Biography & Autobiography Books

CHAPTER I. I LEAVE MY FARM "Is it so small a thingTo have enjoyed the sun,To have lived light in spring?" It is eight o'clock of a sunny spring morning. I have been on the road for almost three hours. At five I left the town of Holt, before six I had crossed the railroad at a place called Martin's Landing, and an hour ago, at seven, I could see in the distance the spires of... more...

CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD. Sir Walter Scott was the first literary man of a great riding, sporting, and fighting clan. Indeed, his father—a Writer to the Signet, or Edinburgh solicitor—was the first of his race to adopt a town life and a sedentary profession. Sir Walter was the lineal descendant—six generations removed—of that Walter Scott commemorated in The Lay of the Last... more...

CHAPTER I JOHNSON AS A NATIONAL INSTITUTION The name of Samuel Johnson is, of course, not the greatest in English prose, but even to-day, when he has been dead more than a century and a quarter, it is still the most familiar. We live in an age of newspapers. Where all can read, the newspaper press, taken as a whole, will be a fairly accurate reflection of what is in the mind of a people. Nothing will... more...

I am well aware that to try to write Mr. Gladstone's life at all—the life of a man who held an imposing place in many high national transactions, whose character and career may be regarded in such various lights, whose interests were so manifold, and whose years bridged so long a span of time—is a stroke of temerity. To try to write his life to-day, is to push temerity still further. The ashes... more...

Chapter I From Broadway To Ghent When the war broke out in August, 1914, I was at work in the City Room of the "New York Evening Post." One morning, during the first week of activities, the copy boy handed me a telegram which was signed "Luther, Boston," and contained the rather cryptic message: —"How about this fight?" It was some moments before I could recall the time, more... more...

K.'S ADVICE AND THE P.M.'S ENVOY 11th July, 1915. Worked in my office from early morning till 12.45. The whole scheme for to-morrow's attack is cut and dried, according to our cloth: time tables fixed and every round counted. Freddy Stopford and his Staff turned up from Mudros. Stopford in very good form. The first thing he did was to deliver himself of a personal message from Lord K. He... more...

"Hello, Central, give me Queen 4000. Is that you, Burt? You are going, aren't you?" Burt Young was one of my pals and I had just learned from the morning paper that enlistments for Canada's first overseas contingent were being taken that day and I had called up to inquire if he were going. "Sure, I am going. Where will I meet you?" We arranged to meet at the exhibition ground... more...

Chapter 12. Gen. Gates — bon mot of British general Lee — how an army ought not to march — De Kalb prophecies — chickens counted before they are hatched, alias, Marion and the author sent by Gen. Gates to prevent the escape of Cornwallis, before he had run — the British and American armies meet — Gates and his militia-men leave De Kalb in the lurch — his gallant behavior, and glorious... more...

DR. HÜ KING ENG I Among the earliest converts to Christianity in South China was Hü Yong Mi, the son of a military mandarin of Foochow. He had been a very devout Buddhist, whose struggles after spiritual peace, and whose efforts to obtain it through fasting, sacrifice, earnest study, and the most scrupulous obedience to all the forms of Buddhist worship, remind one strongly of the experiences of Saul... more...

INTRODUCTION BY MOST REV. JOHN IRELAND, D.D., Archbishop of St. Paul. LIFE is action, and so long as there is action there is life. That life is worth living whose action puts forth noble aspirations and good deeds. The man's influence for truth and virtue persevering in activity, his life has not ceased, though earth has clasped his body in its embrace. It is well that it is so. The years of... more...