Beacon Lights of History, Volume 07: Great Women

Love, the flower of Eden The two Venuses of Socrates The Venus Urania The memory of Héloïse cherished Her birth and education Her extraordinary gifts Her aspirations Peter Abéla...

Such was Abélard's precocious ability, even as a youth, that no champion could be found to refute him in the whole of Brittany. He went from castle to castle, and convent to con...

This renewed success, in the midst of disgrace, created immeasurable envy. Moreover, the sarcasms, boldness, and new views of the philosopher raised a storm of hatred. Galileo w...

Perhaps the best known and most popular of heroines is Joan of Arc, called the Maid of Orleans. Certainly she is one of the most interesting characters in the history of France...

The French captains had orders to obey their youthful leader, but not seeing the wisdom of her directions to march to Orleans on the north side of the Loire, they preferred to k...

At last a tardy justice was done to the memory of her who had turned the tide of conquest. The King, ungrateful as he had been, now ennobled her family and their descendants, ev...

And yet this despotism was the logical result of a generally accepted idea, instead of the idea being an outgrowth of the despotism, since the clergy, who controlled society by...

It was not, however, merely from her labors as a reformer and nun that Saint Theresa won her fame, but also for her writings, which blaze with genius, although chiefly confined...

The articles of luxury and taste that were collected in the countless rooms of that vast palace almost exceeded belief. And all these blazing rooms were filled, even to the atti...

And her influence on the court was equally good. She discouraged levities, gossip, and dissipation. If the palace was not so gay as during the reign of Madame de Montespan, it w...

But the real ruler of the land, on the accession of Anne, was the favored wife of Marlborough. If ever a subject stood on the very pinnacle of greatness, it was she. All the for...

Swift was first brought to notice by Sir William Temple, in the reign of William and Mary, he being Sir William's secretary. At first he was a Whig, and a friend of Addison; but...

The first person who gave a marked impulse to what we call society was the Marquise de Rambouillet, in the seventeenth century. She was the first to set the fashion in France of...

It was between this remarkable man and Madame Récamier that the most memorable friendship of modern times took place. It began in the year 1817 at the bedside of Madame de Staël...

At the head of all these women of genius Madame de Staël stands pre-eminent, not only over literary women, but also over most of the men of letters in her age and country. And i...

Long before this great work was completed,--for she worked upon it six years,--Madame de Staël visited, with Sismondi, that country which above all others is dear to the poet, t...

It is well to dwell on the life and labors of so great and good a woman, who has now become historical. But I select her especially as the representative of the grandest moral m...

The fundamental principle which underlies all Hannah More's theories of education is the necessity of Christian instruction, which Herbert Spencer says very little about, and ap...

Then, again, I would educate women with reference to the sphere in which they must forever move,--a sphere settled by the eternal laws of Nature and duty, against which it is fo...

It was then that the friendly attachment between Miss Evans and Mr. Lewes began, which ripened into love and ended in a scandal. Mr. Lewes was as homely as Wilkes, and was three...

What is remarkable in this story is that the plot is exactly similar to that of "Jermola the Potter," the masterpiece of a famous Polish novelist,--a marvellous coincidence, or...

It is for her delineation of character, and for profound psychological analysis, that her writings have permanent value. She is a faithful copyist of Nature. She recalls to our...