Imatges de pàgina
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NATIONAL PRECEPTOR.

13

LESSON I.

My Dog and my Shadow.

1. In a solitary excursion through the woods, Major Halden fell in with a man whose singular appearance attracted his attention. He was sitting on the ground at the foot of a beech tree, eating a crust of bread, which he shared bit by bit with his dog.

2. His dress betrayed the utmost poverty, but his countenance exhibited every symptom of cheerfulness. The Major saluted him as he rode past, and the man pulled off his hat. "Do you see?" said he to his dog, laughing. "What could the dog see?" asked the Major, whose curiosity was much excited by the man's happy looks.

3. The stranger laughed. "Aye," said the man, in a humorous tone, "I wish to make the dog take notice of your civility; it is so uncommon for a well-dressed person on horseback, to lift his hat or cap to a tattered foot passenger like me." "Who are you then?" said the Major to the man, looking at him attentively. "A child of fortune."

4. "A child of fortune! You mistake, without doubt; for your coat seems to speak otherwise." "My coat is in the right, sir. But as I can joke in this coat,-the only one I have,-it is of as much value to me as a new one, even if it had a star* upon it." "If what you say does not proceed from a disordered mind, you are in the right, countryman.'

5. "A disordered mind, or a light mind, is sometimes the gift of God, at least for children of fortune of my case.-My fate once hung heavy on my mind like lead; but care now passes through it as the wind does through my coat, and if that be a fault, it makes up for a great deal of misfortune." says the Major, "whence did you come, and whither are you going?"

* Star, a badge of rank.

66 But,"

6. "That question is not difficult to be answered, sir. I came from my cradle, and I am now going straight forward to my grave. With these two stages of my life I am well acquainted. In a word, I am endeavoring to soften my fate; but I must have something very engaging, for my dog and destiny remain faithful to me; and my shadow also, but like a false friend, only when the sun shines.

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You shake your head, sir, as if you mean to say I have made choice of bad company. I thought so at first, but there is nothing so bad as not to be useful sometimes. My destiny has made me humble, and taught me what I did not before know, that one cannot unhinge the world. My dog has taught me there is still love and fidelity in it, and-you cannot imagine what fine things one can talk with, and respecting, one's shadow!"

8. " Respecting one's shadow? that I do not understand.” "You shall hear, sir-at sunrise, when I am walking behind my long towering shadow, what conversation I hold with it on philosophical subjects.

9. "Look," say I, "dear shadow, art thou not like a youth, when the sun of life is rising the earth seems too small; just when I lift a leg, thou liftest another, as if thou wouldst step over ten acres at once; and yet when thou puttest down thy leg, thy step is scarcely a span long.

10. "So fares it with youth. He seems as if he would destroy or create a world; and yet, in the end, he does none of those things which might have been expected from his discourse. Let the sun now rise higher, and thou wilt become smaller as the youth boasts less, the older he grows.

11. "Thus I compare, you see, the morning, noon, and evening shadow, with a hundred things; and the longer we walk together, the better we get acquainted. At present I can forego many things which I formerly considered indispensable

necessaries.

12. "The shadow is my watch and my servant. It is only a pity, that a man cannot exist in his shadow, as his shadow does in him." Well, and what do you say in the evening to your shadow?"

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13. "A man's shadow then is a very serious thing-the best moralist. When the shadow runs before one, still becoming longer and less visible, as if already hiding its head in the darkness of eternity, while behind one is the setting sun, and before one a rising star-the shadow then seems to say, thou art on the brink of eternity,-thy sun is going down, but lose

not courage; like me, thou wilt become always greater; and before thee is already suspended a better star-the first ray of eternity beyond the grave."

14. With these words the man became serious, and the Major also. Both looked at each other in silence. "Come," said the Major, "you must go with me, countryman." He took the - stranger by the hand, and conducted him to his house.

LESSON II.

The Honest Moravian.-THOMPSON'S COLLECTION. 1. DURING the last war in Germany, a captain of cavalry was out on a foraging* party. On perceiving a cottage in the midst of a solitary valley, he went up and knocked at the door. Out came one of the Moravians, or United Brethren, with a beardf silvered by age.

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2. "Father," says the officer, "show me a field where I can set my troopers a foraging." Presently," replied the Moravian. The good old man walked before, and conducted them out of the valley.

3. After a quarter of an hour's march, they found a fine field of barley. "There is the very thing we want," says the captain. "Have patience for a few minutes," replied his guide; "and you shall be satisfied.”

4. They went on, and at the distance of about a quarter of a league farther, they arrived at another field of barley. The troop immediately dismounted, cut down the grain, trussed it up and remounted.

5. The officer, upon this, says to his conductor, "Father, you have given yourself and us unnecessary trouble: the first field was much better than this." "Very true, sir," replied the good old man, "but it was not mine."

LESSON III.

The Dervis.-SPECTATOR.

1. A DERVIS travelling through Tartary, having arrived at the town of Balk, went into the king's palace by mistake, as thinking it to be a public inn, or caravansary. Having looked For-a-ging, collecting food for horses. Dervis, a Turkish Priest,

*

+ Pronounced Beerd.
A country in Asia.

about him for some time, he entered into a long gallery, where he laid down his wallet,* and spread his carpet, in order to repose himself upon it after the manner of the eastern nations.

2. He had not been long in this posture before he was discovered by some of the guards, who asked him "what was his business in that place?" The Dervis told thein that he intended to take up his night's lodging in that caravansary. The guards let him know in a very angry manner, that the house he was in, was not a caravansary, but the king's palace.

3. It happened that the king himself passed through the gallery during this debate, and smiling at the mistake of the Dervis, asked him how he could possibly be so dúll as not to distinguish a palace from a caravansary? "Sir," says the Dervis, “give me leave to ask your majesty a question or two:"

4. "Who were the persons that lodged in this house when it was first built?" The king replied, "my ancestors." "And who," says the Dervis, "was the last person that lodged here?" The king replied, "my father." "And who is it," says the Dervis, that lodges here at present?" The king told him, that it was he himself.

5. "And who," says the Dervis, "will be here after you?" The king answered," the young prince, my son." "Ah, sir," said the Dervis, "a house that changes its inhabitants so often, and receives such a perpetual succession of guests, is not a palace but a caravansary."

LESSON IV.

The Old Lark and her Young Ones.

1. AN old lark had a nest of young ones in a field of wheat, which was almost ripe, and she was not a little afraid that the reapers would be set to work, before her young ones were large enough to be able to remove from the place.

2. One morning, therefore, before she took her flight to seek something to feed them with, "my dear little creatures," said she, "be sure that in my absence you take the strictest notice of every word you hear, and do not fail to tell me of it, as soon as I come home again." Some time after she was gone, in came the owner of the field and his son.

3. "Well, George," said he, "this wheat, I think, is ripe enough to be cut down; so to-morrow morning, as soon as the sun is up, go and desire our friends and neighbors to come and

* Wallet, a small bag, or knapsack.

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