The poorest part of the poverty that was on him was that he could not give his children the letters. 13. They were good children, for all the crock of the shop was on their faces, and their fingers bent like eagles' claws, with handling nails. He had been a poor man all his days, and he knew his children would be poor all their days, and poorer than he, if the nail business should continue to grow worse. 14. If he could only give them the letters, or the alphabet as they called it, it would make them the like of rich, for then they could read the Testament. He could read the Testament a little, for he had learned the letters by fire-light. It was a good book, was the Testament; never saw any other book, — heard tell of some in rich people's houses, but it mattered but little with him. 15. The Testament, he was sure, was made for nailers and such like. It helped him wonderfully when the loaf was small on his table. He had but little time to read it when the sun was up, and it took him long to read a little, for he learned the letters when he was old. 16. But he laid it beside his dish at dinner-time, and fed his heart with it, while his children were eating the bread that fell to his share; and when he had spelt out a line of the shortest words, he read them aloud, and his eldest boy, the one at the block there, could say several whole verses he had learned in this way. 17. It was a great comfort to him to think that Jeems could take into his heart so many verses of the Testament, which he could not read. He intended to teach all his children in this way; it was all he could do for them,—and this he had to do at meal times, for all the other hours he had to be at the anvil. The nailing business was growing harder, he was growing old, and his family large. 18. He had to work from four o'clock in the morning till ten o'clock at night, to earn eighteen pence. His wages averaged only about seven shillings a week; and there were five of them in the family to live on what they could earn. It was hard to make up the loss of an hour,—not one of their hands, however little, could be spared. 19. Jemmy was going on nine years of age, and a helpful lad he was,—and the poor man looked at him doatingly, Jemmy could work off a thousand nails a day, of the smallest size. The rent of their little shop, tenement, and garden, was five pounds a year; and a few pennies earned by the youngest of them was of great account. CHAPTER LIX. THE NEEDLE, PEN, AND SWORD. 1. WHAT hast thou seen, with thy shining eye, "I have been in Paradise, stainless and fair, 2. The mantles and wimples, the hoods and veils, When their haughty mien and their glance of fire I helped to fashion of yore. 3. The beaded belt of the Indian maid As the gorgeous ruff of the knight of old, 4. I have lent to Beauty new power to reign 'Or, wedded to Fashion, have helped to bind 5. I have drawn a drop, so round and red, From the finger, small and white, Of the startled child, as she strove with care 6. I have gazed on the mother's patient brow, To shield from winter her children dear; 7. I have heard, in the hut of the pining poor, When faded the warmth of her last faint brand, She let me drop-to die!" 8. What dost thou know, thou gray Goose Quill ? And methought, with a spasm of pride, sprang from the inkstand, and fluttered in vain Its nib to free from the ebon stain, It As it fervently replied: 9. What do I know?-Let the lover tell, He poureth the breath of a magic lyre, 10. What do I know? -The wife can say, 11. Do ye doubt my power? - Of the statesman ask, Who buffets Ambition's blast; Of the convict, who shrinks in his cell of care, A flourish of mine hath sent him there, And locked his fetters fast. 12. And a flourish of mine can his prison ope; From the gallows its victim save; Break off the treaty that kings have bound, 13. Say, what were History, so wise and old- Or how could Music its sweetness store 14. Oh, doubt, if ye will, that the rose is fair, 15. What are thy deeds, thou fearful thing And the Sword answered, stern and slow: 16. The shriek and the shroud of the battle-cloud, The wolf that laps where the gash is red, 17. The rusted plough, and the seed unsown, 18. Death, with the rush of his harpy-brood, Demons that riot in slaughter and crime, And the throng of the souls sent before their time 19. Then the terrible Sword to its sheath returned, But the Pen traced out, from a Book sublime, CHAPTER LX. SAXON WORDS. * 1. OLD Saxon words, old Saxon words! your spells are round us thrown; Ye haunt our daily paths and dreams, with a music all your own; Each one, in its own power a host, to fond remembrance brings The earliest, brightest aspect back, of life's familiar things. 2. Yours are the hills, the fields, the woods, the orchards, and the streams, The meadows and the bowers that bask in the sun's rejoicing beams; 'Mid them our childhood's years were kept, our childhood's thoughts were reared, And by our household tones its joys were evermore endeared. 3. We have roamed since then where the myrtle bloomed in its own unclouded realms, But our hearts returned with changeless love to the brave old Saxon elms; Where the laurel o'er its native streams of a deathless glory spoke, But we passed with pride to the later fame of the sturdy Saxon oak. *Most of our domestic words-words expressive of objects which daily attract our attention are from the Saxon. Of the sixty-nine words which comprise the Lord's Prayer, only five are not Saxon. |