Autobiography Memories and Experiences, Volume 2


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In this insightful second volume of his autobiography, Moncure Daniel Conway reflects on his life during a transformative period in American history, spanning from the Civil War to the early 20th century. As an abolitionist and Unitarian clergyman, Conway's experiences offer a unique perspective on the social and political upheavals of his time.

Conway delves into his personal journey, sharing encounters with notable figures and the challenges he faced as he navigated the complexities of a nation in flux. His narrative not only chronicles his own life but also serves as a lens through which to view the broader historical context of the era.

This volume is a rich tapestry of memories and reflections, providing listeners with an engaging exploration of themes such as social justice, faith, and the pursuit of equality. Conway's eloquent prose invites readers to consider the enduring impact of these issues, making it a significant contribution to the understanding of American history.

Chapters

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Chapter 28 part 1 - Discussions in London concerning slavery and the Negro - Testimonies Concerning Slavery - Commemoration of John Brown - Charles Dickens - The Shakespeare tercentenary at Stratford-on-Avon 22:55 Read by Guero
Chapter 28 part 2 - Death of Emerson - Dr Strauss - Residence at Notting Hill - J.S Mill - Helen Taylor 20:03 Read by JoeD
Chapter 29 part 1 - My reviews of Browning - The wrapper of his poems - Carlyle’s account of the marriage of the Brownings - Browning’s father - “Mr. Sludge, the Medium” - Margaret Fuller Ossoli 16:33 Read by KHand
Chapter 29 part 2 - The sisters Eliza and Sarah Flower, Browning and W.J. Fox - Tennyson at Farringford - Mrs. Cameron - “The Promise of May” - Tennyson’s dread of agnosticism and orthodoxy 34:52 Read by Larry Wilson
Chapter 30 part 1 - Settlement at South Place chapel - London City in 1864 - Executions at the Old Bailey - Open air debates at Smithfield - G.J. Holyoake - Collet - Letter from Horace Greeley 17:41 Read by Lucretia B.
Chapter 30 part 2 - Unitarianism in England - J.J. Taylor - Martineau - Comparison of Martineau and Emerson - Dr. Aspland - My new Christ - Collectivist deity - The ethics of skepticism - W.J. Fox 33:07 Read by Lucretia B.
Chapter 31 part 1 - The Taylors of Aubrey House - “Pen and Pencil Club” - The Hon. James Stansfeld, M.P. - Mazzini - Gallenga - Garibaldi in England - Hustling Garibaldi out of England 18:09 Read by Lynne T
Chapter 31 part 2 - Mazzini’s talks and letters - Mazzini’s religion - Carlyle’s talk about Mazzini - Karl Blind - Ferdinand Blind’s attempt on Bismark - Mathilde Blind 16:16 Read by Lynne T
Chapter 32 part 1 - Parliament - Broughham, Russel, Derby, Dufferin - Aristocracy - Robert Lowe - Shaftesbury - Disraeli - Palmerson - Bulwer 29:09 Read by Margaret Espaillat
Chapter 32 part 2 - Gladstone - Cobden - His acquaintance with Jefferson Davis - Cobden’s death - The funeral of Palmerson - The death of President Lincoln - Letters from Sumner - His attack on England 34:24 Read by Guero
Chapter 33 part 1 - Lord Rector Carlyle in Edinburgh - The address - Dinner at Erskine’s - Carlyle talks of his life - Talk with Dr. Carlyle 25:02 Read by Margaret Espaillat
Chapter 33 part 2 - Lord Neave, Dundas, Carlyle - Dr William Smith - Robert Chambers - Death of Mrs. Carlyle - Ruskin and Carlyle - The Kingsleys - John Burroughs and Carlyle about birds 32:08 Read by Margaret Espaillat
Chapter 34 part 1 - Ruskin - Carlyle and Ruskin - Ruskin’s lectures - Contemporary art - “A Caution to Snakes” - The Rossettis - Dante Rossetti’s “Nonsense Verses” - Rossetti’s “Mary Virgin” 23:58 Read by Margaret Espaillat
Chapter 34 part 2 - “Mary Magdalene” - Rev.Dr. Storrs - “The Gate of Memory” - Dante and Beatrice - “The fall of the leaf” - Religion and Preraphaelists - Holman Hunt - Ford and Oliver Madox Brown 27:28 Read by Margaret Espaillat
Chapter 35 part 1 - “Artimus Ward” - Tom Robertson - Allingham - Mrs. Allingham and Carlyle - Charles Dickens 14:21 Read by Michele Fry
Chapter 35 part 2 - Mark Twain - Lord Lytton - Church and Stage Guild - Toole - Joseph Jefferson - the “Daily News” - U.S. Minister Johnson - Motley - Sir Henry Taylor - Lady Taylor - Wordsworth and Tennyson 37:10 Read by Michele Fry
Chapter 35 part 3 - Mrs. Call and George Eliot - Mrs. Bray of Coventry - Emerson - Omar Khayyam Club - Edward Fitzgerald - George Eliot and G.H. Lewes - Mark Twain in London - Dr. and Mrs. Humphrey Sandwith 28:35 Read by Michele Fry
Chapter 36 part 1 - Paris - Exposition 1867 - Emperor and Empress - Maximilian - July 4 - Tallandier - Ledru Rollin - Louis Blanc - Anti-Russian feeling 21:15 Read by Michele Fry
Chapter 36 part 2 - Stockholm - St. Petersburg - Moscow - Professor Buslaef - Eugene Schuyler - Baronial hospitality - Among the peasants - Traveling with the Czar - Nijni-Novgorod Fair 14:44 Read by Michele Fry
Chapter 37 - London scientific circle - Fossil man - Kent’s Cave - A phenomenal mummy - The burial of Lyell in the Abbey - Sir William Grove - Professor Tyndall - Professor Huxley - Sir Joseph and Lady Hooker - Scientific maidens - My Glastonbury thorn - A geological ramble in the Weald 28:11 Read by Michele Fry
Chapter 38 part 1 - James Anthony Froude - Working with Froude on “Fraser’s magazine” - His early experiences-Letters of Froude - Scepticism - Experiences in Ireland - Froude’s biography of Carlyle 24:10 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 38 part 2 - The funeral of Carlyle - Two serious errors in the biography of Carlyle - Impressions of Mrs. Carlyle - My love of Froude 17:40 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 39 part 1 - Belgium at the outbreak of the Franco-German war (1870) - Paris and the theatrical war - Strasburg camps - Basle - The International League - Freiburg - The female telegraph corps 29:50 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 39 part 2 - Rastadt, Carlsruhe, in war time - The King and Bismarck at St. Avold - The battle of Gravelotte - Otto Gunther - A dreadful night - Travelling on the car roof -“Bonaparte in Hell” 32:53 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 40 - The fete of victory at Berlin - Barbarossa tableaux at the opera - Fran Lewald - Lepsius and his circle - Curtius - Wagner’s “Rienzi” at Munich - Kaulbach - Rev. Thomas Arnold the younger - George Meredith 26:31 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 41 part 1 - First visit to Rome - An effaced fresco - Catholic piety - Signor Rosa - General Sherman - Hiram Powers - Professor Villari - Trouville - George Sand - “Republican Superstitions” - The French Constitution - French “Communards” in London 29:41 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 41 part 2 - Elie Réclus - General De Cecilia - The dead Napoleon - Battlefields revisited - Henry Bacon - The centenary of Voltaire at Paris - Visit to Victor Hugo - The menace of war in England (1878) - Letter from Gladstone 28:29 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 42 - George Peabody - Sir Sydney Waterlow - “Fairseat” and “Lauderdale” houses - Julia Ward Howe in London - Professor Seeley - Mrs. Duncan Maclaren - Garrison at a woman suffrage meeting in London - The poet R.H. Horne 30:23 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 43 - Visit to America - Washington - Welcome in Virginia - Cinders of the War - Visit to our family Negroes in Yellow Springs - A colored folks’ banquet - My lecture on Demonology - visions of the devil - Lecturing in the West 29:32 Read by Roger Melin
Chapter 44 - Max Müller at Oxford - His services to mankind - His tolerance - Max Müller and the phonograph - Personal traits - Extracts from letters - Professor Whitney - Bayard Taylor meets Max Müller 22:51 Read by JoeD
Chapter 45 part 1 - Dr. Jowett at Balliol, 1863 - The national Church - Bishop Tait and Martineau - Matthew Arnold - Rev. Stopford Brooke - The English clergy 18:01 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 45 part 2 - A walk with Rev. Phillips Brooks and Dean Stanley in Westminster Abbey - Bishop Colenso - “The Sacred Anthology” - “Vox Populi” - Max Müller and my Anthology - “The Earthward Pilgrimage” 19:11 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 46 part 1 - Anthropology - Museum at Oxford - Admission of women to membership of the Anthropological Institute - Hunting for flint arrows - ancient coins - Exploring barrows - Contemporary Stone and bronze Ages - Faraday 18:19 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 46 part 2 - Helmholtz in London - Psychological wonders - A.J. Ellis on language - J.M. Spear - London school for spirit mediums - Irvingites and their heretics - George Macdonald as Bunyan’s Christian 14:01 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 47 part 1 - Sorby and the spectrum - An excursion with Herbert Spencer - Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) - A strange sect in Scotland - A Dutch criticism on my ministry - My “Earthward Pilgrimage” 16:03 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 47 part 2 - A visit to Darwin - Darwin in his garden and laboratory - Blank misgivings - The funeral of Darwin - A French Catholic on Darwinism - Science and ethics - The popular reverence for science 22:14 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 48 part 1 - Residence at Hamlet House - Sir Charles and Lady Dilke - W.L. Garrison’s visit - Ex-President Grant in London - Wagner in London - “Hugh Conway” - Ballad of Bedford Park 20:06 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 48 part 2 - Edwin Abbey - Cambridge University - Minister Lowell and Selwyn College - Karl Pearson’s Passion Play - Positivist festivals - Dr. Congreve - Frederic Harrison and his wife - Frederic Harrison 19:31 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 49 part 1 - London as Mars Hill - Professor Clifford’s apostolate - The Liberal Congress - Clifford’s notes for the congress - The Association - Mohammed Bakher - “Ion’s cartoon of the National Church 23:14 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 49 part 2 - The death of Clifford - The Church and Freethought Congresses in England - Dr. Ludwig Buchner - Max Müller on Atheism - Renan in London - The Channing Centenary - Kuenen’s lectures in London 27:04 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 50 - Carlyle-Emerson letters - Their theft - Their recovery - Letter from Sir James Stephen - Letter from Emerson 13:25 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 51 part 1 - Memoranda - Sara Hennell and George Eliot - Berlin - Herman Grimm - Bismark - Hon. Alphonzo Taft in Russia - A saying of Jesus 16:04 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 51 part 2 - The mythical pall-bearer of Shakespeare - “Prisons of Air” - “Edmund Randolph” - Historic studies - Andrew Carnegie - Helen Jackson - “Life of Hawthorne” - Thomas Davidson - Rome - Centenary of South Palace chapel 24:27 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 51 part 3 - Life of Thomas Paine - Personal liberty - Letters from Herbert Spencer - My wife’s death - Translating my “Paine” into French - Letter from Frances Power Cobbe 23:49 Read by Arlene Joyce
Chapter 51 part 4 - Hawthorne centennial at Concord - Paris as a haven of the disillusioned 27:14 Read by Arlene Joyce