Introductory note on Blaise Pascal (Volume 48, Harvard Classics)

Pascal --- an original genius --- purposed to master everything that was new in art and science. He was a mathematician and scientist as well as a religious enthusiast and moralist, and he shows a decidedly human side of his nature in this superb essay on Love. (Volume 48, Harvard Classics)

St. Valentine's Day.

Introductory note on Benvenuto Cellini (Volume 31, Harvard Classics)

At the age of fifty-eight Benvenuto Cellini shaved his head and retired to a monastery to write his own story of murder, passion, and great deeds of the Renaissance. His life is a vivid picture of the most colorful period in history, a period when statecraft and religion and black magic and assassination were naively mingled in men's lives. (Volume 31, Harvard Classics)

Benvenuto Cellini died Feb. 13, 1570.

Introductory note on Abraham Lincoln (Noted Speeches of Abraham Lincoln)

Lincoln himself thought his famous Gettysburg Address was a failure. To-day the whole world acclaims its greatness. Cast in bronze, it hangs on the wall of Balliol College, Oxford, regarded as the perfection of English prose. (Volume 43, Harvard Classics)

Abraham Lincoln born Feb. 12, 1809.

Introductory note on René Descartes (Volume 34, Harvard Classics)

Descartes was slain through the eccentric whim of a queen who demanded that he tutor her in the freezing dawn in the dead of winter. His philosophy lives in this essay. (Volume 34, Harvard Classics)

René Descartes died at Stockholm, Feb. 11, 1650.

Introductory note on Voltaire (Volume 34, Harvard Classics)

Voltaire once visited Congreve. This famous dramatist requested to be regarded only as a plain gentleman. "Had you been that I should never have come to see you," Voltaire cynically replies. (Volume 34, Harvard Classics)

William Congreve baptized Feb. 10, 1670.