PICTURE OF AN ISLAND.

RICHARD HENRY DANA.

1. How is the island situated, and what is its character ?

2. What sounds are heard there?

3. Under what conditions does it present a beautiful scene? 4. Describe the inland dell.

5. What mingles with the sounds of the Sabbath bell?

6. Where are the flocks feeding?

7. Write a paraphrase of the poem.

MOUNTAINS.

WILLIAM HOWITT.

1. How potent is the charm of mountains?

2. What impresses the mind with their sublimity ?

3. What causes the heart to bound?

4. What has an inspiriting effect?

5. What beauties have a softer influence?

6. What advantages has autumn for the visiting of the mountains of Great Britain ?

7. Draw a pictorial word-sketch of the scenes presented from their summits.

8. Where may still more imposing views be had ?

9. What are some of the scenes of awful grandeur presented

there?

10. What are some of their milder features ?

11. What pleasant imaginings do we indulge concerning the inhabitants of such regions?

12. What character do we naturally attribute to them, and why? 13. How does a home among mountains foster a spirit of freedom and independence?

14. When do these mountain ridges appear most glorious?

15. Who have looked forth from those stern, heaven-built walls? 16. What have they beheld, as they have looked down from these God-given defenses ?

17. Repeat the author's outburst of gratitude when contemplating what mountains have done for man.

18. What was Milton's exclamation?

19. What was it that so stirred his spirit?

20. How do mountains give beauty to the earth?

21. How do they furnish a proud heritage to an imaginative mind? 22. What causes the writer to be lost in admiration?

23. In what instances have mountains thus guarded the germinating of great principles and the beginnings of a higher civilization ?

24. What does the geologist find among mountains?

25.

How is it that the inhabitants of mountainous countries serve a like purpose as a record of the past?

26. What do they show us?

ANALYSIS. 1. Charm and influences of mountains in general. 2. Autumn beauties of the mountains of Britain. 3. Grander features of European mountains. 4. Influences of mountains upon character. 5. The stronghold of freedom and home ties. 6. Rhapsody of

the author.

REQUIREMENTS.

1. Develop each of the topics given in the analysis, making it either a written or an oral exercise, as circumstances may warrant.

2. Point out some of the beauties and other excellences of the selection.

3. Notice the defects, if there are any.

4. Point out the rhetorical figures.

5. Tell how the entire article impresses you.

REMARKS.

of the writer.

and more.

The piece clearly indicates the sincerity
He evidently feels all that he has written
He realizes his inability to express his

conceptions, hence his exclamatory outbursts.

He seems

to be writing from actual experience. He scarcely mentions himself, and yet a strong personality pervades the entire production. He is an ardent painter, but his very ardor causes him to crowd his canvas till his objects become confused, to minds that are not highly imaginative.

THE SNOW-SHOWER.

REMARKS.

WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

In the first two lines, the poet addresses his wife. He then goes on to describe the lake, the sky, and the falling of the snow. In the first stanza, he gives us a premonition of a pathetic sadness that runs like a thread through the entire poem. It is indicated in the fourth and eighth lines of the first stanza, and continued in the last line of all the others by the reiteration of the words "In the dark and silent lake." Even in this short poem may be traced the characteristic tendency of the poet to find in everything an illustration of the serious, or pathetic, side of life. He calls the snowflakes a 66 'living swarm;" they come from "chambers beyond a misty veil. In these words he seems to refer to the mysterious origin of human life. The next two lines may suggest that some people lead for a time a careless, joyous life, while others, full of toil and care, push on with unflagging energy to the end of life; but all, "dropping swiftly or settling slow, meet, and are still, in the depths below." 'Flake after flake," the snow drops into the "dark and silent lake:" one by one, men drop into the dark and silent grave.

The third stanza seems still to be allegorical, illustrating the different temperaments, characters, and conditions in human life. But " the sullen water buries them all." In the fourth stanza, the poet himself has explained his meaning by a figure of simile. The mated flakes, like the others, sink in "the dark and silent lake." In the fifth stanza the poet sees in the snowflakes myriads of people, many of them fair, frail creatures, hurrying on with headlong speed to their goal and dropping into oblivion.

The tears in the lady's eyes show that similar thoughts have been suggested to her. She has been thinking of dear friends, "who were for a time, and now are not." They seem to her "like these fair children of cloud and frost, that glisten a moment and then are lost." But the poet calls her attention to an emblem of hope; for

"A gleam of blue on the water lies;

And far away, on the mountainside,

A sunbeam falls from the opening skies."

AUTUMN: TWO WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE DYING YEAR.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.. ́

1. How does Southey look upon the successive changes of the year?

2. What thoughts do the autumn leaves awaken in the mind of Southey's friend?

3.

What forlorn view does this friend take of the approaching winter?

4. How do the many-colored, dying leaves speak to Southey? 5. What emblem does his friend find in the beauties of the

autumnal year?

6. What do these same things show to Southey?

7. What does his friend continually discover in this fair world? 8. What does Southey wish that his friend might have?

9. How could he then look upon life, evil, and the strifes and troubles of the world?

10. What effect would thus be produced?

THE GARDENS OF THE VATICAN.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

1. Describe the gardens.

2. Repeat the apostrophe.

3. What does the writer seek in vain in this lovely garden?

4.

How does she describe the spiritual desolation of the Vatican? 5. What prayer does she utter at the close?

6. Write a paraphrase of the poem.

MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE.

N. HAWTHORNE.

An Extract.

1. Describe the sunset that came at the close of a stormy day.

2. In what spirit did Hawthorne and his friend Channing take their excursions into the solitudes of nature?

3. Describe the stream against whose current they rode, on one of these outings.

4. Whence does the stream come flowing?

5. How do the river and the wood seem to be talking to each

other ?

6. Of what does the river dream, as it sleeps along its course?

7. What did the slumbering river hold in its bosom ?

8. What strange questions does Hawthorne propose?
9. What partial answer does he suggest?

10. How do the trees seem to resist the passage of the river?
II. How does the writer describe the banks of the river?
12. What flowers does he mention as adorning the scene?