Project Gutenberg's Eighth Reader, by James Baldwin and Ida C. Bender
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Title: Eighth Reader
Author: James Baldwin
Ida C. Bender
Release Date: November 28, 2009 [EBook #30559]
Language: English
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[Illustration: David Copperfield at Salem House
(See page 23).]
READING WITH EXPRESSION
EIGHTH READER
BY
JAMES BALDWIN
AUTHOR OF "SCHOOL READING BY GRADES--BALDWIN'S READERS,"
"HARPER'S READERS," ETC.
AND
IDA C. BENDER
SUPERVISOR OF PRIMARY GRADES, BUFFALO, NEW YORK
_EIGHT-BOOK SERIES_
NEW YORK ·:· CINCINNATI ·:· CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY.
ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON.
B. & B. EIGHTH READER.
W. P. 2
TO THE TEACHER
The paramount design of this series of School Readers is to help young
people to acquire the art and the habit of reading well--that is, of
interpreting the printed page in such manner as to give pleasure and
instruction to themselves and to those who listen to them. In his eighth
year at school the pupil is supposed to be able to read, with ease and
with some degree of fluency, anything in the English language that may
come to his hand; but, that he may read always with the understanding
and in a manner pleasing to his hearers and satisfactory to himself, he
must still have daily systematic practice in the rendering of selections
not too difficult for comprehension and yet embracing various styles of
literary workmanship and illustrating the different forms of English
composition. The contents of this volume have been chosen and arranged
to supply--or, where not supplying, to suggest--the materials for this
kind of practice.
Particular attention is called both to the high quality and to the wide
variety of the selections herein presented. They include specimens of
many styles of literary workmanship--the products of the best thought of
modern times. It is believed that their study will not only prove
interesting to pupils, but will inspire them with a desire to read still
more upon the same subjects or from the works of the same authors; for
it is only by loving books and learning to know them that any one can
become a really good reader.
The pupils should be encouraged to seek for and point out the particular
passages in each selection that are distinguished for their beauty,
their truth, or their peculiar adaptability to the purpose in view. The
habit should be cultivated of looking for and enjoying the admirable
qualities of any worthy literary production; and special attention
should be given to the style of writing which characterizes and gives
value to the works of various authors. These points should be the
subjects of daily discussions between teacher and pupils.
The notes under the head of "Expression," which follow many of the
lessons, are intended, not only to aid in securing correctness of
expression, but also to afford suggestions for the appreciative reading
of the selections and an intelligent comparison of their literary
peculiarities. In the study of new, difficult, or unusual words, the
pupils should invariably refer to the dictionary.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Brother and Sister _George Eliot_ 11
My Last Day at Salem House _Charles Dickens_ 22
The Departure from Miss Pinkerton's _W. M. Thackeray_ 27
Two Gems from Browning:
I. Incident of the French Camp _Robert Browning_ 36
II. Dog Tray _Robert Browning_ 41
The Discovery of America _Washington Irving_ 43
The Glove and the Lions _Leigh Hunt_ 48
St. Francis, the Gentle _William Canton_ 51
The Sermon of St. Francis _Henry W. Longfellow_ 54
In the Woods _John Burroughs_ 56
Bees and Flowers _Arabella B. Buckley_ 59
Song of the River _Abram J. Ryan_ 64
Song of the Chattahoochee _Sidney Lanier_ 66
War and Peace:
I. War as the Mother of Valor and Civilization
_Andrew Carnegie_ 68
II. Friendship among Nations _Victor Hugo_ 71
III. Soldier, Rest _Sir Walter Scott_ 74
IV. The Soldier's Dream _Thomas Campbell_ 75
V. How Sleep the Brave? _William Collins_ 76
Early Times in New York _Washington Irving_ 77
A Winter Evening in Old New England _J. G. Whittier_ 82
The Old-fashioned Thanksgiving _Donald G. Mitchell_ 84
A Thanksgiving _Robert Herrick_ 92
First Days at Wakefield _Oliver Goldsmith_ 94
Doubting Castle _John Bunyan_ 100
Shooting with the Longbow _Sir Walter Scott_ 108
A Christmas Hymn _Alfred Domett_ 117
Christmas Eve at Fezziwig's _Charles Dickens_ 120
The Christmas Holly _Eliza Cook_ 124
The New Year's Dinner Party _Charles Lamb_ 125
The Town Pump _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 128
Come up from the Fields, Father _Walt Whitman_ 135
The Address at Gettysburg _Abraham Lincoln_ 139
Ode to the Confederate Dead _Henry Timrod_ 140
The Chariot Race _From Sophocles_ 141
The Coliseum at Midnight _Henry W. Longfellow_ 145
The Deacon's Masterpiece _Oliver Wendell Holmes_ 147
Dogs and Cats _Alexandre Dumas_ 154
The Owl Critic _James T. Fields_ 157
Mrs. Caudle's Umbrella Lecture _Douglas William Jerrold_ 161
The Dark Day in Connecticut _J. G. Whittier_ 164
Two Interesting Letters:
I. Columbus to the Lord Treasurer of Spain 167
II. Governor Winslow to a Friend in England 171
Poems of Home and Country:
I. "This is My Own, My Native Land" _Sir Walter Scott_ 174
II. The Green Little Shamrock of Ireland _Andrew Cherry_ 175
III. My Heart's in the Highlands _Robert Burns_ 176
IV. The Fatherland _James R. Lowell_ 177
V. Home _Oliver Goldsmith_ 178
The Age of Coal _Agnes Giberne_ 179
Something about the Moon _Richard A. Proctor_ 183
The Coming of the Birds _Ralph Waldo Emerson_ 187
The Return of the Birds _John Burroughs_ 188
The Poet and the Bird:
I. The Song of the Lark 193
II. To a Skylark _Percy B. Shelley_ 197
Hark, Hark! the Lark _William Shakespeare_ 201
Echoes of the American Revolution:
I. Patrick Henry's Famous Speech 202
II. Marion's Men _W. Gilmore Simms_ 206
III. In Memory of George Washington _Henry Lee_ 209
Three Great American Poems:
I. Thanatopsis _William Cullen Bryant_ 213
II. The Bells _Edgar Allan Poe_ 219
III. Marco Bozzaris _Fitz-Greene Halleck_ 224
The Indian _Edward Everett_ 228
National Retribution _Theodore Parker_ 231
Who are Blessed _The Bible_ 233
Little Gems from the Older Poets:
I. The Noble Nature _Ben Jonson_ 235
II. A Contented Mind _Joshua Sylvester_ 235
III. A Happy Life _Sir Henry Wotton_ 236
IV. Solitude _Alexander Pope_ 237
V. A Wish _Samuel Rogers_ 238
How King Arthur got his Name _Fiona Macleod_ 239
Antony's Oration over Cæsar's Dead Body _William Shakespeare_ 244
Selections to be Memorized:
I. The Prayer Perfect _James Whitcomb Riley_ 250
II. Be Just and Fear Not _William Shakespeare_ 250
III. If I can Live _Author Unknown_ 251
IV. The Bugle Song _Alfred Tennyson_ 251
V. The Ninetieth Psalm _Book of Psalms_ 252
VI. Recessional _Rudyard Kipling_ 253
Proper Names 255
List of Authors 257
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgment and thanks are proffered to Andrew Carnegie for
permission to reprint in this volume his tract on "War as the Mother of
Civilization and Valor"; to the Bobbs-Merrill Company for their courtesy
in allowing us to use "The Prayer Perfect," from James Whitcomb Riley's
_Rhymes of Childhood_; to David Mackay for the poem by Walt Whitman
entitled "Come up from the Fields, Father"; to Charles Scribner's Sons
for the "Song of the Chattahoochee," from the _Poems of Sidney Lanier_;
and, also, to the same publishers for the selection, "The Old-fashioned
Thanksgiving," from _Bound Together_ by Donald G. Mitchell. The
selections from John Burroughs, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James T. Fields,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry W. Longfellow, and
John G. Whittier are used by permission of, and special arrangement
with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers of the works
of those authors.
EIGHTH READER
BROTHER AND SISTER[1]
I. THE HOME COMING
Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another
fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the sound
of the gig wheels to be expected. For if Mrs. Tulliver had a strong
feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound came--that quick
light bowling of the gig wheels.
"There he is, my sweet lad!" Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open;
Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom
descended from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the
tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap--what! are you there?"
Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie
hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue eyes
wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised
himself he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow morning. He was
one of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and at twelve or
thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings,--a lad with a
physiognomy in which it seems impossible to discern anything but the
generic character of boyhood.
"Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon as
his mother was gone out to examine his box, and the warm parlor had
taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know
what I've got in my pockets," nodding his head up and down as a means of
rousing her sense of mystery.
"No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marbles or
cobnuts?" Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it was
"no good" playing with her at those games--she played so badly.
"Marbles! no; I've swopped all my marbles with the little fellows, and
cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see
here!" He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket.
"What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit of
yellow."
"Why, it's--a--new--guess, Maggie!"
"Oh, I can't guess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently.
"Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his
hand back into his pocket, and looking determined.
"No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was
held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I
can't bear guessing. Please be good to me."
[Illustration: The Home Coming.]
Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new fish
line--two new ones--one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I wouldn't go
halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save the money; and
Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't. And here's hooks;
see here!--I say, won't we go and fish to-morrow down by the Round Pool?
And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie, and put the worms on, and
everything--won't it be fun?"
Maggie's answer was to throw her arms around Tom's neck and hug him, and
hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly unwound
some of the line, saying, after a pause:--
"Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You
know, I needn't have bought it, if I hadn't liked."
"Yes, very, very good--I do love you, Tom."
Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks
one by one, before he spoke again. "And the fellows fought me, because I
wouldn't give in about the toffee."
"Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it
hurt you?"
"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large
pocketknife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at
meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added--"I gave
Spouncer a black eye, I know--that's what he got by wanting to leather
me; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me."
"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came a
lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him--wouldn't you, Tom?"
"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions,
only in the shows."
"No; but if we were in the lion countries--I mean in Africa, where it's
very hot--the lions eat people there. I can show it to you in the book
where I read it."
"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."
"But if you hadn't got a gun--we might have gone out, you know, not
thinking just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run toward
us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you do, Tom?"
Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, "But the
lion isn't coming. What's the use of talking?"
"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him. "Just
think what you would do, Tom."
"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly--I shall go and see my
rabbits."
II. THE FALLING OUT
Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad
truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went
out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once
his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all
things--it was quite a different anger from her own. "Tom," she said
timidly, when they were out of doors, "how much money did you give for
your rabbits?"
"Two half crowns and a sixpence," said Tom.
"I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse
upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it to you."
"What for?" said Tom. "I don't want your money, you silly thing. I've
got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always have
half sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes, because I shall
be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're only a
girl."
"Well, but, Tom--if mother would let me give you two half crowns and a
sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket and spend, you know;
and buy some more rabbits with it?"
"More rabbits? I don't want any more."
"Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."
Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie. "You
forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot," he said, his color
heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. "I'll pitch into
Harry--I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You
shan't go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the
rabbits every day."
He walked on again.
"Yes, but I forgot--and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very
sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast.
"You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely; "and I'm sorry I bought you
the fish line. I don't love you."
"Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you, if you
forgot anything--I wouldn't mind what you did--I'd forgive you and love
you."
"Yes, you're a silly--but I never do forget things--I don't."
"Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie, shaking
with sobs, clinging to Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on his
shoulder.
Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone, "Now,
Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?"
"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsedly.
"Didn't I think about your fish line all this quarter, and mean to buy
it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the toffee,
and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?"
"Ye-ye-es--and I--lo-lo-love you so, Tom."
"But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my
lozenge box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish
line down when I'd set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through
my kite, all for nothing."
"But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it."
"Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And
you're a naughty girl, and you shan't go fishing with me to-morrow."
With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the mill.
Maggie stood motionless, except for her sobs, for a minute or two; then
she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic, where she
sat on the floor, and laid her head against the worm-eaten shelf, with a
crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had thought how
happy she should be--and now he was cruel to her. What use was anything,
if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn't she wanted to give
him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She had never been
naughty to Tom--had never meant to be naughty to him.
"Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in
the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the
attic. She was too miserable to be angry.
III. THE MAKING UP
Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be tea
time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her. Well,
then, she would stay up there and starve herself--hide herself behind
the tub, and stay there all night; and then they would all be
frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought as she crept
behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea that
they didn't mind her being there.
Tom had been too much interested in going the round of the premises, to
think of Maggie and the effect his anger had produced on her. He meant
to punish her, and that business having been performed, he occupied
himself with other matters, like a practical person. But when he had
been called in to tea, his father said, "Why, where's the little wench?"
and Mrs. Tulliver, almost at the same moment, said, "Where's your little
sister?"--both of them having supposed that Maggie and Tom had been
together all the afternoon.
"I don't know," said Tom. He didn't want to "tell" of Maggie, though he
was angry with her; for Tom Tulliver was a lad of honor.
"What! hasn't she been playing with you all this while?" said the
father. "She'd been thinking of nothing but your coming home."
"I haven't seen her this two hours," says Tom, commencing on the plum
cake.
"Goodness heart! She's got drowned!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, rising
from her seat and running to the window. "How could you let her do so?"
she added, as became a fearful woman, accusing she didn't know whom of
she didn't know what.
"Nay, nay, she's none drowned," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've been naughty
to her, I doubt, Tom?"
"I'm sure I haven't, father," said Tom, indignantly. "I think she's in
the house."
"Perhaps up in that attic," said Mrs. Tulliver, "a-singing and talking
to herself, and forgetting all about mealtimes."
"You go and fetch her down, Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply, his
perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making him suspect that
the lad had been hard upon "the little un," else she would never have
left his side. "And be good to her, do you hear? Else I'll let you know
better."
Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man;
but he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plum cake, and
not intending to reprieve Maggie's punishment, which was no more than
she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in grammar
and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open questions, but
he was particularly clear and positive on one point--namely, that he
would punish everybody who deserved it; why, he wouldn't have minded
being punished himself, if he deserved it; but, then, he never did
deserve it.
It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs, when her need
of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with her
swollen eyes and disheveled hair to beg for pity. At least her father
would stroke her head and say, "Never mind, my wench."
But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently with the
sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs and
said, "Maggie, you're to come down." But she rushed to him and clung
round his neck, sobbing, "O Tom, please forgive me--I can't bear it--I
will always be good--always remember things--do love me--please, dear
Tom!"
Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and so she could
rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way;
and there were tender fibers in the lad that had been used to answer to
Maggie's fondling; so that he behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent
with his resolution to punish her as much as she deserved; he actually
began to kiss her in return, and say:--
"Don't cry, then, Magsie--here, eat a bit o' cake." Maggie's sobs began
to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit a piece; and
then Tom bit a piece, just for company, and they ate together and rubbed
each other's cheeks and brows and noses together, while they ate, with a
humiliating resemblance to two friendly ponies.
"Come along, Magsie, and have tea," said Tom at last, when there was no
more cake except what was downstairs.
So ended the sorrows of this day.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 1: From "The Mill on the Floss," by George Eliot.]
MY LAST DAY AT SALEM HOUSE[2]
I pass over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of my
birthday came round in March. The great remembrance by which that time
is marked in my mind seems to have swallowed up all lesser
recollections, and to exist alone.
It is even difficult for me to believe there was a gap of full two
months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that
birthday. I can only understand that the fact was so, because I know it
must have been so; otherwise I should feel convinced there was no
interval, and that the one occasion trod upon the other's heels.
How well I recollect the kind of day it was! I smell the fog that hung
about the place; I see the hoar-frost ghostly, through it; I feel my
rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective of
the schoolroom, with a spluttering candle here and there to light up the
foggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the
raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon the
floor.
It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the playground,
when Mr. Sharp entered and said, "David Copperfield is to go into the
parlor."
I expected a hamper from home, and brightened at the order. Some of the
boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the distribution
of the good things, as I got out of my seat with great alacrity.
"Don't hurry, David," said Mr. Sharp. "There's time enough, my boy,
don't hurry."
I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if I
had given it a thought; but I gave it none until afterward. I hurried
away to the parlor; and there I found Mr. Creakle, sitting at his
breakfast with the cane and newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle with
an opened letter in her hand. But no hamper.
"David Copperfield," said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, and
sitting down beside me, "I want to speak to you very particularly. I
have something to tell you, my child."
Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without looking
at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast.
"You are too young to know how the world changes every day," said Mrs.
Creakle, "and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn
it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old,
some of us at all times of our lives."
I looked at her earnestly.
"When you came away from home at the end of the vacation," said Mrs.
Creakle, after a pause, "were they all well?" After another pause, "Was
your mamma well?"
I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her
earnestly, making no attempt to answer.
"Because," said she, "I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning your
mamma is very ill."
A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to move
in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my face,
and it was steady again.
"She is very dangerously ill," she added.
I knew all now.
"She is dead." There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out
into a desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world.
She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me alone
sometimes; and I cried and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and cried
again. When I could cry no more, I began to think; and then the
oppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that
there was no ease for.
And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighed
upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house shut
up and hushed. I thought of the little baby, who, Mrs. Creakle said, had
been pining away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too. I
thought of my father's grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of my
mother lying there beneath the tree I knew so well.
I stood upon a chair when I was left alone, and looked into the glass to
see how red my eyes were, and how sorrowful my face. I considered, after
some hours were gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they
seemed to be, what, in connection with my loss, it would affect me most
to think of when I drew near home--for I was going home to the funeral.
I am sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the
rest of the boys, and that I was important in my affliction.
If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I remembered
that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, when I walked in
the playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. When I saw
them glancing at me out of the windows, as they went up to their
classes, I felt distinguished, and looked more melancholy, and walked
slower. When school was over, and they came out and spoke to me, I felt
it rather good in myself not to be proud to any of them, and to take
exactly the same notice of them all, as before.
I was to go home next night; not by the mail, but by the heavy night
coach, which was called the Farmer, and was principally used by country
people traveling short intermediate distances upon the road. We had no
story telling that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending me his
pillow. I don't know what good he thought it would do me, for I had one
of my own; but it was all he had to lend, poor fellow, except a sheet of
letter paper full of skeletons; and that he gave me at parting, as a
soother of my sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind.
I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then that
I left it, never to return. We traveled very slowly all night, and did
not get into Yarmouth before nine or ten o'clock in the morning. I
looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there; and instead of him a
fat, short-winded, merry-looking little old man in black, with rusty
little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings,
and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach window, and said,
"Master Copperfield?"
"Yes, sir."
"Will you come with me, young sir, if you please," he said, opening the
door, "and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home!"
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 2: From "David Copperfield," by Charles Dickens.]
EXPRESSION: The two stories which you have just read were written
by two of the greatest masters of fiction in English literature.
Talk with your teacher about George Eliot and Charles Dickens, and
learn all that you can about their works. Which of these two
stories do you prefer? Why?
Reread the conversation on pages 14 and 15. Imagine yourself to be
Tom or Maggie, and speak just as he or she did. Read the
conversation on pages 16 and 17 in the same way. Reread other
portions that you like particularly well.
In what respect does the second story differ most strongly from the
first? Select the most striking passage and read it with expression
sad feeling.
THE DEPARTURE FROM MISS PINKERTON'S[3]
I
One sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of
Miss Pinkerton's Academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large
family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat
coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an
hour.
A black servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman,
uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss
Pinkerton's shining brass plate; and as he pulled the bell, at least a
score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the
stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized
the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself,
rising over some geranium pots in the window of that lady's own drawing
room.
"It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima. "Sambo, the black
servant, has just rung the bell; and the coachman has a new red
waistcoat."
"Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss
Sedley's departure?" asked Miss Pinkerton, that majestic lady, the
friend of the famous literary man, Dr. Johnson, the author of the great
"Dixonary" of the English language, called commonly the great
Lexicographer.
"The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister,"
answered Miss Jemima. "We have made her a bowpot."
"Say a bouquet, sister Jemima; 'tis more genteel."
"Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack. I have put up two bottles of
the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt for making it is
in Amelia's box."
"And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss Sedley's
account. That is it, is it? Very good! Ninety-three pounds, four
shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley, Esquire, and to
seal this billet which I have written to his lady."
II
In Miss Jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss Pinkerton,
was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a letter from a
sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they
were about to be married, and once when poor Miss Birch died of the
scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to write personally to the
parents of her pupils.
In the present instance Miss Pinkerton's "billet" was to the following
effect:--
_The Mall, Chiswick, June 15._
MADAM:
After her six years' residence at the Mall, I have the honor and
happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her parents, as a
young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their
polished and refined circle. Those virtues which characterize the
young English gentlewomen; those accomplishments which become her
birth and station, will not be found wanting in the amiable Miss
Sedley, whose industry and obedience have endeared her to her
instructors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed
her aged and her youthful companions.
In music, dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroidery
and needle-work she will be found to have realized her friends'
fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be desired; and
a careful and undeviating use of the back-board, for four hours
daily during the next three years, is recommended as necessary to
the acquirement of that dignified deportment and carriage so
requisite for every young lady of fashion.
In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be
found worthy of an establishment which has been honored by the
presence of The Great Lexicographer and the patronage of the
admirable Mrs. Chapone. In leaving them all, Miss Amelia carries
with her the hearts of her companions and the affectionate regards
of her mistress, who has the honor to subscribe herself,
Madam your most obliged humble servant,
BARBARA PINKERTON.
P.S.--Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is particularly
requested that Miss Sharp's stay in Russell Square may not exceed
ten days. The family of distinction with whom she is engaged as
governess desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as
possible.
This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her own name
and Miss Sedley's in the flyleaf of a Johnson's Dictionary, the
interesting work which she invariably presented to her scholars on their
departure from the Mall. On the cover was inserted a copy of "Lines
addressed to a Young Lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton's School, at the
Mall; by the late revered Dr. Samuel Johnson." In fact, the
Lexicographer's name was always on the lips of this majestic woman, and
a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her
fortune.
Being commanded by her elder sister to get "The Dixonary" from the
cupboard, Miss Jemima had extracted two copies of the book from the
receptacle in question. When Miss Pinkerton had finished the inscription
in the first, Jemima, with rather a dubious and timid air, handed her
the second.
"For whom is this, Miss Jemima?" said Miss Pinkerton with awful
coldness.
"For Becky Sharp," answered Jemima, trembling very much, and blushing
over her withered face and neck, as she turned her back on her sister.
"For Becky Sharp. She's going, too."
"MISS JEMIMA!" exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the largest capitals. "Are
you in your senses? Replace the Dixonary in the closet, and never
venture to take such a liberty in future."
With an unusual display of courage, Miss Jemima mildly protested: "Well,
sister, it's only two and nine-pence, and poor Becky will be miserable
if she doesn't get one."
"Send Miss Sedley instantly to me," was Miss Pinkerton's only answer.
And, venturing not to say another word, poor Jemima trotted off,
exceedingly flurried and nervous, while the two pupils, Miss Sedley and
Miss Sharp, were making final preparations for their departure for Miss
Sedley's home.
III
Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, and the
bonnet boxes of Miss Sedley having been arranged by Mr. Sambo in the
carriage, together with a very small and weather-beaten old cowskin
trunk with Miss Sharp's card neatly nailed upon it, which was delivered
by Sambo with a grin, and packed by the coachman with a corresponding
sneer, the hour for parting came; and the grief of that moment was
considerably lessened by the admirable discourse which Miss Pinkerton
addressed to her pupil.
Not that the parting speech caused Amelia to philosophize, or that it
armed her in any way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was
intolerably dull, and having the fear of her schoolmistress greatly
before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give
way to any ablutions of private grief. A seed cake and a bottle of wine
were produced in the drawing room, as on the solemn occasions of the
visits of parents; and these refreshments being partaken of, Miss Sedley
was at liberty to depart.
"You'll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton, Becky!" said Miss
Jemima to that young lady, of whom nobody took any notice, and who was
coming downstairs with her own bandbox.
"I suppose I must," said Miss Sharp calmly, and much to the wonder of
Miss Jemima; and the latter having knocked at the door, and receiving
permission to come in, Miss Sharp advanced in a very unconcerned manner,
and said in French, and with a perfect accent, "_Mademoiselle, je viens
vous faire mes adieux_."[4]
Miss Pinkerton did not understand French, as we know; she only directed
those who did. Biting her lips and throwing up her venerable and
Roman-nosed head, she said, "Miss Sharp, I wish you a good morning."
As she spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of adieu and to give Miss
Sharp an opportunity of shaking one of the fingers of the hand, which
was left out for that purpose. Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with
a very frigid smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the proffered
honor; on which Miss Pinkerton tossed up her turban more indignantly
than ever. In fact, it was a little battle between the young lady and
the old one, and the latter was worsted.
"Come away, Becky," said Miss Jemima, pulling the young woman away in
great alarm; and the drawing room door closed upon her forever.
[Illustration: The Parting.]
Then came the struggle and parting below. Words refuse to tell it. All
the servants were there in the hall--all the dear friends--all the young
ladies--even the dancing master, who had just arrived; and there was
such a scuffling and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the
hysterical _yoops_ of Miss Schwartz, the parlor boarder, as no pen can
depict, and as the tender heart would feign pass over.
The embracing was finished; they parted--that is, Miss Sedley parted
from her friends. Miss Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some
minutes before. Nobody cried for leaving _her_.
Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door on his young weeping
mistress. He sprang up behind the carriage.
"Stop!" cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel.
"It's some sandwiches, my dear," she called to Amelia. "You may be
hungry, you know; and, Becky--Becky Sharp--here's a book for you, that
my sister--that is, I--Johnson's Dixonary, you know. You mustn't leave
us without that. Good-by! Drive on, coachman!--God bless you! Good-by."
Then the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome with emotion.
But lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp suddenly put her
pale face out of the window, and flung the book back into the
garden--flung it far and fast--watching it fall at the feet of
astonished Miss Jemima; then sank back in the carriage, exclaiming, "So
much for the 'Dixonary'; and thank God I'm out of Chiswick!"
The shock of such an act almost caused Jemima to faint with terror.
"Well, I never--" she began. "What an audacious--" she gasped. Emotion
prevented her from completing either sentence.
The carriage rolled away; the great gates were closed; the bell rang for
the dancing lesson. The world is before the two young ladies; and so,
farewell to Chiswick Mall!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: From "Vanity Fair," by William Makepeace Thackeray.]
[Footnote 4: "Madam, I have come to tell you good-by."]
EXPRESSION: By many able critics, Thackeray is regarded as a
greater novelist than either Dickens or George Eliot. Compare this
extract from one of his best works with the two selections which
precede it. Which of the three stories is the most interesting to
you? Which sounds the best when read aloud? Which is the most
humorous? Which is the most pathetic?
Reread the three selections very carefully. Now tell what you
observe about the style of each. In what respects is the style of
the third story different from that of either of the others? Reread
Miss Pinkerton's letter. What peculiarities do you observe in it?
Select and reread the most humorous passage in this last story.
TWO GEMS FROM BROWNING
I. INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP
In the small kingdom of Bavaria, on the south bank of the Danube River,
there is a famous old city called Ratisbon. It is not a very large city,
but its history can be traced far back to the time when the Romans had a
military camp there which they used as an outpost against the German
barbarians. At one time it ranked among the most flourishing towns of
Germany.
It is now of little commercial importance--a quaint and quiet old place,
with a fine cathedral and many notable buildings which testify to its
former greatness.
During the earlier years of the nineteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte,
emperor of the French, was engaged in bitter warfare with Austria and
indeed with nearly the whole of Europe. In April, 1809, the Austrian
army, under Grand Duke Charles, was intrenched in Ratisbon and the
neighboring towns. There it was attacked by the French army commanded by
Napoleon himself and led by the brave Marshal Lannes, Duke of
Montebello.
The battle raged, first on this side of the city, then on that, and for
several days no one could tell which of the combatants would be
victorious. At length Napoleon decided to end the matter by storming the
city and, if possible, driving the archduke from his stronghold. He,
therefore, sent Marshal Lannes forward to direct the battle, while he
watched the conflict and gave commands from a distance. For a long time
the issue seemed doubtful, and not even Napoleon could guess what the
result would be. Late in the day, however, French valor prevailed, the
Austrians were routed, and Marshal Lannes forced his way into the city.
It was at this time that the incident described so touchingly in the
following poem by Robert Browning is supposed to have taken place. We do
not know, nor does any one know, whether the story has any foundation in
fact. It illustrates, however, the spirit of bravery and self-sacrifice
that prevailed among the soldiers of Napoleon; and such an incident
might, indeed, have happened not only at Ratisbon, but at almost any
place where the emperor's presence urged his troops to victory. For,
such was Napoleon's magic influence and such was the love which he
inspired among all his followers, that thousands of young men were ready
cheerfully to give their lives for the promotion of his selfish
ambition.
The poem, which is now regarded as one of the classics of our language,
was first published in 1843, in a small volume entitled "Dramatic
Lyrics." The same volume contained the well-known rime of "The Pied
Piper of Hamelin." Robert Browning was at that time a young man of
thirty, and most of the poems which afterwards made him famous were
still unwritten.
BROWNING'S POEM
You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away,
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming day:
With neck outthrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.
Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,"--
Out 'twixt the battery smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.
Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect
By just his horse's mane, a boy:
You hardly could suspect--
(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.
[Illustration: "We've got you Ratisbon!"]
"Well," cried he, "Emperor by God's grace
We've got you Ratisbon!
The Marshal's in the market place,
And you'll be there anon
To see your flag bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart's desire,
Perched him!" The chiefs eye flashed; his plans
Soared up again like fire.
The chief's eye flashed; but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother eagle's eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes;
"You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
"I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside,
Smiling, the boy fell dead.
EXPRESSION: This is a difficult selection to read properly and with
spirit and feeling. Study each stanza until you understand it
thoroughly. Practice reading the following passages, giving the
proper emphasis and inflections.
_You know, we French stormed Ratisbon.
With neck outthrust you fancy how.
"We've got you Ratisbon!"
"You're wounded!" "Nay, I'm killed, Sire!"_
WORD STUDY: _Napoleon_, _Ratisbon_, _Bavaria_, _Lannes_; _anon_,
_vans_, _sheathes_, _eaglet_, _Sire_.
Explain: "_To see your flag bird flap his vans._" "_His plans
soared up again like fire._"
[Illustration]
II. DOG TRAY[5]
A beggar child
Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird
Sang to herself at careless play,
And fell into the stream. "Dismay!
Help, you standers-by!" None stirred.
Bystanders reason, think of wives
And children ere they risk their lives.
Over the balustrade has bounced
A mere instinctive dog, and pounced
Plumb on the prize. "How well he dives!"
"Up he comes with the child, see, tight
In mouth, alive, too, clutched from quite
A depth of ten feet--twelve, I bet!
Good dog! What, off again? There's yet
Another child to save? All right!"
"How strange we saw no other fall!
It's instinct in the animal.
Good dog! But he's a long time under:
If he got drowned, I should not wonder--
Strong current, that against the wall!
"Here he comes, holds in mouth this time
--What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!
Now, did you ever? Reason reigns
In man alone, since all Tray's pains
Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!"
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 5: By Robert Browning.]
EXPRESSION: Read the story silently, being sure that you understand
it clearly. Then read each passage aloud, giving special attention
to emphasis and inflections. Answer these questions by reading from
the poem:
Where was the child? What did she do?
What did some one cry out?
Why did not the bystanders help?
What did the dog do?
What did one bystander say?
What did another say when the dog came up?
What did he say when the dog went back?
Read correctly: "_Well, that's prime!_" "_Now, did you ever?_"
"_All right!_" "_If he got drowned, I should not wonder._"
In what respects do these two poems differ from your favorite poems
by Longfellow or Tennyson? Do you think there is much music in
them?
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA[6]
It was on Friday morning, the 12th of October, that Columbus first
beheld the New World. As the day dawned he saw before him a level
island, several leagues in extent, and covered with trees like a
continual orchard. Though apparently uncultivated, it was populous, for
the inhabitants were seen issuing from all parts of the woods and
running to the shore. They stood gazing at the ships, and appeared, by
their attitudes and gestures, to be lost in astonishment.
Columbus made signal for the ships to cast anchor and the boats to be
manned and armed. He entered his own boat richly attired in scarlet and
holding the royal standard; while Martin Alonzo Pinzon and his brother
put off in company in their boats, each with a banner of the enterprise
emblazoned with a green cross, having on either side the letters F and
Y, the initials of the Castilian monarchs Fernando and Ysabel,
surmounted by crowns.
As he approached the shore, Columbus, who was disposed for all kinds of
agreeable impressions, was delighted with the purity and suavity of the
atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the sea, and the extraordinary
beauty of the vegetation. He beheld also fruits of an unknown kind upon
the trees which overhung the shores. On landing he threw himself on his
knees, kissed the earth, and returned thanks to God with tears of joy.
His example was followed by the rest, whose hearts indeed overflowed
with the same feelings of gratitude. Columbus then rising drew his
sword, displayed the royal standard, and, assembling round him the two
captains and the rest who had landed, he took solemn possession in the
name of the Castilian sovereigns, giving the island the name of San
Salvador. Having complied with the requisite forms and ceremonies, he
called upon all present to take the oath of obedience to him as admiral
and viceroy, representing the persons of the sovereigns.
The feelings of the crew now burst forth in the most extravagant
transports. They had recently considered themselves devoted men hurrying
forward to destruction; they now looked upon themselves as favorites of
fortune and gave themselves up to the most unbounded joy. They thronged
around the admiral with overflowing zeal, some embracing him, others
kissing his hands.
Those who had been most mutinous and turbulent during the voyage were
now most devoted and enthusiastic. Some begged favors of him, as if he
had already wealth and honors in his gift. Many abject spirits, who had
outraged him by their insolence, now crouched at his feet, begging
pardon for all the trouble they had caused him and promising the
blindest obedience for the future.
The natives of the island, when at the dawn of day they had beheld the
ships hovering on their coast, had supposed them monsters which had
issued from the deep during the night. They had crowded to the beach and
watched their movements with awful anxiety. Their veering about
apparently without effort, and the shifting and furling of their sails,
resembling huge wings, filled them with astonishment. When they beheld
their boats approach the shore, and a number of strange beings clad in
glittering steel, or raiment of various colors, landing upon the beach,
they fled in affright to the woods.
Finding, however, that there was no attempt to pursue or molest them,
they gradually recovered from their terror and approached the Spaniards
with great awe, frequently prostrating themselves on the earth and
making signs of adoration. During the ceremonies of taking possession,
they remained gazing in timid admiration at the complexion, the beards,
the shining armor and splendid dress of the Spaniards. The admiral
particularly attracted their attention, from his commanding height, his
air of authority, his dress of scarlet, and the deference which was paid
him by his companions; all which pointed him out to be the commander.
When they had still further recovered from their fears, they approached
the Spaniards, touched their beards and examined their hands and faces,
admiring their whiteness. Columbus was pleased with their gentleness and
confiding simplicity, and soon won them by his kindly bearing. They now
supposed that the ships had sailed out of the crystal firmament which
bounded their horizon, or had descended from above on their ample wings,
and that these marvelous beings were inhabitants of the skies.
The natives of the island were no less objects of curiosity to the
Spaniards, differing as they did from any race of men they had ever
seen. Their appearance gave no promise of either wealth or civilization,
for they were entirely naked and painted with a variety of colors. With
some it was confined merely to a part of the face, the nose, or around
the eyes; with others it extended to the whole body and gave them a wild
and fantastic appearance.
Their complexion was of a tawny, or copper hue, and they were entirely
destitute of beards. Their hair was not crisped, like the recently
discovered tribes of the African coast, under the same latitude, but
straight and coarse, partly cut short above the ears, but some locks
were left long behind and falling upon their shoulders. Their features,
though obscured and disfigured by paint, were agreeable; they had lofty
foreheads and remarkably fine eyes. They were of moderate stature and
well shaped.
As Columbus supposed himself to have landed on an island at the
extremity of India, he called the natives by the general name of
Indians, which was universally adopted before the true nature of his
discovery was known, and has since been extended to all the aboriginals
of the New World.
The islanders were friendly and gentle. Their only arms were lances,
hardened at the end by fire, or pointed with a flint, or the teeth or
bone of a fish. There was no iron to be seen, nor did they appear
acquainted with its properties; for, when a drawn sword was presented to
them, they unguardedly took it by the edge.
Columbus distributed among them colored caps, glass beads, hawks' bells
and other trifles, such as the Portuguese were accustomed to trade with
among the nations of the gold coast of Africa. They received them
eagerly, hung the beads round their necks, and were wonderfully pleased
with their finery, and with the sound of the bells. The Spaniards
remained all day on shore refreshing themselves, after their anxious
voyage, amid the beautiful groves of the island, and returned on board
late in the evening, delighted with all they had seen.
The island where Columbus had thus, for the first time, set his foot
upon the New World, was called by the natives Guanahane. It still
retains the name of San Salvador, which he gave to it, though called by
the English Cat Island.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 6: From "The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus," by
Washington Irving.]
THE GLOVE AND THE LIONS[7]
King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day as his lions fought, sat looking on the court;
The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride,
And 'mong them sat the Count de Lorge with one for whom he sighed:
And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valor, and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.
Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their
paws;
With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another,
Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thundrous smother;
The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air;
Said Francis then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."
[Illustration: The Glove and the Lions.]
De Lorge's love o'erheard the King,--a beauteous lively dame
With smiling lips and sharp, bright eyes, which always seemed the same:
She thought, "The Count, my lover, is brave as brave can be;
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me;
King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine;
I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine."
She dropped her glove, to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;
He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild:
His leap was quick, return was quick, he has regained his place,
Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face.
"Well done!" cried Francis, "bravely done!" and he rose from where he
sat:
"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 7: By Leigh Hunt, an English essayist and poet (1784-1859).]
EXPRESSION: Read this poem silently, trying to understand fully the
circumstances of the story: (1) the time; (2) the place; (3) the
character of the leading actors. Then read aloud each stanza with
feeling and expression.
ST. FRANCIS, THE GENTLE[8]
Seven hundred years ago, Francis the gentlest of the saints was born in
Assisi, the quaint Umbrian town among the rocks; and for twenty years
and more he cherished but one thought, and one desire, and one hope; and
these were that he might lead the beautiful and holy and sorrowful life
which our Master lived on earth, and that in every way he might resemble
Him in the purity and loveliness of his humanity.
Not to men alone but to all living things on earth and air and water was
St. Francis most gracious and loving. They were all his little brothers
and sisters, and he forgot them not, still less scorned or slighted
them, but spoke to them often and blessed them, and in return they
showed him great love and sought to be of his fellowship. He bade his
companions keep plots of ground for their little sisters the flowers,
and to these lovely and speechless creatures he spoke, with no great
fear that they would not understand his words. And all this was a
marvelous thing in a cruel time, when human life was accounted of slight
worth by fierce barons and ruffling marauders.
For the bees he set honey and wine in the winter, lest they should feel
the nip of the cold too keenly; and bread for the birds, that they all,
but especially "my brother Lark," should have joy of Christmastide, and
at Rieti a brood of redbreasts were the guests of the house and raided
the tables while the brethren were at meals; and when a youth gave St.
Francis the turtledoves he had snared, the Saint had nests made for
them, and there they laid their eggs and hatched them, and fed from the
hands of the brethren.
Out of affection a fisherman once gave him a great tench, but he put it
back into the clear water of the lake, bidding it love God; and the fish
played about the boat till St. Francis blessed it and bade it go.
"Why dost thou torment my little brothers the Lambs," he asked of a
shepherd, "carrying them bound thus and hanging from a staff, so that
they cry piteously?" And in exchange for the lambs he gave the shepherd
his cloak. And at another time seeing amid a flock of goats one white
lamb feeding, he was concerned that he had nothing but his brown robe to
offer for it (for it reminded him of our Lord among the Pharisees); but
a merchant came up and paid for it and gave it him, and he took it with
him to the city and preached about it so that the hearts of those
hearing him were melted. Afterwards the lamb was left in the care of a
convent of holy women, and to the Saint's great delight, these wove him
a gown of the lamb's innocent wool.
Fain would I tell of the coneys that took refuge in the folds of his
habit, and of the swifts which flew screaming in their glee while he was
preaching; but now it is time to speak of the sermon which he preached
to a great multitude of birds in a field by the roadside, when he was on
his way to Bevagno. Down from the trees flew the birds to hear him, and
they nestled in the grassy bosom of the field, and listened till he had
done. And these were the words he spoke to them:--
"Little birds, little sisters mine, much are you holden to God your
Creator; and at all times and in every place you ought to praise Him.
Freedom He has given you to fly everywhere; and raiment He has given
you, double and threefold. More than this, He preserved your kind in the
Ark, so that your race might not come to an end. Still more do you owe
Him for the element of air, which He has made your portion. Over and
above, you sow not, neither do you reap; but God feeds you, and gives
you streams and springs for your thirst; the mountains He gives you, and
the valleys for your refuge, and the tall trees wherein to build your
nests. And because you cannot sew or spin, God takes thought to clothe
you, you and your little ones. It must be, then, that your Creator loves
you much, since He has granted you so many benefits. Be on your guard
then against the sin of ingratitude, and strive always to give God
praise."
And when the Saint ceased speaking, the birds made such signs as they
might, by spreading their wings and opening their beaks, to show their
love and pleasure; and when he had blessed them with the sign of the
cross, they sprang up, and singing songs of unspeakable sweetness, away
they streamed in a great cross to the four quarters of heaven.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 8: By William Canton, an English journalist and poet (1845- ).]
THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS[9]
Up soared the lark into the air,
A shaft of song, a winged prayer,
As if a soul, released from pain,
Were flying back to heaven again.
St. Francis heard; it was to him
An emblem of the Seraphim;
The upward motion of the fire,
The light, the heat, the heart's desire.
Around Assisi's convent gate
The birds, God's poor who cannot wait,
From moor and mere and darksome wood,
Came flocking for their dole of food.
"O brother birds," St. Francis said,
"Ye come to me and ask for bread,
But not with bread alone to-day
Shall ye be fed and sent away.
"Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds,
With manna of celestial words;
Not mine, though mine they seem to be,
Not mine, though they be spoken through me.
"Oh, doubly are ye bound to praise
The great creator in your lays;
He giveth you your plumes of down,
Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown.
"He giveth you your wings to fly
And breathe a purer air on high,
And careth for you everywhere
Who for yourselves so little care."
With flutter of swift wings and songs
Together rose the feathered throngs
And, singing, scattered far apart;
Deep peace was in St. Francis' heart.
He knew not if the brotherhood
His homily had understood;
He only knew that to one ear
The meaning of his words was clear.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 9: By Henry W. Longfellow.]
EXPRESSION: Talk with your teacher about the life, work, and
influence of St. Francis. Refer to cyclopedias for information.
Read aloud the prose version of his sermon to the birds; the
poetical version. Compare the two versions. What is said in one
that is not said in the other?
IN THE WOODS[10]
Years ago, when quite a youth, I was rambling in the woods one day with
my brothers, gathering black birch and wintergreens.
As we lay upon the ground, gazing vaguely up into the trees, I caught
sight of a bird, the like of which I had never before seen or heard of.
It was the blue yellow-backed warbler, which I have found since; but to
my young fancy it seemed like some fairy bird, so curiously marked was
it, and so new and unexpected. I saw it a moment as the flickering
leaves parted, noted the white spot on its wing, and it was gone.
It was a revelation. It was the first intimation I had had that the
woods we knew so well held birds that we knew not at all. Were our eyes
and ears so dull? Did we pass by the beautiful things in nature without
seeing them? Had we been blind then? There were the robin, the bluejay,
the yellowbird, and others familiar to every one; but who ever dreamed
that there were still others that not even the hunters saw, and whose
names few had ever heard?
The surprise that awaits every close observer of birds, the thrill of
delight that accompanies it, and the feeling of fresh eager inquiry that
follows can hardly be awakened by any other pursuit.
There is a fascination about it quite overpowering.
It fits so well with other things--with fishing, hunting, farming,
walking, camping out--with all that takes one to the fields and the
woods. One may go blackberrying and make some rare discovery; or, while
driving his cow to pasture, hear a new song, or make a new observation.
Secrets lurk on all sides. There is news in every bush. Expectation is
ever on tiptoe. What no man ever saw may the next moment be revealed to
you.
What a new interest this gives to the woods! How you long to explore
every nook and corner of them! One must taste it to understand. The
looker-on sees nothing to make such a fuss about. Only a little glimpse
of feathers and a half-musical note or two--why all this ado? It is not
the mere knowledge of birds that you get, but a new interest in the
fields and woods, the air, the sunshine, the healing fragrance and
coolness, and the getting away from the worry of life.
Yesterday was an October day of rare brightness and warmth. I spent the
most of it in a wild, wooded gorge of Rock Creek. A tree which stood
upon the bank had dropped some of its fruit in the water. As I stood
there, half-leg deep, a wood duck came flying down the creek.
Presently it returned, flying up; then it came back again, and sweeping
low around a bend, prepared to alight in a still, dark reach in the
creek which was hidden from my view. As I passed that way about half an
hour afterward, the duck started up, uttering its wild alarm note. In
the stillness I could hear the whistle of its wings and the splash of
the water when it took flight. Near by I saw where a raccoon had come
down to the water for fresh clams, leaving its long, sharp track in the
mud and sand. Before I had passed this hidden stretch of water, a pair
of strange thrushes flew up from the ground and perched on a low branch.
Who can tell how much this duck, this footprint on the sand, and these
strange thrushes from the far North enhanced the interest and charm of
the autumn woods?
Birds cannot be learned satisfactorily from books. The satisfaction is
in learning them from nature. One must have an original experience with
the birds. The books are only the guide, the invitation. But let me say
in the same breath that the books can by no manner of means be dispensed
with.
In the beginning one finds it very difficult to identify a bird in any
verbal description. First find your bird; observe its ways, its song,
its calls, its flight, its haunts. Then compare with your book. In this
way the feathered kingdom may soon be conquered.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 10: By John Burroughs, an American writer on nature (1837- ).]
EXPRESSION: This and the selection which follows are fine examples
of descriptive writing. Read them so that your hearers will
understand every statement clearly and without special effort on
their part. Talk about the various objects that are mentioned, and
tell what you have learned about them from other sources.
BEES AND FLOWERS[11]
Fancy yourself to be in a pretty country garden on a hot summer's
morning. Perhaps you have been walking, or reading, or playing, but it
is getting too hot now to do anything. So you have chosen the shadiest
nook under the walnut tree, close to some pretty flower bed.
As you lie there you notice a gentle buzzing near you, and you see that
on the flower bed close by several bees are working busily among the
flowers. They do not seem to mind the heat, nor do they wish to rest;
and they fly so lightly, and look so happy over their work, that it is
pleasant to watch them.
That great bumblebee takes it leisurely enough as she goes lumbering
along, poking her head into the larkspurs; she remains so long in each
that you might almost think she had fallen asleep. The brown hive-bee,
on the other hand, moves busily and quickly among the stocks, sweet
peas, and mignonette. She is evidently out on active duty, and means to
get all she can from each flower, so as to carry a good load back to the
hive. In some blossoms she does not stay a moment, but draws her head
back almost as soon as she has popped it in, as if to say, "No honey
there." But over other flowers she lingers a little, and then scrambles
out again with her drop of honey, and goes off to seek more.
Let us watch her a little more closely. There are many different plants
growing in the flower bed, but, curiously enough, she does not go first
to one kind and then to another, but keeps to one the whole time.
Now she flies away. Rouse yourself to follow her, and you will see she
takes her way back to the hive. We all know why she makes so many
journeys between the garden and the hive, and that she is collecting
drops of nectar from the flowers and carrying it to the hive to be
stored up in the honeycomb for the winter's food. When she comes back
again to the garden, we will follow her in her work among the flowers,
and see what she is doing for them in return for their gifts to her.
No doubt you have already learned that plants can make better and
stronger seeds when they can get the pollen dust from other plants. But
I am sure that you will be very much surprised to hear that the colors,
the scent, and the curious shapes of the flowers are all so many baits
to attract insects. And for what reason? In order that the insects may
come and carry the pollen dust from one plant to another.
So far as we know, it is entirely for this purpose that the plants form
honey in different parts of the flower. This food they prepare for the
insects, and then they have all sorts of contrivances to entice the
little creatures to come and get it. The plants hang out gay-colored
signs, as much as to say:--
"Come to me, and I will give you honey, if you will bring me pollen dust
in exchange."
If you watch the different kinds of grasses, sedges, and rushes, which
have such tiny flowers that you can scarcely see them, you will find
that no insects visit them. Neither will you ever find bees buzzing
round oak trees, elms, or birches. But on the pretty and sweet-smelling
apple blossoms you will find bees, wasps, and other insects.
The reason of this is that grasses, sedges, rushes, and oak trees have a
great deal of pollen dust. As the wind blows them to and fro it wafts
the dust from one flower to another. And so these plants do not need to
give out honey, or to have gaudy or sweet-scented flowers to attract
insects.
But the brilliant poppy, the large-flowered hollyhock, the flaunting
dandelion, and the bright blue forget-me-not,--all these are visited by
insects, which easily catch sight of them and hasten to sip their honey.
We must not forget what the fragrance of the flowers can do. Have you
ever noticed the delicious odor which comes from beds of mignonette,
mint, or sweet alyssum? These plants have found another way of
attracting the insects; they have no need of bright colors, for their
fragrance is quite as true and certain a guide. You will be surprised if
you once begin to count them up, how many dull-looking flowers are
sweet-scented, while some gaudy flowers have little or no scent. Still
we find some flowers, like the beautiful lily, the lovely rose, and the
delicate hyacinth, which have color and fragrance and graceful shapes
all combined.
But there are still other ways by which flowers secure the visits of
insects. Have you not observed that different flowers open and close at
different times? The daisy receives its name "day's eye" because it
opens at sunrise and closes at sunset, while the evening primrose
spreads out its flowers just as the daisy is going to bed.
What do you think is the reason of this? If you go near a bed of evening
primroses just when the sun is setting, you will soon be able to guess.
They will then give out such a sweet odor that you will not doubt for a
moment that they are calling the evening moths to come and visit them.
The daisy, however, opens by day and is therefore visited by day
insects.
Again, some flowers close whenever rain is coming. Look at the daisies
when a storm is threatening. As the sky grows dark and heavy, you will
see them shrink and close till the sun shines again. They do this
because in the center of the flower there is a drop of honey which would
be spoiled if it were washed by the rain.
And now you will see why the cup-shaped flowers so often droop their
heads,--think of the snowdrop, the lily-of-the-valley, and a host of
others. How pretty they look with their bells hanging so modestly from
the slender stalk! They are bending down to protect the honey within
their cups.
We are gradually learning that everything which a plant does has its
meaning, if we can only find it out. And when we are aware of this, a
flower garden may become a new world to us if we open our eyes to all
that is going on in it. And so we learn that even among insects and
flowers, those who do most for others receive most in return. The bee
and the flower do not reason about the matter; they only live their
little lives as nature guides them, helping and improving each other.
I have been able to tell you but very little about the hidden work that
is going on around us, and you must not for a moment imagine that we
have fully explored the fairy land of nature. But at least we have
passed through the gates, and have learned that there is a world of
wonder which we may visit if we will. And it lies quite close to us,
hidden in every dewdrop and gust of wind, in every brook and valley, in
every little plant and animal.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 11: From "The Fairy Land of Nature," by Arabella B. Buckley.]
EXPRESSION: Make a list of all the natural objects that are
mentioned in this selection. Read what is said of each. Describe as
many of them as you can in your own words. Tell what you have
observed about bees and flowers. The daisy that is referred to is
the true European daisy. The daisy, or whiteweed, of the United
States does not open and close in the manner here described.
SONG OF THE RIVER[12]
A river went singing a-down to the sea,
A-singing--low--singing--
And the dim rippling river said softly to me,
"I'm bringing, a-bringing--
While floating along--
A beautiful song
To the shores that are white where the waves are so weary,
To the beach that is burdened with wrecks that are dreary.
"A song sweet and calm
As the peacefullest psalm;
And the shore that was sad
Will be grateful and glad,
And the weariest wave from its dreariest dream
Will wake to the sound of the song of the stream;
And the tempests shall cease
And there shall be peace."
From the fairest of fountains
And farthest of mountains,
From the stillness of snow
Came the stream in its flow.
Down the slopes where the rocks are gray,
Through the vales where the flowers are fair--
Where the sunlight flashed--where the shadows lay
Like stories that cloud a face of care,
The river ran on--and on--and on,
Day and night, and night and day.
Going and going, and never gone,
Longing to flow to the "far away."
Staying and staying, and never still,--
Going and staying, as if one will
Said, "Beautiful river, go to the sea,"
And another will whispered, "Stay with me"--
And the river made answer, soft and low,
"I go and stay--I stay and go."
"But what is the song?" I said at last
To the passing river that never passed;
And a white, white wave whispered, "List to me,
I'm a note in the song for the beautiful sea,
A song whose grand accents no earth din may sever,
And the river flows on in the same mystic key
That blends in one chord the 'forever and never.'"
[Footnote 12: By Abram J. Ryan, an American clergyman and poet.]
EXPRESSION: Read aloud the three lines which introduce the song of
the river. Read them in such a manner as to call up a mental
picture of the river on its way to the sea. Read the first five
lines of the third stanza in a similar way, and tell what picture
is now called up in your mind. Now read the river's song. Read what
the white wave said. Read the whole poem with spirit and feeling.
Notice the words "a-down," "a-singing," "a-bringing." What effect
is produced by the use of these unusual forms?
SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE[13]
Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover's pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.
All down the hills of Habersham,
All through the valleys of Hall,
The rushes cried, "Abide, abide,"
The willful waterweeds held me thrall,
The loving laurel turned my tide,
The ferns and the fondling grass said, "Stay,"
The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
And the little reeds sighed, "Abide, abide,"
Here in the hills of Habersham,
Here in the valleys of Hall.
High o'er the hills of Habersham,
Veiling the valleys of Hall,
The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade; the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold;
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, "Pass not so cold, these manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall."
And oft in the hills of Habersham,
And oft in the valleys of Hall,
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook stone
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl;
And many a luminous jewel lone
(Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,
Ruby, garnet, or amethyst)
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 13: By Sidney Lanier, an American musician and poet
(1842-1881). From the _Poems of Sidney Lanier_, published by Charles
Scribner's Sons.]
EXPRESSION: Compare this poem with the one which precedes it.
Compare them both with Tennyson's "Song of the Brook" ("Fifth
Reader," p. 249). Which is the most musical? Which is the best
simply as a description?
Make a list of the unusual words in this last poem, and refer to
the dictionary for their meaning. In what state is the
Chattahoochee River? "Habersham" and "Hall" are the names of two
counties in the same state.
If you have access to a library, find Southey's poem, "The Cataract
of Lodore," and read it aloud.
WAR AND PEACE
I. WAR AS THE MOTHER OF VALOR AND CIVILIZATION[14]
We still hear war extolled at times as the mother of valor and the prime
agency in the world's advancement. By it, we are told, civilization has
spread and nations have been created, slavery has been abolished and the
American Union preserved. It is even held that without war human
progress would have been impossible.
The answer: Men were at first savages who preyed upon each other like
wild beasts, and so they developed a physical courage which they shared
with the brutes. Moral courage was unknown to them. War was almost their
sole occupation. Peace existed only for short periods that tribes might
regain strength to resume the sacred duty of killing each other.
Advancement in civilization was impossible while war reigned. Only as
wars became less frequent and long intervals of peace supervened could
civilization, the mother of true heroism, take root. Civilization has
advanced just as war has receded, until in our day peace has become the
rule and war the exception.
Arbitration of international disputes grows more and more in favor.
Successive generations of men now live and die without seeing war; and
instead of the army and navy furnishing the only careers worthy of
gentlemen, it is with difficulty that civilized nations can to-day
obtain a sufficient supply of either officers or men.
In the past, man's only method for removing obstacles and attaining
desired ends was to use brute courage. The advance of civilization has
developed moral courage. We use more beneficent means than men did of
old. Britain in the eighteenth century used force to prevent American
independence. In more recent times she graciously grants Canada the
rights denied America.
The United States also receives an award of the powers against China,
and, finding it in excess of her expenditures, in the spirit of newer
time, returns ten million dollars. Won by this act of justice, China
devotes the sum to the education of Chinese students in the republic's
universities. The greatest force is no longer that of brutal war, but
the supreme force of gentlemen and generosity--the golden rule.
The pen is rapidly superseding the sword. Arbitration is banishing war.
More than five hundred international disputes have already been
peacefully settled. Civilization, not barbarism, is the mother of true
heroism. Our lately departed poet and disciple of peace, Richard Watson
Gilder, has left us the answer to the false idea that brute force
employed against our fellows ranks with heroic moral courage exerted to
save or serve them:--
'Twas said: "When roll of drum and battle's roar
Shall cease upon the earth, oh, then no more
The deed, the race, of heroes in the land."
But scarce that word was breathed when one small hand
Lifted victorious o'er a giant wrong
That had its victims crushed through ages long;
Some woman set her pale and quivering face,
Firm as a rock, against a man's disgrace;
A little child suffered in silence lest
His savage pain should wound a mother's breast;
Some quiet scholar flung his gauntlet down
And risked, in Truth's great name, the synod's frown;
A civic hero, in the calm realm of laws,
Did that which suddenly drew a world's applause;
And one to the pest his lithe young body gave
That he a thousand thousand lives might save.
On the field of carnage men lose all human instincts in the struggle to
protect themselves. The true heroism inspired by moral courage prompts
firemen, policemen, sailors, miners, and others to volunteer and risk
their lives to save the lives of their fellowmen. Such heroism is now of
everyday occurrence.
In our age there is no more reason for permitting war between civilized
nations than for relaxing the reign of law within nations, which compels
men to submit their personal disputes to peaceful courts, and never
dreams that by so doing they will be made less heroic....
When war ceases, the sense of human brotherhood will be strengthened and
"heroism" will no longer mean to kill, but only to serve or save our
fellows.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 14: By Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish-American manufacturer and
philanthropist (1837- ).]
II. FRIENDSHIP AMONG NATIONS[15]
Let us suppose that four centuries ago some far-seeing prophet dared to
predict to the duchies composing the kingdom of France that the day
would come when they would no longer make war upon each other. Let us
suppose him saying:--
"You will have many disputes to settle, interests to contend for,
difficulties to resolve; but do you know what you will select instead of
armed men, instead of cavalry, and infantry, of cannon, lances, pikes,
and swords?
"You will select, instead of all this destructive array, a small box of
wood, which you will term a ballot-box, and from what shall issue--what?
An assembly--an assembly in which you shall all live; an assembly which
shall be, as it were, the soul of all; a supreme and popular council,
which shall decide, judge, resolve everything; which shall say to each,
'Here terminates your right, there commences your duty: lay down your
arms!'
"And in that day you will all have one common thought, common interests,
a common destiny; you will embrace each other, and recognize each other
as children of the same blood and of the same race; that day you shall
no longer be hostile tribes--you will be a people; you will be no longer
merely Burgundy, Normandy, Brittany, Provence--you will be France!
You will no longer make appeals to war; you will do so to civilization."
If, at that period I speak of, some one had uttered these words, all men
would have cried out: "What a dreamer! what a dream! How little this
pretended prophet is acquainted with the human heart!" Yet time has gone
on and on, and we find that this dream has been realized.
Well, then, at this moment we who are assembled here say to France, to
England, to Spain, to Italy, to Russia: "A day will come, when from your
hands also the arms they have grasped shall fall. A day will come, when
war shall appear as impossible, and will be as impossible, between Paris
and London, between St. Petersburg and Berlin, as it is now between
Rouen and Amiens, between Boston and Philadelphia.
"A day will come, when you, France; you, Russia; you, Italy; you,
England; you, Germany; all of you nations of the continent, shall,
without losing your distinctive qualities and your glorious
individuality, be blended into a superior unity, and shall constitute an
European fraternity, just as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Lorraine,
have been blended into France. A day will come when the only battle
field shall be the market open to commerce, and the mind open to new
ideas. A day will come when bullets and shells shall be replaced by
votes, by the universal suffrage of nations, by the arbitration of a
great sovereign senate.
Nor is it necessary for four hundred years to pass away for that day to
come. We live in a period in which a year often suffices to do the work
of a century.
Suppose that the people of Europe, instead of mistrusting each other,
entertaining jealousy of each other, hating each other, become fast
friends; suppose they say that before they are French or English or
German they are men, and that if nations form countries, human kind
forms a family. Suppose that the enormous sums spent in maintaining
armies should be spent in acts of mutual confidence. Suppose that the
millions that are lavished on hatred, were bestowed on love, given to
peace instead of war, given to labor, to intelligence, to industry, to
commerce, to navigation, to agriculture, to science, to art.
If this enormous sum were expended in this manner, know you what would
happen? The face of the world would be changed. Isthmuses would be cut
through. Railroads would cover the continents; the merchant navy of the
globe would be increased a hundredfold. There would be nowhere barren
plains nor moors nor marshes. Cities would be found where now there are
only deserts. Asia would be rescued to civilization; Africa would be
rescued to man; abundance would gush forth on every side, from every
vein of the earth at the touch of man, like the living stream from the
rock beneath the rod of Moses.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 15: By Victor Hugo, a celebrated French writer (1802-1885).]
III. SOLDIER, REST[16]
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle's enchanted hall,
Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
Fairy strains of music fall,
Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil nor night of waking.
No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armor's clang, or war steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch summon here
Mustering clan or squadron tramping.
Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the daybreak from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here's no war steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 16: By Sir Walter Scott, a Scottish novelist and poet
(1771-1832).]
IV. THE SOLDIER'S DREAM[17]
Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain;
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.
Methought from the battle field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track;
'Twas autumn, and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.
I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;
I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn reapers sung.
Then pledged we the wine cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.
"Stay, stay with us--rest, thou art weary and worn;"
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 17: By Thomas Campbell, a Scottish poet (1777-1844).]
V. HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE[18]
How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 18: By William Collins, an English poet (1721-1759).]
EXPRESSION: Which one of these three poems requires to be read with
most spirit and enthusiasm? Which is the most pathetic? Which is
the most musical? Which calls up the most pleasing mental pictures?
Talk with your teacher about the three authors of these poems, and
learn all you can about their lives and writings.
EARLY TIMES IN NEW YORK.[19]
In those good old days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for
cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy, and the
universal test of an able housewife.
The front door was never opened, except for marriages, funerals, New
Year's Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion.
It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, which was curiously
wrought,--sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of a
lion's head,--and daily burnished with such religious zeal that it was
often worn out by the very precautions taken for its preservation.
The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the
discipline of mops and brooms and scrubbing brushes; and the good
housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting
exceedingly to be dabbling in water,--insomuch that an historian of the
day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed
fingers, "like unto ducks."
The grand parlor was the _sanctum sanctorum_, where the passion for
cleaning was indulged without control. No one was permitted to enter
this sacred apartment, except the mistress and her confidential maid,
who visited it once a week for the purpose of giving it a thorough
cleaning. On these occasions they always took the precaution of leaving
their shoes at the door, and entering devoutly in their stocking feet.
After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand,--which
was curiously stroked with a broom into angles and curves and
rhomboids,--after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the
furniture, and putting a new branch of evergreens in the fireplace, the
windows were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room was kept
carefully locked, until the revolution of time brought round the weekly
cleaning day.
As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and generally
lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numerous household assembled round
the fire, one would have imagined that he was transported to those happy
days of primeval simplicity which float before our imaginations like
golden visions.
The fireplaces were of a truly patriarchal magnitude, where the whole
family, old and young, master and servant, black and white,--nay, even
the very cat and dog,--enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a
right to a corner. Here the old burgher would sit in perfect silence,
puffing his pipe, looking in the fire with half-shut eyes, and thinking
of nothing, for hours together; the good wife, on the opposite side,
would employ herself diligently in spinning yarn or knitting stockings.
The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless
attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the
family, and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would
croak forth, for a long winter afternoon, a string of incredible stories
about New England witches, grisly ghosts, and bloody encounters among
Indians.
In those happy days, fashionable parties were generally confined to the
higher classes, or _noblesse_; that is to say, such as kept their own
cows, and drove their own wagons. The company usually assembled at three
o'clock, and went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when the
fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might reach
home before dark.
The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with
slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming in
gravy. The company seated round the genial board, evinced their
dexterity in launching their forks at the fattest pieces in this mighty
dish,--in much the same manner that sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or
our Indians spear salmon in the lakes.
Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies, or saucers full
of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an
enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat and called
doughnuts or _olykoeks_, a delicious kind of cake, at present little
known in this city, except in genuine Dutch families.
The tea was served out of a majestic Delft teapot, ornamented with
paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending
pigs,--with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds,
and sundry other ingenious Dutch fancies. The beaux distinguished
themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a huge
copper teakettle. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid
beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with
great decorum; until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and
economic old lady, which was to suspend, by a string from the ceiling, a
large lump directly over the tea table, so that it could be swung from
mouth to mouth.
At these primitive tea parties, the utmost propriety and dignity
prevailed,--no flirting nor coquetting; no romping of young ladies; no
self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in
their pockets, nor amusing conceits and monkey divertisements of smart
young gentlemen, with no brains at all.
On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their
rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woolen stockings; nor ever
opened their lips, excepting to say "_Yah, Mynheer_," or "_Yah, yah,
Vrouw_," to any question that was asked them; behaving in all things
like decent, well-educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them
tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue
and white tiles with which the fireplaces were decorated; wherein sundry
passages of Scripture were piously portrayed. Tobit and his dog figured
to great advantage; Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet; and Jonah
appeared most manfully leaping from the whale's mouth, like Harlequin
through a barrel of fire.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 19: From Diedrich Knickerbocker's, "History of New York," by
Washington Irving.]
NOTES: More than two hundred and fifty years have passed since the
"good old days" described in this selection. New York in 1660 was a
small place. It was called New Amsterdam, and its inhabitants were
chiefly Dutch people from Holland. Knickerbocker's "History of New
York" gives a delightfully humorous account of those early times.
The festival of St. Nicholas occurs on December 6, and with the
Dutch colonists was equivalent to our Christmas.
WORD STUDY: _sanctum sanctorum_, a Latin expression meaning "holy
of holies," a most sacred place.
_noblesse_, persons of high rank.
_olykoeks_ (_[)o]l´ y cooks_), doughnuts, or crullers.
_Mynheer_ (_m[=i]n h[=a]r´_), sir, Mr.
_Vrouw_ (_vrou_), madam, lady.
_Tobit_, a pious man of ancient times whose story is related in
"The Book of Tobit."
_Haman_ (_ha´ man_), the prime minister of the king of Babylon, who
was hanged on a gibbet which he had prepared for another. See "The
Book of Esther."
_Har´ le quin_, a clown well known in Italian comedy.
Look in the dictionary for: _gorgeous_, _rhomboids_, _primeval_,
_patriarchal_, _burgher_, _crone_, _porpoises_, _beverage_,
_divertisements_.
A WINTER EVENING IN OLD NEW ENGLAND
Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draft
The great throat of the chimney laughed.
The house dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons' straddling feet
The mug of cider simmered slow,
And apples sputtered in a row.
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's woods.
What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.
[Illustration: A Winter Evening in Old New England.]
THE OLD-FASHIONED THANKSGIVING[20]
I do not know but it is that old New England holiday of Thanksgiving
which, for one of New England birth, has most of home associations tied
up with it, and most of gleeful memories. I know that they are very
present ones.
We all knew when it was coming; we all loved turkey--not Turkey on the
map, for which we cared very little after we had once bounded it--by the
Black Sea on the east, and by something else on the other sides--but
basted turkey, brown turkey, stuffed turkey. Here was richness!
We had scored off the days until we were sure, to a recitation mark,
when it was due--well into the end of November, when winds would be
blowing from the northwest, with great piles of dry leaves all down the
sides of the street and in the angles of pasture walls.
I cannot for my life conceive why any one should upset the old order of
things by marking it down a fortnight earlier. A man in the country
wants his crops well in and housed before he is ready to gush out with a
round, outspoken Thanksgiving; but everybody knows, who knows anything
about it, that the purple tops and the cow-horn turnips are, nine times
in ten, left out till the latter days of November, and husking not half
over.
We all knew, as I said, when it was coming. We had a stock of empty
flour barrels on Town-hill stuffed with leaves, and a big pole set in
the ground, and a battered tar barrel, with its bung chopped out, to put
on top of the pole. It was all to beat the last year's bonfire--and it
did. The country wagoners had made their little stoppages at the back
door. We knew what was to come of that. And if the old cook--a monstrous
fine woman, who weighed two hundred if she weighed a pound--was brusque
and wouldn't have us "round," we knew what was to come of that, too.
Such pies as hers demanded thoughtful consideration: not very large, and
baked in scalloped tins, and with such a relishy flavor to them, as on
my honor, I do not recognize in any pies of this generation....
The sermon on that Thanksgiving (and we all heard it) was long. We boys
were prepared for that too. But we couldn't treat a Thanksgiving sermon
as we would an ordinary one; we couldn't doze--there was too much ahead.
It seemed to me that the preacher made rather a merit of holding us in
check--with that basted turkey in waiting. At last, though, it came to
an end; and I believe Dick and I both joined in the doxology.
All that followed is to me now a cloud of misty and joyful expectation,
until we took our places--a score or more of cousins and kinsfolk; and
the turkey, and celery, and cranberries, and what nots, were all in
place.
Did Dick whisper to me as we went in, "Get next to me, old fellow"?
I cannot say; I have a half recollection that he did. But bless me! what
did anybody care for what Dick said?
And the old gentleman who bowed his head and said grace--there is no
forgetting him. And the little golden-haired one who sat at his
left--his pet, his idol--who lisped the thanksgiving after him, shall I
forget her, and the games of forfeit afterwards at evening that brought
her curls near to me?
These fifty years she has been gone from sight, and is dust. What an
awful tide of Thanksgivings has drifted by since she bowed her golden
locks, and clasped her hand, and murmured, "Our Father, we thank thee
for this, and for all thy bounties!"
Who else? Well, troops of cousins--good, bad, and indifferent. No man is
accountable for his cousins, I think; or if he is, the law should be
changed. If a man can't speak honestly of cousinhood, to the third or
fourth degree, what _can_ he speak honestly of? Didn't I see little Floy
(who wore pea-green silk) make a saucy grimace when I made a false cut
at that rolypoly turkey drumstick and landed it on the tablecloth?
There was that scamp Tom, too, who loosened his waistcoat before he went
into dinner. I saw him do it. Didn't he make faces at me, till he caught
a warning from Aunt Polly's uplifted finger?
[Illustration: A Thanksgiving Reunion.]
How should I forget that good, kindly Aunt Polly--very severe in her
turban, and with her meeting-house face upon her, but full of a great
wealth of bonbons and dried fruits on Saturday afternoons, in I know not
what capacious pockets; ample, too, in her jokes and in her laugh;
making that day a great maelstrom of mirth around her?
H---- sells hides now, and is as rich as Croesus, whatever that may
mean; but does he remember his venturesome foray for a little bit of
crisp roast pig that lay temptingly on the edge of the dish that day?
There was Sarah, too,--turned of seventeen, education complete, looking
down on us all--terribly learned (I know for a fact that she kept Mrs.
Hemans in her pocket); terribly self-asserting, too. If she had not
married happily, and not had a little brood about her in after years
(which she did), I think she would have made one of the most terrible
Sorosians of our time. At least that is the way I think of it now,
looking back across the basted turkey (which she ate without gravy) and
across the range of eager Thanksgiving faces.
There was Uncle Ned--no forgetting him--who had a way of patting a boy
on the head so that the patting reached clear through to the boy's
heart, and made him sure of a blessing hovering over. That was the
patting I liked. _That's_ the sort of uncle to come to a Thanksgiving
dinner--the sort that eat double filberts with you, and pay up next day
by noon with a pocketknife or a riding whip. Hurrah for Uncle Ned!
And Aunt Eliza--is there any keeping her out of mind? I never liked the
name much; but the face and the kindliness which was always ready to
cover, as well as she might, what wrong we did, and to make clear what
good we did, make me enrol her now--where she belongs evermore--among
the saints. So quiet, so gentle, so winning, making conquest of all of
us, because she never sought it; full of dignity, yet never asserting
it; queening it over all by downright kindliness of heart. What a wife
she would have made! Heigho! how we loved her, and made our boyish love
of her--a Thanksgiving!
Were there oranges? I think there were, with green spots on the
peel--lately arrived from Florida. Tom boasted that he ate four. I dare
say he told the truth--he looked peaked, and was a great deal the worse
for the dinner next day, I remember.
Was there punch, or any strong liquors? No; so far as my recollection
now goes, there was none.
Champagne?
I have a faint remembrance of a loud pop or two which set some cousinly
curls over opposite me into a nervous shake. Yet I would not like to
speak positively. Good bottled cider or pop beer may possibly account
for all the special phenomena I call to mind.
Was there coffee, and were there olives? Not to the best of my
recollection; or, if present, I lose them in the glamour of mince pies
and Marlborough puddings.
How we ever sidled away from that board when that feast was done I have
no clear conception. I am firm in the belief that thanksgiving was said
at the end, as at the beginning. I have a faint recollection of a gray
head passing out at the door, and of a fleece of golden curls beside
him, against which I jostle--not unkindly.
Dark?
Yes; I think the sun had gone down about the time when the mince pies
had faded.
Did Dick and Tom and the rest of us come sauntering in afterwards when
the rooms were empty, foraging for any little tidbits of the feast that
might be left, the tables showing only wreck under the dim light of a
solitary candle?
How we found our way with the weight of that stupendous dinner by us to
the heights of Town-hill it is hard to tell. But we did, and when our
barrel pile was fairly ablaze, we danced like young satyrs round the
flame, shouting at our very loudest when the fire caught the tar barrel
at the top, and the yellow pile of blaze threw its lurid glare over hill
and houses and town.
Afterwards I have recollection of an hour or more in a snug square
parlor, which is given over to us youngsters and our games, dimly
lighted, as was most fitting; but a fire upon the hearth flung out a red
glory on the floor and on the walls.
Was it a high old time, or did we only pretend that it was?
Didn't I know little Floy in that pea-green silk, with my hands clasped
round her waist and my eyes blinded--ever so fast? Didn't I give Dick an
awful pinch in the leg, when I lay _perdu_ under the sofa in another one
of those tremendous games? Didn't the door that led into the hall show a
little open gap from time to time--old faces peering in, looking very
kindly in the red firelight flaring on them? And didn't those we loved
best look oftenest? Don't they always?
Well, well--we were fagged at last: little Floy in a snooze before we
knew it; Dick, pretending not to be sleepy, but gaping in a prodigious
way. But the romps and the fatigue made sleep very grateful when it came
at last: yet the sleep was very broken; the turkey and the nuts had
their rights, and bred stupendous Thanksgiving dreams. What gorgeous
dreams they were, to be sure!
I seem to dream them again to-day.
Once again I see the old, revered gray head bowing in utter
thankfulness, with the hands clasped.
Once again, over the awful tide of intervening years--so full, and yet
so short--I seem to see the shimmer of _her_ golden hair--an aureole of
light blazing on the borders of boyhood: "_For this, and all thy
bounties, our Father, we thank thee._"
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 20: From "Bound Together," by Donald G. Mitchell, published by
Charles Scribner's Sons.]
A THANKSGIVING[21]
Lord, thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell--
A little house, whose humble roof
Is weatherproof--
Under the spans of which I lie
Both soft and dry,
Where thou, my chamber for to ward,
Hast set a guard
Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep
Me while I sleep.
Low is my porch as is my fate--
Both void of state--
And yet the threshold of my door
Is worn by the poor
Who hither come, and freely get
Good words or meat.
Like as my parlor, so my hall
And kitchen's small.
A little buttery, and therein
A little bin.
Which keeps my little loaf of bread
Unchipt, unfled.
Some brittle sticks of thorn or brier
Make me a fire
Close by whose living coal I sit,
And glow like it.
Lord, I confess too, when I dine,
The pulse is thine,
And all those other bits that be
There placed by thee.
'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth
With guiltless mirth,
And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink,
Spiced to the brink.
Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand
That soils my land,
And giv'st me for my bushel sown
Twice ten for one.
All these and better thou dost send
Me to this end,--
That I should render for my part,
A thankful heart;
Which, fired with incense, I resign
As wholly thine--
But the acceptance, that must be,
My God, by thee.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 21: By Robert Herrick, an English poet (1591-1674).]
FIRST DAYS AT WAKEFIELD[22]
_A proof that even the humblest fortune may grant happiness, which
depends not on circumstances but constitution._
The place of our retreat was in a little neighborhood consisting of
farmers, who tilled their own grounds, and were equal strangers to
opulence and poverty. As they had almost all the conveniences of life
within themselves, they seldom visited towns or cities in search of
superfluity. Remote from the polite, they still retained the primeval
simplicity of manners; and frugal by habit, they scarcely knew that
temperance was a virtue.
They wrought with cheerfulness on days of labor; but observed festivals
as intervals of idleness and pleasure. They kept up the Christmas carol,
sent true love knots on Valentine morning, ate pancakes on Shrovetide,
showed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on
Michaelmas Eve.
Being apprised of our approach, the whole neighborhood came out to meet
their minister, dressed in their finest clothes, and preceded by a pipe
and tabor. A feast also was provided for our reception, at which we sat
cheerfully down; and what the conversation wanted in wit was made up in
laughter.
Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a slopping bill,
sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind, and a prattling river
before; on one side a meadow, on the other a green. My farm consisted of
about twenty acres of excellent land, having given a hundred pounds for
my predecessor's goodwill. Nothing could exceed the neatness of my
little inclosures, the elms and hedgerows appearing with inexpressible
beauty.
My house consisted of but one story, and was covered with thatch, which
gave it an air of great snugness; the walls on the inside were nicely
whitewashed, and my daughters undertook to adorn them with pictures of
their own designing. Though the same room served us for parlor and
kitchen, that only made it the warmer. Besides, as it was kept with the
utmost neatness, the dishes, plates, and coppers being well scoured, and
all disposed in bright rows on the shelves, the eye was agreeably
relieved, and did not want richer furniture. There were three other
apartments,--one for my wife and me, another for our two daughters, and
the third, with two beds, for the rest of the children.
The little republic to which I gave laws was regulated in the following
manner: by sunrise we all assembled in our common apartment, the fire
being previously kindled by the servant. After we had saluted each other
with proper ceremony--for I always thought fit to keep up some
mechanical forms of good breeding, without which freedom ever destroys
friendship--we all bent in gratitude to that Being who gave us another
day.
This duty being performed, my son and I went to pursue our usual
industry abroad, while my wife and daughters employed themselves in
providing breakfast, which was always ready at a certain time. I allowed
half an hour for this meal and an hour for dinner, which time was taken
up in innocent mirth between my wife and daughters, and in philosophical
arguments between my son and me.
As we rose with the sun, so we never pursued our labors after it was
gone down, but returned home to the expecting family, where smiling
looks, a neat hearth, and pleasant fire were prepared for our reception.
Nor were we without guests: sometimes Farmer Flamborough, our talkative
neighbor, and often the blind piper would pay us a visit, and taste our
gooseberry wine, for the making of which we had lost neither the receipt
nor the reputation.
The night was concluded in the manner we began the morning, my youngest
boys being appointed to read the lessons of the day, and he that read
loudest, distinctest and best was to have a halfpenny on Sunday to put
in the poor's box.
When Sunday came it was indeed a day of finery, which all my sumptuary
edicts could not restrain. How well soever I fancied my lectures against
pride had conquered the vanity of my daughters, yet I still found them
secretly attached to all their former finery; they still loved laces,
ribbons, bugles, and catgut; my wife herself retained a passion for her
crimson paduasoy, because I formerly happened to say it became her.
[Illustration: The First Sunday at Wakefield.]
The first Sunday in particular their behavior served to mortify me; I
had desired my girls the preceding night to be dressed early the next
day; for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of
the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were
to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters
dressed out all in their former splendor; their hair plastered up with
pomatum, their faces patched to taste, their trains bundled up in a heap
behind, and rustling at every motion.
I could not help smiling at their vanity, particularly that of my wife,
from whom I expected more discretion. In this exigence, therefore, my
only resource was to order my son, with an important air, to call our
coach. The girls were amazed at the command; but I repeated it with more
solemnity than before.
"Surely, my dear, you jest," cried my wife; "we can walk it perfectly
well; we want no coach to carry us now."
"You mistake, child," returned I, "we do want a coach; for if we walk to
church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after
us."
"Indeed," replied my wife, "I always imagined that my Charles was fond
of seeing his children neat and handsome about him."
"You may be as neat as you please," interrupted I, "and I shall love you
the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These
rufflings and pinkings and patchings will only make us hated by all the
wives of all our neighbors. No, my children," continued I, more gravely,
"those gowns may be altered into something of a plainer cut; for finery
is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of decency. I do not know
whether such flouncing and shredding is becoming even in the rich, if we
consider, upon a moderate calculation, that the nakedness of the
indigent world may be clothed from the trimmings of the vain."
This remonstrance had the proper effect; they went with great composure,
that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the
satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request, employed in
cutting up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick and Bill, the
two little ones; and what was still more satisfactory, the gowns seemed
improved by this curtailing.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 22: From "The Vicar of Wakefield," by Oliver Goldsmith, a
celebrated English author (1728-1774).]
EXPRESSION: In this selection and the two which follow we have
three other specimens of English prose fiction. You will observe
that they are very different in style, as well as in subject, from
the three specimens at the beginning of this book. Compare them
with one another. Reread the selections from Dickens, Thackeray,
and George Eliot, and compare them with these. Which do you like
best? Why?
DOUBTING CASTLE[23]
I. THE PILGRIMS LOSE THEIR WAY
Now I beheld in my dream that Christian and Hopeful had not journeyed
far until they came where the river and the way parted, at which they
were not a little sorry; yet they durst not go out of the way. Now the
way from the river was rough, and their feet tender by reason of their
travel; so the souls of the pilgrims were much discouraged because of
the way. Wherefore, still as they went on, they wished for a better way.
Now, a little before them, there was in the left hand of the road a
meadow, and a stile to go over into it; and that meadow is called
By-path Meadow. Then said Christian to his fellow, "If this meadow lieth
along by our wayside, let us go over into it." Then he went to the stile
to see, and behold a path lay along by the way on the other side of the
fence.
"'Tis according to my wish," said Christian; "here is the easiest going;
come, good Hopeful, and let us go over."
"But how if this path should lead us out of the way?"
"_That_ is not likely," said the other. "Look, doth it not go along by
the wayside?"
So Hopeful, being persuaded by his fellow, went after him over the
stile. When they were gone over, and were got into the path, they found
it very easy for their feet; and withal they, looking before them,
espied a man walking as they did, and his name was Vain-Confidence: so
they called after him, and asked him whither that way led.
He said, "To the Celestial Gate."
"Look," said Christian, "did not I tell you so?--by this you may see we
are right."
So they followed, and he went before them. But, behold, the night came
on, and it grew very dark; so that they who were behind lost sight of
them that went before. He, therefore, that went before--Vain-Confidence
by name--not seeing the way before him, fell into a deep pit, and was
dashed in pieces with his fall.
Now Christian and his fellow heard him fall; so they called to know the
matter. But there was none to answer, only they heard a groan.
Then said Hopeful, "Where are we now?"
Then was his fellow silent, as mistrusting that he had led him out of
the way; and now it began to rain and thunder and lightning in a most
dreadful manner, and the water rose amain, by reason of which the way of
going back was very dangerous.
Yet they adventured to go back; but it was so dark and the flood so
high, that in their going back they had like to have been drowned nine
or ten times. Neither could they, with all the skill they had, get back
again to the stile that night. Wherefore, at last lighting under a
little shelter, they sat down there until daybreak. But, being weary,
they fell asleep.
[Illustration: In the Giant's Dungeon.]
II. IN THE GIANT'S DUNGEON
Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle, called
Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair; and it was in his
grounds they now were sleeping. Wherefore he, getting up in the morning
early, and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian and
Hopeful asleep in his grounds. Then with a grim and surly voice, he bid
them awake, and asked them whence they were, and what they did in his
grounds.
They told him they were pilgrims, and that they had lost their way.
Then said the giant, "You have this night trespassed on me, by trampling
in and lying on my grounds, and therefore you must go along with me."
So they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they. They also
had but little to say, for they knew themselves in a fault. The giant,
therefore, drove them before him, and put them into his castle, in a
very dark dungeon.
Here, then, they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, without
one bit of bread, or drop of drink, or light, or any to ask how they
did: they were, therefore, here in evil case, and were far from friends
and acquaintance.
Now Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence. So, when he
was gone to bed, he told his wife that he had taken a couple of
prisoners, and had cast them into his dungeon for trespassing on his
grounds. Then he asked her also what he had best do to them. So she
asked him what they were, whence they came, and whither they were bound;
and he told her. Then she counseled him, that when he arose in the
morning he should beat them without mercy.
So when he arose, he getteth him a grievous crabtree cudgel, and goes
into the dungeon to them, and there first falls to rating of them as if
they were dogs, although they never gave him an unpleasant word. Then he
fell upon them, and beat them fearfully, in such sort that they were not
able to help themselves, or to turn them upon the floor. This done he
withdraws, and leaves them there to condole their misery, and to mourn
under their distress. So all that day they spent their time in nothing
but sighs and bitter lamentations.
The next night she, talking with her husband further about them, and
understanding that they were yet alive, did advise him to counsel them
to make away with themselves. So, when morning was come, he goes to them
in a surly manner as before, and perceiving them to be very sore with
the stripes that he had given them the day before, he told them that,
since they were never like to come out of that place, their only way
would be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife,
halter, or poison: "for why," he said, "should you choose to live,
seeing it is attended with so much bitterness?"
But they desired him to let them go. With that he looked ugly upon them,
and, rushing to them, had doubtless made an end of them himself, but
that he fell into one of his fits, and lost for a time the use of his
hands. Wherefore he withdrew, and left them, as before, to consider what
to do.
Then did the prisoners consult between themselves, whether it was best
to take his counsel or no. But they soon resolved to reject it; for it
would be very wicked to kill themselves; and, besides, something might
soon happen to enable them to make their escape.
Well, towards evening the giant goes down to the dungeon again, to see
if his prisoners had taken his counsel; but when he came there, he found
them alive. I say, he found them alive; at which he fell into a grievous
rage, and told them that, seeing they had disobeyed his counsel, it
should be worse with them than if they had never been born.
At this they trembled greatly, and I think that Christian fell into a
swoon; but, coming a little to himself again, they renewed their
discourse about the giant's counsel, and whether yet they had best take
it or no. Now Christian again seemed for doing it, but Hopeful reminded
him of the hardships and terrors he had already gone through, and said
that they ought to bear up with patience as well as they could, and
steadily reject the giant's wicked counsel.
Now, night being come again, and the giant and his wife being in bed,
she asked him concerning the prisoners, and if they had taken his
counsel. To this he replied, "They are sturdy rogues, they choose rather
to bear all hardships than to make away themselves."
Then said she, "Take them into the castle yard to-morrow, and show them
the bones and skulls of those that thou hast already dispatched, and
make them believe, thou wilt tear them in pieces, as thou hast done
their fellows before them."
So when morning has come, the giant goes to them again, and takes them
into the castle yard, and shows them as his wife had bidden him.
"These," said he, "were pilgrims, as you are, once, and they trespassed
on my grounds, as you have done; and when I thought fit, I tore them in
pieces; and so within ten days I will do to you. Get you down to your
den again."
And with that he beat them all the way thither.
Now, when night was come, Mrs. Diffidence and her husband began to renew
their discourse of their prisoners. The old giant wondered that he could
neither by his blows nor by his counsel bring them to an end.
And with that his wife replied, "I fear," said she, "that they live in
hopes that some will come to relieve them, or that they have picklocks
about them, by the means of which they hope to escape."
"And sayest thou so, my dear?" said the giant; "I will therefore search
them in the morning."
Well, on Saturday, about midnight, they began to pray, and continued in
prayer till almost break of day.
Now a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed,
brake out into a passionate speech: "What a fool am I, thus to lie in a
dungeon! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am
persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle."
Then said Hopeful, "That's good news, good brother; pluck it out of thy
bosom and try."
Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the
dungeon door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door
flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out.
After that, he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too, but
that lock went desperately hard; yet the key did open it. Then they
thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as
it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who,
hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his
fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then
they went on, and came to the King's highway, again, and so were safe.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 23: From "The Pilgrim's Progress," by John Bunyan, a famous
English preacher and writer (1628-1688).]
EXPRESSION: What peculiarities do you observe in Bunyan's style of
writing? Select the three most striking passages in this story, and
read them with spirit and correct expression.
SHOOTING WITH THE LONGBOW[24]
Proclamation was made that Prince John, suddenly called by high and
peremptory public duties, held himself obliged to discontinue the
entertainments of to-morrow's festival: nevertheless, that, unwilling so
many good yeomen should depart without a trial of skill, he was pleased
to appoint them, before leaving the ground, presently to execute the
competition of archery intended for the morrow. To the best archer a
prize was to be awarded, being a bugle-horn, mounted with silver, and a
silken baldric richly ornamented with a medallion of St. Hubert, the
patron of sylvan sport.
More than thirty yeomen at first presented themselves as competitors,
several of whom were rangers and underkeepers in the royal forests of
Needwood and Charnwood. When, however, the archers understood with whom
they were to be matched, upwards of twenty withdrew themselves from the
contest, unwilling to encounter the dishonor of almost certain defeat.
The diminished list of competitors for sylvan fame still amounted to
eight. Prince John stepped from his royal seat to view more nearly the
persons of these chosen yeomen, several of whom wore the royal livery.
Having satisfied his curiosity by this investigation, he looked for the
object of his resentment, whom he observed standing on the same spot,
and with the same composed countenance which he had exhibited upon the
preceding day.
"Fellow," said Prince John, "I guessed by thy insolent babble thou wert
no true lover of the longbow, and I see thou darest not adventure thy
skill among such merry men as stand yonder."
"Under favor, sir," replied the yeoman, "I have another reason for
refraining to shoot, besides the fearing discomfiture and disgrace."
"And what is thy other reason?" said Prince John, who, for some cause
which perhaps he could not himself have explained, felt a painful
curiosity respecting this individual.
"Because," replied the woodsman, "I know not if these yeomen and I are
used to shoot at the same marks; and because, moreover, I know not how
your grace might relish the winning of a third prize by one who has
unwittingly fallen under your displeasure."
Prince John colored as he put the question, "What is thy name, yeoman?"
"Locksley," answered the yeoman.
"Then, Locksley," said Prince John, "thou shalt shoot in thy turn, when
these yeomen have displayed their skill. If thou carriest the prize, I
will add to it twenty nobles; but if thou losest it, thou shalt be
stripped of thy Lincoln green, and scourged out of the lists with
bowstrings, for a wordy and insolent braggart."
"And how if I refuse to shoot on such a wager?" said the yeoman. "Your
grace's power, supported, as it is, by so many men at arms, may indeed
easily strip and scourge me, but cannot compel me to bend or to draw my
bow."
"If thou refusest my fair proffer," said the prince, "the provost of the
lists shall cut thy bowstring, break thy bow and arrows, and expel thee
from the presence as a faint-hearted craven."
"This is no fair chance you put on me, proud prince," said the yeoman,
"to compel me to peril myself against the best archers of Leicester and
Staffordshire, under the penalty of infamy if they should overshoot me.
Nevertheless, I will obey your pleasure."
"Look to him close, men at arms," said Prince John, "his heart is
sinking; I am jealous lest he attempt to escape the trial. And do you,
good fellows, shoot boldly round; a buck and a butt of wine are ready
for your refreshment in yonder tent, when the prize is won."
A target was placed at the upper end of the southern avenue which led to
the lists. The contending archers took their station in turn, at the
bottom of the southern access; the distance between that station and the
mark allowing full distance for what was called a "shot at rovers." The
archers, having previously determined by lot their order of precedence,
were to shoot each three shafts in succession. The sports were regulated
by an officer of inferior rank, termed the provost of the games; for the
high rank of the marshals of the lists would have been held degraded had
they condescended to superintend the sports of the yeomanry.
One by one the archers, stepping forward, delivered their shafts
yeomanlike and bravely. Of twenty-four arrows shot in succession, ten
were fixed in the target, and the others ranged so near it that,
considering the distance of the mark, it was accounted good archery.
Of the ten shafts which hit the target, two within the inner ring were
shot by Hubert, a forester, who was accordingly pronounced victorious.
"Now, Locksley," said Prince John to the bold yeoman, with a bitter
smile, "wilt thou try conclusions with Hubert, or wilt thou yield up
bow, baldric, and quiver to the provost of the sports?"
"Sith it be no better," said Locksley, "I am content to try my fortune;
on condition that, when I have shot two shafts at yonder mark of
Hubert's, he shall be bound to shoot one at that which I shall propose."
"That is but fair," answered Prince John, "and it shall not be refused
thee. If thou dost beat this braggart, Hubert, I will fill the bugle
with silver pennies for thee."
"A man can but do his best," answered Hubert; "but my grandsire drew a
good longbow at Hastings, and I trust not to dishonor his memory."
The former target was now removed, and a fresh one of the same size
placed in its room. Hubert, who, as victor in the first trial of skill,
had the right to shoot first, took his aim with great deliberation, long
measuring the distance with his eye, while he held in his hand his
bended bow, with the arrow placed on the string. At length he made a
step forward, and raising the bow at the full stretch of his left arm,
till the center of grasping place was nigh level with his face, he drew
the bowstring to his ear. The arrow whistled through the air, and
lighted within the inner ring of the target, but not exactly in the
center.
"You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert," said his antagonist,
bending his bow, "or that had been a better shot."
So saying, and without showing the least anxiety to pause upon his aim,
Locksley stepped to the appointed station, and shot his arrow as
carelessly in appearance as if he had not even looked at the mark. He
was speaking almost at the instant that the shaft left the bowstring,
yet it alighted in the target two inches nearer to the white spot which
marked the center than that of Hubert.
"By the light of heaven!" said Prince John to Hubert, "an thou suffer
that runagate knave to overcome thee, thou art worthy of the gallows!"
Hubert had but one set of speech for all occasions. "An your highness
were to hang me," he said, "a man can but do his best. Nevertheless, my
grandsire drew a good bow--"
"The foul fiend on thy grandsire and all his generation!" interrupted
John. "Shoot, knave, and shoot thy best, or it shall be the worse for
thee!"
Thus exhorted, Hubert resumed his place, and, not neglecting the caution
which he had received from his adversary, he made the necessary
allowance for a very light breath of wind which had just arisen, and
shot so successfully that his arrow alighted in the very center of the
target.
"A Hubert! a Hubert!" shouted the populace, more interested in a known
person than in a stranger. "In the clout!--in the clout! A Hubert
forever!"
"Thou canst not mend that shot, Locksley," said the prince, with an
insulting smile.
"I will notch his shaft for him, however," replied Locksley. And,
letting fly his arrow with a little more precaution than before, it
lighted right upon that of his competitor, which it split to shivers.
The people who stood around were so astonished at his wonderful
dexterity, that they could not even give vent to their surprise in their
usual clamor.
"This must be the devil, and no man of flesh and blood," whispered the
yeomen to each other; "such archery was never seen since a bow was first
bent in Britain!"
"And now," said Locksley, "I will crave your grace's permission to plant
such a mark as is used in the north country, and welcome every brave
yeoman to try a shot at it."
He then turned to leave the lists. "Let your guards attend me," he said,
"if you please. I go but to cut a rod from the next willow bush."
Prince John made a signal that some attendants should follow him, in
case of his escape; but the cry of "Shame! shame!" which burst from the
multitude induced him to alter his ungenerous purpose.
Locksley returned almost instantly, with a willow wand about six feet in
length, perfectly straight, and rather thicker than a man's thumb. He
began to peel this with great composure, observing, at the same time,
that to ask a good woodsman to shoot at a target so broad as had
hitherto been used was to put shame upon his skill.
"For my own part," said he, "in the land where I was bred, men would as
soon take for their mark King Arthur's Round Table, which held sixty
knights around it.
"A child of seven years old might hit yonder target with a headless
shaft; but," he added, walking deliberately to the other end of the
lists and sticking the willow wand upright in the ground, "he that hits
that rod at fivescore yards, I call him an archer fit to bear both bow
and quiver before a king, and it were the stout King Richard himself!"
"My grandsire," said Hubert, "drew a good bow at the battle of Hastings,
and never shot at such a mark in his life; neither will I. If this
yeoman can cleave that rod, I give him the bucklers--or, rather, I yield
to the devil that is in his jerkin, and not to any human skill. A man
can but do his best, and I will not shoot where I am sure to miss. I
might as well shoot at the edge of our parson's whittle, or at a wheat
straw, or at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak which I can
hardly see."
"Cowardly dog!" exclaimed Prince John.--"Sirrah Locksley, do thou shoot;
but if thou hittest such a mark, I will say thou art the first man ever
did so. However it be, thou shalt not crow over us with a mere show of
superior skill."
"'A man can but do his best!' as Hubert says," answered Locksley.
So saying, he again bent his bow, but, on the present occasion, looked
with attention to his weapon, and changed the string, which he thought
was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two former
shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multitude
awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer vindicated their
opinion of his skill: his arrow split the willow rod against which it
was aimed. A jubilee of acclamations followed: and even Prince John, in
admiration of Locksley's skill, lost for an instant his dislike to his
person.
"These twenty nobles," he said, "which with the bugle thou hast fairly
won, are thine own: we will make them fifty if thou wilt take livery and
service with us as a yeoman of our bodyguard, and be near to our person;
for never did so strong a hand bend a bow, or so true an eye direct a
shaft."
"Pardon me, noble prince," said Locksley; "but I have vowed that, if
ever I take service, it should be with your royal brother, King Richard.
These twenty nobles I leave to Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave a
bow as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had his modesty not refused the
trial, he would have hit the wand as well as I."
Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the
stranger; and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed
with the crowd and was seen no more.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 24: From "Ivanhoe," by Sir Walter Scott.]
EXPRESSION: Compare this selection with the two which precede it.
"Pilgrim's Progress," "The Vicar of Wakefield," and "Ivanhoe" rank
high among the world's most famous books. Notice how long ago each
was written. Talk with your teacher about Bunyan, Goldsmith, and
Scott--their lives and their writings.
A CHRISTMAS HYMN[25]
It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars--
Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars
Held undisturbed their ancient reign,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago.
[Illustration]
'Twas in the calm and silent night,
The senator of haughty Rome
Impatient urged his chariot's flight,
From lordly revel rolling home;
Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell
His breast with thoughts of boundless sway;
What recked the Roman what befell
A paltry province far away,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago?
[Illustration]
Within that province far away,
Went plodding home a weary boor;
A streak of light before him lay,
Fallen through a half-shut stable door
Across his path. He paused--for naught
Told what was going on within;
How keen the stars, his only thought,--
The air how cold and calm and thin,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!
Oh, strange indifference! low and high
Drowsed over common joys and cares;
The earth was still--but knew not why;
The world was listening unawares.
How calm a moment may precede
One that shall thrill the world forever!
To that still moment none would heed
Man's doom was linked no more to sever,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago.
[Illustration]
It is the calm and solemn night:
A thousand bells ring out and throw
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite
The darkness--charmed and holy now!
The night that erst no name had worn,
To it a happy name is given;
For in that stable lay, newborn,
The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 25: By Alfred Domett, (d[)o]m´et), an English writer
(1811-1887).]
CHRISTMAS EVE AT FEZZIWIG'S[26]
Old Fezziwig in his warehouse laid down his pen, and looked up at the
clock which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted
his waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of
benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial
voice:--
"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"
Ebenezer came briskly in, followed by his fellow-'prentice.
"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night. Christmas Eve,
Dick! Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up," cried old
Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Jack
Robinson."
You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into
the street with the shutters--one, two, three--had 'em in their
places--four, five, six--barred 'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight,
nine--and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like
race horses.
"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from his desk, with
wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room
here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!"
Clear away? There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or
couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in
a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from
public life forevermore. The floor was swept and watered, the lamps were
trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug
and warm, and dry and bright, as any ballroom you would desire to see
upon a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music book, and went up to the lofty desk, and
made an orchestra of it. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial
smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came
the six young followers, whose hearts they broke. In came all the young
men and young women employed in the business. In came the housemaid,
with her cousin the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's
particular friend the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who
was suspected of not having enough to eat from his master. In they all
came, one after another--some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some
awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling. In they all came, anyhow and
everyhow.
Away they all went, twenty couples at once; down the middle and up
again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old
top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting
off again as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a
bottom one to help them!
When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to
stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" Then there were more dances, and
there were forfeits, and more dances; and there was cake, and there was
a great piece of cold roast, and there was a great piece of cold boiled,
and there were mince pies and other delicacies. But the great effect of
the evening came after the roast and the boiled, when the fiddler,
artful dog, struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old Mr. Fezziwig
stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too, with a good
stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of
partners; people who were not to be trifled with--people who _would_
dance, and had no notion of walking.
But if they had been twice as many--aye, four times--old Mr. Fezziwig
would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to
_her_, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If
that's not high praise, tell me higher and I'll use it.... And when Mr.
Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance--advance and
retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsy, thread the needle,
and back to your place--Fezziwig "cut" so deftly that he appeared to
wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.
[Illustration: Christmas Eve at Fezziwig's.]
When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs.
Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and
shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out,
wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the
two apprentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices
died away and the lads were left to their beds--which were under a
counter in the back shop.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 26: From "A Christmas Carol," by Charles Dickens.]
THE CHRISTMAS HOLLY[27]
The holly! the holly! oh, twine it with bay--
Come give the holly a song;
For it helps to drive stern winter away,
With his garment so somber and long;
It peeps through the trees with its berries of red,
And its leaves of burnished green,
When the flowers and fruits have long been dead,
And not even the daisy is seen.
Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly,
That hangs over peasant and king;
While we laugh and carouse 'neath its glittering boughs,
To the Christmas holly we'll sing.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 27: By Eliza Cook, an English poet (1818-1889).]
EXPRESSION: Imagine that you see Mr. Fezziwig with his apprentices
preparing for the Christmas festivities. What is your opinion of
him? Now read the story, paragraph by paragraph, trying to make it
as interesting to your hearers as a real visit to Fezziwig
warehouse would have been.
THE NEW YEAR'S DINNER PARTY[28]
The Old Year being dead, the New Year came of age, which he does by
Calendar Law as soon as the breath is out of the old gentleman's body.
Nothing would serve the youth but he must give a dinner upon the
occasion, to which all the Days of the Year were invited.
The Festivals, whom he appointed as his stewards, were mightily taken
with the notion. They had been engaged time out of mind, they said, in
providing mirth and cheer for mortals below; and it was time that they
should have a taste of their bounty.
All the Days came to dinner. Covers were provided for three hundred and
sixty-five guests at the principal table; with an occasional knife and
fork at the sideboard for the Twenty-ninth of February.
I should have told you that cards of invitation had been sent out. The
carriers were the Hours--twelve as merry little whirligig footpages as
you should desire to see. They went all round, and found out the persons
invited well enough, with the exception of Easter Day, Shrove Tuesday,
and a few such Movables, who had lately shifted their quarters.
Well, they were all met at last, four Days, five Days, all sorts of
Days, and a rare din they made of it. There was nothing but "Hail!
fellow Day!" "Well met, brother Day! sister Day!" only Lady Day kept a
little on the aloof and seemed somewhat scornful. Yet some said that
Twelfth Day cut her out, for she came in a silk suit, white and gold,
like a queen on a frost-cake, all royal and glittering.
The rest came, some in green, some in white--but Lent and his family
were not yet out of mourning. Rainy Days came in dripping, and Sunshiny
Days helped them to change their stockings. Wedding Day was there in his
marriage finery. Pay Day came late, as he always does. Doomsday sent
word he might be expected.
April Fool (as my lord's jester) took upon himself to marshal the
guests. And wild work he made of it; good Days, bad Days, all were
shuffled together. He had stuck the Twenty-first of June next to the
Twenty-second of December, and the former looked like a Maypole by the
side of a marrow bone. Ash Wednesday got wedged in betwixt Christmas and
Lord Mayor's Day.
At another part of the table, Shrove Tuesday was helping the Second of
September to some broth, which courtesy the latter returned with the
delicate thigh of a pheasant. The Last of Lent was springing upon
Shrovetide's pancakes; April Fool, seeing this, told him that he did
well, for pancakes were proper to a good fry-day.
May Day, with that sweetness which is her own, made a neat speech
proposing the health of the founder. This being done, the lordly New
Year from the upper end of the table, in a cordial but somewhat lofty
tone, returned thanks.
They next fell to quibbles and conundrums. The question being proposed,
who had the greatest number of followers--the Quarter Days said there
could be no question as to that; for they had all the creditors in the
world dogging their heels. But April Fool gave it in favor of the Forty
Days before Easter; because the debtors in all cases outnumbered the
creditors, and they kept Lent all the year.
At last, dinner being ended, the Days called for their cloaks, and great
coats, and took their leaves. Lord Mayor's Day went off in a Mist as
usual; Shortest Day in a deep black Fog, which wrapped the little
gentleman all round like a hedgehog.
Two Vigils, or watchmen, saw Christmas Day safe home. Another Vigil--a
stout, sturdy patrol, called the Eve of St. Christopher--escorted Ash
Wednesday.
Longest Day set off westward in beautiful crimson and gold--the rest,
some in one fashion, some in another, took their departure.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 28: By Charles Lamb, an English essayist and humorist
(1775-1834).]
EXPRESSION: What holidays are named in this selection? What
holidays do you know about that were not present at this dinner?
Refer to the dictionary and learn about all the days here
mentioned. Select the humorous passages in this story, and tell why
you think they are humorous.
THE TOWN PUMP[29]
[SCENE.--_The corner of two principal streets. The Town Pump talking
through its nose._]
Noon, by the north clock! Noon, by the east! High noon, too, by those
hot sunbeams which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make
the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly, we public
characters have a tough time of it! And among all the town officers,
chosen at the annual meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single
year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity,
upon the Town Pump?
The title of town treasurer is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best
treasure the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their
chairman since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to
him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire department, and one of
the physicians of the board of health. As a keeper of the peace all
water drinkers confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the
duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices, when they am
pasted on my front.
To speak within bounds, I am chief person of the municipality, and
exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers by the
cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my
business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or
winter, nobody seeks me in vain; for, all day long I am seen at the
busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich
and poor alike; and at night I hold a lantern over my head, to show
where I am, and to keep people out of the gutters.
At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for
whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. Like a dram seller
on the public square, on a muster day, I cry aloud to all and sundry, in
my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice, "Here it is,
gentlemen! Here is the good liquor! Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk
up, walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale
of father Adam! better than cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or
wine of any price; here it is by the hogshead or the single glass, and
not a cent to pay. Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves!"
It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they
come. A hot day, gentlemen. Quaff and away again, so as to keep
yourselves in a nice, cool sweat. You, my friend, will need another
cupful to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as
it is on your cowhide shoes. I see that you have trudged half a score of
miles to-day, and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and
stopped at the running brooks and well curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat
without and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or
melted down to nothing at all--in the fashion of a jellyfish.
Drink, and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench
the fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup
of mine. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been strangers
hitherto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a
closer intimacy till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent.
Mercy on you, man! The water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet,
and is converted quite into steam in the miniature Tophet, which you
mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest
toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any other kind of dramshop,
spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious?
Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold
water. Good-by; and whenever you are thirsty, recollect that I keep a
constant supply at the old stand.
Who next? Oh, my little friend, you are just let loose from school, and
come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain
taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draft from the
Town Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life; take it, and
may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than
now.
[Illustration: The Town Pump.]
There, my dear child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this
elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving stones that I
suspect he is afraid of breaking them. What! he limps by without so much
as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people
who have no wine cellars.
Well, well, sir, no harm done, I hope! Go, draw the cork, tip the
decanter; but when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no
affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout,
it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue
lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs
and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away
again! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout?
Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my stream of eloquence, and
spout forth a stream of water, to replenish the trough for this teamster
and his two yoke of oxen, who have come all the way from Staunton, or
somewhere along that way. No part of my business gives me more pleasure
than the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they lower the watermark
on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened
with a gallon or two apiece, and they can afford time to breathe, with
sighs of calm enjoyment! Now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim
of their monstrous drinking vessel. An ox is your true toper.
I hold myself the grand reformer of the age. From the Town Pump, as from
other sources of water supply, must flow the stream that will cleanse
our earth of a vast portion of the crime and anguish which have gushed
from the fiery fountains of the still. In this mighty enterprise, the
cow shall be my great confederate. Milk and water!
Ahem! Dry work this speechifying, especially to all unpracticed orators.
I never conceived, till now, what toil the temperance lecturers undergo
for my sake. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet
my whistle. Thank you, sir. But to proceed.
The Town Pump and the Cow! Such is the glorious partnership that shall
finally monopolize the whole business of quenching thirst. Blessed
consummation! Then Poverty shall pass away from the land, finding no
hovel so wretched where her squalid form may shelter itself. Then
Disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw his own heart and die.
Then Sin, if she do not die, shall lose half her strength.
Then there will be no war of households. The husband and the wife,
drinking deep of peaceful joy, a calm bliss of temperate affections,
shall pass hand in hand through life, and lie down, not reluctantly, at
its protracted close. To them the past will be no turmoil of mad dreams,
nor the future an eternity of such moments as follow the delirium of a
drunkard. Their dead faces shall express what their spirits were, and
are to be, by a lingering smile of memory and hope.
Drink, then, and be refreshed! The water is as pure and cold as when it
slaked the thirst of the red hunter, and flowed beneath the aged bough,
though now this gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot
stones, where no shadow falls but from the brick buildings. But still is
this fountain the source of health, peace, and happiness, and I behold,
with certainty and joy, the approach of the period when the virtues of
cold water, too little valued since our father's days, will be fully
appreciated and recognized by all.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 29: By Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American writer of romances and
short stories (1804-1864).]
EXPRESSION: Read this selection again and again until you
understand it clearly and appreciate its rare charm. Study each
paragraph separately, observing how the topic of each is developed.
Select the expressions which are the most pleasing to you. Tell why
each pleases.
Did you ever see a town pump? In the cities and larger towns, what
has taken its place? Can we imagine a hydrant or a water faucet
talking as this town pump did? If Hawthorne were writing to-day,
would he represent the town pump as the "chief person of the
municipality"? Discuss this question fully.
Talk with your teacher about the life and works of the author of
this selection. If you have access to any of his books, bring them
to the class and read selections from them. Compare the style of
this story with that of the selection from Dickens, page 22; or
from Thackeray, page 27; or from Goldsmith, page 94.
WORD STUDY: Refer to the dictionary for the pronunciation and
meaning of: _perpetuity_, _constable_, _municipality_, _cognac_,
_quaff_, _rubicund_, _Tophet_, _decanter_, _titillation_,
_capacious_.
COME UP FROM THE FIELDS, FATHER[30]
Come up from the fields, father; here's a letter from our Pete,
And come to the front door, mother; here's a letter from thy dear son.
Lo, 'tis autumn;
Lo, where the fields, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate
wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellised
vines,
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?)
Above all, lo! the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with
wondrous clouds;
Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful,--and the farm prospers
well.
Down in the fields all prospers well;
But now from the fields come, father,--come at the daughter's call;
And come to the entry, mother,--to the front door come, right away.
Fast as she can she hurries,--something ominous,--her steps trembling;
She does not tarry to smooth her white hair, nor adjust her cap.
Open the envelope quickly;
Oh, this is not our son's writing, yet his name is signed!
Oh, a strange hand writes for our dear son--O stricken mother's soul!
All swims before her eyes,--flashes with black,--she catches the main
words only;
Sentences broken,--_gunshot wound in the breast_--_cavalry skirmish,
taken to hospital,
At present low, but will soon be better._
Ah! now the single figure to me
Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms,
Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,
By the jamb of a door leans.
_Grieve not so, dear mother_ (the just grown daughter speaks through her
sobs;
The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismayed).
_See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better._
Alas, poor boy! he will never be better (nor, maybe, needs to be better,
that brave and simple soul).
While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,
The only son is dead.
[Illustration: "Come up from the fields, father."]
But the mother needs to be better;
She, with thin form, presently dressed in black;
By day her meals untouched,--then at night fitfully sleeping, often
waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
Oh, that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life, escape and
withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 30: By Walt Whitman, an American poet (1819-1892).]
EXPRESSION: This poem is descriptive of an incident which occurred
during the Civil War. There were many such incidents, both in the
North and in the South. Read the selection silently to understand
its full meaning. Who are the persons pictured to your imagination
after reading it? Describe the place and the time.
Now read the poem aloud, giving full expression to its pathetic
meaning. Select the most striking descriptive passage and read it.
Select the stanza which seems to you the most touching, and read
it.
Study now the peculiarities of the poem. Do the lines rime? Are
they of similar length? What can you say about the meter?
Compare this poem with the two gems from Browning, pages 38 and 41.
Compare it with the selection from Longfellow, page 54; with that
from Lanier, page 66. How does it differ from any or all of these?
What is poetry? Name three great American poets; three great
English poets.
THE ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG[31]
Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation--or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated--can long endure.
We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate
a portion of that field as the final resting place for those who here
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting
and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot
dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above
our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long
remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
us;--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion;--that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 31: By Abraham Lincoln, at the dedication of the National
Cemetery, 1863.]
ODE TO THE CONFEDERATE DEAD[32]
Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.
In seeds of laurel in the earth
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone.
Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years
Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! Your sisters bring their tears
And these memorial blooms.
Small tribute! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreathes to-day,
Than when some cannon-molded pile
Shall overlook this bay.
Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 32: By Henry Timrod, an American poet (1829-1867).]
THE CHARIOT RACE[33]
Orestes? He is dead. I will tell all as it happened.
He journeyed forth to attend the great games which Hellas counts her
pride, to join the Delphic contests. There he heard the herald's voice,
with loud and clear command, proclaim, as coming first, the chariot
race, and so he entered, radiant, every eye admiring as he passed. And
in the race he equaled all the promise of his form in those his rounds,
and so with noblest prize of conquest left the ground.
Summing up in fewest words what many scarce could tell, I know of none
in strength and act like him. And having won the prize in all the
fivefold forms of race which the umpires had proclaimed, he then was
hailed, proclaimed an Argive, and his name Orestes, the son of mighty
Agamemnon, who once led Hellas's glorious host.
So far, well. But when a god will injure, none can escape, strong though
he be. For lo! another day, when, as the sun was rising, came the race
swift-footed of the chariot and the horse, he entered the contest with
many charioteers. One was an Achæan, one was from Sparta, two were from
Libya with four-horsed chariots, and Orestes with swift Thessalian mares
came as the fifth. A sixth, with bright bay colts, came from Ætolia; the
seventh was born in far Magnesia; the eighth was an Ænian with white
horses; the ninth was from Athens, the city built by the gods; the tenth
and last was a Boeotian.
[Illustration: The Chariot Race.]
And so they stood, their cars in order as the umpires had decided by
lot. Then, with sound of brazen trumpet, they started.
All cheering their steeds at the same moment, they shook the reins, and
at once the course was filled with the clash and din of rattling
chariots, and the dust rose high. All were now commingled, each striving
to pass the hubs of his neighbors' wheels. Hard and hot were the horses'
breathings, and their backs and the chariot wheels were white with foam.
Each charioteer, when he came to the place where the last stone marks
the course's goal, turned the corner sharply, letting go the right-hand
trace horse and pulling the nearer in. And so, at first, the chariots
kept their course; but, at length, the Ænian's unbroken colts, just as
they finished their sixth or seventh round, turned headlong back and
dashed at full speed against the chariot wheels of those who were
following. Then with tremendous uproar, each crashed on the other, they
fell overturned, and Crissa's broad plain was filled with wreck of
chariots.
The man from Athens, skilled and wise as a charioteer, saw the mischief
in time, turned his steeds aside, and escaped the whirling, raging surge
of man and horse. Last of all, Orestes came, holding his horses in
check, and waiting for the end. But when he saw the Athenian, his only
rival left, he urged his colts forward, shaking the reins and speeding
onward. And now the twain continued the race, their steeds sometimes
head to head, sometimes one gaining ground, sometimes the other; and so
all the other rounds were passed in safety.
Upright in his chariot still stood the ill-starred hero. Then, just as
his team was turning, he let loose the left rein unawares, and struck
the farthest pillar, breaking the spokes right at his axles' center.
Slipping out of his chariot, he was dragged along, with reins
dissevered. His frightened colts tore headlong through the midst of the
field; and the people, seeing him in his desperate plight, bewailed him
greatly--so young, so noble, so unfortunate, now hurled upon the ground,
helpless, lifeless.
The charioteers, scarcely able to restrain the rushing steeds, freed the
poor broken body--so mangled that not one of all his friends would have
known whose it was. They built a pyre and burned it; and now they bear
hither, in a poor urn of bronze, the sad ashes of that mighty form--that
so Orestes may have his tomb in his fatherland.
Such is my tale, full sad to hear; but to me who saw this accident,
nothing can ever be more sorrowful.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 33: Translated from the "Electra" of Sophocles, written about
450 years before Christ. The narrative is supposed to have been related
by the friend and attendant of the hero, Orestes.]
THE COLISEUM AT MIDNIGHT[34]
I crossed the Forum to the foot of the Palatine, and, ascending the Via
Sacra, passed beneath the Arch of Titus. From this point I saw below me
the gigantic outline of the Coliseum, like a cloud resting upon the
earth.
As I descended the hillside, it grew more broad and high,--more definite
in its form, and yet more grand in its dimensions,--till, from the vale
in which it stands encompassed by three of the Seven Hills of Rome, the
majestic ruin in all its solitary grandeur "swelled vast to heaven."
A single sentinel was pacing to and fro beneath the arched gateway which
leads to the interior, and his measured footsteps were the only sound
that broke the breathless silence of night.
What a contrast with the scene which that same midnight hour presented,
when in Domitian's time the eager populace began to gather at the gates,
impatient for the morning sports! Nor was the contrast within less
striking. Silence, and the quiet moonbeams, and the broad, deep shadow
of the ruined wall!
Where now were the senators of Rome, her matrons, and her virgins? Where
was the ferocious populace that rent the air with shouts, when, in the
hundred holidays that marked the dedication of this imperial slaughter
house, five thousand wild beasts from the Libyan deserts and the forests
of Anatolia made the arena sick with blood?
Where were the Christian martyrs that died with prayers upon their lips,
amid the jeers and imprecations of their fellow men? Where were the
barbarian gladiators, brought forth to the festival of blood, and
"butchered to make a Roman holiday"?
The awful silence answered, "They are mine!" The dust beneath me
answered, "They are mine!"
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 34: From "Outre Mer," by Henry W. Longfellow.]
EXPRESSION: Learn all you can about the Coliseum. When was it
built? by whom? For what was it used?
WORD STUDY: _Forum_, _Palatine_, _Via Sacra_, _Titus_, _Domitian_,
_Libyan_, _Anatolia_.
[Illustration]
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE[35]
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened, without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits,--
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
_Georgius Secundus_ was then alive,--
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always _somewhere_ a weakest spot,--
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still,
Find it somewhere, you must and will,--
Above or below, or within or without,--
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise _breaks down_, but doesn't _wear out_.
But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell _yeou_,")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it _couldn'_ break daown:
"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."
[Illustration: The Deacon's Masterpiece.]
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;
The panels of white wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"
Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an ax had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin, too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."--
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew."
Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren--where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake day!
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED,--it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound,
Eighteen hundred increased by ten,--
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came,--
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty and FIFTY-FIVE.
Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it,--You're welcome.--No extra charge.)
FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake day.--
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start,
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whippletree neither less nor more,
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub _encore_.
And yet, as a _whole_, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be _worn out_!
[Illustration]
First of November, Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text,--
Had got to _fifthly_, and stopped perplexed
At what the--Moses--was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'house on the hill.
--First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,--
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet'n'house clock,--
Just the hour of the earthquake shock!
--What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground.
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,--
All at once, and nothing first,--
Just as bubbles do when they burst.
End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 35: From "The Autocrat or the Breakfast Table," by Oliver
Wendell Holmes, a noted American author and physician (1809--1894).]
EXPRESSION: Read the selection silently to appreciate its humor.
Now read it aloud with careful attention to naturalness of
expression. Study the historical allusions--"Georgius Secundus,"
"Lisbon town," "Braddock's army," "the Earthquake day," etc.
Read again the passages in which dialect expressions occur. Try to
speak these passages as the author intended them to be spoken.
Select the passages which appeal most strongly to your sense of
humor. Read them in such manner as to make their humorous quality
thoroughly appreciable to those who listen to you.
Now study the selection as a poem, comparing it with several
typical poems which you have already studied. Remembering your
definition of poetry (page 138), what is the real poetical value of
this delightful composition? Is it a true poem? Find some other
poems written by Dr. Holmes. Bring them to the class and read them
aloud.
Talk with your teacher about the life of Dr. Holmes and about his
prose and poetical works. As a poet, how does he compare with
Longfellow? with Whittier? with Walt Whitman? with Browning?
DOGS AND CATS[36]
Most people agree that the dog has intelligence, a heart, and possibly a
soul; on the other hand, they declare that the cat is a traitor, a
deceiver, an ingrate, a thief. How many persons have I heard say: "Oh, I
can't bear a cat! The cat has no love for its master; it cares only for
the house. I had one once, for I was living in the country, where there
were mice. One day the cook left on the kitchen table a chicken she had
just prepared for cooking; in came the cat, and carried it off, and we
never saw a morsel of it. Oh, I hate cats; I will never have one."
True, the cat is unpopular. Her reputation is bad, and she makes no
effort to improve the general opinion which people have of her. She
cares as little about your opinion as does the Sultan of Turkey.
And--must I confess--this is the very reason I love her.
In this world, no one can long be indifferent to things, whether trivial
or serious--if, indeed, anything is serious. Hence, every person must,
sooner or later, declare himself on the subjects of dogs and cats.
Well, then! I love cats.
Ah, how many times people have said to me, "What! do you love cats?"
"Certainly."
"Well, don't you love dogs better?"
"No, I prefer cats every time."
"Oh, that's very queer!"
The truth is, I would rather have neither cat nor dog. But when I am
obliged to live with one of these beings, I always choose the cat. I
will tell you why.
The cat seems to me to have the manners most necessary to good society.
In her early youth she has all the graces, all the gentleness, all the
unexpectedness that the most artistic imagination could desire. She is
smart; she never loses herself. She is prudent, going everywhere,
looking into everything, breaking nothing.
The cat steals fresh mutton just as the dog steals it, but, unlike the
dog, she takes no delight in carrion. She is fastidiously clean--and in
this respect, she might well be imitated by many of her detractors. She
washes her face, and in so doing foretells the weather into the bargain.
You may please yourself by putting a ribbon around her neck, but never a
collar; she cannot be enslaved.
In short, the cat is a dignified, proud, disdainful animal. She defies
advances and tolerates no insults. She abandons the house in which she
is not treated according to her merits. She is, in both origin and
character, a true aristocrat, while the dog is and always will be, a
mere vulgar parvenu.
The only serious argument that can be urged against the cat is that she
destroys the birds, not caring whether they are sparrows or
nightingales. If the dog does less, it is because of his stupidity and
clumsiness, not because he is above such business. He also runs after
the birds; but his foolish barking warns them of his coming, and as they
fly away he can only watch them with open mouth and drooping tail.
The dog submits himself to the slavery of the collar in order to be
taught the art of circumventing rabbits and pigeons--and this not for
his own profit, but for the pleasure of his master, the hunter. Foolish,
foolish fellow! An animal himself, he delights in persecuting other
animals at the command of the man who beats him.
But the cat, when she catches a bird, has a good excuse for her
cruelty--she catches it only to eat it herself. Shall she be slandered
for such an act? Before condemning her, men may well think of their own
shortcomings. They will find among themselves, as well as in the race of
cats, many individuals who have claws and often use them for the
destruction of those who are gifted with wings.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 36: Translated from Alexandre Dumas, a noted French novelist
(1802-1870).]
EXPRESSION: In what does the humor of this selection consist? Read
aloud and with expression the passages which appeal to you as the
most enjoyable. Do you agree with all the statements made by the
author? Read these with which you disagree, and then give reasons
for your disagreement.
THE OWL CRITIC[37]
"Who stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop;
The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop;
The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
The _Daily_, the _Herald_, the _Post_, little heeding
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
And the barber kept on shaving.
"Don't you see, Mister Brown,"
Cried the youth, with a frown,
"How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,
How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is--
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis?
I make no apology;
I've learned owl-eology,
I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And cannot be blinded to any deflections
Arising from unskillful fingers that fail
To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown! Mister Brown!
Do take that bird down,
Or you'll soon be the laughingstock all over town!"
And the barber kept on shaving.
[Illustration: The Owl Critic.]
"I've _studied_ owls,
And other night fowls,
And I tell you
What I know to be true:
An owl cannot roost
With his limbs so unloosed;
No owl in this world
Ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted,
Ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed
Into that attitude.
He can't _do_ it, because
'Tis against all bird laws.
Anatomy teaches,
Ornithology preaches,
An owl has a toe
That _can't_ turn out so!
I've made the white owl my study for years,
And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!
Mister Brown, I'm amazed
You should be so gone crazed
As to put up a bird
In that posture absurd!
To _look_ at that owl really brings on a dizziness;
The man who stuffed _him_ don't half know his business!"
And the barber kept on shaving.
"Examine those eyes.
I'm filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass
Off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem
They'd make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff.
Do take that bird down:
Have him stuffed again, Brown!"
And the barber kept on shaving.
"With some sawdust and bark
I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that.
I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl than that horrid fowl
Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about _him_ there's not one natural feather."
Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say,
"Your learning's at fault _this_ time, anyway;
Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray.
I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good day!"
And the barber kept on shaving.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 37: By James T. Fields, an American publisher and author
(1817-1881).]
MRS. CAUDLE'S UMBRELLA LECTURE[38]
Bah! That's the third umbrella gone since Christmas. What were you to
do? Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. I'm very certain there
was nothing about him that could spoil. Take cold? Indeed! He doesn't
look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he'd better have taken
cold than taken our umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say,
DO YOU HEAR THE RAIN?
Pooh! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle. Don't insult me. He return the
umbrella? Anybody would think you were born yesterday. As if anybody
ever did return an umbrella!
I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow.
They shan't go through such weather, I'm determined. No! they shall stay
at home and never learn anything--the blessed creatures--sooner than go
and get wet. And when they grow up, I wonder whom they'll have to thank
for knowing nothing--who, indeed, but their father?
But I know why you lent the umbrella. Oh, yes! I know very well. I was
going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow--you knew that--and you did
it on purpose. Don't tell me; you hate to have me to go there, and take
every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't you think it, Mr. Caudle.
No, sir; if it comes down in bucketfuls I'll go all the more.
No! and I won't have a cab! Where do you think the money's to come from?
You've got nice, high notions at that club of yours. A cab, indeed! Cost
me sixteen pence at least--sixteen pence?--two-and-eight-pence, for
there's back again! Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who is to pay
for them! I can't pay for them, and I'm sure you can't if you go on as
you do; throwing away your property and beggaring your children, buying
umbrellas.
Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, DO YOU HEAR IT? But I don't
care--I'll go to mother's to-morrow, I will; and what's more, I'll walk
every step of the way; and you know that will give me my death. Don't
call me a foolish woman; it's you that's the foolish man. You know I
can't wear clogs; and with no umbrella, the wet's sure to give me a
cold--it always does. But what do you care for that? Nothing at all. I
may be laid up for what you care, as I dare say I shall--and a pretty
doctor's bill there'll be. I hope there will! It will teach you to lend
your umbrella again. I shouldn't wonder if I caught my death; and that's
what you lent your umbrella for. Of course!
Nice clothes I shall get, too, traipsing through weather like this. My
gown and bonnet will be spoiled quite. Needn't I wear them, then?
Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear them. No, sir; I'm not going out a
dowdy to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows, it isn't often I
step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at
once--better, I should say. But when I go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to
go as a lady.
Ugh! I look forward with dread for to-morrow. How I'm to go to mother's
I'm sure I can't tell. But, if I die, I'll go. No, sir; I won't _borrow_
an umbrella.
No; and you shan't _buy_ one. Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another
umbrella, I'll throw it into the street. Ha! it was only last week I had
a new nozzle put to that umbrella. I'm sure if I'd known as much as I do
now, it might have gone without one, for all of me.
The children, too, dear things, they'll be sopping wet; for they shan't
stay at home; they shan't lose their learning; it's all their father
will leave them, I'm sure. But they shall go to school. Don't tell me I
said they shouldn't; you are so aggravating, Caudle, you'd spoil the
temper of an angel; they shall go to school; mark that! And if they get
their deaths of cold, it's not my fault. I didn't lend the umbrella.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 38: By Douglas William Jerrold, an English humorous writer
(1803-1857).]
NOTE: Which of the various specimens of humor here presented do you
enjoy most? Give reasons.
THE DARK DAY IN CONNECTICUT[39]
'Twas on a Mayday of the far old year,
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the spring,
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,--
The Twilight of the Gods....
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barnyard fowls
Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings
Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp
To hear the doom blast of the trumpet shatter
The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ
Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked
A loving guest at Bethany, but stern
As Justice and inexorable Law.
Meanwhile in the old statehouse, dim as ghosts,
Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut,
Trembling beneath their legislative robes.
"It is the Lord's Great Day! Let us adjourn,"
Some said; and then as if with one accord
All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport.
[Illustration: The Dark Day In Connecticut.]
He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice
The intolerable hush. "This well may be
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
But be it so or not, I only know
My present duty, and my Lord's command
To occupy till he come. So at the post
Where he hath set me in his providence,
I choose, for one, to meet him face to face,--
No faithless servant frightened from my task,
But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
Let God do his work, we will see to ours.--
Bring in the candles!" And they brought them in.
Then, by the flaring lights the Speaker read,
Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands,
An act to amend an act to regulate
The shad and alewive fisheries. Whereupon
Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport,
Straight to the question, with no figures of speech
Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without
The shrewd, dry humor natural to the man--
His awestruck colleagues listening all the while,
Between the pauses of his argument,
To hear the thunder of the wrath of God
Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud.
And there he stands in memory to this day,
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen
Against the background of unnatural dark,
A witness to the ages as they pass,
That simple duty hath no place for fear.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 39: From "Abraham Davenport," by John Greenleaf Whittier.]
TWO INTERESTING LETTERS
I. COLUMBUS TO THE LORD TREASURER OF SPAIN
BARCELONA, 1493.
TO LORD RAPHAEL SANCHEZ:--
Knowing that it will afford you pleasure to learn that I have brought my
undertaking to a successful termination, I have decided upon writing you
this letter to acquaint you with all the events which have occurred in
my voyage, and the discoveries which have resulted from it.
[Illustration]
Thirty-three days after my departure from Cadiz I reached the Indian
sea, where I discovered many islands, thickly peopled, of which I took
possession without resistance in the name of our most illustrious
monarchs, by public proclamation and with unfurled banners. To the first
of these islands, which is called by the Indians Guanahani, I gave the
name of the blessed Saviour, relying upon whose protection I had reached
this as well as the other islands.
As soon as we arrived at that, which as I have said was named Juana, I
proceeded along its coast a short distance westward, and found it to be
so large and apparently without termination, that I could not suppose it
to be an island, but the continental province of Cathay.
In the meantime I had learned from some Indians whom I had seized, that
the country was certainly an island; and therefore I sailed toward the
east, coasting to the distance of three hundred and twenty-two miles,
which brought us to the extremity of it; from this point I saw lying
eastwards another island, fifty-four miles distant from Juana, to which
I gave the name Española.
All these islands are very beautiful, and distinguished by a diversity
of scenery; they are filled with a great variety of trees of immense
height, and which I believe to retain their foliage in all seasons; for
when I saw them they were as verdant and luxurious as they usually are
in Spain in the month of May,--some of them were blossoming, some
bearing fruit, and all flourishing in the greatest perfection, according
to their respective stages of growth, and the nature and quality of
each; yet the islands are not so thickly wooded as to be impassable. The
nightingale and various birds were singing in countless numbers, and
that in November, the month in which I arrived there.
The inhabitants are very simple and honest, and exceedingly liberal with
all they have; none of them refusing anything he may possess when he is
asked for it, but on the contrary inviting us to ask them. They exhibit
great love toward all others in preference to themselves: they also give
objects of great value for trifles, and content themselves with very
little or nothing in return.
I, however, forbade that these trifles and articles of no value (such as
pieces of dishes, plates, and glass, keys, and leather straps) should be
given to them, although, if they could obtain them, they imagined
themselves to be possessed of the most beautiful trinkets in the world.
It even happened that a sailor received for a leather strap as much gold
as was worth three golden nobles, and for things of more trifling value
offered by our men, the Indian would give whatever the seller required.
On my arrival I had taken some Indians by force from the first island
that I came to, in order that they might learn our language. These men
are still traveling with me, and although they have been with us now a
long time, they continue to entertain the idea that I have descended
from heaven; and on our arrival at any new place they published this,
crying out immediately with a loud voice to the other Indians, "Come,
come and look upon beings of a celestial race": upon which both men and
women, children and adults, young men and old, when they got rid of the
fear they at first entertained, would come out in throngs, crowding the
roads to see us, some bringing food, others drink, with astonishing
affection and kindness.
Although all I have related may appear to be wonderful and unheard of,
yet the results of my voyage would have been more astonishing if I had
had at my disposal such ships as I required. But these great and
marvelous results are not to be attributed to any merit of mine, but to
the holy Christian faith, and to the piety and religion of our
Sovereigns; for that which the unaided intellect of man could not
compass, the spirit of God has granted to human exertions, for God is
wont to hear the prayers of his servants who love his precepts even to
the performance of apparent impossibilities.
Thus it has happened to me in the present instance, who have
accomplished a task to which the powers of mortal men had never hitherto
attained; for if there have been those who have anywhere written or
spoken of these islands, they have done so with doubts and conjectures,
and no one has ever asserted that he has seen them, on which account
their writings have been looked upon as little else than fables.
Therefore let the king and queen, our princes and their most happy
kingdoms, and all the other provinces of Christendom, render thanks to
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has granted us so great a victory
and such prosperity.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
EXPRESSION: In connection with this letter, read again the story of
the discovery as narrated by Washington Irving, page 43. In what
respect do the two accounts differ?
II. GOVERNOR WINSLOW TO A FRIEND IN ENGLAND
DEAR FRIEND,--
Although I received no letter from you by this ship, yet forasmuch as I
know you expect the performance of my promise, which was to write to you
truly and faithfully of all things, I have therefore, at this time, sent
unto you accordingly, referring you for further satisfaction to our more
large relations.
[Illustration]
You shall understand that in this little time that a few of us have been
here, we have built seven dwelling houses and four for the use of the
plantation, and have made preparation for divers others.
We set the last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some
six acres of barley and pease; and according to the manner of the
Indians, we manured our ground with herrings, or rather shads, which we
have in great abundance, and take with great ease at our doors.
Our corn did prove well; and God be praised, we had a good increase of
Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our pease not worth
the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown. They came up very
well, and blossomed; but the sun parched them in the blossom.
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that
so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had
gathered the fruit of our labors. They four, in one day, killed as much
fowl as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At
which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of
the Indians coming among us, and among the rest their greatest king,
Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and
feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to
the plantation, and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain and
others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this
time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are so far from want, that
we often wish you partakers of our plenty....
We have often found the Indians very faithful in their covenant of peace
with us, very loving, and ready to pleasure us. We often go to them, and
they come to us.... Yea, it hath pleased God so to possess the Indians
with a fear of us and love to us, that not only the greatest king
amongst them, called Massasoit, but also all the princes and peoples
round about us, have either made suit to us, or been glad of any
occasion to make peace with us; so that seven of them at once have sent
their messengers to us to that end.... They are a people without any
religion or knowledge of any God, yet very trusty, quick of
apprehension, ripe-witted, just....
Now, because I expect you coming unto us, with other of our friends, I
thought good to advertise you of a few things needful. Be careful to
have a very good bread room to put your biscuits in. Let not your meat
be dry-salted; none can better do it than the sailors. Let your meal be
so hard trod in your cask that you shall need an adz or hatchet to work
it out with. Trust not too much on us for corn at this time, for we
shall have little enough till harvest.
Build your cabins as open as you can, and bring good store of clothes
and bedding with you. Bring every man a musket or fowling piece. Let
your piece be long in the barrel, and fear not the weight of it, for
most of our shooting is from stands.
I forbear further to write for the present, hoping to see you by the
next return. So I take my leave, commending you to the Lord for a safe
conduct unto us, resting in him,
Your loving friend,
EDWARD WINSLOW.
_Plymouth in New England,
this 11th of December, 1621._
POEMS OF HOME AND COUNTRY
I. "THIS IS MY OWN, MY NATIVE LAND"[40]
Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well.
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band,
That knits me to thy rugged strand?
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 40: From the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," by Sir Walter Scott.]
II. THE GREEN LITTLE SHAMROCK OF IRELAND[41]
There's a dear little plant that grows in our isle,
'Twas St. Patrick himself, sure, that set it;
And the sun on his labor with pleasure did smile,
And with dew from his eye often wet it.
It thrives through the bog, through the brake, through the mireland,
And its name is the dear little shamrock of Ireland--
The sweet little shamrock, the dear little shamrock,
The sweet little, green little shamrock of Ireland.
This dear little plant still grows in our land,
Fresh and fair as the daughters of Erin,
Whose smiles can bewitch, whose eyes can command,
In what climate they chance to appear in;
For they shine through the bog, through the brake, through the mireland,
Just like their own dear little shamrock of Ireland--
The sweet little shamrock, the dear little shamrock,
The sweet little, green little shamrock of Ireland.
This dear little plant that springs from our soil,
When its three little leaves are extended,
Betokens that each for the other should toil,
And ourselves by ourselves be befriended,--
And still through the bog, through the brake, through the mireland,
From one root should branch like the shamrock of Ireland--
The sweet little shamrock, the dear little shamrock,
The sweet little, green little shamrock of Ireland!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 41: By Andrew Cherry, an Irish poet (1762-1812).]
III. MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS[42]
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer,
Chasing the wild deer and following the roe--
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birthplace of valor, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands forever I love.
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer,
Chasing the wild deer and following the roe--
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 42: By Robert Burns, a famous Scottish poet (1759-1796).]
IV. THE FATHERLAND[43]
Where is the true man's fatherland?
Is it where he by chance is born?
Doth not the yearning spirit scorn
In such scant borders to be spanned?
Oh, yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!
Is it alone where freedom is,
Where God is God, and man is man?
Doth he not claim a broader span
For the soul's love of home than this?
Oh, yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!
Where'er a human heart doth wear
Joy's myrtle wreath or sorrow's gyves,
Where'er a human spirit strives
After a life more true and fair,
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!
Where'er a single slave doth pine,
Where'er one man may help another,--
Thank God for such a birthright, brother,--
That spot of earth is thine and mine!
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 43: By James Russell Lowell.]
V. HOME[44]
But where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct when all pretend to know?
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own--
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease;
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind;
As different good, by art or nature given,
To different nations makes their blessing even.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 44: By Oliver Goldsmith.]
EXPRESSION: Read all of these poems silently with a view towards
sympathizing with the feelings which they express. Now read each
one separately, and compare them, one with another. What is the
leading sentiment inculcated by each? Which poem appeals the most
strongly to your own emotions?
WORD STUDY: _Caledonia_, _shamrock_, _brake_, _Erin_, _gyves_,
_yearning_, _frigid_, _tepid_, _patriot_.
THE AGE OF COAL[45]
Come with me, in fancy, back to those early ages of the world,
thousands, yes millions, of years ago. Stand with me on some low ancient
hill, which overlooks the flat and swampy lands that are to become the
American continent.
Few heights are yet in sight. The future Rocky Mountains lie still
beneath the surface of the sea. The Alleghanies are not yet heaved up
above the level surface of the ground, for over them are spread the
boggy lands and thick forests of future coal fields. The Mississippi
River is not yet in existence, or if in existence, is but an unimportant
little stream.
Below us, as we stand, we can see a broad and sluggish body of water, in
places widening into shallow lakes. On either side of this stream, vast
forests extend in every direction as far as the horizon, bounded on one
side by the distant ocean, clothing each hilly rise, and sending islets
of matted trees and shrubs floating down the waters.
Strange forests these are to us. No oaks, no elms, no beeches, no
birches, no palms, nor many colored wild flowers are there. The
deciduous plants so common in our modern forests are nowhere found; but
enormous club mosses are seen, as well as splendid pines and an
abundance of ancient trees with waving, frondlike leaves. Here also are
graceful tree ferns and countless ferns of lower growth filling up all
gaps.
[Illustration]
No wild quadrupeds are yet in existence, and the silent forests are
enlivened only by the stirring of the breeze among the trees or the
occasional hum of monstrous insects. But upon the margin of yonder
stream a huge four-footed creature creeps slowly along. He looks much
like a gigantic salamander, and his broad, soft feet make deep
impressions in the yielding mud.
No sunshine but only a gleam of light can creep through the misty
atmosphere. The earth seems clothed in a garment of clouds, and the air
is positively reeking with damp warmth, like the air of a hothouse. This
explains the luxuriant growth of foliage.
Could we thus stand upon the hilltops and keep watch through the long
coal building ages, we should see generation after generation of forest
trees and underwoods living, withering, dying, falling to earth. Slowly
a layer of dead and decaying vegetation thus collects, over which the
forest flourishes still--tree for tree, and shrub for shrub, springing
up in the place of each one that dies.
Then, after a very long time, through the working of mighty underground
forces, the broad lands sink a little way--perhaps only a few feet--and
the ocean tide rushes in, overwhelming the forests, trees and plants and
living creatures, in one dire desolation.--No, not dire, for the ruin is
not objectless or needless. It is all a part of the wonderful
preparation for the life of man on earth.
Under the waves lie the overwhelmed forests--prostrate trunks and broken
stumps in countless numbers overspreading the gathered vegetable remains
of centuries before. Upon these the sea builds a protective covering of
sand or mud, more or less thick. Here sea creatures come to live, fishes
swim hungrily to and fro, and shellfishes die in the mud which, by and
by, is to become firm rock with stony animal remains embedded in it.
After a while the land rises again to its former position. There are
bare, sandy flats as before, but they do not remain bare. Lichens and
hardier plants find a home. The light spores of the ancient forest trees
take root and grow, and luxuriant forests, like those of old, spring
again into being. Upon river and lake bottoms, and over the low damp
lands, rich layers of decaying vegetation again collect. Then once more
the land sinks and the ocean tide pours in; and another sandy or muddy
stratum is built up on the overflowed lands. Thus the second layer of
forest growth is buried like the first, and both lie quietly through the
long ages following, hidden from sight, slowly changing in their
substance from wood to shining coal.
* * * * *
Thus time after time, the land rose and sank, rose and sank, again and
again. Not the whole continent is believed to have risen or sunk at the
same time; but here at one period, there at another period, the
movements probably went on.
The greater part of the vegetable mass decayed slowly; but when the
final ruin of the forest came, whole trunks were snapped off close to
the roots and flung down. These are now found in numbers on the tops of
the coal layers, the barks being flattened and changed to shining black
coal.
How wonderful the tale of those ancient days told to us by these buried
forests!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 45: By Agnes Giberne, an English writer on scientific
subjects.]
SOMETHING ABOUT THE MOON[46]
I am going to say a few words about the moon; but there are many matters
relating to her of great interest which I must leave untouched, for the
simple reason that there is not room to speak of them in a single paper.
Thus the moon's changes of shape from the horned moon to the half, and
thence to the full moon, with the following changes from full to half,
and so to the horned form again, are well worth studying; but I should
want all the space I am going to occupy, merely to explain properly
those changes alone.
So a study of the way in which the moon rules the tides would, I am
sure, interest every thoughtful reader; but there is not room for it
here.
Let us now turn to consider the moon; not as the light which makes our
nights beautiful, nor as the body which governs the mighty ocean in its
tidal sway, but as another world,--the companion planet of the earth.
It has always been a matter not only of the deepest curiosity, but of
the greatest scientific import, whether other planets, and particularly
our own satellite, are inhabited or exhibit any traces whatever of
animal or vegetable life.
One or two astronomers have claimed the discovery of vegetation on the
moon's surface by reason of the periodic appearance of a greenish tint;
but as the power of the telescope can bring the moon to within only
about a hundred and twenty miles of us, these alleged appearances cannot
be satisfactorily verified.
The moon is a globe, two thousand one hundred and sixty-five miles in
diameter; very much less, therefore, than our earth, which has a
diameter of about seven thousand nine hundred and twenty miles.
Thus the moon's surface is less than one thirteenth of the earth's.
Instead of two hundred millions of square miles as the earth has, the
moon has only about fourteen millions of square miles, or about the same
surface as North and South America together, without the great American
Islands of the Arctic regions.
The volume of the earth exceeds that of the moon more than forty-nine
times. But the moon's substance is somewhat lighter. Thus the mass, or
quantity of matter in the moon, instead of being a forty-ninth part of
the earth's, is about an eighty-first part.
This small companion world travels like our own earth around the sun, at
a distance of ninety-three millions of miles. The path of the moon
around the sun is, in fact, so nearly the same as that of the earth that
it would be almost impossible to distinguish one from the other, if they
were both drawn on a sheet of paper a foot or so in diameter.
You may perhaps be surprised to find me thus saying that the moon
travels round the sun, when you have been accustomed to hear that the
moon travels round the earth. In reality, however, it is round the sun
the moon travels, though certainly the moon and the earth circle around
each other.
The distance of the moon from the earth is not always the same; but the
average, or mean distance, amounts to about two hundred and thirty-eight
thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight miles. This is the distance
between the centers of the two globes. With this distance separating
them, the companion worlds--the earth and the moon--circle round each
other, as they both travel round the central sun.
But now you will be curious to learn whether our companion planet, the
moon, really presents the appearance of a world, when studied with a
powerful telescope.
If we judged the moon in this way, we should say that she is not only
not inhabited by living creatures, but that she could not possibly be
inhabited. What is it that makes our earth a fit abode for us who live
upon it? Her surface is divided into land and water. We live on the
land; but without the water we should perish.
Were there no water, there would be no clouds, no rain, no snow, no
rivers, brooks, or other streams. Without these, there could be no
vegetable life; and without vegetable life, there could be no animal
life, even if animals themselves could live without water.
Yet again, the earth's globe is enwrapped in an atmosphere,--the air we
breathe. Without this air, neither animals nor vegetables could live. I
might go further and show other features of the earth, which we are at
present justified in regarding as essential to the mere existence, and
still more to the comfort, of creatures living upon the earth.
Now, before the telescope was invented, many astronomers believed that
there was water on the moon, and probably air also. But as soon as
Galileo examined the moon with his largest telescope (and a very weak
telescope it was), he found that whatever the dark parts of the moon may
be, they certainly are not seas.
More and more powerful telescopes have since been turned on the moon. It
has been shown that there are not only no seas, but no rivers, pools,
lakes, or other water surfaces. No clouds are ever seen to gather over
any part of the moon's surface. In fact, nothing has ever yet been seen
on the moon which suggests in the slightest degree the existence of
water on her surface, or even that water could at present possibly
exist; and, of course, without water it is safe to infer there could be
neither vegetable nor animal existence.
It would seem, then, that apart from the absence of air on the moon,
there is such an entire absence of water that no creatures now living on
the earth could possibly exist upon the moon. Certainly man could not
exist there, nor could animals belonging to any except the lowest orders
of animal life.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 46: By Richard A. Proctor, a noted English astronomer
(1837-1888).]
THE COMING OF THE BIRDS[47]
I know the trusty almanac
Of the punctual coming-back,
On their due days, of the birds.
I marked them yestermorn,
A flock of finches darting
Beneath the crystal arch,
Piping, as they flew, a march,--
Belike the one they used in parting
Last year from yon oak or larch;
Dusky sparrows in a crowd,
Diving, darting northward free,
Suddenly betook them all,
Every one to his hole in the wall,
Or to his niche in the apple tree.
I greet with joy the choral trains
Fresh from palms and Cuba's canes.
Best gems of Nature's cabinet,
With dews of tropic morning wet,
Beloved of children, bards and Spring,
O birds, your perfect virtues bring,
Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight,
Your manners for the heart's delight;
Nestle in hedge, or barn, or roof,
Here weave your chamber weather-proof,
Forgive our harms, and condescend
To man, as to a lubber friend,
And, generous, teach his awkward race
Courage and probity and grace!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 47: By Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American poet and philosopher
(1803-1882).]
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS[48]
The coming and going of the birds is more or less a mystery and a
surprise. We go out in the morning, and no thrush or finch is to be
heard; we go out again, and every tree and grove is musical; yet again,
and all is silent. Who saw them come? Who saw them depart?
This pert little winter wren, for instance, darting in and out the
fence, diving under the rubbish here and coming up yards away,--how does
he manage with those little circular wings to compass degrees and zones,
and arrive always in the nick of time? Last August I saw him in the
remotest wilds of the Adirondacks, impatient and inquisitive as usual; a
few weeks later, on the Potomac, I was greeted by the same hardy little
busybody. Does he travel by easy stages from bush to bush and from wood
to wood? or has that compact little body force and courage to brave the
night and the upper air, and so achieve leagues at one pull?
And yonder bluebird, with the earth tinge on his breast and the sky
tinge on his back,--did he come down out of heaven on that bright March
morning when he told us so softly and plaintively that spring had come?
Indeed, there is nothing in the return of the birds more curious and
suggestive than in the first appearance, or rumors of the appearance, of
this little bluecoat.
The bird at first seems a mere wandering voice in the air; one hears its
call or carol on some bright March morning, but is uncertain of its
source or direction; it falls like a drop of rain when no cloud is
visible; one looks and listens, but to no purpose. The weather changes,
perhaps a cold snap with snow comes on, and it may be a week before I
hear the note again, and this time or the next perchance see the bird
sitting on a stake in the fence, lifting his wing as he calls cheerily
to his mate. Its notes now become daily more frequent; the birds
multiply, and, flitting from point to point, call and warble more
confidently and gleefully.
Not long after the bluebird comes the robin, sometimes in March, but in
most of the Northern states April is the month of the robin. In large
numbers they scour the field and groves. You hear their piping in the
meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry
leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their
cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream,
chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees
with perilous rapidity.
In that free, fascinating, half work and half play pursuit,--sugar
making,--a pursuit which still lingers in many parts of New York, as in
New England, the robin is one's constant companion. When the day is
sunny and the ground bare, you meet him at all points and hear him at
all hours. At sunset, on the tops of the tall maples, with look
heavenward, and in a spirit of utter abandonment, he carols his simple
strain. And sitting thus amid the stark, silent trees, above the wet,
cold earth, with the chill of winter in the air, there is no fitter or
sweeter songster in the whole round year. It is in keeping with the
scene and the occasion. How round and genuine the notes are, and how
eagerly our ears drink them in! The first utterance, and the spell of
winter is thoroughly broken, and the remembrance of it afar off.
Another April bird, which makes her appearance sometimes earlier and
sometimes later than Robin, and whose memory I fondly cherish, is the
Phoebe bird, the pioneer of the fly catchers. In the inland fanning
districts, I used to notice her, on some bright morning about Easter
Day, proclaiming her arrival with much variety of motion and attitude,
from the peak of the barn or hay shed. As yet, you may have heard only
the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the
song sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable
bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable
intervals in her lay she describes a circle, or an ellipse in the air,
ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect, as an
artistic flourish, thrown in to make up in some way for the deficiency
of her musical performance.
Another April comer, who arrives shortly after robin redbreast, with
whom he associates both at this season and in the autumn, is the
golden-winged woodpecker, _alias_ "high-hole," _alias_ "flicker,"
_alias_ "yarup." He is an old favorite of my boyhood, and his note to me
means very much. He announces his arrival by a long, loud call, repeated
from the dry branch of some tree, or a stake in the fence,--a thoroughly
melodious April sound. I think how Solomon finished that beautiful
climax on spring, "And the voice of the turtle is heard in the land,"
and see that a description of spring in this farming country, to be
equally characteristic, should culminate in like manner, "And the call
of the high-hole comes up from the wood."
The song sparrow, that universal favorite and firstling of the spring,
comes before April, and its simple strain gladdens all hearts.
May is the month of the swallows and the orioles. There are many other
distinguished arrivals, indeed, nine tenths of the birds are here by the
last week in May, yet the swallows and orioles are the most conspicuous.
The bright plumage of the latter seems really like an arrival from the
tropics. I see them flash through the blossoming trees, and all the
forenoon hear their incessant warbling and wooing. The swallows dive and
chatter about the barn, or squeak and build beneath the eaves; the
partridge drums in the fresh sprouting woods; the long, tender note of
the meadow lark comes up from the meadow; and at sunset, from every
marsh and pond come the ten thousand voices of the hylas. May is the
transition month, and exists to connect April and June, the root with
the flower.
With June the cup is full, our hearts are satisfied, there is no more to
be desired. The perfection of the season, among other things, has
brought the perfection of the song and plumage of the birds. The master
artists are all here, and the expectations excited by the robin and the
song sparrow are fully justified. The thrushes have all come; and I sit
down upon the first rock, with hands full of the pink azalea, to listen.
In the meadows the bobolink is in all his glory; in the high pastures
the field sparrow sings his breezy vesper hymn; and the woods are
unfolding to the music of the thrushes.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 48: By John Burroughs.]
EXPRESSION: Read again the four descriptive selections beginning on
page 179. Observe the wide difference in style of composition. Of
the three prose extracts, which is the most interesting to you?
Give reasons why this is so. Which passages require the most
animation in reading? Read these passages so that those who are
listening to you may fully appreciate their meaning.
THE POET AND THE BIRD
I. THE SONG OF THE LARK
On a pleasant evening in late summer the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and
his wife, Mary Shelley, were walking near the city of Leghorn in Italy.
The sky was cloudless, the air was soft and balmy, and the earth seemed
hushed into a restful stillness. The green lane along which they were
walking was bordered by myrtle hedges, where crickets were softly
chirping and fireflies were already beginning to light their lamps. From
the fields beyond the hedges the grateful smell of new-mown hay was
wafted, while in the hazy distance the church towers of the city glowed
yellow in the last rays of the sun, and the gray-green sea rippled
softly in the fading light of day.
Suddenly, from somewhere above them, a burst of music fell upon their
ears. It receded upward, but swelled into an ecstatic harmony, with
fluttering intervals and melodious swervings such as no musician's art
can imitate.
"What is that?" asked the poet, as the song seemed to die away in the
blue vault of heaven.
"It is a skylark," answered his wife.
"Nay," said the poet, his face all aglow with the joy of the moment; "no
mere bird ever poured forth such strains of music as that. I think,
rather, that it is some blithe spirit embodied as a bird."
"Let us imagine that it is so," said Mary. "But, hearken. It is singing
again, and soaring as it sings."
"Yes, and I can see it, too, like a flake of gold against the pale
purple of the sky. It is so high that it soars in the bright rays of the
sun, while we below are in the twilight shade. And now it is descending
again, and the air is filled with its song. Hark to the rain of melody
which it showers down upon us."
They listened enraptured, while the bird poured forth its flood of song.
When at length it ceased, and the two walked home in the deepening
twilight, the poet said:--
"We shall never know just what it was that sang so gloriously. But,
Mary, what do you think is most like it?"
"A poet," she answered. "There is nothing so like it as a poet wrapt in
his own sweet thoughts and singing till the world is made to sing with
him for very joy."
"And I," said he, "would compare it to a beautiful maiden singing for
love in some high palace tower, while all who hear her are bewitched by
the enchanting melody."
"And I," said she, "would compare it to a red, red rose sitting among
its green leaves and giving its sweet perfumes to the summer breezes."
"You speak well, Mary," said he; "but let me make one other comparison.
Is it not like a glowworm lying unseen amid the grass and flowers, and
all through the night casting a mellow radiance over them and filling
them with divine beauty?"
[Illustration: The Song of the Lark.]
"I do not like the comparison so well," was the answer. "Yet, after all,
there is nothing so like it as a poet--as yourself, for instance."
"No poet ever had its skill, because no poet was ever so free from
care," said Shelley, sadly. "It is like an unbodied joy floating
unrestrained whithersoever it will. Ah, Mary, if I had but half the
gladness that this bird or spirit must know, I would write such poetry
as would bewitch the world, and all men would listen, entranced, to my
song."
That night the poet could not sleep for thinking of the skylark's song.
The next day he sat alone in his study, putting into harmonious words
the thoughts that filled his mind. In the evening he read to Mary a new
poem, entitled "To a Skylark." It was full of the melody inspired by the
song of the bird. Its very meter suggested the joyous flight, the
fluttering pauses, the melodious swervings, the heavenward ascent of the
bird. No poem has ever been written that is fuller of beautiful images
and sweet and joyous harmonies.
Have you ever listened to the song of a bird and tried to attune your
own thoughts to its unrestrained and untaught melodies? There are no
true skylarks in America, and therefore you may never be able to repeat
the experience of the poet or fully to appreciate the "harmonious
madness" of his matchless poem; for no other bird is so literally the
embodiment of song as the European skylark.
* * * * *
But now let us read Shelley's inimitable poem.
II. TO A SKYLARK
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not;
Like a highborn maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower;
Like a glowworm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aërial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view;
Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Make faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingèd thieves.
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chaunt,
Matched with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught:
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From thy lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
HARK, HARK! THE LARK[49]
Hark, hark! The lark at Heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise;
Arise, arise!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 49: From "Cymbeline," by William Shakespeare.]
EXPRESSION: Read Shelley's poem with care, trying to understand and
interpret the poet's enthusiasm as he watched the flight of the
lark. Point out the five passages in the poem which seem the most
striking or the most beautiful. Memorize Shakespeare's song and
repeat it in a pleasing manner. Point out any peculiarities you may
notice.
ECHOES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
I. PATRICK HENRY'S FAMOUS SPEECH[50]
Mr. President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of
hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to
the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the
part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?
Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not,
and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their
temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost,
I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide
for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that lamp is the
lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the
past. And, judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in
the conduct of the British ministry, for the last ten years, to justify
those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves
and the house?
Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately
received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer
not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this
gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike
preparations which cover our waters, and darken our land.
Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?
Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be
called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These
are the implements of war and subjugation,--the last arguments to which
kings resort.
I ask, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to
force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive
for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to
call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has
none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are
sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British
ministry have been so long forging.
And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have
been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer
upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of
which it is capable, but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to
entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find, which have
not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive
ourselves longer.
Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which
is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have
supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have
implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the
ministry and Parliament.
Our petitions have been slighted, our remonstrances have produced
additional violence and insult, our supplications have been disregarded,
and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In
vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.
If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate these
inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we
mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so
long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until
the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained,--we must fight. I
repeat it, sir, we must fight. An appeal to arms, and to the God of
hosts, is all that is left us.
They tell us, sir, that we are weak,--unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a
British guard shall be stationed in every house?
Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire
the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and
hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound
us hand and foot?
Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the
God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed
in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we
possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against
us.
Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God
who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up
friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the
strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides,
sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now
too late to retire from the contest.
There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery. Our chains are
forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is
inevitable; and let it come!--I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is vain,
sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace! but there
is no peace. The war is actually begun.
The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the
clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why
stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they
have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the
price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what
course others may take; but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me
death!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 50: Before the Virginia Convention, March 25, 1775.]
II. MARION'S MEN[51]
We follow where the Swamp Fox guides,
His friends and merry men are we,
And when the troop of Tarleton rides,
We burrow in the cypress tree.
The turfy hummock is our bed,
Our home is in the red deer's den,
Our roof, the treetop overhead,
For we are wild and hunted men.
We fly by day and shun its light,
But, prompt to strike the sudden blow,
We mount and start with early night,
And through the forest track our foe.
And soon he hears our chargers leap,
The flashing saber blinds his eyes,
And, ere he drives away his sleep
And rushes from his camp, he dies.
Free bridle bit, good gallant steed,
That will not ask a kind caress,
To swim the Santee at our need,
When on his heels the foemen press,--
The true heart and the ready hand,
The spirit stubborn to be free,
The trusted bore, the smiting brand,--
And we are Marion's men, you see.
[Illustration: Marion's Men.]
Now light the fire and cook the meal,
The last perhaps that we shall taste;
I hear the Swamp Fox round us steal,
And that's a sign we move in haste.
He whistles to the scouts, and hark!
You hear his order calm and low,
Come, wave your torch across the dark,
And let us see the boys that go.
Now pile the brush and roll the log--
Hard pillow, but a soldier's head
That's half the time in brake and bog
Must never think of softer bed.
The owl is hooting to the night,
The cooter crawling o'er the bank,
And in that pond the flashing light
Tells where the alligator sank.
* * * * *
What! 'tis the signal! start so soon?
And through the Santee swamps so deep,
Without the aid of friendly moon,
And we, Heaven help us! half asleep?
But courage, comrades! Marion leads,
The Swamp Fox takes us out to-night;
So clear your swords and spur your steeds,
There's goodly chance, I think, of fight.
We follow where the Swamp Fox guides,
We leave the swamp and cypress tree,
Our spurs are in our coursers' sides,
And ready for the strife are we.
The Tory's camp is now in sight,
And there he cowers within his den;
He hears our shouts, he dreads the fight,
He fears, and flies from Marion's men.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 51: By William Gilmore Simms, an American author (1806-1870).]
III. IN MEMORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON[52]
How, my fellow-citizens, shall I single to your grateful hearts his
preëminent worth? Where shall I begin in opening to your view a
character throughout sublime? Shall I speak of his warlike achievements,
all springing from obedience to his country's will--all directed to his
country's good?
Will you go with me to the banks of the Monongahela, to see our youthful
Washington supporting, in the dismal hour of Indian victory, the
ill-fated Braddock and saving, by his judgment and his valor, the
remains of a defeated army, pressed by the conquering savage foe? Or
when, oppressed America nobly resolving to risk her all in defense of
her violated right, he was elevated by the unanimous vote of Congress to
the command of her armies?
Will you follow him to the high grounds of Boston, where to an
undisciplined, courageous, and virtuous yeomanry his presence gave the
stability of system and infused the invincibility of love of country? Or
shall I carry you to the painful scenes of Long Island, York Island, and
New Jersey, when, combating superior and gallant armies, aided by
powerful fleets and led by chiefs high in the roll of fame, he stood the
bulwark of our safety, undismayed by disasters, unchanged by change of
fortune?
Or will you view him in the precarious fields of Trenton, where deep
gloom, unnerving every arm, reigned triumphant through our thinned,
worn-down, unaided ranks, to himself unknown? Dreadful was the night. It
was about this time of winter; the storm raged; the Delaware, rolling
furiously with floating ice, forbade the approach of man.
Washington, self-collected, viewed the tremendous scene. His country
called; unappalled by surrounding dangers, he passed to the hostile
shore; he fought, he conquered. The morning sun cheered the American
world. Our country rose on the event, and her dauntless chief, pursuing
his blow, completed in the lawns of Princeton what his vast soul had
conceived on the shores of the Delaware.
Thence to the strong grounds of Morristown he led his small but gallant
band; and through an eventful winter, by the high effort of his genius,
whose matchless force was measurable only by the growth of difficulties,
he held in check formidable hostile legions, conducted by a chief
experienced in the arts of war, and famed for his valor on the ever
memorable Heights of Abraham, where fell Wolfe, Montcalm, and since our
much-lamented Montgomery, all covered with glory. In this fortunate
interval, produced by his masterly conduct, our fathers, ourselves,
animated by his resistless example, rallied around our country's
standard, and continued to follow her beloved chief through the various
and trying scenes to which the destinies of our union led.
Who is there that has forgotten the vales of Brandywine, the fields of
Germantown, or the plains of Monmouth? Everywhere present, wants of
every kind obstructing, numerous and valiant armies encountering,
himself a host, he assuaged our sufferings, limited our privations, and
upheld our tottering Republic. Shall I display to you the spread of the
fire of his soul, by rehearsing the praises of the hero of Saratoga and
his much-loved compeer of the Carolinas? No; our Washington wears not
borrowed glory. To Gates, to Greene, he gave without reserve the
applause due to their eminent merit; and long may the chiefs of Saratoga
and of Eutaw receive the grateful respect of a grateful people.
Moving in his own orbit, he imparted heat and light to his most distant
satellites; and combining the physical and moral force of all within his
sphere, with irresistible weight, he took his course, commiserating
folly, disdaining vice, dismaying treason, and invigorating despondency;
until the auspicious hour arrived when united with the intrepid forces
of a potent and magnanimous ally, he brought to submission the since
conqueror of India; thus finishing his long career of military glory
with a luster corresponding to his great name, and in this, his last act
of war, affixing the seal of fate to our nation's birth....
First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,
he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private
life. Pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere, uniform, dignified,
and commanding, his example was edifying to all around him, as were the
effects of that example lasting.
To his equals he was condescending; to his inferiors, kind; and to the
dear object of his affections, exemplarily tender. Correct throughout,
vice shuddered in his presence, and virtue always felt his fostering
hand; the purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public
virtues. His last scene comported with the whole tenor of his life.
Although in extreme pain, not a sigh, not a groan, escaped him; and with
undisturbed serenity he closed his well-spent life. Such was the man
America has lost! Such was the man for whom our nation mourns!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 52: By Henry Lee of Virginia. Extract from an oration
delivered in the House of Representatives, 1799.]
THREE GREAT AMERICAN POEMS
I
One day when Dr. Peter Bryant of Cummington, Massachusetts, was looking
through his writing desk, he found a small package of papers on which
some verses were written. He recognized the neat, legible handwriting as
that of his son, and he paused to open the papers and read. Presently,
he called aloud to his wife, "Here, Sallie, just listen to this poem
which Cullen has written!"
He began to read, and as he read, the proud mother listened with tears
in her eyes. "Isn't that grand?" she cried. "I've always told you that
Cullen would be a poet. And now just think what a pity it is that he
must give up going to Yale College and settle down to the study of law!"
"Yes, wife," responded Dr. Bryant, "it is to be regretted. But people
with small means cannot always educate their children as they wish. A
lawyer is a better breadwinner than most poets are, and I am satisfied
that our boy will be a successful lawyer."
"Of course he will," said Mrs. Bryant; "he will succeed at anything he
may undertake. But that poem--why, Wordsworth never wrote anything half
so grand or beautiful. What is the title?"
"Thanatopsis."
"Thanatopsis? I wonder what it means."
"It is from two Greek words, and means 'A View of Death.' I have half a
notion to take the poem to Boston with me next winter. I want to show it
to my friend Mr. Philips."
"Oh, do; and take some of Cullen's other poems with it. Perhaps he might
think some of them good enough to publish."
Dr. Peter Bryant was at that time a member of the senate in the
Massachusetts general assembly. When the time came for the meeting of
the assembly he went up to Boston, and he did not forget to take several
of his son's poems with him. The _North American Review_ was a great
magazine in those days, and Dr. Bryant was well acquainted with Mr.
Philips, one of its editors. He called at the office of the _Review_,
and not finding Mr. Philips, he left the package of manuscript with his
name written upon it.
When Mr. Philips returned he found the package, and after reading the
poems concluded that Dr. Bryant had written "Thanatopsis," and that the
others were probably by his son Cullen.
"It is a remarkable poem--a remarkable poem," he said, as he showed it
to his two fellow-editors. "We have never published anything better in
the _Review_," he said, and he began to read it to them.
When he had finished, one of them, Richard Henry Dana, who was himself a
poet, said doubtingly:
"Mr. Philips, you have been imposed upon. There is no person in America
who can write a poem like that."
"Ah, but I know the man who wrote it," answered Mr. Philips. "He is in
the state senate, and he isn't a man who would impose upon any person."
"Well, I must have a look at the man who can write such lines as those,"
said Mr. Dana.
He went to the statehouse, and to the senate chamber, and asked to see
Senator Bryant. A tall, gray-bearded man was pointed out to him. Mr.
Dana looked at him for a few minutes and then said to himself, "He has a
fine head; but he is not the man who could write 'Thanatopsis'" So
without speaking to him he returned to his office.
Mr. Philips, still full of enthusiasm, soon had an interview with Dr.
Bryant, and learned the truth in regard to the authorship of the poem.
It was printed in the next issue of the _North American Review_. It was
the first great poem ever produced in America; it was the work of a
young man not eighteen years of age, and it is without doubt the
greatest poem ever written by one so young. But let us read it.
THANATOPSIS
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice:
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun--the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between--
The venerable woods--rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,--yet the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep,--the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man,
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
EXPRESSION: Observe that this poem is written in blank verse. In
what respects does it differ from other forms of verse? Read it
with great care, observing the marks of punctuation and giving to
each passage the proper inflections and emphasis. Compare it with
some other poems you have read.
II
One Sunday evening, in the summer of 1848, Edgar Allan Poe was visiting
at the house of a friend in New York city. The day was warm, and the
windows of the conservatory where he was sitting were thrown wide open
to admit the breeze. Mr. Poe was very despondent because of many sorrows
and disappointments, and he was plainly annoyed by the sound of some
near-by church bells pealing the hour of worship.
"I have made an agreement with a publisher to write a poem for him," he
said, "but I have no inspiration for such a task. What shall I do?"
His friend Mrs. Shew gave him an encouraging reply, and invited him to
drink tea with her. Then she placed paper and ink before him and
suggested that, if he would try to write, the required inspiration would
come.
"No," he answered; "I so dislike the noise of bells to-night, I cannot
write. I have no subject--I am exhausted."
Mrs. Shew then wrote at the top of the sheet of paper, _The Bells, by E.
A. Poe_, and added a single line as a beginning:
"The bells, the little silver bells."
The poet accepted the suggestion, and after some effort finished the
first stanza. Then Mrs. Shew wrote another line:
"The heavy iron bells."
This idea was also elaborated by Mr. Poe, who copied off the two stanzas
and entitled them _The Bells, by Mrs. M. L. Shew_. He went home,
pondering deeply upon the subject; the required inspiration was not long
lacking; and in a few days the completed poem was ready to be submitted
to the publisher.
THE BELLS
Hear the sledges with the bells--
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight,
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rime,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically swells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Hear the mellow wedding bells--
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtledove that listens while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells--
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
To the riming and the chiming of the bells!
Hear the loud alarum bells--
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire
And a resolute endeavor
Now--now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells,
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang and crash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells,
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells!
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells.
Hear the tolling of the bells--
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people--ah, the people--
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone:
They are neither man nor woman;
They are neither brute nor human;
They are ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells,
And he dances and he yells,
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rime,
To the pæan of the bells--
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rime,
To the throbbing of the bells--
Of the bells, bells, bells--
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rime,
To the rolling of the bells--
Of the bells, bells, bells,--
To the tolling of the bells--
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells!
III
In the early part of the nineteenth century Fitz-Greene Halleck was
regarded as one of the greatest of American poets. He is now, however,
remembered chiefly as the author of a single poem, "Marco Bozzaris,"
published in 1827. This poem has been described, perhaps justly, as "the
best martial lyric in the English language."
It was written at a time when the people of Greece were fighting for
their independence; and it celebrates the heroism of the young Greek
patriot, Marco Bozzaris, who was killed while leading a desperate but
successful night attack upon the Turks, August 20, 1823. As here
presented, it is slightly abridged.
MARCO BOZZARIS
At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power:
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch's signet ring:
Then pressed that monarch's throne--a king;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden bird.
At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood
On old Platæa's day;
And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike and soul to dare,
As quick, as far as they.
An hour passed on--the Turk awoke;
That bright dream was his last;
He woke--to hear his sentries shriek,
"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"
He woke--to die midst flame, and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and saber stroke,
And death shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain cloud;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:
"Strike--till the last armed foe expires;
Strike--for your altars and your fires;
Strike--for the green graves of your sires;
God--and your native land!"
They fought--like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain,
They conquered--but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,
Like flowers at set of sun.
* * * * *
Bozzaris! with the storied brave
Greece nurtured in her glory's time,
Rest thee--there is no prouder grave,
Even in her own proud clime.
She wore no funeral weeds for thee,
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume
Like torn branch from death's leafless tree
In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,
The heartless luxury of the tomb;
But she remembers thee as one
Long-loved and for a season gone.
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings the birthday bells;
Of thee her babes' first lisping tells;
For thine her evening prayer is said
At palace couch and cottage-bed....
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys,
And even she who gave thee birth,
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of thy doom without a sigh;
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's:
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.
EXPRESSION: Talk with your teacher about these three poems, and the
proper manner of reading each. Learn all that you can about their
authors.
THE INDIAN[53]
Think of the country for which the Indians fought! Who can blame them?
As Philip looked down from his seat on Mount Hope and beheld the lovely
scene which spread beneath at a summer sunset,--the distant hilltops
blazing with gold, the slanting beams streaming across the waters, the
broad plains, the island groups, the majestic forests,--could he be
blamed, if his heart burned within him, as he beheld it all passing, by
no tardy process, from beneath his control, into the hands of the
stranger?
As the river chieftains--the lords of the waterfalls and the
mountains--ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at, if they
beheld with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's
ax--the fishing places disturbed by his sawmills?
Can we not imagine the feelings, with which some strong-minded savage
chief, who should have ascended the summit of the Sugarloaf Mountain, in
company with a friendly settler, contemplating the progress already made
by the white man and marking the gigantic strides with which he was
advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms, and say:--
"White man, there is an eternal war between me and thee. I quit not the
land of my fathers, but with my life. In those woods where I bent my
youthful bow, I will still hunt the deer; over yonder waters I will
still glide unrestrained in my bark canoe; by those dashing waterfalls I
will still lay up my winter's store of food; on these fertile meadows I
will still plant my corn.
"Stranger! the land is mine. I understand not these paper rights. I gave
not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions were
purchased, for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what was
theirs; they could sell no more. How could my father sell that which the
Great Spirit sent me into the world to live upon? He knew not what he
did.
"The stranger came, a timid suppliant; he asked to lie down on the red
man's bearskin, and warm himself at the red man's fire, and have a
little piece of land to raise corn for his women and children. Now he is
become strong and mighty and bold, and spreads out his parchment over
the whole, and says, 'It is mine!'
"Stranger, there is no room for us both. The Great Spirit has not made
us to live together. There is poison in the white man's cup; the white
man's dog barks at the red man's heels.
"If I should leave the land of my fathers, whither shall I fly? Shall I
go to the south, and dwell among the graves of the Pequots? Shall I
wander to the west? The fierce Mohawk--the man-eater--is my foe. Shall
I fly to the east? The great water is before me. No, stranger! Here have
I lived, and here will I die; and if here thou abidest, there is eternal
war between me and thee.
"Thou hast taught me thy arts of destruction; for that alone I thank
thee. And now take heed to thy steps--the red man is thy foe.
"When thou goest forth by day, my bullet shall whistle past thee. When
thou liest down by night, my knife shall be at thy throat. The noonday
sun shall not discover thy enemy; and the darkness of midnight shall not
protect thy rest. Thou shalt plant in terror, and I will reap in blood.
Thou shalt sow the earth with corn, and I will strew it with ashes. Thou
shalt go forth with the sickle, and I will follow after with the
scalping knife. Thou shalt build, and I will burn--till the white man or
the Indian perish from the land."
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 53: By Edward Everett, an American statesman and orator
(1794-1865).]
EXPRESSION: This selection and also the selections on pages 202,
209, and 231 are fine examples of American oratory, such as was
practiced by the statesmen and public speakers of the earlier years
of our republic. Learn all that you can about Patrick Henry, Daniel
Webster, Edward Everett, Theodore Parker, and other eminent
orators. Before attempting to read this selection aloud, read it
silently and try to understand every statement or allusion
contained in it. Call to mind all that you have learned in your
histories or elsewhere concerning the Indians and their treatment
by the American colonists. Now read with energy and feeling each
paragraph of this extract from Mr. Everett's oration. Try to make
your hearers understand and appreciate the feelings which are
expressed.
NATIONAL RETRIBUTION[54]
Do you know how empires find their end?
Yes. The great states eat up the little. As with fish, so with nations.
Come with me! Let us bring up the awful shadows of empires buried long
ago, and learn a lesson from the tomb.
Come, old Assyria, with the Ninevitish dove upon thy emerald crown! What
laid thee low?
Assyria answers: "I fell by my own injustice. Thereby Nineveh and
Babylon came with me to the ground."
O queenly Persia, flame of the nations! Wherefore art thou so fallen?
thou who trod the people under thee, bridged the Hellespont with ships,
and poured thy temple-wasting millions on the western world?
Persia answers: "Because I trod the people under me, because I bridged
the Hellespont with ships, and poured my temple-wasting millions on the
western world, I fell by my own misdeeds!"
And thou, muselike Grecian queen, fairest of all thy classic sisterhood
of states, enchanting yet the world with thy sweet witchery, speaking in
art, and most seductive in song, why liest thou there with thy beauteous
yet dishonored brow reposing on thy broken harp?
Greece answers: "I loved the loveliness of flesh, embalmed in Parian
stone. I loved the loveliness of thought, and treasured that more than
Parian speech. But the beauty of justice, the loveliness of love, I trod
down to earth. Lo! therefore have I become as those barbarian states,
and one of them."
O manly, majestic Rome, with thy sevenfold mural crown all broken at thy
feet, why art thou here? 'Twas not injustice brought thee low, for thy
great Book of Law is prefaced with these words, "Justice is the
unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his right." It was not the
saint's ideal. It was the hypocrite's pretense.
And Rome says: "I made iniquity my law! I trod the nations under me!
Their wealth gilded my palaces, where now thou mayst see the fox and
hear the owl. Wicked men were my cabinet counselors. The flatterer
breathed his poison in my ear. Millions of bondmen wet the soil with
tears and blood! Do you not hear it crying yet to God? Lo here have I my
recompense, tormented with such downfalls as you see.
"Go back and tell the newborn child who sitteth on the Alleghanies,
laying his either hand upon a tributary sea,--tell him there are rights
which States must keep, or they shall suffer punishment. Tell him there
is a God who hurls to earth the loftiest realm that breaks his just,
eternal law. Warn the young empire, that he come not down, dim and
dishonored, to my shameful tomb. Tell him that Justice is the
unchanging, everlasting will, to give each man his right. I knew this
law. I broke it. Bid him keep it, and be forever safe."
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 54: By Theodore Parker, an eminent American clergyman and
author (1810-1860).]
WHO ARE BLESSED[55]
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was
set, his disciples came unto him.
And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for
they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of
God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall
say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for
so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor,
wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to
be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be
hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a
candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let
your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and
glorify your Father which is in heaven....
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for
a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if
any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have
thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with
him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow
of thee turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and
hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the
evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 55: From the Gospel of Matthew.]
LITTLE GEMS FROM THE OLDER POETS
I. THE NOBLE NATURE[56]
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear.
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night,--
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 56: By Ben Jonson (1573-1637).]
II. A CONTENTED MIND[57]
I weigh not fortune's frown or smile;
I joy not much in earthly joys;
I seek not state, I seek not style;
I am not fond of fancy's toys;
I rest so pleased with what I have,
I wish no more, no more I crave.
I quake not at the thunder's crack;
I tremble not at noise of war;
I swound not at the news of wrack;
I shrink not at a blazing star;
I fear not loss, I hope not gain,
I envy none, I none disdain.
I feign not friendship, where I hate;
I fawn not on the great in show;
I prize, I praise a mean estate--
Neither too lofty nor too low;
This, this is all my choice, my cheer--
A mind content, a conscience clear.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 57: By Joshua Sylvester (1563-1618).]
III. A HAPPY LIFE[58]
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill;
Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Not tied unto the world with care
Of public fame, or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good.
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 58: By Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639).]
IV. SOLITUDE[59]
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.
Blest, who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixt, sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 59: By Alexander Pope (1688-1744).]
V. A WISH[60]
Mine be a cot beside the hill;
A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear;
A willowy brook that turns a mill
With many a fall shall linger near.
The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
And share my meal, a welcome guest.
Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
In russet gown and apron blue.
The village church among the trees,
Where first our marriage vows were given,
With merry peals shall swell the breeze
And point with taper spire to Heaven.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 60: By Samuel Rogers (1763-1855).]
EXPRESSION: Which of these poems do you like best? Give reasons for
your preference. What sentiment is emphasized by all of them? What
other pleasant ideas of life are expressed? What mental pictures
are called up by reading the fourth poem? the fifth? What traits of
character are alluded to in the first poem? the second? Now read
each poem aloud, giving to each line and each stanza the thought
which was in the author's mind when he wrote it.
HOW KING ARTHUR GOT HIS NAME[61]
One day at sunset, Snowbird, the young son of a king, came over the brow
of a hill that stepped forward from a dark company of mountains and
leaned over the shoreless sea which fills the West and drowns the North.
All day he had been wandering alone, his mind heavy with wonder over
many things. He had heard strange tales of late, tales about his heroic
father and the royal clan, and how they were not like other men, but
half divine. He had heard, too, of his own destiny,--that he also was to
be a great king. What was Destiny, he wondered....
Then, as he wondered, he turned over and over in his mind all the names
he could think of that he might choose for his own; for the time was
come for him to put away the name of his childhood and to take on that
by which he should be known among men.
He came over the brow of the hill, and out of the way of the mountain
wind, and, being tired, lay down among the heather and stared across the
gray wilderness of the sea. The sun set, and the invisible throwers of
the nets trailed darkness across the waves and up the wild shores and
over the faces of the cliffs. Stars climbed out of shadowy abysses, and
the great chariots of the constellations rode from the West to the East
and from the North to the South.
His eyes closed, ... but when he opened them again, he saw a great and
kingly figure standing beside him. So great in stature, so splendid in
kingly beauty, was the mysterious one who had so silently joined him,
that he thought this must be one of the gods.
"Do you know me, my son?" said the kingly stranger.
The boy looked at him in awe and wonder, but unrecognizingly.
"Do you not know me, my son?" he heard again ... "for I am your father,
Pendragon. But my home is yonder, and that is why I have come to you as
a vision in a dream ..." and, as he spoke, he pointed to the
constellation of the _Arth_, or Bear, which nightly prowls through the
vast abysses of the polar sky.
When the boy turned his gaze from the great constellation which hung in
the dark wilderness overhead, he saw that he was alone again. While he
yet wondered in great awe at what he had seen and heard, he felt himself
float like a mist and become like a cloud, rise beyond the brows of the
hills, and ascend the invisible stairways of the sky....
It seemed to him thereafter that a swoon came over him, in which he
passed beyond the far-off blazing fires of strange stars. At last,
suddenly, he stood on the verge of _Arth_, _Arth Uthyr_, the Great Bear.
There he saw, with the vision of immortal, not of mortal, eyes, a
company of most noble and majestic figures seated at what he thought a
circular abyss, but which had the semblance of a vast table. Each of
these seven great knights or lordly kings had a star upon his forehead,
and these were stars of the mighty constellation of the Bear which the
boy had seen night after night from his home among the mountains by the
sea.
It was with a burning throb at his heart that he recognized in the King
of all these kings no other than himself.
While he looked, in amazement so great that he could hear the pulse of
his heart, as in the silence of a wood one hears the tapping of a
woodpecker, he saw this mighty phantom self rise till he stood towering
over all there, and heard a voice as though an ocean rose and fell
through the eternal silences.
"Comrades in God," it said, "the time is come when that which is great
shall become small."
And when the voice was ended, the mighty figure faded in the blue
darkness, and only a great star shone where the uplifted dragon helm had
brushed the roof of heaven. One by one the white lords of the sky
followed in his mysterious way, till once more were to be seen only the
stars of the Bear.
The boy dreamed that he fell as a falling meteor, and that he floated
over land and sea as a cloud, and then that he sank as mist upon the
hills of his own land.
A noise of wind stirred in his ears. He rose stumblingly, and stood,
staring around him. He glanced upward and saw the stars of the Great
Bear in their slow march round the Pole.... Then he remembered.
He went slowly down the hill, his mind heavy with thought. When he was
come to his own place, lo! all the fierce chivalry of the land came out
to meet him; for the archdruid had foretold that the great King to be
had received his mystic initiation among the holy silences of the hills.
"I am no more Snowbird, the child," the boy said, looking at them
fearless and as though already King. "Henceforth I am Arth-Urthyr,[62]
for my place is in the Great Bear which we see yonder in the north."
So all there acclaimed him as Arthur, the wondrous one of the stars, the
Great Bear.
"I am old," said his father, "and soon you shall be King, Arthur, my
son. So ask now a great boon of me and it shall be granted to you."
Then Arthur remembered his dream.
"Father and King," he said, "when I am King after you, I shall make a
new order of knights, who shall be pure as the Immortal Ones, and be
tender as women, and simple as little children. But first I ask of you
seven flawless knights to be of my chosen company. To-morrow let the
wood wrights make for me a round table, such as that where we eat our
roasted meats, but round and of a size whereat I and my chosen knights
may sit at ease."
The king listened, and all there.
"So be it," said the king.
Then Arthur chose the seven flawless knights, and called them to him.
"Ye are now Children of the Great Bear," he said, "and comrades and
liegemen to me, Arthur, who shall be King of the West.
"And ye shall be known as the Knights of the Round Table. But no man
shall make a mock of that name and live: and in the end that name shall
be so great in the mouths and minds of men that they shall consider no
glory of the world to be so great as to be the youngest and frailest of
that knighthood."
And that is how Arthur, who three years later became King of the West,
read the rune of the stars that are called the Great Bear, and took
their name upon him, and from the strongest and purest and noblest of
the land made Knighthood, such as the world had not seen, such as the
world since has not seen.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 61: A Gaelic legend, by Fiona Macleod.]
[Footnote 62: Pronounced _Arth-Ur_. In the ancient British language,
_Arth_ means Bear, and _Urthyr_, great, wondrous.]
EXPRESSION: Read this selection very carefully to get at the true
meaning of each sentence and each thought. What peculiarities do
you notice in the style of the language employed? Talk about King
Arthur, and tell what you have learned elsewhere about him and his
knights of the Round Table. In what respects does this legend
differ from some other accounts of his boyhood? Now reread the
selection, picturing in your mind the peculiarities of place and
time.
ANTONY'S ORATION OVER CÆSAR'S DEAD BODY[63]
_Antony._ Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men--
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill;
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see, that on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And, sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.--Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
O masters! If I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men.
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.
But here's a parchment with the seal of Cæsar,
I found it in his closet; 'tis his will.
Let but the commons hear this testament,--
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,--
And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.
_Citizen._ We'll hear the will: read it, Mark Antony.
_All._ The will, the will! we will hear Cæsar's will.
_Ant._ Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it;
It is not meet you know how Cæsar loved you.
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;
And, being men, hearing the will of Cæsar,
It will inflame you, it will make you mad.
'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;
For, if you should, oh, what would come of it!
_Cit._ Read the will! we'll hear it, Antony!
You shall read the will! Cæsar's will!
_Ant._ Will you be patient? Will you stay awhile?
I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it.
I fear I wrong the honorable men
Whose daggers have stabbed Cæsar. I do fear it.
_Cit._ They were traitors! honorable men!
_All._ The will! the testament!
_Ant._ You will compel me, then, to read the will?
Then make a ring about the corpse of Cæsar,
And let me show you him that made the will.
Shall I descend? And will you give me leave?
_All._ Come down.
_2 Citizen._ Descend. You shall have leave.
[Illustration: "You all do know this mantle."]
(_Antony comes down from the pulpit._)
_Ant._ If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle; I remember
The first time ever Cæsar put it on.
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii.
Look! in this place, ran Cassius's dagger through;
See what a rent the envious Casca made;
Through this, the well-belovèd Brutus stabbed;
And, as he plucked his cursèd steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel.--
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Cæsar loved him!--
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For, when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquished him. Then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statua,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.
Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
Oh, now you weep, and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity; these are gracious drops.
Kind souls, What! weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors.
Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honorable.
What private griefs they have, alas! I know not,
That made them do it; they are wise and honorable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts.
I am no orator, as Brutus is,
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friend; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cæsar that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 63: From "Julius Cæsar" by William Shakespeare (1564-1616).]
SELECTIONS TO BE MEMORIZED
I. THE PRAYER PERFECT[64]
Dear Lord! kind Lord!
Gracious Lord! I pray
Thou wilt look on all I love,
Tenderly to-day!
Weed their hearts of weariness;
Scatter every care
Down a wake of angel-wings,
Winnowing the air.
Bring unto the sorrowing
All release from pain;
Let the lips of laughter
Overflow again;
And with all the needy
Oh, divide, I pray,
This vast treasure of content
That is mine to-day!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 64: From "Rhymes of Childhood," by James Whitcomb Riley,
copyright, 1890. Used by special permission of the publishers, The
Bobbs-Merrill Company.]
II. BE JUST AND FEAR NOT[65]
Be just and fear not;
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 65: By William Shakespeare.]
III. IF I CAN LIVE[66]
If I can live
To make some pale face brighter and to give
A second luster to some tear-dimmed eye,
Or e'en impart
One throb of comfort to an aching heart,
Or cheer some wayworn soul in passing by;
If I can lend
A strong hand to the falling, or defend
The right against one single envious strain,
My life, though bare,
Perhaps, of much that seemeth dear and fair
To us of earth, will not have been in vain.
The purest joy,
Most near to heaven, far from earth's alloy,
Is bidding cloud give way to sun and shine;
And 'twill be well
If on that day of days the angels tell
Of me, "She did her best for one of Thine."
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 66: Author unknown.]
IV. THE BUGLE SONG[67]
The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, dearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 67: By Alfred Tennyson.]
V. THE NINETIETH PSALM
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the
earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Thou turns man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past,
and as a watch in the night.
Thou carried them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the
morning they are like grass which groweth up.
In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut
down, and withereth.
For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light
of thy countenance.
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we spend our years as a
tale that is told.
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of
strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and
sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is
thy wrath.
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto
wisdom....
Oh, satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all
our days....
Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their
children.
VI. RECESSIONAL[68]
God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle line--
Beneath Whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies--
The captains and the kings depart--
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
A humble and a contrite heart.
God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away--
On dune and headland sinks the fire--
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the Law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!
Amen.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 68: By Rudyard Kipling.]
PROPER NAMES
Ad i ron'dacks
Æ t[=o]'li a
Ag a mem'non
A lon'zo
A m[=e]'li a
An a t[=o]'li a
An'to ny
A pol'lo
Ar'g[=i]ve
Ar'thur
Assisi ([:a]s s[=e] z[=e])
As s[)y]r'i a
Bar'ba ra
Ba v[=a]'ri a
Ber'lin
Bevagno (ba v[=a]n'yo)
Boetia (be [=o]'sh[)i] a)
Bo'na parte
Bozzaris (bo z[)a]r'is)
Brit'ta ny
Bru'tus
Bun'yan
Bur'gun dy
Bysshe (b[)i]sh)
Ca'diz
Cal e do'ni a
Ca thay'
Cau'dle
Charn'wood
Chat ta hoo'chee
Chi[+s]'_w_ick
Col i s[=e]'um
Cop'per field
C[=o]v'er ley
Cr[=e]a'kle
Cris'sa
D[=a]'na
D[)a]n'ube
D[=a]v'en port
Delft
Domitian (do m[)i]sh'i an)
Eb en [=e]'zer
Española ([)e]s pan y[=o]'la)
Eu'taw
Fer nan'do
F[)e]z'z[)i] wig
Fran'cis
Gal i l[=e]'o
Get'tys burg
Gib'son
Gu[:a] n[:a] h[)a]'n[:i]
Hab'er sham
H[=a]'man
H[:a]m'elin
Har'le quin
H[)e]l'las
Hel'les pont
Hu'bert
Ja m[=a]_i_'ca
Je m[=i]'ma
John'son
Juana (hw[:a]'na)
Knick'erbock er
La n_i_[=e]r'
Lannes (l[:a]n)
Leg'horn
Locks'ley
Lor raine'
Mag ne'si a
M[)a]r'i on
Mas'sa soit
M[)i]c_h_'ael mas
Mon'mouth
Mont calm'
Mon te bel'lo
Mont g[:o]m'er y
Na p[=o]'le on
Need'wood
Nic_h_'o las
Nin'e veh
Or'e gon
O res't[=e]s
Pal'las
Phoe'bus
Pinzon (p[=e]n th[=o]n')
Pla tæ'a
Po to'mac
Pro vence' (-v[)a]ns)
R[)a]ph'a el
R[)a]t'is bon
Rieti (r[=e] [)e]'t[=e])
Rog'er
Rouen (r[=o][=o] [:a]n')
Sa'lem
San'c_h_ez
San Sal va dor'
San tee'
Sar a to'ga
Sed'ley
Shel'ley
Spoun'cer
T[=o]'bit
T[=o]'phet
Tul'l[)i] ver
T[=y]re
Um'br[)i] a
V[)a]l'en t[=i]ne
Wake' field
Y[+s]'a bel
LIST OF AUTHORS
(Place of birth in parentheses. Title of one noted book in italics.
Title of most famous poem in quotation marks.)
_Browning, Robert._ English poet. _The Ring and the Book._ (Born near
London.) Lived in Italy. 1812-1889.
_Bryant, William Cullen._ American poet and journalist. "Thanatopsis."
(Massachusetts.) New York. 1794-1878.
_Buckley, Arabella B._ (_Mrs. Fisher_). English writer on popular
science. (Brighton, England.) 1840----.
_Bunyan, John._ English preacher and writer. _Pilgrim's Progress._
(Bedford.) London. 1628-1688.
_Burns, Robert._ Scottish poet. "Tam O'Shanter." (Alloway.) Dumfries.
1759-1796.
_Campbell, Thomas._ Scottish poet. "Hohenlinden." (Glasgow.) 1777-1844.
_Canton, William._ English journalist and writer. 1845----.
_Carnegie (k[:a]r n[)e]g'[)i]), Andrew._ American manufacturer and
philanthropist. (Scotland.) New York. 1837----.
_Cherry, Andrew._ Irish poet and dramatist. _All for Fame._ (Ireland.)
1762-1812.
_Collins, William._ English poet. (Chichester.) 1721-1759.
_Columbus, Christopher._ The discoverer of America. (Genoa, Italy.)
Spain. 1446(?)-1506.
_Cook, Eliza._ English poet. "The Old Arm-Chair." 1818-1889.
_Dickens, Charles._ English novelist. _David Copperfield._ (Portsmouth.)
London. 1812-1870.
_Domett (d[)o]m'et), Alfred._ English poet and statesman. "Christmas
Hymn." 1811-1887.
_Dumas (d[:u] m[:a]'), Alexandre._ French novelist and dramatist. _The
Count of Monte Cristo._ 1802-1870.
_Eliot, George (Mrs. Mary Ann Evans Cross)._ English novelist. _The Mill
on the Floss._ 1819-1880.
_Emerson, Ralph Waldo._ American philosopher and poet. _Essays._
(Boston.) 1803-1882.
_Everett, Edward._ American statesman and orator. _Orations and
Speeches._ (Massachusetts.) 1794-1865.
_Fields, James T._ American publisher and author. (New Hampshire.)
Massachusetts. 1817-1881.
_Giberne, Agnes._ English writer on scientific subjects.
_Goldsmith, Oliver._ English poet and novelist. _Vicar of Wakefield._
(Ireland.) 1728-1774.
_Halleck, Fitz-Greene._ American poet. "Marco Bozzaris." (Connecticut.)
1790-1867.
_Hawthorne, Nathaniel._ American novelist. _The Wonder Book._
(Massachusetts.) 1804-1864.
_Henry, Patrick._ American patriot. (Virginia.) 1736-1799.
_Herrick, Robert._ English poet. 1591-1674.
_Holmes, Oliver Wendell._ American author. _Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table._ (Massachusetts.) 1809-1894.
_Hugo, Victor._ French novelist and poet. 1802-1885.
_Hunt, Leigh (James Henry Leigh Hunt)._ English essayist and poet. "Abou
ben Adhem." 1784-1859.
_Irving, Washington._ American prose writer. _The Sketch Book._ (New
York.) 1783-1859.
_Jerrold, Douglas William._ English humorist. _Mrs. Caudle's Curtain
Lectures._ (London.) 1803-1857.
_Jonson, Ben._ English dramatist. 1573-1637.
_Kipling, Rudyard._ English writer. _The Jungle Book._ (Bombay, India.)
England. 1865----.
_Lamb, Charles._ English essayist. (London.) 1775-1834.
_Lanier, Sidney._ American musician and author. _Poems._ (Georgia.)
Maryland. 1842-1881.
_Lee, Henry._ American general, father of Robert E. Lee. (Virginia.)
1756-1818.
_Lincoln, Abraham._ Sixteenth president of the United States.
(Kentucky.) Illinois. 1809-1865.
_Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth._ American poet. _Poems._ (Maine.)
Massachusetts. 1807-1882.
_Lowell, James Russell._ American poet and essayist. (Massachusetts.)
1819-1891.
_Macleod, Fiona (True name William Sharp)._ Scottish poet and
story-writer. 1856-1905.
_Mitchell, Donald G._ American essayist. _Reveries of a Bachelor._
(Connecticut.) 1822-1908.
_Parker, Theodore._ American clergyman and author. (Massachusetts.)
1810-1860.
_Poe, Edgar Allan._ American poet and story-writer. "The Raven."
(Massachusetts.) Virginia. 1809-1849.
_Pope, Alexander._ English poet. (London.) 1688-1744.
_Proctor, Richard A._ English astronomer. 1837-1888.
_Riley, James Whitcomb._ American poet. (Indiana.) 1852----.
_Rogers, Samuel._ English poet. (London.) 1763-1855.
_Ryan, Abram J._ American clergyman and poet. (Virginia.) Georgia;
Kentucky. 1839-1886.
_Scott, Sir Walter._ Scottish poet and novelist. _Ivanhoe._ (Edinburgh.)
1771-1832.
_Shakespeare, William._ The greatest of English dramatists.
(Stratford-on-Avon.) 1564-1616.
_Sharp, William._ See Macleod, Fiona.
_Shelley, Percy Bysshe (b[)i]sh)._ English poet. _Poems._ 1792-1822.
_Simms, William Gilmore._ American novelist and poet. (South Carolina.)
1806-1870.
_Sophocles (s[)o]f'o kl[=e]z)._ Greek tragic poet. 495-406 B.C.
_Sylvester, Joshua._ English poet. 1563-1618.
_Tennyson, Alfred._ English poet. _In Memoriam._ (Lincolnshire.)
1809-1892.
_Thackeray, William Makepeace._ English novelist and critic. (Calcutta,
India.) London. 1811-1863.
_Timrod, Henry._ American poet. (South Carolina.) 1829-1867.
_Whitman, Walt._ American poet. _Leaves of Grass._ (New York.)
Washington, D.C.; New Jersey. 1819-1892.
_Whittier, John Greenleaf._ American poet. _Poems._ (Massachusetts.)
1807-1892.
_Winslow, Edward._ Governor of Plymouth colony. (Worcestershire, Eng.)
Plymouth, Massachusetts. 1595-1655.
_Wotton, Sir Henry._ English poet. 1568-1639.
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