PART III

ORATIONS AND PATRIOTIC SELECTIONS

_"Stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy

patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages."_

--JOHN MILTON.

* * * * *

REGULUS BEFORE THE ROMAN SENATE

EPES SARGENT

It ill becomes me, Senators of Rome, me, Regulus, after having so often

stood in this venerable assembly, clothed with the supreme dignity of the

republic, to stand before you to-day, a captive,--the captive of Carthage.

Though outwardly free, yet the heaviest of chains, the pledge of a Roman

Consul, makes me the bondsman of the Carthaginians. They have my promise to

return to them in the event of the failure of this their embassy.

But, Conscript Fathers, Senators, there is but one course to be pursued.

Abandon all thought of peace! Reject the overtures of Carthage! Reject them

wholly and unconditionally! What? What? Give back to her a thousand

able-bodied men, and receive in return this one, attenuated, war-worn,

fever-wasted frame,--this weed, whitened in a dungeon's darkness, pale and

sapless, which no kindness of the sun, no softness of the summer breeze,

can ever restore to life and vigor? It must not, shall not be! Oh, were

Regulus what he was once, before captivity had unstrung his sinews and

enervated his limbs, he might pause; he might think he were worth a

thousand of the foe; he might say, "Make the exchange, Rome shall not lose

by it!" But now, alas, 'tis gone,--that impetuosity of strength which could

once make him a leader indeed, to penetrate a phalanx, or guide a pursuit.

His very armor would be a burden now! His battlecry would be drowned in the

din of onset! His sword would fall harmless upon his opponents shield!

But if he cannot live, he can at least die, for his country. Do not deny

him this supreme consolation. Consider! Every indignity, every torture

which Carthage shall heap on his dying hours, will be better than a

trumpet's call to your armies. They will remember only Regulus, their

fellow-soldier and their leader. They will forget his defeats. They will

regard only his services to the Republic. Tunis, Sicily, Sardinia, every

well-fought field, won by his blood and theirs, will flash on their

remembrance and kindle their avenging wrath!

And so shall Regulus, though dead, fight as he never fought before against

the foe.

Conscript Fathers, there is another theme,--my family. Forgive the thought.

To you and to Rome, I commit them. I leave no legacy but my name, no

testament but my example.

And you, ambassadors of Carthage, now in this august presence, I have

spoken, not as you expected. I am your captive. Lead me back to whatever

fate may await me. Doubt not that you shall find that to Roman hearts

country is dearer than life, and integrity more precious than freedom.

Epes Sargent, 1812-1880, was an American author and journalist. For a

number of years he was editor of the "Boston Evening Transcript."

Historical: Regulus was a celebrated Roman general. As consul he led the

Roman forces against the Carthaginians and defeated them in a number of

engagements, but finally was himself defeated and taken prisoner by the

Carthaginians. After five years of captivity he was sent to Rome to

negotiate for peace and an exchange of prisoners. Though he had been

promised his liberty, if the Romans should accept the treaty, yet when he

appeared before the Roman senate, he denounced the terms most emphatically.

Accordingly he returned to Carthage, where he suffered a cruel death.

* * * * *

THE RETURN OF REGULUS

ELIJAH KELLOGG

The beams of the rising sun had gilded the lofty domes of Carthage, and

given, with its rich and mellow light, a tinge of beauty even to the

frowning ramparts of the outer harbor. Sheltered by the verdant shores, a

hundred triremes were riding proudly at their anchors, their brazen beaks

glittering in the sun, their streamers dancing in the morning breeze, while

many a shattered plank and timber gave evidence of desperate conflict with

the fleets of Rome.

No murmur of business or of revelry arose from the city. The artisan had

forsaken his shop, the judge his tribunal, the priest the sanctuary, and

even the stern stoic had come forth from his retirement to mingle with the

crowd that, anxious and agitated, were rushing toward the senate-house,

startled by the report that Regulus had returned to Carthage.

Onward, still onward, trampling each other under foot, they rushed, furious

with anger, and eager for revenge. Fathers were there, whose sons were

groaning in fetters; maidens, whose lovers, weak and wounded, were dying in

the dungeons of Rome, and gray-haired men and matrons, whom the Roman sword

had left childless.

But when the stern features of Regulus were seen, and his colossal form

towering above the ambassadors who had returned with him from Rome; when

the news passed from lip to lip that the dreaded warrior, so far from

advising the Roman senate to consent to an exchange of prisoners, had urged

them to pursue, with exterminating vengeance, Carthage and

Carthaginians,--the multitude swayed to and fro like a forest beneath a

tempest, and the rage and hate of that tumultuous throng vented itself in

groans, and curses, and yells of vengeance.

But calm, cold, and immovable as the marble walls around him, stood the

Roman; and he stretched out his hand over that frenzied crowd, with gesture

as proudly commanding as though he still stood at the head of the gleaming

cohorts of Rome. The tumult ceased; the curse, half muttered, died upon the

lip; and so intense was the silence, that the clanking of the brazen

manacles upon the wrists of the captive fell sharp and full upon every ear

in that vast assembly, as he thus addressed them:--

"Ye doubtless thought--for ye judge of Roman virtue by your own--that I

would break my plighted oath, rather than, returning, brook your vengeance.

I might give reasons for this, in Punic comprehension, most foolish act of

mine. I might speak of those eternal principles which make death for one's

country a pleasure, not a pain. But, by great Jupiter! methinks I should

debase myself to talk of such high things to you; to you, expert in womanly

inventions; to you, well-skilled to drive a treacherous trade with simple

Africans for ivory and gold!

"If the bright blood that fills my veins, transmitted free from godlike

ancestry, were like that slimy ooze which stagnates in your arteries, I had

remained at home, and broke my plighted oath to save my life. I am a Roman

citizen; therefore have I returned, that ye might work your will upon this

mass of flesh and bones, that I esteem no higher than the rags that cover

them.

"Here, in your capital, do I defy you. Have I not conquered your armies,

fired your towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot wheels, since

first my youthful arms could wield a spear? And do you think to see me

crouch and cower before a tamed and shattered senate? The tearing of flesh

and rending of sinews is but pastime compared with the mental agony that

heaves my frame.

"The moon has scarce yet waned since the proudest of Rome's proud matrons,

the mother upon whose breast I slept, and whose fair brow so oft had bent

over me before the noise of battle had stirred my blood, or the fierce toil

of war nerved my sinews, did, with fondest memory of bygone hours, entreat

me to remain. I have seen her, who, when my country called me to the field,

did buckle on my harness with trembling hands, while the tears fell thick

and fast down the hard corselet scales--I have seen her tear her gray locks

and beat her aged breast, as on her knees she begged me not to return to

Carthage! and all the assembled senate of Rome, grave and reverend men,

proffered the same request. The puny torments which ye have in store to

welcome me withal, shall be, to what I have endured, even as the murmur of

a summer's brook to the fierce roar of angry surges on a rocky beach.

"Last night, as I lay fettered in my dungeon, I heard a strange, ominous

sound; it seemed like the distant march of some vast army, their harness

clanging as they marched, when suddenly there stood by me Xanthippus, the

Spartan general, by whose aid you conquered me, and, with a voice as low as

when the solemn wind moans through the leaflless forest, he thus addressed

me:--

"'Roman, I come to bid thee curse, with thy dying breath, this fated city:

know that in an evil moment, the Carthaginian generals, furious with rage

that I had conquered thee, their conqueror, did basely murder me. And then

they thought to stain my brightest honor. But, for this foul deed, the

wrath of Jove shall rest upon them here and hereafter.' And then he

vanished.

"And now, go bring your sharpest torments. The woes I see impending over

this guilty realm shall be enough to sweeten death, though every nerve and

artery were a shooting pang. I die! but my death shall prove a proud

triumph; and, for every drop of blood ye from my veins do draw, your own

shall flow in rivers.

"Woe to thee, Carthage! Woe to the proud city of the waters! I see thy

nobles wailing at the feet of Roman senators! thy citizens in terror! thy

ships in flames! I hear the victorious shouts of Rome! I see her eagles

glittering on thy ramparts. Proud city, thou art doomed! The curse of God

is on thee--a clinging, wasting curse. It shall not leave thy gates till

hungry flames shall lick the fretted gold from off thy proud palaces, and

every brook runs crimson to the sea."

* * * * *

SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS

ELIJAH KELLOGG

It had been a day of triumph in Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious

eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheatre to an

extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry

had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had

retired from the banquet, and the lights in the palace of the victor were

extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the

dewdrop on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters

of Volturnus with wavy, tremulous light. It was a night of holy calm, when

the zephyr sways the young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow

reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard but the last sob of some weary

wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach, and then all

was still as the breast when the spirit has departed.

In the deep recesses of the amphitheatre a band of gladiators were crowded

together,--their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam

upon their lips, and the scowl of battle yet lingering upon their

brows,--when Spartacus, rising in the midst of that grim assemblage, thus

addressed them:--

"Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long

years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast that the broad

Empire of Rome could furnish, and yet never has lowered his arm. And if

there be one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or private

brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step forth and say it. If

there be three in all your throng dare face me on the bloody sand, let them

come on!

"Yet, I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of savage men.

My father was a reverent man, who feared great Jupiter, and brought to the

rural deities his offerings of fruits and flowers. He dwelt among the

vineclad rocks and olive groves at the foot of Helicon. My early life ran

quiet as the brook by which I sported. I was taught to prune the vine, to

tend the flock; and then, at noon, I gathered my sheep beneath the shade,

and played upon the shepherd's flute. I had a friend, the son of our

neighbor; we led our flocks to the same pasture, and shared together our

rustic meal.

"One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath

the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling

of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of

Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not

then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned. I knew not why; and I

clasped the knees of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair

from off my brow, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and

think no more of those old tales and savage wars.

"That very night the Romans landed on our shore, and the clash of steel was

heard within our quiet vale. I saw the breast that had nourished me

trampled by the iron hoof of the warhorse; the bleeding body of my father

flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling. To-day I killed a man in

the arena, and when I broke his helmet clasps, behold! he was my friend! He

knew me,--smiled faintly,--gasped,--and died; the same sweet smile that I

had marked upon his face when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled some lofty

cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish

triumph. I told the praetor he was my friend, noble and brave, and I begged

his body, that I might burn it upon the funeral-pile, and mourn over him.

Ay, on my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that boon,

while all the Roman maids and matrons, and those holy virgins they call

vestal, and the rabble, shouted in mockery, deeming it rare sport,

forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale, and tremble like a

very child, before that piece of bleeding clay; but the praetor drew back

as if I were pollution, and sternly said, 'Let the carrion rot! There are

no noble men but Romans!' And he, deprived of funeral rites, must wander, a

hapless ghost, beside the waters of that sluggish river, and look--and

look--and look in vain to the bright Elysian Fields where dwell his

ancestors and noble kindred. And so must you, and so must I, die like dogs!

"O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me! Ay, thou hast given to

that poor, gentle, timid shepherd-lad, who never knew a harsher sound than

a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the

sword through rugged brass and plaited mail, and warm it in the marrow of

his foe! to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion,

even as a smooth-cheeked boy upon a laughing girl. And he shall pay thee

back till thy yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze

thy life-blood lies curdled!

"Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! the strength of brass is in your

toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet odors

from his curly locks, shall come, and with his lily fingers pat your brawny

shoulders, and bet his sesterces upon your blood! Hark! Hear ye yon lion

roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he tasted meat; but to-morrow he

shall break his fast upon your flesh; and ye shall be a dainty meal for

him.

"If ye are brutes, then stand here like fat oxen waiting for the butcher's

knife; if ye are men, follow me! strike down yon sentinel, and gain the

mountain passes, and there do bloody work as did your sires at old

Thermopylæ! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins,

that you do crouch and cower like base-born slaves beneath your master's

lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for

ourselves; if we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors; if we

must die, let us die under the open sky, by the bright waters, in noble,

honorable battle."

Biographical and Historical: This is a supposed speech of Spartacus written

by Elijah Kellogg, a New England clergyman. Spartacus was a Thracian by

birth, who served in the Roman army. Having deserted, he was taken

prisoner, sold as a slave, and trained as a gladiator at Capua. He escaped

and gathered about him a large army of slaves and gladiators, with whom he

intended to push northward and allow them all to return to their homes.

They, however, after attacking many towns, were finally overcome. Spartacus

himself died in battle, and six thousand slaves were crucified on the road

from Capua to Rome.

Capua was a city of great luxury, containing an amphitheater nearly as

large as the Coliseum at Rome. The ancients attached great importance to

the rites of burial, and believed that the soul could not reach the Elysian

Fields unless the body had been buried.

* * * * *

MERIT BEFORE BIRTH

TRANSLATED FROM SALLUST

You have committed to my conduct, O Romans, the war against Jugurtha. The

patricians take offence. They say, "Why, he has no family statues. He can

point to no illustrious ancestors." What of that? Will dead ancestors or

motionless statues fight battles? Can your general appeal to them in the

hour of extremest danger? How wise it would be, surely, to intrust your

army to some untried person without a single scar, but with any number of

ancestral statues,--who knows not the simplest rudiments of military

service, but is very perfect in pedigree! I have known such holiday heroes,

raised, because of family, to positions for which they had no fitness. But,

then, in the moment of action they were obliged, in their ignorance and

trepidation, to intrust every movement, even the most simple, to some

subaltern, some despised plebeian.

What they have seen in books, I have seen written on battlefields, with

steel and blood. They sneer at my mean origin. Where,--and may the gods

bear witness,--where, but in the spirit of man, is nobility lodged? Tell

these despicable railers that their haughty lineage cannot make them noble,

nor will my humble birth make me base. I profess no indifference to noble

descent; but when a descendant is dwarfed in the comparison, it should be a

shame, and not a matter to boast of! I can show the standards, the armor,

and the spoils which I have in person wrested from the vanquished. I can

show the scars of many wounds received in combating the enemies of Rome.

These are my statues! These are my honors, to boast of; not inherited by

accident, but earned by toil, by abstinence, by valor, amid clouds of dust

and seas of blood. Their titles date from similar acts of their ancestors;

but these detractors did not even dare to appear on the field as

spectators. These are my credentials! These, O Romans, are my titles of

nobility! Tell me, are they not as deserving of your confidence and reward

as those of which any patrician of them all can boast?

Biographical and Historical: Sallust, the author of this selection, was a

famous Roman historian of the first century B. C. Caius Marius was the son

of a small farmer and worked his way up from this humble origin to the

highest position, that of consul, in spite of the determined opposition of

the senate, and the aristocracy. By the vote of the Roman people, he was

given command of the army in the campaign against Jugurtha, a prince who

had usurped the Numidian throne.

* * * * *

RIENZI'S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD

Friends!

I come not here to talk. You know too well

The story of our thralldom. We are slaves!

The bright sun rises to his course, and lights

A race of slaves! he sets, and his last beam

Falls on a slave!--not such as, swept along

By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads

To crimson glory and undying fame,

But base, ignoble slaves--slaves to a horde

Of petty tyrants; feudal despots; lords,

Rich in some dozen paltry villages,

Strong in some hundred spearmen; only great

In that strange spell--a name.

Each hour dark fraud,

Or open rapine, or protected murder,

Cry out against them. But this very day,

An honest man, my neighbor--there he stands--

Was struck--struck like a dog, by one who wore

The badge of Ursini, because, forsooth,

He tossed not high his ready cap in air,

Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts

At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men,

And suffer such dishonor?--Men, and wash not

The stain away in blood?

Such shames are common.

I have known deeper wrongs. I that speak to you,

I had a brother once, a gracious boy,

Full of gentleness, of calmest hope,

Of sweet and quiet joy: there was the look

Of heaven upon his face, which limners give

To the beloved disciple. How I loved

That gracious boy! Younger by fifteen years,

Brother at once and son! He left my side,

A summer bloom on his fair cheek, a smile

Parting his innocent lips: in one short hour,

The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw

The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried

For vengeance!

Rouse ye, Romans! rouse ye, slaves!

Have ye brave sons? Look in the next fierce brawl

To see them die. Have ye fair daughters? Look

To see them live, torn from your arms, distained,

Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice,

Be answered by the lash!

Yet this is Rome,

That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne

Of beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Romans!

Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman

Was greater than a king! And, once again,--

Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread

Of either Brutus!--once again, I swear,

The Eternal City shall be free!

Biographical and Historical: Mary Russell Mitford, born in 1787, was an

English writer of miscellaneous works. Among her most noted productions is

the tragedy "Rienzi," which was presented in London in 1828. It is the

story of the Roman patriot, Rienzi, who led a revolution at Rome in 1347.

He overthrew the power of the aristocracy and introduced many reforms in

the government. After establishing himself in power, however, he is said to

have become in turn haughty and arbitrary.

* * * * *

EMMET'S VINDICATION

MY LORDS: What have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced

on me, according to law? I have nothing to say that can alter your

predetermination, nor that it will become me to say with any view to the

mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and I must

abide by. But I have that to say which interests me more than life, and

which you have labored to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation

should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has

been heaped upon it.

Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by _your_

tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without

a murmur; but the sentence of law which delivers my body to the executioner

will, through the ministry of that law, labor, in its own vindication, to

consign my character to obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere--whether

in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, posterity must

determine. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not

perish--that it may live in the respect of my countrymen--I seize upon this

opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against

me.

When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall

have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood,

on the scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and virtue;

this is my hope--I wish that my memory and name may animate those who

survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that

perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most

High, which displays its powers over man as over the beasts of the forest,

which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God,

against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or

less than the government standard--a government which is steeled to

barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows which its

cruelty has made.

I swear by the throne of Heaven, before which I must shortly appear--by the

blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before me--that my conduct has

been, through all this peril and all my purposes, governed only by the

convictions which I have uttered, and no other view than that of the

emancipation of my country from the superinhuman oppression under which she

has so long and too patiently travailed; and that I confidently and

assuredly hope, wild and chimerical as it may appear, that there is still

union and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noble enterprise.

My country was my idol. To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing

sentiment; and for it I now offer up my life! I acted as an Irishman,

determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and

unrelenting tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a domestic faction,

its joint partner and perpetrator in the patricide, whose reward is the

ignominy of existing with an exterior of splendor and a consciousness of

depravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my country from this

doubly riveted despotism. I wished to place her independence beyond the

reach of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station in

the world which Providence had fitted her to fill.

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man

attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but

that of my country's liberty and independence, or that I could have become

the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my

countrymen. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same

reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant; in the dignity of freedom I

would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and her enemies should

enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Am I, who lived but for my

country, and who have subjected myself to the vengeance of the jealous and

wrathful oppressor, and to the bondage of the grave, only to give my

countrymen their rights and my country her independence--am I to be loaded

with calumny, and not to be suffered to resent or repel it? No! God forbid!

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and

cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, O ever dear

and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny on the

conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have even for a moment deviated

from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to

instill into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to which I am now to

offer up my life!

My Lords, you are all impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek

is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it

circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for

noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous

that they cry to Heaven!

Be ye patient; I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my silent

grave; my lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run; the grave

opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to

ask at my departure from this world--it is the charity of its silence. Let

no man write my epitaph; for, as no one who knows my motives dare now

vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and

me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until

other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country

shall take her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till

then, let my epitaph be written! I have done.

Biographical and Historical: During the latter part of the eighteenth

century and the beginning of the nineteenth, the spirit of independence was

abroad. The American Revolution was followed by the French Revolution, and

in 1803 Robert Emmet, an Irish patriot, headed a band to gain independence

for Ireland. After an unsuccessful attempt to take the arsenal and castle

at Dublin, he fled to the Wicklow mountains, whence he planned to escape to

the continent. Contrary to the advice of his friends, he determined to have

a last interview with his sweetheart, but the delay proved fatal to him. He

was seized and condemned to death. This extract is from the remarkably

eloquent speech with which he vainly defended himself.

* * * * *

KING PHILIP TO THE WHITE SETTLER

EDWARD EVERETT

Think of the country for which the Indians fought. Who can blame them? As

Philip looked down from his seat on Mount Hope, that glorious eminence,

that

"----throne of royal state, which far

Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,

Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,"--

as he looked down, and beheld the lovely scene which spread beneath, at a

summer sunset, the distant hill-tops glittering as with fire, the slanting

beams streaming across the waters, the broad plains, the island groups, the

majestic forest,--could he be blamed, if his heart burned within him, as he

beheld it all passing, by no tardy process, from beneath his control, into

the hands of the stranger?

As the river chieftains--the lords of the waterfalls and the

mountains--ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at, if they beheld

with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's ax--the

fishing-place disturbed by his saw-mills? Can we not fancy the feelings

with which some strong-minded savage, the chief of the Pocomtuck Indians,

who should have ascended the summit of the Sugar-loaf Mountain (rising as

it does before us, at this moment, in all its loveliness and grandeur),--in

company with a friendly settler,--contemplating the progress already made

by the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which he was

advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say, "White man,

there is eternal war between me and thee! I quit not the land of my

fathers, but with my life. In those woods, where I bent my youthful bow, I

will still hunt the deer; over yonder waters I will still glide,

unrestrained, in my bark canoe. By those dashing waterfalls I will still

lay up my winter's store of food; on these fertile meadows I will still

plant my corn.

"Stranger, the land is mine! I understand not these paper rights. I gave

not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions were purchased,

for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what was theirs; they

could sell no more. How could my fathers sell that which the Great Spirit

sent me into the world to live upon? They knew not what they did.

"The stranger came, a timid suppliant,--few and feeble, and asked to lie

down on the red man's bear-skin, and warm himself at the red man's fire,

and have a little piece of land to raise corn for his women and children;

and now he is become strong, and mighty, and bold, and spreads out his

parchments over the whole, and says, 'It is mine.'

"Stranger! there is not room for us both. The Great Spirit has not made us

to live together. There is poison in the white man's cup; the white man's

dog barks at the red man's heels. If I should leave the land of my fathers,

whither shall I fly? Shall I go to the south, and dwell among the graves of

the Pequots? Shall I wander to the west, the fierce Mohawk,--the

man-eater,--is my foe. Shall I fly to the east, the great water is before

me. No, stranger; here I have lived, and here will I die; and if here thou

abidest, there is eternal war between, me and thee.

"Thou hast taught me thy arts of destruction; for that alone I thank thee.

And now take heed to thy steps; the red man is thy foe. When thou goest

forth by day, my bullet shall whistle past thee; when thou liest down by

night, my knife is at thy throat. The noonday sun shall not discover thy

enemy, and the darkness of midnight shall not protect thy rest. Thou shalt

plant in terror, and I will reap in blood; thou shalt sow the earth with

corn, and I will strew it with ashes; thou shalt go forth with the sickle,

and I will follow after with the scalping-knife; thou shalt build, and I

will burn,--till the white man or the Indian perish from the land. Go thy

way for this time in safety,--but remember, stranger, _there is eternal

war between me and thee!_"

Biographical and Historical: Edward Everett was a celebrated American

orator and statesman. His career was varied, but he will be remembered

chiefly through his essays and orations. He was in turn clergyman,

professor of Greek at Harvard, representative in Congress, governor of

Massachusetts, minister to England, president of Harvard, and secretary of

state. He died at the close of the Civil War.

This extract is from an address delivered at Bloody Brook, South Deerfield,

Mass., September 30, 1835, in commemoration of the death of many colonists

in that spot during King Philip's War, September 18, 1675. King Philip, son

of Massasoit, was an Indian chief who resented the coming of the white man

and, gathering many Indian tribes about him, waged bitter war against the

colonists. He himself was killed at Mount Hope, Rhode Island.

* * * * *

THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC (From "Montcalm and Wolfe.")

FRANCIS PARKMAN

The sun rose, and, from the ramparts of Quebec, the astonished people saw

the Plains of Abraham glittering with arms, and the dark-red lines of the

English forming in array of battle. Breathless messengers had borne the

evil tidings to Montcalm, and far and near his wide-extended camp resounded

with the rolling of alarm drums and the din of startled preparation.

He, too, had had his struggles and his sorrows. The civil power had

thwarted him; famine, discontent, and disaffection were rife among his

soldiers; and no small portion of the Canadian militia had dispersed from

sheer starvation. In spite of all, he had trusted to hold out till the

winter frosts should drive the invaders from before the town; when, on that

disastrous morning, the news of their successful temerity fell like a

cannon-shot upon his ear.

Still he assumed a tone of confidence. "They have got to the weak side of

us at last," he is reported to have said, "and we must crush them with our

numbers." With headlong haste, his troops were pouring over the bridge of

the St. Charles, and gathering in heavy masses under the western ramparts

of the town. Could numbers give assurance of success, their triumph would

have been secure; for five French battalions and the armed colonial

peasantry amounted in all to more than seven thousand five hundred men.

Full in sight before them stretched the long, thin lines of the British

forces, the half-wild Highlanders, the steady soldiery of England, and the

hardy levies of the provinces,--less than five thousand in number, but all

inured to battle, and strong in the full assurance of success.

Yet, could the chiefs of that gallant army have pierced the secrets of the

future, could they have foreseen that the victory which they burned to

achieve would have robbed England of her proudest boast, that the conquest

of Canada would pave the way for the independence of America, their swords

would have dropped from their hands, and the heroic fire have gone out

within their hearts.

It was nine o'clock, and the adverse armies stood motionless, each gazing

on the other. The clouds hung low, and, at intervals, warm light showers

descended, besprinkling both alike. The coppice and cornfields in front of

the British troops were filled with French sharp-shooters, who kept up a

distant, spattering fire. Here and there a soldier fell in the ranks, and

the gap was filled in silence.

At a little before ten, the British could see that Montcalm was preparing

to advance, and, in a few moments, all his troops appeared in rapid motion.

They came on in three divisions, shouting after the manner of their nation,

and firing heavily as soon as they came within range.

In the British ranks, not a trigger was pulled, not a soldier stirred; and

their ominous composure seemed to damp the spirits of the assailants. It

was not till the French were within forty yards that the fatal word was

given, and the British muskets blazed forth at once in one crashing

explosion. Like a ship at full career, arrested with sudden ruin on a

sunken rock, the ranks of Montcalm staggered, shivered, and broke before

that wasting storm of lead.

The smoke, rolling along the field, for a moment shut out the view; but

when the white wreaths were scattered on the wind, a wretched spectacle was

disclosed; men and officers tumbled in heaps, battalions resolved into a

mob, order and obedience gone; and when the British muskets were leveled

for a second volley, the masses of the militia were seen to cower and

shrink with uncontrollable panic.

For a few minutes, the French regulars stood their ground, returning a

sharp and not ineffectual fire. But now, echoing cheer on cheer, redoubling

volley on volley, trampling the dying and the dead, and driving the

fugitives in crowds, the British troops advanced and swept the field before

them. The ardor of the men burst all restraint. They broke into a run, and

with unsparing slaughter chased the flying multitude to the gates of

Quebec. Foremost of all, the light-footed Highlanders dashed along in

furious pursuit, hewing down the Frenchmen with their broadswords, and

slaying many in the very ditch of the fortifications. Never was victory

more quick or more decisive.

Biographical and Historical: Francis Parkman is one of America's greatest

historians. He took for his theme the great conflict between the English,

the French, and the Indians on the frontiers of the northern new world. He

was not only a historian of genius, but was gifted with a delightful style.

His books are full of the fragrance of woods and streams and the fresh,

free air of the plains and the mountains.

* * * * *

ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES

EDMUND BURKE

England's hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from

common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal

protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as

links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights

associated with your government; they will cling and grapple to you, and no

force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But

let it once be understood that your government may be one thing, and their

privileges another; that these two things may exist without any mutual

relation--the cement is gone; the cohesion is loosened; and everything

hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep

the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the

sacred temple consecrated to our common faith; wherever the chosen race and

sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces toward you. The

more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they

love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can

have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from

Spain; they may have it from Prussia; but, until you become lost to all

feelings of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can

have from none but you. This is the commodity of price of which you have

the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation, which binds to you the

commerce of the colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the

world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole

bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the

empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and

your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, are what form the great

securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office, and

your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold

together the great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do not

make your government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is

the spirit of the English communion that gives all their life and efficacy

to them. It is the spirit of the English constitution, which, infused

through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies

every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not the

same virtue which does everything for us here in England?

Do you imagine, then, that it is the land tax which raises your revenue?

That it is the annual vote in the committee of supply which gives you your

army? Or that it is the mutiny bill which inspires it with bravery and

discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the people; it is their

attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have

in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy,

and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would

be a base rabble and your navy nothing but rotten timber.

Biographical and Historical: Edmund Burke was a British statesman of Irish

birth, who lived at the time of the American Revolution. While William Pitt

opposed, in the House of Lords, the policy of the British government,

Edmund Burke delivered, in the House of Commons, his famous speech on the

Conciliation of the Colonies, March 22, 1775. This extract is taken from

the closing paragraphs of this celebrated speech.

* * * * *

THE WAY TO WEALTH

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

COURTEOUS READER: I have heard that nothing gives an author so great

pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge, then,

how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to relate to

you.

I stopped my horse, lately, where a great number of people were collected

at an auction of merchants' goods. The hour of the sale not being come,

they were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the company

called to a plain, clean old man, with white locks: "Pray, Father Abraham,

what think you of the times? Will not these heavy taxes quite ruin the

country? How shall we ever be able to pay them? What would you advise us to

do?"

Father Abraham stood up and replied: "If you would have my advice, I will

give it to you in short; for 'a word to the wise is enough,' as Poor

Richard says." They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and,

gathering around him, he proceeded as follows: "Friends," said he, "the

taxes are indeed very heavy; and, if those laid on by the Government were

the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we

have many others, and much more grievous to some of us.

"We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our

pride, and four times as much by our folly; and of these taxes the

commissioners can not ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement. However,

let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us. 'Heaven

helps them that help themselves,' as Poor Richard says.

"It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth

part of their time to be employed in its service; but idleness taxes many

of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life.

'Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears; while the used key is

always bright,' as Poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we

spend in sleep! forgetting that 'the sleeping fox catches no poultry,' and

that there will be sleeping enough in the grave.

"'Lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough, always

proves little enough.' Let us, then, be up and doing, and doing to the

purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. 'Drive thy

business, and let not that drive thee'; and 'early to bed, and early to

rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,' as Poor Richard says.

"So, what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? We may make these

times better if we bestir ourselves. 'Industry need not wish, and he that

lives upon hopes will die fasting.' 'There are no gains without pains; then

help hands, for I have no lands.' 'He that hath a trade, hath an estate;

and he that hath a calling, hath an office of profit and honor'; but then

the trade must be worked at, and the calling well followed, or neither the

estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. Work while it is

called to-day, for you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow.

'One to-day is worth two to-morrows,' as Poor Richard says; and further,

'Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.'

"If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should

catch you idle? Are you, then, your own master? Be ashamed to catch

yourself idle, when there is so much to be done for yourself, your family,

and your country. It is true, there is much to be done, and perhaps you are

weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects; for

'constant dropping wears away stones,' and 'little strokes fell great

oaks.'

"But with our industry we must likewise be steady, settled, and careful,

and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too much to

others; for, as Poor Richard says, 'Three removes are as bad as a fire';

and again, 'Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee'; and again, 'If you

would have your business done, go; if not, send'; and again, 'The eye of

the master will do more work than both his hands'; and again, 'Want of care

does us more damage than want of knowledge.'

"So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business; but

to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more

certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets,

keep his nose to the grindstone all his life, and die not worth a groat at

last. 'If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting.'

"Away with your expensive follies, and you will not then have so much cause

to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families; for 'what

maintains one vice would bring up two children.' Beware of little expenses.

'Many a little makes a mickle'; 'A small leak will sink a great ship.' Here

you are all got together at this sale of fineries and knickknacks. You call

them goods, but, if you do not take care, they will prove evils to some of

you.

"You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps they may be, for less than

cost; but, if you have no occasion for them, they must be dear to you.

Remember what Poor Richard says: 'Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere

long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.' 'Silks, satins, scarlet, and velvets

put out the kitchen fire.' These are not the necessaries of life; they can

scarcely be called the conveniences; and yet, only because they look

pretty, how many want to have them!

"By these and other extravagances, the greatest are reduced to poverty, and

forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who, through

industry and frugality, have maintained their standing. 'If you would know

the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing

goes a-sorrowing'; and, indeed, so does he that lends to such people, when

he goes to get it again.

"It is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to

swell in order to equal the ox. After all, this pride of appearance can not

promote health, nor ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person;

it creates envy; it hastens misfortunes.

"But what madness it must be to run in debt for superfluities! Think what

you do when you run in debt: you give to another power over your liberty.

If you can not pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor;

you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor, pitiful,

sneaking excuses, and by degrees come to lose your veracity, and sink into

base, downright lying; for 'the second vice is lying, the first is running

in debt,' as Poor Richard says; and again, 'Lying rides upon debt's back.'

"This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom; but industry, and

frugality, and prudence may all be blasted without the blessing of Heaven.

Therefore ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that

at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them."

The old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it, and approved the

doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary, just as if it had been a

common sermon; for the auction opened, and they began to buy extravagantly.

I found the good man had thoroughly studied my almanac, and digested all I

had dropped on these topics during the course of twenty-five years. The

frequent mention he made of me must have tired any one else; but my vanity

was wonderfully delighted with it, though I was conscious that not a tenth

part of the wisdom was my own which he ascribed to me, but rather the

gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and nations.

However, I resolved to be the better for the echo of it; and, although I

had at first determined to buy stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved

to wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy

profit will be as great as mine.--I am, as ever, thine to serve thee.

Biographical and Historical: These are paragraphs selected from Benjamin

Franklin's "Way to Wealth," about which he has the following to say in his

Autobiography: "In 1732, I first published my Almanac, under the name of

'Richard Saunders'; it was continued by me about twenty-five years, and

commonly called 'Poor Richard's Almanac.' I filled all the little spaces

that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial

sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means

of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue. These proverbs, which

contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, I assembled and formed into

a connected discourse, prefixed to the Almanac of 1757 as the harangue of a

wise old man to the people attending an auction. The bringing all these

scattered counsels thus into a focus enabled them to make greater

impression."

* * * * *

SPEECH ON A RESOLUTION TO PUT VIRGINIA INTO A STATE OF DEFENCE

BY PATRICK HENRY

MR. PRESIDENT,--No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as

well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the

House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights;

and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those

gentlemen, if, entertaining, as I do, opinions of a character very opposite

to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.

This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful

moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than

a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the

subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that

we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which

we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a

time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of

treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty towards the Majesty

of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We

are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of

that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise

men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed

to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears,

hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For

my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the

whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of

experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And

judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of

the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with

which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House? Is it

that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?

Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not

yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious

reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which

cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a

work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be

reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not

deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation--

the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask, sir, what means this

martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can

gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any

enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of

navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can

be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those

chains which the British Ministry have been so long forging. And what have

we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that

for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject?

Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable;

but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble

supplication? What terms shall we find, which have not been already

exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir,

we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now

coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated;

we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its

interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the Ministry and

Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have

produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been

disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the

throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace

and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be

free--if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for

which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the

noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have

pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious abject of our

contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!

An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an

adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the

next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British

guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by

irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual

resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom

of hope until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God

of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the

holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are

invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir,

we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over

the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our

battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the

vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we

were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the

contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are

forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is

inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace,

peace!--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale

that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding

arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What

is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace

so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,

Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give

me liberty or give me death!

Biographical and Historical: Patrick Henry was an American patriot and

orator whose eloquent speech was a powerful force in moulding public

opinion at the time of the Revolution. This famous speech was made in the

Virginia Convention, March 28, 1775, and is an appeal to place the colonies

in a state of defence.

* * * * *

THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

EDWARD EVERETT HALE

I first came to understand anything about "the man without a country" one

day when we over-hauled a dirty little schooner which had slaves on board.

An officer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a few minutes, he

sent back his boat to ask that someone might be sent him who could talk

Portuguese. But none of the officers did; and just as the captain was

sending forward to ask if any of the people could, Nolan stepped out and

said he should be glad to interpret, if the captain wished, as he

understood the language. The captain thanked him, fitted out another boat

with him, and in this boat it was my luck to go.

There were not a great many of the negroes; most of them were out of the

hold and swarming all round the dirty deck, with a central throng

surrounding Vaughan. "Tell them they are free, Nolan," said Vaughan; "and

tell them that I will take them all to Cape Palmas."

Cape Palmas was practically as far from the homes of most of them as New

Orleans or Rio Janeiro was; that is, they would be eternally separated from

home there. And their interpreters, as we could understand, instantly said,

"Ah, non Palmas." The drops stood on poor Nolan's white forehead, as he

hushed the men down, and said:

"He says, 'Not Palmas.' He says, 'Take us home, take us to our own country,

take us to our own house, take us to our own pickaninnies and our own

women.' He says he has an old father and mother who will die if they do not

see him. And this one says," choked out Nolan, "that he has not heard a

word from, his home in six months."

Even the negroes stopped howling, as they saw Nolan's agony, and Vaughan's

almost equal agony of sympathy. As quick as he could get words, Vaughan

said:

"Tell them, yes, yes, yes; tell them they shall go to the Mountains of the

Moon, if they will."

And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then they all fell to kissing him

again.

But he could not stand it long; and getting Vaughan to say he might go

back, he beckoned me down into our boat. As we lay back in the stern-sheets

and the men gave way, he said to me: "Youngster, let that show you what it

is to be without a family, without a home, and without a country. And if

you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing that shall put a bar

between you and your family, your home, and your country, pray God in his

mercy to take you that instant home to his own heaven. Think of your home,

boy; write and read, and talk about it. Let it be nearer and nearer to your

thought, the farther you have to travel from it; and rush back to it when

you are free, as that poor black slave is doing now. And for your country,

boy," and the words rattled in his throat, "and for that flag," and he

pointed to the ship, "never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids

you, though the service carry you through a thousand terrors. No matter

what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never

look at another flag. Remember, that behind all these men you have to do

with,--behind officers, and government, and people even--there is the

Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to

your own mother."

Biographical and Historical: This is an extract from "The Man Without a

Country," a book written by Edward Everett Hale, a clergyman and author

(1822-1909). He was a grand-nephew of Nathan Hale, of Revolutionary fame.

"The Man without a Country" is the story of Philip Nolan, a young officer

of the United States army. On account of his intimacy with Aaron Burr, he

was court-martialed and, having expressed the wish never to hear the name

of his country again, was banished and sentenced to live upon a government

boat, where no one was allowed to mention his country.

* * * * *

LOVE OF COUNTRY (From "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," Canto VI.)

SIR WALTER SCOTT

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said:--

"This is my own, my native land!"

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,

As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand?

If such there breathe, go, mark him well;

For him no minstrel raptures swell;

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

The wretch concentered all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

* * * * *

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

CHARLES PHILLIPS

He is fallen! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered

among us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its

magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the

throne, a sceptered hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality. A

mind, bold, independent, and decisive,--a will despotic in its dictates--an

energy that distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch

of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character--the most

extraordinary, perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, or

reigned, or fell.

Flung into life in the midst of a revolution that quickened every energy of

a people who acknowledge no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger

by birth, and a scholar by charity! With no friend but his sword, and no

fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank and wealth and

genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from the

glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest--he acknowledged no

criterion but success--he worshiped no God but ambition, and, with an

Eastern devotion, he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry.

Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was

no opinion that he did not promulgate; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld

the Crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the Cross; the

orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the Republic; and, with

a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and tribune, he

reared the throne of his despotism.

A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope; a pretended patriot, he

impoverished the country; and, in the name of Brutus, he grasped--without

remorse and wore without shame the diadem of the Caesars. Through this

pantomime of policy, fortune played the clown to his caprices. At his

touch, crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems vanished, the wildest

theories took the color of his whim, and all that was venerable, and all

that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama.

Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of victory,--his flight from

Egypt confirmed his destiny,--ruin itself only elevated him to empire. But,

if his fortune was great, his genius was transcendent; decision flashed

upon his counsels; and it was the same to decide and to perform. To

inferior intellects his combinations appeared perfectly impossible, his

plans perfectly impracticable; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their

development, and success vindicated their adoption. His person partook the

character of his mind,--if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other

never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacle that he did not

surmount--space no opposition that he did not spurn: and whether amid

Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or Polar snows, he seemed proof against peril,

and empowered with ubiquity.

The whole continent trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and

the miracle of their execution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his

performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too

incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw

a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient

capitals. All the visions of antiquity became commonplace in his

contemplation; kings were his people--nations were his outposts; and he

disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as

if they were titular dignitaries of the chess-board. Amid all these

changes, he stood immutable as adamant.

It mattered little whether in the field or in the drawing-room, with the

mob or the levee--wearing the Jacobin bonnet or the iron crown--banishing a

Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburg--dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of

Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic--he was still the

same military despot.

In this wonderful combination, his affectations of literature must not be

omitted. The jailer of the press, he affected the patronage of letters; the

proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy; the persecutor of authors

and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of

learning. Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time, such an

individual consistency, were never united in the same character. A

royalist--a republican and an emperor--a Mohammedan--a Catholic and a

patron of the synagogue--a subaltern and a sovereign--a traitor and a

tyrant--a Christian and an infidel--he was, through all his vicissitudes,

the same stern, impatient, inflexible original--the same mysterious,

incomprehensible self--a man without a model and without a shadow.

* * * * *

THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS

BY CHARLES SUMNER

The flowers of gentleness, of kindliness, of fidelity, of humanity, which

flourish in unregarded luxuriance in the rich meadows of peace, receive

unwonted admiration when we discern them in war, like violets shedding

their perfume on the perilous edges of the precipice, beyond the smiling

borders of civilization. God be praised for all the examples of magnanimous

virtue which he has vouchsafed to mankind! God be praised that the Roman

emperor, about to start on a distant expedition of war, encompassed by

squadrons of cavalry and by golden eagles which moved in the winds, stooped

from his saddle to listen to the prayer of the humble widow, demanding

justice for the death of her son! God be praised that Sidney, on the field

of battle, gave with dying hand the cup of cold water to the dying soldier!

That single act of self-forgetful sacrifice has consecrated the fenny field

of Zutphen far, oh, far beyond its battle; it has consecrated thy name,

gallant Sidney, beyond any feat of thy sword, beyond any triumph of thy

pen. But there are hands out-stretched elsewhere than on fields of blood

for so little as a cup of cold water; the world is full of opportunities

for deeds of kindness. Let me not be told, then, of the virtues of war. Let

not the acts of generosity and sacrifice which have triumphed on its fields

be invoked in its defense. In the words of Oriental imagery, the poisonous

tree, though watered by nectar, can produce only the fruit of death.

As we cast our eyes over the history of nations, we discern with horror the

succession of murderous slaughters by which their progress has been marked.

As the hunter traces the wild beast, when pursued to his lair, by the drops

of blood on the earth, so we follow man, faint, weary, staggering with

wounds, through the black forest of the past, which he has reddened with

his gore. Oh, let it not be in the future ages as in those which we now

contemplate. Let the grandeur of man be discerned in the blessings which he

has secured; in the good he has accomplished; in the triumphs of

benevolence and justice; in the establishment of perpetual peace.

And peace has its own peculiar victories, in comparison with which Marathon

and Bannockburn and Bunker Hill, fields held sacred in the history of human

freedom, shall lose their lustre. Our own Washington rises to a truly

heavenly stature--not when we follow him over the ice of the Delaware to

the capture of Trenton--not when we behold him victorious over Cornwallis

at Yorktown--but when we regard him, in noble deference to justice,

refusing the kingly crown which a faithless soldiery proffered, and at a

later day upholding the peaceful neutrality of the country, while he

received unmoved the clamor of the people wickedly crying for war....

To this great work let me summon you. That future which filled the lofty

visions of the sages and bards of Greece and Rome, which was foretold by

the prophets and heralded by the evangelists, when man in happy isles or in

a new paradise shall confess the loveliness of peace, may be secured by

your care, if not for yourselves, at least for your children. Believe that

you can do it, and you can do it. The true golden age is before you, not

behind you.

Let it not be said that the age does not demand this work. The mighty

conquerors of the past from their fiery sepulchres demand it; the blood of

millions unjustly shed in war crying from the ground demands it; the voices

of all good men demand it; the conscience even of the soldier whispers

"peace." There are considerations springing from our situation and

condition which fervently invite us to take the lead in this great work. To

this should bend the patriotic ardor of the land; the ambition of the

statesman; the efforts of the scholar; the pervasive influence of the

press; the mild persuasion of the sanctuary; the early teachings of the

school. Here, in ampler ether and diviner air, are untried fields for

exalted triumphs, more truly worthy the American name than any snatched

from rivers of blood. War is known as the last reason of kings. Let it be

no reason of our republic. Let us renounce and throw off forever the yoke

of a tyranny more oppressive than any in the annals of the world. As those

standing on the mountain tops first discern the coming beams of morning,

let us, from the vantage-ground of liberal institutions, first recognize

the ascending sun of a new era. Lift high, the gates and let the King of

glory in--the King of true glory, of peace. I catch the last words of music

from the lips of innocence and beauty--

"And let the whole earth be filled with his glory!"

It is a beautiful picture in Grecian story that there was at least one

spot, the small island of Delos, dedicated to the gods, and kept at all

times sacred from war, where the citizens of hostile countries met and

united in a common worship. So let us dedicate our broad country. The

temple of honor shall be surrounded by the temple of concord, so that the

former can be entered only through the portals of the latter; the horn of

abundance shall overflow at its gates; the angel of religion shall be the

guide over its steps of flashing adamant; while within, Justice, returned

to the earth from her long exile in the skies, shall rear her serene and

majestic front. And the future chiefs of the republic, destined to uphold

the glories of a new era, unspotted by human blood, shall be "the first in

peace, and the first in the hearts of their countrymen."

But while we seek these blissful glories for ourselves, let us strive to

extend them to other lands. Let the bugles sound the truce of God to the

whole world forever. Let the selfish boast of the Spartan women become the

grand chorus of mankind, that they have never seen the smoke of an enemy's

camp. Let the iron belt of martial music which now encompasses the earth be

exchanged for the golden cestus of peace, clothing all with celestial

beauty. And now, on this Sabbath of our country, let us lay a new stone in

the grand temple of universal peace, whose dome shall be as lofty as the

firmament of heaven, as broad and comprehensive as the earth itself.

Biographical: Charles Samuer was an American statesman noted for his

oratory. His speeches were marked by soundness of reason, and the fifteen

published volumes of them make an imposing addition to our literature. This

selection is taken from his address "The True Grandeur of Nations," which

was delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, July 4, 1845.

* * * * *

THE EVILS OF WAR

HENRY CLAY

"The drying up a single tear has more

Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore."--_Byron_.

War, pestilence, and famine, by the common consent of mankind, are the

three greatest calamities which can befall our species; and war, as the

most direful, justly, stands foremost and in front. Pestilence and famine,

no doubt for wise although inscrutable purposes, are inflictions of

Providence, to which it is our duty, therefore, to bow with obedience,

humble submission, and resignation. Their duration is not long, and their

ravages are limited. They bring, indeed, great affliction, while they last,

but society soon recovers from their effects.

War is the voluntary work of our own hands, and whatever reproaches it may

deserve, should be directed to ourselves. When it breaks out, its duration

is indefinite and unknown,--its vicissitudes are hidden from our view. In

the sacrifice of human life, and in the waste of human treasure,--in its

losses and in its burdens,--it affects both belligerent nations, and its

sad effects of mangled bodies, of death, and of desolation, endure long

after its thunders are hushed in peace.

War unhinges society, disturbs its peaceful and regular industry, and

scatters poisonous seeds of disease and immorality, which continue to

germinate and diffuse their baneful influence long after it has ceased.

Dazzling by its glitter, pomp, and pageantry, it begets a spirit of wild

adventure and romantic enterprise, and often disqualifies those who embark

in it, after their return from the bloody fields of battle, for engaging in

the industrious and peaceful vocations of life.

History tells the mournful tale of conquering nations and conquerors. The

three most celebrated conquerors, in the civilized world, were Alexander,

Caesar, and Napoleon. The first, after ruining a large portion of Asia, and

sighing and lamenting that there were no more worlds to subdue, met a

premature and ignoble death. His lieutenants quarreled and warred with each

other as to the spoils of his victories, and finally lost them all.

Cæsar, after conquering Gaul, returned with his triumphant legions to Rome,

passed the Rubicon, won the battle of Pharsalia, trampled upon the

liberties of his country, and expired by the patriot hand of Brutus. But

Rome ceased to be free. War and conquest had enervated and corrupted the

masses. The spirit of true liberty was extinguished, and a long line of

emperors succeeded, some of whom were the most execrable monsters that ever

existed in human form.

And Napoleon, that most extraordinary man, perhaps, in all history, after

subjugating all continental Europe, occupying almost all its

capitals,--seriously threatening proud Albion itself,--and decking the

brows of various members of his family with crowns torn from the heads of

other monarchs, lived to behold his own dear France itself in possession of

his enemies, was made himself a wretched captive, and far removed from

country, family, and friends, breathed his last on the distant and

inhospitable rock of St. Helena.

The Alps and the Rhine had been claimed, as the natural boundaries of

France, but even these could not be secured in the treaties, to which she

was reduced to submit. Do you believe that the people of Macedon or Greece,

of Rome, or of France, were benefited, individually or collectively, by the

triumphs of their captains? Their sad lot was immense sacrifice of life,

heavy and intolerable burdens, and the ultimate loss of liberty itself.

Biographical: Henry Clay was one of the most prominent statesmen of his

time, serving as speaker of the House for ten years, as secretary of state

for four years, and as senator from Kentucky for twenty years. He was the

author of the compromise measures in 1850, and was known as the "Great

Pacificator," and the "Great Compromiser."

* * * * *

PEACE, THE POLICY OF A NATION

JOHN C. CALHOUN

I am opposed to war, as a friend to human improvement, to human

civilization, to human progress and advancement. Never, in the history of

the world, has there occurred a period so remarkable. The chemical and

mechanical powers have been investigated and applied to advance the

comforts of human life, in a degree far beyond all that was ever known

before. Civilization has been spreading its influence far and wide, and the

general progress of human society has outstripped all that had been

previously witnessed.

The invention of man has seized upon, and subjugated two great agencies of

the natural world, which never before were made the servants of man. I

refer to steam and to electricity, under which I include magnetism in all

its phenomena. We have been distinguished by Providence for a great and

noble purpose, and I trust we shall fulfill our high destiny.

Again, I am opposed to war, because I hold that it is now to be determined

whether two such nations as these shall exist for the future, as friends or

enemies. A declaration of war by one of them against the other, must be

pregnant with miseries, not only to themselves, but to the world.

Another reason is, that mighty means are now put into the hands of both, to

cement and secure a perpetual peace, by breaking down the barriers of

commerce, and uniting them more closely in an intercourse mutually

beneficial. If this shall be accomplished, other nations will, one after

another, follow the fair example, and a state of general prosperity,

heretofore unknown, will gradually unite and bless the nations of the

world.

And far more than all. An intercourse like this points to that inspiring

day which philosophers have hoped for, which poets have seen in their

bright dreams of fancy, and which prophecy has seen in holy vision,--when

men shall learn war no more. Who can contemplate a state of the world like

this, and not feel his heart exult at the prospect? And who can doubt that,

in the hand of an Omnipotent Providence, a free and unrestricted commerce

shall prove one of the greatest agents in bringing it about?

Finally, I am against war, because peace--peace is preëminently our policy.

Our great mission, as a people, is to occupy this vast domain,--there to

level forests, and let in upon their solitude the light of day; to clear

the swamps and morasses, and redeem them to the plow and the sickle; to

spread over hill and dale the echoes of human labor, and human happiness,

and contentment; to fill the land with cities and towns; to unite its

opposite extremities by turnpikes and railroads; to scoop out canals for

the transmission of its products, and open rivers for its internal trade.

War can only impede the fulfillment of this high mission of Heaven; it

absorbs the wealth and diverts the energy which might be so much better

devoted to the improvement of our country. All we want is

peace,--established peace; and then time, under the guidance of a wise and

cautious policy, will soon effect for us all the rest. Where we find that

natural causes will of themselves work out good, our wisdom is to let them

work; and all our task is to remove impediments. In the present case, one

of the greatest of these impediments is found in our impatience.

Yes; time--ever-laboring time--will effect everything for us. Our

population is now increasing at the annual average of six hundred thousand.

Let the next twenty-five years elapse, and our increase will have reached a

million a year, and, at the end of that period, we shall count a population

of forty-five millions. Before that day it will have spread from ocean to

ocean. The coast of the Pacific will then be as densely populated and as

thickly settled with villages and towns as is now the coast of the

Atlantic. If we can preserve peace, who shall set bounds to our prosperity,

or to our success? With one foot planted on the Atlantic and the other on

the Pacific, we shall occupy a position between the two old continents of

the world,--a position eminently calculated to secure to us the commerce

and the influence of both. If we abide by the counsels of common sense,--if

we succeed in preserving our constitutional liberty, we shall then exhibit

a spectacle such, as the world never saw.

I know that this one great mission is encompassed with difficulties; but

such is the inherent energy of our political system, and such its expansive

capability, that it may be made to govern the widest space. If by war we

become great, we can not be free; if we will be both great and free, our

policy is peace.

Biographical: John C. Calhoun was a distinguished American statesman. He is

noted for his advocacy of the annexation of Texas and his maintenance of

the cause of peace, when war with Great Britain was threatened by the

claims of the United States to Oregon. This selection is from one of his

speeches in the Senate on that subject.

* * * * *

THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND

DANIEL WEBSTER

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be

passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They

are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating

power of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace,

through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now

surveyed, the progress of the country during the lapse of a century. We

would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard

for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake of the pleasure

with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement.

On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose,

the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the rock of Plymouth,

shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it

lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas.

We would leave for the consideration of those who shall occupy our places,

some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers in just

estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government,

and ardent desire to promote everything which may enlarge the

understandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long

distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know,

at least, that we possessed affections which, running backward and warming

with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our happiness, run

forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordial salutation, ere

yet they have arrived on the shore of being.

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in

your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste

the blessings of existence, where we are passing, and soon shall have

passed, our human duration. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and

the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great

inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good

government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of

science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent

sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and

children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational

existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting

truth!

Biographical and Historical: Daniel Webster stands out as America's

foremost orator. His eloquence, enhanced by the force of his personality,

was equally great whether answering an opponent in the Senate, pleading a

case as a lawyer, or in the more dispassionate orations of anniversary

occasions. He was the champion of the national idea and of complete union,

and therefore bitterly opposed Hayne and Calhoun. He supported Clay in the

compromise measures of 1850. His supremacy in American statesmanship, as

senator, and as secretary of state, makes him "the notablest of our

notabilities." These are the closing paragraphs from his oration delivered

at Plymouth, December 22, 1820, on the two hundredth anniversary of the

landing of the Pilgrims.

* * * * *

SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JOHN ADAMS

DANIEL WEBSTER

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart

to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at

independence. But there is a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice

of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest, she has

obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have

but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the

declaration? If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on or to give

up the war? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we shall be ground to

powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we

do not mean to submit. We never shall submit!

The war, then, must go on; we must fight it through. And if the war must go

on, why put off the declaration of independence? That measure will

strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. Nations will then treat

with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects in

arms against our sovereign.

If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause

will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people--the people,

if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves,

gloriously through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have

been found. I know the people of these colonies; and I know that resistance

to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and cannot be

eradicated. Sir, the declaration of independence will inspire the people

with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for the

restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, set before them the

glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew

the spirit of life.

Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn,

and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it or perish on the bed of honor.

Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of

religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it, or fall

with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them see it,

who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and

in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in

its support.

O Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly

through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live

to see the time this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die

colonists; die slaves; die, it may be ignominiously, and on the scaffold.

Be it so: be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall

require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the

appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live,

let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free

country.

But whatever may be our fate, be assured--be assured that this declaration

will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand,

and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the

present I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall

make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our

children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with

festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return they will

shed tears, copious, gushing tears; not of subjection and slavery, not of

agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.

Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves the

measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am,

and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and

I leave off as I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the

declaration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it

shall be my dying sentiment; independence now, and independence forever.

Historical: Boston was deeply moved, on July 4, 1826, by the news of the

death of John Adams, just fifty years after the signing of the Declaration

of Independence. He was not only conscious of the significance of the day,

but had spoken of his colleague, Thomas Jefferson, and the fact that

Jefferson would survive him. A few days later, news came from Virginia that

Jefferson had died on the same day, a few hours earlier than Adams. The

whole country was deeply affected by this remarkable coincidence. On the

second of August a public memorial meeting was held in Faneuil Hall,

Boston, at which Daniel Webster delivered an oration on "Adams and

Jefferson." In this speech, merely a part of the oration, Webster

represents what Adams might have said at the time of the Declaration of

Independence.

* * * * *

SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE UNION

ROBERT HAYNE

I shall make no profession of zeal for the interests and honor of South

Carolina. If there be one state in the Union that may challenge comparison

with any other, for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion

to the Union, that state is South Carolina. From the very commencement of

the Revolution up to this hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, she

has not cheerfully made, no service she has ever hesitated to perform. She

has adhered to you in your prosperity; but in your adversity she has clung

to you with more than filial affection. No matter what was the condition of

her domestic affairs, though deprived of her resources, divided by parties,

or surrounded with difficulties, the call of the country has been to her as

the voice of God. Domestic discord ceased at the sound; every man became at

once reconciled to his brethren, and the sons of Carolina were all seen

crowding together to the temple, bringing gifts to the altar of their

common country.

What was the conduct of the South during the Revolution? I honor New

England for her conduct in that glorious struggle. But great as is the

praise which belongs to her, I think at least equal honor is due the South.

They espoused the quarrel of their brethren with a generous zeal which did

not suffer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute.

Favorites of the mother country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to

create a commercial rivalship, they might have found in their situation a

guaranty that their trade would be forever fostered and protected by Great

Britain. But, trampling on all considerations either of interest or of

safety, they rushed into the conflict, and, fighting for principle, periled

all in the sacred cause of freedom. Never were there exhibited in the

history of the world higher examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering,

and heroic endurance than by the Whigs of Carolina during the Revolution.

The whole state, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an

overwhelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the

spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe.

The "plains of Carolina" drank up the most precious blood of her citizens.

Black and smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitations of

her children. Driven from their homes into the gloomy and almost

impenetrable swamps, even there the spirit of liberty survived, and South

Carolina, sustained by the example of her Sumters and her Marions, proved,

by her conduct, that, though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her

people was invincible.

Historical: In January of 1830, Senator Foote of Connecticut introduced

into the Senate a resolution regarding the sale of public lands. The

subject of state rights being uppermost in their minds, the debaters

wandered off into a discussion of the Constitution. Senator Robert Y. Hayne

of South Carolina, in a brilliant speech set forth the doctrine of

nullification, and Daniel Webster answered him in one of the greatest

speeches ever delivered. This extract and the following are taken from this

memorable debate, when for the first time the two opposing theories of the

Constitution, the "state" and he "national," were clearly set forth.

* * * * *

REPLY TO HAYNE

DANIEL WEBSTER

I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard

for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South

Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride,

of her great name. I claim them for countrymen, one and all. The Laurenses,

the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Marions--Americans

all--whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by state lines than their

talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same

narrow limits. In their day and generation, they served and honored the

country, and the whole country; and their renown is of the treasures of the

whole country.

Mr. President, I shall enter upon no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs

none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her

history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There

is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will

remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for

independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state from New England

to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American

liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and

sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full

of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party

strife and blind ambition shall hawk and tear it; if folly and madness, if

uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in

separating it from that Union by which alone its existence is made

sure,--it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its

infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigor it

may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at

last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory and

on the very spot of its origin.

I cannot persuade myself to relinquish this subject without expressing my

deep conviction, that, since it respects nothing less than THE UNION OF THE

STATES, it is of most vital and essential importance to the public

happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in

view the prosperity and honor of the whole country and the preservation of

our federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home and our

consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly

indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country.

That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe

school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered

finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit, Under its benign

influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and

sprang forth with newness of life.

Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and

its blessings; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and

wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun

its protection or its benefits. It has been to us a copious fountain of

national, social, and personal happiness.

I have not allowed myself to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie

hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of

preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken

asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of

disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of

the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs

of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering,

not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the

condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread

out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek not to

penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may

not rise,--that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind.

When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in

heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of

a once glorious Union--on States dissevered discordant, belligerent,--on a

land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let

their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of

the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high

advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a

stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its

motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor

those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union

afterward"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light,

blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the

land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear

to every true American heart,--LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND

INSEPARABLE!

* * * * *

DEDICATION SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent,

a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that

all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war; testing

whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long

endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to

dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who

here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting

and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can

not hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here

have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world

will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never

forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated

here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so

nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task

remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased

devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of

devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died

in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of

freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people,

shall not perish from the earth.

Historical: At the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg,

November 19, 1863, President Lincoln was asked to be present and say a few

words. This address has become a classic. Edward Everett, the orator who

had delivered the long address of the day wrote to Mr. Lincoln, "I should

be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of

the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

Several versions of the speech have appeared, but the one here printed was

given out by President Lincoln himself as the authorized version. See

"Lincoln's Gettysburg Address," Century Magazine, Feb., 1894.

* * * * *

LINCOLN, THE GREAT COMMONER

EDWIN MARKHAM

When the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour,

Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,

She bent the strenuous Heavens and came down

To make a man to meet the mortal need.

She took the tried clay of the common road--

Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth,

Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;

Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.

It was a stuff to wear for centuries,

A man that matched the mountains, and compelled

The stars to look our way and honor us.

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth;

The tang and odor of the primal things--

The rectitude and patience of the rocks;

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;

The courage of the bird that dares the sea;

The justice of the rain that loves all leaves;

The pity of the snow that hides all scars;

The loving kindness of the wayside well;

The tolerance and equity of light

That gives as freely to the shrinking weed

As to the great oak flaring to the wind--

To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn

That shoulders out the sky.

And so he came.

From prairie cabin up to capitol

One fair ideal led our chieftain on.

Forevermore he burned to do his deed

With the fine stroke and gesture of a king.

He built the rail-pile as he built the State,

Pouring his splendid strength through every blow,

The conscience of him testing every stroke,

To make his deed the measure of a man.

So came the Captain with the mighty heart:

And when the step of Earthquake shook the house

Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold,

He held the ridge-pole up, and spiked again

The rafters of the Home. He held his place--

Held the long purpose like a growing tree--

Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.

And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down

As when a kingly cedar green with boughs

Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,

And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

Biographical: Edwin Markham was born in Oregon, taught school in

California, and more recently has been a resident of Brooklyn. His poem

"The Man with the Hoe" brought him immediate fame.

* * * * *

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

WALT WHITMAN

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here, Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Biographical and Historical: Walt Whitman will always be remembered as the

author of this poem. It differs from his other poems in that it shows a

great deal of attention to form, to metre, and rhyme. He wrote not so much

with the aim to please as to arouse and uplift. He was very democratic in

his taste, and loved to mingle with the crowds on the ferries and

omnibuses. At different times he was school teacher, carpenter, and

journalist. This poem was written in appreciation of Lincoln, at the time

of his death.

* * * * *

EXTRACTS FROM WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE

Friends and Fellow-Citizens,

The period for a new election of a Citizen, to administer the Executive

Government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time

actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed in designating the

person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me

proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the

public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have

formed, to decline being considered among the number of those, out of whom

a choice is to be made....

The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear

to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your

real independence,--the support of your tranquillity at home and your peace

abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you

so highly prize.

But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different

quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in

your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your

political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external

enemies will be most constantly and actively, though often covertly and

insidiously, directed,--it is of infinite moment that you should properly

estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and

individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and

immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourself to think and speak of it

as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for

its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may

suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and

indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate

any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties

which now link together the various parts.

To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is

indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an

adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and

interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible

of this momentous truth, you have improved your essay, by the adoption of

the constitution of a government better calculated than your former for an

intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns.

This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed,

adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in

its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with

energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has

a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its

authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are

duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our

political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their

constitution of government; but the constitution which at any time exists,

till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is

sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of

the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual

to obey the established government.

All obstructions to the executions of the laws, all combinations and

associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to

direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of

the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle

and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an

artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated

will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and

enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate

triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror

of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the

organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and

modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and

then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and

things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and

unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to

usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterward the very

engines which had lifted them to unjust dominion.

Toward the preservation of your government and the permanency of your

present happy state, it is requisite not only that you steadily

discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but

also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its

principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to

effect, in the forms of the constitution, alterations which will impair the

energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly

overthrown.

In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and

habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as

of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by

which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country;

that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion,

exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and

opinion; and remember especially that for the efficient management of your

common interest in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much

vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is

indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers

properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed,

little else than a name where the government is too feeble to withstand the

enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the

limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and

tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country

should inspire caution, in those intrusted with its administration, to

confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding

in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another.

The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the

departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a

real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to

abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy

us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the

exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different

depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against

invasion by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern;

some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must

be as necessary as to institute them.

If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the

constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an

amendment in the way which the constitution designates. But let there be no

change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the

instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments

are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent

evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,

religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man

claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great

pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and

citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect

and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with

private and public felicity.

Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation,

for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are

the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with

caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without

religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on

minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect

that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of

popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to

every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can

look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the

general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a

government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public

opinion should be enlightened.

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and

affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting

impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the

passions, or prevent our nation from running the course, which has hitherto

marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself, that they

may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they

may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn

against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures

of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the

solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.

How far in the discharge of my official duties, I have been guided by the

principles which have been delineated, the public records and other

evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself,

the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself

to be guided by them.

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious

of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to

think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may

be I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which

they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my country will

never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years

of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of

incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be

to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that

fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man, who views in it the

native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations; I

anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise

myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the

midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free

government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as

I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

* * * * *

THE MEMORY OF OUR FATHERS

HENRY WARD BEECHER

We are called upon to cherish with high veneration and grateful

recollections the memory of our fathers. Both the ties of nature and the

dictates of policy demand this. And surely no nation had ever less occasion

to be ashamed of its ancestry, or more occasion for gratification in that

respect; for, while most nations trace their origin to barbarians, the

foundations of our nation were laid by civilized men, by Christians. Many

of them were men of distinguished families, of powerful talents, of great

learning and of preeminent wisdom, of decision of character, and of most

inflexible integrity. And yet not unfrequently they have been treated as if

they had no virtues; while their sins and follies have been sedulously

immortalized in satirical anecdote.

The influence of such treatment of our fathers is too manifest. It creates

and lets loose upon their institutions the vandal spirit of innovation and

overthrow; for, after the memory of our fathers shall have been rendered

contemptible, who will uphold and sustain their institutions? The memory of

our fathers should be the watch-word of liberty throughout the land; for,

imperfect as they were, the world before had not seen their like, nor will

it soon, we fear, behold their like again. Such models of moral excellence,

such apostles of civil and religious liberty, such shades of the

illustrious dead looking down upon their descendants with approbation or

reproof, according as they follow or depart from the good way, constitute a

censorship inferior only to the eye of God; and to ridicule them is a

national suicide.

The doctrines of our fathers have been represented as gloomy,

superstitious, severe, irrational, and of a licentious tendency. But when

other systems shall have produced a piety as devoted, a morality as pure, a

patriotism as disinterested, and a state of society as happy, as have

prevailed where their doctrines have been most prevalent, it may be in

season to seek an answer to this objection.

The persecutions instituted by our fathers have been the occasion of

ceaseless obloquy upon their fame. And, truly, it was a fault of no

ordinary magnitude, that sometimes they did persecute. But let him whose

ancestors were not ten times more guilty cast the first stone, and the

ashes of our fathers will no more be disturbed. Theirs was the fault of the

age, and it will be easy to show that no class of men had, at that time,

approximated so nearly to just apprehensions of religious liberty; and that

it is to them that the world is now indebted for the more just and definite

views which now prevail.

The superstition and bigotry of our fathers are themes on which some of

their descendants, themselves far enough from superstition, if not from

bigotry, have delighted to dwell. But when we look abroad and behold the

condition of the world, compared with the condition of New England, we may

justly exclaim, "Would to God that the ancestors of all the nations had

been not only almost, but altogether such bigots as our fathers were."

Biographical: Henry Ward Beecher was a noted preacher, orator, and writer.

For forty years he was pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. He lectured

extensively throughout the country, taking up the great issues of his time.

He died in 1887 at the age of seventy-four.

* * * * *

THE AMERICAN FLAG

J. E. DRAKE

When Freedom, from her mountain height,

Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there;

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes

The milky baldric of the skies,

And striped its pure celestial white

With streakings of the morning light;

Then, from his mansion in the sun,

She called her eagle-bearer down,

And gave into his mighty hand

The symbol of her chosen land!

Majestic monarch of the cloud,

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,

To hear the tempest-trumpings loud,

And see the lightning lances driven,

When strive the warriors of the storm,

And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven--

Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given

To guard the banner of the free,

To hover in the sulphur smoke,

To ward away the battle-stroke,

And bid its blendings shine afar,

Like rainbows on the cloud of war,

The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,

The sign of hope and triumph high,

When speaks the signal trumpet tone,

And the long line comes gleaming on,

Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,

Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,

Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn

To where thy sky-born glories burn;

And as his springing steps advance,

Catch war and vengeance from the glance.

And when the cannon's mouthings loud,

Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,

And gory sabres rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;

Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall sink below

Each gallant arm that strikes beneath

That awful messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean's wave

Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;

When death, careering on the gale,

Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,

And frighted waves rush wildly back

Before the broadside's reeling rack,

Each dying wanderer of the sea,

Shall look at once to heaven and thee,

And smile to see thy splendors fly

In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home!

By angel hands to valor given;

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.

Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,

With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?

Biographical and Historical: The name of Joseph Rodman Drake is inseparably

associated with that of his friend, Fitz-Greene Halleck. Together they

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:

"As fixed as yonder orb divine,

That saw thy bannered blaze unfurled,

Shall thy proud stars resplendent shine,

The guard and glory of the world."

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:

"None knew thee but to love thee,

Nor named thee but to praise."

* * * * *

WARREN'S ADDRESS AT THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL

JOHN PIERPONT

Stand! the ground's your own, my braves!

Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?

Hear it in that battle peal!

Read it on yon bristling steel!

Ask it--ye who will.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?

Will ye to your _homes_ retire?

Look behind you! they're afire!

And, before you, see

Who have done it!--From the vale

On they come!--and will ye quail?--

Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!

Die we may--and die we must:

But, O where can dust to dust

Be consigned so well,

As where heaven its dews shall shed,

On the martyred patriot's bed,

And the rocks shall raise their head,

Of his deeds to tell?

Biographical and Historical: John Pierpont was a Unitarian clergyman of

Connecticut, who published several volumes of poetry. General Joseph Warren

was one of the generals in command of the patriot army at the battle of

Bunker Hill, and was killed in the battle. He was counted one of the

bravest and most unselfish patriots of the Revolutionary War. In this poem

we have the poet's idea of how General Warren inspired his men.

* * * * *

COLUMBUS

JOAQUIN MILLER

Behind him lay the gray Azores,

Behind the Gates of Hercules;

Before him not the ghosts of shores,

Before him only shoreless seas.

The good mate said: "Now must we pray,

For lo! the very stars are gone.

Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?"

"Why, say 'sail on! sail on! and on!'"

"My men grow mutinous day by day;

My men grow ghastly wan and weak."

The stout mate thought of home; a spray

Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.

"What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,

If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"

"Why, you shall say at break of day,

'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow.

Until at last the blanched mate said:

"Why, now not even God would know

Should I and all my men fall dead.

These very winds forget their way,

For God from these dread seas is gone,

Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say"--

He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate;

"This mad sea shows his teeth to-night.

He curls his lip, he lies in wait,

With lifted teeth, as if to bite!

Brave Admiral, say but one good word:

What shall we do when hope is gone?"

The words leapt like a leaping sword;

"Sail on! sail on! and on!"

Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,

And peered through darkness. Ah, that night

Of all dark nights! And then a speck--

A light! A light! A light! A light!

It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!

It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.

He gained a world; he gave that world

Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"

Biographical and Historical: Cincinnatus Heine Miller (Joaquin [hoa'kin]

Miller) was born in Indiana in 1841. Joining the general movement to the

West after the discovery of gold, his parents moved to the Pacific coast in

1850. He died in 1914.

"In point of power, workmanship, and feeling, among all the poems written

by Americans, we are inclined to give first place to 'The Port of Ships,'

or 'Columbus,' by Joaquin Miller."--London Athenaeum.

* * * * *

RECESSIONAL--A VICTORIAN ODE

RUDYARD KIPLING

God of our fathers, known of old--

Lord of our far-flung battle line--

Beneath whose awful hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine--

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget--lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies--

The Captains and the Kings depart--

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget--lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away--

On dune and headland sinks the fire--

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget--lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--

Such boasting as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law--

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget--lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard--

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding calls not Thee to guard.

For frantic boast and foolish word,

Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

_Amen_.

Biographical and Historical: Rudyard Kipling was born Christmas Week, 1865,

in Bombay. After school life in England, he returned to India at the age of

seventeen, to do journalistic work. His tales of Indian. life and his

ballads describing the life of the British soldier won immediate favor.

Perhaps he is best known to the boys and girls as the author of the Jungle

Books. From 1892 to 1896 he lived in the United States. This poem, which

appeared in 1897, at the time of the Queen's Jubilee, struck a warning note

against the arrogance of power.

* * * * *

A DEFINITION OF A GENTLEMAN

CARDINAL NEWMAN

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never

inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes,

accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which

hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs

with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits

may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences

in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy-chair or a good fire,

which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides

both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like

manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of

those with whom he is cast;--all clashing of opinion, or collision of

feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great

concern being to make every one at their ease and at home. He has his eyes

on all his company; he is tender toward the bashful, gentle toward the

distant, and merciful toward the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is

speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may

irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He

makes light of favors while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he

is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never

defends himself by a mere retort; he has no ears for slander or gossip, is

scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and

interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his

disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or

sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out.

From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage,

that we should ever conduct ourselves toward our enemy as if he were one

day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at

insults; he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to

bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical

principles; he submits to pain because it is inevitable, to bereavement

because it is irreparable, and to death because it is his destiny. If he

engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him

from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated

minds; who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who

mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive

their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they find it. He

may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be

unjust; he is as simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive.

Nowhere shall we find greater candor, consideration, indulgence: he throws

himself into the minds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He

knows the weakness of human reason as well as its strength, its province,

and its limits.

Biographical: John Henry Newman, 1801-1890, a distinguished Prelate was

born in London. He graduated from Trinity College, Oxford, and became noted

both as a scholar and a writer. "Lead, Kindly Light," a poem of rare

beauty, was written by him while on a voyage in the Mediterranean Sea. This

selection is from his book, "The Idea of a University". He was made a

cardinal in 1879.

* * * * *

GLOSSARY

abandon (a-ban'dun), give up.

abatement (a-bat'ment), putting an end to.

abbey (ab'i), monastery; convent.

abnegation (ab'ne-ga'shun), denial.

aboon (a-boon'), Scotch for above.

Absalom (ab'sa-lom),

absolute (ab'so-lut), without any limits or conditions.

abstinence (ab'sti-nens), refraining from certain kinds of pleasures.

abstract (ab-strakt'), separate.

abyss (a-bis'), a bottomless gulf.

Acadie (a'ka'de'),

accession (ak-sesh'un), coming into possession of.

acord (a-kord'), blend.

acost (a'kost'), approach; speak to.

acumulate (a-ku'mu-lat), collect; store up.

acuracy (ak'u-ra-si), exactness.

acurately (ak'u-rat-li), precisely.

acquiescence (ak'wi-es'ens), a yielding or agreeing.

Act of Navigation (act of nav'i-ga'shun), an ordinance passed by the

British Parliament for the American colonies by which goods were to be

imported to the colonies free of duty for a period of years, provided all

goods were sent out of the colonies in British ships.

adamant (ad'a-mant), a stone of extreme hardness.

adapt (a-dapt), fit; change to suit.

Adayes (a-da'yes), an early settlement in southwestern United States.

addled (ad'ld), rotten; confused,

adequate (ad'e-kwat), fully sufficient.

adherence (ad-her'ens), steady attachment.

adherent (ad-her'ent), clinging; a follower.

adieu (a-du'), good-by, farewell.

adjust (a-just'), fit; to put in order.

administer (ad-min'is-ter), manage or conduct (public affairs); tender an

oath.

admiral (ad'mi-ral), a naval officer of the highest rank.

ado (a-doo'), trouble, fuss.

Adonis (a-do'nis), in Greek mythology, a youth of marvelous beauty.

adoption (a-dop'shun), acceptance

adrift (a-drift'), floating at the mercy of the wind and waves.

advent (ad'vent), coming, approach

adversary (ad'ver-sa-ri), one opposed, a foe.

adverse (ad'vers), contrary.

aerial (a-e'ri-al), pertaining to the air; lofty.

Aershot (ar'skot), the town Aerschot in Belgium, 23 miles northeast of

Brussels.

affable (af'a-bl), friendly, gracious.

affectation, (af'ek-ta'shun), an attempt to assume what is not natural or

real.

affidavit (af'i-da'vit), a sworn statement in writing.

aft (aft), near or towards the stern of a vessel.

Agassiz (ag'a-se), a celebrated Swiss-American naturalist who came to the

United States in 1846. He was professor of geology at Harvard.

aggression (a-gresh'un), attack.

aghast (a-gasf), terrified.

agitate (aj'i-tat), stir up; discuss.

agog (a-gog'), eager.

agony (ag'o-ni), great pain.

aid de camp (ad'de-kamp'; ad'de-kan'), an officer who assists a general in

correspondence and in directing movements.

Aidenn (a'den), paradise (from the Arabic word for Eden, used by Poe for

the sake of the rhyme).

Aix (aks), a city in Prussia, founded by the Romans and a favorite

residence of Charlemagne.

Aix-la-Chapelle (aks'la-sha'pel), is the French name and Aachen the German.

akimbo (a-kim'bo), with hand on the hip and elbow turned outward.

alacrity (a-lak'ri-ti), cheerful readiness.

Aladdin (a-lad'in), in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," the possessor

of a wonderful lamp with magic charms.

alarum (a-lar'um), an old form for alarm.

Albion (al'bi-un), an ancient name of England,

Albyn (al'bin),

Alexander (al'eg-zan'der), surnamed "the Great," was a famous conqueror who

lived in the fourth century B. C.; founder of Alexandria in Egypt.

alienate (al'yen-at), make strange; take away.

all-absorbing (ol-ab-sorb'ing), taking up completely.

Allah (al'la), in the Mohammedan faith, the name for God.

Allahu (al-la'hoo), probably a Persian ejaculation.

all-besetting (ol-be-set'ing), surrounding on all sides.

allege (a-lej'), declare; affirm.

allegiance (a-le-jans), loyalty.

allegory (al'e-go-ri), description of one thing under the image of another;

parable.

alliance (a-li'ans), union of interests; league.

alloy (a-loi'), a baser metal mixed with a finer.

aloe (al'e), a fragrant plant growing in warm climates; the American aloe

is the century plant.

alteration (ol'ter-a'shun), making different; change.

alternately (al-ter'nat-li) by turns.

alternative (al-tur'na-tiv), a choice between two or more things.

amain (a-man'), with full force.

amaranth (am'a-ranth), an imaginary flower supposed never to fade.

Ambaaren (am'ba-ar'en),

ambassador (am-bas'a-der), a minister representing his ruler or country at

a foreign court.

ambition (am-bish'un), desire for honor or power.

ambrosial (am-bro'zhi-al), pertaining to the fabled food of the gods, which

immortalized them.

amendment (a-mend'ment), a change for the better; a change in a bill or

motion by adding or omitting.

amiable (a'mi-a-b'l), lovable, goodnatured.

amidships (a-mid'ships), in the middle of a ship.

amorpha (a-mor'fa), a plant belonging to the pea family and having

blue-violet flowers.

amphitheatre (am'fi-the'a-ter), an oval or circular building with rising

tiers of seats about an open space.

ample (am'p'l), abundant; full.

Amun (a'mon), an Egyptian deity generally represented as a ram.

anchorite (an'ko-rit), one who renounces the world and secludes himself, a

hermit.

andirons (and'i'urnz), metallic stands to support wood in a fireplace.

anecdote (an'ek-dot), a short narrative of some particular incident.

Angel of Death. See Exodus, chapter 12

Angel of the backward look; memory

Angelus (an'je-lus), the bell tolled in the morning, at noon, and in the

evening to tell the faithful the time for prayer.

Angus (an'gus),

annals (an'alz), historical records.

anon (a-non'), in a little while.

anticipate (an-tis'i-pat), count upon in advance; foresee.

antique (an-tek'), old.

antiquity (an-tik'wi-ti), great age

apathetic (ap'a-thet'ik), without feeling.

apathy (ap'a-thi), lack of feeling.

apex (a'peks), summit; point.

apology (a-pol'e-ji), an acknowledgment for some injurious act; an excuse.

Apolonius (ap-po-lo'ni-us), a philosopher and wonder-worker who lived at

about the same time as Christ.

apostrophe (a-pos'tro-fe), a speech or address to some person or thing

absent or present. Apostrophe to the Ocean,

appalling (a-pol'ing), terrifying.

apparel (a-par'el), clothing.

apparent (a-par'ent), clear, plainly to be seen.

appealing (a-pel'ing), calling for aid or sympathy.

apprehension (ap're-hen'shun), a taking hold of; anxiety.

apprise (a-priz'), inform.

approbation (ap'ro-ba'shun), liking; consent.

approximate (a-prok'si-mat), approach; nearly exact.

arabesque (ar'a-besk'), a kind of ornament, brought to high perfection by

Arabian artists and consisting of lines, figures, fruits, flowers, and men

variously grouped.

Arachthus (a-rak'thus), the ancient name of a river in Greece; modern Arta.

arbiter (ar'bi-ter), one appointed to determine a controversy; umpire.

architect (ar'ki-tekt), one who is skilled in planning, designing, and

constructing buildings.

Ardennes (ar-den'),

ardent (ar'dent), burning; passionate.

ardor (ar'der), heat; zeal.

arduous (ar'du-us), hard, difficult.

arena (a-re'na), the sanded area in the central part of a Roman

amphitheater.

argosy (ar'go-si), a large merchant vessel.

argument (ar'gu-ment), proof or reasons in a controversy.

Armada (ar-ma'da),

armament (ar'ma-ment), arms, ships and other equipment for war.

aroma (a-ro'ma), fragrance; a spicy perfume.

array (a-ra'), clothe; an orderly collection.

arrogance (ar'e-gans), pride with contempt of others.

artifice (ar'ti-fis), workmanship; artful trick.

artisan (ar'ti-zan), one skilled in some art or trade.

ascertain (as'er-tan'), learn for certain.

Ashur (a'shoor),

askance (a-skans'), sideways.

aspect (as'pekt), look.

asperse (as-purs'), sprinkle; defame.

asphodel (as'fo-del), a lily, in Greek mythology the special flower of the

dead. The English daffodil is derived from this Greek word.

aspiration (as'pi-ra'shun), strong wish, high desire.

assail (a-sal'), attack violently.

assailant (a-sal'ant), one who attacks.

assault (a-solt'), a violent attack.

assemblage (a-sem'blaj), a company of people gathered together.

assiduity (as'i-du'i-ti), constant attention; industry.

assiduous (a-sid'u-us), busy; persevering.

assign (a-sin'), give over.

Assyria (a-sir'i-a), an ancient state in Asia, east of the Tigris river.

astern (a-sturn'), in the rear part of the ship.

astounding (as-tound'mg), astonishing.

asunder (a-sun'der), apart.

Atchafalaya (ach'a-fa-li'a), an outlet of the Red and Mississippi rivers in

southern Louisiana.

atilt (a-tilf), balanced lightly.

Atlantic Monthly, a magazine first published in 1857, with Lowell as

editor.

attain (a-tan'), reach; accomplish.

attaint (a-tant'), corrupt; disgrace.

attenuated (a-ten'u-at'ed), thinned, slender.

attitude (at'i-tud), position; feeling.

attribute (a-trib'ut), give; refer.

attribute (at'ri-but), characteristic; quality.

audacity (o-das'i-ti), boldness.

audible (o'di-b'l), capable of being heard.

auditor (o'di-ter), a hearer.

august (o-gust'), majestic; solemn.

auroral (o-ro'ral), pertaining to the dawn, rosy.

austere (es-ter'), severe.

austerity (os-ter'i-ti), severity; severe simplicity.

authentic (o-then'tik), true; genuine.

autocrat (e'to-krat), an absolute ruler.

avail (a-val'), help; be of use.

Ave Maria (a'va ma-re'a), Hail Mary, first words of a Roman Catholic prayer

to the Virgin Mary. The words are those of the Angel Gabriel, hence the

prayer is called the Angelus.

avenge (a-venj'), punish in order to execute justice.

aversion (a-vur'shun), dislike.

avert (a-vurt'), turn aside.

awry (a-ri'), turned or twisted: crooked.

aye and anon (a and a-non'), continually.

Azores (a-zorz'), a group of islands in the Atlantic belonging to Portugal,

and 800 miles west of it.

azure (azh'ur), the clear blue color of the sky.

Baal (ba'al), the supreme god o! the Assyrians,

Babylonish jargon (bab'ilo'nish), unintelligible language. See story of the

"tower of Babel." Gen. XI.

bacchanal (bak'a-nal), a carouser; a follower of Bacchus, the god of wine.

Bacchantes (ba-kan'tez), priestesses of Bacchus, the god of wine.

bairn (barn), Scottish name for a child.

Balaklava (ba'la-kla'va), a city in the Crimea on the Black Sea.

baldric (bol'drik), a broad belt worn over the shoulder and under the

opposite arm.

ballad (bal'ad), a short poem telling a story.

balm (bam), anything that soothes pain.

balm in Gilead (bam in gil'e-ad), a biblical expression meaning comfort or

healing,

balmy (bam'i), mild; soothing; fragrant.

bandit (ban'dit), an outlaw.

baneful (ban'fool), injurious.

Bannockburn (ban'uk-burn), a battlefield in Scotland upon which Robert

Bruce defeated the English.

Baptiste Le-blanc (ba'tesf le blan'),

bar (bar), the legal profession.

bard (bard), a poet.

barge (barj), a boat.

barometer (ba-rom'e-ter), an instrument for determining the weight or

pressure of the atmosphere.

barouche (ba-robsh'), four-wheeled carriage, with a falling top, and two

double seats on the inside.

barrack (bar'ak), a building for soldiers, especially when in garrison,

barrier (bar'i-er), an obstruction or limit.

bask (bask), warm; lie comfortably,

baste (bast), drip fat on meat in roasting.

battery (bat'er-i), two or more pieces of artillery in the field.

bayonet (ba'e-net), a dagger fitted on the muzzle of a musket.

bayou (bi'oo), an inlet from a gulf, lake, or large river.

Beau Se-jour (bo-sa-zhoer'), a French fort upon the neck of land connecting

Acadia and the mainland. It had just been taken by the British,

"beard the lion," defy.

Beautiful Gate, an entrance to the temple in Jerusalem. See Acts III-2 and

John X-7.

Beautiful River, the Ohio.

beck (bek), call.

beetling (be'tling), projecting, jutting out.

Beg (bag),

begotten (be-got'n), caused to exist; born.

beguile (be-gil'), relieve the tedium or weariness of, entertain.

belfry (bel'fri), a bell tower.

Bell, name of an inn.

Belle Aurore (bel e-ror'), the dawn.

"bell or book," religious ceremony.

Belle-fontaine (bel-fon-tan'),

belligerent (be-lij'er-ent), waging war.

bellows (bel'oz), an instrument for driving air through a tube.

"belted knight," girt with a belt as an honorary distinction.

benedicite (ben'e-d'is'i-te), a chant or hymn, the Latin version of which

begins with this word; an exclamation corresponding to "Bless you!"

benediction (ben'e-dik'shun), a blessing.

beneficence (be-nef'i-sens), goodness or charity.

benign (be-nin'), of a kind disposition.

benignant (be-nig'nant), kind.

beseech (be-sech'), entreat.

bestead (be-sted'), put in peril.

bestial (bes'chal), beastly; vile.

bestow (be-sto'), give; grant.

betrothal (be-troth'al), contract to anyone for a marriage.

beverage (bev'er-aj), drink.

bicker (bik'er), move quickly with a pattering noise,

bier (her), a frame on which a corpse is borne to the grave.

bigot (big'ut), one blindly devoted to his own opinion; narrow-minded.

bigotry (big'ut-ri), narrow-mindedness.

biography (bi-eg'ra-fi), the written history of a person's life.

birkie (bur'ki),

blanch (blanch), take the color out of; whiten.

blasphemy (blas'fe-mi), impious speech against God or sacred things.

blast (blast), a violent gust of wind.

blazoned (bla'z'nd), adorned, depicted in color.

blithe (blith), gay, joyous.

blithesome (blitn'sum), happy, gay,

Blomidon (blo'mi-dun), a mountain in Nova Scotia.

bodkin (bod'km), a pointed implement for making holes in cloth.

bondsman (bondz'man), one who gives security for another.

"bonnet and plume," a soft cap worn by men in Scotland.

Boom (bom), a town in Belgium.

boon (boon), a gift; bountiful; gay.

bootless (bpot'les), useless.

Border (bor'der), the frontier between England and Scotland,

"bore the bell," carried off the prize. A bell was formerly used as a prize

in races.

bosky (bos'ki), woody or bushy.

bosom (booz'um), the breast.

Bothnia (both'nr-a), Gulf of the northern arm of the Baltic Sea between

Finland and Sweden.

bountiful (boun'ti-fobl), liberal.

bourn (born), a boundary; limit.

bow (bou), the forward part of a ship, (bo) to rhyme with tow.

Bowdoin (bo'd'n), in Brunswick, Maine, college from which Longfellow

graduated in 1825.

Bozzaris, Marco (bo-zar'is. Mar'ko),

brackish (brak'ish), saltish; distasteful.

Braddock (brad'uk), a British general who met defeat and was killed in

1755.

Braganza (bra-gan'za), a reigning family of Portugal.

brake (brak), a fern; a thicket.

brawl (brol), noise: quarrel.

breach (brech), an opening in; a break.

breakers (brak'erz), waves breaking into foam against the shore.

breeches (brich'ez), trousers.

Breton, (bret'un), a province of France.

brig (brig), a two-masted vessel.

brigade (bri-gad'), a body of troops larger than a regiment.

brink (brink), verge or edge.

British Ministry, the British Government.

Briton (brit'un), a native of England.

broadside (brod'sid'), the side of a ship above the water line, from bow to

quarter.

broadsword (brod'sord'), a sword with a broad blade and cutting edge.

Brook Farm, a farm near Boston, where an experiment in agriculture and

education was tried by a group of literary people.

Brunswick (brunz-wik), Duke of Brunswick (Frederick William) was killed in

the engagement described,

Brutus (broq'tus), a Roman politician who joined in the assassination of

Caesar.

Buckholm (buk'hom),

buffcoat (buf'kot), a military coat made of buff leather.

buffet (buf'et), a blow.

bulkhead (bulk'hed'), a wall to resist pressure of earth or water.

Bunker Hill, a hill near Boston where a famous battle was fought.

bouyancy (bou'an-si), lightness.

burger (bur'get), an inhabitant of a borough.

burgesses (bur'jes-es), citizens of a borough.

Burgundian (bur-gun'di-an), pertaining to Burgundy, a province of France on

the Rhone river.

buskin (bus'kin), a covering for the foot and leg, worn by tragic actors.

cad (ca'd), Scotch for called.

cadence (ka'dens), a fall of the voice; rhythm.

Cadmus (kad'mus), in Greek legend the founder of Thebes and introducer of

the letters of the Greek alphabet.

Caesar. Julius (se'zar), (l00 B. C.-44 B. C.), a famous Roman general,

statesman and writer.

Caius Marius (ka'yus ma're-us),

calamity (ka-lam'i-ti), misfortune; disaster.

calender (kal'en-der), one whose business it is to press cloth or paper

between cylindrical rollers.

calumny (kal'um-ni), slander.

"Calvin's creed." Calvin was a celebrated reformer whose doctrines are

noted for their severity.

Cameron (kam'er-eri),

candid (kan'did), frank; open.

Cannobie Lee (kan'e-be le), a lea or large open space in Scotland.

cannonade (kan'un-ad'), a discharging of cannon.

capacity (ka-pas'i-ti), power.

"cap and bells," the tokens or signs of a jester or clown, therefore,

foolish pleasures.

Cape Palmas (pal'mas), a promontory on the coast of Liberia, western

Africa.

caper (ka'per), "cutting a caper," to leap about in a frolicsome manner.

capon (ka'pon), choice chicken.

caprice (ka-pres'), whim, fancy.

Capua (cap'u-a), an ancient city in Italy near Naples, famous for its

wealth and luxury.

career (ka-rer'), move rapidly.

carrion (kar'i-un), dead and decaying flesh of an animal.

Carthage (kar'thaj), an ancient city in northern Africa. Its wars with Rome

are known as the Punic Wars.

casement (kas'ment), a hinged window sash.

casual (kazh'u-al), happening without regularity.

catholic (kath'e-lik), liberal

cauldron (kol'drun), a large kettle

causeway (koz wa), raised road over wet ground.

cavalcade (kav'al-kad'), a procession of persons on horseback.

celestial (se-les'chal), heavenly, divine.

cenotaph (sen'o-taf), a monument to one buried elsewhere.

censer (sen'ser), a vessel in which incense is burned.

censorship (sen'sor-ship), office or power to examine papers for the press

and suppress what is thought harmful.

censure (sen'shfir), blame.

century-circled (sen'tu-ri-sur'k'ld), having a hundred circles, indicating

its age.

cessation (se-sa'shun), pause, stop.

cestus (ses'tus), girdle.

chaise (shaz), a two-wheeled carriage.

chalice (chal'is), a cup.

Chalkley's Journal. Thomas Chalkley was a traveling Quaker preacher. His

journal, published in 1747, told of his many wonderful experiences.

Chambered Nautilus (cham'berd no'ti-lus), a shellfish belonging to the

highest class of mollusks.

chancel (chan'sel), that part of a church containing the altar.

chanticleer (chan'ti-kler), a cock, so called from his clear voice in

crowing.

chaos (ka-os), disorder.

chaotic (ka-ot'ik), confused.

chaplet (chap'let), wreath.

characterize (char'ak-ter-iz), describe.

chasm (kaz'm), deep opening, gap.

Chattahoochee (chat'a-hoo'chi), a river in Georgia which forms part of its

western boundary.

chaunt (chant), song, especially one that is solemn and slow.

Cheapside (chep'sid), the central east-and-west street of London, formerly

a market. "Chepe" is the old English word for market.

Chersonese (kur'so-nez), Athenians who had colonized the peninsula between

the Hellespont and the Gulf of Melos. Miltiades ruled over them.

chimerical (ki-mer'i-kal), unreal, fantastic.

chivalry (shiv'al-ri), manners of knighthood, courtesy.

chowder (chou'der), a dish made of fresh fish or clams, biscuit, etc.,

stewed together.

chronicle (kron'i-k'l), historical record.

churlish (chur'lish), rough, ill bred.

ci devant (se'de-van'), former.

circuit (sur'kit), a regular journey from place to place; the district

journeyed over.

circumscribe (sur'kum-skrib') inclose, encircle.

citadel ( sit'a-del), fortress.

"civil feuds" (siv'il fuds), quarrels within one's own country.

clamor (klam'er), an outcry; uproar.

clan (klan),

clang (klang), strike together so as to produce a ringing metallic sound.

clangor (klanger), a sharp, harsh, ringing sound.

clapboard (klap'bord), a narrow board, thicker at one edge than at the

other, for weatherboarding houses.

cleave (klev), cling; open or crack.

cleft (kleft), crack, crevice.

clement (klem'ent), mild.

clergy (klur'ji), a body of ministers of the gospel.

cloud-vesture (kloud-ves'tur), clothing of clouds.

Cochecho (ko-che'cho), Indian name for Dover, N. H.

cocked hat (kokt), a hat with the brim turned up.

cohesion (ko-he'zhun), close union.

cohort (ko'hort), in the ancient Roman army, a body of about 500 soldiers.

coil (koil), trouble; the body.

coincidence (ko-in'si-dens), a happening at the same time.

colossal (ko-los'al), of enormous size.

Comanches (ko-man'chez), a tribe of Indians noted for their warlike

character.

comely (kum'li), pleasing.

comment (kom'ent), meditate upon; a remark or criticism.

commissioner (ko-mish'un-er) an officer having charge of some department of

public service.

commodity (ko-mod'i-ti), goods, wares.

communal (kom'u-nal), having property in common.

commune (ko-mun'), take counsel.

communicate (ko-mu'm-kat), make known.

communion (ko-mun'yun), intercourse.

compass (kum'pas), size, capacity.

compensate (kom'pen-sat), recompense or reward.

compete (kom-pet'), seek or strive for the same thing.

competence (kom'pe-tens), property sufficient for comfort.

complacency (kom-pla'sen-si), self-satisfaction.

compliance (kom-pli'ans), yielding.

comply (kom-pli'), yield, assent.

component (kom-po'nent), composing; an ingredient.

comport (kom-port'), agree or suit conduct.

compose (kom-poz'), put together: quiet.

composition (kom'po-zish'un), combination, make-up.

composure (kom-po'zhur), calm.

comprehend (kom'pre-hend'), understand.

comprehension (kom'pre-hen'shun), perception, understanding.

comprehensive (Kom'pre-hen'siv), including much.

compressed (kom-prest') pressed together.

comprise (kom-priz'), include.

compromise (kom'pro-miz), an agreement in which all parties concerned give

up something.

concave (kon'kav), hollow and curved in.

conceal (kon-sel'), hide from observation.

concede (kon-sed'), grant or allow.

conceive (kon-sev'), understand: think.

concenter (kon-sen'ter), bring to, or meet in a common center; condense,

concentrate (kon'sen-trat), bring to, or meet in a common center; condense.

concentric (kon-sen'trik), having a common center.

conception (kon-sep'shun), formation in the mind of an image or notion.

conciliate (kon-sil'i-at), reconcile, pacify.

conclusive (kon-kloo'siv), convincing; final.

concord (kon'kord), state of agreement; harmony.

concurrence (kon-kur'ens), agreement in opinion.

conduce (kon-dus') lead or tend.

confound (kon-found') confuse; blend.

congeal, (kon-jel'), freeze; thicken.

congregate (kon'gre-gat), assemble.

conjure (kon-joor'), call on solemnly.

conjure (kun'jer), call forth or expel by magic arts.

conjuring book (kun'jer-ing), a copy of Cornelius' Agrippa's "Magic,"

printed in 1657.

connubial (ko-nu'bi-al), pertaining to marriage.

Conscript Fathers (kon'skript), a translation of a certain form used in

addressing the senate of ancient Rome.

consecrate (kon'se-krat), dedicate, hallow.

conservative (kon-sur'va-tiv), opposed to change; safe.

consign (kon-sin'), intrust; deliver.

consistent (koti-Sis'tent), not contradictory; having harmony among its

parts.

construe (kon'stroo), interpret, explain.

consul (kon'sul), commercial agent of a government in a foreign country; a

magistrate.

consume (kon-sum') destroy; swallow up.

consummation (kon's'u-ma'shun), achievement; end.

contagious (kon-ta'jus), catching.

contemplate (kon'tem-plat), view; study.

contemptible (kon-temp'ti-b'l), deserving disdain; despised.

contemptuous (kon-temp'tu-us), scornful.

contention (kon-ten'shun), strife.