24/07/2024
硝子戸の中 (Garasudono uchi)
‘Garasudono uchi’ is Natsume Sōseki’s last essay, which was written between ‘Kokoro’ & ‘Michikusa’. 『硝子戸の中』（がらすどのうち）は、『こゝろ』と『道草』の間に書かれた夏目漱石最後の随筆である。 [chương_files]
Essay/Short nonfiction
24/07/2024
Rural Rides
William Cobbett: 1763-1835 English farmer, journalist and politician. His book Rural Rides collects together the articles published in his Political Register between 1822 and 1826, reflecting conditions of farmers and labourers in the English countryside, together with his views on the necessary actions for remedy and the shortcomings of government in this regard. Although this sounds amazingly dry, his forthright personality, original views and conversational tone, as well as the startling relevance of many of his topics to current political and social issues, give Rural Rides the immediacy and liveliness of a 19th century blog. [chương_files]
24/07/2024
For Every Music Lover
A series of essays for music lovers, covering many topics. From music appreciation, to violin and symphony, music education, to piano and, in fact, the very origins of music, there is sure to be something for everyone. [chương_files]
24/07/2024
Mintage
Elbert Hubbard is best known as the author of the “Little Journeys To The Homes of Famous People”. These 11 short stores show the side of him that celebrated caring, friendship love among humans. The first describes how 5 frightened orphan children from a foreign country were cared for on a railroad journey of a thousand miles; all by strangers without any planning and without a word of English being spoken or needed. He observed caring human men and women of all ages doing whatever was necessary to see they reached their destination in whatever comfort could be provided. His famous motto was “The mintage of wisdom is to know that rest is rust and that real life lies in love, laughter and work”. Hubbard [chương_files]
23/07/2024
The Brilliant Proof (Burhäne Lämé) in reply to an attack upon the Bahai Revelation by Peter Z. Easton
“In these days,” writes the renowned Bahá’í scholar, Mírzá Abu’l-Fadl, “which are the latter days of 1911, A. D. and the early days of 1330 A. H., I have seen a curious article which astonished me. What did I see? I find that one of the missionaries of the Protestant sect, who accounts himself among the learned men of the twentieth century, a helper of the pure religion of Christ and one of the civilized and cultured occidentals, by name, Peter Z. Easton, has been so provoked by jealousy at the universal spread of the heavenly word of His Holiness Abdul-Baha throughout vast expanses of Europe that he has trespassed the limit of courtesy and humanity and published an article replete with execration and calumny in the magazine “Evangelical Christendom.” …Briefly, as this servant [Mírzá Abu’l-Fadl] carefully perused and weighed the above mentioned article, it was found that Peter Z. Easton, in his own supposition, has clung to “four proofs” in opposing the great Bahai Cause. We will therefore mention these four points and show the falsity of his fanciful ideas in each instance.” A number of works were written in the 19th century to defend the Bábí and Bahá’í Faiths from attacks made by Muslim scholars and to demonstrate the spiritual proofs and evidences of the Revelations of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh (notably the “Seven Proofs” of the Báb and the “Book of Certitude” of Bahá’u’lláh) . As the Bahá’í Faith spread to Europe and America in the late […]
23/07/2024
The Sunny Side
The Sunny Side is a collection of short stories and essays by A. A. Milne. Though Milne is best known for his classic children’s books, especially Winnie The Pooh, he also wrote extensively for adults, most notably in Punch, to which he was a contributor and later Assistant Editor. The Sunny Side collects his columns for Punch, which include poems, essays and short stories, from 1912 to 1920. Wry, often satirical and always amusingly written, these pieces poke fun at topics from writing plays to lying about birdwatching. They vary greatly in length so there is something for everyone. [chương_files]
23/07/2024
Culture and Anarchy
Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. The preface was added in 1875. Arnold’s famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, “Culture […] is a study of perfection”. He further wrote that: “[Culture] seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light […]”. His often quoted phrase “[culture is] the best which has been thought and said” comes from the Preface to Culture and Anarchy: The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. [chương_files]
23/07/2024
Mark Twain’s Speeches
Spanning the time between 1872 and the year before he died, this collection of after-dinner speeches, random thoughts to “the press”, etc. clearly documents, once again, the truly eclectic mind of Samuel Clemens. It also demonstrates how he dealt with adulation, compliments and notoriety…head on! This collection is a treasure-trove of Twain sayings, witticisms and pronouncements on a huge galaxy of issues and concerns in his life. [chương_files]
23/07/2024
A Problem in Modern Ethics
“Society lies under the spell of ancient terrorism and coagulated errors. Science is either wilfully hypocritical or radically misinformed.” John Addington Symonds struck many an heroic note in this courageous (albeit anonymously circulated) essay. He is a worthy Virgil guiding the reader through the Inferno of suffering which emerging medico-legal definitions of the sexually deviant were prepared to inflict on his century and on the one which followed. Symonds pleads for sane human values in a world of Urnings, Dionings, Urano-Dionings and Uraniasters – in short, the whole paraphernalia of Victorian taxonomies and undigested Darwinism which, superimposed on the “terrorism” of religion, labelled and to some extent created the specimen “homosexual.” A discussion of the “manly love” poems of Walt Whitman leads the author to speculate on a better future for the criminalised mutual passions of men; yet he is obliged to defer the dream, for “the world cannot be invited to entertain it.” (Introduction by Martin Geeson) [chương_files]
23/07/2024
Not That It Matters
More of the witty, wry, and deliciously wicked essays and articles written by Milne. Most people know him as the creator of Winnie The Pooh, but he worked for many years as editor of Punch Magazine and these are some of his best. Not That It Matters is a collection of over 40 of these short stories and articles. Not That It Matters collects his columns for Punch, which include poems, essays and short stories, from 1912 to 1920. Most of his writing pokes fun, both gentle and not so gentle at a variety of topics. They vary greatly in length so there should be something for everyone. Milne wrote in a thoroughly British atmosphere and for a thoroughly British audience so some of his references may need a bit of research for those ‘not of the Empire’ (like me) to understand. [chương_files]