Jeanne d’Arc (Joan the Arc) is a national heroine of France who asserted that she had visions from God which instructed her to recover her homeland France from English domination. She led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years’s War. "Since the writing of human history, Jeanne d’Arc is the only person, of either sex, who has ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the age of seventeen"
Eight women ranging in age from early sixties to mid eighties recollect their stories through the twin filters of emotion and memory. The broad diversity of this group of writers - their ethnicity, race, class, religion, and political and sexual orientations reflect the diversity of women's lives throughout the twentieth century. Their stories cover a wide range of their anguish and confusion as young women coming of age, their personal encounters with prejudice, their coming to terms with mortality and loss, and their resisting the pressures of the culture to define what their role as women should be. Their stories are told with honesty, humor and without self-pity taking the reader into intimate and universal worlds.
This book deals with the general intelligence of Bees and Wasps; their powers of Communication; powers of special sense, memory and emotions; their general habits in architecture, wars... "Those who have stored honey in their houses understand very well how important it is to prevent a single bee from discovering its location. Such discovery is sure to be followed by a general onslaught from the hive unless all means of access is prevented... According to De Fravière, bees have a number of different notes or tones which they emit from the stigmata of the thorax and abdomen, and by which they communicate information. As soon as a bee arrives with important news, it is at once surrounded, emits two or three shrill notes, and taps a comrade with its long, flexible, and very slender feelers, or antennæ. The friend passes on the news in similar fashion, and the intelligence soon traverses the whole hive. If it is of an agreeable kind-if, for instance, it concerns the discovery of a store of sugar or of honey, or of a flowering meadow-all remains orderly. But, on the other hand, great excitement arises if the news presages some threatened danger, or if strange animals are threatening invasion of the hive. It seems that such intelligence is conveyed first to the queen, as the most important person in the state...
This book deals with the general history of three greats conquerors Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus and Alexander. Nebuchadnezzar was the King of the Babylonian Empire considered as the third great empire of the history. Cyrus was the first Persian conqueror; founder of the ancient Persian Empire. Alexander was the king of the Greek Empire; one of the great conquerors of the history.
Clovis came to rule over a larger country than any Gaulish chief had ever done and it was a country which was worth governing. He called himself King of the Franks, but I think you had better emember him by the title which fits him best that of the First King of France. The baptism of Clovis, which implied the general conversion of the Franks to Christianity, set the crown on a century of striking successes for the Western Church. Who really was Clovis the founder of Frank Monarchy?
Why do birds sing? Has their music a meaning, or is it all a matter of blind impulse? Some bright morning in March, as you go out-of-doors, you are greeted by the notes of the first robin. Perched in a leafless tree, there he sits, facing the sun like a genuine fire-worshiper, and singing as though he would pour out his very soul. What is he thinking about? What spirit possesses him?... Birds sing when they are happy, and cry out when they are frightened, just as children do. Only they have songs and cries of their own. You can always tell when the little song-birds are happy, for each one trills out his joyous notes as he sits on a branch of a tree, or the top of a hedge.
This book deals with the intelligence of the elephants, their emotions and memory. The higher mental faculties of the elephant are more advanced in their development than in any other animal, except the dog and monkey... "The elephant is the largest living land animal. Though numerous forms existed in early geological times, it is represented today by two species only: the African elephant, and the Asiatic elephant. The African elephant differs from its Asiatic cousin in several particulars. The apparent distinguishing features are the tusks that attain a much greater development and occur in both sexes, while in the Asiatic species the males alone possess them. The African elephant is at least a foot higher than the Asiatic, attaining a maximum height of eleven feet. Its ears are extremely large, covering the shoulder, and in some instances measuring three and a half feet in length by two and a half feet in width, while those of its Indian relative are comparatively small."...
The Natchez are a tribe of American Indians who lived in the area of the present town of Natchez in Mississippi. The Natchez were people inhabiting that part of America called Florida by the first discoverers. They came originally from Mexico, and closely resembled the Aztecs, both in appearance and habits. Possessing none of the roving disposition common to the savage, their houses, furniture, and domestic implements were comparatively comfortable and convenient. We are told that their houses were gathered together into towns, and resembled farm-houses in Spain, being surrounded with bake-houses, granaries, etc., showing a nation no longer in the hunter state, but attached to the soil, with all the corresponding effects of a life advanced a step toward civilization...
