RECITATION SERIES, No. 4. A MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTION OF Prose and Poetry for Recitation and Reading DESIGNED FOR SCHOOLS, HOME AND LITERARY CIRCLES AND EDITED BY H. M. SOPER, For several years past Professor of Elocution and Oratory in prominent schools CHICAGO: The only reason for issuing No. 4 lies in the fact that each succeeding number of this series has had a larger sale than any previous one. Many thanks are hereby extended to other publishers of similar books for the high appreciation of our selections, shown by the liberal hand with which they have copied selections especially prepared for our series. To some extent, we hope to find it convenient to reciprocate the favor. We are especially indebted to several publishers and authors for permission to make extracts from their works for use in No. 4, and wish also to return thanks for choice scraps furnished us from private collections. H. M. SOPER. Copyright, 1885, by T. S. Denison. James A. Garfield. The Mutilated Currency Question. Brooklyn Eagle Memory. How a Song Saved a Soul... .F. L. Stanton.. A Decoration Day Address ......Rev. H. Stone Richardson... What the Robin Can Tell........ Mr.Hopwell's Theory of Suppress- A Model Summer Hotel... Pat and the Oysters. Family Government... The Heroes and the Flowers.. Expecting to Get Even. Driving a Hen. A Retrospective.. .G. W. Cable...... Detroit Free Press.. ...... .H. W. Beecher.. Where are the Wicked Folks Bur- ied?.... Romance of a Hat.. Forever Courtship Fair and Square. PAGE. 5 7 ........ 9 II 13 Kit, or Faithful Unto Death. ..Our American Cousin... ... (RECAP) 70746 iv INDEX. PAGE. The Girl in Gray... An Easter-Tide Deliverance. Fading. Aurelia's Unfortunate Young Man.Mark Twain... Willis Merritt. 79 80 82 83 86 SCRAP-BOOK RECITATIONS. A TRIBUTE TO GRANT. BY REV. H. D. JENKINS. [From Chicago Evening Journal.] Not since the death of Moses has a man so gone up into a mountain to meet God. His life work was done. Like that great leader of Israel's mighty hosts, his life had been one of tumults and the din of war; now God was to give him a close of life under the light which shines only upon the heights and amid the vast silences which fill the solitudes of mountains. He turned his back upon the roaring of great cities; he bade adieu to the world of traffic, of labor, of ambition. As the wounded lion seeks the deepest jungle; as the stricken eagle stretches out his pinions for one last flight into the unbroken wastes of the forests, so did this man, who for twenty years had lived amid the din of battles, the pageants of courts, the plaudits of nations, leave the busy, noisy world far below and far behind him, and go up into the everlasting hills to meet God and to die. Alexander, the historian tells us-world-conqueror. though he boasted himself to be, fell among the rioters of his camp, slain by the basest appetites of common men. Cæsar, pierced by the assassin's dagger, tumbled headlong at the base of that statue which Rome had erected to his great rival. Napoleon, with his armies scattered, his empire broken, his fame tarnished, died alone, upon the bleak rocks of St. Helena, vainly giving orders in his delirium to hosts that no longer existed but in his disordered dreams. But this man, who had never drawn a sword for personal ambitions, nor shed a drop of blood except in - (5) |