CHAPTER I. THE YOUNG FIGHTER There is a line of Browning's that should stand as epitaph for Theodore Roosevelt: "I WAS EVER A FIGHTER." That was the essence of the man, that the keynote of his career. He met everything in life with a challenge. If it was righteous, he fought for it; if it was evil, he hurled the full weight of his finality against it. He never capitulated, never... more...

FOREWORD Naturally, there are chapters of my autobiography which cannot now be written. It seems to me that, for the nation as for the individual, what is most important is to insist on the vital need of combining certain sets of qualities, which separately are common enough, and, alas, useless enough. Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is... more...

The fifth and sixth centuries do not supply us with many materials for pictorial illustrations, and I do not know where to look for authentic and contemporary representations of the civil or military life of Theodoric and his subjects. We have, however, a large and interesting store of nearly contemporary works of art at Ravenna, illustrating the ecclesiastical life of the period, and of these the... more...

ON CHRISTIANITY, AS AN ORGAN OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. [1846.] FORCES, which are illimitable in their compass of effect, are often, for the same reason, obscure and untraceable in the steps of their movement. Growth, for instance, animal or vegetable, what eye can arrest its eternal increments? The hour-hand of a watch, who can detect the separate fluxions of its advance? Judging by the past, and the... more...

Chap. I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The Cucumber, Cucumis sativa, is supposed to be a native of the East Indies; but like many other of our culinary plants, the real stations which it naturally has occupied, are involved in obscurity: in habit it is a trailing herb, with thick fleshy stems, broadly palmate leaves, and yellow axillary monæcious flowers. In the natural arrangement of the vegetable kingdom,... more...

SECTION I. First step in the discovery—Animal Heat the product of Respiration. Second step—Heat evolved in the lungs by Respiration there produces Expansion. Third step—Expansion; implied motion, which from the organism must conduct the blood to the left ventricle of the Heart. Theory imperfect, until the formation of sufficient vapor or steam in the lungs is perceived and acknowledged. To... more...

PREFACE The silk industry of America has of late years rapidly advanced to the front rank among the great textile industries of the world. It may indeed be proud of this position, to which that enterprising spirit and untiring energy peculiar to our nation, combined with our great technical and natural resources, has brought it. That we are, on the other hand, not yet at the height of perfection we are... more...

CHAPTER I. THEORY of the EARTH; or an Investigation of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration, of Land upon the Globe. SECTION I. Prospect of the Subject to be treated of. When we trace the parts of which this terrestrial system is composed, and when we view the general connection of those several parts, the whole presents a machine of a peculiar construction by which it... more...

CHAPTER I. Facts in confirmation of the Theory of ElevatingLand above the Surface of the Sea. The first object now to be examined, in confirmation of the theory, is that change of posture and of shape which is so frequently found in mountainous countries, among the strata which had been originally almost plain and horizontal. Here it is also that an opportunity is presented of having sections of those... more...

Chapter One ~~ Introductory The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture; as, for instance, in feudal Europe or feudal Japan. In such communities the distinction between classes is very rigorously observed; and the feature of most striking economic significance in these class differences is the distinction maintained between the... more...