PR03 EvefV Child Should Kno|^ MAR-Y E. BUR.T I Class V^\Z%b Book ^X5_ Copyright N" , COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV ^ Prose Every Child Should Know The * 'Every Child Should Know" Books Poems Every Child Should Know, Edited by Mary E. Burt Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know, Edited by H. W. Mabie Myths Every Child Should Know, Edited by H. W. Mabie Songs Every Child Should Know, Edited by Dolores Bacon Legends Every Child Should Know, Edited by H. W. Mabie Heroes Every Child Should Know, Edited by H. W. Mabie Birds Every Child Should Know, By Neltje Blancha7i Water Wonders Every Child Should Know, By Jean M. Thompson Famous Stories Every Child Should Know, Edited by H. W. Mabie Hymns Every Child Should Know, Edited by Dolores Bacon Heroines Every Child Should Know, Co-edited by H. W. Mabie and Kate Stephens Essays Every Child Should Know, Edited by H. W. Mabie Prose Every Child Should Know, Edited by Mary E. Burt Dictograph by Mrs. Martin Scltiitzc Where childhood's fancy pursues a dream from the land of eloquence. PROSE THAT EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW A SELECTION OF THE BEST PROSE OF ALL TIMES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE EDITED BY MARY E. BURT DECORATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY EVE WATSON SCHUTZE NEW YORK Doubleday, Page & Company 1908 Copyright, 1908, by Doubleday, Page & Company Published, April, 1908 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies rteceiy^:- APR 7 iy08 Ouwyngni entry 0WiSSi4 XXc. No> , %c3 1 f^ \ COPY S, DEDICATION Did you ever see a schoolhouse in the Commercial Centre of a great City, a schoolhouse standing amid the smoke of dingy factories, the grime and clatter of warehouses, and the deafening roar of railroads? Did you ever go into the halls of this schoolhouse on May Mornings and catch the delicate perfume of violets,— and into the schoolrooms and find a fresh, dewy violet on each desk,— a violet for the child to see^ and own, and wonder at, and love ? Did you look into the Office of the Principal and find a gentle woman " in home-spun," an affectionate, affirmative spirit, standing "Amid the Eternal Ways," loving saint and sinner alike? Just a woman, binding up little bruised fingers, wiping away childish tears, settling trivial disputes, washing dirty upturned faces, putting everybody right and sweet for the day, aye— For The Day. HERE'S A BUNCH OF VIOLETS, boys and girls, for ALICE L. BARNARD. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS It sometimes happens that there are people who do not know that authors and editors and the Titles of Books and Series are protected by copyright laws, and also by what is more binding, — Professional Courtesy. Since publishing *Toems Every Child Should Know," a very curious case of legal infringement and profes- sional infringement has come up. There are some things that an editor can't do and be a gentleman. And another thing that an editor of books can't do is *'to hustle" and ''rush things into print." No valuable editor or author will do any work except from an inner leading, and out of a full heart and a full knowledge. He will do nothing on time, nor under superintendence; nor will he do for a new firm what he has already done for an old firm or anything that competes with any one. Special permission has been obtained under the laws of courtesy, as well as the copyright laws, for each copyrighted selection in this volume, and the right to publish has been purchased, except in those cases where the author or the publisher has, for reasons of friend- ship, given the permission. In addition to business arrangements, we wish to extend our thanks and ac- knowledgments to those firms which have so kindly allowed us to use their material. To the Century Company, for Abraham Lincoln^s "Address at Gettysburg," "The Bixby Letter," "The Black Hawk War," "Suspicion"— all from "The Com- plete Works of Abraham Lincoln," published and copy- vii viii Prose righted by that company; "A Wind-storm in the Mountains of Cahfornia," from John Muir's "Moun- tains of CaHfornia"; ''Sonny's Diploma," from "Sonny," by Ruth McEnery Stuart. To Francis D. Tandy, for 'The Gift of Eloquence," from Richard Watson Gilder's ''Lincoln as a Writer." To C. P. Farrel, for Robert G. Ingersoll's "Address on Abraham Lincoln." To The North American Re- view, for "A Lincoln Story," from "Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln." To Houghton, Mifflin & Company, for "High Life," from Thoreau; "A Friend," "Self-Reliance," "The Emancipation of Negroes in the British West Indies," "A Man Passes for That He is Worth," from the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson; "Abolition," from "The Life of William Lloyd Garrison," by his s^ns ; "The Eagle," "The Crow," "The Perils of a Bird," "The Perils of a Bee," from the works of John Bur- roughs; "Good-breeding," from "John Percyfield," by C. Hanford Henderson ; "No Farming Without a Boy," from "Being a Boy," by Charles Dudley Warner. To Charles Scribner's Sons, for the following copy- righted selections: "The Donkey-clock," "The Rose- clock," "How the Griffin Taught School," from Frank R. Stockton's "Fanciful Tales" ; "Elpenor and the Wine-cup," "The Lotus-eaters," "Ulysses at the Palace of Circe," from "Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca" (a child's book of the Odyssey) ; "The Slaying of the Wine-bags," from "Don Quixote" (School Series); "My First Home," "My Alligator's Home," from "The Lanier Book" (School Series), by Sidney Lanier, "Silence," from "Retrospects and Prospects," by Sidney Lanier; "Peter Pan among the Birds," from "The Little White Bird," by J. M. Barrie ; "The Bliz- zard," "Reverence for Motherhood," "All around a Bird's Nest," from "The Boy General," by Elizabeth Custer; "A Southern Storm," "The Independence of Bras Coupe," from "The Cable Story Book" of George Acknowledgments ix W. Cable; ''Creative Education," from Henry van Dyke's "Essays in Application." To Doubleday, Page & Company, for "The Cold," from Sidney Lanier's "Shakspere and His Forerun- ners"; and "Putting All the Eggs into One Basket," from "The Autobiography of a Tomboy," by Jeannette L. Gilder. To T. Y. Crowell & Company, for selections from "Cuore," by De Amicis. To The Outlook, for Hamilton W. Mabie's "The Passion for Perfection." V To The Cosmopolitan, for a selection from Edwin Markham's "Spinners in the Dark." To The Chicago Record-Herald, for "Do Men Merit Franchise?" by Kate Cougar. To The London Times, for Lord Rosebery's "Ad- dress on Queen Victoria." To E. P. Dutton & Co., for a selection from Maeter- linck's "The Life of a Bee." To The Taylor-Trotzvood Magazine, for "The Rights of Childhood," by John Trotwood Moore. To William Croswell Doane, Bishop of Albany, for "The Gentleman," from the writings of his father. To Frank Parsons (and The Chicago Teachers' Bul- letin), for a selection from "The History of New Zealand." We are further indebted for personal permission to use selections from their works to the following authors: G. W. Cable, John Burroughs, Edwin Mark- ham, Elizabeth Custer, Thomas Burt, M. P.; Dr. Henry van Dyke, William M. Salter, John Trotwood Moore, Ruth McEnery Stuart, John Muir, John E. Burton, Frank M. Chapman; also to Bristow Adams for an original production, and to Edward Lippincott Tilton, author of "The Architecture of the Argive Herseum," for the beautiful decorations of the cover, linings, and frontispiece, and to Eva Watson Schutze of Chicago, for her charming photographs. INTRODUCTION Is "Prose Every Child Should Know'' a collec- tion of hit-or-miss selections scrabbled together, guess- work fashion, just to sell? Was this volume made "under the eye of the firm," their ear to the ground, or submitted for approval to committees on "weak tea"? And was the book edited just to keep it of the same size and price with the rest of the set "for the convenience of the public?" No, truly. This volume is a growth. It is the growth of a life-time, based on happy hours in School and Sunday- school, Study-hours with great teachers, Debating Clubs, Teachers' meetings, and conferences with un- worldly women and great men. It is the crystallization of childhood's intense emotions when the big boys and girls, their faces aglow, spouted declamations ; the recollections of Fourth of July celebrations when Gen- eral Boyd made speeches and some loyal citizen read the Declaration of Independence, solemnly publishing and declaring anew that "these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent." This book is the recalling of dear old lessons in United States History, when the war was inevitable, and "We set up the war-whoop and dug up the toma- hawk," and "The birthday of the Father of his Coun- try" was ever freshly remembered by American hearts." This book is the outcome of the Eloquence that burst forth at the time of the Civil War, when the little deacon marched round the public square on Sunday, playing a big bass-drum bigger than himself, the church- folks looking on askance; for the downfall of xii Prose '' Sunday was worse than the downfall of Vicksburg. And the little girls met to pick old linen into lint to send to soldiers in hospitals. Little girls, their feet dangling, talking about the Wisconsin Eagle, "Old Abe," screeching over battle-fields, — and the Emanci- pation Proclamation. And then the country was draped in mourning. This collection is drawn from school-notes, — notes of happy years spent with my own pupils in the land of Eloquence, where we discovered literary treasures that every child should know: Homer's Ulysses and his companions who had been turned into swine: ("Rough on Grant" remarked a farmer, looking at a painting of the scene). Demosthenes exclaiming, "O, my countrymen, when will you do your duty?" Cains Marius inquiring, "Where but in the spirit of man can his nobility be lodged?" Ruskin growling, "It is sternly impossible for the English public, at this mo- ment, to understand any thoughtful writing, — so in- capable of thought has it become in its insanity of avarice." Chatham warning, "You must repeal" these acts or "the kingdom is undone!'' Grattan reminding, "The Secretary stood alone!" Stockton with his donkey-clock "kicking out the time" ; Cable with his storm "like fifty witches flouting up the curtain," Bur- roughs with a honey bee "ahold of his collar" ; Kings- ley with his "turnips bursting for fear of the ex- aminer" ; Lanier with an alligator "who never quarrels with his cook." Sixty years ago there lived a poet and editor who, with the spirit of a conqueror, gathered up the Eloquence of the ages and made editing a religion. Hawthorne, too, rewrote, that is, he edited the myths. More than twenty years later, Lanier edited in prose (and Tennyson in poetry) the Arthurian tales. After these earnest souls let the editor approach his work "with bent head and beseeching hands," for he stands on holy ground. For there is more religion in editing Introduction xiii one good book that shall carry forth and hand down the torch of life, than in writing a dozen of indifferent merit. In the days of Hawthorne and Sargent the possibili- ties of the present day did not exist. Lanier, Barrie, Cable, Stockton, Markham, De Amicis, Eugene Field were children; and Burroughs, Muir, Howells mere youths; and even Carlyle, Lincoln, Ruskin, Kingsley, and Curtis were undiscovered countries. Since then the world has been "sprinkled with merriment" by Stock- ton, Collodi, Lanier, Warner, Howells, Curtis, and Field. The world of letters has grown merry; in all writings of any consequence it has grown clean and dignified, simple, philosophical, and kind. And it has separated itself from that crude set of professional- funny-people who know not the difference between permanent wit (the wit that is heavy-laden with sym- pathy) and the cheap clap-trap of an unbridled tongue. The prose that every child should know! "What is the prose that every child should know? It is the prose that will follow him all the days of his life, the prose that "propagates a brain," ''deals with the permanent elements of life," finds "a lesson of the spirit, a Tree of Life, in the oak and pine," clothes the naked soul, reveals the music which is "Love in search of a Word" ; prose that is born in the manger, — "pure with a sense of the passing of saints," "cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good" ; prose that is "candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free" ; prose that is "the art which never violates the principles of fitness" ; prose that is Science "never dis- trusting the methods of Reason"; prose that "in the tune of the insect can hear the approaching tramp of the human army that makes for civilisation"; prose that mends mortal hurts, — "tunes the ear to detect the music there is in the life of ordinary men and women" ; prose that is "in seach of the vital," — tells "the story of expanding brotherhood," — "aerates our emotions xiv Prose and captures our reason" ; prose in which "we have a sense of touching something aHve and real," — in which "the writer comes forth and is not concealed" ; prose which is "the precious life-blood of a master-spirit," — this is the prose that every child should know. "Prose Every Child Should Know" is a reading book for home culture. And it is a collection of recitations for school-use. It is graded according to age, from the three-year-old child who "bellows" when he misses a word, — to the college student and Normal School Graduate. Part I. contains literary treasures for tiny people; and Part VI. concludes the book with ques- tions of the day for mature minds, and debating so- cieties. No youth makes a better off-hand speech from an ill-stored mind; it is a matter of importance to a child to have his mind packed with well-digested, as- similated thought. Mary E. Burt. New York, February 21, 1908. CONTENTS PART I PAGE Introduction ....... xi The Influence of a Clean Face .... 3 Thomas De Witt Talmage What Every Little Child Should Know About Politeness 3 George Washington On "Salt, at the Time of the American Revolu- tion" . 4 John Adams The Patience of Flowers in Being Squeezed . 4 John Ruskin A Poor Reward 5 Aristotle The Largest Love 5 Fenelon Sandy and Pippa 5 Anonymous A Bird's Voice 6 Eugenie De Guerin Cold 6 Sidney Lanier The Oily Driver 7 C. COLLODI The Lord Is My Shepherd .... 7 Bible XV XVI Prose The Black Hawk War Abraham Lincoln The Beatitudes Bible A Little Lecture for a Little Girl Mrs. Johnstone A Child Can Be Just Eugenie De Guerin Virtue, Its Own Reward . Zeno The Crow John Burroughs The Country of Playthings C. COLLODI Remember Thy Creator Bible Tom Brown Goes to Rugby Thomas Hughes Under the Flapdoodle Trees Charles Kingsley The Little Wooden Puppet Tells How He Be came a Donkey .... C. COLLODI The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg JEsop The Whistle Benjamin Franklin All Around a Bird's Nest . Elizabeth B. Custer Protect the Birds .... Frank M. Chapman 13 14 ' 14 16 16 Contents xvii PAGE The Donkey-Clock i8 Frank R. Stockton The Lotus-Eaters 20 Homer The Perils of a Bird 21 John Burroughs Turning the Grindstone 22 Benjamin Franklin Peter Pan Among the Birds .... 23 J. M. Barrie Virginius, as Tribune, Refuses the Appeal of Appius Claudius 25 LiVY The Street Arab of Paris 26 Victor Hugo The Country Mouse and the City Mouse . . 26 Horace Nobility of Labor 28 Rev. Orville Dewey Cleansing the Fountain 28 Eugenie De Guerin My Brother's Schoolmistress .... 29 Edmondo De Amicis The Fourth of July 30 Daniel Webster PART II A Lincoln Story 35 Ulysses S. Grant Protect the Trees 36 Bristow Adams XVIU Prose What Is Property? Alphonse Karr Hunting in Utopia Sir Thomas More The Folly of Pride . Rev. Sydney Smith The Little Rose-Clock Frank R. Stockton The Love of Home . Daniel Webster Cassio on Intemperance William Shakespeare Earnestness .... Lord Lytton Saying Too Much L. C. Judson Ulysses at the Home of Circe . Homer The School Edmondo De Amicis The Perils of a Bee . John Burroughs Peace and Righteousness . Theodore Roosevelt Character of Washington . Charles Phillips Taxes, the Price of Glory . Rev. Sydney Smith The Revolutionary Alarm . George Bancroft The Ten Commandments . Bible Contents XIX Sir Roger and the Gipsies Joseph Addison The Slaying of the Wine-Bags . Cervantes The True Distinction of a State William Ellery Channing The Poor Edmondo De Amicis Against PhiHp Demosthenes On Profanity in the Army George Washington No Farming Without a Boy Charles Dudley Warner Putting All of the Eggs in One Basket Jeannette L. Gilder Great Art is the Expression of a Great Man John Ruskin 57 59 6i 62 63 64 65 66 67 PART III The Eagle John Burroughs A Southern Storm G. W. Cable The BHzzard Elizabeth B. Custer A Wind-Storm in the Forests of California John Muir My Alligator's Home . . . . Sidney Lanier 71 72 72 74 77 XX Prose Our Poets Have Discovered America Edwin Markham How the Griffin Taught School Frank R. Stockton The Phantom- Ship Washington Irving Address of Black Hawk to General Street Frozen Words Joseph Addison The Declaration of 1776 . John Quincy Adams The Right of Trial .... Colonel Isaac Barre Every Man Is Great .... William Ellery Channing The Birthday of Washington . RuFUS Choate On Meidias, the Rich, at the Bar of Justice Demosthenes Men, Better Than Territory John Ruskin The Vital Touch in Life . Rev. William S. Rainsford France and the United States . George Washington Henry Clay's Reception in Baltimore Anonymous Monopoly William Paley The Freedom of the Fly . John Ruskin Contents XXI My Castles in Spain 103 George William Curtis Vanity at the Vicar's 105 Oliver Goldsmith Bo-bo and the Roast Pig 107 Charles Lamb The Independence of Bras Coupe . . .ill G. W. Cable The Evening School 114 Edmondo De Amicis The Gentleman 116 George Washington Doane Reverence for Motherhood 117 Elizabeth B. Custer What Good Will the Monument Do? . . .118 Edward Everett Barbarism of Our British Ancestors . .119 William Pitt (The Second) Quick Wits 121 *" Roger Ascham Appeal to the Best in Men .... 122 Rev. William S. Rainsford The Home-Coming of Rip Van Winkle . . 122 Washington Irving Brutus' Speech on the Death of Caesar . . 126 William Shakespeare The Duel of Nations 127 Charles Sumner The Declaration of Independence . . . 129 Thomas Jefferson America Unconquerable 134 William Pitt (Earl of Chatham) xxii Prose PAGE Union and Liberty, One and Inseparable . .135 Daniel Webster The Sanctity of Treaties 137 Fisher Ames Compensation 138 Ralph Waldo Emerson Abolition 139 William Lloyd Garrison PART IV Examination Day in the Land of the Tomtod- dies 143 Charles Kingsley. A Russian Bath 147 Stevens The Stream That Was Made to Work . . 149 Alphonse Karr How to Welcome the Schoolmate from a Foreign Land 151 Edmondo De Amicis On His Blindness 152 John Milton Truth and Truthfulness 152 J. G. Holland Sensitiveness i54 John Ruskin Treatment of Sisters I55 Rev. Horace Winslow A Friend 156 Ralph Waldo Emerson Contents xxiii PAGE Suspicion , 157 Abraham Lincoln Elpenor and the Wine-Cup .... 157 Homer The Old Trail to the Mother-Lode . . .159 John E. Burton The Schoolmaster Is Abroad . . . .160 Lord Brougham Aristocracy ....... 161 Robert R. Livingston Eulogium on Franklin 162 Count De Mirabeau John Adams' Speech on the Declaration of Inde- pendence, as Imagined by Daniel Webster . 163 Daniel Webster Imperishability of Great Examples . . . 167 Edward Everett Reverence 168 Mrs. Charles Bray Separation from New England . . . . 171 Richard Yates A Political Pause 171 Charles James Fox An Appeal to Arms 172 Patrick Henry The War Is Inevitable 174 Patrick Henry Against Employing Indians in War . . .175 William Pitt (Earl of Chatham) British Aggressions 177 JosiAH Quincy, Jr. XXIV Prose To the American Troops Before the Battle Long Island George Washington The Constitution of the United States As Others See Us . George William Curtis High Life Henry David Thoreau Prophesying After the Event Charles Kings ley The Model Cotton Mill . John Trot wood Moore Vindication of the Press . John Milton Abraham and the Fire-Worshippers . Benjamin Franklin Charity Bible Contentment Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Restricted Property .... Anonymous Self-Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson The Gift of Eloquence Richard Watson Gilder Address at Gettysburg Abraham Lincoln On Abraham Lincoln .... Robert G. Ingersoll Northern Labourers .... Henry Wilson of 178 Contents xxv \ PAGE American Taxation 220 Edmund Burke England's Right to Tax America . . .221 Edmund Burke A Sufficient Naval Force 222 John C. Calhoun The Noblest Public Virtue 224 Henry Clay Return of British Fugitives .... 225 Patrick Henry The First Step to Reconciliation with America. I. Removal of Troops from Boston . . 227 II. The Repeal Claimed by Americans as a Right 229 William Pitt (Earl of Chatham) Against the Embargo 231 JosiAH Quincy On Sudden Political Conversions . . . 232 Daniel Webster The North American Indians 234 Timothy Flint Rejection of the Reform Bill 238 Rev. Sydney Smith To the Army Before Quebec . . . .239 General Wolfe PART V The First Home 243 Sidney Lanier Clap a Bridle on Thy Tongue .... 244 Thomas Carlyle xxvi Prose PAGE A Man Passes for That He is Worth . . . 245 Ralph Waldo Emerson Sincerity 246 John Tillotson Humility Versus Vain Glory . ... 248 John Ruskin The Life of a Father Bee 250 I. Maurice Maeterlinck 11. John Burroughs The Autocracy of Youth and the Modesty of Age 251 Robert Browning The Particular Lady 252 Anonymous Good-Breeding 255 C. Hanford Henderson The Passion for Perfection 256 Hamilton W. Mabie The Hebrew Nationality . . . . . 257 Hannah Adams Emancipation of Negroes in the British West Indies 258 Ralph Waldo Emerson Running Business on the Golden Rule . . . 259 John Trot wood Moore The Bixby Letter 260 Abraham Lincoln Letter to Lord Chesterfield 261 Samuel Johnson Spartacus to the Gladiators .... 263 Elijah Kellogg Contents xxvii PAGE The Character of WilHam Pitt, Earl of Chatham 266 Henry Grattan Defence of Socrates 267 Plato The Speech of Socrates on His Own Condemna- tion 273 Plato Death of Socrates 275 Plato Not Vanquished by Philip 278 Demosthenes On the Law of Leptines 280 Demosthenes Speech of a Scythian to Alexander . . . 282 Q. CURTIUS Caius Marius to the Romans, on the Objections to Making Him General 283 Sallust What a Great Nation Cannot Do . . . 285 John Ruskin The Fate of the Reformer 286 Lord Brougham Voyage of the Mayflozver 288 Edward Everett Rights of the Indians Defended . . . 289 Edward Everett On Conciliation with America .... 291 Edmund Burke The American War Denounced .... 294 William Pitt (The Second) National Gratitude 295 Henry Grattan xxviii Prose The South During the Revolution Robert Y. Hayne Peaceable Secession .... Daniel Webster Against the Force Bill John C. Calhoun American Labourers C. C. Naylor The Free Mind William Ellery Channing Judges Should be Free James A. Bayard PAGE 296 298 299 PART VI Sonny's Diploma 305 Ruth McEnery Stuart On Rising With the Lark 309 Charles Lamb Creative Education 310 Henry van Dyke Conscious Activity 311 Friedrich Froebel Men Always Fit for Freedom . . . .312 T. B. Macaulay The Rights of Childhood 312 John Trotwood Moore Silence 316 Sidney Lanier Opinion 317 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Crossing the Rubicon 318 James Sheridan Knowles Contents xxix PAGE On Reducing the Army 320 William Pulteney Against Foreign Entanglements . . .321 George Washington The Foreign Policy of Washington . . . 323 Charles James Fox Sectarian Tyranny 324 Henry Grattan A Republic or a Monarchy? .... 325 Victor Hugo Mr. Tulliver's Opinion of His Wife and Children 327 George Eliot Do Men Merit Franchise? . . . . 329 Kate Gougar The Death Penalty for New Offences . . 330 Lord Byron Labour Struggles 331 Thomas Burt, M.P. Trusts 335 Grover Cleveland The Real Business Man 336 William Jennings Bryan Queen Victoria 337 Lord Rosebery Old-Age Pensions 341 Frank Parsons Spinners in the Dark 342 Edwin Markham The Puritans 344 Theodore Roosevelt Morality the Essence of Life . . . . 349 William M. Salter Index of Authors 357 PART I. The Budding Moment Prose Every Child Should Know The Influence of a Clean Face. THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE, 1832-1902. V "The Influence of a Clean Face" is placed first in this volume because Frederick, aged three, learned it while sitting in his mother's lap as she taught it to Hansel, four and a half years old, who had chosen it from several "little speeches." Frederick wanted to declaim it to me and did so with great unction. But v/hen he came to the hardest word he hesitated; so I prompted him. Then Frederick cried. He bellowed. Frederick is sensitive and he is not afraid of hard words. He does not want to be prompted. He is the youngest "orator" represented in this book and the youngest is generally the leader. "Forbid them not." A CHILD, coming from a filthy home, was taught at school to wash his face. He went home so sweet and clean that his mother washed her face. When the father came from his work and saw the improvement, he washed his face. The neighbors who called in, saw the change and washed their faces, until all the people in that street had clean faces ; and the next street copied their example, and the whole city became clean because one school-boy washed his face. What Every Little Child Should Know About Politeness. GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1732-1799. This "speech" is for Tommie, aged five, whose mother teaches him to "speak pieces." Tommie likes to learn songs and sing them to you. He will learn anything you have a mind to teach him. Our best men come from the ranks of those little boys who learn great lessons while standing at the mother's knee. Sleep not when others speak. Sit not when others stand. Speak not when you should hold your peace. 4 Prose Turn not your back to others. Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another. Play not the peacock. Gaze not on the marks or blemishes of others, and ask not how they came. Think before you speak. On "Salt, at the Time of the American Revolution." JOHN ADAMS, 1735-1826. The Rev. Arthur Mitchell of Chicago, in a sermon to children, once said: "Let no little child think that what he does is unimportant because he is little." This selection shows that in a great crisis the very young and the verj' old may render vital service. Henry, who is six years old and thinks he is useless because he is so young, can learn this little "speech" and say it to Grandmamma, aged ninety, who thinks she is useless because she is so old. Shoes, five dollars a pair ! Salt, twenty-seven dollars a bushel ! Butter, ten shillings a pound ! All the old women and young children are gone down to the Jer- sey shore to make salt. Salt water is boiling all round the coast, and I hope it will increase ; for it is nothing but heedlessness and shiftlessness that prevents us from making salt enough for a supply; but necessity will bring us to it. Let my countrymen make salt and live without sugar and rum. The Patience of Flowers in Being Squeezed. JOHN RUSKIN, 1819-1900. IN "PROSERPINA." For the little girl who ruthlessly plucks all the pretty flowers from a flower-bed and squeezes the life out of them for no reason. Flowers grow as near as they can to each other. Those in the middle get squeezed. Some flowers don't like being squeezed at all. Fancy a squeezed morning- glory! But the heather bells like it and look all the prettier for it, — not a squeezed one when taken alone by itself, but the cluster all together by their patience. Prose 5 A Poor Reward. ARISTOTLE, 384-322 B.C. More than two thousand years ago one of the greatest philosophers of all the ages, reached down across the centuries this message to the children of to-day. What does a man gain by telling a lie? He is not believed when he tells the truth. The Largest Love. FENELON, 1651-171S- That love for one from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. — Lowell. I LOVE my family better than myself. I love my country better than my family. I love mankind better than my country. Sandy and Pippa. ANONYMOUS. This selection is for timid children. Willie, Superintendent of a De- partment in the Railway Service, do you remember when at the age of five you started for the market to do an errand for your mother? But you met "A GREAT BIG GOOSE." You came back and sat very still for a while. Then you exclaimed, "Who's afraid of the goose!" There is always a great big goose in the way for every timid child. Sandy is a brave little yellow kitten. He never whimpers and cheeps like ''the broken-hearted little beast" in the Jungle Book. He never tries to run into the middle of the room, for he is only seven days old and his eyes are not open. But he makes up his mind to feel his way around the side of the room, leaning against the wall, and he does it. He wants to find Pippa, the big, yellow dog, and cuddle down in her curly neck as she lies on the rug. His mother stuffs him with milk until he is as hard as a baseball. He licks her face and then he starts bravely forth, and when he gets there Pippa noses him and tumbles him on the floor and says : "You are a brave little kitten." 6 Prose A Bird's Voice. EUGENIE DE GU^RIN, 1805-1848. Abraham Lincoln, six feet and four inches in height, a giant in stature, with muscles of iron! As a man he could not sleep when the storm had blown the nest and the nestlings from the tree until he had restored them to the mother bird. — John E. Burton. This selection is for the little girl out in Montana, who took a naturalist a mile or two to see a little bird's nest in the ground. My little bird was in the cat's claws when I came into the room. I took it from the cat, who let it go. The bird was frightened at first ; then it felt so de- lighted that it began to sing with all its might, as if to thank me for its voice. Cold. (Copyrighted by Doubleday, Page & Company.) SIDNEY LANIER, 1842-1881. IN "SHAKESPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS." Why is this selection here, little Carl? Because Lanier, the poet, would teach compassion for one of the direst forms of misery. You will go to the coast of Florida for the winter, you and thirty other boys, to sunny school-rooms and sea-shore pleasures. And you will think of the army of little children shivering in New York. I THANK Heaven that I know what it is to be cold — to be cold from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, to be cold from the cuticle in to the heart, and from the heart to the soul : I thank Heaven for it because, knowing this, I have a new revelation of the possibility of suffering, and I am able to find a paradise in a common wood fire. Knowing this, I declare to you there is not a more pathetic sight in this world than a poor man who is thoroughly cold from week to week. It is the refinement of torture. It does not gnaw, like hunger, which presently be- comes a sort of insanity and relieves itself: it is a dead, unblest, icy torment. I used to see men in the army whose silent endurance of cold brought more tears to my eyes than all the hunger and all the wounds. Prose The Oily Driver. CARLO LORENZINI (C. COLLODI). ADAPTED FROM "THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO." The oily driver represents all those allurements that draw children away from duty. Discernment and resistance are more than a match for the oily driver. Little Hansel, aged four and a half years, likes this story and wants the rest of it. He likes to "speak" it. And he fears that some noisy boys in the street will become donkeys. The oily driver ! That monster had a face of milk and honey. He went from time to time through the world with a carriage and collected all the naughty l;)oys that were tired of books and school. After he had filled his carriage he took them to the Country of Playthings, where they passed the time in having fun. When these poor deluded boys had played for a long time they turned into donkeys and were led away and sold in the city, and in this way the oily driver be- came a millionaire. The Lord is My Shepherd. DAVID (TWENTY-THIRD PSALM), 1451 B.C. This selection is beautiful literature, as well as Sacred Writing. When I was a child I committed to memory every week several chapters from the Bible and recited them on Sunday to my teacher. The beautiful passages of the Bible should be memorised. Any child, six years old, can learn this from the mother's lips. The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul ; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for thou art v/ith me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies ; thou anointest my head with oil ; my cup run- neth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 8 Prose The Black Hawk War. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 1809-1865. From "Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works," published by The Cen- tury Co. Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a military hero? Yes, Sir ; in the days of the Black Hawk war I fought, bled, and came away. Speaking of General Cass's career reminds me of my own. I was not at Stillman's defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass was to Hull's surrender; and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterward. It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break, but I bent a musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword, the idea is he broke it in desperation ; I bent the musket by accident. If General Cass went in advance of me in picking huckleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, and although I never fainted from the loss of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry. The Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the king- dom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful : for they shall ob- tain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say Prose 9 all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your re- ward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. A Little Lecture for a Little Girl. MRS. JOHNSTONE. IN A LECTURE TO THE YOUNG LADIES OF OBERLIN COLLEGE. For the little girl six years old who is pretty when she is good, "But when she is bad she is horrid." Young people have a right to be homely. They may be born so. But no old person has a right to be ugly. He has had all his life in which to grow beautiful. A Child Can be Just. EUGENIE DE GUERIN, 1805-1848. Only emotional love is blind. We accept injustice from those we fear, and from children because we are ashamed to demand justice from little creatures, much to the harm of both. The judicial mind is to be trusted and not the emotional. Nothing pains me more than injustice, no matter who endures it, myself or another. It grieves me to see somebody excuse a little child who is unjust or in the wrong. The smallest untruth offends me. Is this a fault? My father loves me too dearly to criticise me or find any fault in me. To judge another fairly, the eye must not be too near nor too far off. It is a duty to one's self to try and make perfect what one loves. Virtue, Its Own Reward. ABRIDGED FROM ZENO, 490 B.C. Twenty-four centuries of human experience have endorsed these words of Zeno. They are immortal, and because they are immortal every child should know them. Virtue should be loved for its own sake. It needs no reward. It is all a man needs to make him happy. lo Prose Nothing which is contrary to virtue can be good. A wise man has no fear. He cares not for glory. He has no pride. It is a virtue to honour one's father and mother, to defend one's country, to assist a friend. Nothing is more true than that which is true. Noth- ing is more false than that which is false. Nothing is better than that which is good. Nothing is worse than that which is bad. The Crow. (Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) JOHN BURROUGHS, 1837. IN "AN IDYL OF THE HONEY BEE." This selection finds a home here in fond memory of the little boys who "tolerated" a pet crow and fed him on the sly. He tried to drink our ink, steal our pencils, tear up the splinters in the floor, and carry off the lesson papers. He was every inch a tyrant but how quiet we would be in the presence of his antics, rather than have him put out of the schoolroom. I saw Spinoza, the cat, stalking across the fields not long ago, and the crows pitched at him and drove him out. A crow knows no higher law than himself. That's the reason why children are "trained." A child has reason and can learn the higher law. He is not allowed to be a crow. I HAVE seen no bird walk the ground with just the same air the crow does. It is not exactly pride ; there is no strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a lit- tle condescension : it is the contented and self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. All these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops ; men plough and sow for me, and I stay here or go there, and find life sweet and good wherever I am. The hawk looks awkward and out of place on the ground ; the game birds hurry and skulk, but the crow is at home and treads the earth as if there were none to molest or make him afraid. Prose 1 1 The Country of Playthings. CARLO LORENZINI (C. COLLODI). ADAPTED FROM "THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO." The Land of the Unreal where there is no grasp of life, this is the Country of Playthings (Shadows). Laddie, beware of grasping present pleasures at the expense of permanent good. The Country of Playthings ! This country is not Hke any other in the world. It is the country of boys. The oldest is thirteen years old and the youngest not under eight. In the streets there is a noise, a running around, and a blowing of trumpets that makes your head ache. Everywhere groups of boys play at mar- bles, at shinny, and ball. Some ride on velocipedes and wooden horses. Some play hide and seek. They sing, jump over benches, walk on their hands with their feet in the air, try to kick over their heads, laugh, call, whistle. Some make a noise like a hen that has just laid an tgg. In fact, there is such a pandemonium that you have to put cotton in your ears. Remember Thy Creator. BIBLE. "A tow-headed boy! I looked up at the face of the old preacher with a new interest and friendliness. I followed my mother when she v/ent to speak to him, and when he did not see, I touched his coat. "He brought in the universe to that small church and filled the heart of the boy. "Ah, that tall lank preacher, who thought himself a failure!" — David Grayson, in "Adventures in Contentment." Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them ; while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain : in the days when the keepers of the house shall trem- ble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of 12 Prose the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low. Tom Brown Goes to Rugby. THOMAS HUGHES, 1823-1896. FROM "TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS." Here is a "speech" for fathers to commit to memory to say to their little boys. Tom, my boy, remember that you are going, at your own request, to be chucked into this great school — like a young bear — with all your troubles before you — earlier, perhaps, than we should have sent you. If schools are what they were in my time you'll see a great many cruel things done, and hear a deal of bad talk. But never fear. Tell the truth ; keep a brave and kind heart; never say or listen to anything you wouldn't have your mother hear, and you'll never feel ashamed to come home. Under the Flapdoodle Trees. CHARLES KINGSLEY, 1819-1875- ABRIDGED FROM "WATER BABIES." This selection is an incisive thrust at the "arrant-knight" who lives forever in the Land of Playthings and never comes under any law. He does as he likes, always, and does not want to obey. He never learns to do by doing and consequently has no ability. If he is not nine years old he is younger or a little older. A topic for discussion in Normal School debates. The Doasyoulikes came away from the country of Hardwork because they wanted to play on the Jew's harp all day long. The Doasyoulikes were living in the land of the Ready-made, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Moun- tains, where flapdoodle grows wild; and if you want to know what that is you must ask Peter Simple. They lived very much such a life as those jolly old Greeks in Sicily, whom you may see painted on the ancient vases, and really there seemed to be great ex- cuse for them, for they had no need to work. Prose 13 Instead of houses they lived in beautiful caves of tufa, and bathed in the warm springs three times a day; and, as for clothes, it was so warm there that the gentlemen walked about in little beside a cocked hat and a pair of straps, or some light summer tackle of that kind ; and the ladies all gathered gossamer in au- tumn (when they were not too lazy) to make their winter dresses. They were very fond of music, but it was too much trouble to learn the piano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would have been too great an exertion. So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and played on the J"ew's harp ; and, if the ants bit them, why they just got up and went to the next ant-hill, till they were bitten there likewise. And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flapdoodle drop into their mouths ; and under the vines, and squeezed the grape-juice down their throats ; and, if any little pigs ran about ready roasted, crying, "Come and eat me," as was their fashion in that country, they waited till the pigs ran against their mouths, and then took a bite, and were content, just as so many oysters would have been. They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came near their land ; and no tools, for everything was ready- made to their hand ; and the stern old fairy Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, and make them use their wits, or die. The Little Wooden Puppet Tells How He Became a Donkey. CARLO LORENZINT (C. COLLODI). ADAPTED FROM "THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO." For Betty, aged four, whom I saw last Sunday, curled up in her mother's lap and smiling while mother read the story of Pinocchio. Know, then, that at first I was a wooden puppet as I am to-day. Once I was on the point of becoming a boy, a real boy, just like other boys. But I listened 14 Prose to the advice of a bad companion, and one morning I awoke and found myself changed into a donkey with long ears and a beautiful, swishing tail. What a shame I felt ! I was led into a square by a man who bought me and taught me to do tricks. One night as I was performing, I fell and hurt my leg so badly that I could hardly stand on it. Then my master, who did not know what to do with a lame donkey, sold me, and my new master planned to beat me by placing my skin over a drum. The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg. ^SOP, 620 B.C. Sometimes the golden egg is nothing but an apple; and sometimes it is just a right to walk on the sidewalk without being pushed off. This selection finds a home here in honour of a little goose who, when asked for a half of her apple, gives the whole of it. And when she writes a composition she says: "If you are going to school and a big boy pushes you off from the sidewalk, you must not let on that you see him." That's the reason, Honey, why women don't vote. Once there was a man who had a goose that laid a golden ^gg for him every day. But the man was not satisfied with so slow an income, and thinking to seize the whole treasure at once, he killed the goose, and cut- ting her open, found her just like all other geese. Much wants more and loses all. The Whistle. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 1706-1790. "We should draw all the good we can from this world. In my opinion we might all draw more good from it than we do, and suffer less evils, if we would take care not to give too much for whistles." "The Whistle" made a great impression on me as a child, and I include it because it has never lost its place in my heart. When I was a child seven years old, my friends on a holiday filled my pocket with coppers. I went di- rectly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and, being charmed with the sound of a zvhistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I volun- tarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then Prose 1 5 came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my zvhistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, under- standing the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth ; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money, and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the zvhistle gave me pleasure. This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the im- pression continuing on my mind, so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself. Don't give too much for the whistle: and I saved my money. As I grew up, went into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the zvhistle. When I saw one too ambitious to court favour, sac- rificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to at- tain it, I have said to myself. This man gives too much for his zvhistle. When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs and ruining them by that neglect, He pays, indeed, said I, too much for his zvhistle. If I knew a miser, who gave up any kind of a com- fortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth. Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your zvhistle. If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his for- tune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in a prison, Alas! say I, he has paid dear, very dear, for his zvhistle. I 6 Prose In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false esti- mates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles. All Around a Bird's Nest. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) ELIZABETH B. CUSTER, 1844.. FROM "THE BOY GENERAL." Why so much sentiment over birds and birds' nests? The bird stands as "an emblem of happiness" and family life. Blest is his dwell- ing place. — E. H. I HEARD, only a year or so since, of an incident that happened perhaps fifteen years ago. A representative of the press was sent for scientific purposes with our regiment during the summer campaign. He told me that General Custer, riding at the head of the column, seeing the nest of a meadow-lark, with birdlings in it, in the grass, guided his horse around it, and resumed the straight course again without saying a word or giv- ing a direction. The whole command of many hun- dred cavalrymen made the same detour, each detach- ment coming up to the place where the preceding horsemen had turned out and looking down into the nest to find the reason for the unusual departure from the straight line of march. Protect the Birds. FRANK M. CHAPMAN. FROM "THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE BIRD TO THE STATE." This selection is dedicated to the boy with the gun and the boy with the sling. There you go with your gun. Bang! Poor Robin stops sing- ing "Yith, Dearie; yith, yith, yith, Dearie, Dearie." Dearie is sitting on her nest peering into the window. And you have killed her mate. Dearie will have no supper to-night and the black spiders will crawl in to your room and bite you. In the morning we shall have no song from Robin. The bird is the property of the State. If a bird is proven to be injurious to the interests of the State, no Prose 17 one would deny the State's right to destroy it. If, on the contrary, a bird is shown to be beneficial, then the State has an equal right to protect it. It is not only the right but the duty of the State to give its birds the treatment they deserve. The farms and forests of the State of New York yield products, every year, worth nearly three millions of dollars ; and there are millions of birds in the State to help save or destroy these crops and forests. It is the duty of the State to learn how the birds affect its products. If they are harmful, how are they to be destroyed? If they are valuable, how are they to be protected? What does the bird do for the State ? He eats harm- ful insects and their eggs, and young ones. He eats the seeds of noxious weeds. He devours field mice and other little mammals which injure crops. He acts as a scavenger. He rids the tree of its insects. The black- bird waddles over the grass picking up crawlers. The downy woodpecker removes the tent-caterpillar from the tree trunks. The chipping sparrow is a fly-catcher. He catches the moth in the air when it is flying about hunting for a place in the trees where it can lay its eggs. The robin gorges himself on caterpillars until, as one observer has said, his little red-front trails on the ground. There are five hundred species of insects that prey on the oak. If it were not for birds the oak tree could not exist. Birds are of value to the forest not only because they destroy its insect foes, but because they distribute the seeds. Acorns, beech-nuts, and chestnuts are dropped or hidden by birds and the seeds of pine trees are scattered and so the forests spring up. It can be clearly demonstrated that we should lose our forests if we should lose our birds. We should lose our crops if we should lose our birds. The owl and the hawk and the blackbird eat I 8 Prose field-mice, pine-mice, grubs, and rats, foes of the grain fields. Birds clean up the coasts and swamps. They de- stroy mosquitoes and vermin. The gull acts as scaven- ger of the coast, eating dead fish and garbage. The turkey buzzard and black vulture remove dead crea- tures from the swamps. What does the State do for the birds ? Does it give them legal protection? Nearly every child who finds a nest thinks that he has a right to the eggs. Sportsmen shoot the birds in pure wantonness. Milliners' agents collect them for fashion's demands. Boys attack them with air-guns and bean-shooters. Nearly two millions of birds are killed by cats every year in New England. The pot- hunter kills them for the market. What should the State do for the bird ? It should enforce laws for his protection. It should teach the children to know and love the bird and understand his value. The Donkey- Clock. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) FRANK R. STOCKTON. ABRIDGED AND EDITED FROM "FANCIFUL TALES." "Save Thou me from presumptuous sins!" How often did that text ring out at morning exercises, from the lips of the Leader at Cook County Normal School, "twenty years ago." This selection is an in- cisive "speech" against self-conceit and in favour of modesty. We little girls who carry "the rose-clock" are so sure that the donkey in the town- clock kicks out the wrong time. It took many years for the public to find out that the author of this selection was a serious humourist. You must know that our donkey is a very compli- cated piece of mechanism. Not only must he kick out the hours, but five minutes before doing so he must turn his head around and look at the bell behind him ; and then when he has done kicking, he must put his head back into its former position. All this action re- quires a great many wheels and cogs and springs and Prose 19 levers, and these cannot be made to move with ab- solute regularity. When it is cold, some of his works contract ; and when it is warm they expand ; and there are other reasons why he is very likely to lose or gain time. At noon, on every bright day, I set him right, being able to get the correct time from a sun-dial which stands in the court-yard. But his works — which I am sorry to say are not well made — are sure to get a great deal out of the way before I set him again. If there are several rainy or cloudy days together he goes very wrong indeed. Yes, truly he does, and I am sorry for it. But there is no way to help it except for me to make him all over again at my own expense, and that is something I cannot afford to do. The clock belongs to the town, and I am sure the citizens would not be willing to spend the money necessary for a new donkey- clock. So far as I know, every person but yourself is perfectly satisfied with this one. What! It is a pity that every clock in Rondaine should be striking wrong ! How do you know they are all wrong? You listen to them? And then you look at your rose-clock to see what time it really is ! Let me look at the rose-clock. I will step into the court-yard and compare it with the sun-dial. Ah ! It is ten min- utes too slow. Its works are like those of the donkey- clock, not adjusted in such a way as to be unaffected by heat or cold. Yes ! Ten minutes slow to-day. On some days it is probably a great deal too fast. Such a clock as this — which is a very ingenious and beautiful one — ought frequently to be compared with a sun-dial or other correct time-keeper, and set to the proper hour. You can do no one any good by listening to the different strikings of the clocks and then comparing them with the little rose-clock, especially when you are not sure that your rose-clock is right. But if you will bring your little clock to me and your key on any day when the sun is shining, I will set it to the time shadowed on the sun-dial. 20 Prose The Lotus-Eaters. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) HOMER, ODD to 1000 B.C. FROM "ODYSSEUS. THE HERO OF ITHACA," ADAPTED FROM THE ODYSSEY. "The Lotus-Eaters" is placed in this volume out of respect to a class of ten-year-old boys who read and re-read with me "Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca," an adaptation from The Odyssey. "We all sat around the table and read it, father and mother and all of us," said a ten-year-old boy. Nine days and nine nights we were driven about on the sea by a violent storm, and on the tenth we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters. These men eat flowers that look like water-lilies, and they have no other food. We landed on the shore and my comrades took their evening meal close to the boats. When our hunger was satisfied, I sent out two of the best men to explore the country and find out what sort of people the Lotus-eaters were. I sent a herald with them, whom they might send back with the news. They soon found themselves among the Lotus-eaters, who were gentle and friendly, and gave them the lotus plant to eat. This food is pleasant to the taste but dangerous ; for anyone who eats of it loses all desire to return to his own home. He forgets his cares and trou- bles, but he forgets his friends also. As soon as my comrades had eaten of the lotus, they became attached to the Lotus-eaters, and desired to re- main with them. They wept bitterly when I com- manded them to return to the ships, and I was obliged to force them to go. I bound them down to the benches in the ships, and the whole company went on board in haste lest they should never think of their homes again. Each man bent to his oars, and the waves were soon white with the beating of the ships against them as we sailed with all haste in the direction of our own land. Prose 21 The Perils of a Bird. (Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) JOHN BURROUGHS, 1837. ABRIDGED FROM "BIRDS AND BEES." Among the worst enemies of our birds are the so- called ^'collectors," men who plunder nests and mur- der their owners in the name of science. Not the gen- uine ornithologist, for no one is more careful of squan- dering bird-life than he; but the sham ornithologist, the man whose vanity or affectation happens to take an ornithological turn. He is seized with an itching for a collection of eggs and birds, because it happens to be the fashion, or because it gives him the air of a man of science. Robbing nests and killing birds becomes a business with him. He goes about it systematically, and becomes an expert in slaying our songsters. But the collectors alone are not to blame for the di- minishing number of our wild birds. Quite a large share of the responsibility rests upon a different class of persons, namely, the milliners. False taste in dress is as destructive to our feathered friends as are false aims in science. It is said that the traffic in the skins of our brighter- plumaged birds, arising from their use by milliners, reaches to hundreds of thousands annually. I am told of one middleman who collected from the shooters in one district, in four months, seventy thousand skins. It is a barbarous taste that craves this kind of orna- mentation. Think of a woman or girl of real refine- ment appearing upon the street, her headgear adorned with the scalps of our songsters! 22 Prose Turning the Grindstone. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 1706-1790. "Turning the Grindstone" is an old stand-by. Like a thousand other people, I learned it when a child. It was one of the most important bits of prose I ever learned. Beware of the flatterer! The number is legion of sugar-coated grindstones, and sugar-coated grinders with sugar- coated axes, and yet one would sooner be "done up" a hundred times than to let a fellow-creature go hungry because his axe is dull. A dull axe! Ah me! What a dull thing is a dull axe. And the oily grinder too often lives in a palace fit for a king. This selection is "sacred to the memory" of a Western publisher who "paid" me a small pittance for an invention that gave him a large fortune. When I was a little boy, I remember, one cold win- ter's morning, I was accosted by a smiling man with an axe on his shoulder. *'My pretty boy," said he, ''has your father a grindstone?" — "Yes, sir," said I. — "You are a fine little fellow," said he ; "will you let me grind my axe on it?" Pleased with the compliment of "fine little fellow," "O yes, sir," I answered. "It is down in the shop." — "And will you, my man," said he, pat- ting me on the head, "get me a little hot water ?" How could I refuse? I ran, and soon brought a kettle full. "How old are you ? and what's your name ?" continued he, without waiting for a reply ; "I am sure you are one of the finest lads that ever I have seen; will you just turn a few minutes for me ?" Tickled with the flattery, like a little fool, I went to work, and bitterly did I rue the day. It was a new axe, and I toiled and tugged till I was almost tired to death. The school-bell rang, and I could not get away; my hands were blistered, and the axe was not half ground. At length, however, it was sharpened, and the man turned to me with, "Now, you little rascal, you've played truant; scud to the school, or you'll rue it!" — "Alas!" thought I, "it was hard enough to turn a grindstone, this cold day; but now to be called a little rascal, is too much." It sank deep in my mind ; and often have I thought of it since. When I see a merchant over polite to his Prose 23 customers, — begging them to take a little brandy, and throwing his goods on the counter, — thinks I, That man has an axe to grind. When I see a man flattering the people, making great professions of attachment to liberty, who is in private life a tyrant, methinks, Look out, good people! that fellow would set you turning grindstones. When I see a man hoisted into office by party spirit, without a single qualification to render him either respectable or useful — alas ! methinks, deluded people, you are doomed for a season to turn the grind- stone for a booby. Peter Pan Among the Birds. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) J. M. BARRIE, i860. IN ''THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD." "Peter Pan" is the greatest Fairy Comedy of the Stage. This selec- tion is here out of respect to Walter, aged six, who believes in fairies and does not hesitate to tell the whole audience of it, for "the fairy would die if there were no one to believe." The birds on the island never got used to Peter Pan. His oddities tickled them every day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the birds that were new. They came out of the eggs daily, and laughed at him at once ; then off they flew soon to be humans, and other birds came out of other eggs, and so it went on forever. The crafty mother-birds, when they tired of sitting on their eggs, used to get the young ones to break their shells a day before the right time by whispering to them that now was their chance to see Peter washing or drinking or eating. Thousands gathered round him daily to watch him do these things, just as you watch the peacocks, and they screamed with delight when he lifted the crusts they flung him with his hands instead of in the usual way with the mouth. All his food was brought to him from the gardens, at Solomon's orders, by the birds. He would not eat worms or insects (which they thought very silly of him), so they brought him bread in their beaks. Thus, 24 Prose when you cry out, "Greedy ! Greedy !" to the bird that flies away with the big crust, you know now that you ought not to do this, for he is very Hkely taking it to Peter Pan. Peter wore no nightgown now. You see, the birds were always begging him for bits of it to hne their nests with, and, being very good-natured, he could not refuse, so by Solomon's advice he had hidden what was left of it. But, though he was now quite unclad, you must not think that he was cold or unhappy. He was usually very happy and gay, and the reason was that Solomon had kept his promise and taught him many of the bird ways. To be easily pleased, for instance, and always to be really doing something, and think that whatever he was doing was a thing of vast importance. Peter became very clever at helping the birds to build their nests; soon he could build better than a wood- pigeon and nearly as well as a blackbird, though never did he satisfy the finches, and he made nice little water- troughs near the nests and dug up worms for the young ones with his fingers. He also became very learned in bird-lore, and knew an east-wind from a west-wind by its smell, and he could see the grass growing and hear the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks. But the best thing Solomon had done was to teach him to have a glad heart. All birds have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, and so as they were the only kind of heart Solomon knew about, it was easy to him to teach Peter how to have one. Peter's heart was so glad that he felt he must sing all day long, just as the birds sing for joy, but, being partly human, he needed an instrument, so he made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the shore of the island of an evening, practising the sough of the wind and the ripple of the water and catching handfuls of the shine of the moon, and he put them all in his pipe and played them so beautifully that even the birds were deceived, and they would say to each other, "Was that a fish Prose 25 leaping in the water or was it Peter playing leaping fish on his pipe ?" Virginius, as Tribune, Refuses the Appeal of Appius Claudius. ABRIDGED FROM LIVY, 59 B.C.-17 A.D. A healthy-minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward, and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or tortures animals. — Theodore Roosevelt. I AFFIRM, O Romans, that Appius Claudius is the only man not entitled to a participation in the laws, nor tp the common privileges of civil or human society. The tribunal over which, as perpetual Decemvir, he pre- sided, was made the fortress of all villainies. A de- spiser of gods and men, he vented his fury on the properties and persons of citizens, threatening all with his rods and axes. Executioners, not Lictors, were his attendants. And Appius Claudius now appeals! You hear his words. ''I appeal !" This man, who, so recently, as Decemvir, would have consigned a free-born maiden to slavery, utters that sacred expression, that safeguard of Roman liberty, — 'T appeal !" Well may ye stand awe-struck and silent, O my countrymen ! Ye see, at length, that there are gods who overlook human af- fairs; that there is such a thing as retribution! Ye see that punishment must sooner or later overtake all tyranny and injustice. The man who abolished the right of appeal now appeals ! The man who trampled on the rights of the People now implores the protection of the People ! And, finally, the man who used to call the prison the fitting domicile of the Roman commons shall now find that it was built for him also. Wherefore, Appius Claudius, though thou shouldst appeal again and again, to me, the Tribune of the People, I will as often refer thee to a Judge, on the charge of having sen- tenced a free person to slavery. And since thou wilt not go before a Judge, well knowing that justice will 26 Prose condemn thee to death, I hereby order thee to be taken hence to prison, as one condemned. The Street Arab of Paris. VICTOR HUGO, 1802-1855. FROM "LES MISERABLES." Boys from good families often despise the "Street Arab" and call him a "Mick" because he swears and is dirty and uses slang; and thus early the war begins between the rich and the poor. Wee Hansel, I saw you drive little Rachel into the house and I asked you why you did it. You replied: "Because she is a foreigner." This selection is for the more fortunate child, to set him thinking. Paris has a child and the forest has a bird ; the bird is called the sparrow ; the child is called the gamin. The gamin is full of joy. He has food to eat, but not every day. He goes to the show every evening if he sees fit. He has no shirt to his back, no shoes to his feet, no roof over his head ; he is like the flies in the air, who have none of these things. He is from seven to thir- teen years of age, lives in troops, ranges the streets, sleeps in the open air, wears an old pair of his father's pantaloons down about his heels, an old hat of some other father, which covers his ears, and a single yellow suspender. He runs about, is always on the watch, and on the search. He kills time, colors pipes, swears like an imp, knows thieves and robbers, sings low songs. But he has noth- ing bad in his heart. This is because he has a pearl in his soul, — Innocence. So long as man is a child, God wills that he be in- nocent. The Country Mouse and the City Mouse. HORACE, 65-8 B.C. "THE SABINE FARM." When I come to the city, my head is full of undigested sleep. — ^John Burroughs. I would rather live in the country because I can see the sky. — Benny, aged thirteen. Life on a farm is more than profit and loss. — David Grayson. A MOUSE from the city went on a visit to a friend in the country. Prose 27 The country Mouse brought out the best he had, and placed it before his guest. There was plenty of oatmeal and peas, a good scrap of bacon, and a bit of cheese. While the guest was dining, the country Mouse, out of politeness, would eat none of these dainties, for fear there should not be enough, but nibbled a piece of straw to keep him com- pany. When the dinner was over, the city Mouse said : *'My friend, I thank you for your courtesy, but I must have a plain talk with you. I do not see how you can bear to live this poor life in this little hole. Why not come with me to the city, where you will have all sorts of good things to eat, and a gay time? You are really wasting your life in this quiet place. Come with me, and I will show you what good fare is." After being urged a long time, the country Mouse at last agreed to go to the city. So they started off together, and about midnight came to a great house, where the city Mouse lived. In the dining-room was ivpread a rich feast; and the city Mouse, with many airs and graces, ran about the table, and, picking out the nicest bits, waited upon his country friend, who, amazed at the good things, ate to his heart's content. All at once the doors of the dining-room were flung open, and in came a crowd of people, laughing and talking, and followed by a big dog, who barked loudly, and ran a|pout the room. The Mice rushed for the hole, to escape, and the little field Mouse almost died of fright. As soon as he was able to speak, he said: **Well ! if this is city life, I have seen enough of it. Stay in this fine place if you like. I shall be only too glad to get home to my quiet hole, and my plain oatmeal and peas." 28 ProSfe Nobility of Labor. REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, 1 794-1882. I paint the stone-digger because he is good to look at. — Clarence Blodgett. Ashamed to toil, art thou ? Ashamed of thy dingy work-shop and dusty labour-field; of thy hard hand, scarred with service more honourable than that of war ; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which Mother Nature has embroidered, midst sun and rain, midst fire and steam, her own heraldic honours? Ashamed of these tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity. It is treason to Nature, — it is impiety to Heaven, — it is breaking Heaven's great ordinance. Toil, I repeat — toil, either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand — is the only true manhood, the only true nobility! Cleansing the Fountain. EUGENIE DE GUERIN, 1805-1848. I hope that "Cleansing the Fountain" will cheer the heart of a boy on a farm who every six months helps to clean the well. When the hired man goes down into the well, what a revelation he sends up, in the old oaken bucket. The mud! All the dead leaves, twigs, feathers, vines, and "stuff" that have blown in for six months. The things that live in the well! Frogs, toads, lizards, ferns, plus mosquitoes' eggs. And the silt that the spring has washed in! Perhaps the boy must carry water from a far-away well for the table. Who knows how many knives, spoons, and tempers are lost in wells! Who knows how many poems grow out of them, and how much patience and devotion, when the water clears up again! A clean well is a perpetual temperance lecture. This morning I saw a beautiful sky, a budding chest- nut tree, and I heard the little birds singing. I listened to them as I sat under a great oak, near a fountain, whose basin was being cleaned out. The pretty songs and the washing of the basin brought me different trains of thought. The birds delighted me. But when I saw the escape of the muddy water which had been so clear a short time before, I could but regret that it had been troubled. And I pictured to myself one's Prose 29 soul when something stirs it up. For even the most beautiful loses its charm when you stir the bottom, there being a little mud at the bottom of every human soul. My Brother's Schoolmistress. EDMONDO DE AMICIS, 1846. IN "CUORE." (Copyrighted by T. Y. Crowell & Company.) This selection finds a place here in honour of a dear mother who teaches her boys to remember with gratitude their former teachers. V How much patience is necessary with those boys of the lower first, all toothless, like old men, who cannot pronounce r's and s's ; and one coughs and another has the nosebleed, and another loses his shoes under the bench, and another bellows because he has pricked himself with his pen, and another one cries because he has bought copy-book No. 2, instead of No. i. Fifty in a class, who know nothing, with those flabby little hands, and all of them must be taught to write; they carry in their pockets bits of candy, buttons, corks, pounded brick, — all sorts of little things, and the teacher has to search them ; but they conceal these ob- jects even in their shoes. And they are not attentive. A fly enters through the window, and throws them all into confusion. And in summer they bring grass into school, and horn-bugs, which fly around in circles, or fall into the inkstand, and then streak the copy-book all over with ink. The schoolmistress has to play mother to all of them, to help them dress themselves, bandage up their pricked fingers, pick up their caps when they drop them, watch to see that they do not ex- change coats, and that they do not indulge in cat-calls and shrieks. Poor schoolmistress! And then the mothers come to complain : "How comes it that my boy has lost his pen ? How does it happen that mine learns nothing? Why is not my boy mentioned honourably, when he knows so much? Why don't you have that 30 Prose nail which tore my Pietro's trousers, taken out of the bench?" And at the end of the year when the Httle boys are with the masters, they are ahnost ashamed of having been with a woman teacher. The Fourth of July. DANIEL WEBSTER, 1782-1852. This magnificent and dignified oration cannot but remind us that oratory among juveniles has too long been displaced by the cannon-fire- cracken This is that day of the year which announced to mankind the great fact of American Independence! This fresh and brilliant morning blesses our vision with another beholding of the birth-day of our nation ; and we see that nation, of recent origin, now among the most considerable and powerful, and spreading over the continent from sea to sea. " Westward the course of empire takes its way ; The four first acts already past, A fiftli shall close the drama with the day, — Time's noblest offspring is the last." On the Fourth of July, 1776, the representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, declared that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States. This declara- tion, made by most patriotic and resolute men, trusting in the justice of their cause, and the protection of Heaven, — and yet made not without deep solicitude and anxiety, — has now stood for seventy-five years, and still stands. It was sealed in blood. It has met dan- gers, and overcome them; it has had enemies, and con- quered them ; it has had detractors, and abashed them all; it has had doubting friends, but it has cleared all doubts away ; and now, to-day raising its august form higher than the clouds, twenty millions of people con- template it with hallowed love, and the world beholds Prose 3 i it, and the consequences which have followed from it, with profound admiration. This anniversary animates, and gladdens, and unites, all American hearts. On other days of the year we may be party men, indulging in controversies more or less important to the public good; we may have likes and dislikes, and we may maintain our political differ- ences; often with warm, and sometimes with angry feelings. But to-day we are Americans all; and all nothing but Americans. PART II. Blessings on Thee, Barefoot Boy! PART II A Lincoln Story. (Copyrighted by the North American Review.) ULYSSES S. GRANT. V Abraham Lincoln told this story to General Grant, who intended it for his own "Memoirs." But instead of disposing of it in that way he gave it to Allen Thorndike Rice to publish in the "Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln." When Mr. Rice died he left it to General Lloyd Bryce and now it is the property of the North American Revieiv. It has taken me two-hundred-forty hours to trace it to its legal owner and secure the right to use it. Once I found a particularly pretty plume; B. S. snatched it and stuck it in his cap and he wears it. B. S., keep off this land. It is private property. Don't steal a woman's feather for a man's cap. This Lincoln story is intended for Budge and Edward and John, who always try again; and when the handle comes off from their pitchers they make stronger ones the next time. "General, do you know what the Dutch Gap Canal reminds me of? Out in Springfield, Illinois, there was a blacksmith, who one day, when he did not have much to do, took a piece of soft iron that had been in his shop for some time, and for which he had no special use, and starting up his fire, began to heat it. When he got it hot he carried it to the anvil and began to hammer it, thinking he would weld it into an agricul- tural tool. He pounded away for a time until he got it fashioned into some shape, when he discovered that the iron would not hold out to complete the implement he had in mind. He then put it back into the forge, heated it up again, and recommenced pounding it, with a notion that he would make a hammer; but after a time he came to the conclusion that there was more iron in it than was needed for a hammer. Again he heated it, and thought he would make an axe. After hammering and welding it into shape, knocking the 35 36 Prose iron off in flakes, he concluded that there was not enough iron to make an axe that would be of any use. He was now getting tired and a little disgusted at the result of his various efforts. So he filled his forge full of coal and after placing the iron in the centre of the heap, took the bellows and worked up a tremendous blast, bringing the iron to a white heat. Then with his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrust- ing it into a tub of water near by, exclaimed, ''Well, if I can't make anything else of you. I can make A First-Class Fizzle." Protect the Trees. BRISTOW ADAMS. "Protect the Trees" was prepared especially for this book, in the office of the United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, at Washington, by Mr. Bristow Adams and Chief Findley Burns, \yho "never attempted the subject before." Perhaps there are boys and girls in this country who do not know that the United States has a Forest Service trying to protect the rights of the trees. But any little boy ■who learns this "speech" will try to find out all about the Forest Service and why it is necessary as well as patriotic for a nation to care for the forests and streams. My friends, let me tell you the story of a Prince who was a spendthrift and wasted his heritage. The King, his father, banished the youth from the royal palace, cast him out utterly, and forbade him the use of the crops of the field, the wealth of the mines, and the products of the sea and of the streams that flowed down to it. Yet the King did not think to bar the use of the forest, and was surprised one day when he rode beyond the palace grounds and found a stately man- sion, beamed with the massive oak and panelled in fragrant cedar. That night a feast was spread there for the King. Tables were piled high with tree fruits, and lighted by the oil of tropic nuts. Musicians played soft-sounding wooden instruments, — the clarinet, and oboe, and bassoon. And for his skill in making this answer to the angry King's decree, the Prince was received back into his father's house. Whereat he Prose 37 mended his ways, took upon himself the grateful task of caring for the forests, and lived long to advocate the mighty use of trees, v^hich the King had forgotten to interdict. But since then there was a time when the lesson that the Prince learned was forgotten. The people were profligate and wasted Nature's bounty of the forests. When the Judean hills were forest-clad, when the cedars of Lebanon grew to be builded into Solomon's Temple, Palestine was in the height of its glory. To- day it is a desert place, bearing the stamp of poverty ai;id despair. For the forests of a country, and the care which that country bestows upon them, measure that country's progressiveness. The land that was ancient Palestine is under the dominion of Turkey ; and Turkey, like China, has no care for its trees. The forests must be saved if we are to have wood for home-building; they must be saved if our rivers are to be a source of help and not of harm. Without the forest soil to store up the rain, the rivers range from turbid floods to dry channels. When they flow as torrents they wash good soil from fertile hills, and with it choke up commercial waterways. If the nation is to prosper the great resources of the forests must not be wasted, but must be used wisely and made to renew themselves year after year, to promote the comfort and wealth of the people. The generations that destroy the forest will be false to a sacred trust, and will have robbed of their heritage the generations to come. Then let us all unite in a campaign to save the trees, — to plant trees, and to care for them. Here is a crusade, worthy of our highest efforts, in which all may join in a common cause — the protection of our forests, that they may maintain their usefulness forever. 38 Prose What is Property? FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE KARR. "I discovered the old professor, moving slowly along the margin of my field with his tin botany box. So he gathered his crops; and fences did not keep him out nor did titles disturb him. It gave me a peculiar pleasure to have him on my land, to know that I was, if unconsciously, raising other crops than I knew. "Do not apologize, friend, when you come into my field. You do not interrupt me. What you come for is of more importance at this moment than corn." — David Grayson, in "Adventures in Contentment." Yonder stands an old tree which I call mine. Other generations before me have dwelt under its shade, and called it theirs; and other generations after me will do the same. And yet I call the tree mine. A bird has built a nest on one of its highest branches, but I can- not reach it, and yet I call the tree mine. Mine ! There is scarcely anything which I call mine which will not last much longer in this world than I shall: there is not a single button of my jacket that is not destined to survive me many years. What a strange thing is this property of which men are so envious ! When I had nothing of my own, I had forests and meadows, and the sea, and the sky with all its stars ! I remember an old wood near to the house in which I was born. What days have I passed under its thick shade, in its green alleys! What violets have I gath- ered in it in the month of April, and what lilies of the valley in the month of May ! What strawberries, blackberries, and nuts, I have eaten in it! What but- terflies I have chased there! What nests I have dis- covered! What sweet perfumes have I inhaled! What verses have I there made! How often have I gone thither at the close of day, to see the glorious sun set, colouring with red and gold the white trunks of the birch-trees around me ! This wood was not mine; it belonged to an old bed- ridden miser, who had, perhaps, never been in it in his life — and yet it belonged to him. Prose 39 Hunting in Utopia. SIR THOMAS MORE, 1478-1535. ABRIDGED FROM "UTOPIA." Not even genuine piety can make the robin-killer quite respectable. . . . Song-birds for food! Compared with this, making kindlings of pianos and violins would be pious economy. — John Muir. Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure the peo- ple of Utopia reckon all that delight in hunting, or gaming, of whose madness they have only heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us : What sort of pleasure is it that men can find in, throwing the dice? And what pleasure can one find in hearing the barking and howling of dogs? Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a hare, more than seeing one dog run after another. But if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak, harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and cruel dogs. Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the Utopians, turned over to their butchers, and the butchers are all slaves, and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a butcher's work, for they account it both more profit- able and more decent to kill those beasts that are more useful to mankind, whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure, from which he can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of the bloodshed, even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is corrupted with cruelty, or that at least, by too frequent returns of so brutal a pleasure, must degenerate into it. 40 Prose The Folly of Pride. REV. SYDNEY SMITH, 1768-1845. We are looking for the vital. — John Burroughs. Take some quiet, sober moment of life, and add to- gether the two ideas of pride and of man ; behold him, a creature a span high, stalking through infinite space, in all the grandeur of littleness. Perched on a little speck of the universe, every wind of heaven strikes into his blood the coldness of death; his soul fleets from his body, like melody from the string; day and night, as dust on the wheel, he is rolled along the heavens, through a labyrinth of worlds, and all the systems and creations of God are flaming above and be- neath. Is this a creature to revel in his greatness? Is this a creature to make to himself a crown of glory; to deny his own flesh and blood ; and to mock at his fel- low, sprung from that dust to which they both will soon return? Does the proud man not err? Does he not suffer ? Does he not die ? When he reasons is he never stopped by difficulties? When he acts, is he never tempted by pleasures ? When he lives, is he free from pain? When he dies, can he escape from the common grave? Pride is not the heritage of man; humility should dwell with frailty, and atone for ig- norance, error, and imperfection. The Little Rose-Clock. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) FRANK R. STOCKTON. FROM "FANCIFUL TALES." When it came to the test, the little girl did not want her pretty rose- clock set right any more than the superintendent of the donkey-clock wanted his donkey set right. It is so easy to excuse what is dear to us. To think of it ! That you should sometimes be too fast and sometimes too slow ! And worse than that, to Prose 41 think that some of the other clocks have been right, and YOU have been wrong! But I do not feel like alter- ing you to-day. If you go fast sometimes, and slow SOMETIMES, you must be right sometimes. The Love of Home. DANIEL WEBSTER, 1782-1852. Reynal is always late to school because he must go home every night. And he must go home because he wants to see his mother. He has a home in the city near the school, but his mother prefers the country home. And this goes to show that it isn't the house that makes the home. If his mother lived in a dug-out, Reynal would want to go home just the same. This "recitation" is placed here in honour of Reynal; and also in honour of a poor girl who drudges in the city and whose home is wherever her trunk is; and that is generally in the smallest kind of a room, which she keeps so clean and so disposed and so cheerful that you would believe it a sumptuous little reception room. A home is nothing but a box, at the best, or a place where you keep your happiness, your independence, and your self-respect. It is only shallow-minded pretenders who either make distinguished origin a matter of personal merit, or obscure origin a matter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life affect nobody in America but those who are foolish enough to indulge in them, and they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke. A man who is not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condi- tion. It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin; but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised among the snow-drifts of New Hamp- shire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist; I make it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching nar- 42 Prose ratives and incidents, which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if ever I fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared it, and defended it against savage vio- lence and destruction, cherished all the domestic vir- tues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary war, shrank from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name and the name of my posterity be blotted forever from the memory of mankind! Cassio on Intemperance. SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616. Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation! lago, my reputation! I will sue to be despised. Drunk! and squabble! swagger! swear! and discourse fustian with one's own shadow ! Oh, thou invisible spirit of wine ! if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly ; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. Oh, that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains: that we should, with joy, gaiety, revel, and ap- plause, transform ourselves into beasts ! It has pleased the devil, Drunkenness, to give place to the devil. Wrath ;. one imperfection shows me an- other, to make me frankly despise myself. If I ask him for my place again, he will tell me I am a drunkard! Had I as many months as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. To be now a sensi- ble man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast! Prose 43 Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil. Earnestness. LORD LYTTON, 1803-1873. Earnestness! What a resource it is even in a child! Here let me pay tribute with reverent affection to the memory of a little girl whose name deserves to stand, a monument of earnestness, "towering o'er the wrecks of time." Just a tiny girl, Annie Corrigan, who could control the work of a school of sixty children, in the teacher's absence. Every child felt the power of her character and loved to obey her. "Wouldn't it be wonderful," said Annie, "if some one should get to the North Pole, and then keep on going North, and find another world like this, but more beautiful!" The last time we saw Annie, she was asleep in her white "first-communion" robes, her gentle hands crossed over her pulseless heart. Who can doubt that she had found t'he more beautiful world? If I were asked what attribute most commanded fortune, I should say "earnestness." The earnest man wins a way for himself and earnestness and truth go together. Never affect to be other than you are — either richer or wiser. Never be ashamed to say, "I do not know." Men will then believe you when you say, "I do know." Never be ashamed to say, whether as applied to time or money, "I cannot afford it;" — 'T cannot afford to waste an hour in the idleness to which you invite me, — I cannot afford the guinea you ask me to throw away." Once establish yourself and your mode of life as what they really are, and your foot is on solid ground, whether for the gradual step onward, or for the sud- den spring over a precipice. From these maxims let me deduce another, — learn to say "No" with decision ; "Yes" with caution ; — "No" with decision whenever it resists temptation; "Yes" with caution whenever it implies a promise. A promise once given is a bond inviolable. A man is already of consequence in the world when it is known that we can implicitly rely upon him. I have frequently seen in life a person preferred to a long list of applicants, for some important charge which lifts him at once into sta- tion and fortune, merely because he has this reputa- 44 Prose tion, that when he says he knows a thing, he knows it, and when he says he will do a thing, he will do it. Saying Too Much. L. C. JUDSON. It is a fact worthy of notice and imitation, that Washington, Franklin, and others, whose memories we delight to perpetuate, were remarkably laconic in their speeches, keeping close to the question under consid- eration; aiming to inform rather than dazzle; more anxious to despatch business, than to outshine one an- other in the brilliancy of their eloquence. The public speaker who, without flourish or parade, comes to the subject-matter at once; who presents in a clear, concise, and forcible manner the strong points of his case; whose every sentence strikes home; who says just all that is necessary, and there stops, — is al- ways listened to with a marked attention, unknown to those who indulge in flights of oratory, plucking flow- ers from the regions of fancy, drawing more largely upon the imagination than upon sound logic and plain common sense. In the private walks of life, there are thousands who say too much. The liar and the pro- fane swearer are constantly saying too much. The whisperer of scandal, the mysterious guesser, the fiery and passionate, the jealous and suspicious, the malicious and revengeful, the curious and reckless are usually saying quite too much, and from influences always wrong — often criminal. There are others who, in perfect innocence, often say too much. The young man, whose stock of knowledge is small, by talking when he should listen, may miss of intelligence that might be of great use to him; and the man of maturer years who engrosses all the con- versation in company, to show his learning and su- periority, often disgusts his companions by saying too much. Prose 45 In mixed company, in private company, in public meetings, men and women very readily say too much. If we know a fault of our neighbour, and, instead of going to him and kindly endeavouring to reclaim him, we proclaim it to others, we violate the duty we owe him, by saying too much. Let us all, then, strive to arrest this evil, by commencing at the fountain-head, and, first of all, correct the heart, and keep it with all diligence; and remembering that, for every idle word, we are accountable to God. Ulysses at the Home of Circe. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) HOMER, 900-1000 B.C. FROM "ODYSSEUS, THE HERO OF ITHACA." ADAPTED FROM THE ODYSSEY. Every child loves the story of Ulysses (Odysseus). This selection finds a place here because children who read it once, read it many times. When I read it with my pupils we always supplement it with Edith Thomas's masterpiece: Traveller, pluck a stem of moly, If thou touch at Circe's isle, — Hermes' moly, growing solely To undo enchanter's wile, — Some do think its name should be Shield-Heart, White Integrity. Circe was the daughter of the Sun, the witch who gave the cup of enchantment to the companions of Ulysses to turn them into swine. Circe is the stimulating, the alcoholic power in the sun's ray that gives the apple its aroma, the grape its intoxicating germ. The site of the palace and grove of the enchantress are still pointed out on Monte Circeo, on the coast of Italy, between Rome and Naples. Moly, a com- mon little bulb of the Lily Family (growing in America as well as in Europe), is a relish much used by Italian peasants. We continued our course until we reached an island, where lived Circe, a daughter of the Sun and Ocean. We landed silently, and gave two days and nights to rest, for we were worn out with toil and grief. On the third day I climbed to the top of a high hill and looked over the island. Down below I saw a mar- ble palace, surrounded by a thick forest. There was smoke rising from the grounds, so I resolved to re- turn to my men and send out some of them to look about and explore. That night we slept on the shore and in the morn- 46 Prose ing I told them that I had seen a palace standing in a thick wood and that I wanted to send several men there to try to get food. When my companions thought of all their comrades who had been slain, they wept aloud. But their tears were useless. I divided them into two equal bands, and we cast lots to see which should make the adventure. The lot fell to Eurylochus and his band of men. They started forth and soon came to a beautiful val- ley, in which was the splendid house of Circe, which was built of well-hewn stone. There were beasts of prey, lions and wolves, around it. The animals were tame ; they wagged their tails and fawned like dogs, but the men were afraid of them. Circe was weaving in the palace and singing a beau- tiful song. She had bright, sunny hair and a sweet voice. The men heard her as she went back and forth weaving, and they called aloud. She came to the door and threw it wide open and bade them enter. Eurylochus alone did not go in, for he feared that some evil would come of it. The others followed her, and Circe seated them on thrones and gave them food and wine, but in the wine she had secretly infused a magic juice which made them forget home and friends and all desire to see their native land. When they had eaten and drunk to their hearts' con- tent, she waved her wand over them, and at once the poor wretches were changed into grunting pigs, which she shut up in sties. Then she threw acorns and other food fit for swine before them. Although thus transformed and covered with bristles, they still re- tained the human mind. Eurylochus waited outside a long time for his com- panions. But as they did not come he hastened back to the ship to tell the news. Thereupon I quickly hung my sword over my shoulder and, taking my bov/ and arrows, hurried off alone, and soon found myself not far from Circe's palace. Prose 47 As I walked in that dangerous valley, there came to me a youth, whom I knew at once to be Hermes, the messenger of the gods. He gently took hold of my hand and, looking compassionately on me, said : *'Thou most unhappy man! Why art thou roaming alone in this wild place? Or art thou bound on the errand of delivering thy friends who have been changed by Circe into swine? Much do I fear that thou mayst meet with the same fate. Listen to my words and heed them well if thou wouldst destroy the treacherous schemes of Circe. Take this little flower. Its name is Moly ^among the gods, and no wicked sorcery can hurt the man who treasures it carefully. Its root is black. Its blossom is as white as milk, and it is hard for men to tear it from the ground. Take this herb and go fear- lessly into the dwelling of the sorceress ; it will guard thee against all mishap. She will bring thee a bowl of wine, mingled with the juice of enchantment, but do not fear to eat or drink anything she may offer thee." When Hermes had spoken thus he left me, to re- turn to high Olympus, and I walked to the house of Circe with a braver heart. As I came near the palace I called out to the goddess with a loud voice, and she threw open the doors for me to enter. She bade me sit down on a beautiful throne and placed a golden foot-stool under my feet, Then she gave me the dan- gerous cup and I drank it off, but her charm did not work. Scarcely had I drained the cup when the goddess struck me with her wand and said: ''Off with thee! Go to the pigsty, where friends await thy coming!" In a twinkling I had my sword in hand and rushed upon her as if to kill her. Circe shrieked with fear and fell on her knees to implore my mercy. "Who art thou and whence dost thou come?" said Circe. "Thou art the first man over whom my magic wine has had no power. Art thou really that Ulysses of whom Hermes told me that he was to come here after many 48 Prose wanderings? But put up thy sword and cease to be angry with me and let us trust each other." I answered her: "O goddess, how can I have faith in thy words, since thou hast changed my companions into swine and dost plot the same fate for me ? Swear me the great oath of the gods that thou wilt not harm me, and I will trust thy words." Circe took the great oath, and she ordered her servants to spread a feast before me. But I could not eat. I sat down in silence, my mind full of grief and doubt. When Circe saw that I did not touch the food she said : ** Why dost thou not taste the food and wine?" I answered: "What man with a loyal heart, O goddess, could eat and drink with any pleasure while his comrades are kept in bondage and degradation? If thou art really kind and wouldst have me enjoy this bounteous feast, let me see my dear companions free once more!" The goddess took her wand and went to the pen and drove out the swine. She then anointed them with a magic ointment, and their bristles fell off and they stood up and were men again. They knew me and each one seized my hand, shedding tears of joy. Then 1 sent for the rest of my men, who eagerly came up, and together we entered the palace, all of us weeping with joy. The School. (Copyrighted by T. Y. Crowell & Company, in "Cuore.") EDMONDO DE AMICIS, 1846. Yes, study comes hard to you, my dear boy, as your mother says ; I do not yet see you set out for school with that resolute mind and that smiling face which I should like. You are still intractable. But listen, re- flect a little ! What a miserable, despicable thing your day would be if you did not go to school ! At the end of the week you would beg with clasped hands that you might return there, for you would be eaten up with Prose 49 weariness and shame ; disgusted with your sports and with your existence. Everybody, everybody studies now, my child. Think of the workmen who go to school in the evening after having toiled all the day; think of the women, of the girls, of the people, who go to school on Sunday, after having worked all the week; of the soldiers who turn to their books and copy-books when they return exhausted from their drill ! Think of the dumb and of the boys who are blind, but who study nevertheless ; and last of all, think of the prisoners, who also learn to read and write. Reflect in the morning when you set out that at that very moment, in your own city, thirty thousand other boys are going like yourself, to shut themselves up for three hours to study. Think of the innumer- able boys, who, at nearly this precise hour, are going to school in all countries. Behold them with your imagination going, going through the lanes and quiet villages ; through the streets of the noisy towns, along the shores of rivers and lakes ; here beneath a burn- ing sun; there amid fogs, in boats, in countries which are intersected with canals; on horseback on the far- reaching plains ; in sledges over the snow ; through valleys and over the hills; across forests and torrents, over the solitary paths of the mountains; alone, in couples, in groups, in long files, all with their books under their arms, clad in a thousand ways, speaking a thousand tongues, from the most remote schools in Russia, almost lost in the ice, to the furthermost schools of Arabia, shaded by palm trees, millions and millions, all going to learn the same things, in a hun- dred varied forms. Imagine this vast, vast throng of boys of a hundred races, this immense movement of which you form a part, and think if this movement were to cease, humanity would fall back into bar- barism; this movement is the progress, the hope, the glory of the world. Courage, then, little soldier of the immense army. Your books are your arms, your class 50 Prose is your squadron, the field of battle is the whole earth, and the victory is human civilization. Be not a cowardly soldier, my child. The Perils of a Bee. (Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) JOHN BURROUGHS, 1837. ABRIDGED FROM "BIRDS AND BEES." The life of a swarm of bees! How like the active and hazardous campaign of an army! What adven- tures they have by flood and field, and what hair- breadth escapes ! They are overwhelmed by wind and rain, caught by spiders, crushed by cattle, drowned in rivers and ponds and in the spring they die from cold. As the sun goes down they get chilled before they can reach home. Many fall down outside the hive, unable to get in with their burden. One may see them come in utterly spent and drop hopelessly into the grass in front of their very doors. Before they can rest the cold has stiffened them. I go out in April and May and pick them up by the handfuls, their baskets loaded with pollen, and warm them in the sun or in the house, or by the simple warmth of my hand, until they can crawl into the hive. I have also picked them up while rowing on a river and seen them safely to the shore. It is amusing to see them come hurrying home when there is a thunder-storm approaching. Their greatest misfortune is to lose their queen. She is the mother of the swarm. Deprived of their queen the swarm loses all heart and soon dies. Peace and Righteousness. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 1864. FROM THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE 1906. Rather than see men wearing their chains in a cowardly and servile spirit, I would, as an advocate of Peace, much rather see them breaking the head of the tyi-ant with their chains. — William Lloyd Garrison. It must ever be kept in mind that war is not merely justifiable, but imperative upon honourable men, upon Prose 5 i an honourable nation, where peace can only be obtained by the sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of na- tional welfare. Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness ; but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the con- science of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual, and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping. Neither can a nation, which does not die as individuals die, re- frain from taking thought for the interest of the gen- erations that are to come, no less than for the interest of the generations of to-day ; and no public men have a right, whether from shortsightedness, from selfish in- difference, or from sentimentality, to sacrifice national interests which are vital in character. A just war is in the long run far better for a nation's soul than the most prosperous peace obtained by acquiescence in wrong or injustice. Moreover, though it is criminal for a nation not to prepare for war, so that it may escape the dread- ful consequences of being defeated in war, yet it must always be remembered that even to be defeated in war may be far better than not to have fought at all. As has been well and finely said, a beaten nation is not necessarily a disgraced nation; but the nation or man is disgraced if the obligation to defend right is shirked. We should as a nation do everything in our power for the cause of honourable peace. It is morally as indefensible for a nation to commit a wrong upon an- other nation, strong or weak, as for an individual thus to wrong his fellows. We should do all in our power to hasten the day when there shall be peace among the nations — a peace based upon justice and not upon cow- ardly submission to wrong. 52 Prose Character of Washington. CHARLES PHILLIPS. No matter what may be the birth-place of such a man as Washington. No climate can claim, no country can appropriate him — the boon of Providence to the human race — his fame is eternity, — his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin: if the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm passed, how pure was the climate that it cleared. How bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet it revealed to us! In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if Nature was endeavouring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances, no doubt, there were, splendid exemplifications of some single qualification — Caesar was merciful, — Scipio was continent, — Hannibal was patient,- — but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely master-piece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and the perfection of every master. As a General he marshalled the peasant into a vet- eran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experi- ence. As a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage, and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman, he almost added the character of the sage. A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood — a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of Prose 53 treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and a country called him to the command — liberty un- sheathed his sword^necessity stained, victory re- turned it. If he had paused here, history might doubt what sta- tion to assign him ; whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers — her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowned his career, and banishes hesi- tation. Who, like Washington, after having freed a country, resigned her crown, and retired to a cottage rather than reign in a capital ! Immortal man! He took from the battle its crime, and from the conquest its chains — he left the victorious the glory of his self-denial, and turned upon the van- quished only the retribution of his mercy. Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy ! — The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism ! Taxes, the Price of Glory. REV. SYDNEY SMITH, 1768-1845. I went into a store one day and bought some cloth for a dress, some gloves, and a few other articles of clothing. I asked how much tariff-tax I had paid and the salesman looked it up. He said that I had paid a tax of twenty-six dollars, and he added that it was for the protection of manufactures. They do say that there are two millions of little children in this country working in mills, day and night, who are giving their health and even their lives to "protect" or to further manufactur- ing "interests;" and yet, cloth is not as good as it was in the ancient times when there were no mills and no manufacturing interests. And women do not vote. John Fiske says: "You can always rely on the stupidity of the people." Renan says that in all this world he has never yet seen that there was any justice for sheep. I can pay twenty-six dollars a day in taxes to help to keep two millions of little children toiling in mills all night. Verily, if I were not a sheep, you would hear my "Barbaric Yawp over the roofs of the world." This note is dictated by a little crippled ghost who gets a chance, once in a while, to sit out in front of a mill, with her doll-baby in her arms. But she is too tired to play with it, so she just sleeps and nods over it. John Bull can inform Jonathan what are the in- evitable consequences of being too fond of Glory: Taxes ! Taxes upon every article which enters into the 54 Prose mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot ; taxes upon everything v^hich is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste ; taxes upon warmth, light, and lo- comotion ; taxes on everything on earth, and the waters under the earth; on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home; taxes on the raw mate- rial; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man; taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health; on the ermine which decorates the Judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice ; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride; at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The school-boy whips his taxed top. The beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road. The dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent., into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz-bed, which has paid twenty-two per cent., makes his will on an eight-pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from two to ten per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel. His virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble ; and he is then gathered to his fathers, — to be taxed no more. The Revolutionary Alarm. (Permission of D. Appleton & Company.) GEORGE BANCROFT, 1800-1891. Darkness closed upon the country and upon the town, but it was no night for sleep. Heralds on swift felays of horses transmitted the war message from hand to hand, till village repeated it to village, the sea Prose 55 to the backwoods, the plains to the highlands ; and it was never suffered to droop till it had been borne north, and south, and east, and west, throughout the land. It spread over the bays that receive the Saco and the Penobscot. Its loud reveille broke the rest of the trappers of New Hampshire, and, ringing like bugle- notes from peak to peak, overleaped the Green Moun- tains, swept onward to Montreal, and descended the ocean river, till the responses were echoed from the cliffs of Quebec. The hills along the Hudson told to oqe another the tale. As the summons hurried to the south, it was one day at New York; in one more at Philadelphia; the next, it lighted a watchfire at Baltimore; thence it waked an answer at Annapolis. Crossing the Potomac near Mount Vernon, it was sent forward without a halt to Williamsburg. It traversed the Dismal Swamp to Nansemond, along the route of the first emigrants to North Carolina. It moved onwards, and still onwards, through boundless groves of evergreen, to Newbern and to Wilmington. **For God's sake, forward it by night and by day," wrote Cornelius Harnett, by the express which sped for Brunswick. Patriots of South Carolina caught up its tones at the border, and despatched it to Charleston, and through pines and palmettos and moss-clad live- oaks, still farther to the South, till it resounded among the New England settlements beyond the Savannah. The Blue Ridge took up the voice, and made it heard from one end to the other of the valley of Vir- ginia. The Alleghanies opened their barriers that the ''loud call" might pass through to the hardy riflemen on the Holston, the Watauga, and the French Broad. Ever renewing its strength, powerful enough even to create a commonwealth, it breathed its inspiring word to the first settlers of Kentucky; so that hunters who made their halt in the matchless valley of the Elkhorn, 56 Prose commemorated the nineteenth day of April by naming their encampment Lexington. With one impulse the Colonies sprang to arms ; with one spirit they pledged themselves to each other "to be ready for the extreme event." With one heart the continent cried, "Liberty or Death !" The Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are here because they are just as author- itative in my mind as they were when as a little child I committed them to memory to recite in Sabbath-school. 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth : Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me ; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guilt- less that taketh his name in vain. 4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day : wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. 5. Honour thy father and thy mother : that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 6. Thou shalt not kill. Prose 57 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 8. Thou shalt not steal. 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man- servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's. Sir Roger and the Gipsies. JOSEPH ADDISON, 1672-1719. FROM "SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY." ''Be sure to include Addison," said John Burroughs in looking over this collection. How well do we remember the gipsies, yes the gypsies, who lived in wagons and tents near the town, when we were children; they came silently and went silently. Did I see a group of children "keeping house" among a pile of stones under the trees not long ago? But they go to school and here is a recitation for them, Emmeline. As I was riding out in the fields with my friend. Sir Roger, we saw at a little distance from us a troop of gipsies. If a stray piece of linen hangs upon a hedge, says Sir Roger, the gipsies are sure to have it; if the hog loses his way in the fields, it is ten to one but he be- comes their prey; our geese cannot live in peace for them ; if a man prosecutes them with severity, his hen- roost is sure to pay for it. They generally straggle into these parts about this time of the year; and set the heads of our servant-maids so agog for husbands, that we do not expect to have any business done as it should be whilst they are in the country. I have an honest dairy-maid who crosses their hands with a piece of silver every summer, and never fails being prom- ised the handsomest young fellow in the parish for her pains. Your friend the butler has been fool enough to be seduced by them; and though he is sure to lose a knife, a fork, or a spoon every time his fortune is told him, generally shuts himself up in the pantry with an old gipsy for above half an hour once in a twelve- 58 Prose month. Sweethearts are the things they Hve upon, which they bestow very plentifuhy upon all those that apply themselves to them. You see now and then some handsome young jades among them; they have white teeth and black eyes. Sir Roger observing that I listened with great at- tention to his account of a people who were so entirely new to me, told me, that if I would, they should tell us our fortunes. As I was very well pleased with the knight's proposal, we rid up, and communicated our hands to them. A Cassandra of the crew, after having examined my lines very diligently, told me that I loved a pretty maid in a corner, and that I was a good woman's man. My friend Sir Roger alighted from his horse, and exposing his palm to two or three that stood by him, they crumpled it all shapes, and diligently scanned every wrinkle that could be made in it; when one of them, who was older and more sunburned than the rest, told him that he had a widow in his line of life. Upon which the knight cried. Go, go; you are an idle baggage ; and at the same time smiled upon me. The gipsy finding he was not displeased in his heart, told him after a farther inquiry in his hand, that his true love was constant, and that she should dream of him to-night. My old friend cried pish, and bid her go on. The gipsy told him that he was a bachelor, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer to somebody than he thought. The knight still repeated she was an idle baggage, and bid her go on. Ah, master, says the gipsy, that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty woman's heart ache; you have not that simper about the mouth for nothing. The uncouth gibberish with which all this was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the knight left the money with her that he had crossed her hand with, and got up again on his horse, and we rode away. Prose 59 The Slaying of the Wine-Bags. (Copyrighted in school edition of "Don Quixote," by Charles Scrib- ner's Sons.) CERVANTES, 1547-1616. "The Slaying of the Wine-Bags" has been popular with scores of my pupils who have had it as a reading lesson. It is frorn the brain of Cervantes, the greatest humourist and satirist that ever lived, and from "Don Quixote," the greatest romance of chivalry ever written. "Don Quixote" is one of the "Literary Bibles" of the ages, and Cervantes is one of the five greatest authors the world has ever produced A course of study that does not include some attention to "Don Quixote" in any school system or university, is essentially crude. This book has "sprinkled the world with merriment" and with reverence and ethics and a love of plain common sense. The priest bade the host get dinner ready of what- ever they had in the inn, and the landlord quickly pre- pared for them a fairly good meal. All this while Don Quixote slept, and they agreed not to wake him, think- ing it better for him to sleep than to eat. They talked at table of his strange madness and of the state in which he had been found. Upon the priest's saying that the books of chivalry which Don Quixote read had turned his brain, the landlord cried : *T do not know how that can be, for to my think- ing there is no finer reading in the world. I have here two or three of them which truly have put life into me, and into many others also." ''Bring me these books, master landlord," said the priest, "for I should like to see them." "With pleasure," he replied, and going into the next room, he brought out a little old travelling-bag. From this he took three large books, which he handed to the priest, who looked them over and, remembering how Don Quixote's books had been disposed of, suggested that they should burn these also. At this the host was very indignant, and would not hear of such a thing. *'But, my good friend," said the priest, '"these books are lying books, and full of frenzies and follies." "Go to, sir," exclaimed the host. 'T would rather let my son be burnt than suffer one of these books to 6o Prose burn, for with only listening to one of them you would turn mad with delight," So the priest yielded to the host, seeing how much he prized the books; and in- stead of burning them, he picked out one, and at the request of the company, began to read aloud from it. They were in the midst of this entertainment when Sancho rushed into the room, all in a fright, crying at the top of his voice, "Run, sirs, quick, and help my master, who is in the thick of the fiercest battle my eyes have ever seen. He has dealt such a cut on the giant, the enemy of the lady princess, that he has sliced his head clean off, like a turnip." ''What sayest thou, brother?" cried the priest, leav- ing off reading. ''Art in thy senses, Sancho? How the devil can that be which thou sayest, the giant being many thousand miles away from here?" Upon this they heard a great noise in the room, and Don Quixote shouting aloud, "Hold, thief ! scoundrel ! rogue ! for I have thee here, and thy sword shall not help thee;" and it seemed as if he dealt great blows against the walls. Quoth Sancho, "You have not to stand here listen- ing, but go in and part the foes, or help my master; although now there will be no need, for doubtless the giant is already dead, and giving an account to God of his wicked life. For I saw his blood run all about the floor, and the head, which is the size of a big wine- skin, cut off and fallen to one side." "May I die," exclaimed the innkeeper, "if Don Quixote or Don Devil has not given a cut to one of the skins of red wine which hung full at his bed's head, and the wine that is spilt must be what this fellow takes for blood !" With that he ran into the room, and found Don Quixote in the strangest plight. Over his left arm he had folded the bed-quilt, and in his right hand he had a drawn sword, with which he was cutting and slash- ing on all sides, uttering words as if he were really Prose 6 1 fighting with some giant. And the best of it was that his eyes were not open, for he was asleep, dreaming that he was in battle with the giant ; and he had given so many cuts in the skins that the whole room was full of wine. The True Distinction of a State. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, 1 780-1842. To a little friend of mine who lives in a palace but he would rather keep chickens. Tell me not of the honour of belonging to a free country. I ask, does our liberty bear generous fruits ? Does it exalt us in manly spirit, in public virtue, above countries trodden under foot by Despotism? Tell me not of the extent of our territory. I care not how large it is, if it multiply degenerate men. Speak not "of our prosperity. Better be one of a poor People, plain in manners, revering God and respecting them- selves, than belong to a j^ich country, which knows no higher good than riches. Earnestly do I desire for this country that, instead of copying Europe with an undiscerning servility, it may have a character of its own, corresponding to the freedom and equality of our institutions. One Europe is enough. One Paris is enough. How miich to be desired is it, that, separated as we are from the eastern continent by an ocean, we should be still more widely separated by simplicity of manners, by domestic purity, by inward piety, by reverence for human nature, by moral independence, by withstanding that subjection to fashion, and that debilitating sensuality, which char- acterises the most civilised portions of the Old World ! Of this country I may say with emphasis that its happiness is bound up in its virtue. 62 Prose The Poor. (Copyrighted by T. Y. Crowell & Company, in "Cuore.") EDMONDO DE AMICIS, 1846. "Cuore" (Heart) is one of the greatest books of this century or any century. Edmondo de Amicis, above all other writers, (unless it is Lanier), makes sentiment, affection, love, the greatest thing in the world. "Imagine what my countrymen would say," exclaimed a German baroness, "if our teachers should teach the children to love animals and love everybody." And yet Frobel's philosophy is wholly that of benevo- lent love. In "Cuore" a little school-boy receives letters from his father and mother, instructing him always to love — schoolmates, the poor, the teachers, the patriots; the whole point of the book is the development of the Heart of the boy. Do not accustom yourself to pass indifferently be- fore misery which stretches out its hands to you, and far less before a mother who asks a copper for her child. Reflect that the child may be hungry ; think of the agony of that poor woman. Picture to yourself the sob of despair of your mother, if she were some day forced to say, ''My son, I cannot give you any bread to-day!" Draw a coin from your little purse now and then, and let it fall into the hand of a blind man without the means of subsistence, of a mother without bread, of a child without a mother. The poor love the alms of boys, because it does not humiliate them, and because boys, who stand in need of every- thing, resemble themselves; you see that there are al- ways poor people around the schoolhouses. The alms of a man is an act of charity ; but that of a child is at one and the same time an act of charity and a caress — do you understand ? It is as though a coin and a flower fell from your hand together. Reflect that you lack nothing, and that they lack everything; that while you aspire to be happy, they are content simply with not dying. Reflect that it is a horror, in the midst of so many palaces, along the streets, thronged with car- riages, and children clad in velvet, that there should be women and children who have nothing to eat. To have nothing to eat ! Heavens ! Boys like you, as good as you, as intelligent as you, who in the midst of a great Prose 63 city, have nothing to eat, like wild beasts lost in a desert ! Oh, never pass a mother who is begging, without placing a coin in her hand ! Against Philip. DEMOSTHENES, 384-322 B.C. A PHILIPPIC, TRANSLATED BY EPES SARGENT. This "oration" is for a little girl who asks "What is a Philippic?" O MY countrymen! when will you do your duty? Why do you wait? Tell me, is it your wish to go about the public places, here and there, continually asking, *'What is there new ?" Ah ! what should there be new, if not that a Macedonian could conquer Athens, and lord it over Greece ? "Is Philip dead ?" ''No, by Jupi- ter; he is sick!" Dead or sick, what matters it to 3^ou? If he were to die, and your vigilance were to continue as slack as now, you would cause a new Philip to rise up at once, — since this one owes his aggran- disement less to his own power than to your inertness ! It is a matter of astonishment to me, O Athenians, that none of you are aroused either to reflection or to anger, in beholding a war, begun for the chastisement of Philip, degenerate at last into a war of defence against him. And it is evident that he will not stop even yet, unless we bar his progress. But where, it is asked, shall v/e make a descent? Let us but attack, O Athe- nians, and the war itself will disclose the enemy's weak point. But if we tarry at home, lazily listening to speech-makers, in their emulous abuse of one another, never, — no, never, shall we accomplish a necessary step! Some among you, retailing the news, affirm that Philip is plotting with Lacedaemon the ruin of Thebes and the dismemberment of our democracies; others make him send ambassadors to the Great King ; others tell us he is fortifying places in Illyria. All have their 64 Prose different stories. For myself, Athenians, I do, by the gods, believe that this man is intoxicated by his mag- nificent exploits; I believe that a thousand dazzling projects lure his imagination; and that, seeing no bar- rier opposed to his career, he is inflated by success. But, trust me, he does not so combine his plans that all our fools of low degree may penetrate them ; which fools — who are they but the gossips? If leaving them to their reveries, we would consider that this man is our enemy, — our despoiler, — that we have long en- dured his insolence ; that all the succours, on which we counted, have been turned against us ; that henceforth our only resource is in ourselves ; that, to refuse now to carry the war into his dominions, would surely be to impose upon us the fatal necessity of sustain- ing it at the gates of Athens ; if we would compre- hend all this, we should then know what it imports us to know, and discard all idiot conjectures. It is not your duty to dive into the future ; but it does be- hoove you to look in the face of the calamities which that future must bring, unless you shake off your pres- ent heedless inactivity. On Profanity in the Army. GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1732-1799- Sometimes "The Land of Eloquence" is just a school-room. This selection is an added point for that good teacher whom I heard one morn- ing at Lake Placid leading her boys, so eloquently, over The Battle of Long Island, and making the character of Washington the keynote of the lesson. That the troops may have an opportunity of attend- ing public worship, as well as to take some rest after the great fatigue they have gone through, — the General in future excuses them from fatigue-duty on Sundays, except at the ship-yards, or on special occasions, until further orders. The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane swear- ing — a vice heretofore little known in an American army — is growing into fashion. He hopes the officers Prose 65 will, by example as well as influence, endeavour to check it; and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven upon our arms if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests it. No Farming Without a Boy. (Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, 1829-1900. ABRIDGED FROM "BEING A BOY." The boy on the farm whose work is "a perpetual waiting on others" is like the city boy who runs to the market, cleans the steps, mails the letters, and does all the other "odd jobs." Or like the little girl who brushes up the crumbs and "shoos the chickens ofif the porch, to earn her board and keep." These children have their reward. They become resourceful, and the leaders of the Nation. Lincoln, Webster, Washing- ton served just such an apprenticeship. "Being a Boy" by Warner and "The Boys' Town" and "The Flight of Pony Baker" by Howells are books concerning boys that have no peers. Say what you will about the general usefulness of boys, it is my impression that a farm without a boy would very soon come to grief. What the hoy does is the life of the farm. He is the factotum, always in demand, always expected to do the thousand indis- pensable things that nobody else will do. Upon him fall all the odds and ends, the most difficult things. After everybody else is through, he has to finish up. His work is like a woman's, a perpetual waiting on others. Everybody knows how much easier it is to eat a good dinner than it is to wash the dishes afterwards. Consider what a boy on a farm is required to do ; things that must be done, or life would actually stop. It is understood, in the first place, that he is to do all the errands, to go to the store, to the post-oflice, and to carry all sorts of messages. H he had as many legs as a centipede, they would tire before night. His two short limbs seem to him entirely inadequate to the task. He would like to have as many legs as a wheel has spokes, and rotate about in the same way. This he 66 Prose sometimes tries to do; and people who have seen him "turning cart-wheels" along the side of the road have supposed that he was amusing himself, and idling his time ; he was only trying to invent a new mode of lo- comotion, so that he could economise his legs and do his errands with greater despatch. He practises stand- ing on his head, in order to accustom himself to any position. Leapfrog is one of his methods of getting over the ground quickly. He would willingly go an errand any distance if he could leapfrog it with a few other boys. He is the one who spreads the grass when the men have cut it ; he mows it away in the barn ; he rides the horse to cultivate the corn, up and down the hot, weary rows ; he picks up the potatoes when they are dug ; he drives the cows night and morning; he brings wood and water and splits kindling ; he gets up the horse and puts out the horse ; whether he is in the house or out of it, there is always something for him to do. Just before school in winter he shovels paths ; in summer he turns the grindstone. Putting All of the Eggs in One Basket. (Copyrighted by Doubleday, Page & Company.) TEANNETTE L. GILDER. IN "THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A TOMBOY." This selection is for Jon, the dearest of little boys, whose mother — to keep him out of mischief — asked him to keep the flies away from the frosting on a cake until it hardened. Sequel: he fell into the cake and his face was frosted. There was a sound of revelry by night — music and the patter and scraping of feet on the sanded floor of the kitchen. Eagerly I opened the store-room door, and, standing on the edge of a barrel of eggs, mounted noiselessly to the top shelf and peered through the win- dow. What to my wondering eyes should appear but the floor cleared for dancing, the big table pushed back, and standing on it, our man-of -all-work, sawing out an Irish jig on his fiddle. In the centre of the floor. Prose 6^ with her petticoats tucked up and her arms akimbo, was the cook, and "fernenst" her, as she would have put it, was *Taddy" Grogan, who kept a corner gro- cery in a back street. He had on an old high hat, and with a stick under his arm was doing a jig as only one to the manner born can do it. Bridget was out of breath ; her face was red to the verge of purple, and her hair hanging in damp locks over her shoulders. Puffing and blowing, she threw herself upon a chair, and another couple came to the front. I came near rolling off the shelf in my sur- prise, for who should the man be but my big brother Sandy, with a rosy-cheeked chambermaid as his vis- a-vis. He flung off his coat and went at that jig as though he had lived his life at Donnybrook. Every one applauded, and I clapped my hands with the rest. In my enthusiasm I shouted, "Good for you, Sandy!" Then there was a pause, while every ear was attention. Sandy stood, pale and perspiring, for he knew what would happen if he were caught dancing in the kitchen. "Who was that?" he exclaimed, looking eagerly about the room. Then his eyes met mine looking down from the window. He made a bolt for the door, and so did I. Of course, the inevitable happened. I lost my bal- ance and came down with a scream, both feet crashing through the barrel of eggs. When Sandy pulled me out I looked like an under- done omelette. Never before had I realised, as I did then, the folly of putting all one's eggs in the same basket. Great Art is the Expression of a Great Man. JOHN RUSKIN, 1819-1900. To any boy or girl who believes that art is in the hand, in the fingers and not in the heart. The best artists I have seen are those who practise the most self-denial, who make the greatest self-sacrifices, who look out for others, and who feel most strenuously along the lines of some great benevolence. Great art is the expression of the mind of a great man, and mean art, that of the want of mind of a weak 68 Prose man. A foolish person builds foolishly, and a wise one, sensibly; a virtuous one, beautifully, and a vicious one, basely. If stone work is well put together, it means that a thoughtful man planned it, and a care- ful man cut it, and an honest man cemented it. If it has too much ornament, it means that its carver was too greedy of pleasure ; if too little, that he was rude, or insensitive, or stupid, and the like. So that when once you have learned how to spell these most precious of all legends, — pictures and buildings, — you may read the characters of men, and of nations, in their art, as in a mirror; — nay, as in a microscope, and magnified a hundredfold; for the character becomes passionate in the art, and intensifies itself in all its noblest or mean- est delights. Nay, not only as in a microscope, but as under a scalpel, and in dissection ; for a man may hide himself from you, or misrepresent himself to you, every other way ; but he cannot in his work : there, be sure, you have him to the inmost. All that he likes, all that he sees, — all that he can do, — his imagination, his affections, his perseverance, his impatience, his clumsi- ness, cleverness, everything is there. If the work is a cobweb, you know it was made by a spider; if a honey- comb, by a bee; a worm-cast is thrown up by a worm, and a nest wreathed by a bird; and a house built by a man, worthily, if he is worthy, and ignobly, if he is ignoble. And always, from the least to the greatest, as the made thing is good or bad, so is the maker of it. PART III. The Day's at the Morn PART III The Eagle. (Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) JOHN BURROUGHS, 1837. FROM "BIRDS AND BEES." ^ Here is a selection that everybody will "like"? no, will love. It is here in fond recollection of sixty boys and girls in Chicago who used to read with me "The Idyl of the Honey Bee" from John Burroughs' "Pepacton" (in 1887). The crows we have always with us, but it is not every day or every season that one sees an eagle. Hence, I must preserve the memory of one I saw the last day I went bee-hunting. As I was labouring up the side of a mountain at the head of a valley, the noble bird sprang from the top of a dry tree above me and came sailing directly over my head. I saw him bend his eye down upon me, and I could hear the low hum of his plumage, as if the web of every quill in his great wings vibrated in his strong level flight. I watched him as long as my eye could hold him. When he was fairly clear of the mountains he began that sweeping spiral movement in which he climbs the sky. Up and up he went without once breaking his majestic poise till he appeared to sight some far-off alien geography, when he bent his course thitherward and gradually vanished in the blue depths. The eagle is a bird of large ideas, he embraces long distances ; the continent is his home. I never look upon one without emotion; I follow him with my eye as long as I can. I think of Canada, of the Great Lakes, of the Rocky Mountains, of the wild and sounding sea- coast. The waters are his and the woods and the in- 71 72 Prose accessible cliffs. He pierces behind the veil of the storm, and his joy is height and depth and vast spaces. A Southern Storm. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons, in "The Cable Story Book.") GEORGE W. CABLE, 1844. This description of a Southern rain-storm is unrivalled. It combines the witchery of a ghost story with the power of a Homeric tale. I have known a class of ten-year-olds to read it with keen appreciaiion. The storm fell like a burst of infernal applause. A whiff like fifty witches flouted up the canvas curtain of the gallery, and a fierce black cloud, drawing the moon under its cloak, belched forth a stream of fire that seemed to flood the ground; a peal of thunder followed as if the sky had fallen in, the house quivered, the great oaks groaned, and every lesser thing bowed down before the awful blast. Every lip held its breath for a minute — or an hour, no one knew ; there was a sudden lull of the wind, and the floods came down. Have you heard it thunder and rain in those Louisiana lowlands? Every clap seems to crack the world. It has rained a moment ; you peer through the black pane — your house is an island ; all the land is sea. The Blizzard. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons and Harper BroLhers.) ELIZABETH B. CUSTER, BORN 1844- FROM "THE BOY GENERAL." "The Blizzard," by Mrs. Custer, has been one of my favourite reading lessons in school, and is equalled only by Lanier's description of a Texas blizzard. Mrs. Custer has no rival as a writer on The Western Plains and Army Life. The snow was so fine that it penetrated the small- est cracks, and soon we found white lines appearing all around us, where the roof joined the walls, on the windows and under the doors. Outside, the air was so thick with the whirling, tiny particles that it was al- most impossible to see one's hand held out before one. Prose 73 The snow was fluffy and thick, Hke wool, and fell so rapidly, and seemingly from all directions, that it gave me a feeling of suffocation. At last the day came, but so darkened by the snow it seemed rather a twilight. The drifts were on three sides of us like a wall. When night came again and the cold increased, I believed that our hours were numbered. Occasionally I melted a little place on the frozen window-pane, and saw that the drifts were almost level with the upper windows on either side, but that the wind had swept a clear space before the door. Dur- ing the night the sound of the tramping of many feet rose above the roar of the storm. A great drove of mules rushed up to the sheltered side of the house. Their brays had a sound of terror as they pushed, kicked, and crowded themselves against our little cabin. For a time they huddled together, hoping for warmth, and then despairing, they made a mad rush away, and were soon lost in the white wall of snow beyond. All night long the neigh of a distressed horse, almost hu- man in its appeal, came to us at intervals. The door was pried open once, thinking it might be some suf- fering fellow-creature in distress. The « strange wild eyes of the horse peering in for help haunted me long afterward. Occasionally a lost dog lifted up a howl of distress under our window. When the night was near- ly spent I sprang again to the window with a new hor- ror, for no one, until he hears it for himself, can real- ise what varied sounds animals make in the excitement of peril. A drove of hogs, squealing and grunting, were pushing against the house, and the door, which had withstood so much, had to be held to keep it from being broken in. Every minute seemed a day; every hour a year. When daylight came I dropped into an exhausted slumber. 74 Prose A Wind-Storm in the Forests of California. (Copyrighted by The Century Company.) JOHN MUIR, BORN 1838. A nine-year-old boy brought John Muir's ^reat book, "The Moun- tains of California," to my attention, for which I have beeri grateful many years, because, more than any other work on California, it has assisted me in teaching the geography of the West, at the same time feeding my imagination and my love of nature and good literature. ,John Burroughs says it is a great book, and there's no higher praise to give it. When the storm began to sound, I lost no time in pushing out into the woods to enjoy it. Delicious sunshine came pouring over the hills, light- ing the tops of the pines, and setting free a stream of summery fragrance that contrasted strangely with the wild tones of the storm. The air was mottled with pine-tassels and bright green plumes, that went flashing past in the sunlight like birds pursued. I heard trees falling for hours at the rate of one every two or three minutes; some uprooted, partly on account of the loose, water-soaked condition of the ground; others broken straight across, where some weakness caused by fire had determined the spot. Young Sugar Pines, light and feathery as squirrel-tails, were bowing almost to the ground ; while the grand old patriarchs, whose massive boles had been tried in a hundred storms, waved solemnly above them, their long, arching branches streaming fluently on the gale, and every needle thrilling and ringing and shedding off keen lances of light like a diamond. The force of the gale was such that the most stead- fast monarch of them all rocked down to its roots with a motion plainly perceptible when one leaned against it. Nature was holding high festival and every fibre of the most rigid giants thrilled with glad excitement. It occurred to me that it would be a fine thing to climb one of the trees to obtain a wider outlook and get my ear close to the ^olian music of its topmost nee- dles. But under the circumstances the choice of a Prose 75 tree was a serious matter. One whose instep was not very strong seemed in danger of being blown down, or of being struck by others in case they should fall; another was branchless to a considerable height above the ground, and at the same time too large to be grasped with arms and legs in climbing; while others were not favourably situated for clear views. After cautiously casting about, I made choice of the tallest of a group of Douglas Spruces that were growing close together like a tuft of grass, no one of which seemed likely to fall unless all the rest fell with it. Though comparatively young, they were about lOO feet high, and their lithe, brushy tops were rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy. Being accustomed to climb trees in making botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one, and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionate tor- rent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with mus- cles firm braced, like a bobolink on a reed. In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of from twenty to thirty degrees, but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen others of the same species still more severely tried — bent almost to the ground indeed, in heavy snows — without breaking a fiber. I was therefore safe, and free to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the excited forest from my superb outlook. The view from here must be extremely beau- tiful in any weather. Now my eye roved over the piny hills and dales as over fields of waving grain, and felt the light running in ripples and broad swelling undula- tions across the valleys from ridge to ridge, as the shining foliage was stirred by corresponding waves of air. Oftentimes these waves of reflected light would break up suddenly into a kind of beaten foam, and again, after chasing one another in regular order, they ^6 Prose would seem to bend forward in concentric curves, and disappear on some hillside, like sea-waves on a shelving shore. The quantity of light reflected from the bent needles was so great as to make whole groves appear as if covered with snow, while the black shadows be- neath the trees greatly enhanced the effect of the sil- very splendour. The sounds of the storm corresponded gloriously with this wild exuberance of light and motion. The profound bass of the naked branches and boles boom- ing like waterfalls, the quick tense vibrations of the pine-needles, now rising to a shrill, whistling hiss, now falling to a silky murmur ; the rustling of laurel groves in the dells, and the keen metallic click of leaf on leaf — all this was heard in easy analysis when the attention was calmly bent. The varied gestures of the multitude were seen to fine advantage, so that one could recognise the differ- ent species at a distance of several miles by this means alone, as well as by their forms and colours, and the way they reflected the light. All seemed strong and comfortable, as if really enjoying the storm, while re- sponding to its most enthusiastic greetings. We hear much nowadays concerning the universal struggle for existence, but no struggle in the common meaning of the word was manifest here; no recognition of dan- ger by any tree; no deprecation; but rather an invin- cible gladness as remote from exultation as from fear. We all travel the milky way together, trees and men ; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travellers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not ex- tensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree- wavings — many of them not so much. When the storm began to abate, I dismounted and sauntered down through the calming woods. The storm tones died away, and turning toward the east, I beheld Prose 77 the countless hosts of the forests hushed and tranquil, towering above one another on the slopes of the hills like a devout audience. The setting sun filled them with amber light, and seemed to say, while they lis- tened, "My peace I give unto you." My Alligator's Home. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons in "The Lanier Book.") SIDNEY LANIER, 1842-1881. This exquisite description of the alligator's home makes this creature, usually considered so ugly, attractive and interesting. Sympathy has so* much to do with putting the disadvantaged at their best. Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Ock- lawaha, at the right-hand edge of the stream, is the handsomest residence in America. It belongs to a cer- tain alligator of my acquaintance, a very honest and worthy reptile of good repute. A little cove of water, dark-green under the overhanging leaves, placid and clear, curves round at the river edge into the flags and lilies, with a curve just heart-breaking for its pure beauty. This house of the alligator is divided into apartments, little bays, which are scalloped out by the lily-pads, according to the winding fancies of their growth. My reptile, when he desires to sleep, has but to lie down anywhere ; he will find marvellous mosses for his mattress beneath him ; his sheets will be white lily-petals; and the green disks of the lily-pads will straightway embroider themselves together above him for his coverlet. He never quarrels with his cook, he is not the slave of a kitchen, and his one house-maid — the stream — forever sweeps his rooms clean. His con- servatories there under the glass of that water are ever, without labour, . filled with the enchantments of under-water growths. His parks and his pleasure- grounds are larger than any king's. Upon my Alli- gator's house the winds have no power, the rains are only a new delight to him, and the snows he will never 78 Prose see. He does not use fire as a slave and so he does not fear it as a tyrant. Thus all the elements are the friends of my Alligator's house. While he sleeps he is being bathed. What glory to awake sweetened and freshened by the sole, careless act of sleep ! Lastly, my Alligator has unnumbered mansions, and can change his dwelling as no human householder may. One flip of his tail, and lo! he is established in another palace as good as the last, ready furnished to his liking. Our Poets Have Discovered America. EDWIN MARKHAM. IN "THE FUTURE POETRY OF AMERICA." To the little girls and boys who learn "Tampa Robins" when they study Florida and "The Song of the Chattahoochee" when they study Georgia, — "Paul Revere's Ride" when they study Massachusetts and so on, ---thus making "Geography" the Land of Poesy. At last our poets have discovered America! The rhodora, the dandelion, the wild poppy, now glow through their metres ; the bluebird, the bobolink, the mocking-bird, now carol through their rhymes. But not only have we flower and bird to tempt the poet's heart, we have also beauties and glories, myriad and marvellous, — mountains, rivers, lakes, forests stretching a thousand leagues away, — America, home ! The mere vastness of our land appeals to the imagina- tive passion. All the spaces and faces of our country, like the ideas of our people, have the large outline, the limitless sweep. Our Niagaras, our Sierras, our Yosemites, our in- land seas, our tragic deserts, our starless swamps, the tremendous journeys of our Mississippi, the eter- nal thunder of our Oregon, the illimitable stretches of our prairies, the twilight silences of our primeval for- ests, from these must come our ''As You Like It," our "Ode to a Skylark," our ''Sunrise Hymn to Chamouni." And not all the leagues of Europe, from Land's End to the Golden Horn; not all the leagues Prose 79 of Asia, from Ararat to Fujiyama, afford so white a field for the harvest of the Muses. Of course, we are not bereft of poets who have seen some of these larger grandeurs of our land and framed them into song. We have Emerson's "Monad- nock," Lanier's "Marshes of Glynn." Hamlin Garland has sung her prairies, Joaquin Miller, the "Sundown Seas." But there are yet long reaches of land and water and sky untouched by song. They await the hour when some poet, with a splendid word, shall give them to man and to immortal memory. How the Griffin Taught School. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) FRANK R. STOCKTON. FROM "FANCIFUL TALES." There are some children who behave better at school when they see the Bang- Stick coming. But those children are not Real Americans. A Real American can govern himself. He does not need a monster with wings and claws, a Griffin, for a teacher. One morning the Griffin looked into the Minor Canon's school-house, which was always empty now, and thought that it was a shame that everything should suffer on account of the young man's absence. "It does not matter so much about the church," he said, "for nobody went there; but it is a pity about the school. I think I will teach it myself until he re- turns." It was the hour for the opening of school, and the Griffin went inside and pulled the rope which rang the school-bell. Some of the children who heard the bell ran in to see what was the matter, supposing it to be a joke of one of their companions; but when they saw the Griffin they stood astonished and scared. "Go tell the other scholars," said the monster, "that school is about to open, and that if they are not all here in ten minutes I shall come after them." In seven minutes every scholar was in place. Never was seen such an orderly school. Not a 8o Prose boy or girl moved or uttered a whisper. The Griffin cUmbed into the master's seat, his wide wings spread on each side of him, because he could not lean back in his chair if they stuck out behind, and his great tail coiled around, in front of the desk, the barbed end sticking up, ready to tap any boy or girl who might misbehave. The Griffin now addressed the scholars, telling them that he intended to teach them while their master was away. In speaking he tried to imitate, as far as pos- sible, the mild and gentle tones of the Minor Canon; but it must be admitted that in this he was not very successful. He had paid a good deal of attention to the studies of the school, and he determined not to try to teach them anything new, but to review them in what they had been studying ; so he called up the vari- ous classes, and questioned them upon their previous lessons. The children racked their brains to remem- ber what they had learned. They were so afraid of the Griffin's displeasure that they recited as they had never recited before. One of the boys, far down in his class, answered so well that the Griffin was astonished. *T should think you would be at the head," said he. 'T am sure you have never been in the habit of reciting so well. Why is this ?" "Because I did not choose to take the trouble," said the boy, trembling in his boots. He felt obliged to speak the truth, for all the children thought that the great eyes of the Griffin could see right through them, and that he would know when they told a falsehood. ''You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said the Griffin. -. ''Go down to the very tail of the class ; and if you are not at the head in two days, I shall know the reason why." The next afternoon this boy was Num- ber One. It was astonishing how much these children now learned of what they had been studying. It was as if they had been educated over again. The Griffin used Prose 8 I no severity toward them, but there was a look about hnn which made them unwiUing to go to bed until they were sure they knew their lessons for the next day. The Phantom-Ship. WASHINGTON IRVING, 1783-1859. ABRIDGED FROM "THE STORM-SHIP." To the boys and girls at Woodland who gathered together one stormy right by the light of the open fire to listen to ghost stories told us by Edwin Markham. In the golden age of the province of the New Netherlands, when under the sway of Wouter Van Twiller, otherwise called the Doubter, the people of the Manhattoes were alarmed one sultry afternoon by a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning. The rain fell in such torrents as absolutely to spatter up and smoke along the ground. It seemed as if the thunder rattled and rolled over the very roofs of the houses. Great was the terror of the good old women of the Manhattoes. They gathered their children together, and took refuge in the cellars; after having hung a shoe on the iron point of every bedpost, lest it should attract the lightning. At length the storm abated ; the thunder sank into a growl, and the setting sun, break- ing from under the fringed borders of the clouds, made the broad bosom of the bay to gleam like a sea of molten gold. The word was given from the fort that a ship was standing up the bay. It passed from mouth to mouth, and street to street, and soon put the little capital in a bustle. The arrival of a ship, in those early times of the settlement, was an event of vast importance to the inhabitants. It brought them news from the old world, from the land of their birth, from which they were so completely severed; to the yearly ship, too, they looked for their supply of lux- uries, of finery, of comforts, and almost of necessaries. The good vrouw could not have her new cap nor new gown until the arrival of the ship; the artist waited for 82 Prose it for his tools, the burgomaster for his pipe and his supply of Hollands, the schoolboy for his top and mar- bles, and the lordly landholder for the bricks with which he was to build his new mansion. Thus every one, rich and poor, great and small, looked out for the arrival of the ship. It was the great yearly event of the town of New Amsterdam ; and from one end of the year to the other, the ship — the ship — the ship — was the continual topic of conversation. The ship was now repeatedly hailed, but made no reply, and passing by the fort, sailed on up the Hudson. A gun was brought to bear on her, and loaded and fired. The shot seemed absolutely to pass through the ship, and to skip along the water on the other side, but no notice was taken of it ! What was strange, she had all her sails set, and sailed right against wind and tide. Day after day, and week after week, elapsed, but she never returned down the Hudson. Captains of the sloops seldom arrived without bringing some report of having seen the strange ship at different parts of the river; sometimes near the Pallisadoes, sometimes off Croton Point, and some- times in the highlands ; but she never was reported as having been seen above the highlands. Sometimes it was by the flashes of the thunder- storm lighting up a pitchy night, and giving glimpses of her careering across Tappaan Zee, or the wide waste of Haverstraw Bay. Her appearance was always just after, or just be- fore, or just in the midst of unruly weather; and she was known among the skippers and voyagers of the Hudson by the name of "the storm-ship." It is said she still haunts the highlands, and cruises about Point-no-point. People who live along the river insist that they sometimes see her in summer moon- light ; and that in a deep still midnight they have heard the chant of her crew. Prose 83 The captains of the river craft talk of a Dutch gobHn, in trunk-hose and sugar-loafed hat, with a speaking-trumpet in his hand, which they say keeps about the Dunderberg. They declare that they have heard him, in stormy weather, in the midst of the tur- moil, giving orders in Low Dutch for the piping up of a fresh gust of wind, or the rattling off of another thunder-clap. That sometimes he has been seen sur- rounded by a crew of little imps in broad breeches and short doublets ; tumbling head-over-heels in the rack and mist, and playing a thousand gambols in the air ; or buzzing like a swarm of flies about Antony's Nose ; and that, at such times, the hurry-scurry of the storm was always greatest. There is another story told of this foul-weather urchin, by Skipper Daniel Ouselsticker, of Fishkill, who was never known to tell a lie. He declared that, in a severe squall, he saw him seated astride of his bov/sprit, riding the sloop ashore, full butt against Antony's Nose, and that he was exorcised by Dominie Van Gieson, of Esopus, who sang the hymn of St. Nicholas ; whereupon the goblin threw himself up in the air like a ball, and went off in a whirlwind, carry- ing away with him the nightcap of the Dominie's wife ; which was discovered the next Sunday morning hang- ing on the weather-cock of Esopus church-steeple, at least forty miles off! Address of Black Hawk to General Street. This address was in an old book that I read when a child; it im- pressed me then and impresses me now. You have taken me prisoner with all my warriors. I am much grieved; for I expected if I did not defeat you, to hold out much longer, and give you more trouble before I surrendered. I tried hard to bring you into ambush, but your last General understood Indian fighting. I determined to rush on you, and fight you face to face. I fought hard. But your 84 Prose guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees in winter. My warriors fell around me; it began to look dismal. I saw my evil day at hand. The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sank in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black Hawk. His heart is dead, and no longer beats quick in his bosom. He is now a prisoner to the white men; they will do with him as they wish. But he can stand torture and is not afraid of death. He is no coward. Black Hawk is an Indian. He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, against white men, who came, year after year, to cheat them, and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. The white men despise the Indians, and drive them from their homes. They smile in the face of the poor Indian, to cheat him ; they shake him by the hand to gain his confidence, to make him drunk, and to deceive him. We told them to let us alone, and keep away from us ; but they fol- lowed on and beset our paths, and they coiled them- selves among us like the snake. They poisoned us by their touch. We were not safe. We lived in danger. We looked up to the Great Spirit. We went to our father. We were encouraged. His great council gave us fair words and big promises; but we got no satisfaction; things were growing worse. There were no deer in the forest. The opossum and beaver were fled. The springs were drying up, and our squaws and pappooses were without victuals to keep them from starving. We called a great council, and built a large fire. The spirit of our fathers arose, and spoke to us to avenge our wrongs or die. We set up the war-whoop, and dug up the tomahawk; our knives were ready, Prose 85 and the heart of Black Hawk swelled high in his bosom, when he led his warriors to battle. He is satis- fied. He will go to the world of spirits contented. He has done his duty. His father will meet him there and commend him. Black Hawk is a true Indian, and dis- dains to cry like a woman. He feels for his wife, his children, and his friends. But he does not care for himself. He cares for the Nation and the In- dians. They will suffer. He laments their fate. Farewell, my Nation! Black Hawk tried to save you and avenge your wrongs. He drank the blood of some gf the whites. He has been taken prisoner and his plans are crushed. He can do no more. He is near his end. His sun is setting, and he will rise no more. Farewell to Black Hawk. Frozen Words. JOSEPH ADDISON, 1672-1719. "Frozen Words" is the most popular literary gem from Addison that I have ever found. Every boy of twelve years hopes to find a Nova Zembla if not a North Pole. I HAVE got into my hands, by great chance, several manuscripts of two eminent authors, which are filled with greater wonders than any of those they have communicated to the public. The present paper I in- tend to fill with an extract of Sir John Mandeville's journal, in which that learned and worthy knight gives an account of the freezing and thawing of several short speeches which he made in the territories of Nova Zembla. The recital put into modern language is as follows : — "We were separated by a storm in the latitude of y2f, insomuch that only the ship which I was in, with a Dutch and a French vessel, got safe into a creek of Nova Zembla. We landed, in order to refit our vessels, and store ourselves with provisions. The crew of each vessel made themselves a cabin of turf and wood, at 86 Prose some distance from each other, to fence themselves against the inclemencies of the weather, which was severe beyond imagination. "We soon observed, that in talking to one another we lost several of our words, and could not hear one another at above two yards' distance, and that too when we sat very near the fire. After much perplexity, I found that our words froze in the air before they could reach the ears of the person to whom they were spoken. "I was soon confirmed in this conjecture, when, upon the increase of the cold, the whole company grew dumb, or rather deaf; for every man was sensi- ble, as we afterwards found, that he spoke as well as ever; but the sounds no sooner took air than they were condensed and lost. It was now a miserable spec- tacle to see us nodding and gaping at one another, every man talking, and no man heard. One might ob- serve a seaman that could hail a ship at a league's dis- tance, beckoning with his hands, straining his lungs, and tearing his throat, but all in vain. "We continued here three weeks in this dismal plight. At length, upon a turn of w^nd, the air about us began to thaw. Our cabin was immediately filled with a dry clattering sound, which I afterwards found to be the crackling of consonants that broke above our heads, and were often mixed with a gentle hissing, which I imputed to the letter S, that occurs so fre- quently in the English tongue. I soon after felt a breeze of whispers rushing by my ear ; for those, be- ing of a soft and gentle substance, immediately lique- fied in the warm wind that blew across our cabin. "These were soon followed by syllables and short words and at length by entire sentences, that melted sooner or later, as they were more or less congealed; so that we now heard everything that had been spoken during the whole three weeks that we had been si- lent, if I may use that expression. "It was now very early in the morning, and yet, to Prose 87 my surprise, I heard somebody say, 'Sir John, it is midnight, and \ime for the ship's crew to go to bed.' This I knew to be the pilot's voice, and, upon recol- lecting myself, I concluded that he had spoken these words to me some days before, though I could not hear them before the present thaw. My reader will easily imagine how the whole crew was amazed to hear every man talking, and see no man opening his mouth. "In the midst of this great surprise we were all in, we heard a volley of oaths, lasting for a long while, and uttered in a very hoarse voice, which I knew be- longed to the boatswain, who was a very choleric fel- low, and had taken his opportunity of swearing at me when he thought I could not hear him ; for I had sev- eral times given him the strappado on that account, as I did not fail to repeat it for these his pious solilo- quies when I got him on shipboard. ''When this confusion of voices was pretty well over, though I was afraid to offer at speaking, as fear- ing I should not be heard, I proposed a visit to the Dutch cabin, which lay about a mile farther up into the country. My crew were extremely rejoiced to find they had again recovered their hearing, though every man uttered his voice with the same apprehensions that I had done. "At about half a mile's distance from our cabin, we heard the groanings of a bear, which at first startled us ; but upon inquiry we were informed by some of our company that he was dead, and now lay in salt, having been killed upon that very spot about a fortnight be- fore in the time of the frost. Not far from the same place we were likewise entertained with some posthu- mous snarls and barkings of a fox. "We at length arrived at the little Dutch settle- ment, and, upon entering the room, found it filled with sighs that smelt of brandy, and several other unsavoury sounds that were altogether inarticulate. My valet fell 88 Prose into so great a rage at what he heard, that he drew his sword; but not knowing where to lay the blame, he put it up again. We were stunned with these con- fused noises, but did not hear a single word till about half an hour after; which I ascribed to the harsh and obdurate sounds of that language, which wanted more time than ours to melt and become audible. "After having here met with a very hearty wel- come, we went to the French cabin, who, to make amends for their three weeks' silence, were talking and disputing with greater rapidity and confusion than ever I heard in an assembly even of that nation. Their language, as I found, upon the first giving of the weather, fell asunder and dissolved. *T was here convinced of an error into which I had before fallen; for I fancied that for the freezing of the sound it was necessary for it to be wrapped up, and, as it were, preserved in breath ; but I found my mistake when I heard the sound of a kit playing a minuet over our heads. I asked the occasion of it ; upon which one of the company told me that it would play there above a week longer if the thaw continued. 'For,' says he, 'finding ourselves bereft of speech, we prevailed upon one of the company, who had this musi- cal instrument about him, to play to us from morning to night ; all which time we employed in dancing.' " Here Sir John gives very good philosophical rea- sons why the kit could be heard during the frost ; but as they are something prolix, I pass over them in silence, and shall only observe that the honourable author seems, by his quotations, to have been well versed in the ancient poets, which perhaps raised his fancy above the ordinary pitch of historians, and very much contributed to the embellishment of his writings. Prose 89 The Declaration of 1776. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 1767-1848. The Declaration of Independence! The interest which, in that paper, has survived the occasion upon which it was issued, — the interest which is of every age and every cHme, — the interest which quickens with the lapse of years, spreads as it grows old, and brightens as it recedes, — is in the principles which it proclaims. It was the first solemn declaration by a Nation of the only legitimate foundation of civil Government. It was the corner-stone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the globe. It demolished at a stroke the lawfulness of all Governments founded upon conquest. It swept away the accumulated rubbish of centuries of servitude. It announced, in practical form, to the world, the transcendent truth of the inalienable sov- ereignty of the People. It proved that the social com- pact was no figment of the imagination, but a real, solid, and sacred bond of the social union. From the day of this Declaration, the people of North America were no longer the fragment of a distant empire, im- ploring justice and mercy from an inexorable master in another hemisphere. They were no longer children appealing in vain to the sympathies of a heartless mother; no longer subjects leaning upon the shattered columns of royal promises, and invoking the faith of parchment to secure their rights. They were a nation, asserting as a right, and maintaining by war, its own existence. A nation was born in a day. ♦'How many ages hence Shall this, their lofty scene, be acted o'er In States unborn and accents yet unknown." It will be acted o'er, fellow-citizens, but it can never be repeated. It stands, and must forever stand, alone ; a beacon on the summit of the mountain, to which all the inhab- 90 Prose itants of the earth may turn their eyes for a genial and saving Hght, till time shall be lost in eternity, and this globe itself dissolve, nor leave a wreck behind. It stands forever, a light of admonition to the rulers of men, a light of salvation and redemption to the op- pressed. So long as this planet shall be inhabited by human beings, so long as man shall be of a social na- ture ; so long as Government shall be necessary to the great moral purposes of society, and so long as it shall be abused to the purposes of oppression, — so long shall this Declaration hold out to the sovereign and to the subject, the extent and the boundaries of their respec- tive rights and duties, founded in the laws of Nature and of Nature's God. The Right of Trial. COLONEL ISAAC BARRE, 1727-1802. "The Right of Trial" is from a reply, in Parliament, to Lord North, in 1774, on The Boston Port Bill, taking away the right of trial from the Boston people. It followed "The Boston Tea-Party." "The Right of Trial" is a topic of permanent interest, as "Every Child" should know. Without the "Trial" mob government would prevail. Even a child should have "The Right of Trial." Sir, this proposition is so glaring ; so unprecedented in any former proceedings of Parliament; so unwar- ranted by any delay, denial, or provocation of justice, in America, so big with misery and oppression to that country, and with danger to this, — that the first blush of it is sufficient to alarm and rouse me to opposi- tion. It is proposed to stigmatise a whole People as persecutors of innocence, and men incapable of doing justice; yet you have not a single fact on which to ground that imputation! I expected the noble lord would support this motion, by producing instances in which officers of Government in America had been prosecuted with unremitting vengeance, and brought to cruel and dishonourable deaths, by the violence and injustice of American juries. But he has not pro- duced one such instance; and I will tell you more, Prose 91 Sir, he cannot produce one ! The instances which have happened are directly in the teeth of his proposition. Col. Preston and the soldiers who shed the blood of the people were fairly tried, and fully acquitted. It was an American jury, a New England jury, a Boston jury, which tried and acquitted them. Col. Preston has, under his hand, publicly declared that the inhab- itants of the very town in which their fellow-citizens had been sacrificed, were his advocates and defenders. Is this the return you make them? Is this the en- couragement you give them to persevere in so laudable a. spirit of justice and moderation ? But the noble Lord says, "We must now show the Americans that we will no longer sit quiet under their insults." Sir, I am sorry to say that this is declamation, unbecoming the character and place of him who utters it. In what mo- ment have you been quiet? Has not your government, for many years past, been a series of irritating and offensive measures, with- out policy, principle, or moderation? Have not your troops and your ships made a vain and insulting parade in their streets and in their harbours? Have you not stimulated discontent into disaffection, and are you not now goading disaffection into rebellion? Can you ex- pect to be well informed when you listen only to parti- sans? Can you expect to do justice when you will not hear the accused? Let the banners be once spread in America, and you are an undone People. You are urging this desperate, this destructive issue. I know the vast superiority of your disciplined troops over the Provincials; but be- ware how you supply the want of discipline by des- peration ! What madness is it that prompts you to at- tempt obtaining that by force, which you may more certainly procure by requisition ? The Americans may be flattered into anything; but they are too much like yourselves to be driven. Have some indulgence for your own likeness. Respect their sturdy English vir- 92 Prose tue. Retract your odious exertions of authority, and remember that the first step toward making them con- tribute to your wants, is to reconcile them to your Government. Every Man is Great. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, 1 780-1842. For Nelly, a little girl who speaks to the scrub-woman's daughter and walks along with her when the "nice" little girls tell her not to. Every man, in every condition, is great. It is only our own diseased sight which makes him little. A man is great as a man, be he where or what he may. The grandeur of his nature turns to insignificance all outward distinctions. His powers of intellect, of con- science, of love, of knowing God, of perceiving the beautiful, of acting on his own mind, on outward na- ture, and on his fellow-creatures, — these are glorious prerogatives. Let us not disparage that nature which is common to all men ; for no thought can measure its grandeur. It is the image of God, the image even of his infinity ; for no limits can be set to its unfolding. He who possesses the divine powers of the soul is a great being, be his place what it may. You may clothe him with rags, may immure him in a dungeon, may chain him to slavish tasks ; but he is still great. You may shut him out of your houses: but God opens to him heavenly mansions. He makes no show, indeed, in the streets of a splendid city ; but a clear thought, a pure affection, a resolute act of virtuous will, have a dignity of quite another kind, and far higher, than ac- cumulations of brick and granite, and plaster, and stucco, however cunningly put together, or though stretching far beyond our sight. Nor is this all. If we pass over this grandeur of our common nature, and turn our thoughts to that comparative greatness which draws chief attention, and which consists in the de- cided superiority of the individual to the general stand- ard of power and character, we shall find this as free Prose 93 and frequent a growth among the obscure and un- noticed as in more conspicuous walks of life. The truly great are to be found everywhere, nor is it easy to say in what condition they spring up most plenti- fully. Real greatness has nothing to do with a man's sphere. It does not lie in the magnitude of his outward agency, in the extent of the effects which he pro- duces. The greatest men may do comparatively little abroad. Perhaps the greatest in our city at this moment are buried in obscurity. Grandeur of character lies wholly in force of soul, in force of thought, moral principle, and love ; and this may be found in the hum- blest condition of life. The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering; and is this a greatness which is apt to make a show, or which is most likely to abound in conspicuous station? The father and mother of an unnoticed family who, in their seclusion, awaken the mind of one child to the idea and love of perfect good- ness, who awaken in him a strength of will to repel all temptation, and v/ho send him out prepared to profit by the conflicts of life, surpass, in influence, a Napoleon breaking the world to his sway. And not only is their work higher in kind, — who knows but that they are doing a greater work, even as to extent, than the conqueror? Who knows but that the being, whom they inspire with holy and disinterested principles, may communicate himself to others? and that, by a spread- ing agency, of which they were the silent origin, im- provements may spread through a Nation — through a world ? 94 Prose The Birth-Day of Washington. RUFUS CHOATE, i799-i859- Every American child should know this "by heart" as soon as he has a heart to know it by. It has been a favourite among young "orators" for half a century or more. The birth-clay of the "Father of his Country" ! May it ever be freshly remembered by American hearts ! May it ever reawaken in them a filial veneration for his memory ; ever rekindle the fires of patriotic regard to the country which he loved so well ; to which he gave his youthful vigour and his youthful energy, during the perilous period of the early Indian warfare; to which he devoted his life, in the maturity of his powers, in the field ; to which again he offered the counsels of his wisdom and his experience, as President of the Con- vention that framed the Constitution ; which he guided and directed while in the Chair of State, and for which the last prayer of his earthly supplication was offered up, when it came the moment for him so well and so grandly, and so calmly, to die. He was the first man of the time in v/hich he grew. His memory is first and most sacred in our love ; and ever hereafter, till the last drop of blood shall freeze in the last American heart, his name shall be a spell of power and might. Yes, Gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felicity, which no man can share with him. It was the daily beauty and towering and matchless glory of his life, which enabled him to create his country, and, at the same time, secure an undying love and regard from the whole American people. "The first in the hearts of his countrymen!" Yes, first! He has our first and most fervent love. Undoubtedly there were brave and wise and good men, before his day, in every colony. But the American Nation, as a Nation, I do not reckon to have begun before 1774. And the first love of that young America was Washington. The first word she Prose 95 lisped was his name. Her earliest breath spoke it. It still is her proud ejaculation; and it will be the last gasp of her expiring life! Yes ! Others of our great men have been appre- ciated, — many admired by all. But him we love. Him we all love. About and around him we call up no dissentient and discordant and dissatisfied elements, — no sectional prejudice nor bias, — no party, no creed, no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. Yes. When the storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, the memory of Washington shall nerve every American arm, and cheer every American heart. It shall relume that Promethean fire, that sublime flame of patriotism, that devoted love of country, which his words have commended, which his example has con- secrated. "Where may the wearied eye repose, When gazing on the great, Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state ? — Yes — one — the first, the last, the best. The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom Envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make man blush, there was but one." On Meidias, the Rich, at the Bar of Justice. DEMOSTHENES, 384-322 B.C. EDITED FROM THE SPEECH ON MEIDIAS. A palatial bouse, a vulgar show and use of wealth, horses and car- riages, great dinners, coarse language, violent conduct, these were the offences which provoked Demosthenes to bring Meidias to trial. It is interesting to notice in this speech the influence of Socrates on the mind of Demosthenes. "Age calleth unto age." Do not admire things of this kind and do not judge of liberality by these tests, — whether a man builds splendid houses or has many servants, or handsome furniture ; but look who is spirited and liberal in those things of which the majority of you share the en- joyment. Meidias, you will find, has nothing of that 96 Prose kind. Will you let Meidias escape because he is rich? His riches are the cause of his insolence. You should rather take away the means which enable him to be in- solent than pardon him in consideration of them. To allow an audacious scoundrel to have wealth at his command is to put arms in his hands against your- selves. I take it you all know his disposition, his offensive and overbearing behaviour; many of the injured par- ties do not even like to tell what they have suffered, dreading this man's fortune which makes a despicable fellow strong and terrible. For when a rogue and a bully is supported by wealth and power, it is a wall of defence. Let Meidias be stripped of his possessions and he will not play the bully. If he should, he will be less regarded than the humblest man among you; he will rail to no purpose then, and be punished for any misbehaviour like the rest of us. I know that he will bring his children into court and whine; he will talk humbly and make himself as piteous as he can. But if he eludes justice now, he will again become the same Meidias that you know him for. Perhaps he will say of me, "This man is an orator." If one who advises what he thinks for your good, is an orator I would not refuse the name. But if an orator be an impudent fellow, enriched at your expense, — I can hardly be that; for I have received nothing from you ; but spent all my substance upon you, except a mere trifle. Probably, also, Meidias will say that my speech is prepared. I admit that I have got it up as well as I possibly could. I were a simpleton, indeed, if, having suffered injuries, I took no pains about the mode of , stating them to you. I maintain that Meidias has composed my speech ; he who has supplied the facts which the speech is about, may most fairly be deemed its author, and not he who has studied how to lay an honest case before the court. Prose 97 Men, Better than Territory. JOHN RUSKIN, 1819-1900. "Thar's more in the man than thar is in the land." — Lanier. The strength of the nation is in its multitudes, not in its territory ; but only in its sound multitude. It is one thing both in a man and a nation, to gain flesh, and another to be swollen with putrid humours. Two men should be wiser than one, and two thou- sand than two. But when the men are true and good, and stand shoulder to shoulder, the strength of any nation is in its^ quantity of life, not in its land nor gold. The more good men a state has, in proportion to its territory, the stronger the state. And as it has been the madness of economists to seek for gold instead of life, so it has been the madness of kings to seek for land instead of life. They want the town on the other side of the river and seek it at the spear point: it never enters their stupid heads that to double the honest souls in the town on this side of the river, would make them stronger kings ; and that this doubling might be done by the plough-share instead of the spear, and through happiness instead of misery. All aristocracy is wrong which is inconsistent with numbers; and, on the other hand, all numbers are wrong which are inconsistent with breeding. The Vital Touch in Life. REV. WILLIAM S. RAINSFORD, 1849. For Carl and Laurie and Ben and Louis and Charles and all the other little boys who must have heard these words from the pulpit. We never can serve the cause of the God of truth by saying more than is true. Go forth in the noble purpose in which went forth the men who, ages ago, uprooted the ills of an evil time. Go forth strong in the purpose to give what you have got to give, and at least to know — and where 98 Prose you can to help — what others are called to suffer and endure. Determine that if your life lack many things it shall not lack this: that simple, responsive, sympathetic, helpful touch which goes out of all who have the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of man, within them. Only insist on that, and from thousands of lives many and many unexpected blessings will come to you. If you have put your hand to the plough, do not look back. I cannot tell you how disappointing and demoralising it is to undertake some good work, and then, after a brief trial, drop it. God's promises, here and hereafter, are not for those who enter for the race, but for those who lay aside weights and beset- ments, that they may win. I say again, love well. O ! seek to bind to you, with this golden chain, the weak, the suffering, as well as the strong and the brave. Love well ; and though your teaching may cease, your knowledge vanish, and your tongue at last be silent, love well — love is the path that leads to the life beyond — and you will be missed on earth, and waited for in Heaven. Modern man is accurately, scientifically what he loves. His love limits him, his love expresses him, his love condemns him, his love is his salvation, his love is his judgment eternal, and his love is his perdition eternal. France and the United States. GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1732-1799- Born, Sir, in a land of liberty ; having early learned its value; having engaged in a perilous conflict to de- fend it; having, in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent establishment in my own country — my anxious recollections, my sympa- thetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly ex- cited, whensoever, in any country, I see an oppressed Nation unfurl the banners of freedom. But, above Prose 99 all, the events of the French Revolution have produced the deepest solicitude, as well as the highest admira- tion. To call your Nation brave, were to pronounce but common praise. Wonderful People ! Ages to come will read with astonishment the history of your bril- liant exploits! I rejoice that the reward of your toils and of your immense sacrifices is approaching. I re- joice that the interesting revolutionary movements of so many years have issued in the formation of a Con- stitution designed to give permanency to the great ob- ject for which you have contended. I rejoice that liberty, which you have so long embraced with en- thusiasm, — liberty, of which you have been the invinci- ble defenders, — now finds an asylum in the bosom of a regularly organised Government; a Government, which, being formed to secure the happiness of the French People, corresponds with the ardent wishes of my heart, while it gratifies the pride of every citizen of the United States, by its resemblance to his own. On these glorious events, accept, Sir, my sincere congratu- lations. In delivering to you these sentiments, I express not my own feelings only, but those of my fellow-citizens, in relation to the commencement, the progress, and the issue, of the French Revolution ; and they will cor- dially join with me in purest wishes to the Supreme Being, that the citizens of our sister Republic, our mag nanimous allies, may soon enjoy in peace that liberty which they have purchased at so great a price, and all the happiness which liberty can bestow. I receive, Sir, with lively sensibility, the symbol of the triumphs and of the enfranchisement of your Na- tion, the colours of France, which you have now pre- sented to the United States. The transaction will be announced to Congress ; and the colours will be de- posited with those archives of the United States, which are at once the evidences and the memorials of their freedom and independence. May these be perpetual ! LOFa lOO Prose And may the friendship of the two RepubHcs be com- mensurate with their existence ! Henry Clay's Reception in Baltimore. ANONYMOUS. The whole place resembles a fair. Every street is alive with people, burying to and fro from the depots, crowding the sidewalks, clustering around the hotels, chattering, laughing, huzzaing. From time to time, as new delegations arrive, music sounds, banners wave, and the whigs, with eager looks and hope, triumph in their eyes, continue to pour in by thousands from the remotest quarters of the Union. Clay badges hang conspicuously at all button-holes ; Clay portraits. Clay banners. Clay ribbons, Clay songs. Clay quick-steps. Clay marches. Clay caricatures, meet the eye in all di- rections. Oh, the rushing, the driving, the noise, the excitement ! To see, and hear, and feel, is glory enough for one day. Not only are hotels and boarding-houses of all grades and calibres already filled and overflowing, but private dwellings are thrown open with that warm- hearted hospitality, which has ever characterised this ardent and excitable population. Everybody is talk- ing: some about who is to be vice-president, but more in anticipation of Thursday's gala. The procession will surpass anything witnessed in this country. Monopoly. WILLIAM PALEY, 1743-1805. Even a child can be a monopolist. I am glad that I do not know the name of the little boy in the street car who monopolised three seats; and the tiny girl at the hotel who pounded on the piano, and whistled, and hummed, and chattered incessantly, monopolising the beautiful silence. Monopoly begins young. This selection is for kings and queens to commit to memory and discuss with their children. If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn; and if — instead of each picking where and what Prose lOi it liked, taking just what it wanted, and no more — you should see ninety-nine of them gathering all they got into a heap, reserving nothing for themselves but the chaff and the refuse, keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps the worst pigeon of the flock; sitting round and looking on, all the winter, whilst this one was devouring, throwing about, and wasting it; and if a pigeon, more hardy and hungry than the rest, touched a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly flocking upon it, tearing it to pieces ; if you should see this, you would see nothing more than what is every day practised and established among men. Among men you see the ninety-and-nine toiling and scraping together a heap of superfluities for one, and this too, oftentimes, the feeblest and worst of the whole set — a child, a woman, a madman, or a fool ; getting for themselves all the while but a little of the coarsest of the provision which their own industry pro- duces ; looking quietly on while they see the fruits of their labour spoiled; and if one of their number take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others joining against him, and hanging him for the theft. There must be some very important advantage to account for an institution which, in the view given, is so unnatural. The Freedom of the Fly. JOHN RUSKIN, 1819-1900. ABRIDGED FROM "ATHENA, QUEEN OF THE AIR." These sentiments are true to the fly, nature's own autocrat; the selec- tion is one that I have found indispensable in teaching the difference between self-government and autocracy. I BELIEVE we can nowhere find a better type of a perfectly free creature than in the common house-fly. Nor free only, but brave; and irreverent to a degree which I think no human republican could by any philosophy exalt himself to. There is no courtesy in him; he does not care whether it is king or clown 102 Prose whom he teases; and in every step of his swift me- chanical march, and in every pause of his resolute ob- servation, there is one and the same expression of per- fect egotism, perfect independence and self-confidence, and conviction of the world's having been made for flies. Strike at him with your hand, and to him, the me- chanical fact and external aspect of the m^atter is, what to you it would be if an acre of red clay, ten feet thick, tore itself up from the ground in one massive field, hovered over you in the air for a second, and came crashing down with an aim. That is the exter- nal aspect of it ; the inner aspect, to his fly's mind, is of a quite natural and unimportant occurrence — one of the momentary conditions of his active life. He steps out of the way of your hand, and alights on the back of it. You cannot terrify him, nor govern him, nor per- suade him, nor convince him. He has his own positive opinion on all matters ; not an unwise one, usually, for his own ends; and will ask no advice of yours. He has no work to do — no tyrannical instinct to obey. The earthworm has his digging; the bee her gathering and building ; the spider her cunning network ; the ant her treasury and accounts. All these are comparatively slaves, or people of vulgar business. But your fly, free in the air, free in the chamber — a black incarnation of caprice, wandering, investigat- ing, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich variety of choice in feast, from the heaped sweets in the grocer's window to those of the butcher's back yard, and from the galled place on your cab-horse's back, to the brown spot in the road, from which, as the hoof disturbs him, he rises with angry republican buzz — what freedom is like his? Prose 103 My Castles In Spain. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, 1824-1892. ABRIDGED FROM 'TRUE AND I." In honour of three little boys who call their grandmamma "Annie" because they think that she is "just as young as the rest of the girls." I AM the owner of great estates. Many of them lie in the West ; but the greater part are in Spain. You may see my western possessions any evening at sun- set when their spires and battlements flash against the horizon. It gives me a feehng of pardonable importance, as a proprietor, that they are visible, to my eyes at least, from any part of the world in which I chance to be. In the city, if I get vexed and wearied, I go quietly up to the housetop, toward evening, and refresh myself with a distant prospect of my estates. It is as dear to me as that of Eton to the poet Gray. Columbus, also, had possessions in the West ; and as I read aloud the romantic story of his life, my voice quivers when I come to the point in which it is related that sweet odours of the land mingled with the sea-air, as the admiral's fleet approached the shores, that tropical birds flew out and fluttered around the ships, glittering in the sun, the gorgeous promises of the new country; that boughs, perhaps with blossoms not all decayed, floated out to welcome the strange wood from which the craft was hollowed. Then I cannot restrain myself. I think of the gorgeous visions I have seen before I have even undertaken the journey to the West, and I cry aloud to Prue, my wife: "What sun-bright birds, and gorgeous blossoms, and celestial odours will float out to us, my Prue, as we approach our Western possessions !" These are my Western estates, but my finest castles are in Spain. It is a country famously romantic, and my castles are all of perfect proportions, and appro- I04 Prose priately set in the most picturesque situations. I have never been to Spain myself, but I have naturally con- versed much with travellers to that country ; although, I must allow, without deriving from them much sub- stantial information about my property there. The wisest of them told me that there were more holders of real estate in Spain than in any other region he had ever heard of, and they are all great proprietors. Every one of them possesses a multitude of the state- liest castles. From conversation with them you easily gather that each one considers his own castles much the largest and in the loveliest positions. It is not easy for me to say how Iknow so much, as I certainly do, about my castles in Spain. The sun always shines upon them. They stand lofty and fair in a luminous, golden atmosphere, a little hazy and dreamy, perhaps, like the Indian summer, but in which no gales blow and there are no tempests. All the sublime mountains, and beautiful valleys, and soft landscapes, that I have not yet seen, are to be found in the grounds. They command a noble view of the Alps ; so fine, indeed, that I should be quite content with the prospect of them from the highest tower of my castle, and not care to go to Switzerland. The Nile flows through my grounds. The Desert lies upon their edge, and Damascus stands in my gar- den. I am given to understand, also, that the Par- thenon has been removed to my Spanish possessions. The Golden-Horn is my fish-preserve; my flocks of golden fleece are pastured on the plain of Marathon; and the honey of Hymettus is distilled from the flowers that grow in the vale of Enna — all in my Span- ish domains. Yes, and in those castles in Spain, Prue is not the placid, breeches-patching helpmate, with whom you are acquainted, but her face has a bloom which we both remember. She is always there what she seemed to me when I fell in love with her, many and many years ago. Prose 105 So, when I meditate upon my Spanish castles, I see Prue in them as my heart saw her standing by her father's door. "Age cannot wither her." There is a magic in the Spanish air that paralyses Time. As the years go by, I am not conscious that my interest diminishes. If I see that age is subtly sifting his snow in the dark hair of my Prue, I smile, con- tented, for her hair, dark and heavy as when I first saw it, is all carefully treasured in my castles in Spain. If I feel her arm more heavily leaning upon mine, as we walk around the squares, I press it closely to my side, for I know that the easy grace of her youth's motion will be restored by the elixir of that Spanish air. If her voice sometimes falls less clearly from her lips, it is no less sweet to me for the music of her voice's prime fills, freshly as ever, those Spanish halls. If the light I love fades a little from her eyes, I know that the glances she gave me, in our youth, are the eternal sunshine of my castles in Spain. I defy time and change. Each year laid upon our heads, is a hand of blessing. Vanity at the Vicar's. OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728-1774- FROM "THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD." Out of respect to the girls who consider it a vulgar habit to be fashionable. There is no religion in a stylish hat. Sunday was indeed a day of finery, which all my edicts could not restrain. How well soever I fancied my lectures against pride had conquered the vanity of my daughters, yet I found them still secretly attached to all their former finery : they still loved laces, ribands, bugles, and catgut; my wife herself retained a passion for her crimson paduasoy, because I formerly happened to say it became her. The first Sunday in particular their behaviour served to mortify me; I had desired my girls the preceding night to be drest early the next day; for I always io6 Prose loved to be at church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They punctually obeyed my direc- tions; but when we were to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters, drest out in all their former splendour, their hair plastered up with pomatum, their faces patched to taste, their trains bundled up in a heap behind, and rustling at every motion. I could not help smiling at their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I expected more discretion. In this exigence, therefore, my only resource was to order my son, with an important air, to call our coach. The girls were amazed at the com- mand; but I repeated it with more solemnity than be- fore. Surely, my dear, you jest, cried my wife, we can walk it perfectly well : we want no coach to carry us now. You mistake, child, returned I, we do want a coach; for if we walk to church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after us. Indeed, replied my wife, I always imagined that my Charles was fond of seeing his children neat and handsome about him. You may be as neat as you please, inter- rupted I, and I shall love you the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These rufflings, and pinkings, and patchings, will only make us hated by all the wives of all our neighbours. No, my chil- dren, continued I, more gravely, those gowns may be altered into something of a plainer cut; for finery is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of de- cency. I do not know whether such flouncing and shredding is becoming even in the rich, if we consider, upon a moderate calculation, that the nakedness of the indigent world might be clothed from the trimmings of the vain. This remonstrance had a proper effect ; they went with great composure, that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request, em- ployed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waist- Prose 107 coats for Dick and Bill, the two little ones, and, what was still more satisfactory, the gowns seemed im- proved by this curtailing. Bo-bo and the Roast Pig. CHARLES LAMB, 1775-1834- SELECTED FROM "A DISSERTA- TION UPON ROAST PIG." Lamb's "Roast Pig" never fails to call forth the interest of young people. Life is too sombre. Here is a dash of colour and ethics. The swine-herd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect food for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry ante- diluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, per- ished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nos- trils, unlike any scent which he had before experi- enced. What could it proceed from? — not from the burnt cottage — he had smelt that smell before — indeed, this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this un- lucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that io8 Prose of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether Up. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of Hfe in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted — roast pig! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it Vv^as the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious ; and, surrendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and, finding how afifairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail- stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he ex- perienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those re- mote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued. ''You graceless whelp, what have you got there de- vouring? Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you ! but you must be eating fire, and I know not what — what have you got there, I say?" "O father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats." The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed Prose 109 his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig. Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and, fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, ''Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste — O Lord!" — with such-like barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke. Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when, the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious), both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left of¥ till they had despatched all that remained of the litter. Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret es- cape, for the neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow far- rowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze ; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more in- dulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an incon- siderable assize town. Evidence was given, the ob- noxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the 1 10 Prose jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into the box. He handled it, and they all handled it; and, burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given, — to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, re- porters, and all present, — without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the decision; and when the court was dismissed, went privily and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his lordship's town-house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses con- tinued, till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked {burnt, as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string or spit came in a century or two later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, con- cludes the manuscript, do the most useful and seem- ingly the most obvious, arts make their way among mankind. Prose III The Independence of Bras-Coupe. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons — in "The Cable Story Book.") GEORGE VV. CABLE, 1844- "I thought Irving's swamp was great," said Jack, aged ten, "but Mr. Cable's swamp beats it all to pieces." "Bras-Coupe," says a critical teacher, "is the strongest and most wonderful piece of character drawing in American writing. Imagine a course in literature that neglects to include it!" The supper was spread in the hall and in due time the guests were filled. Then a supper was spread in the big hall in the basement, belov/ stairs ; the sons and daughters of Ham came down like the fowls of the air upon a rice-field, and Bras-Coupe, throwing his heels about with the joyous carelessness of a smutted Mercury, for the first time in his life tasted the blood of the grape. A second, a fifth, a tenth time he tasted it, drinking more deeply each time, and would have taken it ten times more had not his bride cunningly concealed it. It was like stealing a tiger's kittens. The moment quickly came when he wanted his eleventh bumper. As he presented his request a silent shiver of consternation ran through the dark company ; and when, in what the prince meant as a remonstrative tone, he repeated the petition — splitting the table with his fist by way of punctuation — there ensued a hus- tling up staircases and a cramming into dim corners that left him alone at the banquet. Leaving the table, he strode up-stairs and into the chirruping and dancing of the grand salon. There was a halt in the cotillion and a hush of amazement like the shutting off of steam. Bras-Coupe strode straight to his master, laid his paw upon his fellow-bride- groom's shoulder, and, in a thunder-tone, demanded: "More wine!" The master swore a Spanish oath, lifted his hand and — fell, beneath the terrific fist of his slave, with a bang that jingled the candelabras. Dolorous stroke! — for the dealer of it. Given, apparently to him — 112 Prose poor, tipsy savage — in self-defence, punishable, in a white offender, by a small fine or a few days' imprison- ment, it assured Bras-Coupe, because he was black, the death of a felon ; such was the old law. . . . The guests stood for an instant as if frozen, smitten stiff with the instant expectation of insurrection, con- flagration, and rapine, while, single-handed and naked- fisted in a room full of swords, the giant stood over his master, making strange signs and passes and rolling out, in wrathful words of his mother-tongue, what it needed no interpreter to tell his swarming enemies was a voudou curse. *'We are bewitched !" screamed two or three ladies, *'we are bewitched!" ''Look to your wives and daughters!" shouted a Grandissime. ''Shoot the black devils without mercy!" cried an- other, unconsciously putting into a single outflash of words, the whole Creole treatment of race troubles. With a single bound, Bras-Coupe reached the draw- ing-room door ; his gaudy regimentals made a red and blue streak down the hall; there was a rush of frilled and powdered gentlemen to the rear veranda, an avalanche of lightning with Bras-Coupe in the midst making for the swamp, and then all without was blackness of darkness and all within was a wild, commingled chatter of Creole, French, and Spanish tongues. While the wet lanterns swung on crazily in the trees along the way by which the bridegroom was to have borne his bride, . . . Bras-Coupe was practically de- claring his independence on a slight rise of ground hardly sixty feet in circumference and lifted scarce above the water in the inmost depths of the swamp. And amid what surroundings ! Endless colonnades of cypresses ; long motionless drapings of grey moss ; broad sheets of noisome waters, pitchy black, resting on bottomless ooze; cypress knees studding the sur- Prose 113 face ; patches of floating green, gleaming brilliantly here and there; yonder, where the sunbeams wedge them- selves in, constellations of water-lilies, the many-hued iris, and a multitude of flowers that no man had named; here, too, serpents great and small, of won- derful colourings, and the dull and loathsome moc- casin, sliding warily off the dead tree; in dimmer re- cesses, the cow alligator, with her nest hard by; tur- tles, a century old ; owls and bats, raccoons, opossums, rats, centipedes and creatures of like violence ; great vines of beautiful leaf and scarlet fruit in deadly clus- ters ; maddening mosquitoes, parasitic insects, gorgeous dragon-flies and pretty water-lizards ; the blue heron, the snowy crane, the red-bird, the moss-bird, the night- hawk and the whip-will's-widow ; a solemn stillness and stifled air only now and then disturbed by the call or whir of the summer duck, the dismal note of the rain-crow, or the splash of a dead branch falling into the clear but lifeless bayou. The pack of Cuban hounds that howl from his mas- ter's kennels cannot snuff the trail of the stolen canoe that glides through the sombre blue vapours of the African's fastnesses. His arrows send no tell-tale reverberations to the distant clearing. Many a wretch in his native wilderness has Bras-Coupe himself, in palmier days, driven to just such an existence, to es- cape the chains and horrors of the slave-pens ; there- fore not a whit broods he over man's inhumanity, but, taking the affair as a matter of course, casts about him for a future. 114 Prose The Evening School. (Copyrighted by T. Y. Crowell & Company, in "Cuore.") EDMONDO DE AMICIS, 1846. This selection is eloquent. Eloquence has developed along the line of Humanity. The delicious appreciation that working-men have— apprecia- tion of school advantages — is in great contrast with "the whining school- boy's" sorrowful approach to school, and will be better understood by any one who has taught in an evening school. This beautiful bit of prose is "sacred to the memory" of the pupils I had, myself, in an evening school. The bakers, the printers, the ice- men, — how they studied! But I have seen evening schools where young boys go to get a warm place to spend an evening; they sleep and play and whistle and throw papers, needing rest and amusement after the day's serious toil. The workingmen entered by twos and threes ; more than two hundred entered. There were boys of twelve and upwards; bearded men who were on their way from their work, carrying their books and copy-books ; there were carpenters, engineers with black faces, masons with hands white with plaster, baker's boys with their hair full of flour; and there was a percep- tible odour of varnish, hides, fish, oil, odours of all the various trades. There also entered a squad of artil- lery workmen, dressed like soldiers and headed by a corporal. They all filed briskly to their benches, re- moved the board underneath, on which we boys put our feet, and immediately bent their heads over their work. Some stepped up to the teacher to ask explana- tions, with their open copy-books in their hands. I caught sight of that young and well-dressed mas- ter, "the little lawyer," who had three or four work- ingmen clustered round his table, and was making corrections with his pen ; and also the lame one, who was laughing with a dyer who had brought him a copy-book all adorned with red and blue dyes. The doors of the schoolroom were open. I was amazed, when the lessons began, to see how attentive they all were, and how they kept their eyes fixed on their work. Yet the greater part of them, for fear of being late, Prose 1 1 5 had not even been home to eat a mouthful of supper, and they were hungry. But the younger ones, after half an hour of school, were falling off the benches with sleep ; one even went fast asleep with his head on the bench, and the master waked him up by poking his ear with a pen. But the grov/n-up men did nothing of the sort; they kept awake, and listened, with their mouths wide open, to the lesson, without even winking; and it made a deep impression on me to see all those bearded men on our benches. We also ascended to the floor above, and J ran to the door of my schoolroom and saw in my seat a man with a big moustache and a bandaged hand, who might have injured himself while at work about some machine ; but he was trying to write, though very, very slowly. But what pleased me most was to behold in the seat of the little mason, on the very same bench and in the very same corner, his father, the mason, as huge as a giant, who sat there all coiled up, into a narrow space, with his chin on his fists and his eyes on his book, so absorbed that he hardly breathed. And there was no chance about it, for it was he himself who said to the head-master the first evening he came to the school : — *'Signor Director, do me the favour to place me in the seat of my hare's face." For he always calls his son so. My father kept me there until the end, and in the street we saw many women with children in their arms, waiting for their husbands ; and at the entrance a change was effected ; the husbands took the children in their arms, and the women made them surrender their books and copy-books ; and in this wise they pro- ceeded to their homes. For several minutes the street was filled with people and with noise. Then all grew silent, and all we could see was the tall and weary form of the head-master disappearing in the distance. ii6 Prose The Gentleman. GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE, 1799-1859. When you have found a man, you have not far to go to find a gentleman. You cannot make a gold ring out of brass. You cannot change an Alaska crystal to a South African diamond. You cannot make a gentleman till you have first a man. To be a gentle- man, it will not be sufBcient to have had a grand- father. It does not depend upon the tailor, or the toilet. Blood will degenerate. Good clothes are not good habits. The prince Lee Boo concluded that the hog, in England, was the only gentleman, as being the only thing that did not labour. A gentleman is just a gentle-msin ; no more, no less ; a diamond polished that was first a diamond in the rough. A gentleman is gentle; a gentleman is modest; a gentleman is courte- ous ; a gentleman is generous ; a gentleman is slow to take ofTence, as being one that never gives it; a gen- tleman is slow to surmise evil, as being one that never thinks it ; a gentleman goes armed only in conscious- ness of right; a gentleman subjects his appetites; a gentleman refines his taste; a gentleman subdues his feelings; a gentleman deems every other better than himself. Sir Philip Sidney was never so much a gen- tleman — mirror though he was of England's knight- hood — as when, upon the field of Zutphen, as he lay in his own blood, he waived the draught of cold spring water, that was brought to quench his mortal thirst, in favour of a dying soldier. St. Paul described a gen- tleman, when he exhorted the Philippian Christians: "Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Prose 117 Reverence for Motherhood. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) ELIZABETH B. CUSTER, 1844. FROM "THE BOY GENERAL." The reverence for motherhood is an instinct that is seldom absent from educated men. I know many in- stances in proof of the poet's words, "the bravest are the tenderest." Our officers taught the coarsest soldier, in time, to regard maternity as something sacred. It was only by the merest chance that I heard some- thing of the gentleness of one of our officers, whose brave heart ceased to beat on the battle-field of the Little Big Horn. In marching on a scouting expedi- tion one day, Captain Yates went in advance a short distance with his sergeant, and when his ten men caught up with him he found that they had shot the mothers of some young antelopes. Captain Yates in- dignantly ordered the men to return to the young, and each take a baby antelope in his arms and care for it until they reached the post. For two days the men marched on, bearing the tender little things, cushion- ing them as best they could in their folded blouses. One man had twins to look out for, and as a baby ante- lope is all legs and head, this squirming collection of tiny hoofs and legs stuck out from all sides as the soldier guided his horse as best he could with one hand, the arm of which encircled the bleating little orphans. . . . There were circles, perhaps fifteen feet in circum- ference, that I saw which were one of the mysteries of that strange land. When the officers told me that these circles were worn in the ground by the buffalo mother's walking round and round to protect her newly born and sleeping calf from the wolves at night, I listened, only to smile incredulously. I had been so often "guyed" with ridiculous stories, that I did not believe the tale. In time, however, I Ii8 Prose found that it was true, and I never came across these pathetic circles without a sentiment of deepest sympa- thy for the anxious mother whose vigilance kept up the ceaseless tramp during the long night. What Good Will the Monument Do? EDWARD EVERETT, 1 794-1865. A monument has a great deal to say. Our graveyards are gruesome and garrulous. The personal equation should be eliminated in erecting monuments. A monument should stand for virtues in the abstract. Washington, like Lincoln, had nothing of cheap local colour. "The Monument" was raised to those principles which he externalised. I AM met with the great objection, What good will the monument do? I beg leave, Sir, to exercise my birthright as a Yankee, and answer this question by asking two or three more, to which I believe it will be quite as difficult to furnish a satisfactory reply. I am asked. What good will the monument do? And I ask, what good does anything do? What is good? Does anything do any good ? The persons who suggest this objection, of course, think that there are some projects and undertakings that do good; and I should therefore like to have the idea of good explained, and analysed, and run out to its elements. When this is done, if I do not demonstrate, in about two minutes, that the monument does the same kind of good that anything else does, I shall consent that the huge blocks of granite, already laid, should be reducd to gravel, and carted off to fill up the mill-pond ; for that, I sup- pose, is one of the good things. Does a railroad or canal do good? Answer, yes. And how? It facili- tates intercourse, opens markets, and increases the wealth of the country. But what is this good for? Why, individuals prosper and get rich. And what good does that do? Is mere wealth, as an ultimate end, — gold and silver, without an inquiry as to their use, — are these a good? Certainly not. I should insult this audience by attempting to prove that a rich man, as Prose 119 such, is neither better nor happier than a poor one. But, as men grow rich, they Uve better. Is there any good in this, stopping here? Is mere animal hfe— feeding, working, and sleeping like an ox— entitled to be called good? . Certainly not. But these improvements increase the population. And what good does that do? Where is the good in counting twelve millions, instead of six, of mere feeding, working, sleeping animals? There is, then, no good in the mere animal life, except that it is the physical basis of that higher moral existence, which resides in the soul, the heart, the mind, the conscience ; in good principles, good feelings, and the good actions (and the more disinterested, the more entitled to be called good) which flow from them. Now, Sir,_ I say that generous and patriotic sentiments, sentiments which prepare us to serve our country, to live for our country, to die for our country,— feelings like those which carried Prescott and Warren and Putnam to the battle-field, are good,— good, humanly speaking, of the highest order. It is good to have them, good to encourage them, good to honour them, good to com- memorate them; and whatever tends to animate and strengthen such feelings does as much right-down practical good as filling up low ground and building railroads. Barbarism of Our British Ancestors. WILLIAM PITT (THE SECOND), 1759-1806. The pith of this speech is that we are all descended f"'^^ b^arbarians if we go far enough back; it points to the foolishness of family pride or any other pride that makes for intolerance. Every boy and girl should learn this "Lest we forget." There was a time. Sir, which it may be fit some- times to revive in the remembrance of our country- men, when even human sacrifices are said to have been offered in this island. The very practice of the slave- trade once prevailed among us. Slaves were formerly I20 Prose an established article of our exports. Great numbers were exported, like cattle, from the British coast, and were to be seen exposed for sale in the Roman market. The circumstances that furnished the alleged proofs that Africa labours under a natural incapacity of civil- isation might also have been asserted of ancient and uncivilised Britain. Why might not some Roman Senator, reasoning upon the principles of some hon- ourable members of this House, and pointing to Brit- ish barbarians, have predicted with equal boldness, "There is a People that will never rise to civilisation ! — There is a People destined never to be free!" We, Sir, have long since emerged from barbarism, we have almost forgotten that we were once bar- barians; we are now raised to a situation which ex- hibits a striking contrast to every circumstance by which a Roman might have characterised us, and by which we now characterise Africa. There is, indeed, one thing v/anting to complete the contrast, and to clear us altogether from the imputation of acting, even to this hour, as barbarians; for we continue to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves, — we continue it even yet, in spite of all our great and undeniable preten- sions to civilisation. We were once as obscure among the Nations of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our morals, as degraded in our under- standings, as these unhappy Africans are at present. But, in the lapse of a long series of years, by a progres- sion slow, and, for a time, almost imperceptible, we have become rich in a variety of acquirements, fa- voured above measure in the gifts of Providence, un- rivalled in commerce, preeminent in arts, foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and established in all the blessings of civil society. From all these bless- ings we must forever have been shut out, had there been any truth in those principles which some gentlemen have not hesitated to lay down as applicable to the case of Africa. Had those principles been true, we Prose 121 ourselves had languished to this hour in that miserable state of ignorance, brutality and degradation, in which history proves our ancestors to have been immersed. Had other Nations adopted these principles in their conduct towards us, had other Nations applied to Great Britain the reasoning which some of the Sena- tors of this very island now apply to Africa, ages might have passed without our emerging from barbarism ; and we, who are enjoying the blessings of British liberty, might, at this hour, have been little superior, either in morals, in knowledge, or refinement, to the rude inhabitants of the Coast of Guinea. Quick Wits. ROGER ASCHAM, 1515-1568. Quick wits commonly be apt to take, unapt to keep ; soon hot and desirous of this and that; as cold and soon weary of the same again; more quick to enter speedily than able to pierce far; even like over-sharp tools, whose edges be very soon turned. Such wits de- light themselves in easy and pleasant studies, and never pass far forward in high and hard sciences. And there- fore the quickest wits commonly prove the best poets, but not the wisest orators : ready of tongue to speak boldly, not deep of judgment, either for good counsel or wise writing. Also, for manners and life, quick wits commonly be in purpose unconstant, light to promise anything, ready to forget everything, both benefit and injury; and thereby neither fast to friend nor fearful to foe; inquisitive of every trifle; not secret in great- est affairs ; bold with any person ; busy in every mat- ter, soothing such as be present, nipping any that is absent; of nature also, always flattering their betters, envying their equals, despising their inferiors ; and by quickness of wit very quick and ready to like none so well as themselves. 122 Prose Appeal to the Best in Men. REV. WILLIAM S. RAINSFORD. This selection is from the words of a great preacher who has literally sacrificed his life in his devotion to a great cause. Appeal to the best in men and women, however in- visible the best may be, and you create, by your very appeal, something better. We are looking for God in the height or in the depth. We are seeking Him in some difficult place, or by some arduous path, and all the time, had we eyes to see. He is by us, in us, looking at us out of a neigh- bour's eyes, calling to us from our misunderstanding hearts. We cannot understand the problems of any time until we can get ourselves back into that time, and then we shall always find numbers of good men on both sides, and be able to understand their position. Let us, in the name of our redeeming God, go forth to discover and to save everywhere that something, that even "in the mud and scum of things" has never quite lost its power of song. We are going to get spiritual life in doing our duty, in living in true relations with our neighbour, in liv- ing the law of our being, and in no other way. The Home-Coming of Rip Van Winkle. WASHINGTON IRVING. "The Home-Coming of Rip Van Winkle" is too lengthy a story for the average child to memorise; but each of four pupils can easily memorise one fourth of it, and so make a recitation of it. Even the slowest pupil is tempted by this clever story to make an oral version of it. I have seen a teacher give the story of Rip Van Winkle to a class of beginners in reading, first telling the story to them and then writing their sentences on the blackboard as they told it back. In this way they learned reading and literature at the same time. The story is an American myth and one that we should be proud of. There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door of the inn, but none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There Prose 123 was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke, instead of idle speeches ; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the con- tents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pocket full of hand-bills, was haranguing vehe- mently about rights of citizens, elections, members of Congress, liberty. Bunker's Hill, heroes of seventy-six and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, draw- ing him partly aside, inquired on which side he voted. Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tip- toe, inquired in his ear whether he was Federal or Democrat. Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the ques- tion, when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded, in an austere tone, what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village. "Alas! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dis- mayed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the King, God bless him!" Here a general shout burst from the by-standers: 124 Prose "A Tory ! a Tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! away with him!" It was with great difficulty that the self- important man in the cocked hat restored order; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit what he came there for, and whom he was seeking. The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his neighbours, who used to keep about the tavern. "Well, who are they? name them." Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's Nicholas Vedder?" There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder ! why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years ! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone too." "Where's Brom Dutcher?'* "O, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war. Some say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point; others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot of Anthony's Nose. I don't know ; he never came back again." ''Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?" "He went off to the wars, too ; was a great militia general, and is now in Congress." Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand, — war. Congress, Stony Point. He had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, "Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?" "O, Rip Van Winkle !" exclaimed two or three. "O, to be sure! That's Rip Van Winkle, yonder, lean- ing against the tree." Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself as he went up the mountain; apparently as lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor Prose 125 fellow was now completely confounded ; he doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name. *'God knows !" exclaimed he, at his wit's end. "I'm not myself, — I'm somebody else. That's me yonder, — no, that's som.ebody else got into my shoes. I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the moun- tain, and they've changed my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't tell what's my name, or who I am !" ^ The by-standers began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about se- curing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from do- ing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self- important man in the cocked hat retired with some pre- cipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. ''Hush, Rip !" cried she ; "hush ! the old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind. "What is your name, my good woman?" asked, he. "Judith Gardenier." "And your father's name?" "Ah, poor man! Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it's twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and has never been heard of since ; his dog came home without him ; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl." Rip had but one question more to ask, but he put it with a faltering voice: "Where's your mother?" "O, she too had died but a short time since ; she broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New England peddler." There was a drop of comfort, at least, in 126 Prose this intelligence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. "I am your father!" cried he. ''Young Rip Van Winkle once, old Rip Van Winkle now ! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle ?" All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, *'Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle! it is himself. Welcome home again, old neighbour. Why, where have you been these twenty long years?" Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night. To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with her. She had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected as one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. Rip now resumed his old walks and habits. He soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather worse for the wear and tear of time ; but preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favour. Brutus* Speech on the Death of Caesar. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616. ''Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers, — Hear me, for my cause; and be silent, that you may hear. Believe me, for mine honour ; and have respect for mine hon- our, that you may believe. "Censure me, in your wisdom; and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. "If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar, to him I say, that Brutus' love for Caesar was no less than his. If then, that friend demand, why Prose 127 Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer ; not that I love Csesar less, but that I love Rome more. "Had you rather Csesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen? **As Caesar loved me, I weep for him ; as he was for- tunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him ; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. "There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death for his ambition. "Who's here so base, that he would be a bondman? "If any, speak; for him have I offended. "Who's here so rude, that he would not be a Roman ? If any, speak; for him have I offended. "Who's here so vile, that he will not love his coun- try? If any, speak; for him have I offended. "I pause for a reply. . . . "None ? Then none have I offended. "I have done no more to Caesar, than you should do to Brutus. . . . And as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I reserve the same dagger for myself, whenever it shall please my country to need my death." The Duel of Nations. CHARLES SUMNER, 1819-1881. IN. "THE WAR SYSTEM OF THE COMMONWEALTH." Why should we go to a book to settle the character of a war, when we can judge of it by its fruits? — William Lloyd Garrison. The tiger shell lay down with the buffler. — G. W. Cable (in "Posson Jones"). "Sumner is dead," we hear; but his words are very much alive. Peace parties are increasing; boys are still debating whether the tiger and the buffalo shall be friendly and help each other to live. Far away on some distant pathway of the ocean, two ships approach each other, with white canvas broadly spread to receive the flying gale. They are proudly built. All of human art has been lavished in their graceful proportions and compacted sides, while in dimensions they look like floating happy islands of the sea. A numerous crev/, with costly appliances 128 Prose of comfort, hives in their secure shelter. Surely these two travellers must meet in joy and friendship; the flag at mast-head will give the signal of fellowship; the delighted sailors will cluster in rigging and on yard-arms to look each other in the face, while ex- hilarating voices mingle in accents of gladness uncon- trollable. Alas! alas! it is not so. Not as brothers, not as friends, not as wayfarers of the common ocean do they come together, but as enemies. The closing vessels now bristle fiercely with death-dealing implements. On their spacious decks, aloft on all their masts, flashes the deadly musketry. From their sides spout cataracts of flame, amidst the pealing thunders of a fatal artil- lery. They who had escaped "the dreadful touch of merchant-marring rocks," who on their long and soli- tary way had sped unharmed by wind or wave, whom the hurricane had spared, in whose favour storms and seas had suspended for a time their unmitigable war, now at last fall by the hand of each other. From both ships the same spectacle of horror greets us. On decks reddened with blood, murders break forth anew, and concentrate their rage. Each is a swimming Mountain of Crucifixion. At length these vessels — such pageants of the sea, such marvels of art, once so stately, but now rudely shattered by cannon-ball, with shivered masts and ragged sails — exist only as unmanageable wrecks, weltering on the uncertain wave, whose tran- sient lull of peace is their sole safety. In amazement at this strange, unnatural contest, away from country and home, where there is no country or home to de- fend, we ask again. Wherefore this dismal scene? Again the melancholy, but truthful, answer promptly comes, that this is the established method of determin- ing justice between nations. Yes ! the barbarous, brutal relations which once pre- vailed between individuals, which prevailed still longer between communities composing nations, are not yet Prose 129 banished from the great Christian Commonwealth. Rehgion, reason, humanity, first penetrate the indi- vidual, next larger bodies, and widening in influence slowly leaven nations. Thus, while condemning the bloody contests of individuals,* also of towns, counties, principalities, provinces, and denying to all these the right of waging war, or appeal to Trial by Battle, we continue to uphold an atrocious system of folly and crime which is to nations what the system of petty wars was to towns, counties, principalities, provinces, also what the duel was to individuals ; for War is the Duel of Nations. The Declaration of Independence. THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1743-1826. A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, July 4, 1776. By the time I was nine years old my mind lightly turned to books of history. I memorised much of the Declaration of Independence, and thank God! have never been able since to get away from the fact that "all men are created equal;" that they are endowed by their Creator with "certain inalienable rights," and that "among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." — George W. Cable. Is the Declaration of Independence remembered on the national holiday established especially to commemorate it ? Or is there a tendency in America to ignore the great past? — E. H. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to as- sume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of na- ture's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator v\^ith certain unalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted I30 Prose among men, deriving their just powers from the con- sent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to in- stitute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organising its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that gov- ernments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes ; and, accordingly, all ex- perience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right them- selves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute des- potism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of gov- ernment. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpa- tions, all having, in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world: — He has refused his assent to laws the most whole- some and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of im- mediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained ; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommo- dation of large districts of people, unless those peo- ple would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature ; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. Prose 1 3 1 He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the deposi- tory of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused, for a long time after such dissolu- tions, to cause others to be elected ; whereby the legis- lative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state re- rpaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States ; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalisation of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the con- ditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in time of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and un- acknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them by a mock trial, from punish- 132 Prose ment, for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States : For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world : For imposing taxes on us without our consent : For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pre- tended offences. For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbi- trary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies : For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the powers of our governments : For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circum- stances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilised nation. He has constrained our fellow -citizens, taken cap- tive on the high seas, to bear arms against their coun- try, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. Prose 133 In every stage of these oppressions, we have peti- tioned for redress, in the most humble terms ; our re- peated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may defile a tyrant, is imfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Brit- ish brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have re- minded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their na- tive justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, ap- pealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And, for the support of this declara- tion, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour. 134 Prose America Unconquerable. WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM, 1 708-1 778. ON THE "ADDRESS OF THANKS TO THE KING," NOVEMBER, 1777. The Secretary stood alone !—Grattan. This, my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous mo- ment. It is no time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot save us, in this awful and rugged crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the Throne, in the lan- guage of Truth. We must, if possible, dispel the de- lusion and darkness which envelop it; and display in its full danger and genuine colours, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can Ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty as to be thus deluded into the loss of the one, and the violation of the other; — as to give an unlimited support to measures which have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us; meas- ures which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt? But yesterday, and England might have stood against the zvorld: nozv none so poor to do her reverence! France, my Lords, has insulted you. She has encouraged and sustained America; and, whether America be wrong or right, the dig- nity of this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French interference. Can even our Ministers sustain a more humiliating disgrace ? Do they dare to resent it ? Do they presume even to hint a vindication of their honour, and the dignity of the State, by re- quiring the dismissal of the plenipotentiaries of America ? The People, whom they affected to call con- temptible rebels, but whose growing power has at last obtained the name of enemies, — the People with whom they have engaged this country in war, and against whom they now command our implicit support in every measure of desperate hostility, — this People, despised as rebels, or acknowledged as enemies, are abetted Prose 135 against you, supplied with every military store, their interests consulted, and their Ambassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy, — and our Ministers dare not interpose with dignity or effect! My Lords, this ruinous and ignominious situation, where we cannot act with success nor suffer with honour, calls upon us to remonstrate in the strongest and loudest language of truth, to rescue the ear of Majesty from the delusions which surround it. You cannot, I venture to say it, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. You may swell every expense, and strain every effort, still more extravagantly; accumulate every assistance you can beg or borrow ; traffic and barter with every pitiful German Prince, that sells and sends his sub- jects to the shambles of a foreign country: your ef- forts are forever vain and impotent, — doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely ; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your enemies, to overrun them with the sordid sons of rapine and of plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty ! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms ! — never ! never ! never ! Liberty and Union, One and Inseparable. DANIEL WEBSTER, 1782-1852. It was Daniel Webster who educated his countrymen in Union as well as Independence. — E. H. I PROFESS, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honour of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union 136 Prose we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipHne of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of dis- ordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests im- mediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings ; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious foundation of national, so- cial, personal happiness. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of dis- union, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below ; nor could I re- gard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this Gov- ernment whose thoughts should be mainly bent on con- sidering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the peo- ple when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, grati- fying prospects spread out before us, for us and for our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in Heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishon- oured fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States, severed, discordant, belligerent: on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, be- Prose 137 hold the gorgeous ensign of the RepubHc, now known and honoured throughout the earth, still full high ad- vanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their origi- nal lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, — bearing, for its motto, no such miser- able interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" — nor those other words of delusion and folly, ''Liberty first and Union afterwards," — but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart — Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and insepa- rable ! The Sanctity of Treaties. FISHER AMES, 1758-1808. In "The Boy's Town" even a small boy cannot break his promise, Howells tells us. We are either to execute this treaty, or to break our faith. To expatiate on the value of public faith may pass with some men for mere declamation; to such men I have nothing to say. To others, I will urge, can any circumstance mark upon a People more debase- ment? Can anything tend more to make men think themselves mean, — or to degrade to a lower point their estimation of virtue and their standard of action? It would not merely demoralise mankind; it tends to break all the ligaments of society ; to dissolve that mys- terious charm which attracts individuals to the Nation ; and to inspire in its stead, a repulsive sense of shame and disgust. What is patriotism? Is it a narrow afifection for the spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where we tread entitled to this ardent preference, be- cause they are greener ? No, Sir ; this is not the char- acter of the virtue. It soars higher for its objects. It is an extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoy- ments of life, and twining itself with the minutest fila- 138 Prose ments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of so- ciety, because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see, not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our country's honour. Every good citizen makes that honour his own and cherishes it, not only as precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defence, and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it; for what rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable, when a State renounces the principles that constitute their security? Or, if his life should be invaded, what would its en- joyments be, in a country odious in the eyes of stran- gers, and dishonoured in his own? Could he look with affection and veneration to such a country, as his parent ? The sense of having one would die within him; he would blush for his patriotism, if he retained any, — and justly, for it would be a vice. He would be a banished man in his native land. I see no excep- tion to the respect that is paid among Nations to the law of good faith. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of Governments. It is observed by bar- barians. A whiff of tobacco-smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money; but, when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Compensation. (Permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) R. W. EMERSON, 1803-1882. You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke. The exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from en- joyment, in the attempt to appropriate it. The ex- clusionist in religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in striving to shut out Prose 139 others. Treat men as pawns and nine-pins and you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart, you shall lose your own. The senses would make things of all persons; of women, of children, of the poor. The vulgar proverb, 'T will get it from his purse or get it from his skin," is sound philosophy. All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished. They are punished by Fear. Whilst I stand in simple relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix with perfect diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is any departure from simplicity and attempt at halfness, or good for me that is not good for him, my neighbour feels the wrong; he shrinks from me as far as I have shrunk from him ; his eyes no longer seek mine ; there is war between us ; there is hate in him and fear in me. Abolition. (Permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, 1804-1879- FROM 'THE LIFE OF ^^"^"^ WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, BY HIS SONS." Slavery is abolished and "abolition" is a thing of the past; but there are hundreds of thousands of little children slaving in mills and sweat- shops, calling for a new abolition and a new Garrison. Abolitionism is not a hobby, got up for personal or associated aggrandisement; it is not a political ruse; it is not a spasm of sympathy, which lasts but for a moment, leaving the system weak and worn ; it is not a fever of enthusiasm; it is not the fruit of fanati- cism ; it is not a spirit of faction. It is of heaven, not of men. It lives in the heart as a vital principle. It is an essential part of Christianity, and aside from it there can be no humanity. Its scope is not confined to the slave population of the United States, but em- braces mankind. Opposition cannot weary it, force cannot put it down, fire cannot consume it. PART IV. Lad and Lassie PART IV Examination Day in the Land of the Tomtoddies. CHARLES KINGSLEY, 1819-1875- Are you studying "to pass examination," or because study is delightful? I remember a boy who used to say, "I don't know that, it isn't in my grade," whenever he was asked a question. And I have seen six-year- old babies cry because they could not pass written examinations. This selection should serve as a basis of debate for every graduating class in normal schools. The Isle of Tomtoddies, all heads and no bodies ! And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and grunting and growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thought people must be ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies' ears, or drowning kittens; but when he came nearer still, he began to hear words among the noise ; which was the Tomtoddies' song which they sing morning and evening, and all night too, to their great idol Exami- nation — "I can't learn my lesson : the examiner's com- ing!" And that was the only song which they knew. And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a great pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, "Playthings not allowed here ;" at which he was so shocked that he would not stay to see what was writ- ten on the other side. Then he looked round for the people of the island : but instead of men, women, and children, he found nothing but turnips and radishes, beet and mangold wurzel, without a single green leaf among them, and half of them burst and decayed, 143 144 Prose with toad-stools growing out of them. Those which were left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen differ- ent languages at once, and all of them badly spoken, 'T can't learn my lesson ; do come and help me ! And one cried, "Can you show me how to extract this square root?" And another, "Can you tell me the distance be- tween A Lyrse and B Camelopareldis ?" And another, "What is the latitude and longitude of Snooksville, in Noman's County, Oregon, U. S.?" And another, "What was the name of Mutius Scaevola's thirteenth cousin's grandmother's maid's cat ?" And another, "How long would it take a school- inspector of average activity to tumble head over heels from London to York?" And another, "Can you tell me the name of a place that nobody ever heard of, where nothing ever hap- pened, in a country which has not been discovered yet?" And another, "Can you show me how to correct this hopelessly corrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on the cause why crocodiles have no tongues ?" And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have thought they were all trying for tide-waiters' places, or cornetcies in the heavy dragoons. "And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell you?" quoth Tom. Well, they didn't know that : all they knew was the examiner was coming. Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nim- ble-come-quick turnip you ever saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, and it cried to him, "Can you tell me anything at all about anything you like?" "About what?" says Tom. "About anything you like; for as fast as I learn things I forget them again. So my mam^ma says that Prose 145 my intellect is not adapted for methodic science, and says that I must go in for general information." Tom told him that he did not know general infor- mation nor any officers in the army; only he had a friend once that went for a drummer; but he could tell him a great many strange things which he had seen in his travels. So he told him prettily enough, while the poor tur- nip listened very carefully; and the more he listened, tlie more he forgot, and the more water ran out of him. Tom thought he was crying: but it was only his poor brains running away, from being worked so hard ; and as Tom talked the unhappy turnip streamed down all over with juice, and split and shrank till nothing was left of him but rind and water; whereat Tom ran away in a fright, for he thought he might be taken up for killing the turnip. But on the contrary, the turnip's parents were highly delighted, and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a long inscription over his tomb about his wonderful talents, early development, and unparal- leled precocity. ^ Were they not a foolish couple ? But there was a still more foolish couple next to them, who were beating a wretched little radish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and obstinacy and wil- ful stupidity, and never knew that the reason why it couldn't learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm inside it eating out all its brains. But even they are no foolisher than some hundred score of papas and mammas, who fetch the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, and send to the dark cupboard instead of to the doctor. Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was longing to ask the meaning of it ; and at last he stumbled over a respectable old stick lying half-covered with earth. But a very stout and worthy stick it was, for it belonged to good Roger Ascham in 146 Prose old time, and had carved on its head King Edward the Sixth, with the Bible in his hand. ''You see," said the stick, "these were as pretty lit- tle children once as you could wish to see, and might have been so still if they had been only left to grow up like human beings, and then handed over to me; but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead of let- ting them pick flowers, and make dirt-pies, and see birds' nests, and dance round the gooseberry bush, as little children should, kept them alv/ays at lessons, working, working, working, learning week-day les- sons all week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday, and weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly examinations every month, and yearly examinations every year, everything seven times over, as if once was not enough, and enough as good as a feast — till their brains grew big, and their bodies grew small, and they were all changed into turnips, with little but water inside; and still their foolish parents actually pick the leaves off them as fast as they grow, lest they should have anything green about them." "Ah!" said Tom, "if dear Mrs. Do-as-you-would- be-done-by knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make them all as jolly as sand-boys." "It would be of no use," said the stick. "They can't play now, if they tried. Don't you see how their legs have turned to roots and grown into the ground, by never taking any exercise, but sapping and moping always in the same place? But here comes the Ex- aminer-of-all-Examiners. So you had better get away, I warn you, or he will examine you and your dog into the bargain, and set him to examine all the other dogs, and you to examine all the other water- babies. There is no escaping out of his hands, for his nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys and through keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber, examining all little boys, and the Prose 147 little boys' tutors likewise. But when he is thrashed — so Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did has promised me — I shall have the thrashing of him: and if I don't lay it on with a will it's a pity." Tom went off ; but rather slowly and surlily ; for he was somewhat minded to face this same Examiner-of- all-Examiners, who came striding among the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and laying them on little children's shoulders, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and not touch- ing the same with one of his fingers ; for he had plenty of money and a fine house to live in, and so forth; which was more than the poor little turnips had. But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial, and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined, that Tom ran for his life, and the dog too. And really it was time; for the poor tur- nips, in their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast to be ready for the Examiner, that they burst and popped by dozens all round him, till the place sounded like Aldershot on a field-day, and Tom thought he should be blown into the air, dog and all. A Russian Bath. STEVENS. Having secured my room, I mounted a drosky and hurried to a bath. Riding out to the suburbs, the drosky boy stopped at a large wooden building, pour- ing forth steam from every chink and crevice. At the entrance stood several half-naked men, one of whom led me to an apartment to undress, and then con- ducted me to another, in one end of which were a furnace and apparatus for generating steam. I was then familiar with the Turkish bath, but the worst I had known was like the breath of the gentle south wind compared with the heat of this apartment. The operator made me stand in the middle of the floor, 148 Prose opened the upper door of the stove, and dashed into it a bucketful of water, which sent forth volumes of steam like a thick fog into every part of the room; he then laid me down on a platform about three feet high, and rubbed my body with a mop dipped in soap and hot water; then he raised me up, and deluged me with hot water, pouring several tubfuls on my head; he then laid me down again, and scrubbed me with soap and water from my head to my heels, long enough, if the thing were possible, to make a blacka- mour white ; he then gave me another sousing with hot water, and another scrubbing with pure water, and then conducted me up a flight of steps to a high platform, stretched me out on a bench within a few feet of the ceiling, and commenced whipping me with twigs of birch, with the leaves on them, dipped in hot water. It was hot as an oven where he laid me down on the bench ; the vapour, which almost suffocated me be- low, ascended to the ceiling, and, finding no avenue of escape, gathered round my devoted body, fairly scald- ing and blistering me ; and when I removed my hands from my face, I felt as if I had carried away my whole profile. I tried to hold out to the end, but I was burning, scorching, and consuming. In agony I cried out to my tormentor to let me up.; but he did not understand me, or was loath to let me go, and kept thrashing me with the bunch of twigs, until, perfectly desperate, I sprang off the bench, tumbled him over, and descended to the floor. Snow ; snow ; a region of eternal snow, seemed paradise, but my tormentor had not done with me ; and, as I was hurrying to the door, he dashed over me a tub of cold water. I was so hot that it seemed to hiss as it touched me ; he came at me with another, and that moment I could imagine, what had always seemed a travelleri? story, the high satisfaction and perfect safety with which the Rus- sian in mid-winter rushes from his hot bath and rolls himself in the snow. The grim features of my tor- Prose 149 mentor relaxed as he saw the change that came over me. I withdrew to my dressing-room ; dozed an hour on the settee, and went out a new man. In half an hour I stood in the palace of the Czars, within the walls of the Kremlin. The Stream That Was Made to Work. FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE KARR. "What is the use of anything that is 'merely beautifur?" If Niagara won't "work" kill it. If the blue sky won't work, give it a black mark. I know a stream that meanders among ferns and flowers and is cool and clear Then it enters a paper mill and works. It comes out dirty and smelly. Is all labour noble and holy? My faith! A STREAM runs through my garden. It gushes from the side of a furze-covered hill. For a long time it was a happy little stream ; it traversed meadows where all sorts of lovely wild-flowers bathed and mirrored themselves in its waters; then it entered my garden, and there I was ready to receive it. I had prepared green banks for it ; on its edge and in its very bed I had planted those flowers which all over the world love to bloom on the banks and in the bosom of pure streams. It flowed through my garden, murmuring its plain- tive song; then, fragrant with my flowers, it left the garden, crossed another meadow, and flung itself into the sea, over the precipitous sides of a cliff which it covered with foam. It was a happy stream; it had literally nothing to do beyond what I have said, — to flow, to bubble, to look limpid, to murmur amid flowers and sweet perfumes. But the world is ever jealous of the happiness of gentle indolence. One day my brother Eugene, and Savage, the clever engineer, were talking together on the banks of the stream, and to a certain degree abusing it. 'There," said my brother, "is a fine good-for-nothing stream for you, forsooth ! winding and dawdling about, danc- ing in the sunshine, and revelling in the grass, instead of working and paying for the place it takes up, as 150 Prose an honest stream should. Could it not be made to grmd coffee or pepper?" — "Or tools?" added Savage. — "Or to saw boards?" said my brother. I trembled for the stream, and broke off the conversation, com- plaining that they were trampling on my forget-me- not bed. Alas ! it was against these two alone that I could protect the devoted streamlet. Before long there came into our neighbourhood a man whom I noticed more than once hanging about the spot where the stream empties into the sea. The fellow, I plainly saw, was neither seeking for rhymes nor indulging in reveries upon its banks; he was not lulling thought to rest with the gentle murmur of its waters. ''My good friend," he was saying to the stream, ''there you are, idling and meandering about, singing to your heart's content, while I am working and wearing myself out. I don't see why you should not help me a bit; as yet you know nothing of the work to be done, but I will soon show you. You will soon know how to set about it. You must find it dull to stay in this way, doing nothing; it would be a change for you to make files or grind knives." Very soon wheels of all kinds were brought to the poor stream. From that day forward it has worked and turned a great wheel, which turns a little wheel, which turns a grindstone: it still sings, but no longer the same gently-monotonous song in its peaceful mel- ancholy. Its song is loud and angry now ; it leaps and froths and works now, — it grinds knives ! It still crosses the meadow, and my garden, and the next meadow ; but there the man is on the watch for it, to make it work. I have done the only thing I could do for it. I have dug a new bed for it in my garden, so that it may idle longer there, and leave me a little later; but, for all that, it must go at last and grind knives. Poor stream! thou didst not sufficiently con- ceal thy happiness in obscurity ; — thou hast murmured too audibly thy gentle music. Prose 151 How to Welcome the Schoolmate from a Foreign Land. (Copyrighted by T. Y. Crowell & Company.) EDMONDO DE AMICIS. The school-room, in America, is the mediating ground where the Italian child, the German, the Irish, the Norwegian, all children in fact coming from foreign countries, or whose parents are foreigners, must learn to live together in peace and harmony and assimilate their future interests. This selection from that great book "Cuore" finds a place in this volume because the American boy, more than any other, should have the spirit of love and tolerance toward the little schoolmate from a distant land. < "To-day we ought to be glad, for there enters our school a little Italian born in Calabria, hundreds of miles from here. Love your brother who has come from so far away. ''He was born in a glorious land, which has given illustrious men to Italy, and which now furnishes her with stout labourers and brave soldiers; in one of the most beautiful lands of our country, where there are great forests, and great mountains, inhabited by people full of talent and courage. Treat him well, so that he shall not perceive that he is far away from the city in which he was born; make him see that an Italian boy, in whatever school he sets his foot, v/ill find brothers there." So saying, the master rose and pointed out on the wall map the spot where lay Reg- gio, in Calabria. Then he called loudly: "Ernesto Derossi !" The boy who always has the first prize, Derossi, rose. "Come here," said the master. Derossi left his bench and stepped up to the little table, facing the Ca- labrian. "As the head boy in the school," said the master to him, "bestow the salute of welcome on this new companion, in the name of the whole class — the salute of the sons of Piedmont to the son of Calabria." Derossi saluted the Calabrian, saying in his clear voice, "Welcome !" and the other kissed him 'impetu- 152 Prose ously on the cheeks. All clapped their hands. "Si- lence!" cried the master; "don't clap your hands in school !" But it was evident that he was pleased. And the Calabrian was pleased also. The master assigned him a place, and accompanied him to the bench. Then he said again: — "Bear well in mind what I have said to you, that a Calabrian boy should be as though in his own house, at Turin, and that a boy from Turin should be at home in Calabria, our country fought for fifty years, and thirty thousand Italians died. You must all respect and love each other; but any one of you who should give offence to this comrade, because he was not born in our province, would render himself un- worthy of ever again raising his eyes from the earth when he passes the tri-coloured flag." John Milton, on His Blindness. JOHN MILTOxX, 1 608-1 674. To that great oculist who "never loses a case," "who makes the sure, but dangerous wound while others hold the candle." They accuse me of blindness, because I have lost my eyes in the service of liberty; they tax me with cowardice, and while I had the use of my eyes and my sword I never feared the boldest among them; finally, I am upbraided with deformity, while no one was more handsome in the age of beauty. I do not even complain of my want of sight ; in the night with which I am surrounded the light of the Divine Pres- ence shines with a more brilliant lustre. Truth and Truthfulness. J. G. HOLLAND, 1819-1881. This selection is here because it was a favorite reading-lesson with me when I was a child. One of the rarest powers possessed by man, is the power to state a fact. It seems a very simple thing Prose 153 to tell the truth, but, beyond all question, there is nothing half so easy as lying. To comprehend a fact in its exact length, breadth, relations, and significance, and to state it in language that shall represent it with exact fidelity, are the work of a mind singularly gifted, finely balanced, and thoroughly practised in that spe- cial department of effort. The men are compara- tively few who are in the habit of telling the truth. We all lie, every day of our lives- — almost in every sen- tence we utter — not consciously and criminally, per- haps, but really, in that our language fails to repre- sent truth, and state facts correctly. Our truths are half-truths, or distorted truths, or exaggerated truths, or sophisticated truths. Much of this is owing to carelessness, much to habit, and more than has gen- erally been supposed to mental incapacity. I have known eminent men who had not the power to state a fact, in its whole volume and outline, because, first, they could not comprehend it perfectly, and second, because their power of expression was limited. The lenses by which they apprehended their facts were not adjusted properly; so they saw everything with a blur. Definite outlines, cleanly cut edges, exact apprehen- sion of volume and weight, nice measurements of re- lations were matters outside of their observation and experience. They had broad minds, but bungling; and their language was no better than their apprehen- sions — usually it was worse, because language is rarely as definite as apprehension. Men rarely do their work to suit them, because their tools are imperfect. There are men in all communities who are believed to be honest, yet whose word is never taken as au- thority upon any subject. There is a flaw or warp somewhere in their perceptions which prevents them from receiving truthful impressions. Everything comes to them distorted, as natural objects are dis- torted by reaching the eye through wrinkled window glass. Some are able to apprehend a fact and state it 1 54 Prose correctly, if it have no direct relation to themselves; but the moment their personality, or their personal in- terest is involved, the fact assumes false proportions and false colours. I know a physician whose patients are always alarmingly sick when he is first called to them. As they usually get well, I am bound to believe that he is a good physician; but I am not bound to believe that they are all as sick at the beginning as he supposes them to be. The first violent symptoms operate upon his imagi- nation and excite his fears ; and his opinion as to the degree of danger attaching to the diseases of his pa- tients is not worth half so much as that of any sensi- ble old nurse. In fact nobody thinks of taking it at all and those who know him and who hear his sad repre- sentations of the condition of his patients, show equal distrust of his word and faith in his skill by taking it for granted that they are in a fair way to get well. Sensitiveness. JOHN RUSKIN, 1819-1900. Insensibility is a crime, an unpardonable, vulgar habit. The ennobling difference between one man and another, — between one animal and another, — is pre- cisely in this, that one feels more than another. If we were sponges, perhaps sensation might not be easily got for us; if we were earth-worms, liable at every instant to be cut in two by the spade, perhaps too much sensation might not be good for us. But, being human creatures, it is good for us ; nay, we are human only in so far as we are sensitive, and our hon- our is precisely in proportion to our passion. You know I said of that great and pure society of the dead, that it would allow "no vain or vulgar per- son to enter there." What do you think I meant by a 'Vulgar" person? What do you yourselves mean Prose 155 by "vulgarity"? You will find it a fruitful subject of thought; but, briefly, the essence of all vulgarity lies in want of sensation. Simple and innocent vulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped bluntness of body and mind ; but in true inbred vulgarity, there is a deathful callousness, which, in extremity, becomes capable of every sort of bestial habit and crime, with- out fear, without pleasure, without horror, and with- out pity. It is in the blunt hand and the dead heart, in the diseased habit, in the hardened conscience, that men become vulgar ; they are for ever vulgar, precisely in proportion as they are incapable of sympathy, — of quick understanding, — of all that, in deep insist- ence on the common, but most accurate term, may be called the "tact" or ''touch- faculty" of body and soul ; that tact which the Mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has above all creatures; — fineness and fulness of sensation beyond reason ; — the guide and sanctifier of reason itself. Reason can but determine what is true : — it is the God-given passion of humanity which alone can recognise what God has made good. Treatment of Sisters. REV. HORACE V/INSLOW. For a big boy who always takes his little sister along. Every young man ought to feel that his honour is involved in the character and dignity of his sisters. There is no insult v/hich he should sooner rebuke, than one offered to them. But if you would have others esteem and honour them, you must esteem and honour them yourself. Treat them with far less re- serve, but with no less delicacy, than you would the most genteel stranger. Nothing in a family strikes the eye of a visitor with more delight, than to see brothers treat their sisters with kindness, civility, at- tention, and love. On the contrary, nothing is more offensive, or speaks worse for the honour of a fam- 156 Prose ily, than the coarse, rude, unkind manner, which brothers sometimes exhibit. Beware how you speak of your sisters. Even gold is tarnished by much handhng. If you speak in their praise — of their beauty, learning, manners, wit, or attentions — you will subject them to taunt and ridicule; if you say anything against them, you will bring reproach upon yourself and them too. If you have occasion to speak of them, do it with modesty and with few words. Let others do all the praising, and yourself enjoy it. I hope that you will always have reason to take pleasure in your sisters. If you are separated from them, maintain with them a correspondence. This will do yourself good as well as them. Do not neglect this duty, nor grow remiss in it. Give your friendly ad- vice, and seek theirs in return. As they mingle inti- mately with their sex, they can enlighten your mind respecting many particulars relating to female char- acter, important for you to know; and on the other hand, you have the same opportunity to do them a similar service. However long or widely separated from them, keep up your fraternal affection and intercourse. It is ominous of evil, when a young man forgets his sisters. A Friend. (Permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) R. W. EMERSON, 1803-1882. A FRIEND is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may drop even those garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second-thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another. Sin- cerity is the luxury allowed to the highest rank. Prose 157 Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. Suspicion. (Copyright, 1894, by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, also 1905 by Francis D. Tandy, in the Gettysburg Edition.) ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 1809-1865. FROM "THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN." "Do not look around to see what others are thinking." The way for a young man to rise is to improve him- self every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous at- tempts to keep a young man down ; and they will suc- ceed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it. Now, in what I have said, I am sure you will sus- pect nothing but sincere friendship. I would save you from a fatal error. You have been a laborious, studious young man. You are far better informed on almost all subjects than I have been. You cannot fail in any laudable object unless you allow your mind to be improperly directed. Elpenor, and the Wine-Cup. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) HOMER, 900 B.C. FROM "ODYSSEUS, THE HERO OF ITHACA." This story shows that drunkenness will carry a man to the Infernal Regions with more speed than a swift ship. Elpenor was first turned into a pig by drinking wine. With a heavy heart we sailed from Circe's island bound for the gloomy Hades. As the wind was fa- vourable, we soon reached the place of which the god- dess had told us. There we left the ship and did those 158 Prose things which Circe had counselled us to do. As soon as the dark blood of the sheep began to flow into the trench, countless souls came flocking from Hades and begged to taste of the blood, that their mortal minds might be restored. Young wives and girls, old men and young war- riors who had fallen in battle, airy forms, ghosts of all kinds of people, flitted like bats around me in that dark place with fearful cries, and I turned pale with fear. I drew my sword and waved them back until I should question the soul of Tiresias. But first came the soul of Elpenor, one of my com- panions who had gone with me to the palace of Circe. We had left him dead in the halls of the goddess, since we had no time to bury him. Now, when I saw him a great pity stirred my heart, and I shed tears and said to him: "Elpenor, how didst thou come into these dread regions of darkness? Thou hast come more quickly on foot than I in my quick ship." The phantom knew me, for, being as yet unburied, he was not one of the shades, and had not lost his memory or voice. He moaned and replied : "Noble Ulysses, it was an evil fate which the gods had de- creed for me. I drank too much wine and that caused my death. I lay down to sleep on the roof of Circe's palace and could not remember the way to the stairs, when thou didst call us to the ships. In my haste I fell from the roof and broke my neck, and my soul came down to Hades. "I pray thee now by all whom thou dost love — thy wife, thy father, and thy son — that thou leave not my body unburied in the palace halls, lest I bring on thee the anger of the gods. But on thy return to Circe's isle burn my body, together with my armour; pile up a mound of earth over my ashes, and plant my oar upon my tomb — the oar with which I used to row while I was living." Prose 159 The Old Trail to the Mother Lode. A Miner's Sermon. JOHN E. BURTON. Since time began no human being has been con- sulted as to whether he wished to be born or not. No human being has ever had a choice as to the nation or race in which he should be born. Of all the millions who have lived and died not one ever yet had the choice as to whether he would die or not. All the living of the earth must die. Your belief is wholly a question of where you hap- pened to be born. If born in a Buddhist land you are a Buddhist and believe in Buddha. If born in a Mohammedan land you believe in Ma- homet and are a Mohammedan. If born in a Confucian land you are a Confucian and believe in Confucius. Intelligence, reason, travel, enable the thinkers of the race to rise above the narrow lines of their little surroundings and see that Truth is not confined to the boundaries of your belief or your land, and that through all beliefs there runs the great and perma- nent vein, the Mother Lode of Humanity. One kind word makes all hearts alike. Kindness is always right. Men agree upon that fact throughout the whole world. The great object of life is to do your best and be kind. The most abiding comfort that comes to a strong man is the kindly disposition to help the fellow who is weaker. Under the rough miner's pride will be found true manly kindness even unto death. For when the fire- damp or the deadly cave-in comes, the real miner will rush to the rescue and risk and give his life for his comrade brother, and more than this man can not do. Welcome every sympathy that brings man nearer to man. Welcome all that is true and good in all re- i6o Prose ligions and in all books. Welcome pure lives. Wel- come all that improves the world, that forgives error and helps honesty, defeats wrong and defends hu- manity. To me, Sincerity is the Great Test of Man- hood. The Schoolmaster is Abroad. LORD BROUGHAM, 1778-1868. There have been periods when the country heard with dismay that "the soldier was abroad." That is not the case now. Let the soldier be abroad; in the present age he can do nothing. There is another per- son abroad, — a less important person in the eyes of some, an insignificant person, whose labours have tended to produce this state of things. The school- master is abroad! And I trust more to him, armed with his primer, than I do to the soldier in full mili- tary array, for upholding and extending the liberties of the country. The adversaries of improvement are wont to make themselves merry with what is termed the ''march of intellect," and here, as far as the phrase goes, they are in the right. The conqueror moves in a march. He stalks onward with the ''pride, pomp, and circumstance" of war, banners flying, shouts rending the air, guns thundering, and martial music pealing, to drown the shrieks of the wounded, and the lamentations for the slain. Not thus the schoolmaster, in his peaceful vocation. He quietly advances in his humble path, labouring steadily till he has opened to the light all the recesses of ignorance, and torn up by the roots the weeds of vice. His is a progress not to be compared with any- thing like a march ; but it leads to a far more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won. Such men — men deserving the glorious title of Teachers of Mankind — I have found, labouring con- Prose i6i scientiously, though, perhaps, obscurely, in their blessed vocation, wherever I have gone. Their call- ing is high and holy ; their renown will fill the earth in after ages, in proportion as it sounds not far off in their own times. Aristocracy. ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, 1748-1813. "Aristocracy," for the most part, is a bad habit, the last resort of "a blooming idiot." The gentleman, who has so copiously declaimed against all declamation, has pointed his artillery against the rich and great. We are told that, in every country, there is a natural Aristocracy, and that this Aristocracy consists of the rich and the great. Nay, the gentleman goes further, and ranks in this class of men the wise, the learned, and those eminent for their talents or great virtues. Does a man possess the confi- dence of his fellow-citizens, for having done them im- portant services ? He is an Aristocrat ! Has he great integrity ? He is an Aristocrat ! Indeed, to determine that one is an Aristocrat, we need only to be assured that he is a man of merit. But I hope we have many such. So sensible am I of that gentleman's talents, in- tegrity, and virtue, that we might at once hail him the first of the Nobles, the very Prince of the Senate ! But whom, in the name of common sense, would the gentleman have to represent us ? Not the rich, for they are sheer Aristocrats. Not the learned, the wise, the virtuous; for they are all Aristocrats. Whom then? Why, those who are not virtuous; those who are not wise ; those who are not learned ; — these are the men to whom alone we can trust our liberties! He says, further, we ought not to choose Aristocrats, because the People will not have confidence in them. That is to say, the People will not have confidence in those who best deserve and most possess their confidence! He would have his Government composed of other I 62 Prose classes of men. Where will he find them? Why, he must go forth into the highways, and pick up the rogue and the robber. He must go to the hedges and the ditches, and bring in the poor, the blind, and the lame. As the gentleman has thus settled the definition of Aristocracy, I trust that no man will think it a term of reproach; for who, among us, would not be wise? who would not be virtuous? who would not be above want? The truth is, in these Republican Govern- ments, we know no such ideal distinctions. We are all equally aristocrats. Offices, emoluments, honours, the roads to preferment and to wealth, are alike open to all. Eulogium on Franklin. COUNT DE MIRABEAU, 1 749-1791. Franklin lived on yellow corn-meal pudding when it was necessary and dined with kings when the call came. If you want to see his grave, you can hang with a crowd of his admirers on a fence around the square in which he is buried in Philadelphia. You will always find a crowd there. And yet we call him dead. Franklin is dead! Restored to the bosom of the Divinity is that genius which gave freedom to America, and rayed forth torrents of light upon Europe. The sage whom two worlds claim — the man whom the His- tory of Empires and the History of Science alike con- tend for — occupied, it cannot be denied, a lofty rank among his species. Long enough have political Cab- inets signalised the death of those who were great in their funeral eulogies only. Long enough has the eti- quette of Courts prescribed hypocritical mournings. For their benefactors only, should Nations assume the emblems of grief; and the Representatives of Nations should commend only the heroes of humanity to pub- lic veneration. In the fourteen States of the Confederacy, Congress has ordained a mourning of two months for the death of Franklin ; and America is at this moment acquitting herself of this tribute of honour to one of the Fathers Prose 163 of her Constitution. Would it not become us, Gentle- men, to unite in this religious act ; to participate in this homage, publicly rendered, at once to the rights of man, and to the philosopher who has contributed most largely to their vindication throughout the world ? An- tiquity would have erected altars to this great and powerful genius, who, to promote the welfare of man- kind, comprehending both the Heavens and the Earth in the range of his thought, could at once snatch the bolt from the cloud and the sceptre from tyrants. France, enlightened and free, owes at least the ac- knowledgment of her remembrance and regret to one of the greatest intellects that ever served the united cause of philosophy and liberty. I propose that it be now decreed that the National Assembly wear mourn- ing, during three days, for Benjamin Franklin. John Adams* Speech on the Declaration of Inde- pendence as Imagined by Daniel Webster. DANIEL WEBSTER, 1782-1852. This powerful speech I loved when a child, and it has been one of the inspirations of my life. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning, we aimed not at independence. But there is a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms ; and blinded to her own interest, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the Declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or security to his Own life and his own honour? Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair, — is not he, our ven- erable colleague, near you — are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment 164 Prose and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws? If we post- pone independence, do we mean to carry on or to give up the war? Do we mean to submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston Port Bill and all ? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trod- den down in the dust ? I know we do not mean to sub- mit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, — that plighting, before God, of our sacred honour to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dan- gers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extrem- ity, with our fortunes and our lives? I know there is not a man here who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having twelve months ago, in this place, moved you, that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for defence of American liberty, may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I give him. The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves sub- jects in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, by re- pealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole con- duct towards us has been a course of injustice and op- pression. Her. pride will be less wounded by sub- mitting to that course of things which now predesti- Prose . 165 nates our independence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her rebelhous subjects. The former she would regard as the result of fortune; the latter, she would feel as her own deep disgrace. Why, then, do we not, as soon as possible, change this from a civil to a national war ? And since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all the bene- fits of victory, if we gain the victory? If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause will raise up armies ; the cause will create navies. The people, the people, the people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves, glori- ously through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these colonies ; and I know that resistance to British aggres- sion is deep and settled in their hearts, and cannot be eradicated. The Declaration of Independence will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for the restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the glorious object of en- tire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the spirit of life. Read this declaration at the head of the army ; every sword will be drav/n from its scab- bard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it, or perish on the field of honour. Publish it from the pul- pit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls ; proclaim it there; let them hear it who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon — let them see it, who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, — and the very walls will cry out in its support. Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly, through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to see 1 66 Prose the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We may die ; die colonists ; die slaves ; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my coun- try shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacri- fice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country. But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be as- sured that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood ; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the fu- ture, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honour it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires and illu- minations. On its annual return, they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears; not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of grati- tude, and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it ; and I leave off as I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment, — Independence now, and INDEPENDENCE FOREVER. Prose 167 Imperishability of Great Examples. EDWARD EVERETT, 1 794-1865. This is the first great utterance of the politics of Jesus. Love must be given a working-form. — Edwin Markham in "The Poetry of Jesus." To be cold and breathless, — to feel not and speak not, — this is not the end of existence to the men who have breathed their spirits into the institutions of their country, who have stamped their characters on the pillars of the age, who have poured their hearts' blood into the channels of the public prosperity. Tell me, ye who tread the sods of yon sacred height, is War- ren dead? Can you not still see him, not pale and prostrate, the blood of his gallant heart pouring out of his ghastly wound, but moving resplendent over the field of honour, with the rose of Heaven upon his cheek, and the fire of liberty in his eye? Tell me, ye who make your pious pilgrimage to the shades of Ver- non, is Washington, indeed, shut up in that cold and narrow house ? That which made these men, and men like these, cannot die. The hand that traced the char- ter of Independence is, indeed, motionless ; the elo- quent lips that sustained it are hushed; but the lofty spirits that conceived, resolved, and maintained it, and which alone, to such men, ''make it life to liye," these cannot expire: "These shall resist the empire of decay, When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away; Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, But that which warmed it once can never die." i68 Prose Reverence. MRS. CHARLES BRAY, OF COVENTRY, ENGLAND. Octavia, do you remember that July morning in 1898 when we stepped from the train at Coventry, the city of the Lady Godiva? We hoped to see with our mortal eyes the houses and streets made sacred to memory by the once illuminating presence of the author of "Adam Bede." We went to the news-stand to find a "Guide to Coventry" and found one; it gave a long account of "Peeping Tom" but did not mention our author. We berated a guide-book that could mention the trite Tom and omit an immortal. An elderly gentleman, shaking with palsy, took from his pocket-book a printed paragraph, a criticism, on our author. Did I reply that I had no time to read a criticism on what American Colleges accepted as standard, or was it you that made the answer? In August we found the critic's grave in Keswick, and we were grateful to the care-taker who shov/ed it to us, and gave him a fee. But on that July morning we took a carriage and drove to Ivy Cottage, where we announced that we were two Americans who hoped to see the Land of the Author of "Middlemarch" and her birthplace and homes. Do you remember that two beautiful old fairy ladies with fresh pink and white cheeks and snowy curls threw their arms around us and led us into a rose garden, and through the rooms where, as a young girl. Miss Evans had lingered, "her curls pulled down around her delicate face because she was so shy"? These fairy godmothers took us to a long table and poured out upon it from baskets and boxes untold literary treasures, letters from Carlyle, Gladstone, Harriet Martineau, and a heap of empty envelopes which had once contained the letters they had re- ceived from George Eliot, but had given to Mr. Cross for his "Life of George Eliot as Related in her Letters." They played for us the tunes George Eliot loved and showed us the picture painted of her. Miss Hennell gave you an autograph copy of one of her books, and Mrs. Charles Bray wrote her name in her own volume "Elements of Morality" and gave it to me. Then the two fairy ladies gave us a cup of tea and some cake and kissed us and sent us away with an affectionate "Come again." It is in memory of that golden day and those golden v/omen that I include the following words on Reverence from the little book which Mrs. Bray gave me and which in Italy has become a standard. They are truly words that every child should know. It may seem a small offence, especially in a child, to be rude; a gnat is a small thing, and yet it may cause much irritation. Sometimes we see a child who does not answer when he is spoken to, or who turns his back upon us instead of listening; who yawns in our face, or whistles while we are engaged in some quiet study; who pushes past us in the street, or does not step aside to let others pass ; who slams doors ; who eats his meals without helping to serve others; who stands staring at a friend or guest instead of meeting him pleasantly and replying to his greeting; who contradicts and denies flatly what others say, from Prose 169 habit, and not because he knows better than they do. All these ugly ways cause irritation and annoyance to others; and if they become habits, they will sour the disposition, and the inner feelings will become as rough and rude as the outward manners. Rude behaviour is called repulsive ; that means, it drives away : kind and courteous behaviour is called attractive; that means, it draws towards. Thus, like all other things which are ugly and wrong in our con- duct, rudeness separates us from our fellow-creatures, and tends to make us alone in the world ; while courtesy unites us with others. Rudeness and disrespect are wrong towards any- body, but rudeness from a child to a parent is odious. "Honour thy father and thy mother" is called 'The first commandment with promise." Do not we all feel that we have a right to be re- spected by others if we have done nothing that de- grades us? Does not even a little child feel angry when he is treated with rudeness ? Even the little dog or the cat which sits at our feet, and loves to be with us, is sorely wounded if we push it aside rudely, or speak to it with harshness. Everything that lives and feels is entitled to our kindness, and in some way to our respect, either as our fellow-creature, or as a beautiful and wonderful ex- istence, whose being is a mystery beyond our under- standing. See the boy who clutches and crushes the butterfly as it spreads its wings ; who stamps with his heavy foot the life out of the merry, busy little insect, which speeds along his path ; who hurls a stone at the tender bird as it warbles sweetly in the bush ; who plucks and scatters the delicate flowers as they bend towards him on their graceful stems. He has not soul enough to admire their beauty, he has not sense enough to feel the marvel of their existence. He is like the lowest savage who cannot admire or wonder at anything. I/O Prose See two men enter a magnificent building. Statues of great and good men of the past stand around. The organ is pealing forth the grand music of those who have left their spirits in the harmony they created. One of these two men enters with reverence. He takes off his hat in sign of respect ; he sits down quietly lest he should disturb others in their enjoyment. The per- sons who are near him at once welcome him as a kindred spirit who helps them to admire and enjoy by his sympathy, although they may not know who he is. The other man comes in hat on head, hands in his pockets. He stands lounging about, or pushes against others; he talks or whispers so as to disturb everyone who is listening to the music ; he is too dull to feel the beauty either of the building or of the music, so he noisily walks out before the performance is finished; and everyone is glad that he is gone. The reverence of the first man makes him attractive and the rudeness of the other makes him repulsive. See, again, two children v/ho are old enough to think and feel about what they hear and read. One of them does not think and has no feeling. He reads how Sir Humphry Davy invented a safety lamp for the poor miners, but he quickly turns over to a more amusing page of the book. He does not care about others, or for what happens to them. The other child both thinks and has feeling. He cannot leave Sir Humphry Davy or his lamp until he understands the clever contrivance by which light is taken a safe prisoner down among the explosive gases of the dark pit. Which of these two children is likely to do what is good and kind and noble when he himself becomes a man? Prose 171 Separation from New England. RICHARD YATES, 1818-1873. I REGRET that appeals are made to the masses, by a few pubHc presses in the country, for a separation from New England. Not a drop of New England blood flows in my veins ; still I should deem myself an object of commiseration and shame if I could forget her glorious history, if I could forget that the blood of her citizens freely commingled with that of my own Ancestors, upon those memorable fields which ushered in the dawn of civil and religious liberty. I do not propose to be the eulogist of New England ; but she is bound to us by all the bright Memories of the past, by all the glory of the present, by all the hopes of the future. I shall always exult in the fact that I belong to a Republic in the galaxy of whose stars New Eng- land is among the brightest and the best. Palsied be the hand that would sever the ties which bind the East and West. A Political Pause. CHARLES JAMES FOX, 1749-1806. But if a man were present now at the field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what were they fighting — "Fighting!" would be the answer, "they are not fighting; they are pausing/' "Why is that man expiring? Why is that other writhing with agony? What means this implacable fury ?" The answer must be, "You are quite wrong, Sir; you deceive yourself — they are not fighting — do not disturb them — they are merely pausing! This man is not expiring with agony — that man is not dead — he is only pausing! Lord help you. Sir! they are not angry with one another; they have now no cause of quarrel ; but their country thinks that there should be a pause. 172 Prose "All that you see, Sir, is nothing like fighting— there is no harm nor cruelty nor bloodshed in it, whatever ; it is nothing more than a political pause ! It is merely to try an experiment — to see whether Bonaparte will not behave himself better than heretofore; and in the meantime we have agreed to pause in pure friendship." » An Appeal to Arms. PATRICK HENRY, 1736-1799. Mr. President, this is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as noth- ing less than a question of freedom or slavery. And in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at this time, through fear of giving ofifence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of Hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the numbers of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation ? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; — to know the worst and to provide for it ! I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way Prose 173 of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry, for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House ? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, Sir; it will prove a snare to your feet ! Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed by a kiss ! Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters, and darken our land. 'Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so un- willing to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, Sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation — the last arguments to which Kings resort. I ask. Sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission ? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it ? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, Sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble sup- plication? What terms shall we find, which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you. Sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, 1 74 Prose to avert the storm that is now coming on. We have petitioned — we have remonstrated — we have suppH- cated — we have prostrated ourselves before the Throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the Ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted ; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult ; our sup- plications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned with contempt, from the foot of the Throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, — if we mean to preserve inviolable those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our con- test shall be obtained, — we must fight ; I repeat it. Sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left us ! The War is Inevitable. PATRICK HENRY, 1 736-1 799- "Imagine the influence of such a powerful speech as this, learned and repeated as it has been for more than a hundred years," says a devoted teacher. Ask almost any clever business man, educated in America, what his favourite speech was when a boy and he will say: "The War is Inevitable." They tell us, Sir, that we are weak, — unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house ? Shall v/e gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make Prose 175 a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three milHons of People, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, Sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of Nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle. Sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery ! Our chains are forged ! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston ! The war is inevitable ; and let it come ! I REPEAT IT, Sir, let it come! It is in vain. Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gen- tlemen may cry, peace, peace ! — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it. Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death ! Against Employing Indians in War. WILLIAM PITT (EARL OF CHATHAM), 1708-1778. NOVEM- BER 18, 1777, AGAINST THE EARL OF SUFFOLK. Who is the man that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of our army, has dared to authorise and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage? — to call into civilised alliance the wild and inhuman savage of the woods ; to delegate to the 176 Prose merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights; and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My Lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment; but, atrocious as they are, they have a defender in this House. "It is perfectly justifiable," says a noble Lord, "to use all the means that God and Nature put into our hands." I am astonished, shocked, to hear such principles confessed, — to hear them avowed in this House, or even in this country : — principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian! My Lords, I did not intend to have trespassed again upon your attention ; but I cannot repress my indignation — I feel myself inpelled by every duty to proclaim it. As members of this House, as men, as Christians, we are called upon to protest against the barbarous proposition. "That God and Nature put into our hands!" What ideas that noble Lord may entertain of God and Nature, I know not; but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and to humanity. What! at- tribute the sacred sanction of God and Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife, — to the can- nibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drink- ing the blood of his mangled victim! Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, revealed or natural; every sentiment of honour, every generous feeling of humanity ! These abominable principles, and this more abom- inable avowal of them, demand most decisive indig- nation ! I call upon that Right Reverend Bench, the pious pastors of our Church, I conjure them to join in the holy v/ork, and to vindicate their religion. I ap- peal to the wisdom and the law of this learned Bench, to defend and support the justice of their country ! I call upon the honour of your Lordships to rever- ence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own! I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I Prose 177 invoke the genius of the Constitution ! Shall we turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connec- tions, friends and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child? Send forth the savage against your brethren ? To lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, with these horrible hell- hounds of savage war ! Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of America; and we improve on the inhuman example of even Spanish cruelty; — we turn loose these savage Indians against our brethren and countrymen in Arherica, of the same language, laws, liberties, and re- ligion, — endeared to us by every tie that should sanc- tify humanity! My Lords, this awful subject, so important to our honour, our Constitution, and our religion, demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry. And I again call upon your Lordships, and the united powers of the State, to examine it thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and my indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, or have reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles. British Aggressions. JOSIAH QUINCY, JR., i743-i775. If there ever was a time, this is the hour for Ameri- cans to rouse themselves, and exert every ability. Their all is at hazard, and the die of fate spins doubt- ful. British taxations, suspensions of legislatures, and standing armies, are but some of the clouds which overshadow the northern world. Now is the time for this People to summon every aid, human and divine; 178 Prose to exhibit every moral virtue, and call forth every Christian grace. The wisdom of the serpent, the in- nocence of the dove, and the intrepidity of the lion, with the blessing of God, will yet save ns from the jav/s of destruction. By the sweat of our brow we earn the little we possess ; from nature we derive the common rights of man ; — and by charter we claim the liberties of Britons ! Shall we — dare we — pusillanimously surrender our birthright? Is the obligation to our fathers dis- charged ? is the debt we owe posterity paid ? Answer me, thou coward, who hidest thyself in the hour of trial! — if there is no reward in this life, no prize of glory in the next, capable of animating thy dastard soul ; think and tremble, thou miscreant ! at the whips and stripes thy master shall lash thee with on earth, and the flames and scorpions thy second master shall torment thee with hereafter ! O, my countrymen ! what will our children say, when they read the history of these times, should they find we tamely gave away, without one noble struggle, the most invaluable of earthly blessings? As they drag the galling chain, will they not execrate us? If we have any respect for things sacred, any regard to the dearest treasure on earth, — if we have one tender sentiment for pos- terity, if we would not be despised by the whole world, — let us, in the most open, solemn manner and with determined fortitude, swear we will die, if we cannot live, freemen! To the American Troops before the Battle of Long Island. GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1732-1799. It is worth a great deal to know when to let go. A retreat may be as clever as a victory. Washington was obliged to retreat in the Battle of Long Island, and he did it so skilfully that the British could not forgive him. The time is now near at hand which must prob- ably determine whether Americans are to be freemen Prose 179 or slaves ; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves con- signed to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or to die. Our own, our country's honour, calls upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion ; and if we now shame- fully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us, then, rely on the goodness of our cause, and the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions. The eyes of all our countrymen are now upon us ; and we shall have their blessings and praises, if happily we are the instruments of sav- ing them from the tyranny meditated against them. Let us, therefore, animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a freeman contend- ing for liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth. Liberty, property, life and honour, are all at stake. Upon your courage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted country. Our wives, children and parents, expect safety from us only; and they have every reason to believe that Heaven will crown with success so just a cause. The enemy will en- deavour to intimidate by show and appearance ; but remember they have been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave Americans. Their cause is bad, — their men are conscious of it; and, if opposed with firmness and coolness on their first onset, with our advantage of works, and knowledge of the ground, the victory is most assuredly ours. Every good soldier will be silent and attentive, wait for or- i8o Prose ders, and reserve his fire until he is sure of doing execution. The Constitution of the United States. At the age of thirteen or fourteen myself and class-mates were obliged to commit to memory the constitution of the united states, the WHOLE of it. We recited it forwards and backwards, inside out, and upside down and always declaimed it for company. Here's a rouse to the good old teacher who taught it to us! Preamble. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure do- mestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ARTICLE I. The Legislative Department. Section L Congress in General. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall con- sist of a Senate and House of Representatives. Section IL House of Representatives. 1st Clause. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature. 2d Clause. No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. 3d Clause. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may Prose i8i be included within this Union, according to their re- spective numbers, which shall be determined by add- ing to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and, ex- cluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one representative; and until such enumera- tion shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six. New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten. North Carolina five. South Carolina five, and Georgia three. 4th Clause. When vacancies happen in the repre- sentation from any State, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacan- cies. ^th Clause. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers ; and shall have the sole power of impeachment. Section III. The Senate. 1st Clause. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years ; and each sena- tor shall have one vote. 2d Clause. Immediately after they shall be assem- bled in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, I 82 Prose so that one-third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any State, the executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies. 3J Clause. No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. 4th Clause. The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. ^th Clause. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the ab- sence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States. 6tli Clause. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that pur- pose, they shall all be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present. yth Clause. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honour, trust, or profit under the United States ; but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment, according to law. Section IV. Both Houses. 1st Clause. The times, places, and manner of hold- ing elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or Prose 183 alter such regulations, except as to the places of choos- ing senators. 2d Clause. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day. Section V. — The Houses Separately. 1st Clause. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own mem- bers, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorised to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each house may provide. 2d Clause. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly be- haviour, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, ex- pel a member. ^d Clause. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal. 4th Clause. Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, ad- journ for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two houses shall be sitting. Section VI. Privileges and Disabilities of Members. 1st Clause. The senators and representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascer- tained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall, in all cases except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their 184 Prose respective houses, and in going to and returning from the same ; and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be questioned in any other place. 2d Clause. No senator or representative shall, dur- ing the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office. Section VII. Mode of passing Lazvs. isf Clause. -All bills for raising revenue shall origi- nate in the House of Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills. 2d Clause. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States ; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such reconsideration two- thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that house, it shall be- come a law. But in all such cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each house respect- ively. If any bill shall not be returned by the Presi- dent within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Con- Prose 185 gress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. 3t/ Clause. Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a ques- tion of adjournment) shall be presented to the Presi- dent of the United States ; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being dis- approved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill. Section VHI. Powers granted to Congress. The Congress shall have power — i^^ Clause. To lay and collect taxes, duties, im- posts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; 2d Clause. To borrow money on the credit of the United States; 3d Clause. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes ; 4tli Clause. To establish a uniform rule of naturalisation, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States ; ^th Clause. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; 6th Clause. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States; yth Clause. To establish post-offices and post- roads ; Sth Clause. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to au- 1 86 Prose thors and inventors the exclusive right to their re- spective writings and discoveries ; gth Clause. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; lOth Clause. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; nth Clause. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning cap- tures on land and water ; I2th Clause. To raise and support armies ; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years ; i3^/j Clause. To provide and maintain a navy; i^th Clause. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces ; i^th Clause. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress in- surrections, and repel invasions ; i6th Clause. To provide for organising, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline pre- scribed by Congress; lyth Clause. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the Government of the United States ; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings; — and i8fA Clause. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the Prose 187 foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. Section IX. Powers denied to the United States. ist Clause. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Con- gress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. 2d Clause. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may re- quire it. 3 J Clause. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 4th Clause. No capitation, or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census or enumera- tion hereinbefore directed to be taken. ^th Clause. No tax or duty shall be laid on arti- cles exported from any State. 6th Clause. No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another. yth Clause. No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law ; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. Sth Clause. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States; and no person holding any of- fice of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of any present, emolu- ment, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State. • I 88 Prose Section X. Powers denied to the States. 1st Clause. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation ; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any- thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. 2d Clause. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws ; and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress. T,d Clause. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agree- ment or compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. ARTICLE II. The Executive Department. Section I. President and Vice-President. ist Clause. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows : 2d Clause. Each State shall appoint, in such man- ner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress. But no senator or representative, Prose 189 or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. Section IL Powers of the President. 1st Clause. The President shall be commander-in- chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may re- quire the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any sub- ject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and par- dons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. 2d Clause. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint, ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Su- preme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law ; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. 3d Clause. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions, which shall expire at the end of their next session. Section III. Duties of the President. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recom- mend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient ; he may, on extraordi- nary occasions, convene both houses, or either ^of them, 190 Prose and in case of disagreement between them with re- spect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States. Section IV. — Impeachment of the President. The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours. ARTICLE III. The Judicial Department. Section I. The United States Courts. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office. Section II. Jurisdiction of the United States Courts. 1st Clause. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitu- tion, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction ; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States; between a State and citizens of an- other State ; between citizens of different States ; be- Prose 191 tween citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or sub- jects. 2d Clause, In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such excep- tions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. 3(f Clause. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed. Section III. Treason. 1st Clause. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and com- fort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. 2d Clause. The Congress shall have power to de- clare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. ARTICLE IV. Miscellaneous Provisions. Section I. State Records. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general 192 Prose laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. Section II. Privileges of Citizens, 1st Clause. The citizens of each State shall be en- titled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. 2d Clause. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on de- mand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime. ^d Clause. No person held to service or labour in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into an- other, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due. Section III. New States and Territories. 1st Clause. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the con- sent of the legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. 2d Clause. The Congress shall have power to dis- pose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claim of the United States or of any particular State. Section IV. Guarantees to the States. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and Prose 193 shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against do- mestic violence. ARTICLE V. Powers of Amendment. The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legisla- tures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the leg- islatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress : provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article ; and that no State, without its consent, shall be de- prived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. ARTICLE VL Public Debt, Supremacy of the Constitution, Oath of Office, Religious Test. 1st Clause. All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. 2d Clause. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Consti- tution or laws of any State to the contrary notwith- standing. • 194 Prose 3(i Clause. The senators and representatives be- fore mentioned, and the members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be re- quired as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. ARTICLE VII. Ratification of the Constitu- tion. The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Con- stitution between the States so ratifying the same. AMENDMENTS PROPOSED BY CONGRESS^ AND RATIFIED BY THE LEGIS- LATURES OF THE SEVERAL STATES, PURSUANT TO THE FIFTH ARTICLE OF THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION. Article L Freedom of Religion, Congress shall make no law respecting an establish- ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press ; or the right of the people peaceably to assem- ble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Article II. Right to bear Arms. A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the se- curity of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Article III. Quartering Soldiers on Citizens. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war but in a manner to be prescribed by law. Prose 195 Article IV. Search Warrants. The right of the people to be secure in their per- sons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, sup- ported by oath or affirmation, and particularly de- scribing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Article V. Trial for Crime. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger ; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall be com- pelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law ; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. Article VI. Rights of Accused Persons. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall en- joy the right to a speedy and public trial by an im- partial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be con- fronted with the witnesses against him; to have com- pulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favour, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence. Article VII. Suits at Common Law. In suits at common law, where the value in con- troversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial 196 Prose by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law. Article VIII. Excessive Bail. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments in- flicted. Article IX. Rights Retained by the People. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Article X. Reserved Rights of the States. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Article XL The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit, in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state. Article XII. 1st Clause. The electors shall meet in their respect- ive States and vote by ballot for President and Vice- President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhab- itant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice- President, and they shall make distinct lists of all per- sons voted for as President, and of all persons voted Prose 197 for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which hsts they shall sign and certify and trans- mit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, in presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted; the person hav- ing the greatest number of votes for President shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no per- son have such majority, then from the persons hav- ing the highest numbers, not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Rep- resentatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice- President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the Presi- dent. 2d Clause. The person having the greatest num- ber of votes as Vice-President shall be the Vice-Presi- dent, if such number be a majority of the whole num- ber of electors appointed; and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. 3c/ Clause. But no person constitutionally ineligi- ble to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. 198 Prose 4th Clause. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the United States. ^th Clause. No person except a natural-born citi- zen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President ; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States. 6th Clause. In case of the removal of the Presi- dent from office, or of his death, resignation, or in- ability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President; and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a Presi- dent shall be elected. yth Clause. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them. Sth Clause. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation : — 'T do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faith- fully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Article XIII. Slavery. Section I. Neither slavery nor involuntary servi- tude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the Prose 199 party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their juris- diction. Sec. II. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Article XIV. Section I. All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immuni- ties of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Sec. II. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of elect- ors for President and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male in- habitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be re- duced in the proportion which the number of ^such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Sec. III. No person shall be a senator or repre- sentative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice- President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any 200 Prose State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two- thirds of each house, remove such disability. Sec. IV. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorised by law, including debts in- curred for payment of pensions and bounties for serv- ices in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation in- curred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipa- tion of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void. Sec. V. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Article XV. Section I. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude. Sec. II. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. As Others See Us. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 1824-1892. ABRIDGED FROM 'TRUE AND L" We had two lessons a week with the practice teachers, and studied a lovely little story written by George William Curtis entitled Prue and I. It brings out the idea, "Have we any right to judge other people's characters, unless we mean to do them good, and make them better by it?" I would rather have written that story than be the Queen of England. (From the composition of a 7th grade child.) "A Curtis Memorial Window!" And not a word that Curtis wrote, in "The Course of Study"! "What good will the Monument dol" You know my grandfather Titbottom was a West Indian. I remember his white hair, and his calm smile, Prose 201 and how, not long before he died, he called me to him, and laying his hand upon my head, said to me: ''My child, the world is not this great sunny piazza, nor life the fairy stories which the women tell you here, as you sit in their laps. I shall soon be gone, but I want to leave with you some memento of my love for you, and I know of nothing more valuable than these spectacles, which your grandmother brought from her native island, when she arrived here one fine summer morning, long ago." At the same time, he handed me the spectacles. Instinctively I put them on, and looked at my grand- father. But I saw no grandfather, no piazza, no flow- ered dressing-gown ; I saw only a luxuriant palm tree, waving broadly over a tranquil landscape ; pleasant homes clustered around it ; gardens teeming with fruit and flowers ; flocks quietly feeding ; birds wheeling and chirping. But from the moment that I received the gift of the spectacles, I could not resist their fascination, and I withdrew into myself, and became a solitary boy. There were not many companions for me of my own age, and they gradually left me, or, at least, had not a hearty sympathy with me; for, if they teased me, I pulled out my spectacles and surveyed them so seri- ously that they acquired a kind of awe of me, and evi- dently regarded my grandfather's gift as a concealed magical weapon which might be dangerously drawn upon them at any moment. Whenever, in our games, there were quarrels and high words, and I began to feel about my dress and to wear a grave look, they all took the alarm, and shouted, "Look out for Tit- bottom's spectacles," and scattered like a flock of scared sheep. My grandmother sent me to school, but I looked at the master, and saw that he was a smooth round ferule, or an improper noun, or a vulgar fraction, and refused to obey him. Or he was a piece of string, a 202 Prose rag, a willow-wand, and I had a contemptuous pity. But one was a well of cool, deep water, and looking suddenly in, one day, I saw the stars. That one gave me all my schooling. With him I used to walk by the sea, and, as we strolled and the waves plunged in long legions before us, I looked at him through the spectacles, and as his eyes dilated with the boundless view, and his chest heaved with an im- possible desire, I saw Xerxes and his army, tossed and glittering, rank upon rank, multitude upon multitude, out of sight, but ever regularly advancing, and with confused roar of ceaseless music, prostrating them- selves in abject homage. Or, as with arms out- stretched and hair streaming on the wind, he chanted full lines of the resounding Iliad, I saw Homer pacing the ^gean sands of the Greek sunsets of forgotten times. I tried to teach, for I loved children. But if any- thing excited a suspicion of my pupils, and putting on my spectacles, I saw that I was fondling a snake, or smelling at a bud with a worm in it, I sprang up in horror and ran away; or, if it seemed to me through the glasses, that a cherub smiled upon me, or a rose was blooming in my button-hole, then I felt myself imperfect and impure, not fit to be leading and train- ing what was so essentially superior to myself, and I kissed the children and left them weeping and won- dering. Once, I beheld — myself, reflected in the mirror. Having seen myself, I was compelled to see others properly to understand my relations to them. There is your neighbour over the way, who passes for a woman who has failed in her career, because she is an old maid. People wag solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not marry- ing. One day, I raised my glasses, and glanced at her. I did not see the old maid whom we all pitied for a secret sorrow, but a woman whose nature was a tropic. Prose 203 in which the sun shone, and birds sang, and flowers bloomed forever. I rubbed the glasses well, and looked at Preciosa, and saw a white lily, whose stem was broken, but which was fresh, and luminous, and fragrant still. 1 saw, that although a flower may have lost its hold upon earthly moisture, it may still bloom as sweetly, fed by the dews of heaven. High Life. (Permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) HENRY DAVID THOREAU, 1817-1862. Earth gives us hint and rumour of a divine beauty that broods above us, an ideal splendour that completes the real. To express that beauty is the perpetual aspiration of the poet. Poetry expresses this beauty in words; religion in deeds. — Edwin Markham, in "The Poetry of Jesus." However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in Paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is re- flected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode ; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting them- selves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; re- turn to them. Things do not change ; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see 204 Prose that you do not want society. If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me. Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to sub- ject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation. Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and mean- ness gather around us, and lo! creation zuidens to our view. We are often reminded that if there were be- stowed on us the wealth of Croesus, our aims must still be the same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you are restricted in your range by pov- erty, if you cannot buy books and newspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences; you are compelled to deal with the material which yields the most sugar and the most starch. It is life near the bone that is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler. No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul. Prophesying after the Event. CHARLES KINGSLEY, 1819-1875. FROM "WATER BABIES." Once on a time, there were two brothers. One was called Prometheus, because he always looked before him, and boasted that he was wise beforehand. The other was called Epimetheus, because he always looked behind him, and did not boast at all; but said hum- bly, like the Irishman, that he had sooner prophesy after the event. Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, and invented all sorts of wonderful things. But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and went among men for a clod, and a muflf, and a milksop, and a slow-coach, and a bloke, and a boodle, Prose 205 and so forth. And very little he did, for many years : but what he did, he never had to do over again. And what happened at last ? There came to the two brothers the most beautiful creature that ever was seen, Pandora by name ; which means, All the gifts of the Gods. But because she had a strange box in her hand, this fanciful Prometheus, who was always set- tling what was going to happen, would have noth- ing to do with pretty Pandora and her box. But Epimetheus took her and the box as he took everything that came ; and married her for better or for worse, as every man ought, whenever he has even the chance of a good wife. And they opened the box between them, of course, to see what was inside: for, else, of what possible use could it have been to them? And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to ; all the children of the four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance, Fear, and Dirt — for instance: Measles, Quacks, Scarlatina, Unpaid bills, Idols, Tight stays, Hooping-coughs, Potatoes, Wars, Bad Wine, Peacemongers, Despots, Famines, Demagogues. And, worst of all, Naughty Boys and Girls. But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was, Hope. So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do in this world : but he got the three best things in the world into the bargain — a good wife, and ex- perience, and hope: while Prometheus had just as much trouble, and a great deal more of his own mak- ing; with nothing beside, save fancies spun out of his own brain, as a spider spins her web out of her stomach. 2o6 Prose Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that as he was running about with a box of lucifers (which were the only useful things he ever invented, and do as much harm as good), he trod on his own nose, and tumbled down, whereby he set the Thames on fire ; and they have hardly put it out again yet. So he had to be chained to the top of a mountain, with a vulture by him to give him a peck whenever he stirred, lest he should turn the whole world upside down with his prophecies and his theories. But stupid old Epimetheus went working and grub- bing on, with the help of his wife Pandora, always looking behind him to see what had happened, till he really learnt to know now and then what would hap- pen next ; and understood so well which side his bread was buttered, and which way the cat jumped, that he began to make things which would work, and go on working, too ; to till and drain the ground, and to make looms, and ships, and railroads, and steam ploughs^ and electric telegraphs, and all the things which you see in the Great Exhibition; and to foretell famine, and bad weather, and the price of stocks ; till at last he grew very rich, and as fat as a farmer, and people thought twice before they meddled with him, but only once before they asked him to help them ; for, because he earned his money well, he could afiford to spend it well likewise. And his children are the men of science, who get good lasting work done in the world ; but the children of Prometheus are the fanatics, and the theorists, and the bigots, and the bores, and the noisy windy people, who go telling silly folk what will happen, instead of looking to see what has happened already. Prose 207 The Model Cotton Mill. JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE, 1858. In honour of that notable business-woman in Boston who intends that all of her resource-producing employees shall have a home, at least, at the end of life; not as a matter of charity but as mere justice. To grab the initiative of the worker, to appropriate his time, his life, his interest, his generosity, his prestige, to steal his genius, and live in a castle leaving him destitute, is the vulgar habit of the hog. "Swine- hood hath no remedy" except to furnish roast pig. "Now, it's this way, my brethren: God made cot- ton for a mill. You can't get aroun' that; and the mill is to give people wuck an' this wuck is to clothe the worl'. That's all plain an' all good, because it's from God. Man made the bad of it — child-labour, and overwuck and poor pay and the terrible everlastin'- grind and foul air an' dirt an' squaller an' death. "The trouble with the worl' to-day is that it don't carry God into business. Why should we not be kinder an' mo' liberal with each other in business matters? We are unselfish in everything but business. "The soul of trade is selfishness, an' Charity never is invited over her doorway. "It's funny how we're livin', It's amusin', it is — our ethics of Christianity. We've baptised every- thing but business. We give to the church an' rob the poor. We weep over misfortune an' steal from the unfortunate. We give a robe to Charity one day and filch it the nex'. We lay gifts at the altar of the Temple of Kindness for the Virgin therein, but if we caught her out on the highways of trade an' commerce we'd steal her an' sell her into slavery. An' after she was dead we'd go deep into our pockets to put up a monument over her ! "We weep an' rob, an' smile an' steal, an' laugh an' knife, an' wring the hand of friendship while we step on her toes with our brogans of business. Can't we be hones' without bein' selfish, fair without graspin', make a profit without wantin' it all? Is it 2o8 Prose possible that Christ's rehgion has gone into every nook an' corner of the worl' an' yet missed the great high- way of business, the everyday road of dollars an' cents, profit an' loss ! "So I am goin' to build the mill an' run it like God intended it should be run, an' I am goin' to put, for once, the plan of salvation into business, if it busts me an' the plan too! For if it can't stand a business test it ought to bust ! ''There are two things in the worl', that is as plain as God could write them without tellin' it Himself from the clouds. The first is that the money of the worl' was intended for all the worl' that reaches out a hand an' works for it. "The other is that every man who works is entitled to a home. "It was never intended for one man, or one cor- poration or one trust or one king or one anything else, to own more than his share of the money of the worl', no matter how they get it. Every man who piles up mo' money than he needs — actually needs — in life, robs every other man or woman or child in the worl' that pinches and slaves and starves for it in vain. Every man who makes a big fortune leaves just that many wrecked homes in his path." Vindication of the Press. JOHN MILTON, 1608-1674- As a child, I was greatly impressed by this "reading-lesson" and have never lost my affection for it. But then, have you ever seen the owner of stock in all the newspapers of a large city standing over a group of reporters and dictating to them what to write in his own personal interest? The nation's Muse in chains in the hands of a private interest! Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant Nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an Eagle moulting her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam, purging Prose 209 and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms. What should ye do then, should ye suppress all this flowery crop of knowledge and new light, sprung up and yet springing daily in this City, should ye set an Oligarchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring a famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is measured to us by their bushel? Believe it. Lords and Commons, they who counsel ye to such a suppressing do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves: and I will soon show how. If it be de- sired to know the immediate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a truer than your own mild and free and human gov- ernment : it is the liberty. Lords and Commons, which your own valorous and happy counsels have purchased us, liberty which is the nurse of all great wits ; this is that which hath rarefied and enlightened our spirits like the influence of heaven; this is that which hath enfranchised, enlarged, and lifted up our apprehen- sions degrees above themselves. Ye cannot make us now less capable, less strong, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of our true liberty ! We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and slavish, as ye found us : but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have freed us. That our hearts are now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of the greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your own virtue propagated in. us; ye cannot suppress that unless ye reinforce an abrogated and merciless law, that fathers may despatch at will their own children. 2IO Prose Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. Abraham and the Fire- Worshiper. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 1706-1790. Against intolerance. Intolerance comes from having a mean, little opinion of Divinity and "a great conceit of ourselves." And it came to pass after these things, that Abra- ham sat in the door of his tent about the going down of the Sun. And behold, a man, bowed with age, came from the way of the wilderness, leaning on his staff. And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him, "Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night, and thou shalt arise early on the. morrow, and go on thy way." But the man said, "Nay, for I will abide under this tree." And Abraham pressed him greatly; so he turned, and they went into the tent, and Abraham baked un- leavened bread and they did eat. And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he said unto him, "Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high God, Creator of heaven and earth?" And the man answered and said, "I do not worship the God thou speakest of, neither do I call upon his name; for I have made to myself a God, which abideth always in mine house, and provideth me with all things." And Abraham's zeal was kindled against the man, and he arose and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the wilderness. And at midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, "Abraham, where is the Stranger?" And Abraham answered and said, "Lord, he would not worship thee, neither would he call upon thy name; therefore have I driven him out from before my face into the wilderness." And God said, "Have I borne with him these hundred ninety and eight years, and nourished him, and clothed Prose 211 him, notwithstanding his rebelHon against me, and couldst not thou, that art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night?" And Abraham said, "Let not the anger of the Lord wax hot against his servant; lo, I have sinned; lo, I have sinned; forgive me, I pray thee." And Abraham arose, and went forth into the wilder- ness, and sought diligently for the man, and found him, and returned with him to the tent; and when he had entreated him kindly, he sent him away on the morrow with gifts. And God spake again unto Abraham, saying, "For this thy sin shall thy seed be afflicted four hundred years in a strange land; But for thy repentance I will deliver them; and they shall come forth with power, and with gladness of heart, and with much substance." Charity. ST. PAUL, 60 A.D. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sound- ing brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and under- stand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil ; rejoiceth not in in- iquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, be- lieveth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth ; but whether there be prophe- 212 Prose cies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall van- ish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child ; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. Contentment. MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS, 121-180 A.D. Wilt thou, then, my soul, never be good and sim- ple and naked, more manifest than the body which surrounds thee? Wilt thou never enjoy an affectionate and contented disposition? Wilt thou never be full and without a want of any kind, longing for noth- ing more, nor desiring anything, either animate or in- animate, for the enjoyment of pleasure? nor yet de- siring time wherein thou shalt have longer enjoyment, or place, or pleasant climate, or society of men with whom thou mayest live in harmony? but wilt thou be satisfied with thy present condition, and pleased with all that is about thee ; and wilt thou convince thyself that thou hast everything and that it comes from the gods, that everything is well for thee, and will be well what- ever shall please them, and whatever they shall give for the conservation of the perfect living being, the good and just and beautiful? Wilt thou never be such that thou shalt so dwell in community with gods and men as neither to find fault with them at all, nor to be condemned by them? Prose 213 Restricted Property. ANONYMOUS. To Myrtle, whose house "consists of six rooms and a mortgage;" and "guests are requested not to be disturbed by the rumbling, gritting noise on the roof. It is merely the interest accumulating on the mort- gage." Mr. President, I understand that the Company which you have organised will build a suburban town and for this purpose it has purchased a section of land. You have bought this land in the bulk and will sell it in lots, fifty feet front and two hundred feet deep. Each buyer, you say, must pledge himself to. erect a house whose cost cannot be less than three thousand-five-hundred dollars. "Buy the land at any hazard," you say; ''borrow the money to build the house and give a mortgage. The value of the property is rising. You can sell at any time for twice the sum invested." I am further instructed, Mr. President, that the Company, having no money, has purchased all the land on which the town will be built, — on a specula- tion, a mortgage, to be paid out of funds collected by selling the lots. Mr. President, it has been one of the ruling pas- sions of my life to pay for what I get when I get it. Never to think about a three-thousand-five-hundred dollar house on a one-thousand dollar lot when I have only fifteen-hundred dollars in the bank. Never to make an attempt to live among four-thousand five- hundred dollar people when I have only fifteen- hundred dollars with which to do it. Money doesn't make a town. In other words, why should I, Tom Jones, be obliged to worry and get into debt in order to live in a three-thousand-five-hundred dollar house when other people can do it without worrying and getting into debt? Can not Tom Jones in a five- hundred-dollar shanty on a one-hundred-dollar lot be 214 Prose just as desirable a citizen as Skipper Ireson in a ten- million dollar house on a one-million-dollar lot? Peo- ple who must have a three-thousand-five-hundred dollar house should wear a placard and have it under- stood that that's their price. On no account will I make any bargain whatever for anything bigger than I have in my bank. Who is there in all this world so rich or so great that I should sacrifice my repose of spirit and strain my nerves to equal him in the cost of my house? What kind of a town must it be in which the houses are all of one price? Can you imagine it of Ayr, or Stratford-on-Avon, or Athens, or Rome ? I do not be- lieve in wiping out simple homes. I do not like the looks of a town where all the houses are above a cer- tain price. It is too monotonous for all the people in a place to look as if they had one fixed value. Imagine Wordsworth, and Ruskin, and Shelley, and Burns the ploughman, and Lincoln, and Hans Christian Ander- sen, and Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, and Mr. Dooley, each in a Vanderbilt mansion of his own, all along in a line on Fifth Avenue. They would be ashamed to look out of the window. Every man wants his own proper setting. Who would destroy the log cabin where Lincoln lived when a boy to put a palace in its place? Will there ever be a Real Estate Com- pany formed that will let people be themselves in their own way? Or, if property must be restricted, why not have some other measure than money? Why not scholarship, or reason? Who would not rather live side by side with Socrates in a prison, or near a gentle patient servant in a lowly cottage than in the vicinity of Pluto with his billions? Truly, Mr. President, I see no glory in restrictions on the price of a house. Prose 2 1 5 Self-Reliance. (Permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) R. W. EMERSON, 1803-1882. My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. My life should be unique; it should be an alms, a battle, a conquest, a medicine. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot con- sent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony. What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole dis- tinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. 2i6 Prose The Gift of Eloquence. From the introduction to "Passages from the Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln," published (and copyrighted 1901) by The Century Company. RICHARD WATSON GILDER. FROM "LINCOLN AS A WRITER." Why is this selection here? Because it is the clearest call to be found, to the teacher to coax "immediate precision" and a literary result from the lips of a child. It should be the basis for a debate in every Normal School Debating Class. In the study required in editing this book it has been my surprise and pleasure to find it a growing opinion that The Development of Eloquence for all the ages has culminated in Abraham Lincoln. In Demosthenes, we find the influence of Socrates; in Cicero, the influence of Demos- thenes. But "Lincoln stood alone." There was no influence over his eloquence but the majestic facts which he had to face; the hand-to-hand encounter with the most gigantic conditions any human being ever had to control. By practice in extemporary speaking Lincoln learned to do a most difficult thing — namely, to produce litera- ture on his legs. It is difficult thus to produce litera- ture, because the words must flow with immediate precision. It is unusual for a politician to go through life always addressing audiences, and yet always avoid- ing the orator's temptation to please and captivate by extravagant and false sentiment and statement. The writer, and particularly the political writer, is tempted to this sort of immorality, but still more the speaker, for with the latter the reward of applause is prompt and seductive. It is amazing to look over Lincoln's record and find how seldom he went beyond bounds, how fair and just he was, how responsible and conscientious his utterances long before these ut- terances became of national importance. Yet it was largely because of this very quality that they assumed national importance. And then both his imagination and his sympathy helped him here, for while he saw and keenly felt his own side of the argument, he could see as clearly, and he could sympathetically under- stand, the side of his opponent. Prose 217 Address at Gettysburg. Published by The Century Company, also by Francis D. Tandy. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in Hberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation — or any nation so conceived and so dedicated — can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as the final resting place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here ; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedi- cated to the great task remaining before us ; that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 2i8 Prose On Abraham Lincoln. (Copyrighted by C. P. Farrell.) ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. Among the generous publishers who have helped me to collect Lincoln data for this volume are C. P. Farrell and Francis D. Tandy. The Ingersoll speech "On Abraham Lincoln" is doubtless the most famous ever published. And Francis D. Tandy as a collector and publisher of Lincoln statistics carries his message with the fervour of a missionary. Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone — no an- cestors, no fellows, and no successors. He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. In a new country, a man must possess at least three virtues—* honesty, courage and generosity. In a new country, character is essential ; in the old, reputation is suffi- cient. In the new, they find what a man really is ; in the old, he generally passes for what he resembles. Lincoln never finished his education. So to the night of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an in- quirer, a seeker after knowledge. Lincoln was a many- sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart. He was never afraid to ask — never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit or kinder humour. He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant — that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit. He was an orator — clear, sincere, natural. If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist — between what is felt and what is said — between what the heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone — read Lincoln's won- drous words at Gettysburg, and then the speech of Edward Everett. The oration of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until languages are dead and lips are dust. Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe Prose 219 this divine, this loving man. He knew no fear ex- cept the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the master — seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices — he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope, and the nobility of a nation. He spoke, not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to con- vince. He raised his hands, not to strike, but in bene- diction. He longed to pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest mernory of our world. Northern Laborers. HENRY WILSON. Sir: Should the Senator and his agitators and lec- turers come to Massachusetts, on a mission to teach our "hireling class of manual labourers," our "slaves," the "tremendous secret of the ballot-box," and to help "combine and lead them," these stigmatised "hire- lings" would reply to the Senator and his associates: "We are freemen; we are- the peers of the gifted and the wealthy; we know 'the tremendous secret of the ballot-box' ; and we mould and fashion these institu- tions that bless and adorn our free Commonwealth! These public schools are ours, for the education of our children ; these libraries, with their accumulated treasures, are ours ; these multitudinous and varied pursuits of life, where intelligence and skill find their reward, are ours. Labour is here honoured and re- spected, and great examples incite us to action. "Our eyes glisten and our hearts throb over the radiant pages of our history, that record the deeds of patriotism of the Sons of New England who sprang from the ranks and wore the badges of toil. "While the names of Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Nathanael Greene, and Paul Revere live on 220 Prose the brightest pages of our history, the mechanics of Massachusetts and New England will never want illus- trious examples to incite us to noble aspirations and noble deeds." American Taxation. EDMUND BURKE, 1730-1797. Could anything be a subject of more just alarm to America, than to see you go out of the plain high- road of finance, and give up your most certain revenues and your clearest interests, merely for the sake of insulting your Colonies? No man ever doubted that the commodity of tea could bear an imposition of three-pence. But no commodity will bear three-pence, or will bear a penny, when the general feelings of men are irritated, and two millions of men are resolved not to pay. The feelings of the Colonies were for- merly the feelings of Great Britain. Theirs were formerly the feelings of Mr. Hampden, when called upon for the payment of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune? No! but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have made him a slave! It is the weight of that preamble, of which you are so fond, and not the weight of the duty, that the Americans are unable and unwilling to bear. You are, therefore, at this moment, in the awkward situa- tion of fighting for a phantom; a thing that wants, not only a substance, but even a name; for a thing which is neither abstract right, nor profitable enjoyment. They tell you, Sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every idea of your policy. Show the thing you con- tend for to be reason, show it to be common sense, Prose 221 show it to-be the means of obtaining some useful end, and then I am content to allow it what dignity you please. But what dignity is derived from the perseverance in absurdity, is more than I ever could discern ! Let us. Sir, embrace some system or other before we end this session. Do you mean to tax America, and to draw a productive revenue from thence? If you do, speak out; name, fix, ascertain this revenue; settle its quantity; define its objects; provide for its collection; and then fight, when you have something to fight for. If you murder, rob; if you kill, take J)ossession : and do not appear in the -character of madmen, as well as assassins ; violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But may better counsels guide you ! England's Right to Tax America. EDMUND BURKE, 1730-1797. Oh ! inestimable right ! Oh ! wonderful, tran- scendent right, the assertion of which has cost this country thirteen provinces, six islands, one hundred thousand lives, and seventy millions of money ! Oh ! invaluable right ! for the sake of which we have sacri- ficed our rank among nations, our importance abroad, and our happiness at home! Oh! right more dear to us than our existence, which has already cost us so much, and which seems likely to cost us our all. Infatuated man ! miserable and undone country ! not to know that the claim of right, without the power of enforcing it, is nugatory and idle. We have a right to tax America, the noble lord tells us ; there- fore we ought to tax America. This is the profound logic which comprises the whole chain of his rea- soning. Not inferior to this was the wisdom of him who resolved to shear the wolf ! What ! shear a wolf ! Have you considered the resistance, the difficulty, the 222 Prose danger of the attempt? No, sa3^s the madman, I have considered nothing but the right. Man has a right of dominion over the beasts of the forest; and, there- fore, I will shear the Vv^olf! How wonderful that a nation could be thus deluded! But the noble lord deals in cheats and delusions. They are the daily traffic of his invention. He will continue to play off his cheats on this house so long as he thinks them necessary to his purpose, and so long as he has money enough at command to bribe gentlemen to pretend that they believe him. But a black and bitter day of reckoning will surely come. Whenever that day comes, I trust I shall be able, by a parliamentary impeachment, to bring upon the heads of the authors of our calamities the punishment they deserve. A Sufficient Naval Force. JOHN C. CALHOUN, 1782-1850. The late war has given us a tone of feeling and thinking which forbids the acknowledgment of na- tional inferiority, — that first of political evils. Had we not encountered Great Britain, we should not have had the brilliant points to rest on which we now have. We too have now our heroes and illustrious actions. If Great Britain has her Wellington, we have our Jackson and Scott. If she has her naval heroes, we also have them, not less renowned, — for they have plucked the laurel from her brows. It is impossible that we can now be degraded by comparisons. Let us now consider the measures of preparation which sound policy dictates. The navy, most cer- tainly, in any point of view, occupies the first place. It is the safest, most effectual, and cheapest mode of defence. If the force be the safest and most effi- cient which is at the same time the cheapest, on that should be our principal reliance. Prose 223 We have heard much of the danger of standing armies to our Hberties. The objection cannot be made to the navy. Generals, it must be acknowledged, have often advanced at the head of armies to imperial rank ; but in what instance has an admiral usurped the liber- ties of his country? Put our strength in the navy for foreign defence, and we shall certainly escape the whole catalogue of possible ills painted by gentlemen on the other side. A naval force attacks that country from whose hostili- ties alone we have anything to dread, where she is most assailable, and defends our own country where she is weakest. Where is Great Britain most vulnerable? In what point is she most accessible to attack? In her com- merce, in her navigation. There she is not only ex- posed, but the blow is fatal. There is her strength, there the secret of her power. There, then, if it ever shall become necessary, we ought to strike. And where are we most exposed? On the Atlan- tic line, — a line so long and weak, that we are pe- culiarly liable to be assailed on it. How is it to be defended? By a navy, and by a navy only, can it be efficiently defended. Let us look back to the time when the enemy was in possession of the whole line of the sea-coast, moored in our rivers, and ready to assault us at every point. A recurrence of this state of things, so oppressive to the country in the event of another war, can be prevented only by the establishment and maintenance of a sufficient naval force. If anything can preserve the country in its most im- minent dangers from abroad, it is this species of ar- mament. If we desire to be free from future wars, (as I hope we may be,) this is the only way to effect it. We shall have peace then, and, what is of still higher moment, peace with perfect security. 224 Prose The Noblest Public Virtue. HENRY CLAY, 1777-1852. To the memory of "The Watch-dog of the Lake Front." There was an old sailor who laid up his treasures in Heaven. There is a sort of courage, which, I frankly con- fess it, I do not possess, — a boldness to which I dare not aspire, a valour which I cannot covet. I cannot lay myself down in the way of the welfare and hap- piness of my country. That, I cannot — I have not the courage to do. I cannot interpose the power with which I may be invested — a power conferred, not for my personal benefit, nor for my aggrandisement, but for my country's good — to check her onward march to greatness and glory. I have not courage enough. I am too cowardly for that. I would not, I dare not, in the exercise of such a threat, lie down, and place my body across the path that leads my coun- try to prosperity and happiness. This is a sort of courage widely different from that which a man may display in his private conduct and personal relations. Personal or private courage is totally distinct from that higher and nobler courage which prompts the patriot to offer himself a voluntary sacrifice to his country's good. Apprehensions of the imputation of the want of firmness sometimes impel us to perform rash and in- considerate acts. It is the greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation of the want of courage. But pride, vanity, egotism, so unamiable and offensive in private life, are vices which partake of the character of crimes, in the conduct of public affairs. The un- fortunate victim of these passions cannot see beyond the little, petty, contemptible circle of his own per- sonal interests. All his thoughts are withdrawn from his country, and concentrated on his consistency, his firmness, himself! The high, the exalted, the sublime Prose 225 emotions of a patriotism which, soaring towards Heaven, rises far above all mean, low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transporting thought of the good and the glory of one's country, are never felt in his impenetrable bosom. That patriotism which, catching its inspiration from the immortal God, and, leaving at an immeasurable distance below all lesser, grovelling, personal interests and feelings, ani- mates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valour, of devotion, and of death itself, — that is public vir- tue; that is the noblest, the sublimest of all public virtues ! Return of British Fugitives. PATRICK HENRY, 1736-1799. They ran away in time of war and came back in time of peace, and lived "to fight another day." I VENTURE to prophecy, there are those now living who will see this favoured land amongst the most powerful on earth, — able. Sir, to take care of her- self, without resorting to that policy, which is always so dangerous, though sometimes unavoidable, of call- ing in foreign aid. Yes, Sir, they will see her great in arts and in arms, — her golden harvest waving over fields of immeasurable extent, her commerce pene- trating the most distant seas, and her cannon silencing the vain boasts of those who now proudly affect to rule the waves. But, Sir, you must have men, — you cannot get along without them. Those heavy forests of valuable timber, under which your lands are groan- ing, must be cleared away. Those vast riches which cover the face of your soil, as well as those which lie hid in its bosom, are to be developed and gathered only by the skill and enterprise of men. Your tim- ber. Sir, must be worked up into ships, to transport the productions of the soil from which it has been cleared. Then, you must have commercial men and commercial capital, to take off your productions, and 226 Prose find the best markets for them abroad. Your great want, Sir, is the want of men; and these you must have, and will have speedily, if you are wise. Do you ask how you are to get them? Open your doors. Sir, and they will come in ! The population of the Old World is full to overflowing. That popu- lation is ground, too, by the oppressions of the Govern- ments under which they live. Sir, they are already standing on tiptoe upon their native shores, and look- ing to your coasts with a wistful and longing eye. They see here a land blessed with natural and political advantages, which are not equalled by those of any other country upon earth ; — a land on which a gracious Providence hath emptied the horn of abundance, a land over which Peace hath now stretched forth her white wings, and where Content and Plenty lie down at every door! Sir, they see something still more attractive than all this. They see a land in which Liberty hath taken up her abode, — that Liberty whom they had consid- ered as a fabled goddess, existing only in the fan- cies of poets. They see her here a real divinity, — her altars rising on every hand throughout these happy States; her glories chanted by three millions of tongues, and the whole region smiling under her blessed influence. Sir, let but this, our celestial goddess, Lib- erty, stretch forth her fair hand toward the People of the Old World, — tell them to come, and bid them wel- come, — and you will see them pouring in from the North, from the South, from the East, and from the West. Your wildernesses will be cleared and settled, your deserts will smile, your ranks will be filled, and you will soon be in a condition to defy the powers of any adversary. But Gentlemen object to any accession from Great Britain, and particularly to the return of the British refugees. Sir, I feel no objection to the return of those deluded people. They have, to be sure, mistaken Prose 227 their own interests most wofully; and most wofully have they suffered the punishment due to their of- fences. But the relations which we bear to them, and to their native country, are now changed. Their King hath acknowledged our independence; the quarrel is over, peace hath returned, and found us a free Peo- ple. Let us have the magnanimity, Sir, to lay aside our antipathies and prejudices, and consider the sub- ject in a political light. Those are an enterprising, moneyed people. They will be serviceable in taking off the surplus produce of our lands, and supplying us with necessaries, during the infant state of our manu- factures. Even if they be inimical to us in point of feeling and principle, I can see no objection, in a po- litical view, in making them tributary to our advan- tage. And, as I have no prejudices to prevent my making this use of them, so. Sir, I have no fear of any mischief that they can do us. Afraid of them! — What, Sir, shall we, who have laid the proud British lion at our feet, now be afraid of his zvhelpsf The First Step to Reconciliation vvith America. WILLIAM PITT (EARL OF CHATHAM), 1708-1778. In a government that is based upon equal rights, equal responsibili- ties, equal burdens, it is fundamental that you must have equal and just taxation. Take as your cardinal principle, take as the creed you will follow to the letter, equal and exact justice to all men and to all interests — special favours to none. — Robert M. La Follette. I. Removal of Troops from Boston. America, my Lords, cannot be reconciled to this country, — she ought not to be reconciled, — till the troops of Britain are withdrawn. How can America trust you, with the bayonet at her breast? How can she suppose that you mean less than bondage or death ? I therefore move that an address be presented to his Majesty, advising that imm.ediate orders be despatched to General Gage, for removing his Majesty's forces from the town of Boston. The way must be immedi- 228 Prose ately opened for reconciliation. It will soon be too late. An hour, now lost in allaying ferments in America, may produce years of calamity. Never will I desert, for a moment, the conduct of this weighty business. Unless nailed to my bed by the extremity of sickness, I will pursue it to the end. I will knock at the door of this sleeping and confounded Ministry, and will, if it be possible, rouse them to a sense of their danger. I contend not for indulgence, but for justice, to America. What is our right to persist in such cruel and vindictive acts against a loyal, respectable people ! They say you have no right to tax them without their consent. They say truly. Representation and taxa- tion must go together. They are inseparable. I there- fore urge and conjure your Lordships immediately to adopt this conciliating measure. If illegal violences have been, as is said, committed in America, prepare the way, — open the door of possibility, — for acknowl- edgment and satisfaction. But proceed not to such co- ercion — such proscription. Cease your indiscriminate inflictions. Amerce not thirty thousand. Oppress not three millions; irritate them not to unappeasable ran- cour, for the fault of forty or fifty. Such severity of injustice must forever render incurable the wounds you have inflicted. What though you march from town to town, from province to province? What though you enforce a temporary and local submission ? How shall you secure the obedience of the country you leave behind you in your progress? How grasp the dominion of eighteen hundred miles of continent, populous in numbers, strong in valour, liberty, and the means of resistance? The spirit which now resists your taxation, in America, is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship-money, in England; the same spirit which called all England on its legs, and, by the Bill of Rights, vindicated the English Constitution;-^ Prose 229 the same spirit which established the great fundamental essential maxim of your liberties, that no subject of ENGLAND SHALL BE TAXED BUT BY HIS OWN CONSENT. This glorious Whig spirit animates three millions in America, who prefer poverty with liberty, to gilded chains and sordid affluence; and who will die in de- fence of their rights as men, as free men. What shall oppose this spirit, aided by the congenial flame glow- ing in the breast of every Whig in England? '' 'Tis liberty to liberty engaged," that they will defend them- selves, their families, and their country. In this great cause they are immovably allied; it is the alliance of God and nature, — immutable, eternal, — fixed as the firmament of Heaven. II. The Repeal Claimed by Americans as a Right. It is not repealing this or that act of Parliament, — it is not repealing a piece of parchment, — that can restore America to our bosom. You must repeal her fears and her resentments ; and you may then hope for her love and her gratitude. But, now, insulted with an armed force posted at Boston, irritated with a hos- tile array before her eyes, her concessions, if you could force them, would be suspicious and insecure, — the dictates of fear, and the extortions of force! But it is more than evident that you cannot force them, principled and united as they are, to your un- worthy terms of submission. Repeal, therefore, my Lords, I say! But bare repeal will not satisfy this enlightened and spirited People. You must go through the work. You must declare you have no right to tax. Then they may trust you. There is no time to be lost. Every moment is big with dangers. While I am speaking, the decisive blow may be struck, and millions involved in the consequence. The very first drop of blood shed in civil and unnatural war will make a wound which years, perhaps ages, may not heal. • 230 yrose When your Lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America — when you consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, — you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. I must de- clare and avow. that, in the master States of the world, I know not the People nor the Senate, who, under such a complication of dit^cult circumstances, can stand in preference to the delegates of America as- sembled in General Congress at Philadelphia. For genuine sagacity, for singular moderation, for solid wisdom, manly spirit, sublime sentiment, and simplic- ity of language, — for everything respectable. — and honourable — they stand unrivalled. I trust it is ob- vious to your Lordships that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men. to establish despotism over such a miglity Continental Nation, must be vain, must be fatal. This wise People speak out. They do not hold the language of slaves. They tell you what they mean. They do not ask you to repeal your laws as a favour. They claim it as a right — they demand it. They tell you they will not submit to them. And I tell you the acts must be repealed. We shall be forced ultimately to retract. Let us retract while we can. not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent, oppressive, acts. They must be repealed. You WILL repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot, if they are not finally repealed. Avoid, then, this humiliating, this disgraceful necessity. Every motive of justice and of policy, of dignity and of prudence, urges you to allay the ferment in America, by a removal of your troops from Boston, by a repeal of your acts of Par- liament. On the other hand, every danger and every hazard impend, to deter you from perseverance in your present ruinous measures : — foreign war hanging over your heads by a slight and brittle thread, — France and Spain watching your conduct, and waiting the maturity of 3'our errors ! Prose 231 To conclude, my Lords : if the Ministers thus per- severe in misadvising and misleading the King, I will not say that they can alienate the affections of his subjects from the Crown, but I will affirm that they will make his Crown not worth his wearing; I will not say that the King is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone! Against the Embargo. JOSIAH QUINCY, 1772-1864. I ASK, in what page of the Constitution you find the power of laying an embargo. Directly given, it is nowhere. Never before did society witness a total prohibition of all intercourse like this, in a commer- cial Nation. But it has been asked in debate, "Will not Massachusetts, the cradle of liberty, submit to such privations?" An embargo-liberty was never cradled in Massachusetts. Our liberty was not so much a mountain nymph as a sea nymph. She was free as air. She could swim, or she could run. The ocean was her cradle. Our fathers met her as she came, like the goddess of beauty, from the waves. They caught her as she was sporting on the beach. They courted her while she was spreading her nets upon the rocks. But an embargo-liberty, a hand-cuffed liberty, liberty in fetters, a liberty traversing between the four sides of a prison and beating her head against the walls, is none of our offspring. We abjure the monster! Its parentage is all inland. Is embargo independence ? Deceive not yourselves ! It is palpable submission! Gentlemen exclaim, "Great Britain smites us on one cheek!" And what does Ad- ministration? 'Tt turns the other, also." Gentlemen say, "Great Britain is a robber; she takes our cloak." And what says Administration? "Let her take our coat, also." France and Great Britain require you to relinquish a part of your commerce, and you yield it 232 Prose entirely! At every corner of this great city we meet some gentlemen of the majority wringing their hands, and exclaiming, "What shall we do? Nothing but an embargo will save us. Remove it and what shall we do?" Sir, it is not for me, an humble and uninfluen- tial individual, at an awful distance from the pre- dominant influences, to suggest plans of Government. But, to my eye, the path of our duty is as distinct as the Milky Way, — all studded with living sapphires, glowing with cumulating light. It is the path of ac- tive preparation; of dignified energy. It is the path of 1776! It consists not in abandoning our rights, but in supporting them, as they exist, and where they exist, — on the ocean as well as on the land. But I shall be told, "This may lead to war." I ask, "Are we now at peace?" Certainly not, unless retiring from insult be peace ; unless shrinking under the lash be peace ! The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it. The idea that nothing on earth is so dreadful as war is inculcated too studiously among us. Disgrace is worse! Abandonment of essential rights is worse! On Sudden Political Conversions. DANIEL WEBSTER, 1782-1852. Mr. President, public men must certainly be al- lowed to change their opinions, and their associations, whenever they see fit. No one doubts this. Men may have grown wiser, — they may have attained to better and more correct views of great public subjects. Nevertheless, Sir, it must be acknowledged, that what appears to be a sudden, as well as a great change, naturally produces a shock. I confess, for one, I was shocked, when the honourable gentleman, at the last session, espoused this bill of the Administration. Sud- den movements of the affections, whether personal or political, are a little out of nature. Several years ago, Sir, some of the wits of England Prose 233 wrote a mock play, intended to ridicule the unnatural and false feeling — the sentimentality — of a certain German school of literature. In this play, two strangers are brought together at an inn. While they are warming themselves at the fire, and before their acquaintance is yet five minutes old, one springs up, and exclaims to the other, ''A sudden thought strikes me ! — Let us swear an eternal friendship !" This affectionate offer was instantly accepted, and the friendship duly sworn, unchangeable and eternal ! Now, Sir, how long this eternal friendship lasted, or in what manner it ended, those who wish to know may learn by referring to the play. But it seems to me, Sir, that the honourable member has carried his political sentimentality a good deal higher than the flight of the German school; for he appears to have fallen suddenly in love, not with strangers, but with opponents. Here we all had been, Sir, contending against the progress of Executive power, and more particularly and most strenuously, against the projects and experiments of the Administration upon the cur- rency. The honourable member stood among us, not only as an associate, but as a leader. We thought we were making some headway. The People appeared to be coming to our support and our assistance. The country had been roused ; every successive election weakening the strength of the adversary, and increas- ing our own. We were in this career of success, car- ried strongly forward by the current of public opinion,, and only needed to hear the cheering voice of the honourable member, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ! " and we should have prostrated, forever, this anti- constitutional, anti-commercial, anti-republican, and anti-American policy of the Administration. But, in- stead of these encouraging and animating accents, be- hold! in the very crisis of our affairs, on the very eve 234 Prose of victory, the honourable member cries out to the enemy, — not to us, his alHes, but to the enemy, — "Holloa ! a sudden thought strikes me ! — I abandon my allies ! Now I think of it, they have always been my oppressors ! I abandon them ; and now let you and me swear an eternal friendship !" Such a proposition, from such a quarter. Sir, was not likely to be long withstood. The other party was a little coy, but, upon the whole nothing loath. After proper hesitation, and a little decorous blushing, it owned the soft impeachment, admitted an equally sud- den sympathetic impulse on its own side; and, since few words are wanted where hearts are already known, the honourable gentleman takes his place among his new friends, amidst greetings and caresses, and is al- ready enjoying the sweets of an eternal friendship. The North American Indians. TIMOTHY FLINT, 1780-1840. An Indian seldom jests. He usually speaks low, and under his breath. Loquacity is with him an indi- cation of being a trifling character, and of deeds in- versely less as his words are more. The young men, and even the boys, have a sullen, moody, and un joyous countenance ; and seem to have little of that elastic gaiety with which the benevolence of Providence has endowed the first days of the existence of most other beings. In this general remark, we ought not, perhaps, to include the squaw, who shows some analogy of feel- ing to the white woman. The men evidently have not the quick sensibilities, the acute perceptions, of most other races. They do not easily sympathise with what is enjoyment or suf- fering about them. Nothing but an overwhelming ex- citement can arouse them. They seem callous to all the passions, but rage. Every one has remarked how little surprise they express for whatever is new, strange, or Prose 235 striking. True, it is partially their pride that induces them to affect this indifference, — for, that it is af- fected, we have had numberless opportunities to dis- cover. It is, with them, not only pride, but calcu- lation, to hold in seeming contempt things which they are aware they cannot obtain and possess. But they seem to be born with an instinctive determination to be independent, if possible, of nature and society, and to concentrate within themselves an existence, which, at any moment, they seem willing to lay down. Their impassible fortitude and endurance of suffer- ing, their contempt of pain and death, invest their character with a kind of moral grandeur. Some part of this may be the result of their training, discipline, and exercise of self-control ; but it is to be doubted whether some part be not the result of a more than ordinary degree of physical insensibility. It has been said, but with how much truth we do not pretend to say, that, in undergoing amputation, and other surgi- cal operations, their nerves do not shrink, or show the same tendency to spasms, with those of the whites. When the savage — to explain his insensibility to cold — called upon the white man to recollect how little his own face was affected by it, in consequence of its con- stant exposure, the savage added, "My body is all facer Surely it is preposterous to admire, as some pretend to do, the savage character in the abstract. Let us make every effort to convey pity, mercy, and immor- tal hopes, to their rugged bosoms. Pastorals that sing savage independence and generosity, and gratitude and happiness in the green woods, may be Arcadian enough to those who never saw savages in their wigwams, or never felt the apprehension of their nocturnal and hostile yell, from the depth of the forest around their dwelling. But let us not undervalue the comfort and security of municipal and social life; nor the sensi- bilities, charities, and endearments, of a civilised home. 236 Prose Let our great effort be to tame and domesticate the Indians. Their happiness, steeled against feeHng, at war with nature, the elements, and one another, can have no existence, except in the visionary dreamings of those who have never contemplated their actual condition. It is curious to remark, however, that, different as are their religions, their discipline, and their standards of opinion, in most respects, from ours, in the main they have much the same notion of a great, respect- able, and good man, that we have. If we mark the universal passion for military display among our own race, and observe what place is assigned by common feeling, as well as history, to military prowess, we shall hardly consider it a striking difference from our nature, that bravery, and contempt of death, and reck- less daring, command the first place in their homage. But, apart from these views, the same traits of char- acter that entitle a man to the appellation of virtuous and good, and that insure respect among us, have much the same bearing upon the estimation of the Indians. In conversing with them, we are struck with surprise, to observe how widely and deeply the obligations of truth, constancy, honour, generosity, and forbearance, are felt and understood among them. As regards their vanity, we have not often had the fortune to contemplate a young squaw at her toilet; but, from the studied arrangement of her calico jacket, from the glaring circles of vermilion on her plump and circular face, from the artificial manner in which her hair, of intense black, is clubbed in a coil of the thick- ness of a man's wrist, from the long time it takes her to complete these arrangements, from the manner in which she minces and ambles, and plays off her pretti- est airs, after she has put on all her charms, we should clearly infer, that dress and personal ornament occupy the same portion of her thoughts that they do of the fashionable woman of civilised society. In regions Prose 237 contiguous to the whites, the squaws have generally a calico frock of the finest colours. A young Indian warrior is notoriously the most thorough-going beau in the world. Bond-street and Broadway furnish no subjects that will undergo as much crimping and confinement, to appear in full dress. We are confident that we have observed such a character, constantly occupied with his paints and his pocket-glass, three full hours, laying on his colours, and arranging his tresses, and contemplating, from time to time, with visible satisfaction, the progress of his growing attractions. When he has finished, the I^roud triumph of irresistible charm.s is in his eye. The chiefs and warriors, in full dress, have one, two, or three broad clasps of silver about their arms; gen- erally jewels in their ears, and often in their noses; and nothing is more common than to see a thin, cir- cular piece of silver, of the size of a dollar, depend- ing from the nose, a little below the upper lip. Nothing shows more clearly the influence of fash- ion: this ornament, so painfully inconvenient, as it evidently is to them, and so horridly ugly and dis- figuring, seems to be the utmost finish of Indian taste. Painted porcupine-quills are twisted in their hair. Tails of animals hang from their hair behind. A neck- lace of bear's or alligator's teeth, or of claws^ of the bald eagle, hangs loosely down, with an interior and smaller circle of large red beads; or, in default of them, a rosary of red hawthorns surrounds the neck. From the knees to the feet, the legs are ornamented with great numbers of little, perforated, cylindrical pieces of silver or brass, that emit a simultaneous tinkle as the person walks. If to all this he add an American hat, and a soldier's coat of blue, faced with red, over the customary calico shirt of the gaudiest colours that can be found, he lifts his feet high, and steps firmly on the ground, to give his tinklers an uniform and full sound, and apparently considers his 238 Prose appearance with as much complacency as the human bosom can be supposed to feel. This is a very cur- tailed view of an Indian beau, but every reader com- petent to judge will admit its fidelity, as far as it goes, to the description of a young Indian warrior, when prepared to take part in a public dance. Rejection of the Reform Bill. REV. SYDNEY SMITH, 1768-1845. I have tried to reject this ''Reform Bill" many times but Mrs. Parting- ton has swept me out. Mr. Chairman, I feel most deeply the rejection of the Reform Bill by the Lords, because, by putting the two Houses of Parliament in collision with each other, it will impede the public business, and diminish the public prosperity. I feel it as a churchman, because I cannot but blush to see so many dignitaries of the Church arrayed against the wishes and happiness of the People. I feel it, more than all, because I believe it will sow the seeds of deadly hatred between the aristocracy and the great mass of the People. The loss of the Bill I do not feel, and for the best of all possible reasons — because I have not the slightest idea that it is lost. I have no more doubt, before the ex- piration of the winter, that this Bill will pass, than I have that the annual tax bills will pass; and greater certainty than this no man can have, for Franklin tells us there are but two things certain in this world, — death and taxes. As for the possibility of the House, of Lords preventing, ere long, a reform of Parliament, I hold it to be the most absurd notion that ever en- tered into human imagination. I do not mean to be disrespectful ; but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that Prose 239 town ; the tide rose to an incredible height ; the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threat- ened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house, with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the At- lantic Ocean! The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Part- ington's spirit was up ; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop, or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease, — be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington. To the Army before Quebec. GENERAL WOLFE, 1726- 1759. "Gen. Wolfe" is often nothing but a name. I once asked a roomful of boys and girls of eleven or twelve years, "Who was General Wolfe?" "He ate up his grandmother!" said one of the boys. Only one of the fifty could tell. And a monument to Wolfe was within a few rods of the school-house. I congratulate you, my brave countrymen and fellow-soldiers, on the spirit and success with which you have executed this important part of our enter- prise. The formidable Heights of Abraham are now surmounted; and the city of Quebec, the object of all our toils, now stands in full view before us. A per- fidious enemy, who have dared to exasperate you by their cruelties, but not to oppose you on equal ground, are now constrained to face you on the open plain, without ramparts or intrenchments to shelter them. You know too well the forces which compose their army to dread their superior numbers. A few reg- ular troops from old France, weakened by hunger and sickness, who, when fresh, were unable to with- stand the British soldiers, are their General's chief de- pendence. Those numerous companies of Canadians, insolent, mutinous, unsteady, and ill-disciplined, have 240 Prose exercised his utmost skill to keep them together to this time; and, as soon as their irregular ardour is damped by one firm fire, they will instantly turn their backs, and give you no further trouble but in the pursuit. As for those savage tribes of Indians, whose horrid yells in the forest have struck many a bold heart with affright, terrible as they are with a tomahawk and scalping-knife to a flying and prostrate foe, you have experienced how little their ferocity is to be dreaded by resolute men upon fair and open ground : you can now only consider them as the just objects of a severe revenge for the unhappy fate of many slaughtered countrymen. This day puts it into your power to terminate the fatigues of a siege which has so long employed your courage and patience. Possessed with a full confi- dence of the certain success which British valour must gain over such enem.ies, I have led you up these steep and dangerous rocks, only solicitous to show you the foe within your reach. The impossibility of a retreat makes no difference in the situation of men resolved to conquer or die ; and, believe me, my friends, if your conquest could be bought with the blood of your Gen- eral, he would most cheerfully resign a life which he has long devoted to his country. PART V. Eloquence shapes events. Burroughs PART V The First Home. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) SIDNEY LANIER, 1842-1881. FROM "THE LANIER BOOK." At first glance this selection seems to be "a take off" on housekeeping but it means more than that. The home is the unit of the social organisation. The pleasure of a man in the home — is the explanation of the man's wish to extend his happiness to all mankind; to enjoy "the length and the breadth and the sweep" of hospitality. Burroughs says of "The Roof Tree" — "No man really loves his home who does not wish to see every one as well housed." This selection finds a home here in affectionate remembrance of the boys who participated in the literary contests on our Lanier-days, — and the mothers whose sympathetic presence cheered us on. The painters, the whitewashers, the phmibers, the locksmiths, the carpenters, the gas-fitters, the stove- put-up-ers, the carmen, the piano-movers, the carpet- layers — all these have I seen, bargained with, re- proached for bad jobs, and finally paid off. I have coaxed my landlord into all manner of outlays for damp walls, cold bathrooms, and other like matters. I have bought at least three hundred and twenty-seven household utensils which suddenly came to be abso- lutely necessary to our existence. I have moreover hired a coloured gentlewoman who is willing to wear out my carpets, burn out my range, freeze out my waterpipes, and be generally useful. I have moved my family into our new home, have had a Xmas tree for the youngsters. We are in a state of supreme con- tent with our new home; it really seems to me as incredible that myriads of people have been living in their own homes heretofore; as to the young couple with a first baby it seems impossible that a great many 243 244 Prose other couples have had similar prodigies. It is simply too delightful. Good heavens, how I wish that the whole world had a Home! I confess I am a little nervous about the gas-bills, which must come in, in the course of time ; and there are the water-rates, and sev- eral sorts of imposts and taxes; but then, the dignity of being liable for such things is a very support- ing consideration ! No man is a Bohemian who has to pay water-rates and a street-tax. Every day when I sit down in my dining-room — my dining-room ! — I find the wish growing stronger that each poor soul in the city, whether saint or sinner, could come and dine with me. How I would carve out the merry thoughts. How I would stuff the big wall-eyed rascals. There was a knight of old times who built the dining-hall of his castle across the highway, so that every way- farer must perforce pass through: there the traveller, rich or poor, found always a trencher and where- withal to fill it. Three times a day, in my own chair at my own table, do I envy that knight and wish that I might do as he did. Clap a Bridle on thy Tongue. THOMAS CARLYLE, 179S-1881. ABRIDGED FROM "SPEECH AND SILENCE." How delightful is the thought of those children who keep their lips closed, their tongues well bridled. Irene the silent, the lovable Tanta, Charles the quiet, Doris the gentle, Jack and Billy who knew how to listen, these are the treasures of a teacher. He who speaks honestly cares not, needs not care, though his words be preserved to remotest time. The dishonest speaker, not he only who purposely utters falsehoods, but he who does not purposely, and with sincere heart, utter Truth, and Truth alone ; who bab- bles he knows not what, and has clapped no bridle on his tongue, but lets it run racket, ejecting chatter and futility — is among the most indisputable malefac- tors omitted, or inserted, in the Criminal Calendar. Prose 245 To him that will well consider it, idle speaking is precisely the beginning of all Hollowness, Halfness, Infidelity (want of Faithfulness). Wise, of a wisdom far beyond our shallow depth, was that old precept, "Watch thy tongue; out of it are the issues of Life!" Man is properly an incarnated word: the word that he speaks is the man himself. Were eyes put into our head, that we might see, or that we might fancy, and plausibly pretend, we had seen? Was the tongue suspended there, that it might tell truly what we had seen, and make man the soul's brother of man; or only that it might utter vain sounds, jargon, soul-confusing^ and so divide man, as by enchanting walls of Darkness, from union with man ? Thou who wearest that cunning, heaven-made or- gan, a Tongue, think well of this. Speak not, I passionately entreat thee, till thy thought have silently matured itself, till thou have other than mad and mad- making noises to emit : hold thy tongue till some mean- ing lie behind, to set it wagging. A Man Passes for That He is Worth. (Permission of Houghton, Miiiflin & Company.) R. W. EMERSON, 1803-1882. A man is worth just so much as that is worth about which ha busies himself. — Marcus Aurelius. A MAN passes for that he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and idle is all fear of remaining unknown. If a man know that he can do anything — that he can do it better than any one else, — he has a pledge of the acknowledg- ment of that fact by all persons. The world is full of judgment-days, and into every assembly that a man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped. In every troop of boys that whoop and 246 Prose run in each yard and square, a newcomer is as well and accurately weighed in the balance in the course of a few days and stamped with his right number, as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed and temper. A stranger comes from a distant school, with better dress, with trinkets in his pockets, with airs and pretensions; an old boy sniffs thereat and says to himself, "It's of no use; we shall find him out to-morrow\" "What hath he done?" is the di- vine question which searches men and transpierces every false reputation. A fop may sit in any chair of the world nor be distinguished for his hour from Homer and Washington; but there can never be any doubt concerning the respective ability of human beings when we seek the truth. Pretension may sit still, but cannot act. Pretension never feigned an act of real greatness. Pretension never wrote an Illiad, nor drove back Xerxes, nor christianised the world, nor abolished slavery. Always as much virtue as there is, so much ap- pears ; as much goodness as there is, so much reverence it commands. All the devils respect virtue. The high, the generous, the self-devoted sect will always instruct and command mankind. Never a sincere word was utterly lost. Never a magnanimity fell to the ground. Always the heart of man greets and accepts it unexpectedly. A man passes for that he is worth. Sincerity. JOHN TILLOTSON, 1630-1694. Truth and sincerity have all the advantages of ap- pearance and many more. If the show of anything be good, the reality is better. The best way for a man to seem to be anything, is really to be what he would seem. It is as troublesome to support the pre- tence of a good quality, as to have it; and if a man Prose 247 have it not, it is most likely he will be discovered to want it, and then all his labour to seem to have it is lost. It is hard to personate and act a part long; for where truth is at the bottom, nature will always be endeavouring to return, and will betray herself at ona time or another. Therefore, if any man think it con- venient to seem good, let him be so indeed, and then his goodness will appear to every one's satisfaction; for truth is convincing, and carries its own light and evidence with it. Sincerity is true wisdom. It is the shortest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line, and will hold out and last longest. The arts of deceit and cunning continually grow weaker and less effectual and serviceable to those that practise them ; whereas integrity gains strength by use, and the more and longer any man practises it, the greater service it does him, by confirming his repu- tation, and encouraging those with whom he has to do. A dissembler must always be upon his guard and watch himself carefully, that he does not contradict his own pretensions; for he acts an unnatural part, and therefore must put a continual force and restraint upon himself. Whereas he that acts sincerely has the easiest task in the world, because he follows nature, and so is put to no trouble and care about his words and actions ; he needs not invent any pretences before- hand, nor make any excuses, for anything he has said or done. Insincerity is very troublesome to manage ; a hypo- crite has so many things to attend to, as to make his life a very perplexed and intricate thing. A liar hath NEED OF A GOOD MEMORY lest lie contradict at one time what he said at another ; but truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is al- ways near at hand, and sits upon our lips; whereas a lie is troublesome, and needs a great many more to make it good. 248 Prose Sincerity is an excellent instrument for the speedy despatch of business. It creates confidence in those we have to deal with, saves the labour of many in- quiries, and brings to an issue in a few words. It is like travelling in a plain beaten road, which contin- ually brings a man sooner to his journey's end, than by-ways in which men often lose themselves. Whatever convenience there may be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the incon- venience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under everlasting suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks the truth, nor trusted when perhaps he means honestly. When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood. Indeed if a man were to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (as far as respects the affairs of this world) if he spent his reputation all at once, and ventured it all at one throw. But if he continue in the world, and would have the advantage of reputation whilst he is in it, let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions, for nothing but this will hold out to the end. Humility versus Vain Glory. JOHN RUSKIN, 1819-1900. "I pray the Lord my soul to keep: — Mamma, tell me all about my soul," says Jeanne, aged two and a half years. We are all searching for the same knowledge, Jeanne. Be quite sure of one thing, that, however much you may know, and whatever advantages you may pos- sess, and however good you may be, you have not been singled out, by the God who made you, from all the other girls in the world, to be especially informed respecting His own nature and character. Prose 249 Of all the insolent, all the foolish persuasions that by any chance could enter and hold your empty little heart, this is the proudest and foolishest, — that you have been so much the darling of the Heavens, and favourite of the Fates, as to be born in the very nick of time, and in the punctual place, when and where pure Divine truth had been sifted from the errors of the Nations; and that your papa had been provi- dentially disposed to buy a house in the convenient neighbourhood of the steeple under which that Im- maculate and final verity would be beautifully pro- ' claimed. Do not think it, child; it is not so. This, on the contrary, is the fact, — unpleasant you may think it; pleasant, it seems to me, — that you, with all your pretty dresses, and dainty looks, and kindly thoughts, and saintly aspirations, are not one whit more thought of or loved by the great Maker and Master than any poor little red, black, or blue savage, running wild in the pestilent woods, or naked on the hot sands of the earth: and that, of the two, you probably know less about God than she does ; the only difference being that she thinks little of Him that is right, and you, much that is wrong. The second thing which you may make sure of is, that however good you may be, you have faults ; that however dull you may be, you can find out what some of them are ; and that however slight they may be, you had better make some effort to get quit of them. Trust me for this, that how many soever you may find or fancy your faults to be, there are only two that are of real consequence, — Idleness and Cruelty. Perhaps you may be proud. Well, we can get much good out of pride, if only it be not religious. Perhaps you may be vain: it is highly probable; and very pleasant for the people who like to praise you. Perhaps you are a little envious : that is really very shocking ; but then — so is everybody else. Perhaps also, you are a lit- tle malicious, which I am truly concerned to hear, but 250 Prose should probably only the more, if I knew you, enjoy your conversation. But whatever else you may be, you must not be useless, and you must not be cruel. The Life of a Father Bee. Maeterlinck — (Copyright Dodd, Mead & Company.) Burroughs — (Copyright Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) MAURICE MAETERLINCK (FIRST PARAGRAPH). FROM "THE SWARM." JOHN BURROUGHS (SECOND PARAGRAPH). FROM "BIRDS AND BEES." "The Life of a Father Bee" is dedicated to any little girl who does not want her daddy round when she has company. How soulless is "Peggy Mel," the working bee! She is not unlike the thrifty housewife whose husband and the hired man stay in the barn when the sewing society meets at her house. The king bee is not to be envied. He has "a loud threatening hum but no sting to back it up." He is the father of the hive, but his eighty-thousand daughters sting him to death when there is a dearth of sweets on the table. Who does not know of at least one good old papa who wears poor clothes and works late at night that his little girl may have more fashionable dresses than the mamma? During the summer days when flowers are more abundant, there is in the hive the embarrassing pres- ence of three or four hundred drones from whose ranks the queen must select her consort ; three or four hundred foolish, clumsy, noisy creatures, who are pre- tentious, gluttonous, dirty, coarse, totally and scandal- ously idle, insatiable and enormous. Toward the close of the season, the fiat goes forth that the drones must die; there is no further use for them. Then the poor creatures how they are huddled and hustled about, trying to hide in corners and by- ways. There is no loud, defiant humming now, but abject fear seizes them. They cower like hunted criminals. I have seen a dozen or more of them wedge themselves into a small space between the glass and the comb, where the bees could not get hold of them, or where they seemed to be overlooked in the general slaughter. They will also crawl outside and hide under the edges of the hive. But sooner or later they are all killed or kicked out. The drone makes no re- Prose 251 sistance, except to pull back and try to get away; but (putting yourself in his place) with one bee ahold of your collar or the hair of your head, and another ahold of each arm or leg, and still another feeling for your waistband with her sting, the odds are greatly against you. The Autocracy of Youth and the Modesty of Age. ROBERT BROWNING, 1812-1889. For John, who, at the age of nine, pounded Alfred "because he wouldn't be friends." You were "partly endurable" and if you take this "speech" to heart and say it often enough, you will get better as you get older. You only do right to believe you will get better as you get older! AH men do so, — they are worst in childhood, improve in manhood, and get ready in old age for another world. Youth, with its Beauty and Grace, would seem bestowed on us for some such rea- son as to make us partly endurable till we have time for really becoming so of ourselves, without their aid, when they leave us. The sweetest child we all smile on for his pleasant want of the whole world to break up, or suck in his mouth, seeing no other good in it — would be rudely handled by that world's inhabitants, if he retained those angelic infantine desires when he has grown six feet high, black and bearded : but, little by little, he sees fit to forego claim after claim on the world, puts up with a less and less share of its good as his proper portion, — and when the octogenarian asks barely a sup of gruel and a fire of dry sticks, and thanks you as for his full allowance and right in the common good of life, — hoping nobody may murder him, — he who began by asking and expecting the whole of us to bow down in worship to him, — why, I say he is advanced, far onward, very far, nearly out of sight. 252 Prose The Particular Lady. For a particular boy who takes an hour a day to arrange his neck-tie. Did you ever live with a particular lady? — one pos- sessed not simply with the spirit, but the demon of tidiness, — who will give you a two hours' lecture upon the sin of an untied shoe-string, and raise a hurri- cane about your ears on the enormity of a fractured glove? who will be struck speechless at the sight of a pin instead of a string, or set a whole house in an up- roar, on finding a book on the table instead of in the book-case? Those who have had the misfortune to meet with such a person will know how to sympathise with me. I have passed two whole months with a particular lady. I had often received very pressing invitations to visit an old schoolfellow, who is settled in a snug par- sonage, about fifty miles from town; but something or other was continually occurring to prevent me from availing myself of them. But, on the 17th of June, having a few spare weeks at my disposal, I set out for my chum's residence. He received me with his wonted cordiality ; but I fancied that he looked a little more care-worn than a man of thirty might be ex- pected to look, — married as he is to the woman of his choice, and in the possession of an easy fortune. Poor fellow! I did not know that his wife was a precisian. The first hint I received of the fact was from Mr. S., who, removing my hat from the first peg in the hall to the fourth, observed, "My wife is a little particular in these matters ; the first peg is for my hat, the second for William's, the third for Tom's, and you can reserve the fourth, if you please, for your own: ladies, you know, do not like to have their arrangements interfered with." I promised to do my best to recollect the order of precedence with respect to the hats, and walked up- Prose 253 stairs, impressed with an awful veneration for a lady who had contrived to impose so rigid a discipline on a man formerly the most disorderly of mortals. I mentally resolved to obtain her favour by the most studious observance of her wishes. I might as well have determined to be Emperor of China! Before the week was at an end, I was a lost man. I always reckon myself tolerably tidy; never leaving more than half my clothes on the floor of my dressing-room, nor more than a dozen books about any apartment I may happen to occupy for an hour. I do not lose more than a dozen handkerchiefs in a month; nor have more than a quarter of an hour's hunt for my hat or gloves, whenever I am going out in a hurry. I found all this was but as dust in the balance. The first time I sat down to dinner, I made a horrible blunder; for, in my haste to help my friend to some asparagus, I pulled a dish a little out of its place, thereby deranging the exact hexagonal order in which the said dishes were arranged. I discovered my mis- hap on hearing Mr. S. sharply rebuked for a similar offence. Secondly, I sat, the whole evening, with the cushion a full finger's length beyond the cane-work of my chair ; and, what is worse, I do not know that I should have been aware of my delinquency, if the agony of the lady's feelings had not overpowered every consid- eration, and at last compelled her to burst forth, — ''Excuse me, Mr. , but, do, pray, put your cushion straight: it annoys me beyond measure to see it otherwise !" My third offence was displacing the snuffer-stand from its central position between the candlesticks ; my fourth, leaving a pamphlet I had been perusing on the pianoforte ; its proper place being a table in the mid- dle of the room, on which all books in present use were ordered to repose; my fifth — but, in short I should 254 Prose never have done, were I to enumerate every separate enormity of which I was guilty. My friend S.'s draw- ing-room has as good a right to exhibit a placard of "Steel traps and spring guns" as any park I am ac- quainted with. Even those "chartered libertines," the children and dogs, were taught to be as demure and hypocritical as the matronly tabby-cat herself, who sat with her two fore-feet together and her tail curled round her, as exactly as if she had been worked in an urn-rug, instead of being a living mouser. It was the utmost stretch of my friend's marital authority to get his favourite spaniel admitted to the honour of the par- lour, and even this privilege is only granted in his mas- ter's presence. If Carlo happens to pop his unlucky brown nose into the room when S. is from home, he re- treats directly, with as much consciousness in his ears and tail as if he had been convicted of larceny in the kitchen, and anticipated the application of the broom- stick. As to the children, I believe that they look forward to their evening visit to the drawing-room with much the same sort of feeling. Not that Mrs. S. is an un- kind mother, or, I should rather say, not that she means to be so; but she has taken it into her head that, as young people have sometimes short memories, it is necessary to put them verbally in mind of their duties, "from morn till dewy eve." So it is with her servants. If one of them leaves a broom or a duster out of its place for a second, she hears of it for a month afterwards. I wonder how they endure it ! I have sometimes thought that, from long practice, they do not heed it, as a friend of mine who lives in a bustling street in the city tells me he does not hear the noise of the coaches and carts in front of his house, nor even of a brazier who hammers away in his near neighbourhood from morning till night. Prose 255 The worst of it Is, that while Mrs. S. never allows a moment's peace to her husband, children or servants, she thinks herself a jewel of a wife; but such jewels are too costly for every-day wear. I am sure poor S. thinks so in his heart, and would be content to ex- change half-a-dozen of his wife's tormenting good qualities, for the sake of being allowed a little com- monplace repose. I never shall forget the delight I felt on entering my own house, after enduring her thraldom for two months. I absolutely revelled in disorder. I tossed my hat one way, my gloves another; pushed all the chairs into the middle of the room, and narrowly es- caped cuffing my faithful Christopher, for offering to put it "in order" again,— ''straightening," as they call it in Cheshire. That awful "spirit of order!" For my own part, I do so execrate the phrase, that if I were a member of the House of Commons, and the "order" of the day were called for, I should make it a "rule" to walk out. Good-Breeding. (Permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company.) C. HANFORD HENDERSON, 1861. I HAVE always been profoundly thankful that my family are well-bred, very much more thankful for this than for the accident that we have money. I could get along very well without the money, for if I were put to it, I could always earn enough, and honourably, to have at least a decent living, but life without the simplicity and high spirit that come with good-breeding would seem to me a very arid desert, a gift of more than doubtful value. I have met good- breeding in all classes of society, sometimes among the rich, sometimes among the poor, most frequently among the great middle classes. It is a mistake, though, to suppose that any one class has a monopoly 256 Prose of it, either rich or poor, cultivated or ignorant. Con- sidering their advantages, I think that educated peo- ple are more deficient than others. I have known college professors less well-bred by far than even the majority of the people they looked down upon. Good breeding is not a manner, a coat of varnish that a man may put on and off at his pleasure. A man cannot be well-bred and ill-bred the same week, or the same month, or the same year. Good-breeding is religion done in terms of everyday life. I do not exaggerate when I say that it is the most important thing of all the many things that are. A man's breeding is the measure of his social evolu- tion. It stamps his greater or less kinship to the gods. The Passion for Perfection. (Permission of The Outlook.) HAMILTON W. MABIE, 1846. IN "THE OUTLOOK." There is in the life of the artist an element of pain which in men of coarser mould never goes beyond a dumb sense of discontent : for the artist is compelled to live with his ideals. Other men have occasional glimpses of their ideals ; the artist lives his life in their presence and under their searching glances. A man is in the way to become genuine and noble when his ideals draw near and make their home with him in- stead of floating before him like summer clouds for- ever dissolving and reforming on the distant horizon; but he is also in the way of very real anguish of spirit. Our ideals, when we establish them under our own roofs, are as relentless as the Furies who thronged about Orestes; they will not let us rest. The world may applaud, but if they avert their faces, reputa- tion is a mockery and success a degradation. The pas- sion for perfection is the divinest possession of the soul, but it makes all lower gratifications, all com- promises with the highest standards, impossible. The Prose 257 man whom it dominates can never taste the easy satis- factions which assuage the thirst of those who have it not; for him it must always be the best or nothing. This passionate pursuit of the finahties of form and expression is as far removed from the pursuit of mere craftsmanship as art itself is separated from mere mechanical skill. And yet so little is the real signifi- cance of art understood among us that it is continually confused with craftsmanship, and is spoken of as something apart from a man's self, something born of skill and akin to the mechanical, instead of being the very last and supreme outflowering of that within us which is spontaneous and inspired. The Hebrew Nationality. HANNAH ADAMS, 1755-1832. To all Christians because they worship the King of the Jews. The history of the Jews is remarkable above that of all other Nations for the number and cruelty of the persecutions they have endured. They are venerable for the antiquity of their origin. They are discrim- inated from the rest of mankind by their wonderful destination, peculiar habits, and religious rites. Since the destruction of Jerusalem, and their universal dis- persion, we contemplate the singular phenomenon of a nation subsisting for ages without its civil and re- ligious polity, and thus surviving its political existence. But the Jews appear in a far more interesting light, when considered as a standing monument of the truth of the Christian Religion ; as an ancient Church of God, to whom were committed the Sacred Oracles; as a people selected from all nations to make known and preserve the knowledge of the True God. To them the Gospel was first preached, and from them the first Christian Church in Jerusalem was collected. To them we are indebted for the Scriptures of the New as well as of the Old Testament. To them were given 258 Prose the spirit of Prophecy, and the power of working Miracles. From them were derived an illustrious train of Prophets and Apostles. "To them pertaineth the adoption and the glory, the service of God and the promises ; and of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came." The preservation of this extraordinary people dur- ing their calamitous dispersion, exhibits the faithful- ness of the Deity in fulfilling his gracious promise, that "when they are in the land of their enemies, He will not cast them away, nor destroy them utterly." Though from the destruction of Jerusalem to the six- teenth century there are few countries in which they have not been successfully banished, recalled, and again expelled, yet they have never been banished from one country without finding an asylum in another. Emancipation of Negroes in the British West Indies. (Permission of Houghton, MifBin & Company.) R. W. EMERSON, 1803-1882. FROM THE EMANCIPATION ADDRESS DELIVERED IN CONCORD, MASS., AUGUST i, 1844. My Country is the World. My Countrymen are all Mankind. — William Lloyd Garrison. Gentlemen, I thought the deck of a Massachusetts ship was as much the territory of Massachusetts, as the floor on which we stand. It should be as sacred as the temple of God. The poorest fishing-smack that floats under the shadow of an iceberg in the north- ern seas, or hunts the whale in the southern ocean, should be encompassed by her laws with comfort and protection, as much as within the arms of Cape Ann and Cape Cod. And this kidnapping is suffered within our own land and federation, whilst the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States ordains in terms, that, *'The citizens of each State shall be en- Prose 259 titled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." If such a damnable outrage can be committed on the person of a citizen with impunity, let the Governor break the broad seal of the State; he bears the sword in vain. The Governor of Massa- chusetts is a trifler: the State-house in Boston is a play-house: the General Court is a dishonoured body: if they make laws which they cannot execute. The great-hearted Puritans have left no posterity. The rich men may walk in State-street, but they walk with- out honour; and the farmers may brag their democ- racy in the country, but they are disgraced men. If the State has no power to defend its own people in its own shipping, because it has delegated that power to the Federal Government, has it no representation in the Federal Government? Are those men dumb? I am no lawyer, and cannot indicate the forms appli- cable to the case, but here is something which tran- scends all forms. Let the senators and representatives of the State, containing a population of a million freemen, go in a body before the Congress, and say, that they have a demand to make on them so impera- tive, that all functions of government must stop until it is satisfied. If ordinary legislation cannot reach it, then extraordinary must be applied. Running Business on the Golden Rule. (Copyrighted by John Trotwood Moore.) JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE, 1858. FROM "THE BISHOP OF COTTONTOWN." "Now," said the old man, after the mill had run two years and declared a semi-annual dividend, both years, of eight per cent each, "now you all see what it means to run even business by the Golden Rule. Here is the big fortune that I accidentally stumbled on, as everybody does who makes one — put out like God in- 26o Prose tended it sh'ud, belonging to nobody and standing there, year after year, makin' a livin' an' a home an* life an' happiness for over fo' hundred people, year in an' year out, an' let us pray God, forever. It was not mine to begin with — it belonged to the worl'. God put the coal and iron in the ground, not for me, but for everybody. An' so I've given it to everybody. Because I happened to own the Ian' didn't make the treasure God put there mine, any mo' than the same land will be mine after I've passed away. We're only trustees for humanity for all we make mo' than we need, jus' as we're only tenants of God while we live on the earth. "Now, it's this a-way, God never intended for any people to work all the time between walls an' floors. Tilling the soil is the natural work of man, an' there is somethin' in the very touch of the ground to our feet that puts new life in our bodies. "The farmin' instinct is so natural in us that you can't stop it by flood or drought or failure. Year in an' year out the farmer will plant an' work his crop in spite of failure, hopin' every year to hit it the nex' time. Would a merchant or manufacturer or anybody else do that? No, they'd make an assignment the second year of failure. But not so with the farmer, and it shows God intended he shu'd keep at it. "Now, I'm goin' to give this mill a chance to raise its own cotton, besides everything its people needs to eat. I figger we can raise cotton cheaper than we can buy it, an' keep our folks healthy, too." The Bixby Letter. Hon. George S. Boutwell, Secretary of the Treas- ury, 1869-1873, writes in "Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln" : Mr. Lincoln's goodness of nature was boundless. It found expression in that memorable letter to Mrs. Prose 261 Bixby of Boston, who had given, irrevocably given, as was then supposed, five sons to the country. The letter was dated November 21, 1864, before the ex- citement of his second election was over. I imagine that all history and all literature may be searched, and in vain, for a funeral tribute so touching, so compre- hensive, so fortunate in expression. Dear Madam: — I have been shown, in the files of the War Department, a statement of the Adjutant- General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the an- guish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln. To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts. Johnson's Letter to Lord Chesterfield. My Lord, — I have been lately informed by the proprietor of The World that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour which, being very little accustomed to fa- vours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge. When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest 262 Prase of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself le vainqucur dii vamqueur de la terre — that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world con- tending; but I found my attendance so little encour- aged that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lord- ship in public, I had exhausted all the arts of pleasing which a wearied and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could, and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms and was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, and one smile of favour. Such treat- ment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks. Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with un- concern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached the ground encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be un- willing that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself. Having carried on my work thus far, with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, should less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened Prose 263 from that dream of hope in which I once boasted my- self with so much exultation, my lord, Your lordship's most humble, most obedient, servant, Sam. Johnson. To the Earl of Chesterfield : February 7, 1755. Spartacus to the Gladiators. ELIJAH KELLOGG. This literary treasure stirred my blood when I was a mere child and it stirs my blood to-day. Not for the gladiators with their big muscles, in the arenas, but for the bloodless, nerveless, starved children in the arena who carry the burdens of the world on their shoulders. It had been a day of triumph in Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious eagles, had amused the pop- ulace with the sports of the amphitheatre to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet, and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dew-drops on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of the Vulturnus with a wavy, tremulous light. No sound was heard save the last sob of some retiring wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach; and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed. In the deep recesses of the amphi- theatre a band of gladiators were assembled, their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, the scowl of battle yet linger- ing on their brows, when Spartacus, starting forth from amid the throng, thus addressed them : "Ye call me chief ; and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet has lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did 264 Prose belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus — a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella, My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbour, to join me in the pastime. "We led our flocks to the same pasture, and par- took together of our rustic meal. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nour- ished me trampled by the hoof of the war-horse, the bleeding body of my father flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling! *'To-day I killed a man in the arena, and when I broke his helmet clasps, behold, he was my friend. He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died; the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes and bear them home in childish triumph. I told the praetor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave, and I begged that I might bear away his body, to burn it on a funeral pile and mourn over its ashes. Ay, upon Prose 265 my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay! And the praetor drew back as I were pollution, and sternly said, 'Let the carrion rot; there are no noble men but Romans !' And so, fellow-gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs. O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay, thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd-lad who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe; to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boj upon a laughing girl. And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber flows red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled! **Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are. The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews ; but to- morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn and bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark ! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den ? 'Tis three days since he has tasted flesh, but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours, and a dainty meal for him ye will be. If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men, follow me! Strike down yon guard, gain the moun- tain passes, and there do bloody work, as did your sires at old Thermopylae ! Is Sparta dead ? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belaboured hound beneath his master's lash ? Oh, comrades ! warriors ! Thracians ! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let 266 Prose it be under the clear sky; by the bright waters; in noble, honourable battle." The Character of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. HENRY GRATTAN, 1 746-1820. The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of an- tiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought majesty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chican- ery, no narrow system of vicious politics, no idle con- test for ministerial victories, sank him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without cor- rupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sank beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite ; and his schemes were to affect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which those schemes were accomplished ; always seasonable, — always adequate, — the suggestion of an understanding animated by ardour and enlight- ened by prophecy. The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic difficul- ties, no domestic weakness reached him; but aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system, to counsel and decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative astonished a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all her classes of venality. Cor- Prose 267 ruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman and talked much of the incon- sistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories — but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered and refuted her. Nor were his political abilities his only talents. His eloquence was an era in the Senate, peculiar, and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instructive wisdom not like the torrent of Demos- thenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully; it re- sembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music, of the spheres. He did not conduct the under- standing through the painful subtility of argumenta- tion, nor was he forever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of his mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform, — an understand- ing, — a spirit and an eloquence to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wildness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish, or over- whelm empires, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through the universe. Defence of Socrates. PLATO ("THE APOLOGY"). This selection has been handed to me by a pupil of mine, who cared for it as a child and cares for it as a woman. How you have felt, O men of Athens, at hearing the speeches of my accusers, I cannot tell, but I know that their persuasive words almost made me forget who I was, such was the effect of them ; and yet they have hardly spoken a word of truth. But many as their falsehoods were, there was one of them which quite amazed me : I mean when they told you to be on your 268 Prose guard and not to let yourselves be deceived by the force of my eloquence. They ought to have been ashamed of saying this, because they were sure to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and displayed my deficiency; unless by the force of eloquence they meant the force of truth ; for there I do indeed admit that I am eloquent. Never mind the manner of my speaking, which may or may not be good, but think only of the justice of my cause, and give heed to that: let the judge decide justly and the speaker speak truly. And first I have to reply to the older charges and to my first accusers. For I have had many accusers who accused me of old, and their false charges have continued during many years; and I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his associates, who are dangerous too in their own way. But far more danger- ous are those who began when you were children and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause. These are the accusers whom I dread ; and they are many and their charges are of ancient date, and the cause when heard went by default, for there was none to answer. I dare say that some one will ask the question, "What is the origin of these accusations ; for there must have been something strange which you have been doing." Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will en- deavour to explain to you the origin of this name of *'wise," and of the evil fame. You must have known Chserephon: — Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether there was any one wiser than Socrates, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser. When I heard the answer I said to myself, "What can the God mean? and what is the interpretation of this Prose 269 riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. And yet he is a God and cannot lie." Accord- ingly I went to one man after another. I said to myself, "Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle." And I swear to you, Athenians, the result of my mission was just this : I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish. This investigation has led to my hav- ing many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others : but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and in the oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or noth- ing. He is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name as an illustration, as if he said, "He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wis- dom is in truth worth nothing." I have said enough in answer to the charge; any elaborate defence is unnecessary; but as I was say- ing before I certainly have many enemies, and this will be my destruction if I am destroyed ; of that I am certain ; not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them. Some one will say, "And are you not ashamed, Socra- tes, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end?" To him I may fairly answer, "There you are mistaken ; a man who is good for any- thing ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong — acting the part of a good man or of a bad one." Whereas, accord- ing to your view, the heroes who fell at Troy were not good for much, and the son of Thetis above all, who altogether despised danger in comparison with dis- 2/0 Prose grace; and when his goddess mother said to him, in his eagerness to slay Hector, that if he avenged his companion Patroclus, and slew Hector, he would die himself — "Fate," as she said, "waits upon you next after Hector," he, hearing this, utterly despised danger and death, and instead of fearing them, feared rather to live in dishonour, and not to avenge his friend. For wherever a man's place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger. And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying. Strange indeed would be my conduct, O men of Athens, if I who, when I was ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at Potidsea and Am- phipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me, like any other man, facing death, — if, I say now, when as I conceived and imagine, God orders me to fulfil the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death. And if you say to me now, "Socrates, this time we will not mind Anytus, and will let you off, but upon one condition, that you are not to inquire and specu- late in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing this again, you shall die," — if this were the con- dition on which you let me go, I should reply, "Men of Athens, I honour and love you, but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength, I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy." For this is the command of God, as I would have you know, and I believe that to this day no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do noth- ing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the great- est improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come Prose 2/1 money and every other good of man, public as well as private. I have something more to say at which you may be inclined to cry out, but I beg that you will not do this. I would have you know that if you kill such a one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Meletus and Anytus will not injure me ; they cannot ; for it is not in the nature of things that a bad man should injure a better than him- self. I do not deny that he may perhaps kill him, or drive him into exile, or deprive him of civil rights ; and he may imagine, and others may imagine, that he is doing him a great injury; but in that I do not agree with him. And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God or lightly reject his boon by condemning me. For if you kill me you will not easily find another like me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly v/hich God has given the State, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. I dare say you may feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are caught napping; and you may think that if you were to strike me dead as Anytus advises, which you easily might, then you would sleep on for the remain- der of your lives, unless God, in his care of you, gives you another gadfly. And that I am given to you by God is proved by this: that if I had been like other men, I should not have neglected all my own concerns during all these years and have been doing yours, com- ing to you individually, like a father or elder brother, exhorting you to virtue. And had I gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid, there would have been some sense in that ; but now, as you will perceive, not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever exacted or sought pay of any one; they have no witness of that. And I have a witness of 272 Prose the truth of what I say; my poverty is a sufficient witness. Well, Athenians, this, and the like of this, is nearly all the defence which I have to offer. Yet a word more. Perhaps there may be some one who is of- fended at me, when he calls to mind how he himself on a similar, or even a less serious occasion, had re- course to prayers and supplications with many tears, and how he produced his children in court, which was a moving spectacle, together with a posse of his rela- tives and friends ; whereas I, who am probably in dan- ger of my life, will do none of these things. Now if there be such a person among you, which I am far from affirming, I may fairly reply to him : '*My friend, I am a man, and like other men, a creature of flesh and blood, and not of wood or stone." I have a family, yes, and sons, O Athenians, three in number, one of whom is growing up, and the two others are still young; and yet I will not bring any of them hither to petition you for an acquittal. And why not? Not from any self-will or disregard of you. But I feel such conduct to be discreditable to myself, and you, and the whole state. There seems to be something wrong in petitioning a judge, and thus procuring an acquittal instead of informing and convincing him. For his duty is not to make a present of justice, but to give judgment. Do not then require me to do what I consider dishonourable and impious and wrong, especially now, when I am being tried for impiety. For if, O men of Athens, by force of persuasion and en- treaty, I could overpower your oaths, then I should be teaching you to believe that there are no gods, and convict myself, in my own defence, of not believing in them. But that is not the case ; for I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them. And to you and to God I commit my cause to be determined by you as is best for you and me. Prose 273 The Speech of Socrates on His Own Condemnation. PLATO ("THE APOLOGY"). The following speech is the address of Socrates to the judges and his friends after his condemnation. There are many reasons why I am not grieved, O men of Athens, at the vote of condemnation. I ex- pected this, and am only surprised that the votes are so nearly equal. And so the penalty is death ! You think that I was convicted through deficiency of words — I mean, that if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone, nothing unsaid, I might have gained an acquittal. But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger ; nor do I now repent of the manner of my defence; for I would rather die having spoken after my own man- ner than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war, nor yet at law, ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do any- thing. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness ; for that runs faster than death. I am old and move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me ; and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I de- part hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death, and they too go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; and I must abide by my award — let them abide by theirs. I suppose these things may be regarded as fated, — and I think that they are well. And now, O men who have condemned me, I would 274 Prose fain prophesy to you, for I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power. And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will fall on you. P'or if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way to escape which is either possible or honourable ; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter before my de- parture, to the judges who have condemned me. Friends who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about this thing which has hap- pened, before I go to the place at which I must die. my judges, — for you I may truly call judges, — be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth — that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die and be released were better for me. For which reason, also, 1 am not angry with my accusers or my condemners; they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them. Still I have a favour to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands. The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows. Prose 275 Death of Socrates. PLATO 427 B.C.— 347 B.C. FROM "THE PHAEDO." This selection is placed here because it invariably appealed to the young people of every class that read it in our golden reading hours. "Breathes there a man with soul so dead," that he can read The Death of Socrates and not weep? Let us hope not. Twenty years ago our Leader read it to us, the tears chasing each other down his cheeks; and here we are, reading it with tears in our eyes. "Soon must I drink the poison. Already, the voice of fate calls me, — as the tragic poets would say. But let a man who has cast away the pleasures of the body as alien to him be of good cheer about his soul; the man who has sought the pleasures of knowledge in this life, — who has adorned his soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth ; in these she is ready to go on her journey to the world below when her time comes." When he had done speaking, Crito said : "And have you any commands for us, Socrates, — anything to say about your children, or any other matter in which we can serve you?" "Nothing particular," he said, "only, as I have al- ready told you, I would have you look to yourselves; that is a service which you may always be doing to me and mine as well as to yourselves. And you need not make professions ; for if you take no thought for your- selves, and walk not according to the precepts which I have given you not now for the first time, the warmth of your professions will be of no avail." "We will do our best," said Crito. "But in what way would you have us bury you?" "In any way that you like; only you must get hold of me, and take care that I do not walk away from you." Then he turned to us, and added with a smile : "I cannot make Crito believe that I am the same Soc- rates who have been talking; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead body 276 Prose — and he asks how he shall bury me. And though I have spoken many words in the endeavour to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the blessed — these words of mine, with which I comforted you and myself, have had, as I perceived, no effect upon Crito. And there- fore, I want you to be surety for me now, that I shall not remain but go away and depart; and then he will suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body being burned or buried. I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates,' or 'Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him!' for false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think best." Soon the jailer entered and stood by him, saying: "To you, Socrates, whom I know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other men, who rage and swear at me when, in obedience to the authorities, I bid them drink the poison — indeed I am sure that you will not be angry with me; for others, as you are aware, and not I, are the guilty cause. And so fare you well, and try to bear lightly what must needs be ; you know my errand." Then bursting into tears, he turned away and went out. Socrates looked at him and said: 'T return your good wishes, and will do as you bid." Then ti^rning to us, he said, ''How charming the man is : since I have been in prison he has always been coming to see me, and at times he would talk to me, and was as good as could be to me, and now see how generously he sor- rows for me. But we must do as he says, Crito; let the cup be brought." The jailer handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or Prose 277 change of colour or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes, as his manner was, took the cup and said : **What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god ? May I, or not ?" The man answered : "We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough." ''1 understand," he said: "yet I may and must pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this to that other world — may this then, which is my prayer, be granted to me." Then holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control our , sorrow ; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly I was not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed, and at that moment Apollodorus, who had been weep- ing all the time, broke out into a loud cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calm- ness : "What is this strange outcry," he said? "I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be quiet then, and have patience." When we heard that, we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and he walked about, and then he lay on his back. He was begin- ning to grow cold, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said (they were his last words) — he said: "Crito, I owe a cock to As- clepius; will you remember to pay the debt?" "The debt shall be paid," said Crito ; "is there anything else ?" There was no answer to this question ; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants un- covered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth. Such was the end of our friend, whom I may truly 2^8 Prose call the wisest, and justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever known. Not Vanquished by Philip. DEMOSTHENES. 384-322 B.C. FROM "THE ORATION ON THE CROWN." A WICKED thing, Athenians, a wicked thing is a calumniator, ever ; — querulous and industrious in seek- ing pretences of complaint. But this creature is des- picable by nature, and incapable of any trace of generous and noble deeds; ape of a tragedian, third- rate actor, spurious orator! For what, ^schines, does your eloquence profit the country? You now descant upon what is past and gone ; as if a physician, when called to patients in a sinking state, should give no advice, nor prescribe any course by which the dis- ease might be cured; but after one of them had died, and the last offices were performing to his remains, should follow him to the grave, and expound how the poor man never would have died had siich and such things only been done. Moonstricken ! is it now that at length you, too, speak out? As to the defeat, that incident in which you so exult (wretch! who should rather mourn for it), — look through my whole conduct, and you shall find noth- ing there that brought down this calamity on my coun- try. Consider only, Athenians: Never, from any embassy upon which you sent me, did I come off worsted by Philip's ambassadors ; not from Thessaly, not from Ambracia, not from Illyria, not from the Thracian kings, not from the Byzantians, nor from any other quarter whatever, — nor finally, of late, from Thebes. But wheresoever his negotiators were over- come in debate, thither Philip marched, and carried the day by his arms. Do you, then, exact this of me ; and are you not ashamed, at the moment you are up- braiding me for weakness, to require that I should Prose 279 defy him single-handed, and by force of words alone? For what other weapons had I ? Certainly not the lives of men, nor the fortune of warriors, nor the military operations of which you are so blundering as to demand an account at my hands. But, whatever a minister can be accountable for, make of that the strictest scrutiny, and I do not object. What, then, falls within this description? To descry events in their first beginnings, to cast his look for- ward, and to warn others of their approach. All this I have done. Then to confine within the narrowest bounds all delays, and backwardness, and ignorance, and contentiousness, — faults which are inherent and unavoidable in all States ; and, on the other hand, to promote unanimity, and friendly dispositions, and zeal m the performance of public duty: — and all these things I likewise did, nor can any man point out any of them that, so far as depended on me, was left undone. If, then, it should be asked by what means Philip for the most part succeeded in his operations, every one would answer, By his army, by his largesses, by corrupting those at the head of affairs. Well, then, I neither had armies, nor did I command them; and therefore the argument respecting military operations cannot touch me. Nay, in so far as I was inacces- sible to bribes, there I conquered Philip! For, as he who purchases any one overcomes him who has re- ceived the price and sold himself, so he who will not take the money, nor consent to be bribed, has con- quered the bidder. Thus, as far as I am concerned, this country stands unconquered. 28o Prose On the Law of Leptines. DEMOSTHENES, 384-322 B.C. FROM HIS SPEECH ON THE LAW OF LEPTINES TO REPEAL ALL EXEMPTIONS AND IMMUNITIES. Leptines was right and Demosthenes wrong. Children should earn their own living and their own glory and not force it or have it forced upon them by the State. The children of heroes should be heroes and not have it as an "office" to be the "son of a father." Prestige is a fungus. Inherited privileges from the State are dangerous. The beneficiaries— after a few generations — would be as numerous as nobles and princes in Europe — so numerous that a "common man" would be a real curiosity. To revoke gifts which the State has bestowed! It would be a breach of national faith. To attempt to bind Greece for all future time by a law which might be a check on patriotic impulses must be inexpedient. You have to consider, O Athenians, not merely whether you love money, but whether you love also a good name, for which you are more anxious than for money; and not you, only, but your ancestors, as I can prove. For when they had acquired wealth in abundance, they expended it all in pursuit of honour. For glory's sake they never shrank from any danger, but persevered to the last, spending even their private fortunes. Instead of a good name, this law fastens an opprobrium on the commonwealth, unworthy both of your ancestors and yourselves. It entails three of the greatest reproaches, the reputation of being en- vious, faithless and ungrateful. That it is altogether foreign to your character to establish a law like this, I will endeavour to prove in a few words by recount- ing one of the former acts of the State. The Thirty Tyrants are said to have borrowed money from the Lacedaemonians to attack the enemy in the Piraeus. When peace was restored the Lacedaemonians sent am- bassadors and demanded payment of their money. Upon this there arose a debate, and some contended that the borrowers should pay; others advised that it should be the first proof of harmony to join in dis- charging the debt. The people, we know, determined Prose 281 to contribute privately, and share in the expense, to avoid breaking any article of their convention. Then, were it not shameful if, at that time, you chose to contribute money for the benefit of persons who had injured you, rather than break your word, — yet now, when it is in your power, without cost, to do justice to your benefactors by repealing this law, you should prefer to break your word. Every possible reproach should be avoided, but most of all, that of being envious. Why? Because envy is altogether the mark of a bad disposition, and to have this feeling is wholly unpardonable. Abhorring, ks our commonwealth does, everything disgraceful, there is no reproach from which she is further re- moved than from the imputation of being envious. Observe how strong are the proofs. In the first place you are the only people who have State funerals for the dead, and funeral orations in which you glorify the actions of brave men. Such a custom is that of a people which admires virtue, and does not envy others who are honoured for it. In the next place, you have ever bestowed the highest rewards upon those who* win the garlands in gymnastic contests; nor have you, because but few are born to partake of such re- wards, envied the parties receiving them, nor abridged your honours on that account. Add to these strik- ing evidences that no one appears ever to have sur- passed our State in liberality — such munificence has she displayed in requiting services. All these are manifestations of justice, virtue, magnanimity. Do not destroy the character for which our State has all along been renowned ; do not, in order that Leptines may wreak his personal malice upon some whom he dislikes, deprive the State and yourselves of the hon- ourable name which you have enjoyed throughout all time. Regard this as a contest purely for the dignity of Athens, whether it is to be maintained the same as before, or to be impaired and degraded. 282 Prose Speech of a Scythian to Alexander. Q. CURTIUS. When the Scythian ambassadors waited on Alexander the Great, they were disappointed in finding him less commanding in his person and personality than might have been expected from his great fame. At last the oldest of the ambassadors addressed him as follows. Had the gods given thee, O Alexander, a body pro- portionable to thy ambition, the whole universe would have been too little for thee. With one hand thou wouldst touch the East, and with the other the West ; and not satisfied with this, thou wouldst follow the sun, and know where he hides himself. What have we to do with thee ? We never set foot in thy country. May not those who inhabit woods be allowed to live, without knowing who thou art, and whence thou comest ? We will neither command over, nor submit to any man. And that thou mayest be sensible what kind of people the Scythians are, know that we received from heaven, as a rich present, a yoke of oxen, a ploughshare, a dart, a javelin, and a cup. These we make use of, both with our friends, and against our enemies. To our friends we give corn, which we procure by the labour of our oxen; with our friends we offer wine to the gods, in our cup; and with regard to our enemies, we combat them at a distance with our arrows, and near at hand with our javelins. But thou, who boasteth thy coming to extirpate rob- bers, art thyself the greatest robber upon earth. Thou hast plundered all nations thou overcamest ; thou hast possessed thyself of Libya, invaded Syria, Persia, and Bactriana; thou art forming a design to march as far as India, and now thou comest hither to seize upon our herds of cattle. The great possessions thou hast, only make thee covet the more eagerly what thou hast not. If thou art a god, thou oughtest to do good to mortals, and Prose 283 not deprive them of their possessions. If thou art a mere man, reflect always on what thou art. They whom thou shalt not molest will be thy true friends; the strongest friendship being contracted between equals; and they are esteemed equals who have not tried their strength against each other. But do not suppose that those whom thou conquerest can love thee. Caius Marius to the Romans, on the Objections to Making Him General. SALLUST. "You did not expect to find me a mere hack-driver, did you?" This question was put to me by a courteous hack-driver in Chicago who had been one of my good old pupils. "A good hack-driver has an honourable position in the world if he knows how to fill it well," I said. "It is better to be a good hack-driver than a Phaeton who tries to drive his father's golden chariot and ends in a mud-puddle." This selection is dedicated to the honourable labourer, and his boys at school. You have committed to my conduct, O Romans, the war against Jugurtha. The Patricians are offended at this. "He has no family statues," they exclaim. **He can point to no illustrious line of ancestors !" What then? Will dead ancestors, will motionless statues help fight your battles? Will it avail your General to appeal to these, in the perilous hour? Rare wisdom would it be, my countrymen, to intrust the command of your army to one whose only qualification for it would be the valour of his forefathers ! to one untried and unexperienced, but of most unexceptionable family! who could not show a solitary scar, but any number of ancestral statues ! who knew not the first rudiments of war, but was very perfect in pedigree! Truly I have known of such holiday heroes, — raised, because of family considerations, to a command for which they were not fitted, — who, when the moment for action arrived, were obliged, in their ignorance and trepidation, to give to some inferior officer, to some de- spised Plebeian — the ordering of every movement. 284 Prose I submit it to you, Romans, — is Patrician pride or Plebeian experience the safer reliance ? The actions of which my opponents have merely read, I have achieved or shared in. What they have seen written in books,. I have seen written on battle-fields with steel and blood. They object to my humble birth. They sneer at my lowly origin. Impotent objection! Ignominious sneer! Where but in the spirit of a man (bear wit- ness, Gods ! ) , — where but in the spirit can his nobility be lodged? and where his dishonour, but in his own cowardly inaction, or his unworthy deeds? Tell these railers at my obscure extraction, their haughty lineage could not make them noble — my humble birth could never make me base. I profess no indifference to noble descent. It is a good thing to number great men among one's ances- try. But when a descendant is dwarfed in the com- parison, it should be accounted a shame rather than a boast. These Patricians cannot despise me, if they would, since their titles of nobility date from ances- tral services similar to those which I myself have rendered. And what if I can show no family statues? I can show the standards, the armour, and the spoils, which I myself have wrested from the van- quished. I can show the scars of many wounds re- ceived in combating the enemies of Rome. These are my statues ! These the honours I can boast of ! Not an accidental inheritance, like theirs; but earned by toil, by abstinence, by valour; amid clouds of dust, and seas of blood ; scenes of action, in which these effeminate Patricians, who would now depreciate me in your esteem, have never dared to appear, — no, not even as spectators ! Here, Romans, are my creden- tials ; here, my titles of nobility ; here, my claims to the generalship of your army. Tell me, are they not as respectable, are they not as valid, are they not as deserving of your confidence and reward, as those which any Patrician of them all can offer? Prose 285 What a Great Nation Can Not Do. JOHN RUSKIN, 1819-1900. A GREAT nation does not spend its entire national wits for a couple of months in weighing evidence of a single ruffian's having done a single murder; and for a couple of years see its own children murder each other by their thousands or tens of thousands a day, considering only what the effect is likely to be on the price of cotton, and caring nowise to determine which side of battle is in the wrong. Neither does a great nation send its poor little boys to jail for stealing six walnuts ; and allow its bankrupts to steal their hun- dreds or thousands, and its bankers, rich with poor men's savings, to close their doors "under circumstances over which they have no control," with a "by your leave" ; and large landed estates to be bought by men who have made their money by going with armed steamers up and down the China Seas, selling opium at the cannon's mouth, and altering, for the benefit of the foreign nation, the common highwayman's de- mand of "your money or your life," into that of "your money and your life." Neither does a great nation allow the lives of its innocent poor to be parched out of them by fog fever, and rotted out of them by dung- hill plague, for the sake of sixpence a life extra per week to its landlords ; and then debate, with drivelling tears, and diabolical sympathies, whether it ought not piously to save, and nursingly cherish, the lives of its murderers. Also, a great nation having made up its mind that hanging is quite the wholesomest process for its homicides in general, can yet with mercy distinguish between the degrees of guilt in homicides ; and does not yelp like a pack of frost-pinched wolf-cubs on the blood-track of an unhappy crazed boy, or grey-haired clod-pate Othello, "perplexed i' the extreme," at the very moment that it is sending a Minister of the 286 Prose Crown to make polite speeches to a man who is bayoneting young girls in their father's sight, and kill- ing noble youths in cool blood, faster than a country butcher kills lambs in spring. And, lastly, a great na- tion does not mock Heaven and its Powers, by pretend- ing belief in a revelation which asserts the love of money to be the root of all evil, and declaring, at the same time, that it is actuated, and intends to be actuated, in all chief national deeds and measures, by no other love. My friends, I do not know why any of us should talk about reading. We want some sharper discipline than that of reading; but, at all events, be assured, we cannot read. No reading is possible for a people with its mind in this state. No sentence of any great writer is intelligible to them. It is simply and sternly impossible for the English public at this moment, to understand any thoughtful writing, — so incapable of thought has it become in its insanity of avarice. The Fate of the Reformer. LORD BROUGHAM, 1778-1868. A subject for debate: "To reform a man, should you 'begin with his grandfather' or your own?" I HAVE heard it said that, when one lifts up his voice against things that are, and wishes for a change, he is raising a clamour against existing institutions, a clamour against our venerable establishments, a clamour against the law of the land, but this is no clamour against the one or the other, — it is a clamour against the abuse of them all. It is a clamour raised against the grievances that are felt. Mr. Burke, who was no friend to popular excitement, — who was no ready tool of agitation, no hot-headed enemy of ex- isting establishments, no under-valuer of the wisdom of our ancestors, no scoffer against institutions as they are, — has said, and it deserves to be fixed, in letters Prose 287 of gold, over the hall of every assembly which calls itself a legislative body — "Where there is abuse, there ought to be clamour: because it is better to have our slumber broken by the fire-bell, than to perish, amidst the flames, in our bed." I have been told, by some who have little objection to the clamour, that I am a timid and a mock reformer; and by others, if I go on firmly and steadily, and do not allow myself to be driven aside by either one outcry or another, and care for neither, that it is a rash and dangerous innovation which I propound; and that I am taking, for the subject of my reckless experiments, things which are the objects of all men's veneration. I dis- regard the one as much as I disregard the other of these charges. '•False honour charms, and lying slander scares, Whom, but the false and faulty?" It has been the lot of all men, in all ages, who have aspired at the honour of guiding, instructing, or mending mankind, to have their paths beset by every persecution from adversaries, by every miscon- struction from friends ; no quarter from the one, — no charitable construction from the other! To be misconstrued, misrepresented, borne down, till it was in vain to bear down any longer, has been their fate. But truth will survive, and calumny has its day. I say that, if this be the fate of the reformer, — if he be the object of misrepresentation, — may not an in- ference be drawn favourable to myself? Taunted by the enemies of reform as being too rash, by the over- • zealous- friends of reform as being too slow or too cold, there is every reason for presuming that I have chosen the right course. A reformer must proceed steadily in his career; not misled, on the one hand, by panegyric, nor discouraged by slander, on the other. He wants no praise. I would rather say — "Woe to him when all men speak well of him!" I shall go on 288 Prose in the course which I have laid down for myself; pursuing the foot-steps of those who have gone be- fore us, who have left us their instructions and suc- cess, — their instructions to guide our walk, and their success to cheer our spirits. Voyage of the "Mayflower." EDWARD EVERETT, 1794-1863. To that group of boys who used to like to make ships of clay and tease each other about the names. "Call her 'The Milk-Shake,' Tack, or 'The Chocolate Drop,' 'The Rose,' 'Mother Cary's Chicken.' ' May your boats never be derelicts. Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adven- turous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now, driven in fury before the raging tempest, in their scarcely seaworthy vessel. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The labouring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard ; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow ; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening weight against the staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, — v/eak and exhausted from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. Prose 289 Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of mili- tary science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the boundaries of New England ? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your con- ventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the aban- doned adventures of other times, and find the paral- lel of this. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the house- less heads of women and children? was it hard labour and spare meals ? was it disease ? was it the tomahawk ? was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last mo- ments at the recollection of the loved and left beyond the sea? — was it some, or all of these united, that hur- ried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible that, from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as of pity, there have gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious? Rights of the Indians Defended. EDWARD EVERETT, 1794-1865. We do not want to forget how the Indians used to feel. This is a recitation supplementary to the study of the history of the settlements in New England. Think of the country for which the Indians fought ! Who can blame them? As Philip looked down from his seat on Mount Hope and beheld the lovely scene which spread beneath at a summer sunset, — the dis- tant hilltops blazing with gold, the slanting beams 290 Prose streaming along the waters, the broad plains, the island groups, the majestic forest, — could he be blamed, if his heart burned within him, as he beheld it all passing, by no tardy process, from beneath his control into the hands of the stranger? As the river chieftains — the lords of the water- falls and the mountains — ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at, if they beheld with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's axe — the fishing-place disturbed by his saw- mills? Can we not fancy the feelings with which some strong-minded savage, in company with a friendly settler, contemplating the progress already made by the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which he was advancing into the wilder- ness, would fold his arms and say, "White man, there is eternal war between me and thee! I quit not the land of my fathers, but with my life. In those woods, where I bent my youthful bow, I will still hunt the deer ; over yonder waters I will still glide unrestrained in my bark canoe. By those dashing water- falls I will still lay up my winter's store of food; on these fertile meadows I will still plant my corn. Stranger, the land is mine. I understand not these paper rights. I gave not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions were purchased for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what was theirs; they could sell no more. How could my father sell that which the Great Spirit sent me into the world to live upon? They knew not what they did. The stranger came, a timid suppliant, and asked to lie down on the red man's bear-skin, and warm himself at the red man's fire, and have a little piece of land, to raise corn for his women and children; and now he is be- come strong, and mighty, and bold and spreads out his parchment over the whole, and says, Tt is mine.' Stranger, there is not room for us both. There is poison in the white man's cup; the white man's dog barks at the red man's heels. If I should leave the Prose 291 land of my fathers, whither shall I fly? Shall I go to the South, and dwell among the graves of the Pequots? Shall I wander to the West — the fierce Mohawk — the man-eater — is my foe. Shall I fly to the East, — the great water is before me. No, Stranger ; here I have lived, and here will I die; and if here thou abidest there is eternal war between me and thee. "Thou hast taught me thy arts of destruction; for that alone I thank thee; and now take heed to thy steps; the red man is thy foe. When thou goest forth by day, my bullet shall whistle by thee; when thou liest down at night, my knife is at thy throat. The noonday sun shall not discover thy enemy, and the darkness of midnight shall not protect thy rest. Thou shalt plant in terror, and I will reap in blood; thou shalt sow the earth with corn, and I will strew it with ashes ; thou shalt go forth with the sickle, and I will follow after with the scalping-knife; thou shalt build and I will burn, — till the white man or the In- dian shall cease from the land. Go thy way for this time in safety; but remember, Stranger, there is eternal war between me and thee!" On Conciliation with America. EDMUND BURKE, 1730-1797. For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade or empire, my trust is in her interest in the British Constitution. My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties, which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government; they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. 292 Prose But let it once be understood, that your government may be one thing, and their privileges another; that these two things may exist without any mutual rela- tion : the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened ; and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the. sov- ereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have. The more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anyv/here. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feel- ing of your true interests and your national dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation, which binds to you the commerce of the Colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve the unity of the empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination, as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and suf- ferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do not make your government, dead instruments, passive tools as they are; it is the spirit of the English constitution that gives all their life and efficacy to them. Prose 293 It is the spirit of the Enghsh constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies, every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? Do you imagine then, that it is the land tax which raises your revenue? That it is the annual vote in the committee of sup- ply, which gives you your army? or that it is the mutiny bill which inspires it with bravery and dis- cipline ? No ! surely no ! It is the love of the people — ^^it is their attachment to their government from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians, who have no place among us ; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material ; and who therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great move- ment of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wis- dom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and our- selves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceed- ings on America, with the old warning of the church, Sursum corda ! We ought to elevate our minds to the 294 Prose greatness of that trust to which the order of Provi- dence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire; and have made the most extensive, and the only honourable conquests ; not by destroying, but by promoting, the wealth, the num- ber, the happiness, of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it is; Eng- lish privileges alone will make it all that it can be. The American War Denounced. WILLIAM PITT (THE SECOND), 1759-1806. Gentlemen have passed the highest eulogiums on the American war. Its justice has been defended in the most fervent manner. A noble Lord, in the heat of his zeal, has called it a Holy War. For my part, although the honourable Gentleman who made this motion, and some other Gentlemen, have been more than once, in the course of the debate, severely repre- hended for calling it a wicked and accursed war, I am persuaded, and would affirm, that it was a most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust and diabolical war! It was conceived in injustice; it was nurtured and brought forth in folly; its foot- steps were marked with blood, slaughter, persecution and devastation; — in truth, everything which went to constitute moral depravity and human turpitude were to be found in it. It was pregnant with misery of every kind. The mischief, however, recoiled on the unhappy People of this country, who were made the instru- ments by which the wicked purposes of the authors of the war were effected. The Nation was drained of its best blood, and of its vital resources of men and money. The expense of the war was enormous, — Prose 295 much beyond any former experience. And yet, what has the British Nation received in return? Nothing but a series of ineffective victories, or severe defeats ; — victories celebrated only by a temporary triumph over our brethren, whom we would trample down and destroy ; victories, which filled the land with mourning for the loss of dear and valued relatives, slain in the impious cause of enforcing unconstitutional submis- sion, or with narratives of the glorious exertions of men struggling in the holy cause of liberty, though struggling in the absence of all the facilities and ad- vantages which are in general deemed the necessary concomitants of victory and success. Where was the Englishman, who, on reading the narratives of those bloody and well-fought contests, could refrain from lamenting the loss of so much British blood spilt in such a cause; or from weeping, on whatever side vic- tory might be declared? National Gratitude. HENRY GRATTAN, 1746-1820. I SHALL hear of ingratitude. I name the argument to despise it, and the men who make use of it. I know the men who use it are not grateful : they are insatiate; they are public extortioners, who would stop the tide of public prosperity, and turn it to the channel of their own emolument. I know of no species of gratitude which should prevent my country from being free; no gratitude which should oblige Ireland to be the slave of England. In cases of robbery and usurpation, nothing is an object of gratitude except the thing stolen, the charter spoliated. A Nation's liberty cannot, like her treasure, be meted and par- celled out in gratitude. No man can be grateful or liberal of his conscience, nor woman of her honour, nor Nation of her liberty. There are certain unim- partable, inherent, invaluable properties not to be 296 Prose alienated from the person, whether body politic or body natural. With the same contempt do I treat that charge which says that Ireland is insatiable ; saying that Ireland asks nothing but that which Great Britain has robbed her of, — her rights and privileges. To say that Ireland will not be satisfied with liberty, because she is not satisfied with slavery, is folly. I laugh at that man who supposes that Ireland will not be con- tent with a free trade and a free Constitution, and would any man advise her to be content with less? The South During the Revolution. ROBERT Y. HAYNE, 1791-1839- What, Sir, was the conduct of the South during the Revolution? Sir, I honour New England for her conduct in that glorious struggle. But, great as is the praise which belongs to her, I think at least equal honour is due to the South. They espoused the quar- rel of their brethren, with a generous zeal, which did not suffer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute. Favourites of the mother country, pos- sessed of neither ships nor seamen to create a com- mercial rivalship, they might have found in their sit- uation a guarantee that their trade would be forever fostered and protected by Great Britain. But, tram- pling on all considerations either of interest or of safety they rushed into the conflict, and, fighting for principle, perilled all, in the sacred cause of freedom. Never were there exhibited, in the history of the world, higher examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic endurance, than by the Whigs of Carolina, during the Revolution. The whole State, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an overwhelm- ing force of enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were produced, or were con- sumed by the foe. The "plains of Carolina" drank up the most precious blood of her citizens. Black and Prose 297 smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitations of her children ! Driven from their homes, into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there the spirit of liberty survived; and South Caro- lina, sustained by the example of her Sumpters and her Marions, proved, by her conduct, that though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her People was in- vincible. Peaceable Secession. DANIEL WEBSTER, 1782-1852. \ "We hang together or we hang apart." Sir, he who sees these States now revolving in har- mony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the crush of the universe. There can be no such thing as a peace- able secession. Peaceable secession is an utter im- possibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off ? No, Sir ! No, Sir! I will not state what might produce the dis- ruption of the Union; but. Sir, I see, as plainly as I see the sun in Heaven, what that disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its two-fold character. Peaceable secession! — peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great Republic to separate ! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede ? What is to remain Ameri- can? What am I to be? An American no longer? 298 Prose Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a sepa- ratist, with no' country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other House of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the Repub- lic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? — or is he to cower, and shrink and fall to the ground? Why, Sir, our ancestors — our fathers and our grand- fathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us, with prolonged lives — would rebuke and reproach us ; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we, of this generation, should dis- honour these ensigns of the power of the Government and the harmony of that Union, which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is any one of the thirty States to defend itself? Sir, we could not sit down here to-day and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together ; and there are social and do- mestic relations which we could not break if we would, and which we should not if we could. Against the Force Bill. JOHN C. CALHOUN, 1782-1850. It is said that the bill ought to pass, because the law must be enforced. The law must be enforced! The imperial edict must be executed! It is under such sophistry, couched in general terms, without looking to the limitations which must ever exist in the practi- cal exercise of power, that the most cruel and despotic acts ever have been covered. It was such sophistry as this that cast Daniel into the lions' den, and the three Innocents into the fiery furnace. Under the same sophistry the bloody edicts of Nero and Caligula Prose 299 were executed. The law must he enforced! Yes, the act imposing the tea-tax ''must be executed." This was the very argument which impelled Lord North and his administration in that mad career which for- ever separated us from the British Crown. Under a similar sophistry, "that religion must be protected," how many massacres have been perpetrated, and how many martyrs have been tied to the stake! What! acting on this vague abstraction, are you prepared to enforce a law, without considering whether it be just or unjust, constitutional or unconstitutional ? Will you collect money when it is acknowledged that it is not wanted? He who earns the money, who digs it from the earth with the sweat of his brow, has a just title to it, against the universe. No one has a right to touch it without his consent, except his government, and that only to the extent of its legitimate wants; — to take more is robbery. American Labourers. C. C. NAYLOR. The Gentleman, Sir, has misconceived the spirit and tendency of Northern institutions. He is ignorant of Northern character. He has forgotten the history of his country. Preach insurrection to the Northern labourers! Who are the Northern labourers? The history of your country is their history. The renown of your country is their renown. The brightness of their doings is emblazoned on its every page. Blot from your annals the words, and the doings of North- ern labourers, and the history of your country presents but a universal blank. Sir, who was he that disarmed the Thunderer; wrested from his grasp the bolts of Jove; calmed the troubled ocean; became the central sun of the philosophical system of his age, shedding his brightness and effulgence on the whole civilised world; whom the great and mighty of the earth de- 300 Prose lighted to honour ; who participated in the achievement of your independence, prominently assisted in mould- ing your free institutions, and the beneficial effects of whose wisdom will be felt to the last moment of "recorded time!" Who, Sir, I ask, was he? A North- ern labourer, — a Yankee tallow-chandler's son, — a printer's runaway son ! And who, let me ask the honourable Gentleman, who was he that, in the days of our Revolution, led forth a Northern army, — yes, an army of Northern labour- ers, — and aided the chivalry of South Carolina in their defence against British aggression, drove the spoilers from their firesides, and redeemed her fair fields from foreign invaders? Who was he? A Northern labourer, a Rhode Island blacksmith, — the gallant General Greene, — who left his hammer and his forge, and went forth conquering and to conquer in the battle for our independence ! And will you preach insurrection to men like these? Sir, our country is full of the achievements of Northern labourers ! Where are Concord, and Lexing- ton, and Princeton, and Trenton, and Saratoga, and Bunker Hill, but in the North? And what. Sir, has shed an imperishable renown on the never-dying names of those hallowed spots, but the blood and the strug- gles, the high daring and patriotism, and sublime cour- age, of Northern labourers? The whole North is an everlasting monument of the freedom, virtue, intelli- gence, and indomitable independence, of Northern labourers ! Go, Sir, go preach insurrection to men like these ! The Free Mind. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, 1 780-1842. I CALL that mind free, which masters the senses, which protects itself against the animal appetites, which penetrates beneath the body and recognises its own reality and greatness. I call that mind free, which Prose 301 escapes the bondage of matter ; which, instead of stop- ping at the material universe and making it a prison wall, passes beyond it to its Author, and finds, in the radiant signatures which that universe everywhere bears of the infinite Spirit, helps to its own spiritual enlargement. I call that mind free, which sets no bounds to its love, which recognises in all human beings the image of God and the rights of his children, which delights in virtue and sympathises with suffering wherever they are seen, which conquers pride, anger, and sloth, and offers itself up a willing victim to the cause of mankind. I call that mind free, which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrent of events, which is not the creature of accidental impulse, but which bends events to its own improvement, and acts from an inward spring, from immutable principles which it has deliberately espoused. I call that mind free, which protects itself against the usurpations of society, which does not cower to human opinion, which feels itself accountable to a higher tribunal than man's, which respects a higher law than fashion, which reverences itself too much to be the slave or tool of the many or the few. Judges Should be Free. JAMES A. BAYARD, 1767-1815. The principles involved in this speech are just as true in all depart- ments of life. Every man is a judge. Let him be so placed that he is dependent for existence on any power and he must be a strong man if he does not toady to that power. It is true in our hospitals where doctors are turned out when politics change. True of teachers who are liable to lose positions. True in private schools that are dependent on rich pupils. Only the man who dares face poverty can say that his soul is his own. Let it be remembered that no power is so sensibly felt by society as that of the Judiciary. The life and property of every man is liable to be in the hands of 302 Prose the Judges. Is it not our great interest to place our Judges upon such high ground that no fear can intimi- date, no hope seduce them? The present measure humbles them in the dust. It prostrates them at the feet of faction. It renders them the tool of every dominant party. It is this effect which I deprecate. It is this consequence which I deeply deplore. What does reason, what does argument avail, when party spirit presides? Subject your Bench to the influence of this spirit, and justice bids a final adieu to your tribunals. We are asked. Sir, if the Judges are to be independent of the People? The question presents a false and delusive view. We are all the People. We are, and as long as we enjoy our freedom we shall be, divided into parties. The true question is, Shall the Judiciary be permanent, or fluctuate with the tide of public opinion? I beg, I implore the gentlemen to consider the magnitude and value of the principle which they are about to annihilate. If your Judges are independent of political changes, they may have their preferences, but they will not enter into the spirit of party. But, let their existence depend upon the sup- port of a certain set of men, and they cannot be im- partial. Justice will be trodden under foot. Your courts will lose all public confidence and respect. Prostrate your Judges at the feet of party, and you break down the mounds which defend you from revolutionary torrent. PART VI. "Gentlemen, let us come at the pith of this debate/' Victor Hugo PART VI Sonny's Diploma. (Copyright, 1896, by The Century Company.) RUTH McENERY STUART. SELECTED AND ABRIDGED FROM *;SONNY." "If my little knowledge isn't your little knowledge then YOU don't know anything." Here's another Dolorous-Stroke to examinations. This question is for debates in Normal Training Classes. Yas, sir; this is it. This here's Sonny's diplomy thet you've heerd so much about — sheepskin they call it, though it aint no mo' sheepskin 'n what I am. I've skinned too many not to know. Thess to think o' little Sonny bein' a grad'jate — an' all by his own efforts, too! It is a plain-lookin' picture, ez you say, to be framed up in sech a fine gilt frame; but it's worth it, an' I don't begrudge it to him. He picked out that red plush hisself. He's got mighty fine taste for a coun- try-raised child, Sonny has. Seem like the oftener I come here an' stan' before it, the prouder I feel, an' the mo' I can't reelise thet he done it. I'd 'a' been proud enough to 've had him go through the reg'lar co'se o' study, an' be awarded this diplomy, but to've seen 'im thess walk in an' demand it, the way he done, an' to prove his right in a fair fight — why, it tickles me so thet I thess seem to git a spell o' the giggles ev'y time I think about it. Sir ? How did he do it ? Why, I thought eve'ybody in the State of Arkansas knowed how Sonny walked over the boa'd o' school directors, an' took a diplomy in the face of Providence, at the last anniversary. 305 3o6 Prose Of co'se eve'ybody in the county goes to the gradj- 'atin', an' we was all three settin' there watchin' the performances, not thinkin' of any special excitement, when Sonny took this idee. It seems thet seein' all the other boys gradj'ate put him in the notion, an' he felt like ez ef he ought to be a-gradj'atin', too. Well, sir, it was thess like I'm a-tellin' you. He set still ez long ez he could, an' then he riz an' spoke. Says he, "I have decided thet I'd like to do a little gradj'atin this evenin' myself," thess, that a-way. An' when he spoke them words, for about a minute you could 'd heerd a pin drop ; an' then eve'ybody be- gin a-screechin' with laughter. A person would think thet they'd 'a' had some consideration for a child standin' up in the midst o' sech a getherin', tryin' to take his own part ; but they didn't. They thess laughed immod'rate. But they didn't faze him. He had took his station on the flo', an' he belt his ground. Thess ez soon ez he could git a heerin', why, he says, says he: "I don't want anybody to think thet I'm a-tryin' to take any advantage. I don't expec' to gradj'ate without passin' my examination. An', mo' 'n that," says he, "I am ready to pass it now." An* then he went on to explain thet he would like to have anybody present thet zvas competent to do it to step forward an' examine him — then an' there. An' he said thet ef he was examined fair and square to the satisfaction of eve'ybody — an' didn't pass — why, he'd give up the p'int. An' he wanted to be examined oral — in eve'ybody's hearin' — free-handed an' outspoke. Well, sir, seem like folks begin to see a little fun ahead in lettin' him try it — which I don't see thess how they could 'a' hindered him, an' it a free school, an' me a taxpayer. But they all seemed to be in a pretty good humour by this time, an' when Sonny put it to vote, why they voted unanymous to let him try it. Well, when they had done votin', Sonny, after first Prose 307 thankin' 'em, — which I think was a mighty poHte thing to do, an' they full o' the giggles at his little expense that minute, — why, he went on to say thet he requie'd 'em to make thess one condition, an' that was thet any question he missed was to be passed on to them thet had been a-gradj'atin' so fast, an' ef they missed it, it wasn't to be counted ag'inst him. Of co'se they couldn't give Sonny the same questions thet had been give' out, because he had heerd the an- swers, an' it would n't 'a' been fair. So Sonny he told 'em to thess set down, an' make out a list of ques- tions thet they'd all agree was about of a' equal hard- ness to them thet had been ast, an' was of thess the kind of learnin' thet all the regular gradj'ates's minds was sto'ed with, an' thet either he knowed 'em or he didn't — one. Oh, yes ; he's got the best libr'y in the county, 'cep'n*, of co'se, the doctor's 'n' the preacher's — everybody round about here knows about that. He's got about a hund'ed books an' over. Well, sir, when he made that remark, thet any question thet he missed was to be give to the class, why, the whole atmosp'ere took on a change o' temp'ature. Even the teacher was for backin' out o' the whole business square ; but he didn't thess seem to dare to say so. Eve'ybody there had saw him step over an' whis- per to Brother Binney when it was decided to give Sonny a chance, an' they knowed thet he had asked him to examine him. But now, instid o' callin' on Brother Binney, why, he thess said, says he : "I sup- pose I ought not to shirk this duty. Ef it's to be did," says he, "I reckon I ought to do it — an' do it I will." You see, he daresn't allow Brother Binney to put questions, for fear he'd call out some thet his smarty grad'jates couldn't answer. So he thess claired his th'oat, an' set down a minute to consider. An' then he riz from his seat, an' re- marked, with a heap o' hems and haws, thet of co'se 3o8 Prose everybody knowed thet Sonny Jones had had unusual advantages in some respec's, but thet it was one thing for a boy to spend his time a-picnickin' in the woods, getherin' all sorts of natural curiosities, but it was quite another to be a scholar accordin' to books, so's to be able to pass sech a' examination ez would be a credit to a State institution o' learnin', sech ez the one over which he was proud to preside. That word struck me partic'lar, ''proud to preside," which, in all this, of co'se, I see he was castin' a slur on Sonny's collec- tions of birds' eggs, an' his wild flowers, an' wood specimens, an' min'rals. Well, sir, it took that school-teacher about a half- hour to pick out the first question, an' he didn't pick it out then. He'd stop, an' he'd look at the book, an' then he'd look at Sonny, an' then he'd look at the class, — an' then he'd turn a page, like ez ef he couldn't make up his mind, an' was afeerd to resk it, less'n it might be missed, an' be referred back to the class. I never did see a man so over-wrought over a little thing in my life — never. They do say, though, that school-teachers feels mighty bad when their scholars misses any p'int in public. Well, sir, he took so long that d'reckly everybody begin to git wo'e out, an' at last Sonny, why, he got tired, too, an' he up an' says, says he, "Ef you can't make up your mind what to ask me, teacher, why'n't you let me ask myself questions? An' ef my ques- tions seem too easy, why, I'll put 'em to the class." Well, sir, that's the way this diplomy was earned — by a good, hard struggle, in open daylight, by unany- mous vote of all concerned — an' unconcerned. An' my opinion is thet if they are those who have any private opinions about it, an' they didn't express 'em that day, why they ain't got no right to do it underhanded. Prose 309 On Rising with the Lark. CHARLES LAMB, 1775-1834. For the little boy who rises at four in the morning and is sleepy all day. Beware of "The Early Bird." At what precise minute that Httle airy musician doffs his night-gear, and prepares to tune up his un- seasonable matins, we are not naturaHst enough to determine. But, for a mere human gentleman — that has no orchestra business to call him from his warm bed to such preposterous exercises — ^we take ten or half after ten (eleven, of course, during this Christ- mas solstice) to be the earliest hour at which he can begin to think of abandoning his pillow. To think of it, we say, for to do it in earnest requires another half-hour's good consideration. Not but there are pretty sun-risings, as we are told, and such like gauds, abroad in the world, in summer time especially, some hours before what we have as- signed ; which a gentleman may see, as they say, only for getting up. But, having been tempted once or twice, in earlier life, to assist at those ceremonies, we confess our curiosity abated. We are no longer am- bitious of being the sun's courtiers, to attend at his morning levees. We hold the good hours of the dawn too sacred to waste them upon such observances, which have in them, besides, something Pagan and Persic. To say truth, we never anticipated our usual hour, or got up with the sun (as it is called) to go a journey, or upon a foolish whole day's pleasuring, but we suf- fered for it all the long hours after in listlessness and headaches! nature herself sufficiently declaring her sense of our presumption in aspiring to regulate our frail waking courses by the measures of that celestial and sleepless traveller. 310 Prose Creative Education. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) HENRY VAN DYKE. FROM "ESSAYS IN APPLICATION." This selection finds a place here because I hear so frequently strenuous arguments between boys and their parents on the subject of going to college. Every boy of sixteen wants to go to sea or into business or to become an artist or do anything to escape the harness of school life. He wants the chance to "begin life." Don't make a bugbear of college, my young friend. In life, you will need the logic and the ethics it teaches and the oratory. The trade schools! They are really worth all the money that is put into them. But the error lies in sup- posing that they can take the place of the broader and higher education. By their own confession they move on another level. They mean business. Business is precisely the one thing which education does not mean. . . . But the education of perceptive power cannot be carried on exclusively in the study and the class-room. Every meadow and every woodland is a college, and every city square is full of teachers. Do you know how the stream flows, how the kingfisher poises above it, how the trout swims in it, how the ferns un- curl along its banks? Do you know how the human body balances itself, and along what lines and curves it moves in walking, in running, in dancing? . . . Do you know the tones and accents of human speech, the songs of the birds, the voices of the forests and the sea? If not, you need culture to make you a sen- sitive possessor of the beauty of the world. Every true university should make room in its scheme for life out-of-doors. There is much to be said for John Milton's plan of a school whose pupils should go together each year on long horseback jour- neys and sailing cruises in order to see the world. . . . John Burroughs has a college on a little farm beside the Hudson; and John Muir has a university called Yosemite. If such men cross a field or thicket they see Prose 3 i i more than the seven wonders of the world. That is culture. And without it all scholastic learning is arid, and all the academic degrees known to man are but china oranges hung on a dry tree. Conscious Activity. FRIEDRICH FROEBEL, 1782-1852, For debate in Normal Training Classes. It is the destiny and life work of all things to un- fold their essence, to reveal God in their external being. ' By education the divine essence of man, his spirit- ual nature should be unfolded, brought out, lifted into consciousness, and man himself raised into free, con- scious obedience to the divine principle that lives in him, and to an independent representation of this prin- ciple in his life. Education should lead man to see and know the divine, spiritual, and eternal principle which animates nature, and is permanently manifested in nature. Only spiritual striving, living perfection is to be held fast as an ideal. The highest eternally perfect life would have each human being develop from within. Self -Active and free. The child should, from the very time of his birth, be given the all-sided use of his powers. The child should not be partly chained, fettered nor swathed ; nor, later on, spoiled by too much assistance. God created man in his own image; therefore man should create and bring forth like God. The spirit of man should hover over the shapeless, and move it that it may take shape and form, a distinct being and life of its own. This is the high meaning of creative activity. We become godlike in diligence and indus- try, in working and doing ; we give body to spirit and form to thought. 312 Prose Men Always Fit for Freedom. T. B. MACAULAY, 1800-1859. There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces — and that cure is freedom ! When a prisoner leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of day; he is unable to discriminate colours, or recognise faces. But the remedy is not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to conflict, and begin to coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos. Many politicians of our time are in the habit of lay- ing it down as a self-evident proposition, that no peo- ple ought to be free, till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim! If men are to wait for lib- erty until they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever. The Rights of Childhood. From The Taylor-Trotwood Magazine. JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE. The Child-Labor question should be handled by the Legislature. — Catherine Markham. Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for the priv- ilege of addressing you on this subject, so full of great and far-reaching interest. In the beginning permit me to say to you that I, myself, have been a teacher, and that I consider it Prose 3^3 the grandest profession of all those which make for the uplifting of the human race, save perhaps, one. In my younger days, when the Alabama law re- quired that a teacher should teach hygiene and physi- ology along with other studies— the object being to show the effects of alcohol on the human body— there came to my school a big, double- jointed ploughboy, whose opportunities for education had been few, but he was of that stuff from which many of the great men of the republic have been made. After six months of grammar and hygiene, when the class was required to write a composition on the human anatomy, this is the marvellous work of art handed to me by the man of the plough: "The human anatermy is devided into three parts, the Head, the Chist, and the Stummic. The Head con- tains the brains, if -any. The Chist contains the lights and the liver. The Stummic contains the bowels. There are five bowels, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y." Have I not been a teacher, my friends ? The rights of childhood, is the subject you have given me, Mr. Chairman. You know, and I know, and all within the sound of my voice know, what the rights of childhood are— the right to an education, to health, to play, to work in proportion to its age and strength, to a fair chance and a square deal in this greatest country of the world's greatest age. We know, I say, what are the rights of a child. The ques- tion I wish to put to you is, are they getting those rights ? I journeyed last spring to New Orleans just to see the plain upon which Tennesseeans stood and fought to a finish the bullies of beef-eating England and secured by their victory to our nation the Louisiana Purchase and a century of foreign peace, which the memory of that battle strengthens yet in the minds of their chil- 314 Prose dren. The old ditch was a swamp of water lilies ; the breastworks had gone back to the plain ; but the great Mississippi flowed on to the sea, unhampered by Spaniard or Briton, the great artery of a boundless, unbroken and undivided country. And I stood upon a soil made American by the blood of Tennesseeans ; I looked up at a sky purple, blue and beautiful, thrown over the landscape by the God of our fathers, even as a king of old would throw his royal purple over the masterpieces of the great master. And on the sky and on the land and on the bosom of the mighty river I read : Jackson — Jackson — Jackson! As I stood there the fighting spirit of my Irish sires came back to me as I saw the ghosts of those long- haired Tennesseeans standing behind that bloody ditch fighting for the country which God had ordained should belong to them and the oppressed of the world. The hot blood surged in my cheek as I thought of the 60,000 little white children of the South and the 2,000,000 in the cotton mills and factories and mines and sweatshops of the nation, robbed of their rights of childhood by the greed of gold, the graft of poli- ticians and the low ignorance and lazy debasement of their own parents, stealing from them not only the rights to an education, but even the right to life ! And as the blood surged in my head, beating drumbeats in my brain and marshalling in the fine frenzy of pro- phetic visions the grey host that stood shoulder to shoulder there, I saw again that sallow-faced leader, with the form of a battle spear and the eyes of a god, riding up and down the long lines — bloody and brave — and forever settling with the invaders the issue they had postponed, but not abandoned, at Yorktown. And, seeing him, I saw again that pitiful picture in the Waxhaw Settlement — the Irish immigrant mother, her husband but a week ago buried in a poor white's grave, two babes at her knees and this one at her breast, with no money and no home and no bread for Prose 315 their mouths, and I said : "Thank God, there were no cotton mills in South Carolina then, or Andrew Jack- son would have died there, before he was grown, — in the lint and the dust and the grind of them, robbed of his childhood and of his chance in life!" For he also was a poor white, just the grist for a nice pious director of a cotton mill! I thought of another Tennesseean, and this time I stood in the Alamo, and again I saw ghosts — for who that has blood in his veins can stand there and not see them? And this was another poor white who died there before he would pull down the flag that floated ^bove him, or could notch on the stock of his rifle the dead Mexicans who were piled up before him — dead — giving to his country an empire and to her coming children an inspiration that is greater than land and gold, "yea, than much fine gold." And I thanked God again that in his youth there had been no cotton mills in Tennessee to do for Davy Crockett what the bear and panther and Indian could never do. For he, too, was a poor white, and in his day would have been as good for a cotton mill as a coonskin for a pint of whiskey. And his little life would have gone out behind their shutters of steel instead of the invader's bayonet, and the mention of his name would have brought no trumpet blast from the lips of fame : "Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat. The Alamo had none!" My friends, a man who would steal from a child his childhood, that which makes all his after life worth living, who would filch from it its body, brain and soul, is a human torpedo — a torpedo of Hades. They tell me that certain animals in the lower forms of life eat their young — a form of disease which we recognise in the sick hen which eats her Qgg and the swine which devours its young. Good Heavens ! Has our boasted civilisation reached the abnormal stage of its existence that it would live upon its young? Has 3i6 Prose too much wealth and too much glory and too much selfishness and high living made again of some men the man-eater that lived before Adam? Talk not about his being a follower of Christ, who, when He wanted a simile to express what we might hope to see in heaven, took the little ones in His arms and said: "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." Silence. (Copyrighted by Charles Scribner's Sons.) SIDNEY LANIER, 1842-1881. IN "RETROSPECTS AND PROSPECTS." There are people who have a grudge against silence. "All the daughters of music shall be brought low." "Why should the daughters of music be brought low?" — David Grayson. My countrywomen and countrymen, I know few wants that press upon our modern life with more im- mediate necessity than the want of silence. In this culmination of the nineteenth century, ^vhich our gen- eration is witnessing, the world is far too full of noise. The nineteenth century worships Trade; and Trade is the most boisterous god of all the false gods under Heaven. Hear how his railways do thrill the land with interwoven roaring and yellings! Hear the clatter of his factories, the clank of his mills, the groaning of his forges, the sputtering and labouring of his water- power! And that is not half. Listen how he brags, in newspaper and pamphlet and huge placard and poster and advertisement ! Are not your ears fatigued with his braggart pretensions, with his stertorous vaunting of himself and his wares? Nay, in this age of noise, the very noise itself, which is usually but the wretched accompaniment of trade, has positively come to have an intrinsic commercial value of its own. It is a fact that some trades succeed by mere force of noise, by mere auctioneer's strength of voice, by mere loudness of stentorian advertisement, without possess- Prose 317 ing a single other element of recommendation or success. Far be it from me to condemn the sounds of ham- mer and saw and anvil ; far be it from me to censure advertisements, which form the legitimate appliances of success in trade. I am not here for that to-day. This is not the place or the time to draw the distinction between the legitimate and the illegitimate rush of com- merce — between what is vile brag and what is proper self-assertion in the merchant's advertisement. But I know that there is an evil in all this noise. Out of this universal hubbub there is born a great wrong. A cer- (tain old homely phrase expresses this evil in vivid terms: In these days there is so much noise that we cannot hear ourselves think. What time have I to enumerate the signs and evi- dences of this evil, of not hearing ourselves think? They are on every hand. Crudity, immaturity, un- ripeness, acidity, instability — these things characterise our laws, our literature, all our thought, our politics, our social life, our loves and hates, our self-devel- opment. If there be here one who has learned from silence the divine secret whereby a man may harmonise the awful discordant noises of life, I invoke his witness that my words are true, that silence is the mother of a thousand radiant graces and rare virtues. Opinion. MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS, 121-180 A.D. ABRIDGED FROM "THE MEDITATIONS." A question of "Mind over Matter." This selection has given courage to thousands. Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains ; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to 3i8 Prose retire into thyself. For nowhere either witH more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man re- tire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity; and I af- firm that tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. Constantly then give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself. Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, 'T have been harmed," and the harm is taken away. How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure. Occupy thyself with few things if thou wouldst be tranquil. Love the art, poor as it may be, which thou hast chosen, and be content with it; and pass through the rest of life like one who has intrusted to the gods with his whole soul all that he has, making thyself neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man. Always run to the short way; the short way is the natural; accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a pur- pose frees a man from trouble and warfare. Crossing the Rubicon. J. S, KNOWLES, 1 784-1862. Every boy and girl comes to a Rubicon. A GENTLEMAN, Mr. Chairman, speaking of Caesar's benevolent disposition, and of the reluctance with which he entered into the civil war, observes, "How long did he pause upon the brink of the Rubicon!" How came he to the brink of that river? How dared he cross it? Shall private men respect the boundaries Prose 3 19 of private property, and shall a man pay no respect to the boundaries of his country's rights ? How dared he cross that river? Oh! but he paused upon the brink. He should have perished upon the brink ere he had crossed it! Why did he pause? Why does a man's heart palpitate when he is on the point of committing an unlawful deed? Why does the very murderer, his victim sleeping before him, and his glaring eye taking the measure of the blow, strike wide of the mortal part? Because of conscience! 'Twas that made Caesar pause upon the brink of the Rubicon. Com- passion! What compassion? The compassion of an assassin that feels a momentary shudder, as his weapon begins to cut! Caesar paused upon the brink of the Rubicon! What was the Rubicon? The boundary of Caesar's province. From what did it separate his province? From his country. Was that country a desert ? No ; it was cultivated and fertile, rich and populous! Its sons were men of genius, spirit, and generosity ! Its daughters were lovely, susceptible, and chaste! Friendship was its inhabitant! Love was its inhabitant! Domestic affection was its inhabitant! Liberty was its inhabitant ! All bounded by the stream of the Rubicon! What was Caesar, that stood upon the bank of that stream ? A traitor, bringing war and pestilence into the heart of that country ! No wonder that he paused, — no wonder if, his imagination wrought upon by his conscience, he had beheld blood instead of water, and heard groans instead of mur- murs ! No wonder, if some Gorgon horror had turned him into stone upon the spot! But no! — he cried, *The die is cast!" He plunged! — he crossed! and Rome was free no more! 320 Prose On Reducing the Army. WILLIAM PULTENEY, 1682-1764. For debating societies among college boys and girls. Sir, we have heard a great deal about an army con- tinued from year to year. I always have been, Sir, and always shall be, against a standing army of any kind. To me it is a terrible thing. Whether under that of a Parliamentary or any other designation, a standing army is still a standing army, whatever name it be called by. They are a body of men distinct from the body of the People. They are governed by different laws; and blind obedience, and an entire submission to the orders of their commanding officers, is their only principle. It is indeed impossible that the liberties of the People can be preserved in any country where a numerous standing army is kept up. By the military law, the administration of justice is so quick, and the punishment so severe, that neither officer nor soldier dares offer to dispute the orders of his supreme com- mander. If an officer were commanded to pull his own father out of this House, he must do it. Immediate death would be the sure consequence of the least grumbling. And if an officer were sent into the Court of Request, accompanied by a body of musketeers with screwed bayonets, and with orders to tell us what we ought to do, and how we were to vote, I know what would be the duty of this House ; I know it would be our duty to order the officer to be taken and hanged up at the door of the lobby; but, Sir, I doubt much if such a spirit could be found in this House, or in any House of Commons that will ever be in England. I talk not of imaginary things; I talk of what has happened to an English House of Commons, and from an English army ; not only from an English army, but an army that was raised by that very House of Com- Prose 321 mons, an army that was paid by them, and an army that was commanded by Generals appointed by them. Therefore, do not let us vainly imagine that an army, raised and maintained by authority of Parliament, will always be submissive to them. If any army be so numerous as to have it in their power to overawe the Parliament, they will be submissive as long as the Par- liament does nothing to disoblige their favourite Gen- eral; but, when that case happens, I am afraid that, in place of the Parliament's dismissing the army, the army will dismiss the Parliament, as they have done heretofore. We are come to the Rubicon. Our army is now to be reduced, or it never will be; and this Nation, already overburdened with debts and taxes, must be loaded with the heavy charge of perpetually supporting a numerous standing army, and remain forever exposed to the danger of having its liberties and privileges trampled upon by any future King or Ministry who shall take it in their heads to do so, and shall take a proper care to model the army for that purpose. Against Foreign Entanglements. GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1732-1799. The forerunner of "The Monroe Doctrine." A question for college boys. Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jeal- ousy of a free People ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign in- fluence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one Nation, and exces- sive dislike for another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to 322 Prose veil, and even second, the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the People, to surrender their in- terests. The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connec- tion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence, she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and col- lisions of her friendships or enmities. Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one People, under an efficient Government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoy- ance ; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent Nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interests, guided by justice, shall counsel. Why forego the ad- vantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand on foreign ground? Why, by inter- weaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity, in the toils of Euro- pean ambition, rivalship, interest, humour, or caprice? Prose 323 The Foreign Policy of Washington. CHARLES JAMES FOX, 1749-1806. For debate in college and high-school classes. How infinitely superior must appear the spirit and principles of General Washington, in his late address to Congress, compared with the policy of modern European Courts ! Illustrious man ! — deriving honour less from the splendour of his situation than from the dignity of his mind ! Grateful to France for the as- sistance received from her, in that great contest which secured the independence of America, he yet did not choose to give up the system of neutrality in her favour. Having once laid down the line of conduct most proper to be pursued, not all the insults and provocations of the French minister. Genet, could at all put him out of his way, or bend him from his pur- pose. It must, indeed, create astonishment, that, placed in circumstances so critical, and filling a station so conspicuous, the character of Washington should never once have been called in question; — that he should, in no one instance, have been accused either of improper insolence, or of mean submission, in his transactions with foreign Nations. It has been re- served for him to run the race of glory without ex- periencing the smallest interruption to the brilliancy of his career. The breath of censure has not dared to impeach the purity of his conduct, nor the eye of envy to raise its malignant glance to the elevation of his virtues. Such has been the transcendent merit and the unparalleled fate of this illustrious man! How did he act when insulted by Genet? Did he consider it as necessary to avenge himself for the mis- conduct or madness of an individual, by involving a whole continent in the horrors of war? No; he con- tented himself with procuring satisfaction for the in- sult, by causing Genet to be recalled; and thus, at 324 Prose once, consulted his own dignity and the interests of his country. Happy Americans ! while the whirlwind flies over one quarter of the globe, and spreads everywhere desolation, you remain protected from its baneful ef- fects by your own virtues, and the wisdom of your Government. Separated from Europe by an immense ocean, you feel not the effect of those prejudices and passions which convert the boasted seats of civilisation into scenes of horror and bloodshed. You profit by the folly and madness of the contending Nations, and afford, in your more congenial clime, an asylum to those blessings and virtues which they wantonly con- temn, or wickedly exclude from their bosom! Culti- vating the arts of peace under the influence of free- dom, you advance, by rapid strides, to opulence and distinction; and if, by any accident, you should be compelled to take part in the present unhappy contest, — if you should find it necessary to avenge insult, or repel injury, — the world will bear witness to the equity of your sentiments and the moderation of your views ; and the success of your arms will, no doubt, be pro- portioned to the justice of your cause! Sectarian Tyranny. HENRY GRATTAN, 1746- 1820. A question that comes up in school-board meetings. Whenever one sect degrades another on account of religion, such degradation is the tyranny of a sect. When you enact that, on account of his religion, no Catholic shall sit in Parliament, you do what amounts to the tyranny of a sect. When you enact that no Catholic shall be a sheriff, you do what amounts to the tyranny of a sect. When you enact that no Catholic shall be a general, you do what amounts to the tyranny of a sect. There are two descriptions of laws, — the municipal law, which binds the People, and the law of God, which binds the Parliament and the People. Prose 325 Whenever you do any act which is contrary to His laws, as expressed in His work, which is the world, or in His book, the Bible, you exceed your right; when- ever you rest any of your establishments on that ex- cess, you rest it on a foundation which is weak and fallacious ; whenever you attempt to establish your Government, or your property, or your Church, on religious restrictions, you establish them on that false foundation, and you oppose the Almighty ; and though you had a host of mitres on your side, you banish God from your ecclesiastical Constitution, and free- dom from your political. In vain shall men en- deavour to make this the cause of the Church; they aggravate the crime, by the endeavour to make their God their fellow in the injustice. Such rights are the rights of ambition; they are the rights of conquest; and in your case, they have been the rights of suicide. They begin by attacking liberty; they end by the loss of empire! A Republic or a Monarchy? VICTOR HUGO, 1802-1885. Is this a question that has been settled? Gentlemen, let us come at the pith of this debate. It is not our side of the House, but you, the Mon- archists, who have provoked it. The question, a Re- public or a Monarchy, is before us. No one has any longer the power or the right to elude it. For more than two years, this question, secretly and audaciously agitated, has harassed the country. It weighs upon the Present. It clouds the Future. The moment has come for our deliverance from it. Yes, the moment has come for us to regard it face to face — to see what it is made of. Now, then, let us show our cards ! No more concealment ! I affirm then, in the name of the eternal laws of human morality, that Monarchy is an his- torical fact, and nothing more. Now, when the fact 326 Prose is extinct nothing survives, and all is told. It is other- wise with right. Right even when it no longer has fact to sustain it, — even when it no longer carries a material weight, — preserves still its moral weight, and is always right. Hence it is that, in an overthrown Republic, there remains a right, while in a fallen Mon- archy there remains only a ruin. Cease then, ye Legitimists, to appeal to us from the position of right ! Before the right of the People, which is sovereignty, there is no other right but the right of the individual, which is liberty. Beyond that, all is a chimera. To talk of the kingly right in this great age of ours, and at this great Tribune, is to pronounce a word void of meaning. But, if you cannot speak in the name of right, will you speak in the name of fact? Will you say that political stability is the offspring of hereditary royalty, — and that Royalty is better than Democracy for a State ? What ! You would have those scenes renewed, those experiences recommenced, which overwhelmed kings and princes : the feeble, like Louis the Sixteenth ; the able and strong, like Louis Philippe ; whole families of royal lineage, — high-born women, saintly widows, innocent children! And of those lamentable experi- ences you have not had enough? You would have yet more? But you are without pity. Royalists, — or without memory! We ask your mercy on these un- fortunate royal families. Good Heavens ! This Place, which you traverse daily, on your way to this House, — does it, then, teach you nothing? — when, if you but stamped on the pavement, two paces from those deadly Tuileries, which you covet still, — but stamped on that fatal pavement, — you could conjure up, at will, the Scaffold from which the old Monarchy was plunged into the tomb, or the Cah in which the new royalty escaped into exile ! Ah, men of ancient parties ! you will learn, ere long, that at this present time, — in this nineteenth century. Prose 327 — after the scaffold of Louis the Sixteenth, after the downfall of Napoleon, after the exile of Charles the Tenth, after the flight of Louis Philippe, after the French Revolution, in a word, — that is to say, after this renewal, complete, absolute, prodigious, of prin- ciples, convictions, opinions, situations, influences, and facts, — it is the Republic which is solid ground, and the Monarchy which is the perilous venture! Mr. Tulliver's Opinion of His Wife and Children. MARIAN EVANS (GEORGE ELIOT), 1819-1880. SELECTED AND ABRIDGED FROM "THE MILL ON THE FLOSS." Young Cavalier, aged fourteen, did I hear you say at one of the "Debates," when the subject was Suffrage for Women, "Shall we have a nation of Hysterics?" Mr. Tulliver will remind you of the coloured man who told Harriet Beecher Stowe that women ought not to vote because they hadn't enough brains? What I want is to give Tom a good eddication — an eddication as '11 be a bread to him. That was what I was thinking of when I gave notice to leave th' academy at Lady's-Day. The two years at th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough, if I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him, for he's had a fine sight more schoolin' nor / ever got : all the learnin' my father ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th' other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might be up to the tricks o' these fellows as talk fine and write with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these law-suits, and arbitrations and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad — I should be sorry for him to be a raskill — but a sort o' engi- neer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley. I'll have nothing to do wi' a 'cademy again: what- iver school I send Tom to, it sha'nt be a 'cademy; it shall be a place where the lads spend their time i' summat else besides blacking the family's shoes, and 328 Prose getting up the potatoes. It's an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school to pick. I want Tom to be such a sort o' man as can talk pretty nigh as well as if it was all wrote out for him, and knows a good lot o' words as don't mean so much, so as you can't lay hold of 'em i' law; and a good solid knowledge o' business too. What I'm a bit afraid on is, as Tom hasn't got the right sort c' brains for a smart fellow. I doubt he's a bit slowish. He takes after your family, Bessy. It seems a bit of a pity, though, as the lad should take after the mother's side, istead o' the little wench. That's the worst on 't wi' crossing o' breeds : you can never justly calkilate what '11 come on 't. The little un takes after my side now ; she's twice as 'cute as Tom. Too 'cute for a woman, I'm afraid. It's no mischief much while she's a little un, but an over- 'cute woman 's no better nor a long-tailed sheep — she'll fetch none the bigger price for that. A woman's no business wi' being so clever; it '11 turn to trouble, I doubt. But, bless you! she'll read the books and understand 'em better nor half the folks as are growed up. It's a pity but what she'd been the lad — she'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, she would. It's the wonderful'st thing as I picked the mother because she wasn't o'er 'cute — bein' a good-looking woman too, an* come of a rare family for managing; but I picked her from her sisters o' purpose 'cause she was a bit weak, like ; for I wasn't agoin' to be told the rights o' things by my own fireside. But you see when a man's got brains himself, there's no knowing where they'll run to ; an' a pleasant sort o' soft woman may go on breed- ing stupid lads and 'cute wenches till it's like as if the world was turned topsyturvy. It's an uncommon puzzlin' thing. Everything winds about so — the more straightfor- rard you are, the more you're puzzled. Prose 329 Do Men Merit Franchise? KATE GOUGAR, IN THE "CHICAGO RECORD-HERALD." Sometimes, a woman is a Cavalier. — George W. Cable. A famous Englishman in a celebrated book has said that the special feminine graces of the American woman do not seem to have suffered from "the democratic feeling in America, that all men are free and equal," — that they are possessed of inalienable rights and corresponding duties. He holds that "the root idea of democracy" cannot stop at defining "men" as male human beings; and that Americans were the first to apply to women, also, this respectful recognition of the individual. And that the result of this recognition is a benefit to woman. He says that woman has gained and that the whole nation has gained in conse- quence; and that men always gain when they treat women as equals instead of treating them as drudges or playthings. He believes that the habits of society and the characters of children are moulded by women, — by mothers, — and that the respect for women which American men feel, or pretend to feel, has a good effect on their conduct. This selection on Franchise is placed here in honour of Frederick, who at the age of sixteen years made his first grand speech on "Suffrage for Women." The subject is a mighty river running to the sea, and it will not rest until it gets there; not while boys have debating clubs. In the light of yesterday's election, do you believe Chicago men should longer be allowed the privilege of voting? Ought not the franchise to be taken from them because of their indifference and ignorance? Over 400,000 men were registered, and, doubtless, 100,000 more were eligible. Of this number almost two-thirds stayed at home, refusing to vote for or against the charter. Why? Were they blind to all newspaper entreaties, deaf to the clamour of rival processions and dead to the call of political leaders, who for weeks, from oppo- site camps, had faithfully urged a large vote]^ Was the question so local as to affect only a street or a precinct? Was it sprung on the people without years of preliminary discussion? Was it of so slight im- portance as not to affect the city's whole future. Did employers refuse to let labourers know of the election? Was the health of the "stronger sex" so frail as to be injured by the little showers of yester- day? If none of these reasons is correct, does not the indifference of the two-thirds prove they should be disfranchised? 330 Prose Then of the one-third, who did vote, how many voted right, that is, as the principal papers advised? Only 59,000. Only a handful are left who will both vote and vote right ( ?). Ought they not to be dis- franchised because the majority of their sex won't vote or else won't vote right? This reasoning has, to many men, been sufficient to keep women dis- franchised. Shall we now apply it to men? The Death Penalty for New Offences. LORD BYRON, 1778-1824. "Dear Madam : In practically every state in the Union, the question of capital punish- ment for women is being strongly agitated." This is the beginning of a communication just received concerning "The Death Penalty." Evidently Lord Byron's Speech is not the end of the matter. Setting aside the palpable injustice and the certain inefficiency of this Bill, are there not capital punish- ments sufficient in your statutes? Is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth, to ascend to Heaven and testify against you? How will you carry this Bill into effect? Can you commit a whole country to their own prison? Will you erect a gibbet in every field, and hang up men like scarecrows? Or will you proceed (as you must, to bring this measure into effect) by decimation; place the country under martial law ; depopulate and lay waste all around you; and restore Sherwood Forest as an acceptable gift to the Crown, in its former con- dition of a royal chase, and an asylum for outlaws? Are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace? Will the famished wretch who has braved your bayonets be appalled by your gibbets? When death is a relief, and the only relief, it appears, that you will afford him, will he be dragooned into tran- quillity? Will that which could not be effected by your grenadiers be accomplished by your execu- tioners ? Prose 331 The framers of such a Bill must be content to in- herit the honours of that Athenian lawgiver, whose edicts were said to be written not in ink, but in blood. But suppose it passed, — suppose one of these men, as I have seen them, meagre with famine, sullen with de- spair, careless of a life which your Lordships are, perhaps, about to value at something less than the price of a stocking- frame, — suppose this man surrounded by those children, for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn forever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault that he can no longer so support ; — suppose this man, — and there are ten thousand such, from whom you may select your victims, — dragged into Court, to be tried, for this new offence, by this new law, — still, there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him, and these are, in my opinion, twelve butchers for a Jury, and a Jef- fries for a Judge ! Labour Struggles. THOMAS BURT, M.P., 1837. The history of the world is the history of the Labour Question. This question is here to stay until it is settled. A question is never settled until it is settled right. Wrong work never brought a right answer in Multiplication or Long Division. This declamation is placed here for the benefit of my old pupils, D. and F. and H. in Princeton College, who are likely to lead debates, and they will go into business and face "strikes." There has never been a more modest and judicial voice heard on the Labour Question than that of "The Northumberland Orator." Ladies and Gentlemen. — After the welcome that was accorded to you yesterday by the Mayor of New- castle on behalf of the Corporation and the inhabitants of the city, I may say that it affords me very great pleasure, on behalf of the Trades Council of New- castle, the Arrangements Committee, and, I may add, the workmen generally of the North of England, to bid you a hearty welcome to this ancient town. It is a town— a city — it was a town before it was a city — 332 Prose but it is a city, I was going to say, of ancient renown. Chieftains, kings, leaders of armies, have met in the North of England in deadly strife. We are met from the South and the North and the West to build up rather than to destroy. Fittingly enough, this Labour Parliament meets in a very active industrial centre. The workmen in the North of England have for years, many of them, been well organised — not too well. We have also had our industrial conflicts — great battles on behalf of labour. The nine hours' struggle, under the leadership of John Burnett was fought and won on Tyneside. In some of these conflicts we have been defeated. We have never been discouraged ; we have never been disorganised. Even our very defeats have made us stronger and more determined to fight in the future on behalf of the right. I see before me perhaps — indeed I think I may omit "perhaps" — and say the largest and most representa- tive body of trades unionists that ever has met within the boundaries of this Empire — I think I might go further and say that has ever met anywhere in the civilised world. We have the unskilled labourers rep- resented as they never were before. I hardly like to say unskilled. I would rather say less skilled, because all labour, even the rudest, requires a considerable amount of skill. All honour to the men who have organised these masses. I for one rejoice at their success. As the very first step of progress, you must have organisation. I am glad too, ladies and gentlemen, that we have the women of this country more largely represented than they have been before. Women need organisation even more than men. And wherever woman does the same work, in quality and in quantity as men, she ought to ask for the same pay as the man. And we ought to support her, not only on the grounds of justice and humanity, but on grounds of self-defence, in asserting that claim. Labour ought Prose 333 to be recognised as a whole. We don't want any classes or castes. We want no barriers of race or colour. Wherever the oppressor crushes, wherever an effort is made to lift the fallen, our sympathies and our help ought to go forth to aid the oppressed. It is one of your Standing Orders that papers in sup- port of trades unions are unnecessary. Speeches in support of trades unions are also unnecessary. I should as soon think — standing near the birthplace of George Stephenson — of attempting to vindicate the lo- comotive engine or the railway system : they have vin- dicated themselves. The locomotive, however, needs to be controlled, and to be kept on the rails, if it is to do effective rather than destructive work. And it is the same with trades unions, ladies and gentlemen. We have won great victories in the past. We need not expatiate on those victories. A great change has taken place within my own memory. Twenty-seven years ago, when I delivered my first trade-union speech, we had few friends. I remember that we were told by the political economists that wages were set- tled by demand and supply entirely. Ladies and gen- tlemen, we have converted the political economists. Demand and supply is a factor; at your peril you forget that! But we have taught them that men are something more than machines — that they are not bales of cotton, or tons of coal, or hogsheads of sugar, but that they have affections, that they have a soul, that they have a will, that they are men, and that they must be treated as men. They have had to add humanity to their political economy. We have been told that trade unionism always means strikes. Some of the stupidest, some of the most fool- ish strikes I have ever known have been by non- unionists and of only partially organised men, and you may take this as a fact, that if the union once gets its feet fairly set, in proportion to its power, there will be a diminution rather than an increase of strikes. 334 Prose The newer unions have, perhaps, by their previous apathy, or by the difficulties they have had to face, found themselves hemmed in all round. They hardly have their right of existence recognised. Their leaders are victimised ; they have no weapon but strikes. But, as they become organised, you will find that strikes will diminish rather than increase. Now, ladies and gentlemen, do not let me be misunderstood. Many of you know that I have faced unpopularity in order to avoid strikes, but I am not here to utter a wholesale condemnation of strikes. On the contrary, I am here to say that, in many cases, owing to the clatter and brawl of the machinery, owing to the deafness of Mammon and its blindness, I am here to say that, in many cases, the workman cannot get attention until he stops the wheels. But the strike is an ugly weapon. I don't know whether any of you have tried to throv/ a boomerang. It is a very deadly weapon: but if it is not skilfully thrown, it is apt to come back, and to hit and to wound the thrower. So it is, gentlemen, with a strike. We cannot give up the right to strike, however. We are glad that through the watchfulness of the London Trades Council, we have had our right to strike vindicated before the law, showing that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. But wherever we can have our difficulties and our disputes calmly argued and settled by the arbitrament of reason, I venture to say that we are fools — almost criminals — if we re- sort to a strike. One of the things, however, that trades unions have not wholly established is the right to ask and to demand of the capitalist, however power- ful and proud he may be, that he shall receive and listen to your properly accredited representatives. Now the probability is that strikes in the future, when they do occur, will be on a larger scale than they have been in the past. Workmen will refuse to blackleg; they will refuse to do it either directly or indirectly. They will refuse to supplant, so far as they possibly Prose 335 can, their fellows who, they believe, are striking and struggling for their right. And, gentlemen, I have not a word to say against that, and some of you may think it would be a wholesome lesson to the dullest among the capitalists to teach them the value of labour by bringing, as far as possible, the whole of the industries of the country to a standstill. I am glad that that has met with only faint applause. It is very attractive, and, ladies and gentlemen, I venture to say that, if we were dealing only with the stupidest and the most tyrannical, I, for one, would not discourage that idea. But bear in mind that it is a very difficult game to play, and that it would hurt the innocent much more than the guilty — that the wealthy capitalist would hardly enjoy a single luxury the less. If you could carry on your strike long enough, and make it exten- sive enough you could make him feel not only in his purse, but in his stomach also, his most vulnerable point. Long before you reach that, however, thousands and tens of thousands of women and children and the bread-winners would have suffered, and, perhaps, many of them would have been carried to a premature grave. Trusts. GROVER CLEVELAND, 1837. Is this an important selection? Yea, truly! For the whole human family should be a human family and not a multitude of competing bands of schemers. The topic was worthy of a great President and is forever worthy of the consideration of a great People. There is one topic in which our People rightfully take a deep interest. I refer to the existence of trusts and other huge aggregations of capital, the object of which is to secure the monopoly of some particular branch of trade, industry, or commerce and to stifle wholesome competition. The tendency of trusts is to crush out individual independence and to hinder or prevent the free use of human faculties and the full development of human character. Through them the 336 Prose farmer, the artisan, and the small trader is in danger of dislodgment from the proud position of being his own master, watchful of all that touches his country's prosperity, in which he has an individual lot, and in- terested in all that affects the advantages of business of which he is a factor, to be relegated to the level of a mere appurtenance to a great machine, with little free will, with no duty but that of passive obedience, and with little hope or opportunity of rising in the scale of responsible and helpful citizenship. To the instinctive belief that such is the inevitable trend of trusts and monopolies is due the widespread and deep-seated popular aversion in which they are held and the not unreasonable insistence that, what- ever may be their incidental economic advantages, their general effect upon personal character, prospects, and usefulness cannot be otherwise than injurious. The Real Business Man. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN. FROM "THE CROSS OF GOLD." BEFORE THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION. JULY 9, 1896. This extract, from that pivotal speech "The Cross of Gold," is still before the people. When you, the gold delegates, come before us and tell us that we are about to disturb your business in- terests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your course. We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis ; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York ; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day — who begins in the spring and toils all summer — and who by the application of brain and Prose 337 muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding-places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial mag- nates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak for this broader class of business men. Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those \yho live upon the Atlantic coast, but the hardy pioneers who have braved all the dangers of the wilder- ness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose — the pioneers away out there [pointing to the West], who rear their children near to Nature's heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds — out there where they have erected school- houses for the education of their young, churches where they praise their Creator, and cemeteries where rest the ashes of their dead — these people, we say, are as deserving of the consideration of our party as any people in this country. It is for these that we speak. On Queen Victoria. LORD ROSEBERY AT THE UNVEILING OF A STATUE AT LEITH. Mr. Provost, Ladies and Gentlemen, — you do well to raise a statue in Leith to our late Queen, as Leith is the city of Queens. For a long series of years almost all our Scottish Queens obtained their first sight of Scotland from Leith, and your old town gave them their earliest impression of the land where they were to dwell. The wives of James L, II., and III., the first wife of James V., and Anne of Denmark, the wife of James VI., all here first set foot in Scotland, while Mary of Guise, though she landed at St. An- 338 Prose drews, alone of all these Queens chose Leith as a residence. There landed, too, the hapless Mary of tragedy and romance, when she came from France to reign and found a long prison and a violent death. Well may Leith, then, be called the city of Queens, and she does wisely in erecting a statue to one who was not merely a great Sovereign, a Queen and Em- press of unbounded realms, but also a true Queen of Scots. (Cheers.) Let us remember that she was not merely the Queen but the mother of the nation. Under the brooding care of her long reign her sovereignty emerged into a double and incalculable Empire, her sympathy was with all her subjects, she watched and fostered all good causes with maternal care. She was, indeed, the mother of her people. That was not one of the titles to which she succeeded by inheritance. The four Georges and the fourth William did little for the cause of Monarchy. Even her grandfather, whose long reign was so full of glory and disaster, cannot be said to have helped it much. And now, at the death of William the Fourth, the whole world saw with pathetic interest the Princes, the Ministers, the Court, as it were, all in the shade, and in the foreground the pure figure of a young girl seated on the Throne which we esteem the greatest in the world. No one can measure the enthusiasm, the tenderness, the hope that that spec- tacle evoked. Queen Victoria was then, as it were, the child, the darling of her people, and she lived to be- come their venerated mother. Under her sway the Empire waxed and waxed until it seemed too great for any single Crown. She saw her arms, though not, indeed, free from reverse, crowned with glory, and the wealth of her dominions increased until it became a matter for anxiety lest it should sap the charac- ter of the nation; but the spirit of her people, so far as it could be tested, remained undiminished and unquenched. Prose 339 The basis of her Throne, which, when she succeeded to it, seemed none too strong, was indefinitely broad- ened and strengthened by this sense of general well- being as compared with the lean years of hunger and discontent which had preceded her accession. When Queen Victoria succeeded to the Crown the force and tradition of Monarchy had much declined in this coun- try. Greatly to her own renown, and for the wel- fare of her people, amidst toppling dynasties and vio- lent convulsions abroad, she made her kingship, her leadership, her guidance an increasing power, and an increasing power for good. (Cheers.) She not merely offered the example of a pure and simple family life in the midst of a splendid Court, but she animated the whole nation with a sense of sympathy and fel- lowship that proceeded from the Throne. She knit her peoples together, and that I believe will be her noblest epitaph. (Cheers.) It is not only that under her was Canada brought from civil war to cordial al- legiance as the noblest dominion of the Empire, not only that the continent of Australia became a living and loyal reality, that New Zealand definitely received the British flag, and that India, with limits im- measurably extended, appeared as a new empire under sovereignty. It is not that which I would emphasise to-day. I do not even emphasise the great develop- ment of science and literature which proceeded under her reign, or the great discoveries which seemed in- definitely to extend the dominion and power of man- kind — perhaps I must not include in her epoch our animated competition with the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea. (Laughter.) But more than enough remains for renown, and I will not undertake the prodigious survey, for what I want to urge is something different. It is that both within and outside these islands there was established under the last reign a new relation of personal affection and allegiance to the wearer of the British Crown. Nor is that all, or 340 Prose nearly all. It is not the mere increase of territory, not the bloodshed of war, however triumphant, nor the mere swell of wealth that are the test of a glorious reign. It is well to make an Empire; it is well to see victory crown a righteous cause; it is well to see a nation reap the fruits of its industry and intelligence. But the test of a reign must be the condition of the nation itself (cheers) — its moral, physical, intellectual welfare. And what reign will better bear the crucial test than the long years of Queen Victoria? They were a period of wise progress, of increasing liberty, of unwearied emancipation. It was a period marked by the promotion of health and education, the rais- ing of wages, the cheapening of all the necessities of life, the larger association of the nation in its own government, the removal of religious barriers, not merely in tests, but in Christian co-operation — all this marked the sublime and upward path of her reign. (Cheers.) Contrast the condition of the people as she found it at her accession and as she left it at her death, and you will see an advance which may well be called splendid, however much may yet remain to be done. You may say that the greater part of this work was done by Ministers or Parliaments. That is true enough. But as a bad Sovereign bears the dis- grace of a bad reign, so a good Sovereign should bear the honour of a good. (Cheers.) Remember, too, that she was an animating, not a resisting force, for her ruling passion was patriotism, an absorbing devotion to her country, its needs, and its glory. No one can limit the effect of such a character upon the Throne. No one can estimate the colour and inspiration which a British Sovereign of exalted aims can give to the course of events who has not attentively studied this strange country of ours, almost equally swayed as it is by the spirit of democracy and the spirit of tradition. "Where the word of the King is, there is power." Prose 341 Old-Age Pensions. FRANK PARSONS. IN "THE STORY OF NEW ZEALAND." This selection is made because it shows the progress and the procession of the world movement. Debating societies will compare it with the Law of Leptines as set forth by Demosthenes, when "the hero," always a fighter, and his descendants were pensioned. The question of pensions is always before the public and always before debaters in college. To free the aged and deserving poor from want, relieve them from the stigma of charity and the poor- house, and enable them to live at home in freedom and independence when their days of work are done, New Zealand in 1898 established a system of moderate annuities from the state treasury for such persons as a right, based on principles of partnership and brother- hood, justice and humanity, on the value their lives have been to the commonwealth in earlier years, on the responsibility of society, and the worth of kindness and good treatment, not only to the recipients, but to the whole community. It is clearly just that one who has built his best years into the wealth and prosperity of a country and lived a virtuous and helpful life, should have a rea- sonable subsistence in old age without the ignominy and restraint of the poorhouse. All civilised nations recognise the duty to make provision for the destitute, but the duty of placing that provision in deserving cases on the plane of justice instead of charity, and making it conform to the liberty, independence, and comfort of the recipient, has just begun to dawn upon the world. The bitterness of charity is keenly felt by the better class of the aged poor, and the fear of want in old age hangs like a shadow over the whole lives of the wage-workers. Their labour has helped to create the values on which the nation's industries rest and from which its income largely flows. Our best colleges pay their professors annuities in old age as part of the fair remuneration of their toil. Soldiers 342 Prose and civil servants receive pensions because of the serv- ice they have rendered the community. But the workers in the factories and on the farms are just as necessary to the pubHc welfare as the police and postal clerks, and have just as much right to consideration in old age, whether on grounds of sympathy or jus- tice. Yet till recent years no nation has recognised this principle. Spinners in the Dark. EDWIN MARKHAM. A SELECTION FROM "SPINNERS IN THE DARK" IN "THE COSMOPOLITAN," JULY, 1907. An inevitable subject for debate in the U. S. Legislature: "What is the proper method of freeing 'The Spinner in the Dark' ?" The machinery dreamed of by Aristotle — cunning, swift, and sure — sprang into existence, but it liberated no slave; it lifted no load from the worker. "It is doubtful," said John Stuart Mill, "whether machinery has lightened the burden of a single human being." But it has done one thing never done before — it has drawn a host of little children into the grim slavery of the profit-hunters. Remembering this fact, there are dark moments when we can see no fatherly provi- dence in the modern use of lever and wheel and screw and pulley that lift and tug and run for us. The labour conditions of men and women carry many wrongs. But the crowning wrong is to allow defenceless little ones to be wasted and work-worn before they are hardened, to allow them to be robbed of the opportunities of this earthly life that means so mightily for the eternities, to allow them to be quenched and trampled for a few pitiful pennies that would not keep a child of the rich in money for bon- bons, nor pay for the fringe on the embroidered blanket of my lady's pampered dog. It was at the spinning- frames that Manchester began to heap her indignities upon the children. It is at the spinning- frames that some of the worst atrocities Prose 343 of child labour are in operation in our own land. In the cotton-factories the **mill-mites," or mill-children, are at their spinning, sometimes by day, sometimes by night, the lint of the cotton always in their lungs and the thunder of the machinery always in their ears. They are stunted or maimed or hurried out of life by the hundreds. This weaving of cotton cloth may be called ''a necessity," but the weaving of silk is not a necessity. Men have been brave in buckskin, women happy in homespun. Men loved and laughed for ages before the proud hour when they first learned to spin the entrails of worms into silken coverings. In spite of all this, we have over eight thousand children working in our silk-mills. In her output of silk, America vies with Europe and the Orient. But let this be no boast; for across the lustrous fabrics piled in bright bolts on shelf and counter, or hung in shimmering, flower-hued garments in our show- windows, stretches the gaunt shadow of the little child. Inside the mill there is the constant strain of young muscle matched against untiring machinery. The chil- dren at the frames must stand all night, always alert, always watchful for broken threads, nimble to let no loose end be caught in with other threads. Nor must any loose curls or dangling braids adorn the heads of the little mill-folk. Braids and curls are for the picture-book children ; or for the little misses who wear the silk, not for the little workers who spin the silk. Childish things must be put aside by our army of wage- earning children. Chances of being marred and maimed, of contract- ing tuberculosis and all the long train of diseases that send a girl into womanhood depleted and defeated — these are the burdens we add to the labour weight laid upon the little maidens who work in the silk-mills. But worse than all these hurts of the flesh are the injuries imposed upon the soul. Bad as day-work is for the child, night-work is far 344 Prose worse. But a mill-baron explains, saying: "By run- ning two shifts, a day-shift and a night-shift, we get our capital for three per cent, interest. See?" Three per cent, seemed ample excuse for all the barbarism of his business. Three per cent. ! Potent words ! Baron, carve them on the little headstones ! The Puritans. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 1864. ABRIDGED FROM AN AD- DRESS ON THE OCCASION OF THE LAYING OF THE COR- NER STONE OF THE PILGRIM MEMORIAL MONUMENT. PROVINCETOWN, MASS., AUGUST 20, 1907. He who stands by justice, let him be aware of it. When justice seems to fail, let him keep his faith. — Salter. It is not too much to say that the event com- memorated by the monument which we have come here to dedicate was one of those rare events which can in good faith be called of world importance. The coming hither of the Puritan three centuries ago shaped the destinies of this continent, and therefore profoundly affected the destiny of the whole world. Men of other races, the Frenchman and the Spaniard, the Dutchman, the German, the Scotchman and the Swede, made settlements within what is now the United States during the colonial period of our his- tory and before the Declaration of Independence ; and since then there has been an ever-swelling immigration from Ireland and from the mainland of Europe; but it was the Englishman who settled in Virginia and the Englishman who settled in Massachusetts, who did most in shaping the lines of our national development. We cannot as a nation be too profoundly grateful for the fact that the Puritan has stamped his influence so deeply on our national life. We need have but scant patience with the men who now rail at the Puri- tan's faults. They were evident, of course, for it is a quality of strong natures that their feelings, like their virtues, should stand out in bold relief; but there is nothing easier than to belittle the great men of the Prose 345 past by dwelling only on the points where they come short of the universally recognised standards of the present. Men must be judged with reference to the age in which they dwell, and the work they have to do. The Puritan's task was to conquer a continent; not merely to overrun it, but to settle it, to till it, to build upon it a high industrial and social life; and, while engaged in the rough work of taming the shaggy wil- derness, at that very time also to lay deep the im- movable foundations of our whole American system of civil, political, and religious liberty achieved through the orderly process of law. This was the work allotted him to do ; this is the work he did ; and only a master spirit among men could have done it. We have travelled far since his day. That liberty of conscience which he demanded for himself, we now realise must be as freely accorded to others as it is resolutely insisted upon for ourselves. The splendid qualities which he left to his children, we other Ameri- cans who are not of Puritan blood also claim as our heritage. You, sons of the Puritans, and we, who are descended from races whom the Puritans would have deemed alien — we are all Americans together. We all feel the same pride in the genesis, in the history of our people; and therefore this shrine of Puritanism is one at which we all gather to pay homage, no matter from what country our ancestors sprang. We have gained some things that the Puritan had not, we of this generation, we of the twentieth cen- tury, here in this great republic ; but we are also in danger of losing certain things which the Puritan had and which we can by no manner of means afford to lose. We have gained a joy of living which he had not, and which it is a good thing for every people to have and to develop. Let us see to it that we do not lose what is more important still ; that we do not lose the Puritan's iron sense of duty, his unbending, unflinching will to do the right as it was given him 346 Prose to see the right. It is a good thing that Hfe should gain in sweetness, but only provided that it does not lose in strength. Ease and rest and pleasure are good things, but only if they come as the reward of work well done, of a good fight well won, of strong efifort resolutely made and crowned by high achievement. The life of mere pleasure, of mere effortless ease, is as ignoble for a nation as for an individual. The man is but a poor father who teaches his sons that ease and pleasure should be their chief object in life; the woman who is a mere petted toy, incapable of serious purpose, shrinking from effort and duty, is more pitiable than the veriest overworked drudge. So he is but a poor leader of the people, but a poor na- tional adviser, who seeks to make the nation in any way subordinate effort to ease, who would teach the people not to prize as the greatest blessing the chance to do any work, no matter how hard, if it becomes their duty to do it. To the sons of the Puritans it is almost needless to say that the lesson above all others which Puritanism can teach this nation is the all-importance of the reso- lute performance of duty. If we are men we will pass by with contemptuous disdain alike the advisers who would seek to lead us into the paths of ignoble ease and those who would teach us to admire suc- cessful wrongdoing. Our ideals should be high, and yet they should be capable of achievement in practical fashion ; and we are as little to be excused if we permit our ideals to be tainted with what is sordid and mean and base as if we allow our power of achievement to atrophy and become either incapable of effort or capable only of such fantastic effort as to accomplish nothing of permanent good. The true doctrine to preach to this nation, as to the individuals composing this nation, is not the life of ease, but the life of effort. If it were in my power to promise the people of this land anything, I would not promise them pleasure. J Prose 347 would promise them that stern happiness which comes from the sense of having done in practical fashion a difficult work which was worth doing. The Puritan owed his extraordinary success in sub- duing this continent and making it the foundation for a social life of ordered liberty primarily to the fact that he combined in a very remarkable degree both the power of individual initiative, of individual self- help, and the power of acting in combination with his fellows ; and that furthermore he joined to a high heart that shrewd common sense which saves a man from the besetting sins of the visionary and the doctrinaire. He was stout-hearted and hard-headed ! He had lofty purposes, but he had practical good sense, too. He could hold his own in the rough workaday world with- out clamorous insistence upon being helped by others, and yet he could combine with others whenever it be- came necessary to do a job which could not be as well done by any one man individually. These were the qualities which enabled him to do his work, and they are the very qualities which we must show in doing our work to-day. There is no use in our coming here to pay homage to the men who founded this nation, unless we first of all come in the spirit of trying to do our work to-day as they did their work in the yesterdays that have vanished. The prob- lems shift from generation to generation, but the spirit in which they must be approached, if they are to be successfully solved, remains ever the same. The Puri- tan tamed the wilderness, and built up a free govern- ment on the stump-dotted clearings amid the primeval forest. His descendants must try to shape the life of our complex industrial civilisation by new devices, by new methods, so as to achieve in the end the same re- sults of justice and fair dealing toward all. He casts aside nothing old merely for the sake of innovation, yet he did not hesitate to adopt anything new that would serve his purpose. When he planted his com- 348 Prose monwealths on this rugged coast he faced wholly new conditions and he had to devise new methods of meet- ing them. So we of to-day face wholly new condi- tions in our social and industrial life. We should cer- tainly not adopt any new scheme for grappling with them merely because it is the new and untried ; but we cannot afford to shrink from grappling with them, be- cause they can only be grappled with by some new scheme. The Puritan was no Laodicean, no laissez-faire theorist. When he saw conduct which was in violation of his rights — of the rights of man, the rights of God, as he understood them — he attempted to regulate such conduct with instant, unquestioning promptness and effectiveness. If there was no other way to secure conformity with the rule of right, then he smote down the transgressor with the iron of his wrath. The spirit of the Puritan was a spirit which never shrank from regulation of conduct, if such regulation was necessary for the public weal ; and this is the spirit which we must show to-day whenever it is necessary. The utterly changed conditions of our national life necessitate changes in certain of our laws, of our gov- ernmental methods. Our federal system of govern- ment is based upon the theory of leaving to each com- munity, to each State, the control over those things which affect only its own members and which the peo- ple of the locality themselves can best grapple with, while providing for national regulation in those matters which necessarily affect the nation as a whole. . . . National sovereignty is to be upheld in so far as it means the sovereignty of the people used for the real and ultimate good of the people ; and State's rights are to be upheld in so far as they mean the people's rights. Especially is this true in dealing with the re- lations of the people as a whole to the great corpora- tions which are the distinguishing feature of modern business conditions. . . . Prose 349 We should all of us work heart and soul for the real and permanent betterment which will lift our democratic civilisation to a higher level of safety and usefulness. Such betterment can come only by the slow, steady growth of the spirit which metes a gen- erous, but not a sentimental, justice to each man on his merits as a man, and which recognises the fact that the highest and deepest happiness for the individual lies not in selfishness, but in service. Morality the Essence of Life. WILLIAM M. SALTER. EDITED AND ADAPTED FROM "THE IDEAL ELEMENT IN MORALITY." "Why is this selection in this volume?" For a thousand reasons. It is the product of this age. It is the eloquence of a new time It is a literary treasure. No one who reads it need doubt the growth of ethical thought. Nothing ever said or written more clearly and dis- passionately defines the best tendency of this age, — the tendency to shake off the "phantoms of the mind" and pursue the methods of logic and reason, — the tendency to put a high value on candid and open business methods, the tendency to be judicial instead of emotional, and to regard greed and fashion and idleness and pride as forms of stupidity if not insanity. Morality is a divine and eternal thing. It touches the soul with love and awe, with hope and fear. Let me bring out the ideal meaning of morality. I wish to show that it brings before us great thoughts; thoughts touching the deep places of the soul. I wish to show that there is something in it which lays hold of eternity; something which may well, and does in all but the coarsest natures, stir awe and love, and hope and fear. Morality has its sanction in its tend- ency to promote the general good, the universal happiness. Moral ideas, what are they? They are thoughts of the human mind. To win them and to live in them is^ not to lose but to enlarge ourselves. We are not merely so much space as is covered by our bodies; — but minds that can take in the past and the future, that can wander over the earth and climb to the stars, 350 Prose that can muse on what is and think of the better that might be. There is no outside to the mind. The grandest, divinest, most perfect things are simply thoughts of what may be. What are more natural and commonplace with us than our wishes and wants? But if we reflect a mo- ment, it is easy to see that they have an ideal signifi- cance. We do not wish for what we have or for what we are already ; we wish for what we have not or are not, for what we are without, for what, in the literal sense, we zvanf. All our wishes and wants go out to ideas. Often we set more store by what is not than by what is. It seems a part of our nature to do so. It belongs to us to reach out, to form ideals. Per- haps it is a provision for progress, for life, for move- ment. If one has no wishes, no ideals, he is practically dead. He has no incentive to movement, is without the possibility of becoming more than he is. But there are two kinds of ideas. We cannot say that we ought to be happy, but only that we should like to be; but we do say that we ought to be good. The note of authority goes along with a certain class of ideas. We live amid ideas to the extent that we really live at all. Some of the ideas we simply crave and some seem to bind us, — some we can make a goal for our lives if we choose, and others seem fixed for us, so that we cannot turn from them without inwardly experiencing some kind of disgrace. There is no dishonour in not having a home or a family, or in not entering on a business career. But with a family, to be unfaithful to it, or in a business to forget the laws of truth and honour, is morally blameworthy. There are alterna- tives that do not bind us and we may suit our moods. But often we are in the face of alternatives, one of which has a distinct urgency about it ; we know it to be the better ; it seems to have a claim upon us ; and our real task is not to wait. The ideas that thus constrain us are moral ideas; the sum of them makes what we Prose 351 call morality. Morality is not what men do but what they ought to do; not what they wish but what they ought to wish. Morality is the essence ideal. So it is with truth. Truth is not what one happens to think. It is that which corresponds to the fact. Kindliness is a gift of nature to most men. It finds a special field of operation in the home where others are brought so near to us. How much sweeter is the life of the family where kindliness is the law ! But suppose that in some family this ceases to be the law. Is kindliness no longer a true ideal for that family. Surely not! The family life of man may go in one way or it may go in another ; but it can go in one way only, and go right. There is an ideal for it that can- not be changed. Just so with the political life of man. The prime con- cern of the State should be for justice. The State has often stood simply for power; the head of the Statehas often made others his slaves. Men have held property, even life at his mercy. But does any one hesitate to say that the State should stand for justice, that this makes an ideal for it? Does any one hesitate to say that if the State becomes the possession of men who rule for their own and not for the general good, this would be retrogression? Is there not something imperative in the thought of universal justice? Justice, — it is a commonplace word. But is it a commonplace thing, — even in our demo- cratic republic ? What is it, then ? It is an idea, — and one which though we never realised, would not cease to give the ideal, and the only ideal, for human govern- ment. Not all the tyrants of the past, or the com- bined will of the mightiest to-day, can change it. The supreme political problem is to find it out completely, and to establish it perfectly. If human governments do not establish it they will be humbled and cast down. But the idea will stand. He who stands by justice, let him be aware of it. When justice seems to fail, 352 Prose let him keep his faith, — let him speak the louder and stand the firmer, — by the idea. For in truth justice might never be on this earth, and yet never lose one particle of its authority. Again, there is the business life of man. Who does not feel that he should be just, and truthful, and can- did in business, whether it is to his advantage or not? And so with all the institutions of society. There is an ideal and a law for each. And for each individual life there is an ideal which it is to find and follow. We know to a certain extent what makes for order and peace among men. What we call the moral ideal is so much of it as we know. But how much more is there yet to know ! The idea of justice is the best part of our moral ideal. But who understands it? Who fathoms it? Who sees all that it means and must mean to the future? Morality calls us away to these visions of the higher and better. It is the science of life, — not as it is, but as it ought to be. It means looking at life from the highest standpoint. It means taking our stand there without hesitation, and fearing not to hold the life of men to the ideal standard. It may not be a wel- come task to pass judgment on ourselves, yet if we are real in the matter of moral culture, I do not see how we can avoid doing so. Still less welcome is it to pass judgment upon others. How easy to excuse a friend where we would not ex- cuse ourselves! The question often is, which comes first, — loyalty to a person or a truth? This is ever the test of a true man, — will he yield up his ideal conviction to any amount of contrary "facts" ? Will he take his stand and keep it though the ruling powers of the world were opposed to him? To lose the sense of an ideal right, to yield it up before a show of might, — that is the only infidelity, the only atheism we need have any fear of. It is strange when we bear in mind the ideal nature Prose 353 of morality, to hear that moraHty must be based upon facts. MoraHty is not a question of facts, but of the right of facts to be; it is a question of their corre- spondence with a standard of the mind. MoraHty is in its nature an ideal and a rule, — a law. Base morality — on facts! What facts? There are innumerable facts, an induction from which would give us only immorality. The good facts, then? But plainly this is moving in a circle. There is nothing on which to base morality. We do not so much find it, — as de- mand it in the world. All separate moral rules may be resolved into the supreme one, to seek the universal good. Who can give a reason for the supreme rule? Irideed, no serious man wants a reason. The supreme command appeals immediately to the human mind; it is an assertion of the human mind. No honest man wants a reason why he should do right any more than why he should allow the sun to be in the heavens. The sun is there and he sees it. Joy and light and warmth come, he knows, from living under its influ- ence. So with the idea of the universal good. To know it is to love it. To become simply aware of it is to feel it to be the true sovereign law of our lives. Man belongs to the universal good; he is himself, — only as he acts from it and for it. He is a believer in good and looks for its triumph. An ideal perfection is the only ultimate reason for our existence. Index of Authors INDEX OF AUTHORS PAGE Adams, Bristow Protect the Trees . . 36 Adams, Hannah The Hebrew Nationality 257 Adams, John ^ On " Salt, at the Time of the American Revolution," 4 Adams, John Quincy The Declaration of 1776 89 Addison, Joseph Sir Roger and the Gipsies 57 Frozen Words . . 85 /Esop The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg ... 14 Ames, Fisher The Sanctity of Treaties 137 Anonymous Sandy and Pippa 5 Henry Clay's Reception in Baltimore . . . 100 Restricted Property 213 A Particular Lady 252 Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius Contentment 212 Opinion 317 Aristotle A Poor Reward 5 Ascham, Roger Quick Wits 21 Bancroft, George The Revolutionary Alarm 54 Barre, Col. Isaac The Right of Trial 90 Barrie, James M. Peter Pan Among the Birds 23 357 358 Prose PAGE Bayard, James A. Judges Should be Free 301 Bible The Lord Is My Shepherd 7 The Beatitudes ........ 8 Remember Thy Creator 11 The Ten Commandments 56 Charity 211 Blackhawk Address to General Street 83 Bray, Mrs. Charles Reverence 168 Brougham, Lord Henry The Schoolmaster is Abroad 160 The Fate of the Reformer 286 Browning, Robert The Autocracy of Youth and the Modesty of Age . 251 Bryan, William Jennings The Real Business Man 336 Burke, Edmund American Taxation 220 England's Right to Tax America .... 221 On Conciliation with America 291 Burroughs, John The Crow 10 The Perils of a Bird 21 The Perils of a Bee 50 The Eagle 71 Burt, Thomas Labour Struggles 331 Burton, John E. The Old Trail to the Mother-Lode .... 159 Byron, Lord The Death Penalty for New Offences . . . 330 Cable, George W. A Southern Storm 72 Bras Coupe Declares His Independence . . . 11 1 Calhoun, John C. A Sufficient Naval Force 222 Against the Force Bill 298 Carlyle, Thomas Clap a Bridle on Thy Tongue . . . . .244 Index of Authors 359 PAGE Cervantes The Slaying of the Wine-Bags 59 Channing, William Ellery The True Distinction of a State .... 61 Every Man is Great * 02 The Free Mind .* .* 300 Chapman, Frank M. Protect the Birds 16 Choate, Rufus The Birth-Day of Washington 94 Clay, Henry The Noblest Public Virtue 224 Cleveland, Grover Trusts 335 Collodi, C. The Oily Driver 7 The Country of Playthings 11 The Little Wooden Puppet Tells How He Became a Donkey 13 Constitution of the United States, The . . . 132 Curtis, George William My Castles in Spain 103 As Others See Us 200 Curtius, Quintus . Speech of a Scythian to Alexander .... 282 Custer, Elizabeth B. All Around a Bird's Nest 16 A Blizzard 72 Reverence for Motherhood 117 De Amicis, Edmondo My Brother's Schoolmistress 29 The School "48 The Poor 62 The Evening School 114 How to Welcome a Schoolmate from a Foreign Land 151 De Guerin, Eugenie A Bird's Voice 6 A Child Can Be Just 9 Cleansing the Fountain 28 360 Prose Demosthenes Against Philip 63 On Meidias, the Rich, at the Bar of Justice . . 95 Not Vanquished by Philip (Oration on the Crown) 278 The Law of Leptines 280 Dewey, Rev. Orville The Nobility of Labour 28 Doane, George Washington The Gentleman 116 Eliot, George Mr. Tulliver's Opinion of His Wife and Children . 327 Emerson, Ralph Waldo Compensation 138 A Friend 156 Self-Reliance 215 A Man Passes for That He is Worth . . . 245 Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies . . 258 Everett, Edward What Good Will the Monument Do? . . . . 118 Imperishability of Great Examples . . . . 167 The May-flower 288 The Rights of Indians Defended .... 289 Fenelon The Largest Love 5 Flint, Timothy The Character of North American Indians . . 234 Fox, Charles James A Political Pause 171 The Foreign Policy of Washington .... 323 Franklin, Benjamin The Whistle 14 Turning the Grindstone 22 Abraham and the Fire-Worshippers .... 210 Froebel, Friedrich Conscious Activity 311 Garrison, William Lloyd Abolition 139 Gilder, Jeannette L. Putting All the Eggs in One Basket .... 66 Index of Authors 361 PAGE Gilder, Richard Watson The Gift of Eloquence 216 Goldsmith, Oliver Vanity at the Vicar's lOS GouGAR, Kate Do Men Merit Franchise? 329 Grant, Ulysses S. A Lincoln Story 35 Grattan, Henry Character of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham . . 266 National Gratitude 295 Sectarian Tyranny 324 Hayne, Robert J. The South During the Revolution .... 296 Henderson, C. Hanford Good-Breeding 255 Henry, Patrick An Appeal to Arms 172 The War is Inevitable I74 The Return of British Fugitives . . . .225 Holland, J. G. Truth and Truthfulness 152 Homer The Lotus-Eaters 20 Ulysses at the Home of Circe 45 Elpenor and the Wine-Cup i57 Horace The Country Mouse and the City Mouse . . 26 Hughes, Thomas Tom Brown Goes to Rugby 12 Hugo, Victor The Street Arab of Paris 26 A Republic or a Monarchy? 325 Ingersoll, Robert G. On Abraham Lincoln 218 Irving, Washington The Phantom-Ship 81 The Home-Coming of Rip Van Wmkle ... 122 Jefferson, Thomas The Declaration of Independence . . . . 129 362 Prose PAGE Johnson, Samuel Letter to Lord Chesterfield 261 Johnstone, Mrs. A Little Lecture for a Little Girl .... g JUDSON, L. C. Saying Too Much 44 Karr, Alphonse What Is Property? 38 The Stream that was Made to Work . . .149 Kellogg, Elijah Spartacus to the Gladiators 263 KiNGSLEY, Charles Under the Flapdoodle Trees 12 Examination Day in the Land of the Tomtoddies . 143 Prophesying After the Event 204 Knowles, J. Sheridan Crossing the Rubicon 318 Lamb, Charles Bo-bo and the Roast Pig 107 Rising with the Lark 309 Lanier, Sidney Cold 6 My Alligator's Home T] The First Home 243 Silence 316 Lincoln, Abraham The Black-Hawk War 8 Suspicion 157 Address at Gettysburg 217 The Bixby Letter 260 Livingston, Robert L. Aristocracy 161 Livy. Virginius, as Tribune, Refuses the Appeal of Ap- pius Claudius 25 Lytton, Lord Earnestness . . 43 Mabie, Hamilton The Passion for Perfection 256 Maeterlinck, Maurice The Life of a Father Bee 250 Index of Authors 363 PAGE Macaulay, Thomas B. Men Always Fit for Freedom 312 Markham, Edwin Our Poets Have Discovered America ... 78 Spinners in the Dark 342 Milton, John On His Blindness ....... 152 Vindication of the Press 208 MiRABEAU, Count De Eulogium on Franklin 162 MooRE, John Trot wood The Model Cotton Mill 207 Running Business on the Golden Rule . . .170 I The Rights of Childhood 312 More, Sir Thomas Hunting in Utopia 39 Muir, John A Wind-Storm in the Forests of California . . 74 Naylor, C. C. American Labourers 299 Paley, William Monopoly 100 Parsons, Frank Old-Age Pensions 341 Phillips, Charles The Character of Washington 52 Pitt, William (Earl of Chatham) America Unconquerable . 134 Against Employing Indians in War .... 175 The First Step to Reconciliation with America : I. The Removal of Troops from Boston . . . 227 n. The Repeal Claimed by Americans as a Right . 229 Pitt, William (The Second) Barbarism of Our British Ancestors . . . .119 The American War Denounced 294 Plato Defence of Socrates 267 The Speech of Socrates on His Own Condemnation . 273 Death of Socrates 275 Pulteney, William On Reducing the Army . . . . , ♦ 320 364 Prose PAGE QUINCY, JOSIAH Against the Embargo 231 QUINCY, JosiAH, Jr. British Aggressions 177 Rainsford, William The Vital Touch in Life 97 Appeal to the Best in Men 122 Roosevelt, Theodore Peace and Righteousness 50 The Puritans 344 Rosebery, Lord Queen Victoria 337 RusKiN, John The Patience of Flowers 4 Great Art 67 Men, Better Than Territory 97 The Freedom of the Fly loi Sensitiveness 154 Humility versus Vain Glory 248 What a Great Nation Cannot Do ... . 285 Sallust Gains Marius to the Romans, on the Objections to Making Him General 283 Salter, William M. Morality, the Essence of Life ..... 349 Shakespeare, William Cassio on Intemperance 42 Brutus' Speech on the Death of Caesar . . . 126 Smith, Rev. Sydney The Folly of Pride 46 Taxes, the Price of Glory 53 Rejection of the Reform Bill . . . .238 Stevens A Russian Bath 147 Stockton, Frank R. The Donkey-Clock 18 The Little Rose-Clock 40 How the Griffin Taught School .... 79 Stuart, Ruth McEnery Sonny's Diploma 305 Sumner, Charles The Duel of Nations . . . , , , ,127 Index of Authors 365 PAGE Talmage, Thomas De Witt The Influence of a Clean Face 3 Thoreau, Henry David High Life 203 TiLLOTsoN^ John Sincerity 246 Van Dyke, Henry Creative Education 310 Warner, Charles Dudley No Farming Without a Boy 65 Washington, George > What Every Little Child Should Know About Politeness 3 On Profanity in the Army 64 France and the United States g8 To the American Troops Before the Battle of Long Island 178 Against Foreign Entanglements 321 Webster, Daniel The Fourth of July 30 Love of Home 41 Liberty and Union, One and Inseparable . ' . .135 On the Supposed Speech of John Adams . . .163 On Sudden Political Conversions .... 232 Peaceable Secession 297 Wilson, Henry Northern Labourers 219 Winslow, Rev. Horace Treatment of Sisters 155 Wolfe, General To the Army Before Quebec 239 Yates, Richard Separation from New England 171 Zeno Virtue Its Own Reward 9 APR 7 1908 I