Biography & Autobiography Books

CHAPTER I. Forty years ago the departure of a cadet for India was a much more1852 serious affair than it is at present. Under the regulations then in force, leave, except on medical certificate, could only be obtained once during the whole of an officer's service, and ten years had to be spent in India before that leave could be taken. Small wonder, then, that I felt as if I were bidding England... more...

INTRODUCTION BY FIELD-MARSHAL SIR EVELYN WOOD, V.C. I regard John Denton French as the man who for the last twelve years has been the driving force of tactical instruction in the British Army. He made use of all the best ideas of the Generals who preceded him in the Aldershot Command, and he was, I think, instrumental in causing the appointment of Horace Smith-Dorrien and Douglas Haig to succeed in... more...

Karl May, born in 1842 under the name Carl Friedrich May, published the first volume of his autobiography in November of 1910. He never found the time to write the planned second volume or any of the other future works he is referring to in this book before he died in 1912. Rudolf Lebius felt insulted by what Karl May had to say about him in his autobiography, and, less than one month after the sale of... more...

I La Creste, Huiry, Couilly. S et M. September 16, 1914 Dear Old Girl:— More and more I find that we humans are queer animals. All through those early, busy, exciting days of September,—can it be only a fortnight ago?—I was possessed, like the "busy bee," to "employ each shining hour" by writing out my adventures. Yet, no sooner was the menace of those days gone, than, for days at... more...

Four American Leaders The facts about Franklin as a printer are simple and plain, but impressive. His father, respecting the boy's strong disinclination to become a tallow-chandler, selected the printer's trade for him, after giving him opportunities to see members of several different trades at their work, and considering the boy's own tastes and aptitudes. It was at twelve years of age... more...

I F ever a compelling Fate set its grip upon a man and drove him to an accomplishment beside his purpose and outside his thought, it was when Henry Hudson—having headed his ship upon an ordered course northeastward—directly traversed his orders by fetching that compass to the southwestward which ended by bringing him into what now is Hudson's River, and which led on quickly to the founding of... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                NOVEMBER                                  1668 November 1st (Lord's day). Up, and with W. Hewer at my chamber all this morning, going further in my great business for the Duke of York, and so at noon to dinner, and then W. Hewer... more...

Chapter 46 Enchantments and Enchanters THE largest annual event in New Orleans is a something which we arrived too late to sample—the Mardi-Gras festivities. I saw the procession of the Mystic Crew of Comus there, twenty-four years ago—with knights and nobles and so on, clothed in silken and golden Paris-made gorgeousnesses, planned and bought for that single night's use; and in their train... more...

CHAPTER I. THE "MONTFORT." A wintry ride—Retrospect—Embarkation—A typical day—"Stables" in rough weather—Las Palmas—The tropics—Inoculation—Journalism—Fashions—"Intelligent anticipation"—Stable-guard—Arrival. With some who left for the War it was "roses, roses, all the way." For us, the scene was the square of St. John's Wood Barracks at 2... more...

PREFACE Although it is now a century since Lamarck published the germs of his theory, it is perhaps only within the past fifty years that the scientific world and the general public have become familiar with the name of Lamarck and of Lamarckism. The rise and rehabilitation of the Lamarckian theory of organic evolution, so that it has become a rival of Darwinism; the prevalence of these views in the... more...