McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader Part 51

NOTES.--The wild pigeon, in common with almost every variety of game, is becoming more scarce throughout the country each year; and Audubon's account, but for the position he holds, would in time, no doubt, be considered ridiculous.

9. En ma.s.se (pro. aN mas), a French phrase meaning in a body.

[Transcriber's note: The last Pa.s.senger Pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914. Population estimates ranged up to 5 billion, comprising 40% of the total number of birds in North America in the 19th century.]

CVI. THE COUNTRY LIFE.

Richard Henry Stoddard (b. 1825,--) was born at Hingham, Ma.s.s., but removed to New York City while quite young. His first volume of poems, "Foot-prints," appeared in 1849, and has been followed by many others. Of these may be mentioned "Songs of Summer," "Town and Country," "The King's Bell," "Abraham Lincoln" (an ode), and the "Book of the East," from the last of which the following selection is abridged. Mr. Stoddard's verses are full of genuine feeling, and some of them show great poetic power.

1. Not what we would, but what we must, Makes up the sum of living: Heaven is both more and less than just, In taking and in giving.

Swords cleave to hands that sought the plow, And laurels miss the soldier's brow.

2. Me, whom the city holds, whose feet Have worn its stony highways, Familiar with its loneliest street,-- Its ways were never my ways.

My cradle was beside the sea, And there, I hope, my grave will be.

3. Old homestead! in that old gray town Thy vane is seaward blowing; Thy slip of garden stretches down To where the tide is flowing; Below they lie, their sails all furled, The s.h.i.+ps that go about the world.

4. Dearer that little country house, Inland with pines beside it; Some peach trees, with unfruitful boughs, A well, with weeds to hide it: No flowers, or only such as rise Self-sown--poor things!--which all despise.

5. Dear country home! can I forget The least of thy sweet trifles?

The window vines that clamber yet, Whose blooms the bee still rifles?

The roadside blackberries, growing ripe, And in the woods the Indian pipe?

6. Happy the man who tills his field, Content with rustic labor; Earth does to him her fullness yield, Hap what may to his neighbor.

Well days, sound nights--oh, can there be A life more rational and free?

NOTE.--5. The Indian pipe is a little, white plant, bearing a white, bell-shaped flower.

CVII. THE VIRGINIANS.

William Makepeace Thackeray (b. 1811, d. 1863). This popular English humorist, essayist, and novelist was born in Calcutta. He was educated at the Charterhouse school in London, and at Cambridge, but he did not complete a collegiate course of study. He began his literary career as a contributor to "Fraser's Magazine," under the a.s.sumed name of Michael Angelo t.i.tmarsh, and afterwards contributed to the column of "Punch." The first novel published under Thackeray's own name was "Vanity Fair," which is regarded by many as his greatest work. He afterwards wrote a large number of novels, tales, and poems, most of which were ill.u.s.trated by sketches drawn by himself. His course of "Lectures on the English Humorists" was delivered in London in 1851, and the following year in several cities in the United States. He revisited the United States in 1856, and delivered a course of lectures on "The Four Georges," which he repeated in Great Britain soon after his return home. In 1860 he became the editor of "The Cornhill Magazine," the most successful serial ever published in England.

1. Mr. Esmond called his American house Castlewood, from the patrimonial home in the old country. The whole usages of Virginia, indeed, were fondly modeled after the English customs. It was a loyal colony. The Virginians boasted that King Charles the Second had been king in Virginia before he had been king in England. English king and English church were alike faithfully honored there.

2. The resident gentry were allied to good English families. They held their heads above the Dutch traders of New York, and the money-getting Roundheads of Pennsylvania and New England. Never were people less republican than those of the great province which was soon to be foremost in the memorable revolt against the British Crown.

3. The gentry of Virginia dwelt on their great lands after a fas.h.i.+on almost patriarchal. For its rough cultivation, each estate had a mult.i.tude of hands--of purchased and a.s.signed servants--who were subject to the command of the master. The land yielded their food, live stock, and game.

4. The great rivers swarmed with fish for the taking. From their banks the pa.s.sage home was clear. Their s.h.i.+ps took the tobacco off their private wharves on the banks of the Potomac or the James River, and carried it to London or Bristol,--bringing back English goods and articles of home manufacture in return for the only produce which the Virginian gentry chose to cultivate.

5. Their hospitality was boundless. No stranger was ever sent away from their gates. The gentry received one another, and traveled to each other's houses, in a state almost feudal. The question of slavery was not born at the time of which we write. To be the proprietor of black servants shocked the feelings of no Virginia gentleman; nor, in truth, was the despotism exercised over the negro race generally a savage one. The food was plenty: the poor black people lazy and not unhappy. You might have preached negro emanc.i.p.ation to Madam Esmond of Castlewood as you might have told her to let the horses run loose out of the stables; she had no doubt but that the whip and the corn bag were good for both.

6. Her father may have thought otherwise, being of a skeptical turn on very many points, but his doubts did not break forth in active denial, and he was rather disaffected than rebellious, At one period, this gentleman had taken a part in active life at home, and possibly might have been eager to share its rewards; but in latter days he did not seem to care for them. A something had occurred in his life, which had cast a tinge of melancholy over all his existence.

7. He was not unhappy,--to those about him most kind,--most affectionate, obsequious even to the women of his family, whom he scarce ever contradicted; but there had been some bankruptcy of his heart, which his spirit never recovered. He submitted to life, rather than enjoyed it, and never was in better spirits than in his last hours when he was going to lay it down.

8. When the boys' grandfather died, their mother, in great state, proclaimed her eldest son George her successor and heir of the estate; and Harry, George's younger brother by half an hour, was always enjoined to respect his senior. All the household was equally instructed to pay him honor; the negroes, of whom there was a large and happy family, and the a.s.signed servants from Europe, whose lot was made as bearable as it might be under the government of the lady of Castlewood.

9. In the whole family there scarcely was a rebel save Mrs. Esmond's faithful friend and companion, Madam Mountain, and Harry's foster mother, a faithful negro woman, who never could be made to understand why her child should not be first, who was handsomer, and stronger, and cleverer than his brother, as she vowed; though, in truth, there was scarcely any difference in the beauty, strength, or stature of the twins.

10. In disposition, they were in many points exceedingly unlike; but in feature they resembled each other so closely, that, but for the color of their hair, it had been difficult to distinguish them. In their beds, and when their heads were covered with those vast, ribboned nightcaps, which our great and little ancestors wore, it was scarcely possible for any but a nurse or a mother to tell the one from the other child.

11. Howbeit, alike in form, we have said that they differed in temper. The elder was peaceful, studious, and silent; the younger was warlike and noisy. He was quick at learning when he began, but very slow at beginning.

No threats of the ferule would provoke Harry to learn in an idle fit, or would prevent George from helping his brother in his lesson. Harry was of a strong military turn, drilled the little negroes on the estate, and caned them like a corporal, having many good boxing matches with them, and never bearing malice if he was worsted;--whereas George was sparing of blows, and gentle with all about him.

12. As the custom in all families was, each of the boys had a special little servant a.s.signed him: and it was a known fact that George, finding his little wretch of a blackamoor asleep on his master's bed, sat down beside it, and brushed the flies off the child with a feather fan, to the horror of old Gumbo, the child's father, who found his young master so engaged, and to the indignation of Madam Esmond, who ordered the young negro off to the proper officer for a whipping. In vain George implored and entreated--burst into pa.s.sionate tears, and besought a remission of the sentence. His mother was inflexible regarding the young rebel's punishment, and the little negro went off beseeching his young master not to cry.

13. On account of a certain apish drollery and humor which exhibited itself in the lad, and a liking for some of the old man's pursuits, the first of the twins was the grandfather's favorite and companion, and would laugh and talk out all his infantine heart to the old gentleman, to whom the younger had seldom a word to say.

14. George was a demure, studious boy, and his senses seemed to brighten up in the library, where his brother was so gloomy. He knew the books before he could well-nigh carry them, and read in them long before he could understand them. Harry, on the other hand, was all alive in the stables or in the wood, eager for all parties of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, and promised to be a good sportsman from a very early age.

15. At length the time came when Mr. Esmond was to have done with the affairs of this life, and he laid them down as if glad to be rid of their burden. All who read and heard that discourse, wondered where Parson Broadbent of James Town found the eloquence and the Latin which adorned it. Perhaps Mr. Dempster knew, the boys' Scotch tutor, who corrected the proofs of the oration, which was printed, by the desire of his Excellency and many persons of honor, at Mr. Franklin's press in Philadelphia.

16. No such sumptuous funeral had ever bean seen in the country as that which Madam Esmond Warrington ordained for her father, who would have been the first to smile at that pompous grief.

17. The little lads of Castlewood, almost smothered in black trains and hatbands, headed the procession and were followed by my Lord Fairfax, from Greenway Court, by his Excellency the Governor of Virginia (with his coach), by the Randolphs, the Careys, the Harrisons, the Was.h.i.+ngtons, and many others; for the whole country esteemed the departed gentleman, whose goodness, whose high talents, whose benevolence and un.o.btrusive urbanity, had earned for him the just respect of his neighbors. 18. When informed of the event, the family of Colonel Esmond's stepson, the Lord Castlewood of Hamps.h.i.+re in England, asked to be at the charges of the marble slab which recorded the names and virtues of his lords.h.i.+p's mother and her husband; and after due time of preparation, the monument was set up, exhibiting the arms and coronet of the Esmonds, supported by a little, chubby group of weeping cherubs, and reciting an epitaph which for once did not tell any falsehoods.

DEFINTIONS.--1. Pat-ri-mo'ni-al, inherited from ancestors. 6.

Dis-af-fect'ed, discouraged. 7. Ob-se'qui-ous, compliant to excess. 12.

Black'a-moor, a negro. 17. Ur-ban'i-ty, civility or courtesy of manners, refinement. 18. Ep'i-taph (pro. ep'i-taf), an inscription on a monument, in honor or in memory of the dead.

NOTES.--2. Roundhead was the epithet applied to the Puritans by the Cavaliers in the time of Charles I. It arose from the practice among the Puritans of cropping their hair peculiarly.

3. Patriarchal. 5. Feudal. The Jewish patriarch, in olden times, and the head of a n.o.ble family in Europe, during the Middle Ages, when the "Feudal System," as it is called, existed, both held almost despotic sway, the one over his great number of descendants and relations, and the other over a vast body of subjects or retainers. Both patriarch and feudal lord were less restricted than the modern king, and the feudal lord, especially, lived in a state of great magnificence.

15. Proofs. When matter is to be printed, a rough impression of it is taken as soon as the type is set up, and sent to the editor or some other authority for correction. These first sheets are called proofs.

"His Excellency" was the t.i.tle applied to the governor.

CVIII. MINOT'S LEDGE.

Fitz-James...o...b..ien (b. 1828, d. 1862) was of Irish birth, and came to America in 1852. He has contributed a number of tales and poems to various periodicals, but his writings have never been collected in book form. Mr.

O'Brien belonged to the New York Seventh Regiment, and died at Baltimore of a wound received in a cavalry skirmish.

1. Like spectral hounds across the sky, The white clouds scud before the storm; And naked in the howling night The red-eyed lighthouse lifts its form.

The waves with slippery fingers clutch The ma.s.sive tower, and climb and fall, And, muttering, growl with baffled rage Their curses on the st.u.r.dy wall.

2. Up in the lonely tower he sits, The keeper of the crimson light: Silent and awe-struck does he hear The imprecations of the night.

The white spray beats against the panes Like some wet ghost that down the air Is hunted by a troop of fiends, And seeks a shelter anywhere.