Page images
PDF
EPUB

ANALYSIS OF SELECTION XXIV.

What kind of composition is this? Show the difference between prose and poetry. [For the answer to this question, study carefully the first paragraph of the analysis of Exercise V.] What kind of poetry is this? Are any parts of it in any degree sublime? What stanzas are most so? Are the thoughts in this piece highly poetical? With what tones should it be read? What rate of speed does it require? What pitch?

First Stanza.

Why should the first line begin with "and"? What is the "strange story" referred to? Where was Thebes? What is said of it in the Note? To whom are these words addressed? Why is Thebes spoken of? What is said, in the Note, of the "Memnonium " ? How does "time overthrow temples," &c.? What structures are here meant? What is the effect of the word " very" in the last line? What other word might have been used to convey the same thought? Would one expect the "ruins" or the original structures to be the more "tremendous "?

Give the etymology and meaning of story, streets, glory, temples, palaces, stupendous, ruins, tremendous.

Where is the first positive statement? Inflection of the voice upon the word story? ago? glory? tremendous? Is tremendous the greatest thing suggested here? What inflection must the word have, therefore?

[ocr errors]

Second Stanza.

What is it to “act dummy"? Who has been acting dummy? How long? What reasons are given why the 'mummy" should "speak"? What is a mummy? Are these good reasons for his speaking? What is usually done with people when they cease speaking, or die? Is this stanza serious or humorous? What is meant by "glimpses of the moon"? Why are "ghosts " mentioned? meant by their being "thin "?

What is

Give the etymology and meaning of mummy, revisiting, disembodied, creatures, features.

Where is the first falling inflection in this stanza? What inflection upon dummy? [Let great care be taken to determine the most natural way of saying what is contained in this stanza, as well as every other. In this way let the emphasis and inflection be determined.]

Third Stanza.

Why is it supposed that the mummy can "recollect" the events here named? What was "the Sphinx"? How many "pyramids" are mentioned in the third and fourth lines? What is "a misnomer"? Give the meaning of the fifth line. Meaning of the clause "sung by Homer "?

Give the etymology of doubtless, recollect, assign, fame, architect, pyramid, really, misnomer.

Where should the first falling inflection be used? Is the question in the second line positive or negative in its essential character? [See Introduction, Inflections, VI.] Is the question in the third and fourth lines of the same character? What inflection does the word fame require, therefore? The word name? the word misnomer? Homer? What words require emphasis here, and why? What tones are required in this stanza? What pitch? force? speed?

Fourth Stanza.

" be here sug

Why should the idea of being “a mason gested? What sort of things were the inquiries of the fourth stanza about? What is a mason, as the word is here used? What custom is referred to in the first and second lines? What is said in the Note about Memnon? What is the force of the word "then," as used in the third line? What course did the Egyptian priests pursue in reference to disclosing their secrets? What "struggles are vain"?

Give the etymology and meaning of mason, mysteries, melody, statue, secret, priest, struggles.

What inflection is required on the word mason? trade? played? What kind of question ends with the last word? Determine carefully the remaining inflections, and also the emphasis.

Fifth Stanza.

What is meant by "pinioned flat"? by "hob-a-nobbed "? What fact about Homer is suggested in the third line? To what country did the mummy belong? Did Homer belong to the same country? Did Dido? Give an account of Dido. What "temple" is meant in the last line? Were there Egyptians at the dedication of it?

Give the meaning and etymology of pinioned, perchance, doffed, invitation, dedication.

What inflection upon hand? flat? Pharaoh? glass at the end of the line? [Let the emphases be determined as before. The words or groups of words that express the important or new thoughts in a sentence are to be made emphatic, that is, to be read with more force than other words.]

Questions on the remaining Stanzas.

Why is it not necessary to ask what is suggested in the sixth stanza? Explain clearly the two last lines of the sixth stanza. Why should the author say "above ground" in the second line of the seventh stanza? What is meant by "new worlds have risen "? What "old nations" have been "lost"? How did Cambyses treat the Egyptian deities? What event is referred to in the last line of the eighth stanza? What is the meaning of each of the three designations applied to the mummy in the first three lines of the tenth stanza? What " tegument" is meant in the first line of the eleventh stanza? Does the author seem to think that there are things of greater importance than the art of embalming? What are they? State them in your own words.

Give the etymology and meaning of armed, soldier, buried, embalmed, antiquity, appears, primeval, extended, mutations, empire, nations, humbled, fragment, conquerors, marched, tomb, pyramids, gigantic, asunder, secrets, confessed, nature, private, unfold, station, age, race, statue, immortal, imperishable, evanescence, posthumous, undecayed, presence, judgment, tegument, endure, virtue, corruption, consume, immortal, spirit.

[This selection, if properly used, will afford much mental

as well as vocal culture. The most impressive portions of it require full round tones, and the proper reading of it will give fullness and smoothness to the voice.]

XXV. THE SCHOOLMASTER.

J. G. WHITTIER.

1. Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth's college halls.

2. Born the wild northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar's gown
To peddle wares from town to town;

3. Or through the long vacation's reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater's keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man's buff,
And whirling plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.

4. Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame's winding yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
"Twixt Yankee peddlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Araxes took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a whortleberry hill.

QUESTIONS ON SELECTION XXV.

What

What is meant by "the mittened cat"? by "cross-pins "? by "classic Dartmouth"? Where is Dartmouth? is meant by the expression "could doff at ease his scholar's gown"? Meaning of "boarding round"? of "played the athlete"? of Yankee? What was "Pindus-born Araxes"? "Olympus"? Explain the last four lines of the piece. What is the character attributed to this schoolmaster? Is it favorable or otherwise?

XXVI. THE POWER OF GOD.

1. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,

2. Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

3. Gird up thy loins now like a man: for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

4. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.

5. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon

it?

6. Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof?

« PreviousContinue »