Aristotle's Poetics (Greek: Περὶ ποιητικῆς; Latin: De Poetica; 1] c. 335 BC 2]) is the earliest surviving work of dramatic theory and first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. 3] In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls poetry (a term that derives from a classical Greek term, ποιητής, that means poet; author; maker and in this context includes verse drama - comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play - as well as lyric poetry and epic poetry). They are similar in the fact that they are all imitations but different in the three ways that Aristotle describes:

Differences in music rhythm, harmony, meter and melody.
Difference of goodness in the characters.
Difference in how the narrative is presented: telling a story or acting it out.

In examining its first principles, Aristotle finds two: 1) imitation and 2) genres and other concepts by which that of truth is applied/revealed in the poesis. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. 4] Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions. 5] The work was lost to the Western world for a long time. It was available in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance only through a Latin translation of an Arabic version written by Averroes.

In the classic nature work, The Yosemite, the great American naturalist, John Muir, describes the Yosemite valley's geography and the myriad types of trees, flowers, birds, and other animals that can be found there.The Yosemite is among the finest examples of John Muir nature writings.The Yosemite is a classic nature/outdoor adventure text and a fine example of John Muir nature writings. In this volume, Muir describes the Yosemite valley's geography and the various types of trees, flowers and animals that can be found there.John Muir (April 21, 1838 - December 24, 1914) also known as John of the Mountains and Father of the National Parks, was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism has helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mile (340 km) John Muir Trail, a hiking trail in the Sierra Nevada, was named in his honor. 6] Other such places include Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir, Muir Grove, and Muir Glacier. In Scotland, the John Muir Way, a 130-mile-long route, was named in honor of him.In his later life, John Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, The Treasures of the Yosemite and Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park; this helped support the push for U.S. Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas. 8]John Muir has been considered an inspiration to both Scots and Americans. Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity, both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he is often quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams. Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world, writes Holmes. John Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals, making his name almost ubiquitous in the modern environmental consciousness. According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified the archetype of our oneness with the earth, while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was ...saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism. 403 On April 21, 2013, the first ever John Muir Day was celebrated in Scotland, which marked the 175th anniversary of his birth, paying homage to the conservationist.

The Mountains of California is a classic nature essay by John Muir that vividly describes those California mountains and the wildlife found within them and is among the finest examples of John Muir nature writings.Go where you may within the bounds of California, mountains are ever in sight, charming and glorifying every landscape.

John Muir (April 21, 1838 - December 24, 1914) also known as John of the Mountains and Father of the National Parks, was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism has helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mile (340 km) John Muir Trail, a hiking trail in the Sierra Nevada, was named in his honor. Other such places include Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir, Muir Grove, and Muir Glacier. In Scotland, the John Muir Way, a 130-mile-long route, was named in honor of him.In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, The Treasures of the Yosemite and Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park; this helped support the push for U.S. Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park.

The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas.John Muir has been considered an inspiration to both Scots and Americans. Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity, both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he is often quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams. 10] Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world, writes Holmes. Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals, making his name almost ubiquitous in the modern environmental consciousness. According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified the archetype of our oneness with the earth, 12] while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was ...saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism. On April 21, 2013, the first ever John Muir Day was celebrated in Scotland, which marked the 175th anniversary of his birth, paying homage to the conservationist.

Louis D. Brandeis was a Supreme Court Justice and a patriot. He wrote Other People's Money and How Bankers Use It to warn the American people about the greedy bankers that control the United States and drive us into financial ruin. The book attacked the use of investment funds to promote the consolidation of various industries under the control of a small number of corporations, which Brandeis alleged were working in concert to prevent competition. Brandeis harshly criticized investment bankers who controlled large amounts of money deposited in their banks by middle-class people.

The heads of these banks, Brandeis pointed out, routinely sat on the boards of railroad companies and large industrial manufacturers of various products, and routinely directed the resources of their banks to promote the interests of their own companies. These companies, in turn, sought to maintain control of their industries by crushing small businesses and stamping out innovators who developed better products to compete against them. Brandeis supported his contentions with a discussion of the actual dollar amounts--in millions of dollars--controlled by specific banks, industries, and industrialists such as J. P. Morgan, noting that these interests had recently acquired a far larger proportion of American wealth than corporate entities had ever had before. He extensively cited testimony from a Congressional investigation performed by the Pujo Committee, named after Louisiana Representative Ars ne Pujo, into self-serving and monopolistic business dealing. Chapter V of the book (What Publicity Can Do) contains in its opening section a well-known line that has frequently been cited in support of regulation through disclosure obligations: Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is a Stephen Leacock book, first published in 1912. It is generally considered to be one of the most enduring classics of Canadian humorous literature. The fictional setting for these stories is Mariposa, a small town on the shore of Lake Wissanotti. Although drawn from his experiences in Orillia, Ontario, Leacock notes: Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of them. You may find them all the way from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square streets and the same maple trees and the same churches and hotels.

This work has remained popular for its universal appeal. Many of the characters, though modelled on townspeople of Orillia, are small town archetypes. Their shortcomings and weaknesses are presented in a humorous but affectionate way. Often, the narrator exaggerates the importance of the events in Mariposa compared to the rest of the world. For example, when there is a country-wide election, the town of Mariposa, was, of course, the storm centre and focus point of the whole turmoil.

The story of the steamboat Mariposa Belle sinking in Lake Wissanotti is one of the best-loved in the set. The apparent magnitude of this accident is lessened somewhat when it is revealed that the depth of the water is less than six feet. Men from the town come to the rescue in an un-seaworthy lifeboat which sinks beneath them just as they are pulled onto the steamer, and the narrator earnestly remarks that this was one of the smartest pieces of rescue work ever seen on the lake.

The Tao Te Ching is a Chinese classic text traditionally credited to the 6th-century BC sage Laozi. The text's authorship, date of composition and date of compilation are debated. The oldest excavated portion dates back to the late 4th century BC, but modern scholarship dates other parts of the text as having been written--or at least compiled--later than the earliest portions of the Zhuangzi. 8]

The Tao Te Ching, along with the Zhuangzi, is a fundamental text for both philosophical and religious Taoism. It also strongly influenced other schools of Chinese philosophy and religion, including Legalism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which was largely interpreted through the use of Taoist words and concepts when it was originally introduced to China. Many artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and gardeners, have used the Tao Te Ching as a source of inspiration. Its influence has spread widely outside East Asia and it is among the most translated works in world literature.

The Great Apostasy Considered in the Light of Scriptural and Secular History is a 1909 book by James E. Talmage that summarizes the Great Apostasy, Mormon doctrine, from the viewpoint of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Talmage wrote his book with the intention that it be used as a teaching tool within the LDS Church's Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association and the Young Women's Mutual Improvement Association.

The book is in many ways quite derivative of B. H. Roberts's 1893 Outlines of Ecclesiastical History. Both writers borrowed heavily from the writings of Protestant scholars who argued that Roman Catholicism had apostatized from true Christianity. Talmage's book has been described as the most recognizable and noted work on the topic of Latter-day Saint views of the Great Apostasy.

What are the fundamental motives that explain the present rivalry of armaments in Europe, notably the Anglo-German? Each nation pleads the need for defence; but this implies that someone is likely to attack, and has therefore a presumed interest in so doing. What are the motives which each State thus fears its neighbors may obey?

They are based on the universal assumption that a nation, in order to find outlets for expanding population and increasing industry, or simply to ensure the best conditions possible for its people, is necessarily pushed to territorial expansion and the exercise of political force against others (German naval competition is assumed to be the expression of the growing need of an expanding population for a larger place in the world, a need which will find a realization in the conquest of English Colonies or trade, unless these are defended); it is assumed, therefore, that a nation's relative prosperity is broadly determined by its political power; that nations being competing units, advantage, in the last resort, goes to the possessor of preponderant military force, the weaker going to the wall, as in the other forms of the struggle for life.

The following Translation of Aristotle's History of Animals has been made from the text of Schneider. In a work of considerable difficulty it is hardly possible entirely to avoid errors; but it is hoped that those which have escaped are neither numerous nor important. The notes of Schneider have been consulted throughout; and in places of difficulty the English translation by Taylor, the French of Camus, and the German of Strack, have been severally referred to.

The work itself is the most ancient and celebrated contribution to science which has come down to us; and it is hardly possible, when we consider the means of observation which were accessible at the time, to imagine a work of more accurate observation. From the numerous quotations in which our author avails himself of the experience of his predecessors in the same field, as well as corrects their errors, there can be no doubt that Aristotle had the advantage of many works which have perished in the lapse of ages. In the Appendix to the present Translation will be found the Essay of Schneider on the sources whence Aristotle derived his knowledge of the animals he describes; and these sources, together with his own accurate observations, are probably sufficient to account for the correct knowledge of the history of animals displayed throughout the work.

It is right, perhaps, to observe in this place, that Dr. Smith, in his Dictionary of Biography, speaks of the 'History of Animals' as partly the result of the royal liberality of Alexander; and doubtless Aristotle would gladly have introduced into his work any fresh materials which might have been made available to him either during his residence at the Macedonian court, or by the subsequent victories of Alexander in the East, if the information so obtained had reached Athens in sufficient time to be incorporated. But in the first instance he would naturally use the materials ready to his hand in the works of his predecessors, and these were not few. The animals also which he describes are principally those of Greece and of the countries with which the enterprising Greeks had frequent and commercial intercourse. He says little of the animals of the interior of Asia and of India, and speaks very cautiously of such as he does mention; and one who quotes his authorities so freely would hardly have failed to notice the sources of his information.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue is a mystery story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been recognized as the first modern detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his tales of ratiocination. The story opens with a lengthy explanation of ratiocination. Dupin demonstrates his prowess by deducing his companion's thoughts as if through apparent supernatural power. The story then turns to the baffling double murder of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter at their home in the Rue Morgue, a fictional street in Paris. According to newspaper accounts, the mother was found in a yard behind the house, with multiple broken bones and her throat so deeply cut that her head fell off when the body was moved. The daughter was found strangled to death and stuffed upside down into a chimney. The murders occurred in a fourth-floor room that was locked from the inside; on the floor were found a bloody straight razor, several bloody tufts of gray hair, and two bags of gold coins. Several witnesses reported hearing two voices at the time of the murder, one male and French, but disagreed on the language spoken by the other. The speech was unclear, and every witness admits that he does not know the language he claims to have heard.Paris natives Dupin and his friend, the unnamed narrator of the story, read these newspaper accounts with interest. The two live in seclusion and allow no visitors. They have cut off contact with former associates and venture outside only at night.

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine, and reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856. A Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copy and any other task required of him, with the words I would prefer not to. Numerous essays have been published on what, according to scholar Robert Milder, is unquestionably the masterpiece of the short fiction in the Melville canon. Melville's major source for the story was an advertisement for a new book, The Lawyer's Story, printed in both the Tribune and the Times for 18 February 1853. The book was published anonymously later that year but in fact was written by popular novelist James A. Maitland. This advertisement included the complete first chapter, which had the following opening sentence: In the summer of 1843, having an extraordinary quantity of deeds to copy, I engaged, temporarily, an extra copying clerk, who interested me considerably, in consequence of his modest, quiet, gentlemanly demeanor, and his intense application to his duties. Melville biographer Hershel Parker points out that nothing else in the chapter besides this remarkably evocative sentence was notable. 3] Critic Andrew Knighton notes the debt of the story to an obscure work from 1846, Robert Grant White's Law and Laziness: or, Students at Law of Leisure. This source contains one scene and many characters -- including an idle scrivener -- that appear to have influenced Melville's narrative. 4] Melville may have written the story as an emotional response to the bad reviews garnered by Pierre, his preceding novel. Christopher Sten suggests that Melville found inspiration in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays, particularly The Transcendentalist which shows parallels to Bartleby. Bartleby is a scrivener--a kind of clerk or a copyist--who obstinately refuses to go on doing the sort of writing demanded of him. During the spring of 1851, Melville felt similarly about his work on Moby Dick. Thus, Bartleby may represent Melville's frustration with his own situation as a writer, and the story itself is about a writer who forsakes conventional modes because of an irresistible preoccupation with the most baffling philosophical questions. 7] Bartleby may also be seen to represent Melville's relation to his commercial, democratic society. 8 Melville made an allusion to the John C. Colt case in this short story. The narrator restrains his anger toward Bartleby, his unrelentingly difficult employee, by reflecting upon the tragedy of the unfortunate Adams and the still more unfortunate Colt and how poor Colt, being dreadfully incensed by Adams ...] was unawares hurled into his fatal act.

The Waste Land is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line^[B] poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of Eliot's The Criterion and in the United States in the November issue of The Dial. It was published in book form in December 1922. Among its famous phrases are April is the cruelest month, I will show you fear in a handful of dust, These fragments I have shored against my ruins and the Sanskrit mantra Shantih shantih shantih.^[C]

Eliot's poem combines the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King with vignettes of contemporary British society. Eliot employs many allusions to the Western canon: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare, Milton, Buddhist scriptures, the Hindu Upanishads and even a contemporary popular song, The Shakespearean Rag. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy featuring abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location, and time and conjuring a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures.

The poem is divided into five sections. The first, The Burial of the Dead, introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. The second, A Game of Chess, employs alternating narrations, in which vignettes of several characters address those themes experientially. The Fire Sermon, the third section, offers a philosophical meditation in relation to the imagery of death and views of self-denial in juxtaposition, influenced by Augustine of Hippo and Eastern religions. After a fourth section, Death by Water, which includes a brief lyrical petition, the culminating fifth section, What the Thunder Said, concludes with an image of judgment

Two Treatises of Government is a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise attacks patriarchalism in the form of sentence-by-sentence refutation of Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, while the Second Treatise outlines Locke's ideas for a more civilized society based on natural rights and contract theory. The book is a key foundational text in the theory of Liberalism.

This publication contrasts former political works by Locke himself. In Two Tracts on Government, written in 1660, Locke defends a very conservative position; however, Locke never published it. In 1669, Locke co-authored the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which endorses aristocracy, slavery and serfdom. Some dispute the extent to which the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina portray Locke's own philosophy, vs. that of the Lord proprietors of the colony; the document was a legal document written for and signed and sealed by the eight Lord proprietors to whom Charles II had granted the colony. In this context, Locke was only a paid secretary, writing it much as a lawyer writes a will.

Two Treatises was first published anonymously in December 1689 (following printing conventions of the time, its title page was marked 1690). Locke was dissatisfied with the numerous errors and complained to the publisher. For the rest of his life, he was intent on republishing the Two Treatises in a form that better reflected its intended meaning. Peter Laslett, one of the foremost Locke scholars, has suggested that Locke held the printers to a higher standard of perfection than the technology of the time would permit. Be that as it may, the first edition was indeed replete with errors. The second edition was even worse, in addition to being printed on cheap paper and sold to the poor. The third edition was much improved, but still deemed unsatisfactory by Locke. He manually corrected the third edition by hand and entrusted the publication of the fourth to his friends, as he died before it could be brought out.

Two Treatises is prefaced with Locke announcing what he aims to achieve, also mentioning that more than half of his original draft, occupying a space between the First and Second Treatises, has been irretrievably lost.^[9] Peter Laslett maintains that, while Locke may have added or altered some portions in 1689, he did not make any revisions to accommodate for the missing section; he argues, for example, that the end of the First Treatise breaks off in mid-sentence

Walden (first published in 1854 as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and-to some degree-a manual for self-reliance.^[

Walden details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.

Thoreau makes precise scientific observations of nature as well as metaphorical and poetic uses of natural phenomena. He identifies many plants and animals by both their popular and scientific names, records in detail the color and clarity of different bodies of water, precisely dates and describes the freezing and thawing of the pond, and recounts his experiments to measure the depth and shape of the bottom of the supposedly bottomless Walden Pond.

There has been much speculation as to why Thoreau went to live at the pond in the first place. E. B. White stated on this note, Henry went forth to battle when he took to the woods, and Walden is the report of a man torn by two powerful and opposing drives-the desire to enjoy the world and the urge to set the world straight, while Leo Marx noted that Thoreau's stay at Walden Pond was an experiment based on his teacher Emerson's method and of nature and that it was a report of an experiment in transcendental pastoralism.

Gitanjali is a collection of poems by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Literature, largely for the book. It is part of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. Its central theme is devotion & motto is 'I am here to sing thee songs.

The original Bengali collection of 156/157 poems was published on August 14, 1910. The English Gitanjali or Song Offerings is a collection of 103 English poems of Tagore's own English translations of his Bengali poems first published in November 1912 by the Indian Society of London. It contained translations of 53 poems from the original Bengali Gitanjali, as well as 50 other poems which were from his drama Achalayatan and eight other books of poetry -- mainly Gitimalya (17 poems), Naivedya (15 poems) and Kheya (11 poems).

The translations were often radical, leaving out or altering large chunks of the poem and in one instance fusing two separate poems (song 95, which unifies songs 89,90 of Naivedya). Tagore undertook the translations prior to a visit to England in 1912, where the poems were extremely well received. In 1913, Tagore became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, largely for the English Gitanjali.

The English Gitanjali became popular in the West, and was widely translated. The word gitanjali is composed from geet, song, and anjali, offering, and thus means - An offering of songs; but the word for offering, anjali, has a strong devotional connotation, so the title may also be interpreted as prayer offering of song.

William Butler Yeats wrote the introduction to the first edition of Gitanjali.

The Non-Christian Cross-An Enquiry into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion is a classic religious studies text by John Denham Parsons. In the thousand and one works supplied for our information upon matters connected with the history of our race, we are told that Alexander the Great, Titus, and various Greek, Roman, and Oriental rulers of ancient days, crucified this or that person; or that they crucified so many at once, or during their reign. And the instrument of execution is called a cross.

This was, however, by no means necessarily the case.

For instance, the death spoken of, death by the _stauros_, included transfixion by a pointed stauros or stake, as well as affixion to an unpointed stauros or stake; and the latter punishment was not always that referred to.

It is also probable that in most of the many cases where we have no clue as to which kind of stauros was used, the cause of the condemned one's death was transfixion by a pointed stauros.

Moreover, even if we could prove that this very common mode of capital punishment was in no case that referred to by the historians who lived in bygone ages, and that death was in each instance caused by affixion to, instead of transfixion by, a stauros, we should still have to prove that each stauros had a cross-bar before we could correctly describe the death caused by it as death by crucifixion.

Canadian Wonder Tales is a collection of classic Canadian folklore stories by Cyrus MacMillan. The tales in this collection have been gathered in various parts of Canada. They have been selected from a larger collection of folk-tales and folk-songs made by the writer for more academic and scientific purposes. They are not the product of the writer's imagination; they are the common possession of the folk. Many of them are still reverently believed by the Canadian Indians, and all are still told with seriousness around camp fires in forests and on plains, upon the sea and by cottage hearths.

This is the book of a soldier-student. Captain Macmillan interrupted his teaching work in Montreal to go overseas with one of our McGill Batteries, and from Somewhere in France he has asked me to stand sponsor for his volume.

The author's method resembles that followed by the brothers Grimm a century ago. He has taken down from the lips of living people, pretty much as they were given to him, a series of stories which obviously contain many elements that have been handed down by oral tradition from some far-off past. They are mostly animal stories, with all the usual features of magic and transformation, articulate speech on the part of the animals, and interchange of more or less kindly offices between man and beast.

The result is a collection of fables which--especially as illustrated by an eminent artist--will prove a very acceptable Christmas book for children, and will give their elders also some food for reflection. Not that there is, so far as I have been able to discover, any moral about some at least of the tales. They are not stories with a purpose. But they suggest to the adult reader the essential identity of many of the methods by which in a more or less remote antiquity the human race expressed itself in various parts of the world.

The Story of My Boyhood and Youth is a stirring autobiography by the great American naturalist, John Muir.When I was a boy in Scotland I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness, though most of the land lay in smooth cultivation.John Muir (April 21, 1838 - December 24, 1914) also known as John of the Mountains and Father of the National Parks, was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States.

His letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism has helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mile (340 km) John Muir Trail, a hiking trail in the Sierra Nevada, was named in his honor. Other such places include Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir, Muir Grove, and Muir Glacier. In Scotland, the John Muir Way, a 130-mile-long route, was named in honor of him.In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, The Treasures of the Yosemite and Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park; this helped support the push for U.S. Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park.

The story concerns the love and marriage of a young girl, Mashechka (17 years old), and the much older Sergey Mikhaylych (36), an old family friend. The story is narrated by Masha. After a courtship that has the trappings of a mere family friendship, Masha's love grows and expands until she can no longer contain it. She reveals it to Sergey Mikhaylych and discovers that he also is deeply in love. If he has resisted her it was because of his fear that the age difference between them would lead the very young Masha to tire of him. He likes to be still and quiet, he tells her, while she will want to explore and discover more and more about life. Ecstatically and passionately happy, the pair immediately engages to be married. Once married they move to Mikhaylych's home. They are both members of the landed Russian upper class. Masha soon feels impatient with the quiet order of life on the estate, notwithstanding the powerful understanding and love that remains between the two. To assuage her anxiety, they decide to spend a few weeks in St. Petersburg. Sergey Mikhaylych agrees to take Masha to an aristocratic ball. He hates society but she is enchanted with it. They go again, and then again. She becomes a regular, the darling of the countesses and princes, with her rural charm and her beauty. Sergey Mikhaylych, at first very pleased with Petersburg society's enthusiasm for his wife, frowns on her passion for society; but he does not try to influence Masha. Out of respect for her, Sergey Mikhaylych will scrupulously allow his young wife to discover the truth about the emptiness and ugliness of society on her own. But his trust in her is damaged as he watches how dazzled she is by this world. Finally they confront each other about their differences. They argue but do not treat their conflict as something that can be resolved through negotiation. Both are shocked and mortified that their intense love has suddenly been called into question. Something has changed. Because of pride, they both refuse to talk about it. The trust and the closeness are gone. Only courteous friendship remains. Masha yearns to return to the passionate closeness they had known before Petersburg. They go back to the country. Though she gives birth to children and the couple has a good life, she despairs. They can barely be together by themselves. Finally she asks him to explain why he did not try to guide and direct her away from the balls and the parties in Petersburg. Why did they lose their intense love? Why don't they try to bring it back? His answer is not the answer she wants to hear, but it settles her down and prepares her for a long life of comfortable Family Happiness

Life of Chopin is classical music biography that represents the definitive account of the life of the great Polish pianist/composer, Frederic Chopin. The story is told by his friend and colleague, the legendary Hungarian pianist, Franz Liszt-the ideal man to relate the brief, but brilliant life of Chopin. Liszt's proximity to the subject and insightful accounts make this Chopin biography resonate as few can. Frederic Francois Chopin (1 March 1810 - 17 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation. Chopin was born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin n 1] in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. At 21, he settled in Paris. Thereafter--in the last 18 years of his life--he gave only 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and by giving piano lessons, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his other musical contemporaries (including Robert Schumann). In 1835, Chopin obtained French citizenship. After a failed engagement to Maria Wodzirska from 1836 to 1837, he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer Amantine Dupin (known by her pen name, George Sand). A brief and unhappy visit to Majorca with Sand in 1838-39 would prove one of his most productive periods of composition. In his final years, he was supported financially by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. For most of his life, Chopin was in poor health. He died in Paris in 1849 at the age of 39, probably of tuberculosis. All of Chopin's compositions include the piano. Most are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some 19 songs set to Polish lyrics