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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75935 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Title page]
+
+
+
+
+
+ GOLDEN TREASURY
+ _of_
+ FAMOUS BOOKS
+
+
+ A GUIDE TO GOOD READING FOR BOYS
+ AND GIRLS, AND FOR THE ENJOYMENT
+ OF THOSE WHO LOVE BOOKS
+
+
+ By
+ MARJORY WILLISON
+
+
+
+ TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF
+ CANADA LIMITED, AT ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE
+ 1929
+
+
+
+
+ Copyright, Canada, 1929
+ By
+ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED
+
+
+ PRINTED IN CANADA
+
+ T. H. BEST PRINTING CO., LIMITED
+ TORONTO, ONT.
+
+
+
+
+{v}
+
+FOREWORD
+
+One day, a little more than a hundred years ago, a boy was walking
+along a crowded street in London. It is likely that Dick Whittington
+had walked on the very same street about the time when he heard Bow
+Bells ring. But this boy was not thinking about the bells of London.
+He had been reading a story in a book, and he was thinking of the
+people in the story, especially of a man called Leander who swam
+across the straits named the Hellespont.
+
+The story of Hero and Leander is told in a poem. These two people
+were in love with one another. But Hero, who was very beautiful, was
+a priestess of Aphrodite, and she was not supposed to fall in love or
+marry. Leander lived at Abydos, which is on one side of the straits
+of the Hellespont. Hero lived in a high tower at Sestos, which is on
+the other side of the straits. The shores are rocky and dangerous,
+beautiful to look at, but hazardous for sailors and ships. Tides and
+winds make it difficult to sail through the straits, and very
+difficult at times to swim across from shore to shore. Leander used
+to swim from Abydos to Sestos after nightfall to see Hero, who had
+become his wife; and Hero, on her high tower, held a lighted lamp
+that shone like a star to guide Leander so that he would not be
+dashed on the rocks.
+
+{vi}
+
+The name of the boy who had been reading the story was Samuel Taylor
+Coleridge. He was a country boy, the son of a clergyman, and he was
+at a boarding school in London. The school was for boys whose
+parents had not much money or who had no parents living.
+
+On a school holiday, after breakfast, at which there was not a great
+deal to eat, the boys who were boarders were sent out into London and
+were not expected to come back until nightfall. Sometimes, they had
+nothing to eat all day long until supper-time. Coleridge was one of
+the boys who had to spend his holidays in this fashion.
+
+On one holiday, Coleridge, as he walked along the crowded street,
+began to imagine how it would feel if he were swimming the Hellespont
+with Leander. You know how often we think when we are reading an
+interesting book that we are living with the people in the story.
+Being greatly absorbed in his thoughts, Coleridge began to move his
+arms as if he were swimming. If he had been in a field by himself,
+or on an empty street, no one would have minded. But Coleridge was
+on a crowded street, and by and by one of his arms struck a man who
+was passing, and his hand caught in the man's pocket. The man
+thought that Coleridge, who was only a boy, was trying to steal from
+him. However, he asked Coleridge a good many questions, and
+discovered that the boy had been reading in a book the story of Hero
+and Leander, and had been imagining that he was swimming across the
+Hellespont.
+
+When the man found that Coleridge loved reading, but could not get
+the books he wanted easily, {vii} he took the boy to a library, which
+was not a free library but one where people had to pay a fee, and the
+man arranged for Coleridge to be allowed to read there.
+
+
+Many stories are told of the different ways in which boys and girls
+have found famous books which they have read with enjoyment, and
+never forgotten. Another boy called Samuel--Samuel Johnson--had been
+looking for apples that he knew were hidden somewhere. He climbed
+upon a step-ladder to look behind the rows of books in his father's
+book shop, and while he was looking for the apples he found
+Plutarch's _Lives_. Very likely the boy Samuel Johnson began reading
+the book, and forgot about the apples. Another boy once was told to
+watch a fire, which was burning rubbish in a field, so that it would
+not spread and burn the fences. He watched the fire for a while, but
+he had a book in his pocket and presently he forgot to watch, and so
+the fence was burned. Likely he was punished at the time, but years
+after his friends used to tell the story, for the boy had become an
+eminent man. How many of us have climbed into trees to read books in
+a leafy solitude! Louisa May Alcott was one of the girls, later
+known for her charming stories, who had a special tree into which she
+used to climb, so that no one should interrupt her while she was
+reading.
+
+
+This book which you are reading now is meant to help you to find
+books that you will enjoy. You may begin at the first chapter;
+perhaps this is the best way. Or you may look at the list of
+chapters, {viii} and try the one which seems to you most interesting.
+But when you have read that chapter, come back to the beginning and
+start over again.
+
+Fairy tales and stories of marvels you will find described in Part
+III, also stories of heroes, and such stories as _Alice in
+Wonderland_, Kipling's stories, and Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, a
+great book telling of knights and their adventures.
+
+The books in Part I are wonderfully interesting. In this Part you
+will find examples of some of the ways in which we may enjoy books of
+famous authors, for instance, the work of novelists like Dickens and
+Scott, and the plays of a great dramatist like Shakespeare. First,
+we may read some of their stories or plays; then we may learn of the
+lives of these authors, especially about that part of their lives
+when they were young which is always interesting; and finally, we can
+read of the world as it was when these writers lived in it and of the
+effect their work has had on this world of ours.
+
+Part II is about romance and adventure. In Part IV you will find
+ballads and stories in rhyme or verse. Part V tells of some of the
+greatest writers and their work. Part VI is meant to help boys and
+girls to be good citizens, and to undertake all kinds of
+responsibilities when they are men and women. In one of the chapters
+of Part VI there is a list of books, many of which are biographies of
+noted men and women, but there are also books about such subjects as
+flying, inventions, science, hobbies, birds, flowers, gardens and
+mountain climbing. The last chapter in Part VI tells of some books
+of travel and discovery.
+
+{ix}
+
+The books in Part VII are specially enjoyable, because they are
+intimate books; and you will find great poetry spoken of in Part VIII.
+
+We do not all like the same books; and this is likely the best way,
+for some books which may seem dull to us, other people find
+interesting. What is important is for each of us to discover the
+books we enjoy most.
+
+So if we do not happen to like _Gulliver's Travels_ by Jonathan
+Swift, there is no great harm done, although Dean Swift was a notable
+writer. And if some of you do not care for Robert Louis Stevenson's
+_Child's Garden of Verse_ now, the chances are that by the time you
+are over sixty, you will think it a charming book, and you may even
+repeat the verses aloud to your grand-children.
+
+We never know when we may discover, hidden in the midst of dullness
+perhaps, some gem of a story or poem; and this is one of the reasons
+why most of us love reading, and will take a good deal of trouble to
+find the books we enjoy.
+
+Before you read this book, perhaps you had better ask yourselves the
+question, what kind of books each one of you cares for most? And
+then, after that, ask yourselves another question, what kinds of
+books do you think you would like to enjoy? The last question is
+worth considering with not a little care; for when we think about it,
+we really set out on a journey into the world of books.
+
+
+
+
+{xi}
+
+ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
+
+Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following authors, literary
+agents and publishers, for permission to quote in this volume certain
+excerpts as follows:
+
+To Mr. Walter de la Mare and Messrs. James B. Pinker & Sons, for an
+extract from "The Listeners"; to Mrs. James Elroy Flecker and Messrs.
+A. P. Watt & Son, for an extract from the late Mr. James Elroy
+Flecker's _Hassan_, and to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., for a
+quotation from _The Iliad of Homer_ (edited by Lang, Leaf and Myers)
+and for a short passage from the late Mr. Thomas Hardy's _The
+Dynasts_.
+
+
+
+
+{xiii}
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I
+
+DICKENS, SCOTT, SHAKESPEARE, THE BIBLE
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I SOME OF DICKENS' NOVELS AND CHARACTERS
+
+II CHARLES DICKENS: BOY AND MAN
+
+III WHAT DICKENS DID FOR HUMANITY
+
+IV THE WAVERLEY NOVELS
+
+V SCOTT'S OWN STORY
+
+VI THE TEMPEST AND OTHER OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS
+
+VII SHAKESPEARE: THE GREAT WORLD ITSELF
+
+VIII STORIES FROM THE BIBLE
+
+IX LIVING WATERS
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE
+
+X DUMAS. HUGO. STEVENSON
+
+XI ROBINSON CRUSOE. LORNA DOONE. HEREWARD. WESTWARD HO! ROUND THE
+WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS. TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA.
+MIDSHIPMAN EASY. PETER SIMPLE. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST. THE
+GOLDEN DOG
+
+{xiv}
+
+XII LAVENGRO. THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. TOM SAWYER. HUCKLEBERRY
+FINN. KIM. SARD HARKER. THE LIVING FOREST
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+SONGS OF HEROES, MYTHS, FAIRY TALES AND MARVELS
+
+XIII THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY. GREEK HEROES. TANGLEWOOD TALES.
+THE WONDER BOOK
+
+XIV ÆSOP'S FABLES. GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES. HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY
+TALES. THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR
+
+XV ALICE IN WONDERLAND. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. THE GOLDEN AGE.
+THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. FOUR BOOKS BY A. A. MILNE. RIP VAN WINKLE
+
+XVI THE JUNGLE BOOKS. JUST SO STORIES. PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.
+REWARDS AND FAIRIES. THE BLUE BIRD. PETER PAN. KILMENY
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+BALLADS, LAYS, AND STORIES IN VERSE
+
+XVII PERCY'S RELIQUES. CHEVY CHASE AND THE BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE.
+SIR PATRICK SPENS. THE NORTHERN MUSE
+
+{xv}
+
+XVIII THE LADY OF THE LAKE. MARMION. JOHN GILPIN. EDINBURGH AFTER
+FLODDEN. HORATIUS. THE ARMADA
+
+XIX HIAWATHA. FRENCH CHANSONS IN QUEBEC. A CHRISTMAS SONG
+
+
+
+PART V
+
+SOME GREAT IMAGINATIVE WRITERS
+
+XX DANTE. CERVANTES. SPENSER
+
+XXI JOHN BUNYAN AND THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
+
+XXII THACKERAY. MEREDITH. HARDY
+
+XXIII JANE AUSTEN. GEORGE ELIOT. THE BRONTES
+
+
+
+PART VI
+
+HISTORY, POLITICS, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVEL
+
+XXIV WHAT IS HISTORY?
+
+XXV THE MEANING OF POLITICS
+
+XXVI HISTORIES
+
+XXVII BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON
+
+XXVIII READING FOR WHAT YOU WANT To BE
+
+XXIX TRAVEL AND DISCOVERY
+
+
+
+PART VII
+
+ESSAYS, CRITICISM, LETTERS, DIARIES
+
+XXX CHARLES LAMB AND HAZLITT: ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS
+
+XXXI LETTERS AND LETTER WRITERS. PEPYS AND OTHER DIARISTS
+
+
+
+{xvi}
+
+PART VIII
+
+POETRY
+
+XXXII POETRY AND BEAUTY
+
+XXXIII POETRY AND TIME
+
+XXXIV READING FOR YOUR OWN COUNTRY. ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ITS
+BRANCHES
+
+
+AFTERWORD
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+{1}
+
+PART I
+
+DICKENS, SCOTT, SHAKESPEARE, THE BIBLE
+
+
+
+{3}
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SOME OF DICKENS' NOVELS AND CHARACTERS
+
+It is an odd reflection how silent a book may seem when it is waiting
+on a shelf to be read. But once its covers are opened, and our eyes
+follow the lines of print for page after page, voices speak, people
+that we had not known before become familiar to us or old friends
+give us greeting; thoughts, knowledge, events, pass from the silent
+pages into our minds. Some books possess this property of rich and
+glowing life in a high degree. No books surely have it more
+abundantly than the novels of Charles Dickens.
+
+Here are scores of friends for us, playmates, companions. If anyone
+has a fit of loneliness, or should anyone be looking for change and
+variety, let him open one of Dickens' novels. Which one will he
+choose first? A boy or girl is well advised who takes, shall we say,
+_David Copperfield_ or _Pickwick Papers_. One or the other will make
+an excellent beginning. Having read one, or both, it is unlikely
+that the reader will refrain from adding five, six, seven, eight, or
+even twelve more novels by Dickens to the list of books he is happy
+to remember having read.
+
+What are the names of Dickens' other better known novels? _Nicholas
+Nickleby_, _Oliver Twist_, _The Old Curiosity Shop_, _Barnaby Rudge_,
+_Martin {4} Chuzzlewit_, _Dombey and Son_, _Bleak House_, _Little
+Dorrit_, _A Tale of Two Cities_, _Great Expectations_, _Our Mutual
+Friend_. But still we must add the Christmas books, for no one, old
+or young, should lose the benefit of having read _A Christmas Carol_.
+And there is also the unfinished novel _Edwin Drood_, probably more
+talked of still than any other story of a mystery, new or old. It is
+nearly sixty years since Dickens left the story incomplete, but how
+gladly many people still would discover the secret ending that the
+great novelist had planned in his mind.
+
+Once read, Dickens' novels cling to the memory. The characters he
+made inhabit this world of ours as substantially, it seems, as people
+do who have been born not from imagination merely. As lately as the
+spring of 1928 a London hotel, the Adelphi, changed owners. In a
+brief history of the place a list of persons was given who had
+visited it, ending with the remark that Mr. Pickwick had had his
+first dinner there after being released from prison. The other
+people mentioned were what we describe as historical characters. Mr.
+Pickwick, although thousands of people know him so well that if they
+met him on the street they could not possibly fail to recognize him,
+is the miraculous product of Dickens' imagination. If you have not
+read _Pickwick Papers_, in a few hours you too may know Mr. Pickwick,
+and he will be for you also a lifetime friend.
+
+When we read these stories for the first time, we must be prepared to
+become acquainted with Dickens' characters much in the same way as we
+meet strangers in everyday life. His people are {5} odd, exuberant,
+amusing, extravagant; they are too strange to be true, we may say to
+ourselves. But as we read on, we come to know them so well that the
+oddness and queerness seem to wear off. We look into their hearts
+and forget to be surprised by their extraordinary looks and
+characteristics. Sam Weller is odd, but he is the most delightful,
+amusing young man on his own, once boots at the White Hart Inn. Like
+Mr. Pickwick, Sam lives in _Pickwick Papers_. No one could imagine a
+better Sam Weller than Dickens' creation, for the simple reason that
+to make a better Sam Weller is impossible.
+
+It is a great, a glorious adventure to sit out of doors in summer, or
+in a warm, quiet room in winter, and read one of Dickens' novels.
+What happenings, what delightful, absorbing people, what a stir of
+life, what laughter, gaiety, bravery, what wonderful meetings with
+high and low fortune!
+
+The world of Dickens' novels is a world of coaching days, of old
+English roads and inns, of feasts and conviviality; a sporting world,
+often hard and cruel, in which existed bad old customs against which
+Dickens fought with all his might; a boisterous world of strange
+adventures, great friendships, and measureless laughter. These books
+are crowded with people, diverting and friendly, grotesque and
+menacing, or grotesque outside but with golden hearts hidden behind
+the queer exteriors, loving people, heartless people, beautiful
+people, brave, true friends, friends of everybody.
+
+We have already spoken of Mr. Pickwick and {6} Sam Weller, his man or
+valet. Mr. Pickwick's benevolence, his goodness of heart, innocence
+and simplicity make us love him more and more as the story unfolds.
+Sam's wit and audacity, his extraordinary good humour and high
+spirits, his devotion to Mr. Pickwick, his independence and
+self-reliance, make Sam so real that he seems never far away. He is
+always only round the corner of our minds and will appear jauntily as
+soon as we think of him. In the one book, _Pickwick Papers_, there
+are a dozen other characters only less wonderful than these two.
+Would anyone prove at once how diverting and delightful such a book
+can be, let him read of Christmas at Dingley Dell in chapter 28, or
+the Adventure at the Great White Horse Inn, chapter 22, or the trial
+of Bardell against Pickwick, chapter 34, or for natural feeling
+simply expressed the lines in which Tony Weller, Sam's father, tells
+of Mrs. Weller's death in chapter 52, or the downfall of Mr.
+Stiggins, in the same chapter, or, in the last chapter of all, of
+Sam's devotion to Mr. Pickwick.
+
+Striking characters of a like description are to be found in all
+Dickens' novels. _David Copperfield_ is probably the richest of all,
+in this respect, although one can easily imagine a dispute amongst
+the warm admirers of Dickens as to which novel is pre-eminent in the
+possession of immortal characters. Those who love _David
+Copperfield_ best can scarcely discuss the book with detachment; it
+belongs, as it were, to such a reader's own special family life. The
+novel holds a wonderful company of people: David himself, Peggotty,
+her brother and nephew, Little Em'ly, {7} Mrs. Gummidge, Miss Betsey
+Trotwood, Steerforth, Traddles, the magnificent Wilkins Micawber and
+Mrs. Micawber, Uriah Heep, Miss Mowcher, Mr. Spenlow, Dora, and many,
+many others. _David Copperfield_ was Dickens' own favourite among
+his books.
+
+In _Nicholas Nickleby_ is the infamous school, Dotheboys Hall, and
+Wackford Squeers, the schoolmaster. Dickens' crusades for reform
+will be considered in another chapter. But Mrs. Nickleby is one of
+the most memorable of Dickens' foolish characters. Surely no other
+writer has achieved so many delineations of the silly person,
+masterpieces touched with an unerring hand. Yet, and this point is
+perhaps the crown of Dickens' genius, these foolish characters of his
+often reveal, before the novels to which they belong are ended, some
+nobility of character, some goodness of heart, some greatness in
+conduct or of nature which makes us bow before them as belonging to
+the highest ranks of human nature. Toots in _Dombey and Son_ is a
+very foolish person, but Toots saying goodbye to Florence Dombey
+shows a chivalry comparable with that of Sir Philip Sidney.
+
+Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness belong to _The Old Curiosity
+Shop_. Barnaby Rudge and his raven Grip are easily found. Mr.
+Pecksniff, Sairey Gamp and Betsey Prig, terrible examples of
+hypocrisy and heartlessness, are from _Martin Chuzslewit_. But the
+same book has loveable Tom Pinch and indomitable Mark Tapley, the
+champion of courage and good cheer in adversity. Tiny Tim and Bob
+Cratchit live forever in _A Christmas {8} Carol_. Paul and Florence,
+Captain Cuttle, Susan Nipper, Mr. Toots, Cousin Feenix, belong to the
+crowded pages of _Dombey and Son_. _Bleak House_ is a wonderful
+story; if one chooses Caddy Jellyby from its pages it is not because
+a dozen other characters are not as interesting. In _Great
+Expectations_ the boyhood of Pip is marvellously portrayed. Anyone
+who has read _Our Mutual Friend_ can never forget Mr. and Mrs.
+Boffin, or Lizzie Hexam, or the R. Wilfer family, or Silas Wegg, or
+Mr. Venus, or the dolls' dressmaker, Jenny Wren, or Johnny the
+orphan, and Mrs. Betty Higden and Sloppy.
+
+It is a point not to be overlooked that Dickens takes his characters
+from any occupation, but preferably, it would seem, from the
+humblest. Goodness of heart, wit, humour, gaiety, stout-heartedness,
+are proved by him to exist in the most depressing circumstances. His
+heroes and heroines do not wear crowns or jewels. They are not
+specially learned, and they are rarely wealthy or beautiful, but they
+are good company, light-hearted, and kind-hearted. Love,
+faithfulness, self-sacrifice, purity, sincerity, courage and
+cheerfulness shine out from his pages so brightly and so engagingly
+that we cannot but long to join the company of those who travel the
+same road.
+
+
+
+
+{9}
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHARLES DICKENS--BOY AND MAN
+
+The best way to understand Charles Dickens is to learn to know him
+first when he was a boy. Odd though it may sound, we can actually
+become acquainted with the boy Charles Dickens. David Copperfield,
+at least in the beginning of his story, is a close delineation of the
+writer's own boyhood. David's feelings, and many of the happenings
+of his youth, are the feelings and the happenings which made Charles
+Dickens the boy and the man that he was.
+
+While this is true, it is true at the same time that we should use
+caution lest we read into a story more than the author intends us to
+find either about himself or of other people. Human beings are so
+wonderfully and strangely made that no mortal, no matter how hard he
+tries, can ever draw a perfectly true or a perfectly just picture of
+anyone. Some quality always escapes analysis, and each person living
+now, or who ever has lived, remains himself only. Dickens drew a
+wonderful picture of himself in David Copperfield. This is one
+reason why we love David and understand him so well. Yet David
+Copperfield is not exactly Charles Dickens. We can scarcely believe
+for one thing that David ever could have written as well about
+Charles as Charles has written about David.
+
+{10}
+
+When Dickens was a boy of ten he was sent to work in a blacking
+warehouse by his father who was at that time in a debtors' prison.
+People, when Dickens was a boy, were sometimes left in prison for a
+long time if they could not pay their debts. Years afterwards,
+Dickens wrote of the secret agony of his soul while he worked at
+covering blacking bottles and of how he longed for companions, boys
+of his own age. Indeed, so unhappy were his recollections that when
+he was grown-up he mentioned these years to one person only, John
+Forster, the friend who wrote his biography; to remember this part of
+his life always gave him great pain.
+
+Charles Dickens was born at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, February
+7th, 1812. Life in the Dickens family was not settled or stable.
+They moved frequently, and were always more or less uncertain as to
+the future. The father, as has been said, at one time was in a
+debtors' prison, and the family, including Charles, became familiar
+with the strange life of The Marshalsea which is described with
+exactitude in more than one of Dickens' novels, but especially in
+_Little Dorrit_. At other times, and even in the Marshalsea, life
+for the Dickens family was interesting, even exciting. Charles was
+unhappy because of the work to which he was put, and because he saw
+clearly, although he was only a little fellow, that he was losing the
+chance of obtaining an education. He was, however, an
+extraordinarily observant lad and read with passionate absorption all
+the books that he could find. Pictures of the strange people he met
+and of the queer things they {11} did remained with him throughout
+his life, and from this material gathered in his youth he fashioned
+his great novels.
+
+He had dreams of what he would be and of what he would do. The
+family lived for a number of years in Chatham, his father being a
+clerk in the navy pay-office at the dockyard, and he used to see,
+when he was walking with his father in the neighbouring country, a
+house called Gadshill Place. He planned then that some day he would
+own that house. It was in 1856 that he became the owner of Gadshill
+when he was forty-four years old, a considerable achievement for the
+boy of ten who had washed and re-covered blacking bottles. But many
+greater achievements than this were brought about by the genius of
+Charles Dickens.
+
+All his life these youthful days were lived over again in his stories
+and in his own memory. To a not inconsiderable extent they influence
+us, too, because of the novels which Dickens wrote. The roads of
+Kent, where he went walking when they lived in Chatham, are the great
+roads of his novels. The characters he wrote about were created from
+traits and habits which he had observed in people known by the boy
+Charles Dickens. The unjust laws and cruel customs against which he
+fought so powerful a battle were those whose victims had excited his
+pity long before he had grown up.
+
+When the family fortunes were brighter, Charles Dickens went to
+school again for a couple of years. But from the time he was
+fifteen, he earned his own living. He began as a clerk or {12}
+office boy. Later, he studied shorthand, and entered the reporters'
+gallery of the House of Commons when he was nineteen. He began to
+write articles and sketches soon afterwards. His first book,
+_Sketches by Boz_, was published when he was twenty-four. In the
+same year, he married Catherine Hogarth, the eldest daughter of
+George Hogarth, a fellow writer on _The Morning Chronicle_, who had
+been kind to him.
+
+From this year, 1836, until his death in 1870, he wrote a series of
+novels and stories with extraordinary speed and diligence. He
+travelled much, but never ceased writing. He gave many public
+readings from his own works. He visited the United States and Canada
+in 1842, and in 1867-68 gave readings in the eastern cities of the
+United States. Wherever he went he was received with acclaim, and he
+was at all times an object of public attention. His gifts were
+great, but no one who follows the story of his life can help being
+struck by his extraordinary capacity for hard work. All his life he
+laboured more assiduously than any ordinary person can work; and when
+he stopped writing, with one of his novels unfinished, he was, as far
+as we can tell, still in the enjoyment of almost undiminished powers
+as a writer.
+
+Dickens had been a sickly boy, often ill and suffering. As soon as
+he could be put to stand on a chair, so young was he, he had given
+childish recitations and sung childish songs for the entertainment of
+his father's and mother's friends. He was, in effect, as a child
+somewhat spoiled by too much attention. Throughout his mature life
+he {13} lived at white heat; ordinary quiet days had no attraction
+for him. He was inclined to think that people treated him unjustly.
+In truth, one is reluctantly compelled to admit that Dickens was
+over-sensitive and somewhat quarrelsome. These are, perhaps, the
+only faults, certainly the main faults, in his character. It can be
+said with justice, however, that he was continually under strain and
+pressure from overwork; he was, as well, excitable by temperament.
+
+One of the best brief descriptions of Dickens' appearance is by Leigh
+Hunt. "What a face is his to meet in a drawing room! It has the
+life and soul in it of fifty human beings." He lived with an
+intensity which it is scarcely possible for less intense people to
+understand. He gave his wonderful vitality without stint to the
+writing of his books. When he finished _David Copperfield_ his life
+had been so absorbed in its characters that he wrote "I seem to be
+sending some part of myself into the Shadowy World." Thackeray said
+of _A Christmas Carol_, "It seems to me a national benefit..."
+Dickens was generous in his praise of the work of other writers, and
+deeply grateful for any kindness shown himself, no matter how slight
+the benefit was. He quarrelled, one may say, with America as well as
+with some of his friends and contemporaries, but years afterwards he
+wrote in a postscript to a later edition of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ a
+warm tribute to the magnanimity of the country. His married life was
+not altogether happy. But in Forster's _Life_, there is a story that
+his daughters Mary and Kate having taken pains to teach him the steps
+of the polka so {14} that he might dance it at their brother's
+birthday party, Dickens, waking in the middle of the night before the
+party, was afraid that he had forgotten the proper steps, and
+immediately got up out of bed to practise them.
+
+Two of his characters, Wilkins Micawber and Mr. Dorritt, are drawn,
+to some extent at least, from the character of his father; Mrs.
+Nickleby is said to be a portrait of his mother. It can at least be
+conceded that Mr. Micawber and Mrs. Nickleby are among the greatest
+characters ever created by Dickens. Apparently he had no unkind
+intention; still, one would rather that he had denied himself the use
+of this material. He was attached to his father and mother and took
+pleasure in providing for their older years. He bought them a house
+a mile from the town of Exeter and looked after the furnishing of the
+house himself.
+
+His feeling for his children was deeply rooted in his heart. It
+expressed itself in numberless ways, never more plainly than in a
+letter to his youngest son written on the eve of the boy's leaving to
+join his brother in Australia. (Forster's _Life of Charles Dickens_,
+Book xi, Part iii).
+
+Dickens' popularity can hardly be over-estimated. There is a story
+that while _Dombey and Son_ was being published in monthly parts, a
+man who kept a snuff shop in London and had as well a number of
+lodgers, read aloud the month's instalment on the first Monday of
+every month at a tea. Only those who paid for the tea shared in it,
+but all the lodgers could listen to the story. The incident affords
+a striking picture of the power Dickens had over all kinds of people.
+Recent reminiscences {15} by one of Dickens' sons tell of how when he
+was walking once with his father along the broad walk at the Zoo in
+London, they met a little girl running ahead of her father and
+mother; when she saw who it was she ran back crying, "Oh, mummy!
+mummy! it is Charles Dickens." Dickens was greatly pleased.
+
+He made for everyone who lived with him a life of constant gaiety and
+variety. Well-known and celebrated people shared this entertainment.
+His heart was passionately attached to the cause of the poor and
+oppressed. He had unfailing belief in human nature, and was hopeful
+of everyone and everything. A well-known statesman who lived in
+Queen Victoria's youth once said at a private dinner at which Dickens
+was present, "Nothing is ever so good as it is thought." Dickens at
+once answered him, "And nothing so bad." We remember that few
+opportunities came to him. His great career was the result of his
+own exertions. There was no one at all to help him when he was
+young. We think with pride and admiration of his great achievements,
+and we love him for his affectionate nature and goodness of heart.
+No one can read Dickens' novels without learning what his character
+was, ardent, generous and loving. He was a great novelist and a
+great benefactor.
+
+
+
+
+{16}
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WHAT DICKENS DID FOR HUMANITY
+
+Dickens from his childhood seems to have had a strong desire to leave
+the world a better place for other people than he had found it for
+himself. We can trace this feeling in his youth and through his
+manhood. It runs in his novels like a great tide of impulse and
+energy. "These things should not happen" he seems to cry to the
+world. "Come, let us unite against injustice and heartlessness in
+public and private dealing, against public and private wrong of every
+description. Let us banish bad customs from the earth, so that it
+may be a fairer, brighter, happier place."
+
+One of his novels_ A Tale of Two Cities_ is a story of the French
+Revolution. The story shows that, in common with the rest of the
+world then living, Dickens' outlook on life had been powerfully
+affected by the French Revolution, as our world to-day has been
+vastly changed by the Great War. The watch words of the French
+Revolution were Liberty, Fraternity, Equality. They rang like bells
+to waken all men's hearts against injustice; their echoes are ringing
+still. During the Revolution which began in 1789, a little more than
+twenty years before Dickens was born, and in the years following the
+Revolution, there were terrible excesses of cruelty, murder and
+bloodshed {17} by the revolutionists. But the spirit of revolt
+against wrong was in men's minds everywhere. In every country change
+and revolution were impending, either violent change and revolution
+with bloodshed, or silent change and a peaceful revolution. In Great
+Britain, it appears reasonably certain that the works of Dickens had
+much to do with preventing a violent revolution. Well-to-do people
+read these books, and their minds became more kindly to their
+fellowmen. They were eager to help the poor and oppressed. The poor
+and unfortunate read Dickens' stories and were filled with the spirit
+of brotherhood to everyone, to the rich as well as to those who were
+poor as they themselves were poor. Dickens showed, not that the poor
+were unhappy, but that they were unjustly and harshly treated. The
+living spirit of happiness and of Christmas is found in the house of
+the Cratchits. The Cratchits are poor, but they are wonderfully
+happy. People in many other countries as well as England rushed to
+the help of the poor because of the happiness of the Cratchit family.
+Tiny Tim and his crutch touched the heart of the world, and the heart
+of the world was made the better for it. We still are made better by
+the story of the Cratchits. Above all, Dickens' novels overflow, not
+only with tenderness and indignation against wrong and cruelty, but
+with abounding good temper and inexhaustible mirth. It has been said
+that danger of a violent revolution in Great Britain was swept away
+by the gales of good-tempered and hearty laughter which seized upon
+thousands of people who were reading these great stories. It was a
+{18} splendid achievement for any novelist, or for any man or woman.
+To help to bring about a peaceful revolution, instead of one in which
+blood is shed, is a claim that can be made on behalf of few people in
+the history of the world.
+
+Dickens is generally given credit for having secured for the world a
+number of much needed reforms. There is no doubt that Dickens had a
+great deal to do with promoting these reforms. But it is the glory
+of the age in which he lived that many people were working to make
+wrong conditions right. What Dickens succeeded in doing, possibly in
+a greater degree than anyone else at that time, was to produce in a
+great multitude of people the spirit which is willing, more than
+willing, very desirous, to make wrong right.
+
+An English poet who was born about a half century before Dickens,
+(Dickens' dates are 1812-1870; William Blake's dates are 1757-1827)
+wrote lines which embody wonderfully this passion for helping other
+people who need help. It is a passion which happily belongs to our
+own age. Who can tell how many people now living carry about in
+their hearts the resolution expressed in one of Blake's verses?
+
+ I will not cease from mental fight,
+ Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
+ Till we have built Jerusalem
+ In England's green and pleasant land.
+
+Jerusalem, of course, means heaven. The Lord's Prayer says, Thy will
+be done on earth as it is in heaven.
+
+You had better learn by heart this verse written {19} by William
+Blake, for you will often want to remember it, and to help to build
+Jerusalem in your own country, wherever that country is.
+
+Charles Dickens has other claims to greatness, but surely none so
+compelling as the fact that the spirit of his novels is the aspiring,
+tender, loving spirit of humanity.
+
+It is interesting to know the names of the special reforms for which
+Dickens worked. These were to change the customs of the law courts
+so that there should be less delay and greater simplicity in securing
+redress for hardship, and to improve the character of the men
+appointed to the bench; to change the Poor Laws, and especially to
+improve their administration; to change and improve greatly the
+schools which existed at that time; and to bring about a reformation
+in the administration of prisons. Finally, he wished to have the
+nation provide common means of decency and health in the dwellings of
+the poor, so that fever and consumption should not forever be let
+loose on God's creatures. These are almost Dickens' own words. All
+these conditions have been so vastly improved that we who are living
+to-day can hardly realize how much we have for which to be thankful.
+But there are still in the world wrongs to right and conditions to
+improve.
+
+Dickens was a great novelist, but he was not a perfect novelist. It
+is easy to find defects in the books that he wrote, defects of style,
+faults in the plans of his novels and in the delineation of his
+characters. But in spite of these defects, his novels are great
+novels. It is possible that Dickens' characters are more true to
+life than we have {20} thought they were. He may be one of the
+greatest delineators of English character in the history of
+literature. Can you not imagine Sam Weller, and Mark Tapley, yes,
+and Tom Pinch, and Ham Peggotty, Tupman, Winkle and Snodgrass,
+fighting in the trenches in France and Flanders, with bravery, jokes
+and indomitable perseverance, while Boffin, Mr. Pickwick, Miss Betsey
+Trotwood and Susan Nipper are busy with work at home? One of the
+best ways, and certainly one of the most delightful ways, to study
+the character and the genius of the people of England is to read the
+novels of Charles Dickens.
+
+
+
+
+{21}
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE WAVERLEY NOVELS
+
+You have heard at times a strain of music far away. A band, perhaps,
+is playing the air of some martial song that you know well. The
+music comes nearer, nearer. You can almost imagine that you see the
+players marching down the street. And here they are. As stirring,
+as romantic, as beautiful as the distant music, are the spirit,
+scenes, and happenings of The Waverley Novels by Sir Walter Scott.
+
+Scott did not begin by writing novels; his first writing was
+poetical; he wrote stories in verse. If you do not already know
+these poetical stories, you probably will some day soon, because they
+are charming and delightful, and so easy to read that one almost
+feels one must have read them before in a dream. The novels are,
+perhaps, a little more difficult to follow, but not after we once get
+fairly started. They are wonderful books to read. Some of them are
+world novels. This means that in many countries, and in many
+different languages, people may be found reading the Waverley Novels.
+This statement is true of Dickens' novels also. When we learn to
+know Dickens' work and Scott's work intimately, we will perceive that
+there is a difference.
+
+Let us begin with _Rob Roy_, one of the Waverley Novels which is a
+great favourite with boys {22} and girls. Francis Osbaldistone is
+sent by his father to visit his uncle, Sir Hildebrand, at the family
+seat, Osbaldistone Hall, in the north of England. Frank does not
+want to go into business and become his father's successor. The
+visit to Osbaldistone Hall is by way of punishment. His father means
+to choose one of Frank's six cousins to inherit his place in the
+business. Frank goes north, meets all the six cousins, his uncle,
+Sir Hildebrand, Andrew Fairservice, a serving man, who is as notable
+a character after his own way of life as Sam Weller; and above all he
+meets a cousin of his cousins, Die Vernon, beautiful, spirited,
+altogether charming and lovable Die.
+
+Owing to a business matter, Frank has to go further north from
+Osbaldistone Hall into Scotland. In the city of Glasgow, he is
+directed to Bailie Nicol Jarvie. He is given a mysterious warning in
+Glasgow Cathedral, and goes up to the Highlands with Bailie Nicol
+Jarvie, seeking to recover a debt. Now we are fully set in the midst
+of the scenes of Sir Walter Scott's enchantment. The wild, romantic,
+beautiful scenery of Scotland, painted by a master's hand; the
+Highlanders themselves, proud, devoted, chivalrous, faithful; the
+cause of the royal Stuarts whose adherents loved them and sacrificed
+for them without stint; the glamour of old Scots songs; romantic
+stories of love and conflict, all these delights you will find in
+_Rob Roy_ and in other of the Waverley Novels. The mysterious Mr.
+Campbell of the highroad and the drove of cattle, turns out to be Rob
+Roy MacGregor himself. His wife, Helen, who is as fierce as she is
+heroic, is the central figure of one of the {23} most dramatic
+actions of the story. Escape, danger, flight, battle, the allurement
+of a lost cause, striking characters for whom one forms a romantic
+attachment, are all gathered within the pages of this novel.
+
+_Kenilworth_ and _Ivanhoe_ will prove themselves as fascinating as
+_Rob Roy_. _Kenilworth_ is written of the time of Queen Elizabeth
+and tells the story of the beautiful, unfortunate Amy Robsart, the
+wife of the Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's favourite. Amy, who
+had made a secret, runaway match, is sought by Tressilian on behalf
+of her father. She lives in hiding at Cumnor Hall, waited on by
+Janet Foster and her father, Anthony Foster. Seeking redress for
+Amy, we go with Tressilian to find Leicester at the great castle of
+Kenilworth to which Elizabeth makes one of her royal progresses. On
+the way we meet Wayland Smith, and Flibbertigibbet, and we learn what
+black magic means.
+
+At Kenilworth are stirring scenes. We encounter Raleigh, Spenser, an
+astrologer, and scores of brightly coloured, romantic figures. We
+are present at a pageant, and see Elizabeth conferring knighthood on
+some of Leicester's men. All the while, Amy Robsart is to be
+vindicated, later Amy is to be saved. But, partly through
+misunderstanding, yet also by cowardice, cruelty and falsehood, Amy
+is betrayed. _Kenilworth_ is notable for its scenes from English
+history, but the story of Amy Robsart, after we read it for the first
+time, leaves something in our memories that in all likelihood had not
+been there before, something gentle, full of pity, and precious.
+
+{24}
+
+_Ivanhoe_ is more robust and exciting. Read the opening scene
+between Gurth, the swineherd, and Wamba, the jester. This is Merrie
+England of long ago, when Saxons and Normans were still hostile and
+separate, although living together in the heart of England. John had
+usurped the throne from King Richard, his brother, who had been
+fighting on Crusade in the Holy Land. Here in the greenwood we meet
+Friar Tuck, and various knights. We visit Rotherwood, and listen to
+Cedric, the Saxon master of Gurth and Wamba. We see the beautiful
+Rowena. We meet the Jew, Isaac of York and his lovely daughter
+Rebecca. There are great combats for knights to prove their
+knighthood at Ashby-de-la-Zouche. There is the thrilling siege of
+the castle, Torquilstone. We discover who the Black Knight is, and,
+best of all, we encounter, in many disguises and lastly as himself,
+Robin Hood. Read the account of the archery contest in chapter
+thirteen. Every word is thrilling. If we could go back through the
+centuries, we, too, would visit Merrie England, walk in the greenwood
+and taste the venison pasty in Friar Tuck's cell, watch while
+Locksley shot his arrows, and with Rebecca on the ramparts, follow
+the course of the great siege of Torquilstone. But, thanks to the
+genius of Sir Walter, we can see these happenings in imagination
+without leaving the twentieth century, although the novel Ivanhoe was
+published more than a hundred years ago.
+
+Scott wrote more than twenty novels, and other books as well. The
+chief of the Waverley Novels, beside the three already named, are
+_Waverley_, {25} _Guy Mannering_, _The Antiquary_, _Old Mortality_,
+_The Bride of Lammermoor_, _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, _The Fortunes
+of Nigel_, _Redgauntlet_, _Anne of Geierstein_, _Woodstock_, and _The
+Fair Maid of Perth_.
+
+Thrilling and romantically beautiful as _Rob Roy_, _Kenilworth_ and
+_Ivanhoe_ are, and exciting as it is to read them, Scott has achieved
+even greater scenes in some of the novels appearing in the list
+above. Rob Roy, Die Vernon, Locksley, Rebecca of York, are splendid
+and memorable characters, but they are not as wonderful as Edie
+Ochiltree in _The Antiquary_, or as Jeanie Deans in _The Heart of
+Mid-Lothian_. We delight in Rob Roy and Locksley and we love Die
+Vernon dearly, and yet somehow we know that Edie Ochiltree and Jeanie
+Deans are greater. We respect them profoundly, and think more of
+human nature because of what they say and do. We wonder why this
+should be so. Puzzling out the way we feel about Edie Ochiltree and
+Jeanie Deans, we come to a conclusion somewhat like the following.
+In the case of the first dearly loved characters, Scott was writing
+about people he had never met or known. He was in reality describing
+the beautiful dreams we have of romantic people who do not actually
+belong to everyday life. But Edie Ochiltree is such a man as Scott
+himself must have known. He is alive and so vivid in his not too
+highly coloured perfection, that one can imagine him strolling along
+a country road in Scotland. Edie is a wandering beggar and wears a
+blue gown. The neighbours give him food and shelter, and in return
+he does for them various little services. But Edie {26} at the same
+time is a remarkable man. When greatness comes in ordinary people,
+they are greater than it is possible to make a romantic character.
+We cannot tell why this is so; but so it is.
+
+Turn to chapter seven in _The Antiquary_ and read what Edie says in
+answer to Sir Arthur Wardour's offer of a reward if he will save his
+daughter and himself from drowning. Such a character as Edie shows
+himself to be is an example of Sir Walter's genius at its highest.
+You will find other remarkable scenes in which Edie speaks in chapter
+twenty. But from his final appearance in chapter forty-four we must
+quote a few lines. There is a rumour that the country is to be
+invaded, and someone says to Edie that he has not much to fight for.
+Read carefully what follows for it is written in one of the dialects
+of Scotland, as is the case with a good part of what Sir Walter has
+written.
+
+"_Me_ no muckle to fight for, sir?--isna there the country to fight
+for, and the burnsides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths
+of the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o' weans that
+come toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward town?--"
+
+Here love of country and love of people,--little children and men and
+women--are joined, and Edie's words express the highest feelings for
+home and country that we have. There is something in every boy and
+every girl that thrills to this reply of Edie Ochiltree, who had no
+money and no land, but who was rich in his spirit nevertheless. It
+is for such reasons as this that we {27} judge Edie's character to be
+one of Scott's greatest achievements.
+
+Some day you may read in _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_ of how Jeanie
+Deans walked many weary miles to London to plead with Queen Caroline
+for the life of her sister. You will learn to admire and reverence
+Jeanie when at the last she says to the Queen that "when the hour of
+trouble comes to the mind or to the body ... then it isna what we hae
+dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that we think on
+maist pleasantly." Jeanie's is a sad story, and yet it turns out
+happily. Scott's genius for story telling, as well as for the
+delineation of character, was singularly rich and ample.
+
+To the contents of these novels, Scott added occasionally a short
+story, and often beautiful songs. In _Redgauntlet_, chapter eleven,
+you will find Wandering Willie's Tale, one of the greatest short
+stories that ever has been written. The Ballad of the Red Harlaw is
+in _The Antiquary_, the same novel in which Edie Ochiltree appears.
+One of the most beautiful songs in Scottish literature, which is rich
+in exquisite songs, is "Proud Maisie"; this song is to be found in
+_The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, chapter thirty-nine. Those of you who
+are fond of learning poetry by heart will find time well spent in
+learning "Proud Maisie". Only when genius is most richly endowed can
+it be so generous in its giving as Scott is in his novels with his
+songs.
+
+
+
+
+{28}
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SCOTT'S OWN STORY
+
+Walter Scott was born August 15th, 1771, in a house belonging to his
+father at the head of the College Wynd in Edinburgh, Scotland. The
+family was well-to-do and happily situated. But when he was eighteen
+months old, the little lad had a serious illness which left him a
+cripple. Every effort was made to cure his lameness. He was sent to
+live with his grand-parents on the farm at Sandy Knowe, but while he
+gained strength, he was slow in learning to walk and his left leg
+remained shrunken. He grew up tall and strong, unusually good
+looking and attractive. When he was a man he thought nothing of
+walking thirty miles in a day. Apparently, his lameness had no
+influence upon his character, except that it helped to make him
+considerate. His biographer says that he was always tender to those
+who had any bodily misfortune.
+
+Edinburgh is a beautiful city. Those who belong to it love their
+romantic town with devotion. But it was fortunate for Walter Scott,
+and for us also, that he spent some of his early years on a farm.
+What he saw and learned at that time influenced all his future life.
+A story is told that when he was three years old, and unable to help
+himself, because he was so lame, he was left alone {29} in the open
+air at some distance from the farmhouse, as his aunt often wisely
+left him. A thunder storm came up and when they hastened to the
+little fellow they found him lying on his back, clapping his hands at
+each flash of lightning, and crying out, "Bonny! bonny!" There was
+never anything lacking in Walter Scott's happy courage, or in his
+tranquil enjoyment of the beauties he saw in nature or read about in
+books.
+
+His aunt used to read aloud to him. Like some other boys one has
+known, he played out by himself the battles described as he imagined
+they might have been fought. He was fascinated by old tales, old
+ballads and by history. From his early manhood he had a passion for
+all kinds of antiquarian research. When he was a lad he was sent to
+Edinburgh High School, a famous school, and here after school hours
+and during recess he became known to the other boys as a wonderful
+adept at relating stories. His audiences were closely attentive and
+delighted. He says of himself in a short fragment of autobiography
+that he was not a dunce, "but an incorrigibly idle imp". Perhaps his
+chief pursuit was reading. Some of the books he read were Ossian,
+which is compact of Highland myth and story, Spenser, an exquisite
+English poet, many novelists and other Poets, and the great
+collection of ballads known as Percy's _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_.
+These are all manly books, and stir the reader's blood and
+imagination, as Sir Philip Sidney said, like the sound of a trumpet.
+
+After Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh University, where boys went
+at that time when {30} they were very young, Scott became a lawyer.
+The study of Scots law was to him an unending source of interest.
+But when he was a young lawyer without much to do, he was in the
+habit of telling romances to other young lawyers like himself who
+were waiting for clients. As the boys at school used to be
+fascinated, so the young lawyers later came under the same spell.
+
+We have by this time the origins of Scott's great work, a natural and
+unconquerable genius for writing and romance, love for romantic
+Edinburgh and all Scotland, the farm at Sandy Knowe, ballads, tales
+and history, Scots law, old customs, the characters and the people
+whom he knew and loved.
+
+He began by translating songs from other languages, then by editing
+and publishing old ballads and songs belonging to his own country,
+what is called minstrelsy, the songs of wandering poets. His first
+book, _Minstrelsy of the Border_, was published very early in the
+nineteenth century. He married, in 1797, Miss Charpentier, the
+daughter of a refugee from the French Revolution. They lived in a
+cottage at Lasswade, six miles from Edinburgh. Later, their home was
+at Ashestiel, also in the country, an old house on the south bank of
+the Tweed. His own first writing, a poetical story, _The Lay of the
+Last Minstrel_, was published in 1805. He held during his life
+various law offices under the Crown, beginning as Sheriff Depute,
+then Sheriff, and later a Clerk of the Court of Session. Although he
+wrote many books he made a point of keeping other employment, so
+writing might be, as he said, not a bad crutch, but {31} a good
+staff. But by 1805, it was plain that literature was to be his main
+occupation.
+
+Scott had a singularly affectionate nature, which in itself is almost
+sufficient to make a happy life. With his first fee as a lawyer, he
+bought a silver taper stand for his mother's desk. Lockhart writes
+of him, "No man cared less about popular admiration and applause; but
+for the least chill on the affection of any near and dear to him he
+had the sensitiveness of a maiden." We find as we learn to know
+people that powers of affection and love for those who belong to them
+are marks of the finest natures.
+
+Scott was considerate of the feelings of everyone, and he was greatly
+loved. He made much money by his writings, first by his romantic
+verse which took the world by storm, and later by the long series of
+great novels, which were published at first anonymously, and only
+acknowledged by Scott as his own with reluctance years after he began
+publishing them. With his love for beautiful scenery, for Scotland,
+and for everything belonging to dignified and delightful ways of
+living, it was natural that Scott, from the result of his labours,
+should buy an estate and build on it a castle called Abbotsford.
+Here he lived with his family, dealing bountifully and kindly with
+many dependents and followers. He had tender care for all his
+neighbours, gentle and simple, as the old phrase runs. Scott valued
+what he had because it gave him the power to be good to other people.
+"Sir Walter speaks to every man as if they were blood relations" was
+the description given of his manner by one of the men who worked {32}
+on his estate to an inquirer. Tom Purdie, a personal attendant, had
+been a salmon poacher, and was one of Scott's great friends.
+
+It is difficult to give a sufficiently convincing picture of his
+happy, beneficient, affectionate life, spent in beautiful
+surroundings, in friendliness and family joys, and yet at the same
+time do justice to Scott's incessant toil. He worked unstintedly,
+and he loved his work. He was so popular and famous, it seemed all
+he had to do was to sit down and write a novel and the world would
+ring with its fame. But Scott was at work generally before six
+o'clock in the morning. He was a man of remarkable industry as well
+as of unusual gifts. Yet, those who knew him, noticed first and
+valued most his kindness and simplicity.
+
+There are two books in which we can find details of the character and
+the life of Scott. These are _The Life of Sir Walter Scott_, written
+by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, and Scott's _Journal_, written by
+himself, and meant only for his own reading.
+
+He was a man of great reasonableness and common sense. Lord
+Cockburn, a distinguished lawyer, who was a friend, said that in his
+opinion Walter Scott's sense was a still more wonderful thing than
+his genius. He did not care to talk much about his writing, but
+rather of what he had done or seen. There was so little made of
+Scott's writing in his home, either by himself or anyone else, that
+his children did not know much about it. Someone asked Sophia, his
+eldest daughter, how she liked one of his books. Her answer was that
+she had not read it. Walter, the eldest boy, came {33} home from
+school one day, plainly showing signs of having been in a fight, and
+said that the other boys had called him a "lassie". One of the boys
+had said something about _The Lady of the Lake_, and he was unaware
+that there was a book of that name written by his father. These
+incidents are related to show how simple and natural were Scott's
+ideas of himself and his work. He was a rapid, even at times a
+careless, writer, but he was incontestably a great writer. He was,
+however, greater as a man.
+
+No one can read his life without being charmed by Scott's love for
+his dogs. Cats, too, were favourites in the family circle. All the
+domestic creatures were as fond of Scott as he was of them. You will
+find in Lockhart's _Life_, chapter nine, a description by Washington
+Irving, the American author, of a visit to Abbotsford, and of Scott
+and his dogs. It is, perhaps, as vivid a picture as has ever been
+drawn of Scott.
+
+During the last years of his life, Scott undertook the payment of a
+heavy debt. He had been partner in a publishing enterprise which was
+conducted with far too little reasonable caution in entering upon
+undertakings and expenditure. Although Scott was not an active
+partner, and unfortunately had not informed himself about the firm's
+transactions, he was liable for the full amount of the debt. He
+refused to become a bankrupt and set himself the enormous task of
+paying every creditor in full. This last labour of his life is a
+heroic story. Friends, some of them unknown friends, offered him
+money. His sense of honour was so high that he would allow no
+mitigation {34} of his task. He laboured single-handed and paid back
+large sums to his creditors. The final payments were arranged only
+after his death. He had cut down his way of living at Abbotsford.
+He allowed himself little rest and no luxury. Any boy who reads this
+story will learn from it something of the nature of business and of
+what is wise and right in business dealings. He will learn to love
+too, as we all may, Sir Walter's radiant sense of the beauty of
+honour.
+
+We discover at last the true reason why the characters in Scott's
+novels are great. It is because he is himself great and noble, with
+such a nobility that in all likelihood the world will keep him always
+as one of its heroes. His last words to his son-in-law, Lockhart,
+"My dear, be a good man", come into the minds of many people every
+now and then as they live their daily lives and bring them help and
+encouragement. We read Scott's novels because they tell thrilling
+and romantic stories; and we read them again for their nobility,
+high-mindedness, dignity and beauty.
+
+
+
+
+{35}
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE TEMPEST AND OTHER OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS
+
+Shakespeare, as you know, wrote plays. Here is the story of one of
+these plays: Prospero, an old man, and his daughter, Miranda, a very
+beautiful girl, lived alone on an island in the sea far from any
+known land. Their only dwelling was a cell made in a rock; probably
+the cell was really a cave in the rock. Now Prospero was a duke in
+exile, the Duke of Milan in Italy, and Miranda was a princess, his
+only child.
+
+Prospero was a very clever man and a great student. He had had in
+Milan a younger brother, Antonio, to whom he trusted all his affairs
+so that he might give his time wholly to study. Prospero's special
+study was magic. Shakespeare wrote this play very early in the
+seventeenth century: _The Tempest_, therefore, is more than three
+hundred years old.
+
+Antonio conspired against his brother Prospero, and in this
+conspiracy he was aided by the King of Naples. Prospero and Miranda,
+then a baby, were kidnapped, carried on board a ship and later cast
+adrift in a small boat. Finally, the sea carried them to this
+island. A kind nobleman, Gonzalo, had concealed on the little boat,
+water, food, clothing and some books, which were Prospero's books of
+magic.
+
+{36}
+
+Prospero and Miranda lived for years on the island. During this time
+her father took care of Miranda and educated her. Now the island was
+an enchanted island which had been placed under a spell by a witch
+called Sycorax, who had died shortly before Prospero and Miranda came
+to the island, leaving a son who was a misshapen dwarf called
+Caliban. Prospero found this dwarf, and tried to teach him how to
+speak and how to do useful work, but Caliban was not able to learn
+much. Perhaps he was not very willing to learn.
+
+The witch Sycorax, before she died, had imprisoned in trees on the
+island many good spirits, because they would not obey her commands;
+since they were gentle spirits and Sycorax had tried to get them to
+do cruel and wicked deeds. Prospero found these good spirits and
+released them from their prisons. The chief of these spirits was
+Ariel. You will love Ariel very much when you read about him in the
+play.
+
+Now we have the island, Prospero and Miranda, Ariel and a host of
+other gentle spirits, and Caliban, whose only idea of God was that
+there was something more powerful than he was himself. But Caliban
+thought his god must be cruel, hard and unkind as well as strong,
+since he did not know any better. This idea he had of a god he
+called Setebos.
+
+Prospero was able to work magic. Three hundred years ago some people
+believed in magic. Prospero, since he was a good man, never wanted
+to work anything but good with his magic; and he used Ariel and the
+other gentle spirits whom he had released from prison to carry out
+his {37} commands. _The Tempest_, you will understand by this time,
+is a good deal like what we call a fairy tale. But fairy tales are
+lovely things.
+
+The King of Naples, his son Ferdinand, Antonio, who had usurped his
+brother's place as Duke of Milan, and a number of noblemen, including
+kind Gonzalo, when the play begins had been on a voyage on a ship.
+Prospero by his magic raised a great storm, and commanded Ariel to
+bring the ship to the island where it was to be shipwrecked, but
+everyone on board was to be brought to shore safe and unharmed.
+
+Prospero's plan was that Ferdinand, who was an admirable young
+prince, and his dear and beautiful daughter Miranda, should fall in
+love with one another. Further, he planned by this shipwreck that
+Antonio should be punished and he himself restored to the Dukedom of
+Milan. In the play, we see and hear all these things happening.
+Prospero's plans are carried out exactly as he directed. Ferdinand
+and Miranda find each other so beautiful and attractive that at first
+sight they fall in love. Antonio is confronted with his wrong doing.
+Gonzalo finds reward and praise. Prospero is again Duke of Milan,
+buries his books and magic garment and gives up magic forever. The
+king of Naples repents his misdoing, and is only too happy for his
+son Ferdinand to marry Miranda. And most joyous of all these
+happenings, the gentle Ariel and his companions, having served
+Prospero well, regain full liberty, and fly away to wander free in
+islands where beautiful trees and flowers grow, there to live happy
+all the long day.
+
+{38}
+
+We cannot help wondering how Shakespeare came to write this play
+about a far away, unknown, enchanted island. It is almost certain
+that people have been able to make a very good guess at the origin of
+the story. _The Tempest_ was written in 1610 or 1611. In 1609, a
+British fleet, commanded by Sir George Somers, which had sailed for
+the new plantation of Jamestown in Virginia, met a great storm in the
+West Indies. The Admiral's ship, the _Sea-Venture_, was driven on
+the coast of one of the unknown Bermuda Isles. The sailors had to
+stay there for ten months. Finally, they escaped in two boats which
+they made out of cedar logs, and in these boats they managed to reach
+Virginia. When these sailors returned to London in 1610, there was
+great excitement; one person would report to another their marvellous
+stories. The island had been over-run with wild pigs, and the
+sailors said they had heard odd noises. Therefore, they concluded
+that the island was enchanted. Shakespeare, who was writing his
+wonderful plays at the time, is likely to have heard these stories;
+and he made use of the sailors' tales of enchantment in a strange,
+beautiful, fairy-like play.
+
+Shakespeare's plays are printed, so that we can read them in books.
+They are also, of course, acted in theatres. Some of you may have
+seen one of Shakespeare's plays, or more than one, acted on a stage.
+As you grow older, you will have opportunities, let us hope, to see
+great actors in Shakespeare's plays. For, since the plays are so
+great themselves, they can only be acted properly by great actors.
+You can always read these {39} plays in books, however; and some of
+Shakespeare's plays seem almost better when they are read than when
+they are acted. The reason for this is that we can imagine scenes
+more vividly sometimes than we can see them when other people try to
+show them to us.
+
+One of the best ways to read Shakespeare is to take a scene from one
+of his plays, such as the Casket scene in _The Merchant of Venice_,
+assign the characters to different people, boys and girls, or men and
+women, and then read the scene aloud, each character speaking in his
+turn. You will enjoy the reading better if someone first tells the
+complete story of the play.
+
+The whole world highly regards, and very many people dearly love,
+Shakespeare's plays. There are many of them. Some of the plays to
+choose first for reading are, _The Merchant of Venice_, _Julius
+Caesar_, scenes from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, from _As You Like
+It_, _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Twelfth Night_. How delightful you will
+find the fairy scenes in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, and the scenes
+in the forest from _As You Like It_.
+
+_Julius Caesar_ is a political play. Politics, as you know, is one
+of the great pursuits of men; and more recently, political questions
+are becoming of importance to women. Politics is not a way to earn
+one's living, like farming, or being a doctor, or an engineer; but it
+offers one of the chief avenues by which one may serve one's country.
+_Julius Caesar_, besides being a very interesting story, is a
+splendidly wise and clear picture of how men and women are influenced
+by political questions and actions.
+
+{40}
+
+Shakespeare wrote and put into his plays numbers of very beautiful
+songs. They are so beautiful and natural that to read them is almost
+like listening to the song of a bird. In _The Tempest_ you will find
+Ariel's songs, "Come unto these yellow sands", "Full fathom five thy
+father lies", and "Where the bee sucks, there suck I". There are
+songs in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Amiens in _As You Like It_,
+sings "Under the greenwood tree", and "Blow, blow, thou winter wind".
+"It was a lover and his lass" comes near the end of the play.
+_Twelfth Night_, too, is rich in songs, "O mistress mine, where are
+you roaming?", "Come away, come away, death"; the play ends with the
+inimitable, "When that I was and a little tiny boy".
+
+Shakespeare is as great in the poetry of his plays as he is in their
+dramatic action. He had the power so to suit his thoughts with words
+that our minds are filled and enriched with life and beauty. Read
+Prospero's great speech which you will find in _The Tempest_, act iv,
+scene i.
+
+ These our actors,
+ As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
+ Are melted into air, into thin air:
+ And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
+ The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
+ The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
+ Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
+ And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
+ Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
+ As dreams are made on, and our little life
+ Is rounded with a sleep.
+
+
+
+
+{41}
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SHAKESPEARE--THE GREAT WORLD ITSELF
+
+Shakespeare lived at a time when people, as a rule, did not write and
+print the details of famous men's lives while they were living or
+soon after their deaths. We know much of the daily lives of such
+people as Scott and Dickens, and many others like Queen Victoria,
+Napoleon, Lincoln, Disraeli, Gladstone. But we know comparatively
+little about Shakespeare, partly because many people during his
+lifetime thought of him only as a play actor and writer of plays, and
+partly because there were at that time few books and there was little
+reading. Incidents of history and in the lives of men and women were
+told by older people to their children. These stories were
+remembered and repeated and served instead of printed books. Such
+traditional knowledge is sometimes inaccurate, but it is generally
+interesting, and frequently true.
+
+We know that Shakespeare was born April 22nd or 23rd, 1564, in
+Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, England. He was baptised on April
+26th of that year; his baptism is on record. He died on his
+birthday, April 23rd, 1616, fifty-two years later.
+
+His father was John Shakespeare, who sold farm produce in Stratford,
+and his mother was {42} Mary Arden, who came of what are called
+gentlefolk. He was married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway. They had three
+children, Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. Susanna later married John
+Hall, a doctor of medicine; and Judith married Thomas Quiney, a
+vintner, in the same year that her father died. But Hamnet died in
+1596; his death was a heavy grief to Shakespeare.
+
+Shakespeare went to London probably in 1586. The story told by
+tradition is that he had been poaching on a neighbouring estate
+belonging to a Sir Thomas Lucy. In any case, he left Stratford and
+journeyed to London, a small London, very different from the great
+city of to-day; nevertheless, it must have been an interesting place.
+Shakespeare acted, and wrote plays. By 1593, he had achieved a noted
+success. Four years later, 1597, he bought New Place, the finest
+house in Stratford. At first, he paid a visit there only once a
+year. Then he left London, and spent his later years in Stratford at
+New Place. His custom was to write two of his plays each year.
+
+We know something of Shakespeare's character from what his
+contemporaries said of him. We know what interested him most, and
+probably what he cared about most, from his plays. He was most
+frequently called by other people the gentle Shakespeare. For a man
+of great genius who was busy making wonderful plays, and who could
+have met few people, if any, who were his intellectual equals, to be
+called gentle by everyone who knew him is a great tribute to the
+lovableness of his disposition and the sweetness of his temper. It
+shows that he must have been {43} courteous, patient and considerate.
+We know from his writings that he was a well-balanced man. He was
+genial, and he had a great zest for life.
+
+He seems to have been fond of many different kinds of characters.
+Men of action, that is, men who do things, and men of thought, whose
+philosophy and understanding take hold of the facts of life and look
+deep into their meaning, were equally understood and loved by
+Shakespeare. How do we know this? We know because he created such
+thinkers as Hamlet, and his King Richard II, and Macbeth, and such
+men of action as are in his great historical plays and especially
+Othello. But we cannot help thinking that Shakespeare loved men of
+action better and was more devoted to them than he was to those who
+were thinkers chiefly. A critic named Hazlitt wrote of Shakespeare,
+"His talent consisted in sympathy with human nature in all its
+shapes, degrees, depressions and elevations." Sympathy of this kind
+is not only a great gift, but it is also a very rare one. His
+universal sympathy is one reason why we admire Shakespeare so much.
+
+There are other facts about Shakespeare's life that we learn from his
+plays. His youth was brilliant, full of happy exuberance and
+exaltation, confident and swift. At this time, he wrote such plays
+as _Romeo and Juliet_, 1592, the great historical plays, 1592-1594,
+and again in 1597-1598, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, 1594-5, _As You
+Like It_, 1599, _Twelfth Night_, 1600, _Julius Caesar_, 1600. You do
+not need to remember these dates, but notice how rapidly one great
+play follows another.
+
+Shakespeare's full maturity, following youth, {44} begins about 1599.
+Later than 1600, he wrote such plays as _Hamlet_, 1602, _Othello_,
+1604, _Macbeth_, 1606, _King Lear_, 1607, _Anthony and Cleopatra_,
+1608. These are generally regarded as his greatest plays.
+
+In the last years of his life we can think of him as living at New
+Place in Stratford, with peace, happiness and tranquility. His young
+daughter Judith must have been his special, much-loved companion. We
+imagine that possibly Miranda in _The Tempest_ is like Judith;
+Shakespeare may have been thinking of himself a little when he wrote
+some of Prospero's speeches. To this period belong three calm, wise
+and beautiful plays which were the last that he wrote, _Cymbeline_,
+1610, _The Winter's Tale_, 1611, and _The Tempest_, 1611.
+
+Where did Shakespeare obtain his marvelous knowledge of life and
+people? The answer evidently is, from life itself and from people
+themselves. He studied people and understood them. His own heart
+and nature taught him wonderful knowledge. From older people, he
+heard stories of the Wars of the Roses. These stories undoubtedly
+gave him his knowledge of warfare, soldiers, battles and politics.
+He read such books as Holinshed's _Chronicles_, North's translation
+of Plutarch's _Lives_ and translations of the choicest Italian novels
+of the time. He probably had read Chaucer. He was familiar with all
+the writings, plays, poems, and pamphlets of his contemporaries. The
+time when Shakespeare lived was one of the greatest ages in the
+history of the world. He himself makes any age in which he lived a
+{45} great age; but there were living at that time many other great
+writers, although not as great as Shakespeare. He therefore must
+have read much. He almost certainly was one of the people who, as we
+say, can take the whole heart out of a book at a single reading.
+
+It would be foolish to say that it is easy to read all Shakespeare's
+plays. Comparatively few people, old or young, can understand them
+altogether. But to read those plays that one can understand is a
+very great adventure. We find in them, even if we do not comprehend
+everything, so much that is worth while, great life, beauty,
+sweetness, courtesy, benignity, generosity and honour.
+
+There were customs in Shakespeare's day, points of view, judgments
+and prejudices, which the world has outgrown. We have much to learn
+still, but the world to-day is a better place than it was in the
+sixteenth century. We find some things in Shakespeare's plays that
+grate on us harshly, such as the feeling towards Shylock, the Jew, in
+_The Merchant of Venice_.
+
+Shakespeare's greatest gift to us is that he makes us feel and know
+how wonderful life is. He puts before us in his plays the whole
+world, and we can look at it and see how beautiful it is. He shows
+us men and women, and although he wrote long ago people who read his
+plays to-day find his men and women so interesting that we think
+ourselves very fortunate if we can see a great actor play Hamlet or a
+great actress show us the way in which charming Rosalind may have
+walked and spoken in the forest of Arden. No {46} other writer has
+ever been able to create such women characters as Shakespeare.
+
+The best and soundest knowledge of Shakespeare comes slowly. It is
+good to read such speeches in his plays as Brutus' speech in _Julius
+Caesar_, Act iv, scene iii, beginning at the words, "There is a tide
+in the affairs of men". When we have learned that speech, we may
+turn to other words, such as these in _King Henry V_:
+
+ There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
+ Would men observingly distil it out.
+
+
+Remember King Henry's saying; it contains truth which is serviceable
+to us all.
+
+Such words as these, and hundreds of other lines, are what make
+Shakespeare, Shakespeare, someone wonderful and lovable who belongs
+to you and to everyone else.
+
+Here is another of his songs, a sad one this time, but very
+beautiful, from _Cymbeline_.
+
+ Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
+ Nor the furious winter's rages;
+ Thou thy worldly task hast done,
+ Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:
+ Golden lads and girls all must,
+ As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
+
+ Fear no more the frown o' the great;
+ Thou are past the tyrant's stroke;
+ Care no more to clothe and eat;
+ To thee the reed is as the oak;
+ The sceptre, learning, physic, must
+ All follow this and come to dust.
+
+{47}
+
+ Fear no more the lightning-flash,
+ Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
+ Fear not slander, censure rash;
+ Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
+ All lovers young, all lovers must
+ Consign to thee and come to dust.
+
+
+
+
+{48}
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+STORIES FROM THE BIBLE
+
+Suppose someone who had never heard of the Bible wanted to know what
+it was, how could we explain, or describe, its nature and character,
+most clearly and truly? The meaning of the word Bible is simply the
+book: the greatest and most important book in the world.
+
+In the first place, the Bible is made up of a number of other books;
+there are thirty-nine of these books in the Old Testament, and
+twenty-seven in the New Testament; that is, there are sixty-six books
+in the Bible altogether.
+
+These parts, or books, are of many different kinds. They contain
+traditions, histories, genealogies, biographies, songs of victory or
+love, hymns, psalms, wise sayings, censures and encouragements by the
+prophets of God, dramas, stories, and essays. In the New Testament,
+we find the gospel story of Christ; annals, which are a simple form
+of history; and letters from one person to another or from one person
+to a church.
+
+Many years ago, some writers used to call the Bible the Divine
+Library, _Bibliotheca Divina_; at that time, writing generally was in
+the Latin language.
+
+The first book in the Bible, Genesis, as you know begins by telling
+about the creation of the world. The story of the development of
+mankind {49} spiritually,---this means in learning to know about
+God--is pictured for us in all the books of the Bible. Man's
+knowledge of God grows, from the creation, slowly but steadily,
+higher and deeper and wider; and we read about this growth in the
+Bible. Slowly the people of the world lose some of their ignorance
+of God, and as they learn of God they begin to give up, or as the
+Bible says, they forsake, their evil practices. For instance, the
+practice of keeping slaves was once followed in all parts of the
+known world. Then, presently, men began to see that they could not
+keep other men as slaves, because a better knowledge of God taught
+them that all men are brothers. But, even yet, in some parts of the
+world there are slaves waiting to be freed. Mankind's progress
+towards God and what is good, told about in the Bible, is still going
+on.
+
+The revelation of God reaches its consummation in Christ. Now, the
+Old Testament, from the beginning to the end, is the story of the
+world being prepared for the coming of Christ; the New Testament
+tells the story of His coming. We learn from Christ what God truly
+is.
+
+The Bible tells us of Christ. This is perhaps the clearest and
+simplest answer to the question as to what the Bible is. The Bible,
+because it tells us of Christ, is intended for every one. It is
+printed in many different languages, and read all over the world.
+
+There are many stories in the Bible, both in the Old and New
+Testaments, which we can find and read for ourselves, interesting and
+beautiful stories. Probably you have read most of them {50} already,
+or have heard them read aloud. But, as you know, we like to hear or
+read a true story many times, and these are true stories. A list of
+a number of these stories from the Bible is printed at the end of
+this chapter, with the names of the different books in which we find
+them, and chapters and verses for each story.
+
+Many of the stories, perhaps most of them, are about boys and girls.
+But the first on the list is the story of how the world was made.
+Notice how splendidly the man who wrote the story makes clear that it
+was God who made the world. Notice too, in the story of the Little
+Maid, II Kings chap. v, 1-19, what fine people Naaman, the Syrian,
+and his wife, must have been; the happy relations between them and
+the people who worked for them are very evident in the story, and
+indeed are used to help in Naaman's cure.
+
+The list ends with the history of Paul's voyage and shipwreck, a
+wonderful, true story of the sea.
+
+
+ FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT
+
+ The Creation of the World Genesis, chap. i, 1-31;
+ chap. ii, 1-3
+
+ Noah and the Flood Genesis, chap. vi, 9-22;
+ chap vii, 1-24; chap viii,
+ 1-22
+
+ Jacob's Dream Genesis, chap. xxviii, 10-22
+
+ Joseph and his Brethren Genesis, chap. xxxvii, 5-28
+
+ Pharaoh's Dream Genesis, chap. xli, 1-57
+
+ Joseph's Brethren come to Genesis, chap. xiii, 1-38
+ buy Corn
+
+ Joseph Entertains His Genesis, chap. xliii, 1-34
+ Brethren
+
+{51}
+
+ Joseph makes Himself Genesis, chap. xliv, 1-13,
+ Known to His Brethren 18-34; chap. xlv, 1-15
+
+ Jacob comes to His Son Genesis, chap. xlv, 25-28;
+ Joseph chap. xlvi, 1-7, 28-30;
+ chap. xlvii, 1-10
+
+ The Birth and Upbringing Exodus, chap. i, 7-14;
+ of Moses chap. ii, 1-10
+
+ God Speaks to the Child I Samuel, chap. ii, 18, 19;
+ Samuel chap. iii, 1-21
+
+ Samuel Anoints David to I Samuel, chap. xvi, 1-23
+ be King
+
+ David Slays Goliath I Samuel, chap. xvii, 1-49
+
+ David and Jonathan I Samuel, chap. xviii, 1-4;
+ chap. xx, 1-23, 35-42
+
+ The Widow's Cruise I Kings, chap. xvii, 1-24
+
+ The Translation of Elijah II Kings, chap. ii, 1-12
+
+ The Child of the Shunammite II Kings, chap. iv, 8-37
+
+ The Little Maid II Kings, chap. v, 1-19
+
+ The Angel Guards II Kings, chap. vi, 8-17
+
+
+
+ THE NEW TESTAMENT
+
+ The Birth of Christ Luke, chap. ii, 4-19
+
+ The Star of Bethlehem Matthew, chap. ii, 1-12
+
+ Christ when he was Luke, chap. ii, 40-52
+ Twelve Years Old
+
+ The Sower Matthew, chap. xiii, 3-9,
+ 18-23
+
+ The Mustard Seed Matthew, chap. xiii, 31, 32
+
+ The Hidden Treasure and Matthew, chap. xiii, 44-46
+ the Pearl of Great Price
+
+ The Unforgiving Servant Matthew, chap. xviii, 23-35
+
+ The Labourers in the Vineyard Matthew, chap. xx, 1-16
+
+ The Two Sons Matthew, chap. xxi, 28-32
+
+{52}
+
+ The Wicked Husbandmen Matthew, chap. xxi, 33-46
+
+ The Marriage of the King's Son Matthew, chap. xxii, 1-14
+
+ The Good Samaritan Luke, chap. x, 25-37
+
+ The Foolish Rich Man Luke, chap. xii, 13-21
+
+ Humility Luke, chap. xiv, 7-11
+
+ The Great Supper Luke, chap. xiv, 12-24
+
+ The Lost Sheep and the Luke, chap. xv, 1-10
+ Lost Piece of Silver
+
+ The Prodigal Son Luke, chap. xv, 11-32
+
+ The Pharisee and the Publican Luke, chap. xviii, 9-14
+
+ The Entombment and the Luke, chap. xxiii, 50-56
+ Resurrection John, chap. xx, 1-29
+
+ The Evening Walk to Emmaus Luke, chap. xxiv, 12-32
+
+ Paul's Voyage and Shipwreck Acts, chap. xxvii, 1-44
+
+
+
+
+{53}
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIVING WATERS
+
+About ten million copies of the Bible are circulated in a year; this
+means so many copies either are bought, or given to people without
+payment, yearly. The reason for such a great and constant demand for
+the Bible by all kinds of people is because they find in it something
+they need. What they find is spiritual life, life for the soul.
+
+It is interesting to know something about the authorized English
+translation of the Bible. The books of the Bible, as you know, were
+not first written in English. Those who wrote the books of the
+Bible, except possibly in one or two instances, were Jews. Copies of
+the books of the Bible, before the fifteenth century, had to be
+written by hand. Following the invention of printing in the first
+part of the fifteenth century, the Bible was one of the first books
+to be printed. But still, there were few books and there was little
+reading. Books of any kind were expensive and many people did not
+know how to read.
+
+In the sixteenth century, there were in existence several
+translations or versions of some of the books of the Bible; and there
+was a great desire on the part of English people to be able to read
+the whole Bible in English so that everyone might {54} understand it.
+Comparatively few people could read Latin, and the translations in
+English were of some of the books only.
+
+The authorized English translation of the Bible was first published
+in 1611. It was the work of some forty-seven scholars who had taken
+all the different versions then in use and had translated and
+compiled the various readings into one book. You will recognize that
+1611 is a date belonging to the time when English literature was in
+one of its most glorious periods. The authorized English translation
+of the Bible is written in very perfect English. It is what we call
+a masterpiece. The beautiful diction of the authorized version helps
+us to remember the stories of the Bible, and the great passages in
+which we find our highest spiritual life.
+
+A list of some of the wonderful passages in the Bible, especially
+such passages as were written to tell of the life of Christ and to
+record His sayings, is given at the end of this chapter. You will
+find the Ten Commandments, which many of you know by heart, in
+Exodus, chap. xix, 1-24, chap. xx, 1-2. Solomon's great prayer at
+the dedication of the Temple is in I Kings, chap. viii, 22-58. The
+Book of Psalms is read by countless numbers of people all through
+their lives. Some of the Psalms you will specially want to read are
+i, xv, xix, xxiii, xxiv, xxvii, xlvi, lxvii, c, ciii, cvii, cxxi,
+cxxvi, cxxvii, cxxxiv, cxlv, cxlviii, and cl. Many great passages
+are to be found in the books of the Prophets, and in Job. Read
+Isaiah, chapters xxxv, xl and lv which belong to the greatest
+writings in the world.
+
+{55}
+
+But the most important parts of the Bible for us to read, the easiest
+to read, the most simple and beautiful, are these which tell of the
+life of Christ.
+
+
+ PASSAGES TELLING OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST FROM THE
+ NEW TESTAMENT
+
+ The Sermon on the Mount Matthew, chaps. v, vi and vii
+
+ Rest for the Weary Matthew, chap. xi 25-30
+
+ The Greatest in the Kingdom Matthew, chap. xviii, 1-14
+ of Heaven
+
+ The Young Man of Great Matthew, chap. xix, 16-22
+ Possessions
+
+ The Two Great Commandments Matthew, chap. xxii, 35-40
+
+ The Judgment Day Matthew, chap. xxv, 31-46
+
+ The Widow's Two Mites Mark, chap. xii, 41-44
+
+ Jesus Calls Zachaeus Luke, chap. xix, 1-10
+
+ The Water of Life John, chap. iv, 5-26
+
+ The Bread of Life John, chap. vi, 26-35
+
+ The Good Shepherd John, chap. x, 1-16
+
+ The Raising of Lazarus John, chap. xi, 1-46
+
+ Christ Blesses the Children Mark, chap. x, 13-16
+
+ Christ's Bequest of Peace John, chap. xiv, 1-27
+
+ Christ's Intercessory Prayer John, chap. xviii, 1-26
+
+ Christ's Commission to His Matthew, chap. xxviii, 16-20
+ Followers
+
+ Who Shall Separate Us Romans, chap. viii, 18-39
+
+ The Two Crowns I Corinthians, chap. ix, 24-27
+
+ Charity I Corinthians, chap. xiii, 1-13
+
+ Resurrection of the Dead I Corinthians, chap. xv, 1-58
+
+{56}
+
+ The Fruit of the Spirit Galatians, chap. v, 16-24
+
+ Heavenly Armour Ephesians, chap. vi, 10-8
+
+ The Crown of Righteousness II Timothy, chap. iv, 6-8
+
+ The Children of Light I Thessalonians, chap. v, 1-10
+
+ The Cloud of Witnesses Hebrews, chap. xi, 1-40;
+ chap. xii, 1-2
+
+ Pure Religion James, chap. i, 1-27
+
+ Behold I stand at the Door Revelations, chap. iii, 14-22
+ and Knock
+
+ The Saints in Glory Revelations, chap. vii, 9-17
+
+ John's Vision of the New Revelations, chap. xxi, 1-27;
+ Jerusalem chap. xxii, 1-21
+
+
+
+
+{57}
+
+PART II
+
+ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE
+
+
+
+{59}
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DUMAS--HUGO--STEVENSON
+
+A story can scarcely open better than by showing us a young man
+setting out to find his fortune. One of the most eminent of romantic
+writers, Alexandre Dumas, begins _The Three Musketeers_ after this
+fashion. We have a choice of reading the story either in French or
+English. Dumas, a Frenchman, wrote _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ in
+French, and, therefore, naturally, this thrilling story is more
+wonderful in French even than it is in English. But an English
+translation, one can promise every boy and girl, is very well worth
+reading.
+
+On an April morning of the year 1626, in the market town of Meung, in
+the country of France, a young man, eighteen years of age, came to
+the door of an inn. He was riding an orange-coloured pony, none too
+good a specimen of a steed. His name was d'Artagnan. He came from
+Gascony, and in a story it is always taken for granted that Gascons
+are very proud and hot-tempered. He was poor and somewhat shabby in
+appearance. A man at one of the windows of the inn appeared to be
+laughing at him and at the queer colour of his pony; indeed the man
+had called the pony a buttercup. D'Artagnan, who was wearing a
+sword, at once challenged the man, Rochefort, to fight with him.
+There was a fight which was rather a scuffle than a combat. Still
+d'Artagnan {60} acquitted himself with credit, although later he was
+beaten into insensibility by Rochefort's servants. He lost, however,
+the precious letter his father had given him to M. de Treville,
+Captain of the King's Musketeers. Nevertheless, that same day he
+rode to the St. Antoine Gate of Paris, sold his horse, and on the day
+following presented himself in the antechamber of M. de Treville.
+
+There he meets the three famous musketeers, Athos, Aramis and
+Porthos. Louis XIII is King of France, Anne of Austria is Queen, and
+Cardinal Richelieu is as powerful a leader as either of them. So
+begins the thrilling series of romances in which d'Artagnan appears,
+the whole series being the masterpiece of Alexandre Dumas.
+
+_The Three Musketeers_ is the first story about d'Artagnan. The
+second is called _Twenty Years After_; the third, _Vicomte de
+Bragelonne_. In the second story, Louis XIII has died and Anne of
+Austria is regent. Her chief minister is Mazarin. We see in his
+youth the young king who is to be the famous Louis XIV. But the
+really important characters are d'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis and
+Porthos; the Vicomte de Bragelonne, who is dearly loved by these four
+heroes, is Athos' son.
+
+French history is shown by Dumas to have a curious relation to
+English history. But the connection is more or less imaginary. When
+we read these stories, it is possible that we may obtain some idea of
+French history, even of English history. We see brilliant scenes of
+colour, romance and intrigue. We read of triumphs, catastrophes and
+great occasions. But what really {61} matters are d'Artagnan's
+splendid wit and audacity, the silent dignity of Athos, the subtlety
+of Aramis, and the marvellous strength of Porthos.
+
+These four form a heroic comradeship. They help, support, rescue and
+defend each other. Danger follows danger. Intrigue leads to
+intrigue. D'Artagnan never fails in strategy, nor Athos in nobility.
+When any one of the four is sorely pressed, the others are certain to
+appear before the danger becomes overwhelming. There are many famous
+episodes in these stories, the recovery by d'Artagnan and his man
+Planchet of the Queen's diamond studs, the release from prison of the
+Duc de Beaufort by means of a colossal pie in which are concealed
+ropes and daggers, the kidnapping of General Monk by d'Artagnan and
+his followers disguised as fishermen, the epic of the death of
+Porthos, who is one of the strongest heroes to be found in any
+romance.
+
+When we read such stories as these written by Dumas we are made to
+feel light-hearted. He is gay and witty, while under wit and gayety
+he hides a tender heart. The man who wrote the stories is himself
+frank, kind and generous, and we discover the same frankness,
+kindness and generosity in the pages of his romances. His writing is
+characterized by speed, directness and clearness. It has been said,
+and no doubt truly, that sometimes a person suffering from
+homesickness has been so invigorated mentally by reading one of
+Dumas' stories that the fit of homesickness has been cured.
+
+Dumas was something of a giant physically, {62} like Porthos.
+Indeed, it is thought that he may have made Porthos a partial
+portrait of himself and of his father, who also was a large man and
+very powerful. Dumas' grandfather, a Frenchman, had left France for
+St. Domingo and there had married a native of the island, a coloured
+woman. Dumas inherited the physical characteristics of his father
+who was like his St. Domingan mother. The vivacity and gaiety we
+find in the works of Dumas may have come in part at least from his
+grandmother. His mother was left a widow early and she and her
+children lived in great poverty. Dumas' immense vitality and high
+spirits conquered many obstacles. We enjoy reading about d'Artagnan,
+Athos, Aramis and Porthos all the more for knowing that the writer
+who invented them and wrote of them so gayly, was a brave man.
+
+Romance carries us easily from one country to another. Yet a second
+noted writer of romance, in some ways more gifted than Dumas, is also
+a Frenchman, Victor Hugo, generally considered greater as a poet than
+as a writer of prose. Two of his books, _Notre Dame de Paris_, and
+_Les Misérables_, belong to the famous books of the world and may be
+read in the French original, preferably of course, or in an English
+translation.
+
+Hugo's romances, as well as the romantic stories of Dumas, were
+inspired to a certain extent by the novels of Sir Walter Scott. But
+in Scott we find ourselves in the sunlight of a reasonable and happy
+world. The atmosphere of Hugo's stories one might compare to that of
+stormy days, illuminated by flashes of lightning. The romance of
+{63} _Notre Dame de Paris_ is dominated by a vision of the cathedral
+in Paris which seems in the story far greater and larger than it is
+actually. Some day you may see the cathedral for yourselves, but
+before doing so, read Hugo's story. It imparts to the famous
+cathedral an air of wonder and mystery which proves to us Hugo's
+remarkable powers as a writer. Round Notre Dame he gathers as
+strange a multitude of people as can be found in any story, the
+beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda, her goat Djali, the terrible dwarf
+Quasimodo, the swarm of beggars, with their beggar king, Claude
+Frollo, Captain Phoebus, Pierre Gringoire, and the unhappy recluse
+Gudule.
+
+An even more remarkable romance by Victor Hugo is named _Les
+Misérables_. The book is more than a story. Hugo brings in so many
+affairs outside the story itself that when we have finished the book
+we feel as if we had read part of the history of the world. You
+remember the strong impulse to heal and relieve the distresses of
+humanity which we found in the novels of Charles Dickens. The same
+powerful motive is seen in action in these romances by Victor Hugo.
+Perhaps there are few books in which we can find explained so clearly
+the problems, distresses and poverty of the older and more crowded
+countries of the continent of Europe as they existed at the time of
+the story. Hugo means to awaken our pity and he does so. Jean
+Valjean, the escaped convict of _Les Misérables_, is condemned by
+harsh and wicked laws, yet he becomes the soul of tenderness and
+goodness. For his sake, and for the sake of the good Bishop Myriel
+who first {64} showed Jean Valjean what love and forgiveness mean, we
+should read some part at least of _Les Misérables_; or we may be able
+to find someone who has read Hugo's immensely long novel and is
+willing to tell us the story of Jean Valjean.
+
+It is difficult to imagine a sharper contrast to the writings of
+Victor Hugo than the gay, youthful, carefree stories which Robert
+Louis Stevenson wrote for young people. Yet Stevenson admired Hugo
+greatly, and was as well one of the most loyal adherents of Dumas.
+Stevenson wrote _Treasure Island_ to help his step-son, Lloyd
+Osbourne, then a boy of twelve years old, through rather a dull and
+lonely holiday spent near Braemar in the north of Scotland.
+Stevenson's father, an old man with a boy's heart, used to listen to
+the story when it was read aloud in the afternoons as soon as each
+chapter was written, one chapter a day. It was Thomas Stevenson, the
+father, who wrote out the list of the contents of Billy Bones' sea
+chest.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson loved adventure, and this is one of the
+reasons why _Treasure Island_ is such a delightful story. First, he
+and Lloyd Osbourne drew the map that you will find at the beginning
+of _Treasure Island_. Then the story begins, told by Jim Hawkins,
+whose mother kept an inn, the Admiral Benbow. To the inn comes Billy
+Bones, bringing his sea chest. Later one old sailor after another
+arrives, the most terrifying of all being the blind man Pew, who felt
+his way tapping with a stick. Soon it appears there is hidden
+treasure to be found. Jim Hawkins, Dr. Livesay and Squire Trelawney
+sail away on the {65} _Hispaniola_, but many of the crew on board,
+led by John Silver, mean to take the treasure for themselves.
+
+_Treasure Island_ is one of the best stories of adventure ever
+written for young people. What happens on board the _Hispaniola_ and
+at the island is waiting hidden in the pages of the story for you to
+read.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson was born in the city of Edinburgh, which was
+also Sir Walter Scott's native city. He was a brave, very lovable
+person. All his life, he was more or less of an invalid. But he did
+not allow ill-health to make much difference to his way of living.
+He kept on working, and as you know, his work was writing. There is
+nothing about his books which would make any one think he was an
+invalid. Finally, he and his wife went to live at Samoa in the South
+Seas, where the climate suited him, and he was able to lead a more
+active life than had been possible for some time. He was engaged in
+writing what is judged to be his best work, a novel called _Weir of
+Hermiston_, when he died. Of the many books that Stevenson wrote,
+two others besides _Treasure Island_ are especially interesting to
+boys and girls, _Kidnapped_, and its continuation _Catriona_.
+Together, the two stories make one volume, called _David Balfour_
+after the hero.
+
+Swiftly moving, gay, gallant, easy to read, sweet and sound at heart
+as the kernel of a nut, Robert Louis Stevenson's romantic adventurous
+stories belong more completely than most books of fiction to the
+world of youth. He wrote _A Child's Garden of Verse_, _Underwoods_,
+and _Ballads_, as {66} well as other novels, _Prince Otto_, _Dr.
+Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, and _The Master of Ballantrae_. Stevenson's
+essays are much thought of; and he was an individual and delightful
+letter-writer.
+
+
+
+
+{67}
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ROBINSON CRUSOE--LORNA DOONE--HEREWARD--WESTWARD HO!--ROUND THE WORLD
+IN EIGHTY DAYS--TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA--MIDSHIPMAN
+EASY--PETER SIMPLE--TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST--THE GOLDEN DOG
+
+Let us stop for a little while to consider why we enjoy ourselves so
+much when we read stories of romance and adventure. Indeed, books of
+this character are fascinating to almost everyone.
+
+You have read of the magic carpet which belongs to the world of fairy
+tales. One had only to stand on the carpet and wish one's self in
+any part of the world, to travel where one wanted to be in a flash.
+Many of us would like to travel to strange countries, learn foreign
+customs, see uncommon sights and listen to marvels of which we have
+not known before. Stories of romance and adventure enable us to
+visit, as it were, all parts of the known world; we can even imagine
+ourselves in unknown worlds by means of their assistance. So, in a
+real sense it is true that the magic of a good book of adventure is
+like that of the carpet in the story; it can carry us anywhere.
+
+But perhaps the most enjoyable quality we find in such books is the
+power they have to give us a sense of holiday. We turn to the first
+page of {68} whatever book of adventure we may happen to choose, and
+then in a moment we are away with the hero, travelling swiftly by sea
+or land, wandering on foot, fighting battles, in peril from robbers,
+helping the distressed, finding treasure, climbing mountains, or lost
+in the desert. We are exactly the kind of people we want to be and
+we have a share in all kinds of wonderful happenings.
+
+The adventures in these books may not always seem probable, or, as
+people say, true to life. But this makes very little difference
+fortunately in romantic and adventurous stories which have a splendid
+truth of their own. The truth belonging to these stories is that the
+bravery, strength, resourcefulness, generosity, honour and chivalry
+of which we read are among the finest qualities in the world; these
+qualities, with patience and persistence added, can actually
+sometimes achieve the seemingly impossible happenings related to us.
+
+A moment ago, we spoke of being lost in the desert. You very
+probably know that a book called _Robinson Crusoe_ is the most famous
+story ever written about being cast away on an uninhabited island.
+Indeed, ever since Daniel Defoe wrote the story everyone who likes
+speculating what he would do if this or that happened, has tried to
+imagine what it would be like to live alone by oneself. We can make
+a game of writing down what we think we really could not do without
+under such circumstances. But Daniel Defoe, basing his story partly
+on the actual experiences of a man called Alexander Selkirk, has
+played this game better than anyone else is ever likely to play it.
+_Robinson Crusoe_ is a wonderful story, so vivid, {69} convincing and
+reasonable, that it might be the actual journal of a man, a very
+practical and clever man cast wholly on his own resources, with the
+never failing bounties of nature on which he may draw.
+
+Robinson Crusoe had been many years on the island before he found one
+day, marked on the sand, the print of a naked foot. Imagine how he
+must have looked at it! Of course he knew that it had been made by a
+savage, and so it was. Eventually, he is visited by these savages.
+He rescues one of them; and because Friday was the day of the week on
+which the man was rescued, Robinson Crusoe called him Friday. He was
+a gentle, kind, good fellow who served Robinson Crusoe faithfully all
+the rest of his life. It was thirty-five years before Robinson
+Crusoe was able to return to England; eventually a ship came to the
+island. There is a second part of the story which relates further
+adventures. One of the best parts of the narrative is its peaceful
+ending which tells us that at last the hero found happiness and
+contentment after all his wanderings.
+
+It is interesting to know some of the facts concerning the people who
+have written the books we are reading. Daniel Defoe wrote this great
+story of adventure when he was fifty-eight or fifty-nine years old.
+He had had a stirring and difficult life, had taken part in
+Monmouth's rebellion, had been in prison, and had been put in the
+pillory, which was an old form of punishment now properly abolished.
+He was a journalist and novelist, and wrote a great deal, especially
+in the form of pamphlets. His story, _Robinson Crusoe_, was first
+{70} published as long ago as 1719. Its popularity has never failed
+since then.
+
+Now let us suppose that we are looking at a shelf which holds ten
+books, counting _Robinson Crusoe_ as the first; all the ten are
+exceptionally good stories of adventure. What are the other nine
+books about and who wrote them?
+
+Following _Robinson Crusoe_ comes a tale of robbers, called _Lorna
+Doone_, which is a story of a boy named Jan, or John, Ridd, and of a
+famous outlaw family, the Doones, who lived in a beautiful, wild glen
+of Exmoor, part of the romantic English county of Devon. Richard
+Doddridge Blackmore, the author, knew Exmoor and Devon well. He had
+been a schoolmaster and had studied law before he became a novelist.
+The date of the story belongs to the time of James II. Blackmore
+draws a wonderful picture of the English country at that time,
+remote, strong, romantic and stout-hearted. _Lorna Doone_ is one of
+the most lovable romances ever written.
+
+Jan's father was killed by the Doones when Jan was a lad. He had to
+leave school and come home to take care of his mother and sister, and
+learn how to be the master of a farm. Blackmore was skilled in all
+country knowledge, and he writes truly and attractively of farm life.
+When Jan was a small boy he saw Lorna, an orphan and a lovely child,
+who was of the same kindred as the Doones but not like them in heart
+or disposition. Jan Ridd grows up a giant. He is a great fighter,
+and brave, clean and generous, a hero of the people. We love to read
+of Dunkery Beacon, of the great snow storm, of Jan's long contest
+with the {71} wicked Doones, of Tom Faggis, the highwayman, and his
+mare Winnie, of Jan's mother and sister, of the lovely Lorna who is
+brought by Jan at last home to the farm, and finally of Jan's great
+fight with Carver Doone.
+
+Next are two fine historical romances by Charles Kingsley, who was
+rector of Eversley in Hampshire, England, for many years. Kingsley,
+a vigorous, wholehearted man whose writing is of the same character,
+was the author of a number of well-known books. He was specially
+interested in history and was professor of modern history at
+Cambridge in his later years. _Hereward the Wake_ is a story of the
+Old English. Wake means watchful. What happy, thrilling hours boys
+and girls and other people have spent with Hereward. No one who
+reads this story can forget it. _Westward Ho!_ is a story of the
+sea. The name of its hero is Amyas Leigh. He sails away with
+adventuring ships to the Western world, but returns to command a ship
+in the Armada.
+
+Jules Verne was a Frenchman who wrote stories of scientific
+imagination. His _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ was written
+long before the days of submarines, but in it you will find an
+exciting account of what it is like to live in the depths of the sea.
+Jules Verne's stories have helped to inspire many inventors; this in
+itself is a proud achievement. We may think that _Round the World in
+Eighty Days_ is slow travelling compared with the speed of to-day.
+But when we read the story, we will find ourselves living in an
+atmosphere of haste, despatch and adventure in travel which no writer
+has yet been able to {72} surpass. Many a lad afterwards famous has
+spent long hours with Jules Verne.
+
+The famous Captain Marryat has taught us more, probably, about the
+sea, the navy and fighting ships than any other writer of stories of
+adventure. Frederick Marryat was born in England of Huguenot
+ancestry in the year 1792. He belonged to a family of fifteen
+children and seems always to have been of a stirring, restless
+disposition. More than once, he ran away from home or school to go
+to sea, giving as an excuse that he had to wear his elder brother's
+old clothes. He was not a particularly attentive student, although a
+story is told that he was once discovered standing on his head, in
+order, he explained, to see if he could learn one of his lessons
+better in that position. He had tried, so he said, for three hours
+to learn the lesson in the more usual attitude. This of course was
+one of young Frederick Marryat's little jokes. He entered the King's
+Navy in 1806 as a midshipman when he was fourteen years old. It was
+his good fortune to be under a very fine type of Captain, Lord
+Cochrane, the Earl of Dundonald, an able, fearless and upright
+person. In many of Marryat's stories, we find that his captains are
+like the Earl of Dundonald. Marryat's promotion in the Navy was
+rapid. These were the years of the great Napoleonic Wars. He had
+reached the rank of Commander by the end of the war in 1815 when he
+was only twenty-three, having seen much smart service. Later, he was
+given the responsible task of mounting guard over Napoleon.
+
+Two of Marryat's best known and most interesting {73} stories are
+_Midshipman Easy_ and _Peter Simple_. These give interesting,
+authentic, and exciting accounts of life at sea from the point of
+view first of a midshipman, and then of a young officer in command.
+Farce, fun, reality and strange adventure are so blended that we can
+almost imagine we hear the splash of waves, smell the salt tang of
+the sea, and experience the nerve-racking excitement of going into
+action. There is occasionally a quality of coarseness in Marryat's
+stories, but they are honest, straightforward and brave. We learn
+from them with unmistakable clearness that the world is not a place
+where people are pampered and made much of, but a scene of discipline
+and hard work, as well as of fun and adventure.
+
+_Two Years Before the Mast_, by Richard Henry Dana, is a narrative of
+the American merchant service, as well known in its way as Captain
+Marryat's stories of the Navy. Young Dana was at Harvard University
+when, on account of his eyesight, he became unable to study. He had
+had a wish to be a sailor previously, but his father had not
+approved. Young Dana felt now that a long voyage would re-establish
+his health. He shipped as a sailor before the mast, and sailed from
+the port of Boston in the year 1834 on the brig _Pilgrim_. He
+returned two years later in the _Alert_, having kept a full and
+careful log of his voyages. Re-entering Harvard University he found
+time during his studies to prepare the manuscript of his book which
+was published in New York, 1840. The year following, an English
+edition appeared, and was bought up by the naval authorities for {74}
+distribution on the Queen's ships. _Before the Mast_ is a plain,
+simple narrative of the daily life of a sailor on a merchant ship.
+It tells of many hardships, some of which have been remedied since
+the publication of the book. It has been called "A voice from the
+forecastle". Dana's accounts of rounding Cape Horn are wonderfully
+vivid, and all the descriptions of California in its early days are
+enthralling. _Before the Mast_ is a remarkably interesting and
+realistic narrative; it is, however, a book of travel rather than a
+story of adventure. The incidents are plainly in no case imaginary.
+
+A book about Canada of a wholly different character is a well-known
+historical romance, _The Golden Dog_, written by William Kirby. This
+is a tale of early days in the beautiful, romantic city of Quebec
+when some of the colour and glory of the French court was reproduced
+on western soil. _The Golden Dog_ has not a little romantic charm.
+Many readers have been puzzled and attracted by the rhyme which in
+all likelihood first gave Kirby the idea for his story.
+
+ I am a dog that gnaws his bone,
+ I couch and gnaw it all alone--
+ A time will come, which is not yet,
+ When I'll bite him by whom I'm bit.
+
+
+The lines have been translated from the French. Here are the words
+of the original.
+
+ Je suis un chien qui ronge l'os,
+ En le rongeant je prends mon repos.
+ Un temps viendra qui n'est pas venu
+ Que je mordrai qui m' aura mordu.
+
+{75}
+
+A rude carving of the dog and his bone, with the lines cut above and
+underneath, is to be seen still on a building in Quebec City.
+
+
+
+
+{76}
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+LAVENGRO--THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS--TOM SAWYER--HUCKLEBERRY
+FINN--KIM--SARD HARKER--THE LIVING FOREST
+
+We occasionally meet an odd person, someone out of the common, who is
+not like other people. Books can be odd too, not like other books,
+but strikingly individual, and interesting for the very reason that
+they are odd. _Lavengro_, written by a man with out-of-the-way
+knowledge of many things, whose name was George Borrow, is a book of
+this description.
+
+Possibly not everyone who tries to read _Lavengro_ will care for it
+very much. As people say, it is not a book that belongs to
+everybody. Yet _Lavengro_ is a great book, or at least a remarkable
+one, and numbers of people find much enjoyment in it. What those who
+read _Lavengro_ value in it most is a sense which it possesses of
+life under the open sky. In _Lavengro_ we have as our companions the
+winds and the stars. Its characters have no fixed place of abode,
+but are always ready to travel on the high road which winds away into
+the distance inviting us to follow it. There is something in almost
+all of us which answers to the call of the open sky and the winding
+road. Even if we have no intention of living that kind of life, a
+gypsy's life, we like to read about it.
+
+{77}
+
+_Lavengro_ is a book about the gypsies. The word Lavengro is romany,
+or gypsy, and it means word-master. George Borrow had the gift of
+learning languages easily and knew many different languages. The
+gypsies therefore called him _Lavengro_.
+
+There is a famous passage in the book, which you will find at the
+very end of chapter twenty-five, that gathers up the charm of the
+narrative, or story, in a few words. Here it is:
+
+"Life is sweet, brother."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Think so!--There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun,
+moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind
+on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?"
+
+"I would wish to die--"
+
+"You talk like a gorgio--which is the same as talking like a
+fool--were you a Romany Chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die,
+indeed!--A Romany Chal would wish to live for ever!"
+
+"In sickness, Jasper?"
+
+"There's the sun and the stars, brother."
+
+"In blindness, Jasper?"
+
+"There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I
+would gladly live forever. Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put
+on the gloves; and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is
+to be alive, brother!"
+
+Jasper Petulengro, the chief of the Smith tribe of gypsies, and
+Lavengro, who are the two men speaking, were skilled boxers and liked
+to box with each other.
+
+{78}
+
+Notice how sharply we can distinguish the difference between the
+points of view of the two men. Lavengro, or Borrow, wants in the
+future something better and more perfect than he has in his present
+life, but Jasper loves everything as it is, and wants to live the
+same kind of life always. There is truth in both points of view. We
+all long for perfection. But, certainly, Jasper is right when he
+sees and feels the deep, intense beauty and ecstasy which live in
+nature and which we feel in the wind on the heath, the sky, the
+stars, the sun and the moon.
+
+This brief quotation will give you an idea of Borrow's story at its
+best. Even if you have read no more than the ending of chapter
+twenty-five, you will know something of _Lavengro_, which is a book
+of adventure, and yet has a very distinct character of its own.
+
+_The Last of the Mohicans_, by James Fenimore Cooper, is judged to be
+one of the most successful and enjoyable stories ever written about
+North American Indians. You know how we can form in our minds a
+picture of the great skill of the Indian as a hunter. We can imagine
+an Indian hunter stealing through the woods, treading so lightly and
+carefully that he makes no noise, bending his head to listen, able to
+hear sounds that to the rest of us are inaudible, his quick eyes
+noting tiny signs of broken twigs or crushed grass which are to us
+invisible. This picture, which, if we could look into other people's
+minds, we would find hidden away in the thoughts of almost everyone,
+the world owes largely to the author of _The Last of the Mohicans_.
+
+{79}
+
+Cooper was born in the State of New Jersey in 1789, but, while he was
+still an infant, he was taken to the State of New York. His father
+had bought a large tract of land there, and in the wild forest and on
+the shores of Otsego Lake, young James Cooper learned to watch and
+know the Indians. He was sent to college, but was not very
+successful as a student, and before long shipped as a sailor before
+the mast. For a number of years, he had many experiences on the
+Great Lakes and at sea. Finally, he gave up being a sailor, and
+lived near Cooperstown. _The Last of the Mohicans_ is one of a
+series of five stories known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper
+wrote many stories, but this series is the most interesting.
+Leatherstocking himself is the white man who has gained Indian skill
+and cunning as a hunter. He is known by many names, Leatherstocking,
+Natty Bumppo, Hawk-eye, and La Longue Carabine. Part of the
+enjoyment we have in reading Cooper's stories arises from the
+circumstance that these stirring and exciting days of which he writes
+have already almost completely vanished and his books contain a
+record which is of value historically. Read the following
+description of the scout Leatherstocking.
+
+"His person, though muscular, was rather attenuated than full; but
+every nerve and muscle appeared strong and indurated by unremitting
+exposure and toil. He wore a hunting-shirt of forest-green, fringed
+with faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins, which had been shorn of
+their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of wampum, like that
+which confined the scanty {80} garments of the Indian, but no
+tomahawk. His moccasins were ornamented after the gay fashion of the
+natives, while the only part of his under dress which appeared below
+the hunting-frock, was a pair of buckskin leggings, that laced at the
+sides, and were gartered above the knees with the sinews of a deer.
+A pouch and horn completed his personal accoutrements, though a rifle
+of a great length, which the theory of the more ingenious whites had
+taught them was the most dangerous of all fire-arms, leaned against a
+neighbouring sapling."
+
+There is something honest, strong and dependable about Hawk-eye,
+besides his bravery and skill, which makes us like and respect him
+greatly. But the most heroic and romantic figure in the book is
+young Uncas, who is the last of the Mohicans. This story of danger,
+attack, slaughter and peril, centering round Hawk-eye, Uncas, his
+father Chingachgook, and two beautiful English girls attempting to
+escape through the woods with a young English officer, Heyward, is
+almost the perfection of a story of adventure in its own class. As
+an example of how thrilling the story can be, read the account of the
+shooting contest in chapter twenty-nine.
+
+Several generations of boys and girls have already enjoyed _Tom
+Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_. Perhaps no other writer has ever
+succeeded as well as Mark Twain in putting a real boy between the
+covers of a book in a story. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are not
+fanciful portraits. They are exactly such boys as anyone to-day can
+watch playing in a vacant lot, or down {81} by a river on a raft, or
+up in a hay-mow, or playing at being robbers in an old deserted shed
+or house, or reading books, or telling stories, or teasing but loving
+mothers and aunties, and learning about grown-up men and life in
+general. _Tom Sawyer_ is the first of Mark Twain's famous books
+about boys, and _Huckleberry Finn_ is a continuation of the same
+story.
+
+Tom lived with his Aunt Polly in the village of St. Petersburg on the
+Mississippi. He was the leading spirit among the boys of the place,
+largely because he had an active imagination and could devise many
+exciting games which often led to real adventures. Huckleberry Finn
+was a boy without a home; he had a father who was a source of danger
+rather than a loving protector. In _Huckleberry Finn_, there is the
+splendid story of Jim who was a slave and ran away with Huckleberry.
+As we read of their adventures, while they floated down the
+Mississippi on a raft, we learn to know and love Jim for his
+devotion, loyalty and child-like nature. Huck, too, plays as fine a
+part as many a hero who may appear more romantic than this runaway
+boy. But you must read _Huckleberry Finn_ yourself, and find out
+what happened. The great Mississippi river, mysterious, picturesque,
+flowing always past their village into the unknown south, exercised a
+powerful fascination on the minds of the boys. Many of their
+adventures had to do with the river, and some of the happenings were
+terrifying as well as exciting. But Tom and Huck actually did find
+hidden treasure and each boy's share was put in the bank, so that the
+boys had a small yearly income at the end of the {82} first story.
+These two books, when we read them, give us a curious, lasting
+feeling of real life and actual happenings, probably in part because
+Mark Twain, whose everyday name was Samuel Clemens, must have been
+writing about his own boyhood. When he was a boy, nothing would
+satisfy him but learning to be a pilot on a Mississippi steamboat; he
+was on the river for four years.
+
+There are many other romantic and adventurous stories for us to read.
+Make sure that the author knows and understands what he is writing
+about, otherwise it is seldom worth while to spend much time in
+reading his book. Stories of romance and adventure ought always to
+be brave and fearless, kind and generous, pure and light-hearted.
+They ought to make us feel that it is worth while to go on an
+adventure. When these things are true of a book, we can spend many
+happy hours with its hero, no matter where he rides, or sails, or
+flies.
+
+There are three books, the work of authors who belong to our own
+time, that we should not miss reading. First comes Rudyard Kipling's
+glorious story of a boy in India called _Kim_; then the poet
+Masefield's story of _Sard Harker_ and of the sea and South America;
+and, last of the three, a fine story of the woods and rivers of the
+far north, called _The Living Forest_, written by a Canadian artist,
+Arthur Heming.
+
+
+
+
+{83}
+
+PART III
+
+SONGS OF HEROES, MYTHS, FAIRY TALES AND MARVELS
+
+
+
+{85}
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY--GREEK
+ HEROES--TANGLEWOOD TALES--THE WONDER BOOK
+
+Once upon a time, nearly three thousand years ago, a poet in a song
+which he sang of heroes described the making of a suit of armour.
+
+The poet's name was Homer. His poem is called _The Iliad_. Some day
+possibly you will read for yourselves _The Iliad_ in the original
+Greek, for Homer was a Greek. There are many good translations, both
+in poetry and prose. The beautiful translation known as _The Iliad
+of Homer_, done into English prose by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and
+Ernest Myers, is one of the best translations for our present purpose.
+
+In Homer's day people believed in the existence of many gods, some
+more important and others of less consequence. These gods, both men
+and women, imagined by the Greeks, were like human beings, only more
+powerful and more beautiful. But they were not any better than
+ordinary men and women. Indeed, the gods of the Greeks were often
+bad-tempered, jealous, cruel, and faithless. The Greeks imagined
+that their gods had favourites among men and women. When a battle
+was raging, the gods were supposed to help one side or the other; and
+in _The Iliad_ you may read how Aphrodite helped her favourite,
+Paris, how {86} Poseidon was on the side of the Achaians, and Apollo
+aided Hector. The most powerful and important gods, of whom the
+greatest was Zeus, lived on Mount Olympus. But the Greeks believed
+that the sea, rivers, streams, springs, hillsides, and trees, were
+the dwelling-places of various deities or gods.
+
+_The Iliad_ is an epic of the Trojan War which was fought between the
+Greeks and the Trojans. The famous hero Achilles, who had quarrelled
+with King Agamemnon, would not go to fight himself, but he lent his
+armour to his noble friend Patroklos, who drove the Trojans from the
+ships, but was himself slain by Hector, son of King Priam of Troy.
+Achilles was then without armour, and Thetis, a goddess, said by the
+Greeks to be the mother of Achilles, went on his behalf to a very
+clever god, named Hephaistos, who was lame, but had wonderful skill
+in making armour. Hephaistos, if he had lived now, would likely have
+been a great engineer.
+
+In the eighteenth book of _The Iliad_, we can read a description of
+Hephaistos, of some of the marvels he had made and of his meeting
+with Thetis.
+
+Hephaistos "from the anvil rose limping, a huge bulk, but under him
+his slender legs moved nimbly. The bellows he set away from the
+fire, and gathered all his gear wherewith he worked into a silver
+chest; and with a sponge he wiped his face and hands and sturdy neck
+and shaggy breast, and did on his doublet, and took a stout staff and
+went forth limping; but there were handmaidens of gold that moved to
+help their {87} lord, the semblances of living maids. In them is
+understanding at their hearts, in them are voice and strength, and
+they have skill of the immortal gods. These moved beneath their
+lord, and he gat him haltingly near to where Thetis was, and set him
+on a bright seat, and clasped her hand in his and spake and called
+her by her name."
+
+It is delightful to understand while we read that the Greeks three
+thousand years ago were already imagining the marvels which could be
+accomplished by mankind. Many of these marvels actually have been
+achieved since then, only not exactly in the shape that the Greeks
+imagined.
+
+Hephaistos made, for Thetis to give to Achilles, a shield and a
+corslet and a helmet and greaves. He made them strong and beautiful.
+On the shield he fashioned wondrous pictures of life among the
+Greeks, marriage feasts, dancing, law courts, a city besieged, armies
+fighting, herds of cattle, harvesting, feasting, a vineyard, and
+youths and maidens gathering grapes. If you turn to this eighteenth
+book of Homer's _Iliad_, you may spend a very happy hour reading of
+Hephaistos and the armour.
+
+These songs made by Homer are one of the glories of mankind. In
+everything he sang, there is the special genius of the ancient
+Greeks, a power to create beauty, so perfect in all its proportions
+that it gives people when they read his songs a feeling of strength
+and steadiness as well as joy. Yet, it is true at the same time,
+that parts of _The Iliad_ and _The Odyssey_ show us a world which was
+savage and barbarous.
+
+In _The Odyssey_, Homer tells of the wanderings {88} of Odysseus,
+King of Ithaca, on his way back from the Trojan war to his own island
+on the west coast of Greece. His adventures are as wonderful as any
+that have ever been related in song or story. The description of his
+home-coming, to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, is one of
+the stories rightly called universal, for such stories belong to
+everyone. A charming part of _The Odyssey_ contains the story of
+Odysseus in his wanderings coming to Scheria where King Alcinous
+reigns. Nausicaa, the King's daughter, with her maidens, had gone
+out in the early morning to wash the clothes of her father, mother
+and brethren, and after their labour, the princess and her companions
+were playing a game of ball when their cries of excitement woke the
+weary Odysseus from his slumbers. You will find this adventure of
+Odysseus in the sixth book of _The Odyssey_, of which there is a
+prose translation by S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang.
+
+There are many other stories of the early Greeks. Some of them have
+been re-told in three books, written for young people. In _The
+Heroes_ by Charles Kingsley you may read of Perseus, the Argonauts
+and Theseus. _Tanglewood Tales_ and _The Wonder Book_ were written
+by Nathaniel Hawthorne for his children. One of the best of the
+stories in _The Wonder Book_ is called The Miraculous Pitcher, a tale
+of two old people, Philemon and his wife Baucis, and of what happened
+to them. These stories are not exactly fairy-tales, because people
+believed in that far away time that the gods visited them and played
+pranks like boys and girls.
+
+{89}
+
+These three books, _The Heroes_, _Tanglewood Tales_ and _The Wonder
+Book_ are easy to read and interesting. Yet, after a while, although
+perhaps not for some years, you likely will find that you would
+rather turn to a translation of _The Iliad_ or _The Odyssey_, so that
+you may read for yourself Homer's songs telling of the world long ago
+in its youth, and of these great heroes.
+
+
+
+
+{90}
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ÆSOP'S FABLES--GRIMM's FAIRY TALES--HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES--THE
+ARABIAN NIGHTS--MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR
+
+We know a little of the glorious gift of song that the early Greeks
+themselves enjoyed and left to coming generations of mankind. But
+other countries, these countries where men and women earliest taught
+themselves by hard work, as we say, to be civilized, have also given
+the world treasures of wit, wisdom and enjoyment.
+
+One of the earliest forms used by men, when they wanted to tell of
+some experience they had had, was the fable. A fable is a very
+brief, simple story, generally a little story about animals. Very
+early in the history of mankind, men noticed animals, watched them,
+saw that the animals often acted somewhat in the same way as men did
+themselves, and were delighted and amused by their cunning and
+cleverness. It was natural that people should begin by telling
+stories about animals.
+
+Here are two fables, one of an animal trying to get the better of
+another animal, and the second of two animals helping one another.
+These fables are said to have been made by Æsop.
+
+A wolf seeing a goat feeding on the brow of a high precipice where he
+could not come at her, besought her to come down lower, for fear she
+{91} should miss her footing at that dizzy height; "And moreover,"
+said he, "the grass is far sweeter and more abundant here below."
+But the goat replied, "Excuse me; it is not for my dinner that you
+invite me, but for your own."
+
+The second fable tells of an ant falling into a fountain of water
+where he was drinking because he was thirsty and of the ant being
+nearly drowned. A dove dropped a leaf into the water on which the
+ant climbed and so escaped. A man just then had almost caught the
+dove in a net, but the ant bit him on the heel, the man started,
+dropped his net and the dove flew away. The fable ends by saying
+that one good turn deserves another.
+
+Fables as a rule were first told, it is believed, not by famous
+people or great writers, but more often by ordinary people who were
+not rich or learned. Perhaps they wanted to say something about the
+politics of the country where they lived, or about some ruler who was
+a tyrant. They did not wish to get into trouble, so they put what
+they wanted to say into a little story.
+
+Tradition tells us that Æsop, the most famous maker of fables, was a
+slave, very misshapen in body, and that he stammered when he spoke.
+There is a collection of Æsop's and other Fables in Everyman's
+Library. Read some of these little stories and remember how men, who
+were not as free or as safe as we are to-day, made these fables which
+are full of laughter, good temper, and keen wit, and which are very
+wise. We can learn a great deal from fables, and we can enjoy them
+at the same time.
+
+{92}
+
+Fairy tales are probably almost as old as fables. We all know how
+delightful fairy tales can be. Who would do without Jack the Giant
+Killer, or Cinderella, or Silver Locks, or Blue Beard, or
+Puss-in-Boots? You can add many more to the list. Some fairy tales
+are very old, but others are modern. People sometimes say that fairy
+tales are not true. In a sense, perhaps, they are right; that is, we
+do not expect to see Jack cutting down and conquering a giant in a
+day. Yet the men who have perfected telegraph, telephone and radio
+have overcome in a real way the giant distance, and other men and
+women are conquering daily, little by little, the great giant disease.
+
+The everyday world we live in is as wonderful as a fairy tale,
+perhaps more wonderful. Whenever we find in a fairy tale, or in any
+other way, a sense of the wonder of the world, and of life, this is a
+very great gain, because then we know that we are really seeing
+clearly, and understanding what we see. Most of all, perhaps, fairy
+tales are meant to show us how beautiful the world is.
+
+There are many good collections of fairy tales. The long series of
+which Andrew Lang was editor contains an excellent selection.
+Grimm's _Fairy Tales_ are among the most famous in the world. Jacob
+and William Grimm were two brothers, both of whom were learned
+professors. Early in the nineteenth century, they published a book
+of fairy tales which they had gathered by listening to stories told
+in the nurseries and by the firesides of their own country, Germany.
+One {93} of the prettiest of these stories is Snow-Drop and the Seven
+Dwarfs.
+
+Hans Andersen is, perhaps, the best loved of all the writers of fairy
+stories. He was born in Odense in Denmark in 1805, and was a very
+poor boy. But he made a toy theatre for his amusement, and no doubt
+began to make his stories at the same time. He wrote other books,
+but his _Fairy Tales_ are by far his best work. Hans Andersen was a
+genius. His stories have such power to touch our hearts that we want
+to be kind and true and modest, following the example of his heroes
+and heroines. The world, especially the world of homes, would be a
+poorer place if Hans Andersen had never written The Wild Swans, The
+Red Shoes, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Little Match Girl, and
+especially The Ugly Duckling.
+
+Many of the most wonderful tales of magic come out of the East. The
+people of Arabia and Egypt are gifted narrators of stories. We owe
+them our vast enjoyment of the stories in _The Arabian Nights_.
+These stories are very old indeed; many of them must have come in the
+first place from Persia and India. Egypt supplies much of what we
+call local colour. The stories were gathered together from different
+sources, probably between 1450 and 1500; England then was engaged in
+the long struggle know as the Wars of the Roses. It was not until
+1704 that Europeans first could read _The Arabian Nights_. At that
+time a French professor, Antoine Galland, published a French
+translation of a book of Arabic stories. It is odd to think that
+children {94} of the English-speaking world did not know of Ali Baba,
+or Sindbad, or Aladdin, until the time of the reign of Queen Anne.
+Now we all can listen to the beautiful Schehera-zade telling her
+thousand and one tales to her husband, the great sultan Schah-riar,
+so that she would not be executed before the last of the stories was
+finished. Schah-riar was a tyrant, and a very spoiled person. But
+Schehera-zade was clever and resourceful, and in the end saved
+herself. These strange stories of giants, genii, caliphs, and lovely
+princesses are among the most famous in the world.
+
+We come now to a different kind of book, _Morte d'Arthur_, stories of
+King Arthur of Britain and his Knights of the Bound Table. These
+stories Scott used to read when he was a boy, and so did many another
+lad of genius who, when he was older, never forgot the chivalry and
+the glory of Malory's great book. It may seem a curious book,
+perhaps, to many of you when you first look at it, for it is written
+in an older English than the words we use; and the customs and the
+people may appear strange and hard to understand. Sir Thomas Malory,
+who collected the stories and translated most of them from French
+into English, is supposed to have been a Lancastrian knight who was
+thrown into prison in the Wars of the Roses and kept there long
+years. He spent that weary time copying out by hand, for then there
+were no printing presses, the book we know as _Morte d'Arthur_.
+Malory finished his work in 1470. Not long after his death, the
+manuscript was brought to Caxton, who was the first great printer in
+England, and Caxton printed the book in 1485.
+
+{95}
+
+These are stories of heroes, in some far away sense like _The Iliad_
+and _The Odyssey_, but they are written in a wonderful prose, not
+like Homer's even more wonderful poetry. There is, however, a great
+change in the lives of heroes between the days of Homer and the days
+of Malory. Let us take one of Malory's stories, and try to see what
+the change is.
+
+The seventh book of _Morte d'Arthur_ tells the story of Beaumains,
+who was Gareth of Orkney in disguise, and of how he won his
+knighthood. Like many other young men of that time, Gareth wanted to
+be one of King Arthur's Knights. Gareth was well-born and wealthy,
+but he wished to win honour and glory--what Malory calls worship--by
+worthy deeds, so he came in disguise to Arthur's Court.
+
+He asked three petitions, and the King granted them. The first was
+that he might be given food and drink and lodging for a year. At the
+end of that time, he would ask for his other two petitions. Sir Kay,
+who was the steward, thought only a poor-spirited fellow would ask
+for meat and drink, so he gave him lodging and food with the boys in
+the kitchen, and called him Beaumains, fair hands, or as people
+sometimes say now lily fingers. Beaumains waited the year, then a
+damsel came asking for a knight to rescue her lady who was besieged
+in a castle, but she would not tell her name. King Arthur said he
+would not let any of his knights go unless she told the name. Then
+Beaumains made his other petitions. The first was that he might be
+commissioned to go with the damsel and rescue the lady, {96} and the
+second that he might joust with the great knight, Sir Launcelot of
+the Lake, and win knighthood from him. King Arthur gave his consent.
+Beaumains jousted with Sir Launcelot and won his knighthood. But the
+damsel was very angry, and said she had been given only a kitchen
+page. Beaumains went with her in spite of her angry abuse, fought
+with many knights and overcame them, and finally rescued the Lady
+Lionesse who was the damsel's sister. The damsel's name was Linet.
+Thus Sir Gareth won great honour and worship.
+
+What really is this honour--the worship of which Malory writes?
+Knighthood was won by being brave, and by doing mighty deeds. But
+the true spirit of knighthood--the very essence of it, as we say--is
+shown by one test; the deeds must be unselfish. The knight was a
+rescuer; he was a righter of other people's wrongs. When King Arthur
+lived, people had begun to learn that the most heroic life is the
+self-sacrificing life. When Linet was abusing Beaumains, and telling
+him that he would never accomplish the great adventure on which his
+hopes were set, the only answer he made to her was, "I shall assay."
+This means, "I shall try." It was a noble answer. There is still
+only one way of winning true honour by unselfish deeds. First, one
+must have the desire, then those who desire must also try. As
+Beaumains said, "I shall assay."
+
+
+
+
+{97}
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ALICE IN WONDERLAND--THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS--THE GOLDEN AGE--WIND
+IN THE WILLOWS--FOUR BOOKS BY A. A. MILNE--RIP VAN WINKLE
+
+The story begins with a chapter called Down the Rabbit-Hole. Alice
+was feeling sleepy, you remember, when suddenly she saw a white
+rabbit with pink eyes running by close beside her. She thought
+nothing of that. She was not surprised even when she heard the
+rabbit saying to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!"
+But when the rabbit took a watch out of its waist-coat pocket, looked
+at it and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, ran across the
+field, and was just in time to see the Rabbit pop down a large
+rabbit-hole under the hedge.
+
+The name of the story, as most of you know, is _Alice in Wonderland_.
+All over the English-speaking world, children, and older people as
+well, seem to know Alice.
+
+When you hear someone talking about the Mad Hatter at the tea party,
+or a blue caterpillar smoking a hookah, or the Duchess losing her
+temper, or the cat vanishing but the smile remaining, and you ask
+what it means, you will be told, if you have not guessed already,
+that all these odd phrases belong to _Alice in Wonderland_.
+
+Alice followed the White Rabbit down the hole, falling down a very
+long way without hurting {98} herself a bit. Then she found herself
+in a hall where there was a three-legged table with a tiny gold key
+on it, and she discovered a little door that she opened with the tiny
+gold key, but she was too big to go through the door, although she
+could see that it led into the loveliest garden. Then, as you may
+remember, she found a bottle with "Drink me" printed on it, and when
+she saw that it was not marked poison, she tasted it, and since it
+had a very good taste, she drank it all, and after that she was only
+ten inches high. Then she had forgotten the key, and now she was too
+small to reach to the top of the table, but under the table she saw a
+glass box and in the box a cake with "Eat me" marked on it
+beautifully in currants. And so, finally, with the help of the cake,
+and then with the help of a fan, of which you must read for
+yourselves, Alice found her way into the garden; and after that she
+had the most curious adventures.
+
+Perhaps no one can explain the exact reason why we enjoy _Alice in
+Wonderland_ so much. The story is so precisely what we should like
+it to be, that we take it as it is, and hurry on through its pages in
+a sort of breathless happiness, wanting to know only what comes next.
+There is nothing puzzling or difficult in the story, no hidden
+meanings, nothing to make one sad or discontented, only laughter and
+curious, amusing incidents. It is a perfect story about the strange
+adventures of a little girl, and most people find delight in it.
+There is a sequel to the story of Alice, called _Through the
+Looking-Glass_.
+
+{99}
+
+Lewis Carroll is the name you will find printed on the title pages of
+these stories, but this is a pen name. The author's real name was
+Dodgson. He did not like people to know that he wrote children's
+books. Lewis Carroll seems to have been a quiet, shy man, a
+mathematician who wrote difficult books for students, but he was
+wonderfully fond of children and understood how to write stories that
+they would like.
+
+Most of the books spoken of in this chapter ought to be read aloud.
+They are generally called children's stories, but without exception
+they are also books that are loved and keenly enjoyed by older
+people. You will not need to think of giving them up when you grow
+older. They really belong to all ages. If you take the trouble to
+learn how to read aloud well, perhaps you may be the first to read
+_Alice in Wonderland_ to some small person, younger than you are. It
+is great pleasure to introduce anyone to a really delightful book.
+
+_The Golden Age_ and _The Wind in the Willows_ are two stories
+written for boys and girls by Kenneth Grahame. The first story is
+about Harold, Charlotte, Edward, Selina, and the boy who tells the
+story. They lived with their uncles and aunts in a small town or
+village. The children, perhaps, were rather lonely, but they made
+games and adventures for themselves, and it is pleasant to read about
+them. They had pets like many other children, and they made games
+from the books they were reading, like _The Arabian Nights_, and the
+_Story of Ulysses_, and _King Arthur and his Round Table_. _The
+Golden Age_ is an English story. It is one of the books {100} that
+will tell you accurately and delightfully of the lives of boys and
+girls who live in the country in England, in the same way that _Tom
+Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ tell us about boys in the United
+States. But, of course, we know that all boys in the States do not
+live as Tom and Huckleberry did. Girls and boys in England live in
+different ways also. It depends a good deal on the part of the
+country the author is writing about and on the circumstances of the
+families to which the boys and girls belong. Miss L. M. Montgomery's
+stories of Prince Edward Island in the same way tell a good deal
+about the lives of boys and girls in Canada.
+
+_The Wind in the Willows_ is a wise, delightful and amusing story
+about animals,--a mole, a rabbit, a water rat, a badger, an otter, a
+toad, hedgehogs, field mice, stoats and weasels. We hear a good deal
+about birds too, especially swallows. Toad, Badger, Mole and Water
+Rat were great friends, and we are as much interested in their doings
+as if they were friends of ours as well.
+
+Books have many curious and strange characteristics. Some books, as
+we have learned, live for thousands of years. Homer's songs and the
+books of the Bible were kept at first, not in print, but in various
+other ways. But, now-a-days, hundreds of books are printed every
+year which in a little while are forgotten and no one reads them
+again. It is deeply interesting to ponder over what makes a book
+live. We think we can recognize sometimes which of the new books
+will continue to be read, and which, although they may be pleasant
+enough to read once, are not likely to {101} be known for more than a
+few years. The truth is that no one can foretell accurately how long
+a book will last, or which books will last longest. For instance, it
+is not likely that when Lewis Carrol wrote _Alice in Wonderland_ he
+had any idea that the story would make him famous when his other
+books were forgotten. Only one thing can test this lasting quality
+in a book; that one thing is time. So you can think of time, if you
+like, as a great umpire deciding which books will keep on living, and
+which will be forgotten.
+
+There are four little books that have been written in the last few
+years which may last a long while, although, of course, no one can be
+sure about this until time decides. These four little books are
+_When We were Very Young_, _Winnie the Pooh_, _Now We Are Six_, and
+_The House at Pooh Corner_, two books in poetry and two in prose, by
+A. A. Milne. They tell about Christopher Robin and his toys. These
+are very delightful books to read aloud to little people. But they
+belong also to people of all ages.
+
+An American writer, called Washington Irving, who was born as long
+ago as 1783, in New York, once wrote a story called _Rip Van Winkle_,
+which is not exactly a fairy story, or a story of magic; and yet it
+has a great deal of magic in it. The tale is about a man who was
+what is called a ne'er-do-well. He liked to hunt and shoot, but not
+to work. One day, he went off into the mountains with his dog Wolf.
+He heard sounds like thunder, and he met an odd, square-built old
+fellow who asked him by signs to help him carry a keg up the
+mountain. Then they came on a group of {102} men, all dressed in a
+by-gone fashion, who were playing bowls. None of these men spoke to
+Rip Van Winkle, who helped himself several times from the keg, and by
+and by fell asleep. When he awoke, he found his way back to the
+mountain village where his home was, and discovered that he had been
+asleep twenty years. _Rip Van Winkle_ is one of the very few tales
+of magic which has been written of any part of the North American
+continent. Most of the stories of this character of which we have
+been speaking belong to older countries.
+
+
+
+
+{103}
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ THE JUNGLE BOOKS--JUST SO STORIES--PUCK OF
+ POOK'S HILL--REWARDS AND FAIRIES--THE
+ BLUE BIRD--PETER PAN--KILMENY
+
+_The Jungle Book_ by Rudyard Kipling was first published as a book in
+1894. Some of the stories had appeared in the magazine _St.
+Nicholas_ before that date. _The Second Jungle Book_ was published
+in 1895. Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865. It gives one a
+wonderful, very delightful thrill to take up a book by a new writer,
+whose name one has never heard before, and after reading a little
+while, to find oneself convinced that this unknown author has
+unmistakable genius. Some day you will likely have the pleasure of
+discovering for yourselves a writer of, perhaps, the first rank. The
+grand-fathers and grand-mothers or perhaps the fathers and mothers of
+boys and girls to-day experienced this thrill when they read for the
+first time one of Kipling's short stories of India.
+
+Rudyard Kipling had been writing nearly ten years, and was a
+well-known author, before he published _The Jungle Books_, which are
+his first books for young people. Like some other books for boys and
+girls, older people are fascinated by them also. Kipling's father,
+John Lockwood Kipling, was an Englishman in the Indian Civil Service.
+His mother was the daughter of a {104} Wesleyan minister, whose sons
+and daughters all have showed distinguished ability. Kipling lived
+in India when he was a child. While he was still a small boy, he was
+sent home to school in England. But from his child's recollections
+of India have come pictures of Indian life, and an understanding and
+interpretation of the people of that widely-spreading, mysterious
+country with its swarming population, its plains, mountains, and deep
+jungles where lions, tigers and many other animals live, which are
+unparalleled elsewhere in English literature.
+
+Carried safely and swiftly by the magic of Kipling's stories, we may
+all visit the Indian jungle, hear Shere Khan, the tiger, roar, stand
+with the Lone Wolf on the Council Rock, learn to know Bagheera, the
+Black Panther, Baloo, the bear, Hathi, the elephant and many more of
+the jungle people, as well as Father Wolf, Mother Wolf, and the Pack.
+The Man cub, the boy Mowgli, is the pattern and epitome of what every
+boy likes to be, brave, resourceful, loyal, quick to see and hold
+advantage, staunch in friendship, fond of play, longing to do great
+deeds, and now and then showing that he is capable. The stories of
+Mowgli are collected in _The Jungle Book_. In _The Second Jungle
+Book_ are such stories as Rikki-tikki-tavi, the Mongoose; the White
+Seal; Toomai of the Elephants; and Her Majesty's Servants, which is a
+tale of the animals of a military camp. None of us to-day can
+imagine how any writer could possibly create finer stories of animals
+than Kipling has written in _The Jungle Books_.
+
+{105}
+
+It is not easy to try to tell how charming and wise are the _Just So
+Stories_, told in Kipling's book for little people known by that
+name. Much of the tenderness that fathers and mothers feel for the
+very youngest, and that you feel for your small brothers and sisters,
+if you have brothers and sisters younger than you are, shines in
+these stories. Here, too, you will find laughter, very sweet and
+merry, and much wise understanding, not only of animals and children,
+but of the great world and its history. Some of the more noted of
+the tales in _Just So Stories_ are: How the Camel Got His Hump; How
+the Rhinoceros Got His Skin; The Elephant's Child; The Sing-Song of
+Old Man Kangaroo; The Beginning of the Armadillos; and The Cat that
+Walked by Himself. There are six more stories that perhaps are as
+wonderful as those which have been named. _Just So Stories_ was
+published in 1902.
+
+Kipling has written as well two books of stories which reveal to
+young people in a remarkable way the course and glory of English
+history. These books could have been written only for one reason, to
+help and delight Kipling's own children. The books are called _Puck
+of Pook's Hill_ and _Rewards and Fairies_. Una and Dan are the names
+of the children who have the adventures told of in these books, and
+who see far, far back into the past of England. With Pict, Roman,
+Dane, Saxon, Norman, soldiers, peasants, Jews, priests, Crusaders,
+squires, dames, knights, down to the time of the great sea captains
+and Sir Francis Drake, this famous writer unfolds the pageant of
+English history in an incomparable way for {106} boys and girls
+belonging to the twentieth century. _Puck of Pook's Hill_ appeared
+first in 1906; and _Rewards and Fairies_ in 1909.
+
+Not many years ago Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian poet, wrote for
+every one, old and young, a fairy play called _The Blue Bird_. You
+may sometimes see the play acted in a theatre, or you may read the
+scenes and acts of the play in a book. First of all, in the book,
+come the names of all the characters, and then a description of the
+costumes in which they are dressed. Tyltyl and Mytyl, a brother and
+sister, for the sake of a neighbour's child, go away from home into
+strange, marvellous places, looking for the blue bird, Happiness.
+Tyltyl wears scarlet knickerbockers, pale-blue jacket, white
+stockings, tan shoes, which is the way Hop o' My Thumb is dressed.
+Mytyl is dressed like Little Red Riding-hood. _The Blue Bird_ is a
+fairy story, a wonderful story, and true, as we say, spiritually.
+The brother and sister, when they are at home, live in a
+wood-cutter's cottage. On their travels, they visit the Land of
+Memory, the Palace of Night, a great forest, the Palace of Happiness,
+a graveyard, and the Kingdom of the Future. Tylo, the dog, and
+Tylette, the cat, are two of the most important characters; and in
+the play, you will meet people called Bread, Sugar, Fire, Water,
+Milk, and many more familiar to you in everyday life, but not in the
+same shape. _The Blue Bird_ is a wonderful fairy play. When you
+read it, you will discover whether or not Tyltyl and Mytyl find the
+bluebird, Happiness.
+
+{107}
+
+Everyone is likely to have heard of Peter Pan, the boy who would not
+grow up. You may have seen the play, _Peter Pan_, acted on a stage,
+or you may have read the story in a book. Barrie, who wrote the
+play, was born in a village in Scotland, called Kirriemuir, in the
+year 1860. He is a novelist as well as a playwright. His full name
+is James Matthew Barrie, and because his novels and plays are so
+pleasing, and whimsical, very many people have a special feeling of
+love and kindness for Barrie.
+
+_Peter Pan_ is a delightful play; and the story _Peter Pan_ is almost
+as enjoyable. The three Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael,
+are taught by Peter Pan how to fly, and they fly away with him to the
+Never-Never Land. Here are the lost boys, Slightly, Tootles, Nibs
+and Curly, and the crocodile, Captain Hook and his pirates, mermaids,
+redskins, and Tinker Bell, the fairy who is devoted to Peter Pan. In
+the end, the Darling children return to their father and mother.
+Peter Pan chooses to stay in the Never-Never Land; but once a year,
+at the time of spring cleaning, Wendy goes back to keep house for him
+for a little while.
+
+So we learn that fairy stories, very wonderful fairy stories, are
+still being written to-day as they were long years ago when the world
+was younger. Beauty, fantasy, and magic belong to us all. The love
+of these things calls us, as it were, with a very sweet voice, and
+when we hear that call--often from a book--we recognize it as the
+spirit of the fairy story. Sometimes the spirit of a fairy tale is
+caught perfectly and beautifully in {108} a poem. You will find such
+a poem in the collection known as _The Oxford Book of English Verse_.
+The name of the poem is "Kilmeny", and the name of the man who wrote
+it is James Hogg, or, as he is often called, The Ettrick Shepherd.
+He was a friend of Sir Walter Scott. "Kilmeny" has the same magic
+that Barrie's plays show so remarkably.
+
+ Late, late in gloamin' when all was still,
+ When the fringe was red on the westlin hill,
+ The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane,
+ The reek o' the cot hung over the plain,
+ Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
+ When the ingle low'd wi' an eiry leme,
+ Late, late in the gloamin' Kilmeny came hame!
+
+
+You may not know what some of these words mean. Gloaming is
+twilight; westlin is western; reek is smoke; its lane means all by
+itself; ingle is the open fire-place; low'd is flamed; eiry leme is
+eery gleam.
+
+
+
+
+{109}
+
+PART IV
+
+BALLADS, LAYS AND STORIES IN VERSE
+
+
+
+{111}
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+PERCY'S RELIQUES--CHEVY CHASE AND THE BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE--SIR
+PATRICK SPENS--THE NORTHERN MUSE
+
+A ballad is a simple tale told in simple verse. These tales in verse
+may be very old, or they may have been composed only a few years ago.
+But, generally speaking, the old ballads are best. The world seems
+to have lost the art of telling stories in verse as simply and
+naturally as people could many hundreds of years ago.
+
+The old ballads are like old fairy tales; no one knows when they were
+first told or sung. It seems likely that they were made, not by
+great people or distinguished scholars, but by simple, ordinary
+people, to be sung or told to other simple, ordinary people. You
+will remember that fables in the same way were likely told first by
+one neighbour to another. Ballads and fairy tales and fables, long
+before books or newspapers were printed, were ways in which everyday
+people handed down from fathers and mothers to sons and daughters,
+chronicles and history, learning and good advice, wise sayings, and
+notable happenings.
+
+After a long time, very many years, people who enjoyed these ballads,
+as soon as they knew how to write, began to write them down.
+Apparently, {112} no one thought much about the songs for a while.
+Then scholars who were fond of ancient songs looked for and treasured
+the old ballads. One of the first and most famous collectors of
+ballads was Bishop Percy who published his _Reliques of Ancient
+English Poetry_ in 1765. Sir Walter Scott's _Minstrelsy of the
+Scottish Border_ was published in 1802. Bishop Percy reproduced, as
+part of his collection, an old manuscript of ballads which he had
+rescued from being used by a maid to light a fire.
+
+Ballads belong to many countries, and oddly enough, the same stories
+are sometimes sung in different words in many of these countries. In
+English poetry, a number of the finest ballads come from the borders
+between England and Scotland before these two countries were joined.
+"Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of Otterbourne" were sung of raids and
+wars between the English and the Scots. Other countries famous for
+their ballads are Greece, France, Provence, Portugal, Denmark and
+Italy.
+
+The ballads called "Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of Otterbourne"
+perhaps have become confused one with the other. Part of "Chevy
+Chase" seems to have found its way into "The Battle of Otterbourne".
+There are many different versions of these ballads. The versions
+written by English balladists tell how the English defeated the
+Scots; on the other hand, the Scots versions say that the Scots were
+victors.
+
+Here is part of "The Battle of Otterbourne", taken from Scott's
+_Minstrelsy_.
+
+{113}
+
+ It fell upon the Lammas tide,
+ When the muir-men win their hay,
+ The doughty Douglas bound him to ride
+ Into England, to drive a prey.
+
+ And he marched up to Newcastle,
+ And rode it round about;
+ "O wha's the lord of this castle,
+ Or wha's the lady o't?"
+
+ But up spoke proud Lord Percy then,
+ And O but he spake hie!
+ "I am the Lord of this castle,
+ My wife's the lady gay."
+
+
+Lord Percy and the Douglas agreed to fight with their men at
+Otterbourne in three days. Percy wounded the Douglas to his death
+and the Douglas sent for his nephew Sir Hugh Montgomery.
+
+ "My wound is deep; I fain would sleep;
+ Take thou the vanguard of the three,
+ And hide me by the braken bush,
+ That grows on yonder lily lea.
+
+ "O bury me by the braken bush,
+ Beneath the blooming brier,
+ Let never living mortal ken
+ That a kindly Scot lies here."
+
+
+Later in the battle, Sir Hugh Montgomery and Lord Percy fought, and
+Sir Hugh was the victor. He said to Lord Percy to yield, who
+answered to whom must he yield!
+
+ "Thou shalt not yield to lord or loun,
+ Nor yet shalt thou yield to me;
+ But yield thee to the braken bush,
+ That grows upon yon lily lea!"
+
+{114}
+
+ "I will not yield to a braken bush,
+ Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
+ But I would yield to Earl Douglas,
+ Or Sir Hugh Montgomery, if he were here."
+
+ As soon as he knew it was Montgomery,
+ He struck his sword's point in the ground;
+ The Montgomery was a courteous knight,
+ And quickly took him by the hand.
+
+ This deed was done at Otterbourne
+ About the breaking of the day;
+ Earl Douglas was buried at the braken bush,
+ And the Percy led captive away.
+
+
+Little is known from history of the story told in "Sir Patrick
+Spens". It was first published by Bishop Percy in his _Reliques_.
+Princess Margaret of Scotland was married to Prince Eric of Norway in
+1281. The ballad of "Sir Patrick Spens" may possibly have some
+reference to this historical event, but no one can say so with
+certainty. We learn from the ballad that Sir Patrick Spens was a
+splendid seaman, and that the Scots king gave him a commission to
+sail to Norway and bring home the king's daughter. But it was late
+in the year. The waters would be stormy; and Sir Patrick knew that
+he and his men would be in peril of their lives. They sailed to
+Norway, which is called Noroway in the ballad, and had been there a
+week only when the lords of Noroway began to complain that the Scots
+were costly guests. Sir Patrick answered that they had brought white
+money and good red gold, more than enough to pay for all they cost,
+but that he would sail immediately. His sailors told him that they
+had seen signs of a storm.
+
+{115}
+
+ "I saw the new moon late yestreen,
+ Wi' the auld moon in her arm;
+ And if we gang to sea, master,
+ I fear we'll come to harm."
+
+ They hadna mailed a league, a league,
+ A league but barely three,
+ When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
+ And gurly grew the sea.
+
+ The ankers brak, and the topmasts lap,
+ It was sic a deadly storm,
+ And the waves came o'er the broken ship,
+ Till a' her sides were torn.
+
+
+Sir Patrick must have been steering the ship himself, for he asked
+for a volunteer to take the helm while he went up to the tall
+topmast, to see if he could spy land. A sailor took the helm, but
+Sir Patrick had only gone a step when a bolt flew out of the good
+ship and the salt water came in. They tried to stop the leak but
+failed, and Sir Patrick and his men were lost.
+
+ O lang, lang may the ladies sit,
+ Wi' their fans into their hand,
+ Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
+ Come sailing to the strand.
+
+ And lang, lang may the maidens sit,
+ Wi' their goud kames in their hair,
+ A' waiting for their ain dear loves,
+ For them they'll see nae mair.
+
+ Half owre, half owre to Aberdour,
+ 'Tis fifty fathoms deep
+ And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens
+ Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.
+
+
+{116}
+
+"Sir Patrick Spens" is a wonderful old ballad. Most of the words,
+old as they are, you will understand. In the second verse quoted,
+lift means sky; a gurly sea is a stormy sea. Goud kames in the verse
+before the last means gold combs.
+
+Mr. John Buchan a few years ago made a collection of Scottish poetry
+called _The Northern Muse_. In it, you may read a number of famous
+ballads. There are also many delightful old songs which tell of the
+lives of ordinary folk, or people, in their everyday work. Turn
+specially to number sixty-six, which is the famous, beautiful old
+song of a woman, a good wife, who is getting ready for the homecoming
+of her husband; it is called "There's nae Luck about the House".
+Number sixty-eight is a song of fishing people. These are not
+exactly ballads, but they are written, as we say, almost in the same
+mood as a ballad. An amusing song about a clever small boy is number
+one hundred and eighty; it is a ballad, and is called "The False
+Knight Upon the Road". In days long ago people believed in witches
+and wizards.
+
+The false knight is supposed to be a wizard. If the small boy had
+not been quick enough to give him an answer to every question, the
+wizard, people thought then, might carry him away. Now listen to the
+small boy.
+
+ "O whare are ye gaun?"
+ Quo' the fause knicht upon the road:
+ "I'm gaun to the scule,"
+ Quo' the wee boy, and still he stude.
+
+ "What is that upon your back?"
+ Quo' the fause knicht upon the road:
+{117}
+ "Atweel it is my bukes,"
+ Quo' the wee boy, and still he stude.
+
+
+And so on to the end of the story. Scule, of course, is school, and
+bukes are books. Stude is stood.
+
+
+
+
+{118}
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE LADY OF THE LAKE--MARMION--JOHN GILPIN--EDINBURGH AFTER
+FLODDEN--HORATIUS--THE ARMADA
+
+In times of war, as you know, people sometimes have to go into
+hiding. Long ago, a nobleman, Earl Douglas, who lived during the
+reign of King James V of Scotland, had offended the King, or rather
+some words he was falsely reported to have uttered had been told the
+King, and he was in danger of imprisonment. Earl Douglas took refuge
+in the Highlands of Scotland with his kinsman, Sir Roderick Dhu, the
+head or chief of the clan Alpine, who was unwilling to acknowledge
+that he owed allegiance to anyone. Ellen Douglas, a very beautiful
+young woman, shared her father's exile. As it happened, King James
+went on a hunting expedition as a knight, not a king, in the same
+part of his kingdom. There he met Ellen, who had never seen the King
+and did not know who he was. The King called himself James
+Fitz-James. Roderick Dhu, who is in love with Ellen, plans a rising
+of his clan. Fitz-James is brave. He is in peril, but he wishes to
+extricate himself without calling on his soldiers. The story is told
+by Sir Walter Scott in a poem called _The Lady of the Lake_. You
+will find this romance in verse easy to read and very interesting.
+
+{119}
+
+The scene is laid in the West Highlands of Perthshire. Much of what
+happens takes place in the neighbourhood of a beautiful lake, Loch
+Katrine. Scott, you will remember, is a master in the description of
+romantic scenery. After a short introduction, the story begins with
+an account of stag-hunting. James Fitz-James and a few of his men
+are the hunters.
+
+ The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
+ Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,
+ And deep his midnight lair had made
+ In lone Glenartney's hazel shade;
+ But, when the sun his beacon red
+ Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,
+ The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay
+ Resounded up the rocky way,
+ And faint, from farther distance borne,
+ Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.
+
+The tale is made to unroll itself like a picture before our eyes.
+The scenes are wonderfully picturesque, and the story is exciting.
+What happens to Ellen, Roderick Dhu, young Malcolm Graeme who also is
+in love with Ellen and whom she loves, and to Fitz-James, you must
+discover for yourself by reading _The Lady of the Lake_.
+
+But before leaving the poem, let us quote part of the stanza which
+tells how in answer to Fitz-James's wish, Roderick Dhu gives the
+signal which calls his men from hiding in the glen where he and
+Fitz-James are to take leave of each other.
+
+ "Have then thy wish!"--he whistled shrill,
+ And he was answered from the hill;
+ Wild as the scream of the curlew,
+ From crag to crag the signal flew.
+{120}
+ Instant, through copse and heath, arose
+ Bonnets, and spears, and bended bows;
+ On right, on left, above, below,
+ Sprung up at once the lurking foe;
+ From shingles gray their lances start,
+ The bracken-bush sends forth the dart,
+ The rushes and the willow-wand
+ Are bristling into axe and brand,
+ And every tuft of broom gives life
+ To plaided warrior armed for strife.
+ That whistle garrisoned the glen
+ At once with full five hundred men.
+ . . . . . . . . . . .
+ Watching their leader's beck and will,
+ All silent there they stood and still;
+ . . . . . . . . . . .
+ The mountaineer cast glance of pride
+ Along Benledi's living side,
+ Then fixed his eye and sable brow
+ Full on Fitz-James--"How say'st thou now?
+ These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true;
+ And, Saxon,--I am Roderick Dhu!"
+
+
+_Marmion_ is one of the most romantic and moving of Scott's
+narratives. Lord Marmion is a fictitious character. Scott wished to
+tell the story of Flodden Field, a battle fought between the English
+and the Scotch in 1513 in which the English were victorious. It was
+a most disastrous battle for the Scots, who lost their King and the
+flower of their nobility. Lord Marmion, who was an Englishman, and
+many among the English, were also slain. The poem opens with a vivid
+description of life in England and Scotland in the Middle Ages. We
+visit a feudal castle in England, Norham Castle, where Sir Hugh Heron
+welcomes Lord Marmion. A Palmer returning {121} from the Holy Land
+has also come to Norham Castle.
+
+ His sable cowl o'erhung his face;
+ In his black mantle was he clad,
+ With Peter's keys, in cloth of red,
+ On his broad shoulders wrought,
+ The scallop shell, his cap did deck;
+ The crucifix around his neck
+ Was from Loretto brought;
+ His sandals were with travel tore;
+ Staff, budget, bottle, scrip, he wore;
+ The faded palm branch in his hand
+ Showed pilgrim from the Holy Land.
+
+
+We visit as well, by the magic of Scott's verses, a convent, a
+monastery and an inn, and learn many things of the way in which
+people lived in the Middle Ages. It is in _Marmion_ that we find one
+of Sir Walter Scott's famous songs, "Lochinvar", which is introduced
+in the fifth canto. But the most memorable part of _Marmion_ is the
+description of the battle of Flodden with which the poem concludes.
+The sixth canto tells the story of the battle. Turn to the
+thirty-fourth stanza of that canto, and you may read how the Scots
+tried to save their king. These lines are judged to be among the
+noblest that Sir Walter Scott ever wrote. Other tales in verse by
+Scott are _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, _Rokeby_, and _The Lord of
+the Isles_.
+
+Four stories by other writers of verse, which you will like, and in
+which you will find humour or heroic valour, are told somewhat in the
+fashion of ballads or lays; we listen to them with special {122}
+enjoyment when they are spoken by a skilled reciter.
+
+The first of these is "The Diverting History of John Gilpin", showing
+how he went farther than he intended, and came safe home again. It
+was written by the English poet Cowper who, although he was often sad
+himself, in this story has left as wholesome and carefree humour as
+anyone may wish to discover in a story. John Gilpin was a London
+citizen of long ago. His wife said that, although they had been
+married twenty years, they had never had a holiday. She proposed
+that they should take her sister, and her sister's child, and their
+own three children, and drive to an inn at Edmonton not far away.
+But, since the carriage would be crowded, John Gilpin was to come on
+horseback. John was delayed, first by one thing, then another, but
+finally got started. Then his horse wanted to trot, and John was not
+a good rider. Besides that, he had two stone bottles of wine, one
+tied to each side of his leathern belt. The horse ran away with
+John. He lost his wig. The stone bottles were broken. The horse
+raced past the inn at Edmonton where his wife and children were
+waiting, and galloped on to its owner's house at Ware which was ten
+miles further. The friend who had lent Gilpin the horse asked what
+it was all about. John, who was a plucky, good-humoured fellow, and
+loved a joke, answered him.
+
+ I came because your horse would come,
+ And, if I well forebode,
+ My hat and wig will soon be here,
+ They are upon the road.
+
+
+{123}
+
+His friend started him back to Edmonton, but even yet John had
+adventures. There was to be no family dinner at Edmonton that day.
+Yet John Gilpin at last got safe home as you may read in Cowper's
+story.
+
+"Edinburgh After Flodden", by a writer called Aytoun, is the story of
+how the people of Edinburgh first heard the news of the great defeat.
+Most people, certainly most boys and girls, must thrill as they read
+the opening stanza.
+
+ News of battle!--news of battle!
+ Hark! 'tis ringing down the street:
+ And the archways and the pavement
+ Bear the clang of hurrying feet.
+ News of battle! who hath brought it?
+ News of triumph? Who should bring
+ Tidings from our noble army,
+ Greetings from our gallant King?
+
+
+These lines are part only of the first stanza. They are taken from
+the book known as Aytoun's _Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_.
+
+Lord Macaulay, who was a distinguished historian, wrote a famous
+_History of England_. He wrote also a number of lays, or stories in
+verse. Some of the best-known are about the deeds of the Romans,
+that remarkable people who gave the world much that is great in law
+and government. You likely will have heard of the story of Horatius,
+who, with two others, held the bridge over the Tiber, and saved Rome
+when Lars Porsena came with an army to take the city. It is a famous
+story. Read it, in Macaulay's _Lays of Ancient Rome_. The last poem
+in this same {124} book of lays is called "The Armada". It also
+tells a thrilling tale. What a pity it would be if any mischievous
+sprite were to take away and hide the books in which are the stories
+written of in this chapter!
+
+
+
+
+{125}
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HIAWATHA--FRENCH CHANSONS IN QUEBEC--A CHRISTMAS SONG
+
+Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, which is in the
+state of Maine, in the year 1807. His father and mother both
+belonged to families that had been settled in the States for a number
+of generations. He was of a scholarly disposition, and studied and
+travelled to fit himself for writing and teaching. He became Smith
+Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard when he was twenty-seven
+years old. From that time, he was closely associated with the town
+of Cambridge, near Boston, in Massachusetts. Harvard University is
+situated in Cambridge. You may still visit the house where
+Longfellow lived. In a pleasant small park near the house, there is
+a statue of the poet. He was fond of children, and loved to have
+them near him.
+
+_The Song of Hiawatha_ was written specially for the delight of young
+people. It is a story in verse, telling of a leader among North
+American Indians, one of themselves, who was to rescue and help his
+people, aiding them to clear their fishing grounds, to find food, and
+to live more comfortably and peaceably than in the past.
+
+Hiawatha and his people in Longfellow's story are supposed to live on
+the south shore of Lake {126} Superior, the largest of the Great
+Lakes. The scene of the story is between the Pictured Rocks and the
+Grand Sable.
+
+The poem begins by telling of a sweet singer among the Indians. The
+singer first sings of the Master of Life; this is a translation of
+the name which to the Indians means God, Gitche Manito, the Great
+Spirit. After that, he sings of the four winds, North-wind,
+South-wind, East-wind, West-wind. Then we come to Hiawatha's
+childhood. He lived with his grandmother, old Nokomis. His mother
+was Wenonah, but she died when Hiawatha was born.
+
+ By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
+ Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
+ Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
+ Dark behind it rose the forest,
+ Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
+ Rose the firs with cones upon them;
+ Bright before it beat the water,
+ Beat the clear and sunny water,
+ Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
+
+
+Here Hiawatha was brought up. He saw the fire-flies, and heard the
+owls, and he learned to know the name and language of all birds and
+beasts. When he was old enough, Iagoo, who was a friend of Nokomis,
+made him a bow and arrows, and told him to bring home a roebuck so
+that they all might have food. After this, Hiawatha meets his
+father, Mudjekeewis, the West-wind, who had gone away and left his
+mother. Indian stories, like Greek stories, tell of the immortals
+coming down to earth. Hiawatha had a great struggle or contest with
+Mudjekeewis, who had {127} deserted Wenonah, and Hiawatha, now a
+young man, was such a mighty warrior that Mudjekeewis could scarcely
+withstand him. At last he said to Hiawatha,
+
+ "Hold, my son, my Hiawatha!
+ 'Tis impossible to kill me,
+ For you cannot kill the immortal.
+ I have put you to this trial,
+ But to know and prove your courage;
+ Now receive the prize of valour!
+ "Go back to your home and people,
+ Live among them, toil among them,
+ Cleanse the earth from all that harms it,
+ Clear the fishing-grounds and rivers,
+ Slay all monsters and magicians,
+ All the giants, the Wendigoes,
+ All the serpents, the Kenabeeks,
+ As I slew the Mishe-Mokwa,
+ Slew the Great Bear of the mountains."
+
+
+On his way home, Hiawatha was buying arrow-heads from the
+arrow-maker, and there he met and fell in love with Minnehaha. Later
+in the story, you will read of Hiawatha's wooing and of the
+wedding-feast. But before his wedding, Hiawatha completes his first
+great service for his people. He discovers the secret of a food,
+Indian corn or maize, a new gift to the Indian nations which was to
+be their food for ever.
+
+One of the most attractive of the Hiawatha stories tells how he built
+his canoe.
+
+ "Give me of your bark, O Birch-Tree!
+ Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree!
+ Growing by the rushing river,
+ Tall and stately in the valley!
+ I a light canoe will build me,
+{128}
+ Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
+ That shall float upon the river,
+ Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
+ Like a yellow water-lily!"
+
+
+After this, we read in the story of how Hiawatha slew Pearl-Feather,
+the greatest of magicians, of many other deeds of Hiawatha, and of
+his joys and sorrows. Finally, the white man comes. Then Hiawatha
+is ready for his departure; and his people greatly lament his going.
+
+ Thus departed Hiawatha,
+ Hiawatha the Beloved,
+ In the glory of the sunset,
+ In the purple mists of evening,
+ To the regions of the home-wind,
+ Of the Northwest wind Keewaydin,
+ To the Islands of the Blessed,
+ To the kingdom of Ponemah
+ To the land of the Hereafter!
+
+
+_Hiawatha_, and other stories in verse, travel round the world in
+books, and boys and girls read them in every country. But old
+ballads, the simple songs sung among the peoples of different
+countries, so old that no one knows how old they are, which we read
+about in Chapter seventeen, have their own ways of travelling. Some
+of these ballads crossed the sea when the first settlers came, and in
+parts of the North American continent to-day, the old words and the
+old airs are sung by descendants of the people who first brought them
+across the ocean. Two of the places where these ballads are still
+sung are in North Carolina, and in Nova Scotia where sailors and
+lumberjacks sing many shanties or songs.
+
+{129}
+
+The most beautiful old songs, however, on this continent are the
+French chansons of Quebec which were brought over from France when
+the French first came to Canada. Now French settlement in Canada
+ceased early in the eighteenth century, so these songs must at least
+be as old as the seventeenth century. They are probably considerably
+more than three hundred years old. Various collections of the
+_chansons_ have been published. Many of them are happy and romantic
+songs. One of the most beautiful is a Christmas song.
+
+Here is the story of the song told very briefly. Then you will find
+the song printed in its own French words. If you do not know French
+well, still you should try to make out the meaning of the words. No
+translation can give the meaning, or the perfume, as we sometimes
+say, of the beautiful old song exactly.
+
+The singer meets a shepherd-maid and asks where she has been. She
+answers that when she was out walking she had come by the stable, and
+had seen a miracle. What did you see? asks the singer. She had seen
+a baby lying cradled on the straw. Was he beautiful! As beautiful
+as the sun. Had she seen nothing more? Mary, his mother, who nursed
+her child, and Joseph, his father, trembling with the cold. Nothing
+more? The ox and the ass were near the stall, warming with their
+breath the place where the baby lay. Nothing more? Three little
+angels coming down from heaven singing the praises of the Father
+Eternal.
+
+{130}
+
+ D'ou viens-tu, bergère,
+ D'ou viens-tu?
+ 'Je viens de l'étable
+ De m'y promener;
+ J' ai vu un miracle
+ Ce soir arrivé.
+
+ Qu' as-tu vu, bergère,
+ Qu' as-tu vu?
+ 'J'ai vu dans la crèche
+ Un petit enfant
+ Sur la paille frâiche
+ Mis bien tendrement.'
+
+ Est-il beau, bergère,
+ Est-il beau?
+ This beau que la lune,
+ Aussi le soleil;
+ Jamais dans le monde
+ On vit son pareil.'
+
+ Rien de plus, bergère,
+ Rien de plus?
+ 'Saint' Marie, sa mere,
+ Qui lui fait boir' du lait,
+ Saint Joseph, son père,
+ Qui tremble de froid.'
+
+ Rien de plus, bergère,
+ Rien de plus?
+ 'Ya le bœuf et l'âne
+ Qui sont par devant,
+ Avec leur haleine
+ Réchauffant l'enfant.'
+
+ Rien de plus, bergère,
+ Rien de plus?
+ 'Ya trois petits anges
+ Descendus du ciel
+ Chantant les louanges
+ Du Père éternal.'
+
+
+
+
+{131}
+
+PART V
+
+SOME GREAT IMAGINATIVE WRITERS
+
+
+
+{133}
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DANTE--CERVANTES--SPENSER
+
+Dante, an Italian poet, was born in Florence, in 1265, a long time
+ago, and lived in what we call the Middle Ages. Italy then was
+divided into factions who fought with each other most of the time,
+and people had very uneasy, uncomfortable lives. Once, when Dante
+was a boy, he saw a girl whose name was Beatrice Portinari. We do
+not know how often he saw her; possibly even, they scarcely spoke to
+one another. But he never forgot Beatrice. He studied at more than
+one university, and had also much to do with fighting. While she was
+still very young, Beatrice died. She remained always to Dante the
+loveliest and most lovable person he had ever seen. Dante, however,
+married and had sons and daughters.
+
+When he was little more than thirty years old, Dante was exiled from
+Florence, and never returned to his home, but led the life of a
+wanderer. He had written other poems; in his exile he wrote a very
+great poem called _The Divine Comedy_, or, in Italian, _Divina
+Commedia_. The idea of the poem is to give a picture in a vision of
+the life that comes after this life; and in this way to tell us what
+is truly important in our present life.
+
+Dante divided his poem into three parts. He called the first part
+Inferno, the second part {134} Purgatorio, and the third part
+Paradiso, following the conceptions and beliefs of his own time. The
+scenery he describes is in reality Italian scenery. In the poem, or
+vision, he has two guides, the Latin poet Virgil, whose _Æneid_ is
+one of the great poems of the world; and Beatrice, who shows him the
+glories of Paradise. Dante thinks of Beatrice now as an angel in
+heaven, who has grown strong and more lovely, and who teaches and
+helps him in many ways.
+
+Some day, perhaps, you will visit Italy, and if you have not read the
+_Divine Comedy_ before that time, you likely will read the poem then
+for it gives a true, wonderful picture of the mountainous country of
+Italy. One of the best translations of Dante's great poem is by the
+Rev. H. F. Cary. It is called _The Vision of Dante_. Here is how
+Beatrice, his guide, first appeared to Dante when he met her in his
+vision in the Purgatorio:
+
+ I have beheld, ere now, at break of day,
+ The eastern clime all roseate, and the sky
+ Oppos'd, one deep and beautiful serene,
+ And the sun's face so shaded, and with mists
+ Attempered at his rising, that the eye
+ Long while endur'd the sight: thus in a cloud
+ Of flowers, that from those hands angelic rose,
+ And down, within and outside of the car
+ Fell showering, in white veil with olive wreath'd,
+ A virgin in my view appear'd, beneath
+ Green mantle, rob'd in hue of living flame:
+ And o'er my spirit, that in former days
+ Within her presence had abode so long,
+ No shudd'ring terror crept. Mine eyes no more
+ Had knowledge of her; yet there mov'd from her
+ A hidden virtue, at whose touch awak'd,
+ The power of ancient love was strong within me.
+
+
+{135}
+
+It is possible, perhaps even it is certain, that the first time you
+read these lines you will not care for them very much. After a
+while, when you have read them several times, you likely will begin
+to feel that the words express purity, elevation, and an ethereal
+beauty which belong only to our highest thoughts and feelings. These
+are qualities which are characteristic of Dante's writings.
+
+There is one other quotation from the _Divine Comedy_ that you may
+like to read before we leave Dante's poem. Paradiso, the third part,
+naturally is the most beautiful. Dante imagines in his vision the
+blessed spirits in Paradise, singing praises in a great choir. This
+choir he sees arrayed in many circles, one circle surrounding another
+circle, like the leaves of a rose. The lines quoted are from the
+beginning of the thirty-first canto:
+
+ In fashion, as a snow-white rose, lay then
+ Before my view the saintly multitude,
+ Which in his own blood Christ espous'd. Meanwhile
+ That other host, that soar aloft to gaze
+ And celebrate his glory, whom they love,
+ Hover'd around; and, like a troop of bees,
+ Amid the vernal sweets alighting now,
+ Now, clustering, where their fragrant labour glows,
+ Flew downward to the mighty flow'r, or rose
+ From the redundant petals, streaming back
+ Unto the steadfast dwelling of their joy.
+ Faces had they of flame, and wings of gold;
+ The rest was whiter than the driven snow.
+ And as they flitted down into the flower,
+ From range to range, fanning their plumy loins,
+ Whisper'd the peace and ardour, which they won
+ From that soft winnowing. Shadow none, the vast
+{136}
+ Interposition of such numerous flight
+ Cast, from above, upon the flower, or view
+ Obstructed aught. For, through the universe,
+ Wherever merited, celestial light
+ Glides freely, and no obstacle prevents.
+
+
+No, these lines are not easy to read or to understand. But there is
+a fascination in reading them, nevertheless. We are able to lay hold
+of an idea, a picture, a scene, very bright and beautiful, full of
+light and glory. When you read the lines again, perhaps in a few
+months, you will find that the picture is clearer, and that the lines
+will not seem so hard to understand. Most of us like to remember,
+whether we have read the _Divine Comedy_ or not, that Dante was an
+Italian poet who lived a long time ago, that he had seen and loved
+Beatrice in his youth, and that later in his life Dante made a great
+poem in which he tells of Beatrice, and of life on the other side of
+death.
+
+Some of you, no doubt, have played, when you felt like it, at being
+knights errant. You have imagined that you were dressed in armour,
+and that you were mounted on splendid steeds. Then, of course, as
+knights errant, you had to carry out successfully some hard task or
+accomplish some brave deed. Once upon a time, almost exactly in the
+same years during which Shakespeare was living in England, a Spanish
+writer called Cervantes wrote a book, _The Delightful History of the
+Most Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of the Mancha_, which tells how a
+man of fifty resolved that he would be a knight errant.
+
+By this time, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it had
+gone out of fashion to wear armour {137} every day; and Don Quixote
+had a good deal of trouble to find what he wanted. But he owned part
+of a helmet, and he made out of pasteboard and strips of iron a
+contrivance to take the place of the part that was missing. He had a
+target, or shield, and a lance. Then he must have a steed. He had a
+horse that was little more than skin and bone. He thought this horse
+would do, and he called it Rozinante. He wanted a lady to love and
+serve. There was a young woman who lived in a village not far away
+whom he did not know very well, but he had to have someone to call
+the lady of his thoughts, so he decided she would do, and he called
+her Dulcinea, since he thought that would sound as if she were a
+princess or great lady. Then after a while, he chose as his squire a
+labourer who had no horse, but he had an ass, and his name was Sancho
+Panza. Don Quixote promised Sancho that on their adventures, if he
+captured an island, he would make Sancho the governor of it; and so
+they set out on their journeys.
+
+Don Quixote was a very odd man. He often mistook ordinary things for
+wonderful marvels. He and Sancho had not gone far when they saw
+thirty or forty windmills in a field. Don Quixote said, Behold, here
+are thirty or forty monstrous giants. Sancho answered, no, that they
+were windmills. But Don Quixote set his lance in rest and charged
+one of the giants or windmills. He struck the windmill. Its arms
+flew round, and gave Don Quixote and Rozinante a very bad fall.
+
+Another day he said to Sancho that he saw a knight coming to meet
+them, riding a dapple-grey {138} horse, and wearing a helmet of gold
+on his head. Sancho thought that he saw a man riding a grey ass with
+something on his head that shone in the sunlight. The man proved to
+be the village barber, carrying his barber's basin on his head, and
+riding a grey ass as Sancho had said. But Don Quixote was certain
+that he was a knight, and the basin really a magic helmet. So Don
+Quixote and Rozinante charged at the barber, but he jumped off his
+ass and ran away.
+
+Many other adventures of this kind befell Don Quixote and Sancho. If
+they came to an inn, Don Quixote thought it was a castle. Any men
+they met on the road were knights, or robbers, or under enchantment,
+and Don Quixote wanted either to fight them or to rescue them. In
+the beginning of the story, Sancho thought his master was only a very
+silly person. But as time went by, Sancho saw that he was kind,
+good, unselfish and brave, although he made so many mistakes, and
+Sancho came to love his master dearly.
+
+Finally, near the end of the story, Don Quixote thought he saw a lady
+in distress and meant to rescue her. But the lady was only an image
+that some men were carrying from one place to another. They laughed
+at Don Quixote and then they beat him until he was almost dead.
+Sancho was distracted with grief and made a great lamentation over
+his master, praising him for all his virtues. Here is part of what
+Sancho said of Don Quixote:
+
+"O humbler of the proud, and stately to the humbled, undertaker of
+perils, endurer of affronts, enamoured without cause, imitator of
+good men, {139} whip of the evil, enemy of the wicked, and, in
+conclusion, knight-errant than which no greater thing may be said!"
+
+After this, Don Quixote was so bruised and sick that he and Sancho
+had to go home. And so ended Don Quixote's adventures.
+
+Cervantes' novel was a success as soon as it was published. All the
+world laughed at Don Quixote, but all the world loved him too. He
+has never been forgotten, or Sancho either. A very great many people
+carry about with them in their minds a picture of a tall, lean man,
+in rusty armour, riding a very thin horse, and carrying a lance. A
+short, fat man on an ass rides behind him. These are Don Quixote and
+Sancho. Now we know something of what it means when people say this
+man or that man has been "tilting at windmills".
+
+An English poet, Edmund Spenser, who lived in Queen Elizabeth's time,
+wrote a famous poem called _The Faery Queen_ which tells the story of
+the Red Cross Knight. After a long period of wars and religious
+troubles, Spenser was the first noted English poet, since the time of
+Chaucer, to write exquisite verse. He was the forerunner of a
+greater poet who, as you know, was Shakespeare. We will learn some
+facts concerning Chaucer's history in another chapter.
+
+People love to read Spenser's _Faery Queen_. The first line of the
+poem seems to tell how melodious and sweet the whole poem is to be.
+
+"A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine." Spenser was the first
+to show the music, grace, and inexhaustible riches of the English
+tongue.
+
+{140}
+
+The Red Cross Knight had been given a hard task. He was to kill a
+fierce dragon. In the first book of _The Faery Queen_, Canto XI, you
+will find a description of this dragon. The Red Cross Knight was
+sworn to defend Una, a beautiful maiden, but he was deceived by
+enchantments, and Una was left to wander alone in woods and on
+wastes. Here is Spenser's beautiful description of Una:--
+
+ Her angels face,
+ As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
+ And made a sunshine in the shadie place;
+
+
+When Una was wandering alone in a wood, a lion sprang at her out of a
+thicket. But when the lion saw her, he kissed her feet and licked
+her hands, and after that he was her defender.
+
+The story ends happily. The dreadful dragon is slain by the Red
+Cross Knight who finds Una again. But what we love most in _The
+Faery Queen_ is not so much the story, as the sweet and lovely music
+of Spenser's wonderful lines, such lines as you will find in Canto IX
+of the first book, and also in Canto VIII of the second book. The
+second stanza of Canto VIII, second book, tells of the angels
+visiting the earth to care for us.
+
+ How oft do they their silver bowers leave
+ To come to succour us, that succour want,
+ How oft do they with golden pineons cleave
+ The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,
+ Against foule feendes to aide us militant:
+ They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward,
+ And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
+ And all for love, and nothing for reward:
+ O, why should heavenly God to men have such regard?
+
+
+{141}
+
+You will notice that the spelling of some of the words in the poem is
+not the same as we use. They are the same words only spelled
+differently. For Spenser lived nearly four hundred years ago.
+
+
+Would you like to have the names and dates of some of those who are
+counted among the greatest writers of the world? Then you may trace
+for yourselves how the inspiration of genius is found from age to age
+in different countries.
+
+Homer wrote about nine hundred years before the birth of Christ.
+Virgil, the Latin poet,--you remember that both Kipling and Macaulay
+have told us something of the Romans, the great law-givers and
+road-builders whose language was the Latin language,--lived and wrote
+from 70 B.C. to 19 B.C. The following names and dates, you will
+easily understand.
+
+ Dante, 1265-1321.
+
+ Cervantes, 1547-1616.
+
+ Shakespeare, 1564-1616.
+
+ Goethe, 1749-1832.
+
+Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a German writer whose most famous works
+are _Faust_ and _Wilhelm Meister_. He lived at almost the same time
+as Scott. Several of the writers in the Bible belong to the same
+rank as those named in this brief list.
+
+
+
+
+{142}
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+JOHN BUNYAN AND THE PILGRIM's PROGRESS
+
+The story begins in this way.
+
+"As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a
+certain place where was a den, and laid me down in that place to
+sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and, behold, I
+saw a man clothed in rags standing in a certain place, with his face
+from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his
+back."
+
+We wonder why the man had a burden on his back, and we wish we could
+help him to get rid of it.
+
+A man called Evangelist met the man with a burden on his back.
+Evangelist pointed out to the man a wicket-gate, and asked him if he
+could see a shining light. When the man answered that he did,
+Evangelist told him to go straight to the gate and knock at it. Then
+he would be told what he was to do. Now the man's name was Christian.
+
+On the way to the gate, he fell into a muddy bog which was called the
+Slough of Despond. Then a man called Help came and pulled him out.
+After that, Mr. Worldly-Wiseman told him not to go to the gate, but
+to a village where Mr. Legality lived. Christian turned aside from
+his way, and presently came to some rocks which hung over so far he
+was afraid they would fall on him, and fire {143} came out of the
+rocks and he was very much afraid. But Evangelist found him again
+and set him on the right way. Then Christian came to the gate and
+knocked.
+
+A man answered his knock and showed him how to go to the house of the
+Interpreter. There he saw many wonderful things which you must read
+about in _The Pilgrim's Progress_. Not long after Christian left the
+house of the Interpreter, he came to a place where there was a Cross
+and there his burden fell off.
+
+After that he came to the Hill Difficulty, which was so steep that
+sometimes he had to clamber up on his hands and knees. He got up the
+hill; then he remembered that he had been told he would meet two
+lions. He went on his way feeling very despondent, but presently he
+looked up and saw a stately palace called Beautiful, so he hastened
+to get to it.
+
+He came first to a lodge, and there was a porter in the lodge who
+helped him past the lions. After all, the lions were chained, but it
+was a narrow place and they might have caught Christian if the porter
+had not helped him.
+
+Christian had a very happy holiday in the House Beautiful, and there
+he made many friends. Before he left to continue his journey, they
+showed him on a clear day the Delectable Mountains from which one can
+see the gate of the Celestial City. The Celestial City was to be the
+end of Christian's pilgrimage. After that he met another pilgrim
+called Faithful, and he was not alone any more.
+
+{144}
+
+After a little while, Christian and Faithful came to the Valley of
+Humiliation, and met in it a terrible monster called Apollyon. He
+had scales like a fish, wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, and a
+mouth like the mouth of a lion. Christian fought Apollyon. Apollyon
+wounded Christian, and knocked his sword out of his hand. But
+Christian caught his sword again and gave Apollyon a great wound.
+"And, with that, Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped
+him away, so that Christian saw him no more."
+
+Then Faithful and Christian came to a town called Vanity, where the
+people had a fair called Vanity Fair. In this town with the great
+fair, Faithful and Christian were arrested, because of their
+religion. They were tried by a judge and jury, and Faithful was put
+to death. Christian was put back into prison, but he escaped. And
+after that he had another companion on his pilgrimage who was called
+Hopeful.
+
+They came to a river and a beautiful meadow. But they lost their way
+and when they were asleep, Giant Despair of Doubting-castle found
+them and put them into a dungeon. Hopeful encouraged Christian, but
+they had a very sad time in the dungeon, until Christian suddenly
+remembered that he had a key which he had been told would open any
+lock in Doubting-castle. And so they escaped.
+
+Now they came to the Delectable Mountains, and there they met
+shepherds who entertained them. From there they went on, and began
+to feel that they were drawing near the end of their {145} journey.
+They passed through the Enchanted Ground with some difficulty, and
+came to the country of Beulah whose air is very sweet and pleasant,
+and there they met some of the inhabitants of the Celestial City.
+
+They could see the City, which was glorious. But before they could
+get to it, they had to cross a river. Hopeful helped Christian.
+"Christian therefore presently found ground to stand upon, and so it
+followed that the rest of the river was but shallow, thus they got
+over." After that, they had no more difficulty. But shining ones
+came to meet them, and trumpeters who welcomed them with shouting and
+sound of trumpet.
+
+"This done, they compassed them round on every side, some went
+before, some behind, and some on the right hand, some on the left,
+(as it were to guard them through the upper regions), continually
+sounding as they went, with melodious noise, in notes on high; so
+that the very sight was to them that could behold it as if heaven
+itself were come down to meet them. Thus, therefore, they walked on
+together; and, as they walked, ever and anon these trumpeters, even
+with joyful sound, would, by mixing their music with looks and
+gestures, still signify to Christian and his brother how welcome they
+were into their company, and with what gladness they came to meet
+them. And now were these two men, as it were, in heaven, before they
+came at it, being swallowed up with the sight of angels, and with
+hearing their melodious notes. Here also they had the City itself in
+view; and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, to
+welcome {146} them thereto. But, above all, the warm and joyful
+thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there, with such
+company, and that for ever and ever; oh! by what tongue, or pen, can
+their glorious joy be expressed! Thus they came up to the gate."
+
+A second part of The Pilgrim's Progress tells how Christiana,
+Christian's wife, and their children, and Mercy, a friend, went on
+the same pilgrimage, with Mr. Great-heart to take care of them. Mr.
+Great-heart is one of the most splendid heroes in any book.
+
+John Bunyan, who wrote _The Pilgrim's Progress_, was the son of a
+tinker. He was himself a tinker. He was a soldier in Cromwell's
+army, and then he was a preacher. Only certain people were allowed
+to preach at that time, and they arrested Bunyan. He was in prison a
+number of years. They were willing to let him out, but he would not
+promise not to preach. Brave John Bunyan! He had a brave wife too,
+who did all she could to help him.
+
+He was sentenced to prison twice, the second time only for a few
+months when he was kept in the gaol in Bedford town in England.
+Bunyan wrote _The Pilgrim's Progress_ in a room in Bedford gaol which
+is built on the bridge that crosses the river Ouse, and while he
+wrote he could hear the noise of the river flowing by. Perhaps this
+is one reason why he writes so beautifully of rivers in the story.
+
+
+
+
+{147}
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THACKERAY--MEREDITH--HARDY
+
+You remember David Copperfield, Peggoty, Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller,
+and scores of others, all of whom we found living so intensely and
+abundantly in Dickens' novels.
+
+Many other novelists, as well as Charles Dickens, have made
+interesting, delightful characters for us to know and love. In this
+chapter and the chapter following, we will learn something of a group
+of writers, men and women, in whose novels we find wonderful
+knowledge of human nature, not as wonderful as Shakespeare's
+knowledge perhaps, but showing the same deep insight as Scott and
+Dickens.
+
+The writers spoken of are not very widely separated in time. Two of
+them lived and wrote as recently as from the middle of the nineteenth
+century down to the present. George Meredith died in 1909, and
+Thomas Hardy in 1928. The whole group represents a very brilliant
+period in English literature.
+
+William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta in India. Like the
+children of other Anglo-Indian civil servants, he was sent home to
+England when he was a very little boy, leaving his mother behind him
+in India. Thackeray had a deeply affectionate nature. All his life
+he was devoted to his own people. No one can rightly {148}
+understand his novels who does not remember that Thackeray was
+tender-hearted. We can read a letter that the little boy William
+Makepeace wrote to his mother when he was seven years old. His
+mother kept it carefully. Some years ago when his daughter, Mrs.
+Ritchie, herself a novelist, was writing memories of her famous
+father, she printed the little letter in her Introduction to _The
+Newcomes_.
+
+There is nothing in the letter to show that the boy was to be a great
+writer, but as long as he lived he wrote these loving letters to his
+mother. When he was a man with children of his own, his home was his
+mother's home whenever she liked to come to stay with him. It was
+his stepfather's home also, for his mother had married again. He
+told his own children that when he was a boy at school, he sometimes
+used to pray that he would dream of his mother in the night, for he
+was lonely and not very happy.
+
+_Vanity Fair_ is the name of one of Thackeray's great novels. You
+know where Thackeray found the name,--in _The Pilgrim's Progress_.
+His novel is intended as a picture of people who are interesting and
+very real, but many of whom are selfish, false and hard-hearted.
+Thackeray painted the world as he had experienced it, and he tried to
+show what a difference there is between love and hate, selfishness
+and unselfishness. _Vanity Fair_ has a famous opening chapter.
+Becky Sharp, and Amelia Sedley, two girls, are leaving a boarding
+school. Becky is clever, amusing and poor. Amelia is gentle, a
+little dull perhaps, and her people are rich. The school-mistresses
+make {149} a great fuss over Amelia, but are disagreeable to Becky.
+So Becky throws the dictionary, which is Miss Pinkerton's parting
+gift, out of the window of the coach as they are driving away.
+_Vanity Fair_ is a famous novel. When you read it, as you will some
+day, you will learn the story of Becky and Amelia, of George Osborne
+whom Amelia marries, of Jos. Sedley, Amelia's brother, of Rawdon
+Crawley, the man Becky married, and of splendid, faithful Major
+Dobbin. There are chapters which tell of how George Osborne goes to
+fight at the battle of Waterloo, and again of when the battle is
+over, that we can never forget. Thackeray's style is so golden and
+perfect that to read anything he has written is like listening to
+strains of pure music.
+
+Other novels by Thackeray which rank with _Vanity Fair_ are _Esmond_
+and _The Virginians_, _Pendennis_ and _The Newcomes_. One of the
+most famous characters in _Esmond_ is the exquisitely beautiful
+Beatrix Esmond who turned away from love for ambition. Colonel
+Newcome in _The Newcomes_ is one of the people who have been chosen
+by the world to represent nobility of character, a man high-minded,
+distinguished, brave, honest, pure and humble of heart.
+
+There are scenes of great tenderness and nobility in Thackeray's
+novels. Two, which may be mentioned, are in Esmond--Lady Castlewood
+welcoming Henry Esmond home, Book II, chapter six, and again Lady
+Castlewood vindicating Esmond, Book III, chapter four. Find _Esmond_
+and read these chapters or ask someone to read them to you. When
+Thackeray tells in _Vanity {150} Fair_ how George Osborne lies with
+his face to the sky after Waterloo, every reader's heart is stilled
+and touched. But many people think that the most famous instance of
+Thackeray's genius is in the end of _The Newcomes_ when Colonel
+Newcome, impoverished, living in Grey Friars Hospital, thinks that he
+is a boy at school again, and answers the calling of the roll after
+the fashion in his old school at Charterhouse.
+
+Several biographies have been written of Thackeray, but you will find
+the most interesting details of the life of this great writer in the
+biographical notes written by his daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, for what is
+called the Biographical Edition of Thackeray's works.
+
+Meredith, unlike Thackeray, writes in a style which is difficult to
+read; but he is brilliant, sparkling, and wonderfully clever. We
+need to bring to his novels all the intelligence and powers of
+application which we possess. But when difficulties are overcome,
+there is great delight in reading Meredith. He is never dull. There
+is always meaning, like precious gold, to find in his novels, and in
+his poems too, for Meredith was a poet. Meredith shows us that our
+minds, characters and wills have a conquering quality; we are not at
+the mercy of impulses, instincts and intuitions. Not since
+Shakespeare wrote, has any genius drawn such portraits of women as
+appear in Meredith's novels. Three of his most brilliant and
+fascinating women characters are Diana in _Diana of the Crossways_,
+Clara Middleton and Laetitia Dale in _The Egoist_. There is also in
+_The Egoist_ a splendidly drawn portrait {151} of a boy, Crossjay
+Patterne. This boy and the beautiful, high-minded Clara Middleton
+are friends and playmates; it is quite possible for a boy or a girl
+to have a grown-up friend, who is at the same time a playmate.
+
+_Diana of the Crossways_ and _The Egoist_ are perhaps the most
+readable among the many novels Meredith has written. Sir Willoughby
+Patterne in _The Egoist_ is a study of a man whose interests are
+centered in himself. Diana is charming, brilliant, impulsive, and of
+a noble nature. She is a very attractive heroine.
+
+Thomas Hardy was born in 1840, in a tiny village called Higher
+Bockhampton, in the parish of Stinsford, Dorset, England. It is a
+country of woods and heaths, lonely and silent. Old customs and
+manners were maintained in this place in the heart of England, long
+after they had disappeared in more populous centres. Hardy's novels
+tell us of the quaint customs, and of the interesting and picturesque
+characters that he knew in his youth. Three of his early novels,
+_Under the Greenwood Tree_, _The Return of the Native_, and _The
+Trumpet-Major_ seem to hold under a magic spell, for our enjoyment,
+old England and the people of old England, not at a time as long ago
+as when the fairies were supposed to live, but near the beginning of
+the nineteenth century, when people were looking for Napoleon
+Bonaparte to invade England from France across the Channel.
+
+Hardy himself, his father and his grandfather were all fond of music,
+and we read much of people singing and dancing in Hardy's early
+novels, {152} of the members of the church choir, of glee and carol
+singers. Thomas Hardy, when he was a lad, used to play the fiddle at
+dances in the farm houses nearby where he lived. His mother did not
+allow him to take any money for his playing, but once he broke the
+rule and with the few shillings he had been given bought a copy of
+the _Boys' Own Book_. This book was kept in Hardy's library all his
+life. He played at weddings too. No doubt, the boy learned much of
+his neighbours in this way of which afterwards his genius made use in
+his novels.
+
+Some of the most charming scenes that Hardy ever wrote you will find
+in the first five chapters of _Under the Greenwood Tree_. Read these
+chapters, and you will see the English landscape long ago on a
+Christmas Eve. You will breathe the pure, chill air, and sing
+Christmas carols with the other carollers. The story begins: "To
+dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well
+as its feature."
+
+To the end of his life, Hardy was fascinated by the story of
+Napoleon. In the country where he lived, there lived also older men
+who had fought against Napoleon, and many who remembered the dread
+with which people looked for his invasion of England. One of Hardy's
+early novels, _The Trumpet-Major_, is a fine tale of country folk, of
+soldiers and sailors who fought against Napoleon, and of the
+press-gang that carried away men to serve in the Navy. But, proudest
+recollection of all for the novelist, the Hardy who held the great
+Nelson in his arms when he lay dying victorious in the cockpit of his
+ship, _The Victory_, after {153} Trafalgar, belonged to the same
+family as his own. You remember, Nelson whispered, "Kiss me, Hardy."
+
+Little wonder that Thomas Hardy, who also was a poet besides being a
+novelist, wrote what is perhaps his greatest work in a poetical drama
+called _The Dynasts_, a drama of the Napoleonic wars.
+
+This poetical drama is a great vision of war, of suffering, brave,
+stout-hearted, jesting men, and of mighty spirits who from some vast
+height view the battling world, and wonder what the future of mankind
+may be. Such lines as the following stay in our memories and
+convince us that Thomas Hardy was not only a great novelist, but a
+great poet.
+
+ The systemed suns the skies enscroll
+ Obey Thee in their rhythmic roll,
+ Ride radiantly at Thy command,
+ Are darkened by Thy Masterhand!
+
+ And these pale panting multitudes
+ Seen surging here, their moils, their moods,
+ All shall "fulfil their joy" in Thee,
+ In Thee abide eternally!
+
+ Exultant adoration give
+ The Alone, through Whom all living live.
+ The Alone, in Whom all dying die,
+ Whose means the End shall justify!
+
+
+
+
+{154}
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+JANE AUSTEN--GEORGE ELIOT--THE BRONTES
+
+Jane Austen is very much like herself, and like no one else. Most of
+us find people of this description interesting. It is true, that the
+more we know of Miss Austen, the more interesting we find her.
+
+The characters in her novels are so real that no one has ever been
+able to find any fault with the way in which she created them.
+
+Is it possible for us to discover how it was that she made her
+characters so real? Mr. Woodhouse is one of the people in Miss
+Austen's novel called _Emma_. Emma is Mr. Woodhouse's daughter. He
+is rather an invalid; at least, he thinks he is an invalid. Emma is
+a kind, good-hearted, managing young lady, who takes good care of her
+father, and who, since Mr. Woodhouse does not want to be troubled
+about anything, has all the responsibility of a large household.
+This arrangement suits Emma perfectly.
+
+Emma often arranges a little tea party to amuse her father. He likes
+company, and quiet, sociable conversation. He wants his guests to
+eat, but he is afraid that what they eat will not be good for them.
+On one occasion, Emma had provided minced chicken and scalloped
+oysters, for their guests. Her father would take only a {155} little
+thin gruel. Poor Mr. Woodhouse urges the ladies to partake of his
+hospitality in this fashion.
+
+"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An
+egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling
+an egg better than anybody. I would not recommend an egg boiled by
+anybody else,--but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you
+see--one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma
+help you to a little bit of tart,--a very little bit. Ours are all
+apple tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here.
+I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a
+glass of wine,--a small half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I
+do not think it could disagree with you."
+
+But Emma took care that their guests had plenty to eat.
+
+Mr. Woodhouse also was very particular about his horses. He kept
+horses and a coachman, but he seldom thought that the horses ought to
+be taken out.
+
+With delicate, true touches such as these, and in easy conversation,
+Miss Austen builds up her characters. By the time we have finished
+the story, we know Mr. Woodhouse intimately, and Emma, and Mrs. and
+Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, and many others. Is it not true that you
+know a good deal about Mr. Woodhouse only from hearing him speak of
+what food his guests should eat?
+
+Mr. Bennet in _Pride and Prejudice_ is a father of a different
+character. He has five daughters, but he is fondest of Elizabeth, or
+Eliza as she is {156} often called. Mrs. Bennet, his wife, is
+unfortunately rather a silly person. Miss Austen is able to explain
+Mrs. Bennet's character just by letting her talk, and Mrs. Bennet
+talks a great deal.
+
+Mrs. Bennet says to her husband, for instance, that he has no
+compassion on her poor nerves. Mr. Bennet answers: "You mistake me,
+my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old
+friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these
+twenty years at least."
+
+One would say that Mr. Bennet was, perhaps, not very considerate
+himself, a little inclined to be satirical with his foolish wife.
+But here is part of a conversation of his with Eliza, when she has
+told him at the end of the second book that she was going to be
+married, which shows Mr. Bennet in a better light.
+
+"Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more
+to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have
+parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy."
+
+How easy and simple it all seems, and yet to write naturally and
+simply, with such entire truth to nature, is one of the most
+difficult arts for any novelist.
+
+Miss Austen wrote six novels altogether, _Pride and Prejudice_,
+_Sense and Sensibility_, _Emma_, _Persuasion_, _Mansfield Park_, and
+_Northanger Abbey_. She lived and wrote a little more than a hundred
+years ago, but her books are read and admired to-day perhaps more
+than at any previous time. There is something very charming and
+interesting in Miss Austen's reticence, truthfulness, strength of
+character, crystal purity and delightful {157} humour. Her field is
+narrow, she is not eloquent or sublime, but her work in its own way
+is perfect.
+
+When Miss Austen wrote, it was not the fashion for ladies to write,
+and she often used to hide her manuscript beneath a bit of sewing, or
+place it hastily in a drawer when a door near where she wrote creaked
+on its hinges. We know from some letters written by her family that
+there was such a creaking door.
+
+Mr. Kipling has written a poem in praise of Jane Austen which you
+will find in his book called _Debits and Credits_. He pictures Miss
+Austen being met at heaven's gate by some of the great novelists:
+Good Sir Walter, you know who that is; Henry, this is a great English
+novelist whose name was Henry Fielding; Tobias, another English
+novelist, Tobias Smollett; Miguel of Spain, this is Cervantes. From
+this short poem you can judge how highly other writers rank Jane
+Austen.
+
+Tom and Maggie Tulliver are brother and sister. They appear in
+George Eliot's novel _The Mill on the Floss_. Tom and Maggie serve,
+perhaps, as the best known instance in fiction of a study of the
+relations between brother and sister. Certainly, we often think of
+Tom and Maggie, and always we think of them as boy and girl, brother
+and sister.
+
+Tom is very much of a boy. He is an important person in the family,
+and he is to succeed his father at Dorlcote Mill, which is on the
+river Floss.
+
+{158}
+
+Is not this a beautiful description of Dorlcote Mill? George Eliot
+must have been writing of a mill that she knew and loved:
+
+"And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the
+bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is
+far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing
+February it is pleasant to look at,--perhaps the chill damp season
+adds a charm to the trimly kept comfortable dwelling-house, as old as
+the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The
+stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation,
+and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house.
+As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate
+bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and
+branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love
+with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads
+far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward
+appearance they make in the drier world above."
+
+Maggie Tulliver is a wonderful study of a girl, later of a young
+woman. No one surely can help loving Maggie, who adored Tom with all
+her heart, who was often in disgrace with her mother, as for
+instance, when she cut off her hair, who spent a great part of her
+time reading books, and who was her father's favourite. Tom was
+rather hard on Maggie. When they grew up there was a sad time when
+Tom refused to have anything to do with her. Yet Maggie always loved
+Tom best. At the end of the story, there is a flood. {159} The
+river rises so high that everyone's life is in danger. And Maggie
+comes alone by herself in a boat to rescue Tom.
+
+It is probable, indeed it is certain, that George Eliot was writing
+of her own girlhood, and of her feelings for her brother, when she
+created with the power of genius Maggie Tulliver. Such depth of
+understanding, tenderness, and poignancy of feeling, are only
+possible when one knows people very, very well. George Eliot knew
+Maggie Tulliver perfectly.
+
+George Eliot, of course, is only a pen name. The author's real name
+was Mary Ann Evans. She lived in the country, like the Tullivers,
+and her many novels abound with striking characters among country
+people. One of the most successful of them is Mrs. Poyser in the
+novel _Adam Bede_. Mrs. Poyser is famous for her clever sayings,
+full of pithy truth and wit. It was she who said of some one for
+whom she did not care, that it was a pity he could not be hatched
+over again and hatched different. Sayings of this kind generally are
+spoken by clever people who are not educated, as most of us
+understand education, but who have learned a great deal about life
+and human nature. This power of inventing wise, amusing sayings is
+called mother wit.
+
+George Eliot was a learned woman, and spent her later life in London.
+But her country books are probably her best. She wrote a little
+later than Jane Austen, and some time before Hardy. Another of her
+stories that you are likely to enjoy is _Silas Marner_. Others,
+besides _The Mill on {160} the Floss_, and _Adam Bede_, are _Romola_,
+_Felix Holt_, _Middlemarch_, and _Daniel Deronda_.
+
+We come now to the story of two of the most romantic figures in
+English literature. Early in the nineteenth century, a clergyman who
+was of Irish descent and whose name was Patrick Brontë, had a family
+of children most of whom were remarkably gifted. Those whom we know
+best are Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and a brother Branwell, who was born
+after Charlotte and before Emily. Branwell might have been an
+artist, but his life was not successful or happy. Anne wrote
+pleasing stories, but Charlotte and Emily Brontë are sisters whom we
+associate with an atmosphere of strange romance and rich endowment.
+
+Most of their lives was spent in Yorkshire, amidst wild and romantic
+scenery. They were poor and had few possessions. Charlotte was a
+governess. She studied in Brussels in Belgium, and her younger
+sister Emily was with her. Charlotte was influenced by French
+literature, Emily by all that was strange and mysterious in German
+literature. Charlotte's best known book is _Jane Eyre_. Emily's
+masterpiece is _Wuthering Heights_. Wuthering Heights means a high
+place where great winds blow most of the time.
+
+_Jane Eyre_ is a romantic, extravagant story of a girl who was a
+governess, and of the strange people she met. The story is not even
+always well-written; yet it is exciting and thrilling. Few novels
+had such depth of feeling, passion and elevated thought. No one can
+read Charlotte Brontë's novels without tingling with a {161} feeling
+that here one has met an extraordinary personality.
+
+Emily Brontë was more highly gifted even than her sister Charlotte.
+Everything that is true of _Jane Eyre_ is more true of _Wuthering
+Heights_. It is a stranger, and more romantic story. At times, one
+would even say that there is something hard and cruel in _Wuthering
+Heights_. But there is also natural genius. Emily wrote a few
+remarkable poems which are more highly esteemed now than they were
+when she died. One does not say that these two sisters were
+possessed of the highest creative power. But Charlotte and Emily
+Brontë are among the most interesting and unforgettable of English
+novelists. Barrie said not long ago of Emily Brontë that she was our
+greatest woman, meaning that he believed her to be the greatest among
+English-speaking women writers. This sense of greatness you will
+experience for yourselves in the words which end _Wuthering Heights_.
+The story is tragic; but the ending is happy and tranquil, although
+at first it may seem sad.
+
+"I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths
+fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind
+breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever
+imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
+
+
+
+
+{163}
+
+PART VI
+
+HISTORY, POLITICS, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVEL
+
+
+
+{165}
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+WHAT IS HISTORY!
+
+Most of us like true stories. Often, when we listen to a story which
+seems interesting and surprising, perhaps even delightful, we say
+when the story is ended, "But, is it true?" If the answer is no, or
+even that the story is not all true, we are disappointed.
+
+This feeling of wishing to know the truth about people and events,
+about what the world is really like and what it used to be like,
+belongs to human nature. It is born in our hearts when we are born.
+From the beginning of the world, people have cared for true stories.
+
+As you know, knowledge of remarkable events and people at first was
+repeated by one generation to another by word of mouth. But
+tradition, although interesting, is often inaccurate. It does not
+tell the whole, exact true story. So people were willing to spend a
+great deal of time, and to work very hard, to find out the truth
+about past events and about people who lived in the past.
+
+In this way was born the art and science of history. History is a
+science, because writing true history requires careful, painstaking,
+unwearied research. Writing history is also an art, since to make
+events and human beings of long ago, or even of yesterday and to-day,
+live in a book in such a way that we can understand {166} them, and
+read of them with interest and enjoyment, requires imagination and
+all other gifts which are needed to write true histories, or true
+stories.
+
+Herodotus, a Greek, who lived four hundred and eighty-four years
+before the birth of Christ, is called the father of history. He is a
+model, or pattern, still for historians. He was not only the first
+great historian, he is one of the greatest among writers of history.
+When he wrote history first, he used to recite what he had composed
+to his friends. At one of these recitals of history by Herodotus, a
+boy was present with his father. The boy's name was Thucydides. He
+was so charmed and excited by what Herodotus said that he burst into
+tears, as we do sometimes when we are greatly moved by a beautiful
+thing. Thucydides afterwards, when he grew up, became a great
+historian.
+
+In another chapter, we shall try to learn of some interesting modern
+histories, and some famous modern historians,--modern, that is, as
+compared with Herodotus and Thucydides. But many of the books that
+we have read for other reasons have told us a good deal about people
+who lived long ago, and of their customs.
+
+You remember the ballads of "Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of
+Otterbourne", which tell how the English and Scots fought with one
+another. These ballads are not accurate history, but they are
+undoubtedly historical. They take us, with a strange, thrilling
+feeling that we can almost see what must have happened, as far back
+as 1388.
+
+{167}
+
+At the time when Queen Philippa of Hainault was the wife of King
+Edward III of England, a young Hainaulter, a fellow countryman of
+hers, came from France to visit her and brought with him a copy of a
+book of chronicles, written by himself about recent wars in France.
+His name was Sir John Froissart. He was eager to write true
+histories of his own time, medieval histories as we call them. You
+will find Sir John Froissart's _Chronicles_ a delightful book to
+read. Many of the stories which Froissart first wrote are in the
+histories we read to-day. Queen Philippa was greatly pleased with
+the visit of her young fellow-countryman and with his book.
+Froissart stayed in England for some time, and while he was there
+found out everything he could about the Battle of Otterbourne. The
+story is told in one of his chronicles.
+
+Here are two short extracts from the chronicle of the Battle of
+Otterbourne. Froissart wrote in old French. His chronicles were
+translated into English by Lord Berners in the time of King Henry
+VIII. In these extracts the old English spelling has been modernized.
+
+"At the beginning the Englishmen were so strong that they reculed
+back their enemies: then the Earl Douglas, who was of great heart and
+high of enterprise, seeing his men recule back, then to recover the
+place and to shew knightly valour, he took his axe in both his hands,
+and entered so into the press that he made himself way in such wise
+that none durst approach near him, and he was so well armed that he
+bare well off such strokes as he received. Thus he went ever {168}
+forward like a hardy Hector, willing alone to conquer the field and
+to discomfit his enemies: but at last he was encountered with three
+spears all at once, so that he was borne perforce to the earth and
+after that he could not be again relieved. Some of his knights and
+squires followed him, but not all, for it was night, and no light but
+by the shining of the moon..."
+
+"This battle was fierce and cruel till it came to the end of the
+discomfiture; but when the Scots saw the Englishmen recule and yield
+themselves, then the Scots were courteous and set them to their
+ransom, and every man said to his prisoner: Sirs, go and unarm you
+and take your ease: I am your master': and so made their prisoners as
+good cheer as though they had been brethren, without doing to them
+any damage."
+
+You will notice that part of the battle must have been fought at
+night, for the moon was shining. It is likely that Froissart was
+told this story by some man who had been at the battle and remembered
+well that there was no light but the light of the moon. The direct
+account of an eyewitness is one of the most convincing forms of true
+history. If you will turn to the Acts of the Apostles, you can read
+in the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters another account by an
+eyewitness, telling how Paul, after he had been kept in prison two
+years, was sent for by a new governor Festus, and of the speech he
+made to Festus, and to King Agrippa and Queen Bernice. As you know,
+some books of the Bible are histories. This splendid account of an
+old trial is a fine example of historical writing.
+
+{169}
+
+Old books, old manuscripts, inscriptions, records of all kinds, old
+and new, even buried cities, form part of the material which
+historians study. A historian may find that the same event is
+related in one manuscript after one fashion, and in another
+manuscript in quite a different way. So it is that historians always
+want to find corroboration, if possible, for facts which they wish to
+use in their histories. Thus we see that the work of a historian is
+difficult. But anyone who writes a history which is true, and well
+authenticated, and interesting to read, has served mankind well. He
+has increased our knowledge and understanding, and in this way has
+made those who read his history more useful and capable men and women.
+
+Let us take one or two of the easiest and most attractive books that
+a historian might wish to consult, and see if we can find in them any
+facts, or pictures, which might be useful in writing a true history.
+
+Long ago, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, there lived
+an English poet whose name was Geoffrey Chaucer. He wrote a poem
+called _The Canterbury Tales_ which tells of a number of people who
+were going as pilgrims to a shrine in the great Cathedral at
+Canterbury. They met in the Tabard Inn in Southwark at London.
+Chaucer describes these people one by one so accurately that we can
+learn how people looked, and what they wore, these many hundred years
+ago. He tells, too, of the landlord or host who kept the Inn. His
+name was Harry Bayly. It seems from other records in the Public
+Record {170} Office in London that the landlord of the Tabard Inn at
+the time actually was a Harry Bayly. Chaucer, as well as being a
+poet, had a post in the Custom House. There is a record of Harry
+Bayly paying money into the Customs. It seems certain that Chaucer's
+descriptions of the Canterbury pilgrims are true and accurate
+pictures of people who lived in his time.
+
+Who were these people?
+
+"A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,"--Later Chaucer says of
+him that:
+
+"He was a verray parfit gentil knyght." His son was there, a young
+squire, and among the other pilgrims were a yeoman, a nun, a
+prioress, a monk, a friar, a merchant, a clerk, a sergeant at law, a
+franklin, a haberdasher, a carpenter, a cook, a shipman or sailor, a
+doctor, a goodwife, a ploughman, a reeve, a pardoner, and several
+others.
+
+The squire "was as fressh as in the monthe of May." The prioress was
+very good-looking.
+
+ Hire nose tretys, hir eyen greye as glas,
+ Hir mouth ful smal and ther-to softe and reed,
+ But sikely she hadde a fair forheed.
+
+These words are easily changed into our modern spelling. The last
+line, for instance is
+
+ "But certainly she had a fair forehead."
+
+Chaucer describes exactly the way in which each one was dressed.
+Then each of the pilgrims tells a story, and in these stories we find
+more information of how people looked and how they lived in the
+fourteenth century. Chaucer's poetry, {171} although somewhat
+difficult to read on account of the old words, is fresh and beautiful
+still.
+
+Shakespeare's plays, especially his historical plays, throw a
+wonderful light on the battles, life and customs of England at the
+time of Agincourt, in the Wars of the Roses, and his own lifetime.
+Besides the beauty and greatness of his plays, Shakespeare added
+always to whatever he wrote his wonderful true knowledge of human
+nature. Turn to Act iii, Scene ii of _King Henry V_, and you will
+read what a boy, serving some of the soldiers, says in all the tumult
+and excitement of the battle.
+
+"Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for
+a pot of ale and safety."
+
+One of the most important subjects of which many historians write is
+politics. Charles Dickens, as you know, was a humorist. In his
+stories, he describes social conditions which existed in the early
+part of the nineteenth century and which later have been somewhat
+improved. Dickens, possibly, exaggerated a little, and made his
+accounts somewhat of a burlesque of what actually existed. Yet when
+we want to read a true and very amusing account of an election, which
+might be of use to political historians when they write of the
+earlier part of the nineteenth century, we will find it in chapter
+thirteen of _Pickwick Papers_.
+
+The town of Eatanswill is the scene of the election. Mr. Pickwick,
+Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Winkle, and Sam Weller are in
+Eatanswill, and take a lively part in the proceedings. {172}
+Dickens, as you know, helped to laugh away many abuses. Elections
+are not carried on in the same way to-day. But the political
+candidates and newspapers of Eatanswill, what they said, did, and
+printed, make an amusing story which has at the same time not a
+little historical truth.
+
+
+Now we know a very little of how historians try to find out the truth
+about what has happened in the past, so that they may write true
+histories. Very long ago, people used to believe that each art had
+its own muse, a beautiful being like a goddess, who helped and guided
+followers of her art. They called the muse of history Clio. So if
+it pleases us to do so, we can think of the beautiful spirit, or
+muse, of history teaching, entertaining and helping us all.
+
+
+
+
+{173}
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MEANING OF POLITICS
+
+We may learn from games a good deal of the nature of politics.
+
+We know that the better the game is organized, the better it will be
+played. In many games, there are two sides, two captains, and an
+equal number of players on each side. Captains have duties, players
+have duties. Captains should be able to think quickly, understand
+quickly, make quick decisions, and not make mistakes any oftener than
+they can help. They should understand other boys. Or if the game is
+played by girls, the girl who is captain should understand other
+girls. Players ought to be willing to obey the captain's word. Some
+day, the player may be the captain; perhaps he has been a captain
+already. The whole team, players and captain, should be loyal. A
+game cannot be altogether successful unless it is played with good
+feeling, generosity, keenness, sportsmanship and honour on both
+sides. Each side should be on good terms with the other side and
+behave with courtesy. These things are true in games. They are true
+also in politics, although, possibly, not quite in the same way.
+
+As soon as people began to live together in communities, some of the
+people wanted the community properly organized and governed. They
+{174} thought everything belonging to the place in which they lived
+should be carried on in the best, most comfortable way, with justice
+for everybody. But, unfortunately, there have always been some
+people who want the best only for themselves, and are not willing to
+be just to other people. In our own natures, many of us find a
+conflict between desiring to be just to others, and yet wishing a
+great deal for ourselves.
+
+We can imagine what a long, long story, or history there is in
+politics.
+
+Politics have to do with the government of communities, towns and
+cities and nations, and finally all nations, since all nations are
+beginning to be willing to agree among themselves.
+
+For a very long time, perhaps always, people have dreamed of perfect
+organization and perfect government.
+
+One of the most famous books ever written on the subject of this
+hoped-for perfect government is the work of the Greek philosopher
+Plato who had been taught by Socrates. The book is called _The
+Republic of Plato_ and it contains the teaching of Socrates.
+
+You may read in the last sentences of the ninth book of _The Republic
+of Plato_, a description of the perfect city. Socrates had been
+explaining to his pupils that the man of understanding will take part
+in everything which will make him a better man, and will shun what
+may make him less good. So he will take part in politics. _The
+Republic_ is written in the form of question and answer. Finally
+Socrates says that the pattern of the perfect city is perhaps laid up
+in heaven, but that, {175} as far as he can, the man of understanding
+will follow its practices.
+
+
+It would scarcely be possible to make a complete list of famous men
+who have been statesmen or politicians, because the list would be so
+long. But in this chapter we can choose a few names of men who have
+been political leaders in Great Britain, Canada, and the British
+Empire.
+
+A political leader generally is a speaker or orator. Nothing,
+possibly, is more thrilling than to listen to a great speech. Read
+carefully the few political sentences which follow here, and see if
+you do not experience a thrill, a sense that here is something that
+belongs to you.
+
+The first sentences quoted were spoken by William Pitt, Earl of
+Chatham, in the House of Lords, 1770. Pitt, before he became a
+member of the British House of Commons, had been a soldier.
+
+"I am now suspected of coming forward, in the decline of life, in the
+anxious pursuit of wealth and power, which it is impossible for me to
+enjoy. Be it so; there is one ambition at least which I ever will
+acknowledge, which I will not renounce but with my life--it is the
+ambition of delivering to my posterity those rights of freedom which
+I have received from my ancestors. I am not now pleading the cause
+of an individual, but of every freeholder in England."
+
+Edmund Burke, an Irishman, was a great orator. He laid down and
+taught principles of government which have a great deal to do with
+the way in which government in the British {176} Empire is organized
+to-day. Here is one sentence which he spoke in the British House of
+Commons in 1780.
+
+"The service of the public is a thing which cannot be put to auction,
+and struck down to those who will agree to execute it the cheapest."
+
+Richard Cobden was an economist. He was the son of a farmer, and was
+himself a manufacturer. His speeches are for the most part plain and
+simple, and deal generally with the change in Great Britain from
+protection to free trade. The following sentences were spoken in the
+British House of Commons in 1845. The second half of the last
+sentence contains teaching which is memorable.
+
+"This is a new era. It is the age of improvement, it is the age of
+social advancement, not the age for war or for feudal sports. You
+live in a mercantile age, when the whole wealth of the world is
+poured into your lap. You cannot have the advantages of commercial
+rents and feudal privileges; but you may be what you always have
+been, if you will identify yourselves with the spirit of the age."
+
+D'Arcy McGee, a Canadian statesman, was born and educated in Ireland.
+He spoke and laboured for the confederation of the Provinces which
+was consummated in the Dominion of Canada in 1867. The sentences
+that follow belong to a speech given before the Legislative Assembly
+of Upper and Lower Canada in 1865:
+
+"The principle of Federation is a generous one. It is a principle
+that gives men local duties to discharge, and invests them at the
+same time {177} with general supervision, that excites a healthy
+sense of responsibility and comprehension."
+
+When we read over these sentences, we may obtain a sense of the
+meaning of government, and of the greatness of politics. Notice that
+the men who speak are in earnest. Their sentences are practical and
+simple. Great politics and great statesmen, almost invariably, are
+characterized by earnestness and sincerity; and great political
+sayings, as a rule, are practical. Countless numbers of men have
+devoted themselves to political government, not for their own gain,
+but for the service of their country, and eventually of the world.
+There are those who go into politics for their own gain solely, but
+we do not call them patriots. The study of such sentences as are
+quoted in this chapter will help us to understand something of the
+government and history of Canada, Great Britain and the Empire. Boys
+and girls and young people should be interested in government, for
+every country needs the help of the younger generations in its
+political affairs.
+
+
+The greatest political sentence ever spoken is,--"Love your enemies."
+
+
+Some day you should plan to visit a great library and ask to be shown
+facsimiles of a few of the famous Acts by which liberties have been
+won and our government has been assured. One of the greatest Acts in
+the history of the English-speaking world is the Great Charter
+obtained in King John's time, 1215, and signed by him and many of the
+barons. Be sure to see a facsimile of this, if you can, and read
+especially clause 40.
+
+{178}
+
+"To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse, or delay right or
+justice."
+
+The Confederation Act of the Dominion of Canada, or the British North
+America Act, as it is properly called, is dated 1867. Its plainness,
+simplicity and scrupulous fairness make it worthy of admiration.
+
+In Charlottetown, the capital of the Province of Prince Edward
+Island, set in the assembly hall of the Parliament Buildings, is a
+tablet to mark the place where the Fathers of Confederation met and
+deliberated. These are the words which you may read on the tablet,
+as well as the names of the men who resolved that there should be a
+Dominion of Canada:
+
+ In the Hearts and Minds of the
+ Delegates who Assembled
+ In this Room, Sept. 1st, 1864
+ Was born the Dominion of Canada.
+ ------
+ Providence being Their Guide
+ They Builded Better than they Knew.
+
+
+
+
+{179}
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+HISTORIES
+
+It will take us a little while even to imagine how many important
+books there are in which famous historians have written of history
+and politics.
+
+Why should so many books need to be written about history?
+
+Because in this way we are able to trace the long, fascinating story
+of how mankind--men and women, your fathers and mothers, their
+fathers and mothers, and so on back for a thousand generations--has
+been gradually gaining in knowledge and growing, we trust, if even
+only a very little, more kind and more just.
+
+But let us forget all this for a few minutes. It is a good time to
+look about our treasure house, and see, or reckon up, as it were,
+what we have found in it.
+
+If we had to write a fairy tale about books, we could easily imagine
+that all the famous books in the world were kept in a great, very
+beautiful palace, and that books of different kinds were arranged in
+halls, galleries and great rooms which had been assigned to them.
+
+There might very well be a special, beautiful, walled garden,
+belonging to the palace, for fairy tales, myths, fables and such
+books.
+
+What a wonderful, great room, or rather series {180} of great rooms,
+must be kept for stories and novels!
+
+And exquisite galleries, with vaulted roofs, and open courts, where
+fountains play,--the water falling with a pleasant sound into marble
+basins,--and with beautiful statues in the courts, we will choose for
+songs, ballads, and great poetry.
+
+Famous books of history, political speeches, lives of great men,
+books of travel and discovery, may be arranged in a stately hall,
+with alcoves, stained glass windows, and marble busts of some of the
+great men that we read about.
+
+Shall we imagine that we will pay a visit to a few of the alcoves in
+the great hall of history, and take down from the shelves, here one
+book, and here another, reading their names, and learning the names
+of those who wrote the books?
+
+We do not learn very much about a book simply by taking it down from
+a shelf, and turning over a few of the pages; but we do learn
+something. Many of you will read a certain number of these books
+some day. All of us may know something about them. At least we all
+can remember that famous histories, as well as other books, have
+helped to make this delightful, thrilling, difficult, very important
+world in which we live.
+
+Now what books shall we take down from the shelves?
+
+Suppose we begin with a book written by someone you know,--Sir Walter
+Raleigh.
+
+When Sir Walter Raleigh came back from one of his sea expeditions, on
+which, after the fashion of the times in which he lived, he had been
+more or less of a buccaneer, he was put into prison in {181} the
+Tower of London on account of a political quarrel in which he was
+involved. Time spent in prison seems very long, especially for a man
+like Raleigh. So he began to write a _History of the World_. He
+never finished it, but he got as far on as B.C. 130. You can handle
+to-day one of the great books in which Raleigh's _History of the
+World_ is printed; but very few people ever read it.
+
+But at the end of what Raleigh wrote of the _History of the World_,
+he penned a noble sentence which people have never forgotten. Here
+it is:
+
+"O eloquent, just, and mightie Death! whom none could advise, thou
+hast perswaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all
+the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and
+despised. Thou hast drawne together all the farre stretched
+greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition of man, and covered
+it all over with these two narrow words, _Hic jacet_!"
+
+We know that there is, or perhaps we should say that there used to
+be, a sharp division between ancient and modern history. One of the
+first writers to connect modern with ancient history was an
+Englishman whose name was Edward Gibbon. He wrote a book called _The
+History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. Do any of you
+happen to remember that in Dickens' novel, _Our Mutual Friend_, Mr.
+Boffin paid Silas Wegg to read aloud to him so that he might become a
+little better educated? Mr. Boffin had chosen Gibbon's _Decline and
+Fall of the Roman Empire_ for Silas Wegg to read to him. It is a
+{182} remarkable book, and it made a great impression on the
+scholarship of the world. Gibbon himself was a clever, but somewhat
+odd man. He chose to live and write a good part of his time, not in
+his own country, but in Switzerland. Gibbon is an international
+author. Not only the people of his own country, but those of other
+countries as well, read his great work. He lived in the eighteenth
+century, and he belonged to Dr. Johnson's club. We are going to hear
+something of Dr. Samuel Johnson in another chapter. Certainly, we
+should take down Gibbon's history from the shelves, and look at it.
+Some of you probably will read it later with interest and pleasure.
+
+Lord Macaulay, who wrote _The Lays of Ancient Rome_, was an able
+historian. He lived from 1800 to 1859. Gibbon had died six years
+before Macaulay was born. Macaulay was a graduate of Cambridge, a
+lawyer and a writer. He was a member of Parliament, and lived for
+several years in India, where he gave splendid governmental service.
+His _History of England_ is a famous book. When it was first
+published it was read with as much eagerness as if it had been a
+thrilling novel. It still charms a multitude of readers. Take down
+the first volume of his _History of England_ from the shelf, and read
+in the first chapter two paragraphs that speak of Cromwell and of the
+gallant bearing of Charles the First at his execution. Perhaps you
+may remember reading a story by Dumas which tells of the same event.
+Anyone who cares for history will find delight in Macaulay's famous
+book.
+
+Here is Napier's _History of the War in the {183} Peninsula_, in
+which you may read of the campaigns of Wellington. If you will look
+at his preface you will find noble praise of Wellington's army. Here
+are John Richard Green's _Short History of the English People_, and
+Miss Agnes Strickland's _Queens of England_. Here are histories by
+Carlyle, and by Lecky, who was an Irishman, and many others, and here
+is John Lothrop Motley's _Rise of the Dutch Republic_. Motley was an
+American, who, like many other historians, chose a favourite hero of
+whom to write. His hero was William the Silent. The last sentence
+of Motley's history reads: "As long as he lived he was the
+guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little
+children cried in the streets."
+
+One of the first writers who made plain to the world the entrancing
+history of New France, which, as you know, is an earlier name for
+Canada, was the historian Francis Parkman. Parkman was born in
+Boston near the end of the eighteenth century. He devoted himself to
+historical research, and wrote a long series of books, many of the
+names of which are familiar to you.
+
+Some of the titles of these volumes written by Parkman are _Pioneers
+of France in the New World_, _The Jesuits in North America_, _The
+Discovery of the Great West_, _The Old Régime in Canada_, _Frontenac
+and New France Under Louis XIV_, and _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_.
+
+Parkman begins _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_, which he completed in
+1851, with the paragraph quoted below. It is interesting to note the
+great changes which have come about on this continent {184} since
+Parkman wrote this history, nearly eighty years ago.
+
+"The Indian is a true child of the forest and the desert. The wastes
+and solitudes of nature are his congenial home. His haughty mind is
+imbued with the spirit of the wilderness, and the light of
+civilization falls on him with a blighting power. His unruly pride
+and untamed freedom are in harmony with the lonely mountains,
+cataracts and rivers among which he dwells; and primitive America,
+with her savage scenery and savage men, opens to the imagination a
+boundless world, unmatched in wild sublimity."
+
+Biography sometimes is closely related to history. When the life of
+a famous public man is written in such a way as to tell the story of
+how his actions have changed the history of his country, biography
+and history seem practically identical. The story of Queen Elizabeth
+is, one may say, the story, or history, of England during her reign.
+The same statement is partly true of the biography of Queen Victoria.
+It is true also of the life of any great public man in any country.
+Books of biography are widely read in this twentieth century. Most
+of the people you know read biographies.
+
+If we find the alcove in which are kept the newest books in the hall
+of history, we will discover on the shelves such volumes as Sir
+Sidney Lee's _Life of King Edward VII_, Mr. Lytton Strachey's _Queen
+Victoria_, his _Elisabeth and Essex_, and Mr. Philip Guedalla's _Life
+of Palmerston_. These are all clearly written, easy to read,
+condensed rather than long drawn out, based on sound historical {185}
+research and so fascinating that thousands of people begin to read
+them as soon as they are published.
+
+Here is a little book of history called _Gallipoli_, which was
+published in 1916. It was written by a poet, John Masefield, and it
+tells the story of the Australians when they fought on the Gallipoli
+Peninsula in the Great War. There are many notable histories of
+different campaigns in the War, but none surely will last longer than
+this small, noble book.
+
+Now we know the names of a few histories by historians of
+English-speaking countries. There are many other histories written
+by Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, and others.
+
+
+Before we leave books of history, shall we look at a history of
+English literature, so that we may mark down for ourselves the names
+of the periods, or times, when some of the great writers lived?
+
+There was an Anglo-Saxon period before William the Conqueror came to
+England. Poets and writers lived then, but only learned scholars
+read now the works they composed. You are likely to read at some
+time of Beowulf, who is supposed to have written about 520, and of
+Cædmon, who is said to have been a servant at the monastery of Whitby
+under the Abbess Hilda.
+
+The first great English poet, who was the master of a period of
+English poetry, was Chaucer. His work brings us to the fourteenth
+century. He had a number of less famous contemporaries.
+
+Many of the old ballads were made probably in the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries.
+
+{186} Sir Thomas Malory wrote his book _Morte d'Arthur_ in the
+fifteenth century.
+
+The first book was printed in England by Caxton in 1477.
+
+The Elizabethan Age, as you know, is one of the most famous periods
+in English literature. It is generally divided into an earlier and a
+later period. Spenser belonged to the earlier time; and Shakespeare
+marked the later period, along with other notable writers. The
+Elizabethan age is reckoned to have lasted longer than Elizabeth's
+reign, because writers still wrote in the same fashion and spirit.
+The authorized translation of the Bible into English was written at
+this time.
+
+In the time of the Commonwealth and later, when England was largely
+puritan, the great poet Milton lived, and John Bunyan, who wrote _The
+Pilgrim's Progress_.
+
+Dryden, a poet, belongs to the second part of the seventeenth
+century. Pope, another poet, lived most of his life in the
+eighteenth century. A number of novelists, Defoe, who wrote
+_Robinson Crusoe_, of an earlier date than the others, and
+Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, all great novelists, come in
+the late seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries.
+
+A group of distinguished men, some of whom we will learn a little
+about in the next chapter, lived in the eighteenth century. Their
+names are Johnson; Goldsmith; Burke, the statesman; Gibbon, the
+historian; Garrick, an actor; and Reynolds, the painter. Swift,
+Addison, Steele, and other essayists, wrote earlier in the same
+century.
+
+{187}
+
+You do not need to remember specially the various ages in which
+writers lived. But we understand now that people often speak of
+periods in English literature; it is interesting to fit into their
+proper places great writers whose names we know.
+
+Scott and Jane Austen belong to the end of the eighteenth and the
+beginning of the nineteenth century.
+
+Dickens, Thackeray, and many others, lived and wrote in the
+nineteenth century, and are great Victorians. Hardy is partly
+Victorian and partly Georgian. Kipling and Barrie belong to the late
+nineteenth and early twentieth century. We live now in the first
+half of the twentieth century.
+
+
+
+
+{188}
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON
+
+A man called James Boswell, who lived in the eighteenth century,
+chose as his hero a celebrated personage whose name was Samuel
+Johnson. Boswell was willing, indeed eager and determined, to go
+about with Johnson from place to place, to listen to what he said,
+and then to make notes of Johnson's conversation. Boswell was a
+devoted friend, and Johnson was worthy of his friendship, for he was
+a truly great man. Boswell spared no pains to learn everything that
+he could of Johnson's youth, of his family and friends, of his work
+and character. In this way, James Boswell prepared himself to write
+the life of Dr. Johnson.
+
+Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is certainly one of the greatest
+biographies ever written. Many people think that it is the greatest
+of all biographies, because it tells us with truth, fidelity and
+fullness what manner of man Dr. Johnson was.
+
+There are many odd things about Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. One of
+the oddest is that Johnson did not like Scotland, or the people of
+Scotland, but Boswell was a Scot. Johnson, who was outspoken in an
+extraordinary degree, and somewhat rough, rather what we call a bear
+of a man, was often rude to Boswell, who, perhaps, was not a {189}
+little tiresome. But Boswell never minded what happened, or what was
+said, as long as he could be in Johnson's company.
+
+Samuel Johnson's parents were very poor. He was not even a strong
+boy, and was often ill. One of the reasons why we admire Johnson is
+that he contended bravely with poverty and ill-health all his life.
+He never put money first, or perhaps he might have been rich, in
+which case, possibly, we might never have heard of him. He does not
+seem to have thought it any particular hardship to suffer from
+ill-health. He does not talk, or write, of being ill. What he did
+put first in his life was scholarship, work, friendship,
+companionship, and living in accordance with high principles.
+
+How do we know all this, and how can we be certain that it is true?
+We know because we find Johnson's character in Boswell's _Life_. No
+one can read this _Life of Johnson_ by Boswell without being certain
+that Boswell took great pains to write what was true, and that he
+succeeded.
+
+Johnson's father was a bookseller in a small way in the English city
+of Lichfield, where there is a beautiful cathedral, which some day
+you may see. Both Johnson's father and mother did everything they
+could for their son. It soon was evident at home and at school that
+the boy had an unusually fine intelligence. He went to Oxford as a
+sizar. This means that he had not enough money to live on, so he
+worked in the college to pay his way. There were few opportunities
+then for students to earn money. Samuel Johnson had a fine, sturdy
+self-respect. He was poor, but he was not ashamed of being poor.
+When someone, who knew {190} that his clothes were shabby, put a pair
+of boots outside his door, Johnson threw the boots out of the window.
+He was not the kind of man to take help. There is something comical
+about this story. We cannot help laughing, yet we like, and respect,
+the shabby student who was independent. Johnson was not
+good-looking, and he had odd tricks of manner, but his mind and
+character impressed everyone.
+
+One day, when he was a famous man, he performed what he considered an
+act of penance in memory of his father. His father, whose business
+was going very badly, had wanted him to stand beside a bookstall in
+Uttoxeter, near Lichfield, and sell any books that he could. Johnson
+was not willing to do this. Afterwards, he must have regretted his
+refusal keenly. Many years later, when he visited Lichfield with
+friends, they missed him one day from breakfast till night.
+Presently he drove up in a post chaise; and when they inquired
+urgently what he had been doing, he told them the story of how he had
+been unwilling to help his father. To show his sorrow, he had gone
+to Uttoxeter and had stood, bareheaded, beside the bookstall from
+which his father used to sell books, for an hour at the busiest time
+of day. Perhaps some people might think it was an odd thing for him
+to do. But only a great and humble spirit can inspire anyone to
+carry out such an action.
+
+After he left Oxford, he was a tutor. But since his appearance and
+manner were both odd, he had difficulty in finding and keeping
+situations. All the while he wanted to be a writer, and we may be
+sure that he practised writing. He married, when {191} he was a
+comparatively young man, a widow much older than he was. He was
+deeply attached to his wife. After her death, years later, he never
+ceased to mourn for her, and he treasured every memory of their life
+together.
+
+Long before this happened, however, Johnson had gone to London, and
+had become what is called a hack writer. He earned very little by
+his writing. These were early days in journalism, when newspaper
+writers suffered hardship, probably because the occupation was not
+yet fully established, and work was ill-paid. Much has been written
+of this period among men of letters in London, and of the straits to
+which they were driven to keep alive. It was out of such conditions
+as these that Johnson made himself famous, until every word he wrote,
+or spoke, carried weight, and he himself had greater authority among
+writers, and with his contemporaries, than, possibly, any other man
+of letters has ever had.
+
+You will find in an interesting novel, called _Midwinter_, written by
+John Buchan, a delightful account of Johnson when he was a tutor and
+later, before he had become famous.
+
+Johnson wrote a great deal, but his Dictionary is often called his
+most famous work. It took him years to complete the Dictionary, and
+the task required all his scholarship, together with much toil,
+carried on in poverty and privation. When the Dictionary was
+finished, Johnson was a famous man. It is likely that he enjoyed
+making his Dictionary. The work suited his temperament. One can
+imagine how he would choose the words, as if he were a judge or
+umpire, as indeed he was, {192} deciding that certain words were to
+be included, and refusing others. Some of his definitions are
+amusing. Dictionaries now are much more elaborate. The science of
+words has grown greatly since Johnson's day. But he was a pioneer in
+the making of a dictionary, and we greatly honour pioneers.
+
+Then there was Dr. Johnson's club, which met at an eating house on a
+famous street in London named the Strand. Great numbers of people
+visit the Cheshire Cheese every year because it is generally believed
+that Dr. Johnson and his friends used to dine there, and there
+carried on discussions, some of which no doubt Boswell duly reported
+in his biography.
+
+It is a wonderful achievement to have kept for the world so perfectly
+the looks, words, and characters of Dr. Johnson and his associates,
+many of whom were famous men. But Dr. Johnson was the leader. He it
+was who kept the club together; for, although he was arbitrary, odd,
+and sometimes brusque and rude, he was astonishingly companionable,
+affectionate, sincere and very able. His conversation was weighty,
+full of pith and meaning. It was a highly esteemed privilege to
+belong to Dr. Johnson's club.
+
+The names of some of his associates are Garrick, the great actor, who
+came to London from Lichfield with Johnson; Goldsmith, who was a
+poet, and who wrote plays, as well as one wise and beautiful novel
+called _The Vicar of Wakefield_; Reynolds, the great painter, and
+others not as well known, and Boswell.
+
+If you will find a copy of Boswell's _Life of {193}
+Johnson_--remember, it is a large book, in four volumes--and turn to
+the index at the end, you will discover under the heading Johnson,
+His Character and Manners, numbers indicating the pages where are
+printed some stories that you will enjoy reading. On pages 162 and
+163 of the fourth volume, we read of his love for children, and his
+affection for Hodge, his cat, for whom he used to buy oysters.
+Almost every page contains good reading, as, for instance, beginning
+at page 300, in the same volume, we may read of his conversation with
+a young man whom he thought presumptuous, followed immediately by an
+account of the plan of some of his friends to send him to Italy since
+he was ill, and of how greatly touched Johnson was by their kindness.
+Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is one of the books which the world has
+enjoyed reading ever since it was written.
+
+And now we come to something about this biography that may seem
+curious. If Boswell had tried to describe Dr. Johnson as being
+handsome, and polite, instead of unprepossessing and sometimes rude,
+he likely would have made him seem not nearly as great a man as
+Johnson really is. The biography would not have been a true picture
+of Dr. Johnson. A true picture makes a far deeper impression than a
+picture which is not true; and this is one of the very most important
+things we can learn about a book.
+
+
+
+
+{194}
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+READING FOR WHAT YOU WANT TO BE
+
+Biography is not only interesting reading, it helps us to understand
+other people. In this chapter we may discover that there are few
+better ways of finding out what kind of work we want to undertake
+than by reading biography.
+
+First of all, let us think of a very few famous biographies, such
+books as Plutarch's _Lives_, Boswell's _Johnson_, Lockhart's _Scott_,
+Forster's _Dickens_, Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, Churchill's _Lord
+Randolph Churchill_, Page's _Life and Letters_, Sir Sidney Lee's
+_Shakespeare_.
+
+Numberless people have read and used Plutarch's _Lives of Illustrious
+Men_. We know that Shakespeare did. If you will turn to the last
+life in Plutarch's book, the life of Brutus, you will find that
+Shakespeare must have used this biography of Brutus when he wrote the
+play _Julius Cæsar_.
+
+Now we may think of biography as a magic key that will help you to
+unlock the door behind which you may find what work you are going to
+do. Let us ask ourselves what occupations these famous men followed
+whose lives appear in the list given above.
+
+Johnson was a journalist, and an author, and he made a dictionary.
+Scott was a lawyer, an officer of the Crown, and a novelist; one
+might {195} almost add that he was something of a farmer. You
+remember how he loved the land he owned at Abbotsford, and used to
+ride over it and talk with his men about their work. Dickens was a
+reporter, a novelist, and, towards the end of his life, he gave
+public readings from his works. Gladstone was a statesman; he had
+great skill in finance; and on account of his associations at home,
+he had somewhat of the training of a business man. He also was
+interested in the land. You may read in his biography how he used to
+employ himself cutting down trees, that needed to be felled, on his
+estate. Lord Randolph Churchill was a statesman. Page was an
+editor, and a diplomatist. Shakespeare was an actor, the manager of
+a theatre, and a dramatist. Already you know how to find in
+biography some knowledge of a good many different occupations.
+
+A great many of you will be farmers. The well-being and health of
+the world depend directly on farming; and the life of a farmer and of
+a farmer's family may be happy, independent and wonderfully useful
+and interesting. To learn about the life of a farmer, one must read
+other books as well as biography. Three of the novels that we have
+enjoyed reading contain vivid, true pictures of the life of people
+who live on a farm. The first of these novels is Scott's _Guy
+Mannering_. You remember the farm called Charlies-hope, and Dandie
+Dinmont and his wife and children. Scott dearly loved and thoroughly
+understood country life, and there is no more charming picture in a
+book of the natural, happy life of the farmer and his wife and
+children than in this {196} novel by Scott. The second novel is
+George Eliot's _Adam Bede_. Mr. and Mrs. Poyser had much skill in
+their occupation. It is interesting to discover how well Mrs. Poyser
+understands farming, especially dairy farming. _Lorna Doone_ is
+another novel about farm people. A Scottish poet, Robert Burns, was
+the son of a tenant farmer, and was himself a ploughman and a farmer.
+He has written much that is exquisite about country life. Ask
+someone to read aloud to you "The Cotter's Saturday Night", a
+wonderful picture of family affection and good living. You may find
+some of the words hard to understand. But whoever it is that reads
+the poem aloud to you will likely find the difficult words explained
+in a glossary. These are all English and Scottish writers. Hamlin
+Garland has written a good deal about the life of an American farmer,
+moving to new settlements, in his book called _A Son of the Middle
+Border_. In Will Carleton's verse and James Whitcombe Riley's verse
+we find songs and stories of farm life. Peter McArthur's books, _In
+Pastures Green_, _The Red Cow and Her Friends_, and _Around Home_,
+contain true, intimate, delightful pictures of farming in the older
+provinces of Canada.
+
+And so we see how interesting reading about occupations may be. In
+the list that follows most of the books are biographies, lives of
+sailors, soldiers, architects, teachers, clergymen, business men,
+bankers, lawyers, actors, doctors, painters, craftsmen, journalists,
+nurses, musicians, explorers, scientists, workmen. There are other
+books, as well, about animals, and plants, nature and country walks,
+flying, mountain climbing, inventions, {197} hobbies, and science,
+about some of the many wonderful pursuits in which you are interested
+already, or in which you will be interested soon.
+
+If you look in the list for the name of some particular book and do
+not find it, whether it is the name of a biography belonging to some
+occupation, or of a book telling about some recreation of which you
+want to learn, you may go to a library and ask for help in finding
+the book. Or if you cannot go to the library, write to the librarian
+and ask him to tell you.
+
+Some day you may make a list of your own favourite books. No one
+person needs to read all the books named here, but boys and girls may
+choose from the list a few of the books they want to read. In the
+case of birds, flowers, and the study of nature, each neighbourhood
+or district of country needs to be classified according to its
+latitude and longitude. Birds, flowers and plants vary according to
+climate; look for their descriptions in books belonging to your own
+district of country.
+
+ Life of Nelson Robert Southey
+ Sir John Franklin A. H. Markham
+ Life and Voyages of Washington Irving
+ Christopher Columbus
+ My Mystery Ships Gordon Campbell
+ There Go the Ships Archibald MacMechan
+ The Life of Marlborough Viscount Wolseley
+ James Wolfe, Man and Soldier W. T. Waugh
+ Life of Gordon Sir Wm. Francis Butler
+ (English Men of Action)
+
+{198}
+
+ Life of Lord Kitchener Sir George Arthur
+ Personal Memoirs U. S. Grant
+ Lee the American Gamaliel Bradford
+ Life of St. Francis St. Bonaventura (Everymans)
+ Life of Dean Stanley R. E. Prothero
+ Life of Alexander White, G. F. Barber
+ D.D., of Free St.
+ George's Edinburgh
+ Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893 A. V. G. Allen
+ Margaret Ogilvy, by her son J. M. Barrie
+ Bonnet and Shawl Philip Guedalla
+ The Life of Florence Nightingale Sir E. T. Cook
+ Sister Dora M. Lonsdale
+ Life of Sophia Jex-Blake Margaret Todd, M.D.
+ Mary Slessor of Calabar W. P. Livingstone
+ In the House of My Pilgrimage Lilian Faithfull, J.P.
+ The Heart of Ellen Terry Ellen Terry
+ Louisa May Alcott, her Ednah D. Cheney
+ life, letters and journals
+ The Life of Alice Freeman Palmer G. H. Palmer
+ Life and Correspondence A. P. Stanley
+ of Thomas Arnold
+ Life of Charles W. Eliot E. H. Cotton
+ Life and Correspondence Ernest Hartley Coleridge
+ of Lord Coleridge
+ Richard Burdon Haldane,
+ An Autobiography
+ Reminiscences of Sir Ed. by Richard Harris
+ Henry Hawkins
+ Life of Joseph H. Choate E. S. Martin
+
+{199}
+
+ A Memoir of Sir James Prof. J. Duns, D.D.
+ Young Simpson
+ Lord Lister Sir Rickman J. Godlee
+ Life of Sir William Osler H. W. Cushing
+ The Beloved Physician, Sir R. McNair Wilson
+ James MacKenzie
+ Pierre Curie Marie Curie
+ Life and Letters of Charles Francis Darwin
+ Robert Darwin
+ The Voyage of the Beagle Charles Darwin (Everymans)
+ Life and Letters of Thomas Leonard Huxley
+ Henry Huxley
+ The Life of Louis Pasteur René Vallery-Radot
+ Autobiography Benjamin Franklin (Everymans)
+ From Immigrant to Inventor Michael I. Pupin
+ Alexander Graham Bell Catherine MacKenzie
+ Delane of The Times E. T. Cook
+ Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin R. Ogden
+ Abraham Lincoln Lord Charnwood
+ Our Inheritance Stanley Baldwin
+ Memoirs of Sir John Alexander Sir Joseph Pope
+ Macdonald
+ Sir Wilfrid Laurier and J. S. Willison
+ the Liberal Party
+ Self-Help Samuel Smiles
+ The Rise of the House of Count Corti
+ Rothschild
+ From Workhouse to Westminster, George Haw
+ The Life of Will Crooks.
+ Sir Christopher Wren Sir Lawrence Weaver
+
+{200}
+
+ Life of Michelangelo J. A. Symonds
+ Buonarroti
+ Valasquez R. A. M. Stevenson
+ Life of Sir Edward Burne-Jones Lady Burne-Jones
+ Life of William Morris J. W. Mackail
+ William de Morgan and his Wife A. M. D. W. Stirling
+ Life of Purcell W. H. Cummings
+ Beethoven Romaine Holland
+ Life of Felix Mendelssohn W. A. Lampadius
+ Bartholdy
+ Life of Sir Henry Irving Austin Brereton
+ Empty Chairs Squire Bancroft
+ The Compleat Angler Isaak Walton (Everymans)
+ Natural History of Selborne Gilbert White (Everymans)
+ Walden H. D. Thoreau (Everymans)
+ Afoot in England W. H. Hudson
+ Rambles of a Canadian S. T. Wood
+ Naturalist
+ The Outline of Science J. Arthur Thomson
+ Scenery of Scotland Sir Archibald Geikie
+ Elementary Geology A. P. Coleman
+ Introduction to Geology W. B. Scott
+ Stories of Starland Mary Procter
+ Astronomy for Amateurs C. Flammarion
+ Conquest of the Air C. L. M. Brown
+ 14,000 Miles Through the Air Sir Ross MacPherson Smith
+ Winged Warfare Col. W. A. Bishop, V.C.
+ The Ascent of Mount Everest Sir Francis Younghusband
+
+{201}
+
+ The Canadian Rockies A. P. Coleman
+ Handbook of Birds of Frank M. Chapman
+ Eastern North America
+ Field Book of American F. Schuyler Mathews
+ Wild Flowers
+ Garden Cities of Tomorrow E. Howard
+ A Book About Roses Dean Hole
+ The Little Garden Mrs. Francis King
+ The Canadian Garden Mrs. Annie L. Jack
+ The Boys' Own Book of Morley Adams
+ Pets and Hobbies
+ Models to Make A. Duncan Stubbs
+ Model Airplanes Elmer Adam
+ Health, Strength and Happiness C. W. Saleeby
+
+
+
+
+{202}
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+TRAVEL AND DISCOVERY
+
+Marco Polo, a famous traveller, was born in the City of Venice in
+1254, eleven years before the birth of Dante. Dante belonged to
+Florence: so Marco Polo and Dante both were Italians. Marco Polo's
+father and uncle were trading merchants. They travelled by ship and
+overland to sell their goods, and they were probably among the first
+Europeans to visit the kingdom of China, even yet a mysterious,
+strange part of the world to us. When Marco was seventeen years old,
+his father and uncle took him with them on one of their expeditions.
+He was away from Italy twenty-six years. In that time, he saw many
+marvels, became a favourite of the great emperor Kublai Khan, and had
+more astonishing adventures, almost, than we can imagine. He came
+back safely to Italy, but was thrown into prison in Genoa; you
+remember that these cities of what is now Italy were often at war
+with one another. When Marco Polo was in prison, he told some of his
+adventures to a fellow-prisoner, and this man induced Marco Polo to
+write a book. Polo dictated what he wished to say, and Rustician
+wrote it down.
+
+Marco Polo's book, _The Travels of Marco Polo_, has had a
+considerable effect on the history of the world. Columbus used to
+read it, and often quoted {203} what Marco Polo said. It is likely,
+almost certain, that Polo's example and success helped to inspire
+Columbus to make his great voyage to the Western hemisphere.
+
+We can judge how interesting and delightful Marco Polo's book is from
+a brief extract which contains the description of a hill that the
+Emperor Kublai Khan had had made and planted with trees:
+
+"Moreover, on the north side of the Palace, about a bow-shot off,
+there is a hill which has been made by art from the earth dug out of
+the lake; it is a good hundred paces in height and a mile in compass.
+This hill is entirely covered with trees that never lose their
+leaves, but remain ever green. And I assure you that wherever a
+beautiful tree may exist, and the Emperor gets news of it, he sends
+for it and has it transported bodily with all its roots and the earth
+attached to them, and planted on that hill of his. No matter how big
+the tree may be, he gets it carried by his elephants; and in this way
+he has got together the most beautiful collection of trees in all the
+world. And he has also caused the whole hill to be covered with the
+ore of azure, which is very green. And thus not only are the trees
+all green, but the hill itself is all green likewise; and there is
+nothing to be seen on it that is not green."
+
+Cook's _Voyages_ is another famous book of exploration. James Cook
+was born in 1728 and was the son of a farm labourer. As a boy, he
+was apprenticed first to a shopkeeper, then to a shipowner. He
+entered the King's service in 1755. The accounts of his voyages, or
+explorations, to {204} the North and West, South and East, in the
+days when comparatively little was known of the seas in which he
+sailed, are as interesting and exciting as a story. His first
+expedition South was to observe the transit of Venus, when he was in
+command of the _Endeavour_. On this expedition he visited New
+Zealand and Australia. His next voyage, when he also visited the
+Pacific, was with the _Resolution_ and the _Adventure_. On his
+second expedition he discovered the Sandwich Islands. He sailed for
+nearly four thousand miles along the western coast of North America,
+searching for a north-west passage, on his third expedition. His
+ships were the _Resolution_ and the _Discovery_. The _Discovery_ is
+perhaps the best known ship in which Cook sailed. The purpose of all
+his expeditions was largely scientific. On his last voyage, Cook
+lost his life. It has been said that his best memorial is the map of
+the Pacific.
+
+Captain Cook wrote in a very simple, natural style. Here is a
+description of some of the people he saw, on the way to the place
+which he named Poverty Bay. We can almost imagine that we might have
+been on the ship with Captain Cook, or venturing ashore, not at all
+certain what the unknown inhabitants of unknown islands might not do
+to us. The paragraph is taken from the account of his first
+expedition:
+
+"In the evening, the weather having become fair and moderate, the
+boats were again ordered out, and I landed, accompanied by Mr. Banks
+and Dr. Solander. We were received with great expressions of
+friendship by the natives, who behaved with a scrupulous attention
+not to give {205} offence. In particular, they took care not to
+appear in great bodies: one family, or the inhabitants of two or
+three houses only, were generally placed together, to the number of
+fifteen or twenty, consisting of men, women, and children. These
+little companies sat upon the ground, not advancing towards us, but
+inviting us to them, by a kind of beckon, moving one hand towards the
+breast. We made them several little presents; and in our walk round
+the bay found two small streams of fresh water. This convenience,
+and the friendly behaviour of the people, determined me to stay at
+least a day, that I might fill some of my empty casks, and give Mr.
+Banks an opportunity of examining the natural produce of the country."
+
+Captain Cook and his people were often in danger from the anger of
+the strange tribes they met, but we can have only admiration for the
+gentle behaviour of the people whose home Cook visited on this
+occasion, as described in his account of the expedition. There are
+many dramatic scenes in Cook's _Voyages_. Captain Cook was not only
+brave, he had extraordinary perseverance.
+
+Many of us find stories of travels, discoveries and explorations
+among the most interesting books in the world. We travel, too, with
+the great explorers, by means of these books, and have a share in
+their dangers, escapes, and discoveries. Explorers are always
+courageous, and often men of noble character. A few women have been
+noted explorers, but only a few, partly because travelling alone and
+in danger, is more difficult for a woman than for a man. Miss Mary
+Kingsley is {206} one of these notable exceptions. Here are the
+names of a few books of travel and discovery, old and new: _How I
+Found Livingstone in Central Africa_, by Henry M. Stanley; Sir
+Richard Burton's _Pilgrimage to Mecca_; _Travels in West Africa_, by
+Mary H. Kingsley; the _Journals_ of Captain R. F. Scott, the explorer
+who reached the South Pole to find that the Danes, led by Amundsen,
+had been a few days before him, the account is often called _Scott's
+Last Expedition_, a very noble book; and a fascinating volume by T.
+E. Lawrence, _Revolt in the Desert_. The discoverer of the
+Mississippi was La Salle. We may read of him in Parkman. Two books
+of early travels in Canada are Sir Alexander Mackenzie's _Voyages
+from Montreal Through the Continent of North America_, and Alexander
+Henry's _Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories_.
+
+
+
+
+{207}
+
+PART VII
+
+ESSAYS, CRITICISMS, LETTERS, DIARIES
+
+
+
+{209}
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CHARLES LAMB AND HAZLITT: ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS
+
+Charles Lamb is a friend of yours whom you may not know yet; but,
+when you meet him, you will soon find yourself thinking of Charles
+Lamb as a friend. He is one of the rare persons who attract and
+deserve everybody's love. Charles Lamb lived all his life in London,
+where he was born; he went to a famous school, often called the
+Bluecoat School, because the boys were dressed after that fashion.
+His first home was in the Temple. "I was born and passed the first
+seven years of my life in the Temple. Its church, its halls, its
+gardens, its fountain, its river, I had almost said--for in those
+young years what was this king of rivers to me but a stream that
+watered our pleasant places?--these are my oldest recollections."
+
+When he grew up he entered the service of the East India Company and
+worked there as a clerk all his working life. The offices belonging
+to the East India Company were known as the South Sea House. People
+think of this building with interest and affection, because Charles
+Lamb worked in it. Besides being a clerk, he wrote in his leisure
+time a series of papers, or essays, which deal with many different
+subjects in a whimsical, gentle, beautiful style. The manner {210}
+of writing which Lamb used expressed his nature and abilities
+perfectly. His work is full of sweet laughter, great penetration,
+unselfishness, and nobility. No wonder we love Charles Lamb. The
+essays are known as _The Essays of Elia_. Lamb is supposed to have
+taken Elia as a pen name from the name of a fellow-clerk in the South
+Sea House.
+
+Only one sister and one brother out of a rather large family grew up
+to maturity with Charles Lamb. This sister, whose name was Mary,
+suffered often from a serious illness, and her brother Charles
+devoted himself to her care. Mary Lamb also was gifted and lovable.
+Neither of them married. Charles and Mary Lamb wrote together a book
+for young people, called _Tales from Shakespeare_.
+
+The history of the attachment between this brother and sister is one
+of the most beautiful stories we know of family affection. Charles
+was a gay, happy person, chivalrous and tender-hearted. He loved
+jokes, but there were sad happenings in his life which he met with
+great courage. He stammered a little, but he was excellent company,
+and gathered about him many friends, themselves men of genius, such
+men as Coleridge and Wordsworth, both great poets; Hazlitt, who was a
+writer and critic; Crabb Robinson, Procter and Talfourd, whose tastes
+were the same as his own. Charles Lamb lived from 1775 to 1834. A
+great deal has been written about him; two especially delightful
+biographies of Lamb are those written by Canon Ainger and by Mr. E.
+V. Lucas. {211} One or other of these you should read when you have
+time.
+
+But, first of all, there are his essays. You will soon discover that
+you have favourites among these essays. It is likely that you will
+find much to your liking "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years
+Ago"---this is written about his old school--"Mrs. Battle's Opinions
+on Whist", "Mackery End, in Hertfordshire", "The Old Benchers of The
+Inner Temple", "Blakesmoor in H--shire", but above all "A
+Dissertation Upon Roast Pig", and "Dream Children". You will enjoy
+almost any of Lamb's essays read aloud by someone who reads well.
+But begin by reading "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig" yourself, if you
+cannot find someone who will read it to you. In this essay Charles
+Lamb is, of course, writing humorously, such amusing, whimsical
+humour. It tells how a small Chinese boy, Bo-bo, discovered by
+accident that roasted meat tastes a great deal better than meat which
+has not been cooked at all.
+
+Essays, or papers, are short articles which deal with one subject
+only. They often, but not always, by reason of their style, tell us
+a great deal about the nature of the man or woman who has written the
+essay. No one can read Lamb's essays without learning that the
+writer was lovable, tender-hearted and upright.
+
+Another famous essayist is Francis Bacon, a very able man who lived
+as long ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth. His essays are famous;
+they are not as much concerned with the study of human nature as the
+essays of Charles Lamb, but are compact with learning, observation
+and {212} thought. One of his best known and most likable essays is
+"On Gardens".
+
+Other famous essayists are: Addison, whose Sir Roger de Coverley you
+may know already; Steele; Swift; a great Frenchman, Montaigne, who
+lived in the sixteenth century and whose essays people generally read
+with pleasure when they are middle-aged or older; and Robert Louis
+Stevenson, who wrote _Treasure Island_. Many of his essays are
+especially beautiful; read "The Lantern-Bearers" when you have an
+opportunity.
+
+Essays, and books, often contain what is called criticism. Criticism
+is an explanation, an appreciation, sometimes an analysis, of what
+has been written in poetry, verse, fiction, history, biography, and
+other published work; criticism deals as well with art and music.
+
+But we can understand better what criticism is if we read one or two
+extracts which have been written by critics. Two of Lamb's friends,
+Coleridge and Hazlitt, were famous critics. Lamb himself was one of
+the most discerning among English critics. He did not always care
+for work which was really great, but when he did care for a great
+piece of work, no one had more perfect understanding than Charles
+Lamb.
+
+What follows is part of a paragraph written by Coleridge, a poet, of
+Shakespeare and Milton. We feel an enthusiasm in what Coleridge has
+written which makes our own hearts glow. This feeling of elevation
+and happiness, given to us through reading, is one of the tests of
+great work.
+
+
+"What then shall we say? even this; that {213} Shakespeare, no mere
+child of nature; no _automaton_ of genius; no passive vehicle of
+inspiration, possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first
+studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till
+knowledge, become habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his
+habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power,
+by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class;
+to that power which seated him on one of the two glory-smitten
+summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton as his compeer, not
+rival. While the former darts himself forth, and passes into all the
+forms of human character and passion...; the other attracts all forms
+and things to himself, into the unity of his own ideal. All things
+and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of Milton;
+while Shakespeare becomes all things, yet for ever remaining
+himself." Some of this we can understand. Shakespeare and Milton
+both had great genius. But Shakespeare understood all kinds of human
+beings and showed them as they really were. Milton changed what he
+wrote about to be like himself. What Shakespeare did, of course, is
+the greater work of the two.
+
+It is pleasant to read what the critic William Hazlitt wrote in
+praise of the essays of his friend Charles Lamb, not for friendship's
+sake merely, but because he loved and valued the essays. Notice,
+while Hazlitt seems to write easily and simply, he succeeds in
+explaining to us at the same time the charm and lasting quality of
+Charles Lamb as a writer. It is a fine, brief example of one kind of
+criticism and of the work of a critic.
+
+{214}
+
+"With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the inns and courts of law, the
+Temple and Gray's Inn, as if he had been a student there for the last
+two hundred years, and had been as well acquainted with the person of
+Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait or writings! ... He
+(Lamb) haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit; ... and
+Christ's-Hospital still breathes the balmy breath of infancy in his
+description of it! Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination
+for Mr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily
+forgave a certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his
+hands. The streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with
+wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective glance, as it did
+to the eager eye of childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest
+traditions into a bright and endless romance!" The quotation from
+Coleridge is taken from his _Biographia Literaria_, and Hazlitt's
+writing from his book called _The Spirit of the Age and Lectures on
+English poets_.
+
+Other famous or eminent critics whose writings you may read some day
+are: Matthew Arnold, a poet as well as critic, whose father was the
+Dr. Arnold of Engby School that you have read about in _Tom Brown's
+School Days_; a Frenchman, Sainte-Beuve, one of the clearest, and
+most delightful of critical writers; another Frenchman, H. A. Taine;
+and a Dane, Georg Brandes, a learned writer, who was one of the first
+to show how close the connection is between one literature and
+another, especially in European literatures.
+
+
+
+
+{215}
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+LETTERS AND LETTER WRITERS: PEPYS AND OTHER DIARISTS
+
+Cowper, the poet, who wrote _John Gilpin_, is a delightful letter
+writer. He had a number of pets living with him, and these little
+friends of his, goldfinches, pigeons, a cat and a kitten, often make
+their appearance in Cowper's letters to his correspondents. Part of
+one of his letters contains a description of the kitten.
+
+"I have a kitten, the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a
+cat's skin. Her gambols are not to be described, and would be
+incredible, if they could. In point of size she is likely to be a
+kitten always, being extremely small of her age, but time, I suppose,
+that spoils everything, will make her also a cat. You will see her,
+I hope, before that melancholy period shall arrive, for no wisdom
+that she may gain by experience and reflection hereafter will
+compensate the loss of her present hilarity. She is dressed in a
+tortoise-shell suit, and I know that you will delight in her."
+
+Sometimes Cowper used to write his letters in rhyme. The paragraph
+that follows will make anyone who reads it feel like dancing:
+
+"I have heard before of a room with a floor laid upon springs, and
+such like things, with so {216} much art in every part, that when you
+went in you were forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a
+grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a
+figure of eight, without pipe, or string, or anything such thing; and
+now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as
+you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing
+away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penn'd,
+which that you may do, ere Madam and you are quite worn out with
+jigging about I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound,
+down to the ground, from your humble me--W.C."
+
+It is surprising to learn how many books contain interesting letters,
+letters which are gay, amusing, witty, touching, affectionate, wise,
+and very skilfully written. Some of the most famous letter writers
+you will know already from their books. Others are famous wholly on
+account of their letters. One of the latter is Madam de Sévigné, a
+charming, gifted Frenchwoman who lived in France as long ago as the
+seventeenth century. When her daughter married and left home, Madame
+de Sévigné, who was a devoted mother, used to write gay, fascinating
+letters to the child she loved. She told of the happenings at court,
+or intrigues and politics, and of everyday, domestic affairs. In
+this way, it has come about that although in her lifetime Madame de
+Sévigné's letters were comparatively little known, all the years
+since then her reputation for wit, wisdom and charm has been growing,
+until to-day the Marquise de Sévigné is regarded as one of the most
+brilliant and perfect letter writers, possibly the {217} most skilful
+and delightful letter writer that the world knows.
+
+The following is part of one of her letters, translated from the
+French, which tells of the despair of a cook who could not get
+sufficient of what he considered proper food to serve to the King and
+his following, who were the guests of his master.
+
+"I meant to tell you that the King arrived at Chantilly last evening.
+He hunted the stag by moonlight, the lanterns were very brilliant;
+and altogether the evening, the supper, the play,--all went off
+marvellously well.....
+
+"The King arrived on Thursday evening, the promenade, the
+collation,--served on a lawn carpeted with jonquils--all was perfect.
+At supper there were a few tables where the roast was wanting, on
+account of some guests whose arrival had not been expected. This
+mortified Vatel, who said several times, 'My honour is gone: I can
+never survive this shame.' He also said to Gourville, 'My head
+swims. I have not slept for twelve nights. Help me give the
+orders.' Gourville encouraged him as well as he could.... Gourville
+told M. le Prince, who went immediately to Vatel's room, and said to
+him, 'Vatel, everything is going on well. Nothing could be finer
+than the King's supper.' He replied, 'My lord, your goodness
+overwhelms me. I know that the roast was missing at two tables.'
+'Not at all,' said M. le Prince. 'Don't disturb yourself: everything
+is going on well.' Midnight came; the fireworks, which cost sixteen
+thousand francs, did not succeed, on account of the fog. At four
+o'clock in {218} the morning, Vatel, going through the chateau, found
+every one asleep. He met a young steward, who had brought only two
+hampers of fish: he asked, 'Is that all?'--'Yes, Sir.' The lad did
+not know that Vatel had sent to all the seaports. Vatel waited some
+time; the other purveyors did not arrive: his brain reeled; he
+believed no more fish could be had: and finding Gourville, he said,
+'My dear sir, I shall never survive this disgrace....'"
+
+The names of a number of English letter writers, whose letters most
+people find delightful, are: Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary
+Wortley-Montagu, Thomas Gray, Horace Walpole, Sir Walter Scott,
+Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, John Keats, Jane Welsh
+Carlyle, Edward Fitzgerald, Frances Anne Kemble, William Makepeace
+Thackeray, Charles Dickens, the Brownings, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
+
+We feel about journals and diaries in much the same way as we do
+about letters. Such writings admit us to the intimate companionship
+of those whose words we read. Journals and diaries, indeed, are more
+intimate than letters. There are a number of remarkable English
+diarists:--John Evelyn, Fanny Burney, Charles Greville, Benjamin
+Haydon, Lord Shaftesbury and Thomas Moore, but the most famous of all
+is Samuel Pepys. Pepys was an official at the Admiralty. He was
+born in 1632 and died in 1703. During his lifetime, he was a much
+respected man, a good official, interested to a certain extent in
+art, music and writing. But he scarcely would be remembered to-day
+if he had not kept a diary in which {219} he wrote every day for a
+number of years. He wrote his diary in shorthand, a kind of cipher,
+and what he wrote filled six volumes. These books are now kept in
+Magdalene College, Oxford, in the Pepysian Library. They lay
+unnoticed at Magdalene for more than a hundred years. Then part of
+the diary was deciphered, written out in longhand, and published in
+1825. The complete edition of Pepys, by H. B Wheatley, was not
+published until 1899. And so the world has come to know Samuel Pepys
+from his diaries as well as it is possible to know anyone.
+
+When Pepys sat down to write in his diary at night he told all the
+little things he did, what he thought and how he felt. It does not
+seem likely that he expected what he had written ever to be read by
+anyone, but wrote only for the pleasure of going over the day's
+events. We come so close to Samuel Pepys when we read his diary that
+he seems almost to be living in the pages that we touch with our
+fingers.
+
+Pepys was fond of fine foods and wine, and enjoyed giving dinners and
+entertaining. But sometimes the entry in the diary contains no more
+than an account of an expedition like the following: ... "took coach,
+it being about seven at night, and passed and saw the people walking
+with their wives and children to take the ayre, and we set out for
+home, the sun by and by going down, and we in the cool of the evening
+all the way with much pleasure home, talking and pleasing ourselves
+with the pleasure of this day's work.... Anon it grew dark, and as
+it grew dark we had the pleasure to see several glow-worms which was
+{220} mighty pretty." This was on the way home from Epsom Downs,
+Sunday, July 14, 1667.
+
+One of the most lovable diaries is Sir Walter Scott's _Journal_. He
+wrote it, like Pepys, for his own pleasure. In the Journal we may
+enjoy the companionship of Sir Walter, who is so simple, unaffected
+and good that old and young will find themselves all equally welcome.
+
+There is one book that should be kept nearby for reference, so that
+we may use it when we need help with words. This book, as you have
+guessed, is a dictionary. The use of a dictionary which you will
+think of first, is for correct spelling. To find out how to spell a
+word correctly is a good use to which to put a dictionary. But it is
+by no means the only help that a dictionary can give us. Perhaps you
+are fond of words, which may be beautiful, amusing, curious,
+interesting, startling, exquisitely appropriate, and by means of
+which we are able to express the finest shades of meaning. If you do
+care for words, then in a little spare time, let us turn to a
+dictionary; any page of a dictionary will do. Read what is printed
+on the page concerning four or five English words.
+
+Notice carefully the different meanings for the same word. Above
+all, read with attention the quotations which illustrate how these
+words may be used. Standard and classic writers are the most helpful
+teachers when we wish to learn how to use words. The English tongue
+is a noble language; it is one of our greatest possessions. To use
+it correctly, skilfully, and with grace, is something that we can
+learn. Other books which will {221} help us, besides a well-chosen
+dictionary of the English language, are dictionaries of synonyms, and
+such a book as Mr. H. W. Fowler's _Dictionary of Modern English
+Usage_, a recent publication by a scholar whose work is not only
+learned, but delightfully interesting and helpful because of its keen
+wit and enthusiasm.
+
+
+
+
+{223}
+
+PART VIII
+
+POETRY
+
+
+
+{225}
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+POETRY AND BEAUTY
+
+Let us gather in this chapter a few of the most beautiful lines in
+poetry.
+
+The youngest of the great English poets is John Keats. When he was
+little more than a boy, early in the nineteenth century, he wrote
+poetry. One of his poems is called "Ode to a Nightingale". Keats
+had been listening to the voice of the bird, which sings at night a
+song considered more beautiful than that of any other bird, and he
+began to imagine how often the nightingale had sung to people who
+lived long ago, and how often in far away, beautiful lands. As he
+thought, he could see these other lands, where people lived in faery
+palaces, with open windows looking on the sea. Keats' words, which
+we can read to-day, keep the song of the bird, and the picture of the
+countries where it sang, in perfect beauty.
+
+ Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
+ No hungry generations tread thee down;
+ The voice I hear this passing night was heard
+ In ancient days by emperor and clown:
+ Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
+ Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
+ She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
+ The same that oft-times hath
+ Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
+ Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
+
+
+{226}
+
+Wordsworth, whose poetry at times may seem dull and uninspired, again
+and again has the power to write lines which have a beauty that is
+inexplicable.
+
+ The rainbow comes and goes,
+ And lovely is the rose;
+ The moon doth with delight
+ Look round her when the heavens are bare;
+ . . . . .
+ Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
+ The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
+ Hath had elsewhere its setting,
+ And cometh from afar;
+ . . . . .
+ Hence, in a season of calm weather
+ Though inland far we be,
+ Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
+ Which brought us hither,
+ Can in a moment travel thither,
+ And see the children sport upon the shore,
+ And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
+
+
+These lines are taken from Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of
+Immortality". In another poem he describes a great mountain, Mont
+Blanc, which is snow-capped, so high that the sun when it rises
+shines on the mountain's summit long before the sun's rays reach the
+country below. One line of seven words tells us how at night the
+mountain peak seems to be in the company of the moving stars:--
+
+"Visited all night by troops of stars."
+
+Shakespeare has many of these magic lines, but one which seems to
+have come from nowhere, and for which Shakespeare offers no
+explanation is:
+
+"Child Rowland to the dark tower came."
+
+{227}
+
+We ask ourselves who Child Rowland was, and where was the dark tower.
+Then, perhaps, we begin to weave a story about Child Rowland and the
+tower, for poetry often stirs in us something which makes us think
+and feel more intensely, and awakens in us the desire to create
+beauty ourselves.
+
+It was Thomas Nash, a poet living at the same time as Shakespeare,
+who wrote in his poem "In Time of Pestilence", lines which many other
+poets agree are among the most enthralling and beautiful ever
+written,--
+
+ Brightness falls from the air;
+ Queens have died young and fair;
+ Dust hath closed Helen's eye;
+
+
+George Meredith, the novelist, who also was a poet, in his "Love in
+the Valley" has magical lines.
+
+ Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
+ Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.
+
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson told the Irish poet, Mr. Yeats, that when he
+first read "Love in the Valley" he went about the country where he
+was shouting the lines for joy in them.
+
+And so we finally understand that this power of creating strange
+beauty which stirs and thrills us all may come to any poet, sometimes
+to great poets, sometimes to poets not so great. Shakespeare and
+Nash had it, Keats and Wordsworth, Meredith who belongs almost to our
+own times, and a young poet of a later time even than {228} Meredith,
+James Elroy Flecker, in whose play _Hassan_, are many beautiful
+songs. The last song is "The Golden Road to Samarkand".
+
+ We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
+ Always a little further: it may be
+ Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
+ Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
+
+ White on a throne or guarded in a cave
+ There lives a prophet who can understand
+ Why men are born: but surely we are brave,
+ Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
+ . . . . . . . .
+ We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
+
+
+Coleridge, the Samuel Taylor Coleridge who was Charles Lamb's friend,
+wrote a story, a ballad, following the fashion of the old ballads,
+which he called "The Ancient Mariner". You probably know this poem
+already. But if you do not, find time to read it; or, possibly,
+someone may read parts of it to you. "The Ancient Mariner" is a
+story of the sea, of wanderings, of shipwreck, of strange sights, of
+learning that we must love every thing, not only men and women, but
+birds and beasts, and then of the glad returning to the place which
+was the sailor's home:
+
+ And now there came both mist and snow,
+ And it grew wondrous cold:
+ And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
+ As green as emerald.
+ . . . . . . . .
+ The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
+ At one stride comes the dark;
+ With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
+ Off shot the spectre-bark.
+
+{229}
+
+ The moving Moon went up the sky,
+ And nowhere did abide;
+ Softly she was going up,
+ And a star or two beside--
+ . . . . . . . .
+ O dream of joy! is this indeed
+ The lighthouse top I see?
+ Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
+ Is this mine own countree?
+
+
+No matter how familiar such lines may become, we should never forget
+to realize their beauty.
+
+Ben Jonson, who lived in the seventeenth century, wrote, with other
+poems, a lyric, wise as well as beautiful, in which we may find
+life-long companionship.
+
+ It is not growing like a tree
+ In bulk, doth make man better be;
+ Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
+ To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
+ A lily of a day
+ Is fairer far in May,
+ Although it fall and die that night;
+ It was the plant and flower of light.
+ In small proportions we just beauties see;
+ And in short measures, life may perfect be.
+
+
+No one can change these lines and express the same idea as perfectly
+as Jonson has given it to us. For great poetry has some magic power
+by which it conveys to us truth and beauty which we are not able to
+discover for ourselves.
+
+
+
+
+{230}
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+POETRY AND TIME
+
+It is good to know the names of the great English poets and the order
+of time in which they come; we may write out such a list for
+ourselves if we hope to enjoy poetry. Many of you will find no
+difficulty in learning by heart the names of the poets, or in
+remembering the centuries to which they belong. The question mark
+after the first date in the case of Chaucer and Spenser means that
+there is no exact record of the year in which either of these poets
+was born.
+
+ Chaucer 1340 ? -- 1400
+ Spenser, 1552 ? -- 1599
+ Shakespeare, 1564 -- 1616
+ Milton, 1608 -- 1674
+ Dryden, 1631 -- 1700
+ Pope, 1688 -- 1744
+ Wordsworth, 1770 -- 1850
+ Coleridge, 1772 -- 1834
+ Byron, 1788 -- 1824
+ Shelley, 1792 -- 1822
+ Keats, 1795 -- 1821
+ Tennyson, 1809 -- 1892
+ Browning, 1812 -- 1889
+
+
+We do not enjoy the work of all these poets equally; in any case,
+boys and girls, men and {231} women, have individual preferences.
+Some people find greater enjoyment in the work of Byron than in the
+work, let us suppose, of Tennyson. Others greatly prefer Tennyson to
+Browning; and again these may not care for Byron. But many people
+find delight in reading Browning's poetry. Still, we should remember
+that all these writers are great poets, and that each has had power
+over his own generation and other generations as well.
+
+Chaucer, as you know, is difficult to read because he lived so many
+hundreds of years ago, and the English language has changed
+considerably since the time when he wrote poetry. The same may be
+said of Spenser, although in a less degree. Dryden and Pope helped
+to perfect the style of English poetry, and this, possibly, is their
+outstanding claim to greatness.
+
+It may help us to know and enjoy poetry if we choose one or two of
+the poems written by these great poets.
+
+You may have found the work of Chaucer already, but it is the
+Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_ which most people, who read
+Chaucer at all, know best. A little study will help us to read some
+of Chaucer's lines. We know also of Spenser's _Faery Queen_, of Una
+and the Red Cross Knight. Shakespeare lives as the master of English
+literature. We have some knowledge of his plays, but we have not yet
+spoken of his sonnets.
+
+A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines, usually divided into an
+octave--eight lines--and a sestet--six lines. There are three
+varieties of the {232} sonnet form in English poetry. That used by
+Shakespeare has three four-line stanzas, the first line in each
+stanza rhyming with the third, and the second line with the fourth;
+these stanzas are followed by a rhyming couplet. Those of you who
+are specially interested in verse forms will find under the heading
+"technical terms", an interesting note on the sonnet in Mr. H. W.
+Fowler's _Dictionary of Modern English Usage_. Some of the most
+beautiful short poems in the world have taken the form of the sonnet.
+Read Shakespeare's sonnet beginning with the lines,--
+
+ That time of year thou may'st in me behold
+ When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
+ Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
+ Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
+
+
+See with what beauty Shakespeare clothes the bare branches of winter
+trees. Many times in our lives, we will think with joy of
+Shakespeare's words when we look at the leafless boughs of trees and
+remember how the birds in summer sang in the leafy bowers like
+choristers in a choir. Shakespeare used nine words only to give us
+this joy.
+
+Milton, who was a great poet, also wrote sonnets. The best known of
+his sonnets was written on his own blindness. It begins with the
+line,
+
+ When I consider how my light is spent.
+
+But the most loved poem by Milton is the "Hymn on the Morning of
+Christ's Nativity". The beginning of the first stanza is as follows:
+
+{233}
+
+ It was the Winter wilde,
+ While the Heav'n-born-childe
+ All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
+ Nature in aw to him,
+ Had doff't her gawdy trim,
+ With her great Master so to sympathize:
+
+
+Of Dryden, read part of "Alexander's Feast"; and from Pope's work
+choose the gay, amusing poem called "The Rape of the Lock".
+Wordsworth's sonnets are specially beautiful; we should read "Upon
+Westminster Bridge", and one other called "The World". His longer
+poem, "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early
+Childhood", will express for you how beautiful the world is in your
+eyes, perhaps more perfectly than the work of any other of the great
+poets.
+
+Coleridge's poem, "Do You Ask What the Birds Say?" we should read;
+Byron's "She Walks in Beauty"; Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind", or
+his poem "To a Skylark"; Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes"; Tennyson's "Morte
+d'Arthur"; and Browning's "Saul".
+
+Listen to the music of the first lines belonging to the poems named
+in the last paragraph, if you still are not quite certain that there
+is delight in reading poetry.
+
+Coleridge's poem begins:--
+
+ Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove,
+ The Linnet, and Thrush, say "I love and I love!"
+ In the winter they're silent--the wind is so strong;
+ What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song.
+
+
+{234}
+
+The first four lines of Bryon's poem, "She Walks in Beauty," are:--
+
+ She walks in beauty, like the night
+ Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
+ And all that's best of dark and bright
+ Meet in her aspect and her eyes:--
+
+
+The first stanza of Shelley's "To a Skylark" is:--
+
+ Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
+ Bird thou never wert--
+ That from heaven or near it
+ Pourest thy full heart
+ In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
+
+
+Even this one verse by Shelley gives us the feeling of rising high
+towards heaven with the bird and hearing his song.
+
+The beginning of Keats' poem, "The Eve of St. Agnes", is one of the
+most beautiful and alluring openings in all poetry:--
+
+ St. Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was!
+ The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;--
+
+
+Tennyson's "Morte d'Arthur" is a story of Arthur and the Round Table,
+and the great sword Excalibur. Its opening lines read:--
+
+ So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
+ Among the mountains by the winter sea;--
+
+
+Browning's poems, "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix",
+"The Pied Piper of Hamelin", and "Hervé Riel", you are likely to know
+already. "Saul" is a more difficult poem, but in it Browning shows
+his great power as a poet. {235} His love poetry, in such poems as
+"The Last Ride Together", and "One Word More", is considered
+Browning's finest work. "Saul" is a story taken from the Bible.
+David plays on his harp to Saul, who is ill. He tries to find help
+for Saul in his despondency. David finally tells Saul that God must
+be a man as well as God, so that He may help us all.
+
+ He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall
+ stand the most weak.
+ 'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh
+ that I seek
+ In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be
+ A Face like my face that receives thee; a man like to me,
+ Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like
+ this hand
+ Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the
+ Christ stand!
+
+
+Do you remember how we discovered earlier in this book that time
+decides what is great in writing? This is true of the work of poets.
+We can see for ourselves how widely great poets differ in their work.
+Some write sweet, simple, clear and lovely songs; others write poetry
+which is difficult to read and understand. The simple, clear and
+lovely songs may last longer than the difficult poems. But if the
+difficult poetry contains great meaning, it may last too. A poet
+sometimes is great for the people of his own generation, but the ages
+that follow may not care for his work. Yet it may be that after a
+hundred years or so, people will love the poet's work again.
+
+Is great poetry being written now! It is difficult for anyone to
+answer this question with {236} certainty. Some very lovely poetry
+has been written in this twentieth century, in the same way that
+beautiful verse has been written in the English language for hundreds
+of years.
+
+Examples of this beautiful verse from Chaucer's time to the end of
+the nineteenth century, we may find in such books as Palgrave's
+_Golden Treasury of English Verse_; and _The Oxford Book of English
+Verse_, 1250-1900, edited by Mr. Quiller-Couch. Several anthologies,
+called _Books of Georgian Poetry_, and others beside, contain poetry
+written in the twentieth century.
+
+There are many poets of whose work we have not spoken. Some of their
+names you know already; some you will learn by and by. These poets
+may have lived long ago, or no longer ago than last century, or they
+may be living to-day. Three outstanding names belonging to the
+Victorian Age are those of Matthew Arnold, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
+and Charles Algernon Swinburne. We should remember the names also of
+a group of women who have written poetry: Mrs. Browning, Christina
+Rossetti, Emily Brontë, and Emily Dickinson, who is an American poet.
+
+Some modern poets are: Rudyard Kipling, Robert Bridges, W. B. Yeats,
+Rupert Brooke, James Elroy Flecker, Laurence Binyon, William Watson,
+George Russell, W. H. Davies, Walter de la Mare, Alice Meynell,
+Katherine Tynan, W. W. Gibson, John Masefield, James Stephens,
+Lascelles Abercrombie, Siegfried Sassoon, Ralph Hodgson, Edmund
+Blunden, and a sister and two brothers, three poets in one family,
+Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell.
+
+{237}
+
+For an ending we may quote a verse from a poem written by a modern
+poet, Mr. Walter de la Mare. The name of the poem is "The Listeners":
+
+ 'Is there anybody there!' said the Traveller
+ Knocking on the moonlit door;
+ And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
+ Of the forest's ferny floor;
+ And a bird flew up out of the turret,
+ Above the Traveller's head:
+ And he smote upon the door a second time;
+ 'Is there anybody there?' he said.
+
+
+
+
+{239}
+
+YOUR COUNTRY AND BOOKS
+
+
+
+{241}
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+READING FOR YOUR OWN COUNTRY
+
+------
+
+ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ITS BRANCHES
+
+Most of us, no matter where we may happen to live, are not far away
+from a newspaper office. We may walk down a village street and stop
+at the door of a building where a newspaper is published, or we may
+drive in from the farm, and see a printing press through the open
+door of the same office. Perhaps it is an old-fashioned printing
+establishment where type is still set by hand; good printing often is
+taken from hand-set type. Or some of you may pass, day by day, a
+newspaper building in a town or city where the latest machinery is
+constantly at work on edition after edition of a daily newspaper.
+
+We know without being told that newspapers form one of the great
+channels of communication in the modern world. To learn how to read
+a newspaper in the best way is something we can do for our own good,
+for the place in which we live, for the country round about, our own
+country and nation, and so on in ever-widening circles.
+
+Newspapers possess a special fascination for almost everyone. We
+like to look in through the windows of a newspaper building and see
+the {242} machinery moving rapidly. It is exciting to watch the
+great sheets being folded and coming off the presses. Perhaps you
+know a young man or woman who is a reporter; possibly some day you
+will be a reporter yourself. It is worth spending time trying to
+understand all that a newspaper means.
+
+If we know anything about the way in which news is gathered, written,
+and printed, we know that sometimes news will be inaccurate, because
+newspaper work is done with speed. The work of a daily newspaper is
+to provide its readers with the day's news, and this must be
+accomplished quickly, or it will be to-morrow before we know where we
+are. It is the pride of a newspaper to publish correct news, as far
+as that is possible. But when we read a newspaper we must make
+allowance for the fact that some of the news is an estimate of what
+happened, rather than a statement of the absolutely true details of
+what has happened. Yet it is astonishing, considering all the
+circumstances, how few mistakes there are in newspapers.
+
+We read newspapers to be well informed; to know how to relate
+ourselves to the life about us; and to find out what has happened
+that particularly concerns us in many different ways, as, for
+instance, in sports and games, schools and education, business and
+employment, about our neighbours and companions, politics and public
+affairs, even the hobbies in which we are interested, flower shows,
+cattle shows, sales of stamps, puzzles, jokes, wireless news,
+discoveries, inventions, explorations. By reading a good newspaper
+in {243} the right way we keep in touch with current history.
+
+There are other periodical publications, besides daily newspapers,
+weeklies and many monthly magazines, each of which has its own use
+and purpose. Some of these publications we may need to read,
+according to what our interests are. These you can choose for
+yourselves, as you grow older.
+
+What is known as literature, writing of permanent value and beauty,
+not technical or scientific, but of general interest, as a rule finds
+its way into books. The time has come now when we can consider for a
+moment how many different literatures there are in the world.
+
+Some writers belonging to literatures of countries other than our
+own, by this time you can name for yourselves. You know that there
+was a great Greek literature, a Latin literature, and Hebrew
+literature. The first name that comes into your minds belonging to
+Greek literature is Homer. Virgil was one of the great writers of
+Latin literature. The Bible is Hebrew literature. Dante's work is
+found in Italian literature; Cervantes' in Spanish literature;
+Goethe's in German literature; Dumas' work and Victor Hugo's and the
+work of a number of other writers belong to French literature. There
+are famous Russian novelists. Hans Andersen was a Dane. Maeterlinck
+is a Belgian. _The Arabian Nights_, in origins at least, takes us to
+countries as far away as China, India, Persia, and Egypt. All these
+literatures come into our lives and into the lives of other people,
+and so we understand how famous books help to bind the world together.
+
+{244}
+
+English literature is one of the great literatures of the world. If
+it pleases us to do so, we can count that it begins in the times of
+the Anglo-Saxons. Even if we take Chaucer as the first great name in
+English literature, this means that for six hundred years, famous,
+glorious books in poetry, story, drama, history, and other styles of
+composition, have been produced at intervals, but in an unbroken
+succession, in the literature which we can call our own.
+
+English literature, as you know, includes the work of English,
+Scottish and Irish writers. If we think of English literature as a
+tree, one of its branches, which comes from the same root, is
+American literature. Other branches of this tree are the literatures
+of Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the work of writers in India
+who publish their books in the English language, known as
+Anglo-Indian literature. As you know, all these literatures, with
+the exception of American literature, belong to the nations of the
+British Empire. Kipling was thinking of the nations of the Empire
+when he called one of his books _The Five Nations_.
+
+Some day you may find out for yourselves how many names you can
+remember of writers belonging to English literature, then any you
+know belonging to the branch literatures of Canada, Australia, South
+Africa and Anglo-India, and to American literature.
+
+There are few lists in the world as splendid as the long roll of
+great writers in English literature. It is worth while learning the
+most famous names by heart. Numbers of these writers you know
+already. Many people find the greatest {245} enjoyment they have
+from books in English literature.
+
+The names of some of the most distinguished American writers are
+Emerson, Thoreau, Mark Twain, Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Walt
+Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, Fenimore Cooper, Longfellow, Parkman,
+Motley, and Washington Irving; many critics would add the name of
+Emily Dickinson. There are a number of interesting books in which
+you can read of American literature. A librarian will help you to
+choose one of them.
+
+Names belonging to Australian and New Zealand literature are Henry
+Kingsley, Adam Lindsay Gordon, Kendall, Domett, Rolf Boldrewood,
+Lawson, Stephens, Louis Becke, Browne, Collins, Farjeon, Ada
+Cambridge, and Mrs. Campbell Praed. Katherine Mansfield was born in
+New Zealand and the lady sometimes known as "Elizabeth", Countess
+Russell, in Australia. You may find in a library articles on the
+writers of Australia and New Zealand. Someone might read aloud to
+you from an anthology of Australian verse.
+
+South Africa has not had long to establish a literature. One
+well-known South African name is that of Olive Schreiner. Others are
+Pringle, Bell, Mrs. Millin, and a young poet, Roy Campbell. A
+collection of English South African poetry is called _The Treasury of
+South African Poetry and Verse_.
+
+Many Canadians have written poetry and verse in which are true
+descriptions of nature and the spirit of nature in Canada. Some
+Canadian poets' names you will have learned already: Roberts, {246}
+Carman, Lampman, Campbell, Scott, Isabella Valancy Crawford, Marjorie
+Pickthall, W. H. Drummond, whose habitant poems abound in humour and
+the delineation of character, two poets who served in the War, John
+McCrae and Bernard Trotter, Wilson MacDonald, and E. J. Pratt, a
+native of Newfoundland, the oldest dominion in the Empire. Other
+names you will find mentioned in several good anthologies.
+Haliburton was a humorist. The most widely read Canadian humorist of
+the present day is Mr. Stephen Leacock. Joseph Howe was a writer, an
+orator and statesman. The Golden Dog, by William Kirby, is a famous
+Canadian novel. Other novel writers are Miss Lily Dougall, Mrs.
+Cotes, Miss Mazo de la Roche, Sir Gilbert Parker, "Ralph Connor",
+Norman Duncan, Miss L. M. Montgomery. A number of writers of
+Canadian fiction are doing work to-day which may become eminent.
+There are writers in French Canada, both of prose and poetry.
+Canadian historians, English and French, have accomplished good work.
+The two series, _Makers of Canada_ and _Chronicles of Canada_,
+contain histories which are well worth reading.
+
+Here is a list of readings from Canadian literature, chapters from a
+few novels, poems from books of poetry, short stories, two fairy
+tales, two speeches by Canadian statesmen, a short history. These
+may guide you to books which you may enjoy. In addition, we should
+read William Kirby's novel, _The Golden Dog_. It is interesting to
+remember that Miss Pauline Johnson, whose {247} poetical gift was
+undoubted, was a Canadian Mohawk Indian.
+
+"How Rabbit Deceived Fox" and "Sparrow's Search for the Rain", from
+_Canadian Fairy Tales_, by Cyrus Macmillan.
+
+_Beautiful Joe_, by Marshall Saunders.
+
+"In the Big Haycart" and "Calling the Cows", from _Chez Nous_, by
+Adjutor Rivard, translated by W. H. Blake.
+
+"The Freedom of the Black-Faced Ram" from _The Watchers of the
+Trails_, by C. G. D. Roberts.
+
+"Privilege of the Limits" from _Old Man Savarin Stories_, by E. W.
+Thomson.
+
+"The Scarlet Hunter", from _Pierre and His People_; and _When Valmond
+Came to Pontiac_, by Sir Gilbert Parker.
+
+Chapter One, from _The Imperialist_, by Mrs. Cotes.
+
+"Aunt Thankful and Her Room", from _Wise Saws and Modern Instances_,
+Vol. II, Chap. 4, by Thomas Chandler Haliburton.
+
+"The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias", from _Sunshine
+Sketches of a Little Town_, by Stephen Leacock.
+
+"O Love Builds on the Azure Sea", from _Malcolm's Katie_, by Isabella
+Valancy Crawford.
+
+"Where the Cattle Come to Drink" and "The Potato Harvest", from
+_Songs of the Common Day_, by C. G. D. Roberts.
+
+"The Frogs" and "Why Do You Call the Poet Lonely?" from _The Poems of
+Archibald Lampman_.
+
+"How One Winter Came in the Lake Region" and "How Spring Came", from
+_Lake Lyrics_, by W. W. Campbell.
+
+"The Ships of St. John" and "The Grave Tree", from _Poems_, by Bliss
+Carman.
+
+"Heart of Gold" and "Madame Tarte", from _Later Poems and New
+Villanelles_, by S. Frances Harrison.
+
+{248}
+
+"Elizabeth Speaks", and "A Legend of Christ's Nativity", from
+_Lundy's Lane and Other Poems_, by Duncan Campbell Scott.
+
+"The Habitant", "Little Bateese", "De Bell of Saint Michel", and
+"Little Lac Grenier", from _The Poetical Works_ of W. H. Drummond.
+
+"The Song My Paddle Sings", from _Flint and Feather_, by E. Pauline
+Johnson.
+
+"Bega", "The Immortal", "The Shepherd Boy", from _The Complete Poems
+of Marjorie L. C. Pickthall_.
+
+"A Song of Better Understanding", from _The Song of The Prairie
+Land_, by Wilson MacDonald.
+
+"The Shark", from _Newfoundland Verse_, by E. J. Pratt.
+
+Speech in Hants, 1844, from _The Speeches and Public Letters of
+Joseph Howe_, Chap. X. ed. by J. A. Chisholm.
+
+"Political Liberalism", Quebec City, 1877, and "Death of Sir John
+Macdonald", House of Commons, 1891, _Speeches_ by Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
+
+_A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs_, by George M. Wrong.
+
+
+
+
+{249}
+
+AFTERWORD
+
+The name of this chapter, Afterword, seems as if it were an ending.
+But some endings in reality are beginnings. We all know the look of
+a catalogue of seeds, with its brilliantly coloured flowers. This
+book, which belongs to you, in one sense is like a seedsman's
+catalogue. The true delight of gardening is in choosing the seeds,
+digging, fertilizing and smoothing the garden till it is ready for
+sowing and planting. Then we look forward to the first green leaves,
+flowers, and fruits. There is an infinite deal to learn about
+gardens, and the seedsman's catalogue is only the beginning. This
+book is the beginning of the voyage of discovery in the world of your
+own books.
+
+
+Because we have spoken in the preceding chapters almost wholly of
+writers and books, we should take care not to place too much emphasis
+on writing as an occupation. The world owes much to the writers of
+great books,--happiness, inspiration, enjoyment, wisdom which we may
+take from them if we will, learning, and at all times, unending
+entertainment.
+
+But how many other people there are in the world to whom we owe love
+and gratitude: soldiers, sailors, explorers, inventors, statesmen,
+law-givers, physicians, discoverers, scientists, preachers, teachers,
+evangelists, missionaries, {250} fathers, mothers, all the men and
+women who make our streets, build our houses, bake our bread, bring
+us food, make our clothes, sell us what we need, look after the
+finances of the world, manage our railways and run the trains, fly in
+airships, and of great importance in their occupation, men and women
+who grow food as farmers. Still, we dearly love good books and great
+writers.
+
+
+No one should read all the time, for people are more important than
+books. Yet it would be a pity for any boy or girl not to read at
+all. Francis Bacon, the essayist, of whom we learned a very little
+in the chapter on essays and essayists, says in one of his writings:
+"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an
+exact man."
+
+Bacon means by the first part of this saying that a man who does not
+read at all is sometimes empty-minded, while a man who reads well has
+many thoughts in his mind, good, sweet and profitable. If Bacon were
+in the world to-day, and noticed, as he would be certain to notice,
+for Bacon was a most observant man, how much time some people spend
+in reading, he might have added a sentence saying that continual
+reading may keep people from thinking. Rightly used, books are an
+aid in teaching us how to think.
+
+
+There are many books which have not been mentioned in these pages,
+some of them famous, many of them delightful, important or amusing.
+Some of these books you will find for yourselves {251} as time goes
+on; some you may know already. Perhaps you may have wondered why
+nothing has been said of this or that book. But it is true that
+there is always an individual choice in books, as in other things.
+You will find--and love--your own books, the books which belong to
+you. To discover one's own books for one's self is a great adventure.
+
+
+Some of you may be specially interested in French literature; and,
+presently, you will read the works of the great French dramatist
+Molière, one of whose characters is the famous Monsieur Jourdain, who
+had spoken prose all his life without knowing it. Balzac and
+Flaubert are two other names among a multitude of French writers.
+The literatures of other countries offer us reading which many people
+enjoy greatly.
+
+
+Numbers of fine books are continually being produced by writers in
+English. English novels especially make good reading. Among writers
+of a comparatively recent date who have not been mentioned are John
+Ruskin, Walter Pater, Henry James, an American, Anthony Trollope,
+William Morris, George Du Maurier, William de Morgan, and many
+others. Certainly, if you can find time, read the witty,
+entertaining Irish stories of two ladies, E. OE. Somerville and
+Martin Ross, especially their first book, _Some Experiences of an
+Irish R. M._
+
+
+Then there are modern writers, writers of your own day. Remember
+that a library is an {252} excellent place in which to obtain advice
+and help in reading, especially in choosing modern books. There are
+many modern novelists, critics, and dramatists, as well as poets,
+whose work is well known. Some names are: Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells,
+Arnold Bennett, Quiller-Couch, Max Beerbohm, John Galsworthy, Anthony
+Hope, W. W. Jacobs, Booth Tarkington, Willa Cather, Norman Douglas,
+H. M. Tomlinson, Clemence Dane, Virginia Woolf, George Moore, Hugh
+Walpole, May Sinclair, Mary Webb, E. M. Delafield,, James Stephens,
+Henry Williamson and J. C. Squire, as well as others whose names you
+will add to the list when you read their books. Such writers as
+Katherine Mansfield and W. H. Hudson have left work which belongs to
+the present day, and may last for generations.
+
+
+Great books are sometimes difficult to read, but when we conquer a
+great book we have discovered a new country, and enjoy the reward of
+the discoverer. It is a matter of choice whether we learn how to
+read great books that are difficult; but to read well is always a
+good choice.
+
+
+We should never forget, however, that one of the principles of good
+reading is to read books in which we find pleasure. We will grow
+most successfully in this way along the lines of our own natural
+tastes and inclinations. So if we prefer history, let us read
+history; and biography, if this reading gives us most pleasure. In
+the same way, following each his or her own special preference, we
+may choose mechanics, invention, exploration, {253} travel, science,
+architecture, art, music, poetry, essays, criticism, or books which
+will help us in the study of human nature. Books on the betterment
+of the world and on social conditions, books about homes and home
+life, are important.
+
+Some people obtain most benefit from reading a very few books
+carefully, while others read many books. There are people, often of
+great value to the world, who are not as much interested in books as
+they are in action. They prefer travelling to reading of travels;
+and would choose to build a bridge, or climb a mountain, rather than
+read history or poetry. The French have a proverb which says,
+_Chacun à son gôut_, which means each to his own taste; and this is
+true in books as it is in other things.
+
+Do you remember the list of books in Chapter twenty-eight, on Reading
+for What You Want To Be, many of them biographies? Some day, when
+you have an opportunity, ask permission to look over the books in the
+working library of some man or woman who is following the occupation
+with attracts you most. We can learn a great deal from the attentive
+study of such a library. Presently, you may begin to collect your
+own library. The best way to do this is slowly, with taste,
+discrimination and care. There is great enjoyment in buying, one by
+one, the books you care for most; and so, almost before you know what
+is happening, you will have a library of your own. Which book would
+you choose first to buy for your own library? Sometimes, in looking
+through the library of a friend, we may find the very first book
+bought by the owner of the library when he was a {254} boy, or when
+the owner was a girl, as the case may be.
+
+One of the pleasures of reading is to read according to times and
+seasons: To read books of out-of-doors on winter evenings, as well as
+books of adventure; to read poetry in summer, when we can spend much
+time under the sky. But those who love poetry, read it all through
+the year. We may read essays and biography when we are lonely and
+long for companionship. Novels are constantly enjoyable; a good
+novel tells us much about human nature.
+
+One of the most beautiful seasons for reading is at Christmas time.
+Year by year, we may read the story of the shepherds in Saint Luke,
+ballads of Christmas, _A Christmas Carol_ by Charles Dickens, and
+Milton's great "Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity". Reading
+of this character deepens our happiness.
+
+By such means as these we come to recognize good reading, and can
+test all books by the great books we have read.
+
+
+
+
+{255}
+
+INDEX
+
+NDX
+
+Abbess Hilda, 185
+
+Abercrombie, Lascelles, 236
+
+Achilles, 86-7
+
+_Adam Bede_, 159, 196
+
+Addison, Joseph, 186, 212
+
+_Aeneid_, The, 134
+
+Aesop, 90-1
+
+Agamemnon, King, 86
+
+Agrippa, King, 168
+
+Ainger, Canon, 210
+
+Aladdin, 94
+
+Alcinous, 88
+
+"Alexander's Feast", 233
+
+Ali Baba, 94
+
+_Alice in Wonderland_, 97-9, 101
+
+Amiens, 40
+
+"Ancient Mariner, The", 228-9
+
+Andersen, Hans, 93, 243
+
+Anne of Austria, 60
+
+_Anne of Geierstein_, 25
+
+_Antony and Cleopatra_, 44
+
+_Antiquary, The_, 25-6
+
+Antonio, 35
+
+Aphrodite, 85
+
+Apollo, 86
+
+Apollyon, 144
+
+_Arabian Nights, The_, 93, 243
+
+Aramis, 60-1
+
+Arden, Mary, 42
+
+Argonauts, The, 88
+
+Ariel, 36-7
+
+Arnold, Matthew, 214, 246
+
+_Around Home_, 196
+
+Arthur, King, 94-6
+
+_As You Like It_, 43
+
+Athos, 60-1
+
+Aunt Polly, 81
+
+Austen, Jane, 154-7, 187
+
+Aytoun, W. E., 123
+
+
+
+Bacon, Francis, 211, 250
+
+Bagheera, 104
+
+Ballad of the Red Harlaw, 27
+
+Ballads, 65
+
+Baloo, 104
+
+Balzac, Honoré, 251
+
+_Barnaby Rudge_, 3, 7
+
+Barrie, James Matthew, 107, 187
+
+Bates, Mrs. and Miss, 155
+
+"Battle of Otterbourne, The", 112-4, 166
+
+Baucis, 88
+
+Bayly, Harry, 169
+
+Beatrice, 133-5
+
+Beaufort, Duc de, 61
+
+Beaumains, 95
+
+Becke, Louis, 245
+
+Beerbohm, Max, 252
+
+Bell, 245
+
+Bennet, Mr., 155-6
+
+Bennett, Arnold, 252
+
+Beowulf, 185
+
+Berners, Lord, 167
+
+Bernice, Queen, 168
+
+Bible, The, 48-56, 243
+
+Bible, Authorized Version, 54
+
+Binyon, Laurence, 236
+
+_Biographia Literaria_, 214
+
+Black Knight, The, 24
+
+Blackmore, Richard Doddridge, 70
+
+Black Panther, The, 104
+
+Blake, William, 18, 19
+
+_Bleak House_, 4, 8
+
+Blue Beard, 92
+
+_Blue Bird, The_, 106
+
+Blunden, Edmund, 236
+
+Boffin, Mr., 8, 20, 181
+
+Boldrewood, Rolf, 245
+
+Bones, Billy, 64
+
+_Books of Georgian Poetry_, 236
+
+Borrow, George, 76-8
+
+Boswell, James, 188-93
+
+Bragelonne, Vicomte de, 60
+
+Brandes, Georg, 214
+
+_Bride of Lammermoor, The_, 25
+
+Bridges, Robert, 236
+
+British North America Act, 178
+
+Brontë, Anne, 160
+
+Brontë, Branwell, 160
+
+Brontë, Charlotte, 160-1
+
+Brontë, Emily, 160-1, 236
+
+Brontë, Patrick, 160
+
+Brooke, Rupert, 236
+
+Browne, 245
+
+Browning, Robert, 218, 230, 233-5
+
+Browning, Mrs., 218, 236
+
+Brutus, 46
+
+Buchan, John, 116, 191
+
+Bunyan, John, 142-6, 186
+
+Burke, Edmund, 175, 186
+
+Burney, Fanny, 218
+
+Burns, Robert, 196
+
+Burton, Sir Richard, 206
+
+Butcher, S. H., 88
+
+Byron, Lord, 230, 233-4
+
+
+
+Caedmon, 185
+
+Caliban, 36
+
+Cambridge, Ada, 245
+
+Campbell, Roy, 245
+
+_Canterbury Tales, The_, 169-71, 231
+
+Carleton, Will, 196
+
+Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 218
+
+Carlyle, Thomas, 183
+
+Carman, Bliss, 246
+
+Caroline, Queen, 27
+
+Carroll, Lewis, 99, 101
+
+Cary, Rev. H. F., 134
+
+Castlewood, Lady, 149
+
+Cather, Willa, 252
+
+_Catriona_, 65
+
+Caxton, 94, 186
+
+Cedric, 24
+
+Cervantes, 136-9, 141, 157, 243
+
+Charles I, 182
+
+Charpentier, Miss, 30
+
+Chaucer, Geoffrey, 44, 169-71, 185, 230-1
+
+"Chevy Chase", 112, 166
+
+Child Rowland, 226-7
+
+_Child's Garden of Verse, A_, 65
+
+Chingachgook, 80
+
+_Christmas Carol, A_, 4, 7, 13, 254
+
+Christian, 142-6
+
+Christiana, 146
+
+Christopher Robin, 101
+
+_Chronicles_, (Froissart), 167-8
+
+_Chronicles of Canada_, 246
+
+Churchill, Lord Randolph, 195
+
+Cinderella, 92
+
+Clemens, Samuel, 82
+
+Clio, 172
+
+Cobden, Richard, 176
+
+Cochrane, Lord, 72
+
+Cockburn, Lord, 32
+
+Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 210, 212-3, 218, 228-9, 230, 233
+
+Collins, 245
+
+Columbus, Christopher, 202
+
+Confederation Act, 178
+
+Connor, Ralph, 246
+
+_Conspiracy of Pontiac, The_, 183
+
+Cook, James, 203-5
+
+Cooper, James Fenimore, 78-80, 245
+
+Cotes, Mrs., 246
+
+"Cotter's Saturday Night, The", 196
+
+Coverley, Sir Roger de, 212
+
+Cowper, William, 122, 215-6
+
+Cratchit, Bob, 7
+
+Cratchits, The, 17
+
+Crawford, Isabella Valancy, 246
+
+Crawley, Rawdon, 149
+
+Curly, 107
+
+Cuttle, Captain, 8
+
+_Cymbeline_, 44, 46
+
+
+
+Dale, Laetitia, 150
+
+Dan, 105
+
+Dana, Richard Henry, 73
+
+Dandie Dinmont, 195
+
+Dane, Clemence, 252
+
+_Daniel Deronda_, 160
+
+Dante, 133-6, 141, 202, 243
+
+Darling, John, 107
+
+Darling, Michael, 107
+
+Darling, Wendy, 107
+
+d'Artagnan, 59-61
+
+_David Balfour_, 65
+
+_David Copperfield_, 3, 6, 7, 9, 13
+
+Davies, W. H., 236
+
+Deans, Jeanie, 25, 27
+
+_Debits and Credits_, 157
+
+Defoe, Daniel, 68-70, 186
+
+Delafield, E. M., 252
+
+de la Mare, Walter, 236-7
+
+de la Roche, Mazo, 246
+
+de Morgan, William, 251
+
+Dhu, Sir Roderick, 118-9
+
+_Diana of the Crossways_, 150-1
+
+Dickens, Charles, 3-20, 171-2, 187, 195, 218, 254
+
+Dickinson, Emily, 236, 245
+
+_Dictionary of Modern English Usage_, 221, 232
+
+_Discovery of the Great West_, 183
+
+_Divine Comedy, The_, 133-6
+
+Djali, 63
+
+Dobbin, Major, 149
+
+Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge, 99
+
+_Dombey and Son_, 4, 7, 8, 14
+
+Dombey, Florence, 7-8
+
+Dombey, Paul, 8
+
+Domett, 245
+
+Don Quixote, 136-9
+
+Doone, Carver, 71
+
+Dorritt, Mr., 14
+
+Dougall, Lily, 246
+
+Douglas, Ellen, 118-9
+
+Douglas, Earl of, 113, 118, 167
+
+Douglas, Norman, 252
+
+"Do You Ask What the Birds Say?", 233
+
+Dulcinea, 137
+
+Dumas, Alexandre, 59-62, 243
+
+Du Maurier, George, 251
+
+Duncan, Norman, 246
+
+Dundonald, Earl of, 72
+
+Drake, Sir Francis, 105
+
+_Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, 66
+
+Drummond, W. H., 246
+
+Dryden, John, 186, 230-1, 233
+
+_Dynasts, The_, 153
+
+
+
+"Edinburgh After Flodden", 123
+
+Edward III, 167
+
+_Edwin Drood_, 4
+
+_Egoist, The_, 150-1
+
+Eliot, George, 196, 157-60
+
+Elizabeth, Queen, 23, 184
+
+"Elizabeth", 245
+
+_Elizabeth and Essex_, 184
+
+Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 245
+
+_Emma_, 154-6
+
+Esmeralda, 63
+
+_Esmond_, 149
+
+Esmond, Beatrix, 149
+
+_Essays of Elia, The_, 210
+
+Evangelist, 142
+
+Evans, Mary Ann, 159
+
+Evelyn, John, 218
+
+"Eve of St. Agnes, The", 233-4
+
+
+
+_Faery Queen, The_, 139-41, 231
+
+Faggis, Tom, 71
+
+_Fair Maid of Perth, The_, 25
+
+Fairservice, Andrew, 22
+
+Faithful, 143-4
+
+Farjeon, 245
+
+_Faust_, 141
+
+Feenix, Cousin, 8
+
+_Felix Holt_, 160
+
+Festus, 168
+
+Fielding, Henry, 157, 186
+
+Fitzgerald, Edward, 218
+
+Fitz-James, James, 118-9
+
+_Five Nations, The_, 244
+
+Flaubert, Gustave, 251
+
+Flecker, James Elroy, 228, 236
+
+Flibbertigibbet, 23
+
+Forster, John, 10, 194
+
+_Fortunes of Nigel, The_, 25
+
+Foster, Anthony, 23
+
+Foster, Janet, 23
+
+Fowler, H. W., 232, 221
+
+Friday, 69
+
+Froissart, Sir John, 167-8
+
+Frollo, Claude, 63
+
+_Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV_, 183
+
+
+
+Galland, Antoine, 93
+
+_Gallipoli_, 185
+
+Galsworthy, John, 252
+
+Gamp, Sairey, 7
+
+Gareth of Orkney, 95
+
+Garland, Hamlin, 196
+
+Garrick, David, 186, 192
+
+Genesis, 48
+
+Giant Despair, 144
+
+Gibbon, Edward, 181, 186
+
+Gibson, W. W., 236
+
+Gilpin, John, 122-3
+
+Gitche Manito, 126
+
+Gladstone, William Ewart, 195
+
+Goethe, 141, 243
+
+_Golden Age, The_, 99-100
+
+_Golden Dog, The_, 74, 246
+
+"Golden Road to Samarkand, The", 228
+
+_Golden Treasury of English Verse_, 236
+
+Goldsmith, Oliver, 186, 192
+
+Gonzalo, 35-7
+
+Gordon, Adam Lindsay, 245
+
+Graeme, Malcolm, 119
+
+Grahame, Kenneth, 99-100
+
+Gray, Thomas, 218
+
+Great Charter, The, 177
+
+_Great Expectations_, 8, 4
+
+Great-heart, Mr., 146
+
+Green, John Richard, 183
+
+Greville, Charles, 218
+
+Grimm, Jacob and William, 92
+
+Gringoire, Pierre, 63
+
+Gudule, 63
+
+Guedalla, Philip, 184
+
+Gummidge, Mrs., 7
+
+Gurth, 24
+
+_Guy Mannering_, 195
+
+
+
+Hall, John, 42
+
+_Hamlet_, 43-5
+
+Hardy, Thomas, 147, 151-3, 187
+
+_Hassan_, 228
+
+Hathaway, Anne, 42
+
+Hathi, 104
+
+Hawk-eye, 80
+
+Hawkins, Jim, 64
+
+Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 88, 245
+
+Haydon, Benjamin, 218
+
+Hazlitt, William, 43, 210, 212-4
+
+_Heart of Mid-Lothian, The_, 25, 27
+
+Hector, 86
+
+Heep, Uriah, 7
+
+Help, 142
+
+Heming, Arthur, 82
+
+Henry VIII, 167
+
+Henry, Alexander, 206
+
+Hephaistos, 86-7
+
+_Hereward the Wake_, 71
+
+Herodotus, 166
+
+_Heroes, The_, 88-9
+
+Heron, Sir Hugh, 120
+
+"Hervé Riel", 234
+
+Hexam, Lizzie, 8
+
+_Hiawatha, The Song of_, 125-8
+
+Higden, Mrs. Betty, 8
+
+_History of England_, (Macaulay), 123, 182
+
+_History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, (Gibbon), 181
+
+_History of the War in the Peninsula_, (Napier), 183
+
+_History of the World_, (Raleigh), 181
+
+Hodgson, Ralph, 236
+
+Hogarth, Catherine, 12
+
+Hogarth, George, 12
+
+Hogg, James, 108
+
+Holinshed's Chronicles, 44
+
+Homer, 85-8, 141, 243
+
+Hook, Captain, 107
+
+Hope, Anthony, 252
+
+Hopeful, 144
+
+_House at Pooh Corner, The_, 101
+
+_How I found Livingstone in Central Africa_, 206
+
+"How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," 234
+
+Howe, Joseph, 246
+
+_Huckleberry Finn_, 80-2, 100
+
+Hudson, W. H., 252
+
+Hugo, Victor, 62-4, 243
+
+"Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity", (Milton), 232, 254
+
+
+
+Iagoo, 126
+
+_Iliad, The_, 85-7, 89
+
+_In Pastures Green_, 196
+
+"In Time of Pestilence", 227
+
+Irving, Washington, 33, 101, 245
+
+Isaac of York, 24
+
+_Ivanhoe_, 23-5
+
+
+
+Jack the Giant Killer, 92
+
+Jacobs, W. W., 252
+
+James, Henry, 251
+
+James II, 70
+
+James V of Scotland, 118
+
+_Jane Eyre_, 160-1
+
+Jarvie, Bailie Nicol, 22
+
+Jellyby, Caddy, 8
+
+_Jesuits in North America, The_, 183
+
+Jim, 81
+
+John, King of England, 24, 177
+
+Johnson, Pauline, 246
+
+Johnson, Samuel, 182, 186, 188-93
+
+Jonson, Ben, 229
+
+Jourdain, Monsieur, 251
+
+_Julius Caesar_, 39, 43, 46, 194
+
+_Jungle Book, The_, 103-4
+
+_Just So Stories_, 105
+
+
+
+Kay, Sir, 95
+
+Keats, John, 218, 225, 230, 233-4
+
+Kemble, Frances Anne, 218
+
+Kendall, 245
+
+_Kenilworth_, 23-25
+
+_Kidnapped_, 65
+
+"Kilmeny", 108
+
+_Kim_, 82
+
+_King Henry V_, 171
+
+_King Lear_, 44
+
+_King Richard II_, 43
+
+Kingsley, Charles, 71, 88
+
+Kingsley, Henry, 245
+
+Kingsley, Mary, 205-6
+
+Kipling, John Lockwood, 103
+
+Kipling, Rudyard, 82, 103-6, 157, 187, 236, 244
+
+Kirby, William, 74, 246
+
+Knightley, Mr. 155
+
+Knights of the Round Table, 94-6
+
+Kublai Khan, 202-3
+
+
+
+Lady Lionesse, 96
+
+_Lady of the Lake, The_, 33, 118
+
+Lamb, Charles, 209-11, 213-4, 218
+
+Lamb, Mary, 210
+
+Lampman, Archibald, 246
+
+Lang, Andrew, 85, 88, 92
+
+La Salle, 206
+
+_Last of the Mohicans, The_, 78
+
+"Last Ride Together, The", 235
+
+Launcelot, Sir, 96
+
+_Lavengro_, 76-8
+
+Lawrence, T. E., 206
+
+Lawson, 245
+
+_Lay of the Last Minstrel, The_, 30, 121
+
+_Lays of Ancient Rome_, 123
+
+_Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_, 123
+
+Leacock, Stephen, 246
+
+Leaf, Walter, 85
+
+Leatherstocking Tales, 79
+
+Lecky, W. E. H., 183
+
+Lee, Sir Sidney, 184, 194
+
+Legality, 142
+
+Leicester, Earl of, 23
+
+Leigh, Amyas, 71
+
+_Les Misérables_, 62-3
+
+_Life and Letters_, (Page), 194
+
+_Life of Dickens_, 194
+
+_Life of Gladstone_, 194
+
+_Life of Johnson_, 188-93
+
+_Life of King Edward VII_, 184
+
+_Life of Palmerston_, 184
+
+_Life of Sir Walter Scott_, 32, 194
+
+Linet, 96
+
+"Listeners, The", 237
+
+_Little Dorrit_, 4, 10
+
+Little Em'ly, 6
+
+Little Match Girl, The, 93
+
+Livesay, Dr., 64
+
+_Living Forest, The_, 82
+
+"Lochinvar", 121
+
+Lockhart, J. G., 32, 34, 194
+
+Locksley, 24
+
+Lone Wolf, 104
+
+Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 125, 245
+
+_Lord of the Isles, The_, 121
+
+_Lord Randolph Churchill_, 194
+
+_Lorna Doone_, 70, 196
+
+Louis XIII, 60
+
+Louis XIV, 60
+
+"Love in the Valley", 227
+
+Lucas, E. V., 210
+
+Lucy, Sir Thomas, 42
+
+Luke, Saint, 254
+
+
+
+Macaulay, Lord, 123, 182
+
+_Macbeth_, 43, 44
+
+MacDonald, Wilson, 246
+
+MacGregor, Helen, 22
+
+MacGregor, Rob Roy, 22
+
+Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 206
+
+Mad Hatter, 97
+
+Maeterlinck, Maurice, 106, 243
+
+_Makers of Canada, The_, 246
+
+Malory, Sir Thomas, 94-6, 186
+
+Mansfield, Katherine, 245, 252
+
+_Mansfield Park_, 156
+
+Marco Polo, 202-3
+
+_Marmion_, 120-1
+
+Marryat, Frederick, 72-3
+
+_Martin Chuzzlewit_, 4, 7, 13
+
+Masefield, John, 82, 185, 236
+
+_Master of Ballantrae, The_, 66
+
+Mazarin, 60
+
+McArthur, Peter, 196
+
+McCrae, John, 246
+
+McGee, D'Arcy, 176
+
+Melville, Herman, 245
+
+_Merchant of Venice_, 39, 45
+
+Mercy, 146
+
+Meredith, George, 147, 150-1, 227
+
+Meynell, Alice, 236
+
+Micawber, Wilkins, 7, 14
+
+_Middlemarch_, 160
+
+Middleton, Clara, 150
+
+_Midshipman Easy_, 73
+
+_Midsummer Night's Dream, A_, 39, 40, 43
+
+_Midwinter_, 191
+
+_Mill on the Floss, The_, 157-9
+
+Millin, Sarah Gertrude, 245
+
+Milne, A. A., 101
+
+Milton, John, 186, 212-3, 230, 232-3, 254
+
+Minnehaha, 127
+
+_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, 30, 112
+
+Miranda, 35-7
+
+Molière, 251
+
+Monk, General, 61
+
+Montaigne, M. E., 212
+
+Montgomery, Sir Hugh, 113
+
+Montgomery, L. M., 100, 246
+
+Moore, George, 252
+
+Moore, Thomas, 218
+
+Morley, John, 194
+
+Morris, William, 251
+
+_Morte d'Arthur_, 94-6, 186, 233-4
+
+Motley, John Lothrop, 183, 245
+
+Mowcher, Miss, 7
+
+Mowgli, 104
+
+Mudjekeewis, 126-7
+
+Myers, Ernest, 85
+
+Myriel, Bishop, 63
+
+Mytyl, 106
+
+
+
+Naaman, 50
+
+Napier, 182
+
+Nash, Thomas, 227
+
+Nausicaa, 88
+
+Newcome, Colonel, 149-50
+
+New Testament, 48-9
+
+_Newcomes, The_, 148-50
+
+Nibs, 107
+
+_Nicholas Nickleby_, 3, 7
+
+Nickleby, Mrs., 14
+
+Nipper, Susan, 8, 20
+
+Nokomis, 126
+
+North, 44
+
+_Northanger Abbey_, 156
+
+_Northern Muse, The_, 116
+
+_Notre Dame de Paris_, 62-3
+
+_Now We Are Six_, 101
+
+
+
+Ochiltree, Edie, 25-7
+
+"Ode on Intimations of Immortality", 226, 233
+
+"Ode to a Nightingale", 225
+
+"Ode to the West Wind", 233
+
+Odysseus, 88
+
+_Odyssey, The_, 87-9
+
+_Old Curiosity Shop_, 3, 7
+
+_Old Mortality_, 25
+
+_Old Régime in Canada, The_, 183
+
+Old Testament, 48-9
+
+_Oliver Twist_, 3
+
+"One Word More", 235
+
+Osbaldistone, Francis, 22
+
+Osbaldistone, Sir Hildebrand, 22
+
+Osborne, George, 149
+
+Osbourne, Lloyd, 64
+
+Ossian, 29
+
+_Othello_, 43-4
+
+Our Mutual Friend, 4, 8, 181
+
+_Oxford Book of English Verse_, 108, 236
+
+
+
+Page, Walter H., 194-5
+
+Palgrave, Francis, 236
+
+Paris, 85
+
+Parker, Sir Gilbert, 246
+
+Parkman, Francis, 183, 206, 245
+
+Patroklos, 86
+
+_Pioneers of France in the New World_, 183
+
+Pater, Walter, 251
+
+Patterne, Crossjay, 151
+
+Patterne, Sir Willoughby, 151
+
+Paul, Saint, 50, 168
+
+Pearl-Feather, 128
+
+Pecksniff, Mr., 7
+
+Peggotty, Ham, 6, 20
+
+_Pendennis_, 149
+
+Penelope, 88
+
+Pepys, Samuel, 218-20
+
+Percy, Bishop, 112, 114
+
+_Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, 29
+
+Percy, Lord, 113
+
+_Persuasion_, 156
+
+Perseus, 88
+
+Peter Pan, 107
+
+_Peter Simple_, 73
+
+_Petulengro, Jasper_, 77
+
+Pew, 64
+
+Philemon, 88
+
+Philippa, Queen of Hainault, 167
+
+Phoebus, Capt., 63
+
+Pickthall, Marjorie L. C., 246
+
+Pickwick, Mr., 4, 6, 20, 171
+
+_Pickwick Papers_, 3, 6, 171-2
+
+"_Pied Piper of Hamelin, The_", 234
+
+_Pilgrimage to Mecca_, 206
+
+_Pilgrim's Progress, The_, 143-6
+
+Pinch, Tom, 7, 20
+
+Pinkerton, Miss, 149
+
+Pip, 8
+
+Pitt, William, 175
+
+Planchet, 61
+
+Plato, 174
+
+_Plutarch's Lives_, 44, 194
+
+Poe, Edgar Allan, 245
+
+Pope, Alexander, 186, 230-1, 233
+
+Porthos, 60-1
+
+Poseidon, 86
+
+Poyser, Mrs., 159, 196
+
+Praed, Mrs. Campbell, 245
+
+Pratt, E. J., 246
+
+Priam, 86
+
+_Pride and Prejudice_, 155-6
+
+Prig, Betsey, 7
+
+Prince Otto, 66
+
+Pringle, 245
+
+Procter, 210
+
+Prospero, 35-7, 40, 44
+
+"Proud Maisie", 27
+
+Psalms, 54
+
+_Puck of Pook's Hill_, 105-6
+
+Purdie, Tom, 32
+
+Puss-in-Boots, 92
+
+
+
+Quasimodo, 63
+
+_Queens of England_, (Strickland), 183
+
+Quiller-Couch, Sir A., 236, 252
+
+Quiney, Thomas, 42
+
+
+
+Raleigh, Sir Walter, 23, 180-1
+
+"Rape of the Lock, The", 233
+
+Rebecca, 24
+
+_Red Cow and Her Friends, The_, 196
+
+Red Cross Knight, 139-40, 231
+
+Red Shoes, The, 93
+
+_Redgauntlet_, 25, 27
+
+_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, 112
+
+_Republic of Plato, The_, 174
+
+_Return of the Native, The_, 151
+
+_Revolt in the Desert_, 206
+
+_Rewards and Fairies_, 105-6
+
+Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 186, 192
+
+Richard, King of England, 24
+
+Richardson, Samuel, 186
+
+Richelieu, Cardinal, 60
+
+Ridd, Jan, 70
+
+Rikki-tiki-tavi, 104
+
+Riley, James Whitcombe, 196
+
+_Rip Van Winkle_, 101-2
+
+_Rise of the Dutch Republic_, 183
+
+Ritchie, Mrs., 148, 150
+
+_Rob Roy_, 21-3, 25
+
+Roberts, Charles G. D., 245
+
+Robin Hood, 24
+
+_Robinson Crusoe_, 68
+
+Robsart, Amy, 23
+
+Robinson, Crabb, 210
+
+Rochefort, 59
+
+_Rokeby_, 121
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_, 39, 43
+
+_Romola_, 159
+
+Rosalind, 45
+
+Ross, Martin, 251
+
+Rossetti, Christina, 236
+
+Rossetti, D. G., 236
+
+_Round the World in Eighty Days_, 71
+
+Rowena, 24
+
+Rozinante, 137
+
+Ruskin, John, 251
+
+Russell, Countess, 245
+
+Russell, George, 236
+
+Rustician, 202
+
+
+
+Sainte-Beuve, 214
+
+Sancho Panza, 137-9
+
+_Sard Harker_, 82
+
+Sassoon, Siegfried, 236
+
+"Saul", 233-5
+
+Schah-riar, 94
+
+Schehera-zade, 94
+
+Schreiner, Olive, 245
+
+Scott, Duncan Campbell, 246
+
+Scott, Captain R. F., 206
+
+_Scott's Last Expedition_, 206
+
+Scott, Sophia, 32
+
+Scott, Sir Walter, 21-34, 62, 112, 118-21, 187, 194, 218, 220
+
+Scott's _Journal_, 220
+
+_Second Jungle Book, The_, 103-4
+
+Sedley, Amelia, 148-9
+
+Sedley, Jos., 149
+
+Selkirk, Alexander, 68
+
+_Sense and Sensibility_, 156
+
+Setebos, 36
+
+Sévigné, Madam de, 216-8
+
+Shaftesbury, Lord, 218
+
+Shakespeare, Hamnet, 42
+
+Shakespeare, John, 41
+
+Shakespeare, Judith, 42-44
+
+Shakespeare, Susanna, 42
+
+Shakespeare, William, 35-47, 171, 186, 194, 195, 212-3, 226, 231-2,
+230
+
+_Shakespeare_ (Lee), 194
+
+Sharp, Becky, 148-9
+
+Shaw, Bernard, 252
+
+Shere Khan, 104
+
+"She Walks in Beauty", 233-4
+
+Shelley, 233-4, 230
+
+_Short History of the English People_ (Green), 183
+
+Shylock, 45
+
+Sidney, Sir Philip, 29
+
+_Silas Marner_, 159
+
+Silver, John, 65
+
+Silver Locks, 92
+
+Sinclair, May, 252
+
+Sindbad, 94
+
+"Sir Patrick Spens", 114-6
+
+Sitwell, Edith, 236
+
+Sitwell, Osbert, 236
+
+Sitwell, Sacheverell, 236
+
+_Sketches by Boz_, 12
+
+Slightly, 107
+
+Sloppy, 8
+
+Smith, Wayland, 23
+
+Smollett, Tobias, 157, 186
+
+Snodgrass, Mr., 20, 171
+
+Snow-Drop and the Seven Dwarfs, 93
+
+Socrates, 174
+
+_Some Experiences of an Irish R.M._, 251
+
+Somers, Sir George, 38
+
+Somerville, E. OE, 251
+
+_Son of the Middle Border, A_, 196
+
+Spenlow, Dora, 7
+
+Spenlow, Mr., 7
+
+Spens, Sir Patrick, 114
+
+Spenser, Edmund, 23, 29, 139-41, 186, 230, 231
+
+_Spirit of the Age, The_, 214
+
+Squeers, Wackford, 7
+
+Squire, J. C., 252
+
+Stanley, Henry M., 206
+
+Steadfast Tin Soldier, The, 93
+
+Steele, Sir Richard, 186, 212
+
+Steerforth, 7
+
+Stephens, James, 236, 245, 252
+
+Sterne, Laurence, 186
+
+Stevenson, R. L., 64-6, 212, 218, 227
+
+Stevenson, Thomas, 64
+
+Strachey, Lytton, 184
+
+Strickland, Agnes, 183
+
+Swift, Dean, 186, 212, 218
+
+Swinburne, Charles Algernon, 236
+
+Swiveller, Dick, 7
+
+Sycorax, 36
+
+
+
+Taine, H. A., 214
+
+_Tale of Two Cities, A_, 4, 16
+
+_Tales from Shakespeare_, 210
+
+Talfourd, 210
+
+_Tanglewood Tales_, 88-9
+
+Tapley, Mark, 7, 20
+
+Tarkington, Booth, 252
+
+Telemachus, 88
+
+_Tempest, The_, 35-8, 40, 44
+
+Tennyson, Alfred, 230, 233-4
+
+Thackeray, William Makepeace, 147-50, 187, 218
+
+Theseus, 88
+
+Thetis, 86-7
+
+Thoreau, 245
+
+_Three Musketeers, The_, 59-61
+
+_Through the Looking-Glass_, 98
+
+Thucydides, 166
+
+Tinker Bell, 107
+
+Tiny Tim, 7, 17
+
+_Tom Brown's School Days_, 214
+
+_Tom Sawyer_, 80-2, 100
+
+"To a Skylark", 233-4
+
+Tomlinson, H. M., 252
+
+Toomai of the Elephants, 104
+
+Tootles, 107
+
+Toots, 7, 8
+
+Traddles, 7
+
+_Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories_, 206
+
+_Travels in West Africa_, 206
+
+_Travels of Marco Polo, The_, 202-3
+
+_Treasure Island_, 64-5
+
+_Treasury of South African Poetry and Verse, The_, 245
+
+Trelawney, Squire, 64
+
+Tressilian, 23
+
+Treville, M. de, 60
+
+Trollope, Anthony, 251
+
+Trotter, Bernard, 246
+
+Trotwood, Miss Betsey, 7, 20
+
+_Trumpet-Major, The_, 151-2
+
+Tuck, Friar, 24
+
+Tulliver, Tom and Maggie, 157-9
+
+Tupman, Mr., 20, 171
+
+Twain, Mark, 80-2, 245
+
+_Twelfth Night_, 39-40, 43
+
+_Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_, 71
+
+_Twenty Years After_, 60
+
+_Two Years Before the Mast_, 73-4
+
+Tylette, 106
+
+Tylo, 106
+
+Tyltyl, 106
+
+Tynan, Katherine, 236
+
+
+
+Ugly Duckling, The, 93
+
+Una, 105, 140, 231
+
+Uncas, 80
+
+_Under the Greenwood Tree_, 151-2
+
+_Underwoods_, 65
+
+"Upon Westminster Bridge", 233
+
+
+
+Valjean, Jean, 63-4
+
+_Vanity Fair_, 148-9
+
+Venus, Mr., 8
+
+Verne, Jules, 71
+
+Vernon, Die, 22
+
+_Vicar of Wakefield, The_, 192
+
+Victoria, Queen, 184
+
+Virgil, 134, 141, 243
+
+_Virginians, The_, 149
+
+_Voyages_, (Cook), 203-5
+
+_Voyages from Montreal Through the Continent of North America_, 206
+
+
+
+Walpole, Horace, 218
+
+Walpole, Hugh, 252
+
+Wamba, 24
+
+Wandering Willie's Tale, 27
+
+Wardour, Sir Arthur, 26
+
+Watson, William, 236
+
+_Waverley_, 24
+
+Waverley Novels, 21-7
+
+Webb, Mary, 252
+
+Wegg, Silas, 8, 181
+
+_Weir of Hermiston_, 65
+
+Weller, Sam, 5, 6, 20, 171
+
+Weller, Tony, 6
+
+Wellington, Duke of, 183
+
+Wells, H. G., 252
+
+Wenonah, 120
+
+_Westward Ho!_, 71
+
+_When We Were Very Young_, 101
+
+White Rabbit, The, 97-8
+
+Whitman, Walt, 245
+
+Wild Swans, The, 93
+
+Wilfer family, 8
+
+_Wilhelm Meister_, 141
+
+Williamson, Henry, 252
+
+William the Silent, 183
+
+Wind in the Willows, The, 99-100
+
+Winkle, 20, 171
+
+_Winnie the Pooh_, 101
+
+_Winter's Tale, The_, 44
+
+Wolf, Father and Mother, 104
+
+_Wonder Book, The_, 88-9
+
+Woodhouse, Mr., 154
+
+Woodstock, 25
+
+Woolf, Virginia, 252
+
+Worldly-Wiseman, 142
+
+Wordsworth, William, 210, 226, 230, 233
+
+"World, The", 233
+
+Wortley-Montagu, Lady Mary, 218
+
+Wren, Jenny, 8
+
+_Wuthering Heights_, 160-1
+
+
+
+Yeats, W. B., 227, 236
+
+
+
+Zeus, 86
+
+ENDX
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75935 ***
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-01-10 19:38:33 +0000