III. 'Twere looked, “were crept," father-in-law, prithee. IV. Define hatches, cited, "melancholy flood," "grim ferryman," perjury, furies, requites, inestimable, unvalued (invaluable). V. Why "dark monarchy"? Does any part of the dream (“struck me overboard") suggest Richard's (Gloster's) subsequent treatment of his brother George (Clarence)? Who was the elder, Clarence, or Gloster? (Clarence.) Compare this dream with Byron's "Dream of Darkness," in point of style. CVI. THE TIME FOR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CULTURE. 1. The flight of our human hours, not really more rapid at any one moment than another, yet oftentimes to our feelings seems more rapid; and the flight startles us, like guilty things, with a more affecting sense of rapidity, when a distant church-clock strikes in the night-time; or when, upon some solemn summer evening, the sun's disk, after settling for a minute with farewell horizontal rays, suddenly drops out of sight. 2. The record of our loss, in such a case, seems to us the first intimation of its possibility; as if we could not be made sensible that the hours were perishable, until it is announced to us that already they have perished. We feel a perplexity of distress when that which seems to us the cruelest of injuries—a robbery committed upon our dearest possession by the conspiracy of the world outside -seems also as in part a robbery sanctioned by our own collusion. 3. The world, and the customs of the world, never cease to levy taxes upon our time. That is true, and so far the blame is not ours; but the particular degree in which we suffer by this robbery, depends much upon the weakness with which we ourselves become parties to the wrong, or the energy with which we resist it. Resisting or not, however, we are doomed to suffer a bitter pang as often as the irrecoverable flight of our time is brought home with keenness to our hearts. 4. The spectacle of a lady floating over the sea in a boat, and waking suddenly from sleep to find her magnificent rope of pearl necklace by some accident detached at one end from its fastenings, the loose string hanging down in the water, and pearl after pearl slipping off forever into the abyss, brings before us the sadness of the case. 5. That particular pearl which at the very moment is rolling off into the unsearchable deeps, carries its own separate reproach to the lady's heart. But it is more deeply reproachful as the representative of so many others, uncounted pearls, that have already been swallowed up irrecoverably while she was yet sleeping, and of many beside that must follow before any remedy can be applied to what we may call this jewelly hemorrhage. 6. A constant hemorrhage of the same kind is wasting our jewelly hours. A day has perished from our brief calendar of days, and that we could endure; but this day is no more than the reiteration of many other days-days counted by thousands, that have perished to the same extent and by the same unhappy means—viz., the evil usages of the world made effectual and ratified by our own concurrence. 7. Bitter is the upbraiding which we seem to hear from a secret monitor.-My friend, you make very free with your days! Pray, how many do you expect to have? What is your rental as regards the total harvest of days which this life is likely to yield? Let us consider. Threescore years and ten produce a total sum of twenty-five thousand five hundred and fifty days: to say nothing of some seventeen or eighteen more that will be payable to you as a bonus on account of leap-years. 8. Now, out of this total, one-third must be deducted at a blow for a single item-viz., sleep. Next, on account of illness, of recreation, and the serious occupations spread over the surface of life, it will be little enough to deduct another third. Recollect, also, that twenty years will have gone from the earlier end of your life-viz., above seven thousand days before you can have attained any skill of system, or any definite purpose in the distribution of your time. 9. Lastly, for tendance on the animal necessities-viz., eating, drinking, washing, bathing, and exercise-deduct the smallest allowance consistent with propriety, and, upon summing up all these appropriations, you will not find so much as four thousand days left disposable for direct intellectual culture. Four thousand, or forty hundred, will be a hundred forties; that is, according to the lax Hebrew method of indicating six weeks by the phrase of "forty days," you will have a hundred bills or drafts. on Father Time, value six weeks each, as the whole period available for intellectual labor. 10. A solid block of about eleven and a half continuous years is all that a long life will furnish for the development of what is most august in man's nature. After that, the night comes, when no man can work; brain and arm will be alike unserviceable; or, if the life should be unusually extended, the vital powers will be drooping as regards all motions in advance. Thomas De Quincey. FOR PREPARATION.-I. From what are the words quoted, "The night cometh, when no man can work"? (John ix. 4.) "Startles us like guilty things"? (Hamlet, Act I.) II. Flight (flit), Ŏft'-en-timeş (ŏfn-), stärt'-leş (-lz), sŏl'-emn (-em), hor-i-zon'-tal, rāys, sight (sit), pos-si-bíl'-i-ty, al-read'-y, per-plěx'i-ty, eon-spir'-a-cy, wrong (rong), re-gist, pearl (perl), ǎe'-çi-dent, fäst'en-ings (fas'n-), rōll'-ing, sep'-a-rate, eŭl'-en-dar, yield, sûrfaçe, văl'-ue (vál'yu), au-gust'. III. Explain est in "cruelest";-ies in "injuries"; select the personifications and metaphors in the piece, and arrange them separately. IV. Disk, record, intimation, sensible, perished, sanctioned, collusion (2), irrecoverable, "jewelly hemorrhage,” reiteration, usages, ratified, concurrence, upbraiding, monitor, rental, total, "threescore and ten years," "leap-years," bonus, deducted, item, recreation, "serious occupation," propriety, appropriations, "Father Time," vital, "notions in advance." V. Write out in your own words the thought of a paragraph of this piece; then study the effect of the expressions used by De Quincey, and see whether they add to the thought, or merely to its embellishment. CVII. THE CATARACT OF LODORE. 1. "How does the water Come down at Lodore?" My little boy asked me Thus, once on a time; Anon at the word, There first came one daughter, And then came another, To second and third The request of their brother, As many a time They had seen it before. That so I should sing; To them and the king. 2. From its sources, which well In the mountains, Through moss and through brake, It runs and it creeps For awhile, till it sleeps In its own little lake. And through the wood-shelter, Hurry-skurry. Here it comes sparkling, |