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[Assistant] He suggested a raid upon the Spartan colony of Syracuse in Sicily. An expedition was equipped, and everything was ready.


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[Assistant] And the few surviving Athenians were thrown into the stone quarries of Syracuse, where they died from hunger and thirst.


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[Assistant] The expedition had killed all the young men of Athens. The city was doomed.


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[Assistant] The high walls were demolished. The navy was taken away by the Spartans. Athens ceased to exist as the centre of the great colonial empire, which it had conquered during the days of its prosperity.


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[Assistant] But that wonderful desire to learn and to know and to investigate which had distinguished her free citizens during the days of greatness and prosperity did not perish with the walls and the ships. It continued to live. It became even more brilliant.


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[Assistant] End of chapter 19, read on October 10th, 2008 in San Diego, California.


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[Assistant] This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.


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[Assistant] For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Story of Mankind by Hendrik van Loon. Chapter 53. Napoleon.


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[Assistant] Napoleon was born in the year 1769, the third son of Carlo Maria Bonaparte.


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[Assistant] had for years been struggling to regain its independence, first of all from the Genoese, and after the middle of the 18th century from the French,


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[Assistant] Who had kindly offered to help the Corsicans in their struggle for freedom, and had then occupied the island for their own benefit.


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[Assistant] During the first twenty years of his life, young Napoleon was a professional Corsican patriot, a Corsican Sinn Feiner,


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[Assistant] But the French Revolution had unexpectedly recognized the claims of the Corsicans.


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[Assistant] And gradually Napoleon, who had received a good training at the military school of Brienne, drifted into the service of his adopted country. Although he never learned to spell French correctly, or to speak it without a broad Italian accent, he became a Frenchman.


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[Assistant] And killed more people and brought about more reforms and generally upset Europe to a greater extent than anybody, including Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, had ever managed to do.


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[Assistant] He was a little fellow and during the first years of his life his health was not very good. He never impressed anybody by his good looks and he remained to the end of his days very clumsy whenever he was obliged to appear at a social function.


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[Assistant] His essay was found to be next to the last, and he was number 15 out of 16 candidates.


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[Assistant] But he overcame all these difficulties through his absolute and unshakable belief in his own destiny and in his own glorious future. Ambition was the mainspring of his life. The thought of self


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[Assistant] And which recurred forever in the ornaments of his hastily constructed palaces.


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[Assistant] These desires carried Napoleon to a pinnacle of fame which no other man has ever reached.


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[Assistant] When he was a half pay lieutenant, young Bonaparte was very fond of the lives of famous men, which Plutarch, the Roman historian, had written.


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[Assistant] Napoleon seems to have been devoid of all those considerate and thoughtful sentiments which make men different from the animals.


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[Assistant] And after the fashion of Italian mothers, she knew how to rule her brood of children and command their respect.


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[Assistant] For a few years he was fond of Josephine, his pretty Creole wife, who was the daughter of a French officer of Martinique and the widow of the Viscount de Beauharnais.


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[Assistant] But the emperor divorced her when she failed to give him a son and heir.


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[Assistant] And married the daughter of the Austrian Emperor, because it seemed good policy.


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[Assistant] During the siege of Toulon, where he gained great fame as commander of a battery,


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[Assistant] And he quietly allowed his wounded in Syria to be chloroformed when he found it impossible to transport them to his ships.


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[Assistant] By a prejudiced court martial and to be shot contrary to all law on the sole ground that the bourbons needed a warning.


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[Assistant] He decreed that those German officers who were made prisoner while fighting for their country's independence should be shot against the nearest wall. And when Andreas Hofer, the Turulis hero, fell into his hands after a most heroic resistance, he was executed like a common traitor.


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[Assistant] In short, when we study the character of the Emperor, we begin to understand those anxious British mothers who used to drive their children to bed with the threat that Bonaparte, who ate little boys and girls for breakfast, would come and get them if they were not very good. And yet,


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[Assistant] Who looked after every other department of his army with the utmost care but neglected the medical service.


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[Assistant] Here I am, sitting at a comfortable table, loaded heavily with books, with one eye on my typewriter, and the other on Licorice the Cat, who has a great fondness for carbon paper.


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[Assistant] But should I happen to look out of the window, down upon Seventh Avenue, and should the endless procession of trucks and carts come to a sudden halt, and should I hear the sound of the heavy drums, and see the little man on his white horse in his old and much-worn green uniform,


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[Assistant] Then I don't know, but I am afraid that I would leave my books and the kitten and my home and everything else to follow him wherever he cared to lead.


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[Assistant] Millions of other people's grandfathers did it. They received no reward, but they expected none.


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[Assistant] They cheerfully gave legs and arms and lives to serve this foreigner.


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[Assistant] And stared quietly into space while they were rolling in the agony of death.


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[Assistant] I can only guess at one of the reasons. Napoleon was the greatest of actors, and the whole European continent was his stage.


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[Assistant] At all times and under all circumstances, he knew the precise attitude that would impress the spectators most.


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[Assistant] A sick man at the mercy of a dull and intolerable British governor, he held the center of the stage.


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[Assistant] After the defeat of Waterloo, no one outside of a few trusted friends ever saw the great emperor.


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[Assistant] The people of Europe knew that he was living on the island of Saint Helena. They knew that a British garrison guarded him day and night.


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[Assistant] They knew that the British fleet guarded the garrison which guarded the emperor on his farm at Longwood. But he was never out of the mind of either friend or enemy.


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[Assistant] To tell you of his great political reform of the French state, of his new codes of laws, which were adopted in most European countries, of his activities in every field of public activity, would take thousands of pages.


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[Assistant] But I can explain in a few words why he was so successful during the first part of his career and why he failed during the last ten years.


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[Assistant] From the year 1789 until the year 1804, Napoleon was the great leader of the French Revolution. He was not merely fighting for the glory of his own name.


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[Assistant] He defeated Austria and Italy and England and Russia because he, himself, and his soldiers were the apostles of the new creed of liberty, fraternity, and equality.


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[Assistant] And were the enemies of the courts, while they were the friends of the people.


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[Assistant] But in the year 1804, Napoleon made himself hereditary emperor of the French.


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[Assistant] Once upon the throne, the old revolutionary chieftain became an unsuccessful imitation of a Habsburg monarch.


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[Assistant] He forgot his spiritual mother, the political club of the Jacobins.


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[Assistant] He ceased to be the defender of the oppressed. He became the chief of all the oppressors and kept his shooting squads ready to execute those who dared to oppose his imperial will.


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[Assistant] No one had shed a tear when in the year 1806, the sad remains of the Holy Roman Empire were carted to the historical dustbin.


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[Assistant] had forced the Spaniards to recognize a king whom they detested.


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[Assistant] Then public opinion turned against the former hero of Marengo and Austerlitz and a hundred other revolutionary battles.


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[Assistant] The English people from the very beginning had felt deeply disgusted when their newspapers told them the gruesome details of the terror. They had staged their own great revolution, during the reign of Charles I, a century before.


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[Assistant] It had been a very simple affair compared to the upheaval of Paris. In the eyes of the average Englishman,


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[Assistant] It had spoiled Napoleon's plan to invade India by way of Egypt and had forced him to beat an ignominious retreat after his victories along the banks of the Nile. And finally, in the year 1805, England got the chance it had waited for so long.


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[Assistant] Near Cape Trafalgar, on the southwestern coast of Spain, Nelson annihilated the Napoleonic fleet, beyond a possible chance of recovery. From that moment on, the Emperor was landlocked. Even so,


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[Assistant] And accepted the honorable peace which the powers offered him.


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[Assistant] Did not share his father's affection for the usurper whom he regarded as the enemy of mankind, the eternal disturber of the peace.


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[Assistant] He was a pious man who believed that he had been chosen by God to deliver the world from the Corsican curse. He joined Prussia and England and Austria, and he was defeated. He tried five times, and five times he failed.


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[Assistant] In the year 1812, he once more taunted Napoleon.


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[Assistant] Until the French Emperor, in a blind rage, vowed that he would dictate peace in Moscow.


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[Assistant] Then, from far and wide, from Spain and Germany and Holland and Italy and Portugal, unwilling regiments were driven northward.


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[Assistant] When the evening of the fifth day came, Napoleon gave the order for the retreat. Two weeks later, it began to snow. The army trudged through mud and sleet until November the 26th, when the river Baratzena was reached.


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[Assistant] Then the Russian attacks began in all seriousness. The Cossacks swarmed around the Grend army, which was no longer an army, but a mob.


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[Assistant] In the middle of December, the first of the survivors began to be seen in the German cities of the East. Then there were many rumors of an impending revolt. The time has come, the people of Europe said.


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[Assistant] But ere they knew what had happened, Napoleon was back with a new army. He had left his defeated soldiers and in his little sleigh had rushed ahead to Paris, making a final appeal for more troops.


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[Assistant] Children of 16 and 17 followed him when he moved eastward to meet the allied powers.


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[Assistant] The massed reserves of Russian infantry broke through the French lines and Napoleon fled.


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[Assistant] Back to Paris he went. He abdicated in favor of his small son.


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[Assistant] The brother of the late King Louis XVI should occupy the French throne.


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[Assistant] And surrounded by Cossacks and Oolans, the dull-eyed Bourbon prince made his triumphal entry into Paris.


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[Assistant] As for Napoleon, he was made the sovereign ruler of the little island of Elba in the Mediterranean, where he organized his stable boys into a miniature army and fought battles on a chessboard.


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[Assistant] But no sooner had he left France than the people began to realize what they had lost. The last 20 years, however costly, had been a period of great glory. Paris had been the capital of the world.


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[Assistant] When the representatives of the Allies were ready to begin the work of unscrambling the map of Europe, Napoleon suddenly landed near Cannes.


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[Assistant] And had rushed southward to offer their swords and bayonets to the little corporal.


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[Assistant] Napoleon marched straight to Paris, where he arrived on the 20th of March. This time he was more cautious. He offered peace, but the Allies insisted upon war.


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[Assistant] Rapidly the Emperor marched northward, that he might crush his enemies before they should be able to unite their forces. But Napoleon was no longer his old self. He felt sick. He got tired easily.


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[Assistant] He slept when he ought to have been up directing the attack of his advance guard. Besides, he missed many of his faithful old generals. They were dead. Early in June his armies entered Belgium.


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[Assistant] On the 16th of that month, he defeated the Prussians under Bluecar.


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[Assistant] But a subordinate commander failed to destroy the retreating army as he had been ordered to do.


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[Assistant] Two days later, Napoleon met Wellington near Waterloo. It was the 18th of June, a Sunday.


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[Assistant] At two o'clock of the afternoon, the battle seemed won for the French.


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[Assistant] At three, a speck of dust appeared upon the eastern horizon.


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[Assistant] Napoleon believed that this meant the approach of his own cavalry, who would now turn the English defeat into a rout. At four o'clock, he knew better.


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[Assistant] Cursing and swearing, old Blucher drove his deathly tired troops into the heart of the fray. The shock broke the ranks of the guards. Napoleon had no further reserves. He told his men to save themselves as best they could, and he fled.


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[Assistant] Just one hundred days after his escape from Elba, he was making for the coast. He intended to go to America. In the year 1803, for a mere song, he had sold the French colony of Louisiana, which was in great danger of being captured by the English, to the young American Republic. The Americans, so he said, will be grateful, and will give me a little bit of land and a house,


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[Assistant] Caught between the armies of the Allies and the ships of the British, Napoleon had no choice. The Prussians intended to shoot him. The English might be more generous. At Rochefort he waited in the hope that something might turn up.


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[Assistant] One month after Waterloo, he received orders from the new French government to leave French soil inside of 24 hours.


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[Assistant] Always the tragedian, he wrote a letter to the Prince Regent of England, George IV. The King was in an insane asylum.


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[Assistant] Informing his Royal Highness of his intention to throw himself upon the mercy of his enemies, and like Themistocles, to look for a welcome at the fireside of his foes.


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[Assistant] On the 15th of July he went on board the Bellerophon and surrendered his sword to Admiral Hotham. At Plymouth he was transferred to the Northumberland, which carried him to St. Helena. There he spent the last seven years of his life.


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[Assistant] He tried to write his memoirs, he quarreled with his keepers, and he dreamed of pastimes.


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[Assistant] Curiously enough he returned, at least in his imagination, to his original point of departure.


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[Assistant] He liked to dwell upon his career as commander-in-chief and consul. He rarely spoke of the Empire.


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[Assistant] Who's fathers had trembled at the very mention of the name of him. When the end came, he was leading his troops to victory. He ordered Nay to attack with the guards. Then he died.


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[Assistant] But if you want an explanation of this strange career, if you really wish to know how one man could possibly rule so many people for so many years by the sheer force of his will, do not read the books that have been written about him.


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[Assistant] Their authors either hated the emperor or loved him. You will learn many facts, but it is more important to feel history than to know it.


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[Assistant] Don't read, but wait until you have a chance to hear a good artist sing the song called The Two Grenadiers.


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[Assistant] The words were written by Heine, the great German poet who lived through the Napoleonic era. The music was composed by Schumann, a German who saw the emperor, the enemy of his country, whenever he came to visit his imperial father-in-law.


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[Assistant] The song therefore is the work of two men who had every reason to hate the tyrant. Go and hear it.


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[Assistant] End of chapter 53, read by Kara Schellenberg on May 31, 2009, in San Diego, California.


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[Assistant] Chapter 51 of The Story of Mankind. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.


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[Assistant] Added a new chapter to the old story of the struggle for self-government.


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[Assistant] For the sake of convenience, we ought to go back a few centuries and repeat the early history of the great struggle for colonial possessions.


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[Assistant] As soon as a number of European nations had been created upon the new basis of national or dynastic interests, that is to say, during and immediately after the Thirty Years War, their rulers,


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[Assistant] Continue the fight for more territory in Asia, Africa, and America.


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[Assistant] The Spaniards and the Portuguese had been exploring the Indian Sea and the Pacific Ocean for more than a century, ere Holland and England appeared upon the stage. This proved an advantage to the latter. The first rough work had already been done.


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[Assistant] We cannot claim any superior virtues for either of these two races, but they were merchants before everything else.


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[Assistant] They never allowed religious considerations to interfere with their practical common sense.


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[Assistant] During their first relations with weaker races, all European nations have behaved with shocking brutality. The English and the Dutch, however, knew better where to draw the line.


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[Assistant] Provided they got their spices and their gold and silver and their taxes. They were willing to let the native live as it best pleased him.


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[Assistant] They were decided 3000 miles away by the navies of the contending countries.


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[Assistant] The nation which commands the sea is also the nation which commands the land. So far this law has never failed to work, but the modern airplane may have changed it. In the 18th century, however, there were no flying machines.


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[Assistant] It ended as all such encounters between hopelessly ill-matched powers will end. But the warfare between England and France, her other rival,


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[Assistant] is of greater importance to us, for while the superior British fleet in the end defeated the French Navy,


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[Assistant] In this vast country, both France and England claimed everything which had been discovered, and a lot more which the eye of no white man had ever seen.


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[Assistant] And twenty-seven years later, Giovanni Verrazano had visited these coasts. Cabot had flown the English flag. Verrazano had sailed under the French flag. Hence, both England and France


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[Assistant] There were usually a haven of refuge for some particular sect of English dissenters, such as the Puritans, who in the year 1620 went to New England


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[Assistant] or the Quakers who settled in Pennsylvania in 1681. They were small frontier communities


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[Assistant] Nestling close to the shores of the ocean, where people had gathered to make a new home,


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[Assistant] And begin life among happier surroundings, far away from royal supervision and interference.


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[Assistant] The French colonies, on the other hand, always remained a possession of the crown.


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[Assistant] No Huguenots or Protestants were allowed in these colonies.


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[Assistant] They were an expression of the commercial energy of the English middle classes.


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[Assistant] And who expected to return to Paris at the first possible chance?


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[Assistant] The French had discovered the mouth of the St. Lawrence in the 16th century.


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[Assistant] A line of 60 French forts cut off the English settlements along the Atlantic seaboard from the interior.


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[Assistant] The English land grants made to the different colonial companies had given them all land from sea to sea. This sounded well on paper.


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[Assistant] But in practice, British territory ended where the line of French fortifications began. To break through this barrier was possible


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[Assistant] But it took both men and money and caused a series of horrible border wars in which both sides murdered their white neighbors with the help of the Indian tribes.


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[Assistant] The stewards needed the Bourbons in their attempt to establish an autocratic form of government and to break the power of parliament.


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[Assistant] But in 1689, the last of the stewards had disappeared from British soil, and Dutch William, the great enemy of Louis XIV, succeeded him.


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[Assistant] During these wars, as I have said before, the English navies invariably beat the French.


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[Assistant] Cut off from her colonies, France lost most of her possessions and when peace was declared,


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[Assistant] And the great work of exploration of Cartier, Champlain, La Salle, Marquette, and a score of others was lost to France.


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[Assistant] And who therefore had found no happiness either in Anglican England or Calvinist Holland had landed in the year 1620 to the Carolinas and Virginia, the tobacco-raising provinces which had been founded entirely for the sake of profit.


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[Assistant] But the men who lived in this new land of fresh air and high skies were very different from their brethren of the mother country.


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[Assistant] And the lack of breathing space, which had made their lives in the old country so very unhappy. They meant to be their own masters.


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[Assistant] This, the ruling classes of England did not seem to understand. The government annoyed the colonists, and the colonists, who hated to be bothered in this way, began to annoy the British government. Bad feeling caused more bad feeling.


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[Assistant] And what might have been avoided if the British king had been more intelligent than George III.


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[Assistant] During most of that time, the final success of the rebels seemed very doubtful.


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[Assistant] A great number of the people, especially in the cities, had remained loyal to their king.


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[Assistant] They were in favor of a compromise, and would have been willing to sue for peace.


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[Assistant] But the great figure of Washington stood guard over the cause of the colonists.


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[Assistant] During the winter they lacked shoes and coats and were forced to live in unhealthy dugouts. But their trust in their great leader was absolute.


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[Assistant] Who was in Europe getting money from the French government and the Amsterdam bankers was an event which occurred early in the revolution.


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[Assistant] The representatives of the different colonies had gathered in Philadelphia to discuss matters of common importance. It was the first year of the revolution.


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[Assistant] Most of the big towns of the sea coast were still in the hands of the British. Reinforcements from England were arriving by the shipload.


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[Assistant] In June, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed a motion to the Continental Congress that


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[Assistant] These united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.


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[Assistant] The motion was seconded by John Adams of Massachusetts. It was carried on July the second and on July fourth


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[Assistant] Which was the work of Thomas Jefferson, a serious and exceedingly capable student of both politics and government


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[Assistant] When news of this event reached Europe and was followed by the final victory of the colonists and the adoption of the famous constitution of the year 1787, the first of all written constitutions, it cost great interest


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[Assistant] The dynastic system of the highly centralized states, which had been developed after the great religious wars of the 17th century, had reached the height of its power.


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[Assistant] While the cities of the royal realm were being surrounded by rapidly growing acres of slums.


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[Assistant] The inhabitants of those slums were showing signs of restlessness. They were quite helpless.


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[Assistant] But the higher classes, the nobles and the professional men, they too were beginning to have certain doubts


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[Assistant] About the economic and political conditions under which they live.


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[Assistant] According to the poet, the shot which opened the Battle of Lexington was heard around the world. That was a bit of an exaggeration. The Chinese and the Japanese and the Russians


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[Assistant] Not to speak of the Australians, who had just been rediscovered by Captain Cook, whom they killed for his trouble. Never heard of it at all. But it carried across the Atlantic Ocean. It landed in the powder house of European discontent.


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[Assistant] And in France it caused an explosion which rocked the entire continent from Petrograd to Madrid and buried the representatives of the old statecraft.


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[Assistant] End of chapter 51, read on May 31st, 2009 in San Diego, California.


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[Assistant] This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.


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[Assistant] The story of Moses, the leader of the Jewish people.


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[Assistant] Sometime during the 20th century before our era, a small and unimportant tribe of Semitic shepherds had left its old home.


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[Assistant] which was situated in the land of Ur on the mouth of the Euphrates


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[Assistant] They had been driven away by the royal soldiers, and they had moved westward, looking for a little piece of unoccupied territory where they might set up their tents.


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[Assistant] This tribe of shepherds was known as the Hebrews, or as we call them, the Jews.


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[Assistant] They had wandered far and wide, and after many years of dreary peregrinations, they had been given shelter in Egypt.


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[Assistant] For more than five centuries they had dwelt among the Egyptians, and when their adopted country had been overrun by the Hyksos Marauders, as I told you in the story of Egypt,


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[Assistant] But after a long war of independence, the Egyptians had driven the Hyksos out of the valley of the Nile, and then the Jews had come upon evil times, for they had been degraded to the rank of common slaves, and they had been forced to work on the royal roads and on the pyramids.


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[Assistant] And as the frontiers were guarded by the Egyptian soldiers, it had been impossible for the Jews to escape.


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[Assistant] After many years of suffering they were saved from their miserable fate by a young Jew called Moses, who for a long time had dwelt in the desert, and there had learned to appreciate the simple virtues of his earliest ancestors, who had kept away from cities and city life


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[Assistant] And had refused to let themselves be corrupted by the ease and the luxury of a foreign civilization.


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[Assistant] Moses decided to bring his people back to a love of the ways of the patriarchs. He succeeded in evading the Egyptian troops that were sent after him, and led his fellow tribesmen into the heart of the plain at the foot of Mount Sinai.


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[Assistant] During his long and lonely life in the desert, he had learned to revere the strength of the great god of the thunder and the storm, who ruled the high heavens, and upon whom the shepherds depended for life and light and breath.


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[Assistant] This god, one of the many divinities who were widely worshipped in western Asia, was called Jehovah.


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[Assistant] And through the teaching of Moses he became the sole master of the Hebrew race. One day Moses disappeared from the camp of the Jews.


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[Assistant] That afternoon, the top of the mountain was lost to sight.


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[Assistant] The darkness of a terrible storm hid it from the eye of man, but when Moses returned, behold, there stood engraved upon the tablets the words which Jehovah had spoken unto the people of Israel amidst the crash of his thunder and the blinding flashes of his lightning.


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[Assistant] And from that moment Jehovah was recognized by all the Jews as the highest master of their fate, the only true God who had taught them how to live holy lives when he bade them follow the wise lessons of his Ten Commandments.


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[Assistant] They followed Moses when he bade them continue their journey through the desert.


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[Assistant] They obeyed him when he told them what to eat and drink, and what to avoid, that they might keep well in the hot climate.


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[Assistant] And finally, after many years of wandering, they came to a land which seemed pleasant and prosperous.


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[Assistant] It was called Palestine, which means the country of the Philistines, a small tribe of Cretans who had settled along the coast after they had been driven away from their own island.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately the mainland, Palestine, was already inhabited by another Semitic race called the Canaanites.


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[Assistant] But the Jews forced their way into the valleys and built themselves cities, and constructed a mighty temple in a town which they named Jerusalem, the home of peace.


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[Assistant] As for Moses, he was no longer the leader of his people.


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[Assistant] He had been allowed to see the mountain ridges of Palestine from afar.


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[Assistant] Then he had closed his tired eyes for all time. He had worked faithfully and hard to please Jehovah


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[Assistant] Not only had he guided his brother and out of foreign slavery into the free and independent life of a new home, but he had also made the Jews the first of all nations to worship a single god.


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[Assistant] Chapter 48 of The Story of Mankind. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.


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[Assistant] He traveled by way of Berlin and went to Holland and to England.


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[Assistant] As a child, he had almost been drowned sailing a homemade boat in the duck pond of his father's country home. This passion for water remained with him to the end of his life.


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[Assistant] In a practical way, it showed itself in his wish to give his landlocked domains access to the open sea.


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[Assistant] The Friends of the Old Russian Ways in Moscow set to work to undo all his reforms.


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[Assistant] A sudden rebellion among his lifeguards, the Streltsy regiment, forced Peter to hasten home by the fast mail. He appointed himself executioner in chief.


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[Assistant] Sister Sophia, who had been the head of the rebellion, was locked up in a cloister, and the rule of Peter began in earnest. This scene was repeated in the year 1716, when Peter had gone on his second western trip.


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[Assistant] That time, the reactionaries followed the leadership of Peter's half-witted son, Alexis. Again, the Tsar returned in great haste. Alexis was beaten to death in his prison cell.


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[Assistant] And the friends of the old-fashioned Byzantine ways marched thousands of dreary miles to their final destination in the Siberian lead mines.


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[Assistant] After that, no further outbreaks of popular discontent took place. Until the time of his death, Peter could reform in peace.


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[Assistant] It is not easy to give you a list of his reforms in chronological order. The Tsar worked with furious haste. He followed no system.


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[Assistant] He issued his decrees with such rapidity that it is difficult to keep count.


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[Assistant] The whole of Russia therefore must be changed within the shortest possible time. When he died


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[Assistant] He left behind a well trained army of 200,000 men and a navy of 50 ships. The old system of government had been abolished overnight. The Duma, or Convention of Nobles, had been dismissed.


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[Assistant] Russia was divided into eight large governments or provinces. Roads were constructed. Towns were built. Industries were created wherever it pleased the Tsar, without any regard for the presence of raw material.


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[Assistant] Canals were dug, and mines were opened in the mountains of the east.


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[Assistant] In this land of illiterates, schools were founded and establishments of higher learning together with universities and hospitals and professional schools.


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[Assistant] The duties of each class of society were carefully written down in a new law.


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[Assistant] And the entire system of civil and criminal laws was gathered into a series of printed volumes.


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[Assistant] The old Russian costumes were abolished by imperial decree.


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[Assistant] And policemen armed with scissors watching all the country roads.


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[Assistant] Change the long-haired Russian Mujik suddenly into a pleasing imitation of smooth-shaven West Europeans.


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[Assistant] In religious matters, the Tsar tolerated no division of power.


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[Assistant] There must be no chance of a rivalry between an emperor and a pope, as had happened in Europe.


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[Assistant] In the year 1721, Peter made himself head of the Russian Church. The Patriarchate of Moscow was abolished.


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[Assistant] And the Holy Synod made its appearance as the highest source of authority in all matters of the established Church.


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[Assistant] Since, however, these many reforms could not be successful while the old Russian elements had a rallying point in the town of Moscow, Peter decided to move his government to a new capital.


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[Assistant] Amidst the unhealthy marshes of the Baltic Sea, the Tsar built his new city.


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[Assistant] The Swedes attacked Peter and tried to destroy his town, and illness and misery killed tens of thousands of the peasants. But the work was continued, winter and summer, and the ready-made town soon began to grow.


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[Assistant] A dozen years later it had 75,000 inhabitants. Twice a year the whole city was flooded by the Neva.


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[Assistant] But the terrific willpower of the Tsar created dikes and canals, and the floods ceased to do harm.


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[Assistant] When Peter died in 1725, he was the owner of the largest city in Northern Europe.


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[Assistant] From his side, Peter had watched with interest the many adventures of his Baltic rival, the Kingdom of Sweden. In the year 1654, Christina, the only daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, the hero of the Thirty Years' War,


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[Assistant] had renounced the throne and had gone to Rome to end her days as a devout Catholic.


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[Assistant] A Protestant nephew of Gustavus Adolphus had succeeded the last queen of the house of Vasa. Under Charles X and Charles XI,


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[Assistant] And was succeeded by a boy of 15, Charles the 12th.


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[Assistant] This was the moment for which many of the northern states had waited. During the great religious wars of the 17th century, Sweden had grown at the expense of her neighbors. The time had come, so the owners thought, to balance the account.


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[Assistant] At once, war broke out between Russia, Poland, Denmark, and Saxony on the one side, and Sweden on the other.


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[Assistant] The raw and untrained armies of Peter were disastrously beaten by Charles in the famous Battle of Narva in November of the year 1700.


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[Assistant] Then Charles, one of the most interesting military geniuses of that century,


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[Assistant] Turned against his other enemies and for nine years he hacked and burned his way through the villages and cities of Poland, Saxony, Denmark and the Baltic provinces.


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[Assistant] While Peter drilled and trained his soldiers in distant Russia.


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[Assistant] As a result, in the year 1709, in the Battle of Poltava, the Muscovites destroyed the exhausted armies of Sweden.


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[Assistant] Charles continued to be a highly picturesque figure, a wonderful hero of romance.


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[Assistant] But in his vain attempt to have his revenge, he ruined his own country.


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[Assistant] I'm going to guide you, blindfolded as you are, out to a field this morning.


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[Assistant] I'm going to stand you so you are facing a haystack, and then I'm going to take the handkerchief off your eyes and let you look at the haystack for five minutes. Then I'll blindfold you again and lead you back. It's a queer kind of game, isn't it?


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[Assistant] The first time when you looked at the haystack, it was 10 o'clock in the morning.


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[Assistant] This time, I'll let you look at the same haystack for five minutes, about five o'clock in the afternoon.


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[Assistant] And this time the haystack will look quite different from the way it looked then. It's the same shape.


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[Assistant] But the colors and light and shadows are all so different that the 5 o'clock haystack makes a picture to your eye very different from the 10 o'clock haystack.


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[Assistant] Every little while during the day, the haystack changes in color and brightness.


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[Assistant] That's why I let you look at it for only five minutes at a time.


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[Assistant] So the light would not change and give your eye another picture.


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[Assistant] Now, I'm sure you can see that if an artist painted a picture of the haystack for every hour of the day, he would have many pictures of the same haystack, but each picture would be different from all the others.


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[Assistant] That is just what some French artists did not so many years ago. Then they gave an exhibition of their work. They hung their paintings on the walls of a room so that people could come and see them.


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[Assistant] The people who came found these pictures were very different from any they had ever seen before. The pictures were like your quick view of the haystack.


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[Assistant] They showed the colors in light that the artist had seen in quick views of the things they were painting. These views were called impressions.


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[Assistant] And so the painters soon got the name of Impressionists.


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[Assistant] They painted a horse one color and a haystack another.


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[Assistant] No matter whether the light always made them look that color or not.


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[Assistant] Really, a black horse or a yellow haystack is not always black or yellow. The color depends on the light.


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[Assistant] The light shining on a black horse may make him look blue in places.


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[Assistant] That you don't notice how blue he really may look in certain lights.


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[Assistant] Painters always use to paint shadows brown or gray or black.


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[Assistant] But if you look carefully at a real shadow, it is often not brown or grey or black at all.


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[Assistant] Bright lighting color on an object out of doors was always hard to paint because paints are not nearly so bright as light.


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[Assistant] But if you remember what I told you about the painter Constable, you will see how these impressionist artists made their colors look bright and like sunlight.


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[Assistant] Putting colors on in dots and dashes of separate colors does really make them look brighter. They almost seem to shimmer like real sunlight.


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[Assistant] But it also makes the pictures look quite different from the older kind of painting.


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[Assistant] For this reason, the people who saw the French exhibition of the Impressionists weren't very much pleased. These people have been used to one kind of painting.


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[Assistant] And the change was so great that they couldn't like the new kind nearly as well as the first. These people had been used to one kind of painting. And the change was so great that they couldn't like the new kind nearly as well at first.


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[Assistant] But after a while the impressionists came to be understood better. People saw that they were trying out a new way of painting, and that what they were doing might be very worthwhile.


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[Assistant] One of the impressionists, named Claude Monet, used to go out with a carriage full of canvases and spend all day painting the same scene.


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[Assistant] He used a different canvas each time the light changed the color and appearance of the thing he was painting.


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[Assistant] Monet painted 15 pictures of the same haystacks, and in each one, he had a different color and light effect. For instance.


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[Assistant] Monet painted 15 pictures of the same haystacks and in each one had a different color and light effect.


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[Assistant] For instance, Monet painted 15 pictures of the same haystacks.


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[Assistant] And in each one had a different color and light effect.


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[Assistant] He painted 20 pictures of the front of a French cathedral as it was seen at different times of day. And each picture was different. They make an interesting series


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[Assistant] But when you see one of these pictures by itself, you are apt to be a little disappointed because the forms, or the shapes, in the painting are not so important as you think they should be.


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[Assistant] Monet was interested in the light and color, not especially in the form or shape. Another Impressionist had a name much like Monet. His name was Manet. In fact,


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[Assistant] Manet was the painter who really started the Impressionists.


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[Assistant] Monet didn't break his pictures up into so many little glittering spots as Monet did.


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[Assistant] Indeed. It was only in the last ten years of his life that Manet used that kind of painting very much.


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[Assistant] Someone asked Manet once who the chief person was in one of his impressionist pictures.


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[Assistant] Manet was the painter who really started the Impressionists.


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[Assistant] Manet didn't break his pictures up into so many little glittering spots as Monet did. Indeed.


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[Assistant] It was only in the last ten years of his life that Manet used that kind of painting very much.


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[Assistant] Someone asked Manet once who the chief person was in one of his Impressionist pictures.


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[Assistant] The most important person in any picture, man answered, is the light.


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[Assistant] And that is what the Impressionists tried to show in their paintings. Here is one of Manet's pictures called The Pfeiffer.


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[Assistant] Probably you will like it better than Monet's The Poplars, because people are generally more interesting than things.


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[Assistant] Even if light is the most important person in a painting.


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[Assistant] If you make a mistake in your arithmetic or composition,


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[Assistant] You can correct it or tear it up and do it over.


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[Assistant] If a picture or a statue is ugly, it can be put out of sight, hidden or destroyed. But if a building is ugly, there it stands for everyone to see.


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[Assistant] Its ugliness, its mistakes cannot be covered up until it falls down or is torn down.


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[Assistant] An architect once committed suicide, just as the great temple he had planned was finished.


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[Assistant] He left a note saying that he had made five mistakes in the building.


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[Assistant] And as they could not be corrected and could not be covered up, there they were for everyone to see forever. He could not stand the disgrace.


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[Assistant] Most buildings that are erected have many mistakes. Many things that are ugly about them.


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[Assistant] Though few people, few passersby may notice anything wrong.


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[Assistant] But there was one building that was erected over 2000 years ago that has no mistakes. It is one of the few perfect buildings in the world.


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[Assistant] It was built by men, but built for a woman.


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[Assistant] It is on a high hill in the city of Athens, in Greece, and though it has been partly destroyed, people go from all over the world to see what a perfect building looks like.


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[Assistant] The Egyptian temples had flat roofs because there was little or no rain in Egypt and so a sloping roof to shed the rain was not necessary. The Greek temples had to have slanting roofs for Greece had rain. So the Parthenon had a sloping roof.


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[Assistant] The Egyptians built their temples with the columns on the inside.


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[Assistant] The Greeks turned the Egyptian temple inside out and put the columns on the outside. The Greek temple was not to hold people, but only the statue of the goddess.


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[Assistant] People didn't go inside to worship as they do in our churches. They stood on the outside.


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[Assistant] The columns the Greeks used were not like those the Egyptians used. They were simpler, but much more beautiful. Greek temples had three kinds of columns.


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[Assistant] But the kind used in the Parthenon was the man's style column.


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[Assistant] It is called Doric, after a very old Greek tribe.


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[Assistant] Not only the column, but the style of building that always went with this particular column was strong, simple, plain. That's why it's called the man style.


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[Assistant] There were many Doric buildings in Greece, but the Parthenon was the most beautiful of all.


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[Assistant] A Doric building is built on a terraced or stepped platform, and is not made of mud bricks plated with alabaster or tile as the two river people built their temples, but of solid stone, usually marble. There was no cheating in Greek building. It was really what it seemed to be.


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[Assistant] Styles in ladies hats and clothes change often, as you know. But the Doric style of building has lasted over 2,000 years, and we are still using it today. I'll try to describe it, so you can tell it when you see it.


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[Assistant] The Doric column has no base, but rests directly on the platform. It tapers slightly as a tree trunk does. Its sides are not perfectly straight. They may look so, but as a matter of fact, they bulge slightly. This bulge is called entasis.


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[Assistant] And a column was given in tasses because one that had straight sides, one without in tasses, looked as if it were thinner in the middle. Some architects of the present time


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[Assistant] Noticing this ever so slight bulge in the Doric column,


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[Assistant] Have thought they would improve on it by making the bulge greater.


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[Assistant] Some people, when the doctor says take one pill, take two.


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[Assistant] Reasoning that if one pill is good for you, two will be better.


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[Assistant] But the Greek entasis was just exactly enough, and more entasis makes a column look fat and ugly, like a man who is fat around the middle.


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[Assistant] The sides of the Doric column were then fluted. That is, cut with grooves, so as to make slender, lengthwise shadows from top to bottom of the column, and thus take away from the plainness that a perfectly smooth column would have. Most columns nowadays have no fluting.


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[Assistant] You can imagine how difficult it is to cut such channels in marble without making a single slip.


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[Assistant] One single slip would ruin the column, and it couldn't be repaired.


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[Assistant] The top of the column is called the capital, because capital means head.


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[Assistant] The capital was made of a piece shaped like a saucer, above which was a thin square block. You'll have to look at the picture to understand the rest.


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[Assistant] There is probably some dork building where you live. For, as I have said, we are still using this style today.


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[Assistant] It may be a bank or a library, a courthouse or some other building.


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[Assistant] Examine it and see if it has all these things that a perfect Doric building has. And only these things. Are they columns of stone or only of wood? Are they fluted or only plain?


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[Assistant] Has it the proper capital and other parts is in the true Doric style?


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[Assistant] Men have tried ever since the time the Parthenon was built to improve on the Doric Temple. But it seems impossible to do.


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[Assistant] Every change they make from the original is less beautiful.


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[Assistant] One of my earliest recollections is a picture of the Parthenon, then hung on the wall of my school room. I had seen it day after day for months. One day I asked my teacher what the picture was.


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[Assistant] It's a picture of the most beautiful building in the world she replied. What?


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[Assistant] I hated to be treated as a child who couldn't understand what was beautiful and what wasn't. So I set about trying to find out why the Parthenon was not beautiful.


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[Assistant] But the more arguments I tried to find, the less I found.


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[Assistant] And then one day, 25 years later, when I first looked upward at the Great Doric Temple itself, standing against the blue sky, a traveler at my side remarked, I don't see anything beautiful about that broken down old ruin. And at that, I turned and just kept myself from saying, you wouldn't.


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[Assistant] Even a young child can tell whether a person is beautiful or ugly.


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[Assistant] But even old people can't tell whether a building is beautiful or ugly. Otherwise, we shouldn't have so many ugly buildings.


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[Assistant] Anyone can tell when a person is too tall or too fat.


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[Assistant] When his ears are too big or his nose too small.


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[Assistant] Whether his proportions, as we call them, are right or wrong.


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[Assistant] But it takes a good eye to tell when a building's proportions are right or wrong.


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[Assistant] Anyone can tell that a wart or crossed eyes or a double chin or bow legs are not beautiful.


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[Assistant] Now, some buildings have just as ugly things as warts, double-chins, or bow-legs, but often even old people can't see them. But the Greeks had what we call a good eye.


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[Assistant] Not only for people's looks, but for a building's looks.


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[Assistant] Some people can't tell when a picture is hanging straight on the wall. They may even measure the distance and declare it straight.


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[Assistant] But a person with a good eye can detect what the ruler may not show.


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[Assistant] That it is tipped the smallest bit, just a hair's breadth perhaps.


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[Assistant] There are two important tools that every builder nowadays uses. A plumbob and a level.


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[Assistant] A plumbob tells whether a wall or a column or anything else supposed to be straight up and down is really straight up and down. Or vertical, as it is called. A level


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[Assistant] Which has a little bubble in a glass on its edge, tells whether a floor or a sill, or anything else supposed to be level, is really level. Or horizontal, as it is called. You can't fool a plumbob or a level.


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[Assistant] But the Greeks said you couldn't believe the plumbob or the level. For columns that are really vertical seem to lean out, and floors that are really horizontal seem to sag in the middle. That's because our eyes make them seem so.


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[Assistant] But as it is our eyes that have to see buildings, the Greek builders of the Parthenon built it as they wanted the eyes to see it.


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[Assistant] And so, though all lines may seem to be vertical, horizontal, level, or straight, there is really not a vertical line or a horizontal line or a perfectly straight line in the parthenon.


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[Assistant] That's one of the things that makes the Parthenon so extraordinary. The columns were not made of single blocks of stone.


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[Assistant] But of drum shaped pieces, which, however, were cut with such exactitude that they fitted perfectly and no crack showed.


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[Assistant] It is even said the pieces have grown together like a broken bone that-


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[Assistant] Next door to Flanders, on the shore of the North Sea, is the country called the Netherlands.


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[Assistant] The country of wooden shoes and windmills, of tulips and hyacinths,


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[Assistant] But that is not quite correct because Holland is just a part of the country.


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[Assistant] The people of the Netherlands we generally call Dutch.


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[Assistant] The Dutch, like the Italians and the Flemish, had a renaissance too.


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[Assistant] The Dutch born-again time was later in coming than the Italian and the Flemish.


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[Assistant] But when it did come, it produced some of the very best artists of the world.


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[Assistant] The Dutch artists painted pictures that were different from those of the Italians and the Flemish.


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[Assistant] The Dutch religion had become a Protestant religion instead of Roman Catholic.


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[Assistant] And the Dutch did not believe in decorating their churches as much as the Catholics did.


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[Assistant] And so the Dutch artists painted very few religious pictures. Few madonnas and holy families.


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[Assistant] Instead, they painted portraits and landscapes and pictures of the everyday people and things they saw around them.


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[Assistant] In the older paintings, in Italy and Flanders for instance, most of the people in the pictures had the natural expression on their faces that they usually wore.


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[Assistant] You can think of one of these artists saying to someone who is having his portrait painted, Now, just sit still and don't move. And I'll paint your portrait.


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[Assistant] But some of the Dutch artists had a different idea of portrait painting.


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[Assistant] A Dutchman named Frans Hals painted portraits of people who you know were not told to sit still and look natural.


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[Assistant] The expression on the faces of Franz Hall's portraits is what we call a fleeting expression. He called a smile or a grin or a scowl. Expressions that last only a second or two.


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[Assistant] And he made his pictures look as though in another second the expression would change.


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[Assistant] Some pictures by Franz Hals were different in still another way. They showed the strokes of the paintbrush not smoothed out.


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[Assistant] Some are just as smoothly and carefully finished as can be.


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[Assistant] A portrait called The Laughing Cavalier is one of his most famous pictures and it shows the lace of the man's cuffs done very carefully.


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[Assistant] And lace is not an easy material to paint in a picture. The laughing cavalier really isn't laughing.


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[Assistant] He seems to have a self-satisfied smile instead of a laugh on his lips.


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[Assistant] Another picture by Hals will show you the quick brush stroke work that he could do so well. It is called Hillebabe and shows a woman and her parrot. The parrot looks a good deal like an owl and the old woman isn't a bit pleasant looking.


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[Assistant] Sometimes the picture is even called the Witch of Harlem. Harlem was the Dutch city where Halls lived. Now, at the time, Franz Halls lived and painted.


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[Assistant] At the time Franz Hals lived in Painted, the Netherlands had recently become a free and independent country.


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[Assistant] To make sure that they would be strong enough to keep this freedom from other countries.


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[Assistant] The Dutch had bands of citizens who were trained to act as companies of soldiers in case of need.


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[Assistant] Gunpowder and guns were still so new that some of these companies still call themselves archers or crossbowmen.


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[Assistant] The officers of each company generally had their portraits painted all in one picture, and halls painted several group portraits of the archers in other companies.


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[Assistant] He is generally spoken of as the greatest of all Dutch portrait painters except Rembrandt. This master, Rembrandt, did most of his work in the city of Amsterdam. He did not do portraits only.


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[Assistant] He painted almost every kind of subject an artist could paint.


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[Assistant] Rembrandt created a light in his pictures that was unlike real daylight or lamplight, but which makes his pictures marvels of brilliant light and deepest shadow.


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[Assistant] For years he worked hard, lived happily, and earned money and fame.


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[Assistant] But he spent so much money in collecting beautiful things he liked that he finally owed more money than he could pay. His pictures became unpopular too, and so he found it hard to make money in his old age. You wouldn't think, would you?


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[Assistant] That a picture that is now considered one of the great pictures of the world would be laughed at and disliked. And would make the painter unpopular when it was painted.


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[Assistant] You wouldn't think, would you, that a picture that is now considered one of the great pictures of the world would be laughed at in dislikes and would make the painter unpopular when it was painted?


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[Assistant] But that is what happened when Rembrandt painted his Night Watch.


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[Assistant] The night watch was ordered by one of the companies of men who acted as guards for the city in time of danger.


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[Assistant] It was to hang in their clubhouse and each member of the guard was to pay his share for having the picture painted.


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[Assistant] Rembrandt wanted to show the stern excitement as the guards marched out.


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[Assistant] And he painted the picture with the captain and his lieutenant in the front and the members of the guard hurrying out behind them with guns and spears.


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[Assistant] Children are there to watch the show, and even a dog appears in the picture.


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[Assistant] The light is very bright on some of the figures, and the rest are in the darkness of night.


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[Assistant] And yet the light is so different from ordinary light that some think the picture is a daytime scene and should not be called the night watch.


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[Assistant] And here the artist has stuck us in the background where it is so dark we can hardly even be recognized. Other Dutchmen laughed at the picture. We can't tell whether it represents night or day they said.


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[Assistant] And from that time on, Rembrandt sold fewer and fewer pictures.


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[Assistant] Wouldn't you like me to show you a list starting with the very best artist in the whole world and then giving the second best and then the third and so on down to the 20th or 50th or 100th best artist?


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[Assistant] Well, I'm not gonna show you any such list, not because I don't want to, but because no one in the world can make such a list. If I did, it would be only my private opinion. I wouldn't be the best artist,


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[Assistant] It wouldn't be the best artist and the next best and so on, but the artist I think is best and the one I think is next best.


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[Assistant] And just because I think he's best doesn't mean he is best.


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[Assistant] No one artist is so much greater than all other artists that everyone can say he is undoubtedly the best.


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[Assistant] But if all the men who know most about such things made their own private lists of the best, I'm pretty sure all the lists would have Rembrandt somewhere near the top.


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[Assistant] So remember how great an artist people think Rembrandt was, and if you ever in your whole life get a chance to see one of his real pictures, not just a copy in a book, be sure to look at it long and thoughtfully. Then see where he would come on your list.


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[Assistant] Can you tell what part of the country a person comes from just by hearing him talk?


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[Assistant] At least you can tell the difference between a Southerner and a New Englander by the sound of their voices and the way they pronounce their words.


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[Assistant] Men of one part of a country talk differently from men of another part.


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[Assistant] Men from different countries are different in other ways They wear different kinds of clothes They have different kinds of laws They eat different kinds of food They paint different kinds of pictures They build different kinds of buildings


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[Assistant] When the Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian,


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[Assistant] The Christians in Rome came out of the catacombs and built basilicas for churches.


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[Assistant] But subject to the Roman Emperor, there were other Christians who lived a long way from Rome. The Roman Empire reached eastward into Asia.


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[Assistant] Many people in this eastern part of the empire were Christians too.


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[Assistant] Under Constantine, they began to build churches just as the Christians in Rome did. But, belonging to a different part of the world,


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[Assistant] The Eastern Christians built their churches in their own way. They didn't care much for basilicas. The kind of buildings the Eastern Christians built was called Byzantine.


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[Assistant] That is because Byzantium was the largest city in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. The city is still a large and important city, but you won't find Byzantium on the map. Byzantium changed its name. Constantine went to live in Byzantium and made it his capital instead of Rome.


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[Assistant] When he did this, he named the city Constantinople, or City of Constantine.


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[Assistant] But you won't find Constantinople on the modern map either. For now, it is called Istanbul. The old name, Byzantine, however.


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[Assistant] Stuck to the architecture that began to be used there.


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[Assistant] There was one very important difference between this Byzantine architecture and the Basilican architecture.


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[Assistant] A Byzantine church always had some kind of dome on it. In some churches, the dome was small.


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[Assistant] In some it was covered with a square roof so you could see the dome only from below, on the inside. In many churches there were several domes. The pantheon in Rome has a dome.


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[Assistant] But the Pantheon is not like the Byzantine style of building. The Pantheon's dome is made of concrete.


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[Assistant] The domes of Byzantine churches were usually made of bricks or tiles. The pantheon dome rests on a circular wall. The Byzantine domes cover a square space.


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[Assistant] The plan of most Byzantine churches looks like this.


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[Assistant] This kind of cross with all the arms equal is called a Greek cross.


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[Assistant] The central dome was generally right over the square in the center of the cross.


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[Assistant] All these Byzantine buildings with domes were quite small until the Emperor Justinian came to rule.


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[Assistant] Justinian had his architects build the best and finest and biggest building ever built in the Byzantine style. We call it Saint Sophia or Santa Sophia. But Sophia was not the name of any saint. Sophia means wisdom.


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[Assistant] And the real name of Justinian's church is Holy Wisdom.


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[Assistant] As most Americans call it Saint Sophia, that is what we shall call it here.


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[Assistant] See if you can understand how Saint Sophia is built. In the middle is a huge dome.


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[Assistant] This dome rests on top of four big arches that are shaped like croquet wickets. Each arch stands on one side of a square.


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[Assistant] The bottom of the dome rests on top of each wicket or arch.


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[Assistant] The spaces between the tops of the arches below the dome are not empty.


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[Assistant] They are filled in with brick, so the bottom of the dome is resting on something all the way around.


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[Assistant] These spaces between the tops of the arches look like curved triangles pointed downward. The curved triangles are called pendentums. I hope you can remember that word, pendentum.


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[Assistant] It is the use of pendentives that makes Byzantine architecture very different from other kinds.


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[Assistant] You won't find any pendentives in the pantheon in Rome, for instance.


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[Assistant] In this picture you can see three of the arches under the dome and two of the pendentives between the arches. As the dome of Saint Sophia is made of bricks, the whole dome isn't held together like a saucer or like the concrete pantheon dome.


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[Assistant] This means that the dome pushes down on the walls that hold it up.


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[Assistant] And also pushes outward or sideways on the walls.


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[Assistant] You know how a ladder leaning against the wall of a room will slide out at the bottom when a heavy man climbs the ladder unless the bottom is braced against something on the floor. Well,


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[Assistant] The dome pushes out in all directions, just as the ladder does in one direction.


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[Assistant] And so there must be something to brace the walls to keep the dome from pushing them over.


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[Assistant] The arches resting on the ground held the downward push of the dome.


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[Assistant] The architects of Saint Sophia took care of the outward bush very cleverly.


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[Assistant] On the outside of two of the arches, opposite each other,


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[Assistant] They built half domes on walls reaching to the ground, which braced the two arches just like bookends pushing toward the middle of the building. They were props to hold the arches from falling outward.


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[Assistant] Against the legs of the other two arches, they built big piles of stone and brick, and these piles kept the arches in place, just like bookends too. These piles were called buttresses. And then, after all this care and work, the dome of Saint Sophia fell down. It collapsed a few years after it was finished. But we can't blame the builders. An earthquake shook the bricks out of place, and down came the dome.


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[Assistant] The builders couldn't prevent an earthquake. When they put the dome up again, they made an improvement.


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[Assistant] All around the bottom of the new dome, little windows were made. 40 windows all together.


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[Assistant] This led in such a band of light that the dome seems to be resting on light when you look up at it from inside. Or, as if it were hanging from the sky a few feet above the top of the four big arches.


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[Assistant] The inside of St. Sophia has been called the most magnificent interior in the world.


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[Assistant] Along each side of the nave run aisles which have second stories or galleries.


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[Assistant] The galleries are supported by many columns of different colored marbles. Some red, some green, some gray, or black. Here's a strange fact.


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[Assistant] There are 107 columns inside the building, and the dome is just 107 feet across from one side to the other.


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[Assistant] The lower walls are all covered with slabs of beautiful marble in even more colors than the columns.


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[Assistant] Higher up on the walls are mosaic pictures with the colored pieces of glass and marble set in gold.


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[Assistant] Almost a thousand years after the church of Saint Sophia was built, Constantinople was captured by the Turks. The Turks are Mohammedans instead of Christians. They worship in mosques instead of churches.


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[Assistant] The leader of the Turks rode his horse right into Saint Sophia.


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[Assistant] ...and ordered the Christian church turned into a Mohammedan mosque.


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[Assistant] The beautiful Christian mosaics were covered with plaster and whitewash, except for a few of the angels.


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[Assistant] And ever since then, no one has been allowed to enter Saint Sophia without first taking off his shoes.


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[Assistant] That is the rule for all mosques. No shoes may tread on Muhammad's holy ground. You take off your shoes, or you don't get in. From the outside, St. Sophia looks big, but some people think it not very beautiful.


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[Assistant] Notice in the picture the great buttresses that stick up on each side of the arch to brace the push of the dome. What about those towers?


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[Assistant] I wish you could forget they are there because they look so important in the picture that you are apt not to look closely at the building itself. The towers were not part of the church.


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[Assistant] But they were put on by the Turks when the church became a mosque.


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[Assistant] But I don't want you to believe that Saint Sophia was the only great Byzantine building, or that all Byzantine buildings were in Constantinople.


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[Assistant] The Byzantine style of architecture spread wherever the religion of the Greek Christian Church spread.


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[Assistant] The churches of Russia, for instance, were almost all built in the Byzantine style because the Russians became members of the Greek church instead of members of the Roman church.


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[Assistant] Churches in the Byzantine style are still being built in different parts of the world.


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[Assistant] Just as famous as Saint Sophia is another Byzantine church built in Venice, hundreds of years after Saint Sophia. Venice was a seaport republic. The city belonged to no country. It was independent.


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[Assistant] Fleets of ships from Venice sailed away to the east and brought back the beautiful silks and spices of Asia. Venice became rich and powerful.


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[Assistant] And they put so much lovely color on their Byzantine church, that it's shown like a beautiful jewel in the sun.


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[Assistant] They called their church St. Mark's because it was built over the spot where St. Mark was supposed to lie buried.


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[Assistant] St. Mark's has five domes. A big dome in the center and four smaller domes around it.


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[Assistant] The domes were not high enough to be seen well on the outside, and so the Venetians made a much higher dome over each of the five domes. So each dome is double.


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[Assistant] The church is covered inside and out with brilliant mosaics and slabs of precious marbles called alabaster brought from far and near.


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[Assistant] The four bronze horses over the main door are almost as famous as the church itself.


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[Assistant] It is probably the most colorful building in the world.


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[Assistant] And now, one more scorecard. Here are the new names in this chapter. Each counts 20.


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[Assistant] Most big bronze statues are hollow, and often there is room inside for a man, if there were only any way of getting in.


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[Assistant] But, there is only one statue in the whole world that hundreds of thousands of people have been inside of.


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[Assistant] But thousands of people can't all get in at one time.


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[Assistant] But 40 people can get into the head at one time. You've probably already guessed what I'm talking about. It is the Statue of Liberty.


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[Assistant] The Statue of Liberty stands on a stone base or pedestal.


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[Assistant] The pedestal stands on a little island at the entrance of New York Harbor.


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[Assistant] Every ship that goes in or out of New York passes near the statue. Even in the dark, the passengers on a ship can see it. For at night, it is lit up with strong searchlights.


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[Assistant] Travelers coming back from abroad feel they are really home when they see the Statue of Liberty.


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[Assistant] The Statue of Liberty is the biggest bronze statue in all the world.


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[Assistant] What would you think if you saw a woman as tall as a ten story building? A woman whose hand is sixteen feet long. What a hand for swatting mosquitoes. A woman whose eyes are each two and a half feet wide. What eyes to get cinders in.


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[Assistant] A woman whose uplifted right arm is 42 feet long. What an arm for throwing baseballs.


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[Assistant] A woman whose finger is as long as an elephant is high.


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[Assistant] If you wanted that woman to wear a ring, the ring would have to be as big as a hoop.


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[Assistant] If you wanted the woman to wear gloves, the material for the gloves would spread over more room than a tennis court. Such a woman is liberty. She is sometimes called liberty in lightening the world.


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[Assistant] This is because Liberty holds a lighted torch in her raised right hand.


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[Assistant] The torch is so big that people climb a ladder inside the right arm and then walk around the torch as if it were a porch. You might make a rhyme of it. Liberty's torch is used for a porch. Held in Liberty's left arm is a tablet. On the tablet, which is very much bigger than a dining room table, are these letters.


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[Assistant] The Statue of Liberty can be seen from a long way off, but you can't get very close to it unless you take a boat.


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[Assistant] When you get off the boat, you walk up some steps to the pedestal.


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[Assistant] Inside the pedestal, you take an elevator and ride up to the top of the pedestal.


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[Assistant] Then you have to climb stairs to reach the top of the statue.


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[Assistant] The stairs wind round and round inside the statue like a snail's shell. And the higher you climb, the more you feel like going slowly. Also like a snail.


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[Assistant] As you climb, you can see the framework that the statue was built around. Made of rods of steel.


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[Assistant] You can see how the statue is fitted together out of separate pieces of bronze.


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[Assistant] When you finally get up inside the head, you can look out of windows in Liberty's crown.


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[Assistant] The man who made the huge statue was a Frenchman, named Bartoldi.


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[Assistant] A Frenchman made it as a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States.


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[Assistant] Bartholdi chose the place for liberty to be put, and then went back to France and made a model.


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[Assistant] Then, the model was used to make the huge bronze pieces of the statue itself.


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[Assistant] These pieces were brought in a ship to the United States and put together on the island.


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[Assistant] It was like fitting together a gigantic picture puzzle. For of course, each piece of bronze was a different shape.


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[Assistant] I think it was a very effective and friendly present for the Republic of France to give to the Republic of the United States. Don't you?


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[Assistant] Edmund, meanwhile, had been having a most disappointing time. When the dwarf had gone to get the sledge ready, he expected that the witch would start being nice to him, as she had been at their last meeting. But she said nothing at all. And when at last Edmund plucked up his courage to say,


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[Assistant] Please, your majesty, could I have some Turkish delight? You, you said, she answered, Silence, fool!


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[Assistant] And then she appeared to change her mind and said as if to herself,


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[Assistant] And yet it will not do to have the brat fainting on the way. And once more clapped her hands. Another dwarf appeared. Bring the human creature food and drink, she said.


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[Assistant] The dwarf went away, and presently returned, bringing an iron bull with some water in it.


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[Assistant] And an iron plate with a hunk of dry bread on it.


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[Assistant] He grinned in a repulsive manner as he set them down on the floor beside Edmund and said,


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[Assistant] Take it away, said Edmund Sulkily. I don't want dry bread.


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[Assistant] But the witch suddenly turned on him with such a terrible expression on her face that he apologised and began to nibble at the bread, though it was so stale he could hardly get it down.


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[Assistant] The first dwarf came back and announced that the sledge was ready. The white witch rose and went out, ordering Edmund to go with her.


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[Assistant] The snow was again falling as they came into the courtyard.


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[Assistant] But she took no notice of that and made Edmund sit beside her on the sledge. But before they drove off, she called Mogrim.


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[Assistant] And he came bounding like an enormous dog to the side of the sledge.


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[Assistant] Take with you the swiftest of your wolves and go at once to the house of the beavers, said the witch, and kill whatever you find there, if they are already gone.


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[Assistant] Then make all speed to the stone table, but do not be seen. Wait for me there in hiding.


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[Assistant] I meanwhile must go many miles to the west before I find a place where I can drive across the river.


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[Assistant] You may overtake these humans before they reach the stone table. You will know what to do if you find them.


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[Assistant] Growl the wolf, and immediately he shot away into the snow and darkness as quickly as a horse can gallop.


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[Assistant] In a few minutes, he had called another wolf and was with him down on the dam and sniffing at the beaver's house. But of course, they found it empty.


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[Assistant] It would have been a dreadful thing for the beavers and the children if the night had remained fine.


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[Assistant] For the wolves would then have been able to follow their trail.


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[Assistant] And the witch and Edmund drove out under the archway and on and away into the darkness and the cold.


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[Assistant] This was a terrible journey for Edmund, who had no coat.


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[Assistant] Before they had been going a quarter of an hour, all the front of him was covered with snow.


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[Assistant] He soon stopped trying to shake it off, because as quickly as he did that, a new lot gathered, and he was so tired. Soon, he was wet to the skin. And oh, how miserable he was.


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[Assistant] It didn't look now as if the witch intended to make him a king.


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[Assistant] Was to try to believe that the whole thing was a dream, and that he might wake up at any moment.


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[Assistant] And as they went on, hour after hour, it did come to seem like a dream.


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[Assistant] This lasted longer than I could describe.


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[Assistant] Even if I wrote pages and pages about it.


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[Assistant] But I will skip on to the time when the snow had stopped, and the morning had come, and they were racing along in the daylight.


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[Assistant] And still they went on and on with no sound but the everlasting swish of the snow and the creaking of the reindeer's harness. And then at last the witch said, What have we here? Stop! And they did.


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[Assistant] How Edmund hoped she was going to say something about breakfast. But she had stopped for quite a different reason.


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[Assistant] A little way off at the foot of a tree sat a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dog fox, all on stools round a table. Edmund couldn't quite see what they were eating.


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[Assistant] But it smelled lovely, and there seemed to be decorations of holly, and he wasn't at all sure that he didn't see something like a plum pudding.


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[Assistant] At the moment when the sledge stopped, the fox, who was obviously the oldest person present, had just risen to its feet, holding a glass in its right paw as if it was going to say something.


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[Assistant] But when the whole party saw the sledge stopping, and who was in it, all the gaiety went out of their faces.


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[Assistant] The father squirrel stopped eating with his fork halfway to his mouth. And one of the satyrs stopped with its fork actually in its mouth.


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[Assistant] What is the meaning of all this gluttony, this waste, this self-indulgence? Where did you get all these things? Please your majesty, said the fox. We were given them.


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[Assistant] And if I might make soo bull to drink your majesty's very good health, who gave them to you? said the witch.


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[Assistant] Roared the witch, springing from the sledge and taking a few strides nearer to the terrified animals.


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[Assistant] He has not been here. He cannot have been here! How dare you! But, no.


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[Assistant] At that moment, one of the young squirrels lost its head completely. He has! He has! He has! It squeaked, beating its little spoon on the table.


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[Assistant] Edmund saw the witch bite her lips so that a drop of blood appeared on her white cheek. Then she raised her wand.


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[Assistant] But even while he was shouting, she had waved her wand.


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[Assistant] And instantly where the merry party had been, there were only statues of creatures, one with its stone fork fixed forever halfway to its stone mouth, seated round a stone table on which there were stone plates and a stone plum pudding. As for you!


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[Assistant] Said the witch, giving Edmund a stunning blow on the face as she remounted the sledge.


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[Assistant] Let that teach you to ask favor for spies and traitors! Drive on! And Edmund, for the first time in this story,


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[Assistant] It seems so pitiful to think of those little stone figures sitting there all the silent days and all the dark nights, year after year, till the moss grew on them and at last even their faces crumbled away. Now they were steadily racing on again.


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[Assistant] And soon, Edmund noticed that the snow which splashed against them as they rushed through it was much wetter than it had been all last night.


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[Assistant] At the same time he noticed that he was feeling much less cold. It was also becoming foggy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, every minute it grew foggier and warmer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the sledge was not running nearly as well as it had been running up till now. At first he thought that this was because the reindeer were tired.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But soon he saw that that couldn't be the real reason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The sledge jerked and skidded and kept on jolting as if it had struck against stones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And however the dwarf whipped the poor reindeer, the sledge went slower and slower. There also seemed to be a curious noise all round them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the noise of their driving and jolting and the dwarfs shouting at the reindeer prevented Edmund from hearing what it was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Edmund could at last listen to the other noise properly.