LESSON 1. 
USEFUL AND SUCCESSFUL INDUSTRIAL CAREERS. 
  The counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire, in England, are celebrated as the homes of the English textile industries.  In the great towns of Manchester, Preston, Bradford, and Leeds, not to mention many other centers of industrial enterprise, men have made fortunes, and in doing so have been the cause of the prosperity and the well-being of the towns with which their names are associated.  In this lesson we shall read of the careers of three men, Sir Titus Salt, John Horrocks, and Lord Masham, who in their lives contributed so much to the industrial prosperity of these northern counties of England. 
  The career of Sir Titus Salt is remarkable as showing how great wealth can be acquired by means of foresight, energy, and perseverance, and to what good uses it can be put. 
Titus Salt was born near Bradford in the year 1803.  At the age of 17 he was sent to learn the business of a wool merchant.  After spending two years (in) learning wool-sorting in a Bradford warehouse, he became a junior partner with his father, who had begun business as a wool merchant in Bradford in 1822. 
The firm soon prospered, chiefly owing to the efforts of the junior partner, who soon began to strike out a new line for himself, and make experiments in the purchase of new materials.  In this way he bought a consignment of wool from the region of the river Don in the southeast of Russia.  Finding that his customers would not buy this material, which in appearance was coarse, greasy, and tangled, but had qualities of luster and fineness, he resolved to utilize it himself.  He took a mill in Bradford, had it fitted with suitable machinery, and began to spin this Russian wool into yarn or thread, and afterwards to weave it into cloth.  His efforts in this and other undertakings were crowned with success, and his business grew so rapidly that he was soon in possession of five mills. 
In 1836 he launched out in a new direction, and applied himself to the great work of his life, the utilizing of alpaca.  Alpaca is the name of an animal, which is akin to the camel, and is found in the high mountains of Peru and Chile; its wool, while straighter than that of the sheep, is silken, lustrous, and strong.  In Peru the wool of the alpaca had from early times been woven by the Indians into beautiful cloaks and blankets, and attempts were made in the early part of the nineteenth century to produce fabric of this material in England, but the products were so costly that they were chiefly regarded as curiosities. 
The attention of Titus Salt had first been drawn to the possibilities of alpaca in 1886, when he saw in a warehouse at Liverpool a pile of dirty-looking bales, which had lain there for a long time, and which nobody would buy.  Titus Salt took a small quantity of the material home with him to Bradford; there he scoured, combed, and inspected it, and found a glossy wool, well adapted to the manufacture of the light fancy fabrics which were just then in demand. 
He tried to interest his father and two friends in the new material, and was advised to have nothing to do with what they called "the nasty stuff"; but he persevered in his projects and said to one of his friends, "I'm going into this alpaca affair right and left, and I'll make myself either a man or a mouse."  He eventually bought the whole consignment of three hundred bales of alpaca at eight pence a pound, and applied himself to the task of weaving a marketable fabric out of the "nasty stuff."
To make a fabric out of alpaca alone was not practicable, as the product would be too heavy and costly.  He first tried to weave alpaca with woolen and worsted warps, but the result was discouraging.  He then tried a cotton warp, and by this means was able to produce a new fabric which took the popular taste, being cheaper than silk but resembling it in glossiness, elegant to look at, suitable for summer wear, and yet more durable than any similar article.  His success was so great that others followed his example, and in three years the imports of alpaca had risen to over two million pounds. 
The success of Titus Salt's alpaca venture was followed up at a later date by his introducing into England another new material, namely mohair, or the long silky wool of the Angora goat, the home of which is in the neighborhood of the present capital of Turkey.  Everything that he touched prospered, and he acquired one of the largest fortunes of modem times. 
Few persons who have attained to great wealth have made such good use of it as Titus Salt.  One of his great achievements was the foundation of a model manufacturing town situated near Bradford in a healthy and beautiful neighborhood.  There, near a huge and roomy factory, in which all his manufactures could be carried on, he built comfortable dwellings, places of worship, schools an institute, an infirmary, baths, and almshouses.  The town of Saltaire, which was entirely his creation and foundation, was begun in 1851 and finished in 1871. 
Besides providing for the comfort and happiness of his work-people, he was conspicuous for his princely gifts to various religious and philanthropic undertakings, gifts which amounted in all to a quarter of a million pounds. 
Many honors were conferred upon him in recognition of his public services.  He became Mayor of Bradford, and afterwards Member of Parliament for that town, where a grateful people erected a statue in his honor; he was also made a baronet, and received the decoration of the Legion of Honor from the Emperor of the French. 
The career of John Horrocks shows how wealth and honor are within the reach even of the humblest person who has industry, foresight, enterprise, and perseverance.  John Horrocks was born in the year 1768.  His father had a quarry where he and his sons worked.  At the time when John Horrocks was growing up to manhood, the cotton manufacture in Lancashire had received a great stimulus from the inventions of Arkwright, Hargreaves, and Crompton. John Horrocks saw how the trade was developing, and determined to engage in it.  He obtained two or three frames for spinning cotton, set them up in a corner of his father's quarry, and sold the yarn which he spun. 
At the beginning of 1791, he moved to Preston, where he started with two carding machines.  Success soon crowned his efforts, and he built a new factory and began the weaving of muslin.  There was at this time a great demand for cotton goods, and Horrocks started factory after factory, and soon began to amass wealth. 
He invited his brother Samuel to come to Preston and be his partner.  The success of the firm gave a great impetus to the cotton trade of the town, and Preston, formerly celebrated for its linen manufacture, now became famous for the manufacture of cotton goods. 
At a parliamentary election in 1802 John Horrocks was elected Member of Parliament for Preston, and his brother Samuel was elected Mayor in the same year.  John Horrocks's brusque manner and broad Lancashire pronunciation created some amusement in the House of Commons; but his shrewd common sense, his indomitable perseverance, his practical acquaintance with commercial subjects and his policy as a wealthy manufacturer, gave him considerable influence in the legislature.  He did not long enjoy his parliamentary honors; he died in 1804, at the early age of 36, having amassed a considerable fortune during a business career which lasted only thirteen years, and having founded one of the greatest and most enduring commercial houses in England. 
The career of Lord Masham shows how wealth and fame may be obtained by the union of perseverance, great business capacity, and an inventive brain. 
Samuel Lister, which was his name before he was created a lord, was remarkable for two great achievements, -- the improvement of wool-combing machinery, and the utilization of waste silk.  He was born near Leeds in 1815, and gained his early training in the office of a firm of Liverpool merchants.  In 1838 he began business on his own account near Bradford, as a manufacturer of worsted. 
The great problem of the day in the worsted trade then was how to devise a practicable machine for the combing of wool, for at that time most of the combing was done by hand.  An inventor named Donisthorpe had devised a machine which, though not then practically useful, Mr. Lister saw was capable of being made successful.  He accordingly bought Donisthorpe's patent for twelve thousand pounds, and the two set to work together at the task of adapting and improving the invention.  The result was that in 1843 Mr. Lister succeeded in combing the first fine wool that had ever been combed by machinery.  Two of the oldest and largest firms in the trade ordered over fifty of the machines in the first year of the invention and for every machine sold, Mr. Lister received a royalty of one thousand pounds. 
After a time Mr. Lister began to withdraw from the manufacture of worsted, and applied himself with ardor to another and entirely different problem: how to utilize waste silk.  One day he went into a London warehouse, and saw a pile of waste silk from India, consisting chiefly of the pierced cocoons of silk-worms.  This, he was told, no one had been able to use, and it was sold as rubbish.  Mr. Lister bought the whole pile at a halfpenny a pound, and took it to his factory at Manningham, where he began to make experiments for the purpose of turning it into an article of commerce.  He spent ten years of labor and ��360,000 in money before he succeeded, in 1865, in making velvet and plush out of this worthless silk.  The result of the invention was the reintroduction into England of the manufacture of velvet, which had been lost to the country when the principles of free trade were adopted. 
Mr. Lister was made a peer in 1891, and took the title of Lord Masham.  This honor he richly deserved, for he Is said to have taken out 107 patents, and spent ��600,000 in the working out of new ideas. 

LESSON 2. 
GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN.
Lafcadio Hearn was born in 1850 on one of the Greek islands.  His father was an Irishman who had married a Greek wife.  At the age of nineteen, young Hearn was thrown on his own resources, and went to America and earned his living at newspaper work.  He was sent by a New Orleans paper to the West Indies, where he spent two years.  In 1891 he came to Japan as a newspaper correspondent.  In Japan he found his true sphere.  He became a teacher, first at Matsue, later at Kumamoto, and finally at the Tokyo Imperial University.  He married a Japanese wife, became a naturalized Japanese under the name of Yakumo Koizumi, and adopted the Buddhist religion.  For the last two years of his life his health was failing, and he was obliged to give up his teaching work at the University.  But he had gradually become known to the world by the originality, power, and literary charm of his writings.  Lafcadio Hearn's books were indeed (for their day) unique in the literature about Japan, in their combination of real knowledge with a literary art which is often exquisite.  He died at his house in Okubo in 1904.  
The following are extracts from one of his early books, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, written while he was teaching at Matsue.

  The rare charm of Japanese life, so different from that of all other lands, is not to be found in its Europeanized circles.  It is to be found among the great common people, who represent in Japan, as in all other countries, the national virtues, and who still cling to their delightful old customs, their picturesque dresses, their Buddhist images, their household shrines, their beautiful and touching worship of ancestors.  This is the life of which a foreign observer can never weary, if fortunate and sympathetic enough to enter into it -- the life that forces him sometimes to doubt whether the course of our boasted Western progress is really in the direction of moral development.  Each day, while the years pass, there will be revealed to him some strange and unexpected beauty in it. -- The Preface. 
--------------------------------------
The traveler who enters suddenly into a period of social change -- especially change from a feudal past to a democratic present -- is likely to regret type decay of things beautiful and the ugliness of things new....  But on the first day, at least, the Old alone is new for the stranger, and suffices to absorb his attention.  It then appears to him that everything Japanese is delicate, exquisite, admirable, -- even a pair of common wooden chopsticks in a paper bag with a little drawing upon it; even a package of toothpicks of cherry-wood, bound with a paper wrapper wonderfully lettered in three different colors; even the little sky-blue towel, with designs of flying sparrows upon it, which the jinrikisha man used to wipe his face;.... even the piece of plaited colored string used by the shopkeeper in tying up your last purchase is a pretty curiosity. -- My First Day in the Orient. 
Why should the trees be so lovely in Japan?  With us, a plum or cherry tree in flower is not an astonishing sight; but here it is a miracle of beauty so bewildering that, however much you may have previously read about it, the real spectacle strikes you dumb.  You see no leaves, -- only one great filmy mist of petals.  Is it that the trees have been so long domesticated and caressed by man in this land of the Gods, that they have acquired souls, and strive to show their gratitude, like women loved, by making themselves more beautiful for man's sake?  Assuredly they have mastered men's hearts by their loveliness, like beautiful slaves. -- My First Day in the Orient. 
----------------------------------------------------
  Taking the shortest route, one goes first to Mitsu-ura from Matsue, either by kuruma or on foot. �@By kuruma this little journey occupies nearly two hours and a half, though the distance is scarcely seven miles the road, being one of the worst in all lzumo. �@You leave Matsue to enter at once into a broad plain, level as a lake, all occupied by rice-fields and walled in by wooded hills. �@The path, barely wide enough for a single vehicle, traverses this green desolation, climbs the heights beyond it, and descends again into another and a larger level of rice-fields, surrounded also by hills. �@The path over the second line of hills is much steeper; then a third rice-plain must be crossed and a third chain of green altitudes, lofty enough to merit the name of mountains.  Of course one must make the ascent on foot: it is no small labor for a kurumaya to pull even an empty kuruma up to the top; and how he manages to do so without breaking the little vehicle is a mystery, for the path is stony and rough as the bed of a torrent.  A tiresome climb I find it; but the landscape view from the summit is more than compensation. 
Then descending, there remains a fourth and last wide level of rice-fields to traverse.  The absolute flatness of the great plains between the ranges, and the singular way in which these latter "fence off" the country into sections, are matters for surprise even in a land of surprises like Japan.  Beyond the fourth rice-valley there is a fourth hill-chain, lower and richly wooded, on reaching the base of which the traveler must finally abandon his kuruma, and proceed over the hills on foot.  Behind them lies the sea.  But the very worst bit of the journey now begins.  The path makes an easy winding ascent between bamboo growths and young pine and other vegetation for a shaded quarter of a mile, passing before various little shrines and pretty homesteads surrounded by high-hedged gardens.  Then it suddenly breaks into steps, or rather ruins of steps -- partly hewn in the rock, partly built, everywhere breached and worn -- which descend, all edgeless, in a manner amazingly precipitous to the village of Mitsu-ura.  With straw sandals, which never slip, the country folk can nimbly hurry up or down such a path; but with foreign foot-gear one slips at nearly every step; and when you reach the bottom at last, the wonder of how you managed to get there, even with the assistance of your faithful kurumaya, keeps you for a moment quite unconscious of the fact that you are already in Mitsu-ura. -- In The Cave of the Children's Ghosts. 
-------------------------------------------
The compositions of any number of middle-school students upon the same subject are certain to be very much alike in idea and sentiment -- though they are none the less charming for that.  As a rule he Japanese student shows little originality in the line of imagination.  His imagination was made for him long centuries ago -- partly in China, partly in his native land .... Through all his boyhood he is taught to commit to memory the most beautiful thoughts and comparisons to be found in his ancient native literature.  Every boy has thus learned that the vision of Fuji against the blue resembles a white half-opened fan, hanging inverted in the sky. . . . . And the students have been equally well trained to discover a moral in almost everything, animate or inanimate.  I have tried them with a hundred subjects -- Japanese subjects -- for composition; I have never found them fail in discovering a moral when the theme was a native one.  If I suggested "Fireflies," they at once approved the topic, and wrote for me the story of the Chinese student who, being too poor to pay for a lamp, imprisoned many fireflies in a paper lantern, and thus was able to obtain light to study after dark, and to become eventually a great scholar. -- From the Diary of a Teacher. 
--------------------------------------------------
Those whose ideas of the world and its wonders have been formed chiefly by novels and romances still indulge a vague belief that the East is more serious than the West.  Those who judge things from a higher standpoint argue, on the contrary, that, under present conditions, the West must be more serious than the East; and also that gravity, or even something resembling its converse, may exist only as a fashion.  But the fact is that in this, as in all other questions, no rule susceptible of application to either half of humanity can be accurately framed.  Scientifically, we can do no more just now than study certain contrasts in a general way, without hoping to explain satisfactorily the highly complex causes which produced them.  One such contrast, of particular interest, is that afforded by the English and the Japanese. 
It is a commonplace to say that the English are a serious people, -- not superficially serious, but serious all the way down to the bed-rock of the race character.  It is almost equally safe to say that the Japanese are not very serious, either above or below the surface, even as compared with races much less serious than our own.  And in the same proportion, at least, that they are less serious, they are more happy: they still, perhaps, remain the happiest people in the civilized world.  We serious folk of the West cannot call ourselves very happy.  Indeed, we do not yet fully know how serious we are; and it would probably frighten us to learn how much more serious we are likely to become under the ever-swelling pressure of industrial life.  It is, possibly, by long sojourn among a people less gravely disposed that we can best learn our own temperament.  This conviction came to me very strongly when, after having lived for nearly three years in the interior of Japan, I returned to English life for a few days at the open port of Kobe.  To hear English once more spoken by Englishmen touched me more than I could have believed possible; but this feeling lasted only for a moment.  My object was to make some necessary purchases.  Accompanying me was a Japanese friend, to whom all that foreign life was utterly new and wonderful, and who asked me this curious question: "Why is it that the foreigners never smile?  You smile and bow when you speak to them; but they never smile.  Why?"
The fact was, I had fallen altogether into Japanese habits and ways, and had got out of touch with Western life; and my companion's question first made me aware that I had been acting somewhat curiously.  It also seemed to me a fair illustration of the difficulty of mutual comprehension between the two races, -- each quite naturally, though quite erroneously, estimating the manners and motives of the other by its own.  If the Japanese are puzzled by English gravity, the English are, to say the least, equally puzzled by Japanese levity. 
The Japanese speak of the "angry faces " of the foreigners.  The foreigners speak with strong contempt of the Japanese smile: they suspect it to signify insincerity; indeed some declare it cannot possibly signify anything else.  Only a few of the more observant have recognized it as an enigma worth studying.  One of my Yokohama friends -- a thoroughly lovable man, who had passed more than half his life in the open ports of the East -- said to me, just before my departure for the interior: "Since you are going to study Japanese life, perhaps you will be able to find out something for me.  I can't understand the Japanese smile." -- The Japanese Smile. 
--------------------------------------------------
If you happen to have a cultivated Japanese friend who has remained in all things truly Japanese, whose character has remained untouched by the new egotism and by foreign influences, you will probably be able to study in him the particular social traits of the whole people, -- traits in his case exquisitely accentuated and polished.  You will observe that, as a rule, he never speaks of himself, and that, in reply to searching personal questions, he will answer as vaguely and briefly as possible, with a polite bow of thanks.  But, on the other hand, he will ask many questions about yourself; your opinions, your ideas, even trifling details of your daily life, appear to have deep interest for him; and you will probably have occasion to note that he never forgets anything which he has learned concerning you.  Yet there are certain rigid limits to his kindly curiosity, and perhaps even to his observation: he will never refer to any disagreeable or painful matter, and he will seem to remain blind to eccentricities or small weaknesses, if you have any.  To your face he will never praise you; but he will never laugh at you nor criticize you.  Indeed, you will find that he never criticizes persons, but only actions in their results.-- The Japanese Smile. 

LESSON 3. 
COUNTRY LIFE. 
PART I. 
A. Good morning.  You're up early.  I hope you slept well.  I hope the owls didn't disturb you. 
B. Oh, was that owls!  I heard a most awful screeching in the night.  It seemed to come from a tree just outside my window, but I was too tired for it to keep me awake.  Besides, after the London cats one ought to be able to stand almost anything in the way of nocturnal music. 
A. Let's go for a stroll in the garden till breakfast ready. 
B. Yes, I should like to see your garden; I only caught a glimpse of it last night. You've got some fine trees; what a magnificent elm!  Isn't that the tree where the old owl was last night?  When I looked out of the window, I thought I saw something white with long ears like a cat's. 
A. Yes, they've got a nest in that tree.  If you like, I'll show you the young owls some day. 
B. Yes, I should like to see them; I'm very much interested in natural history. When I was young, I was always making natural history collections: birds' eggs, shells, fossils, and things like that.  I had quite a small museum.  I started making a collection of birds once. 
A. Oh, did you learn how to stuff birds? 
B. No, I mean live birds.  I kept them in cages.  I meant to construct a sort of aviary, but I had to give up the idea, and so in the end I let the birds go.  Boys ought not to be allowed to take young birds.  If they take an egg now and then, that ought to be enough. 
A. Yes, I used to try to impress that on their minds when I first came here, but I soon gave it up.  It was no use.  The people about here only laugh at you when you talk of humanity.  I really think they don't know what the word means. 
B. A fine dog that!  But rather savage.  How he barked at me last night.  He nearly broke his chain trying to get at me. 
A. He thought you were a tramp.  We used to have tramps by the dozen, till at last Tiger bit one of them.  Since then we haven't had a single one.
B. I see you have only wild flowers in your garden. 
A. Yes, that's one of my fancies.  I don't much care for garden flowers.  I don't mind a few old-fashioned garden flowers in front, such as sweet peas, pansies, geraniums and so on, but I've made the back almost entirely into a wild garden, except that I have a few foreign shrubs.  But some of those shrubs you see there are so naturalized that you can hardly call them foreign; they grow wild in many parts of England. 
B. Yes.  I've seen rhododendrons growing wild in the New Forest.
A. There, look at that bank of foxgloves; what can be more gorgeous?  They'll go on flowering all through the summer.  In the spring that bank's covered with primroses, cowslips, and wild hyacinths.  Now I'll show you my fern garden.  I believe I've got every fern that grows in the British Islands on these banks. 
B. What's that?  Isn't it a common bracken.  I thought it wouldn't grow in a garden. 
A. Oh I've got dozens of plants here that are supposed not to grow in a garden. Most people don't know how to transplant.  You can transplant anything as long as you don't disturb the roots.  That's the whole secret.  Of course you must get the right soil, and so on, and that's the most difficult part of it.  I find that plants are just like human beings; you want a certain tact to manage them.  It's a great advantage having this little brook.  You see I've made it into a kind of marsh lower down, so that I can grow every kind of water plant.  These forget-me-nots are very fine. 
B. Does that wood belong to you? 
A. Yes, it's only a small one.  I've got a paddock on the other side, for the horses. That reminds me, what do you say to a ride after breakfast?  I don't think it'll he too hot.
B. There's nothing I should like better if you can let me have a quiet horse.  I'm not much of a rider and I'm not out of practice.
A. All right. You shall have Prince; he's a steady old horse; a baby could ride him. 
B. Temper of a lamb, and action of a steam-engine.  I suppose. 
A. Exactly so.  His great merit is that he never shies at anything.  His only fault is that he's rather given to biting, but you needn't be alarmed; he only bites in the stable; when he's got his bridle on, he's all right. 
----------------------------------------------
A. Well, are you ready?
B. I don't feel quite right. 
A. Oh I see, your stirrups are too long.  I'll get Alfred to shorten them a little . . . . It's all right now. 
B. Well, which way shall we go? 
A. There isn't much choice.  This is the only decent road there is about here, except the one that goes round by Gadbrook's.  This road leads into it.  Shall we go round that way, and back over Hatchbury Down so as to get a view of the moors? 
B. Yes, let's go that way. 
---------------------------------------------
B. That's a fine old house! 
A. Yes, that's Gadbrtok's place.
B. Cadbrook ? 
A. No. Gadbrook -- with a G. 
B. Must be rather damp though, down there. 
A. Yes, it's like all these old houses.  The old idea was: Find the deepest and dampest hole you can, and build at the bottom of it.  There's always a pool of water before Gadbrook's hall door in the winter. 
B. But your house isn't like that. 
A. No.  My house is all right, but it's the only dry house in the whole country round.  I had it built on purpose.  The man who had the old house before we died of rheumatic fever, so I pulled it down, and built another higher up.  Hallo, there's Gadbrook himself. 
B. Curious looking man. 
A. Yes, not only a curious looking man but most curious in his ways and habits, too.  A man of tremendous energy and an iron constitution.  Very versatile, too, altogether a very remarkable man.  I daresay he'll come round this afternoon.  I saw him looking at you; he's always interested in new people.  But look here, it's getting late; I'm afraid we shall be late for lunch if we go back over the downs; perhaps we'd better go back the way we came. 
B. All right. I'm getting rather tired. 

LESSON 4. 
COUNTRY LIFE. 
PART �U. 
A. How do you feel after your ride yesterday?  Rather stiff? 
B. Yes, and sore too.  I can hardly sit down. 
A. Well then, I think we'd better give up our idea of driving to Stockridge; suppose we go for a stroll over the downs?  Do you feel fit enough for that? 
B. Yes, I should like that.  In fact there's nothing I should like better, but I must write some letters first, if you don't mind waiting half an hour. 
A. You'd better come into my den; we shan't be disturbed there.  By the bye, here's some sealing-wax; you'd better seal your letters; I always do. 
B. Why do you do that? 
A. Well in a small place like this there's a good deal of curiosity about other people's affairs; and we find that if we don't seal our letters they get opened at the post-office.  I don't know that they ever went so far as to open any letters of mine, but several of my servants have complained of it.  As soon as I get positive proof of it, I shall write to the authorities and get her dismissed. 
B. Her?  Is it a woman? 
A. Yes.  There she is.  Do you hear the dog barking?  It's curious how he hates that woman.  Next to her he has the great antipathy to Gadbrook; I have to chain him up whenever they appear on the scene. 
Here are two letters for you, and two newspapers for' me . . . . If you're ready, we'll start at once before it gets too hot. 
-------------------------------------
B. A pretty cottage that. 
A. That's Sawyer's cottage.  If you like, you can see inside.  No one at home except the baby.  It's quite a picture, isn't it? -- the cradle by the fire, and the big sheep-dog stretched out beside it. 
B. I never saw such a primitive place before in my life. 
A. Most of the laborers' cottages about here are built in this style: one big room with a stone floor and a huge chimney. 
B. No hearth, I perceive; a fire of logs on the bare floor.  Where does that door lead to?  I suppose that's the bedroom. 
A. Oh no, they sleep in the loft, upstairs.  That door leads to the dairy.  Sawyer's better off than you'd think; he has charge of the farm we just passed. 
B. What, do you call that tangled wilderness a farm? 
A. Well, it's going rather out of cultivation, like a good many of the farms about here.  They only keep a few cows there in the summer.  In the winter they bring down all the cattle from the other farm higher up in the valley.  It's too cold for them there in the winter.  Well, we'd better be moving on; it's half past ten.  It's Sawyer's lunch-time.  
B. If they lunch at half past ten, they must have breakfast pretty earl. 
A. Oh no, they never get up before eight. 
B. When do they dine, then? 
A. Oh, about half past twelve. 
B. What do they have for dinner? 
A. Oh, a huge meat pie, or a stew of two or three different kinds of meat.  Then they have tea, and often a second tea, and finish up with a heavy supper. 
B. Then I suppose they don't get to bed till about eleven or twelve. 
A. Oh no, they're generally in bed by eight o'clock; on Sundays they get up later and go to bed earlier.  You mustn't imagine they're all like this; the people at the next farm are quite different; they get up at five, and work hard all day, but they come from a different part of the country.  Here's Sawyer coming home to his lunch.
B. Where's his wife? 
A. Oh, she's always out gossiping with the neighbors -- gone to her mother's I suppose.  I shouldn't wonder if Sawyer had to cook his own dinner. 
-------------------------------------
A. Here we are on the top of the downs. 
B. What a magnificent view!  How high are we here?  
A. About six or seven hundred feet, I suppose. 
B. So much!  I shouldn't have thought it. 
A. Well, you see, the whole country lies pretty high; my house is about four hundred feet above the sea. 
B. The air seems much fresher up here than down in the valley. 
A. Oh yes, it's much drier, and you don't get that smell of decaying vegetation and stagnant water.  I've often thought of building a house up here. 
B. Rather an out-of-the-way place for a house, isn't it? 
A. Oh, I shouldn't mind that.  But the chief drawback would be the want of a decent road.  The only thing resembling a road near here is a winding lane, picturesque enough, but so steep and stony in some places that I doubt if any vehicle could get up.  There's some talk of building a big hotel up here. 
B. Would a big hotel in this remote part of the country pay, do you think? 
A. I don't know.  The very fact that it's remote might prove an attraction for London people.  Besides, in these days of motors, no place is really remote.  But they'd have to make a road, and that would require a good deal of capital. 
B. I should think they could hardly make it pay, unless they developed a sort of building estate at the same time and made a residential quarter of it. 
A. In which case I should certainly give up my idea.  To live in close proximity to a new building estate, with modern architectural monstrosities lining the crest of the hill is not my conception of rural life.  Fortunately it's not very likely. I don't suppose the hotel scheme'll come to anything at all and I really need have no apprehensions on that score. 
B. Why, there's a windmill!  It's ages since I saw one.  Working, too, apparently.  I have no hesitation in asserting that an old English windmill's one of the most picturesque things in the world. 
A. Yes, the natural powers of wind and water have not yet been entirely displaced by steam and petrol.  There's a watermill down the valley not far below Gadbrook's place.  There used to be another windmill, too, near here, but they pulled it down some years ago.  The story is that there was not enough wind to drive two mills, so they had to do away with one of them. 
B. I've heard that joke before.  And yet I suppose that some people would be simple-minded enough to believe the story. 
A. Oh bless your soul yes.  Some people are credulous enough to believe anything: Sawyer for one.  It's almost incredible how many superstitions are still current in country places like this.  The ignorance of people is simply appalling. 
B. Windmills remind me of the Don Quixote story.  Wasn't it forty windmills he saw on the plain?  According to the theory of there not being enough wind for two windmills, it must have required quite a typhoon to work the forty windmills. 
A. Quite so.  Well, let's go on again.  I'll take you back by my favorite rough lane; you'll get a fine view of the moor all the way.

LESSON 5. 
COUNTRY LIFE. 
(CONCLUSION.) 
A. I told you Gadbrook would call as soon as he heard you were here.  What do you think of him? 
B. Well, he's one of the most brilliant and fascinating men I've ever come across.  His flow of talk's wonderful.  He'll hardly let you get a word in edgeways.  He talks and he talks.  But he isn't a bore.  He's worth listening to.  He seems to be able to talk on any subject, from archeology to the latest theories of psychology. 
A. Yes. I told you he was versatile. 
B. Who was that young fellow he brought with him?  A clergyman, of course. 
A. Yes, that was Bellow, the curate.  What do you think of him? 
B. Oh, he seems a very pleasant young fellow; very full of zeal about his parish work.  Does he get on well with the vicar? 
A. Yes, I think so.  The vicar's an elderly man, and leaves most of the parish activities to Bellow, and gives him a pretty free hand. 
B. You know, I don't think I should like to he a clergyman.  It must be an awful responsibility to compose and preach a sermon every Sunday, year in and year out. 
A. Oh, you're too conscientious.  You're always thinking about responsibilities and duties.  You should take life more easily, as Gadbrook does. 
B. I suppose we ought to return Gadbrook's call soon -- what are you laughing at?
A. Oh nothing.  All right; let's make the experiment. 
B. Why experiment?  Is it such a difficult or dangerous enterprise? 
A. You shall see. 
B. Do you mean he won't be at home? 
A. That depends on what you mean by being at home. 
B. I don't understand. 
A. You shall see. 
---------------------------------------------
A. Well, do you feel better for calling on Gadbrook?  
B. Well, we have at least the satisfaction of having done the correct thing. 
A. But what do you think of our reception? 
B. I confess I feel rather mystified.  You ring the bell, and at the third ring a somewhat disreputable-looking housemaid appears; you ask if Mr. Gadbrook's at home, and receive an unhesitating answer in the affirmative.  We are shown into what I assume to be the great man's private study or den -- whatever you like to call it.  Then after a prolonged absence, she returns, and informs us she was mistaken; Mr. Gadbrook is not at home.  You calmly ask, 'Did he tell you to say so himself?' whereupon the girl blurts out, 'Yes sir,' and is immediately overwhelmed with confusion.  We walk out, and here we are on our way to the downs.  Am I to understand that this is his usual style of receiving visitors? 
A. That depends on who the visitor is. 
B. Do you mean to say you go on associating with a man who behaves in that way? 
A. I don't associate with him; he associates with me, but I confess it used to annoy mc considerably at first.  You must know that it was entirely through Gadbrook that I came and settled here -- in fact he put a good deal of friendly pressure on me.  Well, we hadn't been in the house two days when Gadbrook called with two of his daughters.  It was rather awkward, as we hadn't got all our furniture in; we were in a most awful state of confusion, there was hardly room to sit down.  However, we managed to get things straight a little and to give them some tea.  He was very pleasant -- talked away for about two hours.  However my wife took the greatest dislike to him, and even went so far as to say that he was no gentleman, which seemed rather bold considering he boasts that his family's been in this place for more than five hundred years. 
Two days after, to our surprise, he sent his wife to call on us.  We rather pitied her; she didn't seem very happy about it.  As soon as we got the house in order, we returned their calls.  We were told that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Gadbrook were at home.  A fortnight after, Gadbrook called with young Bellow, the curate.  Next week I called by myself, and was told he was not at home.  Two months after, he called with Chapman.  That was about five years ago.  I now call for the third time -- with you -- and for the third time find he's not at home, -- just as I anticipated. 
B. Why, what's the matter with the fellow? Is it premeditated discourtesy or is he mad? 
A. Oh no; he's not a bad fellow in his way.  I rather like him.  He's the finest specimen I ever knew of the purely impulsive temperament combined with utterly unconscious egotism. 
B. Well I never was so completely taken in my life.  I thought he was thoroughly good fellow. He was so friendly, and seemed so anxious to make my acquaintance. 
A. Yes, but if you think of it, he never once offered you any kindness or hospitality. Even when you said you'd like to see that beam in his house with that inscription on it, he never said he hoped you'd come round and see it, or anything of that sort.  And when you said you were fond of fishing, he never offered to let you fish in his stream, though he never fishes himself, and the fishing would be improved if some of the big fish were taken out. 
B. But why was he so anxious to make my acquaintance, then?  I can't make it out.
A. Curiosity -- nothing else.  He'd heard of you, and wanted to see what you were like.  As soon as his curiosity was satisfied, he wanted to get rid of you, and have no more bother with you. 
B. Confound the fellow!  I should like to kick him! 
A. That wouldn't do any good.  He wouldn't understand what you meant. 
B. But I wonder the people about here stand that kind of thing! 
A. They can't help themselves.  What can you do with a man like that?  As I said before, he's utterly unconscious that his behavior is anything other than perfect.  It doesn't occur to him that he has any obligations towards society in general, or in fact towards anybody but himself. 
B. I imagine that his wife and daughters must have a very bad time of it. 
A. Oh, his wife's used to it by now, I expect, and his daughters look up to him as a benevolent despot, so far as I can make out. 
B. Well if I lived here, I know what I should do.  The next time he called on me, I should do to him what he does to others.  I should let him have a taste of his own sort of courtesy.  I should send a message to the effect that I was not at home, and yet contrive to let him know that I was at home. 
A. That wouldn't have the slightest effect, except that Gadbrook would consider himself insulted, and would never speak to you again or recognize you if you happened to meet.  It's no good; you have to take people as you find them.  As I said before, Gadbrook has very good qualities, but he's eccentric and utterly selfish.  Personally I don't mind his eccentricities; I take the good with the bad, and that's the best philosophy after all. 

LESSON 6. 
THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT. 
During the South African war, about thirty years ago, the little town of Mafeking found itself surrounded by the enemy in great force.  To defend it there were not more than 700 trained soldiers.  The townsmen, about 300 in number, were armed, and took their share in the defense.  Every man was of value, and as their numbers gradually decreased owing to men getting killed and wounded, the duties of fighting and keeping watch at night became harder for the rest.  Lord Edward Cecil, the chief staff officer, considered earnestly how he might deal with the situation.  At length the thought struck him that the boys in the place might be used for carrying orders and messages, keeping watch, acting as orderlies, and so on.  By using the boys in this way, the fighting men might be relieved of much work and responsibility.  So he got the boys together and organized them as a corps.  He put them in uniform and drilled them; he trained them to perform useful services; he trained them in such a way that each boy developed the sense of responsibility and did his work with energy, initiative, and enthusiasm.  Many of them rode bicycles, and thus it became possible to establish a post by which people could send letters to their friends in the different forts, or about the town. 
The commander of the garrison, General Baden-Powell, noted with admiration the excellent work of these boys.  He had always been of the opinion that young lads were capable of taking responsibility in a far greater degree than was generally believed, if only they were trusted.  He himself had devised a method of training by which the qualities of manliness, self-reliance, and reliability might be developed and encouraged.  His system embodied td a certain extent the ideas of Epictetus who about 2,000 years ago preached to the Greeks his doctrines of a true and manly education, by which one may learn the value of willing service.  It embodied to a certain extent the severe methods of the ancient Spartans, who trained themselves in the habits of obedience and physical endurance.  But above all he based his system on the art of "Scouting." 
Now the word scout has as its primary meaning "to get information about the enemy." In this sense it suggests spying, and is associated with warfare.  In a broader sense it means "to get information about one's surroundings," as when a party of travelers in a wild country send out scouts to observe where the river may be crossed, where the path lies, or where the best place for a camp may be found.  It is in this sense that Baden-Powell used the term.  But he has given a deeper and wider significance to the term.  He uses it to designate all sorts of outdoor activities that combine the teachings of Epictetus, the morals of the Spartans, the ideals of Japanese Bushido, the self-preservation habits of man in his natural and primitive state, and the virtues of a healthy and moral life.  If Baden-Powell's conception of the term had been less than this; if he had thought merely of war-service, or of outdoor sports only, or of the ideals of the knights of the middle ages in Europe, or of the Japanese samurai, or if he had paid undue attention to the primitive habits of primitive peoples, his teaching would not have met with the immediate and universal response that it has done. 
For to-day all over the world the ideals of Baden-Powell have been not only accepted but put into practice by all those who are looking to the betterment of the education of youth.  In 1907 Sir Robert Baden-Powell (for his services had by then been rewarded by his sovereign with a baronetcy) embodied his ideals in the form of the Boy-Scout movement.  He held a trial camp in England for scout training, at which he had boys of every class to experiment upon.  Its results exceeded his expectations, and prompted him to go on with the idea.  The training was based on that which he had employed with soldiers and the police constabulary, with some adaptation to make it suitable for boys.  He wrote the handbook of training entitled Scouting for Boys, in consequence of which a number of "troops" were started in England and Scotland.  He had only anticipated that scouting would be taken as an additional attraction by existing young men's associations, but the immediate and extensive response to his ideas was so great that a separate movement was required to deal with the number of boys who were taking them up. 
Two years later, the number of Boy Scouts had increased to over 123,000, and Sir Robert felt it necessary to leave the army in order to give himself the time to take the movement in hand as "Chief Scout."  With a view to making the subject appeal to boys, and to meet their spirit of adventure, he held up for their ideal the doings of backwoodsmen, knights, adventurers and explorers, as the heroes for them to follow.  These he grouped under the title "Scouts."  In camp life, boat work, pioneering and nature study could be found all the attractions for a boy, and these activities would be, at the same time, a medium for instruction. 
Partly from his own experience and partly from that of others, Sir Robert worked out what was lacking in the training of the average schoolboy.  The deficiency lay chiefly in the direction of: (1) character and general intelligence; (2) skill and handicrafts; (3) physical development and health knowledge; (4) service for others and for the State.  The activities and practices of scouting were therefore framed as far as possible to develop the efficient individual, and then to harness his individuality for the good of the community, i.e. citizenship.  Honor was made the high ideal for boys.  The Scout Law, on which the movement depends, was taken from the code of the knights. 
King Edward, and later King George, became the patron of the association of Boy Scout.  The movement spread.  In 1919 a London Boy Scout, in obedience to the obligation of all scouts to do a kind action daily, rendered a service to an American visitor.  The American, Mr. Boyce of Chicago, was impressed and interested by this spontaneous and unselfish action.  In consequence, he conferred with Sir Robert Baden-Powell, and, securing the co-operation of friends in Washington, incorporated an organization of the Boy Scouts in America.  A small office was opened in New York, and ten years later the Boy Scouts in America numbered over half a million. 
In the meantime the movement had spread abroad.  France was interested, and Germany, and Belgium and other European countries.  It was seen that "Scouting" was not a mere British organization, devoted to national interests; it was a scheme of education of interest to all peoples; it was a scheme by which the instincts and impulses of boys all the world over could be utilized and turned into the right channels; it was a scheme of training which would bring out all that was best in a boy, and cause him to use his activities in such a way as would be of the greatest advantage to himself and to the community of which he was a member.  The movement was not confined to boys for in England a group of Girl Guides was formed, and the moral principles of the scouts was adapted in such a way that the duties and ideals of the Joy Scouts should inspire their sisters to follow the same road. 
In 1921, when the present Emperor, as Crown Prince was in England, he had the opportunity of seeing the Boy Scouts in various centers, and at once took a keen interest in the movement, for it seemed evident that it represented an educational system which would be of great value to Japanese boys.  In olden times there existed in this country a class of young men called Kondei who disciplined themselves in self-reliance and self-control.  With the Meiji restoration, however, when it became the fashion to study and to adopt the material civilization of the West, education was directed more towards the encouragement of science than to the encouragement of the young in habits of discipline, of self-control, of initiative and of pubic service.  As the years went on, it became increasingly evident that measures should be adopted to supply this mission.  It is not surprising, therefore, that the young Crown Prince, and those who accompanied him on his tour, noticed the value of the Boy Scout movement.  They came in contract with Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who explained the system and how it was organized.  The Prince inspected the Scouts in various centers, and at Edinburgh sent a gracious message to the organization there. 
As a consequence of these happenings, the Scout movement in Japan received a great impetus, and in 1922 a conference was held at Shizuoka, resulting in the forming of the Federation of Boy Scouts in Japan.  At the time of the great earthquake of 1923 the boys proved their merit, and their useful work attracted much attention from the general public, who had occasion to see and to admire their resourcefulness and ability. 
Scouting is a system of education based on the principle of "learning by doing"; it encourages active self-training in the place of receiving instruction.  The "Patrol" system is one that brings boys or girls together in the form of organized groups, encouraging what the French call esprit de corps, by which each group or corps takes legitimate pride in its work and strives to emulate the work of other corps, yet without any feeling of hostility or rivalry. 
Each member promises to do at least one good deed or kind action a day.  The members are encouraged to become proficient in some activity or other, such as swimming boating, carpentering, photography, electricity, or some other useful hobby.  Proficiency badges of different sorts are given to those who succeed in passing the tests.  But, as the name implies, they are more especially encouraged to become expert in those field activities that are associated with the ideals of exploration, colonization, and life in the open country, such as tramping and camping, scouting, tracking, and surveying.  The boys are taught how to observe all those things that may be of use to the traveler in a wild country: the position of the stars or the nature of the animal and plant life that they meet with.  There is one part of their training that reminds us of the story of Sherlock Holmes that we read some time ago, for the boys learn how to observe trivial indications and from them to deduce what has happened.  In seaports, and coast towns and villages, troops of "Sea Scouts" are formed.  The boys are trained in navigation, seamanship, rowing, sailing, lifesaving, fishing, raft-making, and such-like arts, and crafts connected with sea-life. 
The Boy Scout idea is more than a series of local movements for training boys to become happy and healthy men; it is more than a series of national movements for making boys into patriotic and useful citizens; it is an international movement representing the idea of a world-wide brotherhood, in which all cooperate for the betterment of the world in which we live.  No fewer than 42 countries collaborate in this work; an international conference is held every two years, and an international mass meeting every four years.  There are nearly two million boy scouts in the world.  As Sir Robert Baden-Powell says about them: "They are not merely an organized society; they are more than this; they are a great friendly brotherhood, all dressed alike, and all having, as I say, the same aim, namely, to make themselves through their scout training into happy, healthy, helpful citizens of their country, friendly towards all others."  

LESSON 7. 
PESSIMISTIC PROVERBS. 
A considerable number of proverbs look upon the dark side of things; they express the sadness and the unsatisfactory nature of things as they are; they tell us that we must look facts in the face and accept them philosophically, that we must bow to fate, however harsh and ruthless it may be.  They might almost be called philosophical proverbs, for the word philosophy, has among its many meanings, the meaning of resignation.  A philosophical man is said to be one who has come to content himself with the existing order of things, accepting the inevitable, adapting his life to his environment, and recognizing that human nature cannot suddenly be changed. 
In this lesson we shall examine a number of these melancholy proverbs.  They must not tempt us to become pessimists or grumblers or to despair of life for we must recollect that there are also proverbs of optimism, of encouragement, showing us the bright side of life, with its hopes and compensations.  There are two aspects to everything.  The proverbs that we shall now examine show us the dark aspect only.  They deal with problems of fate, of human nature at its worst, the irony of circumstances, and with the excuses we make for our bad behavior.  And yet, interpreted by optimists, from many or most of these proverbs we may derive encouragement and comfort. 
  No life without pain. 
We might also say "No life without pleasure," 
    Never a rose without a thorn, or 
    No rose without a thorn. 
Such proverbs are founded on the fact that a rosebush is one which bears thorns as well as roses. 
    Never pleasure without repentance, 
meaning that when we allow ourselves a time of pleasure, we repent of it afterwards.
    As soon as a man is born, he begins to die. 
This is one of the many proverbs dealing with the philosophy of death, and, in a certain measure, is a source of comfort to us, who are destined to die.  
    Misfortunes never come singly. 
We may answer with another proverb: "Forewarned is forearmed," meaning "if you are warned in advance, you are armed in advance."  This reminds us of the proverb 
    It never rains but it pours (whenever it rains, it rains hard), which we may also interpret as "We never get one bad thing nor one good thing at a time," suggesting that not only bad things, but also good things come to us together. 
    A bad thing never dies. 
Nor, indeed, does a good thing ever die. 
The following comment on the badness of human nature: 
  Every man is as good as God made him, and very often worse, 
  Good people are scarce, 
  Men are rare. 
In this last proverb the word men, means "true men," "good men."  In proverbs "man" often has the sense of "manliness," "uprightness," "honesty"; at other times it suggests the weaknesses and frailties of men. For instance; 
    Every man has his weak side, 
    Every man has his price, 
this last one suggesting that it is possible to bribe anyone, providing that the bribe is large enough. 
    Man hate those they have hurt. 
The truth of this is difficult to realize, but nevertheless with many or most people, it seems to be true. 
The weakness or frailty of human nature is exemplified in the following: 
  Hell is paved with goad intentions. 
This proverb is derived from the writings of Dante, the Italian poet and philosopher, who lived many centuries ago.  It means that a good intention not carried out may serve to pave hell, the place assumed to be that of eternal punishment.  Some people drift along through life always meaning to do good things but never doing them. 
    Opportunity makes the thief. 
Let us note here the "generic" use of the word the, which serves here not as an ordinary definite article but to express the total number of thieves.  In plain English we should say "Opportunities make thieves."  In other terms, a man does wrong generally when he has a good opportunity for doing wrong. 
    An open door may tempt a saint 
is very similar in its moral.  If a door is shut you cannot enter, and you have no temptation; if a door is open, there is no obstacle to your entrance, and this is a temptation.  The word "saint" would be better understood if we added, the word "even," so as to make the proverb read "even a saint." 
    Every man is his own enemy, or 
    Nobody's enemy except his own. 
There are some unfortunate people we should like to help.  We see that their misfortunes are due to this or to that reason, we see how easy it would be for them to improve their circumstances or their fortune.  We encourage them, we give them good advice.  But they refuse to take our advice or profit by our encouragement; they continue to act in opposition to their best interests.  Such people are their own enemies. 
  Once a thief always a thief. 
This is certainly a pessimistic proverb, implying that bad habits are incurable, or that once having taken the wrong road one is unable to turn from it into the right road.  But such proverbs should be taken as expressing not absolute truths but probable tendencies.  For example: 
  You cannot teach an old dog new tricks 
means rather "In general the older the dog is, the more difficult it is to teach him new tricks."  But when we see how many men and women, even when advanced in years, are still capable of learning and of understanding new ideas, we must admit that the proverb is only relatively true. 
    An old dog cannot alter his way of barking 
is to the some effect, and emphasizes the fact that 
    Man is a bundle of habits. 
  The four following proverbs point to the vanity of human nature: 
    Every bird thinks its own nest charming. 
    All complain of a want of memory, but none of a want of judgment. 
    Praise is always pleasant. 
    Our own opinion is never wrong. 
Not only do we find vanity in human nature but we also find foolishness. 
  Everybody is wise after the event, or 
  It is easy to be wise after the event. 
It is the day fixed for the school excursion.  The weather is threatening.  To start or not to start: That is the question.  We start.  When we arrive at our destination, the rain pours down, we are all soaked to the skin and return home after a most unpleasant day.  Then comes one who is wise after the event, and says "I knew it would rain, and I advised you not to start, but you would not take my advice; you see now how wise I was." 
  Or we decide not to start.  We decide to postpone the excursion until a more favorable day.  But the threatening clouds clear away; the sun shines, and it is a most beautiful day.  Then comes one, wise after the event, and says "I knew it would be a fine day, and I advised you to start, but you would not listen to me; you see now how wise I was."  For it is easy to be "wise after the event." 
    If things were to be done twice, all would be wise. 
In the older from of English language the word "all" frequently meant "all people."  In modern speech and writing we generally express this by "everyone" or "everybody."  How often do we hear people say, "If only I had my time all over again, how differently I should have acted! I should not have done this, but that; I should not have sold but bought; I should not have bought but sold; I should not have stayed at home but gone abroad; I should not have gone abroad but stayed at home."  For "everybody is wise after the event." 
    One sleep follows another. 
The sheep has the reputation of being a foolish animal, one of the reasons being that a sheep prefers to follow the example set by another than to use its own judgment.  The sheep at the head of a flock jumps over a hedge; all the other sheep in the flock follow it and jump over the same hedge.  The leader jumps over a precipice and loses its life; his followers, blindly obeying their leader, jump over the same precipice, and sacrifice their lives.  This peculiarity on the part of sheep is shared by certain men and women. 
    A drowning man will clutch at a straw. 
The straw will not enable him to keep afloat, but even a straw looks better than nothing.  So also a man in difficulties will clutch at anything which, though as useless as a straw to a drowning man, seems to offer some escape from his difficulties. 
    He will burn his house to warm his hands. 
This reminds us of the fable imagined by Charles Lamb, the English essayist, of an ancient Chinese whose house burnt down.  In the ruins of the house he discovered the burnt bodies of some pigs -- and discovered for the first time in the history of China that the roasted flesh of pig tastes remarkably nice.  And so when, in future, he wanted to eat roast pork, he burnt his house down! 
    Catch the bear before you sell his skin, and 
    Don't count your chickens before they're hatched 
both point to the same moral, and suggest that some people are so foolish that they consider probabilities as certainties. 
According to pessimistic proverbs, man is thoughtless and ungrateful.  The following proverbs exemplify this point: 
  As soon as yow have drunk, you turn your back upon the spring. 
    Out of sight, out of mind. 
    Danger past, God forgotten. 
The last two are good examples of laconic proverbs.  In a less laconic form they would read: When something is out of sight, it goes out of our minds," "When the danger is past, God is forgotten," 
This last proverb reminds us of 
    The devil was sick; the devil a saint would be; 
    The devil was well; the devil a saint was he! 
A rhyming proverb containing a quaint play upon words, for "the devil a saint was he" may be read either as "the devil was a saint" or "by no means was he a saint."
Human nature, according to pessimistic proverbs, is unreasonable, illogical, unjust and inconsistent: 
  A well-filled body does not believe in hunger. 
  A hungry man is an angry man. 
This is good psychology. 
    Everyone thinks his own burden the heaviest 
is another example of human reasoning, and the injustice of our manner of looking at things finds expression in such proverbs as 
    The pot calls the kettle black. 
In olden days, when the gas-stove and electric heating were unknown, pots and kettles were hung over the fire, and were blackened by the smoke.  The pot sees the blackness of the kettle, and reproaches the kettle for its blackness, not noticing that he is as black as the kettle.  Often the reproach is still more unjust, for a black pot may accuse of blackness a kettle that has never been blackened.  There is room for a new proverb to the effect that "A rusty nail may call the shining sword corroded." 
    One man may steal a horse, but another may not look over the fence 
is a proverb expressing the injustice of life.  Incidentally it shows the two meanings of the words may, one indicating possibility and the other permission.  The full interpretation seems to be: One man will possibly steal, or will possibly be permitted to steal a horse; another man, less fortunate, is, or may be, accused of theft if he so much as looks over the hedge beyond which the horse is kept. 
    Any stick to beat a dog 
means: If you have a grudge against somebody, if you wish to injure him and discredit him, any means will serve your purpose.  If you dislike him, you may accuse him of any sort of bad conduct, regardless of whether your accusation is just or unjust.  For such is the way of the world as it is.  Another proverb emphasizing the way of the world is 
    One man makes a chair; another man sits on it. 
But, interpreted philosophically, it amounts to this: we are all indebted to those through whose work we have benefited.  Let us be grateful to those discoverers, inventors, and workers who have made it possible for us to profit by their discoveries, inventions, and work. 

LESSON 8. 
HOW PETER SIMPLE PASSED HIS EXAMINATION. 
PART I. 
The following story, written nearly a hundred years ago, is taken from Peter Simple, one of the most popular and widely read novels of Captain Marryat. 
Captain Marryat was born in 1792 in Westminster.  At an early age he repeatedly ran away to sea, and at the age of fourteen entered the Royal Navy.  At this time Europe was in the middle of the long period of Napoleonic wars, and there was almost continuous fighting on land and sea.  During the first two and a half years' service, young Marryat witnessed more than fifty battles.  He frequently received honorable mention for his behavior in action, and for at least a dozen gallant rescues. 
He began to write novels in 1829.  These at once won public favor.  The freshness of the new field which was opened up to the imagination -- so full of vivid lights and shadows, light-hearted fun, terrible hardship, stirring adventure, heroic action, warm friendships, bitter hatreds -- was in exhilarating contrast to the romances and fashionable novels of that age. 
The hero of this novel, Peter Simple, as his name implied, was a midshipman whose ideas and behavior were often so simple and childish that he was considered no better than a fool.  The story shows, however, that with experience and willingness to learn he became a capable officer.  The extract that follows relates under what circumstances he passed his examination as lieutenant. 
-------------------------------------------
I remained at home until my time was complete, and then set off for Plymouth to undergo my examination.  The passing-day had been fixed by the admiral for the Friday, and as I arrived on Wednesday, I amused myself during the day walking about the dockyard and trying all I could to obtain further information in my profession.  On the Thursday a party of soldiers from the depot were embarking at the landing-place in men-of-war boats, and, as I understood, were about to proceed to India.  I witnessed the embarkation, and waited till they shoved off, and then walked to the anchor wharf to ascertain the weights of the respective anchors of the different classes of vessels in the King's service. 
I had not been there long, when I was attracted by the squabbling created by a soldier, who, it appeared, had quitted the ranks to run up to the tap in the dockyard to obtain liquor.  He was very drunk, and was followed by a young woman with a child in her arms, who was endeavoring to pacify him. 
"Now be quiet, Patrick, jewel," said she, clinging to him, "sure it's enough that you've left the ranks and will come to disgrace when you get on board.  Now be quiet, Patrick, and let us ask for a boat, and then perhaps the officer will think it was all a mistake, and let you off aisy [easy], and sure I'll spake [speak] to Mr. O'Rourke, and he's a kind man." 
"Out wid [with] you, you cratur [creature], it is Mr. O'Rourke you'd be having a conversation wid [with].  Out wid [with] you, Mary, and lave [leave] me to find my way on board.  Is it a boat I want, when I can swim like St. Patrick?  At all events, I can wid [with] my nappersack [knapsack] and musket to boot." 
The young woman cried, and tried to restrain him, but he broke from her, and running down to the wharf dashed off into the water.  The young woman ran to the edge of the wharf, perceived him sinking, and shrieking with despair, threw up her arms in her agony.  The child fell, struck on the edge of the piles, turned over, and before I could catch hold of it, sank into the sea.  'The child! the child!' burst forth in another wild scream, and the poor creature lay at my feet in violent fits.  I looked over: the child had disappeared, but the soldier was still struggling with his head above water.  He sank and rose again -- a boat was pulling towards him, but he was quite exhausted.  He threw back his arms as if in despair, and was about disappearing under the waves, when, no longer able to restrain myself, I leaped off the high wharf and swam to his assistance, just in time to lay hold of him as he was sinking for the last time.  I had not been in the water a quarter of a minute before the boat came up to us, and dragged us on board.  The soldier was exhausted and speechless.  I, of course, was only very wet.  The boat conveyed us to the landing-place at my request, and we were both put on shore.  The knapsack which was fixed on the soldier's back, and his regimentals, indicated that he belonged to the regiment just embarked; and I stated my opinion that as soon as he was a little recovered he had better be taken on board.  As the boat which picked us up was one of the men-of-war boats, the officer, who had been embarking the troops, and had been sent on shore again to know if there were any yet left behind, consented.  In a few minutes the soldier recovered, and was able to sit up and speak, and I only waited to ascertain the state of the poor young woman whom I had left on the wharf.  In a few minutes she was led to us by the warder, and the scene between her and her husband was most affecting.  When she had become a little composed, she turned round to me, where I stood dripping wet, and, intermingled with lamentation for the child, showering down emphatic blessings on my head, inquired my name.  'Give it to me!' she cried; 'give it to me on paper, in writing, that I may wear it next my heart, read and kiss it every day of my life, and never forget to pray for you and to bless you!'  
'I'll tell it you.  My name -- .' 
'Nay, write it down for me -- write it down.  Sure you'll not refuse me.  All the saints bless you, dear young man, for saving a poor woman from despair!'  
The officer commanding the boat handed me a pencil and a card; I wrote my name and gave it to the poor woman; she took my hand as I gave it to her, kissed the card repeatedly, and put it into her bosom.  The officer, impatient to shove off, ordered her husband into the boat -- she followed, clinging to him wet as he was -- the boat shoved off, and I hastened up to the inn to dry my clothes.  I could not help observing, at the time, how the fear of a greater evil will absorb all consideration for a minor.  Satisfied that her husband had not perished, she had hardly once appeared to remember that she had lost her child. 
I had only brought one suit of clothes with me: they were in very good condition when I arrived, but salt water plays the devil with a uniform.  I lay in bed until they were dry, but when I put them on again, not being before too large for me, for I grew very fast, they were now shrunk and shriveled up, so as to be much too small.  My wrists appeared below the sleeves of my coat -- my trousers had shrunk half-way up to my knees -- the buttons were all tarnished, and altogether I certainly did not wear the appearance of a gentlemanly smart midshipman.  I would have ordered another suit, but the examination was to take place at ten o'clock the next morning, and there was no time.  I was therefore obliged to appear as l was on the quarter-deck of the line-of-battle ship, on board of which the passing was to take place.  Many others were there to undergo the same ordeal, all strangers to me, and, as I perceived by their nods and winks to each other, as they walked up and down in their smart clothes, not at all inclined to make my acquaintance. 

LESSON 9. 
HOW PETER SIMPLE PASSED HIS EXAMINATION. 
(CONCLUSION.) 
There were many before me on the list, and our hearts beat every time that a name was called, and the owner of it walked aft into the cabin.  Some returned with jocund faces, and our hopes mounted with the anticipation of similar good fortune; others came out melancholy and crestfallen, and then the expression of their countenances was communicated to our own, and we quailed with fear and apprehension.  I have no hesitation in asserting, that although 'passing' may be a proof of being qualified, 'not passing' is certainly no proof to the contrary.  I have known many of the cleverest young men turned back (while others of inferior abilities have succeeded), merely from the feeling of awe occasioned from the peculiarity of the situation; and it is not to be wondered at, when it is considered that all the labor and exertion of six years are at stake at this appalling moment.  At last my name was called, and almost breathless from anxiety, I entered the cabin, where I found myself in the presence of the three captains who were to decide whether I were fit to hold a commission in His Majesty's service.  My logs and certificates were examined and approved; my time calculated and allowed to be correct.  The questions in navigation which were put to me were very few, for the best of all possible reasons, that most captains in His Majesty's service know little or nothing of navigation.  During their servitude as midshipmen, they learn it by rote, without being aware of the Principles upon which the calculations they use are founded.  As lieutenants, their services as to navigation are seldom required, and they rapidly forget all about it.  As captains, their whole remnant of mathematical knowledge consists in being able to set down the ship's position on the chart.  As for navigating the ship, the master is answerable; and the captains not being responsible themselves, the trust entirely to his reckoning.  Of course, there are exceptions, but what I state is the fact; and if an order from the Admiralty were given that all captains should pass again, although they might acquit themselves very well in seamanship, nineteen out of twenty would be turned back when they were questioned in navigation. 
As soon as I had answered several questions satisfactorily, I was desired to stand up.  The captain who had interrogated me on navigation, was very grave in his demeanor towards me, but at the same time not uncivil.  During his examination, he was not interfered with by the other, who only undertook the examination in 'seamanship.'  The captain who now desired me to stand up, spoke in a very harsh tone, and quite frightened me.  I stood up pale and trembling, for I augured no good from this commencement.  Several questions in seamanship were put to me, which I have no doubt I answered in a very lame way, for I cannot even now recollect what I said.
'I thought so,' observed the captain; 'I judged as much from your appearance.  An officer who is so careless of his dress, as not even to put on a decent coat when he appears at his examination, generally turns out an idle fellow, and no seaman.  One would think you had served all your time in a cutter, or a tengun brig, instead of dashing frigates.  Come, sir, I'll give you one more chance.' 
I was so hurt at what the captain said, that I could not control my feelings.  I replied, with a quivering lip, that I had had "no time to order another uniform," -- and I burst into tears. 
'Indeed, Burrows, you are rather too harsh,' said the third captain; 'the lad is frightened.  Let him, sit down and compose himself for a little while.  Sit down, Mr. Simple, and we will try you again directly.' 
I sat down, checking my grief and trying to recall my scattered senses, the captains in the meantime turning over the logs to pass away the time.  The one who had questioned me in navigation reading the Plymouth newspaper, which had a few minutes before been brought on board and sent into the cabin, cried, 'Heh! what's this?  I say, Burrows -- Keats, look here,' and he pointed to a paragraph.  'Mr. Simple, may I ask whether it was you who saved the soldier who leaped off the wharf yesterday?'
 'Yes, sir,' replied I, 'and that is the reason why my uniform are so shabby.  I spoilt them then, and had no time to order others.  I did not like to say why they were spoilt.'  I saw a change in the countenances of all the three, and it gave me courage.  Indeed, now that my feelings had found vent, I was no longer under any apprehension. 
'Come, Mr. Simple, stand up again,' said the captain kindly, 'that is, if you feel sufficiently composed; if not, we will wait a little longer.  Don't be afraid, we wish to pass you.' 
I was not afraid, and stood up immediately.  I answered every question satisfactorily, and finding that I did so, they put more difficult ones. 
'That is sufficient, Mr. Simple.  I wish to ask you no more questions.  I thought at first you were a careless officer and no seaman; I now find you are a good seaman and a gallant young man.  Do you wish to ask any more questions?' continued he, turning to the two others. 
They replied in the negative; my passing certificate was signed, and the captains did me the honor to shake hands with me, and wish me speedy promotion.  Thus ended happily this severe trial to my poor nerves; and as I came out of the cabin, no one could have imagined that I had been in such distress within, when they beheld the joy that irradiated my countenance. 

LESSON 10. 
A RETROSPECT: THE RECOLLECTIONS OF VISCOUNT SHIBUSAWA. 
[Viscount Shibusawa is one of the principal creators, on its financial and industrial side, of modern Japan.  He saw his first white man when he was in his 'teens, and was a man of nearly thirty when Japan threw open its doors, hitherto closed to the world.  In his early man-hood he was ardently "anti-foreign."  To-day, he is an ardent advocate of international friendship.  The following article was contributed by him to the columns of an English newspaper on the occasion of the visit to England of the present Emperor.] 
-------------------------------------------
In my eighty-second year I look back across a lifetime that has coincided with the unfolding of Japan from Asiatic feudalism to modern scientific industrialism, from hermit-like seclusion to full participation in world affairs.  From its early years my lifetime has been concerned with the foreigner.  As a little boy, the Western world meant nothing to me.  The first occasion that I heard anything worth remembering about a foreign country was when Commodore Perry's anchored his "black ships" in the Bay of Tokyo in 1853.  The vast significance of this event is a matter of history.  In Tokyo, among the city population it made a profound impression, but in the countryside, fifty miles from the capital, where I, a little lad of thirteen, was living in those days, news came only by word of mouth and slowly, and the effect of Commodore Perry's action was much less felt.  My father was a fairly well-to-do farmer, and I was already educated enough to be reading the Chinese classics.  Consequently I was better able to understand the meaning of the event than the ordinary farmer's son.  This was the original stimulus that turned my thoughts towards the unknown foreign world that had thus demonstrated its existence and its strength.  I learned, to begin with, that the world contained five great continents, and that the division of the earth with which my own country was classified was called Asia.  Gradually, stage by stage, the manners and customs, the different culture, and the various political institutions of this strange world came into my knowledge. 
I well recollect my first sight of a white man.  He was being taken through the streets of Tokyo, then, of course, named Yedo, under an armed escort.  My feelings, I remember, were those of a sort of dread and even of physical repulsion; for the marks of racial difference were so new and startling.  Of course, I was only a country lad of seventeen or so.  At that time a controversy was raging among the educated class upon the question of opening the doors to foreign influence or closing them, and there were an anti-foreign and a pro-foreign school, both of them strong and passionate.  A book in five small volumes had just appeared upon the opium war between England and China -- a war which gave England Hong Kong and an indemnity, and forced China to accept the importation of opium.  This book came into my hands, and on reading it my impression naturally was that England was a dreadful country.  In this way I acquired in my youth an idea of foreign nations, and particularly of England, that it took later experience and time to modify and correct.  But at that time the impression was very vivid, and I was frankly "anti-foreign." 
Let me recall Japanese political conditions of that period.  Real power was exercised by the Shogunate, which was held by the head of the Tokugawa clan, with his seat in Yedo.  Among the forces which were then working against the Shogunate, and which afterwards took in hand the transformation of Japan, three discontents were uppermost.  The first, strangely enough in the light of later events, was anti-foreign.  A body of public opinion condemned the Shogunate weakness in admitting foreign influence.  A second discontent was that the Shogunate insisted on restricting political activity to the narrow Daimyo class -- that is, to the feudal chiefs, excluding the body of the Samurai, who might be compared somewhat in a non-feudal State with the middle-class.  And, thirdly, the Shogun was accused of holding too great power.  Into this agitation I threw myself, being then some twenty years old and full of enthusiasm.  Four years later I had worked out a political plan of my own, which did not succeed in winning acceptance, and in any case would hardly interest my English readers.  At any rate, the result was that I quitted Yedo for Kyoto, where I attached myself to the Hitotsubashi family, a branch of the Tokugawas, as a retainer.  This was about ten years after Commodore Perry's demonstration. 
My aim was then deliberate and clear -- to adopt a political career.  In course of time my anti-foreign ardor and my opposition to the Tokugawa regime had become mature and moderated.  I still held that the Shogunate should give way to the restoration of the Imperial authority and national unity, but I felt that the change should be made gradually and not suddenly.  The reason why I attached myself to the Hitotsubashi clan -- or at least one of my reasons -- was that I wished to carry out that idea.  The Hitotsubashi stood between the two extremes.  Meanwhile a very important event took place.  That was the death of the Shogun, and the question at once arose as to his successor.  This was some five years after I had became a retainer.  To my astonishment and dismay, my own lord was appointed.  The very powerful Southern clans of Choshu and Satsuma had been counting on Hitotsubashi as an ally against the Shogunate, and I clearly foresaw -- if my chief accepted the office of Shogun -- that not only would my own position be misunderstood as being that of one in favor of strengthening the Tokugawa regime against these two powerful clans, but that the probable outcome would be grave internal disturbance.  My fears were justified by events, but at the time that the Civil War broke out I happened by chance to be in France.  How I came to go to France and how my visit to Europe affected my mind in regard to the foreign world deserves another paragraph. 
A great exhibition was held in Paris in l867, and an invitation had been sent to the Shogunate at Tokyo.  Japan accepted the invitation and dispatched the younger son of the Shogun, whose name was Mimbu Tayu, and to whose suite I was attached.  My idea in under-taking the post was still political.  It was to stay in France after the mission was accomplished for five years or so, to learn all I could, and so equip myself to be able to contribute to the welfare of my own country on my return.  In Paris, by the way, I met Napoleon �V. and the late Empress Eugenie.  There is little need to say that from the outset everything, for all my reading and study, was very new and curious to me.  Yet I vividly remember how much I was impressed by the gaiety and brilliance of social life under the last French Empire and how the thought sank itself deeply into my mind that this state of affairs could not last.  Only three years later the Empire fell before military defeat and revolution, thus confirming my impressions.  During my absence from home a great transformation, too, was taking place in Japan, one that again I had foreseen.  A curious superstitious fancy almost began to obsess me that wherever I happened to go great political upheavals would inevitably follow. 
Though I meant to stay in France at least five years, my stay in Europe was in fact very short, ranging only from one spring to the following winter.  Nevertheless, short as it was, I had time to observe the material side of European life: for example, the use of electricity, steam, commerce, the banking system, insurance, and the like.  Not only did I use my eyes and wits in France, but also in England, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium, all of which countries I visited.  My age was then thirty; in a word I was mature enough to observe and think out things for myself without being overwhelmed.  It was obvious to me that the West's advantage over us at that time was first and foremost in material equipment, and I decided when I got back home to abandon my political dreams and to devote myself wholly to business and industry, or rather to the material development and strengthening of my country.  To that decision I have during my life tenaciously held. 
In parenthesis I should like to remark upon the vivid contrast that manifested itself to my fresh, fairly observant vision, between mid-Victorian England and France of the Third Empire.  The latter was brilliant, lively, attractive; the former sober, serious, and even dull.  Particularly was this contrast most marked in the matter of military display.  Yet the impression that I gained in London was of strength, solidity, reserve power. 
Thinking over my short experience of the West on my return to Japan, I realized our utter backwardness in all the departments of banking, finance, insurance, transport, and industry.  Feudal class distinctions were very marked and the merchant and trading class despised.  All this I perceived must be altered, and to that task I set myself.  During five years' service at the Treasury, I studied every aspect of the problem of equipping Japan with capital, industries, railways, and ports.  Finally, on leaving the Government service, I concentrated upon banking, and I started the First National Bank (the Dai-Ichi Ginko).  That was 49 years ago.  From that date until four years ago I devoted my whole energy to developing Japanese banking and industrial life.  In many things I have been the pioneer. 
In 1916, when I reached the age of 77, I felt that my principal task was over but that a new one awaited me.  It is not enough either for an individual or a nation to concentrate solely upon the acquisition of wealth.  Therein lies a danger to the spirit; the danger of an exclusive materialism, of the adoption of a nicely calculated profit or loss as the criterion of life!  I determined, therefore, to retire from business and devote myself to correcting this tendency, to inculcating the doctrines of justice and humanity both at home and abroad, and to restoring harmony and co-operation between all classes, such as used to characterize the relation of master and servant in former days.  In particular I am endeavoring in my old age to promote international friendship between Japan and all other nations, but especially America and China. 
As I look back in the last stages of my life over the long span of years, several personalities stand out with a magnitude and luster that have increased with the passage of time.  Principally am I impressed with the greatness of the Emperor Meiji, the most wonderful rule that Japan has ever possessed.  Then I think, too, of my former Lard of Tokugawa, who, in my opinion, was grievously misunderstood.  The others that arise in my mind are Okuma Inouye, Ito, and Matsukata. 

LESSON 11. 
WELL-KNOWN QUOTATIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE. 
  When looking , over any dictionary of quotations, we note to what extent languages have been enriched by the literary works of classical authors.  Shakespeare, for instance, composes a certain expression and puts it into the mouth of one of the characters of a drama or comedy.  The expression is not necessarily of intrinsic value; it is not necessarily beautiful or a striking example of a wise or witty saying.  But as the drama or comedy takes its place in English literature, and is read and re-read by generation after generation, the saying becomes familiar, we use it in writing and in speaking: it becomes part of our language. 
We see somebody suffering from the toothache.  We note his impatience, and his inability to treat the matter philosophically, and we say or think "There was never a philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently."  The expression seems so apt; we use it as we would use a proverb, perhaps not knowing that this was first composed by Shakespeare and put into the mouth of one of the characters in his comedy "Much Ado about Nothing."  Even the name of this comedy has become a familiar expression, and when we notice people making much fuss or trouble about some trivial matter we say "It's much ado about nothing," hardly realizing that this is simply the title of one of Shakespeare's comedies, and that the word "ado" is an obsolete English word occurring rarely, if ever, in any other context.  If Shakespeare had chosen some other title for his play, we should probably not even understand the meaning of the word "ado." 
Or again, Shakespeare writes the tragedy of Julius Caesar.  Caesar was killed by Brutus, his friend: and Shakespeare makes Brutus say, while excusing his act: "Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more."  Such a combination of words was probably unknown until Shakespeare created it, but the expression is so familiar to us through the reading and study of this tragedy that it has become part of the English language.  We might say, on some occasion, "I enjoy living in the country, and would never willingly return to town life."  And then, feeling that our statement implies that we detest town life, we might add, "Not that I love the town less, but that I love the country more," an adaptation of the words of Brutus as imagined by Shakespeare.  But if Shakespeare had not composed that line, we should not be using the expression (or an adaptation of it) to-day. 
Hardly being aware of it, we quote almost daily from Shakespeare, from the English Bible, from such writers as Pope or Dickens, Shaw or Kipling.  Turning over the pages of a dictionary of quotations, we come to realize how many of our daily expressions have come into existence through having been thought arid written by a classical author.  The better known expressions of this sort form part of our language, the less known expressions enrich it, and occasionally a little known saying may be found remarkably apt, and help us to express our thoughts or understand the thoughts of others. 
Young or inexperienced writers, however, should be warned against an excessive use of quoted expressions.  One who cannot write an essay or make a speech without dragging in classical quotations at every moment gives the impression of being a pretentious person anxious to show off the extent of his reading, and does little but make a vain display of his knowledge.  Some speeches are little other than strings of quotations, and suggest that the speaker has few or no thoughts of his own. 
Another important point we must note, too, in connection with the use of quotations.  The earlier classical writers, such as Shakespeare, or those who produced the English version of the Bible, use a form of English that is partly or wholly obsolete, an English that is different from the English of the best writers of to-day.  Shakespeare used the English language as it was, in the sixteenth century.  H. G. Wells or Bernard Shaw use the English language as it is to-day.  A style composed partly of ancient forms of a language and partly of forms characteristic of present-day usage is intolerable, or else is considered as a sort of joke.  We must therefore distinguish between using an expression as a quotation from an ancient author and using it as if it were a current expression. 
  O that a man might know 
  The end of this day's business, ere it come! 
is all, very well as a quotation from Julius Caesar, but if a foreign student should use or adapt such an expression in his essay or speech, considering it to be a model of present-day English, any Englishman or American will look upon the writer or speaker as a humorist, and laugh at his wit.  For in present-day English we should express this idea in some such manner as, "What a pity it is that we do not know beforehand what will be the outcome!" Or, expressed more colloquially: "If we only knew now how it's going to turn out!" 
This is the point at which so many foreign students of English fail.  Confusing ancient speech usages with modern usages, they often produce a type of English which is neither frankly ancient nor frankly modern.  To enable a foreign student of English to distinguish between the older and the more modern styles of English, particularly to distinguish Shakespearian English from the English of the great writers and orators of the present day, is one of the objects of this lesson.  We shall examine some of the best-known quotations from Shakespeare, so that when we meet with them in our reading we shall recognize them, or so that, at times, we may make use of them when we are writing or speaking English.  Where the words or form of the expression differ considerably from those which would be used by more recent writers, we shall put between parentheses the more modern or more natural rendering.  But we shall often note that the original wording is the more beautiful -- that the more natural rendering is a poor equivalent of the expression used by the author. 
---------------------------------
  Old fashions please me best. 
(I like old fashions best). 
    The weakest goes to the wall; 
a very familiar expression used in present-day English. 
    And thereby hangs a tale. 
(And there is a story connected with that). 
This reminds us of an expression created by Rudyard Kipling: 
    But that's another story, 
meaning: "I may tell you on some future occasion the story or tale connected with that." 
    He jests at scars that never felt a wound. 
(People that have never been wounded may make a joke of other people's scars). 
    What's in a name?  That which we call a rose, 
    By any other name would smell as sweet 
(What is the importance of a mere name?  A name is merely a convenient label.  If, for instance, a rose were called by some other name, it would smell just as sweet). 
    My poverty but not my will consents 
(I don't want to consent, but I am so poor that I must). 
    I have no other but a woman's reason: 
    I think him so, because I think him so. 
(I have only a woman's reason: I think he is like that because I think he is like that). 
    If to do were as easy to know what were good to do, 
    Chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. 
(If it were as easy to do something as to know what it would be a good thing to do, chapels would have been churches and poor men's cottages would have been princes' palaces). 
    The quality of mercy is not strained; 
    It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven 
    Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed; 
    It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. 
(Mercy is a spontaneous thing; it drops gently, as rain does from the sky to the ground beneath it.  It is doubly blessed; it blesses the one who gives it, and the one who receives it). 
The above lines are spoken by Portia in her appeal to Shylock to show mercy to Antonio, the merchant of Venice. 
  He was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and wow he is turned orthographer; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just like so many strange dishes 
(He used to speak plainly and to the point, like an honest man and a soldier; and now he has turned into a pedant; his words are just fantastic banquet, just like so many strange dishes). 
"Speak plain, and to the purpose" is the best advice that can be given to the student of English.  It may serve as a warning not to imitate the style of those speakers and writers who, in spite of using strange and rare expressions, fail to express any idea clearly.  To the same effect is the quotation: 
  Words, words, words! 
  I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: 
  I am no orator, as Brutus is; 
  But as you know me all, a plain blunt man, 
  That love my friend, 
(I do not come, my friends, to steal away your hearts: I am not an orator, as Brutus is; but as you all know me, a plain blunt man who loves his friend). 
    Neither a borrower nor a lender be: 
    For loan oft loses both itself and friend 
(Be neither a borrower nor a lender, for a loan often loses itself and causes you to lose the friend who borrows or lends). 
    Who steals my purse steals trash 
(Anybody who steals my purse steals rubbish). 
    I do not much dislike the matter, but 
    The manner of his speech, 
has been rendered in modern and more trivial English as "It isn't so much what he says, as the nasty way he says it." 
    How often the sight of means to do ill deeds 
    Makes ill deeds done! 
(How often the sight of means to perform bad actions causes bad actions to be performed!) 
    Ignorance is the curse of God, 
    Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven 
(Knowledge the wings by means of which we fly to heaven). 
    Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
    I served my-King, he would not in mine age 
    Have left me leaked to mine enemies, 
(If I had only served my God with half the zeal with which I served my king, he would not have left me at my age unprotected against my enemies). 
The following quotations call for no particular comment or explanation, but we note with interest that these compositions of Shakespeare have passed into current modern usage. 
  I thought all for the best. 
  It is a wise father that knows his own child. 
  To do a great right, do a little wrong. 
  In a false quarrel there is no true valor. 
  Men at some time are masters of their fates. 
  The evil that men do lives after them. 
  All the world's a stage, 
  And all the men and women merely players. 
  More in sorrow than in anger. 
  To be or not to be; that is the question. 
  There are more things in heaven and earth . . . . 
  Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 
  To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of a thousand. 
  Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. 
  Words pay no debts. 
  Love all, trust a few; do wrong to none. 
  There's place and means for every man alive. 
  Praising what is lost makes remembrance dear. 
  We cannot all be masters. 
  O that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! 
  Pleasure and action make the hours seem short. 
  What's done cannot be undone. 
  I am a man more sinned against than sinning. 
  The worst is not so long as we can say, "This is the worst." 
    There is no virtue like necessity. 
    Pride must have an fall.

LESSON 12. 
SATURDAY TO MONDAY. 
The following charming essay is extracted from a small volume entitled Not that it Matters.  The writer is Mr. A. A. Milne, a well-known journalist and author.  He is to-day one of the foremost contributors to Punch, the leading English humorous paper.  It was in the columns of Punch that Mr. Milne's celebrated series of verses When We Were Very Young appeared.  These verses, seemingly written for young children, are enjoyed alike by young and old, and are certainly more thoroughly appreciated by the latter than by the former.  The Daily Telegraph, one of the leading, English daily papers, speaking of Not that it Matters, says, "The little essays which compose this delicious volume are simply models of their art." 
---------------------------------------
  The happy man would have happy faces round him; a sad face is a reproach to him for his happiness.  So when I escape by the 2.lO on Saturday I distribute largesse with a liberal hand.  The cabman, feeling that an effort is required of him, mentions that I am the first gentlemen he has met that day; he penetrates my mufti and calls me captain, leaving it open whether he regards me as a Salvation Army captain or the captain of a barge.  The porters hasten to the door of my cab; there is a little struggle between them as to who shall have the honor of waiting upon me . . . . 
Inside the station, things go on as happily.  The booking-office clerk gives me a pleasant smile; he seems to approve of the station I am taking.  "Some do go to Brighton," he implies, "but for a gentleman like you -- "  He pauses to point out that with this ticket I can come back on the Tuesday if I like (as, between ourselves I hope to do).  In exchange for his courtesies I push him my paper through the pigeon hole.  A dirty little boy, thrust it into my cab; I didn't want it, but as we are all being happy to-day, he had his penny. 
I follow my porter to the platform.  "On the left," says the ticket collector.   He has said it mechanically to a hundred persons, but he becomes human and kindly as he says it to me.  I feel that he really wishes me to get into the right train, to have a pleasant journey down, to be welcomed heartily by my friends when I arrive.  It is not as to one of a mob but to a individual that he speaks. 
The porter has found me an empty carriage.  He is full of ideas for my comfort; he tells me which way the train will start, where we stop, and when we may be expected to arrive.  Am I sure I wouldn't like my bag in the van?  Can he get me any papers?  No; no, thanks.  I don't want to read.  I give him sixpence, and there is another one of us happy. 
Presently the guard.  He also seems pleased that I have selected this one particular station from among so many.  Pleased, but not astonished; he expected it of me.  It is a very good run down in his train, and he shouldn't be surprised if we had a fine week end . . .. 
I stand at the door of my carriage feeling very happy.  It is good to get out of London.  Come to think of it, we are all getting out of London, and none of us is going to do any work tomorrow.  How jolly!  Oh, but what about my porter?  Bother!  I wish now I'd given him more than sixpence.  Still, he may have a sweetheart and be happy that way. 
We are off.  I have nothing to read, but then I want to think.  It is the ideal place in which to think, a railway carriage; the ideal place in which to be happy.  I wonder if I shall be in good form this week-end at cricket and tennis, and croquet and billiards, and all the other jolly games I mean to play.  Look at those children trying to play cricket in that dirty backyard.  Poor little beggars!  Fancy living in one of those horrible squalid houses.  But you cannot spoil to-day for me, little backyards.  On Tuesday perhaps, when I am coming again to the ugly town, your misery will make me miserable; I shall ask myself hopelessly what it all means; but just now I am too happy for pity.  After all, why should I assume that you envy me, you two children swinging on a gate and waving to me?  You are happy, aren't you?  Of course; we are all happy to-day. See, I am waving back to you. 
My eyes wander round the carriage and rest on my bag.  Have I put everything in?  Of course I have.  Then why this uneasy feeling that I have left something very important out?  Well, I can soon settle the question.  Let's start with to-night.  Evening clothes -- they're in, I know.  Shirts, collars . . . . 
I go through the whole program for the week-end, allotting myself in my mind suitable clothes for each occasion.  Yes, I seem to have brought everything that I can possibly want.  But what a very jolly program I am drawing up for myself!  Will it really be as delightful as that?  Well, it was last time, and the time before; that is why I am so happy. 
The train draws up at its only halt in the glow of a September mid-afternoon.  There is a pleasant bustle; nice people get out and nice people meet them; everybody seems very cheery and contented.  Then we are off again . . . . and now the next station is mine. 
We are there.  A porter takes my things with a kindly smile and a "Nice day."  I see Brant outside with the wagonettte, not the trap; then I am not the only guest coming by this train.  Who are the others, I wonder.  Anybody I know? . . . .  Why, yes, it's Bob and Mrs. Bob, and -- hallo! -- Cynthia!  And isn't that old Anderby?  How splendid! 
We greet each other happily and climb into the wagonette.  Never has the country looked so lovely.  "No; no rain at all," says Brent, "and the glass is going up."  The porter puts our luggage in the cart and comes round with a smile.  It is a rotten life being a porter, and I do so want everybody to enjoy this afternoon.  Besides I haven't any coppers. 
I slip half a crown into his palm.  Now we are all very, very happy. 

LESSON13. 
NEW YORK. 
PART1.
The following modified and adapted extracts have been taken from a book belonging to the series Peeps at Great Cities, a companion set to those book entitled Peers at Many Lands, from which our description of Scotland was derived. 
------------------------------------
The finest and most impressive entrance to New York is by war of the sea, with the superb approach down the bay where at the narrowest part is situated the quarantine station, where the health officers come on board all incoming vessels to make sure that no one ill of an incurable or contagious disease shall be admitted.  Near here is Ellis Island, where the immigrants land and are inspected, for in United States they are particularly strict concerning those who emigrate from their own countries with the intention of becoming citizens of "the Land of the Stars and Stripes."  The first imposing sight that meets our eyes is the colossal statue of Liberty, a gift to the Republic of America from the Republic of France.  This statue is the largest in the world, and it is a splendid sight visible for miles, not only from the sea, but from the shores of New York and New Jersey, which surround it. 
Before us lies the island of Manhattan, New York proper, with its marvelous skyline of giant buildings - the "sky-scrapers" for which the tall buildings of Marunouchi would appear as dwarfs.  Imagine the sight on a sunny morning: a foreground of silvery dancing water with hundreds of boats of all descriptions darting in every direction -- immense transatlantic liners from Europe, cargo boats from all countries, fishing-boats; destroyers, cruisers, and battleships of she United States navy; ferryboats, tugs, and nameless craft of all sorts.  Imagine the great buildings of Manhattan stretching towards the sky, the clouds of gray smoke and snowy steam; imagine the busy coast of New Jersey to the left, and of Brooklyn to the right, with huge bridge of steel connecting Manhattan with Long Island; the great Hudson River on one side of us, and East River on the other! 
Majestically our ship makes its way to the left, ascending the Hudson River, while the great buildings pass by us in a panorama showing their graceful outlines like a range of mountains.  Everywhere is light and life and motion, the intense activity that is characteristic of the city, and which strikes us and bewilders us until we get used to the confusion of it all, and find that there is method in what has seemed to be madness. 
The wharves of New York are ugly, dark, and crowded.  After the dreaded Customs inspection (how travelers unanimously wish that there were free trade among all nations, and no Customs examination!) swift taxis convey us to the hotels, making their way through the narrow streets of the business section to the freer spaces and wider avenues of the residential quarter. 
Railway-stations are good places in which to study the life of a city, for, though they are chiefly built to get away from, and though everybody who comes to them is hurrying somewhere else, and usually lives in another place, they yet have peculiar characteristics belonging to their special environment, ways of meeting particular conditions and fulfilling various demands.  Most people like stations, with their exciting suggestions of travel and their activity, even though they are too often ugly, smoky places, chilly, dark and noisy. 
But the two great new stations in New York -- the Pennsylvania and the Central -- are like palaces, and no pains have been spared to make them as beautiful as they are spacious and convenient.  The Pennsylvania building is one of the finest in the city, or in the country, for that matter.  The cool gray granite is restful to the eye, and the noble proportions full of calm dignity.  The great hall has a beautiful roof, 150 feet high, supported on columns forming arches.  In this room are the ticket-offices, the baggage-checking windows, telegraph and telephone service, and from it open the special waiting-rooms for men and women, with drawing-rooms, writing and smoking rooms, with comfortable lounges that rest the tired traveler.  There is an emergency hospital also, with "first aid to the injured" and with a doctor always available; there are automatic telephone boxes, a newspaper stand and an information bureau. 
From this immense room a wide thoroughfare reached, through many doors, leads to a great space below which is the level where the trains stand.  Stairways lead to these lower platforms, the passengers passing through gates that are plainly marked with the time of leaving and the destination of each train.  In addition to the stairs, there are escalators (moving stairways) or elevators (lifts) to help the traveler on his way, and special entrances for taxis and other motorcars or vehicles.  The interior of the station is finished in stone and cement of a creamy color, and is heated and ventilated in an ideal way.  As the trains are worked by electricity, there is no smoke problem to be considered. 
To sit and watch the crowds that pass through it is to see persons from all over the world, who come together here for a brief instant, and then scatter in every direction.  Here meet the immigrants from Europe with travelers, from the Far East.  Here you may come across Italians, Poles or Scandinavians newly arrived from Europe, or you may see Chinese in oriental costume buying tickets at a window, and speaking funny Chinese-English to the clerk.  Country people come in hesitatingly and looking about them with a bewildered air.  School-children enter in groups, laughing and often chewing gum.  Frantic men and women hunt for a lost friend. Meetings and partings, laughter and tears, brides, old people, children, workers and amusement-seekers, white, black and yellow folk, all come through these gates. 
The Central Station, at Forty-Second Street, between Fourth and Lexington Avenues (we note here that most of the streets and avenues of New York have numbers instead of names), on the east side of the town, is even more centrally situated than its great rival, the Pennsylvania Station.  Here the trains enter and depart on two levels, far below the intensive life of the city.  The Central Station is built of marble and brick, on steel girders, and is one of the architectural features of New York.  Here, too, no trouble is spared to meet every possible requirement. 
New York is justly proud of these two modern buildings, and of the enterprise and skill that made them possible. 
City streets, though there are neither hills nor streams, woods nor meadows, to diversify them, are yet quite as various in aspect, and possibly in character, as are any country roads wandering far over the land or by the sea.  In the old days it was necessary for a city to be as compact as a single building, in order that a defensive wall might surround it, and streets were as narrow as was possible, while still leaving room to get through them, twisting and turning upon themselves in a tangle of loops, ending in blind alleys, or even clambering up steps, in order to keep as close each to each as could be managed.  Most of the European cities 
began as medieval towns and almost fortresses.  But in America the greater number of the cities have been constructed without any restrictions as to space or necessity for defense, and they are generally built on a regular plan, modified to a greater or less degree by their natural surroundings.  Their streets, instead of having names, are numbered, and convenience, not picturesqueness, has been the aim followed. 
The old part of New York lies in the southern portion of Manhattan, and there the streets are narrow, twisted, and confused, as in the towns of the Old World.  But the rest has been laid out in straight lines, and, with but few exceptions, all the streets and avenues are numbered, the streets running east and west, the avenues north and south, with Fifth Avenue as the dividing-line.  Each cross street has thus an east and west section, with the house numbers growing greater in both directions from the Avenue toward the two rivers.  Once this plan is understood, New York is a very simple place to find one's way about in. 
But there is one street in the city that does not follow a straight line, and that is Broadway, New York's most famous thoroughfare.  This great street is the longest in the world, running all the way from the Battery, at the southern point of Manhattan, to the city of Yonkers, in the north.  It slants across the city in a general north-westerly direction, cutting most of the avenues on its way, and it is extraordinarily different in appearance in the various parts of its length. 
Broadway is remarkable in many ways.  In the business section, called "Downtown" it runs between the dizzy heights of the sky-scrapers, towering twenty odd stories on either hand -- marvelous examples of man's ingenuity and conquest of difficulties.  It starts within sight of the dancing waters of the harbor in the green lawns of Battery Park, and leads past many of the city's buildings, its oldest churches, past the City Hall and its pretty park, where stands the statue of Nathan Hale, on through the shopping region, still guarded by the tall sky-scrapers to right and left -- among them the astonishing Woolworth building, 792 feet high -- on to the chestnuts and flower-beds of Union Square, at Fourteenth Street, and on again to Twenty-Third Street, where stands the famous Flatiron Building. At this point Broadway looks its best.
Twenty-Third is one of the chief shopping streets, very gay and crowded and spacious.  Here begins the region of the great shops and theatres, the hotels and apartment-houses, and you may look across the beautiful tree-planted expanse of Madison Square to the wonderful Metropolitan Building, with its lofty white tower, whose great clock is 350 feet above the level of the street, while the tower itself is 700 feet high. 
On the same side of the Square, and farther north, is the tawny Madison Square Gardens Building, with its graceful Spanish tower and golden Diana.  Straight north runs Fifth Avenue, thronged with gay traffic, full of life and motion, brilliant in the sunlight, its upward slope visible for many blocks.  And toward the north-west goes Broadway itself, called, from this point on to beyond the Times Building at Forty-Second Street, "The Great White Way," because of the blaze of electric light that illuminates it by night.  For all that part of it is a Solid line of shops, cafes, hotels, and play-houses, and here the entire city comes to enjoy itself as soon as darkness falls on the rest of Nature. 

LESSON 14. 
NEW YORK. 
PART �U.
The second of New York's remarkable streets is Fifth Avenue, which, beginning at Washington Square, at Fourth Street, runs north for six miles, past Central Park to the Harlem River.  Fifth Avenue is the city's fashionable thoroughfare, and is fronted by its finest clubs and hotels, churches and libraries, and its most exclusive shops.  Immense green double-decked electric buses ply up and down the Avenue, and a ride on one of these gives an excellent opportunity for seeing the flower of the town's population of smart and brilliant people busy amusing themselves, drifting past on foot or in moto-car and carriage, going in and out of the shops and the picture shows, the tea-rooms and the clubs. 
At the beginning of the Avenue is the Washington Arch, designed by Stanford White to commemorate the inauguration of George Washington as first President of the United States at the centennial celebration in 1889.  From the Arch to Fourteenth Street the Avenue moves between dignified houses, where New York's oldest families still reside, the fine old buildings having a restful calm and spaciousness that obtains hardly anywhere else, often standing in old gardens, over whose walls trees lean.  But above this short portion the business interest have taken possession, and the sky-scrapers are appearing more and more quickly, rushing upward with the rapidity of such work in New York. 
At Twenty-Third Street, Fifth Avenue crosses Broadway, and has the Flatiron on the east and the Fifth Avenue Building, a huge place with arcades, shops, and offices, on the west.  From here on it assumes its distinctive character of fashionable activity.  At Thirty-Fourth Street it passes the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, while at Fortieth Street the splendid new Public Library extends for two blocks, its white marble facade and fine columns and its beautiful approaches making one of the finest sights in the city. 
Fifth Avenue is rapidly becoming one of the beautiful streets of the world.  At present it is still largely in process of reconstruction, where the new is replacing the old.  The new plan, to build with light stone and brick, is being consistently followed, and it makes the street particularly gay and brilliant to the eye.  Five o'clock of a clear afternoon in early winter is the ideal moment to see the Avenue.  The crisp all seems charged with electricity, so filled is it with life and vigor, and the great street is crowded from end to end. 
Riverside Drive is the third of New York's representative streets.  Sir Henry Irving, the great English actor, said of this beautiful Avenue that it was the finest residential street in the world.  Its natural advantages are many.  It is laid out on the slopes and cliffs of the Hudson for three miles, extending from Seventy-Second Street to One Hundred-and-Thirtieth and is very wide and perfectly graded, with rows of trees separating it into sections for foot, horseback, and vehicle use.  On the river-side a noble park slopes down abruptly, planted with flowering shrubs and trees, many of which are the ancient forest-trees remaining from the old days, when this part of New York was still a wilderness.  Flights of stone steps and winding paths lead through this park down to the river. 
The view of the river itself is wonderfully beautiful.  The noble and precipitous cliffs of the Jersey "Palisades," increasing in height toward the north, mirror their dark and rugged sides in the slow-moving water, and at night the Jersey lights make a lovely picture.  The Drive itself swings along in gentle curves, and at Grant's tomb, almost at the end of its extent, it is as much as 130 feet above the Hudson River. 
Farther down the Drive are other statues and monuments, and on its eastern side the most magnificent of New York's private houses, many millionaires having selected the Drive as the most attractive spot in the city.  There are also some superb apartment-houses, approaches the skyscraper type, and faced with fine marbles and other handsome stones.  Up this Drive run the stages from Fifty Avenue, and it is the favorite run for automobiles and carriages, particularly since the viaduct over the Manhattan Valley above One Hundred-and-Thirtieth Street connects the Drive with the Harlem Speedway, a stretch of road that half circles the high tree-grown promontory north of Grant's tomb and beyond the valley mentioned. 
The forth street I went to speak of is Wall Street, the center of the city's financial district, and famous all over the civilized world as a place where more immense fortunes have been mode and lost, and more gigantic financial and business operations started and carried though, than anywhere else.  Wall Street itself is a short and narrow thoroughfare running like a mountain gorge thorough the lofty cliff-like walls its name from a wall that once defended New Amsterdam at this point, and which was built by the order of old Governor Peter Stuyvesant in 1653.  But assuredly that short-tempered old gentleman would be put to it to recognize the place nowadays.  Here tower New York's highest buildings, making of the streets narrow gorges, and giving odd effects of light and shadow, revealing cliff-like profiles, and darkening the sun at midday.  The Wall Street district includes a number of the street that are linked together in this neighborhood and that make up the whole of the financial portion.  The street itself is less than half a mile in length, but an incredible number of people manage to jostle and squeeze along its narrow extent -- a throng of eager, intent, hurrying clerks, bankers, brokers, messenger boys on the run, newspaper-men, lawyers, kings of finance, millionaires whose operations are felt the world over, detectives, and sight-seers. 
Fronting the eastern end of the street across Broadway is Trinity Church, and all day long its melodious bells chime the hours for ears deaf to anything but the sound and fury of trade.  Here is the entrance to the Stock Exchange, the greatest market for stocks and bonds in the world; here are the United States Sub-Treasury, the lofty walls of the twenty-story Broad Street Exchange, and the white marble Drexel Building. 
To walk through Wall Street is to see the American spirit at fever-heat; huddled groups talking excitedly; frantic men and boys dashing in all directions, pouring out of the mountain range of buildings and rushing in again through the revolving doors; other men shouting hoarsely and waving their arms, apparently unheard above the roar of Broadway, that sweep along its endless stream of hurried life; near by the shriek of a construction engine hundreds of feet above the pavement; a postman hastening along, with his crammed bag by his side; a Jew gesticulating desperately in his endeavor to prove a point; two laughing men turning into a restaurant; small newsboys shrieking extras -- everywhere an indescribable motion, stir, rush, a beat of thousands of feet, the clang of steel on iron, the rattle of machinery, a sense of there not being time enough for all there is to be done, and deeper than this, the realization of the enormous amount that is being done.  And facing it all, the quiet gravestones in Trinity's yard and the soft chiming of her musical bells. 
Any account of a great city that is not a mere mass of statistics must be more or less just a series of impressions, an endeavor to make the reader feel the place, to let him see what the citizen sees as he goes his usual way. 
Here, then, are a few pictures of the city day by day. 
Madison Square on a snowy December evening: Everything is white; the snow clings to the trees and lies in broad sheets on the lawns, and the air is fluffy with the falling flakes.  Fifth Avenue looks like a wide ribbon of silver and pearl, fading into mist at either end.  South, the Flatiron Building, with all its hundreds of windows alight, appears to advance upon you through the storm; at its foot a dazzle of electric lamps, where the Avenue and Broadway are crossed by Twenty-Third Street.  The air is crisp with the ozone of the snow.  Across the white trees the white Metropolitan tower lifts its illuminated shaft, the torch that crowns it looking impossibly high.  Even as you gaze at it, it is suddenly extinguished.  There is a pause, then it shows four red flashes; another interval, and the white light appears again - disappears -- six times.  Then a moment's darkness and the light resumes its steady shining.  It is six o'clock, and the great bells that chime the hours and quarters all day have yielded to the electric lighthouse that takes their place at night, to be seen but not heard, os that no sleepers will be disturbed. 
Everywhere people -- laughing, chatting, carrying bundles, powdered with snow, struggling with umbrellas, as they catch the gale that sweeps down from the cliff-like walls of the Flatiron.  Cabs, sleighs, motors, and the huge green buses crowd the roadway.  Men free of the day's business are tramping up the Avenue by twos and threes, still talking over the affairs of the past hours.  The noise of the streets is hushed by the muffling blanket that has fallen, uniforms are already engaged in removing it and street-cleaners in their yellowish-white The lights everywhere are reflected by the snow-flakes, and the whole city gleams and glistens softly.  An Italian, selling holly from a little hand-cart, shouts cheerily, and a group of working-men, repairing a part of the street, hang out red lamps that cast a ruddy glare on the snow and up into their faces.  There is a sparkle and a dash to it all; everybody seems in a good humor and in a hurry at the same time.  A horse slips and falls, and immediately a crowd collects, and a mounted policeman appears.  The huge helpless creature struggles frantically till someone sits on its head.  Ashes are brought and sprinkled on the pavement, and presently it is up again, and the crowd melts away while the horse is being reharnessed and the driver is talking it over with the policeman.  And all the while the thick white flakes are falling steadily. 

LESSON 15. 
NEW YORK. 
(CONCLUSION.) 
It is May Day in Central Park.  All over the wide stretches of grass are May parties, with their flower- and ribbon-decorated poles, the little boys in their best suits, the girls in white, with sashes and hair-bows as gay as possible.  They are all of them dancing and playing; there are songs, and the teachers and mothers are extremely busy seeing that it, all goes off well.  The young foliage and the flowering shrubs are at their loveliest; the grass is greener than anything ever was, and the sheep upon it, with their lambs at their sides, are enjoying it thoroughly.  Big grey squirrels feed out of the little hands stretched towards them by the children, and in the branches birds are singing and building, as though it were the real country, and not just a slice out of the city -- this lovely stretch of hills and meadows, lake and wood.  On a big shallow pond farther up boys are sailing little vessels of every description -- some taller than the owners, with a great spread of snowy sail; others the tiniest bits of things.  Paths winding under arched trellises, covered with wisteria and sweet with lilac, lead in various directions, and on the drives a constant stream of carriages and motors slips by, while horseback riders trot along the bridle-paths.  Elsewhere boys are playing base-ball, and the tennis-courts are full, while crowds sit near to watch the play.  Baby-carriages, watched over by neat maids and nurses, pass back and forth on all the walks, or linger at the edge of the lakes to see the swans and ducks swimming about.  The brilliant sun falls warmly through the leaves, and the soft breeze is sweet with the smell of young bloom. 
Or perhaps it is late of a Saturday afternoon down on the East Side, and the push-cart market is in full swing.  Dark, foreign-looking men, women, and children are packed closely on the sidewalks.  An intolerable noise of bargaining fills the ears; arms swing wildly; people push and struggle.  Every imaginable thing is heaped on the various carts: articles of dress -- furs, hats, shoes: everything to eat, cooked and raw -- shining fish, chickens, vegetables, fruits, sausages.  There are nicknacks of all kinds, as well as imitation jewelry, crockery, bedding, pots and pans.  Young couples are flirting -- the girls in enormous hats and cheap finery -- the men are smoking large cigars or cigarettes.  Fat old women waddle through the press, with shawls over their heads and carrying market-baskets.  A group of children are dancing in the middle of the street to the tune of a hand-organ.  As it gets dark, flaring torches are lighted by the push-cart vendors, throwing queer shadows as the wind blows the smoky flame.  It might be a Polish city scene, but it is just as much New York as the theatre crowd pouring out into Broadway far up-town. 
Then there is Brooklyn Bridge about five-thirty in the afternoon, just as the workers are hurrying home to Brooklyn from their day's toil in Lower Manhattan.  A veritable ocean of humanity is flowing steadily, irresistibly across City Hall Park, along Park Row, down from the elevated stations and upward from the subway exits, all toward the bridge-entrances, in order to board the trains and cars that run across it, or else making for the promenade if they intend to walk across the river -- a walk of about a mile from one end of the bridge to the other.  The view up and down stream during this walk is glorious, down across the harbor and the end of Manhattan Island, with all its myriad lights, and up to the other big bridges that span the river one beyond another. 
On the platforms and in the trains the crowds are terrific, equaling those in the subway.  Caught in this tide of home-goers, you are swept along helplessly, and fairly lifted into the car that stops but a minute to load up with its human freight, and speeds away to make room for another.  People have been crushed to death on this bridge or swept off the platforms under the wheels of the trains; but the new bridges have somewhat relieved the pressure.  Over Brooklyn Bridge alone, however, 250,000 persons pass every day, and when you realize that most of these want to cross at the rush hours, it is easy to imagine that the crush must be severe. 
Or, another picture: Thundering down the street comes the fire-engine, its bells clanging hoarsely, its three mighty horses at a gallop, the man hanging on anyhow, getting the last buttons of their uniforms snapped into place and pulling on their helmets.  The driver steers his way through the crowded street with marvelous skill, the traffic-police stopping the carts and carriages and cars, and people standing to look, or even following at a run if the fire is within reach.  Behind comes the hook and ladder, whirling miraculously around corners, and where the fire is a big one the fire chief, in his red automobile, passes like a fiend, gone before you fairly see him. 
The New York Fire Service is the best in the world, arid no pains are spared with it.  There is a fire college, where the most modern methods of fighting fire are taught, and where the men learn how to fight the dangers of the city's immense electric and gas wires and mains; also, how to use the new high-pressure water-power, with its capacity for throwing a stream of water even to the top of the sky-scrapers through enormous hose, and everything else possible in regard to their profession. 
A visit to an engine-house during a fire-alarm is a thrilling experience.  The men sleep over the engine-room, in a chamber that is connected with the room below by circular openings, having a pole running up through the center.  When the alarm sounds, the men spring from their beds into their boots, that are attached to their trousers and placed ready at the bedside.  Grasping their coats and helmets, they slip down the poles to their places on the engine.  Meanwhile the same alarm has automatically released the horses, who immediately gallop to their places in the shafts.  The harness is suspended above them, and falls at a touch from the guard who is on watch below.  Another snap or two, and it is fastened upon the horses, and in less time than you can think of, a few seconds after the first note sounded by the alarm, the engine is off on its mission. 
I have given you a glimpse of the subway crowds, but the system itself is worth seeing. �@The stations are large and airy, decorated with shining white tiles and mosaic patterns in color, and brilliantly lighted with electricity. �@The trains move very fast, and there are practically no changes required. �@One may travel from the Borough Hall in Brooklyn, under the East River and the whole of Manhattan, under the Harlem River, and out on the elevated part of the road in the Bronx as far as Two Hundred and Fiftieth Street, a distance of about fifteen miles, without change of cars and for the single fare of five cents (or ten sen). �@Moreover, if you choose to return without leaving the last station you may travel the whole way without paying another fare. 
The tubes under the Hudson are differently constructed, and not so noisy as the subway, since the trains are run in separate tubes each way, and do not pass each other in the same tunnel, as in the subway. �@The cars are of steel, with concrete floors, and are fire-proof. �@After you get out of the tube trains you have to walk some distance to the Jersey stations, and this walk is through a long passage walled with white tiles, having lights set in the low, arched roof. 
Perhaps one of the unforgettable sights of New York is that to be had on a misty November evening from the deck of one of the New Jersey ferry-boats. �@Beneath you is the surging water, in which float huge cakes of ice that have come down-stream from the North; around are other boats of all sizes and shapes, throwing red and green lights on the waves; and before you, dim and mysterious through the mist, towers the city, glimmering with a million lights. �@More than anything it resembles a mountain on whose mighty slopes hundreds of little houses have been built. �@Through the grey fog everything is indistinct and looms larger than reality.�@ The snow banners of steam escaping over the lofty roofs mingle with the mist, and seem to be white ghosts floating above the turrets and towers, whose illuminated outlines are but faintly indicated. �@Everything is magic, weird, unreal.�@ Nowhere else on earth is there such a sight, and its wonderful beauty falls upon you like a spell.  
Huge, and made up of many different nations and materials, unfinished still and raw, growing and changing day by day, pressed by a thousand problems whose solution she must find for herself, since they have only now come into existence, beautiful with a new beauty and ugly with a needless ugliness, New York has much to do and much to learn. �@Interesting she is, beyond dispute. �@It is impossible to be indifferent about her; she is loved or hated by those who know her. �@Even her little children are quick and sharp beyond what a child should be; and yet there is a curious ideal touch to her citizens, an imagination, something even romantic. �@New York will try anything, and believes it can do anything. �@Art flourishes in the Bohemian quarters and is discussed with an eagerness resembling that of Paris in the funny little French and Italian restaurants that are tucked away in corners and known only to the few. �@New York holds many shows, and offers many prizes; and many a treasure from old lands has found its way into the private and public galleries. �@The city's politics have been as bad as anything in America, but the time of good government appears to be dawning.�@ In business and commerce New York leads America and the world.�@ In the true knowledge of how to live, in leisure and wide culture, it is far behind the cities of Europe, although in material ease, in the use of all modern inventions, in housekeeping improvements and time-saving articles, it far exceeds them. 
And now it is time to stop. �@In a book like this it is necessary to leave out so much that one can but wonder whether one has succeeded in putting in anything. �@I hope I have managed to make you all feel that New York is a real place, like and yet different from other cities.  She is but at the beginning of her full development. 
She is asking of her citizens a greater regard for harmony and beauty in private enterprise, and is working with a clearer understanding of the needs of the future.  Above all, she is growing more honest, and insisting that the men who rule her shall be clean business men with good records. 
And New York is like everything or everyone in the world, in the fact that those who dislike her can find plenty to blame, and those to whom she is dear plenty to praise.

LESSON 16. 
THOROUGHNESS. 
PART �T. 
The following is an extract from a book, called Tact, Push, and Principle, by William M. Thayer.  The moral precepts contained in this book are excellent, and should prove helpful and stimulating to all young men.  An edition of the book, selected and annotated by Mr. A. W. Playfair and Mr. Kamegoro Washimi, was published in 1914 by the Tokyo firm of Yuhodo. 
----------------------------------
Dr. Johnson said: "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well."  The observance of this rule, to a gratifying extent, has contributed to the progress of mankind in art and science.  It has preserved the integrity of the human race sufficiently to make real and rapid advancement.  True, half-doing is miserably common.  Many men content themselves with passable work.  Those, only, who possess the qualities which we emphasize in this volume, among which tact leads, are known for their thoroughness.  As tact is practical wisdom, it appreciates at once the necessity of thoroughness as a condition of success.  Sir Fowell Buxton wrote to his son: "You are now a man and I am persuaded that you must hold an inferior station in life, unless you resolve, that whatever you do, you will do well.  Make up your mind that it is better to accomplish perfectly a very small amount of work, than to half do ten times as much.  What you do know, know thoroughly."  I once asked Sir Edward Sudgen the secret of his success and he replied: "I resolved when beginning to read law, to make everything I acquired perfectly my own, and never to go to a second thing till I had entirely accomplished the first.  Many of my competitors read as much in a day as I read in a week; but at the end of twelve months, my knowledge was as fresh as on the day it was acquired, while theirs had glided away from their recollections."  This wise counsel, reduced to practice, would make the best farmers, mechanics, merchants, artists, scholars, lawyers, physicians, clergymen, and statesmen possible. 
Samuel Budgett ascribed a good share of his success in the mercantile business to this law of thoroughness.  He was wont to say: "In whatever calling a man is found, he ought to strive to be the best in his calling; if only a shoeblack, he should try to be the best shoeblack in the in the neighborhood."  He endeavored to make this a rigid rule of his warehouse.  When boys were introduced into his business, they were set to straightening old nails picked up about the establishment.  Their promotion depended upon doing this work well.  If they were thorough in straightening old nails for a given time, they were promoted to serve under the master bag-mender.  If they were equally through in meaning bags, then they were made messengers.  And thus on and up to the highest position in the business, thoroughness was a fixed condition.  Mr. Budgett claimed that the boy who would not straighten nails well, would not do anything well; if he would not be true in small matters, he would not be true under greater responsibilities.  He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much."  The biographer of Budgett, speaking of what is meant by the best, says: "If a merchant, it is doubtless your duty to be the best merchant possible.  But is he the best merchant, who, having superior tact, relentlessly uses that superior tact, in every transaction, to thwart and outdo others, regardless whether or not he shall appear to them inconsiderate and unkind?  He may be the ablest merchant, but that is all. The best shoeblack does not mean the shoeblack who manages to worry people out of the greatest amount of money, but the shoeblack who does his work in the best possible way, and then only seeks a just and reasonable reward.  The best cabman is not the man who drives in the best style and then teases you till you overpay him, but the man who drives in the very best style, and is content with his just wages.  So the best merchant is not the man who best understands his business, and contrives to bargain others out of their reasonable profits, but he who best understands his business, and never takes advantage of any man's ignorance, of any man's necessity; who never forgets that the interests of others are as sacred as his own." 
Sir Joshua Reynolds was one of the most distinguished painters of his day; and, in answer to the inquiry, how he attained to such excellence, he replied, "By observing one simple rule, viz., to make each painting the best."  He disclaimed the idea that he was born to such excellence in the art, and strenuously maintained that nothing less than that persistent industry and perseverance, for which he was known, consecrated to making each painting the best, ever won renown for him.  If we examine the lives of worthies that are introduced into these pages, we shall find this element of success more or less conspicuous.  Roger Sherman was the best shoemaker in town long before he was classed with the best statesmen in the land.  Hugh Miller was second to no stone-mason in his early manhood, as he was second to no practical geologist thirty years thereafter.  Franklin was distinguished for thoroughness in the printing art at twenty, as he was in natural science and political economy at fifty.  Gideon Lee was the best tanner, Amos Lawrence the best apprentice, and Samuel Appleton the best farmer, before they ranked with the best merchants.  There is this lofty aim at excellence traceable in the lives of successful men in all departments of toil.  "Young man, there is always room at the top," was the laconic reply of Daniel Webster to the young law student, who was complaining that the legal profession was overcrowded.  "AT THE TOP!"  Such an aim compels the service of every attribute of mind and heart; and it is this home-stretch for the "top" that makes the most of a young man, whether he reaches it or not.  The late Samuel Ward, who was one of the best of bankers, and possibly the best, was wonderfully helped by his determination to stand at the "top."  He engaged in the business at fourteen years of age, and, such was his tact and perseverance that he soon attracted attention.  A person inquired of him as to his purpose, and he answered, "I mean to be the best banker in the United States."  If he did not become that, he certainly went up so high that he was not crowded and jostled by competitors.  Crowding is done lower down.  On the plane of mediocrity, and lower still, is where elbow-room is needed, because the contestants, if such they may be called, congregate in large numbers. 
We must not be insensible to the fact that slighted work abounds; that multitudes do not excel in their pursuits, nor even indulge a wholesome ambition to excel.  We want a superior carpenter, painter, or cabinet-maker to do a job: is he the first man of the craft we meet?  Can we trust most of the parties who serve in these vocations to do the work well?  By no means.  We are forced to inquire for the competent man, and then wait his convenience.  We wonder at the paucity of the number who have attained to excellence in their callings; the number falls below our estimate, and explains why so many artisans continue poor and menial, content to plod and serve for a scanty subsistence.  They are not the best workmen; and it is the latter class whose labors are in constant demand, at the highest price.  "Work seeks the best hands, as naturally as water runs down hill; and it never seeks the hands of a trifler, or of one whose only recommendation for work is that he needs it." 
The importance of accuracy is conceded only by those who aspire to excellence.  "Only two cents!" exclaimed a clerk to his employer, who rebuked him for a mistake in a customer's account.  He thought that a mistake of two cents was hardly worth mentioning.  Had it been two dollars, that would have been quite another affair.  He had no higher appreciation of accuracy than that.  To approximate to it, in his estimation, was enough for all practical purposes.  But even he would think otherwise, and become enamoured of accuracy, by a little reflection.  Let him consider the satisfaction of having his computations just right -- the honorable distinction of being known in the warehouse as an accurate accountant who detests mistakes, even the smallest, and he can hardly fail of falling in love with accuracy. 
No young man who feels above his business can distinguish himself for thoroughness. If he leave the farm or shop for the office because he considers such manual labor ignoble, he is already on the way to failure.  It is impossible for him to attain excellence with such an error in his heart.  Doubtless many youths have exchanged agricultural and mechanical labor for the learned professions for the sake of the greater respectability that invests them, in their estimation; and this is reason enough for their moderate success.  Love of respectability, and not love of the pursuit, decided their choice. 

LESSON 17. 
THOROUGHNESS. 
(CONCLUSION.)  
The lives of successful men abound with incidents which show that they never felt above their business.  When Napoleon became a member of the military academy at Paris, he found that each student had a servant to groom his horse, and wait upon him generally.  He addressed a remonstrance to the governor against this practice, maintaining that "a student of military affairs should learn to groom his own horse, clean his own armour, and accustom himself to the performance of such duties as would be required of him for service in the field."  Subsequently he established a military school at Fontainebleau, where this system was introduced, and proved the practical wisdom of its author.  He who is too proud to wait upon himself is doomed to disappointment.  Success will never wait on him. 
Peter the Great laid aside the robes of royalty to study the arts of civilized life, that he might benefit his own people.  He wished to know something of ship-building, and actually entered the great East India dockyard at Amsterdam, disguised as a laborer.  "He took his place among the workmen, and became in all respects one of them, even wearing the same dress, eating the same sort of food, and inhabiting equally humble lodgings."  For several months he labored in this capacity. 
Washington's life is crowded with the most interesting incidents of this kind.  While the American army occupied winter-quarters at Morristown, N. J., and were straitened for provisions, Washington directed a hungry soldier to go to his table to refresh himself, but the soldier declined because he was on guard.  Immediately Washington took his gun and acted as sentinel while the soldier regaled himself at his commander's table.  At another time, when several divisions of the army were engaged in constructing works of defense from Wallabout Bay to Red Hook, one of the parties, under the supervision of a subaltern officer, had a large timber to raise.  While engaged in raising it, the officer doing nothing but shouting, "Now, boys, right up; h-e-a-v-e!" etc., a man rode up on horseback.  "Why do you not lend a helping hand?" inquired the gentleman.  The latter indignantly replied, "I lend a helping hand!  Why, sir, I'll have you know that I am a corporal!"  The gentleman sprang from his horse, laid hold of the timber with the men, and very soon it was in the required place.  Then turning to the corporal, he said, "Mr. Corporal, my name is George Washington.  I have come over from New York to inspect the works here; so soon as you have done this piece of work, you will meet me at your commander's, General Sullivan's, quarters."  This self-important soldier never dose higher than corporal.  Even Washington could not make a colonel or general out of such a small-minded man. 
In this connection, we may say of Washington's thoroughness, that at thirteen years of age he commenced to discipline himself in business by copying bills of exchange, receipts, notes, bills of sale, and other papers. He did it with such neatness and beauty that his papers were regarded as models; and when he left school, at sixteen years of age, several merchants applied for his services.  Mr. Sparks says of his thoroughness in his private affairs, referring especially to the period from 1759 to 1764, when he shipped the products of his large estate to London, receiving in return such goods as he desired: "So particular was he in these concerns, that he recorded with his own hand, in books prepared for the purpose, all the long lists of orders, and copies of the multifarious receipts from the different merchants and trades-men who had supplied the goods.  In this way, he kept a perfect oversight of the business; ascertained the prices; could detect any imposition, mismanagement, or carelessness, and tell when any advantage was taken of him; of which, if he discovered any, he did not fail to remind his correspondents."  Of this quality in his public business, Mr. Sparks says: "During the presidency, it was likewise his custom to subject the treasury reports and accompanying documents to the process of careful condensation, with a vast expenditure of labor and patience; but it enabled him to grasp, and retain in their order, a series of isolated facts, and the result of a complicated mass of figures, which would, never have been mastered so effectually by any other mode of approaching them." 
The late Isaac T. Hopper, of Philadelphia, visited Great Britain at one time.  In Dublin he dined with a wealthy family, and while there he received a written invitation to dine with another family on the following day.  He read the note aloud, when his host remarked, "Those people are very respectable, but not of the first circles.  They belong to our church, but not exactly to our set.  Their father was a mechanic."  Hopper replied, "Well, I am a mechanic myself.  Perhaps if you had known that fact, you would not have invited me."  "Is it possible," responded his host, "that a man of your intelligence and appearance was ever a mechanic?"  Hopper answered, "I followed the business of a tailor for many years.  Look at my hands.  Do you not see marks of the shears?  Some of the mayors of Philadelphia have been tailors.  When I lived there I often walked the streets with the Chief Justice.  It never occurred to me that it was any honor, and I don't think it did to him."  It is singular that the spirit of caste should be so prevalent in the mother country; and yet the opposite spirit receives such public recognition.  For it is told of an English statesman, to his credit and honor, that a member of the House of Commons assailed him in that body, and twitted him about his humble origin.  "I remember when you blacked my father's boots," the member sneeringly exclaimed.  The statesman thrilled the assembly with this grand rejoinder, "Well, sir, did I not black them well?"  He was perfectly satisfied with the honor of doing his work well. 
Being ashamed of one's humble origin stands in the way of success as really as getting above one's business.  John Kitto, the renowned biblical scholar, wrote in his journal, "I must remember my humble, origin, and never forget that some unexpected circumstance may again consign me to that poverty and wretchedness from which I have emerged."  He was a member of the poor-house at thirteen years of age, and was completely deaf.  He made shoes there, and was so thorough in his business that a shoemaker selected him, out of from twenty to thirty paupers, for his own shop.  Subsequently, friends desired that he should learn dentistry of a popular dentist who took great interest in him.  In one year he attained to such excellence that he was advised to set up for himself.  Just as he was moving in that direction, however, Providence seemed to direct him to the art of printing.  In this he was equally thorough, and in a short time was qualified to take charge of a printing-office for the Foreign Missionary Society in a distant land.  It was this cardinal quality that finally made him such a critical scholar, and placed him with the best biblical students of his day.  He thought that the recollection of his poverty and obscurity in early life was indispensable to the highest success.  A noble contrast to the haughty spirit of Scaliger, the conceited critic, who was so mortified that he was the son of a miniature-painter, that he wrote his autobiography, in which he attempted to prove that he was "the last surviving descendant of a princely house of Verona!"  If his false pride did not limit his progress in criticism, it did essentially diminish his influence and the respect of his fellow-men. 
Humility is not only the gateway to heaven but also the gateway to the highest worldly success.  "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."  This may have special reference to spiritual things, but it is not without pertinent application to our secular relations.  Feeling above one's business or hurnble connections, is an obstacle lying directly in the way of excellence.  It is not that high-minded, magnanimous spirit which pursues a royal way to the "top."
We close this chapter with the following extract from "Self-Help," respecting the value of a little knowledge thoroughly appropriated, over much superficially acquired: "The value of knowledge to any man certainly consists not in its quantity, but mainly in the good uses to which he may apply it.  Hence a little knowledge of an exact and perfect character, is always found more valuable for practical purposes than any extent of superficial learning.  The phrase in common use, as to 'the spread of knowledge,' at this day, is no doubt correct, but it is spread so widely, and in such thin layers, that it only serves to reveal the mass of ignorance lying beneath.  Never perhaps were books more extensively read, or less studied; and the number is rapidly increasing of those who know a little of everything and nothing well.  Such readers have not inaptly been likened to a certain sort of pocket-knife which some people carry about with them, which, in addition to a common knife, contains a file, a chisel, a saw, a gimlet, a screw-driver, and a pair of scissors, but all so diminutive that the moment they are needed for use they are found useless."

LESSON 18. 
MY FIRST DINNER PARTY. 
The following extract is from Professor A.W. Medley's well-known and popular textbook England as She is.  As the author explains in his preface, it is a modern revision of his older book published nearly twenty years ago with the title My English Diary.  The late Baron Kanda wrote of this book, "When I opened the Revised Edition of 'My English Diary' I was charmed with its true-to-life picture of English life, with its store of information artfully woven into natural conversation and its easy flow of idiomatic diction." 
The object of this book is to introduce the foreigner to England, not in the sense of a guide-book for sightseers, but as a guide to the social customs and habits of English people.  The writer is assumed to be a Mr. Kato, a Japanese visiting England for the first time.  In this extract, we read what Mr. Kato says about his first dinner party. 
-------------------------------------------
When I came in to luncheon next day, 1 found a letter containing a dinner invitation printed on a card and couched in the following language: -- 
  Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Brown 
request the pleasure of Mr. T. Kato's company to dinner on Wednesday, 26 June, at 8.15 p.m. 
R.S.V.P. 242 Abercrombie Square. 
Much pleased at this prompt kindness, I replied : -- 
  "Mr. T. Kato has pleasure in accepting Mr. and Mrs. Brown's invitation to dinner on Wednesday next." 
Accordingly, on Wednesday evening I put on a full dress suit with a white waistcoat and a white tie, and drove in a taxicab to Mr. Brown's house. 
After depositing my coat and hat in the hall, I was ushered into the drawing-room, which was already full of guests.  Mrs. Brown came forward and introduced me to each one in turn to whom I bowed without shaking hands.  Mr. Brown then whispered to me that I was to take in Miss Shewell to dinner, and I should find my position at the table by consulting the seating plan in the corner of the room.  Having ascertained the place in which I was to sit, I took my courage in both hands and approached Miss Shewell, a young lady of about two and twenty with fair hair, blue eyes and a blue silk gown.  She wore a single-string pearl necklace, and a gold wrist watch, but no rings. 
SELF. Mr. Brown tells me I am to have the pleasure of taking you in to dinner. 
MISS S. I have no doubt you will be able to tell me a lot of interesting things.  
SELF. But I am here to learn, not to teach, and hope you will have pity on me and afford me instruction. 
MISS S. Suppose we make it a mutual benefit society.  In any case, there is Mr. Brown leading the way to the dining-room; so will you kindly offer me your right arm, and we will join the procession, which will be closed by Mrs. Brown with the man of highest rank, Mr. Brown leading out the lady who is entitled to leave the room first.  I am so glad I can instruct you like this, as I never know what to say during the walk from drawing-room to dining-room. 
SELF. I will take my turn now, and instruct you where to take your seat, for which purpose I have coached myself up.  Right hand side from the door, the two middle seats.  There you are!  There are our two names, and I have got so far without mistake. 
MISS S. These dishes of anchovies and caviare which the servants are handing us are supposed to give one an appetite, but I never need them.  You see I am what is called an "out-door girl" and ride on horseback and drive a motor, play hockey, golf, and tennis, so that my appetite is always good enough. 
SELF. I shall venture, as this is the first time I have dined out in England, and I want to be initiated into the mysteries from beginning to end.  I have been told that the one unfailing topic of conversation among the English is the weather.  Is that true? 
MISS S. I am afraid we must plead guilty.  You see there is a pleasant variety about the weather here, which makes it a very fruitful source of small talk, and, try as we may, we don't seem able to steer clear of the subject.
SELF.  Your conversation is full of phrases drawn from various branches of life.  In that short sentence you made me think both of the law-court and the sea.  I am always filled with pride when I can trace in my mind the origin of any phrase that falls quite unconsciously from the lips. 
MISS S. I think, you have suggested a better subject than the weather, but then we English know that the weather is safe, and that we shall not be skating over thin ice. 
SELF. There! another metaphor. 
MISS S. O dear dear, I hope you won't probe all my attempts to make conversation to the core. 
SELF. I believe I could convict you again, but will forbear.  Is Liverpool your native town? 
MISS S. It is now, but I was born in Chester. 
SELF. Happy Chester! 
MISS S. Chester has too many things to be proud of to be able to spare much thought for me.  It is one of the oldest towns in England, once a-Roman city, and you certainly ought to visit it.  Are you not going to have any fish ? 
SELF. To tell you the truth, I refused as I really did not know which of the many knives, forks, and spoons I was to use to eat it with. 
MISS S. O what a shame! but it is a good chance for me to instruct you.  The silver knife and silver fork with ivory handles are for the fish, the two large steel knives and the large silver forks are for the meat and bird; you were quite correct in using a small steel knife and silver fork for the hors doeuvre, and the largest spoon for the soup.  The remaining small knife is for cheese, and the medium-sized spoon and small fork are for the sweets, while finally the smallest spoon is for the ice-cream.  There!  I think that is all.  But one word of advice.  For some occult reason known only to Mrs. Grundy, you may not use a spoon to eat your sweet, but must attack it with your fork only, and often it is very difficult, I can assure you.  For the dessert a silver knife and silver fork and a finger bowl will be served with the fruit plate.
SELF. Now I am armed at every point, and feel bold enough to attack anything. 
MISS S. Just what I should have expected from one of your nation. 
SELF. I observe there is not much general conversation at the table.  Is that usual at an English dinner party? 
MISS S. It depends naturally on the size.  You see there are sixteen people here, and I really should not like to carry on an argument with any one at the other end of the table, and have to shoot my remarks over so much table-cloth and so many flowers.  The ideal number for a dinner party is, I think, eight, and then every one can join in, and there is proper interchange of ideas. 
SELF. You may be right, but I confess I find this large table glittering with silver and crystal, a very pleasant sight.  Who is that distinguished-looking man over there, with the clean-shaven face and square jaw? 
MISS S. That is our local County Court judge, who, of course, must not be confused with the judges of the High Court in London, one of whom visits Liverpool, from time to time, to hold the assizes. 
SELF. You are learned in the law, a very Portia. 
MISS S. Well, you see, he is my father -- the judge I mean, of course. 
SELF. What do you call this mysterious dish, of which I am partaking with the most trusting innocence? 
MISS S. That is a "trifle," a dish made from a sponge cake soaked in sherry, stuck full of almonds till it looks like a porcupine, and covered over with whipped cream.  When I was in the nursery we used to call it "tipsy cake," and it is an unfailing dish at every children's party, though out of deference to their age, the sherry is generally omitted, or put in only in small quantities. 
SEIF. It bears a very modest name, and were I king of all the cooks I would rename it with some more sounding title. 
MISS S. Have you no respect for tradition?  Who would recognize their old friend "trifle," were it to be labeled with a fantastic name?  Better let well alone. 
SELF. "A Daniel come to judgment!" 
MISS S. You seem familiar with the "Merchant of Venice."  Are you fond of Shakespeare? 
SELF. I admire him at a respectful distance, but still, it is my firm intention to visit Stratford, of which I have seen so many pictures. 
MISS S. To my shame I confess I have never been there. 
SELF. To change the subject, I wish I could get grapes as fine as these at home.  Really they are so beautiful that it seems almost sacrilege to eat them. 
MISS S. I shall be interested to see if you will still consider it sacrilege after you have tasted them.  But, of course, such grapes as these are not grown out of doors, but under glass in hot-houses -- called vineries.  The English are very proud of their hot-house fruit, and think their peaches grown under those conditions without equal in the world.  Do you see Mrs. Brown signaling to the other ladies? -- that is a sign for all the women to leave the room, and go to gossip in the drawing-room, while the men stay here to smoke and have their coffee, and perhaps gossip too -- who knows?
As soon as the ladies had left the room, the men brought their chairs closer together, and general conversation ensued, whilst cigars, if cigarettes, coffee and liqueurs were handed round.  The topic of conversation was politics, but, in spite of marked difference of opinion, the discussion was carried on with great good humor.  After about twenty minutes we put down our cigars and joined the ladies in the drawing-room, and a few minutes later, Mr. Brown and three friends retired to his room to play  "bridge," whilst the remainder of us were entertained with music. 
At 11.30 we all said good night, and, after thanking our hostess for a pleasant evening, returned home. 
Three days later I called, but finding no one at home, left two of my cards, one for Mr.Brown and one for Mrs. Brown, with the top left hand corner of each card turned down to show that I had called in person.  
 
LESSON 19. 
OUT OF THE EAST. 
This is a second series of extracts from the writings of Lafcadio Hearn, this time from a volume entitled Out of the East. 
---------------------------------
Kyushu still remains the most conservative part of Japan, and Kumamoto, its chief city, the center of conservative feeling.  This conservatism is, however, both rational and practical.  Kyushu was not slow in adopting railroads, improved methods of agriculture, applications of science to certain industries; but remains of all districts of the Empire the least inclined to imitation of Western manners and customs.  The ancient samurai spirit still lives on; and that spirit in Kyushu was for centuries one that exacted severe simplicity in habits of life. -- With Kyushu Students. 
---------------------------------
The Kumamoto, and also the Kagoshima youths, -- whenever not obliged to don military uniform for drill-hours and other special occasions, -- still cling to a costume somewhat resembling that of the ancient bushi, and therefore celebrated in sword-songs -- the short robe hakama reaching a little below the knee, and sandals.  The material of the dress is cheap, coarse, and sober in color; cleft stockings (tabi) are seldom worn, except in very cold weather, or during long marches, to keep the sandal-thongs from cutting into the flesh.  Without being rough, the manners are not soft; and the lads seem to cultivate a certain outward hardness of character.  They can preserve an imperturbable exterior under quite extraordinary circumstances, but under this self-control there is a fiery consciousness of strength which will show itself in a menacing form on rare occasions.  They deserve to be termed rugged men, too, in their own Oriental way.  Some I know, who though born to comparative wealth, find no pleasure so keen as that of trying how much physical hardship they can endure.  The greater number would certainly give up their lives without hesitation rather, than their high principles.  And a rumor of national danger would instantly transform the whole four hundred into a body of iron soldiery.  But their outward demeanor is usually impassive to a degree that is difficult even to understand. -- With Kyushu Students. 
One might suppose a simple style characteristic of English compositions in Japanese higher schools.  Yet the reverse is the fact.  There is a general tendency to prefer big words to little ones, and long complicated sentences to plain short periods.  For this there are some reasons which would need a philological essay by Professor Chamberlain to explain.  But the tendency in itself -- constantly strengthened by the absurd text-books in use -- can be partly understood from the fact that the very simplest forms of English expression are the most obscure to a Japanese, because they are idiomatic.  The student finds them riddles, since the root-ideas behind them are so different from his own that, to explain those ideas, it is first necessary to know something of Japanese psychology; and in avoiding simple idioms he follows instinctively the direction of least resistance. 
I tried to cultivate an opposite tendency by various devices.  Sometimes I would write familiar stories for the class, all in simple sentences, and in words of one syllable.  Sometimes I would suggest themes to write upon, of which the nature almost compelled simple treatment.  Of course I was not very successful in my purpose, but one theme chosen in relation to it - "My First Day at School" -- evoked a large number of compositions that interested me in quite another way, as revelations of sincerity of feeling and of character.  I offer a few selections, slightly, abridged and corrected.  Their naivete is not their least charm, -- especially if one reflect they are but the recollections of boys.  The following seemed to me one of the best: --
"I could not go to school, until I was eight years old.  I had often bagged my father to let me go, for all my playmates were already at school; but he would not, thinking I was not strong enough.  So I remained at home, and played with my brother.
"My brother accompanied me to school the first day.  He spoke to the teacher, and then left me.  The teacher took me into a room, and commanded me to sit on a bench, then he also left me.  I felt sad as I sat there in silence; there was no brother to play with now, -- only many strange boys.  A bell rang twice; and a teacher entered our classroom, and told us to take out our slates.  Then he wrote a Japanese character on the blackboard, and told us to copy it.  That day he taught us how to write two Japanese words, and told us some story about a good boy.  When I returned home I ran to my mother, and knelt down by her side to tell her what the teacher had taught me.  Oh! how great my pleasure then was!  I cannot even tell how I felt, -- much less write it.  I can only say that I then thought the teacher was a more learned man than father, or anyone else whom I knew, -- the most awful, and yet the most kindly person in the world." -- With Kyushu Students. 
------------------------------
I am in Hakata, the town of the Girdle-Weavers, -- which is a very tall town, with fantastic narrow ways full of amazing color; -- and I halt in the Street-of-Prayer-of-the-Gods because there is an enormous head of bronze, the head of a Buddha, smiling at me through a gateway.  The gateway is of a temple of the Judo sect; and the head is beautiful. 
But there is only the head.  What supports it, above the pavement of the court is hidden by thousands of metal mirrors heaped up to the chin of the great dreamy face.  A placard beside the gateway explains the problem.  The mirrors are contributions by women to a colossal seated figure of Buddha -- to be thirty-five feet high, including the huge lotus on which it is to be enthroned.  And the whole is to be made of bronze mirrors.  Hundreds have been already used to cast the head; myriads will be needed to finish the work.  Who can venture to assert, in presence of such an exhibition, that Buddhism is passing away? -- At, Hakata. 
----------------------------
The master of jiujutsu never relies upon his own strength.  He scarcely uses his own strength in the greatest emergency.  Then what does he use?  Simply the strength of his antagonist.  The force of the enemy is the only means by which that enemy is overcome.  The art of jiujutsu teaches you to rely for victory solely upon the strength of your opponent; and the greater his strength, the worse for him and the better for you.  I remember that I was not a little astonished when one of the greatest teachers of jiujutsu told me that he found it extremely difficult to teach a certain very strong pupil, whom I had innocently imagined to be the best in the class.  On asking why, I was answered: "Because he relies upon his enormous muscular strength and uses it."  The very name "jiujutsu" means to conquer by yielding. 
What Western brain could have elaborated this strange teaching, -- never to oppose force to force, but only to direct and utilize the power of attack; to overthrow the enemy solely by his own strength, -- to vanquish him solely by his own effort?  Surely none!  The Occidental mind appears to work in straight lines; the Oriental, in wonderful curves and circles.  Yet how fine a symbolism of Intelligence as a means to foil brute force!  Much more than a science of defense is this jiujutsu: it is a philosophical system; it is an economical system; it is an ethical system (indeed, I had forgotten to say that a very large part of jiujutsu-training is purely moral); and it is, above all, the expression of a racial genius as yet but faintly perceived by those Powers who dream of further aggrandizement in the East. -- Jiujutsu. 
--------------------------------
  To give up the native dress would involve the costly necessity of changing nearly all the native habits of life.  Western costume is totally unsuited to a Japanese interior; and would render the national squatting, or kneeling, posture extremely painful or difficult for the wearer.  The adoption of Western dress would thus necessitate the adoption of Western domestic habits; the introduction into homes of chairs for resting, tables for eating, stoves or fireplaces for warmth (since the warmth of the native robes alone renders these Western comforts at present unnecessary), carpets for floors, glass for windows, -- in short, a host of luxuries which the people have always been well able to do without.  There is no furniture (according to the European sense of the term) in a Japanese home, -- no beds, tables, or chairs.  There may be one small book-case, or rather "book-box"; and there are nearly always a pair of chests of drawers in some recess hidden by sliding paper screens; but such articles are quite unlike any Western furniture.  As a rule you will see nothing in a Japanese room except a small brazier of bronze or porcelain, for smoking purposes; a kneeling-mat, or cushion according to season; and in the alcove only, a picture or a flower vase.  For thousands of years Japanese life has been on the floor.  Soft as a hair mattress and always immaculately clean, the floor is at once the couch, the dining-table, and most often the writing-table although there exist tiny pretty writing-tables about one foot high.  And the vast economy of such habits of life renders it highly improbable they will never be abandoned, especially while the pressure of population and the struggle of life continue to increase.  It should also be remembered that there exists no precedent of a highly civilized people -- such as were the Japanese before the Western aggression upon them -- abandoning ancestral habits out of a mere spirit of imitation.  Those who imagine the Japanese to be merely imitative also imagine them to be savages.  As a fact, they are not imitative at all; they are assimilative and adoptive only, and that to the degree of genius.

LESSON 20. 
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.
Probably most of you who are reading this lesson have already heard about the League of Nations.  As it is the most important inter- 

The practical side of his message embodied the idea of a society of nations, a "League of Nations," as he put it.  A "League" against 

practical policy of the League. 
What, now, is precisely the nature of the international society?  Is it merely a collection 

bers to represent them on the Assembly.  The states sending no official representatives have shown no hostility to the ideals of the League as embodied in its constitution.  On the contrary they collaborate in the actual work of the League and, in some cases, send representatives the French name is "La Societe des Nations."  We next note that it is called the and not a league.  It is not merely one of many similar societies but the first and only body of its kind.  Then we note that it is a group of nations and not merely of great powers or of governments. 
What is the object of this great society?  If we read its constitution, we see that it was founded "to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security," and what object or ideal more worthy than this can we imagine?
It has been said by some that the League of Nations is not the first of its sort; that on many occasions in history, leagues of nations have been formed to carry out this same object.  Those who say this have in mind the various alliances and understandings entered into by groups of countries as the result of some war.  It is true that after the Napoleonic wars, the victorious nations did come to a sort of understanding among themselves.  Similar events have occurred since on similar occasions, and in each case it looked as if a league of nations had come into existence under the same conditions as the league that we are now speaking about.  But this resemblance is merely apparent, and not real.  For these former groupings were not so much friendly international associations as groups of powerful governments or monarchs banded together to defy or to threaten other government or monarchs.  They were made up of statesmen and diplomats whose first duty it was to secure the well-being of their respective countries.  And the smaller nations were scarcely represented.  Moreover in the case of these old langues, there was no regular time nor place of meeting, there were no staffs to carry on the work, nor any method of sustaining the life or developing and increasing the activities of the organization.
How different in its very essence is the League of Nations!  Formed, it is true, at the conclusion of a great war -- of the great war as a matter of fact, -- its origin, development and activities are quite other than those of the old international alliances and conferences.  The League was called into existence by an ideal, a liberal and generous ideal very different from the limited and narrow ideals of the old treaty-makers.  The League embraces not two, three or half a dozen nations, but (at present) no less than 55 of the organized nations of the world, representing four-fifths of the world's population.  It has not only a meeting place where it gathers once a year to take active measures to further its aims and ideals, but a Council that meets four times a year, and a permanent bureau or Secretariat which is sitting all the time, engaged in continuous work tending to make the world better and better in dozens of different respects.  There can be no comparison between the nature of the League of Nations and that of the bodies with which it has thoughtlessly been compared. 
How did the League of Nations come into existence?  Although it seemed to spring into being suddenly in 1919, as one of the means of patching up the great quarrel of the nations, as a hastily devised plan of peace, in reality the idea had been maturing for many years before that.  Leon Bourgeois, a great French statesman and patriot, seeking the betterment of France by the betterment of all peoples, had been advocating for fifty years the plan which now came into being.  In England, too, there were not wanting those who looked to an international society of nations as the only means of securing and assuring the well-being of all peoples.  Among others, Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Balfour, and Professor Gilbert Murray were prominent in the crusade against international misunderstandings, jealousies, and hatreds.  During the course of the great war, moreover, the eyes of all thinking people in all countries were opened to the horrors of war, war which was no longer confined to the actual soldiers and sailors, but which extended its ghastly activities to the starvation or slaughter of women and children, which spared neither infants, the aged, nor the sick.  It was no longer merely that sovereigns, aristocrats, statesmen, generals, or admirals were seeking a profitable or a "face-saving" peace; it was a widespread demand from democracy for security, for a state of things which would spare aged parents and young children from future massacres. 
The chief nations of the world had been fighting for four years, fighting on land and sea; soldiers and sailors fought against soldiers and sailors, as for centuries the fighting men had fought in defense of their country (or for ideals less praiseworthy).  But in the Great War it was no longer merely that soldiers slew soldiers or were slain by them in the fulfillment of their duty; they slew indiscriminately, and none were exempt.  The invalid in the hospital, the child in the school, the scholar at his desk, the shopkeeper at his counter -- none was exempt from the bomb, the shell, or the food blockade.  It was time to put a stop to an intolerable state of things.  Wars should no longer be, and in any case this particular war must be brought to an end. 
At that time, the summer of 1918, there was one man, and one man only in the world who commanded the respect and attention of all the fighting nations.  There was one man and only one man to whom all were disposed to listen.  There was one man and only one man whose advice could be followed without a losing of "face."  He urged the nations to stop the bloodshed, to make peace on a permanent basis.  France listened to him, and listened with admiration.  Germany listened to him, and accepted his advice.  Japan listened to him, and considered that the words were those of a wise man.  All listened to him, and found in his ideals the future hope of the world. 
This man was Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America.  He brought to the warring world a message, a message of peace immediate and future, a message urging a spirit not only of justice but of generosity.  He pointed out a path, a path that would lead to understanding between nation and nation.  The practical side of his message embodied the idea of a society of nations, a "League of Nations," as he put it.  A "League" against international injustice, a league of peoples protecting themselves not against any rival league, but against the injustice and horrors of war in general.  Inspired by the ideals of Leon Bourgeois, by the earnestness and logic of the Cecils and Murrays, by the protests of the world's democracy against the futility and waste of war, he brought the League of Nations idea into the field of practical politics.  He succeeded where others had not succeeded -- and by the irony of fate, his own people became subsequently the chief doubters of the doctrine that he so earnestly advocated. 

LESSON 21. 
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. 
(CONCLUSION.) 
And so the League of Nations came into existence.  Nation after nation became enrolled as members, for Wilson's appeal was one that found a world-wide response.  Soviet Russia remained indifferent, it is true.  Germany and Austria approved but could not yet join, but they are now members, and Germany is now f the leading adherents to the ideals and one o practical policy of the League. 
What, now, is precisely the nature of this international society?  Is it merely a collection of well-meaning and amiable persons who meet and talk about ideals, who make stirring speeches, who arouse enthusiasm by uttering banalities about peace and brotherhood, about the smaller and weaker nations?  Is it no more than this? 
To answer these questions it is necessary to study the constitution, the organization, and the activities of the League. 
The constitution is contained in Article I to VII of the "Covenant."  It was President Wilson who made use of this somewhat old-fashioned and biblical term.  The word "covenant," to the British mind, is suggestive of a solemn agreement among honest, earnest, and conscientious men striving to resist the enemies to their faith, striving to fight in the interest of their ideals, of what they hold to be sacred.  One might rightly use this word to designate the solemn agreement of those who in 1868 determined to put an end to the Shogunate and restore the Emperor to his rightful place.  
Who are the members?  Out of the 63 states recognized to-day as responsible states:(monarchist, republican, or other), 55 have sent members to represent them on the Assembly.  The states sending no official representatives have shown no hostility to the ideals of the League as embodied in its constitution.  On the contrary they collaborate in the actual work of the League and, in some cases send representatives as witnesses to the proceedings of the Langue in its official sittings. 
These 55 representative members form the "Assembly."  This has been well described  as "the true driving force of the whole machinery of the League," and as "more widely representative of all sections of the human race than any in history."  It is the nearest thing to a "Parliament of Man." 
It is, of course, too large a body to deal in detail with business, but it decides many broad issues, Leaving the more detailed work to the Council, to committees and commissions. 
The Assembly meets annually in September, and the session lasts about four weeks. 
The "Council" of fourteen members meets every three months.  Five members are permanent: the representatives of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and Germany.  The remaining nine are elected.  This Council has been likened to a Cabinet, and the Assembly to a Parliament.  Its function is to settle disputes, and in general to do what no one or more nations acting alone can do.  It is attended by the most distinguished statesmen and diplomats in the world; thus a meeting of the Council is an event of great importance. 
In addition to the Assembly and Council, various committees and commissions are appointed to examine and to report on special subjects; some (appointed by the Council) to give expert advice on technical questions, others (appointed by government delegates) to make investigations into subjects of international and common interest.  "Of international and common interest," let us note.  For many, many subjects are of interest not merely to one people or nation alone, but to all peoples.  The question of health is typical.  If an epidemic breaks out in a country, the question of this epidemic is of great interest to neighboring countries.  If, for instance, cholera breaks out in Shanghai, the Japanese authorities are keenly interested that the cholera germ shall not reach Nagasaki or Kobe.  An epidemic of small-pox in any European country must be prevented from spreading to other European countries, for germs do not recognize national frontiers.  The question of disarmament affects all countries, as do questions of transit, finance, and intellectual co-operation.  The Japanese government sends delegates to the United States, to Australia, or to Europe to confer on problems of health or of education, for these are subjects of common and international interest. 
What is the "Secretariat" of the League of Nations?  May we not call it an "International Civil Service"?  How would a civilized nation exist and carry on to-day if it had no Civil Service -- if it had no official departments or bureaus to administer national regulations?  In the same way, we may rightly enquire how the world can exist and carry on without some central body having power to cause the observance of regulations which have been drawn up in the common interest of nations.
This International Civil Service, with its ten departments or sections, employs to-day no fewer than 500 persons drawn from over 40 different nations.  It is a world service created to serve needs which are world-wide.  Such is the Secretariat of the League of Nations.  This is no mere group of talkers, of enthusiasts, of idealists.  It is an effective organization solving daily the problems of the world, and daily making the world a better place to live in. 
Such is the League of Nations.  But in a wider sense it is much more.  It includes within its wider scope the Permanent Court of International Justice.  Several efforts to establish an international court had been made in vain.  The main cause of failure had been the difficulty of finding a method of selecting the judges that would commend itself to all the nations.  The League of Nations was able to overcome this difficulty.
In one part of the Peace Treaty that concluded the great war it was stated that good understanding between nations depends on social justice, on fair conditions of trade and industrial competition.  As a consequence of this statement, the International Labor Organization was brought into being by the League.  This organization has its own governing body and an annual general conference.  The members of this conference consist of representatives of governments, of employers, and of organized workers. 
The value of any organization is to be judged by its achievements rather than by its ideals.  What, now, has the League actually accomplished since its formation in 1919?  
A list of all the achievements of the League would fill many of these pages, so let us content ourselves by noting merely that the Council of the League has settled amicably at least twenty disputes, many of which were likely to lead to an immediate war. 
What is the League of Nations, and for what cause does it stand?  We may answer that it is the most important international organization that has ever come into existence, and that the cause for which it stands, "to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security," is the most important of all the causes that are associated with international welfare. 

LESSON 22. 
THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
That collection of sacred writings known as the Bible is held by Christians to be the most wonderful of all books, for it embodies their teachings and faith, and is considered by them to be the result of the direct inspiration of God.  Apart from questions of religion and doctrine, the English translation of the Bible is considered the most noble English that has ever been written.  It is often said to be the "best English."  In a sense this is so, but we must remember that it is not written, strictly speaking, in the same language as that which English or American people use to-day.  As we have noted earlier, a language never remains the same from one century to another.  Little changes keep going on in it; old words and expressions fall out of use, and new ones come in, so that almost imperceptibly one language dies and is replaced by a new one.  Thus the language spoken in Rome two thousand years ago was Latin; slight changes carried on for many hundreds of years have so altered the original tongue that the language now spoken in Rome is not called Latin, or Modern Latin, but Italian.
When we speak about the English Bible, we generally mean that form of it known as the Authorized Version, that is, the version composed under the authority of James I and the English Church.  It appeared in 1611, and was naturally written in the English of that period.  The earliest versions of the English Bible (or portions of it) were written over a thousand years ago, and are utterly unintelligible to English people of the present day who have not studied Early English as we study a foreign language.  As the years went on, the English of the successive versions came to be a little more like Modern English and the authorized version of 1611 is almost perfectly intelligible today to anybody who knows present-day English.  But the differences between the two types of English are still very great, probably as great as those between present-day cultured Japanese and the Japanese of three hundred years ago. 
So when people speak of the English of the Bible as being the "best" English, they do not mean that it is the best sort of present-day English.  Indeed, if anybody used biblical English when making a speech, preaching a sermon, or in writing an article or an essay, he would be considered as irreverent and profane, as making fun of the Bible. 
In the year 1884 what is known as the Revised Version of the Bible appeared, and has since come into extensive use.  The type of language and the style of the revised version hardly differs from that of the better-known version, but in very many cases the translation is considered to be better or clearer, to give the truer rendering of the language from which it was translated.  In both versions the style is a noble one, appealing to the emotions and producing an effect that no other style can.  The wording is ancient and quaint, but harmonious and beautiful to a degree difficult for the foreign student to realize. 
The Bible consists of two chief divisions known as the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Whereas the New Testament is the collection of the twenty-seven sacred books of the Christians, the Old Testament is the collection of thirty-nine books which Christians share with Jews.  The great contribution to religion made by the Jews is that they, for the first time in the history of religions, conceived the idea of one and only one God, of whom they, the Jews, were the chosen people.  Starting with accounts of the beginnings of the world the Old Testament traces the early history of the Hebrews (or Jews) as they thought it to be, describing the lives of the founders of their race, and the chief events in their history up to about the time of Alexander the Great. 
Both the Old and New Testaments in the English version are a rich source of English expression, and no study of English is complete without some familiarity with them.  We shall now examine some of the best-known texts, sayings, and expressions in the Old Testament.  But it should be understood that these are only a tiny selection out of many thousands of familiar sayings, morals, and maxims. 
In the following collection, all words and expressions that cannot be used in present-day English except as quotations or borrowings from the older style are followed by a pair of brackets enclosing what would be the rendering in modern speech. 
------------------------------------------
God is represented as having created the first man, Adam, and then, contemplating the creation of a woman says, 
It is not good that the man should be alone 
which saying is often quoted as "It is not good that man should be alone." 
The first murder is committed when Cain kills his brother, Abel.  The Lord asked Cain what had become of his brother.  Cain, in his answer, said, 
Am I my brother's keeper? 
Meaning, "Am I responsible for my brother?  Am I supposed to know where he is or what he is doing?" 
Describing the fate of a certain child, the Lord says, 
His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him, 
and this expression is often used when speaking of outlaws and outcasts.  The Revised Version replaces will by shall, which converts a mere statement into a command. 
In the story of Joseph and his brothers there occurs the expression, 
Now there arose up a new King over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. 
The revised version omits the word up.  In present-day English we should say, "Now there came to the throne another King of Egypt who did not know Joseph." 
Man doth not live by bread only 
is a well-known saying.  Doth has become does, and we should replace only by alone.
A man after his own heart (or "after my, our etc. own heart") is an expression in modern English usage, meaning a person we admire, as he has our own way of thinking and acting. 
And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor 
is a typical example of the Biblical style, as is also 
There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary are at rest. 
How different, and how much less moving is the modern "There wicked people stop making troubles; and there tired people are in a state of rest"! 
The price of wisdom is above rubies 
is more beautiful than "The price of wisdom is higher than that of rubies," which would be the present-day English rendering. 
He multiplieth [multiplies] words without knowledge 
is an ancient protest against a foolish practice deplored alike by the popular wisdom of proverbs and the counsels of the wisest writers, viz. replacing true knowledge by the excessive use of strange and pretentious words. 
In a form of Hebrew poetry known as the psalm, the writer (assumed to be King David) addressing himself to God, and speaking about man, declares, 
For thou hast [you have] made him a little lower than the angels. 
The Revised Version gives, "Thou hast made him but little lower than God," for it is not evident whether a certain Hebrew word means "God," "gods," or "angels." 
The days of our ears are threescore years and ten. 
In the older (and seemingly more beautiful) method of counting, the word "score," meaning "twenty," was very extensively used.  "Three-score years and ten" is a cumbrous but poetical way of expressing "seventy."  How dry and unimaginative seems the plain rendering, "We live until the age of seventy." 
I said in my haste, All men are liars. 
A cynic, speaking of this declaration, says that if the author lived to-day he might say the same thing at his leisure.  But the Revised Version of the Bible interprets the original as "All men are a lie," which considerably changes the meaning. 
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy [your] getting get understanding. 
or (Revised Version) ". . . with all thou hast [you have] gotten get understanding." This is a beautiful way of expressing what is generally considered as a modern doctrine, viz. that the wiser we are the better we understand all things.  This quotation is attributed to King Solomon, of whom we have read in Lesson 30 of the Third of these Readers.  Solomon had the reputation of being one of the wisest of men.  Herbert Spencer, one of our more modern wise men, expresses the same idea when he pleads in favor of science as being true wisdom leading to true understanding.  In a latter passage of the "Proverbs" of Solomon, we find, 
A wise son maketh [makes] a glad father. 
as well as, 
When pride cometh [comes], then cometh [comes] shame. 
The writer of the "Proverbs" was wise enough to see the close connection between the two opposites: pride and shame.  From the same writer we quote, 
In the multitude of counselors there is safety, 
meaning, "The more advisers we have the safer are our decisions."  And 
A soft answer turneth [turns] away wrath [anger]. 
He that hath [Anybody who has] pity upon the poor lendeth unto [lends to] the Lord. 
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from [leave] it. 
The wicked flee [Wicked people run away] when no man pursueth [when nobody runs after them], but the righteous [but the good people] are [as] bold as a lion. 
From another writer we quote the following: 
All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full. 
The same writer says, 
In mush wisdom is much grief 
and, 
He that increaseth knowledge itecreaseth sorrow [Those who increase knowledge increase sorrow] 
but nevertheless praises the virtue of knowledge, saying, 
Wisdom excelleth [excels] folly, as far [much] as light excelleth [excels] darkness. 
This same writer declares that 
A man hath [has] no better thing . . . . than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry, 
but in the New Testament this opinion is said to be the opinion of fools. 
A living dog is better than a dead lion 
is a biblical proverb that might written or said by anyone in the word of to-day. 
Wine maketh [makes people] merry ; but money answereth [answers, or provides for] all things [everything] 
is a comment on the fact that while we may enjoy ourselves, the main question is whether we can afford to be merry. 
Such sayings could be quoted and commented on indefinitely, but the above selection must suffice as typical of the material contained in the many books of the Old Testament.  In a future lesson we shall examine some of the best-known texts from the New Testament. 

LESSON 23. 
THE CROWN PRlNCE'S EUROPEAN TOUR. 
In 1921 an event unparalleled in the annals of this country took place, for he who is now the reigning Emperor, the Crown Prince, left the shores of Japan to pay a visit to foreign dominions.  Until that time no one in direct succession to the throne had ever traveled beyond the boundaries of the Empire.  Indeed there were at that time misgivings as to the expediency of such an innovation, but events proved that the idea was a happy one and the results more than justified it. 
His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince, on board the battleship Katori, left Yokohama on March 3rd and, after a call at the islands of Okinawa prefecture and passing close to Formosa, reached Hongkong, where he landed and spent three days on British territory.  Then to Singapore, Colombo and Port Said.  Two days were spent by the Prince at Cairo, the capital of Egypt, as the guest of the British High Commissioner. 
The Katori with the accompanying battleship the Kashima then left Africa for Malta and Gibraltar where in each case a ceremonious visit was paid.  A week later His Highness set foot on the shores of England.  At Portsmouth he received a royal welcome the Prince of Wales coming to greet him.  At London he was received at the station by King George of England. 
For three weeks the Crown Prince was the guest of honor in the United Kingdom.  This period was marked by a series of receptions, luncheons, banquets, reviews, and visits.  First a state banquet at Buckingham Palace, where the Prince was for three days the guest of the King of England.  Then a visit to the beautiful royal palace of Windsor.  Then a public reception at the Guildhall in the city of London, followed by a luncheon at the Mansion House with the Lord Mayor as host. 
Then, as the guest of the British government, His Highness took up his residence as Chesterfield House.  Visits to the Houses of Parliament and notable institutions of the British capital, a banquet at the Japanese Embassy, where he conversed with the leading statesmen of England, and a meeting with Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the originator of the Boy Scout movement, at which interview he gave audience to the three Boy Scouts who had been on duty around his residence. 
On May 18th the program of formal visits came to an end, and His Highness left London for Scotland on a well-earned holiday.  He spent one night at Holyrood, the palace of the former Kings of Scotland, and then passed a pleasant three days of rest and recreation as the guest of the Duke of Atholl at his castle in the wild and rugged Highlands, where he had the opportunity of noting the charming traditionary customs of Scotland. 
Then back to England, where His Highness visited Manchester on his way back to London, where he spent the last four days of his stay in the British Isles at the Japanese Embassy, with the Ambassador, Baron Hayashi as his host.  
On May 3lst His Highness left for France on an informal visit, and stayed for ten days in Paris.  Informal though the visit was, there were formal calls to make, and the Prince met the French President at his official residence, where a luncheon was given in honor of the visitor.  In Paris, as elsewhere, there were banquets, receptions, and visits to institutions and places of interest, including the Eiffel Tower (the highest building in the world), the famous museum of the Louvre, the tomb of Napoleon I and the palace of Versailles. 
Four days were then spent in Belgium.  His Highness was received officially at the frontier, and at Brussels the heroic and sympathetic King Albert came to the station to meet him, and on the evening of his arrival a grand banquet was held at the Royal Palace, on which occasion the King and the Prince exchanged speeches recalling the part played by Belgium during the Great War. 
The Prince visited the battlefield of Waterloo, where in 1815 the victorious march of the French under Napoleon was turned into retreat and defeat by the allied efforts of Britain, Prussia, and Belgium.  The next day His Highness passed over the battlefield of Ypres where, during the great war, the British and Belgians, in co-operation with the French, successfully withstood the victorious march of the German troops.  On the following day a visit was paid to Antwerp, the chief port of Belgium.  On the following night a banquet was given in the Prince's honor by Dr. Adachi, the Japanese Ambassador. 
On the following morning the Prince and his suite left for Holland, arriving later in the day at Amsterdam.  Here Queen Wilhelmina greeted her imperial visitor and entertained him at a banquet.  After four days of festivities and sightseeing the party left for France by way of Belgium.  Stops were made at Louvain and Liege, two famous cities associated with the tragic events of the opening days of the great war.
This second visit to France lasted twenty days, during which period His Highness made many sightseeing excursions, notably to Strassburg in Alsace, Metz in Lorraine, Verdun (the scene of some of the most violent fighting in the whole course of the war), and to the northern battlefields.  During this period he visited the chief institutions of educational, historical, and social interest.  On one occasion he lunched with the King of Spain, who was on a short visit to Paris. 
On July 7th the Crown Prince left the French capital for the south, and after stops at Lyons and Marseilles, reached the naval post of Toulon on the Mediterranean, where he went on board the Katori after an absence of two months.  Two days later the Imperial Squadron left the French coast and proceeded towards Naples. 
The eight days' visit to Italy started with an impressive reception in the Bay of Naples.  There, with the smoking peak of Vesuvius in the background, and in the foreground the Italian warships decorated for the occasion, the arrival of the Katori and Kashima was greeted with the thunder of the Imperial Salute of 21 guns.  The reception committee came on board and conveyed the greetings of the King of Italy.  The next day the Imperial Party went on to Rome.  King Vittorio Emanuele �V, accompanied by the highest officials of his kingdom, was at the Central Station.  The Prince became the guest of the King at his palace.  After a round of sightseeing in the late afternoon, His Highness was entertained at a formal grand banquet. 
During the course of his stay in Rome the Prince spent much time in seeing and studying the remains of the ancient city. 
On July 15th His Highness, after a visit to the Japanese Embassy, proceeded to the Vatican, the seat of the Pope.  The Prince was received ceremoniously at the gates of the palace, and shortly after, Pope Benedict XV met him and led him to his library.  Here the Crown Prince conveyed a gracious message from his Imperial Father, and His Holiness enquired after the health of the Emperor. 
In visiting the museum of the Vatican, the Prince was much interested in the writing which the delegate of Masamune Date presented to the Pope in 1613.  While in the Vatican, the Prince was met by many Japanese students who were received in audience.  The Crown Prince returned to the Japanese Embassy, and later, to the Royal Palace. 
While His Highness was in Rome, President Masaryk, of Czecho-Slovakia, happened to be staying in the city, and asked for an interview with the Prince.  The interview took place at the Japanese Embassy, and thus the Crown Prince, during his tour, met the heads of eight nations, and the Pope, head of the Catholic Church. 
Two days later the Prince, escorted by the King of Italy to the station, left Rome for Naples.  Here he was received enthusiastically by the Mayor and leading citizens.  The next day, the Prince, accompanied by the Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Station, left on an Italian destroyer for Pompeii, the city buried by the ashes from the eruption of Vesuvius A. D. 79. 
On the same day the Crown Prince, on board the Katori, sailed from Naples on his homeward journey, and forty-seven days later, on September 3rd, landed at Yokohama and proceeded to Tokyo by train. 
During this six months' tour His Highness was accompanied by Prince Kan-in, and by a suite including, among others, Count Chinda, Count Futara, and Mr. Setsuzo Sawada.  It occurred to the two latter gentlemen that a complete record of this most memorable tour would be an invaluable contribution to this country's annals, and so they made it a practice to note, day by day, the events and incidents that took place.  On their return, this diary, together with complementary matter such as newspaper accounts and the reports of addresses, speeches, etc., was put in a form suitable for publication.  The result of this was a volume entitled, "Kotaishi Denka go gwaiyu-ki" ["Kotaisi Denka go Gwaryu-ki"].  A year or two later an English adaptation of this work appeared in serial form in the columns of the Osaka Mainiichi Shimbun and, shortly after, in book form under the title of The Crown Prince's European Tour.  From the concluding pages of this book we take the following extracts: -- 
"It may be said without fear of contradiction that the results of the Prince's trip to Europe were more successful than had been anticipated.  Short as the tour was, the field of His Highness' study was very extensive; he surveyed the industries, education, literature, religion, art and military affairs of the European nations and thus the object of the tour was more than fulfilled.  On the other hand, the present tour of the Crown Prince had the most wholesome effect of strengthening the bonds of friendship between Japan and the countries he visited. 
"The safe return of His Highness, after he had discharged his important mission so successfully, had another happy result: namely, that of awakening among the people of Japan a greater respect for him and a stronger desire to perform their duties to their country.  This can be seen in the great enthusiasm with which the Prince was received by the people upon his return from the European tour. 
"It goes without saying that such a tour could have been made only by one who has the hardy spirit of the Crown Prince; and the whole people of Japan should congratulate themselves on having such a Prince. 
"On the very day of the return of the Crown Prince to the Capital, His Highness issued a message to the nation, in the course of which the following gracious words are found: -- 
"'I shall never forget the joy and anxiety which my people, both officials and citizens, have shown regarding myself in the recent tour.'" 

LESSON 24. 
A DRAMATIC INCIDENT. 
The following account of a court-martial, execution, and a reprieve that carne too late is taken from Peter Simple, a book from which we have already extracted a story of human interest.  This second extract from the same book is warranted by the exceptionally attractive style of language employed.  The defense of the Frenchman, in particular, is written in a style remarkable for its soberness, combined with a beauty of expression that may serve as a model of oratory or of lofty literary composition. 
----------------------------------
But before I proceed with the history of our cruise, I shall mention the circumstances attending a court-martial which took place during the time that we were with the fleet, our captain having been recalled from the in-shore squadron to sit as one of the members.  I was the midshipman appointed to the captain's gig, and remained on board of the admiral's ship during the whole of the time that the court was sitting.  Two seamen, one an Englishman, and the other a Frenchman, were tried for desertion from one of our frigates.  They had left their ship about three months, when the frigate captured a French privateer, and found them on board as part of her crew.  For the Englishman, of course, there was no defense; he merited the punishment of death, to which he was immediately sentenced.  There may be some excuse for desertion, when we consider that the seamen are taken into the service by force, but there could be none for fighting against his country.  But the case of the Frenchman was different.  He was born and bred in France, had been one of the crew of the French gunboats at Cadiz, where he had been made a prisoner by the Spaniards, and expecting his throat to be cut every day, had contrived to escape on board of the frigate lying in the harbor, and entered into our service, I really believe to save his life.  He was nearly two years in the frigate before he could find an opportunity of deserting from her, and returning to France, when he joined the French privateer.  During the time that he was in the frigate, he bore an excellent character.  The greatest point against him was, that on his arrival at Gibraltar, he had been offered, and had received, the bounty.  When the Englishman was asked what he had to say in his defense he replied, that he had been pressed out of an American ship, that he was an American born, and that he had never taken the bounty.  But this was not true.  The defense of the Frenchman was considered so very good for a person in his station in life that I obtained a copy of it, which ran as follows: -- 
"Mr. President, and Officers of the Honorable Court: -- It is with the greatest humility that I venture to address you.  I shall be very brief, nor shall I attempt to disprove the charges which have been made against me, but confine myself to a few facts, the consideration of which will, I trust, operate upon your feelings in mitigation of the punishment to which I may be sentenced for my fault -- a fault which proceeded, not from any evil motive, but from an ardent love for my country.  I am by birth a Frenchman; my life has been spent in the service of France until a few months after the revolution in Spain, when I, together with those who composed the French squadron at Cadiz, was made a prisoner.  The hardships and cruel usage which I endured became insupportable.  I effected my escape, and after wandering about the town for two or three days, in hourly expectation of being assassinated, the fate of too many of my unfortunate countrymen, desperate from famine, and perceiving no other chance of escaping from the town, I was reduced to the necessity of offering myself as a volunteer on board of an English frigate. I dared not, as I ought to have done, acknowledge myself to have been a prisoner, from the dread of being delivered up to the Spaniards.  During the period that I served on board of your frigate, I confidently rely upon the captain and the officers for my character. 
"The love of our country, although dormant for a time, will ultimately be roused and peculiar circumstances occurred which rendered the feeling irresistible.  I returned to my duty and for having so done, am I to be debarred from again returning to that country so dear to me -- from again beholding my aged parents, who bless me in my absence -- from again embracing my brothers and sisters -- to end my days upon a scaffold; not for the crime which I did commit in entering into your service, but for an act of duty and repentance -- that of returning to my own?  Allow me to observe that the charge against me is not for entering your service, but for having deserted from it.  For the former, not even my misery can be brought forward but in extenuation; for the latter I have a proud consciousness, which will, I trust, be my support in my extremity. 
"Gentlemen, I earnestly entreat you to consider my situation, and I am sure that your generous hearts will pity me.  Let that love of your country, which now animates your breasts, and induces you to risk your lives and your all, now plead for me.  Already has British humanity saved thousands of my countrymen from the rage of the Spaniards; let that same humanity be extended now, and induce my judge to add one more to the list of those who, although our nations are at war, if they are endowed with feeling, can have but one sentiment towards their generous enemy -- a sentiment overpowering all other, that of a deep-felt gratitude." 
Whatever may have been the effect of the address upon the court individually, it appeared at the time to have none upon them as a body.  Both the men were condemned to death, and the day after the morrow was fixed for their execution.  I watched the two prisoners as they went down the side, to be conducted on board their own ship.  The Englishman threw himself down in the stern sheets of the boat, every minor consideration apparently swallowed up in the thought of his approaching end; but the Frenchman, before he sat down, observing that the seat was a little dirty, took out his silk handkerchief, and spread it on the seat, that he might not soil his nankeen trousers. 
I was ordered to attend the punishment on the day appointed.  The sun shone so brightly, and the sky was so clear, the wind so gentle and mild, that it appeared hardly possible that it was to be a day of such awe and miser the two poor men, or of such melancholy to the fleet in general.  I pulled up my boat with the others belonging to the ships of the fleet in obedience to the orders of the officer super-intending, close to the fore-chains of the ship.  In about half an hour afterwards, the prisoners made their appearance on the scaffold, the caps were pulled over their eyes, and the gun fired underneath them.  When the smoke rolled away, the Englishman was swinging at the yard-arm, but the Frenchman was not; he had made a spring when the gun fired, hoping to break his neck at once, and put an end to his misery; but he fell on the edge of the scaffold where he lay.  We thought that his rope had given way, and it appeared that he did the same, for he made an inquiry, but they returned no answer.  He was kept on the scaffold during the whole hour that the Englishman remained suspended; his cap had been removed, and he looked occasionally at his fellow-sufferer.  When the body was lowered down, he considered that his time was come, and attempted to leap overboard.  He was restrained and led aft, where his reprieve was read to him, and his arms were unbound.  But the effect of the shock was too much for his mind; he fell down in a swoon, and when he recovered, his senses had left him, and I heard that he never recovered them, but was sent home to be confined as a maniac.  It is not the custom, when a man is reprieved, to tell him so until after he is on the scaffold, with the intention that his awful situation at the time may make a lasting impression upon him during the remainder of his life; but, as a foreigner, he was not aware of our customs, and the hour of intense feeling which he underwent was too much for his reason.  I must say that this circumstance was always a source of deep regret in the whole fleet, and that his being a Frenchman, instead of an Englishman, increased the feeling of commiseration. 

LESSON 25. 
THE VOLCANO OF VESUVIUS. 
In every view of Naples the eye is drawn to that most striking and interesting of mountains, Vesuvius.  This beautiful cone-like form, springing straight from the sea, and clear from base to summit, is capped with its ever-ascending column of smoke, and the peasants eye the great volcano uneasily.  Every one dreads lest at any moment its cloud should thicken and redden, its showers of ashes and stones leap, its streams of lava begin to run. 
An eruption of Vesuvius is a sight which inspires with awe the beholder who has nothing at stake.  It fills with terror the peasantry whose farms and vineyards lie along the lower slopes and surround the foot of the mountain.  The earth shakes and trembles as the tremendous fires within the mountain struggle to break forth, and a pall of smoke bursts from the crater far above and overshadows the land.  From this thick veil of dark vapor pours down a heavy shower of cinders and fine ashes.  From the crater run down streams of lava, molten rock.  These are the two great agencies of destruction.  Wherever the lava runs, it destroys everything in its path with its tongue of fire, and covers fields and vineyards beneath its slow-moving stream.  When it cools, it is a layer of solid rock above the ruined land, which is thus buried forever.  The ashes and dust are equally destructive at the moment, but their effects are not so lasting. 
The flow of a stream of lava is very slow.  Even on a steep slope it scarcely seems to move.  Thus there is no fear of people being overwhelmed by it.  The peasant has ample time to remove his belongings from his doomed house.  Sometimes a house or a village which seemed certain to be destroyed has been saved by the lava stream turning aside, as it were, in mere caprice, since there appeared to be no unevenness of the ground to shape its course. 
Another thing to be observed about the stream of lava is that its surface is impenetrable.  It appears to be perfectly liquid a river of fire, as it flows along.  But the heaviest stones may be dashed upon it without making any impression.  They will bound over its surface as a cricket-ball bounds over ice. 
A visit to the crater is of deep interest, for here one sees a marvelous exhibition of the forces of nature.  As you mount the cone the ground becomes hotter and hotter, and you come upon the lip of the creator with a suddenness which is startling.  You find yourself on the edge of a huge bowl about half a mile in diameter and about a hundred yards deep.  Upon looking into this bowl you observe that its surface is composed of stones, cinders, and lumps of lava, and is broken here and there by great holes, through which boils all the fury of the volcano. 
The sight is most awful in its grandeur.  The whole vast bowl is one seething mass of fire.  Out of it pours a dense cloud of smoke and vapor, so thickly laden with sulfur that a whiff of it sets you coughing.  And crash upon crash, roar upon roar, heralds the successive explosions which hurl white-hot stones of every size and shape high into the air.  You cannot stand still.  The ground is so hot that you must move from spot to spot, or your feet begin to get unpleasantly heated. 
Here and there are cracks which show you that you are really walking about on fire.  Within a few inches of your boots the earth is actually red-hot.  If you thrust your walking-stick into one of these cracks and hold it there for a few moments, it is charred just as in a fire.  The ground about you is of many colours.  There is the dull black of lava which has dried and set, there is the deep red of that which is fresh from the furnace below, there is every shade of orange and yellow, due to the presence of sulfur. 
But it is the tremendous abyss below which draws your eye and holds your attention.  As the pall of steam and vapor wavers to and fro, you catch glimpses of fiery chasms, whence spout the terrible fires which rage below.  "Throw together all the shipwrecks, bombardments, cataracts, earthquakes, thunder-storms, railway accidents, and all terrors of the sort you can think of, and you have some representation of the uproar of sound which the eruption of a volcano offers.  Take them in conjunction with the marvels of sight, and the final effect is nothing short of appealing.  Take them together when the daylight is over, and the lower world can no longer be distinguished; when the varied coloring of the ground has disappeared in the darkness, and you can see nothing but the gleam of the burning earth in between the minerals at your feet, the white-hot glare of the ribbon of molten lava which is gliding languidly down the mountain at your side, and in front of you the flashing of the internal fire upon the cloud of vapor overhanging the abyss, and you have a scene which is rather different from what you picture as you read that Vesuvius is once again in a state of eruption."  The most terrible eruption of Vesuvius which is on record happened more than 1,800 years ago.  In A. D. 79 two beautiful cities stood at the foot of the volcanic mountain.  They were Herculaneum and Pompeii.  Pompeii was then an old city, but was at height of its glory, with temples, baths and splendid villas, where wealthy Romans took their luxurious ease.  On an August day when the people were going about their work or their pleasure, suddenly there burst forth from the crater far above their heads a vast column of black smoke.  It rose to an immense height the blue sky and slowly spread abroad.  As it spread it shut out the light of the sun until at midday, the city was covered with a fearful darkness, lighted only by the flames which darted from the awful overhanging cloud. 
Many fled from the place, but many stayed in their houses, expecting that the cloud of vapor would pass away.  But soon a rain of ashes began to fall.  First it was but a light dust, then it grew thicker and heavier and was mingled with pumice-stones, and the streets were filled with choking sulphurous vapor.  Heavier and heavier grew this dreadful rain until the streets were impassable, and those who tried to escape stumbled and fell in the clogging masses of cinders and stones, or were struck down by the heavier fragments hurled upon them.  
Now, none was left alive save those who had shut themselves up closely in their houses.  But the doom of even these was close at hand.  With a roar like a thousand rivers in flood, streams of hot, black mud rushed down the mountain-side and overwhelmed the place.  These streams filled streets, houses, cellars, underground passages, everywhere, and completed the destruction.  In three days there was no sign that Pompeii had existed.  It lay deep buried beneath a vast bed of ashes, stones, and mud. 
So complete was the destruction that the very site passed from the memory of man.  Time went on, and the rich volcanic soil threw up trees and flowers, and men built their houses and tilled their vineyards above the forgotten city.  Then, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the work of excavation was begun, and Pompeii was brought to the light of day once more.  But years passed before the diggers knew that it was Pompeii they were laying bare.  At last an inscription was found, which settled the matter beyond doubt. 
The excavation of Pompeii has laid bare a Roman city of nearly 2,000 years ago for modern inspection.  It has been said that if the eruption had been planned purposely to preserve the city, it could not have done its work more perfectly, for Pompeii was covered with dust and liquid mud, which formed a mould, encasing and preserving objects and human forms, and giving them up as perfect as when the were first entombed. 
Nor are the pictures and inscriptions on the walls greatly injured.  The frescoes are to be seen, and many of the inscriptions are of great interest.  None of these can touch the visitor so much as the simple, careless records made for the work of the day and intended only for the writer's eye.  On the wall of a shop the owner has noted how many flasks of wine he has sold; on the wall of a kitchen the cook has set down how much food has been prepared and another note is made of how many tunics went to the wash, how much wool has been given out to the slaves to be spun, and other domestic details; on the wall of a house a schoolboy has scratched his Greek alphabet, and another has written a scrap of a lesson, and near at hand is an announcement of a sale by auction. 
At the time of the eruption the municipal elections were going forward in Pompeii, and many of the inscriptions remind us of our methods of to-day.  We cover the walls and hoardings with "Vote for Jones!" and the Pompeiian put forth his appeal in precisely the same fashion, save that he inscribed his words instead of printing them.  One notice called upon the electors to vote for Cneius Helvetius, as worthy to be a magistrate.  Pansa was another candidate, and his friends declared him to be most worthy.  The supporters of Popidius begged for votes for him on the ground that he was "a modest and illustrious youth."  Poor Pompeii and poor candidates!  Before the day of election came, the candidates were dead or had fled, and Pompeii was a lost city. 
The streets of Pompeii were narrow, and most of the houses were small, but the theatres, public baths, fountains, statues, and triumphal arches were numerous and splendid.  The floors of the dwellings were of mosaics; the walls were richly decorated with frescoes; and the gardens, though of no great extent, were beautifully laid out. 
The excavations have yielded a vast number of most perfect examples of the tools, utensils, and or ornaments of the everyday life of Pompeii.  In the museum we can see the pots and pans of the kitchen, the table services of silver; the lady's dressing-table, with her ivory combs her chains and bracelets of gold, and her thimbles of bronze; the writer's inkstand, with his pen beside it, and the tablets upon which he in scribed his notes; the toys of the children; and a host of other things. 
There are also striking casts of the bodies which were found in the streets and cellars.  One woman had fallen, clutching a bag of gold as she fled, and another shows two women (believed to be mother and daughter) who died side by side.  In another case a mother and three children were found hand in hand.  They were hurrying towards the city gate, but death was too swift for them.  At the chief gate of the city was found a splendid example of the old Roman discipline.  The sentinel stood there in his sentry-box, as he had stood through that awful day of thunderous gloom.  Disdaining death, he had kept to his post and died in harness.  He was found, his sword in one hand, while with the other he had covered his mouth with his tunic to keep out the poisonous fumes.  Brave as the sentinel was a little dove, who had made her nest in a niche in the wall of a house.  She also remained at her post, and beneath her skeleton was found the egg which she would not leave. 
The excavations are still going on.  At one end of the city is a hill of small stones, cinders, and fine white ashes, all easily to be moved by the spade.  Beneath this hill is concealed the rest of Pompeii.  A hundred laborers are at work, and an expert watches them carefully.  Each find is examined and, if valuable, is carried at once to the museum.  It is expected that within fifty years the whole city will be laid bare. 

LESSON 26. 
THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. 
PART I.
It is often popularly supposed that men of science are inspired only by cold facts, that they are lacking in the gifts of aesthetic imagination and sympathetic appreciation of beautiful language.  This popular assumption does not apply to the writings of some of the most famous scientists, which are marked by a beauty of thought and wording worthy of poets arid essayists. 
A good example is afforded by Professor J. Arthur Thomson, considered to be one of the leading scientists in Great Britain.  In his book entitled An Introduction to Science we find the most inspiring thoughts clothed in rich and beautiful language.  The following extract from this book (slightly abridged and modified) shows us what, in the opinion of its author, is the attitude of Science towards life and human activities.  It is interesting to compare the author's views on the value of the scientific outlook with those expressed by Herbert Spencer in What Knowledge is of Most Worth, which we read earlier.  The book starts with a quotation from the work of Francis Bacon, the celebrated English philosopher who lived and wrote over three hundred years ago. 
----------------------------------
"For myself I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblance of things (which is the chief point), and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture.  So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with Truth." -- FRANCIS BACON. 
Before Science. -- We do not know much that is quite certain in regard to our early ancestors, but it is safe to say that man's relations with Nature were for a long time predominantly practical.  Very gradually, however.  Man got a firmer foothold in the struggle for existence, and was able to raise his head and look at the stars.  He discovered the year with its marvelous object-lesson of recurrent sequences -- a discovery which was one of steps towards Science, and he became vividly aware that his race had a history.  He had time, too, for a conscious enjoyment of Nature, which came to mean more and more to him.  Here and there, perhaps, some began to ponder over the significance of their experience.  Gradually, at all events, as the ages passed, various moods became, as we say, differentiated from one another, and men began to be contrasted according as this or that mood was more habitual with them.  Men of action, men of feeling, and men of thought, these were the three primary types, which are nowadays split up into minor types.  They correspond, obviously, to doing, feeling, and knowing; to hand, heart, and head: to practice, emotional activity, and intellectual inquiry.  That we may better understand the scientific mood, let us consider for a little the others. 
The Practical Mood. -- First there is the mood of the dominantly practical man, whose whole trend is towards doing, not towards knowing.  He must, of course, know his facts if his doings are to be effective, and he must, likewise, have sound social feeling if his doings are to be deeds, not misdeeds; and no one will seek to dispute that the practical man has a firm grip of facts, and that he is often full of that kindliness which marks a strong development of the kin-instinct.  Yet he himself would be the first to point out that he had no particular hunger or thirst after the descriptive formulae which Science seeks to supply.  So far as Science means that kind of knowledge which is Foresight -- that kind of Foresight which is Power -- he believed in it, but on the whole it did not interest him.  Similarly, while he would confess to a pleasure in friendly relations between man and man, and between man and his beasts, he would admit, on the whole, that aesthetic emotion was not much in his line.  He was not built that way. 
There is obviously much to be said for the dominant practical mood.  It is as natural and necessary and dignified as any other.  Science grew out of practical lore, and fresh vigor has often come to science by a tightening of its touch with the business of everyday life.  How much mathematics, for instance, both simple and subtle, has arisen in direct response to practical needs, whether of measuring land or measuring electricity! 
The Emotional Mood. -- Secondly, there is the emotional and artistic mood.  From man's first emergence, perhaps, the herbs and the trees, the birds and the beasts, sent tendrils into his heart, claiming and finding kinship.  Ever so early there must have been a rude joy in the heavens and the earth, and in the pageant of the seasons -- something more than the pleasure of basking in the sun like a lizard.  Probably, however, it was not until man had gained some firmness of footing in the world, secured by his wits against stronger rivals and a careless environment, that the emotional tone grew into dignity as a distinct mood, a genuine enjoyment of beautiful things, which found expression in music and dance, in song and story, in painting and carving, and in religious rites. 
Like the practical mood, so the emotional mood has its obvious virtues.  It is part of the salt of life.  It begets a sympathy that is insight.  In a noisy world it helps to keep us aware of the harmony hidden in the heart of things. 
We are perhaps apt to think too lightly of the value of the more primitive aesthetic emotions.  Do we not need some infusion of the simple delight in the earth?  It is only by the culture of the emotional mood -- though the words are almost self-contradictory -- that man "hitches his wagon to a star." 
The Scientific Mood contrasted with the Others. -- The scientific worker has elected primarily to know, not do.  He does not directly seek, like the practical man, to realize the ideal of exploiting nature and controlling life -- though he makes this more possible; he seeks rather to idealize the real, or at least those aspects of reality that are available in his experience.  He is more concerned with knowing Nature than with enjoying her. 
And, as we have indicated the vices of an exaggerated emotional mood and of a too exclusively practical mood, so we must admit that the exaggerated scientific mood has it risks, -- of ranking science first, and life second (as if science were not, after all, for the evolution of life); of ignoring good feeling (as if knowledge could not be bought at too high a price); of pedantry (as if science were merely a "preserve" for the expert intellectual sportsman, and not also an education for the citizen); of disproportionate analysis -- dissecting more than it reconstructs -- so that the artistic perception of unity and harmony is lost. 
Adjustment of Moods. -- Before we go on to consider the characteristics of the scientific mood in greater detail, let us sum up so far.  There are three dominant moods in man -- practical, emotional, and scientific -- each with its subdivisions.  They correspond symbolically to hand, heart, and head, and they are all equally necessary and worthy.  They are all worthy, but most so when they respect one another as equally justifiable outlooks on nature, and when they are combined, in adjusted proportions, in a full human life.  But that is so difficult of attainment, especially when great excellence in one direction has been inherited or acquired, that the disproportionate developments we have spoken of are apt to occur.  They are often the more dangerous because of the very strength which the exaggeration gives to its possessor.  This is part of the penalty of genius. 
For ordinary folk, however, it is safe to say that when any mood becomes so dominant that the validity of the others is denied or ignored the results are likely to be tainted with some vice -- some inhumanity, some sentimentalism, some pedantry, some violence to the unity of life.  A sane life implies a practical recognition of the trinity of knowing, feeling, and doing.  
Characteristics of the Scientific Mood. -- In his presidential address to the British Association in 1899, Sir Michael Foster inquired into the qualities that distinguish the scientific worker, and came to the conclusion that they were, in the main, three: -- 
"In the first place, above all other things, his nature must be one which vibrates in unison with that of which he is in search; the seeker after truth must himself be truthful, truthful with the truthfulness of nature; which is far more imperious, far more exacting than that which man sometimes calls truthfulness. 
"In the second place, he must be alert of mind.  Nature is ever making signs to us, she is ever whispering to us the beginning of her secrets; the scientific man must be ever on the watch, ready at once to lay hold of Nature's hint, however small, to listen to her whisper, however low. 
"In the third place, scientific inquiry, though it be pre-eminently an intellectual effort, has need of the moral quality of courage -- not so much the courage which helps a man to face a sudden difficulty as the courage of steadfast endurance." 
Anticipating the obvious criticism that these three qualities of truthfulness, alertness and courage are not in any way peculiar to the scientific man, but "may be recognized as belonging to almost every one who has commanded or deserved success, whatever may have been his walk in life," Sir Michael said: "That is exactly what I would desire to insist that the men of science have no peculiar virtues, no special powers.  They are ordinary men, their characters are common, even commonplace.  Science, as Huxley said, is organized common-sense, and men of science are common men, drilled in the ways of common-sense." 
Perhaps this protests a little too much that the scientific man is as other men are, but it emphasizes a useful point, that the scientific mood does not necessarily imply any particular knowledge of this or that science.  Some men who are quite ignorant of any of the concrete sciences have nevertheless a highly developed scientific mood.  Give them data and a clearly stated problem, and they soon show that they are scientific in every fiber of their minds.  It is indeed a vulgar error to say that science is anything by itself.  To speak of "going in for science" is like proposing to go in for breathing or good digestion. 
When all is said, however, we feel that there is something distinctive in the scientific mood, and this requires further analysis.  It will appear that our conclusions agree with Sir Michael Foster's, but they emphasize intellectual rather than moral features. 
A Passion for Facts.- As a first characteristic of the scientific mood we would rank a passion for facts, which corresponds to the quality of truthfulness in Sir Michael Foster's analysis.  It is the desire for accuracy of observation and precision of statement.  "First make sure of the facts," is a fundamental precept in science, but this is no easy matter.  Even in regard to simple problems it is often difficult to get a grip of the facts of the case.  Even in regard to simple occurrences it is often difficult to give a quite accurate account of what took place.  This is partly due to the dash of the artistic mood which most men have.  It is often due to the untrained eye, which sees only what it has the power of seeing, -- sometimes little indeed -- and, in the opposite direction, to preconceptions which often enable men to see what is not to be seen.  It is also due to lack of discipline in the method of science; thus nothing is commoner than a narration that mingles observation with unconscious inferences from observation, which is one of the elementary fallacies. 
"Man, unscientific man," Sir Michael Foster said, "is often content with 'the nearly' and 'the almost.'  Nature never is.  It is not her way to call two things the same which differ, though the difference may be measured by less than the thousandth of a milligram or of a millimeter, or by any other like standard of minuteness.  And the man who, carrying the ways of the world into the domain of science, thinks that he may treat Nature's differences in any other way than she treats them herself, will find that she resents his conduct; if he in carelessness or in disdain overlooks the minute difference which she holds out to him as a signal to guide him in his search , the projection tip, as it were, of some buried treasure, he is bound to go astray, and, the more strenuously he struggles on, the farther will he find himself from his true goal." 
Many children seem to pass through an interesting stage in which they fail to discriminate between their dream-pictures and their wide-awake pictures of actual occurrences, and it was probably ingenuousness rather than any lack of good faith that led some of the old naturalist-travelers, in the glamour of strange lands, to mix up in their diaries what they actually saw and what the natives told them was to be seen.  And we do not need to go back to ancient history to find examples. 
The scientific worker is well aware that in measurements and observations the accuracy attainable is only approximate, and that the degree of approximation varies with the individual.  The personal equation has been for a long time frankly recognized and allowed for in astronomy; it is also sometimes estimated in chemistry and physics; but it must be recognized all round.  Science begins with measurement and there are some people who cannot be measurers; and just as we distinguish carpenters who can work to this or that fraction of an inch of accuracy, so we must distinguish ourselves and our acquaintances as able to observe and record to this or that degree of truthfulness. 
Hence, naturally, the importance of discipline and apprenticeship in precision -- whether with the chemical balance or with the scalpel, with the sextant or the micrometer.  Even faithful drawing is an effective factor in the development of truthfulness; and we heartily agree with Agassiz that a training in natural science is one of the best preparations a man can have for work in any department of life where accurate carefulness and adherence to the facts of the case are of indispensable importance. 

LESSON 27. 
THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. 
(CONCLUSION.) 
Long ago Bacon said: "We should accustom ourselves to things themselves," and this -- to distinguish between appearance and reality -- is what the scientific mood seeks after.  Its emblem might be the X-rays which penetrate through superficial obscurities.  It is the note of precision that is distinctive. 
The quality of accuracy has, of course, a great variety of expression at many different levels, but it is of the same mood and towards the same ideal all through.  The discipline of weighing and measuring is doubtless sometimes exaggerated into an end in itself, and made unnecessarily tedious by its not being related to real problems, but those who are inclined to be impatient with it should remember that it is in accordance with "that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge." 
These are Huxley's words, whose passion for facts marked all he said and did.  They suggest a famous sentence in his autobiography, in which he expressed his aims in life.  "If I may speak of the objects I have had in view since I began the ascent of my hillock, they are briefly these: To promote the increase of natural knowledge and to forward the application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life to the best of my ability, in the conviction which has grown with my growth and strengthened with my strength, that there is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute facing of the world as it is, when the garment of make-believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off." 
We have used the strong phrase, "a passion for facts," because of the intensity which all the great masters in science have shown in their reverence for truth and in their contempt for mere opinions.  "Opinions," Glanville says, "are the rattles of immature intellects, but the advanced reasons have outgrown them." 
"The longer I live," Huxley said, "the more obvious it is to me that the most sacred act of a man's life is to say and feel, 'I believe such and such to be true.'  All the greatest rewards and all the heaviest penalties of existence cling about that act." 
Cautiousness of Statement. -- Following from the passion for facts, there is a second characteristic of the scientific mood, namely, cautiousness.  It has habituated itself to withhold judgment when the data are obviously incomplete; to doubt conclusions that have been quickly reached; to hesitate in accepting what is particularly attractive whether in its simplicity or its symmetry.  Thus scientific workers are naturally skeptical -- which is in no way inconsistent with a tenacity of conviction when the demonstration is complete.  Not any easier than accuracy is this quality of active skepticism.  Indeed, as Professor W. K. Brooks says in his Foundations of Zoology: "The hardest of intellectual virtues is philosophic doubt, and the mental vice to which we are most prone is our tendency to believe that lack of evidence for an opinion is a reason for believing something else."  Suspended judgment is the greatest triumph of intellectual discipline. 
It is true that the scientific mood is continually making hypotheses or guesses at truth; the scientific use of the imagination is a recognized method.  It is a kind of intellectual experimentation, and it suggests actual experiments by which it is itself tested.  The danger of this is not so much for experts as for those who have incomplete mastery of the rules of the game, but every one will admit that provisional hypotheses have a tendency to put on the garb of full-grown theories, or even of established doctrines.  As Mr. Bateson has phrased it, the controlled scientific mood will avoid "giving to the ignorant as a gospel, in the name of science. the rough guesses of yesterday that to-morrow should forget."  As Huxley said with memorable severity: "The assertion that outstrips the evidence is not only a blunder but a crime." 
Cautiousness, then, is characteristic of science.  Our interpretations are necessarily colored by our personal experience and our social environment; our hypotheses may arise from social suggestion; but before they pass into the framework of science they must be "depersonalized."  In fact, the validity of a scientific conclusion, as distinguished from a mere opinion, depends on the elimination of the subjective element.  As Professor Karl Pearson says: "The scientific man has above all things to strive at self-elimination in his judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for each individual mind as for his own.  The classification of facts, the recognition of their sequence and relative significance, is the function of science, and the habit of forming a judgment upon these facts, unbiassed by personal feeling, is characteristic of what may be termed the scientific frame of mind."
Clearness of Vision. -- A third characteristic of the scientific mood is the endeavor after clearness, the dislike of blurred vision and obscurities. 
When we work long at a thing and come to know it up and down, in and out, through and through, it becomes in quite a remarkable way transparent.  The botanist can see through his tree.  The zoologist can in the same way see through the snail on the thorn, seeing as in a glass model everything in its place, the nervecenters, the muscles, the stomach, the beating heart, the coursing blood, and the filtering kidney.  So the human body becomes transparent to the skilled anatomist, and the globe to a skilled geographer. 
Similarly, on a higher plane than merely optical clearness, those of the scientific mood are in great part trying to make the world transparent.  They are seeking to construct an intellectual cinematograph of the long processions of causes that pass unceasingly before us.  A perfectly clear working thought-model is what science seeks to construct. 
There is so much to know that ignorance in itself is no particular reproach; but the point is to be clear when we know and when we do not, and it is one of the characteristics of the scientific mood that it will have yes or no to this question.
"Do you see it or do you not?" was the continual question of a biological teacher gifted with great educational ability, and then, "If you see it, what is it like?"
A student who worked under Agassiz relates how she was almost brought to despair by the severe way in which that great master, after giving her a specimen to study, came day after day, and asked, with a cruel kindliness: "Well, what do you see now?" and then went away.  But at length the student saw something -- saw what was to be seen, and more also. 
One of the expressions of the scientific endeavor after clearness is to be found in precision of speech.  Thus Professor Silvanus P. Thompson says of Lord Kelvin: "He hated ambiguities of language, and statements which mislead by looseness of phrasing.  With painful effort he strove for clarity of expression, elaborating his phrases in a way that threatened at times to defeat the end intended. 
Sense of the Inter-relatedness of Things. -- A fourth characteristic of the scientific mood is a sense of the inter-relatedness of things.  It regards Nature as a vibrating system most surely and subtly interconnected.  It discloses a world of inter-relations, a long procession of causes, a web of life, infinite sequences bound by the iron chains of causality. 
It is often seen in high development in men of business, particularly in those who have geographical interests.  For it must be borne in mind throughout that the scientific mood is in no way confined to those who pursue science in the stricter sense. 
Culture of the Scientific Mood. -- We do not apologize for giving so much prominence to an elementary discussion of the chief characteristics of the scientific mood.  For it cannot be made too clear that science is no "preserve" for the learned, but the birthright of all.  We must never think of it as something printed and ponderous and more or less finished, but as something living in our mind and influencing our work.
As was admirably said by Mr. Benchara Branford in an address to students: "Science is born anew in the deliberate will and intention of each of us when we succeed in thinking about the principles of our work in a clear, logical, and systematic way, and courageously put our conclusions to the test of experiment; and the so-called sciences are the written records of such thinking, only more extensive, clear, systematic and consistent, and more true to reality, because they have been tested by countless experiments and experiences in the race." 
By dint of hammering one becomes a smith, and it is by doing scientific work that one cultivates the scientific habit of mind. 
What we wish to make clear is that the scientific mood does not necessarily demand for its development the long sea-voyages that meant so much to Darwin and Huxley, nor the extensive explorations and long solitudes that meant so much to Humboldt and Wallace, nor dramatic opportunities such as came to Pasteur, nor splendidly equipped laboratories, nor costly instruments. 
What is demanded is within the reach of all who will habituate themselves in making sure of the facts, in precision of statement, in getting things clear, and in realizing the complexity of all situations.  These qualities cannot be acquired passively; the kingdom of science must be taken by force.  The scientific mood can only be engendered by our being actively and energetically scientific. 
It matters little what problem is tackled, but it should, at first, be one that admits of discipline in some form of measurement or accurate registration.  It is often well to follow our tendrils of spontaneous interest towards some subject which naturally attracts us; but it is also well that we should undertake some difficult piece of work, which stretches our brains.  In some way those who would develop the scientific mood must learn to endure hardness intellectually. 
SUMMARY. -- The scientific mood is especially marked by a passion for facts, by cautiousness of statement, by clearness of vision, and by a sense of the inter-relatedness of things.  It is contrasted with the emotional or artistic mood and with the practical mood, but the three form a trinity (of knowing, feeling, and doing) which should be unified in every normal life. 

LESSON 28. 
QUOTATIONS FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
  In a recent lesson we read about the English Bible, and examined a selection of quotations from that part called the Old Testament.  We noted that the Old Testament contains the sacred books common to Jews and Christians, and that the New Testament is the distinctive possession of the Christians.  The first writings of this early Christian literature appear to be the work of St. Paul, one of the first and most important of the Christian missionaries.  He was a Jew and a Roman citizen, whose language was Greek.  H. G. Wells says of him, "He was a man of much wider education and a much narrower intellectuality than Jesus seems to have been."  He adds, "Paul had never seen Jesus, and his teaching must have been derived from the hearsay of the original disciples."  It is Wells who says of him that he found the Nazarenes (the earliest name of the followers of Christ) with spirit and hope, and he left them Christians with the beginning of a creed. 
Of the authors of the other documents contained in the New Testament less is known. The whole collection is more or less in the nature of a series of letters and messages written by St. Paul and others at the time when Christianity was spreading from Palestine to the other countries under the domination of Rome.  From the New Testament we select the following well-known quotations, adding as footnotes the name of the book in which it occurs, with chapter and verse.  The words between brackets are the rendering in present-day English of the word or words they follow.  The words between parentheses indicate variations between the two chief versions of the Bible: the Authorized and the Revised. 
  Love your enemies. 
This is among the most striking and original doctrines of Christ and the one which is the most difficult to carry into practice. 
    No man can serve two masters 
takes its place among the best-known proverbs . 
    Judge not, that ye be not judged [Do not judge, so that you yourselves may not be judged by others], 
    Judge not, and ye shall not be judged [Do not judge, and you yourselves will not be judged]. 
Many of us are fond of judging and criticizing other people, but we greatly dislike being judged ourselves. 
    Neither cast ye your pearls before (the) swine [Do not throw your pearls in front of pigs]. 
In other terms, do not give to people precious things that they do not and cannot appreciate.  A professor was once lecturing before a class of restless and inattentive students.  When the hour was on the point of striking, the students began to get up and make signs of leaving.  "Wait a moment, gentlemen," said the teacher, "I have still a few more pearls to cast."  What did he mean?  
    What man is there of you, whom if his son ash bread, will he give him a stone? [Who is there among you, who, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?] The distinction between who and whom has been for centuries past a moot point among grammarians.  Although in present-day spoken English, who tends to replace whom, the use of whom in the above is an offence even against classical usage.  The Revised Version of the Bible makes the text read, 
    Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone? 
    Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth [leads] to destruction. 
In this we see the delicate distinction between the words wide and broad.  The meaning, of course, is: It is easy to do things that destroy the soul. 
    I (also) an a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth [goes]; and to another, Come, and he cometh [comes]. [I, took, am a man with authority, with soldiers under my command.  I say to one, for instance, "Go over there," and he goes; or to another, "Come here," and he comes here.] 
The modern rendering, to English ears, is far less impressive than the original. 
    Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead [Follow me; and leave the dead to bury their own dead]. 
The distinction between let and leave is at times difficult to grasp or to observe.  The sense of the above is to the effect that our duty to the living is more important than our duty to those who are dead. 
    They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. 
In the Revised Version the English is more modern; the old-fashioned finite be is replaced by the modern are, and need not by have no need of.  In present-day English we should say, "Those who are well do not need (want, or require) a doctor, but only those that are ill." 
    He that is not with me is against me [Those who are not among my supporters are against me], 
in other terms: If you are not my supporter, you are my enemy.  This is the reproach constantly used in connection with people who are neutral; who support neither one side nor the other.  In the Gospel of Luke we find also 
    He that is not with me is against me, but elsewhere in St. Luke's Gospel we find a more liberal and charitable interpretation: "He that is not against us is for us," as also in the Gospel of Mark: "For he that is not against us is on our part." 
    A prophet is not without honor, save [except] in his own country, and in his own house. 
In the Gospel of St. Mark the rendering is 
    A prophet is not without honor, but [except] in his own country, and among his own kin [relations], and in his own house. 
And in St. Luke we find 
    No prophet is accepted in his own country. 
This is expressed by St. John as 
    A prophet hath [has] no honor in his own country. 
The last rendering is the most direct, and sets forth explicitly the well-known fact that a great man, a great teacher, a man of world-wide fame, is little considered in his own home town, where people remember him as a child. 
    Render therefore to Caesar the things that ore Caesar's; and to God the things that are God 's. 
The incident which occasioned this wise answer to a difficult question would require too long an account to be included here. 
    The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. 
The sabbath is the Jewish name of their scared day, Saturday, which they observe as the Christians observe the following day, Sunday.  The Jews were reproaching Jesus for not conforming to their ideas as to how the sacred day should be observed.  Jesus answered as above, for he was no lover of ceremonies and ceremonious days. 
    Physician, heal thyself [Doctor, cure your-self first]. 
This well-known proverb is quoted by Jesus Christ.  It is illustrated in the Japanese story of Dr. Nakamura of Kyoto, who, being bald himself, could not advise people how to cure themselves of baldness. 
    Judge not according to the appearance [according to appearances],
for appearances may be deceptive.  Things and people are not always what they seem to be. 
    God is no respecter of persons. 
According to the Christian doctrines and the teachings of all great religions, the Supreme Being makes no distinctions between earthly ranks; in the eyes of God the king has no more merit than the humblest of his subjects. 
    I appeal unto [to] Caesar. 
The expression "appealing to Caesar" means going to the highest authority for a decision. 
    Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith [says] the Lord. 
According to the Christian teaching, revenge is a sin.  If a Christian suffers an injury, he is assumed not to take revenge in any form.  He endures the wrong that he has suffered, and looks to God to administer justice. 
    Owe no wan anything [DO not owe any-thing to anybody]. 
This may be added to all those proverbs which warn us against debt. 
    All things are lawful (for me), but all things are not expedient. 
According to the apostle Paul, there is nothing which in itself is unlawful or wrong for anybody to do, but he considered that certain actions may not be appropriate to the times or the environment in which one lives. 
    Let all things be done decently, an in order, 
a warning against haphazard and careless proceedings. 
    The letter killeth [kills], but the spirit giveth [gives] life. 
This is from the Revised Version; the Authorized Version replaces giveth life by maketh alive (an obsolete expression). 
The contrasted expressions "the letter of the law" and "The spirit of the law" are derived from this text.  For a law may be interpreted in two ways: according to the actual and precise wording of it, or according to the spirit in which it was made.  Modern popular opinion favors the latter interpretation, for even the most precise language does not always express what was in the minds of those who made the law.  In the appeal of Portia (which we have noted among the Shakespearian quotations), the line "Wrest once the law to your authority; to do a great right, do a little wrong" suggests that the spirit of the law should be observed rather than the letter.
  God loveth [loves] a cheerful giver. 
How much more pleasant it is to receive a gift from one who gives cheerfully and with a smile than from one who gives grudgingly and with a frown! 
    Bear (Bear ye) one another's burdens 
is one of the exhortations of Christianity.  But, paradoxically enough, the text is followed very closely by 
    For every maw shall bear his own burden. 
In our studies of proverbs we have seen how often a proverb which exhorts us positively to perform a certain action or to adopt a certain behavior expresses the contrary of a proverb which merely comments negatively on life as it is. 
    Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap [Whatever a man sows, he will reap] 
is in the nature of a truism.  If we sow weeds, we shall reap weeds; if we sow corn or rice, we shall reap com or rice.  If we sow the seeds of friendship and goodwill, we shall reap friend-ship and goodwill, but if we sow the seeds of hatred and enmity, we may expect nothing but a crop of hatred and enmity.  And this idea is common to the religions and philosophies of the whole world, ancient and modern. 
    The law is good, if a maw use [uses] it lawfully. 
This reminds us of the texts and sayings that urge us to observe the spirit rather than the letter of the law.  To use a law lawfully means to apply it in the right spirit, looking at the essentials of it rather than at its wording. 
    To the pure all things are pure. 
Those who think wrong and bad thoughts may find impurity and wrong in everything; they may call a saint a devil and consider the beauties of life as evil things.  According to the teaching of what are held to be the most worthy religions, we should see goodness and purity everywhere, in Whatever form it may appear. 

LESSON 29. 
OUR LEARNED FRlENDS. 
The following is another essay from A. A. Milne's Not that it Matters.  In it the author suggests humorously that the barrister's profession cannot be considered as one of the noble professions.  The essay affords a good example of gentle irony and thoughtful speculation. 
--------------------------------
I do not know why the Bar has always seemed the most respectable of the professions, a profession which the hero of almost any novel could adopt without losing caste.  But so it is.  A schoolmaster can be referred to contemptuously as an usher; a doctor is regarded humorously as a licensed murderer; a solicitor is always retiring to goal for making away with trust funds, and, in any case, is merely an attorney; while a civil servant sleeps from ten to four every day, and is only waked up at sixty in order to be given a pension.  But there is no humorous comment to be made upon the barrister -- unless it is to call him "my learned friend."  He has much more right than the actor to claim to be a member of the profession.  I don't know why.  Perhaps it is because he walks about the Temple in a top-hat. 
So many of one's acquaintances at some time or other have "eaten dinners" that one hardly dares to say anything against the profession.  Besides, one never knows when one may not want to be defended.  However, I shall take the risk, and put the barrister in the dock.  "Gentlemen of the jury, observe this well-dressed gentleman before you.  What shall we say about him? 
Let us begin by asking ourselves what we expect from a profession.  In the first place, certainly, we expect a living, but I think we want something more than that.  If we were offered a thousand a year to walk from Charing Cross to Barnet every day, reasons of poverty might compel us to accept the offer, but we should hardly be proud of our new profession.  We should prefer to earn a thousand a year by doing some more useful work.  Indeed, to a man of any fine feeling the profession of Barnet-walking would only be tolerable if he could persuade himself that by his exertions he was helping to revive the neglected art of pedestrianism, or to make more popular the neglected beauties of Barnet; if he could hope that, after his three-hundredth journey, inquisitive people would begin to follow him, wondering what he was after, and so come suddenly upon the old Norman church at the cross-roads, or, if they missed this, at any rate upon a much better appetite for their dinner.  That is to say, he would have to persuade himself that he was walking, not only for himself, but also for the community. 
It seems to me, then, that a profession is a noble or an ignoble one, according as it offers or denies to him who practices it the opportunity of working for some other end than his own advancement.  A doctor collects fees from his patients, but he is aiming at something more than pounds, shillings, and pence; he is out to put an end to suffering.  A schoolmaster earns a living by teaching, but he does not feel that he is fighting only for himself; he is a crusader on behalf of education.  The artist, whatever his medium, is giving a message to the world, expressing the truth as he sees it; for his own profit, perhaps, but not for that alone.  All these and a thousand other ways of living have something of nobility in them.  We enter them full of high resolves.  We tell ourselves that we will follow the light as it has been revealed to us; that our ideals shall never be lowered; that we will refuse to sacrifice our principles to our interests.  We fail, of course.  The painter finds that "Mother's Darling" brings in the stuff, and he turns out Mother's Darlings mechanically.  The doctor neglects research and cultivates instead a bedside manner.  The schoolmaster drops all his theories of education and conforms hastily to those of his employers.  We fail, but it is not because the profession is an ignoble one; we had our chance.  Indeed, the light is still there for those who look.  It beckons to us. 
Now what of the Bar?  Is the barrister after anything other than his own advancement?  He follows what gleam?  What are his ideals?  Never mind whether he fails more often or less often than others to attain them; I am not bothering about that.  I only want to know what it is that he is after.  In the quiet hours when we are alone with ourselves and there is nobody to tell us what fine fellows we are, we come sometimes upon a weak moment in which we wonder, not how much money we are earning, nor how famous we are becoming, but what good we are doing.  If a barrister ever has such a moment, what is his consolation?  It can only be that he is helping Justice to be administered.  If he is to be proud of his profession, and in that lonely moment tolerant of himself, he must feel that he is taking a noble part in the vindication of legal right, the punishment of legal wrong.  But he must do more than this.  Just as the doctor, with increased knowledge and experience, becomes a better fighter against disease, advancing himself, no doubt, but advancing also medical science; just as the school-master having learnt new and better ways of teaching, can now give a better education to his boys, increasing thereby the sum of knowledge; so the barrister must be able to tell himself that the more expert he becomes as an advocate, the better will he be able to help in the administration of this Justice which is his ideal. 
Can he tell himself this?  I do not see how he can.  His increased expertness will be of increased service to himself, of increased service to his clients, but no ideal will be the better served by reason of it.  Let us take a case -- Smith v. Jones. Counsel is briefed for Smith.  After examining the case he tells himself in effect this: "As far as I can see, the Law is all on the other side.  Luckily, however, sentiment is on our side.  Given an impressionable jury, there's just a chance that we might pull it off.  It's worth trying."  He tries, and if he is sufficiently expert he pulls it off.  A triumph for himself, but what has happened to the ideal?  Did he even think "Of course I'm bound to do the best for my client, but he's in the wrong, and I hope we lose"?  I imagine not.  The whole teaching of the Bar is that he must not bother about justice, but only about his own victory.  What ultimately, then, is he after?  What does the Bar offer its devotees -- beyond material success?
I asked just now what were a barrister's ideals.  Suppose we ask instead, What is the ideal barrister?  If one spoke loosely of an ideal doctor, one would not necessarily mean a titled gentleman in Harley Street.  An ideal schoolmaster is not synonymous with the Headmaster of Eton or the owner of the most profitable preparatory school.  But can there be an ideal barrister?  The eager young writer, just beginning a literary career, might fix his eyes upon Francis Thompson rather than upon Sir Hall Caine; the eager young clergyman might dream dreams over the Life of Father Damien more often than over the Life of the Archbishop of Canterbury; but to what star can the eager young barrister hitch his wagon, save to the star of material success?  If he does not see himself as Sir Edward Carson, it is only because he thinks that perhaps after all Sir John Simon's manner is the more effective. 
There may be other answers to the questions I have asked than the answers I have given, but it is no answer to ask me how the law can be administered without barristers.  I do not know; nor do I know how the roads can be swept without getting somebody to sweep them.  But that would not disqualify me from saying that road-sweeping was an unattractive profession.  So also I am entitled to my opinion about the Bar, which is this.  That because it offers material victories only and never spiritual ones, that because there can be no standard by which its disciples are judged save the earthly standard, that because there is no place within its ranks for the altruist or the idealist -- for these reasons the Bar is not one of the noble professions. 

LESSON 30. 
WHY A CLASSIC IS A CLASSIC. 
Of all the books that have ever been written, of all music that has ever been composed, and of all the paintings that have ever been painted, a small number are admired by generation after generation of enthusiasts.  The books are reprinted in edition after edition and read over and over again; the music is played and listened to by generation after generation of music-lovers; to the art-galleries and museums of the world flock those who wish to see or to see again the masterpieces of the world's best painters and sculptors.  To these immortal works we give the name of classics. 
What is there about a classic that makes it different from works that are not classics?  What is the reason for this perpetual and enduring charm?  Why has this or that classic not shared the fate of other artistic productions, and become something dead and forgotten?  Arnold Bennett, one of the most eminent and popular English writers of the present generation, in a book called Literary Taste, has given the reasons why, in his opinion, a classic is a classic; he defines the term classic and describes what a classic is.  In his book he confines himself to the classics of literature, but what he says may equally well apply to classical music and to classical art. 
The following is a slightly abridged (and occasionally modified) version of the original. 
---------------------------------------------
The large majority of our fellow-citizens care as much about literature as they care about aeroplanes or the program of the Legislature.  They do not ignore it; they are not quite indifferent to it.  But their interest in it is faint and perfunctory; or if their interest happens to be violent, it is spasmodic.  Ask the two hundred thousand persons whose enthusiasm made the vogue of a popular novel ten years ago what they think of that novel now, and you will gather that they have utterly forgotten it, and that they would no more dream of reading it again than of reading some ancient Act of Parliament.  Probably if they did read it again they would not enjoy it -- not because the said novel is a whit worse now than it was ten years ago; not because their taste has improved -- but because they have not had sufficient practice to be able to rely on their taste as a means of permanent pleasure.  They simply don't know from one day to the next what will please them. 
In the face of this one may ask: Why does the great and universal fame of classical authors continue?  The answer is that the fame of classical authors is entirely independent of the majority.  Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the street it would survive a fortnight?  The fame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few.  Even when a first-class author has enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, the majority have never appreciated him so sincerely as they have appreciated second-rate men.  He has always been reinforced by the ardor of the passionate few.  And in the case of an author who has emerged into glory after his death the happy sequel has been due solely to the obstinate perseverance of the few.  They could not leave him alone; they would not.  They kept on enjoying him, and talking about him, and buying him, and they generally behaved with such eager zeal, and they were so authoritative and sure of themselves, that at last the majority grew accustomed to the sound of his name and placidly agreed to the proposition that he was a genius; the majority really did not care very much either way. 
And it is by the passionate few that the renown of genius is kept alive from one generation to another.  These few are always at work.  They are always rediscovering genius.  Their curiosity and enthusiasm are exhaustless, so that there is little chance of genius being ignored.  And, moreover, they are always working either for or against the verdicts of the majority.  The majority can make a reputation, but it is too careless to maintain it.  If, by accident, the passionate few agree with the majority in a particular instance, they will frequently remind the majority that such and such a reputation has been made and the majority will idly concur: "Ah, yes.  By the way, we must not forget that such and such a reputation exists."  Without such persistent reminders the reputation would quickly fall into the oblivion which is death.  The passionate few only have their way by reason of the fact that they are genuinely interested in literature, that literature matters to them.  They conquer by their obstinacy alone, by their eternal repetition of the same statements.  Do you suppose they could prove to the man in the street that Shakespeare was a great artist?  The said man would not even understand the terms they employed.  But when he is told ten thousand times, and generation after generation, that Shakespeare was a great artist, the said man believes -- not by reason, but by faith.  And he too repeats that Shakespeare was a great artist, and he buys the complete works of Shakespeare and puts them on his shelves, and he goes to see the marvelous stage-effects which accompany King Lear or Hamlet, and comes back religiously convinced that Shakespeare was a great artist.  All because the passionate few could not keep their admiration of Shakespeare to themselves.  This is not cynicism; but truth.  And it is important that those who wish to form their literary taste should grasp it. 
What causes the passionate few to make such a fuss about literature?  There can be only one reply.  They find a keen and lasting pleasure in literature.  They enjoy literature as some men enjoy beer.  The recurrence of this pleasure naturally keeps their interest in literature very much alive.  They are for ever making new researches, for ever practicing on themselves.  They learn to understand themselves.  They learn to know what they want.  Their taste becomes surer and surer as their experience lengthens.  They do not enjoy to-day what will seem tedious to them to-morrow.  When they find a book tedious, no amount of popular talk will persuade them that it is pleasurable; and when they find it pleasurable no chilly silence f the street-crowds will affect their conviction that the book is good and permanent.  They have faith in themselves.  What are the qualities in a book which give keen and lasting pleasure to the passionate few?  This is a question so difficult that it has never yet been completely answered.  You may talk lightly about truth, insight, knowledge, wisdom, humour, and beauty.  But these comfortable words do not really carry you very far, for each of them has to be defined, especially the first and last.  It is all very well for Keats in his airy manner to assert that beauty is truth, truth beauty, and that that is all he knows or needs to know.  I, for one, need to know a lot more.  And I never shall know.  Nobody, not even a master of literary criticism, has ever finally explained why he thought a book beautiful.  I take the first fine lines that come to hand -- 
The woods of Arcady are dead, 
And over is their antique joy - 
and I say that those lines are beautiful, because they give me pleasure.  But why?  No answer!  I only know that the passionate few will, broadly, agree with me in deriving this mysterious pleasure from those lines.  I am only convinced that the liveliness of our pleasure in those and many other lines by the same author will ultimately cause the majority to believe, by faith, that W. B. Yeats is a genius.  The reassuring aspect of the literary affair is that the passionate few are passionate about the same things.  A continuance of interest does, in actual practice, lead ultimately to the same judgments. 
A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority which is intensely and permanently interested in literature.  It lives on because the minority, eager to renew the sensation of pleasure, is eternally curious and is therefore engaged in an eternal process of rediscovery.  A classic does not survive for any ethical reason.  It does not survive because it conforms to certain principles, or because neglect would not kill it. It survives because it is a source of pleasure, and because the passionate few can no more neglect it than a bee can neglect a flower.  The passionate few do not read "the right things" because they are right.  That is to put the cart before the horse.  "The right things" are the right things solely because the passionate few like reading them.  Hence -- and I now arrive at my point -- the one primary essential to literary taste is a hot interest in literature.  If you have that, all the rest will come.  It matters nothing that at present you fail to find pleasure in certain classics.  The driving impulse of your interest will force you to acquire experience, and experience will teach you the use of the means of pleasure.  You do not know the secret way of yourself: that is all.  A continuance of interest must inevitably bring you to the keenest joys.