ruminate, disconcerting, phenomenon (the word means fact, or occurrence, but here means an extraordinary fact, or a wonder), prematurely.

II. embarrassment, disclosure, concealment, boisterous, anticipated, reputed, misgiving, acceded, feign.

Schoolboy Phrases: here's a game, jolly shame, you're going it, smuggle the prog (food) in, royal spread, a Tartar.

III. elapsed, sixpence, inquisitively, pondering, stitch in my side, tilt (the cloth or canvas cover of a wagon), lowering, infantine, superadded.

IV. vacant, eccentric, pig's trotters, betimes, phenomenon (wonder) of respectability, the House (poorhouse), demure, disparaging, unimpaired, philosophically (i.e. calmly, like a philosopher), contemplation, exponent, impart, veneration.

CHARLES DICKENS

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870) was really writing of his own childhood when he told the story of David Copperfield. Like David he suffered from poverty and neglect and was taken from school and set to work in a warehouse. Dickens's own father was a person somewhat like David's friend, Mr. Micawber.

Charles Dickens had made his way as a shorthand reporter before he became known as a contributor to the magazines. When he was only twenty-four he began writing the Pickwick Papers. These made a great success. Four hundred copies of the first paper were bound, and forty thousand of the fifteenth. Wealth and fame had come to the young writer almost in a moment.

Dickens was a man of enormous energy. He was always doing something. He would walk thirty or forty miles at a stretch, often at night through the streets of London, and in the long walks he noted down in his memory thousands of persons and places. Later on, he made use of these in his novels. After he had stored his mind with the many incidents and characters that were to make up a story, he wrote with great rapidity. Indeed, he shut himself up with his book and really lived with its persons, laughing and weeping over their joys and sorrows as so many readers have done since then.

Most of his novels were written for serial publication and are very long with a great many characters and scenes. These are

of all kinds, comic, pathetic, tragic, or horrible, but most of them present life of his own time. Perhaps you have already read some of the amusing adventures of Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller from the Pickwick Papers and the Christmas awakening of Old Scrooge from the Christmas Carol (See FIFTH READER, p. 269). Some of the best of the novels tell of children, as Little Nell in the Old Curiosity Shop, Paul Dombey in Dombey and Son, Oliver Twist, in the novel of that name, and Pip in Great Expectations. Perhaps the greatest of all his many novels is David Copperfield, which tells the story of David from his birth to manhood.

Dickens made two visits to the United States. On his first visit in 1842 he was received everywhere with great enthusiasm ; but his impressions of the country, as recorded in his American Notes and the fine novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, were neither flattering nor pleasing to Americans. When, however, he came again in 1867, old resentments were forgotten, and the readings which he gave from his stories were attended everywhere by crowded audiences.

Dickens is one of the great inventors or creators of English

literature. Like Shakespeare and Scott, he has created for us a host of persons and made us share in their lives. Critics have found many faults in his books, though every one admits that he was a great humorist. He does indeed often exaggerate, and his men and women are sometimes caricatures rather than lifelike pictures. But what a work of invention he performed! Out of the streets of London and the highways of the English country, he created thousands of persons who have become the companions of millions of readers in sorrow and in mirth.

Review Questions: 1. What have you read by Dickens in addition to these selections? 2. What are the names of some of his novels? 3. What other children of his do you know besides David Copperfield? 4. In what ways is the story of David the story of the childhood of Dickens himself? 5. What examples of humor can you recall from these selections? 6. What examples of pathos ?

7. In what year were Poe and Holmes born? 8. What other poet was born in the same year? (See page 330.) 9. What great statesman? 10. What great contrasts do you find between the lives of Poe and Holmes? 11. Which of the two had the happier life? 12. Which of the two was the greater humorist? 13. Can you remember a few lines from each? 14. What other American poets are represented in this book? What English poets?

The next selection is taken from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. The time is many years ago, and the five scenes selected are all in the house of Portia, a young woman of Belmont, Italy. Her father has directed in his will that she shall marry the suitor who chooses from among three caskets the one containing her picture. As she is both very beautiful and very rich, many suitors come to make the choice.

In the play, this story of the caskets is combined with the story of Shylock, who has lent money to a Venetian merchant, Antonio, on condition that if Antonio fails to pay upon a fixed day, he shall give a pound of his flesh to Shylock. It is a friend of Antonio who wins Portia, and she is able to save him from Shylock's vengeance. Shylock and Portia are the most important persons of the play and among the most wonderful of Shakespeare's interpretations of character.

In these selections, we have only the story of the caskets. In Scene I, Portia and her maid are making merry over the suitors. In Scenes II, III, and IV, two brave princes arrive, make their choice, and fail to select the right casket. In Scene V, the right man makes the right choice.