"Le poète nous enchante en animant la nature comme un créateur, avec ses propres pensées". (- R. Emerson, Nature)
Il faut rendre justice à la nature qui nous offre tout. Le poète est celui qui sait écouter la nature et parvient à traduire le murmure d'un ruisseau, le chant d'un oiseau, l'immortalité des saisons, ou le mystère de la forêt... Ce livre est une anthologie des poésies de la nature.
Qu'est-ce que la mémoire ? Qu'est-ce que c'est que se souvenir ? Quelle est la cause de ces phénomènes ? On a souvent cherché les moyens d'augmenter la mémoire: l'ensemble de ces moyens forme la mnémotechnie. Il y a dans cette science, bien qu'elle soit peu constituée, des principes utiles à recueillir. Nous pouvons d'ailleurs déduire ces principes de la définition même de la mémoire. On peut susciter par des procédés différents l'activité nécessaire pour développer la mémoire. Il y a pour cela trois moyens principaux: 1. La répétition. En forçant plusieurs fois l'esprit à s'attacher à la même idée, cette idée se fixe naturellement mieux. 2. L'émotion. En suscitant une émotion, on développe une certaine somme d'énergie, ce qui par conséquent aide à retenir. 3. L'attention. C'est par l'attention qu'elle suscite que la mise en ordre de nos souvenirs, aide à se les rappeler. La mémoire peut présenter différentes qualités. Ce livre est basé sur des études et traités pour bien la connaître et mieux la développer.
Jeanne d'Arc est considérée, sans ambages, comme une héroïne française. Elle fait d'ailleurs partie des saints patrons secondaires de la France. Il s'agit donc d'une figure importante de l'histoire française qui, en plus de nourrir de nombreux ouvrages d'histoire, a inspiré beaucoup d'écrivains qui lui ont consacré des oeuvres tant poétiques, tragiques que romanesques. Sa vie et sa mort inspirent tant les auteurs car elle fut un personnage extraordinaire. «De tous les humains ayant laissé leur nom dans l'histoire, Jeanne d'Arc est la seule personne qui ait jamais accédé à l'âge de dix-sept ans au commandement suprême d'une force militaire. La vie de Jeanne d'Arc et sa mort inspirent les auteurs car elle fut un personnage extraordinaire. Son histoire est aussi celle de la France d'une certaine époque.»
Few natural groups present so many remarkable illustrations of several of the most important general laws which appear to have determined the structure of animal bodies as that of the whales.
The term "whale" is commonly but vaguely applied to all the larger and middle-sized Cetacea, and, though such smaller species as the dolphins and porpoises are not usually spoken of as whales, they may to all intents and purposes of zological science be included in the term. Taken all together the Cetacea constitute a distinct and natural order of mammals, characterized by their aquatic mode of life and external fish-like form. The body is fusiform, passing anteriorly into the head without any distinct constriction or neck, and posteriorly tapering off gradually toward the extremity of the tail, which is provided with a pair of lateral pointed expansions of skin supported by dense fibrous tissue, called "flukes," forming together a horizontally placed, triangular propelling organ.
This book deals with a natural history of Whales and Dolphins, aquatic mammals within the order of Cetacea.
The Whales form one of the most extraordinary groups of the Mammalia, for they are warm-blooded, air-breathers, and sucklers of their young, and are most strangely adapted for life in a watery element. Oddly enough the term "Fish" is still applied to them by the whalers, though they have nothing in common with these creatures save a certain similitude in shape. The vulgar notion of a Whale is an enormous creature with an extremely capacious mouth, but the fact is that many of the Cetacea are of relatively moderate dimensions, though doubtless, on the other hand, the magnitude of some is perfectly amazing. Thus, in size they are variable as a group, a range of from five or six feet (equal to the stature of man) to seventy or eighty feet giving sufficiently wide limits. With certain exceptions, notwithstanding length, an average-sized Whale by no means conveys to the eye the same idea of vastness, say for instance, as does an Elephant. The reason is that most Cetaceans are of a club shape, the compact cylindrical body and long narrow tapering tail reducing the idea of size...
Découvrez l'histoire de la pomme de terre depuis son origine et son introduction en Europe. « Cette plante, nommée vulgairement pomme de terre en France, et potatoe en Angleterre, paraît être originaire de Virginie, l'un des États-Unis de l'Amérique. Cette plante arriva des régions équatoriales en Italie, s'introduisit en Allemagne, d'où elle fut transportée en Espagne, et de là en Irlande, puis dans toute l'Angleterre. Vers la fin du 16e siècle, la pomme de terre fut importée d'Italie en France ; on la planta en Franche-Comté d'abord, puis en Bourgogne ; mais bientôt un préjugé se répandit contre ces tubercules ; on prétendit qu'ils pouvaient donner la lèpre ; leur usage fut défendu, et l'on cessa de les cultiver. La culture de la pomme de terre fut reprise quelques temps après, mais elle ne servit d'aliment qu'aux malheureux et aux bestiaux ; on lui supposait toujours quelques mauvais effets dans l'économie animale. Les préjugés reçus en France contre les pommes de terre s'étendirent même sur les gens qui faisaient un usage habituel de cet aliment... La culture des pommes de terre, en France, est aujourd'hui très étendue ; et sa consommation très considérable...»
Seated on the dry hill-side here, by the belted blue Mediterranean, I have picked up from the ground a bit of blanched and moldering bone, well cleaned to my hand by the unconscious friendliness of the busy ants; and looking closely at it I recognize it at once, with a sympathetic sigh, for the solid welded tail-piece of some departed British tourist swallow. He came here like ourselves, no doubt, to escape the terrors of an English winter: but among these pine-clad Provençal summits some nameless calamity overtook him, from greedy kestrel or from native sportsman, and left him here, a sheer hulk, for the future contemplation of a wandering and lazy field-naturalist. Fit text, truly, for a sermon on the ancestry of birds; for this solid tail-bone of his tells more strangely than any other part of his whole anatomy the curious story of his evolution from some primitive lizard-like progenitor. Close by here, among the dry rosemary and large-leaved cistus by my side, a few weathered tips of naked basking limestone are peeping thirstily through the arid soil; and on one of these gray lichen-covered masses a motionless gray lizard sits sunning his limbs, in hue and spots just like the lichen itself, so that none but a sharp eye could detect his presence, or distinguish his little curling body from the jutting angles of the rock, to which it adapts itself with such marvelous accuracy.
"Everybody looks for happiness without knowing where to find it; like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one." (Voltaire) This collection aimed to present the works, thoughts and life of the enlightenment philosophers and writers who influenced the world and the social revolutions worldwide.
Rousseau is, from any moral or social or national point of view, a force of much more disintegrating power than Nietzsche can ever be. And he is this for the very reason that his sensual and sentimental nature dominates him so completely. (John Cowper Powys) This collection aimed to present the works, thoughts and life of the enlightenment philosophers and writers who influenced the world and the social revolutions worldwide.
Par une coïncidence remarquable, le pays que les mormons ont choisi pour siège de leur empire offre avec leur régime théocratique une singulière ressemblance : on dirait qu'il a été formé spécialement pour eux...
Bien qu'aujourd'hui presqu'ignoré en Europe, le mormonisme n'a pas disparu, et ce n'est pas la chose la moins curieuse de notre époque que l'éclosion dans le premier quart de ce siècle et le maintien jusqu'à l'heure actuelle, aux États-Unis, de cette religion pleine d'analogies bizarres avec une secte apparue il y a plus de trois siècles déjà, mais morte, noyée dans le sang, au bout de peu d'années.
Notre objet, ici, n'est pas de faire une étude des institutions des Mormons. Nous ne voulons pas, non plus, mettre en balance avec les atrocités commises sous l'inspiration des passions religieuses, à Munster, à Zwickau, au XVIe siècle, ou ailleurs, à d'autres époques. Nous voulons, entre autres, retracer les péripéties d'un sombre drame qui émut violemment l'opinion publique aux États-Unis, lorsque la nouvelle s'en répandit et lorsqu'on poursuivit les coupables, pensant que ces quelques pages d'histoire aideront à faire connaître certains dessous, en général peu connus, d'une organisation religieuse, politique et sociale assurément fort étrange au temps actuel, et qu'elles permettront de juger une croyance ayant tenu dans un si avilissant servage ceux qui y sont affiliés...
Philosophe et poète américain, Emerson est connu comme penseur et chef de file du mouvement transcendantaliste. Il y a dans Emerson une philosophie de l'Amérique qui se résume ainsi : L'Amérique est heureuse. Plus jeune que les nations européennes, elle a profité de leur expérience ; elle a recueilli leur sagesse ; elle a évité leurs fautes. Elle a eu de la chance : elle est bien née, pourvue d'un génie simple et naturel qui l'a très vite menée à la liberté sans folie. Elle a eu de grands hommes qui lui ont procuré le gouvernement le plus raisonnable. Elle a une âme naïve et préservée. Elle est forte, puissante : assez puissante et forte pour affirmer qu'elle préfère à la force le droit. Elle a, dans l'univers, de nobles devoirs à remplir. Et c'est son rôle, d'enseigner à l'univers la pratique du droit, de la liberté, de la morale et du bonheur. Cette philosophie de l'Amérique n'est-elle pas vivante aujourd'hui, agissante ? et n'est-ce pas cette philosophie émersonienne qui a lancé l'Amérique à ses nouvelles destinées, jusqu'à l'Europe ?...
Several writers have given descriptions of proceedings of assemblies of birds of various species which they regarded as formal "trials in court." While this view of the nature of the transactions noticed cannot yet be accepted as established by competent observation, they are certainly of an interesting character, and reveal a peculiar phase of bird-life. Dr. Edmondson describes regular assemblies of crows of the hooded species,"crow-courts" they are called,which are held at certain intervals in the Shetland Isles. A particular hill or field suitable for the business is selected, but nothing is done till all are ready, and consequently the earlier comers have sometimes to wait for a day or two till the others arrive. When all have come, the court opens in a formal manner, and the presumed criminals are arraigned at the bar. A general croaking and clamor are raised by the assembly, and judgment is delivered, apparently, by the whole court. As soon as the sentence is given, the entire assemblage, "judges, barristers, ushers, audience and all, fall upon the two or three prisoners at the bar, and beat them till they kill them." As soon as the execution is over, the court breaks up, and all its members disperse quietly...
The history of dolphins is one of the most fascinating and instructive in the history of ideas in the western world. Indeed, it provides one of the most illuminating examples of what has probably occurred many times in human culture a virtually complete loss of knowledge, at least in most segments of the culture, of what was formerly well understood by generations of men.
Dolphins are mammals. They belong in the order Cetacea, suborder Odontoceti, family Delphinidae. Within the Delphinidae there are some twenty-two genera and about fifty-five species. The count includes the Killer Whale, the False Killer Whale, the White Whale, and the Pilot Whale, all of which are true dolphins. There are two subfamilies, the Delphinapterinae, consisting of the two genera Monodon monocerus, the Narwhal, and Delphinapterus leucas, the White Whale or Beluga. These two genera are distinguished by the fact that none of the neck vertebrae are fused, whereas in all remaining genera, embraced in the subfamily Delphininae, at least the first and second neck vertebrae are fused.
It was Aristotle in his History of Animals (521b) who first classified whales, porpoises, and dolphins as Cetacea, . Aristotle's account of the Cetacea was astonishingly accurately written, and quite evidently from firsthand knowledge of these animals...
This book deals with the general intelligence of Bees and Wasps; their powers of Communication; powers of special sense, memory and emotions; their general habits in architecture, wars...
"Those who have stored honey in their houses understand very well how important it is to prevent a single bee from discovering its location. Such discovery is sure to be followed by a general onslaught from the hive unless all means of access is prevented...
According to De Fravière, bees have a number of different notes or tones which they emit from the stigmata of the thorax and abdomen, and by which they communicate information.
As soon as a bee arrives with important news, it is at once surrounded, emits two or three shrill notes, and taps a comrade with its long, flexible, and very slender feelers, or antennæ. The friend passes on the news in similar fashion, and the intelligence soon traverses the whole hive. If it is of an agreeable kind-if, for instance, it concerns the discovery of a store of sugar or of honey, or of a flowering meadow-all remains orderly. But, on the other hand, great excitement arises if the news presages some threatened danger, or if strange animals are threatening invasion of the hive. It seems that such intelligence is conveyed first to the queen, as the most important person in the state...
This book deals with the general history of three greats conquerors : Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus and Alexander.
Nebuchadnezzar was the King of Babylon considered as the third great empire of the history.
Cyrus was the first Persian conqueror; founder of the ancient Persian Empire.
Alexander was the king of the Greek Empire; one of the great conquerors of the history.
So long as man does not bother about what he is or whence he came or whither he is going, the whole thing seems as simple as the verb "to be"; and you may say that the moment he does begin thinking about what he is and whence he came and whither he is going, he gets on to a lot of roads that lead nowhere, and that spread like the fingers of a hand or the sticks of a fan; so that if he pursues two or more of them he soon gets beyond his straddle, and if he pursues only one he gets farther and farther from the rest of all knowledge as he proceeds. You may say that and it will be true. But there is one kind of knowledge a man does get when he thinks about what he is, whence he came and whither he is going, which is this: that it is the only important question he can ask himself...
Of the great many things which man does which he should not do or need not do, if he were wholly explained by the verb "to be," you may count walking. Of course if you build up a long series of guesses as to the steps by which he learnt to walk, and call that an explanation, there is no more to be said...
Walking is the natural recreation for a man who desires not absolutely to suppress his intellect but to turn it out to play for a season. All great men of letters have, therefore, been enthusiastic walkers (exceptions, of course, excepted). Shakespeare, besides being a sportsman, a lawyer, a divine, and so forth, conscientiously observed his own maxim, "Jog on, jog on, the footpath way"; though a full proof of this could only be given in an octavo volume. Anyhow, he divined the connection between walking and a "merry heart"; that is, of course, a cheerful acceptance of our position in the universe founded upon the deepest moral and philosophical principles...
This book deals with the history of the universities.
Although the name university is sometimes given to some celebrated schools in Alexandria and Athens, it is generally held that the universities first arose in the Middle Ages. For those that were chartered during the thirteenth century, dates and documents can be accurately given; but the beginnings of the earliest are obscure, hence the legends connected with their origin: University of Oxford was supposed to have been founded by King Alfred, of Paris by Charlemagne, and of Bologna by Theodosius II (A.D. 433).
The earliest universities had no charters; they grew ex consuetudine. Out of these others quickly developed, by migration, or by formal establishment. As the universities in the beginning possessed no buildings like our modern halls and laboratories, it was an easy matter for the students and professors, in case they became dissatisfied in one place, to find accommodations in another...
This book deals with the story and works of Hippocrates.
Owing to the lapse of centuries, very little is known with certainty of the life of Hippocrates, a Greek philosopher and writer, who was called with affectionate veneration by his successors "the divine old man," and who has been justly known to posterity as "the Father of Medicine."
Although Hippocrates at first studied medicine under his father, he had afterwards for his teachers Gorgias and Democritus, both of classic fame, and Herodicus, who is known as the first person who applied gymnastic exercises to the cure of diseases...
Lire, c'est étudier ligne à ligne une oeuvre littéraire. La lecture forme nos facultés, nous les fait découvrir, éveille les idées, crée et soutient l'inspiration. C'est par la lecture que nous naissons à la vie intellectuelle. C'est à la suite d'une lecture qu'on devient écrivain. Elle nous révèle à nous-mêmes.
La lecture est la plus noble des passions. Elle nourrit l'âme, comme le pain nourrit le corps. « Ce geôlier, disait Napoléon Ier à Sainte-Hélène, en parlant d'Hudson Lowe, qui gênait ses promenades, ce geôlier devrait savoir que l'exercice est nécessaire à mes membres comme la lecture à mon esprit. »...
Dostoïevski, c'est « le seul qui m'ait appris quelque chose en psychologie », disait Nietzsche. (André Gide)
En entrant dans l'oeuvre et dans l'existence de Dostoïevski, (l'un des grands écrivains russes) je convie le lecteur à une promenade toujours triste, souvent effrayante, parfois funèbre.
Né à Moscou, le 12 octobre 1821, Dostoïevski perd sa mère en 1837, et son père en 1839. Il étudie à Saint-Petersbourg, dès 1837, avec son frère Michel. Il entre à l'École du Génie militaire, en 1841; il donne sa démission en 1844. Il vit dans la misère jusqu'en 1846, où il publie avec succès les Pauvres Gens. De 1847 à 1849, il donne sans succès plusieurs nouvelles et romans.
Impliqué dans l'affaire des Pétrachevtsy, il est arrêté en mars 1849, condamné à mort le 22 décembre 1849; commué en quatre ans de travaux forcés et à la déportation, il part pour la Sibérie, le 25 décembre 1849.
Il vit au bagne, de 1850 à 1854; il en sort le 2 mars 1854. Il est incorporé, comme simple soldat, dans un régiment sibérien; il y sert deux ans; et libéré en 1856, sans aucunes ressources, il se remet à écrire...
De 1875 à 1877, il édite une brochure périodique, dont il est le seul rédacteur, et qui fonde, soudain, sa gloire. Le Journal d'un Écrivain obtient un succès immense. Il fait plus pour Dostoïevski, cent fois, que tous ses chefs-d'oeuvre ensemble. À 56 ans, il devient la voix de la Russie même. Il est l'écrivain national de son pays. En toute circonstance, il parle désormais pour la nation: à propos de Pouchkine ou de Nékrassov, au sujet de la guerre contre les Turcs, aux étudiants, aux juges. Il a pour lui le peuple et les lettrés.
En 1880, il écrit les Frères Karamazov.
Il meurt le 28 janvier 1881 à Saint-Petersbourg. On lui fait des funérailles à la Victor Hugo. Quarante-deux députations suivent le convoi, et représentent toutes les classes de la société. Le cortège s'étend sur la longueur d'une lieue.
Of the French writers of romance of the latter part of the nineteenth century no one made a reputation as quickly as did Guy de Maupassant. Not one has preserved that reputation with more ease, not only during life, but in death. None so completely hides his personality in his glory.
Of Guy de Maupassant we know that he was born in Normandy about 1850; that he was the favorite pupil, if one may so express it, the literary protege, of Gustave Flaubert; that he made his debut late in 1880, with a novel inserted in a small collection, published by Emile Zola and his young friends, under the title: "The Soirees of Medan"; that subsequently he did not fail to publish stories and romances every year up to 1891, when a disease of the brain struck him down in the fullness of production; and that he died, finally, in 1893, without having recovered his reason.
In looking back upon the past history of Christianity, it is easy to trace the existence of two very different ideas of the nature of that religion. Their influence is discernible in what may be termed its incipient form, in perhaps the earliest period to which we can ascend, while it has been especially felt during the last three hundred years, as also it materially affects the position and relations of churches and sects at the present moment. From obvious characteristics of each, these ideas may be respectively designated as the ritualistic, or sacerdotal, and the dogmatic, or doctrinal. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the two have been constantly intermingled and blended together, acting and reacting upon each other, and either supporting or else thwarting each other with singular pertinacity. Neither of them is found, in any instance of importance, existing wholly apart from the other, so as to be the sole animating principle of a great religious organization. The nature of the case renders this impossible. Ritualistic observances cannot be rationally followed without dogmatic beliefs. The former are the natural exponents of the latter, which indeed they are supposed to represent and to symbolize. Nor can doctrinal creeds, again, wholly dispense with outward rites and forms. Even the most spiritual religion requires some outward medium of expression, if it is to influence strongly either communities or individuals. It must, therefore, tacitly or avowedly adopt something of the dogmatic, if not of the ritualistic, idea, although this may not be put into express words, much less formed into a definite creed or test of orthodoxy.
A learned Historian of the Christian Theology of the Apostolic age observes that what most distinguishes the Jewish religion, at least in its last centuries, is not so much monotheism as faith in the future. While elsewhere we see the imagination of men complacently retracing the picture of a golden age irrecoverably lost, Israel, guided by its prophets, persisted in turning its eyes towards the future, and attached itself the more firmly to a felicity yet to come, the more the actual situation seemed to give the lie to its hopes.
What these hopes were in relation to the future of that people and of the world, what the Messianic ideas and expectations were, we learn from the New Testament, particularly from the Gospels. And we find our impressions from this source made more clear in some points, and in all confirmed, by a study of the Apocalyptic literature,-of those writings of which it was the object to give both shape and expression to the Hebrew thought of the kingdom of heaven, and of the brilliant and miraculous events which would introduce and establish it...
The first voyage to America, of which we have any account, was performed by Northmen. But who were the Northmen?
Northmen, Norsemen, Scandinavians, are different names applied in a general way to the early inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. These people formed the northern branch of the Teutonic family.
America was reached by the Northmen as early as the beginning of the eleventh century...
This books deals with the discovery of America by the Northmen before Columbus.
