The Hawthorne readers

Front matter

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Preface

The object of this Reader is in the main to serve as an introduction to literature. With this idea, the extracts have been very carefully selected so as% to be representative of all the chief literary forms, and of the main periods, of our literature. As the book is for American children it contains a generous proportion of American writers. The extracts are generally quite representative of their authors. They are of considerable length : an extract of two or three pages, unless it be an independent piece, is not often representative. The length of the extracts cuts down number, but increases the quality. In some cases it was naturally impossible to find really representative passages which were suitable to the grade of students for which this book is designed. In two or three instances, therefore, the editors have allowed themselves to insert something perhaps a little beyond the possibilities of ordinary pupils, — as, for instance, the extract from Wordsworth, — in order to represent authors and forms of literature which ought not to be omitted. But such cases are very few : almost all the extracts will be easily apprehended by the pupil who begins at the beginning and comes to each extract in due course.

The Introduction aims to give a suggestion of two lines of literary study, as an indication of the princi-

6 PREFACE

pies by which the extracts were largely selected. The study of language and of thought is possible with any piece of good literature. Criticism and literary history demand particular selections and particular introduction. It is thought that such introduction as is given will make it easier for the teacher to give the pupil the whole good of the volume. It will also lead easily to a selection of supplementary reading where there is time, as well as to a more consistent choosing of books for the school library than might otherwise be possible.

But, although ideas of literary study have been in the editors' minds, they have not entirely dictated the plan of the book. Many pieces have seemed appropriate which had no definite place from either of the standpoints mentioned. Nor is the book especially arranged on these principles : it is, on the other hand, carefully graded according to the difficulty of the extracts. A pupil, then, may use the Reader with regard to the historical or descriptive study or entirely without regard to it. Even should no especial attention be paid to such particular studies, the pupil will certainly find advantage in having the material so chosen.

The Reader is illustrated with portraits only. Further illustration seems unnecessary in a book for older pupils. But, as many of our authors are included also in the Fourth Reader, this book has portraits only of those not represented there.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Such a book as this is never possible except through the kindness of those who control the works of authors who have made themselves names in literature. We wish to offer our thanks and acknowledgments to —

D. Appleton & Company, publishers of Bryant's complete poetical works, for the use of Bryant's u Forest Hymn " and " The Fringed Gentian '*' ;

Mr. B. F. Johnson, for permission to use the poem by Henry Timrod " Addressed to the Old Year " ;

Rev. Edward E. Hale, D.D., for permission to use a part of his story " The Man without a Country " ;

Harper & Brothers, the publishers of Motley's " Rise of the Dutch Republic " and Curtis's " From the Easy Chair," for the use of "The Relief of Leyden" and "From the Easy Chair";

Mr. Andrew Lang, for permission to use his poem, " Ballade of True Wisdom " ;

J. B. Lippincott Company, the publishers of Prescott's "Ferdinand and Isabella," for the use of the extract on Columbus ;

Little, Brown & Company, the publishers of Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe" and Sienkiewicz' "Quo Vadis," for the use of the extracts on " The Battle of Quebec" and "The Burning of Rome";

8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Lothrop Publishing Co., the publishers of Paul Hamilton Hayne's "Poems," for permission to use "A Dream of the South Wind";

G. P. Putnam's Sons, the publishers of John Bigelow's edition of Franklin's " Autobiography " and the author's edition of Irving's " Wolfert's Roost," for the extracts on "Franklin's Early Studies" and "Wolfert's Roost";

And to Houghton, Mifflin & Company. The material from Lowell, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier, Thoreau, Holmes, Dana, Burroughs, Emerson, Sill, Fields, and Aldrich is used by arrangement with, and permission of, Houghton, Mifflin & Company, the authorized publishers of the writings of these authors.

Contents

Edgar Allan Poe ....

PAOl

Horatius at the Bridge . . .