Chapter V: Selections for Part One

The preceding discussions should be kept in mind while studying the following selections. The primary purpose is to seek after the author’s thought. If we are able to relate clearly and fluently in our own words the content of what we have read, then we can feel assured that we have found out the meaning of the author.

First: Read the selection paragraph by paragraph. Then arrange in your mind the several points in their respective order. Now give them orally as simply and progressively as possible.

Second: Read the selection again by paragraphs and this time determine what are the important and unimportant words. Then give these important words a greater force of utterance.

Third: Do not fear to make many groups. We must first see the author’s ideas and pictures in broken bits. When we have thought clearly on each part of the whole, and have each part securely in mind, we can then surely and effectively put these separate parts into one complete picture.

THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL

BY JOHN MUIR

Go where you will throughout the noble woods of the Sierra Nevada, among the giant pines and spruces of the lower zones, up through the towering Silver Firs to the storm-bent thickets of the summit peaks, you everywhere find this little squirrel the master-existence. Though only a few inches long, so intense is his fiery vigor and restlessness, he stirs every grove with wild life, and makes himself more important than even the huge bears that shuffle through the tangled underbrush beneath him. Every wind is fretted by his voice, almost every bole and branch feel the sting of his sharp feet. How much the growth of the trees is stimulated by his means it is not easy to learn, but his action in manipulating their seeds is more appreciable. Nature has made him master forester and committed most of her coniferous crops to his paws. Probably over fifty per cent of all the cones ripened on the Sierra are cut off and handled by the Douglas alone, and of those of the Big Trees perhaps ninety per cent pass through his hands: the greater portion is of course stored away for food to last during the winter and spring, but some of them are tucked separately into loosely covered holes, where some of the seeds germinate and become trees....

One never tires of this bright chip of nature,—this brave little voice crying in the wilderness,—of observing his many works and ways, and listening to his curious language. His musical, piny gossip is as savory to the ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a linnet—almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in bluff, audacious noisiness he is a very jay.

In descending the trunk of a tree with the intention of alighting on the ground, he preserves a cautious silence, mindful, perhaps, of foxes and wildcats; but while rocking safely at home in the pine-tops there is no end to his capers and noise; and woe to the gray squirrel or chipmunk that ventures to set foot on his favorite tree! No matter how slyly they trace the furrows of the bark, they are speedily discovered, and kicked downstairs with comic vehemence, while a torrent of angry notes comes rushing from his whiskered lips that sounds remarkably like swearing. He will even attempt at times to drive away dogs and men, especially if he has had no previous knowledge of them. Seeing a man for the first time, he approaches nearer and nearer, until within a few feet; then, with angry outburst, he makes a sudden rush, all teeth and eyes, as if about to eat you up. But, finding that the big forked animal doesn’t scare, he prudently beats a retreat, and sets himself up to reconnoiter on some overhanging branch, scrutinizing every movement you make with ludicrous solemnity.

Mr. Muir thus tells of an amusing experience he had with a Douglas squirrel that he found at his breakfast:

Breakfast done, I whistled a tune for him before he went to work, curious to see how he would be affected by it. He had not seen me all this while; but the instant I began to whistle he darted up the tree nearest to him, and came out on a small dead limb opposite me, and composed himself to listen. I sang and whistled more than a dozen airs, and as the music changed his eyes sparkled, and he turned his head quickly from side to side, but made no other response. Other squirrels, hearing the strange sounds, came around on all sides, also chipmunks and birds. One of the birds, a handsome, speckle-breasted thrush, seemed even more interested than the squirrels. After listening for awhile on one of the lower dead sprays of a pine, he came swooping forward within a few feet of my face, and remained fluttering in the air for half a minute or so, sustaining himself with whirring wing-beats, like a humming-bird in front of a flower, while I could look into his eyes and see his innocent wonder.

By this time my performance must have lasted nearly half an hour. I sang or whistled “Bonnie Doon,” “Lass o’ Gowrie,” “O’er the Water to Charlie,” “Bonnie Woods o’ Cragie Lee,” etc., all of which seemed to be listened to with bright interest, my first Douglas sitting patiently through it all, with his telling eyes fixed upon me until I ventured to give the “Old Hundredth,” when he screamed his Indian name, Pillillooeet, turned tail, and darted with ludicrous haste up the tree out of sight, his voice and actions in the case leaving a somewhat profane impression, as if he had said, “I’ll be hanged if you get me to hear anything so solemn and unpiney.” This acted as a signal for the general dispersal of the whole hairy tribe, though the birds seemed willing to wait further developments, music being naturally more in their line.

What there can be in that grand old church tune that is so offensive to birds and squirrels I can’t imagine. A year or two after this High Sierra concert, I was sitting one fine day on a hill in the Coast Range, where the common Ground Squirrels were abundant. They were very shy on account of being hunted so much; but after I had been silent and motionless for half an hour or so they began to venture out of their holes and to feed on the seeds of the grasses and thistles around me as if I were no more to be feared than a tree-stump. Then it occurred to me that this was a good opportunity to find out whether they also disliked “Old Hundredth.” Therefore I began to whistle as nearly as I could remember the same familiar airs that had pleased the mountaineers of the Sierra. They at once stopped eating, stood erect and listened patiently until I came to “Old Hundredth,” when with ludicrous haste every one of them rushed in their holes and bolted in, their feet twinkling in the air for a moment as they vanished.—From “The Mountains of California,” copyrighted by _The Century Company_, New York, and used by their kind permission.

* * * * *

Nothing small! no lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee, but finds some coupling with the shining stars; no pebble at your feet but proves a sphere; no chaffinch, but implies the cherubim. Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.

—MRS. BROWNING.

* * * * *

Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.

—LOWELL.

* * * * *

Once or twice in a lifetime we are permitted to enjoy the charm of noble manners, in the presence of a man or woman who have no bar in their nature, but whose character emanates freely in their word and gesture. A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; a beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form: it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures,—it is the finest of the fine arts. A man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating from his countenance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the world. I have seen an individual, whose manners, though wholly within the conventions of elegant society, were never learned there, but were original and commanding, and held out protection and prosperity; one who did not need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his eye; who exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes of existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood; yet with the port of an emperor, if need be, calm, serious, and fit to stand the gaze of millions.

—EMERSON.

* * * * *

Look at ourselves. Look at man; his reason, intelligence, and discoveries. Look at him diving into the depths of the ocean, calculating the eclipses of the sun and moon, and making the elements subservient to his interest and his wants. Look at his capacities; review the ten thousand arguments that daily, nay, hourly, arise, and then tell me if there is the shadow of a doubt that a God, a retributive God, does rule the whirlwind and direct the storm.

—R. RICKER.

* * * * *

Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress—no crime can destroy—no enemy can alienate—no despotism enslave. At home, a friend—abroad, an introduction—in solitude, a solace—and in society, an ornament. It chastens vice—it guides virtue—it gives at once grace and government to genius—without it, what is Man? A splendid slave—a reasoning savage!

* * * * *

Just before Napoleon set out for the court of Belgium, he sent to the cleverest artisan of his class in Paris, and demanded of him whether he would engage to make a coat of mail, to be worn under the ordinary dress, which should be absolutely bullet-proof; and that if so, he might name his own price for such a work. The man engaged to make the desired object, if allowed proper time, and he named eighteen thousand francs as the price of it. The bargain was concluded, and in due time the work was produced, and its maker honored with a second audience of the emperor. “Now,” said his imperial majesty, “put it on.” The man did so. “As I am to stake my life on its efficacy, you will, I suppose, have no objections to do the same.” And he took a brace of pistols, and prepared to discharge one of them at the breast of the astonished artisan. There was no retreating, however, and half-dead with fear, he stood the fire, and, to the infinite credit of his work, with perfect impunity. But the emperor was not content with one trial; he fired the second pistol at the back of the trembling artisan, and afterwards discharged a fowling-piece at another part of him, with similar effect. “Well,” said the emperor, “you have produced a capital work, undoubtedly—what is the price of it?” “Eighteen thousand francs were named as the agreed sum.” “There is an order for them,” said the emperor, “and here is another, for an equal sum, for the fright that I gave you.”

WORK AND THE WORKER

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

There are any number of different kinds of work we have to do, all of which have to be done. There is the work of the farmer, the work of the business man, the work of the skilled mechanic, the work of the men to whom I owe my safety every day and every night—the work of the railroad men; the work of the lawyer, the work of the sailor, the work of the soldier, the work in ten thousand ways; it is all good work; it does not make any difference what work the man is doing if he does it well. If the man is a slacker, a shiftless creature, I wish we could get rid of him. He is of no use. In every occupation you will find some men whom you will have to carry. You cannot do much with them. Every one of us will stumble at times, and shame to the man who does not at such times stretch out a helping hand, but if the man lies down you cannot carry him to any permanent use. What I would plead for is that we recognize the fact that all must work, that we bring up our children to work, so that each respects the other. I do not care whether a man is a banker or a bricklayer; if he is a good banker or a good bricklayer he is a good citizen; if he is dishonest, if he is tricky, if he shirks his job or tries to cheat his neighbor, be he great or small, be he the poor man cheating the rich man, or the rich man oppressing the poor man, in either case he is a bad citizen.—Remarks at Berenda, California, May 18, 1903.

THE MUSIC OF AMERICA

BY ROSCOE GILMORE STOTT

This is the Music of America:

Above the fret of a hundred routine duties and a thousand cares rises the clarion Soprano. It comes from the joyful throats of millions of women, blest beyond their sorrowing sisters who dwell on foreign shores. It is the voice of the clear-eyed schoolgirl, romping her happy way from a world of books into a gentler world of love; of the self-reliant sister who is facing the forces of business with spirit courageous and step that has never learned to falter; of the mother of a tender brood and, blended into the melody her own heart makes, the sweet, lisped crooning from the child at her bosom.

The Tenor notes are strong and full of golden promises. They come from souls that have climbed above the city’s boldest heights. They come from the souls of self-forgetful men—a proud nation’s watchers upon her towers whose eager eyes scan the far stretches that they may guard with loyalty against the perfidy of home or foreign foes. The Tenor is the united voices of the poets and philosophers, of the reformers and statesmen—yes, and of all that growing host who have scaled to the peak of some new Sinai, that the people may not forget the Almighty’s will concerning them.

Listen, and you will mark the rich, rounded tones of the Contralto—from the great-hearted organizations of Charity. Mingled into one vast, sweeping tone—quivering with sympathy, vibrant with a heart’s best faith—is the voice of the nurse, bending above some frail or stricken sufferer; the voice of the matron at the threshold of some gracious Door of Hope; the voice of the orphanage, the voice of the infirmary, the voice of the rescue mission, the voice of the Salvation Army, the voice of the Red Cross, the voice of the Christian Association, the voice of the Church.

And underneath the united harmony of Soprano and Contralto, under the inspiring silver thread of Tenor, there comes the wonderful support of all, the basis of a nation’s Song of Hope—the splendid and terrible contribution of strong-armed, mighty-limbed Labor—the Bass. In the low, deep resonance of the singer’s rare volume one may catch a vision of men, stern of visage and powerful in action, dominated by the happy unity of Will and Service, pouring down into depths of Mother Earth, that other men may have homes that radiate a social warmth; a vision of men at forge and flame, at plow and pruning-hook, at threshing-machine and throttle. The mighty voice thrills with the shriek of a million factory whistles, of sea and river craft, of rushing locomotives competing against Time and Space.... Underneath all, the splendid and terrible tones of a giant singer.

So, let us be glad and rejoice! The All-King, as He sits on the White Throne, marshaling His worlds, pauses. He bends a listening ear, and surely His heart is made glad with an overpowering happiness as His ears catch the strains of a grateful people’s reverence—as He listens to the Music of America!—From _The Ladies Home Journal_.

THE VIRTUES OF LOVE

BY SAINT PAUL THE APOSTLE

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.—I Corinthians, XIII.

THE MAJESTY OF THE OCEAN

BY “PROTEUS”

My first view of it was on a clear, but gusty afternoon of autumn. The winds had been abroad for many hours; and as I looked seaward from the high promontory, and beheld the long, rough surges rushing towards me, and listened to their wild roar as they were flung back from the caverned battlements at my feet, I felt as if the pillars of the universe were shaken around me, and stood awed and abashed before the majesty of excited nature. Since then, I have been on lofty precipices while the thunder-cloud was bursting below me—have leaned over the trembling brink of Niagara, and walked within its awful chambers, but the thrill of that moment has never returned. The feeling of awe, however, gradually gave place to an intense but pleasing emotion, and I longed to spring away from the tame and trodden earth, to that wild, mysterious world, whose strange scenes broke so magnificently upon my vision. No wonder that our first roving impulses are towards the ocean. No wonder that the romance and adventurous spirit of youth deems lightly of hardship and peril, when aroused by its stirring presentations. There is something so winning in the multiplied superstitions of its hardy wanderers—something so fascinating in its calm beauty, and so animating in its stormy recklessness, that the ties of country and kindred sit looser at our hearts, as curiosity whispers of its unseen wonders. In after years, when the bloom of existence has lost much of its brightness, when curiosity has become enervated, and the powers of the imagination palsied, where do we sooner return to renew their former pleasing excitement, than to our remembered haunts by the ocean? We leave behind us all the splendor and magnificence of art, all the voluptuous gratifications of society—we break from the banquet and the dance, and fly away to the solitary cliffs, where the sea-bird hides her nest. There the cares, perplexities, and rude jostlings of opposing interests are for a while forgotten. There the turmoil of human intercourse disquiets no longer. There the sweat and dust of the crowded city are dispelled as the cool sea-breeze comes gently athwart our feverish brow. In the exhilaration of the scene, the blood gathers purer at the heart—its pulse-beat is softer, and we feel once more a newness of life, amounting almost to a transport. Delightful remembrances, that lie buried up under the dross of the past, are reanimated, and the charm, the peace, and the freshness of life’s morning innocence again finds in our bosom a welcome and a home. The elastic spring of boyhood is in our step as we chase the receding wave along the white beach, or leap wildly into its glassy depths. In the low, billowy murmur that steals out upon the air, our ear catches the pleasant, but long unheard music of other years, like the remembered voice of a departed companion; and while leaning over some beetling crag, glorious visions pass, thronging before our eyes, as, in fancy, we rove through the coral groves, where the mermaids have their emerald bower, or gaze at the hidden beauties, the uncoveted gems, and the glittering argosies that repose amid the stilly waters. The soul goes forth, as it were, to the hallowed and undefiled temples of nature, to be purified of its earthly contamination. She takes to herself wings, and flies away to the “uttermost parts of the sea,” and even there she hears the voice of the Divine, witnesses the manifestations of His power, experiences the kind guardianship of His presence, and returns cheered and invigorated to renew her weary pilgrimage.

THE GRAY DAYS

BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE

You don’t love the gray days now. You want the sunshiny days, the roses and the carnations. Let me tell you, children, you will love the gray days just as well when they come. Some day, when the heart is wearied, when the eyes are hot and tired and dry with weeping, when the face is burned by the noonday sun, you will know how like a kiss of blessedness from heaven comes the soft, cool touch of the mist, creeping up out of the sea or coming down over the mountain, until it folds you as the wings of a dove, and shuts you in with peace and rest and hope, and the tenderness of God. Oh, you will thank God again and again for the gray days.

THE PRESENT CRISIS

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe,
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth’s systems to and fro;
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start,
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart,
And glad Truth’s yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future’s heart.

So the Evil’s triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill,
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod,
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod.

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along
Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibers feels the gush of joy or shame:—
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Hast thou chosen, O my people, in whose party thou shalt stand,
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet ’tis Truth alone is strong,
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see,
That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion’s sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry
Of those crises, God’s stern winnowers, from whose feet earth’s chaff
must fly,
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by.

Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness ’twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market’s din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—
“They enslave their children’s children who make compromise with sin.”