 The Art of Packing, How to Have a Comfortable Holiday by Catherine Hamilton-Huff. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. To pack well is an art few women possess. The time is fast approaching when one's thoughts turn to the summer holiday outing, and any skill in the packing line is doubly appreciated at this psychological moment. In order to feel happy on a holiday, one must be well dressed, and the way clothes are put into the trunk has much to do with bringing about this happy estate. One woman will pack twice as much in the same size trunk as her sister, who does not understand the art, and her clothes too will arrive in better condition. In fact, it is the trunk that is most closely packed that has the best chance of reaching its destination in apple pie order. For the corners are well filled and there is no shaking about of articles once the cover is down. From experience, I have found that it is a good plan to commence a week or so before a journey to jot down the articles that will be useful on the trip. Memory on the Day of Packing is apt to play trader. A list of this kind will be found of immense assistance when the real work begins. When you get up in the morning, ask yourself what is the first thing needed for the toilet and so on. Perform the imaginary functions through the day and so avoid the stupid little slips of memory that necessitate the starting out on a shopping expedition as soon as holiday town is reached. A great deal of the fatigue of packing with many a headache is spared if the trunk is raised a foot or so from the floor on a firm foundation. Another hint to the uninitiated is to collect the articles to be taken and lay them on the chairs, etc., of your bedroom. In this way, you can cast your eye over them and decide which is best to lay at the bottom of the trunk. This simple scheme will avoid a lot of changing of plans and racking of brains at the last moment. Everyone will say, of course, heavy things go in the bottom of the trunk, but at the same time they will throw a forgotten book on top of glasses and then wonder why clothes are so unmercifully crushed on being unpacked. It is not the weight of the book that does the mischief, but being heavy, it slides about on the lighter clothing and crushes it. All corners of the trunk must be filled if only with soft paper. At propo of blouses, there are envelopes made of muslin, 18 by 22 inches, into which the best lingerie is slipped, together with its accompanying belt, stock and pins. And a good way to keep dresses smooth is to fasten four rows of hook eyes in the inner side of the trunk, four inches apart, and draw a tape taut through the eyes. When a dress is folded and placed in the trunk, pin it to the tape with safety pins. Use plenty of tissue paper between the gowns and their adornments, and, where the material is light and perishable, put extra pieces in the folds. Stuff out the sleeves of bodices and baste tissue paper around the collars and cuffs, where laces and embroideries are used as a trimming. In placing wastes in the trunk, they should be arranged in alternate ways, one waist to another's neckband. Happy is the woman who has a trunk long enough to admit of placing skirts at full length, for skirt can bear much folding from side to side, though but little from top to bottom. In fact, the less folding that is done, the better. Never turn a skirt wrong side out. The daintier the material, the more surely will it lose its freshness. Between heavy coats and wraps, put thicker tissue paper, that of the brown variety. When a hat trunk is not in one's possession, be careful to fasten securely the chapeau in the position in which it is to travel. Long millinery pins are best for this purpose, stuck through the brim of the hat to the bottom of the tray. The hat crown should be stuffed with tissue paper and covered with a veil of the paper. Long feathers should be detached from the hat, rolled in soft silk and twisted about the shape. Boots and shoes are slipped into bags or rolled separately in paper and laid at the bottom of the trunk, stockings and other substantial little odds and ends fitted in their interstices. A large convenient tray is like a trolley car, no matter how crowded there is always room for one more. It will hold your hats, fans, gloves, handkerchiefs, everything but gowns and lingerie that should have plenty of room beneath. Most women are called upon to fold the wearing apparel of their big brothers or husbands and the service is often conducive of coldness between the two at the end of the journey. It is most difficult to fold trousers so that the creases shall be only those put in by the tailor. But by placing together the two brace buttons, the crease will fall in the right lines. It is well to grasp the trousers by the lower edges and let them fall at full length in the original creases. They can then be doubled once across without the slightest injury. For folding the coat, the principal thing to remember is that the sleeve should be pulled out slightly at the shoulder. The coat is then laid in three folds, the back falling between the two front breaths and the second fold put in at the waist. The safe way to pack small quantities of medicine or toilet articles is to put them in tiny bottles enclosed in old glove fingers and tie them on. Then pack all the bottles in a tin pail without a handle, put the top on tightly and bury among the clothing. If bottles are carried in the usual way, rubber stoppers will be found less likely to work out of place than those made of cork. When the stopper is well in the bottle, give it a twist all the way around and it will not come out till one twists it back again. Here is a scheme devised by a woman who spends much of her time on ocean steamers. She finds it much easier to carry a suitcase and a telescope bag and to dispense with the steamer trunk. Shore clothes are put into the suitcase and the telescope is separated and the two parts placed under the berth to act as drawers. In one side, the deck clothes are kept and in the other half, night clothes by day and day ones by night. In this telescope, stocks and collars may also be stowed. She also hangs her shore hat in a roomy bag and suspends it from the ceiling. Toilet articles are most gettable when kept in a pocket on the wall. The golf girl has a nice little trunk designed for her special needs, which is quite as convenient for the girl or man who is a favorite weekend guest. In size, it resembles a steamer trunk. A compartment is arranged for golf bag and sticks and sections with sliding partitions hold shirt wastes and hats. In the lid is a long space devoted to the packing of skirts. For some years it has been considered smart and traveled to have once trunk and suitcase and bag plastered over with foreign and domestic express and hotel labels and stamps. Now fashion has changed and it is thought snobbish to display in this poster style one's little journeys in the world. End of The Art of Packing, How to Have a Comfortable Holiday by Catherine Hamilton-Huff. Read by Betty B. The Art of Reading by Ainsworth Rand Spofford, 6th Librarian of Congress. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The true university of these days says a great scholar of our century, Thomas Carlisle, is a collection of books and all education is to teach us how to read. If there were any volume out of the multitude of books about books that have been written, which could illuminate the pathway of the unskilled reader, so as to guide him into all knowledge by the shortest road, what a boon that book would be. When we survey the vast and rapidly growing product of the modern press, when we see these hosts of poets without imagination, historians without accuracy, critics without discernment, and novelists without invention or style, in short, the whole prolific brood of writers who do not know how to write, we are tempted to echo the sentiment of Wordsworth, the intellectual power through words and things, go sounding on a dim and perilous way. The most that anyone can hope to do for others is to suggest to them a clue which, however feeble, has helped to guide his uncertain footsteps through the labyrinthian maze of folly and wisdom which we call literature. The knowledge acquired by a librarian, while it may be very wide and very varied, runs much risk of being as superficial as it is diversified. There is a very prevalent but very erroneous notion which conceives of a librarian as a kind of animated encyclopedia who, if you tap him in any direction from A to Z, will straightway pour forth a flood of knowledge upon any subject in history, science or literature. This popular ideal, however fine in theory, has to undergo what commercial men call a heavy discount when reduced to practice. The librarian is a constant and busy worker in far other fields than exploring the contents of books. His day is filled with cataloging, arranging and classifying them, searching catalogs, selecting new books, correspondence, directing assistants, keeping library records, adjusting accounts, etc., in the midst of which he is constantly at the call of the public for books and information. What time has he, worried by the days multifarious and exacting labors for any thorough study of books? So, when anyone begins an inquiry with, you know everything, can you tell me? I say, stop a moment. Omniscience is not a human quality. I really know very few things and am not quite sure of some of them. There are many men and women, too, in almost every community, whose range of knowledge is more extended than that of most librarians. The idea then, that because one lives perpetually among books, he absorbs all the learning that they contain, must be abandoned as a popular delusion. To know a little upon many subjects is quite compatible with not knowing much about any one. Beware of the man of one book is an ancient proverb, pregnant with meaning. The man of one book, if it is wisely chosen, and if he knows it all, can sometimes confound a whole assembly of scholars. An American poet once declared to me that all leisure time is lost, that is not spent in reading Shakespeare. And we remember Emerson's panagyric upon Plato's writings, borrowing from the caliph Omar his famous but apocryphal sentence against all books but the Quran. Burn all the libraries, for the value is in this book. So Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, read Homer once and you can read no more. For all books else appear so tame, so poor, verse will seem prose, but still persist to read, and Homer will be all the books you need. Of course I am far from designing to say anything against the widest study which great libraries exist to supply and to encourage. And all utterances of a half truth, like the maxim I have quoted, are exaggerations. But the saying points immoral, and that is the supreme importance of thoroughness in all that we undertake. The poetical wiseacre who endowed the world with the maxim, a little learning is a dangerous thing, does not appear to have reflected upon the logical sequence of the dictum, namely that if a little learning upon any subject is dangerous, then less must be still more dangerous. The art of reading, to the best advantage, implies the command of adequate time to read. The art of having time to read depends upon knowing how to make the best use of our days. Days are short and time is fleeting, but no one's day ever holds less than 24 hours. Engrossing as one's occupation may be, it need never consume all the time remaining from sleep, refreshment and social intercourse. The half hour before breakfast, the 15 minutes waiting for dinner, given to the book you wish to read, will soon finish it and make room for another. The busiest men I have known have often been the most intelligent and the widest readers. The idle person never knows how to make use of odd moments. The busy one always knows how. Yet the vast majority of people go through life without ever learning the great lesson of the supreme value of moments. Let us suppose that you determine to devote two hours every day to reading. That is equivalent to more than 700 hours a year or to three months of working time of eight hours a day. What could you not do in three months if you had all the time to yourself? You could almost learn a new language or master a new science. Yet this two hours a day, which would give you three months of free time every year, is frittered away. You scarcely know how in aimless matters that lead to nothing. A famous writer of our century, some of whose books you have read, Edward Bullwer-Lytton, devoted only four hours a day to writing. Yet he produced more than 60 volumes of fiction, poetry, drama and criticism of singular literary merit. The great naturalist Darwin, a chronic sufferer from a depressing malady, counted two hours a fortunate day's work for him. Yet he accomplished results in the world of science which render his name immortal. Be not over particular as to hours or the time of day and you will soon find that all hours are good for the muse. Have a purpose and adhere to it with good humor to pertinacity. Be independent of the advice and opinions of others. The world of books, like the world of nature, was made for you. Possess it in your own way. If you find no good in ancient history or in metaphysics, let them alone. And read books of art or poetry or biography or voyages and travels. The wide domain of knowledge and the world of books are so related that all roads cross and converge, like the paths that carry us over the surface of the globe on which we live. Many a reader has learned more of past times from good biographies than from any formal history. And it is a fact that many owe to the plays of Shakespeare and the novels of Walter Scott nearly all the knowledge which they possess of the history of England and Scotland. It is unhappily true that books do not teach the use of books. The art of extracting what is important or instructive in any book from the mass of verbiage that commonly overlays it cannot be learned by theory. Invaluable as the art of reading is, as a means of enlightenment, its highest uses can only be obtained by a certain method of reading which will separate the wheat from the chaff. Different readers will, of course, possess different capacities for doing this. Young or undisciplined minds can read only in one way, and that way is to mentally pronounce every word and dwell equally upon all the parts of every sentence. This comes naturally in the first instance from the mere method of learning to read in which every word is a spoken symbol and has to be sounded whether it is essential to the sense or not. This habit of reading which may be termed the literal method goes with most persons through life. Once learned it is very hard to unlearn. There are multitudes who cannot read a newspaper even without dwelling upon every word and coming to a full stop at the end of every sentence. Now this method of reading, while it may be indispensable to all readers at some time and to some readers at all times, is too slow and fruitless for the student who aims to absorb the largest amount of knowledge in the briefest space of time. Life is too short to be wasted over the rhetoric or the periods of an author whose knowledge we want as all that concerns us. Doubtless there are classes of literature in which form or expression predominates and we cannot read poetry, for example, or the drama or even the higher class of fiction without lingering upon the finer passages to get the full impression of their beauty. In reading works of the imagination we read not for ideas alone but for expression also and to enjoy the rhythm and melody of the verse, if it be poetry, or if prose the finest rhetoric and the pleasing cadence of the style. It is here that the literary skill of an accomplished writer and all that we understand by rhetoric becomes important, while in reading for information only we may either ignore words and phrases entirely or subordinate them to the ideas which they convey. In reading any book for the knowledge it contains I should assume think of spelling out all the words as a reading out all the sentences. Just as in listening to a slow speaker might undermine the whole meaning of what he is about to say before he has got half through his sentence, so in reading you can gather the full sense of the ideas which any sentence contains without stopping to accentuate the words. Leaving aside the purely literary works in which form or style is a predominant element, let us come to books of science, history, biography, voyages, travels, etc. In these the primal aim is to convey information and thus the style of expression is little or nothing. The thought or the fact is all. Yet most writers envelop the thought or the fact in so much verbiage, complicated with so many episodes, beat it out thin by so much iteration and reiteration that the student must needs learn the art of skipping in self-defense. To one, in the zealous pursuit of knowledge, to read most books through is paying them to extravagant a compliment. He has to read between the lines, as it were, to note down a fact here or a thought there or an illustration elsewhere and leaves alone all that contributes nothing to his special purpose. As the quick practiced eye glances over the visible signs of thought, page after page is rapidly absorbed and a book which would occupy an ordinary reader many days in reading is mastered in a few hours. The habit of reading which I have outlined and which may be termed the intuitive method or, if you prefer it, the shorthand method will more than double the working power of the reader. It is not difficult to practice, especially to a busy man, who does with all his might what he has got to do. But it should be learned early in life when the faculties are fresh, the mind full of zeal for knowledge, and the mental habits are ductile, not fixed. With it, one's capacity for acquiring knowledge and consequently his accomplishment, whether as writer, teacher, librarian, or private student, will be immeasurably increased. Doubtless it is true that some native or intuitive gifts must be conjoined with much mental discipline and perseverance in order to reach the highest result in this method of reading, as in any other study. Non omnia posumas omnes, Virgil says, and there are intellects who could no more master such a method than they could understand the binomial theorem or calculate the orbit of Uranus. If it be true, as has been epigrammatically said, that a great book is a great evil, let it be reduced to a small one by the skillful use of the art of skipping. Then he that runs may read, as he runs, while without this refuge he that reads will often assuredly be tempted to run. What I said just now, in deprecation of set courses of reading, was designed for private students only, who so often find a stereotype sequence of books barren or uninteresting. It was not intended to discourage the pursuit of a special course of study in the school, or the society, or the reading class. This is, in fact, one of the best means of intellectual progress. Here there is the opportunity to discuss the style, the merits, and the characteristics of the author in hand, and by the attrition of mind with mind, to conform and entertain the whole circle of readers. In an association of this kind, embracing one or two acute minds, the excellent practice of reading aloud finds its best results. Here too the art of expression becomes important how to adapt the sound to the sense by a just emphasis, intonation, and modulation of the voice. In short, the value of a book, thus read, and discussed in an appreciative circle, may be more than doubled to each reader. It is almost literally true that no book, undertaken merely as task work, ever helped the reader to knowledge of permanent or material value. How many persons struck by Mr. Emerson's exalted praise of the writings of Plato, have undertaken to go through the dialogues. Alas, for the vain ambition to be, or to seem, learned. To understand the Phaedo, or falling asleep over the gorgeous, the book has been dropped as hastily as it was taken up. It was not perceived that in order to enjoy or comprehend a philosopher, one must have a capacity for ideas. It requires almost as much intelligence to appreciate an idea as to conceive one. One will bring nothing home from the most persistent crews after knowledge unless he carries something out. In the realm of learning, we recognize the full meaning of that scripture that to him that hath shall be given, and he that hath not, though never so anxious to read and understand Plato, will quickly return to the perusal of his daily newspaper. It were easier perhaps, in one sense, to tell what not to read than to recommend what is best worth reading. In the publishing world, this is the age of compilation, not of creation. If we seek for great original works, if we must go to the wholesale merchants to buy knowledge, since retail geniuses are worth but little, one must go back many years for his main selection of books. It would not be a bad rule for those who can read but little to read no book until it has been published at least a year or two. This fever for the newest books is not a wholesome condition of the mind, and since a selection must indispensably be made, and that selection must be for the great mass of readers so rigid and so small, why should precious time be wasted upon the ephemeral productions of the hour? What business, for example, has one to be reading writer Haggard or Emily Rivas or Ian McLaren, who has never read Homer or Dante or even so much as half a dozen plays of Shakespeare? One hears with dismay that about three-fourths of the books drawn from our popular libraries are novels. Now, while such aimless reading merely to be amused is doubtless better than no reading at all, it is unquestionably true that over much reading of fiction, especially at an early age, innervates the mind, weakens the will, makes dreamers instead of thinkers and workers, and fills the imagination with morbid and unreal views of life. Yet the vast consumption of novels is due more to the cheapness and wide diffusion of such works and the want of wise direction and other fields than to any original tendency on the part of the young. People will always read the most that which is most but before them if only the style be attractive. The mischief that is done by improper books is literally immeasurable. The superabundance of cheap fiction in the markets creates and supplies an appetite which should be directed by wise guidance into more improving fields. A twofold evil follows upon the reading of every unworthy book. In the first place it absorbs the time which should be bestowed upon a worthy one, and secondly it leaves the mind and heart unimproved. Instead of conducing to the benefit of both. As there are few books more elevating than a really good novel, so there are none more fruitful of evil than a bad one. And what of the newspaper? It may be asked. When I consider for how much really good literature we are beholden to the daily and weekly press, how indispensable is its function as purveyor of the news of the world, how widely it has been improved in recent years, I cannot advise quarrelling with the bridge that brings so many across the Gulf of Ignorance. Yet the newspaper, like the book, is to be read sparingly and with judgment. It is to be used, not abused. I call that an abuse which squanders the precious and unrejurning hours over long chronicles of depravity. The murders, the suicides, the executions, the divorces, the criminal trials are each and all so like one another that it is only a wanton waste of time to read them. The morbid style in which social disorders of all kinds are written up in the sensational press with staring headlines to attract attention ought to warn off every healthy mind from their perusal. Every scandal in society that can be brought to the surface is eagerly caught up and paraded while the millions of people who lead blameless lives, of course, go unnoticed and uncronical. Such journals thus inculcate the vilest pessimism instead of a wholesome and honest belief in the average decency of human nature. The prolixity of the narrative, too, is always in monstrous disproportion to its importance. Does not the burning of a metropolitan theater, says a great writer, take above a million times as much telling the creation of a world? Here is where the art of skipping is to be rigorously applied. Read the newspaper by headlines only, skipping all the murders, all the fires, all the executions, all the crimes, all the news, except the most important and immediately interesting, and you will spend perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes upon what would otherwise occupy hours. It is no exaggeration to say that most persons have spent time enough over the newspapers to have given them a liberal education. As all readers cannot have the same gifts, so all cannot enjoy the same books. There are those who can see no greatness in Shakespeare, but who think Tupper's proverbial philosophy sublime. Some will eagerly devour every novel of Miss Bradens, or the Duchess, or the woman calling herself Wiede, but they cannot appreciate the masterly fictions of Thackeray. I have known very good people who could not, for the life of them, find any humor in Dickens, but who actually enjoyed the strained wit of Mrs. Partington and Bill Nye. Readers who could not get through a volume of Gibbon will read with admiration a so-called History of Napoleon by Abbott, and I fear that you will find many a young lady of today who is content to be ignorant of Homer in Shakespeare, but who is ravished by the charms of Trilby or the heavenly twins. But taste in literature, as in art or in anything else, can be cultivated. Lay down the rule and adhere to it to read none but the best books, and you will soon lose all relish for the poorer ones. You can educate readers into good judges in no long time by feeding them on the masterpieces of English prose and poetry. Surely we all have cause to deprecate the remorseless flood of fictitious literature in which better books are drowned. Be not dismayed at the vast multitude of books, nor fear that with your small leisure you will never be able to master any appreciable share of them. Few and far between are the great books of the world. The works which it is necessary to know may be comprised in a comparatively small compass. The rest are to be preserved in the great literary conservatories, some as records of the past, others as chronicles of the times, and not a few as models to be avoided. The Congressional Library at Washington is our great national conservatory of books. As the library of the government, that is of the whole people, it is inclusive of all the literature which the country produces while all the other libraries are and must be more or less exclusive. No national library can ever be too large. In order that the completeness of the collection shall not fail and to preserve the whole of our literature, it is put into the statute of copyright as a condition, a precedent of the exclusive right to multiply copies of any book that it shall be deposited in the library of Congress. Apprehension is sometimes expressed that our national library will become overloaded with trash and so fail of its usefulness, tis a lost fear. There is no act of Congress requiring all the books to be read. The public sense is continually winnowing and sifting the literature of every period, and to books and their authors every day is the day of judgment. Nowhere in the world is the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest more rigidly applied than in the world of books. The works which are the most frequently reprinted in successive ages are the ones which it is safe to stand by. Books may be divided into three classes. First, acquaintances, second, friends, and third, intimates. It is well enough to have an acquaintance with a multitude of books as with many people, though in either case much time should not be given to merely pleasant intercourse that leads to no result. With our literary friends we can spend more time, for they awaken keen interest and are to be read with zest and consequently with profit. But for our chosen intimates, our heart companions, we reserve our highest regard and our best hours. Choice and Sacred is the book that makes an era in the life of the reader. The book which first rouses his higher nature and awakens the reason or the imagination. Such a volume will many a one remember. The book which first excited his own thought made him conscious of untried powers and opened to his charmed vision a new world. Such a book has Carlisle Sartor-Risartus been to many, or the play of Hamlet, read for the first time, or the Faust of Goethe, or the confessions of St. Augustine, or an essay of Emerson, or John Ruskin, or the Divine Comedy of Dante, or even an exquisite work of fiction like John Halifax or Henry Esmond. What the book is that works such miracles is never of so much importance as the epic in the mind of the reader which it signalizes. It were vain to single out any one writer and say to all readers, here is the book that must indispensably be read, for the same book will have totally different effects upon different minds, or even upon the same mind at different stages of development. When I have been asked to contribute to the once popular symposia upon the books which have helped me, I have declined, for such catalogues of intellectual aids are liable to be very misleading. Thus if I were to name the book which did more than most others from my own mind, I should say that it was the Aeneid of Rousseau, read at about the age of seventeen. This work, written with that marvelous eloquence which characterizes all the best productions of Jean-Jacques, first brought me acquainted with those advanced ideas of education which have penetrated the whole modern world, yet the Émile would probably appear to most of my readers, trite and commonplace, as it would now, to me, for the reason that we have long passed the period of development when its ideas were new to us. But the formative power of books can never be overrated. There is subtle mastery to stimulate all the germs of intellectual and moral life that lie enfolded in the mind. As the poet sings, books are not seldom talismans and spells. Why should they not be so? They furnish us the means and the only means whereby we may hold communion with the master spirits of all ages. They bring us acquainted with the best thoughts which the human mind has produced, expressed in the noblest language. Books create for us the many-sided world, carry a subroad out of our narrow provincial horizons, and reveal to us new scenery, new men, new languages, and new modes of life. As we read, the mind expands with the horizon and becomes broad as the blue heaven above us. With Homer we breathe the fresh air of the pristine world when the light of poetry gilded every mountaintop and people of the earth with heroes and demigods. With Plutarch we walk in company with sages, warriors, and statesmen, and kindle with admiration of their virtues, or are roused to indignation at their crimes. With Sophocles we sound the depths of human passion and learn the sublime lesson of endurance. We are charmed with an ode of horrors, perfect in rhythm, perfect in sentiment, perfect in diction, and perfect in moral. The condensed essence of volumes in a single page. We walk with Dante through the netherworld, awed by the tremendous power with which he depicts for us the secrets of the prison house. With Milton we mount heavenward and in the immortal verse of his minor poems, finer even than the stately march of Paradise Lost, we hear celestial music and breathe diviner air. With that sovereign artist Shakespeare, full equally of delight and of majesty, we sweep the horizon of this complex human life and become comprehensive scholars and citizens of the world. The masters of fiction enthrall us with their fascinating pages, one moment shaking us with uncontrollable laughter and the next dissolving us in tears. In the presence of all these emanations of genius, the wise reader may feed on nectar and ambrosia and forget the petty cares and vexations of today. There are some books that charm us by their wit or their sweetness, others that surprise and captivate us by their strength, books that refresh us when weary, books that comfort us when afflicted, books that stimulate us by their robust health, books that exalt and refine our natures as it were to a finer mold, books that rouse us like the sound of a trumpet, books that illumine the darkest hours and fill all our day with delight. It is books that record the advance and the decline of nations, the experience of the world, the achievements and possibilities of mankind. It is books that reveal to us ideas and images almost above ourselves and go far to open for us the gates of the invisible. A river of thought, says Emerson, is continually following out of the invisible world into the mind of man, and we may add that books contain the most fruitful and permanent of the currents of that mighty river. I am not disposed to celebrate the praises of all books, nor to recommend to readers of any age a habit of indiscriminate reading, but for the books which are true helpers and teachers, the thoughts of the best poets, historians, publicists, philosophers, orators, if their value is not real, then there are no realities in the world. Very true is that nevertheless that the many-sided man cannot be cultivated by books alone. One may learn by heart whole libraries and yet be profoundly unacquainted with the face of nature or the life of man. The pale student who gives himself wholly to books pays the penalty by losing that robust energy of character, that sympathy with his kind, that keen sense of the charms of earth and sky, that are essential to complete development. The world's great men, says Oliver Wendell Holmes, have not commonly been great scholars, nor at scholars great men. To know what other men have said about things is not always the most important part of knowledge. There is nothing that can dispense us from the independent use of our own faculties. Meditation and observation are more valuable than mere absorption and knowledge itself is not wisdom. The true way to use books is to make them our servants, not our masters. Very helpful, cheering, and profitable will they become when they fall naturally into our daily life and growth, when they tally with the moods of the mind. The habits and methods of readers are as various as those of authors. Thus, there are some readers who gobble a book, as Boswell tells us Dr. Johnson used to gobble his dinner, eagerly and with a furious appetite, suggestive of dyspepsia and the non-assimilation of food. Then there are slow readers who plod along through a book, sentence by sentence, putting in a mark conscientiously where they left off today, so as to begin at the self-same spot tomorrow. Fast readers who gallop through a book, as you would ride a flying bicycle on a race, drowsy readers to whom a book is only a covered apology for a nap, and who pretend to be reading macalay or Herbert Spencer only to dream between the leaves. Sensitive readers who cannot abide the least noise or interruption when reading, and to whose nerves a footfall or a conversation is an exquisite torture. Absorbed readers who are so preoccupied with their pursuit that they forget all their surroundings, the time of day, the presence or the voices of others, the hour for dinner and even their own existence. Credulous readers who believe everything they read because it is printed in a book, and swallow without winking the most colossal lying. Critical and captious readers who quarrel with the blunders or the beliefs of their author, and who cannot refrain from calling him an idiot or an ass, and perhaps even writing him down so on his own pages, admiring and receptive readers who find fresh beauties in a favorite author every time they peruse him, and even discover beautiful swans in the stupidest geese that ever cackled along the flowery needs of literature. Reverent readers who treat a book as they would treat a great and good man considerably and politely, carefully brushing the dust from a beloved volume with the sleeve or tenderly lifting a book fallen to the floor as if they thought it suffered or felt harm. Careless and rough readers who will turn down books on their faces to keep the place, tumble them over in heaps, cram them into shells never meant for them, scribble upon the margins, dog-ear the leaves, or even cut them with their fingers. All brutal and intolerable practices totally unworthy of anyone pretending to civilization. To those who have well learned the art of reading, what inexhaustible delights does the world of books contain? With Milton to behold the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies. To journey through far countries with Marco Polo, to steer across an unknown sea with Columbus, or to brave the dangers of the frozen ocean with Nansen or Dr. Gaine, to study the manners of ancient nations with Herodotus, to live over again the life of Greece and Rome with the dark heroes, to trace the decline of empires with Gibbon and Monson, to pursue the story of the modern world in the pages of Hume, Macalay, Tears, and Sismondae, and our own Prescott, Motley, and Bancroct, to enjoy afresh the eloquence of Demosthenes and the polished and splendid diction of Cicero, to drink in the wisdom of philosophers and to walk with Socrates, Plato, and the Stoics through the groves of academia, to be kindled by the saintly utterances of prophets and apostles, St. Paul's high reasoning of immortality, or the seraphic visions of St. John, to study the laws that govern communities with the great publicists, or the economy of nations with Adam Smith and Stuart Mill, with the naturalist to sound the depths of the argument as to the origin of species and the genesis of man, with the astronomers to leave and explore the illimitable spaces of the universe in which our solar system is but a speck, with the mathematicians to quit the uncertain realm of speculation and assumption and plant our feet firmly on the rock of exact science, to come back anon to lighter themes and to revel in the grotesque humor of Dickens, the philosophic page of Bolwer, the chivalric romances of Walter Scott, the finished life pictures of George Elliott, the powerful imagination of Victor Hugo, and the masterly delineations of Thackery, to hang over the absorbing biographies of Dr. Franklin, Walter Scott and Dr. Johnson, to peruse with fresh delight the masterpieces of Irving and Goldsmith and the best essays of Haslett, De Quincey, Charles Lamb, and Montaigne, to feel the inspiration of the great poets and pages from Homer down to Tennyson, to read Shakespeare, a book that is in itself almost a university, is not all this satisfaction enough for human appetite, however craving, solace enough for trouble, however bitter, occupation enough for life, however long. There are pleasures that perish in the using, but the pleasure of which the art of reading carries with it is that we who can feast on the intellectual spoils of centuries need fear, neither poverty nor hunger. In the society of those immortals who still rule our spirits from their urns, we become assured that though heaven and earth may pass away, no true thought shall ever pass away. The great orator on whose lips once hung multitudes dies and is forgotten. The great actor passes the stage and is seen no more. The great singer whose voice charmed listening crowds by its melody is hushed in the grave. The great preacher survives but a single generation in the memory of men. All we who now live and act must be in a little while with yesterday's seven thousand years, but the book of the great writer lives on and on, inspiring age after age of readers in it more of the seeds of immortality than anything upon earth. End of The Art of Reading by Ainsworth Rand Swafford, Sixth Librarian of Congress, recording by David Wales. Calvinists by John Hayward. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Chad Horner. This is a video of the imagination of Christians of the Congregational Order, chiefly descendants of the English Puritans who founded most of the early settlements in New England. They derive their name from John Calvin, an eminent reformer. The Calvinists are divided into three parties. High, strict and moderate. The High Calvinists favour the Hopkinsian system. The moderate Calvinists embrace some parts, particularly to his views of the doctrines of predestination and the extent of the design of Christ's death while they hold to the election of grace. They do not believe that God has reprobated any of his creatures. They believe that the atonement is in its nature general but in its application particular. And that free salvation is to be preached to sinners indiscriminately. The doctrines of the strict Calvinists are those of Calvin himself as established at the Synod of Dort, A.D. 1618 and are as follows. This one. They maintain that God has chosen a certain number of the fallen race of Adam and Christ before the foundation of the world unto eternal glory according to his immutable purpose and of his free grace and love without the least foresight of faith, good works or any conditions performed by the creature. And at the rest of mankind he was pleased by and ordained to Dishonour and Wrath, for their sins to the praise of his vindictive justice, see Proverbs chapter 16 verse 4, Romans chapter 9 from verse 11 to end of chapter, Romans chapter 8 verse 30, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 4 acts chapter 13 verse 48. To them maintain that though the death of Christ be a most perfect sacrifice, the satisfaction for sins of infinite value abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world, and though on this ground the gospel is to be preached to all mankind indiscriminately, yet it was the will of God that Christ by the blood of the cross should efficaciously redeem all those and those only who were from eternity elected to salvation and given to him by the Father. See Psalm chapter 33 verse 11, John chapter 6 verse 37, John chapter 10 verse 11, John chapter 17 verse 9, 3 they maintain that mankind are totally depraved in consequence of the fall of the first man, who being their public head, his sin involved the corruption of all his posterity, and which corruption extends over the whole soul and renders it unable to turn to God or to do anything truly good and exposes it to his righteous displeasure both in this world and that which is to come. See Genesis chapter 8 verse 21 Psalm chapter 14 verses 2 and 3 Romans chapter 3 verses 10, 11 and 12 etc Romans chapter 4 verse 14 Romans chapter 5 verse 19 Galatians chapter 3 verse 10 Second Corinthians chapter 3 verses 6 and 7 for they maintain that all whom God hath predestinated unto life he is pleased in his appointed time effectually to call by his word and spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ. See Ephesians chapter 1 verse 19 Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 and 5 Philippians chapter 2 verse 13 Romans chapter 3 verse 27 first Corinthians chapter 1 verse 31 Titus chapter 3 verse 5 5 lastly they maintain that those whom God hath effectually called and sanctified by his spirit shall never finally fall from a state of grace. They admit that true believers may fall partially and would fall totally and finally but for the mercy and faithfulness of God who keepeth the fate of his saints also that he who bestowed the grace of perseverance bestowed it by means of reading and hearing the word meditation, exhortations, threatenings and promises but that none of the things imply the possibility of a believer's falling from a state of justification. See Isaiah chapter 53 verses Isaiah chapter 54 verse 10 Jeremiah chapter 32 verses 38 and 40 Romans chapter 8 verses 38 and 39 John chapter 4 verse 14 John chapter 6 verse 39 John chapter 10 verse 28 John chapter 11 verse 26 James chapter 1 verse 17 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 25 See Orthodox Creeds and Hopkinsians End of Calvinists by John Hayward The Eruption of Mount Asama of 1783 by Isaac Titzing This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Avahi in August 2019. The Eruption of Mount Asama of 1783 by Isaac Titzing taken from illustrations of Japan. In the beginning of the month of September 1783 I received from Yedo the following particulars of the dreadful ravages occasioned by the eruption of the volcano Asama Gadaki in the districts of Jorzon and Zinzo. On the 28th of the 6th month of the third year Tenmio, July 27 1783 at 8 o'clock in the morning there arose in the province of Shinano footnote an extensive central province of the island of Nifon to the northwest of Kai and of Musashi in which Yedo is situated. A very strong east wind accompanied with a dull noise like that of an earthquake which increased daily and foreboded the most disastrous consequences. On the fourth of the seventh month August 1 there was a tremendous noise and a shock of an earthquake. The walls of the houses cracked and seemed ready to tumble. Each successive shock was more violent till the flames burst forth with a terrific uproar from the summit of the mountain followed by a tremendous eruption of sand and stones. Though it was broad day everything was enveloped in profound darkness through which the flames alone threw at times a lurid light. Till the fourth of August the mountain never ceased to cast up sand and stones. The large village of Sakamoto and several others situated at the foot of the volcano was soon reduced to ashes by the ignited matter which it projected and by the flames which burst from the earth. The inhabitants fled but the chasms everywhere formed by the opening of the ground prevented their escape and in a moment a great number of persons was swallowed up or consumed by the flames. Violent shocks continued to be felt till the eighth of the seventh month and were perceptible to the distance of twenty or thirty leagues. Enormous stones and clouds of sand were carried by the wind The water of the rivers Yoko-gawa and Karusawa boiled. The course of the Yone-gawa one of the largest rivers of Japan was obstructed and the boiling water inundated the adjacent country doing incredible mischief. The bears, hyenas and other beasts of prey fled from the mountains and flocked to the neighboring villages where they devoured the inhabitants and mangled them in a horrible manner. The number of dead bodies floating upon the rivers was incalculable. About the middle of the same month a more circumstantial account of this phenomenon was transmitted to me from Yedo. It is in substance as follows. From the fourth of the seventh month August 1 there was heard night and day a rumbling like that of very loud thunder which gradually increased in violence On the fifth a shower of sand and ashes fell on all sides and on the sixth the volcano projected at Oye-wake an immense quantity of stones some of which were so large that two persons were not able to carry them. Twenty-seven villages were swallowed up and four only escaped namely Matsueda, Yasue, Takazaki and Fusye-oka. At the last of these places there fell a shower of red hot stones each weighing four or five ounces. At two o'clock the same day the mountain of Asama cast forth a torrent of flames and balls of fire. The earth shook in a frightful manner the whole country was enveloped in darkness and though midday it was not to be distinguished from the darkest night. The thunder was so tremendous that the inhabitants were paralyzed with terror to such a degree as to appear inanimate. About ten o'clock there fell small stones mixed with sand and ashes at Fusye-oka the ground was covered with them to the depth of eight or nine inches. At Yasue they were fourteen or fifteen inches and at Matsueda three feet deep. All the growing crops were totally destroyed. On the seventh about one o'clock several rivers became dry. At two a thick vapor was seen at Asuma over the river Tanegawa the black muddy water of which boiled up violently. An immense quantity of red hot stones floating on the surface gave it the appearance of a torrent of fire. Mokou, one of the lifeguards and a great number of men and horses were swept away by the current and cast on shore at Nakano-se or carried along by the river Zinmeigawa. On the eighth at ten in the morning a torrent of sulfur mixed with rocks, large stones and mud rushing from the mountain precipitated itself into the river Asuma-gawa in the districts of Joso and Genba-kori and swelled it so prodigiously that it overflowed, carried away houses and laid waste the whole country. The number of persons who perished was immense. At Zinya-cheko on the road to Nakayama there were incessant and violent shocks from the sixth to the eighth. At Sakamoto-cheko there was a continued shower of red hot stones from the fifth to the sixth. At Fonseo-cheko gravel fell in an incessant torrent. At Kura-yesawa there fell such a prodigious quantity of red hot stones that all the inhabitants perished in the flames with the exception of the chief magistrate. The exact number of the dead is not known. On the ninth about one o'clock large trees and timbers of houses began to be seen floating on the river of Yedo which was soon afterwards completely covered with the mangled carcasses of men and beasts. In the country of Zinzō the devastation extended over a tract of thirty leagues. At Siyomio Asumakori and Kamabara-mora at the foot of Mount Asama all the inhabitants perished excepting seventeen. Half of the village of Daizen-mora was carried away by the lava. The villages of Nishikobo-mura Nakaymura Faomura Misaki-Fara-mura and Matsuki-mura totally disappeared. At the village of Tsobo-mura the warehouse of Soki-Sayemon was preserved. All the other houses with the inhabitants were swept away by the fiery deluge. The villages of Tsochevara-mura Yokokabe-mura Koto-mura Kabato-mura Fa-mura were likewise swept away. Fifty-seven houses of the village of Mishima-mura were swallowed up and sixteen persons carried away by the torrent, which everywhere left the sediment of sand of the depth of ten feet. At Gonba-kōri Kawashima and Fara-mura out of one hundred and fifty-three houses, six only were left. The others were carried away. The old village of Obasi-mura disappeared. The village of Ono-mura and the guardhouse of Moku were swept away by a torrent of boiling mud. The village of Yemaye-mura was completely buried by sand. Many other villages, besides those here named, either partly disappeared with their inhabitants or were swept away. It was impossible to determine the number of the dead and the location was incalculable. The annexed engraving will convey some idea of this tremendous catastrophe. End of The Eruption of Mount Asama of 1783 by Isaac Titzing. A Letter from the Fire by Thomas D. Foster This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Letter from the Fire Being an Account of the Great Chicago Fire All Halloween, October 31, 1871 Chicago, Illinois My dear father and mother, I am ashamed to put you off any longer without a long letter. I have been waiting to get the office comfortable so that I could spend some evening when it would be nice and warm and give you a longer account of the fire. We are into the middle of another week, no desks and no fire, so muffle myself up and collect my thoughts the best way I can. For a beginning, we should have been very busy today, with salt, but it is raining very hard and is altogether a miserable day, both out and inside, so cannot find anything better to do, although it is not work. To begin, on Saturday morning, the seventh of this month, I saw Mr. Ackroyd off to Milwaukee and came back with Mr. Kenny. The three of us were stopping at different hotels, therefore Mr. Kenny went to his, I to the Briggs House and got my tea, then went to the Sherman House where Mr. Ackroyd had been stopping to get his trunk and have it sent to my room at the Briggs House. After evening stroll round the city, just ready to look at anything interesting. Nothing happened, but just as I was going into the hotel at ten o'clock, there was the glare of a fire in the sky. I did not feel like going to bed, so thought I might spend an hour looking at the flames. It was a big fire in my eyes then, a large wooden house near a row of splendid brick ones, the latter they were trying to save and succeeded. I was in a splendid position for seeing without getting any of the water the fireman directed at the crowd every few minutes. It was nearly over and I was just going to leave. When someone shouted there was a fire on the west side. I looked up, saw the sky all lured, and started off to see the new one. It looked very awful, sweeping houses before it like chafe until it got to a lumberyard. Then the efforts of the fireman appeared useless. Twenty acres of buildings and wood were all ablaze. The sight thrilled me through as I thought there would be no stopping it. I assisted people to carry things out of their houses and did what I could to help them until the fire appeared to be so far underway that there was no further danger. I hung round until two o'clock, then went home, got into bed, satisfied I had seen a tremendous calamity. The biggest of any I had ever seen or hoped to see. But alas, how much was I disappointed? I could not sleep for a long time and then only dozed off for a few minutes, but woke with a start and looking out of the window saw how the fire was progressing. Whilst awake I was thinking what a splendid account I could write you. When anything of interest occurs it is my first thought how nice that will do for my letter I always have you uppermost in my mind and wish you were with me to enjoy things when I am enjoying myself, but this is parting from my story. When I saw the fire fade I fell asleep. It was about four thirty and did not wake until Mr. Kenny came to my door at ten. I had made an appointment to meet him at that hour and kept it as you see in bed. After he left I slept until then got up and dressed went down met Mr. Kenny again and we both started off to Mr. Smalls to dine. At five twenty we left there and walked together to my hotel. We parted and I did not see him again until twenty six hours after he thinking me burnt and I thinking that he was burnt we were very pleased to see each other again safe and sound. I got my tea went to my room and read a while then went to church. It happened to be a universalist place that I got into and did not enjoy it much. I went away kind of dissatisfied and got to the Briggs house at nine fifteen not feeling like sleeping. I made myself as comfortable as I could, lit by pipe and commenced reading the book Mrs. Somerville made me a present of. I had been reading about half an hour when the fire bell told three forty two three times. I looked out and saw the sky red in the direction of the fire of the previous evening but paying no attention to it I turned round and read away. I looked again and saw it was increasing. I tried to read now but it was impossible. I put down the gas and sat opposite the window watching it. The fire was more than two miles away still I felt very uneasy and could not go to bed. It was Sunday night and I did not like the idea of going on a rollicking expedition after a fire but I could not make myself easy anywhere and I concluded to go see it. So I took off my Sunday clothes put on a pair of drawers I felt chilly the night before so took the precaution to make myself warm this night and it was well for me I did as my story will show during its progression. An extra undershirt an old warm coat and vest and sallied out at 10.15 p.m. October 8th. It was blowing hard at the time but I got along well having fit myself out for cold and dirt having little interest in the city no friends who's losing property could affect me much and little property of my own to care for I felt probably as free and easy as anyone saw that fire. I got up to it at 10.45 but could not get near on account of the heat how the fireman stood it I don't know a general alarm was sounded and 30 steam fire engines were on the spot soon after I arrived it was a grand sight but hellish in the extreme streets houses trees and everything in one grand furnace it was not a blaze like the night before but a white melting heat volumes of flames were cut off from the seat of the fire itself and carried over into other streets in addition to this there was a perfect shower of sparks all red and glowing the fall of them was like a fall of golden snow and as far as the eye could reach upward the air was filled with them not only sparks but burning brands of wood from six inches to two feet long and from one inch thick to six inches this may seem incredible but it is true I saw them myself saw them fall in the street and worse than that on houses with wooden roofs and on people's heads almost knocking them down next time and that accounts for it at eleven fifteen these brands set fire to the roof of a church about three hundred yards from the main fire I went to see this before there was the sign of a blaze I adopted the plan of keeping before the fire so that in case it spread I should not be cut off from my hotel some men got on the roof and tried to put it out but they could not then came and dilly-dallyed about for few minutes until a volume of thick black smoke rolled up from it and in two minutes it was in flames the edifice was wood and it went like a matchbox it was a Roman Catholic institution someone said it was on fire before any sign of a blaze came from it an old Irish woman that had just come heard the remark and asked for the fire they told her on the roof ah said she God will put it out and appeared quite composed about it this is where the real trouble commenced there were two immense fires now and the fire brigade divided this left the first fire almost to itself and in a few minutes it joined the second one the site was now dreadful it swept along bricks, stone alike I never saw the equal the two ladder materials gave out sooner than the wood they melted down like wax while wood burned so long as a stick remained it flew from house to house almost as quick as one could walk until it reached the river I will stop about the fire now and tell you something of the inhabitants a great many being burnt out the fire having come a mile now and half a mile wide the people were mostly looking at the fire but as soon as they saw their homes in danger a general packing up could be observed in all the houses and soon after a regular exodus everyone, old and young carrying something the men looked pale and callous as a rule the women ran about in an excited manner but non-fainted children clung to parents or old friends too frightened to cry infants alone made noise as the mothers had not time to sit down and soothe them others of them slept peaceably in their mothers arms ignorant of all danger and care old women were carrying weights too heavy for men and young women were dragging trunks enough for a donkey to pull no doubt containing their best clothes or sat on them and wept quietly when they could not pull any longer and had to leave them for the fire to lick up as a giant would swallow a midge I was not an idle observer during all this I carried boxes and bundles without number placing them in nooks that the owners considered safe vain delusion everything I laid hands to save was eventually burnt in one place there was a long train railway cars people thought the railway company would be sure to save their cars so they would put in their goods I worked as I never worked before loading up the cars with all kinds of things but before I had finished the train was on fire and it burnt up as would a train of gunpowder on the flags this was my last act of kindness on the west side it being close to the river I went to what is called the south side to return to the fire account after crossing the river I stood engaged on the burning mass it was thought it could not cross 80 yards of water the firemen made a hard fight here to prevent its going any further and it looked somewhat as if they might succeed at this point I left a fire having broken out behind me about 400 yards away this was on the side of the river I was on so there was no doubt but that the fire had crossed of course this took away a lot of engines and left the old fire to do as it liked it soon jumped the river too and joined the new one I went to see this new fire and found it to be among a nest of wooden shanties that went like tinder upon close observation it was within a few yards of the gas works so thought it better to quit and plant myself at a reasonable distance from it in going away I took the liberty of hammering people up as the fire was spreading so rapidly it might reach them before all of them could get out the streets were all quiet as I passed along but soon were busy enough with people turning out I was also busy enough without little fires such as linen awnings that sparks had ignited and pieces of wooden sidewalks that were burning until I got to the heart and best part of the city where all buildings were built of brick, stone, iron or marble and many of them without any wood except the office desks and furniture I felt sure the fire would never go through the big house and commenced packing this was one o'clock wind still blowing agale the fire within a quarter of a mile from the hotel and just beginning to cross the street to the good part of the city although I was packing I really did not believe the fire would reach the place where I was I will give you an idea of how my packing arrangements were made I first got my small valise with the brass round the edges into it my best suit album and all the little presents that I value and then filled up with the best of my under-clothing after that I took off the old suit I had on and put on my second best suit so that if it came to the worst I could carry the valise in my hand and have a good suit on my back at this juncture a waiter of the hotel came running up saying the wind had changed and there was no danger I paid little attention to it and went on packing my large trunk certainly it made me more careless in packing for I left out a lot of small things I could have put in thinking if the place should be threatened I could then put them in after I fastened all up leaving out my large overcoat I again walked out to see the progress of the fire it had taken full possession of the fine buildings I before mentioned it was surprising to see the way they tumbled marble buildings cracked away for a time then burst out in a volume of flame the walls parted and down came the whole fabrication a jumbled mass of smoldering ruins this took but little time but short as it was before it was in ruins other buildings were burning and tumbling in the same way I was watching in one place when a cry was raised the city hall was on fire I never thought that this would burn as it stands in a little park and is built of stone I ran round and there sure enough the cupola was burning and very soon after the edifice was a red seething mass sending up clouds of sparks and dealing destruction with a deadly hand all round I now thought it about time to move and see after my things so commenced lugging them downstairs I had not time now to put anything into the trunk so let the few things left to take their chance I had with me one valise one large portmanteau of my own and one large trunk belonging to Mr. Ackroyd had he left it at Sherman's house it was gone sure as I could never have saved it when I had them down I went to look for a carriage or an express man to take them away they were asking fifty dollars for a carriage as this would not do I went up the street a piece met a man with a light wagon asked what he would take me a mile away for he said five dollars down done I said he wanted to get the money in the street before he got the things of course I would not do that but told him I would pay him the minute I got the things on board after a good deal of talk he consented came alongside put the packages on and I paid him just as I was leaving the place took fire and I heard people offering one hundred dollars then one hundred and fifty dollars for a carriage but they could not get any as I was going along several people applied to the express man offering him three or four dollars for the conveyance of a trunk but ten dollars was now his charge people refused to pay him that amount and I am sure they all lost their things as we were about the last to cross the bridge we took up one young man with a similar lot of traps to mine he was a very decent fellow so we stuck together the express man put us down at his own house we left our things inside and went to see how the fire was getting along before going further I will explain why I crossed the river again and what we did to do this I must give you an idea of the place I remember once before giving you a rough outline of Chicago I will do so again see illustration the bars across the river represent the turn bridges one is where the fire commenced two where I crossed the river the first time three where I crossed the second four where I crossed the third five where I finally drew up and left my clothes the wind was blowing in the direction from one to six so I thought the fire would wear out at the lake and not be able to cross the river to the north side in this I was mistaken for when I went to look at the fire after deposing our things at the express man's house as before stated we found the bridge we had just crossed was on fire and that the north side was doomed unless the wind changed this was three o'clock so we turned back to move our traps again whilst walking up we met a man pulling a large trunk we helped him along to where we were staying hired a boy with a wagon who drove over to the west side crossing bridge at number four here we considered ourselves safe put down our luggage on the sidewalk and sat on it till daylight we asked a man to let us into his house but he refused it was here that my warm underclothing and heavy overcoat stood to me the wind was brisk and keen had I been lightly clothed I might have taken a severe cold fortunately I escaped this place was partly on the prairie so had a splendid view of the fire at large although fully three miles from it the smallest print could be read with ease the light was so intense as day dawned the light faded but daylight revealed the volumes of black smoke rolling up from the city and the ruins of the previous night's destruction the fire was now sweeping the north side entirely unchecked the waterworks being burnt and no water in the town I felt very hungry by this time and hailed with delight the taking down of the first shutter of a small grocery store I got some dry biscuits and ate them with a relish something wonderful as there was a dirt wagon passing our last named friend and myself stopped it put in our things got on top of them and requested the driver to take us to a place my friend knew he accommodated us and drew up at a very good looking general store in a small settlement on the prairie shown as number five on the map we were farther out but the paper won't admit it we gave our baggage in charge of the owners and left them in walking back to the city we met a gentleman who was acquainted with my fellow traveler he wished us to call at his house and have breakfast we did so and a good one it was the house was all upset getting their things packed up little of which I am afraid was saved the road was crowded with all sorts of vehicles carrying furniture of every description the road was littered with furniture pianos, beds and so forth indescribable confusion drivers of wagons would engage to take it some distance on the prairie get their money first before they started then would only go a little way tumble it out on the road return and repeat the operation on someone else I now wanted to get to Mr. Small's house to learn what I could about Mr. Kenny when I got to the city I found all the bridges that I have starred burnt up so had to make a long detour going all round the burnt district his house is on the south side where I put across I arrived there at eleven o'clock lost in dirt blended with dust and smoke not a drop of water in the house to wash with Mr. Small told me to consider it his house my home until I could find something else I took a bucket went to the lake and brought it back full of water and felt better for it this was eleven thirty a.m. up to this time nothing was heard of Mr. Kenny I felt rather uneasy as it was much easier for him to get there than for me and I fully expected finding him there when I arrived I was also astonished to find the south side still burning the fire was creeping up against the wind at the rate of a house every five minutes at that calculation Small's house would be burnt at three o'clock of course he was very uneasy and sent his wife and baby away if the wind changed in the opposite direction he would be cleared out much sooner at two o'clock we walked down together and found the flames stopped by blowing up of several streets of houses the north side was swept out clear and clean right into the country burning up Lincoln park into catholic cemetery seventy five thousand people resided on the north side and every house with one exception was burned to the ground not even the walls standing another one hundred thousand people were rendered homeless and had to camp out on the prairie without any covering for two days and two nights having little to eat and scarcely any water to drink this is something awful to think of delicate people young children of all classes huddled together without any comforts a great many people died and no wonder however they are all pretty well provided for now supplies are plentiful the fire is that the charity will be abused the fire lasted thirty six hours during that time clearing everything before it for a distance of five and a half miles commencing in a point and finishing two miles in width about fifty thousand tons of coal caught fire which burned for a week quite bright always keeping the sky aglow with its light it is still burning but no fire can be seen I must add here that Mr. Kenny did not turn up the whole afternoon and I began to fear the worst however he made his appearance between seven and eight o'clock all safe and sound and relieved my mind next day the city was put under martial law general Sheridan commanding I was made a patrol between twelve and four o'clock at night with small this was to prevent ruffians from firing other places several of them were caught and immediately shot or hung up to some lamppost the city was without water ten days and fourteen without gas so it presented a miserable appearance Mr. Kenny and myself went to the lake twice a day and brought as much water as supplied Mr. Small's family this was the way we paid our board people along way from the lake suffered fearfully all the watering carts were put to hauling water all they could draw was only a speck of what was needed I had given you a pretty fair account of my experience during the fire now I will give you a few incidents or curiosities in the first place I was greatly amused by the unlikely things that many people in their excitement tried to save the very first on the west side the rage appeared to be to save their stores and crockery as soon as a house was threatened the one that was brought out was a stove then a lot of tins and glassware in other places I saw people open their windows upstairs and throw out looking glasses chairs, water pitchers and basins all of which were broken and rendered useless the moment they touched the ground in some streets the pavement was littered with debris of this kind when the fire got amongst the stores cabmen, expressmen and ruffs in general were dressed up in much better style than usual a large number of silk hats being particularly observable on the gents showing plainly that some stores had suffered a lot of prisoners locked up in the city jail were let loose the first thing they did was to run over to the jewelry stores and plunder them of all the valuables that were convenient many of the store owners saved what they could then opened to the doors and told the multitude to help themselves one of the largest jewelers out of New York did this and a few lives were sacrificed in his place people being so venturesome that they went once too often and got caught with a falling building one piano store owner commenced pulling pianos out of a third story window this was the worst piece of business that I saw for they were smashed into splinters when they struck the ground and greatly endangered the lives of people around pistols were freely used a great many ruffians were shot for trying to break into different places and in return a few respectable men were shot by them for preventing them carrying out their purpose one expressman that we employed was going to drop our things out on the street after he got a few yards when one of my newly made acquaintances drew his revolver and told him he would blow his brains out he drove quietly on after that a great many lives were lost more than ever will be known a lot of people congregated in the tunnel under the river that I have described in a previous letter and most of them were smothered or burned there were two things that helped the fire along wonderfully they were the wooden pavements and the quantity of things thrown out of the houses and left there this sends my account all being well I will continue my usual weekly letter from this out I am very well and hope you are the same with kindest love to yourselves Annie and Alfred I remain your affectionate son Thomas you may show this letter to anyone you think would be interested in it I cannot begin to write another so minute as this end of a letter from the fire by Thomas de Foster read by Anita Sloma Martinez for more information or to volunteer please visit Liebervox.org read by Dale Grossman the most popular book of the month by Robert C. Benchley in picking up this new edition of a popular favorite the reviewer finds himself confronted by a nice problem in literary ethics the reader must guess what it is there may be said to be two classes of people in the world those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes and those who do not both classes are extremely unpleasant to meet socially leaving practically no one in the world whom one cares very much to know this feeling is made poignant to the point of becoming an obsession by a careful reading of the present volume we are herein presented with some 500,000 characters each one deftly drawn in a line or two of agate type each one standing out from the rest in bold relief it is hard to tell which one is the most lovable in one mood we should say W. S. Custard of Minniford Avenue in another more susceptible frame of mind we could stand by the character who opens the book and who first introduces us into its kingdom of make-believe Mr. V. Agard the old impt and ecst how one seems to see him impting and ecsting all the hot summer day through year in and year out always heading the list but always modest and unassuming always with a kind word and a smile for passersby on Broadway the most popular book on earth it is perhaps inaccurate to say that V. Agard introduces us to the book he is the first flesh and blood human being with whom the reader comes in contact but the initial place in line should technically go to the A and AA company having given credit where credit is due however let us express our personal opinion that this name is a mere trick designed to crowd out all the other competitors in the field for the honor of being in the premier position for it must be obvious to anyone with any perception at all that the name doesn't make sense no firm could be named the A and AA company and the author of the telephone directory might better have saved his jokes until the body of the book after all Gillette Burris does that sort of thing much better than anyone else could hope to but beginning with V. Agard and continuing through to Mrs. L. Zyford of Yetman Avenue the reader is constantly aware of the fact that here are real people living in a real city and that they represent a problem which must be faced sharp as we may find the character etchings in the book the action written and implied is even more remarkable let us for instance take Mr. Samuel Disinger whose business is Fern Repr... or Peter Seligian who does into whose experience do these descriptions not fit the author need only mention a man bending pamphlets to bring back a flood of memories to each and every one of us perhaps our old hometown in New England where bending pamphlets was always a right during the long winter months as well as a social function of no mean proportions it is the ability to suggest to insinuate these automatic memories on the part of the reader without the use of extra words that makes the author of this work so worthy of the name of craftsman in the literary annals of the day perhaps most deft of all is the little picture that is made of Louise Winkler who is the village one does not have to know much medieval history to remember that a scoops was used to hold in the community during the War of the Roses or during Shea's Rebellion for that matter in those days to be a scoops was was as important a post as that is now done for New York City by Mr. Graham people came from miles around to consult the local scoops was on matters pertaining not only to scoops but to Newt Luz and Rur Rurls both of which departments of our daily life have been delegated to separate agencies then gradually with the growth of the trade guild movement there came the era of specialization in industry and the high offices of scoops were dissipated among other trades until only that coming strictly under the head of scoops remained to this estate has Ms. Winkler come and in that part of the book which deals with her and her work we have as it were a little epic on the mutability of human endeavor it is all too short however and we are soon thereafter plunged into the dreary round of exiting and impting this time through a character called Wub who is interesting only so far as he is associated with M. Werbel and A. N. Wubbin host all of whom come together at the bottom of the column the plot in spite of whatever virtues may accrue to it from the acid delineation of the characters and the vivid action pictures is the weakest part of the work it lacks coherence stability perhaps this is because of the nature of the book itself perhaps it is because the author knew too well his Duncene or his Welles or his Bradstreet but it is the opinion of the present reviewer that the weakness of the plot is due to the great number of characters which clutter up the pages the Russian school is responsible for this the logical result of a sedulous aping of those writers such as Tolstoy Andarith Dostoyevsky or even Pushkin whose meteor it was to fill the pages of their books with an inordinate number of characters many of whom the reader is to encounter but once let us say on the Nevsky Prospect or in the Simoli Institute of whom had their particular name we believe we will not offend when we refer to Russian names as peculiar to the general confusion of the whole in practice the book is not flawless there are 500,000 names each with a corresponding telephone number but through some error in editing the numbers are all wrong proof of this may be had by the simple expedient of calling up any one of the subscribers using the number assigned by the author to that name any name will do let us say Nicholas Womp-Hackslam 2131 if the call is put in bright and early in the morning the report will come over the wire just as the lights are going on for evening of the same day Harlem 2131 does not answer the other numbers are invariably equally unproductive of results the conclusion is obvious aside from this point the book is a success the end of the most popular book of the month by Robert C. Benchley read by Dale Grossman excerpt from The Destiny of Man by Johann Gottlieb Fichte published in 1800 translated by Frederick H. Hedge look 3 faith this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org if the whole design of our existence were to bring about a purely earthly condition of our race all that would be required would be some infallible mechanism to direct our action and we need be nothing more than wheels well fitted to the whole machine freedom would then not only be useless but even contrary to the purpose of existence and goodwill would be quite superfluous the world in that case would be very clumsily contrived would proceed to its goal with waste of power and by circuitous paths rather mighty world spirit hast thou taken from us this freedom which only with difficulty and by a different arrangement thou canst fit to thy plans and compel us at once to act as those plans are required thou wouldst then arrive at thy goal by the shortest road as the meanest of the inhabitants of their worlds can tell thee but I am free and therefore such a concontination of cause and effect in which freedom is absolutely superfluous and useless cannot exhaust my whole destination I must be free from the mechanical act but the free determination of free will for the sake of the command alone and absolutely for no other purpose so says the inward voice of conscience this alone determines our true worth the band with which the law binds me is a band for living spirits it scorns the rule over dead mechanism and applies itself alone to the living and self-acting such obedience it demands this obedience cannot be superfluous and herewith the eternal world rises more brightly before me and the fundamental law of its order stands clear before the eye of my mind in that world the will purely and only as it lies locked up from all lies in the secret dark of my soul is the first link in a chain of consequences which runs through the whole invisible world of spirits so in the earthly world the deed a certain movement of matter becomes the first link in a material chain which extends through the whole system of matter the will is the working and living principle in the world of reason as motion is the working and living principle in the world of the senses I stand in the center of two opposite worlds a visible in which the deed and an invisible altogether incomprehensible in which the will decides I am one of the original forces of both these worlds my will is that which embraces both this will is in and of itself a constituent portion of the super sensuous world when I put it in motion by a resolution I move and change something in that world and my activity flows on over the whole and produces something new and ever-during which then exists and needs not to be made anew this will breaks forth into a material act and this act belongs to the world of the senses and affects in that what it can I have not to wait until after I am divorced from the connection of the earthly world to gain admission into that which is above the earth I am and live in it already far more truly than in the earthly and now it is my only firm standing ground and the eternal life which I have long since taken possession of is the only reason why I am willing still to prolong the earthly that which they denominate heaven lies not beyond the grave it is already here diffused around our nature and its light arises in every pure heart my will is mine and it is the only thing that is entirely mine and depends entirely upon myself by it I am already a citizen of the kingdom of liberty and of self-active reason my conscience the tie by which that world holds me unceasingly and binds me to itself tells me at every moment what determination of my will the only thing by which here in the dust I can lay hold of that kingdom is most consonant with its order and it depends entirely upon myself to give myself the destination enjoying upon me I cultivate myself then for this world and accordingly work in it and for it while cultivating one of its members I pursue in it and in it alone without vacillation or doubt according to fixed rules my aim sure of success since there is no foreign power that opposes my intent that our good will in and for and through itself must have consequences we know even in this life for reason cannot require anything without a purpose but what these consequences are may how it is possible that a mere will can affect anything is a question to which we cannot even imagine a solution so long as we are entangled with this material world and it is the part of wisdom not to undertake to inquire concerning which we know beforehand it must be unsuccessful this then is my whole sublime destination my true essence I am a member of two systems a purely spiritual one in which I rule by pure will alone and a sensuous one in which I work by my deed end of excerpt from the destiny of man by Johann Gottlieb Fichte published in 1800 book 3 faith