Passages from the Life of a Philosopher


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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)

Kapitel

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