XXV. ROBINSON CRUSOE'S MANUFACTURE OF POTTERY. 1. I had long studied, by some means or other, to make myself some earthen vessels-which, indeed, I wanted much, but knew not where to come at them. However, considering the heat of the climate, I did not doubt but, if I could find out any clay, I might botch up some such pot as might, being dried in the sun, be hard and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold anything that was dry, and required to be kept so; and as this was necessary in the preparing corn meal, etc., which was the thing I was upon, I resolved to make some as large as I could, and fit only to stand like jars, to hold what should be put into them. 2. It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell how many awkward ways I took to shape this jar; what odd, misshapen, ugly things I made; how many of them fell in, and how many fell outthe clay not being stiff enough to bear its own weight; how many cracked by the over-violent heat of the sun, being set out too hastily; and how many fell in pieces with only removing, as well before as after they were dried; and, in a word, how, after having labored hard to find the clay, to dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and work it, I could not make above two large earthen, ugly things (I can not call them jars) in about two months' labor. 3. However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I lifted them very gently, and set them down again in two great wicker baskets, which I had made on purpose for them, that they might not break; and, as between the pot and the basket there was a little room to spare, I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw; and these two pots, being to stand always dry, I thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the meal, when the corn was bruised. 4. Though I succeeded so poorly in my design for large pots, yet I made several smaller things with better success, such as little round pots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and anything my hand turned to; and the heat of the sun baked them very hard. 5. But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an earthen pot to hold liquids and bear the fire, which none of these could do. It happened some time after, making a pretty large fire for cooking my meat, when I went to put it out after I had done with it, I found a broken piece of one of my earthenware vessels in the fire, burnt as hard as a stone, and red as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it, and said to myself that certainly they might be made to burn when whole, if they would burn when broken. 6. This set me to study how to order my fire so as to make it burn some pots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as the potters burn in, or of glazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with; but I placed three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile, one upon another, and placed my firewood all around it, with a great heap of embers under them. 7. I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside and upon the top, till I saw the pots in the inside redhot quite through, and observed that they did not crack at all. When I saw them clear red, I let them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I found one of them, though it did not crack, did melt or run; for the sand which was mixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat, and would have run into glass if I had gone on. 8. So I slacked my fire gradually, till the pots began to abate of the red color; and watching them all night, that I might not let the fire abate too fast, in the morning I had three very good-I will not say handsome—pipkins, and two other earthen pots, as hard burnt as could be desired; and one of them perfectly glazed with the running of the sand. 9. After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort of earthenware for my use; but as to the shapes of them, they were very indifferent (as any one may suppose), as I had no way of making them but as the children make dirt pies, or as a woman would make pies who had never learned to raise paste. 10. No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when I found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire; and I had hardly patience to stay till they were cold, before I set one on the fire again with some water in it, to boil me some meat, which it did admirably well; and with a piece of a kid I made some very good broth, though I wanted oatmeal and several other ingredients requisite to make it as good as I would have had it. Daniel De Foe. FOR PREPARATION.-I. After Crusoe had escaped from the sea (Lesson XIX.), he tried to make himself comfortable. He made a house out of a cave; planted some seeds that he recovered from the wreck; tamed some goats, etc. This extract tells us how he learned to make crockery from clay. II. Něç'-es-sa-ry, pre-pâr'-ing, awk'-ward, weight (wat), lā-bored, liq'-uid, pieçe, kiln (kil). III. In the following, which word is the name of the object, and which one the description of it?--some means, earthen vessels, any clay, awkward 66 ways, ugly things, little room. Notice the old-fashioned expressions and uses of words: come at them" and "I was upon " (1); "answer my end" (purpose) (5); "wanted" for needed (10). (All sentences containing unusual modes of expression should be paraphrased by the pupil in his own words.) IV. Considering, climate, botch, required, temper, bruised, design, tile, notion, glazing, pipkins, embers, fuel, violence, slacked, gradually, abate, experiment, indifferent, patience, admirably, ingredients, requisite. V. Write in your own words the sixth, seventh, and eighth paragraphs, and try to tell the particulars in fewer words. XXVI.-A PSALM OF LIFE. 1. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 2. Life is real! life is earnest ! And the grave is not its goal; 3. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 4. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, 5. In the world's broad field of battle, Be not like dumb, driven cattle- 6. Trust no future, howe'er pleasant; Heart within, and God o'erhead! 7. Lives of great men all remind us 8. Footprints that perhaps another, 9. Let us, then, be up and doing, Henry W. Longfellow. FOR PREPARATION.-I. "Dust thou art " (Eccl. iii. 20: "All go to one place; all are of dust, and all turn to dust again"). II. BĬv'-ouăe (biv’wăk), dùmb (dům), eăt'-tle, a-chiēv’-ing. III. What words are used to describe "numbers," "dream," "life," "marches," ," "field," "cattle," "brother "? IV. Slumbers, goal, returnest, destined, flecting, muffled, stout, funeral, hero, strife, present, remind, sublime, departing, "sands of time," "soleran main," forlorn, pursuing. V. "Mournful numbers" (poetry is divided into feet, of which there are a certain number in each line; hence poetry is sometimes called numbers"). The thought of the first stanza is: Do not say, Life is a dream, for a dream occurs in sleep, and the sleep of the soul is death, in which there are no dreams. Then, again, in a dream things only seem—they do not exist. But such things are not; hence life, which is a real thing, is not a dream. "The grave is not its goal" (i. e., the soul does not find its end in the grave-does not return to dust). "Like muffled drums are |