Books: Private lives, public acts

Biographies look to the private to analyze public achievement | George Grant

According to the inimitable Samuel Johnson, "Almost all the miseries of life, almost all the wickedness that infects society, and almost all the distresses that afflict mankind, are the consequences of some defect in private duties. Likewise, all the joys of this world may be attributable to the happiness of hearth and home." If that is true, then biographical studies are among the most fruitful we can undertake. These books seem to prove that once popular notion afresh-making clear the connection between a man's private character and his public accomplishments.

Blaise Pascal was a brilliant 17th--century mathematician and scientist. He was also one of the most prominent apologists for the Christian faith during the tumultuous upheaval of the early Enlightenment. In A Piece of the Mountain, Joyce McPherson retells his inspiring story. Her simple brisk style and vivid precise prose make this an ideal book for young readers; according to the publisher, she has written it at a fifth-or sixth-grade level. But her keen insights into the home life, personal relationships, correspondence, and intellectual struggles of the great man make this a fascinating feast of ideas for adults as well.