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Essays, Letters & Speeches — page 22
1,906 public-domain essays, letters & speeches books, summarised. Page 22 of 40.
Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose
Mrs. (Anna Letitia) Barbauld
True intellectual curiosity requires both the rigor to pursue abstract truths and the sensitivity to appreciate the nuances of human experience. This collection offers a bracing, thoughtful companion for those who value clarity of thought.
Practical Talks by an Astronomer
Harold Jacoby
This collection of essays offers a clear, accessible window into the mechanics of the heavens, written for the curious layperson who prefers genuine science over technical jargon.
The Arnold Bennett Calendar
Arnold Bennett
A daily companion for the mind, this collection offers a year of sharp, pragmatic reflections on literature, human nature, and the rigorous discipline required to truly live.
The Claims of Labour: An essay on the duties of the employers to the employed
Helps, Arthur, Sir
Great change is never achieved through abstract theories or grand political gestures alone, but rather through the quiet, persistent practice of duty by those who hold power over the lives of others.
The Interdependence of Literature
Georgina Pell Curtis
This survey traces the hidden threads connecting the world’s great literary traditions, revealing how ancient myths and moral tales flowed across continents to shape the collective consciousness of humanity.
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 3, part 1: Andrew Jackson (Second Term)
Unknown
The second administration of Andrew Jackson serves as a defining crucible for American executive power, charting a turbulent course through banking, international diplomacy, and the forced displacement of native populations.
Are You a Bromide?: The Sulphitic Theory Expounded and Exemplified According to the Most Recent Researches into the Psychology of Boredom, Including Many Well-Known Bromidioms Now in Use
Gelett Burgess
The divide between those who repeat the obvious and those who think for themselves is not just a matter of personality, but a fundamental fault line running through the heart of human society.
Chats on Angling
H. V. Hart-Davis
This collection of observations serves as an intimate guide for the dedicated angler, blending technical advice with the quiet, persistent philosophy of life by the riverside.
How It Feels to Be Fifty
Ellis Parker Butler
Life at fifty is not the descent into a quiet valley that society suggests, but rather the exhilarating start of a new, more capable chapter of existence. Age is merely a number that holds no power over a mind fully committed to the work and play ahead.
Love's Coming-of-Age: A series of papers on the relations of the sexes
Edward Carpenter
This work examines the stifling impact of Victorian social conventions on human connection, arguing that true intimacy requires sexual honesty, economic equality, and the abandonment of possessive marriage models.
The Crown of Thorns: A Token for the Sorrowing
E. H. (Edwin Hubbell) Chapin
Finding comfort in the face of life’s most difficult transitions requires a shift in perspective. This collection of discourses offers a framework for navigating loss and disappointment through the lens of Christian hope.
American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology
Thomas Henry Huxley
The mind of the scientist acts as a lantern, casting illumination upon the hidden mechanisms of the natural world. This collection of lectures serves as an essential guide for navigating the profound shifts in biological understanding.
Essays on the work entitled "Supernatural Religion"
J. B. (Joseph Barber) Lightfoot
This collection of scholarly essays defends the historical credibility of early Christian records against the skeptical challenges posed by 19th-century critics. It serves as a rigorous, point-by-point examination of the foundations of the New Testament.
Letters Exhibiting the Most Prominent Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Orson Spencer
HOOK This work serves as a formal defense of a burgeoning American faith, written by a former Baptist clergyman to explain why he abandoned traditional orthodoxy for the teachings of a new prophet.
State of the Union Addresses
Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines) Johnson
These annual reports to Congress trace the evolution of a nation navigating domestic transformation and the mounting pressures of an overseas conflict. They serve as a primary record of a presidency defined by both ambitious social reform and the deepening shadows of the Vietnam War.
The Friendly Club and Other Portraits
Francis Parsons
A collection of quiet, observant sketches that breathes life into the forgotten figures of early Connecticut history. These portraits capture the fading echoes of a literary and social world that once defined the American spirit.
Vignettes of San Francisco
Almira Morey
This collection of evocative prose sketches captures the spirit of a city caught between its frontier heritage and the dawn of the machine age. With a keen eye for the peculiar, the author maps the soul of San Francisco through its bustling markets, fog-drenched mornings, and the quiet dignity of its diverse…
Walking-Stick Papers
Robert Cortes Holliday
A wandering, inquisitive mind captures the small, overlooked curiosities of daily life in these lighthearted, observant essays. They transform the mundane—a walk down the street or a stroll past a shop window—into a deliberate, meditative art.
A First Year in Canterbury Settlement
Samuel Butler
A young man leaves the comforts of Victorian England to seek his fortune as a sheep farmer in the rugged, untamed wilderness of New Zealand.
A way of life
Osler, William, Sir
Living for the day alone, this quiet philosophy offers a practical framework for steadying the mind, silencing the ghosts of yesterday, and abandoning the paralyzing anxieties of tomorrow. It is a simple, enduring guide for navigating the inevitable stresses of a busy life.
Letters from England, 1846-1849
Elizabeth Davis Bancroft
The diplomat’s wife moves through the drawing rooms of Victorian London with a keen eye for the quiet, human details hidden beneath the rigid formalities of a world in flux.
Post-Impressions: An Irresponsible Chronicle
Simeon Strunsky
A sly, light-hearted collection of early twentieth-century sketches exposes the absurdities of modern urban life through sharp-witted commentary on popular culture, academia, and social reform.
Sermons on Evil-Speaking
Isaac Barrow
The tongue is a small instrument that wields the power to either build or destroy, requiring the constant, disciplined vigilance of a thoughtful mind to avoid the ruinous pitfalls of malice and profanity.
The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 1837
Various
This volume presents a curated miscellany of nineteenth-century intellectual life, offering readers a window into the varied tastes, literary preoccupations, and cultural anxieties of the 1830s through essays, travel sketches, and critical reviews.
Advice to young men and boys: A series of addresses delivered by B. B. Comegys to the pupils of Girard College
B. B. (Benjamin Bartis) Comegys
Character is not inherited, but forged through daily obedience to small duties, honest speech, and steady labor.
A Candid Examination of Theism
George John Romanes
A rigorous, analytical mind dismantles every traditional argument for God's existence, tracing how modern scientific laws reduce the divine to a cold mechanical necessity.
Cambridge Pieces
Samuel Butler
Irreverent, sharp, and intensely observational, these early writings capture a brilliant young mind gleefully picking apart the absurdities of mid-Victorian university life, pious grandstanding, and the pompous art of writing itself.
In our first year of war
Woodrow Wilson
When a nation enters global conflict, its leader must forge a scattered population into a single, purposeful force while articulating a moral vision for a turbulent world.
Little Masterpieces of Science: Health and Healing
Unknown
Modern medicine transformed human existence not by vanquishing death, but by systematically dismantling the preventable terror and pain of living.
The Arena, Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891
Various
A late-nineteenth-century reform periodical captures a nation wrestling with the human cost of rapid industrialization, state power, and the unfolding struggle for individual liberty.
The works of Richard Hurd, volume 2 (of 8)
Richard Hurd
A eighteenth-century critic untangles the principles of poetry, drama, and imitation, offering a lucid framework for why imaginative literature moves the human mind.
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, June 1885
Various
A mosaic of nineteenth-century thought, this issue spans imperial clashes on the Afghan border, radical theories of land reform, the origins of biological form, and the grueling early days of George Sand.
Four Minute Essays, Volume X
Frank Crane
A spirit of indomitable endurance shines brightest not in times of quiet luxury, but when human lives are thoroughly broken and crushed.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 18, April, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
A perpetual tug-of-war between property and poverty shapes human history, leaving every generation to negotiate its own boundaries between wealth, civil order, and personal freedom.
The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. 10
Unknown
To build a new nation on paper requires far more than winning battles in the field; it demands the relentless, exhausting art of backroom diplomacy.
Paradoxes of Catholicism
Robert Hugh Benson
The Catholic Church claims to be the divine presentment of Christ on earth, yet it operates through fallible human hands. This inherent dual nature produces a series of stark, unavoidable paradoxes that define its role in the world.
The Faith of the Millions (2nd series)
George Tyrrell
Hungry for certainty, human thought repeatedly swings between dry intellectual systems and vital spiritual experience. The essays collected here explore how ancient faith adapts to modern knowledge, arguing that religion thrives by answering the soul's deepest practical and emotional needs.
The Spell of the Rockies
Enos A. Mills
A firsthand journey through the rugged wilderness of the American West reveals a world of untamed beauty, where high alpine storms, vast forests, and quiet animal societies shape the grand landscape.
Theological Essays and Other Papers
Thomas De Quincey
A fierce intellect dissects 19th-century church schisms, ancient wardrobes, world-conquerors, and Alexander Pope's malicious satires with devastating precision.
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 09 (of 20)
Charles Sumner
A lawmaker's moral clarity meets the constitutional friction of a nation at war with itself, revealing how legislative precision can be wielded as an instrument of human liberation.
Italian Backgrounds
Edith Wharton
A escape across snowy border passes reveals an Italy hidden behind popular tourist routes, where quiet hill-towns, neglected masterpieces, and forgotten centuries reward the patient traveler.
The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science: Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"
Thomas Henry Huxley
Science and religion clash over whether ancient Scriptural accounts of physical events can withstand the rigorous standards of modern historical and scientific criticism.
The scrap book, Volume 2, No. 2
Various
A single room holds George Washington’s advice, a New Zealand suffragist, a blind traveler in Siberia, and a mysterious immortal who haunts London drawing rooms.
In the Oregon Country: Out-Doors in Oregon, Washington, and California Together with some Legendary Lore, and Glimpses of the Modern West in the Making
George Palmer Putnam
This is an evocative, turn-of-the-century travelogue that captures the untamed spirit of the American West, blending rugged outdoor exploration with local legend and the rapid, often jarring transformation of the frontier.
Old Scores and New Readings: Discussions on Music & Certain Musicians
John F. Runciman
This collection of critical essays serves as a sharp, opinionated tour through the history of Western music, stripping away stale traditions to reveal the living pulse of genius.
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4: France and the Netherlands, Part 2
Unknown
Wandering through sunlit French vineyards and winding Dutch canals, a traveler observes the quiet rhythm of local life before the shadow of a grand medieval fortress alters the horizon.
The steps of life: further essays on happiness
Karl Hilty
To live well, one must learn to see the shifting landscape of human experience from the heights of a chastened will and a responsive, steady mind.
Inaugural Presidential Address, Official Transcript
Barack Obama
These dual addresses capture a pivotal moment in American history, framing the challenges of a modern nation through the lens of its enduring, if imperfect, founding ideals.