PREFACE My preface will be a few citations from reliable authorities to introduce to my readers the people of whom I write: GOV. CLINTON, in a discourse delivered before the New York Historical Society, says: "Previous to the occupation of this country by the progenitors of the present race of Indians, it was inhabited by a race of men much more populous and much farther advanced in civilization;... more...

THE LAWN: HOW TO MAKE IT AND HOW TO TAKE CARE OF IT HE owner of the average small home seldom goes to the expense of employing the professional gardener to do the work of lawn-making. Sometimes he cannot afford to do so. Sometimes skilled labor is not obtainable. The consequence is, in the majority of cases, the lawn,—or what, by courtesy, is called by that name,—is a sort of evolution which is an... more...

CHAPTER I It has been our fate, among all the innumerable generations of mankind, to face the most frightful calamity that has ever befallen the world. There is a basic fact which cannot be denied, and should not be overlooked. For a most important deduction must immediately follow from it. That deduction is that we, who have borne the pains, shall also learn the lesson which they were intended to... more...

A monkey and a crab once met when going round a mountain. The monkey had picked up a persimmon-seed, and the crab had a piece of toasted rice-cake. The monkey seeing this, and wishing to get something that could be turned to good account at once, said: "Pray, exchange that rice-cake for this persimmon-seed." The crab, without a word, gave up his cake, and took the persimmon-seed and planted it.... more...

I THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND POLITICAL POSITION OF RAVENNA Upon the loneliest and most desolate shore of Italy, where the vast monotony of the Emilian plain fades away at last, almost imperceptibly, into the Adrian Sea, there stands, half abandoned in that soundless place, and often wrapt in a white shroud of mist, a city like a marvellous reliquary, richly wrought, as is meet, beautiful with many fading... more...

I have often wondered if the world ever thinks of what becomes of the children of great criminals who expiate their crime on the scaffold. Are they taken away and brought up somewhere in ignorance of who or what they are? Does some kind relative step forward always bring them up under another name? There is great criminal trial, and we hear that the man condemned to death leaves two daughters and a... more...

THE GOOD OLD TIMES. It is recorded of John Lowin, an actor contemporary with Shakespeare and associated with several of Shakespeare's greater characters (his range was so wide, indeed, that it included Falstaff, Henry the Eighth, and Hamlet), that, having survived the halcyon days of "Eliza and our James" and lingered into the drab and russet period of the Puritans, when all the theatres... more...

No description available

CHAPTER ONE THE COURAGE OF SELF-CONQUESTTHE highest courage is impossible without self-conquest. And self-conquest is never easy. A man may be a marvel of physical courage, and be a coward in matters of self-government. Failure here threatens dire disaster to his entire career.Alexander the Great conquered most of the world he knew, but he permitted his lower nature to conquer his better self, and he... more...

INTRODUCTION William Beckford, born in 1759, the year before the accession of King George the Third, was the son of an Alderman who became twice Lord Mayor of London.  His family, originally of Gloucestershire, had thriven by the plantations in Jamaica; and his father, sent to school in England, and forming a school friendship at Westminster with Lord Mansfield, began the world in this country as a... more...