which was mixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat, and would have run into glass if I had gone on. 8. So I slacked my fire gradually, till the pots began to abate of the red color; and watching them all night, that I might not let the fire abate too fast, in the morning I had three very good-I will not say handsome—pipkins, and two other earthen pots, as hard burnt as could be desired; and one of them perfectly glazed with the running of the sand. 9. After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort of earthenware for my use; but as to the shapes of them, they were very indifferent (as any one may suppose), as I had no way of making them but as the children make dirt-pies, or as a woman would make pies who had never learned to raise paste. 10. No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when I found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire; and I had hardly patience to stay till they were cold, before I set one on the fire again with some water in it, to boil me some meat, which it did admirably well; and with a piece of a kid I made some very good broth, though I wanted oatmeal and several other ingredients requisite to make it as good as I would have had it. Daniel De Foe. FOR PREPARATION.-I. After Crusoe had escaped from the sea (Lesson XIX.), he tried to make himself comfortable. He made a house out of a cave; planted some seeds that he recovered from the wreck; tamed some goats, etc. This extract tells us how he learned to make crockery from clay. II. Něç'-es-sa-ry, pre-pâr'-ing, awk'-ward, weight (wat), lâ-bored, liq'-uid, piêçe, kiln (kil). III. In the following, which word is the name of the object, and which one the description of it?--some means, earthen vessels, any clay, awkward ways, ugly things, little room. Notice the old-fashioned expressions and uses of words: " come at them" and "I was upon" (1); "answer my end" (purpose) (5); "wanted" for needed (10). (All sentences containing unusual modes of expression should be paraphrased by the pupil in his own words.) IV. Considering, climate, botch, required, temper, bruised, design, tile, notion, glazing, pipkins, cmbers, fuel, violence, slacked, gradually, abate, experiment, indifferent, patience, admirably, ingredients, requisite. V. Write in your own words the sixth, seventh, and eighth paragraphs. and try to tell the particulars in fewer words. XXVI.-A PSALM OF LIFE. 1. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 2. Life is real! life is earnest ! And the grave is not its goal; 3. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 4. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, 5. In the world's broad field of battle, Be not like dumb, driven cattle- 6. Trust no future, howe'er pleasant; Heart within, and God o'erhead! 7. Lives of great men all remind us 8. Footprints that perhaps another, 9. Let us, then, be up and doing, Henry W. Longfellow. FOR PREPARATION.-I. "Dust thou art " (Eccl. iii. 20: "All go to one place; all are of dust, and all turn to dust again"). II. Biv'-ouǎe (biv'wăk), důmb (dům), eăt'-tle, a-chiev'-ing. III. What words are used to acscribe “numbers," "dream," "life,” "marches," "field," "cattle," "brother "? V. Slumbers, goal, returnest, destined, flecting, muffled, stout, funeral, hero, strife, present, remind, sublime, departing, "sands of time," "solemn main," forlorn, pursuing. V. "Mournful numbers" (poetry is divided into feet, of which there are a certain number in each line; hence poetry is sometimes called " numbers"). The thought of the first stanza is: Do not say, Life is a dream, for a dream occurs in sleep, and the sleep of the soul is death, in which there are no dreams. Then, again, in a dream things only seem—they do not exist. But such things are not; hence life, which is a real thing, is not a dream. "The grave is not its goal" (i. e., the soul does not find its end in the grave-does not return to dust). "Like muffled drums are beating," etc. ("Brave hearts" would seem to refer to the soul, but "beating" must refer to the heart in the body; otherwise the soul would be here described as marching to the grave. It is the idea of the muffled drum that suggests "brave and stout" as a soldierly contrast.) In the battle and in the bivouac (in action and in rest). "Sands of time" (as, on the sands of the sea-shore, whatever marks are made are soon effaced by the waves, so time soon effaces the memory of events, especially if they are of little account. But the lives of great men show us that we may, by heroic action, leave footprints which will remain to be seen by others, and so encourage them). XXVII. AN ELEPHANT-HUNT. 1. On the 2d of September, 1832, intelligence was brought to the collector of Tinnevelly that some wild elephants had appeared in the neighborhood. A hunting party was immediately formed, and a large number of native hunters were engaged. We left the tents, on horseback, at half-past seven o'clock in the morning, and rode three miles to an open spot, flanked on one side by rice-fields, and on the other by a jungle. 2. After waiting some time, Captain B and my self walked across the rice-fields to the shade of a tree. There we heard the trumpet of an elephant; we rushed across the rice-fields up to our knees in mud, but all in vain, though we came upon the track of one of the animals, and then ran five or six hundred yards into the jungle. 3. After various false alarms, and vain endeavors to discover the objects of our chase, the collector went into the jungle, and Captain B― and myself into the bed of the stream, where we had seen the tracks; and here it was evident the elephants had passed to and fro. Disappointed and impatient, we almost determined to give : up the chase and go home; but shots fired just before us reanimated us, and we proceeded, and found that the collector had just fired twice. 4. Off we went through forest, over ravine, and through streams, till at last, at the top of the ravine, the elephants were seen. This was a moment of excitement! We were all scattered. The collector had taken the middle path; Captain B- some huntsmen, and myself took the left; and other hunters scrambled down that to the right. At this moment I did not see anything but what I took to be a native hut roofed with leaves; but, after advancing a few yards, the huge head of an elephant shaking above the jungle, within ten yards of us, burst suddenly upon my view. 5. Captain B and a hunter were just before me; we all fired at the same moment, and in so direct a line that the percussion-cap of my gun hit the hunter, whom I thought at first I had shot. This accident, though it proved slight, troubled me a little. The great excitement occasioned by seeing, for the first time, a wild beast at liberty and in a state of nature, produced a sensation of hope and fear that was intense. 6. The startling appearance of such a huge creature, and our being scattered and separated, created for an instant a slight dismay, which may be better understood than described. The beast gave one of his horrid trumps, and charged somebody whom I could not see; but I followed him, and the next instant beheld the collector running, without hat or gun, and the elephant after him. I fired instantly, intending to hit a vital part, which is under the ear; the shot struck, but, unfortunately, without taking proper effect. |