Through the Year With Famous Authors Part 3

"Horace Walpole," "Richardson," "f.a.n.n.y Burney," etc.

Literature is the daughter of heaven, who has descended upon earth to soften and charm all human ills.

--_Bernardin de Saint-Pierre_.

BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE, the renowned French author was born in Havre, January 19, 1737, and died at Eragny-sur-Oise, January 21, 1814. His works include: "Voyage to the Isle of France," "Studies of Nature," "The Indian Cottage," "Vows of a Solitary," "Harmonies of Nature," "On Nature and Morality," "Voyage to Silesia," "Stories of Travel," "The Death of Socrates," and his most famous work, "Paul and Virginia."

Woman's mission is a striking ill.u.s.tration of the truth that happiness consists in doing the work for which we are naturally fitted. Their mission is always the same; it is summed up in one word,--Love.

"Positive Polity"--_Auguste Comte_.

AUGUSTE COMTE, the great French philosopher, was born at Montpellier, January 19, 1798, and died in Paris, September 5, 1857. His most celebrated works are: "Positive Philosophy," and "Positive Polity."

All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.

"A Dream within a Dream,"--_Edgar Allan Poe_.

EDGAR ALLAN POE, a celebrated American poet and story-writer, was born in Boston, January 19, 1809, and died in Baltimore, Maryland, October 7, 1849. His poems include: "The Raven, and Other Poems," "Tamerlane and Other Poems," "Eureka, a Prose Poem," "Poems," etc.

It would hardly be safe to name Miss Austen, Miss Bronte, and George Eliot as the three greatest women novelists the United Kingdom can boast, and were one to go on and say that the alphabetical order of their names is also their order of merit, it would be necessary to seek police protection, and yet surely it is so.

"Life of C. Bronte,"--_Augustine Birrell_.

RT. HON. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, a distinguished English essayist, was born in Wavertree, near Liverpool, January 19, 1850. He has written: "Obiter Dicta," "Res Judicatae," "Life of Charlotte Bronte," "Men, Women and Books," "Collected Essays," "William Hazlitt," "Andrew Marvell,"

"Miscellanies," "In the Name of the Bodleian," "Frederick Locker Lampson," etc.

For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart, And makes his pulses fly, To catch the thrill of a happy voice, And the light of a pleasant eye.

"Sat.u.r.day Afternoon,"--_Nathaniel P. Willis_.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, a celebrated American journalist and poet, was born at Portland, Maine, January 20, 1806, and died at Idlewild on the Hudson, New York, January 20, 1867. Some of his writings are: "People I Have Met," "Inklings of Adventure," "Letters from Under a Bridge,"

"Famous Persons and Places," "Poems," etc.

Time's horses gallop down the lessening hill.

"Time Flies,"--_Richard Le Gallienne_.

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, a noted English author, was born in Liverpool, January 20, 1866. He has written: "The Religion of a Literary Man," "My Lady's Sonnets," "Prose Fancies," "Sleeping Beauty and other Prose Fancies," "The Quest of the Golden Girl," "The Life Romantic," "Pieces of Eight," etc.

Gray found very little gratification at Cambridge in the society and manners of the young university men who were his contemporaries. They ridiculed his sensitive temper and retired habits, and gave him the nickname of "Miss Gray," for his supposed effeminacy. Nor does Gray seem to have lived on much better terms with his academic superiors. He abhorred mathematics, with the same cordiality of hatred which Pope professed towards them, and at that time concurred with Pope in thinking that the best recipe for dullness was to

"Full in the midst of Euclid plunge at once, And petrify a genius to a dunce."

"Memoirs of Eminent Etonians,"--_Sir Edward Creasy_.

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY, a famous English historian was born at Bexley in Kent, January 21, 1812, and died January 27, 1878. He wrote: "Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World," "The History of the Ottoman Turks," "History of England," "Rise and Progress of the English Const.i.tution," "Historical and Critical Account of the Several Invasions of England," etc.

The father's love is greater than the mother's, as his strength is greater than hers. Christ, not Mary, is the embodiment of parental love.

"The Betrayal,"--_Walter Neale_.

WALTER NEALE, a noted American author and man of letters, was born at Eastville, Va., January 21, 1873. Among his works are: "The Betrayal" (a novel), "The Sovereignty of the States," and numerous essays, poems, addresses, etc.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.

"Of Travel,"--_Francis Bacon_.

FRANCIS BACON, the great English philosopher, was born in London, January 22, 1561, and died April 9, 1626. Some of his works are: "The Advancement of Learning," "On the Colors of Good and Evil," "Novum Organum," his immortal "Essays," and many histories, among them "Elizabeth," "Henry VII" and "Henry VIII."

For the will and not the gift makes the giver.

--_Lessing_.

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM VON LESSING, a famous German poet, was born at Kamenz, in Upper Lusatia, January 22, 1729, and died at Brunswick, February 15, 1781. Among his writings are: "Letters on Literature," "Nathan the Wise," "Philotas," "The Woman-Hater," "The Jews," "Trifles," (a collection of poems), "The Free-Thinker," "Education of the Human Race,"

etc.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods; There is a rapture on the lonely sh.o.r.e; There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not man the less, but Nature more.

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," Canto iv, Stanza 178.--_Byron_.

GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON, the renowned English poet, was born in London, January 22, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, Greece, April 19, 1824. Some of his celebrated works are: "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," "Hours of Idleness," "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," "The Corsair," "Hebrew Melodies," "Lara," "Manfred," "The Prisoner of Chillon," "The Lament of Ta.s.so," "Don Juan," etc.

Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a "halter" intimidate. For, under G.o.d, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men.

"Observations on the Boston Port Bill," 1774--_Josiah Quincy_.

JOSIAH QUINCY, a distinguished American lawyer, was born in Boston, January 23, 1744, and died April 26, 1775. His important works are: "Observations on the Boston Port Bill," and "An Address of the Merchants, Traders, and Freeholders of Boston."

We love because we get pleasure from loving. When the pleasure palls, love dies a natural death; and the love that survives should not hope for resurrection, but abide in patience a new birth.

"Love,"--_Marie Henri Beyle_.

MARIE HENRI BEYLE, a famous French novelist and critic, was born in Gren.o.ble, January 23, 1783, and died in Paris, March 23, 1842. He has written, "History of Painting in Italy," "Rome, Naples, and Florence in 1817," "About Love," and his celebrated work, "The Chartreuse (Carthusian Nun) of Parma."

Tout finit par des chansons.[6]