South America Books

Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.Yes, the city of Benares is in effect just a big church, a religious hive, whose every cell is a temple, a shrine or a mosque, and whose every conceivable earthly and heavenly good is procurable under one roof, so to speak—a sort of Army and Navy Stores,... more...

PREFACE. Although the Journal of a voyage to Brazil, and of a residence of many months in that country, was not written without a view to publication at some time; yet many unforeseen circumstances forced the writer to pause before she committed it to press, and to cancel many pages recording both public and private occurrences. Perhaps there is even yet too much of a personal nature, but what is said... more...

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.From diary: Mr. G. called. I had not seen him since Nauheim, Germany--several years ago; the time that the cholera broke out at Hamburg. We talked of the people we had... more...

—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.We spent part of an afternoon and a night at sea, and reached Bluff, in New Zealand, early in the morning. Bluff is at the bottom of the middle island, and is away down south, nearly forty-seven degrees below the equator. It lies as far south of the line as Quebec lies north of it, and the climates of the two should be alike; but for some reason or other it... more...

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.Suppose we applied no more ingenuity to the instruction of deaf and dumb and blind children than we sometimes apply in our American public schools to the instruction of children who are in possession of all their faculties? The result would be that the deaf and dumb and... more...

It is your human environment that makes climate.—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.Sept. 15—Night. Close to Australia now. Sydney 50 miles distant. That note recalls an experience. The passengers were sent for, to come up in the bow and see a fine sight. It was very dark. One could not follow with the eye the surface of the sea more than fifty yards in any direction it dimmed away and... more...