DEAD STARS by PAZ MARQUEZ BENITEZ

DEAD STARSby Paz Marquez Benitez
THROUGH the open window the air-steeped outdoors passed into his room, quietly enveloping him, stealing into his very thought. Esperanza, Julia, the sorry mess he had made of life, the years to come even now beginning to weigh down, to crush--they lost concreteness, diffused into formless melancholy. The tranquil murmur of conversation issued from the brick-tiled azotea where Don Julian and Carmen were busy puttering away among the rose pots.
"Papa, and when will the 'long table' be set?"
"I don't know yet. Alfredo is not very specific, but I understand Esperanza wants it to be next month."
Carmen sighed impatiently. "Why is he not a bit more decided, I wonder. He is over thirty, is he not? And still a bachelor! Esperanza must be tired waiting."
"She does not seem to be in much of a hurry either," Don Julian nasally commented, while his rose scissors busily snipped away.
"How can a woman be in a hurry when the man does not hurry her?" Carmen returned, pinching off a worm with a careful, somewhat absent air. "Papa, do you remember how much in love he was?"
"In love? With whom?"
"With Esperanza, of course. He has not had another love affair that I know of," she said with good-natured contempt. "What I mean is that at the beginning he was enthusiastic--flowers, serenades, notes, and things like that--"
Alfredo remembered that period with a wonder not unmixed with shame. That was less than four years ago. He could not understand those months of a great hunger that was not of the body nor yet of the mind, a craving that had seized on him one quiet night when the moon was abroad and under the dappled shadow of the trees in the plaza, man wooed maid. Was he being cheated by life? Love--he seemed to have missed it. Or was the love that others told about a mere fabrication of perfervid imagination, an exaggeration of the commonplace, a glorification of insipid monotonies such as made up his love life? Was love a combination of circumstances, or sheer native capacity of soul? In those days love was, for him, still the eternal puzzle; for love, as he knew it, was a stranger to love as he divined it might be.
Sitting quietly in his room now, he could almost revive the restlessness of those days, the feeling of tumultuous haste, such as he knew so well in his boyhood when something beautiful was going on somewhere and he was trying to get there in time to see. "Hurry, hurry, or you will miss it," someone had seemed to urge in his ears. So he had avidly seized on the shadow of Love and deluded himself for a long while in the way of humanity from time immemorial. In the meantime, he became very much engaged to Esperanza.
Why would men so mismanage their lives? Greed, he thought, was what ruined so many. Greed--the desire to crowd into a moment all the enjoyment it will hold, to squeeze from the hour all the emotion it will yield. Men commit themselves when but half-meaning to do so, sacrificing possible future fullness of ecstasy to the craving for immediate excitement. Greed--mortgaging the future--forcing the hand of Time, or of Fate.
"What do you think happened?" asked Carmen, pursuing her thought.
"I supposed long-engaged people are like that; warm now, cool tomorrow. I think they are oftener cool than warm. The very fact that an engagement has been allowed to prolong itself argues a certain placidity of temperament--or of affection--on the part of either, or both." Don Julian loved to philosophize. He was talking now with an evident relish in words, his resonant, very nasal voice toned down to monologue pitch. "That phase you were speaking of is natural enough for a beginning. Besides, that, as I see it, was Alfredo's last race with escaping youth--"
Carmen laughed aloud at the thought of her brother's perfect physical repose--almost indolence--disturbed in the role suggested by her father's figurative language.
"A last spurt of hot blood," finished the old man.
Few certainly would credit Alfredo Salazar with hot blood. Even his friends had amusedly diagnosed his blood as cool and thin, citing incontrovertible evidence. Tall and slender, he moved with an indolent ease that verged on grace. Under straight recalcitrant hair, a thin face with a satisfying breadth of forehead, slow, dreamer's eyes, and astonishing freshness of lips--indeed Alfredo Salazar's appearance betokened little of exuberant masculinity; rather a poet with wayward humor, a fastidious artist with keen, clear brain.
He rose and quietly went out of the house. He lingered a moment on the stone steps; then went down the path shaded by immature acacias, through the little tarred gate which he left swinging back and forth, now opening, now closing, on the gravel road bordered along the farther side by madre cacao hedge in tardy lavender bloom.
The gravel road narrowed as it slanted up to the house on the hill, whose wide, open porches he could glimpse through the heat-shrivelled tamarinds in the Martinez yard.
Six weeks ago that house meant nothing to him save that it was the Martinez house, rented and occupied by Judge del Valle and his family. Six weeks ago Julia Salas meant nothing to him; he did not even know her name; but now--
One evening he had gone "neighboring" with Don Julian; a rare enough occurrence, since he made it a point to avoid all appearance of currying favor with the Judge. This particular evening however, he had allowed himself to be persuaded. "A little mental relaxation now and then is beneficial," the old man had said. "Besides, a judge's good will, you know;" the rest of the thought--"is worth a rising young lawyer's trouble"--Don Julian conveyed through a shrug and a smile that derided his own worldly wisdom.
A young woman had met them at the door. It was evident from the excitement of the Judge's children that she was a recent and very welcome arrival. In the characteristic Filipino way formal introductions had been omitted--the judge limiting himself to a casual "Ah, ya se conocen?"--with the consequence that Alfredo called her Miss del Valle throughout the evening.
He was puzzled that she should smile with evident delight every time he addressed her thus. Later Don Julian informed him that she was not the Judge's sister, as he had supposed, but his sister-in-law, and that her name was Julia Salas. A very dignified rather austere name, he thought. Still, the young lady should have corrected him. As it was, he was greatly embarrassed, and felt that he should explain.
To his apology, she replied, "That is nothing, Each time I was about to correct you, but I remembered a similar experience I had once before."
"Oh," he drawled out, vastly relieved.
"A man named Manalang--I kept calling him Manalo. After the tenth time or so, the young man rose from his seat and said suddenly, 'Pardon me, but my name is Manalang, Manalang.' You know, I never forgave him!"
He laughed with her.
"The best thing to do under the circumstances, I have found out," she pursued, "is to pretend not to hear, and to let the other person find out his mistake without help."
"As you did this time. Still, you looked amused every time I--"
"I was thinking of Mr. Manalang."
Don Julian and his uncommunicative friend, the Judge, were absorbed in a game of chess. The young man had tired of playing appreciative spectator and desultory conversationalist, so he and Julia Salas had gone off to chat in the vine-covered porch. The lone piano in the neighborhood alternately tinkled and banged away as the player's moods altered. He listened, and wondered irrelevantly if Miss Salas could sing; she had such a charming speaking voice.
He was mildly surprised to note from her appearance that she was unmistakably a sister of the Judge's wife, although Doña Adela was of a different type altogether. She was small and plump, with wide brown eyes, clearly defined eyebrows, and delicately modeled hips--a pretty woman with the complexion of a baby and the expression of a likable cow. Julia was taller, not so obviously pretty. She had the same eyebrows and lips, but she was much darker, of a smooth rich brown with underlying tones of crimson which heightened the impression she gave of abounding vitality.
On Sunday mornings after mass, father and son would go crunching up the gravel road to the house on the hill. The Judge's wife invariably offered them beer, which Don Julian enjoyed and Alfredo did not. After a half hour or so, the chessboard would be brought out; then Alfredo and Julia Salas would go out to the porch to chat. She sat in the low hammock and he in a rocking chair and the hours--warm, quiet March hours--sped by. He enjoyed talking with her and it was evident that she liked his company; yet what feeling there was between them was so undisturbed that it seemed a matter of course. Only when Esperanza chanced to ask him indirectly about those visits did some uneasiness creep into his thoughts of the girl next door.
Esperanza had wanted to know if he went straight home after mass. Alfredo suddenly realized that for several Sundays now he had not waited for Esperanza to come out of the church as he had been wont to do. He had been eager to go "neighboring."
He answered that he went home to work. And, because he was not habitually untruthful, added, "Sometimes I go with Papa to Judge del Valle's."
She dropped the topic. Esperanza was not prone to indulge in unprovoked jealousies. She was a believer in the regenerative virtue of institutions, in their power to regulate feeling as well as conduct. If a man were married, why, of course, he loved his wife; if he were engaged, he could not possibly love another woman.
That half-lie told him what he had not admitted openly to himself, that he was giving Julia Salas something which he was not free to give. He realized that; yet something that would not be denied beckoned imperiously, and he followed on.
It was so easy to forget up there, away from the prying eyes of the world, so easy and so poignantly sweet. The beloved woman, he standing close to her, the shadows around, enfolding.
"Up here I find--something--"
He and Julia Salas stood looking out into the she quiet night. Sensing unwanted intensity, laughed, woman-like, asking, "Amusement?"
"No; youth--its spirit--"
"Are you so old?"
"And heart's desire."
Was he becoming a poet, or is there a poet lurking in the heart of every man?
"Down there," he had continued, his voice somewhat indistinct, "the road is too broad, too trodden by feet, too barren of mystery."
"Down there" beyond the ancient tamarinds lay the road, upturned to the stars. In the darkness the fireflies glimmered, while an errant breeze strayed in from somewhere, bringing elusive, faraway sounds as of voices in a dream.
"Mystery--" she answered lightly, "that is so brief--"
"Not in some," quickly. "Not in you."
"You have known me a few weeks; so the mystery."
"I could study you all my life and still not find it."
"So long?"
"I should like to."
Those six weeks were now so swift--seeming in the memory, yet had they been so deep in the living, so charged with compelling power and sweetness. Because neither the past nor the future had relevance or meaning, he lived only the present, day by day, lived it intensely, with such a willful shutting out of fact as astounded him in his calmer moments.
Just before Holy Week, Don Julian invited the judge and his family to spend Sunday afternoon at Tanda where he had a coconut plantation and a house on the beach. Carmen also came with her four energetic children. She and Doña Adela spent most of the time indoors directing the preparation of the merienda and discussing the likeable absurdities of their husbands--how Carmen's Vicente was so absorbed in his farms that he would not even take time off to accompany her on this visit to her father; how Doña Adela's Dionisio was the most absentminded of men, sometimes going out without his collar, or with unmatched socks.
After the merienda, Don Julian sauntered off with the judge to show him what a thriving young coconut looked like--"plenty of leaves, close set, rich green"--while the children, convoyed by Julia Salas, found unending entertainment in the rippling sand left by the ebbing tide. They were far down, walking at the edge of the water, indistinctly outlined against the gray of the out-curving beach.
Alfredo left his perch on the bamboo ladder of the house and followed. Here were her footsteps, narrow, arched. He laughed at himself for his black canvas footwear which he removed forthwith and tossed high up on dry sand.
When he came up, she flushed, then smiled with frank pleasure.
"I hope you are enjoying this," he said with a questioning inflection.
"Very much. It looks like home to me, except that we do not have such a lovely beach."
There was a breeze from the water. It blew the hair away from her forehead, and whipped the tucked-up skirt around her straight, slender figure. In the picture was something of eager freedom as of wings poised in flight. The girl had grace, distinction. Her face was not notably pretty; yet she had a tantalizing charm, all the more compelling because it was an inner quality, an achievement of the spirit. The lure was there, of naturalness, of an alert vitality of mind and body, of a thoughtful, sunny temper, and of a piquant perverseness which is sauce to charm.
"The afternoon has seemed very short, hasn't it?" Then, "This, I think, is the last time--we can visit."
"The last? Why?"
"Oh, you will be too busy perhaps."
He noted an evasive quality in the answer.
"Do I seem especially industrious to you?"
"If you are, you never look it."
"Not perspiring or breathless, as a busy man ought to be."
"But--"
"Always unhurried, too unhurried, and calm." She smiled to herself.
"I wish that were true," he said after a meditative pause.
She waited.
"A man is happier if he is, as you say, calm and placid."
"Like a carabao in a mud pool," she retorted perversely
"Who? I?"
"Oh, no!"
"You said I am calm and placid."
"That is what I think."
"I used to think so too. Shows how little we know ourselves."
It was strange to him that he could be wooing thus: with tone and look and covert phrase.
"I should like to see your home town."
"There is nothing to see--little crooked streets, bunut roofs with ferns growing on them, and sometimes squashes."
That was the background. It made her seem less detached, less unrelated, yet withal more distant, as if that background claimed her and excluded him.
"Nothing? There is you."
"Oh, me? But I am here."
"I will not go, of course, until you are there."
"Will you come? You will find it dull. There isn't even one American there!"
"Well--Americans are rather essential to my entertainment."
She laughed.
"We live on Calle Luz, a little street with trees."
"Could I find that?"
"If you don't ask for Miss del Valle," she smiled teasingly.
"I'll inquire about--"
"What?"
"The house of the prettiest girl in the town."
"There is where you will lose your way." Then she turned serious. "Now, that is not quite sincere."
"It is," he averred slowly, but emphatically.
"I thought you, at least, would not say such things."
"Pretty--pretty--a foolish word! But there is none other more handy I did not mean that quite--"
"Are you withdrawing the compliment?"
"Re-enforcing it, maybe. Something is pretty when it pleases the eye--it is more than that when--"
"If it saddens?" she interrupted hastily.
"Exactly."
"It must be ugly."
"Always?"
Toward the west, the sunlight lay on the dimming waters in a broad, glinting streamer of crimsoned gold.
"No, of course you are right."
"Why did you say this is the last time?" he asked quietly as they turned back.
"I am going home."
The end of an impossible dream!
"When?" after a long silence.
"Tomorrow. I received a letter from Father and Mother yesterday. They want me to spend Holy Week at home."
She seemed to be waiting for him to speak. "That is why I said this is the last time."
"Can't I come to say good-bye?"
"Oh, you don't need to!"
"No, but I want to."
"There is no time."
The golden streamer was withdrawing, shortening, until it looked no more than a pool far away at the rim of the world. Stillness, a vibrant quiet that affects the senses as does solemn harmony; a peace that is not contentment but a cessation of tumult when all violence of feeling tones down to the wistful serenity of regret. She turned and looked into his face, in her dark eyes a ghost of sunset sadness.
"Home seems so far from here. This is almost like another life."
"I know. This is Elsewhere, and yet strange enough, I cannot get rid of the old things."
"Old things?"
"Oh, old things, mistakes, encumbrances, old baggage." He said it lightly, unwilling to mar the hour. He walked close, his hand sometimes touching hers for one whirling second.
Don Julian's nasal summons came to them on the wind.
Alfredo gripped the soft hand so near his own. At his touch, the girl turned her face away, but he heard her voice say very low, "Good-bye."

II
ALFREDO Salazar turned to the right where, farther on, the road broadened and entered the heart of the town--heart of Chinese stores sheltered under low-hung roofs, of indolent drug stores and tailor shops, of dingy shoe-repairing establishments, and a cluttered goldsmith's cubbyhole where a consumptive bent over a magnifying lens; heart of old brick-roofed houses with quaint hand-and-ball knockers on the door; heart of grass-grown plaza reposeful with trees, of ancient church and convento, now circled by swallows gliding in flight as smooth and soft as the afternoon itself. Into the quickly deepening twilight, the voice of the biggest of the church bells kept ringing its insistent summons. Flocking came the devout with their long wax candles, young women in vivid apparel (for this was Holy Thursday and the Lord was still alive), older women in sober black skirts. Came too the young men in droves, elbowing each other under the talisay tree near the church door. The gaily decked rice-paper lanterns were again on display while from the windows of the older houses hung colored glass globes, heirlooms from a day when grasspith wicks floating in coconut oil were the chief lighting device.
Soon a double row of lights emerged from the church and uncoiled down the length of the street like a huge jewelled band studded with glittering clusters where the saints' platforms were. Above the measured music rose the untutored voices of the choir, steeped in incense and the acrid fumes of burning wax.
The sight of Esperanza and her mother sedately pacing behind Our Lady of Sorrows suddenly destroyed the illusion of continuity and broke up those lines of light into component individuals. Esperanza stiffened self-consciously, tried to look unaware, and could not.
The line moved on.
Suddenly, Alfredo's slow blood began to beat violently, irregularly. A girl was coming down the line--a girl that was striking, and vividly alive, the woman that could cause violent commotion in his heart, yet had no place in the completed ordering of his life.
Her glance of abstracted devotion fell on him and came to a brief stop.
The line kept moving on, wending its circuitous route away from the church and then back again, where, according to the old proverb, all processions end.
At last Our Lady of Sorrows entered the church, and with her the priest and the choir, whose voices now echoed from the arched ceiling. The bells rang the close of the procession.
A round orange moon, "huge as a winnowing basket," rose lazily into a clear sky, whitening the iron roofs and dimming the lanterns at the windows. Along the still densely shadowed streets the young women with their rear guard of males loitered and, maybe, took the longest way home.
Toward the end of the row of Chinese stores, he caught up with Julia Salas. The crowd had dispersed into the side streets, leaving Calle Real to those who lived farther out. It was past eight, and Esperanza would be expecting him in a little while: yet the thought did not hurry him as he said "Good evening" and fell into step with the girl.
"I had been thinking all this time that you had gone," he said in a voice that was both excited and troubled.
"No, my sister asked me to stay until they are ready to go."
"Oh, is the Judge going?"
"Yes."
The provincial docket had been cleared, and Judge del Valle had been assigned elsewhere. As lawyer--and as lover--Alfredo had found that out long before.
"Mr. Salazar," she broke into his silence, "I wish to congratulate you."
Her tone told him that she had learned, at last. That was inevitable.
"For what?"
"For your approaching wedding."
Some explanation was due her, surely. Yet what could he say that would not offend?
"I should have offered congratulations long before, but you know mere visitors are slow about getting the news," she continued.
He listened not so much to what she said as to the nuances in her voice. He heard nothing to enlighten him, except that she had reverted to the formal tones of early acquaintance. No revelation there; simply the old voice--cool, almost detached from personality, flexible and vibrant, suggesting potentialities of song.
"Are weddings interesting to you?" he finally brought out quietly
"When they are of friends, yes."
"Would you come if I asked you?"
"When is it going to be?"
"May," he replied briefly, after a long pause.
"May is the month of happiness they say," she said, with what seemed to him a shade of irony.
"They say," slowly, indifferently. "Would you come?"
"Why not?"
"No reason. I am just asking. Then you will?"
"If you will ask me," she said with disdain.
"Then I ask you."
"Then I will be there."
The gravel road lay before them; at the road's end the lighted windows of the house on the hill. There swept over the spirit of Alfredo Salazar a longing so keen that it was pain, a wish that, that house were his, that all the bewilderments of the present were not, and that this woman by his side were his long wedded wife, returning with him to the peace of home.
"Julita," he said in his slow, thoughtful manner, "did you ever have to choose between something you wanted to do and something you had to do?"
"No!"
"I thought maybe you had had that experience; then you could understand a man who was in such a situation."
"You are fortunate," he pursued when she did not answer.
"Is--is this man sure of what he should do?"
"I don't know, Julita. Perhaps not. But there is a point where a thing escapes us and rushes downward of its own weight, dragging us along. Then it is foolish to ask whether one will or will not, because it no longer depends on him."
"But then why--why--" her muffled voice came. "Oh, what do I know? That is his problem after all."
"Doesn't it--interest you?"
"Why must it? I--I have to say good-bye, Mr. Salazar; we are at the house."
Without lifting her eyes she quickly turned and walked away.
Had the final word been said? He wondered. It had. Yet a feeble flutter of hope trembled in his mind though set against that hope were three years of engagement, a very near wedding, perfect understanding between the parents, his own conscience, and Esperanza herself--Esperanza waiting, Esperanza no longer young, Esperanza the efficient, the literal-minded, the intensely acquisitive.
He looked attentively at her where she sat on the sofa, appraisingly, and with a kind of aversion which he tried to control.
She was one of those fortunate women who have the gift of uniformly acceptable appearance. She never surprised one with unexpected homeliness nor with startling reserves of beauty. At home, in church, on the street, she was always herself, a woman past first bloom, light and clear of complexion, spare of arms and of breast, with a slight convexity to thin throat; a woman dressed with self-conscious care, even elegance; a woman distinctly not average.
She was pursuing an indignant relation about something or other, something about Calixta, their note-carrier, Alfredo perceived, so he merely half-listened, understanding imperfectly. At a pause he drawled out to fill in the gap: "Well, what of it?" The remark sounded ruder than he had intended.
"She is not married to him," Esperanza insisted in her thin, nervously pitched voice. "Besides, she should have thought of us. Nanay practically brought her up. We never thought she would turn out bad."
What had Calixta done? Homely, middle-aged Calixta?
"You are very positive about her badness," he commented dryly. Esperanza was always positive.
"But do you approve?"
"Of what?"
"What she did."
"No," indifferently.
"Well?"
He was suddenly impelled by a desire to disturb the unvexed orthodoxy of her mind. "All I say is that it is not necessarily wicked."
"Why shouldn't it be? You talked like an--immoral man. I did not know that your ideas were like that."
"My ideas?" he retorted, goaded by a deep, accumulated exasperation. "The only test I wish to apply to conduct is the test of fairness. Am I injuring anybody? No? Then I am justified in my conscience. I am right. Living with a man to whom she is not married--is that it? It may be wrong, and again it may not."
"She has injured us. She was ungrateful." Her voice was tight with resentment.
"The trouble with you, Esperanza, is that you are--" he stopped, appalled by the passion in his voice.
"Why do you get angry? I do not understand you at all! I think I know why you have been indifferent to me lately. I am not blind, or deaf; I see and hear what perhaps some are trying to keep from me." The blood surged into his very eyes and his hearing sharpened to points of acute pain. What would she say next?
"Why don't you speak out frankly before it is too late? You need not think of me and of what people will say." Her voice trembled.
Alfredo was suffering as he could not remember ever having suffered before. What people will say--what will they not say? What don't they say when long engagements are broken almost on the eve of the wedding?
"Yes," he said hesitatingly, diffidently, as if merely thinking aloud, "one tries to be fair--according to his lights--but it is hard. One would like to be fair to one's self first. But that is too easy, one does not dare--"
"What do you mean?" she asked with repressed violence. "Whatever my shortcomings, and no doubt they are many in your eyes, I have never gone out of my way, of my place, to find a man."
Did she mean by this irrelevant remark that he it was who had sought her; or was that a covert attack on Julia Salas?
"Esperanza--" a desperate plea lay in his stumbling words. "If you--suppose I--" Yet how could a mere man word such a plea?
"If you mean you want to take back your word, if you are tired of--why don't you tell me you are tired of me?" she burst out in a storm of weeping that left him completely shamed and unnerved.
The last word had been said.

III
AS Alfredo Salazar leaned against the boat rail to watch the evening settling over the lake, he wondered if Esperanza would attribute any significance to this trip of his. He was supposed to be in Sta. Cruz whither the case of the People of the Philippine Islands vs. Belina et al had kept him, and there he would have been if Brigida Samuy had not been so important to the defense. He had to find that elusive old woman. That the search was leading him to that particular lake town which was Julia Salas' home should not disturb him unduly Yet he was disturbed to a degree utterly out of proportion to the prosaicalness of his errand. That inner tumult was no surprise to him; in the last eight years he had become used to such occasional storms. He had long realized that he could not forget Julia Salas. Still, he had tried to be content and not to remember too much. The climber of mountains who has known the back-break, the lonesomeness, and the chill, finds a certain restfulness in level paths made easy to his feet. He looks up sometimes from the valley where settles the dusk of evening, but he knows he must not heed the radiant beckoning. Maybe, in time, he would cease even to look up.
He was not unhappy in his marriage. He felt no rebellion: only the calm of capitulation to what he recognized as irresistible forces of circumstance and of character. His life had simply ordered itself; no more struggles, no more stirring up of emotions that got a man nowhere. From his capacity of complete detachment he derived a strange solace. The essential himself, the himself that had its being in the core of his thought, would, he reflected, always be free and alone. When claims encroached too insistently, as sometimes they did, he retreated into the inner fastness, and from that vantage he saw things and people around him as remote and alien, as incidents that did not matter. At such times did Esperanza feel baffled and helpless; he was gentle, even tender, but immeasurably far away, beyond her reach.
Lights were springing into life on the shore. That was the town, a little up-tilted town nestling in the dark greenness of the groves. A snubcrested belfry stood beside the ancient church. On the outskirts the evening smudges glowed red through the sinuous mists of smoke that rose and lost themselves in the purple shadows of the hills. There was a young moon which grew slowly luminous as the coral tints in the sky yielded to the darker blues of evening.
The vessel approached the landing quietly, trailing a wake of long golden ripples on the dark water. Peculiar hill inflections came to his ears from the crowd assembled to meet the boat--slow, singing cadences, characteristic of the Laguna lake-shore speech. From where he stood he could not distinguish faces, so he had no way of knowing whether the presidente was there to meet him or not. Just then a voice shouted.
"Is the abogado there? Abogado!"
"What abogado?" someone irately asked.
That must be the presidente, he thought, and went down to the landing.
It was a policeman, a tall pock-marked individual. The presidente had left with Brigida Samuy--Tandang "Binday"--that noon for Santa Cruz. Señor Salazar's second letter had arrived late, but the wife had read it and said, "Go and meet the abogado and invite him to our house."
Alfredo Salazar courteously declined the invitation. He would sleep on board since the boat would leave at four the next morning anyway. So the presidente had received his first letter? Alfredo did not know because that official had not sent an answer. "Yes," the policeman replied, "but he could not write because we heard that Tandang Binday was in San Antonio so we went there to find her."
San Antonio was up in the hills! Good man, the presidente! He, Alfredo, must do something for him. It was not every day that one met with such willingness to help.
Eight o'clock, lugubriously tolled from the bell tower, found the boat settled into a somnolent quiet. A cot had been brought out and spread for him, but it was too bare to be inviting at that hour. It was too early to sleep: he would walk around the town. His heart beat faster as he picked his way to shore over the rafts made fast to sundry piles driven into the water.
How peaceful the town was! Here and there a little tienda was still open, its dim light issuing forlornly through the single window which served as counter. An occasional couple sauntered by, the women's chinelas making scraping sounds. From a distance came the shrill voices of children playing games on the street--tubigan perhaps, or "hawk-and-chicken." The thought of Julia Salas in that quiet place filled him with a pitying sadness.
How would life seem now if he had married Julia Salas? Had he meant anything to her? That unforgettable red-and-gold afternoon in early April haunted him with a sense of incompleteness as restless as other unlaid ghosts. She had not married--why? Faithfulness, he reflected, was not a conscious effort at regretful memory. It was something unvolitional, maybe a recurrent awareness of irreplaceability. Irrelevant trifles--a cool wind on his forehead, far-away sounds as of voices in a dream--at times moved him to an oddly irresistible impulse to listen as to an insistent, unfinished prayer.
A few inquiries led him to a certain little tree-ceilinged street where the young moon wove indistinct filigrees of fight and shadow. In the gardens the cotton tree threw its angular shadow athwart the low stone wall; and in the cool, stilly midnight the cock's first call rose in tall, soaring jets of sound. Calle Luz.
Somehow or other, he had known that he would find her house because she would surely be sitting at the window. Where else, before bedtime on a moonlit night? The house was low and the light in the sala behind her threw her head into unmistakable relief. He sensed rather than saw her start of vivid surprise.
"Good evening," he said, raising his hat.
"Good evening. Oh! Are you in town?"
"On some little business," he answered with a feeling of painful constraint.
"Won't you come up?"
He considered. His vague plans had not included this. But Julia Salas had left the window, calling to her mother as she did so. After a while, someone came downstairs with a lighted candle to open the door. At last--he was shaking her hand.
She had not changed much--a little less slender, not so eagerly alive, yet something had gone. He missed it, sitting opposite her, looking thoughtfully into her fine dark eyes. She asked him about the home town, about this and that, in a sober, somewhat meditative tone. He conversed with increasing ease, though with a growing wonder that he should be there at all. He could not take his eyes from her face. What had she lost? Or was the loss his? He felt an impersonal curiosity creeping into his gaze. The girl must have noticed, for her cheek darkened in a blush.
Gently--was it experimentally?--he pressed her hand at parting; but his own felt undisturbed and emotionless. Did she still care? The answer to the question hardly interested him.
The young moon had set, and from the uninviting cot he could see one half of a star-studded sky.
So that was all over.
Why had he obstinately clung to that dream?
So all these years--since when?--he had been seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens.
An immense sadness as of loss invaded his spirit, a vast homesickness for some immutable refuge of the heart far away where faded gardens bloom again, and where live on in unchanging freshness, the dear, dead loves of vanished youth.

The Literary Forms in Philippine Literature

I. Pre-Colonial Times

Showcase a rich past through their folk speeches, folk songs, folk narratives and indigenous rituals and mimetic dances that affirm our ties with our Southeast Asian neighbors.

has vast collection of folk speeches such as:

riddle or tigmo in Cebuano;
bugtong in Tagalog
paktakon in Ilongo
patototdon in Bicol

proverbs or aphorisms - express norms or codes of behavior, community beliefs or they instill values by offering bits of wisdom in short, rhyming verse
tanaga- a mono-riming heptasyllabic (7) quatrain (4 line-stanza) expressing insights and lessons on life

folk song - expresses the hopes and aspirations, the people's lifestyles as well as their loves; often repetitive and sonorous
narrative song - uses for its subject matter the exploits of historical and legendary heroes

folk narratives, i.e. epics and folk tales are varied, exotic and magical;

II. The Spanish Colonial Tradition

Showcase an array of religious prose and poetry.

Religious lyrics versed in both Spanish and Tagalog were included in early catechism and were used to teach Filipinos the Spanish language.

religious poetry or the pasyon became known in the Filipino's commemoration of Christ's agony and resurrection at Calvary
prose narratives - written to prescribe proper decorum; also used for proselytizing

secular works appeared alongside historical and economic changes, the emergence of an opulent class and the middle class who could avail of a European education
secular lyrics followed the conventions of a romantic tradition: the languishing but loyal lover, the elusive, often heartless beloved, the rival.

secular poetry is the metrical romance, the awit and korido in Tagalog (e.g. Florante at Laura, Ibong Adarna)

Propaganda Prose

political essays and Rizal's two political novels, Noli Me Tangere and the El filibusterismo helped usher in the Philippine revolution resulting in the downfall of the Spanish regime, and, at the same time planted the seeds of a national consciousness among Filipinos.

III. The American Colonial Period

Despite the threat of censorship by the new colonizers, more writers turned up "seditious works" and popular writing in the native languages bloomed through the weekly outlets like Liwayway and Bisaya.

The poet Alejandro G. Abadilla promoted modernism in poetry. Abadilla later influenced young poets who wrote modern verses in the 1960s such as Virgilio S. Almario, Pedro I. Ricarte and Rolando S. Tinio.

modern short story

Filipinos seemed to have taken easily to the modern short story as published in the Philippines Free Press, the College Folio and Philippines Herald. Paz Marquez Benitez's "Dead Stars" published in 1925 was the first successful short story in English written by a Filipino. Later on, Arturo B. Rotor and Manuel E. Arguilla showed exceptional skills with the short story. Alongside this development, writers in the vernaculars continued to write in the provinces. Others like Lope K. Santos, Valeriano Hernandez Peña and Patricio Mariano were writing minimal narratives similar to the early Tagalog short fiction called dali or pasingaw (sketch).

The Summary of the "DEAD STARS"

Dead Star is a love story about a man named Alfredo Salazar,who has his fiance in the person of Esperanza and they have been engaged for quite some time. Society views them as an ideal couple. Their wedding is about to take place in the near future. Prior to the wedding however, he sees another girl, when he goes with his father to a judge's house. He tries to seek love in her, but she kinda declines. in that way, Alfredo became a little bit confused in his upcoming wedding where he is about to chose between two options; to do what he should do by marrying Esperanza as prescribed by his parents or to do what he wants to do by having Julia Salas, his dream - the dead star in his life.
In the story, dead stars symbolize a dream for something that is nonexistent. The guy loved the girl. She was his dream, his star. He thought there was love there. But like a dead star which is so far away, and whose shine could actually be the leftover traveling light from it, he was a long way from getting the girl, and the love he thought was possible, never was.

Novels

adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan by F. P. Boquecosa who also penned Ang Palad ni Pepe after Charles Dicken's David Copperfield

the realist tradition was kept alive in the novels by Lope K. Santos and Faustino Aguilar, among others.

The novel in the vernaculars continued to be written and serialized in weekly magazines like Liwayway, Bisaya, Hiligaynon and Bannawag.

Essay

The essay in English became a potent medium from the 1920's to the present. Some leading essayists were journalists like Carlos P. Romulo, Jorge Bocobo, Pura Santillan Castrence

Among those who wrote criticism were Ignacio Manlapaz, Leopoldo Yabes and I.V. Mallari. But it was Salvador P. Lopez's criticism that grabbed attention when he won the Commonwealth Literary Award for the essay in 1940 with his "Literature and Society."

IV. The Contemporary Period

The flowering of Philippine literature in the various languages continue especially with the appearance of new publications after the Martial Law years and the resurgence of committed literature in the 1960s and the 1970s.

With the requirement by the Commission on Higher Education to teach Philippine Literature in all tertiary schools in the country, the teaching of the vernacular literature or literatures of the regions was emphasized.

The Difference Between the Myth and the Legend

Myths - Mythology, body of myths of a particular culture, and also the study and interpretation of myth. Myth is a complex cultural phenomenon that can be approached from a number of viewpoints. In general, myth is a narrative that describes and portrays in symbolic language the origin of the basic elements and assumptions of a culture. Mythic narrative relates, for example, how the world began, how humans and animals were created, and how certain customs, gestures, or forms of human activities originated. Almost all cultures possess or at one time possessed and lived in terms of myths. Myths are traditional stories occurring in a timeless past. They involve supernatural elements and are beyond the frontiers of logic. Long ago, when our ancestors heard the sound of thunder and saw lightning, they were frightened because they could not understand why these things happened. In order to understand these and other natural events, they created stories. The stories were handed down from generation to generation all over the country. Although myths are not based on objective truth, they reflect both universal worries and the worries of specific cultures.

World literature: In the cold northern countries, where the sun disappears almost completely during the winter season, great fires were lit in the midwinter to help the sun to be reborn. The ancient Greeks tell a myth in which Prometheus stole fire from Zeus, the chief god, and gave it to humans so that they could keep themselves warm. To punish him, Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock where his liver was eaten by an eagle every day but grew again every night.

Legend (story) - traditional narrative or collection of related narratives, popularly regarded as historically factual but actually a mixture of fact and fiction. The medieval Latin word legenda means “things for reading”. During certain services of the early Christian Church, legenda, or lives of the saints, were read aloud. A legend is set in a specific place at a specific time; the subject is often a heroic historical personage. A legend differs from a myth by portraying a human hero rather than one who is a god. Legends, originally oral, have been developed into literary masterpieces. Legends are stories about real people who are famous for doing something brave or extraordinary. Every time the story was told, it became more exaggerated and so it is now difficult to tell how much of the story is really true.

World Literature: One of the greatest legendary figures in Britain is King Arthur. He was the son of King Uther Pendragon, a Celtic King. King Uther gave his child to Merlin the wizard. Merlin taught Arthur everything he knew so that he could become a great king. When King Uther died, Merlin stuck a sword into a rock and said, ‘This sword is in the stone by magic. Only the true king will be able to pull it out’. Many men tried but none succeeded. When Arthur tried, the sword slipped out easily. Arthur was made king. He went on to found the Round Table, an order to knights who became famous for fighting the wicked and helping the poor.

THE NATURE AND PSYCHOLOGY OF READING

Reading – a process of getting meaning from the book and bringing meaning into it
- the key which admits us to the world of thought, fancy and imagination

Miles Zints illustrated the reading process as follows:

1. Word Perception – the ability to pronounce the word as a meaningful unit
The eyes see the printed symbols with the aid of light rays that strike the retina. Together the eye s move in a swift and well – coordinated manner, jumping from word to word in a series of fixations. Reading takes place when the eyes pause or rest. The eyes do not really see much nor read when they are constantly in motion.

Span of perception or recognition span – distance/number of words between fixation points.

A good reader makes few fixations and fewer regressions or backward eye movements. Therefore, his perception span is much longer than that of a poor reader.

Word perception involves the identification of the printed symbol and the meaning intended by the author.

Example:
The reader identifies the combination of the letters c-a-t as cat and not as cot or cut.

The printed word, then, acts as a trigger to release a meaning which the reader already possesses.

In order to do this task known as a decoding process, one should possess the following skills:

a. use sight vocabulary and configuration theory
b. use context clues to determine pronunciation and meaning
c. determine pronunciation and meaning through an analysis of the structure/parts of the word consisting of its root and affixes, and inflected, or derived in form
d. relate the sound of the spoken word to its visual or graphemic symbol, a process referred to as phonetic analysis
e. use a dictionary to determine pronunciation and meaning of words resistant to analysis through the use of other skills

2. Comprehension – requires the fusion of meanings of separate words into a chain of related ideas

On the literal level, one reads to understand the passage – its main thought, specific detatils, sequence, and directions to be followed.

3. Reaction – ability to judge accurarcy, quality or worth
- these judgments are the result of critical reading and experience

- these judgments are the result of critical reading and experience
- on the emotional level, reaction requires value judgments, background experience, and the ability to recreate sensory images
- one’s reaction is affected by culture.
- culture controls the quality of experience available to the reader. Thus, experience becomes the foundation of the reading process.

4. Assimilation/Integration – if ideas are accepted, they become a part of his total experience
- they are integrated with all previous related experience
- wrong concepts are corrected and new insights are acquired
- involves applying ideas acquired to problem solving

Rate – refers to the speed of recognition, comprehension, reaction and assimilation
- vary according to the reader’s purpose and the difficulty of the materials

PROCESSES THAT AFFECT READING

1. Reading is a social process. It is affected by one’s attitudes, loyalties, conflicts and prejudices.
2. Reading is a psychological process. How one feels about oneself and about others affects the reading process. Emotional stability determines one’s comfort in the reading situation. Defense mechanisms like inhibition, repression, projection, aggression, rationalization and nervousness are responses to anxiety in all types of situations.
3. Reading is a physiological process. They are skills in auditory and visual discrimination, verbal expression and eye – hand coordination.
4. Reading is a perceptual process. It utilizes cues such as combination of sounds and letters, size, shape and color.
5. Reading is a linguistic process. It requires sound – symbol relationships, understanding of intonation, stress, rhythm and tone sequences.
6. Reading is an intellectual process. It is dependent on vocabulary, memory, verbal reasoning, generalizing and critical judgment.

How is a Dictionary Organized?

A dictionary tells you the meaning of words and how to say them.

Words in a dictionary are arranged in alphabetical order. The guide words at the top of the page name the first and last words on the page.

Example:
Stream [strem] n. 1. a body of running water, such as a small river. 2. A steady flow. A stream of people walked past the shop. -v. streamed, streaming, streams. To flow in a stream

Each word defined in a dictionary is called an entry word. The entry word is printed in dark type.

Stream [strem] n. 1. a body of running water, such as a small river. 2. A steady flow. A stream of people walked past the shop. -v. streamed, streaming, streams. To flow in a stream


A special spelling of the word comes right after the entry. This special spelling shows the word’s pronunciation, or how to say it aloud.

Stream [strem] n. 1. a body of running water, such as a small river. 2. A steady flow. A stream of people walked past the shop. -v. streamed, streaming, streams. To flow in a stream


The letter or letters after the pronunciation tell the part of speech. Most dictionaries use abbreviations.

Stream [strem] n. 1. a body of running water, such as a small river. 2. A steady flow. A stream of people walked past the shop. -v. streamed, streaming, streams. To flow in a stream

The definition tells the meaning of the word. When a word has more than one meaning, the definitions are numbered.

Stream [strem] n. 1. a body of running water, such as a small river. 2. A steady flow. A stream of people walked past the shop. -v. streamed, streaming, streams. To flow in a stream

Some dictionaries show the inflected forms of the word.

Stream [strem] n. 1. a body of running water, such as a small river. 2. A steady flow. A stream of people walked past the shop. -v. streamed, streaming, streams. To flow in a stream

Some definitions have an example sentence that shows how the word is used.

Stream [strem] n. 1. a body of running water, such as a small river. 2. A steady flow. A stream of people walked past the shop. -v. streamed, streaming, streams. To flow in a stream

CALL NUMBERS

Remember, a call number is like the book’s address in the library. It tells where the book lives on the library shelf.
Our library has three kinds of books, so we have three kinds of call numbers:

fiction

easy fiction

non fiction

A fiction call number is made up of two parts:

F (for fiction)
first three letters in the author’s last name

So a fiction call number for the author, Beverly Cleary would look like this:

F
Cle

An easy fiction call number is made up of two parts:

E (for easy fiction)
first three letters in the author’s last name

So an easy fiction call number for the author, Jan Brett would look like this:

E

Bre

How do we put fiction and easy fiction call numbers in order?
Think……How can we put letters in order?

That’s right, fiction and easy fiction call numbers are in ABC order.

Nonfiction call numbers are made up of two parts:

Numbers (for the subject)

first three letters in the author’s last name

So a nonfiction call number for a mammal book by Jane Mosley would look like this:

599

Mos

How do we put nonfiction call numbers in order?

Think...nonfiction call numbers have numbers and letters, so..

Nonfiction call numbers are put in number order first, then in ABC order.

One kind of nonfiction book has a different recipe from the rest.

biography

What is a biography?
A book about the life of a famous person.

Biography call numbers have their own special recipe.

Biography call numbers are made up of two parts.

92 (the number for biography)
first three letters of the famous person’s last name

So the call number for a biography about George Washington would look like this:

92
Was

How are biography call numbers put in order?

Since all biography call numbers have a 92, they are put in ABC order.

LITERATURE I

Literature – as language is our greatest invention, so is literature our greatest art.
- art of written works
- acquaintance with letters

Philippine Literature – associated with the Philippines and includes the legends of prehistory, and the colonial legacy of the Philippines, written in both Indigenous and Hispanic languages.

Reasons for Studying Literature

1. To benefit from the insight of others. The body of world literature contains most available knowledge about humanity--our beliefs, our self-perception, our philosophies, our assumptions and our interactions with the world at large. Some of life's most important lessons are subtly expressed in our art. We learn these lessons only if we pause to think about what we read. Why would anyone bury important ideas? Because some ideas cannot be expressed adequately in simple language, and because the lessons we have to work for are the ones that stick with us.

2. To open our minds to ambiguities of meaning. While people will "say what they mean and mean what they say" in an ideal world, language in our world is, in reality, maddeningly and delightfully ambiguous. If you go through life expecting people to play by your rules, you'll only be miserable, angry and disappointed. You won't change them. Ambiguity, double entendres and nuance give our language depth and endless possibility. Learn it. Appreciate it. Revel in it.

3.To explore other cultures and beliefs. History, anthropology and religious studies provide a method of learning about the cultures and beliefs of others from the outside looking in. Literature, on the other hand, allows you to experience the cultures and beliefs of others first-hand, from the inside looking out. The only other way to have such a personal understanding of others' beliefs are to adopt them yourself--which most of us aren't willing to do. If you understand where other people are coming from, you are better equipped to communicate meaningfully with them--and they with you.

4. To appreciate why individuals are the way they are. Each person we meet represents a unique concoction of knowledge, beliefs, and experiences. In our own culture we find an infinite variety of attitudes and personalities, hatreds and bigotries, and assumptions. With each exposure to those who differ from us, we expand our minds. We may still reject their beliefs and assumptions, but we're one step closer to understanding them.

5. To expand our grasp of the machinations of history. History and literature are inextricably entertwined. History is not just names and dates and politics and wars and power. History is about people who were products of their time with their own intricately-woven value systems. Study of literature enhances our appreciation of history's complexity, which in turn expands our appreciation of present political complexities and better equips us to predict and prepare for the future.

6. To exercise our brains. Our brains need exercise just like our bodies do. Don't balk at picking up the barbell and doing a few mental curls. Great literature has hidden meanings that won't slap us in the face like childrens' books will; we'll have to dig and analyze like an adult to find the gold.

7. To teach us to see individual bias. In a sense, each of us is an unreliable or naive narrator, but most of us mindlessly accept the stories of certain friends or family without qualification. We should remember that they are centers of their own universes, though, just like we are. They are first-person narrators--not omniscient--just like we are. The only thing that suffers when we appreciate individual bias is our own gullibility.

8. To encourage us to question "accepted" knowledge. As children, most of us were taught to believe what we're told and those basic hypotheses provide our schemas, or building blocks of knowledge. As we grow, we learn to question some ideas while rejecting the offensively alien ideas outright, often without real examination. However, human progress often results from the rejection of assumed "facts." The difficulty lies in spotting our own unexamined assumptions. The more ideas we expose yourself to, the more of our own assumptions we can root out to question and either discard or ground our lives in.

9. To help us see ourselves as others do. Literature is a tool of self-examination. You will see your own personality or habits or assumptions in literature. The experience may even be painful. While our ego defense systems help us avoid self-scrutiny and ignore others' observations or reactions to us, literature serves as a mirror, revealing us to ourselves in all our naked, undefended glory.

10. To appreciate the contributions literature has made to history. The pen is mightier than the sword, yes? When a country undergoes regime change, the new regime imprisons, exiles or executes the intelligentsia--scholars and philosophers--who are seen as the keepers of the culture, creators of ideology, and instigators of revolt. See Russian, Chinese, and German history for examples. In American history, see the copious examples of pro- and anti-slavery literature as well as Thomas Paine's and Thomas Jefferson's contributions to the American Revolution.

11. To see the tragedy. Lenin said "A million deaths are a statistic, but one death is a tragedy." History gives you the statistics. Literature shows you the human tragedy.

12. To further our mastery of language. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words build and destroy nations. Study of literature hones our language skills and teaches us new and valuable techniques for communication. A master of language can seduce your emotions and inspire you to follow him into death--or he can crush your will with a word. Language is the single most important tool of leadership and great leaders embrace its study.

13. To recognize language devices and appreciate their emotional power. Like good music, poetry uses wordplay, rhythm, and sounds to lull the reader into an emotional fog, and therein deliver its message. Great leaders learn to harness these techniques of communication and persuasion. Listen closely to effective advertisements and politicians and lawyers. Listen to the pleasing rhythm and wordplay of their mantras, and watch the sheep blithely flock to them: "It does not fit--you must aquit!" "Crisp and clean and no caffeine!" Politicians use prolific parallelism: "We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail."

14. To explore ethical complexities. Only children find ethical rules cut and dried. Literature forces readers to challenge their simplistic ethical conceptions and sometimes their outright condemnation of others' actions. For example, we believe lying is wrong. But what do we mean? Do we never lie? Have you ever met a person rude enough to follow this rule implicitly? Be advised, though: ethical exploration is a mature endeavor; it is not for the thin-skinned.

15. To see the admirable in everyday life. We are surrounded by unsung nobility and sacrifice. Once we learn to see it in the actions of common folk, our lives will be forever richer, as will our faith in humanity itself.

16. To learn better ways to behave. An untold amount of our opinions and words and reactions are absorbed during childhood and from our culture. Literature teaches us better courses of action and more effective responses to situations...if we let it.

17. To know we aren't alone. Others have been where we are, have felt as we feel, have believed as we believe. Paradoxically, we are unique just like everyone else. But we aren't alone. Others were here and they survived...and may have even learned from it--and so may we.

18. To refine our judgment. This involves several aspects of reading: exposure to new ideas and new ways of looking at old assumptions, expanded vocabulary and understanding, and improved ability to write. Altogether, these benefits refine our ability to think, and thus guide us toward informed, mature judgment.

19. To learn to support our points of view and trust our own interpretations. We provide evidence for our interpretation of a story or poem when we explicate it. When we build a solid case in support of our opinion, we build self-confidence in our own interpretations of language itself.

20. To develop empathy for those who are unlike us. Literature can train and exercise our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours. As children, our circles of concern stop with ourselves. As we grow, we expand those circles to our families and friends, and perhaps to our neighborhoods, towns, cities, states or countries. Our study of literature continues to expand that realm of concern beyond the things we physically experience.

21. To expand our vocabularies. New words are tools for grasping new ideas. Each new idea is a building block upon which we may acquire more knowledge. Knowledge is power.

22. To improve our writing skills. We didn't perfect our writing skills in grade school or high school. Many people have failed to grasp the basics by 18. We learn to speak by listening and imitating; we learn to write by reading and imitating.

23. To learn to use our language well. In order to do this, we must immerse ourselves in it. Since most college graduates tend to use words a fifth-grader can understand when speaking, simply speaking the language is insufficient for continued improvement. Literature, however, presents at infinite variety of ideas, words and expressions.

24. To improve our reading comprehension. Most people stop improving their reading comprehension in high school, if not before. Improvement in this area pays obvious dividends throughout our professional careers. We improve by reading and analyzing what we read.

The Language of Literature

To all my students in Literature 1, kindly copy the following.

THE LANGUAGE OF LITERATURE

What is distinctive about the language of literature?

One of the views of literature suggested in our previous discussion is that literature involves a special, or unusual, use of language. Let us explore this idea further and consider any classroom implications arising from it.

Here are a number of different texts. Read through each one and decide whether or not you think it is a literary text. If not, then think about where the text might have come from. Note down any language in the text which helped you to make your decisions.

1. As this is small Edwardian terraced house with natural light, Venetian blinds were chosen to cover the windows. They screen the street scene during the day and add to the impressions of space given by the light walls and modern furniture. Curtains in deep coral would have looked heavy, but the sunshine that streams through the blinds keeps the overall effects light.

2. Three grey geese in a field grazing.
Gray were the geese and green was the grazing.

3. As Democrats head toward a showdown with President Bush on Iraq, a leading Republican warned that they are making an all – too – familiar mistake: not listening to seasoned commanders. Rep. C.W. Bill Young (news, bio, voting record), R – Fla., said catastrophe always follows when civilians turn a deaf ear to their military officers. In the 2003 run – up to the war, Young said in an interview, administration officials dismissed a top Army officer’s estimate that securing Iraq would probably require several hundred thousand troops.

4. Give me a pure heart that I may see You, a humble heart that I may hear You, a heart of love that I may serve You, a heart of faith that I may abide in you.

5. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

6. His breast of chicken with tarragon and girolles goes back to the classic French repertoire: the skin of the fowl crisped to the gold, odorifeously swathed in a thick creamy sauce, golden also, piled with fleshy mushrooms fried in butter till they take on the gleam of varnished wood.

7. The acting crowd is usually the most interesting type to students of sociology because of its well – known behavior. In the acting crowds, the emotion of the group becomes intense, and the crowd performs collective action toward an object. Another more popular name for this type of crowd is the term mob. We frequently read newspapers accounts about mob behavior.

8. We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and ocean, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.

9. One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

10. One day at the pillar, three studs startled Stripe. Three big caterpillars had fallen from some place and smashed. Two seemed dead but one still wiggled. Stripe whispered, “What happened? Can I help?” He made out just a few words. “The top they’ll see…butterflies alone…”the caterpillar died.

11. I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work – a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit, something which do not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listen to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will someday stand where I am standing.

12. A butterfly was in love with a white rose. One day, the butterfly proposed to the rose, the white rose told him that when she turns red that is the only time she’ll love him. The butterfly did not fly, instead, he cut his body and spread his blood on the rose. The rose turned red and fell in love with the butterfly. However, the butterfly was no longer alive. “Love sacrifices” are sometimes useless especially if that someone doesn’t know how to appreciate. They’ll come to realize important things when it’s already too late.

13. Faced with a veering, crazy – making, constantly fragmenting contemporary world, a new breed of fiction writer is emerging. What’s remarkable about their work, which represents some of the best novels and short stories being written today, is not only how inventively it portrays the complex realities of life on the edge of the 21st century, but also how gracefully it moves beyond the literary trends of the recent past.

14. 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.

15. 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.

“The only true law is that which leads to freedom,” Jonathan said. “There is no other.

16. She is wearing a purple tube paired with a silver skirt. Moreover, the silver skirt is sprinkled with Swarovsky crystals by King Anthony House of Gems and Crystals on its lining. As she walks along the aisle, my eyes popped into amazement because of the mind blowing beauty that she brings to the crowd.

17. Josephine, Josephine Who to these shores have come Looking for a nest, a home, Like a wandering swallow; If your fate is taking you To Japan, China or Shanghai, Don't forget that on these shores A heart for you beats high.

18. Ang iyong buhay pag-ibig ang pinakamalaking pinagmumulan ng iyong kasayahan ngayong buwan. Sa mga single, maaaring mapagtanto na ang iyong hinihintay na tao ay darating sa mga di inaasahang pagkakataon.

19. The door opened and my brother Leon and Maria came in. "Have you watered Labang?" Father spoke to me. I told him that Labang was resting yet under the barn. "It is time you watered him, my son," my father said. I looked at Maria and she was lovely. She was tall. Beside my brother Leon, she was tall and very still. Then I went out, and in the darkened hall the fragrance of her was like a morning when papayas are in bloom.

20. Nang kumalat sa Internet ang picture ni Willie Revillame kasama ang isang babaing naka – pajama ay marami ang naging espekulasyon. Agad na kinausap ng The Buzz Magazine and Wowowee host tungkol sa isyu at ipinaliwanag niyang kaibigan lang ang naturang babae, na nakitulog sa kanyang resthouse sa Tagaytay kasama ang maraming friends nila.

21. Kahit ano,
kaya kong
pasarapin.

Kahit sino,
kaya kong
pasayahin.

22. Mainit na mainit ang ugong na ang sikat na male TV and movie personality ay nahuhumaling sa isang sikat na female TV personality.

23. Ta nupay no agayatac
Iti maysa a imnas
Aoan lat’ pangripripiripac
Nga adda pacaibatugac.

Ilunodconto ti horas
Nga innac pannacayanac
Ta mamenribo coma a naseseat
No natayac idin ta nayanacac

Natural laeng ti panagbiddut,
nu ti puso ken panunot,
ket maandingay ti sulisog ken sappuyot ni panunut.

Ngem ti tao nu agbiddut weno agbasol man,
ada lata siled ti panagbabawi.
Aturen na dagiti biddut na
ket sapulen na ti nalinteg a dana
nga mangitunda kenkwana iti taeng ni ragsak ken
namnama.

24. There was a girl who argued with her boyfriend because she asked a ring for her birthday but her boyfriend gave a talking doll instead of a ring. The girl refused to accept the doll then she threw it away. The guy run as fast as he could to save the doll but an approaching car hit him. Then, he died. In the burial, the girl was crying, she grabbed the doll then hold it tight. The talking doll spoke saying, “Will you marry me? Please get the ring from the doll’s pocket, hope you like it.”

25. Waste not, want not.
In the new age of high fuel prices,
and environmental awareness.

The days of conspicuous are over,
today we face the need to do more with less.
And not to be responsible with for the world,
we live in.

26. I think I have more than enough experience. But still, I’m willing to learn more.

27. Something inside has changed. And the change came as a surprise. Some of you may say that our cover is very…Let me share with you a little secret. Our cover…it may look different, but it feels right. As a magazine, I dare say we have still so much to offer…not just a men’s magazine anymore. The changes are forthcoming and are bigger than ever. But the biggest change is …the new BACHELOR is not afraid to show that he also has a heart.

28. There was a blind girl who hated herself for being blind. She hated everyone except her boyfriend. The girl said that if she can only see the world she will marry her boyfriend. One time, someone donated eyes to her and saw everything including her boyfriend. Her boyfriend asked her, now that you can see me, will you marry me? The girl was shocked when she saw that her boyfriend is also blind and she refused to marry him. Her boyfriend walked away with tears and said, “just TAKE GOOD CARE of my EYES.”

The Essence of Studying Humanities

To all my students in Humanities I, kindly copy the following.

The study of humanities is essential as the world shrinks due to the explosion of information technology. Those who master the humanities and can "walk a mile in someone else's moccasins" will be far more marketable than those who can't. Those people who master cross-cultural understanding will be more successful than those who don't.

But, that is only the shell of a humanities education. Humanities study brings us in contact with the best life has to offer - History, music, art, philosophy, and literature. It is the study and contact with these topics that enrich our existence. Moreover a solid grounding in the humanities tends to extend our consciousness making us better people. Whether politically conservative, liberal, or independent the study humanities leads you through the development of thought and catapults ones understanding of why things are the way they are.

Top Ten Reasons to Study Humanities

1. To develop your mental flexibility through the practice of the critical thinking skills of analysis and synthesis.
2. To improve your communication abilities through the development of reading, thinking, writing, and speaking skills.
3. To learn to integrate information, ideas, and opinions from a variety of sources and perspectives.
4. To gain a global perspective thorugh a knowledge of world cultures.
5. To increase your respect for cultural and individual differences through a knowledge of the achievements of world civilizations.
5. To experience the connection between culture and your own community through museum visits, concerts, theatre performances and the support of local artists.
6. To clarify your personal values through the analysis of multiple viewpoints in ambiguous moral situations, examining the process of valuing, and understanding the nature of moral decision making.
7. To increase your personal resources for wisdom and perseverance through a study of the many different ways people have handled difficult situations in history, literature, philosophy, mythology, and religion.
8. To come to know what is enduring by studying what humans have found valuable throughout time.
9. To have your spirit awakened and your love of learning inspired by encountering and joining the great minds and hearts of human history in the search for meaning.

THE NATURE OF BUSINESS LETTER WRITING

To all my students in English 2 (Writing in the Discipline), the following should be downloaded in connection with our future discussion on Business Letter Writing. Thank you so much.

Business correspondent or business letter – must possess the following traits to produce effective business letters:

a. wide understanding of the human behaviour
b. keen imagination
c. good command of the English language
d. sense of humor
e. good judgment

Characteristics of a Business Letter

1. Clarity – clearness of the idea
2. Conciseness - completeness of idea with the use of the fewest number of words possible
3. Consideration – taking the “you” point – of – view
4. Courtesy – the use of polite expressions to show respect
5. Concreteness – the use of vivid, specific words that appeal to the senses
6. Cheerfulness – the use of positive expressions that signal lively dispositions in life
7. Correctness – accuracy of facts, figures, spelling, grammar, format, etc.
8. Character – shows the writer’s own style or uniqueness in writing

Parts of a Business Letter

1. Heading - It first part of the business letter. It gives to kinds of information about the writer: the primary of information which refers to the name, address, and telephone number of the company, and the secondary which gives other information about the writer like the nature, logo, motto, and list of officers of the company. If the heading is placed at the top most middle part of the paper, and is presented in a decorative or extraordinary style, it is considered a modern style of heading. Letterhead is the term used for this kind of heading. But if the heading is at the upper right side of the paper, it is thought of as a traditional heading where only the address and the date are stated.

2. Inside address – This is the second part of the letter where you see the name and address of the person to whom the letter is addressed. These information are about the addressee must be contained in only 3 to 4 lines with the first line occupying the name plus the position of the addressee in the company he’s working for, and the second and third lines for his exact address.

The position of the addressee may be placed right after the name in the first line. A comma is used to separate it from the name. It can also be placed in the second line together with the name of the company where the address is employed.

3. Salutation or Greeting

Coming two spaces after the Inside Address is the third part of the letter which is the Salutation. Since its purpose is to cheer up the addressee, it is also called Greeting.
A colon is used after the Salutation in a formal letter, a comma in a friendly letter. Capitalize the first word and the name mentioned in this part of the letter.

4. Body

This forms the longest and most important part of the letter. It is here where you present your ideas or messages to the addressee. All the qualities of a good business letter correspondent and the 8 Cs should be reflected in the body of the letter.

You should give particular attention to the opening sentence of the body for this is your way of attracting the attention of the receiver/reader. Likewise, the last sentence of the body is necessary because this is the means by which you will win him to your side or getting his final decision on whatever you’re offering. Avoid using the present participle form like hoping, trusting, and believing to end your letter. Instead, use I hope, I trust, I believe, etc.

5. Complimentary Close

Following the body is the complimentary close that consists of two or three words. In comparison to the Salutation, this part also uses expressions that observe certain degrees of formality.

Very respectfully yours, – most formal
Respectfully yours, - more formal

Very truly yours,
Truly yours, - formal
Sincerely yours,

Friendly yours,
Always, - informal
Lovingly yours,

In writing the complimentary close, capitalize only the first word and punctuate it with a comma. A comma is the only punctuation mark you can use after the complimentary close.

6. Signature

This consists of the signature of the writer which is of two kinds: penned signature and printed. To give enough space for the penned that appears over the printed signature, you have to allot four spaces between the complimentary close and the printed signature. Sign in your usual way.

7. Notations

This last portion of the letter is placed two spaces after the complimentary close, but it should be aligned with the left margin, not below the complimentary close. Notation may be one, two, or all of the following:

a. Identification Initials – These are the initials of the letter sender, typist, or transcriber that may appear this way:

Rey John Castro (letter sender) and Ar Jay Villanueva (typist)

RJC/AJV RJC – AJV RJCAJV RJC:AJV

b. Enclosure – Two spaces below the identification initial is the Enclosure. This explicitly states important documents attached to the letter like cheques, TORs, pictures etc.. Use Enc. for attached papers or bcc (blind copy) to show that a letter was sent to another person but the name of this person is not revealed in the letter. the secret identity of the receiver makes some peopel cal such a blind copy.

Example:

RJC:AJV

Enc.

1. 4 pictures

2. cheque

c. Postscript or P.S. - To emphasize something explicitly stated in the body of the letter, you can use P.S. two spaces below the identification initials.

Example:

rjc:ajv

P.S.

The pictures and the cheque are in the red thin envelope.

ENGLISH WEEK

Provincial Board Member Kris Ablan (in barong tagalog) poses with English, Humanities and Literature faculty members during the celebration of English Week.

Age was not a minus factor when debaters from the Laboratory High School-Science Curriculum engaged their college counterparts in a debate held Feb. 26 at the Teatro Ilocandia.

Sponsored by the Association of Students of Humanities, English, and Literature as one of the activities in the celebration of English Week, the debate bannered the motion, “This house believes that the Sangguniang Kabataan must be abolished”.

Neil Justine De la Cruz, a second year nursing student, won as best debater while Antonio Guerrero III, a fourth year high school student, grabbed the best speaker plum.

De la Cruz was joined by Nestor Corrales, A.B. English Studies II, and Mark Lester Toledana, B.S. Nursing II, in the government side. Aside from Guerrero, other high school students who argued for the opposition were Natalie Crisostomo, fourth year, and Kimberly Retuta second year.

The match was preceded by a debate lecture delivered by Mr. Herdy Yumul, CAS social sciences instructor and debate trainor.

During the culmination program in the afternoon, Provincial Board Member Kris Ablan, himself a former college debater, served as special guest.

Contests on love-letter writing, song interpretation, storytelling, photography, and spelling were also held during the three-day event meant to hone the skills of students in communications and in the arts.

In his message, Dr. Joselito L. Lolinco, CAS dean, broached the idea of designating English-speaking zones in the university as a way to arrest students’ deteriorating facility of the language. (Herdy L. Yumul of MMSU News for the Week)

FENG SHUI

To my English 2 and Literature 1 students, just go to the archive section and look for the specific piece of information that you want to explore.

To all my Humanities 1 students, the following are concepts about Feng Shui in connection with our discussion on Chinese Architecture. Thank you so much.

Feng Shui - means wind and water
- it is an art and a science
- it is the practice of placement, arrangement and enhancement of space to achieve harmony with the environment.
We are connected to our environment. Our homes and businesses are expressions of who we are.

Functions:

1. Removes obstacles that prevent us from manifesting our dreams.

2. Gives dramatic impact on how we feel.

3. Helps us in manifesting our dreams and desires.

The practice of Feng Shui began in China about 3000 - 5000 years ago. The agricultural community wanted to know the best locations in planting crops, building homes and in honoring the ancestors. the knowledge was kept secret for hundreds of years. Sine then, Feng Shui has withstood the test of time.

Uses of Feng Shui:

1. Analyze a property.
2. Sell a home or a business.

3. Landscape design

4. Community planning

5. Architectural design

Other uses:

1. Change in life goals.

2. Change in family.

3. Change in life cycles.

Simple changes can make a big difference.

Nine Areas of Feng Shui - constituting the bagua.

1. Career and path in life.

2. Knowledge and wisdom.

3. Family ancestors community

4. Wealth, prosperity and abundance.

5. Achievement and reputation

6. Relationships, romance and marriage

7.Children and creativity

8. Friends and travel

9. Health and balance

Goals of Feng Shui

1. to create a harmony

2. to create beauty

3. to create balance

Process of Feng Shui

1. Assess the environment.

2. Identify and remove obstacles.

3. Create natural flow.

4. Energize the environment.

This can be done by:

1. Clearing the space

2. Aranging furniture

3. Color selection

4. Adding enhancements

To start:

1. Desire to transform.

2. Willingness to take action.

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