[Illustration: STRATFORD ON AVON
From photograph. Copyright, 1898, Published by A. W. Elson, Boston.
Engraved by Robert Varley.]
THE
CYR READERS
_ARRANGED BY GRADES_
BY
ELLEN M. CYR
BOOK EIGHT
BOSTON, U.S.A.
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
The Athenæum Press
1901
COPYRIGHT, 1899, 1901
BY GINN & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TO
MY LITTLE SON
Ruel Stevenson Smith
PREFACE.
The appreciative reading of a piece of good literature is an experience
far reaching in its influence. There is a delight in following a great
author as he reveals the treasure of his thought or presents to the
imagination the beauty which he beholds and interprets.
The study of literature assists one to enjoy these experiences and
profit by them.
Among the countless books which have been written are a few which have
been chosen by all mankind. They stand the test of time and change; for
they are the outcome of those giant souls, who were not limited by time
nor space and who seemed to gaze with far-seeing eyes into eternity.
A large proportion of the pupils in our grammar schools would never read
these classics, if their interest in them were not awakened in the
schoolroom.
Many of these books are represented in this series, for this has been
the end constantly in view. The names of the world’s greatest writers
and their faces have become familiar to the child, so that he is now
able to take down from the shelves the writings of many great men, and
giving his imagination to the author’s leading, be transported into any
region or age, and experience joys and sorrows outside of his own life.
I acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Edward Everett Hale and Little,
Brown & Co., for extract from “The Man without a Country”; also to
Messrs. Elliot & Frye, London, for use of a copyright photograph of
Carlyle.
ELLEN M. CYR.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. _Thomas Carlyle_ 2
A SCENE FROM WILLIAM TELL. _Sheridan Knowles_ 8
ADDRESS TO THE SURVIVORS OF THE BATTLE OF BUNKER
HILL. _Daniel Webster_ 17
THE AMERICAN UNION. _Daniel Webster_ 21
RECESSIONAL. _Rudyard Kipling_ 23
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 26
STORMING THE FORTRESS. _William Hickling Prescott_ 31
A COUNTRY SUNDAY. _Joseph Addison_ 38
THE KING OF GLORY 43
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. _Edward Everett Hale_ 44
LOVE OF COUNTRY. _Sir Walter Scott_ 55
THE HEROINE OF NANCY 55
HUMANITY. _William Cowper_ 62
AN ICEBERG. _Richard Henry Dana, Jr._ 63
JOHN MILTON 66
DEATH OF SAMSON. _John Milton_ 71
SONG ON A MAY MORNING. _John Milton_ 73
ON HIS BLINDNESS. _John Milton_ 74
A CHEERFUL SPIRIT. _Sir John Lubbock_ 75
THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW 76
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. _Theodore O’Hara_ 79
ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. _Thomas Gray_ 82
BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST 89
THE BATTLE OF QUEBEC. _Francis Parkman_ 94
THE STARLING. _Laurence Sterne_ 100
THE BELFRY PIGEON. _Nathaniel Parker Willis_ 105
LADY UNA AND THE LION. _Edmund Spenser_ 107
PURITY OF CHARACTER 112
DELIGHTS OF READING. _Sir John Lubbock_ 113
BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. _Alfred Tennyson_ 116
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 117
THE THREE CASKETS. _William Shakespeare_ 123
QUOTATIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE 132
SHAKESPEARE’S POETRY. _Francis Jeffrey_ 133
HOME. _Henry W. Grady_ 135
A PALACE IN A VALLEY. _Dr. Samuel Johnson_ 139
TRUE HEROISM 146
THE PEN. _Edward Bulwer Lytton_ 147
CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. _George Bancroft_ 148
NATIONAL HYMN. _Samuel Francis Smith_ 155
THE LARK IN THE GOLD-FIELDS. _Charles Reade_ 157
SWEET HOME. _John Howard Payne_ 165
ANTONY’S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS. _Shakespeare_ 165
THE TWO ROADS. _Jean Paul Richter_ 170
NAPOLEON’S GREATNESS. _William Ellery Channing_ 173
THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR. _Robert Southey_ 177
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. _Oliver Wendell Holmes_ 195
A PICNIC BY THE BALTIC 197
NATURE. _Emerson_ 205
HENRY ESMOND. _William M. Thackeray_ 212
A GOOD DAUGHTER. _John Gorham Palfrey_ 222
THE SPIRIT OF THE AIR. _John Ruskin_ 225
THANATOPSIS. _William Cullen Bryant_ 228
JOAN OF ARC. _Thomas De Quincey_ 231
* * * * *
GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION 241
WORD LIST 242
THE CYR READERS
BOOK EIGHT
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR.
THOMAS CARLYLE.
THOMAS CARLYLE was born in a little village in Scotland, in the
year 1795.
His father, James Carlyle, was a poor mason, so poor that at times
there was scarcely enough food in the house for his family; but the
father resolved that the boy should have an education, and saved,
little by little, the money to pay for it.
When Thomas was ten years old, he and his father walked to the town
of Annan, where Thomas was to enter the academy. The father little
dreamed, as they trudged along together, that one day his son would
be famous as one of the world’s greatest writers, so great that
even the Queen of England would wish to talk with him.
[Illustration]
He studied at the academy of Annan for three years. His father,
dressed in his coarse workman’s clothes, once visited him there.
Thomas was afraid that the other boys would laugh at him, but the
sturdy Scotchman was so dignified that he won their respect.
When Thomas reached the age of thirteen his parents decided to send
him to the great University at Edinburgh. They walked through the
village streets with him and watched him start on the highway. It
was a journey of a hundred miles, and he traveled all the way on
foot.
These experiences made the boy brave and resolute. He was not
afraid of the world.
A few years after leaving the University he began to earn his
living by writing. For many years his income was small, as he
would only write what he thought would make the world better. He
used to say that he would write his books as his father built his
houses, so that they would last. He scolded the world for its
faults, but he was very kind-hearted.
His “History of the French Revolution” is a wonderful work. When
the first volume of this history was written, Carlyle loaned it to
a friend, and the manuscript was accidentally destroyed. Carlyle
did not utter a word of reproach, although the loss meant months of
study and thought, but set manfully to work and wrote it once more.
He was fond of German literature, and translated the “Wilhelm
Meister” by Goethe. He wrote many other books, and became so famous
that when Gladstone retired from office as Lord Rector of
Edinburgh, Carlyle was made his successor. It was a great triumph
for the mason’s son; but in the midst of his new honors his wife
died, and there was no one to share his happiness.
Not long after this, Queen Victoria sent for Carlyle and granted
him a personal interview. On his eightieth birthday he was honored
by gifts from Scotland, England, and Germany. He died in 1881.
IN the village of Entepfuhl dwelt Andreas Futteral and his
wife--childless, in still seclusion, and cheerful, though now verging
toward old age.
Andreas had been grenadier sergeant and even regimental schoolmaster
under Frederick the Great; but now, quitting the halbert and ferule for
the spade and pruning hook, cultivated a little orchard, on the produce
of which he lived not without dignity.
Fruits, the peach, the apple, the grape, with other varieties came in
their season, all of which Andreas knew how to sell. On evenings he
smoked or read (as beseemed a regimental schoolmaster), and talked to
the neighbors about the victory of Rossbach; and how “Fritz the Only”
had once with his own royal lips spoken to him, and had been pleased to
say, when Andreas as camp sentinel demanded the password, “Peace,
hound!” before any of his staff adjutants could answer. “There is what I
call a king!” would Andreas exclaim; “but the smoke of Kunersdorf was
still smarting his eyes.”
Gretchen, the housewife, had been won by the deeds rather than the looks
of her husband, nevertheless she at heart loved him both for his valor
and wisdom. Was not Andreas in very deed a man of order, courage,
downrightness, that understood Büsching’s Geography, had been in the
victory of Rossbach, and left for dead on the battlefield?
The good Gretchen, for all her fretting, watched over him and hovered
round him as only a true house-mother can; she cooked and sewed and
scoured for him; so that not only his old regimental sword and grenadier
cap, but the whole habitation, where on pegs of honor they hung, looked
ever trim and gay; a roomy cottage, embowered in fruit trees and forest
trees, evergreens and honeysuckles, rising many-colored from amid shaven
grass plots, flowers struggling in through the very windows; under its
long projecting eaves nothing but garden tools and seats where,
especially on summer nights, a king might have wished to sit and smoke
and call it his.
Into this home, one meek, yellow evening, it was that a stranger of
reverend aspect entered, and, with grave salutation, stood before the
two rather astonished housemates. He was closely muffled in a wide
mantle, which without farther parley unfolding, he deposited therefrom
what seemed some basket, over-hung with green Persian silk, saying only:
“Good Christian people, here lies for you an invaluable loan; take all
heed thereof, in all carefulness employ it; with high recompense, or
else with heavy penalty will it one day be required back.” Uttering
which singular words in a clear, bell-like, forever memorable tone, the
stranger gracefully withdrew; and before Andreas and his wife, gazing in
expectant wonder, had time to fashion either question or answer, was
gone.
Neither out of doors could aught of him be seen or heard; he had
vanished in the thickets, in the dusk; the orchard gate stood quietly
closed; the stranger was gone once and always. So sudden had the whole
transaction been in the autumn stillness and twilight, so gentle and
noiseless, that the Futterals could have fancied it all a trick of
imagination, or a visit from some spirit; only that green silk basket,
such as neither imagination nor spirits are wont to carry, still stood
visible and tangible on their little parlor table.
Toward this the astonished couple, now with lit candle, hastily turned
their attention. Lifting the green veil to see what invaluable it hid,
they descried there, amid down and rich white wrappings, no Pitt
diamond or Hapsburg regalia, but in the softest sleep a little
red-colored infant! Beside it lay a roll of gold, the exact amount of
which was never publicly known; also a baptismal certificate, wherein,
unfortunately, nothing but the name was decipherable.
To wonder and conjecture were unavailing then and thenceforth. Nowhere
in Entepfuhl did tidings transpire of any such figure as the stranger.
Meanwhile, for Andreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was
what to do with this little sleeping infant! Amid amazements and
curiosities which had to die away without satisfying, they resolved, as
in such circumstances charitable, prudent people needs must, on nursing
it, if possible, into manhood.
Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such diminutive had
they in their fondness named him, traveled forward by quick but easy
stages. I have heard him noted as a still infant, that kept his mind
much to himself; above all, that he seldom cried. He already felt that
time was precious; that he had other work cut out for him than
whimpering.
Most graceful is the following little picture: “On fine evenings I was
wont to carry forth my supper, bread crumbs boiled in milk, and eat it
out of doors. On the coping of the orchard wall, which I could reach by
climbing, or still more easily if Father Andreas would set up the
pruning ladder, my porringer was placed; there many a sunset have I,
looking at the western mountains, consumed my evening meal.
“Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of the world’s expectation as
day died, were still a Hebrew speech for me; nevertheless I was looking
at the fair, illuminated letters, and had an eye for their gilding.”
With the little one’s friendship for cattle and poultry we shall not
much intermeddle. It may be that hereby he acquired a certain deeper
sympathy with animated nature. He says again: “Impressive enough was it
to hear in early morning the swineherd’s horn, and know that so many
hungry quadrupeds were, on all sides, starting in hot haste to join him
for breakfast on the heath. Or to see them at eventide, all marching in
again with short squeak, almost in military order; and each trotting off
in succession to the right or left, through its own lane, to its own
dwelling.”
Thus encircled by mystery, waited on by the four seasons, with their
changing contributions, for even grim winter brought its skating
matches, its snowstorms and Christmas carols, did the child sit and
learn. These things were the alphabet whereby in after time he was to
syllable and partly read the grand volume of the world; what matters it
whether such alphabet be in large gilt letters or in small ungilt ones,
so you have an eye to read it?
For Gneschen, eager to learn, the very act of looking thereon was a
blessedness that gilded all; his existence was a bright, soft element of
joy, out of which wonder after wonder bodied itself forth to teach by
charming.
_From “Sartor Resartus.”_
A SCENE FROM WILLIAM TELL.
SHERIDAN KNOWLES.
SCENE I.
[WILLIAM TELL, ALBERT HIS SON, AND GESLER.]
_Gesler._ What is thy name?
_Tell._ My name?
It matters not to keep it from thee now:--
My name is Tell.
_Ges._ Tell!--William Tell?
_Tell._ The same.
_Ges._ What! he so famed ’bove all his countrymen
For guiding o’er the stormy lake the boat?
And such a master of his bow, ’tis said
His arrows never miss!--Indeed--I’ll take
Exquisite vengeance!--Mark! I’ll spare thy life--
Thy boy’s too!--both of you are free--on one
Condition.
_Tell._ Name it.
_Ges._ I would see you make
A trial of your skill with that same bow
You shoot so well with.
_Tell._ Name the trial you
Would have me make.
_Ges._ You look upon your boy
As though instinctively you guessed it.
_Tell._ Look upon my boy! What mean you? Look upon
My boy as though I guessed it!--Guessed the trial
You’d have me make!--Guessed it
Instinctively! you do not mean--no--no--
You would not have me make a trial of
My skill upon my child!--Impossible!
I do not guess your meaning.
_Ges._ I would see
Thee hit an apple at the distance of
A hundred paces.
_Tell._ Is my boy to hold it?
_Ges._ No.
_Tell._ No!--I’ll send the arrow through the core!
_Ges._ It is to rest upon his head.
_Tell._ Great Heaven, you hear him!
_Ges._ Thou dost hear the choice I give--
Such trial of the skill thou art master of,
Or death to both of you; not otherwise
To be escaped.
_Tell._ O monster!
_Ges._ Wilt thou do it?
_Albert._ He will! he will!
_Tell._ Ferocious monster!--Make
A father murder his own child.
_Ges._ Take off
His chains, if he consent.
_Tell._ With his own hand!
_Ges._ Does he consent?
_Alb._ He does. [_Gesler signs to his officers, who proceed
to take off Tell’s chains. Tell all the time unconscious
what they do._]
_Tell._ With his own hand!
Murder his child with his own hand--This hand!
The hand I’ve led him, when an infant, by!
’Tis beyond horror--’tis most horrible.
Amazement! [_His chains fall off._] What’s that you’ve done to me.
Villains! put on my chains again. My hands
Are free from blood, and have no gust for it,
That they should drink my child’s! Here! here! I’ll not
Murder my boy for Gesler.
_Alb._ Father--father!
You will not hit me, father!--
_Tell._ Hit thee!--Send
The arrow through thy brain--or, missing that,
Shoot out an eye--or, if thine eye escape,
Mangle the cheek I’ve seen thy mother’s lips
Cover with kisses!--Hit thee--hit a hair
Of thee, and cleave thy mother’s heart--
_Ges._ Dost thou consent?
_Tell._ Give me my bow and quiver.
_Ges._ For what?
_Tell._ To shoot my boy!
_Alb._ No, father--no!
To save me!--You’ll be sure to hit the apple--
Will you not save me, father?
_Tell._ Lead me forth--
I’ll make the trial!
_Alb._ Thank you!
_Tell._ Thank me! Do
You know for what?--I will not make the trial,
To take him to his mother in my arms,
And lay him down a corpse before her!
_Ges._ Then he dies this moment--and you certainly
Do murder him whose life you have a chance
To save, and will not use it.
_Tell._ Well--I’ll do it: I’ll make the trial.
_Alb._ Father--
_Tell._ Speak not to me:
Let me not hear thy voice--Thou must be dumb;
And so should all things be--Earth should be dumb
And Heaven--unless its thunders muttered at
The deed, and sent a bolt to stop it! Give me
My bow and quiver!--
_Ges._ When all’s ready.
_Tell._ Well! lead on!