The Three Musketeers

At that moment D'Artagnan opened his eyes. He tore himself from the arms of Porthos and Aramis, and threw himself like a madman on the corpse of his mistress.
Athos rose, walked toward his friend with a slow and solemn step, embraced him tenderly, and as he burst into violent sobs, he said to him with his noble and persuasive voice, "Friend, be a man! Women weep for the dead; men avenge them!"
"Oh, yes," cried D'Artagnan, "yes! If it be to avenge her, I am ready to follow you."


This scene, from the end of The Three Musketeers, was both sad and funny. D'Artagnan had scarce found his "love" when she fell dead from being poisoned by his adversary, Milady. He was heartbroken, but Athos just tells him to get up, stop crying like a woman, and take his revenge. I thought it was just a little odd and inconsiderate of Athos, but still funny. They eventually take their revenge on Milady for having conspired against so many people. The Three Musketeers was a wonderful book.

PS: The words were the ones from this month's vocabulary.

The Three Musketeers

"Is the king accustomed to give you such reasons? No. He says to you jauntily, 'Gentlemen, there is fighting going on in Gascony or in Flanders; go and fight,' and you go there. Why? You need give yourselves no more uneasiness about this."
"D'Artagnan is right," said Athos; "here are our three leaves of absence which came from M. de Treville, and here are three hundred pistoles which came from I don't know where. So let us go and get killed where we are told to go. Is life worth the trouble of so many questions? D'Artagnan, I am ready to follow you."

I loved this quote. D'Artagnan was trying to get his 3 friends to follow him into an adventure, but he can not tell them where. I thought that it was very clever of him to use the king as an example. 'You don't question the king, so don't question me,' was basically what he meant. I also enjoyed Athos' response. 'Yeah! Let's all go on an adventure and get killed. I'm in!' I thought it was funny. Alexandre Dumas did a great job with the creation or recreation of D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. I love The Three Musketeers.

I am David

Their country was very beautiful. The sun shone upon the white snow-caps of the great mountain peaks and turned them to a glowing pink. In the valleys the grass was a startling green, and the houses were surrounded by trees covered in white and pink blossoms. The first time David saw them, he found himself smiling.
The delicate blossoms brought Maria to mind. A tree in full bloom was among the most beautiful of all things, and David's smile came unbidden. Yes, it was good to be alive.

This was a great passage from the incredible book, I am David, by Anne Holm. She uses amazing adjectives and adverbs to describe the setting of the countries, and feelings of the approximately 12 year old boy.
Now to discuss the adjectives and adverbs:
David describes the country as very beautiful because he had been in a concentration camp, where nothing is even nice, and he had been to Italy, where every thing was extremely nice, but he obviously thought that Switzerland(where he was) was even prettier than Italy.
Their were also a lot of huge mountains in Switzerland that always had snow on them, even in the summer.
As spring comes, and the sun finally shows itself, the rays of light makes the snow look pink.
In the valleys, the grass looks incredible, and the trees were blooming to celebrate spring's arrival.
David thought that the blossoms were as pretty and adorable as Maria, who was delicate too, just like the small flower petals.