Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681). Life Is a Dream.

Vol. 26, pp. 7-21 of The Harvard Classics

Disguised as a man, a Russian noblewoman exploring the moun­tains of Poland came upon a secret prison. Fate linked the lives of this woman and the unknown prisoner.

(Calderon, after a life of adventure, died May 5, 1681.)

Act I

Scene I

A pass of rocks, over which a storm is rolling away, and the sun setting: in the foreground, half-way down, a fortress.
Enter first from the topmost rock ROSAURA, as from horseback, in man’s attire; and, after her, FIFE ¹

Rosaura
THERE, four-footed Fury, blast-engender’d brute, without the wit

Of brute, or mouth to match the bit

Of man—art satisfied at last?

Who, when thunder roll’d aloof,

Tow’rd the spheres of fire your ears

Pricking, and the granite kicking

Into lightning with your hoof,

Among the tempest-shatter’d crags

Shattering your luckless rider

Back into the tempest pass’d?

There then lie to starve and die,

Or find another Phaeton

Mad-mettled as yourself; for I,

Wearied, worried, and for-done,

Alone will down the mountain try,

That knits his brows against the sun.

Thomas Henry Huxley. Science and Culture

Vol. 28, pp. 209-219 of The Harvard Classics

When science was struggling for a place in popular education, Huxley distinguished himself as its champion. While the arts were to beautify life and increase pleasure, Huxley saw science as a means of benefiting man's prosperity.

(Huxley born May 4, 1825.)

SIX ¹ years ago, as some of my present hearers may remember, I had the privilege of addressing a large assemblage of the inhabitants of this city, who had gathered together to do honor to the memory of their famous townsman, Joseph Priestley; and, if any satisfaction attaches to posthumous glory, we may hope that the manes of the burnt-out philosopher were then finally appeased.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527). The Prince.

Vol. 36, pp. 7-17 of The Harvard Classics

Traveling from court to court in the stirring days of the Renaissance, Machiavelli studied the intrigues of princes. His writings have affected the destiny of mighty dynasties.

(Machiavelli born May 3, 1469.)

I. Of the Various Kinds of Princedom, and of the Ways in Which They Are Acquired

ALL the States and Governments by which men are or ever have been ruled, have been and are either Republics or Princedoms. Princedoms are either hereditary, in which the sovereignty is derived through an ancient line of ancestors, or they are new. New Princedoms are either wholly new, as that of Milan to Francesco Sforza; or they are like limbs joined on to the hereditary possessions of the Prince who acquires them, as the Kingdom of Naples to the dominions of the King of Spain. The States thus acquired have either been used to live under a Prince or have been free; and he who acquires them does so either by his own arms or by the arms of others, and either by good fortune or by merit.

Michael Faraday. The Forces of Matter, Delivered before a Juvenile Auditory at the Royal Institution of Great Britain during the Christmas Holidays of 1859–60

Vol. 30, pp. 61-72 of The Harvard Classics

Everything has to have a beginning, so too with the science of electricity. Here we learn the very rudiments, the inceptions of science that have revolutionized the world. Faraday explains in a simple way the truths of electricity.

Lecture V.—Magnetism—Electricity

I WONDER whether we shall be too deep to-day or not. Remember that we spoke of the attraction by gravitation of all bodies to all bodies by their simple approach. Remember that we spoke of the attraction of particles of the same kind to each other—that power which keeps them together in masses—iron attracted to iron, brass to brass, or water to water. Remember that we found, on looking into water, that there were particles of two different kinds attracted to each other; and this was a great step beyond the first simple attraction of gravitation, because here we deal with attraction between different kinds of matter. The hydrogen could attract the oxygen and reduce it to water, but it could not attract any of its own particles, so that there we obtained a first indication of the existence of two attractions.

William Hazlitt, Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen

Vol. 27, pp. 270-283 of The Harvard Classics

Once Hazlitt and his friends took to discussing the famous people they would like to meet - Guy Fawkes, Sir Isaac Newton, Chaucer, Boccaccio, Cromwell, Garrick, and Judas.

“Come like shadows—so depart.”

LAMB ¹ it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the defence of Guy Fawkes, which I urged him to execute. As, however, he would undertake neither, I suppose I must do both, a task for which he would have been much fitter, no less from the temerity than the felicity of his pen—

“Never so sure our rapture to create

As when it touch’d the brink of all we hate.” ²

Compared with him, I shall, I fear, make but a commonplace piece of business of it; but I should be loth the idea was entirely lost, and, besides, I may avail myself of some hints of his in the progress of it. I am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of other people than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into paradox or mysticism; the others I am not bound to follow farther than I like, or than seems fair and reasonable.

George Washington

Vol. 43, pp. 225-228 of The Harvard Classics

Washington declared that the strength of the new nation lay in the "pure and immutable principles of private morality." A free government, fortified by the virtues and affection of its citizens, can command the respect of the world.

(Washington inaugurated April 30, 1789.)

Washington’s First Inaugural Address

(1789)

[At the first election held under the Constitution, George Washington, who had been chairman of the convention which framed the Constitution, was unanimously chosen President. The inaugural address was delivered in Federal Hall, at Wall and Nassau Streets, New York, April 30, 1789.]

Fellow-Citizens:

AMONG the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties, than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years; a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust, to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature, and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver, is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is, that, if in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens; and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me; my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of the partiality in which they originated.

Stories from the Thousand and One Nights.

Vol. 16 pp. 231-242 of The Harvard Classic

Sindbad, a poor man, recited woeful verses before the magnificent dwelling of Sindbad of the Sea. The great Sindbad, hearing him, invited the poor Sindbad to a feast and told the wonderful story of his fabulous fortune.

Nights 537–566

The Story of Es-Sindibad of the Sea and Es-Sindibad of the Land

THERE was, in the time of Khalifeh, the Prince of the Faithful, Harun Er-Rashid, in the city of Baghdad, a man called Es-Sindibad the Porter. He was a man in poor circumstances, who bore burdens for hire upon his head. And it happened to him that he bore one day a heavy burden, and that day was excessively hot; so he was wearied by the load, and perspired profusely, the heat violently oppressing him. In this state he passed by the door of a merchant, the ground before which was swept and sprinkled, and there the air was temperate; and by the side of the door was a wide mastabah. The porter therefore put down his burden upon that mastabah, to rest himself, and to scent the air; and when he had done so, there came forth upon him, from the door, a pleasant, gentle gale, and an exquisite odour, wherewith the porter was delighted. He seated himself upon the edge of the mastabah, and heard in that place the melodious sounds of stringed instruments, with the lute among them, and mirth-exciting voices, and varieties of distinct recitations. He heard also the voices of birds, warbling, and praising God (whose name be exalted!) with diverse tones and with all dialects; consisting of turtle-doves and hezars and blackbirds and nightingales and ring-dove and kirawans; ¹ whereupon he wondered in his mind, and was moved with great delight. He then advanced to that door, and found within the house a great garden, wherein he beheld pages and slaves and servants and other dependants, and such things as existed not elsewhere save in the abodes of Kings and Sultans; and after that, there blew upon him the odour of delicious, exquisite viands, of all different kinds, and of delicious wine.