The great American storyteller, author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, offers this brief, moralistic animal tale featuring the cleverness of the cat, the skepticism of the ass, and the curiosity of a host of other animals of the forest.

This gentle ancient Greek philosopher lived a life of celibacy and temperance and taught that reason was to be used to enable people to judge with certainty what is to be chosen, and what to be avoided, to preserve themselves free from pain, and to secure health of body, and tranquillity of mind.

From Whitman's entry on May 12. The narrative of a two-day battle, replete with details of the relentless fighting and gruesome carnage, the beauty of the cloudy sky revealing a silvery moon, and ending with a tribute to the thousands of unknown and unburied soldiers who perished in the United States Civil War.

A collection of quotations on mortality from various sources, famous and less known, classic and contemporary.

A second set of five sonnets on Love by William Shakespeare, in celebration of Mother's Day. Music: A madrigal, Amor mi sprona (bassoon & choir) by Alfonso Ferrabosco, Sr. Performed by Robert Rønnes.

EPITOME's 3rd 9-passage installment of this terse philosophical classic attributed to the legendary ancient Chinese sage, Laotze.

A selection from the collection titled Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories by Ambrose Bierce.

In celebration of the 48th anniversary of Earth Day, EPITOME presents the words of Walt Whitman in "Song of the Rolling Earth."

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer on the perception of time at different phases of life.

The conclusion of this core document of spiritual wisdom.