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The Vicar of Wakefield: Ivanhoe

As soon as he was old enough to read, he literally devoured books. He would not read love-stories or tales of family life. He wanted always yarns of adventure or books of history. As a boy, he was so steeped in chronicles of feudal times, in histories of bygone days, or in accounts of Scottish life, that he was already equipped with his background for "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman," "Kenilworth" and "Quentin Durward," "The Heart of Midlothian" and "Waverley."

He loved Scotland with a passionate devotion that has seldom been equaled. He told Washington Irving that he thought he should die if he could not see the heather at least once a year. He wrote straight out of his heart the lines: Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!

IVANHOE By SIR WALTER SCOTT Condensation by PROF. WILLIAM FENWICK HARRIS "AND I must lie here like a bedridden monk!" exclaimed Ivanhoe, "while the game that gives me freedom or death is played out by the hands of others! Look from the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that you are not marked by the archers beneath. Look once more, and tell me if they yet advance to the storm."