Biography & Autobiography Books

CHAPTER I THE AGE OF ELECTRICITY THE year 1847 marked a period of great territorial acquisition by the American people, with incalculable additions to their actual and potential wealth. By the rational compromise with England in the dispute over the Oregon region, President Polk had secured during 1846, for undisturbed settlement, three hundred thousand square miles of forest, fertile land, and... more...

INTRODUCTION. In selecting the careers of certain celebrated women who have flung themselves with ardour into the vortex of politics, the author’s choice has not been so much an arbitrary one as it might seem, but rather guided by instances in which the adventurous game has not been restricted to the commonplace contentions of the public platform, or the private salon, but played on the grandest... more...

THE VIOLIN AND EARLY VIOLINISTS. The Ancestry of the Violin.—The Origin of the Cremona School of Violin-Making.—The Amatis and Stradiuarii.—Extraordinary Art Activity of Italy at this Period.—Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius.—Something about the Lives of the Two Greatest Violin-Makers of the World.—Corelli, the First Great Violinist.—His Contemporaries and... more...

INTRODUCTION. In the early morning of Midsummer's-day, 1868, I might have been seen slowly wending my way towards the office of the Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals, at Peshawur—for the purpose of appearing before the standing Medical Committee of the station, and having an enquiry made concerning the state of my health. A Dooley followed me lest my strength should prove inadequate to the... more...

While the most noble and industrious spirits were striving, by the light of the famous Giotto and of his followers, to give to the world a proof of the ability that the benign influence of the stars and the proportionate admixture of humours had given to their intellects, and while, desirous to imitate with the excellence of their art the grandeur of Nature in order to approach as near as possible to... more...

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLEROBERT D’EVREVX, EARLE OF ESSEX AND EVVE, VISCOVNT of Hereford and Bourchier, Lord Ferrers ofChartley, Bourchier, and Louaine, Maisterof the Queenes Maiesties horse,and knight of the most honorableorder of the Garter. T. C.vvisheth increase of allhonour and happinesse. Right Honorable, hauing by chaunce recouered of late into my handes (after I had once lost the same) a copie of... more...

CHAPTER I THE NEED FOR A DOER There come times in the affairs of men which call for "not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work." Such a time is at hand. A great war, the most devastating in history, has been concluded. Its moral lesson has been taught by its master minds and learned in penitence, we may hope, by the erring and wrongly willful. But the fruits of victory are ungathered and... more...

DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS. APRIL 1667 April 1st. Up, and with Sir J. Minnes in his coach, set him down at the Treasurer's Office in Broad-streete, and I in his coach to White Hall, and there had the good fortune to walk with Sir W. Coventry into the garden, and there read our melancholy letter to the Duke of York, which he likes. And so to talk: and he flatly owns that we must have a peace, for we... more...

I Meet the Venetian Ambassadors at Lyons, and also Marcoline's Uncle—IPart from Marcoline and Set Out for Paris—An Amorous Journey Thus freed from the cares which the dreadful slanders of Possano had caused me, I gave myself up to the enjoyment of my fair Venetian, doing all in my power to increase her happiness, as if I had had a premonition that we should soon be separated from one another.... more...

CHAPTER I. ANTE BELLUM. At the Rocky Mountains.--Sentiment of the People.--Firing the Southern Heart.--A Midwinter Journey across the Plains.--An Editor's Opinion.--Election in Missouri.--The North springing to Arms.--An amusing Arrest.--Off for the Field.--Final Instructions.--Niagara.--Curiosities of Banking.--Arrival at the Seat of War. I passed the summer and autumn of 1860 in the Rocky... more...