On a low slab in a quiet spot, just north of the Church of Knight Templars, in London, are the simple words, "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith." The author of the "Vicar of Wakefield" ne...
1154-1189 and His Sons 1189-1216 In 1154, while Barbarossa was reigning in Germany, Henry II, one of England's greatest monarchs, came to the throne. Henry was the son of Geoffrey...
On the steamship "Germanic" I played chess with the great civil engineer, Captain Eads, stimulated by the thought that to beat him was to defeat the man who had twice conquered the...
Of all love stories that are known to human history, the love story of Antony and Cleopatra has been for nineteen centuries the most remarkable. It has tasked the resources of the...
King from 1014-1035 The Danes, you remember, had the eastern and northern parts of England in the time of Alfred. Alfred's successors drove them farther and farther north, and at l...
Most of those whose lives are sketched in this volume lived to be old men; but Frank Buckland, the pet and pride of thousands in England, died in his prime, almost at the beginning...
(1770-1827) EARLY LIFE OF BEETHOVEN Some day you may be fortunate enough to cross the broad Atlantic and visit European countries. If you are, you will surely wish to go to Germany...
In the Louvre in Paris, preserved among almost priceless gems, are several pieces of exquisite pottery called Palissy ware. Thousands examine them every year, yet but few know the...
In Gentryville, Indiana, in the year 1816, might have been seen a log cabin without doors or window-glass, a dirt floor, a bed made of dried leaves, and a stool or two and table fo...
Among the hills of New Hampshire, in a lonely, unpainted house, Horace Greeley was born, Feb. 3, 1811, the third of seven children. His father was a plain farmer, hard-working, yet...
(1809-1847) If you were to go into the woods and hear the rustling of the leaves, the singing of the birds, and the babbling of the brook over the stones, could you come home and d...
King from 1413-1422 Of all the kings that England ever had Henry V was perhaps the greatest favorite among the people. They liked him because he was handsome and brave and, above a...
(1813-1883) EARLY LIFE OF WAGNER [Music: (Die Walküre.) (Sword Motif.)] Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, in 1813. He was the youngest of a family of nine children. His father d...
Late one sunny afternoon one and twenty knights were riding along the highway in the northern part of Spain. As they were passing a deep mire they heard cries for help, and turning...
Among those whose contributions to physics have immortalized their names in the annals of science, there is none that holds a more prominent position in the history of the world th...
In Hanover, Germany, in the year 1732, Isaac Herschel and a plain, industrious girl, Anna Ilse Moritzen, began their home life together. The young man did not like the calling of h...
(1810-1856) BOYHOOD OF SCHUMANN "Left, face! Forward, march!" Clear rang out the words of the little commander. Quickly the straight ranks moved across the playground. Back and for...
(1685-1759) THE WONDER CHILD [Music: (The Messiah.) He shall feed His flock like a shepherd.] It is a bright, sunshiny morning. In an old town in Germany a coach stands waiting bef...
In the quaint old town of Bergen, Norway, so strange with its narrow streets, peculiar costumes, and open-hearted people, that no traveller can ever forget it, was born, Feb. 5, 18...
In 1812, when he was in his twenty-fourth year, Lord Byron was more talked of than any other man in London. He was in the first flush of his brilliant career, having published the...
The instances of distinguished men, or of notable women, who have broken through convention in order to find a fitting mate, are very numerous. A few of these instances may, perhap...
(1756-1791) THE CHILD MOZART Far, far away over land and sea lies the little town of Salzburg. What a beautiful place it is! Old Mother Nature herself has given it its charm. The t...
The great Agassiz, in his eloquent address, in Boston, on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Humboldt, said: "All the fundamental facts of popular education in physical scie...
In the same year, 1642, in which Galileo, sad and blind, went away from the earth, Sir Isaac Newton came to make his home upon it. He was born December 25, the only child of Isaac...
(1732-1809) THE CHOIR BOY Once upon a time there lived, in a tiny village in Austria, a wheelwright and his family. The wheelwright was poor, industrious, and God-fearing. He lived...
One might classify the kings of England in many ways. John was undoubtedly the most unpopular. The impetuous yet far-seeing Henry II., with the other two great warriors, Edward I....
On Thursday evening, January 16, 1879, a large company gathered in the hall of the House of Representatives at Washington. They came to honor the memory of one of our greatest in s...
The story of the life of James Clerk Maxwell has been told so recently by the able pen of his lifelong friend, Professor Lewis Campbell, that it is unnecessary, in the few pages wh...
Died 931 A.D. For more than two hundred years during the Middle Ages the Christian countries of Europe were attacked on the southwest by the Saracens of Spain, and on the northwest...
The English-speaking world long ago accepted a conventional view of Marie Antoinette. The eloquence of Edmund Burke in one brilliant passage has fixed, probably for all time, an en...