McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader

Examples — Sitting 43

Let them annihilate human pain, and literally "charm ache with air, and agony with ether." The blessing of God will attend all their toils, and the gratitude of man will await all their triumphs. Let them dig down into the bowels of the earth. Let them rive asunder the massive rocks, and unfold the history of creation as it lies written on the pages of their piled up strata. Let them gather up the fossil fragments of a lost Fauna, reproducing the ancient forms which inhabited the land or the seas, bringing them together, bone to his bone, till Leviathan and Behemoth stand before us in bodily presence and in their full proportions, and we almost tremble lest these dry bones should live again! Let them put nature to the rack, and torture her, in all her forms, to the betrayal of her inmost secrets and confidences. They need not forbear. The foundations of the round world have been laid so strong that they can not be moved.

But let them not think by searching to find out God. Let them not dream of understanding the Almighty to perfection. Let them not dare to apply their tests and solvents, their modes of analysis or their terms of definition, to the secrets of the spiritual kingdom. Let them spare the foundations of faith. Let them be satisfied with what is revealed of the mysteries of the Divine Nature. Let them not break through the bounds to gaze after the Invisible.

NOTES.--Orion and Andromeda are the names of two constellations.

The Leviathan is described in Job, chap. xli, and the Behemoth in Job, chap. xl. It is not known exactly what beasts are meant by these descriptions.

CXIII. THE DOWNFALL OF POLAND. (396)

O Sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased a while, And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, When leagued Oppression poured to northern wars Her whiskered pandours and her fierce hussars, Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn, Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn; Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, Presaging wrath to Poland--and to man!

Warsaw's last champion, from her height surveyed, Wide o'er the fields a waste of ruin laid; "O Heaven!" he cried, "my bleeding country save! Is there no hand on high to shield the brave? Yet, though destruction sweep those lovely plains, Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains! By that dread name, we wave the sword on high, And swear for her to live--with her to die!"

He said, and on the rampart heights arrayed His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed; Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm; Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly, Revenge or death--the watchword and reply; Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm, And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm.

In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few! From rank to rank, your volleyed thunder flew! Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of time, Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime; Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe! Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career; Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell! --Thomas Campbell.

NOTES.--Kosciusko (b. 1746, d. 1817), a celebrated Polish patriot, who had served in the American Revolution, was besieged at Warsaw, in 1794, by a large force of Russians, Prussians, and Austrians. After the siege was raised, he marched against a force of Russians much larger than his own, and was defeated. He was himself severely wounded and captured.

Sarmatia is the ancient name for a region of Europe which embraced Poland, but was of greater extent.

CXIV. LABOR. (398)

Horace Greeley,1811-1872, perhaps the most famous editor of America, was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, of poor parents. His boyhood was passed in farm labor, in attending the common school, and in reading every book on which he could lay his hands. His reading was mostly done by the light of pine knots. At fifteen he entered a printing office in Vermont, became the best workman in the office, and continued to improve every opportunity for study. At the age of twenty he appeared in New York City, poorly clothed, and almost destitute of money. He worked at his trade for a year or two, and then set up printing for himself. For several years he was not successful, but struggled on, performing an immense amount of work as an editor. In 1841 he established the "New York Tribune," which soon became one of the most successful and influential papers in the country. In 1848 he was elected to Congress, but remained but a short time. In 1872 he was a candidate for the Presidency, was defeated, and died a few days afterward. Mr. Greeley is a rare example of what may be accomplished by honesty and unflinching industry. Besides the vast amount which he wrote for the newspapers, he published several books; the best known of which is "The American Conflict." ###

Every child should be trained to dexterity in some useful branch of productive industry, not in order that he shall certainly follow that pursuit, but that he may at all events be able to do so in case he shall fail in the more intellectual or artificial calling which he may prefer to it. Let him seek to be a doctor, lawyer, preacher, poet, if he will; but let him not stake his all on success in that pursuit, but have a second line to fall back upon if driven from his first. Let him be so reared and trained that he may enter, if he will, upon some intellectual calling in the sustaining consciousness that he need not debase himself, nor do violence to his convictions, in order to achieve success therein, since he can live and thrive in another (if you choose, humbler) vocation, if driven from that of his choice. This buttress to integrity, this assurance of self-respect, is to be found in a universal training to efficiency in Productive Labor.

The world is full of misdirection and waste; but all the calamities and losses endured by mankind through frost, drought, blight, hail, fires, earthquakes, inundations, are as nothing to those habitually suffered by them through human idleness and inefficiency, mainly caused (or excused) by lack of industrial training. It is quite within the truth to estimate that one tenth of our people, in the average, are habitually idle because (as they say) they can find no employment. They look for work where it can not be had. They seem to be, or they are, unable to do such as abundantly confronts and solicits them. Suppose these to average but one million able-bodied persons, and that their work is worth but one dollar each per day; our loss by involuntary idleness can not be less than $300,000,000 per annum. I judge that it is actually $500,000,000. Many who stand waiting to be hired could earn from two to five dollars per day had they been properly trained to work. "There is plenty of room higher up," said Daniel Webster, in response to an inquiry as to the prospects of a young man just entering upon the practice of law; and there is never a dearth of employment for men or women of signal capacity or skill. In this city, ten thousand women are always doing needlework for less than fifty cents per day, finding themselves; yet twice their number of capable, skillful seamstresses could find steady employment and good living in wealthy families at not less than one dollar per day over and above board and lodging. He who is a good blacksmith, a fair millwright, a tolerable wagon maker, and can chop timber, make fence, and manage a small farm if required, is always sure of work and fair recompense; while he or she who can keep books or teach music fairly, but knows how to do nothing else, is in constant danger of falling into involuntary idleness and consequent beggary. It is a broad, general truth, that no boy was ever yet inured to daily, systematic, productive labor in field or shop throughout the latter half of his minority, who did not prove a useful man, and was notable to find work whenever he wished it.

Yet to the ample and constant employment of a whole community one prerequisite is indispensable,--that a variety of pursuits shall have been created or naturalized therein. A people who have but a single source of profit are uniformly poor, not because that vocation is necessarily ill-chosen, but because no single calling can employ and reward the varied capacities of male and female, old and young, robust and feeble. Thus a lumbering or fishing region with us is apt to have a large proportion of needy inhabitants; and the same is true of a region exclusively devoted to cotton growing or gold mining. A diversity of pursuits is indispensable to general activity and enduring prosperity.

Sixty or seventy years ago, what was then the District, and is now the State, of Maine, was a proverb in New England for the poverty of its people, mainly because they were so largely engaged in timber cutting. The great grain-growing, wheat-exporting districts of the Russian empire have a poor and rude people for a like reason. Thus the industry of Massachusetts is immensely more productive per head than that of North Carolina, or even that of Indiana, as it will cease to be whenever manufactures shall have been diffused over our whole country, as they must and will be. In Massachusetts half the women and nearly half the children add by their daily labor to the aggregate of realized wealth; in North Carolina and in Indiana little wealth is produced save by the labor of men, including boys of fifteen or upward. When this disparity shall have ceased, its consequence will also disappear.

gazing down at a sleeping young boy.]

CXV. THE LAST DAYS OF HERCULANEUM. (401)

Edwin Atherstone, 1788-1872, was born at Nottingham, England, and became known to the literary world chiefly through two poems, "The Last Days of Herculaneum" and "The Fall of Nineveh." Both poems are written in blank verse, and are remarkable for their splendor of diction and their great descriptive power. Atherstone is compared to Thomson, whom he resembles somewhat in style. ###

There was a man, A Roman soldier, for some daring deed That trespassed on the laws, in dungeon low Chained down. His was a noble spirit, rough, But generous, and brave, and kind. He had a son; it was a rosy boy, A little faithful copy of his sire, In face and gesture. From infancy, the child Had been his father's solace and his care.

Every sport The father shared and heightened. But at length, The rigorous law had grasped him, and condemned To fetters and to darkness.

The captive's lot, He felt in all its bitterness: the walls Of his deep dungeon answered many a sigh And heart-heaved groan. His tale was known, and touched His jailer with compassion; and the boy, Thenceforth a frequent visitor, beguiled His father's lingering hours, and brought a balm With his loved presence, that in every wound Dropped healing. But, in this terrific hour, He was a poisoned arrow in the breast Where he had been a cure.

With earliest morn Of that first day of darkness and amaze, He came. The iron door was closed--for them Never to open more! The day, the night Dragged slowly by; nor did they know the fate Impending o'er the city. Well they heard The pent-up thunders in the earth beneath, And felt its giddy rocking; and the air Grew hot at length, and thick; but in his straw The boy was sleeping: and the father hoped The earthquake might pass by: nor would he wake From his sound rest the unfearing child, nor tell The dangers of their state.

On his low couch The fettered soldier sank, and, with deep awe, Listened the fearful sounds: with upturned eye, To the great gods he breathed a prayer; then, strove To calm himself, and lose in sleep awhile His useless terrors. But he could not sleep: His body burned with feverish heat; his chains Clanked loud, although he moved not; deep in earth Groaned unimaginable thunders; sounds, Fearful and ominous, arose and died, Like the sad mornings of November's wind, In the blank midnight. Deepest horror chilled His blood that burned before; cold, clammy sweats Came o'er him; then anon, a fiery thrill Shot through his veins. Now, on his couch he shrunk And shivered as in fear; now, upright leaped, As though he heard the battle trumpet sound, And longed to cope with death.

He slept, at last, A troubled, dreamy sleep. Well had he slept Never to waken more! His hours are few, But terrible his agony.

Soon the storm Burst forth; the lightnings glanced; the air Shook with the thunders. They awoke; they sprung Amazed upon their feet. The dungeon glowed A moment as in sunshine--and was dark: Again, a flood of white flame fills the cell, Dying away upon the dazzled eye In darkening, quivering tints, as stunning sound Dies throbbing, ringing in the ear.

With intensest awe, The soldier's frame was filled; and many a thought Of strange foreboding hurried through his mind, As underneath he felt the fevered earth Jarring and lifting; and the massive walls, Heard harshly grate and strain: yet knew he not, While evils undefined and yet to come Glanced through his thoughts, what deep and cureless wound Fate had already given.--Where, man of woe! Where, wretched father! is thy boy? Thou call'st His name in vain:--he can not answer thee.

Loudly the father called upon his child: No voice replied. Trembling and anxiously He searched their couch of straw; with headlong haste Trod round his stinted limits, and, low bent, Groped darkling on the earth:--no child was there. Again he called: again, at farthest stretch Of his accursed fetters, till the blood Seemed bursting from his ears, and from his eyes Fire flashed, he strained with arm extended far, And fingers widely spread, greedy to touch Though but his idol's garment. Useless toil! Yet still renewed: still round and round he goes, And strains, and snatches, and with dreadful cries Calls on his boy.

Mad frenzy fires him now. He plants against the wall his feet; his chain Grasps; tugs with giant strength to force away The deep-driven staple; yells and shrieks with rage: And, like a desert lion in the snare, Raging to break his toils,--to and fro bounds. But see! the ground is opening;--a blue light Mounts, gently waving,--noiseless;--thin and cold It seems, and like a rainbow tint, not flame; But by its luster, on the earth outstretched, Behold the lifeless child! his dress is singed, And, o'er his face serene, a darkened line Points out the lightning's track.

The father saw, And all his fury fled:--a dead calm fell That instant on him:--speechless--fixed--he stood, And with a look that never wandered, gazed Intensely on the corse. Those laughing eyes Were not yet closed,--and round those ruby lips The wonted smile returned.

Silent and pale The father stands:--no tear is in his eye:-- The thunders bellow;--but he hears them not:-- The ground lifts like a sea;--he knows it not:-- The strong walls grind and gape:--the vaulted roof Takes shape like bubble tossing in the wind; See! he looks up and smiles; for death to him Is happiness. Yet could one last embrace Be given, 't were still a sweeter thing to die.