Why is the brook the "native place" of the elm? What is meant by turning the water into ebony"? What is " tered over the meadow" "? scat Give the etymology and meaning of noble, graceful, foliage, landscape, affluence. Study carefully the important words,-the words that ought to be made emphatic. Also observe the inflections, or the direction in which the voice should turn at the different pauses. Fourth Paragraph. What is there about the maple that is like a "cupola"? Of what kind of maple is this true? What is meant by a "complete canopy from the summer shower"? What part of the maple tree "reddens"? Is the word "brilliantly " an expressive one here? Why? What are "fringes"? What is it to "gleam"? How does the "blue-bird tell us spring has come "? What is meant by its "crimson" being 66 so rich" "? Give the etymology and meaning of splendid, cupola, complete, brilliantly, autumn, crimson. Think carefully of the best way of reading this paragraph. Fifth Paragraph. Why is the trunk of the beech said to be "snow-spotted"? Point out the difference in form between the leaves of the maple and beech. What is it to be "regularly scalloped "? What are the "sprays"? What is it to "feather out"? What is "cream-satin "? Why does the young leaf look like a speck of emerald"? [The pupil needs to examine the beech-tree, and to see it as here described. The same should be done in respect to each of the other trees.] What is the "Indian summer"? Give the etymology and meaning of delicate, emerald, clusters, constant, continuous. [Let the teacher continue this analysis through the remainder of this selection, and through the succeeding one. Let questions be prepared by teacher and pupils: it will be an excellent exercise for both.] II. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 1. And now the oak, "the brave old oak," and so forth. Suppose yourself in a wood! Do you see that little brown vegetable cup with a braided cover-there by the dead maple leaf and tuft of crimson-headed moss? Yon robin just planted his foot upon and covered it. And then do you see that towering tree whose head seems nearly to touch the white cloud above it? Look! upon its very apex there is a bird, seemingly the size of this wild pigeon on the beech-tree, but in reality an eagle. A great many years have intervened between the two objects, it is true, but you think twice ere realizing that yon seamed, stern, sturdy oak once nestled in this acorn. So of all trees, you say, from the seed. True again, but none strikes you so forcibly in this contrast as the oak. 2. And what a tree it is! First piercing the mold, a tiny needle that the ground-squirrel would destroy with a nibble, and then rearing grandly toward the sun a wreath of green to endure for ages. Does the wild wind dash upon it? It shakes its proud head, but no more bends its whole shape than yon crag. Doth the arrowy sleet strike it? Its leaves only make clicking music; and as for the early snow, it bears it up easily as a deer would fragments of kalmia-blossoms on his antlers. How finely its dark green stands out from the lighter hues of the beeches, birches, and maples! And then how it keeps old Time at a distance! Why, decades are nothing to it. 3. The child gathers the violet at its foot; as a boy, he pockets its dropped acorns; a man, he looks at its height, towering up, towering up, and makes it the emblem of his ambition. Years after, with white hairs and palsied limbs, he totters at noontide to lie within its shade, and slumber, perchance to dream" of that last sleep which can not be distant, and which "knows no waking." But has the oak changed? Mocker of the storm, stern darer of the lightning, there he stands, the same, and seemingly forever. Challenger of Time, defier of earth's changes, there he stands, the pride 66 of the forest, satirizing, in his mute language, alike the variations of fortune and evanescence of man. 4. And he does all things in a grand, slow way, unlike other trees. In spring-time, when the aspen has showed for a month its young leaves of silver gray, when the beech has thrust forth its beautiful feathers, when the maple has made a red rain of its glowing blossoms upon the forest floor, the oak still looks as he did when January was frowning upon his branches. When the aspen has elaborated its small leaves into thick foliage, when the beech has spangled itself over with emerald, when the maple has hung upon its slender stems its broad pearl-lined verdure, no tint of green upon He stands yet in dark disdain, as if mourning the the oak! perished winter. 5. But at last, when the woodland is smiling in its fullydeveloped glory, when the tardy blossoms of the locust and tulip-tree are drenching the air with delicious sweetness, then stirs the oak. Little brown things are scattered over his great boughs, which in due time become long, deep-veined leaves; and lo! the regal oak has donned his splendid robe. The summer passes, and the autumn comes. What stands at the corner of yon wood, swathed in a mantle of the true imperial? Crimsons and yellows and golden-browns are flashing all around him, as though there were a carnival among the trees; but no hue is brighter than that of the brave old oak in his robe of royal purple. And he is in no more haste to let that robe of his go than in putting it on. 6. When the shrieking blasts have torn its mantle from every other tree, the oak still clings to his, as if he said to those shrieking blasts, "I defy your fury!" When the snowbird comes twittering among the woods to tell them the snow will shortly be showering loose pearl all through their gaunt domains, the oak yet holds to his mantle, blanched and tattered though it be. High amid the snow-drifts, firm amid the blasts, the pale crackling leaves still cling, with nothing in the wide, bleak forests to keep them company, save here and there a shivering lingerer upon the beech-tree. Often it is only when their successors come "to push them from their stools," that the old leaves quit the gallant oak and lie down to perish. So, a health to the oak ! 7. We will merely touch, in passing, upon the horsechestnut, with its great glistening spring-buds bursting into cones of pearly, red-spotted blossoms that almost cover its noble dome of foliage; upon the hemlock, with its masses of evergreen needles, and the cedar, with its misty blue berries; upon those tree-like shrubs—the hopple, with its gigantic leaves serving as sylvan goblets at picnics; the sumac, with its clusters of splendid crimson; the sassafras, diffusing from its thick leaf a most delicious breath; the laurel, arching above the brooks a roof radiant with immense bouquets of rose-touched snow, and even garlanding the apex of the water-beech with its superb chalices while its younger sister, the ivy, crouches at the foot of the tamarack and spruce, rich in red-streaked urns of blossoms; and the witch-hazel, smiling at winter, with its curled, sharp-cut flowers of golden velvet. 8. We come now to the pine,—of all, my greatest favorite. Ho! ho! the burly pine! Hurrah! Hurrah for the pine! The oak may be king of the lowlands, but the pine is the king of the hills—aye, and mountains too. 9. Ho! ho! the burly pine! how he strikes his clubbed foot deep into the cleft of the rock, or grasps its span with conscious power! There he lifts his haughty front like the warrior monarch that he is. No flinching about the pine, let the time be ever so stormy. His throne is the crag, and his crown is a good way up in the heavens ; and as for the clouds, he tears them asunder sometimes, and uses them for robes. Then hurrah again for the pine! say I. 10. Reader, did you ever hear him shout? Did you ever hear thunder?-for there is a pine mountain on the upper Delaware that out-roars, in a winter-storm, all the thunder you ever heard! Stern, deep, awfully deep, that roar makes the heart quiver. It is an airquake of tremendous power. And his single voice is by no means silvery when he is “in a breeze." When the stern warrior-king has aroused his energies to meet the onslaught of the storm, the battle-cry he sends down the wind is heard above all the voices of the greenwood. His robe streams out like a banner, and so wild does he look, you would think he was about to dash himself from his throne of rock upon the valley beneath. But no; his great foot grasps more closely the crag; and when, after a while, the tempest leaves him, how quietly he settles to his repose! 11. He adorns his crown with a rich wreath caught from the sunset, and an hour after, he wears the orbed moon as a splendid jewel upon his haughty brow. The scented breeze of the soft evening breathes upon him, and the grim warriorking wakes his murmuring lute, and oh! such sounds—so sweet, so soothing! Years that have passed live again in the music; tones long since hushed echo once more in the heart; faces that have turned to dust-but how loved in the old time!—glimmer among the dusky boughs; eyes that years ago closed on earth to open in heaven smile kindly upon us. We lie down in the dark shadow upon the mossy roots and are happy-happy in a sad, sweet, tender tranquillity that purifies the soul, and while it makes us content with earth, fills us with love for heaven. III.-WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE. GEO. P. MORRIS. 1. Woodman, spare that tree! In youth it sheltered me, 2. That old familiar tree, Whose glory and renown Cut not its earth-bound ties; Oh, spare that aged oak, Now towering to the skies. |