CHAPTER I. — CHILDHOOD: DOUBLE EDUCATIONAL ELEMENT. Of Friedrich's childhood, there is not, after all our reading, much that it would interest the English public to hear tell of. Perhaps not much of knowable that deserves anywhere to be known. Books on it, expressly handling it, and Books on Friedrich Wilhelm's Court and History, of which it is always a main element, are not wanting: but... more...

Chapter I.—FIFTH CAMPAIGN OPENS. There were yet, to the world's surprise and regret, Three Campaigns of this War; but the Campaign 1760, which we are now upon, was what produced or rendered possible the other two;—was the crisis of them, and is now the only one that can require much narrative from us here. Ill-luck, which, Friedrich complains, had followed him like his shadow, in a strange and... more...

Chapter I. — PHENOMENA OF FRIEDRICH'S ACCESSION. In Berlin, from Tuesday, 31st May, 1740, day of the late King's death, till the Thursday following, the post was stopped and the gates closed; no estafette can be despatched, though Dickens and all the Ambassadors are busy writing. On the Thursday, Regiments, Officers, principal Officials having sworn, and the new King being fairly in the... more...

I. Emerson to Carlyle Boston, Massachusetts, 14 May, 1884 My Dear Sir,—There are some purposes we delay long to execute simply because we have them more at heart than others, and such an one has been for many weeks, I may say months, my design of writing you an epistle. Some chance wind of Fame blew your name to me, perhaps two years ago, as the author of papers which I had already distinguished (as... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Near seven years ago, a short while before his death in 1844, John Sterling committed the care of his literary Character and printed Writings to two friends, Archdeacon Hare and myself. His estimate of the bequest was far from overweening; to few men could the small sum-total of his activities in this world seem more inconsiderable than, in those last solemn days, it did to... more...

CHAPTER I. HARALD HAARFAGR. Till about the Year of Grace 860 there were no kings in Norway, nothing but numerous jarls,—essentially kinglets, each presiding over a kind of republican or parliamentary little territory; generally striving each to be on some terms of human neighborhood with those about him, but,—in spite of "Fylke Things" (Folk Things, little parish parliaments), and small... more...

Chapter I. — FIFTH CRISIS IN THE KAISER'S SPECTRE-HUNT. The Crown-Prince's young Life being, by perverse chance, involved and as it were absorbed in that foolish question of his English Marriage, we have nothing for it but to continue our sad function; and go on painfully fishing out, and reducing to an authentic form, what traces of him there are, from that disastrous beggarly... more...

Chapter I. — BRANNIBOR: HENRY THE FOWLER. The Brandenburg Countries, till they become related to the Hohenzollern Family which now rules there, have no History that has proved memorable to mankind. There has indeed been a good deal written under that title; but there is by no means much known, and of that again there is alarmingly little that is worth knowing or remembering. Pytheas, the Marseilles... more...

INTRODUCTION  Being an appreciation from "The Dial" (July 1843)            by Ralph Waldo Emerson Here is Carlyle's new poem, his Iliad of English woes, to follow his poem on France, entitled the History of the French Revolution. In its first aspect it is a political tract, and since Burke, since Milton, we have had nothing to compare with it. It grapples honestly with the... more...

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. There comes a time in the career of every man of genius who has devoted a long life to the instruction and enlightenment of his fellow-creatures, when he receives before his death all the honours paid by posterity. Thus when a great essayist or historian lives to attain a classic and world-wide fame, his own biography becomes as interesting to the public as those he himself... more...