Biography & Autobiography Books

Chapter 1 Origin of the Browning Family—Robert Browning's Grandfather—His position and Character—His first and second Marriage—Unkindness towards his eldest Son, Robert Browning's Father—Alleged Infusion of West Indian Blood through Robert Browning's Grandmother—Existing Evidence against it—The Grandmother's Portrait. A belief was current in Mr. Browning's... more...

CHAPTER XI. And sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear him again. News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montana (whither Slade had removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him. I find an account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph from in the last chapter—"The Vigilantes of Montana; being a Reliable Account of the Capture, Trial and... more...

1. The family from which I am derived is not an ignoble one, but hath descended all along from the priests; and as nobility among several people is of a different origin, so with us to be of the sacerdotal dignity, is an indication of the splendor of a family. Now, I am not only sprung from a sacerdotal family in general, but from the first of the twenty-four courses; and as among us there is not only... more...

BEGINNINGSOne look back—as we hurry o'er the plain,Man's years speeding us along—One look back! From the hollow past again,Youth, come flooding into song!Tell how once, in the breath of summer air,Winds blew fresher than they blow;Times long hid, with their triumph and their care,Yesterday—many years ago!E. E. Bowen.The wayfarer who crosses Lincoln's Inn Fields perceives in the... more...

April 1st. Up and to my office, where busy till noon, and then to the 'Change, where I found all the merchants concerned with the presenting their complaints to the Committee of Parliament appointed to receive them this afternoon against the Dutch. So home to dinner, and thence by coach, setting my wife down at the New Exchange, I to White Hall; and coming too soon for the Tangier Committee walked... more...

ANTE-BELLUM Before the war the Canadian Militia consisted of about 75,000 of all ranks and all grades of efficiency. To a neutral eye it must have appeared to be in a highly disorganised condition, for battalions and corps had sprung up here and there throughout the country with no proportion existing between them and the other arms of the service. And yet within a short two months after the outbreak... more...

CHAPTER I. Sitting down at the age of eighty-four to give an account of my life, I feel that it connects itself naturally with the growth and development of the province of South Australia, to which I came with my family in the year 1839, before it was quite three years old. But there is much truth in Wordsworth's line, "the child is father of the man," and no less is the mother of the... more...

No golden eagle, warm from the stamping press of the mint, is more sharply impressed with its image and superscription than was the formative period of our government by the genius and personality of Thomas Jefferson. Standing on the threshold of the nineteenth century, no one who attempted to peer down the shadowy vista, saw more clearly than he the possibilities, the perils, the pitfalls and the... more...

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...

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...