regret that I did not embrace some opportunities which occurred to me in
early life for doing so; but at the time I knew the men whom I have
described in the present volume I had no expectation that I should ever
write about them.  My acquaintance with them, however, has served to give
me a more elevated idea of human nature than I otherwise might have
acquired in the ordinary course of mundane affairs, and it is with the
hope of transmitting this impression to my readers that I publish the
present account.  Some of them have a world-wide celebrity, and others who
were distinguished in their own time seem likely now to be forgotten; but
they all deserve well of the republic of humanity and of the age in which
they lived. 

THE EVERGREENS, JANUARY 4, 1905. 

CONTENTS 

* * * * * 

THE CLOSE OF THE WAR