Book: Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four.

W >> William H. Elson and Christine Keck >> Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four.




_Cas_. I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a
commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk?
and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with
one's own shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to
be known by, let us call thee devil!

_Iago_. What was he that you followed with your sword? What had he
done to you?

_Cas_. I know not.

_Iago_. Is't possible?

_Cas_. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel,
but nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths
to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and
applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

_Iago_. Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus recovered?

_Cas_. It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the
devil wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me frankly despise
myself.

_Iago_. Come, you are too severe a moraler: as the time, the place,
and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had
not befallen; but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.

_Cas_. I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a
drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop them
all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast! O
strange! Every inordinate cup is unblessed and the ingredient is a devil.

_Iago_. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be
well used: exclaim no more against it. And, good lieutenant, I think you
think I love you.

_Cas_. I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!

_Iago_. You or any man living may be drunk at a time, man. I'll tell
you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the general: I may say so
in this respect, for that he hath devoted and given up himself to the
contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and graces: confess
yourself freely to her: importune her help to put you in your place again:
she is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it
a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested: this broken
joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter; and my fortunes
against any lay worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger
than it was before.

_Cas_. You advise me well.

_Iago_. I protest in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.

_Cas_. I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will beseech
the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me: I am desperate of my fortunes
if they check me here.

_Iago_. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant; I must to the
watch.

_Cas_. Good night, honest Iago.



HELPS TO STUDY. Notes

"marry"--an exclamation--indeed!
"cast"--dismissed.
"fustian"--empty phrasing,
"pleasance"--merriment.
"moraler"--moralizer


Words and Phrases for Discussion.

"immortal part of myself"
"repute yourself"
"as many mouths as Hydra"
"crack of your love"
"false imposition"
"speak parrot"
"denotement"
"must to the watch"

* * * * *




PART II

SELECTIONS FROM GREAT AMERICAN AUTHORS

_"He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play and old
men from the chimney corner."_

--SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.



* * * * *

WASHINGTON IRVING

"Washington's work is ended and the child shall be named after him," so
said the mother of Washington Irving at his birth in New York, April 3,
1783. When, six years later, all New York was enthusiastically greeting the
first President of the United States, a Scotch servant in the Irving family
followed the President into a shop with the youngest son of the family and
approaching him said, "Please, your honor, here's a bairn was named for
you." Washington, putting his hand upon the boy's head, gave him his
blessing. It seems eminently fitting that this boy, who became known as the
Father of American Letters, should write the biography of the man whose
name he bore, and whom we know as the Father of his Country.

New York was then the capital of the country, a city of about twenty-five
thousand inhabitants, small enough so that it was an easy matter for the
city boy to get into the country. New York itself retained many traces of
its Dutch origin, and upon its streets could be seen men from all parts of
the world. Here the boy grew up happy, seeing many sides of American life,
both in the city and in the country. He was fun-loving and social, and
could hardly be called a student. He greatly preferred "Robinson Crusoe"
and "Sinbad" to the construing of Latin. Best of all, he liked to go
exploring down to the water front to see the tall ships setting sail for
the other side of the world, or, as he grew older, up the Hudson and into
the Catskills, or to that very Sleepy Hollow which lives for us now because
of him. Irving liked people, and had many warm friends.

These three tastes--for people, for books, and for travel--his life was
destined to gratify. His health being delicate, he was sent abroad at
twenty-one, and the captain of the ship he sailed in, noting his fragile
appearance, said, "There's one who'll go overboard before we get across,"
but he happily proved a mistaken prophet. Irving not only survived the
voyage, but spent two years traveling in Italy, France, Sicily, and the
Netherlands. The romantic spirit strong within him eagerly absorbed
mediæval history and tradition. "My native country was full of youthful
promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age."

Upon his return home, Irving was admitted to the bar, but he never
seriously turned his attention to law. In 1809 he published "A History of
New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker." It was a humorous history of New
Amsterdam, a delicious mingling of sense and nonsense, over which Walter
Scott said his "sides were absolutely sore with laughing." While writing
this history a great sorrow touched his life--the death of a young girl to
whom he was deeply attached.

Ten years later, upon his second visit to Europe, Irving published "The
Sketch Book." It rapidly won favor both in England and America. Byron said
of it: "I know it by heart; at least there is not a passage that I cannot
refer to immediately." This second visit to Europe was to be a short
business trip, but as it chanced, it lasted seventeen years. The first five
years were spent in England. Later he went to Spain, and as a result of
this visit, we have a series of books dealing with Spanish history and
tradition--"The Alhambra," "The Conquest of Granada" and "The Life of
Columbus." During all these years and in all these places, he met and won
the regard of hosts of interesting people. Everyone praised his books, and
everyone liked the likable American, with his distinguished face and gentle
manners.

In 1832 Irving was gladly welcomed back to America, for many had feared
that his long absence might mean permanent residence abroad. The next ten
years were spent in his beautiful home, Sunnyside, at
Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson. Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, could find no
person more gratifying to the Spanish people, than the author of the "Life
of Columbus" and, in 1842, persuaded Irving to represent us at the Spanish
court. After four years, he returned to America and passed his time almost
exclusively in writing. The work which he finished just before his death,
in November, 1859, was the "Life of Washington." He was buried on a hill
overlooking the river and a portion of the Sleepy Hollow Valley.

Because of the ease and smoothness of his style, and his delicate sense of
form, Irving delighted his own and succeeding generations of both his
countrymen and his British cousins. All his work is pervaded by the strong
and winning personal quality that brought him the love and admiration of
all. Charles Dudley Warner says of him: "The author loved good women and
little children and a pure life; he had faith in his fellow-men, a kindly
sympathy with the lowest, without any subservience to the highest. His
books are wholesome, full of sweetness and charm, of humor without any
sting, of amusement without any stain; and their more solid qualities are
marred by neither pedantry nor pretension."

* * * * *


RIP VAN WINKLE

A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER

FROM "THE SKETCH BOOK," BY WASHINGTON IRVING

By Woden, God of Saxons,
From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday.
Truth is a thing that ever I will keep
Unto thylke day in which I creep into
My sepulchre.
--CARTWRIGHT.

The following tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich
Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the
Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants from its
primitive settlers. His historical researches, however, did not lie so much
among books as among men; for the former are lamentably scanty on his
favorite topics; whereas he found the old burghers, and still more their
wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to true history. Whenever,
therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its
low-roofed farmhouse under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a
little clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a
book worm. The result of all these researches was a history of the province
during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years
since. There have been various opinions as to the literary character of his
work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it should be.
Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little
questioned on its first appearance, but has since been completely
established; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as a
book of unquestionable authority.

The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work, and now
that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory to say that
his time might have been much better employed in weightier labors. He,
however, was apt to ride his hobby his own way; and though it did now and
then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the
spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and
affection; yet his errors and follies are remembered "more in sorrow than
in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never intended to injure
or offend. But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is
still held dear by many folk, whose good opinion is worth having;
particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint
his likeness on their new-year cakes; and have thus given him a chance for
immortality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, or a
Queen Anne's Farthing.

Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill
Mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family,
and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height,
and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every
change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in
the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by
all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather
is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their
bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes when the rest of the
landscape is cloudless they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their
summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up
like a crown of glory.

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the
light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the
trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh
green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity,
having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early time of the
province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter
Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were some of the houses of
the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow
bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts,
surmounted with weathercocks.

In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the
precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many
years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a
simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a
descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous
days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort
Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of
his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured man; he
was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient henpecked husband. Indeed,
to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which
gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be
obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews
at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the
fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain lecture is worth all
the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and
long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects be
considered a tolerable blessing, and if so, rip Van Winkle was thrice
blessed.

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the
village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family
squabbles; and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in
their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The
children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached.
He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly
kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and
Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a
troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a
thousand tricks on him with impunity; and not a dog would bark at him
throughout the neighborhood.

The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all
kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or
perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy
as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he
should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece
on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and
up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would
never refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the roughest toil, and was a
foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building
stone-fences; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run
their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging
husbands would not do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to
anybody's business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping
his farm in order, he found it impossible.

In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most
pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it
went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were
continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray or get among
the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere
else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some
out-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial estate had dwindled
away under his management, acre by acre, until there was little more left
than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the
worst-conditioned farm in the neighborhood.

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody.
His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit
the habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was generally seen
trooping like a colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of father's
cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with, one hand, as
a fine lady does her train in bad weather.

Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish,
well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown,
whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve
on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have
whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually
dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he
was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night her tongue was
incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a
torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of replying to all
lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He
shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing.
This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from his wife; so that he was
fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house--the only
side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband.

Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much henpecked as
his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness,
and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's
going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an
honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the
woods--but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-besetting
terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest
fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he
sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame
Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly
to the door with yelping precipitation.

Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled
on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only
edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to
console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual
club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village;
which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated by a
rubicund portrait of His Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in
the shade through a long lazy summer's day, talking listlessly over village
gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have
been worth any statesman's money to have heard the profound discussions
that sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their
hands from some passing traveler. How solemnly they would listen to the
contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the school-master, a dapper
learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in
the dictionary; and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events
some months after they had taken place.

The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a
patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he
took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid
the sun and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbors could
tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true
he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His
adherents, however (for every great man has his adherents), perfectly
understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When anything that was
read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe
vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent and angry puffs; but when
pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in
light and placid clouds; and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and
letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head
in token of perfect approbation.

From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his
termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the
assemblage and call the members all to naught; nor was that august
personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this
terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in
habits of idleness.

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative,
to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take
gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat
himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with
Wolf, with whom he sympathized, as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor
Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it; but never
mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by
thee!" Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and if
dogs can feel pity I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all
his heart.

In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had unconsciously
scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. He was
after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the still solitudes had
echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he
threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with
mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening
between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile
of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below
him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a
purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its
glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands.

On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely,
and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending cliffs,
and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some
time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the
mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he saw
that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he heaved
a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van
Winkle.

As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing,
"Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!" He looked round, but could see nothing
but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought his
fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he heard
the same cry ring through the still evening air: "Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van
Winkle!"--at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving a low
growl, skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully down into the glen.
Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked anxiously in
the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the
rocks, and bending under the weight of something he carried on his back. He
was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place;
but supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood in need of assistance,
he hastened down to yield it.

On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singularity of the
stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick
bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch
fashion: a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, several pair of breeches,
the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the
sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg, that
seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him
with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance,
Rip complied with his usual alacrity; and mutually relieving one another,
they clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain
torrent. As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long rolling peals
like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather
cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He
paused for a moment, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those
transient thunder-showers which often take place in mountain heights, he
proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small
amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of
which impending trees shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses
of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip
and his companion had labored on in silence; for though the former marveled
greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild
mountain, yet there was something strange and incomprehensible about the
unknown, that inspired awe and checked familiarity.

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