PART IV LITERATURE AND LIFE IN THE HOMELAND (continued 4)

“Now, if you’re ready, set him alongside of Dan’l, with his forepaws just even with Dan’l, and I’ll give the word.” Then he says, “One—two—three—jump!” and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan’l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders—so—like a Frenchman, but it wan’t no use—he couldn’t budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn’t no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn’t have no idea what the matter was, of course.

The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulders—this way—at Dan’l, and says again, very deliberate, “Well, I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.”

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan’l a long time, and at last he says, “I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw’d off for—I wonder if there an’t something the matter with him—he ’pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.” And he ketched Dan’l by the nap of the neck, and lifted him up and says, “Why, blame my cats, if he don’t weigh five pound!” and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man—he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And—

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.] And turning to me as he moved away, he said, “Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy—I ain’t going to be gone a second.”

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me and recommenced:

“Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn’t have no tail, only jest a short stump like a bannanner, and—”

“Oh, hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!” I muttered, good-naturedly, and bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, is America’s greatest humorous writer. Like Walt Whitman he was of humble parentage. He was born in the village of Florida, Missouri, and at the age of four years, moved with his parents to the river town of Hannibal, which he immortalized in his two most popular books, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He became a printer and later a pilot on a Mississippi steamboat. For a few years he served as assistant to his brother who was secretary of the Territory of Nevada. This brought him in touch with the gold fields of the West, and he set out to make his fortune in a mining camp. He found only a very small amount of gold, but his wonderful experiences in the West furnish the basis of some of his most popular stories and books, such as “The Celebrated Jumping Frog” and Roughing It. As a newspaper reporter he chose the pen name Mark Twain, an old river expression, meaning the mark that registers two (twain) fathoms (twelve feet) of water. His start to literary fame came with the publication of the story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog.” Later he traveled through Europe and the Holy Land, paying his expenses by means of a series of letters describing his trip, written for a San Francisco newspaper. These letters were afterward collected in a book called The Innocents Abroad, a delightfully humorous collection of descriptive sketches. For a time he was part owner and associate editor of the Buffalo Express, but the investment was not profitable and he spent much of his time on the lecture platform. He died at Redding, Connecticut, in his seventy-fifth year.

Discussion. 1. What paragraphs in this selection relate the circumstances under which Simon Wheeler’s reminiscences of Jim Smiley were told? 2. What were these circumstances? 3. Are all parts of these introductory paragraphs to be taken seriously? 4. Does Mark Twain intend to convince his readers that they will find Simon Wheeler’s narrative “monotonous” and “interminable”? 5. Why does he call it so? 6. What paragraphs in these reminiscences lead up to the story of the jumping frog? 7. In whom do these paragraphs serve to interest the reader? 8. What is this person’s most marked characteristic? 9. What illustrations of this characteristic are given? 10. Did you enjoy reading this selection? 11. Can you tell what made it enjoyable? 12. Pronounce the following: infamous; inquiries; exquisitely; fellow; amateur.

Phrases

in compliance, 531, 1

hereunto append, 531, 4

initial sentence, 532, 8

slightest suspicion of enthusiasm, 532, 9

transcendent genius of finesse, 532, 14

cavorting and straddling up, 533, 25

lattice box, 535, 21

anchored out, 536, 26

THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of a Congregational minister. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and was graduated from Harvard College in the famous class of 1829. After studying medicine and anatomy in Paris, he began practicing in Boston. Later he was made professor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth College, and afterwards at Harvard. In 1850 he wrote the poem “Old Ironsides” as a protest against the dismantling of the historic battleship Constitution which lay in the harbor. It stirred the entire country so that the Secretary of the Navy found it advisable to recall the order he had issued. Like Bryant, Holmes was a poet on occasion, not by profession. For more than forty years after he entered on his duties at Harvard he delivered his four lectures a week eight months of the year, and President Eliot bore witness that he was not less skillful with the scalpel and the microscope than with the pen.

When Lowell was offered the editorship of the Atlantic Monthly, he made it a condition of his acceptance that Holmes should be a contributor. The result was a series of articles entitled The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. Among his poems, the best known are his “Chambered Nautilus,” “The Height of the Ridiculous”, “The Deacon’s Masterpiece” (The One Hoss Shay), and short poems in celebration of various occasions. Among these are some forty poems read at anniversaries of his college class, notably the one beginning: “Has any old fellow got mixed with the boys?” In this he refers playfully to the author of “America” as one whom “Fate tried to conceal by naming him Smith.”

He wrote several novels, but it is as the author of the Autocrat series and by his humorous poems that he will be best remembered by his readers. By his personal associates he was most fondly remembered for his sunny, cheerful disposition and his witty conversation.

Discussion. 1. What is it that is described by the poet as being the “height of the ridiculous”? 2. What incidents are related that seem to show him to be right in this estimate? 3. What opinion of the poet does the poem give you? 4. In what state of mind do you think of him as writing it? 5. What is the “trifling jest” referred to in stanza 4? 6. What have the humorists done for the world? 7. Of what use is a poem like this?

Phrases

the height of the ridiculous, 538 (title)

albeit, in the general way, 538, 7

a trifling jest, 539, 7

a chuckling noise, 539, 15

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

O. HENRY

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of “Dillingham” looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling—something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out of the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped, the sign read: “Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”

Down rippled the brown cascade.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain, simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation—as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value—the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends—a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do—oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”

At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two—and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn’t live through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again—you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas,’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet, even after the hardest mental labor.

“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshiped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ’em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”

The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. William Sidney Porter (1862-1910), better known by his pen name, O. Henry, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. His teacher was his aunt, who encouraged his love of stories and story-telling. As a boy he read widely and showed a natural gift for sketching. When a mere boy, he went to Texas where he spent two years on a sheep ranch. He became a reporter for the Daily Post of Houston, Texas, and later he wrote extensively for the leading magazines. In 1902 he went to New York City to live and from this time on he devoted himself almost exclusively to short-story writing. He holds a prominent place among the world’s greatest short-story writers. His best known books are The Four Million, from which “The Gift of the Magi” is taken, Whirligigs, and Heart of the West, portraying life in Texas. His stories are drawn from real situations and picture the various types found in ordinary American life. They are noted for their surprising endings and for their warm human sympathy.

Discussion. 1. Has this story an interesting beginning? 2. What does it make you curious about? 3. Throughout the story find other instances where the author arouses your curiosity, but does not immediately tell you what you wish to know. 4. When did a plan for obtaining money first suggest itself to Della? 5. Where do you first begin to suspect what the plan is? 6. Does Jim’s behavior, when he is told that Della has cut off her hair, puzzle you as well as Della? 7. Where do you learn why he was so bewildered? 8. O. Henry’s stories usually have a surprise at the end; is there a surprise in this one? 9, What reason do you see for calling Jim and Della “the magi”?

Phrases

imputation of parsimony, 541, 4

instigates the moral reflection, 541, 9

beggar description, 541, 14

mendicancy squad, 541, 15

appertaining thereunto, 541, 19

a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, 542, 14

just to depreciate, 542, 26

meretricious ornamentation, 543, 22

repairing the ravages, 543, 33

immovable as a setter, 544, 20

patent fact, 544, 36

inconsequential object, 545, 13

case of duplication, 546, 21

WOUTER VAN TWILLER

WASHINGTON IRVING

It was in the year of our Lord 1629 that Mynheer Wouter Van Twiller was appointed governor of the province of Nieuw-Nederlandts, under the commission and control of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West India Company.

This renowned old gentleman arrived at New-Amsterdam in the merry month of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when Dan Apollo seems to dance up the transparent firmament—when the robin, the thrush, and a thousand other wanton songsters made the woods resound with amorous ditties, and the luxurious little boblincon revels among the clover blossoms of the meadows—all which happy coincidence persuaded the old dames of New-Amsterdam, who were skilled in the art of foretelling events, that this was to be a happy and prosperous administration.

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that they were never either heard or talked of—which, next to being universally applauded, should be the object of ambition of all sage magistrates and rulers.

There are two opposite ways by which some men get into notice—one by talking a vast deal and thinking a little, and the other by holding their tongues, and not thinking at all. By the first, many a vaporing, superficial pretender acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts—by the other, many a vacant dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be complimented by a discerning world with all the attributes of wisdom. This, by the way, is a mere casual remark, which I would not for the universe have it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. On the contrary, he was a very wise Dutchman, for he never said a foolish thing—and of such invincible gravity, that he was never known to laugh, or even to smile, through the course of a long and prosperous life. Certain, however, it is, there never was a matter proposed, however simple, and on which your common narrow-minded mortals would rashly determine at the first glance, but what the renowned Wouter put on a mighty, mysterious, vacant kind of look, shook his capacious head, and, having smoked for five minutes with redoubled earnestness, sagely observed that he had his doubts about the matter—which in process of time gained him the character of a man slow in belief, and not easily imposed on.

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was as regularly formed and nobly proportioned, as though it had been molded by the hands of some cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions that Dame Nature, with all her sex’s ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his back-bone, just between the shoulders. His body was of an oblong form, particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs, though exceeding short, were sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a robustious beer-barrel, standing on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, perfectly unfurrowed or deformed by any of those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in the hazy firmament; and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a Spitzenberg apple.

His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four and twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller—a true philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun; and he had watched, for at least half a century, the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling; without once troubling his head with any of those numerous theories, by which a philosopher would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding atmosphere.

In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague, fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously carved about the arms and feet, into exact imitations of gigantic eagle’s claws. Instead of a scepter, he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmine and amber, which had been presented to a Stadtholder of Holland, at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a black frame against the opposite wall of the council chamber. Nay, it has even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would absolutely shut his eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by external objects—and at such times the internal commotion of his mind was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict, made by his contending doubts and opinions.

It is with infinite difficulty I have been enabled to collect these biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up the search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which would have tended to heighten the coloring of his portrait.

I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits of the renowned Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the first, but also the best governor that ever presided over this ancient and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign, that I do not find throughout the whole of it, a single instance of any offender being brought to punishment—a most indubitable sign of a merciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of the illustrious King Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller was a lineal descendant.

The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was distinguished by an example of legal acumen, that gave flattering presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had been solemnly installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his breakfast, from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and Indian pudding, he was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of one Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of New-Amsterdam, who complained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he fraudulently refused to come to a settlement of accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance in favor of the said Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man of few words; he was likewise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings—or being disturbed at his breakfast. Having listened attentively to the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt, as he shoveled a spoonful of Indian pudding into his mouth—either as a sign that he relished the dish, or comprehended the story—he called unto him his constable, and pulling out of his breeches pocket a huge jack-knife, despatched it after the defendant as a summons, accompanied by his tobacco-box as a warrant.

This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was the seal ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true believers. The two parties being confronted before him, each produced a book of accounts written in a language and character that would have puzzled any but a High Dutch commentator, or a learned decipherer of Egyptian obelisks, to understand. The sage Wouter took them one after the other, and having poised them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number of leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an hour without saying a word; at length, laying his finger beside his nose, and shutting his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has just caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous gravity and solemnity pronounced—that having carefully counted over the leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as thick and as heavy as the other—therefore it was the final opinion of the court that the accounts were equally balanced—therefore Wandle should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wandle a receipt—and the constable should pay the costs.

This decision being straightway made known, diffused general joy throughout New-Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that they had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. But its happiest effect was, that not another law-suit took place throughout the whole of his administration—and the office of constable fell into such decay that there was not one of those losel scouts known in the province for many years. I am the more particular in dwelling on this transaction, not only because I deem it one of the most sage and righteous judgments on record, and well worthy the attention of modern magistrates, but because it was a miraculous event in the history of the renowned Wouter—being the only time he was ever known to come to a decision in the whole course of his life.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 424.

Discussion. 1. Does Irving describe Wouter Van Twiller directly or indirectly? 2. What conclusion are you led to concerning Wouter’s mentality, despite the author’s statements to the contrary? 3. Describe Wouter’s appearance in your own words. 4. Do you think the author is more inclined to state facts, or to imply them? Prove your point through the paragraphs dealing with the Dutchman’s behavior during the council meetings. 5. What was the only decision that Wouter ever reached? 6. Do you think Irving uses any of the following methods for developing the humor of the tale: exaggeration, sarcasm, irony? Or do you think the humor lies in the way he relates with great seriousness facts that are obviously ridiculous? 7. What do you think is the most amusing incident or description in the sketch?

Phrases

under the commission and control, 547, 3

transparent firmament, 548, 1

amorous ditties, 548, 3

successively dozed away, 548, 10

vaporing, superficial pretender, 548, 19

nobly proportioned, 549, 1

stupendous dimensions, 549, 5

infallible index, 549, 15

lesser magnitude, 549, 20

fabricated by an experienced timmerman, 550, 2

deliberation of extraordinary length, 550, 18

point of authenticity, 550, 23

example of legal acumen, 551, 1

losel scouts, 552, 9

AMERICAN WORKERS AND THEIR WORK

MAKERS OF THE FLAG

FRANKLIN K. LANE

This morning as I passed into the Land Office, the Flag dropped me a most cordial salutation, and from its rippling folds I heard it say: “Good morning, Mr. Flag Maker.”

“I beg your pardon, Old Glory,” I said; “aren’t you mistaken? I am not the President of the United States, nor a member of Congress, nor even a general in the army. I am only a Government clerk.”

“I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker,” replied the gay voice; “I know you well. You are the man who worked in the swelter of yesterday straightening out the tangle of that farmer’s homestead in Idaho, or perhaps you found the mistake in the Indian contract in Oklahoma, or helped to clear that patent for the hopeful inventor in New York, or pushed the opening of that new ditch in Colorado, or made that mine in Illinois more safe, or brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No matter, whichever one of these beneficent individuals you may happen to be, I give you greeting, Mr. Flag Maker.”

I was about to pass on, when the Flag stopped me with these words:

“Yesterday the President spoke a word that made happier the future of ten million peons in Mexico; but that act looms no larger on the flag than the struggle which the boy in Georgia is making to win the Corn Club prize this summer.

“Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open the door of Alaska; but a mother in Michigan worked from sunrise until far into the night, to give her boy an education. She, too, is making the flag.

“Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial panics, and yesterday, maybe, a school teacher in Ohio taught his first letters to a boy who will one day write a song that will give cheer to the millions of our race. We are all making the flag.”

“But,” I said impatiently, “these people were only working!” Then came a great shout from the Flag:

“The work that we do is the making of the Flag.

“I am not the flag; not at all. I am nothing more than its shadow.

“I am whatever you make me, nothing more.

“I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a People may become.

“I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heartbreaks and tired muscles.

“Sometimes I am strong with pride, when workmen do an honest piece of work, fitting rails together truly.

“Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, and cynically I play the coward.

“Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego that blasts judgment.

“But always, I am all that you hope to be, and have the courage to try for.

“I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope.

“I am the day’s work of the weakest man, and the largest dream of the most daring.

“I am the Constitution and the courts, the statutes and the statute makers, soldier and dreadnaught, drayman and street sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk.

“I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of tomorrow.

“I am the mystery of the men who do without knowing why.

“I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of resolution.

“I am no more than what you believe me to be, and I am all that you believe I can be.

“I am what you make me, nothing more.

“I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes this nation. My stars and my stripes are your dream and your labors. They are bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because you have made them so out of your hearts. For you are the makers of the flag and it is well that you glory in the making.”

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Franklin Knight Lane (1864-⸺) was born near Charlottetown, Canada. While he was yet a small boy his parents moved to California, where he attended the State University at Berkeley, being graduated in 1886. Then he entered the newspaper field and became New York correspondent for a number of papers in the West. He was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-five and practiced law in San Francisco. In 1913 he was appointed Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Wilson. “Makers of the Flag” is an address made by Secretary Lane, in June, 1914, before the five thousand officers and employees of the Department of the Interior.

Discussion. 1. Why did the Flag greet the author as “Mr. Flag Maker”? 2. Why are the Georgia boy, the mother in Michigan, and the school teacher in Ohio, Makers of the Flag? 3. Tell in your own words some of the things that Mr. Lane says the Flag is. 4. What does the Flag mean by saying, “I am all that you hope to be and have the courage to try for”? 5. How is the Flag a “symbol of yourself”? 6. Do you think that you are a Maker of the Flag? 7. In your opinion, what class of people are the greatest Makers of the Flag? 8. Pronounce the following: cordial; government; garish; ego.

Phrases

cordial salutation, 553, 2

swelter of yesterday, 553, 9

Indian contract, 553, 11

beneficent individuals, 553, 16

financial panics, 554, 8

cynically I play the coward, 554, 25

ego that blasts judgment, 554, 26

mistake of tomorrow, 554, 37

clutch of an idea, 555, 2

purpose of resolution, 555, 2

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

WALT WHITMAN

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born in Huntington, Long Island, and educated in the public schools of Brooklyn. He left school at the early age of thirteen to make his own way in life. At different times he was school teacher, carpenter, builder, journalist, and poet. During the Civil War he became a volunteer nurse in and about Washington, D. C., and the story of his unselfish hospital service is one of the most inspiring that has come down to us from that war. Lincoln said of him, “Well, he looks like a man!”

Two points about Whitman are worthy of notice. The first is that he was a man of intensely democratic sympathies. He wrote of “the dear love of comrades” as the real means for bringing about a better understanding among men of every nation, a better government, and the end of war. He loved every part of America, and all America’s sons and daughters.

The word “democracy” constantly occurs in his poetry and his prose, and by it he means the cultivation of love and coöperation among men. He had a vision of the time when autocratic government, and all forms of selfishness, should cease among men; like Burns, he dwelt on the time when men all over the world should be brothers.

The second point is closely related to the first. In his dislike for conventional and exclusive life he objected even to the form developed for poetry through centuries. He was a lover of freedom, even in writing. So he rarely uses rimes and stanzas. He calls his form “chants,” and so they are, chants of human brotherhood and sympathy.

Discussion. 1. Who is it that the poet hears singing? 2. In stanza 1, what “varied carols” does he hear? 3. What do you think was the poet’s underlying idea in writing this poem? 4. Do you think that he meant to point out that the road to happiness is the road to work?

Phrases

varied carols, 556, 1

noon intermission, 556, 12

PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!

WALT WHITMAN

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Discussion. 1. Whom does the poet address in stanza 1? 2. What does he ask them if they have ready? 3. Why cannot they “tarry here”? 4. How does the poet characterize the “western youths”? 5. Why must the Pioneers “take up the task eternal”? 6. What new world do they enter upon? 7. Mention some of the tasks that the Pioneers must do. 8. Where do these pioneers come from? 9. Why does the poet mourn and yet exult?

Phrases

bear the brunt, 557, 6

sinewy races, 557, 7

task eternal, 558, 3

we debouch, 558, 6

surface broad surveying, 558, 15

continental blood intervein’d, 558, 22

THE BEANFIELD

HENRY D. THOREAU

Before I finished my house, wishing to earn ten or twelve dollars by some honest and agreeable method, in order to meet my unusual expenses, I planted about two acres and a half chiefly with beans, but a small part with potatoes, corn, peas, and turnips.

Meanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven miles, were impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had grown considerably before the latest were in the ground; indeed they were not easily to be put off. What was the meaning of this so steady and self-respecting, this small Herculean labor, I knew not. I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus. But why should I raise them? Only Heaven knows. This was my curious labor all summer—to make this portion of the earth’s surface, which had yielded only cinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild fruits and pleasant flowers, produce instead this pulse. What shall I learn of beans or beans of me? I cherish them, I hoe them, early and late I have an eye to them; and this is my day’s work. It is a fine broad leaf to look on. My auxiliaries are the dews and rains which water this dry soil, and what fertility is in the soil itself, which for the most part is lean and effete. My enemies are worms, cool days and, most of all, woodchucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter of an acre clean. But what right had I to oust johnswort and the rest, and break up their ancient herb garden? Soon, however, the remaining beans will be too tough for them, and go forward to meet new foes.

I planted about two acres and a half of upland. Before any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, or the sun had gotten above the shrub-oaks, while all the dew was on—I would advise you to do all your work if possible while the dew is on—I began to level the ranks of haughty weeds in my beanfield and to throw dust upon their heads. Early in the morning I worked barefooted, dabbling like a plastic artist in the dewy and crumbling sand, but later in the day the sun blistered my feet. The sun lighted me to hoe beans, pacing slowly backward and forward over that yellow gravelly upland, between the long green rows, fifteen rods, the one end terminating in a shrub-oak copse where I could rest in the shade the other in a blackberry field where the green berries deepened their tints by the time I had made another round. Removing the weeds putting fresh soil about the bean stems and encouraging this weed which I had sown, making the yellow soil express its summer thought in bean leaves and blossoms rather than in wormwood and piper and millet grass, making the earth say beans instead of grass—this was my daily work. As I had little aid from horses or cattle, or hired men or boys, or improved implements of husbandry, I was much slower, and became much more intimate with my beans than usual.

It was a singular experience, that long acquaintance which I cultivated with beans, what with planting, and hoeing, and harvesting, and threshing, and picking over and selling them—the last was the hardest of all—I might add eating for I did taste. I was determined to know beans. When they were growing, I used to hoe from five o’clock in the morning till noon, and commonly spent the rest of the day about other affairs. Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds. That’s Roman wormwood—that’s pigweed—that’s sorrel—that’s piper-grass—have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don’t let him have a fiber in the shade; if you do he’ll turn himself t’other side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest-waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust.

My farm outgoes for the season were, for implements, seed, work, etc., $14.72½. I got twelve bushels of beans and eighteen bushels of potatoes, besides some peas and sweet corn. The yellow corn and turnips were too late to come to anything. My whole income from the farm was—

$23.44

Deducting the outgoes 14.72½

There are left $ 8.71½

This is the result of my experience in raising beans. Plant the common small white bush bean about the first of June, in rows three feet by eighteen inches apart, being careful to select fresh, round, and unmixed seed. First look out for worms, and supply vacancies by planting anew. Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and again, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice of it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting erect like a squirrel. But above all, harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save much loss by this means.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was born in Concord, Massachusetts, and was educated in the village schools and later at Harvard University. He was an intimate friend of Emerson, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts. With the help of Emerson, he built a cottage beside a pond in Walden Woods near Concord where he lived alone, planted beans, caught fish, and for the most part lived on the products of the soil, cultivated by his own hands. In his book, Walden, or Life in the Woods, he gives a detailed account of his observations and experiences. Other books by Thoreau are A Week on the Concord and the Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, etc.

Discussion. 1. Why did Thoreau wish to earn some extra money? 2. What seeds did he plant? 3. The author likens the hoeing of the beans to a “Herculean labor”; explain this reference. 4. What were Thoreau’s auxiliaries? His enemies? 5. According to the author, what is the best time to work in the garden? 6. How did he come “to know beans” so well? 7. Explain the metaphor referring to the weeds as Trojans. 8. How much did the author clear on his garden? 9. Do you think the amount made was worth the labor put into it? 10. Tell one of your experiences with a garden.

Phrases

Herculean labor, 559, 9

strength like Antaeus, 559, 12

auxiliaries are the dews, 560, 5

lean and effete, 560, 7

level the ranks, 560, 17

plastic artist, 560, 19

express its summer thought, 560, 28

implements of husbandry, 560, 32

intimate and curious acquaintance, 561, 3

crest-waving Hector, 561, 13

supply vacancies, 561, 29

THE SHIP-BUILDERS

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 60.

Discussion. 1. What does the title tell us? 2. Make an outline which shows what each stanza tells us of the ship-builders, for example:

Stanza 1—Morning; time for work.

Stanza 2—The smithy; work of the smith, etc.

3. What do the first four lines tell us of the time? 4. Note how much more they tell; what pictures do they give? What comparison do they suggest? 5. What line in the second stanza adds to the picture in stanza one? 6. In what sense is the smith working “for us”? 7. What does the “panting team” bring from the “far-off hills”? 8. With whose labor does the work of ship-building really begin? Read the lines which tell this. 9. Which line in the third stanza do you like best? 10. What comparison does the poet make between ship-building and other kinds of labor? 11. Is the “master” the only one responsible for making the ship obey the helm? 12. What is the subject of the verb “may feel”? 13. What dangers to the ship are pointed out? How may the ship-builders guard against these dangers? 14. Read the stanzas which urge honest workmanship. 15. At what point in the building of a ship are the “bars and blocks” struck away? 16. In what sense does this “set the good ship free”? 17. Read lines which tell of the ship’s work. 18. In what sense can the “Prairie’s golden grain” “be hers”? 19. What is meant by the “Desert’s golden sand”? 20. What poetic name is given to the Far East? 21. Read the lines that express the poet’s wish for the ship. 22. Select the lines in this poem that give the most vivid pictures. 23. Can you think of anything of which this ship may be the symbol? 24. Compare the poem with Longfellow’s “The Builders” (page 566) for a suggestion as to what the ship may represent. 25. Pronounce the following: sooty; scourge; helm; coral.

Phrases

spectral in the river-mist, 562, 3

measured stroke, 562, 5

sooty smithy jars, 563, 2

groaning anvil scourge, 563, 8

century-circled oak, 563, 15

drive the treenails free, 563, 22

vulture-beak of Northern ice, 564, 1

sailor’s citadel, 564, 7

THE BUILDERS

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 80.

Discussion. 1. Tell in your own words what the first stanza means to you. 2. Find the line which tells that we must build whether we wish to do so or not. 3. Which lines show that we choose the kind of structure that we raise? 4. Upon what does the beauty of the “blocks” depend? 5. Mention something that could cause a “yawning gap.” 6. By whom are “massive deeds” performed? 7. By whom are “ornaments of rime” made? 8. Explain the meaning of the “elder days of Art” and mention some works that belong to that time. 9. Tell in your own words the meaning of the last stanza. 10. What do you think was Longfellow’s purpose in writing this poem?

Phrases

architects of Fate, 566, 1

massive deeds, 566, 3

yawning gaps, 566, 14

ample base, 567, 6

ascending and secure, 567, 7

boundless reach, 567, 12

LOVE OF COUNTRY

THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 539.

Discussion. 1. Read the line in the first stanza answering the question with which the poem opens. 2. Explain the metaphor of the “burning star” and the “flaming band,” etc. 3. How many “burning stars” does our flag contain? How many “flaming bands”? 4. Why does the poet call America the “sunset land”? 5. How far back in history must we go to find the seed time of the Flower of Liberty? 6. Did the Flower of Liberty come to full-bloom in a time of strife or a time of peace? 7. What were the “storm-winds”? What blood streaked its opening leaves? 8. How does the poet show that the North and South unite as one in the flag? 9. How do the “blades of heroes fence” the flag? 10. In the fourth stanza the poet says that the flag makes our land as free as the ocean; what do you know about a recent struggle over the freedom of the seas? 11. Why is the Flower of Liberty thrice holy?

Phrases

freshly born, 568, 2

flaming band, 568, 3

far abode, 568, 9

swelling bud, 568, 11

streaming rays unite, 569, 1

braided light, 569, 2

OLD IRONSIDES

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 539.

Historical Note. Old Ironsides was the popular name given the U. S. frigate Constitution. It was proposed by the Secretary of the Navy to dispose of the ship, as it had become unfit for service. Popular sentiment did not approve of this; it was felt that a ship which had been the pride of the nation should continue to be the property of the Navy and that it should be rebuilt for service when needed. Holmes wrote this poem at the time when the matter was being widely discussed.

Discussion. 1. In what spirit was this poem written? 2. What was the motive which inspired it? 3. Do you think the poet really means it when he cries, “Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!”? Can you give some other instance of irony? 4. As you read this poem, do you think of the frigate as an inanimate object or does it seem personified? 5. What is meant by “meteor of the ocean wave”? 6. Who are the “harpies of the shore”? The “eagle of the sea”? 7. What does the poet say would be better than to have the ship dismantled? 8. Do you think this a fitting end for a ship of war? 9. Read the story of the fight between the Constitution and the Guerriére given in your history and be prepared to tell it in class. Why did the nation have particular pride in this achievement? 10. Pronounce the following: ensign; beneath.

Phrases

tattered ensign, 570, 1

meteor of the ocean air, 570, 7

harpies of the shore, 570, 15

shattered hulk, 571, 1

THE AMERICAN FLAG

HENRY WARD BEECHER

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation’s flag, sees not the flag only, but the nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history, which belong to the nation which sets it forth.

When the French tricolor rolls out to the wind, we see France. When the new-found Italian flag is unfurled, we see resurrected Italy. When the other three-cornered Hungarian flag shall be lifted to the wind, we shall see in it the long buried but never dead principles of Hungarian liberty. When the united crosses of St. Andrew and St. George on a fiery ground set forth the banner of Old England, we see not the cloth merely; there rises up before the mind the noble aspect of that monarchy, which, more than any other on the globe, has advanced its banner for liberty, law, and national prosperity.

This nation has a banner, too; and wherever it streamed abroad, men saw daybreak bursting on their eyes, for the American flag has been the symbol of liberty, and men rejoiced in it. Not another flag on the globe had such an errand, or went forth upon the sea, carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope for the captive, and such glorious tidings. The stars upon it were to the pining nations like the morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it were beams of morning light.

As at early dawn the stars stand first, and then it grows light, and then as the sun advances, that light breaks into banks and streaming lines of color, the glowing red and intense white striving together and ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so on the American flag, stars and beams of many-colored light shine out together. And wherever the flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry no rampant lion and fierce eagle, but only LIGHT, and every fold significant of liberty.

The history of this banner is all on one side. Under it rode Washington and his armies; before it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the highlands at West Point; it floated over old Fort Montgomery. When Arnold would have surrendered these valuable fortresses and precious legacies, his night was turned into day, and his treachery was driven away by the beams of light from this starry banner.

It cheered our army, driven from New York, in their solitary pilgrimage through New Jersey. It streamed in light over Valley Forge and Morristown. It crossed the waters rolling with ice at Trenton; and when its stars gleamed in the cold morning with victory, a new day of hope dawned on the despondency of the nation. And when, at length, the long years of war were drawing to a close, underneath the folds of this immortal banner sat Washington while Yorktown surrendered its hosts, and our Revolutionary struggles ended with victory.

Let us then twine each thread of the glorious tissue of our country’s flag about our heartstrings; and looking upon our homes and catching the spirit that breathes upon us from the battlefields of our fathers, let us resolve, come weal or woe, we will, in life and in death, now and forever, stand by the Stars and Stripes. They have been unfurled from the snows of Canada to the plains of New Orleans, in the halls of the Montezumas and amid the solitude of every sea; and everywhere, as the luminous symbol of resistless and beneficent power, they have led the brave to victory and to glory. They have floated over our cradles; let it be our prayer and our struggle that they shall float over our graves.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was a native of Connecticut and a son of the famous Lyman Beecher. He was a graduate of Amherst College and of Lane Theological Seminary. For forty years Beecher was the pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, discussing from the pulpit the issues of the time and championing the rights of men everywhere, particularly the rights of oppressed men. His lectures and sermons breathed a spirit of intense patriotism.

Discussion. 1. What may be seen in a nation’s flag by a thoughtful mind? 2. Of what is the American flag a symbol? 3. What are the stars of the flag compared to? The stripes? 4. What do people see in the “sacred emblazonry” of the flag? 5. Tell something of the history of this banner. 6. What is it to “stand by the stars and stripes”? 7. Do you think the men who fought for us in the Great War lived up to the ideals given to us in this poem? 8. Pronounce the following: insignia; horizon; rampant.

Phrases

resurrected Italy, 572, 7

glorious tidings, 572, 21

ribbing the horizon, 572, 27

bars effulgent, 572, 27

sacred emblazonry, 572, 30

precious legacies, 573, 5

glorious tissue, 573, 17

weal or woe, 573, 20

luminous symbol, 573, 24

beneficent power, 573, 24

THE AMERICAN FLAG

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820), whose name is inseparably associated with that of his friend, Fitz-Greene Halleck, was an American poet. These two able poets together contributed a series of forty poems to the New York Evening Post. Among these was “The American Flag,” the last four lines of which were written by Halleck, to replace those written by Drake:

Drake was a youth of many graces of both mind and body, who wrote verses as a bird sings—for the pure joy of it. His career was cut short by death when he was only twenty-five years old. Of him Halleck wrote:

Discussion. 1. Who is represented as making a flag? 2. How is it made? 3. What flag is it? 4. What reasons can you see for choosing the eagle as bearer of this flag? 5. What events are pictured in which the flag has a part? 6. Note all the names the poet gives to the flag; which of these do you like best? 7. Can you give other names that are applied to our flag? 8. What feeling caused this poem to be written? 9. What lines are the most stirring? 10. Which stanza do you like best?

Phrases

unfurled her standard, 574, 2

azure robe, 574, 3

milky baldric, 574, 6

celestial white, 574, 7

majestic monarch, 574, 13

regal form, 574, 14

tempest-trumpings, 574, 15

sulphur smoke, 575, 3

harbingers of victory, 575, 7

sky-born glories, 575, 15

cannon’s mouthings loud, 575, 18

welkin dome, 576, 3

THE FLAG GOES BY

HENRY H. BENNETT

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. 1. Henry Holcomb Bennett (1863-⸺), an American newspaper writer, was born in Chillicothe, Ohio. He is not only a journalist, but also a magazine writer and a landscape painter. He has been a frequent contributor to the Youth’s Companion, and to the New York Independent. “The Flag Goes By” is his most popular poem.

Discussion. 1. What feeling inspires the cry “Hats off!”? 2. What does the poet mean by “more than a flag is passing”? 3. Name historical events which illustrate the different references in the third stanza. 4. Explain the meaning of “march of a strong land’s swift increase.” 5. How could the flag “ward her people from foreign wrong”? 6. How many of the things mentioned by the poet do you see when the flag goes by? 7. Do you think the poem will help you to see more?

Phrases

ruffle of drums, 577, 3

steel-tipped, ordered lines, 577, 8

strong land’s swift increase, 577, 17

reverend awe, 577, 19

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biographical and Historical Note. Francis Scott Key (1780-1843), an American lawyer and poet, was a native of Maryland. “The Star-Spangled Banner” made him famous.

The incidents referred to in this poem occurred during the war of 1812. In August, 1814, a strong force of British entered Washington and burned the Capitol, the White House, and many other public buildings. On September 13 the British admiral moved his fleet into position to attack Fort McHenry, near Baltimore. The bombardment lasted all night, but the fort was so bravely defended that the flag was still floating over it when morning came. Just before the bombardment began, Francis Scott Key was sent to the admiral’s frigate to arrange for an exchange of prisoners and was told to wait until the bombardment was over. All night he watched the fort and by the first rays of morning light he saw the Stars and Stripes still waving. Then, in his joy and pride, he wrote the stirring words of the song which is now known and loved by all Americans—“The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Discussion. 1. Relate the incident that called forth the poem. 2. What “perilous fight” had taken place? 3. Where was the author during the fight? 4. What had he seen at the “twilight’s last gleaming”? 5. Over what ramparts was the flag streaming? 6. Which lines suggest why the poet could not be sure that the flag was still there? 7. What sometimes “gave proof” to him? 8. What finally disclosed the flag “in full glory”? 9. What feelings do you think this certainty aroused in the watcher? 10. Who made up “the foe’s haughty host”? 11. Find words that tell where the foe was and that he had ceased firing. 12. What “war’s desolation” is named in the third stanza? 13. What other war songs do you know? 14. What other country’s national hymn do you know? 15. What purposes does such a song serve?

Phrases

perilous fight, 578, 3

o’er the ramparts, 578, 4

mist of the deep, 578, 9

dread silence reposes, 578, 10

towering steep, 578, 11

vauntingly swore, 579, 5

foul footsteps’ pollution, 579, 8

war’s desolation, 579, 14

CITIZENSHIP

WILLIAM P. FRYE

Citizenship! What is citizenship? It has a broader signification than you and I are apt to give it. Citizenship does not mean alone that the man who possesses it shall be obedient to the law, shall be kindly to his neighbors, shall regard the rights of others, shall perform his duties as juror, shall, if the hour of peril come, yield his time, his property, and his life to his country. It means more than that. It means that his country shall protect him in every right which the Constitution gives him. What right has the Republic to demand his life, his property, in the hour of peril, if, when his hour of peril comes, it fails him? A man died in England a few years ago, Lord Napier of Magdala, whose death reminded me of an incident which illustrates this, an incident which gave that great lord his name. A few years ago King Theodore of Abyssinia seized Captain Cameron, a British citizen, and incarcerated him in a dungeon on the top of a mountain nine thousand feet high. England demanded his release, and King Theodore refused. England fitted out and sent on five thousand English soldiers, and ten thousand Sepoys, debarked them on the coast, marched them more than four hundred miles through swamp and morass under a burning sun. Then they marched up the mountain height, they scaled the walls, they broke down the iron gates, they reached down into the dungeon, they took that one British citizen like a brand from the burning and carried him down the mountain side, across the morass, put him on board the white-winged ship, and bore him away to England to safety. That cost Great Britain millions of dollars, and it made General Napier Lord Napier of Magdala.

Was not that a magnificent thing for a great country to do? Only think of it! A country that has an eye sharp enough to see away across the ocean, away across the morass, away up into the mountain top, away down into the dungeon, one citizen, one of her thirty millions, and then has an arm strong enough to reach away across the ocean, away across the morass, away up the mountain height and down into the dungeon and take that one and bear him home in safety. Who would not live and die, too, for the country that can do that? This country of ours is worth our thought, our care, our labor, our lives. What a magnificent country it is! What a Republic for the people, where all are kings! Men of great wealth, of great rank, of great influence can live without difficulty under despotic power; but how can you and I, how can the average man endure the burdens it imposes? Oh, this blessed Republic of ours stretches its hand down to men, and lifts them up, while despotism puts its heavy hand on their heads and presses them down! This blessed Republic of ours speaks to every boy in the land, black or white, rich or poor, and asks him to come up higher and higher. You remember that boy out here on the prairie, the son of a widowed mother, poor, neglected perhaps by all except the dear old mother. But the Republic did not neglect him. The Republic said to that boy: “Boy, there is a ladder: its foot is on the earth, its top is in the sky. Boy, go up.” And the boy mounted that ladder rung by rung; by the rung of the free schools, by the rung of the academy, by the rung of the college, by the rung of splendid service in the United States Army, by the rung of the United States House of Representatives, by the rung of the United States Senate, by the rung of the Presidency of the Great Republic, by the rung of a patient sickness and a heroic death; until James A. Garfield is a name to be forever honored in the history of our country.

Now, is not a Republic like that worth the tribute of our conscience? Is it not entitled to our best thought, to our holiest purpose?

Let us pledge ourselves to give it our loyal service and support until every man in this Republic, black or white, shall be protected in all the rights which the Constitution of the United States bestows upon him.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biographical and Historical Note. William Pierce Frye (1831-1911), an eminent lawyer and statesman, was born at Lewiston, Maine. He was graduated from Bowdoin College in 1850, and was a member of Congress from 1871 to 1881, and United States senator for Maine from 1881 to 1911. After the death of Vice-President Hobart, and also after the death of President McKinley, he acted as president pro tempore of the senate.

The Magdala affair is a striking example of what a country will do to protect its citizens. Magdala, more properly Makdala, is a natural stronghold in Abyssinia. The emperor Theodore of Abyssinia chose it as a fortress and a prison. Having taken offense because a request that English workmen and machinery be sent him was not promptly complied with, Theodore seized the British consul, Captain C. D. Cameron, his suite, and two other men, and imprisoned them at Magdala. Lieutenant-General Robert Napier was sent to rescue the prisoners. For his services in this expedition Napier received the thanks of Parliament, a pension, and a peerage, with the title First Baron Napier of Magdala.

Discussion. 1. Who are citizens of this country? 2. What is the duty of a citizen to his country? 3. What is the duty of a country to its citizens? 4. What incident illustrates the difficulties one country overcame in order to protect a citizen? 5. What does our country do for its citizens? 6. What illustration of this is given?

Phrases

broader signification, 580, 1

duties as juror, 580, 5

incident which illustrates, 580, 12

incarcerated him, 580, 15

brand from the burning, 581, 8

across the morass, 581, 9

despotic power, 581, 25

tribute of our conscience, 582, 7

THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON

THOMAS JEFFERSON

I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly, and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these:

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke, and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in readjustment. The consequence was that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and New York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern.

Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence; never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship, or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bounds, he was most tremendous in his wrath.

In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contribution to whatever promised utility, but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man’s value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one could wish, his deportment easy, erect, and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback.

Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day.

His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within-doors.

On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance.

For his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), a native of Virginia, was Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State in Washington’s Cabinet, Vice-President, and President. He wrote the Declaration of Independence and was the founder of the University of Virginia. Jefferson was a ripe scholar, a good violinist, a skillful horseman, and an accurate marksman with a rifle. His influence was clearly felt in the framing of the Constitution, though he was in France at that time. His speeches were sound in policy and clear in statement.

Discussion. 1. What peculiarly fitted Jefferson to describe the character of Washington? 2. What conflict gave Washington an opportunity to show his greatness? 3. How had Washington’s life prepared him to take advantage of his opportunities? 4. Name the qualities, as given by Jefferson, that made Washington so great a leader. 5. How did he show prudence? Integrity? Justice? 6. From your readings can you give any instance in which he showed fearlessness? 7. How did he show sureness in judgment? 8. What, in Jefferson’s opinion, was the strongest feature of Washington’s character? 9. How does Jefferson summarize his estimate of Washington? 10. What quality especially characteristic of Lincoln is not mentioned in this estimate, because it was lacking in Washington? 11. Give a summary of the things Washington accomplished. 12. What part of this characterization of Washington impressed you most. 13. Which of the qualities mentioned would you most wish to possess?

Phrases

his penetration strong, 583, 5

invention or imagination, 583, 8

deranged during the course, 583, 12

dislocated by sudden circumstances, 583, 13

obstacles opposed, 583, 21

interest or consanguinity, 583, 23

bias his decision, 583, 24

habitual ascendancy, 583, 27

liberal in contribution, 583, 30

visionary projects, 584, 1

solid esteem proportioned, 584, 3

rather diffusely, 584, 13

arduous war, 584, 27

THE TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUARY

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 41.

Discussion. 1. How does the poet describe a day in February? 2. Why has “no month a prouder day”? 3. Whose birthday occurs on the twenty-second of February? 4. Do you know any other great man whose birthday comes in February? 5. Give in your own words the comparison of “the mighty Hudson” and the fame of Washington. 6. Do you know of some interesting incident in Washington’s life? 7. In the last stanza the poet speaks of wrecked thrones; what thrones can you name that were wrecked during the Great War?

Phrases

summer broods, 586, 6

fresh array, 586, 7

icy shield, 586, 13

snow-clad fell, 586, 15

majestic course, 586, 20

’mid the wreck of thrones, 586, 21

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903), the son of a sea captain, was born at Hingham, Mass. After the death of his father he moved with his mother to New York City, where, after a short school life, he began work in an iron foundry. He and Bayard Taylor became warm friends, meeting once a week to talk of literary matters. His characterization of Lincoln is regarded as a classic. He wrote both prose and poetry and became noted as a literary critic. He is the author of “Homes and Haunts of Our Elder Poets.”