preacher of the day. She was well nigh as old as the nation,
eighty-eight years old, when she died. Her voice has never died in the
plain meeting-houses of this country and England. I don't know that she
was always right, but she always meant to be right. In Philadelphia,
where she preached, I lived among people for years who could not mention
her name without tears of gratitude for what she had done for them.
There was great opposition to her because she was the first woman
preacher, but all who heard her speak knew she had a divine right of
utterance.

In November, 1880, Disraeli's great novel, "Endymion" was published by
an American firm, Appleton & Co., a London publisher paying the author
the largest cash price ever paid for a manuscript up to that
time--$50,000. Noah Webster made that much in royalties on his spelling
book, but less on one of the greatest works given to the human race, his
dictionary. There was a great literary impulse in American life,
inspired by such American publishing houses as Appleton's, the Harper
Bros., the Dodds, the Randolphs, and the Scribners. It was the brightest
moment in American literature; far brighter than the day Victor Hugo, in
youth, long anxious to enter the French Academy, applied to Callard for
his vote. He pretended never to have heard of him. "Will you accept a
copy of my books?" asked Victor Hugo. "No thank you," replied the other;
"I never read new books." Riley offered to sell his "Universal
Philosophy" for $500. The offer was refused. Great and wise authors have
often been without food and shelter. Sometimes governments helped them,
as when President Pierce appointed Nathaniel Hawthorne to office, and
Locke was made Commissioner of Appeals, and Steele State Commissioner of
Stamps by the British Government. Oliver Goldsmith said: "I have been
years struggling with a wretched being, with all that contempt which
indigence brings with it, with all those strong passions which make