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These "Recollections" are from the pen of John Ruskin (1819an eminent English art critic, and author of " Modern Painters,' "Stones of Venice," and other works characterized by extraordinary brilliancy of style.

1. My father began business as a wine merchant, with no capital, and a considerable amount of debts bequeathed him by my grandfather. He accepted the bequest, and paid them all before he began to lay by anything for himself.

2. For this his best friends called him a fool; and I, without expressing any opinion as to his wisdom, which I knew in such matters to be at least equal to mine, have written on the granite slab over his grave that he was an "entirely honest merchant.”

3. Years went on, and I came to be four or five years old. He could command a post chaise and pair for two months in the summer, by help of which, with my mother and me, he went the round of his country customers. I saw all the highroads and most of the cross ones, of England and Wales, and a great part of lowland Scotland as far as Perth.

4. It happened,-which was the real cause of the bias of my after life, that my father had a rare love of pictures. Accordingly, wherever there was a gallery to be seen, we stopped at the nearest town for the night, and in reverentest manner I thus saw nearly all the noblemen's houses in England; - not, indeed, myself at that age caring for pictures, but much for castles and ruins; feeling more and more, as I grew older, the healthy delight of uncovetous admiration, and perceiving that it was probably much happier to live in a small house and have Warwick Castle to be astonished at, than to live in Warwick Castle and have nothing to be astonished at.

5. I was never permitted for an instant to hope, or even imagine, the possession of such things as one saw in toyshops. I had a bunch of keys to play with, as long as I was capable only of pleasure in what glittered and jingled; as I grew older, I had a cart and ball; and when I was five or six years old, two boxes of well-cut wooden bricks.

6. The group of which our house was the quarter consisted of two precisely similar couples of houses, gardens and all to match. The house itself, threestoried, with garrets above, commanded a very notable view from its upper windows. It had front and back garden in sufficient proportion to its size.

7. The differences of primal importance which I observed between the nature of this garden, and that of Eden as I had imagined it, were, that in this one all

the fruit was forbidden, and there were no companionable beasts: in other respects, the little domain answered every purpose of paradise to me.

8. I never had heard my father's or mother's voice once raised in any question with each other, nor seen an angry or even slightly hurt or offended glance in the eyes of either. I had never heard a servant scolded, nor even suddenly, passionately, or in any severe manner blamed. I had never seen a moment's trouble or disorder in any household matter.

9. Next to this quite priceless gift of Peace, I had received the perfect understanding of the natures of Obedience and Faith. I obeyed word, or lifted finger, of father or mother, as a ship her helm. And my practice in Faith was soon complete: nothing was ever promised me that was not given, nothing ever threatened me that was not inflicted, and nothing ever told me that was not true. Peace, Obedience, Faith: these three I esteem the main blessings of my childhood.

LANGUAGE STUDY.

I. Write the analysis of: accept (capere); picture (pingere); permit (mittere); promise (mittere); sufficient (facere).

Point out adverbs formed by adding the suffix ly to adjectives.

Form adjectives by adding the suffix able to verbs.

II. What kind of sentence is paragraph 7? Point out three adverbial clauses in paragraph 5. "Reverentest:" what is the more usual form of the superlative of "reverent"?

III. In paragraph 4 point out an antithesis. (See Definition 5.) Point out a simile (see Definition 2) in paragraph 9.

21. The Jolly Old Pedagogue.

gāit, walk, bearing.

lĭt'i-gāte, go to law.

o'dor-ous, fragrant, sweet smelling. pěd'a-gogue, schoolmaster.

PREPARATORY NOTES.

This tenderly told story of the "Jolly Old Pedagogue" is by George Arnold (1834-1865), a native of New York. Dying at an early age, he had yet given evidence of eminent literary ability both in prose and verse.

1. "Twas a jolly old pedagogue, long ago,
Tall and slender, and sallow and dry.
His form was bent, and his gait was slow;
His long, thin hair was as white as snow:
But a wonderful twinkle shone in his eye;
And he sang every night, as he went to bed,
"Let us be happy down here below:
The living should live, though the dead be dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

2. He taught his scholars the rule of three,

Writing, and reading, and history too;
He took the little ones up on his knee,
For a kind old heart in his breast had he,
And the wants of the littlest child he knew.
"Learn while you're young," he often said;
"There's much to enjoy, down here below:
Life for the living, and rest for the dead!"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

3. With the stupidest boys he was kind and cool, Speaking only in gentlest tones;

The rod was hardly known in his school:
Whipping, to him, was a barbarous rule,
And too hard work for his poor old bones;
Besides, it was painful, he sometimes said.
"We should make life pleasant, down here below.
The living need charity more than the dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

4. He lived in the house by the hawthorn lane, With roses and woodbine over the door. His rooms were quiet and neat and plain; But a spirit of comfort there held reign, And made him forget he was old and poor. "I need so little," he often said; "And my friends and relatives here below Won't litigate over me when I am dead,” Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

5. He smoked his pipe in the balmy air,
Every night, when the sun went down,
While the soft wind played in his silvery hair,
Leaving his tenderest kisses there,

On the jolly old pedagogue's jolly old crown;
And, feeling the kisses, he smiled and said,-
""Tis a glorious world, down here below:
Why wait for happiness till we are dead?"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

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