James Cook

Captain James Cook (1728-1779), was an English navigator. Captain cook accurately charted vast regions of the south pacific; provided a basis for England's claim to Australia and New Zealand; and developed a diet that prevented scurvy among seamen. Born of farming parents in Yorkshire, Cook went to sea as a boy and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. His seamanship and deligence soon gained recognition, and four years later he was made a master of a naval sloop. From 1763 to 1767 he explored the St. Lawrence River and the shores of Labrador and Newfoundland. 

In 1768, with a group of scientists, Cook set out on his first expedition, sailing around Cape Horn. The immediate purpose was to observe the transit of the planet Venus from the vantage point of Tahiti. On his voyage, which continued  till 1771, the party went on to explore the coast of New Zealand and to chart the eastern coast of Australia.  As a result of this expedition, Cook was promoted to commander in the navy and was sent with two ships to determine whether there was a continent at the south extremity of the earth. Although they did not sight Antarctica, the explorers were the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. During this expedition of 1772-75, Cook sailed around the world far to the south, mapping the South Pacific and other southern latitudes much as they are known today. By providing the crews with sufficient vegetables, Cook proved that scurvy, a desease caused by lack of vitamin C, need no longer plague men on long voyages. 

Cook was promoted as captain and on his third voyage of discovery, 1776-78, undertook a search for the Northwest Passage - a linking of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans by way of Arctic regions. He approached from the Pacific side and discovered the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. Although he found no passage through the ice, Cook explored the northwest coast upto Bering Strait. After his return to Hawaii, he was killed by a native because of a misunderstanding over a missing boat. The journals of Cook and his associates are among the most entertaining accounts of discovery and scientific investigation.

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), was a Danish writer. Though a poet and novelist, he is most famous for his fairy tales. He has delighted young readers of all lands with his sometimes simple, always imaginative stories of fir trees and flowers, storks, swans, and nightingales, and princes, princesses and soldiers.

Anderson took traditional tales and themes and by his sympathetic understanding of human emotions and qualities gave them deeper moral and symbolic meaning than they had possessed originally. Some of these tales are based on stories told by common people among whom he spent his childhood. Others are mainly products of his own imagination, though strongly colored by folk themes and settings. Andersen's sunny nature would not permit him to use bitter satire, but he sometimes mocked people's frailties in a gentle way, as in "The Emperor's New Clothes." Often there is a tinge of sadness, as in "The Ugly Duckling." Andersen is said to have considered this story, which tells of an awkward young swan at first mistaken to be a duckling, an allegory of his own life. 

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, the son of a poor shoemaker. His ugliness made him shy, and he was treated rudely by other children in school. When he was 11, his father died and Hans quit school to work in a factory. He amused himself at home by reading plays and acting them out with puppets in a toy theater he had built. When he was 14, Hans left home for Copenhagen. There he tried everything to get into the theater - write, act, sing, dance. He did attract the attention of influential persons and was sent to a government school. Although 17 years old, Hans had to enter a class for small boys. His `unhappiness continued, but he remained in school for five years. He then left to try his hand at poetry, travel books, farce, and fiction.

Andersen's first novel, The Improvisatore (1835), was received enthusiastically, and his financial troubles were at end. In the same year the first instalement of his fairy tales were published, and were reviewed unfavorably by all critics but one. Andersen agreed with this general opinion, for he considered his adult work of more importance. Nevertheless he kept on writing fairy tales. 

The Light of Dark Days - Short Story

An Ice Age a terrible reality in earth’s history has never touched men for we lived and evolved during a period of unusually calm weather. But an Ice Age could wipe out life as we know it and a super Ice Age could wipe out all life. Professor Starkweather's diligent and heart breaking work over a period of 30 years had established beyond doubt in his mind that an ice age was imminent in the very near future. Unfortunately nobody took him seriously. 

So it came as a surprise to everyone when 2072 had the coldest winter in Europe since1816. The next year was even colder, and 2078 was known as the year without summer. By 2084 Southern India had roughly the same climate that Canada had had earlier, and three years later in 2087, when I could see icebergs in the sea near our home I knew that the Arctic and the Antarctic had come to meet our Island just 5 degrees north of the Equator. Incredibly in just fifteen years the Earth had turned from a warm place to a horribly cold planet. The process was self enlarging and unstoppable for as the ice sheet grew it moved forward as a devastating glacier.

What all scientists had ignored was a fall in solar radiation of 1.7 percent that Professor Starkweather said had occurred 30 years ago, which would lead he warned to cool summers, un-melted ice and a situation where the Earth looses its ability to hold on to its heat. Unfortunately Professor Starkweather was a loser. Everything he had done had ended in failure. He was also an eccentric man not gifted literally and unable or unwilling to play politics which less able scientists played. While more socially adept scientists became famous Starkweather faded, and by the time he realized it and tried to make amends he was very old.

Edgar Allan Poe

 

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), was a United States short-story writer, poet, critic and editor. There has always been disagreement as to the quality of his work, and some of the events of his life. However, even those critics who do not consider him a great writer acknowledge his importance in the development of modern literature.

Poe's most popular stories are those of horror, such as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Black Cat, "and of detection , such as "The Gold Bug" and "The Murders in Rue Morgue." Among his well-known lyrical poems are the haunting "Ulalume," "The Raven," and "Annabel Lee," and the classically restrained "To Helen." Poe was one of the most brilliant and independent 19th-century literary critics. His emphasis on artistic rather than morel values in literature greatly influenced modern literary theory and practice. His stressing of poetry's musical elements, and his use of evocative and symbolic language and imagery, contributed to the rise of the French Symbolist movement in poetry and, through it, to various 20th century trends in poetry.

Poe was the first to formulate rules for the short story, and the principles of brevity and unity that he advocated have influenced short-story writing on the present time. He is credited with inventing the modern detective story, and bringing the Gothic horror tale to a high level of development. He enriched both types of stories with psychological insight. Poe's preoccupation with madness, death and the supernatural, and his denial of the importance of morel values in literature, were bitterly criticized during his lifetime and for some years afterward. More valid from a literary standpoint was the objection - still made by many critics - that some of his works are too contrived. 

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, second of the three children of Davis and Elizabeth Poe, travelling actors. When Edgar was two years old his mother died in Richmond, Virginia; their father had previously deserted the family. Egar was taken into the home of John Allan, a merchant, from whom the boy took his middle name. The Allan's lived in England from 1815 to 1820, where Edgar attended private schools. He later attended a Richmond academy. Poe entered the University of Virginia in1826, but at the end of the year Allan withdrew him because Poe had run up large gambling debts. After a quarrel with his foster father Poe  went to Bostan in 1827. There he published anonymously his first volume of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems. He enlisted in the army and served two years. In 1829 he published his second book of poems. The same year his foster mother died and Poe became briefly reconciled with his foster father, who got him an appointment tothe U.S. Military Academy in 1830. Poe cut classes and drills and was expelled from the Academy early in 1831. His break with Allan was final.

In 1831 Poe lived in New York City for a short while and published Poems. It contained many of his best poems, including "To Helen," "The City and the Sea," and "Israfel." Poe then went to live with his aunt Mrs. Maria Clemm in Baltimore. He turned to the writing of fiction and did not publish another book of poetry for 14 years. In 1833 he won a prize for the story "Manuscript  Found in a Bottle." Poe went back to Richmond in 1835 and joined the staff of the Sothern Literary Messenger, soon becoming its editor. Poe won wide attention for his critical reviews of the Messenger.

In 1837 Poe moved to New York, but unable to find work there, moved again to philadelphia, where he became editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine (1839-40). Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in 1840 and favorably reviewed. Poe was literary editor of Graham's Magazine for a few months in 1841 and in it began to puublish detective stories. Poe won another prize with "The Gold Bug" (1843), which became his most popular story during his lifetime. He returned to New York and became assistant editor of the Mirror. Publication of The Raven and Other Poems in 1845 brought him increased fame. For a few months he was the owner of the Broadway Journal, but the periodical failed. 

Poe's wife died of tuberculosis in 1847, and he became depressed and ill. He became emotionally involved with two women and attempted suicide. During his last years, however, he wrote some of his best poems and critical essays. He also published Eureka (1848), a philosophical work. Poe became engaged to a childhood sweet-heart in Richmond in 1849. He then went to Baltimore to bring his aunt back for the wedding. A few day later he was found fatally ill in a tavern in Baltimore. The legend that Poe was an opium addict and wastrel is contradicted by the facts of his predominantly quiet and hard-working life. He was an alchoholic, but his claim that he drank to alleviate periods of intense depression was partly upheld by physicians who examined him and said he had a brain lesion. In 1910 Poe was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. He wrote the following poem:

The River

Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty -- the unhidden heart --
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;

But when within thy wave she looks --
Which glistens then, and trembles --
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in my heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies --
The heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.

Here along the reef lies sunken treasure

Here along the reef lies sunken treasure 
Of a ship that sailed but did not measure
And I seek to find it soon
Under eloquent stars and moon

I use starlight to navigate the seas
It will be in moonlight the treasure will be freed 
Of foolish men who did not see
That numbers will ruin their destiny

I reach the treasure sailing East
But the stars disappear with my endless needs
I throw the treasure overboard
I need my stars to sail back home



Written by: RJX

Between here and the Sea - Short Story

When I was a kid I lived in Trincomalee. Trincomalee was a busy town, it had the world’s best natural harbor or so everyone said and a mountain which had an ancient temple, which ended in a precipice, with the sea dashing on the rocks below. From here you could see the Indian ocean stretching to the horizon, and in my childhood imagination at least the Islands first sunrise. And I liked to think then that if you went straight south in a boat avoiding the coast of Batticaloa after traveling an endless ocean, and crossing quarter of the globe you would end up in the remotest regions of the Antarctic. The atmosphere here was remarkable, it had all the markings of a remote island ready for adventure, but it was never lonely and there were plenty of things to do. The sun shone a little brighter in Tricomalee and when it rained it rained a lot harder, the same was true of the people who lived there.

My father had a property several miles north of town in a remote fishing village used for cultivating onions. During holidays I used to go there by bus, but one day I would have been about ten years old then, I had a crazy idea: why not walk back to town along the beach. I hoped to walk south from there along the continuous beach and arrive at the beach in town by evening. So I started walking but soon found that I was cut off by a mountain jutting into the sea, it did seem to taper off further inland but to go around I had to walk into a thick jungle which I wanted to avoid. So I climbed the mountain which had orange sand with boulders and trees strewn all around. The climb was one of the most difficult things I had ever done, but on the other side we came to a magnificent beach with a sea which had an unusual blue. I kept walking for hours hoping to find someone but I was the only person in this beach, except for an eagle which was busy fishing there was no sign of life here. To the right of me was a thick jungle, and I was too tired and frieghtened to turn back so I was forced to walk south hoping to find someone who could tell me where I was. 

Then I saw something dark on the sea and coming closer I saw that it was the wreck of an old ship and I suddenly realised that I was walking on a beach that was avoided by everybody. It seemed that there was no way out of here before nightfall and the last thing I wanted was to stay there at night. Out of nowhere the sky darkened and big warm raindrops started falling with such force that it was painful when it hit the skin, then just as soon as it came the rain disappeared and the sun shone brighter than ever, and I discovered one of the advantages of living in an island so close to the equator. The sun shines so brightly and burns the skin with such intensity and the violent rain together with the brightness of the trees and the sky and the thundering sea acts as shock therapy and makes even the most dismal mind happy again. After a few hours I came across another mountain which was identical to the first except that the sand was red. After I crossed it I did not know where I was but kept walking and I looked up, and there in a mountain was the ancient temple I knew so well. I had been so tired that I did not recognise our own beach, and that day stands in my memory as one of the best I ever had.

Written by: RJX

If you sail with me

If you sail with me
To the southern sea
I'll show you things
You ought to be

The cardinal bird as red as blood 
A bright green parrot to use as a clock
The Cockatoo that speaks fluent French
A hippopotamus to use as a bench

Written By: RJX

Poem for the old or depressed

If the world is dull for you
And waking up is hard to do
Walk along a lonely road
In the darkest hour that comes before dawn

If wild yellow flowers now seem brown
And the tallest trees seem short
Visit the ocean just once more
And throw a stone at those wild wild crows

If the ship you sailed on sails no more
And time now moves just too slow
Reach deep sea in a fishing boat
Or chase downhill a mountain goat

Written by: RJX

2310: An astronaut returns

As I walk along this lonely beach
Heard the echo of a jungle tree
Or was it a parrot that tried to scream...
Or the unknown shadows of a long dead beach

Is there a jungle to the left of me
Or just dead tree trunks that tried to flee
The Sun is duller than it used to be
When and where can I now be

Written by: RJX

The Night

Many years ago I was returning home one night when I realized that I had misplaced the key. Forcing my way in would mean the wrath of the landlord so I wondered how I could get in. The only way was to get the duplicate key from the landlord who lived five miles away, but I could not go there. For civil disturbances in the night had led to the imposition of a sudden curfew, which meant nobody could be on the road after 9:00 PM, and it was 8:58 PM. Could there be a locksmith nearby thought I, but before I could walk to the gate the watch beeped 9:00.

The night was infinitely dark and strange, it seemed that everyone had gone to bed, and switched off all the lights. The road was deserted except for a lone cow and the yellowish light of the distant lamp post in the junction showed that the cow was half asleep, but even that was not clear for cows always look like that. A blue green firefly, very rare for this part of the country flew and disappeared behind a leaf, which made me aware of the garden. Flowers that bloom at night are usually white, and most have a fragrance. Overhead there were more stars than I had ever seen, and there was a particularly bright reddish star that didn’t twinkle. Could it be the Planet Mars, the one they called the red planet, did someone say or did I read somewhere that stars twinkle while planets don’t, or did I just imagine that now. Or could it be Venus, but did I read somewhere that Venus is called the morning star and could be seen only in the early morning. My knowledge of astronomy, like so much else was incomplete, but still I did know more than most people. And didn’t Newton himself once say something like “Knowledge is an endless beach and all I do is pick a pebble here and a sea shell there”. Or was it Michael Faraday, and was he also British. All these thoughts made me tired that I sat down in the garden and couldn’t remember anything after that except the ground felt hard on my head, an annoying cricket made an annoying noise, the smell of grass and marigold flowers and once I imagined that the cow was in the garden.

The hoot of an alarm made me jump, and for a moment I was horrified to find that I was not in bed but outside at night. I went to the gate to see what made that noise, and found that it was the siren for the midnight shift. Although all factories are closed during the curfew, some crucial industries get special permission to operate. And nearby a food boutique was open to serve the factory workers. I felt hungry and a cup of hot tea would be good in this cold night, I had to walk about one Kilometer, during the curfew, will the stray dogs and the watch dogs bark and give me away, my nerves failed and I decided against going and suddenly I realized that this was the story of my life, a man who didn’t take any risks and so didn’t reap any rewards, and led a sad, meaningless life.

Back in the garden I didn't feel sleepy but looked up to see whether I could identify any stars. The Great Bear looks more like a Saucepan than a Bear, and Orion is not even aligned, but the Milky Way could be seen clearly, a spectacular whitish path of countless stars just one of which is the Sun. Up ahead what looked like a dim star moved steadily. It moved too slowly for it to be shooting star, which is fast but fleeting. For a moment I thought it could be an Aero-plane flying high up and listened but there was no sound, and I felt certain that it was a communications satellite for even the smallest satellite could be seen from earth when the sun reflects upon it.

I sometimes carry with me a bag which is filled with painting material, so I decided to paint the landscape at night. Very few people paint at night for the colors are dull and it is difficult to tell them apart, but since I was not sleepy I could do nothing else. They are more or less black and white paintings but they still look quite good. Eventually I was so exhausted that I fell asleep. The next day I found the key, it had fallen near the gate so there was no incident with the landlord who would have been really annoyed if he found out that I had lost the key. It was a troublesome night without proper sleep, but it had taught me an important lesson: If you take an interest in anything, even something as inconsequential as the night you learn many things, soon you become an expert in it, and this curiosity is the secret of happiness………..

Written By: RJX

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie (1837-1919), was a United States industrialist and philanthropist, who was the world's richest man during his time. After making a great fortune in the iron and steel industry, he distributed most of it in gifts and endowments for the good of mankind. Carnegie gave about $350,000,000 to build libraries, advance education and science, promote world peace, and to support other cultural and welfare work.

Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. After his father, a weaver, lost his job, the family migrated in 1848 to Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh). Young Carnegie, then a boy of 11, worked first in a cotton mill at $1.20 a week. When he was 14 he became a telegraph messenger boy. Two years later having taught himself to send and receive messages, he was made a telegraph operator at $4.00 a week.

In 1853 Carnegie became a telegraph operator and secretary to Thomas A. Scott, superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. During the next 12 years Carnegie advanced steadily until he succeeded Scott as superintendent of the Pittsburgh division. When Scott was named the assistant secretary of war, at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, he took Carnegie to Washington with him to help direct military railways and telegraphs for the Union.

Carnegie returned to Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Railroad before the end of the war. Already he had begun the investments that were to be the basis of his immense fortune. In the 1850's he had bought stock in the first company to make sleeping cars. Before the Civil War was over, Carnegie was reaping dividends from an oil land investment in Pennsylvania. 

Realizing that iron and steel would play an ever greater part in the American economy, Carnegie resigned from the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1865 to give all his energy to this new industry. He had already helped to found the Keystone Bridge Company, and had organized the Superior Rail Mill and Blast Furnaces (1863-64) . Now he established the Union Iron Mills.


On a visit to Great Britain Carnegie noticed that the British were using steel rather than iron for rails. He introduced the Bessemer process into his mills in 1868, and was thus able to compete with British steel manufactures- then the worlds leaders. In 1873 he established the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Mills, and within 16 years United States production overtook the British output. In 1899 he merged all his holdings into one organization, the Carnegie Steel Company. By 1900 it was producing a fourth of the country's steel. 

Wishing to retire, Carnegie in 1901 sold his company to the newly formed United States Steel Corporation, headed by J. Pierpont Morgan and Elbert Henry Gary. For his share Carnegie received $250,000,000 in 5 per cent 50-year gold bonds. 

Now Carnegie could give more time to his major interests - reading, writing, friends, travel, and spending his money for public purposes. In 1889 he had written in an essay, "The Gospel of Wealth," that a rich man was merely a "trustee" of his fortune - that it was his duty to distribute it for "for the improvement of mankind."

The rest of his life Carnegie spent in putting his conviction into practice. His first act, in 1901, was to give the employees of the Carnegie Company $5,000,000 in the form of a pension and benefit fund. He gave a library to his native town, Dumfermline. He followed this by giving a public library and hall to Allegheny City, his first home in the United States. Later he gave many millions of dollars for libraries. He built Peace Palace at The Hague in the Netherlands, the Pan-American Union building in Washington, D. C., and Carnegie Hall in New York. He contributed to Scottish universities and set up a trust for the town of Dunfermline. (Carnegie and his wife spent many summers at "Skibo Castle" on their estate in Scotland.) His largest gifts were to the Carnegie Corporation of New York. 

Carnegie's writings include Triumphant Democracy (1886), in which he urged Great Britain to become a republic; The Empire of Business (1902); and Problems of Today (1909). He also wrote a number of travel books and many magazine articles. His autobiography was published in 1920.

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, (1771-1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, historian and critic. He was for many years one of the most widely read authors in Europe and America. His stirring tales of adventure brought to life for millions of readers the history of Scotland and England from the 12th through the 18th century. “The Lady of the Lake” (1810), a story of the Scottish Highlands in the 16th century, was the most popular of Scott’s narrative poems, and has been the most often reprinted. Critics consider “The Heart of Midlothian (1818), a novel set in 18th century Scotland and England, the best of all Scott’s works.

Scott’s popularity rested largely upon his descriptions of scenes and manners unfamiliar to his readers, and upon lively action and romantic episodes. He did not plot carefully, and wrote hastily and without revising. As a result, his novels and narrative poems lack unity and forcefulness. Most of his heroes and heroines are unrealistic, and their speech is stilted and trite. Except for some of the short lyrics incorporated in his narrative poems, his verse is second rate.

Scott’s importance is based on several valuable contributions to literary development. He created the historical novel and gave prestige to the novel in general. Among writers he influenced were Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Dumas the Elder, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, and James Fenimore Cooper. Scott was the first novelist to present people of the lower classes as real human beings rather than as comic or sentimentally idealized figures. He was also the first novelist to use regional dialects in a serious instead of a mocking manner.

UNDER A TREE

Under a banyan tree
I sat down to be free
Do these branches hold the truth
Or just bats to eat the fruits

Under another great tree

I gazed up at its splendid leaves
Will I feel tolerance here
Or when night falls will I feel fear

Written by: RJX

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley (Leonard) (1894-1963), was an English novelist, essayist, short story writer, and poet. He is noted for the satirical novels of his early period. They are chiefly concerned with ideas; plots are unimportant and characters are seldom more than spokesmen for the author’s views. “Point Counter Point” (1928) expresses disgust with the emphasis on intellectualism at the expense of instinct and emotion. “Brave New World” (1932) pictures a technological world of the future in which laboratory produced human beings find satisfaction in mechanized pleasures and a drug.

After the 1930’s, Huxley turned toward philosophy and mysticism. The novels of his later period, such as “Time Must Have a Stop” (1944) and Island (1962), show a decline in Huxley’s literary ability. In “The Doors of Perception” (1954) he writes of his experiences while taking hallucinogenic drugs as mescaline and LSD.

He was born in Surrey, a grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley and a brother of Sir Julian Huxley. After attending Eton College, he graduated from Oxford University in 1915. An eye ailment that caused near-blindness turned him from science studies to literature. In “The Art of Seeing” (1942) he described an eye-training program that greatly improved his sight. He wrote dramatic, art, and musical criticism for the London magazine “Athenaeum” (1919-20), and was dramatic critic of the literary periodical “Westminster Gazette” (1920-21). During and after his residence in Italy (1923-30), he visited India and Central America, settling in California in 1937.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish author. He was one of the most versatile of writers. His romantic novels of adventure captured the public fancy as had no British works since Sir Walter Scott’s. Treasure Island (1883), a story of a search for pirate treasure, is the most popular of these romances and one of the best children’s books in English. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), an allegorical novel about man’s duel nature, is a suspenseful horror story that shows psychological insight. A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885) is a classic.

Stevenson proved himself a master of the short story in such tales as the eerie “Marheim” and “Thrawn Janet,” the tragic “The Beach at Falesa,” and the fanciful “The Sire de Maletroit’s Door.” His essays, travel books, and letters are polished, witty, informative. Stevenson’s writings brought him great popularity during his lifetime, but after his death his literary reputation declined for several years and he was thought of only as a competent writer of children’s tales. Toward the middle of the 20th century, however, a new critical evaluation of his work ranked him with the great writers of the 19th century.

Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, the son of a prosperous engineer who wanted him to follow the same profession. Instead, Stevenson studied law at the University of Edinburgh. He passed the bar examinations in 1875 but never practiced law. Since 1873 he had been publishing essays in various periodicals and he now turned all his attention to a literary career. Stevenson had never been robust and he began traveling early in life, partly for health and partly for pleasure. In 1888 he sailed to the islands of the Pacific Ocean, settling finally in the Samoan island of Upolu in 1890. There Stevenson bought a large estate he called “Vailima.” He took an active part in Samoan political affairs and wrote extensively.

Stevenson died suddenly of cerebral hemorrhage. He left an unfinished novel, Weir of Hermiston, that was published as a fragment in 1896. This novel, set in 18th century Scotland, contains some of Stevenson’s most powerful and realistic characterizations. Some critics believe it would have been his masterpiece. Samoan friends affectionately called Stevenson Tusitala (teller of tales). They carried his body to the top of mount Vaea, where it was buried under this epitaph written by himself :

Under a wide and starry sky

Dig a grave and let me lie

Glad did I live and gladly die

And I laid me down with a will

This is the verse you grave for me

Here he lies where he longed to be

Home is the sailor, home from the sea

And the hunter home from the hill

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a United States author. Most of his work shows concern for moral issues. A deeply ingrained conscience seems to generate in him an obsession with the problem of sin, its nature and consequences. His strong sense of human guilt tinges most of his novels and short stories with a somber hue. Unlike some other puritans, Hawthorne apparently felt a keen sympathy for the erring and demon driven people he pictures.

Hawthorne liked to call his novels “romances” because they deal with interior rather than outward phases of life. They explore the secret chambers of the heart, soul, and mind. He maintained that a writer of romances, unlike the realist who relies upon personal observation and fidelity of facts, need be faithful only to “the truth of the human heart.” Hawthorne frequently pictures people who are morbid and melancholy, but their gloom is mostly of an inner kind unlike the physical horrors that are characteristic of Poe’s tales. His people ordinarily are more symbolical or allegorical than lifelike, manipulated by the author to make a moral point.

One dark dreary morning

One dark dreary morning
Raindrops in the air
The wind hit my face
Why ! cried I in despair

The sun pushes me relentlessly
And I push the deep blue sea
The secret of the wind
Is the secret of all beings

Written by: RJX

Charles Lyell

Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875), was a Scottish geologist well known for popularizing the theory of Uniformitarianism - the idea that the Earth was shaped by the same scientific processes still in operation today. (As opposed to Catastrophism). He explained earthquakes and volcanoes among many other things. However his theory of icebergs and the transport of glacial erratics has been proven mostly wrong. Lyell believed in an infinitely long age of Earth, though geological evidence suggested an old but finite age. He was a close friend of Charles Darwin and contributed significantly to Darwin's thinking on the theory of evolution. Although he had difficulty in reconciling his religious beliefs with Darwin's Theory of Evolution, he later published evidence from geology of the time man had existed on Earth. 

Lyell was born into a wealthy family, the eldest of ten children. He worked briefly as a lawyer before entering the world of science. Principles of Geology Lyell's first book was his most famous, most influential and most important. It established Lyell as an important geological theorist. He popularized the work of James Hutton, another Scottish geologist, who died in the year Lyell was born.  

Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was an English physicist and chemist. Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction led to his invention of the electric motor and electric generator. His inventions laid the basis for much of the technology of the 20th century. In 1821 he had used a magnet and a wire containing an electric current to produce mechanical motion, thereby creating an electric motor. Ten years later Faraday reversed the process: using magnetism to produce an electric current, he invented the dynamo, or generator.

Faraday formulated the basic laws of electrolysis during his early work in chemistry. Ion, anode cathode and electrode are some of the chemical terms he introduced. In 1825 he became the first to liquefy gases under pressure. In 1845 he discovered the Faraday Effect of magnetism on polarized light. His later days were spent in formulating a general electromagnetic field theory, later completed by James Clerk Maxwell. The farad is named for him. 

The son of a blacksmith in Newington, Surrey, Faraday received little formal schooling. He became interested in science while apprenticed to a London bookbinder. In 1813 he got a job as laboratory assistant to Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution in London. Faraday became director of the laboratory in 1825 and professor of chemistry in 1833. He scorned wealth and worldly honors, refusing knighthood and the presidency of the Royal Society. While other men made money from his discoveries Faraday devoted himself exclusively to scientific research.

The Idea

Kelvin had had another bad day, for some reason he seemed to be more tired than usual, a dull ache seemed to have settled around the middle of his chest, and he could not decide whether it was a physical ache or some sought of mental emptiness. He wondered what it was, and could not account for it, his life was going on as usual at the same dull pace. Then he realized what it was - he had run out of new ideas, which however stupid and meaningless, put him into a really good mood for long periods of time. These included ideas in art, poetry, writing etc. He himself felt that this was an unusual state of affairs, what he wondered could be achieved by writing a short story unless it leads to some monetary reward. It was perhaps a self actualization need, that many artist suffered from, a kind of need to express oneself by painting weird things,  in any case the prospects of earning a living from that sought of thing in his country seemed remote. The only thing he knew was that having an idea and then implementing it by writing a short story for example gave him a great thrill.

But then it struck him, why not write a book about great men and women. He was no great artist but he would do the illustrations himself. In each chapter he would write about a particular group of great individuals, say a chapter for Great Scientists, a chapter for Writers , Inventors, Artists, Explorers Musicians, and so on, or maybe he should mix it all up so that it comes as a surprise to the reader. The idea seemed simple but clever. The trick would be to find the right things to write about and also the length of the article. If a piece was too long it would bore people but if it was too short it wouldn't interest them. He could maybe call the book "The Strange but interesting life's of Great men" or something like that and include unusual things about them. Newton for example would wake up and sit in his bed for hours staring blankly as if he had lost his memory.   Incredibly Kelvin's mood improved within seconds. He wondered why this method could not be used by doctors to improve moods of patients suffering from some illness.

Written by: RJX