Biography & Autobiography Books

A Quick Passage. To the editor of the "China Mail." Dear Sir:—I have just read with much pleasure the report of the quick passage made by the sailing-ship "Muskoka" from Cardiff to this port in ninety-two days. This is really a good trip and the captain and his officers may be complimented on having done so well, for, as you know, the ship is of large tonnage and the complement of men... more...

WASHINGTON COLLEGE—LEXINGTON—VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE At the age of eighteen I was a member of the Junior Class at Washington College at Lexington, Virginia, during the session of 1860-61, and with the rest of the students was more interested in the foreshadowings of that ominous period than in the teachings of the professors. Among our number there were a few from the States farther south who... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                             MARCH & APRIL                               1664-1665 March 1st. Up, and this day being the day than: by a promise, a great while ago, made to my wife, I was to give her L20 to lay out in clothes against Easter, she did, notwithstanding... more...

THOMAR Here in the quiet old convent of Thomar, the Convento de Christo, the strife of the past months seems like a dream. Wandering through the long corridors, with their bare, empty apartments, gazing by the hour on paintings faded and torn, the work of long dead and forgotten masters, dwelling on marvels of ancient architecture, resting the eyes on peaceful landscapes and hearing the sweet murmur of... more...

CHAPTER I. 1801. News of the Battles of the 6th and 12th of July reach England.—Rejoicings on the occasion, particularly described in a letter from Mrs. Saumarez.—Promotion of Lieutenant Dumaresq.—Letters from Earl St. Vincent, Mr. Tucker, and others.—Remarks on the conduct of the Governor and Garrison at Gibraltar.—State of the crew of the Cæsar.—Ship refitted.—Appointments of officers... more...

THE MEANING OF THE TANK CORPS TANKS! To the uninitiated—as were we in those days when we returned to the Somme, too late to see the tanks make their first dramatic entrance—the name conjures up a picture of an iron monster, breathing fire and exhaling bullets and shells, hurling itself against the enemy, unassailable by man and impervious to the most deadly engines of war; sublime, indeed, in its... more...

CHAPTER I. FORT MOULTRIE IN 1860. The Garrison of Fort Moultrie.—Early Indications of Secession.—Situation of the Fort.—Edmund Ruffin and Robert Barnwell Rhett.—The Secretary of War.—Arms sent to the South.—Colonel Gardner.—Captain Foster ordered to Charleston Harbor.—The Officers at Fort Moultrie.—Communications with Northern Men by Cipher.—Proscription of Antislavery Men in... more...

THE ULTIMATUM AND WHAT LED TO IT When the late Emperor of the French was informed, on the eve of the Franco-German War, that not so much as a gaiter button would be found wanting if hostilities were at once commenced, soon all France found itself, with him, fatally deceived. But when the Transvaal Burghers boasted that they were "ready to give the British such a licking as they had never had... more...

IN PLACE OF PREFACE. Fortunate, indeed, is the reader who takes up a volume without preface; of which the persons are left to enact their own drama and the author does not come before the curtain, like the chorus of Greek tragedy, to speak for them. But, in printing the pages that follow, it may seem needful to ask that they be taken for what they are; simple sketches of the inner life of... more...

A generation born since Abraham Lincoln died has already reached manhood and womanhood. Yet there are millions still living who sympathized with him in his noble aspirations, who labored with him in his toilsome life, and whose hearts were saddened by his tragic death. It is the almost unbroken testimony of his contemporaries that by virtue of certain high traits of character, in certain momentous... more...