Passages from the Life of a Philosopher


Lu par LibriVox Volunteers

Some men write their lives to save themselves from ennui, careless of the amount they inflict on their readers.
Others write their personal history, lest some kind friend should survive them, and, in showing off his own talent, unwittingly show them up.
Others, again, write their own life from a different motive—from fear that the vampires of literature might make it their prey.
I have frequently had applications to write my life, both from my countrymen and from foreigners. Some caterers for the public offered to pay me for it. Others required that I should pay them for its insertion; others offered to insert it without charge. One proposed to give me a quarter of a column gratis, and as many additional lines of eloge as I chose to write and pay for at ten-pence per line. To many of these I sent a list of my works, with the remark that they formed the best life of an author; but nobody cared to insert them.
I have no desire to write my own biography, as long as I have strength and means to do better work.
The remarkable circumstances attending those Calculating Machines, on which I have spent so large a portion of my life, make me wish to place on record some account of their past history. As, however, such a work would be utterly uninteresting to the greater part of my countrymen, I thought it might be rendered less unpalatable by relating some of my experience amongst various classes of society, widely differing from each other, in which I have occasionally mixed.
This volume does not aspire to the name of an autobiography. It relates a variety of isolated circumstances in which I have taken part—some of them arranged in the order of time, and others grouped together in separate chapters, from similarity of subject.
The selection has been made in some cases from the importance of the matter. In others, from the celebrity of the persons concerned ; whilst several of them furnish interesting illustrations of human character. - Summary by From the Preface (15 hr 28 min)

Chapitres

Dedication and Preface 3:39 Lu par Lynne T
My Ancestors 10:04 Lu par Lynne T
Childhood 17:10 Lu par amitsharma
Boyhood 13:49 Lu par amitsharma
Cambridge 30:15 Lu par Kathleen Moore
Difference Engine No. 1 Part 1 28:06 Lu par realisticspeakers
Difference Engine No. 1 Part 2 29:39 Lu par realisticspeakers
Statement relative to the Difference Engine, drawn up by the late Sir H. Nicola… 54:10 Lu par Ellies
Difference Engine No. 2 28:34 Lu par Ellies
Of the Analytical Engine Part 1 34:48 Lu par Chris Cartwright
Of the Analytical Engine Part 2 29:00 Lu par Availle
Of the Mechanical Notation 9:25 Lu par Availle
The Exhibition of 1862 38:14 Lu par Lynne T
The Late Prince Consort 8:14 Lu par Lynne T
Recollections of the Duke of Wellington 24:24 Lu par Kathleen Moore
Recollections of Wollaston, Davy, and Rogers 17:55 Lu par Lynne T
Recollections of Laplace, Biot, and Humboldt 20:26 Lu par Gillian Hendrie
Experience by Water 13:13 Lu par Stephen Harvey
Experience by Fire 25:16 Lu par Stephen Harvey
Experience Amongst Workmen 8:04 Lu par Stephen Harvey
Picking Locks and Deciphering 17:31 Lu par Jon Scott Jones
Experience in St. Giles’s 16:35 Lu par Jon Scott Jones
Theatrical Experience 15:06 Lu par Jon Scott Jones
Electioneering Experience 29:50 Lu par Thomas Trask
Scene from a New After-Piece 31:51 Lu par Richard Garifo
Experience at Courts 10:46 Lu par ChadH94
Experience at Courts 31:08 Lu par Jane Bennett
Railways 38:51 Lu par Stephen Harvey
Street Nuisances 42:53 Lu par Stephen Harvey
Wit 16:11 Lu par Dale Grothmann
Hints for Travellers 29:18 Lu par Colleen McMahon
Miracles 22:31 Lu par ClaudiaSterngucker
Religion 21:07 Lu par Kathleen Moore
A Vision 32:23 Lu par Kathleen Moore
Various Reminiscences 17:04 Lu par Kathleen Moore
The Author’s Cont­ri­bu­tions to Human Knowledge 22:30 Lu par William Allan Jones
The Author’s further Cont­ri­bu­tions to Human Knowledge Part 1 32:00 Lu par William Allan Jones
The Author’s further Cont­ri­bu­tions to Human Knowledge Part 2 31:57 Lu par William Allan Jones
Results of Science 16:05 Lu par Thomas Trask
Agreeable Recollections 8:02 Lu par Dale Grothmann