. Boys' heroes . lecannot have one thousand years, or two thousandor more years away. This rule will seem common-place, but it is, in truth, very generally scorned. If I had to write the life of Alexander, in onehundred words, I should say that he had a goodeducation, and profited by it. When he was onlysixteen, Philip, his father, left him in charge ofMacedonia while he was at war. Four years after,Philip died, leaving Alexander king. He was sur-rounded by enemies. But he marched North, andconquered the barbarians, South, and conqueredthe Greeks and then, with the aid of all* of thembut the L
. Boys' heroes . lecannot have one thousand years, or two thousandor more years away. This rule will seem common-place, but it is, in truth, very generally scorned. If I had to write the life of Alexander, in onehundred words, I should say that he had a goodeducation, and profited by it. When he was onlysixteen, Philip, his father, left him in charge ofMacedonia while he was at war. Four years after,Philip died, leaving Alexander king. He was sur-rounded by enemies. But he marched North, andconquered the barbarians, South, and conqueredthe Greeks and then, with the aid of all* of thembut the Lacedaemonians, he overran Asia Minor,Syria and Egypt and conquered Persia, He after-wards marched into India, but did not remain made Babylon his capital and died there atthe age of thirty-two. But when I asked my young friend, Tom Hali- ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 45 day, to write a life of Alexander, after he had beenreading Plutarch for an hour, Tom produced thismemoir, and I found he had used up his hundred. ALEXANDER THE GREAT. words long before the young man came to histhrone. There came a man called Philanicus who hada beautiful white horse, which he offered for thir-teen talents. But when they tried him, he provedto be so vicious that no one dared to ride him. 46 boys heroes. Then Alexander spoke up, and said that it was agreat shame that they should lose such a beautifulhorse for want of a man to ride him. The peopleall laughed at him, when he said that he couldmanage him better than any of them, and they toldhim he could try. Alexander walked up to him, and turned hishead towards the sun, for he had observed that itwas his own shadow that he was afraid of. Hethen threw off his upper garments and gave aspring into the saddle and started him at fullspeed. To tell you the truth, I think Toms method ofwriting history more entertaining than mine. Andthe reason why Plutarchs Lives have been read byalmost all people who could read, now for fifteenhundred and more years sin
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