BIOGRAPHIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE BY ARTHUR & DOROTHEA PONSONBY ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1919 To Elizabeth and Matthew...

This book is intended for young people who are beginning to take an interest in historical subjects, and it may also be acceptable to those who are too busy with their daily work to find much time or opportunity for continuing, as they would like a full course of study. Many people have not the leisure to read a three-volume biography, and so they miss knowing anything at all about some of the great figures in history. We have tried here to tell quite simply the story of the lives of a dozen gre

Should the whole army of my enemies be arrayed against me, my heart will not quake: for Thou art my refuge and wilt lead me to my latter end. Most of us are very easily persuaded to do what every one else does, because it is so much less trouble. It is disagreeable to be sneered at or abused. Now and again we may do something because we know it to be right at the risk of causing displeasure, but it is very hard to keep on through a lifetime fighting against popular opinion or opposing those who

Je maintiendrai William of Orange of Nassau , or William the Silent as he is known, was an extraordinarily interesting man, if only from the fact that everything about him, from his titles and his circumstances to his character, was a contradiction. For one thing, the name “Silent” gives quite a wrong impression of him. It sounds as though he might have been taciturn, shy, or difficult to get on with, but he happened to be particularly easy and sympathetic, delightful as a companion, and eloquen

Esse potius quam haberi There is a small island called Hveen which lies in the Sound half-way between the coasts of Denmark and Sweden and about ten miles north of Copenhagen. It looks now a rather desolate and abandoned place. But if you had been alive about the year 1580 and had gone there, you would have been very much surprised at what you found. On landing you would have seen right above you in the middle of the island, rising up out of the trees, a wonderful castle with galleries and turre

Leisure, an agreeable residence, pleasant fields, serene skies, murmuring streams, and tranquillity of mind—by these the most barren muse may become fruitful and produce that which will delight and astonish the world. It is not often that great men are recognized in their lifetime. They may have a few admirers, but their work is probably the subject of dispute and disagreement, and not till years have passed, and the smaller men who attracted momentary attention have been forgotten, are they val

I have fought: that is much—victory is in the hands of fate. Be that as it may with me, this at least future ages will not deny of me, be the victor who may—that I did not fear to die, yielded to none of my fellows in constancy, and preferred a spirited death to a cowardly life. As the world grows older knowledge increases. From time to time men have to correct and alter their opinions and beliefs. What at one period is accepted as true may be proved at a later period to be false. But we do not

I shall never cease to use my utmost endeavors for establishing peace among Christians; and if I should not succeed it will be honorable to die in such an enterprise. When we read history, what a lot we have to learn about wars! Invasions and conquests and sieges and battles seem to cover more pages than anything else. I think there is hardly a country in Europe that England has not fought against at one time or another, and not only in Europe, but in Asia, Africa, and America. And although nati

I have no scepter, but I have a pen. Of the twelve men written of in this book, with the exception of Tolstoy, who died recently, Voltaire will probably be the best known by name. He is rather different from most of the others, because he preferred to try and reach men’s minds by argument rather than their hearts by religious appeal. He was a great disturber of smug, self-satisfied opinion; he knew how utterly fatal were laziness of mind and stagnation of ideas. He wanted to disturb, to annoy, t

It matters not to have been born in a duck-yard, if one has been hatched from a swan’s egg. This is the story of Hans Andersen, the son of a poor cobbler and his wife a washerwoman. Nearly every child in the world has read his Fairy Stories, and the romance of his own life is almost as marvelous as one of these—more marvelous, perhaps, because it is really true. All the things he dreamt of—all the things he longed to happen, came true, so that when he was fifty he wrote it down and called it “Th

The supreme virtue is sacrifice—to think, work, fight, suffer, where our lot lies, not for ourselves but others, for the victory of good over evil. After the fall of Napoleon in 1815 there was a determination among the sovereigns of Europe to strengthen their position and prevent any progressive movements which might lead to a breach between the peoples and their rulers. This was due to a fear and dislike of the ideas which had brought about the great Revolution in France. The Austrian Minister

My country is the world; my countrymen are all mankind. William Lloyd Garrison was the man who more than any one else helped to abolish slavery. He was what we call a Pioneer—or one who leads the way—because, though some people had hoped for the gradual freedom of the negroes, and a few had worked for it, Garrison was the first to ask for their immediate freedom and to set to work to make this question the most living and important one of the day. For he believed that if a thing is wrong in itse

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817, and lived most of his life in or near his native town. The world, if you were to ask it who Thoreau was, would probably say “a crank,” because he did not think and act in quite the same way as other people, and because he practised what he preached. He never went to church or voted at elections, or drank wine or smoked tobacco, and he went to live alone in the

The true life is the common life of all—not the life of the one. All must labor for the life of others. Tolstoy , one of the greatest novelists and the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century, was a Russian. His father, Count Nicholas Tolstoy, and his mother, Princess Marie Volkonsky, were both aristocrats, whose ancestors had been well known and important people for some generations. Yasnaya Polyana (which means “Bright Glade”), where Leo Tolstoy was born, belonged to his mother. It was a v