Excerpt from The Casket of Gems You may take it for granted, my boys, that the maxim Never be down-hearted is an es pecial good one. If I had not adopted it, I should never have borne up under the weight of my troubles no, the back of an elephant would not have supported them yet here I am, after all, exhorting you, my boys, never to be down hearted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.