Paul McCormack Cavalier painting

Paul McCormack Cavalier painting
Albert Bierstadt Valley in Kings Canyon painting
PreludeAs a saying goes, the wheel of fortune is constantly spinning in turns, to be in honor for thirty years will turn to be in disgrace for forty years, and prosperity swings to poverty, and then poor turns to wealthy, it keeps rotating beyond your control. Nevertheless, a lot of people don’t believe it and regard it as a kind of superstition. At any rate, I strongly believe it and my gut feeling tells me that our life is controlled by our designated destine. As Confucius says “life and death have destined times; wealth and honors rest with heaven”. When I was only little, I heard the older generation in my family boast my forebears were super rich for many generations. Though later on when it came down to my great grandpa’s generation, the overall circumstances were declining, he still managed to make some fortune out of speculating in trade of gold bullions. Nevertheless, unfortunately my great grandpa at last still lost all his fortune in his greedy speculation; therefore, it was the end of a good fortune and a beginning of a bad cycle.
A Chinese phrase reads --- Duo Shi Zhi Qiu – it is an eventful time, I was borne in autumn, as if it has destined my life to have a lot more pitfalls than anybody else does. Truly in my memory, it has never been a plain sailing in my life since I was borne in this big family, which had already downgraded to an only better-off status in the old Shanghai times. Anyhow, when I finally came to this world, the old Shanghai was already gone by, so was my better-off family. No wonder my mother was saying that I didn’t even feel bothered

Paul McCormack Cavalier painting

Paul McCormack Cavalier painting
Albert Bierstadt Valley in Kings Canyon painting
people die, Anne, dearie? It's kind of pitiful. Here's ten obituaries, and every one of them saints and models, even the men. Here's old Peter Stimson, who has `left a large circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.' Lord, Anne, dearie, that man was eighty, and everybody who knew him had been wishing him dead these thirty years. Read obituaries when you're blue, Anne, dearie--especially the ones of folks you know. If you've any sense of humor at all they'll cheer you up, believe me. I just wish I had the writing of the obituaries of some people. Isn't `obituary' an awful ugly word? This very Peter I've been speaking of had a face exactly like one. I never saw it but I thought of the word obituary then and there. There's only one uglier word that I know of, and that's relict. Lord, Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there's this comfort in it--I'll never be any man's `relict.'"
"It is an ugly word," said Anne, laughing. "Avonlea graveyard was full of old tombstones `sacred to the memory of So-and-So, relict of the late So-and-So.' It always made me think