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by Marden vice Harden

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Title: Stories from Life

Author: Marden vice Harden

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ECLECTIC SCHOOL READINGS

STORIES FROM LIFE

A BOOK FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

BY ORISON SWETT MARDEN

AUTHOR OF "ARCHITECTS OF FATE," "RUSHING TO THE FRONT," "WINNING
OUT," ETC, AND EDITOR OF "SUCCESS"





PREFACE


To make a life, as well as to make a living, is one of the supreme
objects for which we must all struggle. The sooner we realize what
this means, the greater and more worthy will be the life which we
shall make.

In putting together the brief life stories and incidents from
great lives which make up the pages of this little volume, the
writer's object has been to show young people that, no matter how
humble their birth or circumstances, they may make lives that will
be held up as examples to future generations, even as these
stories show how boys, handicapped by poverty and the most
discouraging surroundings, yet succeeded so that they are held up
as models to the boys of to-day.

No boy or girl can learn too early in life the value of time and
the opportunities within reach of the humblest children of the
twentieth century to enable them to make of themselves noble men
and women.

The stories here presented do not claim to be more than mere
outlines of the subjects chosen, enough to show what brave souls
in the past, souls animated by loyalty to God and to their best
selves, were able to accomplish in spite of obstacles of which the
more fortunately born youths of to-day can have no conception.

It should never be forgotten, however, in the strivings of
ambition, that, while every one should endeavor to raise himself
to his highest power and to attain to as exalted and honorable a
position as his abilities entitle him to, his first object should
be to make a noble life.

The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Miss Margaret
Connolly in the preparation of this volume.

O.S.M.





CONTENTS


TO-DAY
"THE MILL BOY OF THE SLASHES"
THE GREEK SLAVE WHO WON THE OLIVE CROWN
TURNING POINTS IN THE LIFE OF A HERO:
   I. THE FIRST TURNING POINT
  II. A BORN LEADER
 III. "FARRAGUT IS THE MAN"
HE AIMED HIGH AND HIT THE MARK
THE EVOLUTION OF A VIOLINIST
THE LESSON OF THE TEAKETTLE
HOW THE ART OF PRINTING WAS DISCOVERED
SEA FEVER AND WHAT IT LED TO
GLADSTONE FOUND TIME TO BE KIND
A TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE
THE MIGHT OF PATIENCE
THE INSPIRATION OF GAMBETTA
ANDREW JACKSON: THE BOY WHO "NEVER WOULD GIVE UP"
SIR HUMPHRY DAVY'S GREATEST DISCOVERY, MICHAEL FARADAY
THE TRIUMPH OF CANOVA
FRANKLIN'S LESSON ON TIME VALUE
FROM STORE BOY TO MILLIONAIRE
"I WILL PAINT OR DIE!"
THE CALL THAT SPEAKS IN THE BLOOD
WASHINGTON'S YOUTHFUL HEROISM
A COW HIS CAPITAL
THE BOY WHO SAID "I MUST"
THE HIDDEN TREASURE
LOVE TAMED THE LION
"THERE IS ROOM ENOUGH AT THE TOP"
THE UPLIFT OF A SLAVE BOY'S IDEAL
"TO THE FIRST ROBIN"
THE "WIZARD" AS AN EDITOR
HOW GOOD FORTUNE CAME TO PIERRE
"IF I REST, I RUST"
A BOY WHO KNEW NOT FEAR
HOW STANLEY FOUND LIVINGSTONE
THE NESTOR OF AMERICAN JOURNALISTS
THE MAN WITH AN IDEA
"BERNARD OF THE TUILERIES"
HOW THE "LEARNED BLACKSMITH" FOUND TIME
THE LEGEND OF WILLIAM TELL
"WESTWARD HO!"
THREE GREAT AMERICAN SONGS AND THEIR AUTHORS
   I. THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER
  II. AMERICA
 III. THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
TRAINING FOR GREATNESS
THE MARBLE WAITETH





STORIES FROM LIFE





TO-DAY

    For the structure that we raise,
      Time is with materials filled;
    Our to-days and yesterdays
      Are the blocks with which we build.

                              Longfellow.


To-day! To-day! It is ours, with all its magic possibilities of
being and doing. Yesterday, with its mistakes, misdeeds, lost
opportunities, and failures, is gone forever. With the morrow we
are not immediately concerned. It is but a promise yet to be
fulfilled. Hidden behind the veil of the future, it may dimly
beckon us, but it is yet a shadowy, unsubstantial vision, one that
we, perhaps, never may realize. But to-day, the Here, the Now,
that dawned upon us with the first hour of the morn, is a reality,
a precious possession upon the right use of which may depend all
our future of happiness and success, or of misery and failure; for

"This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin."

Lest he should forget that Time's wings are swift and noiseless,
and so rapidly bear our to-days to the Land of Yesterday, John
Ruskin, philosopher, philanthropist, and tireless worker though he
was, kept constantly before his eyes on his study table a large,
handsome block of chalcedony, on which was graven the single word
"To-day." Every moment of this noble life was enriched by the
right use of each passing moment.

A successful merchant, whose name is well-known throughout our
country, very tersely sums up the means by which true success may
be attained. "It is just this," he says: "Do your best every day,
whatever you have in hand."

This simple rule, if followed in sunshine and in storm, in days of
sadness as well as days of gladness, will rear for the builder a
Palace Beautiful more precious than pearls of great price, more
enduring than time.





"THE MILL BOY OF THE SLASHES"


A picturesque, as well as pathetic figure, was Henry Clay, the
little "Mill Boy of the Slashes," as he rode along on the old
family horse to Mrs. Darricott's mill. Blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked,
and bare-footed, clothed in coarse shirt and trousers, and a
time-worn straw hat, he sat erect on the bare back of the horse,
holding, with firm hand, the rope which did duty as a bridle. In
front of him lay the precious sack, containing the grist which was
to be ground into meal or flour, to feed the hungry mouths of the
seven little boys and girls who, with the widowed mother, made up
the Clay family.

It required a good deal of grist to feed so large a family,
especially when hoecake was the staple food, and it was because of
his frequent trips to the mill, across the swampy region called
the "Slashes," that Henry was dubbed by the neighbors "The Mill
Boy of the Slashes."

The lad was ambitious, however, and, very early in life, made up
his mind that he would win for himself a more imposing title. He
never dreamed of winning world-wide renown as an orator, or of
exchanging his boyish sobriquet for "The Orator of Ashland." But
he who forms high ideals in youth usually far outstrips his first
ambition, and Henry had "hitched his wagon to a star."

This awkward country boy, who was so bashful, and so lacking in
self-confidence that he hardly dared recite before his class in
the log schoolhouse, DETERMINED TO BECOME AN ORATOR.

Henry Clay, the brilliant lawyer and statesman, the American
Demosthenes who could sway multitudes by his matchless oratory,
once said, "In order to succeed a man must have a purpose fixed,
then let his motto be VICTORY OR DEATH." When Henry Clay, the poor
country boy, son of an unknown Baptist minister, made up his mind
to become an orator, he acted on this principle. No discouragement
or obstacle was allowed to swerve him from his purpose. Since the
death of his father, when the boy was but five years old, he had
carried grist to the mill, chopped wood, followed the plow
barefooted, clerked in a country store,--did everything that a
loving son and brother could do to help win a subsistence for the
family.

In the midst of poverty, hard work, and the most pitilessly
unfavorable conditions, the youth clung to his resolve. He learned
what he could at the country schoolhouse, during the time the
duties of the farm permitted him to attend school. He committed
speeches to memory, and recited them aloud, sometimes in the
forest, sometimes while working in the cornfield, and frequently
in a barn with a horse and an ox for his audience.

In his fifteenth year he left the grocery store where he had been
clerking to take a position in the office of the clerk of the High
Court of Chancery. There he became interested in law, and by
reading and study began at once to supplement the scanty education
of his childhood. To such good purpose did he use his
opportunities that in 1797, when only twenty years old, he was
licensed by the judges of the court of appeals to practice law.

When he moved from Richmond to Lexington, Kentucky, the same year
to begin practice for himself, he had no influential friends, no
patrons, and not even the means to pay his board. Referring to
this time years afterward, he said, "I remember how comfortable I
thought I should be if I could make one hundred pounds Virginia
money (less than five hundred dollars) per year; and with what
delight I received the first fifteen-shilling fee."

Contrary to his expectations, the young lawyer had "immediately
rushed into a lucrative practice." At the age of twenty-seven he
was elected to the Kentucky legislature. Two years later he was
sent to the United States Senate to fill out the remainder of the
term of a senator who had withdrawn. In 1811 he was elected to
Congress, and made Speaker of the national House of
Representatives. He was afterward elected to the United States
Senate in the regular way.

Both in Congress and in the Senate Clay always worked for what he
believed to be the best interests of his country. Ambition, which
so often causes men to turn aside from the paths of truth and
honor, had no power to tempt him to do wrong. He was ambitious to
be president, but would not sacrifice any of his convictions for
the sake of being elected. Although he was nominated by his party
three times, he never became president. It was when warned by a
friend that if he persisted in a certain course of political
conduct he would injure his prospects of being elected, that he
made his famous statement, "I would rather be right than be
president."

Clay has been described by one of his biographers as "a brilliant
orator, an honest man, a charming gentleman, an ardent patriot,
and a leader whose popularity was equaled only by that of Andrew
Jackson."

Although born in a state in which wealth and ancient ancestry were
highly rated, he was never ashamed of his birth or poverty. Once
when taunted by the aristocratic John Randolph with his lowly
origin, he proudly exclaimed, "I was born to no proud paternal
estate. I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence."

He was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on April 12, 1777, and
died in Washington, June 29, 1852. With only the humble
inheritance which he claimed--"infancy, ignorance, and indigence"
--Henry Clay made himself a name that wealth and a long line of
ancestry could never bestow.





THE GREEK SLAVE WHO WON THE OLIVE CROWN


The teeming life of the streets has vanished; the voices of the
children have died away into silence; the artisan has dropped his
tools, the artist has laid aside his brush, the sculptor his
chisel. Night has spread her wings over the scene. The queen city
of Greece is wrapped in slumber.

But, in the midst of that hushed life, there is one who sleeps
not, a worshiper at the shrine of art, who feels neither fatigue
nor hardship, and fears not death itself in the pursuit of his
object. With the fire of genius burning in his dark eyes, a youth
works with feverish haste on a group of wondrous beauty.

But why is this master artist at work, in secret, in a cellar
where the sun never shone, the daylight never entered? I will tell
you. Creon, the inspired worker, the son of genius, is a slave,
and the penalty of pursuing his art is death.

When the Athenian law debarring all but freemen from the exercise
of art was enacted, Creon was at work trying to realize in marble
the vision his soul had created. The beautiful group was growing
into life under his magic touch when the cruel edict struck the
chisel from his fingers.

"O ye gods!" groans the stricken youth, "why have ye deserted me,
now, when my task is almost completed? I have thrown my soul, my
very life, into this block of marble, and now--"

Cleone, the beautiful dark-haired sister of the sculptor, felt the
blow as keenly as her brother, to whom she was utterly devoted. "O
immortal Athene! my goddess, my patron, at whose shrine I have
daily laid my offerings, be now my friend, the friend of my
brother!" she prayed.

Then, with the light of a new-born resolve shining in her eyes,
she turned to her brother, saying:--

"The thought of your brain shall live. Let us go to the cellar
beneath our house. It is dark, but I will bring you light and
food, and no one will discover our secret. You can there continue
your work; the gods will be our allies."

It is the golden age of Pericles, the most brilliant epoch of
Grecian art and dramatic literature.

The scene is one of the most memorable that has ever been enacted
within the proud city of Athens.

In the Agora, the public assembly or market place, are gathered
together the wisdom and wit, the genius and beauty, the glory and
power, of all Greece.

Enthroned in regal state sits Pericles, president of the assembly,
soldier, statesman, orator, ruler, and "sole master of Athens." By
his side sits his beautiful partner, the learned and queenly
Aspasia. Phidias, one of the greatest sculptors, if not the
greatest the world has known, who "formed a new style
characterized by sublimity and ideal beauty," is there. Near him
is Sophocles, the greatest of the tragic poets. Yonder we catch a
glimpse of a face and form that offers the most striking contrast
to the manly beauty of the poet, but whose wisdom and virtue have
brought Athens to his feet. It is the "father of philosophy,"
Socrates. With his arm linked in that of the philosopher, we see--
but why prolong the list? All Greece has been bidden to Athens to
view the works of art.

The works of the great masters are there. On every side paintings
and statues, marvelous in detail, exquisite in finish, challenge
the admiration of the crowd and the criticism of the rival artists
and connoisseurs who throng the place. But even in the midst of
masterpieces, one group of statuary so far surpasses all the
others that it rivets the attention of the vast assembly.

"Who is the sculptor of this group?" demands Pericles. Envious
artists look from one to the other with questioning eyes, but the
question remains unanswered. No triumphant sculptor comes forward
to claim the wondrous creation as the work of his brain and hand.
Heralds, in thunder tones, repeat, "Who is the sculptor of this
group?" No one can tell. It is a mystery. Is it the work of the
gods? or--and, with bated breath, the question passes from lip to
lip, "Can it have been fashioned by the hand of a slave?"

Suddenly a disturbance arises at the edge of the crowd. Loud
voices are heard, and anon the trembling tones of a woman. Pushing
their way through the concourse, two officers drag a shrinking
girl, with dark, frightened eyes, to the feet of Pericles. "This
woman," they cry, "knows the sculptor; we are sure of this; but
she will not tell his name."

Neither threats nor pleading can unlock the lips of the brave
girl. Not even when informed that the penalty of her conduct was
death would she divulge her secret. "The law," says Pericles, "is
imperative. Take the maid to the dungeon."

Creon, who, with his sister, had been among the first to find his
way to the Agora that morning, rushed forward, and, flinging
himself at the ruler's feet, cried "O Pericles! forgive and save
the maid. She is my sister. I am the culprit. The group is the
work of my hands, the hands of a slave."

An intense silence fell upon the multitude, and then went up a
mighty shout,--"To the dungeon, to the dungeon with the slave."

"As I live, no!" said Pericles, rising. "Not to the dungeon, but
to my side bring the youth. The highest purpose of the law should
be the development of the beautiful. The gods decide by that group
that there is something higher in Greece than an unjust law. To
the sculptor who fashioned it give the victor's crown."

And then, amid the applause of all the people, Aspasia placed the
crown of olives on the youth's brow, and tenderly kissed the
devoted sister who had been the right hand of genius.





TURNING POINTS IN THE LIFE OF A HERO

I. THE FIRST TURNING POINT


David Farragut was acting as cabin boy to his father, who was on
his way to New Orleans with the infant navy of the United States.
The boy thought he had the qualities that make a man. "I could
swear like an old salt," he says, "could drink as stiff a glass of
grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a
locomotive. I was great at cards, and was fond of gambling in
every shape. At the close of dinner one day," he continues, "my
father turned everybody out of the cabin, locked the door, and
said to me, 'David, what do you mean to be?'

"'I mean to follow the sea,' I said.

'"Follow the sea!' exclaimed father, 'yes, be a poor, miserable,
drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world,
and die in some fever hospital in a foreign clime!'

"'No, father,' I replied, 'I will tread the quarterdeck, and
command as you do.'

"'No, David; no boy ever trod the quarterdeck with such principles
as you have and such habits as you exhibit. You will have to
change your whole course of life if you ever become a man.'

"My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned by the rebuke,
and overwhelmed with mortification. 'A poor, miserable, drunken
sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and die
in some fever hospital!' 'That's my fate, is it? I'll change my
life, and _I_ WILL CHANGE IT AT ONCE. I will never utter another
oath, never drink another drop of intoxicating liquor, never
gamble,' and, as God is my witness," said the admiral, solemnly,
"I have kept these three vows to this hour."





II. A BORN LEADER


The event which proved David Glasgow Farragut's qualities as a
leader happened before he was thirteen.

He was with his adopted father, Captain Porter, on board the
Essex, when war was declared with England in 1812. A number of
prizes were captured by the Essex, and David was ordered by
Captain Porter to take one of the captured vessels, with her
commander as navigator, to Valparaiso. Although inwardly quailing
before the violent-tempered old captain of the prize ship, of
whom, as he afterward confessed, he was really "a little afraid,"
the boy assumed the command with a fearless air.

On giving his first order, that the "main topsail be filled away,"
the trouble began. The old captain, furious at hearing a command
given aboard his vessel by a boy not yet in his teens, replied to
the order, with an oath, that he would shoot any one who dared
touch a rope without his orders. Having delivered this mandate, he
rushed below for his pistols.

The situation was critical. If the young commander hesitated for a
moment, or showed the least sign of submitting to be bullied, his
authority would instantly have fallen from him. Boy as he was,
David realized this, and, calling one of the crew to him,
explained what had taken place, and repeated his order. With a
hearty "Aye, aye, sir!" the sailor flew to the ropes, while the
plucky midshipman called down to the captain that "if he came on
deck with his pistols, he would be thrown overboard."

David's victory was complete. During the remainder of the voyage
none dared dispute his authority. Indeed his coolness and
promptitude had won for him the lasting admiration of the crew.





III. "FARRAGUT IS THE MAN"


The great turning point which placed Farragut at the head of the
American navy was reached in 1861, when Virginia seceded from the
Union, and he had to choose between the cause of the North and
that of the South. He dearly loved his native South, and said,
"God forbid that I should have to raise my hand against her," but
he determined, come what would, to "stick to the flag."

So it came about that when, in order to secure the control of the
Mississippi, the national government resolved upon the capture of
New Orleans, Farragut was chosen to lead the undertaking. Several
officers, noted for their loyalty, good judgment, and daring, were
suggested, but the Secretary of the Navy said, "Farragut is the
man."

The opportunity for which all his previous noble life and
brilliant services had been a preparation came to him when he was
sixty-one years old. The command laid upon him was "the certain
capture of the city of New Orleans." "The department and the
country," so ran his instructions, "require of you success. ... If
successful, you open the way to the sea for the great West, never
again to be closed. The rebellion will be riven in the center, and
the flag, to which you have been so faithful, will recover its
supremacy in every state."

On January 9, 1862, Farragut was appointed to the command of the
western gulf blockading squadron. "On February 2," says the
National Cyclopedia of American Biograph, "he sailed on the steam
sloop Hartford from Hampton Roads, arriving at the appointed
rendezvous, Ship Island, in sixteen days. His fleet, consisting of
six war steamers, sixteen gunboats, twenty-one mortar vessels,
under the command of Commodore David D. Porter, and five supply
ships, was the largest that had ever sailed under the American
flag. Yet the task assigned him, the passing of the forts below
New Orleans, the capture of the city, and the opening of the
Mississippi River through its entire length was one of difficulty
unprecedented in the history of naval warfare."

Danger or death had no terror for the brave sailor. Before setting
out on his hazardous enterprise, he said: "If I die in the
attempt, it will only be what every officer has to expect. He who
dies in doing his duty to his country, and at peace with his God,
has played the drama of life to the best advantage."

The hero did not die. He fought and won the great battle, and thus
executed the command laid upon him,--"the certain capture of the
city of New Orleans." The victory was accomplished with the loss
of but one ship, and 184 men killed and wounded,--"a feat in naval
warfare," says his son and biographer, "which has no precedent,
and which is still without a parallel, except the one furnished by
Farragut himself, two years later, at Mobile."





HE AIMED HIGH AND HIT THE MARK

"Without vision the people perish"


Without a high ideal an individual never climbs. Keep your eyes on
the mountain top, and, though you may stumble and fall many times
in the ascent, though great bowlders, dense forests, and roaring
torrents may often bar the way, look right on, never losing sight
of the light which shines away up in the clear atmosphere of the
mountain peak, and you will ultimately reach your goal.

When the late Horace Maynard, LL.D., entered Amherst College, he
exposed himself to the ridicule and jibing questions of his
fellow-students by placing over the door of his room a large
square of white cardboard on which was inscribed in bold outlines
the single letter "V." Disregarding comment and question, the
young man applied himself to his work, ever keeping in mind the
height to which he wished to climb, the first step toward which
was signified by the mysterious "V."

Four years later, after receiving the compliments of professors
and students on the way he had acquitted himself as valedictorian
of his class, young Maynard called the attention of his fellow-
graduates to the letter over his door. Then a light broke in upon
them, and they cried out, "Is it possible that you had the
valedictory in mind when you put that 'V' over your door?"

"Assuredly I had," was the emphatic reply.

On he climbed, from height to height, becoming successively
professor of mathematics in the University of Tennessee, lawyer,
member of Congress, attorney-general of Tennessee, United States
minister to Constantinople, and, finally, postmaster-general.

Honorable ambition is the leaven that raises the whole mass of
mankind. Ideals, visions, are the stepping-stones by which we rise
to higher things.

"Still, through our paltry stir and strife,
        Glows down the wished ideal,
     And longing molds in clay what life
        Carves in the marble real;

    "To let the new life in, we know,
        Desire must ope the portal,--
     Perhaps the longing to be so
        Helps make the soul immortal."





THE EVOLUTION OF A VIOLINIST


He was a famous artist whom kings and queens and emperors
delighted to honor. The emperor of all the Russias had sent him an
affectionate letter, written by his own hand; the empress, a
magnificent emerald ring set with diamonds; the king of his own
beloved Norway, who had listened reverently, standing with
uncovered head, while he, the king of violinists, played before
him, had bestowed upon him the Order of Vasa; the king of
Copenhagen presented him with a gold snuffbox, encrusted with
diamonds; while, at a public dinner given him by the students of
Christiana, he was crowned with a laurel wreath. Not all the
thousands who thronged to hear him in London could gain entrance
to the concert hall, and in Liverpool he received four thousand
dollars for one evening's performance.

Yet the homage of the great ones of the earth, the princely gifts
bestowed upon him, the admiration of the thousands who hung
entranced on every note breathed by his magic violin, gave less
delight than the boy of fourteen experienced when he received from
an old man, whose heart his playing had gladdened, the present of
four pairs of doves, with a card suspended by a blue ribbon round
the neck of one, bearing his own name, "Ole Bull."

The soul of little Ole Bull had always been attuned to melody,
from the time when, a toddling boy of four, he had kissed with
passionate delight the little yellow violin given him by his
uncle. How happy he was, as he wandered alone through the meadows,
listening with the inner ear of heaven-born genius to the great
song of nature. The bluebells, the buttercups, and the blades of
grass sang to him in low, sweet tones, unheard by duller ears. How
he thrilled with delight when he touched the strings of the little
red violin, purchased for him when he was eight years old. His
father destined him for the church, and, feeling that music should
form part of the education of a clergyman, he consented to the
mother's proposition that the boy should take lessons on the
violin.

Ole could not sleep for joy, that first night of ownership; and,
when the house was wrapped in slumber, he got up and stole on
tiptoe to the room where his treasure lay. The bow seemed to
beckon to him, the pretty pearl screws to smile at him out of
their red setting. "I pinched the strings just a little," he said.
"It smiled at me ever more and more. I took up the bow and looked
at it. It said to me it would be pleasant to try it across the
strings. So I did try it just a very, very little, and it did sing
to me so sweetly. At first I did play very soft. But presently I
did begin a capriccio, which I like very much, and it did go ever
louder and louder; and I forgot that it was midnight and that
everybody was asleep. Presently I hear something crack; and the
next minute I feel my father's whip across my shoulders. My little
red violin dropped on the floor, and was broken. I weep much for
it, but it did no good. They did have a doctor to it next day, but
it never recovered its health."

He was given another violin, however, and, when only ten, he would
wander into the fields and woods, and spend hours playing his own
improvisations, echoing the song of the birds, the murmur of the
brook, the thunder of the waterfall, the soughing of the wind
among the trees, the roar of the storm.

But childhood's days are short. The years fly by. The little Ole
is eighteen, a student in the University of Christiana, preparing
for the ministry. His brother students beg him to play for a
charitable association. He remembers his father's request that he
yield not to his passion for music, but being urged for "sweet
charity's sake," he consents.

The youth's struggle between the soul's imperative demand and the
equally imperative parental dictate was pathetic. Meanwhile the
position of musical director of the Philharmonic and Dramatic
Societies becoming vacant, Ole was appointed to the office; and,
seeing that it was useless to contend longer against the genius of
his son, the disappointed father allowed him to accept the
directorship.

When fairly launched on a musical career, his trials and
disappointments began. Wishing to assure himself whether he had
genius or not, he traveled five hundred miles to see and hear the
celebrated Louis Spohr, who received the tremulous youth coldly,
and gave him no encouragement. No matter, he would go to the city
of art. In Paris he heard Berlioz and other great musicians.
Entranced he listened, in his high seat at the top of the house,
to the exquisite notes of Malibran.

His soul feasted on music, but his money was fast dwindling away,
and the body could not be sustained by sweet sounds. But the poor
unknown violinist, who was only another atom in the surging life
of the great city, could earn nothing. He was on the verge of
starvation, but he would not go back to Christiana. He must still
struggle and study. He became ill of brain fever, and was tenderly
nursed back to life by the granddaughter of his kind landlady,
pretty little Felicie Villeminot, who afterward became his wife.
He had drained the cup of poverty and disappointment to the dregs,
but the tide was about to turn.

He was invited to play at a concert presided over by the Duke of
Montebello, and this led to other profitable engagements. But the
great opportunity of his life came to him in Bologna. The people
had thronged to the opera house to hear Malibran. She had
disappointed them, and they were in no mood to be lenient to the
unknown violinist who had the temerity to try to fill her place.

He came on the stage. He bowed. He grew pale under the cold gaze
of the thousands of unsympathetic eyes turned upon him. But the
touch of his beloved violin gave him confidence. Lovingly,
tenderly, he drew the bow across the strings. The coldly critical
eyes no longer gazed at him. The unsympathetic audience melted
away. He and his violin were one and alone. In the hands of the
great magician the instrument was more than human. It talked; it
laughed; it wept; it controlled the moods of men as the wind
controls the sea.

The audience scarcely breathed. Criticism was disarmed. Malibran
was forgotten. The people were under the spell of the enchanter.
Orpheus had come again. But suddenly the music ceased. The spell
was broken. With a shock the audience returned to earth, and Ole
Bull, restored to consciousness of his whereabouts by the storm of
applause which shook the house, found himself famous forever.

His triumph was complete, but his work was not over, for the price
of fame is ceaseless endeavor. But the turning point had been
passed. He had seized the great opportunity for which his life had
been a preparation, and it had placed him on the roll of the
immortals.





THE LESSON OF THE TEAKETTLE


The teakettle was singing merrily over the fire; the good aunt was
bustling round, on housewifely cares intent, and her little nephew
sat dreamily gazing into the glowing blaze on the kitchen hearth.

Presently the teakettle ceased singing, and a column of steam came
rushing from its pipe. The boy started to his feet, raised the lid
from the kettle, and peered in at the bubbling, boiling water,
with a look of intense interest. Then he rushed off for a teacup,
and, holding it over the steam, eagerly watched the latter as it
condensed and formed into tiny drops of water on the inside of the
cup.

Returning from an upper room, whither her duties had called her,
the thrifty aunt was shocked to find her nephew engaged in so
profitless an occupation, and soundly scolded him for what she
called his trifling. The good lady little dreamed that James Watt
was even then unconsciously studying the germ of the science by
which he "transformed the steam engine from a mere toy into the
most wonderful instrument which human industry has ever had at its
command."

This studious little Scottish lad, who, because too frail to go to
school, had been taught at home, was very different from other
boys. When only six or seven years old, he would lie for hours on
the hearth, in the little cottage at Greenock, near Glasgow, where
he was born in 1736, drawing geometrical figures with pieces of
colored chalk. He loved, too, to gaze at the stars, and longed to
solve their mysteries. But his favorite pastime was to burrow
among the ropes and sails and tackles in his father's store,
trying to find out how they were made and what purposes they
served.

In spite of his limited advantages and frail health, at fifteen he
was the wonder of the public school, which he had attended for two
years. His favorite studies were mathematics and natural
philosophy. He had also made good progress in chemistry,
physiology, mineralogy, and botany, and, at the same time, had
learned carpentry and acquired some skill as a worker in metals.

So studious and ambitious a youth scarcely needed the spur of
poverty to induce him to make the most of his talents. The spur
was there, however, and, at the age of eighteen, though delicate
in health, he was obliged to go out and battle with the world.

Having first spent some time in Glasgow, learning how to make
mathematical instruments, he determined to go to London, there to
perfect himself in his trade.

Working early and late, and suffering frequently from cold and
hunger, he broke down under the unequal strain, and was obliged to
return to his parents for a time until health was regained.

Always struggling against great odds, he returned to Glasgow when
his trade was mastered, and began to make mathematical
instruments, for which, however, he found little sale. Then, to
help eke out a living, he began to make and mend other
instruments,--fiddles, guitars, and flutes,--and finally built an
organ,--a very superior one, too,--with several additions of his
own invention.

A commonplace incident enough it seemed, in the routine of his
daily occupation, when, one morning, a model of Newcomen's engine
was brought to him for repair, yet it marked the turning point in
his career, which ultimately led from poverty and struggle to fame
and affluence.

Watt's practiced eye at once perceived the defects in the Newcomen
engine, which, although the best then in existence could not do
much better or quicker work than horses. Filled with enthusiasm
over the plans which he had conceived for the construction of a
really powerful engine, he immediately set to work, and spent two
months in an old cellar, working on a model. "My whole thoughts
are bent on this machine," he wrote to a friend. "I can think of
nothing else."

So absorbed had he become in his new work that the old business of
making and mending instruments had declined. This was all the more
unfortunate as he was no longer struggling for himself alone. He
had fallen in love with, and married, his cousin, Margaret Miller,
who brought him the greatest happiness of his life. The neglect of
the only practical means of support he had reduced Watt and his
family to the direst poverty. More than once his health failed,
and often the brave spirit was almost broken, as when he exclaimed
in heaviness of heart, "Of all the things in the world, there is
nothing so foolish as inventing."

Five years had passed since the model of the Newcomen engine had
been sent to him for repair before he succeeded in securing a
patent on his own invention. Yet five more long years of bitter
drudgery, clutched in the grip of poverty, debt, and sickness, did
the brave inventor, sustained by the love and help of his noble
wife, toil through. On his thirty-fifth birthday he said, "To-day
I enter the thirty-fifth year of my life, and I think I have
hardly yet done thirty-five pence worth of good in the world; but
I cannot help it."

Poor Watt! He had traveled with bleeding feet along the same
thorny path trod by the great inventors and benefactors of all
ages. But, in spite of all obstacles, he persevered; and, after
ten years of inconceivable labor and hardship, during which his
beautiful wife died, he had a glorious triumph. His perfected
steam engine was the wonder of the age. Sir James Mackintosh
placed him "at the head of all inventors in all ages and nations."
"I look upon him," said the poet Wordsworth, "considering both the
magnitude and the universality of his genius, as, perhaps, the
most extraordinary man that this country ever produced."

Wealthy beyond his desires,--for he cared not for wealth,--crowned
with the laurel wreath of fame, honored by the civilized world as
one of its greatest benefactors, the struggle over, the triumph
achieved, on August 19, 1819, he lay down to rest.





HOW THE ART OF PRINTING WAS DISCOVERED


"Look, Grandfather; see what the letters have done!" exclaimed a
delighted boy, as he picked up the piece of parchment in which
Grandfather Coster had carried the bark letters cut from the trees
in the grove, for the instruction and amusement of his little
grandsons.

"See what the letters have done!" echoed the old man. "Bless me,
what does the child mean?" and his eyes twinkled with pleasure, as
he noted the astonishment and pleasure visible on the little face.
"Let me see what it is that pleases thee so, Laurence," and he
eagerly took the parchment from the boy's hand.

"Bless my soul!" cried the old man, after gazing spellbound upon
it for some seconds. The track of the mysterious footprint in the
sand excited no more surprise in the mind of Robinson Crusoe than
Grandfather Coster felt at the sight which met his eyes. There,
distinctly impressed upon the parchment, was a clear imprint of
the bark letters; though, of course, they were reversed or turned
about.

But you twentieth-century young folks who have your fill of story
books, picture books, and reading matter of all kinds, are
wondering, perhaps, what all this talk about bark letters and
parchment and imprint of letters means.

To understand it, you must carry your imagination away back more
than five centuries--quite a long journey of the mind, even for
"grown-ups"--to a time when there were no printed books, and when
very, very few of the rich and noble, and scarcely any of the so-
called common people, could read. In those far-off days there were
no public libraries, and no books except rare and expensive
volumes, written by hand, mainly by monks in their quiet
monasteries, on parchment or vellum.

In the quaint, drowsy, picturesque town of Haarlem, in Holland,
with its narrow, irregular, grass-grown streets and many-gabled
houses, the projecting upper stories of which almost meet, one
particular house, which seems even older than any of the others,
is pointed out to visitors as one of the most interesting sights
of the ancient place. It was in this house that Laurence Coster,
the father of the art of printing, the man--at least so runs the
legend--who made it possible for the poorest and humblest to enjoy
the inestimable luxury of books and reading, lived and loved and
dreamed more than five hundred years ago.

Coster was warden of the little church which stood near his home,
and his days flowed peacefully on, in a quiet, uneventful way,
occupied with the duties of his office, and reading and study, for
he was one of those who had mastered the art of reading. A
diligent student, he had conned over and over, until he knew them
by heart, the few manuscript volumes owned by the little church of
which he was warden.

A lover of solitude, as well as student and dreamer, the church
warden's favorite resort, when his duties left him at leisure, was
a dense grove not far from the town. Thither he went when he
wished to be free from all distraction, to think and dream over
many things which would appear nonsensical to his sober,
practical-minded neighbors. There he indulged in day dreams and
poetic fancies; and once, when in a sentimental mood, he carved
the initials of the lady of his love on one of the trees.

In time a fair young wife and children came, bringing new
brightness and joy to the serious-minded warden. With ever
increasing interests, he passed on from youth to middle life, and
from middle life to old age. Then his son married, and again the
patter of little feet filled the old home and made music in the
ears of Grandfather Coster, whom the baby grandchildren almost
worshiped.

To amuse the children, and to impart to them whatever knowledge he
himself possessed, became the delight of his old age. Then the
habit acquired in youth of carving letters in the bark of the
trees served a very useful purpose in furthering his object. He
still loved to take solitary walks, and many a quiet summer
afternoon the familiar figure of the venerable churchwarden, in
his seedy black cloak and sugar-loaf hat, might be seen wending
its way along the banks of the River Spaaren to his favorite
resort in the grove.

One day, while reclining on a mossy couch beneath a spreading
beech tree, amusing himself by tearing strips of bark from the
tree that shaded him, and carving letters with his knife, a happy
thought entered his mind. "Why can I not," he mused within
himself, "cut those letters out, carry them home, and, while using
them as playthings, teach the little ones how to read?"

The plan worked admirably. Long practice had made the old man
quite expert in fashioning the letters, and many hours of quiet
happiness were spent in the grove in this pleasing occupation. One
afternoon he succeeded in cutting some unusually fine specimens,
and, chuckling to himself over the delight they would give the
children, he wrapped them carefully, placing them side by side in
an old piece of parchment which he happened to have in his pocket.
The bark from which they had been cut being fresh and full of sap,
and the letters being firmly pressed upon the parchment, the
result was the series of "pictures" which delighted the child and
gave to the world the first suggestion of a printing press.

And then a mighty thought flashed across the brain of the poor,
humble, unknown churchwarden, a thought the realization of which
was destined not only to make him famous for all time, but to
revolutionize the whole world. The first dim suggestion came to
him in this form, "By having a series of letters and impressing
them over and over again on parchment, cannot books be printed
instead of written, and so multiplied and cheapened as to be
brought within the reach of all?"

The remainder of his life was given up to developing this great
idea. He cut more letters from bark, and, covering the smooth
surface with ink, pressed them upon parchment, thus getting a
better impression, though still blurred and imperfect. He then cut
letters from wood instead of bark, and managed to invent himself a
better and thicker ink, which did not blur the page. Next, he cut
letters from lead, and then from pewter. Every hour was absorbed
in the work of making possible the art of printing. His simple-
minded neighbors thought he had lost his mind, and some of the
more superstitious spread the report that he was a sorcerer. But,
like all other great discoverers, he heeded not annoyances or
discouragements. Shutting himself away from the prying curiosity
of the ignorant and superstitious, he plodded on, making steady,
if slow, advance toward the realization of his dream.

"One day, while old Coster was thus busily at work," says George
Makepeace Towle, "a sturdy German youth, with a knapsack slung
across his back, trudged into Haarlem. By some chance this youth
happened to hear how the churchwarden was at work upon a wild
scheme to print books instead of writing them. With beating heart,
the young man repaired to Coster's house and made all haste to
knock at the churchwarden's humble door."

The "sturdy German youth" who knocked at Laurence Coster's door
was Johann Gutenberg, the inventor of modern printing. Coster
invited him to enter. Gutenberg accepted the invitation, and then
stated the object of his visit. He desired to learn more about the
work on which Coster was engaged. Delighted to have a visitor who
was honestly interested in his work, the old man eagerly explained
its details to the youth, and showed him some examples of his
printing.

Gutenberg was much impressed by what he saw, but still more by the
possibilities which he dimly foresaw in Coster's discovery. "But
we can do much better than this," he said with the enthusiasm of
youth. "Your printing is even slower than the writing of the
monks. From this day forth I will work upon this problem, and not
rest till I have solved it."

Johann Gutenberg kept his word. He never rested until he had given
the art of printing to the world. But to Laurence Coster, in the
first place, if legend speaks truth, we owe one of the greatest
inventions that has ever blessed mankind.





SEA FEVER AND WHAT IT LED TO


"Jim, you've too good a head on you to be a wood chopper or a
canal driver," said the captain of the canal boat for whom young
Garfield had engaged to drive horses along the towpath.

"Jim" had always loved books from the time when, seated on his
father's knee, he had with his baby lips pronounced after him the
name "Plutarch." Mr. Garfield had been reading "Plutarch's Lives,"
and was much astonished when, without hesitation or stammering,
his little son distinctly pronounced the name of the Greek
biographer. Turning to his wife, with a glow of love and pride,
the fond father said, "Eliza, this boy will be a scholar some
day."

Perhaps the near approach of death had clarified the father's
vision, but when, soon after, the sorrowing wife was left a widow,
with an indebted farm and four little children to care for, she
saw little chance for the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Even in his babyhood the boy whose future greatness the father
dimly felt had learned the lesson of self-reliance. The familiar
words which so often fell from his lips--"I can do that"--enabled
him to conquer difficulties before which stouter hearts than that
of a little child might well have quailed.

The teaching of his good mother, that "God will bless all our
efforts to do the best we can," became a part of the fiber of his
being. "What will He do," asked the boy one day, "when we don't do
the best we can?" "He will withhold His blessing; and that is the
greatest calamity that could possibly happen to us," was the
reply, which made a deep impression on the mind of the questioner.

In spite of almost constant toil, and very meager schooling,--only
a few weeks each year,--James Garfield excelled all his companions
in the log schoolhouse. Besides solving at home in the long winter
evenings, by the light of the pine fire, all the knotty problems
in Adams' Arithmetic--the terror of many a schoolboy--he found
time to revel in the pages of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Josephus."
The latter was his special favorite

Before he was fifteen, Garfield had successfully followed the
occupations of farmer, wood chopper, and carpenter. No matter what
his occupation was he always managed to find some time for
reading.

He had recently read some of Marryat's novels, "Sindbad the
Sailor," "The Pirate's Own Book," and others of a similar nature,
which had smitten him with a virulent attack of sea fever. This is
a mental disease which many robust, adventurous boys are apt to
contract in their teens. Garfield felt that he must "sail the
ocean blue." The glamour of the sea was upon him. Everything must
give way before it. His mother, however, could not be induced to
assent to his plans, and, after long pleading, would only
compromise by agreeing that he might, if he could, secure a berth
on one of the vessels navigating Lake Erie.

He was rudely repulsed by the owner of the first vessel to whom he
applied, a brutal, drunken creature, who answered his request for
employment with an oath and a rough "Get off this schooner in
double quick, or I'll throw you into the dock." Garfield turned
away in disgust, his ardor for the sea somewhat dampened by the
man's appearance and behavior. In this mood he met his cousin,
formerly a schoolmaster, then captain of a canal boat, with whom
he at once engaged to drive his horses.

After a few months on the towpath, young Garfield contracted
another kind of fever quite unlike that from which he had been
suffering previously, and went home to be nursed out of it by his
ever faithful mother.

During his convalescence he thought a great deal over his cousin's
words,--"Jim, you've got too good a head on you to be a wood
chopper or a canal driver." "He who wills to do anything will do
it," he had learned from his mother's lips when a mere baby, and
then and there he said in his heart, "I will be a scholar; I will
go to college." And so, out of his sea fever and towpath
experience was born the resolution that made the turning point in
his career.

Action followed hot upon resolve. He lost no time in applying
himself to the work of securing an education. Alternately chopping
wood and carpentering, farming and teaching school, ringing bells
and sweeping floors, he worked his way through seminary and
college. His strong will and resolute purpose to make the most of
himself not only enabled him to obtain an education, but raised
him from the towpath to the presidential chair.





GLADSTONE FOUND TIME TO BE KIND

    A kindly act is a kernel sown,
       That will grow to a goodly tree,
    Shedding its fruit when time has flown
       Down the gulf of Eternity.
                         JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.


In the restless desire for acquisition,--acquisition of money, of
power, or of fame,--there is danger of selfishness, self-
absorption, closing the doors of our hearts against the demands of
brotherly love, courtesy, and kindness.

"I cannot afford to help," say the poor in pocket; "all I have is
too little for my own needs." "I should like to help others," says
the ambitious student, whose every spare moment is crowded with
some extra task, "but I have no money, and cannot afford to take
the time from my studies to give sympathy or kind words to the
suffering and the poor." Says the busy man of affairs: "I am
willing to give money, but my time is too valuable to be spent in
talking to sick people or shiftless, lazy ones. That sort of work
is not in my line. I leave it to women and the charitable
organizations."

The business man forgets, as do many of us, the truth expressed by
Ruskin, that "a little thought and a little kindness are often
worth more than a great deal of money." A few kind words, a little
sympathy and encouragement have often brought sunshine and hope
into the lives of men and women who were on the verge of despair.

The great demand is on people's hearts rather than on their
purses. In the matter of kindness we can all afford to be generous
whether we have money or not. The schoolboy may give it as freely
as the millionaire. No one is so driven by work that he has not
time, now and then, to say a kind word or do a kind deed that will
help to brighten life for another. If the prime minister of
England, William E. Gladstone, could find time to carry a bunch of
flowers to a little sick crossing-sweeper, shall we not be ashamed
to make for ourselves the excuse, "I haven't time to be kind"?





A TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE


Clad in a homespun tow shirt, shrunken, butternut-colored,
linsey-woolsey pantaloons, battered straw hat, and much-mended
jacket and shoes, with ten dollars in his pocket, and all his
other worldly goods packed in the bundle he carried on his back,
Horace Greeley, the future founder of the New York Tribune,
started to seek his fortune in New York.

A newspaper had always been an object of interest and delight to
the little delicate, tow-haired boy, and at the mature age of six
he had made up his mind to be a printer. His love of reading was
unusual in one so young. Before he was six he had read the Bible
and "Pilgrim's Progress" through.

Like the children of all poor farmers, Horace was put to work as
soon as he was able to do anything. But he made the most of the
opportunities given him to attend school, and his love of reading;
stimulated him to unusual efforts to procure books. By selling
nuts and bundles of kindling wood at the village store, before he
was ten he had earned enough money to buy a copy of Shakespeare
and of Mrs. Hemans's poems. He borrowed every book that could be
found within a radius of seven miles of his home, and by many
readings he had made himself familiar with the score of old
volumes in his log-cabin home.

Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton draws a pleasing picture of the farmer boy
reading at night after the day's work on the farm was done. "He
gathered a stock of pine knots," she says, "and, lighting one each
night, lay down by the hearth and read, oblivious to all around
him. The neighbors came and made their friendly visits, and ate
apples and drank cider, as was the fashion, but the lad never
noticed their coming or their going. When really forced to leave
his precious books for bed, he would repeat the information he had
learned, or the lessons for the next day to his brother, who
usually, most ungraciously, fell asleep before the conversation
was half completed."

"Ah!" said Zaccheus Greeley, Horace's father, when the boy one
day, in a fit of abstraction, tried to yoke the "off" ox on the
"near" side: "Ah! that boy will never know enough to get on in the
world. He'll never know more than enough to come in when it
rains!"

Yet this boy knew so much that when at fourteen he secured a place
as printer in a newspaper office at East Poultney, Vermont, he was
looked up to by his fellow-printers as equal in learning to the
editor himself.

At first they tried to make merry at his expense, poking fun at
his odd-looking garments, his uncouth appearance, and his pale,
delicate face and almost white hair, which subsequently won for
him the nickname of "Ghost." But when they saw that Horace was too
good humored and too much in earnest with his work to be disturbed
by their teasing, they gave it up. In a short time he became a
general favorite, not only in the office, but in the town of
Poultney, whose debating and literary societies soon recognized
him as leader. Even the minister, the lawyer, and the school-
teachers looked up to the poor, retiring young printer, who was a
veritable encyclopedia of knowledge, ready at all times to speak
or to write an essay on any subject.

But the Poultney newspaper was obliged to suspend soon after
Horace had learned his trade, and, penniless,--for every cent of
his earnings beyond what furnished the bare necessaries of life
had been sent home to his parents in the wilderness,--he faced the
world once more.

After working in different small towns wherever he could get a
"job," reading, studying, enlarging his knowledge all the time
when not in the office, he made up his mind to go to New York, "to
be somebody," as he put it.

When he stepped off the towboat at Whitehall, near the Battery,
that sunny morning in August, 1831, with only the experience of a
score of years in life, a stout heart, quick brain, nimble
fingers, and an abiding faith in God as his capital, his prospects
certainly were not very alluring.

"An overgrown, awkward, white-headed, forlorn-looking boy; a pack
suspended on a staff over his right shoulder; his dress unrivaled
in sylvan simplicity since the primitive fig leaves of Eden; the
expression of his face presenting a strange union of wonder and
apathy: his whole appearance gave you the impression of a runaway
apprentice in desperate search of employment. Ignorant alike of
the world and its ways, he seemed to the denizens of the city
almost like a wanderer from another planet."

Such was the impression Horace Greeley made on a New Yorker on his
first arrival in that city which was to be the scene of his future
work and triumphs.

He tramped the streets all that day, Friday, and the next, looking
for work, everywhere getting the same discouraging reply, "No, we
don't want any one."

At last, when weary and disheartened, his ten dollars almost gone,
he had decided to shake the dust of New York from his feet, the
foreman of a printing office engaged him to do some work that most
of the men in the office had refused to touch. The setting up of a
Polyglot Testament, with involved marginal references, was
something new for the supposed "green" hand from the country. But
when the day was done, the young printer was no longer looked upon
as "green" by his fellow-workers, for he had done more and better
work than the oldest and most experienced hands who had tried the
Testament.

But, oh, what hard work it was, beginning at six o'clock in the
morning, and working long after the going down of the sun, by the
light of a candle stuck in a bottle, to earn six dollars a week,
most of which was sent to his dear ones at home.

After nearly ten years more of struggle and privation, Greeley
entered upon the great work of his life--the founding and editing
of the New York Tribune. He had very little money to start with,
and even that little was borrowed. But he had courage, truth,
honesty, a noble purpose, and rare ability and industry to
supplement his small financial capital. He needed them all in the
work he had undertaken, for he was handicapped not only by lack of
means, but also by the opposition of some of the New York papers.

In spite of the adverse conditions he succeeded in establishing
one of the greatest and most popular newspapers in the country.
The Tribune became the champion of the oppressed, the guardian of
justice, the defender of truth, a power for good in the land.
Through his paper Greeley became a tribune of the people. No
thought of making money hampered him in his work. Unselfishly he
wrought as editor, writer, and lecturer for the good of his
country and the uplifting of mankind. "He who by voice or pen," he
said, "strikes his best blow at the impostures or vices whereby
our race is debased and paralyzed, may close his eyes in death,
consoled and cheered by the reflection that he has done what he
could for the emancipation and elevation of his kind."

Well, then, might he rejoice in his life work, for his voice and
pen had to the last been active in thus serving the race.

He died on November 29, 1872, at the age of sixty-one. So great a
man had Horace Greeley, the poor New Hampshire farmer boy, become
that the whole nation mourned for his death. The people felt that
in him they had lost one of their best friends. A workman who
attended his funeral expressed the feeling of his fellow-workmen
all over the land when he said, "It is little enough to lose a day
for Horace Greeley who spent many a day working for us." "I've
come a hundred miles to be at the funeral of Horace Greeley," said
a farmer.

The great tribune had deserved well of the people and of his
country.





THE MIGHT OF PATIENCE


Perhaps some would feel inclined to ridicule rather than applaud
the patience of a poor Chinese woman who tried to make a needle
from a rod of iron by rubbing it against a stone.

It is doubtful whether she succeeded or not, but, so the story
runs, the sight of the worker plying her seemingly hopeless task,
put new courage and determination into the heart of a young
Chinese student, who, in deep despondency, stood watching her.

Because of repeated failures in his studies, ambition and hope had
left him. Bitterly disappointed with himself, and despairing of
ever accomplishing anything, the young man had thrown his books
aside in disgust. Put to shame, however, by the lesson taught by
the old woman, he gathered his scattered forces together, went to
work with renewed ardor, and, wedding Patience and Energy, became,
in time, one of the greatest scholars in China.

When you know you are on the right track, do not let any failures
dim your vision or discourage you, for you cannot tell how close
you may be to victory. Have patience and stick, stick, stick. It
is eternally true that he

              "Who steers right on
    Will gain, at length, however far, the port."





THE INSPIRATION OF GAMBETTA


"Try to come home a somebody!" Long after Leon Gambetta had left
the old French town of Cahors, where he was born October 30, 1838,
long after the gay and brilliant streets of Paris had become
familiar to him, did the parting words of his idolized mother ring
in his ears, "Try to come home a somebody!" Pinched for food and
clothes, as he often was, while he studied early and late in his
bare garret near the Sorbonne, the memory of that dear mother
cheered and strengthened him.

He could still feel her tears and kisses on his cheek, and the
tender clasp of her hand as she pressed into his the slender purse
of money which she had saved to release him from the drudgery of
an occupation he loathed, and to enable him to become a great
lawyer in Paris. How well he remembered her delight in listening
to him declaim the speeches of Thiers and Guizot from the pages of
the National, which she had taught him to read when but a mere
baby, and from which he imbibed his first lessons in
republicanism,--lessons that he never afterward forgot.

Such deep root had they taken that he could not be induced to
change his views by the fathers of the preparatory school at
Monfaucon, whither he had been sent to be trained for the
priesthood. Finally despairing of bringing the young radical to
their way of thinking, the Monfaucon fathers sent him home to his
parents. "You will never make a priest of him," they wrote; "he
has a character that cannot be disciplined."

His father, an honest but narrow-minded Italian, whose ideas did
not soar beyond his little bazaar and grocery store, was
displeased with the boy, who was then only ten years old. He could
not understand how one so young dared to think his own thoughts
and hold his own opinions. The neighbors held up their hands in
dismay, and prophesied, "He will end his days in the Bastile." His
mother wept and blamed herself and the National as the cause of
all the trouble.

How little the fond mother, the disappointed father, or the
gloomily foreboding neighbors dreamt to what heights those early
lessons they now so bitterly deplored were to lead!

When at sixteen Leon Gambetta returned from the Lyceum to which he
had been sent on his return from the Monfaucon seminary, his wide
reading and deep study had but intensified and broadened the
radicalism of his childhood. He longed to go to Paris to study
law, but his father insisted that he must now confine his thoughts
to selling groceries and yards of ribbon and lace, as he expected
his son to succeed him in the business.

Poor, foolish Joseph Gambetta! he would confine the young eagle in
a barnyard. But the eagle pined and drooped in his cage, and then
the loving mother--ah, those loving mothers, will their boys ever
realize how much they owe them!--threw open the doors and gave him
freedom, an opportunity to win fame and fortune in the great city
of Paris.

And now what mattered it that his clothes were poor, that his food
was scant, and that it was often bitterly cold in his little
garret. If not for his own sake, he MUST for hers "come home a
somebody."

The doors which led to a wider future were already opening. The
professors at the Sorbonne appreciated his great intellect and
originality. "You have a true vocation," said one. "Follow it. But
go to the bar, where your voice, which is one in a thousand, will
carry you on, study and intelligence aiding. The lecture room is a
narrow theater. If you like, I will write to your father to tell
him what my opinion of you is." And he wrote, "The best investment
you ever made would be to spend what money you can divert from
your business in helping your son to become an advocate."

To such good purpose did the young student use his time that
within two years he won his diploma. Still too young to be
admitted to the bar, he spent a year studying life in Paris,
listening to the debates in the Corps Legislatif, reading and
debating in the radical club which he had organized, making
himself ready at every point for the great opportunity which
gained him a national reputation and made him the idol of the
masses.

In 1868 his masterly defense of Delescluze, the radical editor,
against the prosecution of the Imperial government, brought the
brilliant but hitherto unknown young lawyer prominently before the
public. He lost his case, but won fame. Gambetta had waited
eighteen months for his first brief, and five times eighteen
months for his first great case. This case proved to be the
initial step that led him from victory to victory, until, after
the fall of Napoleon at Sedan, he became practically Dictator of
France. He was, more than any one man, the maker of the French
Republic, whose rights and liberties he ever defended, even at the
risk of his life. He died December 31, 1882.

Well had he fulfilled the hopes and ambitions of his loving
mother, well had he answered the pathetic appeal, "Try to come
home a somebody."





ANDREW JACKSON THE BOY WHO "NEVER WOULD GIVE UP"


"Sir, I am a prisoner of war, and demand to be treated as such,"
was the spirited reply of Andrew Jackson to a British officer who
had commanded him to clean his boots.

This was characteristic of the future hero of New Orleans, and
president of the United States, whose independent spirit rebelled
at the insolent command of his captor.

The officer drew his sword to enforce obedience, but, nothing
daunted, the youth, although then only fourteen, persisted in his
refusal. He tried to parry the sword thrusts aimed at him, but did
not escape without wounds on head and arm, the marks of which he
carried to his grave.

Stubborn, self-willed, and always dominated by the desire to be a
leader, Andrew Jackson was by no means a model boy. But his
honesty, love of truth, indomitable will and courage, in spite of
his many faults, led him to greatness.

He was born with fighting blood in his veins, and, like other
eminent men who have risen to the White House, poor. His father,
an Irish immigrant, died before his youngest son was born,--in
1767,--and life held for the boy more hard knocks than soft
places. His mother, who was ambitious to make him a clergyman,
tried to secure him some early advantages of schooling. Andrew,
however, was not of a studious disposition, nor at all inclined to
the ministry, and made little effort to profit by even the limited
opportunities he had.

But despite all the disadvantages of environment and mental traits
by which he was handicapped, he was bound by the force of certain
other traits to be a winner in the battle of life. The quality to
which his success is chiefly owing is revealed by the words of a
school-fellow, who, in spite of Jackson's slender physique and
lack of physical strength at that time, felt the force of his iron
will. Speaking of their wrestling matches at school, this boy
said, "I could throw him [Jackson] three times out of four, but he
never would stay throwed. He was dead game and never would give
up."

A boy who "never would stay throwed," and "never would give up"
would succeed though the whole world tried to bar his progress.

When, at the age of fifteen, he found himself alone in the world,
homeless and penniless, he adapted himself to anything he could
find to do.

Worker in a saddler's shop, school-teacher, lawyer, merchant,
judge of the Supreme Court, United States senator, soldier,
leader, step by step the son of the poor Irish immigrant rose to
the highest office to which his countrymen could elect him--the
presidency of the United States.

Rash, headstrong, and narrow-minded, Andrew Jackson fell into many
errors during his life, but, notwithstanding his shortcomings, he
persistently tried to live up to his boyhood's motto, "Ask nothing
but what is right--submit to nothing wrong."





SIR HUMPHRY DAVY'S GREATEST DISCOVERY, MICHAEL FARADAY


He was only a little, barefooted errand boy, the son of a poor
blacksmith. His school life ended in his thirteenth year. The
extent of his education then was limited to a knowledge of the
three "R's." As he trudged on his daily rounds, through the busy
streets of London, delivering newspapers and books to the
customers of his employer, there was little difference, outwardly,
between him and scores of other boys who jostled one another in
the narrow, crowded thoroughfares. But under the shabby jacket of
Michael Faraday beat a heart braver and tenderer than the average;
and, under the well-worn cap, a brain was throbbing that was
destined to illuminate the world of science with a light that
would never grow dim.

Less than any one else, perhaps, did the boy dream of future
greatness. For a year he served his employer faithfully in his
capacity of errand boy, and, in 1805, at the age of fourteen, was
apprenticed to a bookseller for seven years, as was the custom in
England, to learn the combined trades of bookbinding and book-
selling.

The young journeyman had to exercise all his self-control to
confine his attention to the outside of the books which passed
through his hands. In his spare moments, however, he made himself
familiar with the inside of many of them, eagerly devouring such
works on science, electricity, chemistry, and natural philosophy,
as came within his reach. He was especially delighted with an
article on electricity, which he found in a volume of the
"Encyclopedia Britannica," which had been given him to bind. He
immediately began work on an electrical machine, from the very
crudest materials, and, much to his delight, succeeded. It was a
red-letter day in his young life when a kind-hearted customer,
who had noticed his interest in scientific works, offered to take
him to the Royal Institution, to attend a course of lectures to be
given by the great Sir Humphry Davy. From this time on, his
thoughts were constantly turned toward science. "Oh, if I could
only help in some scientific work, no matter how humble!" was the
daily cry of his soul. But not yet was his prayer to be granted.
His mettle must be tried in the school of patience and drudgery.
He must fulfill his contract with his master. For seven years he
was faithful to his work, while his heart was elsewhere. And all
that time, in the eagerness of his thirst for knowledge, he was
imbibing facts which helped him to plan electrical achievements,
the possibilities of which have not, to this day, been exhausted,
--or even half realized. Like Franklin, he seemed to forecast the
scientific future for ages.

At length he was free to follow his bent, and his mind turned at
once to Sir Humphry Davy. With a beating heart, divided between
hope and fear, he wrote to the great man, telling what he wished,
and asking his aid. The scientist, remembering his own day of
small things, wrote the youth, politely, that he was going out of
town, but would see if he could, sometime, aid him. He also said
that "science is a harsh mistress, and, in a pecuniary point of
view, but poorly rewards those who devote themselves exclusively
to her service."

This was not very encouraging, but the young votary of science was
nothing daunted, and toiled at his uncongenial trade, with the
added discomfort of an ill-tempered employer, giving all his
evenings and odd moments to study and experiments.

Then came another red-letter day. He was growing depressed, and
feared that Sir Humphry had forgotten his quasi-promise, when one
evening a carriage stopped at the door, and out stepped an
important-looking footman in livery, with a note from the famous
scientist, requesting the young bookbinder to call on him on the
following morning. At last had come the answer to the prayer of
little Michael Faraday, as will come the answer to all who back
their prayers with patient, persistent hard work, in spite of
discouragement, disappointment, and failure. And when, on that
never-to-be-forgotten morning, he was engaged by the great
scientist at a salary of six dollars a week, with two rooms at the
top of the house, to wash bottles, clean the instruments, move
them to and from the lecture rooms, and make himself generally
useful in the laboratory and out of it, no happier youth could be
found in all London.

The door was open; not, indeed, wide, but sufficiently to allow
this ardent disciple to work his way into the innermost shrine of
the temple of science. Though it took years and years of plodding,
incessant work and study, and a devotion to purpose with which
nothing was allowed to interfere, it made Faraday, by virtue of
his marvelous discoveries in electricity, electro-magnetism, and
chemistry, a world benefactor, honored not only by his own country
and sovereign, but by other rulers and leading nations of the
earth, as one of the greatest chemists and natural philosophers of
his time.

So great has been his value to the scientific world, that his
theories are still a constant source of inspiration to the workers
in those great professions allied to electricity and chemistry. No
library is complete without his published works. What wonder that
Davy called Faraday his greatest discovery!





THE TRIUMPH OF CANOVA


The Villa d'Asola, the country residence of the Signor Falieri,
was in a state of unusual excitement. Some of the most
distinguished patricians of Venice had been bidden to a great
banquet, which was to surpass in magnificence any entertainment
ever before given, even by the wealthy and hospitable Signer
Falieri.

The feast was ready, the guests were assembled, when word came
from the confectioner, who had been charged to prepare the center
ornament for the table, that he had spoiled the piece.
Consternation reigned in the servants' hall. What was to be done?
The steward, or head servant, was in despair. He was responsible
for the table decorations, and the absence of the centerpiece
would seriously mar the arrangements. He wrung his hands and
gesticulated wildly. What should he do!

"If you will let me try, I think I can make something that will
do." The speaker was a delicate, pale-faced boy, about twelve
years old, who had been engaged to help in some of the minor
details of preparation for the great event. "You!" exclaimed the
steward, gazing in amazement at the modest, yet apparently
audacious lad before him. "And who are you?" "I am Antonio Canova,
the grandson of Pisano, the stonecutter." Desperately grasping at
even the most forlorn hope, the perplexed servant gave the boy
permission to try his hand at making a centerpiece.

Calling for some butter, with nimble fingers and the skill of a
practiced sculptor, in a short time the little scullion molded the
figure of a crouching lion. So perfect in proportion, so spirited
and full of life in every detail, was this marvelous butter lion
that it elicited a chorus of admiration from the delighted guests,
who were eager to know who the great sculptor was who had deigned
to expend his genius on such perishable material. Signor Falieri,
unable to gratify their curiosity, sent for his head servant, who
gave them the history of the centerpiece. Antonio was immediately
summoned to the banquet hall, where he blushingly received the
praises and congratulations of all present, and the promise of
Signer Falieri to become his patron, and thus enable him to
achieve fame as a sculptor.

Such, according to some biographers, was the turning point in the
career of Antonio Canova, who, from a peasant lad, born in the
little Venetian village of Possagno, rose to be the most
illustrious sculptor of his age.

Whether or not the story be true, it is certain that when the boy
was in his thirteenth year, Signer Falieri placed him in the
studio of Toretto, a Venetian sculptor, then living near Asola.
But it is equally certain that the fame which crowned Canova's
manhood, the title of Marquis of Ischia, the decorations and
honors so liberally bestowed upon him by the ruler of the Vatican,
kings, princes, and emperors, were all the fruits of his ceaseless
industry, high ideals, and unfailing enthusiasm.

The little Antonio began to draw almost as soon as he could hold a
pencil, and the gown of the dear old grandmother who so tenderly
loved him, and was so tenderly loved in return, often bore the
marks of baby fingers fresh from modeling in clay.

Antonio's father having died when the child was but three years
old, his grandfather, Pisano, hoped that he would succeed him as
village stonecutter and sculptor. Delicate though the little
fellow had been from birth, at nine years of age he was laboring,
as far as his strength would permit, in Pisano's workshop. But in
the evening, after the work of the day was done, with pencil or
clay he tried to give expression to the poetic fancies he had
imbibed from the ballads and legends of his native hills, crooned
to him in infancy by his grandmother.

Under Toretto his genius developed so rapidly that the sculptor
spoke of one of his creations as "a truly marvelous production."
He was then only thirteen. Later we find him in Venice, studying
and working with ever increasing zeal. Though Signor Falieri would
have been only too glad to supply the youth's needs, he was too
proud to be dependent on others. Speaking of this time, he says:
"I labored for a mere pittance, but it was sufficient. It was the
fruit of my own resolution, and, as I then flattered myself, the
foretaste of more honorable rewards, for I never thought of
wealth."

Too poor to hire a workshop or studio, through the kindness of the
monks of St. Stefano, he was given a cell in a vacant monastery,
and here, at the age of sixteen, he started business as a sculptor
on his own account.

Before he was twenty, the youth had become a master of anatomy,
which he declared was "the secret of the art," was thoroughly
versed in literature, languages, history, poetry, mythology,--
everything that could help to make him the greatest sculptor of
his age,--and had, even then, produced works of surpassing merit.

Effort to do better was the motto of his life, and he never
permitted a day to pass without making some advance in his
profession. Though often too poor to buy the marble in which to
embody his conceptions, he for many years lived up to a resolution
made about this time, never to close his eyes at night without
having produced some design.

What wonder that at twenty-five this noble youth, whose incessant
toil had perfected genius, was the marvel of his age! What wonder
that his famous group, Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur, elicited
the enthusiastic admiration of the most noted art critics of Rome!
What wonder that the little peasant boy, who had first opened his
eyes, in 1757, in a mud cabin, closed them at last, in 1822, in a
marble palace, crowned with all of fame and honor and wealth the
world could give! But better still, he was loved and enshrined in
the hearts of the people, as a friend of the poor, a patron of
struggling merit, a man in whom nobility of character overtopped
even the genius of the artist.





FRANKLIN'S LESSON ON TIME VALUE

    Dost thou love life? Then, do not squander time, for
    that is the stuff life is made of!--FRANKLIN.


Franklin not only understood the value of time, but he put a price
upon it that made others appreciate its worth.

A customer who came one day to his little bookstore in
Philadelphia, not being satisfied with the price demanded by the
clerk for the book he wished to purchase, asked for the
proprietor. "Mr. Franklin is very busy just now in the press
room," replied the clerk. The man, however, who had already spent
an hour aimlessly turning over books, insisted on seeing him. In
answer to the clerk's summons, Mr. Franklin hurried out from the
newspaper establishment at the back of the store.

"What is the lowest price you can take for this book, sir?" asked
the leisurely customer, holding up the volume. "One dollar and a
quarter," was the prompt reply. "A dollar and a quarter! Why, your
clerk asked me only a dollar just now." "True," said Franklin,
"and I could have better afforded to take a dollar than to leave
my work."

The man, who seemed to be in doubt as to whether Mr. Franklin was
in earnest, said jokingly, "Well, come now, tell me your lowest
price for this book." "One dollar and a half," was the grave
reply. "A dollar and a half! Why, you just offered it for a dollar
and a quarter." "Yes, and I could have better taken that price
then than a dollar and a half now."

Without another word, the crestfallen purchaser laid the money on
the counter and left the store. He had learned not only that he
who squanders his own time is foolish, but that he who wastes the
time of others is a thief.





FROM STORE BOY TO MILLIONAIRE


"But I am only nineteen years old, Mr. Riggs," and the speaker
looked questioningly into the eyes of his companion, as if he
doubted his seriousness in asking him to become a partner in his
business.

Mr. Riggs was not joking, however, and he met George Peabody's
perplexed gaze smilingly, as he replied: "That is no objection. If
you are willing to go in with me and put your labor against my
capital, I shall be well satisfied."

This was the turning point in a life which was to leave its
impress on two of the world's greatest nations. And what were the
experiences that led to it? They were utterly commonplace, and in
some respects such as fall to the lot of many country boys to-day.

At eleven the lad was obliged to earn his own living. At that time
(1806), his native town, Danvers, Massachusetts, presented few
opportunities to the ambitious. He took the best that offered--a
position as store boy in the village grocer's.

Four years of faithful work and constant effort at self-culture
followed. He was now fifteen. His ambition was growing. He must
seek a wider field. Another year passed, and then came the longed-
for opening. Joyfully the youth set out for his brother's store,
in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Here he felt he would have a better
chance. But disappointment and disaster were lurking round the
corner. Soon after he had taken up his new duties, the store was
burned to the ground.

In the meantime, his father had died, and his mother, whom he
idolized, needed his help more than ever. Penniless and out of
work, but not disheartened, he immediately looked about for
another position. Gladly he accepted an offer to work in his
uncle's dry goods store in Georgetown, D.C., and here we find him,
two years later, at the time when Mr. Riggs made his flattering
proposition.

Did influence, a "pull," or financial considerations have anything
to do with the merchant's choice of a partner? Nothing whatever.
The young man had no money and no "pull," save what his character
had made for him. His agreeable personality had won him many
friends and his uncle much additional trade. His business
qualities had gained him an enviable reputation. "His tact," says
Sarah K. Bolton, "was unusual. He never wounded the feelings of a
buyer of goods, never tried him with unnecessary talk, never
seemed impatient, and was punctual to the minute."

That Mr. Riggs had made no mistake in choosing his partner, the
rapid growth of his business conclusively proved. About a year
after the partnership had been formed, the firm moved to
Baltimore. So well did the business flourish in Baltimore that
within seven years the partners had established branch houses in
New York and Philadelphia. Finally Mr. Riggs decided to retire,
and Peabody, who was then but thirty-five, found himself at the
head of the business.

London, which he had visited several times, now attracted him. It
offered great possibilities for banking. He went there, studied
finance, established a banking business, and thenceforth made
London his headquarters.

Wealth began to pour in upon him in a golden stream. But, although
he had worked steadily for this, it was not for personal ends. He
never married, and, to the end, lived simply and unostentatiously.
Through the long years of patient work a great purpose had been
shaping his life. Daily he had prayed that God might give him
means wherewith to help his fellow-men. His prayer was being
answered in overflowing measure.

Business interests constrained him to spend the latter half of his
life in London; but absence only deepened his love for his own
country. All that great wealth could do to advance the welfare and
prestige of the United States was done by the millionaire
philanthropist. But above all else, he tried to bring within the
reach of poor children that which was denied himself,--a school
education.

The Peabody Institute in his native town, with its free library
and free course of lectures; the Institute, Academy of Music, and
Art Gallery of Baltimore; the Museum of Natural History at Yale
University; the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard
University; the Peabody Academy of Science at Salem,
Massachusetts, besides large contributions every year to libraries
and other educational and philanthropic institutions all over the
country, bear witness to his love for humanity.

Surpassing all this, however, was his establishment of the Peabody
fund of three million dollars for the education of the freed
slaves of the South, and for the equally needy poor of the white
race.

An equal amount had been previously devoted to the better housing
of the London poor. A dream almost too good to come true it seemed
to the toilers in the great city's slums, when they found their
filthy, unhealthy tenements replaced by clean, wholesome
dwellings, well supplied with air and sunlight and all modern
conveniences and comforts. London presented its generous
benefactor with the freedom of the city; a bronze statue was
erected in his honor, and Queen Victoria, who would fain have
loaded him with titles and honors,--all of which he respectfully
declined,--declared his act to be "wholly without parallel." A
beautiful miniature portrait of her Majesty, which she caused to
be specially made for him, and a letter written by her own hand,
were the only gifts he would accept.

Gloriously had his great purpose been fulfilled. He who began life
as a poor boy had given to the furtherance of education and for
the benefit of the poor in various ways the sum of nine million
dollars. The remaining four million dollars of his fortune was
divided among his relatives.

England loved and honored him even as his own country did; and
when he died in London, November 4, 1869, she offered him a
resting place among her immortals in Westminster Abbey. His last
wish, however, was fulfilled, and he was laid beside his mother in
his native land.

His legacies to humanity are doing their splendid work to-day as
they have done in the past, and as they will continue to do in the
future, enabling multitudes of aspiring souls to reach heights
which but for him they never could have attained. These words of
his, too, spoken on the occasion of the dedication of his gift to
Danvers,--its free Institute,--will serve for ages as a bugle call
to all youths who are anxious to make the most of themselves, and,
like him, to give of their best to the world:--

"Though Providence has granted me an unvaried and unusual success
in the pursuit of fortune in other lands," he said, "I am still in
heart the humble boy who left yonder unpretending dwelling many,
very many years ago. ... There is not a youth within the sound of
my voice whose early opportunities and advantages are not very
much greater than were my own; and I have since achieved nothing
that is impossible to the most humble boy among you. Bear in mind,
that, to be truly great, it is not necessary that you should gain
wealth and importance. Steadfast and undeviating truth, fearless
and straightforward integrity, and an honor ever unsullied by an
unworthy word or action, make their possessor greater than worldly
success or prosperity. These qualities constitute greatness."





"I WILL PAINT OR DIE!"

HOW A POOR, UNTAUGHT FARMER'S BOY BECAME AN ARTIST


"I will paint or die!" So stoutly resolved a poor, friendless boy,
on a far-away Ohio farm, amid surroundings calculated to quench
rather than to foster ambition. He knew not how his object was to
be accomplished, for genius is never fettered by details. He only
knew that he would be an artist. That settled it. He had never
seen a work of art, or read or heard anything on the subject. It
was his soul's voice alone that spoke, and "the soul's emphasis is
always right."

Left an orphan at the age of eleven, the boy agreed to work on his
uncle's farm for a term of five years for the munificent sum of
ten dollars per annum, the total amount of which he was to receive
at the end of the five years. The little fellow struggled bravely
along with the laborious farm work, never for a moment losing
sight of his ideal, and profiting as he could by the few months'
schooling snatched from the duties of the farm during the winter.

Toward the close of his five years' service a great event
happened. There came to the neighborhood an artist from
Washington,--Mr. Uhl, whom he overheard by chance speaking on the
subject of art. His words transformed the dream in the youth's
soul to a living purpose, and it was then he resolved that he
would "paint or die," and that he would go to Washington and study
under Mr. Uhl.

On his release from the farm he started for Washington, with a
coarse outfit packed away in a shabby little trunk, and a few
dollars in his pocket. With the trustfulness of extreme youth, and
in ignorance of a great world, he expected to get work that would
enable him to live, and, at the same time, find leisure for the
pursuit of his real life work. He immediately sought Mr. Uhl, who,
with great generosity, offered to teach him without charge.

Then began the weary search for work in a large city already
overcrowded with applicants. In his earnestness and eagerness the
youth went from house to house asking for any kind of work "that
would enable him to study art." But it was all in vain, and to
save himself from starvation he was at length forced to accept the
position of a day laborer, crushing stones for street paving. Yet
he hoped to study painting when his day's work was done!

Mr. Uhl was at this time engaged in painting the portraits of Mrs.
Frances Hodgson Burnett's sons. In the course of conversation with
Mrs. Burnett, he spoke of the heroic struggle the youth was
making. The author's heart was touched by the pathetic story. She
at once wrote a check for one hundred dollars, and handed it to
Mr. Uhl, for his protege. With that rare delicacy of feeling which
marks all beautiful souls, Mrs. Burnett did not wish to embarrass
the struggler by the necessity of thanking her. "Do not let him
even write to me," she said to Mr. Uhl. "Simply say to him that I
shall sail for Europe in a few days, and this is to give him a
chance to work at the thing he cares for so much. It will at least
give him a start."

In the throbbing life of the crowded city one heart beat high with
hope and happiness that night. A youth lay awake until morning,
too bewildered with gratitude and amazement to comprehend the
meaning of the good fortune which had come to him. Who could his
benefactor be?

Three years later, at the annual exhibition of Washington artists,
Mrs. Burnett stood before a remarkably vivid portrait. Addressing
the artist in charge of the exhibition, she said: "That seems to
me very strong. It looks as if it must be a realistic likeness.
Who did it?"

"I am so glad you like it. It was painted by your protege, Mrs.
Burnett."

"My protege! My protege! Whom do you mean?"

"Why, the young man you saved from despair three years ago. Don't
you remember young W---?"

"W---?" queried Mrs. Burnett.

"The young man whose story Mr. Uhl told you."

Mrs. Burnett then inquired if the portrait was for sale. When
informed that the picture was an order and not for sale, she asked
if there was anything else of Mr. W---'s on exhibition. She was
conducted to a striking picture of a turbaned head, which was
pointed out as another of Mr. W---'s works.

"How much does he ask for it?"

"A hundred and fifty dollars."

"Put 'sold' upon it, and when Mr. W--- comes, tell him his friend
has bought his picture," said Mrs. Burnett.

On her return home Mrs. Burnett made out a check, which she
inclosed in a letter to the young painter. It was mailed
simultaneously with a letter from her protege, who had but just
heard of her return from Europe, in which he begged her to accept,
as a slight expression of his gratitude, the picture she had just
purchased. The turbaned head now adorns the hall of Mrs. Burnett's
house in Washington.

"I do not understand it even to-day," declares Mr. W---. "I knew
nothing of Mrs. Burnett, nor she of me. Why did she do it? I only
know that that hundred dollars was worth more to me then than
fifty thousand in gold would be now. I lived upon it a whole year,
and it put me on my feet."

Mr. W--- is a successful artist, now favorably known in his own
country and in England for the strength and promise of his work.





THE CALL THAT SPEAKS IN THE BLOOD


Nature took the measure of little Tommy Edwards for a round hole,
but his parents, teachers, and all with whom his childhood was
cast, got it into their heads that Tommy was certainly intended
for a square hole. So, with the best intentions in the world,--but
oh, such woeful ignorance!--they tortured the poor little fellow
and crippled him for life by trying to fit him to their pattern
instead of that designed for him by the all-wise Mother.

Mother Nature called to Tommy to go into the woods and fields, to
wade through the brooks, and make friends with all the living
things she had placed there,--tadpoles, beetles, frogs, crabs,
mice, rats, spiders, bugs,--everything that had life. Willingly,
lovingly did the little lad obey, but only to be whipped and
scolded by good Mother Edwards when he let loose in her kitchen
the precious treasures which he had collected in his rambles.

It was provoking to have rats, mice, toads, bugs, and all sorts of
creepy things sent sprawling over one's clean kitchen floor. But
the pity of it was that Mrs. Edwards did not understand her boy,
and thought the only cure for what she deemed his mischievous
propensity as whipping. So Tommy was whipped and scolded, and
scolded and whipped, which, however, did not in the least abate
his love for Nature.

Driven to desperation, his mother bethought her of a plan. She
would make the boy prisoner and see if this would tame him. With a
stout rope she tied him by the leg to a table, and shut him in a
room alone. But no sooner was the door closed than he dragged
himself and the table to the fireplace, and, at the risk of
setting himself and the house on fire, burned the rope which bound
him, and made his escape into the woods to collect new specimens.

And yet his parents did not understand. It was time, however, to
send him to school. They would see what the schoolmaster would do
for him. But the schoolmaster was as blind as the parents, and
Tommy's doom was sealed, when one morning, while the school was at
prayers, a jackdaw poked its head out of his pocket and began to
caw.

His next teacher misunderstood, whipped, and bore with him until
one day nearly every boy in the school found a horse-leech
wriggling up his leg, trying to suck his blood. This ended his
second school experience.

He was given a third trial, but with no better results than
before. Things went on in the usual way until a centipede was
discovered in another boy's desk. Although in this case Tommy was
innocent of any knowledge of the intruder, he was found guilty,
whipped, and sent home with the message, "Go and tell your father
to get you on board a man-of-war, as that is the best school for
irreclaimables such as you."

His school life thus ended, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and
thenceforth made his living at the bench. But every spare moment
was given to the work which was meat and drink, life itself, to
him.

In his manhood, to enable him to classify the minute and copious
knowledge of birds, beasts, and insects which he had been
gathering since childhood, with great labor and patience he
learned how to read and write. Later, realizing how his lack of
education hampered him, he endeavored to secure the means to
enable him to study to better advantage, and sold for twenty
pounds sterling a very large number of valuable specimens. He
tried to get employment as a naturalist, and, but for his poor
reading and writing, would have succeeded.

Poor little Scotch laddie! Had his parents or teachers understood
him, he might have been as great a naturalist as Agassiz, and his
life instead of being dwarfed and crippled, would have been a joy
to himself and an incalculable benefit to the world.





WASHINGTON'S YOUTHFUL HEROISM

     "No great deed is done
     By falterers who ask for certainty."


"God will give you a reward," solemnly spoke the grateful mother,
as she received from the arms of the brave youth the child he had
risked his life to save. As if her lips were touched with the
spirit of prophecy, she continued, "He will do great things for
you in return for this day's work, and the blessings of thousands
besides mine will attend you."

The ear of George Washington was ever open to the cry of distress;
his sympathy and aid were ever at the service of those who needed
them. One calm, sunny day, in the spring of 1750, he was dining
with other surveyors in a forest in Virginia. Suddenly the
stillness of the forest was startled by the piercing shriek of a
woman. Washington instantly sprang to his feet and hurried to the
woman's assistance.

"My boy, my boy,--oh, my poor boy is drowning, and they will not
let me go," screamed the frantic mother, as she tried to escape
from the detaining hands which withheld her from jumping into the
rapids. "Oh, sir!" she implored, as she caught sight of the manly
youth of eighteen, whose presence even then inspired confidence;
"Oh, sir, you will surely do something for me!"

For an instant Washington measured the rocks and the whirling
currents with a comprehensive look, and then, throwing off his
coat, plunged into the roaring rapids where he had caught a
glimpse of the drowning boy. With stout heart and steady hand he
struggled against the seething mass of waters which threatened
every moment to engulf or dash him to pieces against the sharp-
pointed rocks which lay concealed beneath.

Three times he had almost succeeded in grasping the child's dress,
when the force of the current drove him back. Then he gathered
himself together for one last effort. Just as the child was about
to escape him forever and be shot over the falls into the
whirlpool below, he clutched him. The spectators on the bank cried
out in horror. They gave both up for lost. But Washington seemed
to lead a charmed life, and the cry of horror was changed to one
of joy when, still holding the child, he emerged lower down from
the vortex of waters.

Striking out for a low place in the bank, within a few minutes he
reached the shore with his burden. Then amid the acclamations of
those who had witnessed his heroism, and the blessings of the
overjoyed mother, Washington placed the unconscious, but still
living, child in her arms.





A COW HIS CAPITAL


A cow! Now, of all things in the world; of what use was a cow to
an ambitious boy who wanted to go to college? Yet a cow, and
nothing more, was the capital, the entire stock in trade, of an
aspiring farmer boy who felt within him a call to another kind of
life than that his father led.

This youth, who was yet in his teens, next to his father and
mother, loved a book better than anything else in the world, and
his great ambition was to go to college, to become a "scholar."
Whether he followed the plow, or tossed hay under a burning July
sun, or chopped wood, while his blood tingled from the combined
effects of exercise and the keen December wind, his thoughts were
ever fixed on the problem, "How can I go to college?"

His parents were poor, and, while they could give him a
comfortable support as long as he worked on the farm with them,
they could not afford to send him to college. But if they could
not give him any material aid, they gave him all their sympathy,
which kept the fire of his resolution burning at white heat.

There is some subtle communication between the mind and the
spiritual forces of achievement which renders it impossible for
one to think for any great length of time on a tangled problem,
without a method for its untanglement being suggested. So, one
evening, while driving the cows home to be milked, the thought
flashed across the brain of the would-be student: "If I can't have
anything else for capital, why can't I have a cow? I could do
something with it, I am sure, and to college I MUST go, come what
will." Courage is more than half the battle. Decision and Energy
are its captains, and, when these three are united, victory is
sure. The problem of going to college was already more than half
solved.

Our youthful farmer did not let his thought grow cold. Hurrying at
once to his father, he said, "If you will give me a cow, I shall
feel free, with your permission, to go forth and see what I can do
for myself in the world." The father, agreeing to the proposition,
which seemed to him a practical one, replied heartily, "My son,
you shall have the best milch cow I own."

Followed by the prayers and blessings of his parents, the youth
started from home, driving his cow before him, his destination
being a certain academy between seventy-five and one hundred miles
distant.

Very soon he experienced the truth of the old adage that "Heaven
helps those who help themselves." At the end of his first day's
journey, when he sought a night's lodging for himself and
accommodation for his cow in return for her milk, he met with
unexpected kindness. The good people to whom he applied not only
refused to take anything from him, but gave him bread to eat with
his milk, and his cow a comfortable barn to lie in, with all the
hay she could eat.

During the entire length of his journey, he met with equal
kindness and consideration at the hands of all those with whom he
came in contact; and, when he reached the academy, the principal
and his wife were so pleased with his frank, modest, yet self-
confident bearing, that they at once adopted himself and his cow
into the family. He worked for his board, and the cow ungrudgingly
gave her milk for the general good.

In due time the youth was graduated with honors from the academy.
He was then ready to enter college, but had no money. The kind-
hearted principal of the academy and his wife again came to his
aid and helped him out of the difficulty by purchasing his cow.
The money thus obtained enabled him to take the next step forward.
He bade his good friends farewell, and the same year entered
college. For four years he worked steadily with hand and brain. In
spite of the hard work they were happy years, and at their close
the persevering student had won, in addition to his classical
degree, many new friends and well-wishers. His next step was to
take a theological course in another institution. When he had
finished the course, he was called to be principal of the academy
to which honest ambition first led him with his cow.

Years afterward a learned professor of Hebrew, and the author of a
scholarly "Commentary," cheered and encouraged many a struggling
youth by relating the story of his own experiences from the time
when he, a simple rustic, had started for college with naught but
a cow as capital.

This story was first related to the writer by the late Frances E.
Willard, who vouched for its truth.





THE BOY WHO SAID "I MUST"


Farther back than the memory of the grandfathers and grandmothers
of some of my young readers can go, there lived in a historic town
in Massachusetts a brave little lad who loved books and study more
than toys or games, or play of any kind. The dearest wish of his
heart was to be able to go to school every day, like more
fortunate boys and girls, so that, when he should grow up to be a
man, he might be well educated and fitted to do some grand work in
the world. But his help was needed at home, and, young as he was,
he began then to learn the lessons of unselfishness and duty. It
was hard, wasn't it, for a little fellow only eight years old to
have to leave off going to school and settle down to work on a
farm? Many young folks at his age think they are very badly
treated if they are not permitted to have some toy or story book,
or other thing on which they have set their hearts; and older boys
and girls, too, are apt to pout and frown if their whims are not
gratified. But Theodore's parents were very poor, and could not
even indulge his longing to go to school.

Did he give up his dreams of being a great man? Not a bit of it.
He did not even cry or utter a complaint, but manfully resolved
that he would do everything he could "to help father," and then,
"when winter comes," he thought, "I shall be able to go to school
again." Bravely the little fellow toiled through the beautiful
springtide, though his wistful glances were often turned in the
direction of the schoolhouse. But he resolutely bent to his work
and renewed his resolve that he would be educated. As spring
deepened into summer, the work on the farm grew harder and harder,
but Theodore rejoiced that the flight of each season brought
winter nearer.

At length autumn had vanished; the fruits of the spring and
summer's toil had been gathered; the boy was free to go to his
beloved studies again. And oh, how he reveled in the few books at
his command in the village school! How eagerly he trudged across
the fields, morning after morning, to the schoolhouse, where he
always held first place in his class! Blustering winds and fierce
snowstorms had no terrors for the ardent student. His only sorrow
was that winter was all too short, and the days freighted with the
happiness of regular study slipped all too quickly by. But the
kind-hearted schoolmaster lent him books, so that, when spring
came round again, and the boy had to go back to work, he could
pore over them in his odd moments of relaxation. As he patiently
plodded along, guiding the plow over the rough earth, he recited
the lessons he had learned during the brief winter season, and
after dinner, while the others rested awhile from their labors,
Theodore eagerly turned the pages of one of his borrowed books,
from which he drank in deep draughts of delight and knowledge.
Early in the summer mornings, before the regular work began, and
late in the evening, when the day's tasks had all been done, he
read and re-read his treasured volumes until he knew them from
cover to cover.

Then he was confronted with a difficulty. He had begun to study
Latin, but found it impossible to get along without a dictionary.
"What shall I do?" he thought; "there is no one from whom I can
borrow a Latin dictionary, and I cannot ask father to buy me one,
because he cannot afford it. But I MUST have it." That "must"
settled the question. Three quarters of a century ago, book stores
were few and books very costly. Boys and girls who have free
access to libraries and reading rooms, and can buy the best works
of great authors, sometimes for a few cents, can hardly imagine
the difficulties which beset the little farmer boy in trying to
get the book he wanted.

Did he get the dictionary? Oh, yes. You remember he had said, "I
must." After thinking and thinking how he could get the money to
buy it, a bright idea flashed across his mind. The bushes in the
fields about the farm seemed waiting for some one to pick the ripe
whortle-berries. "Why," thought he, "can't I gather and sell
enough to buy my dictionary?" The next morning, before any one
else in the farmhouse was astir, Theodore was moving rapidly
through the bushes, picking, picking, picking, with unwearied
fingers, the shining berries, every one of which was of greater
value in his eyes than a penny would be to some of you.

At last, after picking and selling several bushels of ripe
berries, he had enough money to buy the coveted dictionary. Oh,
what a joy it was to possess a book that had been purchased with
his own money! How it thrilled the boy and quickened his ambition
to renewed efforts! "Well done, my boy! But, Theodore, I cannot
afford to keep you there."

"Well, father," replied the youth, "but I am not going to study
there; I shall study at home at odd times, and thus prepare myself
for a final examination, which will give me a diploma."

Theodore had just returned from Boston, and was telling his
delighted father how he had spent the holiday which he had asked
for in the morning. Starting out early from the farm, so as to
reach Boston before the intense heat of the August day had set in,
he cheerfully tramped the ten miles that lay between his home in
Lexington and Harvard College, where he presented himself as a
candidate for admission; and when the examinations were over,
Theodore had the joy of hearing his name announced in the list of
successful students. The youth had reached the goal which the boy
of eight had dimly seen. And now, if you would learn how he worked
and taught in a country school in order to earn the money to spend
two years in college, and how the young man became one of the most
eminent preachers in America, you must read a complete biography
of Theodore Parker, the hero of this little story.





THE HIDDEN TREASURE


Long, long ago, in the shadowy past, Ali Hafed dwelt on the shores
of the River Indus, in the ancient land of the Hindus. His
beautiful cottage, set in the midst of fruit and flower gardens,
looked from the mountain side on which it stood over the broad
expanse of the noble river. Rich meadows, waving fields of grain,
and the herds and flocks contentedly grazing on the pasture lands,
testified to the thrift and prosperity of Ali Hafed. The love of a
beautiful wife and a large family of light-hearted boys and girls
made his home an earthly paradise. Healthy, wealthy, contented,
rich in love and friendship, his cup of happiness seemed full to
overflowing.

Happy and contented, as we have seen, was the good Ali Hafed, when
one evening a learned priest of Buddha, journeying along the banks
of the Indus, stopped for rest and refreshment at his home, where
all wayfarers were hospitably welcomed and treated as honored
guests.

After the evening meal, the farmer and his family, with the priest
in their midst, gathered around the fireside, the chilly mountain
air of the late autumn making a fire desirable. The disciple of
Buddha entertained his kind hosts with various legends and myths,
and last of all with the story of the creation.

He told his wondering listeners how in the beginning the solid
earth on which they lived was not solid at all, but a mere bank of
fog. "The Great Spirit," said he, "thrust his finger into the bank
of fog and began slowly describing a circle in its midst,
increasing the speed gradually until the fog went whirling round
his finger so rapidly that it was transformed into a glowing ball
of fire. Then the Creative Spirit hurled the fiery ball from his
hand, and it shot through the universe, burning its way through
other banks of fog and condensing them into rain, which fell in
great floods, cooling the surface of the immense ball. Flames then
bursting from the interior through the cooled outer crust, threw
up the hills and mountain ranges, and made the beautiful fertile
valleys. In the flood of rain that followed this fiery upheaval,
the substance that cooled very quickly formed granite, that which
cooled less rapidly became copper, the next in degree cooled down
into silver, and the last became gold. But the most beautiful
substance of all, the diamond, was formed by the first beams of
sunlight condensed on the earth's surface.

"A drop of sunlight the size of my thumb," said the priest,
holding up his hand, "is worth more than mines of gold. With one
such drop," he continued, turning to Ali Hafed, "you could buy
many farms like yours; with a handful you could buy a province,
and with a mine of diamonds you could purchase a whole kingdom."

The company parted for the night, and Ali Hafed went to bed, but
not to sleep. All night long he tossed restlessly from side to
side, thinking, planning, scheming how he could secure some
diamonds. The demon of discontent had entered his soul, and the
blessings and advantages which he possessed in such abundance
seemed as by some malicious magic to have utterly vanished.
Although his wife and children loved him as before; although his
farm, his orchards, his flocks, and herds were as real and
prosperous as they had ever been, yet the last words of the
priest, which kept ringing in his ears, turned his content into
vague longings and blinded him to all that had hitherto made him
happy.

Before dawn next morning the farmer, full of his purpose, was
astir. Rousing the priest, he eagerly inquired if he could direct
him to a mine of diamonds.

"A mine of diamonds!" echoed the astonished priest. "What do you,
who already have so much to be grateful for, want with diamonds?"

"I wish to be rich and place my children on thrones."

"All you have to do, then," said the Buddhist, "is to go and
search until you find them."

"But where shall I go?" questioned the infatuated man.

"Go anywhere," was the vague reply; "north, south, east, or west,
--anywhere."

"But how shall I know the place?" asked the farmer.

"When you find a river running over white sands between high
mountain ranges, in these white sands you will find diamonds.
There are many such rivers and many mines of diamonds waiting to
be discovered. All you have to do is to start out and go
somewhere--" and he waved his hand--"away, away!"

Ali Hafed's mind was full made up. "I will no longer," he thought,
"remain on a wretched farm, toiling day in and day out for a mere
subsistence, when acres of diamonds--untold wealth--may be had by
him who is bold enough to seek them."

He sold his farm for less than half its value. Then, after putting
his young family under the care of a neighbor, he set out on his
quest.

With high hopes and the coveted diamond mines beckoning in the far
distance, Ali Hafed began his wanderings. During the first few
weeks his spirits did not flag, nor did his feet grow weary. On,
and on, he tramped until he came to the Mountains of the Moon,
beyond the bounds of Arabia. Weeks stretched into months, and the
wanderer often looked regretfully in the direction of his once
happy home. Still no gleam of waters glinting over white sands
greeted his eyes. But on he went, into Egypt, through Palestine,
and other eastern lands, always looking for the treasure he still
hoped to find. At last, after years of fruitless search, during
which he had wandered north and south, east and west, hope left
him. All his money was spent. He was starving and almost naked,
and the diamonds--which had lured him away from all that made life
dear--where were they? Poor Ali Hafed never knew. He died by the
wayside, never dreaming that the wealth for which he had
sacrificed happiness and life might have been his had he remained
at home.

"Here is a diamond! here is a diamond! Has Ali Hafed returned?"
shouted an excited voice.

The speaker, no other than our old acquaintance, the Buddhist
priest, was standing in the same room where years before he had
told poor Ali Hafed how the world was made, and where diamonds
were to be found.

"No, Ali Hafed has not returned," quietly answered his successor.
"Neither is that which you hold in your hand a diamond; it is but
a pretty black pebble I picked up in my garden."

"I tell you," said the priest, excitedly, "this is a genuine
diamond. I know one when I see it. Tell me how and where you found
it?"

"One day," replied the farmer, slowly, "having led my camel into
the garden to drink, I noticed, as he put his nose into the water,
a sparkle of light coming from the white sand at the bottom of the
clear stream. Stooping down, I picked up the black pebble you now
hold, guided to it by that crystal eye in the center from which
the light flashes so brilliantly."

"Why, thou simple one," cried the priest, "this is no common
stone, but a gem of the purest water. Come, show me where thou
didst find it."

Together they flew to the spot where the farmer had found the
"pebble," and, turning over the white sands with eager fingers,
they found, to their great delight, other stones even more
valuable and beautiful than the first. Then they extended their
search, and, so the Oriental story goes, "every shovelful of the
old farm, as acre after acre was sifted over, revealed gems with
which to decorate the crowns of emperors and moguls."





LOVE TAMED THE LION

    I would not enter on my list of friends,
    (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
    Yet wanting sensibility), the man
    Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
                                                 COWPER.


"Nero!" Crushed, baffled, blinded, and, like Samson, shorn of his
strength, prostrate in his cage lay the great tawny monarch of the
forest. Heedless of the curious crowds passing to and fro, he
seemed deaf as well as blind to everything going on around him.
Perhaps he was dreaming of the jungle. Perhaps he was longing to
roam the wilds once more in his native strength. Perhaps memories
of a happy past even in captivity stirred him. Perhaps--But what
is this? What change has come o'er the spirit of his dreams? No
one has touched him. Apparently, nothing has happened to arouse
him. Only a woman's voice, soft, caressing, full of love, has
uttered the name, "Nero." But there was magic in the sound. In an
instant the huge animal was on his feet. Quivering with emotion,
he rushed to the side of the cage from whence the voice proceeded,
and threw himself against the bars with such violence that he fell
back half stunned. As he fell he uttered the peculiar note of
welcome with which, in happier days, he was wont to greet his
loved and long-lost mistress.

Touched with the devotion of her dumb friend, Rosa Bonheur--for
it was she who had spoken--released from bondage the faithful
animal whom, years before, she had bought from a keeper who
declared him untamable.

"In order to secure the affections of wild animals," said the
great-hearted painter, "you must love them," and by love she had
subdued the ferocious beast whom even the lion-tamers had given up
as hopeless.

When about to travel for two years, it being impossible to take
her pet with her, Mademoiselle Bonheur sold him to the Jardin des
Plantes in Paris, where she found him on her return, totally
blind, owing, it is said, to the ill treatment of the attendant.

Grieved beyond measure at the condition of poor Nero, she had him
removed to her chateau, where everything was done for his comfort
that love could suggest. Often in her leisure moments, when she
had laid aside her painting garb, the artist would have him taken
to her studio, where she would play with and fondle the enormous
creature as if he were a kitten. And there, at last, he died
happily, his great paws clinging fondly to the mistress who loved
him so well, his sightless eyes turned upon her to the end, as if
beseeching that she would not again leave him.





"THERE IS ROOM ENOUGH AT THE TOP"


These words ere uttered many years ago by a youth who had no other
means by which to reach the top than work and will. They have
since become the watchword of every poor boy whose ambition is
backed by energy and a determination to make the most possible of
himself.

The occasion on which Daniel Webster first said "There is room
enough at the top," marked the turning point in his life. Had he
not been animated at that time by an ambition to make the most of
his talents, he might have remained forever in obscurity.

His father and other friends had secured for him the position of
Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, of Hillsborough County, New
Hampshire. Daniel was studying law in the office of Mr.
Christopher Gore, a distinguished Boston lawyer, and was about
ready for his admission to the bar. The position offered him was
worth fifteen hundred dollars a year. This seemed a fortune to the
struggling student. He lay awake the whole night following the day
on which he had heard the good news, planning what he would do for
his father and mother, his brother Ezekiel, and his sisters. Next
morning he hurried to the office to tell Mr. Gore of his good
fortune.

"Well, my young friend," said the lawyer, when Daniel had told his
story, "the gentlemen have been very kind to you; I am glad of it.
You must thank them for it. You will write immediately, of
course."

Webster explained that, since he must go to New Hampshire
immediately, it would hardly be worth while to write. He could
thank his good friends in person.

"Why," said Mr. Gore in great astonishment, "you don't mean to
accept it, surely!"

The youth's high spirits were damped at once by his senior's
manner. "The bare idea of not accepting it," he says, "so
astounded me that I should have been glad to have found any hole
to have hid myself in."

"Well," said Mr. Gore, seeing the disappointment his words had
caused, "you must decide for yourself; but come, sit down and let
us talk it over. The office is worth fifteen hundred a year, you
say. Well, it never will be any more. Ten to one, if they find out
it is so much, the fees will be reduced. You are appointed now by
friends; others may fill their places who are of different
opinions, and who have friends of their own to provide for. You
will lose your place; or, supposing you to retain it, what are you
but a clerk for life? And your prospects as a lawyer are good
enough to encourage you to go on. Go on, and finish your studies;
you are poor enough, but there are greater evils than poverty;
live on no man's favor; what bread you do eat, let it be the bread
of independence; pursue your profession, make yourself useful to
your friends and a little formidable to your enemies, and you have
nothing to fear."

How fortunate Webster as to have at this point in his career so
wise and far-seeing a friend! His father, who had made many
sacrifices to educate his boys, saw in the proffered clerkship a
great opening for his favorite, Daniel. He never dreamed of the
future that was to make him one of America's greatest orators and
statesmen. At first he could not believe that the position which
he had worked so hard to obtain was to be rejected.

"Daniel, Daniel," he said sorrowfully, "don't you mean to take
that office?"

"No, indeed, father," was the reply, "I hope I can do much better
than that. I mean to use my tongue in the courts, not my pen; to
be an actor, not a register of other men's acts. I hope yet, sir,
to astonish your honor in your own court by my professional
attainments."

Judge Webster made no attempt to conceal his disappointment. He
even tried to discourage his son by reminding him that there were
already more lawyers than the country needed.

It was in answer to this objection that Daniel used the famous and
oft-quoted words,--"There is room enough at the top."

"Well, my son," said the fond but doubting father, "your mother
has always said you would come to something or nothing. She was
not sure which; I think you are now about settling that doubt for
her."

It was very painful to Daniel to disappoint his father, but his
purpose was fixed, and nothing now could change it. He knew he had
turned his face in the right direction, and though when he
commenced to practice law he earned only about five or six hundred
dollars a year, he never regretted the decision he had made. He
aimed high, and he had his reward.

It is true now and forever, as Lowell says, that--

    "Not failure, but low aim, is crime."





THE UPLIFT OF A SLAVE BOY'S IDEAL

Invincible determination, and a right nature, are the levers that
move the world.--PORTER.


Born a slave, with the feelings and possibilities of a man, but
with no rights above the beast of the field, Fred Douglass gave
the world one of the most notable examples of man's power over
circumstances.

He had no knowledge of his father, whom he had never seen. He had
only a dim recollection of his mother, from whom he had been
separated at birth. The poor slave mother used to walk twelve
miles when her day's work was done, in order to get an occasional
glimpse of her child. Then she had to walk back to the plantation
on which she labored, so as to be in time to begin to work at dawn
next morning.

Under the brutal discipline of the "Aunt Katy" who had charge of
the slaves who were still too young to labor in the fields, he
early began to realize the hardships of his lot, and to rebel
against the state of bondage into which he had been born.

Often hungry, and clothed in hottest summer and coldest winter
alike, in a coarse tow linen shirt, scarcely reaching to the
knees, without a bed to lie on or a blanket to cover him, his only
protection, no matter how cold the night, was an old corn bag,
into which he thrust himself, leaving his feet exposed at one end,
and his head at the other.

When about seven years old, he was transferred to new owners in
Baltimore, where his kind-hearted mistress, who did not know that
in doing so she was breaking the law, taught him the alphabet. He
thus got possession of the key which was to unlock his bonds, and,
young as he was, he knew it. It did not matter that his master,
when he learned what had been done, forbade his wife to give the
boy further instructions. He had already tasted of the fruit of
the tree of knowledge. The prohibition was useless. Neither
threats nor stripes nor chains could hold the awakened soul in
bondage.

With infinite pains and patience, and by stealth, he enlarged upon
his knowledge of the alphabet. An old copy of "Webster's Spelling
Book," cast aside by his young master, as his greatest treasure.
With the aid of a few good-natured white boys, who sometimes
played with him in the streets, he quickly mastered its contents.
Then he cast about for further means to satisfy his mental
craving. How difficult it was for the poor, despised slave to do
this, we learn from his own pathetic words. "I have gathered," he
says, "scattered pages of the Bible from the filthy street
gutters, and washed and dried them, that, in moments of leisure, I
might get a word or two of wisdom from them."

Think of that, boys and girls of the twentieth century, with your
day schools and evening schools, libraries, colleges, and
universities,--picking reading material from the gutter and
mastering it by stealth! Yet this boy grew up to be the friend and
co-worker of Garrison and Phillips, the eloquent spokesman of his
race, the honored guest of distinguished peers and commoners of
England, one of the noblest examples of a self-made man that the
world has ever seen.

Under equal hardships he learned to write. The boy's wits,
sharpened instead of blunted by repression, saw opportunities
where more favored children could see none. He gave himself his
first writing lesson in his master's shipyard, by copying from the
various pieces of timber the letters with which they had been
marked by the carpenters, to show the different parts of the ship
for which they were intended. He copied from posters on fences,
from old copy books, from anything and everything he could get
hold of. He practiced his new art on pavements and rails, and
entered into contests in letter making with white boys, in order
to add to his knowledge. "With playmates for my teachers," he
says, "fences and pavements for my copy books, and chalk for my
pen and ink, I learned to write."

While being "broken in" to field labor under the lash of the
overseer, chained and imprisoned for the crime of attempting to
escape from slavery, the spirit of the youth never quailed. He
believed in himself, in his God-given powers, and he was
determined to use them in freeing himself and his race.

How well he succeeded in the stupendous task to which he set
himself while yet groping in the black night of bondage, with no
human power outside of his own indomitable will to help him, his
life work attests in language more enduring than "storied urn" or
written history. A roll call of the world's great moral heroes
would be incomplete without the name of the slave-born Douglass,
who came on the stage of life to play the leading role of the
Moses of his race in one of the saddest and, at the same time,
most glorious eras of American history.

He was born in Talbot County, Maryland. The exact date of his
birth is not known; but he himself thought it was in February,
1817. He died in Washington, D.C., February 20, 1895.





"TO THE FIRST ROBIN"


The air was keen and biting, and traces of snow still lingered on
the ground and sparkled on the tree tops in the morning sun. But
the happy, rosy-cheeked children, lately freed from the restraints
of city life, who played in the old garden in Concord,
Massachusetts, that bright spring morning many years ago, heeded
not the biting wind or the lingering snow. As they raced up and
down the paths, in and out among the trees, their cheeks took on a
deeper glow, their eyes a brighter sparkle, while their shouts of
merry laughter made the morning glad.

But stay, what is this? What has happened to check the laughter on
their lips, and dim their bright eyes with tears? The little
group, headed by Louisa, has suddenly come to a pause under a
tree, where a wee robin, half dead with hunger and cold, has
fallen from its perch.

"Poor, poor birdie!" exclaimed a chorus of pitying voices. "It is
dead, poor little thing," said Anna. "No," said Louisa, the leader
of the children in fun and works of mercy alike; "it is warm, and
I can feel its heart beat." As she spoke, she gathered the tiny
bundle of feathers to her bosom, and, heading the little
procession, turned toward the house.

A warm nest was made for the foundling, and, with motherly care,
the little Louisa May Alcott, then only eight years old, fed and
nursed back to life the half-famished bird.

Before the feathered claimant on her mercy flew away to freedom,
the future authoress, the "children's friend," who loved and
pitied all helpless things, wrote her first poem, and called it
"To the First Robin." It contained only these two stanzas:--

    "Welcome, welcome, little stranger,
    Fear no harm, and fear no danger,
    We are glad to see you here,
    For you sing, 'Sweet spring is near.'

    "Now the white snow melts away,
    Now the flowers blossom gay,
    Come, dear bird, and build your nest,
    For we love our robin best."





THE "WIZARD" AS AN EDITOR


Although he had only a few months' regular schooling, at ten
Thomas Alva Edison had read and thought more than many youths of
twenty. Gibbon's "Rome," Hume's "England," Sears's "History of the
World," besides several books on chemistry,--a subject in which
he was even then deeply interested,--were familiar friends. Yet he
was not, by any means, a serious bookworm. On the contrary, he was
as full of fun and mischief as any healthy boy of his age.

The little fellow's sunny face and pleasing manners made him a
general favorite, and when circumstances forced him from the
parent nest into the big bustling world at the age of twelve, he
became the most popular train boy on the Grand Trunk Railroad in
central Michigan, while his keen powers of observation and
practical turn of mind made him the most successful. His ambition
soared far beyond the selling of papers, song books, apples, and
peanuts, and his business ability was such that he soon had three
or four boys selling his wares on commission.

His interest in chemistry, however, had not abated, and his busy
brain now urged him to try new fields. He exchanged some of his
papers for retorts and other simple apparatus, bought a copy of
Fiesenius's "Qualitative Analysis," and secured the use of an old
baggage car as a laboratory. Here, surrounded by chemicals and
experimenting apparatus, he spent some of the happiest hours of
his life.

But even this was not a sufficient outlet for the energies of the
budding inventor. Selling papers had naturally aroused his
interest in printing and editing, and with Edison interest always
manifested itself in action. In buying papers, he had, as usual,
made use of his eyes, and, with the little knowledge of printing
picked up in this way, he determined to start a printing press and
edit a paper of his own.

He first purchased a quantity of old type from the Detroit Free
Press. Then he put a printing press in the baggage car, which did
duty as printing and editorial office as well as laboratory, and
began his editorial labors. When the first copy of the Grand Trunk
Herald was put on sale, it would be hard to find a happier boy
than its owner was.

No matter that the youthful editor's "Associated Press" consisted
of baggage men and brakemen, or that the literary matter
contributed to the Grand Trunk Herald was chiefly railway gossip,
with some general information of interest to passengers, the
little three-cent sheet became very popular. Even the great London
Times deigned to notice it, as the only journal in the world
printed on a railway train.

But, successful as he was in his editorial venture, Edison's best
love was given to chemistry and electricity, which latter subject
he had begun to study with his usual ardor. And well it was for
the world when the youth of sixteen gave up train and newspaper
work, that no poverty, no difficulties, no ridicule, no "hard
luck," none of the trials and obstacles he had to encounter in
after life, had power to chill or discourage the genius of the
master inventor of the nineteenth century.





HOW GOOD FORTUNE CAME TO PIERRE


Many years ago, in a shabby room in one of the poorest streets of
London, a little golden-haired boy sat singing, in his sweet,
childish voice, by the bedside of his sick mother. Though faint
from hunger and oppressed with loneliness, he manfully forced back
the tears that kept welling up into his blue eyes, and, for his
mother's sake, tried to look bright and cheerful. But it was hard
to be brave and strong while his dear mother was suffering for
lack of the delicacies which he longed to provide for her, but
could not. He had not tasted food all day himself. How he could
drive away the gaunt, hungry wolf, Famine, that had come to take
up its abode with them, was the thought that haunted him as he
tried to sing a little song he himself had composed. He left his
place by the invalid, who, lulled by his singing, had fallen into
a light sleep. As he looked listlessly out of the window, he
noticed a man putting up a large poster, which bore, in staring
yellow letters, the announcement that Madame M---, one of the
greatest singers that ever lived, was to sing in public that
night.

"Oh, if I could only go!" thought little Pierre, his love of music
for the moment making him forgetful of aught else. Suddenly his
face brightened, and the light of a great resolve shone in his
eyes. "I will try it," he said to himself; and, running lightly to
a little stand that stood at the opposite end of the room, with
trembling hands he took from a tiny box a roll of paper. With a
wistful, loving glance at the sleeper, he stole from the room and
hurried out into the street.

"Who did you say is waiting for me?" asked Madame M--- of her
servant; "I am already worn out with company."

"It is only a very pretty little boy with yellow curls, who said
that if he can just see you, he is sure you will not be sorry, and
he will not keep you a moment."

"Oh, well, let him come," said the great singer, with a kindly
smile, "I can never refuse children."

Timidly the child entered the luxurious apartment, and, bowing
before the beautiful, stately woman, he began rapidly, lest his
courage should fail him: "I came to see you because my mother is
very sick, and we are too poor to get food and medicine. I
thought, perhaps, that if you would sing my little song at some of
your grand concerts, maybe some publisher would buy it for a small
sum, and so I could get food and medicine for my mother."

Taking the little roll of paper which the boy held in his hand,
the warm-hearted singer lightly hummed the air. Then, turning
toward him, she asked, in amazement: "Did you compose it? you, a
child! And the words, too?" Without waiting for a reply, she added
quickly, "Would you like to come to my concert this evening?" The
boy's face became radiant with delight at the thought of hearing
the famous songstress, but a vision of his sick mother, lying
alone in the poor, cheerless room, flitted across his mind, and he
answered, with a choking in his throat:--

"Oh, yes; I should so love to go, but I couldn't leave my mother."

"I will send somebody to take care of your mother for the evening,
and here is a crown with which you may go and get food and
medicine. Here is also one of my tickets. Come to-night; that will
admit you to a seat near me."

Overcome with joy, the child could scarcely express his gratitude
to the gracious being who seemed to him like an angel from heaven.
As he went out again into the crowded street, he seemed to tread
on air. He bought some fruit and other little delicacies to tempt
his mother's appetite, and while spreading out the feast of good
things before her astonished gaze, with tears in his eyes, he told
her of the kindness of the beautiful lady.

An hour later, tingling with expectation, Pierre set out for the
concert. How like fairyland it all seemed! The color, the dazzling
lights, the flashing gems and glistening silks of the richly
dressed ladies bewildered him. Ah! could it be possible that the
great artist who had been so kind to him would sing his little
song before this brilliant audience? At length she came on the
stage, bowing right and left in answer to the enthusiastic welcome
which greeted her appearance.

A pause of expectancy followed. The boy held his breath and gazed
spellbound at the radiant vision on whom all eyes were riveted.
The orchestra struck the first notes of a plaintive melody, and
the glorious voice of the great singer filled the vast hall, as
the words of the sad little song of the child composer floated on
the air. It was so simple, so touching, so full of exquisite
pathos, that many were in tears before it was finished.

And little Pierre? There he sat, scarcely daring to move or
breathe, fearing that the flowers, the lights, the music, should
vanish, and he should wake up to find it all a dream. He was
aroused from his trance by the tremendous burst of applause that
rang through the house as the last note trembled away into
silence. He started up. It was no dream. The greatest singer in
Europe had sung his little song before a fashionable London
audience. Almost dazed with happiness, he never knew how he
reached his poor home; and when he related the incidents of the
evening, his mother's delight nearly equaled his own. Nor was this
the end.

Next day they were startled by a visit from Madame M---. After
gently greeting the sick woman, while her hand played with
Pierre's golden curls, she said: "Your little boy, Madame, has
brought you a fortune. I was offered this morning, by the best
publisher in London, 300 pounds for his little song; and after he
has realized a certain amount from the sale, little Pierre here is
to share the profits. Madame, thank God that your son has a gift
from heaven." The grateful tears of the invalid and her visitor
mingled, while the child knelt by his mother's bedside and prayed
God to bless the kind lady who, in their time of sorrow and great
need, had been to them as a savior.

The boy never forgot his noble benefactress, and years afterward,
when the great singer lay dying, the beloved friend who smoothed
her pillow and cheered and brightened her last moments--the rich,
popular, and talented composer--was no other than our little
Pierre.





"IF I REST, I RUST"

    "The heights by great men reached and kept
    Were not attained by sudden flight;
    But they, while their companions slept,
    Were toiling upward in the night."


The significant inscription found on an old key,--"If I rest, I
rust,"--would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted
with the slightest taint of idleness. Even the industrious might
adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows
his faculties to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will
soon show signs of rust, and, ultimately, cannot do the work
required of them.

Those who would attain

    "The heights by great men reached and kept"

must keep their faculties burnished by constant use, so that they
will unlock the doors of knowledge, the gates that guard the
entrances to the professions, to science, art, literature,
agriculture,--every department of human endeavor.

Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of
achievement. If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry,
had devoted his evenings to rest and recreation, he would never
have become a famous geologist. The celebrated mathematician,
Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical
dictionary, never have found the key to the science of
mathematics, if he had given his spare moments, snatched from the
duties of a gardener, to idleness. Had the little Scotch lad,
Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended
sheep on the hillside, instead of calculating the position of the
stars by the help of a string of beads, he would never have become
a famous astronomer.

"Labor vanquishes all,"--not in constant, spasmodic, or ill-
directed labor, but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a
well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the
price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of noble and
enduring success.

    "Seize, then, the minutes as they pass;
       The woof of life is thought!
    Warm up the colors; let them glow
       With fire of fancy fraught."





A BOY WHO KNEW NOT FEAR


Richard Wagner, the great composer, weaves into one of his musical
dramas a beautiful story about a youth named Siegfried, who did
not know what fear was.

The story is a sort of fairy tale or myth,--something which has a
deep meaning hidden in it, but which is not literally true.

We smile at the idea of a youth who never knew fear, who even as a
little child had never been frightened by the imaginary terrors of
night, the darkness of the forest, or the cries of the wild
animals which inhabited it.

Yet it is actually true that there was born at Burnham Thorpe,
Norfolk, England, on September 29, 1758, a boy who never knew what
fear was. This boy's name was Horatio Nelson,--a name which his
fearlessness, ambition, and patriotism made immortal.

Courage even to daring distinguished young Nelson from his boy
companions. Many stories illustrating this quality are told of
him.

On one occasion, when the future hero of England was but a mere
child, while staying at his grandmother's, he wandered away from
the house in search of birds' nests. When dinner time came and
went and the boy did not return, his family became alarmed. They
feared that he had been kidnapped by gypsies, or that some other
mishap had befallen him. A thorough search was made for him in
every direction. Just as the searchers were about to give up their
quest, the truant was discovered sitting quietly by the side of a
brook which he was unable to cross.

"I wonder, child," said his grandmother, "that hunger and fear did
not drive you home."

"Fear! grand-mamma," exclaimed the boy; "I never saw fear. What is
it?"

Horatio was a born leader, who never even in childhood shrank from
a hazardous undertaking. This story of his school days shows how
the spirit of leadership marked him before he had entered his
teens.

In the garden attached to the boarding school at North Walsham,
which he and his elder brother, William, attended, there grew a
remarkably fine pear tree. The sight of this tree, loaded with
fruit was, naturally, a very tempting one to the boys. The boldest
among the older ones, however, dared not risk the consequences of
helping themselves to the pears, which they knew were highly
prized by the master of the school.

Horatio, who thought neither of the sin of stealing the
schoolmaster's property, nor of the risk involved in the attempt,
volunteered to secure the coveted pears.

He was let down in sheets from the bedroom window by his
schoolmates, and, after gathering as much of the fruit as he could
carry, returned with considerable difficulty. He then turned the
pears over to the boys, not keeping one for himself.

"I only took them," he explained, "because the rest of you were
afraid to venture."

The sense of honor of the future "Hero of the Nile" and of
Trafalgar was as keen in boyhood as in later life.

One year, at the close of the Christmas holidays, he and his
brother William set out on horseback to return to school. There
had been a heavy fall of snow which made traveling very
disagreeable, and William persuaded Horatio to go back home with
him, saying that it was not safe to go on.

"If that be the case," said Rev. Mr. Nelson, the father of the
boys, when the matter was explained to him, "you certainly shall
not go; but make another attempt, and I will leave it to your
honor. If the road is dangerous, you may return; but remember,
boys, I leave it to your honor."

The snow was really deep enough to be made an excuse for not going
on, and William was for returning home a second time. Horatio,
however, would not be persuaded again. "We must go on," he said;
"remember, brother, it was left to our honor."

When only twelve years old, young Nelson's ambition urged him to
try his fortune at sea. His uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling,
commanded the Raisonnable, a ship of sixty-four guns, and the boy
thought it would be good fortune, indeed, if he could get an
opportunity to serve under him. "Do, William," he said to his
brother, "write to my father, and tell him that I should like to
go to sea with Uncle Maurice."

On hearing of his son's wishes, Mr. Nelson at once wrote to
Captain Suckling. The latter wrote back without delay: "What has
poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he, above all the rest,
should be sent to rough it out at sea? But let him come, and the
first time we go into action, a cannon ball may knock off his head
and provide for him at once."

This was not very encouraging for a delicate boy of twelve. But
Horatio was not daunted. His father took him to London, and there
put him into the stage coach for Chatham, where the Raisonnable
was lying at anchor.

He arrived at Chatham during the temporary absence of his uncle,
so that there was no friendly voice to greet him when he went on
board the big ship. Homesick and heartsick, he passed some of the
most miserable days of his life on the Raisonnable. The officers
treated the sailors with a harshness bordering on cruelty. This
treatment, of course, increased the natural roughness of the
sailors; and, altogether, the conditions were such that Horatio's
opinion of the Royal Navy was sadly altered.

But in spite of the separation from his brother William, who had
been his schoolmate and constant companion, and all his other
loved ones, the hardships he had to endure as a sailor boy among
rough officers and rougher men, and his physical weakness, his
courage did not fail him. He stuck bravely to his determination to
be a sailor.

Later, the lad went on a voyage to the West Indies, in a merchant
ship commanded by Mr. John Rathbone. During this voyage, his
anxiety to rise in his profession and his keen powers of
observation, which were constantly exercised, combined to make him
a practical sailor.

After his return from the West Indies, his love of adventure was
excited by the news that two ships--the Racehorse and the Carcass
--were being fitted out for a voyage of discovery to the North
Pole. Through the influence of Captain Suckling, he secured an
appointment as coxswain, under Captain Lutwidge, who was second in
command of the expedition.

All went well with the Racehorse and the Carcass until they neared
the Polar regions. Then they were becalmed, surrounded with ice,
and wedged in so that they could not move.

Young as Nelson was, he was put in command of one of the boats
sent out to try to find a passage to the open water. While engaged
in this work he was instrumental in saving the crew of another of
the boats which had been attacked by walruses.

His most notable adventure during this Polar cruise, however, was
a fight with a bear.

One night he stole away from his ship with a companion in pursuit
of a bear. A fog which had been rising when they left the Carcass
soon enveloped them. Between three and four o'clock in the
morning, when the weather began to clear, they were sighted by
Captain Lutwidge and his officers, at some distance from the ship,
in conflict with a huge bear. The boys, who had been missed soon
after they set out on their adventure, were at once signaled to
return. Nelson's companion urged him to obey the signal, and,
though their ammunition had given out, he longed to continue the
fight.

"Never mind," he cried excitedly; "do but let me get a blow at
this fellow with the butt end of my musket, and we shall have
him."

Captain Lutwidge, seeing the boy's danger,--he being separated
from the bear only by a narrow chasm in the ice,--fired a gun.
This frightened the bear away. Nelson then returned to face the
consequences of his disobedience.

He was severely reprimanded by his captain for "conduct so
unworthy of the office he filled." When asked what motive he had
in hunting a bear, he replied, still trembling from the excitement
of the encounter, "Sir, I wished to kill the bear that I might
carry the skin to my father."

The expedition finally worked its way out of the ice and sailed
for home.

Horatio's next voyage was to the East Indies, aboard the Seahorse,
one of the vessels of a squadron under the command of Sir Edward
Hughes. His attention to duty attracted the notice of his senior
officer, on whose recommendation he was rated as a midshipman.

After eighteen months in the trying climate of India, the youth's
health gave way, and he was sent home in the Dolphin. His physical
weakness affected his spirits. Gloom fastened upon him, and for a
time he was very despondent about his future.

"I felt impressed," he says, "with an idea that I should never
rise in my profession. My mind was staggered with a view of the
difficulties I had to surmount and the little interest I
possessed. I could discover no means of reaching the object of my
ambition. After a long and gloomy revery in which I almost wished
myself overboard, a sudden flow of patriotism was kindled within
me and presented my king and my country as my patrons. My mind
exulted in the idea. 'Well, then,' I exclaimed, 'I will be a hero,
and, confiding in Providence, I will brave every danger!'"

In that hour Nelson leaped from boyhood to manhood. Thenceforth
the purpose of his life never changed. From that time, as he often
said afterward, "a radiant orb was suspended in his mind's eye,
which urged him onward to renown."

His health improved very much during the homeward voyage, and he
was soon able to resume duty again.

At nineteen he was made second lieutenant of the Lowestoffe; and
at twenty he was commander of the Badger. Before he was twenty-
one, owing largely to his courage and presence of mind in face of
every danger, and his enthusiasm in his profession, "he had gained
that mark," says his biographer, Southey, "which brought all the
honors of the service within his reach."

Pleasing in his address and conversation, always kind and
thoughtful in his treatment of the men and boys under him, Nelson
was the best-loved man in the British navy,--nay, in all England.

When he was appointed to the command of the Boreas, a ship of
twenty-eight guns, then bound for the Leeward Islands, he had
thirty midshipmen under him. When any of them, at first, showed
any timidity about going up the masts, he would say, by way of
encouragement, "I am going a race to the masthead, and beg that I
may meet you there." And again he would say cheerfully, that "any
person was to be pitied who could fancy there was any danger, or
even anything disagreeable, in the attempt."

"Your Excellency must excuse me for bringing one of my midshipmen
with me," he said to the governor of Barbados, who had invited him
to dine. "I make it a rule to introduce them to all the good
company I can, as they have few to look up to besides myself
during the time they are at sea." Was it any wonder that his
"middies" almost worshiped him?

This thoughtfulness in small matters is always characteristic of
truly great, large-souled men. Another distinguishing mark of
Nelson's greatness was that he ruled by love rather than fear.

When, at the age of forty-seven, he fell mortally wounded at the
battle of Trafalgar, all England was plunged into grief. The
crowning victory of his life had been won, but his country was
inconsolable for the loss of the noblest of her naval heroes.

"The greatest sea victory that the world had ever known was won,"
says W. Clark Russell, "but at such a cost, that there was no man
throughout the British fleet--there was no man indeed in all
England--but would have welcomed defeat sooner than have paid the
price of this wonderful conquest."

The last words of the hero who had won some of the greatest of
England's sea fights were, "Thank God, I have done my duty."





HOW STANLEY FOUND LIVINGSTONE


In the year 1866 David Livingstone, the great African explorer and
missionary, started on his last journey to Africa. Three years
passed away during which no word or sign from him had reached his
friends. The whole civilized world became alarmed for his safety.
It was feared that his interest in the savages in the interior of
Africa had cost him his life.

Newspapers and clergymen in many lands were clamoring for a relief
expedition to be sent out in search of him. Royal societies,
scientific associations, and the British government were debating
what steps should be taken to find him. But they were very slow in
coming to any conclusion, and while they were weighing questions
and discussing measures, an energetic American settled the matter
offhand.

This was James Gordon Bennett, Jr., manager of the New York Herald
and son of James Gordon Bennett, its editor and proprietor.

Mr. Bennett was in a position which brought him into contact with
some of the cleverest and most enterprising young men of his day.
From all those he knew he singled out Henry M. Stanley for the
difficult and perilous task of finding Livingstone.

And who was this young man who was chosen to undertake a work
which required the highest qualities of manhood to carry it to
success?

Henry M. Stanley, whose baptismal name was John Rowlands, was born
of poor parents in Wales, in 1840. Being left an orphan at the age
of three, he was sent to the poorhouse in his native place. There
he remained for ten years, and then shipped as a cabin boy in a
vessel bound for America. Soon after his arrival in this country,
he found employment in New Orleans with a merchant named Stanley.
His intelligence, energy, and ambition won him so much favor with
this gentleman that he adopted him as his son and gave him his
name.

The elder Stanley died while Henry was still a youth. This threw
him again upon his own resources, as he inherited nothing from his
adopted father, who died without making a will. He next went to
California to seek his fortune. He was not successful, however,
and at twenty he was a soldier in the Civil War. When the war was
over, he engaged himself as a correspondent to the New York
Herald.

In this capacity he traveled extensively in the East, doing
brilliant work for his paper. When England went to war with King
Theodore of Abyssinia, he accompanied the English army to
Abyssinia, and from thence wrote vivid descriptive letters to the
Herald. The child whose early advantages were only such as a Welsh
poorhouse afforded, was already, through his own unaided efforts,
a leader in his profession. He was soon to become a leader in a
larger sense.

At the time Mr. Bennett conceived the idea of sending an
expedition in search of Livingstone, Stanley was in Spain. He had
been sent there by the Herald to report the civil war then raging
in that country. He thus describes the receipt of Mr. Bennett's
message and the events immediately following:--

"I am in Madrid, fresh from the carnage at Valencia. At 10 A.M.
Jacopo, at No.--Calle de la Cruz, hands me a telegram; on opening
it I find it reads, 'Come to Paris on important business.' The
telegram is from James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the young manager of
the New York Herald.

"Down come my pictures from the walls of my apartments on the
second floor; into my trunks go my books and souvenirs, my clothes
are hastily collected, some half washed, some from the clothesline
half dry, and after a couple of hours of hasty hard work my
portmanteaus are strapped up and labeled for 'Paris.'"

It was late at night when Stanley arrived in Paris. "I went
straight to the 'Grand Hotel,'" he says, "and knocked at the door
of Mr. Bennett's room.

"'Come in,' I heard a voice say. Entering I found Mr. Bennett in
bed.

"'Who are you?' he asked.

"'My name is Stanley,' I answered.

"'Ah, yes! sit down; I have important business on hand for you.

"'Where do you think Livingstone is?'

"'I really do not know, sir.'

"'Do you think he is alive?'

"'He may be, and he may not be,' I answered.

"'Well, I think he is alive, and that he can be found, and I am
going to send you to find him.'

"'What!' said I, 'do you really think I can find Dr. Livingstone?
Do you mean me to go to Central Africa?'

"'Yes, I mean that you shall go and find him wherever you may hear
that he is ... . Of course you will act according to your own
plans and do what you think best--BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE.'"

The question of expense coming up, Mr. Bennett said: "Draw a
thousand pounds now; and when you have gone through that, draw
another thousand; and when that is spent, draw another thousand;
and when you have finished that, draw another thousand, and so on;
but, FIND LIVINGSTONE."

Stanley asked no questions, awaited no further instructions. The
two men parted with a hearty hand clasp. "Good night, and God be
with you," said Bennett.

"Good night, sir," returned Stanley. "What it is in the power of
human nature to do I will do; and on such an errand as I go upon,
God will be with me."

The young man immediately began the work of preparation for his
great undertaking. This in itself was a task requiring more than
ordinary judgment and foresight, but Stanley was equal to the
occasion.

On January 6, 1871, he reached Zanzibar, an important native
seaport on the east coast of Africa. Here the preparations for the
journey were completed. Soon, with a train composed of one hundred
and ninety men, twenty donkeys, and baggage amounting to about six
tons, he started from this point for the interior of the
continent.

Then began a journey the dangers and tediousness of which can
hardly be described. Stanley and his men were often obliged to
wade through swamps filled with alligators. Crawling on hands and
knees, they forced their way through miles of tangled jungle,
breathing in as they went the sickening odor of decaying
vegetables. They were obliged to be continually on their guard
against elephants, lions, hyenas, and other wild inhabitants of
the jungle. Fierce as these were, however, they were no more to be
dreaded than the savage tribes whom they sometimes encountered.
Whenever they stopped to rest, they were tormented by flies, white
ants, and reptiles, which crawled all over them.

For months they journeyed on under these conditions. The donkeys
had died from drinking impure water, and some of the men had
fallen victims to disease.

It was no wonder that the survivors of the expedition--all but
Stanley--had grown disheartened. Half starved, wasted by sickness
and hardships of all kinds, with bleeding feet and torn clothes,
some of them became mutinous. Stanley's skill as a leader was
taxed to the utmost. Alternately coaxing the faint-hearted and
punishing the insubordinate, he continued to lead them on almost
in spite of themselves.

So far they had heard nothing of Livingstone, nor had they any
clew as to the direction in which they should go. There was no ray
of light or hope to cheer them on their way, yet Stanley never for
a moment thought of giving up the search.

Once, amid the terrors of the jungle, surrounded by savages and
wild animals, with supplies almost exhausted, and the remnant of
his followers in a despairing condition, the young explorer came
near being discouraged.

But he would not give way to any feeling that might lessen his
chances of success, and it was at this crisis he wrote in his
journal:--

"No living man shall stop me--only death can prevent me. But
death--not even this; I shall not die--I will not die--I cannot
die! Something tells me I shall find him and--write it larger--
FIND HIM, FIND HIM! Even the words are inspiring."

Soon after this a caravan passed and gave the expedition news
which renewed hope: A white man, old, white haired, and sick, had
just arrived at Ujiji.

Stanley and his followers pushed on until they came in sight of
Ujiji. Then the order was given to "unfurl the flags and load the
guns." Immediately the Stars and Stripes and the flag of Zanzibar
were thrown to the breeze, and the report of fifty guns awakened
the echoes. The noise startled the inhabitants of Ujiji. They came
running in the direction of the sounds, and soon the expedition
was surrounded by a crowd of friendly black men, who cried loudly,
"YAMBO, YAMBO, BANA!" which signifies welcome.

"At this grand moment," says Stanley, "we do not think of the
hundreds of miles we have marched, of the hundreds of hills that
we have ascended and descended, of the many forests we have
traversed, of the jungle and thickets that annoyed us, of the
fervid salt plains that blistered our feet, of the hot suns that
scorched us, nor the dangers and difficulties now happily
surmounted.

"At last the sublime hour has arrived!--our dreams, our hopes and
anticipations are now about to be realized! Our hearts and our
feelings are with our eyes, as we peer into the palms and try to
make out in which hut or house lives the white man with the gray
beard we heard about on the Malagarazi."

When the uproar had ceased, a voice was heard saluting the leader
of the expedition in English--"Good morning, sir."

"Startled at hearing this greeting in the midst of such a crowd of
black people," says Stanley, "I turn sharply round in search of
the man, and see him at my side, with the blackest of faces, but
animated and joyous--a man dressed in a long white shirt, with a
turban of American sheeting around his head, and I ask, 'Who the
mischief are you?'

"'I am Susi, the servant of Dr. Livingstone,' said he, smiling,
and showing a gleaming row of teeth.

"'What! Is Dr. Livingstone here?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'In this village?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'Are you sure?'

"'Sure, sure, sir. Why, I leave him just now.'

"'Susi, run, and tell the Doctor I am coming.'"

Susi ran like a madman to deliver the message. Stanley and his men
followed more slowly. Soon they were gazing into the eyes of the
man for news of whom the whole civilized world was waiting.

"My heart beat fast," says Stanley, "but I must not let my face
betray my emotions, lest it shall detract from the dignity of a
white man appearing under such extraordinary circumstances."

The young explorer longed to leap and shout for joy, but he
controlled himself, and instead of embracing Livingstone as he
would have liked to do, he grasped his hand, exclaiming, "I thank
God, Doctor, that I have been permitted to see you."

"I feel grateful that I am here to welcome you," was the gentle
reply.

All the dangers through which they had passed, all the privations
they had endured were forgotten in the joy of this meeting. Doctor
Livingstone's years of toil and suspense, during which he had
heard nothing from the outside world; Stanley's awful experiences
in the jungle, the fact that both men had almost exhausted their
supplies; the terrors of open and hidden dangers from men and
beasts, sickness, hope deferred, all were, for the moment, pushed
out of mind. Later, each recounted his story to the other.

After a period of rest, the two joined forces and together
explored and made plans for the future. Stanley tried to induce
Livingstone to return with him. But in vain; the great missionary
explorer would not lay down his work. He persevered, literally
until death.

At last the hour of parting came. With the greatest reluctance
Stanley gave his men the order, "Right about face." With a silent
farewell, a grasp of the hands, and a look into each other's eyes
which said more than words, the old man and the young man parted
forever.

Livingstone's life work was almost done. Stanley was the man on
whose shoulders his mantle was to fall. The great work he had
accomplished in finding Livingstone was the beginning of his
career as an African explorer.

After the death of Livingstone, Stanley determined to take up the
explorer's unfinished work.

In 1874 he left England at the head of an expedition fitted out by
the London Daily Telegraph and the New York Herald, and penetrated
into the very heart of Africa.

He crossed the continent from shore to shore, overcoming on his
march dangers and difficulties compared with which those
encountered on his first journey sank into insignificance. He
afterward gave an account of this expedition in his book entitled,
"Darkest Africa."

Stanley had successfully accomplished one of the great works of
the world. He had opened the way for commerce and Christianity
into the vast interior of Africa, which, prior to his discoveries,
had been marked on the map by a blank space, signifying that it
was an unexplored and unknown country.

On his return the successful explorer found himself famous.
Princes and scientific societies vied with one another in honoring
him. King Edward VII of England, who was then Prince of Wales,
sent him his personal congratulations; Humbert, the king of Italy,
sent him his portrait; the khedive of Egypt decorated him with the
grand commandership of the Order of the Medjidie; the Geographical
Societies of London, Paris, Italy, and Marseilles sent him their
gold medals; while in Berlin, Vienna, and many other large
European cities, he was elected an honorary member of their most
learned and most distinguished associations.

What pleased the explorer most of all, though, was the honor paid
him by America. "The government of the United States," he says,
"has crowned my success with its official approval, and the
unanimous vote of thanks passed in both houses of the legislature
has made me proud for life of the expedition and its
achievements."

Honored to-day as the greatest explorer of his age, and esteemed
alike for his scholarship and the immense services he has rendered
mankind, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, the once friendless orphan lad
whose only home was a Welsh poorhouse, may well be proud of the
career he has carved out for himself.





THE NESTOR OF AMERICAN JOURNALISTS


"I heard that a neighbor three miles off, had borrowed from a
still more distant neighbor, a book of great interest. I started
off, barefoot, in the snow, to obtain the treasure. There were
spots of bare ground, upon which I would stop to warm my feet. And
there were also, along the road, occasional lengths of log fence
from which the snow had melted, and upon which it was a luxury to
walk. The book was at home, and the good people consented, upon my
promise that it should be neither torn nor soiled, to lend it to
me. In returning with the prize, I was too happy to think of the
snow on my naked feet."

This little incident, related by Thurlow Weed himself, is a sample
of the means by which he gained that knowledge and power which
made him not only the "Nestor of American Journalists," but
rendered him famous in national affairs as the "American Warwick"
or "The King Maker."

There were no long happy years of schooling for this child of the
"common people," whose father was a struggling teamster and
farmer; no prelude of careless, laughing childhood before the
stern duties of life began.

Thurlow Weed was born at Catskill, Greene County, New York, in
1797, a period in the history of our republic when there were very
few educational opportunities for the children of the poor. "I
cannot ascertain," he says, "how much schooling I got at Catskill,
probably less than a year, certainly not a year and a half, and
this was when I was not more than five or six years old."

At an early age Thurlow learned to bend circumstances to his will
and, ground by poverty, shut in by limitations as he was, even
while contributing by his earning to the slender resources of the
family, he gathered knowledge and pleasure where many would have
found but thorns and bitterness.

How simply he tells his story, as though his hardships and
struggles were of no account, and how clearly the narrative
mirrors the brave little fellow of ten!

"My first employment," he says, "was in sugar making, an
occupation to which I became much attached. I now look with great
pleasure upon the days and nights passed in the sap-bush. The want
of shoes (which, as the snow was deep, was no small privation) was
the only drawback upon my happiness. I used, however, to tie
pieces of an old rag carpet around my feet, and got along pretty
well, chopping wood and gathering up sap."

During this period he traveled, barefoot, to borrow books,
wherever they could be found among the neighboring farmers. With
his body in the sugar house, and his head thrust out of doors,
"where the fat pine was blazing," the young enthusiast devoured
with breathless interest a "History of the French Revolution," and
the few other well-worn volumes which had been loaned him.

Later, after he left the farm, we see the future journalist
working successively as cabin boy and deck hand on a Hudson River
steamboat, and cheerfully sending home the few dollars he earned.
While employed in this capacity, he earned his first "quarter" in
New York by carrying a trunk for one of the passengers from the
boat to a hotel on Broad Street.

But his boyish ambition was to be a journalist, and, after a year
of seafaring life, he found his niche in the office of a small
weekly newspaper, the Lynx, published at Onondaga Hollow, New
York.

So, at fourteen, owing to his indomitable will and perseverance,
which conquered the most formidable obstacles, Thurlow Weed
started on the career in which, despite the rugged road he still
had to travel, he built up a noble character and won international
fame.





THE MAN WITH AN IDEA


It is February, 1492. A poor man, with gray hair, disheartened and
dejected, is going out of the gate from the beautiful Alhambra, in
Granada, on a mule. Ever since he was a boy, he has been haunted
with the idea that the earth is round. He has believed that the
pieces of carved wood, picked up four hundred miles at sea, and
the bodies of two men, unlike any other human beings known, found
on the shores of Portugal, have drifted from unknown lands in the
west. But his last hope of obtaining aid for a voyage of discovery
has failed. King John of Portugal, under pretense of helping him,
has secretly sent out an expedition of his own. His friends have
abandoned him; he has begged bread; has drawn maps to keep him
from starving, and lost his wife; his friends have called him
crazy, and have forsaken him. The council of wise men, called by
Ferdinand and Isabella, ridicule his theory of reaching the east
by sailing west. "But the sun and moon are round," replies
Columbus, "why not the earth?" "If the earth is a ball, what holds
it up?" the wise men ask. "What holds the sun and moon up?"
Columbus replies.

A learned doctor asks, "How can men walk with their heads hanging
down, and their feet up, like flies on a ceiling?" "How can trees
grow with their roots in the air?" "The water would run out of the
ponds, and we should fall off," says another. "The doctrine is
contrary to the Bible, which says, 'The heavens are stretched out
like a tent.'" "Of course it is flat; it is rank heresy to say it
is round."

He has waited seven long years. He has had his last interview,
hoping to get assistance from Ferdinand and Isabella after they
drive the Moors out of Spain. Isabella was almost persuaded, but
finally refused. He is now old, his last hope has fled; the
ambition of his life has failed. He hears a voice calling him. He
looks back and sees an old friend pursuing him on a horse, and
beckoning him to come back. He saw Columbus turn away from the
Alhambra, disheartened, and he hastens to the queen and tells her
what a great thing it would be, at a trifling expense, if what the
sailor believes should prove true. "It shall be done," Isabella
replies. "I will pledge my jewels to raise the money; call him
back." Columbus turns back, and with him turns the world.

Three frail vessels, little larger than fishing boats, the Santa
Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, set sail from Palos, August 3,
1492, for an unknown land, upon untried seas; the sailors would
not volunteer, but were forced to go by the king. Friends
ridiculed them for following a crazy man to certain destruction,
for they believed the sea beyond the Canaries was boiling hot.
"What if the earth is round?" they said, "and you sail down the
other side, how can you get back again? Can ships sail up hill?"

Only three days out, the Pinto's signal of distress is flying; she
has broken her rudder. September 8 they discover a broken mast
covered with seaweed floating in the sea. Terror seizes the
sailors, but Columbus calms their fears with pictures of gold and
precious stones of India. September 13, two hundred miles west of
the Canaries, Columbus is horrified to find that the compass, his
only guide, is failing him, and no longer points to the north
star. No one had yet dreamed that the earth turns on its axis. The
sailors are ready for mutiny, but Columbus tells them the north
star is not exactly in the north. October 1 they are two thousand
three hundred miles from land, though Columbus tells the sailors
one thousand seven hundred. Columbus discovers a bush in the sea,
with berries on it, and soon they see birds and a piece of carved
wood. At sunset, the crew kneel upon the deck and chant the vesper
hymn. It is sixty-seven days since they left Palos, and they have
sailed nearly three thousand miles, only changing their course
once. At ten o'clock at night they see a light ahead, but it
vanishes. Two o'clock in the morning, October 12, Roderigo de
Friana, on watch at the masthead of the Pinta, shouts, "Land!
land! land!" The sailors are wild with joy, and throw themselves
on their knees before Columbus, and ask forgiveness. They reach
the shore, and the hero of the world's greatest expedition unfolds
the flag of Spain and takes possession of the new world. Perhaps
no greater honor was ever paid man than Columbus received on his
return to Ferdinand and Isabella. Yet, after his second visit to
the land he discovered, he was taken back to Spain in chains, and
finally died in poverty and neglect; while a pickle dealer of
Seville, who had never risen above second mate, on a fishing
vessel, Amerigo Vespucci, gave his name to the new world.
Amerigo's name was put on an old chart or sketch to indicate the
point of land where he landed, five years after Columbus
discovered the country, and this crept into print by accident.





"BERNARD OF THE TUILERIES"


Opposite the entrance to the Sevres Museum in the old town of
Sevres, in France, stands a handsome bronze statue of Bernard
Palissy, the potter. Within the museum are some exquisite pieces
of pottery known as "Palissy ware." They are specimens of the art
of Palissy, who spent the best years of his life toiling to
discover the mode of making white enamel.

The story of his trials and sufferings in seeking to learn the
secret, and of his final triumph over all difficulties, is an
inspiring one.

Born in the south of France, as far back as the year 1509, Bernard
Palissy did not differ much from an intelligent, high-spirited
American boy of the twentieth century. His parents were poor, and
he had few of the advantages within the reach of the humblest
child in the United States to-day. In spite of poverty, he as
cheerful, light hearted, and happy in his great love for nature,
which distinguished him all through life. The forest was his
playground, his companions the birds, insects, and other living
things that made their home there.

From the first, Nature was his chief teacher. It was from her, and
her alone, he learned the lessons that in after years made him
famous both as a potter and a scientist. The habit of observation
seemed natural to him, for without suggestions from books or older
heads, his eyes and ears noticed all that the nature student of
our day is drilled into observing.

The free, outdoor life of the forest helped to give the boy the
strength of mind and body which afterward enabled him, in spite of
the most discouraging conditions, to pursue his ideal. He was
taught how to read and write, and from his father learned how to
paint on glass. From him he also learned the names and some of the
properties of the minerals employed in painting glass. All the
knowledge that in after years made him an artist, a scientist, and
a writer, was the result of his unaided study of nature. To books
he was indebted for only the smallest part of what he knew.

Happy and hopeful, sunshiny of face and disposition, Bernard grew
from childhood to youth. Then, when he was about eighteen, there
came into his heart a longing to try his fortune in the great
world which lay beyond his forest home. Like most country-bred
boys of his age, he felt that he had grown too large for the
parent nest and must try his wings elsewhere. In his case there
was, indeed, little to induce an ambitious boy to stay at home.
The trade of glass painting, which in previous years had been a
profitable one, had at that time fallen somewhat out of favor, and
there was not enough work to keep father and son busy.

When he shouldered his scanty wallet and bade farewell to father
and mother, and the few friends and neighbors he knew in the
straggling forest hamlet, Bernard Palissy closed the first chapter
of his life. The second was a long period of travel and self-
education.

He wandered through the forest of Ardennes, making observations
and collecting specimens of minerals, plants, reptiles, and
insects. He spent some years in the upper Pyrenees, at Tarbes.
From Antwerp in the east he bent his steps to Brest, in the most
westerly part of Brittany, and from Montpellier to Nismes he
traveled across France. During his wanderings he supported himself
by painting on glass, portrait painting (which he practiced after
a fashion), surveying, and planning sites for houses and gardens.
In copying or inventing patterns for painted windows, he had
acquired a knowledge of geometry and considerable skill in the use
of a rule and compass. His love of knowledge for its own sake made
him follow up the study of geometry, as far as he could pursue it,
and hence his skill as a surveyor.

At this time young Palissy had no other object in life than to
learn. His eager, inquiring mind was ever on the alert. Wherever
his travels led him, he sought information of men and nature,
always finding the latter his chief instructor. He painted and
planned that he might live to probe her secrets. But the time was
fast approaching when a new interest should come into his life and
overshadow all others.

After ten or twelve years of travel, he married and settled in
Saintes where he pursued, as his services were required, the work
of glass painter and surveyor. Before long he grew dissatisfied
with the dull routine of his daily life. He felt that he ought to
do more than make a living for his wife and children. There were
two babies now to be cared for as well as his wife, and he could
not shoulder his wallet, as in the careless days of his boyhood,
and wander away in search of knowledge or fortune.

About this time an event happened which changed his whole life. He
was shown a beautiful cup of Italian manufacture. I give in his
own words a description of the cup, and the effect the sight of it
had on him. "An earthen cup," he says, "turned and enameled with
so much beauty, that from that time I entered into controversy
with my own thoughts, recalling to mind several suggestions that
some people had made to me in fun, when I was painting portraits.
Then, seeing that these were falling out of request in the country
where I dwelt, and that glass painting was also little patronized,
I began to think that if I should discover how to make enamels, I
could make earthen vessels and other things very prettily, because
God has gifted me with some knowledge of drawing."

His ambition was fired at once. A definite purpose formed itself
in his mind. He knew nothing whatever of pottery. No man in France
knew the secret of enameling, which made the Italian cup so
beautiful, and Palissy had not the means to go to Italy, where he
probably could have learned it. He resolved to study the nature
and properties of clays, and not to rest until he had discovered
the secret of the white enamel. Delightful visions filled his
imagination. He thought within himself that he would become the
prince of potters, and would provide his wife and children with
all the luxuries that money could buy. "Thereafter," he wrote,
"regardless of the fact that I had no knowledge of clays, I began
to seek for the enamels as a man gropes in the dark."

Palissy was a young man when he began his search for the enamel;
he was past middle life when his labors were finally rewarded.
Groping like a man in the dark, as he himself said, he
experimented for years with clays and chemicals, but with small
success. He built with his own hands a furnace at the back of his
little cottage in which to carry on his experiments. At first his
enthusiasm inspired his wife and neighbors with the belief that he
would succeed in his efforts. But time went on, and as one
experiment after another failed or was only partially successful,
one and all lost faith in him. He had no friend or helper to buoy
him up under his many disappointments. Even his wife reproached
him for neglecting his regular work and reducing herself and her
children to poverty and want, while he wasted his time and
strength in chasing a dream. His neighbors jeered at him as a
madman, one who put his plain duty aside for the gratification of
what seemed to their dull minds merely a whim. His poor wife could
hardly be blamed for reproaching him. She could neither understand
nor sympathize with his hopes and fears, while she knew that if he
followed his trade, he could at least save his family from want.
It was a trying time for both of them. But who ever heard tell of
an artist, inventor, discoverer, or genius of any kind being
deterred by poverty, abuse, ridicule, or obstacles of any kind
from the pursuit of an ideal!

After many painful efforts, the poor glass painter had succeeded
in producing a substance which he believed to be white enamel. He
spread it on a number of earthenware pots which he had made, and
placed them in his furnace. The extremities to which he was
reduced to supply heat to the furnace are set forth in his own
words: "Having," he says, "covered the new pieces with the said
enamel, I put them into the furnace, still keeping the fire at its
height; but thereupon occurred to me a new misfortune which caused
great mortification, namely, that the wood having failed me, I was
forced to burn the palings which maintained the boundaries of my
garden; which being burnt also, I was forced to burn the tables
and the flooring of my house, to cause the melting of the second
composition. I suffered an anguish that I cannot speak, for I was
quite exhausted and dried up by the heat of the furnace. Further,
to console me, I was the object of mockery; and even those from
whom solace was due ran crying through the town that I was burning
my floors, and in this way my credit was taken from me, and I was
regarded as a madman.

"Others said that I was laboring to make false money, which was a
scandal under which I pined away, and slipped with bowed head
through the streets like a man put to shame. No one gave me
consolation, but, on the contrary, men jested at me, saying, 'It
was right for him to die of hunger, seeing that he had left off
following his trade!' All these things assailed my ears when I
passed through the street; but for all that, there still remained
some hope which encouraged and sustained me, inasmuch as the last
trials had turned out tolerably well; and thereafter I thought
that I knew enough to get my own living, although I was far enough
from that (as you shall hear afterward)."

This latest experiment filled him with joy, for he had at last
discovered the secret of the enamel. But there was yet much to be
learned, and several years more of extreme poverty and suffering
had to be endured before his labors were rewarded with complete
success. But it came at last in overflowing measure, as it almost
invariably does to those who are willing to work and suffer
privation and persevere to the end.

His work as a potter brought Palissy fame and riches. At the
invitation of Catherine de' Medici, wife of King Henry II of
France, he removed to Paris. He established a workshop in the
vicinity of the royal Palace of the Tuileries, and was thereafter
known as "Bernard of the Tuileries." He was employed by the king
and queen and some of the greatest nobles of France to embellish
their palaces and gardens with the products of his beautiful art.

Notwithstanding his lack of schooling, Bernard Palissy was one of
the most learned men of his day. He founded a Museum of Natural
History, wrote valuable books on natural science, and for several
years delivered lectures on the same subject. His lectures were
attended by the most advanced scholars of Paris, who were
astonished at the extent and accuracy of his knowledge of nature.
But he was as modest as he was wise and good, and when people
wondered at his learning, he would reply with the most unaffected
simplicity, "I have had no other book than the sky and the earth,
known to all."

No more touching story of success, in spite of great difficulties,
than Bernard Palissy's has been written. It is bad to think that
after the terrible trials which he endured for the sake of his
art, his last years also should have been clouded by misfortune.
During the civil war which raged in France between the Huguenots
and the Catholics, he was, on account of his religious views,
imprisoned in the Bastile, where he died in 1589, at the age of
eighty.





HOW THE "LEARNED BLACKSMITH" FOUND TIME


"The loss of an hour," says the philosopher, Leibnitz, "is the
loss of a part of life." This is a truth that has been appreciated
by most men who have risen to distinction,--who have been world
benefactors. The lives of those great moral heroes put to shame
the laggard youth of to-day, who so often grumbles: "I have no
time. If I didn't have to work all day, I could accomplish
something. I could read and educate myself. But if a fellow has to
grub away ten or twelve hours out of the twenty-four, what time is
left to do anything for one's self?"

How much spare time had Elihu Burritt, "the youngest of many
brethren," as he himself quaintly puts it, born in a humble home
in New Britain, Connecticut, reared amid toil and poverty? Yet,
during his father's long illness, and after his death, when Elihu
was but a lad in his teens, with the family partially dependent
upon the work of his hands, he found time,--if only a few
moments,--at the end of a fourteen-hour day of labor, for his
books.

While working at his trade as a blacksmith, he solved problems in
arithmetic and algebra while his irons were heating. Over the
forge also appeared a Latin grammar and a Greek lexicon; and,
while with sturdy blows the ambitious youth of sixteen shaped the
iron on the anvil, he fixed in his mind conjugations and
declensions.

How did this man, born nearly a century ago, possessing none of
the advantages within reach of the poorest and humblest boy of to-
day, become one of the brightest ornaments in the world of
letters, a leader in the reform movements of his generation?

Apparently no more talented than his nine brothers and sisters, by
improving every opportunity he could wring from a youth of
unremitting toil, his love for knowledge grew with what it fed
upon, and carried him to undreamed-of heights. In palaces and
council halls, the words of the "Learned Blacksmith" were listened
to with the closest attention and deference.

Read the life of Elihu Burritt, and you will be ashamed to grumble
that you have no time--no chance for self-improvement.





THE LEGEND OF WILLIAM TELL


"Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again! I hold to you the
hands you first beheld, to show they still are free. Methinks I
hear a spirit in your echoes answer me, and bid your tenant
welcome to his home again! O sacred forms, how proud you look! how
high you lift your heads into the sky! how huge you are, how
mighty, and how free! Ye are the things that tower, that shine;
whose smile makes glad--whose frown is terrible; whose forms,
robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear of awe divine. Ye guards
of liberty, I'm with you once again! I call to you with all my
voice! I hold my hands to you to show they still are free. I rush
to you as though I could embrace you!"

What schoolboy or schoolgirl is not familiar with those stirring
lines from "William Tell's Address to His Native Mountains," by J.
M. Knowles? And the story of William Tell,--is it not dear to
every heart that loves liberty? Though modern history declares it
to be purely mythical, its popularity remains unaffected. It will
live forever in the traditions of Switzerland, dear to the hearts
of her people as their native mountains, and even more full of
interest to the stranger than authentic history.

"His image [Tell's]," says Lamartine, "with those of his wife and
children, are inseparably connected with the majestic, rural, and
smiling landscapes of Helvetia, the modern Arcadia of Europe. As
often as the traveler visits these peculiar regions; as often as
the unconquered summits of Mont Blanc, St. Gothard, and the Rigi,
present themselves to his eyes in the vast firmament as the ever-
enduring symbols of liberty; whenever the lake of the Four Cantons
presents a vessel wavering on the blue surface of its waters;
whenever the cascade bursts in thunder from the heights of the
Splugen, and shivers itself upon the rocks like tyranny against
free hearts; whenever the ruins of an Austrian fortress darken
with the remains of frowning walls the round eminences of Uri or
Claris; and whenever a calm sunbeam gilds on the declivity of a
village the green velvet of the meadows where the herds are
feeding to the tinkling of bells and the echo of the Ranz des
Vaches--so often the imagination traces in all these varied scenes
the hat on the summit of the pole--the archer condemned to aim at
the apple placed on the head of his own child--the mark hurled to
the ground, transfixed by the unerring arrow--the father chained
to the bottom of the boat, subduing night, the storm, and his own
indignation, to save his executioner--and finally, the outraged
husband, threatened with the loss of all he holds most dear,
yielding to the impulse of nature, and in his turn striking the
murderer with a deathblow."

The story which tradition hands down as the origin of the freedom
of Switzerland dates back to the beginning of the fourteenth
century. At that time Switzerland was under the sovereignty of the
emperor of Germany, who ruled over Central Europe. Count Rudolph
of Hapsburg, a Swiss by birth, who had been elected to the
imperial throne in 1273, made some efforts to save his countrymen
from the oppression of a foreign yoke. His son, Albert, Archduke
of Austria, who succeeded him in 1298, inherited none of his
sympathies for Switzerland. On his accession to the throne Albert
resolved to curtail the liberties still enjoyed by the inhabitants
of some of the cantons, and to bend the whole of the Swiss people
to his will.

The mountaineers of the cantons of Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden
recognized no authority but that of the emperor; while the
peasants of the neighboring valleys were at the mercy of local
tyrants--the great nobles and their allies.

In order to carry out his project of subjecting all to the same
yoke, Albert of Austria appointed governors to rule over the semi-
free provinces or cantons. These governors, who bore the official
title of Bailiffs of the Emperor, exercised absolute authority
over the people. Men, women, and children were at their mercy, and
were treated as mere chattels--the property of their rulers.
Insult and outrage were heaped upon them until their lives became
almost unendurable.

An instance of the manner in which these petty tyrants used their
authority is related of the bailiff Landenberg, who ruled over
Unterwalden.

For some trumped-up offense of which a young peasant, named Arnold
of Melcthal, was accused, his oxen were confiscated by Landenberg.
The deputy sent to seize the animals, which Landenberg really
coveted for his own, said sneeringly to Arnold, "If peasants wish
for bread, they must draw the plow themselves." Roused to fury by
this taunt, Arnold attempted to resist the seizure of his
property, and in so doing broke an arm of one of the deputy's men.
He then fled to the mountains; but he could not hide himself from
the vengeance of Landenberg. The peasant's aged father was
arrested by order of the bailiff, and his eyes put out in
punishment for his son's offense. "That puncture," says an old
chronicler, "went so deep into many a heart that numbers resolved
to die rather than leave it unrequited."

But the crudest and most vindictive of the Austrian or German
bailiffs, as they were interchangeably called, was one Hermann
Gessler. He had built himself a fortress, which he called "Uri's
Restraint," and there he felt secure from all attacks.

This man was the terror of the whole district. His name was a
synonym for all that was base, brutal, and tyrannical. Neither the
property, the lives, nor the honor of the people were respected by
him. His hatred and contempt for the peasants were so great that
the least semblance of prosperity among them aroused his ire.

One day while riding with an armed escort through the canton of
Schwytz, he noticed a comfortable-looking dwelling which was being
built by one Werner Stauffacher. Turning to his followers, he
cried, "Is it not shameful that miserable serfs like these should
be permitted to build such houses when huts would be too good for
them?" "Let this be finished," said his chief attendant; "we shall
then sculpture over the gate the arms of the emperor, and a little
time will show whether the builder has the audacity to dispute
possession with us." The answer pleased Gessler, who replied,
"Thou art right," and, planning future vengeance, he passed on
with his escort.

The wife of Stauffacher, who had been standing near the new
building, but concealed from Gessler and his men, heard the
conversation, and reported it to her husband. The latter, filled
with indignation, without uttering a word, arose and started for
the home of his father-in-law, Walter Furst, in the village of
Attinghaussen.

On his arrival Staffaucher was cordially welcomed by his father-
in-law, who placed refreshments before him, and waited for him to
explain the object of his visit. Pushing aside the food, he said,
"I have made a vow never again to taste wine or swallow meat until
we cease to be slaves." Stauffacher then related what had
happened. Furst's anger was kindled by the recital. Both men were
roused to such a pitch that they resolved, then and there, to free
themselves and their countrymen from the chains which bound them,
or die in the attempt. They conversed far into the night, making
plans for the gaining of national independence. Then they sought
out in his hiding-place Arnold of Melchthal, the young peasant
whom Landenberg had so cruelly persecuted. In him they found, as
they expected, an ardent supporter of their plans.

The three conspirators, Stauffacher, Furst, and Melchthal,
represented different cantons; one belonging to Schwytz, another
to Uri, and the third to Unterwalden. They hoped to form a league
and unite the three cantons against the power of Austria. In
pursuance of their plans, each pledged himself to select from
among the most persecuted and the most daring in their respective
cantons ten others to join them in the cause of liberty.

On the night of November 7, or 17 (the date is variously given),
in the year 1307, the confederates met together in a secluded
mountain spot called Rutli. There they bound themselves by an
oath, the terms of which embodied their purpose: "We swear in the
presence of God, before whom kings and people are equal, to live
or die for our fellow-countrymen; to undertake and sustain all in
common; neither to suffer injustice nor to commit injury; to
respect the rights and property of the Count of Hapsburg; to do no
violence to the imperial bailiffs, but to put an end to their
tyranny." They fixed upon January 1, 1308, as the day for a
general uprising.

Events were gradually shaping themselves for the appearance of
William Tell on the scene. Up to this time his name does not
appear in the annals of his country. The bold peasant of Uri was
so little prominent among his countrymen that, according to some
versions of the legend, although a son-in-law of Walter Furst, he
had not been chosen among the thirty conspirators summoned to the
meeting at Rutli. This, however, is contradicted by another, which
asserts that he was "one of the oath-bound men of Rutli."

The various divergences in the different versions of the legend do
not affect its main features, on which all the chroniclers are
agreed. It was the crowning insult to his country which
indisputably brought Tell into prominence and made his name
forever famous.

Gessler's hatred of the people daily increased, and was constantly
showing itself in every form of petty tyranny that a mean and
wicked nature could devise. He noticed the growing discontent
among the peasantry, but instead of trying to allay it, he
determined to humiliate them still more. For this purpose he had a
pole, surmounted by the ducal cap of Austria, erected in the
market square of the village of Altdorf, and issued a command that
all who passed it should bow before the symbol of imperial rule.
Guards were placed by the pole with orders to make prisoners of
all who refused to pay homage to the ducal cap.

William Tell, a bold hunter and skillful boatman of Uri, passing
by one day, with his little son, Walter, refused to bend his knee
before the symbol of foreign oppression. He was seized at once by
the guards and carried before the bailiff.

There is considerable contradiction at this point as to whether
Tell was at once carried before the bailiff or bound to the pole,
where he remained, guarded by the soldiers, until the bailiff,
returning the same day from a hunting expedition, appeared upon
the scene. Schiller, in his drama of "William Tell," adopts the
latter version of the story.

According to the drama, Tell is represented as being bound to the
pole. In a short time he is surrounded by friends and neighbors.
Among them are his father-in-law, Walter Furst, Werner
Stauffacher, and Arnold of Melchthal. They advance to rescue the
prisoner. The guards cry in a loud voice: "Revolt! Rebellion!
Treason! Sedition! Help! Protect the agents of the law!"

Gessler and his party hear the cries, and rush to the support of
the guards. Gessler cries in a loud authoritative voice:
"Wherefore is this assembly of people? Who called for help? What
does all this mean? I demand to know the cause of this!"

Then, addressing himself particularly to one of the guards and
pointing to Tell, he says: "Stand forward! Who art thou, and why
dost thou hold that man a prisoner?"

"Most mighty lord," replies the guard, "I am one of your soldiers
placed here as a sentinel over that hat. I seized this man in the
act of disobedience, for refusing to salute it. I was about to
carry him to prison in compliance with your orders, and the
populace were preparing to rescue him by force."

After questioning Tell, whose answers are not satisfactory, the
bailiff pronounces sentence upon him. The sentence is that he
shall shoot at an apple placed on the head of his little son,
Walter, and if he fails to hit the mark he shall die.

"My lord," cries the agonized parent; "what horrible command is
this you lay upon me? What! aim at a mark placed on the head of my
dear child? No, no, it is impossible that such a thought could
enter your imagination. In the name of the God of mercy, you
cannot seriously impose that trial on a father."

"Thou shalt aim at an apple placed on the head of thy son. I will
and I command it," repeats the tyrant.

"I! William Tell! aim with my own crossbow at the head of my own
offspring! I would rather die a thousand deaths."

"Thou shall shoot, or assuredly thou diest with thy son!"

"Become the murderer of my child! My lord, you have no son--you
cannot have the feelings of a father's heart!"

Gessler's friends interfere in behalf of the unhappy father, and
plead for mercy. But all appeal is in vain. The tyrant is
determined on carrying out his sentence.

The father and son are placed at a distance of eighty paces apart.
An apple is placed on the boy's head, and the father is commanded
to hit the mark. He hesitates and trembles.

"Why dost thou hesitate?" questions his persecutor. "Thou hast
deserved death, and I could compel thee to undergo the punishment;
but in my clemency I place thy fate in thy own skillful hands. He
who is the master of his destiny cannot complain that his sentence
is a severe one. Thou art proud of thy steady eye and unerring
aim; now, hunter, is the moment to prove thy skill. The object is
worthy of thee--the prize is worth contending for. To strike the
center of a target is an ordinary achievement; but the true master
of his art is he who is always certain, and whose heart, hand, and
eye are firm and steady under every trial."

At length Tell nerves himself for the ordeal, raises his bow, and
takes aim at the target on his son's head. Before firing, however,
he concealed a second arrow under his vest. His movement did not
escape Gessler's notice.

The marksman fires. The apple falls from his boy's head, cleft in
twain by the arrow.

Even Gessler is loud in his admiration of Tell's skill. "By
heaven," he cries, "he has clove the apple exactly in the center.
Let us do justice; it is indeed a masterpiece of skill."

Tell's friends congratulate him. He is about to set out for his
home with the child who has been saved to him from the very jaws
of death as it were. But Gessler stays him.

"Thou hast concealed a second arrow in thy bosom," he says,
sternly addressing Tell. "What didst thou intend to do with it?"
Tell replies that such is the custom of all hunters.

Gessler is not satisfied and urges him to confess his real motive.
"Speak truly and frankly," he says; "say what thou wilt, I promise
thee thy life. To what purpose didst thou destine the second
arrow?"

Tell can no longer restrain his indignation, and, fixing his eyes
steadily on Gessler, he answers "Well then, my lord, since you
assure my life, I will speak the truth without reserve. If I had
struck my beloved child, with the second arrow I would have
transpierced thy heart. Assuredly that time I should not have
missed my mark."

"Villain!" exclaims Gessler, "I have promised thee life upon my
knightly word; I will keep my pledge. But since I know thee now,
and thy rebellious heart, I will remove thee to a place where thou
shalt never more behold the light of sun or moon. Thus only shall
I be sheltered from thy arrows."

He orders the guards to seize and bind Tell, saying, "I will
myself at once conduct him to Kussnacht."

The fortress of Kussnacht was situated on the summit of Mount Rigi
between Lake Lucerne, or the Lake of the Four Cantons as it is
sometimes called, and Lake Zug. It was reached by crossing Lake
Lucerne.

The prisoner was placed bound in the bottom of a boat, and with
his guards, the rowers, an inexperienced pilot, and Gessler in
command, the boat was headed for Kussnacht.

When about halfway across the lake a sudden and violent storm
overwhelmed the party. They were in peril of their lives. The
rowers and pilot were panic-stricken, and powerless in face of the
danger that threatened them.

Tell's fame as a boatman was as widespread as that of his skill as
an archer. The rowers cried aloud in their terror that he was the
only man in Switzerland that could save them from death. Gessler
immediately commanded him to be released from his bonds and given
the helm.

Tell succeeded in guiding the vessel to the shore. Then seizing
his bow and arrows, which his captors had thrown beside him, he
sprang ashore at a point known as "Tell's Leap." The boat,
rebounding, after he leaped from it was again driven out on the
lake before any of the remainder of its occupants could effect a
landing. After a time, however, the fury of the storm abated, and
they reached the shore in safety.

In the meantime Tell had concealed himself in a defile in the
mountain through which Gessler would have to pass on his way to
Kussnacht. There he lay in wait for his persecutor who followed in
hot pursuit.

Vowing vengeance as he went, Gessler declared that if the fugitive
did not give himself up to justice, every day that passed by
should cost him the life of his wife or one of his children. While
the tyrant was yet speaking, an arrow shot by an unerring hand
pierced his heart. Tell had taken vengeance into his own hands.

The death of Gessler was the signal for a general uprising. The
oath-bound men of Rutli saw that this was their great opportunity.
They called to their countrymen to follow them to freedom or
death.

Gessler's crowning act of tyranny--his inhuman punishment of Tell
--had roused the spirit of rebellion in the hearts of even the
meekest and most submissive of the peasants. Gladly, then, did
they respond to the call of the leaders of the insurrection.

The legend says that on New Year's Eve, 1308, Stauffacher, with a
chosen band of followers, climbed the mountain which led to
Landenberg's fortress castle of Rotzberg. There they were assisted
by an inmate of the castle, a young girl whose lover was among the
rebels. She threw a rope out of one of the windows of the castle,
and by it her countrymen climbed one after another into the
castle. They seized the bailiff, Landenberg, and confined him in
one of the dungeons of his own castle. Next day the conspirators
were reinforced by another party who gained entrance to the castle
by means of a clever ruse. Landenberg and his men were given their
freedom by the peasants on condition that they would quit
Switzerland forever.

The castle of Uri was attacked and taken possession of by Walter
Furst and William Tell, while other strongholds were captured by
Arnold of Melchthal and his associates.

Bonfires blazed all over the country. The dawn of Switzerland's
freedom had appeared. The reign of tyranny was doomed. William
Tell was the hero of the hour, and ever since his name has been
enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen as the watchword of
their liberties. Even to this day, as history tells us, the Swiss
peasant cherishes the belief that "Tell and the three men of Rutli
are asleep in the mountains, but will awake to the rescue of their
land should tyranny ever again enchain it."

Lamartine, to whose story of William Tell the writer is indebted,
commenting on the legend says: "The artlessness of this history
resembles a poem; it is a pastoral song in which a single drop of
blood is mingled with the dew upon a leaf or a tuft of grass.
Providence seems thus to delight in providing for every free
community, as the founder of their independence, a fabulous or
actual hero, conformable to the local situation, manners, and
character of each particular race. To a rustic, pastoral people,
like the Swiss, is given for their liberator a noble peasant; to a
proud, aspiring race, such as the Americans, an honest soldier.
Two distinct symbols, standing erect by the cradles of the two
modern liberties of the world to personify their opposite natures:
on the one hand Tell, with his arrow and the apple; on the other,
Washington, with his sword and the law."





"WESTWARD HO!"


When the current serves, the unseen monitor that directs our
affairs bids us step aboard our craft, and, with hand firmly
grasping the helm, steer boldly for the distant goal.

Philip D. Armour, the open-handed, large-hearted merchant prince,
who has left a standing memorial to his benevolence in the Armour
Institute at Chicago, heard the call to put to sea when in his
teens.

It came during the gold fever, which raged with such intensity
from 1849 to 1851, when the wildest stories were afloat of the
treasures that were daily being dug out of the earth in
California. The brain of the sturdy youth, whose Scotch and
Puritan blood tingled for some broader field than the village
store and his father's farm in Stockbridge, New York, was haunted
by the tales of adventure and fortune wafted across the continent
from the new El Dorado. "I brooded over the difference," he says,
"between tossing hay in the hot sun and digging gold by handfuls,
until, one day, I threw down the pitchfork, went to the house, and
told mother that I had quit that kind of work."

Armour was nineteen years old when he determined to seek his
fortune in California. His determination once formed, he lost no
time in carrying it out. As much of the journey across the plains
was to be made on foot, he first provided himself with a pair of
stout boots. Then he packed his extra clothing in an old
carpetbag, and with a light heart bade his family good-by.

He had induced a young friend, Calvin Gilbert, to accompany him in
his search for fortune. The two youths joined the motley crowd of
adventurers who were flocking from all quarters to the Land of
Promise, and set out on their journey.

Tramping over the plains, crossing rivers in tow-boats and
ferryboats, and riding in trains and on wagons when they could,
the adventurers, after many weary months, reached their
destination. During the journey young Armour became sick, but was
tenderly nursed back to health by his companion.

"I had scarcely any money when I arrived at the gold fields," said
Armour, "but I struck right out and found a place where I could
dig, and in a little time I struck pay dirt."

He entered into partnership with a Mr. Croarkin, and, with
characteristic energy, kept digging and taking his turn at the
rude housekeeping in the shanty which he and his partner shared.
"Croarkin would cook one week," he says, "and I the next, and we
would have a clean-up Sunday morning We baked our own bread, and
kept a few hens, too, which supplied us with fresh eggs."

The young gold hunter, however, did not find nuggets as "plentiful
as blackberries," but he found within himself that which led him
to a bonanza far exceeding his wildest dreams of "finds" in the
gold fields.

He discovered his business ability; he learned how to economize,
how to rely upon himself, even to the extent of baking his own
bread.





THREE GREAT AMERICAN SONGS AND THEIR AUTHORS

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER


"Poetry and music," says Sir John Lubbock, "unite in song. From
the earliest ages song has been the sweet companion of labor. The
rude chant of the boatman floats upon the water, the shepherd
sings upon the hill, the milkmaid in the dairy, the plowman in the
field. Every trade, every occupation, every act and scene of life,
has long had its own especial music. The bride went to her
marriage, the laborer to his work, the old man to his last long
rest, each with appropriate and immemorial music."

It is strange that Lubbock did not mention specifically the power
of music in inspiring the soldier as he marches to the defense of
his country, or in arousing the spirit of patriotism and kindling
the love of country, whether in peace or war, in every bosom. "Let
me make the songs of a country," Fletcher of Saltoun has well
said, "and I care not who makes its laws."

Not to know the words and the air of the national anthem or chief
patriotic songs of one's country is considered little less than a
disgrace. To know something of their authors and the occasion
which inspired them, or the conditions under which they were
composed, gives additional interest to the songs themselves.

Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-spangled Banner," one of
the, if not the most, popular of our national songs, was born in
Frederick County, Maryland, on August 1, 1779. He was the son of
John Ross Key, an officer in the Revolutionary army.

Young Key's early education was carried on under the direction of
his father. Later he became a student in St. John's College, from
which institution he was graduated in his nineteenth year.
Immediately after his graduation he began to study law under his
uncle, Philip Barton Key, one of the ablest lawyers of his time.
He was admitted to the bar in 1801, and commenced to practice in
Fredericktown, Maryland, where he won the reputation of an
eloquent advocate. After a few years' practice in Fredericktown,
he removed to Washington, where he was appointed district attorney
for the District of Columbia.

Young Key was as widely known and admired as a writer of hymns and
ballads as he was as a lawyer of promise. But the production of
the popular national anthem which crowned him with immortality has
so overshadowed the rest of his life work that we remember him
only as its author.

The occasion which inspired "The Star-spangled Banner" must always
be memorable in the annals of our country. The war with the
British had been about two years in progress, when, in August,
1814, a British fleet arrived in the Chesapeake, and an army under
General Ross landed about forty miles from the city of Washington.

The army took possession of Washington, burnt the capitol, the
President's residence, and other public buildings, and then sailed
around by the sea to attack Baltimore. The fleet was to bombard
Fort McHenry, while the land forces were to attack the city.

The commanding officers of the fleet and land army, Admiral
Cockburn and General Ross, made their headquarters in Upper
Marlboro, Maryland, at the house of Dr. William Beanes, whom they
held as their prisoner.

Francis Scott Key, who was a warm friend of Dr. Beanes, went to
President Madison in order to enlist his aid in securing the
release of Beanes. The president furnished Key with a vessel, and
instructed John L. Skinner, agent for the exchange of prisoners,
to accompany him under a flag of truce to the British fleet.

The British commander agreed to release Dr. Beanes, but would not
permit Key and his party to return then, lest they should carry
back important information to the American side. He boastingly
declared, however, that the defense could hold out only a few
hours, and that Baltimore would then be in the hands of the
British.

Skinner and Key were sent on board the Surprise, which was under
the command of Admiral Cockburn's son. But after a short time they
were allowed to return to their own vessel, and from its deck they
saw the American flag waving over Fort McHenry and witnessed the
bombardment.

All through the night the furious attack of the British continued.
The roar of cannon and the bursting of shells was incessant. It is
said that as many as fifteen hundred shells were hurled at the
fort.

Shortly before daybreak the firing ceased. Key and his companions
waited in painful suspense to know the result. In the intense
silence that followed the cannonading, each one asked himself if
the flag of his country was still waving on high, or if it had
been hauled down to give place to that of England. They strained
their eyes in the direction of Baltimore, but the darkness
revealed nothing.

At last day dawned, and to their delight the little party saw the
American flag still floating over Fort McHenry. Key's heart was
stirred to its depths, and in a glow of patriotic enthusiasm he
immediately wrote down a rough draft of "The Star-spangled
Banner."

On his arrival in Baltimore he perfected the first copy of the
song, and gave it to Captain Benjamin Eades, of the 27th Baltimore
Regiment, saying that he wished it to be sung to the air of
"Anacreon in Heaven." Eades had it put in type, and took the first
proof to a famous old tavern near the Holliday Street Theater, a
favorite resort of actors and literary people of that day. The
verses were read to the company assembled there, and Frederick
Durang, an actor, was asked to sing them to the air designated by
the author. Durang, mounting a chair, sang as requested. The song
was enthusiastically received. From that moment it became the
great popular favorite that it has ever since been, and that it
will continue to be as long as the American republic exists.

Key died in Baltimore on January 11, 1843. A monument was erected
to his memory by the munificence of James Lick, a Californian
millionaire. The sculptor to whom the work was intrusted was the
celebrated W. W. Story, who completed it in 1887. The monument,
which is fifty-one feet high, stands in Golden Gate Park, San
Francisco. It is built of travertine, in the form of a double
arch, under which a bronze statue of Key is seated. A bronze
figure, representing America with an unfolded flag, supports the
arch.

On the occasion of the unveiling of this statue, the New York Home
Journal contained an appreciative criticism of Key as a poet, and
the following estimate of his greatest production.

"The poetry of the 'Star-spangled Banner' has touches of delicacy
for which one looks in vain in most national odes, and is as near
a true poem as any national ode ever was. The picture of the
'dawn's early light' and the tricolor, half concealed, half
disclosed, amid the mists that wreathed the battle-sounding
Patapsco, is a true poetic concept.

"The 'Star-spangled Banner' has the peculiar merit of not being a
tocsin song, like the 'Marseillaise.' Indeed, there is not a
restful, soothing, or even humane sentiment in all that stormy
shout. It is the scream of oppressed humanity against its
oppressor, presaging a more than quid pro quo; and it fitly
prefigured the sight of that long file of tumbrils bearing to the
Place de la Revolution the fairest scions of French aristocracy.
On the other hand, 'God Save the King,' in its original, has one
or two lines as grotesque as 'Yankee Doodle' itself; yet we have
paraphrased it in 'America,' and made it a hymn meet for all our
churches. But the 'Star-spangled Banner' combines dignity and
beauty, and it would be hard to find a line of it that could be
improved upon."

Over the simple grave of Francis Scott Key, in Frederick,
Maryland, there is no other monument than the "star-spangled
banner." In storm and in sunshine, in summer and in winter, its
folds ever float over the resting place of the man who has
immortalized it in verse. No other memorial could so fitly
commemorate the life and death of this simple, dignified,
patriotic American.

"A sweet, noble life," says a recent writer, "was that of the
author of our favorite national hymn--a life of ideal refinement,
piety, scholarly gentleness. Little did he think that his voice
would be the storm song, the victor shout, of conquering America
to resound down and down the ages!"

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
  What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
  O'er the rampart we watched, were so gallantly streaming,
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
  Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
  O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
  Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
  As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream,
  'Tis the star-spangled banner' oh, long may it wave
  O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band, who so vauntingly swore
  That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
  Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of death and the gloom of the grave,
  And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave
  O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
  Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven rescued land
  Praise the power that has made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, "In God is our trust"
  And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
  O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!





II. AMERICA


    "And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith;
    Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith!
    But he shouted a song for the brave and the free--
    Just read on his medal, 'My Country of Thee.'"

In these lines of his famous Reunion Poem, "The Boys," Dr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes commemorated his old friend and college-mate, Dr.
Samuel Francis Smith, author of "America."

Samuel Francis Smith was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October
21, 1808. He attended the Latin School in his native city, and it
is said that when only twelve years old he could "talk Latin." He
entered Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1825, and
graduated in the famous class of 1829, of which Dr. Oliver Wendell
Holmes, James Freeman Clarke, William E. Channing, and other
celebrated Americans were members.

Dr. Smith, like so many other noted men, "worked his way through
college." He did this principally by coaching other students, and
by making translations from the German "Conversations-Lexicon" for
the "American Cyclopedia."

After graduating from Harvard, he immediately entered Andover
Theological Seminary. Three years later, in 1832, he wrote, among
others, his most famous hymn, "America," of which the "National
Cyclopedia of American Biography" says, "It has found its way
wherever an American heart beats or the English language is
spoken, and has probably proved useful in stirring the patriotic
spirit of the American people."

Dr. Smith himself often said that he had heard "America" sung
"halfway round the world, under the earth in the caverns of
Manitou, Colorado, and almost above the earth near the top of
Pike's Peak."

The hymn, as every child knows, is sung to the air of the national
anthem of England,--"God Save the King." The author came upon it
in a book of German music, and by it was inspired to write the
words of "America," a work which he accomplished in half an hour.
Many years after, referring to its impromptu composition, he
wrote: "If I had anticipated the future of it, doubtless I should
have taken more pains with it. Such as it is, I am glad to have
contributed this mite to the cause of American freedom."

In a magazine article, written several years ago, Mr. Herbert
Heywood gave an interesting account of an interview with Dr.
Smith, who told him the story of the writing of the hymn himself.

"'I wrote "America,"' he said, 'when I was a theological student
at Andover, during my last year there. In February, 1832, I was
poring over a German book of patriotic songs which Lowell Mason,
of Boston, had sent me to translate, when I came upon one with a
tune of great majesty. I hummed it over, and was struck with the
ease with which the accompanying German words fell into the music.
I saw it was a patriotic song, and while I was thinking of
translating it, I felt an impulse to write an American patriotic
hymn. I reached my hand for a bit of waste paper, and, taking my
quill pen, wrote the four verses in half an hour. I sent it with
some translations of the German songs to Lowell Mason, and the
next thing I knew of it I was told it had been sung by the Sunday-
school children at Park Street Church, Boston, at the following
Fourth of July celebration. The house where I was living at the
time was on the Andover turnpike, a little north of the seminary
building. I have been in the house since I left it in September,
1832, but never went into my old room.'" This room is now visited
by patriotic Americans from every part of the country.

Two years after "America" was written, Dr. Smith became pastor of
the First Baptist Church in Waterville, Maine, and also professor
of modern languages in Waterville College, which is now known as
Colby University. His great industry and zeal, both as a clergyman
and student and teacher of languages, enabled him to perform the
duties of both positions successfully. He was a noted linguist,
and could read books in fifteen different languages. He could
converse in most of the modern European tongues, and at eighty-six
was engaged in studying Russian.

In 1842 Dr. Smith was made pastor of the First Baptist Church,
Newton Center, Massachusetts, where he made his home for the rest
of his life.

"When he died, in November, 1895," says Mr. Heywood, "he was
living in the old brown frame-house at Newton Center,
Massachusetts, which had been his home for over fifty years. It
stood back from the street, on the brow of a hill sloping gently
to a valley on the north. Pine trees were in the front and rear,
and the sun, from his rising to his setting, smiled upon that
abode of simple greatness. The house was faded and worn by wind
and weather, and was in perfect harmony with its surroundings--
the brown grass sod that peeped from under the snow, the dull-
colored, leafless elms, and the gray, worn stone steps leading up
from the street.

"An air of gentle refinement pervaded the interior, and every room
spoke of its inmate. But perhaps the library was best loved of all
by Dr. Smith, for here it was that his work went on. Here, beside
a sunny bay window, stood his work table, and his high-backed,
old-fashioned chair, with black, rounded arms. All about the room
were ranged his bookcases, and an old, tall clock marked the
flight of time that was so kind to the old man. His figure was
short, his shoulders slightly bowed, and around his full, ruddy
face, that beamed with kindness, was a fringe of white hair and
beard."

Dr. Smith resigned his pastorate of the Newton church in 1854, and
became editorial secretary of the American Baptist Missionary
Union. In 1875 he went abroad for the first time, and spent a year
in European travel. Five years later he went to India and the
Burmese empire. During his travels he visited Christian missionary
stations in France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Turkey, Greece, Sweden,
Denmark, Burmah, India, and Ceylon.

The latter years of his life were devoted almost entirely to
literary work. He wrote numerous poems which were published in
magazines and newspapers, but never collected in book form. His
hymns, numbering over one hundred, are sung by various Christian
denominations. "The Morning Light is Breaking" is a popular
favorite. Among his other published works are "Missionary
Sketches," "Rambles in Mission Fields," a "History of Newton," and
a "Life of Rev. Joseph Grafton." Besides his original hymns, he
translated many from other languages, and wrote numerous magazine
articles and sketches during his long and busy life.

Dr. Smith's vitality and enthusiasm remained with him to the last.
A great-grandfather when he died in his eighty-seventh year, he
was an inspiration to the younger generations growing up around
him. He was at work almost to the moment of his death, and still
actively planning for the future.

His great national hymn, if he had left nothing else, will keep
his memory green forever in the hearts of his countrymen. It is
even more popular to-day, after seventy-one years have elapsed,
than it was when first sung in Park Street Church by the Sunday-
school children of Boston. Its patriotic ring, rather than its
literary merit, renders it sweet to the ear of every American.
Wherever it is sung, the feeble treble of age will join as
enthusiastically as the joyous note of youth in lendering the
inspiring strains of


AMERICA

My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
  Of thee I sing,
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrim's pride,
From every mountain side,
  Let freedom ring.

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble, free,
   Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills,--
My heart with rapture thrills,
   Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
   Sweet freedom's song;
Let mortal tongues awake,
Let all that breathe partake,
Let rocks their silence break,
   The sound prolong.

Our fathers' God, to Thee,
Author of Liberty,
   To Thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light,--
Protect us by thy might,
   Great God, our King.





III. THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC


"No single influence," says United States Senator George F. Hoar
of Massachusetts, "has had so much to do with shaping the destiny
of a nation--as nothing more surely expresses national character
--than what is known as the national anthem."

There is some difference of opinion as to which of our patriotic
hymns or songs is distinctively the national anthem of America.
Senator Hoar seems to have made up his mind in favor of "The
Battle Hymn of the Republic." Writing of its author, Julia Ward
Howe, in 1903, he said: "We waited eighty years for our American
national anthem. At last God inspired an illustrious and noble
woman to utter in undying verse the thought which we hope is
forever to animate the soldier of the republic:--

    "'In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea
    With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
    As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
            While God is marching on.'"

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe is as widely known for her learning and
literary and poetic achievements as she is for her work as a
philanthropist and reformer.

She was born in New York City, in a stately mansion near the
Bowling Green, on May 27, 1819. From her birth she was fortunate
in possessing the advantages that wealth and high social position
bestow. Her father, Samuel Ward, the descendant of an old colonial
family, was a member of a leading banking firm of New York. Her
mother, Julia Cutter Ward, was a most charming and accomplished
woman. She died very young, however, while her little daughter
Julia was still a child. Mr. Ward was a man of advanced ideas, and
was determined that his daughters should have, as far as possible,
the same educational advantages as his sons.

Of course, in those early days there were no separate colleges for
women, and they would not be admitted to men's colleges. It was
impossible for Mr. Ward to overcome these difficulties wholly, but
he did the next best thing he could for his girls. He engaged as
their tutor the learned Dr. Joseph Green Cogswell, and instructed
him to put them through the full curriculum of Harvard College.

On her entrance into society the "little Miss Ward," as Julia had
been called from her childhood, at once became a leader of the
cultured and fashionable circle in which she moved. In her
father's home she met the most distinguished American men of
letters of that time. The liberal education which she had received
made the young girl feel perfectly at her ease in such society. In
addition to other accomplishments, she was mistress of several
ancient and modern languages, and a musical amateur of great
promise.

In 1843 Miss Ward was married to Dr. Samuel G. Howe, director of
the Institute for the Blind in South Boston, Massachusetts.
Immediately after their marriage Dr. and Mrs. Howe went to Europe,
where they traveled for some time. The home which they established
in Boston on their return became a center for the refined and
literary society of Boston and its environment. Mrs. Howe's grace,
learning, and accomplishments made her a charming hostess and fit
mistress of such a home.

Her literary talent was developed at a very early age. One of her
friends has humorously said that "Mrs. Howe wrote leading articles
from her cradle." However this may be, it is undoubtedly true that
at seventeen she contributed valuable articles to a leading New
York magazine. In 1854 she published her first volume of poems,
"Passion Flowers." Other volumes, including collections of her
later poems, books of travel, and a biography of Margaret Fuller,
were afterward published. For more than half a century she has
been a constant contributor to the leading magazines of the
country.

Since 1869 Mrs. Howe has been a leader in the movement for woman's
suffrage, and both by lecturing and writing has supported every
effort put forth for the educational and general advancement of
her sex.

Although in her eightieth year when the writer conversed with her
a few years ago, Mrs. Howe was then full of youthful enthusiasm,
and her interest in the great movements of the world was as keen
as ever. Age had in no way lessened her intellectual vigor.
Surrounded by her children and grandchildren, and one great-
grandchild, she recently celebrated her eighty-fourth birthday.

The story of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" has been left to
the last, not because it is the least important, but, on the
contrary, because it is one of the most important works of her
life. Certain it is that the "Battle Hymn" will live and thrill
the hearts of Americans centuries after its author has passed on
to the other life.

The hymn was written in Washington, in November, 1861, the first
year of our Civil War. Dr. and Mrs. Howe were visiting friends in
that city. During their stay, they went one day with a party to
see a review of Union troops. The review, however, was interrupted
by a movement of the Confederate forces which were besieging the
city. On their return, the carriage in which Mrs. Howe and her
friends were seated was surrounded by soldiers. Stirred by the
scene and the occasion, she began to sing "John Brown," to the
delight of the soldiers, who heartily joined in the refrain.

At the close of the song Mrs. Howe expressed to her friends the
strong desire she felt to write some words which might be sung to
this stirring tune. But she added that she feared she would never
be able to do so.

"That night," says her daughter, Maude Howe Eliot, "she went to
sleep full of thoughts of battle, and awoke before dawn the next
morning to find the desired verses immediately present to her
mind. She sprang from her bed, and in the dim gray light found a
pen and paper, whereon she wrote, scarcely seeing them, the lines
of the poem. Returning to her couch, she was soon asleep, but not
until she had said to herself, 'I like this better than anything I
have ever written before.'"

THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are
stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
                His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
                His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel,
                Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat:
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
                Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
                While God is marching on.





TRAINING FOR GREATNESS

GLIMPSES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD


In pronouncing a eulogy on Henry Clay, Lincoln said: "His example
teaches us that one can scarcely be so poor but that, if he will,
he can acquire sufficient education to get through the world
respectably."

Endowed as he was with all the qualities that make a man truly
great, Lincoln's own life teaches above all other things the
lesson he drew from that of Henry Clay. Is there in all the length
and breadth of the United States to-day a boy so poor as to envy
Abraham Lincoln the chances of his boyhood? The story of his life
has been told so often that nothing new can be said about him. Yet
every fresh reading of the story fills the reader anew with wonder
and admiration at what was accomplished by the poor backwoods boy.

Let your mind separate itself from all the marvels of the
twentieth century. Think of a time when railroads and telegraph
wires, telephones, great ocean steamers, lighting by gas and
electricity, daily newspapers (except in a few centers), great
circulating libraries, and the hundreds of conveniences which are
necessities to the people of to-day, were unknown. Even the very
rich at the beginning of the nineteenth century could not buy the
advantages that are free to the poorest boy at the beginning of
the twentieth century. When Lincoln was a boy, thorns were used
for pins; cork covered with cloth or bits of bone served as
buttons; crusts of rye bread were used by the poor as substitutes
for coffee, and dried leaves of certain herbs for tea.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a log cabin in
Hardin County, now La Rue County, Kentucky. His father, Thomas
Lincoln, was not remarkable either for thrift or industry. He was
tall, well built, and muscular, expert with his rifle, and a noted
hunter, but he did not possess the qualities necessary to make a
successful pioneer farmer. The character of the mother of Abraham,
may best be gathered from his own words: "All that I am or hope to
be," he said when president of the United States, "I owe to my
angel mother. Blessings on her memory!"

It was at her knee he learned his first lessons from the Bible.
With his sister Sarah, a girl two years his senior, he listened
with wonder and delight to the Bible stories, fairy tales, and
legends with which the gentle mother entertained and instructed
them when the labors of the day were done.

When Abraham was about four years old, the family moved from the
farm on Nolin Creek to another about fifteen miles distant. There
the first great event in his life took place. He went to school.
Primitive as was the log-cabin schoolhouse, and elementary as were
the acquirements of his first schoolmaster, it was a wonderful
experience for the boy, and one that he never forgot.

In 1816 Thomas Lincoln again decided to make a change. He was
enticed by stories that came to him from Indiana to try his
fortunes there. So, once more the little family "pulled up stakes"
and moved on to the place selected by the father in Spencer
County, about a mile and a half from Gentryville. It was a long,
toilsome journey through the forest, from the old home in Kentucky
to the new one in Indiana. In some places they had to clear their
way through the tangled thickets as they journeyed along. The
stock of provisions they carried with them was supplemented by
game snared or shot in the forest and fish caught in the river.
These they cooked over the wood fire, kindled by means of tinder
and flint. The interlaced branches of trees and the sky made the
roof of their bedchamber by night, and pine twigs their bed.

When the travelers arrived at their destination, there was no time
for rest after their journey. Some sort of shelter had to be
provided at once for their accommodation. They hastily put up a
"half-faced camp"--a sort of rude tent, with an opening on one
side. The framework of the tent was of upright posts, crossed by
thin slabs, cut from the trees they felled. The open side, or
entrance, was covered with "pelts," or half-dressed skins of wild
animals. There was no ruder dwelling in the wilds of Indiana, and
no poorer family among the settlers than the new adventurers from
Kentucky. They were reduced to the most primitive makeshifts in
order to eke out a living. There was no lack of food, however, for
the woods were full of game of all kinds, both feathered and
furred, and the streams and rivers abounded with fish. But the
home lacked everything in the way of comfort or convenience.

Abraham, who was then in his eighth year, has been described as a
tall, ungainly, fast-growing, long-legged lad, clad in the garb of
the frontier. This consisted of a shirt of linsey-woolsey, a
coarse homespun material made of linen and wool, a pair of home-
made moccasins, deerskin leggings or breeches, and a hunting shirt
of the same material. This costume was completed by a coonskin
cap, the tail of the animal being left to hang down the wearer's
back as an ornament.

This sturdy lad, who was born to a life of unremitting toil, was
already doing a man's work. From the time he was four years old,
away back on the Kentucky farm, he had contributed his share to
the family labors. Picking berries, dropping seeds, and doing
other simple tasks suited to his strength, he had thus early begun
his apprenticeship to toil. In putting up the "half-faced" camp,
he was his father's principal helper. Afterward, when they built a
more, substantial cabin to take the place of the camp, he learned
to handle an ax, a maul, and a wedge. He helped to fell trees,
fashion logs, split rails, and do other important work in building
the one-roomed cabin, which was to be the permanent home of the
family. He assisted also in making the rough tables and chairs and
the one rude bedstead or bed frame which constituted the principal
furniture of the cabin. In his childhood Abraham did not enjoy the
luxury of sleeping on a bedstead. His bed was simply a heap of dry
leaves, which occupied a corner of the loft over the cabin. He
climbed to it every night by a stepladder, or rather a number of
pegs driven into the wall.

Rough and poor and full of hardship as his life was, Lincoln was
by no means a sad or unhappy boy. On the contrary, he was full of
fun and boyish pranks. His life in the open air, the vigorous
exercise of every muscle which necessity forced upon him, the
tonic of the forests which he breathed from his infancy, his
interest in every living and growing thing about him,--all helped
to make him unusually strong, healthy, buoyant, and rich in animal
spirits.

The first great sorrow of his life came to him in the death of his
dearly loved mother in 1818. The boy mourned for her as few
children mourn even for the most loving parent. Day after day he
went from the home made desolate by her death to weep on her grave
under the near-by trees.

There were no churches in the Indiana wilderness, and the visits
of wandering ministers of religion to the scattered settlements
were few and far between. Little Abraham was grieved that no
funeral service had been held over his dead mother. He felt that
it was in some sense a lack of respect to her. He thought a great
deal about the matter, and finally wrote a letter to a minister
named Elkins, whom the family had known in Kentucky. Several
months after the receipt of the letter Parson Elkins came to
Indiana. On the Sabbath morning after his arrival, in the presence
of friends who had come long distances to assist, he read the
funeral service over the grave of Mrs. Lincoln. He also spoke in
touching words of the tender Christian mother who lay buried
there. This simple service greatly comforted the heart of the
lonely boy.

Some time after Thomas Lincoln brought a new mother to his
children from Kentucky. This was Mrs. Sally Bush Johnston, a young
widow, who had been a girlhood friend of Nancy Hanks. She had
three children,--John, Sarah, and Matilda Johnston,--who
accompanied her to Indiana. The second Mrs. Lincoln brought a
stock of household goods and furniture with her from Kentucky, and
with the help of these made so many improvements in the rude log
cabin that her stepchildren regarded her as a sort of magician or
wonder worker. She was a good mother to them, intelligent, kind,
and loving.

He was ten years old at this time, and had been to school but
little. Indeed, he says himself that he only went to school "by
littles," and that all his schooling "did not amount to more than
a year." But he had learned to read when he was a mere baby at his
mother's knee; and to a boy who loved knowledge as he did, this
furnished the key to a broad education. His love of reading
amounted to a passion. The books he had access to when a boy were
very few; but they were good ones, and he knew them literally from
cover to cover. They were the Bible, "Robinson Crusoe," "Pilgrim's
Progress," a "History of the United States," and Weems's "Life of
Washington." Some of these were borrowed, among them the "Life of
Washington," of which Abraham afterward became the happy owner.
The story of how he became its owner has often been told.

The book had been loaned to him by a neighbor, a well-to-do farmer
named Crawford. After reading from it late into the night by the
light of pine knots, Abraham carried it to his bedroom in the
loft. He placed it in a crack between the logs over his bed of dry
leaves, so that he could reach to it as soon as the first streaks
of dawn penetrated through the chinks in the log cabin.
Unfortunately, it rained heavily during the night, and when he
took down the precious volume in the morning, he found it badly
damaged, all soddened and stained by the rain. He was much
distressed, and hurried to the owner of the book as soon as
possible to explain the mishap.

"I'm real sorry, Mr. Crawford," he said, in concluding his
explanation, "and want to fix it up with you somehow, if you can
tell me any way, for I ain't got the money to pay for it with."

"Well," said Mr. Crawford, "being as it's you, Abe, I won't be
hard on you. Come over and shuck corn three days, and the book's
yours."

The boy was delighted with the result of what at first had seemed
a great misfortune. Verily, his sorrow was turned into joy. What!
Shuck corn only three days and become owner of the book that told
all about his greatest hero! What an unexpected piece of good
fortune!

Lincoln's reading had revealed to him a world beyond his home in
the wilderness. Slowly it dawned upon him that one day he might
find his place in that great world, and he resolved to prepare
himself with all his might for whatever the future might hold.

"I don't intend to delve, grub, shuck corn, split rails, and the
like always," he told Mrs. Crawford after he had finished reading
the "Life of Washington." "I'm going to fit myself for a
profession."

"Why, what do you want to be now?" asked Mrs. Crawford, in
surprise. "Oh, I'll be president," said the boy, with a smile.

"You'd make a pretty president, with all your tricks and jokes,
now wouldn't you?" said Mrs. Crawford.

"Oh, I'll study and get ready," was the reply, "and then maybe the
chance will come."

If the life of George Washington, who had all the advantages of
culture and training that his time afforded, was an inspiration to
Lincoln, the poor hard-working backwoods boy, what should the life
of Lincoln be to boys of to-day? Here is a further glimpse of the
way in which he prepared himself to be president of the United
States. The quotation is from Ida M. Tarbell's "Life of Lincoln."

"Every lull in his daily labor he used for reading, rarely going
to his work without a book. When plowing or cultivating the rough
fields of Spencer County, he found frequently a half hour for
reading, for at the end of every long row the horse was allowed to
rest, and Lincoln had his book out and was perched on stump or
fence, almost as soon as the plow had come to a standstill. One of
the few people left in Gentryville who still remembers Lincoln,
Captain John Lamar, tells to this day of riding to mill with his
father, and seeing, as they drove along, a boy sitting on the top
rail of an old-fashioned, stake-and-rider worm fence, reading so
intently that he did not notice their approach. His father,
turning to him, said: 'John, look at that boy yonder, and mark my
words, he will make a smart man out of himself. I may not see it,
but you'll see if my words don't come true.' 'That boy was Abraham
Lincoln,' adds Mr. Lamar, impressively."

Lincoln's father was illiterate, and had no sympathy with his
son's efforts to educate himself. Fortunately for him, however,
his stepmother helped and encouraged him in every way possible.
Shortly before her death she said to a biographer of Lincoln: "I
induced my husband to permit Abe to read and study at home, as
well as at school. At first he was not easily reconciled to it,
but finally he too seemed willing to encourage him to a certain
extent. Abe was a dutiful son to me always, and we took particular
care when he was reading not to disturb him,--would let him read
on and on till he quit of his own accord."

Lincoln fully appreciated his stepmother's sympathy and love for
him, and returned them in equal measure. It added greatly to his
enjoyment of his reading and studies to have some one to whom he
could talk about them, and in after life he always gratefully
remembered what his second mother did for him in those early days
of toil and effort.

If there was a book to be borrowed anywhere in his neighborhood,
he was sure to hear about it and borrow it if possible. He said
himself that he "read through every book he had ever heard of in
that county for a circuit of fifty miles."

And how he read! Boys who have books and magazines and papers in
abundance in their homes, besides having thousands of volumes to
choose from in great city libraries, can have no idea of what a
book meant to this boy in the wilderness. He devoured every one
that came into his hands as a man famishing from hunger devours a
crust of bread. He read and re-read it until he had made the
contents his own.

"From everything he read," says Miss Tarbell, "he made long
extracts, with his turkey-buzzard pen and brier-root ink. When he
had no paper he would write on a board, and thus preserve his
selections until he secured a copybook. The wooden fire shovel was
his usual slate, and on its back he ciphered with a charred stick,
shaving it off when it had become too grimy for use. The logs and
boards in his vicinity he covered with his figures and quotations.
By night he read and worked as long as there was light, and he
kept a book in the crack of the logs in his loft to have it at
hand at peep of day. When acting as ferryman on the Ohio in his
nineteenth year, anxious, no doubt, to get through the books of
the house where he boarded before he left the place, he read every
night until midnight."

His stepmother said: "He read everything he could lay his hands
on, and when he came across a passage that struck him, he would
write it down on boards if he had no paper, and keep it by him
until he could get paper. Then he would copy it, look at it,
commit it to memory, and repeat it."

His thoroughness in mastering everything he undertook to study was
a habit acquired in childhood. How he acquired this habit he tells
himself. "Among my earliest recollections I remember how, when a
mere child," he says, "I used to get irritated when anybody talked
to me in a way I could not understand. I do not think I ever got
angry at anything else in my life; but that always disturbed my
temper, and has ever since. I can remember going to my little
bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my
father, and spending no small part of the night walking up and
down and trying to make out what was the exact meaning of some of
their--to me--dark sayings.

"I could not sleep, although I tried to, when I got on such a hunt
for an idea until I had caught it; and when I thought I had got
it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over;
until I had put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for any
boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and
it has stuck by me; for I am never easy now when I am handling a
thought, till I have bounded it north and bounded it south and
bounded it east and bounded it west."

With all his hard study, reading, and thinking, Lincoln was not a
bookworm, nor a dull companion to the humble, unschooled people
among whom his youth was spent. On the contrary, although he was
looked up to as one whose acquirements in "book learning" had
raised him far above every one in his neighborhood, he was the
most popular youth in all the country round. No "husking bee," or
"house raising" or merry-making of any kind was complete if
Abraham was not present. He was witty, ready of speech, a good
story-teller, and had stored his memory with a fund of humorous
anecdotes, which he always used to good purpose and with great
effect. He had committed to memory, and could recite all the
poetry in the various school readers used at that time in the log-
cabin schoolhouse. He could make rhymes himself, and even make
impromptu speeches that excited the admiration of his hearers. He
was the best wrestler, jumper, runner, and the strongest of all
his young companions. Even when a mere youth he could lift as much
as three full-grown men; and, "if you heard him fellin' trees in a
clearin'," said his cousin, Dennis Hanks, "you would say there was
three men at work by the way the trees fell. His ax would flash
and bite into a sugar tree or sycamore, and down it would come."

His kindness and tenderness of heart were as great as his strength
and agility. He loved all God's creatures, and cruelty to any of
them always aroused his indignation. Only once did he ever attempt
to kill any of the game in the woods, which the family considered
necessary for their subsistence. He refers to this occasion in an
autobiography, written by him in the third person, in the year
1860.

"A few days before the completion of his eighth year," he says,
"in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached
the new log cabin; and Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside,
shot through a crack and killed one of them. He has never since
pulled the trigger on any larger game."

Any suffering thing, whether it was animal, man, woman, or child,
was sure of his sympathy and aid. Although he never touched
intoxicating drinks himself, he pitied those who lost manhood by
their use. One night on his way home from a husking bee or house
raising, he found an unfortunate man lying on the roadside
overcome with drink. If the man were allowed to remain there, he
would freeze to death. Lincoln raised him from the ground and
carried him a long distance to the nearest house, where he
remained with him during the night. The man was his firm friend
ever after.

Women admired him for his courtesy and rough gallantry, as well as
for his strength and kindness of heart; and he, in his turn,
reverenced women, as every noble, strong man does. This big, bony,
tall, awkward young fellow, who at eighteen measured six feet
four, was as ready to care for a baby in the absence of its mother
as he was to tell a good story or to fell a tree. Was it any
wonder that he was popular with all kinds of people?

His stepmother says of him: "Abe was a good boy, and I can say
what scarcely one woman--a mother--can say in a thousand; Abe
never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused in fact or
appearance to do anything I requested him. I never gave him a
cross word in all my life. His mind and mine--what little I had--
seemed to run together. He was here after he was elected
president. He was a dutiful son to me always. I think he loved me
truly. I had a son, John, who was raised with Abe. Both were good
boys; but I must say, both now being dead, that Abe was the best
boy I ever saw or expect to see."

Wherever he went, or whatever he did, he studied men and things,
and gathered knowledge as much by observation as from books and
whatever news-papers or other publications he could get hold of.
He used to go regularly to the leading store in Gentryville, to
read a Louisville paper, taken by the proprietor of the store, Mr.
Jones. He discussed its contents, and exchanged views with the
farmers who made the store their place of meeting. His love of
oratory was great. When the courts were in session in Boonville, a
town fifteen miles distant from his home, whenever he could spare
a day, he used to walk there in the morning and back at night, to
hear the lawyers argue cases and make speeches. By this time
Abraham himself could make an impromptu speech on any subject with
which he was at all familiar, good enough to win the applause of
the Indiana farmers.

So, his boyhood days, rough, hard-working days, but not devoid of
fun and recreation, passed. Abraham did not love work any more
than other country boys of his age, but he never shirked his
tasks. Whether it was plowing, splitting rails, felling trees,
doing chores, reaping, threshing, or any of the multitude of
things to be done on a farm, the work was always well done.
Sometimes, to make a diversion, when he was working as a "hired
hand," he would stop to tell some of his funny stories, or to make
a stump speech before his fellow-workers, who would all crowd
round him to listen; but he would more than make up for the time
thus spent by the increased energy with which he afterward worked.
Doubtless the other laborers, too, were refreshed and stimulated
to greater effort by the recreation he afforded them and the
inspiration of his example.

Thomas Lincoln had learned carpentry and cabinet making in his
youth, and taught the rudiments of these trades to his son; so
that in addition to his skill and efficiency in all the work that
falls to the lot of a pioneer backwoods farmer, Abraham added the
accomplishment of being a fairly good carpenter. He worked at
these trades with his father whenever the opportunity offered.
When he was not working for his family, he was hired out to the
neighboring farmers. His highest wage was twenty-five cents a day,
which he always handed over to his father.

Lincoln got his first glimpse of the world beyond Indiana when he
worked for several months as a ferryman and boatman on the Ohio
River, at Anderson Creek. He saw the steamers and vessels of all
kinds sailing up and down the Ohio, laden with produce and
merchandise, on their way to and from western and southern towns.
He came in contact with different kinds of people from different
states, and thus his views of the world and its people became a
little more extended, and his longing to be somebody and to do
something worth while in the world waxed stronger daily.

His work as a ferryman showed him that there were other ways of
making a little money than by hiring out to the neighbors at
twenty-five cents a day. He resolved to take some of the farm
produce to New Orleans and sell it there. This project led to the
unexpected earning of a dollar, which added strength to his
purpose to prepare himself to take the part of a man in the world
outside of Indiana. Let him tell in his own words, as he related
the story to Mr. Seward years afterward, how he earned the
dollar:--

"Seward," he said, "did you ever hear how I earned my first
dollar?"

"No," said Mr. Seward.

"Well," replied he, "I was about eighteen years of age, and
belonged, as you know, to what they call down south the 'scrubs';
people who do not own land and slaves are nobodies there; but we
had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, sufficient produce,
as I thought, to justify me in taking it down the river to sell.
After much persuasion I had got the consent of my mother to go,
and had constructed a flatboat large enough to take the few
barrels of things we had gathered to New Orleans. A steamer was
going down the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the western
streams, and the custom was, if passengers were at any of the
landings, they were to go out in a boat, the steamer stopping and
taking them on board. I was contemplating my new boat, and
wondering whether I could make it stronger or improve it in any
part, when two men with trunks came down to the shore in
carriages, and looking at the different boats singled out mine,
and asked, 'Who owns this?' I answered modestly, 'I do.' 'Will
you,' said one of them, 'take us and our trunks to the steamer?'
'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have the chance of earning
something, and supposed that each of them would give me a couple
of bits. The trunks were put in my boat, the passengers seated
themselves on them, and I sculled them out to the steamer. They
got on board, and I lifted the trunks and put them on the deck.
The steamer was about to put on steam again, when I called out,
'You have forgotten to pay me.' Each of them took from his pocket
a silver half-dollar and threw it on the bottom of my boat. I
could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the money. You may
think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me
like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I
could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in
less than a day; that by honest work I had earned a dollar. I was
a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time."

In March, 1828, Lincoln was employed by one of the leading men of
Gentryville to take a load of produce down the Mississippi River
to New Orleans. For this service he was paid eight dollars a month
and his rations.

This visit to New Orleans was a great event in his life. It showed
him the life of a busy cosmopolitan city, which was a perfect
wonderland to him. Everything he saw aroused his astonishment and
interest, and served to educate him for the larger life on which
he was to enter later.

The next important event in the history of the Lincoln family was
their removal from Indiana to Illinois in 1830. The farm in
Indiana had not prospered as they hoped it would,--hence the
removal to new ground in Illinois. Abraham drove the team of oxen
which carried their household goods from the old home to their new
abiding place near Decatur, in Macon County, Illinois. Driving
over the muddy, ill-made roads with a heavily laden team was hard
and slow work, and the journey occupied a fortnight. When they
arrived at their destination, Lincoln again helped to build a log
cabin for the family home. With his stepbrother he also, as he
said himself, "made sufficient of rails to fence ten acres of
ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the same year."

In that same year, 1830, he reached his majority. It was time for
him to be about his own business. He had worked patiently and
cheerfully since he was able to hold an ax in his hands for his
own and the family's maintenance. They could now get along without
him, and he felt that the time had come for him to develop himself
for larger duties.

He left the log cabin, penniless, without even a good suit of
clothes. The first work he did when he became his own master was
to supply this latter deficiency. For a certain Mrs. Millet he
"split four hundred rails for every yard of brown jeans, dyed with
white walnut bark, necessary to make a pair of trousers."

For nearly a year he continued to work as a rail splitter and farm
"hand." Then he was hired by a Mr. Denton Offut to take a flatboat
loaded with goods from Sangamon town to New Orleans. So well
pleased was Mr. Offut with the way in which Lincoln executed his
commission that on his return he engaged him to take charge of a
mill and store at New Salem.

There, as in every other place in which he had resided, he became
the popular favorite. His kindness of heart, his good humor, his
skill as a story teller, his strength, his courtesy, manliness,
and honesty were such as to win all hearts. He would allow no man
to use profane language before women. A boorish fellow who
insisted on doing so in the store on one occasion, in spite of
Lincoln's protests, found this out to his cost. Lincoln had
politely requested him not to use such language before ladies, but
the man persisted in doing so. When the women left the store, he
became violently angry and began to abuse Lincoln. He wanted to
pick a quarrel with him. Seeing this Lincoln said, "Well, if you
must be whipped, I suppose I may as well whip you as any other
man," and taking the man out of the store he gave him a well-
merited chastisement. Strange to say, he became Lincoln's friend
after this, and remained so to the end of his life.

His scrupulous honesty won for him in the New Salem community the
title of "Honest Abe," a title which is still affectionately
applied to him. On one occasion, having by mistake overcharged a
customer six and a quarter cents, he walked three miles after the
store was closed in order to restore the customer's money. At
another time, in weighing tea for a woman, he used a quarter-pound
instead of a half-pound weight. When he went to use the scales
again, he discovered his mistake, and promptly walked a long
distance to deliver the remainder of the tea.

Lincoln's determination to improve himself continued to be the
leading object of his life. He said once to his fellow-clerk in
the store, "I have talked with great men, and I do not see how
they differ from others." His observation had taught him that the
great difference in men's positions was not due so much to one
having more talents or being more highly gifted than another, but
rather to the way in which one cultivated his talent or talents
and another neglected his.

Up to this time he had not made a study of grammar, but he
realized that if he were to speak in public he must learn to speak
grammatically. He had no grammar, and did not know where to get
one. In this dilemma he consulted the schoolmaster of New Salem,
who told him where and from whom he could borrow a copy of
Kirkham's Grammar. The place named was six miles from New Salem.
But that was nothing to a youth so hungry for an education as
Lincoln. He immediately started for the residence of the fortunate
people who owned a copy of Kirkham's Grammar. The book was loaned
to him without hesitation. In a short time its contents were
mastered, the student studying at night by the light of shavings
burned in the village cooper's shop. "Well," said Lincoln to
Greene, his fellow-clerk, when he had turned over the last page of
the grammar, "if that's what they call a science, I think I'll go
at another." The conquering of one thing after another, the
thorough mastery of whatever he undertook to do, made the next
thing easier of accomplishment than it would otherwise have been.
In order to practice debating he used to walk seven or eight miles
to debating clubs. No labor or trouble seemed too great to him if
by it he could increase his knowledge or add to his acquirements.
No matter how hard or exhausting his work, whether it was rail
splitting, plowing, lumbering, boating, or store keeping, he
studied and read every spare minute, and often until late at
night.

But this sketch has already exceeded the limits of Lincoln's
boyhood, for he had reached his twenty-second year while in the
store in New Salem. How he was made captain of a company raised to
fight against the Indians, how he kept store for himself, learned
surveying, was elected a member of the Illinois legislature,
studied law, and was admitted to the bar in Springfield, and how
he finally became president of the United States,--all this
belongs to a later chapter of his life.

Lincoln's rise from the poorest of log cabins to the White House,
to be president of the greatest republic in the world, is one of
the most inspiring stories in American biography. Yet he was not a
genius, unless a determination to make the most of one's self and
to persist in spite of all hardships, discouragements, and
hindrances, be genius. He made himself what he was--one of the
noblest, greatest, and best of men--by sheer dint of hard work and
the cultivation of the talents that had been given him. No
fortunate chances, no influential friends, no rare opportunities
played a part in his life. Alone and unaided he made, by the grace
of God, the great career which will forever challenge the
admiration of mankind.





THE MARBLE WAITETH


                    THE STATUE

    The marble waits, immaculate and rude;
     Beside it stands the sculptor, lost in dreams.
     With vague, chaotic forms his vision teems.
    Fair shapes pursue him, only to elude
    And mock his eager fancy. Lines of grace
      And heavenly beauty vanish, and, behold!
      Out through the Parian luster, pure and cold,
    Glares the wild horror of a devil's face.

    The clay is ready for the modeling.
      The marble waits: how beautiful, how pure,
      That gleaming substance, and it shall endure,
    When dynasty and empire, throne and king
    Have crumbled back to dust. Well may you pause,
      Oh, sculptor-artist! and, before that mute,
      Unshapen surface, stand irresolute!
    Awful, indeed, are art's unchanging laws.

    The thing you fashion out of senseless clay,
      Transformed to marble, shall outlive your fame;
      And, when no more is known your race, or name,
    Men shall be moved by what you mold to-day.
    We all are sculptors. By each act and thought,
      We form the model. Time, the artisan,
      Stands, with his chisel, fashioning the Man,
    And stroke by stroke the masterpiece is wrought.

    Angel or demon? Choose, and do not err!
      For time but follows as you shape the mold,
      And finishes in marble, stern and cold,
    That statue of the soul, the character.
    By wordless blessing, or by silent curse,
      By act and motive,--so do you define
      The image which time copies, line by line,
    For the great gallery of the Universe.

    ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

At the gateway of a new year, emerging from the gay carelessness
of childhood, stand troops of buoyant, eager-eyed youths and
maidens, gazing down the vista of the future with glad expectancy.

Fancy spreads upon her canvas radiant pictures of the joys and
triumphs which await them in the unborn years. In their unclouded
springtime there is no place for the specters of doubt and fear
which too often overshadow the autumn of life.

In this formative period, the soul is unsoiled by warfare with the
world. It lies, like a block of pure, uncut Parian marble, ready
to be fashioned into--what?

Its possibilities are limitless. You are the sculptor. An unseen
hand places in yours the mallet and the chisel, and a voice
whispers: "The marble waiteth. What will you do with it?"

In this same block the angel and the demon lie sleeping. Which
will you call into life? Blows of some sort you must strike. The
marble cannot be left uncut. From its crudity some shape must be
evolved. Shall it be one of beauty, or of deformity; an angel, or
a devil? Will you shape it into a statue of beauty which will
enchant the world, or will you call out a hideous image which will
demoralize every beholder?

What are your ideals, as you stand facing the dawn of this new
year with the promise and responsibility of the new life on which
you have entered, awaiting you? Upon them depends the form which
the rough block shall take. Every stroke of the chisel is guided
by the ideal behind the blow.

Look at this easy-going, pleasure-loving youth who takes up the
mallet and smites the chisel with careless, thoughtless blows. His
mind is filled with images of low, sensual pleasures; the passing
enjoyment of the hour is everything to him; his work, the future,
nothing. He carries in his heart, perhaps, the bestial motto of
the glutton, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die;" or
the flippant maxim of the gay worldling, "A short life and a merry
one; the foam of the chalice for me;" forgetting that beneath the
foam are the bitter dregs, which, be he ever so unwilling, he must
swallow, not to-day, nor yet to-morrow,--perhaps not this year nor
next; but sometime, as surely as the reaping follows the sowing,
will the bitter draught follow the foaming glass of unlawful
pleasure.

As the years go by, and youth merges into manhood, the sculptor's
hand becomes more unsteady. One false blow follows another in
rapid succession. The formless marble takes on distorted outlines.
Its whiteness has long since become spotted. The sculptor, with
blurred vision and shattered nerves, still strikes with aimless
hand, carving deep gashes, adding a crooked line here, another
there, soiling and marring until no trace of the virgin purity of
the block of marble which was given him remains. It has become so
grimy, so demoniacally fantastic in its outlines, that the
beholder turns from it with a shudder.

Not far off we see another youth at work on a block of marble,
similar in every detail to the first. The tools with which he
plies his labor differ in no wise from those of the worker we have
been following.

The glory of the morning shines upon the marble. Glowing with
enthusiasm, the light of a high purpose illuminating his face, the
sculptor, with steady hand and eye, begins to work out his ideal.
The vision that flits before him is so beautiful that he almost
fears the cunning of his hand will be unequal to fashioning it
from the rigid mass before him. Patiently he measures each blow of
the mallet. With infinite care he chisels each line and curve.
Every stroke is true.

Months stretch into years, and still we find the sculptor at work.
Time has given greater precision to his touch, and the skill of
the youth, strengthened by noble aspirations and right effort, has
become positive genius in the man. If he has not attained the
ideal that haunted him, he has created a form so beautiful in its
clear-cut outlines, so imposing in the majesty of its purity and
strength, that the beholder involuntarily bows before it.

THE MARBLE WAITETH. WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH IT?
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Stories from Life
by Marden vice Harden
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End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Stories from Life
by Marden vice Harden