Excerpt from For Honor and Life: A Novel MY father was a born Switzer, Of Canton Berne, and came of a family which for generations had produced soldiers Of fortune, most of whom served in the Swiss regiments Of the French kings. Others Of the Von Astors, who were ever a prolific race, took to the professions and to trade. Among these was a certain Frederic von Astor. Having a shrewd head for busi ness and a turn for science, he betook himself to Elsass, studied practical chemistry, and served a long apprenticeship to the arts of dyeing and calico printing. After a while he received an invitation to proceed to Lancashire, where he Obtained an important position in the house of Peel, Yates Co. But Frederic Astor was too enterprising to serve long in a subordinate capacity. He dropped the von, set up for himself, married a Lancashire wife, and became a British subject and my father. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.