PART SECOND-CANTO V

Stanza 1-The Life Lesson

Words: sylvan, appease, Dryads, haunts, abnegation, diffused, aroma, frequenting, garrets, gusty, taper, suburbs.

Questions: Why is Penn called an apostle? What city is meant in line 1254? Explain line 1256. When did Evangeline first come to the city? Why did she finally return to it? How did the world now look to her? What usually determines how the world looks to one? What lesson had Evangeline's trials and sorrows taught her? What had now become the controlling desire of her life? How did she put this desire into practice? Why was she so sympathetic with those in distress and sorrow?

Note: Dryads (1257)-Wood nymphs whose lives were bound up with the lives of the trees they lived among. See Guerber's "Myths of Greece and Rome," pp. 297-300; 191.

Stanza 2-Heading to be Written by the Pupil

Words: pestilence, presaged, craws, brackish, existence, oppressor, scourge, almshouse, wicket.

Questions: What seemed to foretell the coming of the pestilence? Who was the oppressor (line 1305)? What pathetic expression is found in line 1308? Why did Evangeline serve the poor rather than the rich? How old was Evangeline now? What did the poor sufferers seem to see as they looked at Evangeline's face? To what city were they soon to go? Explain and memorize: "The face is the index of the soul." Do you recall the use of celestial in preceding work?

Note: Pestilence (1298)-A terrible plague of yellow fever visited Philadelphia in 1793.

Stanza 3-Sunday at the Almshouse

Words: wending, corridors, chimes, assiduous, pallets, languid consoler.

Questions: Why were the streets deserted? What prompted Evangeline to gather the flowers? Explain line 1328.° What premonition did the calm of the morning seem to bring to Evangeline? What effect did it have upon her? How did Evangeline's coming affect the sufferers? Why is Death here called the consoler? What term was applied to Death in the second stanza of this canto? Which expression do you prefer? What previous Sunday morning scene is recalled by this stanza? In which was Evangeline most truly beautiful?

Note: Swedes at Wicaco (1328)-Wicaco was a village built by the Swedes on the bank of the Delaware. It is now a part of Philadelphia. The church still stands, the oldest in the city.

Stanzas 4 and 5-The Meeting

Words: arrested, flowerets, assume, wont, portals, realms, reverberations, vision, strove, casement.

Questions: What suddenly attracted Evangeline's attention? Why was her cry full of anguish? What enabled her to recognize Gabriel so readily? In connection with lines 1354-1356 read Exodus 11:4-7 and 12:23-23. What aroused Gabriel from the stupor of death? What vision came to him? How do you know that he recognized Evangeline? Why should Evangeline say, "Father, I thank thee"?

CONCLUSION

Stanza 1-At Rest

Words: heart, ebbing, flowing.

Questions: What does nameless graves mean?

Have the graves of

Evangeline and Gabriel been found? Recall the first sentence of the poem. Why does the poet say, "Still stands the forest primeval"? Memorize lines 1381-1389.

Stanza 2-The Fireside Story

Words: customs, cot.

Questions: What race is meant in line 1391? Why misty Atlantic? By whom is Evangeline's story still told? Why does the poet refer to the ocean and forest in concluding his story? Why is line 1399 very appropriate as the closing line of the poem?

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. What characters in the poem are mentioned by name?

2. Which character do you like best? Why?

3. What is the climax of the poem?

4. How long a period does the story cover?

5. Select three references or allusions to the Bible, three to classical mythology, and three to history.

6. Which of the three classes is most frequently used by Longfellow in this poem?

7. Compare "Evangeline" with "The Courtship of Miles Standish" in this respect.

8. Compare the general tone of "Evangeline" with that of "The Courtship of Miles Standish."

10. Give your favorite quotation from each of the poems.

THE ORIGIN OF ROAST PIG

(This charming story was written by Charles Lamb, an English essayist and humorist who was born in 1775. This story is taken from his Essays of Elia. But Charles Lamb is better known to English-speaking boys and girls through another book, Tales from Shakespeare. This book was written by Charles and Mary Lamb.)

M

ANKIND, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the animal, just as they do in Abyssinia* to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Chofang, literally the Cook's Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother), was accidentally discovered in the manner following:

The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast° for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian° makeshift of a building, you may think it), which was of much more importance, a fine litter of newborn pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs.

While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those

untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from?-not from the burned cottage-he had smelt that smell before-indeed, this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burned his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tastedcrackling!

Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now; still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding that it was the pig that tasted so delicious; and surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure which he experienced in his lower regions had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it; when, becoming a little sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued:

"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not enough that you have burned down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you! but you must be

eating fire, and I know not what-what have you got there, I say?"

"O father, the pig, the pig! Do come and taste how nice the burned pig eats."

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burned pig.

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat, eat, the burned pig, father, only taste-O Lord!"-with such like barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke.

Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for pretense, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious), both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had dispatched all that remained of the litter.

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the neighbors would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burned down more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow had young pigs, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; Ho-ti himself, which was more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever.

At length they were watched, the terrible mystery dis