Biography & Autobiography Books

CHAPTER I JOHNSON AS A NATIONAL INSTITUTION The name of Samuel Johnson is, of course, not the greatest in English prose, but even to-day, when he has been dead more than a century and a quarter, it is still the most familiar. We live in an age of newspapers. Where all can read, the newspaper press, taken as a whole, will be a fairly accurate reflection of what is in the mind of a people. Nothing will... more...

I 12th May, 1900. ... The weather is becoming hot, even here in latitude 40 and in the month of May. The Peking dust, distinguished among all the dusts of the earth for its blackness, its disagreeable insistence in sticking to one's clothes, one's hair, one's very eyebrows, until a grey-brown coating its visible to every eye, is rising in heavier clouds than ever. In the market-places,... more...

This account of the life of St. Ignatius, dictated by himself, is considered by the Bollandists the most valuable record of the great Founder of the Society of Jesus. The editors of the Stimmen Aus Maria Laach, the German review, as well as those of the English magazine, The Month, tell us that it, more than any other work, gives an insight into the spiritual life of St. Ignatius. Few works in... more...

CHAPTER I. I LEAVE MY FARM "Is it so small a thingTo have enjoyed the sun,To have lived light in spring?" It is eight o'clock of a sunny spring morning. I have been on the road for almost three hours. At five I left the town of Holt, before six I had crossed the railroad at a place called Martin's Landing, and an hour ago, at seven, I could see in the distance the spires of... more...

I I am asked to jot down a few autobiographic odds and ends from such data of record and memory as I may retain. I have been something of a student of life; an observer of men and women and affairs; an appraiser of their character, their conduct, and, on occasion, of their motives. Thus, a kind of instinct, which bred a tendency and grew to a habit, has led me into many and diverse companies, the... more...

PREFACE This book was written during the three last months of 1915 and the first month of this year in the form of letters from France, Greece, Serbia, and England. The writer visited ten of the twelve sectors of the French front, seeing most of them from the first trench, and was also on the French-British front in the Balkans. Outside of Paris the French cities visited were Verdun, Amiens, St. Die,... more...

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                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                 AUGUST                                  1668 August 1st. All the morning at the office. After dinner my wife, and Deb., and I, to the King's house again, coming too late yesterday to hear the prologue, and do like the play... more...

CHAPTER I Childhood and Youth James Watt, born in Greenock, January 19, 1736, had the advantage, so highly prized in Scotland, of being of good kith and kin. He had indeed come from a good nest. His great-grandfather, a stern Covenanter, was killed at Bridge of Dee, September 12, 1644, in one of the battles which Graham of Claverhouse fought against the Scotch. He was a farmer in Aberdeenshire, and... more...

Es war gegen sechs Uhr abends im Juni 1958, als ein gut gekleideter Herr mit einem schwarzen Hut auf einer Bank am Bahnsteig Nummer drei des Bahnhofs von Surat in Gujarat saß. Auf dem Bahnsteig herrschte reges Treiben, und die Züge der anderen Linien fuhren. Er hatte gerade vor Sonnenuntergang zu Abend gegessen und wartete auf einen anderen Zug, der ihn nach Vadodara bringen sollte. Sein Name war... more...