NOTES AND QUESTIONS Biography. Samuel White Baker (1821-1893) was an English engineer. At the age of twenty-four he went to Ceylon, where he founded an agricultural settlement. He soon became known as an explorer and a hunter of big game. With his wife he explored the region of the Nile, and later discovered the lake now called Albert Nyanza. His explorations in this part of central Africa were a part of the thrilling story of the discovery of the sources of the Nile, and of the opening of this region to civilization. To know the complete story of these explorations you should read something about Henry M. Stanley and David Livingstone. An interesting book covering explorations in Africa is Bayard Taylor's Central Africa. Upon his return to England, Baker was greatly honored. He was knighted and sent to Egypt, where he was commissioned by the Khedive to suppress the slave traffic and establish regular trade. Later he explored and hunted in Cyprus, Syria, India, Japan, and the United States. He is the author of Wild Beasts and Their Ways, The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon, and True Tales for My Grandsons, from which this selection was taken. Discussion. 1. Locate Ceylon on a map. 2. In what work were the elephants engaged when they became discouraged? 3. Why was the climb particularly difficult at this season? 4. What ruse was employed? 5. What success attended the plan? 6. Pronounce: vehicles; chasm; ruse; fatiguing. 10 15 ROBERT OF LINCOLN WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT Merrily swinging on brier and weed, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: Spink, spank, spink; Snug and safe is this nest of ours, Robert of Lincoln is gayly dressed, Wearing a bright, black wedding coat; White are his shoulders, and white his crest, Spink, spank, spink; Look what a nice new coat is mine; Chee, chee, chee!" Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, Passing at home a patient life, Broods in the grass while her husband sings: "Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Brood, kind creature; you need not fear Modest and shy as a nun is she; Spink, spank, spink; Never was I afraid of man, Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can. Six white eggs on a bed of hay, Spink, spank, spink; Nice good wife that never goes out, Chee, chee, chee!" Biography. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was the first great American poet. He was reared among the rugged Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. Outside the district school, he had little teaching except that given by his mother and what he gave himself through the excellent library of his father, who was a country physician. He grew up in close touch with nature and the simple farm surroundings, and this lonely life may have tended to make him rather more serious and thoughtful than most boys of his age. By the time he was nine years old he was putting his thoughts into verse in the stately fashion of the English poets of that time. In 1811, when yet scarcely eighteen, he wrote "Thanatopsis," now one of the world's classics. By this time he had studied two years at a private school and seven months at Williams College. He was ambitious to continue his studies at Yale, but his father's circumstances compelled him to give up that hope and to face the immediate problem of earning his own living. He studied law and was admitted to practice in 1815. After a few years he went to New York, where in 1825 he became editor of the Evening Post -a position which he continued to fill with distinction for more than half a century, until his death in 1878. And yet this busy editor of a great city newspaper found leisure from time to time to cultivate his love for verse and to continue to write poetry. His poems were popular with Americans because he chose for the most part American subjects taken from his own immediate surroundings and experience the scenes and impressions of his boyhood, the flowers, the birds, the hills, the climate of his own New England. America's first men of letters whose writings proved that the new republic could produce a literature worthy to be compared with that of the mother country were James Fenimore Cooper, writer of Indian tales; Washington Irving, writer of legends about America and the sketches about our old English home; and William Cullen Bryant. Cooper showed the strangeness and romance of frontier life. Irving tried to give to America the romantic background that the new country lacked. Bryant opened men's eyes to the beauty of nature. Though Bryant was eleven years younger than Irving, his "Thanatopsis" was written only two years after Irving's "Knickerbocker." Note. The bobolink is an American song bird. In the spring the male is mostly black and white, while the female is streaked with yellowish brown. In midsummer the male bobolink molts, taking on "plain brown" plumage like that of his "Quaker wife." In the spring he regains his black and buff colors without molting any feathers. He sings only in the spring. The bobolink makes long migrations extending from Canada to Paraguay, and in the late autumn collects in large flocks which feed in the rice fields of the South, where he is known as the ricebird, or reedbird. Discussion. 1. Read the lines that imitate the song of the bobolink. 2. Describe the dress of Robert of Lincoln and that of his "Quaker wife." 3. How does her song differ from his? 4. What are the work and the care that make him silent? 5. How does the poet account for the change in his appearance as the season advances? 6. Where does he go for winter? When will he come again? prince of braggarts, 40, 12 chip the shell, 40, 28 bestirs him well, 40, 30 Phrases summer wanes, 41, 15 pipe that merry old strain, 41, 21 |