His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City every day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered from aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the marker called him by his given name, and he called the marker "Bullseyes." Charlie explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the place to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to his mother.

The Finest Story in the World is a short story by Rudyard Kipling.Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 - 18 January 1936 was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He wrote tales and poems of British soldiers in India and stories for children. He was born in Bombay, in the Bombay Presidency of British India, and was taken by his family to England when he was five years old.Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (a collection of stories which includes "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"), the Just So Stories (1902), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If-" (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date. Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all of which he declined.Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age and the resulting contrasting views about him continued for much of the 20th century. George Orwell called him a "prophet of British imperialism". Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "He [Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with.

El influjo de esta fascinante reflexión sobre el poder de la creatividad y el oficio de escribir ha sido inmenso. Jorge Luis Borges no dudó en considerarlo uno de los cuentos más memorables que había leído. Y no es para menos. Gracias a obras como esta, Rudyard Kipling ganó el Premio Nobel de Literatura de 1907 y se cuenta entre los mejores narradores británicos de todos los tiempos. Works like this fascinating reflection on the power of creativity and the craft of writing earned Rudyard Kipling the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. He's considered to be among the best British storytellers of all time.

El tratado del hombre formaba originalmente parte de una obra más extensa, El tratado de la luz o El mundo, cuya publicación suspendió Descartes al tener noticia de la condena de Galileo por la Inquisición. Fue publicado separadamente siguiendo el criterio establecido por Schuyl (1662) y Clerselier (1664), sus primeros editores, que consideraron con acierto El tratado del hombre como una obra autónoma dentro del manuscrito de El tratado de la luz.La ruptura a que en éste llega Descartes, a nivel de principios generales, con la concepción teleológica, se hace extensiva al campo de los seres vivos, cuya organización, así como la coordinación y adaptación que revelan en su conducta, son explicadas aceptando la suposición de que el cuerpo vivo no es otra cosa que una máquina integrada por piezas, cuya disposición y forma bastan para explicar cuantos actos voluntarios o involuntarios caracterizan su actividad.