Various

“ The beach at once impresses the visitor as being remarkably fine, and, indeed, it is equalled by none on the coast, unless, possibly, by Old Orchard. The sands are hard and firm, and at low tide form a spacious boulevard for driving or walking. Before the eye is the open sea, dotted here and there with glistening sails. The long, dark vessel which appears in the distance, about four o'clock on Saturday afternoon, is a Cunard steamer, which has just left East Boston for its voyage to Liverpool. ”

“ This man was Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, the record of whose life, at once important, eventful, and tragic, it is pleasant to recall.
There are, in my judgment, at least four men associated with the period of the civil war, who, in their early lives, their struggles, their training, and their future callings, ought forever to command the admiration of this people: Lincoln, the lowly, the exalted, the pure man in rude marble, the plain cover to a gentle nature, the giant frame and noble intellect ”

“ No other in American annals has so impressed the people. Said a distinguished statesman from New York, on the day of its delivery, "A century from to-day that inaugural will be read as one of the most sublime utterances ever spoken by man. Washington is the great man of the era of the Revolution. So will Lincoln be of this; but Lincoln will reach the higher position in history."
Four years before, Mr. Lincoln, an untried man, had assumed the reins of government; now, he was the faithful and beloved servant of the people. ”

“ General Grant was the guidepost of a victorious war, and a landmark of a magnanimous peace. A pillar of strength has fallen; and yet a broken shaft is not the fit emblem of his life. It is a finished and splendid column, crowned with its full glory.
The chieftain is dead. The American people themselves will now judge him, after the calm evening and the serene repose of retirement, more justly than in the stress and storm of struggle. The asperities of angry contentions have passed ”

“ The city of Worcester, forty-four miles west of Boston, lies in a valley surrounded on all sides by hills, and covers an area which may be roughly estimated as extending four miles in length by two in breadth, its long axis running north and south. It is the second city in the State in point of population, while in enterprise it yields the palm to none of its size in the country, sending to all parts of the world its manufactured products, the excellence of which has established the reputation of the place in which they were produced. ”

“ The same unquailing courage, and the same calm, grim fortitude which shed their fadeless lustre upon his whole extraordinary career were evinced by General Grant at the last moments of his life. For months the nation has hung over his bedside, awaiting the silent foot-fall of the unseen conqueror of all that is mortal.
The nation's loss is not measured by the vacant place. For nearly a decade General Grant had been only a private citizen, wielding no sceptre of authority, and exercising no sway in the public councils. ”

“ Archdale kept on looking at her, and smiling.
"You prefer making people glad," he answered.
"But perhaps you will not go—now?" she said.
"Oh, yes. I promised my services to Colonel Pepperell last summer; that holds me, you see. Besides, I want to do my part."
"I could not imagine you standing idle by while others were striking the blows for our country," said Elizabeth. "Katie has told me a good deal about you at one time and another. Dear Katie!" she added in an undertone, with an exquisite gentleness in her face. ”

“ The development of Nantasket as a summer resort began a long time ago, although the era of large hotels and popular excursions began in the last few years. Forty or fifty vears ago people from Boston, Dorchester, Hingham, and other towns, when hungering for a sniff of unalloyed sea-breeze, or a repast of the genuine clam-chowder, were in the habit of resorting to this beach, where they could pitch their tents, or find accommodations in the rather humble cottages which were already beginning to dot the shore. ”

“ There is not a man living to-day, I trust, that does not wish they could be blotted out from our history. While watching the course of these events Mr. Lincoln chanced one day to be talking with his friend, Newton Bateman, a highly respectable and Christian gentleman, and Superintendent of Public Instruction in Illinois. I can only quote a part of the interview, as furnished by Mr. Bateman himself: "I know there is a God," said Lincoln; "and he hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming. I know that his hand is in it. ”

“ I can find no more fitting words to characterize Grant's victory at Vicksburg than those which the young and brave McPherson used in his congratulatory address to the brave men who fought for the victory:—
"The achievements of this hour will give a new meaning to this memorable day; and Vicksburg will heighten the glory in the patriot's heart, which kindles at the mention of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. The dawn of a conquered peace is breaking before you. The plaudits of an admiring world will hail you wherever you go." ”

“ In February, 1838, Sarah Grimké spoke for the last time in public, and in the month of May following, Angelina was united in marriage to Theodore D. Weld. "No marriage," says Mrs. Birney, "could have been more fitting in every respect. The solemn relation was never entered upon in more holiness of purpose or in higher resolve to hold themselves strictly to the best they were capable of. It was a rededication of lives long consecrated to God and humanity; of souls knowing no selfish ambition, seeking before all things the glory of their Creator in the elevation of his creatures everywhere. ”

“ Archdale's oldest son, Walter, whom he supposed the colonel. But the real oldest son, Walter, was this Mr. Edmonson's father. So that the colonel was really left penniless."
"Yes, yes, now I see," cried Mrs. Eveleigh. "You are like your father when you come to explanations, Elizabeth; a person can always get at what you mean. Now tell me about the portrait, how it came there, and how in the world Mr. Edmonson found it." ”

“ It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. ”

“ Judge Davis, once on the Supreme Bench of the United States, a man spotless alike upon the throne of justice and in his daily walk, was upon intimate terms with Lincoln for upwards of twenty years, and during [167] more than half of that period sat upon the judicial bench before which Lincoln most frequently practised. No one is abler than he to speak of Lincoln as a lawyer,—a lawyer who became one of the first of the Western bar,—a bar that can proudly point to its Carpenter, its Trumbull, its Ryan, and its Davis. ”

“ It is, in fact, admitted by a New York newspaper that "Bostonians are justly proud of Nantasket Beach, where one can get cultured clams, intellectual chowder, refined lager, and very scientific pork and beans. It is far superior to our monotonous sand-beach in its picturesqueness of natural beauty, in the American character of the visitors, and in the reasonableness of hotel charges, as well as the excellence of the service." ”

“ Gifts are diversified; but if ever a man had the "genius of greatness," it was Abraham Lincoln. As all are eloquent in that which they know, he was eloquent in what he both knew and did.
A few words more. The President left a heart-broken widow, a woman whose intellect was shattered by one of the most awful shocks in human history. No mind can picture the agonies which she suffered, even till the day of her death, on July 16, 1882. I make mention of her now, because, during her eventful life in Washington and afterwards, she was most cruelly treated by a portion of the press and people. ”

“ Forever hereafter a merchant or producer dwelling in the Congo can dispose of his ivory and ebony, or any other product whatsoever, in whatever market it will yield him the most money, and buy his shovel and hoe, his gunpowder, and the like, where he can buy them the best and the cheapest. It is, perhaps, not too much to affirm that the founding of such an empire on such a basis will make in time as great a change in commercial affairs as the establishment of the American Republic has made in political affairs and in the relation of men to governments. ”

“ Perhaps to some, who have been led by higher ways than I have been into a knowledge of the truth, it may appear foolish to think of seeking direction in little things, but my mind has for a long time been in a state in which I have often felt a fear how I came in or went out, and I have found it a precious thing to stop and consult the mind of truth, and be governed thereby. ”

“ Bathing is, naturally enough, a prominent feature of Nantasket's attractions. Bath-houses are scattered all along the beach, where one may, for a small sum,—fifty to two-hundred per cent. of its value,—obtain the use of a suit for as long a time as he or she may choose to buffet the waves of the briny Atlantic. The most appreciative patrons of the surf seem to be the children, who are always ready to pull off shoes and stockings, and, armed with a wooden pail and shovel, amuse themselves with digging sand, and letting the surf break over their feet. ”

“ The working-class is the only class which is not a class. It is the nation. It represents, so to speak, the body as a whole, of which the other classes only represent special organs. These organs, no doubt, have great and indispensable functions, but for most purposes of government the state consists of the vast laboring majority. ”

“ With all this pleasant association with the bell of her own church, of course she must pay it a visit. So at about nine o'clock, after Mr. Gordon and Tom had gone off with two gentlemen for a day's blue-fishing, she, with Mrs. Gordon and Bessie, started out for their morning's sight-seeing. In a half hour's time they had climbed the stairs to the tower, and were admiring the fine new clock,—a gift from one of Nantucket's sons, now living in New York,—which had been first set in motion two years before, to replace an old one which had told the time for over half a century. ”

“ Lincoln,—they two were alone. "Mary," said he, "we have had a hard time of it since we came to Washington; but the war is over, and, with God's blessing, we may hope for four years of peace and happiness, and then we will go back to Illinois and pass the rest of our lives in quiet. We have laid by some money, and during this term we will try and save up more, but shall not have enough to support us. We will go back to Illinois, and I will open a law-office at Springfield or Chicago, and practise law, and at least do enough to help give us a livelihood." ”

“ Archdale, you are safe," she answered, rising to meet him as he stood before her. "I can use no such weapons. It is beneath you to do it. To say such a thing to me when you know that in any event my great blessing is that I don't care a pin's worth for you, that I am not a sighing woman wasting her affection on you, while you—But I don't suppose you meant your words as an insult." ”

“ Now, Socialism holds that the impending reconstruction of society, which Huxley predicts, will be brought about by the logic of events, and teaches that the coming revolution, which every intelligent mind must foresee, is strictly an evolution. Socialists of this school reason from no assumed first principle, like the French, who start from "social equality," or like Herbert Spencer, who lays it down as an axiom that "every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the like freedom of every other man;" ”

“ He is very angry with me now because I invested it; he is not willing, even though he knows that it's for Katie's sake."
"I thought you said just now that it was for Mr. Archdale's." Elizabeth looked at her, and smiled triumphantly.
"I did," she answered. "It's the same thing; I have always told you so."
"Um!" said Mrs. Eveleigh, and returned to the attack. "If he wouldn't take the money, how could you give it?" The girl was silent. "It was the father, I know; they say a penny never comes amiss to him." ”

“ The clouds and the smoke of battle have long since lifted; the fragments and the scenes are swallowed in the majestic drama; and to-day we see the hero elevated on his true pedestal of fame through the just perspective of history. ”

“ Grant, the defender of the Federal Union, the unflinching soldier, around whose dying couch a whole nation now lingers, whose light will shine down through future ages a warning to conspirators, to freemen a pledge, and to the oppressed a beacon of hope ”

“ Evidences are constantly multiplying that American history is a subject which has not lost its interest to investigators or to readers. During the past month four distinct works, namely, the fifth volume of Von Holst's Constitutional History of the United States, the third of Schouler's History of the United States, the second of McMaster's History of the People of the United States, and also a new volume of Hubert Howe Bancroft's History of the Pacific States, have been published, and are destined, no doubt, to take their places as "standards." ”

“ Of such, plainly, is the kingdom of Heaven, and it is a national glory that of such, too, in the instance of General Grant, the American people was never neglectful.
If every person who is inclined to attribute to Socialism all the discontent now prevalent among the laboring classes of this country, would carefully read Mr. Laurence Gronlund's remarkable book, entitled, The Coöperative Commonwealth,—an exposition of modern Socialism,—he would perhaps awaken to a comprehension of the fact that true Socialism is neither communism, nor lawlessness, nor anarchy. ”

“ She should certainly see it the first thing, if she ever were in Nantucket again; for she considered the man, who, unaided, could make such a clock, the greatest mechanical genius that ever lived. She felt this still more when she was told that the clock could not be mended until there could be found a mechanic who was also an astronomer.
At seven o'clock the next morning they were all on board the steamer, as she left the old town of Nantucket in the distance. Mrs. Gordon looked longingly back at Brant Point, which she still felt was the best spot on the island ”

“ Finally, a man ignorant in the science of astronomy and navigation, feeble alike in heart [173] and arm, became, nominally, commander, but really the cat's-paw, of his crew, at whose bidding the ship was steered. When Abraham Lincoln was called to the helm he found the once stanch, strong vessel in a leaky, damaged condition, with her compasses deranged, her rudder broken, and the luminous star by which Washington guided his course dimmed by a cloud of disunion and doubt. ”