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"I was only laying down a principle of social

Dr. Holmes in the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table is witty. Irving in Knickerbocker's History is humorous or amusing. Can you tell what the difference is?.

Which is easier, jealousy or admiration?

Did you ever see any one like the landlady's daughter? (Line 96.)

Explain "broken winded novels," line 52; "spavined verses," line 53. Explain the figure in lines 111-118.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 2

Did I not say to you a little while ago that the universe swam in an ocean of similitudes and analogies? I will not quote Cowley, or Burns, or Wordsworth, just now, to show you what thoughts were

5

1 Diagnosis, examination, as by a physician.

66

2 A marine shellfish of a beautiful pearly luster (tetrabranchiate cephalopod). The shell is divided into compartments, each one supposed to represent a year's growth. The animal occupies only the last built, or the outside compartment, the others being closed and empty. This condition is used by the poet as the basis of his beautiful conceit.

3 Cowley, an English poet.
4 Burns, the pet poet of Scotland.
5 Wordsworth, an English poet.

suggested to them by the simplest natural objects, 5 such as a flower or a leaf; but I will read you a few lines, if you do not object, suggested by looking at a section of one of those chambered shells to which is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. We need not trouble ourselves about the distinction between this 10 and the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of the ancients. The name applied to both shows that each has long been compared to a ship, as you may see more fully in Webster's Dictionary, or the Encyclopedia, to which it refers. If you will 15 look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one of these shells and a section of it. The last will show you the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening 20 spiral. Can you find no lesson in this?

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren 2 sings,

1 The word nautilus means a sailor.

2 Siren, a fabled evil being, resembling a beautiful woman, who by her wonderful singing lured sailors to the island where she lived and then changed them to beasts.

25

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea maids 1 rise to sun their streaming hair.

30 Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

35

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim, dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,

3

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

40 He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door,

45

Stretched in his last found home, and knew the old

no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

4

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

1 Sea maids, sea nymphs, fabled creatures, the lower part being that of a fish and the upper part that of a woman.

2 Irised, tinted like the iris.

3 Crypt, a secret place or cell, frequently used for a tomb.

4 Triton, a sea god of Roman mythology. He is usually represented as blowing a horn.

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

QUESTIONS FOR STUDY

Find out how the nautilus grows, then compare its life history with the poem.

Line 23. Why "ship of pearl"?

Lines 37-43. What does this stanza mean? Line 45. Why is the sea called "wandering"? Find as many stories as you can about the nautilus.

How many kinds of verse do you find in each of these stanzas? How many "feet," that is, how many accented syllables do you find in each verse (line)?

Commit to memory the last stanza of the poem.

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ROBERT BROWNING

(1812-1869)

Robert Browning is by his enthusiastic admirers regarded as one of the great poets, not only of the

intensity of thought and feeling, who wrote some truly wonderful poetry. His work is nearly all, however, marred by obscurity and by mannerisms, and it is a question whether his really great merits