Rupert Sargent Holland

“ So the boys and Tuckerman took their guests on a regular tour, through the woods, where the russet-green pine-needles made a clean and fragrant carpet, dappled with patches of sunlight; along the little beaches, curves of yellow sand, where sandpipers played and strutted, or flew in silver bands; up on the ramparts of cliffs, against which the waves rolled in and slipped and slid in white cascades over the low-lying ledges, and so to the southern point, where they watched the sun setting in all its glory, tinting the sky and the sea in wonderful combinations of shifting colors. ”

“ The good folk of Florence left their shops and homes and lined the streets, and for hours floats drawn by prancing horses and picturing great scenes in Roman history passed before the delighted people's eyes. Among the warriors, the heroes, the nymphs and fauns, they recognized their neighbors' children or their own sons and daughters; they were all parcel of it; it was their own triumph as well as Rome's. Girls sang and danced and smiled, boys posed and cheered and played heroic parts, the whole youth of the city spent the day in fairy-land. ”

“ She was beyond doubt one of the ablest women in French history and she might have done much to make France great and respected, but instead she almost ruined it by her selfish ambitions. History lays at Catherine's door the killing of innocent Huguenots in all parts of France, known as the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Eve. With all her gifts she could not rise above the teachings of her girlhood in Italy, and so she stands out as a queen of treachery and bloodshed, thoroughly typical of her age in its darker sides. ”

“ Florence is like a rose-bed, but I cannot cure the city as I would of thorns." He fell into thought, then roused again. "But thou, young Michael Angelo, dost know what a time I had to make thy father let thee be a painter, and now thou addest to thy sins and cuttest in marble. Where will be the end of thy infamy?"
The boy caught the gleam in his friend's eyes, and his serious face broke into smiles.
"In Rome, Signor Lorenzo, in the Holy Father's house. There I shall go some day."
"And why to Rome?"
"Every one goes to Rome; thy marvelous pageants are Roman; art lives there." ”

“ America answers France and her answer is clear and dauntless. It is as ringing as the Declaration of Independence, the rock upon which America built her house. The power of Prussia, the power of the Hun, the power of tyrants, must be utterly crushed before the world can be free. Germany sought this war in all wickedness and greed; to satisfy her ambition she has pulled down all the piers that support the house of civilization that men have been building for ages; she would destroy the world in her purpose to dominate it. ”

“ What do we want with the vast, worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or these endless mountain ranges, impenetrable, and covered to their base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of three thousand miles, rock-bound, cheerless, and uninviting, and not a harbor on it? ”

“ On her head she wore a royal crown set with diamonds, rubies, pearls, and emeralds, and at her throat hung a matchless jewel known as "the Great Harry," which had belonged to her great-grandfather, Henry VII of England. The church was a sea of jewels, for in those days men wore almost as many precious stones as women, and the great stone pillars set off a blaze of costumes that reveled in all the colors of the rainbow. The nobles of Scotland were there as well as those of France, and as soon as the ceremony was over Mary turned and greeted her boy husband as Francis I, King of Scotland. ”

“ If I am striving for my own glory, I am at the same time laboring for the welfare of the American republic. I trust that, for my sake, you will become a good American. It is a sentiment made for virtuous hearts. The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she is destined to become the safe and worthy asylum of virtue, integrity, tolerance, equality, and peaceful liberty.”
This, from a boy not yet twenty years old, showed the prophetic instinct that burned like a clear flame in the soul of Lafayette. ”

“ In those youthful days his boy friends had followed him without question, now the whole of Italy looked to him as their leader; he had succeeded in doing what hundreds of other men had dreamed of doing, driving the Austrians permanently out of the peninsula, and restoring to his countrymen the ancient liberty of Italy. Yet whether as a boy upon the Mediterranean or as the liberator of a nation he was always the same frank, straightforward, high-minded Giuseppe Garibaldi. ”

“ He swung himself over a cliff and dropped lightly on to the sand. Leaving his fishing-rod in a convenient place where he could pick it up quickly if anyone came by, he began his search.
There were crevices in the rocks, and each of these had to be explored. Bushes and trailing vines, growing from little footholds, covered the seaward surface of many of the cliffs. But Ben, thrilled with the sense of exploration, and persevering by nature, stuck to his task, and was rewarded at last by finding what he sought, two veins of a light yellow color that made the distinct mark of a cross. ”

“ There was nothing for the Count to do but bow, whisper an excuse to the lady at his side, and leaving the pavilion seek the tents. In a short time he rode out into the field, his armor shining golden in the sunset, his lance in his gauntleted hands, a favor of blue and orange ribbons fluttering at the crest of his helmet. Meantime the King had curbed his horse to a place before the balcony where the Queen sat. Catherine leaned forward. "Have you not ridden enough to-day, sire?" she asked. "I would beg you to stop."
"One more joust," said Henry, "and this one, madame, in honor of yourself." ”

“ Few men are like Lafayette, who from youth to old age hold fast to their ideals, no matter what comes. Then, in a time of stress, the question is put to them: What will you do? Take the easy road of blindness or follow the rough road of vision? Belgium had her choice; she chose to lose all her worldly possessions rather than lose her soul. France had her choice, and England and Italy: to each the vision of liberty was greater than safety of life. And as each has had to pay in countless suffering so the soul of each nation has risen to greater heights. Their people do not perish like the blind ”

“ We who know the story of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery think of John Brown as a hero. We forget the outlaw and remember the martyr. If he was setting the laws of men at defiance he was also following the law that he felt was given him by God. His faith and his simplicity have made him a great figure in history. A man who met him riding across the plains of Kansas in the days of the border warfare drew a vivid picture of him. He said that a tall man on horseback stopped and asked him a question. ”

“ Some came across fields on foot, a young gallant swinging a light gold-headed cane, and paying lavish compliments to the fair girl whose dimples were heightened by small beauty patches cut in stars or crescents.
The gay throng wound up the long drive of Otsego Hall, themselves scarcely less brilliant than the flowers beside the path. At the top of the drive was the big, white colonial mansion, with its high storied porch and great white pillars. On the porch stood the genial host in a buff-colored suit with knee-breeches, his kindly face radiating welcome to each guest. ”

“ In the last half of the sixth inning David came to bat. Lanky Larry patted the ball caressingly, surveyed the new player from head to foot, and then grinned as if he had suddenly remembered a tremendous joke. David dug his feet into the earth of the batter’s box, wishing he had on the cleated shoes he wore when he played on his school team, swung his bat—one he had carefully selected from the varied assortment offered by the Tigers—and then grinned as if he also had thought of something very funny. ”

“ William Penn was always a deeply religious and honorable man, thoroughly sincere, and indomitable in his defense of what he believed to be the truth. He was a great man, for he led the new sect of Quakers through their early trials; he had the vision to build them a new home beyond the seas and to set them standards of liberty and government that were far in advance of his time. His faults of judgment were many; he too often trusted the wrong men, and frequently he showed himself a child in caring for money matters. ”

“ He was a brilliant king, with much of the charm of his father Francis I, who had met England's Bluff King Hal on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and he bore himself towards his Queen with a noble grace. Her hand in his he led her up from the shore and over the crimson carpets the good people of Rouen had spread in their streets, to a pavilion fluttering with flags, where seats had been placed for them. Behind the King and Queen came the ladies-in-waiting and Henry's gentlemen, and each man tried to imitate his royal master and hand his lady up the steps of the pavilion with as fine an air. ”

“ Russia was autocratic, her ruling house of Romanoff was in many ways true brother of the other tyrants, but the people of Russia felt the new spirit and have already driven their Czar from his throne. When we think of the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, Napoleon, and all that France had to endure on the hard road to liberty we may well imagine that dark days lie before the Russian people, but in time France rose like a phœnix from the ashes of revolt, and when we see what France is to-day we may look confidently to the future of this other great people. ”

“ The old sailor shook his head. "Nay, nay, boy. The wonderful island lies so close to the world's edge that 'tis a perilous thing to try to find it."
"Still," said Christopher, "'twould be well worth the finding, and some time when I'm a man and can win a ship of my own I'm going to make the venture."
But the sailor shook his head. "Better leave the unknown sea to itself, lad," said he. "A whole skin is worth more to a man than all the gold of King Solomon's mines." ”

“ If Catherine Benincasa had continued her life as a Sister of Penance she would have been simply one of many women who have dedicated their lives to withdrawing from the world and following the course of their own thoughts. She would have left no record of her works behind her nor would she have had much influence on her time. But as it happened she became a great influence, one of the most remarkable women of her century in Europe, and the person of whom the old city of Siena was most proud. ”

“ If you look back through history you will see [320] that the crimes of all the despots are the crimes of Germany to-day and that whenever men were fighting tyranny, rapacity and cruelty they were fighting the same battle that America and her allies fight to-day.
More than that. In fighting for freedom we are fighting for our preservation. The world cannot exist one half slave, the other half free. Let tyranny succeed in Europe and it can only be a short time before it will look hungrily at America. The Menace must be destroyed before it grows so powerful that none can withstand it. ”

“ Even as he remembered so vividly the tales the old men and women had told him when he was a very little boy, the stories of his grandmother, of border warfare, of heroes of Scotland, such as Watt of Harden, and Wight Willie of Aikwood, merrymen much like Robin Hood and Little John, and as he remembered the romances he and his friend had read in the hills, so he was now treasuring up wild bits of scenery with all the ardor of a poet or a painter. He was growing to know Scotland as no other man had ever known it. ”

“ First there came into the hall the seven planets of the skies, Mercury in white satin, with golden girdle and wings, carrying his wand, or caduceus, in his hand. Mars appeared in armor, and Venus in sea-green flowing draperies as if she had just risen from the waves. ”

“ Lafayette said to his officers, [197] “We are lost if the service continues to be conducted with such great inexactitude. We are the only soldiers of the Revolution; we alone should defend the royal family from every attack; we alone should establish the liberty of the representatives of the nation; we are the only guardians of the public treasury. France, all Europe, have fixed their eyes on the Parisians. A disturbance in Paris, an attack made through our negligence on these sacred institutions, would dishonor us forever, and bring upon us the hatred of the provinces.” ”

“ Scotland sprang into being as a land of romance, filled with poetry, a country full of glorious scenery, a people descended from a line of kings. Even the narrow streets of Edinburgh and the old Canongate itself became historic ground under the Wizard's spell. The Wizard was Walter Scott, and now he found the whole world as eager to hear the stories and poems he had to tell about his country as his boy friends had been years before. ”

“ As she waited she saw cunning and deceit win one victory after another in Italy and France. She heard how the brooding Lorenzino de' Medici, even as she had predicted to Bianca, had become Duke Alessandro's closest friend and greatest flatterer in order to find the chance to strike and kill him, and she heard how the people of Florence had proclaimed Lorenzino a patriot for ridding them of the Duke, and how her uncle Filippo Strozzi, one of the noblest men of the time, had vowed that he admired the assassin so much that each of his sons should marry one of Lorenzino's daughters. ”

“ The War of Independence came to an end, and Lafayette returned home. Trouble was brewing there. The old nobility had grown too overbearing; the men and women who tilled the soil were considered hardly better than mere beasts of burden. Such a state could not last, and so the time came when the mobs of Paris broke into the beautiful gardens of Versailles, stormed the Palace of the Tuilleries, scattered some of the vain and foolish old courtiers, but imprisoned many more, and brought to trial the hapless King Louis and the charming Marie Antoinette. ”

“ To what nobler end could Washington’s children dedicate themselves than to help their brethren? And the spirit of Lafayette must rejoice to see his dreams fulfilled, his dreams of the great republic and of the dawn of the brotherhood of men!
Lover of liberty and justice, we salute you! The time has come for us to show that what you hoped of us we now are, and to show it to the end that liberty shall not perish from the earth, that all men be free, and that in truth [343] man was endowed by his Creator with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ”

“ The boy had raised his hand to the side of his head in salute.
"Please, sir," said the girl, "we're both so very fond of music."
"Silence," commanded the man, who was no other than their father, Frederick William, King of Prussia. "Fritz can speak for himself; he doesn't need a girl to defend him."
"Wilhelmina has told you, sir," said the boy, "how much we both love music. Indeed I'd rather listen to it than do anything else, and I want to learn how to play it for myself. I don't care anything about being a soldier." ”

“ There have been many great changes in all the countries of the world since the time of Lafayette, and in most nations liberty has become more and more the watchword and the goal. The French Revolution was like a deep chasm between the era of feudalism and the era of the rights of man, and though the pendulum has sometimes seemed to swing backward for a short time it has almost constantly swung farther and farther forward in the direction of independence. ”

“ Again the master shrugged his shoulders, and the same quizzical smile his face always wore when watching this boy lighted his eyes.
"At least we are agreed on one thing, Bonaparte; we both of us know the most glorious profession in the world is that of the soldier. Ah, that I might some day be a captain of artillery!"
"Why not?" said the boy. "Isn't all of Europe one big camp? Can't any man rise who has strength to draw a sword? Believe me, Monsieur Pichegru, if you really want to be a captain you shall be one." ”

“ In 1917 the United States of America drew the sword in defense of the sacred principle of liberty for which the country of Lafayette was fighting. The debt of gratitude had never been forgotten; the ideals of the gallant Frenchman and of the young Republic of the Western World were the same; what he had done for us we of America are now doing for him.
It is a glorious story, and one never to be forgotten while men love liberty and truth. ”

“ The loving mother and sister could not counterbalance the terrible severity of the cruel King. Gradually Fritz changed from the sunny lad who had played in the gardens of Potsdam with Wilhelmina to a severe and arbitrary monarch.
His father had taught him that a country's greatness depended on its soldiers, and so Fritz made Prussia an army and compelled the world to admit the might of his troops. To Europe he was the ambitious tyrant, Frederick the Great. It was only to Wilhelmina and a few friends that he showed a little of that softer nature which had been his as the boy of Potsdam. ”

“ Russia had her Czar, an autocrat of the worst type, Turkey her Sultan, a relic of the Dark Ages, Austria her Hapsburg Emperor, a thorough Bourbon, who learned nothing and forgot nothing. And Germany had her Hohenzollern and Prussian Emperor, the descendant of a long line of autocratic rulers, the sovereign made by Bismarck, “the man of blood and iron,” the stanch believer in the old doctrine of the divine right of kings. Germany had become an empire by the power of the sword, and her Emperor never allowed his people to forget that fact.
Power goes to the head of a nation like strong wine. ”

“ Every boy and man in America should learn the lesson of Lafayette’s life and then go into the struggle with the feeling that he is following in the footsteps of that great idealist, that great patriot whose country was not limited to his own nation but to all men who yearned for liberty. The greatest gift of patriots is not the material things they may build, but the devotion to ideals they show to other men. ”

“ With the opening of spring Walter spent all his spare hours in his favorite pursuit, riding through the country on a search for old legends or curious tales of the neighborhood. Scottish history was his never-ending delight; he knew every battle-field in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and could tell how the armies had come to meet and what was the result. Stories of sprites and goblins, of witches and magicians, were eagerly sought by him. Many an old woman was led to tell the lame boy with the eager eyes the tales she had heard as a schoolgirl, and was well repaid by the boy's rapt attention. ”

“ She is young and immensely strong, she is still the land of freedom. And when she rises in full, relentless might, thrice armed in that she has a just cause, she will destroy the serpent and cast him from the earth. The greatest page in our history is being written; we shall write it so that the better world to come shall call us blessed.
“We are coming, Lafayette!” What a call to victory is that! We have already come. We have joined with the descendants of that youth of France who came to us in our hour of need. The spirit of Washington must glory in that fact. ”

“ Thou hast said that we have done wrong in opening our ears to wicked men, and closing our hearts to thy counsels. Father, it is all true; we have left the good path; we have wandered away from it and have been enveloped in a black cloud. We have now returned that thou mayest find in us good and faithful children. We rejoice to hear thy voice among us. It seems that the Great Spirit had directed thy footsteps to this council of friendship to smoke the calumet of peace and fellowship with thy long-lost children. ”

“ So is liberty built; founded upon a rock; as unconquerable as the soul of man. Liberty must win after floods and storms; its beacon-light must in the time to come illumine the whole world. Its enemies are strong and well-prepared; they call to their aid all the [341] powers and devices of darkness; but as truth is greater than falsehood so is liberty greater than all the oppressors of man can bring against it. ”

“ History rarely says enough about the devoted wives of the great men who have helped the world. No hero ever found greater aid and sympathy when he needed it most than Lafayette had from his wife Adrienne.
From his home at Lagrange the true patriot of France watched the wonderful course of the Emperor of France. It was a course amazing in its victories. The men who had been an undrilled rabble in the days of the Revolution were now the veterans of the proudest army in Europe. The people did not have much more liberty than they had enjoyed under Louis XVI. ”

“ For six hundred years it has stood there, part fortress and part manor-house and farm, a huge structure, built piecemeal through centuries, with many towers and battlements and thick stone walls long overgrown with moss. Before it lies the valley of the Allier and the great rugged mountains of Auvergne. Love of freedom is deeply rooted in the country round it, for the people of Auvergne have always been an independent, proud and fearless race.
In this old Château of Chavaniac there was born on September 6, 1757, the Marquis de Lafayette. ”

“ As the small American republic once heard with rejoicing and confidence the word that Lafayette and Rochambeau were to bring aid westward across the Atlantic, so now the great French republic heard with the same emotions the declaration that American soldiers were to bring succor to them eastward across the same sea. The last great neutral nation, immense in power of men and wealth and energy, had cast in its lot with the forces that were fighting for freedom. ”

“ And the spirit that fills France to-day, the spirit that fills England and Belgium and America and all the allies, yes, even that same spirit in Russia, will carry mankind a long way on the road to liberty. For no one can conquer that spirit; it is the immortal part of man. ”

“ But France had yet to deal with its own problem of liberty. There were many men who dreamed of equality in that nation and who hoped for it, but the King and the court were despotic, the peasants yoked to the soil, bowed down by unjust taxes, crushed by unfair laws. There was a spirit abroad that was destined to bring a temporary whirlwind. So the thinking men of France, and Lafayette one of the chief among them, turned their attention to affairs at home. ”