no pause for the gathering of power, no helpless ebb of discouraged recoil; but alike through bright day and lulling night, the never pausing plunge, the never fading flash, the never hushing whisper, and, while the sun was up, the ever answering glow of unearthly aqua-marine, ultra-marine, violet-blue, gentian-blue, peacock-blue, river-of-paradise blue, glass of a painted window melted in the sun, and the witch of the Alps flinging the spun tresses of it forever from her snow. From "Præterita." - RUSKIN.

Read the following and tell what facts regarding the farmhouse and its surroundings the writer was enabled to determine through the sense of sight. Judging from this description do you consider her a close observer?

THE POYSER FARMHOUSE

Evidently the gate is never opened; for the long grass and the great hemlocks grow close against it; and if it were opened, it is so rusty, that the force necessary to turn it on its hinges would be likely to pull down the square stonebuilt pillars, to the detriment of the two stone lionesses that grin with a carnivorous affability above a coat of arms surmounting each of the pillars. It would be easy enough, the aid of the nicks in the stone pillars, to climb over the stone wall with its smooth stone coping; but by putting our eyes close to the rusty bars of the gate, we can see the house well enough, and all but the very corners of the grassy inclosure.

by

It is a very fine old place of red brick, softened by a pale powdery lichen, which has dispersed itself with a happy irregularity, so as to bring the red brick into terms of friendly companionship with the limestone ornaments surrounding the three gables, the windows, and the door-place. But the windows are patched with wooden panes, and the door, I think, is like the gate it is never opened: how it would groan and grate against the stone floor if it were! For it is a solid, heavy, handsome door and must once have been in the habit of shutting with a sonorous bang behind a liveried lackey, who had just seen his master and mistress off the grounds in a carriage and pair.

Put your face to one of the glass panes in the right-hand window: what do you see? A large open fireplace, with rusty dogs in it, and a bare boarded-floor; at the far end, fleeces of wool stacked up; in the middle of the floor some empty corn-bags. That is the furniture of the dining room. And what through the left-hand window? Several clotheshorses, a pillion, a spinning-wheel and an old box, wide open, and stuffed full of colored rags. At the end of this box there lies a great wooden doll, which, so far as mutilation is concerned, bears a fine resemblance to the finest Greek sculpture, and especially in the total loss of its nose. Near it is a little chair, and the butt-end of a boy's leather long-lashed whip.

From "Adam Bede.". GEORGE ELIOT.

Exercises

1. Make a list of the color impressions which the author received from the Rhone River, and consider whether you have seen these colors in water.

2. What other impressions besides those of color does he mention?

3. Make a list of the objects which enter into the picture of the Poyser Farmhouse. What other sight impressions besides those of form are mentioned?

4. In the selection on page 234 find all the references to sight impressions. Discuss them in class to learn whether your classmates recall the same impressions from the mention of them as you do.

5. Bring to the class passages in which color, form, and any impression which one might receive through the sense of sight are mentioned and discuss them to determine which of the sight impressions, color, form, etc., gives you most pleasure.

6. Read several poems written by Wordsworth and by Bryant to determine which of these poets makes the most

frequent reference to something learned through sight, and which of the sight impressions, color, form, etc., he mentions

most.

7. Write a brief description of the scene which the following sentence presents to you:

The meadows roll and swell in billowy waves, bearing like a white-speckled foam upon their crests a sea of daisies, with here and there a floating patch of crimson clover, or a golden haze of buttercups. GIBSON.

SECTION XLIII

Sound in Nature

Persons who live in the country and can go out into the fields and woods in the early morning, while most city dwellers are still asleep, experience much pleasure and enjoyment which only early risers can ever know. The sounds of early morning are especially enjoyable, for then the birds sing sweetest and there are many sounds which are not to be heard later in the day. In the following poem we are told of some of these sounds. Note the many different sounds that the writer heard, and make a list of the words used to indicate them. If you have ever been in the country at this early morning hour, recall the occasion and consider whether you experienced its delights to the fullest extent.

SOUNDS OF MORNING

But who the melodies of morn can tell?

The wild brook babbling down the mountain side;
The lowing herd, the sheepfold's simple bell;
The pipe of early shepherd, him descried

In the lone valley; echoing far and wide,

The clamorous horn along the cliffs above;
The hollow murmur of the ocean tide;
The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love,

And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.

The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark;

Crowned with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings; The whistling plowman stalks afield; and hark!

Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings;
Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs;
Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour;

The partridge bursts away on whirring wings;
Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower,
And shrill lark carols from her aërial tower.

From "The Minstrel." - JAMES BEATTIE.

Mr. Thoreau, who spent more of his time out of doors than any other American writer, made nature his constant companion, and learned to know and love her in all her varying moods. During the two years-which he spent in a little hut which he himself built at Walden Pond, he had abundant opportunity to make careful and accurate observation of nature and the wild life about him. "Walden, or Life in the Woods," which was written to chronicle the experiences of the two years' life in this solitude, is considered his best production. In the following, he tells of the evening sounds in this place.

SOUNDS AT EVENING

Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, a natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which is swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of

U

earth interesting to the eye by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by a woodnymph.

*

*

*

*

Regularly at half-past seven, in cne part of the summer, after the evening train had gone by, the whip-poor-wills chanted their vespers for half an hour, sitting upon a stump by my door, or upon the ridge-pole of the house. They would begin to sing with almost as much precision as a clock, within five minutes of a particular time, referred to the setting of the sun every evening. . . . Sometimes I heard four or five in different parts of the wood, by accident one a bar behind another, and so near me that I distinguished not only the cluck after each note, but often that singular buzzing sound like a fly in a spider's web, only proportionally louder. They sang at intervals throughout the night, and were again as musical as ever just before and about the dawn.

When other birds are silent the screech owls take up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jonsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but without jesting a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers, remembering the pangs and delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the roadside; reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. Oh-0-0-0 that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then that I never

had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the other side with tremulous sincerity, and — bor-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. - From "Walden."— THOREAU.