Our man in Charleston :

Britain's secret agent in the Civil War South

Christopher Dickey

Very interesting accounts of the period leading up to the Civil War in Charleston, and the correspondence between the diplomats and their government in London.

Palmerston: "No parallel in the conduct of any other civilized country"

Bunch to Clarendon: "bigotry and fanaticism unparalleled, I hope, in any other section of the civilized world."

Also interesting was the equation between lobbying and bribing.

Dickens: "license to torture corrupted the whole of society"

Two interesting characters from newspapers in Charleston
Robert Barnwell Rhett, Charleston Mercury
Leonidas Spratt, Charleston Southern Standard, who also wrote for the Mercury later during the war

Also interesting at the time was William Walker,a mercenary in Latin America, who usurped the presidency of Nicaragua in 1856 until 1857, and later executed by Honduras in 1860.

Pulblisher's description: The little-known story of a British diplomat who serves as a spy in South Carolina at the dawn of the Civil War, posing as a friend to slave-owning aristocrats when he was actually telling Britain not to support the Confederacy

The Burglar Who Counted The Spoons

By Lawrence Block

A Bernie Rhodenbarr Mystery

I've read all of his "Burlgar" series but not any of Lawrence Block's other books.

This one is particularly intriguing, because of Fitzgerald and Benjamin Button, but my favorite in the series was The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian. I've been to the home of someone who owns two Mondrians.

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody

Will Cuppy

One of my favorite books of all time, funny, witty, and "irreverent".

Footnotes:

Hatsheput: "She wanted to be the boss whether anyone loved her or not. Some people are like that."

Pericles: "The very poorest citizens had a chance to become President, but somehow they didn't. It may have just been a coincidence."

Hannibal: "Livy informs us that Hannibal split the huge Alpine rocks with vinegar to break a path for the elephants. Vinegar was a high explosive in 218 B.C., but not before or since."

Lucrezia Borgia could be a favorite because of the recent tv series.

The rival queens : Catherine De' Medici, her daughter Marguerite De Valois, and the betrayal that ignited a kingdom

Nancy Goldstone

I like this author's writing, although I didn't care for the subject matter of some of her other books. This book has a detailed history of Queen Margot, which I appreciated very much. I particularly enjoyed reading about the history of her time spent in the south of France with and apart from her husband.

French histories tend to concentrate on her relationship with Henri de Guise.

Goldeneye : where Bond was born : Ian Fleming's Jamaica

Matthew Parker, no, not the Archbishop of Canterbury

Pure enjoyment for me. Of the many things that were done around the 50th anniversary of Fleming's death, I appreciated this and the UK tv series, Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond the most.

Petronius

The vagrant heroes of Petronius are the originals from whom directly, or indirectly, later authors drew that inspiration which resulted in the great mass of picaresque fiction; but, great as this is, it is not to this that the Satyricon owes its powerful influence upon the literature of the world. It is to the author's recognition of the importance of environment, of the vital role of inanimate surroundings as a means for bringing out character and imbuing his episodes and the actions of his characters with an air of reality and with those impulses and actions which are common to human experience, that his influence is due. By this, the Roman created a new style of writing and inaugurated a class of literature which was without parallel until the time of Apuleius and, in a lesser degree, of Lucian. This class of literature, though modified essentially from age to age, in keeping with the dictates of moral purity or bigotry, innocent or otherwise, has come to be the very stuff of which literary success in fiction is made. One may write a successful book without a thread of romance; one cannot write a successful romance without some knowledge of realism; the more intimate the knowledge the better the book, and it is frequently to this that the failure of a novel is due, although the critic might be at a loss to explain it. Petronius lies behind Tristram Shandy, his influence can be detected in Smollett, and even Fielding paid tribute to him.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5225/5225-h/5225-h.htm

Karma

Figuier continues: "Some men are endowed with all benefits of mind; others, on the contrary, are devoid of intelligence, penetration and memory. They stumble at every step in their rough life-paths. Their limited intelligence and their imperfect faculties expose them to all possible mortifications and disasters. They can succeed in nothing, and Fate seems to have chosen them for the constant objects of its most deadly blows. There are beings who, from the moment of their birth to the hour of their death, utter only cries of suffering and despair. What crime have they committed? Why are they here on earth? They have not petitioned to be here; and if they could, they would have begged that this fatal cup might be taken from their lips. They are here in spite of themselves, against their will. God would be unjust and wicked if he imposed so miserable an existence upon beings who have done nothing to incur it, and have not asked for it. But God is not unjust or wicked: the opposite qualities belong to his perfect essence. Therefore the presence of man on such or such parts of the earth, and the unequal distribution of evil on our globe, must remain unexplained. If you know a doctrine, a philosophy, or a religion that solves these difficulties, I will destroy this book, and confess myself vanquished."

The orthodox theology answers Figuier's question by the argument that "in our finite understanding, we cannot pretend to understand God's plans, purposes and designs, nor to criticize his form of justice." It holds that we must look beyond that mortal life for the evidence of God's love, and not attempt to judge it according to what we see here on earth of men's miseries and inequalities. It holds that the suffering and misery come to us as an inheritance from Adam, and as a result of the sins of our first parents; but that if we are "good" it will all be evened up and recompensed in the next world. Of course the extremists who hold to Predestination have held that some were happy and some miserable, simply because God in the exercise of His will had elected and predestined them to those conditions, but it would scarcely be fair to quote this as the position of current theology, because the tendency of modern theological thought is away from that conception. We mention it merely as showing what some have thought of the subject. Others have sought refuge in the idea that we suffer for the sins of our parents, according to the old doctrine that "the sins of the parents shall be visited upon the children," but even this is not in accordance with man's highest idea of justice and love.
Passing on to the second view, namely that the soul was pre-existent, that is, existed in some higher state not understood by us, from whence it was thrust into human form, etc., we note that the questions as to the cause of inequality, misery, etc., considered a moment ago, are still actively with us--this view does not straighten out the question at all. For whether the soul was pre-existent in a higher state, or whether it was freshly created, the fact remains that as souls they must be equal in the sense of being made by the same process, and from the same material, and that up to the point of their embodiment they had not sinned or merited any reward or punishment, nor had they earned anything one way or another. And yet, according to the theory, these equally innocent and inexperienced souls are born, some being thrust into the bodies of children to be born in environments conducive to advancement, development, etc., and gifted with natural advantages, while others are thrust into bodies of children to be born into the most wretched environments and surroundings, and devoid of many natural advantages--not to speak of the crippled, deformed, and pain-ridden ones in all walks of life. There is no more explanation of the problem in this view than there was in the first mentioned one.

Passing on to the third view, namely, that the soul is one of countless others which emanated from the Source of Being æons ago, equal in power, opportunities, etc., and which individual soul has worked its way up to its present position through many rebirths and lives, in which it has gained many experiences and lessons, which determine its present condition, and which in turn will profit by the experiences and lessons of the present life by which the next stage of its life will be determined--we find what many have considered to be the only logical and possible explanation of the problem of life's inequalities, providing there is an "answer" at all, and that there is any such thing as a "soul," and a loving, just God. Figuier, the French writer, from whom we quoted that remarkable passage breathing the pessimism of the old view of life, a few moments ago, admitted that in rebirth was to be found a just explanation of the matter. He says: "If, on the contrary, we admit the plurality of human existences and reincarnation--that is, the passage of the same soul through several bodies--all this is made wonderfully clear. Our presence on such or such a part of the earth is no longer the effect of a caprice of Fate, or the result of chance; it is merely a station in the long journey that we make through the world. Before our birth, we have already lived, and this life is the sequel and result of previous ones. We have a soul that we must purify, improve and ennoble during our stay upon earth; or having already completed an imperfect and wicked life, we are compelled to begin a new one, and thus strive to rise to the level of those who have passed on to higher planes."

The advocates of Reincarnation point out that the idea of Justice is fully carried out in that view of life, inasmuch as what we are is determined by what we have been; and what we shall be is determined by what we are now; and that we are constantly urged on by the pressure of the unfolding spirit, and attracted upward by the Divine One. Under this conception there is no such thing as Chance--all is according to Law. As an ancient Grecian philosopher once said: "Without the doctrine of metempsychosis, it is not possible to justify the ways of God," and many other philosophers and theologians have followed him in this thought. If we enjoy, we have earned it; if we suffer, we have earned it; in both cases through our own endeavors and efforts, and not by "chance," nor by reason of the merits or demerits of our forefathers, nor because of "predestination" nor "election" to that fate. If this be true, then one is given the understanding to stoically bear the pains and miseries of this life without cursing Fate or imputing injustice to the Divine. And likewise he is given an incentive toward making the best of his opportunities now, in order to pass on to higher and more satisfactory conditions in future lives.

Reincarnationists claim that rewards and punishments are properly awarded only on the plane in which the deed, good or bad, was committed, "else their nature is changed, their effects impaired, and their collateral bearings lost." A writer on the subject has pointed out this fact in the following words: "Physical outrage has to be checked by the infliction of physical pain, and not merely by the arousing of internal regret. Honest lives find appropriate consequence in visible honor. But one career is too short for the precise balancing of accounts, and many are needed that every good or evil done in each may be requited on the earth where it took place." In reference to this mention of rewards and penalties, we would say that very many advanced Reincarnationists do not regard the conditions of life as "rewards and punishments," but, on the contrary, look upon them as forming part of the Lessons in the Kindergarten of Life, to be learned and profited by in future lives. We shall speak of this further in our consideration of the question of "Karma"--the difference is vital, and should be closely observed in considering the subject.

Before we pass from the consideration of the question of Justice, as exemplified by Reincarnation, we would call your attention to the difference in the views of life and its rewards and punishments held by the orthodox theologians and the Reincarnationists, respectively. On the one hand, the orthodox theologians hold that for the deeds, good or evil, performed by a man during his short lifetime of a few years, and then performed under conditions arbitrarily imposed upon him at birth by his Creator, man is rewarded or punished by an eternity of happiness or misery--heaven or hell. Perhaps the man has lived but one or two years of reasonable understanding--or full three-score and ten--and has violated certain moral, ethical or even religious laws, perhaps only to the extent of refusing to believe something that his reason absolutely refused to accept--for this he is doomed to an everlasting sojourn in a place of pain, misery or punishment, or a state equivalent thereto. Or, on the other hand, he has done the things that he ought to have done, and left undone the things that he ought not to have done--even though this doing and not-doing was made very easy for him by reason of his environment and surroundings--and to crown his beautiful life he had accepted the orthodox creeds and beliefs of his fathers, as a matter of course--then this man is rewarded by an eternity of bliss, happiness and joy--without end. Try to think of what ETERNITY means--think of the æons upon æons of time, on and on, and on, forever--and the poor sinner is suffering exquisite torture all that time, and in all time to come, without limit, respite, without mercy! And all the same time, the "good" man is enjoying his blissful state, without limit, or end, or satiety! And the time of probation, during which the two worked out their future fate, was as a grain of sand as compared with the countless universes in space in all eternity--a relation which reduces the span of man's lifetime to almost absolutely NOTHING, mathematically considered. Think of this--is this Justice?

And on the other hand, from the point of view of the Reincarnationist, is not the measure of cause and effect more equitably adjusted, even if we regard it as a matter of "reward and punishment"--a crude view by the way--when we see that every infraction of the law is followed by a corresponding effect, and an adherence to the law by a proportionate effect. Does not the "punishment fit the crime" better in this case--the rewards also. And looking at it from a reasonable point of view, devoid from theological bias, which plan seems to be the best exemplification of Justice and Natural Law, not to speak of the higher Divine Justice and Cosmic Law? Of course, we are not urging these ideas as "proofs" of Reincarnation, for strictly speaking "proof" must lie outside of speculation of "what ought to be"--proof belongs to the region of "what is" and "facts in experience." But, nevertheless, while one is considering the matter, it should be viewed from every possible aspect, in order to see "how it works out."
http://manybooks.net/pages/atkinsonww2636426364-8/74.html

Camden to Charles 1

William Camden had finished his "Britannia" by 1617 (commenced in 1597), printed in 1625. He says of Stratford Church: "In the chancel lies William Shakespeare, a native of this place, who has given ample proof of his genius and great abilities in the forty-eight plays he has left behind him."

It is evident that the First Folio, 1623, was intended by his "fellows" at the Globe to stand as their monument to his memory, built of the plays that had become their private property by purchase. The verses that preface it, written by W. Basse, suggest that Shakespeare should have been buried by Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. But the author withdraws his wish.

"Sleep, Brave Tragedian, Shakspere, sleep alone Thy unmolested rest, unshared cave Possess as Lord, not tenant to thy grave," etc.

Archy's "Banquet of Jests," printed in 1630, tells of one travelling through Stratford, "a town most remarkable for the birth of famous William Shakespeare." In the same year is said to have been written Milton's memorable epitaph (printed 1632), a noble testimony from the Puritan genius to the power of his play-acting brother:

"What needs my Shakspere for his honoured bones, The labour of an age in pilèd stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star y-pointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What needst thou such weak witness of thy fame? Thou, in our wonder and astonishment, Hast built thyself a live-long monument," etc.

By 1651 had already been suggested an annual commemoration of his life in Samuel Sheppard's "Epigram on Shakspere," verse 6:

"Where thy honoured bones do lie, As Statius once to Maro's urn, Thither every year will I Slowly tread and sadly turn."

The State Papers even show the appreciation of his age.[174] But I was pleased to find that the first recorded student of Shakespeare was a woman. On January 21, 1638,[175] Madam Anne Merrick, in the country, wrote to a friend in London that she could not come to town, but "must content herself with the study of Shakespeare and the 'History of Women,'" which seem to have constituted all her country library. The Judges of King Charles I. reproached him with the study of Shakespeare's Plays

http://manybooks.net/pages/stopesc2631526315-8/77.html

1769

Of late times, many Ministers haue by their ernest inuectiues, both condemned these Saints feasts as superstitious, and suppressed the Church-ales, as licencious: concerning which, let it breed none offence, for me to report a conference that I had not long since, with a neere friend, who (as I conceiue) looked hereinto with an indifferent and vnpreiudicating eye. I do reuerence (sayd he) the calling and iudgement of the Ministers, especially when most of them concurre in one opinion, and that the matter controuersed, holdeth some affinity with their profession. Howbeit, I doubt, least in their exclayming or declayming against Church-ales and Saints feasts, their ringleaders did onely regard the rinde, and not perce into the pith, and that the rest were chiefly swayed by their example: euen as the vulgar, rather stouped to the wayght of their authoritie, then became perswaded by the force of their reasons. And first touching Church-ales, these be mine assertions, if not my proofes: Of things induced by our forefathers, some were instituted to a good vse, and peruerted to a bad: againe, some were both naught in the inuention, and so continued in the practise. Now that Church-ales ought to bee sorted in the better ranke of these twaine, maybe gathered from their causes and [70] effects, which I thus rasse vp together: entertaining of Christian loue, conforming of mens behauiour to a ciuill conuersation, compounding of controuersies, appealing of quarrels, raising a store, which might be concerted partly to good and godly vses, as releeuing all sorts of poore people, repairing of Churches, building of bridges, amending of high wayes; and partly for the Princes seruice, by defraying at an instant, such rates and taxes as the magistrate imposeth for the Countries defence. Briefly, they tende to an instructing of the minde by amiable conference, and an enabling of the body by commendable exercises.

But I fearing lest my friend would runne himselfe out of breath, in this volubilitie of praising, stept athwart him with these obiections: That hee must pardon my dissenting from his opinion, touching the goodnesse of the institution: for taken at best, it could not be martialled with the sacred matters, but rather with the ciuill, if not with the profane; that the very title of ale was somewhat nasty, and the thing it selfe had beene corrupted with such a multitude of abuses, to wit, idlenes, drunkennesse, lasciuiousnes, vaine disports of ministrelsie, dauncing, and disorderly night-watchings, that the best curing was to cut it cleane away. As for his fore-remembred good causes and effects, I sawe not, but that if the peoples mindes were guided by the true leuell of christian charity & duetie, such necessary and profitable contributions might stil be continued gratis, & the country eased of that charge to their purse and conscience, which ensueth this gourmandise. His reply was, that if this ordinance could not reach vnto that sanctity which dependeth on the first table, yet it succeeded the same in the next degree, as appertayning to the second. Mine exception against the title, he mockingly matched with their scrupulous precisenes, who (forsooth) would not say Christmas, nor Michaelmas, as other folk did; but Christs tide, and Michaels tide: who (quoth he) by like consequence must also bind themselues to say, Toms tide, Lams tide, and Candles tide. But if the name of ale relish so ill, whereas the licour itselfe is the English mans ancientest and wholesomest drinke, and serueth many for meate and cloth too; he was contented I should call it Church beere, or Church wine, or what else I listed: mary, for his part hee would loqui cum vulgo, though hee studied sentire cum sapientibus. Where I affirmed, that the people might by other meanes be trayned with an equall largesse to semblable workes of charitie, he suspected lest I did not enter into a through consideration of their nature and qualitie, which he had obserued to be this: that they would sooner depart with 12. pennyworth of ware, then sixepence in coyne, and this shilling they would willingly double, so they might share but some pittance thereof againe. Now in such indifferent matters, to serue their humours, for working them to a good purpose, could breed no maner of scandall. As for the argument of abuse, which I so largely dilated, that should rather conclude a reformation of the fault, then an abrogation of the fact.

http://manybooks.net/pages/carewretext06srvcr10/118.html

Florida

English as She is Wrote page 21
by Anonymous

The following is probably the longest sentence ever written, containing, as it does, eight hundred words:

"I propose, then, to give your readers some description of this old yet still strange and wild country, that has been settled for three hundred years, and is not yet inhabited--a land of shifting sand and deep mud--a land of noble rivers that rise in swamps and consist merely of chains of shallow lakes, some of them twenty miles long and two miles across, and only twelve feet deep--of wide, sandy plains, covered with solemn-sounding pines--of spots so barren that nothing can be made to grow upon them, and yet with a soil so fertile that if you tickle it with a hoe, it will laugh out an abundant harvest of sugar, cotton, and fruit--a land of oranges, lemons, pomegranates, pineapples, figs, and bananas; whose rivers teem with fish, its forests with game, and its very air with fowl; where everything will grow except apples and wheat; where everything can be found except ice; yet where the people, with a productive soil, a mild climate and beautiful nature, affording every table luxury, live on corn-grist, sweet potatoes, and molasses; where men possessing forty thousand head of cattle never saw a glass of milk in their lives, using the imported article when used at all, and then calling it consecrated milk; where the very effort to milk a cow would probably scare her to death, as well as frighten a whole neighborhood by the unheard of phenomenon; where cabbages grow on the tops of trees, and you may dig bread out of the ground; where, below the frost-line, the castor-oil plant becomes a large tree of several years' growth, and a pumpkin or bean-vine will take root from its trailing branches, and thus spread and live year after year; where cattle do not know what hay is, and refuse it when offered, so that the purchase of a yoke of oxen is not considered valid if the animals will not eat in a stable; and where in the mild winter, when the land grass is dried up, horses and cattle may be seen wading and swimming in the ponds and streams, plunging their heads under water grasses and moss; where many lakes have holes in the bottom and underground communication, so that they will sometimes shrink away to a mere cupful, leaving many square miles of surface uncovered, and then again fill up from below and spread out over their former area; where some of them have outlets in the ocean far from shore, bursting up a perpetual spring of fresh water in the very midst of the briny saltness of the sea; where in times of low water, during a long exhaustive dry season, men have gone under ground in one of these subterranean rivers, from lake to lake, a distance of eight miles; where the ground will sometimes sink and the cavity fill with water, until tall trees, that had stood and sunk upright, will have their topmost branches deeply covered; where rivers will disappear in the earth and rise again, thus forming natural bridges, some of them a mile in breadth; where, instead of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, there are two seasons only--eight months summer, and four months warm weather; where the winter is the dry season, and the summer almost a daily rain; where, in order to take a walk, you first wade through a light sand ankle deep and then get into a mud-puddle, and some of these mud-puddles cover a whole county; where no clay is found fit for brick-making, and people build houses without chimneys; where to make a living is so easy a task, that every one possesses the laziness of ten ordinary men, every one you wish to employ in labor says he is tired and would seem to have been born so; where ague would prevail if the people would take the trouble to shake; where a large orange-tree will bear several thousand oranges--leaves, buds, blossom, half-grown and full-grown fruit, all at once--and every twenty-five feet square of sand will sustain such a tree; where, in many parts, cold weather is an impossibility, and perpetual verdure reigns; where the Everglades are found, covering many large counties with water from one to six feet deep, with a bottom, mud covered, yet underneath solid and firm, from which grasses grow up to the surface--a sea of green, and with islands large and small scattered over the surface, covered with live oaks and dense vegetation; where alligators, or gators as they are called in Florida parlance, possess undoubted aboriginal rights of citizenship, and mosquitoes pay constant visits and are instructive and even penetrating in their attention to strangers."

http://manybooks.net/pages/anon2593325933-8/21.html

Highlanders in America

An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America
by J.P. MacLean

Seven hundred prisoners taken at Preston were sold as slaves to some West Indian merchants, which was a cruel proceeding, when it is considered that the greater part of these men were Highlanders, who had joined the army in obedience to the commands of their chiefs. Wholly unfitted for such labor as would be required in the West Indies and unacclimated, their fate may be readily assumed. But this was no more heartless than the execution in Lancashire of twenty-two of their companions.

The specifications above enumerated have no bearing on the emigration which took place on a large scale, the consequences of which, at the time, arrested the attention of the nation. The causes now to be enumerated grew out of the change of policy following the battle of Culloden. The atrocities following that battle were both for vengeance and to break the military spirit of the Highlanders. The legislative enactments broke the nobler spirit of the people. The rights and welfare of the people at large were totally ignored, and no provisions made for their future welfare. The country was left in a state of commotion and confusion resulting from the changes consequent to the overthrow of the old system, the breaking up of old relationship, and the gradual encroachment of Lowland civilization, and methods of agriculture. While these changes at first were neither great nor extensive, yet they were sufficient to keep the country in a ferment or uproar. The change was largely in the manner of an experiment in order to find out the most profitable way of adaptation to the new regime. These experiments resulted in the unsettling of old manners, customs, and ideas, which caused discontent and misery among the people. The actual change was slow; the innovations, as a rule, began in those districts bordering on the Lowlands, and thence proceeded in a northwesterly direction.

http://manybooks.net/pages/macleanjp2587925879-8/62.html

Osteopathy

Philosophy of Osteopathy page 80
by Andrew T. Still

We do know that all blood for use of the whole system below the twelfth dorsal vertebra does pass through the diaphragm, and all nerve supply, also passes through the diaphragm and spinal column for limb and life. This being a known fact, we have only to use reason to know that an unhealthy condition of the diaphragm is bound to be followed by many diseases. A list of questions arise at this point with the inquirers that must and can be answered every time by reason only. The diaphragm is a musculo-fibrinous organ and depends for blood and nerve supply above its own location, and that supply must be given freely and pure for nerve and blood or we will have a diseased organ to start with; then we may find a universal atrophy or oedema, which would, besides its own deformity not be able to rise and fall, to assist the lungs to mix air with blood to purify venous blood, as it is carried to the lungs to throw off impurities and take on oxygen previous to returning to the heart, to be sent off as nourishment for the system. It is only in keeping with reason that without a healthy diaphragm both in its form and action, disease is bound to be the result.

http://manybooks.net/pages/stilla2586425864-8/80.html

Richard Rolle

The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises page 13
by Richard Rolle of Hampole

In every sinful man and woman that is bound in deadly sin, are three wretchednesses, the which bring them to the death of hell. The first is: Default of ghostly strength. That they are so weak within their heart, that they can neither stand against the temptations of the fiend, nor can they lift their will to yearn for the love of GOD and follow thereto. The second is: Use of fleshly desires:--for they have no will nor might to stand, they fall into lusts and likings of this world; and because they think them sweet, they dwell in them still, many till their lives' end, and so they come to the third wretchedness. The third is, Exchanging a lasting good for a passing delight: as who say they give endless joy for a little joy of this life. If they will turn them and rise to penance, GOD will ordain their dwelling with angels and with holy men. But because they choose the vile sin of this world, and have more delight in the filth of their flesh than in the fairness of heaven, they lose both the world and heaven. For he that hath not JESUS Christ loses all that he hath, and all that he is, and all that he might get. For he is not worthy of life, nor to be fed with swine's-meat. All creatures shall be stirred in His vengeance in the day of Doom. These wretchednesses that I have told you of are not only in worldly men and women, who use gluttony, lust, and other open sins: but they are also in others who seem in penance and godly life. For the devil that is enemy to all mankind, when he sees a man or a woman among a thousand, turn wholly to GOD, and forsake all the vanities and riches that men who love this world covet, and seek lasting joy, a thousand wiles he has in what manner he may destroy them. And when he can not bring them into such sins which might make all men wonder at them who knew them, he beguiles many so privily that they cannot oftentimes feel the trap that has taken them.

http://manybooks.net/pages/hampoler2585625856/13.html

Mark Twain

The Mysterious Stranger page 1
by Mark Twain
Chapter 1
It was in 1590--winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me.

Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It drowsed in peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude where news from the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely content. At its front flowed the tranquil river, its surface painted with cloud-forms and the reflections of drifting arks and stone-boats; behind it rose the woody steeps to the base of the lofty precipice; from the top of the precipice frowned a vast castle, its long stretch of towers and bastions mailed in vines; beyond the river, a league to the left, was a tumbled expanse of forest-clothed hills cloven by winding gorges where the sun never penetrated; and to the right a precipice overlooked the river, and between it and the hills just spoken of lay a far-reaching plain dotted with little homesteads nested among orchards and shade trees.

The whole region for leagues around was the hereditary property of a prince, whose servants kept the castle always in perfect condition for occupancy, but neither he nor his family came there oftener than once in five years. When they came it was as if the lord of the world had arrived, and had brought all the glories of its kingdoms along; and when they went they left a calm behind which was like the deep sleep which follows an orgy.

Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not overmuch pestered with schooling. Mainly we were trained to be good Christians; to revere the Virgin, the Church, and the saints above everything. Beyond these matters we were not required to know much; and, in fact, not allowed to. Knowledge was not good for the common people, and could make them discontented with the lot which God had appointed for them, and God would not endure discontentment with His plans. We had two priests. One of them, Father Adolf, was a very zealous and strenuous priest, much considered.

There may have been better priests, in some ways, than Father Adolf, but there was never one in our commune who was held in more solemn and awful respect. This was because he had absolutely no fear of the Devil. He was the only Christian I have ever known of whom that could be truly said. People stood in deep dread of him on that account; for they thought that there must be something supernatural about him, else he could not be so bold and so confident. All men speak in bitter disapproval of the Devil, but they do it reverently, not flippantly; but Father Adolf's way was very different; he called him by every name he could lay his tongue to, and it made everyone shudder that heard him; and often he would even speak of him scornfully and scoffingly; then the people crossed themselves and went quickly out of his presence, fearing that something fearful might happen.

Father Adolf had actually met Satan face to face more than once, and defied him. This was known to be so. Father Adolf said it himself. He never made any secret of it, but spoke it right out. And that he was speaking true there was proof in at least one instance, for on that occasion he quarreled with the enemy, and intrepidly threw his bottle at him; and there, upon the wall of his study, was the ruddy splotch where it struck and broke.

Goethe

The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' page 10
by H.B. Cotterill

In almost every age and nation we find a vital Power, an ordering Force, recognised as present in the natural world, and the human mind seems ever prone to believe such Power to have affinity to human nature and to be, so to speak, open to a bargain. The fetish priest, the rain doctor, the medicine-man, the Hindu yogi, the Persian Mage, the medieval saint, and countless miracle-workers in every age, have ever believed themselves to be, whether by force of will, or by ecstatic contemplation, or by potent charms, in communion with the great Spirit of Nature, or with mighty cosmic influences--with Powers of Light or of Darkness; with Oromasdes or Arimanes, Brahma or Siva, Jehovah or Baal; with Zoroastrian Devs, Persian Genii, guardian angels or attendant demons; with the Virgin Queen of heaven--whether as Selene, Astarte, Hecate, or the Madonna; with the Prince of the powers of this world--with or without his horns and his cloven foot.

Not only among the heathen--the orientals and Egyptians--but also among the Chosen People we find the priests attesting their favour with the Deity, and asserting the truth of their religion, by what we may call orthodox magic. We all remember how Aaron's rod, in the form of an orthodox snake, swallowed up the unorthodox rod-snakes of the Egyptian sorcerers, and how Elijah attested the power of the true God by calling down fire from heaven in his contest with the priests of the Sun-god Baal. King Solomon too was for many ages credited with magic powers and was regarded in medieval times as the great authority in matters of wizardry.

Among the Greeks, although mysteries and witches played no small part in the old religion and survived long in popular superstition, magic was thrust into the background by the poetic and philosophic Hellenic imagination. The powers of Nature were incorporated in the grand and beautiful human forms of the Olympian gods, or in the dread shapes of the Infernal deities. But even among those of the Greeks who were raised far above the ordinary superstitions of the populace we find many traces of mysticism and magic, as for example in connexion with oracles, with divine healing, with the efficacy of images and other sacred objects, and especially in connexion with Orphic and other Mysteries. And, while for the most part Greek philosophy was rather imaginative than mystic, still we encounter the genuine mystic element in such Greek sages as Empedocles and Pythagoras, both of whom assumed the priestly character and seem to have laid claim to supernatural powers. Empedocles indeed, it is said, gave himself out to be a deity exiled from heaven, and was apparently worshipped as such. According to a not very trustworthy legend he threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna--perhaps in order thus to solve the mystery of existence. Pythagoras is said by some to have met his death at the hands of the people of Crotona, who set fire to his house and burnt him alive with many of his disciples. Goethe evidently alludes to Pythagoras (as well perhaps as to John Huss and others who found their death at the stake) in some well-known lines, which may be roughly thus translated:

The few that truth's deep mystery have learned And could not keep it in their hearts concealed, But to the mob their inner faith revealed, Have evermore been crucified and burned.

We now come to Christianity. In the early ages of the Church the final appeal seems to have been an appeal to miracles, and we find the apostles and their followers claiming the sole right of working miracles in the name of the one true God and anathematizing all other wonder-workers as in league with Satan. We all remember Elymas the Sorcerer struck blind by St. Paul, and the adversary of St. Peter, Simon the Mage, around whom first gathered the myths which lived so long in the popular imagination and many of which we shall meet with in the legend of Dr. Faust.

This Simon, the Magus or Sorcerer, who bewitched the people of Samaria, and was looked upon as 'the great power of God,' is said in the Acts of the Apostles to have been converted by St. Philip and to have brought upon himself a severe rebuke from St. Peter for offering to purchase with money the gift of wonder-working. In about the third century the legend of Simon Magus, as related by Clement of Alexandria, seems to have already incorporated in a mythical form the discords of the early Church, and especially the feud between the Jewish Christians, followers of St. Peter, and the Gentile proselytes, followers of St. Paul. Indeed Simon the Sorcerer was in course of time regarded by some as having been identical with St. Paul--that is to say, it was believed that St. Paul had been none other but Simon Magus in disguise. The voice heard at St. Paul's conversion and the light by which for a season he was struck blind were alleged to have been feats of wizardry by which he, a wolf in sheep's clothing, stole his way into the true fold in order to introduce discord and to betray the Church to the Gentiles.

St. Peter, the true Simon, is said to have followed the false Simon from city to city, out-rivalling his Satanic miracles by orthodox miracles, until at length they reached Rome. Here Simon Magus by his magic arts succeeded in flying up into the sky in the presence of the Emperor and his court, but at the word of Peter the charm was broken and the wizard fell to earth and was killed.

But, besides this, the so-called Gnostic heresy introduced other elements into the legend. These Gnostics were a sect that arose in the early times of Christianity. They pretended to a special insight into the divine nature, and combined Platonic and oriental theories with Christian dogmas. They tried to convert the story of the Redemption into a cosmological myth, and regarded the human person of Christ as a kind of phantom--a magic apparition. Some of these Gnostics seem to have accepted Simon Magus as the 'Power of God'--as the Logos, or divine Reason, by which the world was created (or reduced from chaos to an ordered Cosmos). From this a curious myth arose. This Logos, or creative Power, was identified with the Sun-god, as the source of life, and as Sun-god was united to the Moon-goddess, Selene. Now the words Helen and Selene are connected in Greek, and Helen of Troy was accepted by these Gnostics as a mythical form of the goddess of the moon. Hence it came that in the Gnostic form of the Simon Magus legend he was married to Helen of Troy, and this notion found its way into the old Faust-legend, and is used by Goethe in that exceedingly wonderful and beautiful part of his great poem which is called the Helena.

After the suppression of Gnostic and other early heresies came the contest of the now united and politically powerful Church against the outer world of heathendom. While retaining for herself what we may call a monopoly in orthodox magic the Church condemned as in league with the devil all speculation, whether theological or scientific--the one as leading to heresy, the other to sensual ends, such as riches, fame, and those lusts of the flesh and that pride of intellect which were fatal to the contemplative and ascetic ideals of medieval Christianity.

It was not among Teuton and Celtic savages but among the learned adherents of the old Greek philosophy that the Church in those earlier days found her most dangerous and obstinate adversaries.

http://manybooks.net/pages/cotterillhb2573225732-8/10.html

Beethoven

Beethoven page 80
by George Alexander Fischer

The Eighth Symphony which was brought out at the same time as the Seventh is the shortest by a few bars, of the nine. It was completed in about four months from the date of its inception. Here as in the Seventh, the dance element is in the ascendant, commanding, swaying everything, thus coming back to first principles, almost to the origin of the art, as an art. The dance is the primordial, autochthonic form of music; its foundation so to speak. The song had its origin in the dance as indicated by its name "ballad." It is a comparatively simple matter to trace its upward course in instrumental music, as such. It is conceivable that people from remote times on, had the faculty of originating tunes, and of humming and singing them, and dancing to them long before such things as scales and notation were conceived of. Song and dance must have come into being at the same time, and the earliest dancing was done with a singing accompaniment. As people advanced in the art and became able to manufacture instruments with which to produce music to dance by, it is readily apparent that those persons who did not dance, derived pleasure from listening to it. The next step was to play these dance tunes without dancing. This naturally led to a collection of dance tunes. By playing three or four in succession it was soon found that a more agreeable effect was produced by selecting those differing in rhythm. Here we have the suite, the earliest orchestral form. After a while it was found that a change of key heightened the effect, and, when composing purely orchestral music not intended for actual use in dancing, the more original of the composers at times allowed the strict dance form to fall into abeyance in one or two movements to enable them to try their hand in another style, and also for contrast. A broadening and augmenting of the different forms and we have the sonata. The symphony is an enlargement of the sonata. All our intellectual progress is an unfolding, like a flower from the bud. We have first an impression, then an opinion, then demonstration.

Many years were to elapse before the next and last symphony was to appear; years in which the ripening process was to go on, and which were to culminate in the Mass in D, the Choral Symphony and the last quartets,--works that are in a class by themselves in the same sense that the works from the Third Symphony on, up to, and including the Eighth, are in a class apart from the others. His compositions prior to the Third Symphony are in the style of Mozart and Haydn. They are the naïve utterances of the young musician who does not yet realize that he has a mission to perform; whose ambition was to be ranked with his great predecessors. Of the works of the second period, it can be said that their most prominent characteristic is gayety (Heiterkeit). They are not all in this mood, and but rarely is the mood maintained throughout a single work, but it exists to the extent that it dominates it, just as the key-note to his later works is to be found in his mysticism. The works of the second period are coincident with his best years physically and when his mental powers had reached their highest maturity. When he found out what manner of man he was and realized the place he was destined to occupy among the great ones of earth; when he had accepted his destiny and had made his peace with himself it is easy to understand how a certain gayety and serenity should have spread itself over his life and have communicated itself to his works; and though this serenity was alternated by periods of despair, he allowed no more of this to appear in his work than his esthetic sense approved of. Like all highly organized people he sounded the gamut of joy and sorrow. His journal entries tell the story. One day, exulting in life and its possibilities he writes, "Oh, it would be glorious to live life over a thousand times." At another time he calls upon his God in abject despair to help him through the passing hour. At one time life is so difficult a problem that he sees not how it can be continued at all. Then he loses himself in his creations and soars into regions where his troubles cannot follow. This joyousness is the portion of many extraordinary people.

http://manybooks.net/pages/fischerg1514115141-8/80.html

Bertrand Russell

Mysticism and Logic page 13
by Earl Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd

The first and most direct outcome of the moment of illumination is belief in the possibility of a way of knowledge which may be called revelation or insight or intuition, as contrasted with sense, reason, and analysis, which are regarded as blind guides leading to the morass of illusion. Closely connected with this belief is the conception of a Reality behind the world of appearance and utterly different from it. This Reality is regarded with an admiration often amounting to worship; it is felt to be always and everywhere close at hand, thinly veiled by the shows of sense, ready, for the receptive mind, to shine in its glory even through the apparent folly and wickedness of Man. The poet, the artist, and the lover are seekers after that glory: the haunting beauty that they pursue is the faint reflection of its sun. But the mystic lives in the full light of the vision: what others dimly seek he knows, with a knowledge beside which all other knowledge is ignorance.

The second characteristic of mysticism is its belief in unity, and its refusal to admit opposition or division anywhere. We found Heraclitus saying "good and ill are one"; and again he says, "the way up and the way down is one and the same." The same attitude appears in the simultaneous assertion of contradictory propositions, such as: "We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are and are not." The assertion of Parmenides, that reality is one and indivisible, comes from the same impulse towards unity. In Plato, this impulse is less prominent, being held in check by his theory of ideas; but it reappears, so far as his logic permits, in the doctrine of the primacy of the Good.

A third mark of almost all mystical metaphysics is the denial of the reality of Time. This is an outcome of the denial of division; if all is one, the distinction of past and future must be illusory. We have seen this doctrine prominent in Parmenides; and among moderns it is fundamental in the systems of Spinoza and Hegel.

The last of the doctrines of mysticism which we have to consider is its belief that all evil is mere appearance, an illusion produced by the divisions and oppositions of the analytic intellect. Mysticism does not maintain that such things as cruelty, for example, are good, but it denies that they are real: they belong to that lower world of phantoms from which we are to be liberated by the insight of the vision. Sometimes--for example in Hegel, and at least verbally in Spinoza--not only evil, but good also, is regarded as illusory, though nevertheless the emotional attitude towards what is held to be Reality is such as would naturally be associated with the belief that Reality is good. What is, in all cases, ethically characteristic of mysticism is absence of indignation or protest, acceptance with joy, disbelief in the ultimate truth of the division into two hostile camps, the good and the bad. This attitude is a direct outcome of the nature of the mystical experience: with its sense of unity is associated a feeling of infinite peace. Indeed it may be suspected that the feeling of peace produces, as feelings do in dreams, the whole system of associated beliefs which make up the body of mystic doctrine. But this is a difficult question, and one on which it cannot be hoped that mankind will reach agreement.

Four questions thus arise in considering the truth or falsehood of mysticism, namely:

I. Are there two ways of knowing, which may be called respectively reason and intuition? And if so, is either to be preferred to the other?

II. Is all plurality and division illusory?

III. Is time unreal?

IV. What kind of reality belongs to good and evil?

On all four of these questions, while fully developed mysticism seems to me mistaken, I yet believe that, by sufficient restraint, there is an element of wisdom to be learned from the mystical way of feeling, which does not seem to be attainable in any other manner. If this is the truth, mysticism is to be commended as an attitude towards life, not as a creed about the world. The meta-physical creed, I shall maintain, is a mistaken outcome of the emotion, although this emotion, as colouring and informing all other thoughts and feelings, is the inspirer of whatever is best in Man. Even the cautious and patient investigation of truth by science, which seems the very antithesis of the mystic's swift certainty, may be fostered and nourished by that very spirit of reverence in which mysticism lives and moves.

http://manybooks.net/pages/russelle2544725447-8/13.html

Mary Baker Eddy

Modern Saints and Seers page 108
by Jean Finot

Christian Science healers need to have a robust and unshakable faith, for if they do not succeed in their task it is because their own spirit has been infected by doubt.

Mrs. Eddy declared that our concrete and practical age required, above all, a religion of reality; that men could no longer be content with vague promises of future bliss. What they needed was a religion of the present that would end their sufferings and procure for them serenity and happiness on earth. The title of "applied Christianity" has been adopted by Christian Science, which advises us to make use of the teachings of Jesus in our daily life, and to reap all the advantages of such a practice. We have need of truth "applied" to life just as we have need of telegraphs, telephones and electric apparatus, and now--say the Scientists--for the first time in man's existence he is offered a really practical religious machinery, which enables him to overcome misfortune and to establish his happiness, his health, and his salvation on a solid basis.

The Scientists claim to have recourse to the same spiritual law by means of which Jesus effected His cures, and they declare that its efficacy is undeniable, since all Mrs. Eddy's pupils who use it are able to heal the sick. One may suggest that Jesus performed miracles because He was the Saviour of the world. Mrs. Eddy replies that statements are attributed to Him which never issued from His lips; that He said (in the Gospel according to St. John) that it was not He who spoke or acted, but His Father; and stated elsewhere, that the Son could do nothing of Himself. Also that Jesus never sent His disciples forth to preach without adding that they should also heal. "Heal the sick," was His supreme command. And that He never counselled the use of drugs or medicines.

The healing of the sick, according to Mrs. Eddy, was one of the chief functions of the representatives of the Church during the first three centuries of Christianity, her subsequent loss of importance and power being largely due to the renunciation of this essential principle.

Healing is not miraculous, but merely the result of a normal spiritual law acting in conformity with the Divine Will. The leader of the new "Scientists" explains that Jesus had no supernatural powers, and that all He did was done according to natural law. Consequently everybody, when once brought into harmony with spiritual truth, can accomplish what He accomplished.

Some of Mrs. Eddy's statements have an undeniable practical value. For instance, she attacks "fear" as one of the chief causes of human misery, and declares that it is wrong to fear draughts of air, or wet feet, or the eating and drinking of certain substances--and wrong, above all, to fear microbes.

http://manybooks.net/pages/finotj2512625126-8/108.html

Sir Walter Ralegh, the end

by William Stebbing

Next, he alluded to the slander, circulated 'through the jealousy of the people,' that at the execution of Essex he had stood in a window over against him and puffed out tobacco in defiance of him. He contradicted it utterly. Essex could not have seen him, since he had retired to the Armoury. He had bewailed him with tears. 'True I was of a contrary faction, but I bare him no ill-affection, and always believed it had been better for me that his life had been preserved; for after his fall I got the hatred of those who wished me well before; and those who set me against him set themselves afterwards against me, and were my greatest enemies.'

'And now,' he concluded an address of which the eloquence is not to be judged from the halting reports, 'I entreat that you will all join with me in prayer to that great God of Heaven whom I have grievously offended, being a man full of all vanity, who has lived a sinful life in such callings as have been most inducing to it; for I have been a soldier, a sailor, and a courtier, which are courses of wickedness and vice. So, I take my leave of you all, making my peace with God.' 'I have,' he said, 'a long journey to take, and must bid the company farewell.'

http://manybooks.net/pages/stebbingw2502925029-8/404.html

1699 Privateering and Piracy

BOSTON, 26th July 1699.

My Lords,

I gave your Lordships a short Account of my taking Capt. Kidd, in my Letter of the 8th Instant:[2] I shall in this Letter confine myselfe wholly to an Account of my Proceeding with him.

On the 13th of last Month Mr. Emot, a Lawyer of New-York, came late at Night to me and told me he came from Captain Kidd, who was on the Coast with a Sloop, but would not tell me where: That Kidd had brought 60 Pound Weight of gold, about a 100 Weight of Silver, and 17 Bales of East-India goods, (which was less by 24 Bales than we have since got in the Sloop), That Kidd had left behind him a great Ship near the Coast of Hispaniola that nobody but himselfe could find out, on board whereof there were in bale goods, Saltpetre, and other things to the Value of at least 30,000 L.: That if I would give him a pardon, he would bring in the Sloop and goods hither, and would go and fetch the great Ship and goods afterwards. Mr. Emot delivered me that Night Two French Passes, which Kidd took on board the Two Moors Ships which were taken by him in the seas of India (or, as he alleges, by his Men against his Will). One of the Passes wants a date in the original, as in the Copy I send your Lordships; and they go No. I. and No. II.[3]

On Thursday, the 15 of June, I sent Mr. Campbel, the Post-Master of this town, Kidd's Countryman and acquaintance, along with Mr. Emot, to invite Kidd to come into this Port. Mr. Campbel returned hither on the 19 of June, and gave in a Memorial to my selfe and the Councel, containing what had passed between him and Kidd: The said Memorial goes No. 3.[4] On the said 19 June, as I sate in Councel, I wrote a Letter to Captain Kidd, and shewed it to the Councel, and they approving of it, I dispatched Mr. Campbel again to Kidd with my said Letter, a Copy whereof goes No. 4. Your Lordships may observe That the promise I make Captain Kidd, in my said Letter, of a kind reception, and promising the King's pardon for him, is conditionall; that is, provided he were as innocent as he pretended to be. But I quickly found sufficient Cause to suspect him very guilty, by the many lyes and Contradictions he told me. I was so much upon my guard with Kidd that, he arriving here on Saturday the [first] of this moneth, I would not see him but before witnesses; nor have I ever seen him since, but in Councel twice or thrice that we examined him; and the day he was taken up by the Constable, it happened to be by the door of my Lodging,[5] and he rushed in and came running to me, the Constable after him. I had him not seized till Thursday the 6th instant, for I had a mind to discover where he had left the great Ship, and I thought my selfe secure enough from his running away, because I took care not to give him the least umbrage of my Design of seizing him, Nor had I till that day that I produced my orders from Court for apprehending of Kidd, communicated them to anybody. And I found it necessary to shew my orders to the Councel, to animate them to join heartily with me in securing Kidd, and examining his Affair nicely, to discover what we could of his behaviour in his whole Voyage. Another reason why I took him not up sooner was that he had brought his wife and Children hither in the Sloop with him, who I believed he would not easily forsake. He being examined twice or thrice by me and the Councel, and also some of his men, I observed he seemed much disturbed, And the last time we examined him I fancied he looked as if he were upon the wing, and resolved to run away, and the Gentlemen of the Councel had some of them the same thought with mine, so that I took their Consent in seizing and committing him.[6] But the officers appointed to seize his men were so careless as to let 3 or 4 of his men escape, which troubled me the more because they were old New-York Pyrates. The next thing the Councel and I did, was to appoint a Committee of trusty persons to search for the goods and Treasure brought by Kidd and to secure what they should find till the King's pleasure should be known as to the Disposition thereof, as my orders from Mr. Secretary Vernon import. The said Committee were made up of Two Gentlemen of the Councel, Two Merchants, and the Deputy Collector, whose names are to the inclosed Inventory of the goods and Treasure. They searched Kidd's Lodging, and found hid and made up in Two sea-beds, a bag of gold dust and Ingots of the value of about 1000 L. and a bag of silver, part money and part pieces and piggs of silver, value as set down in the said Inventory. In the above bag of gold were several litle bags of gold; all particulars are, I believe, very justly and exactly set down in the Inventory. For my part, I have medled with no manner of thing, but put every thing under the management of the Councel, and into the Custody of the before mentioned Committee, that I might be free from the Suspicion and Censure of the World. The enameled box mentioned in the beginning of the Inventory is that which Kidd made a present of to my wife by Mr. Campbel, which I delivered in Councel to the said Committee to keep with the rest of the Treasure. There was in it a stone ring, which we take to be a Bristoll Stone;[7] if it were true, it would be worth about 40 L. And there was a small stone unset which we believe is also counterfeit, and a sort of a Locket, with four Sparks which seem to be right diamonds; for there is nobody here that understands Jewels. If the Box and all that is in it were right, they cannot be worth above 60 L.

http://manybooks.net/pages/various2488224882-8/263.html

Celebrated Travels and Travellers

Celebrated Travels and Travellers
by Jules Verne

We have just seen how Cartier, who had set out first to seek for the north-west passage, had been led to take possession of the country and to lay the foundations of the colony of Canada. In England a similar movement had begun, set on foot by the writings of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and of Richard Wills. They ended by carrying public opinion with them, and demonstrating that it was not more difficult to find this passage than it had been to discover the Strait of Magellan. One of the most ardent partizans of this search was a bold sailor, called Martin Frobisher, who after having many times applied to rich ship-owners, at last found in Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, a patron, whose pecuniary help enabled him to equip a pinnace and two poor barks of from twenty to twenty-five tons' burden. It was with means thus feeble, that the intrepid navigator went to encounter the ice in localities which had never been visited since the time of the Northmen. Setting out from Deptford on the 8th of June, 1576, he sighted the south of Greenland, which he took for the Frisland of Zeno. Soon stopped by the ice, he was obliged to return to Labrador without being able to land there, and he entered Hudson's Straits. After having coasted along Savage and Resolution Islands, he entered a strait which has received his name, but which is also called by some geographers, Lunley's inlet. He landed at Cumberland, took possession of the country in the name of Queen Elizabeth, and entered into some relations with the natives. The cold increased rapidly, and he was obliged to return to England. Frobisher only brought back some rather vague scientific and geographical details about the countries which he had visited; he received, however, a most flattering welcome when he showed a heavy black stone in which a little gold was found. At once all imaginations were on fire. Several lords and the Queen herself contributed to the expense of a new armament, consisting of a vessel of 200 tons, with a crew of 100 men, and two smaller barks, which carried six months' provision both for war and for nourishment. Frobisher had some experienced sailors--Fenton, York, George Best, and C. Hall, under his command. On the 31st of May, 1577, the expedition set sail, and soon sighted Greenland, of which the mountains were covered with snow, and the shores defended by a rampart of ice. The weather was bad. Exceedingly dense fogs,--as thick as pease-soup, said the English sailors,--islands of ice a mile and a half in circumferance, floating mountains which were sunk seventy or eighty fathoms in the sea, such were the obstacles which prevented Frobisher from reaching before the 9th of August, the strait which he had discovered during his previous campaign. The English took possession of the country, and pursued both upon land and sea some poor Esquimaux, who, wounded "in this encounter, jumped in despair from the top of the rocks into the sea," says Forster in his Voyages in the North, "which would not have happened if they had shown themselves more submissive, or if we could have made them understand that we were not their enemies." A great quantity of stones similar to that which had been brought to England were soon discovered. They were of gold marcasite, and 200 tons of this substance was soon collected. In their delight, the English sailors set up a memorial column on a peak to which they gave the name of Warwick Mount, and performed solemn acts of thanksgiving. Frobisher afterwards went ninety miles further on in the same strait, as far as a small island, which received the name of Smith's Island. There the English found two women, of whom they took one with her child, but left the other on account of her extreme ugliness.

http://manybooks.net/pages/vernejul2477724777-8/406.html

Abner Doubleday 1860 Reminiscences

The summer of 1860 found me stationed at the head-quarters of the First United States Artillery at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. I was captain of Company E, and second in command to Brevet Colonel John L. Gardner, who was lieutenant-colonel of the regiment. The regimental band and Captain Truman Seymour's company (H) also formed part of the garrison. The other forts were unoccupied, except by the ordnance-sergeants in charge.

Charleston, at this period, was far from being a pleasant place for a loyal man. Almost every public assemblage was tinctured with treasonable sentiments, and toasts against the flag were always warmly applauded. As early as July there was much talk of secession, accompanied with constant drilling, and threats of taking the forts as soon as a separation should occur.

To the South Carolinians Fort Moultrie was almost a sacred spot, endeared by many precious historical associations; for the ancestors of most of the principal families had fought there in the Revolutionary War behind their hastily improvised ramparts of palmetto logs, and had gained a glorious victory over the British fleet in its first attempt to enter the harbor and capture the city.

The modern fort had been built nearly on the site of the ancient one. Its walls were but twelve feet high. They were old, weak, and so full of cracks that it was quite common to see soldiers climb to the top by means of the support these crevices afforded to their hands and feet. The constant action of the sea-breeze had drifted one immense heap of sand against the shore-front of the work, and another in the immediate vicinity. These sand-hills dominated the parapet, and made the fort untenable. Indeed, it was originally built by the engineers as a mere sea-battery, with just sufficient strength to prevent it from being taken by a coup de main. As an overpowering force of militia could always be summoned for its defense, it was supposed that no foreign army would ever attempt to besiege it. The contingency that the people of Charleston themselves might attack a fort intended for their own protection had never been anticipated.

Our force was pitifully small, even for a time of peace and for mere police purposes. It consisted of sixty-one enlisted men and seven officers, together with thirteen musicians of the regimental band; whereas the work called for a war garrison of three hundred men.

The first indication of actual danger came from Richmond, Virginia, in the shape of urgent inquiries as to the strength of our defenses, and the number of available troops in the harbor. These questions were put by a resident of that city named Edmund Ruffin; an old man, whose later years had been devoted to the formation of disunion lodges, and who became subsequently noted for firing the first gun at Fort Sumter. His love of slavery amounted to fanaticism. When the cause of the Rebellion became hopeless, he refused to survive it, and committed suicide.

In the beginning of July, Robert Barnwell Rhett, and other ultra men in Charleston, made violent speeches to the mob, urging them to drive every United States official out of the State; but as many influential Secessionists were enjoying the sweets of Federal patronage under Buchanan, we did not anticipate any immediate disturbance. To influence his hearers still more, Rhett did not hesitate to state that Hamlin was a mulatto, and he asked if they intended to submit to a negro vice-president.

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Siddhartha

by Herman Hesse

Instructed by the oldest if the Samanas, Siddhartha practised self-denial, practised meditation, according to a new Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo forest--and Siddhartha accepted the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, was a heron, ate fish, felt the pangs of a heron's hunger, spoke the heron's croak, died a heron's death. A dead jackal was lying on the sandy bank, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside the body, was the dead jackal, lay on the banks, got bloated, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyaenas, was skinned by vultures, turned into a skeleton, turned to dust, was blown across the fields. And Siddhartha's soul returned, had died, had decayed, was scattered as dust, had tasted the gloomy intoxication of the cycle, awaited in new thirst like a hunter in the gap, where he could escape from the cycle, where the end of the causes, where an eternity without suffering began. He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his self into thousands of other forms, was an animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and awoke every time to find his old self again, sun shone or moon, was his self again, turned round in the cycle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt new thirst.

Siddhartha learned a lot when he was with the Samanas, many ways leading away from the self he learned to go. He went the way of self-denial by means of pain, through voluntarily suffering and overcoming pain, hunger, thirst, tiredness. He went the way of self-denial by means of meditation, through imagining the mind to be void of all conceptions. These and other ways he learned to go, a thousand times he left his self, for hours and days he remained in the non-self. But though the ways led away from the self, their end nevertheless always led back to the self. Though Siddhartha fled from the self a thousand times, stayed in nothingness, stayed in the animal, in the stone, the return was inevitable, inescapable was the hour, when he found himself back in the sunshine or in the moonlight, in the shade or in the rain, and was once again his self and Siddhartha, and again felt the agony of the cycle which had been forced upon him.

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Georgia 1774

Stories of Georgia
by Joel Chandler Harris

On the 20th of July, 1774, "The Georgia Gazette," published at Savannah, contained an invitation to the people of the Province to meet at Tondee's Tavern on the 27th of July to take into consideration the unjust laws that had been passed by the British Parliament. The cause of Massachusetts was the cause of all. The meeting was held, and stood adjourned to the 10th of August, in order to give all the parishes an opportunity to be represented by delegates. Governor Wright, loyal to the last, issued a proclamation warning the people of the Province to avoid attending the meeting; but the proclamation was disregarded, and a meeting of the people of the Province was held at Tondee's Tavern on the 10th of August, 1774. Resolutions were adopted, declaring that his Majesty's subjects in America owed the same allegiance, and were entitled to the same rights and privileges, as their fellow-subjects in Great Britain; that the act lately passed for blockading the port of Boston was contrary to the British constitution; that the act for abolishing the charter of Massachusetts Bay tended to the subversion of American rights; that the Parliament of Great Britain had not, nor ever had, the right to tax his Majesty's American subjects; and that every demand for the support of government should be by requisition made to the several houses of representatives. The resolutions covered all the grievances of the people of the Colonies.

Meanwhile, Governor Wright was not idle. He called a convention of Royalists, which met, and signed a protest against the resolutions. Copies of this protest were made, and sent into all the parishes, by the governor's friends. Under pressure, many timid men who were really in sympathy with the Liberty Boys signed the protest. The signatures of dead men were used, and other frauds practiced, in order to make the demonstration in favor of the King sufficient to overawe those who had pledged themselves to American independence. In all this, Governor Wright was aided by the fact that the only newspaper in the Province, "The Georgia Gazette," was under his control. He was also aided by the geographical situation of Georgia, and by his own personal popularity. He had made a good governor. He had worked as hard for the prosperity and progress of the Province as he now worked to prevent the people from joining the movement for independence.

The governor was successful to the extent that he was able to prevent Georgia from sending duly accredited representatives to the First Continental Congress; and this fact has been taken by some writers of history to mean that the spirit of liberty and independence was not as earnest and as enthusiastic in Georgia as in the other Provinces. Later, when Georgia was overrun by British and Tory influences, and appeared to be conquered, ill-natured critics recalled the fact that her people were slow to join hands with those who advocated resistance to tyranny.

When the South Carolina delegates to the First Continental Congress returned to their homes, bearing with them copies of the Declaration of Colonial Rights, the Liberty Boys of Georgia renewed their movement with great zeal. Copies of the Declaration were distributed throughout the Province. The result was, that the Liberty Boys grew steadily stronger in numbers, and more defiant in action. An idea of the situation at this time may be gathered from a letter written by Governor Wright to the Earl of Dartmouth on the 13th of December, 1774. He declared that the spirit of independence, or, as he called it, the spirit of enthusiasm, which many were possessed of before, "is raised to such a height of frenzy, that God knows what the consequences may be, or what man or whose property may escape their resentment."

No doubt the amiable governor misunderstood the situation. What he regarded as "frenzy" was merely the eager desire and the determination of the Liberty Boys of Georgia to redeem themselves in the eyes of their brethren in the other Colonies. They were humiliated by their failure to send representatives to the Continental Congress, and they endeavored to redeem themselves by increased zeal and enthusiasm.

They arranged to hold a provincial congress in Savannah on the 18th of January, 1775. Governor Wright, on hearing of this, determined to convene the Provincial General Assembly on the same day, hoping and believing that this would prevent a meeting of the Provincial Congress, or greatly hamper its action. But the governor was mistaken. The General Assembly met in response to the call, and so did the Provincial Congress. Governor Wright addressed the members, declaring to them the danger of the situation, and imploring them to be prudent and loyal. The upper house of the General Assembly made a response agreeable to the governor's expectations, but the lower house gave to its address a tone of independence that was not at all pleasing to the King's officer.

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The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe

The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe
by A.E. Nordenskieold

The opening of a communication by sea between the rest of Europe and these regions, by Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancelor in 1553, was the fruit of the first exploring expedition sent out from England by sea. Their voyage also forms the first attempt to discover a north-east passage to China. The object aimed at was not indeed accomplished; but on the other hand, there was opened by the voyage in question the sea communication between England and the White Sea; the voyage thus forming a turning-point not only in the navigation of England and Russia, but also in the commerce of the world. It also demanded its sacrifice, Sir Hugh Willoughby himself, with all the men in the vessels under his command, having perished while wintering on the Kola peninsula. In our days thousands of vessels sail safely along this route.

http://manybooks.net/pages/nordenskieolda2436524365-8/24.html

This voyage was accomplished about a thousand years ago by a Norwegian, OTHERE, from Halogaland or Helgeland, that part of the Norwegian coast which lies between 65° and 66° N.L. Othere, who appears to have travelled far and wide, came in one of his excursions to the court of the famous English king, Alfred the Great. In presence of this king he gave, in a simple, graphic style, a sketch of a voyage which he had undertaken from his home in Norway towards the north and east. The narrative has been preserved by its having been incorporated, along with an account of the travels of another Norseman, Wulfstan, to the southern part of the Baltic, in the first chapter of Alfred's Anglo-Saxon reproduction of the history of PAULUS OROSIUS: De Miseria Mundi.[22] This work has since been the subject of translation and exposition by a great number of learned men, among whom may be named here the Scandinavians, H.G. PORTHAN of Åbo, RASMUS RASK and C-CHR. RAFN of Copenhagen.

Regarding Othere's relations to King Alfred statements differ. Some inquirers suppose that he was only on a visit at the court of the king, others that he had been sent out by King Alfred on voyages of discovery, and finally, others say that he was a prisoner of war, who incidentally narrated his experience of foreign lands. Othere's account of his travels runs as follows:--

"Othere told his lord, King Alfred, that he dwelt northmost of all the Northmen. He said that he dwelt in the land to the northward, along the West-Sea; he said, however, that that land is very long north from thence, but it is all waste, except in a few places where the Fins at times dwell, hunting in the winter, and in the summer fishing in that sea. He said that he was desirous to try, once on a time, how far that country extended due north, or whether any one lived to the north of the waste. He then went due north along the country, leaving all the way the waste land on the right, and the wide sea on the left. After three days he was as far north as the whale-hunters go at the farthest. Then he proceeded in his course due north, as far as he could sail within another three days; then the land there inclined due east, or the sea into the land, he knew not which; but he knew that he waited there for a west wind or a little north, and sailed thence eastward along that land as far as he could sail in four days. Then he had to wait for a due north wind because the land inclined there due south, or the sea in on that land, he knew not which. He then sailed along the coast due south, as far as he could sail in five days. There lay a great river up in that land; they then turned in that river, because they durst not sail on up the river on account of hostility; because all that country was inhabited on the other side of the river. He had not before met with any land that was inhabited since he left his own home; but all the way he had waste land on his right, except some fishermen, fowlers, and hunters, all of whom were Fins: and he had constantly a wide sea to the left. The Beormas had well cultivated their country, but they (Othere and his companions) did not dare to enter it. And the Terfinna[23] land was all waste, except where hunters, fishers, or fowlers had taken up their quarters.

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Coleridge 1848

Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life.
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In the first place, therefore, I distinctly disclaim all intention of explaining life into an occult quality; and retort the charge on those who can satisfy themselves with defining it as the peculiar power by which death is resisted.

Secondly. Convinced--by revelation, by the consenting authority of all countries, and of all ages, by the imperative voice of my own conscience, and by that wide chasm between man and the noblest animals of the brute creation, which no perceivable or conceivable difference of organization is sufficient to overbridge--that I have a rational and responsible soul, I think far too reverentially of the same to degrade it into an hypothesis, and cannot be blind to the contradiction I must incur, if I assign that soul which I believe to constitute the peculiar nature of man as the cause of functions and properties, which man possesses in common with the oyster and the mushroom.(4)

Thirdly, while I disclaim the error of Stahl in deriving the phenomena of life from the unconscious actions of the rational soul, I repel with still greater earnestness the assertion and even the supposition that the functions are the offspring of the structure, and "Life(5) the result of organization," connected with it as effect with cause. Nay, the position seems to me little less strange, than as if a man should say, that building with all the included handicraft, of plastering, sawing, planing, &c. were the offspring of the house; and that the mason and carpenter were the result of a suite of chambers, with the passages and staircases that lead to them. To make A the offspring of B, when the very existence of B as B presupposes the existence of A, is preposterous in the literal sense of the word, and a consummate instance of the hysteron proteron in logic.

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1611 writing sample

dated 7 May, 1611, addressed by Sir Francis Bacon to Cecil, Lord Salisbury,

"Understanding that his Majesty will be pleased to sell some good portion of wood in the Forest of Deane, which lies very convenient to the Company's Wire Works at Tynterne and Whitebrooke, we are enforced to have recourse to your lordship, as to our Governor of the said Company, humbly praying your lordship to afford us some reasonable quantity thereof, the better to uphold the said works, whereof by information from our farmers there, we stand in such need, as without your lordship's favour we shall hardly be able to subsist any long time. We do not entreat your lordship for any other or more easy price than that your lordship directs the sale of it to others; only we humbly pray for some preferment in the opportunity of the place where the woods lie, and in the quantity, as it may answer in some portion to our wants. Herein, if your lordship will be pleased to favour us, then we humbly pray your lordship to direct us to some such persons as your Lordship resolves to employ in the business. And as we humbly take our leaves of your lordship,

from
Iron Making in the Olden Times
by H.G. Nicholls
1866

http://manybooks.net/pages/nichollshg2433024330/22.htm

Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800

Title: Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872

Author: William Frederick Poole and George Buchanan


Mr. Jefferson's indecision in dealing with an institution he so much abhorred, is seen in the anti-slavery provision of his ordinance. He would allow slavery to get a foot-hold in the western territories, and at the end of sixteen years would prohibit it. By southern votes, this clause was fortunately stricken out. Every northern state voted to retain Mr. Jefferson's fifth article of compact, and its rejection, which was regarded at the time, as a public calamity, was soon seen to be a piece of good fortune. Timothy Pickering, writing to Rufus King, nearly a year later (March 8, 1785), says: "I should indeed have objected to the period proposed (1800) for the exclusion of slavery; for the admission of it for a day, or an hour, ought to have been forbidden. It will be in finitely easier to prevent the evil at first, than to eradicate it, or check it, at any future time. To suffer the continuance of slaves till they can be gradually emancipated, in states already overrun with them, may be pardonable; but to introduce them into a territory where none now exist, can never be forgiven. For God's sake, let one more effort be made to prevent so terrible a calamity."

Mr. King, eight days later, moved, in Congress, to attach an article of compact to Mr. Jefferson's ordinance, in the place of the one stricken outs in substantially the words that stand in the Ordinance of 1787: "That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the states described in the resolve of Congress of April 23, 178-." The matter was referred to a committee; but was never taken up and acted on. If Mr. King's resolution had passed, it would have excluded slavery from Kentucky, Tennessee, and all the Western territories.

[13] George Keith, a Quaker, about the year 1693, printed a pamphlet in which he charged his own religious denomination, "that they should set their negroes at liberty, after some reasonable time of service." Samuel Sewall, Judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, in 1700, printed a tract against slavery, entitled, "The Selling of Joseph, a Memorial," which he gave to each member of the General Court, to clergymen, and to literary gentlemen with whom he was acquainted. This tract is reprinted in Moore's "Notes on Slavery in Massachusetts," p. 83. These were the earliest publications on slavery in this country. Dr. Franklin having mentioned Keith's pamphlet, says: "About the year 1728 or 1729, I myself printed a book for Ralph Sandyford, another of your friends in this city, against keeping negroes in slavery; two editions of which he distributed gratis. And about the year 1736, I printed another book on the same subject for Benjamin Lay, who also professed being one of your friends, and he distributed the books chiefly among them."

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New Netherland

Emanuel Van Meteren, On Hudson's Voyage, 1610. In J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 (Original Narratives of Early American History). NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909.

We have observed in our last book that the Directors of the East India Company in Holland had sent out in March last, on purpose to seek a passage to China by northeast or northwest, a skilful English pilot, named Herry Hutson, in a Vlie boat, having a crew of eighteen or twenty men, partly English, partly Dutch, well provided.

This Henry Hutson left the Texel on the 6th of April, 1609, doubled the Cape of Norway the 5th of May, and directed his course along the northern coasts towards Nova Zembia; but he there found the sea as full of ice as he had found it in the preceding year, so that they lost the hope of effecting anything during the season. This circumstance, and the cold, which some of his men, who had been in the East Indies, could not bear, caused quarrels among the crew, they being partly English, partly Dutch, upon which Captain Hutson laid before them two propositions. The first of these was to go to the coast of America, to the latitude of 40 degrees, moved thereto mostly by letters and maps which a certain Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, and by which he indicated to him a sea leading into the western ocean, by the north of the southern English colony. Had this information been true (experience goes as yet to the contrary), it would have been of great advantage, as indicating a short way to India. The other proposition was to direct their search through Davis's Straits. This meeting with general approval, they sailed thitherward on the 14th of May, and arrived on the last day of May with a good wind at the Faroe Islands, where they stopped but twenty-four hours, to supply themselves with fresh water. After leaving these islands, they sailed on, till on the 18th of July they reached the coast of Nova Francia, under 44 degrees, where they were obliged to run in, in order to get a new foremast, having lost theirs. They found one, and set it up. They found this a good place for cod-fishing, as also for traffic in good skins and furs, which were to be got there at a very low price. But the crew behaved badly towards the people of the country, taking their property by force, out of which there arose quarrels among themselves. The English, fearing that between the two they would be outnumbered and worsted, were therefore afraid to pursue the matter further. So they left that place on the 26th of July, and kept out at sea till the 3d of August, when they came near the coast, in 42 degrees of latitude. Thence they sailed on, till on the 12th of August they again reached the shore, under 37 degrees 45'. Thence they sailed along the shore until they reached 40 degrees 45', where they found a good entrance, between two headlands, and entered on the 12th of September into as fine a river as can be found, wide and deep, with good anchoring ground on both sides.

Their ship finally sailed up the river as far as 42 degrees 40'. But their boat went higher up. In the lower part of the river they found strong and warlike people; but in the upper part they found friendly and polite people, who had an abundance of provisions, skins, and furs, of martens and foxes, and many other commodities, as birds and fruit, even white and red grapes, and they traded amicably with the people. And of all the above- mentioned commodities they brought some home. When they had thus been about fifty leagues up the river, they returned on the 4th of October, and went again to sea. More could have been done if there had been good-will among the crew and if the want of some necessary provisions had not prevented it. While at sea, they held counsel together, but were of different opinions. The mate, a Dutchman, advised to winter in Newfoundland, and to search the northwestern passage of Davis throughout. This was opposed by Skipper Hutson. He was afraid of his mutinous crew, who had sometimes savagely threatened him; and he feared that during the cold season they would entirely consume their provi- sions, and would then be obliged to return, [with] many of the crew ill and sickly. Nobody, however, spoke of returning home to Holland, which circumstance made the captain still more suspicious. He proposed therefore to sail to Ireland, and winter there, which they all agreed to. At last they arrived at Dartmouth, in England, the 7th of November, whence they informed their employers, the Directors in Holland, of their voyage. They proposed to them to go out again for a search in the northwest, and that, besides the pay, and what they already had in the ship, fifteen hundred florins should be laid out for an additional supply of provisions. He [Hudson] also wanted six or seven of his crew exchanged for others, and their number raised to twenty. He would then sail from Dartmouth about the 1st of March, so as to be in the northwest towards the end of that month, and there to spend the whole of April and the first half of May in killing whales and other animals in the neighborhood of Panar Island, then to sail to the northwest, and there to pass the time till the middle of September, and then to return to Holland around the northeastern coast of Scotland. Thus this voyage ended.

A long time elapsed, through contrary winds, before the Company could be informed of the arrival of the ship in England. Then they ordered the ship and crew to return as soon as possible. But, when this was about to be done, Skipper Herry Hutson and the other Englishmen of the ship were commanded by the government there not to leave [England], but to serve their own country. Many persons thought it strange that captains should thus be prevented from laying their accounts and reports before their employers, having been sent out for the benefit of navigation in general. This took place in January, [1610]; and it was thought probably that the English themselves would send ships to Virginia, to explore further the aforesaid river.


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