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Battered , foxed , spine cover torn away and soiled, the above book, found in a North Queensland dump shop, was published in London , November 1939 , soon after the outbreak of WWll.
The wide ranging contents , profusely illustrated, chosen from the life and literature of the world by Arthur Mee, editor of the Children's Newspaper, was first published in 1925 ; it was reprinted each year up until 1932, again in l934, in 1936 , with a gap until fateful 1939, not followed by beautiful things .
Strangely , a considerable number of the so-called beautiful things came out of wars . Indeed , one of the illustrations is of the Tomb of Britain's Unknown Warrior of WWl in Westminster Abbey .
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Another is the dramatic statue of Peace , with wings, flying over London. The "Great War " coverage includes extracts from speeches made by Woodrow Wilson about America's entry into the war and after the conflict.
In the latter , he recalled how he had ridden through the streets of European capitals and heard cries for the League of Nations (to be formed ) from the lips of people who had no particular notion of how it was to be done , but whose hearts said something must come of this .
On the monetary cost of wars it was stated the amount spent on war could clothe every man, woman and child in an attire of which kings and queens would be proud . A school house could be built in every valley on Earth , a place of worship could be built on every hillside .
There is a short quote from Australian poet and horseman Adam Lindsay Gordon about life being mostly froth and bubble, however, kindness in another's trouble and courage on your own , stand out .
There are stirring items from Captain Robert Falcon Scott, one written as he lay dying in his tent in Antarctica .
Under the heading, The Price of Freedom , there is a short speech from the Italian general Garibaldi to his soldiers. The death of Admiral Nelson , Captain Francis Drake ; the Crimean war and other conflicts are mentioned.
The contents list includes a heading Babies and battles which carried the message that when the world was consumed by the march of Napoleon , in one year , between the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, God arranged for a host of heroes to be born into the world .
Gladstone was born in Liverpool ; Tennyson at the Somersby Rectory ; Oliver Wendell Holmes in Massachusetts ; Charles Darwin also made his debut at Shrewsbury ; Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath in old Kentucky ; music was enriched by the advent of Felix Mendelsson at Hamburg .
This, it continued, was proof that God did not need battalions to manage his world - he used "beautiful babies ." When a wrong wanted righting , or a truth wanted preaching , or a continent wanted opening , God sent a baby into the world to do it .
