er of
the national House of Representatives. He was afterward elected to the
United States Senate in the regular way.

Both in Congress and in the Senate Clay always worked for what he
believed to be the best interests of his country. Ambition, which so
often causes men to turn aside from the paths of truth and honor, had
no power to tempt him to do wrong. He was ambitious to be president,
but would not sacrifice any of his convictions for the sake of being
elected. Although he was nominated by his party three times, he never
became president. It was when warned by a friend that if he persisted
in a certain course of political conduct he would injure his prospects
of being elected, that he made his famous statement, "I would rather be
right than be president."

Clay has been described by one of his biographers as "a brilliant
orator, an honest man, a charming gentleman, an ardent patriot, and a
leader whose popularity was equaled only by that of Andrew Jackson."

Although born in a state in which wealth and ancient ancestry were
highly rated, he was never ashamed of his birth or poverty. Once when
taunted by the aristocratic John Randolph with his lowly origin, he
proudly exclaimed, "I was born to no proud paternal estate. I inherited
only infancy, ignorance, and indigence."

He was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on April 12, 1777, and died in
Washington, June 29, 1852. With only the humble inheritance which he
claimed--"infancy, ignorance, and indigence"--Henry Clay made himself a
name that wealth and a long line of ancestry could never bestow.

THE GREEK SLAVE WHO WON THE OLIVE CROWN

The teeming life of the streets has vanished; the voices of the
children have died away into silence; the artisan has dropped his
tools, the artist has laid aside his brush, the sculptor his chisel.
Night has spread her wings over the scene. The queen city of Greece is
wrapped in slumber.

But, in the midst of that hushed life, there is one who sleeps not, a
worshiper at the shrine of art, who feels neither fatigue nor hardship,
and fears not death itself in the pursuit of his object. With the fire
of genius burning in his dark eyes, a youth works with feverish haste
on a group of wondrous beauty.

But why is this master artist at work, in secret, in a cellar where the
sun never shone, the daylight never entered? I will tell you. Creon,
the inspired worker, the son of genius, is a slave, and the penalty of
pursuing h