Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader Part 18

Hark! Was it the night wind that rustled the leaves?

Is it moonlight so suddenly flas.h.i.+ng?

It looked like a rifle-- "Ha, Mary, good-night!"

His life-blood is ebbing and das.h.i.+ng.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night, No sound save the rush of the river; But the dew falls unseen on the face of the dead-- The picket's off duty forever.

_Ethel L. Beers_.

LESSON LXI

WAGES

Wages are a compensation given to the laborer for the exertion of his physical powers, or of his skill and ingenuity. They must, therefore, vary according to the severity of the labor to be performed, or to the degree of skill and ingenuity required. A jeweller or engraver, for example, must be paid a higher rate of wages than a servant or laborer.

A long course of training is necessary to instruct a man in the business of jewelling or engraving, and if the cost of his training were not made up to him in a higher rate of wages, he would, instead of learning so difficult an art, betake himself to such employments as require hardly any instruction.

A skilled mason, who has served a long apprentices.h.i.+p to his trade, will always obtain higher wages than a common laborer, who has simply to use his mere bodily strength. Were it not so, there would be nothing to induce the mason to spend many years in learning a trade at which he could earn no higher wages than the man who was simply qualified to carry lime in a hod, or to roll a wheelbarrow.

The wages of labor in different employments vary with the constancy and inconstancy of employment. Employment is much more constant in some trades than in others. Many trades can be carried on only in particular states of weather, and seasons of the year; and if the workmen who are employed in these cannot easily find employment in others during the time they are thrown out of work, their wages must be proportionally raised. A journeyman weaver, shoemaker, or tailor may reckon, unless trade is dull, upon obtaining constant employment; but masons, bricklayers, pavers, and in general all those workmen who carry on their business in the open air, are liable to constant interruptions. Their wages, accordingly, must be sufficient to maintain them while they are employed, and also when they are necessarily idle.

From the preceding observations it is evident that those who receive the highest wages are not, when the cost of their education, and the chances of their success, are taken into account, really better paid than those who receive the lowest. The wages earned by the different cla.s.ses of workmen are equal, not when each individual earns the same number of dollars in a given s.p.a.ce of time, but when each is paid in proportion to the severity of the labor he has to perform, and to the degree of previous education and skill it requires. So long as each individual is allowed to employ himself as he pleases, we may be a.s.sured that the rate of wages in different employments will be comparatively equal.

SELECTION XIX

COLUMBIA, THE GEM OF THE OCEAN; OR, THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE

1. O Columbia, the gem of the ocean, The home of the brave and the free, The shrine of each patriot's devotion, A world offers homage to thee.

Thy mandates make heroes a.s.semble, When Liberty's form stands in view, Thy banners make tyranny tremble, When borne by the red, white and blue.

CHORUS.

When borne by the red, white and blue, When borne by the red, white and blue, Thy banners make tyranny tremble, When borne by the red, white and blue.

2. When war winged its wide desolation.

And threatened the land to deform, The ark then of freedom's foundation, Columbia, rode safe thro' the storm; With her garlands of vict'ry around her, When so proudly she bore her brave crew, With her flag proudly floating before her, The boast of the red, white and blue.

CHORUS.

3. The wine-cup, the wine-cup bring hither, And fill you it true to the brim; May the wreaths they have won never wither, Nor the star of their glory grow dim.

May the service united ne'er sever, But they to their colors prove true.

The Army and Navy forever, Three cheers for the red, white and blue.

CHORUS.

_David T. Shaw_.

LESSON LXII

LOVE FOR THE DEAD

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal--every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open--this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved--when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal--would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness?

No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the n.o.blest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection--when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness--who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a pa.s.sing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it, even for the song of pleasure or the burst of revelry? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave! the grave! It buries every error--covers every defect. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel remorse that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him?

LESSON LXIII

ECONOMY OF TIME

One of the most important lessons to be learned in life is the art of economizing time. A celebrated Italian was wont to call his time his estate; and it is true of this as of other estates of which the young come into possession, that it is rarely prized till it is nearly squandered. Habits of indolence, listlessness, and sloth, once firmly fixed, cannot be suddenly thrown off, and the man who has wasted the precious hours of life's seed-time finds that he cannot reap a harvest in life's autumn. Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine; but lost time is gone forever. In the long catalogue of excuses for neglect of duty, there is none which drops more often from men's lips than the want of leisure. People are always cheating themselves with the idea that they would do this or that desirable thing, "if they only had the time." It is thus that the lazy and the selfish excuse themselves from a thousand things which conscience dictates should be done. Now, the truth is, there is no condition in which the chance of doing any good is less than in that of leisure.

Go, seek out the men in any community who have done the most for their own and the general good, and you will find they are--who?--Wealthy, leisurely people, who have plenty of time to themselves, and nothing to do? No; they are almost always the men who are in ceaseless activity from January to December. Such men, however pressed with business, are always found capable of doing a little more; and you may rely on them in their busiest seasons with ten times more a.s.surance than on idle men.

The men who do the greatest things do them, not so much by fitful efforts, as by steady, unremitting toil,--by turning even the moments to account. They have the genius for hard work,--the most desirable kind of genius.

SELECTION XX

RECESSIONAL

G.o.d of our fathers, known of old-- Lord of our far-flung battle-line-- Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine-- Lord G.o.d of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget.

The tumult and the shouting dies-- The captain and the kings depart-- Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord G.o.d of hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget.

Far-called our navies melt away-- On dune and headland sinks the fire-- Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget.

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe-- Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law-- Lord G.o.d of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget.

For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard-- All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding calls not Thee to guard,-- For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord. Amen.

_Rudyard Kipling_.