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...

1858 There was no apologue more popular in the Middle Ages than that of the hermit, who, musing on the wickedness and tyranny of those whom the inscrutable wisdom of Providence had intrusted with the government of the world, fell asleep, and awoke to find himself the very monarch whose abject life and capricious violence had furnished the subject of his moralizing. Endowed with irresponsible power,... more...

PEPACTON I A SUMMER VOYAGE WHEN one summer day I bethought me of a voyage down the east or Pepacton branch of the Delaware, I seemed to want some excuse for the start, some send-off, some preparation, to give the enterprise genesis and head. This I found in building my own boat. It was a happy thought. How else should I have got under way, how else should I have raised the breeze? The boat-building... more...

TO RICHARD HENRY LEE. [MS., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library.] BOSTON Jany 1 1778 MY DEAR SIR I had the Pleasure of receiving your Letter dated at York the 23d ofNovr last, which mentions your having before written to me by a youngGentn Capt Romane who was to pass through this Place in his Return toFrance. That Letter has not yet come to Hand. I shall regard all yourRecommendations with the utmost... more...

JEFFERSON AS A TACTICIAN The word "tactician" is usually applied to military movements, but it has a broader meaning than this; it embodies the idea of a peculiar skill or faculty—a nice perception or discernment which is characterized by adroit planning or management, artfully directed in politics or diplomacy in government. "Of all creatures the sense of tact is most exquisite in... more...

THOMAS PAINE, in his Will, speaks of this work as The American Crisis, remembering perhaps that a number of political pamphlets had appeared in London, 1775-1776, under general title of "The Crisis." By the blunder of an early English publisher of Paine's writings, one essay in the London "Crisis" was attributed to Paine, and the error has continued to cause confusion. This... more...

In a letter of Lafayette to Washington ("Paris, 12 Jan., 1790") he writes: "Common Sense is writing for you a brochure where you will see a part of my adventures." It thus appears that the narrative embodied in the reply to Burke ("Rights of Man," Part I.), dedicated to Washington, was begun with Lafayette's collaboration fourteen months before its publication (March 13,... more...

CHAPTER I. In Which Morris Suspects How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours of toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bodleian, correspondence with learned and illegible Germans—in one word, the vast... more...

CHAPTER I An establishment in Newbern Center, trading under the name of the Foto Art Shop, once displayed in its window a likeness of the twin sons of Dave Cowan. Side by side, on a lavishly fringed plush couch, they confronted the camera with differing aspects. One sat forward with a decently, even blandly, composed visage, nor had he meddled with his curls. His mate sat back, scowling, and fought the... more...

CHAPTER I Having made final inspection of the knots of her shoe-laces and the fastenings of her skirt, Janet turned toward her "perfectly horrid" oilcoat, which, as usual, had spent the night on the floor. As it would never come off till she had tortured her fingers on the edges of its big rusty buttons, she always parted from it on unpleasant terms, casting it from her; whereupon this... more...