Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): An English navigator, ander, and author. He was a favorite with Queen Elizato whom he is said to have first commended himself by et of gallantry. On the accession of James I., he was ed of treason and imprisoned for twelve years, during n time he wrote a "History of the World." He wrote al short poems. If that the world and love were young, But time drives flocks from field to fold, The flowers do fade, and wanton fields Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All those in me no means can move But could youth last, and love still breed; Then those delights my mind might move To live with thee and be thy love. Phil' (fil) o měl: philomela, a poetical name for the nightingale. According to the Greek legend, Philomela was an Athenian maiden who was changed into a nightingale. A Brilliant Geographical Contrast BY JOHN RUSKIN John Ruskin (1819-1900): An English writer on art and political economy. Some of the most vivid and picturesque passages of English prose occur in his earlier writings on the subjects of art and nature. During his later life he devoted himself to working for the elevation of the social life of the people and for the rescue of the laboring classes from the evils of the modern industrial system. Extracts from his masterpiece, "Modern Painters," have been given in preceding books of this series. Here is a selection from "The Stones of Venice." The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have thrown into a narrow space the expression of a vast amount of knowledge; but I have never 10 yet seen any one chart pictorial enough to enable the spectator to imagine the kind of contrast in physical character which exists between northern and southern countries. We know the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp which would enable us to feel them in their fullness. We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of 5 the world's surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above 10 the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun; here and there an angry spot of thunder, a gray stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white 15 volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes: but, for the most part, a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing 20 softly with terraced gardens and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel and orange and plumy palm, that abate with their gray-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. 25 Then let us pass farther toward the north, until we see the orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland and poplar valleys of France and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians, stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those 30 of the Volga seen through clefts in gray swirls of rain cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands. And then, farther north still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor bor5 dering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm and chilled by ice drift and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail 10 from among the hill ravines and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness. And at last the wall of ice sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight. And, having once traversed in thought this gradation of 15 the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life: the multitudes of swift and brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread the sands of the southern zone; striped zebras and spotted leopards, 20 glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet. Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of color, and swiftness of motion, with the frost-cramped strength and shaggy covering and dusky plumage of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with the Shetland, the 25 tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey: and then submissively acknowledge the great laws by which the earth and all that it bears are ruled throughout their being. Siroc'co: an oppressive wind from the Libyan deserts, experienced chiefly in Italy, Malta, and Sicily. Pôr'phy ry: a valuable stone, red, purple, or blue in color. Henry V. before Battle FROM "HENRY V.," BY WILLIAM SHAKSPERE The This scene is in the English camp just before the battle of Agincourt. Henry V., the young and warlike English king, had asserted a claim to the French crown and had invaded France with a few thousand men. In the battle of Agincourt he defeated a French force which far outnumbered his. Earls of Westmoreland, Warwick, and Salisbury, the Dukes of Bedford, Exeter, and Gloucester or Gloster, and John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, were English noblemen in the army of King Henry. The Dukes of Bedford and Gloster were the king's brothers. Westmoreland. Oh, that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England King Henry. What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin : 5 To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honor. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. 10 Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires : I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England : 15 |