Class t % Book , Copyright N° COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. A WELL-PLANNED COURSE IN READING WITH Elocutionary Advice Arranged For the Use of Classes in Elocution and Reading BY CAROLINE B. Le ROW Formerly Instructor in Elocution in Smith and Vassar Colleges, Compiler of "Pieces for Every Occasion " COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HINDS & NOBLE HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 4 Cooper Institute New York City U THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Copies Received MAY. 14 1901 Copyright entry CLASS^TXXc. N«. COPY 8. 'V ■^%> Of Interest to You We have a more thoroughly per- fected system and better facilities for furnishing promptly books of all pub- lishers than any other house in the country. Our business is divided into de- partments, each under a superintend- ent, so that every detail is carefully looked after. We deal only in School and College books, of which we carry an immense stock. We are able to supply at re- duced prices any schoolbook published. We issue a complete catalogue of \ .• £h£se. # .botfte,*'wi£h *& classified 'index. : SwJ'frr oflft.: : ••: ••! ' HINDS & NOBLE .••••••••••• • •• • •• ••« •*• i ' ' .* 4*5-^l2»!3- 14 JGdojjer* Institute, 2S{ Y;. City * • • • «.* - •« * 4 < • 1 i 1 1 • •• ••*•••• • •■•• • • ** • PREFACE. All students are expected to be able to read well ordi- nary prose and poetry, and it is for the purpose of helping them to do this, as well as to help teachers in the teach- ing of reading, that this book has been prepared. It is thoroughly practical. No unnecessary technical terms are used. The subjects explained and illustrated are those only which, as the result of many years' experi- ence among teachers as well as pupils, the compiler h^s found most necessary. As physical development and correct vocalization must precede all good reading, the simplest and therefore most essential physical and vocal exercises are given, with full directions for their use. The selections for reading present nothing of a merely showy style of elocution. They are adapted for the upper classes of Grammar Schools as well as for High Schools and Colleges. The compiler believes that this new Course in Eeading contains more suitable material for elocutionary work in the schoolroom, in more condensed, analytical, and avail- able form, than any Eeader or Speaker now before the public. Thanks are due to Messrs. Harper & Brothers, Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co., Charles Scribner's Sons, and others for permission to make extracts from copyrighted editions of their publications. Caroline B. Le Row. May 10, 1901. CONTENTS, Suggestions to Teachers. PAGE Analysis, 23 Articulation, 14 Degrees of Force, 38 Emphasis, 16 Examples in Emphasis, 60 Inflections, 51 Movement, • ..... 47 Physical Exercises 11 Pitch, 49 Qualities of Voice, 25 Stress, 40 Styles of Reading, 22 Suggestions to Teachers, 7 Vocal Exercises, 12 Vowels and Consonants, 15 Selections for Reading. A Battle of Icebergs, A Beautiful Legend, Abraham Davenport, A Historical Address, A Liberal Education, American Nationality, A Plea for Enthusiasm, Apostrophe to the Ocean, A Royal Princess, A Thanksgiving Growl, A Union, . John G. Whittier, Daniel Webster, . Thomas Huxley, . Bufus Choate, Lord Byron, Christina G. Bossetti, Eleanor Kirk, K. E* Junkermann, 260 80 118 170 312 87 61 169 101 217 244 4 Contents. PAGE Chamouni, . . . Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 120 Christian Citizenship, T. Be Witt Talmage, . 195 Compensation, Frances Ridley Haver gal, 325 Dolly, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 104 Dombey and Son, .... Charles Bickens, . 137 Eloquence of the Amer. Revolution, Bufus Choate, 248 Enthusiasm of Life, .... A. Harrington, 322 Eulogy on Henry Ward Beecher, Joseph Parker, B. B,, . 133 Extracts from Essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 143 History, James Anthony Froude, 183 How to Have What We Like, . Horace Smith, 315 How to Read, John Ruskin, 208 Immortality of True Patriotism, James A. Garfield, 73 William Black, 323 Jack Abbott's Breakfast, . Leigh Hunt, 159 Leather-Clad Fox, .... Thomas Carlyle, . 147 Life, ....... John Ruskin, 321 Lilies in Prison, .... Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 149 Longing, James Russell Lowell, . 233 Losses Frances Brown, 187 Loyalty, S. S. Curry, 63 Macaulay, William M. Punshon, . 241 Modulation, 86 Napoleon Bonaparte, 293 Nature's Altruist, Mme. El Be Louie, 130 Susan Coolidge, 222 Nobility, Alice Cary, . 216 Ode to Duty, William Wordsworth, . 71 Opinions Stronger than Armies, Luther A. Ostrander, . 84 Our Common Schools, Edward Everett, . 173 Our Honored Dead, . . Edward Everett, . 316 Our New Livery, and Other Things, Geo. Wm. Curtis, 122 Partridge at the Play, . . . Henry Fielding, . 202 Patriotism, Fisher Ames, 213 Peace of Mind, 64 Press On ! Park Benjamin, . 211 Pyramids Not All Egyptian, . P. 0. Barnes, 66 Rights and Duties, . F. W. Robertson, . 82 . Contents. 5 PAGE Rudder Grange, .... Frank B. Stockton, . 97 Scientific Education, . . . Thomas Huxley, . . 280 Shared, Lucy Larcom, . . 182 Shipwrecked, Frangois Coppee, . . 93 Sir Galahad, ..... Alfred Tennyson, . . 291 Something Great, . . . . 319 Sound and Sense, .... Bobert Chambers, . 219 Tell's Apostrophe to Liberty, . . J. S. Knowles, . . 257 The American Sailor, . . . B. F. Stockton, . . 271 The Beggar, . . . . James Russell Lowell, . 276 The Beneficence of Grass, . . John J. Lngalls, . . 259 The Breath of Life, .... Caroline B. Le Bow, . 306 The Builders, . . . . . Henry W. Longfellow, . 303 The Classic Poets, .... Henry Nelson Coleridge, 175 The Doom of Claudius and Cynthia, Maurice Thompson, . 128 The Duty of the American Scholar, Geo. Wm. Curtis, . . 273 The Elements of National Wealth, James G. Blaine, . . 246 The Essentials of True Rep. Govt., . Alexander H. Stephens, 270 The Future of America, . . Daniel Webster, . . 289 The Glory and Grandeur of Peace, Charles Sumner, . . 146 The Good of It, .... Dinah Mulock Craik, . 136 The Knocking at the Gate, in Macbeth, Thomas De Quincey, . 234 The Leak in the Dike, . . . Phcebe Cary, . . 197 The Legend of the Two Kings, . Bobert Colly er, . . 225 The Lost Arts Wendell Phillips, . . 277 The Minute Man of the Revolution, Geo. Wm. Curtis, . 265 The Music of the Telegraph Wires, Henry D. Thoreau, . 180 The Nobility of Labor, . . . Thomas Carlyle, . . 116 The Noble Purposes of Eloquence, 70 The Passions, ..... William Collins, . . 268 The Power of Words, . . . Edwin G. Whipple, . 223 The Pulpit and Politics, . . Charles H Parkhurst, . 252 The Puritans, 298 " The Revenge," Alfred Tennyson, . 191 The Scholar in Public Life, . . Chauncey M. Depew, . 238 The Sea, M. J. Michelet, . . 188 The Service of Art, . . . George Eliot, . . 88 The Seven Days, .... Frances L. Mace, . 107 6 Contents. The Souls of Books, The Statue, The Town-Pump, The Trees in Winter, The Waters and the Shadow, The Wine-Cup, Time, .... Times Go by Turns, To-day and To-morrow, . Triplet and Family, True Statesmanship, Walter Scott, . Washington's Farewell Address Wild Weather Outside, . Words on Language, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Florence Griswold, Victor Hugo, . F. W. Bobertson, . Robert Southwell, . . Gerald Massey, . Charles Beade, . Edmund Burke, . . John W. Chadwick, to the People of the U. S., . Margaret E. Sangster, , . Oliver Wendell Holmes, PAGE 251 288 304 206 213 177 254 264 126 110 267 230 75 142 287 Some Practical Suggestions. An Appeal from the Vowels 333 The Air You Breathe, 330 The Art of Expression, 327 The English Language, . . . Joseph E. Worcester, . 329 SUGGESTIONS TO TEAOHEES. The ability to read well is a very different thing from the ability to teach reading, as nearly all teachers not specially trained for the work have proved by experience. The object of this compilation is to furnish a simple — and con- sequently practical — text-book which shall be a genuine help in this direction. It is no easy task to convey by printed words that which requires the living voice for its exemplification; moreover, as Elocution is not an " exact science/' it is impossible to specify an unvarying plan of instruction. In this particu- lar branch, more than in any other, judgment, ingenuity and taste are called into requisition. Beading should not be entirely taught by imitation, though this is frequently the only method at the command of the teacher. Such a process destroys all originality of style, and generally prevents all originality of thought. One cause of the disagreeable styles of reading so com- mon in schools, is the failure to connect sound and sense. Speaking is the utterance of original ideas; reading, the utterance of the ideas of others. So far as the thoughts of another are expressed by the reader as the speaker would himself utter them, so far it is good reading. But when this expression is in poetical, dramatic or oratorical form — in other words, when the style becomes more beautiful, more intense, or more exalted than that of our ordinary. 8 Suggestions to Teachers. conversation — something more is necessary than the direc- tion, "Bead as you talk." An apt response to such direc- tion would be, " I do not talk, or hear anybody else talk, in that style; therefore I do not know how to read it." It is just here that the more difficult and artistic work of Elo- cution is to be done. By use of the examples illustrating certain styles and different degrees of force, pitch, time, etc., the imagination, judgment and taste of the student are educated, and he can apply to any selection the prin- ciples which he has learned in detached lines and sentences. For this is needed not only intellectual comprehension of what is to be read, but ability to produce the tones suitable for its expression. This last is wholly dependent upon physical development. Every student can readily understand that Byron's "Apostrophe to the Ocean" needs the orotund quality of voice; the "Death and Burial of Little Nell," soft force; " Thanatopsis," low pitch, while perhaps not one in fifty can produce these variations. It is for the cultivation of this physical power that the Vocal Exercises are given. An adequate supply of breath, and a proper manner of using it, are matters of the first importance in all vocaliza- tion. As well expect to reap a harvest before seed-sowing, or to wear a garment before the material for it is manu- factured, as to produce a good tone of voice from a scanty amount of breath, or without muscular action of the natural breathing apparatus. So important is this matter and so comprehensive in all its bearings, that it is fully considered elsewhere in the book in an article originally written by the compiler for a physiological magazine. Its statements are urged upon the attention and thought of teachers and pupils alike. It is suggested that a few minutes of each reading lesson Suggestions to Teachers. 9 be given to the Vocal Exercises, selections from them being made at the discretion of the teacher. As the greatest obstacle to success in the rendering of these detached passages is timidity and lack of confidence on the part of the pupil, it will be well to let concert reading precede in- dividual effort. Singing cannot be properly taught without due attention to position, breathing and articulation, and no recitation — however correct in its facts — can be acceptably given with- out reference to these same matters. It is a self-evident truth that all the vocal work of the school-room should be done on the same elocutionary principles as are applied to the reading lessons. It is well to combine elocutionary and musical drill, as in production of tone; monotone (or hold- ing a note) with different degrees of force and pitch; in- tervals and slides of the scale; chords; reading up and down the scale (one word on each note), and innumerable variations which will occur to the ingenious teacher. Such exercises give novelty, and consequently increased interest to the work, while improving the clearness, strength, flexibility and melody of the speaking aiid reading voice. The ability to read well an ordinary newspaper or maga- zine article is more desirable than the power to recite a few dramatic poems — if one cannot possess both. Yet it is often the case that the student who can render " Barbara Frietchie" or 6i Sheridan's Ride" with good effect makes wretched work of an essay on the fine arts, or an editorial on the tariff. This plain reading as it is called, is in reality a test of the reader's ability. He is left entirely de- pendent upon the simplest principles of his art — a correct habit of breathing, distinct articulation, accurate empha- sis and avoidance of monotony. There is no variety, no rhyme or rhythm, no stirring incident, no dramatic spirit, 10 Suggestions to Teachers. as in the animated poem, which can help to hide any deficiency. For this reason there is no more practical and profitable elocutionary exercise than reading aloud the items of news and the editorials of the daily paper, a copy being handed from one pupil to another, each being required to read without preparation or previous acquaintance with the subject. Shakespeare's plays are published in so many cheap and convenient forms, that no extracts have been made from them. They can be profitably used in connection with this book. Physical Exercises. 11 PHYSICAL EXEECISES. If teachers will drill their classes for fifteen minutes every day in the following exercises they will be surprised to find how much benefit will be derived: 1. Sitting position. 2. Poise forward and backward. 3. Standing position. 4. Body bend forward and backward. 5. Body bend right and left. 6. Active and passive chest. 7. Percussion of chest. 8. Percussion with arm movements. 9. Chest expansion, arm movements. 10. Shoulder movements. 11. Shoulder movements with bent arms. 12. Circular movements with bent arms. " The ancient Greeks paid the same attention to physical as to mental training. The monuments in art, science, and language which have come down to us, more than con- firm the wisdom of their educational methods. We praise and copy their statuary, but seem to forget that the models for these classical figures were furnished by their system of physical training. We go back to them to-day for our great exemplars in oratory. But which of our institutions will carry us through the drill which made these men such consummate masters of their art?" 12 Vocal Exercises. VOCAL EXEECISES. [The exercises in the following Tables are explained elsewhere, being arranged in tabular form for convenience in reference and use. They can be effectively practiced with the vowel sounds. It is suggested that such practice always precede that of words and sentences, so that the work may be as mechanical as possible; the whole attention being given to the physical exercise, rather than to the expression of any meaning.] TABLE FIRST. 1. Effusive breathing; in form of letter H. 2. Expulsive breathing; in form of syllable Hoo. 3. Explosive breathing; in form of syllable Ha! 4. Pure tone. 5. Aspirate, or whisper. 6. Breath tone, or half-whisper. 7. Sustained tone, or holding a note. 8. Explosive tone. 9. Orotund tone. 10. Orotund and pure, alternated. TABLE SECOND. 1. Radical stress. 2. Median stress. 3. Final stress. 4. Compound stress. 5. Thorough stress. 6. Intermittent stress, or tremor. 7. Monotone. 8. Rising slides. 9. Falling slides. 10. RlSLNG CIRCUMFLEX. 11. Falling circumflex. 12. Rising and falling slides in alternation. Vocal Exercises. 13 SLIDES. [The following diagrams, which can be transferred to the blackboard, will be found convenient for exercises in Monotone, short and long Rising, Falling and Circumflex Slides, and all forms of Stress.] U/ U/ U/ U/ U/ JL\ _ N \ -dL\ ^L\ d*L\ STRESS. RADICAL. MEDIAN. FINAU Effusive. Expulsive. o o . ^>^ TREMOR, /\/\/\/\/\y THOROUGH. I COMPOUND MEASURED SLIDES. [In the preceding diagram, the terms Long and Short are used without refer- ence to any measurement, Short implying the common, conversational, Whole Tone Slide ; Long, any increase in that length. In the diagram following, the Slides are arranged in the order of their length.] a /\ A A /\ Monotone. Semi-tone. Whole Tone. Third. Fifth. Octave. ^n un un U0 14 Articulation. AETICULATION. Articulation (articulatus, furnished with joints, distinct) depends upon the action of the jaws, palate, tongue and lips. The muscles of these organs must act promptly, easily and energetically in order to secure distinct articu- lation. The attention of the student should be directed to the manner of forming letters, quite as much as to the sounds of the letters. If this is done, and the correct manner of formation insisted upon, indistinct and mumbling utter- ance will be easily, as well as rapidly, remedied. All yowel sounds depend chiefly upon the extent and manner of opening the mouth. The consonants depend more upon the action of the lips and tongue. For exam- ple, Z>, m and jp are formed by closing the lips firmly; d, t, I and n, by pressing the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, just back of the upper teeth; /and v by pressing the upper teeth upon the under lip. Every sound in the alphabet can, and should be, so explained and prac- ticed. Imperfect articulation should not be tolerated in reading or recitation. Analysis of words, that is, emphatic articulation of each letter composing them, as well as con- stant practice upon the following vowels, consonants and combinations, is specially recommended. The lists can be indefinitely extended and modified. All impediments of speech — not caused by physical mal- formation — can be helped and sometimes wholly cured by the judicious practice of Articulation. Stammering is caused chiefly by lack of strength or flexibility in the mus- cles mentioned. Vowels and Consonants. 15 VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. A long . . , A Italian. A broad . . A short. . E long .Fate. .Far. .Fall. .Fat. . Mete. Vowel Sounds. E short MSt. I long Pine. I short Pin. O long Note. O close Move. short Not. U long..... ...Tube. U short Tub. U close Full. Oi and oy. . . .Boil. Ou and ow Bound. B D Ghard.. J .Babe. .Did. .Gag. .Joy. Yocal Consonants. L Lull. M Maim. R Rap. Th soft Thine. Aspirate Consonants. V Valve. W Wine. Y . Yes. Z Zeal. Ch Csoft C hard. . . . F . .Church. . .Cease. ..Cake. . .Fife. G soft H K P . . .Gem. ...Hold. ...Kirk. . . .Pipe. T Tent. S Seal. Sh Shine Th sharp Thin. Final Consonants. Band. Send. Find. Check. Tight. Sport. Heart. Speak. Map. Help. Drop. Cork. Consonant Combinations. Wrists. Guests. Lists. Hosts. Mists. Posts. Bursts. Ghosts. Fists. Masts. Basks. Flasks. Varied Consonant Combinations Arm'dst. Scorn'dst. Learn'dst. Lai Th He igh'st. ank'st. .p'st. Strangl'sl Struggl'd Handl'st. St. Blackest. Troubl'dst, Reward'st. EMPHASIS. Emphasis, in its usual acceptation, is the force of voice laid upon a word to distinguish it from the other words in the same sentence. As grammatical analysis is often necessary in determining emphasis, the student should be able to discriminate between simple, compound, complex, and inverted sentences; phrases and clauses; words in apposition; subject and predicate. It is safe to assume that any word which can be left out of a sentence without injury to the sense, is not to be em- phasized. Eeduce the sentence to its lowest terms — that is, select from it only the words absolutely necessary for the expression of the meaning. " Let the battle-flags of the brave volunteers, which they brought home from the war with the glorious record of their victories, be preserved intact." If this sentence is read with equal emphasis throughout, it requires a mental effort on the part of the reader to discover whether flags, volunteers, war, record, or victories, are to be preserved. " These poor, terrified men, who, by the way, were all foreigners, and who, from their lack of education, could not in the least understand the matter, were all severely blamed." The point of this sentence is, " These men were blamed." That they were " severely blamed" is a fact, though not an essential one. That they were "all severely blamed;" that they " could not understand the matter" for which they were blamed; that their failure to understand was due to Emphasis. ' 17 " their lack of education;" that they were "foreigners;" that they were "poor, terrified men," — these are all facts which add to and explain, without in the slightest degree altering the main statement, " These men were blamed." Skill is needed in the disposition of these subordinate and comparatively non-essential clauses, in order that the main idea shall be the most prominent one. In general, the noun and the verb of a sentence are emphatic. There are, however, exceptions. For example, the first line of the second stanza of the familiar poem, " The Burial of Moses," is, " That was the grandest funeral that ever passed on earth." The emphasis would naturally — if thoughtlessly — be placed upon the word "funeral" as the subject of the line. But the whole of the first stanza describes the funeral. The fact, then, that it was a, funeral is understood. The point of this line is its grandeur; con- sequently the emphasis must be transferred from the noun to the adjective. As a rule, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs are to be emphasized when contrast or comparison is intended, or when the meaning implied is not fully expressed. Note the following examples from "Julius Caesar." 1. " But what of Cicero? Shall we sound Mm f" — as we have sounded others. 2. "There is no fear in Mm" — as there is in Caesar. "Let Mm not die," — as Caesar dies. 3. " Call it my fear that keeps you in the house," — implying, if she did not say, " and not your own." 4. "Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully" 18 • Emphasis. 5. "I do beseech ye, if ye bear me hard," as you did Caesar. 6. "There is no harm intended to your person, " as there was to Caesar's. " To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony." 7. " That is enough to satisfy the Senate. But for your private satis- faction — ." 8. " These lowly courtesies might fire the blood of ordinary men." I am not an ordinary man. 9. " My credit now stands on such slippery ground — ." 10. " Or else were this a savage spectacle." 11. " Thou art the ruins of the noblest man." 12. " Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome." 13. " Speak your griefs softly; I do know you well." 14. "Most noble Caesar! O royal Caesar!" 15. " For I can raise no money by vile means." 16. " A. friendly eye could never see such faults." 17. " Good reasons must of force give place to better." Emphasis. 19 18. "Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with theel" 19. Brutus remarks to Cassius, " I shall be glad to learn of noble men." Could he more plainly say in words that Cassius is not noble? 20. The words of Cassius, "It is not meet that every nice offense should bear his comment," refers not to offenses in general, but to small ones in contrast to great. [In each of these examples, transfer the emphasis from its proper place to the grammatical subject of the sentence, and note the effect.] PAUSES AND SLIDES. " A pause is often more eloquent than words." Emphasis does not entirely depend upon force. It is giyen by variations in pauses, time, pitch, and inflections. These means must be principally relied on in delicate, ten- der, and pathetic passages, the effect of which would be entirely destroyed by force, and yet which need a great deal of expression. A word or phrase is emphasized by anything which attracts attention. A Rhetorical pause is one made in reading, but not in writing, being necessary for the ear, though not for the eye ; as, " You think it just | that he should use his intel- lect | to take the bread out of other men's mouths." 1. "We are stewards | of whatever talents are intrusted to us." 2. "Even apparent defeat | assumed the insolence of victory. " 20 Emphasis. 3. " Habits of mental discipline | are necessary in any system of edu- cation." 4. " His comrade | bent to lift him, but the spark of life | had fled." 5. "For he was all the world | to us, that hero | gray and grim." 6. "They show the banners | taken, they tell his battles | won/' [In the preceding examples, the insertion of commas would confuse the eye while the omission of pauses would be equally confusing to the ear.] Punctuation is not to be regarded as an infallible guide in the pauses or inflections of the voice. Words and clauses in the same grammatical construction are often independent in thought. While such are separated merely by commas for the assistance of the eye, they must be more decidedly separated by the voice for the assistance of the ear. "Day by day the blood recedes, the flesh deserts, the muscles relax, the sinews grow powerless." That each of these clauses embodies a complete thought, is proved by the fact that each one can be separately parsed, and could be as correctly written in this form: " Day by day the blood recedes. The flesh deserts. The muscles relax. The sinews grow powerless." Bead the sentence aloud in both forms, keeping the voice up at the commas, dropping it at the periods, and judge which style conveys the clearest and strongest meaning to the ear. Moreover, the clauses are of equal importance; but, by keeping the voice suspended until the close, the last one is made more emphatic than any of the others. The same principle is illustrated in the following para- graphs: Emphasis. 21 ( ' Labor spans majestic rivers, suspends bridges over deep ravines, pierces solid mountains, makes the furnace blaze, the anvil ring, the wheel turn round, and the town appear." " Cobblers abandoned their stalls to give lessons on politi- cal economy; blacksmiths suffered their fires to go out, while they stirred up the fires of faction; tailors neglected their own measures to criticise the measures of govern- ment." ".France arrests the attention; Napoleon rose and seated himself on the throne of the Bourbons; he pointed the thunder of his artillery at Italy, and she fell before him; he levelled his lightning at Spain, and she trembled; he sounded the knell of vengeance on the plains of Austerlitz, and all Europe was at his feet; he was greater than Caesar; he was greater than Alexander." The tendency to a "sing-song" or monotonous tone in the reading of poetry (caused generally by marking the rhythm by the voice without regard to the sense) can be remedied by transposing the clauses — putting the lines into jjlain prose — thereby making the meaning more prominent and destroying the regularity of the accent; as, " And once, behind a rick of barley, Thus looking out did Harry stand; The moon was full and shining clearly, And crisp with frost the stubble land." Behind a rick of barley, Harry stood, looking out. The moon was full; it shone clearly. The stubble land was crisp with frost. STYLES OF EEADING. All Styles of Beading can be grouped under a few general heads, with subdivisions expressive of their various modifi- cations. No strict classification is possible. For example, while all Didactic, Narrative and Descriptive styles are in their simplest forms Unemotional; all Noble, Patriotic and Impassioned styles more or less Oratorical, the different stvles are often blended, and discrimination must be made accordingly. A narrative may be unemotional in some parts, while descriptive, impassioned, solemn, pathetic, humorous, or all of them, in others. As a rule, the pre- vailing style of the selection should decide its character. Several terms can be used when necessary. A knowledge of the style of piece to be read is essential to the student, in order that he may decide upon its elocutionary effect. In all forms of Vocal exercise, theory is of less con- sequence than practice. But it is desirable that the student should understand the few technical terms which it is necessary to employ in Elocution, and be able to properly apply them. This is essential with students who are fitting themselves for the profession of teaching. Analysis. 23 ANALYSIS. Styles of Reading. t ™ Unemotional. Oratorical. Grave. Didactic. Noble. Solemn. Narrative. Patriotic. Reverential. Descriptive. Impassioned. Pathetic. Animated. Conversational. Humorous. Joyous. Dramatic. Qualities of Voice. Comic. Pure. Orotund. Guttural. Oral. Nasal. Falsetto. Aspirate. Force. r Kind. Degree. Place or Stress. Effusive. Very soft. Radical. Expulsive. Explosive. Soft. Medium. Median. Final. Loud. Thorough. Very loud. Compound. Intermittent. Time. Pitch. Slides. Very slow. Slow. 1 "\ Very low. Low. Monotone. Semitone. Medium. Medium. Wholetone. Quick. Very quick. High. Very high. Third. Fifth. Octave. Circumflex. 24 Analysis. Practical Application of Analysis. 1. " O'er all the peaceful world the smile of heaven lies." Descriptive style, Pure quality, Medium, Expulsive force, Median stress, Medium time, Medium pitch, Whole Tone slide. 2. " For I am poor and miserably old." Pathetic style, Pure quality, Soft, Effusive force, Tremor, Slow time, Low pitch, Semi-tonic slide. 3. " Sound drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully." Joyous style, Orotund quality, Loud, Expulsive force, Radical stress, Quick time, High pitch, Whole Tone slide. 4. " Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven first-born!" Noble style, Orotund quality, Medium, Expulsive force, Median stress, Me- dium time, Medium pitch, Whole Tone slide. 5. " At midnight in the forest shades — ." Descriptive style, Aspirate quality, Soft, Effusive force, Median stress, Slow time, Low pitch, Monotone. 6. "You must attend to the business at once." Didactic style, Pure quality, Medium, Expulsive force, Radical stress, Medium tone, Medium pitch, Whole Tone slide. 7. " There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats." Conversational, Pure, Medium, Expulsive, Radical, Medium time, Medium pitch, Whole Tone. [The preceding examples can be somewhat modified according to individual taste.] QUALITIES OF VOICE. Quality (timhre in Music) is the kind of tone produced by the vocal organs. All tone has more or less Force, dependent upon the manner in which it is produced. The terms Effusive (a pouring out), Expulsive (a driving out), and Explosive (a bursting out), refer to the Kind or quality of Force. [For convenience, examples of Quality of Voice are combined with Kind of Force.] PUKE. Pure Tone is the clear tone in which children talk before acquiring bad habits of utterance. It characterizes the natural speaking voice when free from defects, and is therefore the only Quality of Voice suitable for ordinary reading. Effusive (Didactic). In Effusive Force the breath is effused or given out gently, tranquilly and without effort. 8. When the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at ourselves in the light of thought, we discover that our life is em- bosomed in beauty. Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. The soul will not know either deformity or pain. If in the hours of clear reason we should speak the severest truth, we should say that we had never made a sacrifice. In these hours the mind seems so great that nothing can be taken from it that seems much. For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose. Spiritual Laws. — Ralph Waldo Emerson. 26 Qualities of Voice. 9. Thou know'st that through our tears Of hasty, selfish weeping Comes surer sun ; and for our petty fears Of loss, thou hast in keeping A greater gain than all of which we dreamed. Thou knowest that in grasping The bright possessions which so precious seemed We lose them; but, if clasping Thy faithful hand, we tread with steadfast feet The path of thy appointing, There waits for us a treasury of sweet Delight; royal anointing With oil of gladness and of strength! Renunciation. — Helen Hunt Jackson. Effusive (Narrative). 10. Faith, in the next rooim seems to have wakened from a frightened dream, and I can hear voices through the wall. Her mother is sing- ing to her and soothing her in the broken words of some old lullaby with which Phoebe used to sing Roy and me to sleep years and years ago. The unfamiliar, home-like sound is pleasant in the silent house. Phoebe on her way to bed is stopping on the garret-stairs to listen to it. Even the cat comes mewing up to the door and purring as I have not heard the creature purr since the old Sunday-night sing- ing, hushed so long ago. The Gates Ajar.—EiAZ. Stuart Phelps. 11. Then he sat down still and speechless, On the bed of Minnehaha, At the feet of Laughing Water, At those willing feet that never More would lightly run to meet him, Never more would lightly follow. Qualities of Voice, 27 With both hands his face he covered. Seven long days and nights he sat there; As if in a swoon he sat there, Speechless, motionless, unconscious Of the daylight or the darkness. Hiawatha. — Henry W. Longfellow. Effusive {Descriptive). 12. It was a mild, serene, midsummer's night; the sky was without a cloud; the winds were quiet; the Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east. At length the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest. Hands of angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of dawn. Sunrise. — Edward E v erett. 13. All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued; The hills seemed farther, and the streams sang low; As in a dream the distant woodman hewed His winter log, with many a muffled blow. The sentinel cock upon the hill-side crew, Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before, Silent, till some replying warder blew His alien horn, and then was heard no more. The Closing Scene. — Thomas Buchanan Read. Expulsive {Didactic). In Expulsive Force the breath is expelled, or driven out forcibly, with the amount of effort naturally made in speech and in ordinary reading. It is, therefore, the most common kind of force. 28 Qualities of Voice. 14. Natural history may, I am convinced, take a profound hold upon practical life by its influence over our finer feelings. To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach him something of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue of those which are worth turning round. Surely our innocent pleasures are not so abundant in this life, that we can afford to despise this or any source of them. The Value of Science.— 'Prof. T. H. Huxley. 15. All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. For the structure that we raise Time is with materials filled; Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build. The Builders.— Henry W. Longfellow. Expulsive {Narrative). 16. The Major sat down at his accustomed table, and while the waiters went to bring him his toast and his newspaper, he surveyed hie letters through his gold double eye-glass, examined one pretty note after another and laid them by in order. There were large solemn dinner cards, suggestive of three courses and heavy conversation; there were neat little confidential notes, and a note from a marquis, written on thick official paper. Having perused them the Major took out his pocket-book to see on what days he was disengaged, and which of these many hospitable calls he could afford to accept or decline. Pendennis. -Wm. M. Thackeray. Qualities of Voice. 29 17. A dewdrop falling on the wild sea wave Exclaimed in fear, "I perish in this grave!" But, in a shell received, that drop of dew Unto a pearl of marvellous beauty grew ; And, happy now, the grace did magnify, Which thrust it forth, as it had feared, to die, Until again, " I perish quite," it said, Torn by rude diver from its ocean bed. O unbelieving! so it came to gleam Chief jewel in a monarch's diadem. The Dewdrop. — Kichard C. Trench. Expulsive (Descrip 18. in that quarter of London in which Golden Square is situated, there is a bygone, faded, tumble-down street, with two irregular rows of tall, meager houses, which seem to have stared each other out of countenance years ago. The very chimneys appear to have grown dismal and melancholy, from having had nothing better to look at than the chimneys over the way. The fowls who peck about the kennels, jerking their bodies hither and thither with a gait which none but town fowls are ever seen to adopt, are perfectly in keeping with the crazy habitations of their owners. Dingy, ill-plumed' drowsy flutterers, sent, like many of the neighboring children, to get a liveli- hood in the streets, they hop from stone to stone in forlorn search of some hidden eatable in the mud, and can scarcely raise a crow among them, Nicholas NicHehy. — Charles Dickens, 19. The skies are blue above my head, The prairie green below, And flickering o'er the tufted grass The shifting shadows go. Far in the East, like low-hung clouds The waving woodlands lie; Far in the West, the glowing plain Melts warmly in the sky: 30 Qualities of Voice. No accent wounds the reverent air, No foot-print dints the sod. Lone in the light the prairie lies Rapt in a dream of God. Pike County Ballads. — John Hay. Expulsive {Conversational). 20. Truly we public characters have a tough time of it! And among all the town officers chosen at March meeting, where is he that sus- tains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed upon the Town Pump? The title of "town treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since 1 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 to the board of health. As a keeper of the peace, all water-drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices, when they are pasted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an ad- mirable pattern to my brother officers, b} r the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. A Bill from the Town Pump. — Nathaniel Hawthorne. 21. "Great praise the Duke of Marlboro' won, And our good Prince Eugene." "Why, 'twas a very wicked thing," Said little Wilhelmine. c< And everybody praised the Duke Who this great fight did win." " But what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin. " Why, that I cannot tell," said he, " But 'twas a famous victory." The Battle of Blenheim. — Robert Southey. Qualities of Voice. 31 Explosive. In Explosive Force the breath is exploded, or given out suddenly, with a jerking or bursting effect. It is the most abrupt, violent and least used of the three kinds of force, being employed only in shouting, military command, and the expression of great anger or indignation. It is pro- duced by vigorous action of the abdominal muscles, and should never be given from the chest, such effort being un- natural and hurtful. When properly taken there is no better exercise for the development of the abdominal muscles, but caution is necessary in its use. 22. You rely upon the mildness of my temper, you play upon the meekness of my disposition! But mark! I give you six hours and a half to consider this. If you then agree, without any condition, to do everything oh earth that I choose, why I may, in time, forgive you. If not, don't enter the same hemisphere with me; don't dare to breathe the same air, or use the same light. I'll disown you! I'll disinherit you! I'll never call you Jack again! The Rivals. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 23. Deserted! cowards! traitors! Set me free! But for a moment! I relied on you; Had I relied upon myself alone I had kept them still at bay! I kneel to you. Let me but loose a moment, if 'tis only To rush upon your swords, Virginius. — Sheridan Knowles, 32 Qualities of Voice. OKOTTOD. The Orotund {ore rotundo, round mouth) is the fullest and-grandest tone the voice is capable of producing, " the highest perfection of the human voice." The term is used by the poet Horace in describing the flowing eloquence of the Greeks. It is as natural as the Pure tone, or ordinary speaking voice, though not so common, being suitable only for the expression of grand, solemn and powerful emotions. The vowel is an orotund sound, requiring the mouth to be opened to its fullest extent, and consequently possessing great resonance. The vowels A, E and I, on the contrary, requiring but a slight opening of the mouth, are compara- tively thin, flat sounds. For practice upon the Orotund, pronounce the vowel in the natural way, as forcibly as possible; then without in the least changing the position of the mouth, pronounce the long and the short sounds of the vowels A, E and I, and words containing these sounds. Although the tones pro- duced so mechanically will at first sound unnatural and possibly absurd, that effect will disappear as the muscles become more flexible with practice. It will be found that such exercises require the most thorough action of the vocal organs, and are therefore of the greatest benefit. It must be borne in mind that the difference between the Pure and Orotund is one of Quality, not of Force or of Pitch, although, owing to the greater resonance of the Oro- tund, it sounds both louder in Force and lower in Pitch. It is the same difference which exists between a piano and an organ, a flute and a trumpet, when precisely the same note is produced on each. [It is suggested that practice upon the Orotund be limited at first to single pounds, words, and phrases, its application to entire sentences belonging more to the advanced and artistic, than to the simple and practical work of Elocu- tion.] Qualities of v oice. 33 Effusive Orotund. 24. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchers but a treasury of humiliation; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown, and the certainty of oblivion? Tt is, indeed, the empire of Death ; his great and shadowy palace ; where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages. We are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the character and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yester- day out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of to-morrow. Westminster Abbey. — Washington Irving. 25, God, who with thunders and great voices kept Beneath thy throne, — yet at will, has swept All back, all back (said he in Patmos placed), To till the heavens with silence of the waste Which lasted half-an-hour! — Lo, I who have wept All day and night, beseech thee by my tears And by that dread response of curse and groan Men alternate across these hemispheres, Vouchsafe us such a half -hour's hush alone In compensation for our stormy years! As heaven has paused from song, let earth from moan. Heaven and Earth. — Eliz. Barrett Brownino. Expulsive Orotund. 26. Working-men, walk worthy of your vocation! You have a nobl6 escutcheon; disgrace it not. Stoop not from your lofty throne to defile vnurseives by contamination with any form of evil. Labo 34 Qualities of Voice. allied with virtue, may look up to heaven and not blush, while all worldly dignities, degraded to vice, will leave their owner without a corner of the universe in which to hide his shame. Be ye sure of this, that the man of toil, who works in a spirit of obedient loving homage, does no less than cherubim and seraphim in their loftiest flights and holiest songs. The Dignity of Labor.— Kev. Newman Hall. 27. And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad, Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, Forever shattered, and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded and the silence came, — "Here let the billows stiffen and have rest." Hymn to Mont Blanc. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Explosive Orotund. 28. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. The American War. — Lord Chatham. 29. Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again! O sacred forms, how proud you look! How high you lift your heads into the sky! How huge you are, how mighty and how free I Qualities of Voice. 85 Ye guards of liberty, I'm with you once again! I call to you With all my vcice! I hold my hands to you To show they still are free. I rush to you As though I could embrace you ! William Tell. —Sheridan KNOWiiEk ASPIRATE. The Aspirate Quality or Whisper is used in reading only on certain words, and its use is a matter of taste, preference being usually given to the Breath tone, or Half -whisper. The exercise of Whispering demands frequent and ener- getic inspiration, and forcible expiration of the breath, as well as great accuracy in articulation. It is therefore specially valuable in the development of the vocal organs, provided that it is properly performed, the impetus to the breath being given by the abdominal muscles. The exercise is recommended for concert drill in classes, as well as for individuals, though being naturally exhaust- ing when prolonged, it should be judiciously used. It can be practiced with each Kind and Degree of Force. The Aspirate quality is the natural expression of vagueness, wonder, mystery, impatience, disgust, secresy and fear. [The following exercises are to be practiced with the Whisper and the Half- whisper.] Effusive. 30. All heaven and earth are still, though not in sleep, But breathless as we grow when feeling most; And silent as we stand in thoughts too deep. Childe Harold. — Bykon. 36 Qualities of Voice. Expulsive. 31. Soldiers ! You are now within a few paces of the enemy's out- posts! Let every man keep the strictest silence under pain of instant death. Explosive. 32. Hark! I hear the bugles of the enemy! They are on the march! For the boats! Forward! FAULTY QUALITIES. [It is not necessary to explain at length the various qualities of Impure, or Faulty tones. These result from incorrect habits of breathing, wrong use of the throat and imperfect articulation. They serve to express disagreeable and artificial emotions. Illustrations are given to show the use that can be made of them by the pro- fessional elocutionist, but the exercises are not recommended for the general student. So far as he possesses the faults which they illustrate, it will be well to employ them for the purpose of correction.] Guttural. The Guttural Quality (guttur, the throat) is the deep, rasping sound emitted from the larynx. It expresses loath- ing, rage, reyenge, and extreme horror. 33. How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him for he is a Christian. If I can catch him once upon the hip I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. Cursed be my tribe if I forgive him! Merchant of Venice. — Shakespeare. Qualities of Voice. 37 Oral. The Oral Quality {oris, the mouth) is the mouthing tone, resulting from slovenly articulation, particularly when caused by affectation or indolence. It is used to represent the tones of a fop or an affected fine lady. 34. Bwightou is filling fast now. You see dwoves of ladies evewy day on horseback, widing about in all diwections. There are two or thwee always will laugh when I meet them — they do weally. I fancy they wegard me with interest. Lord Dundee ary. Nasal. The Nasal Quality (nasus, the nose) is produced by forc- ing the breath into the nose before it leaves the mouth, thereby depriving the tone of its clearness and roundness, giving it a sharp, twanging effect. It is a common fault with those who in speaking or reading do not open the mouth sufficiently. It is used in imitation of the qualify of voice which prevails in certain localities. 35. 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 could'n' break daown— " Fur," said the deacon, " t's mighty plain That the weakes' place raus' stan' the strain; 'N' the way t' fix it uz I maintain Is only jest T' make that uz strong uz the rest." The One Ross Shay. — Oliver Wekdell Holmes. 38 Degrees of Force. Falsetto. The Falsetto Quality is produced when the natural voice breaks or gets beyond its compass. It has little volume or resonance, and is, consequently, a weak tone suitable for the expression of sickness, childishness, and old age. 36. There was a silence for a little while; then an old man replied in a thin, trembling voice, "Nicholas Yedder, why he's been dead and gone these eighteen years. There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all about him, but that's gone too." Bip Van Winkle. —Washington Irving. DEGKEES OP FORCE. [There can be various Degrees of one Kind of Force. Very Soft Effusive is as soft as possible. Soft Effusive is only a little softer than the ordinary speaking voice, which is naturally Expulsive, as we seldom talk either in Effusive or Ex- plosive tones. Loud force can be either Expulsive or Explosive. Very loud force naturally becomes Explosive.] Soft (piano in Music) and Very Soft (pianissimo) Degrees of Force, express subdued, tender, and pathetic emotions. Selection between these two degrees depends upon the taste of the reader. Very Soft. 37. It was a night of holy calm, when the zephyr sways the young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard but the last sob of some weary wave telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach, and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed. Spartacus to the Gladiators. — Elijah Kellogg. Soft. 38. No stir, no sound! The shadows creep. The old and young in common trust, Are lying down to wait, asleep, Degrees of Force. 89 While Life and Joy will come to keep With Death and Pain what tryst they must. O faith! for faith almost too great! Come slow, O day of evil freight! O village hearts, sleep well, sleep late! The Village Lights. — Helen Hunt Jackson. Medium. Medium or Moderate Force (mezzo piano in Music) char- acterizes the natural speaking voice, and is therefore appro- priate for all ordinary reading. 39. Not many of us can ever behold even the outside of a palace ; it is a rare person who ever gets to the inside of one. With the advantages of birth, rank, station, power, a man might not in the actual world meet with a sublime soul once in a hundred years, yet through the mediation of Shakespeare we can change a few quiet hours into companionship with souls more choice than we could meet with in experience if we lived for centuries. Human Life in Shakespeare. — Henry Giles, Loud {forte in Music) and Very Loud {fortissimo) Degrees of Force express strong emotions. Loud. 40. Press on! surmount the rocky steeps, Climb boldly o'er the torrent's arch; He fails alone who feebly creeps; He wins who dares the hero's march. Be thou a hero ! let thy might Tramp on eternal snows its way, And through the ebon walls of night, Hew down a passage unto day. Press On.— Park Benjamin. 40 Stress. Very Loud. 41. Thy dazzled eye Beholds this man in a false glaring light Which conquest and success have thrown upon him; Dids't thou but view him right, thou'dst see him black With murder, treason, sacrilege and — crimes That strike my soul with horror but to name them. And as I love my country, millions of worlds Should never buy me to be like that Caesar! Cato. — Joseph Addison. STEESS. The term Stress refers not to the Kind or Degree of Force, but to the manner of applying it to a word or syl- lable. [Proper application of Stress, though adding incalculably to expression in reading, is less important than correct Quality of Voice, suitable degrees of Time, Pitch, and Slides, and intelligent Emphasis. It is more a finish and orna- ment to reading than an essential element ; therefore, a less practical matter than those referred to. Practice upon all forms of Stress— with single sounds — is specially recom- mended for development of the voice ; but skill is needed in the application of Stress to entire sentences, except in the case of Expulsive Radical, which characterizes the ordinary speaking voice. It is therefore suggested that unless sufficient progress has been made in more practical and necessary subjects, in- struction and practice upon Stress be limited to single sounds and words.] EADICAL STRESS. Eadical or Initial Stress {diminuendo in Music) is placed, as its name indicates, upon the radix, root, or be- ginning of the word. It is illustrated by the blow of a hammer, the striking of a bell, or a clock. It exists in the utterance of all sounds which convey abrupt or startling emotions. It belongs also in less violent degree to the Stress. 41 natural speaking voice, giving clearness and decision to the utterance, and is the most common form of Stress. Expulsive Radical. 42. If I should confess the truth there is no mere earthly immortality that I envy so much as the poet's. If your name is to live at all, it is so much more to have it live in people's hearts than only in their brains! I don't know that one's e} r es rill with tears when he thinks of the famous inventor of logarithms, but a song of Burns's or a hymn of Charles Wesley's goes straight to your heart, and you can't help loving both of them, the sinner as well as the saint. The Poet at the Breakfast Table. — Oliver Wendell Holmes. 43. Man is his own star, and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man Commands all light, all influence, all fate; Nothing to him falls early or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. Honest Man's Fortune. — Beaumont and Fletcher. Explosive Radical. 44. Long since, Catiline, ought the Consul to have ordered thee to execution, and brought upon thine own head the ruin thou hast been meditating against others. There was that virtue once in Rome that a wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think not that we are powerless because forbearing. And should I order thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt whether all good men would not think it done rather too late than any man loo cruelly. Oration against Catiline. — Cicero. 42 Stress. 45. If thou speak'st false ! Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive Till famine cling thee! Arm, arm, and out! If this which he avouches doth appear There is do flying hence nor tarrying here! Ring the alarum bell! blow wind! come w T rack! At least we'll die with harness on our back! Macbeth. — Shakespeare. MEDIAN STRESS. Median Stress (swell in Music) is placed upon the middle of the sound. It is the most agreeable form of Stress, and therefore best adapted to the expression of harmonious ideas. It imparts a certain smoothness to the whole sen- tence, giving a gliding and graceful, not broken and jerky movement. " Median Stress is more or less a conscious and intentional effect, prompted and sustained by the will. It is the natural utterance of those emotions which allow the intermingling of reflection and sentiment with expression, and purposely dwell on sound as a means of enhancing the effect." — Russell. Effusive Median. 46. April, the singing month! Many voices of many birds call for res- urrection over the graves of flowers, and they come forth opening and glorified. You have not lost what God has only hidden. You lose nothing in struggle, in trial, in bitter distress. If called to shed thy joys as trees their leaves ; if the affections be driven back into the heart as the life of flowers to their roots, be patient. Thou shalt lift up thy leaf-covered boughs again. When it is February April is not far off. The Death of our Almanac. — Kev. Henry Ward Beecher. Stress. 43 47. Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, And stars to set; but all Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death! We know when moons shall wane, When summer birds from far shall cross the sea, When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grain, But who shall teach us when to look for thee ! The Hour of Death. — Mrs. Hemans. Expulsive Median. 48. Enrich and embellish the universe as you will, it is only a temple for the heart that loves truth with a supreme love. The laws of nature are sublime, but there is a moral sublimity before which the highest intelligences must kneel and adore. Scientific truth is marvelous, but moral truth is divine, and whoever breathes its air and walks by its light has found the lost paradise. Education. — Horace Mann. 49. For oh, this world and the wrong it does! They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz Round the works of, you of the little wit. Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope Now that they see God face to face? They have all attained to be poets, I hope, 'Tis their holiday now, in any case. Old Pictures in Florence. — Robert Browning. FINAL STRESS. Final, Vanishing or Terminal Stress {crescendo in Music) is placed upon the end of the sound. 44 Stress. Effusive Final. Effusive Final Stress expresses pleading and yearning. 50. Oh, the blissful meeting to come one day When the spirit slips out of its house of clay; When the standers by, with a pitying sign Shall softly cover this face of mine: And I leap — ah, whither? who can know? But outward, onward as spirits go. Until eye to eye without fear I see God and my lost, as they see me. The Three Meetings.— D. M. Craig. Expulsive Final. Expulsive Pinal Stress expresses doggedness, scorn and great determination. 51. "Brutus, bay not me! I'll not endure it! You forget yourself to hedge me in. I am a soldier, I, older in practice, Abler than yourself to make conditions." Julius Ccesar. — Shakespeare. Explosive Final. Explosive Final Stress expresses great anger when as- sociated with defiance or revenge. 52. Thou slave! thou wretch! thou coward! Thou little valiant, great in villainy! Thou ever strong upon the stronger side! Thou Fortune's champion, that dost never fight But when her humorous ladyship is by, To teach thee safety! King John.— Shakespeare, Stress. 45 COMPOUND STKESS, Compound Stress (for which there is no equivalent in Music) is compounded or made of the Kadical and Final Stress placed upon the same sound. It is the most dis- agreeable form of Stress, being abrupt and snappish in character. It is generally used upon words which require the circumflex slide, as it expresses complex and varied emotions, also great surprise, obstinacy, anger and contempt which is sarcastic or mocking, as distinguished from the scorn ex- pressed by the Final, 53. What! attribute the sacred sanction of God and Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife? The American War. — Lord Chatham 54. Gone to be married ! Gone to swear a peace ! False blood to false blood joined! Gone to be friends! Shall Lewis have Blanche and Blanche these provinces! King John. — Shakespeare, 55, Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch Under your testy humor? By the gods, You shall digest the venom of your spleen Though it do split you; for, from this day forth, I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter When you are waspish I Julius Ccesar.— -Shakespeare, THOKOUGH STEESS. Thorough or Through Stress (organ tone in Music) is placed upon the whole of the sound. It is illustrated by 46 Stress. common street cries, and is chiefly used in shouting or call- ing where a full, sustained tone is necessary. It is naturally emphatic, hard and uncompromising in effect, and in read- ing is used only for the expression of such feeling. " A due degree of Median stress in conversation distinguishes the man of culture from the boor. The latter speaks with the thorough stress." — Monroe. 56. Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee, And mark my greeting well; for what I speak, My body shall make good upon this earth, Or my divine soul answer it in heaven. Thou art a traitor ', and a miscreant; Too good to be so, and too bad to live. King Richard Second. — Shakespeare. INTERMITTENT STEESS. Intermittent Stress or Tremor {tremolo in Music) is placed brokenly or tremulously upon the sound. It is the natural expression of all feeling which is accompanied by a weakened physical condition in which the breath comes in jets instead of in a continuous stream. It therefore char- acterizes the utterance of some forms of fear, joy, excite- ment; of thrilling tenderness, sympathy, yearning and pathos; of fatigue, grief, sickness and old age. It should be used only on certain words and phrases, any excess of it entirely spoiling its effect. 57. O God ! to clasp those fingers close, And yet to feel so lonely! To see a light on dearest brows Which is the daylight only! Be pitiful, O God! The Cry of the Human.— Eliz. Barrett Browning. Movement. 47 58. Here I stand, your slave, A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man. King Lear, — Sh a kespeake. 59. And see! she stirs! she starts — she moves — she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel, And spurning with her foot the ground With one exulting, joyous bound She leaps into the ocean's arms! TJie Launching of the Ship. — Longfellow. MOVEMENT, Movement {time in Music) refers to the rate of utterance^ and is one of the most important elements of expression. "As an illustration of the power of movement, observe the difference between a school-boy gabbling through his task in haste to get rid of it, and a great tragedian whose whole soul is rapt in the part of Cato, uttering his soliloquy on immortality, or Hamlet musing on the great themes of duty, life, and death." — Russell. [It is suggested that practice upon the exercises in Movement be limited to Slow, Medium and Quick, except in individual cases of too slow or too rapid utterance.] Very Slow. Very Slow Movement is the least used, being appropriate only for the strongest emotions; as, profound reverence, awe, or horror. 60. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up; it stood still but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was before mine eyes; then was silence, and I heard a voice £8 Movement. saying, " Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?" — Bible. Slow. Slow Movement characterizes the utterance of repose, tenderness, grief, pathos, vastness and great power, 61. 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. Thanatopsis. — Wm. Cullen Bryant. Medium. Medium or Moderate Movement is used in the ordinary speaking voice; consequently, in all ordinary reading. 62. An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is a sense of the beautiful. It is in music, perhaps, that the soul most nearly at- tains the great end for which it struggles when inspired by the poetic sentiment — the creation of beauty. We are often made to feel, with a shivering delight, that from an earthly harp are stricken notes which cannot have been unfamiliar to the angels. The old bards and minnesingers had advantages which we do not possess, and Thomas Moore, singing his own songs, was perfecting them as poems. The Poetic Principle. — Edgar Allan Poe. Quick. Quick Movement is only a little more rapid than Medium, and is characteristic of excitement, fear, great earnestness, playful or joyous emotions. Pitch. 49 63. Now, by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, Charge for the golden lilies now, upon them with the lance! A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest, A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest, And in they burst, and on they rushed, while like a guiding star, Amid the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre. The Battle of Ivry. — T. B. Macatjlay. Very Quick. Very Quick or Rapid Movement is seldom used, Quick Movement being generally rapid enough. It expresses great haste and extreme terror. 64. Forth from the pass in tumult driven Like chaff before the wind of heaven, The archery appear! For life! for life! their flight they ply, And shriek and shout and battle-cry, And plaids and bonnets waving high, And broadswords flashing to the sky, Are maddening in the rear! Marmion. — Walter Scott, PITCH. Pitch, or Modulation {pitch in Music) is the degree of elevation of the voice. [It is suggested that practice upon the exercises in Pitch, be limited to Low, Medium and High.] Very Low. Very Low Pitch, like Very Slow Movement, is the least used, the same class of emotions — profound reverence, awe, and horror — being expressed by both. 50 Pitch. 65. I had a dream that was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. Darkness. — Lord Byron. Low. Low Pitch, usually associated with Slow Movement, is appropriate to grandeur, solemnity and pathos. 66. They saw the vault covered and the stone fixed down ; then when the dusk of evening had come on and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place, — in that calm time when all outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them, — then with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away and left the child with God. Old Curiosity Shop. — Charles Dickens. Medium. Medium or Middle Pitch, like Medium Force and Medium Movement, belongs to the natural speaking voice, and is therefore appropriate for all ordinary reading. 67. History is a voice sounding forever across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. Justice and truth alone endure and live. Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes at last to them in French revolutions and other terrible ways. Ihe Science of History.— J. A. Frotjde. Inflections. 51 High. High Pitch, usually accompanying Loud Force and Quick Movement, is expressive of excitement, gayety and joy, 68. Break happy laud, into earlier flowers! Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers! Warble, O bugle, and trumpet blare ! Flames, on the windy headland flare! Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air! O joy to the people, and joy to the throne, Come to us, love us, and make us your own. A Welcome to Alexandra. — Alfred Tennyson. Very High. Very High Pitch, generally associated with Very Loud Force and Very Quick Movement, belongs principally to the shouting or calling voice, but is sometimes used to express extreme animation or joy. 69. Rejoice, you men of Angiers! ring your bells; King John, your king and England's doth approach; Open your gates and give the victors way! King John.— Shakespeare. INFLECTIONS. Inflections or Slides are the upward and downward turns or bends of the Toice, Expression in speaking or reading depends chiefly upon the proper application of Slides. The lack of inflection produces the monotony so common in the schoolroom and so disagreeable wherever heard. "This can be tolerated only in a law paper, a state document, bill of lading, or an invoice, in the reading of which the 52 Inflections. mere distinct enunciation of the words is deemed sufficient. In other circumstances it kills with inevitable certainty everything like feeling or expression." — Russell. The main difference between song and speech is that in the former the voice rises and falls from note to note by a succession of steps. No matter how long a note may be held, the pitch does not vary. In speech the voice rises and falls in slides, causing a constant variation in pitch. As the Emphasis increases, the length of the Slide (either upward or downward) increases. An illustration of this fact is found in the gradually lengthened inflections of an earnest or angry voice as the earnestness or anger increases. Children's voices, from their naturalness and spontaneity, afford perfect examples of all forms of inflection. Observation of the slides into which all voices naturally fall in the expression of various emotions (as heard in or- dinary conversation) is of great value in the study of this subject. Unnatural as some slides sound — particularly the circumflex — when applied mechanically to detached exam- ples, there is not one of them which is not heard in every- day speech. The length of Slides in the speaking voice, corresponds to the length of the intervals in the musical scale. The scale of is selected for illustration, though the principle illus- trated applies equally to all scales. Monotone. The Monotone {one tone) is a tone kept without rising or falling upon one degree of pitch, or one note. It corre- sponds to the chanting tone in vocal music. It is naturally associated with Low Pitch, Slow Time, often with Orotund Quality and expresses repose, power, vastness, awe, rever- ence and solemnity. Inflections. 53 Monotone is not synonymous with Monotony. The latter refers to any kind of repetition, any succession of similar sounds which gives sameness to the tone. "Monotone is the sublimest poetical effect of elocution; monotony one of the worst defects." 70. It is an awful hour when this life has lost its meaning and seems shrivelled into a span; when the grave appears to be the end of all human goodness but a name, and the sky above this universe merely a dead expanse. I know but one way in which a man may come forth from such agony; it is by holding fast to those things which are certain still — the grand, simple landmarks of morality. Thrice blessed is he who, when all is drear and cheerless within and with- out, has obstinately clung to moral good. Sermon.— Rev. F. W. Robertson. 71. No stir in the air, no stir in the sea; The ship was still as she could be. Her sails from heaven received no motion. Her keel was steady in the ocean. Without either sign or sound of their shock, The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock; So little they rose, so little they fell, They did not move the Inchcape Bell. The Inchcape Bock. — Robert Southey. Semitone. The Semitone {half-step in Music) the Semitonic, Minor, or Chromatic Slide, corresponds to the interval between one note and the next half -note above or below; the interval between and C sharp, or between Do and Di. It is heard 54 Inflections. in the peevish whine or cry of the child, the voice of the ex- hausted invalid, and the tones of the grumbling fault-finder. It is also the natural expression of grief, pity, supplication and all plaintive emotions. Without this form of inflection pathetic effect is entirely lost, but it is often improperly placed upon solemn or impressive utterances, giving a whining, depressing and most dismal effect to what on the contrary should be as exalted and inspiring in tone as in sentiment. 72. Oh, what a burial was here! Not as when one is borne from his home among weeping throngs, gently carried to the green fields, and laid peacefully beneath the turf and flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a burial-service. It was an ocean-grave. The mists alone shrouded the burial place. Down, clown they sank, and the quick returning waters, smoothing out every ripple, left the sea as if it had not been. The Loss of the Arctic.— Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 73. And yet he moaned beneath his breath, " Oh, come in life, or come in death, Olost! my love, Elizabeth!" The Brides of Enderby.—JEAS Ingelow. 74. Peace in the clover-scented air, And stars within the dome; And underneath, in dim repose, A plain, New England home. Within, a widow in her weeds From whom all joy is flown; Who kneels among her sleeping babes, And weeps and prays alone. The Heart of the War.— J. G. Holland. Inflections. 55 Whole To^e. The Slide of the Whole Tone, the Common or Conver- sational Slide, is the distance between C and D, or Do and Re. It characterizes the ordinary speaking yoice and is therefore the most frequently used. 75. Gibbon was in his study every morning, winter and summer, at six o'clock; Leibnitz was never out of his library; Pascal killed him- self by study; Cicero narrowly escaped death from the same cause; Milton was at his books with as much regularity as a merchant or an attorney. Raphael lived but thirty-seven years, and in that short space carried the art of painting so far beyond what it had before reached, that he appears to stand alone as a model to his successors. Generally speaking, the life of all truly great men has been a life of intense labor. Labor and Genim. — Sydney Smith. 76. The heifer that lows in the upland farm Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm. The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists with delight, While his files sweep round yon Alpine height. Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one — Nothing is fair or good alone. Each and All. — Ralph Waldo Emerson. Slide of a Thied. The Slide of a Third corresponds to the interval between C and E, or Do and Mi. It is used upon words requiring more emphasis than is needed in the ordinary speaking voice. 56 Inflections. 77. I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing among the phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at no depths to which, when once warped of its honor, humanity can be degraded. But this is wonderful to me, — oh, how wonderful! — to see woman with a power, if she would wield it, purer than the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth, abdicate this majesty, to play at pre- cedence with her next-door neighbor. Queen s Gardens. — John Rfskin. 78. My liege, your anger can recall your trust, Annul my office, spoil me of my lands, Rifle my coffers: but my name, my deeds, Are royal in a land beyond your sceptre. I found France rent asunder: The rich men despots, and the poor, banditti; Sloth in the mart, and schism within the temple. I have re-created France; and from the ashes Of the old feudal and decrepit carcass, Civilization on her luminous wings Soars Phoenix-like to Jove! EicJieh'eu. — Edward Lyttox Bfxwer. Slide of a Fifth. The Slide of a Fifth corresponds to the interval between C and G, or Do and Sol. 79. Yet this is Rome That sat on her seven hills and from her throne Of beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Romans! Why in that elder day, to be a Roman Was greater than a king! And once again — Hear me. ye walls, that echoed to the tread Of either Brutus ! — once again I swear, The Eternal City shall be free! Eienzi's Address to the Romans. — Hart Russell Mitford Inflections. 57 Slide of aist Octave. The slide of an Octave corresponds to the interval between C and C, or Do and Do. 80. " Sir, you have much to confess," roared the General, " and I will wring it out of you! If you refuse, I'll shut you up in a dungeon for ten years! You are associated with conspirators; you countenanced revolution in Florence; you openly took part with Eepublicans. Sir, you are in a position of imminent danger. I tell you — beware!" The General said this in an awful voice which was meant to strike terror into the soul of his captive. The Bodge Club. — Prof. James DeMillb. Circumflex. The preceding Inflections are called Simple, Single, and Direct Slides. The Circumflex (circum, around; flectere, to bend) or Wave, Complex, Double, and Indirect Slide, is a wave or turn of the voice, including both a rise and a fall on the same syllable; named Kising or Falling according to the termina- tion of the Slide. Simple facts and questions are stated or asked in simple or direct slides. If the fact or question is modified or com- plex in any way, the voice indicates it by the Circumflex. No inflection is so expressive, the slide itself generally im- plying as much as the words upon which it is placed. It is the characteristic utterance of doubt, contrast, comparison, insinuation, raillery and sarcasm. [The Circumflex is measured in the same way as the Direct Slides, though when its length exceeds that of the Whole Tone, it generally extends through several words of the sentence.] 81. " If to do were as easy as to know what were g5od to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a 58 Inflections. good divine that follows his own instructions. I can easier teach twenty what were good to bedone than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching." Merchant of Venice. — Shakespeare. 82. None dared withstand him to his face, But one sly maiden spake aside: "The little witch is evil-eyed! Her mother only killed a cow Or witched a churn or dairy -pan, But she, forsooth, must charm a m*ln!" The Witch's Daughter. — John G. Whittter. 83. •* You say you are a better soldier. Let it appear so. Make your vaunting true, And it shall please me well. For mine own Part, I shall be glM to learn of noble men." Julius Omar. — Shakespeare. 84. " There's no knowing," said Dolly, " wMt you may have learned among those children at the asylum!" "May I go to the evening school?" asked Rose. "It is a free school." "Well, you're not free to go, if it is. You know how to read and write, and I have taught you how to make change pretty well — that's all you need for my purposes. You're too grand to trim caps and b5nnets like your Aunt Dolly, I suppose. It's quite beneath a charity orphan, of course !" Bose Clark. — Fanny Fern. 85, They owned it couldn't have well been w5rse. To go from a full to an empty purse, To expect a reversion and get a reverse Was truly a dismal feature. Inflections. 59 But it wasn't strange — they whispered — at all. That the summer of pride should have its fall Was quite according to Nature. She wasn't ruined, — they ventured to hope — Because she was poor she needn't mope. F6w people were better off for soap, And that was a consolation. The Proud Miss MacBride. — John G. Saxe. 86. ["As the Emphasis increases, the length of the Slide increases."] Increasing Slides. " In a fortnight or three weeks," said my uncle Toby, smiling, "he might march." " He will never march, an' please your honor, in this world," said the corporal. " He will march," said my uncle Toby, rising up with one shoe off. " An' please your honor," said the cor- poral, "he will never march but to his grave." " He shall march," cried my uncle Toby, " he shall march to his regiment." " He can- not stand it," said the corporal. " He shall be supported," said my uncle Toby. " Ah-well-a-day, do what w T e can for him," said Trim, maintaining his point, "the poor soul will die." "He shall not," shouted my uncle Toby, with an oath. The Accusing Spirit which flew up to heaven's chancery, blushed as he gave it in, and the Recording Angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever. The Story of La Fevre. — Laurence Sterne. [The Slides of the Fifth and Octave, being the most emphatic, are consequently the least used, and their use is always a matter of taste and judgment. Where one reader would give extreme emphasis to a passage another would render it as correctly, and quite as acceptably, with less. The Slides of the Whole Tone, the Third and Circumflex being the only ones used in ordinary speech and reading are consequently the most practical. But drill upon all the Slides — with single sounds and words— is specially recommended, as developing flexibility of tone.] 60 Examples in Emphasis. Examples Illustrating Emphasis on the Noun. 1. An accident has happened. 2. He took a bundle with him. 3. Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer. 4. Libraries are the wardrobes of literature. 5. Time is often the best doctor. Emphasis on the Verb. 1. This matter troubles me. 2. He will not listen to it. 3. Sheathe your dagger. 4. Who offered him the crown? 5. I never saw it or heard of it. Emphasis on the Pronoun. 1. Forgive others, but never yourself. 2. /cannot do it as well as you can. 3. He saw the beauty, she the terror of the ocean. 4. This was joy to me, but it made him angry. 5. Must I budge? Must /observe you? Emphasis on the Adverb. 1. We lived so cozily in that house. 2. Give willingly if you give at all. 3. You come most carefully upon your hour. 4. He laughs best who laughs last. 5. Too wise is stupid. 6. The load borne cheerfully is light. Emphasis on the Adjective. 1. No corrupt judge searches for truth. 2. Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf. 3. He depends upon mental power. 4. Mental stains cannot be washed away. 5. What a fearful night is this! 6. No wise man ever wished to be younger. 7. What was the second noise for? 8. Nor is my whole estate upon the fortune of this present year. SELECTIONS FOR READING. A PLEA FOE ENTHUSIASM. No power so completely sways the hearts and wills of mankind as that of enthusiasm. History is but a chroni- cle of the results of enthusiasm — the enthusiasm of in- dividuals, the enthusiasm of sects, the enthusiasm of nations. Without its inspiration, how life itself would lose its interest, its power. What is it but enthusiasm which marks one wide difference between the brute and the man? The brute eats, sleeps, and dies. These three words cover the whole range of its existence. Man, on the other hand, has motives, hopes, aspirations. By these every act of his life is influenced. These give him en- ergy, courage, faith, purpose — in a word, enthusiasm. And what is the result? Why, increasing activities mark his days and years, and it is this growth and gain that constitute true life. An army was in full retreat. The enemy had surprised, attacked, and routed them. Panic-stricken, they were turning from the battlefield in headlong flight. Men threw aside their guns, their knapsacks, anything that hindered their escape. Horse and foot were mingled in wild confusion. All was in terror and dismay. Suddenly the foremost beholds dashing down the road toward them a black horse and his rider; the rider waves his sword, 62 Selections for Beading. and they hear the command: "Halt!" Catching the fire of his eye, they turn and re-form; and as General Sheridan rides swiftly down the lines the men greet him with loud and hearty cheers. And now, as if swayed by one mighty impulse, those lines of blue, that but a mo- ment before were flying terror-stricken, turn fiercely upon the enemy, wrest the victory from their hands, and drive them in utter rout from the field. The tide of victory is turned; the day is saved. What was the power, the influence, that was able to transform defeat into victory? Was it anything else than the spirit of enthusiasm in the great leader himself, kindling a like spirit into flame in the hearts of his men? Enthusiasm recognizes no obstacle, and knows not the word failure. There is a legend of a man who came up against a king. The king had a force of thirty thousand men, and when he learned that this general had only five hundred, he sent a messenger to him offering to treat him and his followers mercifully if they would surrender. The general turned to one near him, and said, " Take that dagger and drive it to your heart " ; the man did so, and fell dead at his commander's feet. Turning to another, he said, " Leap into yonder chasm " ; the man obeyed, and was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Then said he to the messenger: " Go tell your king that I have five hundred such men. Tell him that we may die, but we shall never surrender." The messenger re- turned; his story struck terror into the heart of that king and so demoralized his troops that they were scattered like chaff before the winds. That is the power of enthu- siasm. " We may die, but we never surrender." Look through history and note its influence. See in Selections for Reading. 63 religion, in literature, in science, in art, in everything to which man has put his hand, this spirit working its re- sults and bringing success. Oh, you who are decrying en- thusiasm, calling its zeal without knowledge, know you not the meaning of that word — " God in us " ? Find quickly the object to which you will devote your life; let it be right, let it be worthy, and then give yourself to it with all your God-given powers. " God in us " ; and what is God himself but an endless activity ever working, never ceasing? The farther we are removed from the brute and the nearer we approach the divinity within us, the more shall we be moved by the spirit of enthusiasm. LOYALTY. S. S. CUREY. Loyalty belongs to every true heart. It is an essen- tial element in every noble character; it may be found by the fireside, on the street, in the shop, in the studio, in the public hall, on the platform, on the stage — in every department of life and art. An ideal vision of truth, a firm, rational belief in justice, and a reposeful trust in the Power that makes for righteousness, have their culmination not in senti- mentality, not in weakness nor idleness, but in a noble, heroic loyalty. Even loyalty to one's country does not show itself only in being willing to die for her in the hour of danger, but in being willing to live for her; to fight not only a foreign foe, but an internal foe; to fight not only external ene- 64 Selections for Beading. mies, but those in our midst whose influence, if unop- posed, would soon bring our country to ruin. This heroic element is found in every clime, in every age, in every noble life. Without it nothing is accom- plished, character grows weak, art grows sentimental, and human progress is perverted. Much of the advance of the race has been accomplished through heroic en- deavor, through bravery. It was no question of money that inspired the little band of three hundred at Thermopylae and caused them to rush on an army of millions and die. Simonides truly expressed their feelings in his inscription over their graves, " Say at Lacedsemon we lie here in obedience to her laws." The time will come, we all devoutly hope, when war will be no more; but the time will never come when heroic loyalty in the face of danger and death, in the face of contempt and opposition, in the face of poverty and neg- lect, in the face of lack of appreciation, shall cease to thrill the human heart. PEACE OF MIND. My mind to me a kingdom is; Such perfect joy therein I find As far exceeds all earthly bliss That God or nature hath assigned; Though much I want that most would have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave. Content I live, this is my stay; I seek no more than may suffice; I press to bear no haughty sway; Selections for Heading. 65 Look! what I lack my mind supplies. Lo! thus I triumph like a king, Content with that my mind doth bring. I see how plenty surfeits oft, And hasty climbers soonest fall; I see that such as sit aloft Mishap doth threaten most of all. These get with toil, and keep with fear; Such cares my mind could never bear. No princely pomp, nor wealthy store; No force to win a victory, No wily wit to salve a sore, No shape to win a lover's eye; To none of these I yield as thrall — For why? My mind despiseth all. Some have too much, yet still they crave; I little have, yet seek no more; They are but poor, though much they have, And I am rich with little store; They poor, I rich; they beg, I give; They lack, I lend; they pine, I live. I laugh not at another's loss, I grudge not at another's gain; No worldly wave my mind can toss; I brook that is another's bane; I fear no foe, nor fawn no friend ; I loathe not life, nor dread mine end. My wealth is health and perfect ease; My conscience clear my chief defense; I never seek by bribes to please, Nor by desert to give offense; Thus do I live, thus will I die; Would all did so as well as I! I take no joy in earthly bliss; I weigh not Croesus' wealth a straw; For care, I care not what it is; 66 Selections for Reading. I fear not fortune's fatal law. My mind is such as may not move For beauty bright or force of love. I wish but what I have at will; I wander not to seek for more; I like the plain, I climb no hill; In greatest storms I sit on shore, And laugh at them that toil in vain To get what must be lost again. I kiss not where I wish to kill; I feign not love where most I hate; I break no sleep to win my will; I wait not at the mighty's gate; I scorn no poor, I fear no rich ; I feel no want, nor have too much. The court, nor cart, I like nor loathe; Extremes are counted worst of all; The golden mean betwixt them both Doth surest sit, and fears no fall. This is my choice — for why? I find No wealth is like a quiet mind. PYEAMIDS NOT ALL EGYPTIAN P. O. BARNES. Mankind are toiling for a deathless name. Various are the schemes devised, and the plans pursued, to gain this one world-sought end — to rear a pyramid that shall not decay, but grow broader and higher with " the roll of ages." This is the nucleus of the world of thought. At its altar are immolated the smile and tear, the swell of delight and revenging throb, the sweets of duty ; and joys Selections for Beading. 67 of life, and hopes of heaven. ~No hardships, nor priva- tions, nor sacrifices, but here are freely shrined. Eating the bread of sorrow and drinking the tears of mourning, the individual world eagerly pursues the phantom of hope till death stops the chase and rolls them into the tomb. Dreaming of this, the peasant forgets his grief, and only seeks to become dear in his own circle, though icicles hang from his brow and freeze around his heart. The student ekes out his life in midnight thought, tumbles into the grave, only craving a wandering sigh when years have rolled away. The conspirator cuts the bands of civil law, touches the spring of revolution, and heaves whole empires into a sea of tears, that his name may eddy away on the raging billows. The warrior builds his pyramid on the bloody battle plain; and where bayonet, and fire, and blood, blend their terrors, he deals death with his saber, and flings heart's blood at the sun with his glittering blade. The moral deceiver erect c his in a more solemn realm. He blots out the sun of hope, rolls man up in self, and pushes a whole world to the doleful caverns of an eternal night. And what an illus- tration of this is Mohammed, that form of terror which blazed athwart the moral heavens, consumed the vital atmosphere, and shrieking with his latest breath, " Oh, God! pardon my sins/' plunged into the awful whirlpool of shoreless remorse. How has the bleak, black summit of his pyramid been shattered by the scathing fires of Heaven's judgment? To give his name to posterity, Caesar crossed the Eubicon, and Home was free no more. He built a terrible pyramid upon the ruins of the " Eternal City." But think you its vast height gave him pride, or availed him aught when the cold steel of Brutus' 68 Selections for Heading. dagger rankled in his heart, and poured his blood on the Senate floor of Home? To gain an undying name, Alexander drew the sword of conquest, lit up the land with burning cities, quenched their sighs with tears, extorted the sigh of anguish from millions, and then died, seeking to show himself a god. And Bonaparte, too, that lion, swimming in blood, went over Europe tying laurels on his brow with heart-strings, and writing his name with his blood-streaming sword, full on the thrones and foreheads of kings. The powers of his mind, throbbing in midnight dreams, shook the civilized world; and yet the delirious spirit of this world- wonderful warrior, whose haughty star withered kings and whose brow was unawed, whether his eagles hovered around the Alps or shrieked amid the flames of Moscow, died a powerless prisoner on the lonely billow-dashed isle of St. Helena. These have gained names more last- ing than Egyptian pyramids. But oh! the doleful price of their eternal ruin. Who, who can read the history of such men as these and then seek a like immortality? May the winds of annihilation blow such desires from our earth! But is there no way of gaining a name, noble, glorious, immortal? Boundless are the fields, endless are the ways, and numberless the examples of pure and heavenly renown. Though the ways which lead to never-ending shame are many, there are paths that lead to fame unsullied and undying, up which many great minds have toiled unceasing, till death cut the fetters and sent them home. The scholar, astronomer, poet, orator, patriot, and philosopher, all have fields, broad, fertile, perennial. The ruins of the "Eternal City " " still breathe, born Selections for Beading. 69 with Cicero." The story of Demosthenes, with his mouth full of pebbles, haranguing the billows of old ocean, will be stammered by the schoolboy " down to latest time." And after " the foot of time " has trodden down his marble tombstone, and strewed his grave with the dust of ages, it will be said that Nature's orator, Patrick Henry, while accused of treason and threatened with death, " hurled his crushing thunderbolts " at the haughty form of tyranny, and cried, " Give me liberty, or give me death," in accents that burned all over Europe. Washington, too, has a pyramid in every American heart. When the serpent, tyranny, wrapped his freezing folds around our nation's heart, and with exulting hisses raised his horrid coils to heaven, then Washington hurled a thunderbolt that drove him back to molder and rot beneath the crumbling thrones of Europe, and sent the startling echo of freedom rumbling around our broad green earth. A fire of desolation may kindle in our metropolis and strew it in the dust, yea, may burn away our continent with all its monuments, but his name will be breathed with reverence till the ocean has ceased to heave, and time has ceased to be. Our countryman, Franklin, too; look at the pyramid that bears his name, burying its mighty summit in the lowering thunder- cloud, while around it the lightnings play and lurk, and write " Immortality." Has not Newton a name among the immortal? How eagerly did he grasp the golden chain, swung from the Eternal Throne, and with what intense rapture and thrilling delight did he climb up- ward, vibrate through the concave of the skies, gaze around upon the stars, and bathe in the glorious sun- light of eternal truth that blazed from the center — Deity. 70 Selections for Reading. Nor is this all. A day is coming when the pyramids built in blood shall crumble and sink, when yonder firmament shall frown in blackness and terror, when the judgment fires shall kindle around the pillars that stay creation, and rolling their smoke and flames upward, fire the entire starry dome, — when burning worlds shall fly, and lighten through immensity, — when the car of eternity, rumbling onward, shall ever travel over the dis- mal loneliness and bleak desolation of a burned-up uni- verse; and then shall the pyramids of the just tower away in the sunlight of heaven, while their builders shall cull the flowers and pluck the fruits of the perennial city, — and to God who created them, and to Christ who re- deemed them, swell an anthem of praise, increas- ing, louder and deeper, with the ceaseless annals of eternity. THE NOBLE PUEPOSES OF ELOQUENCE. If we consider the noble purposes to which eloquence may be made subservient, we at once perceive its prodi- gious importance to the best interests of mankind. The greatest masters of the art have concurred, upon the greatest occasions of its display, in pronouncing that its estimation depends on the virtuous and rational use made of it. It is but reciting the common praises of the Art of Persuasion, to remind you how sacred truths may be most ardently promulgated at the altar — the cause of oppressed innocence be most powerfully defended — the march of wicked rulers be most triumphantly resisted — Selections for Beading. 71 defiance the most terrible be hurled at the oppressor's head. In great convulsions of public affairs, or in bring- ing about salutary changes, everyone confesses how im- portant an ally eloquence must be. But in peaceful times, when the progress of events is slow and even as the silent and unheeded pace of time, and the jars of a mighty tumult in foreign and domestic concerns can no longer be heard, then, too, she flourishes — protectress of liberty — patroness of improvement — guardian of all the blessings that can be showered upon the mass of human kind; nor is her form ever seen but on ground conse- crated to free institutions. To me, calmly revolving these things, such pursuits seem far more noble objects of ambition than any upon which the vulgar herd of busy men lavish prodigal their restless exertions. To diffuse useful information, to further intellectual refinement, sure forerunners of moral improvement, — to hasten the coming of the bright day when the dawn of general knowledge shall chase away the lazy, lingering mists, even from the base of the great social pyramid; this indeed is a high calling, in which the most splendid talents and consummate virtue may well press onward, eager to bear a part. ODE TO DUTY. William Wordsworth. Stern daughter of the voice of God! O Duty! if that name thou love Who art a light to guide, a rod To check the erring and reprove; 72 Selections for Heading. Thou who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth; Glad hearts! without reproach or blot, Who do thy work and know it not. O, if, through confidence misplaced, They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power, around them cast! Serene will be our days and bright And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security. And they a blissful course may hold Ev'n now who, not unwisely bold, Live in the spirit of this creed; Yet find that other strength, according to their need. I, loving freedom, and untried, No sport of every random gust, Yet being to myself a guide, Too blindly have reposed my trust; And oft, when in my heart was heard Thy timely mandate, I deferred The task, in smoother walks to stray; But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. Through no disturbance of my soul, Or strong compunction in me wrought, I supplicate for thy control, But in the quietness of thought: Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance desires; My hopes no more must change their name; I long for a repose which ever is the same. Selections for Beading. 73 Stern lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face; Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong. To humbler functions, awful power, I call thee ! 1 myself commend Unto thy guidance from this hour; O let my weakness have an end ! Give unto me, made lowly wise, The spirit of self-sacrifice; The confidence of reason give; And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live. IMMORTALITY OF TRUE PATRIOTISM. James A. Garfield. For nearly fifty years no spot in any of these states had been the scene of battle. But as a flash of lightning in a midnight tempest reveals the abysmal horrors of the sea, so did the flash of the first gun disclose the awful abyss into which rebellion was ready to plunge us. In a moment the fire was lighted in twenty million hearts. In a moment we were the most warlike nation on the earth. In a moment we were not merely a people with an army — we were a people in arms. The nation was in column — not all at the front, but all in the array. I love to believe that no heroic sacrifice is ever lost; that treasured up in American souls are all the uncon- scious influences of the great deeds of the Anglo-Saxon 74 Selections for Reading. race, from Agincourt to Bunker Hill. It was such an in- fluence that led a young Greek, two thousand years ago, when musing on the Battle of Marathon, to exclaim: " The trophies of Miltiades will not let me sleep!" Could these men be silent in 1861, — these whose ances- tors had felt the inspiration of battle on every field where civilization had fought in the last thousand years? Eead their answer in this green turf. Each for himself gathered up the cherished purposes of life, — its aims and ambitions, its dearest affections, — and flung all, with life itself, into the scale of battle. We began the war for the Union alone; but we had not gone far into its darkness before a new element was added to the conflict, which filled the army and the nation with cheerful but intense religious enthusiasm. In lessons that could not be misunderstood the nation was taught that God had linked to our own the destiny of an enslaved race — that their liberty and our Union were indeed " one and inseparable." It was this that made the soul of John Brown the marching companion of our soldiers, and made them sing as they went down to battle: " In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me ; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on." The struggle consecrated, in some degree, every man who bore a worthy part. I can never forget an incident illustrative of this thought which it was my fortune to witness, near sunset of the second day at Chickamauga, when the beleaguered but unbroken left wing of our army had again and again repelled the assaults of more Selections for Reading. 75 than double their numbers, and when each soldier felt that to his individual hands were committed the life of the army and the honor of his country. It was just after a division had fired its last cartridge and had repelled a charge at the point of the bayonet that the great-hearted commander took the hand of an humble soldier and thanked him for his steadfast cour- age. The soldier stood silent for a moment, and then said with deep emotion: " George H. Thomas has taken this hand in his. Fll knock down any mean man that offers to take it hereafter." This rough sentence was full of meaning. He felt that something had touched that hand which consecrated it. Could a hand bear our banner in battle and not be forever consecrated to honor and virtue? But doubly consecrated were those who re- ceived into their own hearts the fatal shafts aimed at the life of their country. Fortunate men! your country lives because you died! Your fame is placed where the breath of calumny can never reach it, where the mistakes of a weary life can never dim its brightness! Coming generations will rise up to call you blessed! WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDEESS TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. [Inserted as a very difficult piece of reading.] Friends axd Fellow-Citizens : The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer the executive government of the Ignited States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must 76 Selections for Reading. be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to- decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made. In looking forward to the moment which is to termi- nate the career of my political life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has sup- ported me; and for the opportunities I have thence en- joyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. The unity of Government which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and Selections for Reading. 77 insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happi- ness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and im- movable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your polit- ical safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common coun- try, that country has a right to concentrate your affec- tions. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. This Government, the offspring of our own choice, un- influenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Eespect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an 78 Selections for Beading. explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Gov- ernment. All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all com- binations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, coun- teract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamen- tal principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests. Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to polit- ical prosperity, Keligion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pil- lars of human happiness, these firmest of props of the duties of Men and Citizens. Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; Selections for Heading. 79 cultivate peace and harmony with all. Beligion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that faith and good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I con- jure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Eepublican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it be- comes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Though, in viewing the incidents of my administra- tion, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am never- theless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my Country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty- five years of my life dedicated to its service with an up- right zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be con- signed to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the man- sions of rest. 80 Selections for Reading. Eelying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of him- self and his progenitors for several generations, I antici- pate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoy- ment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free govern- ment, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers. Geoege Washington". United States, September 17, 1796. A BEAUTIFUL LEGEND. Softly fell the touch of twilight on Judea's silent hills; Slowly crept the peace of moonlight o'er Judea's trembling rills. In the temple's court, conversing, seven elders sat apart; Seven grand and hoary sages, wise of head and pure of heart. " What is rest? " said Rabbi Judah, he of stern and steadfast gaze; * ' Answer, ye whose tools have burdened thro' the march of many days." 44 To have gained," said Eabbi Ezra, " decent wealth and goodly store Without sin, by honest labor— nothing less and nothing more/' " To have found," said Rabbi Joseph, meekness in his gentle eyes, 44 A foretaste of heaven's sweetness in home's blessed paradise." " To have wealth, and power, and glory, crowned and brightened by the pride Of uprising children's children," Rabbi Benjamin replied. "To have won the praise of nations, to have won the crown of fame," Rabbi Solomon responded, faithful to his kingly name. Selections for Reading. 81 " To sit throned, the lord of millions, first and noblest in the land," Answered haughty Rabbi Asher, youngest of the reverend band. "All in vain," said Rabbi Jairus, "unless faith and hope have traced In the soul Mosaic precepts by sin's contact uneffaced." Then uprose wise Rabbi Judah, tallest, gravest of them all: " From the height of fame and honor even valiant souls may fall: Love may fail us, virtue's sapling grow a dry and thorny rod, If we bear not in our bosom the unselfish love of God." In the outer court sat playing a sad-featured, fair-haired child, His young eyes seemed wells of sorrow — they were God-like when he smiled! One by one he dropped the lilies, softly plucked with childish hand; One by one he viewed the sages of that grave and hoary band; Step by step he neared them closer, till, encircled by the seven, Thus he said, in tones untrembling, with a smile that breathed of heaven : 4< Nay, nay, father! Only he, within the measure of whose breast Dwells the human love with God-love, can have found life's truest rest; For where one is not, the other must grow stagnant at its spring; Changing good deeds into phantoms — an unmeaning, soulless thing; Who holds this precept truly owns a jewel brighter far Than the joys of home and children — than wealth, fame, and glory are; Fairer than old age, thrice honored far above tradition's law, Pure as any radiant vision ever ancient prophet saw. Only he within the measure — faith apportioned — of whose breast Throbs this brother-love with God-love, knows the depth of perfect rest." "Wondering gazed they at each other, once in silence, and no more: 14 He has spoken words of wisdom no man ever spake before! " Calmly passing from their presence to the fountain's rippling song, Stooped he to uplift the lilies strewn the scattered sprays among. Faintly stole the sounds of evening through the massive outer doors, Whitely lay the peace of moonlight on the temple's marble floor, Where the elders lingered, silent, since he spake, and, undefiled, Where the wisdom of the Ages sat amid the flowers — a child! 82 Selections for Reading. EIGHTS AWD DUTIES. F, W. Robertson. People talk of liberty as if it meant the liberty of doing what a man likes. I call that man free who is master of his lower appetites, who is able to rule himself. I call him free who has his flesh in subjection to his spirit. I call him free who fears doing wrong, but who fears neither man nor devil besides. We hear in these days a great deal respecting rights. We hear of the rights of private judgment, the rights of labor, the rights of property, and the rights of man. Eights are grand things, divine things in this world of God's. But the way in which we expound those rights, alas! seems to me to be the very incarnation of selfish- ness. I can see nothing very noble in a man who is for- ever going about calling for his own rights. Alas! alas! for the man who feels nothing more grand in this won- drous divine world than his rights. The cry of " My rights, your duties," I think we might change to something nobler. If we could learn to say "My duties, your rights," we should come to the same thing in the end; but the spirit would be different. All we are gaining by this cry of " Rights " is the life of the wild beast, and of the wild man of the desert whose hand is against every man, and every man's hand against him. Nay, the very brutes, unless they had an instinct which respects rights even more strongly than it claims them, could never form anything like a community. Did you never observe in a heronry or a rookery that the new- made nest is left in perfect confidence by the birds that Selections for Heading. 83 build it? If the others had not learned to respect those private and sacred rights, but began to assert each his right to the sticks which are woven together there, it would be some time before you could get a heronry or a rookery! My rights are, in truth, my duties; my rights are lim- ited by another man's rights. For example, I have a perfect right to build a wall on my own estate. The lan- guage of the law is that to whomsoever the soil belongs is his all up to the skies. But within three yards of my wall is my neighbor's window. What becomes of the right that I was talking of? My right is limited; it is my duty, because limited by Ms right. Now, democracy, if it means anything, means govern- ment by the people. It has for its very watchword equality to all men. Now, let us not endeavor to make it ridiculous. It does not mean that the Bushman or the Australian is equal to the Englishman. But it means this: that the original stuff of which all men are made is equal, that there is no reason why the Hottentot and the Australian may not be cultivated so that in the lapse of centuries they may be equal to Englishmen. And I suppose that all free institutions mean this. 1 suppose they are meant to assert: let the people be edu- cated; let there be a fair field and no favor; let every man have a fair chance, and then the happiest condition of a nation would be that, when every man has been educated morally and intellectually to his very highest capacity, there should then be selected out of men so trained a government of the wisest and the best. 84 Selections for Reading. OPINIONS STRONGER THAN ARMIES. Luther A. Ostrander. There is a vignette representing a heavy sword thrown across a dozen quills, crushing and destroying them. In the thrilling times of war, the picture seems the illustra- tion of truth, rather than the artist's fancy. When governments lay their hands on their sword-hilts, and nations marshal themselves in battle array, it is natural to believe the sword mightier than the pen, armies stronger than opinions. Strength is a force known only in its results. An army is a gigantic force. It marches forth with roll of drums, and proud banners streaming, bayonets gleaming in the sunlight. Earth trembles under its measured tread, and it is full of grandeur. It sweeps to the battle with the fury of the tempest; dark battalions roll together; squadrons charge with flashing sabers, and dense sulphurous clouds hail iron. It returns with hon- ored scars, torn battle-flags, and shouts of victory. Military strength is physical strength. It defies reason; hews congenial states asunder; chains, in repul- sive union, the deadliest enemies. What is the strength of opinions? Opinions are ideas, condensed thoughts. They, too, are force; but a force intellectual and endur- ing. Inventing a press, they print a Bible, and stamp progress on every page of history. Under their influence, the hydra, terrible upon the waters, and the dragon, vomiting fire, are metamorphosed into the steamship and locomotive; the savage becomes a man; he dives into the profundity of philosophy, flashes his thoughts over magnetic wires, and, with the airy lightness of genius. Selections for Reading. 85 soars to the farthest bounds of immensity. Are not opinions stronger than armies? The convulsed lips of trie poisoned Socrates proclaim it: the classic periods of Tully proclaim it; the mute eloquence of the past and the fiery logic of the present proclaim it. It may be ob- jected that Marathon, Yorktown, and Gettysburg were glorious triumphs of arms. True; but were they not also glorious triumphs of opinions? AYhat were those con- quering armies but embodiments of a lofty patriotism, the genius of liberty, and the spirit of freedom? Our glorious victories — what are they but drum-beats that keep time to the march of opinions? Our armies — they are not composed of vassals, but of thinkers, voters, men — high-minded men ; who use the ballot as wisely as they wield the sword — sustaining with brain-sweat and heart- blood their grand opinions. Armies are the towers of strength which men have built; opinions are the surging waves of the ocean which God has inade, beating against those towers, and crumbling them to dust. The dim light of the past reveals to us the forms of gigantic empires, whose mighty armies seem omnipotent. A halo of martial glory surrounds them, and then fades away; their marble thrones crumble; their iron limbs are broken; their proud navies are sunk. To-day, history dipping its pencil in sunlight, records the sublime tri- umphs of opinions. The sword rounds the periods of the pen; the ballot wings the bullet; schoolhouses accompany cannon balls; and principles bombard forts and thunder from ironclads. Glorious is the morning dawn! Science fringes the lands of darkness with a border of light; and the sun of Christianity, glowing along the eastern waters, arches the bow of promise above the golden western hills, 86 Selections for Heading. MODULATION. Tis not enough the voice be sound and clear, 'Tis modulation that must charm the ear. "When desperate heroes grieve with tedious moan, And whine their sorrows in a see-saw tone, The same soft sounds of unimpassioned woes Can only make the yawning hearers doze. That voice all modes of passion can express Which marks the proper words with proper stress; But none emphatic can that speaker call Who lays an equal emphasis on all. Some o'er the tongue the labored measures roll, Slow and deliberate as the parting toll; Point every stop, make every pause so strong, Their words, like stage processions, stalk along. All affectation but creates disgust; And e'en in speaking we may seem too just. In vain for them the pleasing measure flows Whose recitation runs it all to prose; Eepeating what the poet sets not down, The verb disjointing from its favorite noun, While pause and break and repetition join To make a discord in each tuneful line. Some placid natures fill the allotted scene With lifeless drawls, insipid and serene; While others thunder every couplet o'er, And almost crack your ears with rant and roar. More nature oft, and finer strokes, are shown In the low whisper than in tempestuous tone; And Hamlet's hollow voice and fixed amaze More powerful terror to the mind conveys Than he who, swollen with impetuous rage, Bullies the bulky phantom of the stage. He who, in earnest, studies o'er his part, Will find true nature cling about his heart. Selections for Reading. 87 The modes of grief are not included all In the white handkerchief and mournful drawl; A single look more marks the internal woe Than all the windings of the lengthened Oh! Up to the face the quick sensation flies, And darts its meaning from the speaking eyes; Love, transport, madness, anger, scorn, despair, And all the passions, all the soul, is there. AMEBIC AN" NATIONALITY. Rtjfus Choate. By the side of all antagonisms, higher than they, stronger than they, there rises colossal the fine sweet spirit of nationality, the nationality of America! See there the pillar of fire which God has kindled and lifted and moved for our hosts and our ages. Gaze on that, worship that, worship the highest in that. Between that light and our eyes a cloud for a time may seem to gather; chariots, armed men on foot, the troops of kings, may march on us, and our fears may make us for a moment turn from it; a sea may spread before us, and waves seem to hedge us up; dark idolatries may alienate some hearts for a season from that worship; revolt, rebellion, may break out in the camp, and the waters of our springs may run bitter to the taste and mock it; between us and that Canaan a great river may seem to be rolling; but beneath that high guidance our way is onward, ever onward; those waters shall part, and stand on either hand in heaps; that idolatry shall repent; that rebellion shall be crushed; that stream shall be sweetened; that overflowing river shall be passed on foot dryshod, in harvest time; and from that 88 Selections for Beading. promised land of flocks, fields, tents, mountains, coasts, and ships, from north and south, and east and west, there shall swell one cry yet, of victory, peace, and thanks- giving! If you would contemplate nationality as an active virtue, look around you. It has kindled us to no aims of conquest. It has involved us in no entangling alliances. It has kept us at rest within all our borders; it has re- pressed without blood the intemperance of local in- subordination; it has scattered the seeds of liberty, under law and under order, broadcast; it has seen and helped American feeling to swell into a fuller flood, from many a field and many a deck, though it seeks not war, makes not war, and fears not war, it has borne the radiant flag, all unstained; it has opened our age of lettered glory; it has opened and honored the age of the industry of the people. THE SERVICE OP ART. George Eliot. Klesmer made his most deferential bow in the wide doorway of the antechamber. Gwendolen met him with unusual gravity, and holding out her hand, said, "It is most kind of you to come, Herr Klesmer. I hope you have not thought me presumptuous. " " I took your wish as a command that did me honor, " said Klesmer with answering gravity. Gwendolen for once was under too great a strain of feel- ing to remember formalities. She continued standing near the piano, and Klesmer took his stand at the other end of Selections for Reading. 89 it with his back to the light and his terribly omniscient eyes upon her. No affectation was of use, and she began without delay. " I wish to consult you, Herr Klesmer. We have lost all our fortune; we have nothing. I must get my own bread and I desire to provide for my mother, so as to save her from any hardship. The only way I can think of — and I should like it better than anything — is to be an actress, to go on the stage. But of course I should like to take a high position, and I thought — if you thought I could," — here Gwendolen became a little more Nervous — "it would be better for me to be a singer — to study singing also." Klesmer put his hat on the piano, and folded his arms as if to concentrate himself. " I know," Gwendolen resumed, " that my method of singing is very defective; but I have been ill-taught. I could be better taught; I could study. And you will under- stand my wish; to sing and act too, like Grisi, is a much higher position. Naturally I should wish to take as high a rank as I can. And I can rely on your judgment. I am sure you will tell me the truth." Gwendolen somehow had the conviction that, now she made this serious appeal, the truth would be favorable. Still Klesmer did not speak. He was filled with compassion for this girl. Presently he said, with gentle, though quick utterance, "You have never seen anything, I think, of artists and their lives? I mean of musicians, actors, artists of any kind ?" " Oh, no," said Gwendolen, unperturbed by a reference to this obvious fact in the history of a young lady hitherto well provided for. " You have probably not thought of an artistic career till now; you did not entertain the notion, the longing— 90 Selections for Reading. what shall I say? — you did not wish yourself an actress or anything of that sort, till the present trouble?" " Not exactly, but I was fond of acting. I have acted; you saw me, if you remember, in charades," said Gwendolen really fearing that Klesmer had forgotten. '"Yes, yes," he answered quickly, "I remember per- fectly." He walked to the other end of the room. Gwendolen felt that she was being weighed. The delay was unpleasant. " I shall be very much obliged to you for taking the trouble to give me your adyice, whatever it may be," she said gracefully. "Miss Harleth," said Klesmer turning towards her, and speaking with a slight increase of accent, " I should reckon myself guilty if I put a false visage on things — made them too black or too white. The gods have a curse for him who willingly tells another the wrong road. You are a beautiful young lady. You have been brought up in ease. You have not said to yourself, ' I must know this exactly;' 6 1 must understand this exactly;' ' I must do this exactly'." In uttering these three terrible musts, Klesmer lifted up three long fingers in succession. " You have not been called upon to be anything but a charming young lady with whom it is impossible to find fault. Well, then, with that preparation, you wish to try the life of the artist; a life of arduous, unceasing work, and— uncertain praise. Your praise would have to be earned like your bread; both would come slowly, scantily — what do I say? — they might hardly come at all." This tone of discouragement which Klesmer half hoped might suffice without anything more unpleasant, roused some resistance in Gwendolen. With an air of pique she said, " I thought that you, being an artist, would consider Selections for Reading. 91 the life one of the most honorable and delightful. And if I can do nothing better? I suppose that I can put up with the same risks that other people do?" " Do nothing better!" said Klesmer, a little fired. { 'No, my dear Miss Harleth, you could do nothing better — neither man nor woman could do any better — if you could do what was best or good of its kind. I am not decrying the life of the true artist. I am exalting it. I say it is out of reach of any but choice organizations — natures framed to love perfection and to labor for it; ready, like all true lovers, to endure, to wait, to say, ' I am not yet worthy, but she — Art, my mistress — is worthy and I will live to merit her.' An honorable life? Yes, but the honor comes from the inward vocation and the hard-won achievement; there is no honor in donning the life as a livery." " I am quite prepared to bear hardships at first," she said. " Of course no one can become celebrated all at once." " My dear Miss Harleth," he replied, " you have not yet conceived what excellence is. You must know what you have to strive for, and then you must subdue your mind and body to unbroken discipline. Now what sort of issue might be fairly expected from all this self-denial? You would ask that. It is right that your eyes should be open to it. I will tell you truthfully. The issue would be uncertain and — most probably — would not be worth much." Gwendolen's dread of showing weakness urged her to self-control. " You think I want talent, or am too old to begin." " Yes! The desire and training should have begun years ago. Any great achievement in acting or in music grows with the growth. Whenever an artist has been able to say, 'I came, I saw, I conquered,' it has been at the end of 92 Selections for Reading. patient practice. Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline. Singing and acting, like the fine dexterity of the juggler with his cups and balls, require a shaping of the organs towards a finer and finer certainty of effect. Your muscles — your whole frame — must go like a watch, true, true, to a hair. That is the work of youth before habits have been determined. You would find, after your education in doing things slackly for one and twenty years, great difficulties in study; you would find mortification in the treatment you would get when you presented yourself on the footing of skill. You would be subjected to tests; people would no longer feign not to see your blunders. You would at first be accepted only on trial. You would haye to keep your place in a crowd, and, After all, it is likely you would lose it and get out of sight; any success must be won by the utmost patience. If you determine to face these hardships and still try, you will have the dignity of a high purpose, even though you may have chosen unfortunately. You will have some merit, though you may win no prize. You have asked my judgment on your chances of winning. I don't pretend to speak ab- solutely; but, measuring probabilities, my judgment is, you will hardly achieve more than mediocrity." Gwendolen turned pale during this speech. At that moment she wished she had not sent for Herr Klesmer; this first experience of being taken on some other ground than that of her social rank and her beauty was becoming bitter to her. His words had really bitten into her self- confidence, and turned it into the pain of a bleeding wound. But she controlled herself and rose from her seat before she made any answer. It seemed natural that she should pause. At last she turned towards Klesmer and said with almost her usual air of proud equality, which in this inter- Selections for Heading. 93 view had not been hitherto perceptible, " I have to thank you for your kindness this morning. But I can't decide now. In any case I am greatly obliged to you. It was very bold of me to ask you to take this trouble." When he had taken up his hat and was going to make his bow, Gwendolen's better self, conscious of an ingratitude which the clear-seeing Klesmer must have penetrated, made a desperate effort to find its way above the stifling layers of egotistic disappointment and irritation. Looking at him with a glance of the old gayety, she put out her hand, and said with a smile, "If I take the wrong road it will not be because of your flattery." " God forbid that you should take any road but where you will find and give happiness," said Klesmer fervently. Then in foreign fashion, he touched her fingers lightly with his lips, and in another minute she heard the sound of his departing wheels upon the gravel. — Daniel Derenda. SHIPWRECKED. From the French of Francois Coppee Before the wine-shop which o'erlooks the beach Sits jean Goello, rough of mien and speech; Our coast-guard now whose arm was shot away In the great fight of Navarino Bay: Puffing his pipe he slowly sips his grog, And spins sea-yarns to many an old sea-dog Sitting around him. Yes, lads, hear him say, Tis sixty years ago this very day Since first I went to sea; on board, you know, Of La Belle Honorine — lost long ago, — 94 Selections for Reading. An old three-masted tub, rotten almost, Just fit to burn, bound for the Guinea coast. We set all sail. The breeze was fair and stiff. My boyhood had been passed 'neath yonder cliff, Where an old man — my uncle, so he said — Kept me at prawning for my daily bread. At night he came home drunk. Such kicks and blows,, Ah me! What children suffer no man knows! But once at sea 'twas ten times worse I found. I learned to take, to bear, and make no sound. The rope's-end, cuffs, kicks, blows, all fell on me I was a ship's boy — 'twas natural, you see — No man had pity. Blows and stripes always; For sailors knew no better in those days. I ceased to cry. Tears brought me no relief; I think I might have perished of mute grief, Had not God sent a friend — a friend — to me. Sailors believe in God — one must at sea. On board that ship a God of mercy then Had placed a dog among those cruel men. We soon grew friends, fast friends, true friends. God knows. When all the forecastle was fast asleep, And our men caulked their watch, I used to creep With Black among some boxes stowed on deck, And with my arms clasped tightly round his neck, I used to cry and cry and press my head Close to the heart grieved by the tears I shed. Night after night I mourned our piteous case, While Black's large tongue licked my poor tear-stained face. Poor Black! I think of him so often still! At first we had fair winds our sails to fill ; But one hot night when all was calm and mate Our skipper — a good sailor though a brute — Gave a long look over the vessel's side, Then to the steersman whispered half aside, 5< See that ox-eye out yonder? It looks queer." The mau replied, " The storm will soon be here. Selections for Heading. 95 Hullo ! All hands on deck ! We'll be prepared ! Stow royals! Reef the courses! Pass the word!" Vain! The squall broke ere we could shorten sail; We lowered the topsails, but the raging gale Spun our old ship about. The captain roared His orders— lost in the great noise on board. The gale grew worse and worse. She sprang a leak, Her hold filled fast. We found we had to seek Some way to save our lives. " Lower a boat!" The captain shouted. Before one could float Our ship broached to. The strain had broke her back Like a whole broadside boomed the awful crack. She settled fast. Landsmen can have no notion Of how it feels to sink beneath the ocean. As the blue billows closed above our deck, And with slow motion swallowed down the wreck, I saw my past life by some flash outspread, Saw the old port, its ships, its old pier head, My own bare feet, the rocks, the sandy shore. Salt water filled my mouth. I saw no more. I did not struggle much — I could not swim. I sank down deep, it seemed, drowned but for him. For Black, I mean, who seized my jacket tight, And dragged me out of darkness back to light; The ship was gone, the captain's gig afloat. By one brave tug he brought me near the boat. I seized the gunwale, sprang on board and drew My friend in after me. Of all our crew, The dog and I alone survived the gale; Afloat with neither rudder, oars, nor sail ! For five long nights and longer dreadful days We floated onward in a tropic haze. Fierce hunger gnawed us with its cruel fangs, And mental anguish with its keener pangs. Each morn I hoped; each night when hope was gone My poor dog licked me with his tender tongue. 96 Selections for Heading. Under the blazing sun and starlit night I watched in vain. No sail appeared in sight, Round us the blue spread, wider, bluer, higher. The fifth day my parched throat was all on fire, When something suddenly my notice caught — Black — shivering, crouching underneath a thwart He looked — his dreadful look no tongue can tell, And his kind eyes glared out like coals of hell! Here, Black! Old fellow, here!" I cried in vain e He looked me in the face and crouched again. I rose; he snarled, drew back. How piteously His eyes entreated help! He snapped at me! Then I knew all! Five days of tropic heat Without one drop of drink, one scrap of meat, Had made him rabid. 'He whose courage had Preserved my life — my messmate, friend — was mad! You understand? Can you see him and me, The open boat tossed on a brassy sea, — A child and a wild beast on board alone, While overhead streams down the tropic sun, And the boy crouching, trembling for his life? I searched my pockets and I drew my knife, And at that moment with a furious bound The dog flew at me. I sprang half around. He missed me in blind haste. With all my might I seized his neck and grasped and held him tight. I felt him writhe and try to bite, as he Struggled beneath the pressure of my knee ; His red eyes rolled; sighs heaved his heavy coat, I plunged my knife three times in his poor thioat. And so I killed my friend. I had but one. What matters how, after that deed was done, They picked me up half dead, drenched in his gore And took me back to France. Need I say more? Selections for Reading. 97 I have killed me, ay, many — in my day Without remorse, for sailors must obey. One of a squad, once in Barbadoes, I Shot my own comrade when condemned to die. I never dream of Mm, for that was war. Under old Magon, too, at Trafalgar I hacked the hands off English boarders. Ten My axe lopped off. I dream not of those men. At Plymouth, in a prison hulk, I slew Two English jailers, stabbed them through and through. I did, confound them! But yet even now The death of Black, although so long ago, Upsets me. I'll not sleep to-night. It brings — Here, boy! Another glass ! We'll talk of other things! — Ha?yer's Magazine. RUDDER GRANGE. Frank R. Stockton. Oke afternoon as I was hurrying down Broadway to catch the five o'clock train, I met Waterford. He is an old friend of mine, and I used to like him pretty well. " Hello!" said he, " where are you going?" " Home," I answered. "Is that so?" said he. "I didn't know you had one." I was a little nettled at this, and so I said, somewhat brusquely perhaps: " But you must have known I lived somewhere." " Oh, yes, but I thought you boarded. I had no idea you had a home." " But I have one and a very pleasant home, too. You must excuse me for not stopping longer, as I must catch xny train." 98 Selections for Reading. " Oh, I'll walk along with you," said Waterford, and so we went down the street together. "Where is your little house?" he asked. " I don't live in a house at all." "Why, where do you live?" he exclaimed stopping short " I live in a boat," said I. "A boat! A sort of 'Rob Roy' arrangement, I suppose. Well, I would not have thought that of you. And your wife, I suppose, has gone home to her people?" " She has done nothing of the kind," I answered. " She lives with me and she likes it very much. We are extremely comfortable, and our boat is not a canoe or any such non- sensical affair. It is a large, commodious canal-boat." Waterford turned around and looked at me. "Are you a deck-hand?" he asked. " Deck — fiddlesticks!" I exclaimed. "Well, you needn't get mad about it," he said. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings; but I couldn't see what else you could be on a canal-boat. I don't suppose, for instance, that you're Captain." " But I am," said I. " Look here," said Waterford, "this is coming it rather strong, isn't it?" As I saw he was getting angry, I told him all about it — told him how we had hired a stranded canal-boat and had fitted it up as a house, and how cosily we lived in it, and how we had taken a boarder. " Well," said he, " that is certainly surprising. I'm com- ing out to see you some day. It will be better than going to Barnum's." I told him — it is the way of society — that we would be glad to see him, and we parted. Waterford never did come to see us, and I merely mention this ircident to show how Selections for Heading. 99 some of our friends talked about "Budder Grange" when they first heard that we lived there. Although we lived in a canal-boat we kept a girl. Her name was Pomona. Whether or not her parents gaye her this name is doubtful. At any rate she did not seem quite decided about it herself, for she had not been with us more than two weeks before she expressed a desire to be called Clare. This longing of her heart was denied her. My wife, who was always correct, called her Pomona. I did the same whenever I could think not to say Bologna — which seemed to come very pat, for some reason or other. As for our boarder, he generally called her Altoona, con- necting her in some way with the process of stopping for refreshments, in which she was an adept. She was an earnest, hearty girl. She was always in good humor, and when I asked her to do anything, she assented in a bright, cheerful way and in a loud tone full of good- fellowship, as though she would say: " Certainly, my high old boy! To "be sure I will! Don't worry about it. Give your mind no more uneasiness on that subject. Of course I'll bring the hot water." She did not know very much, but she delighted to learn and she was very strong. Whatever my wife told her to do, she did instantly — with a bang. The one thing about her that troubled me more than anything else was her taste for literature. It was not literature to which I objected^ but her peculiar taste. She read in the kitchen every night after she had washed the dishes, but if she had not read aloud it would not have made so much difference to me. But I do not like the company of people who, like our girl, cannot read without pronouncing in a measured and distinct voice every word of what they are reading. And when the matter thus read appeals to one's every sentiment of aver- L.ofC 100 Selections for heading sion, and there is no way of escaping it, the case is hard indeed. From the first I felt inclined to order Pomona, if she could not attain the power of silent perusal, to cease from reading altogether; but Euphemia would not hear to this. " Poor thing!" said she, " it would be cruel to take from her her only recreation. And she says she can't read in any other way. You needn't listen if you don't want to, " That was all very well in an abstract point of view; but the fact was that in practice, the more I didn't want to listen the more I heard. And when I Avas trying to read or reflect it was by no means exhilarating to my mind to hear from the next room that, " The la dy ce sel i a now si zed the weep on and all though the boor ly vil ly an re tain ed his vig gor ous hold she drew the blade through his fin gers and hoorl ed it far be hind her drip ping with jore." This sort of thing, kept up for an hour or so at a time, used to drive me nearly wild. On one particular night I was very tired and sleepy, and soon after I got into bed I dropped into a delightful slumber. But before long I was awakened by the fact that: " Sarah did not fi inch but grasp ed the heat ed i ron in her in ju red hand and when the ra bid an i mal ap proach ed she thrust the lu rid po ker in his — " " My conscience!" said I to Euphemia, " can't that girl be stopped?" " You wouldn't have her sit there and do nothing, would you?" said she. "No, but she needn't read that way." " She can't read any other way," said Euphemia drowsily. " Yell after yell re soun ded as he wild ly sp rang to wards her and — " " I can't stand that and I won't," said I. " Why don't Selections for Reading. 101 she go into the kitchen? The dining-room^ no place for her." " She must not sit there/' said Euphemia. " There's a window-pane out. Can't you cover up your head?" "I shall riot be able to breathe if I do, but I suppose that's no matter/' I replied. The reading continued. "Ha, ha! Lord Mar mont thundered thou too shalt suf fer for all that this poor — " I sprang out of bed. Euphemia thought I was going for my pistol, and she gave one bound and stuck her head out of the door. " Pomona, fly!" she cried. " Yes, ma'am," said Pomona; and she got up and flew, though not very fast, I imagine. Where she flew to I don't know, but she took the lamp with her, and I could hear distinct syllables of agony and blood until she went to bed. A ROYAL PRINCESS. Christina G. Rossetti. I, A princess, king-descended, decked with jewels, gilded, drest, Would rather be a peasant with a baby at her breast, For all I shine so like the sun, and am purple like the west Two and two my guards behind; two and two before; Two and two on either hand, they guard me evermore; Me, poor dove, that must not coo; eagle that must not soar All my fountains cast up perfumes, all my gardens grow Scented woods and foreign spices, with all flowers in blow That are costly, out of season, as the seasons go. 102 Selections for Reading, All my walls are lost in mirrors whereupon I trace Self to right hand, self to left hand ; self in every place, Self -same solitary figure, self -same seeking face, Then I have an ivory chair high to sit upon, Almost like my father's chair which is an ivory thronej There I sit upright and there I sit alone Alone by day, alone by night, alone days without end; My father and my mother give me treasures, search and spends O my father! O my mother! have you ne'er a friend? As I am a lofty princess, so my father is A lofty king, accomplished in all kingly subtilties, Holding in his strong right hand world-kingdom's balances. He has quarreled with his neighbors, he has scourged his foes; Vassal counts and princes follow where his pennon goes; Long-descended valiant lords, whom the vulture knows. On whose track the vulture swoops when they ride in state To break the strength of armies and topple down the great; Each of these my courteous servant, none of these my mate. My father, counting up his strength sets down with equal pen, So many head of cattle, head of horses, head of men ; These for slaughter, these for breeding, with the how and when. Some to work on roads, canals; some to man his ships; Some to smart in mines beneath sharp overseer's whips; Some to trap fur beasts in lands where utmost winter nips. Once it came into my heart and whelmed me like a flood That these too are men and women, human flesh and blood; Men with hearts and men with souls, though trodden down like mud. Our feasting was not glad that night, our music was not gay ; On my mother's graceful head I marked a thread of gray; My father, frowning at the fare, seemed every dish to weigh Selections for Reading. 103 The singing men and women sang that night as usual ; The dancers danced in pairs and sets, but music had a fall — A melancholy, windy fall as at a funeral. Amid the toss of torches to my chamber back we swept; My ladies loosed my golden chain; meanwhile I could have wept To think of some in galling chains whether they waked or slept. A day went by, a week went by. One day I heard it said, "Men are clamoring, women, children, clamoring to be fed; Men like famished dogs are howling in the streets for bread." Other footsteps followed after with a weightier tramp; Voices said: " Picked soldiers have been summoned from the camp To quell these base-born ruffians who make free to howl and stamp." "Howl and stamp!" one answered. " They made free to hurl a stone At the minister's state coach, well aimed and stoutly thrown." "There's work, then, for the soldiers, for this rank crop must be mown." One I saw, a poor old fool with ashes on his head, "Whimpering because a girl had snatched his crust of bread; Then he dropped ; when some one raised him, it turned out that he was dead. These passed. The king. Stand up. Said my father with a smile, "Daughter mine, your mother comes to sit with you awhile; She is sad to-day, and who but you her sadness can beguile?" He too left me. Shall I touch my harp now while I wait (I hear them doubling guard below before our palace gate) — Or shall I work the last gold stitch into my veil of state? Or shall my women stand and read some unimpassioned scene — There's music of a lulling sort in words that pause between — Or shall she merely fan me while I wait here for the queen? Again I caught my father's voice in sharp word of command: " Charge!" a clash of steel. " Charge again, the rebels stand' Smite and spare not, hand to hand; smite and spare not, hand to hand!" 104 Selections for Reading. There swelled a tumult at the gate, high voices waxing higher; A flash of red reflected light lit the cathedral spire; I heard a cry for fagots, then I heard a yell of fire. '•' Sit and roast there with your meat, sit and bake there with youi bread, You who sat to see us starve," one shrieking woman said; " Sit on your throne and roast with your crown upon your head. ,, Nay this thing will I do, while my mother tarrieth: I will take my fine spun gold, but not to sew therewith, I will take my gold and gems and rainbow fan and wreath; With a ransom in my lap, a king's ransom in my hand, I will go down to this people, will stand face to face, will stand Where they curse kiog, queen, and princess of this cursed land. They shall take all to buy them bread, take all I have to give; I, if I perish, perish; they to-day shall eat and live; I, if I perish, perish ; that's the goal I half conceive. Once to speak before the world, rend hare my heart and show The lesson I have learned which is death, is life, to know. I, if I perish, perish; in the name of God I go. DOLLY. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Our little Dolly was a late autumn chicken, the youngest of ten children, the nursing, rearing, and caring for whom had straitened the limited salary of Parson Cushing of Poganuc Center, and sorely worn on the nerves and strength of the good wife, who plied the laboring oar in these per- formances. It was Dolly's lot to enter the family at a period when Selections for Reading. 105 babies were no longer a novelty; when the house was full of the wants and clamors of older children, and the mother at her very wits' end with a confusion of jackets and trowsers, soap, candles, and groceries and the endless harassments of making both ends meet which pertain to the lot of a poor country minister's wife. Although it never distinctly occurred to Dolly to murmur at her lot in life, yet at times she sighed oyer the dreadful insignificance of being only a little girl in a great family of grown-up people. For even Dolly's brothers were study- ing in the academy, and spouting scraps of superior Latin at her to make her stare and wonder at their learning. She was a robust little creature, and consequently received none of the petting which a more delicate child might have claimed. Once Dolly remembered to have had a sore throat with fever. The doctor was sent for. Her mother put away all her work and held her in her arms. Her father sat up rocking her nearly ail night, and her noisy, royster- ing brothers came softly to her door and inquired how she was. Dolly was only sorry that the cold passed off so soon, and she found herself healthy and insignificant as ever. Being gifted with an active fancy, she sometimes imagined a scene when she should be sick and die, and her father and mother and everybody would cry over her. She could see no drawback to the interest of the scene, except that she could not be there to enjoy her own funeral, and see how much she was appreciated. The parsonage had the advantage of three garrets- splendid ground for little people. There was first the garret over the kitchen, the floors of which in fall were covered with stores of yellow pumpkins, fragrant heaps of quinces, and less fragrant spread of onions. There were bins of shelled corn and of oats, and. as in every other gar- 106 Selections for Heading. ret in the house, there were also barrels of old sermons and family papers. Garret number two was oyer the central portion of the house. There were piles of bed-quilts and comforters, and chests of blankets; rows and ranges of old bonnets and old hats that seemed to nod mysteriously from their nails. There were old spinning-wheels, an old clocks old arm-chairs and old pictures, snuffy and grim, and more barrels of sermons. In one corner hung in order the dried herbs — catnip and boneset and elder-blow and hardhack and rosemary and tansy and pennyroyal, all gathered at the right time of the moon, dried and sorted and tied in bundles hanging from their different nails — those canonized floral saints which when living filled the air with odors of health and sweetness, and whose very mortal remains and dry bones were supposed to haye healing virtues. Then those barrels of sermons and old pamphlets! Dolly had turned them over and over, upsetting them on the floor, and reading their titles with amazed eyes. It seemed to her that there were some thousands of the most unintelligi- ble things. , " An Appeal on the Unlawfulness of a Man's Marrying his Wife's Sister" turned up in every barrel which she investigated till her soul despaired of finding an end. Then there were Thanksgiving sermons; Fast-day sermons; sermons that discoursed on the battle of Culloden; on the character of Frederick the Great; a sermon on the death of George the Second, beginning, "George! George! George is no more!" This somewhat dramatic opening caused Dolly to put that one discourse into her private library. But, oh, joy and triumph! One rainy day she found at the bottom of an old barrel a volume of the "Arabian Nights." Henceforth her fortune was made. To read was with her a passion, and a book once read was read daily, always becom- ing dearer and dearer as an old friend. The " Arabian Selections for Reading. 107 Nights" transported her to foreign lands, gave her a new life of her own; and when things went astray with her, when the boys went to play higher than she dared to climb in the barn or started on fishing excursions, where they considered her an incumbrance, then she found a snug corner, where she could at once sail forth on her bit of enchanted carpet into fairy-land. — Poganuc People. THE SEVEN DAYS. Frances L. Mace. Monday. {Day of the Moon.) Diana, sister of the Sun ! thy ray Governs these opening hours. The world is wide, We know not what new evil may betide This six days' journey; by what unknown way "We come at last unto the royal day Of prophesy and promise. Oh, preside Propitious, and our doubting footsteps guide Onward and sunward. Long in shadows gray We have but slumbered — hidden from our view Knowledge and wisdom in unfruitful night. But, if upon the dawn's unfolding blue Thy hand this day our destiny must write, Once more our outer, inward life renew With Heaven's first utterance — Let there be light, Tuesday {Day of the War- God.) Fear not, soul, to-day! Imperial Mars Leads on the hours, a brave and warlike train. Fire in his glance and splendor in his reign, From the first glitter through the sunrise bars Till his red banner names among the stars! 108 Selections for Reading. Thou too go forth, and fully armed maintain Duty and right. The hero is not slain Though pierced and wounded in a hundred wars. The daring are the deathless. He alone Is victor who stays not for any doom Foreshadowed; utters neither sigh nor moan Death-stricken, but right onward, his fair plume Scorched in the battle flame, through smoke and gloom Strikes for the right, nor counts his life his own. Wednesday. (Day of Odin.) The mighty Odin rides abroad, and earth Trembles, and echoes back his ghostly sigh, More deep than thought, more sad than memory. The very birds rejoice in timid mirth, For in the forest sudden gusts have birth, And harsh against the pale, appealing sky Ascends his ravens' melancholy cry. Peace be with Odin. Of his ancient worth Many and proud the tales we will repeat, For sacred memories to these hours belong. But yesterday with reckless speed our feet Dared the bold height. With spirit no less strong To-day step softly. After battle's heat Warriors and wars are only themes for song. Thursday. (Day of the Mighty.) White-robed, white crowned, and borne by steeds snow-white The thunderer rolls across the echoing skies! No hour is this to dream of past surprise, Or with old runes the memory to delight. The mountain tops with prophet beams are bright, The eagle soars aloft with jubilant cries! Thou too; unto the hills lift up thine eyes; Selections for Reading. 109 To some new throne these sacred signs invite. Learn thy own strength; and if some secret sense Of power untried pervades thy low estate, Bend thy soul's purest, best intelligence To seek the mastery of time and fate. Courage and deathless hope and toil intense Are the crown jewels of the truly great. Feiday. {Bay of the Beautiful.) In the world-garden walled with living green The foam-born goddess of delight to-day Plucks glowing garlands for her own array Poppy and myrtle in her wreath are seen, And roses, bending o'er her brow serene, Blush to perceive she is more fair than they. Sweet grasses at her feet their odors lay, While doves, low warbling, hover round their queen. In this brief life shall ever toil and care Hold fast our wishes? Earth's bewildering bowers. Her streams melodious and her woodlands fair Are palaces for gods. The world is ours! Beauty and love our birthright; we will share The sunshine and the singing and the flowers! Saturday {Day of Saturn.) Though bright with jewels and with garlands dressed The bloom decays, the world is growing old! Lost are the days when peaceful Saturn told The arts to men and shared their toil or rest With eloquence divine. The Olympian guest Took with him in his flight the age of gold! Westward through myriad centuries has rolled The ceaseless pilgrimage, the hopeless quest For the true Fatherland. Through weary years 110 Selections for Reading. TV hat if some rainbow glory spans the gloom? Some strong, sweet utterance the wayside cheers? Or gladness opens like a rose in bloom? Step after ste'p the fatal moment nears; Earth for new graves is ever making room. Sunday. {Day of the Sun.) Thou glorious Sun, illumining the blue Highway of heaven! to thy triumphant rays The earth her shadow yields, the hill-tops blaze, Up lifts the mist, up floats the midnight dew. Old things are passed away ; the world is new ; Labor is changed to rest and rest to praise ; Past are the toilsome heights, the stormy days. The eternal Future breaks upon our view! Last eve we lingered uttering our farewells, But lo! One met us in the early light Of this divinest morn. The tale He tells Transfigures life; and opens heaven to sight. Bring altar flowers! Lilies and asphodels! Sing Jubilates! There is no more night! —Atlantic Monthly, TEIPLET AND FAMILY. Charles Keade. James Tkiplet, water in his eye, but fire in his heart, went home on wings. Arrived there he anticipated curi- osity by informing all hands that he should answer no questions. Only in the intervals of a work which was to take the family out of all their troubles, he should gradually unfold a tale verging on the marvelous — a tale whose only fault was that fiction, by which alone the family could hope to be great, paled beside it. He then seized some sheets of Selections for Reading. Ill paper, fished out some old dramatic sketches and a list of dramatis personce prepared years ago, and plunged into a comedy. Mrs. Triplet groaned aloud with a world of meaning. "Wife," said Triplet, "don't put me into a frame of mind in which successful comedies are not written." He scribbled away, but his wife's despondency told upon the man of disappointments. He stuck fast; then he be- came fidgety. " Do keep those children quiet!" said the father. "Hush, my dears," said the mother, "let your father write. Comedy seems to give you more trouble than tragedy, James," she added soothingly. " Yes," was his answer. " Sorrow comes somehow more natural to me. But for all that I have got a bright thought, Mrs. Triplet. Listen, all of you. You see, Jane, they are all at a sumptuous banquet — all the dramatis personce." Triplet went on writing and reading aloud. " Music, sparkling wine, massive plate, rose-water in the hand- glasses, soup, fish — shall I have three sorts of fish? I will. They are cheap in this market. Ah, Fortune, you wretch, here, at least, I am your master and I'll make you know it! Venison," wrote Triplet with a malicious grin, "game, pickles, etc. Then up jumps one of the guests and says he—" " Oh, dear! I'm so hungry!" This was not from the comedy, but from one of the boys. "And so am I!" cried a girl. " That is an absurd remark, Lysimachus," said Triplet with a suspicious calmness. " How can a boy be hungry three hours after breakfast?" " But, father, there was no breakfast for breakfast." "Now I ask you, Mrs. Triplet," appealed the author, 112 Selections for Reading. "how I am to write comic scenes if Lysimachus and Kox- alana here putin the heavy business every five minutes ?" " Forgive them — the poor things are hungry." " Then let them be hungry in another room/' said the irritated scribe. " They shan't cling round my pen and par- alyze it just when it is going to make all our fortunes; but you women/' snapped Triplet the Just, " have no consider- ation for people's feelings! Send them all to bed — every man Jack of them." Finding the conversation taking this turn, the children raised a unanimous howl. Triplet darted a fierce glance at them. " Hungry! hungry!" cried he, " is that a proper expres- sion to use before a father who is sitting down here all gayety "—scratching wildly with his pen — "and hilarity — to write a com — comedy — " he choked a moment, and then in a very different tone, all sadness and tenderness, he said, " Where's the youngest? Where's Lucy? As if I didn't know you were hungry!" Lucy came to him directly. He took her on his knee, pressed her gently to his side and wrote silently. " Father," s&id Lucy, aged five, the germ of a woman, "lam not so very hungry." "And I'm not hungry at all," said bluff Lysimachus, taking his sister's cue, and then going upon his own tack he added, "I had a great piece of bread and butter yesterday." " Play us a tune on the fiddle, father," said Lucy. "Aye, do, husband. That helps you often in your writing." Lysimachus brought the fiddle, and Triplet essayed a merry tune; but it came out so doleful that he shook his head and laid the instrument down. " No," said he, " let us be serious and finish this comedy Selections for Reading. 113 slap off. Perhaps it hitches because I forgot to invoke the comic muse. She must be a black-hearted jade if she doesn't come with merry notions to a poor devil, starving in the midst of his starving little ones." " We are past help from heathen goddesses/' said the woman. " We must pray to Heaven to look down upon us and our children. " The man looked up with a very bad expression on his countenance. " You forget/' said he, sullenly, " Our street is very narrow and the opposite houses are very high." " James!" " How can Heaven be expected to see what honest folk endure in such a hole as this?" cried the man fiercely. " James!" said the woman with fear and sorrow, " what words are these ?" The man rose and flung his pen upon the floor. " Have we given honesty a fair trial — yes or no?" " No," said the woman without a moment's hesitation, " not till we die as we have lived. Children," said she, lest perchance her husband's words should have harmed their young souls, " the sky is above the earth, and Heaven is higher than the sky, and Heaven is just." " I suppose it is so," said the man, a little cowed by her. " Everybody says so, but I can't see it; I want to see it, but I can't," cried he fiercely. " Have my children offended Heaven? They will starve! They will die! If I was Heaven I would be just and send an angel to take these children's part. They cried to me for bread — I had no bread, so I gave them hard words. The moment I had done that I knew it was all over. God knows it took a long while to break my heart, but it is broken at last — quite, quite broken!" 114 Selections for Reading. The poor man laid his head upon the table and sobbed beyond all power of restraint. The children cried round him, scarce knowing why, and Mrs. Triplet could only say, " My poor husband!" and prayed and wept upon the couch where she lay. It was at this juncture that a lady who had knocked gently, and unheard, opened the door and with a light step entered the apartment. " Wasn't somebody inquiring for an angel just now? Here I am! See, Mr. Triplet!" "Mrs. Woffington," said Triplet, rising and introducing her to his wife. Mrs. Woffington planted herself in the middle of the floor, and with a comical glance, setting her arms akimbo, uttered a shrill whistle. " Now you will see another angel — there are two sorts of them." Her black servant Pompey came in with a basket. She took it from him. " I heard that you were ill, ma'am, and I have brought you some medicine from Burgundy. Mrs. Triplet, will you allow me to eat my luncheon with you? I am very hungry. " Turning towards Pompey she sent him out for a pie which she professed she had fallen in love with at the corner of the street. " Mother," said Alcibiades, " will the lady give me a bit of her pie?" "Hush! you rude boy!" cried the mother. " She is not much of a lady if she does not," cried Mrs. Woffington. "Eat away, children. Now's your time! When once I begin the pie will soon end." Lucy said gravely, " The lady is very funny. Do you ever cry, pretty lady?" " Oh, of course not," ironically. Selections for Reading. 115 " Comedy is crying/' said Lucy, confidentially. "Father cried all the time lie was writing his one." Triplet turned red as fire. "Hold your tongue!" said he. "I was bursting with merriment. Wife, our children, talk too much; they put their noses into everything and criticise their own father. And when they take up a notion, Socrates couldn't con- vince them to the contrary. For instance, Madame, all this morning they thought fit to assume that they were starving." " So we were," said Lysimachus, " till the angel came and then sent out for a pie." " There — there — there — now you mark my words," said Triplet. " We shall never get that idea out of their heads — " " Until," said Mrs. Woffington, putting another huge piece of pie into Koxalana's plate, " we put a very different idea into their stomachs." This and the look she cast upon Mrs. Triplet fairly caught that good though somber personage. She giggled, put her hand to her face and said, " I'm sure I ask your pardon, ma'am." It was no use. The comedian had determined that they should all laugh and they were made to laugh. Their first feeling was wonder. Were they the same who ten minutes ago were weeping together? Yes! Ten minutes ago they were rayless, joyless, hopeless. Now the sun was in their hearts, and sighing and sorrow had fled away. It was magical! Could a mortal play upon the soul of man, woman, and child like this? Happy Mrs. Woffington! And suppose this was more than half acting, but such actiug as Triplet never dreamed of? If it were art, glory to such art so worthily applied, and honor to such creatures as this, that come like sunshine into poor men's homes, and turn drooping hearts to happiness and hope. — Peg Woffington. 116 Selections for Reading. THE NOBILITY OF LABOK. Thomas Carlyle. Two men I honor, and no third. First the toilworn Craftsman that with earth-made Implement laboriously con- quers the Earth and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard hand, crooked, coarse; wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Scepter of this Planet. Venerable, too, is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence, for it is the face of a Man living manlike. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly entreated brother! For us was thy back so bent; for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee, too, lay a god-created Form, but it was nob to be un- folded; incrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of Labor, and thy body like thy soul was not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on; thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable — for daily bread. A second man I honor, and still more highly; Him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable, not daily bread, but the bread of life. Is not he, too, m his duty; endeavoring towards inward Harmony; revealing this by act or by word, through all his outward endeavors, be they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and inward endeavor are one; when we can name him Artist, not earthly Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers Heaven for us. If the poor and humble toil that we may have food, must not the Selections for Reading. 117 high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, have Guidance, Freedom, and Immortality? These two in all their degrees I honor; all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it listest. Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendor of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light shining in great darkness. It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor. We must all toil or steal (how r soeyer we name our stealing), which is worse; no faithful workman finds his task a pas- time. The poor is hungry and athirst; but for him also there is food and drink; he is heavy-laden and weary; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep and of the deepest; in his smoky cribs, a clear, dewy heaven of Eest envelops him, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him; but only in the haggard darkness, like two specters, Fear and Indignation bear him company. Alas! while the Body stands so broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, almost annihilated? Alas! was this too a Breath of God; bestowed in heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded? That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by some computation it does. — Sartor Re- sartus. 118 Selections for Reading. ABRAHAM DAVENPORT. John G. Whittier. In the old days (a custom laid aside With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent Their wisest men to make the public laws. And so from a brown homestead where the Sound Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, Stamford sent to the Councils of the State Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport. 'Twas on a May-day 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 sages tell ; — The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs The crater's sides from the red hell below. Birds ceased to sing, and all the barnyard fowls Roosted ; the cattle at the pasture bars Lowed and looked homeward. Bats on leathern wing£ 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 State House, dim as ghosts Sat the law-givers of Connecticut, Trembling beneath their legislative robes. Selections for Reading, 119 '" 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. 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 has 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 awe-struck 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. 120 Selections for Reading. CHAMOTJNI. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form! Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above, Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge. But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity ! dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought; entranced in prayer, 1 worshipped the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet, beguiling melody, — So sweet we know not we are listening to it,— Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy; Till the dilatiug soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing — there, As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven. Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks, and silent ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs! all join my hymn. Thou, first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale! O, struggling with the darkness of the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink — Selections for Heading. 121 Companion of the morning star at dawn, Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald — wake! O wake! and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams? And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, Forever shattered, and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life? Your strength, your speed, your iury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam? And who commanded, — and the silence came, — " Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest "? Ye ice-falls! ye, that, from the mountain's brow, Adown enormous ravines slope amain, — Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen, full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? " God! " let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer: and let the ice-plains echo, " God! " •" God! " sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow. And, in their perilous fall, shall thunder, " God!" Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements! Utter forth " God!" and fill the hills with praise! 122 Selections for Reading. Once more, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depths of clouds, that veil thy breast — Thou too, again, stupendous mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears,— Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, To rise before me — Rise, O, ever rise! Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth! Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills! Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, Great Hierarch, tell thou the silent sky. And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, " Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God." OUR NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. Geo. Wm. Curtis. My Dear Caroline: — Lent came so frightfully early this year that I was very much afraid my new bonnet would not be out from Paris soon enough. But fortunately it arrived just in time, and I had the satisfaction of taking down the pride of Mrs. Croesus, who fancied hers would be the only stylish hat in church the first Sunday. She could not keep her eyes away from me, and I sat so unmoved, and so calmly looking at the Doctor, that she was quite vexed. But whenever she turned away Iran my eyes over the whole congregation, and — would you believe it? — almost without an exception people had on their old things! However, I suppose they forgot how soon Lent was coming. I've so many things to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. The great thing is the livery, but I want to come Selections for Heading. 123 regularly up to that and forget nothing by the way. I was uncertain for a long time how to have my prayer-book bound. Finally after thinking about it a great deal I con- cluded to haye it done in pale blue velvet with gold clasps and a gold cross upon the side. To be sure it's nothing very new. But what is new nowadays? Sally Shrimp has had hers done in emerald, and I know Mrs. Croesus will have crimson for hers, and those people who sit next us in church have a kind of morocco binding. I must tell you one reason why I fixed upon the pale blue. You knew that aristocratic young man in white cravat and black pantaloons and waistcoat whom we saw at Saratoga a year ago, and who always had such a beautiful sanctimonious look and such small white hands. Well, he is a minister, as we sup- posed, " an unworthy candidate, an unprofitable husband- man," as he calls himself in that delicious voice of his. He has been quite taken up among us. He has been asked a good deal to dinner, and there was talk of his being settled as colleague to the Doctor. Well, I told him that I wished to take his advice upon something connected with the church. When I asked him in what velvet he would advise me to have my prayer-book bound, he talked beautifully for about twenty minutes. I wish you could have heard him. I'm not sure that I un- derstood much of what he said, but it was very beautiful. Well, by and by he said, " Therefore, dear Mrs. Potiphar, as your faith is so pure and childlike, and as I observe that the light from the yellow panes usually falls across your pew, I would advise that you symbolize your faith by bind- ing your prayer-book in pale blue, the color of skim milk, dear Mrs. Potiphar, which is so full of pastoral associations." What gossips we women are to be sure! I meant to write you about our new livery, and I'm afraid I have tired you 124 Selections for Reading. out already. You remember when you were here I said that I meant to have a livery; for my sister Margaret told me that when they used to drive in Hyde Park with the old Marquis of Mammon it was always so delightful to hear him say, " Ah! there is Lady Lobster's livery!" I told the Eeverend Cream Cheese that as he had already assisted me in colors once, I should be most glad to have him do so again. What a time we had, to be sure, talking of colors and cloths and gaiters and buttons and knee- breeches and waistcoats and plush and coats and lace and hatbands and gloves and cravats and cords and tassels and hats! Oh, it was delightful. I determined to have red plush breeches, with a black cord at the side, white stockings, low shoes with large buckles, a yellow waistcoat with large buttons, lappels to the pockets and a purple coat very full and fine, bound with gold lace, and the hat banded with a full gold rosette. Don't you think that would look well in Hyde Park? And why shouldn't we have in Broadway what they have in Hyde Park? So now, Caroline dear, I have my livery and my footman, and am as good as anybody. It's very splendid when I go to Stewart's to have the red plush and the purple and the white calves springing down to open the door, and to see people look and say, "I wonder who that is!" And every- body bows so nicely, and the clerks are so polite, and Mrs. Gnu is melting with envy on the other side, and Mrs. Settum Downe says, "Is that the Potiphar livery? Ah, yes, Mr. Potiphar's grandfather used to shoe my grand- father's horses." Then I step out and James throws open the door, and the young men raise their hats and the new crowd says, " I wonder who that is!" and the plush and Selections for Reading. 125 the purple and the calves spring up behind and I drive home to dinner. Now, Carrie, dear, isn't that nice? Well, I don't know how it is, but things are so queer. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning in my room, which I have had tapestried with fluted rose silk, and lie thinking, under the lace cur- tains; although I may have been to one of Mrs. GnuV splendid parties the night before, and am going to Mrs. Silkes to dinner, and to Mrs. Settum Downe's and the oper? in the evening, and have nothing to do all day but go ta Stewart's and shop and pay morning calls, — do you know, as I say, that sometimes I hear an old familiar tune played upon a hand organ far away in some street, and it seems to me in that half-drowsy state under the laces that I hear the boys and girls singing it in the fields where we used to play. I doze again until Adele comes in and opens the shutters. I do not hear the music any more, but those days I do some- times seem to hear it all the time. Of course Mr. Potiphar is gone long before I wake, so he knows nothing of all this. I generally come in at night after he is asleep, and he goes down town before I wake in the morning. He comes home to dinner, but he is apt to be silent; and after dinner he takes his nap in the parlor over his newspaper, while I go up and let Adele dress my hair for the evening. So I don't see a great deal of him except in the summer when I am at Saratoga or Newport; and then not so much, after all, for he usually comes only to pass Sunday, and I must be a good Christian you know and go to church. On the whole we have not a very intimate acquaintance, but I have a great respect for him. He told me the other day that he should make at least thirty thousand dollars this year. I am very sorry I can't write you a longer letter. I want 126 Selections for Reading. to consult you about wearing gold powder like the new empress. It would kill Mrs. Croesus if you and I should be the first to come out in it; and don't you +hink the effect would be fine when we were dancing, to shower the gold mist around us? How it would sparkle on the gentlemen's black coats. Our little Fred is down with scarlet fever. I hope it won't spoil his complexion. I don't go into the room, but the nurse tells me through the keyhole how he is. I have a thousand things to say, but I know you must be tired to death. Fondly yours, Polly Potiphar. — A letter from Mrs. Potiphar to a friend in Paris. TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. Gerald Massey. High hopes that burn'd like stars sublime, Go down i' the heavens of freedom; And true hearts perish in the time "We bitterliest need 'em! But never sit we down and say, There's nothing left but sorrow: We walk the wilderness to-day — The promised land to-morrow! Our birds of song are silent now, There are no flowers blooming, Yet life holds in the frozen bough, And freedom's spring is coming; And freedom's tide comes up alway, Though we may strand in sorrow: And our good bark, aground to-day, Shall float again to-morrow. Selections for Reading. 127 Through all the long, long night of years The people's cry ascendeth, And earth is wet with blood and tears; But our meek suffering endeth ! The few shall not forever sway — The many moil in sorrow ; The powers of hell are strong to-day, But Christ shall rise to-morrow! Though hearts brood o'er the past, our eyes With smiling futures glisten ! For lo ! our day bursts up the skies — Lean out your souls and listen ! The world rolls freedom's radiant way, And ripens with her sorrow ; Keep heart ! who bear the Cross to-day, Shall wear the Crown to-morrow I O youth, flame-earnest, still aspire With energies immortal! To many a heaven of desire Our yearning opes a portal; And though age wearies by the way, And hearts break in the furrow, We'll sow the golden grain to-day— The harvest reap to-morrow I Build up heroic lives, and all Be like a sheathen saber, Beady to flash out at God's call — O chivalry of labor! Triumph and toil are twins,; and aye Joy suns the cloud of sorrow, And 'tis the martyrdom to-day Brings victory to-morrow I 128 Selections for Beading. THE DOOM OF CLAUDIUS AND CYNTHIA. Maurice Thompson. It was in the mid-splendor of the reign of the Emperor Commodus. The emperor was quite easily flattered and more easily insulted. Especially desirous of being ac- counted the best swordsman and the most fearless gladi- ator in Kome, he still better enjoyed the reputation of being the incomparable archer. It cam, therefore, be well understood how Claudius, by publicly boasting that he was a better archer than Commodus, had brought upon him- self the calamity of a public execution. The rumor was abroad in Borne that on a certain night a most startling scene would be enacted in the circus. The result was that on this particular night the vast building was crowded at an early hour. Commodus him- self, surrounded by a great number of his favorites, sat on a high, richly cushioned throne, prepared for him about midway one side of the vast inclosure. All was still, as if the multitude were breathless with expectancy. Presently, out from one of the openings, a young man and a young woman, — a mere girl, — their hands bound behind them, were led forth upon the sand of the arena, and forced to walk around the entire circumference of the place. At length the giant curcuit was completed, and the two were left standing on the sand, distant about one hundred and twenty feet from the emperor, who now arose and in a loud voice said: " Behold the condemned Claudius and Cynthia, whom he lately took for his wife. The crime for which they are to die is a great one. Claudius has publicly proclaimed that he is a better Selections for Reading. 129 archer than I, Commodus, am. I am the emperor and the incomparable archer of Eome. Whoever disputes it dies and his wife dies with him. It is decreed." It was enough to touch the heart of even a Eoman to see the tender innocence of that fair girl's face as she turned it up in speechless, tearless, appealing grief and anguish to her husband's. Immediately a large cage containing two fierce-eyed and famished tigers was brought into the arena and placed before the victims. The hungry beasts growled and howled, lapping their tongues and plunging up against the door. A murmur ran all round that vast ellipse — a murmur of remonstrance and disgust; for now everyone saw that the spectacle was to be a foul murder without even the show of a struggle. Then a sound came from the cage which no words can ever describe, — the hungry howl, the clashing teeth, the hissing breath of the tigers, along with a sharp clang of the iron bars spurned by their rushing feet. The circus fairly shook with the plunge of Death toward its victims. Look for a brief moment upon the picture: fifty thousand faces or more thrust forward gazing, the helpless couple, lost to everything but the horrors of death, quivering from foot to crown. ISTote the spotless beauty and the unselfish love of the girl. Mark well the stern power of the young man's face. Think how sweet life must be to them on the threshold of marriage. And now, oh! now look at those bounding, flaming-eyed tigers. There came from the place where Commodus stood a clear musical note, such as might have come from the gravest chord of a lyre if powerfully struck, closely fol- lowed by a keen, far-reaching hiss, like the whisper of 130 Selections for Beading. fate, ending in a heavy blow. The multitude caught breath and stared. The foremost tiger, while yet in mid-air, curled itself up with a gurgling cry of utter pain, and with blood gushing from its eyes, ears, and mouth fell heavily down, dying. Again the sweet, insinuating twang, the hiss, and the stroke. The second beast fell dead or dying upon the first. This explained all. The emperor had demonstrated his right to be called the Koyal Bowman of the World. " Lead them out and set them free! " he cried in a loud, heartless voice. " Lead them out and tell it everywhere that Commodus is the Incomparable Bowman of the World." And then, when it was realized that the lovers had not been hurt, a great stir began, and out from a myriad overjoyed and admiring hearts leaped a storm of thanks, while with clash and bray of musical instruments, and with voices like the voices of winds and seas, and with a clapping of hands like the rending roar of tempests, the vast audience arose as one person and applauded the emperor. NATUKE'S ALTKUIST. Mme. El De Louie. This selection is based on an incident related by General Kershaw : "It was the last day of the battle of Fredericksburg. It had been a bloody fight, and our men were worn and exhausted with the heat and the struggle through which we had passed. I was at headquarters, when John Kirklan eame rushing in, saying excitedly ": "General Kershaw, I can't stand this! It's terrible! too terrible! " (Burying his face between his hands.) Selections for Reading. 131 " Why, man," I quick replied, " I hope You're not " " A coward, general, Would you say of me? For God's 'sake, No! You know I am no coward To fear a ball, or shrapnel shell; But if it's cowardice to feel Another's suffering and pain, — Altho' that other be my foe, — Then, general, brand me CoicardJolin." I stood in mute surprise the while He spoke with eagerness and force. No one of all my men so brave Had shown more courage on the field. In all the thickest of the fray John Kirklan stood and fought that day. I could but wonder at his grief, And ask'd what lay beyond his strength, Too terrible for him to bear? " This, general, this: Permission give For me to take some water there," — Motioning with his battered thumb To where the wounded Federals lay Outside our breastwork, just in front, — " I cannot bear their groans and cries For ' water, water — just a sip Of water! ' — perishing, dying For water, here within my reach. Say quickly, general, ' Yes '; and bid Me go. I beg you grant me leave; Their cries are more than I can bear." He almost wept, so tremulous His voice with sympathy and grief. With quickening breath — which I controlled In speech — I calmly said: " Kirklan, You must know such recklessness would Be almost sure of certain death — I doubt the right to grant your 'quest." " 'Tis but humane! I fear no risk! O General Kershaw, speak the word 132 Selections for Reading. And bid me go — you won't refuse? " Intently gazing in my eye, He must have read the free consent My heart would speak, not words implied; So throbbed my pulse (as I the man Admired) of speech I was denied. Without a word he grasped canteens And filled them, dripping to the brim. He mounts the breastworks! Now he's crossed- Heroic man ! Have care ! Look out ! There comes a shot and there's another, And now a volley follows others. Ah, John Kirklan ! You've cast your die. What, unhurt! He turns — his courage Fails! He's coming back! I smile. "Ah!" (Perhaps with just a curl of scorn, Expressive of the thought). " You're back! " " General, may I my 'kerchief raise? I fear the wounded boys they'll hurt! " Oh, Heaven! Could I the thought recall! How insignificant I felt. With shame I turn my head aside, And with an air of nonchalance, In tones I meant should be most gruff: 44 No, Kirklan, no! No flag of truce For this occasion must be used! " Again, and still again, the parapet He climbed, and to the sick and wounded Lying there in death's embrace, with Parched throats and quivering breath, Like good Samaritan of old, To each sick, suffering Unionist, He water gave, and slaked their thirst. With grateful hearts they recognized His tender care; in trembling tones And tearful eyes expressed their thanks. And still John Kirklan went and came, Till every wounded man had drunk Enough his burning thirst to quench. Selections for Beading. 133 When cheering for the " blue and gray" Who fought this internecine strife, I'll give a " hip huzza " and " three Times three " for him, the true and brave, Who in the midst of war forgot His brother-man was still a foe When he, with anguish overcome, For water cried, and hazarding His life for charity's sweet sake, Begged their sufferings he might soothe. Honor to thy blest memory, John Kirklan, Nature's altruist! EULOGY ON HENRY WARD BEECHER. Joseph Parker, D. D. At one of the public meetings addressed by Mr. Beecher in England an organized opposition had taken possession of part of the hall. Six thousand people crowded the noble auditorium. The only self-possessed man in the seething mass was Mr. Beecher himself. " Mr. Chairman," said he, and instantly the hiss and groan of opposition were heard; " Mr. Chairman," and again the angry storm mingled with the enthusiastic and reverberating cheers. In a moment Mr. Beecher's whole aspect changed. He was determined to " mount the whirlwind and direct the storm " ; so, advancing still nearer to the front of the platform, he exclaimed, " My friends, we will have an all-night session, but we will be heard." That suited the English temper, and the whole audience broke out into a thunder of applause which plainly said, " Heard you shall be, though the enemy be hurled into the murky night." The inspired 134 Selections for Reading. orator spoke, expounded, appealed, fought, and con- quered, and then sat down in such a storm of cheers as probably cannot be heard out of England. With Pauline astuteness, he conciliated his English audiences by exclaiming, " We bring back American sheaves, but the seed corn we got in England; and if, in a larger sphere and under circumstances of unobstruc- tion, we have reared mightier harvests, every sheaf con- tains the grain that has made old England rich for a hundred years." Then again he changed his tone, and said: " We ask no help and no hindrance. If you do not send us a man, we do not ask for a man. If you do not send us another pound of gunpowder, we are able to make our own gunpowder. If you do not send us another musket or cannon, we have cannon that can carry five miles already." When, after a minute historical state- ment, he said: " Then came that ever memorable period when the Fugitive Slave Bill was passed. Against that infamy my soul revolted and these lips protested, and I defied the government to its face and told them: 'I will execute none of your unrighteous law. Send to me a fugitive who is fleeing from his master, and I will step between him and his pursuer/ " — we saw the philanthro- pist who was neither to be bribed nor threatened into silence. And when he added, " Not once or twice have my doors been shut between oppressor and the oppressed; and the church itself over which I minister has been the unknown refuge of many and many a one," — we felt that he conferred upon Plymouth Church a fame prouder than the renown which had been created for it by his own matchless eloquence. When we heard of the transformation of Plymouth Selections for Beading. 135 Church into a paradise as the dead body of the immortal preacher lay there, we said surely this man was a poet, or so lovely a crown would not have been fashioned in his honor. When we heard the muffled drums and the measured tramp of soldiers, and saw the furled and draped banners, and watched five hundred men march to the house of death, we said surely a soldier has fallen — a man, an officer, of whom his comrades were proud. And when we saw the colored clergymen of Brooklyn bowed down in sacred grief as they resolved to participate in the honors of the memorial, we said surely this man was a philanthropist and an emancipator of his brethren. So he was. He was poet and soldier and statesman and a deliverer of bondsmen. He was great in every aspect; great when he spoke in the name of the united nation at Sumter, great when he denounced the sin of slavery, great when he opened his mouth for the dumb, great when he called his mutilated country back to brother- hood and mutual trust, great in prayer, great in suffering, great when he pronounced the matchless eulogy on Grant — always great. Every man who knew Mr. Beecher fixes his attention upon some incident or sermon or prayer or speech which best represents the genius or the heart of the man. Had I an artist at command I could order pictures that gold would never buy. I could say to the artist: paint him in conversation, with all the April variety of his face, constant only in its truthfulness. Catch above all things the smile: the smile which began so far away, so dawn- like, and broadened into a summer morning. painter, let me charge thee to seize that spirit smile. But, failing, I would have thee gather thy strength for one supreme 136 Selections for Reading, effort; nay/a miracle. Invoke all the ancestors of art and bid them help thee. Paint the church in which he worked; the Sunday benediction has been pronounced; the sun has long retired; the white-haired pastor lingers that he may have an extra benediction through the medium of music; his eyes are full of tears; two little children unconsciously approach him and stand quite near; he turns, he sees them, he lays a hand on each young head; then he kisses the wayfarers, and with his hand upon them or around them the three walk away together, one of them never to return. THE GOOD OF IT. (A Cynic's Song.) Dinah Mulock Craik. Some men strut proudly, all purple and gold, Hiding queer deeds 'neath a cloak of good fame; I creep along braving hunger and cold To keep my heart stainless as well as my name. So, so, where is the good of it? Some clothe bare Truth in tine garments of words, Fetter her free limbs with cumbersome state. With me, let me sit at the lordliest boards. " I love" means, I love; and " I hate" means, I hate; But, but, where is the good of it? Some have rich dainties and costly attire, Guests fluttering round them and duns at the door. I crouch alone at my plain board and fire, Enjoy what I pay for and scorn to have more. Yet, yet, what is the good of it? Selections for Reading. 137 Some gather round them a phalanx of friends, Scattering affection like coin in a crowd. I keep my heart for the few Heaven sends, Where they'll find my name writ when I lie in my shroud. Still, still, where is the good of it? Some toy with love; lightly come, lightly go; A blithe game at hearts, little worth, little cost. I staked my whole soul on one desperate throw, A life 'gainst an hour's sport. We played and I lost. Ha, ha, such was the good of it ! Moral, added on Ms Death-bed. Turn the past's mirror backward ; its shadows removed, The dim, confused mass becomes softened, sublime; I have worked, I have felt, I have lived, I have loved, And each was a step towards the goal I now climb. Thou, God, Thou sawest the good of it! DOMBEY AND SON. Charles Dickens. They were the strangest pair, at such a time, that evei firelight shone upon. Mr. Dombey so erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze; his little image with an old, old face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed and rapt attention of a sage. Mr. Dombey entertaining complicated worldly schemes and plans; the little image entertaining Heaven knows what wild fancies, half -formed thoughts, and wandering speculations. Mr. Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance, the little image by inheritance and unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike and yet so mon- strously contrasted. On one of these occasions, when they had both been per- 138 Selections for Beading. fectly quiet for a long time, and Mr. Dombey only knew the child was awake by occasionally glancing at his eye where the bright fire was sparkling like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus: " Papa, what's money?" The abrupt question had such immediate reference to Mr. Dombey's thoughts, that Mr. Dombey was quite dis- concerted. " What is money, Paul?" he answered, " money!" "Yes," said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his little chair, and turning the little old face towards Mr. Dombey's, " what is money?" Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some explanation involving the terms circulat- ing medium, currency, depreciation of currency, paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of precious metals in the market and so forth; but looking down at the little chair and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered, " Gold and silver and copper, guineas, shillings, half-pence. You know what they are?" " Oh, yes, I know what they are," said Paul. " I don't mean that, papa. I mean, what's money after all?" Heaven and earth, how old his face was, as he turned it up again towards his father's. "What is money after all?" said Mr. Dombey, backing his chair a little that he might the better gaze in sheer amazement at the presumptuous atom that propounded such a question. " I mean, papa, what can it do?" returned Paul, folding his arms (they were hardly long enough to fold) and looking at the fire, and up at him, and at the fire, and up at him again. Mr. Dombey drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him on the head. Selections for Reading. 139 "You will know better, by and by, my man," he said. "Money, Paul, can do anything." He took hold of the little hand and beat it softly against one of his own as he said so. But Paul got his hand free as soon as he could, and rubbing it gently to and fro on the elbow of his chair, as if his wit were in the palm and he was sharpening it — and looking at the fire again, as though the fire had been his adviser and prompter, repeated after a short pause, "Anything, papa?" " Yes — anything — almost," said Mr. Dombey. " Anything means everything, don't it, papa?" asked his son, not observing, or possibly not understanding the qualification. "It includes it; yes," said Mr. Dombey. " Why didn't money save me my mama?" returned the child. "It isn't cruel, is it?" " Cruel!" said Mr. Dombey, settling his neckcloth and seeming to resent the idea, " No. A good thing can't be cruel." "If it's a good thing and can do anything," said the little fellow thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, " J wonder why it didn't save me my mama." He didn't ask the question of his father this time. Per- haps he had seen with a child's quickness that it had already made his father uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it were quite an old one to him and troubled him very much, and sat with his chin resting on his hand, still cogitating and looking for an explanation in the fire. Mr. Dombey having recovered from his surprise, not to say alarm (for it was the very first occasion on which the child had ever broached the subject of his mother to him), expounded to him how that money, though a very potent 140 Selections for Heading, spirit, never to be disparaged on any account whatever, could not keep people alive whose time was come to die; and how that we must all die; unfortunately, even in the city though we were never so rich. But how that money caused us to be feared, honored and respected, courted and admired, and made us powerful and glorious in the eyes of all men; and how that it could very often even keep off death for a long time together, and how it could do all that could be done. This, with more to the same purpose, Mr. Dombey instilled into the mind of his son, who listened at- tentively and seemed to understand the greater part of what was said to him. "It can't make me strong, and quite well, either, papa, can it?" asked Paul after a short silence, rubbing his tiny hands. "Why, you are strong and quite well," returned Mr. Dombey. " Are you not?" Oh, the age of the face that was turned up again, with an expression half of melancholy half of slyness on it! " You are as strong and well as such little people usually are? Eh?" said Mr. Dombey. "Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as strong and well as Florence, I know," returned the child, "but 1 believe that when Florence was as little as me she could play a great deal longer at a time without tiring herself. I am so tired, sometimes," said little Paul, warming his hands and looking in between the bars of the grate as if some ghostly puppet-show was performing there, " and my bones ache so that I don't know what to do." " Aye, but that is at night," said Mr. Dombey, drawing his own chair closer to his son's and laying his hand gently on his back, "little people should be tired at night for then they sleep well." Selections for Beading. 141 "Oh, it's not at night, papa/' returned the child, "'it's in the day, and I lie down in Florence's lap and she sings to me. At night I dream about such cu-ri-ous things," and he went on warming his hands again and thinking about them like an old man or a young goblin. Mr. Dombey was so astonished, and so uncomfortable and so perfectly at a loss how to pursue the conversation that he could only sit looking at his son by the light of the fire until the nurse appeared to summon him to bed. When the cloth was removed the next day after dinner, Mr. Dombey required to be informed whether there was anything the matter with Paul and what Dr. Pilkins said about him. "For the child is hardly," said Mr. Dombey, " hardly as stout as I could wish." "With your happy discrimination, my dear brother," returned Mrs. Chick, " you have hit the point at once. Our darling is not altogether as stout as I could wish. The fact is, that his mind is altogether too much for him. His soul is a great deal too large for his frame. I am sure the way in which that dear child talks!" said Mrs. Chick, shak- ing her head, " no one would believe. His expressions only yesterday, on the subject of funerals — " " I am afraid," said Mr. Dombey, interrupting her testily, " that some of those persons up-stairs suggest improper subjects to the child. He was speaking to me last night about — about his bones," said Mr. Dombey, laying an irri- tated stress upon the word. " What on earth has anybody to do with the — the bones of my son? He is not a living skeleton, I suppose." " Very far from it," said Mrs. Chick. "I hope so," returned her brother. "Funerals again! who talks to the child of funerals? We are not under- takers, or mutes, or grave-diggers, I believe." 142 Selections for Beading. " Very far from it," said Mrs. Chick with the same pro- found expression as before. " Dr. Pilkins recommended to-day sea-air." " Sea-air," repeated Mr. Dombey, looking at his sister. " There is nothing to be made uneasy by, in that," said Mrs. Chick. " Of course," said Mr. Dombey, and taking a book, sat looking at one page for an hour without speaking a word. WILD WEATHER OUTSIDE. Margaret E. Sangster. Wild weather outside where the brave ships go, And fierce from all quarters the four winds blow. Wild weather and cold, and the great waves swell With chasms beneath them as black as hell. The waters frolic in Titan play, They dash the decks with an icy spray, The spent sails shiver, the lithe masts reel, And the sheeted ropes are as smooth as steel. And oh, that the sailor were safe once more Where the sweet wife smiles in the cottage door! The little cottage, it shines afar O'er the lurid seas, like the polar star. The mariner tossed in the jaws of death Hurls at the storm a defiant breath; Shouts to his mates through the writhing foam, ' Courage! please God, we shall yet win home!" Frozen and haggard, and wan and gray, But resolute still; 'tis the sailor's way. And perhaps — at the fancy the stern eyes dim- Somebody's praying to-night for him. Ah me, through the drench of the bitter rain, How T bright the picture that rises plain! Selections for Reading. 143 Sure he can see, with her merry look, His little maid crooning her spelling-book; The baby crows from the cradle fair; The grandam nods in her easy-chair; While hither and yon, with a quiet grace, A woman flits with an earnest face. The kitten purrs, and the kettle sings, And a nameless comfort the picture brings. Rough weather outside, but the winds of balm Forever float o'er that isle of calm. O friends, who read over tea and toast Of the wild night's work on the storm-swept coast, Think, when the vessels are overdue, Of the perilous voyage, the baffled crew, Of stout hearts battling for love and home 'Mid the cruel blasts and the curdling foam; And breathe a prayer from your happy lips For those who must go ''to the sea in ships;" Ask that the sailor may stand once more Where the sweet wife smiles in the cottage door. — Harper's Magazine. EXTEACTS FROM ESSAYS. Ralph Waldo Emerson, CIVILIZATION. Civilization depends on morality. Everything good In man leans on what is higher. This rule holds in small as in great. Thus, all our strength and success in the work of our hands depend on our borrowing the aid of the elements. You have seen a carpenter on a ladder with a broad-axe chopping upward chips from a beam. How awkward! At what disadvantage he works! But see him on the ground, dressing his timber under him. Now, not his feeble muscles but the force of gravity brings down the 144 Selections for Reading. axe; that is to say, the planet itself splits his stick. The farmer had much ill temper, laziness and shirking to endure from his hand-sawyers, until one day he bethought him to put his saw-mill on the edge of a waterfall; and the river never tires of turning his wheel. I admire still more than the saw-mill the skill which on the seashore makes the tides drive the wheels and grind corn, and which thus engages the assistance of the moon, like a hired hand, to grind and wind and pump and saw and split stone and roll iron. Now that is the wisdom of a man in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his work done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day and cost us nothing. And as our handiworks borrow the elements, so all our social and political action leans on principle. Gibraltar may be strong, but ideas are impregnable, and bestow on the hero their invincibility. Let us not lie and steal; no god will help; we shall find all their teams going the other way. Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and promote, justice, love, freedom, knowledge and utility. The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops — no, but the kind of man the country turns out. ART. A study of admirable works of art sharpens our percep- tions of the beauties of Nature; a certain analogy reigns throughout the wonders of both; the contemplation of a work of great art draws us into a state of mind which may be called religious. It conspires with all exalted sentiments. Selections for Reading. 145 The analogies which exist in all the arts are the reappear- ance of one mind working in many materials to many tem- porary ends. Kaphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called " silent poetry," and poetry " speaking painting." The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other. Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun. The gayest charm of beauty has a root in the constitution of things. The Iliad of Homer, the songs of David, the odes of Pindar, the tragedies of Echylus, the Doric temples, the Gothic cathedrals, the plays of Shakespeare, all and each were made not for sport, but in grave earnest in tears and smiles of suffering, loving men. The Gothic cathedrals were built when the builder and the priest and the people were overpowered by their faith. Love and fear laid every stone. And beauty, truth and goodness are not obsolete. They spring eternal in the breast of man; they are as indigenous in Massachusetts as in Tuscany or the Isles of Greece. And that Eternal Spirit whose triple face they are, molds from them forever, for his mortal child, images to remind him of the Infinite and Fair. 146 Selections for Rtading* THE GLOEY AND GKAKDEUK OF PEACE. Charles Sumner. Whatever may be the judgment of poets, of moralists, of satirists, or even of soldiers, it is certain that the glory of arms still exercises no mean influence over the minds of men. The art of war, which has been happily termed, by a French divine, "the baleful art by which men learn to exterminate one another," is yet held, even among Christians, to be an honorable pursuit; and the animal courage, which it stimulates and develops, is prized as a transcendent virtue. It will be for another age, and a higher civilization, to appreciate the more exalted char- acter of the art of benevolence, — the art of extending happiness and all good influences, by word or deed, to the largest number of mankind, — which, in blessed contrast with the misery, the degradation, the wickedness of war, shall shine resplendent, the true grandeur of peace. All then will be willing to join with the early poet in saying, at least, " Though louder fame attend the martial rage, Tis greater glory to reform the age." Then shall the soul thrill with a nobler heroism than that of battle. Peaceful industry, with untold multitudes of cheerful and beneficent laborers, shall be its gladsome token. Literature, full of sympathy and comfort for the heart of man, shall appear in garments of purer glory than she has yet assumed. Science shall extend the bounds of knowledge and power, adding unimaginable strength to the hands of man, opening innumerable re- sources in the earth, and revealing new secrets and har- Selections for Reading. 147 monies in the skies. Art, elevated and refined, shall lavish fresh streams of beauty and grace. Charity, in streams of milk and honey, shall diffuse itself among all the habitations of the world. Does anyone ask for the signs of this approaching era? The increasing beneficence and intelligence of our own day, the broad-spread sympathy with human suffering, the widening thoughts of men, the longings of the heart for a higher condition on earth, the unfulfilled promises of Christian progress, are the auspicious auguries of this happy future. As early voyagers, over untried realms of waste, we have already observed the signs of land. The green twig and fresh red berry have floated by our bark; the odors of the shore, fan our faces; nay, we may seem to descry the distant gleam of light, and hear from the more earnest observers, as Columbus heard, after mid- night, from the masthead of the Pinta, the joyful cry of Land! Land! and lo! a new world broke upon his early morning gaze. LBATHEE-CLAD FOX. Thomas Carlyle. Perhaps the most remarkable incident in modern his- tory is not the Diet of \Yorms, still less the Battle of Austerlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other battle; but an incident passed carelessly over by most historians, and treated with some degree of ridicule by others, namely, George Fox's making to himself a suit of leather. This man, the first of the Quakers, and by trade a shoe- maker, was one of those to whom, under ruder or purer form, the Divine Idea of the Universe is pleased to mani- 148 Selections for Reading. fest itself; and, across all the bulk of ignorance and earthly degradation, shines through, in unspeakable awfulness, unspeakable beauty, on their souls; who, there- fore, are rightly accounted prophets, God-possessed, or even gods, as in some periods it has chanced. Sitting in his stall, working on tanned hides, amid pincers, paste- horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a nameless flood of rub- bish, this youth had, nevertheless, a living spirit belong- ing to him; also, an antique inspired volume, through which, as through a window, it could look upwards and discern its celestial home. Mountains of encumbrance, higher than iEtna, had been heaped over that spirit; but it was a spirit, and would not lie buried there. Through long days, and nights of silent agony, it struggled and wrestled, with a man's force, to be free; how its prison-mountains heaved and swayed tumultuously, as the giant spirit shook them to this hand and that, and emerged into the light of heaven! That Leicester shoe-shop, had men known it, was a holier place than any Vatican or Loretto-shrine. " So bandaged, and hampered, and hemmed in," groaned he, " with thousand requisitions, obligations, straps, tatters, and tagrags, I can neither see nor move; not my own am I, but the world's; and time flies fast, and heaven is high, and hell is deep. Man! bethink thee, if thou hast power of thought! Why not? What binds me here? Want, want! — Ha, of what? Will all the shoe-wages under the moon ferry me across into that far Land of Light? Only meditation can, and devout prayer to God. I will to the woods; the hollow of a tree will lodge me, wild berries feed me; and, for clothes, cannot I stitch myself one perennial suit of leather?" Selections for Beading. 149 Let some living Angelo or Eosa, with seeing eye and understanding heart, picture George Fox on that morn- ing, when he spreads out his cutting-board for the last time, and cuts cowhides by unwonted patterns, and stitches them together into one continuous, all-including case, the farewell service of his awl! Stitch away, thou noble Fox; every prick of that little instrument is prick- ing into the heart of slavery, and world-worship, and the Mammon-god. Thy elbows jerk, as in strong swimmer- strokes, and every stroke is bearing thee across the prison-ditch, within which vanity holds her workhouse and rag-fair, into lands of true liberty. Were the work done, there is in broad Europe one free man, and thou art he! LILIES IN PKISON. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. I AM going to tell a short story about my sister. I am a boy, and she isn't, and so we looked at it differently. When I say it, I mean this thing that the story is about. It is all settled now, and I was wrong, and she wasn't. I hate to be in the wrong, but I hate more to be mean. And I think it's mean not to own up when you are. I've been thinking about it, and I thought the best way to own up I could think of, would be to tell the story. This thing we looked at differently I spoke of wasn't much. It was nothing but a parcel of flowers, and it was more than a year ago. It was last June. They grow in a great bed behind our house. They are lilies of the valley, and you always know it's June by their getting along so far. 150 Selections for Reading. So then. Day is a queer girl. She isn't like all the other girls. She's pretty as she can live, and she's jolly as time, and she isn't the kind of good you see in Sunday- school books, that slumps through and dies. Then all the poor folks cry at her funeral — in the book. Daisy's fond of poor people too; all sorts of rag-tag and bob-tails. I don't approve of it. I don't like the society she keeps. But she's so jolly you can't say much. She's a hand to carry on, I can tell you, when she feels like it. Now the time I speak of, my sister came in one day. Father and I were discussing politics in the library. Day, she came in from the garden, and she had on a white dress, and her straw hat, and her hands were just heaped with those lilies I told you of. It was a pleasant day. She came and stood in the door, and I and father stopped talk- ing politics to look at her. "Father?" said Day. She always speaks up like that when she speaks his name, as if she were asking him a question. "Father, I want to go to Wenham Prison." " What?" says father. " I want to carry some lilies of the valley to Wenham Prison," said Daisy. "I want to give them to the poor men. We have more than we can pos- sibly use. I can go in the noon train, and be back to tea Have you any objections, sir? May I go?" "Certainly not," said I. I didn't wait for father. I was so kind of shocked and mad with Day. But father paid no more attention to me than if Pd been a grasshopper candidating for town clerk. He just sat and looked at Daisy. "Aren't you afraid, my dear?" he said. "They are pretty rough men." "Oh no, sir," said Daisy. "I am not afraid." "Do you suppose they will care for your flowers?" asked father. But he spoke low, kind of, and lower. " Oh yes, sir," said Daisy. "I am sure they'll care." "They'll Selections for Reading, 151 make fun of you!" said I, I was so mad. " Be still, sir!" said father, like a shot. And my gracious! when I looked at him, I saw father was most ready to cry — if he hadn't been a man — two real, genuine no-mistake tears in his eyes, for looking at Daisy. And he said, " Come here, my daughter," and he kissed her, and he said, "Go and take your flowers to the poor fellows, Daisy, and Heaven bless you!" and then he said no more about it. But I couldn't stand it, don't you see? for I never did agree with Day about those things; and I thought this wasn't proper; none the other fellows' sisters did it, so I up and said I wished Day was like other girls, and I thought it was disreputable going to prison and places. "You do keep such disgraceful company, Daisy!" said I. Then my father turned on me, and he looked like thunder — and he says to me, " Robert /" (my name is Bob). " You will put on your hat and accompany your sister to AYenham, and take care of her till she gets back, and if I know of your saying one breathing word to make her uncomfortable, I'll take away your pocxet-moxey for six months!" But Daisv didn't seem to care. She onlv looked at me as if she 5 d been trying not to laugh; the way she looked once when I was a little boy and tolcl her I wanted a Bible, one Sunday, with the Hypocrisy in it. I meant the Apocrypha, and she thought she wouldn't hurt my feel- ings. So she never laughed and never got mad; she only just stood there with her lilies, and not one of 'em looked sweeter than my sister, if she does keep such society. We call 'em Daisy's "set," all the scalawags she looks after. And when we went to the train that day (for I had to go), I called back to mother, " Daisy's going into society! You ought to come to matronize her. Daisy and I are going to make our" (de — e — how do you spell it? D— a— ) 152 Selections for Reading. (Daisy's day-loo is what I wish to say.) But Day only laughed, and mother never said anything (she never does), and father wasn't round. "The select circle of Prison Point!" said I. " I hope they won't snub us." Now Day ought to have snubbed me, but she didn't; only pretty soon when I was most across the road my father overtook us, and he said, " My son, your sister keeps a kind of society the rest of us might be glad to keep at the Judgment Day. Daisy won't be ashamed of her ' set ' then," says father. And so then he went to the station with us, and he gave Day a letter of introduction to the warden, and then he seid good-by as if she'd been going to heaven instead of to prison, and so we started off and went, I as mad as mad (but I didn't durst show it on account of father), and Day as sweet and still as if she'd been a live lily herself. For all Day had on her traveling clothes, which were so plain and modest, yet she seemed to grow whiter and whiter — maybe she was a mite scared — when we came nearer to the prison; and before we got there, which was the whitest, she or the lilies, nobody could have said, and a great many people looked at her. Well, and so we went on, and we came to the prison. And it was very large and dark. And they let us in. And the warden kind of smiled over my father's letter. And he looked at Daisy, and he looked at the flowers, and he said, " There are four hundred and seventy pretty rough, bad men in this place, miss. Do you think they will care for your flowers?" "May I try and see, sir?" said Daisy. " I've no objections," said the warden. He was a big man. But he spoke in a soft voice. So he let us in. And we all went together. But I went ahead of my sister to protect her. And the Selections for Beading. 153 warden asked how old I was. And he walked beside Day, close beside her, all the way. And Daisy kept hold of her flowers. And all the men were coming out of dinner. So the warden let us stand on a pair of stairs and look down at 'em. So they filed along, four hundred and seventy of 'em — and Day, she leaned and looked at 'em. Day has such a pitiful way with her, it's enough to break your heart. I never knew a girl look so. And she clung on to the flowers. But one dropped. And a beastly- looking fellow, it hit him on the forehead, and he looked up, and there he saw my sister looking over — and the flowers. And he was very tall. And he stood and looked up. But that made the other men take notice. My gracious! what a lot they were, you never saw! And they all began to look up. So Day she curled up and pulled back, and we walked on, and the warden too. And he never laughed at her. I was afraid he would. I had felt ashamed. Nor the red- headed prisoner didn't laugh. He picked up the flower. And we all went on. Well; and so then they went to their cells, some of 'em, and some to work. And the warden took us to the cells. And Day walked in ahead. She wasn't a mite afraid. There was a chap there in for murder — had tried to kill the keeper, too, last week. Day gave him flowers first of all. You never saw a chap look as that chap did. I didn't know but he'd strike somebody, he was so confounded. But he said, " Thank you, ma'am," like a gentleman. So we went from cell to cell, and my sister gave away her lilies of the valley to the prisoners. I felt kind of mean. They didnH laugh at her. They treated her as if she'd been an angel come from heaven, and they all 154 Selections for Reading. said, " Thank you miss, or marm;" and one of 'em lie put it into a pitcher with a bouncing blue lilock. And by and by the lilies were all gone. This year, our Day got sick. I was scared, for Day never does such things — she's too sensible. But she did get sick. I've forgotten what the matter was. She had lots of different doctors. One of 'em said it was neuralyger, and one said it was studying, and another one, seems to me, said it was indigestion of the lungs. Anyhow, something ailed her, and she wasn't round a good while. Then she got better, and used to sit on piazzas and places to get the air. So we all had to wait on her. But I didn't mind it very much, seeing it was Day. Well, and so, as I was saying, Day sat on the piazza. And one Sunday, we all went to meeting — only Day and the old nurse. I'd rather stayed at home and read to Day. I had "Tom Brown at Eugby" out the library to read to her. But mother made me go to meeting, and father said the old woman would keep awake. So we left the biggest dinner-bell in the house, and we all went. And the church isn't a great way off. I thought we could hear that dinner-bell if anything happened, and she rang it like time. So we went to church, and Day sat in the easy-chair with her shawls on. And we all kissed her good-by. And she never complained. And father said how sweet she was, as we walked along. And I looked back. But the old nurse hadn't gone to sleep, and Day shook the dinner-bell at me, and she laughed, and we all went on and left her. We had been gone to church awhile, and Day, she was sitting all alone upon the piazza, and the deaf old woman had gone to sleep. And Day was feeling quiet, and a little lonesome, and wishing she knew when she would get well, Selections for Reading. 155 and leaning back in her shawls and pillows and things, and looking through the grape-vine on the piazza posts, when all at once the gate opened w r ith a little noise. So when Day heard the noise, she looked up, and what do you think she saw? Sir, it teas a tramp! And there my sister was, sir, with nothing but the deaf old woman and the dinner- bell. And it was Sunday morning, and nobody passed upon the street. And no living mortal in the house but those two. And there she sat among her pillows. And she was so weak she couldn't walk a step. And there she was. Well, sir, Day says she was scared for a minute, just a minute. And she wished father was at home. And she grabbed the dinner-bell. But the old woman was in the parlor on the lounge, and she was snoring like the dead. So Day thought it was a pity to wake her, and she thought she would be scared and run. So she sat still, and she didn't say a word. And the tramp came up. He looked very ugly, that tramp did. If Fd been there, 1 don't know but I'd have shot him. But I wasn't. And he came up and said, "Folks at home?" So Daisy an- swered — for she's brave — " Some of them are. What do you want?" " Ask me what I don't want!" says ihe tramp, and lie looked very ugly. And he pushed on into the front entry, for he didn't much notice Day. ' 6 1 want most everything," said that tramp. "I'm nungry; I'm thirsty; I'm wet; I'm ragged; I want a place to live; I want the means o' livin'; I want some money/' said the tramp. So he pushed into the entry and poked about. And Day rang her dinner-bell, but the old woman slept like the last trumpet. And the tramp said, "Likely lookin' place. Don't seem to be many of yer folks about. Silver in the room yonder? Don't you fret. I'll just look around, and come back to you afterwards." Now Day 156 Selections for Reading. owns up she did feel scareder and scareder, but she never let him know; and she wondered what it was best to do. She could hear 'em singing at church, and they sung: " Safe, safe at home." And so, for she didn't know what else to do, she called him back politely — Day is always polite — and the rascal came and asked her what she wanted. Then Daisy looked at him, and she saw how he looked, for he was hungry, and he was kind of pale and hollowed in, and what do you s'pose she said? She said, " Poor fellow!" Just like that — just like Day. She said she felt so sorry for him. So, when she said, " Poor fellow!" the tramp he stood and looked at Daisy, and Daisy looked at the tramp, and they both looked at each other, and the tramp he colored blazing red, and then he said, "By gracious Jiminy!" And then he said, " Nobody ever called me a poor fellow but once before in all my blasted life! And she was — she was — Ma'am," said that tramp, all of a sudden, " have you ever been in prison?" "Once," said Day, and she began to smile; and he began to red up and red up, more and more, and he said, "If you ain't the young leddy herself, I'll eat my head! You gave me a white flower," said that tramp. ' I didn't know which on 'em was the holiest to see," said 3ie tramp. " You gave it to me and told me to be a better man. You told me to be as white — as that. And I'd been as black as — ," said the tramp. " I never forgot it," said he. "No livin' creetur ever called me a poor feller, or told me I could be a better man. I never forgot you, miss, so help me God! Though I hain't got to bein' a nangel yet, I've kep' it in mind, and it's just His etarnal way of payin' me off that I should be let to sneak in here of a Sunday mornin' a bullyin' and scarin' you. And — you — sick — too," Selections for Reading. 157 said that tramp, softly. " What's the matter? Hain't got the gallopin' consumption, have you?" So Day told him no, not so bad as that, and she got oyer her scare, and she rang and rang till the deaf old woman came out and said, " Lord a massy!" and Day sent her to get breakfast for the tramp. And it was the red-headed burglar she'd hit withthe lily oyer the stairs that day, and Day made him sit down and talk with her. But he was awfully ashamed. And he took an old purse he had out of his pocket, and showed her that flower he had kept. He had kept it eyer since, he said. And Daisy like to haye cried when she saw it. But the tramp was hungry, so she stopped to see about his breakfast. Well, then, so we all came home from church, and there they were. And the deaf old nurse waddled out to meet us, she was so scared. And she rang the dinner-bell, and cried "Fire!" For she didn't know what the man was about, and she waddled up and says to father, " There's a murderer on the piazzy to murder Miss Daisy!" And we all ran up — and the neighbors too — and the old nurse rang the dinner-bell like mad, and you neyer saw such a sight in all your days! And when we got there, there sat my sister as sweet as you please, and smiling at us all, and the red-headed burglar — for I knew him in a jiffy — he sat with his hat off, eating cold sandwiches and coffee at her feet. He looked kind of like a lion sitting down beside a lamb* But the red-headed burglar was yery well-behayed and gentlemanly, and Day said, " Hush, papa!" when father went to take him by the collar. And then she told us all about it. But father couldn't forgive him for the scare, so Day had to say, "Hush, papa!" again, and that was the end of it. And the tramp showed the dead lily in his 158 Selections for Heading. dirty purse to father, and he said he was ashamed, and he said he wanted honest work. So we all sat round, quite as if he'd been one of the family. " Oh, my father will find you honest work," said Day, just as if there was no doubt about it. And the worst of it was he did. He always does. Day has only to look at him. He did find tiie red-headed rascal some wood to chop all summer at our wood-lot. And he behaved like a gentleman — I don't mean father, but the tramp. Sometimes we called him Day's burglar. Then we called him her tramp. / used to call him her lily of the yalley. But that made him mad, and he swore at me, and I had to quit. He acted as if I'd made game of all the saints in heayen. And he treated my sister as if she'd been the Virgin Mary. And so, when Day got well, I had to drive her all over the county till we found a place in a factory for that fellow. One day, I went over to see him after he'd worked at the factory. - I thought I'd surprise him, and see if he wasn't drunk or something. But he came out to meet me, look- ing very neat and well-behaved, like other men. And when I went home he sent his best respects to Day, and showed me the lily, and said I was to tell her that it wasn't lost, and that he asked God to bless her every day. So I had to go home and tell her. And Day didn't say much. But father kissed her — he always does when there's any excuse for it. And I can't think of any more. But I had never owned up to Day, so I thought I'd write it out. I don't think I should be ashamed of the society she keeps if I were Day. Selections for Heading. 159 JACK ABBOTT'S BEEAKFAST. Leigh Hukt. " What a breakfast I shall eat !" thought Jack Abbotx as he turned into Middle Temple Lane, towards the cham- bers of his old friend and tutor Goodall. "How I shall cram down the rolls (especially the inside bits), how apol- ogize for one cup more ! But Goodall is an excellent old fellow, he won't mind. To be sure, I'm rather late. The rolls will be cold, but anything will be delicious. If I met a baker I could eat his basket." Jack Abbott was a. good- hearted, careless fellow, who had walked that morning from Hen don to breakfast by appointment with his old tutor, Arrived at the door of his friend's room he knocks, and the door is opened by Goodall himself, a thin grizzled personage, in an old great-coat, shaggy eyebrows, and a most bland and benevolent expression of countenance — a sort of Dominie Sampson, an angel of the dusty heaven of book- stalls and the British Museum. Unfortunately for the hero of our story this angel of sixty-five, unshaven and with stockings down at the heel, had a memory which could not recollect what had been told him six hours before, much less six days. Accordingly he had finished his breakfast long before his late pupil presented himself. The angel was also very short-sighted, and in response to Jack Abbott's hearty, "Well, how d'ye do, my clear sir ? I'm afraid I'm very late," replied in the blandest tones, "Ah, dear me ! — I'm very — I beg par- don — pray, who is it I have the pleasure of speaking to ?" "What! don't you recollect me, my dear sir? Jack Abbott. I met you, you know, and was to come and — " "Oh Mr. Abbott, is it ! My dear Mr. Abbott, to thinlj 160 Selections for Reading. I should not see you! And how is the good lady, your mother?" " Very well, very well indeed, sir." Here Jack glanced at the breakfast-table. " I'm quite rejoiced to see that the breakf st-cloth is not removed. I'm horribly late. But don't take any trouble, my good sir. The kettle I see is still singing on the hob. I'll cut myself a piece of bread and butter immediately." " Ah ! You have come to breakfast, have you, my kind boy? That is very good of you, very good indeed." "Ah," thought hungry Jack Abbott, smiling even while he sighed, " How completely he has forgotten the invitation! — Thank you, my dear sir, thank you. To tell the truth I'm very hungry, hungry as a hunter. I walked all the way from Hendon this morning." " Bless me! Did you, indeed? Why, that's a very long way, isn't it? Well, sir, I'll make some fresh tea, and — " " I beg pardon," interrupted Jack, who in a fury of hunger and thirst was pouring out what tea he could find in the pot, "I can do very well with this, — at any rate to begin with." " Ah! But I'm sorry to see — what are we to do for milk? I'm afraid I must keep you waiting while I step out for some." "Don't stir, I beg you!" ejaculated our hero, "don't think of it, my dear sir. I can do very well without milk, I can indeed; I often do without milk." " Well, indeed, I have met with such instances before, and it's very lucky that you do not care for milk, but — Well, well! if the sugar-basin isn't empty! I will go out instantly. My hat must be under those pamphlets." " Don't think of such a thing, pray don't, my dear sir," cried Jack. " You may think it odd; but sugar, I can assure Selections for Reading. 161 you, is a thing that I don't at all care for. The bread, my dear sir, the bread is all I require, just that piece." "Well, sir, you're very good, and very temperate; but now — ah, as for butter, I declare I don't believe — " "Butter!" interrupted our hero in a tone of the greatest scorn, "why, I haven't eaten butter I don't know when. Not a step, sir, not a step. I must make haste, for I've got to lunch with my lawyer and he'll expect me to eat some- thing, and in fact I'm so anxious and feel so hurried that I must be off, my good sir, I must indeed." Jack had made up his mind to seek the nearest coffee- house as fast as possible and there have the heartiest and most luxurious breakfast that could make amends for his disappointment. Being once more out of doors, our hero rushes like a tiger into Fleet Street and plunges into the first coffee-house in sight. "Waiter!" "Yessir." " Breakfast immediately. Tea, black and green, and all that." " Yessir. Eggs and toast, sir?" " By all means." " Yessir. Any ham, sir?" "Just so, and instantly." "Yessir. Cold fowl, sir?" "Precisely, and no delay." "Yessir. Pickles, sir?" "Bring all — everything, — no, I don't care for pickles, but bring anything yon like, and do make haste, my good fel- low. Do hurry up! I never was so hungry in my life!" "Yessir. Directly, sir. Like the paper, sir?" "Thank you, thank you! Now for heaven's sake, I beg of you — " 162 Selections for Reading. " Yessir. Immediately, sir; everything ready, sir/' "Everything ready !" thought Jack. " Cheering sound! Beautiful place, a coffee-house! Fine English place — everything so snug, so comfortable. Have what jou like and no fuss about it. What a breakfast I shall eat! And the paper, too: horrid murder — mysterious affair — assassi- nation. Bless me, what horrible things — how very com- fortable! Waiter!" " Yessir. Coming sir. Directly, sir." " You've another slice of toast getting ready?" "Yessir. All right, sir." " Let the third, if you please, be thicker, and the fourth." Everything is served up: toast, hot and rich; eggs, plump; ham, huge; cold fowl, tempting. "Glorious moment!" inwardly ejaculated Jack Abbott. He had doubled the paper conveniently so as to read the "Express from Paris," in perfect comfort. Before he poured out his tea, he was in the act of putting his hand to one of the inner slices of toast when — awful visitation! — whom should he see passing the window but his friend Goodall. He was coming, of course, to read the papers, and this, of all the coffee-houses in the world, was the one he must needs go to! What was to be done? Jack could not hurt anybody's feelings. There was nothing left for him but to bolt. Accordingly, after hiding his face with the news- paper till Goodall has taken up another, he rushes out as if a sheriff was after him. Jack, congratulating himself that he had neither been seen by Goodall nor tasted a breakfast unpaid for, has ordered precisely such another breakfast, has got the same newspaper and seated himself as nearly as possible in the very same place. " Now/' thought he, " I am beyond the reach of chance. Selections for Heading. 168 Goodall cannot read the papers in two coffee-houses. By Jove! was ever a man so hungry as I am? What a break- fast I shall eat!" Enter breakfast, served up as before. " Glorious moment!" thinks Jack again. He has got the middle slice of toast in his fingers, pre- cisely as before, when happening to look up, he sees the waiter of the former coffee-house pop his head in, look him full in the face, and as suddenly withdraw it. Back goes the toast on the plate; up springs poor Abbott to the door, rushes forth for the second time, and makes as fast as he can for a third coffee-house. "Am I never to breakfast?" thought he. "Nay, break- fast I will. People can't go into three coffee-houses on purpose to go out again. What a breakfast I will eat!" Jack Abbott, after some delay, owing to the fulness of the room, is seated as before. The waiter has "yessired" to their mutual satisfaction; the toast is done, eggs plump, ham huge, etc. etc. Unluckily, three pairs of eyes were observing him all the while; to wit, the waiter's of the first tavern, the waiter's of the second, and the landlord's of the third. They were now resolving upon a course of action. Jack was in the very agonies of hunger. " By Hercules, what a breakfast I will, shall, must, and have now certainly got to eat ! I could not have stood it any longer. Now, now, NOW is the glorious moment of moments." Jack took up a slice of the toast and — with a strange look of misgiving laid it down again. " I'm blessed if he's touched it, after all," said waiter the first. " Well, this beats everything!" "He's a precious rascal, depend on't," says the landlord. "We'll nab him. Let us go to the door!" 1 64 Selections for Reading, " I'll be hanged if he ain't going to bolt again!" said the second waiter. "Search his pockets," said the landlord. "Three breakfasts and not one eaten!" " What a willain !" said the first waiter. By this time all the people in the coffee-house had crowded into the room, and a plentiful mob was gathering at the door. "Here's a chap has had three breakfasts this morning," exclaimed the landlord. "Three breakfasts!" cried a dry-looking man in specta- cles, " how could he possibly do that?" " I didn't say he'd eaten them. I said he'd ordered them and didn't eat them. Three breakfasts in three dif- ferent houses, I tell you. He's been to my house, and to this man's house, and to this man's, and we've searched him and he hasn't a penny in his pockets." "That's it," cried Jack, who had vainly attempted to make himself heard, " that's the very reason." "What's the very reason?" inquired the gentleman in spectacles. " Why, I was shocked to find, just now, that I had left my purse at home in the hurry of coming out, and — " "Oh, oh," cried the laughing audience, "here's the policeman! He'll settle him." "But how does that explain the other two breakfasts?" asked the gentleman. " Not at all," said Jack. " Impudent rascal!" said the landlord. " I mean," said he, "that that doesn't explain it, but I can explain it." "Well, how?" said the gentleman, hushing the angry landlord, ivho had meanwhile given our hero in charge. Selections for Beading. 165 "Don't lay hands on me!" cried Jack. "I'll go quietly, if you let me alone; but first let me explain." "Hear him, hear him!" cried the spectators, "and watch your pockets!" Here Jack gave a rapid statement of the events of the morning. This only excited laughter and derision, and our hero was hustled off, and in two minutes found himself in a crowded police-office. A considerable delay took place before the landlord's charge could be heard. "Agony of expectation," groaned poor Jack, "I'll have bread and butter when I breakfast — not toast; it's more hearty, and besides you get it sooner; and yet, table- cloth, thick slices, tea, when shall I breakfast?" The case at length was brought on. "Well, now, you sir, — Mr. What's-your-name," quoth the magistrate, "what is your wonderful explanation of this very extraordinary habit of taking three breakfasts, sir? You seem very cool about it." " Sir," answered our hero, "it is out of no disrespect to you that I am cool. You may well be surprised at the cir- cumstances under which I find myself, but in addressing a gentleman and a man of understanding, I have no doubt he will discover a veracity in my statement which has escaped eyes less discerning." So Jack gave an account of the whole matter, and the upshot of it was that the magis- trate not only proceeded to throw the greatest ridicule on the charge, but gave Jack a note to the nearest coffee- house, desiring the tavern-keeper to furnish the gentleman with a breakfast at his expense, and explaining the reason why. With abundance of acknowledgments, and in raptures at the now certain approach of the bread and butter, Jack 166 Selections for Reading. made his way to the tavern. "At last I have thee!" cried he internally. " most fugacious of meals, what a repast I will make of it! What a breakfast I shall have! Never was a breakfast so intensified !" Jack Abbott, with the note in his hand, arrived at the tavern, went up the steps, hurried through the passage. Every inch of the way was full of hope and bliss, when, lo! whom should his eyes light on but the other landlord whom he had just left in the court-room, detailing his version of the story to the new landlord, and evidently poisoning his mind with every syllable. Raging with hunger as he was, Jack could not stand this. With a despair for which he could find no words, he turned away in the direction of his lawyer's. " Now the lawyer," quoth he, soliloquizing, "was an intimate friend of my father's, so intimate that if he offers me breakfast I can accept it, and of course he will. I shall plainly tell him that I prefer breakfast to lunch; in short, that I have made up my mind to have it, even if I wait till dinner-time or tea-time, and he'll laugh, and we shall be jolly, and I shall get something to eat at last. Exquisite moment! What a breakfast I shall eat!" The lawyer, Mr. Pallinson, occupied a good large house, with the marks of plenty on it. Jack hailed the sight of the fire blazing in the kitchen. " Delicious spot!" thought he, "kettle, pantry and all that. Hope there is milk left, and bread and butter. What slices I toill eat!" Bat Jack unfortunately rang the bell of the office, in- stead of the house, and found himself among a parcel of clerks. Mr. Pallinson was out; was not expected home till evening. Jack in desperation stated his case. No result but, "Very strange, sir," from one of the clerks. No Mrs. Pallinson existed to whom he might apply, so. blushing and stammeiing " Good-morning," Jack found Selections for Beading. 167 himself out again in the wide world of pavement and houses. The clerks had told him that Mi. Pallinson always dined at the Mendall coffee-house when away on special business, and towards it our hero turned his hun- gry and melancholy steps, determined to wait there foi him. "Ah," thought Jack, with a sigh, "five o'clock isn't far off, and then I'm certain. What a breakfast I shall have when it does come! At length five o'clock strikes, and at the same moment enters Mr. Pallinson. He was a brisk, good-humored man, who greeted Jack heartily. " Here, John, plates for two! You'll dine, of course, with your father's old friend." Jack's heart felt itself at home with this cordiality, and he at once entered into the history of his morning. The good and merry lawyer, who under- stood a joke, entered heartily, and with great bursts of laughter, into Jack's whim of still having his breakfast, and it was accordingly brought up, with an explanation to the waiter that "his friend here had got up so late, and kept such fashionable hours, that he must needs breakfast while he himself was dining." "And so," said the shrewd attorney, as the waiter was respectfully bowing himself out, " no harm's done, and now peg away." Jack did not wait for a second bidding. The bread and butter was at last actually before him, not so thick as he had pictured it, but as the waiter had turned his back three slices could be rolled into one. This arrangement was accordingly made the mouth was ready to swallow — enter Mr. Goodall! "Breakfast is abolished for me," thought Jack, laying down the bread and butter, " there's no such thing. Henceforth I will not attempt it." The lawyer and Mr. Goodall were well known to each other s but what had brought him thither wa3 a confused story. He had somehow heard of a Mr. Abbott having ordered 168 Selections for Heading. three breakfasts and having been taken to jail. He had followed him up from place to place till he found him in the tavern. "I'm very glad indeed, sir, to find you so comfortably situated, after the story that half-witted fellow of a waiter told me at the coffee-house. But don't let me interrupt your tea, I beg of you!' 5 "Luckiest of innocent fancies." thought our hero, "he thinks Fm at tea! 53 He plunged again at the bread and butter. He was really breakfasting! "I beg your par- don/' he said, with his mouth full. "Fm eating a little too fast, — but may I trouble you for that loaf ? These slices are very thin, and Fm so ravenously hungry. " Jack doubled his thin slices; he took huge bites; he swilled his tea. as he had sworn he would; he had eggs on one side of him, ham on the other, his friends before him, and was as happy as a prince escaped from a foreign land: and when he had at length finished, talking and laughing all the while, or hearing talk and laughter, he pushed the break- fast-cup aside, and chuckled to himself, "Fve had it! Breakfast hath been mine! And now, my dear Mr. Pallin- son, I'll take a glass of your port!" Selections for Reading. 169 APOSTEOPHE TO THE OCEAN. Lord Byron. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be or have been before, To mingle with the Universe and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean— roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin — his control Stops with the shore! — upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction, thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: — there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take 170 Selections for Reading. Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-— Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: — not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — Time writes no wrinkle on th} T azure brow — Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests: in all time, Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving;— boundless, endless, and sublime — The image of Eternity — the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made : each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. A H1STOEICAL ADDKESS. Daniel Webster. TJkborh ages and visions of glory crowd upon my soul,, the realization of all which, however, is in the hands and good pleasure of Almighty God; but, under His divine blessing, it will be dependent on the character and the vir- tues of ourselves, and of our posterity. If classical history has been found to be, is now, and shall continue to be, the concomitant of free institutions and of popular eloquence, Selections for Reading. 171 what a field is opening to us for another Herodotus, an- other Thucydides, and another Livy! And let me say, gentlemen, that if we and our pos- terity shall be true to the Christian religion — if we and they shall live always in the fear of God, and shall respect His commandments — if we and they shall maintain just, moral sentiments, and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life, — we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country; and if we maintain those institutions of government and that political union, exceeding all praise as much as it exceeds all former examples of political associations, we may be gure of one thing— that, while our country furnishes ma- terials for a thousand masters of the historic art, it will afford no topic for a Gibbon. It will have no Decline and Fall. It will go on prospering and to prosper. But, if we and our posterity reject religious instruc- tion and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us, that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity. Should that catastrophe happen,, let it have no history ! Let the horrible narrative never be written! Let its fate be like that of the lost books of Livy, which no human eye shall ever read; or the missing Pleiad, of which no man can ever know more, than that it is lost, and lost forever! But, gentlemen, I will not take my leave of you in a tone of despondency. We may trust that Heaven will not forsake us, nor permit us to forsake ourselves. We must strengthen ourselves, and gird up our loins with new reso- lution; we must counsel each other; and, determined to sustain each other in the support of the Constitution, pre* 172 Selections for Reading. pare to meet manfully, and united, whatever of difficulty or of danger, whatever of effort or of sacrifice, the provi- dence of God may call upon us to meet. Are we of this generation so derelict, have we so little of the blood of our revolutionary fathers coursing through our veins, that we cannot preserve what they achieved ? The world will cry out " shame" ujfon us, if we show our- selves unworthy to be the descendants of those great and illustrious men, who fought for their liberty, and secured it to their posterity, by the Constitution of the United States. Gentlemen, inspiring auspices, this day, surround us and cheer us. It is the anniversary of the birth of Wash- ington. We should know this, even if we had lost our calendars, for we should be reminded of it by the shouts of joy and gladness. The whole atmosphere is redolent of his name; hills and forests, rocks and rivers, echo and re- echo his praises. All the good, whether learned or un- learned, high or low, rich or poor, feel, this day, that there is one treasure common to them all, and that is the fame and character of Washington. They recount his deeds, ponder over his principles and teachings, and resolve to be more and more guided by them in the future. To the old and the young, to all born in the land, and to all whose love of liberty has brought them from foreign shores to make this the home of their adoption, the name of Washington is this day an exhilarating theme. Americans by birth are proud of his character, and exiles from foreign shores are eager to participate in admiration of him; and it is true that he is, this day, here, every- where, all the world over, more an object of love and re- gard than on any day since his birth. Gentlemen, on Washington's principles, and under Selections for Reading, 173 the guidance of his example, will we and our children up- hold the Constitution. Under his military leadership our fathers conquered; and under the outspread banner of his political and constitutional principles will we also conquer. To that standard we shall adhere, and uphold it through evil report and through good report. We will meet danger, we will meet death, if they come, in its protection; and we will struggle on, in daylight and in darkness, ay, in the thickest darkness, with all the storms which it may bring with it, till ' Danger's troubled night is o'er And the star of Peace return." OITK COMMON SCHOOLS. Edward Everett. Sir, it is our common schools which give the keys of knowledge to the mass of the people. Our common schools are important in the same way as the common air, the common sunshine, the common rain — invaluable for their commonness. They are the cornerstone of that municipal organization which is the characteristic feature of our social system; they are the fountain of that wide- spread intelligence which, like a moral life, pervades the country. From the humblest village school there may go forth a teacher who, like Newton, shall bind his temples with the stars of Orion's belt; with Herschel, light up his cell with the beams of before-undiscovered planets; with Franklin, grasp the lightning. Columbus, fortified with a few sound geographical principles, was, on the deck of his crazy caravel, more truly the monarch of Castile and 174 Selections for Reading. Aragon than Ferdinand and Isabella, enthroned beneath the golden vaults of the conquered Alhambra. And Robinson, with the simple training of a rural pastor in England, when he knelt on the shores of Delft Haven, and sent his little flock upon their Gospel errantry be- yond the world of waters, exercised an influence over the destinies of the civilized world which will last to the end of time. Sir, it is a solemn, a tender, and sacred duty, that of education. What, sir, feed a child's body, and let his soul hunger! pamper his limbs and starve his faculties! Plant the earth, cover a thousand hills with your droves of cattle, pursue the fish to their hiding-places in the sea, and spread out your wheatfields across the plain, in order to supply the wants of that body which will soon be as cold and as senseless as the poorest clod, and let the pure spiritual essence within you, with all its glorious capaci- ties for improvement, languish and pine! What! build factories, turn in rivers upon the water-wheels, enchain the imprisoned spirits of steam, to weave a garment for the body, and let the soul remain unadorned and naked! What! send out your vessels to the farthest ocean, and make battle with the monsters of the deep, in order to obtain the means of lighting up your dwellings and work- shops, and prolonging the hours of labor for the meat that perisheth, and permit that vital spark which God has kindled, which He has intrusted to our care, to be fanned into a bright and heavenly flame — permit it, I say, to languish and go out! What considerate man can enter a school, and not re- flect with awe, that it is a seminary where immortal minds are training for eternity? What parent but is, at Selections for Heading. 175 times, weighed down with the thought that there must be laid the foundations of a building which will stand, when not merely temple and palace, but the perpetual hills and adamantine rocks on which they rest, have melted away! — that a light may there be kindled, which will shine, not merely when every artificial beam is ex- tinguished, but when the affrighted sun has fled away from the heavens! I can add nothing, sir, to this con- sideration. I will only say, in conclusion, Education — when we feed that lamp, we perform the highest social duty! If we quench it, I know not where (humanly speaking), for time or for eternity: " I know not where is that Promethean heat That can its light relume! " THE CLASSIC POETS. Henry Nelson Coleridge. I AM not one who has grown old in literary retirement, devoted to classical studies with an exclusiveness which might lead to an overweening estimate of those two noble languages. Few, I will not say evil, were the days allowed to me for such pursuits, and I was constrained, still young and an unripe scholar, to forego them for the duties of an active and laborious profession. They are now amusements only, however delightful and improving. Far am I from assuming to understand all their riches, all their beauty, or all their power ; yet I can profoundly feel their immeasur- able superiority to all we call modern, and I would fain think that there are many even among my young readers 176 Selections for Beading. who can now, or will hereafter, sympathize with the expres- sion of my ardent admiration. Greek, — the shrine of the genius of the old world; as uni* versal as our race, as individual as ourselves; of infinite flexi- bility, of indefatigable strength, with the complication and the distinctness of nature herself; to which nothing was vulgar, from which nothing was excluded; speaking to the ear like Italian, speaking to the mind like English; with words like pictures, with words like the gossamer film of the summer; at once the variety and picturesqueness of Homer, the gloom and the intensity of iEschylus; not com- pressed to the closest by Thucydides, not fathomed to the bottom by Plato, not sounding with all its thunders, nor lit up with all its ardors, even under the Promethean touch of Demosthenes! And Latin, — the voice of empire and of war, of law and of the state; inferior to its half-parent and rival in the embodying of passion and in the distinguishing of thought, but equal to it in sustaining the measured march of history, and superior to it in the indignant declamation of moral satire; stamped with the mark of an imperial and despotizing republic; rigid in its construction, parsimonious in its synonymes; reluctantly yielding to the flowery yoke of Horace, although opening glimpses of Greek-like splendor in the occasional inspirations of Lucretius; proved, indeed, to the uttermost by Cicero, and by him found wanting; yet majestic in its bareness, impressive in its conciseness; the true language of History, instinct with the spirit of nations, and not with the passions of individuals; breathing the maxims of the world and not the tenets of the schools; one and uniform in its air and spirit, whether touched by the stern and haughty Sallust, by the open and discursive Livy, by the reserved and thoughtful Tacitus. Selections for Reading. Ill These inestimable advantages, which no modern skill can wholly counterpoise, are known and felt by the scholar alone. He has not failed, in the sweet and silent studies of his youth, to drink deep at those sacred fountains of all that is just and beautiful in human language. The thoughts and the words of the master-spirits of Greece and Rome are inseparably blended in his memory; a sense of their marvel- lous harmonies, their exquisite fitness, their consummate polish, has sunken forever in his heart, and thence throws out light and fragrancy upon the gloom and the annoyances of his maturer years. No avocations of professional labor will make him abandon their wholesome study; in the midst of a thousand cares he will find an hour in which to recur to his boyish lessons, — to re-peruse them in the pleasurable consciousness of s old associations and in the clearness of manly judgment, and to apply them to himself and to the world with superior profit. The more extended his sphere of learning in the literature of modern Europe, the more deeply, though the more wisely, will he reverence that of classical antiquity; and in declining age, when the appetite for magazines and reviews and the ten times repeated trash of the day has failed, he will retire, as it were, within a circle of schoolfellow friends, and end his studies, as he began tbem, with his Homer, his Horace, and his Shake- speare. THE WINE-CUP. Lycius, the Cretan prince, of race divine, Like many a royal youth, was fond of wine; So, when his father died and left him king, He spent his days and nights in reveling. Show him a wine-cup, he would soon lay down His scepter, and for roses change his crown, 178 Selections for Reading. Neglectful of his people and his state, The noble cares that make a monarch great. One day in summer — so the story goes — Among his seeming friends, but secret foes, He sat, and drained the wine-cup, when there came A gray-haired man, and called him by his name, " Lycius! " It was his tutor, Philocles, Who held him when a child upon his knees. " Lycius," the old man said, " it suits not you To waste your life among this drunken crew. Bethink you of your sire, and how he died For that bright scepter lying by your side, And of the blood your loving people shed To keep that golden circlet on your head. Ah! how have you repaid them? " " Philocles," The prince replied, " what idle words are these? I loved my father, and I mourned his fate; But death must come to all men, soon or late. Could we recall our dear ones from their urn, Just as they lived and loved, 'twere well to mourn; But since we can not, let us smile instead; I hold the living better than the dead. My father reigned and died, I live and reign. As for my people, why should they complain? Have I not ended all their deadly wars, Bound up their wounds, and honored their old scars? They bleed no more, — enough for me and mine. The blood o' th' grap-3,— the ripe, the royal wine! Slaves, fill my cup again! " They filled, and crowned His brow with roses, but the old man frowned. " Lycius," he said once more, " the state demands Something besides the wine-cup in your hands; Resume your crown and scepter, — be not blind: Kings live not for themselves, but for mankind." "Good Philocles," the shamed prince replied, His soft eye lighting with a flash of pride, "Your wisdom has forgotten one small thing — I am no more your pupil, but your king. Selections for Beading. 179 Kings are in place of gods; remember, then, They answer to the gods, and not to men." " Hear, then, the gods, who speak to-day through me, The sad but certain words of prophecy: 4 Touch not the cup; small sins in kings are great, Be wise in time, nor further tempt your fate/" " Old man! there is no fate, save that which lies In our own hands, that shapes our destinies; It is a dream. If I should will and do A deed of ill, no good could thence ensue; And willing goodness, shall not goodness be Sovereign, like ill, to save herself and me? I laugh at fate." The wise man shook his head: " Remember what the oracles have said: * What most he loves, who rules this Cretan land, Shall perish by the wine-cup in his hand/ " " Prophet of ill! no more, or you shall die! See how my deeds shall give your words the lie, And baffle fate, and all who hate me — so! " Sheer through the casement, in the court below, He dashed the half -drained goblet in disdain, That scattered as it flew a bloody rain; His courtiers laughed. But now a woman's shriek Rose terrible without, and blanched his cheek. He hurried to the casement in a fright, And, lo! his eyes were blasted with a sight Too pitiful to think of — deatl) was there, And wringing hands, and madness, and despair! There stood a nurse, and on her bosom lay A dying child, whose life-blood streamed away, Reddening its robe like wine! It was his own, His son, the prince that should have filled the throne When he was dead, and ruled the Cretan land, — Slain by the wine-cup from his father's hand! 180 Selections for Heading. THE MUSIC OF THE TELEGEAPH WIEES. Hekry D. Thoreau. As I went under the new telegraph wire, I heard it ribrating like a harp high oyer head; it was as the sound of a far-off glorious life, a supernal life which came down to us and vibrated the lattice-work of this life of ours — an iEolian harp. It reminded me, I say, with a certain pathetic moderation, of what finer and deeper stirrings I was susceptible. It said, Bear in mind, child, and never for an instant forget, that there are higher planes of life than this thou art now travelling on. Know that the goal is distant, and is upward. There is every degree of in- spiration, from mere fulness of life to the most rapt mood. A human soul is played on even as this wire; I make my own use of the telegraph, without consulting the directors, like the sparrows, which, I observe, use it extensively for a perch. Shall I not, too, go to this office? The sound pro- ceeds from near the posts, where the vibration is apparently more rapid. It seemed to me as if every pore of the wood was filled with music. As I put my ear to one of the posts, it labored with the strains, as if every fibre was affected, and being seasoned or timed, rearranged accord- ing to a new and more harmonious law; every swell and change and inflection of tone pervaded it, and seemed to proceed from the wood, the divine tree of wood, as if its very substance was transmuted. What a recipe for preserving wood, to fill its pores with music ! How this wild tree from the forest, stripped of its bark and set up here, rejoices to transmit this music. Selections for Reading. 181 When no melody proceeds from the wire, I hear the hum within the entrails of the wood, the oracular tree, acquir- ing, accumulating the prophetic fury. The resounding wood — how much the ancients would have made of it! To have had a harp on so great a scale, girdling the very earth, and played on by the winds of every latitude and longitude, and that harp were (so to speak) the manifest blessing of Heaven on a work of man's. Shall we not now add a tenth muse to those immortal nine, and consider that this inven- tion was most divinely honored and distinguished, upon which the muse has thus condescended to smile — this magic medium of communication with mankind? To read that the ancients stretched a wire round the earth, attaching it to the trees of the forest, on which they sent messages by one named Electricity, father of Lightning and Magnetism, swifter far than Mercury — the stern com- mands of war and news of peace; and that the winds caused this wire to vibrate, so that it emitted a harp-like and iEolian music in all the lands through which it passed, as if to express the satisfaction of the gods in this invention ! And this is fact, and yet we have attributed the instru- ment to no god. I hear the sound working terribly with- in. When I put my ear to it anon it swells into a clear tone, which seems to concentrate in the core of the tree, for all the sound seems to proceed from the wood. It is as if you had entered some world-cathedral, resounding to some vast organ. The fibres of all things have their ten- sion, and are strained like the strings of a lyre. I feel the very ground tremble underneath my feet, as I stand near the post. The wire vibrates with great power, as if it would strain and rend the wood. What an awful and fate- ful music it must be to the worms in the wood. No better vermifuge were needed. As the wood of an old cremona, 182 Selections for Reading. its every fibre, perchance, harmoniously transposed and educated to resound melody, has brought a great price, so methinks these telegraph posts should bear a great price with musical-instrument makers. It is prepared to be the material of harps for ages to come; as it were., put asoak in and seasoning in music. SHAJRED. Lucy Larcom. I said it in the meadow-path, I said it on the mountain-stairs; The best things any mortal hath Are those which every mortal shares. The air we breathe, the sky, the breeze, The light without us and within, Life, with its unlocked treasuries, God's riches, are for all to win. The grass is softer to my tread For rest it yields unnumbered feet; Sweeter to me the wild rose red, Because she makes the whole world sweet Into your heavenly loneliness Ye welcomed me, O solemn peaks! And me in every guest you bless Who reverently your mystery seeks. And up the radiant peopled way That opens into worlds unknown, It will be life's delight to say, "Heaven is not heaven for me alone. * Selections for Reading. 183 Rich through my brethren's poverty! Such wealth were hideous! I am blest Only in what they share with me, In what I share with all the rest. — Good Company. HISTOEY. James Anthony Fkoude. Histoky, the subject with which my own life has been mainly occupied, is concerned as much as science with ex- ternal facts. History depends upon exact knowledge; on the same minute, impartial, discriminating observation and analysis of particulars which is equally the basis of science. Historical facts are of two kinds; the veritable outward fact — whatever it was that took place in the order of things — and the account of it which has been brought down to us by more or less competent persons. The first we must set aside altogether. The eternal register of human action is not open to inspection; we are concerned wholly with the second, which are facts also, though facts different in kind from the other. The business of the historian is not with immediate realities which we can see or handle, but with combinations of reality and human thought which it is his business to analyze and separate into their component parts. So far as he can distinguish successfully he is a historian of truth; so far as he fails, he is the historian of opinion and tradition. It is, I believe, a received principle in such sciences as deal with a past condition of things, to explain everything, 184 Selections for Beading. wherever possible, by the instrumentality of causes which are now in operation. Geologists no longer ascribe the changes which have taken place in the earth's surface either to the interference of an external power or to vio- lent elemental convulsions, of which we have no experience. Causes now visibly acting in various parts of the universe will interpret most, if not all, of the phenomena; and to these it is the tendency of science more and more to ascribe them. In the remotest double star which the telescope can divide for us, we see working the same familiar forces which govern the revolutions of the planets of our own system. The spectrum analysis finds the vapors and the metals of earth in the aurora and in the nucleus of a comet. Similarly we have no reason to believe that in the past con- dition of the earth, or of the earth's inhabitants, there were functions energizing of Avhich we have no modern counterparts. At the dawn of civilization, when men began to observe and think, they found themselves in possession of various faculties — first their five senses, and then imagination, fancy, reason, and memory. They did not distinguish cue from the other. They did not know why one idea of which they were conscious should be more true than an- other. They looked round them in continual surprise, conjecturing fantastic explanations of all they saw and heard. Their traditions and their theories blended one into another, and their cosmogonies, their philosophies, and their histories are all alike imaginative and poetical. It was never perhaps seriously believed as a scientific reality that the sun was the chariot of Apollo, or that Saturn had devoured his children, or that Siegfred had been bathed in the dragon's blood, or that earthquakes and volcanoes were Selections for Reading. 185 caused by buried giants, who were snorting and tossing in their sleep; but also it was not disbelieved. The original historian and the original man of science was alike the poet. Before the art of writing was in- vented, exact knowledge was impossible. The poet's business was to throw into beautiful shapes the current opinions, traditions, and beliefs; and the gifts required of him were simply memory, imagination, and music. Each celebrated minstrel sang his stories in his own way, adding to them, shaping them, coloring them, as suited his pecu- liar genius. The Iliad of Homer, the most splendid com- position of this kind which exists in the world, is simply a collection of ballads. The tale of Troy was the heroic story of Greece, which every tribe modified or re-arranged. The chronicler is not a poet like his predecessor. He does not shape out consistent pictures with a beginning, a middle, and an end. He is a narrator of events and he connects them on a chronological string. He professes to be relating facts. He is not idealizing; he is not singing the praises of heroes: he means to be true in the literal and commonplace sense of that ambiguous word. Yet in his earlier phases, take him in ancient Egypt or Assyria, in Greece or in Rome, or in modern Europe, he is but a step in advance of his predecessor. He never speculates about causes; but on the other hand he is uncritical. He takes unsuspectingly the materials which he finds ready to his hand — the national ballads, the romances, and the biogra- phies. Thus the chronicle, however charming, is often nothing but poetry taken literally and translated into prose. It grows, however, and improves insensibly with the growth of the nation, and becomes at last perhaps the very best kind of historical writing which has yet been pro- duced. 186 Selections for Reading. Neither history nor any other knowledge can be obtained except by scientific methods. A constructive philosophy of it, however, is as yet impossible, and for the present, and for a long time to come, we shall be confined to ana- lysis. First one cause and then another has interfered from the beginning of time with a correct and authentic chronicling of events and actions. Superstition, hero-wor- ship, ignorance of the laws of probability; religious, politi- cal, or speculative prejudice — one or other of these has tended from the beginning to give us distorted pictures. The most perfect English history which exists is to be found in my opinion in the historical plays of Shakespeare. In these plays, rich as they are in fancy and imagination, the main bearings of the national story are scrupulously adhered to, and whenever attainable, verbal correctness. Shakespeare's object was to exhibit as faithfully as he pos- sibly could the exact character of the great actors in the national drama, the circumstances which surrounded them, and the motives, internal and external, by which they were influenced. Shakespeare's attitude towards human life will become again attainable to us only when intelligent people can return to an agreement on first principles; when the common sense of the wisest and best among us has superseded the theorizing of parties and factions; when the few but all-important truths of our moral condition, which can be certainly known, have become the exclusive rule of our judgments and actions. Selections for Heading. 18? LOSSES, Frances Brown, Upon the white sea-sand There sat a pilgrim band Telling the losses that their lives had known, While evening waned away From breezy cliff and bay And the strong tides went out with weary moan. One spake with quivering lip Of a fair freighted ship With all his household to the deep gone down. But one had wilder woe — For a fair face, long ago Lost in the darker depths of a great town. There were who mourned their youth With a most loving ruth, For its brave hopes and memories ever green j And one upon the west Turned an eye that would not rest, For far-off hills whereon its joy had been. Some talked of vanished gold, Some of proud honors told, Some spake of friends that were their trust no more? And one of a green grave Beside a foreign wave, That made him sit so lonely on the shore. But when their tales were done There came among them one, A stranger seeming from all sorrow free; " Sad losses have ye met, But mine is heavier yet; For a believing heart has gone from me," 188 Selections for Reading. " Alas!" these pilgrims said, " For the living and the dead — For fortune's cruelty, for love's sure cross, For the wrecks of land and sea. But, howe'er it came to thee, Thine, stranger, is life's last and heaviest loss." THE SEA. M. J. MlCHELET. The imaginative Orientals call the sea the Night of the Depths. In all the antique tongues from India to Ireland, the synonymous or analogous name of the sea is either Night or Desert. Descend to even a slight depth in the sea and the beauty and brilliancy of the upper light are lost; you enter into a persistent twilight and misty and half-lurid haze; a little lower and even that sinister and eldritch twilight is lost, and all around you is night, showing nothing, but suggest- ing everything that darkness — hand-maiden of terrible fancy — can suggest. Above, below, all around, darkness, utter darkness, save when, from time to time, the swift and gracefully terrible motion of some passing monster of the deep makes "darkness visible" for a brief moment and then that passing gleam leaves you in darkness more dense,, more utter, more terrible than ever. Immense in its ex- tent, enormous in its depth, that mass of waters which covers the greater part of our globe seems in truth a great world of shadows and of gloom. And it is that which above all at once fascinates and intimidates us. Darkness and Fear! Twin sisters, they! In the early clay ; the at Selections for Reading. 189 once timid and unreasoning childhood of our race, men imagined that where no Light was neither could there be Life; that in the unfathomed depths there was a black, life- less, soundless Chaos; above, naught but water and gloom; beneath, sand and shells, the bones of the wrecked mariner, the rich wares of the far-off, ruined, and yainly bewailing merchant — those sad treasures of that " ever-receiving and never-restoring treasury — the Sea." Opaque, heavy, mighty, merciless, your sea is a liquid Polyphemus, a blind giant that cares not, reasons not, feels not, but hits a terribly hard blow. Not a nation upon the earth but has its tales and traditions of the sea. Homer and the Arabian Nights have handed down to us a goodly number of those frightful legends of shoals, of tempests, and of calms no less murderous than tempests — those calms during which the hardiest sailor agonizes, moans, loses all courage and all hope in the tortures of the hours, days, and even weeks — heaving upward and sinking downward, but never progressing a cable's length. The name given to the great African desert — The Abode of Terror — may be justly transferred to the sea. The bold- est sailors, Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the conquering Arabs who aspired to grasp the whole world, lured by what they heard of the Hesperides and the land of gold, sailed out of the Mediterranean to the wide ocean, but soon were glad to seek their port again. The gloomy line eternally covered with clouds and mist which they found keeping their stem watch intimidated them. They lay to; they hesitated; from man to man ran the murmur, " It is the Sea of Darkness," — and then back went they to port, and there told to wondering landsmen what wonders they had seen and what horrors they had imagined. Woe to him who shall persist in his sacrilegious espionage of that dread 190 Selections for Reading. region! On one of those weird and far isles stands a sternly threatening Colossus whose menace is, "Thus far thou hast come; farther thou shalt not go!" The sublimity of the early navigators lay in their blind courage and desperate resolution. They knew but little of the sea, and of the heavens they knew still less; the com- pass their only instructor and their only reliance, they dared the most alarming phenomena without being able even to guess at their causes. They had none of our instru- ments which speak to us so plainly and so unmistak- ably. They went blindfolded towards, and fearlessly into, the uttermost darkness. They themselves confess that they feared, but also that they would not yield. The sea's tem- pests; the air's whirlwinds and waterspouts; the tragic dia- logues of those two oceans, air and water; the striking and, not so long since, ominous phenomena of the Aurora Bore- alis, — all this strange and wild phantasmagoria seemed to them the fury of irritated nature, a veritable strife of demons against which men could dare all — as they did — but could do — what they also did — nothing. A great age, a Titanic age, the nineteenth century, has coolly, intelligently, and sternly noted all those phenomena which the old navigators braved but did not examine. In this century it is that we for the first time have dared to look the Tempest squarely, fearlessly, and scrutinizingly in the eyes. Its premonitory symptoms, its characteristics, its results, each and all have been calmly watched, carefully and systematically registered. From that registration naturally comes explanation and generalization, and thence the grand, bold, and, as our not very distant ancestors would have said, impious system — the Law of Storms! So! What we took — what we in the old, bold, but blind day took for matter of caprice is really, after all, reducible Selections for Heading. 191 to a system, obedient to a law! So! Then those terrible facts that made the brain swim and the heart quail, because fighting shadows and walking in darkness, — so! then those terrible facts have a certain regularity of occurrence, and the seaman, resolute and strong, calmly considers whether he cannot oppose to those regular attacks a defence no less regular. This is truly sublime. The Tempest is not abolished, but ignorance, bewilderment, that terrible bewilderment born of danger and darkness, are abolished. At least if the seaman of the present day perish, he can know the why and wherefore. Great is the safeguard of calm, clear presence of mind with soul and intellect unruffled and re- signed to whatever may be the effect of the great divine laws of the world, which at the expense of a few shipwrecks produce Safety and Equilibrium. "THE REVENGE :" A BA.LLAD OF THE FLEET. Alfred Tennyson. i. At Flores, in the Azores, Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away: "Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!" Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: " 'Fore God I am no coward; But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick. We are six ships of the line ; can we fight with fifty-three ?" n. Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are no coward; You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore. I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard, To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain." 192 Selections for Reading. in. So Lord Howard passed away with five ships of war that day, Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven; But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land Very carefully and slow, Men of Bideford in Devon, And we laid them on the ballast down below; For we brought them all aboard, And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain, To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord. IV. He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight, And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight, With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow. "Shall we fight or shall we fly? Good Sir Richard, let us know, For to fight is but to die! There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set." And Sir Richard said again: " We be all good English men. Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil, For I never turned my back upon Don or devil yet." v. Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared a hurrah, and so The little " Revenge" ran on sheer into the heart of the foe, With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below; For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen, And the little "Revenge" ran on through the long sea lane between. VI. Thousands of their soldiers looked down from their decks and laughed, Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft Running on and on, till delayed By their mountain-like " San Philip" that, of fifteen hundred tons, And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns, Took the breath from our sails, and we stayed. Selections for Heading. 193 VII. And while now the great " San Philip" hung above us like a cloud Whence the thunderbolt will fall Long and loud, Four galleons drew away From the Spanish fleet that day, And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, And the battle-thunder broke from them all. VIII. But anon the great " San Philip," she bethought herself and went Slaving that within her womb that had left her ill-content; And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand* For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers, And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears When he leaps from the water to the land. IX. And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came, Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame; Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame. r For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so could fight us no more — God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before? x. For he said, ''Fight on! fight on!" Though his vessel was all but a wreck; And it chanced that, when half of the summer night was gone, With a grisly wound to be dressed he had left the deck, But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead, And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head, And he said, "Fight on! fight on!" 194 Selections for Reading. XI. And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the sum^ mer sea, And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring; But they dared not touch us again, for they feared that we still could sting, So they watched what the end would be. And we had not fought them in vain, But in perilous plight were we, Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain, And half of the rest of us maimed for life In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife; And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold, And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent; And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side; But Sir Richard cried in his English pride, " We have fought such a fight for a day and a night As may never be fought again ! We have won great glory, my men! And a day less or more At sea or ashore, We die — does it matter when? Sink me the ship, Master Gunner — sink her, split her in twain! Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain !" XII. And the gunner said, "Ay, ay," but the seamen made reply: " We have children, we have wives, And the Lord hath spared our lives. We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go; We shall live to fight again and to strike another blow." And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe. XIII. And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then, Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last, And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace* But he rose upon their decks, and he cried : Selections for Reading. 195 " I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true; I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do: With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!" And he fell upon their decks, and he died. XIV. And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true, And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap That he dared her with one little ship and his English few; AVas he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew, But they sank bis body with honor down into the deep, And they manned the " Revenge" with a swarthier alien crew, And away she sailed with her loss and longed for her own; When a wind from the lands they had ruined awoke from sleep, And the water began to heave and the weather to moan, And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew, And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew, Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags, And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot- shattered navy of Spain, And the little "Revenge" herself went down by the island crags To be lost evermore in the main. CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP. T. De Witt Talmage. Ephesus was upside down. The manufacturers of silver boxes for holding heathen images had collected their labor- ers together to discuss the behavior of one Paul, who had been in public places assaulting image worship, and conse- quently very much damaging their business. There was a great excitement in the city. People stood in knots along the street, violently gesticulating, and calling one another 196 Selections for Heading. hard names. Some of the people favored the policy of the silversmiths; others the policy of Paul. Finally they called a convention. When they assembled they all wanted the floor, and all wanted to talk at once. Some wanted to de- nounce, some to resolve. At last the convention rose in a body, all shouting together, till some were red in the face and sore in the throat, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Great is Diana of the Ephesians !" Well, the whole scene reminds me of the excitement we witness at the autumnal elections. While the goddess Diana has lost her worshippers, our American people want to set up a god in place of it and call it political party. While there are true men, Christian men, standing in both political parties, who go into the elections resolved to serve their city, their state, their country, in the best possible way, yet in the vast majority it is a question between the peas and the oats. One party cries, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" and the other party cries, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" when in truth both are crying, if they were but honest enough to admit it, " Great is my pocket- book!" What is the duty of Christian citizenship? If the Nor- wegian boasts of his home of rocks, and the Siberian is happy in his land of perpetual snow; if the Roman thought the muddy Tiber was the favored river of heaven, and the Chinese pities everybody born out of the Flowery Kingdom, shall not we, in this land of glorious liberty, have some thought and love for country? There is a power higher than the ballot-box, the gubernatorial chair, or the Presi- dent's house. To preserve the institutions of our country we must recognize this power in our politics. See how men make every effort to clamber into higher positions, but are cast down. God opposes them. Every /Selections for Beading. 19? man, every nation, that proved false to divine expectation, down it went. God said to the house of Bourbon, " Ee- model France and establish equity." It would not do it. Down it went. God said to the house of Stuart, "Make the people of England happy." It would not do it. Down it went. He said to the house of Hapsburgh, " Eeform Austria and set the prisoners free." It would not do it. Down it went. He says to men now, " Keform abuses, enlighten the people, make peace and justice to reign. They don't do it, and they tumble down. How many wise men will go to the polls high with hope and be sent back to their fire- sides! God can spare them. If he could spare Washing- ton before free government was tested; Howard, while tens of thousands of dungeons remained unvisited; Wilberforce, before the chains had dropped from millions of slaves, — then Heaven can spare another man. The man who for party forsakes righteousness, goes down, and the armed battalions of God march over him. THE LEAK IK THE DIKE. A Story of Holland. Phcebe Cary. The good dame looked from her cottage At the close of the pleasant day, And cheerily called to her little son Outside the door at play: " Come, Peter, come! I want you to go, While there is light to see, To the hut of the blind old man who lives Across the dike, for me, 198 Selections for Reading. And take these cakes I made for him, They are hot and smoking yet; You have time enough to go and come Before the sun is set. " Then the good wife turned to her labor, Humming a simple song, And thought of her husband working hard At the sluices all day long; And set the turf ablazing, And brought the coarse black bread, That he might find a fire at night, And see the table spread. And Peter left the brother With whom all day he had played, And the sister who had watched their sports In the willow's tender shade. And told them they'd see him back before They saw a star in sight, Though he wouldn't be afraid to go In the very darkest night! For he was a brave, bright fellow, With eye and conscience clear; He could do whatever a boy might do, And he had not learned to fear. Why, he wouldn't have robbed a bird's nest; Nor brought a stork to harm, Though never a law in Holland Had stood to stay his arm! And now with his face all glowing, And eyes as bright as the day. With thoughts of his pleasant errand He trudged along the way. And soon his joyous prattle Made glad a lonesome place — Alas! if only the blind old man Could have seen that happy face! Selections for Readin . 199 Yet he somehow caught the brightness Which his voice and "presence lent ; And he felt the sunshine come and go As Peter came and went. And now, as the day was sinking And the winds began to rise, The mother looked from her door again, Shading her anxious eyes ; And saw the shadows deepen, And birds to their homes come back, But never a sign of Peter Along the level track. But she said: "He will come at morning, So I need not fret or grieve, Though it isn't like my boy at all To stay without my leave." But where was the child delaying? On the homeward way was he, And across the dike while the sun was up An hour above the sea. He was stooping to gather flowers, And listening to the sound, As the angry waters dashed themselves Against their narrow bound. " Ah, well for us," said Peter, " That the gates are good and strong, And my father tends them carefully, Or they would not hold you long. You're a wicked sea," said Peter; "I know why you fret and chafe: You would like to spoil our lands and homes, But our sluices keep you safe!" But hark ! Through the noise of waters Comes a low, clear, trickling sound; And the child's face pales with terror, And his blossoms fall to the ground. 200 Selections for Reading. He is up the bank in a moment, And, stealing through the sand, He sees a stream not yet so large As his slender, childish hand. Tis a leak in the dike ! He is but a boy, Unused to fearful scenes, But young as he is he has learned to know The dreadful thing that means. A leak in the dike ! The stoutest heart Grows faint that cry to hear, And the bravest man in all the land Turns white with mortal fear. For he knows the smallest leak may grow To a flood in a single night; And he knows the strength of the cruel sea When loosed in its angry might. And the boy? He has seen the danger, And, shouting a wild alarm, He forces back the weight of the sea With the strength of his single arm. He hears the rough winds blowing, And the waters rise and fall, But never a call comes back to him In answer to his call. He sees no hope, no succor, His feeble voice is lost; Yet what shall he do but watch and wait Though he perish at his post? The good dame in the cottage Is up and astir with the light, For the thought of her little Peter Has been with her all the night. And now she watches the pathway As yester eve she had done ; But what does she see so strange and black Against the rising sun? Selections for Reading. 201 Her neighbors are bearing between them Something straight to her door. Her child is coming home — but not As he ever came before! " He is dead!" she cries. " My darling!" And the startled father hears, And comes to look the way she looks, Fearing the thing she fears. Till a glad shout from the bearers Thrills the stricken man and wife — " Give thanks, for your son has saved our land And God has saved his life!" So there in the morning sunshine They knelt about the boy; And every head was bared and bent In tearful, reverent joy. 'Tis many a year since then ; but still When the sea roars like a flood, Their boys are taught what a boy can do Who is brave and true and good. For every man in that country Takes his own son by the hand, And tells him of little Peter, Whose courage saved the land. They have many a valiant hero, Remembered through the years, But never one whose name so oft Is named with loving tears. And his deed shall be sung by the cradie And told to the child on the knee, So long as the dikes of Holland Divide the land from the sea* 202 Selections for Heading. PARTKIDGE AT THE PLAY. Heney Fielding. Ik the first row, then, of the first gallery, did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge take their places. Partridge immediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music was played, he said, " It was a wonder how so many fid- dlers could play at one time without putting one another out." Nor could he help observing, with a sigh, when all the candles were lighted, "That here were candles enough burned in one night to keep an honest poor family for a twelvemonth." As soon as the play, which was Hamlet, Prince of Den- mark, began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entrance of the Ghost, upon which he asked Jones, "What man that was in the strange dress, some- thing," said he, "like what I have seen in a picture. Sure it is not armor, is it?" Jones answered, "That is the Ghost." To which Partridge replied with a smile, " Per- suade me to that, sir, if you can. Though I can't say I ever actually saw a ghost in my life, yet I am certain I should know one if I saw him better than that comes to. No, no, sir; ghosts don't appear in such dresses as -that neither." In this mistake, which caused much laughter in the neighborhood of Partridge, he was suffered to con- tinue till the scene between the Ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick which he had de- nied to Jones, and fell into so violent a trembling that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior Selections for Reading. 203 on the stage. "Oh, la! sir/ 3 said lie, " I perceive now it is what you told me. I am not afraid of anything, for I know it is but a play, and if it was really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much com- pany: and yet if I was frightened, I am not the only per- son." "Why, who," cries Jones, "dost thou take to be such a coward here beside thyself?" "Nay, you may call me coward if you will; but if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw any man frightened in my life. Ay, ay; go along with you! Ay, to be sure! Who's fool then? Will you? Lud have mercy upon such foolhardiness! Whatever happens, it is good enough for you. Follow you! I'd follow the devil as soon. Nay, per- haps it is the devil — for they say he can put on what like- ness he pleases. Oh! here he is again. No farther! No, you have gone far enough already; farther than I'd have gone for all the king's dominions." Jones offered to speak, but Partridge cried, "Hush, hush, dear sir! don't you hear him?" And during the whole speech of the Ghost, he sat with his eyes fixed partly on the Ghost and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open; the same passions which succeeded each other in Hamlet succeeding likewise in him. When the scene was over, Jones said, "Why, Partridge, you exceed my expectations. You enjoy the play more than I conceived possible." "Nay, sir," answered Part- ridge, "if you are not afraid of the devil, I can't help it; but, to be sure, it is natural to be surprised at such things, though I know there is nothing in them: not that it was the Ghost that surprised me neither; for I should have known that to have been only a man in a strange dress; but when I saw the little man so frightened himself, it was that which took hold of me." "And dost thou imagine 204 Selections for Reading. then, Partridge/' cries Jones, "that he was really fright- ened?" "Nay, sir/' said Partridge, " did not you yourself observe afterwards, when he found it was his own father's spirit, and how he was murdered in the garden, how his fear forsook him by degrees, and he was struck dumb with sorrow, as it were, just as I should have been, had it been my own case? But hush! Oh la! what noise is that? There he is again. Well, to be certain, though I know there is nothing at all in it, I am glad I am not down yon' der where those men are." During the second act, Partridge made very few remarks. He greatly admired the fineness of the dresses; nor could he help observing upon the King's countenance. " Well," said he, " how people may be deceived by faces! Nulla fides fronti is, I find, a true saying. Who would think, by looking in the King's face, that he had ever committed a murder?" He then inquired after the Ghost ; but Jones, who intended he should be surprised, gave him no other satisfaction than "that he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash of fire." Partridge sat in fearful expectation of this; and now, when the Ghost made his next appearance, Partridge cried out, "There, sir, now; what say you now; is he frightened now or no? As much frightened as you think me, and to be sure nobody can help some fears; I would not be in so bad a condition as — what's his name? — Squire Hamlet is there, for all the world. Bless me! what's become of the spirit? As I am a living soul, I thought I saw him sink into the earth." "Indeed, you saw right," answered Jones. "Well, well," cries Partridge, "I know it's only a play; and besides, if there was anything in all this, Madam Miller would not laugh so; for as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, I believe, if the devil was here in person. Selections for Reading. 205 There, there; ay, no wonder you are in such a passion; shake the vile, wicked wretch to pieces. If she was my own mother, I should serve her so. To be sure, all duty to a mother is forfeited by such wicked doings. Ay, go about your business; I hate the sight of you." Our critic was now pretty silent till the play which Ham- let introduces before the King. This he did not at first understand, till Jones explained it to him; but he no ooner entered into the spirit of it, than he began to bless himself that he had never committed murder. Then turn- ing to Mrs. Miller, he asked her, " If she did not imagine the King looked as if he was touched; though he is," said he, "a good actor, and doth all he can to hide it. Well, I would not have so much to answer for as that wicked man there hath, to sit upon a much higher chair than he sits upon. No wonder he ran away; for your sake Til never trust an innocent face again." The grave-digging scene next engaged the attention of Partridge, who expressed much surprise at the number of skulls thrown upon the stage. To which Jones answered, " That it was one of the most famous burial-places about town." " No wonder, then," cries Partridge, " that the place is haunted. But I never saw in my life a worse grave- digger. I had a sexton when I was clerk that should have dug three graves while he is digging one. The fellow han- dles a spade as if it was the first time he had ever had one in his hand. Ay, ay, you may sing. You had rather sing than work, I believe." Upon Hamlet's taking up the skull, he cried out, " Well, it is strange to see how fearless some men are: I never could bring myself to touch any- thing belonging to a dead man on any account. He seemed frightened enough too at the Ghost, I thought." Little more worth remembering occurred during the play, 206 Selections for Reading. f at the end of which Jones asked him, " Which of the play- ers he had liked best?" To this he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, " The King, without doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are ail agreed that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage." " He the best player!" cries Part- ridge, with a contemptuous sneer; " why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, be- tween him and his mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why, any man, that is any good man, that had such a mother, would have done exactly the same. I know you are only joking with me; but, indeed, madam, though I was never at a play in London, yet I have seen acting be- fore in the country; and the King for my money; he speaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as the other- Anybody may see he is an actor." THE TEEES IN WINTEK. Florence Griswold. I think the trees are no less beautiful in winter than in summer. When the leaves are gone we can see the graceful outlines, the exquisite curves, the variety of angles, the heavy line of the trunks and the hair-lines of the twigs. As I sit in my western window, the peace- ful winter sunset forms a background of pale gold and tender blue, and the faint peach-blow tint which almost melts one to tears. On this evening sky are outlined Selections for Reading. 207 sturdy oaks and spreading elms and slender maples, a whole trigonometry of angles. There are the sharp angles from which Gothic art learned to make the pointed arch, and swelling curves, and the right angles of the oak. It is a somewhat curious fact that the oak is the only tree whose branches are perpendicular to the trunk, and to each other. So its square, heavy outline is very different from the netted branch-work of the elm, or the brush-like sweep of the narrow poplar. When the glory of the sky fades away and the liquid evening star rises calmly over the scene, and the moon- light makes the snow like a bed of crystallized sunbeams, the trees cast stately shadows on the white earth, but send their sharp spires still, in silent aspiration, toward heaven. The winter tree is the image of man's naked soul. When the garb of leaves is thick and beautiful, we love the shining surfaces and deep colors, but we do not see the direction of growth. But when the green garment has dropped off, we can see that the tree — that every slightest twig — is aimed at heaven. Upward, higher and higher, outgrowing wounds and bruises, the tree points ever toward the sky, as the soul of man is ever reaching upward toward the true, the beautiful, and the good! THE ESSENTIALS OF TBUE REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. Alexander H. Stephens. A youxg man starting out in life on his majority, with health, talent, and ability, under a favoring Providence, mav be said to be the architect of his own fortunes. 208 Selections for Beading. If he plants himself upon truth, integrity, honor, and uprightness, with industry, patience, and energy, he can- not fail of success. So it is with us. We are a young republic, just entering upon the arena of nations; we will be the architects of our own fortunes. With wisdom, pru- dence, and statesmanship on the part of our public men, and intelligence, virtue, and patriotism on the part of the people, success, to the full measure of our most sanguine hopes, may be looked for. But if unwise counsels prevail — if we become divided — if schisms arise — if dissensions spring up — if factions are engendered — if party spirit, nourished by unholy personal ambition, shall rear its hydra head, I have no good to prophesy for you. Without intelligence, virtue, integrity, and patriotism on the part of the people, no republic or representative government can be durable or stable. HOW TO EEAD. Johk Kuskist. I will try to bring before you only a few simple thoughts about reading which press themselves upon me every day more deeply as I watch the course of the public mind with respect to our daily enlarging means of education and the answeringly wider spreading on the levels of the irrigation of literature. A book is written not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows no one has yet said it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously, if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life ho Selections for Reading. 21 9 finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; this the piece of true knowledge or sight which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down forever; engrave it on a rock, if he could, saying, " This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate and drank and slept and loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapor and is not. But this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing;" it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his in- scription or scripture. That is a "Book." There seems to you and me no reason why the electric forces of the earth should not carry whatever there is of gold within it at once to the mountain-top, so that kings and people might know that all the gold they could get was there; and without any trouble of digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste of time, cut it away and coin as much as they needed. But Nature does not manage it so. She puts it in little fissures in the earth, nobody knows where; you may dig long and find none; you must dig painfully to find any. And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When you come to a good book you must ask yourself, "Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and my temper? "And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, — the metal you are in search of being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. Your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and learning; your smelt- ing furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to 210 Selections for Reading. get at any good author's meaning without those tools and that fire. And therefore, first of all, I tell you, earnestly and authoritatively — I know I am right in this — you must get into the habit of looking intensely at words and assur- ing yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable, nay, letter by letter. You might read all the books in the British Museum if you could liye long enough, and remain an utterly uneducated person; but if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, that is to say with real ac- curacy, you are forever more in some measure an educated person. The entire difference between education and non- education, as regards the merely intellectual part of it, con- sists in this accuracy. A well-educated gentleman may not know many languages — may not be able to speak any but his own — may have read very few books. But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly. But an uneducated person may know by memory any number of languages, and talk them all, and yet truly not know a word of any — not a word even of his own. An ordinarily clever sea- man will be able to make his way ashore at most ports; yet he has only to speak a sentence of any language to be known for an illiterate person; so also the accent or turn of expression of a single sentence will at once mark a scholar. And this is so strongly felt, so conclusively ad- mitted by educated persons, that a false accent or mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliament of any civilized nation, to assign to a man a certain degree of inferior standing for- ever. And this is right; but it is a pity that the accuracy insisted on is not greater, and required to a serious purpose. It is right that a false Latin quantity should excite a smile in the House of Commons, but it is wrong that a false English meaning should not excite a frown there. Let the Selections for Heading. 211 accent of words be watched, by all means, but let their meaning be watched more closely still, and fewer will do the work. JSTearly every word in our language has been first a word in some other language — Saxon, German, French, Latin, or Greek. Many words have been all these, that is to say have been Greek first, Latin next, French or German next, and English last; undergoing a certain change of sense and use on the lips of each nation; but retaining a deep, vital meaning which all good scholars feel in employing them even at this day. If you do not know your Greek alpha- bet, learn it; young or old, boy or girl, whoever you may be, if you think of reading seriously, learn your Greek alphabet; then get good dictionaries of all these languages, and whenever you are in doubt about a word, hunt it down patiently. It is severe work, but you will find it, even at first, interesting and at last endlessly amusing; while the general gain to your character in power and precision will be quite incalculable. — Sesame and Littles. PEESS ON! Park Benjamin. Press on! there's no such word as fail! Press nobly on! the goal is near, — Ascend the mountain! breast the gale! Look onward, upward, — never fear! Why shouldst thou faint? Heaven smiles above, Though storm and vapor intervene; That sun shines on, whose name is Love, Serenely o'er Life's shadowed scene. Press on! Surmount the rocky steeps, Climb boldly o'er the torrent's arch; 212 Selections for Reading. He fails alone who feebly creeps, — He wins who dares the hero's march. Be thou a hero ! let thy might Tramp on eternal snows its way, And through the ebon walls of night Hew down a passage unto day. Press on! If once or twice thy feet Slip back and stumble, harder try; From him who never dreads to meet Danger and Death, they're sure to fly. In coward ranks the bullet speeds; While on their breasts who never quail, Gleams, guardian of chivalric deeds, Bright courage, like a coat-of-mail. Press on! If Fortune play thee false To-day, to-morrow she'll be true; Whom now she sinks, she now exalts, Taking old gifts, and granting new. The wisdom of the present hour Makes up for follies past and gone; To weakness strength succeeds, and power From frailty springs. Press on! press on! Press bravely on, and reach the goal, And gain the prize, and wear the crown; Faint not! for to the steadfast soul Come wealth and honor and renown. To thine own self be true, and keep Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil; Press on ! and thou shalt surely reap A heavenly harvest for thy toil. Selections for Reading. 213 PATKIOTISM. Fisher Ames. Is patriotism a narrow affection for the spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where we tread en- titled to this ardent preference because they are greener? No, this is not the character of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, ming- ling with all the enjoyments of life and twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see, not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our country's honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his own and cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense, and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it. THE WATERS AND THE SHADOW. Victor Hugo. A M Aisr overboard ! What matters it? the ship does not stop. The wind is blowing; that dark ship must keep on her destined course. She passes away. The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges and rises again to the surface; he calls, he stretches out his hands. They hear him not; the ship, staggering under the gale, is straining every rope; the sailors and passengers see the drowning man no longer; his miserable head is but a point in the vastness of the billows. He hurls cries of despair into the depths. What a spectre 214 Selections for Beading. is that disappearing sail! He looks upon it; he looks upon it with frenzy. It moves away; it grows dim; it dimin- ishes. He was there but just now; he was one of the crew; he went and came upon the deck with the rest; he had his share of the air and of the sunlight; he was a living man. Now, what has become of him? He slipped, he fell; and it is finished. He is in the monstrous deep. He has nothing under his feet but the yielding, fleeing element. The waves, torn and scattered by the wind, close round him hideously; the rolling of the abyss bears him along; shreds of water are flying about his head; a populace of waves spit upon him; confused openings half swallow him; when he sinks he catches glimpses of yawning precipices full of darkness; fearful unknown vegetations seize upon him, bind his feet, and draw him to themselves; he feels that he is becoming the great deep; he makes part of the foam; the billows toss him from one to the other; he tastes the bitterness; the greedy ocean is eager to devour him; the monster plays with his agony. It seems as if all this were liquid hate. But yet he struggles. He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he struggles; he swims. He — that poor strength that fails so soon — he combats the unfailing. Where now is the ship ? Far away yonder. Hardly visible in the pallid gloom of the horizon. The w T ind blows in gusts; the billows overwhelm him. He raises his eyes, but sees only the livid clouds. He, in his dying agony, makes part of this immense insanity of the sea. He is tortured to his death by its immeasurable madness. He hears sounds which are strange to man, sounds which seem to come not from earth, but from some frightful realm beyond. Selections for Reading. 215 There are birds in the clouds even as there are angels aboye human distresses, but what can they do for him ? They fly, sing, and float, while he is gasping. He feels that he is buried at once by those two infinities, the ocean and the sky; the one is a tomb, the other a pall. Night descends. He has been swimming for hours; his strength is almost exhausted. That ship, that far-off thing, where there were men, is gone. He is alone in the terrible gloom of the abyss; he sinks, he strains, he struggles; he feels beneath him the shadowy monsters of the unseen; he shouts. Men are no more. Where is God? He shouts. Help! help ! He shouts incessantly. Nothing in the horizon. Nothing in the sky. He implores the blue yault, the waves, the rocks; all are deaf. He supplicates the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the infinite. Around him are darkness, storm, solitude, wild and un- conscious tumult, the ceaseless tumbling of the fierce waters; within him, horror and exhaustion; beneath him, the engulfing abyss. No resting-place. He thinks of the shadowy adventures of his lifeless body in the limitless gloom. The biting cold paralyzes him. His hands clutch spasmodically and grasp at nothing. Winds, clouds, whirl- winds, blasts, stars, all useless ! What shall he do ? He yields to despair; worn out, he seeks death; he no longer resists; he gives himself up; he abandons the contest, and he is rolled away into the dismal depths of the abyss forever. implacable march of human society ! Destruction of men and of souls marking its path! Ocean, where fall all that the law lets fall ? Ominous disappearance of aid! moral death ! The sea is the inexorable night into which the penal law casts its victims. The sea is the measureless misery. The 216 Selections for Reading, soul drifting in that sea may become a corpse. Who shall restore it to life? — Les Miser aMes. NOBILITY. Alice Cary. True worth is in being, not seeming, In doing each day that goes by Some little good — not in the dreaming Of great things to do by and by. For whatever men say in blindness And spite of the fancies of youth, There's nothing so kingly as kindness, And nothing so royal as truth. We get back our mete as we measure, We cannot do wrong and love right; Nor can we give pain and get pleasure, For justice avenges each slight. The air for the wing of the sparrow, The bush for the robin and wren; But al way the path that is narrow And strait for the children of men. 'Tis not in the pages of story The heart of its ills to beguile, Though he that pays tribute to glory Gives all that he hath for her smile; For when from her heights he has won her, Alas! it is only to prove That nothing's so sacred as honor, And nothing so loyal as love. We cannot make bargains for blisses, Nor catch them like fishes in nets; And sometimes the thing our life misses Helps more than the thing which it gets. Selections for Reading, 2 1 For good lieth not in pursuing Nor gaining of great nor of small. But just in the doing, — and doing As we would be done by is all. Through envy, through malice, through hating, Against the world, early and late, No jot of our courage abating, Our part is to work and to wait. And slight is the sting of his trouble Whose winnings are less than his worth; For he who is honest is noble, Whatever his fortunes or birth. A THANKSGIVING GROWL. Eleanor Kirk. Oh, dear! do put some more chips on the fire, And hurry up that oven! Just my luck To have the bread slack. Set that pie up higher, And for goodness' sake do clear this truck Away! Frogs' legs and marbles on my moulding-board! What next, I wonder? John Henery, wash your face, And do get out from under foot! " Afford More cream"? Used what you had? If that's the case, Skim all the pans. Do step a little spryer! I wish I hadn't asked so many folks To spend Thanksgiving. Good gracious! poke the fire, And put some water on. Dear how it smokes! I never was so tired in all my life ! And there's the cake to frost, and dough to mix For tarts. I can't cut pumpkin with this knife! Some women's husbands know enough to fix The kitchen tools; but for all mine would care I might tear pumpkin with my teeth. John Henery! If you don't plant yourself on that ere chair 218 Selections for Beading. I'll set you down so hard that you'll agree You're stuck for good! Them cranberries are sour, And taste like gall besides. Hand me some flour, And do fly round! John Henery, wipe your nose] I wonder how 'twill be when I am dead? "How my nose'll be"? Yes. how your nose'll be! And how your back '11 be! If that ain't red, I'll miss my guess. I don't expect you'll see — You nor your father neither — what I've done And suffered in this house. As true's I live Them pesky fowls ain't stuffed! The biggest one Will hold two loaves of bread. Say, wipe that sieve And hand it here. You are the slowest poke In all Yairmouut! Lor! There's Deacon Gobbin's wife! She'll be here to-morrow. That pan can soak A little while. I never in my life Saw such a lazy critter as she is! If she stayed home there wouldn't be a thing To eat. You bet she'll fill up here! " It's riz"? Well, so it has. John Henery! Good king! How did that boy get out? • You saw him go With both fists full of raisins, and a pie Behind him, and you never let me know? There! you've talked so much I clean forgot the rye, I wonder, if the Governor had to slave As I do, he would be so pesky fresh about Thanksgiving-day? He'd be in his grave With half my work. What! get along without An Indian pudding? Well, that Avould be A novelty. No friend or foe shall say I'm close, or haven't as much variety As other folks ! There ! I think I see my way Quite clear. The onions are to peel — let's see: Turnips, potatoes, apples there to stew; This squash to bake, and lick John Henery, And after that I really think I'm through. Selections for Reading. 219 SOUND AND SENSE. Eobert Chambers. That, in the formation of language, men have been much influenced by a regard to the nature of the things and ac- tions meant to be represented, is a fact of which every known speech gives proof. In our own language, for in- stance, who does not perceive in the sound of the words thunder, boundless, terrible, a something appropriate to the sublime ideas intended to be conveyed? In the word crash we hear the very action implied. Imp, elf, — how descrip- tive of the miniature beings to which we apply them ! Fairy, — how light and tripping, just like the fairy herself! — the word, no more than the thing, seems fit to bend the grass- blade, or shake the tear from the blue-eyed flower. Pea is another of those words expressive of light, diminu- tive objects; any man born without sight and touch, if such ever are, could tell what kind of thing a pea was from the sound of the word alone. Of picturesque words, sylvan and crystal are among our greatest favorites. Sylvan ! — what visions of beautiful old sunlit forests, w T ith huntsmen and bugle-horns, arise at the sound! Crystal! — does it not glitter like the very thing it stands for? Yet crystal is not so beautiful as its own adjective. Crystalline! — why, the whole mind is lightened up with its shine. And this supe- riority is as it should be; for crystal can only be one com- paratively small object, while crystalline may refer to a mass — to a world of crystals. It will be found that natural objects have a larger propor- tion of expressive names among them than any other things. 220 Selections for Reading. The eagle, — what appropriate daring and sublimity! the dove, — what softness! the linnet, — what fluttering gentle- ness! "'That which men call a rose" would not by any other name, or at least by many other names, smell as sweet. Lily, — what tall, cool, pale, lady-like beauty have we here! Violet, jessamine, hyacinth, anemone^, geranium! —beauties, all of them, to the ear as well as the eye, The names of the precious stones have also a beauty and magnificence above most common things. Diamond, sap- phire, amethyst, beryl, ruby, agate, pearl, jasper, topaz, garnet, emerald, — what a casket of sparkling sounds! Dia- dem and coronet glitter with gold and precious stones, like the objects they represent. It is almost unnecessary to bring forward instances of the fine things which are represented in English by fine words. Let us take any sublime passage of our poetry, and we shall hardly find a word which is in- appropriate in sound. For example: The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. The "gorgeous palaces," " the solemn temples," — how ad- mirably do these lofty sounds harmonize with objects! The relation between the sound and sense of certain words is to be ascribed to more than one cause. Many are evidently imitative representations of the things, move- ments, and acts which are meant to be expressed. Others, in which we only find a general relation, as between a beau- tiful thing and a beautiful word, a ridiculous thing and a ridiculous word, or a sublime idea and a sublime word, must be attributed to those faculties, native to every mind, Selections for Beading. 221 which enable us to perceive and enjoy the beautiful, the ridiculous, and the sublime. Doctor Wall is, who wrote upon English grammar in the reign of Charles II. , represented it as a peculiar excellence of our language that, beyond all others, it expressed the nature of the objects which it names by employing sounds sharper, softer, weaker, stronger, more obscure, or more stridulous, according as the idea which is to be suggested requires. He gives various examples. Thus, words formed upon st always denote firmness and strength, analogous to the Latin stoj as, stand, stay, staff, stop, stout, steady, stake, stamp, etc. Words beginning with str intimate violent force and en- ergy; as, strive, strength, stress, stripe, etc. Thr implies forcible motion; as, throw, throb, thrust, threaten, thral- dom, thrill: gl, smoothness or silent motion; as, glib, glide: ivr, obliquity or distortion; as, wry, wrest, wrestle, wring, wrong, wrangle, wrath, etc.: sw, silent agitation, or lateral motion; as, sway, swing, swerve, sweep, swim: si, a gentle fall or less observable motion; as, slide, slip, sly, slit, slow, slack, sling: sp, dissipation or expansion; as, spread, sprout, sprinkle, split, spill, spring. Terminations in ash indicate something acting nimbly and sharply; as, crash, dash, rash, flash, lash, slash: ter- minations in ash, something acting more obtusely and dully; as crush, brush, hush, gush, blush. The learned author produces a great many more examples of the same kind, which seem to leave no doubt that the analogies of sound have had some influence on the formation of words. At the same time, in all speculations of this kind there is so much room for fancy to operate that they ought to be adopted with much caution in forming any general theory. 222 Selections for Heading. NEW EVERY MORNING. Susan Coolidge. Every day is a fresh beginning, Every morn is the world made new, You who are weary of sorrow and sinning, Here is a beautiful hope for you; A hope for me and a hope for you. All the past things are past and over, The tasks are done and the tears are shed. Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover; Yesterday's wounds, which smarted and bled, Are healed with the healing which night has shed. Yesterday now is a part of forever, Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight, With glad days, and sad days, and bad days which never Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight, Their fulness of sunshine or sorrowful night. Let them go, since we cannot re-live them, Cannot undo and cannot atone; God in his mercy receive, forgive them; Only the new days are our own. To-day is ours, and to-day alone. Here are the skies all burnished brightly, Here is the spent earth all re-born, Here are the tired limbs springing lightly To face the sun and to share with the morn In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn. Every day is a fresh beginning; Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain, And spite of old sorrow and older sinning, And puzzles forecasted and possible pain, Take heart with the day, and begin again. Selections for Reading. 223 THE POWER OF WORDS. Edwlnt P. Whipple. Words are most effective when arranged in that order which is called style. The great secret of a good style, we are told, is to have proper words in proper places. To marshal one's verbal battalions in such order that they must bear at once upon all quarters of a subject is cer- tainly a great art. This is done in different ways. Swift, Temple, Addison, Hume, Gibbon, Johnson, Burke, are all great generals in the discipline of their verbal armies and the conduct of their paper wars. Each has a system of tactics of his own, and excels in the use of some particular weapon. The tread of Johnson's style is heavy and sonorous, re- sembling that of an elephant or a mail-clad warrior. He is fond of levelling an obstacle by a polysyllabic battering- ram. Burke's words are continually practising the broad- sword exercise, and sweeping down adversaries with every stroke. Arbuthnot "plays his weapon like a tongue of flame." Addison draws up his light infantry in orderly array, and marches through sentence after sentence with- out having his ranks disordered or his line broken. Luther is different. His words are "half battles;" "his smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into the very secret of the matter." Gibbon's legions are heavily armed, and march with precision and dignity to the music of their own tramp. They are splendidly equipped, but a nice eye can discern a little rust beneath their fine apparel, and there are sutlers in his camp who lie, cog, and talk gross obscenity. Macaulay, brisk, lively, keen, and energetic, 224 Selections for Reading. runs his thoughts rapidly through his sentence, and kicks out of the way every word which obstructs his passage. He reins in his steed only when he has reached his goal, and then does it with such celerity that he is nearly thrown backward by the suddenness of his stoppage. Gilford's words are moss-troopers: they waylay innocent travellers and murder them for hire. Jeffrey is a fine " lance/' with a sort of Arab swiftness in his movement, and runs an iron-clad horseman through the eye before he has time to close his helmet. John Wilson's camp is a dis- organized mass, who might do effectual service under better discipline, but who under his lead are suffered to carry on a rambling and predatory warfare, and disgrace their gen- eral by flagitious excesses. Sometimes they steal, some- times swear, sometimes drink, sometimes pray. Swift's words are porcupine's quills, which he throws with unerring aim at whoever approaches his lair. All of Ebenezer Elliot's words are gifted with huge fists, to pum- mel and bruise. Chatham and Mirabeau throw hot shot into their opponents' magazines. Talfourd's forces are orderly and disciplined, and march to the music of the Dorian flute; those of Keats keep time to the tones of the pipe of Phoebus; and the hard, harsh-featured battalions of Maginn are always preceded by a brass band. Hallam's word-infantry can do much execution when they are not in each other's way. Pope's phrases are either daggers or rapiers. Willis's words are often tipsy with the champagne of the fancy, but even when they reel and stagger they keep the line of grace and beauty, and though scattered at first by a fierce onset from graver cohorts, soon reunite without wound or loss. John Neat's forces are multitudinous, and fire briskly at everything. They occupy all the provinces Selections or Beading. 225 of letters, and are nearly useless from being spread over too much ground. Everett's weapons are ever kept in good order, and shine well in the sun, but they are little calcu- lated for warfare, and rarely kill when they strike. Web- ster's words are thunder-bolts, which sometimes miss tjie Titans at whom they are hurled, but always leave enduring marks when they strike. Hazlitt's verbal army is sometimes drunk and surly, sometimes foaming with passion, sometimes cool and ma- lignant; but, drunk or sober, are ever dangerous to cope with. Some of Tom Moore's words are shining dirt, which he flings with excellent aim. This list might be indefi- nitely extended, and arranged with more regard to merit and chronology. My own words, in this connection, might be compared to ragged, undisciplined militia, which could be easily routed by a charge of horse, and which are apt to fire into each other's faces. THE LEGEXD OF THE TWO KIXGS. Robert Collyer. It was long ago and far away, In a summer palace — the legends say, Where the fragrance of roses and new-mown hay Was borne on the wind, while the plash and play Of water, from fountains sweet and clear, Rose and fell on the listening ear; And the singing of birds with the murmur of bees, Hidden away in the mulberry trees, Stole through a room where one lay still — The king of the land, on whose royal will All men waited in fear and awe, For the king was the fountain of life and law. 226 Selections for Heading. He had sat in his hall through the morning-tide, While the folk had come from far and wide, To the seat of justice, a wondrous throng, That the king might judge between right and wrong In each man's case, and make due award; While on right and left stood the royal guard, Silent and stern, with bated breath, To do his bidding for life or death. But now he was tired and wanted a nap, Just forty winks, so he donned his cap, Silken and soft, in exchange for his crown, Covered himself with a quilt of down, Said, " This feels nice," and shut his eyes, Bid them close the lattice to keep out the flies; And let none disturb him on peril of doom, In the cool retreat of his darkened room! But the king was to have no nap that day, Tired as he was and falling away To a slumber as sweet as labor can bring, For right through the silence came the ring Of many hammers struck on steel, Many and mighty, peal on peal Of stalwart strokes, from beyond the trees, Drowning the murmur of water and bees, On the summer wind from the mountain gorge, Where the master smith had built his forge. And this was the way the story ran: That before the times the oldest man Could remember, there had been a forge Standing there by the mountain gorge, Manned by the smiths from father to son, Steadily held and honestly won; Workers in iron since the day When the old bronze age had passed away; Shoeing the horse and forging the brand, Strong and sure, for the soldier's hand; Selections for Heading. 227 Turning the share and tiring the wheel, Master workmen in iron and steel; There they had stood from the oldest time, Toiling and moiling in smoke and grime, Upright and downright, steady and true, Doing the work God gave them to do. While the land had been held by chartered right Two hundred years— and maintained by might Of their good right hand, from father to son, Steadily held as honestly won; So that clear as the right of the king to his crown Was the right of the smith to have and to own Homestead and smithy, garden and croft, With all below and all aloft; As high as the stars and as deep as the fires, Full and free as the heart's desires; So ran the charter, fair to see, Dated 1010 a. d. But might makes right when kings grow white With anger, and the lurid light Burns in their eyes; men fear to see, Bending before the majesty Of one whose wrath is as the path Of the lion, from which all things flee. He tossed the cover away from his couch, And they say he swore, but I will not vouch For that, though we read kings have been known To swear in their wrath like the veriest clown; I only know he called the guard, Whose place it was to keep watch and ward, Bid them go forth and raze to the ground That forge, until no stone was found To stand on another, and bring the smith Into the royal presence forthwith, To hear his doom, who had dared to make This clamor, and keep their king awake. So, alas for the day, if " What shall he say Who comes after the king? " be Bible true, 228 Selections for Heading. For what shall befall, be you freeman or thrall, When the king in his wrath comes after you? Swiftly the guard went up to the glen, Tojbring the smith with his stalwart men Into the presence of majesty — And they answered no word, but quietly Came forth of the smithy into the hall, And ranged themselves against the wall. With leathern apron and grimy face, Each man stood in his proper place, Forgemen and strikers, a hundred strong To fight the battle of right with wrong; While the folk flocked in from far and near Strong in courage or stricken with fear; They crowded the palace to hear and see How the smith would answer his majesty. And this was the way he answered the king: " If right makes might, then my anvil's ring Must be heard all *the same in this good free land, For no royal word can stay the hand Of the smith in his forge, or royal might Silence anvil and hammer. I stand on my right. In the great old time they made this rhyme, And carved its runes on a stone: By hammer and hand All things do stand.' So I counsel thee let us alone; And if thou wouldst sleep while we work all day, Move thy new palace out of my way; For the smith in his forge is also a king, No matter what may befall, And when his hammer ceases to ring, Thy kingdom will go to the wall. " Who shoes the horse and forges the brand, Strong and sure for thy soldiers' hand, That thy foes may be met in the battle array? The master smith and his men, alway. Selections for Reading. 229 Who turns the share and tires the wheel? The master workman in iron and steel. Who forges the tools for mason and wright, To build thy walls, whose massive might Defies the foe and the tooth of time? The men of my craft, for whose sake the rhyme Was made and carven on the stone, The master smith and his men alone. There is my answer — now what say ye, Free-born men, to his majesty? " It was long ago and far away, To the east of sunrise— the legends say, When this thing was done, on a summer's day; And from that time forth, for ever and aye, This law was laid down for each and all, King and commoner, freeman or thrall: That wherever the smith shall set his forge, In town or village, by mountain or gorge, Holding the same by lawful right, And honestly working by the might Of his good right hand; That no matter what clamor He may happen to make with his anvil and hammer, He shall still be free to hold his own, And be proud of his cap as the king of his crown; Because, but for his making no thing could be made, And so none shall molest him or make him afraid; So the folk-mote laid down the law, and then It was signed and sealed with the great Amen! 230 Selections for Reading. WALTER SCOTT. Johk W. Chadwick. Scott's temple of fortune was already tottering to its base when the publication of " Waverley" in 1814 signal- ized a success so splendid that publisher and author ban- ished every doubt and entered on a new career. It is terrible to think how different Scott's impression on the world would have been if he had not discovered the mine of fiction in himself after he had exhausted the mine of poetry. "Rokebyand the Bride of Triermain" and the "Lord of the Isles" were decidedly inferior to their pre- decessors, and made a much fainter appeal to the public, first on account of their intrinsic inferiority, and second because they had gone with Childe Harold on his pilgrim- age. "Byron beats me in poetry/' said Scott. Would he had gone on writing with this consciousness of being beaten! This is not likely. But what a happy fortune was that which, when his poetic vein was running low and the public was turning from him to a new favorite, sent him one day to hunt for fishing-tackle, and so mixed up with it the first chapter of the novel which he had begun nine years before and broken off! There was in it the corner stone of such a temple of creative art as no writer of prose fiction up to that time had dreamed of building, not soaring high but wide extended, spacious, full of light and air for the most part, but not without mysterious crypts and dark recesses, and simply infinite in the variety and quaintness of its details of ornament. And oh, the multi- tude that have gathered neath this temple's roof, upon its floor where every step is on some hero's name, and found life better worth the living because of such a fair retreat, and thanked God for such a name as Walter Scott! Selections for Beading. 231 The wonderful success of the Waverleys on their first appearance, the wonderful rapidity with which they were brought out, the wonderful mystery that attended their publication — these things are commonplace to every one who knows the rudiments of English literature. There has been much discussion as to why Scott remained anony- mous so long. It is probable that he published Waverley anonymously because he did not wish to compromise his general literary reputation with a questionable success. But once having started on this course, he found that mys- tification was pleasant to him for its own sake, and he even dared to bring forward a new series after he had written Waverley, "Guy Mannering" and " The Antiquary/' as the work of a different author. But the yoice behind the mask was recognized at once. Still later, when his author- ship was an open secret, he found it pleasant travelling in cognito. receiving the substantial honors of a king, but able to spare himself much useless homage. And so it hap- pened that the avowal did not come till it was coupled with the news of his financial march. " Scott ruined! the author of the Waverleys ruined!" cried an enthusiastic admirer, "why if every one should give him sixpence where he has given months of pleasure, he would be as rich as Rothschild." So much fiction has been written since the time of Scott, and much of it has been so good, that it is not to be ex- pected that our enthusiasm for him should be equal to that which hailed the marvellous success of his stories with un- speakable delight. But consider a world in which there was as yet no Bulwer, no Dickens, no Charlotte Bronte, no Hawthorne, no Thackeray, and no George Eliot, and consider that the best that could be had was the sentimen- talism of Richardson or the coarseness of Fielding and 232 Selections for Reading. Smollett, or the claptrap of Mesdames Rutledge and Porter, or at best the easy grace and quiet humor of Jane Austen, or Maria Edgeworth's somewhat more vigorous and home- lier vein; and if you wonder, it will not be that Scott was read by our grandfathers with such vast delight, but rather that the delight was not more eager and intense. The public of sixty years ago did not, I think, deceive itself as to the merits of these books. It knew what it was about when it exhausted immediately an edition of 12,000 copies of one after another, and 12,000 copies then meant 36,000 volumes. It knew what it was about when it stayed at home on Sunday to read the new Waverley that had come out the night before; it knew what it meant when it sat up all night to read " Guy Mannering" or " Old Mortali- ty," and nothing slept but its gout. And all the readers did not lie on sofas, as in Carlyle's imaginary world. 'Prentice lads and sewing-women found a world of pure enjoyment here, after their work was done. The average happiness in Scotland and England from 1815 to 1830, and for a long time after, must have been raised many degrees by these novels. And not only the average of happiness, but the average of truth and purity, and humanity and generosity and active sympathy between man and man. Give men the means of innocent enjoyment, and you break the hold of vicious pleasures on their minds. Scott did this as few other men have done it in all literature. If he had amused only idle people, lying on sofas, as Carlyle imagines, he would still deserve our praise, for an ''idle brain is the devil's workshop," and these idle people might have done no end of mischief but for the Waverley novels. But who does not know that the novels have rested and cheered and blessed thousands and tens of thousands of men and women whose backs were bent with toil, and Selections for Reading. 233 whose hands were callous from those labors that maintain the state of the world? Scott wanted to see Abbotsford again before he died, and the physicians yielded to his importunities at last. It was almost as sad as Garfield's journey from the capital to the sea, this return of Scott to his beloved banks of the Tweed. We turn away from these last days. We do 'not care to see the oak that has battled with so many tempests tottering in its fall. " Be a good man," he said to Lockhart in one of his clearest moments; " be virtuous, be religious, be a good man." This was four days before the end. September the 21st the weather was glorious. Every window was open and the ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles was dis- tinctly audible in his rooms when those who w r atched him saw that death had come at last. " When he departed," says Carlyle, "he took a man's life along with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of time. Alas ! his fine Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity and goodness. We shall never forget it. We shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell." LONGING. James Russell Lowell. Of all the myriad moods of mind That through the soul come thronging, Which one was e'er so dear, so kind, So beautiful as Longing? The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment, Before the Present poor and bare Can make its sneering comment. 234 Selections for Heading. Still through our paltry stir and strife, Glows down the wished Ideal, And Longing molds in clay what Life Carves in the marble Real; To let the new life in, we know, Desire must ope the portal; — Perhaps the longing to be so Helps make the soul immortal. Longing is God's fresh heavenward will, With our poor earthward striving; "We quench it that we may be still Content with merely living; But would we learn that heart's full scope Which we are hourly wronging, Our lives must climb from hope to hope, And realize our longing. Ah! let us hope that to our praise Good God not only reckons The moments when we tread his ways, But when the spirit beckons, — That some slight good is also wrought Beyond self-satisfaction, When we are simply good in thought, Howe'er we fail in action. THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE, IN MACBETH. Thomas De Quikcey. Feom my bctyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point in Macbeth. It was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds to the murder of Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which I never could account. The effect was, that it reflected back upon the murder a peculiar awfulness and a depth of solemnity; yet, however Selections for Reading. 235 obstinately I endeavored with my understanding to com- prehend this, for many years I never could see why it should produce such an effect. Here I pause for one moment, to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his under- standing when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind, and the most to be distrusted; and yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else; which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophical purposes. My understanding could furnish no reason why the knocking at the gate in Macbeth should produce any effect, direct or reflected. In fact, my understanding said posi- tively that it could not produce any effect. But I knew better: I felt that it did; and I waited and clung to the problem until further knowledge should enable me to solve it. At length I solved it to my own satisfaction, and my solu.ion is this: Murder in ordinary cases, where the sym- pathy is wholly directed to the case of the murdered person, is an incident of coarse and vulgar horror; and for this reason, that it flings the interest exclusively upon the natural but ignoble instinct by which we cleave to life; an instinct which, as being indispensable to the primal law of self-preservation, is the same in kind (though different in degree) among all living creatures: this instinct, therefore, because it annihilates all distinctions, and degrades the greatest of men to the level of "the poor beetle that we tread on," exhibits human nature in its most abject and humiliating attitude. Such an attitude would little suit the purposes of the poet. What, then, must he do? He must throw, the interest on the murderer. Our sympathy must be with kim (of course I mean a sympathy of comprehension, a 236 Selections for Reading. sympathy by which we enter into his feelings and are made to understand them — not a sympathy of pity or approba- tion). In the murdered person all strife of thought, all flux and reflux of passion and of purpose, are crushed by one overwhelming panic: the fear of instant death smites him "with its petrific mace." But in the murderer — such a murderer as a poet will condescend to — there must be raging some great storm of passion— jealousy, ambition, vengeance, hatred : — which will create a hell within him; and into this hell we are to look. In Macbeth," for the sake of gratifying his own enormous and teeming faculty of creation, Shakspeare has introduced two murderers; and, as usual in his hands, they are re- markably discriminated: but, though in Macbeth the strife of mind is greater than in his wife — the tiger spirit not so awake, and his feelings caught chiefly by contagion from her, — yet, as both were finally involved in the guilt of murder, the murderous mind of necessity is finally to be presumed in both. This was to be expressed; and on its own account, as well as to make it a more proportionable antagonist to the unoffending nature of their victim, "the gracious Duncan," and adequately to expound "the deep damnation of his taking off," this was to be expressed with peculiar energy. We were to be made to feel that the human nature, i.e., the divine nature of love and mercy, spread through the hearts of all creatures, and seldom utterly withdrawn from man, was gone, vanished, extinct; and that the fiendish nature had taken its place. And, as this effect is marvellously accomplished in the dialogues and soliloquies themselves, so it is finally consummated by the expedient under consideration; and it is to this that I now solicit the reader's attention. All action in any direction is best expounded, measured, Selections for Reading. 237 and made apprehensible by reaction. Now apply this to the case in Macbeth. Here, as I have said, the retiring of the human heart and the entrance of the fiendish heart was to be expressed and made sensible. Another world has stepped in, and the murderers are taken out of the region of human things, human purposes, human desires. They are transfigured: Lady Macbeth is "unsexed;" Macbeth has forgot that he was born of woman: both are conformed to the image of devils; and the world of devils is suddenly revealed. But how shall this be conveyed and made pal- pable? In order that a new world may step in, this world must for a time disappear. The murderers and the murder must be insulated — cut off by an immeasurable gulf from the ordinary tide and succession of human affairs — locked up and sequestered in some deep recess; we must be made sen- sible that the world of ordinary life is suddenly arrested — laid asleep — tranced — racked into a dread armistice: time must be annihilated; relation to things without abolished; and all must pass self-withdrawn into a deep syncope and suspension of earthly passion. Hence it is that when the deed is done, when the work of darkness is perfect, then the world of darkness passes away like a pageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate is heard, and it makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced: the human has made its reflux upon the fiendish, the pulses of life are beginning to beat again, and the re-establishment of the goings-on of the world in which we live first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that had sus- pended them. mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art, but are also like the phenomena of nature — like the sun and the sea, 238 Selections for Reading. the stars and the flowers, like frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, — which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert; but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had seen nothing but accident. THE SCHOLAR IN PUBLIC LIFE. Chauncey M. Depew. Public life has been in all free states the highest and noblest of ambitions. To guide the Republic, command listening senates, and promote the national welfare fill the full measure of duty and fame. But the same causes which threaten solid learning have changed the repre- sentative opportunities. The energy of business, its ab- sorption of all classes, its demand for uninterrupted time and attention, and the increase of the cost of living have nowhere produced such marked effects as upon our states- manship. Hence, the halls of Congress are gradually filling up with wealthy men and professional placemen. The glorious school in which preceding generations were trained for grand careers is almost disbanded. Convictions yield to expediency, and the ability to guide and the courage to resist are leaving their accus- tomed seats. By combinations and cunning, mediocrity occupies positions it cannot fill, and the " machine" runs for the suppression of dangerous ability and the division of all dividends of honor and power among its Selections for Reading. 239 directors. The leaders are dependent upon followers who have no livelihood but office,- and who desert the setting, and worship the rising sun with a facility which sur- passes the Middle Age courtier, who cried, " The king is dead; long live the king! " There is not at this hour in public life a single recog- nized and undisputed leader of a great party, or the pro- genitor of accepted ideas. The Congressional Eecord is a morass of crudity and words whose boundless area and fathomless depths none have the courage to explore. The Washingtons, i^damses, and Jays of the first period, the Hamiltons, JefEersons, and Madisons of the second, the Websters, Clays, and Calhouns of the third, and the Sewards, Sumners, Chases, and Lincolns of the fourth have no successors of equal power and in- fluence. The debates of to-day are unread, but the utter- ances of these statesmen were the oracles of millions. Has the talent which made these men eminent died out? Oh, no. It is practicing law, editing newspapers, man- aging manufactories, mines, and commerce, building railroads, and directing transportation. If, then, those who fill the leaders' place cannot lead, so much greater the responsibility and duty which rest upon the liberally educated. Never fear but that, if they are true to their mission, whenever one of those mighty crises comes which threaten the stability of our institutions and demand the services of the loftiest patriotism and genius, from the ranks will spring other Websters and Clays to the council, other Sewards, Chases, and Stantons to the cabinet, other Lincolns to the Presi- dency, and other Grants, Shermans, Sheridans, and Thomases to the field. 240 Selections for Reading. We need have no regrets for the past, or anxiety for its return. No time is so good as the present, no period, no country so rich in liberty and opportunity as ours. The most radical, we are also the most conservative of states. We can canonize William Lloyd Garrison as a reformer, and dismiss Dennis Kearney as a demagogue. Genius, which was misunderstood or ignored or persecuted or put to death in its own time, receives the recognition and applause of ours. Plato was sold into slavery, and Socrates compelled to drink the hemlock. Cicero pleaded to bought juries; Sidney and Eussell, though heroes vith us, were martyrs in their own age. While even the earlier part of this century doubted and opposed the railroad, tried to prevent the introduc- tion of gas, and sneered at and fought the telegraph, this decade welcomes and encourages all invention and discov- ery, art and letters. Twenty years ago Emerson, the transcendentalist, and Darwin, the evolutionist, were alike the objects of almost universal sneers and scoffs; and now the world, assigning to each the highest place in his sphere, stands by reverently with bared head while the one is buried beneath the Concord elms, and the other is laid away in Westminster Abbey among England's mighty dead. A recent tragedy, which shocked and stilled the world, brought before his countrymen a glorious example of the scholar in public life. While performing with rigid ex- actness all the duties of his calling, he never neglected the claims the community had upon his citizenship and culture. He found time every day for his allotted lines from the classics and pages in some book of solid worth. When he enlisted in the army, he mastered the cur- Selections for Reading. 241 riculum of West Point in three months, and won Ken- tucky by crossing a swollen river, when the engineers could suggest no remedy, upon a bridge constructed from recollections of Caesar's Commentaries. He learned the French language to get readier access to the great works upon finance, when his Congressional duties de- manded a solution of that vital question; and reasoning from original principles, founded in his college life, im- pressed upon the Supreme Court of the United States a new bulwark of liberty. The broad foundation he laid at college, his loyalty ever after to learning, and the uses and duties of knowledge, developed the backwoods boy into the learned scholar, the good teacher, the successful sol- dier, the accomplished lawyer, the eloquent orator, the equipped statesman, and the lamented President — James A. Garfield. MACAULAY. William M. Punshon. It has not been an unfrequent charge against Macaulay that he had no heart. He who has no heart of his own cannot reach mine and make it feel. There are instincts in the soul of a man which tell him unerringly when a brother soul is speaking. Let me see a man in earnest, and his earnestness will kindle mine. I appky this test in the case of Macaulay. I am told of the greatest anatomist of the age suspending all speculations about the mastodon and all analyses of the lesser mammalia, beneath the spell of the sorcerer who drew the rout at Sedgemoor and the siege of Derry. I see Eobert Hall, 242 Selections for Beading. lying on his back at sixty years of age, to learn the Italian language, that he might verify Macaulay's descrip- tion of Dante, and enjoy the " Inferno " and the " Para- dise " in the original. Who cannot remember the strange, wild heart throbs with which he reveled in the description of the Puritans, and the first article Qn Bunyan? There is something in all this more than can be explained by artistic grouping or by the charms of style. The man has convictions and sympathies of his own, and the very strength of those convictions and sympathies forces an answer from the " like passions " to which he appeals. Critics charge him with carelessness, but it is in flip- pant words. If he is said to exaggerate, not a few of them out-Herod him. Moreover, for the very modes of their censorship they are indebted to him. They bend Ulysses' bow. They wield the Douglas brand. His style is antithetical, and therefore they condemn him in antith- eses. His sentences are peculiar, and they denounce him in his own tricks of phrase. There can be no greater compliment to any man. The critics catch the con- tagion of the malady which provokes their surgery. The eagle is aimed at by the archers, but " he nursed the pinion which impelled the steel. " Before Macaulay wrote, history for the masses of English readers w r as as the marble statue; he came, and by his genius struck the statue into life. We thank him that he has made history readable. We thank him that it is not in his page the bare recital of facts, names, and deeds inventoried as in auctioneer's catalogue, but a glowing portraiture of the growth of a great nation, and of the men who helped or hindered it. We thank him Selections for Beading. 243 that he has disposed forever of that shallow criticism, that the brilliant is always the superficial and unworthy, and that in the inestimable value of his work he has con- firmed what the sonorous periods of John Milton and the long-resounding eloquence of Jeremy Taylor, and the fiery passion tones of Edmund Burke had abundantly declared before him — that the diamond flashes with a rarer luster than the spangle. We thank him for the vividness of delineation by which we can see statesmen like Somers and Nottingham in their cabinets, marshals like Sarsfield and Luxembourg in the field, and men like Buckingham and Marlborough, who dallied in the council room and plotted at the revel. Above all, we thank Macaulay for the English-hearted- ness which throbs through his writings, and which was so marked a characteristic of his life. It may be well said of him, as he said of Pitt, " he loved his country as a Eoman the city of the Seven Hills, as an Athenian the city of the Violet Crown." How he kindles at each stirring or plaintive memory in the annals he was so glad to record! Elizabeth at Tilbury, the scattering of the fierce and proud Armada, the thrilling agony and bursting gladness which succeeded each other so rapidly at the siege of Derry, the last sleep of Argyle, the wrongs of Alice Lisle, the prayer upon whose breath fled the spirit of Algernon Sydney — they touch his very soul, and he recounts them with a fervor which becomes contagious, until his readers are thrilled with the same joy or pain. Not far from the place of his sepulture are the tablets of Gay, and Eowe, and Garrick, and Goldsmith. On his right, sleeps Isaac Barrow, the ornament of his own Trinity College; on his left, no clamor breaks the slumber 244 Selections for Reading. of Samuel Johnson. From a pedestal at the head of the grave, serene and thoughtful, Addison looks down. From the opposite sides Shakspere, the remembrancer of mortality, reminds us from his open scroll that the " great globe itself, and all that it inhabit, shall dissolve, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a rack behind "; and Handel, comforting us in our night of weeping by the glad hope of immortality, seems to listen while they chant forth his own magnificent hymn, " His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth forever- more." A UNION. Katherine Eggleston Junkermann. Once when the world was younger than now, Ere yet Time's hand had crossed her brow, On her hills there wandered and played with the breeze That tossed her curls and sang in the trees, A Maiden whose voice was sweeter than dreams, Whose hair more golden than the sun's beams. 'Twas she who sang when freezes blew, And wakened the echoes each day anew. She whispered and hummed when the raindrops fell, And laughed with the brooks in each flowery dell. She sang with the stars and the ocean, too, And coaxed each tiny bud that grew — And this maiden's name was Voice. In a dark cavern beneath a high mount, So still that one each moment might count, Dwelt a man on whose comely but stern-looking face Not a sign of a smile could one ever trace. In his cave where the ferns and the bullrushes grew, And where no soft, whispering zephyrs ever blew, Selections for Reading. 245 He sat and mused on the deepest things, And drew big squares and magical rings; But no sound ever came from those perfect lips That drank where the water of wisdom drips. Silent as death, still as the grave, He sat and dreamed in his fern-festooned cave — And this man was Thought. Once when Voice had tired of play, She slipped on the wings of Zephyr away. She sang so soft as he softly blew, And deeper and deeper the silence grew, Except for her sweet and soothing song, As they went through the dusky cavern along. Never before had they ventured here, But Voice's light heart knew no fear; She but sang the sweeter, and the gloomy old rocks From their stern lips lost the locks, And she kissed them and tossed her fair curls, Till they ceased to be such dull old churls. At length to the cavern of Thought they came And saw within the student's pale flame, And felt the silence, so still and deep, When Voice, of course, began to peep. She saw the dark and comely face; She saw the lines that deep thoughts trace. Then— the naughty creature! — she laughed out clear, And the strange, sweet sound fell on Thought's dull ear. Then the noiseless waters of Wisdom's stream Seemed to wake right up from their solemn dream, And babbled and gushed like silly girls, And curled themselves like Voice's curls. Then the little ferns began to nod, And the grass to sing in the silent sod, And the owl to hoot and fly about — And the very cavern seemed to shout. And Thought? He turned in vague surprise The cobweb of dreams still over his eyes, 246 Selections for Reading. Till he saw the fairy, dainty maiden, Her flowing locks with wild flowers laden, Her red lips smiling, her cheeks aglow — Ah, well! you guess the rest, I know. Then into the world of warmth and light, Voice led dull Thought with her laughter bright; And he learned to read 'neath the sun's bright beams Such wisdom as never had come in his dreams. And out of this union of Voice and Thought — These mystical lives together brought — Sprang that wonder of wonders, the great world's glory, That marvelous thing called " Oratory." THE ELEMENTS OP NATIONAL WEALTH. James G. Blaine. The territory which we occupy is at least three mil- lion square miles in extent, within a fraction as large as the whole of Europe. The State of Texas alone is equal in area to the empire of France and the kingdom of Portugal united; and yet these two monarchies support a population of forty millions, while Texas has but six hundred thousand inhabitants. The land that is still in the hands of government, not sold or even pre-empted, amounts to a thousand million of acres — an extent of ter- ritory thirteen times as large as Great Britain, and equal in area to all the kingdoms of Europe, Eussia, and Tur- key alone excepted. Combined with this great expanse of territory, we have facilities for the acquisition and consolidation of wealth — varied, magnificent, immeasurable. The single State of Illinois, cultivated to its capacity, can produce as large a crop of cereals as has ever been grown within the limits Selections for Reading. 247 of the United States, while Texas, if peopled but half as densely as Maryland even, could give an annual return of cotton larger than the largest that has ever been grown in all the Southern States combined. Our facilities for commerce and exchange, both domes- tic and foreign — who shall measure them? Our oceans, our vast inland seas, our marvelous flow of navigable streams, our canals, our network of railroads more than thirty thousand miles in extent — these give us avenues of trade and channels of communication both natural and artificial such as no other nation has ever enjoyed. Our mines of gold and silver and iron and copper and lead and coal, with their untold and unimaginable wealth, spread over millions of acres of territory, in the valley, on the mountain side, along rivers, yielding already a rich harvest, are destined yet to increase a thousandfold, until their everyday treasures, " . . . familiar grown, Shall realize Orient's fabled dream." These are the great elements of material progress, and they comprehend the entire circle of human enterprise — agriculture, commerce, manufactures, mining. They give into our hands, under the blessing of Almighty God, the power to command our fate as a nation. They hold out to us the grandest future reserved for any people; and with this promise they teach us the lesson of patience, and render confidence and fortitude a duty. With such amplitude and affluence of resources, and with such a vast stake at issue, we should be unworthy of our lineage and our inheritance if we for one moment distrusted our ability to maintain ourselves a united peo- ple, with " one country, one constitution, one destiny." 248 Selections for Reading. ELOQUENCE OP THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Rufus Choate. Men heard that eloquence in 1776, in that manifold and mighty appeal by the genius and wisdom of that new America, to persuade the people to take on the name of nation, and begin its life. By how many pens and tongues that great pleading was conducted; through how many months before the date of the actual Declaration, it went on, day after day; in how many forms, before how many assemblies, from the village newspaper, the more careful pamphlet, the private conversation, the town-meet- ing, the legislative bodies of particular colonies, up to the hall of the immortal old Congress, and the master intelli- gences of lion heart and eagle eye, that ennobled it — all this you know. But the leader in that great argument was John Adams of Massachusetts. He, by concession of all men, was the orator of that Revolution — the Revo- lution in which a nation was born. Other and renowned names, by written or spoken eloquence, co-operated effectively, splendidly, to the grand result — Samuel Adams, Samuel Chase, Jefferson, Henry, James Otis in an earlier stage. Each of these, and a hundred more, within circles of influence wider or narrower, sent forth, scattering broadcast, the seed of life in the ready virgin soil. Each brought some specialty of gift to the work: Jefferson, the magic of style, and the habit and the power of delicious dalliance with those large, fair ideas of free- dom and equality, so dear to man, so irresistible in that day; Henry, the indescribable and lost spell of the speech of the emotions, which fills the eye, chills the blood, turns Selections for Reading. 249 the cheek pale — the lyric phase of eloquence, the " fire- water," as Lamartine has said, of the Kevolution, in- stilling into the sense and the soul the sweet madness of battle; Samuel Chase, the tones of anger, confidence, and pride, and the art to inspire them. John Adams' elo- quence alone seemed to have met every demand of the time; as a question of right, as a question of pru- dence, as a question of immediate opportunity, as a question of feeling, as a question of conscience, as a question of historical and durable and innocent glory, he knew it all through and through, and in that mighty debate, which, beginning in Congress as far back as March or February, 1776, had its close on the second and on the fourth of July, he presented it in all its aspects, to every passion and affection, — to the burn- ing sense of wrong, exasperated at length beyond control by the shedding of blood; to grief, anger, self-respect; to the desire of happiness and of safety; to the sense of moral obligation, commanding that the duties of life are more than life; to courage, which fears God, and knows no other fear; to the craving of the colonial heart, of all hearts, for the reality and the ideal of country, and which cannot be filled unless the dear native land comes to be breathed on by the grace, clad in the robes, armed with the thunders, admitted an equal to the assembly of the nations; to that large and heroical ambition which would build states, that imperial philanthropy which would open to liberty an asylum here, and give to the sick heart, hard fare, fettered conscience of the children of the Old World, healing, plenty, and freedom to worship God, — to these passions, and these ideas, he pre- sented the appeal for months, day after day, until on the 250 Selections for Reading. third of July, 1776, he could record the result, writing thus to his wife: "Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater, perhaps, never was, nor will be, among men." Of that series of spoken eloquence all is perished; not one reported sentence has come down to us. The voice through which the rising spirit of a young nation sounded out its dream of life is hushed. The great spokesman, of an age unto an age, is dead. And yet, of those lost words is not our whole America one immortal record and reporter? Do ye not read them, deep cut, defying the tooth of time, on all the marble of our greatness? How they blaze on the pillars of the Union! How is their deep sense unfolded and interpreted by every passing hour! How do they come to life, and grow audible, as it were, in the brightening rays of the light he foresaw, as the fabled invisible heart gave out its music to the morning! Yes, in one sense, they are perished. No parchment manuscript, no embalming printed page, no certain tradi- tions of living or dead, have kept them. Yet, from out and from off all things around us, — our laughing harvests, our songs of labor, our commerce on all the seas, our se- cure homes, our schoolhouses and churches, our happy people, our radiant and stainless flag, — how they come pealing, pealing, Independence now, and Independence forever! Selections for Reading. 251 THE SOULS OF BOOKS. Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Sit here and muse! It is an antique room, High-roofed, with casements through whose purple pane Unwilling daylight steals amidst the gloom, Shy as a fearful stranger. There they reign In loftier pomp than wakiug life had known, The kings of Thought! Not crowned until the grave. When Agamemnon sinks into the tomb, The beggar Homer mounts the monarch's throne! Ye ever-living and imperial souls, Who rule us from the page in which ye breathe! What had we been, had Cadmus never taught The art that fixes into form the thought; Had Plato never spoken from his cell, Or his high harp blind Homer never strung? Kinder all earth hath grown since genial Shakespeare sung. Lo, in their books, as from their graves, they rise, Angels that, side by side, upon our way Walk with and warn us! Hark! the world so loud, And they, the movers of the world, so still! They made yon preacher zealous for the truth, They made yon poet wistful for the star; Gave age its pastime, fired the cheek of youth; The unseen sires of all our beings are. All books grow homilies by time; they are Temples, at once, and landmarks. In them we Who, but for them, upon that inch of ground We call " the Present," from the cell could see No daylight trembling on the dungeon bar, — Turn as we list the world's great axle round, Traverse all space, and number every star, And feel the near less household than the far! 252 Selections for Reading. There is no Past, so long as shall live! Rise up, ye walls, with gardens blooming o'er! Ope but that page — lo! Babylon once more! Books make the Past our heritage and home; And is that all? No! our lights they are To the dark bourne beyond; in them are sent The types of truths whose life is the To-come; In them soars up the Adam from the fall, In them the Future as the Past is given; Even in our death they bid us hail our birth: Unfold these pages, and behold the heaven Without one gravestone left upon the earth! THE PULPIT AND POLITICS. Charles H. Parkhurst, D. D. The particular political stripe of a municipal adminis- tration is no matter of our interest and none of our business; but to strike at iniquity is the business of the church. It is primarily what the church is for, no matter in what connection that sin may find itself associated and intermixed. If it is proper for us to go around clean- ing up after the devil, it is proper for us to fight the devil. If it is right to cure, it is right to prevent, and a thou- sand times more economical and sagacious. Eepublicans and Democrats we have nothing to do with, but sin is our particular province to ferret out, to publish, and, in un- adorned Saxon, to stigmatize. And sin, be it remembered, never gets tired; never is low-spirited; has the courage of its convictions; never fritters away its power and its genius pettifogging over side issues. And so piety, when it fronts sin ; has got to Selections for Beading. 253 become grit. Salt is a concrete commodity, and requires to be rubbed into the very pores of decay. I scarcely ever move into the busy parts of this town without feel- ing in a pained way how little of actual touch there is between the life of the church and the life of the times. I have no criticism to pass on the effort to improve the quality of civilization in Central Africa, but it would count more in the moral life of the world to have this city, where the heart of the country beats, dominated in its government by the ethical principles insisted on by the Gospel than to have evangelical light a hundred miles broad thrown clear across the Dark Continent. And the men and women that live here are the ones to do it. It is achievable. What Christianity has done Chris- tianity can do. In the pulpit to-day there is not a great deal of states- manship, and outside of it there is not any — that I know of. There is politics, but there is not statesmanship. Do you know what the difference is between statesman- ship and politics? Well, politics is statesmanship with the moral gristle left out. But how long has it been since anybody at Washington has stood up in the strength of a Wilson, a Sumner, a Webster, or an Elijah, and spoken the word that has drawn to a snug attention the moral sense of this great people? We used to have speeches made there that would ring clear across the con- tinent and clear the air for a decade. But there is no longer the Samson at Washington that will fling his arms about the two pillars and bow himself mightily. So that at present if you are going to have statesmen you will have to look to the pulpit for them. And is there a place where one would have any better right to 254 Selections for Reading. expect them to abound? If there is any Moses who can climb to the top of Sinai and commune with God and be- hold with an unabashed eye the realities that compose the tissue of all history, why should he not lead the waiting host when he gets back to the foot of the moun- tain? Why leave it to dirty Aaron, who, meantime, has been stripping the people and building golden calves? The idea of a rabble of cutthroats, thieves, thugs, and libertines presuming to stand up and tell God's prophets to keep their hands off the ark of the covenant, when the sole regard they have for the ark is their sacrilegious appetite for the golden pot of manna that is preserved in the interior of the ark! There is moral material enough in community, but it lacks leadership. The prophets of God are here to meet that exigency. That is what they are for; to foster and train moral sentiment, to compact and marshal it, and hold it along lines of earnest and intelligent devotement to the common weal. TIME. F. "W. Robertson. Time is the solemn inheritance to which every man is born heir, who has a life-rent of this world, — a little sec- tion cut out of eternity, and given us to do our work in; an eternity before, an eternity behind: and the small stream between, floating swiftly from the one into the vast bosom of the other. The man who has felt, with all his soul, the significance of time, will not be long in learning any lesson that this world has to teach him. Selections for Reading. 255 Have you ever felt it? Have you ever realized how your own little streamlet is gliding away and bearing you along with it towards that awful other world of which all things here are but thin shadows, down into that eternity towards which the confused wreck of all earthly things is bound? Let us realize that until that sensation of time, and the infinite meaning which is wrapped up in it, has taken possession of our souls, there is no chance of our ever feeling strongly that it is worse than madness to sleep that time away. Every day in this world has its work; and every day, as it rises out of eternity, keeps putting to each of us the question afresh, What will you do before to-day has sunk into eternity and nothingness again? And now what have we to say with respect to this strange, solemn thing — time? That men do with it through life just what the apostles did for one precious and irreparable hour of it in the garden of Gethsemane — they go to sleep! Have you ever seen those marble statues, in some public square or garden, which art has so finished into a perennial fountain that through the lips or through the hands the clear water flows in a per- petual stream on and on forever, and the marble stands there, — passive, cold, — making no effort to arrest the gliding water? It is so that time flows through the hands of men — swift, never pausing till it has run itself out; and there is the man petrified into a marble sleep, not feeling what it is which is passing away forever! It is so, just so, that the destiny of nine men out of ten accomplishes itself, slipping away from them aimless, useless, till it is too 256 Selections for Reading. late. And we are asked, with all the solemn thoughts which crowd around our approaching eternity, What has been our life, and what do we intend it shall be? Yesterday, last week, last year, — they are gone! Yes- terday was such a day as never was before, and never can be again. Out of darkness and eternity it was born, a new, fresh day; into darkness and eternity it sank again forever. It had a voice, calling to us of its own, — its own work, its own duties. What were we doing yesterday? Idling, whiling away the time, in light and luxurious literature; not as life's relaxation, but as life's business? Thrilling our hearts with the excitement of life, contriving how to spend the day most pleasantly! Was that our day? 'All this is but the sleep of the three apostles. And now let us remember this: There is a day coming when the sleep will be broken rudely — with a shock; there is a clay in our future lives when our time will be counted, not by years, nor by months, nor yet by hours, but by minutes, — the day when unmistakable symptoms shall announce that the messenger of death has come to take us. That startling moment will come, which it is in vain to attempt to realize now, when it will be felt that it is all over at last — that our chance and our trial are gone for- ever. The moment that we have tried to think of, shrunk from, put away from us, here it is — -going, too, like all other moments that have gone before it; and then, with eyes unsealed at last, we shall look back on the life which is gone by. Selections for Beading. 257 TELL'S APOSTROPHE TO LIBERTY. J. S. Knowles. Once more I breathe the mountain air; once more I tread my own free hills! My lofty soul Throws all its fetters off; in its proud flight, 'Tis like the new-fledged eaglet, whose strong wing Soars to the sun it long has gazed upon With eye undazzled. O! ye mighty race That stand like frowning giants, fixed to guard My own proud land; why did ye not hurl down The thundering avalanche, when at your feet The base usurper stood? A touch, a breath, Nay, even the breath of prayer, ere now, has brought Destruction on the hunter's head; and yet The tyrant passed in safety. God of heaven! Where slept thy thunderbolts? O Liberty! Thou choicest gift of Heaven, and wanting which Life is as nothing; hast thou then forgot Thy native home? Must the feet of slaves Pollute this glorious scene? It cannot be. Even as the smile of Heaven can pierce the depths Of these dark caves, and bid the wild flowers bloom In spots where man has never dared to tread; So thy sweet influence still is seen amid These beetling cliffs. Some hearts still beat for thee, And bow alone \o Heaven; thy spirit lives, Aye, — and -shall live, when even the very name Of tyrant is forgot. Lo! while I gaze Upon the mist that wreathes yon mountain's brow, The sunbeam touches it, and it becomes A crown of glory on his hoary head; ! is not this a presage of the dawn 258 Selections for Beading. Of freedom o'er the world? Hear mo, then, bright And beaming Heaven! while kneeling thus, I vow To live for Freedom, or with her to die! O ! with what pride I used To walk these hills, and look up to my God And bless Him that it was so. It was free, — From end to end, from cliff to lake 'twas free, — Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks, And plow our valleys, without asking leave; Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow, In very presence of the regal sun ! How happy was I in it then ! I loved Its very storms! Yes, I have sat and eyed The thunder breaking from His cloud, and smiled To see Him shake His lightnings o'er my head, And think I had no master save His own! Ye know the jutting cliff, round which a track Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow To such another one, with scanty room For two abreast to pass? O'ertaken there By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along, And while gust followed gust more furiously, As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink, And I have thought of other lands, whose storms Are summer flaws to those of mine, and just Have wished me there, — the thought that mine was free, Has checked that wish, and I have raised my head, And cried in thraldom to that furious wind, Blow on! This is the Land of Liberty! Selections for Reading. 259 THE BENEFICENCE OF GKASS. John J. Ingalls. " Next in importance to the divine profusion of water, light, and air, those three great physical facts which ren- der existence possible, may be reckoned the universal be- neficence of grass. Lying in the sunshine among the but- tercups and dandelions of May, scarcely higher in intelli- gence that the minute tenants of that mimic wilderness, our earliest recollections are of grass; and when the fitful fever is ended, and the foolish wrangle of the market and forum is closed, grass heals over the scar which our descent into the bosom of the earth has made, and the carpet of the infant becomes the blanket of the dead. Grass is the forgiveness of nature — her constant bene- diction. Fields trampled with battle, saturated with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, grow green again with grass, and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become grass-grown like rural lanes, and are obliterated. Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers van- ish, but grass is immortal. It invades the solitude of deserts, climbs the inaccessible slopes and forbidden pinnacles of mountains, modifies climates, and determines the history, character, and destiny of nations. Unob- trusive and patient, it has immortal vigor and aggression. Banished from the thoroughfare and the field, it bides its time to return, and silently resumes the throne from which it has been expelled, but which it never abdicates. It bears no blazonry of bloom to charm the senses with fragrance or splendor, but its homely hue is more en- chanting than the lily or the rose. It yields no fruit in 260 Selections for Heading. earth or air, and yet should its harvest fail for a single year, famine would depopulate the world. A BATTLE OF ICEBEBGS. "Well, Jack, my boy, d'ye see anything? Keep a bright lookout, you know, for we all looks to you! " " Come, don't make fun o' me, Bob! PVaps I'll have as sharp eyes as yourn afore Fm half your size/' Anybody might have well wondered to hear a child's voice speak- ing from the mast-head of a North Sea whaler, and still more surprised would he have been at sight of the figure from which that voice proceeded. There were two per- sons in the " crow's-nest," as the lookout post of a whaler is called. This is simply a big cask firmly lashed to the mast with small ropes, and supported by two pieces of stout planking. One of the two watchers on this occasion was a grim old sailor, with a voice as harsh as his face, which, roughened by the storms of. fifty years, and framed in short iron-gray hair and whiskers, looked very much like the battered figure-head of some weather-worn old ship. His companion was a little boy of ten, whose fair hair and round ruddy face appeared quite babyish beside the granite-hewned visage of the " old salt." But young as he looked, Jack Eaikes was no baby. Those blue eyes of his were as sharp as any on board; and to run up the weather-rigging in a stiff breeze, climb to the mast-head and hang his cap on it, was mere play to " little Jack," as the sailors affectionately called him. " So, my lad," said Bob Watson, laughing, " you thinks Selections for Beading. 261 your eyes '11 be as good as mine afore long. "Well, you're a sharp-sighted 'un for your age, you are, but I don't know as how you're quite up to me yet. Come, s'pose we tries which '11 sight a whale first?" But the smile soon vanished from the old seaman's face, as a gleam of sunshine fades into a rising cloud. He arched his hand over his eyes, and gazed fixedly on the northward, his look becoming graver and graver with every moment, until Jack was quite startled. " What's up, Bob? Any- thing wrong? " " Can't say yet, lad, but I'm afeard so. Let's have another look. Yes, it's just as I thought. God help us ! " And putting both hands to his mouth, he shouted at the top of his voice, " Deck, ahoy! Look out for ice! " The men, who were lying idly about the deck, sprang to their feet at once, and there was a sudden bustle which showed that the warning had been heard and understood. "Where away?" hallooed the captain. " Eight ahead — two on 'em bearin' down upon us! " The captain's hard mouth set itself a little tighter, but that was all. He threw a quick glance to windward, and then shouted to the steersman, "Keep her away a point or two! " "Ay, ay, sir! " There was no sign of fear in either captain or crew — only a grave, subdued look on every face, which showed that they fully understood their danger, although it could not terrify them. And yet the peril was one which might well have dismayed the bravest man alive. Once caught between the two approaching mountains of ice, the vessel would be crushed like an egg-shell, and she and all her crew sent to the bottom together. Nor did there seem to be much chance of escape. The wind was light, and 262 Selections for Beading. what little there was of it was driving the ship straight towards the icebergs as they drifted with the current. Unless they should change their course, or the wind shift suddenly, the doom of both ship and crew appeared certain. Little Jack had caught sight of the advancing masses almost as soon as his old friend, and the sudden paling of his ruddy cheeks showed how fully he understood the situation. He looked wistfully up into Bob's face, as if to ask whether there was any hope for them; and the old sailor, mindful of his little pet even in the teeth of that deadly peril, answered as cheerily as ever: " Well, Jack, my son, them two lubbers are trying to outma- noover us, ain't they? But you jist see if we don't git the weather-gauge on 'em yet! " By this time the ice- bergs were near enough to be plainly visible from the deck, and the sudden chilling of the air by their ap- proach, like the coldness of coming death, was felt by every man on board. Onward they came, those great cathedrals of frost, slowly, steadily, mercilessly, like the march of a destroying army. x\nd all the while the sea around them was blue and bright, and the sun shone brightly in a cloudless sky, and the great battlements of ice glowed like rainbows with every variety of gorgeous coloring — blue, red, green, and gold. And so, with all the beauty and splendor of life around them, the doomed men stood silently awaiting death. Old Bob set his teeth hard, and pressed his hand firmly upon little Jack's shoulder. " 'Tain't for myself as I minds it," he muttered, "for my time's pretty nigh up; but it do seem hard for this little chap to be cut off in his just blossomin' like. If my life could go for his'n 2 Selections for Reading, 263 God knows Fd give it gladly." And now, as if to destroy the last chance of escape, her terrible assailants parted suddenly, the one bearing down upon her port and the other upon her starboard quarter, as if to shut her in between them. Even the iron-nerved captain changed color, and flung down his speaking-trumpet in despair. But just as all hope seemed gone, the long-hoped-for shift of the wind came. "Starboard your helm! — starboard!" roared the cap- tain instantly. " Starboard it is." One quick turn of the helm, and the vessel glided past the nearest berg, so close that one of the projecting ice- points scraped her taffrail. Even that slight contact with the mighty mass made her whole frame quiver from stem to stern; but the danger was past, and the crew breathed freely once more. " Xow, my boys," shouted the youngest of the men, " stand by and see them two have it out by theirselves." It was even so. The two destroyers, balked of their prey, were rushing straight upon each other. The wind had lulled again as if hold- ing its breath for the coming battle, and all was as still as death, when the two moving mountains clashed together. There came a crash to which the loudest thunder would have been as nothing, and the smooth sea boiled up into huge waves, dashing the vessel about like a toy, while the very air was darkened with flying splinters of ice. When the rush passed, the contending icebergs were seen to be at some distance, swaying dizzily to and fro like two living combatants reeling under a heavy stroke. "At it again, old fellers! " cried young Simmonds; "that first bout don't count neither way." Again came the ter- 264 Selections for Reading. rible shock, followed by a fierce, grinding crash, as a huge pinnacle of ice, heavy enough to sink a hundred- gun ship, fell thundering into the sea. " Port your helm! — port!" shouted the captain. " Port it is," answered the steersman coolly, and the vessel sheered off. She was not a moment too soon. Hardly had she got clear when the nearest iceberg was seen to lurch heavily for- ward. For an instant it rocked violently to and fro, and then plunged down into the sea, with a noise that might have been heard for miles. The billows cast up by its fall tossed the strong ship aloft like a feather, flinging all the crew upon their faces, and for a moment sea and sky were all one blinding whirl of foam. There was a moment of awful silence, then nothing could be heard but the groaning of the ship's timbers and the awful roar of the waves. Then, as the fright- ened men rose to their feet, Bill Simmonds cried out, " We ain't dead this time, anyway." But old Bob Wat- son drew little Jack to his side, and whispered to him, " Jack, lad, when ye say yer prayers to-night, don't for- get to thank God for savin' us, for if 't wasn't for that shift o' wind, all our lives warn't worth that." TIMES GO BY TURNS. Robert Southwell. The loppM tree in time may grow again, Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; The sorriest wight may find release of pain; The driest soil suck up some moistening shower; Times go by turns, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. Selections for Reading. 265 The sea of fortune doth not ever flow; She draws her favors to the lowest ebb; Her tides have equal times to come and go; Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web; No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend. Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring; Not endless night, nor yet eternal day; The saddest birds a season find to sing. The roughest storm a calm may soon allay, Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. A chance may win that by mischance was lost; That net that holds no great, takes little fish; In some things all, in all things none, are crossed; Few all they need, but none have all they wish. Unmingled joys here to no man befall; Who least, have some; who most, have never all. THE MINUTE MAN OP THE KEVOLUTION. George William Curtis. The Minute Man of the Kevolution! And who was he? He was the husband and father, who left the plow in the furrow, the hammer on the bench, and, kiss- ing his wife and children, marched to die or to be free! He was the old, the middle-aged, the young. He was Captain Miles of Acton, who reproved his men for jesting on the march! He was Deacon Josiah Haines of Sudbury, eighty years old, who marched with his com- pany to South Bridge, at Concord, then joined in that hot pursuit to Lexington, and fell as gloriously as War- ren at Bunker Hill. He was James Hayward of Acton, 266 Selections for Reading. twenty-two years old, foremost in that deadly race from Charlestown to Concord, who raised his piece at the same moment with a British soldier, each exclaiming, "You are a dead man! " The Briton dropped, shot through the heart. Hayward fell, mortally wounded. " Father," said he, " I started with forty balls; I have three left. I never did such a day's work before. Tell mother not to mourn too much; and tell her whom I love more than my mother that I am not sorry I turned out." This was the Minute Man of the Kevolution! The rural citizen, trained in the common school, the town meeting, who carried a bayonet that thought, and whose gun, loaded with a principle, brought down, not a man, but a system. With brain and heart and conscience all alive, he opposed every hostile order of British counsel. The cold Grenville, the brilliant Townsend, the reckless Hillsborough derided, declaimed, denounced, laid unjust taxes, and sent troops to collect them; and the plain Boston Puritan laid his finger on the vital point of the tremendous controversy, and held to it inexorably. In- trenched in his own honesty, the king's gold could not buy him; enthroned in the love of his fellow-citizens, the king's writ could not take him; and when, on the morn- ing at Lexington, the king's troops marched to seize him, his sublime faith saw, beyond the clouds of the moment, the rising sun of the America we behold, and, careless of himself, mindful only of his country, he exultingly ex- claimed, " Oh, what a glorious morning! " He felt that a blow would soon be struck that would break the heart of British tyranny. His judgment, his conscience, told him the hour had come. Selections for Heading. 267 Do you remember, in that disastrous siege in India, when the little Scotch girl raised her head from her pallet in the hospital, and said to the sickening hearts of the English, "I hear the bagpipes; the Campbells are coming " ? And they said, " No, Jessie; it is delirium." " No, I know it; I heard it far off." And in an hour the pibroch burst upon their glad ears, and the banner of Saint George floated in triumph over their heads. And so, at Lexington Square, the Minute Man of the Eevolu- tion heard the first notes of the jubilee which, to-day, rises from the hearts and fills the minds of a free people. TEUE STATESMANSHIP. Edmund .Burke. The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of sensi- bility. He ought to love and respect his kind, and to fear himself. It may be allowed to his temperament to catch his ultimate object with an intuitive glance, but his movements toward it ought to be deliberate. Political arrangement, as it is a work for social ends, is to be wrought only by social means. There mind must con- spire with mind. Time is required to produce all the good we aim at. Our patience will achieve more than our force. If I might venture to appeal to what is so much out of fashion in Paris, I mean to experience, I should tell you that in my course I have known, and, according to my measure, have. co-operated with great men; and I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the 268 Selections for Reading. lead in business. By a slow but well-sustained progress the effect of each step is watched; the good or ill success of the first gives light to us in the second; and so, from light to light, we are conducted with safety through the whole series. We see that the parts of the system do not clash. The evils latent in the most promising con- trivances are provided for as they arise. One advantage is as little as possible sacrificed to another. We compen- sate, we reconcile, we balance. We are enabled to unite into a consistent whole the various anomalies and con- tending principles that are found in the minds and affairs of men. From hence arises not an excellence in simplicity, but one far superior, an excellence in compo- sition. Where the great interests of mankind are con- cerned through a long succession of generations, that succession ought to be admitted into some share in the councils which are so deeply to affect them. If justice requires this, the work itself requires the aid of more minds than one age can furnish. It is from this view of things that the best legislators have been often satisfied with the establishment of some sure, solid, and ruling principle in government; a power like that which some of the philosophers have called a plastic nature; and having fixed the principle, they have left it afterward to its own operation. THE PASSIONS. William Collins. When Music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, The Passions oft, to hear her shell, Thronged around her magic cell Selections for Reading. 269 Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, Possessed beyond the Muse's painting; By turns they fe-lt the glowing mind Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined: Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired, Filled with fury, rapt, inspired, From the supporting myrtles round They snatched her instruments of sound, And, as they oft had heard apart Sweet lessons of her forceful art, Each, for Madness ruled the hour, Would prove his own expressive power. First Fear his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewildered laid, And back recoiled, he knew not why, E'en at the sound himself had made. Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire, In lightnings owned his secret stings; In one rude clash he struck the lyre, And swept with hurried hand the strings. With woeful measures wan Despair — Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled, A solemn, strange, and mingled air, 'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild. But thou, O Hope! with e}-es so fair, What was thy delighted measure? Still it whispered promised pleasure, And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail! Still would her touch the strain prolong; And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, She called on Echo still through all the song; And, where her sweetest notes she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close; And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair; — 270 Selections for Reading. And longer had she sung: — but with a frown, Revenge impatient rose: He threw the blood-stained sword in thunder down; And with a withering look The war-denouncing trumpet took And blew a blast so loud and dread^ Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe! And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; And, though sometimes, each dreary pause between, Dejected Pity, at his side, Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien, While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed: Sad proof of thy distressful state ! Of differing themes the veering song was mixed; And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate. With eyes upraised as one inspired, Pale Melancholy sat retired; And, from her wild, sequestered seat, In notes, by distance made more sweet, Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul: And, dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels joined the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay. Round a holy calm diffusing, Love of peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away. But O ! how altered was its sprightlier tone When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder flung, Her buskins gemmed with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung! — The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known! Selections for Reading. 271 The oak-crowned Sisters and their chaste-eyed Queen, Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys green: Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addrest: But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol, Whose sweet, entrancing voice he loved the best. They w T ould have thought, who heard the strain, They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal-sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing; While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round: — Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; — And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. THE AMEEICAN SAILOR R F. Stockton. Look to your history, — that part of it which the world knows by heart, — and yon will find on its brightest page the glorious achievements of the American sailor. Whatever his country has done to disgrace him, and break his spirit, he has never disgraced her; — he has always been ready to serve her; he always has served her faithfully and effectually. He has often been weighed in the balance, and never found wanting. The only fault ever found with him is, that he sometimes fights ahead of his orders. The world has no match for him, man for 272 Selections for Reading. man; and he asks no odds, and he cares for no odds, when the cause of humanity, or the glory of his country, calls him to fight. Who, in the darkest days of our Eevolution, carried your flag into the very chops of the British Channel, bearded the lion in his den, and woke the echoes of old Albion's hills by the thunders of his cannon, and the shouts of his triumph? It was the American sailor. And the names of John Paul Jones, and the Bon Homme Eichard, will go down the annals of time forever. Who struck the first blow that humbled the Barbary flag, — which, for a hundred years, had been the terror of Chris- tendom, — drove it from the Mediterranean, and put an end to the infamous tribute it had been accustomed to extort? It was the American sailor, and the name of Decatur and his gallant companions will be as lasting as monumental brass. In the year 1812, when your arms on shore were cov- ered by disaster, — when Winchester had been defeated, when the army of the Northwest had surrendered, and when the feeling of despondency hung like a cloud over the land, — who first relit the fires of national glory, and made the welkin ring with the shouts of victory? It was the American sailor. And the names of Hull and the Constitution will be remembered as long as we have left anything worth remembering. The wand of British invincibility was broken when the flag of the Guerriere came down. That one event was worth more to the Eepublic than all the money which has ever been expended for the navy. Since that day, the navy has had no stain upon its escutcheon, but has been cherished as your pride and glory. And the Ameri- Selections for Reading. 273 can sailor has established a reputation throughout the world, — in peace and in war, in storm and in battle, — for heroism and prowess unsurpassed. He shrinks from no danger, he dreads no foe, he jdelds to no superior. Xo shoals are too dangerous, no seas too boisterous,, no climate too rigorous for him. The burning sun of the tropic cannot make him effeminate, nor can the eternal winter of the polar seas paralyze his energies. THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. George William Curtis. Do you ask me our duty as scholars? Gentlemen, thought, which the scholar represents, is life and liberty. There is no intellectual or moral life without liberty. Therefore, as a man must breathe and see before he can study, the scholar must have liberty, first of all; and, as the American scholar is a man, and has a voice in his own government, so his interest in political affairs must precede all others. He must build his house before he can live in it. He must be a perpetual inspiration of freedom in politics. He must recognize that the intelli- gent exercise of political rights, which is a privilege in a monarchy, is a duty in a republic. If it clash with his ease, his retirement, his taste, his study; let it clash — but let him do his duty. The course of events is incessant, but when the good deed is slighted, the bad deed is done. Scholars, you would like to loiter in the pleasant paths of study. Every man loves his ease — loves to please his taste. But into how many homes, along this lovely valley, came the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill, eighty 274 Selections for Heading. years ago; and young men like us, studious, fond of leisure — young lovers, young husbands, young brothers and sons — knew that they must forsake the wooded hill- side, the river meadows, golden with harvest, the twilight walk along the river, the summer Sunday in the old church, parents, wife, child, and go away to uncertain war. Putnam heard the call at his plow, and turned to go, without waiting. Wooster heard it, and obeyed. Not less lovely, in those days, was this peaceful valley; not less soft, this summer air. Life was as dear, and love as beautiful to those young men as it is to us who stand upon their graves. But, because they were so dear and so beautiful, those young men went out, bravely to fight for them and fall. Through these very streets they marched, who never returned. They fell, and were buried; but they can never die. Not sweeter are the flowers that make your valley fair, not greener are the pines that give your river its name, than the memory of the brave men who died for freedom. And yet no victim of those days, sleeping under the green sod of Connecti- cut, is more truly a martyr of Liberty than every mur- dered man whose bones lie bleaching in this summer sun, upon the silent plains of Kansas. Gentlemen, while we read history, we make history. Because our fathers fought in this great cause, we must not hope to escape fighting. Because, two thousand years ago, Leonidas stood against Xerxes, we must not suppose that Xerxes was slain, nor thank God, that Leonidas is not immortal. Every crisis of human history is a pass of Thermopylae; and there is always a Leonidas and his three hundred to die in it, if they cannot conquer. And, so long as Liberty has one martyr, so long as one drop Selections for Reading. 275 of blood is poured out for her; so long, from that single drop of bloody sweat of the agony of humanity, shall spring hosts as countless as the forest leaves, and mighty as the sea. Brothers! the call has come to us. I bring it to you in these calm retreats. I summon you to the great fight of Freedom. I call upon you to say, with your voices, when- ever the occasion offers, and with your votes, when the day comes, that upon these fertile fields of Kansas, in the very heart of the continent, the upas-tree of slavery, dripping death-dews upon national prosperity and upon free labor, shall never be planted. I call upon you to plant there the palm of peace, the vine and the olive of a Christian civilization. I call upon you to de- termine whether this great experiment of human free- dom, which has been the scorn of despotism, shall, by its failure, be our sin and shame. I call upon you to defend the hope of the world. The voices of our brothers who are bleeding, no less than of our fathers who bled, summon us to this battle. Shall the children of unborn generations, clustering over that vast western empire, rise up and call us blessed, or cursed? Here are our Marathon and Lexington; here are our heroic fields. The hearts of all good men beat with us. The fight is fierce; the issue is with God. But God is good. 276 Selections for Heading. THE BEGGAR. James Russell Lowell. A beggar through the world am I, — From place to place I wander by; Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me, For Christ's sweet sake and charity! A little of thy steadfastness, Hounded with leafy gracefulness, Old oak, give me, — That the world's blasts may round me blow, And I yield gently to and fro, While my stout-hearted trunk below And firm-set roots unmoved be. Some of thy stern, unyielding might Enduring still through day and night Rude tempest-shock and withering blight, — That I may keep at bay The changeful April sky of chance And the strong tide of circumstance, — Give me, old granite gray. Some of thy mournfulness serene, Some of thy never-dying green, Put in this scrip of mine, — That griefs may fall like snow-flakes light, And deck me in a robe of white, Ready to be an angel bright, — O sweetly-mournful pine. A little of thy merriment, Of thy sparkling, light content, Give me, my cheerful brook, — That I may still be full of glee And gladsomeness, where'er I be, Though fickle fate hath prisoned me In some neglected nook. Selections for Heading. 277 Ye have been very kind and good To me, since I've been in the wood. Ye have gone nigh to fill my heart; But good-by, kind friends, every one, I've far to go ere set of sun; Of all good things I would have part, The day was high ere I could start, And so my journey's scarce begun. Heaven help me! how could I forget To beg of thee, dear violet! Some of thy modesty, That flowers here as well, unseen, As if before the world thou'dst been, O, give, to strengthen me. THE LOST AETS. Wexdell Phillips. We have a tender pity for the narrowness, ignorance, and darkness of the bygone ages. In the great proces- sion of the ages we seem to imagine that whether knowl- edge will die with us or not, it certainly began with us. It can be no waste of time to take our eyes for a mo- ment from the present civilization and guide them back to that earliest possible era that history describes for us. Take the mere subject of glass. This material, Pliny says, was discovered by accident. Some sailors, landing on the eastern coast of Spain, took their cooking utensils and supported them on the sand by the stones they found in the neighborhood; they kindled their fire, cooked the fish, finished their meal, removed the apparatus, and glass was found to have resulted from the niter and sea- sand vitrified by the heat. 278 Selections for Reading. In every matter that relates to invention, to use, or beauty, or form, we are all borrowers. Yon may glance around the furniture of the palaces in Europe, and you may gather all these utensils of art or use, and when you have fixed the shapes and forms in your mind, I will take you into the Museum of Naples, which gathers all remains of the domestic life of the Romans, and you shall not find a single one of these modern forms of art or beauty or use that was not anticipated here. We have hardly added one single line or sweep of beauty to the antique. Some of Shakspere's plays are historical. The rest — two-thirds of them — were clutched, ready-made to his hand, from the Italian novelists, who had taken them before from the East. Cinderella and her slipper is older than all history, like half a dozen other legends. The annals of the world do not go back far enough to tell us from where they first came. All the boys' plays are Asiatic; they came somewhere from the banks of the Ganges or the suburbs of Damascus. Bulwer borrowed the incidents of his Roman stories from legends of a thousand years before. Cicero said that he had seen the entire Iliad, which is a poem as large as the New Testament, written on skin so that it could be rolled up in the compass of a nut- shell. You have seen the Declaration of Independence in the compass of a quarter of a dollar. I have to-day a paper at home half as long as my hand, on which was photographed the whole contents of a London newspa- per. It was put under a clove's wing and sent into Paris, where they enlarged it and read the news. No man was ever shown into the cabinets of gems in Italy without Selections for Beading. 279 being furnished with a microscope to look at them. It would have been idle for him to have looked at them without one, for he could not have appreciated the deli- cate lines or the expression of the faces. If you go to Parma they will show you a gem once worn on the finger of Michael Angelo, of which the engraving is two thou- sand years old, and can be distinguished only by the aid of a glass. The microscope, instead of dating from our time, dates from the time of Moses. Pompeii was a city of stucco. It has been buried seventeen hundred years, and if you take a shovel now and clear away the ashes, this color flames up upon you a great deal richer than any we can produce. AVe have only just begun to understand ventilation properly for our houses; yet late experiments in the Pyra- mids of Egypt show that those Egyptian tombs were ven- tilated in the most perfect and scientific manner. Cement is modern, for the ancients dressed and jointed their stones so closely that in buildings thousands of years old the thin blade of a pen-knife cannot be forced between them. The railroad dates back to Egypt. Arago has claimed that they had a knowledge of steam. Solomon's Temple was situated on an exposed part of a hill; the building was so lofty that it was often in peril, and was guarded by a system of lightning rods exactly like Benja- min Franklin's. The principle that governs this land is the one that should govern every land; it is the one which this nation needs to practice every day; it is the divine will that every man has the right to know everything which will be serviceable to himself and his fellow-man, and that will make art immortal, if God means that it shall last. 280 Selections for Reading. SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION*. Thomas Huxley. I hope you will consider that the arguments I have now stated, even if there were no better ones, constitute a sufficient apology for urging the introduction of science into schools. The next question to which I have to ad- dress myself is, What sciences ought to be thus taught? And this is one of the most important of questions. There are other forms of culture besides physical science; and I should be profoundly sorry to see the fact forgot- ten, or even to observe a tendency to starve or cripple literary or sesthetic culture for the sake of science. Such a narrow view of the nature of education has nothing to do with my firm conviction that a complete and thorough scientific culture ought to be introduced into all schools. By this, however, I do not mean that every schoolboy should be taught everything in science. That would be a very absurd thing to conceive, and a very mischievous thing to attempt. What I mean is, that no boy or girl should leave school without possessing a grasp of the general character of science, and without having been disciplined, more or less, in the methods of all sciences; so that, when turned into the world to make their own way, they shall be prepared to face scientific problems, not by knowing at once the conditions of every problem, or by being able at once to solve it, but by being familiar with the general current of scientific thought, and by being able to apply the methods of science in the proper way, when they have acquainted themselves with the conditions of the special problem. Selections for Heading. 281 That is what I understand by scientific education. To furnish a boy with such an education, it is by no means necessary that he should devote his whole school existence to physical science; in fact, no one would lament so one- sided a proceeding more than I. Nay, more, it is not necessary for him to give up more than a moderate share of his time to such studies, if they be properly selected and arranged, and if he be trained in them in a fitting manner. I conceive the proper course to be somewhat as follows: To begin with, let every child be instructed in those general views of the phenomena of nature for which we have no exact English name. The nearest approximation to a name for what I mean, which we possess, is " physi- cal geography " ; that is to say, a general knowledge of the earth, and what is on it, in it, and about it. If any- one who has had experience of the ways of young chil- dren will call to mind their questions, he will find that, so far as they can be put into any scientific category, they come under this head. The child asks, " What is the moon, and why does it shine? " " What is the water, and where does it run? " " What is the wind? " " What makes the waves in the sea?" " Where does this animal live, and what is the use of that plant?" And if not snubbed and stunted by being told not to ask foolish questions, there is no limit to the intellectual craving of a young child, nor any bounds to the slow but solid accre- tion of knowledge and development of the thinking faculty in this way. To all such questions answers which are necessarily incomplete, though true as far as they go, may be given by any teacher whose ideas represent' real knowledge, and not mere book learning; and a 282 Selections for Reading, panoramic view of nature, accompanied by a strong in- fusion of the scientific habit of mind, may thus be placed within the reach of every child of nine or ten. After this preliminary opening of the eyes to the great spectacle of the daily progress of nature, as the reasoning faculties of the child grow, and he becomes familiar with the use of the tools of knowledge, — reading, writing, and elementary mathematics, — he should pass on to what is, in the more strict sense, physical science. Now, there are two kinds of physical science. The one regards form and the relation of forms to one another; the other deals with causes and effects. In many of what we term our sciences, these two kinds are mixed up together; but systematic botany is a pure example of the former kind, and physics of the latter kind, of science. Every educa- tional advantage which training in physical science can give is obtainable from the proper study of these two; and I should be contented for the present if they, added to physical geography, furnished the whole of the scien- tific curriculum of schools. Indeed, I conceive it would be one of the greatest boons which could be conferred upon the country, if henceforward every child in the coun- try were instructed in the general knowledge of the things about it, in the elements of physics and of botany; but I should be still better pleased if there could be added somewhat of chemistry, and an elementary acquaintance with human physiology. So far as school education is concerned, I want to go no further just now; and I believe that such instruction would make an excellent introduction to that preparatory scientific training which, as I have indicated, is so essen- tial for the successful pursuit of our most important Selections for Reading. 283 professions. But this modicum of instruction must be so given as to insure real knowledge and practical dis- cipline. If scientific education is to be dealt with as mere book-work, it will be better not to attempt it, but to stick to the Latin Grammar, which makes no pretense to be anything but book-work. If the great benefits of scientific training are sought, it is essential that such training should be real; that is to say, that the mind of the scholar should be brought into direct relation with fact, that he should not merely be told a thing, but made to see by the use of his own in- tellect and ability that the thing is so and no otherwise. The great peculiarity of scientific training, that in virtue of which it cannot be replaced by any other dis- cipline whatsoever, is this bringing of the mind directly into contact with fact, and practicing the intellect in the completest form of induction; that is to say, in drawing conclusions from particular facts made known by imme- diate observation of nature. The other studies which enter into ordinary education do not discipline the mind in this way. Mathematical training is almost purely deductive. The mathematician starts with a few simple propositions, the proof of which is so obvious that they are called self-evident, and the rest of his work consists of subtile deductions from them. The teaching of languages, at any rate as ordinarily prac- ticed, is of the same general nature, — authority and tra- dition furnished the data, and the mental operations of the scholar are deductive. Again, if history be the subject of study, the facts are still taken upon the evidence of tradition and authority. You cannot make the boy see the battle of Thermopylae 284 Selections for Reading. for himself, or know, of his own knowledge, that Crom- well once ruled England. There is no getting into direct contact with natural fact by this road; there is no dis- pensing with authority, but rather a resting upon it. In all these respects science differs from other educa- tional discipline, and prepares the scholar for common life. What have we to do in everyday life? Most of the business which demands our attention is matter of fact, which needs, in the first place, to be accurately observed or apprehended; in the second, to be interpreted by in- ductive and deductive reasonings, which are altogether similar in their nature to those employed in science. In the one case, as in the other, whatever is taken for granted is so taken at one's own peril. Fact and reason are the ultimate arbiters, and patience and honesty are the great helpers out of difficulty. But if scientific training is to yield its most eminent results, it must, I repeat, be made practical. That is to say, in explaining to a child the general phenomena of nature, you must, as far as possible, give reality to your teaching by object-lessons. In teaching him botany, he must handle the plants and dissect the flowers for himself; in teaching him physics and chemistry, you must not be solicitous to fill him with information, but you must be careful that what he learns he knows of his own knowledge. Don't be satisfied with telling him that a magnet attracts iron. Let him see that it does; let him feel the pull of the one upon the other for himself. And, especially, tell him that it is his duty to doubt, until he is compelled by the absolute authority of nature to be- lieve, that which is written in books. Pursue this discipline carefully and conscientiously, and you may Selections for Reading. 285 make sure that, however scanty may be the measure of information which you have poured into the boy's mind, you have created an intellectual habit of priceless value in practical life. One is constantly asked, When should this scientific education be commenced? I should say with the dawn of intelligence. As I have already said, a child seeks for information about matters of physical science as soon as it begins to talk. The first teaching it wants is an object- lesson of one sort or another; and as soon as it is fit for systematic instruction of any kind, it is fit for a modicum of science. People talk of the difficulty of teaching young children such matters, and in the same breath insist upon their learning their Catechism, which contains propositions far harder to comprehend than anything in the educational course I have proposed. Again, I am incessantly told that we who advocate the introduction of science into schools make no allowance for the stupidity of the aver- age boy or girl; but, in my belief, that stupidity, in nine cases out of ten, is unnatural, and is developed by a long process of parental and pedagogic repression of the natural intellectual appetites, accompanied by a per- sistent attempt to create artificial ones for food which is not only tasteless, but essentially indigestible. Those who urge the difficulty of instructing young peo- ple in science are apt to forget another very important condition of success; important in all kinds of teaching, but most essential, I am disposed to think, when the scholars are very young. This condition is, that the teacher should himself really and practically know his subject. If he does, he will be able to speak of it in the 286 Selections for Heading. easy language, and with the completeness of conviction, with which he talks of any ordinary everyday matter. If he does not, he will be afraid to wander beyond the limits of the technical phraseology which he has got up; and a dead dogmatism, which oppresses or raises opposition, will take the place of the lively confidence, born of per- sonal conviction, which cheers and encourages the emi- nently sympathetic mind of childhood. At the period of the Eenascence, the few and scattered students of Nature picked up the clew to her secrets exactly as it fell from the hands of the Greeks a thousand years before. The foundations of mathematics were so well laid by them that our children learn their geometry from a book written for the schools of Alexandria two thousand years ago. Modern astronomy is the natural continuation and development of the work of Hipparchus and of Ptolemy; modern physics of that of Democritus and of Archimedes. We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings of the Greeks unless we know what they thought about natural phenomena. We falsely pretend to be the in- heritors of their culture, unless we are penetrated, as the best minds among them were, with an unhesitating faith that the free employment of reason, in accordance with scientific method, is the sole method of reaching truth. Selections for Heading. 287 WORDS ON LANGUAGE. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Some words on language may be well applied, And take them kindly, though they touch your pride; Words lead to things; a scale is more precise, — Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, drinking, vice. Our cold northeaster's icy fetter clips The native freedom of the Saxon lips; Seethe brown peasant of the plastic south, How all his passions play about his mouth! With us, the feature that transmits the soul, A frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole. The crampy shackles of the plowboy's walk Tie the small muscles when he strives to talk; Not all the pumice of the polished town Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard down; Rich, honored, titled, he betrays his race By this one mark, — he's awkward in the face; — Nature's rude impress, long before he knew The sunny street that holds the sifted few. It can't be helped, though, if we're taken young, We gain some freedom of the lips and tongue; But school and college often try in vain To break the padlock of our boyhood's chain; One stubborn word will prove this axiom true; — - No quondam rustic can enunciate view. A few brief stanzas may be well employed To speak of errors we can all avoid. Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope The careless churl who speaks of soap for soap; Her edict exiles from her fair abode The clownish voice that utters road for road; Less stern to him who calls his coat a coat, And steers his boat, believing it a boat. 288 Selections for Heading. She pardoned one, our classic city's boast, Who said, at Cambridge, most instead of most; But knit her brows, and stamp'd her angry foot, To hear a teacher call a root a root. Once more; speak clearly, if you speak at all; Carve every word before you let it fall; Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star, Try over-hard to roll the British R; Do put your accents in the proper spot; Don't — let me beg you — don't say " How? " for " What?" And, when you stick on conversation's burs, Don't strew the pathway with those dreadful urs. THE STATUE. In Athens, when all learning centered there, Men reared a column of surpassing height In honor of Minerva, wise and fair, And on the top, that dwindled to the sight, A statue of the goddess was to stand, That wisdom might obtain in all the land. And he who, with the beauty in his heart, Seeking in faultless work immortal youth, Would mold this statue with the finest art, Making the wintry marble glow with truth, Should gain the prize. Two sculptors sought the fame; The prize they craved was an enduring name. Alcamenes soon carved his ver}^ best; But Phidias, beneath a dazzling thought That like a bright sun in a cloudless west Lit up his wide, great soul, with pure love wrought A statue, and its face of changeless stone With calm, far-sighted wisdom towered and shone. Then to be judged the labors were unveiled, But at the marble thought, that by degrees Selections for Reading, 289 Of hardship Phidias cut, the people railed, " The lines are coarse; the form too large," said these, " And he who sends this rough result of haste Sends scorn, and offers insult to our taste." Alcamenes' praised work was lifted high Upon the capital where it might stand; But there it seemed too small, and 'gainst the sky Had no proportion from the uplooking land, So it was lowered, and quickly put aside, And the second one was mounted to be tried. Surprise swept o'er the faces of the crowd, And changed them as a sudden breeze may change A field of fickle grass, and long and loud Their mingled shouts, to see a sight so strange. The statue stood completed in its place, Each coarse line melted to a line of grace. So bold, great actions that are seen too near, Look rash and foolish to unthinking eyes; They need the past for distance, to appear, In their true grandeur. Let us yet be wise, And not too soon our neighbor's deed malign, For what seems coarse is often good and fine. THE FUTUEE OF AMEEICA. Daniel Webster. Fellow-citizexs, the hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating poAver of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent 290 Selections for Reading. from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now sur- veyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas. We would leave, for the considera- tion of those who shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and re- ligious liberty; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote everything which may enlarge the under- standings, and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed affections, which, running backward and warm- ing with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of being. Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence, where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our human duration. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet Selections for Reading. 291 your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome yon to the blessings of good government and religions liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science, and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and chil- dren. TTe welcome you to the immeasurable blessings or rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth. SIR GALAHAD. Alfred Texxysox. My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure; My strength is as the strength of ten, Because iny heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrill eth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel. They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly rain from ladies' hands. How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favors fall! For them I battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall; But all my heart is drawn above, My knees are bowed in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden's hand in mine. 292 Selections for Reading. More bounteous aspects on me beam, Me mightier transports move and thrill, So keep I fair through faith and prayer A virgin heart in work and will. When down the stormy crescent goes, A light before me swims, Between dark stems the forest glows, I hear a voice of hymns; Then by some secret shrine I ride; I hear a voice, but none are there; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair. Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chants resound between. Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark; I leap on board; no helmsman steers; I float till all is dark. A gentle sound, an awful light! Three angels bear the holy Grail; With folded feet, in stoles of white, On sleeping wings they sail. Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! My spirit beats her mortal bars, As down dark tides the glory slides, And star-like mingles with the stars. When on my goodly charger borne, Through dreaming towns I go, The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, spins from brand and mail, But o'er the dark a glory spreads, And gilds the driving hail— Selections for Reading. 293 I leave the plain, I climb the height, No branchy thicket shelter yields; But blessed forms in whistling storms, Fly o'er waste fens and wiodj^ fields. A maiden knight, to me is given Such hope, I know not fear; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven That often meet me here. I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams; Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odors haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel's hand, This mortal armor that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes, Are touched, are turned to finest air. The clouds are broken in the sky, And through the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod, Wings flutter, voices hover clear; " O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on! the prize is near." So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; By bridge and ford, by park and pale All-armed I ride, whate'er betide, Until I find the holy Grail. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. Napoleon understood his business. Here was a man who in each moment and emergency knew what to do next. It is an immense comfort and refreshment to the spirits, not only of kings, but of citizens. Few men have 294 Selections for Reading. any next; they live from hand to mouth, without plan, and are ever at the end of their line, and, after each action, wait for an impulse from abroad. Napoleon had been the first man of the world, if his ends had been purely public. As he is, he inspires confidence and vigor by the extraordinary unity of his action. He is firm, sure, self-denying, self-postponing, sacri- ficing everything to his aim, — money, troops, generals, and his own safety also; not misled, like common adven- turers, by the splendor of his own means. " Incidents ought not to govern policy," he said, "but policy inci- dents." " To be hurried away by every event, is to have no political system at all." His victories were only so many doors, and he never for a moment lost sight of his way onward in the dazzle and uproar of the present cir- cumstance. He knew what to do, and he flew to his mark. He would shorten a straight line to come at his object. Horrible anecdotes may, no doubt, be collected from his history, of the price at which he bought his successes; but he must not, therefore, be set down as cruel, but only as one who knew no impediment to his will: not blood- thirsty, not cruel; but woe to what thing or person stood in his way! " Sire, General Clarke cannot combine with General Junot for the dreadful fire of the Austrian bat- tery." " Let him carry the battery." " Sire, every regi- ment that approaches the heavy artillery is sacrificed. Sire, what orders? " " Forward! forward! " In the plenitude of his resources every obstacle seemed to vanish. " There shall be no Alps," he said; and he built his perfect roads, climbing by graded galleries their steepest precipices, until Italy was as open to Paris as Selections for Beading. 295 any town in France. Having decided what was to be done, he did that with might and main. He put out all his strength. He risked everything, and spared nothing — neither ammunition, nor money, nor troops, nor generals, nor himself. If fighting be the best mode of adjusting national differences (as large majorities of men seem to agree), certainly Bonaparte was right in making it thorough. " The grand principle of war," he said, " was, that an army ought always to be ready, by day and by night, and at all hours, to make all the resistance it is capable of making." He never economized his ammunition, but on a hostile position rained a torrent of iron, — shells, balls, grape-shot, — to annihilate all defense. He went to the edge of his possibility, so heartily was he bent on his object. It is plain that in Italy he did what he could, and all that he could; he came several times within an inch of ruin, and his own person was all but lost. He was flung into the marsh at Areola. The Austrians were be- tween him and his troops in the confusion of the struggle, and he was brought off with desperate efforts. At Lonato and at other places he was on the point of being taken prisoner. He fought sixty battles. He had never enough. Each victory was a new weapon. " My power would fall, were I not to support it by new achievements. Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain me." He felt, with every wise man, that as much life is needed for conservation as for creation. We are always in peril, always in a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction, and only to be saved by invention and courage. This vigor was guarded and tempered by the coldest prudence 296 Selections for Reading. and punctuality. A thunderbolt in the attack, he was found invulnerable in his intrenchments. His very at- tack was never the inspiration of courage, but the result of calculation. His idea of the best defense consisted in being always the attacking party. " My ambition," he says, " was great, but was of a cold nature." Everything depended on the nicety of his combina- tions: the stars were not more punctual than his arithme- tic* His personal attention descended to the smallest particulars. " At Montebello I ordered Kellermann to attack with eight hundred horse; and with these he separated the six thousand Hungarian grenadiers before the very eyes of the Austrian cavalry. This cavalry was half a league off, and required a quarter of an hour to arrive on the field of action; and I have observed it is always these quarters of an hour that decide the fate of a battle." Before he fought a battle Bonaparte thought little about what he should do in case of success, but a great deal about what he should do in case of a reverse of fortune. The same prudence and good sense marked all his behavior. His instructions to his secretary at the palace are worth remembering: " During the night, enter my chamber as seldom as possible. Do not awake me when you have any good news to communicate; with that there is no hurry; but when you bring bad news, rouse me instantly, for then there is not a moment to be lost." His achievement of business was immense, and enlarges the known powers of man. There have been many work- ing kings, from Ulysses to William of Orange, but none who accomplished a tithe of this man's performance. To these gifts of nature Napoleon added the advantage Selections for Heading. 297 of having been born to a private and humble fortune. In his later days he had the weakness of wishing to add to his crowns and badges the prescription of aristocracy; but he knew his debt to his austere education, and made no secret of his contempt for the born kings, and for " the hereditary donkeys," as he coarsely styled the Bour- bons. He said that, in their exile, " they had learned nothing, and forgot nothing." Bonaparte had passed through all the degrees of military service; but, also, was citizen before he was emperor, and so had the key to citizenship. His remarks and estimates discovered the information and justness of measurement of the middle class. Those who had to deal with him found that he was not to be imposed upon, but could cipher as well as another man. When the expenses of the empress, of his house- hold, of his palaces, had accumulated great debts, Na- poleon examined the bills of the creditors himself, detected overcharges and errors, and reduced the claims by considerable sums. His grand weapon, namely, the millions whom he directed, he owed to the representative character which clothed him. He interests us as he stands for France and for Europe; and he exists as cap- tain and king only as far as the Eevolution or the in- terests of the industrious masses found an organ and a leader in him. In the social interests he knew the meaning and value of labor, and threw himself naturally on that side. The principal works that have survived him are his magnifi- cent roads. He filled his troops with his spirit, and a sort of freedom and companionship grew up between him and them, which the forms of his court never permitted 298 Selections for Reading. between the officers and himself. They performed under his eye that which no others could do. The best docu- ment of his relation to his troops is the order of the day on the morning of the battle of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon promises the troops that he will keep his person out of reach of fire. This declaration, which is the re- verse of that ordinarily made by generals and sovereigns on the eve of a battle, sufficiently explains the devotion of the army to their leader. THE PUEITANS. We would speak of the Puritans, the most remarka- ble body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever pro- duced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their char- acter lie on the surface. He that runs may read them; nor have there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out. For many years after the Kestora- tion, they were the theme of unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the utmost licentious- ness of the press and of the-stage, at the time when the press and the stage were most licentious. They were not men of letters; they were, as a body, unpopular; they could not defend themselves; and the public would not take them under its protection. They were, therefore, abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every oc- casion, their contempt of human learning, their detesta- Selections for Reading, 299 tion of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learnt. And he who ap- proaches this subject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already misled so many excellent writers. Those who roused the people to resistance, who di- rected their measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed, out of the most unpromising ma- terials, the finest army that Europe had ever seen, who trampled down King, Church, and Aristocracy, who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation on the face of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of free-masonry or the dresses of friars. We regret that these badges were not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations had not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the Eirst, or the easy good-breeding for which the court of Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death's head an.d the Fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure. The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of supe- rior beings and eternal interests. Xot content with ac- knowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being for whose power nothing was too vast, for 300 Selections for Reading. whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with con- tempt the ceremonious homage which other sects sub- stituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinc- tions. The difference between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his favor; and, confident of that favor, they depised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge of them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right of an earlier crea- tion, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked Selections for Reading. 301 with anxious interest, who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his ac- count. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ran- somed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God. Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men — the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He pros- trated himself in the dust before his Maker; but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional re- tirement he prayed with convulsions and groans and tears. He was half-maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the scepter of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from him. But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth 302 Selections for Reading. visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambi- tion and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue un- wise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world, like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier. Selections for Beading. 303 THE BUILDERS. Henry W. Longfellow. All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. Nothing useless is, or low; Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest. For the structure that we raise, Time is with materials filled; Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build. Truly shape and fashion these ; Leave no yawning gaps between; Think not because no man sees, Such things will remain unseen. In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the gods see everywhere. Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house where gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean. Else our lives are incomplete, Standing in these walls of Time, Broken stairways, where the feet Stumble as they seek to climb. Build to-day, then, strong and sure, With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place. 304 Selections for Reading. Thus alone can we attain To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky. THE TOWN-PITMP. Nathaniel Hawthorne. I hold high office in the town, being guardian of the best treasure it has; and I exhibit, moreover, an ad- mirable example to the other officials, by the cool and downright 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. At this sultry noontide I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. To all and sundry I cry aloud, at the very top of my voice: " Here it is, gentlemen! here is the good liquor! here is the unadulterated ale of Father Adam! better than brandy, wine, or beer; here it is, and not a cent to pay. Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, and help yourselves! " It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no cus- tomers. 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, Selections for Beading. 305 have passed by the taverns and stopped at the running brooks and bubbling springs. Drink, and make room for that other fellow who seeks my aid to quench the fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup of mine. "Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been great strangers hitherto! But mercy on you, man! The water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in tavern or dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious! "Who next? my little friend! you are just let loose from school, and are come here to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the rod by a draught 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! " There, my dear child! put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman who treads so gingerly over the paving-stones. What! he limps by, without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offices 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. " 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?" 306 Selections for Reading. THE BEEATH OP LIFE. Caroline B. Le Row. We are told that "God made man upright, but he hag found out many inventions." Though evidently intended in a moral sense, it is no less true in a physical one, and its truth is especially significant to the student of anatomy and physiology. For one "upright" man or woman, are to be found scores of round shoulders, protruding shoulder-blades, sunken chests, distorted ribs, bow legs, crooked spines, cramped toes and fingers. Man has found out many in- ventions of sitting, walking, dressing, working, sleeping, in the most unnatural positions of body, and owing to his strange and unaccountable tendency to the wrong when the right would better serve his purpose, these are persisted in even when proved fatal to comfort and health. Down through generations are handed the bodily deformities which hamper and disfigure the race, but all speculation as to the cause of so much weakness, helplessness and ugliness becomes needless when we reflect that these were not parts of the original plan, for " God made man upright," although he has since "found out many inventions." We are also told that "when God made man He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." Alas, that the inventive faculty should tamper with this also, and that the very breath of life should become life-destroying. It is fair to assume that all men and women of average intelligence are acquainted with the fact that the act of Selections for Heading. 307 breathing is the process by which air is taken into the lungs and expelled from them, supplying the system with oxygen, which is necessary for the warmth of the body and the purification of the blood. They know also that the lungs are conical organs, one on each side of the chest, and com- posed of air cells which are expanded when the chest is en- larged, contracted when it is diminished. Perhaps their knowledge of respiration also includes the fact that the muscles of the back and ribs are in some way employed in the act of breathing; that a hearty meal interferes with the process; that it is easier to talk, sing, or read aloud " on an empty stomach" than a full one, and that a sense of relief is instantly experienced on leaving a close room for the freedom of the outdoor air. It would not be safe to assert that these persons could intelligently explain the reasons for these facts. Still less probable is it that they could account for the pains and "stitches," the irritation or inflammation of the chest, the "sore spots" and "catches" of the breath with which the great majority are only too familiar. How tremendous is the astonishment of those who are told by phrenologist, physician, or teacher, "You do not breathe properly." "Don't breathe properly! Why, I supposed breathing was a natural function and took care of itself." Certainly, it will take care of itself if allowed to do so; but interfer- ence with this natural function is one of the many inven- tions which men, and especially women, have found out to their ruin. That consumption is one of the great physical scourges of the human race, is now received as an axiom. We have grown familiar with the advertisements of druggists and doctors — "Consumption can be cured." Is it not true, that to a great extent, " Consumption can be prevented?" 308 Selections for Reading. We are bound to admit that in all diseases an ounce of prevention is worth tons of cure. To one familiar with diseases of the respiratory organs, this truth has a more than ordinary significance, the approach of all lung and bronchial troubles being slow, insidious, deceptive, easily checked at the outset; but if too long neglected, defying all mortal care and skill. There can be nothing new said against corsets and tight- lacing, but something more than this popular outcry is needed. All this should be said, but other things should not be left unsaid. Emerson says that " the progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences." These surface differences will satisfy neither physiologist nor philosopher. The medical and mental eye looks farther and judges more truly. Many women who are judicious in respect to dress, and many men who would as soon think of wearing streamers as stays, are among the first to succumb to lung troubles. It is true that nothing can be worse for the lungs than the pressure brought to bear upon them by tight clothing. Draw a strap around a sponge and the air-cells are grad- ually and completely compressed. Just as surely does a pressure upon the chest and waist hamper the free use of the ribs and muscles, while the air-cells of the lungs strug- gle in vain for the necessary amount of their proper nourishment. The lower and stronger parts of the lungs being thug impeded in their work, the act of breathing — if carried on at all — must be transferred to the upper and weaker part. It is amazing how long and how stupidly this habit can be persisted in, and how few persons realize its sure and disastrous effect. This cramping and starving process long continued — this overtasking of the weaker parts of the organs, results most naturally and logically in Selections for Heading. 309 irritation which speedily grows into inflammation, produc- ing soreness and pains in the chest, susceptibility to colds, and the innumerable symptoms of disease and decay which go steadily on in their work of destruction and certain, if lingering, death. Everything, therefore, which in any way restricts the free use of all the muscles of the waist and chest, interferes with the function of breathing, and throws this duty upon the weakest part of the lungs, obliging them finally to succumb to the unnatural and self-imposed strain. The woman who prides herself on her good sense regard- ing corsets, will sit all day long over the sewing-machine embellishing with superfluous tucks and. ruffles the clothes which require her to stand all day long oyer the ironing- board. She spends hours over fascinating fancy-work which requires a confined position of body, and, as change from that employment, takes up a novel, which, allows an easier attitude and rest for the fingers. Content to breathe the dry furnace air of our modern houses, at no time does she willingly take active exercise out of doors. Formal calls, shopping expeditions, evening entertainments, full- dress drives on a fashionable avenue — these are the only occasions upon which she encounters the pure air, and at these times either the endless precautions of wraps and mufflers prevent it from being of any benefit, or carelessness of exposure makes it a positive injury. The women who have no choice of duties or pleasures, whose time is spent in the hot air of the kitchen, the close atmosphere of the shop, the mill, the dressmaker and bon- net-maker's rooms — these are also the women with the little cough, the slight pain in the chest, all the small symptoms with which physicians are dreadfully familiar — the unmis- takable initials of sickness and death. The men whose business keeps them in cramped positions 310 Selections for Reading. over the cobbler's last, the tailor's bench, the dentist's chair, at the easel, the desk — all these must suffer likewise, unless the outdoor air and exercise is sufficient to neutral- ize the injury. Most men have the desire, as well as the opportunity, for this free, active stir after the confinement of the day. It is no unusual thing for the horse-car to roll by unnoticed while they walk home from the office or the store, with the energetic stride and deep inspiration which does more than anything else to repair the waste of the day. Too true is it that while "man works till set of sun, woman's work is never done," giving her little opportunity, even if she had the desire, to escape from her daily bondage, leaving physical toil and mental care behind her. " Oh, that is a medicine which cures everything," we hear said in a contemptuous tone and with a shrug of the shoulders; "I have no faith in it for that reason." But many diseases spring from one source, assuming in different persons different forms, dependent upon peculiarities of constitution and temperament. What causes rheumatism in one, may in another develop into pleurisy or dyspepsia, bronchitis or fever. The delicate woman lying on the lounge with headache, and the portly man braced in his- chair with gout, may seem to need utterly different medi- cines and styles of treatment, but the physician knows that they differ only as types of the same species. A bad state of the blood has a hundred ways of manifestation, and chooses with seeming capriciousness divers afflictions for its many victims. The lack of proper nourishment for the blood is one cause of its impurity, and impure blood is one of the most common causes of all disease. In no way can it be so effectually defrauded of its food as by wrong habits of breathing, which diminish its supply of oxygen, impair its circulation, and cripple every function of the body. Selections for Reading. 311 Nature revenges herself for our neglect of any physical or mental power by depriving us of its use. The positions of body which cramp or hinder the action of the muscles of the diaphragm, will in time weaken these muscles, and limit the power, even if there is inclination, to draw a full, deep breath. The muscles should not be allowed to grow weak from disuse; respiration should not be confined to the upper part of the lungs; the chest should not be required to do the work of the diaphragm; the habit of breathing fully and deeply should be firmly established. The pre- vention of these things is plain, easy, requiring but little time, slight exertion, no medicine, and no money. All that is needed is an erect position of the body, ex- panded chest, and deep inspiration in the pure air. The elasticity and vigor of all the muscles can be greatly increased by percussion by patting. Such exercise should be of tenest taken by those w r hose employments are sedentary. Let the public school-teacher, who finds her scholars grow- ing noisy in proportion as she grows nervous, open all the windows, and for two minutes keep the children on their feet, while they exercise the chest by moderate percussion, and the lungs by long, deep, energetic breathing. The rest and refreshment will be far out of proportion to the time and effort expended in this simple way. Such exercise will be beneficial to any one who will take it, and is the surest cure for the temporary depression of spirits, slight head- aches, and fatigue which often follow too long confinement indoors, or application to any special work. Its simplicity makes many skeptical concerning its efficacy, and experience, like that of the old man who attributed his long life and health to having "plenty of God's pure air from an open east winder," is the only thing which can prove to un- believers the great value of exercise as preventive and cure. 312 Selections for Reading. Much of the difficulty in reading aloud lies in "getting out of breath." There is no obstacle so common, yet none so easily overcome. The lungs should be filled before be- ginning to read, and refilled at every convenient pause — always before they are exhausted. With a little practice every one — even those with weak vocal organs and small breathing capacity — can acquire the "knack" of keeping the lungs sufficiently filled, and doing it so quickly and quietly as to avoid drawing attention to the process. No good singer, actor, or reader is ever out of breath, even when appearing to be so for the purpose of producing a certain effect. A LIBERAL EDUCATION. Thomas Henry Huxley. Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and for- tune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, the happiness of every one of us and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which Selections for Heading. 313 has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and, patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated, without haste, but without re- morse. What I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which professes to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority or of numbers upon the other side. It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigor of his faculties, could be suddenly placed in the world as Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as he best might. How long would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes, Nature would begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain and pleasure would be at his elbow, telling him to do this and avoid 314 Selections for Reading. that; and by slow degrees the man would receive an edu- cation, which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate to his circumstances, though there would be no extras and very few accomplishments. Thus the question of compulsory education is settled so far as Nature is concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed long ago. But ignorance is visited as sharply as willful disobedience; incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime. Nature's discipline is not even a word and a blow, and the blow first; but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out why your ears are boxed. That man, I think, has had a liberal education, who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working order; ready like a steam engine to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose brain is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; one, who, no stunted ascetic, is full" of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself. Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; for he is, as completely as a man. can be, in harmony with Nature. He will make the best of her and she of him. They will get on together rarely; she as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, her con- scious self, her minister and interpreter. — Lay Sermons. Selections for Reeding. 315 HOW TO HAVE WHAT WE LIKE. Horace Smith. Hahd by a poet's attic lived a chemist, Or alchemist, who had a mighty Faith in the elixir vita?; And, though unflattered by the dimmest Glimpse of success, kept credulously groping And grubbing in his dark vocation; Stupidly hoping To find the art of changing metals, And so coin guineas from his pots and kettles, By mystery of transmutation. Our starving poet took occasion To seek this conjurer's abode; Not with encomiastic ode, Of laudatory dedication, But with an offer to impart, For twenty pounds, the secret art Which should procure, without the pain Of metals, chemistry, and fire, What he so long had sought in vain, And gratify his heart's desire. The money paid, our bard was hurried To the philosopher's sanctorum, "Who, as it were, sublimed and flurried Out of his chemical decorum, Crowed, capered, giggled, seemed to spurn his Crucibles, retort, and furnace, And cried, as he secured the door, And carefully put to the shutter, " Now, now, the secret, I implore! For Heaven's sake, speak, discover, utter!" With grave and solemn air the poet Cried: " List! list, for thus I show it: 316 Selections for Reading. Let this plain truth those ingrates strike, Who still, though blessed, new blessings crave; That we may all have what we like, Simply by liking what we have!" OUR HONORED DEAD. Edward Everett. It has been the custom from the remotest antiquity to preserve and hand down to posterity, in bronze and in marble, the counterfeit presentment of illustrious men. Within the last few years modern research has brought to light on the banks of the Tigris, huge slabs of alabaster, buried for ages, which exhibit in relief the faces and the persons of men who governed the primeval East in the gray dawn of history. Three thousand years have elapsed since they lived and reigned and built palaces and fortified cities and waged war and gained victories of which the trophies are carved upon these monumental tablets, — the triumphal procession, the chariots laden with spoil, the drooping cap- tive, the conquered monarch in chains,— but the legends inscribed upon the stone are imperfectly deciphered, and little beyond the names of the personages, and the most general tradition of their exploits is preserved. In like manner the obelisks and temples of ancient Egypt are covered with the sculptured images of whole dy- nasties of Pharaohs, — older than Moses, older than Joseph whose titles are recorded in the hieroglyphics with which the granite is charged, and which are gradually yielding up their long concealed mysteries to the sagacity of modern criticism. The plastic arts, as they passed into Hellas, with all the other arts which give grace and dignity to ov$ Selections for Reading. 317 nature, reached a perfection unknown to Egypt or Assyria; and the heroes of Greece and Kome, immortalized by the sculptor, still people the galleries and museums of the modern world, In every succeeding age and in every country in which the fine arts have been cultivated, the respect and affection of survivors have found a pure and rational gratification in the historical portrait and the monumental statue of the honored and loved in private life, and especially of the great and good who have deserved well of their country. The skill of the painter and sculptor, which thus comes in aid of the memory and imagination, is in its highest degree one of the rarest, as it is one of the most exquisite accomplishments within our attainment, and in its perfec- tion as seldom witnessed as the perfection of speech or music. The plastic hand must be moved by the same ethereal instinct as the eloquent lips or the recording pen. The number of those who, in the language of Michael Angelo, can discern the finished statue in the shapeless block and bid it start into artistic life — who are endowed with the exquisite gift of molding the rigid bronze or the lifeless marble into graceful, majestic and expressive forms — is not greater than the number of those who are able to make the spiritual essence, the finest shades of thought and feeling, sensible to the mind, through the eye and ear, in the mysterious embodiment of the written and the spoken word. If Athens, in her palmiest days, had but one Pericles, she had also but one Phidias. The portraits and statues of the honored dead kindle the generous ambition of the youthful aspirant to fame. Themistocles could not sleep for the trophies in the Ceram- icus; and when the living Demosthenes had ceased to speak, the stony lips remained to rebuke and exhort his 318 Selections for Reading. degenerate countrymen. More than a hundred years have elapsed since the great Newton passed away; but from age to age his statue by Koubillac, in the ante-chapel of Trinity College will give distinctness to the conceptions formed of him by hundreds and thousands of ardent youthful spirits, filled with reverence for that transcendent intellect, which, from the phenomena that fall within our limited vision, deduced the imperial law by which the Sovereign Mind rules the entire universe. We can never look on the per- son of Washington; but his serene and noble countenance, perpetuated by the pencil and the chisel, is familiar to far greater multitudes than ever stood in his living presence, and will be thus familiar to the latest generation. What parent, as he conducts his son to Mount Auburn or to Bunker Hill, will not, as he passes before their monu mental statues, seek to heighten his reverence for virtue* for patriotism, for science, for learning, for devotion to the public good, as he bids him contemplate the form of that grave and venerable Winthrop, who left his pleasant home in England to come and found a new republic in this un- trodden wilderness; of that ardent and intrepid Otis, who first struck out the spark of American independence; of that noble Adams, its most eloquent champion on the floor of Congress; of that martyr, Warren, who laid down his life in its defense; of that self-taught Bowditch, who, with- out a guide, threaded the starry mazes of the heavens; of that Story, honored at home and abroad as one of the brightest luminaries of the law, and, by a felicity of which I believe there is no other example, admirably portrayed in marble by his son? Your long rows of quarried granite may crumble to the dust; the corn-fields in yonder villages ripening to the sickle may, like the plains of stricken Lombardy, be kneaded Selections for Reading. 319 into bloody clods by the madding wheels of artillery; this populous city, like the old cities of Etruria and Campagna Komagna, may be desolated by the pestilence which walketh in darkness, may decay with the lapse of time, and the busy mart, which now rings with the din of trade, become as lonely and still as Carthage or Tyre, as Babylon or Nineveh; but the names of the great and good shall survive the desolation and the ruin; the memory of the wise, the brave, the patriotic shall never perish. Yes, Sparta is a wheat-field; a Bavarian prince holds court at the foot of the Acropolis; the traveling virtuoso digs for marble in the Eoman Forum, and beneath the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Oapitolinus; but Lycurgus and Leonidas, and Miltiades and Demosthenes, and Cato and Tully still live. All the great and good shall live in the heart of the ages while marble and bronze shall endure; and when marble and bronze have perished, they shall still live in memory, so long as men shall reverence law, honor patriotism and love liberty! SOMETHING GREAT. The trial was ended — the vigil past; All clad in Ms arms was the knight at last, The goodliest knight in the whole wide land, With face that shone with a purpose grand. The king looked on him with gracious eyes, And said: " He is meet for some high enterprise." To himself he thought: " I will conquer fate; I will surely die, or do something great." So from the palace he rode away; There was trouble and need in the town that day; A child had strayed from his mother's side Into the woodland dark and wide. 320 Selections for Heading. " Help! " cried the mother with sorrow wild — " Help me, Sir Knight, to seek my child! The hungry wolves in the forest roam; Help me to bring my lost one home! " He shook her hand from his bridle-rein: " Alas! poor mother, you ask in vain; Some meaner succor will do, maybe, Some squire or varlet of low degree. There are mighty wrongs in the world to right; I keep my sword for a noble fight. I am sad at heart for your baby's fate, But I ride in haste to do something great." One wintry night when the sun had set, A blind old man by the way he met. " Now, good Sir Knight, for our Lady's sake, On the sightless wanderer pity take! The wind blows cold, and the sun is down; Lead me, I pray, till I reach the town." " Nay," said the knight, " I cannot wait: I ride in haste to do something great." So on he rode in his armor bright, His sword all keen for the longed-for fight. " Laugh with us— laugh! " cried the merry crowd. " Oh, weep! " wailed others with sorrow bowed. " Help us! " the weak and weary prayed. But for joy, nor grief, nor need he sta} r ed. And the years rolled on, and his eyes grew dim, And he died — and none made moan for him. He missed the good that he might have done; He missed the blessings he might have won; Seeking some glorious task to find, His eyes to all humbler work were blind! He that is faithful in that which is least Is bidden to sit at the heavenly feast; Yet men and women lament their fr te, If they be not called to do something great. Selections for Reading. 321 LIFE. John Buskin, If your life were but a fever fit — the madness of a night whose follies were all to be forgotten in the dawn, it might matter little how you fretted away the sickly hours — what toys you snatched at, or let fall — what visions you followed wistfully with the deceived eyes of sleepless frenzy. . . But if this life be no dream, . . . if all the peace and power and joy you can ever win must be won now; and all fruit of victory gathered here, or never — will you still, throughout the puny totality of your life, waste yourselves in the fire of vanity? If there is no rest which remaineth for you, is there none you might presently take? AVas this grass of the earth made green for your shroud only, not for your bed? and can you never lie down upon it, but only under it? The heathen, to whose creed you have returned, thought not so. They knew that life brought its contest, but they ex- pected from it also the crown of all contest: No proud one! no jeweled circlet flaming through Heaven above the height of the unmerited throne; only some few leaves of wild olive, cool to the tired brow, through a few years of peace. It should have been of gold, they thought; but Jupiter was poor; this was the best the god could give them. Free-heartedness, and graciousness, and undis- turbed trust, and requited love, and the sight of the peace of others, and the ministry to their pain — these, and the blue sky above you, and the sweet waters and flowers of the earth beneath; and mysteries and presences, innumerable, of living things — these may yet be here your riches; untormenting and divine. 322 Selections for Reading. ENTHUSIASM OF LIFE. A. Harrington. If there be one want of the time imperious beyond another, it is that of earnest men. Literature has had full enough parasites and charlatans. The Church wants men — men as ardent for duty as Alexander for glory — in whose sight the games and gauds of the earth vanish be- fore the cause of truth like vapors before the rising sun. The state, too, can ill afford to substitute offi- cials, partisans and demagogues, for patriots. It wants men with the ability to see, and the enthusiasm to feel that policy is duty. It wants men who, sinking all selfish and sectional interests in an all-absorbing love of country, boldly venture position, fortune, life if need be, to compass an object dearer than self; who on this country's altars, swear eternal enmity to all who dare menace the integrity of the Union, or trifle with the con- stitutional rights of any section. Examine the muster-roll of Genius, trace the progress of revolutions and reformations through the eras of his- tory, and you will learn the power of true enthusiasm to beautify and better man's condition. Heroes, martyrs, the mighty dead heard, and the mighty living hear its notes and march to its inspiring music. Every noble instinct of humanity condemns a selfish apathy in human affairs. Only mean spirits will remain listless, while the world within and the world without continue their manifold pleadings for enthusiasm of life. Poet, orator, statesman, reformer, be sincere, be earnest, be true; for such the world has honors — humanity its be- Selections for Beading. 323 lievers — heaven its immortality! Act, then, as best you can, and you shall not be of that number — 44 Who, fast-footed to their native spot, In life are useless, and in death forgot." IN THE HIGHLANDS. William Black. Ttte monotonous sound of the waterfall, so far from dis- turbing the new guest of Castle Dare, only soothed her to rest. But in the yery midst of the night she was startled by some loud commotion that appeared to prevail both within and without the house; and when she was fully awakened it seemed to her that the whole earth was being shaken to pieces in the storm. The wind howled in the chimneys; the rain dashed on the window-panes with a rattle as of musketry; far below she could hear the awful booming of the Atlantic breakers. The gusts that drove against the high house seemed ready to tear it from its foothold of rock and whirl it inland; or was it the sea itself that was rising in 'its thunderous power to sweep away this bauble from the face of the mighty cliffs? And then the wild and desolate morning that followed! Through the bewilderment of the running water on the panes, she looked abroad on the tempest-riven sea — a slate-colored waste of hurrying waves with wind-swept streaks of foam on them — and on the lowering and ever-changing clouds. But next day — such are the rapid changes in the High- lands—broke blue and shining; and Miss Gertrude White 324 Selections for Heading. was amazed to find that the awful Sound was now brilliant in the most beautiful colors — for the tide was low and the yellow sandbanks were shining through the blue waters of the sea. And would she not, seeing that the boat was lying down at the quay now, sail round the island and see the splendid sight of the Atlantic breaking on the wild coast on the western side? She hesitated; and then when it was suggested that she might walk across the island, she eagerly accepted the alternative. But where Macleod, eager to please her and show her the beauty of the Highlands, saw lovely white sands, smiling plains of verdure, and far views of the sunny sea, she only saw loneliness and desolation and a constant threatening of death from the fierce Atlantic. Could anything have been more beautiful, he said to himself, than this magnificent scene? — the wildly rushing seas, coming thundering on to the rocks and springing so high into the air that the snow- white foam showed black against the glare of the sky; the nearer islands gleaming with a touch of brown on their sunward side, while far away in the north the mountains were faint and spectral in the haze of the sunlight. Then the wild coast around them, with its splendid masses of granite and its spare grass, a brown-green in the warm sun; its bays of silver sand, and its sea-birds whiter than the white clouds that come sailing over the blue. She recognized only the awfulness and the loneliness of that wild shore, with its suggestions of crashing storms in the night-time and the cries of drowning men dashed helplessly on the cruel rocks. She was very silent all the way back, though he told her stories of the fairies that used to inhabit those sandy and grassy plains. And could anything have been more magical than the beauty of that evening after the storm had altogether died Selections for Reading. 325 away? The red sunset sank behind the dark olive-green of the hills; a pale, clear twilight took its place and shone over those mystic ruins that were the object of many a thought and many a pilgrimage in the far past and forgot- ten years; then the stars began to glimmer as the distant shores and the sea grew dark; a wonderful radiance rose behind the low hills; across the waters of the Sound came a belt of quivering light as the white moon sailed slowly up into the sky. There was an odor of new-mown hay in the night air. Far away they could hear the murmuring of the waves around the rocks. They did not speak a word as they walked along to those solemn ruins overlooking the sea, that were now a mass of mysterious shadow except where the eastern walls and the tower were touched by the silvery light that had just come into the heavens. — Macleod of Dare. COMPENSATION. Frances Ridley Havergal. Oh, the compensating springs! Oh, the balance-wheels of life, Hidden away in the workings under the seeming strife! Slowing the fret and the friction, weighting the whirl and the force, Evolving the truest power from each unconscious source, How shall we gauge the whole, who can only guess a part? How can we read the life when we cannot spell the heart? How shall we measure another, we who can never know From the juttings above the surface, the depth of the vein below? Even our present way is known to ourselves alone, Height and abyss and torrent, flower and thorn and stone; But we gaze on another's path as a far-off mountain scene, Scanning the outlined hills, but never the vales between. 326 Selections for Reading. The easy path in the lowland hath little of grand or new, But a toilsome ascent leads onward to a wide and glorious view; Peopled and warm is the valley, lonely and chill the height; But the peak that is nearer the storm-cloud is nearer the stars of light. Launch on the foaming stream that bears you along like a dart, — There is danger of rapid and rock, there is tension of muscle and heart; Glide on the easy current, monotonous, calm and slow, You are spared the quiver and strain in the safe and quiet flow. For rapture of love is linked with the pain or fear of loss, And the hand that takes the crown must ache with many a cross; Yet he who hath never a conflict, hath never a victor's palm, And only the toilers know the sweetness of rest and calm. Ah, if we knew it all we surely should understand That the balance of joy and sorrow is held with an even hand; That the scale of success or loss shall never overflow, And that compensation is twined with the lot of high and low. SOME PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. THE ART OF EXPRESSION. A picture mar express something and so may a song. Commonly expression means speech, words, either our own or composed by another. To express yourself clearly and to the point is a simple and a very necessary accom- plishment. To write a letter or make a speech, or to take part in ordinary conversation, implies the ability to express yourself with reasonable ease and clearness. Yet the fine art of expression is something much higher than mere letter-writing, conversation, or speech- making. This is the art of expressing in the finest and most artistic manner the thoughts of the poets and writers who. having something to say. have said it in the most beautiful manner. It is not exactly reading aloud, it is not elocution, or acting, or pantomime, or oratory, and yet it may be something of all these. There are three distinct ways in which we may enjoy a fine poem: We may read it from the printed page in silence; we may listen while someone reads it aloud; or listen to someone reading it while we ourselves hold the book and follow the words as they are spoken by the reader. There is also a fourth method, and that is to commit the poem to memory and to repeat it aloud. The first method is the most common and the least satisfactory, because we may be morally certain that we 328 Some Practical Suggestions. are reading it pretty badly. Besides, reading in silence is unsocial, a little selfish, and not always fair to the poet or ourselves. Eeading in silence misses half the charm of reading. It is not easy to carry the cadence, rhythm, and musical form of the poem in the mind. Just try it. Eead any good poem for the first time to your- self and then listen to the same poem read or recited aloud by a trained reader. Now it's quite another thing. Now to the thought we add the sound of the rhyme, the swing of the rhythm, all the music of the words, and all the charm of a beautiful voice. Besides all this, the reader may give a wholly new meaning to the words, and thus add something to the poem we might never have found alone. As well look over the notes of a song and try to imagine how they will sound as to read always in silence. Naturally, this art of expression rests chiefly on the art of reading, and yet it is not mere reading. Eeading aloud or recitation makes the " medium " of this art — the art itself is the complete artistic development of the man or woman, so that in using this medium they bring out all the values of the poem they read. Nor is a trained voice, skillful inflection, or graceful gesture every- thing. There must be also general culture, ability to understand what is read, and the taste to select the right thing and the best thing to read. People will always enjoy the fine presentation of fine literature. We are getting away from the mere enter- tainment side of this art of expression, and those who hope to succeed in filling the demand for readers must follow broad and thorough courses of study. Some Practical Suggestions. 329 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Joseph E. Worcester. The orthography of the English language has been undergoing continual changes from the time of its first formation to the present day, although for a century or upwards it may be regarded as having assumed a com- paratively settled form. If v\ r e look into books printed in the reign of Queen Anne, we meet with many words having an orthography different from that which is now in use. If we carry our observation back as far as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, we find the difference in orthography greatly increased; and when, in our retro- spective examination, we reach the age of Chaucer and Wickliffe, we find many words, which, though they are now actually in use, are so disguised in their orthographi- cal form, and are of so odd and uncouth an appearance, that they can hardly be recognized. The early productions of English literature, which are still much read, such as the works of Bacon, Hooker, Shakespeare, and the common version of the Bible, ap- pear now in an orthography very different from that in which they were at first printed. The first four verses of the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, in the first edition of the common version of the Bible, printed in 1811, stand thus: " Giue eare, yee heauens, and I will speake; and heare, earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the raine; my speach shall distill as the deaw, as the smal raine vpon the tender herb, and as showres vpon* the grasse. Because I wil publish the Name of the Lord; ascribe yee greatnesse vnto our 330 Some Practical Suggestions. God. He is the rocke, his work is perfecte; for all his wayes are Iudgement: a God of trueth, and without iniquity, just and right is he." In these few lines, which may be taken as a specimen of the whole, there are twenty-seven instances in which the words appear in an orthography different from that in which they are now printed. It is not uncommon to find the same word spelt in more ways than one on the same page, as is often the case with works even of the most distinguished writers printed in the early ages of English literature. The pronunciation of the English language, like that of all living languages, is in a great measure arbitrary. It is exposed to the caprices of fashion and taste. It is liable to change from one age to another; and it varies, more or less, not only in the different and distantly separated countries in which it is spoken, but also in the different divisions and districts of the same country. No two speakers or orthoepists, though inhabitants of the same place, would be likely to agree in the pronunciation of all its words. A proper pronunciation is a desirable ac- complishment, and is indicative of a correct taste and a good education; still it ought to be remembered, that, in speech as in manners, he who is the most precise is often the least pleasing, and that rusticity is more excusable than affectation. THE AIR YOU BREATHE. Do you know that you are simply a furnace burning oxygen? That you live and work on 'the air you breathe? Possibly you think it is the food you take in, that Some Practical Suggestions. 331 keeps you going. Change that idea. See the locomotive. Its steam corresponds to the air in your lungs. Your lungs are boiler and furnace combined. The food you eat, once you have attained your growth, is merely the oil that greases the wheels of the train, preventing and re- pairing waste. Meat and bread build up your tissues, feed the groups of cells that constitute your body. But fresh air is the motive power of the whole concern. Cultivate the capacity of your lungs. Add daily to their power to absorb and utilize the air which sur- rounds us. Fresh air is the one reliance of the prize-fighter, the race-horse, the actress, the orator. Each must work to develop the lungs and the lung power, to take in air sufficient to make up for great exertion. If you have to lift a heavy trunk you instinctively fill your lungs with air before lifting. If you have a long walk or hard run ahead of you, you are careful to have your stomach empty, and you watch your breathing all the way. Breathing is, in its way, an art. Look at the great singers, especially the women. You will be amazed at the development of their breathing apparatus. Their lungs have spread out their ribs from top to bottom, proper breathing has thrown the head back and brought the chest out. They are creatures different from the poor, narrow-chested women who take in a little air in stuffy rooms and wonder why they suffer. Think often of the importance of air, and get as much of it as you can. Make it your business to breathe prop- erly for a j T ear or two — if you have never paid attention to that. Once the habit is formed, you will find your 332 Some Practical Suggestions. health and strength permanently improved as no medi- cines could improve them. Besides giving actual bodily strength, fresh air pre- vents disease and cures it often. The late Dr. Brown-Sequard once declared to the- writer that only fresh air could cure consumption, and that it could always cure, if taken in time and in quanti- ties great enough. Only one case had come before him, he said, of a man actually living and thriving with one lung. The one- lunged man was an American — a doctor. When he and all others had decided that the time had come for him to die, this one-lunged man decided to give a full trial to the value of fresh air. He secured an ap- pointment as physician on an ocean liner. Summer and winter, with never an exception, no matter what the weather, he slept above decks. Friendly doctors told him that the exposure would only kill him a little quicker. But fresh air and one lung combined sufficed him. After a number of years he appeared before Brown-Sequard and the other members of the French Academy of Medi- cine, a consumptive saved from sure death by exaggerated quantities of pure air. Breathe the air in slowly; let it escape from the lungs just as slowly as you take it in. Breathe regularly. Take many deep, slow breaths every morning and every evening on the way to and from work. That alone will add two or three inches to your chest measure — which will please your vanity. It will also add several years to your life. Eemember that the blood runs through your body up and down from brain to toes incessantly. It starts on its journey a clear, bright, clean fluid. It comes back Some Practical Suggestions. 333 dark and murky, laden with the impurities that it has collected on its travels through your system. It is cleaned and purified by the air as it passes through your lungs. Take in plenty of air to clean it, and to clean your mind as well. For your mental state always reflects that of your blood and body. Throw your shoulders back, hold your head straight. Draw your neck backward to expand the tight ribs at the top of your chest. Consumption always begins at the top of the lungs under the ribs, which are compressed and which compress the upper lungs in consequence of our squatting, sedentary habits. Don't be afraid of the cold air. Take in plenty of it. And may your health increase. It surely will. AN APPEAL FKOM THE VOWELS. Why do you not treat us vowels rightly? What have we done that we should be so fearfully mangled, so grossly misrepresented, frequently completely anni- hilated, while over our poor bleeding bodies only a few clear-brained and conscientious elocutionists drop a tear because they know our value. We are compelled to pro- test, as further patience on our part would simply lead to our complete obliteration. We are useful and try to please everybody. Our tempers are excellent and we are always ready for work. Without us there could be no money, enjoyment, sunshine, music, or even life. We give strength, variety, and pleasure to everybody. We are never dull, never disagreeable, and never refuse our best service to anyone who will simply accept it. If we 334 Some Practical Suggestions. are rightly used we yield fortunes to people and rule worlds. We are small and yet mighty. We are fit for the lisping infant, yet the mightiest orator who shakes the world finds it impossible to get along without us. We are always young, and yet we count centuries. We have been framed and developed by thousands of clever men; and remembering that so much has been done to suit us to everybody's requirements, the grievance is very great that we should not receive more consideration. We do not complain of absolutely ignorant people. Much may be said of such delinquents, as their training and associations have been against that mental clearness which is the best eyesight after all, the higher, safer vision. No, we righteously grumble against people who know better and do badly. We have a beautiful i, but how often they completely shut it up. We have a splendid u, but we may safely say you scarcely ever use it as it should be. As to the a, it is so badly treated that it is a wonder this herald of the alphabet does not for- sake the language altogether. The e, is full of ease, but one — or millions — must regard it as full of difficulty when we reflect that its existence, in nine cases out of ten, is shamefully ignored. When we mention o we are almost inclined simply to ejaculate it, and stop short with an injured look of eloquence. The o has many ap- plications, but the sound indicative of debt is the one we like best just at present, for this brother of ours has great claims on mankind. This is a tiny grumble to begin with, but should we not be treated properly, or, at least, with more care in future, our tempers will certainly rise, and we shall be rioters of such a type that no policeman yet appointed Some Practical Suggestions. 335 will be able to take us all into custody, though one of us cannot escape getting into a cell. Two of us are in tears, and we raise our cry to be treated as we should, and if this is done you will find us so good and useful that you will never speak without mentioning us. Hinds & Noble's Publications Cooper Institute New York How to Use tKe Voice in R.eading & Speaking Cloth, 275 pages. Price, $1.25 By Ed* Amherst Ott, Principal of School of Oratory, Drake University, Pes Moines, Iowa Designed to be used as text-books in Colleges, High Schools, and for self-instruction *£ <£ How to Gesture Cloth, 125 pages. Price, 73 cents. Hinds & Noble New York B Ztn UJeeKs' Course in elocution By J. V. Coombs, formerly Professor of English Literature an J Elocution in Eureka College, Eureka, 111. Assisted by Virgil A. Pinkley, Principal of the Department of Elocution in School of Music, Cincinnati, Ohio. Revised and Enlarged by C. H. Harne, Professor of Elocution and Reading in Salina Normal University, Salina, Kan- sas. Cloth, 415 Pages. Price, $1.23. Many good books on the Theory of Elocution have been published — choice selections are plentiful, but very few authors have combined, with the Essentials of Elocu- tion, a good variety of proper exercises for practice. In Part I, the author has briefly outlined the best way to teach a beginner to read. Part II contains a full discussion of Dictionary Work, the value of which cannot be over- estimated, Part III contains helpful suggestions to Teachers of Elocution. Part IV (the largest and most important part) contains a thorough discussion of the Elements of Elocution, each principle being carefully considered. Part V comprises a splendid collection of Humorous, Dramatic and Oratorical selections for prac- tice — the whole being an ideal work for teachers to use with classes which have only a brief period of time to devote to the subject. The chapters devoted to Elocution have been so divided that they can be easily completed by a class in ten weeks'. time as follows : 1st Week. Outline of Elocution 2d Week, Respiration and Breathing 3rd Week* Physical Culture (Calisthenics) 4th Week. Articulation 5th Week. Orthoepy (Pronunciation) 6th Week. Vocal Culture 7th Week. Qualities of the Voice 8th Week. The Art of Vocal Expression 9th Week. Gesture 10th Week, Gesture A great variety of selections, Humorous, Dramatic and Oratorical, illustrating the various principles studied, immediately follow the Lessons. These are to be used to test the work that is done by the class from week to week. Sample copies will be furnished to Teachers of Elocution and classes supplied at $1.00. HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 4-5-642-S344 Cooper Institute - - New York City School Books of All Publishers at One Store College Girls* Three-minute Readings $1.00— CLOTH, 500 PAGES, WITH INDEX— $1.00 Here is a volume for American girls by American women — an ideal long in demand, now realized for the first time. In this book patriotism is the keynote domi- nating a series of new, irQ'sh.,speakable selections, pathetic, humorous, descriptive, oratorical ; running, in fact, the gamut of the emotions. A book for the American girl and the American young woman in the college, the high school, the academy, and the home. This new book is new in every sense of the word, but particularly in voicing the golden thoughts of scores of the living representative women of America— women edu- cators, women philanthropists, women reformers. Here is a partial list of the contributors : Mrs. A. Giddings Park "Susan Cootidge" Eva Lovett Cameron {Brooklyn Eagle) Agnes E. Mitchell Edith M . Thomas Rsv. AnmH bhaw Emma Lazarus Margaret junkia Preston Adelaide Procter Amelia Barr Celia Thax'er Norah Perry Christina Rossetti Alice Gary Anna Robertson Lindsay Adeline Whitney J. Ellen Foster Emily Warren Margaret E. Sangster Lucy Larcom Clara Barton Ella Wheeler Wilcox Frances E. Willard Harriet Beecher Stowe Kate Doug as Wigg'n Mar Mapes Dodge Isabel A Ma\\on( Ladies Home Journal) "Gail Hamilton" and there are many others. A brief note, happily worded, conveying information not to be found elsewhere, regarding the author or the occasion, accompanies most of the selections. Teachers will find selections appropriate to Memorial Day, Arbor Day, Washington's Birthday, and all other patriotic occasions. And from the pages of this book speak the voices of many of our presidents, from Washington to McKinley. Besides a Perspicuous list of contents, the volume contains a complete gen- eral index by titles and authors; and also a separate index of authors, thus enabling one who remembers only^ the title to find readily the atrthor, or who recalls only the author to find just as readily all of her selections. I ike the companion volume, College Men's reclamations, this work contains many "pieces" suitable both for girls and boys, and the two books may well stand side by side upon the shelf of every student and every teacher, ever ready with some selection that is sure to please, and exactly suited to the speaker and to the occasion. HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 4-5-J3-J4 Cooper Institute New York City College Men's 3=minute Declamations $1.00— CLOTH, 381 PAGES, WITH INDEX— $1.00 Here at last is a volume containing just what college students have been calling for time out of mind, but never could find — something besides the old selections, which, though once inspiring, now fail to thrill the audience, because declaimed to death! Live topics pre- sented by live men ! Full of vitality for prize speaking. Such is the matter with which this volume abounds. To mention a few names — each speaking in his well- known style and characteristic vein : Chauncey M. Depew President Eliot {Harvard) Abram S. Hewitt George Parsons Lathrop Carl Schurz Bishop Potter Wiiiiam E. Gladstone Sir Charles Russell Edward J. Phelps President Carter (Williams* Benjamin Harrison T. De Witt Talmage Grover Cleveland Ex-Pres. White (Cornell) General Horace Porter Rev. Newman Smyth Doctor Storrs Emilio Castelar Here, too, sound the familiar voices of George William Curtis, Lowell, Blaine, Phillips Biooks, Beecher, Garfield, Disraeli, Bryant, 3rady, and Choate. Poets also :— Longfellow, Holmes, Tennyson, Byron, Whittier, Schiller, Shelley, Hood, and others. More than a hundred other authors besides ! We have not space o enumerate. But the selections from them are all just the thing. \nd all the selections are brief. In addition to a Perspicuous list of contents, the volume contains a com- plete general index by titles and authors ; and also a separate index of author s, thus enabling one who remembers only the title to find readily the author , or who recalls only the author to find just as readily all of his selections. Another invaluable feature :— Preceding each selection are given, so far as ascertainable, the vocation, the residence, and the dates of birth and death of the author ; and the occasion to which we owe the oration, or address, or poem. Like the companion volume, College Girls' Readings, this work con tains many " pieces " suitable both for g-irls and boys, and the two books may well stand side by side upon the shelf of every student and every teacher, ever ready with some selection that is sure to please, and exactly suited to the speaker and to the occasion. HINDS & NOBLE 4-5-J3-J4 Cooper Institute New York City Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store Commencement Parts* cloth — Price $1.50 Postpaid — twelvemo Here is a book full of the real thing, and con- taining nothing but the real thing ! The models here — every one a complete address —are not composed by the compiler to show what he would say if he should happen to be called on for a class poem, or an ivy song ; a valedictory, or an oration ; a response to a toast, an essay, a recitation . or what-not. Not at all! But every one of the st efforts :i in this book is real — in the sense that it is what some one did do on the particular occasion when he actu- ally had to stand up and speak. This entitles their to be designated models in a genuine sense. If you are called upon, for any occasion (no matter what) during your whole high-school or college career, and wish a model to show how some one else has risen to a similar opportunity, we think you will discover by a glance at the list of contents of Com- mencenient Parts some illustration of exactly what you require. Note also the lists of class mottoes, subjects for orations, essays, themes, toasts, etc. Besides the above we publish also the following, cf interest to those who have to ' ' appear in public en the stage. ' * And we can' t think of any "effort" throughout one's whole career that is not provided for — from the little tot's first curt'sy, and along through the school and college years, to the debate of important civie problems by the adult before his fellow citizens :— fros and Cons. Both sides of live question-. $1.50. Playable Plays. For school and parlor. $1X0 College Men s Three-Minute Declamations. $1.00. College Maids' Three-Minute Readings* $1.00. Pieces for Prize-Speaking Contests. $1.00. Acme Declamation Book. Paper, 80c. Cloth, 50c. Handy Pieces to Speak, 103 on separate cards. 50c. I^ist of "* Contents " of any orall of above free on request if you mentiot this ad. HINDS & HCBLS f Publishers, 4-5-I3-I4 Cooper Institute, 3. Y. Cits. SchQQlbooks of all publishers at onestvr* Pros and Cons The Affirmative and the Negative of the Questions Of The Day in the form of Complete Debates cloth— Price $1.50 Postpaid— twelvemo Something new, something practical, something up-to-date. A book that exactly fits into these last years of this wonderfu 1 last decade of the passing century. Besides giving complete directions for the organization ana the conduct of Debating Societies in accordance with parliamen- tary procedure, this book in many of its debates presents the speakers as actually addressing their hearers from "the floor,' 1 each speaker in turn with his arguments the first speakers for the affirmative and the negative in turn ; then the second speakers in turn ; in some cases, the third speakers ; and then the summing up by the leaders. The array of arguments thus marshalled constitutes an intelli- gent and intelligible statement of every principle and every fact affecting the questions debated, thus providing not ■ n!y an ex- haustive study of each question enabling a thorough mastery of it for knowledge sake, but also furnishing a thoroughly instructive and decidedly lively and entertaining program for an evening's pleasure and profit. Among the important topics discussed are the following :— Government Control* Immigration* Our Foreign Policy* The License Question* The Tariff. The Suffrage* The Currency Question* Postage, Transportation* Our Commercial Policy* And many others. There is also a list of " questions" statable for debate, several of which are " briefly outlined" to assist the student to prepare and to deliver his own *' effort." Essays and orations, many of them suitable for commencement parts, Salutatory and Valedictory addresses, supplement the debates, the whole providing for the student at college and the high-school scholar, the parent at home, and the man of affairs, ju>t that equip- ment that one needs not only for thinking out the questions that every- body is talking about, but for arguing them in a convincing manner. HINDS & NOBLE* Publishers 4-5-J3-J4 Cooper Institute New York City Schoolbooks of all publishers it one stor' Contents of "Pros and Cons/* SECTION I. How to Organize a Society, II. Rules Governing Debates, III. Introductory Observations, IV. Political Economy, PAGB I 12 15 24 Questions Fully Discussed in the Affirmative and the Negative* V. Resolved, That the Single Gold Standard Is for the Best Interests of the Country, Should Cuba be Annexed to the United States? Resolved, That the Fear of Punishment Has a Greater Influence on Human Conduct than Hope of Reward, ..... Resolved, That the United States should Adopt Penny Postage, ..... Resolved, That High License Is the Best Means of Checking Intemperance, Should the Government of the United States Own and Control the Railroads ? Should Hawaii have been Annexed to the U. S. ? Resolved, That Woman Suffrage should Be Adopted by an Amendment to the Constitu- tion of the United States, .... Resolved, That the World Owes more to Navi- gation than to Railroads, - Resolved, That the United States should Build and Control the Nicaragua Canal, Resolved, That Tariff for Revenue Only Is of Greater Benefit to the People of the United States Than a Protective Tariff, Resolved, That the Expensive Social Entertain- ments of the Wealthy Are of More Benefit than Injury to the Country, Resolved, That the Hypocrite Is a More Des- picable Character than the Liar, Resolved, That the Government of the United States should Own and Control the Tele- phone and Telegraph Systems, . Resolved, That the Average Young Man of To-day Has Greater Opportunities to make Life a Success Financially than His Fore- fathers, ....... Is Immigration Detrimental to the United States ? Are Large Dept. Stores an Injury to the Country? VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XL XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX XX. XXI. 28 61 77 $6 94 106 122 127 135 148 160 172 179 185 199 206 2I£ Contents of "Pros and Cons." •SBCTION PAGE XXII. Should Greenbacks Be Retired and the Gov- ernment Go Out of Its Present System of Banking? ..... 232 XXIII. Resolved, That Our Present System of Tax- ation is the Best that Can Be Devised, 250 XXIV. Should the President and Senate of the U . S. be Elected by Direct Vote of the People ? 258 XXV. Resolved, That It Is Not Good Policy for the Government of the United States to Establish a System of Postal Savings, 286 Questions Outlined* XXVI. Resolved, That It is for the Best Interests of All the People for the Government to Own and Control the Coal Mines, . 318 XXVII. Resolved, That Trusts and Monopolies Are a Positive Injury to the People Finan- cially, ...... 327 XXVIII. Resolved, That Cities should Own and Con- trol All the Public Franchises Now Conferred upon Corporations, . . 337 XXIX. Resolved, That Education as It Is Now Thrust upon our Youth Is Dangerous to Health and Good Government, . 351 XXX. Resolved, That National Banks should Be Abolished, 358 XXXI. Resolved, That Bi-metallism and Not Pro- tection is the Secret of Future Pros- perity, 366 Subjects for Debate* XXXII. Two Hundred and Fifty Selected Topics for Discussion, ..... 376 Addresses for Salutatory, Valedictory, and other occasions* XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XL. Oration — Decoration Day, . . .401 Essay — February 22, .... 407 Salutatory — Life, ..... 420 Oration — Fourth of July, .... 426 Valedictory, ...... 434 Address — Christmas Eve, .... 44° A Temperance Address — The Nickel Behind the Bar, ...... 444 Essay — Coa3t Defenses, , , f . 45° What Shall I Do ? 50 profitable occupations. $1.00. Songs of All th^ Colleges. Illuminated cloth cover. $1.50. Character Building, inspiring suggestions. $i.co Mistakes of Teachers corrected by common sense (the famous Preston Papers). Solves difficulties not explained in text-books which daily perplex the conscientious teacher. $1.00. Best Methods of Teaching in Country Schools (Lind's), $ i .25. Page's Theory and Practice of Teaching. With Questions and Answers. Paper, 50 CtS. Cloth, $1,00. Psychology Simplified for Teachers. Gordy's well-known "New Psychology." Familiar talks to teachers and parents on the successful teaching: and rearing of the young. With Ques- tions on each Lesson. $1.25. 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Adapted for use with any text-book— Elementary, Prac- tical, or Common School Used everywhere.-— Price, 30 cts. perset* Lessons on Morals (Dewey). 75 cents. Lessons on Manners (Dewey). 75 cents. Coon's Civil Government of New York State. 75 cents. Songs of All the Colleges. Illuminated cloth cover. $1.50. Commencement Parts. " Efforts" for all occasions. Orations, addresses, valedictories, salutatories, class poems, class mottoes, after-dinner speeches, flag days national holidays, class-day exercises. Models for every possible occasion in high-school and college career, everyone of the " efforts " being what some fellow has stood on his feet and actually delivered on a similar occasion— not what the compiler would say if he should happen to be called on for an 'vy song or a response to a toast, or what not ; but what the fellow himself, when his turn came, did say ! $1 . 50. New Dialogues and Plays. Life-like episodes from popular authors like Steven- son, Crawford, Mark Twain, Dickens, Scott, in the form of simple plays, with every detail explained as to dress, make- up, utensils, furniture, etc., for school-room or parlor. $1.50. College Men's 3-Minute Declamations. Up-to-date selections from live men like Chauncey Depew, Hewitt, Gladstone, Cleveland, President Eliot (Harvard) and Carter (Williams) and others. New material with vitality in it for prize speaking. Very popular. $1.00. College Maids' 3-Minute Readings. Up-to-date recitations ^ from living men and women. On the plan of the popular College Men's Declamations, and on the same high plane. $1.00* Pieces fox Prize Speaking Contests. $1.25. Acme Declamation Book. Single pieces and dialogues. For boys and girls of all ages; all occasions. Paper, 30 cts.; cloth, 50 cts. Handy Pieces to Speak. Single pieces and dialogues. Primary, 20 cts.; Intermediate, 20 cts.; Advanced, 20 cts. All three for 50 cts. Pros and Cons. Complete debates of the affirmative and nega- tive of the stirring questions of the day. A de- cided hit. This is another book invaluable not only to high-school and college students, but also to every other person who aspires to con- verse engagingly on the topics of the day. Our foreign policy, the currency, the tariff, immi- gration, high license, woman suffrage, penny postage, transportation, trusts, department stores, municipal ownership of franchises, government control of telegraph. Both sides of these and many other questions completely de- bated. Directions for organizing and conduct- ing a debating society, with by-laws and par- liamentary rules. $1.50. New Parliamentary Manual. By H. C. Davis, compiler of " Commencement Parts." 75 cents. Nearly Ready. Ten Weeks Course in Elocution. With numerous selections for illustration and practice. $1.25. Fenno's Science and Art of Elocution. $1.25. Beginner's Greek Book. I. P. Frisbee, Bates Coll. Lat. Sch. 1.25. 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PIECES FOR : : : : PRIZE-SPEAKING CONTESTS : i ; : : A collection of over one hun- dred pieces which have taken prizes in prize-speaking contests. Cloth, 448 pages. Price, $1.25. PUBLISHED BY HINDS & NOBLE 4-5-6424344 Cooper Institute, New York City Fenno's Science and Art of Elocution fiow to Read and Speak Theory and Practice Combined The Science and Art of Elocution. Embracing a comprehensive and systematic series of exer- cises for gesture, calisthenics and the cultivation of the voice, together with a collection of nearly 150 Literary Gems for Reading and Speaking. Arranged in four parts and designed to be used as a text-book in the class room and for private study, as well as for the use of Readers and Speakers generally. By Frank S. Fenno, A.M., F.S.Sc, graduate of The National School of Elocution and Oratory, compiler of " Fenno's Favorites for Reading and Speaking," author of "The Chart of Elocution," "Lectures on Elocution," etc., etc. Price, $1.25. Designed to be Used as a Text-book and for Private Study HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 4-5-642-J3-H Cooper Institute New York City School Books of All Publishers at One Store :-::• MAY 14 1901