CONTENTS: What is a Golden Deed?
The Stories of Alcestis and Antigone
The Cup of Water
How One Man has saved a Host
The Pass of Thermopylae
The Rock of the Capitol
The Two Friends of Syracuse
The Devotion of the Decii Regulus
The brave Brethren of Judah
The Chief of the Arverni
Withstanding the Monarch in his Wrath
The last Fight in the Coliseum
The Shepherd Girl of Nanterre
Leo the Slave
The Battle of the Blackwater
Guzman el Bueno
Faithful till Death
What is better than Slaying a Dragon
The Keys of Calais
The Battle of Sempach
The Constant Prince
The Carnival of Perth
The Crown of St. Stephen
George the Triller
Sir Thomas More's Daughter
Under Ivan the Terrible Fort
St. Elmo
The Voluntary Convict
The Housewives of Lowenburg
Fathers and Sons
The Soldiers in the Snow
Gunpowder Perils
Heroes of the Plague
The Second of September
The Vendeans

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PREFACE

As the most striking lines of poetry are the most hackneyed, because they have grown to be the common inheritance of all the world, so many of the most noble deeds that earth can show have become the best known, and enjoyed their full meed of fame. Therefore it may be feared that many of the events here detailed, or alluded to, may seem trite to those in search of novelty; but it is not for such that the collection has been made. It is rather intended as a treasury for young people, where they may find minuter particulars than their abridged histories usually afford of the soul-stirring deeds that give life and glory to the record of events; and where also other like actions, out of their ordinary course of reading, may be placed before them, in the trust that example may inspire the spirit of heroism and self-devotion. For surely it must be a wholesome contemplation to look on actions, the very essence of which is such entire absorption in others that self is forgotten; the object of which is not to win promotion, wealth, or success, but simple duty, mercy, and loving-kindness. These are the actions wrought, 'hoping for nothing again', but which most surely have their reward.

The authorities have not been given, as for the most [Page] part the narratives lie on the surface of history. For the description of the Coliseum, I have, however, been indebted to the Abbé Gerbet's Rome Chrétienne; for the Housewives of Lowenburg, and St. Stephen's Crown, to Freytag's Sketches of German Life; and for the story of George the Triller, to Mr. Mayhew's Germany. The Escape of Attalus is narrated (from Gregory of Tours) in Thierry's 'Lettres sur l'Histoire de France;' the Russian officer's adventures, and those of Prascovia Lopouloff, the true Elisabeth of Siberia, are from M. le Maistre; the shipwrecks chiefly from Gilly's 'Shipwrecks of the British Navy;' the Jersey Powder Magazine from the Annual Registrer, and that at Ciudad Rodrigo, from the traditions of the 52nd Regiment.