The Character Building Readers: First reader, part one-[eighth year]

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Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, 1910

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Page 43 - For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.
Page 44 - The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
Page 9 - THE shades of night were falling fast, As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior! His brow was sad; his eye beneath, Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, And like a silver clarion rung The accents of that unknown tongue, Excelsior...
Page 44 - This Government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty.
Page 160 - Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests: in all time, Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm. Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving; — boundless, endless, and sublime; The image of eternity, the throne Of the Invisible: even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
Page 160 - twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane— as I do here.
Page 194 - The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills ; And let me catch it as I muse along. Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound ; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale ; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound his stupendous praise whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Page 146 - But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
Page 160 - Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee; Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou, Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play; Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow : Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Page 194 - Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to Him; Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.

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