McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader

Examples — Sitting 10

And is this the way that you are to show yourselves the advocates of order? You take up a system calculated to uncivilize the world, to destroy order, to trample on religion, to stifle in the heart not merely the generosity of noble sentiment, but the affections of social nature; and in the prosecution of this system, you spread terror and devastation all around you.

Note.--In this lesson, the influence of a negative in determining the rising inflection, is noticeable. See Rule V, p. 24.

XVI. MY EXPERIENCE IN ELOCUTION. (104)

John Neal. 1793-1876, a brilliant but eccentric American writer, was born in Portland, Maine. He went into business, when quite young, in company with John Pierpont, the well-known poet. They soon failed, and Mr. Neal then turned his attention to the study of law. He practiced his profession somewhat, but devoted most of his time to literature. For a time he resided in England, where he wrote for "Blackwood's Magazine" and other periodicals. His writings were produced with great rapidity, and with a purposed disregard of what is known as "classical English." ###

In the academy I attended, elocution was taught in a way I shall never forget--never! We had a yearly exhibition, and the favorites of the preceptor were allowed to speak a piece; and a pretty time they had of it. Somehow I was never a favorite with any of my teachers after the first two or three days; and, as I went barefooted, I dare say it was thought unseemly, or perhaps cruel, to expose me upon the platform. And then, as I had no particular aptitude for public speaking, and no relish for what was called oratory, it was never my luck to be called up.

Among my schoolmates, however, was one--a very amiable, shy boy--to whom was assigned, at the first exhibition I attended, that passage in Pope's Homer beginning with,

"Aurora, now, fair daughter of the dawn!"

This the poor boy gave with so much emphasis and discretion, that, to me, it sounded like "O roarer!" and I was wicked enough, out of sheer envy, I dare say, to call him "O roarer!"--a nickname which clung to him for a long while, though no human being ever deserved it less; for in speech and action both, he was quiet, reserved, and sensitive.

My next experience in elocution was still more disheartening, so that I never had a chance of showing what I was capable of in that way till I set up for myself. Master Moody, my next instructor, was thought to have uncommon qualifications for teaching oratory. He was a large, handsome, heavy man, over six feet high; and having understood that the first, second, and third prerequisite in oratory was action, the boys he put in training were encouraged to most vehement and obstreperous manifestations. Let me give an example, and one that weighed heavily on my conscience for many years after the poor man passed away.

Among his pupils were two boys, brothers, who were thought highly gifted in elocution. The master, who was evidently of that opinion, had a habit of parading them on all occasions before visitors and strangers; though one bad lost his upper front teeth and lisped badly, and the other had the voice of a penny trumpet. Week after week these boys went through the quarrel of Brutus and Cassius, for the benefit of myself and others, to see if their example would not provoke us to a generous competition for all the honors.

How it operated on the other boys in after life I can not say; but the effect on me was decidedly unwholesome--discouraging, indeed,--until I was old enough to judge for myself, and to carry into operation a system of my own.

On coming to the passage,--

"Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts; Dash him to pieces!"--

the elder of the boys gave it after the following fashion: "Be ready, godths, with all your thunderbolths,--dath him in pietheth!"--bringing his right fist down into his left palm with all his strength, and his lifted foot upon the platform, which was built like a sounding-board, so that the master himself, who had suggested the action and obliged the poor boy to rehearse it over and over again, appeared to be utterly carried away by the magnificent demonstration; while to me--so deficient was I in rhetorical taste--it sounded like a crash of broken crockery, intermingled with chicken peeps.

I never got over it; and to this day can not endure stamping, nor even tapping of the foot, nor clapping the hands together, nor thumping the table for illustration; having an idea that such noises are not oratory, and that untranslatable sounds are not language.

My next essay was of a somewhat different kind. I took the field in person, being in my nineteenth year, well proportioned, and already beginning to have a sincere relish for poetry, if not for declamation. I had always been a great reader; and in the course of my foraging depredations I had met with "The Mariner's Dream" and "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp," both of which I had committed to memory before I knew it.

And one day, happening to be alone with my sister, and newly rigged out in a student's gown, such as the lads at Brunswick sported when they came to show off among their old companions, I proposed to astonish her by rehearsing these two poems in appropriate costume. Being very proud of her brother, and very obliging, she consented at once,--upon condition that our dear mother, who had never seen anything of the sort, should be invited to make one of the audience.

On the whole, I rather think that I succeeded in astonishing both. I well remember their looks of amazement--for they had never seen anything better or worse in all their lives, and were no judges of acting--as I swept to and fro in that magnificent robe, with outstretched arms and uplifted eyes, when I came to passages like the following, where an apostrophe was called for:

"And near him the she wolf stirred the brake, And the copper snake breathed in his ear, Till he, starting, cried, from his dream awake, 'Oh, when shall I see the dusky lake, And the white canoe of my dear'!'"

Or like this:

"On beds of green sea flowers thy limbs shall be laid; Around thy white bones the red coral shall grow, Of thy fair yellow locks, threads of amber be made, And every part suit to thy mansion below;"--

throwing up my arms, and throwing them out in every possible direction as the spirit moved me, or the sentiment prompted; for I always encouraged my limbs and features to think for themselves, and to act for themselves, and never predetermined, never forethought, a gesture nor an intonation in my life; and should as soon think of counterfeiting another's look or step or voice, or of modulating my own by a pitch pipe (as the ancient orators did, with whom oratory was acting elocution, a branch of the dramatic art), as of adopting or imitating the gestures and tones of the most celebrated rhetorician I ever saw.

The result was rather encouraging. My mother and sister were both satisfied. At any rate, they said nothing to the contrary. Being only in my nineteenth year, what might I not be able to accomplish after a little more experience!

How little did I think, while rehearsing before my mother and sister, that anything serious would ever come of it, or that I was laying the foundations of character for life, or that I was beginning what I should not be able to finish within the next forty or fifty years following. Yet so it was. I had broken the ice without knowing it. These things were but the foreshadowing of what happened long afterward.

Notes.--Brunswick, Maine, is the seat of Bowdoin College.

"The Mariner's Dream" is a poem by 'William Dimond.

"The Lake of the Dismal Swamp" is by Thomas Moore.

XVII. ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. (108)

Thomas Gray, 1716-1771, is often spoken of as "the author of the Elegy,"--this simple yet highly finished and beautiful poem being by far the best known of an his writings. It was finished in 1749,--seven years from the time it was commenced. Probably no short poem in the language ever deserved or received more praise. Gray was born in London; his father possessed property, but was indolent and selfish; his mother was a successful woman of business, and supported her son in college from her own earnings. The poet was educated at Eton and Cambridge; at the latter place, he resided for several years after his return from a continental tour, begun in 1739. He was small and delicate in person, refined and precise in dress and manners, and shy and retiring in disposition. He was an accomplished scholar in many fields of learning, but left comparatively little finished work in any department. He declined the honor of poet laureate; but, in 1769, was appointed Professor of History at Cambridge. ###

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike, the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise; Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of Death?

Perhaps, in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

The applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor, circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne. And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride, With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool, sequestered vale of life, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet even these bones, from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still, erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,--

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing, with hasty step, the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn:

"There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now, drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

"One morn, I missed him on the customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree: Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne:-- Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 'Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown: Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth, And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Misery (all he had) a tear; He gained from Heaven ('t was all he wished) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode (There they alike in trembling hope repose), The bosom of his Father, and his God.

The sky is cloudy; the church steeple stands in the background.]

Notes.--John Hampden (b. 1594, d. 1643) was noted for his resolute resistance to the forced loans and unjust taxes imposed by Charles I. on England. He took part in the contest between King and Parliament, and was killed in a skirmish.

John Milton. See biographical notice, page 312.

Oliver Cromwell (b. 1599, d. 1658) was the leading character in the Great Rebellion in England. He was Lord Protector the last five years of his life, and in many respects the ablest ruler that England ever had.