Various - Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools
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Various >> Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools
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NOTES
=Jamestown=:--A town in Virginia, the site of the first English
settlement in America (1607).
=Appomattox=:--In 1865 Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.
=epic=:--A long narrative poem recounting in a stirring way some great
series of events.
=Governor Spotswood=:--Governor of Virginia in the early part of the
eighteenth century.
=Knights of the Golden Horseshoe=:--In 1716 an exploring expedition
under Governor Spotswood made a journey across the Blue Ridge. The
Governor gave each member of the party a gold horseshoe, as a souvenir.
=Celts=:--One of the early Aryan races of southwestern Europe; the Welsh
and the Highland Scotch are descended from the Celts.
=Slavs=:--The race of people inhabiting Russia, Poland, Bohemia, and
Servia.
=Latin races=:--The French, Spanish, and Italian people, whose languages
are derived chiefly from the Latin.
=Orient=:--The far East--India, China, Japan, etc.
=Norman=:--The Norman-French from northern France had been in possession
of England for the greater part of a century (1066-1154) when Henry, son
of a Saxon princess and a French duke (Geoffrey of Anjou) came to
England as Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet line of English kings.
=Stratford=:--A small town on the Avon River in England; the birthplace
of Shakespeare.
=dight=:--Clothed. (What does an unabridged dictionary say about this
word? Is it commonly used nowadays? Was it used in Shakespeare's time?
Why does the author use it here?)
=see it steady and see it whole=:--A quotation from the works of Matthew
Arnold, an English poet and critic.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
What has been the disadvantage of having our history written by New
England men? Do you know what particular New England men have written of
American history? What state is President Wilson from? What is meant by
the "Suppression of the South"? Why does the author put in the phrase
"we have learned"? Does he believe what he is saying? Show where he
makes his own view clear. What "story" is it that one "almost wishes"
were true? _Went out from the North_: Where? How are the Northerners and
the Southerners changed after they have gone West? What "new temper" do
they have? How do they show their "impatience of restraint"? What
eastern mountains are meant here? How did our nation gain new life when
the pioneers looked westward from the eastern ridges? Why are we spoken
of as a "great compounded nation"? What are our "mighty works of peace"?
The author now shows how the Middle Seaboard States were a type of the
later form of the nation, because they had a mixed population. What does
he think about the influence of the Puritan and the Southerner? Note the
questions that he asks regarding the course of American history. See how
he answers them in the pages that follow. Why does he say that the first
frontiersmen were "timid"? When, according to the author, did the "great
determining movement" of our history begin? Why does he call the picture
that he draws a "singular" one? What is meant by "civilization frayed at
the edges"? How do the primitive conditions of our nation differ from
the earliest beginnings of the European nations? (See the long passage
beginning "How different.") What is meant by "Europe frontiered"? Look
carefully on page 261, to see what the author says is "the central and
determining fact of our national history." What is the "great word" of
our history? Has the author answered the questions he set for himself on
page 256? What is happening to us as a nation now that we have lost our
frontier? What is the relation between the East and the West? Perhaps
you will like to go on and read some more of this essay, from which we
have here only a selection. Do you like what the author has said? What
do you think of the way in which he has said it?
THEME SUBJECTS
Life in the Wilderness
The Log Cabin
La Salle
My Friend from the West
My Friend from the East
Crossing the Mountains
Early Days in our State
An Encounter with the Indians
The Coming of the Railroad
Daniel Boone
A Home on the Prairies
Cutting down the Forest
The Homesteader
A Frontier Town
Life on a Western Ranch
The Old Settler
Some Stories of the Early Days
Moving West
Lewis and Clark
The Pioneer
The Old Settlers' Picnic
"Home-coming Day" in our Town
An Explorer
My Trip through the West (or the East)
The President
SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING
=La Salle=:--Look up, in Parkman's _La Salle_ or elsewhere, the facts of
La Salle's life. Make very brief mention of his life in France. Contrast
it with his experiences in America. What were his reasons for becoming
an explorer? Give an account of one of his expeditions: his plans; his
preparations; his companions; his hardships; his struggles to establish
a fort; his return to Canada for help; his failure or success. Perhaps
you will want to write of his last expedition, and its unfortunate
ending. Speak of his character as a man and an explorer. Show briefly
the results of his endeavors.
=Daniel Boone=:--Look up the adventures of Daniel Boone, and tell some
of them in a lively way. Perhaps you can imagine his telling them in his
own words to a settler or a companion. In that case, try to put in the
questions and the comments of the other person. This will make a kind of
dramatic conversation.
=Early Days in our State=:--With a few changes, you can use the outline
given on page 249 for "Early Days in our County."
=An Encounter with the Indians=:--Tell a story that you have heard or
imagined, about some one's escape from the Indians. How did the hero
happen to get into such a perilous situation? Briefly describe his
surroundings. Tell of his first knowledge that the Indians were about to
attack him. What did he do? How did he feel? Describe the Indians. Tell
what efforts the hero made to get away or to protect himself. Make the
account of his action brief and lively. Try to keep him before the
reader all the time. Now and then explain what was going on in his mind.
This is often a good way to secure suspense. Tell very clearly how the
hero succeeded in escaping, and what his difficulties were in getting
away from the spot. Condense the account of what took place after his
actual escape. Where did he take refuge? Was he much the worse for his
adventure?
COLLATERAL READINGS
The Course of American History
(in _Mere Literature_) Woodrow Wilson
The Life of George Washington " "
The Winning of the West Theodore Roosevelt
Stories of the Great West " "
Hero Tales from American History Roosevelt and Lodge
The Great Salt Lake Trail Inman and Cody
The Old Santa Fe Trail H. Inman
Rocky Mountain Exploration Reuben G. Thwaites
Daniel Boone " " "
How George Rogers Clark Won the Northwest " " "
Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road H.A. Bruce
The Crossing Winston Churchill
The Conquest of Arid America W.E. Smythe
The Last American Frontier F.L. Paxon
Northwestern Fights and Fighters Cyrus Townsend Brady
Western Frontier Stories The Century Company
The Story of Tonty Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Heroes of the Middle West " " "
Pony Tracks Frederic Remington
The Different West A.E. Bostwick
The Expedition of Lewis and Clark J.K. Hosmer
The Trail of Lewis and Clark O.D. Wheeler
The Discovery of the Old Northwest James Baldwin
Boots and Saddles Elizabeth Custer
La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West Francis Parkman
The Oregon Trail " "
Samuel Houston Henry Bruce
The Story of the Railroad Cy Warman
The Pioneers Walt Whitman
The Story of the Cowboy Emerson Hough
Woodrow Wilson W.B. Hale
Recollections of Thirteen Presidents John S. Wise
Presidential Problems Grover Cleveland
The Story of the White House Esther Singleton
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
(From _My Summer in a Garden_)
NINTH WEEK
I am more and more impressed with the moral qualities of vegetables, and
contemplate forming a science which shall rank with comparative anatomy
and comparative philology,--the science of comparative vegetable
morality. We live in an age of protoplasm. And, if life-matter is
essentially the same in all forms of life, I purpose to begin early, and
ascertain the nature of the plants for which I am responsible. I will
not associate with any vegetable which is disreputable, or has not some
quality that can contribute to my moral growth. I do not care to be seen
much with the squashes or the dead-beets....
This matter of vegetable rank has not been at all studied as it should
be. Why do we respect some vegetables, and despise others, when all of
them come to an equal honor or ignominy on the table? The bean is a
graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans into
poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. There is no dignity in the
bean. Corn, which in my garden grows alongside the bean, and, so far as
I can see, with no affectation of superiority, is, however, the child of
song. It waves in all literature. But mix it with beans, and its high
tone is gone. Succotash is vulgar. It is the bean in it. The bean is a
vulgar vegetable, without culture, or any flavor of high society among
vegetables. Then there is the cool cucumber, like so many people,--good
for nothing when it is ripe and the wildness has gone out of it. How
inferior in quality it is to the melon, which grows upon a similar vine,
is of a like watery consistency, but is not half so valuable! The
cucumber is a sort of low comedian in a company where the melon is a
minor gentleman. I might also contrast the celery with the potato. The
associations are as opposite as the dining-room of the duchess and the
cabin of the peasant. I admire the potato, both in vine and blossom; but
it is not aristocratic. I began digging my potatoes, by the way, about
the 4th of July; and I fancy I have discovered the right way to do it. I
treat the potato just as I would a cow. I do not pull them up, and shake
them out, and destroy them; but I dig carefully at the side of the hill,
remove the fruit which is grown, leaving the vine undisturbed: and my
theory is that it will go on bearing, and submitting to my exactions,
until the frost cuts it down. It is a game that one would not undertake
with a vegetable of tone.
The lettuce is to me a most interesting study. Lettuce is like
conversation: it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely
notice the bitter in it. Lettuce, like most talkers, is, however, apt to
run rapidly to seed. Blessed is that sort which comes to a head, and so
remains, like a few people I know; growing more solid and satisfactory
and tender at the same time, and whiter at the centre, and crisp in
their maturity. Lettuce, like conversation, requires a good deal of oil,
to avoid friction, and keep the company smooth; a pinch of attic salt; a
dash of pepper; a quantity of mustard and vinegar, by all means, but so
mixed that you will notice no sharp contrasts; and a trifle of sugar.
You can put anything, and the more things the better, into salad, as
into a conversation; but everything depends upon the skill of mixing. I
feel that I am in the best society when I am with lettuce. It is in the
select circle of vegetables. The tomato appears well on the table; but
you do not want to ask its origin. It is a most agreeable _parvenu_. Of
course, I have said nothing about the berries. They live in another and
more ideal region: except, perhaps, the currant. Here we see that, even
among berries, there are degrees of breeding. The currant is well
enough, clear as truth, and exquisite in color; but I ask you to notice
how far it is from the exclusive _hauteur_ of the aristocratic
strawberry, and the native refinement of the quietly elegant raspberry.
I do not know that chemistry, searching for protoplasm, is able to
discover the tendency of vegetables. It can only be found out by outward
observation. I confess that I am suspicious of the bean, for instance.
There are signs in it of an unregulated life. I put up the most
attractive sort of poles for my Limas. They stand high and straight,
like church-spires, in my theological garden,--lifted up; and some of
them have even budded, like Aaron's rod. No church-steeple in a New
England village was ever better fitted to draw to it the rising
generation on Sunday than those poles to lift up my beans towards
heaven. Some of them did run up the sticks seven feet, and then
straggled off into the air in a wanton manner; but more than half of
them went galivanting off to the neighboring grape-trellis, and wound
their tendrils with the tendrils of the grape, with a disregard of the
proprieties of life which is a satire upon human nature. And the grape
is morally no better. I think the ancients, who were not troubled with
the recondite mystery of protoplasm, were right in the mythic union of
Bacchus and Venus.
Talk about the Darwinian theory of development and the principle of
natural selection! I should like to see a garden let to run in
accordance with it. If I had left my vegetables and weeds to a free
fight, in which the strongest specimens only should come to maturity,
and the weaker go to the wall, I can clearly see that I should have had
a pretty mess of it. It would have been a scene of passion and license
and brutality. The "pusley" would have strangled the strawberry; the
upright corn, which has now ears to hear the guilty beating of the
hearts of the children who steal the raspberries, would have been
dragged to the earth by the wandering bean; the snake-grass would have
left the place for the potatoes under ground; and the tomatoes would
have been swamped by the lusty weeds. With a firm hand, I have had to
make my own "natural selection." Nothing will so well bear watching as a
garden except a family of children next door. Their power of selection
beats mine. If they could read half as well as they can steal a while
away, I should put up a notice, "_Children, beware! There is Protoplasm
here._" But I suppose it would have no effect. I believe they would eat
protoplasm as quick as anything else, ripe or green. I wonder if this is
going to be a cholera-year. Considerable cholera is the only thing that
would let my apples and pears ripen. Of course I do not care for the
fruit; but I do not want to take the responsibility of letting so much
"life-matter," full of crude and even wicked vegetable-human tendencies,
pass into the composition of the neighbors' children, some of whom may
be as immortal as snake-grass.
There ought to be a public meeting about this, and resolutions, and
perhaps a clambake. At least, it ought to be put into the catechism, and
put in strong.
TENTH WEEK
I THINK I have discovered the way to keep peas from the birds.
I tried the scarecrow plan, in a way which I thought would outwit the
shrewdest bird. The brain of the bird is not large; but it is all
concentrated on one object, and that is the attempt to elude the devices
of modern civilization which injure his chances of food. I knew that, if
I put up a complete stuffed man, the bird would detect the imitation at
once; the perfection of the thing would show him that it was a trick.
People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception. I therefore
hung some loose garments, of a bright color, upon a rake-head, and set
them up among the vines. The supposition was, that the bird would think
there was an effort to trap him, that there was a man behind, holding up
these garments, and would sing, as he kept at a distance, "You can't
catch me with any such double device." The bird would know, or think he
knew, that I would not hang up such a scare, in the expectation that it
would pass for a man, and deceive a bird; and he would therefore look
for a deeper plot. I expected to outwit the bird by a duplicity that was
simplicity itself. I may have over-calculated the sagacity and reasoning
power of the bird. At any rate, I did over-calculate the amount of peas
I should gather.
But my game was only half played. In another part of the garden were
other peas, growing and blowing. To these I took good care not to
attract the attention of the bird by any scarecrow whatever! I left the
old scarecrow conspicuously flaunting above the old vines; and by this
means I hope to keep the attention of the birds confined to that side of
the garden. I am convinced that this is the true use of a scarecrow: it
is a lure, and not a warning. If you wish to save men from any
particular vice, set up a tremendous cry of warning about some other,
and they will all give their special efforts to the one to which
attention is called. This profound truth is about the only thing I have
yet realized out of my pea-vines.
However, the garden does begin to yield. I know of nothing that makes
one feel more complacent, in these July days, than to have his
vegetables from his own garden. What an effect it has on the market-man
and the butcher! It is a kind of declaration of independence. The
market-man shows me his peas and beets and tomatoes, and supposes he
shall send me out some with the meat. "No, I thank you," I say
carelessly: "I am raising my own this year." Whereas I have been wont to
remark, "Your vegetables look a little wilted this weather," I now say,
"What a fine lot of vegetables you've got!" When a man is not going to
buy, he can afford to be generous. To raise his own vegetables makes a
person feel, somehow, more liberal. I think the butcher is touched by
the influence, and cuts off a better roast for me. The butcher is my
friend when he sees that I am not wholly dependent on him.
It is at home, however, that the effect is most marked, though sometimes
in a way that I had not expected. I have never read of any Roman supper
that seemed to me equal to a dinner of my own vegetables, when
everything on the table is the product of my own labor, except the
clams, which I have not been able to raise yet, and the chickens, which
have withdrawn from the garden just when they were most attractive. It
is strange what a taste you suddenly have for things you never liked
before. The squash has always been to me a dish of contempt; but I eat
it now as if it were my best friend. I never cared for the beet or the
bean; but I fancy now that I could eat them all, tops and all, so
completely have they been transformed by the soil in which they grew. I
think the squash is less squashy, and the beet has a deeper hue of rose,
for my care of them.
I had begun to nurse a good deal of pride in presiding over a table
whereon was the fruit of my honest industry. But woman!--John Stuart
Mill is right when he says that we do not know anything about women. Six
thousand years is as one day with them. I thought I had something to do
with those vegetables.
But when I saw Polly seated at her side of the table, presiding over the
new and susceptible vegetables, flanked by the squash and the beans, and
smiling upon the green corn and the new potatoes, as cool as the
cucumbers which lay sliced in ice before her, and when she began to
dispense the fresh dishes, I saw at once that the day of my destiny was
over. You would have thought that she owned all the vegetables, and had
raised them all from their earliest years. Such quiet, vegetable airs!
Such gracious appropriation!
At length I said,--
"Polly, do you know who planted that squash, or those squashes?"
"James, I suppose."
"Well, yes, perhaps James did plant them to a certain extent. But who
hoed them?"
"We did."
"_We_ did!" I said in the most sarcastic manner. "And I suppose _we_ put
on the sackcloth and ashes, when the striped bug came at four o'clock,
A.M., and we watched the tender leaves, and watered night and
morning the feeble plants. I tell you, Polly," said I, uncorking the
Bordeaux raspberry vinegar, "there is not a pea here that does not
represent a drop of moisture wrung from my brow, not a beet that does
not stand for a backache, not a squash that has not caused me untold
anxiety, and I did hope--but I will say no more."
_Observation._--In this sort of family discussion, "I will say no more"
is the most effective thing you can close up with.
I am not an alarmist. I hope I am as cool as anybody this hot summer.
But I am quite ready to say to Polly or any other woman, "You can have
the ballot; only leave me the vegetables, or, what is more important,
the consciousness of power in vegetables." I see how it is. Woman is now
supreme in the house. She already stretches out her hand to grasp the
garden. She will gradually control everything. Woman is one of the
ablest and most cunning creatures who have ever mingled in human
affairs. I understand those women who say they don't want the ballot.
They purpose to hold the real power while we go through the mockery of
making laws. They want the power without the responsibility. (Suppose my
squash had not come up, or my beans--as they threatened at one time--had
gone the wrong way: where would I have been?) We are to be held to all
the responsibilities. Woman takes the lead in all the departments,
leaving us politics only. And what is politics? Let me raise the
vegetables of a nation, says Polly, and I care not who makes its
politics. Here I sat at the table, armed with the ballot, but really
powerless among my own vegetables. While we are being amused by the
ballot, woman is quietly taking things into her own hands.
NOTES
=comparative philology=:--The comparison of words from different
languages, for the purpose of seeing what relationships can be found.
=protoplasm=:--"The physical basis of life"; the substance which passes
life on from one vegetable or animal to another.
=attic salt=:--The delicate wit of the Athenians, who lived in the state
of Attica, in Greece.
=parvenu=:--A French word meaning an upstart who tries to force himself
into good society.
=Aaron's rod=:--See Numbers, 17:1-10.
=Bacchus and Venus=:--Bacchus was the Greek god of wine; Venus was the
Greek goddess of love.
=Darwinian theory=:--Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882) was a great English
scientist who proved that the higher forms of life have developed from
the lower.
=natural selection=:--One of Darwin's theories, to the effect that
nature weeds out the weak and unfit, leaving the others to continue the
species; the result is called "the survival of the fittest."
=steal a while away=:--A quotation from a well known hymn beginning,--
I love to steal a while away
From every cumbering care.
It was written in 1829, by Deodatus Dutton.
=Roman supper=:--The Romans were noted for the extravagance of their
evening meals, at which all sorts of delicacies were served.
=John Stuart Mill=:--An English philosopher (1806-1873). He wrote about
theories of government.
=Polly=:--The author's wife.
=the day of my destiny=:--A quotation from Lord Byron's poem, _Stanzas
to Augusta_ [his sister]. The lines run:--
Though the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults that so many could find.
=sack-cloth and ashes=:--In old Jewish times, a sign of grief or
mourning. See Esther, 4:1; Isaiah, 58:5.
=Bordeaux=:--A province in France noted for its wine.
QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
The author is writing of the ninth and tenth weeks of his work; he now
has time to stop and moralize about his garden. Do not take what he says
too seriously; look for the fun in it. Is he in earnest about the moral
qualities of vegetables? Why cannot the bean figure in poetry and
romance? Can you name any prose or verse in which corn does? Explain
what is said about the resemblance of some people to cucumbers. Why is
celery more aristocratic than potato? Is "them" the right word in the
sentence: "I do not pull them up"? Explain what is meant by the
paragraph on salads. Why is the tomato a "_parvenu_"? Does the author
wish to cast a slur on the Darwinian theory? Is it true that moral
character is influenced by what one eats? What is the catechism? What do
you think of the author's theories about scarecrows? About "saving men
from any particular vice"? Why does raising one's own vegetables make
one feel generous? How does the author pass from vegetables to woman
suffrage? Is he in earnest in what he says? What does one get out of a
selection like this?
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