England weather sticking out beyond the edges, and projecting around hundreds and hundreds of miles over the neighboring states. She can't hold a tenth part of her weather. 10. I could speak volumes about the inhuman perversity of the New England weather, but I will give only a single specimen. I like to hear rain on a tin roof: so I covered part of my roof with tin, with an eye to that luxury. Well, sir, do you think it ever rains on the tin? No, sir: skips it every time. 11. I have been trying merely to do honor to the New England weather: no language could do it justice. But after all there are at least one or two things about that weather which we residents would not like to part with. 12. If we had not our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries,— the ice storm; when a leafless tree is clothed with ice from the bottom to the top, ice that is as bright and clear as crystal; every bough and twig is strung with ice beads, frozen dewdrops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white like the Shah of Persia's diamond plume. 13. Then the wind waves the branches; and the sun comes out, and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms, that glow and flash with all manner of colored fires, which change and change again with inconceivable rapidity, from blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold: the tree becomes a sparkling fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels; and it stands there the acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or nature of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable magnificence! LANGUAGE STUDY. I. Write the analysis of: factory (facere); collection (legere); reputation (putare); confidently (fidere); president (sedere). II. In paragraph 2 are two complex sentences and two compound sentences: select each. "That so astounded" (3): what is the antecedent of "that"? III. In this piece are various colloquial words and expressions which are a part of Mark Twain's style and diction. Point these out, and state whether they are justifiable or not. Under what droll personifications is the weather represented in paragraph 3? In the fine description of the "ice storm," in paragraphs 12 and 13, point out the similes and metaphors. 34. A Picture and a Hope. couch'ant, reclining. hearth (pron. härth). silhouette (sil-oo-ět′), black profile. trans-fig'ured, glorified. PREPARATORY NOTES. 66 This selection is an extract from "Snow-Bound," a poem by John G. Whittier (1807-1892), sometimes called the " Quaker Poet," who, with Longfellow, Bryant, and Lowell, sits at the top of the American Parnassus. His muse was mainly occupied in singing the great cause of freedom and humanity. 1. The moon above the eastern wood Shone at its full: the hill range stood Transfigured in the silver flood, Its blown snows flashing cold and keen; 2. Shut in from all the world without, Shook beam and rafter as it passed, And close at hand, the basket stood 4. What matter how the night behaved? How strange it seems, with so much gone 5. Henceforward, listen as we will, 6. Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, The stars shine through his cypress trees! And Love can never lose its own! LANGUAGE STUDY. "Let the north wind roar in baffled rage" (2): what is the figure? (See Definition 3.) What other metaphor in this stanza? What example of personification in the same stanza? Copy stanza 3, and draw a line under the most vivid or picturesque words or expressions. 35.-A Brilliant Geographical Contrast. boss'y, knobbed, studded. chased, embossed, engraved. heath'y, covered with heather. lü'çent, shining, light-giving. mo-şā'ie, inlaid work in colors. ō'ri-ent, glittering. 1. The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have thrown into a narrow |