Memoirs of Eighty Years

During my visit to America, I read before a medical society at Boston a paper “On Vital Force, its Pulmonic Origin, and the General Laws of its Metamorphosis.” It was founded on...

Let me here remark, as a physician, that, had not my constitution been faultless, the scarlet fever would have seized on my kidneys or my heart, and have maimed me for life, all...

In the parish of St. Anns, there are the remains of a castle, worthy the attention only of antiquarians, and thence the road leads on to Brighton, a journey of eight miles; but...

He was too active in his movements, mental as well as bodily, to be profound; he had not sufficient pause. Expediency with him did not go against the grain. In matters of religi...

Leaving Paris in a dreadful diligence by way of Dijon and the golden grapes, I traversed the Jura range and entered Geneva. I stayed there too, for of course I had to set myself...

Colonel Wylde, my host at the barracks when the family house on the common was full, played a part which relieved him from the humdrum of military life. He spoke Spanish fluentl...

There are some old words that one likes better than the new ones: the name of the gate, now _del Popolo_, does not, to me, sound so æsthetically as _Flaminia_, its ancient name!...

It was at this period that I was engaged on “The Sculptor” (M. Angelo). I sat in the Hall of Niobe for the manner, and stood in the Chapel of the Medici for the matter, of this...

From what I have read of his sonnets in his first edition, the vehicle of expression which such composition should formulate was beyond his reach. Above all other forms it deman...

There was an insuperable difficulty in the dead being buried in his own beautiful cemetery, which was unconsecrated ground, so the heir, the then Duke of Hamilton, had the sarco...

The Duke of Norfolk was a friend of mine, for he sent me game at a time when he did not even know me, with his compliments; the only man who ever did so before or since. This go...

In my early days the tumid young men, rigged out in newest apparel, would go up and down Bond Street at a snail’s pace, doing no better than advertising their tailors. Like hand...

There was Lord John, who began life as the fool of the family; and this character in the Alabama business reached its highest pitch. He was a sprig of the dukedom, so he did not...

With this exception the school was purely classical; nothing whatever was taught but Greek and Latin. History, geography, English, and its grammar, were unheard of. We had to te...

As our latter end comes about, we reason on and take stock of our friendships, chiefly those of our youth. Our statistics, accumulating with time, enable us to grasp the subject...

These two lines are the only exceptions. They are mighty, and at the very summit of human art, but in this respect do not actually reveal more than may be set forth in a pure si...

The music of sympathy—Friends at Florence—Professor Schiff—Capponi and a dog that would bay the moon—Madame Schiff and her circle—I prepare “Ecce Homo” here, also “Lucella”—My s...

What suits one people does not suit all others. Leo III. established plenary indulgence and the release of souls from purgatory through the virtue of a mass. This does not suit...

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