As a result, politicians plumped for July 14, 1790, a date when people from all over France came together to celebrate the creation of a short-lived constitutional monarchy.

Realising that museum resources available online could be of great and growing interest to web users, but that finding them could be difficult, I decided I would offer to incorporate my museums web page into the Virtual Library.

While many of us casually participate in this process online, we’re unaware of the sea change that’s occurring. Status updates, social networking, blogging and other habits have given rise to Internet Culture and now, internet users have created more content than mass media has created since the invention of the printing press.

Marcus Aurelius’ contribution to this philosophy has come to be known simply as the Meditations, though the title Marcus gave the work-more a private collection of self-examinations and moral exercises than a systematic philosophy or spiritual autobiography intended for publication-was “The matters addressed to himself.”

I don’t mean to be describing an intellectual transformation, or a transformation that is available only to “intellectuals.” I suppose that for many people—people inclined to read essays like this one, for instance—the transformation might seem to begin with a mental decision and a definite application of the will.

The vampire story as we know it was born in the early 19th century, as the wicked love child of rural folklore and urban decadence. But in writing these depraved tales, Byron and Polidori and company were refining the raw ore of peasant superstition.