davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

and made him quickly the master of Eu- rope. General Washington did not go to Yorktown to receive the cooperation of the French fleet against Cornwallis, and he made no dehnke calculation on the fleet. The fleet arrived and saved his army and the American cause, which had hung in the scales of war for seven years.
 The wise king said: 'I returned, and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong; neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to all." (Ecclesiastes ix:11.) If that proverb is not notice that luck and merit are evenly matched on this sphere, whatever may be their rela- tions to each other, what is 1t?
 The present legislature of Alabama passed an act-the senate clerk consent ing always-to mark the battlefield of the Horseshoe on the Tallapoosa river. When General Jackson decided to fight the Redsticks at that point he did not ex- pect General Coffee to decide the battle. Nor did he expect the victory, if any, to
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14
THE CHARACTER OF POLONIUS-Bv J. C. Hiden D D.

lcentious circles of Parisian Thigh life"
 In the advice to Opheia we see as much of realness and earnestness as Polonius was capable of and yet the speech, as a whole is coarse low, and utterly un- appreciative of the character and conduct of Ophelia and of Hamlet. And even when most In earnest he cannot leave off his characteristic mouthing, as thus: ("Not to crack the wind of the poor
 pharse,
 wronging 1t thus) you'll tender me a
 fool"
 It is impossible to conceive of an hon. est, straightforward man uttering such vile cant as this, when advising lovely and pure-minded daughter as to a matter which so deeply concerned her honor and her happiness.
 In reporting this interview to the King, Polonius tells, not what he said to Ophe- lia, but what he supposes the King thinks he ought to have said; and this, in plain English, was lying. It must be admitted that in this instance there was no small temptation to lie, but still it is hardly too much to say that all lying is done under temptation of one sort or another We presume that the man who will lie with such volublity that you would think truth were @ fool hardly does his lying out of pure antipathy to the truth but because he has in view some end the attainment of which fur nishes his temptation.
 A servant who can be instructed to lie and to spy on his masters son, and who, without the least show of protest &C., cepts the instructions and promises to follow them, can hardly be supposed to have any high standard of morals or of honor; and yet Polonius, in giving in- structions to Reynaldo, shocks the moral sentiment of just such a servant. The courier thinks that drinking, gambling, swearing, quarreling and "drabbing' Q. q associating with lewd women) are not
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

Polonius said this he thought he was saying really meritorious thing; and we cannot be sure that he did not regard this bit of moralizing as a fair offset to the deceitful eavesdropplng which he was about to practice. A man will hardly do much in the way of deceiving others un- til he has first succeeded in practicing a good deal of deception upon himself. Paul Clifford was obliged to convince himself that society was a grand swindling cor poration before he could be content to take to the highway and live, as he called it, by robbing the robbers.
 II. The Fool.
 In our estimate of the intellectual ca pactity of Poonius we are aware that we are at variance with current opinions The Danish courier Is often spoken Of as a typical "worldy wise man. But we have only to reply that we are not here concerned with the Polonius of the popu- lar opinion but with the Polonius of Shakespeare.
 Shakespeare evidently meant to repre- sent Hamlet as the most intellectual character in the play. He is ''the eour- tiers, soldiers, scohlar's eye, tongue, sword" His insight into human charac- ter is so profound, and his analysis of motive so quick, subtle and acute, as to appear almost instinctive. He skilfully conceals himself from critical dissection; puzzles and terrifies the King and Queen; throws Polonius off the scent, and utterly overwhems Rosencrantz and Gilderstern. Now, such a mans estimate of the lord chamberlain's intellect would seem to be entitled to no small weight in making up our own opinion And what does Ham, let think of him? On three several occa- sions he pronounces the courier fool.
 In Act H. Scene g. when Polonius leaves the prince, who has completely fooled him, Hamlet says. These tedious old fools!' In Act III, Scene B. he advises Ophelia to have the doors shut upon her father "that he may play the fool mo-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14
JACKSON AND THE WAR 182-By John Witherspon
DuBOSe

back 1t is dispatehing Packenham to seize the fairest of our possessions.
 You can also see, my dear Wiliiam.' said the old General, waxing quite warm (having once or twice more toasted the new starr; you can also see what an aw- full mess the situation would have been if the British programme had been car- ried out in full. But Providence willed 1t otherwise All the tangled web that the cunning of English diplomats could weave around our unsuspecting commits sioners at Ghent was torn to pieces and soaked with British blood in half an hour at New Orleans by the never missing ri- fes of my Tennessee and Kentucky pio- neers. And that ended 1t. British diplo- macy could do wonders, but it couldn't provide against such a contingency as that. The British commissioners could throw sand in the eyes of ours at Ghent. but they couldn't help the cold lead that our rinemen sprinked in the faces of their soldiers at New Orleans. Now, Allen, you have the whole story. Now you know how Arkansas was saved At New Orleans. Let's take another little one "
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

prove? Did you ever know a person on this side of driveling idiocy who could not upon occasion give very capital ad- vice? There were plenty of bomb-proof editors during the late war who could tell General Lee how to "beat the Yan- kees" There is hardly a bankrupt in the land who cannot tell you how to make money. The most superlatYe scoundrel in the penitentiary can tell you how to live virtuous life; and even the rich man in hell could tell what his brethren on earth must do in order to get to heaven.
 Wise men do not generally indulge very freely in advice: they know how cheap and how easy it is.
 Polonius takes great credit to himself for discovering Hamlets love for Ophelia; but this gave no proof of discernment. It was an open secret: anybody could see it, and Ophelia had told Polonius all about it.
 Polonius Is utterly deceived as to the cause of Hamlets strange conduct. The King and the Queen had suspicious which pointed very near the truth. and neither of these characters was remarkable for intellect. But Polonius is so thoroughly intoxicated with the idea of Hamlet 8 love for Ophelia, and Is withal so weak and vain as to be utterly impervious to the power of evidence And yet he verify believes, and is ready to wager his head, that he has solved the riddle of Ham, let's conduct.
 In stating his view of the case he goes through a long, tedious, verbose flourish, when directness and simplicity were es- pecially demanded; and in the midst of this rigamarole he tells us that "brevity Is the soul of wit" and that 'to define true madness what is t but to be nothing else but mad?' No wonder that the Queen interrupts this irrelevant trash with the demand: More matter with less art;"-an uncommonly sensible criticism upon Polonius' general style.
 When Polonius "boardsn Hamlet, as he
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

dishonorable to a young gentleman; but the unprinciped servant himself cannot stomach this and fairly remonstrates when his master utters such sentiments It is true that in all this chicanery Po- lonius says that he Is using the bait of falsehood to catch the carp of truth; but this is only saying that he had a motive for his hypocritical lying; and so had every other knave that was ever guilty of it.
 In this dialogue with Reynaldo we have three lines which give us pretty succinct- ly the key to the character and the policy of Polonius. He says
 And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With windlaces, and with essays of bias, By indirections find directions out"
 Here he acknowledges himself a trick ster 'of wisdom and of reach" For ways that are dark Poonius would have been distinguished. if he had had sense enough; but as 1t was he can lay fair claim to the title of a prince in the realm of tricks that are vain"
 In the hypocrisy of Polonius there is one striking feature which deserves special notice: he was one of those hypocrtes who could moralize upon his own hypoc- risy. When he plans the meeting be- tween Hamlet and Ophelia he says to his daughter:
 -"Read on this book, That show of such exercise may color Your loneliness"
 And then to himself;
 -''We are oft to blame in this Iris too much prov d-that with devotions
 visage,
 And pious action we do sugar OCT The devil himself"
 n,t... ..u l.. ,,4&1a ao,,L4 +b,+ ,rha,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

calls 1t, in the scene in which tho prince enters reading, Hamlet completely puzzles him. The contrivance of the meeting be- tween Hamlet and Ophelia utterly mis- carries; for it shows Ophelia's love for him but gives no hint of his for her.
 The play within the play seems to be pretty well understood by the King and Queen, but Polonius appears to be ut terly innocent of suspicion.
 It may be-and it has been-said that Polonius could hardly be both hypocrite and fool that the two characters are in- compatible. But in reply to this we havo only to say granted, if the hypocrisy Is successful. For a man to pursue a course of successful hypocr1sy-to simulate and dissimulate-to carry his point by plot ting and maneuvering in the presence of his adversaries, and then to escape detee- tion and keep down suspicion-arl this does involve intellectual capacity decided ly above the average
 But this Is precisely what Polonius did not do. His schemes egregiously and uniformly failed. He was foiled at every point; outgeneraled on every field; routed in every engagement. Never was trick ster more thoroughly outwitted. Never was weakness more completely exposed. He failed because he had not sense enough to succeed; and he was at last run through the body for lack of brains. If anybody should insist that Polonius had as much sense as the average poi- tician of our own day. we might safely admit this and still hold to our opinion that he was a fool. What man of sense would ever have agreed that the cloud pointed out by the prince was like A camel. a measle and a whale all at once?
 But I think enough has been said to show that Polonius was a tedious old fool; and lest he prove too tedious to the reader, let us say with Hamlet:
 "Thou wretched. rash, intruding fool,
 farewell
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14
HEART TO HEART TALKS-By Edwin A. Nye

will, if 1t is not careful, be merged into
 the crowd. But if the you-the unit
 will protest and persist it will get above
 the crowd and Be somebody
 Every man who has become some
 body, who has done things. has been
 dependent, not upon conditions, not upon relatives nor upon society nor upon luck, but upon himself.
 To be somebody one must be different
 from everybody. There is one grave danger in trying to be somebody, in trying to assert one self, in trying to be different from every body.
 If everybody sees that in trying to be somebody, in holding yourself above
 the crowd, you are egotistic in your ef-
 fort and conceited in your spirit. why
 the crowd will pull you down to Its level, and justly. If you want to be somebody you must be modest about it. All great souls are
 modest and helpful and kindly. l Remember, you are not asserting your self arrogantly over others. You are asserting yourself over your lower self, over your sublimal self You are mak- | ing your higher self dominant | Be somebody-within yourself, of your self, by yourself. Be somebody--in your own soul.
 When you trace the beginnings of a
 great man, behind him you will find a
 noble mother.
 It is notable that great men seldom have great sons. Is it because the son 8
 inheritance of character is divided by two? Ulless he has a great mother as well a great father, the son may in-
 herit but half his fathers talent. On the other hand, if the son has a
 great mother his inheritance seems to
 be multiplied by two, so equable are the
 laws of heredity l. Many great men have been the sons l~of weak or dissolute fathers. The moth CT factor counted.
 Note the Roman Gracchi. The mother of the Gracchi refused the hand of king and the crown of queen to devote herself to her sons. How great was her reward. The father of Savonarola was a prof rligate spendthrift. But go back to his mother. There you find the nobility of nature, the supreme moral courage, of the great preacher re- former, statesman and martyr.
 Methodism came from Susan Wesley. mother of John and Charles. The wide hipped physique and daunt- less spirit of Napoleon's mother made him what he was. Washington's greatness came from his mother.
 Had it not been for his remarkable
 mother James A. Garfield might have spent his life on the Erie canal. It was that widowed mother who gave him /,is aspirations for education and put 7 him the strong religious tendencies of after life. And the mother of Abraham Linf Thomas Lincoln, the father. was good enough sort of his kind. Nancy Hanks Lincoln was one of the earth's
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

where but in s own house.; and, even after he has killed Polonius, he calls him a "wretched rash, intruding foof'. On still another occasion, in a conversation with Guilderstern, he calls Polonius "a great baby" who lis not yet out of his swaddlng clouts."
 But we are not left to make Up our estimate by simply adopting Hamlet; for in the progress of the play We have abundant evidence from which to form an independent judgment The term fool, as applied to a great mans Merry-An- drew, was certainly not applicable to Polonius; for he had no pretensions to wit. Indeed, he is almost as tedious as Mrs. Nickleby herself. Nor was Polo nius fool in precisely the same sense in which Dogberry was. Shakespeare's fools were not alike. The art of the great in- terpreter of human nature Is never moro truly nor more splendidly exhibited than when he employs it in depicting the va- rious phases presented by different char acters of the same general type.
 Polonius was not a professional fool, but fool for the want of sense. In eX pressing this opinion I do not forget what Is sometimes called his admirable advice to Laertes.' This passage Is really very little in my way; for while it is not with out some show of shrewdness, still 1t is a shrewdness such as almost any world ling of our own day could pick up from the pages of Poor Richard or from the proverbial sayings of Josh Billings. The whole thing is little more than a series of superficial Zaws, inculcating the selfish ness of a Chesterfield without his ele- ganee. If father must go through the rather questionable performance of mak- ing a set speech to his own son on part ing with him, l cannot help thinking that the speech ought to be better than this. A man may follow Polonius advice very strictly and yet be neither wise, happy nor useful.
 But even if it were admitted that the advice were admissible what does it
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

NNE battle decides the result in all
 wars however many battles un-
 til then. The decisive battle is al- ways won by some incident of the day, or the hour or the minute which the com manding general never for moment ex- pected.
 For instance, General shafter believed General Wheeler was i'll and did not ex- pect him to command at San Juan. Vince Ter did command and the victory was due solely to his generalship. Had the Amer jeans lost, as they would have done but for Wheeler, the war in Cuba would have been indefinitely prolonged and the com plications of this government with Spain would have been extremely harmful to civil affairs in this country Mir. Lincoln did not expect the removal of General Johnston at Atlanta, but the fact of his removal elected Lincoln for his second term and gave the victory to him in the great war. Napoleon was beaten at Ma rengo and if finally beaten there his star would have been long in eclipse. He had no forethought whatever of the drummer boy whose advice gave him the victory
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

noblest women. It was she-that will derness mother-who bequeathed to him his greatness and his white souled good ness. It was she who, dying in that Spencer county cabin, put her hand on the head of her s-year-old son to say:
 T am going away, my boy, but l want you to be good and useful man."
 Many years after he had stood by the grave of that mother a freckled, hatless. miserable boy, he said "A1l that am or ever hope to be I owe to my angel mdfher."
 Mothersl
 More than you realize, the destiny of your boy lies with you. Tie him to you as by hooks of steel. Pour into his plas- tic soul the noblest and best that Is in you. And so shall he rise up and call you blessed.
 In this day of cure fads and sanitari- ums permit us to suggest one of na- lures cures-the sleep cure.
 Lack of sleep causes Ill health and nervousness You cannot cheat nature and got off scot free.
 Most people are too busy to sleep-too busy making money or taking pleasure.
 The society woman rushes after en- tertainment when she ought to be in bed.
 The working man or working woman is so keen in the desire to get on that the result is overwork and undersleep.
 The housewife worries over the details of her daily task and neglects the re- cuperation of necessary sleep.
 The business man takes his business home with him, wakes up in the night to consider his plans, and the outcome is nervous breakdown,
 Now
 Sleep is the one medicine in all the pharmacopoeia of nature for the Jagged mind and the worn body. It is the great est blessing vouchsafed to tired and weary mortals.
 Shakespeare the wise knew He calls it natures sweet restorer." In seven words he tells it's gracious function-it 'lSnits up the raveled sleeve of care"
 Therefore
 Change your habit.
 Eight hours of sleep may be sufficient for the ordinary person in health. But if you are overstrained in body or mind run down"-go to bed early and get up late.
 Stay in bed nine or ten hours.
 It may not be easy for you to sleep so long at the first But persevere. Rest. Rest and relax. Relax is tho word. Note how your dog will relax when he rests. He throws himself down in utter abandon. Body, head and tail go down in bunch.
 Your nerves are taut as fiddle strings. Take off the strain. Relax.
 Supplemental to this habit of full hours devoted to sleep, take brief nap in the middle of the day.
 If you cannot sleep in midday rest body, muscles. fnerves, brain-rest and relax. If you cannot sleep, relax and doze An instant of forgetfulness will help you. You will wake up in a new world
 Whenever from any cause you are compelled to lose your proper sIeep. make 1t up. Nature will do the rest.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

" HE unlucky liner Republic lies 30 fathoms deep off the island 4 of No Mans sLand-appropriate- ly named-where the choppy waves and the rust will complete her wreck.
 It was the fog that sent the Florida smashing into the ill-fated vessel
 But out of the pail of that nights fog shone a heroism seldom equa1ed in the long annals of the sea-heroism of woman's devotion and mans self sac- riice.
 Said Henry Savage Landor, a trav- eled Englishman, The American wom- en are magnificent in their courage"
 Gray haired srandmothers and slips of girls made the perilous leap from the tossing boats to the gangway of the Baltic without tremor.
 The law of the seas, "Women and children first" which has never been violated in recent years save in the one notable episode of cowardly French crew, made strange happen ings. For instance
 Never will I leave hom!o shouted wife to whom her husband clung. As the man was rudely showed back the woman exclaimed:
 ''He is bind!"
 Then the law of the seas was broken, and the blind husband went into the boat with his wife.
 No less heroic than the others was a lad of IA years. His mother grasped him about the waist as she descended to the boats.
 cJo fn1 fl0 ly fellow. He wrenched himself loose from the arms of his mother to stay with the men.
 These are but hints of the happen ings.
 So that it might seem that awful wreck was worth all it cost, and more, in its vivid revealment of lofty human virtues under stress.
 Captain Sealby, standing the bridge of his ship until it sank be- meath him; Binns at his wireless pierc- ing the air with his pathetic "C. Q. D. officers and crews bearing themselves like supermen. women and children go- ing the perilous ways without a tear these exhibitions of high human quali- ties reveal humanity at its very best.
 Great is the cunning of man to keep his wreck afloat for hours by collision bulkh eads great is the miracle ma chine that sends out its messages to the ships that pass in the night; great Is the ocean.
 But
 Greater than cunning or machine or ocean is man.
 He was a bright little fellow of some years and occupied a seat in the pas senger coach with his mother. Fidgety and full of life, he was quiet scarcely
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

4 MODERN writer on Shakespeare "A has attempted to show that the A play of Hamlet is a dramatic exposition of the religious philosophy of modern times and that the characters of the play are intended to represent tho various religious forces at work in the world.
 Of course this is mere speculation mere theorizing, apart from the facts. This theorst seems to know more about Shakespeare's characters than about Shakespeare himself knew; but still we are obliged to agree with the American humorist who said: Tt is better not to know so much than to know so many things that ain't so.'
 In this article, therefore, there will be no attempt to advocate any pet theory. Of the character of Polonius I shall en- deavor in a plain, common sense way, to give such view may be warranted by the facts in the case. These facts are mainly the words and deeds of Polonius as set forth in the play of Hamlet" I believe that a fair and natural interpre- tation of these words and deeds has led me to the conclusion that Polonius was Q) hypocrite and @ fool.
 And first as to-
 l. His Hypocrisy.
 He is introduced Gin Act l, Scene 9, where he asks the Kings leave for Laer- tes to return to Frances. He pretends that he does not desire Laertes to go and that his "slow leave' has been "wrung" from him by ''laborsome petition" Whether this pretence had been actually kept up in previous interview with La ertes himself does not appear but that 1t was a pretence seems to be clearly indi- cated by the subsequent conduct of Polo nius, who is evidently pleased at the idea of having a son who can hold his own among the drinking, fencing, swear ing, gambling rakes of the corrupt and
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14

''Do sit still!'
 He was bright little fellow of some years and occupied seat in the pas senger coach with his mother. Fidgety and full of life, he was quiet scarcely