The man of commerce asks to be told of its products and its trade, its skill in manufactures, the commodities it needs, and the returns it can supply.

The scholar asks to be introduced to its literature, that he may contemplate in historians, poets, and dramatists (for Japan has them all), a picture of the national mind.

The Christian desires to know the varied phases of their superstition and idolatry, and longs for the dawn of that day when a purer faith and more enlightened worship shall bring them within the circle of Christendom.

Amid such a diversity of pursuits as we have enumerated, a common interest unites all in a common sympathy; and hence the divine and the philosopher, the navigator and the naturalist, the man of business and the man of letters, have alike joined in a desire for the thorough exploration of a field at once so extensive and so inviting.

GEORGE P. MARSH. ISOI-. (Manual, p. 532.)
From "Lectures on the English Language."

160. METHOD OF LEARNING ENGLISH.

THE groundwork of English, indeed, can be, and best is, learned at the domestic fireside - a school for which there is no adequate substitute; but the knowledge there acquired is not, as in homogeneous languages, a root, out of which will spontaneously grow the flowers and the fruits which adorn and enrich the speech of man. English has been so much affected by extraneous, alien, and discordant influences, so much mixed with foreign ingredients, so much overloaded with adventitious appendages, that it is to most of those who speak it, in a considerable degree, a conventional and arbitrary symbolism. The Anglo-Saxon tongue has a craving appetite, and is as rapacious of words, and as tolerant of forms, as are its children of territory and of religions. But, in spite of its power of assimilation, there is much of the speech of England which has never become connatural to the Anglican people; and its grammar has passively suffered the introduction of many syntactical combinations, which are not merely irregular, but repugnant. I shall not here inquire whether this condition of English is an evil. There are many cases where a complex and cunningly-devised machine, dexterously guided, can do that which the congenital hand fails to accomplish; but the computing of our losses and gains, the striking of our linguistic balance, belongs elsewhere. Suffice it to say, that English is not a language which teaches itself by mere unreflecting usage. It can only be mastered, in all its wealth, in

all its power, by conscious, persistent labor; and therefore, when all the world is awaking to the value of general philological science, it would ill become us to be slow in recognizing the special importance of the study of our own tongue.

GEORGE H. CALVERT. 1803-. (Manual, pp. 503, 505.) From "First Years in Europe."

161. THE ELDER EICHHORN AT GETTINGEN.

HIS face, in its expression, but not in its mould, intellectual, was sallow and fleshy, and lighted by a dark eye full of life, which contrasted well with his thick white hair, combed up and back from his not high forehead. In spite of his fifteen studious hours, and by virtue of the extreme regularity in all things of the habits of most German professors — he had good health. One day a friend finding him unwell, and asking the cause of this rare interruption to his ordinary condition, with self-reproach he replied, "Yesterday I was fool enough to go and take a walk.”

From "The Gentleman."

162. THE GENTLEMAN DEFINED.

THE gentleman is fine in his delicacy, wounds no one's sensibilities, asks neither intrusive nor unfeeling questions, is never over-curious or interrogative, carries unselfishness into small, daily things, giving kindliness to common acts and sincerity to politeness. At

the root of gentlemanhood, in a soil of deep moral inwardness, lies a high self-respect, not the pert, spoiled child of individual self-estimation, but a growth from the consciousness of illimitable claims as an independent, infinite soul. The gentleman is a Christian product.

Ralph Waldo EMERSON. 1803-. (Manual, pp. 478, 503, 531.)

It is only as a man puts off from himself all external support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds

thee. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick or the return of your absent friend, or some other quite external event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. It can never be so. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

From "Essays," Second Series.

164. INFLUENCE OF NATURE.

THERE are days which occur in this climate, at almost any season of the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection; when the air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony, as if Nature would indulge her offspring; when, in these bleak upper sides of the planet, nothing is to desire that we have heard of the happiest latitudes, and we bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba; when everything that has life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle that lie on the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts. These halcyons may be looked for with a little more assurance in that pure October weather which we distinguish by the name of Indian summer. The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills, and warm, wide fields. To have lived through all its sunny hours seems longevity enough. The solitary places do not seem quite lonely. At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he makes into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes.

GEORGE B. CHEEVER. 1807-. (Manual, pp. 480, 490.)

From Preface to "The Poets of America."

165. SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE.

IN the true minstrelsy of devotion there is a higher excellence than that of mere genius. Poetry herself acknowledges a power which is not in her, and observes a deep and sublime emotion excited, which she cannot, unassisted, produce or maintain in the souls of her listeners. .. A devout and solemn reflection may steal, with the poetry of this volume, into the most secret recess of some careless heart, and there, through the goodness of Him who moves in a hidden and mysterious way, "his wonders to perform," and whose spirit can touch the soul with the humblest instruments, prove the first rising of that blessed well of water which springeth up to everlasting life.

From "The Wanderings of a Pilgrim."

166. MONT BLANC.

It is like those heights of ambition so much coveted in the world, and so glittering in the distance, where, if men live to reach them, they cannot live upon them. They may have all the appliances and means of life, as these French savants carried their tents to pitch upon the summit of Mont Blanc; but the peak that looked so warm and glittering in the sunshine, and of such a rosy hue in the evening rays, was too deadly cold, and swept by blasts too fierce and cutting; they were glad to relinquish the attempt, and come down. The view of the party a few hours below the snmmit, was a sight of deep interest. So was the spectacle of the immeasurable ridges and fields, gulfs and avalanches, heights and depths, unfathomable chasms and impassable precipices, of ice and snow, of such dazzling whiteness, of such endless extent, in such gigantic masses.

HENRY REED. 1808-1854. (Manual, p. 501.)

་་
From Lectures on English History."

167. LEGENDARY PERIOD OF BRITAIN.

Or this feeling there is a curious proof in a transaction in the reign of Edward I., when the sovereignty of Scotland was claimed by the English monarch. The Scots sought the interposition and protection of the pope, alleging that the Scottish realm belonged of right to the see of Rome. Boniface VIII., a pontiff not backward in asserting the claims of the papacy, did interpose to check the English conquest, and was answered by an elaborate and respectful epistle from Edward, in which the English claim is most carefully and confidently derived from the conquest of the whole country by the Trojans in the times of Eli and Samuel — assuredly a very respectable antiquity of some two thousand four hundred years. No Philadelphia estate could be more methodically traced back to the proprietary title of William Penn, than was this claim to Scotland up to Brutus, the exile from Troy. Now, all this is set forth with the most imperturbable seriousness, and with an air of complete assurance of the truth. It appears, too, to have fully answered the purpose intended; and the Scots, finding that the papal antiquity was but a poor defence against such claims, and as if determined not to be outdone by the Southron, replied in a document asserting their independence by virtue of descent from Scota, one of the daughters of Pharaoh. The pope seems to have been silenced in a conflict of

ancestral authority, in which the succession of St. Peter seemed quite a modern affair, when overshadowed by such Trojan and Egyptian antiquity.

CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND.

1808-1864. (Manual, p. 484.)

From "Western Clearings."

168. THE BEE TREE.

ONE of the greatest temptations to our friend Silas, and to most of his class, is a bee hunt. Neither deer, nor 'coons, nor prairie hens, nor even bears, prove half as powerful enemies to anything like regular business, as do these little thrifty vagrants of the forest. The slightest hint of a bee tree will entice Silas Ashburn and his sons from the most profitable job of the season, even though the defection is sure to result in entire loss of the offered advantage; and if the hunt prove successful, the luscious spoil is generally too tempting to allow of any care for the future, so long as the "sweet'nin can be persuaded to last. "It costs nothing," will poor Mrs. Ashburn observe; "let 'em enjoy it. It isn't often we have such good luck.”

169. THE LAND FEVER.

To pass a night in the woods is a small affair for a hunting party; but it is something quite different for a solitary individual, unprovided with axe or gun, and, of course, unable to make himself comfortable in any way. To sleep in a tree might do, if trees were not occasionally haunted with wildcats; or a lair in the heaped leaves of autumn, if there were not a chance of warming into activity a nest of rattlesnakes.

Mistakes in "locating" land were often very serious, even where there had been no intention to deceive, - the purchaser finding only swamp or hopeless gravel, when he had purchased fine farming land and maple timber. Every mile square is marked by blazed trees, and the corners especially, distinguished by stakes, whose place is pointed out by trees called Witness-trees; and so accurate and minute is the whole system that it seems almost incredible that so many errors should have arisen. The backwoodsman made no mistakes, for to him a stump, or a stone, or a prostrate tree, has individuality; and he will never confound it with any other. One accustomed to wandering in the woods, will know even the points of the compass in a strange place, without sun or star to guide him. Innumera

ble stories are current, in the woods, of the perplexities of city gentlemen.