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