LINCOLN'S ELECTION TO THE TENTH ASSEMBLY.—ADMISSION TO THE BAR.— REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD. HE first twenty-six years of Abraham Lincoln's life have been traced in the preceding chapters. We have seen him struggling to escape from the lot of a common farm laborer, to which he seemed to be born; becoming a flatboatman, a grocery clerk, a store-keeper, a postmaster, and finally a surveyor. We... more...

1. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE Decem Rationes. The chief point to remember is that the Decem Rationes was the last and most deliberate free utterance of Campion's ever-memorable mission. During the few months that mission lasted he succeeded in staying the full tide of victorious Protestantism, which had hitherto been irresistible. The ancient Church had gone down before the new religion, at... more...

THE MAN THAT WAS A GHOSTGold light across the golden coomb;The sun went west with horns of fire;Athwart the sweet, sea-breathing roomThe swallows swooped; the village spireGlowed red against a gleam of broom;While earth its scented secrets told,There, silent, sunset-aureoled,Sat Ioläus, mild and old.In distance large the moving shipsSailed on into the evening skies.He gazed, and saw not. In eclipseHe... more...

THE OCTOBER LAND I sat on the ground with my youthful legs tucked under me, and the bridle rein of El Mahdi over my arm, while I hammered a copper rivet into my broken stirrup strap. A little farther down the ridge Jud was idly swinging his great driving whip in long, snaky coils, flicking now a dry branch, and now a red autumn leaf from the clay road. The slim buckskin lash would dart out hissing,... more...

There are not many who will remember him as Thomas Jefferson Brown. For ten years he had been mildly ashamed of himself, and out of respect for people who were dead, and for a dozen or so who were living, he had the good taste to drop his last name. The fact that it was only Brown didn't matter. "Tack Thomas Jefferson to Brown," he said, "and you've got a name that sticks!" It... more...

CHAPTER I. On the plains, midway between Cheyenne and the Black Hills, a train had halted for a noonday feed. Not a railway train, mind you, but a line of those white-covered vehicles drawn by strong-limbed mules, which are most properly styled "prairie schooners." There were four wagons of this type, and they had been drawn in a circle about a camp-fire, over which was roasting a savory haunch... more...

In this dreadful crisis, Walter pressed as hard as he could against the rocky crag, having but one hand at liberty to defend himself against the furious attack of the bird. It was quite impossible for him to get at his axe, and the force with which he was assaulted caused him nearly to let go his hold. He tried to seize the vulture's throat and strangle it; but the bird was too active, and made... more...

PREFATORY The following addresses were delivered at the request of various literary societies and commemorative committees.  They amused me to write, and they apparently interested the audiences for which they were primarily intended.  Perhaps they do not bear an appearance in print.  But they are not for my brother-journalists to read nor for the judicious men of letters.  I prefer to think that... more...

THE FINDING OF JOHN EVELYN'S MS. DIARYAT WOTTON. The MS. Diary, or "Kalendarium," of the celebrated John Evelyn lay among the family papers at Wotton, in Surrey, from the period of his death, in 1706, until their rare interest and value were discovered in the following singular manner. The library at Wotton is rich in curious books, with notes in John Evelyn's handwriting, as well as... more...

INTRODUCTION Of the making of books by individual authors there is no end; but a cultivated literary taste among the exceptional few has rendered almost impossible the production of genuine folk-songs. The spectacle, therefore, of a homogeneous throng of partly civilized people dancing to the music of crude instruments and evolving out of dance-rhythm a lyrical or narrative utterance in poetic form is... more...