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Essays, Letters & Speeches — page 16
1,315 public-domain essays, letters & speeches books, summarised. Page 16 of 28.
A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and the Second Sight: With an Original Essay on Witchcraft
Unknown
Driven by fear, politics, and local malice, a society turns its courts against its most vulnerable neighbors under the banner of divine duty.
Last Essays of Maurice Hewlett
Maurice Hewlett
A reflective observer wanders through English countryside, historic memoirs, and classical verse, weighing how quiet daily routines hold the same enduring weight as grand historical shifts.
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 07 (of 20)
Charles Sumner
Threats of disunion are empty ploys that lose all power the moment an unyielding people decides to stand firm. True sovereignty belongs to human rights, not to local tyrannies that attempt to convert fellow men into property.
Quips and Quiddities: A Quintessence of Quirks, Quaint, Quizzical, and Quotable
Unknown
A sharp mind requires small moments of rest, and a well-curated commonplace book provides the perfect refuge. It gathers centuries of human wit, absurdity, and quiet wisdom into a single pocket-sized haven.
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
Unknown
Centuries of human ambition and artistic devotion remain carved into the stone of French cathedrals, ancient seaports, and Roman arenas.
State of the Union Addresses
Calvin Coolidge
Governments retain strength through steady labor, self-restraint, and fiscal discipline rather than dramatic displays of force or hasty, untested legislative experiments.
The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. 05
Unknown
Behind the polite pleasantries of eighteenth-century diplomacy lies a brutal war of attrition, fought not with muskets, but with loans, treaties, and maritime blockades.
Beethoven's Symphonies Critically Discussed
Alexander Teetgen
A passionate 19th-century journey through Beethoven’s music reveals how hero-worship, spiritual struggle, and raw artistic power transformed the classical symphony into an immortal force.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845
Various
A nineteenth-century journal offers a sweeping portrait of European culture, mixing grave moral philosophy, political journalism, dramatic fiction, and sharp literary satire.
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 10 (of 20)
Charles Sumner
Deliberated in the furnace of the American Civil War, these legislative addresses and essays confront foreign interference, state destruction, and the imperative of human equality. They map a republic fighting to redefine its constitutional soul.
Doctor and Patient
S. Weir (Silas Weir) Mitchell
A wise nineteenth-century physician reclaims medicine as an art of character, prescription, and human understanding, offering guidance for both the sickbed and the outdoors.
Men in the Making
Ambrose Shepherd
The choice between passive drift and deliberate integrity determines the shape of a man's future.
Side Lights
James Runciman
A sharp, humane intelligence turns its light on Victorian society, offering unsparing observations on literature, poverty, domestic life, and the quiet dignity of human resilience.
The Jubilee of the Constitution: Delivered at New York, April 30, 1839, Before the New York Historical Society
John Quincy Adams
A nation’s enduring liberty requires more than victories on the battlefield; it demands an unwavering commitment to fundamental human rights, moral integrity, and a unified government instituted directly by the people.
The Pageant of Summer
Richard Jefferies
A quiet ditch filled with green rushes holds the secrets of the season. To stand beneath an ancient apple tree and watch the sunlight turn cold earth into living leaf is to touch the eternal.
The Rhythm of Life, and Other Essays
Alice Meynell
Periods of intense feeling inevitably give way to quiet restraint, following a natural cadence that governs both human emotion and art.
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 05 (of 20)
Charles Sumner
In the mid-1850s, a nation's moral fracture finds its voice in the halls of Congress, where legal argument and fierce rhetoric collide in a desperate attempt to halt the expansion of human bondage.
Old Junk
H. M. (Henry Major) Tomlinson
A quiet observer moves through a world shifting from the peaceful routines of early twentieth-century life to the sudden, horrifying ruin of the First World War.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
Mapping out every branch of a thinker’s life work, this volume organizes a vast philosophical architecture spanning biology, ethics, sociology, and language. It serves as a structural blueprint for Herbert Spencer’s sweeping evolutionary philosophy.
Over the Fireside with Silent Friends
Richard King
Comfort lies not in noisy public chatter or empty flattery, but in those quiet, solitary hours spent reading, working, and reflecting beside a warm domestic hearth.
Science and Morals and Other Essays
Windle, Bertram Coghill Alan, Sir
A sharp defense of religious faith against scientific overreach, showing where natural law ends and moral truth begins.
State of the Union Addresses
George Washington
A nascent republic struggles to transform revolutionary ideals into permanent administrative structures while maintaining balance on a precarious global stage.
As We Were Saying
Charles Dudley Warner
These essays offer a witty, observant tour of late-nineteenth-century American manners, capturing the frantic pace of a society struggling to reconcile its democratic ideals with an increasingly decorative, performative, and complex social life.
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 11 (of 20)
Charles Sumner
This collection of speeches and reports preserves the uncompromising legislative struggle of a prominent American senator to dismantle slavery during the final, decisive years of the Civil War.
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 16 (of 20)
Charles Sumner
This volume captures the intense political collisions of the Reconstruction era, as a resolute senator battles to secure the legal framework of equality after the American Civil War. It is a rigorous, deeply moral defense of national unity and human rights.
Continuous Vaudeville
Will M. (Will Martin) Cressy
The life of a touring performer is a messy, hilarious, and often exhausting collision of small-town hotels, missed trains, and the desperate, unceasing need to get a laugh.
Daniel Webster for Young Americans: Comprising the greatest speeches of the defender of the Constitution
Daniel Webster
These speeches define the American experiment through the lens of history, framing the Constitution as a sacred, enduring anchor for a young and growing nation. They remain essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the foundational rhetoric of the United States.
Essays on Various Subjects, Principally Designed for Young Ladies
Hannah More
True refinement is not found in the noisy pursuit of pleasure, but in the quiet cultivation of the heart and mind. A woman’s greatest strength lies in embracing her unique virtues rather than mimicking the lives of others.
Studies of Travel: Greece
Edward A. (Edward Augustus) Freeman
The traveler who looks upon Greece not as a static museum but as a living landscape, where the ancient past and the modern present exist in a continuous, complex conversation, will find a kindred spirit here.
The Epic: An Essay
Lascelles Abercrombie
The epic poem is the most rigorous test of the human spirit, a form that demands not merely narrative skill but a total, lifelong dedication to the profound mysteries of existence.
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 20 (of 20)
Charles Sumner
This final volume of a statesmanship collection captures a veteran political leader at the precipice of a personal and partisan transformation. It documents a man wrestling with the moral erosion of his own party and the fraying spirit of national reconciliation.
For Auld Lang Syne: A Book of Friendship
Unknown
A treasure of human reflection, this collection gathers the finest wisdom on the sacred bond between souls. It serves as a gentle guide through the complexities of devotion, endurance, and the quiet comfort of being understood.
The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers
John Burroughs
A naturalist finds deep connection to the wild through patient observation, turning the simple habits of birds and small animals into a meditation on the shared rhythms of life.
By-ways in Book-land: Short Essays on Literary Subjects
W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport) Adams
A gentle, erudite excursion through the quieter corners of English literary history, offering charming observations on everything from the habits of book-collectors to the quirks of letter-writing.
Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things
Fanny Fern
This collection of sharp, observational essays captures the rhythms of 19th-century American life through the eyes of a writer who refuses to look away from the absurd, the difficult, or the mundane. It is a portrait of a mind in constant, witty motion.
Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906: Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature
Various
This early radical periodical challenges the foundational structures of family, law, and state, inviting a new generation to discard tradition and reclaim their own autonomy through the miracle of independent action.
The Preface to the Aeneis of Virgil (1718)
Joseph Trapp
This critical introduction serves as both a scholarly defense of Virgil’s Aeneid and a manifesto for a more disciplined, literal approach to poetic translation. It challenges the prevailing literary fashions of the early eighteenth century by prioritizing structural fidelity over the ornate, often loose,…
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 08: Talmage to Knox Little
Unknown
A collection of pulpit oratory, these sermons navigate the intersection of human frailty and divine grace, offering a portrait of religious thought at the turn of the twentieth century.
A Letter to the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill
Franklin Dexter
Public officials are often tempted to justify their legislative record with revisionist history, but some arguments are so transparently fragile that they invite a dismantling of both the politician’s logic and his integrity.
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 4, October, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
A window into the American mind during the height of the Civil War, this collection captures the urgent intersection of literature, military reportage, and high-stakes national policy in 1863.
The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1: December, 1906
Various
This collection of literature serves as a pedagogical toolkit for the art of public speaking, offering a diverse array of dramatic, oratorical, and narrative selections meant for recitation and performance. It emphasizes the development of the speaker's will and the mastery of expression, drawing from historical…
Concerning Animals and Other Matters
Edward Hamilton Aitken
The curiosity of a naturalist transforms the mundane details of colonial India into an observant, witty inquiry into the mechanics of life.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880
Various
This volume serves as a wide-windowed gallery of late nineteenth-century American thought, capturing the era’s restless curiosity about literature, science, and the changing landscape of national life.
Literary and General Lectures and Essays
Charles Kingsley
This collection of lectures and essays offers a passionate, erudite window into the Victorian mind, examining the intersection of literature, history, and the moral responsibilities of the artist.
The Call of the Twentieth Century, an Address to Young Men
David Starr Jordan
The twentieth century arrives with a call for men of purpose, demanding not the hollow glory of the past, but the disciplined, truth-seeking labor of the present. Your future depends entirely on the stewardship of your own potential.
The Lay of the Land
Dallas Lore Sharp
The observant eyes of a dedicated naturalist turn the quiet rhythms of a small farm into a vast, unfolding drama of survival and seasonal grace. Every field holds a secret, and every creature is a neighbor worth knowing.
Women as World Builders: Studies in Modern Feminism
Floyd Dell
The modern feminist movement is not a static sociological theory, but a living fire fueled by the distinct, courageous, and often contradictory lives of the women who lead it.
A Woman of the World: Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
True wisdom is not found in rigid mandates, but in the graceful navigation of life’s complex social currents.