Welcome... Find sample excerpts of the best academic reading on the GR.AM.P.S. Arts & Humanities Sample Page...
		^TM

Sample Page • Table o f Contents

Go to History & Social Thought • Literature • Philosophy & Religion • GRAMPS Home Page

History & Social Thought

Churchill, Sir Winston: Selected Writings

River War

An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan (1902 edition)

From Chapter I:
The Rebellion of the Mahdi

The north-eastern quarter of the continent of Africa is drained and watered by the Nile. Among and about the headstreams and tributaries of this mighty river lie the wide and fertile provinces of the Egyptian Soudan. Situated in the very centre of the land, these remote regions are on every side divided from the seas by five hundred miles of mountain, swamp, or desert. The great river is their only means of growth, their only channel of progress. It is by the Nile alone that their commerce can reach the outer markets, or European civilisation can penetrate the inner darkness. The Soudan is joined to Egypt by the Nile, as a diver is connected with the surface by his air-pipe. Without it there is only suffocation. Aut Nilus, aut nihil!

The town of Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, is the point on which the trade of the south must inevitably converge. It is the great spout through which the merchandise collected from a wide area streams northwards to the Mediterranean shore. It marks the extreme northern limit of the fertile Soudan. Between Khartoum and Assuan the river flows for twelve hundred miles through deserts of surpassing desolation. At last the wilderness recedes and the living world broadens out again into Egypt and the Delta. It is with events that have occurred in the intervening waste that these pages are concerned.

The Story of the Malakand Field Force

An Episode of Frontier War

Preface

Chapter I: The Theatre of War

Chapter II: The Malakand Camps

Chapter III: The Outbreak

Chapter IV: The Attack on the Malakand

Chapter V: The Relief of Chakdara

Chapter VI: The Defence of Chakdara

Chapter VII: The Gate of Swat

Chapter VIII: The Advance Against the Mohmands

Chapter IX: Reconnaissance

Chapter X: The March to Nawagai

Chapter XI: The Action of the Mamund Valley, 16th Sept.

Chapter XII: At Inayat Kila

Chapter XIII: Nawagai

Chapter XIV: Back to the Mamund Valley

Chapter XV: The Work of the Cavalry

Chapter XVI: Submission

Chapter XVII: Military Observations

Chapter XVIII: The Riddle of the Frontier

Appendix

From the Preface

On general grounds I deprecate prefaces. I have always thought that if an author cannot make friends with the reader, and explain his objects, in two or three hundred pages, he is not likely to do so in fifty lines. And yet the temptation of speaking a few words behind the scenes, as it were, is so strong that few writers are able to resist it. I shall not try.

While I was attached to the Malakand Field Force I wrote a series of letters for the London Daily Telegraph. The favourable manner in which these letters were received, encouraged me to attempt a more substantial work. This volume is the result.

from Chapter I: The Theatre of War

All along the north and north-west frontiers of India lie the Himalayas, the greatest disturbance of the earth's surface that the convulsions of chaotic periods have produced. Nearly four hundred miles in breadth and more than sixteen hundred in length, this mountainous region divides the great plains of the south from those of Central Asia, and parts as a channel separates opposing shores, the Eastern Empire of Great Britain from that of Russia. The western end of this tumult of ground is formed by the peaks of the Hindu Kush, to the south of which is the scene of the story these pages contain. The Himalayas are not a line, but a great country of mountains. By one who stands on some lofty pass or commanding point in Dir, Swat or Bajaur, range after range is seen as the long surges of an Atlantic swell, and in the distance some glittering snow peak suggests a white-crested roller, higher than the rest. . . . Again the rain has cut wide, deep and constantly-changing channels through this soft deposit; great gutters, which are sometimes seventy feet deep and two or three hundred yards across. These are the nullahs. Usually the smaller ones are dry, and the larger occupied only by streams; but in the season of the rains, abundant water pours down all, and in a few hours the brook has become an impassable torrent, and the river swelled into a rolling flood which caves the banks round which it swirls, and cuts the channel deeper year by year.

. . . The streams are full of fish, both trout and mahseer. By the banks teal, widgeon and wild duck, and in some places, snipe, are plentiful. Chikor, a variety of partridge, and several sorts of pheasants, are to be obtained on the hills. . .

Over all is a bright blue sky and powerful sun. Such is the scenery of the theatre of war.

The inhabitants of these wild but wealthy valleys are of many tribes, but of similar character and condition. The abundant crops which a warm sun and copious rains raise from a fertile soil, support a numerous population in a state of warlike leisure. Except at the times of sowing and of harvest, a continual state of feud and strife prevails throughout the land. Tribe wars with tribe. The people of one valley fight with those of the next. To the quarrels of communities are added the combats of individuals. Khan assails khan, each supported by his retainers. Every tribesman has a blood feud with his neighbor. Every man's hand is against the other, and all against the stranger.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Douglass, Frederick: Collected Articles

My Bondage and My Freedom

By a principle essential to Christianity, a person is eternally differenced from a thing; so that the idea of a human being, necessarily excludes the idea of property in that being. -- Coleridge

Entered according to Act of Congress in 1855 by Frederick Douglass in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New York.

Dear Friend:

I have long entertained, as you very well know, a somewhat positive repugnance to writing or speaking anything for the public, which could, with any degree of plausibility, make me liable to the imputation of seeking personal notoriety, for its own sake. Entertaining that feeling very sincerely, and permitting its control, perhaps, quite unreasonably, I have often refused to narrate my personal experience in public anti- slavery meetings, and in sympathizing circles, when urged to do so by friends, with whose views and wishes, ordinarily, it were a pleasure to comply. In my letters and speeches, I have generally aimed to discuss the question of Slavery in the light of fundamental principles, and upon facts, notorious and open to all; making, I trust, no more of the fact of my own former enslavement, than circumstances seemed absolutely to require. I have never placed my opposition to slavery on a basis so narrow as my own enslavement, but rather upon the indestructible and unchangeable laws of human nature, every one of which is perpetually and flagrantly violated by the slave system. . . .

In Talbot county, Eastern Shore, Maryland, near Easton, the county town of that county, there is a small district of country, thinly populated, and remarkable for nothing that I know of more than for the worn-out, sandy, desert-like appearance of its soil, the general dilapidation of its farms and fences, the indigent and spiritless character of its inhabitants, and the prevalence of ague and fever.

The name of this singularly unpromising and truly famine stricken district is Tuckahoe, a name well known to all Marylanders, black and white. It was given to this section of country probably, at the first, merely in derision; or it may possibly have been applied to it, as I have heard, because some one of its earlier inhabitants had been guilty of the petty meanness of stealing a hoe -- or taking a hoe that did not belong to him. Eastern Shore men usually pronounce the word took, as tuck; Took-a-hoe, therefore, is, in Maryland parlance, Tuckahoe. But, whatever may have been its origin -- and about this I will not be positive -- that name has stuck to the district in question; and it is seldom mentioned but with contempt and derision, on account of the barrenness of its soil, and the ignorance, indolence, and poverty of its people. Decay and ruin are everywhere visible, and the thin population of the place would have quitted it long ago, but for the Choptank river, which runs through it, from which they take abundance of shad and herring, and plenty of ague and fever.

It was in this dull, flat, and unthrifty district, or neighborhood, surrounded by a white population of the lowest order, indolent and drunken to a proverb, and among slaves, who seemed to ask, "Oh! what's the use?" every time they lifted a hoe, that I -- without any fault of mine was born, and spent the first years of my childhood.

Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass

Author of Many Works on the Escape from Slavery around the Time of the Civil War

My Escape from Slavery

The Century Illustrated Magazine 23, n.s. 1 (Nov. 1881): 125-131.

In the first narrative of my experience in slavery, written nearly forty years ago, and in various writings since, I have given the public what I considered very good reasons for withholding the manner of my escape. In substance these reasons were, first, that such publication at any time during the existence of slavery might be used by the master against the slave, and prevent the future escape of any who might adopt the same means that I did. The second reason was, if possible, still more binding to silence: the publication of details would certainly have put in peril the persons and property of those who assisted. Murder itself was not more sternly and certainly punished in the State of Maryland than that of aiding and abetting the escape of a slave. Many colored men, for no other crime than that of giving aid to a fugitive slave, have, like Charles T. Torrey, perished in prison. The abolition of slavery in my native State and throughout the country, and the lapse of time, render the caution hitherto observed no longer necessary. But even since the abolition of slavery, I have sometimes thought it well enough to baffle curiosity by saying that while slavery existed there were good reasons for not telling the manner of my escape, and since slavery had ceased to exist, there was no reason for telling it. I shall now, however, cease to avail myself of this formula, and, as far as I can, endeavor to satisfy this very natural curiosity. I should, perhaps, have yielded to that feeling sooner, had there been anything very heroic or thrilling in the incidents connected with my escape, for I am sorry to say I have nothing of that sort to tell; and yet the courage that could risk betrayal and the bravery which was ready to encounter death, if need be, in pursuit of freedom, were essential features in the undertaking. My success was due to address rather than courage, to good luck rather than bravery. My means of escape were provided for me by the very men who were making laws to hold and bind me more securely in slavery.

...

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Written by Himself.

Chapter I

I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest- time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty- eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old. My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grand- father. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant -- before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result. I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night. She was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve miles from my home. She made her journeys to see me in the night, travelling the whole distance on foot, after the performance of her day's work. She was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise, unless a slave has special permission from his or her master to the contrary -- a permission which they seldom get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud name of being a kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took place between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my master's farms, near Lee's Mill. I was not al- lowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial. She was gone long before I knew any thing about it. Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Grant Ulysses S.

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, complete

Preface.

"Man proposes and God disposes." There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice. . .

Volume I.

Chapter I.
Ancestry -- Birth -- Boyhood.

Chapter II.
West Point -- Graduation.

Chapter III.
Army life -- causes of the Mexican war -- camp salubrity.

Chapter IV.
Corpus Christi -- Mexican Smuggling -- Spanish Rule In Mexico -- Supplying Transportation.

Chapter V.
Trip To Austin -- Promotion To Full Second-Lieutenant -- Army Of Occupation.

Chapter VI.
Advance Of The Army -- Crossing The Colorado -- The Rio Grande.

Chapter VII.
The Mexican War -- The Battle Of Palo Alto -- The Battle Of Resaca De La Palma -- Army Of Invasion -- General Taylor -- Movement On Camargo.

Chapter VIII.
Advance On Monterey -- The Black Fort -- The Battle Of Monterey -- Surrender Of The City.

Chapter IX.
Political Intrigue -- Buena Vista -- Movement Against Vera Cruz -- Siege And Capture Of Vera Cruz.

Chapter X.
March To Jalapa -- Battle Of Cerro Gordo -- Perote -- Puebla -- Scott And Taylor.

Chapter XI.
Advance On The City Of Mexico -- Battle Of Contreras -- Assault At Churubusco -- Negotiations For Peace -- Battle Of Molino Del Rey -- Storming Of Chapultepec -- San Cosme -- Evacuation Of The City -- Halls Of The Montezumas.

Chapter XII.
Promotion To First Lieutenant -- Capture Of The City Of Mexico -- The Army -- Mexican Soldiers -- Peace Negotiations.

Chapter XIII.
Treaty Of Peace -- Mexican Bull Fights -- Regimental Quartermaster -- Trip To Popocatapetl -- Trip To The Caves Of Mexico.

Chapter XIV.
Return Of The Army -- Marriage -- Ordered To The Pacific Coast -- Crossing The Isthmus -- Arrival At San Francisco.

Chapter XV.
San Francisco -- Early California Experiences -- Life On The Pacific Coast -- Promoted Captain -- Flush Times In California.

Chapter XVI.
Resignation -- Private Life -- Life At Galena -- The Coming Crisis.

Chapter XVII.
Outbreak Of The Rebellion -- Presiding At A Union Meeting -- Mustering Officer Of State Troops -- Lyon At Camp Jackson -- Services Tendered To The Government.

Chapter XVIII.
Appointed Colonel Of The 21st Illinois -- Personnel Of The Regiment -- General Logan -- March To Missouri -- Movement Against Harris At Florida, Mo. -- General Pope In Command -- Stationed At Mexico, Mo.

Chapter XIX.
Commissioned Brigadier-General -- Command At Ironton, Mo. -- Jefferson City -- Cape Girardeau -- General Prentiss -- Seizure Of Paducah -- Headquarters At Cairo.

Chapter XX.
General Fremont In Command -- Movement Against Belmont -- Battle Of Belmont -- A Narrow Escape -- After The Battle.

Chapter XXI.
General Halleck In Command -- Commanding The District Of Cairo -- Movement On Fort Henry -- Capture Of Fort Henry.

Chapter XXII.
Investment Of Fort Donelson -- The Naval Operations -- Attack Of The Enemy -- Assaulting The Works -- Surrender Of The Fort.

Chapter XXIII.
Promoted Major-General Of Volunteers -- Unoccupied Territory -- Advance Upon Nashville -- Situation Of The Troops -- Confederate Retreat -- Relieved Of The Command -- Restored To The Command -- General Smith.

Chapter XXIV.
The Army At Pittsburg Landing -- Injured By A Fall -- The Confederate Attack At Shiloh -- The First Day's Fight At Shiloh -- General Sherman -- Condition Of The Army -- Close Of The First Day's Fight -- The Second Day's Fight -- Retreat And Defeat Of The Confederates.

Chapter XXV.
Struck By A Bullet -- Precipitate Retreat Of The Confederates -- Intrenchments At Shiloh -- General Buell -- General Johnston -- Remarks On Shiloh.

Chapter XXVI.
Halleck Assumes Command In The Field -- The Advance Upon Corinth -- Occupation Of Corinth -- The Army Separated.

Chapter XXVII.
Headquarters Moved To Memphis -- On The Road To Memphis -- Escaping Jackson -- Complaints And Requests -- Halleck Appointed Commander-In-Chief -- Return To Corinth -- Movements Of Bragg -- Surrender Of Clarksville -- The Advance Upon Chattanooga -- Sheridan Colonel Of A Michigan Regiment.

Chapter XXVIII.
Advance Of Van Dorn And Price -- Price Enters Iuka -- Battle Of Iuka.

Chapter XXIX.
Van Dorn's Movements -- Battle Of Corinth -- Command Of The Department Of The Tennessee.

Chapter XXX.
The Campaign Against Vicksburg -- Employing The Freedmen -- Occupation Of Holly Springs -- Sherman Ordered To Memphis -- Sherman's Movements Down The Mississippi -- Van Dorn Captures Holly Springs -- Collecting Forage And Food.

Chapter XXXI.
Headquarters Moved To Holly Springs -- General Mcclernand In Command -- Assuming Command At Young's Point -- Operations Above Vicksburg -- Fortifications About Vicksburg -- The Canal -- Lake Providence -- Operations At Yazoo Pass.

Chapter XXXII.
The Bayous West Of The Mississippi -- Criticisms Of The Northern Press -- Running The Batteries -- Loss Of The Indianola -- Disposition Of The Troops.

Chapter XXXIII.
Attack On Grand Gulf -- Operations Below Vicksburg.

Chapter XXXIV.
Capture Of Port Gibson -- Grierson's Raid -- Occupation Of Grand Gulf -- Movement Up The Big Black -- Battle Of Raymond.

Chapter XXXV.
Movement Against Jackson -- Fall Of Jackson -- Intercepting The Enemy -- Battle Of Champion's Hill.

Chapter XXXVI.
Battle Of Black River Bridge -- Crossing The Big Black -- Investment Of Vicksburg -- Assaulting The Works.

Chapter XXXVII.
Siege Of Vicksburg.

Chapter XXXVIII.
Johnston's Movements -- Fortifications At Haines's Bluff -- Explosion Of The Mine -- Explosion Of The Second Mine -- Preparing For The Assault -- The Flag Of Truce -- Meeting With Pemberton -- Negotiations For Surrender -- Accepting The Terms -- Surrender Of Vicksburg.

Chapter XXXIX.
Retrospect Of The Campaign -- Sherman's Movements -- Proposed Movement Upon Mobile -- A Painful Accident -- Ordered To Report At Cairo.

...

Excerpts from Chapter I.

Ancestry -- Birth -- Boyhood.

My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.

Mathew Grant, the founder of the branch in America, of which I am a descendant, reached Dorchester, Massachusetts, in May, 1630. In 1635 he moved to what is now Windsor, Connecticut, and was the surveyor for that colony for more than forty years. He was also, for many years of the time, town clerk. He was a married man when he arrived at Dorchester, but his children were all born in this country. His eldest son, Samuel, took lands on the east side of the Connecticut River, opposite Windsor, which have been held and occupied by descendants of his to this day.

I am of the eighth generation from Mathew Grant, and seventh from Samuel. . . .

During the minority of my father, the West afforded but poor facilities for the most opulent of the youth to acquire an education, and the majority were dependent, almost exclusively, upon their own exertions for whatever learning they obtained. . . He made himself an excellent English scholar, and before he was twenty years of age was a constant contributor to Western newspapers, and was also, from that time until he was fifty years old, an able debater in the societies for this purpose, which were common in the West at that time. He always took an active part in politics, but was never a candidate for office, except, I believe, that he was the first Mayor of Georgetown. He supported Jackson for the Presidency; but he was a Whig, a great admirer of Henry Clay, and never voted for any other democrat for high office after Jackson. . . .

My father was, from my earliest recollection, in comfortable circumstances, considering the times, his place of residence, and the community in which he lived. Mindful of his own lack of facilities for acquiring an education, his greatest desire in maturer years was for the education of his children. Consequently, as stated before, I never missed a quarter from school from the time I was old enough to attend till the time of leaving home. This did not exempt me from labor. In my early days, every one labored more or less, in the region where my youth was spent, and more in proportion to their private means.

...

from Chapter II. West Point -- Graduation.

In the winter of 1838-9 I was attending school at Ripley, only ten miles distant from Georgetown, but spent the Christmas holidays at home. During this vacation my father received a letter from the Honorable Thomas Morris, then United States Senator from Ohio. When he read it he said to me, Ulysses, I believe you are going to receive the appointment." "What appointment?" I inquired. To West Point; I have applied for it." "But I won't go," I said. He said he thought I would, and I thought so too, if he did. I really had no objection to going to West Point, except that I had a very exalted idea of the acquirements necessary to get through. I did not believe I possessed them, and could not bear the idea of failing.

...

Volume II.

Contents.

Chapter XL.
First Meeting With Secretary Stanton -- General Rosecrans -- Commanding Military Division Of Mississippi -- Andrew Johnson's Address -- Arrival At Chattanooga.

Chapter XLI.
Assuming The Command At Chattanooga -- Opening A Line Of Supplies -- Battle Of Wauhatchie -- On The Picket Line.

Chapter XLII.
Condition Of The Army -- Rebuilding The Railroad -- General Burnside's Situation -- Orders For Battle -- Plans For The Attack -- Hooker's Position -- Sherman's Movements.

Chapter XLIII.
Preparations For Battle -- Thomas Carries The First Line Of The Enemy -- Sherman Carries Missionary Ridge -- Battle Of Lookout Mountain -- General Hooker's Fight.

Chapter XLIV.
Battle Of Chattanooga -- A Gallant Charge -- Complete Rout Of The Enemy -- Pursuit Of The Confederates -- General Bragg -- Remarks On Chattanooga.

Chapter XLV.
The Relief Of Knoxville -- Headquarters Moved To Nashville -- Visiting Knoxville -- Cipher Dispatches -- Withholding Orders.

Chapter XLVI.

Operations In Mississippi -- Longstreet In East Tennessee -- Commissioned Lieutenant-General -- Commanding The Armies Of The United States -- First Interview With President Lincoln.

Chapter XLVII.
The Military Situation -- Plans For The Campaign -- Sheridan Assigned To Command Of The Cavalry -- Flank Movements -- Forrest At Fort Pillow -- General Banks's Expedition -- Colonel Mosby -- An Incident Of The Wilderness Campaign.

Chapter XLVIII.
Commencement Of The Grand Campaign -- General Butler's Position -- Sheridan's First Raid.

Chapter XLIX.
Sherman S Campaign In Georgia -- Siege Of Atlanta -- Death Of General Mcpherson -- Attempt To Capture Andersonville -- Capture Of Atlanta.

Chapter L.
Grand Movement Of The Army Of The Potomac -- Crossing The Rapidan -- Entering The Wilderness -- Battle Of The Wilderness.

Chapter LI.
After The Battle -- Telegraph And Signal Service -- Movement By The Left Flank.

Chapter LII.
Battle Of Spottsylvania -- Hancock's Position -- Assault Of Warren's And Wright's Corps -- Upton Promoted On The Field -- Good News From Butler And Sheridan.

Chapter LIII.
Hancock's Assault -- Losses Of The Confederates -- Promotions Recommended -- Discomfiture Of The Enemy -- Ewell's Attack -- Reducing The Artillery.

Chapter LIV.
Movement By The Left Flank -- Battle Of North Anna -- An Incident Of The March -- Moving On Richmond -- South Of The Pamunkey -- Position Of The National Army.

Chapter LV.
Advance On Cold Harbor -- An Anecdote Of The War -- Battle Of Cold Harbor -- Correspondence With Lee Retrospective.

Chapter LVI.Left Flank Movement Across The Chickahominy And James -- General Lee -- Visit To Butler -- The Movement On Petersburg -- The Investment Of Petersburg.

Chapter LVII.
Raid On The Virginia Central Railroad -- Raid On The Weldon Railroad -- Early's Movement Upon Washington -- Mining The Works Before Petersburg -- Explosion Of The Mine Before Petersburg -- Campaign In The Shenandoah Valley -- Capture Of The Weldon Railroad.

Chapter LVIII.
Sheridan's Advance -- Visit To Sheridan -- Sheridan's Victory In The Shenandoah -- Sheridan's Ride To Winchester -- Close Of The Campaign For The Winter.

Chapter LIX.
The Campaign In Georgia -- Sherman's March To The Sea -- War Anecdotes -- The March On Savannah -- Investment Of Savannah -- Capture Of Savannah.

Chapter LX.
The Battle Of Franklin -- The Battle Of Nashville

Chapter LXI.

Expedition Against Fort Fisher -- Attack On The Fort -- Failure Of The Expedition -- Second Expedition Against The Fort -- Capture Of Fort Fisher.

Chapter LXII.
Sherman's March North -- Sheridan Ordered To Lynchburg -- Canby Ordered To Move Against Mobile -- Movements Of Schofield And Thomas -- Capture Of Columbia, South Carolina -- Sherman In The Carolinas.

Chapter LXIII.
Arrival Of The Peace Commissioners -- Lincoln And The Peace Commissioners -- An Anecdote Of Lincoln -- The Winter Before Petersburg -- Sheridan Destroys The Railroad -- Gordon Carries The Picket Line -- Parke Recaptures The Line -- The Battle Of White Oak Road.

Chapter LXIV.
Interview With Sheridan -- Grand Movement Of The Army Of The Potomac -- Sheridan's Advance On Five Forks -- Battle Of Five Forks -- Parke And Wright Storm The Enemy's Line -- Battles Before Petersburg.

Chapter LXV.
The Capture Of Petersburg -- Meeting President Lincoln In Petersburg -- The Capture Of Richmond -- Pursuing The Enemy -- Visit To Sheridan And Meade.

Chapter LXVI.
Battle Of Sailor's Creek -- Engagement At Farmville -- Correspondence With General Lee -- Sheridan Intercepts The Enemy.

Chapter LXVII.
Negotiations At Appomattox -- Interview With Lee At Mclean's House -- The Terms Of Surrender -- Lee's Surrender -- Interview With Lee After The Surrender.

Chapter LXVIII.
Morale Of The Two Armies -- Relative Conditions Of The North And South -- President Lincoln Visits Richmond -- Arrival At Washington -- President Lincoln's Assassination -- President Johnson's Policy.

Chapter LXIX.
Sherman And Johnston -- Johnston's Surrender To Sherman -- Capture Of Mobile -- Wilson's Expedition -- Capture Of Jefferson Davis -- General Thomas's Qualities -- Estimate Of General Canby.

Chapter LXX.
The End Of The War -- The March To Washington -- One Of Lincoln's Anecdotes -- Grand Review At Washington -- Characteristics Of Lincoln And Stanton -- Estimate Of The Different Corps Commanders.

Conclusion

Appendix

Excerpt from Chapter XL.

The reply (to my telegram of October 16, 1863, from Cairo, announcing my arrival at that point) came on the morning of the 17th, directing me to proceed immediately to the Galt House, Louisville, where I would meet an officer of the War Department with my instructions. I left Cairo within an hour or two after the receipt of this dispatch, going by rail via Indianapolis. Just as the train I was on was starting out of the depot at Indianapolis a messenger came running up to stop it, saying the Secretary of War was coming into the station and wanted to see me. . . .

Up to this time no hint had been given me of what was wanted after I left Vicksburg, except the suggestion in one of Halleck's dispatches that I had better go to Nashville and superintend the operation of troops sent to relieve Rosecrans. Soon after we started the Secretary handed me two orders, saying that I might take my choice of them. The two were identical in all but one particular. Both created the "Military Division of Mississippi," (giving me the command) composed of the Departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee, and all the territory from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi River north of Banks's command in the south-west. One order left the department commanders as they were, while the other relieved Rosecrans and assigned Thomas to his place. I accepted the latter. We reached Louisville after night and, if I remember rightly, in a cold, drizzling rain. The Secretary of War told me afterwards that he caught a cold on that occasion from which he never expected to recover. He never did. . . .

As stated before, after the fall of Vicksburg I urged strongly upon the government the propriety of a movement against Mobile. General Rosecrans had been at Murfreesboro', Tennessee, with a large and well-equipped army from early in the year 1863, with Bragg confronting him with a force quite equal to his own at first, considering it was on the defensive. But after the investment of Vicksburg Bragg's army was largely depleted to strengthen Johnston, in Mississippi, who was being reinforced to raise the siege. I frequently wrote General Halleck suggesting that Rosecrans should move against Bragg. By so doing he would either detain the latter's troops where they were or lay Chattanooga open to capture. General Halleck strongly approved the suggestion, and finally wrote me that he had repeatedly ordered Rosecrans to advance, but that the latter had constantly failed to comply with the order, and at last, after having held a council of war, had replied in effect that it was a military maxim "not to fight two decisive battles at the same time." If true, the maxim was not applicable in this case. It would be bad to be defeated in two decisive battles fought the same day, but it would not be bad to win them.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Hamilton, Alexander

The Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 1

General Introduction

For the Independent Journal.
Saturday, October 27, 1787

To the People of the State of New York:

After an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the Union, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth.

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Lee Robert E

Recollections and Letters of General Lee

by Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

Chapter I

Services in the United States Army

Captain Lee, of the Engineers, a hero to his child -- The family pets -- Home from the Mexican War -- Three years in Baltimore -- Superintendent of the West Point Military Academy -- Lieutenant- Colonel of Second Cavalry -- Supresses "John Brown Raid" at Harper's Ferry -- Commands the Department of Taxes

Chapter II

The Confederate General

Resigns from Colonelcy of First United States Cavalry -- Motives for this step -- Chosen to command Virginia forces -- Anxiety about his wife, family, and possessions -- Chief advisor to President Davis -- Battle of Manassas -- Military operations in West Virginia -- Letter to State Governor

Chapter III

Letters to Wife and Daughters

From Camp on Sewell's Mountain -- Quotation from Colonel Taylor's book -- From Professor Wm. P. Trent -- From Mr. Davis's Memorial Address -- Defense of Southern ports -- Christmas, 1861 -- The General visits his father's grave -- Commands, under the President, all the armies of the Confederate States

Chapter IV

Army Life of Robert the Younger

Volunteer in Rockbridge Artillery -- "Four Years with General Lee" quoted -- Meeting between father and son -- Personal characteristics of the General -- Death of his daughter Annie -- His son Robert raised from the ranks -- the horses, "Grace Darling" and "Traveller" -- Fredricksburg -- Freeing slaves

Chapter V

The Army of Northern Virginia

The General's sympathy for his suffering soldiers -- Chancellorsville -- Death of "Stonewall" Jackson -- General Fitzhugh Lee wounded and captured -- Escape of his brother Robert -- Gettysburg -- Religious revival -- Infantry review -- Unsatisfactory commissariat

Chapter VI

The Winter of 1863-4

The Lee family in Richmond -- The General's letters to them from Camps Rappahannock and Rapidan -- Death of Mrs. Fitzhugh Lee -- Preparations to meet General Grant -- The Wilderness -- Spottsylvania Court House -- Death of General Stuart -- General Lee's illness

Chapter VII

Fronting the Army of the Potomac

Battle of Cold Harbour -- Siege of Petersburg -- The General intrusts a mission to his son Robert -- Battle of the Crater -- Grant crosses the James River -- General Long's pen-picture of Lee -- Knitting socks for the soldiers -- A Christmas dinner -- Incidents of camp life

Chapter VIII

The Surrender

Fort Fisher captured -- Lee made Commander-in-Chief -- Battle of Five Forks -- The General's farewell to his men -- His reception in Richmond after the surrender -- President Davis hears the news -- Lee's visitors -- His son Robert turns farmer

Chapter IX

A Private Citizen

Lee's conception of the part -- His influence exerted toward the restoration of Virginia -- He visits old friends throughout the country -- Receives offers of positions -- Compares notes with the Union General Hunter -- Longs for a country home -- Finds one at "Derwent," near Cartersville

Chapter X

President of Washington College

Patriotic motives for acceptance of trust -- Condition of college -- The General's arrival at Lexington -- He prepares for the removal of his family to that city -- Advice to Robert Junior -- Trip to "Bremo" on private canal-boat -- Mrs. Lee's invalidism

Chapter XI

The Idol of the South

Photographs and autographs in demand -- The General's interest in young people -- His happy home life -- Labours at Washington College -- He gains financial aid for it -- Worsley's translation of Homer dedicated to him -- Tributes from other English scholars

Chapter XII

Lee's Opinion upon the Late War

His intention to write the history of his Virginia campaigns -- Called before a committee of Congress -- Preaches patience and silence in the South -- Shuns controversy and publicity -- Corresponds with an Englishman, Herbert C. Saunders

Chapter XIII

Family Affairs

The General writes to his sons -- To his wife at Rockbridge Baths -- He joins her there about once a week -- Distinguised and undistinguished callers at his Lexington home -- He advocates early hours -- His fondness for animals

Chapter XIV

An Ideal Father

Letters to Mildred Lee -- To Robert -- To Fitzhugh -- Interviewed by Swinton, historian of the Army of the Potomac -- Improvement in grounds and buildings of Washington College -- Punctuality a prominent trait of its President -- A strong supporter of the Y.M.C.A.

Chapter XV

Mountain Rides

An incident about "Traveller" -- The General's love for children -- His friendship with Ex-President Davis -- A ride with his daughter to the Peaks of Otter -- Mildred Lee's narrative -- Mrs. Lee at the White Sulphur Springs -- The great attention paid her husband there -- His idea of life

Chapter XVI

An Advisor of Young Men

Lee's policy as college president -- His advice on agricultural matters -- His affection for his prospective daughter-in-law -- Fitzhugh's wedding -- The General's ovation at Petersburg -- his personal interest in the students under his care

Chapter XVII

The Reconstruction Period

The General believes in the enforcement of law and order -- His moral influence in the college -- Playful humour shown in his letters -- His opinion of negro labour -- Mr. Davis's trial -- Letter to Mrs. Fitzhugh Lee -- Intercourse with Faculty

Chapter XVIII

Mrs. R. E. Lee

Goest to Warm Springs for rheumatism -- Her daughter Mildred takes typhoid there -- Removes to Hot Springs -- Her husband's devotion -- Visit of Fitzhugh and bride to Lexington -- Miss Jones, a would-be benefactor of Washington College -- Fate of Washington relics belonging to Mrs. Lee's family

Chapter XIX

Lee's Letters to His Sons

The building of Robert's house -- The General as a railroad delegate -- Lionised in Baltimore -- Calls on President Grant -- Visits Alexandria -- Declines to be interviewed -- Interested in his grandson -- The Washington portraits

Chapter XX

The New Home in Lexington

Numerous guests -- Further sojourns at different Baths -- Death of the General's brother, Smith Lee -- Visits to "Ravensworth" and "The White House" -- Meetings with interesting people at White Sulphur Springs -- Death of Professor Preston

Chapter XXI

Failing Health

The General declines lucrative positions in New York and Atlanta -- He suffers from an obstinate cold -- Local gossip -- He is advised to go South in the spring of 1870 -- Desires to visit his daughter Annie's grave

Chapter XXII

The Southern Trip

Letters to Mrs. Lee from Richmond and Savannah -- From Brandon -- Agnes Lee's account of her father's greetings from old friends and old soldiers -- Wilmington and Norfolk do him honour -- Visits to Fitzhugh and Robert in their homes

Chapter XXIII

A Round of Visits

Baltimore -- Alexandria -- A war-talk with Cousin Cassius Lee -- "Ravensworth" -- Letter to Doctor Buckler declining invitation to Europe -- To General Cooper -- To Mrs. Lee from the Hot Springs -- Tired of public places -- Preference for country life

Chapter XXIV

Last Days

Letter to his wife -- To Mr. Tagart -- Obituary notice in "Personal Reminiscences of General Robert E. Lee" -- Mrs. Lee's account of his death

from Chapter I -- Services in the United States Army

The first vivid recollection I have of my father is his arrival at Arlington, after his return from the Mexican War. I can remember some events of which he seemed a part, when we lived at Fort Hamilton, New York, about 1846, but they are more like dreams, very indistinct and disconnected -- naturally so, for I was at that time about three years old. But the day of his return to Arlington, after an absence of more than two years, I have always remembered. I had a frock or blouse of some light wash material, probably cotton, a blue ground dotted over with white diamond figures. Of this I was very proud, and wanted to wear it on this important occasion. Eliza, my "mammy," objecting, we had a contest and I won. Clothed in this, my very best, and with my hair freshly curled in long golden ringlets, I went down into the larger hall where the whole household was assembled, eagerly greeting my father, who had just arrived on horseback from Washington, having missed in some way the carriage which had been sent for him.

There was visiting us at this time Mrs. Lippitt, a friend of my mother's, with her little boy, Armistead, about my age and size, also with long curls. Whether he wore as handsome a suit as mine I cannot remember, but he and I were left together in the background, feeling rather frightened and awed. After a moment's greeting to those surrounding him, my father pushed through the crowd, exclaiming:

"Where is my little boy?"

He then took up in his arms and kissed -- not me, his own child in his best frock with clean face and well-arranged curls -- but my little playmate, Armistead! I remember nothing more of any circumstances connected with that time, save that I was shocked and humiliated. I have no doubt that he was at once informed of his mistake and made ample amends to me.

A letter from my father to his brother Captain S. S. Lee, United States Nave, dated "Arlington, June 30, 1848," tells of his coming home:

"Here I am once again, my dear Smith, perfectly surrounded by Mary and her precious children, who seem to devote themselves to staring at the furrows in my face and the white hairs in my head. It is not surprising that I am hardly recognisable to some of the young eyes around me and perfectly unknown to the youngest. But some of the older ones gaze with astonishment and wonder at me, and seem at a loss to reconcile what they see and what was pictured in their imaginations. I find them, too, much grown, and all well, and I have much cause for thankfulness, and gratitude to that good God who has once more united us." . . .

From that early time I began to be impressed with my father's character, as compared with other men. Every member of the household respected, revered and loved him as a matter of course, but it began to dawn on me that every one else with whom I was thrown held him high in their regard. At forty-five years of age he was active, strong, and as handsome as he had ever been. I never remember his being ill. I presume he was indisposed at times; but no impressions of that kind remain. He was always bright and gay with us little folk, romping, playing, and joking with us. With the older children, he was just as companionable, and the have seen him join my elder brothers and their friends when they would try their powers at a high jump put up in our yard. The two younger children he petted a great deal, and our greatest treat was to get into his bed in the morning and lie close to him, listening while he talked to us in his bright, entertaining way. . . . Although he was so joyous and familiar with us, he was very firm on all proper occasions, never indulged us in anything that was not good for us, and exacted the most implicit obedience. I always knew that it was impossible to disobey my father. I felt it in me, I never thought why, but was perfectly sure when he gave an order that it had to be obeyed.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Lincoln, Abraham

Collected Writings

Lines included in these selected passages:

House divided against itself cannot stand
If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad
Never stir up litigation
No man can be silent if he would
We do not want to dissolve the Union; You shall not
Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free
Smallest are often the most difficult things to deal with
Hard to affirm a negative
Judges are as honest as other men, and not more so
I must say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency
If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must
Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal weakness?
It is bad to be poor
Jibes and sneers in place of argument
Secession is the essence of anarchy
Wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief
Emancipation Proclamation
Order of Retaliation
Who has the right needs not to fear
Bad promises are better broken than kept
Four Score and Seven Years Ago
Irresponsible Newspaper Reporters and Editors
That Some Should Be Rich Shows That Others May Become Rich
Too Lazy to Be Anything but a Lawyer
War at the Best Is Terrible
We Accepted this War, and Did Not Begin it
World Has Never Had a Good Definition of the Word Liberty
Would Accept War Rather than Let [the Union] Perish

Volume 1.

Introductory

Immediately after Lincoln's re-election to the Presidency, in an off-hand speech, delivered in response to a serenade by some of his admirers on the evening of November 10, 1864, he spoke as follows:

"It has long been a grave question whether any government not too strong for the liberties of its people can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies. On this point, the present rebellion brought our republic to a severe test, and the Presidential election, occurring in regular course during the rebellion, added not a little to the strain.... The strife of the election is but human nature practically applied to the facts in the case. What has occurred in this case must ever occur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged.... Now that the election is over, may not all having a common interest reunite in a common fort to save our common country? For my own part, I have striven and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here, I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a re-election and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think for their own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the result."

This speech has not attracted much general attention, yet it is in a peculiar degree both illustrative and typical of the great statesman who made it, alike in its strong common-sense and in its lofty standard of morality. Lincoln's life, Lincoln's deeds and words, are not only of consuming interest to the historian, but should be intimately known to every man engaged in the hard practical work of American political life. . . .

The American people should feel profoundly grateful that the greatest American statesman since Washington, the statesman who in this absolutely democratic republic succeeded best, was the very man who actually combined the two sets of qualities which the historian thus puts in antithesis. Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter, the Western country lawyer, was one of the shrewdest and most enlightened men of the world, and he had all the practical qualities which enable such a man to guide his countrymen; and yet he was also a genius of the heroic type, a leader who rose level to the greatest crisis through which this nation or any other nation had to pass in the nineteenth century.

-- Theodore Roosevelt
September 22, 1905.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It "Limerence":
The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

"Nothing has ever been so 'invisible in plain sight'," Dr. Tennov says of "limerence." Limerence is a distinct state that creates that "feeling of being in love" -- that state which Hollywood loves to portray as "love," but that is really as far from the genuine article as a zircon is from a true diamond. Yet, although we see it all around us, full-blown limerence is usually difficult for the "uninitiated" to imagine.

During 35 years of research, and especially since the publication of her classic work, Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love, Dr. Tennov has received thousands of emails and handwritten letters, anonymously filed, that say, over and over, "Thank you for letting me know I am not alone, and not crazy, and that this feeling has a name." (As one desperate writer cried, "I can't even tell my psychiatrist -- he'll think I'm crazy!")

The feelings of a man or woman caught up in limerence (a person Dr. Tennov calls a "limerent") can range from euphoria to misery, from the "greatest happiness" to suicidal grief. The limerent's emotional state usually rises and falls with the way that the person who is the object of a limerent's affections (the "LO") responds ... or fails to. At its best, limerence draws people together--to make marriage commitments, to build families, to propagate the species. However at its worst -- and all too often -- limerence spurs people to make regrettable life decisions (like running away with a 'heart-throb'), generates feelings of desolation, breaks up families, and shatters hearts.

This new eBook contains most of Dr. Dorothy Tennov's mature work, including decades of responses and reactions to Love and Limerence.

Below is a sample from this eBook -- The Trial (A Love Story) is a novel that takes the reader on a scientific exploration into this frequent, though not universal, experience. It is based on actual events and real situations. It is a step toward discovering, "What is this thing called love?"

from The Trial (A Love Story)

Introduction:

At first, Ruth and Xavier spoke mostly about their field work, in the jungles of New Guinnea. Xavier described what he knew of the customs of the various tribes they visited. Then they talked about more general scientific matters. Xavier introduced her to Alan Browne's theory on Love Two.

But, even after borrowing and reading Xavier's copy of Browne's book, Ruth hadn't really understood that Love Two was a distinct state - universal, across cultures in its potential - but also something that not all people experienced.

"Browne," said Xavier, "and my personal experience has confirmed it, Love Two is something a person is either in or not in. You see, the course of Love Two depends on what happens. Mainly, it depends on how the person who is its object behaves, but also on whether there are obstacles to fulfillment. Adversity actually strengthens it. At least, that's what he says. If the union between Romeo and Juliet had met with family approval, they might not have been attracted to each other.

"Browne contends that once a person is caught in its grip, there are only two routes out of Love Two: Total fulfillment of desire through reciprocation, or obstacles so great that hope for fulfillment is completely and totally destroyed. The latter may never happen, because Love Two leads one to hang on to every conceivable sign of a possibility that the person will come around. That's why it can take a long time to get over it. Browne reported that it could last a lifetime under conditions with a little hope here and there."

"That must be what is meant by 'stringing someone along,'" Ruth said. "Frankly, Love Two sounds diabolical."

"You got it," Xavier answered. "Love Two gives rise to the most wonderful, most ecstatic, most entirely pleasurable experience human beings ever know. The French writer Stendhal called it 'the greatest happiness.' Browne told about an interview, taped by one of his assistants, in which a woman told such a tale of torment that it brought tears to Browne's eyes as he listened. When the interview was over, the interviewer, almost as an afterthought, asked if the woman had any final comment. She responded, 'Despite the pain, I would not have missed it for anything. It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. It gave meaning to my life!' "

"No wonder psychologist Stanton Peele calls it an addiction. You make it sound like a drug effect."

"That's right. And Browne said he had found it in all kinds of people from the very uptight to the very laid back. How they dealt with it was different, but how they felt, what they wanted, and how much their thinking was interfered with, was the same for king and commoner."

"So that's what is meant by universality. It could happen, although it might not, but if it does happen, it happens in the same way to everyone."

"Furthermore," Xavier said excitedly, "Some of Browne's informants reported having the experience for the first time in their forties, or even later. One man said he finally understood what the words to an old songs meant. He had always assumed they were romantic exaggerations. He was astonished to learn that they were literal descriptions."

"You mean things like 'I can't get you out of my mind'."
"Precisely."

Chapter I: Talk Radio

Peter Young, Ph.D., psychotherapist, was sued by a patient. Nancy Mackintosh had consulted him because she wanted to have a family, but her love relationships had always ended short of a lifetime commitment because the men would become suffocatingly over-possessive. She had liked them all as friends and as lovers, but she was unable to respond to them in some mysterious way that they said they needed her to. Dr. Young had claimed in their first session that hers was the sort of problem for which he believed his brand of psychotherapy was especially well suited. He later repeated that promise on tape, but what he promised is not what happened.

As with all heavily publicized cases, the public expressed itself on the subject. There following statements record some of the many opinions expressed by callers to radio shows. The trial had ended, but the publicity continued to reverberate around the country. Few people who watched the trial of Dr. Young on TV or read about it in the newspapers understood all that happened, why the verdict was what it was, or how the suit had been hatched by special interests. Nor did they understand the relevance of the trial to the revolution in human reproduction that would take place during their lifetimes. But I get ahead of my tale.

Man from Milwaukee:

As one who has on many occasions been the object of the irrational passions of others, I have a unique perspective on the proceedings. My opinion is that such people have succumbed to a virtually criminal level of irrationality in which they act against their own long-term interests. I could have written the movie Fatal Attraction, in which a rejected lover takes ugly revenge. I have been threatened.

Man from Boston:

Being the object of loving attentions has resulted in delightful encounters. There are problems for the weak, the empathic, or the overly moral, but if men can tolerate smothering attentions and allow their lovers to do what they want to do for them, there can be many delightful benefits. Only take care NOT to be the one who "loves." It's only being the object of passion that is useful. After all, it is a matter of their choices and their sins. The object of another's fixation can, if he or she is wise, enjoy pleasure without responsibility…But it is something I give to the woman, not something I feel. I enjoy; she, at least temporarily, is transported to a state of ecstasy that I can only wonder at. For me it's fun; it's more than that for her. The trial clarified some things I'd have preferred not be clarified.

Man from Delaware Village, Vermont:

The Young case demonstrated what I have always known: It is that to leave the church is to do the bidding of the immoral antichrist. It is to walk with Satan. Put a godless man in a position of power, and he will use it to do the Devil's work. God bless.

Woman from Seattle:

The person I am calling about, who will be nameless, was lovesick. His wife had left him for another man. He could not stop wanting her and he could not stop believing it was possible to get her back. I could see what he was going through. It was just like in the book about Love Two that they talked about at the trial - which meant he really couldn't help how he felt. I tried to explain to them that it was not his fault and that the man was not really crazy, just obsessed in this one way. But the members of the church were outraged. They said I was contradicting the doctrine of free will and individual responsibility. That was also their attitude toward the Young Case. They said that Dr. Young chose to feel the way he did, and he chose to do what he did.

Woman from New York:

I don't believe in this Love Two nonsense. There is no such thing as not being able to control your own thoughts, at least not outside the nut house. They are just trying to excuse their indulgences. That's all I want to say.

Woman from Arlington:

I felt sorry for Dr. Young. There, but for the luck of the draw, could have gone anyone. Even from the biased newspaper accounts, I could see the poor man's quandary. He did nothing wrong. Nancy Mackintosh wasn't the victim; Dr. Young was the victim. He was only looking out for her interests. Certainly he was wounded by the publicity. It's not the sort of thing one wants to expose to the world, whichever way you look at it.

Man from Alabama:

The human experience transcends what science can know. Science has no business messing with it. Love is sacred. It is wrong to try to tamper with love. Our humanity is under threat from these so-called scientists who carry on about Love Two.

Woman from Phoenix:

I went right out and bought the book they were talking about at the trial. It told me that I was not alone. Maybe it is madness, but it is a normal kind of madness generally restricted to the one aspect of life. Except that it can take over other aspects. Dr. Young's vision got clouded.

Male from Kansas:

Those so-called Love Two stories bore me and probably other listeners too. Psychotherapy? It's for the unbalanced. That whole case made a mountain out of a mole's hill. It's nothing. Can we please get off the Young case and get back to something important, like global warming, nuclear waste, or international terrorism?

Woman from Maine:

My mother would spend long periods in what she called her "time of quiet contemplation." She would sit alone or she would lie on a couch or in her hammock lost to everything except what was going on in her mind. Mother had been dead for ten years before I understood what had been happening. Although I had read the her diary, the clippings, and the letters, I could not decode them until the Young case woke me up. I hadn't known about the emotion or the pain, and I was especially ignorant about the joy of it. For Mother, that man was the most important thing in life. He was a beacon of light and a source of exquisite pain and infinite pleasure. He gave meaning to her life, maybe a kind of meaning that others find in religion. Love Two is a powerful force. Nancy had learned to be careful, which was why she had to bring the suit against Dr. Young.

Man from Delaware:

For me, "Love Two" is a phony love with no redeeming features. I've been there. She had me in her grip; she pulled my strings and pushed my buttons. But it was all beneath the surface. She was unaware. It was not deliberate on her part, and I never committed the Young error. Maybe I was too shy. It would have been too embarrassing to fail, and it was too irrational to be revealed. I guess that, as a psychotherapist, Dr. Young had more ways to rationalize the act, more bases for convincing himself that his Love Two conception of Nancy was correct, thereby overruling his professional judgment. At times I thought I was crazy, neurotic, or whatever silly thing you want to call it. But the worst of it was the wasteful inanity. Some foreign, tantalizing, but ultimately evil thing had taken possession of me. It undermined my professional life and broke up my home.

Man from Toronto:

The Young case was important to me; it showed me that even though IT was crazy, I could see that I was not.

Man from Florida:

I'm tired of this story and I'm tired of these calls about Dr. Young. It's a swindle, and someone should be sued for wasting taxpayer's money. It was the stupidest and most boring soap opera I ever heard of. The man did nothing, nothing happened, and the insurance companies won big time.

Woman from Nebraska:

The rules are simple and obvious. Ask Shakespeare. Once struck by Cupid's arrow or after downing the love potion, a person is transported to a new state of motivation. Young was playing by the rules of the wrong game.

When it was all over, Ruth was reminded of the Monica Lewinsky saga and the dress stain that changed the course of history. Whatever the end results might be, lives had been changed. That President was crippled in the one way that he might have risen above others. His sanctimonious enemies had a long field day. The ease with which they won the many plays that followed led to a scientific question that Ruth pondered seriously years later. That moment, that shameful little event, what many considered to be an ordinary indignity, meaningless in the sweep of large human events, was able to divert history.

As it happens to them, people tend to be unaware of how closely their lives depend on the actions of particular others who are in positions of power. Her husband's tiny indiscretion, in parallel manner to the blue dress incident, seemed to have brought about a similar large change; at least it was large within certain circles. Maybe it was the best thing that could have happened, and maybe Peter would go down in history as the tool of change for the better. But, even many years later, when scientific discovery had vindicated some of the participants in the drama, a faction within intelligent readership continued to condemn Peter for dishonesty. This was ironical because he was a totally honest man. Ruth could not find a definition of honesty that Peter did not fit. It was why his role as defendant was pathetic, albeit consistently dignified.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •

Click here to order Dr. Tennov's eBook securely online via PayPal
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Literature & Language

......

Barrie James M: The James M. Barrie Collection

What Every Woman Knows

[Stage Directions:]
James Wylie is about to make a move on the dambrod, and in the little Scotch room there is an awful silence befitting the occasion. James with his hand poised -- for if he touches a piece he has to play it, . . . -- raises his red head suddenly to read Alick's face. His father, who is Alick, is pretending to be in a panic lest James should make this move. James grins heartlessly, and his fingers are about to close on the 'man' when some instinct of self-preservation makes him peep once more. This time Alick is caught: the unholy ecstasy on his face tells as plain as porridge that he has been luring James to destruction. . . . You will find them thus any Saturday night . . .

...

The Admirable Crichton

[Stage Directions:]
A moment before the curtain rises, the Hon. Ernest Woolley drives up to the door of Loam House in Mayfair. There is a happy smile on his pleasant, insignificant face, and this presumably means that he is thinking of himself. He is too busy over nothing, this man about town, to be always thinking of himself, but, on the other hand, he almost never thinks of any other person. Probably Ernest's great moment is when he wakes of a morning and realises that he really is Ernest, for we must all wish to be that which is our ideal. . . . He is a bachelor, but not of arts, no mean epigrammatist …, and a favourite of the ladies. He is almost a celebrity in restaurants, where . . . during this last year he has probably paid as much in them for the privilege of handing his hat to an attendant as the rent of a working-man's flat . . . If he has his way he will spend his life like a cat in pushing his betters out of the soft places, and until he is old he will be fondled in the process.

...

Alice Sit-By-The-Fire

[Stage Directions:]
One would like to peep covertly into Amy's diary . . . To take such a liberty, and allow the reader to look over our shoulders, . . . we should learn at once what sort of girl Amy is. . . The book, to be sure, is padlocked, but we happen to know where it is kept. . . . Sometimes in the night Amy, waking up, . . . steals downstairs in white . . . [and] lingers among the pages, re-reading the peculiarly delightful bit she wrote yesterday; so we could peep over her shoulder, while the reader peeps over ours.

...

Auld Licht Idyls

[Stage Directions:]
Early this morning I opened a window in my school-house in the glen of Quharity, awakened by the shivering of a starving sparrow against the frosted glass. . . . Two days ago my hilarious bantam-cock, saucy to the last, my cheeriest companion, was found frozen in his own water-trough . . . In the warm kitchen, where I dawdle over my breakfast, the widowed bantam-hen has perched on the back of my drowsy cat. It is needless to go through the form of opening the school to-day; for, with the exception of Waster Lunny's girl, I have had no scholars for nine days.

...

Dear Brutus

[Stage Directions:]
The scene is a darkened room, which the curtain reveals so stealthily that if there was a mouse on the stage it is there still. Our object is to catch our two chief characters unawares; they are Darkness and Light.

...

Echoes of the War

[Stage Directions:]
Three nice old ladies and a criminal, who is even nicer, are discussing the war over a cup of tea. The criminal, who is the hostess, calls it a dish of tea, . . . but that is not her crime.

...

The Little Minister

[Stage Directions:]
Long ago, in the days when our caged blackbirds never saw a king's soldier without whistling impudently, . . . a minister of Thrums was to be married, but something happened, and he remained a bachelor. Then, when he was old, he passed in our square the lady who was to have been his wife, and her hair was white, but she, too, was still unmarried. The meeting had only one witness, a weaver, and he said solemnly afterwards, "They didna speak, but they just gave one another a look, and I saw the love-light in their een." No more is remembered of these two, no being now living ever saw them, but the poetry that was in the soul of a battered weaver makes them human to us for ever.

...

The Little White Bird (including Peter Pan)

[Stage Directions:]
Sometimes the little boy who calls me father brings me an invitation from his mother: "I shall be so pleased if you will come and see me" . . . "Come this time, father," he urged lately, "for it is her birthday, and she is twenty-six" I had my delicious dream that night. I dreamt that I too was twenty-six, which was a long time ago, and that I took train to a place called my home…

...

Margaret Ogilvy

The author of Peter Pan writes about his mother, Margaret Ogilvy.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page

Bierce, Ambrose ("Josh Billings"), Himself

Can Such Things Be?

One dark night in midsummer a man waking from a dreamless sleep in a forest lifted his head from the earth, and staring a few moments into the blackness, said: "Catherine Larue." He said nothing more; no reason was known to him why he should have said so much. The man was Halpin Frayser. He lived in St. Helena, but where he lives now is uncertain, for he is dead. One who practices sleeping in the woods with . . . nothing over him but the branches from which the leaves have fallen …, cannot hope for great longevity, and Frayser had already attained the age of thirty-two. There are persons in this world, millions of persons, and far and away the best persons, who regard that as a very advanced age. They are the children. To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure[,] the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore.

...

The Devil's Dictionary

ABILITY, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions, distinguishing able men from dead ones.

ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the . . . resemblance of the Average Man ...

CYNIC: A blackguard who whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.

...

Fantastic Fables

The Moral Principle and the Material Interest -- A Moral Principle met a Material Interest on a bridge wide enough for but one.

"Down, you base thing!" thundered the Moral Principle, "and let me pass over you!"

The Material Interest merely looked in the other's eyes without saying anything . . .

...

The Crimson Candle

A man lying at the point of death called his wife to his bedside and said:

"I am about to leave you forever; give me, therefore, one last proof of your affection and fidelity, for, according to our holy religion, a married man seeking admittance at the gate of Heaven is required to swear that he has never defiled himself with an unworthy woman. In my desk you will find a crimson candle, which has been blessed by the High Priest and has a peculiar mystical significance. Swear to me that while it is in existence you will not remarry."

The Woman swore and the Man died. At the funeral the Woman stood at the head of the bier, holding a lighted crimson candle till it was wasted entirely away . . .

...

Fiends Delight

The Fiend's Delight, by Dod Grile

"Count that day lost whose low descending sun

Views from thy hand no worthy action done."

It was midnight -- a black, wet, midnight-in a great city by the sea. The church clocks were booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by the marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw a female figure glide past him like a ghost in the gloom . . .

...

Heiress from Redhorse

. . . An ordinary mystery is not, of course, as good as a scandal, but when it relates to dark and dreadful practices -- to the exercise of unearthly powers -- could anything be more piquant? . . . How dreadful if we have the power to make one fall in love!

...

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

[This tale became the #1 rated Twilight Zone episode of all time]

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck.

...

The Parenticide Club

Having murdered my mother under circumstances of singular atrocity, I was arrested and put upon my trial, which lasted seven years . . . My attorney rose and said: "May it please your Honor, crimes are ghastly or agreeable only by comparison. If you were familiar with the details of my client's previous murder of his uncle you would discern in his later offense . . . something in the nature of tender forbearance and filial consideration . . .

...

Present at a Hanging et al.

An old man named Daniel Baker, living near Lebanon, Iowa, was suspected by his neighbors of having murdered a peddler who had obtained permission to pass the night at his house. This was in 1853, when peddling was more common in the Western country than it is now, and was attended with considerable danger. The peddler with his pack traversed the country by all manner of lonely roads, and was compelled to rely upon the country people for hospitality. This brought him into relation with queer characters, some of whom were not altogether scrupulous in their methods of making a living, murder being an acceptable means to that end . . .

...

A Son of the Gods and A Horseman in the Sky

A breezy day and a sunny landscape. An open country to right and left and forward; behind, a wood. In the edge of this wood, facing the open but not venturing into it, long lines of troops halted. . . . For this powerful army, moving in battle order through a forest, has met with a formidable obstacle . . .

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Blake, William - Songs of William Blake

Songs of Innocence and of Experience and The Book of Thel

The Lamb

. Little Lamb, who make thee

. Dost thou know who made thee,

Gave thee life, and bid thee feed

By the stream and o'er the mead; …

. Little Lamb, who made thee?

. Dost thou know who made thee?. . .

The Tiger

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forest of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could Frame thy fearful symmetry? . . .

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS •

Brooke, Rupert - Poems

[1887-1915]

Collected Poems and Letters from America

Introduction

Rupert Brooke was both fair to see and winning in his ways. There was at the first contact both bloom and charm; and most of all there was life. . . . This vitality, though manifold in expression, is felt primarily in his sensations -- surprise mingled with delight -- "One after one, like tasting a sweet food." This is life's "first fine rapture". . . . He [is] the "Great Lover" . . . [showing us] vignettes of sense, keen, momentary, ecstatic with the morning dip of youth in the wonderful stream. . . . "All these have been my loves."

. . . He clings to mortality; to life, not thought . . .

"But the best I've known,

. Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown

. About the winds of the world, and fades from brains

. Of living men, and dies.

. Nothing remains."

And yet, --

"Still may Time hold some golden space

. Where I'll unpack that scented store

. Of song and flower and sky and face,

. And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,

. Musing upon them."

From the Introduction by George Edward Woodberry
Beverly, Mass., October, 1915.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page

Burns, Robert - A Man's A Poet for A' That

The Letters of Robert Burns

"You shall write whatever comes first,-- what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike; trifles, bagatelles, nonsense, or, to fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length" -- Burns.

"My life reminded me of a ruined temple: what strength, what proportion in some parts! what unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruin in others!"-- Burns.

Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie! . . .
I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal! . . .

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin! . . .
An' bleak December's winds ensuin, . . .

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell-- . . .

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley, . . .

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

Scotch Drink

Gie him strong drink until he wink,
That's sinking in despair;
An' liquor guid to fire his bluid,
That's prest wi' grief and care:
There let him bouse, an' deep carouse,
Wi' bumpers flowing o'er,
Till he forgets his loves or debts,
An' minds his griefs no more.
Let other poets raise a fracas
"Bout vines, an' wines, an' drucken Bacchus,
An' crabbit names an'stories wrack us, . . .
I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us, . . .
O thou, my muse! guid auld Scotch drink! . . .
Inspire me, till I lisp an' wink,
To sing thy name!

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Byron, [George Gordon] Lord

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Canto The First.

I.

. Oh, thou, in Hellas deemed of heavenly birth,
Muse, formed or fabled at the minstrel's will!
Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth,
Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill:
Yet there I've wandered by thy vaunted rill;
Yes! sighed o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine
Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still;
Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine
To grace so plain a tale -- this lowly lay of mine.

CLXXIX.

. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin -- his control
Stops with the shore; -- upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Chaucer, Geoffrey

Canterbury Tales and Other Poems

The Prologue.

When that Aprilis, with his showers swoot*,
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such licour,
Of which virtue engender'd is the flower;
When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath
Inspired hath in every holt* and heath
The tender croppes* and the younge sun
Hath in the Ram his halfe course y-run,
And smalle fowles make melody,
That sleepen all the night with open eye,
(So pricketh them nature in their corages*);
Then longe folk to go on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seeke strange strands,
To *ferne hallows couth* in sundry lands;
And specially, from every shire's end

Of Engleland, to Canterbury they wend,
The holy blissful Martyr for to seek,
That them hath holpen*, when that they were sick.

Befell that, in that season on a day,
In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay,
Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury with devout corage,
At night was come into that hostelry
Well nine and twenty in a company
Of sundry folk, *by aventure y-fall
In fellowship*, and pilgrims were they all,
That toward Canterbury woulde ride.
The chamber, and the stables were wide,
And *well we weren eased at the best.*
And shortly, when the sunne was to rest,
So had I spoken with them every one,
That I was of their fellowship anon,
And made forword* early for to rise,
To take our way there as I you devise*.

* sweet
.
.
.
.
.* grove, forest
.* twigs, boughs
.
.
.
.* hearts, inclinations
.
.
.* distant saints known*
.
.
.
.* helped
.
.
.
.
.
.
.* who had by chance fallen
....into company.*
.
.
. * we were well provided
.....with the best*
.
.
.* promise
. * describe, relate

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - Rimes & Remains

Selections from the Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

[edited Arthur Symons]

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Argument

How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.

Part I

. It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

. "The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din."

. He holds him with his skinny hand,
"There was a ship," quoth he.
"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

. He holds him with his glittering eye
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Collected and Edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge, Esq. M. A.

Preface

Mr. Coleridge by his will, dated in September, 1829, authorized his executor, if he should think it expedient, to publish any of the notes or writing made by him (Mr. C.) in his books, or any other of his manuscripts or writings, or any letters which should thereafter be collected from, or supplied by, his friends or correspondents. Agreeably to this authority, an arrangement was made, under the superintendence of Mr. Green, for the collection of Coleridge's literary remains; and at the same time the preparation for the press of such part of the materials as should consist of criticism and general literature, was entrusted to the care of the present Editor. The volumes now offered to the public are the first results of that arrangement.

Lincoln's Inn, August 11, 1836.

Contents include (partial listing) --

The Fall of Robespierre -- Poems.
"Julia was blest with beauty, wit, and grace"
To the Rev. W. J. Hort
To Charles Lamb
To the Nightingale
"The early year's fast-flying vapours stray"
Count Rumford's Essays
Epigrams.
Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie
Epilogue to the Rash Conjuror
Psyche
Complaint
Translation of a Passage in Ottfried's Metrical Paraphrase of the Gospel
Israel's Lament on the Death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales
The Exchange
What is Life?
Inscription for a Time-piece

A Course of Lectures.

Lecture I. General character of the Gothic Mind in the Middle Ages
II. General Character of the Gothic Literature and Art
III. The Troubadours--Boccaccio--Petrarch--Pulci--Chaucer--Spenser
IV-VI. Shakspeare (not included in the original text)
VII. Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger
VIII. 'Don Quixote'. Cervantes
IX. On the Distinctions of the Witty, the Droll, the Odd, and the Humorous; the Nature and Constituents of Humour; Rabelais, Swift, Sterne
X. Donne, Dante, Milton, Paradise Lost
XI. Asiatic and Greek Mythologies, Robinson Crusoe, Use of Works of Imagination in Education
XII. Dreams, Apparitions, Alchemists, Personality of the Evil Being, Bodily Identity
XIII. On Poesy or Art
XIV. On Style

Notes on Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici
Notes on Chapman's Homer
Fragment of an Essay on Taste
Fragment of an Essay on Beauty

Poems and Poetical Fragments include --
Religion
The Apostles' Creed
A Good Heart
Evidences of Christianity
Confessio Fidei

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

The Divine Comedy

The Vision

or, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise

Inferno

I. The Dark Forest. The Hill of Difficulty. The Panther, the Lion, and the Wolf. Virgil.

II. The Descent. Dante's Protest and Virgil's Appeal. The Intercession of the Three Ladies Benedight.

III. The Gate of Hell. The Inefficient or Indifferent. Pope Celestine V. The Shores of Acheron. Charon. The Earthquake and the Swoon.

IV. The First Circle, Limbo: Virtuous Pagans and the Unbaptized. The Four Poets, Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. The Noble Castle of Philosophy.

V. The Second Circle: The Wanton. Minos. The Infernal Hurricane. Francesca da Rimini.

VI. The Third Circle: The Gluttonous. Cerberus. The Eternal Rain. Ciacco. Florence.

VII. The Fourth Circle: The Avaricious and the Prodigal. Plutus. Fortune and her Wheel. The Fifth Circle: The Irascible and the Sullen. Styx.

VIII. Phlegyas. Philippo Argenti. The Gate of the City of Dis.

IX. The Furies and Medusa. The Angel. The City of Dis. The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.

X. Farinata and Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti. Discourse on the Knowledge of the Damned.

XI. The Broken Rocks. Pope Anastasius. General Description of the Inferno and its Divisions.

XII. The Minotaur. The Seventh Circle: The Violent. The River Phlegethon. The Violent against their Neighbours. The Centaurs. Tyrants.

XIII. The Wood of Thorns. The Harpies. The Violent against themselves. Suicides. Pier della Vigna. Lano and Jacopo da Sant' Andrea.

XIV. The Sand Waste and the Rain of Fire. The Violent against God. Capaneus. The Statue of Time, and the Four Infernal Rivers.

XV. The Violent against Nature. Brunetto Latini.

XVI. Guidoguerra, Aldobrandi, and Rusticucci. Cataract of the River of Blood.

XVII. Geryon. The Violent against Art. Usurers. Descent into the Abyss of Malebolge.

XVIII. The Eighth Circle, Malebolge: The Fraudulent and the Malicious. The First Bolgia: Seducers and Panders. Venedico Caccianimico. Jason. The Second Bolgia:

Flatterers. Allessio Interminelli. Thais.

XIX. The Third Bolgia: Simoniacs. Pope Nicholas III. Dante's Reproof of corrupt Prelates.

XX. The Fourth Bolgia: Soothsayers. Amphiaraus, Tiresias, Aruns, Manto, Eryphylus, Michael Scott, Guido Bonatti, and Asdente. Virgil reproaches Dante's Pity. Mantua's Foundation.

XXI. The Fifth Bolgia: Peculators. The Elder of Santa Zita. Malacoda and other Devils.

XXII. Ciampolo, Friar Gomita, and Michael Zanche. The Malabranche quarrel.

XXIII. Escape from the Malabranche. The Sixth Bolgia: Hypocrites. Catalano and Loderingo. Caiaphas.

XXIV. The Seventh Bolgia: Thieves. Vanni Fucci. Serpents.

XXV. Vanni Fucci's Punishment. Agnello Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, Puccio Sciancato, Cianfa de' Donati, and Guercio Cavalcanti.

XXVI. The Eighth Bolgia: Evil Counsellors. Ulysses and Diomed. Ulysses' Last Voyage.

XXVII. Guido da Montefeltro. His deception by Pope Boniface VIII.

XXVIII. The Ninth Bolgia: Schismatics. Mahomet and Ali. Pier da Medicina, Curio, Mosca, and Bertrand de Born.

XXIX. Geri del Bello. The Tenth Bolgia: Alchemists. Griffolino d' Arezzo and Capocchino.

XXX. Other Falsifiers or Forgers. Gianni Schicchi, Myrrha, Adam of Brescia, Potiphar's Wife, and Sinon of Troy.

XXXI. The Giants, Nimrod, Ephialtes, and Antaeus. Descent to Cocytus.

XXXII. The Ninth Circle: Traitors. The Frozen Lake of Cocytus. First Division, Caina: Traitors to their Kindred. Camicion de' Pazzi. Second Division, Antenora: Traitors to their Country. Dante questions Bocca degli Abati. Buoso da Duera.

XXXIII. Count Ugolino and the Archbishop Ruggieri. The Death of Count Ugolino's Sons. Third Division of the Ninth Circle, Ptolomaea: Traitors to their Friends. Friar Alberigo, Branco d' Oria.

XXXIV. Fourth Division of the Ninth Circle, the Judecca: Traitors to their Lords and Benefactors. Lucifer, Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius. The Chasm of Lethe. The Ascent.

...

Purgatorio

I. The Shores of Purgatory. The Four Stars. Cato of Utica. The Rush.

II. The Celestial Pilot. Casella. The Departure.

III. Discourse on the Limits of Reason. The Foot of the Mountain. Those who died in Contumacy of Holy Church. Manfredi.

IV. Farther Ascent. Nature of the Mountain. The Negligent, who postponed Repentance till the last Hour. Belacqua.

V. Those who died by Violence, but repentant. Buonconte di Monfeltro. La Pia.

VI. Dante's Inquiry on Prayers for the Dead. Sordello. Italy.

VII. The Valley of Flowers. Negligent Princes.

VIII. The Guardian Angels and the Serpent. Nino di Gallura. The Three Stars. Currado Malaspina.

IX. Dante's Dream of the Eagle. The Gate of Purgatory and the Angel. Seven P's. The Keys.

X. The Needle's Eye. The First Circle: The Proud. The Sculptures on the Wall.

XI. The Humble Prayer. Omberto di Santafiore. Oderisi d' Agobbio. Provenzan Salvani.

XII. The Sculptures on the Pavement. Ascent to the Second Circle.

XIII. The Second Circle: The Envious. Sapia of Siena.

XIV. Guido del Duca and Renier da Calboli. Cities of the Arno Valley. Denunciation of Stubbornness.

XV. The Third Circle: The Irascible. Dante's Visions. The Smoke.

XVI. Marco Lombardo. Lament over the State of the World.

XVII. Dante's Dream of Anger. The Fourth Circle: The Slothful. Virgil's Discourse of Love.

XVIII. Virgil further discourses of Love and Free Will. The Abbot of San Zeno.

XIX. Dante's Dream of the Siren. The Fifth Circle: The Avaricious and Prodigal. Pope Adrian V.

XX. Hugh Capet. Corruption of the French Crown. Prophecy of the Abduction of Pope Boniface VIII and the Sacrilege of Philip the Fair. The Earthquake.

XXI. The Poet Statius. Praise of Virgil.

XXII. Statius' Denunciation of Avarice. The Sixth Circle: The Gluttonous. The Mystic Tree.

XXIII. Forese. Reproof of immodest Florentine Women.

XXIV. Buonagiunta da Lucca. Pope Martin IV, and others. Inquiry into the State of Poetry.

XXV. Discourse of Statius on Generation. The Seventh Circle: The Wanton.

XXVI. Sodomites. Guido Guinicelli and Arnaldo Daniello.

XXVII. The Wall of Fire and the Angel of God. Dante's Sleep upon the Stairway, and his Dream of Leah and Rachel. Arrival at the Terrestrial Paradise.

XXVIII. The River Lethe. Matilda. The Nature of the Terrestrial Paradise.

XXIX. The Triumph of the Church.

XXX. Virgil's Departure. Beatrice. Dante's Shame.

XXXI. Reproaches of Beatrice and Confession of Dante. The Passage of Lethe. The Seven Virtues. The Griffon.

XXXII. The Tree of Knowledge. Allegory of the Chariot.

XXXIII. Lament over the State of the Church. Final Reproaches of Beatrice. The River Eunoe.

...

Paradiso

I. The Ascent to the First Heaven. The Sphere of Fire.

II. The First Heaven, the Moon: Spirits who, having taken Sacred Vows, were forced to violate them. The Lunar Spots.

III. Piccarda Donati and the Empress Constance.

IV. Questionings of the Soul and of Broken Vows.

V. Discourse of Beatrice on Vows and Compensations. Ascent to the Second Heaven, Mercury: Spirits who for the Love of Fame achieved great Deeds.

VI. Justinian. The Roman Eagle. The Empire. Romeo.

VII. Beatrice's Discourse of the Crucifixion, the Incarnation, the Immortality of the Soul, and the Resurrection of the Body.

VIII. Ascent to the Third Heaven, Venus: Lovers. Charles Martel. Discourse on diverse Natures.

IX. Cunizza da Romano, Folco of Marseilles, and Rahab. Neglect of the Holy Land.

X. The Fourth Heaven, the Sun: Theologians and Fathers of the Church. The First Circle. St. Thomas of Aquinas.

XI. St. Thomas recounts the Life of St. Francis. Lament over the State of the Dominican Order.

XII. St. Buonaventura recounts the Life of St. Dominic. Lament over the State of the Franciscan Order. The Second Circle.

XIII. Of the Wisdom of Solomon. St. Thomas reproaches Dante's Judgement.

XIV. The Third Circle. Discourse on the Resurrection of the Flesh. The Fifth Heaven, Mars: Martyrs and Crusaders who died fighting for the true Faith. The Celestial Cross.

XV. Cacciaguida. Florence in the Olden Time.

XVI. Dante's Noble Ancestry. Cacciaguida's Discourse of the Great Florentines.

XVII. Cacciaguida's Prophecy of Dante's Banishment.

XVIII. The Sixth Heaven, Jupiter: Righteous Kings and Rulers. The Celestial Eagle. Dante's Invectives against ecclesiastical Avarice.

XIX. The Eagle discourses of Salvation, Faith, and Virtue. Condemnation of the vile Kings of A.D. 1300.

XX. The Eagle praises the Righteous Kings of old. Benevolence of the Divine Will.

XXI. The Seventh Heaven, Saturn: The Contemplative. The Celestial Stairway. St. Peter Damiano. His Invectives against the Luxury of the Prelates.

XXII. St. Benedict. His Lamentation over the Corruption of Monks. The Eighth Heaven, the Fixed Stars.

XXIII. The Triumph of Christ. The Virgin Mary. The Apostles. Gabriel.

XXIV. The Radiant Wheel. St. Peter examines Dante on Faith.

XXV. The Laurel Crown. St. James examines Dante on Hope. Dante's Blindness.

XXVI. St. John examines Dante on Charity. Dante's Sight. Adam.

XXVII. St. Peter's reproof of bad Popes. The Ascent to the Ninth Heaven, the 'Primum Mobile.'

XXVIII. God and the Angelic Hierarchies.

XXIX. Beatrice's Discourse of the Creation of the Angels, and of the Fall of Lucifer. Her Reproof of Foolish and Avaricious Preachers.

XXX. The Tenth Heaven, or Empyrean. The River of Light. The Two Courts of Heaven. The White Rose of Paradise. The great Throne.

XXXI. The Glory of Paradise. Departure of Beatrice. St. Bernard.

XXXII. St. Bernard points out the Saints in the White Rose.

XXXIII. Prayer to the Virgin. The Threefold Circle of the Trinity. Mystery of the Divine and Human Nature.

...

Translantion by The Rev. H. F. Cary , A.M.

Hell (Inferno)

Canto I

In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray
Gone from the path direct: and e'en to tell
It were no easy task, how savage wild
That forest, how robust and rough its growth,
Which to remember only, my dismay
Renews, in bitterness not far from death.
Yet to discourse of what there good befell,
All else will I relate discover'd there.
How first I enter'd it I scarce can say,
Such sleepy dullness in that instant weigh'd
My senses down, when the true path I left,
But when a mountain's foot I reach'd, where clos'd
The valley, that had pierc'd my heart with dread,
I look'd aloft, and saw his shoulders broad
Already vested with that planet's beam,
Who leads all wanderers safe through every way.

. Then was a little respite to the fear,
That in my heart's recesses deep had lain,
All of that night, so pitifully pass'd:
And as a man, with difficult short breath,
Forespent with toiling, 'scap'd from sea to shore,
Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands
At gaze; e'en so my spirit, that yet fail'd
Struggling with terror, turn'd to view the straits,
That none hath pass'd and liv'd. My weary frame
After short pause recomforted, again
I journey'd on over that lonely steep. . .

...

Translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Inferno:

Canto I

Midway upon the journey of our life
. I found myself within a forest dark,
. For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
. What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
. Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;
. But of the good to treat, which there I found,
. Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
. So full was I of slumber at the moment
. In which I had abandoned the true way.

But after I had reached a mountain's foot,
. At that point where the valley terminated,
. Which had with consternation pierced my heart,

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
. Vested already with that planet's rays
. Which leadeth others right by every road.

Then was the fear a little quieted
. That in my heart's lake had endured throughout
. The night, which I had passed so piteously.

And even as he, who, with distressful breath,
. Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,
. Turns to the water perilous and gazes;

So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,
. Turn itself back to re-behold the pass
. Which never yet a living person left.

After my weary body I had rested,
. The way resumed I on the desert slope,
. So that the firm foot ever was the lower.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

de la Mare, Walter (Collected Works)

The Return

The churchyard in which Arthur Lawford found himself wandering that mild and golden September afternoon was old, green, and refreshingly still. The silence in which it lay seemed as keen and mellow as the light -- the pale, almost heatless, sunlight that filled the air. Here and there robins sang across the stones, elvishly shrill in the quiet of harvest. The only other living creature there seemed to Lawford to be his own rather fair, not insubstantial, rather languid self, who at the noise of the birds had raised his head and glanced as if between content and incredulity across his still and solitary surroundings. An increasing inclination for such lonely ramblings, together with the feeling that his continued ill-health had grown a little irksome to his wife, and that now that he was really better she would be relieved at his absence, had induced him to wander on from home without much considering where the quiet lanes were leading him. And in spite of a peculiar melancholy that had welled up into his mind during these last few days, he had certainly smiled with a faint sense of the irony of things on lifting his eyes in an unusually depressed moodiness to find himself looking down on the shadows and peace of Widderstone.

With that anxious irresolution which illness so often brings in its train he had hesitated for a few minutes before actually entering the graveyard. But once safely within he had begun to feel extremely loth to think of turning back again, and this not the less at remembering with a real foreboding that it was now drawing towards evening, that another day was nearly done. He trailed his umbrella behind him over the grass-grown paths; staying here and there to read some time-worn inscription; stooping a little broodingly over the dark green graves. Not for the first time during the long laborious convalescence that had followed apparently so slight an indisposition, a fleeting sense almost as if of an unintelligible remorse had overtaken him, a vague thought that behind all these past years, hidden as it were from his daily life, lay something not yet quite reckoned with. How often as a boy had he been rapped into a galvanic activity out of the deep reveries he used to fall into -- those fits of a kind of fishlike day-dream. How often, and even far beyond boyhood, had he found himself bent on some distant thought or fleeting vision that the sudden clash of self-possession had made to seem quite illusory, and yet had left so strangely haunting. And now the old habit had stirred out of its long sleep, and, through the gate that Influenza in departing had left ajar, had returned upon him.

...

Peacock Pie

Mistletoe

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.

Silver

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon:
This way, and that, she peers and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Eliot, T. S. - Talking of Michelangelo

Poems

Sweeney Erect

.     And the trees about me,
.     Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
.     Groan with continual surges; and behind me
.     Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!

Paint me a cavernous waste shore
Cast in the unstilted Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

Display me Aeolus above
Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne's hair
And swell with haste the perjured sails.

Morning stirs the feet and hands
(Nausicaa and Polypheme),
Gesture of orang-outang
Rises from the sheets in steam.

This withered root of knots of hair
Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval O cropped out with teeth:
The sickle motion from the thighs

Jackknifes upward at the knees
Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave
Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun).

Tests the razor on his leg
Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching at her sides.

The ladies of the corridor
Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste

Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sort of good.

But Doris, towelled from the bath,
Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
And a glass of brandy neat.

A Cooking Egg

. En l'an trentiesme de mon aage
. Que toutes mes hontes j'ay beucs ...

Pipit sate upright in her chair
. Some distance from where I was sitting;
Views of the Oxford Colleges
. Lay on the table, with the knitting.

Daguerreotypes and silhouettes,
. Her grandfather and great great aunts,
Supported on the mantelpiece
. An Invitation to the Dance.. . . . . .

I shall not want Honour in Heaven
. For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney
And have talk with Coriolanus
. And other heroes of that kidney.

I shall not want Capital in Heaven
. For I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond:
We two shall lie together, lapt
. In a five per cent Exchequer Bond.

I shall not want Society in Heaven,
. Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride;
Her anecdotes will be more amusing
. Than Pipit's experience could provide.

I shall not want Pipit in Heaven:
. Madame Blavatsky will instruct me
In the Seven Sacred Trances;
. Piccarda de Donati will conduct me . . .

But where is the penny world I bought
.     To eat with Pipit behind the screen?
The red-eyed scavengers are creeping
.     From Kentish Town and Golder's Green;
Where are the eagles and the trumpets?
.     Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.
Over buttered scones and crumpets
.     Weeping, weeping multitudes
Droop in a hundred A.B.C.'s

[ABC's = teashops found throughout London; stands for "Aerated Bread Company, Limited.]

Prufrock -- & Other Observations

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

.     S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
.     A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
.     Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
.     Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
.     Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
.     Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair --
(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin --
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
. So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all --
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
. And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all --
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
. And should I then presume?
. And how should I begin?

. * * * *

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. * * * *

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet -- and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all" --
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
. Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;
. That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor --
And this, and so much more? --
It is impossible to say just what I mean I
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
. "That is not it at all,
. That is not what I meant, at all."

. * * * *

No I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous --
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The Waste Land

I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Homer - The Homer Collection

The Iliad

Translated into English prose
by Andrew Lang, M.A., Walter Leaf, Litt.D., and Ernest Myers, M.A. November 1891

The text followed has been that of La Roche (Leipzig, 1873), except where specified

Book I.

How Agamemnon and Achilles fell out at the siege of Troy; and Achilles withdrew himself from battle, and won from Zeus a pledge that his wrong should be avenged on Agamemnon and the Achaians.

Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles Peleus' son, the ruinous wrath that brought on the Achaians woes innumerable, and hurled down into Hades many strong souls of heroes, and gave their bodies to be a prey to dogs and all winged fowls; and so the counsel of Zeus wrought out its accomplishment from the day when first strife parted Atreides king of men and noble Achilles.

Who among the gods set the twain at strife and variance? Apollo, the son of Leto and of Zeus; for he in anger at the king sent a sore plague upon the host, so that the folk began to perish, because Atreides had done dishonour to Chryses the priest. For the priest had come to the Achaians' fleet ships to win his daughter's freedom, and brought a ransom beyond telling; and bare in his hands the fillet of Apollo the Far-darter upon a golden staff; and made his prayer unto all the Achaians, and most of all to the two sons of Atreus, orderers of the host; "Ye sons of Atreus and all ye well-greaved Achaians, now may the gods that dwell in the mansions of Olympus grant you to lay waste the city of Priam, and to fare happily homeward; only set ye my dear child free, and accept the ransom in reverence to the son of Zeus, far-darting Apollo."

Then all the other Achaians cried assent, to reverence the priest and accept his goodly ransom; yet the thing pleased not the heart of Agamemnon son of Atreus, but he roughly sent him away, and laid stern charge upon him, saying: "Let me not find thee, old man, amid the hollow ships, whether tarrying now or returning again hereafter, lest the staff and fillet of the god avail thee naught. And her will I not set free; nay, ere that shall old age come on her in our house, in Argos, far from her native land, where she shall ply the loom and serve my couch. But depart, provoke me not, that thou mayest the rather go in peace."

So said he, and the old man was afraid and obeyed his word, and fared silently along the shore of the loud-sounding sea. Then went that aged man apart and prayed aloud to king Apollo, whom Leto of the fair locks bare: "Hear me, god of the silver bow, that standest over Chryse and holy Killa, and rulest Tenedos with might, O Smintheus! If ever I built a temple gracious in thine eyes, or if ever I burnt to thee fat flesh of thighs of bulls or goats, fulfil thou this my desire; let the Danaans pay by thine arrows for my tears."

So spake he in prayer, and Phoebus Apollo heard him, and came down from the peaks of Olympus wroth at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow and covered quiver. And the arrows clanged upon his shoulders in wrath, as the god moved; and he descended like to night. Then he sate him aloof from the ships, and let an arrow fly; and there was heard a dread clanging of the silver bow. First did the assail the mules and fleet dogs, but afterward, aiming at the men his piercing dart, he smote; and the pyres of the dead burnt continually in multitude.

Now for nine days ranged the god's shafts through the host; but on the tenth Achilles summoned the folk to assembly, for in his mind did goddess Hera of white arms put the thought, because she had pity on the Danaans when she beheld them perishing. Now when they had gathered and were met in assembly, then Achilles fleet of foot stood up and spake among them. . .

...

The Odyssey -- Three Translations

Version I.
Done into English Prose by S. H. Butcher, M.A & A. Lang, M.A.

Book I

In a Council of the Gods, Poseidon absent, Pallas procureth an order for the restitution of Odysseus; and appearing to his son Telemachus, in human shape, adviseth him to complain of the Wooers before the Council of the people, and then go to Pylos and Sparta to inquire about his father.

Tell me, Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered far and wide, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy, and many were the men whose towns he saw and whose mind he learnt, yea, and many the woes he suffered in his heart upon the deep, striving to win his own life and the return of his company. Nay, but even so he saved not his company, though he desired it sore. For through the blindness of their own hearts they perished, fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios Hyperion: but the god took from them their day of returning. Of these things, goddess, daughter of Zeus, whencesoever thou hast heard thereof, declare thou even unto us.

Now all the rest, as many as fled from sheer destruction, were at home, and had escaped both war and sea, but Odysseus only, craving for his wife and for his homeward path, the lady nymph Calypso held, that fair goddess, in her hollow caves, longing to have him for her lord. But when now the year had come in the courses of the seasons, wherein the gods had ordained that he should return home to Ithaca, not even there was he quit of labours, not even among his own; but all the gods had pity on him save Poseidon, who raged continually against godlike Odysseus, till be came to his own country. Howbeit Poseidon had now departed for the distant Ethiopians, the Ethiopians that are sundered in twain, the uttermost of men, abiding some where Hyperion sinks and some where he rises. There he looked to receive his hecatomb of bulls and rams, there he made merry sitting at the feast, but the other gods were gathered in the halls of Olympian Zeus. Then among them the father of gods and men began to speak, for he bethought him in his heart of noble Aegisthus, whom the son of Agamemnon, far-famed Orestes, slew. Thinking upon him he spake out among the Immortals:

'Lo you now, how vainly mortal men do blame the gods! For of us they say comes evil, whereas they even of themselves, through the blindness of their own hearts, have sorrows beyond that which is ordained. Even as of late Aegisthus, beyond that which was ordained, took to him the wedded wife of the son of Atreus, and killed her lord on his return, and that with sheer doom before his eyes, since we had warned him by the embassy of Hermes the keen-sighted, the slayer of Argos, that he should neither kill the man, nor woo his wife. For the son of Atreus shall be avenged at the hand of Orestes, so soon as he shall come to man's estate and long for his own country. So spake Hermes, yet he prevailed not on the heart of Aegisthus, for all his good will; but now hath he paid one price for all.'

...

Version II.
Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original
by Samuel Butler

Book I

Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.

So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not let him get home.

Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East. {1} He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house of Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that moment he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon's son Orestes; so he said to the other gods:

"See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make love to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him not to do either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for everything in full."

...

Version III.
Alexander Pope, Translator

Book I

Argument.

The man for wisdom's various arts renown'd,
Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound;
Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall
Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall,
Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray'd,
Their manners noted, and their states survey'd,
On stormy seas unnumber'd toils he bore,
Safe with his friends to gain his natal shore:
Vain toils! their impious folly dared to prey
On herds devoted to the god of day;
The god vindictive doom'd them never more
(Ah, men unbless'd!) to touch that natal shore.
Oh, snatch some portion of these acts from fate,
Celestial Muse! and to our world relate.

Now at their native realms the Greeks arrived;
All who the wars of ten long years survived;
And 'scaped the perils of the gulfy main.
Ulysses, sole of all the victor train,
An exile from his dear paternal coast,
Deplored his absent queen and empire lost.
Calypso in her caves constrain'd his stay,
With sweet, reluctant, amorous delay;
In vain-for now the circling years disclose
The day predestined to reward his woes.
At length his Ithaca is given by fate,
Where yet new labours his arrival wait;
At length their rage the hostile powers restrain,
All but the ruthless monarch of the main.
But now the god, remote, a heavenly guest,
In AEthiopia graced the genial feast
(A race divided, whom with sloping rays
The rising and descending sun surveys);
There on the world's extremest verge revered
With hecatombs and prayer in pomp preferr'd,
Distant he lay: while in the bright abodes
Of high Olympus, Jove convened the gods:
The assembly thus the sire supreme address'd,
AEgysthus' fate revolving in his breast,
Whom young Orestes to the dreary coast
Of Pluto sent, a blood-polluted ghost.

"Perverse mankind! whose wills, created free,
Charge all their woes on absolute degree;
All to the dooming gods their guilt translate,
And follies are miscall'd the crimes of fate.
When to his lust AEgysthus gave the rein,
Did fate, or we, the adulterous act constrain?
Did fate, or we, when great Atrides died,
Urge the bold traitor to the regicide?
Hermes I sent, while yet his soul remain'd
Sincere from royal blood, and faith profaned;
To warn the wretch, that young Orestes, grown
To manly years, should re-assert the throne.
Yet, impotent of mind, and uncontroll'd,
He plunged into the gulf which Heaven foretold."

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Lawrence D.H. [David Herbert Lawrence] - Selected Novels

Sons and Lovers

Part One

Chapter I - The Early Married Life of the Morels

"The bottoms" succeeded to "Hell Row". Hell Row was a block of thatched, bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away. The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small mines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded wearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were these same pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II, the few colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth, making queer mounds and little black places among the corn-fields and the meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and pairs here and there, together with odd farms and homes of the stockingers, straying over the parish, formed the village of Bestwood.

Then, some sixty years ago, a sudden change took place. The gin-pits were elbowed aside by the large mines of the financiers. The coal and iron field of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was discovered. Carston, Waite and Co. appeared. Amid tremendous excitement, Lord Palmerston formally opened the company's first mine at Spinney Park, on the edge of Sherwood Forest.

About this time the notorious Hell Row, which through growing old had acquired an evil reputation, was burned down, and much dirt was cleansed away.

Carston, Waite & Co. found they had struck on a good thing, so, down the valleys of the brooks from Selby and Nuttall, new mines were sunk, until soon there were six pits working. From Nuttall, high up on the sandstone among the woods, the railway ran, past the ruined priory of the Carthusians and past Robin Hood's Well, down to Spinney Park, then on to Minton, a large mine among corn-fields; from Minton across the farmlands of the valleyside to Bunker's Hill, branching off there, and running north to Beggarlee and Selby, that looks over at Crich and the hills of Derbyshire: six mines like black studs on the countryside, linked by a loop of fine chain, the railway.

To accommodate the regiments of miners, Carston, Waite and Co. built the Squares, great quadrangles of dwellings on the hillside of Bestwood, and then, in the brook valley, on the site of Hell Row, they erected the Bottoms.

The Bottoms consisted of six blocks of miners' dwellings, two rows of three, like the dots on a blank-six domino, and twelve houses in a block. This double row of dwellings sat at the foot of the rather sharp slope from Bestwood, and looked out, from the attic windows at least, on the slow climb of the valley towards Selby.

The houses themselves were substantial and very decent. One could walk all round, seeing little front gardens with auriculas and saxifrage in the shadow of the bottom block, sweet-williams and pinks in the sunny top block; seeing neat front windows, little porches, little privet hedges, and dormer windows for the attics. But that was outside; that was the view on to the uninhabited parlours of all the colliers' wives. The dwelling-room, the kitchen, was at the back of the house, facing inward between the blocks, looking at a scrubby back garden, and then at the ash-pits. And between the rows, between the long lines of ash-pits, went the alley, where the children played and the women gossiped and the men smoked. So, the actual conditions of living in the Bottoms, that was so well built and that looked so nice, were quite unsavoury because people must live in the kitchen, and the kitchens opened on to that nasty alley of ash-pits.

Mrs. Morel was not anxious to move into the Bottoms, which was already twelve years old and on the downward path, when she descended to it from Bestwood. But it was the best she could do. Moreover, she had an end house in one of the top blocks, and thus had only one neighbour; on the other side an extra strip of garden. And, having an end house, she enjoyed a kind of aristocracy among the other women of the "between" houses, because her rent was five shillings and sixpence instead of five shillings a week. But this superiority in station was not much consolation to Mrs. Morel.

She was thirty-one years old, and had been married eight years. A rather small woman, of delicate mould but resolute bearing, she shrank a little from the first contact with the Bottoms women. She came down in the July, and in the September expected her third baby.

...

Women in Love

Chapter I. -- Sisters

Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen sat one morning in the window-bay of their father's house in Beldover, working and talking. Ursula was stitching a piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a board which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as their thoughts strayed through their minds.

'Ursula,' said Gudrun, 'don't you really want to get married?' Ursula laid her embroidery in her lap and looked up. Her face was calm and considerate.

'I don't know,' she replied. 'It depends how you mean.'

Gudrun was slightly taken aback. She watched her sister for some moments.

'Well,' she said, ironically, 'it usually means one thing! But don't you think anyhow, you'd be -- ' she darkened slightly -- 'in a better position than you are in now.'

A shadow came over Ursula's face.

'I might,' she said. 'But I'm not sure.'

Again Gudrun paused, slightly irritated. She wanted to be quite definite.

'You don't think one needs the experience of having been married?' she asked.

'Do you think it need be an experience?' replied Ursula.

'Bound to be, in some way or other,' said Gudrun, coolly. 'Possibly undesirable, but bound to be an experience of some sort.'

'Not really,' said Ursula. 'More likely to be the end of experience.'

Gudrun sat very still, to attend to this.

'Of course,' she said, 'there's that to consider.' This brought the conversation to a close. Gudrun, almost angrily, took up her rubber and began to rub out part of her drawing. Ursula stitched absorbedly.

'You wouldn't consider a good offer?' asked Gudrun.

'I think I've rejected several,' said Ursula.

'Really!' Gudrun flushed dark -- 'But anything really worth while? Have you really?'

'A thousand a year, and an awfully nice man. I liked him awfully,' said Ursula.

'Really! But weren't you fearfully tempted?'

'In the abstract but not in the concrete,' said Ursula. 'When it comes to the point, one isn't even tempted -- oh, if I were tempted, I'd marry like a shot. I'm only tempted not to.' The faces of both sisters suddenly lit up with amusement.

'Isn't it an amazing thing,' cried Gudrun, 'how strong the temptation is, not to!' They both laughed, looking at each other. In their hearts they were frightened.

There was a long pause, whilst Ursula stitched and Gudrun went on with her sketch. The sisters were women, Ursula twenty-six, and Gudrun twenty-five. But both had the remote, virgin look of modern girls, sisters of Artemis rather than of Hebe. Gudrun was very beautiful, passive, soft-skinned, soft-limbed. She wore a dress of dark-blue silky stuff, with ruches of blue and green linen lace in the neck and sleeves; and she had emerald-green stockings. Her look of confidence and diffidence contrasted with Ursula's sensitive expectancy. The provincial people, intimidated by Gudrun's perfect sang-froid and exclusive bareness of manner, said of her: 'She is a smart woman.' She had just come back from London, where she had spent several years, working at an art-school, as a student, and living a studio life.

'I was hoping now for a man to come along,' Gudrun said, suddenly catching her underlip between her teeth, and making a strange grimace, half sly smiling, half anguish. Ursula was afraid.

'So you have come home, expecting him here?' she laughed.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Lindsay, Vachel -- Trading Rhymes for Bread

[Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)]

General William Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems

Transcribed from a 1916 reprint of the original 1913 edition.

[Vachel Lindsay first attracted attention with "General William Booth Enters into Heaven", which became the title of his first volume, in 1913. His second volume was "The Congo", published in 1914.

"He is attempting to restore to poetry its early appeal as a spoken art.]

General William Booth Enters into Heaven

[To be sung to the tune of `The Blood of the Lamb' with indicated instrument]

[Bass drum beaten loudly.]

Booth led boldly with his big bass drum --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come."
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,
Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank,
Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale --
Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail: --
Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,
Unwashed legions with the ways of Death --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

[Banjos.]

Every slum had sent its half-a-score
The round world over. (Booth had groaned for more.)
Every banner that the wide world flies
Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes.
Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang,
Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang: --
"Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
Hallelujah! It was queer to see
Bull-necked convicts with that land make free.
Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare
On, on upward thro' the golden air!
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

II.

[Bass drum slower and softer.]

Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod,
Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God.
Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief
Eagle countenance in sharp relief,
Beard a-flying, air of high command
Unabated in that holy land.

[Sweet flute music.]

Jesus came from out the court-house door,
Stretched his hands above the passing poor.
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there
Round and round the mighty court-house square.
Yet in an instant all that blear review
Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.
The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.

[Bass drum louder.]

Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole!
Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl!
Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean,
Rulers of empires, and of forests green!

[Grand chorus of all instruments. Tambourines to the foreground.]

The hosts were sandalled, and their wings were fire!
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
But their noise played havoc with the angel-choir.
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
O, shout Salvation! It was good to see
Kings and Princes by the Lamb set free.
The banjos rattled and the tambourines
Jing-jing-jingled in the hands of Queens.

[Reverently sung, no instruments.]

And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer
He saw his Master thro' the flag-filled air.
Christ came gently with a robe and crown
For Booth the soldier, while the throng knelt down.
He saw King Jesus. They were face to face,
And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place.
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

The Congo & Other Poems

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight

(In Springfield, Illinois)

It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us: -- as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come; -- the shining hope of Europe free:
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Sophocles

The Oedipus Trilogy

I. Oedipus the King

Translation by F. Storr, BA

From the Loeb Library Edition, Originally published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1912

Argument

. To Laius, King of Thebes, an oracle foretold that the child born to him by his queen Jocasta would slay his father and wed his mother. So when in time a son was born the infant's feet were riveted together and he was left to die on Mount Cithaeron. But a shepherd found the babe and tended him, and delivered him to another shepherd who took him to his master, the King or Corinth. Polybus being childless adopted the boy, who grew up believing that he was indeed the King's son. Afterwards doubting his parentage he inquired of the Delphic god and heard himself the weird declared before to Laius. Wherefore he fled from what he deemed his father's house and in his flight he encountered and unwillingly slew his father Laius. Arriving at Thebes he answered the riddle of the Sphinx and the grateful Thebans made their deliverer king. So he reigned in the room of Laius, and espoused the widowed queen. Children were born to them and Thebes prospered under his rule, but again a grievous plague fell upon the city. Again the oracle was consulted and it bade them purge themselves of blood-guiltiness. Oedipus denounces the crime of which he is unaware, and undertakes to track out the criminal. Step by step it is brought home to him that he is the man. The closing scene reveals Jocasta slain by her own hand and Oedipus blinded by his own act and praying for death or exile.

Dramatis Personae

Oedipus.
The Priest of Zeus.
Creon.
Chorus of Theban Elders.
Teiresias.
Jocasta.
Messenger.
Herd of Laius.
Second Messenger.

Scene: Thebes. Before the Palace of Oedipus.

...

II. Oedipus At Colonus

Argument

Oedipus, the blind and banished King of Thebes, has come in his wanderings to Colonus, a deme of Athens, led by his daughter Antigone. He sits to rest on a rock just within a sacred grove of the Furies and is bidden depart by a passing native. But Oedipus, instructed by an oracle that he had reached his final resting-place, refuses to stir, and the stranger consents to go and consult the Elders of Colonus (the Chorus of the Play). Conducted to the spot they pity at first the blind beggar and his daughter, but on learning his name they are horror-striken and order him to quit the land. He appeals to the world-famed hospitality of Athens and hints at the blessings that his coming will confer on the State. They agree to await the decision of King Theseus. From Theseus Oedipus craves protection in life and burial in Attic soil; the benefits that will accrue shall be told later. Theseus departs having promised to aid and befriend him. No sooner has he gone than Creon enters with an armed guard who seize Antigone and carry her off (Ismene, the other sister, they have already captured) and he is about to lay hands on Oedipus, when Theseuswho has heard the tumult, hurries up and, upbraiding Creon for his lawless act, threatens to detain him till he has shown where the captives are and restored them. In the next scene, Theseus returns, bringing with him the rescued maidens. He informs Oedipus that a stranger who has taken sanctuary at the altar of Poseidon wishes to see him. It is Polyneices who has come to crave his father's forgiveness and blessing, knowing by an oracle that victory will fall to the side that Oedipus espouses. But Oedipus spurns the hypocrite, and invokes a dire curse on both his unnatural sons. A sudden clap of thunder is heard, and as peal follows peal, Oedipus is aware that his hour is come and bids Antigone summon Theseus. Self-guided he leads the way to the spot where death should overtake him, attended by Theseus and his daughters. Halfway he bids his daughters farewell, and what followed none but Theseus knew. He was not (so the Messenger reports) for the gods took him.

Dramatis Personae

Oedipus, banished King of Thebes.
Antigone, his daughter.
Ismene, his daughter.
Theseus, king of Athens.
Creon, brother of Jocasta, now reigning at Thebes.
Polyneices, elder son of Oedipus.
Stranger, a native of Colonus.
Messenger, an attendant of Theseus.
Chorus, citizens of Colonus.

Scene: In front of the grove of the Eumenides.

...

III. Antigone

Argument

Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, the late king of Thebes, in defiance of Creon who rules in his stead, resolves to bury her brother Polyneices, slain in his attack on Thebes. She is caught in the act by Creon's watchmen and brought before the king. She justifies her action, asserting that she was bound to obey the eternal laws of right and wrong in spite of any human ordinance. Creon, unrelenting, condemns her to be immured in a rock-hewn chamber. His son Haemon, to whom Antigone is betrothed, pleads in vain for her life and threatens to die with her. Warned by the seer Teiresias Creon repents him and hurries to release Antigone from her rocky prison. But he is too late: he finds lying side by side Antigone who had hanged herself and Haemon who also has perished by his own hand. Returning to the palace he sees within the dead body of his queen who on learning of her son's death has stabbed herself to the heart.

Dramatis Personae

Antigone and Ismene - daughters of Oedipus and sisters of Polyneices and Eteocles.
Creon, King of Thebes.
Haemon, Son of Creon, betrothed to Antigone.
Eurydice, wife of Creon.
Teiresias, the prophet.
Chorus, of Theban elders.
A Watchman
A Messenger
A Second Messenger

...

Excerpt:

Chorus:
Of happiness the chiefest part
Is a wise heart:
And to defraud the gods in aught
With peril's fraught.
Swelling words of high-flown might Mightily the gods do smite.
Chastisement for errors past Wisdom brings to age at last.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Shakespeare, William

The (Reasonably) Complete Shakespeare

Consisting of virtually all of his Sonnets and 35 plays (from the First Folio)

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Philosophy

(Including Philosophy, Religion and the Philosophy of Religion, Religion Ethics, Social Usages, Etiquette, & what Aristotle might call "Political Thought")

...

Aristotle - The Aristotle Collection

The Categories

Excerpt from Chapter 1

Things are said to be named 'equivocally' when, though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name differs for each. Thus, a real man and a figure in a picture can both lay claim to the name 'animal'; yet these are equivocally so named, for, though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name differs for each. For should any one define in what sense each is an animal, his definition in the one case will be appropriate to that case only.

Ethics

["Ethics is one half of a single treatise of which his Treatise on Government is the other half. Both deal with what Aristotle calls the "philosophy of human affairs" which we call Political or Social Science. In the two works taken together we have their author's whole theory of human conduct or practical activity (i.e., activity not directed to knowledge or truth.")]

--Introduction by J. A. SMITH, 1908-31

Excerpt

Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some good: for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the Chief Good is, "that which all things aim at."

...

A Treatise on Government

Excerpt

As we see that every city is a society, and every society is established for some good purpose; for an apparent good is the spring of all human actions; . . .this is more especially true of . . . a city, and the [political] society thereof.

Poetics

In the tenth book of the Republic, when Plato has completed his final burning denunciation of Poetry, the false Siren, the imitator of things which themselves are shadows . . ., he ends with a touch of compunction: 'We will give her champions, not poets themselves but poet-lovers, an opportunity to make her defense in plain prose and show that she is . . . helpful to . . . the life of man.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Bacon, Sir Francis - New World Readings

The New Atlantis

[The New Atlantis appeared in 1627, the year after the author's death. It seems to have been written about 1623, during the period of literary activity which followed Bacon's political fall. It pictures his plan for an ideal commonwealth. ]

Excerpt

We sailed from Peru, (where we had continued for the space of one whole year) for China and Japan, by the South Sea; taking with us victuals for twelve months; and had good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for five months space, and more. But the wind came about, and settled in the west for many days, so as we could make little or no way, and were sometime in purpose to turn back. But then again there arose strong and great winds from the south, with a point east, which carried us up (for all that we could do) towards the north, . . . So that finding ourselves, in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in the world, without victuals, we gave ourselves for lost men and prepared for death.

...

The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral,

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, [who] would not stay for an answer . . . Though the sects of philosophers of that [ancient] kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits -- though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients.

...

The Advancement of Learning

(The Two Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and aduancement of Learning, divine and humane.)

Bonus: Fragments of -- the Interpretation of Nature (Annotated)

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Cicero (Marcus Tullius Ciceronis) - The Cicero Collection

Cicero's Orations [Latin Version]

Oratio In Catilinam Prima

In Senatu Habita

Argumentum

L. Sergius Catilina, homo patricii generis, magna vi et animi et corporis, sed ingenio malo pravoque, praetorius, qui iam a. u. c. 689 caedem consulum facere eaque facta rerum potiri constituerat, casu autem rem perficere prohibitus erat, ascitis ad consilium rei publicae opprimendae hominibus omnis generis perditissiis atque audacissimis, quos inopia, cupiditas, scelera stimulabant, consulatum in annum 691 p. u. c. petivit, sed cum, quae in animo habebat, perniciosa rei publicae consilia parum occultata essent, studiis bonorum omnium M. Tullius Cicero una cum C. Antonio consul factus est. Qua re commotus L. Catilina M. Cicerone C. Antonio consulibus cupidius etiam sua consilia recepit, quibus maxime Ciceronis consulis diligentia restitit ad quem Catilinae eiusque sociorum consilia a Fulvia, muliere nobili, quae rem habebat cum Q. Curio, qui particeps fuit conspirationis illius, deferebantur. Cum autem ista mala consilia contra salutem rei publicae a coniuratis inita apertius iam agitarentur, senatus consultum factum est, darent operam consules, ne quid res publica detrimenti caperet, effectumque est, ut Catilina spe consulatus, quem in proximum annum petebat, excideret, designarenturque D. Silanus et L. Murena. Quae cum ita essent, L. Catilina, qui iam ante per Italiam ad homines seditiosos, maxime veteres L. Sullae milites, concitandos nuntios miserat, ad C. Manlium, qui Faesulas, in urbem Etruriae munitam, manum armatorum coegerat, proficisci constituit et bellum patriae inferre convocatisque nocte, quae inter VIII et VII Id. Novembres erat, sociis in domum M. Porci Laecae consilium, quod ceperat, aperuit. Qua in congregatione nocturna duo equites Romani Ciceronem consulem illa ipsa nocte ante lucem, cum sicut salutaturi eius domum intrassent, interficiendum receperunt. M. Cicero vitatis insidiis proximo die, qui fuit a. d. VI Id. Novembres, dispositis praesidiis senatum in templum Iovis Statoris convocavit, quo cum Catilina quasi sui purgandi causa venisset, Cicero eam, quae infra legitur, orationem in Catilinam vehementissime invehens habuit.

...

Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators;

also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker

Translated into English by E. Jones

Brutus, or The History of Eloquence

When I had left Cilicia, and arrived at Rhodes, word was brought me of the death of Hortensius. I was more affected with it than, I believe, was generally expected. For, by the loss of my friend, I saw myself for ever deprived of the pleasure of his acquaintance, and of our mutual intercourse of good offices. I likewise reflected, with Concern, that the dignity of our College must suffer greatly by the decease of such an eminent augur. This reminded me, that he was the person who first introduced me to the College, where he attested my qualification upon oath; and that it was he also who installed me as a member; so that I was bound by the constitution of the Order to respect and honour him as a parent. My affliction was increased, that, in such a deplorable dearth of wife and virtuous citizens, this excellent man, my faithful associate in the service of the Public, expired at the very time when the Commonwealth could least spare him, and when we had the greatest reason to regret the want of his prudence and authority. I can add, very sincerely, that in him I lamented the loss, not (as most people imagined) of a dangerous rival and competitor, but of a generous partner and companion in the pursuit of same. For if we have instances in history, though in studies of less public consequence, that some of the poets have been greatly afflicted at the death of their contemporary bards; with what tender concern should I honour the memory of a man, with whom it is more glorious to have disputed the prize of eloquence, than never to have met with an antagonist! especially, as he was always so far from obstructing my endeavours, or I his, that, on the contrary, we mutually assisted each other, with our credit and advice.

But as he, who had a perpetual run of felicity, left the world at a happy moment for himself, though a most unfortunate one for his fellow-citizens; and died when it would have been much easier for him to lament the miseries of his country, than to assist it, after living in it as long as he could have lived with honour and reputation; -- we may, indeed, deplore his death as a heavy loss to us who survive him. If, however, we consider it merely as a personal event, we ought rather to congratulate his fate, than to pity it; that, as often as we revive the memory of this illustrious and truly happy man, we may appear at least to have as much affection for him as for ourselves. For if we only lament that we are no longer permitted to enjoy him, it must, indeed, be acknowledged that this is a heavy misfortune to us; which it, however, becomes us to support with moderation, less our sorrow should be suspected to arise from motives of interest, and not from friendship. But if we afflict ourselves, on the supposition that he was the sufferer; --we misconstrue an event, which to him was certainly a very happy one.

If Hortensius was now living, he would probably regret many other advantages in common with his worthy fellow-citizens. But when he beheld the Forum, the great theatre in which he used to exercise his genius, no longer accessible to that accomplished eloquence, which could charm the ears of a Roman, or a Grecian audience; he must have felt a pang of which none, or at least but few, besides himself, could be susceptible. Even I am unable to restrain my tears, when I behold my country no longer defensible by the genius, the prudence, and the authority of a legal magistrate, -- the only weapons which I have learned to weild, and to which I have long been accustomed, and which are most suitable to the character of an illustrious citizen, and of a virtuous and well-regulated state.

But if there ever was a time, when the authority and eloquence of an honest individual could have wrested their arms from the hands of his distracted fellow-citizens; it was then when the proposal of a compromise of our mutual differences was rejected, by the hasty imprudence of some, and the timorous mistrust of others.

Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

Translated by E. S. Shuckburgh

You have often urged me to write something on Friendship, and I quite acknowledged that the subject seemed one worth everybody's investigation, and specially suited to the close intimacy that has existed between you and me. Accordingly I was quite ready to benefit the public at your request.

As to the dramatis personae. In the treatise on Old Age, which I dedicated to you, I introduced Cato as chief speaker. No one, I thought, could with greater propriety speak on old age than one who had been an old man longer than any one else, and had been exceptionally vigorous in his old age.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Confucius

The Chinese Classics (Confucian Analects)

by James Legge

In Five Volumes
Confucian Analects
The Great Learning
The Doctrine of the Mean

Book I. Hsio R.

Chapter I. 1. The Master said, 'Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?

2. 'Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?'

3. 'Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him?' . . .

Chapter III. The Master said, 'Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.'

Chapter IV. The philosopher Tsang said, 'I daily examine myself on three points: -- whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been not faithful; -- whether, in intercourse with friends, I may have been not sincere; -- whether I may have not mastered and practised the instructions of my teacher.'

Chapter V. The Master said, To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.'

...

Book II. Wei Chang

Chapter I. The Master said, 'He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.'

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Dewey, John

Democracy and Education

Chapter One: Education as a Necessity of Life

1. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing.

As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.

In all the higher forms this process cannot be kept up indefinitely. After a while they succumb; they die. The creature is not equal to the task of indefinite self-renewal. But continuity of the life process is not dependent upon the prolongation of the existence of any one individual. Reproduction of other forms of life goes on in continuous sequence. And though, as the geological record shows, not merely individuals but also species die out, the life process continues in increasingly complex forms. As some species die out, forms better adapted to utilize the obstacles against which they struggled in vain come into being. Continuity of life means continual readaptation of the environment to the needs of living organisms.

We have been speaking of life in its lowest terms -- as a physical thing. But we use the word "Life" to denote the whole range of experience, individual and racial. When we see a book called the *Life of Lincoln* we do not expect to find within its covers a treatise on physiology. We look for an account of social antecedents; a description of early surroundings, of the conditions and occupation of the family; of the chief episodes in the development of character; of signal struggles and achievements; of the individual's hopes, tastes, joys and sufferings. In precisely similar fashion we speak of the life of a savage tribe, of the Athenian people, of the American nation. "Life" covers customs, institutions, beliefs, victories and defeats, recreations and occupations.

We employ the word "experience" in the same pregnant sense. And to it, as well as to life in the bare physiological sense, the principle of continuity through renewal applies. With the renewal of physical existence goes, in the case of human beings, the recreation of beliefs, ideals, hopes, happiness, misery, and practices. The continuity of any experience, through renewing of the social group, is a literal fact. Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life. Every one of the constituent elements of a social group, in a modern city as in a savage tribe, is born immature, helpless, without language, beliefs, ideas, or social standards. Each individual, each unit who is the carrier of the life-experience of his group, in time passes away. Yet the life of the group goes on.

The primary ineluctable facts of the birth and death of each one of the constituent members in a social group determine the necessity of education.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo - The American Essayist

Essays, 1st Series

I. History.

There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.

Of the works of this mind history is the record. Its genius is illustrated by the entire series of days. Man is explicable by nothing less than all his history. Without hurry, without rest, the human spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty, every thought, every emotion, which belongs to it, in appropriate events. But the thought is always prior to the fact; all the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws. Each law in turn is made by circumstances predominant, and the limits of nature give power to but one at a time. A man is the whole encyclopaedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man. Epoch after epoch, camp, kingdom, empire, republic, democracy, are merely the application of his manifold spirit to the manifold world.

This human mind wrote history, and this must read it. The Sphinx must solve her own riddle. If the whole of history is in one man, it is all to be explained from individual experience. There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn from the great repositories of nature, as the light on my book is yielded by a star a hundred millions of miles distant, as the poise of my body depends on the equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal forces, so the hours should be instructed by the ages and the ages explained by the hours. Of the universal mind each individual man is one more incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Each new fact in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done, and the crises of his life refer to national crises. Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era. Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again it will solve the problem of the age.

...

Essays, 2nd Series

The Poet

A moody child and wildly wise
Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
Which chose, like meteors, their way,
And rived the dark with private ray:
They overleapt the horizon's edge,
Searched with Apollo's privilege;
Through man, and woman, and sea, and star
Saw the dance of nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times
Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.
Olympian bards who sung
. Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young,
. And always keep us so.

I. The Poet

Those who are esteemed umpires of taste are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold. Their knowledge of the fine arts is some study of rules and particulars, or some limited judgment of color or form, which is exercised for amusement or for show. It is a proof of the shallowness of the doctrine of beauty as it lies in the minds of our amateurs, that men seem to have lost the perception of the instant dependence of form upon soul.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Hume, David - The David Hume Collection

A Treatise of Human Nature

Volume I -- Of the Understanding.

Introduction.

Nothing is more usual and more natural for those, who pretend to discover anything new to the world in philosophy and the sciences, than to insinuate the praises of their own systems, by decrying all those, which have been advanced before them. And indeed were they content with lamenting that ignorance, which we still lie under in the most important questions, that can come before the tribunal of human reason, there are few, who have an acquaintance with the sciences, that would not readily agree with them. It is easy for one of judgment and learning, to perceive the weak foundation even of those systems, which have obtained the greatest credit, and have carried their pretensions highest to accurate and profound reasoning. Principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduced from them, want of coherence in the parts, and of evidence in the whole, these are every where to be met with in the systems of the most eminent philosophers, and seem to have drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself.

Nor is there required such profound knowledge to discover the present imperfect condition of the sciences, but even the rabble without doors may, judge from the noise and clamour, which they hear, that all goes not well within. There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which men of learning are not of contrary opinions. The most trivial question escapes not our controversy, and in the most momentous we are not able to give any certain decision. Disputes are multiplied, as if every thing was uncertain; and these disputes are managed with the greatest warmth, as if every thing was certain. Amidst all this bustle it is not reason, which carries the prize, but eloquence; and no man needs ever despair of gaining proselytes to the most extravagant hypothesis, who has art enough to represent it in any favourable colours. The victory is not gained by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians of the army.

From hence in my opinion arises that common prejudice against metaphysical reasonings of all kinds, even amongst those, who profess themselves scholars, and have a just value for every other part of literature. By metaphysical reasonings, they do not understand those on any particular branch of science, but every kind of argument, which is any way abstruse, and requires some attention to be comprehended. We have so often lost our labour in such researches, that we commonly reject them without hesitation, and resolve, if we must for ever be a prey to errors and delusions, that they shall at least be natural and entertaining. And indeed nothing but the most determined scepticism, along with a great degree of indolence, can justify this aversion to metaphysics. For if truth be at all within the reach of human capacity, it is certain it must lie very deep and abstruse: and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it so very easy and obvious.

It is evident, that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature: and that however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even. Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of man; since the lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties. It is impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding, and could explain the nature of the ideas we employ, and of the operations we perform in our reasonings. And these improvements are the more to be hoped for in natural religion, as it is not content with instructing us in the nature of superior powers, but carries its views farther, to their disposition towards us, and our duties towards them; and consequently we ourselves are not only the beings, that reason, but also one of the objects, concerning which we reason.

...

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Extracted from:

Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding, and Concerning the Principles of Morals

Reprinted from The Posthumous Edition of 1777, and Edited with Introduction, Comparative Tables of Contents, and Analytical Index by L.A. Selby-Bigge, M.A., Late Fellow of University College, Oxford.

Second Edition, 1902

Section I.

Of the Different Species of Philosophy.

1. Moral philosophy, or the science of human nature, may be treated after two different manners; each of which has its peculiar merit, and may contribute to the entertainment, instruction, and reformation of mankind. The one considers man chiefly as born for action; and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment; pursuing one object, and avoiding another, according to the value which these objects seem to possess, and according to the light in which they present themselves. As virtue, of all objects, is allowed to be the most valuable, this species of philosophers paint her in the most amiable colours; borrowing all helps from poetry and eloquence, and treating their subject in an easy and obvious manner, and such as is best fitted to please the imagination, and engage the affections. They select the most striking observations and instances from common life; place opposite characters in a proper contrast; and alluring us into the paths of virtue by the views of glory and happiness, direct our steps in these paths by the soundest precepts and most illustrious examples. They make us feel the difference between vice and virtue; they excite and regulate our sentiments; and so they can but bend our hearts to the love of probity and true honour, they think, that they have fully attained the end of all their labours.

2. The other species of philosophers consider man in the light of a reasonable rather than an active being, and endeavour to form his understanding more than cultivate his manners. They regard human nature as a subject of speculation; and with a narrow scrutiny examine it, in order to find those principles, which regulate our understanding, excite our sentiments, and make us approve or blame any particular object, action, or behaviour. They think it a reproach to all literature, that philosophy should not yet have fixed, beyond controversy, the foundation of morals, reasoning, and criticism; and should for ever talk of truth and falsehood, vice and virtue, beauty and deformity, without being able to determine the source of these distinctions. While they attempt this arduous task, they are deterred by no difficulties; but proceeding from particular instances to general principles, they still push on their enquiries to principles more general, and rest not satisfied till they arrive at those original principles, by which, in every science, all human curiosity must be bounded. Though their speculations seem abstract, and even unintelligible to common readers, they aim at the approbation of the learned and the wise; and think themselves sufficiently compensated for the labour of their whole lives, if they can discover some hidden truths, which may contribute to the instruction of posterity.

3. It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have the preference above the accurate and abstruse; and by many will be recommended, not only as more agreeable, but more useful than the other. It enters more into common life; moulds the heart and affections; and, by touching those principles which actuate men, reforms their conduct, and brings them nearer to that model of perfection which it describes. On the contrary, the abstruse philosophy, being founded on a turn of mind, which cannot enter into business and action, vanishes when the philosopher leaves the shade, and comes into open day; nor can its principles easily retain any influence over our conduct and behaviour. The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, dissipate all its conclusions, and reduce the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian.

...

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Pamphilus to Hermippus

It has been remarked, my Hermippus, that though the ancient philosophers conveyed most of their instruction in the form of dialogue, this method of composition has been little practised in later ages, and has seldom succeeded in the hands of those who have attempted it. Accurate and regular argument, indeed, such as is now expected of philosophical inquirers, naturally throws a man into the methodical and didactic manner; where he can immediately, without preparation, explain the point at which he aims; and thence proceed, without interruption, to deduce the proofs on which it is established. To deliver a system in conversation, scarcely appears natural; and while the dialogue-writer desires, by departing from the direct style of composition, to give a freer air to his performance, and avoid the appearance of Author and Reader, he is apt to run into a worse inconvenience, and convey the image of Pedagogue and Pupil. Or, if he carries on the dispute in the natural spirit of good company, by throwing in a variety of topics, and preserving a proper balance among the speakers, he often loses so much time in preparations and transitions, that the reader will scarcely think himself compensated, by all the graces of dialogue, for the order, brevity, and precision, which are sacrificed to them.

There are some subjects, however, to which dialogue-writing is peculiarly adapted, and where it is still preferable to the direct and simple method of composition.

Any point of doctrine, which is so obvious that it scarcely admits of dispute, but at the same time so important that it cannot be too often inculcated, seems to require some such method of handling it; where the novelty of the manner may compensate the triteness of the subject; where the vivacity of conversation may enforce the precept; and where the variety of lights, presented by various personages and characters, may appear neither tedious nor redundant.

Any question of philosophy, on the other hand, which is so obscure and uncertain, that human reason can reach no fixed determination with regard to it; if it should be treated at all, seems to lead us naturally into the style of dialogue and conversation. Reasonable men may be allowed to differ, where no one can reasonably be positive. Opposite sentiments, even without any decision, afford an agreeable amusement; and if the subject be curious and interesting, the book carries us, in a manner, into company; and unites the two greatest and purest pleasures of human life, study and society.

Happily, these circumstances are all to be found in the subject of Natural Religion. What truth so obvious, so certain, as the being of a God, which the most ignorant ages have acknowledged, for which the most refined geniuses have ambitiously striven to produce new proofs and arguments? What truth so important as this, which is the ground of all our hopes, the surest foundation of morality, the firmest support of society, and the only principle which ought never to be a moment absent from our thoughts and meditations? But, in treating of this obvious and important truth, what obscure questions occur concerning the nature of that Divine Being, his attributes, his decrees, his plan of providence? These have been always subjected to the disputations of men; concerning these human reason has not reached any certain determination. But these are topics so interesting, that we cannot restrain our restless inquiry with regard to them; though nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction, have as yet been the result of our most accurate researches.

This I had lately occasion to observe . . .

...

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

A reprint of the Edition of 1777

Author's Advertisement

Most of the principles, and reasonings, contained in this volume, were published in a work in three volumes, called A Treatise of Human Nature: A work which the Author had projected before he left College, and which he wrote and published not long after. But not finding it successful, he was sensible of his error in going to the press too early, and he cast the whole anew in the following pieces, where some negligences in his former reasoning and more in the expression, are, he hopes, corrected. . .. Henceforth, the Author desires, that the following Pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles.

Section I -- Of the General Principles of Morals.

Disputes with men, pertinaciously obstinate in their principles, are, of all others, the most irksome; except, perhaps, those with persons, entirely disingenuous, who really do not believe the opinions they defend, but engage in the controversy, from affectation, from a spirit of opposition, or from a desire of showing wit and ingenuity, superior to the rest of mankind. The same blind adherence to their own arguments is to be expected in both; the same contempt of their antagonists; and the same passionate vehemence, in inforcing [sic] sophistry and falsehood. And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles.

Those who have denied the reality of moral distinctions, may be ranked among the disingenuous disputants; nor is it conceivable, that any human creature could ever seriously believe, that all characters and actions were alike entitled to the affection and regard of everyone. The difference, which nature has placed between one man and another, is so wide, and this difference is still so much farther widened, by education, example, and habit, that, where the opposite extremes come at once under our apprehension, there is no scepticism [sic] so scrupulous, and scarce any assurance so determined, as absolutely to deny all distinction between them. Let a man's insensibility be ever so great, he must often be touched with the images of Right and Wrong; and let his prejudices be ever so obstinate, he must observe, that others are susceptible of like impressions. The only way, therefore, of converting an antagonist of this kind, is to leave him to himself. For, finding that nobody keeps up the controversy with him, it is probable he will, at last, of himself, from mere weariness, come over to the side of common sense and reason.

There has been a controversy started of late, much better worth examination, concerning the general foundation of Morals; whether they be derived from Reason, or from Sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal sense; whether, like all sound judgement [sic] of truth and falsehood, they should be the same to every rational intelligent being; or whether, like the perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on the particular fabric and constitution of the human species.

...

The History of England, Volume I

From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688

With the Author's Last Corrections and Improvements, to which is prefixed a Short Account of His Life Written by Himself

[The Original is Complete in Six Volumes]

Chapter I.

The Britons. -- Romans. -- Saxons. -- The Heptarchy. -- The Kingdom Of Kent -- Of Northumberland -- Of East Anglia -- Of Mercia -- Of Essex -- Of Sussex -- Of Wessex

[The Britons.]

The curiosity, entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction. Ingenious men, possessed of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the period in which literary monuments are framed or preserved; without reflecting that the history of past events is immediately lost or disfigured when intrusted to memory or oral tradition; and that the adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more cultivated age. The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the most instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden, violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians are so much guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they disgust us by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather fortunate for letters that they are buried in silence and oblivion. The only certain means by which nations can indulge their curiosity in researches concerning their remote origin, is to consider the language, manners, and customs of their ancestors, and to compare them with those of the neighbouring nations. The fables which are commonly employed to supply the place of true history ought entirely to be disregarded; or if any exception be admitted to this general rule, it can only be in favour of the ancient Grecian fictions, which are so celebrated and so agreeable, that they will ever be the objects of the attention of mankind. Neglecting, therefore, all traditions, or rather tales, concerning the more early history of Britain, we shall only consider the state of the inhabitants as it appeared to the Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall briefly run over the events which attended the conquest made by that empire, as belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten through the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals: and shall reserve a more full narration for those times when the truth is both so well ascertained and so complete as to promise entertainment and instruction to the reader.

All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtae, who peopled that island from the neighbouring continent. Their language was the same; their manners, their government, their superstition, varied only by those small differences which time or communication with the bordering nations must necessarily introduce. The inhabitants of Gaul, especially in those parts which lie contiguous to Italy, had acquired, from a commerce with their southern neighbours, some refinement in the arts, which gradually diffused themselves northwards, and spread but a very faint light over this island. The Greek and Roman navigators or merchants (for there were scarcely any other travellers in those ages) brought back the most shocking accounts of the ferocity of the people, which they magnified, as usual, in order to excite the admiration of their countrymen. The south-east parts, however, of Britain had already, before the age of Caesar, made the first, and most requisite step towards a civil settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and agriculture, had there increased to a great multitude. The other inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by pasture: they were clothed with skins of beasts. They dwelt in huts, which they reared in the forests and marshes, with which the country was covered: they shifted easily their habitation, when actuated either by the hopes of plunder, or the fear of an enemy: the convenience of feeding their cattle was even a sufficient motive for removing their seats: and as they were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their wants and their possessions were equally scanty and limited.

The Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes; and being a military people, whose sole property was their arms and their cattle, it was impossible, after they had acquired a relish for liberty, for their princes or chieftains to establish any despotic authority over them. Their governments, though monarchical, were free, as well as those of all the Celtic nations; and the common people seem even to have enjoyed more liberty among them than among the nations of Gaul [d], from which they were descended. Each state was divided into factions within itself: it was agitated with jealousy or animosity against the neighbouring states: and while the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars were the chief occupation, and formed the chief object of ambition among the people.

The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of their government; and the Druids, who were their priests, possessed great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar, and directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of youth; they enjoyed an immunity from wars and taxes; they possessed both the civil and criminal jurisdiction; they decided all controversies among states as well as among private persons, and whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him: he was forbidden access to the sacrifices or public worship: he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens, even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally shunned, as profane and dangerous. He was refused the protection of law; and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed. Thus, the bands of government, which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by the terrors of their superstition. . . .

The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, when Caesar, having overrun all Gaul by his victories, first cast his eye on their island. . . .

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Locke, John

Two Treatises of Government

Second Treatise Of Government

Published in 1690. (The complete unabridged text)

Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto

Two Treatises of Government. In the former the false principles and foundation of Sir Robert Filmer and his followers are detected and overthrown. The latter is an essay concerning the true original extent and end of civil government.

Preface

Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while to tell thee. These, which remain, I hope are sufficient to establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William; to make good his title, in the consent of the people, which being the only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly, than any prince in Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of England, whose love of their just and natural rights, with their resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin . . .

Book II

Chap. I. Sect. 1. It having been shewn in the foregoing discourse,

. 1. That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood, or by positive donation from God, any such authority over his children, or dominion over the world, as is pretended:

. 2. That if he had, his heirs, yet, had no right to it:

. 3. That if his heirs had, there being no law of nature nor positive law of God that determines which is the right heir in all cases that may arise, the right of succession, and consequently of bearing rule, could not have been certainly determined:

. 4. That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of which is the eldest line of Adam's posterity, being so long since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another, the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of inheritance:

. All these premises having, as I think, been clearly made out, it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of authority from that, which is held to be the fountain of all power, Adam's private dominion and paternal jurisdiction; so that he that will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and mischief, tumult, sedition and rebellion, (things that the followers of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against) must of necessity find out another rise of government, another original of political power, and another way of designing and knowing the persons that have it, than what Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us.

. Sect. 2. To this purpose, I think it may not be amiss, to set down what I take to be political power; that the power of a magistrate over a subject may be distinguished from that of a father over his children, a master over his servant, a husband over his wife, and a lord over his slave. All which distinct powers happening sometimes together in the same man, if he be considered under these different relations, it may help us to distinguish these powers one from wealth, a father of a family, and a captain of a galley.

. Sect. 3. Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.

Chapter II.

Of the State of Nature.

Sect. 4. To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.

...

An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I.

An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding in Four Books

Quam bellum est velle confiteri potius nescire quod nescias, quam ista effutientem nauseare, atque ipsum sibi displicere.

-- Cic. De Natur. Deor. 1. i.

The Epistle To The Reader

Reader,

I have put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of my idle and heavy hours. If it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my pains, ill bestowed. Mistake not this for a commendation of my work; nor conclude, because I was pleased with the doing of it, that therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that hawks at larks and sparrows has no less sport, though a much less considerable quarry, than he that flies at nobler game: and he is little acquainted with the subject of this treatise -- the understanding -- who does not know that, as it is the most elevated faculty of the soul, so it is employed with a greater and more constant delight than any of the other. Its searches after truth are a sort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the pleasure. Every step the mind takes in its progress towards Knowledge makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the best too, for the time at least.

For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by its own sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having less regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. Thus he who has raised himself above the alms-basket, and, not content to live lazily on scraps of begged opinions, sets his own thoughts on work, to find and follow truth, will (whatever he lights on) not miss the hunter's satisfaction; every moment of his pursuit will reward his pains with some delight; and he will have reason to think his time not ill spent, even when he cannot much boast of any great acquisition.

...

An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II

Contents Of The Second Volume [Based on the 2d Edition]

Book III. Of Words.

I. Of Words Or Language In General

II. Of The Signification Of Words

III. Of General Terms

IV. Of The Names Of Simple Ideas

V. Of The Names Of Mixed Modes And Relations

VI. Of The Names Of Substances

VII. Of Particles

VIII. Of Abstract And Concrete Terms

IX. Of The Imperfection Of Words

X. Of The Abuse Of Words

XI. Of The Remedies Of The Foregoing Imperfection And Abuses

Book IV. Of Knowledge And Probability.

I. Of Knowledge In General

II. Of The Degrees Of Our Knowledge

III. Of The Extent Of Human Knowledge

IV. Of The Reality Of Our Knowledge

V. Of Truth In General

VI. Of Universal Propositions: Their Truth And Certainty

VII. Of Maxims

VIII. Of Trifling Propositions

IX. Of Our Threefold Knowledge Of Existence

X. Of Our Knowledge Of The Existence Of A God

XI. Of Our Knowledge Of The Existence Of Other Things

XII. Of The Improvement Of Our Knowledge

XIII. Some Other Considerations Concerning Our Knowledge

XIV. Of Judgment

XV. Of Probability

XVI. Of The Degrees Of Assent

XVII. Of Reason [And Syllogism]

XVIII. Of Faith And Reason, And Their Distinct Provinces

XIX. [Of Enthusiasm]

XX. Of Wrong Assent, Or Error

XXI. Of The Division Of The Sciences

...

Excerpt from Book III - Of Words

Chapter I. -- Of Words Or Language In General.

1. Man fitted to form articulated Sounds.

God, having designed man for a sociable creature, made him not only with an inclination, and under a necessity to have fellowship with those of his own kind, but furnished him also with language, which was to be the great instrument and common tie of society. Man, therefore, had by nature his organs so fashioned, as to be fit to frame articulate sounds, which we call words. But this was not enough to produce language; for parrots, and several other birds, will be taught to make articulate sounds distinct enough, which yet by no means are capable of language.

2. To use these sounds as Signs of Ideas.

Besides articulate sounds, therefore, it was further necessary that he should be able to use these sounds as signs of internal conceptions; and to make them stand as marks for the ideas within his own mind, whereby they might be made known to others, and the thoughts of men's minds be conveyed from one to another.

3. To make them general Signs.

But neither was this sufficient to make words so useful as they ought to be. It is not enough for the perfection of language, that sounds can be made signs of ideas, unless those signs can be so made use of as to comprehend several particular things: for the multiplication of words would have perplexed their use, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be signified by. [To remedy this inconvenience, language had yet a further improvement in the use of GENERAL TERMS, whereby one word was made to mark a multitude of particular existences: which advantageous use of sounds was obtained only by the difference of the ideas they were made signs of: those names becoming general, which are made to stand for GENERAL IDEAS, and those remaining particular, where the IDEAS they are used for are PARTICULAR.]

4. To make them signify the absence of positive Ideas.

Besides these names which stand for ideas, there be other words which men make use of, not to signify any idea, but the want or absence of some ideas, simple or complex, or all ideas together; such as are NIHIL in Latin, and in English, IGNORANCE and BARRENNESS. All which negative or privative words cannot be said properly to belong to, or signify no ideas: for then they would be perfectly insignificant sounds; but they relate to positive ideas, and signify their absence.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

The Sciences
(Physical Sciences, Life Sciences)

...

Darwin, Charles

A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World

(The Voyage of The Beagle)

by Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S.

Eleventh Edition...January 1890.

This volume contains, in the form of a Journal, a history of our voyage, and a sketch of those observations in Natural History and Geology, which I think will possess some interest for the general reader. …

After having been twice driven back by heavy south-western gales, Her Majesty's ship "Beagle," a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R.N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831. The object of the expedition was to complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, commenced under Captain King in 1826 to 1830 -- to survey the shores of Chile, Peru, and of some islands in the Pacific -- and to carry a chain of chronometrical measurements round the World. On the 6th of January we reached Teneriffe, but were prevented landing, by fears of our bringing the cholera: the next morning we saw the sun rise behind the rugged outline of the Grand Canary Island, and suddenly illumine the Peak of Teneriffe, whilst the lower parts were veiled in fleecy clouds. This was the first of many delightful days never to be forgotten. On the 16th of January 1832 we anchored at Porto Praya, in St. Jago, the chief island of the Cape de Verd archipelago.

The neighbourhood of Porto Praya, viewed from the sea, wears a desolate aspect. The volcanic fires of a past age, and the scorching heat of a tropical sun, have in most places rendered the soil unfit for vegetation. The country rises in successive steps of table-land, interspersed with some truncate conical hills, and the horizon is bounded by an irregular chain of more lofty mountains. The scene, as beheld through the hazy atmosphere of this climate, is one of great interest; if, indeed, a person, fresh from sea, and who has just walked, for the first time, in a grove of cocoa-nut trees, can be a judge of anything but his own happiness. The island would generally be considered as very uninteresting, but to any one accustomed only to an English landscape, the novel aspect of an utterly sterile land possesses a grandeur which more vegetation might spoil. A single green leaf can scarcely be discovered over wide tracts of the lava plains; yet flocks of goats, together with a few cows, contrive to exist. It rains very seldom, but during a short portion of the year heavy torrents fall, and immediately afterwards a light vegetation springs out of every crevice. This soon withers; and upon such naturally formed hay the animals live. It had not now rained for an entire year. . . .

One day, two of the officers and myself rode to Ribeira Grande, a village a few miles eastward of Porto Praya. Until we reached the valley of St. Martin, the country presented its usual dull brown appearance; but here, a very small rill of water produces a most refreshing margin of luxuriant vegetation. In the course of an hour we arrived at Ribeira Grande, and were surprised at the sight of a large ruined fort and cathedral. This little town, before its harbour was filled up, was the principal place in the island . . .

...

The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

Preface to the Second Edition

During the successive reprints of the first edition of this work, published in 1871, I was able to introduce several important corrections; and now that more time has elapsed, I have endeavoured to profit by the fiery ordeal through which the book has passed, and have taken advantage of all the criticisms which seem to me sound. . . . I must especially call attention to some observations which I owe to the kindness of Prof. Huxley (given as a supplement at the end of Part I.), on the nature of the differences between the brains of man and the higher apes. I have been particularly glad to give these observations, because during the last few years several memoirs on the subject have appeared on the Continent, and their importance has been, in some cases, greatly exaggerated by popular writers.

I may take this opportunity of remarking that my critics frequently assume that I attribute all changes of corporeal structure and mental power exclusively to the natural selection of such variations as are often called spontaneous; whereas, even in the first edition of the 'Origin of Species,' I distinctly stated that great weight must be attributed to the inherited effects of use and disuse, with respect both to the body and mind. I also attributed some amount of modification to the direct and prolonged action of changed conditions of life. Some allowance, too, must be made for occasional reversions of structure; nor must we forget what I have called "correlated" growth, meaning, thereby, that various parts of the organisation are in some unknown manner so connected, that when one part varies, so do others; and if variations in the one are accumulated by selection, other parts will be modified. Again, it has been said by several critics, that when I found that many details of structure in man could not be explained through natural selection, I invented sexual selection; I gave, however, a tolerably clear sketch of this principle in the first edition of the 'Origin of Species,' and I there stated that it was applicable to man. This subject of sexual selection has been treated at full length in the present work, simply because an opportunity was here first afforded me. I have been struck with the likeness of many of the half-favourable criticisms on sexual selection, with those which appeared at first on natural selection; such as, that it would explain some few details, but certainly was not applicable to the extent to which I have employed it. My conviction of the power of sexual selection remains unshaken; but it is probable, or almost certain, that several of my conclusions will hereafter be found erroneous; this can hardly fail to be the case in the first treatment of a subject. When naturalists have become familiar with the idea of sexual selection, it will, as I believe, be much more largely accepted; and it has already been fully and favourably received by several capable judges.

Down, Beckenham, Kent, September, 1874.
First Edition February 24, 1871.
Second Edition September, 1874.

Chapter I.

The Evidence of the Descent of Man from Some Lower Form.

He who wishes to decide whether man is the modified descendant of some pre- existing form, would probably first enquire whether man varies, however slightly, in bodily structure and in mental faculties; and if so, whether the variations are transmitted to his offspring in accordance with the laws which prevail with the lower animals. Again, are the variations the result, as far as our ignorance permits us to judge, of the same general causes, and are they governed by the same general laws, as in the case of other organisms; for instance, by correlation, the inherited effects of use and disuse, etc.? Is man subject to similar malconformations, the result of arrested development, of reduplication of parts, etc., and does he display in any of his anomalies reversion to some former and ancient type of structure? It might also naturally be enquired whether man, like so many other animals, has given rise to varieties and sub-races, differing but slightly from each other, or to races differing so much that they must be classed as doubtful species? How are such races distributed over the world; and how, when crossed, do they react on each other in the first and succeeding generations? And so with many other points.

The enquirer would next come to the important point, whether man tends to increase at so rapid a rate, as to lead to occasional severe struggles for existence; and consequently to beneficial variations, whether in body or mind, being preserved, and injurious ones eliminated. Do the races or species of men, whichever term may be applied, encroach on and replace one another, so that some finally become extinct? We shall see that all these questions, as indeed is obvious in respect to most of them, must be answered in the affirmative, in the same manner as with the lower animals. . . . We will first see how far the bodily structure of man shews traces, more or less plain, of his descent from some lower form. In succeeding chapters the mental powers of man, in comparison with those of the lower animals, will be considered.

...

Origin of Species

The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection
(6th Edition)

or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

Introduction.

When on board H.M.S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts, as will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species -- that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.

My work is now (1859) nearly finished. . .

This abstract, which I now publish, . . . can here give only the general conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope, in most cases will suffice. . . .

In considering the origin of species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. Nevertheless, such a conclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory, until it could be shown how the innumerable species, inhabiting this world have been modified, so as to acquire that perfection of structure and coadaptation which justly excites our admiration. . . .

Chapter I.

[A.] Variation under Domestication.

[A-1.] Causes of Variability.

When we compare the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us is, that they generally differ more from each other than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. And if we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been cultivated, and which have varied during all ages under the most different climates and treatment, we are driven to conclude that this great variability is due to our domestic productions having been raised under conditions of life not so uniform as, and somewhat different from, those to which the parent species had been exposed under nature. There is, also, some probability in the view propounded by Andrew Knight, that this variability may be partly connected with excess of food. It seems clear that organic beings must be exposed during several generations to new conditions to cause any great amount of variation; and that, when the organisation has once begun to vary, it generally continues varying for many generations. No case is on record of a variable organism ceasing to vary under cultivation. Our oldest cultivated plants, such as wheat, still yield new varieties: our oldest domesticated animals are still capable of rapid improvement or modification.

As far as I am able to judge, after long attending to the subject, the conditions of life appear to act in two ways -- directly on the whole organisation or on certain parts alone and in directly by affecting the reproductive system.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Einstein, Albert

Relativity: The Special and General Theory

(revised edition: 1924)

Translated: Robert W. Lawson (Authorized translation)

Preface

Part I: The Special Theory of Relativity

01. Physical Meaning of Geometrical Propositions

02. The System of Co-ordinates

03. Space and Time in Classical Mechanics

04. The Galileian System of Co-ordinates

05. The Principle of Relativity (in the Restricted Sense)

06. The Theorem of the Addition of Velocities employed in Classical Mechanics

07. The Apparent Incompatability of the Law of Propagation of Light with the Principle of Relativity

08. On the Idea of Time in Physics

09. The Relativity of Simultaneity

10. On the Relativity of the Conception of Distance

11. The Lorentz Transformation

12. The Behaviour of Measuring-Rods and Clocks in Motion

13. Theorem of the Addition of Velocities. The Experiment of Fizeau

14. The Hueristic Value of the Theory of Relativity

15. General Results of the Theory

16. Expereince and the Special Theory of Relativity

17. Minkowski's Four-dimensial Space

.
Part II: The General Theory of Relativity

18. Special and General Principle of Relativity

19. The Gravitational Field

20. The Equality of Inertial and Gravitational Mass as an Argument for the General Postulate of Relativity

21. In What Respects are the Foundations of Classical Mechanics and of the Special Theory of Relativity Unsatisfactory?

22. A Few Inferences from the General Principle of Relativity

23. Behaviour of Clocks and Measuring-Rods on a Rotating Body of Reference

24. Euclidean and non-Euclidean Continuum

25. Gaussian Co-ordinates

26. The Space-Time Continuum of the Speical Theory of Relativity Considered as a Euclidean Continuum

27. The Space-Time Continuum of the General Theory of Relativity is Not a Eculidean Continuum

28. Exact Formulation of the General Principle of Relativity

29. The Solution of the Problem of Gravitation on the Basis of the

General Principle of Relativity

Part III: Considerations on the Universe as a Whole

30. Cosmological Difficulties of Netwon's Theory

31. The Possibility of a "Finite" and yet "Unbounded" Universe

32. The Structure of Space According to the General Theory of Relativity

Appendices:

01. Simple Derivation of the Lorentz Transformation (sup. ch. 11)

02. Minkowski's Four-Dimensional Space ("World") (sup. ch 17)

03. The Experimental Confirmation of the General Theory of Relativity

04. The Structure of Space According to the General Theory of Relativity (sup. ch 32)

05. Relativity and the Problem of Space

Note: The fifth Appendix was added by Einstein at the time of the fifteenth re-printing of this book, and, as a result, is still under copyright restrictions so cannot be added without the permission of the publisher.

Preface

(December, 1916)

The present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of Relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics. The work presumes a standard of education corresponding to that of a university matriculation examination, and, despite the shortness of the book, a fair amount of patience and force of will on the part of the reader. The author has spared himself no pains in his endeavour to present the main ideas in the simplest and most intelligible form, and on the whole, in the sequence and connection in which they actually originated. In the interest of clearness, it appeared to me inevitable that I should repeat myself frequently, without paying the slightest attention to the elegance of the presentation. I adhered scrupulously to the precept of that brilliant theoretical physicist L. Boltzmann, according to whom matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler. I make no pretence of having withheld from the reader difficulties which are inherent to the subject. On the other hand, I have purposely treated the empirical physical foundations of the theory in a "step-motherly" fashion, so that readers unfamiliar with physics may not feel like the wanderer who was unable to see the forest for the trees. May the book bring some one a few happy hours of suggestive thought!

December, 1916

A. Einstein

Part I

The Special Theory of Relativity

Physical Meaning of Geometrical Propositions

In your schooldays most of you who read this book made acquaintance with the noble building of Euclid's geometry, and you remember -- perhaps with more respect than love -- the magnificent structure, on the lofty staircase of which you were chased about for uncounted hours by conscientious teachers. By reason of our past experience, you would certainly regard everyone with disdain who should pronounce even the most out-of-the-way proposition of this science to be untrue. But perhaps this feeling of proud certainty would leave you immediately if some one were to ask you: "What, then, do you mean by the assertion that these propositions are true?" Let us proceed to give this question a little consideration.

Geometry sets out form certain conceptions such as "plane," "point," and "straight line," with which we are able to associate more or less definite ideas, and from certain simple propositions (axioms) which, in virtue of these ideas, we are inclined to accept as "true." Then, on the basis of a logical process, the justification of which we feel ourselves compelled to admit, all remaining propositions are shown to follow from those axioms, i.e. they are proven. A proposition is then correct ("true") when it has been derived in the recognised manner from the axioms. The question of "truth" of the individual geometrical propositions is thus reduced to one of the "truth" of the axioms. Now it has long been known that the last question is not only unanswerable by the methods of geometry, but that it is in itself entirely without meaning. We cannot ask whether it is true that only one straight line goes through two points. We can only say that Euclidean geometry deals with things called "straight lines," to each of which is ascribed the property of being uniquely determined by two points situated on it. The concept "true" does not tally with the assertions of pure geometry, because by the word "true" we are eventually in the habit of designating always the correspondence with a "real" object; geometry, however, is not concerned with the relation of the ideas involved in it to objects of experience, but only with the logical connection of these ideas among themselves.

It is not difficult to understand why, in spite of this, we feel constrained to call the propositions of geometry "true." Geometrical ideas correspond to more or less exact objects in nature, and these last are undoubtedly the exclusive cause of the genesis of those ideas. Geometry ought to refrain from such a course, in order to give to its structure the largest possible logical unity. The practice, for example, of seeing in a "distance" two marked positions on a practically rigid body is something which is lodged deeply in our habit of thought. We are accustomed further to regard three points as being situated on a straight line, if their apparent positions can be made to coincide for observation with one eye, under suitable choice of our place of observation.

If, in pursuance of our habit of thought, we now supplement the propositions of Euclidean geometry by the single proposition that two points on a practically rigid body always correspond to the same distance (line-interval), independently of any changes in position to which we may subject the body, the propositions of Euclidean geometry then resolve themselves into propositions on the possible relative position of practically rigid bodies.* Geometry which has been supplemented in this way is then to be treated as a branch of physics. We can now legitimately ask as to the "truth" of geometrical propositions interpreted in this way, since we are justified in asking whether these propositions are satisfied for those real things we have associated with the geometrical ideas. In less exact terms we can express this by saying that by the "truth" of a geometrical proposition in this sense we understand its validity for a construction with rule and compasses.

Of course the conviction of the "truth" of geometrical propositions in this sense is founded exclusively on rather incomplete experience. For the present we shall assume the "truth" of the geometrical propositions, then at a later stage (in the general theory of relativity) we shall see that this "truth" is limited, and we shall consider the extent of its limitation.

Notes

*) It follows that a natural object is associated also with a straight line. Three points A, B and C on a rigid body thus lie in a straight line when the points A and C being given, B is chosen such that the sum of the distances AB and BC is as short as possible. This incomplete suggestion will suffice for the present purpose.

...

Ether and The Theory of Relativity

An Address delivered on May 5th, 1920,
in the University of Leyden

Geometry and Experience,

An expanded form of an Address to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin on January 27th, 1921.

Ether and The Theory of Relativity

How does it come about that alongside of the idea of ponderable matter, which is derived by abstraction from everyday life, the physicists set the idea of the existence of another kind of matter, the ether? The explanation is probably to be sought in those phenomena which have given rise to the theory of action at a distance, and in the properties of light which have led to the undulatory theory. Let us devote a little while to the consideration of these two subjects.

Outside of physics we know nothing of action at a distance. When we try to connect cause and effect in the experiences which natural objects afford us, it seems at first as if there were no other mutual actions than those of immediate contact, e.g. the communication of motion by impact, push and pull, heating or inducing combustion by means of a flame, etc. It is true that even in everyday experience weight, which is in a sense action at a distance, plays a very important part. But since in daily experience the weight of bodies meets us as something constant, something not linked to any cause which is variable in time or place, we do not in everyday life speculate as to the cause of gravity, and therefore do not become conscious of its character as action at a distance. It was Newton's theory of gravitation that first assigned a cause for gravity by interpreting it as action at a distance, proceeding from masses. Newton's theory is probably the greatest stride ever made in the effort towards the causal nexus of natural phenomena. And yet this theory evoked a lively sense of discomfort among Newton's contemporaries, because it seemed to be in conflict with the principle springing from the rest of experience, that there can be reciprocal action only through contact, and not through immediate action at a distance. It is only with reluctance that man's desire for knowledge endures a dualism of this kind. How was unity to be preserved in his comprehension of the forces of nature? Either by trying to look upon contact forces as being themselves distant forces which admittedly are observable only at a very small distance -- and this was the road which Newton's followers, who were entirely under the spell of his doctrine, mostly preferred to take; or by assuming that the Newtonian action at a distance is only apparently immediate action at a distance, but in truth is conveyed by a medium permeating space, whether by movements or by elastic deformation of this medium. Thus the endeavour toward a unified view of the nature of forces leads to the hypothesis of an ether.

• Go to Order Form • Return to Top of the Page • "Home" to GRAMPS • Table of Contents •
(Use the "Back" Button on your browser to return to your place on the Table of Contents Page)

Sample Page • Table o f Contents

History & Social Thought

Churchill, Sir Winston: Selected Writings

River War

An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan (1902 edition)

Contents:

From Chapter I: The Rebellion of the Mahdi

The Story of the Malakand Field Force

An Episode of Frontier War

Contents

From the Preface

from Chapter I: The Theatre of War

Douglass, Frederick: Collected Articles

My Bondage and My Freedom

Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass

Author of Many Works on the Escape from Slavery around the Time of the Civil War

My Escape from Slavery

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Written by Himself.

Grant Ulysses S.

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, complete

Preface.

Contents

Excerpts from Chapter I.

Ancestry -- Birth -- Boyhood.

from Chapter II. West Point -- Graduation.

Volume II.

Contents.

Excerpt from Chapter XL.

Hamilton, Alexander

The Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 1

General Introduction

Lee Robert E

Recollections and Letters of General Lee

by Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

Contents

from Chapter I -- Services in the United States Army

Lincoln, Abraham

Collected Writings

Lines included in these selected passages:

Volume 1.

Introductory

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It "Limerence": The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

from The Trial (A Love Story)

Introduction:

Chapter I: Talk Radio

Man from Milwaukee:

Man from Boston:

Man from Delaware Village, Vermont:

Woman from Seattle:

Woman from New York:

Woman from Arlington:

Man from Alabama:

Woman from Phoenix:

Male from Kansas:

Woman from Maine:

Man from Delaware:

Man from Toronto:

Man from Florida:

Woman from Nebraska:

Literature & Language

Barrie James M: The James M. Barrie Collection

What Every Woman Knows

The Admirable Crichton

Alice Sit-By-The-Fire

Auld Licht Idyls

Dear Brutus

Echoes of the War

The Little Minister

The Little White Bird (including Peter Pan)

Margaret Ogilvy

Bierce, Ambrose ("Josh Billings"), Himself

Can Such Things Be?

The Devil's Dictionary

Fantastic Fables

The Crimson Candle

Fiends Delight

The Fiend's Delight, by Dod Grile

Heiress from Redhorse

From Chapter I:
The Rebellion of the Mahdi

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It "Limerence":
The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov