a father's love and care; and in his heart the eager rejoicing power to meet all demands. Before him, desolation and darkness, and his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant profound and universal sympathy. Though masterful in his mortal weakness, enshrined in the prayers of a world, all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard the voice of God. With supple resignation he bowed to the Divine decree. As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from his prison walls, from his oppressive stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face, tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders; on its fair sails whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a further shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning. NOTES 1. Read a good account of the assassination of President Garfield and if possible of his heroic struggle against death. 2. What is a peroration? 3. Early longing for the sea. From any good account of Garfield's life, learn of that early longing and ofhow it affected his life. 4. Define as used in this lesson: premonition, foreboding, wantonness, quail, languor, enshrined, demoniac, supple, manifold, rapt, torture, anguished eyes, unfaltering front, eternal morning. SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES 1. What contrast in the first paragraph makes this selection so powerful? 2. Trace the steps by which the author shows that the President was great in death. 3. Which of the things Garfield did would in your opinion be hardest to do? 4. Explain, "He trod the wine press alone," and tell where Blaine got the expression. 5. What agonizing thoughts came to the dying President? 6. Find out about Mr. Garfield's “early longing for the sea," and tell how it affected his life. 7. What does the orator mean by, "the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer," etc.? 8. What was, "the stately mansion of power"? 9. Why was it homeless and hopeless? 10. Why did the suffering President look "wistfully" upon the ocean? 11. Why does Mr. Blaine first mention the sails, then the waves, then the clouds on the horizon, and finally the pathway of the stars? 12. What do you understand by "the silence of the receding world"? 13. By "the breath of the eternal morning"? REFERENCES WHITMAN: O Captain! My Captain! POE: Annabel Lee. O'HARA: Bivouac of the Dead. DICKENS: Death of Little Nell. Death of Paul Dombey. THACKERAY: Death of Colonel Newcome. WORDSWORTH: Character of the Happy Warrior. TENNYSON: Enoch Arden. BEECHER: The Death of Lincoln. CLEVELAND: Lessons From the Life of McKinley. REED: In Memory of Stephen Girard. WATTERSON: A Southern Tribute to Grant. HIGGINSON: Eulogy on Grant. PHILLIPS: Toussaint L'Ouverture. WEBSTER: Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson. LINCOLN: Gettysburg Address. ANDREWS: The Perfect Tribute. EDUCATION Education is, indeed, of all differences not divinely appointed an instant effacer and reconciler. Whatever is undivinely poor it will make rich; whatever is undivinely maimed, and halt, and blind it will make whole, and equal, and seeing. The blind and the lame are to it as to David at the siege of the Tower of Kings, "hated of David's soul." But there are other divinely appointed differences, eternal as the ranks of the everlasting hills and as the strength of their ceaseless waters. And these education does not do away with, but measures, manifests, and employs. In the handful of shingle which you gather from the seabeach, which the indiscriminate sea, with equality of fraternal foam, has only educated to be, every one, round, you will see little difference between the noble and mean stones, but the jeweler's trenchant education of them will tell you another story. Even the meanest will be better for it, but the noblest so much better that you can class the two together no more. John Ruskin. SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE SIDNEY LANIER MANY things have conspired to obscure the natural beauties of the Southland. For a long time little was written of the inspiring scenery of this section of our country, which is so richly endowed by nature. It was fortunate indeed for the South that a poet was given it who should come to be deemed a worthy successor to Edgar Allan Poe. Lanier's intense love for beauty in any of its forms made him capable of selecting those things that minister to higher thoughts and loftier ambitions. He embodied these into poems of striking purity of phrase and diction. The rivers of the South usually flow from a V-shaped gap and in their upper course are swift and turbulent, while in their lower course they spread over a valley and become deep, placid, and well adapted to navigation. SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE* I hurry amain to reach the plain, * From "Poems of Sidney Lanier"; copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D. Lanier; published by Charles Scribner's Sons. All down the hills of Habersham, All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried, Abide, abide, The wilful water-weeds held me thrall, The ferns and the fondling grass said, Stay, High o'er the hills of Habersham, Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, O'erleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, These glades in the valleys of Hall. And oft in the hills of Habersham, The white quartz shone and the smooth brook stone And many a luminous jewel lone Crystal clear or acloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, and amethyst Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the beds of the valleys of Hall. But oh, not the hills of Habersham, Avail: I am fain for to water the plain. Downward the voices to Duty call— Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, |