did not feel crowded or confined in the least. There was pasture 90 enough for my imagination. The low shrub-oak plateau to which the opposite shore arose, stretched away toward the prairies of the West and the steppes of Tartary, affording ample room for all the roving families of men. "There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon," said Damo95 dara, when his herds required new and larger pastures. Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me. Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and 100 delectable places in some remote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia's Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the while to settle in those 105 parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by him. Such was that part of creation where I had squatted; 110 66 'There was a shepherd that did live, As were the mounts whereon his flocks Did hourly feed him by." What should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always 115 wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts? From "Walden, Chap. II, pp. 133–139.” GLOSSARY. Exude; auroral; Olympus; crystallization; Harivansa; tanager; tarn; conventicle; mirage; insulated; steppes; Tartary; Damodara; delectable; Cassiopeia's Chair; unprofaned; Pleiades; Hyades; Aldebaran; Altair. STUDY. Describe fully Thoreau's house and its surroundings. How did it differ from the ordinary house? As you read this account, are you led to think that the house is the important matter, or is it rather the writer's attitude toward the world about him? If the latter, does the house fit into the scheme in any important way? A selection such as this requires very careful reading, that is, thinking, in order to appreciate it A good way is to select some of the more striking passages and try to elaborate their meaning. For instance: "Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere"; "Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers." Select others, and treat them in the same manner. Notice particularly the description of the mirage of the Sudbury meadows. Consider the meaning of the final paragraph. 5 THE COWBOY JOHN ANTROBUS "What care I, what cares he, What cares the world of the life we know? His worn chaparajos, And clinking spurs, Like a Centaur he speeds, Where the wild bull feeds; And he laughs, ha, ha!—who cares, who cares! Ruddy and brown-careless and free A king in the saddle-he rides at will His torn chaparajos, And clinking spurs, Like a Centaur he speeds, Where the wild bull feeds; And he laughs, ha, ha!-who cares, who cares! There's a dead, dead comrade! nothing more He of the towns, he of the East, His rough chaparajos, And clinking spurs, Like a Centaur he speeds, Where the wild bull feeds; And he laughs, ha, ha!-who cares, who cares! Swift and strong, and ever alert, Yet sometimes he rests on the dreary vast; And his thoughts, like the thoughts of other men, And to many a loved one in the past. With his gay sombrero, His rude chaparajos, And clinking spurs, He rests awhile, With a tear and a smile, Then he laughs, ha, ha!-who cares, who cares! 'Tis over late at the ranchman's gate— He and his fellows, perhaps a score, Halt in a quarrel o'er night begun, With a ready blow and a random gun There's a dead, 'dead comrade! nothing more. With his slouched sombrero, His dark chaparajos, And clinking spurs, He dashes past, With face o'ercast, And growls in his throat-who cares, who cares! GLOSSARY. Mesa; chaparajos; Centaur; swart; Hun; Goth. wrote this poem while painting a remarkable picture of a cowboy. A FAMOUS CAMPAIGN ANDREW DICKSON WHITE My recollections of American politics begin, then, with the famous campaign of 1840, and of that they are vivid. Our family had, in 1839, removed to Syracuse, which, although now a city of 40 45 50 55 about one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, was then 5 a village of fewer than six thousand; but, as the central town of the state, it was already a noted gathering place for political conventions and meetings. The great Whig mass meeting held there, in 1840, was long famous as the culmination of the campaign between General Harrison and Martin Van Buren. 10 As a President, Mr. Van Buren had fallen on evil times. It was a period of political finance; of demagogical methods in public business; and the result was "hard times," with an intense desire throughout the nation for a change. This desire was represented especially by the Whig party. General Harrison had been 15 taken up as its candidate, not merely because he had proved his worth as governor of the Northwestern Territory, and as a senator in Congress, but especially as the hero of sundry fights with the Indians, and, above all, of the plucky little battle at Tippecanoe. The most popular campaign song, which I soon learned to sing 20 lustily, was "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too," and sundry lines of it expressed, not only my own deepest political convictions and aspirations, but also those cherished by myriads of children of far larger growth. They ran as follows: 25 "Oh, have you heard the great commotion-motion-motion Rolling the country through? It is the ball a-rolling on For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too; 30 And with them we'll beat little Van; Van, Van is a used-up man; And with them we 'll beat little Van." The campaign was an apotheosis of tomfoolery. General Harrison had lived the life, mainly, of a western farmer, and, for a time, doubtless, exercised amid his rude surroundings the primi35 tive hospitality natural to sturdy western pioneers. On these facts the changes were rung. In every town and village a log cabin was erected where the Whigs held their meetings; and the bringing of logs, with singing and shouting, to build it, was a great event; |