Enfif^lish Classir,«;. Ktr., For by I conti Note T forms Cliissi The I liair t more forma ami it i B 2 M 8 I.) 4 B 6 M 6 O. 7 St M 8( » B 10 Ci 11 Ci IS M 18 M 14 81 15 «• 16 H ir Ct IH A< 1» «i liO He «1 Hk »» Sh 85 W 8(1 ■'• «? Sd an t'l 80 »l T. Ir ii'i i»l 88 C( 81 M 85 iii 8« T« 8r M 8M t'll 8!l l>i 4<> K 11 Ir 41i 1.1 4!{ Sp 44 I>< 45 Tl 4«l Ui 47 III 4M id II) Hk 50 Jt. UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES , c. Edited I ;h Volume I xplanatory I sh Literature ome English ding matter, lunies nearly ns of all the th all the in- of the text, owledge. d IT.) (Selectioiih. ) Otiirra in Preparation. From 82 to 64 Paces earh. ISmo. 'iihlislied 1)}' Clark & Maynard, New York. English Classics, FOR Classes in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, etc. With Full Explanatory Notes. Paradise Lost. (Book I.) Containing Sketch of Milton's Life — Essay on the Genius of Milton — Epitome of the Views of the Best-Known Critics on Milton, and full Explanatory Notes. 16mo. Cloth, flexible, 94 pages. The Shakespeare Reader. Being extracts from the Plays of Shakespeare, viz. : The Merchant of Venice — As You Like It — King John — King Richard II — King Henry IV — King Henry V — King Henry VI — King Richard III — King Henry VIII — Troilus and Cressida — Julius Caesar — King Leac — Othello. With Introductory Paragraphs and Notes, Grammatical, Historical and Explanatory. By C. H. Wykes. 160 pp., 16mo, cloth, flexible. The Canterbury Tales — The Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer. The Text C!ollated with the Seven Oldest MSS., and a Life of the Author. Introductory Notices, Grammar, Critical and Explanatory Notes, and Index to Obsolete and DiflBcult Words. By E. F. Willoughby, M. D. 113 pp., 16mo, cloth, flexible. An Essay on Man. By Alexakder Pope. With Clarke's Grammatical Notes. 16mo. 73 pages, cloth, flexible. Shakespeare's Plays — (Schooi. Editions), viz. : Merchant of "Venice — Julius Cpesar— King Lear — ]>lacl>etli — Hamlet — Tempest — Henry V — As You Like It. With Notes, Examination Papers and Plan of Preparation, (Selected). By BuAiNEKD Keli.ogg, A.m., Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, and author of "A Text-Book on Rhetoric," "A Text-Book on English Liter ature," and one of the authors of Reed & Kellogg's "Graded Lessons in English," and " Higher Lessons in English." 33mo. Cloth, flexible. The text of these plays of Shakespeare has been adapted for use in mixed classes, by the omission of everything that would be considered offensive. The notes have been especially selected to meet the require- ments of School and College students, froni editions edited by eminent English scholars. We are confident that teachers who examine these editions will pronounce tliem better adapted to the wants, both of the teacher and student, than any other editions published. Printed from large type, bound in a very attractive cloth binding, and sold at nearly one-half the prtee of other School Editions of Shakespeare. CLARK & MAYNARD, Publishers. 734 Broadway, New York, // ey c A Practical Reader WITH i!rji*ciTi5C5 in llocal Culture. BY CAT^OLIXE B. Le ROW, Late. I/istn/ctor in Elocution, SMITH AND A' A S S A U C O 1. 1, E G R S . "Ill the name, then, of physical and mental well-being, I demand that the art of reading aloud sliall be ranked among the principal branches of pul)lic educa- tion." — Ernest LEfioiTE. > ', ' i >" >, NEW YORK: Clark 6z Maynard, PuBijsirERS, 734 l^ROADWAY. 1.S8:?. Copyright, 1882, by CLARK & MAYNARD. ■•• • .» • • < * • « • • liai i\ '^ * ~^ PREFACE. I ^ All students arc expected to be able to read well ordinary '-' prose and poetry, and it is for the purpose of helping them to do this, as avcII as to help teachers in the teaching of reading, that this book is prepared. It is thoroughly practical. No unnecessary technical in terms are used. The subjects explained and illustrated § are those only which, as the result of many years' experi- tsj ence among teachers as well as pupils, the compiler lias '-' found most necessary. ^ As physical deyelopment and correct vocalization must ^precede all good reading, the simi)lest and therefore most essential physical and yocal exercises are given, with full directions for their use. The Selections for reading present nothing of a merely ^showy style of elocution. 'J'hey are adapted for the upper Jljclasses of Grammar Schools as well as for High and ^Advanced. \ii It is claimed that the Practical Reader contains more "^suitable material for elocutionary work in the school-room, ^in more condensed, analytical, and available form, than any "^Header or Speaker before the public. Thanks are due to Messrs. Harper & Brothers; Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co. ; Fords, How^ard & Hulbert; Cowpei-thwait & Co.; and Charles Scribner's Sons, for permission to make extracts from the copyrighted editions of their pub- lications; also to the authors herein i-opresented. 350G1 CONTET^TTS. Abraham Davenport. John G. Whitticr, A IlisTORiCAT. Addrkss. Duiiifl Webster, . A Liberal Education. Tiiomus Henry Huxlej', A KoYAi. Princess. Clirislina G. Rossetli, . A Thanksgiving Growl. Bdldiciu's MunUily, Christian Citizenship. Wendell Pliillips, . Compensation. Frances Kidley llavergal, DoMBEY AND SoN. Cliarlcs Dickens, . Dolly. Harriet Beeclier Stowe, Drafted. Helen L. Bostwick Extracts fro.m Ess.\ys. Kalpli Waldo Emerson, Half heard. Carl Spencer History. James Anthony Froude, How to Read. John Ruskin In the Highlands. William Black, Jack Abbott's Breakfast. Leigh Hunt, Lkft Ashore. Harriet Prescott Spofford, . Lilies in Prison. Elizabetli Stuart Phelps, Longing. James Rus.sell Lowell Losses. Fiances Brown Miss Edith Helps Things Along. Bret Haite. . New Every iMornino. Christian Union, Nobility. Alice Cary Ode on the Poets. John Keats, Our Honored Dead. Edward Everett, Our Xkw Livery. George "William Curtis, Partridge at the Pl.ay. Henry Fielding. . Rfdder Gr.xnge. Frank R. Stockton, PAGE 110 ICO 66 93 205 185 79 128 96 163 134 220 173 197 77 149 1)3 139 196 177 158 210 204 69 70 114 192 . R9 Contents. PAGE Shared. Lucy Laicom, 172 Shipwrecked. Francois Coppee, 85 Sound akd Sense. Robert Cliainbers 207 The Art op Book-keeping. Thoiuas Hood 107 The Breath of Life. Phrenological Journal, ... CO The Classic Poets. Heniy Nelson Coleridge, . . . 103 The Good of It. Dinah Mulock Craik 127 The Knocking at the Gate, in Macbeth. Tbos. De Quincej^ 221 The Leak in the Dike. Phoebe Caiy, 187 The Membraneous Croup. Mark Twain 120 The Music of the Telegraph Wires. Henry D. Thoreau, 170 The Nobility of Labor. Thomas Carlyle, .... 108 The Old Politician. Robert Buchanan, .... 74 The Power of WoHDS. Edwin P. Whipple 211 The Revenge: a Ballad of the Fleet. Allrcd Tennyson, 181 The Sea. M. J. Michelet, 178 The Service of Art. George Eliot 80 The Seven D.\ys. Frances L. Mace 99 The Sioux Chief's Daughter. Joaquin Miller, . . . 13G The Waters and the Shadow. Victor Hugo, . . . 201 To DAY AND To MORROW. Gerald Jilassey, . . . .118 Too Late. Fitz Hugh Ludlow, 215 Triplet and Family. Charles Reade 102 Walter Scott. John W. Chadwick, 216 Wasted Counsel. R. W. Easterbrooks, 213 Why. :Mary Frances Butts, 200 Wild Weather Outside. Margaret E. Sangster, . . . 133 LIST OF AUTHORS. Black, William . BosTwiCK, Helen L. Brown, Fhances BVCHANAN, RoBEKT BcTTs, MAitY Frances Carlyle, 'J'uo.mas . Cary, Alice Cary, Phcebe . Chadwick, John W Chambers, Robert CooLiDGE, Susan Coleridge, Henry Nelson. CoppEE. Francois Cratk, Dinah ]\Iulock CuHTis. Gro. Wm. De Qcincky, Thomas Dickens, Charles Eastrrbrooks, Rebecca W. Eliot, George Emerson, Ralph Waldo Everett, Edward . Fif:lding, Henry Frocde, James Anthony. Harte, Bret HA^'EROAI,. Frances Ridl Hood, Thomas Hugo. Victor . PAGE PAGE . 77 HtTNT, Leigh 149 . 168 Huxley, Thomas Henry 66 . 177 Keats, John 69 74 Kirk, Eleanor :."05 . 200 Larcom, Lucy . 172 . 108 Lowell. James Russell 196 . 204 Ludlow, Fitz Hugh 215 . 187 Mace, Frances L. 99 . 21G iMAssEY, Gerald 118 . 207 Michelet, M. J. . 178 . 210 Miller, Joaquin . 136 on. 165 Phelps, Eliz. Stuart . 139 . 85 Phillips, Wendell 185 . 127 Reade, Charles . 103 . 114 Rusk IN. John . 197 . 221 RossETTi, Christina 6. 93 . 128 Sangster, Margaret E. 133 W. 213 Spencer, Carl . 220 HO Spofford. H. Prescott . 112 . 134 Stockton, Frank R. . . 89 70 Stowk. Harriet Beecfier 96 . 192 Tennyson. Alfred 181 . 173 Thoreau, Henry D. 170 . 158 Twain, Mark 120 [,ey 79 Webster Daniel 160 . 167 Whipple, Edwin P . 211 . 201 Whittier, John GRKEKLEAt 110 SUGGESTIOJS'S TO TEACHEES. 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. Reading 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 — somethinfr more is necessary than the clirec- tion, "Eead 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 exaniples 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 u'holly dependent upon physical development. Every student can readily understand tliat Byron's "Apostrophe to the Ocean" needs the orotund quality of voice; the "Death and Burial of Little Nell," soft force; "Thanatopsis," low i)itch, while I)erhaps not one in fifty can j^^odiu'e these variations. It is for the cultivation of this physical power that the Vocal Exercises are given. An adequate supjily 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 i)roduce 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 Avith- 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) v/ith different degrees of force and pitch; in- tervals and slides of the scale; chords; reading uji and down the scale (one Avord on eacli 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 and 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 " 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 Sugcfestions to Teachers. as in the animated poem, which can help to hide any deficiency. For this reason there is no more practical and profitabk elocutionary exercise than reading aloud the items of news and the editorials of the daily p;iper, a copy being handed from one pupil to another, each being required to read without prei)aration or previous acquaintance with the subject. The school edition of Shakesjieare's plays, published by Clark & Maynard, being in convenient and inexpensive form, can also be ]irofitably used in connection with the Practical Eeader. Variety in the matter to be read is always desirable as a means of retaining the interest of the student. The exercises are numbered throughout the book in regular order, such arrangement obviating the necessity for naming both subject and number in referring to any exam])le. Subjects of the most practical value, of any particular difficulty, or much variety in application, are illustrated by more than one example. Physical Exercises. 11 PHYSICAL EXEECISES. [The following list of Exercises is condensed from Prof. L. B. Monroe's "Manual of Physical and Vocal Training," published by Cowperthwait & Co. of Philadelphia, in which will be found full directions and illustrations for each exercise.] 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?" Prof. Lewis B. Monroe. 12 Vocal Exercises. VOCAL EXERCISES. [The exercises In the following Tables are explained elsewhere, being arranged in tabular form for convenience in reference and use. Thej- 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 vhole 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 op syllable Hoo. 3. Explosive breathing; in form of syllable HaI 4. Pure tone. 0. 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, ai-ternated. 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. Rising 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.] ^ / n ^/ // ^/ ^(; \ ^\'-^\ RADICAL. STRESS. MEDIAN. FINAL. EflEusive. Expulsive. Explosive. o THOEOUGH. COMPOUND X TREMOR. ,/WAyvx/ 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 ] / \ /\ /\ /\ /\ Monotone. Semi-tone. Whole Tone. Third. ^^ un un Fifth. Octave. 14 Articulation. ARTICULATIOX. Articulation {ariiculatus, famished with joints, distinct) depends upon the action of the jaws, pahitc, tongue and lips. The muscles of these org:ins must act promptly, easily and enei'getically in order to secure distinct articu- lation. The attention of the student should be directed to tJte manner of forming letters, quite as much as to tlie 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 vowel 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, h, m and^j are formed by closing the lips firmly; d, t, I and n, by jn-essing the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, just back of the upper teeth; /and v by pressing the upjier 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, emi-)haiic articulation of eacli letter composing them, as Avell as con- stant practice upon the following vowels, consonants and combiuations, is specially recommended. The lists can be indefinitely extended and modified. All impediments of si)eech — not caused by })hysical 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 Fate. A Italian Far. A broad Fall. A short Fat. E long Mete. Vowel Sounds. E short Met. I long. ...... .Pine. I short Pin. O long Note. O close Move. O short Kot. Ulong TQbe. U short Tub. U close Full. 01 and oy....B5Il. Ou and ow.. ..Boiind. B . . .Babe D ....Did. G hard... J ....Gag. Jov. Vocal Consonants. L Lull. M Maim. R Rap. Th soft Thine. Z V Valve. W Wine. Y Yes. .Zeal. Ch Csoft.. C hard. F Aspirate Consonants. .Church. G soft Gem. .Cense. TI Hold. .Cake. K Kirk. .Fife. IP Pipe. Final Consonants. T Tent. S Seal. Sh Shine, Th sharp Thin. Band. Ciieck. Heart. Help. Send. Tight. Speak. Drop. Find. Sport. Map. Cork. Consonant Combinations. Wrists. Hosts. Bursts. Masts. Guests. Mists. Gliosis. Basks. Lists. Posts. Fists. Flasks. V aried Consonant Combinations i. Arm'dst. Laugh'st. Strangl'st. Black'nst. Scorn'dst. Thank'st. Struggl'dst. Troubl'dft Learn'dst. Help'st. Handl'.st. Rr\\ard'st. EMPHASIS. Emphasis, in its usual acceptation, is the force of voice laid upon a word to distinguish it from the otlier words in the same sentence. As grammatjcal analysis is often necessary in determining emphasis, the student should be able to discriminate between sim})le, com])ound, complex, and inverted sentences; phrases and clauses; words in apposition; subject and predicate. It js safe to assume that any word wliich can be left out of a sentence without injury to the sense, is not to be em- phasized. Reduce 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 em])hasi3 throughout, it requires a mental effort on the part of the reader to discover whether flags, volunteers, war, record, or victories, are to bo 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, Avcrc 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, howevei", 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 grajideur; 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 Ciceio? Shall we sound him ?" — as we have sounded others. 2. "There is no fear in him," — as there is in CaBsar. "Let him 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 Itil) him boldly, but not wratfifully." 18 E7n2')has)S. 5. "I do beseech j-e, if ye bear me hard," as yon did Caesar. 6. "There is no harm intended to your person," as there was to Csesar's. " To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony." 7. " That is enougli to satisfy the Senate. But for your private satis- faction — ." 8. " These lowly courtesies might Are the blood of ordinary vaen." 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 1" 15. " For I can raise no money by vile means." 16. " A. friendly eye could never sec such faults." 17, " CiJ^rZ reasons must of force give place to better." Emphasis. 19 18. "Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee!" 19. Brutus remarks to Cassius, '" I shall be glad to learn of nobU 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 sliould bear his comment," refers not to offenses in general, but to small ones iu 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 given by variations iu pauses, time, pitch, and inflections. These means must be principally relied on iu delicate, ten- der, and pathetic passages, the effect of which would be entirely destroyed hj force, and yet which need a great deal of expression. A word or phrase is emphasized by anything which attracts attention. A Rhetorical jiause 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 I 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 jE:'7ij)7iasls. 3. "ITabils of mental discipline | are necessary in any system of cclu- calion." 4. " His comrailo | bout to lift him, but the spark of life | had fled." 6. "For lie was all the world | to us, that hero 1 gray and grim." 6. "They show the banners | taken, ihcy 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.] Pnnctnation is not to bo ]"Cg;irt]e(I as an infallible guide in tlie pauses orinllections of tlie voice. Wordsand clauses ifi the same grammatical construction are often indcjjcndent in thought. While such are separated merely by comnias 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 }ti'()vcd 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." Read the sentence aloud in both forms, keeping the voice up at the comnias, dropping it at the periods, and judge which style conveys the clearest and strongest meaning to tiic ear. Moreover, the clauses arc 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: Empliasis, 21 *' Labor spans majestic rivers, suspends bridges over deep ravines, pierces solid mountains, makes the furnace blaze, tlic anvil ring-, tlie wheel turn round, and tlie town appear." "■ Cobblers abandoned their stalls to give lessons on politi- cal economy; blacksmiths suffered their fires to go out, wlnle they stirred up tlie 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 tluuider 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; lie was greater than Caesar; lie 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 Avitliout regard to the sense) can be remedied by transposing the clauses — putting the lines into plain prose — thereljy making the meaning more prominent and destroying the regularity of the accent; as, " And once, behind a rick of bnrley, Thus looking out did Hurry stand; The iiioou was full and sliining 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 laud was crisp with frost. STYLES OF EEADIJ^G. All Styles of Reading can be grouped under a few general heads, with subdivisions exjiressive of their various modifi- cations. No strict classification is possible. For example, •wlule 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 j-ead 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- Bcquence 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. r Unemotional. Oratorical, Grave. Didactic. Noble. Solemn. Narrative. Patriotic. Reverential. Descriptive. Impassioned. Pathetic. Animated. Conversational Humorous. Joyous. Dramatic. Comic. Qualities op Voice. Pure. Oral. Orotund. Nasal. Guttural. Falsetto. Aspirate. Force. Kind. Degree. Place or Stress. Effusive. Very soft. Radical. Expulsive. Soft. IMedian. Explosive. Medium. Final. Loud. Thorough. Very loud. Compound. Intermittent. Time. Pitch. * Slides. Very slow. Very low. Monotone. Slow. Low. Semitone. Medium. Medium. Wholetone. Quick. High. Tliird. Very quick. Very high. Fifth. Octave. Circumflex. 24 Analysis. Practical Application op Analysis. 1. "O'er all the peaceful world the smile of heaven lies." Descriptive style, Pure qualit3-, 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, bold!)' 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 I" Noble style. Orotund quality, Jledium, Expulsive force. Median stress. Me- dium time. Medium pitch. Whole Tone slide. " 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 precedmg examples can be somewhat modified according to individual taste.] QUALITIES OF YOICE. Qucality {timbre 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 prodncecl. 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.] PURE. Pure Tone is the clear tone in which children talk before acquiring bad habits of utterance. It characterizes the natural speakiug voice when fi'ce 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, ti'anquilly 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 discovci' that our iifc 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 sneak the severest truth, we shoitld 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. — R.\lph Waldo Emerson. 26 Qualities of Voice. 9. Thou know'st that through our tears Of hiisty, 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 hright possessions which so precious seemed We lose them; but, if clasping Thy faithful hand, we tread with steadfast feet The path of Ih}- appointing, There waits for us a treasury of sweet Delight; royal anointing With oil of gladness and of strength! Jienunciaiion.—B.E-LKii Hukt Jackson. EFFusrv^E {Narratwe). 10. Faith, in the next room, 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 Gate^ Ajar.^-'Ehiz. Stuakt Phelps. 11. Then he sat down still and speechless, On the ])ed of IMinnehaha, At the feet of Laughing AVater, 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 da3's and nights he sat there; As if in a swoon he sat tliere, Speechless, motionless, unconscious Of the dayliglit or the darkness. Hiawatha. — Hekry W. Longfellow. EFFUsrvE {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 thnid 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 Everett. • 13. All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued; The hills seeined fartlier, 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 tlian before. Silent, till some replying warder blew His alien horn, and then was heard no more. The Closivg Scene. — Thomas Buchanan Eead. Expulsive {Didactic). In Expulsive Force the breath is exi^ellecl, or driven out forcibly, Avith 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 intlucuce over our liucr feelings. To a person uiiiiistrucled in ualural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk tlnougli a gallery lilled witii wonderlul works of art, nine tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach him something of natural history, and you place iuhisliands a catalogue of those which arc worth turning round. Surely our innocent pleasures are not so abimdant in this life, that we can afford to despise this or any source of them. The Value of Science— Vroy. T. H. Huxley. 15. All 8Je architects of Fate, Working in tiiese 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 Arc the blocks with which we build. The Builders.— Ue^uy W. Longfellow, Expulsive {Narrative). 16. The Major sat down at his accustomed tabic, and while the waiters went to bring him his toast anil his newspaper, he surveyed his letters through his gold double eye-gla.ss, examined one pretty note after another and laid them by in order. There were large solemn dinnir cards, snguTstive of three cour.ses and heavy conversation; there were neat little conlidential noles, and a note from a marquis, written on thick oflicial paper. Having perused them the :\Iajor took out hie pocket-b()(jk to see on what days he was disengaged, and which of these many hospitable calls he could afford to accept or decline. Pendennvi.—'^ii. M. TnACKEHAT. Qualities of Voice. 20 17. A dcwdrop falling on the wWCi sea wave Excliiimt'd iu four, "I pcrisli iti this gravel" But, iu a shell received, that drop of dew Unto a pcail of marvellous buaiil}" grew; And, happy now, tlie grace did magnify, Which thrust it forth, as it had feared, to die, Until again, " I perish quite," it said, Torn by lude diver from its ocean bed. O unbelieving! so it came to gleam Chief jewel iu a monarch's diadem. The Dewdrop. — Richard C. Tkekch. Expulsive (Descnpiive). 18. In that quarter of London in v.hicli 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 seeu 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 Nickleby. — 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 tlie East, like low-hung clouds The waving woodlands lie; Far in the West, the glowing plain Melts warmly in tho sky: 30 Qualities of Voice. No accent wounds the reverent air, No foot-print dints the sod. Loue in the liglit the prairie lies Rapt in a dream of God. Pike County Ballads. — Johk 11a y. Expulsive {Conversational). 20. Trnh' we public characters have a tough time of it! And among all tlie town officers cliosen at March meeting, wliere is he that sus- tains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed upon the Town Pump? Tlie 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 tlie 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, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and im. partial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. A Bill from the Town Pump. — Nath.\niel Hawthorne. 21. "Great praise the Duke of ^larlboro' won. And our good Prince Eugene." " Why, 'twas a very wicked thing," Said little Wilhelmine. "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 Baltic of Blenheim.— Ro-bert Southet. V Qualities of Voice. 31 Explosive. In ExplosiA'e Force the breath is ex]iloded, 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 jiro- duced by vigorous action of the abdominal muscles, and should never be given from the chest, such effort being un- natural and hurtful. Wlien 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 j'ou six hours and a half to consider this. If you then agree, without any condition, to do everj'tliing on earth that I choose, why I may, in time, forgive you. If not, don't enter tlie same hemisphere ^vith 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 yoa. Let me but loose a moment, if 'tis only To rush upon your swords. Virginius. — Sheridan Knowles 32 Qualities of Voice. OROTUND. The Orotund {ore rotundo, round mouth) is the fulles6 uud grandest tone the voice is capable of producing, '•' the highest i)crfcction of the liunuin voice." The term is used by the poet Hoi-ace in describing the flowing eloquence of the Greeks. It is as natural as the Pure tone, or ordinary S})eaking 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 'he contiary, requiring but a slight opening of the mouth, are compara- tivelv til in, flat sounds. For practice upon the Orotund, pronounce the vowel in the natural way, as forcibly as possible; then loitliout in the least clianging the position of tlie month, pronounce the long and the short sounds of the vowels A, E and I, and words containing these sounds. Although the tones ]iro- duced so mechanicallv will at first sound unnatural and possibly absurd, that effect will disappear as the muscles become more flexible with practice. It will be found (hat such exercises require the most thorough action of the vocal oi'gans, and are therefore of the greatest benefit. It must be borne in mind tliat the difference between the Fure and Orotnnd 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 !s produced on each. [It is suggested that practice upon tlie Orotund be limited at first to single eotinds, words, and phrases, its application to entire sentences bolongiu.? ruuitj to the advanced and artistic, than ta the simpl- and practical f-^i's of lllocii- tion.] Qualttles of Voice. 33 Effusive Orottind. 24. What, thought I, is this vast assemblsge of sepulchcrs but a treasuiy of humiliation; a liuge 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 forgetf Illness 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 l)y 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 tlmnders and great voices kept Beneath tln^ throne, — yet at wiV., has swept All back, all back (said he in Patmos placed),- To fill the heavens with silence of the waste Which lasted half-an-hour! — Lo, I who have wept AH day and night, beseech thee by my tears And l)y 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 fi-om song, let earth from moan. Heaven and Earth. — Eliz. Barrett Brownino. Expulsive Orotund. 26. Working-men, walk worthy of your vocation! You have a noble escutcheon; disgrace it not. Stoop not from your lofty throne to defile yourselves by contamination with any form of evil. Labor, 34 Qualities of Voice. allied with virtue, may look up to heaven and not blush, -while all worldly dignifies, degraded to vice, will leave their owner without a corner of the universe in which to hide liis 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. — Rev. Newman Hall. 'o'- 27. And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad, Who called 5'ou 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 g?.\o. you your invulnerable life. Your strength, your speed, your iwrj, and your joy. Unceasing thimder and eternal foam? And who commanded and the silence came, — "Here let the billows stiffen and have rest." Hymn to Mont Blanc. — Samuel Taylor Colebidge. 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 tlieir country. I call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence the dignit}^ 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 1 O sacred forms, how proud you look! How high you lift your heads into the skyi How huge you are, liow mighty and how freel i Qualities of Voice. 35 Ye guards of liberty, I'm with you ouce again! I call to you With all my voice ! I hold my hands to you To show the}' still are free. I rush to you As though I could embrace you I William I'ell. — Sheridan Knoytles. ASPIRATE. The Aspirate Quality or Y/hisper is used in reading only on certain words, and its use is a matter of tnste, 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 witliin a few paces of the enpm3''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 sei-ve 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, revenge, and extreme horror. 33. How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him for lie is a Christian. If I can catch him once upon the hip I will feed fat tlic ancient grudge I bear him. Cursed be my tribe if I forgive him! Merchant of Venice. — Shakespeare. Qualities of Voire. 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. Bwighton 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 — tliey do weally. I fancy they wegard me with interest. Lord Dundreary. 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 quality of voice which prevails in certain localities. 36. But the deacon swore (as deacons do, Witli an " I dew vum" or an " I tell j'eou,") He would build one shay to beat the laown 'N the keounty'n' all the kentry raoun'; It should be so built that it could'a' break daown — " Fur," said the deacon, " t's mighty plain That the weakes' place nius' stau' the strain; 'N' the way t' fix it uz I maintain Is only jest T' make that uz strong uz the rest." The One Hoss Shay. — Oliver Wendell Holivtes. 2S50Gi 38 Degrees of Force. Falsetto. The Falsetto Qucility 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 ^\'hile, then an old man replied in a thin, trembling voice, " Nicholas Vedder, 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." Rip Van Winkle. — AVashlngton Ikvxng. DEGREES OF 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 ordiiiarv speaking voice, wliich 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 nuisic. 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. Spartaeus to the Gladiators. — Elijah Kellogg. Soft. 38. No stir, no sound! The shadows creep. Tlie old and young in common trust, Are lying down to wait, asleep, Degrees of Force. 39 While Life and Joy will come to keep Wit.Ii Death and Pain what tryst they must. O faith! for faith almost too great! Come slow. O da}^ of evil freiu'lit! O village hearts, sleep well, sleep late! The Village Lights. — Helen Hunt Jackson. Medium. Medium or Moderate Force (inezzo piano in Music) char- a-cterizes 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 iuside 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 boldl}^ 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. !/ STRESS. 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, tliougli adding incalculably to expression in rea<^ling, is less important than correct Quality of Voice, suitable degi-ees of Time, Titch, and Slides, and intelligent Emphasis. It is more a finish and orna- ment to reailing 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 develojuneut of the voice; but skill is needed in the apphcation of Stress to entire sentences, except in the case of Expulsive Radical, which characterizes the ordinary speaking voice. It is therefore suggested that unless sufticient progress has been made in more practical and necessary subjects, in- struction and practice upon Stress be limited to single soimds and words.] RADICAL STRESS. / Radical 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 emotious. It belongs aI.so 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 euvy so much as tlie poets. 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 eyes till witli tears wiien lie 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.— OhiYER Wendell Holmes. 43. Man is his ovi'n star, and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man Commands all light, all intiuence, all fate; Nothing to him falls early or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill. Our fatal shadovrs that walk by us still. Honest Man's Fortniie. — Beaumont and Fletcher. Explosive Radical. 44. Long since, O Catiline, ought the Consul to have ordered thee to execution, and brouglit 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 w^ould not think it done rather too late tljtm any man too cruelly. ^ ^hrmi)loycd in the act of breathing/ that a hearty meal inte^eres with the process; that it is easier to talk, sing, or i«:id aloud " on an empty stomacli'^ 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 sfssprt that these i)crsons "could intelligently explain the r/asons for tliese facts. Still less probable is it that they ^ould account for the pains and "sticches," tlio irritatioa 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 I 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?" 62 Selections for Reading. We arc bound to admit tliat in all diseases an ounce of prevention is worth tons of cure. To one familiar with diseases of the respiratory orgms, this truth has a more than ordinary significance, tlie 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 ui)on them by tight clothing. Draw a strap around a sponge and the air-cells are grad- uallv 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 thus impeded in their work, the act of breathing — if carried on at all (and it is amazing how few foolish people realize the small amount which the world would lose if they should stop breathing entirely)— must be transferred to the upper and weaker part. This cramping and starv- ing process long continued — this overtasking of the weaker parts of the organs, results most. naturally and logically in Selections for Reading. 63 irritation wliich speedily grows into inflammation, produc- ing soreness and pains in tlie chest, susceptibility to colds, and the innumerable symptoms of disease and decay which go steadily on in their j^ork 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 rufHes the clothes which require her to stand all day long over 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 willindv take active exercise out of doors. Formal r-Or calls, shopping expeditions, evening entertainments, full- dress drives on a fashionable avenue — these are the only -^ I occasions upon which she encounters the i)ure 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, j I 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 i)ain 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 G4 Selections for Reading. over the cobbler's last, the tailors bench, the dentist's chair, at the easel, the desk — all these must suffer likewise, unless the outdoor air and exercise is sufiicient 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 l,)v 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 Avith a shrug of the shoulders; " I have no faith in it for that reason," But many diseases spring from one source, assuming in diiierent persons different forms, dependent upon peculiarities of constitution and temperament. What causes rheumatism in one, may in another develop into pleurisy or dj^spepsia, 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 tyi)es of the same si)ecies. 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 Avrong habits of breathing, which diminish its supply of ox'ygon, impair its circulation, and cripple every function of the body. Selections for Reading. 65 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, recpiiring but little time, slight exertion, no medicine, and no money. All that is needed is an erect position of the l)ody, 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 whose 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 concei'ningits 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 exei-cise as preventive and cure. 66 Selections for Heading. Mucli of the difficulty in reading uloud 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. — Phrenological Journal. . A -LIBERAL EDUCATION. Thomas Henby Huxley. Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and for- tune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend npon 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 vou not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting lo scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up Avithout 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 dei)end npon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which Selections for Reading. 67 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 Avhat Ave 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 Avell, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who Inlays ill is checkmated, without haste, but Avithout 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 Avhich name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their Avays; and the fashioning of the affections and of the Avill 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 Avill not call it education, Avhatever 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 fulk vigor of his faculties, could be suddenly placed in the Avorld as Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as lie 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 nA^oid 68 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 blo\v| first; but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out why your ears arc 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 tiie 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 ojierations; one, who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and tire, but wliose 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. Tliey will get on together rarely; she as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, her con- scious self, lier minister and interpreter. — Lay Sermons. Selections for Heading. 69 ODE 0^ THE POETS. '^ John Keats. Bards of Passiou and of INIirth, Ye have left your souls on eurlii! Have ye souls iu heaven loo, Double-lived iu regions new? Yes, and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon; With the noise of fountains Avonderous And the parle of voices thunderous; With the whispei*'6f heaven's trees And one another iaWft ease, Seated on Elysianja^s Browsed by none but Dian's fawns Underneath large bluebells tentet Where the daisies are rose-see tiled, And the rose herself has Perfume which on Where the nighliu Not a senseless, tr; But divine, melodious Philosophic numbers snl-Q^th ; Tales and golden histories ' Of heaven and its mysteries. Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind j'ou Teach us here the way to find j^ou, Where your other souls are joying. Never slumbered, never cloying: Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and tlieir shame; 70 Selections. for Readinr/. Wliat (lolli slrcngthen and what luuiui. Thus ye teach us every d;iy "Wisdom, though tied lur awa}'. Bards of Passion and of !Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth I Ye have souls in heaven too. Double-lived iu reiiious newl OUR HONORED DEAD. Edward Everett. It has been the custom from the remotest antiquity to preserve and hand down to posterity, in bronze and iu marble, the counterfeit presentment of ilhistrious men. Within the hist few years modern research lias brought to light on the banks of the Tigris, huge slabs of alabaster, buried for ages, which exhibit in relief the faces and the ])ersons 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 l^eyond the names of the personages, and the most general tradition of tiieir 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, Selections for Reading. 71 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 our nature, reached a perfection unknow^n to Egypt or Assyria; afld the heroes of Greece and Rome, 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 tlie 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 bidit 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 ])almiest days, had but one Pericles, she had uLso but one Phidias. 73 Selections for Ileading. The portraits and statues of the honored dead kindle the generous ambition of the youthful aspirant to fame. Theniistocles could not sleep for the trophies in the Ceram- icns; and when the living Demosthenes had ceased to speak, the stony lips remained to rebuke and exhort his degenerate countrymen. More than a hundred years liaA'e elai)sed since tlie great Newton passed away; but from age to age his statue by Roubillac, in the ante-chapel of Trinity College will give distinctness to the conceptions formed of liira 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 Avill 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 ho 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 8t')rv, honored at home and abroad as one of the brightest luminaries of the law, and, by a felicity of which Selections for Reading. 73 I believe there is no othei' exumple, 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 into bloody clods by the madding wheels of artillery; this populous city, like the old cities of Etruria and Campagna Romagna, 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 Tyi-e, 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 Roman Forum, and beneath the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Cai)itolinus; but Lycurgus and Leonidas, and Miltiades and Demosthenes, and Cato and Tally 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 ])erislied, they shall still live in memory, so long as men shall reverence law, honor patriotism and love liberty! Selections for lieadlng. THE OLD POLITICIAN. Robert Buchanan. Now that Tom Dimstan's cold, Oiy shop is duller; Scarce a story is told ! Aud our chat has lost the old Red republican color! Though he was sickly and thin, He gladdened us with his face. How, warming at rich man's sin. With bang of the list, and cliin Thrust out, he argued the case! He prophesied folk should be free. And the money-bags be bled; — "She's coming, slie's coming!" said he; " Courage, boys! Wait and see! Freedom's ahead!" All day we sat in tlie heat. Like spiders spinning, Stitciiing full, fine, and fleet, Wliile the old Jew on liis seat Sat greasily grinning; And there Tom said his saj'. And prophesied Tyranny's death; And Ihe tallow l)unit all da}'. And we stitched and stitched away In the thick smoke of our breath, Wearily, wearily, so wearily Wilh hearts as heav}' as lead; — But, "Patience! slie's coming!" said hej " Courage, boys! Wait and see! Freedom's aliead!" And at night when we took hers The pause allowed to us, Selections for Heading. 75 Tlie paper came with the beer And Tom read, sharp and clear, The news out loud to us. And tlien in his witt)- way He threw the jest about. The cutting things he'd say Of the wealthy and the gay! How he turned them inside outi And it made our breath more free To liearken to what he said; — " She's coming, she's coming!" says he; " Courage, boys! Wait and see! Freedom's ahead!" But glim Jack Hart, with a sneer, Woidd mutter, "Master! If Freedom means to appear, 1 tliink she might step here A little faster!" Then it was fine to see Tom flame And argue and prove and preach, Till Jack was silent for shame. Or a fit of coughing came O' sudden to spoil Tom's speech. Ah! Tom had tlie e^-es to see Wlien Tyranny should be sped; — *' She's coming, slie's coming!" said he; " Courage, boys! Wait and seel Freedom's ahead!" But Tom was little and weak; The hard hours shook him; Hollower grew his cheek. And when he began to speak The coughing took him. Ere long the cheery sound Of his chat among us ceased, And we made a purse all round That he might not starve, at least. 76 Selections for Reading. His pain was sorry to see, Yet there — on bis poor sick-bccl, " She's coming in spite of me! Courage and wait," cried lie, *' Freedom's aliead!" A little before he died, Just to see his passion \ "Bring me a paper!" he cried, And then to study it tried In his old sharp fashion ; And with eyeballs glittering, His look on me he bent. And said that savage thing Of the lords of the Parliament. Then darkening, smiling on me, " What matter if one be dead? She's coming, at least," said he; "Courage, boj's! Wait and see! Freedom's ahead!" And now Tom Dunstan's cold The shop feels duller; Scarce a story is told ; Our talk has lost the old Red republican color! But we see a figure gra}% And we hear a voice of death, And the tallow burns all da}', And we stitch and stitch away In the thick smoke of our breath; Aj', here in the dnrk sit we, While wearily, wearily. We hear hira call from the dead; "She's coming, she's coming," says he, " Freedom's ahead!" How long. O Lord, liow long Doth tin luuulmai '. linger? Selections for Reading. "77 She who shall right the wrong — Make the oppressed strong — Sweet morrow, bring her! Hasten her over the sea, O Lord, ere hope be fled; Bring lier to men and to me; O slave, pray still on tliy knee For the freedom aliead! m THE HIGHLANDS. William Black. Th""B monotonous sound of the waterfall, so far from dis- turbing the new gaest of Castle Dare, only soothed her to rest. But in the very 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 'Ti 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 Grcrtrudc White 78 Selections for Reading. was amazed to find that the awful Sound Avas 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 vt 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 anvthins: have l)een more beautiful, he said to himself, than this magnificent scene? — the wildly rushinor seas, cominsr thunderinsr on to the rocks and springing so high into the air that tlie snow- white foam showed l)lack against the glare of the sky; tlie nearer islands gleaming Avith a touch of brown on their sunward side, while far away in the north tlie 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. Slie recognized only the awfulness and the loneliness of that wild shore, with its suggestions of crashing storms in the night-time and the erics of drowning men dashed hel])lessly 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 Heading. 79 away? The red snnset 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 nn odor of new-mown hay in the night air. Far away they could hear tlie murmuring of the waves around the rocks. They did not speak a word as tliev 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 Haveugal. Oh, the compensatuig spriagsl 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, Heiglit and abj'ss and torrent, flower and thorn and stone; But we gnzc on another's path as a far-olT mountain scene, Scanning the outlined hills, but never the vale s between. 80 Selections for Reading. The easy path iu the lowland IkUIi little of grand or new, But a toilsome ascent leads onward lo 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 eas}^ current, monotonous, calm and slow, You are spared the quiver and strain iu 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 surelj' 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. / in '^ "" THE SERVICE OF ART. ,-^ ■. George Eliot. Klesmer raadc his most deferential bow in the wide doorway of the antechamber. Gwehdolen met liim with wnusual gravity, and holding out her hand, said, ''It is most kind, of yon to come, Heir Klesmer. I hope you have not thought me presum})tnous." "■ 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. 81 it with his back to the light and his terribly omniscient ej-cg upon her. No affectation was of use, and she began without delay. '' I wish to consult you, Herr Klesmer. We Imve lost all our fortune; we have nothing. I must get my own bread and I desire to provide for tuy 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 bettor taught; I could study. And you will under- stand my wish; to sing and act too, like Grisi, is a much higher position, j^aturally 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 — 82 Selections for Reading. what shall I say? — you did not wish yourself an actress or anything of that sort, till the i:)resent 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 Klcsmer 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 bemg weighed. Tlie delay was unpleasant. " I shall be very much obliged to you for taking the trouble to give me your advice, v/liatever 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;' *I 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 Heading. 83 the life one of the most honorable and delightful. And if I can do nothing better? I sup()0se that 1 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 — neitlier 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 wliatsort of issue might be fairly expected from all this self-denial? You would ask that. It is right tliat your eyes should be open to it. I will tell you truthfully. The issue would be uncertain and — most ])robably — would not bo 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 84 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 have to keep 3'our 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 Avin 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 Avas 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 })roud equality, which in this inter- Selections for Heading. 85 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." AVhen 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 Avay 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 1 take the wrong road it will not be because of your flattery." *' God forbid that you should take any road but where you Avill find and give happiness," said Klesmer fervently. Then in foreign fashion, he touched her fingers lightly with his lips, and m another minute she heard the sound of his departing wheels upon the gravel. — Daniel Deronda. SHIPWEECKED. From the French of Francois Coppee. Before the -wine-shop which o'erlooks the beach Sits Jean GoGllo, rough of mien and speech; Our coast-guard now whose arm was sliot away In tlie 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 tliis very day Since first I went to sea; on board, you know, Of La Belle Honorine — lost long ago, — 86 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 liad 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 cliildren 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 thiidi 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 tliat 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 then- watch, I used to creep With Black among some bo.\es stowed on deck, And with my arms clasped tightly round his neck, I used to cry and cry antl press my head Close to the heart grieved by the tears I shed. Niglit after night I mourned our jjiteous 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 mute Our skipper— a good sailor tliough a brute- Gave a long look over the vessel's side, Tlien to the steersman whispered half aside, " See that ox-eye out yonder? It looks queer." The man replied, " The storm will soon be here. Selections for Reading. 87 Hullo! All hands on deck! We'll be prepared! Stow royals! Reef the courses! Puss the word!" Vaiu! The squall broke ere we could sliorten 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 bad 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 llie ocenn. 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. 1 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 1 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 lujpe was gone My poor dog licked me with his teudci- tongue. 88 Selections for Heading. Under tlic binzing sun and starlit night I watched in vain. No sail appeared in sight, Round us the blue spread, wider, bluer, higher. The liflh 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 iu vaiu. He looked lue 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 Ijoat 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? 1 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 tiglit. 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 throat. And so I killed my friend. 1 had I»ut one. What matters how, after that deed was done. The}' picked me up half dead, drenched in his gore And took me back to France. Need I say more? Selections for Heading. 89 I have killed me, ay, many — in my day Without remorse, for sailors must obey. One of a squad, once in J3arbadoes, I Shot my own comrade when condemned to die. I nevei- dream of Mm, for tliat 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 througli 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-niglit. It brings — Here, boy! Another glass! We'll talk of other tilings! — Harper s Magazine. EUDDER GRANGE. Fkank R. Stockton. 0]srE afternoon as I was Imn-ying down Broadway to catch the five o'clock train, I met Wuterford. 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 thotight 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 my train." 90 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?" lie 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 snppose, 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 sujipose, 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 Avas getting angry, I told him all about it — told him how we had hired a stranded canal-boat and had fitted it u}) 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 merclv mention this incident to show how Selections for Reading. 91 some of our friends talked about " Rudder Grange'' when they first heiird that we lived there. Althougli we lived in a canal-boat we kept a girl. Her name was Pomona. Whether or not her parents gave 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 Avife, 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 — wdth a bang. Tlie 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 Avord of what they are reading. And when the matter thus read appeals to one's every sentiment of aver- 92 Select io)is for Heading. sion, and there is no way of escaping it, the case is h_arcl 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 tliis. " Poor thing!"' said she, " it would be cruel to take from iier her only recreation. And she says she can't read in any other Avay. 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 nigiit 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 Avouldn'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 lier and — "' " I can't stand that and I won't,'" .--aid I. " Wiiv don't Selections for Heading. 93 she go into tlie kitchen? The dining-room's no phice for her." " She must not sit there," said Euphemia. " There's a window-pane out. Can't yon cover up your head?" " I shall not 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 PPJNCESS. Chuistixa G. Rossetti. I, A princess, king-descended, decked with jewels, gilded, drest, Would rfither 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. 94 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 hiirh to sit upon, Almost like my father's chair whicli is an ivory throne^ 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 spend — 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, nolding 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 the}' 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, ccmnting 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 l)easts 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 motlier's graceful head I marked a thread of gray; My father, frowning at tlie fare, seemed every dish to weigh Selections for Reading. 95 The singing men ivud women sang that night as usual; The dancers danced in pairs aud 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 aud stump." "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!" 96 Selections for Reading. There swelled a tumult at the gate, high voices waxing higher; A tlash of red rcliecied light lit the cathedral spire; I heard a cry for fagots, then I heard a jx'll of lire. " Sit and roast there with your meat, sit and bake there with your 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 lake 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 king, 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 w.orld, rend bare 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. H.\RRIET BEECnEU STOWIE. Our little Dolly wns a Lite .uitiimn chicken, the youngest of ten children, the nursing, roaring, and caring for whom had straitened the limited salary of Parson Gushing 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".- lot to enter the family at a period when Selections for Reading. 97 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 over 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 all 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 slie 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- 98 Selections for Heading. ret in the house, there were also barrels of old sermons and family papers. Garret number two was over 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 clock, 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 hardback 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 have healing virtues. Then those barrels of sermons and old pamphletsi 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 np 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, ''Georgel 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 Xights." 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. 99 Nights" transported lier to foreign lands, gave lier a new life of her own; and when things went astray Avitli her, when the boys went to play higher t?ian 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. — Poyanuc People. THE SEVEN DAYS. Frances L. Mace. Monday. {Day of the Moon.) Diana, sister of the Sun ! thy ray Governs these opening liours. The world is wide, We know not what new evil may betide This six days' joui'ney; by wliat unknown way We come at last unto the royal day Of prophesy and prorai;e. Oh, preside Propitious, and our doubting footsteps guide Onward and sunward. Long in shadows gray We liave but slumbered — Iiidden from our view Knowledge and wisdonl 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, O 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 flames among the starsl 100 Selections for Heading. Thou too go forth, aud fully armed maintain Duty aud right. The hero is not slain Though pierced and wounded in a hundred wars. The daring are the deathless. He alone Is victor who staj'S not for anj' 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. {Bay of Odin.) The mighty Odin rides abroad, and earth Trembles, aud echoes back his ghostly sigh. More deep than thought, more sad than memory. The very birds rejoice in timid mirlh, 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 aud 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 tlie Mighty.) White-kobed, white crowned, and borue by steeds snow-white The thuuderer rolls across the echoiug skiesl 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! Tliou too; unto the hills litl up thine eyes; Select ions for Beading. 101 To some uew throne these sacred signs invite. Learn tliy own strength; and if some secret sense Of power untried pervades thy low estate. Bend tliy 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. Friday, {Day of the Beautiful.) In the world-garden walled with living green The foam-b(n-u 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 birthrigiit; we will sliare The sunshine and the singing and the flowers I Saturday. {Bay of Saturn.) Though bright with jewels nnd 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 Oljnnpian guest Took with hiiu in his flight the age of gold! Westward through myriad centuries has rolled The ceaseless pilgrimage, the liopeless quest For the true Fatherland. Through weary years 102 Seltclio/is /or Reading. Wlial if some rainbow glory spans tlie gloom? Some strong, sweet utterance the waj^side checra? Or gladness opens like a rose in bloom? Step after step 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 liglit Of this divinest morn. The tale lie tells Transllgurcs life; and opens heaven to sight. Bring altar llowers! Lilies and asphodels! Sing Jubilates! There is no more night! — Atlantic MontJdy. TRIPLET AND FAMILY. Charles Reade. James Tkiplet, water in his eye, bttt fire in his heart, went home on wings. Arrived there he anticijmted citri- 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, hcsliould gradually unfold a tale verging on the marvelous — a tale whose only fault was that fiction, by which alone tiie family could hojje to be great, paled beside it. He then seized some sheets of Selections for Reading. 103 l)aper, 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 thouglit, Mrs. Triplet. Listen, all of you. You see, Jane, they are all at a sumptuous banquet — all the dramatis jJ&rsoncB." 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. 104 Selections for Meadiiig. "liow I am to write comic scenes if Lysimachus and Kox- alanu here putin the heavy business every five minutes ?" " Forgive them — the poor things are hungry." " Then let them bo hungry in another room," said the irritated scribe. " They slian'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," said Lucy, aged five, the germ of a woman, " I am 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 agreat 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. 105 - - - ^* — - slap off. Perha])S 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. *' Oiir 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 fiercel}^ " 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!" 106 Selections for Reading, The poor man laid liis liead upon the table and sobbed beyond all power of restraint. The children cried round him, scarce knowing wh}', and Mrs. Tri})lct 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 witli 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 Pomi)cy she sent him out for a pie which she professed she had fallen in love with at the corner of the street. " Mother," said AlcibiadeSj '' 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 funft}-. Do you ever cry, pretty lady?" " Oh, of course not," ironically. Selections for Reading. 107 " Comedy is crying," said Lucy, confidentially. "Father cried all the time he 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 iuto 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. Woifiiigton, putting another huge piece of pie into Roxalana's plate, " avc 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 raylcss, 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 acting as Triplet never dreamed of? If it were art, glory to such art so worthily ajiplied, 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. THE NOBILITY OF LABOR. Thomas Caklyle. Two men I lionor, and no third. First the toilworn Craftsman that with earth-made Implement hiboriously con- quers the Earth and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard hand, crooked, coarse; wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning Tirtue, 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 Avere thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou Avert our Conscript, on Avhom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so man-ed. For in thee, too, lay a god-created Form, but it was not to be un- folded; inonjsted i^i^ it staM Avith the thick adliesions and defacements of Labor, and thy body like thy soul Avas 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 toAvards inward Harmony; revealing this by act or by Avord, through all his outward endeavors, be they high or loAV? Highest of all, Avhen his outward and iuAvard endeavor are one; Avhen we can name him Artist, not earthly Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, Avho Avith heaven-made Implement conquers Heaven for us. If the poor and humble toil that we may have food, must not the high and glorious toil ior 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 ol man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublinier 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 (howsoever we name our stealing), which is Avorse; 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 heaA-en of Rest 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 dpes. — Sartor Re- sartuS. 110 Selections for Heading. ABRAHAM DAVEXPORT. John G. Whittier. In the old daj's (a custom laid aside Witli breeches and cocked hats) the people sent Their wisest nieu to make the public laws. And so from a brown homesteiid where the Sound Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, And liallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, Stamford sent to the Councils of the State Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport. 'Twas on a Maj^-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 Ihe 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 whicli climbs The crater's sides from the red hell below. Birds ceased to sing, and all the barnyaid fowls Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars Lowed and looked homeward. Bats on leathern -wings Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died; Men prayed and women wept; all ears grew sharp To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ IVIight 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 th(! law-givers of Connecticut, Trembling beneath their legislative robes. Selections for Reading. 11 1 ' It is llie Lord's Great Day! Let us adjourn I " Some said; and then, as if witli one accord All eyes were turned to Abi'aliara Davenport. He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice The intolerable hush. " Tins 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 faitldess 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, Avith 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 th(!re he stands in memo-y to this day. Erect, self- poised, a rugged face, lialf seen Against the background of unnatural dark, A witness to the ages as they pass That simple duty h^th no place for fear. 1 12 Selections for Reading. LEFT ASHORE. Harriet Prescott Spofford. Softly it stole up out of the sea, The day that brought my dole to me; Slowly into the star-sown gray Dim and dappled it soared away. Who would have dreamed such tender light Was brimming over with bale and blight? Wlio would have dreamed that titful breeze Fanned from the tumult of tossing seas? Oh, softly and slowlj' stole up from the sea The day that brought my dole to me. Glad was I at the open door, While my footfall lingered along the floor. For three bright heads at that dawn of day Close on the self-same pillow lav; Three dear mouths I bent and kissed As the gold and rose and amethyst Of the eastern sky was round us spread; And three little happy faces sped To the dancing boat, — and he Avent too — And lightly the wind that morning blew. Many a time had one and all Gone out before to the deep-sea haul, Many a time come rowing back Against the tide of tlie Merrimack, With shining freight and a reddening sail Flapping loose in tiie idle gale; While over tlicm faded tiie evening glow. With stars above and with stars below, Trolling and laugliiiig a welcome din To me and the warm siiore making in. Selections for Reading. 113 Then why, that day, as I watched the boat. Did I remember the midnij^ht rote That rolled a signal across my sleep Of the storm tliat rolled from deep to deep. Plunging along in its eager haste Across the desert and desolate waste, Far off throiigii the heart of the gray )nid seas To rob me forever of all my easel' Oh, 1 know not; I only know That soimd was the warning of my woe. For lo, as 1 looked, I saw the mist Over the channel curl and twist. And blot the breaker out of sight Where its angry horn gored the waters white. Only a sea-lui n, I heard them say. That the climbing sun will burn away; But I saw it silently settling down Like an ashen pall ujion the town. " Oh, hush!" I cried; " 'tis some huge storm's rack, And I know my darlings will never come back." All day I stood on the old sea-wall Watching the great swell rise and fall. And the spume and spray drove far and thin. But never a sail came staggering in. And out of the east a wet wind blew. And over my hejid tiie foam-flakes flew; Down came the night without a star; Loud was the cry of the raging bar; And I wrung my hands and called and pra^'ed, And the black, wild east all answer made. Oh, long ere the cruel night was done Came the muffled toll of the minute gun. Nothing it meant to me, I knew, Save that other women were waiting too. For many the craft that cast away On the shoals of the long Plum Island lay, 114 Selections for Reading. Wrecked and naked, a hungry horde Of fierce wliite surges leaping aboard, And bale and bundle came up from the sea, But nothing ever came back to me. And through every pool where the full tides toss I search for some lock of curling floss. Yet still in my window, night by night, The little candle is burning bright. For, oh, if I suddenly turned to meet My darling coming with flying feet, While I, iu the place they left me, sat, • No greater marvel 'twould be than that When so softly, slowly stole up from the sea The day that brought my dole to me. OUR NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. Geo. Wm. Curtis. My Dear Caroline: — Lent came so friglitfully early this year that I was Tcry 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 Avould be the only stylish hat in church the first Sunday. She could not liecp 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 I ran my eyes over the whole congregation, and — would you l)elicve it? — almost without an exception people had on their old things! However, I suppose they forgot liow 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 Reading. 115 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 thiiiking about it a great deal I con- cluded to have 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! 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 nnprotitable 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 1 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 116 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 Reverend 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 line, bound with gold lace, and the hat banded with a full gold rosette. Don't you think tliat would look well in Hyde Park? And why shouldn't we have in Broadway wliat 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 ]\Irs. 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 savs, " I wonder who that is!'' and the jilush and Selections for Reading. 117 the purple and the calves spring up belli nd 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. Gnu's splendid parties the night before, and am going to Mrs. Silkes to dinner, and to Mrs. Settum Downe's and the opera in the evening, and have nothing to do all day but go to 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 T 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 118 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 think 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 PaiHs. TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. Gekald Massey. High hopes tliat burii'd like stars stihlime, Go down i' the heavens of freedom; And true liearts perish in the time We bitterliest need 'em! But never sit we down and say, Tiiere's nothintr left but sorrow: We walk the wilderness to-day — The promised land to-morrow! Our birds of song are silent now, Tiiere are no flowers blooming. Yet life holds in the frozen bough, And freedom's sprini:- is coming; And freedom's tide comes up ahvay, Though we may strand in sorrow: And our good bark, aground to-day, Shall float again to-morrow. \ Selections for Heading. 119 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! Tlie 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! 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 furi-ow, ' We'll sow the golden grain to-day — The harvest reap to-morrow 1 Build up heroic lives, and all Be like a shealhen saber, Ready 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 today Brings victory to-morrow! 120 Selections for Reading. THE MEMBRANEOUS CROUP. Mark Twain. When that friglitful and incurable disease mcnibraneous croup was ravaging the town and driving all mothers mad with terror, I called Mrs. McWilliams's attention to little Penelope and said, • '•' Darling, I wouldn't let that child chew that pine stick if I Avere you."' " Precious, Avhere is the harm in it?" said she, but at the same time preparing to take away the stick. I replied, " Love, it is notorious that pine is the least nutritious wood that a child can eat." My wife's hand paused in the act of taking the stick. She bridled perceptibly and said: "■ Hubby, you know better than that. You know you do. Doctors all say that the turpentine in pine wood is good for a weak back and the kidneys." " Ah. I did not know that the child's kidneys and s})ine were affected, and that the family i^hysician had recom- mended — " " Who said the child's spine and kidneys were atTected?" " My love, you intimated it," " The idea! I never intimated anything of the kind." " Why, my dear, it hasn't been two miinUes since you said—" " " " I don't care what I said. There isn't any harm in the child's chewing a bit of pine stick if she wants to. and you know it perfectly well. And she shall chew it, too. So there, now!" " Say no more, my dear. I now see the force of your reasoning, and I will go and order two or three cords of the Selections for Heading. 121 best pine wood to-day. No child of mine shall want, while I—" *' Oh, please go along to your office and let me have some peace. A body can never make the simplest remark, but you must take it up and go to arguing and arguing and arguing till you don't know what you are talking about, and you never do!" "Very well. It shall be as you say. But there is a want of logic in your last remark which — " However she was gone with a flourish before I could finish, and had taken the child with her. That night siie confronted me with a face as white as a sheet. '* Mortimer, there's another! Little Georgie Gordon is taken!" " Membraneous croup?" " Membraneous croup." " Is there any hope for him?" " None in the wide world! Oh, what is to become of us?" By and by the nurse brought in our Penelope to say good- night, and she gave a slight cough. My wife fell back like one strickc.'i with death, but the next nioment she was up and brimming with the activities Avhich terror inspires. She commanded that the child's crib be removed from the nursery to our bedroom, and she went along to see the order executed. She took mo with her of course. We ar- ranged matters speedily. A cot bed was put up in my wife's flressing-room for the nurse, but now Mrs. Mc Wil- liams said wo were too far away from the other baby, and what if he, too, were to have the symptoms in the night? and she blanched again, poor thing. We then restored the crib and the nurse to the nursery, and })ut up a bed for our- selves in a room adjoining. Presently, however, Mrs. McWilliams said, suppose the 122 Selections for Iteading. baby should catch it from Penelope! This thought struck a new panic to her heart, and the whole tribe of us could not get the crib out of the nursery again fast enough to satisfy my wife, though she assisted in her own person, and well nigh pulled the crib to pieces in her frantic hurry. We moved down-stairs; biit there was no place there to stow the nurse, and Mrs. McWilliams said the nurse's ex- perience would be an inestimable help. So we returned bag and baggage to our own bedroom once more, and felt a great gladness, like storm-bujffeted birds that have found their nest again. Mrs. McWilliams sped to the nursery to see how things were ffoincc on there. She was back in a moment with a new dread. She said, "What can make Baby sleep so?" I said, " Why, my darling, Baby always sleeps like a graven image." " I know, I know; but there's something peculiar about his sleep now. He seems to breathe so — so regularly. Oh, this is dreadful!" "But, my dear, he always bi-eathes regularly." " Oh, I know it, but there's something frightful about it now. His nurse is too young and inexperienced. Maria shall stay there with her, and be on hand if anything happens." *' That's a good idea, but who will help you?" " You can help me all I want. I wouldn't allow any- body but myself to do anything, anyhow, at such a time as this." Penelope coughed twice in her sleep. *' Oh, why don't that doctor come! Mortimer, this room "* too warm. Turn off the register, quick!" Stlections for Reading. 128 I shut it off, glancing at the thermometer at tlie same time, and wondering if seventy degrees was too warm for a sick child. The coachman arrived from town with the news that our physician was ill and confined to his bed. Mrs. McWil- liams turned a dead eye upon me and said in a dead voice: " There is a providence in it. It is foreordained. He never was sick before, never. We have not been living as we ought to live, Mortimer. Time and time again I have told you so. Now you see the result. Our child will never get well. Be thankful if you can forgive yourself. I never can forgive myself!" I said, without intent to hurt, but with heedless choice of words, that I could not see that we had been living such an abandoned life. " Mortimer ! Do you want to bring the judgment upon Baby too?" Then she began to cry, but suddenly exclaimed: " The doctor must have sent medicines!" " Certainly. They are here. I was only waiting for you to give me a chance." *' Well, do give them to me. Don't you know that every minute is precious now? But what was the use of sending medicines when he knows that the disease is incurable?" I said that while there was life there was lioi^e. ''Hope! Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking about than a child unborn. If you would — as I live, the directions say, give one teaspoonful once an hour! Once an hour! As if we had a whole year before us to save the child in! Mortimer, please hurry! Give the poor perishing thing a tablespoonful, and do try to be quick!" " Why my dear, a tablespoonful might — " "Don't drive me frantic! Oh, I know she can't live till i'24: Selections for Reading. moniiug! Mortimer, a tablesj)Oonful every half hour will — oh, the cliild needs belladonna, too, and aconite. Get them, Mortimer. Xow do let me have my way. You know nothing about these things." We now went to bed, placing the crib close to my wife's pillow. All this turmoil had worn me out, and within two minutes I was something more than half asleep. Mrs. Mc- Williams roused me. "Darling, is that register turned on?" "No." "I thought as much. Please turn it on at once. The room is cold." I turned it on and fell asleep again. I was aroused again. " Dearie, would you mind moving the crib to your side of the bed? It is nearer the register." I moved it. but liad a collision with the rug and woke up the child. I dozed off once more while my wife quieted the sufferer. But in a little while these words came mur- muring remotely through the fog of my drowsiness: " Mortimer, if we only had some goose-grease. Will you ring?" I climbed dreamily out, and stepped on a cat which re- sponded with a protest and would have got a convincing kick for it — if a chair had not got it instead. " Now, Mortimer, why do you Avant to turn up the gas and wake up the child again?" " Because I want to see how much I am hurt," I said. " Well, look at the chair, too. I've no doubt it's ruined. Poor cat! I suppose you had — " " Now I am not going to suppose Jinything about the cat. It never would have occurred if ]\raria had been here to attend to these duties. Avhich are in her line, not mine." "Now, Mortimer, 1 should think vou would be ashamed Selections for Readinr/^ 125 to make a remark like that. It is a pity if you can't do the few little things I ask of yon at such an awfnl time as this, when our child is — " " There, there, I'll do anything you want. But I can't raise anybody witli this boll. They are all gone to bed. Where is the goose-grease?" *' On the mantelpiece in the nursery. If you'll step there and speak to Maria — " I fetched the goose-grease and went to sleep again. Once more I was called. " Mortimer, I so hate to disturb you, but this room is too cold to apply this stuff. Would you mind lighting the fire? It's all ready to touch a match to." I dragged myself out and lit the fire, then sat down dis- consolate. *' Mortimer, don't sit there and catch your death of cold. Come to bed." As I was stepping in she said, " Wait a moment. Please give the child some more of the medicine." It was a medicine which made the child lively, and my wife made use of its waking interval to grease it all over with the goose-oil. I was asleep once more before long, but once more I had to get up. "Mortimer, I feel a draft. I feel it distinctly. There is nothing so bad for this disease as a draft. Please move the crib in front of the fire." I did it, and collided with the rug again which I threw into the fire. Mrs. McWilliams sprang out of bed and rescued it and we had some words. I had another trifling interval of sleep, and then got up by request and con- structed a flaxseed poultice. This was placed upon the child's breast and left there to do its healing work. 126 Selections for Beading. A Avood fire is not a permanent thing. I got np every twenty minutes and renewed ours, and this gave Mrs. Mc- Williams the opportunity to shorten the times of giving the medicines by ten minutes which was a great satisfaction to her. Now and then, between times, I reorganized the flax- seed poultices, and applied all sorts of blisters where unoc- cupied places could be foiud upon the child. Towards morning the wood gave ou' and my wife wanted me to go down cellar and get moie. T >ai'd: ''My dear, it is a laboriou,. ;,j. HISTORY. James Anthony Froude. History, 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; Ave 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 Avith immeiliate realities Avhich Ave can see or handle, but with combinations of reality and human thought Avhich it is his business to analyze and separate into their component /larts. 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, 174 Selections for Heading. wherever possible, by the instrumentality of causes which are now in operation. Geologists no longer ascribe tlie 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 uiiivei'se will interpret most, if not all, of the iihenomena; 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. Simihirly 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 which we have no modern counterparts. At the dawn of civilization, when men began to observe and think, they found themselves in ]io?scssion of various faculties — first their five senses, and then imagination, fancy, reason, and memory. They did not distinguish one from the other. They did not know Avliy one idea of Avhich they Avere conscious should be more true than an- other. They looked i-ound them in continual surpi-ise, conjecturing fantastic explanations of all they s;wv and heard. Their traditions and their theories blended one intoanothei', 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 llic chariot of Apollo, or that Saturn had devoured his children, or that Sicgfred had been batlied in the dragon's blood, or that earthcpiake? and volcanoes were Selections for Heading. 175 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 Avas 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 Avhich exists in the Avorld, 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 docs 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 Avord. 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 Avhich 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 Avriting which has yet been pro- duced. 176 Selections for Beading. Neither history nor any other knowledge c;in be obtained except by scientific methods. A constructive philosojihy 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 jiictures. 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. Sbakespeare'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; Avhcn 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 Reading. 177 LOSSES. Frances Bkown. 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 willi weary moan. One spake with quivering lip Of a fair freighted ship With all liis household to the deep gone down. But one had wiUier woe — For a fair face, long ago Lost iu 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 ; 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 tiiat were their trust no more; And one of u green grave Beside a foreign wave, Tiiat made liim sit so lonely on the shore. But when their tales were done There came among them one, A stranger seeming fi'om all sorrow free; " Sad losses have ye met, But mine is heavier yet; For a believing heart has gone from me." 178 Selections for Reading. "Alas!" these pilgrims said, " For the living aud tlie 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. illCHELET. The imaginatiye Orientals cull the sea the Night of the Depths. In all the antique tongues from India to Ireland, the synonymous or analogous name of tlic sea is either ]!s ight or Desert. Descend to even a slight depth in the sea and the beauty and brilliancy of the up}>er light are lost; you enter into a l)ersistent twiliglit 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- ino- evervthinsr 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 graceftilly terrible motion of some passing monster of tlie 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 trnth 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 day, the at Selections for Heading. 179 once timid and unreasoning childhood of our race, men imagined that where no Light Avas neither could there be Life; that in the unfathomed depths there was a black, life- less, soundless Chaos; above, naught but Avaterand gloom; beneath, sand and shells, the bones of the wrecked mariner, the rich wares of the far-off, ruined, and vainly 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 NigJits 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 Africans 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 stern 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 180 Selections for Reading. region! On one of those weird and far isles stands a sternly threatening Colossus Avhose menace is, "Thus far thou hast come; farther thou shalt not go!" The sublimit}^ 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 tliem 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 Sdectlons for ReaxUng. 181 to a system, obedient to a law! So! Then tlinse 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 safeguai'd of calm, clear presence of mind with soul and intellect unrufltied 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 BALLA.D OF THE FLEET. Alfred Tennyson. r. At Flores, in tlie Azores. Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away: "Spanisli ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!" Then sware Lord Tliomas Howard-- " 'Fore God I am uo coward; But I cannot meet tliem here, for my sliips are out of gear, And the half my men are sicl<. I must fly, but follow quick. "We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fiftj-three?" II. Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know j'ou 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." 182 Selections for Read in g. iir. So Lord Howard passed away with five sliips of war that day, Till he melted like a cloud iu tlie silent summer heaven; But Sir Richard bore iu hand all his siclv 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 ihey 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 lime 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 1 never turned my back upon Don or devil yet." V. Sir Richard spoke and ho lauglied, 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, Tiiousands 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 tlie breath from our sails, and we stayed. Selections for Reading. 183 VII. And while now tlic great " San Philip" hung above us like a cloud Wlieiioc the thunderbolt will fall Long and loud, Four galleons drew away From the Spanish fleet that day, A-nd two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, A.nd the battle-thunder broke from them all. vin. But anon the great " San Philip," she bethought herself and went Having that within her womb that had left her ill-content; A-ud the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand, For a dozen times they came with tlieir pikes and musqueteers, And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog tliat shakes his ears JVhen 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 Avhole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame ; Ship after ship, the whole idght long, drew back with her dead and her sliiune. For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so could fight U3 no more — God of battles, was e*'er 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 hij,d left the deck. But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead, And himself lrt3 was wounded again in the side and the head, And he said, "Fight on! fight on!" 184 Selections for liead'nig. XX. And tiie night went down, and the sun smiled out fur over tlie sum- mer sea. And llie Spnnisii fleet witli broken sides liiy round us all in a ring; But tliey dared not touch us again, for they feared tlnit 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 figiit for a d-.iv and a night As may never be fought again! "We have won great glory, my men! ' And a daj'^ less or more At sea or ashore. We die — does it matter when? Sink me the ship, jVIaster Gunner— sink her. split her in twain! Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!'' xir. And the gunner said, "Ay, ay.'' but the seamen made reply: " We have children, we have wives, And the Lord hath spared oiu* 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 Ity the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last. And they praiseddiim to his face witli llieir courtly foreign grace; But he rose upon their decks, and he cried: Selections for Reading. 18o " I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true; 1 have only done my duty as a man is bound to do: With a joyful spirit 1 Sir Richard Grenville die!" And he fell upon their decks, and he died. XIV. And they stared at the dead that liad been so valiant and true, And had holden the power and glorj^ (A Spain so cheap That he dared her witli one little ship and his Englisli few; AVas he devil or man? He was devil for aught liiey knew. But they sank his bodj^ with honor down into llie deep, And they manned Ihe " 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- begau 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, 'i'ill it smote on their ludls and their sails and their masts and their flags. And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot shattered uavv of Spain, And the little "Revenge" herself went down bv the island crasrs To be lost evermore in the main. CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP. Wendell Phillips. Ephesus was upside down. The mantifacturers of silver boxes for holding heathen images liad 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 186 Selections for Reading. liard names. Some of the people favored the policy of the silversmiths; others the policy of Paul. Finally tlicy 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, Ciiristian 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 tlie vast majority it is a question between the peas and the oats. One party cries, "Great is Diana of tlie Ephesians!" and the other party cries, " Great is Diana of tlie Ephesians!" when in truth both are crying, if they were but honest enough to admit it, " Great is my ijocket- 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 Cliinese 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 jiower in our politics. See how men make every effort to clamber into higher positions, but are cast down. God opposes tliem. Every Selections for Reading. 187 man, every nation, tliat proved false to divine expectation,, down it went. God said to tlie house of Bourbon, '^ Ee- model France and estaljlisli 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, '" Reform Austria and set the prisoners free." It would not do it. Down it went. He says to men now, " Reform 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 I God can spare them. If he could spare Washing- to7i 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 IN THE DIKE. A Story of Ilolland. PiicEBE Caut. The good dame looked from her cottage At the close of the pleasant day, And clieerilj' called to her little sou Outside the door at plaj': " 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, 188 Selections for Reading. And take these cakes I made for hlin, Tliey are hot and smoking j'et; 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 Tlioy saw a star in sigiit, Tliough 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 liave rol)l)ed a bird's nest. Nor brought a stork to harm, Though never a law in Holland Had stood to staj' 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 jilace — Alas! if only the blind old man Could have seen that happy face! K Selections for Reading. 189 Yet he somehow caught the brightness Which his voice and presence lent ; And he felt the sunshine come and go As Petei' came and went. And now, as tlie day was sinking And the winds began to rise, Tlie 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 muruing, So I need not fret or grieve. Though it isn't like mj^ 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 liold you long. You're a wicked sea," said Peter; "I know why you fret and chiife: You would like to spoil our lands aud homes, But our sluices keep you safe!" But hark! Tlirough the noise of waters Comes a low, clear, trickling sound; And the child's face pales witli terror, And his Ijlossoms fall to the ground. 190 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 ausAver 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 cottnge Is up and astir with the light. For the thouglit 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 docs slic sec so strange and black Against the rising sun? Selections for Beading. 191 Her neighbors are benriijg 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 tlie 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 Wlien the sea roars like a flood, Their boys are taught what a boy can do Who is brave and true and good. For ever}' 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, Tvemembered througli the years. But never one wliose name so oft Is named witli loving tears. And his deed shall be sung by the cradle And told to the child on the knee, So long as the dikes of Holland Divide the laud from the sea. 192 Selections for Reading. PARTRIDGE AT THE PLAY. HeXRY FlELDlXG. In the first row, then, of the first gallery, did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge take their places. Partridge immediatel}^ declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music Avas 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, " Tliat 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. Ko, 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 Avas the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior Selections for Iteadivg. 193 on the stage. ''Oh, l;i! sir," said lie, "I perceive now it is what you told me. I am not afraid of anytliing, for I know it is but a phiy, and if it was really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much com- pany: aud yet if I was frightened, I am not the only per- son." " Why, Avho," cries Jones, "dost thou take to be such a coward here beside thyself?"' " Nay, you may call me coAvard if you Avill; 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 liappens, 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 Avhat 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, "Ilush, 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 Avhich succeeded each other in Hamlet succeeding likewise in him. When the scone was over, Jones said, " Why, Partridge, you exceed my ex^oectalions. 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 Avas the Ghost that surprised me neither; for I should have knoAvn that to have been only a man in a strange dress; but when I saw the little man so frightened himself, it was that Avhich took hold of me." "And dost thou imagine 194 Selections for Reading. then, Partridge," cries Jones, " that lie was really fright- ened?" "Nav, sir," said Partridge, ''did not you yourself obsei've 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 Avere, just as I should have been, had it been my own case? But hush! Oh la! what noise is that? There ho is again. AVcll, 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 sui-prised, gave him no other satisfaction tlian "that lie 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 vou 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! 1^-hat'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. "AVell, well," cries Partridge, "I know it's only a piny; and besides, if there was anything in all this. Madam ]\Iiller would not laugh so; for as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, T believe, if the devil was here in person. Select io n s fo r Rea d ing. 195 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 sooner 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, aud 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 liigher chair than he sits upon. No wonder he ran away; for your sake I'll 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 w;is 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. / 196 Selections for Reading. at tlie end of Avliicli Jones asked him, "Which of tlie play- ers lie had liked best?" To this he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, '' The King, Avithout doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same oi)inion with the town; for they are all agreed that Hamlet is acted by the best jdayer 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, wh}', any man, that is any good man, that had such a mother, would have done exactly the same. I knoAv 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." 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 heautiful as longing? To let the new life in we know Desire must ope the porlal; Perhaps the longing to be so Helps make the soul immortal. Selections for Heading. 197 Loiigiugi is God's fresh heavenward will, With our poor earthward sti;iviiig; We quench it tliat we may be still Content witli merely living; But would we know that heart's full scope, Which we are hourly wronging, Our lives must climb from hope to hope And realize our longing. All! let us hope that to our praise Good God not only reckons Tiie 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. HOW TO READ. John Kuskin". I WILL try to bring before you only a few simjile tlionglits 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 bouiul to say it, clearly and melodiously, if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life ho 198 A^electio?is for Reading. liuds this to be the thing, ov 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. Tluit 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 l)uts 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 u]) to the elbow, and my breath good, and my temi)er? "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 Avhicli 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 iiope to / Selections for Beading. ' li^O 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— yon must get into the habit of looking intensely at words and assur- ing yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllabic, nay, letter by .letter. You might read all the books in the British Museum if you could live 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 i)art 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 and 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; l)ut 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 200 Selections for Heading. jicceut of words be watched, by all means, but let their meaning be watched more closely still, and fewer will do the woi'k. Nearly every word in our language has been first a Avord in some other language — Saxon, German, French, Ltitin, or Greek. Many words have been all these, that is to say have been Greek tirst, Latin next, French or German next, and English last; undergoing a certain change of sense and use on the lips of each nation; but retainir.g 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, ;ind whenever you are in doubt about a word, hunt it down ])atiently. It is severe work, but you will find it, even at tirst, interesting and at last endlessly amusing; while the general gain to your chai'acter in power and jirecision will be quite incalculable. — Semme and Lilliea. WHY. ]\r.\HY Frances Butts. "Tell me. O cruel Ilaud," Said a Grain of Corn one day, " Why from tiie golden sunsliine You bury me awuy.'' Tlie silence was relentless, No helper came to save; But full ears in the harvest A perfect an^^wcr gave. kielectlons for Reading. 201 "Tell me, O cruel Knife," Said a Hose- tree overgrown, " Why all my wealth is stripped, And I am left alone." The question was unheeded, "In vain a rose tree grows!" Ah! doubter, leaves are little worth When you have seen a rose. "Tell me, O cruel Fate," Said a baffled, tempted Soul, " "What is the good of life. Where is the promised goal?" Tlie loving Force evolving Sweet roses and ripe corn Goes surely to its purpose, Oh, Faithless and Forlorn. — Independent. THE WATEES AND THE SHADOW. Victor Hugo. A MAN overboard! What matters it? tlie ship does not stop. The wind is blowing; tliat dark ship must keep on her destined course. She passes away. The man disappears, then reappears; lie 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 202 titled ion^ for Reading. is that disappearing sail I lie looks upon it; he looks upon it with frenzy. It moves away; it grows dim; it di-min- islies. 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 lias nothing under his feet but the yielding, fleeing element. The waves, torn and scattered by the wind, close rouiul 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 3-awniing 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 wind 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. Sdections for Reading. 203 There are birds in the clouds even as there are angels above human distresses, but Avhat 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 I He shouts incessantly. Nothing in the horizon. Nothing in the sky. He implores the blue vault, 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 i-csting-placc. 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 forevei'. 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 miscrv. The 204 Selections for Heading. soul drifting in that sea may become a corpse. Who shall restore it to life? — Les Miserahles. NOBILITY. Alice Gary. True worth is in being, not seeming, In doing eacli day tliat goes by- Some little good — not in the dreaming \v Of great things to do by and by. For wliatever men say in blindness And spite of the fancies of youth, There's nothing so kingly as kindness. And nothing so royal as I ruth. We get back our mete as we measure, We cannot do wrong and love right; Nor can we give pain and get pleasure. OV For justice avenges each slight. The air for tlie wing of the sparrow, The bush for the robin and wren; But alway the path that is narrow And strait for tlie childrc!i of men. 'Tis not in the pages of story The heait of its ills to beguile. Though he that pays tribute to glory Gives all tiiat lie hatli for her smile; For when frnin lier 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, •"Y-v Nor calcli tliem like fishes in nets; / And sometimes the tiling our life misses Helps more tlian the tiling wbicli it gets. Selections for Reading. 205 For good lieth not iu pursiiin!^- fV- Nor gaining of groat nor of small. ^ But just in the doing, — and doing As Ave would be done by is all. Tlirougli env}', through malice, through haling. •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 liis trouble Whose winnings are less than bis 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 slacli. Set that pie up higher. And for goodness' sake do clear this truclv 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 tliat's tlie 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 ou. Dear how it smokes! I never was so tired iu 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 liusbands 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 ne chair '^ 206 Selections for Heading. I'll set you down so hard that you'll agree You're stuck lor good! Them cranberries are sour, And taste like gall besides. Hand me some flour, And do fly rouud! 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'U be! If that ain't red, I'll miss my guess. I don't expect j^ou'll see — You nor your father neither — what I've done And suffered in this house. As true's I live Tliein 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 Vairmount! 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'sriz"? 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 J'ou 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 would 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 mj"- 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 throuLih. Selections for Reading. ' 20' SOUND AND SENSE. KOBEliT ChAMBEKS. 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, bouncUess, terrible, a something appropriate to the sublime ideas intended to be conveyed? In the word crasJi wc 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! — tlie 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 Avas from the sound of the word alone. Of i)icturesque words, sijJvan and crystal are among our greatest favorites. Sylvan ! — what visions of beautiful old sunlit forests, with 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 nmong them than any other things. 208 • Selections for Reading. The eagle, — what appropriate daring and sublimity! the dove, — what softness I 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, liyacinili, 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, sajj- phire, amethyst, heryl, ruby, agate, j^carl, jasper, topaz, garnet, emerald, — whata casket of sj)arkling 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 sul)lime passage of our poetry, and we shall hardly find a word which is in- appropriate in sound. For exaniiilc: The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemu temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this iiisubstautiul pageaut faded, Leave not a rack behind. The "gorgeous palaces," " the solemn temples," — how ad- mirably do tliose loftv 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 sublinje word, must bo attributed to those faculties, native to every mind. Selections for Reading. 209 Avliich enable us to perceive and enjoy the beautiful, the ridiculous, and the sublime. Doctor Wallis, 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 exj^ressed the nature of the objects which it names by employing sounds sharper, softer, Aveaker, 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 sto; as, stand, stay, staff, stop, stout, steady, stake, stamp, etc. Words beginning witli 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: wr, obliquity or distortion; as, wry, wrest, wrestle, wring, wrong, wrangle, wrath, etc.: siv, 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, crush, dash, rash, flash, lash, slash: ter- minations in iisli, something acting more obtusely and dully; as crush, brush, hush, gush, blush. The learned author produces a great many moi'c 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. 210 Selections for Reading. NEW EVERY ^lORXIXG. Susan Coolidge. Every day is a fresh beghuiing, Every morn is tlie world made new, You who are weary of sorrow and simiing, Here is a beautiful hope for j'ou; A hope for ine 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 Avith the healing which night has shed. Yesterday now is a part of forever, Bound up in a sheaf, which God hc^lds tight, With glad daj's, 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 daj^ alone. Here are tlie skies all burnished brightly, Here is the spent eartii all re-born, Here are the tired limbs springing lightly To face the sun and to share with the mom In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn. Every day is a fresli 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, ami begin again. Selections for Heading. 211 THE POWER OF WORDS. Edwin P. Whipple. Words are most effective "when arraug'cd in tliat order wliicli is called style. The great secret of a good style, we are told, is to have projjer words in proper places. To marshal one's verbal battalions in such order that thev 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 polysylhibic battering- ram. Burke's words are continually practising the broad- sword exercise, and sweeping down adversaries with every stroke. Arbuthnot "i)lays his weapon like a tongue of flame." Addison draws up liis 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. Tiiey 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 gro.'^s obscenity. Macaulay, brisk, lively, keen, and energetic, 212 Selections for Reading. runs his thoughts rapidly through his sentence, and kicks out of the way every Avord 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. Gifford'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 liuge fists, to pum- mel and bruise. Chatham and Miraheau 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 l)y 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 i'a])iers. AV illis's words are often tipsy witli 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 Avound or loss. John Neal's forces are multitudinous, and fire briskly at everything. They occupy all the province? Select ions for Reading. 213 of letters, and are nearly useless from being spread over too inucli ground. Everett's weapons are ever kept in good order, and shine well in the sun, but they are little calcu- lated for Avarfare, and rarely kill when they strike. Web- ster's words are thunder-bolts, Avliich sometimes miss the Titans at whom they arc 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. WASTED COUNSEL. R. W. Easterbrooks. So, John, you're a goin' to be married, I hear. Eh? take some tobacco! well, women is queer, And pesky provokin' sometimes; but I find, In the long run of life, men are seldom behind. Now there's my old woman — that's her — Polly Drake; I thought her an angel dropped here by mistake, Until I'd been married a month, when, I swan, I wished she'd been dropped a few rods further on! How was it ? Wall, little by little, you see, I come to know Polly and she to know me, And neither was pleas^ed with the other. The light So perfect in courtship, with marriage grows bright 214 Selections for Reading. And shows up the flaws in our pictures so phiiu That we long to return them to shadows again. But the gallery's bolted, and husband and wife, Alone -with each other, are out, and for life. Well, it ain't because either is wuss than they were. That she haggles with him and he imitates her, But only that both are i/temselrcfi, and appear^ As humans, not latter-day Jobs. Now come here And I'll tell jou a secret worth knowin': you see We've jogged along pleasant like, Polly and me, For forty odd year — and, deny it who may — In times like the present, that's su'lhing to say. The way that I iixcd it was this: when at first I found that my angel was coiuin' to dust, I raved (a had hal)it I've tried to correct). And Polly got flustered — what could you expect? And the way she pitched into me then (with her tongue) Wascur'us to witness: "Now, John, you are young. But remember this fact, and then heed it with sense, The tongue is a woman's sole means of defence." And of course she has learn't how to use it; but then It is easily stopped with a kiss. Well! and when She finally quit with a snob and a sneeze, I slunk to the barn-yard as meek as you please And thought the thing over; sez I, " Eben Drake, You've shown yourself simpleton now — no mistake." For I measured myself, and I found that for me To scold at the woman that Polly coukl be Was wuss than the toad's finding fault with the hare, And this is the bargain I made then and there: " I'll leave her .-ilone till I see, plain and true, That I am the wisest and best of the two." So, as every one knows, we're a peaceable pair, And the rock all young fellers like you should beware Select ions for Beading. 215 Is that of forgetting that womcu, like men, Is likely to falter, and drop now and then. Now Ruth is as good as the average. Pshaw! Don't look so disgusted! 'lis true as the law That some time you'll tind she is human, and mourn —Of course — now I've got to the sermon— he's gone. TOO LATE. FiTZ Hugh Ludlow. " Alt ! si lajeunesse savait — si la neillesse pouvait!" There sat an old man on a rock And unceasing bewailed him of Fate — That concern where we all must take stock Though our vote has no hearing nor weight: And the old'man sang him an old, old song — Never sang voice so clc-ar and strong That it could drown the old man's long, For he sang the song " Too late! too late!" " When we want, we have for our pains The promise that if we but wait Till the want has burned out of our brains Ever}^ means shall be present to state; While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold, While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old. When we've matched our buttons the pattern is sold, And everj'thiug comes too late — too late! " When strawberries seemed like red heavens — Terrapin stew a wild dream — When my brain was at sixes and sevens If my mother had ' folks ' and ice cream. Then I gazed with a lickerish hunger At the restaurant man and fruit-monger — But oh! how I wished I were younger When the goodies all came in a stream — in a stream! 216 Selections for Readi/u/. " I've a splendid blood horse aud a liver That it jars into torture to trot; My row-boat's the gem of tiie river — Gout makes every knuckle a knot! I can buy boundless credits on Paris and Rome, But no palate for mentis — no eyes for a dome — T/iose belonged to the youth who must tany at liomo AVlicn no home but an attic he'd got — he'd got. " How I longed in that lonest of garrets, Where tlie tiles baked my brains all July, For ground to grow two pecks of carrots. Two pigs of my own in a sty. A rose-bush — a little thatched cottage — Two spoons — love — a basin of pottage: Now in freestone I sit — and my dotage — With a woman's chair empty close by — close byl " Ah! now, though I sit on a rock, ^ I have sluxred one seat with the Great; I have sat, knowing naught of the clock. On Love's high throne of state; But the lips that kissed and the arms that caressed To a mouth grown stern witli delay were pressed. And circled a breast that their clasp had blessed Had they only not come too late ! too late ! AVALTEE SCOTT. JoHN-W. Chadwick. Scorr's temple of fortune Avas already tottering to it.s base when the publication of " Wavcrley" 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 im])ression on the world would have been if he had not discovered ihc mine of Selections for Reading. 217 fiction in himself after he had exhansted the mine of poetry. "Kokebyand the Bride of Tricrmain" and the '•Lord of the Isles" were decidedly inferior to their pre- decessors, and made a much fainter appeal to the pnblic, first on account of their intrinsic inferiority, and second because they had gone with Cliilde Harold on his pilgrim- age. ''Byron beats me in poetry," said Scott. Wonld ho had gone on writing wiLli this consciousness of being beaten! Tliis is not likely. But what a happy fortune was that which, when his i)oetic 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 Avith it the first chapter of the novel which he had begun nine years before and broken oifl 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 snaring high Ijut 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! 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. 218 Selections for Beading. But once liavinof started on tliis course, lie found that mvs- tification was pleasant to him for its own sake, and he even dared to bring forward a new series after he had written Waverlev, "Guy Mannering" and " Tlie Antiquary," as the work of a ditferent author. But the voice behind the mask was recognized at once. Still later, when liis 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 hnp- 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 mucli of it has been so good, tluit 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 tliere 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 Kichardson or the coarseness of Fielding and 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 deli^^ht was not more eager and intense. The l)ublic of sixty years ago did not, I think, deceive itself as to the merits of these books. It knew what it was about wlicn it exhausted immediately an edition of 12,000 co})ies Selections for Reading. 219 of one after another, and 12,000 copies then meant 36,000 volumes. It knew what it was aljout 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 jourity, 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 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 220 Selections for Reading. his clearest moments; *' be virtuous, be religious, be a good man." This was four days before tlie end. September the 21st the weather was glorious. Every window was o})en and the ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles was dis- tinctly audible in his rooms when those who watched 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 houest}^ sagacity and goodness. We shall never forget it. We shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotclimen, take our proud and sad farewell." HALF-HEARD. Carl Spencer. Poets must ever be their own best listeners. No word from man to men Shall sound the same a.ijain; Something is lost tiirough all interpreters. Never for finest thought Can cr3'stal words be wrought 'Piiat to the crowd afar Shall show it — more than telescope a star. Each for himself creates the world in which he dwells — Thy world is only thine. Whatever ligiit may shine Outward, for thee the inner glory wells; Auotiier earth and skies Are seen by other eyes. Each from his centre rounds Gotl's universe, and yet it hath no bounds. Selections for Meadinr/. 221 Siug — but the song that took its sweetest tone From deeper things unsaid, Its fullest sense unread, Another will interpret by his own. To hiiii shall come the line Wilh music not of thine. None shall the whole repeat; Call it enough if thej' shall answer it. Close as we go, with clasped hands, one way, No less we walk apart; Something in every heart Must hold it from all other hearts away. Yet shall that silent chord Be vocal to its Lord. Some sweetest notes would fall Vainly in heaven, did not One answer all. THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE, IN MACBETH. Thomas De Quincey. Fkom my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point in Macbeth. It was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds to tlie 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 obstinately I endeavored with my understanding to com- prehend this, for many years I never could see luhy it should produce sticli 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 222 Selections for Reading. of peojile trust to nothing else; -vvliicli 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 know 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 solution is tiiis: Murder in ordinarv cases, where the svm- 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 saoie 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 him (of course I mean a sympathy of comprehension, a 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 sonic great storm of ]ias; ion — jealou. y. ambition. Selections for Reading. 223 vengeance, hatred — which will create a hell Avithiu 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, and made apprehensil)le by reaction. Now apply this to the case in i\Licbetli. 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 forirnt tliat he was burn of woman: both are confo]-nied 223 Selections for Reading. 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 w^orld 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 ordinai'y 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 (h.irlvness 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 wdiich we live first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that had sus- pended them. mighty })oct! 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, the stars and the flowers, like frost and snow, rain and dew% liail-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 ]iress in our discoveries, the more we shall sec ])roofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had seen until IPS' but accident. / r University Of Calitoinui Lus Angeles L 007 617 577 7 m K ft/ O — I PLEA*=^C DO NOT REMOVE THIS BOOK CARD I .^vMLIBRARYQ^ ■?rsity Research Library o > 1- r z c S OD m . m < o I- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below OCT 2 7 1969 Form L-9— 15?«-7,'35 New and Thoroughly Jieviaed Edition, 111J_J \J.\J V i_Jl\.X\lYXJ_JXN UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FAC A YOUTH'S MANUAL OF INSTRUCT CONSTITUTIONAL GOVEE Pact I. — Principles of Govern of GoYernment — 2, Gojernrnent i FACILITY r edition. Thoro nsellor at Law. 3{ )ur Government, to Li rstood ; and to be und. )ne, by the masses, in rnment Class Book * ; it, and peculiarly adaj: "• of it will render ai , perfectly familiar wl 1, Common, Statutory } world with clear per , love for their countrj life. And who si 1 not worth a tbous .\ most of the ;h. ION Bateman, la S' V 6 hail all such c' s I neglect of train <; \ has heretofore c ing prince who s asibilities would " bly accountable. lOok before us is i i with great distinctnc cal, and adapted to th icerely hope it may be ^nded influence in promoi AA 000 357 522 2 ■D.T,rT,TT -Principles of Law: 1, Com- lieipal LaAv) — 2, International . ., author of ''American States- of Government and Law," etc., etc. '•ised. By Salter S. Clark, 12mo, cloth. nd cherished as it should be, must be H must be studied: and this can only free schools of the country. ' The valuable contribution to this great .e in the public schools. A careful man or woman, of good common 'indamental principles of Constitu- 'ational Law, and send them forth £ their rights and duties as citizens, institutions, which will be as endur- 7 that such a knowledge of political les more than that which is substituted i academies of the country?" — Hon. jrintendent of Schools, Illinois. this. We are amazed at the almost ?ience of national self-government irf ou a ) the education of ' Toung America.' specially educated for his coming ty, and his guardians would be held Duntry every youth is heir-apparent, ystematized, and its anangement is ,re the eye. The whole is thoroughly OSes of an elementary text-book. And .'ded by a large sale not only, but by an % the study of legal and political prin- ciples amongst young and old." — C?iristian Intdligencer. " ' The Government Class Book ' is especially valuable on account of the prominence which it gives to State Governmer.t, and for its closing chapters on general legal facts and principles. Il contains muUainparvo. Had such a book come into my hands when a boy in the common schools, it Avould have been held as a priceless treasure. The book is valuable in view of its choice contents, and as a production in the direction of the new education now sought for in our common schools." — Pfon. D. Burt, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, St. Paul, Minn. Although this revised edition of the above work has been published but a short time it has already been introduced tcith marked success in hundreds of schools in all vartg of the country. Published by CURK & MAYNARD, New York. (if -KT^rt/i ^ ^1 ■71^ k\> / ' >-\ iw.iil l\/^ X t