Classic British and American Essays and Speeches (page two)

From the works of Francis Bacon and Daniel Defoe to those of Virginia Woolf and Martin Luther King, Jr., 100 of the greatest essays and speeches by British and American writers over the past four centuries.

• Henry Adams to Benjamin Franklin (page one)
• Thomas Fuller to H.L. Mencken (below)
• Alice Meynell to W.B. Yeats (page three)

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)

• Of Anger
  "To be angry for every toy debases the worth of thy anger."

John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

• Quality
  "I will say that for him: not a man in London made a better boot!"

Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774)

• On National Prejudices
  "I should prefer the title of . . . a citizen of the world."

Robert Graves (1895-1985)

• Goodbye to All That
  "My breaking point was near now, unless something happened to stave it off."

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

• The Haunted Mind
  "In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon."

William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

• On Familiar Style
  "Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style."


• On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth
  "Life is indeed a strange gift, and its privileges are most mysterious."

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

• Camping Out
  "Any man of average office intelligence can make at least as good a pie as his wife."

Maurice Hewlett (1861-1923)

• The Maypole and the Column
  "Journalism loves the particular, but literature must hold fast to the general."

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)

• Getting Up on Cold Mornings
  "Some people say it is a very easy thing to get up of a cold morning."

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)

• How It Feels to Be Colored Me
  "I remember the very day that I became colored."


• Reading Quiz on "How It Feels to Be Colored Me"

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)

• A Liberal Education
  "Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game."

William James (1842-1910)

• The Essence of Humanism
  "There is a stage of thought that goes beyond common sense."


• On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake
  "I felt no trace whatever of fear; it was pure delight and welcome."

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

• The Declaration of Independence
  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

• Outcasts in Salt Lake City
  "Our cabman . . . was probably the only compassionate soul we should meet in the whole city of the Latter-Day Saints."

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

• Conversation
  "It is always necessary to be loved, not always necessary to be reverenced."


• The Decay of Friendship
  "The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay."


• On Studies
  "[M]ethod is the excellence of writing, and unconstraint the grace of conversation."


• On the Style of Jonathan Swift
  "His style was well suited to his thoughts."

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

• Inaugural Address
  "Together let us explore the stars."

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

• I Have a Dream
  "Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."


• Reading Quiz on "I Have a Dream"

Charles Lamb (1775-1834)

• New Year's Eve
  "I am content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived."

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

• Give Her a Pattern
  "Modern woman isn’t really a fool. But modern man is."

Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)

• How to Live to Be 200
  "Just one word about fresh air and exercise. Don't bother with either of them."

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

• The Gettysburg Address
  "This nation shall have a new birth of freedom."


• Reading Quiz on the Gettysburg Address


• Second Inaugural Address
  "With malice toward none, with charity for all . . ."

Jack London (1876-1916)

• The Story of an Eyewitness: The San Francisco Earthquake
  "Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed."


• Reading Quiz on "The San Francisco Earthquake"

E.L. Lucas (1868-1938)

• The Town Week
  "Tuesday, the base craven, reconciles us to the machine."

Don Marquis (1878-1937)

• The Almost Perfect State
  "How is it that this hideous, halfbrute city is also beautiful and a fit habitation for demi-gods? How come?"

Henry Mayhew (1812-1887)

• The Watercress Girl
  "She don't often beat me; but, when she do, she don't play with me."

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

• The Hills of Zion
  "Dayton was having a roaring time. It was better than the circus."


• Reading Quiz on "The Hills of Zion"


• The Libido for the Ugly
  "Out of the melting pot emerges a race which hates beauty."


• Literature and the Schoolma'm
  "The essence of a sound style is that it cannot be reduced to rules."


• The Lower Depths
  "The worst idiots, even among pedagogues, are the teachers of English."


• The Nature of Liberty
  "Policemen are not given night-sticks for ornament."


• The Penalty of Death
  "What they want is the peace of mind that goes with the feeling that accounts are squared."


• The Style of Woodrow
  "He knew how to arrest and enchant the boobery with words."

Concluded on page three

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