MY COUNTRY

I love my country's pine-clad hills,
Her thousand bright and gushing rills,
Her sunshine and her storms;

Her rough and rugged rocks that rear
Their hoary heads high in the air,
In wild, fantastic forms.

I love her rivers, deep and wide,

Those mighty streams that seaward glide,
To seek the ocean's breast;

Her smiling fields, her pleasant vales,
Her shady dells, her flowery dales,
The haunts of peaceful rest.

I love her forests, dark and lone,
For there the wild bird's merry tone
Is heard from morn till night;
And there are lovelier flowers, I ween,
Than e'er in eastern lands are seen,
In varied colors bright.

Her forests and her valleys fair,

Her flowers that scent the morning air,
Have all their charms for me;

But more I love my country's name,

These words that echo deathless fame"The land of LIBERTY.”

A WONDERFUL SHELL

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

ALFRED TENNYSON, the greatest English poet of modern times, was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, August 6, 1809, and died at Aldworth House, near Haslemere, Surrey, October 6, 1892. He was raised to the peerage in 1884, and was the first Lord Tennyson. He succeeded Wordsworth as poet laureate of England, and was much beloved by the whole nation. He has left a large number of poems, remarkable for their purity of thought and beauty of diction. His short poems are well known, and his longer poems are general favorites. "Idyls of the King," "The Princess," and "In Memoriam" are the best known of his long poems. He wrote dramas; one, "Queen Mary," has met with some favor.

See what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,

Lying close to my foot.

Frail, but a work divine,

Made so fairly well

With delicate spire and whorl.

How exquisitely minute!

A miracle of design!

What is it? A learned man
Could give it a clumsy name.
Let him name it who can,

The beauty would be the same.

A WONDERFUL SHELL

The tiny cell is forlorn,

Void of the little living will

That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurled,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Through his dim water-world?
Slight, to be crushed with a tap
Of my finger-nail on the sand;
Small, but a work divine;
Frail, but of force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap
The three-decker's oaken spine
Athwart the ledges of rock,
Here on the Breton strand!

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A man has nò more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.

-Johnson.

We should die like the stars-into day, not into night.

-Austin O'Malley.

3

FRANKLIN'S ARRIVAL IN PHILADELPHIA

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

I was in my working dress, my best clothes having to come by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul, nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I was very hungry, and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling in copper.

The latter I gave to the people of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it on account of my rowing; but I insisted on their taking it. A man is sometimes more generous when he has but little money than when he has plenty; perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.

Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's to whom he directed me, in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in Boston, but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia.

Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not considering or knowing the difference of money and the greater cheapness, nor the names of

FRANKLIN IN PHILADELPHIA

35

his bread, I bade him give me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls.

I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm and eating the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward and ridiculous appearance.

Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a drink of the river water. Being filled with one of my rolls, I gave the other two to a woman and her child, who had come down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which had by this time many clean-dressed people on it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers, near the market.

I sat down among them, and, after looking around awhile and hearing nothing-being very tired through labor and want of rest the preceding night—I fell asleep and continued so till the meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first