[Illustration: Title page] GOLDEN TREASURY _of_ FAMOUS BOOKS A GUIDE TO GOOD READING FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, AND FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF THOSE WHO LOVE BOOKS By MARJORY WILLISON TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED, AT ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE 1929 Copyright, Canada, 1929 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED PRINTED IN CANADA T. H. BEST PRINTING CO., LIMITED TORONTO, ONT. {v} FOREWORD One day, a little more than a hundred years ago, a boy was walking along a crowded street in London. It is likely that Dick Whittington had walked on the very same street about the time when he heard Bow Bells ring. But this boy was not thinking about the bells of London. He had been reading a story in a book, and he was thinking of the people in the story, especially of a man called Leander who swam across the straits named the Hellespont. The story of Hero and Leander is told in a poem. These two people were in love with one another. But Hero, who was very beautiful, was a priestess of Aphrodite, and she was not supposed to fall in love or marry. Leander lived at Abydos, which is on one side of the straits of the Hellespont. Hero lived in a high tower at Sestos, which is on the other side of the straits. The shores are rocky and dangerous, beautiful to look at, but hazardous for sailors and ships. Tides and winds make it difficult to sail through the straits, and very difficult at times to swim across from shore to shore. Leander used to swim from Abydos to Sestos after nightfall to see Hero, who had become his wife; and Hero, on her high tower, held a lighted lamp that shone like a star to guide Leander so that he would not be dashed on the rocks. {vi} The name of the boy who had been reading the story was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was a country boy, the son of a clergyman, and he was at a boarding school in London. The school was for boys whose parents had not much money or who had no parents living. On a school holiday, after breakfast, at which there was not a great deal to eat, the boys who were boarders were sent out into London and were not expected to come back until nightfall. Sometimes, they had nothing to eat all day long until supper-time. Coleridge was one of the boys who had to spend his holidays in this fashion.