and civic achievements. They ought to be inscribed on their tombs in characters as fadeless as their fame and as enduring as the life of the Republic. Outside of that room the scenes were no less thrilling or memorable. The briny tears that ran down the haggard and tanned faces of the starving Confederates; the veneration and devotion which they displayed for the tattered flags which had so long waved above them in the white smoke of the battle; the efforts secretly to tear those bullet-rent banners from their supports and conceal them in their bosoms; the mutually courteous and kindly greetings and comradeship between the soldiers of the hitherto hostile armies; their anxiety to mingle with each other in friendly intercourse; the touching and beautiful generosity displayed by the Union soldiers in opening their well-filled haversacks and dividing their rations with the starving Confederates these and a thousand other incidents can neither be described in words nor pictured on the most sensitive scroll of the imagination. No scene like it in any age was ever witnessed at the close of a long and bloody war. No such termination of internecine strife would be possible save among these glorious American people. It was the inspiration of that enlightened and Christian civilization developed by the free institutions of this unrivaled and Heaven-protected Republic. JOHN B. GORDON. FATE. his literary work was continued. In BRET HARTE was born in Albany, New York, Aug. 25, 1839. His education was obtained at the common schools. At the age of about seventeen years his adventurous spirit led him to California, then in the beginning of its greatness. There he engaged, successively, in mining, schoolteaching, and newspaper work. the course of events he established the Overland Monthly Magazine, and in this many of his famous short stories were first published. During seven years he served as a United States consul in Europe. The latter years of his life were passed in England, where Several of his tales of the mining camps are regarded as among the best ever written. His verse ranges from grave to gay, a considerable part of it being in dialect. He died at Camberley, England, May 6, 1902. "The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare; "The trail is narrow, the wood is dim, But the ship sailed safely over the sea, BRET HARTE. HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE. ROME, 505 B.C. TITUS LIVIUS (LIVY) was born at Padua, Italy, 59 B.C. He wrote the history of Rome in many books, most of which have long since been lost. He ranks among the foremost of Latin prose writers. He died in the year 17 A.D. There was a certain hill which men called Janiculum on the side of the river, and this hill King Porsenna took by a sudden attack. It chanced that Horatius had been set to guard the bridge, and he saw how the enemy were running at full speed to the place, and how the Romans were fleeing in confusion and threw away their arms as they ran. He cried with a loud voice: "Men of Rome, it is to no purpose that ye thus leave your post and flee, for if ye leave this bridge behind you for men to pass over, ye shall soon find that ye have more enemies in your city than in Janiculum. Do ye therefore break it down with ax and fire as best ye can. In the meanwhile I, so far as one man may do, will stay the enemy." And as he spake he ran forward to the farther end of the bridge and made ready to keep the way against the enemy. Nevertheless there stood two with him, Lartius and Herminius by name, men of noble birth, both of them of great renown in arms. So these three for a while stayed the onset of the enemy; and the men of Rome meanwhile broke down the bridge. And when there was but a small part remaining, and they that broke it down called to the three that they should come back, Horatius bade Lartius and Herminius return, but he himself remained on the farther side, turning his eyes full of wrath in threatening fashion on the princes of the Etrurians, and crying, "Dare ye now to fight with me? or why are ye thus come at the bidding of your master KingPorsenna, to rob others of the freedom that ye care not to have for yourselves?" For a while they delayed, looking each man to his neighbor, who should first deal with this champion of the Romans. Then, for very shame, they all ran forward, and raising a great shout, threw their javelins at him. These all he took upon his shield, nor stood the less firmly in his place on the bridge, from which they would have thrust him by force. Of a sudden the men of Rome raised a great shout, for the bridge was now altogether broken down, and fell with a great crash into the river. And as the enemy stayed a while for fear, Horatius turned him to the river and said, "O Father Tiber, I beseech thee this day with all reverence that thou kindly receive this soldier and his arms." And as he spake he leapt with all his arms into the river and swam across to his own people; and though many javelins of the enemy fell about him, he was not one whit hurt. Nor did such valor fail to receive due honor from the city. For the citizens set up a statue of Horatius in the market place; and they gave him of the public land so much as he could plow about in one day. Also there was this honor paid him, that each citizen took somewhat from his own store and gave it to for food was scarce in the city by reason of him, the siege. [Version by Alfred J. Church.] TITUS LIVIUS (LIVY). THE POWER OF THE HOME. I went to Washington the other day, and I stood on Capitol hill, and my heart beat quick as I looked on the towering marble of my country's Capitol, and a mist gathered in my eyes as I thought of its tremendous significance, of the armies and the treasury, and the judges and the President, and the Congress and the courts, and all that was gathered there; and I felt that the sun in all his course could not look down on a better sight than that majestic home of a Republic that has taught the world its best lessons of liberty. And I felt that if honor and wisdom and justice abided |