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DIY READ Letters for a Colorful Book Nook

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Make these colorful and unique READ letters for a kids’ bedroom, book nook, library, or anywhere else that people will hang out and read!

Skills Required: None. You’re going to be painting and wrapping twine and using Mod Podge, and it’s fine if you’ve never crafted anything before.

I’m helping give my son’s school library a new look. It’s been a lot of fun and one of the first projects I just finished are these READ letters. I plan on putting them above a shelf in the library.

I saw a similar look on Pinterest and I really wanted to give it a try myself. I’m so excited I did, because I LOVE how they turned out and these colors are my favorite!

I have a reading nook in my house for the boys, and I really think I’m going to do this to our letters too! They would be the perfect back to school craft for starting a new year with some new fun decor.

Here’s how these were made.

Table of Contents

For this craft you’re going to need:

Gather These Supplies

Cardboard or Wood Letters

Paint
Mod Podge Gloss
Rope
Paint Brush

Getting Started

We got these letters at Wal-Mart for a really great price! I was super excited to give them a makeover for the school’s library.

Let’s get crafting!

Step 1 – Paint Letters

I picked out some really fun colors for our letters. Only .50 cents a bottle at Wal-Mart, great deal there. I needed to add a total of 3 coats on these letters (front and back). Letting each coat dry 5 minutes.

They are so bright and pretty!

Step 2 – Pick Your Rope

Next I decided on my rope.

I was debating on using this rope or twine. But I decided I liked the look of the rope best. I use it ALL the time! But twine is a great option as well.

Step 3 – Add the Rope

Now let’s add our rope!

I used a push pin to start, then painted on some Mod Podge to help keep my rope in place. I made sure to pull the rope tight around the letters. The Mod Podge worked great to hold the rope in place.

Finishing Touches

See how great these look!! I can’t wait to start decorating the library and add these. They’re going to look perfect.

These READ letters would be a great addition to any book nook or reading space and really brighten up the space.

Now I want to give my reading nook a whole new look! Hey, maybe I can incorporate more Mod Podge and write a post about it!

I’d also love for you to check out some of my other craft ideas! Here are some fun projects also on the blog:

Beach Letters Are the Ultimate Summer Decor
The Easiest Way to Make Comic Book Letters
Mod Podge Letters with Wallpaper
Decorative Letters for Wall Decor in Minutes!

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Read “Letters on Good and Beautiful” - Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev - page 1

Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev

1906-1999

Letters to young readers ,000

Event of an elderly person with young people wolves up to teaching teachings . This has always been the case, and probably always will be. I will try to be brief and say only about the most important thing for me - as it seems to me, to share the experience of my life.

For my conversations with the reader, I have chosen the form of letters. This is, of course, a conditional form. In the readers of my letters, I imagine friends. Letters to friends allow me to write simply.

Why did I arrange my letters this way? First, in my letters I write about the purpose and meaning of life, about the beauty of behavior, and then I turn to the beauty of the world around us, to the beauty that opens up to us in works of art. I do this because in order to perceive the beauty of the environment, a person himself must be spiritually beautiful, deep, stand on the right positions in life. Try to hold the binoculars in trembling hands - you will not see anything.

Letter one

Big things in small things

In the material world, you can't fit big things in small things. In the sphere of spiritual values, it is not so: much more can fit in the small, and if you try to fit the small in the big, then the big simply ceases to exist.

If a person has a great goal, then it should manifest itself in everything - in the most seemingly insignificant. You must be honest in the imperceptible and accidental, then only you will be honest in the fulfillment of your great duty. A great goal encompasses the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved by bad means.

The saying “the end justifies the means” is destructive and immoral. Dostoevsky showed this well in Crime and Punishment. The main character of this work, Rodion Raskolnikov, thought that by killing the disgusting old usurer, he would get money, with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but suffers an internal collapse. The goal is distant and unrealizable, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. It is impossible to strive for a high goal with low means. We must be equally honest in both big and small things.

The general rule: to observe the big in the small is necessary, in particular, in science. Scientific truth is the most precious thing, and it must be followed in all details of scientific research and in the life of a scientist. If, however, one strives in science for "small" goals - for proof by "force", contrary to facts, for spectacular results, or for any form of self-advancement - then the scientist will inevitably fail. Maybe not right away, but eventually! When the results of research are exaggerated or even minor juggling of facts and scientific truth is pushed into the background, science ceases to exist, and the scientist himself sooner or later ceases to be a scientist.

It is necessary to observe the big in the small in everything resolutely. Then everything is easy and simple.

Letter two

Youth is all life

When I was at school and then at the university, it seemed to me that my "adult life" would be in some completely different environment, as if in a different world, and I would be surrounded by different people. There will be nothing left of the present ... But in reality everything turned out differently. My peers stayed with me. Not all, of course: many were killed by death. And yet, the friends of youth turned out to be the most faithful, everlasting. The circle of acquaintances has grown unusually, but real friends are old ones. True friends are acquired at a young age. I remember that my mother's real friends were only her friends from the gymnasium. My father's friends were his fellow students at the institute. And no matter how much I have observed, openness to friendship gradually decreases with age. Youth is a time of rapprochement. And you should remember this and take care of your friends, because true friendship helps a lot in sorrow and in joy. In joy, you also need help - help to feel happiness to the depths of your soul, to feel and share it. Unrequited joy is not joy. Happiness spoils a person if he experiences it alone. When the time of misfortune comes, the time of loss, again, one cannot be alone. Woe to a man if he is alone.

Therefore, take care of your youth until old age. Appreciate all the good things that you acquired in your youth, do not squander the wealth of youth. Nothing acquired in youth goes unnoticed. Habits developed in youth last a lifetime. Work habits, too. Get used to work - and work will always bring joy. And how important it is for human happiness! There is no one more unhappy than a lazy person who always avoids labor and effort...

As in youth, so in old age. Good habits of youth will make life easier, bad habits will complicate it and make it more difficult.

And one more thing. There is a Russian proverb: "Take care of honor from a young age." All the deeds committed in youth remain in the memory. The good ones will please, the bad ones will not let you sleep!

Third letter

The biggest

And what is the biggest goal of life? I think: to increase the good in those around us. And goodness is above all the happiness of all people. It is made up of many things, and every time life sets a task for a person, which is important to be able to solve. You can do good to a person in small things, you can think about big things, but small things and big things cannot be separated. Much, as I have already said, begins with trifles, is born in childhood and among loved ones.

The child loves his mother and his father, brothers and sisters, his family, his home. Gradually expanding, his affections spread to the school, village, city, the whole country. And this is already a very big and deep feeling, although one cannot stop there and one must love a person in a person.

One must be a patriot, not a nationalist. It is impossible, there is no need to hate someone else's family, because you love your own. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a profound difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for one's country, in the second - hatred for all others.

The big goal of kindness starts from a small one - from the wish for good for your loved ones, but, expanding, it captures an ever wider range of issues.

It's like water circles. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker. But love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, gain new strength, become higher and higher, and the person, their center, is wiser.

Love should not be unaccountable, it should be smart. This means that it must be combined with the ability to notice shortcomings, to deal with shortcomings - both in a loved one and in those around you. It must be combined with wisdom, with the ability to separate the necessary from the empty and false. She shouldn't be blind. Blind delight (you can’t even call it love) can lead to terrible consequences. A mother who admires everything and encourages her child in everything can bring up a moral monster.

Wisdom is mind combined with kindness. Intelligence without kindness is cunning. Cunning, however, sooner or later turns against the cunning one himself. Therefore, the trick is forced to hide. Wisdom is open and reliable. She does not deceive others, and above all the wisest person. Wisdom brings a wise man a good name and lasting happiness, brings reliable, long-term happiness and that calm conscience, which is most valuable in old age.

How can I express what is common between my three propositions: “Big in small things”, “Youth is all life” and “The biggest”? It can be expressed in one word, which can become a motto: "Loyalty". Loyalty to those great principles that a person should be guided by in big and small things, loyalty to his impeccable youth, his homeland in the broad and narrow sense of this concept, loyalty to family, friends, city, country, people. Ultimately, fidelity is fidelity to truth—truth-truth and truth-justice.

Read online Letters to a Stranger by André Maurois - LitRes

André Maurois

LETTRES À L'INCONNUE

ABC Classic series

Translated from French by Yakov Lesyuk

Serial design by Vadim Pozhidaev

Cover design by Tatyana Pavlova

The cover is designed with the painting “Mademoiselle Demarcy” (1882) by Auguste Renoir.

AZBUKA® Publishing House

* * *

Letters to a Stranger

You exist, and at the same time you do not exist. When a friend of mine suggested that I write to you once a week, I mentally drew an image of you. I created you beautiful - both in face and in mind. I knew that you would not be slow to emerge alive from my dreams and begin to read my messages, and answer them, and tell me everything that the author longs to hear.

From the very first day I gave you a certain look - the look of an extremely beautiful and young woman that I saw in the theater. No, not on the stage - in the hall. None of those who were with me knew her. Since then, you have gained eyes and lips, a voice and become, but, as befits, you still remained a Stranger.

Two or three of my letters appeared in the press, and as I expected, I began to receive answers from you. Here "you" is a collective person. You are many different strangers: one is naive, the other is absurd, and the third is a minx and a mocker. I was impatient to start a correspondence with you, but I restrained myself: you had to remain all, it was impossible for you to become one.

You reproach me for my restraint, for my invariable sentimental moralism. But what can you do? And the most patient of people will remain faithful to a stranger only on the condition that one day she opens up to him. Merimee quickly learned that his stranger's name was Jenny Daken, and soon he was allowed to kiss her lovely legs. Yes, our idol must have both legs and everything else, because we get tired of contemplating the incorporeal goddess.

I promised that I would continue this game as long as I enjoyed it. More than a year has passed, I put an end to our correspondence, there were no objections. An imaginary gap is not difficult at all. I will keep a wonderful, unclouded memory of you. Farewell.

AM

About a meeting

That evening I was not alone at the Comédie Francaise. “They gave only Molière,” but with great success. The mistress of Iran laughed heartily; Robert Kemp seemed to be in bliss; Paul Leotaut drew attention to himself.

The lady sitting next to us whispered to her husband: "I'll tell Aunt Clemence by phone that I saw Leoto, she will be delighted."

You were sitting in front, wrapped in fox furs, and, as in the days of Musset, a picked up "black braid on a marvelous flexible neck" swayed in front of me. During the intermission, you leaned over to your friend and asked animatedly: “How to become loved?” I, in turn, wanted to bend down to you and answer with the words of one of Molière's contemporaries: “In order to please others, you need to talk with them about what pleases them and what interests them, evade disputes about unimportant subjects, rarely ask questions and in no way case, do not let them suspect that it is possible to be more reasonable than they are.

Here is the advice of a man who knew people! Yes, if we want to be loved, we need to talk with others not about what occupies us, , but about what occupies them. What interests them? They are themselves. We will never get bored of a woman if we start talking to her about her character and beauty, if we ask her about childhood, about tastes, about what makes her sad. You will also never bore a man if you ask him to talk about himself. How many women have earned themselves the fame of skillful listeners! However, there is no need to listen, it is enough just to pretend that you are listening.

"Avoid arguing about unimportant subjects." Arguments, stated in a sharp tone, infuriate the interlocutor. Especially when the truth is on your side. “Every sensible remark hurts,” said Stendhal. Your interlocutor may have to admit the irrefutability of your arguments, but he will never forgive you for this. In love, a man strives not for war, but for peace. Blessed are the tender and meek women, they will be loved more. Nothing infuriates a man like the aggressiveness of a woman. Amazons are deified, but not adored.

Another, quite worthy way to please is to speak flatteringly about people. If this is told to them, it will give them pleasure and they will feel good for you in return.

“I don’t like Madame de…” someone was saying.

- What a pity! And she finds you simply charming and tells everyone she meets about it.

– Really?.. It turns out that I was mistaken about her.

The converse is also true. One caustic phrase, moreover, retold unkindly, gives rise to the worst enemies. “If we all knew everything that is said about all of us, no one would talk to anyone.” The trouble is that sooner or later everyone will find out what everyone says about everyone.

Let's go back to La Rochefoucauld: "Never let them suspect that you can be smarter than they are." Isn't it possible to love and admire someone at the same time? Of course, it is possible, but only if he does not express his superiority with arrogance and it is balanced by small weaknesses that allow others in turn to patronize him, as it were. The smartest man I knew, Paul Valéry, showed his intelligence with great ease. He clothed deep thoughts in a playful form; he had both childishness and cute pranks, which made him unusually charming. The other most intelligent person is both serious and important, and yet amuses his friends with his unconscious arrogance, absent-mindedness or whims. He is forgiven for being talented, because he can be funny; and you will be forgiven for being beautiful, because you keep yourself simple. A woman will never get tired of even a great man if she remembers that he is also a man.

How to become loved? Giving someone you want to captivate a good reason to be pleased with yourself. Love begins with a joyful feeling of one's own strength, combined with the happiness of another person. To like means both to give and to receive. That's what, stranger of my soul (as the Spaniards say), I would like to answer you. I will add one more - the last - advice, which Merime gave to his stranger: “Never say anything bad about yourself. Your friends will do it." Farewell.

About the limits of tenderness

Paul Valéry spoke excellently about many things, and in particular about love; he liked to talk about passions in mathematical terms: he quite reasonably believed that the contrast between the precision of expressions and the elusiveness of feelings gives rise to a disturbing inconsistency. I especially liked one of his formulas, which I dubbed Valéry's theorem: "The amount of tenderness radiated and absorbed every day has a limit. "

In other words, no person is able to live all day long, let alone weeks or years, in an atmosphere of tender passion. Everything tires, even the fact that you are loved. It is useful to remind this truth, because many young people, as well as old people, apparently do not suspect it. The woman revels in the first delights of love; she is overwhelmed with joy when they tell her from morning to evening how pretty she is, how witty, what a bliss to have her, how wonderful her speeches are; she echoes these praises and assures her partner that he is the best and smartest man in the world, an incomparable lover, a wonderful conversationalist. Both of them are much more enjoyable. But what's next? The possibilities of the language are not unlimited. “At first, it’s easy for lovers to talk to each other ...,” said the Englishman Stevenson. “I am me, you are you, and all others are of no interest.”

You can repeat in a hundred ways: "I am me, you are you." But not a hundred thousand! And ahead - an endless string of days.

- What is the name of such a marriage union, when a man is content with one woman? a certain examiner asked an American student.

“Monotonous,” she replied.

So that monogamy does not turn into monotony, one must vigilantly monitor that tenderness and forms of its expression alternate with something else. A love couple should be refreshed by “winds from the sea”: communication with other people, common work, spectacles. Praise touches, born as if by chance, involuntarily - from mutual understanding, shared pleasure; becoming an indispensable rite, it becomes boring.

Octave Mirbeau has a novella written in the form of a dialogue between two lovers who meet each evening in a park by moonlight. The sensitive lover whispers in a voice even more tender than the moonlit night: “Look ... That is that bench, oh kind bench!” The beloved sighs in despair: “This bench again!” Let us beware of benches that have become places of worship. Tender words that appear and pour out at the very moment of manifestation of feelings are charming. Tenderness in hardened expressions is annoying.

A woman who is aggressive and dissatisfied with everything quickly annoys a man; but even an undemanding woman, ingenuously admiring everything, will retain her power over him for a short time. Contradiction? Of course. Man is made up of contradictions. The tide, then the tide. “He is condemned to constantly move from convulsions of anxiety to a stupor of boredom,” says Voltaire. Many representatives of the human race are so created that they easily get used to being loved and do not value the feeling of which they are too sure.

One woman doubted the man's feelings and concentrated all her thoughts on him. She suddenly finds out that he loves her back. She is happy, but if he repeats day and night that she is perfection, she will probably get bored. Another man, not so accommodating, piques her curiosity. I knew a young girl who sang with pleasure in front of guests; she was very pretty, and therefore everyone praised her to the skies. Only one young man remained silent.

– What about you? she finally couldn't resist. - You don't like the way I sing?

- Oh, on the contrary! he replied. - If you also had a voice, it would be just wonderful.

That's the one she married. Farewell.

About the immutability of human feelings

I'm in the theater again; this time, alas, you are not there. I am sorry for myself and for you. I want to shout: "Bravo, Roussin, what a glorious comedy!" One scene especially amused the audience. A young man rewarded his father's secretary with a child. He has no position, no money, she is smart and earns her own living. He proposes to her and is rejected. And then the mother of the young father complains bitterly: “My poor boy, she seduced him and left him ... She compromised and refuses to cover up the sin!”

Classic reverse situation. But these days, the economic relationships of both sexes are often, so to speak, turned inside out. Women earn much more than in the past. They are less dependent on the desires and whims of men. In the time of Balzac, it was difficult to think of something better than marriage, in the time of Roussin - this is another question. In The Immaculate by Philip Aria, a young girl turns to science with a request to help her give birth to a child without the help of a man.

In reality, science is still powerless to fulfill this unusual desire, although biologists have already embarked on very strange and dangerous experiments. In his book Brave New World, Aldous Huxley tried to draw exactly how offspring will be born in a hundred years. In this best of all worlds, natural conception is excluded. Surgeons remove the woman's ovaries, they are kept in a proper environment and still produce eggs that are fertilized by insemination. One ovary can give birth to sixteen thousand brothers and sisters - groups of ninety-six twins.

Love? Attachment? Relationship romance? The rulers of the best of worlds have a deep contempt for this dilapidated rubbish. They feel sorry for the poor fellows from the 20th century who had fathers, mothers, husbands, lovers. In their opinion, there is nothing to be surprised that the people of the past were mad, vicious and insignificant. Family, passions, rivalry led to clashes, to complexes. Willy-nilly, the unfortunate ancestors were deeply worried about everything, and the constant sharpness of feelings prevented them from maintaining their peace of mind. "Facelessness, Similarity, Equanimity" - this is the triune motto of a world where there is no love.

Fortunately, this is just a fantasy and humanity does not follow this path. Humanity generally changes much less than people think. It is like the sea: on the surface it seethes, worries, but it is worth plunging into the abyss of human souls - and there is the immutability of the most important human feelings.

What is our youth singing? The song of Prevert and Cosmas: “When you think, when you think that your youth will last forever, oh girl, you are cruelly mistaken! . .” Where did this theme come from? From a poem by Ronsard, which is already four centuries old:

Taste the delights of youth!
Do not expect joy in old age:
Beauty will fade like a flower ^[1] .

Almost all the motifs of the poets of the Pleiades or, say, Musset still resound today; on their basis, one could compose many songs for every taste for Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Play this game, it's simple, fun, and good for you. Stranger de mi alma ^[2] , you should decide on something. The arrogant secretary from Roussin's play eventually marries her "victim" and you are still a copy of your sisters from the 16th century. Farewell.

About the necessary measure of coquetry

“Slander, sir! You just don’t understand what you decided to neglect,” says one of the characters in The Barber of Seville. It often tempts me to say to a woman who is too trusting and direct in love: “Coquetry, madam! You just don't understand what you're looking down on. " Coquetry was and is an amazingly powerful and dangerous weapon. This set of skillful tricks, so carefully studied by Marivaux, consists of first captivating, then repelling, pretending to give something, and then taking it away. The results of this game are amazing. And even knowing in advance about all these traps, you still get caught.

If you think about it, it's quite natural. Without a slight coquetry that gives rise to the first timid hope, love does not wake up in most people. “To love is to feel excited at the thought of some possibility, which then develops into a need, an insistent desire, an obsession.” While it seems completely impossible for us to please such and such a man (or such and such a woman), we do not think about him (or about her). You are not tormented by the fact that you are not the Queen of England. Every man finds that Greta Garbo and Michelle Morgan are extremely beautiful, and admires them, but it never occurs to him to be killed by love for them. For their countless fans, they are just images living on the screen. And do not promise any opportunities.

But as soon as we take someone's look, smile, phrase, gesture into our own account, our imagination, against our will, already draws the possibilities hidden behind them. Has this woman given us a reason, however small, to hope? From this moment on, we are already in the grip of doubts. And we ask ourselves: “Is she really interested in me? How can she love me? Incredible. And yet her behavior ... "In short, as Stendhal used to say, we "crystallize" at the thought of her, in other words, in dreams we color her with all colors, just as salt crystals in the mines of Salzburg make all the objects that are placed there shimmer.

Little by little the desire turns into an obsession, into an obsession. A coquette who wants to prolong this obsession and “drive a man crazy” just resorts to the old, like the human race, tactics: run away, making it clear before that that she has nothing against persecution, refuse, leaving, however, a glimmer of hope: "Perhaps tomorrow I will be yours. " And even then unlucky men will follow her even to the ends of the world.

These tricks are worthy of condemnation if a coquette uses them in order to unbalance numerous admirers. Such behavior will certainly make her nervous and deceive, unless she is damn clever and manages, without yielding to anyone, not to hurt the pride of men. But even the note coquette runs the risk of eventually exhausting the patience of its admirers. She, like Molière's Célimène, chasing several hares at once, ultimately catches none.

Since you cannot be in the happy side,
As I found everything in you, find everything in me,
- Farewell forever! Like a heavy burden,
With delight, I will finally throw off your chains. ^[3]

On the contrary, coquetry is completely innocent and even necessary if its purpose is to preserve the affection of the man you love. In this case, the woman deep down does not feel any desire to flirt. "The greatest miracle of love is that it cures coquetry." It is pleasant for a woman who is truly in love to give herself without looking back and pretense, often with sublime generosity. However, it happens that a woman is forced to slightly torment the one she loves, since he belongs to the number of those men who cannot live without suffering, and who are held back by doubt.

Then even a chaste but in love woman is not ashamed to pretend to be a coquette so as not to lose a man's affection, just as a sister of mercy sometimes has to be ruthless in the interests of a patient. The injection is painful, but healing. Jealousy is painful, but it strengthens the feeling. If you, my stranger, ever let me know you, don't be a coquette. Otherwise, I will certainly get caught in the net, like everyone else. Farewell.

About the lady who knows everything

– How?! Are you my neighbor, doctor?

- Yes, one of your two neighbors, ma'am.

- I'm delighted, doctor; I haven't been able to talk to you for a long time.

- I am also very happy.

– I need to get a lot of advice from you, Doctor… Wouldn’t that be a burden to you?

- To tell you the truth, ma'am...

- First of all, my insomnia... Do you remember my insomnia? But what do I see, doctor? Are you taking soup?

– Why not?

- Yes, you are crazy! There is nothing more unhealthy than the flow of liquid at the beginning of a meal ...

- Excuse me, ma'am...

- Put aside this strong broth, doctor, please, and let's study the menu together... Salmon is good... there are a lot of proteins in fish. Poulard too ... So, so, we will get the vitamin A we need with butter; vitamin C - with fruit ... There is no vitamin B at all ... What a shame! Don't you find it, doctor?

- No, and there is no trial.

- Tell me, doctor, how many calories do you need daily for a woman who, like me, leads an active lifestyle?

- I won't say exactly, ma'am... It doesn't matter at all.

- How does that matter? You will probably also say that coal is of no importance for a locomotive, and gasoline for a car! . . I lead the same lifestyle as men, and I need three thousand calories, otherwise I will become sick.

- Do you count them, ma'am?

- Am I counting them!.. You must be joking, doctor?.. I always have a table with me... five hundred ... Milk - seven hundred ...

- Excellent. But how do you know how much this chicken wing weighs?

- At home, I demand that all portions be weighed. Here, on a visit, I estimate by eye ... (She lets out a scream.) Ah, doctor!

- What is the matter with you, ma'am?

- I beg you, stop!.. This is as unbearable as the grinding of a knife, like a false note, like...

- What have I done, ma'am?

- Doctor, you are mixing proteins with carbohydrates... Oh, doctor, stop!..

- Eh! Jester take me, I eat what they serve me ...

- You! The famous doctor! .. But you know very well, doctor, that the usual meal of an ordinary Frenchman - a steak with potatoes - is the most dangerous poison that you can cook!

- Nevertheless, the ordinary Frenchman is in good health.