 Sexual Neuroses by J. T. Kent 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 Chad Horner from Balli Clare in County Hunter Northern Ireland, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Sexual Neuroses by J. T. Kent Chapter 3 Onanism I have adopted the term onanism, more especially to illustrate a class of conjugal sins and shall not use it as generally applied as a synonym for masturbation, but will define the term as it should be used. That the meaning of the word may be fully understood, I will quote two verses from Genesis chapter 38 verses 89. And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his, and it came to pass when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. It must not be supposed that Onan used his hand to facilitate an emission, but that he simply withdrew his penis and allowed the semen to be lost on the ground to prevent conception. Onanism is practised more at the present day by married males than may at first be imagined. It is the commonest of all means used as a preventative of conception. The majority of so-called society women are wives of men who practise Onanism. The word has come to signify masturbation, or any intentional process of wasting the seminal fluid. But I have preferred it just here, as it explains a practise which I have no other word for. The very common practise of withdrawing the organ before ejaculation is often a very hurtful one, as the orgasm is often incomplete and there are more satisfactory ways of accomplishing what is intended by such a practise. Under the strict signification of the term, a child cannot be an Onanist until after puberty, but he may be a masturbator. A woman cannot properly be called an Onaness, but she may masturbate nevertheless. To present in a true light this cogical vice, I excerpt from the Ohio Medical and Surgical Reporter the following most excellent paragraph which illustrates in the pithy and elegant style that speaks volumes of argument and should be a lasting hint to cultured and scientific students in the learned profession of medicine. The sexual instinct has been given to man for the perpetuation of his species, but in order to refine this gift and set limits to its abuse, it has been wisely ordered that a purely intellectual quality that of love should find its most passionate expression in the gratification of this instinct, dissociate the one from the other, and man sinks below the level of a Brit. Destroy the reciprocity of the union and marriage is no longer an equal partnership, but a sensual usurption on the one side and a loathsome submission on the other. Consider the moral effects of such shameful manoeuvres, wedlock lapses into licentiousness. The wife is degraded into a mistress. Love and affection change into aversion and hate. Without suffering some penalty, man cannot disturb the conditions of his well-being and his trespass beyond its limitations. Let him traverse her physical laws and nature exacts a forfeit. Dare he violate his moral obligations and offended day that he stands ready to avenge them. That this law is immutable, witness, from the history read to you, the estrangement between the husband and wife, witness his ill health and ill temper and the wreck of body and mind to which she has been reduced. Again from the medical advance for 1876, we find the following language written by Dr Arnold. There is one phase of sexual depravity to which I would in passing call your attention. We are fully aware of the many devices used to avoid impregnation. It may be well to remember that such desires may under certain circumstances be excusable, but let us never forget the fact that generally they are conceived in iniquity. Of the many ways of avoiding possible conception, there is one so filthy mean and degrading and fraught with such fearfully disastrous consequences to health that I make special mention of it. I have reference to the practice of withdrawing the male organ from the vagina before the completion of the embrace. But when man brings to the marriage bed so file on nature that he can repeatedly and constantly perpetrate such an outrage upon nature's most precious gifts, he places himself at once beyond the desert of human sympathy. Just imagine if you please man and woman in the act of cohabitation. Their brain reeling under the powerful stimulus of that all-pervading passion. The heart's action increased to a high state of intensity. The whole system with all the energy it is capable of exciting, getting ready for that great act of reproduction. And just as the act is about to be completed, when the soul of the man can almost feel and grasp that of the woman, the evil genius of lust being more of a fill than a nave, must dash to the ground the chalice filled with ambrosia of purest bliss, if tasted with a pure lip. Must turn into the vilest poison the sweetest and holiest gift of nature to man, why I have wondered long and often that man could sink so low, be so foolish. Just conceive of the intensity of such a shock upon the system and then have this repeated time after time, year after year, why they are married who never once in all their married life, completely and unreservedly finished the act of cohabitation. No wonder that nervousness, in all kinds of December's show themselves. No wonder we get spermatoria and impotence in the male and a perfect host of troubles and sanity included in the woman. No wonder homes are broken up on human lives made desolate. End of Chapter 3 by J. T. Kent. The late Srinivasa Ramanujan by E. H. Neville. 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 Ava'i in July 2019. The late Srinivasa Ramanujan from Nature, volume 106, January 20th, 1921. In the notice contributed to the issue of nature for June 17 last, Professor Hardy was unable to give any account of the late Srinivasa Ramanujan's early life and made no attempt to describe his appearance or character. The June number of the journal of the Indian Mathematical Society has memorial articles by Professor P. V. Seshu Ayar of Madras and Devan Bahadur Ramachandra Rao. And the first of these gives biographical details that have not hitherto been published in England. Ramanujan was born at Erode on December 22, 1887. Footnote. This is the year given by Seshu Ayar and the date is consistent with the undisputed statements that Ramanujan was 26 when he came to England and 32 when he died. I have no doubt that the date 1888 commonly given is due to a natural interference from these last figures. Footnote. His mother, a shrewd and cultured lady who is still alive, was the daughter of a government official at Erode. His father, a cloth merchant's accountant at Kumbakonam and it was in the letter town that his boyhood was spent. As is usual with Brahmin boys he was sent to school at the age of 5. Before he was 7 he moved to the town high school and there he remained until 1904 leading an inactive life and building an astounding edifice of analytical knowledge and discovery on the foundation of Carr's Synopsis of Pure Mathematics the only book on higher mathematics to which he had access. Having matriculated already in 1903 he went from the town school to the government college of Kumbakonam but in January 1905 his progress was stopped and a scholarship on which he was dependent forfeited owing to a weakness in English of which those who recall his fluency and the range of his vocabulary in later life will be surprised to learn. Of Ramanujan's next few years no clear account has come to my notice. After a stay at Vaisagapatam Naitayapa's college at Madras but failing in his first examination he gave up the idea of taking a university course. A nomadic period during which his own research has progressed came to an end in the summer of 1909 when he married and returned to Madras in search of permanent employment. There Professor Seshu Ayar who had seen something of him at Kumbakonam in 1904 gave him a letter of introduction to Mr. Ramachandra Rao at that time district collector at Nellore. Possibly Ramanujan was too timid to make direct use of the letter. Mr. Rao's story follows in his own words. Several years ago a nephew of mine, perfectly innocent of mathematical knowledge, spoke to me. Uncle I have a visitor who talks of mathematics. I do not understand him. Can you see if there is anything in his talk? And in the plenitude of my mathematical wisdom I condescended to permit Ramanujan to walk into my presence. A short uncouth figure stout, unchaved, not over clean with one conspicuous feature shining eyes walked in with a frayed notebook under his arm. He was miserably poor. He had run away from Kumbakonam to get leisure in Madras to pursue his studies. He never craved for any distinction. He wanted leisure. In other words, simple food to be provided for him without exertion on his part and that he should be allowed to dream on. He opened his notebook and began to explain some of his discoveries. I saw quite at once that there was something out of the way but my knowledge did not permit me to judge whether he talked sense or nonsense. Suspending judgment I asked him to come over again and he did. And then he had gauged my ignorance and showed me some of his simpler results. These transcended existing books and I had no doubt that he was a remarkable man. Then step by step he led me to elliptic integrals and hypergeometric series and at last his theory of divergent series not yet announced to the world I asked him what he wanted. He said he just wanted a pittance to live on so that he might pursue his researches. It is a matter of considerable pride to me that I was in some way useful to this remarkable genius in his earlier days. In a year's time I introduced him to Sir Francis Spring the president of the Motherer's Port Trust who gave him a sinecure post in his office. The last two sentences conceal that throughout the interval of a year not only was Mr. Rau trying to find some scholarship for which Ramanujan's original work might qualify him in spite of failure in examinations but he was also maintaining Ramanujan in Madras at his own expense. At the Port Trust Ramanujan remained until Dr. G. T. Walker on an official visit to Madras who painted with his history and joined forces with Sir Francis Spring. Their combined attack on the university and the government of Madras resulted in the creation of a research student-ship which was of sufficient value to set him wholly free and secured him access to the lectures and the library of the university. He was in possession of this student-ship when I met him in 1914. To Professor Hardy's account of his correspondence and my intervention I have little to add. My task was an easier one than I anticipated. From the government and the University of Madras I had every encouragement. On the other hand Ramanujan was ready to put complete confidence in me simply because to him and his friends I came from outside the official machine. The only cold water was thrown from the India office in London but my efforts had succeeded before this reached Madras. Throughout his life Ramanujan kept religiously to a diet of vegetables, fruit and rice and in England outside his own rooms food and clothing were a continual trial to him. I have known him ask with unaffected apologies if he might make his meal of bread and jam because the vegetables offered to him were novel and unpalatable and with a pathetic confidence he has appealed to me for advice under the discomforts of shoes and trousers. His figure was short and until his health gave way it was stout. His skin never of the darkest grew paler during his day in England. His head gave the impression which photographs show to have been false of broadening below the ears his face was clean shaven with a broad nose and a high forehead and always his shining eyes were a conspicuous feature that Mr. Rao observed them to be in 1910. Ramanujan walked stiffly with head erect and his arms, unless he was talking held clear of his body with hands open and palms downward. In conversation he became animated and gesticulated vividly with his slender fingers. He had a fund of stories and such was his enjoyment in telling a joke that often his words struggled incomprehensible through the laughter with which he anticipated the climax of a narrative. He had serious interests outside mathematics. He was always ready to discuss whatever in philosophy or politics had last caught his attention and Indians speak with admiration of a mysticism of which his English friends understood little. Perfect in manners, simple in manner, resigned in trouble and unspoiled by renown, grateful to a fault and devoted beyond measure to his friends, Ramanujan was a lovable man as well as a great mathematician. By his death I have suffered a personal loss, but I do not feel that his coming to England is to be regretted even for his own sake. Professor Hardy speaks of disaster because of the hopes he entertained. If he pictures Ramanujan as he might have been throughout a long life tormented by a lonely genius unable to establish effective contact with any mathematicians of his own class wasted in the study of problems elsewhere solved Professor Hardy must agree that the tragedy averted was the greater. Shortly before he left England at a time of great depression Ramanujan told me that he never doubted that he did well to come and I believe that he would have chosen as he did in Madras in 1914 even had he known that the choice was the choice of Achilles. E. H. Neville University College Reading December 7th End of The Late Srinivasa Ramanujan by E. H. Neville Obituary of Srinivasa Ramanujan by G. H. Hardy 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 Avae in July 2019 Obituary Srinivasa Ramanujan Fellow of the Royal Society Srinivasa Ramanujan whose death was announced in Nature of June 3rd was born in 1888 in the neighborhood of Madras the son of poor parents and a Brahmin by case I know very little of his early history or education but he became a student in Madras University and passed certain examinations though he did not complete the course for a degree. Later he was employed by the Madras Port Trust as a at a salary equivalent to about 25 pounds a year. By this time however reports of his unusual abilities had begun to spread and I believe owing to the intervention of Dr. G. T. Walker he obtained a small scholarship which relieved him from the necessity of office work and set him free for research. I first heard of Ramanujan in 1913 the first letter which he sent me was certainly the most remarkable that I have ever received there was a short personal introduction written as he told me later by a friend the body of the letter consisted of the enunciations of a hundred or more mathematical theorems some of the formulae were familiar and others seemed scarcely possible to believe a few concerning the distribution of primes could be said to be definitely false there were no proofs and the explanations were often inadequate in many cases too some curious specialization of a constant or a parameter made the real meaning of a formulae difficult to grasp it was natural enough that Ramanujan should feel a little hesitation in giving away his secrets to a mathematician of an alien race whatever reservations had to be made one thing was obvious that the writer was a mathematician of the highest quality a man of altogether exceptional originality and power it seemed plain too that Ramanujan ought to come to England there was no difficulty in securing the necessary funds his own university and Trinity College Cambridge meeting an unusual situation with admirable generosity and imagination the difficulties of case and religion were more serious but owing to the enterprise of professor E. H. Neville who happened fortunately to be lecturing in Madras in the winter of 1913-1914 these difficulties were ultimately overcome and Ramanujan arrived in England in April 1914 the experiment has ended in disaster for after three years in England Ramanujan contracted the illness from which he never recovered but for these three years it was a triumphant success in a really comfortable position for the first time in his life with complete leisure assured to him and in contact with mathematicians of the modern school Ramanujan developed rapidly he published some 20 papers which even in war time attracted wide attention in the spring of 1918 he became the first Indian fellow of the Royal Society and in the autumn the first Indian fellow of Trinity Madras University endowed him with a research studentship in addition and early in 1919 still unwell but apparently considerably better he returned to India it was difficult to get news from him but I heard at intervals he appeared to be working actively again he was quite unprepared for the news of his death Ramanujan's activities lay primarily in fields known only to a small minority even among pure mathematicians the applications of elliptic functions to the theory of numbers the theory of continued fractions and perhaps above all the theory of partitions his insight into formulae was quite amazing and altogether beyond anything I have met with European mathematician it is perhaps useless to speculate as to his history had he been introduced to modern ideas and methods at 16 instead of at 26 it is not extravagant to suppose that he might have become the greatest mathematician of his time what he did actually is wonderful enough 20 years hence when the researchers which his work has suggested have been completed it will probably seem a good deal more wonderful than it does today G. H. Hardy end of obituary of Srinivasa Ramanujan fellow of the Royal Society by G. H. Hardy from Nature June 17, 1920 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 Chad Horner from Ballycler in County Anter Northern Ireland situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland guide to the kingdom garden and intermediate class a moral culture of infancy by Elizabeth P. Peabody and Mary Mann Chapter 9 Geometry Reverend Dr. Hill, the present president of Harvard College journal of education has set forth the importance of geometry in the earliest education giving the science of form precedence to that of numbers of course it does not mean that logical demonstration is to form one of the exercises of little children but that observation of differences and resemblances of shape and the combination of forms should be in woven with the amusements of children he invented a toy on the principle of the Chinese Tanagram published by Hickling Swan and Boston to further an exercise which begins in the cradle with the examination of the hands and feet the blocks are the first materials take the cube and ask how many faces it has how many corners and whether one face is larger than the other or equal and finally lead the child to describe a cube as a solid figure with 6 equal sides and 8 corners then take a solid triangle from the box and draw out by questions that it has 5 sides and 6 corners that 3 of its sides are equal and 2 others equal that the 3 larger sides are 4 sided and the 2 smaller sides are 3 sided and that the corners are sharper than those of a cube make analogous use of all the blocks and of the furniture of the room of the sphere and its parts the cylinder etc. do not require the definition formulas at first but content yourself with opening the child's eyes to the facts which the formula afterwards shall declare that the building can be made subservient to another step just short of abstraction given each one of a class a square piece of paper and proceed thus what is the shape of this paper how many sides has it which is the longest side how many corners has it have in hand already cut several acute and obtuse triangles and showing them ask if the corners of the square are like these corners if they are as sharp as some of them or as blunt as some say which is the sharpest corner and which is the bluntest and let the children compare them with the corners of the square by laying them upon the square they will see that the square corners are neither blunt nor sharp but as they will perhaps say straight let them look round the room and on the furniture and window sashes find these several kinds of corners at least they can always find right angles in the furniture then tell them there is another word for corners namely angles there is a right angle a sharp corner, a sharp angle and a blunt corner, a blunt angle if the teacher chooses she can go farther and tell them that acute is another word for sharp and obtuse another word for blunt or these two Latin words may be differed till by and by one new word angle being enough to begin with you can then say now tell me how you describe a square supposing someone should ask that did not know and give them more or less help to say right sides and four straight corners or right angles to prove to them that it is necessary to mention the right angles and describing a square you can make a rhombus and show them its different shape with its acute and obtuse angles having thus exhausted the description of a square let everyone double up his square and so get an oblong ask if this is a square, what is it how does it differ from a square are all four sides different from each other which sides are alike how are the corners or angles what then is it like a square and what does it differ bring out from the child at last the description of an oblong as a four-sided figure with straight corners or right angles and its opposite sides equal contrast it with some parallelogram which is not a rectangle and which you must have already let them now fold their oblongs again and crease the folds then ask them to unfold and say what they have and they will find four squares ask them if every square can be folded to make two oblongs and then if every oblong can be so divided as to make two squares if they say yes to this last question give them a shorter oblong which you must have ready and having made them notice that it is an oblong by asking them to tell whether its opposite sides are equal and its angles right angles ask them to fold it and see if it will make two squares they will say that it will not then ask them if all oblongs are of the same shape the above foldings will be enough for a lesson and if the children are small it will be enough for two lessons beginning the next time ask them what is the difference between an oblong and square and if they have forgotten do not tell them in words but give them square papers and let them learn it over again as before by their own observations then give them again square pieces of paper and ask them to join the opposite corners and crease a fold diagonally then ask them what shape they have got they will reply a three sided figure ask them how many corners or angles it has and then tell them that on account of its being three cornered it is called triangle now let them compare the angles and they will find that there is one straight corner right angle and two sharp corners acute angles ask them if the sides are equal and they will find that two sides are equal and the other side longer set up the triangle on its base equal sides maybe in the attitude of the outstretched legs of a man call their attention to this by a question and then say on account of this shape this triangle is called equal legged as well as right angled a right angled equal legged triangle by giving them examples to compare it with you can demonstrate to them that all right angled triangles are not equal legged and all equal legged triangles are not right angled show them an equal legged right angled triangle an equal legged acute angled triangle and an equal legged obtused angled triangle and this discrimination will be obvious the word as such a lease can be interduced if the teacher thinks best but I keep off the greek and latin terms as long as possible now tell the children to put together the other two corners of their triangles laying the sharp corners on each other and crossing the fold on folding their papers they will find four right angled equal legged triangles creased upon their square paper they will fold the face of the same shape and of the same size now fold the unfolded square into oblongs and make a crease and they will find on unfolding again that they have six isosceles triangles two of them being twice as large as any one of the other four ask are all these triangles of equal size are all of them similar in shape leading them to discriminate the use in geometry of the words equal and similar can triangles be large and small without altering the shape and simpler meanings or are all squares similar are all squares equal are all triangles equal are all triangles similar what the difference between a square and oblong what is the difference between a square and a triangle all the differences or what kind of corners has a rhombus and what is a square like a rhombus how do you describe a triangle what is the name of the triangles you have learned about they will answer right angled equal leg tranquils They give them each a hexagon and ask them what kind of corners it has, whether any one is more blunt than another, whether any side is greater than another. How many sides has it? And then draw out from them that a hexagon is a figure of six equal sides, with six obtuse angles just equal to each other in their obtuseness. Having done this, direct the folding till they have divided the hexagon into six triangles, meeting at the centre. Ask them if these are right angle triangles, and if they hesitate, give them a square to measure with. Then ask them if they are equal-legged isosceles triangles. They may say yes, in which case reply yes, and more than equal-legged, they are equal-sided. All three sides are equal, and so they have a different name. They are called equilateral. Ask, what is the difference between equilateral and isosceles? If you have given them these names and helped them if necessary, to the answer, equilateral triangles have all the sides equal. Isosceles triangles have only two sides equal, or equilateral triangles all similar, that is, of the same shape, or isosceles triangles all similar. And if they hesitate or say yes, show two isosceles triangles, one with the third side shorter, and one with it longer than the other two sides. Now give to each child a square, and tell them to fold it so as to make two equal triangles. Then to unfold it, and fold it into two equal oblongs, and fold it again, and there will be seen between the triangles two other figures, which are neither squares, oblongs, or triangles, but a four-sided figure, of which no two sides are equal, and only two sides are parallel, with two right angles, one obtuse, and one acute angle. Let all this be brought out of the children by questions, as there is no common name for this figure, name it trapezoid, at once. Then let them fold the paper to make two parallelograms at right angles with the first two, and they will have two equal squares, and four equal isosceles triangles, which are equal to the two squares. Now fold the paper into two triangles, and you will have eight triangles meeting in the centre by their vertices, all of which are right-angled and equal-legged. Ask them if they are equal-sided, so as to keep them very clear of confounding the isosceles with the equilateral, but use the English terms as often as the Latin and Greek, but the vernacular keeps the mind awake, while the foreign, technical, puts it into a passiveness more or less sleepy. Then give all the children octagons, and bring out from them its description by sides and angles, and then fold it so as to make eight isosceles triangles. Another thing that can be taught by paper folding is to divide polygons, regular or irregular, into triangles, and thus let them learn that every polygon contains as many triangles as it has sides, less to. Portions can also be taught by letting them cut off triangles, similar in shape to the holes by creasing parallel to the base. Grunts' plane geometry will help a teacher to lessons of proportion and can be almost wholly taught by this paper folding. Also, Professor Davies' descriptive geometry and Hayes' symmetrical drawing. Of course, it will take a teacher who is familiar with geometry to do all that may be done by this amusement to habituate the mind to consider and compare forms and their relations to each other. Exercises and folding circles can be added. It would take a volume to exhaust the subject. Enough has been said to give an idea to a capable teacher. Care must be taken that the consideration should be always of concrete not of abstract forms. Mr Hill says his first lessons in geometry were the amusements of a son of five years old. Pascal and Professor Pierce found out such amusements for themselves, which had the high end of preparing them for their great attainments in logical geometry. Sometimes surprising applications of geometry, thus practically appreciated, will be made by very small people, a boy of eight years old with whom I read over Mr Hill's geometry for beginners for his amusement in two months after invented a self-moving carriage for his sister's dolly that would give it a ride of ten feet. A neighbouring carpenter made it from his drafted model. End of chapter nine, Geometry by Elizabeth P. Peabody and Mary Mann. That the treasure of wisdom is chiefly contained in books. From the love of books, the fellow Biblan of Richard de Bore translated into English by E. C. Thomas. This is a LibriVox recording. While LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The desirable treasure of wisdom and science, which all men desire by an instinct of nature, infinitely surpasses all the riches of the world in respect to which precious stones are worthless. In comparison with which silver is as clay and pure gold is as a little sand, at whose splendor the sun and moon are dark to look upon, compared with whose marvelous sweetness honey and manna are bitter to the taste, a value of wisdom that fateth not away with time, virtue ever flourishing, that cleanseth its possessor from all venon, a heavenly gift of the divine bounty, descending from the father of lights, that thou mayest exalt the rational soul to the very heavens, thou art the celestial nourishment of the intellect, which those who eat shall still hunger, and those who drink shall still thirst, and the gladdening harmony of the languishing soul, which he that hears shall never be confounded, thou art the moderator and rule of morals, which he who follows shall not sin. By thee kings reign and princes decree justice, by thee rid of their native rudeness, their minds and tongues being polished, the thorns of ice being torn up by the roots, those men attain high places of honor, and become fathers of their country, and companions of princes, who without thee would have melted their spears into pruning hooks and plowshares, or would perhaps be feeding swine with a prodigal. Where dost thou chiefly lie hidden, almost elect treasure, and where shall thirsting souls discover thee? Certes thou hast placed thy tabernacle in books, where the most high the light of lights, the book of life, has established thee. There everyone who asks receiveth thee, and everyone who seeks finds thee, and everyone that knocketh boldly it is speedily opened. Therein the cherubin spread out their wings, and the intellect of the students may ascend and look from pole to pole, from the east and west, from the north and from the south. Therein the mighty and incomprehensible God himself is apprehensively contained in worship. Therein is revealed the nature of things, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal. Therein are discerned the laws by which every state is administered, the offices of the celestial hierarchy are distinguished, and the tyrannies of demons describe, such as neither the ideas of Plato transcend nor the chair of Crato contain. In books I find the dead as if they were alive, in books I foresee things to come, in books warlike affairs are set forth, from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time, Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates. All the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books. Alexander the conqueror of the earth, Julius the invader of Rome and of the world, who the first in war and arts assume universal empire under a single rule. Faithful Fabricius and stern Cato would now have been unknown to fame if the aid of books had been wanting. Towers had been raised to the ground, cities had been overthrown, triumphal arches have perished from decay, nor can either pope or king find any means of more easily conferring the privilege of perpetuity than by books. The book that he has made renders its author this service in return. That so long as the book survives, the author remains immortal and cannot die. As Ptolemy declares in the prologue to his Almagest, he is not dead, he says, who has given life to science. Who therefore will limit by anything of another kind the price of the infinite treasure of books, from which the scribe who is instructed bringeth forth two things and old. Truth that triumphs over all things, which overcomes the king, wine, and women, which it is reckoned holy to honor before friendship, which is the way without turning and the life without end, which holy Bothius considers to be threefold in thought, speech, and writing, seems to remain more usefully and to fructify to greater profit in books. For the meaning of the voice perishes with the sound. Truth latent in the mind is wisdom that is hid in treasure that is not seen. But truth which shines forth in books desires to manifest itself to every impressionable sense. It commends itself to the sight when it is read, to the hearing when it is heard, and moreover in a manner to the touch when it suffers itself to be transcribed, bound, corrected, and preserved. The undisclosed truth of the mind, although it is the possession of the noble soul, yet because it lacks a companion, is not certainly known to be delightful, while neither sight nor hearing takes account of it. Further the truth of the voices patent only to the ear and eludes the sight, which reveals to us more of the quality of things and linked with the subtlest of motions begins in parishes as it were in a breath. But the written truth of books, not transient but permanent, plainly offers itself to be observed in by means of the pervious spirals of the eyes passing through the vestibule of perception and the courts of imagination, enters the chamber of intellect, taking its place in the couch of memory where it engenders the eternal truth of the mind. Finally we must consider what pleasantness of teaching there is in books. How easy, how secret, how safely we lay bare the poverty of human ignorance to books without feeling any shame. They are masters who instruct us without rod or feral, without angry words, without clothes or money. If you come to them they are not asleep. If you ask and inquire of them they do not withdraw themselves. They do not chide if you make mistakes. They do not laugh at you if you are ignorant. O books who alone are liberal and free, who give to all who ask of you and enfranchise all who serve you faithfully. By how many thousand types are they commended to learn and mend in the scriptures given us by inspiration of God? For they are the minds of profoundest wisdom to which the wise man sends his son that he may dig out treasures, proverbs too. They are the wells of living waters which Father Abraham first digged. Isaac digged again in which the Philistines strive to fill up. Genesis 26 You are indeed the most delightful ears of corn full of grain to be rubbed only by apostolic hands that the sweetest foods may be produced for hungry souls. Matthew 12 They are the golden pots in which man has stored and rocks flowing with honey, nay, combs of honey, most plenteous, udders of the milk of life garners ever full. They are the tree of life in the fourfold river of paradise by which the human mind is nourished and the thirsty intellect is watered and refreshed. They are the ark of Noah and the latter of Jacob and the troughs by which the young of those who look bear in are colored. They are the stones of testimony in the pictures holding the lamps of Gideon, the script of David, from which the smoothest stones are taken for the slaying of Goliath. They are the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of the soldiers of the church with which to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, fruitful olives, vines of Engany, fig trees that are never barren, burning lamps always to be held in readiness and all the noblest comparisons of Scripture may be applied to books if we choose to speak in figures. And of that the treasure of wisdom is chiefly contained in books by Richard de Borey. The Titanic by Albert Hubbard This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Titanic It is a night of a thousand stars. The date, Sunday, April 14, 1912. The time, 11.20 p.m. The place, all caperace, that cemetery of the sea. Suddenly a silence comes. The engines have stopped. The great iron heart of the ship has ceased to beat. Such a silence is always ominous to those who go down to the sea and ships. The engines have stopped. Eyes pierced, ears listened. Startled minds wait. A half minute goes by. Then the great ship groans as her keel grates and grinds. She reels, rocks, struggles as if to free herself from a Titanic grasp. And as she writes herself, people standing lose their center of gravity. Not a shock. Only about the same sensation that one feels when the ferry boat slides into her landing slip with a somewhat hasty hand at the wheel. On board the ferry, we know what has happened. Here we do not. An iceberg, someone cries. The word has passed along. Only an iceberg, barely graded it, sideswiped it, that is all. Aha! The few on deck and some of those in the heavens peering out of four holes see a great white mask go gliding by. A shower of broken ice has covered the decks. Passengers pick up specimens for souvenirs to carry home, they laughingly say. Five minutes pass. The engines start again. But only for an instant. Again the steam is shut off. Then the siren whistles cleave and saw the frosty air. Silence and the sirens. Alarm but no tumult. But why blow the whistles when there is no fog? The cold is piercing. Some who have come up on deck return to their cabins for wraps and overcoats. The men laugh and a few nervously smoke. It is a cold, clear night of stars. There is no mood. The sea is smooth as a summer pond. The great towering iceberg that loomed above the topmost mast has done its work, gone on, disappeared, piloted by its partners, the darkness of the night. There was no iceberg. You only imagined it, a man declares. Go back to bed. There is no danger. This ship cannot sink anyway, says the managing director of the company. In a lull of the screaming siren, a hoarse voice is heard calling through a megaphone from the bridge. Man, the lifeboats, women and children first. It sounds just like a play, says Henry Harris to Major Buck. Stewards and waiters are giving out life preservers and showing passengers how to put them on. There is laughter, a little hysteric. I want my clothes make to order a woman protests, an outrageous bit. Give me a man's size. The order of the captain on the bridge is repeated by other officers. Man, the lifeboats, women and children first. It's a boat drill, that's all. A precautionary measure going ahead soon, says George Weidner to his wife in reassuring tones as he holds her hand. Women are loath to get into the boats. Officers, not over-gently, seize them and half-lift and push them in. Children crying and some half-asleep are passed over into the boats. Mother-arms reach out and take the little ones. Parentage and ownership are lost sight of. Some boats are only half-filled so slow are the women to believe that rescue is necessary. The boats are lowered awkwardly for there has never been a boat drill and assignments are being made haphazard. A sudden little tilt of the deck hastens the proceeding. The bowels of the ship are settling. There is a very perceptible list to starboard. An Englishman, tired of blasé, comes out of the smoking-room, having just ceased a card game. He very deliberately approaches an officer who is loading women and children into a light boat. The globe-trotting Britain is filling his pipe. I see, officer. You know, what seems to be the matter with this woman-craft, you know? Fool roars the officer. The ship is sinking. Wells, as the gentleman, strikes a match on the rail. Well, you know, if she is sinking, just let her down a little easy, you know. John Jacob Astor half-forces his wife into the boat. She submits, but much against her will. He climbs over and takes a seat beside her in the light boat. It is a ruse to get her in. He kisses her tenderly, stands up, steps lightly out, and gives his place to a woman. Lower away, calls the officer. Wait! Here is a boy. His mother is in there. Lower away, calls the officer. There is no more room. Colonel Astor steps back. George Weidner tosses him a woman's hat, picked up from the deck. Colonel Astor jams the hat on the boy's head, takes the lad up in his arms, and runs to the rail and calls, He won't leave this little girl, will you? Drop her into the boat, shouts the officer. The child drops into friendly hands as the boat is lowered. Astor turns to Weidner and lappingly says, Well, we put one over on him that time. I'll meet you in New York, calls Colonel Astor to his wife as the boat pulls off. He lights his cigarette and passes the silver case into a matchbox along to the other men. A man runs back to his cabin to get a box of money and jewels. The boxes were $300,000. The man changes his mind and gets three oranges and gives one orange each to three children as they are lifted into safety. As a lifeboat is being lowered, Mr. and Mrs. Isidore Strauss come running with arms full of blankets brought from their state room. They throw the bedding to the people in the boat. Help that woman in, shouts an officer. Two sailors sees Mrs. Strauss. She struggles, frees herself and proudly says, Not I, I will not leave my husband. Mr. Strauss insists quietly and gently that she shall go. He will follow later. But Mrs. Strauss is firm. All these years we have traveled together and shall we part now? No, our fate is one. She smiles a quiet smile and pushes aside the hand of Major Butt who has ordered the sailors to leave her alone. We will help you, Mr. Strauss and I. Come, it is the law of the sea. Women and children first. Come, said Major Butt. No, Major, you do not understand. I remain with my husband. We are one, no matter what comes. You do not understand. See, she cried as if to change the subject. There is a woman getting in the lifeboat with her baby. She has no wraps. Mrs. Strauss tears off her fur-lined robe and places it tenderly around the woman and the innocently sleeping babe. William T. Stead, grim, hatless with furrowed face, stands with an iron bar in hand as a lifeboat is lowered. Those men in the steerage, I fear, will make a rush. They will swamp the boats. Major Butt draws his revolver. He looks toward the crowded steerage. Then he puts the revolver back into his pocket, smiles. No, they know we will save their women and children as quickly as we will our own. Mr. Stead tosses the iron bar into the sea. He goes to the people crowding the after-deck. They speak a polyglot language. They cry. They pray. They supplicate. They kiss each other in frenzy grief. John B. Thayer, George Weidner, Henry Harris, Benjamin Guggenheim, Charles M. Hayes, Mr. and Mrs. Strauss, move among these people, talk to them and try to reassure them. There are other women besides Mrs. Strauss who will not leave their husbands. These women clasp each other's hands. They smile. They understand. Mr. Guggenheim and his secretary are in full dress. If we are going to call on Neptune, we will go dressed as gentlemen, they lappingly say. The ship is slowly settling by the head. The forward deck is below the water. The decks are at a vicious angle. The icy waters are full of struggling people. Those still on the ship climb up from deck to deck. The dark waters follow them, angry, jealous, savage, relentless. The decks are almost perpendicular. The people hang by the rails. A terrific explosion occurs. The ship's boilers have burst. The last lights go out. The great iron monster slips, slides, gently glides, surely down, down, down into the sea. Where once the great ship proudly floated, there is now a mass of wreckage. The dead, the dying, and the great black, all-enfolding night. Overhead, the thousand stars shine with the brightness unaccustomed. The Strausses, Stead, Astor, Butt, Harris, Thayer, Widener, Guggenheim, Hayes. I thought I knew you just because I had seen you, realized somewhat of your able qualities, looked into your eyes and pressed your hands, but I did not guess your greatness. You are now beyond the reach of praise, flattery touches you not, words for you are vain, medals for heroism, how cheap the guilt, how paltry the pewter. You are beyond our praise or blame. We reach out, we do not touch you, we call but you do not hear. Words unkind, ill-considered, were sometimes flung at you, Colonel Astor, in your lifetime. We admit your handicap of wealth, pity you for the accident of birth. But we congratulate you, that as your mouth was stopped with the brine of the sea, so you stopped the mouths of the carpers and critics with the dust of the tomb. If any think unkindly of you now, be he priest or plebeian, let it be with finger to his lips and a look of shame into his own dark heart. Also shall we not write a post-script to that booklet on cigarettes? Charles M. Hayes You who made life safe for travelers on shore, yet you were caught in a sea-trap, which had you been manager of that transatlantic line, would never have been set, baited as it was with human lives. You place safety above speed, pass into your faith to utilities, not futilities. You and John B. Thayer would have had a search-light and used it in the danger zone so as to have located an iceberg five miles away. You would have filled the space occupied by that silly plunge-bath, how ironic the thing, with a hundred collapsible boats and nests of dories. You, Hayes and Thayer, believed in other men, you trusted them. This time they failed you. We pity them, not you. And Mr. and Mrs. Strauss, I envy you that legacy of love and loyalty leapt to your children and grandchildren. The calm courage that was yours, all your long and useful career, was your possession in death. You knew how to do three great things. You knew how to live, how to love, and how to die. Archie Butt, the gloss and glitter on your spangled uniform were pure gold. I always suspected it. You tucked the ladies in the light boats as if they were going on an automobile ride. Give my regards to the folks at home, you gaily called as you lifted your hat and stepped back on the doomed deck. You died the gallant gentleman that you were. You helped preserve the old English tradition, women and children first. All America is proud of you. Guggenheim, Widener and Harris, you were unfortunate in life in having more money than we had. That is why we wrote things about you and printed them in black and red. If you were sports, you were game to the last, cheerful losers, and all such are winners. As your souls play hide and seek with sirens and dance with the niads, you have lost interest in us. But our hearts are with you still. You showed us how death and danger put all on a parity. The women in the steerage were your sisters, the men your brothers, the bullets of love and memory, we have graved your names. William T. Stead, you were a writer, a thinker, a speaker, a doer of the word. You proved your case, sealed the brief with your heart's blood. And as your bearded face looked in admiration for the last time up at the twinkling shining stars, God, in pardonable pride, said to Gabriel, here comes a man. And so all you I knew, and all that thousand and half a thousand more I did not know, passed out of this earth life into the unknown upon the unforgetting tide. You were sacrificed to the greedy goddess of luxury and her consort, the demon of speed. Was it worth the while? Who shall say? The great lessons of life are learned only in blood and tears. Faith decreed that you should die for us. Happily the world has passed forever from a time when it feels a sorrow for the dead. The dead are at rest, their work has ended. They have drunk of the waters of Lethi, and these are rocked in the cradle of the deep. We kiss our hands to them and cry, hail and farewell until we meet again. But for the living who wait for a footstep that will never come, and all those who listen for a voice that will never more be heard, our hearts go out in tenderness, love, and sympathy. These dead have not lived and died in vain. They have brought us all a little nearer together. We think better of our kind. One thing's sure, there are just two respectable ways to die. One is of old age, the other is by accident. All disease is indecent. Suicide is atrocious. But to pass out as did Mr. and Mrs. Isidore Strauss is glorious. Few have such a privilege. Happy lovers both. In life they were never separated, and in death they are not divided. End of The Titanic by Albert Hubbard Read by Anita Sloma Martinez