Biography & Autobiography Books

CHAPTER I Richard Harding Davis was born in Philadelphia on April 18, 1864, but, so far as memory serves me, his life and mine began together several years later in the three-story brick house on South Twenty-first Street, to which we had just moved. For more than forty years this was our home in all that the word implies, and I do not believe that there was ever a moment when it was not the... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION—PARENTAGE—LIFE IN SCOTLAND IN THE LAST CENTURY—EARLY EDUCATION—SCHOOL. The life of a woman entirely devoted to her family duties and to scientific pursuits affords little scope for a biography. There are in it neither stirring events nor brilliant deeds to record; and as my Mother was strongly averse to gossip, and to revelations of private life or of intimate... more...

CHAPTER VIII. — 1820.September. During our little expedition to the Copper-Mine River, Mr. Wentzel had made great progress in the erection of our winter-house, having nearly roofed it in. But before proceeding to give an account of a ten months' residence at this place, henceforth designated Fort Enterprise, I may premise, that I shall omit many of the ordinary occurrences of a North American... more...

A DESCRIPTION OF MUSIC."In the storm, in the smoke, in the fight, I comeTo help thee, dear, with my fife and my drum.My name is Music: and, when the bellRings for the dead men, I rule the knell;And, whenever the mariner wrecked through the blastHears the fog-bell sound, it was I who passed.The poet hath told you how I, a young maid,Came fresh from the gods to the myrtle shade;And thence, by a power... more...

THE LIFE  OF LORD NELSON,DUKE OF BRONTE, &c. In tracing the history of a hero so active as Lord Nelson, the mind can scarcely be allowed a moment's pause. His multifarious transactions, indeed, frequently arise in such rapid successions, that they become far too much involved with each other to admit of any precise chronological arrangement. Operations are commenced, which cannot always be... more...

JANUARY 1660-1661 1660-61. At the end of the last and the beginning of this year, I do live in one of the houses belonging to the Navy Office, as one of the principal officers, and have done now about half a year. After much trouble with workmen I am now almost settled; my family being, myself, my wife, Jane, Will. Hewer, and Wayneman,—[Will Wayneman appears by this to have been forgiven for his... more...

The researches of Sir Harris Nicolas, Dr. Furnivall, Mr. Selby and others have provided us with a considerable mass of detailed information regarding the life and career of Geoffrey Chaucer. Since the publication of Nicolas's biography of the poet prefixed to the Aldine edition of Chaucer's works in 1845, the old traditional biography of conjecture and inference, based often on mere... more...

TAKING A LINE IN THE SERVICE. That there is a tide in the affairs of men, has very naturally become a figure of frequent and almost hackneyed use in the cockpits, gun-rooms, and even the captains' cabins of our ships and vessels of war. Like its numerous brethren of common-places, it will be found, perhaps, but of small application to the real business of life; though it answers capitally to wind... more...

SIR ISAAC NEWTON n honest farmer, neither rich nor poor, was Isaac Newton. He was married to Harriet Ayscough in February, Sixteen Hundred Forty-two. Both were strong, intelligent and full of hope. Neither had any education to speak of; they belonged to England's middle class—that oft-despised and much ridiculed middle class which is the hope of the world. Accounts still in existence show that... more...

BOYS' BOOK OF FAMOUS SOLDIERS WASHINGTON THE YOUNG SURVEYOR "Turn your guns around on them! Stop them!" The command was given in peremptory tones to a demoralized group of soldiers. Not waiting for them to carry out his orders, the young officer who gave them leaped from his horse, and with his own hands turned one of the guns upon the advancing foe. Had it been the Argonne Forest, and the... more...