he does not want us to see anything but the beautiful river itself. Read the whole selection before you try to answer the questions and look at a map to see what is meant by the "lake-sleep" of the river and why Geneva is said to be safe in its "embracing sweep." In the first three paragraphs, we see the river as a whole; in the fourth, we see pieces and strips of it.

hard to find?

1. Is this picture more like a drawing or a painting? Why? 2. What are some of the blue objects with which Ruskin compares the Rhone? 3. Which of these objects have you seen? 4. Which would be very 5. Which comparisons seem to you the most beautiful? 5. Why is the Rhone like "one jewel"? 7. How does Ruskin hint, in all the paragraphs but the first, that the Rhone has come down from among the mountains? 8. How is the " one mighty wave" of it different from the waves of the sea? 9. What joys can the river give both day and night? 10. In the fourth paragraph we have a picture of some pieces and strips and currents of the river. Describe those which you remember. 11. In what ways is the river like a living being? like

a delightful person?

OTHER DESCRIPTIONS. We rarely find a long poem or prose work which is wholly descriptive. Usually passages of pure description will be found with narrative. What examples of brief description can you recall in the SIXTH or SEVENTH READER?

For Study with the Glossary: Lambent, iridescent, ethereal, translucent, fluted swirl, recoil, aquamarine, ultramarine, gentian, river-of-Paradise, chamois, overlaid ripples, turquoise enamel, eddied, petrels, decrepit, sapphire.

By the witch of the Alps is meant the spirit that guards the snow-clad mountains. Perdita (per'di-ta) is the heroine of Shakespeare's Winter's Tale.

THE SOLITARY REAPER

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
Oh, listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands Of travelers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings? —
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

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Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,

And o'er the sickle bending;
I listened, motionless and still ;
And as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore

Long after it was heard no more.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

HELPS TO STUDY

This poem is a reflective poem. It is also a lyric because it tells of personal emotion, and it may also be called descriptive since it pictures a scene and describes a song. It is reflective because it presents the emotions aroused by the scene as they have passed through the author's reflection. The first stanza gives the scene, the girl reaping and singing. The second stanza tells of the effect of the song on the poet. The third stanza tells of the poet's reflection on the song. The fourth stanza tells of the lasting effect of the song on the poet.

1. Where is the scene? 2. Who is the only person seen? 3. What kind of song is she singing? 4. With what is her song compared in the second stanza? 5. What likeness is there between her song and the nightingale's in respect to (1) the lonesome scene, and (2) the cheer of the music for human beings? 6. How are these points of likeness emphasized again in the comparison with the cuckoo? 7. In the third stanza what does the poet think may have been the subject of the song? 8. In the first stanza we are told that she sings a "melancholy strain"; select all the words in the poem which confirm or enlarge this idea. 9. What do you think is the most beautiful passage in the poem? 10. What pictures remain in your thought after you have read the poem? Hebrides (hěb’rī dēz).

An account of Wordsworth's life and poetry is given on page 250.

THE GREAT STONE FACE

In the White Mountains in New Hampshire there is a cliff which at a distance closely resembles a human face, and is known as the Profile of the Old Man of the Mountain. About this fact Hawthorne's fancy has woven the following story. It is not a tale of adventure but a story which illustrates a moral truth and offers an answer to the question, what is true nobility of character?

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One afternoon when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face. They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.

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And what was the Great Stone Face? The Great Stone Face was a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain, by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper 10 distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast 15 lips, which, if they could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one end of the valley to the other. It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood

or womanhood with the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were noble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affec5 tions, and had room for more.

As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their cottage door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The child's name was Ernest. "Mother," said he, while the Titanic visage smiled 10 on him, "I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a face, I should love him dearly."

"If an old prophecy should come to pass," answered his mother, "we may see a man, sometime or other, with 15 exactly such a face as that."

'What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?" eagerly inquired Ernest. "Pray tell me all about it!”

So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when she herself was younger than little 20 Ernest; a story, not of things that were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very old that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard it from their forefathers, to whom, they believed, it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered 25 by the wind among the tree tops. The story said that at some future day a child should be born hereabouts who was destined to become the greatest and noblest man of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face.