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RANCE COMPANY OF HARTFORD, CONN.
Copyright 1891 BY THE TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY
CONTENTS
JONATHAN SWIFT WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY I. WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? II. SITE OF A UNIVERSITY III. UNIVERSITY LIFE AT ATHENS JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
THE STUDY OF POETRY MATTHEW ARNOLD
SESAME AND LILIES LECTURE I--SESAME: OF KINGS' TREASURIES LECTURE II--LILIES: OF QUEENS' GARDENS JOHN RUSKIN
JOHN MILTON WALTER BAGEHOT
SCIENCE AND CULTURE THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
RACE AND LANGUAGE EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE SAMUEL PEPYS ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
THE POETIC PRINCIPLE EDGAR ALLAN POE
WALKING HENRY DAVID THOREAU
ABRAHAM LINCOLN DEMOCRACY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the greatest of English novelists, was born at Calcutta, India, on July 18, 1811, where his father held an administrative position. He was sent to England at six for his education, which he received at the Charterhouse and Cambridge, after which he began, but did not prosecute, the study of law. Having lost his means, in part by gambling, he made up his mind to earn his living as an artist, and went to Paris to study. He had some natural gift for drawing, which he had already employed in caricature, but, though he made interesting and amusing illustrations for his books, he never acquired any marked technical skill.
He now turned to literature, and, on the strength of an appointment as Paris correspondent of a short-lived radical newspaper, he married. On the failure of the newspaper he took to miscellaneous journalism and the reviewing of books and pictures, his most important work appearing in "Fraser's Magazine" and "Punch." In 1840 his wife's mind became clouded, and, though she never recovered, she lived on till 1894.
Success came to Thackeray very slowly. "Ca