Biography & Autobiography Books

Chapter 31 A Thumb-print and What Came of It WE were approaching Napoleon, Arkansas. So I began to think about my errand there. Time, noonday; and bright and sunny. This was bad—not best, anyway; for mine was not (preferably) a noonday kind of errand. The more I thought, the more that fact pushed itself upon me—now in one form, now in another. Finally, it took the form of a distinct question: is it... more...

THE STORY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Of all love stories that are known to human history, the love story of Antony and Cleopatra has been for nineteen centuries the most remarkable. It has tasked the resources of the plastic and the graphic arts. It has been made the theme of poets and of prose narrators. It has appeared and reappeared in a thousand forms, and it appeals as much to the imagination to-day... more...

CHAPTER I. HIS YOUTH, AND PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY "Many shall rejoice at his birth; for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord"—Luke 1:14. In the midst of the restless activity of such a day as ours, it will be felt by ministers of Christ to be useful in no common degree, to trace the steps of one who but lately left us, and who, during the last years of his short life, walked calmly... more...

CHAPTER I Ancestry—The Lincolns in Kentucky—Death of Lincoln's Grandfather—Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks—Mordecai Lincoln—Birth of Abraham Lincoln—Removal to Indiana—Early Years—Dennis Hanks—Lincoln's Boyhood—Death of Nancy Hanks—Early School Days—Lincoln's First Dollar—Presentiments of Future Greatness—Down the Mississippi—Removal to... more...

His Childhood and Youth. B.C. 356-336The briefness of Alexander's career.Alexander the Great died when he was quite young. He was but thirty-two years of age when he ended his career, and as he was about twenty when he commenced it, it was only for a period of twelve years that he was actually engaged in performing the work of his life. Napoleon was nearly three times as long on the great field of... more...

NARRATIVE. The small city of Raleigh, North Carolina, it is known, is the capital of the State, situated in the interior, and containing about thirty six hundred inhabitants. Here lived MR. SHERWOOD HAYWOOD, a man of considerable respectability, a planter, and the cashier of a bank. He owned three plantations, at the distances respectively of seventy-five, thirty, and three miles from his residence in... more...

CHAPTER I. BIRTH OF SIR MOSES MONTEFIORE AT LEGHORN—HIS FAMILY—EARLY YEARS. The neighbourhood of the Tower of London was, a hundred years ago, the centre of attraction for thousands of persons engaged in financial pursuits, not so much on account of the protection which the presence of the garrison might afford in case of tumult, as of the convenience offered by the locality from its vicinity to... more...

PREFACE Thirty-five years ago missionary work was commenced in the city of Yüshan, situated on the Kwangsin River in Kiangsi, one of the central Provinces of China. The conversion of "Everlasting Pearl," which is the subject of the following narrative, is a part of the harvest which has been reaped in later years by the missionaries of the China Inland Mission, who still continue to carry on... more...

PREFACE It has been a labor of love with many distinguished Frenchmen to recall the memories of the women who have made their society so illustrious, and to retouch with sympathetic insight the features which time was beginning to dim. One naturally hesitates to enter a field that has been gleaned so carefully, and with such brilliant results, by men like Cousin, Sainte-Beuve, Goncourt, and others of... more...

CHAPTER I. I was born in Lexington, Ky. The man who stole me as soon as I was born, recorded the births of all the infants which he claimed to be born his property, in a book which he kept for that purpose. My mother's name was Elizabeth. She had seven children, viz: Solomon, Leander, Benjamin, Joseph, Millford, Elizabeth, and myself. No two of us were children of the same father. My father's... more...