United States or Wallis and Futuna ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
While there they had encountered Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes, their old school chums, at that time cadets at the United States Military Academy. The doings of the four old chums at that time in Gridley are set forth fully in "Dick Prescott's Third Year At West Point." During the weeks spent East, Tom and Harry had taken almost their first steps in the study of metallurgy.
Reading men perused Hall's and Holinshed's huge black-letter folios in Queen Elizabeth's time with as much interest as they do Macaulay's or Prescott's elegant octavos in the reign of her successor, Victoria. Shakespeare drew again and again upon the former for the material of his historical plays; and in writing "Henry VIII.," he adopted often the very language of the Chronicler.
And this moral lesson is conveyed in a most winning and engaging way. The interest of the narrative is kept up to the end with the freshness of a well-constructed work of fiction. It is an interest not derived from stirring adventures, for Mr. Prescott's life was very uneventful, but from its happy portraiture of those delightful qualities of mind and character of which his life was a revelation.
Mr. Irving had planned and made some progress in a work on the Conquest of Mexico, when he learned of Mr. Prescott's intentions, and promptly laid his project aside. His "Life of Washington," originating more than thirty years ago, was repeatedly abandoned, as the successive works of Mr. Sparks, Mr.
Dan Dalzell, another freshman, had been standing back, keeping quiet as long as he could. "See here," proposed Dan, stepping forward, "isn't a freshman allowed to say something when his friend is insulted?" "Go ahead," nodded Thompson, who knew Dan to be one of young Prescott's close friends. "Dick isn't in shape to fight, and I know it," continued Dan Dalzell, hotly.
Dick Prescott's return bow was made with the utmost grace, yet without affectation. His natty straw hat he held in his right hand, close to his breast. Mrs. Davidson was a sensible and motherly woman, who wished to give this young man the pleasantest greeting, but she was plainly at a loss to know what to say.
But the General, acting upon Prescott's advice, had evidently taken his courage in his hands and arrayed himself as one who hoped to conquer. His gigantic figure was enclosed for the first time since Prescott had known him in a well-fitting uniform, and his great black mane of hair and beard had been trimmed by one who knew his business. The effect was striking and picturesque.
"There's Ripley, but where's Prescott?" shouted several. "A-a-ah!" That last cry went up as a sound of relief, when Prescott's brown-haired pate, hatless, bobbed up close to where he had gone down. "Good boy, Prescott!" "Go in and get Ripley." "Save yourself, anyway! Don't be over-foolish!" A dozen more cries went up from cove and shore. Yet it is doubtful if Prescott heard any of them.
"Pretty significant. What are you going to do about it?" he asked. "I'll have to apply for a warrant." "You certainly will." "Well," Curtis went on, "this thing isn't quite so simple as it seems. To begin with, it's my idea that Miss Jernyngham hasn't told us all she knows; you want to remember that Prescott's a good-looking fellow with a taking manner.
The youth of General Wood and himself had been so different that he had never before recognized what there was in this illiterate man to attract a cultivated woman. The crude mountaineer had seemed to him hitherto to be a soldier and nothing else; and soldiership alone, in Prescott's opinion, was very far from making up the full complement of a man.
Word Of The Day