RECOMMENDATION OF NAVAL OFFICERS MESSAGE TO CONGRESS. WASHINGTON, D.C., May 14, 1862.TO SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of the Navy," approved 21st of December, 1861, provides: "That the President of the United States by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the retired list... more...

FIRST CHILD TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. SPRINGFIELD, May 18, 1843. DEAR SPEED:—Yours of the 9th instant is duly received, which I do not meet as a "bore," but as a most welcome visitor. I will answer the business part of it first. In relation to our Congress matter here, you were right in supposing I would support the nominee. Neither Baker nor I, however, is the man, but Hardin, so far as I can... more...

TO GENERAL SCHOFIELD. Private and confidential EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, October 28, 1863.GENERAL JOHN M. SCHOFIELD:There have recently reached the War Department, and thence been laid before me, from Missouri, three communications, all similar in import and identical in object. One of them, addressed to nobody, and without place or date, but having the signature of (apparently) the writer, is a... more...

Some years ago, while editing Henry C. Whitney's "Life of Lincoln" I showed a photograph of the bust of Lincoln by Johannes Gelert, the most intellectual to my mind of all the studies of his face, to a little Italian shoeblack, and asked him if he knew who it was. The boy, evidently prompted by a recent lesson at school, said questioningly, "Whittier?—Longfellow?" I replied,... more...

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES I POLITICAL SPEECHES & DEBATES of LINCOLN WITH DOUGLAS In the Senatorial Campaign of 1858 in Illinois SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD, JUNE 17, 1858 [The following speech was delivered at Springfield, Ill., at the close of the Republican State Convention held at that time and place, and by which Convention Mr. LINCOLN had been named as their candidate for United States Senator.... more...

INTRODUCTION Thirty years ago and more those who read and valued good books in this country made the acquaintance of Mr. Warner, and since the publication of "My Summer In a Garden" no work of his has needed any other introduction than the presence of his name on the title-page; and now that reputation has mellowed into memory, even the word of interpretation seems superfluous. Mr. Warner wrote... more...

I. To W. M. Thackeray. Sir,—There are many things that stand in the way of the critic when he has a mind to praise the living. He may dread the charge of writing rather to vex a rival than to exalt the subject of his applause. He shuns the appearance of seeking the favour of the famous, and would not willingly be regarded as one of the many parasites who now advertise each movement and action of... more...

PUBLIC APPEAL. To the President and Fellows and Board of Overseers of Harvard University: Gentlemen,—Believing it to be a necessary part of good citizenship to defend one's reputation against unjustifiable attacks, and believing you to have been unwarrantably, but not remotely, implicated in an unjustifiable attack upon my own reputation by Assistant Professor Josiah Royce, since his attack is... more...

ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MR. DISRAELI. BY HIS SON. The traditionary notion that the life of a man of letters is necessarily deficient in incident, appears to have originated in a misconception of the essential nature of human action. The life of every man is full of incidents, but the incidents are insignificant, because they do not affect his species; and in general the importance of every... more...

INTRODUCTION With the waning of Sir Kenelm Digby's philosophic reputation his name has not become obscure. It stands, vaguely perhaps, but permanently, for something versatile and brilliant and romantic. He remains a perpetual type of the hero of romance, the double hero, in the field of action and the realm of the spirit. Had he lived in an earlier age he would now be a mythological personage;... more...