ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Grateful acknowledgments are due to the following publishers and individuals for permission to use selections from their copyright material: D. Appleton & Company for "Thanatopsis" from Bryant's "Complete Poetical Works"; Elbert Hubbard for "A Message to Garcia"; Lothrop, Lee & Shepard for "A Bottle of Ink" and "The Three Songs" from "Dreams in Homespun," by Sam Walter Foss; Alfred Bartlett Company for "A Last Will," by Williston Fish; Henry Watterson for "Abraham Lincoln"; P. F. Collier & Son for "Abraham Lincoln," by Theodore Roosevelt; Doubleday, Page & Company and Edwin Markham for “The Man with the Hoe"; Charles Scribner's Sons for "The Song of the Chattahoochee" from "Poems of Sidney Lanier," by Sidney Lanier; Longmans, Green & Company for "The Scythe Song," by Andrew Lang; Little, Brown & Company for "The Man Without a Country," by Edward Everett Hale. The selections from Edward Rowland Sill, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and John Greenleaf Whittier, are used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers of their works. EIGHTH READER THE EVE BEFORE WATERLOO GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON Possibly the most remarkable man that has ever lived was Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, who was born August 15, 1769, and who died May 5, 1821. He was born on Corsica, While still a young man, a small island in the Mediterranean Sea. he conquered in ruthless warfare the larger part of Europe and made himself Emperor of the French. He was not a good man, for he made war on other nations merely for the purpose of conquering and ruling them. But in natural and acquired abilities, it is probable that no other man has ever equaled him. However, after conquering nearly all of Europe, he was at last defeated, mainly by the long-continued and stubborn resistance of England. After his defeat, a council of the nations of Europe exiled him to the little island of Elba, in the Mediterranean Sea. But early in 1815, he escaped from the island and landed in France with one thousand men. In one hundred days he had driven the King of France from the throne, and he had also organized a new army, and was prepared to give battle to the union of nations opposing him, the English, Hollanders, Belgians, Prussians, and other nations. The armies of these nations had gathered south of Brussels, the capital of Belgium, to give battle to Napoleon. The Duke of Wellington, commander of the English troops, was in command of the allied armies. supreme |