Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools Part 33

Of course there was a deep change wrought, if not in these men, at any rate in their children; and every generation saw the change deepen. It must seem to every thoughtful man a notable thing how, while the change was wrought, the simples of things complex were revealed in the clear air of the New World: how all accidentals seemed to fall away from the structure of government, and the simple first principles were laid bare that abide always; how social distinctions were stripped off, shown to be the mere cloaks and masks they were, and every man brought once again to a clear realization of his actual relations to his fellows! It was as if trained and sophisticated men had been rid of a sudden of their sophistication and of all the theory of their life, and left with nothing but their discipline of faculty, a schooled and sobered instinct. And the fact that we kept always, for close upon three hundred years, a like element in our life, a frontier people always in our van, is, so far, the central and determining fact of our national history.

"East" and "West," an ever-changing line, but an unvarying experience and a constant leaven of change working always within the body of our folk. Our political, our economic, our social life has felt this potent influence from the wild border all our history through. The "West" is the great word of our history. The "Westerner" has been the type and master of our American life. Now at length, as I have said, we have lost our frontier; our front lies almost unbroken along all the great coast line of the western sea. The Westerner, in some day soon to come, will pa.s.s out of our life, as he so long ago pa.s.sed out of the life of the Old World. Then a new epoch will open for us. Perhaps it has opened already. Slowly we shall grow old, compact our people, study the delicate adjustments of an intricate society, and ponder the niceties, as we have hitherto pondered the bulks and structural framework, of government. Have we not, indeed, already come to these things? But the past we know. We can "see it steady and see it whole"; and its central movement and motive are gross and obvious to the eye.

Till the first century of the Const.i.tution is rounded out we stand all the while in the presence of that stupendous westward movement which has filled the continent: so vast, so various, at times so tragical, so swept by pa.s.sion. Through all the long time there has been a line of rude settlements along our front wherein the same tests of power and of inst.i.tutions were still being made that were made first upon the sloping banks of the rivers of old Virginia and within the long sweep of the Bay of Ma.s.sachusetts. The new life of the West has reacted all the while--who shall say how powerfully?--upon the older life of the East; and yet the East has moulded the West as if she sent forward to it through every decade of the long process the chosen impulses and suggestions of history. The West has taken strength, thought, training, selected apt.i.tudes out of the old treasures of the East,--as if out of a new Orient; while the East has itself been kept fresh, vital, alert, originative by the West, her blood quickened all the while, her youth through every age renewed. Who can say in a word, in a sentence, in a volume, what destinies have been variously wrought, with what new examples of growth and energy, while, upon this unexampled scale, community has pa.s.sed beyond community across the vast reaches of this great continent!

NOTES

=Jamestown=:--A town in Virginia, the site of the first English settlement in America (1607).

=Appomattox=:--In 1865 Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.

=epic=:--A long narrative poem recounting in a stirring way some great series of events.

=Governor Spotswood=:--Governor of Virginia in the early part of the eighteenth century.

=Knights of the Golden Horseshoe=:--In 1716 an exploring expedition under Governor Spotswood made a journey across the Blue Ridge. The Governor gave each member of the party a gold horseshoe, as a souvenir.

=Celts=:--One of the early Aryan races of southwestern Europe; the Welsh and the Highland Scotch are descended from the Celts.

=Slavs=:--The race of people inhabiting Russia, Poland, Bohemia, and Servia.

=Latin races=:--The French, Spanish, and Italian people, whose languages are derived chiefly from the Latin.

=Orient=:--The far East--India, China, j.a.pan, etc.

=Norman=:--The Norman-French from northern France had been in possession of England for the greater part of a century (1066-1154) when Henry, son of a Saxon princess and a French duke (Geoffrey of Anjou) came to England as Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet line of English kings.

=Stratford=:--A small town on the Avon River in England; the birthplace of Shakespeare.

=dight=:--Clothed. (What does an unabridged dictionary say about this word? Is it commonly used nowadays? Was it used in Shakespeare's time?

Why does the author use it here?)

=see it steady and see it whole=:--A quotation from the works of Matthew Arnold, an English poet and critic.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

What has been the disadvantage of having our history written by New England men? Do you know what particular New England men have written of American history? What state is President Wilson from? What is meant by the "Suppression of the South"? Why does the author put in the phrase "we have learned"? Does he believe what he is saying? Show where he makes his own view clear. What "story" is it that one "almost wishes"

were true? _Went out from the North_: Where? How are the Northerners and the Southerners changed after they have gone West? What "new temper" do they have? How do they show their "impatience of restraint"? What eastern mountains are meant here? How did our nation gain new life when the pioneers looked westward from the eastern ridges? Why are we spoken of as a "great compounded nation"? What are our "mighty works of peace"?

The author now shows how the Middle Seaboard States were a type of the later form of the nation, because they had a mixed population. What does he think about the influence of the Puritan and the Southerner? Note the questions that he asks regarding the course of American history. See how he answers them in the pages that follow. Why does he say that the first frontiersmen were "timid"? When, according to the author, did the "great determining movement" of our history begin? Why does he call the picture that he draws a "singular" one? What is meant by "civilization frayed at the edges"? How do the primitive conditions of our nation differ from the earliest beginnings of the European nations? (See the long pa.s.sage beginning "How different.") What is meant by "Europe frontiered"? Look carefully on page 261, to see what the author says is "the central and determining fact of our national history." What is the "great word" of our history? Has the author answered the questions he set for himself on page 256? What is happening to us as a nation now that we have lost our frontier? What is the relation between the East and the West? Perhaps you will like to go on and read some more of this essay, from which we have here only a selection. Do you like what the author has said? What do you think of the way in which he has said it?

THEME SUBJECTS

Life in the Wilderness The Log Cabin La Salle My Friend from the West My Friend from the East Crossing the Mountains Early Days in our State An Encounter with the Indians The Coming of the Railroad Daniel Boone A Home on the Prairies Cutting down the Forest The Homesteader A Frontier Town Life on a Western Ranch The Old Settler Some Stories of the Early Days Moving West Lewis and Clark The Pioneer The Old Settlers' Picnic "Home-coming Day" in our Town An Explorer My Trip through the West (or the East) The President

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

=La Salle=:--Look up, in Parkman's _La Salle_ or elsewhere, the facts of La Salle's life. Make very brief mention of his life in France. Contrast it with his experiences in America. What were his reasons for becoming an explorer? Give an account of one of his expeditions: his plans; his preparations; his companions; his hardships; his struggles to establish a fort; his return to Canada for help; his failure or success. Perhaps you will want to write of his last expedition, and its unfortunate ending. Speak of his character as a man and an explorer. Show briefly the results of his endeavors.

=Daniel Boone=:--Look up the adventures of Daniel Boone, and tell some of them in a lively way. Perhaps you can imagine his telling them in his own words to a settler or a companion. In that case, try to put in the questions and the comments of the other person. This will make a kind of dramatic conversation.

=Early Days in our State=:--With a few changes, you can use the outline given on page 249 for "Early Days in our County."

=An Encounter with the Indians=:--Tell a story that you have heard or imagined, about some one's escape from the Indians. How did the hero happen to get into such a perilous situation? Briefly describe his surroundings. Tell of his first knowledge that the Indians were about to attack him. What did he do? How did he feel? Describe the Indians. Tell what efforts the hero made to get away or to protect himself. Make the account of his action brief and lively. Try to keep him before the reader all the time. Now and then explain what was going on in his mind.

This is often a good way to secure suspense. Tell very clearly how the hero succeeded in escaping, and what his difficulties were in getting away from the spot. Condense the account of what took place after his actual escape. Where did he take refuge? Was he much the worse for his adventure?

COLLATERAL READINGS

The Course of American History (in _Mere Literature_) Woodrow Wilson The Life of George Washington " "

The Winning of the West Theodore Roosevelt Stories of the Great West " "

Hero Tales from American History Roosevelt and Lodge The Great Salt Lake Trail Inman and Cody The Old Santa Fe Trail H. Inman Rocky Mountain Exploration Reuben G. Thwaites Daniel Boone " " "

How George Rogers Clark Won the Northwest " " "

Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road H.A. Bruce The Crossing Winston Churchill The Conquest of Arid America W.E. Smythe The Last American Frontier F.L. Paxon Northwestern Fights and Fighters Cyrus Townsend Brady Western Frontier Stories The Century Company The Story of Tonty Mary Hartwell Catherwood Heroes of the Middle West " " "

Pony Tracks Frederic Remington The Different West A.E. Bostwick The Expedition of Lewis and Clark J.K. Hosmer The Trail of Lewis and Clark O.D. Wheeler The Discovery of the Old Northwest James Baldwin Boots and Saddles Elizabeth Custer La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West Francis Parkman The Oregon Trail " "

Samuel Houston Henry Bruce The Story of the Railroad Cy Warman The Pioneers Walt Whitman The Story of the Cowboy Emerson Hough Woodrow Wilson W.B. Hale Recollections of Thirteen Presidents John S. Wise Presidential Problems Grover Cleveland The Story of the White House Esther Singleton

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

(From _My Summer in a Garden_)

NINTH WEEK

I am more and more impressed with the moral qualities of vegetables, and contemplate forming a science which shall rank with comparative anatomy and comparative philology,--the science of comparative vegetable morality. We live in an age of protoplasm. And, if life-matter is essentially the same in all forms of life, I purpose to begin early, and ascertain the nature of the plants for which I am responsible. I will not a.s.sociate with any vegetable which is disreputable, or has not some quality that can contribute to my moral growth. I do not care to be seen much with the squashes or the dead-beets....

This matter of vegetable rank has not been at all studied as it should be. Why do we respect some vegetables, and despise others, when all of them come to an equal honor or ignominy on the table? The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans into poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. There is no dignity in the bean. Corn, which in my garden grows alongside the bean, and, so far as I can see, with no affectation of superiority, is, however, the child of song. It waves in all literature. But mix it with beans, and its high tone is gone. Succotash is vulgar. It is the bean in it. The bean is a vulgar vegetable, without culture, or any flavor of high society among vegetables. Then there is the cool cuc.u.mber, like so many people,--good for nothing when it is ripe and the wildness has gone out of it. How inferior in quality it is to the melon, which grows upon a similar vine, is of a like watery consistency, but is not half so valuable! The cuc.u.mber is a sort of low comedian in a company where the melon is a minor gentleman. I might also contrast the celery with the potato. The a.s.sociations are as opposite as the dining-room of the d.u.c.h.ess and the cabin of the peasant. I admire the potato, both in vine and blossom; but it is not aristocratic. I began digging my potatoes, by the way, about the 4th of July; and I fancy I have discovered the right way to do it. I treat the potato just as I would a cow. I do not pull them up, and shake them out, and destroy them; but I dig carefully at the side of the hill, remove the fruit which is grown, leaving the vine undisturbed: and my theory is that it will go on bearing, and submitting to my exactions, until the frost cuts it down. It is a game that one would not undertake with a vegetable of tone.

The lettuce is to me a most interesting study. Lettuce is like conversation: it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it. Lettuce, like most talkers, is, however, apt to run rapidly to seed. Blessed is that sort which comes to a head, and so remains, like a few people I know; growing more solid and satisfactory and tender at the same time, and whiter at the centre, and crisp in their maturity. Lettuce, like conversation, requires a good deal of oil, to avoid friction, and keep the company smooth; a pinch of attic salt; a dash of pepper; a quant.i.ty of mustard and vinegar, by all means, but so mixed that you will notice no sharp contrasts; and a trifle of sugar.

You can put anything, and the more things the better, into salad, as into a conversation; but everything depends upon the skill of mixing. I feel that I am in the best society when I am with lettuce. It is in the select circle of vegetables. The tomato appears well on the table; but you do not want to ask its origin. It is a most agreeable _parvenu_. Of course, I have said nothing about the berries. They live in another and more ideal region: except, perhaps, the currant. Here we see that, even among berries, there are degrees of breeding. The currant is well enough, clear as truth, and exquisite in color; but I ask you to notice how far it is from the exclusive _hauteur_ of the aristocratic strawberry, and the native refinement of the quietly elegant raspberry.

I do not know that chemistry, searching for protoplasm, is able to discover the tendency of vegetables. It can only be found out by outward observation. I confess that I am suspicious of the bean, for instance.

There are signs in it of an unregulated life. I put up the most attractive sort of poles for my Limas. They stand high and straight, like church-spires, in my theological garden,--lifted up; and some of them have even budded, like Aaron's rod. No church-steeple in a New England village was ever better fitted to draw to it the rising generation on Sunday than those poles to lift up my beans towards heaven. Some of them did run up the sticks seven feet, and then straggled off into the air in a wanton manner; but more than half of them went galivanting off to the neighboring grape-trellis, and wound their tendrils with the tendrils of the grape, with a disregard of the proprieties of life which is a satire upon human nature. And the grape is morally no better. I think the ancients, who were not troubled with the recondite mystery of protoplasm, were right in the mythic union of Bacchus and Venus.

Talk about the Darwinian theory of development and the principle of natural selection! I should like to see a garden let to run in accordance with it. If I had left my vegetables and weeds to a free fight, in which the strongest specimens only should come to maturity, and the weaker go to the wall, I can clearly see that I should have had a pretty mess of it. It would have been a scene of pa.s.sion and license and brutality. The "pusley" would have strangled the strawberry; the upright corn, which has now ears to hear the guilty beating of the hearts of the children who steal the raspberries, would have been dragged to the earth by the wandering bean; the snake-gra.s.s would have left the place for the potatoes under ground; and the tomatoes would have been swamped by the l.u.s.ty weeds. With a firm hand, I have had to make my own "natural selection." Nothing will so well bear watching as a garden except a family of children next door. Their power of selection beats mine. If they could read half as well as they can steal a while away, I should put up a notice, "_Children, beware! There is Protoplasm here._" But I suppose it would have no effect. I believe they would eat protoplasm as quick as anything else, ripe or green. I wonder if this is going to be a cholera-year. Considerable cholera is the only thing that would let my apples and pears ripen. Of course I do not care for the fruit; but I do not want to take the responsibility of letting so much "life-matter," full of crude and even wicked vegetable-human tendencies, pa.s.s into the composition of the neighbors' children, some of whom may be as immortal as snake-gra.s.s.

There ought to be a public meeting about this, and resolutions, and perhaps a clambake. At least, it ought to be put into the catechism, and put in strong.

TENTH WEEK