Hosmer

“ What does her clever step-father do then? He conceives an idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. With the connivance and assistance of his wife he disguised himself, covered those keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked the face with a mustache and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the girl’s short sight, he appears as Mr. Hosmer Angel, and keeps off other lovers by making love himself. ”

“ Rather—he proposed—let Hosmer and Thérèse marry, and if Fanny were to be redeemed—though he pooh-poohed the notion as untenable with certain views of what he called the rights to existence: the existence of wrongs—sorrows—diseases—death—let them all go to make up the conglomerate whole—and let the individual man hold on to his personality. ”

“ A person with any life to them would go dippy here. Say, it's fierce! And yet, inside of me, I'm kind of glad to see it. I used to dream about the mountains, and this is like riding in the dream. I'm glad you came for me and let me down easy into things. I suppose they live in the kitchen home and pa'd lose a currycomb in his beard. Does Hosmer still beller if he gets the chicken neck?
“Do you sit in the holy parlor for your courting, and ain't that plush sofa a God-forsaken perch for two little love birds? ”

“ The Americans moved forward from Punkatasset Hill to this, their fourth position, at about nine o'clock, as their reinforcements had augmented sufficiently to induce a growing feeling of aggressiveness. Here were assembling the sturdy men of Concord and of Acton; of Bedford, Lincoln, and Carlisle, and of other neighboring towns. Joseph Hosmer acted as Adjutant, forming the soldiers as they arrived, the minute companies on the right and the militia on the left, facing the bridge. ”

“ The power of the house grew slowly. In one age it got Brandenburg, in another the great districts of Ost and West Preussen; now it was possessions in Silesia, now again territory on the Rhine. Power came sometimes through imperial gift, sometimes through marriage, sometimes through purchase or diplomacy or blows. From poor soldiers of fortune to counts, from counts to princes, from princes to electors, and at last kings. Sometimes they are unscrupulous, sometimes feeble, sometimes nobly heroic and faithful; more often strong than weak in brain and hand. ”

“ A Berlin!" That confidence had all passed, I heard the Marseillaise sung only once, and that in disheartened perfunctory fashion, perhaps by order of the authorities in a futile attempt to stimulate courage that was waning. Rage and mortification over the fast-accumulating German successes possessed the hearts of men. In the squares companies of civilians were industriously drilling, often in the public places men wearing hospital badges extended salvers to the passers-by asking for contributions, "Pour les blessés, monsieur, pour les blessés!" ”

“ I visited the best school for girls in Berlin, and it was singular to find the spiked helmet, among those retiring maidens even, and this time not hung upon the wall nor outside in the yard. The teacher of the most interesting class I visited—a class in German literature—was a man of forty-five, of straight, soldierly bearing, a grey, martial moustache, and energetic eye. ”

“ After a quarter of an hour's suspense, during which there had been a voluble counselling among the group, the spokesman came forth again with our passports in hand carefully folded, these he returned to us, touching his hat with a stiff and formal bow. "We have persuaded ourselves," said he, "that you are what you claim to be, Americans, and it is fortunate for you that it is so, for we had intended to throw you into the Seine as Prussian spies." ”

“ The destinies of the two peoples are scarcely less interlocked at the present moment. We are gravitating toward closer brotherhood, and the thoughtful American sees reason to study with the deepest interest each passage of arms in the ancient memorable arena.
* * * * *
I saw in Germany in 1870, usually through the good offices of Bancroft, our minister, the most eminent historians of that day. Giesebrecht and von Raumur were no longer living, but men were still in the foreground to the full as illustrious. Heidelberg in those days was relatively a more conspicuous university than at present. ”

“ Helmholtz, a well-born youth, began his career as a surgeon in the Prussian army, and his service there, no doubt, contributed to the manly carriage for which he was conspicuous. He married a lady of a noble house of Wuertemberg, and moved in an environment conducive to courtly manners. Heidelberg, like the German universities in general well understood that ability in its teachers, and not a pompous architectural display, makes a great institution. ”

“ The fact was that the crowd, Anglo-Saxon with a strong infusion of German, was made up of people of high intelligence, the best whom the city could furnish, a city at the time noted for its interest in philosophical pursuits and the home of a highly educated class. Freeman's well-meant remarks would have seemed elementary to an audience of school-children. ”

“ It is not without precedent. When you were at Worms, in Germany, do you remember in the Luther Memorial the superb figure of Reuchlin, on one of the outer corners? One or two of the statues may be somewhat grander, but no other seemed to me so handsome, as it stood colossal on its pillar, the scholar's gown falling from the stately shoulders, and the face so fine there in the bronze, under the abundant hair and cap. Reuchlin is said to be the proper founder of the German drama. Before his time there had been, to be sure, some performing of miracle-plays, and perhaps things of a different sort. ”

“ Hither come a large and various company of pilgrims,—children who love the brothers Grimm for their fairy-tales, young students who have been kindled by their example, and grey old scholars who respect their achievements as the most marvellous work of the marvellous German erudition. The little North German city, Weimar, is closely associated with the great literary men of the last hundred years. ”

“ As a student of German, anxious to gain fluency of expression, and to train my ear to catch readily the popular idioms, I found that I must fill out my writing and reading by contact with men. After roving the streets of German cities, I packed a knapsack and set out upon the country-roads. I was, as the Germans say, gut zu Fuss, a stout walker, and I learned to employ for my longer expeditions the Bummel-Zug, an institution I commend highly to all in my situation. The Bummel-Zug is simply a "way" freight-train, to which in my time was attached a car for third-class passengers. ”

“ They rose together into places of responsibility during the Peninsular campaign, became commanders of corps about the same time, served side by side at Gettysburg, went together to the West, and finally, one at the head of Sherman's right wing and the other at the head of the left, made the march to the sea and through the Carolinas. Neither perhaps was a brilliant soldier. So far as the records show, Slocum always did his work well, was increasingly trusted to the last, and nowhere made a grave mistake. In Howard's case, the rout at Chancellorsville will always detract from his fame ”

“ Thomas and Amos Howard, died but few years ago, and were well known to us here.
WILLIAM EATON, 2d settled the lot adjoining that of Mr. Howard on the southwest, and his wife was a daughter of Deacon Francis Haskell. Their sons were William, Jeremiah, and Samuel, all now dead. The daughters were the wives of Dr. Moody Powers; Mr. Amasa Holden, who came from Mendon, Massachusetts, and was for many years a schoolteacher; a Mr. Knight, of Newburyport; Mr: John Short, of the same place, who removed from here to Castine, and afterward to Bangor, where he died; Captain Ignatius Haskell, Jr. ”

“ Mr. Howard for his second wife married the widow of Mr. Jeremiah Eaton, and after her death married Mrs. Mary C. Small, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, who was many years younger than himself, and by her had one daughter, Mary A., who was the wife of Captain Edmund S. Raynes, of this town, now residing in Newburyport. She is now dead. Mr. John Howard, Jr. married first a daughter of Mr. Thomas Thompson, and by her had one son, Captain Thomas Howard, now a resident of Newburyport. After her death he married Susan, the daughter of Mr. William Foster, by whom he had six sons and two daughters. ”

“ There is certainly none whose history on the whole is better. Margraf George of Anspach-Baireuth was perhaps the finest character among the Protestant princes of the Reformation, without whom the good fight could not have been fought. When Charles V. besieged Metz in the winter (which, with Lorraine, had just been torn from Germany by the French) , and was compelled by the cold to withdraw, it was a Hohenzollern prince, one of the first soldiers of the time, who led the rear-guard over ground which another Hohenzollern, Prince Frederick Charles, has again made famous. ”

“ Stephen Kidder, not a resident here, and after his death she became the wife of Mr. Samuel Obear, of Sedgwick. After the death of Mr. Kidder she removed to this town, and for many years kept a boarding-house in the house near that formerly occupied by the late Mr. William S. Green, known as the "Aaron Haskell" house. After her marriage with Mr. Obear she went to Lowell, Massachusetts to reside, where she had a daughter, Mrs. McIntire, and there she died. The real estate of Mr. Foster is now only in part occupied by his descendants. ”

“ Literature is the most enduring of the fine arts. No painter, sculptor, or architect has erected so permanent a memorial as the poets have done. Statues may be broken, pictures may fade or be consumed by fire, even the pyramids may crumble away, but the thought contained in great books such as the Iliad and the Aeneid is more nearly eternal than marble or bronze. ”

“ The love of great books is in itself a mark of greatness. Biography teaches no more practical lesson than this; that the world’s really noble men have spent little time in reading any books but the best, and that there has been a general agreement among them as to what the best books are. ”

“ Do we not all know many people who seem to live in a mental vacuum—to whom indeed, we have great difficulty in attributing immortality because they apparently have so little life except that of the body? Fifteen minutes a day of good reading would have given any one of this multitude a really human life. The uplifting of the democratic masses depends on this implanting at school of the taste for good reading. ”

“ To keep up with the flood of modern fiction is impossible. There is a great gain if we can find amusement in reading books which inform as well as entertain. Prefer fact to fiction. Few are indifferent to the pathos of Dickens and Thackeray but there is a chord touched in reading of the actual heroism of brave men and women which no imaginary character can affect so strongly. ”

“ We do not get the most out of a book unless we own it; we cannot take a personal interest in borrowed books, and, although it pleases Mr. Augustine Birrell to think of the thousands of thumbs that have turned over its pages with delight, it is difficult really to know a library book with its soiled pages, battered cover and the date when it must be returned impending like the Day of Judgment. ”

“ We should take a sympathetic interest in the lives of high-minded men, and note how in spite of obstacles and failures they have accomplished their purposes and how some have been great because they nobly tried and in spite of the fact that they nobly failed. Nothing is more helpful than to see that our ills are not peculiar to ourselves, but that others have overcome the same difficulties that are perplexing us. ”

“ Whatever your purpose, books will help you to accomplish it. They make the knowledge of mankind our own if we know how to avail ourselves of them. Only the wise can get the best out of books, they refuse to deliver their message to the ignorant. ”

“ Poetry is the flower of literature, the most perfect utterance of the human mind in no other of his works does man so nearly approach the Divine, so that in every age the poet has been regarded as the inspired mouthpiece of God. ”

“ Ruskin calls attention to the difference between books written to render thought permanent such as great poems and histories, books of all time he calls them, and books written merely for the hour, the useful or pleasant talk of some person you cannot otherwise converse with, such as travels and novels which he says are not books at all but merely letters or newspapers in print. ”

“ Lord Macaulay might have bored one but his books never do.
Reading is the great solace of old age and is one of the few pleasures which increases as the years go by.
Life should be a happy medium between the practical and the ideal; those successful men of business who have no taste for literature often appreciate their deficiencies quite as much as do the impractical idealists who have never accomplished anything of real value. ”

“ BIOGRAPHY.
Great poetry is the expression of the spiritual life, not of the poet merely, but of the poet in his capacity of forthteller of what is divine and universal in human life. History deals with the life and actions and motives of men in a particular age and treats of human achievements and relations, and of their causes and effects. ”