that it was booked for immortality. Holmes preferred it above all his other productions, and it has undoubtedly been more frequently quoted than anything else the genial "Autocrat" wrote.

EXPLANATORY:

309: 36. Lochiel. Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, a Scotch clan leader, called "The Black," and noted for his unrelenting treatment of his enemies in the war of the Highlands.

309: 40. Wellington. Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. He was called "the iron Duke." 310: 47-60. Jargonelles Winter-Nelis . . Saint-Germain Early-Catherine Easter-Beurrè. Varieties of pears.

310: 78. polyphlæsbaan. Loud-roaring; a Homeric epithet for the ocean.

311: 86. Sir Isaac. Sir Isaac Newton, the great English scientist, discoverer of the law of gravity, etc. The quotation referred to is, "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself, Í seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

312 121. harlequin. A fantastically dressed person whose business is to afford amusement. In the space indicated by the dots above, the correspondent is supposed to compliment the poet and ask for his autograph.

312: 136. Mr. Blake play Jesse Rural. William R. Blake was an excellent actor, especially of old men's parts. His best character was Jesse Rural, the simple-hearted old clergyman in Dion Boucicault's Old Heads and Young Hearts.

313: 154. Sidney Smith. An English clergyman and humorist, one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review.

313: 157. The “Quarterly . . . tartarly." An allusion to the bon mot attributed to Byron anent the report that the poet John Keats died from grief over the severe criticism of his works in the Quarterly Review.

313: 168.

"Who killed Johny Keats?"
"I," said the Quarterly,

So savage and tartarly,
"I killed Johny Keats."

Bob Logic. The Oxonian, a light-headed dandy and wit in Pierce Egan's "Life in London," an extravaganza with elaborate drawings by Cruikshank.

313: 172. Paul Pry's umbrella. Paul Pry, the title character in an English comedy by John Poole, is represented as a meddlesome busybody, always prying into other people's business. He usually carried a big umbrella.

314: 187. Aristophanes. A Greek comedy writer of the fourth century B.C.

314 211. Sir Thomas Browne. An English physician and noted prose writer, author of Urn Burial, Religio Medici, etc. The passage quoted is from the last-named work.

316: 265. Derby. The famous English horse race held at Epsom, in Surrey; named from its founder the Twelfth Earl of Derby (pronounced där'bi).

316: 272. "Hunc lapidem," etc. "This stone placed here by his sorrowing companions."

316: 275. eau lustrale. Lustral water; used in the ceremony of purification.

316: 285. arcus senilis. Arc of old age; a disease of the eye in old age, by which the edge of the cornea becomes opaque. Note Holmes's use of medical terms and illustrations here and there.

317: 324. a flower or a leaf. Wordsworth wrote several poems on the daisy, one of them in particular being full of similitudes. Compare also Burns's "To a Mountain Daisy."

318: 333. Roget's Bridgewater Treatise. Peter Mark Roget, an English physician and writer, was awarded one of the prizes in the Earl of Bridgewater's foundation for research in the physical sciences. 318: 339. unshadowed main. The ocean without a shadow either of a cloud or of a sail.

318: 341. purpled wings. The nautilus was popularly supposed to have a sort of gauze-like pair of projections to act as sails.

318: 342. Siren. One of the three sea-nymphs, half women and half birds, who by their singing enticed sailors to destruction on their island. See the story in Homer's Odyssey.

318 351. irised ceiling. The inside of the shell is rainbowcolored. Iris was the goddess of the rainbow.

318 355. left the past year's dwelling. See Holmes's explanation above, lines 349-353.

319: 363. Triton. Son of Neptune; herald of the sea. He is represented as blowing a spiral conch-shell as a trumpet.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS:

(1) Imagine the breakfast table of a boarding-house, with various types of characters, such as the widowed landlady and her son Benjamin Franklin, the divinity student, the timid school-mistress, the angular female dressed in bombazine, and the incorrigible young man, John. Note the frequent use of the dash, especially at the beginning of paragraphs. This indicates some interruption in the Autocrat's talk. Sometimes it is a remark by some one of the boarders, not recorded but clearly implied, and sometimes it is a parenthetical or bracketed side remark of the Autocrat's for the reader's benefit. Note other evidences of the conversational or monologue style. (2) What is the first analogy suggested, and how is it developed through the first three paragraphs? (3) What compliment is implied in the speech of the divinity student, and how does the Autocrat show his gratitude? (4) What is the effect of the Autocrat's comparison of the student's head to an egg? (5) How does the Autocrat turn the student's remark so as to lead up to another analogy? (6) Explain the remarks of the Autocrat on the pebble, and comment on the figure in the last one, beginning "throne," etc. (7) What effect was produced upon the divinity student by the statement concerning the number of analogies in the universe? (Note that the effect is stated in another amusing figure or analogy.) (8) What is the purpose of all these analogies? (9) What new topic does the Autocrat advance in the section beginning "I know well enough"? Has he forgotten his general topic of analogies, or will he come back to it? (10) Are the Autocrat's remarks about the humorous literary man true? Can you give an example in your own community of a joker who finds it

hard to get himself taken seriously? (11) What remark do you imagine provoked the Autocrat's reply "Oh, indeed no!"? Do you find in this paragraph evidences of Holmes's dislike of Puritanism in its extreme forms? (12) How does the Autocrat manage to get back to his original topic of analogies? (See the quotation from Sir Thomas Browne.) (13) What does Holmes mean by "every now and then we throw an old schoolmate over the stern with a string tied to him"? By "the ruffled bosom of prosperity and progress, with a sprig of diamonds stuck in it"? By "grow we must, if we outgrow all that we love"? (14) The comparisons of life to a sea voyage and a race are almost as old as literature itself; how does Holmes manage to make these old figures fresh and suggestive? (15) Notice the skill with which the Autocrat introduces his last figure-the one for which he has all along been preparing. In what form does it appear? Show how he really explains the poem before he reads it.

SPECIAL QUESTIONS ON "THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS” (1) Point out the topic of each stanza and thus make an outline of the poem. (Remember that the "wrecked" shell before the poet is the lyrical stimulus, and hence the poem is built entirely around this object.) (2) Compare the analogy developed in the poem with some of those previously presented. Is this one so old or trite as those previously introduced? (3) What are some of the effects on the imagination and emotional nature as you read? (4) Holmes said of "The Chambered Nautilus": "In writing the poem I was filled with a better feeling-the highest state of mental exaltation and the most crystalline clairvoyance, as it seemed to me, that had ever been granted me-I mean that lucid vision of one's thought, and of all forms of expression which will be at once precise and musical, which is the poet's special gift, however large or small in amount or value." Can you see evidences of this exalted state of mind and this absolute command of language in the poem? (5) The stanza is an original one in its form. It is composed in iambic rhythm with lines of varying length, ranging from three (lines 2, 3, 6) to five (lines 1, 4, 5) and six (line 7) stresses or feet to the line. Show what lines rime and see if the model is consistently followed in all of the five stanzas. (6) Memorize the poem-if not the whole of it, by all means the last stanza.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (Holmes)

INTRODUCTORY:

Section XI

"The Deacon's Masterpiece: or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay" has usually been accepted simply as an example of Holmes's excellent Yankee humor, and there is nothing in the text or its setting to show that he intended it as anything else. Some have even gone so far as to point out Deacon David Holmes, one of the poet's ancestors, as the original "Deacon" who built the wonderful chaise. But Professor Barrett Wendell in his chapter on Jonathan Edwards in A Literary History of America says, "Often misunderstood, generally thought no more than a piece of comic extravagance, Dr. Holmes's 'One-Hoss Shay' is really among the most pitiless satires in our language. Born and bred a Calvinist, Holmes, who lived in the full tide of Unitarian hopefulness, recoiled from the appalling doctrines

which darkened his youth. He could find no flaw in their reasoning, but would not accept their conclusions." According to this interpretation, "The Deacon's Masterpiece,' written in 1858, just a hundred years after the death of Jonathan Edwards, signalizes the complete collapse of the extreme Calvinistic doctrines advocated with so much force and logic by the great preacher. This interpretation becomes all the more convincing when we recall that the deacon's chaise was, according to the poem, completed in 1755, just about the time of the publication of Edwards's masterpiece, The Freedom of the Will.

EXPLANATORY:

320: 17.

tertian and quartan. A tertian fever appears every first and third day, skipping one day; a quartan fever appears every first and fourth day, skipping two days.

320: 31. quasi. As if.

320: 43.

Thomas Sanchez. A Jesuit priest (died 1610), who wrote many tracts, one of which is mentioned in the text. 321 58. Georgius Secundus. George II, King of England from 1727 to 1760, was the son of George I of Hanover, Germany.

321 60. Lisbon-town. Lisbon, Portugal, was shaken by a disastrous earthquake on November 1, 1755.

321 62. Braddock's army. The English General Braddock was severely defeated at Fort Duquesne in western Pennsylvania by the French and Indians, July 9, 1755.

321 68. felloe. A segment of the rim of a wheel.

321 68. thill. One of the shafts.

321 70. thoroughbrace. The strong leather strap between the two parts of the C-spring supporting the body of an old-fashioned carriage. 323 138. whippletree. Singletree.

323 140. encore. The same.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS:

(1) How does Holmes introduce "The Deacon's Masterpiece"? (2) Is there any hint that the poem is a satire on Jonathan Edwards and his Calvinistic doctrines? Why do you suppose Holmes kept this in the background? (Remember how and where the piece was first published.) (3) Why does the poet break off line 51 so suddenly? (4) What three misfortunes or disasters are mentioned in the second stanza, and why? (5) Can you pick any flaw in the deacon's reasoning? (6) What is the effect of putting his remarks in dialect? (7) How does the poet gradually lead up to his climax date, November 1, 1855? (8) Read the final passage, beginning "The parson was working his Sunday's text," and comment on the skill of the conclusion. (9) What is the meter of the poem? (10) What is the effect of frequent repetition of the same rime sound as shay-way-day-stay-delay in the first stanza?

INTRODUCTORY:

Brute Neighbors (Thoreau)

Walden, or Life in the Woods, the most significant of all Thoreau's productions, was issued in 1854. Thoreau kept elaborate notebooks or journals during his residence at Walden from July, 1845, to September, 1847, and the book was made up largely from extracts from

these journals, though the material was thoroughly revised and fused into a more or less connected series of chapters before publication. For a fuller account of the purpose of the volume see the biographical sketch of Thoreau. Chapter XII, which we have chosen for reprinting, is complete in itself, though marked by some evidences of the lack of apparent sequence which is characteristic of practically all of Thoreau's writings. The introductory dialogue seems to divide its interest between a meditation on the uselessness of the stir and worry of life and the preparations for a fishing excursion. The preceding chapters have a good deal to do with other fishing excursions, and so this introduction may be considered as a sort of transition from what has gone before. Thoreau seems here to be consciously imitating the style of Izaak Walton's Complete Angler, a book full of delightful meditation and philosophizing as well as instructions in the art of fishing. The connection between this introduction and the body of the chapter is not apparent, but we may assume that while the two friends are tramping toward their fishing-ground, Thoreau discourses on his experiences with the birds and animals around his hut in the woods. In other words, like Izaak Walton, he takes his fishing excursions not merely as opportunities for recreation and sustenance, but for meditation and for summarizing his observations on nature and life.

EXPLANATORY:

331: I. a companion. The poet, William Ellery Channing, was one of Thoreau's most intimate friends.

331 14. Bose. A common designation for a farm dog. Note the satire and humorous treatment.

332: 62. Con-fut-see. The more accurate foreign spelling of Confucius, the Chinese religious teacher.

332: 64. Mem. Memorandum. The hermit, unable to recall his original train of thought, makes a memorandum of at least one deduction from the experience-namely, "There is never but one opportunity of a kind."

333 77. Pilpay & Co. That is, the maker of animal fables like those of Aesop or La Fontaine. Pilpay, or Bidpai, is the ancient Sanscrit title of a Hindu wise man or collector of apothegms, fables, and the like.

333 83. distinguished naturalist. Probably Professor Louis Agassiz of Harvard College, for whom Thoreau collected many specimens.

.

335 173. red squirrel particularly familiar. The following paragraph from H. S. Salt's Life of Thoreau relates the anecdote referred to: "A story is told how a squirrel which he had taken home for a few days in order to observe its habits, refused to be set at liberty, returning again and again to its new friend with embarrassing persistence, climbing up on his knee, sitting on his hand, and at last gaining the day by hiding its head in the folds of his waistcoat-an appeal which Thoreau was not able to withstand."

336: 187. Myrmidons. The fierce soldiers of Thessaly, followers of Achilles in the Trojan War.

337: 213. return with his shield or upon it. Plutarch relates how a Spartan mother gave her son a shield and sent him to battle saying, "My son, either this or upon this"; that is, either return with your shield and victory, or be borne back as a corpse upon it.