Historical Reprints

A rare look into the personal lives of the French and other monarchies, how they lived, how they thought. The Duchesse d'Orleans, commonly though incorrectly styled the Princess of Bavaria, was known to have maintained a very extensive correspondence with her relations and friends in different parts of Europe. Nearly eight hundred of her letters, written to the Princess Wilhelmina Charlotte of Wales and the Duke Antoine-Ulric of Brunswick, were found amongst the papers left by the Duchess Elizabeth of Brunswick at her death, in 1767. These appeared to be so curious that the Court of Brunswick ordered De Praun, a Privy Councillor, to make extracts of such parts as were most interesting.

It is the natural right of every human being to be happy--to escape all the miseries of life. Happiness is the normal condition, as natural as the landscapes and the seasons. It is unnatural to suffer and it is only because of our ignorance that we do suffer. Happiness is the product of wisdom.

The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry is very interesting in itself. It is also a pregnant example of the contrast between the scientific and the emotional methods of regarding nature; and it admirably illustrates the differences between well-grounded, suggestive, hypotheses, and baseless speculations.
I have tried to tell the story so that it may be intelligible to the ordinary reader.

The work now offered to the public is an effort to develop and explain this philosophy and science. It will show that there are in Freemasonry the germs of profound speculation. If it does not interest the learned, it may instruct the ignorant. If so, I shall not regret the labor and research that have been bestowed upon its composition.

Thaumaturgia, the study of the working of miracles when the work is abstruse, anagogic, arcane, cabalistic, cryptic, enigmatical, esoteric, hidden, imaginary, impenetrable, inscrutable, magic, magical, metaphysical, mysterial, mysterious, mystical, necromantic, nonrational, numinous, occult, otherworldly, paranormal, preternatural, quixotic, sorcerous, spiritual, supernatural, telestic, transcendental, unaccountable, unknowable, visionary, witchlike, wizardly -- Thaumaturgia is a rarely used word, unfortunate since it encompasses so many concepts that healers and visionaries use, as well as preachers and charletans.

Dumas's 'Celebrated Crimes' was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language-has minced no words-to describe the violent scenes of a violent time.
One of the strangest stories is that of Urbain Grandier, the innocent victim of a cunning and relentless religious plot. His story was dramatised by Dumas, in 1850.

This book is a TGS Historical Reprint, first published in 1913

IN sending out this work, the author feels joy in being able to give a foundation from which many of life's problems may be solved. It is founded upon mathematical principles in the same manner as music is developed. Words are analyzed to find their exact place and meaning. There is no guess work to be found in this book concerning the gems. fruits, etc