Happy Thanksgiving!

As I pondered this post, I was reminded of the attitude of thankfulness. I believe the Bullis family as a whole experienced thankfulness. In Nettie Bullis' valedictory speech when she graduated from Macedon High School in 1911 she stated, "Life, like every other blessing, derives its value from its use." She valued her life, was thankful for it, and wanted to use it well. She was a woman who looked into the future for our children and made an effort to invest in their lives by setting up a fund to provide scholarships for higher education. Many students of the Palmyra-Macedon Central School District have benefited from that. She knew what it was to be without the finances needed for education. She invested in co-workers lives sometimes with advice and sometimes with finances. We are thankful that she was a woman with foresight. And we are thankful for her life and how she used it.
Happy Thanksgiving! And may we all be willing to invest time and energy into those lives around us.

Henry Drummond

I walked to the shelf this morning and pulled off the book "Henry Drummond's addresses". My favorite essay was "The greatest thing in the world." It is a great essay where he describes love as the greatest thing in the world. He lists the 9 elements of love as patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness and sincerity. How different the world would be if we all practiced that kind of love.

And then I flipped to the end of the book and found another address titled "A talk on books." And this being a library and all, I proceeded to read it. He shares about authors who enabled him to see the world differently : Ruskin, Emerson, George Eliot, Channing, and F. W. Robertson. And then he writes: "One day as I was looking over my mantelshelf library, it suddenly struck me that all these authors of mine were heretics - these were dangerous books. Undesignedly I had found stimulus and help from teachers who were not credited by orthodoxy. And I have since found that much of the good to be got from books is to be gained from authors often classed as dangerous, for these provoke inquiry, and exercise one's powers."

And another quote from him: "To fall in love with a good book is one of the greatest events that can befall us."

And yet another quote: "...and I think everyone owes it as a sacred duty to his mind to start a little library of his own."

Mr. Drummond also wrote "Natural law in the spiritual world." We have copies of both of these books in the Bullis Library.

Mr. A. R. Bullis (the surveyor) owned both of these books. I wonder what he gained from them. I wonder if this is where the idea of this family library came from. Hmmm....

World War I

(From King Albert's Book, page 76)

Another interesting title popped up today while making cards for the books in the Bullis collection. This book is entitled: "The Book of King Albert". It was presented to King Albert of Belgium on Christmas of 1914. His country had just been taken over by Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm. This was the beginning of World War I.

This book is not a narrative, nor is it a history of Belgium or King Albert. It is a collection of songs, poems, and general thoughts of sympathy toward the young monarch. There are songs by Claude Debussy, a letter from Claude Monet, a letter from Winston Churchill, and a poem from Rudyard Kipling. There are many other notable figures such as former President William Taft, the Aga Khan, and American novelist Edith Wharton. Besides the songs, poems and letters there are also the occasional sketch, cartoon and painting. This seemingly strange collection all has one thing in common, the heartfelt wish that the Belgian people and especially the young royal family know that the world has them in their prayers.

This book really stood out to me today. Not only are world leaders and national figures trying to help a young monarch through such troubling times, but the depth of feeling in some of these letters is truly touching.

My own heritage is Belgian. My father's grandparents came over from Belgium in the early twentieth century. I'm sure that if they saw this particular book in print they too would have liked to send word to their former king and countrymen.

This is really an interesting work, and the next time you stop into the Bullis room, take a look at it. It is in the World History area, section N, row 1.

Until next time, happy reading!

A Bullis Volunteer

The life and adventures of Arminius Vambery

In the far back corner of the Bullis Collection room, down on
the bottom shelf in the World Biography section, is a book
about a man that people today would know very little about.
The book in question is, "The Life And Adventures of Arminius
Vambery", written by Arminius Vambery.

At first glance, one might say, okay, who is this guy and why
on earth would someone care about his life and adventures?
Good question. I didn't know anything about this fellow until
I picked up the book to write out the card giving the
information about the book.

Arminius was born in the 1830's in Hungary, and he seems to
have had an extremely tough childhood. He left home at age
twelve because his parents could no longer afford to feed or
clothe him. He had an extraordinary gift for languages; he
taught himself French, Scandanavian, Portuguese, and several
others. He traveled widely around the world visiting all
sorts of places.

This is only part of the story to be told and I don't want to
spoil any of it for you. I did pick up an interesting fact
looking up Arminius on the web, though. He is the basis for
which the character of Dr. Van Helsing is based upon in the
Dracula stories. I thought that to be very interesting indeed.

I hope you get a chance to take a look at the book in the
Bullis Room. It is in Section M, row 7, way down on the
bottom shelf.

Until next time, happy reading!

A Bullis Volunteer