Excerpt from Men and Events of Half a Century Bould any reader of this book deem the author to have presumed too much on the public consideration, or to have mistaken the historical and literary tastes of a read ing people, his apology is that he has been tempted by the over-indulgence of the public journals of Cleveland, and some of New York, Boston and Chicago, which have, during a series of years, published most of the papers herein, besides having put the writer off his guard of modesty by each asking in pleasing terms for more copy. He confesses, nevertheless, something akin to parental feel ing for his scattered children of the brain, remembering the happiness or sadness attendant upon their birth 3 and there fore he has called the little wanderers home-wiped their sun browned faces, combed their matted and dishevelled locks, and in some instances set on a patch of new cloth where they seemed somewhat thread-bare, or a little out at the knees or elbows, to make them a trifle more presentable among the few surviving neighbors who saw most of them when they first toddled, and their father was young and hopeful - cherish ing, withal, a parental hope that a new and cultured genera tion may discover something in their forms and faces, and respectful manners, not wholly unattractive, though they be not among the prettiest and best dressed of literary children. 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.