INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS. Of all the writings of Plato the Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive to the modern reader, and has nevertheless had the greatest influence over the ancient and mediaeval world. The obscurity arises in the infancy of physical science, out of the confusion of theological, mathematical, and physiological notions, out of the desire to conceive the whole of nature without any adequate knowledge of the parts, and from a greater perception of similarities which lie on the surface than of differences which are hidden from view. To bring sense under the control of...

The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as...

INTRODUCTION WITH as much grace as if a monoplanist should attempt to write a preface to a book on flying for an albatross, so may a writer of mere prose attempt to pen an introduction to a book of poetry. The bird and man both use the air, but with a difference. So do the poet and the man of prose use pen and ink. Familiarity with tools, used in two branches of one art (or trade), is apt to prove a snare. Music and poetry, the most ethereal of the arts upon the face of them, are in a way more mathematical than prose, for both have formulae. Hence, their appeal goes quicker to men's minds,...

THE MOON'S MESSAGE The Moon looked in at the window, And smiled as I wrote to you, She lay like a frail white maiden, In shadowy folds of blue. Her bosom was bare and tender, And slight, for she still was young, And down from her dainty shoulders A mantle of starlight hung. She wooed with a wanton ardour The winds till they lulled to sighs, And night was transformed with beauty, For love of her limpid eyes. The soul of the cloudy darkness Awakened beneath her beams, The sky swooned away with longing, The Earth stirred in tender dreams. Alas for the moon was cruel, Far colder than snow was...

A belief in the supernatural has existed in all ages and among all nations. To trace the origin of this belief, the causes of the various modifications it has undergone, and the phases it has assumed, is, perhaps, one of the most interesting researches to which the mind can be given, -interesting, inasmuch as we find pervading every part of it the effects of those passions and affections which are most powerful and permanent in our nature. So general is the belief in a supreme and over-ruling Power, possessing attributes altogether different from and superior to human powers, and bending...

PREFACE The writer of "Granny's Wonderful Chair" was a poet, and blind. That she was a poet the story tells on every page, but of her blindness it tells not a word. From beginning to end it is filled with pictures; each little tale has its own picturesque setting, its own vividly realised scenery. Her power of visualisation would be easy to understand had she become blind in the later years of her life, when the beauties of the physical world were impressed on her mind; but Frances Browne was blind from infancy. The pictures she gives us in her stories were created, in darkness, from material...

PREFACE Il n'y a guere de nom plus connu que celui de Mithridate. Sa vie et sa mort font une partie considerable de l'histoire romaine. Et sans compter les victoires qu'il a remportees, on peut dire que ses seules defaites ont fait presque toute la gloire de trois des plus grands capitaines de la Republique: c'est a savoir, de Sylla, de Lucullus et de Pompee. Ainsi je ne pense pas qu'il soit besoin de citer ici mes auteurs. Car, excepte quelque evenement que j'ai un peu rapproche par le droit que donne la poesie, tout le monde reconnaitra aisement que j'ai suivi l'histoire avec beaucoup de...

ADVERTISEMENT. The following story is founded on facts which came within the knowledge of the writer. The precise point at which truth ends, and fiction begins, it is not necessary to divulge; but in an age when an avidity for the stimulus of real adventure seems in a great degree to have superseded the love of mere romance, it may not be uninteresting to state that the heroine of the following pages is not altogether a creature of imagination. CHAPTER I. -Oh this is trim --Troilus and Cressida. At not more than a stone's throw from a neat market town, in a certain shire of England, lived...

Charlotte Dacre (1771 ou 1772 - 7 novembre 1825) est une femme de litterature anglaise, auteur de romans gothiques. La plupart des references qui lui sont faites aujourd'hui sont sous le nom de Charlotte Dacre, mais elle ecrit d'abord sous le pseudonyme de Rosa Matilda, puis d'adopter un second pseudonyme pour desorienter ses critiques. Charlotte Dacre a recu le nom de Charlotte King a sa naissance, et plus tard est devenu Mme Byrne apres son mariage avec Nicholas Byrne. Le livre a ete publie en 1806 et a ete confronte a une critique aigue parfois decrit comme scandaleux et immoral, parfois...

Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C. The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and March 399 B.C. Xenophon was a mercenary, philosopher and military leader of...