Biography & Autobiography Books

STRUGGLE Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the "old popular Horace" of Tennyson, petted and loved, by Frenchmen and Englishmen especially, above all the poets of antiquity, was born on 8th December, B.C. 65. He calls himself in his poems by the three names indifferently, but to us he is known only by the affectionate diminutive of his second or gentile name, borne by his father, according to the... more...

PREFACE Books about Balzac would fill a fair-sized library. Criticisms on his novels abound, and his contemporaries have provided us with several amusing volumes dealing in a humorous spirit with his eccentricities, and conveying the impression that the author of "La Cousine Bette" and "Le Pere Goriot" was nothing more than an amiable buffoon. Nevertheless, by some strange anomaly,... more...

Chapter 1.The Treatise on the Human Will. At Balzac's funeral, the glorious yet bitter seal upon his destiny, Victor Hugo delivered a magnificent address, and in his capacity as poet and seer proclaimed with assurance the judgment of posterity: "His life has been brief yet full, and richer in works than in days. "Alas! This powerful and indefatigable worker, this philosopher, this thinker,... more...

Ever since 1807, when the space between the Rhine and the Niemen had been overrun, the two great empires of which these rivers were the boundaries had become rivals. By his concessions at Tilsit, at the expense of Prussia, Sweden, and Turkey, Napoleon had only satisfied Alexander. That treaty was the result of the defeat of Russia, and the date of her submission to the continental system. Among the... more...

ZENOBIA OF PALMYRA: THE GIRL OF THE SYRIAN DESERT. [Afterward known as "Zenobia Augusta, Queen of the East."] A.D. 250. MANY and many miles and many days' journey toward the rising sun, over seas and mountains and deserts,—farther to the east than Rome, or Constantinople, or even Jerusalem and old Damascus,—stand the ruins of a once mighty city, scattered over a mountain-walled oasis... more...

HISTORIC DOUBTS ON THE LIFE AND REIGN OF KING RICHARD III. There is a kind of literary superstition, which men are apt to contract from habit, and which-makes them look On any attempt towards shaking their belief in any established characters, no matter whether good or bad, as a sort of prophanation. They are determined to adhere to their first impressions, and are equally offended at any innovation,... more...

MARCUS OF ROME: THE BOY MAGISTRATE. (Afterward the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.) [a.d. 137.] A perfect autumn day. Above, the clear sky of Italy; below, a grassy plain, sloping gently down from the brown cliffs and ruined ramparts of old Veii—the city of the ancient Tuscan kings. In the background, under the shade of the oaks, a dozen waiting attendants; and here, in the open space before us,... more...

INTRODUCTION The "Historia Calamitatum" of Peter Abélard is one of those human documents, out of the very heart of the Middle Ages, that illuminates by the glow of its ardour a shadowy period that has been made even more dusky and incomprehensible by unsympathetic commentators and the ill-digested matter of "source-books." Like the "Confessions" of St. Augustine it is an... more...

THE DIVINE ANNOUNCINGS The Word Made Flesh. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. There came a man,... more...

Some succeed while others fail. This is a recognized fact; yet history tells us that seven-tenths of our most successful men began life poor. As our title indicates, we shall endeavor to show "why some succeed while others fail." Knowing that everybody desires success, and recognizing the old adage, "Example is the best of teachers," we have selected representative characters from the... more...