like the rising and falling of the autumn wind, lifted bales and boxes and crates and swung them ashorewhole flowery harvests of tea, and bananas, and camphor, and sandalwood.

Long after the unloading was over, I sometimes dared to creep along the edge of the dock and place my hand upon the hot hulk, and seemed thus to come near to the palm groves the ship had passed, and the jungles and tigers.

The freight was piled in the old red brick stores. Silence reigned within. Vast coils of rope made seats for the men who sat looking out of the door toward the ships, and talking low as if in sleep. Huge hogsheads, bags, boxes, and bales were there in rich confusion.

There was a twilight of dimness, and the air was spicy with mingled odors, like the breath of far-off island groves. If within, the gay hue of a parrot flashed in a chance sunbeam, then the enchantment was complete, and without moving I was traveling around the world. - George William Curtis.

Pronunciations. — Un'dïne; Měl u sïna.

Definitions. - Jungles, name given in India to land mostly covered with forest trees and brushwood. Enchantment, charm, delight. Melusina, a fairy in French stories, who, as a punishment for inclosing her father in a high mountain, was condemned to become, on every Saturday, a serpent from the waist down. Undine, a water fairy of the German tales, who, by sorrow and suffering, came at last to be a human being with a soul.

Spell: eager; Undine; Melusina; swung; jungles; reigned.

To be memorized:

I do not own an inch of land,

But all I see is mine-
The orchard and the mowing-fields,
The lawns and gardens fine.
The winds my tax-collectors are,
They bring me tithes divine-
Wild scents and subtle essences,
A tribute rare and free;

And more magnificent than all,
My window keeps for me
A glimpse of blue immensity-
A little strip of sea.

Richer am I than he who owns
Great fleets and argosies;
I have a share in every ship,

Won by the inland breeze,
To loiter on yon airy road

Above the apple trees.

I freight them all with untold dreams,
Each bears my own picked crew;
And nobler cargoes wait for them
Than India ever knew-

My ships that sail into the east

Across that outlet blue.

-Lucy Larcom.

STORIES ABOUT GREAT AUTHORS.

46. HOMER AND VERGIL.

Articulation. - would | you; hundreds of years.

What would you say if the genii of the Arabian Nights were to offer you power to live for a time among the Greeks or Romans, as they lived hundreds of years before Christ was born?

Would you not like to make the visit and see these forefathers of Europe building their houses and temples, sailing their ships, fighting their battles, sowing and reaping their fields, teaching their children, playing their games, and worshiping their gods? Would you not like to know how they dressed, and how they ate and slept, and what they thought about their homes and friends, and about the seas and stars and mountains?

If the genii should say we might make this visit, I am sure there would be whole school-rooms of children ready and glad to go back through the ages for a little

while, although we all know that our homes and times are better than any that have gone before.

It is not likely that the genii will ever give us this magic opportunity, but there is one way by which any child who can read, may live again the old Greek and Roman life, and see pictures of the old-time days and nights, and even hear the echo of their words, and songs, and prayers.

There was a poet named Homer, who gathered together all the myths and told the history of that glorious time of Greece, in language so beautiful that it has lived ever since, and must always live.

And long years after there lived a poet named Vergil, who told the story of Rome in a manner also so clear and noble that we still delight to read it.

Men and women study Greek and Latin largely for the purpose of being able to read these classics in the language in which they were written. But we do not need to be able to read the ancient tongues to learn the stories for ourselves, for great scholars have made many beautiful translations of them, and they are, to-day, in almost every library.

No one knows much of Homer, who told the stories of the Greeks. He is said to have been a poor, old, blind beggar, who became famous only after his death.

"Seven cities claimed great Homer dead,

Through which the living Homer begged his bread."

Homer lived before people had learned to write, and although his stories are so long, each one a large book, they were not, at first, written, but told by one to another, and so learned by heart.

We call Homer one of the great poets, because his poetry has lived so long, and because it describes men and their deeds so that the reader seems to be watch

ing living people at peace or war, at tasks or feasts. The stories of Homer were a bible for the Greeks for many years. All the Greek young men tried to be as brave as Achilles, as noble as Ulysses, and as wise as Nestor, three great heroes of Homer's stories.

Alexander the Great, who conquered the world, knew Homer by heart, and spent his whole life trying to follow in the footsteps of Achilles. Vergil, who wrote of Rome, copied much of his idea and manner from the blind old Greek.

You are now to read outlines of these classic stories to give you an idea of the tales, but of course you must some time read the full books to get the whole of the stories and music of the

"Glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome."

Pronunciations. — Gē’nii; A chil'lēş; U lýs sēş.

Definitions. Genii, spirits possessing magical power. Arabian Nights, the name given to a number of delightful stories told thousands of years ago, in which the genii busied themselves in the affairs of men.

Select the hardest ten words of this lesson, to spell.

HOMER'S ILIAD.

47. WHAT CAUSED THE TROJAN WAR.

It happened that at the wedding of the parents of the brave Achilles all the gods had been invited except the quarrelsome Eris.

Angry at not being asked to the feast, this goddess threw among the guests a golden apple, marked, “For the fairest."

Juno, Venus, and Minerva each claimed the apple. Jupiter said that the handsome shepherd lad, Paris, who was watching his flocks on Mount Ida, should

judge between them. The three goddesses hastened before Paris, each pleading for herself.

Juno said, "I am the queen of gods and men, and if you decide for me I will make you king of the whole world."

Minerva said, "I am the goddess of wisdom, and you shall have all the knowledge of the earth if you will speak in my favor."

Venus said, "I am the goddess of beauty. If you will give me the apple you shall have the most beautiful woman in all the world for your wife."

Paris, without a word, placed the apple in the hands of Venus, thus pronouncing her the most beautiful of the goddesses, and making enemies forever of Juno and Minerva.

Now, Paris was really the son of the king of Troy, hidden on Mount Ida by his father, because the oracles had said that this boy would bring sorrow to the kingdom. After he had given Venus the apple, he began to travel about the world, under her guidance. He sailed to Greece, where he basely stole Helen, the most beautiful woman in all the world, and carried her across the sea to Troy to be his wife.

This was the cause of the ten years' war of Troy, for King Agamemnon of Greece called upon all the chieftains of the country to band together and make war on Troy and bring Helen back to Greece.

It took two years to prepare for the war, and then a great fleet of ships sailed across the sea to Troy. At the shore the warriors arranged the ships in long rows, one behind another, and built on the sands the numberless tents in which both princes and soldiers lived.

The Trojans were astonished at the number of the Greeks; but the fifty sons of King Priam, of Troy, among whom were Paris, who had caused the war, and the noble