I like," as if He at first had not had (App. § 33) the power to leave it off when he liked. You say: "I have too sound an intellect to become a drunkard," as if He were born without an intellect. You say : "I have too much pride in myself, too much self-respect," as if He were not once as proud as you." The way men acquire this habit, is by looking on those who proceed to excess as naturally inferior to themselves. The difference between you and the drunkard is just this, that you could leave off the habit, but won't; he would with all his heart and soul, but cannot. I tell you, young men 10, that while the power of a bad habit is stripping you of nerve [pl.], and (S. 10, N. 9) energy, and freshness of feeling, it does not destroy your responsibility. You are accountable to God for every power, and talent, and influence with which you have been endowed.

3,

1, = approaches.

=

2, to throw care to the winds, sich keine Sorgen machen. What one calls habit. 4, to acquire a habit, in eine Gewohnheit verfallen. 5, der dieselbe jedoch eigentlich nicht übertreibt. 6, to leave off, aufhören. 7, = by considering (halten) those; to proceed to excess, sich dem Übermaß ergeben; asthemselves as (für) being worse than themselves. 8, here aufgeben. 9, and that he would give it up. 10, Commence the period with ' Young 11, Gefühlsfrische, f.

men'.

=

Section 231.

AN ORATION ON THE POWER OF HABIT.

III.

If you say: "Should I find the practice by experience to be injurious, I will give it up," surely that is not common sense1. You might as well say: "I will put my hand into the nest of the rattlesnake, and when I find out that he has stuck his fangs into me, I will draw it out and get cured."

I remember riding from3 Buffalo to the Niagara Falls, and said to a gentleman: "What river is that, Sir?" "That," he said, "is Niagara River." "Well, it is a beautiful stream," said I, "bright, and fair, and glossy; how far off are the rapids "?" "Only a mile or two," was the reply. "Is it possible that (S. 66, N. 15) only a mile or two from us we shall find the water in the turbulence which it must show when near the falls?" "You will find it so, Sir." And so I did find it; and that first sight of the Niagara I shall never forget. Now, launch your boat on that Niagara river; it is bright, smooth, beautiful, and glossy. There is a ripple at the bow, and the silvery wake you leave behind adds to your enjoyment. Down the stream you glide; oars, sails, and helm are in proper trim, and you set out on your pleasure excursion o. Suddenly some one cries out from the bank: "Young men, ahoy1o!" "What is it "!"—"The rapids are below you 12 !"-"Ha, ha! we have heard of the rapids, but we are not so foolish as to get there 13. If we go [If it goes] too fast, then up with the helm 14, then set the mast in the socket 15, hoist the sail, and speed to land 16. Then on ", boys; don't be alarmed-there's no danger!"

11

7

1, reasonable. 2, stuck.

me = bitten me.

3, riding from = that

I during a journey from; change and said to' into 'asked'. 4, Use the def. art. 5, die Stromschnellen. 6, Das Wasser kräuselt sich am Bug des Bootes. 7, Kielwasser, n. 8, 'to set out on', here an ́treten, v. tr. 9, Vergnügungstour. 10, Ohoi! of which pronounce every vowel separately and slowly in the German way. 11, Was giebts. 12, are below you, sind dort unten nicht 13, as - there, so weit zu fahren. 14, dann schnell das 15, dann richten wir den Mast auf.

weit von euch! Steuerruder hinein.

Land!

17, Daher nur immer vorwärts.

Section 232.

16, und eilen ans

AN ORATION ON THE POWER OF HABIT.

IV.

4

Young men, ahoy, there !"—" What is it?"-" The rapids are below you!"—"Ha, ha! we will laugh and quaff; all things delight us. What care we for the future? No man ever saw it. 'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof1.' We will enjoy life while we may 2; we will catch pleasure as it flies. This is enjoyment; time enough to steer out of danger when we are driving swiftly with the current."-"Young men, ahoy!" "What is it?"-"Beware! Beware! The rapids are below you!"-Now you see water foaming all around you.-See how fast you pass that point!-Up with the helm!-Now turn!- Pull hardquick!—quick!-pull for your lives!-pull till the blood starts from the nostrils, and the veins stand like whipcord upon the brow! Set the mast in the socket! hoist the sail! Ah, ah!-it is too late! Shrieking, cursing, howling, blaspheming, over you go!-Thousands go over the rapids of Intemperance every year, through the power of evil habit, crying out all the while 10: "When I find out that it is injuring me, I will give it up!" The power of evil habit, I repeat, is fascinating 11, is deceptive; and man may go on arguing and coming to conclusions while on the way down to destruction 12.-J. B. GOUGH.

9

7

1, Es ist genug, daß ein jeglicher Tag seine eigene Plage habe! wir es noch können. 3, es bleibt uns noch Zeit genug. Wasser.

11

2, so lange 4, schäumendes 5, 'to turn', here um'kehren. 6, Pull, Rudert; 'hard', here aus Leibeskräften. 7, Supply the pron. euch here; starts = streams; from the nostrils, aus der Nase. 8, stürzt ihr in den Abgrund hinunter! 9, Trunk fucht, f., seems to be the right expression here, although the dictionaries translate the word by Unmäßigkeit, f., and Völlerei, f. 10, und rufen immer. 11, here bestrickend; is = and. 12, and- destruction and often we are still occupied with arguing a matter (eine Sache gründlich zu erörtern) in order to come (gelangen) to a definite conclusion, when we are (sich befinden) already on the way to destruction (Verderben, n.).

Section 233.

A CURIOUS STORY1.

I.

We heard a curious story1 at Tristan 2 about two Germans who had settled nearly two years before on Inaccessible Island3. Once a year,

4

about the month of December, the Tristan men go to the two outlying islands to pick up the few seals which are still to be found there. On two of these occasions they had seen the Germans, and within a few months smoke had risen from the island, which they attributed to their having fired (S. 161, N. 21) some of the brushwood; but as they had seen or heard nothing of them since, they thought the probability was that they had perished. Captain Nares wished to visit the other islands, and to ascertain the fate of the two men was an additional object in doing so?.

Next morning we were close under Inaccessible Island, the second in size of the little group of three. The ship was surrounded by multitudes of penguins, and as few of us had any previous personal acquaintance with this eccentric form of life, we followed their movements with great interest. The penguin as a rule swims under water, rising now and then and resting on the surface, like one of the ordinary water-birds, but more frequently with its body entirely covered, and only lifting its head from time to time to breathe.

The structure of Inaccessible Island is very much the same as Tristan, only the pre-eminent feature 10 of the latter, the snowy cone, is wanting. A wall of volcanic rocks, about the same height as the cliff at Tristan, and which one is inclined to believe to have been at one time continuous with it, entirely surrounds Inaccessible Island, falling for the most part sheer" into the sea, and it seems that it slopes sufficiently to allow a tolerably easy ascent to the plateau on the top at one point only.

1, This story is taken from Mr. W. J. J. Spry's most interesting account of 'The Cruise of the Challenger'. The Tristan d'Acunha group of islands (die Erfrischungsinseln), so named from the Portuguese navigator who discovered it early in the 16th century, lies in mid-ocean, about 1300 miles south of St. Helena and 1500 miles west of the Cape of Good Hope, nearly on a line between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn; it is thus probably the most isolated and remote of all the abodes of men. The group consists of the larger Island of Tristan and two smaller islands-Inaccessible Island, about 18 miles south-west from Tristan, and Nightingale Island, twenty miles south of the main island. Tristan only is permanently inhabited, the other two are visited from time to time by sealers. In the year 1829 Tristan was inhabited by 27 families; in 1836 it possessed a population of 42; in 1852 the population had risen to 85, and in 1867 this number was only exceeded by one. 2, Auf der Insel Tristan, which place at the head of the period; about, über, with Acc. 3, The author finds that the best German maps use the English name of 'Inaccessible Island' unaltered. This is also the case with 'Nightingale Island'. 4, fahren; 'to go', when used in the sense of 'travelling, riding (in a carriage), driving, sailing, etc.', is mostly rendered by reisen (generally used for greater distances) or by fahren. When used in the sense of ‘riding on horseback,' it is rendered by reiten. 5, = which they attributed to the circumstance. 6, Captain Nares was the commander of The Challenger' at that time. 7, and so and as he was anxious (begierig) to ascertain (erforschen) the fate of the two men, the voyage [there, dahin] was at once determined upon. 8, der Pinguin, pl. e. 9, with lite, mit dieser eigentümlichen Vogelart. 10, the characteristic peculiarity. straight.

11,

=

=

=

Section 234.

A CURIOUS STORY.

II.

There is a shallow bay in which the ship anchored in fifteen fathoms on the east side of the island; and there, as in Tristan, a narrow belt of low ground, extending for about a mile along the shore, is interposed between the cliff and the sea. A pretty waterfall tossed itself down, about the middle of the bay, over the cliff from the plateau above. A little way down it was nearly lost in spray, like the Staubbach of Schaffhausen, and collected itself again into a rivulet', where it regained the rock at the lower level. A hut built of stones and clay, and roofed with spars and thatch, lay in a little hollow near the waterfall, and the two Germans, in excellent health and spirits, but enraptured at the sight of the ship and longing for a passage anywhere out of the island, were 3 down on the beach, waiting for the first boat. Their story is a curious one, and as Captain Nares agreed to take them to the Cape, we had ample time to get an account of their adventures, and to supplement from their experience such crude notions of the nature of the place as we could gather during our short stay.

5

2

Frederick and Gustav Stoltenhoff are sons of a dyer in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen). Frederick, the elder, was employed in a merchant's office in Aix-la-Chapelle at the time of the Franco-German war (1870). He was called on to serve in the German army, where he attained the rank of a lieutenant, and took part in the siege of Metz and Thionville. At the end of the campaign he was discharged, and returned home to find his old situation filled up.

1, gestaltete sich jedoch wieder zu einem kleinen Bache. 2, Vertiefung, f. 3, stood. Consult S. 5, N. 2. 4, = very (höchst) curious. 5, = granted them their request. 6, Let the student endeavour to construe this passage by means of the attributive construction, which will prove excellent practice.

Section 235.

A CURIOUS STORY.

III.

In the meantime, his younger brother, Gustav, who was a sailor and had already made several trips, had joined1 on the 1st of August, 1870, at Greenock, as an ordinary seaman, the English ship "Beacon Light," bound for Rangoon. On the way out, the cargo, which consisted of coal, caught fire when they were from six to seven hundred miles north-west of Tristan d'Acunha, and for (S. 166, N. 10) three days all hands were doing their utmost to extinguish the fire. On the third day, the hatches, which had been battened down, to exclude the air, blew up", the main hatch carrying overboard' the second mate who had been

5

standing on it at the time of the explosion. The boats had been provisioned beforehand, ready to leave the ship. Two of the crew were drowned through one of the boats being swamped, and the survivors, to the number of sixteen, were stowed in the long-boat. Up to this time the ship had been nearing Tristan with a fair wind at the rate of six knots an hour 1o, so that they had now only about three hundred miles to go. They abandoned the ship on Friday; on Saturday afternoon they sighted Tristan, and on the following day a boat came off to their assistance and towed them ashore.

3, to catch fire, in Brand geraten.

=

The shipwrecked crew remained for eighteen days at Tristan d'Acunha, during which time they were treated with all kindness and hospitality. They were relieved by the ill-fated "Northfleet," bound for Aden with coal, and Gustav Stoltenhoff found his way back to Aix-la-Chapelle. 1, to join a ship, sich einem Schiffe verheuern. 2, = On the voyage thither (dorthin). 4, about, ungefähr. b, 'all hands', here all sailors, die ganze Mannschaft, alle Matrosen, alle Schiffsleute. 6, in die Luft sprengen; the hatches, die Lufen; the main hatch, die große Luke. 7, - and the main hatch carried overboard (über Bord schleudern). 8, = through the sinking of one of the boats. 9, at the rate of', referring to the rapidity of motion, is rendered by mit einer Schnelligkeit von', but when referring to price, is generally rendered by 'zum Preise von'. 10, an hour, in der Stunde, per Stunde, or die Stunde. He receives 20 marks a week, er erhält 20 Mark die Woche (or wöchentlich).

=

Section 236.

A CURIOUS STORY.

IV.

During his stay at Tristan he heard that a large number of seals were to be had among the islands 1, and he seems to have been greatly pleased with the Tristaners and to have formed a project of returning there. When he got home, his brother had just got back from the war and was unemployed; he infected him with his notion 2, and the two agreed 3 to join in a venture to Tristan to see what they could (App. § 33) make1 by seal-hunting and barter.

8

5

7

They accordingly sailed for St. Helena in August 1871, and on the 6th of November left St. Helena for Tristan in an American whaler bound on a cruise in the South Atlantic. The captain of the whaler, who had been often at Tristan d'Acunha, had some doubt of the reception which the young men would get if they went as permanent settlers there, and he spoke so strongly of the advantages of Inaccessible Island, on account of the greater productiveness of the soil, and of its being the centre of the seal-fishing, that they changed their plans and were landed on the west side of Inaccessible Island on the 27th of November 1871,-early in summer. A quarter of an hour after, the whaler departed, leaving them the only inhabitants of one of the most remote spots on the face of the earth. They do not seem, however, to have been in the least depressed by their isolation.