nightingale."

This was followed by an account of the astonishing episode "When Henry
Ward Beecher Sold Slaves in Plymouth Pulpit"; the picturesque journey
"When Louis Kossuth Rode Up Broadway"; the triumphant tour "When General
Grant Went Round the World"; the forgotten story of "When an Actress Was
the Lady of the White House"; the sensational striking of the gold vein
in 1849, "When Mackay Struck the Great Bonanza"; the hitherto
little-known instance "When Louis Philippe Taught School in
Philadelphia"; and even the lesser-known fact of the residence of the
brother of Napoleon Bonaparte in America, "When the King of Spain Lived
on the Banks of the Schuylkill"; while the story of "When John Wesley
Preached in Georgia" surprised nearly every Methodist, as so few had
known that the founder of their church had ever visited America. Each
month picturesque event followed graphic happening, and never was
unwritten history more readily read by the young, or the memories of the
older folk more catered to than in this series which won new friends for
the magazine on every hand.

XXI. A Signal Piece of Constructive Work

The influence of his grandfather and the injunction of his grandmother
to her sons that each "should make the world a better or a more
beautiful place to live in" now began to be manifest in the grandson.
Edward Bok was unconscious that it was this influence. What directly led
him to the signal piece of construction in which he engaged was the
wretched architecture of small houses. As he travelled through the
United States he was appalled by it. Where the houses were not
positively ugly, they were, to him, repellently ornate. Money was wasted
on useless turrets, filigree work, or machine-made ornamentation. Bok
found out that these small householders never employed an architect, but
that the houses were put up by builders from their own plans.

Bok felt a keen desire to take hold of the small American house and make
it architecturally better. He foresaw, however, that the subject would
finally include small gardening and interior decoration. He feared that
the subject would become too large for the magazine, which was already
feeling the pressure of the material which he was securing. He
suggested, therefore, to Mr. Curtis that they purchase a little magazine
published in Buffalo, N. Y., called Country Life, and develop it into a
first-class periodical devoted to the general subject of a better
Amer