From "A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities" by Anthony Kaldellis
A young man begged Daniel, an Egyptian ascetic, to come to his home and pray over his wife, who was infertile. Daniel did so and she became pregnant, but people then began to say that it was the man who had been sterile, not the wife, and that Daniel caused the pregnancy in a non-miraculous way. When he heard this, Daniel told the man to inform him when the child was born and to prepare a meal for all his friends and neighbors. After the meal, Daniel took the newborn in his arms and asked him, Who is your father? The infant, who was twenty-two days old, said, that man, pointing to the woman's husband (Ioannes Moschos, Spiritual Meadow 114) .
Why are you so melancholy?
Monday blues?
"English as She is Spoke" is a delightful example of incompetence and bad judgement. Jose da Fonseca and Pedro Carolina set out to write a Portuguese-English phrasebook. The only problem was that they didn't speak any English. They did know some French and armed with French-English phrasebook, dictionaries and enthusiasm they brought forth this book. Mark Twain was an early admirer of this book. "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect, it must and will stand alone: its immortality is secure."
