sentatives of nearly all
other foreign nations fled in dismay, but Washburn remained at his
post. Shells exploded close to his office, and fell all around it, but
he did not leave even when Paris was in flames. For a time he was
really the minister of all foreign countries, in Paris; and represented
Prussia for almost a year. The Emperor William conferred upon him the
Order of the Red Eagle, and gave him a jeweled star of great value.

How could the poor boy, Elihu Burritt, working nearly all the daylight
in a blacksmith's shop, get an education? He had but one book in his
library, and carried that in his hat. But this boy with no chance
became one of America's wonders.

When teaching school, Garfield was very poor. He tore his only blue
jean trousers, but concealed the rents by pins until night, when he
retired early that his boarding mistress might mend his clothes. "When
you get to be a United States Senator," said she, "no one will ask what
kind of clothes you wore when teaching school."

Although Michael Angelo made himself immortal in three different
occupations, his fame might well rest upon his dome of St. Peter as an
architect, upon his "Moses" as a sculptor, and upon his "Last Judgment"
as a painter; yet we find by his correspondence now in the British
Museum, that when he was at work on his colossal bronze statue of Pope
Julius II., he was so poor that he could not have his younger brother
come to visit him at Bologna, because he had but one bed in which he
and three of his assistants slept together.

"I was always at the bottom of my purse," said Zola, in describing the
struggles of his early years of authorship. "Very often I had not a
sou left, and not knowing, either, where to get one. I rose generally
at four in the morning, and began to study after a breakfast consisting
of one raw egg. But no matter, those were good times. After taking a
walk along the quays, I entered my garret, and joyfully partaking of a
dinner of three apples, I sat down to work. I wrote, and I was happy.
In winter I would allow myself no fire; wood was too expensive--only on
fete days was I able to afford it. But I had several pipes of tobacco
and a candle for three sous. A three-sous candle, only think of it!
It meant a whole night of literature to me."

James Brooks, once the editor and proprietor of the "New York Daily
Express," and later an eminent congressman, began life as a clerk in a
store in Maine, and