Free summaries
Essays, Letters & Speeches — page 36
1,782 public-domain essays, letters & speeches books, summarised. Page 36 of 38.
Unhappy Far-Off Things
Lord Dunsany
The shattered cathedrals and ruined gardens of France bear witness to a devastation so absolute that it transcends the scale of human conflict, leaving behind only the haunting relics of a vanished, peaceful world.
A Confession of Evangelical Principles: in a letter to a friend
J. (John) Church
A minister writes to a friend to defend his theological reputation, explicitly rejecting the label of "Antinomian" while firmly anchoring his ministry in the doctrines of sovereign grace and divine election.
Intercession: A Sermon Preached by the Rev. B. N. Michelson, B.A
B. N. Michelson
In a moment of national devastation, a wartime sermon calls for moral balance, unity across faiths, and self-sacrifice grounded in eternal duty.
Sermons on the Scriptural Principles of our Protestant Church
Edward Hoare
The battle lines between the Church of England and the Church of Rome are drawn here with uncompromising clarity, presented as a vital defense of the sufficiency of Scripture and the completed work of Christ.
The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act: An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts, Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9
Lydia Maria Child
The truth of heaven is often committed to voices deemed feeble, and such a voice here demands an end to the moral compromise of a state acting as a handmaid to human bondage.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 535, February 25, 1832
Various
This collection offers a vibrant window into the intellectual life of 1832, blending natural history, historical reflection, and personal narrative into an engaging survey of the era's curiosities.
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 4, Vol. I, January 26, 1884
Various
This nineteenth-century periodical offers a fascinating window into the intellectual and cultural landscape of the 1880s, blending practical advice for aspiring writers with historical narratives and scientific curiosities.
Fishing with a Worm
Bliss Perry
Fishing is often viewed as a pursuit of elegance and grace, but the most essential lessons of the stream are found in the humble, muddy corners where fly-casting is impossible. True angling demands a soul that can embrace the modest worm just as readily as the artificial fly.
Joseph Hergesheimer, an essay in interpretation
James Branch Cabell
This volume functions as a literary map, charting the obsession with beauty that defines a novelist’s career. It explores how personal struggle and aesthetic devotion coalesce into a distinct, albeit challenging, style of storytelling.
The Great Victory—Its Cost and Its Value: Address delivered at Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, July 4th, 1865
M. Russell (Martin Russell) Thayer
This Fourth of July address from 1865 captures the somber, triumphant spirit of a nation emerging from civil war, reflecting on the immense human and material costs of preserving the American Union.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 495, June 25, 1831
Various
A collection of nineteenth-century miscellany, this volume captures the intellectual curiosities, moral concerns, and cultural preoccupations of early 1830s Britain. Through a mosaic of essays, historical anecdotes, poetry, and social commentary, it serves as a preserved snapshot of a world transitioning into…
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419: Volume 17, New Series, January 10, 1852
Various
This mid-century periodical offers a varied glimpse into the Victorian imagination, blending moralistic fiction, curious natural history, and urgent social commentary from a world transitioning into the modern industrial age.
Crankisms
Lisle de Vaux Matthewman
A collection of cynical observations, these meditations on human vanity and social artifice suggest that while we may not be able to change our nature, we might at least learn to laugh at it.
Gallio
J. W. N. (John William Navin) Sullivan
The scientific pursuit of truth often feels cold, yet this critique argues that science is merely one narrow way of mapping reality, not an exhaustive account of human experience.
Substance of a Sermon on the Bible Society: preached at Beccles, October 29th, and at St. Mary's Church Bungay, on Friday, Dec. 1st, 1815
Francis Cunningham
This sermon serves as a passionate, urgent appeal for the universal distribution of the Holy Scriptures, arguing that the moral and spiritual health of the world depends entirely upon the reach of the written word.
The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power
Unknown
As the American Civil War erupts, a revolutionary legal theory emerges: the Constitution’s "war power" grants the government absolute authority to dismantle slavery as a military necessity.
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 17, October 24, 1840
Various
This collection captures the Victorian appetite for information, blending antiquarian preservation, folklore, and moral instruction into a single weekly installment. It serves as a window into the intellectual and cultural landscape of 1840s Ireland.
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 26, December 26, 1840
Various
This collection offers a window into the cultural landscape of 1840s Ireland, blending topographical studies, folklore, and practical advice. It captures a society navigating the tension between ancient tradition and the encroaching modern world.
Primrose Hill Park, Regent's Park, and Hampstead Heath
William Ray Smee
A persistent citizen attempts to persuade the British government to preserve open space for urban recreation, finding that the machinery of state moves with frustrating deliberation when faced with the needs of the public.
Address, delivered in Craigie Hall, Edinburgh, February 24th, 1871
Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler
A lone voice stands before a Scottish audience in 1871, rallying the public against a creeping legislative tyranny that strips vulnerable citizens of their constitutional rights under the guise of public health.
Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 97, September 6, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
This collaborative journal serves as a Victorian clearinghouse for historical, literary, and scientific trivia, bridging the gap between professional scholarship and the curiosities of the educated public.
The highest aim of the physicist
Henry Augustus Rowland
The physicist occupies a unique, aristocratic position in modern society, defined not by wealth or pedigree, but by a singular, intellectual devotion to unraveling the fundamental laws of the universe.
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 52, June 26, 1841
Various
This final issue of an Irish weekly offers a curated look at the culture, science, and national pride of 1841. It serves as a time capsule, preserving the intellectual interests of a mid-nineteenth-century Dublin audience.
The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2
Various
Amid the glittering dining rooms and bustling docks of turn-of-the-century New York, sharp observers dissect political betrayal, high society maneuvers, and the thrill of illicit smuggling.
The Speedy Appearance of Christ Desired by the Church: Being the Substance of a Sermon, Preached on the Death of a Friend, August 27, 1815
J. (John) Church
An earnest funeral sermon turning a parishioner's passing into a meditation on mystical union, spiritual trial, and the soul's rush toward Christ.
A Letter to the Rev. William Maskell, A.M.: How far the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council commits the Church of England by its decision, even allowing it to have jurisdiction in points of doctrine
Mayow Wynell Mayow
Amid a profound ecclesiastical crisis over baptismal doctrine, one clergyman proposes a nuanced middle way to preserve the conscience of the Church of England without defying the law.
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 43, Vol. I, October 25, 1884
Various
A weekly Victorian compendium interweaving natural observation, domestic fiction, schoolboy reminiscence, hotel intrigues, and industrial science into a single late-nineteenth-century mirror of general culture.
Chinese vs. Negroes as American Citizens: Mr. Scottron's Views on the Advantages of the Proposed Negro Colonization in South America
Samuel Raymond Scottron
The assimilation of diverse populations into the American republic reveals profound truths about cultural integration, national loyalty, and the foundational values of citizenship.
Is the Bible Indictable?: Being an Enquiry whether the Bible Comes within the Ruling of the Lord Chief Justice as to Obscene Literature
Annie Besant
The law often claims that morality is a matter of motive, but when the state decides that even good intentions cannot save a "cheap" book from being labeled obscene, the hypocrisy of the justice system becomes impossible to ignore. This polemic argues that if the legal standard for obscenity used against…
Reform and Politics: Part 2 from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VII
John Greenleaf Whittier
Progress often begins as a dreamer's folly, yet patient reform gradually transforms utopian visions into the everyday structures of a just society.
The Two Great Canyons: Excerpts From Letters Written on a Western Journey
Cyrenus Cole
Traveling across the American West in 1908, a discerning tourist weighs inflated guidebooks against the staggering, unvarnished reality of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 29, Vol. I, July 19, 1884
Various
This collection captures the inquisitive, industrious spirit of the late Victorian era, blending sober social commentary with serialized fiction and practical insights into a rapidly modernizing world. It serves as a quintessential artifact of nineteenth-century intellectual life.
Essays on Taste
John Gilbert Cooper
Taste is not merely a refined preference for fine things, but a profound, almost physical resonance that hums within the human soul when it encounters truth, harmony, and moral beauty.
On the Vice of Novel Reading.: Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal
Young Ewing Allison
The cultural habit of labeling imaginative literature a "vice" is exposed here as a defensive reflex of a society that prioritizes mechanical efficiency over the messy, essential labor of empathy and human understanding.
Stop in Time: A word in season, from a faithful friend, on a very serious subject
Anonymous
This Victorian tract serves as a stern, earnest warning to young women, urging them to prioritize chastity and moral vigilance to avoid the lifelong ruin of social disgrace and personal despair.
A Book of Autographs
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A meditative exploration of Revolutionary-era manuscripts, this work treats historical signatures not merely as names, but as fragile, human anchors to a distant, monumental past.
A Sermon Preached at the Quaker's Meeting House, in Gracechurch-Street, London, Eighth Month 12th, 1694
William Penn
This sermon captures a pivotal moment of 17th-century spiritual discourse, where the inward journey of the soul serves as the sole pathway to redemption and liberation from sin.
Mr. Belloc objects to "The outline of history"
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
This spirited defense of historical and scientific inquiry dismantles a sustained polemical attack, offering a sharp, intelligent look at the clash between modern secular thought and traditional religious dogma in the early twentieth century.
Notes and Queries, Number 46, September 14, 1850
Various
A mid-nineteenth-century literary forum gathers the period's sharpest antiquarian minds to untangle obscure historical references, linguistic oddities, and disputed folklore.
The Philistine
Various
This spirited periodical serves as a vibrant, idiosyncratic manifesto for the late 19th-century American literary underground. It offers a sharp-tongued defense of artistic individuality against the encroaching tide of commercialized, mass-produced culture.
The Ritual Movement: Three plain sermons preached at St. John the Evangelist's, Hammersmith
James Galloway Cowan
Faithful worship requires both the spirit’s inward devotion and the body’s outward expression, bringing heaven’s own order down to the local church.
The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 6, March 1923)
Various
This collection of student writing captures the spirit, social anxieties, and aesthetic ambitions of the Ivy League in the early twentieth century. It serves as a time capsule of a fading collegiate era.
Thoughts Suggested by Mr. Froude's "Progress"
Charles Dudley Warner
Human curiosity often drives us to wonder whether the world is truly advancing, or if we are merely repeating the same weary cycles of history. This essay explores that persistent question, defending the belief in progress against the skepticism of Victorian-era critics.
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, Volume 17, Index: New Series, January-June 1852
Various
A comprehensive index to a 19th-century journal, offering a window into the diverse topics of the time.
Essays in American history
Henry Ferguson
The early history of the American colonies reveals a complex, often brutal struggle for identity where rigid theological rule and political loyalties frequently eclipsed the myth of a purely virtuous frontier.
Chambers's journal of popular literature, science, and art, fifth series, no. 122, vol. III, May 1, 1886
Various
A Victorian miscellany blending investigative reporting on global smuggling, colonial social friction, and the burgeoning science of evolution, all captured within the pages of a late nineteenth-century periodical.
Escape, and Other Essays
Arthur Christopher Benson
This collection of essays serves as a quiet, thoughtful meditation on the necessity of seeking beauty and personal meaning within a world that often feels indifferent or restrictive. It offers a gentle framework for finding intellectual and spiritual refuge in the midst of daily existence.
Letters on the Moral and Religious State of South America: Written during a residence of nearly seven years in Buenos Aires, Chile, Peru and Colombia
Thomson, James, D.D.
This work collects private correspondence from a seven-year mission across South America, offering a firsthand account of the continent’s early efforts to integrate modern education and the widespread distribution of the New Testament.