PREFACE. THE importance of learning to love what is best to read is hardly second to the art of reading. During childhood the imagination is most active, and this is the period when the mind should become familiar with the choicest gems of thought and expression. The seeds sown in early life must bear fruit in later years. Long before the child can define an author's meaning the spirit of the thought has reached his heart. It is with this firm conviction, based upon schoolroom experience, that the author of this series has gradually led her readers up the steeps of literature. We have now reached the lofty heights and must search among the grand peaks and crags of the works of the world's greatest writers for what will appeal to children and lead them to love the grandeur which they cannot yet fully comprehend. The majority of pupils in our public schools cannot take advantage of our high school privileges; but with libraries at their disposal, and an introduction to the world's best literature, they may continue their education after their school life is ended. It has been the author's aim to collect the best material from the best authors. There are certain selections which can ix never grow old, and a reading book of this grade would be incomplete without them. I would extend my thanks to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., for permission to use selections from the works of Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson; to Harper & Bros., for extract from "Prue and I," by George William Curtis; to The Cassell Publishing Company, for poem by John Boyle O'Reilly; to R. F. Fenno & Co., for extract from "With Dewey at Manila"; to Little, Brown & Co., for extract from "The Man without a Country"; to Mr. William H. Hayne, for poem by Paul Hamilton Hayne; and to the following authors: Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mr. Thomas J. Vivian, and Dr. Edward Everett Hale. The selection by James Lane Allen is published by business arrangement with Harper & Bros. Acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Elliot and Frye, London, for use of copyright photographs of Ruskin and Carlyle, and to Messrs. Walker and Boutall, London, for permission to reproduce portraits of Mrs. Browning and Robert Burns. I take pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to Mr. Austin H. Kenerson, for his hearty coöperation and valuable suggestions in the preparation of this book, as well as in the lower books of the series. ELLEN M. CYR. TO THE SMALL CELANDINE. William Wordsworth WALDEN POND. Henry David Thoreau THE PUPPET SHOW. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 48 xi THREE HEROINES. Agnes Repplier ENSIGN EPPS, THE COLOR-BEARER. John Boyle O'Reilly THE BATTLE OF LANDEN. Thomas Babington Macaulay THE PLANTING of the Apple TREE. William Cullen Bryant 143 A HIGHLAND SNOWSTORM. John Wilson LEARNING BY HEART. Vernon Lushington THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. John Lothrop Motley. MAZEPPA'S RIDE. Lord Byron DON QUIXOTE AND THE LIONS. Miguel de Cervantes. TRAILING ARBUTUS. Henry Ward Beecher . 268 |