A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D.

Clayton Edwards

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• Publié par: zoog
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 44
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines, by Clayton Edwards, Illustrated by Florence Choate and Elizabeth Curtis This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. Author: Clayton Edwards Release Date: May 30, 2008 [eBook #25652] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TREASURY OF HEROES AND HEROINES*** E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) JEANNE D'ARC DREW THE ARROW FROM HER BREAST WITH THE COURAGE OF AVETERAN—See page 100 A T R E A S U R Y A N D O H E R O E S FROM 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. H E R A RECORD OF HIGH ENDEAVOUR AND STRANGE ADVENTURE BY CLAYTON EDWARDS Author of "THE STORY OF EVANGELINE" ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR BY FLORENCE CHOATE AND ELIZABETH CURTIS CUPPLES AND LEON COMPANY NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced without the written permission of the publishers Printed in the United States of America PREFACE It would be pleasant indeed to gather the characters of this book together and listen to the conversation of wholly different but interested couples—for this is a book of contrasts and has been written as such. Lives of the most dramatic and adventurous quality have been gathered from all corners of the earth, and from every age in history, in such a way that they may cover the widest possible variety of human experience. The publishers believe that such a book would not be complete without some characters that are no less real because they have lived only in the minds of men. No explanation is needed for semi-historical characters like King Arthur, Robin Hood and William Tell, while Don Quixote, the Prince of Madness, and Rip Van Winkle, the Prince of Laziness, have been included, not because they were essentially heroic in themselves (although Don Quixote might well have claimed the laurel) but because they became heroes in the opinion of others through the very qualities that brought about their downfall. As involuntary heroes, they furnish a pleasant contrast to the more serious, actual and transcendental figures of saints, martyrs, warriors, discoverers and statesmen with which these pages are filled; they enrich the "Treasury," widen its range of colors and perform the necessary function of court jesters in the Hall of Fame. CONTENTS HEROES OF REALITY CHAPTER PAGE I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII BUDDHA JULIUS CÆSAR SAINT PATRICK KING ARTHUR OF BRITAIN MOHAMMED ALFRED THE GREAT ROBIN HOOD SAINT ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY DANTE ROBERT BRUCE JEANNE D'ARC CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS WILLIAM THE SILENT QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND SIR FRANCIS DRAKE HENRY HUDSON PETER THE GREAT GEORGE WASHINGTON JOHN PAUL JONES MOLLY PITCHER NAPOLEON BONAPARTE GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI ABRAHAM LINCOLN GRACE DARLING FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE FATHER DAMIEN CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY THEODORE ROOSEVELT 1 12 26 33 42 52 65 72 80 89 100 114 127 137 146 156 165 172 187 196 201 216 223 236 241 248 254 262 XXIX EDITH CAVELL XXX KING ALBERT OF BELGIUM XXXI MARIA BOTCHKAREVA HEROES OF FICTION XXXII WILLIAM TELL XXXIII DON QUIXOTE 272 278 286 297 304 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "Jeanne d'Arc drew the arrow from her breast with the courage of a veteran" "King Arthur grasped the magic sword that none but the bravest might hold" "Robin Hood's band made merry by killing the King's deer" "'I have not yet begun to fight,' shouted Paul Jones" "The cannon balls fired by Molly Pitcher fell squarely in the British lines" "Don Quixote suffered nobody to draw water from the well" Frontispiece FACING PAGE 36 68 188 196 276 A TREASURY OF HEROES AND HEROINES CHAPTER I BUDDHA About five hundred years before the birth of Christ a mighty king reigned in India over the land of the Sakyas, from which the snowy tops of the Himalaya Mountains could be seen. His name was Suddhodana and he had two wives called Maya and Pajapati; but for a long time they bore him no children, and the King despaired of having an heir to his throne. Then Queen Maya bore a son and after he was born, the legends tell us, she had a dream in which she saw a great multitude of people bowing to her in worship. Wise men were summoned to interpret the dream, and they told her that the King's son, so golden in color and so well formed, was destined for greatness as surely as rivers ran to the sea —that he would become either a mighty conqueror who would subdue all the people of the earth, or a holy saint, a "Buddha" (the word for one enlightened) who would have more power over the minds of men than the mightiest conqueror could gain over their bodies. All this was confirmed in the minds of the wise men on account of the wonderful portents that took place at the birth of the child: flowers bloomed in barren places and springs gushed from dry rock on the day when the Prince was born. He was named by the King, "Siddartha,"—a word meaning one who always succeeds in what he undertakes—and because of the portents at his birth the King himself bowed down to his own son and did him homage. Now the King desired greatly that the first of the two prophecies should come to pass. He wished the Prince to be a conqueror, not a Buddha, and extend the power of the Sakyas by the sword through every part of the world. And he did everything in his power to bring this end about and to weaken the possibility that his son should ever be a holy man. When the child was still very young a further prophecy was made to the King—namely that the Prince would only become a Buddha after he had seen four common sights which for him would be four omens —an old man, a sick man, a dead man and a holy man in the yellow robe of a beggar. Then and then only, said the prophecy, the Prince would leave his country; furthermore, if he remained at home for a certain length of time he would never leave at all, but would turn all his attention to the art of war, and his armies would sweep over the