While we cannot approve his course, knowing as we do, in this Christian age, that there are better things to live and labor for than the carrying out of a plan of revenge and hostility towards an enemy, we must admire many things in the character of Hannibal. His courage, his patriotism, his unflinching devotion to the cause he had sworn to live and die for and his faithfulness to what he believed to be his duty, or as he would probably have expressed it his destiny. We must pity him that when he had grown old, disappointed and discouraged, he had no other resource in his troubles but to plunge himself into an unknown world by his own act. In those days of darkness, before the light of the Gospel was shed upon the world, it was considered a brave act to take one's own life when irretrievable disaster had befallen. While learning our lessons from the admirable traits in our hero's character, be thankful that we have that light. CHAPTER XI. IRVING, WASHINGTON. Among the memoirs of my childhood none are more vivid than those connected with the school which I attended up to my tenth year; the schoolhouse, the teachers, the scholars, but above all the school books are well remembered. That was a proud and happy morning somewhere about my eighth birthday when I first carried my new American Manual to school. Now you are puzzled; you have no idea what sort of a book that was. They went out of use long ago, though in this district of which I write the old books were retained longer than in many more favored sections. The American Manual was a book of selections of prose and verse for the use of reading classes, and it was through that old book, that I became familiar with the name and writings of Washington Irving. My first lesson in pathos was "The Widow's Son;" the sad story of "George Somers" impressed me strongly and helped to form a taste for that kind of reading. There was no biographical sketch of the author in those old books, and it was not till long afterwards that I learned anything about the writer of one of my favorite sketches. Washington Irving was a native of New York City. He was of Scotch descent and early orphaned; in consequence of the death of his father his education was conducted by his older brothers, himself being the youngest son of the family. It is said that he was once in the presence of General George Washington for whom he was named, and that the great man patted the little boy on the head upon that occasion. From this you will have some idea of when our author lived. He was born in 1783, and you will remember that General Washington did not die until 1799, so that it is not impossible that this story may be true. As to what that august patting may have had to do with his future career, I cannot guess, though he might thereby have been inspired with a lofty ambition. [Illustration: WASHINGTON IRVING.]