THE LITERARY WORLD EIGHTH READER BY JOHN CALVIN METCALF PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SARAH WITHERS PRINCIPAL ELEMENTARY GRADES AND CRITIC TEACHER AND HETTY S. BROWNE EXTENSION WORKER IN RURAL SCHOOL PRACTICE JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY RICHMOND, VIRGINIA Educ T 759.19.541 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF GINN & CO COPYRIGHT, 1919 B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY All Rights Reserved 20-11-L.H.J. TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS THE boy or girl who reads this book will find in it certain pieces of prose and poetry, each complete in itself, which have come to be regarded as standard literature. These, and many others besides, every intelligent boy and girl should know. Young readers may well ask, in this day of almost endless variety in books and periodicals, "What is standard literature and why should we read it?" Such a direct question deserves a clear and candid answer. All prose and poetry which have found a permanent place in the minds of cultivated people we call standard literature. This did not happen by chance. Out of a great deal of writing in every age, a few stories and essays and plays and poems pleased men and women so much that they collected them in libraries for their own enjoyment and for the use of others. These pieces of literature are in artistic form, that is, they are so put together as to satisfy our sense of beauty. We find pleasure in looking at a Greek statue because it is perfectly proportioned; we enjoy an old Italian painting because it is delicate in coloring and harmonious in form; we are attracted by a |