davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05
FROM A WOMANS VIEWPOINT

norant. Incidence and lack of ambition
and lack of application are the causes Of
ignorance, not circumstances.
Whoever will may acquire education
and culture. No man can place limit
on your ability, your strength. You
know not what forces lie in you. Triumphs
that no mortal ever gained may yet be
yours, II you will but have confidence
in yourself and trust in your untried ca
pacity Some one wilh scale the heights
now unattained. Why not you? Why?
There are two words which go hand In
hand, and which seem akin-courage and
endurance-and without which very HIT
tie can be accomplished or achieved. To
be afraid to take the initiative, or having
taken it, to lack the backbone required
for carrying It through, is simply to live
and die a nobody a neer do WELL a good
for nothing. Courage is really the pioneer
virtue without which one cannot even
make a beginning. Courage is to the
tive; it starts ono along the way he
should go. To be afraid. 20 stand shaking
in ones shoes, to have a heart of ice,
instead of heart of fire Is surely never
to amount to anything as long as life
lasts. You know the worlds greatest
poet puts 1t thus: There is a tide in
the affairs of men, which taken at the
flood leads on to fortune" 1t Is courage
that enables one to take the tide and
be carried on to fortune. Faint heart not
only never won fair lady, but 1t never
won anything that was fair or worth the
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05
BY F. I. MONKS.

Is an immense room furnished with tables
and benches. Several big cooking ranges
are set at convenient places. Everyone
does his own cooking and washes his
plates, cups and saucers, knives and
forks and spoons. rinses out his teapot
or coffeepot and puts everything back
where he took 1t from. There are odors
of fried Bacon fried fish, fried onions.
sausages, steaks, toast, tea and coffee.
Sometimes the same pan will be used to
cook various articles which gives to each
The flavor of all. Some men eat alone
while others form companies of threes
or tours and share with each other Every
man buys and brings with him what he
IS going to eat for supper, and II any
poor fellow he there who has nothing
to eat, there's always someone to offer
assistance.
Between the hours of six and eight III
the evening the kitchen Is a busy scene,
after that the dodgers tell stories and
sit around smoking The man who sellA
shoe-laces on the street corner relates hi9
days experience to the vendor of corn-
cure or liver pills; another fellow Is
showing how he makes his living by
cutting out pictures with a scissors tho
card writer is displaying feats In cali
graphy and the stranded sailor ves with
the crippled soldier in telling stories At
10 o'clock the kitchen closes and the
dodgers retire to rest.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

TIME slum is not alone the blot
upon. it is the menace to mod
i ern civilization. The slum is the
compost heap of decayed and decaying
humanity; the ulcer of society. Poverty
and misery are the primary elements
which constitute the slum, and from this
rotten compound the noxious and pesti-
lential fumes of vice are continually be-
ing given Off until the very atmosphere
of a big city reeks with the malodorous
poison.
Tourists and travellers return to tell us
of the grand and wonderful sights to
be seen in the great capitals of Europe.
They tell us of parks and palaces, mus
Gums and cathedrals; of wealth and mag
nificence, of boulevards and avenues; but
of the poor, how they live and where
they live, we hear nothing; and yet it
is the poor who are solving the great
problem of life, whose prayer for daily
bread is the prayer of their lives, who
know not how they got their last meal or
where the next is coming from.
A great tree may be seen standing in
the forest its branch reaching out in
all direction. Its foliage is fresh and
green, its bark sound and unbroken. 1t
has stood for a hundred, perhaps hun
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

on stone, tell pathetic story. II is
the shaft that marks the spot where
"Stonewalr' Jackson fell sorely wounded
by the hands of his own men, who would
gladly have died for him.
from the night In the Presbyterian
church at Lexington, Va, when Jack
son broke down In Fprayer and when he
said to his pastor who pitied his en-
barrassment and who told him he would
not ask him to pray In public again,
Yes: call on me every time will con-
quer my timidity," until the hour when
four lieutenants bore his stricken body,
he gave to mankind lesson not ex-
celled in all the history Of the world. The
ablest strategist In rapidity of movement
of the great civil war, he was as sim
pie as a child; lion-llke in courage, he
loved the Lord Jesus Christ and to God
rendered all the glory
IL may well be said Of him, as was
said of the elder Cato: His pure char
acter sheds undying radiance over his
rugged form and throws into relief Its
massive grandeur"
Time does not permit me to tell of
other heroes who led heroic men in those
awful. yet glorious days, days dark with
suffering and privation and with the
shadow of death; days ever Respondent
with stories of courage and devotion that
tell the world that for a Marathon we
have a Fredericksburg, for a Pharsalia
we have a Charlottesville, for Bar
net we have a Wilderness.
To these great leaders and to the noble
sons of Alabama who led full many a
battle line we may say most fittingly:
Live on o Leaders, live,
While Time shall count it years,
And then at last, in Heaven above,
Dwell mighty mid your peers.
Nor Greece nor Rome
Nor land, fresh-born or gray with age,
Has written names of heroes nobler yet
On History's burning page.
Now, what of the private soldiers of
the south? What pen can write their
courage. what tongue can tell their hero
ism?
They were no conquered barbarians,
such as swelled the armies Of Rome; no
mercenaries like those who gave their
swords for hire to Carthage; no Hessians.
who strove to throttle the spirit OF lib
erty in our land. They were sons of the
soil brave, devoted men, by conscience
guided and stirred by high patriotism.
They left their homes, their aged IA
theirs and mothers, the sad-eyed wives
and little children, for the march and
the bivouac, for the drum-beat and the
-bugle-call which to many thousands
meant the summons to death, to lonely
graves, far away from the old home,
where father and mother. wife and chill
dren looked in the morning hours, in the
eve time with longing eyes for the dear,
familiar form that never came again.
Looking back through the ages, re-
viewing the nations that live In history as
the noblest as well as the bravest, to
whom shall we liken these soldiers of the
south?
Perhaps the fairest parallels are found
in republican Rome. before imperial
despotisn had stilled the voice of lib
erty, when fires were kept ever burning
upon the altar Of patriotism, when pur-
ity and virtue dwelt In the ancient city,
when honesty and courage animated her
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

ranks, the union commander sat down on
a stump, and dictated the never to be
forgotten dispatch; II propose to fight
1t out on this line, II it takes all sum-
mer"
Certainly that was enduraneel There
was undying determination that wins sue
cess. General Grant was most courage
Gus, but without that grim. unconquer-
able endurance, he could have never
worn Lees army down to the poor ex-
hausted remnant that surrendered at Ap-
pomattox.
The greatest misfortune that can con-
quer one Is self-plty. It begins you know.
by surrendering pluck and courage, In
stead of combating and raising above
tho "slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune" People actually die from self
pity, because of lack of moral stamina
sufficient to overcome adversities and
their need, and If one finds himself In
the rear column, he may be sure it is in
his power to escape these vexatons IL
he will step right along briskly and climb
into the band wagon right now. 1t all
lies with ones self; there are obstacles
in the pathway of each; but It is only TO
tho self-reliant, courageous, energetic.
indomitable belongs the victory. 1t is
highly important ana absolutely neces-
sary that we should heIp ourselves
which Is certainly impossible, II we cow
ardly content ourselves with sitting down
and selfshly indulging in self-pity, sigh
ing and bemoaning the freaks of fate.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

Upon its face it is plea for early piety.
And the appeal is put upon the ground
of me terrible evils which are sure to
come upon a Goddess old age. Learn to
serve God while you are young thus.
substantially. says this poetical preacher.
for unless you do, the days are coming
when your youthful enjoyments will all
vanish, and you will have no pleasures
to take their place." In the I'd verse he
poln.s to the time hen the very sources
of light will turn to darkness, and when
the riffs In the clouds shall last but a
little while; that is, trouble will not be
absent long. 1.-The keepers or guards,
"of the house" are the trembling arms
of the old man. THE strong men" are
the lower limbs which support the frame,
and these will be too weak even to hold
themselves erect. 1.-The grinders are the
teeth, which become too few and scat
tering to do effective work. .Those that
look out of the windows" are the eyes,
which become too dim to do their office.
The doors shall be shut In the streets
probably points to the fact that the aged
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

gift of silence until you have something
interesting to say and can say 1t In an
interesting manner.
If you are listening to the educated
and cultured you will be able to learn
something of the manner of expression,
even If you obtain no real information.
You know cultured pepole do not always
impart information 1t too often is the
case they are mere parrots, repeating
what they have read or heard instead
of what they have thought and learned by
experience.
Do not think for one minute that edu-
cation means infallibility OF judgment or
keen sense of justice. But 1t usually
does mean correct expression.
Notice the errors made by others in
speech and manners only to avoid them.
Try and learn something new every day.
Carry little note book, and IL you
hear a word that is not familiar, keep
it in mind until you can jot 1t down.
If you read the word do the same, and
before you sleep find Its meaning. The
next day think it over until you can add
1t to your vocabulary.
If you have leisure and means look
UP some good school of correspondence
and take a course of study. Almost every
city have schools of this kind and they
are most excellent substitutes for col
leges-rhetoric, mathematics and all
branches which can be taught by cor
respondenoe.
There is not the slightest necessity for
any human being today remaining ig-
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

great queen herself was famous for her
knowledge of Latin and Greek. and If
Sir Walter Scott was not at fault. had
some knowledge even of Hebrew. In his
splendid essay on Lord Bacon I believe.
Macaulay draws a very charming pic
ture of a lovely woman, who knew Greek
so well that, while the hounds were get
ting ready for the early morning chase
she would sit at her window with ewes
believed over the immortal page. in
Plato's Dialogue, giving an account of
the dying moments of Socrates. the first
great martyr to science
There really does seem to be some
ground for the notion that the poetic
Muse needs youthful age, and youth
full language to enable her to DISPLAY her
charms at their best; for Milton himself
with all his genius and all his worldwide
culture, expressed his fear that he had
been born an age too late"
So much by way of preface to a dis
cussion of very beautiful ancient poem
the 18th chapter of the book of Ecele-
siastes.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05
THE ANGLERS PoEsY.

By Izaak Walton.
Let me live harmless; and near the brink
OF Trent or Avon have a dwelling
place,
Where 1 may see my quill or cork down
sink
With eager bite of perch. or bleak, or
dace;
And on the, world any my Creator think;
While some men strive ill-gotten goods
t. embrace,
And others spend their time in base ex-
cess
OF wine, or worse, in war and wanton-
ness.
Let them that list, these pastimes Still
pursue,
And on such pleasing fancjes feed their
SO I the fields and meadows green may
view,
And daily by fresh rivers walk at will.
Among the daisies and the Wolets blue,
Red hyacnth and yellow daffodil,
Purple narclssus like the morning rays,
Pale gander-grass, and azure culverkeys.
I count 1t higher pleasure to behold
The stately compass of the lofty sky;
And in the midst thereof like burning
The flaming chariot of the worlds great
eye;
The watery clouds that, in the air up
roll'd,
With sundry kinds of painted colors
fly;
And fair Aurora, lifting up her head,
Still blushing, rise from old Tithonus' bed;
The hills and mountains raised from the
plains,
The plains extended level with the
ground
The grounds divided into sundry veins,
The veins enclosed with rivers running
round;
These rivers making way through nature s
chains
With headlong course into the sea pro-
found;
The raging sea, beneath the valleys low,
Where lakes and rills and rivulets do
flow;
The lofty woods, the forests wide and
long,
Adornd with leaves and branches fresh
and green,
In whose cool bowers the birds. with
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

Memorial Address Delivered at East
Lake, Ala.)
T1o chronicle in story and song and
speech the exploits Of the noble
l. dead is to receive with open mind
and loyal heart the heritage of the hal
lowed past
Even as 1t is a mark of greatness to
perform deeds worthy of praise so is 1T
a badge of honor to extol those who
wrought them.
1t IS the custom to refer to the dead
as links that bind us to the beautiful
days of the past when their companion
ship gave joy and peace to our lives; just
as much, even more. are they links in
a chain. studded with the gems of hope
and faith that bind us to the coming
time, when with them we shall dwell in
the "house not made with hands. eternal
In the heavens"
And yet we love to think of the days
that are gone, and of scenes past for
ever here, when we walked the ways of
earth with companions, now sleeping be-
meath the sod. o the blessed memory of
those scenes. They come back to us over
the days and the years like the odor of
some half forgotten flower, like frag-
ments of songs, that no voice sings today,
heard in the silence of a summer twi-
light long ago.
So we do well today to salute with
reverent love the old Stars and Bars and
to enshrine anew in our hearts the men
who followed that emblem of heroic sac
rifce and chivalrous courage.
When Alexander the Great lay dead in
an eastern city, the verdict of the world
was that the Macedonian's career had
been one of surprising brilliance and
that his deeds deserved to be told from
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

agerJ which have so imperfeetly ex-
pounded above I have entitled the verses
EARLY PIETY."
Remember thy Creator now,
IN days of youth ere evil come,
Or years draw nigh when thou shalt say
mo pleasure cheers my dreary home"
Fro sun, or light, or moon, or stars.
Sinking in darkness, mock thy pain;
Or ere the lately banished clouds
With rumbing thunders come again.
Fro wornout keepers of the house
Tremble beneath their weary load,
Ere the strong men shall bow themselves,
And grinders quit their old abode.
Ere those that from the windows look
Be darkened as the dreary mind,
Inc doors be shut within the streets,
The aged grinders cease to grind.
Ere music from the warbling birds
Shall make thee rise upon thy feet
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

graveyards at tho old homes some live
today reminders of a courage as high
as that which broke the Persian power
at Salanius, that which climbed the
heights of Sebastopol. as that which car
ried the Lilies of France to victory at
Marengo and Austerlitz, and so as we
decorate today the graves of the gallant
dead, let us thank God that the land
for which they fought Is our land too;
that the south which they loved is great
er and stronger than when the dear eyes
now closed In death. saw its hills and
valleys and wide-extended plains, and
that the south is today tho home OF the
purest patriotism in all our land the
abiding place of the brightest faith in
GIL in all tho world.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

the confines of Greece to the Great River
of the east.
But the dead monarch, called before
the bar of stern and unerring history.
was found guilty of unbridled ambition
and of a greed for power, not stated by
the blood of thousands or by the homage
of vassal kings.
After the fatal day of Waterloo, Ma
poleon, fleeing from a continent on which
he had made and unmade principalities
and powers, and at the caprice of his
will, had overthrown empires and Gre
ated dynasties, was cast, lonely exile,
upon a rock assaiied by waves as stormy
as were the floods of rage and hatred
that beat upon his name in the lands
whose joy he had changed into sorrow,
whose towers and palaces and battle
ments he had laid as low as he had
humbled the spirits of those who dwelt
therein.
Jefferson Davis, shackled and insulted,
victim of fog nen's spite, object of north
ern hate, scared in spirit far above the
narrow limits of his prison cell into the
clear atmosphere of martyr patriots and
found communion there with other souls
that yanquished by unnumered odds,
had known defeat, but never a craven
fear
Finally released, he lived his closing
years in calm dignity. his spirit as free
as the waves of the gulf upon which
from day to day his eyes might look,
lending no heed to furious denunciation,
resting confident of his peoples love and
in serene content awaiting the judgment
of history.
Hannibal defeated on the field of Zama,
fled from his land, accursed and roam
ing, hapless fugitive from state TO state
at last drank the poison of his ring,
brooking but Ill contempt where the knee
had bent, seeing In defeat only the end
of life.
Robert e. Lee, after the arbitrament
of arms had decreed the fall of the Con-
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

TT HE history of literature teaches us
that among many nations the
highest order of poetry has ante
dated prose. Homer's poems were famil-
lar to the Greeks for ages before they
had page of prose that was worth read
Ing When Shakespeare wrote his plays
the English language contained almost
no prose works of any great value. In
order to be educated in those days, 1t
was necessary to know Latin and Greek;
for our great works of English literature,
since so powerfully educational, did not
yer exist. Latin was the medium of com-
munication among the scholars of Gull
tivated Europe. Calvin wrote his theo-
logical works in Latin, Frenchman
though he was. Bacon, English to the
core as he was, wrote his great philo-
soplical works in Latin, and left them
Ito foreign nations and the next age"
Queen Elizabeths greatest councillors
: and statesmen were learned men. The
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05
BY ]. C. HIDDEN, D. D.

And musics daughters sink so low
As ne'er to utter ought that's sweet:
TIL timid spirit quake with fear
OF what IS high, and fears pursue
Within thy way, the almond tree
With hoary fruit shall flourish too.
Ere harmless insects burden thee.
And all thy youthful blood shall fail;
Ere thou shalt go to thy long home,
And weeping mourners tell the tale.
Or ere the silver cord be loosed.
The golden bowl to atoms break.
The pitcher. shiYered at the spring.
No more refreshing trips shall make.
The olstern show the broken wheel,
The muddy vesture of decay
To dust return; the trembling soul
To judgment make its awful way.
Remember, then, thy Maker now.
In days of youth, ere evil come:
Then though this world shall pass ava,
He Il bring thee to a heavenly home.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

federacy, spent no days in useless re-
pining, no hours in unavailing sorrow
greater in the night of defeat than in the
periods of triumph that followed Chan
cellorsvile and the wilderness, looking
up into tie face of his God and seeing
there the will of the Almighty he gave
utterance to thought that will ring
through the centuries, THE noblest word
in all language is Duty" and obeying
the mandate of conscience. he trod, I'M
murmurIng, the pathway that duty
showed
30. when the march and the charge
were over, when the roar of cannon had
died away. when 1.-The Rebel Yell' no
longer carried panic to the northern
heart when the war-worn battle flag,
which had led to victory and glory upon
which shone in unclouded splendor the
stars of Fredericksburg, of Chancellors-
Vile. of Malvern Hill and hundred
stricken fields was furled forever, the
great soldiers heart bled for the wounds
of his people, for the desolate hearth
stonesS for the widow and the orphan
for the brave young men, who in the
dawn Of manhood had
"Felt the wild pulsations
That they felt before the strife,
When they heard their days before them
And the tumult of their life,'
for the old veterans, who had followed
him through days of WEAKNESS, through
nights of pain and hunger, for ruined
lives and SCARED hearts; and yet even
then he gave the ages sublime lesson
in service when rejecting all offers of
great salary without adequate labor, he
earned his daily bread and gave to his
family food and clothing, by meeting
the duties of president of southern
college.
In a great oak forest in Virginia is a
simple monument whose legends, craven
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05
BY A. P. MONTAGUE, D. D.

prey; men to whom life was sweet, but
honor sweeter far; to whom the old roof
tree was dear, but freedom and man
hood dearer yet.
"Come from the four winds, o Breath
And breathe upon these slain
That they may live,
Resting at last in that glorious Land
Where the white flag of peace is never
furled."
And the veterans, young and old, are
sleeping today on the bloody fields Of
Gettysburg and Shiloh. sleeping beneath
the sentinel oaks of Charlottesville and
where the Rappahannock sweeps on its
way to the sea; others are resting in the
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05
,7RT7TE TO THE CONFEDERATE DEAD

councils; In Athens and Sparta, when the
spirit of freedom gave to history Perices
and Demosthenes, Leonidas and the pass
of Thermopylae; in enthralled Hungary
and dismembered Poland, when their sons
reckoned 1t sweet and honorable to die
for the fatherland," in our own land,
when the glory of Yorktown crowned the
struggles of Bunker Hill, New York and
Valley Forge.
In the years and generations to come,
history and tradition will tell the tale Of
the old slouched hat, the ragged coat,
the broken Shoes of men foot-sore and
weary, but men who looked upon death
as the lion looks, men whose eyes were
as the eyes OF the eagle, when from his
mountain crag, he swoops down upon his