Practice Book - Leland Powers
ROBERT BROWNING.
II. "THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING."
The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world!
ROBERT BROWNING.
* * * * *
THE FEZZIWIG BALL.
Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed
to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious
waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of
benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial
voice: "Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"
A living and moving picture of Scrooge's former self, a young man, came
briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-prentice.
"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night. Christmas eve,
Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up, before a man can
say Jack Robinson! Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here!"
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't
have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute.
Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life
forevermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel
was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug and warm and dry
and bright a ball-room as you would desire to see upon a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and
made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs.
Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs,
beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they
broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In
came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. In came the cook, with her
brother's particular friend, the milkman. In they all came one after
another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some
pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they
all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other
way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of
affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong
place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all
top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result
was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to Stop the dance,
cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of
porter especially provided for that purpose.
There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and
there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold
Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince
pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after
the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley."
Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too;
with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty
pair of partners, people who were not to be trifled with; people who
_would_ dance, and had no notion of walking.
But if they had been twice as many,--four times,--old Fezziwig would have
been a match for them and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to _her_, she
was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. A positive light
appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the
dance. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would become
of 'em next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through
the dance,--advance and retire, turn your partner, bow and courtesy,
corkscrew, thread the needle and back again to your place,--Fezziwig
"cut,"--cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs.
When the clock struck eleven this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs.
Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and, shaking
hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or
her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices,
they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the
lads were left to their beds, which were under a counter in the back shop.
* * * * *
THE BROOK.
I.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
II.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
III.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
IV.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
V.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.
VI.
I wind about and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.
VII.
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel
With many a silvery water-break
Above the golden gravel.
VIII.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers,
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
IX.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
X.
I murmur, under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses,
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses.
XI.
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.
* * * * *
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
A LAUGHING CHORUS.
[Used by permission, from "Nature in Verse," copyrighted, 1895, by Silver,
Burdett & Company.]
Oh, such a commotion under the ground
When March called, "Ho, there! ho!"
Such spreading of rootlets far and wide,
Such whispering to and fro.
And "Are you ready?" the Snowdrop asked;
"'Tis time to start, you know."
"Almost, my dear," the Scilla replied;
"I'll follow as soon as you go."
Then, "Ha! ha! ha!" a chorus came
Of laughter soft and low
From the millions of flowers under the ground--
Yes--millions--beginning to grow.
"I'll promise my blossoms," the Crocus said,
"When I hear the bluebirds sing."
And straight thereafter Narcissus cried,
"My silver and gold I'll bring."
"And ere they are dulled," another spoke,
"The Hyacinth bells shall ring."
And the violet only murmured, "I'm here,"
And sweet grew the breath of spring.
Then, "Ha! ha! ha!" a chorus came
Of laughter soft and low
From the millions of flowers under the ground--
Yes--millions--beginning to grow.
Oh, the pretty, brave things! through the coldest days,
Imprisoned in walls of brown,
They never lost heart though the blast shriek loud,
And the sleet and the hail came down,
But patiently each wrought her beautiful dress,
Or fashioned her beautiful crown;
And now they are coming to brighten the world,
Still shadowed by winter's frown;
And well may they cheerily laugh, "Ha! ha!"
In a chorus soft and low,
The millions of flowers hid under the ground--
Yes--millions--beginning to grow.
* * * * *
CAVALIER TUNES.
1. GIVE A ROUSE.
King Charles, and who'll do him right now?
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,
King Charles!
Who gave me the goods that went since?
Who raised me the house that sank once?
Who helped me to gold I spent since?
Who found me in wine you drank once?
_Cho_. King Charles, and who'll do him right now?
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,
King Charles!
To whom used my boy George quaff else,
By the old fool's side that begot him?
For whom did he cheer and laugh else,
While Noll's damned troopers shot him.
_Cho_. King Charles, and who'll do him right now?
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,
King Charles!
II. BOOT AND SADDLE.
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
Rescue my castle before the hot day
Brightens to blue from its silvery gray.
_Cho_. Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say;
Many's the friend there, will listen and pray
"God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay!"
_Cho_. Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundhead's array:
Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay,
_Cho_. Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"
Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay,
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!
I've better counsellors; what counsel they?
_Cho_. Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"
ROBERT BROWNING.
* * * * *
ACROSS THE FIELDS TO ANNE.
From Stratford-on-Avon a lane runs westward through the fields a mile to
the little village of Shottery, in which is the cottage of Anne Hathaway,
Shakespeare's sweetheart and wife.
How often in the summer tide,
His graver business set aside,
Has stripling Will, the thoughtful-eyed,
As to the pipe of Pan
Stepped blithsomely with lover's pride
Across the fields to Anne!
It must have been a merry mile,
This summer-stroll by hedge and stile,
With sweet foreknowledge all the while
How sure the pathway ran
To dear delights of kiss and smile,
Across the fields to Anne.
The silly sheep that graze to-day,
I wot, they let him go his way,
Nor once looked up, as who should say:
"It is a seemly man."
For many lads went wooing aye
Across the fields to Anne.
The oaks, they have a wiser look;
Mayhap they whispered to the brook:
"The world by him shall yet be shook,
It is in nature's plan;
Though now he fleets like any rook
Across the fields to Anne."
And I am sure, that on some hour
Coquetting soft 'twixt sun and shower,
He stooped and broke a daisy-flower
With heart of tiny span,
And bore it as a lover's dower
Across the fields to Anne.
While from her cottage garden-bed
She plucked a jasmine's goodlihede,
To scent his jerkin's brown instead;
Now since that love began,
What luckier swain than he who sped
Across the fields to Anne?
The winding path wheron I pace,
The hedgerows green, the summer's grace,
Are still before me face to face;
Methinks I almost can
Turn poet and join the singing race
Across the fields to Anne!
RICHARD BURTON.
* * * * *
GREEN THINGS GROWING.
The green things growing, the green things growing,
The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!
I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,
Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing.
Oh the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing!
How they talk each to each, when none of us are knowing;
In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight
Or the dim dreamy dawn when the cocks are crowing.
I love, I love them so--my green things growing!
And I think that they love me, without false showing;
For by many a tender touch, they comfort me so much,
With the soft mute comfort of green things growing.
And in the rich store of their blossoms glowing,
Ten for one I take they're on me bestowing:
Oh, I should like to see, if God's will it may be,
Many, many a summer of my green things growing!
But if I must be gathered for the angels' sowing,
Sleep out of sight a while like the green things growing,
Though dust to dust return, I think I'll scarcely mourn,
If I may change into green things growing.
DINAH MULOCK CRAIK.
* * * * *
THE TRUE USE OF WEALTH.
1. There is a saying which is in all good men's mouths; namely, that they
are stewards or ministers of whatever talents are entrusted to them. Only,
is it not a strange thing that while we more or less accept the meaning of
that saying, so long as it is considered metaphorical, we never accept its
meaning in its own terms? You know the lesson is given us under the form
of a story about money. Money was given to the servants to make use of:
the unprofitable servant dug in the earth, and hid his Lord's money. Well,
we in our poetical and spiritual application of this, say that of course
money doesn't mean money--it means wit, it means intellect, it means
influence in high quarters, it means everything in the world except
itself.
2. And do you not see what a pretty and pleasant come-off there is for
most of us in this spiritual application? Of course, if we had wit, we
would use it for the good of our fellow-creatures; but we haven't wit. Of
course, if we had influence with the bishops, we would use it for the good
of the church; but we haven't any influence with the bishops. Of course,
if we had political power, we would use it for the good of the nation; but
we have no political power; we have no talents entrusted to us of any sort
or kind. It is true, we have a little money, but the parable can't
possibly mean anything so vulgar as money; our money's our own.
3. I believe, if you think seriously of this matter, you will feel that
the first and most literal application is just as necessary a one as any
other--that the story does very specially mean what it says--plain money;
and that the reason we don't at once believe it does so, is a sort of
tacit idea that while thought, wit and intellect, and all power of birth
and position, are indeed given to us, and, therefore, to be laid out for
the Giver,--our wealth has not been given to us; but we have worked for
it, and have a right to spend it as we choose. I think you will find that
is the real substance of our understanding in this matter. Beauty, we say,
is given by God--it is a talent; strength is given by God--it is a talent;
but money is proper wages for our day's work--it is not a talent, it is a
due. We may justly spend it on ourselves, if we have worked for it.
4. And there would be some shadow of excuse for this, were it not that the
very power of making the money is itself only one of the applications of
that intellect or strength which we confess to be talents. Why is one man
richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering, and
more sagacious. Well, who made him more persevering and more sagacious
than others? That power of endurance, that quickness of apprehension, that
calmness of judgment, which enable him to seize opportunities that others
lose, and persist in the lines of conduct in which others fail--are these
not talents?--are they not, in the present state of the world, among the
most distinguished and influential of mental gifts?
5. And is it not wonderful, that while we should be utterly ashamed to use
a superiority of body in order to thrust our weaker companions aside from
some place of advantage, we unhesitatingly use our superiorities of mind
to thrust them back from whatever good that strength of mind can attain?
You would be indignant if you saw a strong man walk into a theatre or
lecture-room, and, calmly choosing the best place, take his feeble
neighbor by the shoulder, and turn him out of it into the back seats or
the street. You would be equally indignant if you saw a stout fellow
thrust himself up to a table where some hungry children are being fed, and
reach his arm over their heads and take their bread from them.
6. But you are not the least indignant, if, when a man has stoutness of
thought and swiftness of capacity, and, instead of being long-armed only,
has the much greater gift of being long-headed--you think it perfectly
just that he should use his intellect to take the bread out of the mouths
of all the other men in the town who are in the same trade with him; or
use his breadth and sweep of sight to gather some branch of the commerce
of the country into one great cobweb, of which he is himself the central
spider, making every thread vibrate with the points of his claws, and
commanding every avenue with the facets of his eyes. You see no injustice
in this.
7. But there is injustice; and, let us trust, one of which honorable men
will at no very distant period disdain to be guilty. In some degree,
however, it is indeed not unjust; in some degree it is necessary and
intended. It is assuredly just that idleness should be surpassed by
energy; that the widest influence should be possessed by those who are
best able to wield it; and that a wise man at the end of his career,
should be better off than a fool. But for that reason, is the fool to be
wretched, utterly crashed down, and left in all the suffering which his
conduct and capacity naturally inflict? Not so.
8. What do you suppose fools were made for? That you might tread upon
them, and starve them, and get the better of them in every possible way?
By no means. They were made that wise people might take care of them. That
is the true and plain fact concerning the relations of every strong and
wise man to the world about him. He has his strength given him, not that
he may crush the weak, but that he may support and guide them. In his own
household he is to be the guide and the support of his children; out of
his household he is still to be the father, that is, the guide and
support, of the weak and the poor; not merely of the meritoriously weak
and the innocently poor, but of the guilty and punishably poor; of the men
who ought to have known better--of the poor who ought to be ashamed of
themselves.
9. It is nothing to give pension and cottage to the widow who has lost her
son; it is nothing to give food and medicine to the workman who has broken
his arm, or the decrepit woman wasting in sickness. But it is something to
use your time and strength in war with the waywardness and thoughtlessness
of mankind to keep the erring workman in your service till you have made
him an unerring one; and to direct your fellow-merchant to the opportunity
which his dullness would have lost.
10. This is much; but it is yet more, when you have fully achieved the
superiority which is due to you, and acquired the wealth which is the
fitting reward of your sagacity, if you solemnly accept the responsibility
of it, as it is the helm and guide of labor far and near. For you who have
it in your hands, are in reality the pilots of the power and effort of the
State. It is entrusted to you as an authority to be used for good or evil,
just as completely as kingly authority was ever given to a prince, or
military command to a captain. And according to the quantity of it you
have in your hands, you are arbiters of the will and work of the nation;
and the whole issue, whether the work of the State shall suffice for the
State or not, depends upon you.
11. You may stretch out your sceptre over the heads of the laborers, and
say to them, as they stoop to its waving, "Subdue this obstacle that has
baffled our fathers; put away this plague that consumes our children;
water these dry places, plough these desert ones, carry this food to those
who are in hunger; carry this light to those who are in darkness; carry
this life to those who are in death;" or on the other side you may say:
"Here am I; this power is in my hand; come, build a mound here for me to
be throned upon, high and wide; come, make crowns for my head, that men
may see them shine from far away; come, weave tapestries for my feet, that
I may tread softly on the silk and purple; come, dance before me, that I
may slumber; so shall I live in joy, and die in honor." And better than
such an honorable death it were, that the day had perished wherein we were
born.
12. I trust that in a little while there will be few of our rich men, who,
through carelessness or covetousness, thus forfeit the glorious office
which is intended for their hands. I said, just now, that wealth ill-used
was as the net of the spider, entangling and destroying; but wealth
well-used, is as the net of the sacred Fisher who gathers souls of men out
of the deep. A time will come--I do not think it is far from us--when this
golden net of the world's wealth will be spread abroad as the flaming
meshes of morning cloud over the sky; bearing with them the joy of the
light and the dew of the morning, as well as the summons to honorable and
peaceful toil.
JOHN RUSKIN.
* * * * *
LIFE AND SONG.
[This poem is taken from "The Poems of Sidney Lanier," copyrighted 1891,
and published by Charles Scribner's Sons.]
If life were caught by a clarionet,
And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed,
Should thrill its joy and trill its fret,
And utter its heart in every deed,
"Then would this breathing clarionet
Type what the poet fain would be;
For none o' the singers ever yet
Has wholly lived his minstrelsy,
"Or clearly sung his true, true thought,
Or utterly bodied forth his life,
Or out of life and song has wrought
The perfect one of man and wife;
"Or lived and sung, that Life and Song
Might each express the other's all,
Careless if life or art were long
Since both were one, to stand or fall:
"So that the wonder struck the crowd,
Who shouted it about the land:
_His song was only living aloud,
His work, a singing with his hand_!"
SIDNEY LANIER.
* * * * *
ELOQUENCE.
1. When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when
great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is
valuable in speech farther than as it is connected with high intellectual
and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities
which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in
speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it,
but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every
way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject,
and in the occasion.
2. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may
aspire to it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the
outbreaking of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force.
The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied
contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and
the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the
decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain,
and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels
rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities.
3. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear
conception, outrunning deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm
resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the
eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right
onward to his object,--this, this is eloquence; or rather it is something
greater and higher than all eloquence,--it is action, noble, sublime,
god-like action.
DANIEL WEBSTER.
* * * * *
TRUTH AT LAST.
Does a man ever give up hope, I wonder,--
Face the grim fact, seeing it clear as day?
When Bennen saw the snow slip, heard its thunder
Low, louder, roaring round him, felt the speed
Growing swifter as the avalanche hurled downward,
Did he for just one heart-throb--did he indeed
Know with all certainty, as they swept onward,
There was the end, where the crag dropped away?
Or did he think, even till they plunged and fell,
Some miracle would stop them? Nay, they tell
That he turned round, face forward, calm and pale,
Stretching his arms out toward his native vale.
As if in mute, unspeakable farewell,
And so went down.--'Tis something if at last,
Though only for a flash, a man may see
Clear-eyed the future as he sees the past,
From doubt, or fear, or hope's illusion free.
EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.
* * * * *
WORK.
1. What is wise work, and what is foolish work? What the difference
between sense and nonsense, in daily occupation? There are three tests of
wise work:--that it must be honest, useful and cheerful.
It is _Honest_. I hardly know anything more strange than that you
recognize honesty in play, and do not in work. In your lightest games, you
have always some one to see what you call "fair-play." In boxing, you must
hit fair; in racing, start fair. Your English watchword is
"fair-_play_," your English hatred, "foul-_play_." Did it never
strike you that you wanted another watchword also, "fair-_work_," and
another and bitterer hatred,--"foul-_work_"?
2. Then wise work is _Useful_. No man minds, or ought to mind, its
being hard, if only it comes to something; but when it is hard and comes
to nothing, when all our bees' business turns to spiders', and for
honey-comb we have only resultant cobweb, blown away by the next
breeze,--that is the cruel thing for the worker. Yet do we ever ask
ourselves, personally, or even nationally, whether our work is coming to
anything or not?