I. If it be no small task for a man of the most favored antecedents and the most fortunate surroundings to rise above mediocrity in a great nation, it is surely a more remarkable achievement for a man of the very humblest origin possible to humanity in any country in any age of the world, in the face of obstacles seemingly insurmountable, to win high honors and rewards, to retain for more than a... more...

Peter In any group of men I have ever known, speaking from the point of view of character and not that of physical appearance, Peter would stand out as deliciously and irrefutably different. In the great waste of American intellectual dreariness he was an oasis, a veritable spring in the desert. He understood life. He knew men. He was free—spiritually, morally, in a thousand ways, it seemed to me. As... more...

A FAIR PENITENT Charles Pineau Duclos was a French writer of biographies and novels, who lived and worked during the first half of the eighteenth century. He prospered sufficiently well, as a literary man, to be made secretary to the French Academy, and to be allowed to succeed Voltaire in the office of historiographer of France. He has left behind him, in his own country, the reputation of a lively... more...

CHAPTER I There are few who have not a dim notion of John Brown as a name bound up with the stirring events of the United States in the period which preceded the Civil War and the emancipation of the slave. Many English readers, however, do not get beyond the limits of the famous couplet, John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,But his soul is marching on. That statement is authentic in... more...

Daniel's Indian Friend Daniel Boone was a boy who lived on the edge of the deep woods in Pennsylvania. At that time this country still belonged to England. Friendly Indians often came out of the woods to visit the white men. Daniel liked the Indians. He liked them so well that he wished he could live with them. One day he was taking care of his father's cattle. The pasture was several miles... more...

LETTER I. THE MURDER. Washington, April 17. Some very deliberate and extraordinary movements were made by a handsome and extremely well-dressed young man in the city of Washington last Friday. At about half-past eleven o'clock A. M., this person, whose name is J. Wilkes Booth, by profession an actor, and recently engaged in oil speculations, sauntered into Ford's Theater, on Tenth, between E... more...

IN WHOSE LIVES ARE FOUND THE SOURCE AND MAINSPRING OF SOME OF THE EFFORTS OF THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK IN HIS LATER YEARS Along an island in the North Sea, five miles from the Dutch Coast, stretches a dangerous ledge of rocks that has proved the graveyard of many a vessel sailing that turbulent sea. On this island once lived a group of men who, as each vessel was wrecked, looted the vessel and murdered... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HOME-MADE SUIT OF CLOTHES A fight in the first chapter made a book interesting to me when I was a boy. I said to myself, "The man who writes several chapters before the fighting begins is like the man who sells peanuts in which a lot of the shells haven't any goodies." I made up my mind then that if I ever wrote a book I would have a fight in the first chapter. So I will... more...

SIR—The changes of fortune and vicissitudes of war made you my conqueror. When my last resources were exhausted, my warriors worn down with long and toilsome marches, we yielded, and I became your prisoner. The story of my life is told in the following pages: it is intimately connected, and in some measure, identified, with a part of the history of your own: I have, therefore, dedicated it to you.... more...

I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH It has occurred to me that some reminiscences of a long life would be of interest to my family and friends. My memory goes back for more than eighty years. I recall distinctly when about five years old my mother took me to the school of Mrs. Westbrook, wife of the well-known pastor of the Dutch Reformed church, who had a school in her house, within a few doors. The lady was a... more...