20. Describe the awakening of life in the castle. 21. Why should this prince be more fortunate than the others preceding him? ADDITIONAL READINGS LOWELL: Vision of Sir Launfal. MRS. HEMANS: The Sleeper. STEPHEN PHILLIPS: A Dreaming Muse. ROSETTI: Sleep at Sea. ROGERS: Ginevra. POE: The Haunted Palace. HANS ANDERSEN: The Snow Queen. TENNYSON: The Lady of Shalott. A WHOLESOME TONGUE The tongue is the key-board of the soul; but it makes a world of difference who sits to play upon it. "Therewith bless we God, and therewith curse we men." It is sweeter than honey; it is bitterer than gall. It is balm and consolation; it is sharper than a serpent's tooth. So there are some whose speaking is like the fall of jasper stones upon the silent river, and whose stillness follows speech as silent fish that move like dreams beneath the troubled water. It was in some such dreaming mood, methinks, old Solomon spoke, "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life." And what fruit grows thereon, he explains, when he afterwards says, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in baskets of silver."- Henry Ward Beecher. THE GIFT OF EMPTY HANDS TWO young princes were condemned to death by the king. Each promised the king, that if his life were spared, he would bring to the king the most costly gift to be obtained. The king consented, and the two princes started out to win the costliest treasures. One of the princes was seemingly born under a lucky star. Everything he sought he secured without the least effort. A rare bird alighted on his arm, a most beautiful rose fell on his breast, and costly gems lay at his feet. The other strove manfully to keep his promise, but in spite of all his efforts, he secured nothing. His hands were torn. His feet were bruised in his effort to keep his promise to the king, but fate was against him and he secured nothing. In due time, the princes returned to the king, the one with costly gifts, which had come without effort, the other with empty, bleeding hands. Strange as it may seem, the king accepted the fruitless but sincere effort of the one as of more value than the costly gifts of the other. THE GIFT OF EMPTY HANDS They were two young princes doomed to death; Each loved his beauty and his breath: "Leave us our life and we will bring Fair gifts unto our lord, the king." They went together. In the dew A rose, whose faintest blush was worth Weird jewels, such as the fairies wear, One with the dragon fought to gain Backward to the imperial gate At bird, and rose, and gem, and fruit, "Your brother's hands, wherein you see Sarah M. B. Piatt. NOTES 1. Look up carefully the meanings of the following words: charmed, faintest, ghostly, dragon, precious, enchanted, imperial. EXERCISES 1. What proposition did the doomed princes make the king? 2. Why did they go together? 3. What experience did each have with the charmed bird? 4. What experience did each have with the rose? 5. Why are the jewels sought by the one spoken of as "weird jewels"? 6. Why were they sought for on "ghostly ground"? 7. What experience did each have in the garden of the enchanted fruits? 8. Explain "One took his fortune, one his fate." 9. Compare the gifts brought by these two princes. 10. Why was the king sad and mute at the costly offering of the one? 11. Why did he value the scars of the other more highly? 12. Explain fully "True treasure is not lightly won." 13. What seems to you to be the meaning of the poem? 14. To what extent should we be satisfied with fruitless toil? Does the poem mean that trying is better than doing? ADDITIONAL READINGS DE AMICIS: The Fight. BEN JONSON: The Noble Nature. COLERIDGE: The Ancient Mariner. WHITTIER: The Lost Occasion. BROWNING: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. LADY CAREW: True Greatness. THE SOLDIER A soldier! a soldier! I'm longing to be: A soldier! a soldier! in armor arrayed; But then, let me tell you, no blood would I shed, A soldier! a soldier! Oh, then, let me be! give way! Let's up, and be clad in our battle array! -J. G. Adams. |