Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader Part 13

The sea furnishes some, and salt-mines and salt-springs give the rest.

Most of the salt used in this country is obtained from the water of certain springs. Among the richest of these springs are those at Salina, now a part of the city of Syracuse, New York. Forty gallons of water from these wells yield one bushel of salt.

LESSON XLV

STUDIES

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness; for ornament, in discourse; and for ability in the judgment and disposition of business.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar.

Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them. Read not to contradict and confute, or to believe and take for granted, or to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

Reading makes a full man; conference, a ready man; and writing, an exact man.

SELECTION XV

A PSALM OF LIFE

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, "Life is but an empty dream!"

For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal; "Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way, But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting; And our hearts, though strong and brave, Still, like m.u.f.fled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle, Be a hero in the strife.

Trust no future, however pleasant; Let the dead past bury its dead: Act,--act in the living present, Heart within, and G.o.d o'erhead.

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

_H. W. Longfellow_.

LESSON XLVI

RULES OF BEHAVIOR

Every action in company ought to be done with some sign of respect to those present.

In presence of others, sing not to yourself with a humming noise, nor drum with your fingers or feet.

Speak not when others speak; sit not when others stand; speak not when you should hold your peace; walk not when others stop.

Turn not your back to others, especially in speaking; jog not the table or desk on which another reads or writes; lean not on any one.

Be no flatterer; neither play with any one that delights not to be played with.

Read no letters, books, or papers, in company; but when there is a necessity for doing it, you must ask leave. Come not near the books or writings of any one so as to read them, unless desired.

When another speaks, be attentive yourself, and disturb not the audience. If any one hesitates in his words, help him not, nor prompt him, without being desired; interrupt him not, nor answer him till his speech is ended.

Be not curious to know the affairs of others, neither approach to those that speak in private.

Make no show of taking great delight in your victuals; feed not with greediness; lean not on the table; neither find fault with what you eat.

Let your discourses with men of business be short.

Be not immoderate in urging your friend to discover a secret.

Speak not in an unknown tongue in company, but in your own language, and as those of quality do, and not as the vulgar.

LESSON XLVII

USING THE EYES

The difference between men consists, in great measure, in the intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says of the non-observant man, "He goes through the forest and sees no firewood."

"Sir," said Johnson, on one occasion, to a fine gentleman, just returned from Italy, "some men will learn more in the Hampstead stage than others in the tour of Europe." It is the mind that sees as well as the eye.

Many, before Galileo, had seen a suspended weight swing before their eyes with a measured beat; but he was the first to detect the value of the fact. One of the vergers in the cathedral at Pisa, after filling with oil a lamp which swung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro.

Galileo, then a youth of only eighteen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea of applying it to the measurement of time.

Fifty years of study and labor, however, elapsed before he completed the invention of his pendulum,--an invention the importance of which, in the measurement of time and in astronomical calculations, can scarcely be overvalued.

While Captain Brown was occupied in studying the construction of bridges, he was walking in his garden one dewy morning, when he saw a tiny spider's-net suspended across his path. The idea occurred to him, that a bridge of iron ropes might be constructed in like manner, and the result was the invention of his Suspension Bridge.

So trifling a matter as a straw may indicate which way the wind blows.