Captain Myles Standish - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905. Excerpt: ... MYLES STANDISH THE PILGRIMS' CAPTAIN CHAPTER I THE ENGLAND OF THE PILGRIMS MYLES STANDISH remains in many respects an unexplained figure among the founders of New England. While he was faithful, loyal, zealous, a brave soldier and a true comrade to his fellow-voyagers in the Mayflower, there is nothing to connect him with their religious views or practices. He was not a member of their church, though he attended their services and held various positions of trust in the colony. What were his religious views is not certain; but that he was respected, revered, and beloved cannot be doubted. He came of excellent family, one of those families that made the strength of the England of Elizabeth; and, transplanted by the folly of King James, that same strength has become the bone and sinew of our own country, attracting to itself like sound material, as healthy tissue draws from the blood the elements necessary to its growth and nourishment. England's loss was our great gain. Had we been able to make a tour through England at any time during the early life of Myles Standish, we would have been surprised by many things, great and small. But chiefly, perhaps, we would have been impressed by the contrast between the lives of the nobles and of the common people, between rich and poor. The rich subjects of Elizabeth were restrained by no fashion of simplicity. They tried to outdo one another in gorgeous attire. Silks and satins, laces, gold and silver, jewels, were worn by men as well as women, and the greatest of the Queen's statesmen, warriors, merchants tricked themselves out in costumes so gay that a modern dandy would blush to wear one as gaudy at a masquerade. The great Sir Walter Raleigh wore upon his shoes gems worth thousands of pounds, and his portrait shows...