Page images
PDF
EPUB

Alone, the fire, when frost winds sear
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,

With roaring like the battle's sound,
And trains of smoke that heavenward tower,
And streaming flames that sweep the plain,
Fierce, as if kindled to devour

Earth to the well-springs of the main.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold
The boundless future in the vast

And lonely river, seaward rolled.
Who feeds its founts with rain and dew?
Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue,
Bright clusters tempt me as I pass ?

Broad are these streams; my steed obeys,
Plunges, and bears me through the tide.
Wide are these woods; I thread the maze
Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.
I hunt till day's last glimmer dies

O'er woody vale and grassy hight;
And kind the voice and glad the eyes,
That welcome my return at night.

W. C. BRYANT.

LESSON CLXXXVIII.

THE SAVOYARD'S RETURN.

O, YONDER is the well known spot,
My dear, my long-lost, native home;

O, welcome is yon little cot,

Where I shall rest, no more to roam ! O, I have traveled far and wide,

O'er many a distant foreign land ; Each place, each province I have tried, And sung and danced my saraband; But all their charms could not prevail To steal my heart from yonder vale.

Of distant climes the false report
Allured me from my native land,
It bade me rove, my sole support
My cymbals and my saraband.
The woody dell, the hanging rock,
The chamois skipping o'er the hights,
The plain, adorned with many a flock,
And, oh, a thousand more delights
That grace yon dear, beloved retreat,
Have backward won my weary feet.

Now safe returned, with wandering tired,
No more my little home I'll leave:
And many a tale of what I've seen
Shall wile away the winter's eve.
O, I have wandered far and wide,

O'er many a distant foreign land;
Each place, each province I have tried
And sung and danced my saraband;
But all their charms could not prevail
To steal my heart from yonder vale.

H. K. WHITE.

LESSON CLXXXIX.

THE UMBRELLA.

[This is a lecture of Mrs. Caudle to her husband for having loaned an umbrella. His part in the conversation is left to be inferred from her occasional repetition of his words.]

BAH! that's the third umbrella gone since Christmas. What were you to do? Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. I'm very certain there was nothing about him that could spoil! Take cold, indeed! He doesn't look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he'd have better taken cold, than taken our umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? say, do you hear the rain? Do you hear it against the windows? Nonsense: you don't impose upon me; you can't be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? Oh! you do hear it! Well, that's a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle; don't insult me;

I

he return the umbrella? Any body would think you were born yesterday. As if any body ever did return an umbrella! There do you hear it? Worse and worse. Cats and dogs! and for six weeks; always six weeks; and no umbrella! I should like to know how the children are to go to school tomorrow. They sha'n't go through such weather; I am determined. No; they shall stop at home and never learn anything, (the blessed creatures!) sooner than go and get wet! And when they grow up, I wonder whom they'll have to thank for knowing nothing; whom, indeed, but their father? People who can't feel for their own children ought never to be fathers.

But I know why you lent the umbrella: oh, yes, I know very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow: you knew that, and you did it on purpose. Don't tell me; you hate to have me to go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't you think it, Mr. Caudle; no, sir; if it comes down in buckets full, I'll go all the more. No; and I'll not have a cab! Where do you think the money's to come from? You've got nice, high notions at that club of yours. A cab, indeed! Cost me sixteen-pence, at least; sixteen-pence! two-and-eight-pence; for there's back again. Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who's to pay for'em; for I'm sure you can't, if you go on as you do, throwing away your property, and beggaring your children, buying umbrellas!

Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear it? But I don't care; I'll go to mother's to-morrow; I will; and what's more I'll walk every step of the way; and you know that will give me my death. Don't call me a foolish woman; 'tis you that's the foolish man. You know I can't wear clogs; and with no umbrella, the wet's sure to give me a cold it always does: but what do you care for that? Nothing at all. I may be laid up for what you care, as I dare say I shall; and a pretty doctor's bill there'll be. I hope there will. It will teach you to lend your umbrellas again. I shouldn't wonder if I caught my death: yes, and that's what you lent the umbrella for. Of course!

Nice clothes I get, too, tramping through weather like this. My gown and bonnet will be spoiled quite. Needn't I wear 'em then? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear 'em. No, sir;

I'm not going out a dowdy to please you or any body else. Gracious knows! it isn't often that I step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at once: better, I should say; but when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go as a lady. Oh! that rain! if it isn't enough to break in the windows. Ugh! I look forward with dread for to-morrow! How I am to go to mother's, I'm sure I can't tell, but if I die, I'll do it. No, sir; I'll not borrow an umbrella: no; and you sha'n't buy one. Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another umbrella, I'll throw it in the street.

Ha! And it was only last week I had a new nozzle put on that umbrella. I'm sure if I'd known as much as I do now, it might have gone without one. Paying for new nozzles for other people to laugh at you! Oh! 'tis all very well for you. You've no thought of your poor, patient wife, and your own dear children; you think of nothing but lending umbrellas! Men, indeed! call themselves lords of the creation! pretty lords, when they can't even take care of an umbrella!

I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me, but that's what you want: then you may go to your club, and do as you like; and then, nicely my poor, dear children will be used; but then, sir, then you'll be happy. Oh! don't tell me! I know you will: else you'd never have lent the umbrella! You have to go on Thursday about that summons; and, of course, you can't go. No, indeed: you don't go without the umbrella. You may lose the debt for what I care; 'tis not so bad as spoiling your clothes; better lose it; people deserve to lose debts who lend umbrellas!

And I should like to know how I'm to go to mother's without the umbrella. Oh! don't tell me that I said I would go; that's nothing to do with it: nothing at all. She'll think I'm neglecting her; and the little money we're to have, we sha'n't have at all: because we've no umbrella. The children too! (dear things!) they'll be sopping wet; for they sha'n't stay at home; they sha'n't lose their learning; 't is all their father will leave them, I'm sure. But they shall go to school. Don't tell me they shouldn't; (you are so aggravating, Caudle, you'd spoil the temper of an angel;) they shall go to school; mark that; and if they get their deaths of cold, 'tis not my fault; I didn't lend the umbrella.

ANONYMOUS.

LESSON CXC.

EFFECTS OF UNIVERSAL FALSEHOOD.

LET us consider, for a little, some of the effects which would inevitably follow, were the law of truth universally violated. In this case, a scene of horror and confusion would ensue, of which it is difficult for the mind to form any distinct conception. It is obvious, in the first place, that rational beings could never improve in knowledge, beyond the range of the sensitive objects that happened to be placed within the sphere of their personal observation; for by far the greater part of our knowledge is derived from the communications of others, and from the stimulus to intellectual exertion which such communications produce.

Let us suppose a human being trained up, from infancy, in a wilderness, by a bear or a wolf, as history records to have been the case of several individuals in the forests of France, Germany, and Lithuania, what knowledge could such a being acquire beyond that of a brute? He might distinguish a horse from a cow, and a man from a dog, and know that such objects as trees, shrubs, grass, flowers, and water, existed around him; but knowledge, strictly so called, and the proper exercise of his rational faculties, he could not acquire, so long as he remained detached from other rational beings. Such would be our situation, were falsehood universal among men. We could acquire a knowledge of nothing but what was obvious to our senses, in the objects with which we were surrounded. We could not know whether the earth were twenty miles, or twenty thousand miles, in extent, and whether oceans, seas, rivers, and ranges of mountains, existed on its surface, unless we had made the tour of it in person, and with our own eyes, surveyed the various objects it contains.

Of course, we should remain in absolute ignorance of the existence and the attributes of God, of the moral relations of intelligent beings to their Creator, and to one another, and of the realities of a future state. For it is only, or chiefly, through the medium of testimony, combined with the evidence of our senses, that we acquire a knowledge of such truths and objects.

« PreviousContinue »