walk and the two ended up at the Gower Peninsula in Wales. That's when she realized she wanted to walk along the coast for her daughter.

    While walking provides Spencer with time to grieve (感到悲痛)，she's also using the trip to raise￡100,000(about $144,000) for the Bristol .Children's Hospital. She admired the doctors and nurses and wanted to raise money to allow another family access to treatment.

    Spencer expects to complete her walk next spring. She'd love to finish on Valentine's Day, but doesn't know if that is realistic.

    Castle Dale is a small town in central Utah. My grandpa's farm is a few miles to the north. I grew up there. Milking a cow, feeding the chickens and cutting firewood were daily routines. Grandpa had me carrying a broom to do snow cleaning when it was actually taller than I was. This was the work kids like me learned to do at a young age.

    I was tall, very tall at a really young age. My unusual height caused people to look, ask questions, laugh, tease, and sometimes even challenge me to fight. I was teased cruelly as a kid. It wasn't fair, I knew, but that was just the way it was. Luckily, I was taught at a very young age a very important lesson. I am different and that's Okay—I'm unique and I matter. No one could ever take that away from me. I knew this then, and I know this now. That alone helped me through the frustrations and heartaches of normal life.

    When I was in junior high school, I realized something else that helped me cope. Most teasing came from one of two places—people who were either jealous or ignorant (愚昧). I couldn't change the way they were, but I could change the way I felt. I was not going to feel bad because of their ignorance or jealousy. It wasn't worth it. Realizing this didn't stop them, or change the fact that these comments hurt. It did, however, give me a way to understand these people and deal with their treatment in a way that was okay for me.

    These things still happen today. It will probably happen the rest of my life. I will always be 7 feet, 6 inches (2.29 meters) tall. I wouldn't change that for anything. People will always look because it is not every day that you see someone that tall. I learned that at a young age and I now try to teach my own children that they are unique and they matter. That is the message I give to you. Regardless of your race, religion, background, or circumstances ... Being different is okay.

Dear Alcohol,

    You've been around forever. I can remember all the pain you've caused for me.

    Do you remember the night you almost took my father's life? I do. He loves you. Sometimes I think he loves you more than he loves me. He's addicted to you, to the way you promise to rid him of his problems only to cause more of them. You just sat back and laughed as his car went spinning through the street, crashing into two other cars. He wasn't the only one hurt by you that night.

    Do you remember the night of my first high school party? You were there. My friends were intrigued by you. They treated you as if they were never going to see you again, drinking all of you that they could. I spent two hours that night helping my friends who had fallen completely. "I'm so embarrassed," they said as I held their hair back so that they could vomit (呕吐). "I'm sorry," they said when I called taxies for them, walking them out and paying the driver in advance. "This won't happen again," they said as they were sent to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped. Two 15-year-old girls slept in hospital beds that night thanks to you.

    Do you remember the night when you took advantage of my 17-year-old neighbor who had to drive to pick up his sister from her dance lessons? Do you know how we all felt when he hit another car and killed the two people in the other car? He died the next morning too. His sister walked home from her dance lesson, and passed police cars and a crowd of people gathering on the sidewalk just two blocks away from the dance studio. She didn't realize her brother was in the midst of it all. She never saw him again. And it's all your fault.

    I wish you'd walk out of my life forever. I don't want anything to do with you. Look at all the pain you've caused. Sure, you've made people happy too from time to time. But the damage you've caused in the lives of millions is inexcusable. Stop luring (引诱) in the people I love. Stop hurting me, please.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

    It was a quiet village in which there was a military camp(军营). It was far from the towns and cities and there were some high mountains around. Of course it was a good place for training the new soldiers. But it was difficult for the young men to go outside. Mr White, an officer of forty, was strict with them and he hardly let them leave the camp.

    Once Mr White was ill in bed. He couldn't work and a young officer, Mr Hunt, began to train the new soldiers instead of him. He knew the young men well and let nine soldiers go to the nearest town to have a holiday. But night fell and none came back to the camp. He was worried about it and stood at the gate. It was five to twelve when Mr Hunt decided to go to the town and see what was happening to the young men. He started the car quickly and set off. At that moment the nine soldiers came back. It seemed they drank wine. Of course they found the officer was angry.

    "I'm sorry, sir," said the first soldier. "I left the town on time. But something was wrong with my bus on my way here. I had to buy a horse and made it run fast. Bad luck! It died and I had to run back."

    And the other seven soldiers said they were late for the same reasons. It was the last soldier's turn. He said, "I'm sorry, sir. I got on a bus on time, but……"

    Having heard this, the officer became even angrier and stopped him at once. He called out, "If you say something was wrong with your bus, I'll punish you at once!"

    "No, no, sir," said the young man. "My bus was all right, but the dead horses were in its way!"

It is a truth universally acknowledged that statues of public figures are hated by everyone, except perhaps their creators and, hopefully, their subjects, if they're still alive to see them. Jane Austen—the author of Pride and Prejudice—will of course not be around when, or if, the statue in memory of her 250th birthday is built at Winchester Cathedral next year, but according to Jane Austen Society vice president Elizabeth Proudman, the author would not have approved of the proposal anyway. "She is known to have been a modest woman who avoided publicity."

Similar views were aired at a public meeting last week, in which local residents raised concerns that an Austen statue would lead to the "Disneyfication" of the sacred Cathedral. It is no disrespect to the statue's creator — Martin Jennings to say that it's difficult to imagine crowds of parents being woken up on the first day of the summer holidays by their screaming six-year-olds begging to be driven down the Cathedral to catch a glimpse of Austen in the bronze.

Winchester's is not the first wrangling over a celebrity sculpture in recent years: when the sculpture of Mary Wollstonecraft, the greatest feminist thinker of the 18th century, was on show, it was laughed at as a tiny misshapen woman. The bust (半身像) of footballing Cristiano Ronaldo was revealed at Madeira airport in 2017, which some commentators observed looked more like the former F1 star David Coulthard. To his credit, the bust's creator, Emanuel Santos, defended himself admirably, saying "Even Jesus did not please everyone."

When Auguste Rodin's ogreish (妖魔似的) Monument to Balzac went on display in Paris in 1898, it caused such dislike that it was rejected by the very group that had approved it in the first place. Yet by 1969 Kenneth Clark had declared it "the greatest piece of sculpture of the 19th century". And you can still see it standing in the most visible place in the Musée Rodin's gardens today. Perhaps there's a lesson in that for all the maligned (诽谤) sculptors around the world: just wait 70 odd years and things will blow over. Perhaps by the year 2095, Austen, Wollstonecraft and Ronaldo will be standing toe to toe, bringing glory to some greatly-admired galleries. Or, as someone wisely remarks, "time will explain."