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MODERN PROSE AND POETRY FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

EDITED

WITH NOTES, STUDY HELPS, AND READING LISTS

BY

MARGARET ASHMUN, M.A.

_Formerly Instructor in English in the University of Wisconsin_
_Editor of Prose Literature for Secondary Schools_

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_All selections in this book are used by special permission of, and
arrangement with, the owners of the copyrights._

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
U.S.A

* * * * *

Transcribers Note: There are several areas where a pronunciation guide
is given with diacritical marks that cannot be reproduced in a text
file. The following symbols are used:

Symbols for Diacritical Marks:

DIACRITICAL MARK SAMPLE ABOVE BELOW
macron (straight line) - [=x] [x=]
2 dots (diaresis, umlaut) " [:x] [x:]
1 dot {~BULLET~} [.x] [x.]
grave accent ` [`x] or [\x] [x`] or [x\]
acute accent (aigu) ' ['x] or [/x] [x'] or [x/]
circumflex ^ [^x] [x^]
caron (v-shaped symbol) [vx] [xv]
breve (u-shaped symbol) [)x] [x)]
tilde ~ [~x] [x~]
cedilla ¸ [,x] [x,]

Also words italicized will have undescores _ before and after them and
bold words will have = before and after them.

Footnotes have been moved to the end of the text. Minor typos have
been corrected.

* * * * *

PREFACE

It is pleasant to note, among teachers of literature in the high school,
a growing (or perhaps one should say an established) conviction that the
pupil's enjoyment of what he reads ought to be the chief consideration
in the work. From such enjoyment, it is conceded, come the knowledge and
the power that are the end of study. All profitable literature work in
the secondary grades must be based upon the unforced attention and
activity of the student.

An inevitable phase of this liberal attitude is a readiness to promote
the study of modern authors. It is now the generally accepted view that
many pieces of recent literature are more suitable for young people's
reading than the old and conventionally approved classics. This is not
to say that the really readable classics should be discarded, since they
have their own place and their own value. Yet it is everywhere admitted
that modern literature should be given its opportunity to appeal to high
school students, and that at some stage in their course it should
receive its due share of recognition. The mere fact that modern writers
are, in point of material and style, less remote than the classic
authors from the immediate interests of the students is sufficient to
recommend them. Then, too, since young people are, in the nature of
things, constantly brought into contact with some form of modern
literature, they need to be provided with a standard of criticism and
choice.

The present volume is an attempt to assemble, in a convenient manner, a
number of selections from recent literature, such as high school
students of average taste and ability may understand and enjoy. These
selections are not all equally difficult. Some need to be read rapidly
for their intrinsic interest; others deserve more analysis of form and
content; still others demand careful intensive study. This diversity of
method is almost a necessity in a full year's course in reading, in
which rigidity and monotony ought above all things to be avoided.

Although convinced that the larger part of the reading work in the high
school years should be devoted to the study of prose, the editor has
here included what she believes to be a just proportion of poetry. The
poems have been chosen with a view to the fact that they are varied in
form and sentiment; and that they exhibit in no small degree the
tendencies of modern poetic thought, with its love of nature and its
humanitarian impulses.

An attempt has been made to present examples of the most usual and
readable forms of prose composition--narration, the account of travel,
the personal essay, and serious exposition. The authors of these
selections possess without exception that distinction of style which
entitles them to a high rank in literature and makes them inspiring
models for the unskilled writer.

A word may be said as to the intention of the study helps and lists of
readings. The object of this equipment is to conserve the energies of
the teacher and direct the activities of the student. It is by no means
expected that any one class will be able to make use of all the material
provided; yet it is hoped that a considerable amount may prove
available to every group that has access to the text.

The study questions serve to concentrate the reading of the students, in
order to prevent that aimless wandering of eye and mind, which with many
pupils passes for study. Doubtless something would in most instances be
gained if these questions were supplemented by specific directions from
the teacher.

Lists of theme subjects accompany the selections, so that the work in
composition may be to a large extent correlated with that in
literature.[1] The plan of utilizing the newly stimulated interests of
the pupils for training in composition is not a new one; its value has
been proved. _Modern Prose and Poetry_ aims to make the most of such
correlation, at the same time drawing upon the personal experience of
the students, to the elimination of all that is perfunctory and formal.
Typical outlines (suggestions for theme writing) are provided; these,
however, cannot serve in all cases, and the teacher must help the pupils
in planning their themes, or give them such training as will enable them
to make outlines for themselves.

It will be noted that some suggestions are presented for the
dramatization of simple passages of narration, and for original
composition of dramatic fragments. In an age when the trend of popular
interest is unquestionably toward the drama, such suggestions need no
defense. The study of dramatic composition may be granted as much or as
little attention as the teacher thinks wise. In any event, it will
afford an opportunity for a discussion of the drama and will serve, in
an elementary way, to train the pupil's judgment as to the difference
between good and bad plays. Especially can this end be accomplished if
some of the plays mentioned in the lists be read by the class or by
individual students.

A few simple exercises in the writing of poetry have been inserted, in
order to give the pupils encouragement and assistance in trying their
skill in verse. It is not intended that this work shall be done for the
excellence of its results, but rather for the development of the pupil's
ingenuity and the increasing of his respect for the poet and the poetic
art.

The collateral readings are appended for the use of those teachers who
wish to carry on a course of outside reading in connection with the
regular work of the class. These lists have been made somewhat extensive
and varied, in order that they may fit the tastes and opportunities of
many teachers and pupils. In some cases, the collateral work may be
presented by the teacher, to elaborate a subject in which the class has
become interested; or individual pupils may prepare themselves and speak
to the class about what they have read; or all the pupils may read for
pleasure alone, merely reporting the extent of their reading, for the
teacher's approval. The outside reading should, it is needless to say,
be treated as a privilege and not as a mechanical task. The
possibilities of this work will be increased if the teacher familiarizes
herself with the material in the collateral lists, so that she can adapt
the home readings to the tastes of the class and of specific pupils. The
miscellaneous lists given at the close of the book are intended to
supplement the lists accompanying the selections, and to offer some
assistance in the choice of books for a high school library.

M.A.

NEW YORK, February, 1914.

CONTENTS

A DAY AT LAGUERRE'S _F. Hopkinson Smith_

QUITE SO _Thomas Bailey Aldrich_
(In _Marjorie Daw, and Other Stories_)

PAN IN WALL STREET _Edmund Clarence Stedman_

THE HAND OF LINCOLN _Edmund Clarence Stedman_

JEAN VALJEAN _Augusta Stevenson_
(In _A Dramatic Reader_, Book Five)

A COMBAT ON THE SANDS _Mary Johnston_
(From _To Have and to Hold_, Chapters XXI and XXII)

THE GRASSHOPPER _Edith M. Thomas_

MOLY _Edith M. Thomas_

THE PROMISED LAND _Mary Antin_
(From Chapter IX of _The Promised Land_)

WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME _Walt Whitman_

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER _Walt Whitman_

VIGIL STRANGE I KEPT ON THE FIELD ONE NIGHT _Walt Whitman_

ODYSSEUS IN PHAEACIA _Translated by George Herbert Palmer_

ODYSSEUS _George Cabot Lodge_

A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE _William Dean Howells_
(In _Suburban Sketches_)

THE WILD RIDE _Louise Imogen Guiney_

CHRISTMAS IN THE WOODS _Dallas Lore Sharp_
(In _The Lay of the Land_)

GLOUCESTER MOORS _William Vaughn Moody_

ROAD-HYMN FOR THE START _William Vaughn Moody_

ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILLIPINES _William Vaughn Moody_

THE COON DOG _Sarah Orne Jewett_
(In _The Queen's Twin, and Other Stories_)

ON THE LIFE-MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN _Richard Watson Gilder_

A FIRE AMONG THE GIANTS _John Muir_
(From _Our National Parks_)

WAITING _John Burroughs_

THE PONT DU GARD _Henry James_
(Chapter XXVI of _A Little Tour in France_)

THE YOUNGEST SON OF HIS FATHER'S HOUSE _Anna Hempstead Branch_

TENNESSEE'S PARTNER _Bret Harte_

THE COURSE OF AMERICAN HISTORY _Woodrow Wilson_
(In _Mere Literature_)

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING _Charles Dudley Warner_
(From _My Summer in a Garden_)

THE SINGING MAN _Josephine Preston Peabody_

THE DANCE OF THE BON-ODORI _Lafcadio Hearn_
(From _Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan_, Volume I, Chapter VI)

LETTERS:

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TO WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
(From _The Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_ by Ferris Greenslet)

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TO E.S. MORSE
(By permission of Professor Morse)

WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY TO JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY
(From _Some Letters of William Vaughn Moody_)

BRET HARTE TO HIS WIFE
(From _The Life of Bret Harte_ by Henry C. Merwin)

LAFCADIO HEARN TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN
(From _Japanese Letters of Lafcadio Hearn_)

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON TO WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
(From _Letters of Charles Eliot Norton_)

EXERCISES IN DRAMATIC COMPOSITION

MODERN BOOKS FOR HOME READING

MODERN PROSE AND POETRY FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

A DAY AT LAGUERRE'S

F. HOPKINSON SMITH

It is the most delightful of French inns, in the quaintest of French
settlements. As you rush by in one of the innumerable trains that pass
it daily, you may catch glimpses of tall trees trailing their branches
in the still stream,--hardly a dozen yards wide,--of flocks of white
ducks paddling together, and of queer punts drawn up on the shelving
shore or tied to soggy, patched-up landing-stairs.

If the sun shines, you can see, now and then, between the trees, a
figure kneeling at the water's edge, bending over a pile of clothes,
washing,--her head bound with a red handkerchief.

If you are quick, the miniature river will open just before you round
the curve, disclosing in the distance groups of willows, and a rickety
foot-bridge perched up on poles to keep it dry. All this you see in a
flash.

But you must stop at the old-fashioned station, within ten minutes of
the Harlem River, cross the road, skirt an old garden bound with a fence
and bursting with flowers, and so pass on through a bare field to the
water's edge, before you catch sight of the cosy little houses lining
the banks, with garden fences cutting into the water, the arbors
covered with tangled vines, and the boats crossing back and forth.

I have a love for the out-of-the-way places of the earth when they
bristle all over with the quaint and the old and the odd, and are mouldy
with the picturesque. But here is an in-the-way place, all sunshine and
shimmer, with never a fringe of mould upon it, and yet you lose your
heart at a glance. It is as charming in its boat life as an old Holland
canal; it is as delightful in its shore life as the Seine; and it is as
picturesque and entrancing in its sylvan beauty as the most exquisite of
English streams.

The thousands of workaday souls who pass this spot daily in their whirl
out and in the great city may catch all these glimpses of shade and
sunlight over the edges of their journals, and any one of them living
near the city's centre, with a stout pair of legs in his knickerbockers
and the breath of the morning in his heart, can reach it afoot any day
before breakfast; and yet not one in a hundred knows that this ideal
nook exists.

Even this small percentage would be apt to tell of the delights of
Devonshire and of the charm of the upper Thames, with its tall rushes
and low-thatched houses and quaint bridges, as if the picturesque ended
there; forgetting that right here at home there wanders many a stream
with its breast all silver that the trees courtesy to as it sings
through meadows waist-high in lush grass,--as exquisite a picture as can
be found this beautiful land over.

So, this being an old tramping-ground of mine, I have left the station
with its noise and dust behind me this lovely morning in June, have
stopped long enough to twist a bunch of sweet peas through the garden
fence, and am standing on the bank waiting for some sign of life at
Madame Laguerre's. I discover that there is no boat on my side of the
stream. But that is of no moment. On the other side, within a biscuit's
toss, so narrow is it, there are two boats; and on the landing-wharf,
which is only a few planks wide, supporting a tumble-down flight of
steps leading to a vine-covered terrace above, rest the oars.

I lay my traps down on the bank and begin at the top of my voice:--

"Madame Laguerre! Madame Laguerre! Send Lucette with the boat."

For a long time there is no response. A young girl drawing water a short
distance below, hearing my cries, says she will come; and some children
above, who know me, begin paddling over. I decline them all. Experience
tells me it is better to wait for madame.

In a few minutes she pushes aside the leaves, peers through, and calls
out:--

"Ah! it is that horrible painter. Go away! I have nothing for you. You
are hungry again that you come?"

"Very, madame. Where is Lucette?"

"Lucette! Lucette! It is always Lucette. Lu-c-e-t-t-e!" This in a shrill
key. "It is the painter. Come quick."

I have known Lucette for years, even when she was a barefooted little
tangle-hair, peeping at me with her great brown eyes from beneath her
ragged straw hat. She wears high-heeled slippers now, and sometimes on
Sundays dainty silk stockings, and her hair is braided down her back,
little French Marguerite that she is, and her hat is never ragged any
more, nor her hair tangled. Her eyes, though, are still the same
velvety, half-drooping eyes, always opening and shutting and never
still.

As she springs into the boat and pulls towards me I note how round and
trim she is, and before we have landed at Madame Laguerre's feet I have
counted up Lucette's birthdays,--those that I know myself,--and find to
my surprise that she must be eighteen. We have always been the best of
friends, Lucette and I, ever since she looked over my shoulder years ago
and watched me dot in the outlines of her boat, with her dog Mustif
sitting demurely in the bow.

Madame, her mother, begins again:--

"Do you know that it is Saturday that you come again to bother? Now it
will be a _filet_, of course, with mushrooms and tomato salad; and there
are no mushrooms, and no tomatoes, and nothing. You are horrible. Then,
when I get it ready, you say you will come at three. 'Yes, madame; at
three,'--mimicking me,--'sure, very sure.' But it is four, five,
o'clock--and then everything is burned up waiting. Ah! I know you."

This goes on always, and has for years. Presently she softens, for she
is the most tender-hearted of women, and would do anything in the world
to please me.

"But, then, you will be tired, and of course you must have something. I
remember now there is a chicken. How will the chicken do? Oh, the
chicken it is lovely, _charmant_. And some pease--fresh. Monsieur picked
them himself this morning. And some Roquefort, with an olive. Ah! You
leave it to me; but at three--no later--not one minute. _Sacre! Vous
etes le diable!_"

As we walk under the arbor and by the great trees, towards the cottage,
Lucette following with the oars, I inquire after monsieur, and find that
he is in the city, and very well and very busy, and will return at
sundown. He has a shop of his own in the upper part where he makes
_passe-partouts_. Here, at his home, madame maintains a simple
restaurant for tramps like me.

These delightful people are old friends of mine, Francois Laguerre and
his wife and their only child Lucette. They have lived here for nearly a
quarter of a century. He is a straight, silver-haired old Frenchman of
sixty, who left Paris, between two suns, nearly forty years ago, with a
gendarme close at his heels, a red cockade under his coat, and an
intense hatred in his heart for that "little nobody," Napoleon III.

If you met him on the boulevard you would look for the decoration on his
lapel, remarking to yourself, "Some retired officer on half pay." If you
met him at the railway station opposite, you would say, "A French
professor returning to his school." Both of these surmises are partly
wrong, and both partly right. Monsieur Laguerre has had a history. One
can see by the deep lines in his forehead and by the firm set of his
eyes and mouth that it has been an eventful one.

His wife is a few years his junior, short and stout, and thoroughly
French down to the very toes of her felt slippers. She is devoted to
Francois and Lucette, the best of cooks, and, in spite of her scoldings,
good-nature itself. As soon as she hears me calling, there arise before
her the visions of many delightful dinners prepared for me by her own
hand and ready to the minute--all spoiled by my belated sketches. So
she begins to scold before I am out of the boat or in it, for that
matter.

Across the fence next to Laguerre's lives a _confrere_, a brother exile,
Monsieur Marmosette, who also has a shop in the city, where he carves
fine ivories. Monsieur Marmosette has only one son. He too is named
Francois, after his father's old friend. Farther down on both sides of
the narrow stream front the cottages of other friends, all Frenchmen;
and near the propped-up bridge an Italian who knew Garibaldi burrows in
a low, slanting cabin, which is covered with vines. I remember a dish of
_spaghetti_ under those vines, and a flask of Chianti from its cellar,
all cobwebs and plaited straw, that left a taste of Venice in my mouth
for days.

As there is only the great bridge above, which helps the country road
across the little stream, and the little foot-bridge below, and as there
is no path or road,--all the houses fronting the water,--the Bronx here
is really the only highway, and so everybody must needs keep a boat.
This is why the stream is crowded in the warm afternoons with all sorts
of water craft loaded with whole families, even to the babies, taking
the air, or crossing from bank to bank in their daily pursuits.

There is a quality which one never sees in Nature until she has been
rough-handled by man and has outlived the usage. It is the picturesque.
In the deep recesses of the primeval forest, along the mountain-slope,
and away up the tumbling brook, Nature may be majestic, beautiful, and
even sublime; but she is never picturesque. This quality comes only
after the axe and the saw have let the sunlight into the dense tangle
and have scattered the falling timber, or the round of the water-wheel
has divided the rush of the brook. It is so here. Some hundred years
ago, along this quiet, silvery stream were encamped the troops of the
struggling colonies, and, later, the great estates of the survivors
stretched on each side for miles. The willows that now fringe these
banks were saplings then; and they and the great butternuts were only
spared because their arching limbs shaded the cattle knee-deep along the
shelving banks.

Then came the long interval that succeeds that deadly conversion of the
once sweet farming lands, redolent with clover, into that barren
waste--suburban property. The conflict that had lasted since the days
when the pioneer's axe first rang through the stillness of the forest
was nearly over; Nature saw her chance, took courage, and began that
regeneration which is exclusively her own. The weeds ran riot; tall
grasses shot up into the sunlight, concealing the once well-trimmed
banks; and great tangles of underbrush and alders made lusty efforts to
hide the traces of man's unceasing cruelty. Lastly came this little
group of poor people from the Seine and the Marne and lent a helping
hand, bringing with them something of their old life at home,--their
boats, rude landings, patched-up water-stairs, fences, arbors, and
vine-covered cottages,--unconsciously completing the picture and adding
the one thing needful--a human touch. So Nature, having outlived the
wrongs of a hundred years, has here with busy fingers so woven a web of
weed, moss, trailing vine, and low-branching tree that there is seen a
newer and more entrancing quality in her beauty, which, for want of a
better term, we call the picturesque.

But madame is calling that the big boat must be bailed out; that if I
am ever coming back to dinner it is absolutely necessary that I should
go away. This boat is not of extraordinary size. It is called the big
boat from the fact that it has one more seat than the one in which
Lucette rowed me over; and not being much in use except on Sunday, is
generally half full of water. Lucette insists on doing the bailing. She
has very often performed this service, and I have always considered it
as included in the curious scrawl of a bill which madame gravely
presents at the end of each of my days here, beginning in small printed
type with "Francois Laguerre, Restaurant Francais," and ending with
"Coffee 10 cents."

But this time I resist, remarking that she will hurt her hands and soil
her shoes, and that it is all right as it is.

To this Francois the younger, who is leaning over the fence, agrees,
telling Lucette to wait until he gets a pail.

Lucette catches his eye, colors a little, and says she will fetch it.

There is a break in the palings through which they both disappear, but I
am half-way out on the stream, with my traps and umbrella on the seat in
front and my coat and waistcoat tucked under the bow, before they
return.

For half a mile down-stream there is barely a current. Then comes a
break of a dozen yards just below the perched-up bridge, and the stream
divides, one part rushing like a mill-race, and the other spreading
itself softly around the roots of leaning willows, oozing through beds
of water-plants, and creeping under masses of wild grapes and
underbrush. Below this is a broad pasture fringed with another and
larger growth of willows. Here the weeds are breast-high, and in early
autumn they burst into purple asters, and white immortelles, and
goldenrod, and flaming sumac.

If a painter had a lifetime to spare, and loved this sort of
material,--the willows, hillsides, and winding stream,--he would grow
old and weary before he could paint it all; and yet no two of his
compositions need be alike. I have tied my boat under these same willows
for ten years back, and I have not yet exhausted one corner of this
neglected pasture.

There may be those who go a-fishing and enjoy it. The arranging and
selecting of flies, the joining of rods, the prospective comfort in high
water-boots, the creel with the leather strap,--every crease in it a
reminder of some day without care or fret,--all this may bring the flush
to the cheek and the eager kindling of the eye, and a certain sort of
rest and happiness may come with it; but--they have never gone
a-sketching! Hauled up on the wet bank in the long grass is your boat,
with the frayed end of the painter tied around some willow that offers a
helping root. Within a stone's throw, under a great branching of gnarled
trees, is a nook where the curious sun, peeping at you through the
interlaced leaves, will stencil Japanese shadows on your white umbrella.
Then the trap is unstrapped, the stool opened, the easel put up, and you
set your palette. The critical eye with which you look over your
brush-case and the care with which you try each feather point upon your
thumb-nail are but an index of your enjoyment.

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