FIRST READING.
Once upon a time, there lived a very rich man, and a king besides, whose name was Midas; and he had a little daughter, whom nobody but myself ever heard of, and whose name I either never knew, or have entirely forgotten. So, because I love odd names for little girls, I choose to call her Marygold.
This King Midas was fonder of gold than of any thing else in the world. He valued his royal crown chiefly because it was composed of that precious metal. If he loved any thing better, or half so well, it was the one little maiden who played so merrily around her father’s footstool. But the more Midas loved his daughter, the more did he desire and seek for wealth. He thought, foolish man! that the best thing he could possibly do for this dear child would be to bequeath her the largest pile of glistening coin, that had ever been heaped together since the world was made.
Thus he gave all his thoughts and all his time to this one purpose. If ever he happened to gaze for an instant at the gold-tinted clouds of sunset, he wished that they were real gold, and that they could be squeezed safely into his strong box. When little Marygold ran to meet him, with a bunch of buttercups and dandelions, he used to say, “Pooh, pooh, child! If these flowers were as golden as they look, they would be worth the plucking!”
At length (as people always grow more and more foolish, unless they take care to grow wiser and wiser) Midas had got to be so exceedingly unreasonable, that he could scarcely bear to see or touch any object that was not gold. He made it his custom, therefore, to pass a large portion of every day in a dark and dreary apartment, under ground, at the basement of his palace. It was here that he kept his wealth. To this dismal hole—for it was little better than a dungeon—Midas betook himself, whenever he wanted to be particularly happy.
Here, after carefully locking the door, he would take a bag of gold coin, or a gold cup as big as a washbowl, or a heavy golden bar, or a peck-measure of gold-dust, and bring them from the obscure corners of the room into the one bright and narrow sunbeam that fell from the dungeon-like window. He valued the sunbeam for no other reason but that his treasure would not shine without its help.
And then would he reckon over the coins in the bag; toss up the bar, and catch it as it came down; sift the gold-dust through his fingers; look at the funny image of his own face, as reflected in the burnished circumference of the cup; and whisper to himself, “O Midas, rich King Midas, what a happy man art thou!”
Midas was enjoying himself in his treasure-room, one day, as usual, when he perceived a shadow fall over the heaps of gold; and, looking up, he beheld the figure of a stranger, standing in the bright and narrow sunbeam! It was a young man, with a cheerful and ruddy face.
Whether it was that the imagination of King Midas threw a yellow tinge over every thing, or whatever the cause might be, he could not help fancying that the smile with which the stranger regarded him had a kind of golden brightness in it. Certainly, there was now a brighter gleam upon all the piled-up treasures than before. Even the remotest corners had their share of it, and were lighted up, when the stranger smiled, as with tips of flame and sparkles of fire.
As Midas knew that he had carefully turned the key in the lock, and that no mortal strength could possibly break into his treasure-room, he, of course, concluded that his visitor must be something more than mortal.
Midas had met such beings before now, and was not sorry to meet one of them again. The stranger’s aspect, indeed, was so good-humored and kindly, if not beneficent, that it would have been unreasonable to suspect him of intending any mischief. It was far more probable that he came to do Midas a favor. And what could that favor be, unless to multiply his heaps of treasure?
The stranger gazed about the room; and, when his lustrous smile had glistened upon all the golden objects that were there, he turned again to Midas.
“You are a wealthy man, friend Midas!” he observed. “I doubt whether any other four walls on earth contain so much gold as you have contrived to pile up in this room.”
“I have done pretty well,—pretty well,” answered Midas, in a discontented tone. “But, after all, it is but a trifle, when you consider that it has taken me my whole lifetime to get it together. If one could live a thousand years, he might have time to grow rich!”
“What!” exclaimed the stranger. “Then you are not satisfied?”
Midas shook his head.
“And pray, what would satisfy you?” asked the stranger. “Merely for the curiosity of the thing, I should be glad to know.”
Midas paused and meditated. He felt sure that this stranger, with such a golden lustre in his good-humored smile, had come hither with both the power and the purpose of gratifying his utmost wishes. Now, therefore, was the fortunate moment, when he had but to speak, and obtain whatever possible, or seemingly impossible thing, it might come into his head to ask. So he thought and thought, and thought, and heaped up one golden mountain upon another, in his imagination, without being able to imagine them big enough.
At last a bright idea occurred to King Midas.
Raising his head, he looked the lustrous stranger in the face.
“Well, Midas,” observed his visitor, “I see that you have at length hit upon something that will satisfy you. Tell me your wish.”
“It is only this,” replied Midas. “I am weary of collecting my treasures with so much trouble, and beholding the heap so diminutive, after I have done my best. I wish every thing that I touch to be changed to gold!”
The stranger’s smile grew so bright and radiant, that it seemed to fill the room like an outburst of the sun, gleaming into a shadowy dell, where the yellow autumnal leaves—for so looked the lumps and particles of gold—lie strewn in the glow of light.
“The Golden Touch!” exclaimed he. “You certainly deserve credit, friend Midas, for striking out so brilliant a fancy. But are you quite sure that this will satisfy you?”
“How could it fail?” said Midas.
“And will you never regret the possession of it?”
“What could induce me?” asked Midas. “I ask nothing else, to render me perfectly happy.”
“Be it as you wish, then,” replied the stranger, waving his hand in token of farewell. “To-morrow, at sunrise, you will find yourself gifted with the Golden Touch.”
The figure of the stranger then became exceedingly bright, and Midas involuntarily closed his eyes. On opening them again, he beheld only one yellow sunbeam in the room, and, all around him, the glistening of the precious metal which he had spent his life in hoarding up.
LXXIX.—THE ROAD TO THE TRENCHES.
Lushington.
“Leave me, comrades, here I drop,—
No, sir, take them on,
All are wanted, none should stop,
Duty must be done;
Those whose guard you take will find me
As they pass below.”
So the soldier spoke, and staggering,
Fell amid the snow;
And ever on the dreary heights,
Down came the snow.
“Men, it must be as he asks;
Duty must be done;
Far too few for half our tasks,
We can spare not one.
Wrap him in this; I need it less;
Fear not, they shall know;
Mark the place, yon stunted larch,—
Forward,”—on they go;
And silent on their silent march,
Down sank the snow.
O’er his features as he lies,
Calms the wrench of pain:
Close faint eyes, pass cruel skies,
Freezing mountain plain;
With far, soft sound, the stillness teems,
Church bells—voices low,
Passing into English dreams
There amid the snow;
And darkening, thickening o’er the heights,
Down fell the snow.
Looking, looking for the mark,
Down the others came,
Struggling through the snowdrifts stark,
Calling out his name;
“Here,—or there; the drifts are deep;
Have we passed him?”—No!
Look, a little growing heap,
Snow above the snow;
Where heavy on his heavy sleep,
Down fell the snow.
Strong hands raised him, voices strong
Spoke within his ears;
Ah! his dreams had softer tongue,
Neither now he hears.
One more gone for England’s sake,
Where so many go,
Lying down without complaint,
Dying in the snow;
Starving, striving for her sake,
Dying in the snow.
Simply done his soldier’s part,
Through long months of woe;
All endured with soldier heart,
Battle, famine, snow.
Noble, nameless, English heart,
Snow cold, in snow!
LXXX.—THE ROOT.
Figuier.
Commit a seed to the earth; plant, for example, a Lima bean, at the depth of two inches in moist vegetable soil. The seed will not be slow to germinate; first swelling, and then bursting its outer skin, a vegetable in miniature will, after a time, slowly reveal itself to the observer. In the meantime two very distinct parts make their appearance; one, yellowish in color, already throwing out slender fibrous shoots, sinks farther into the soil,—this is the radicle, or root; the other of a pale greenish color, takes the opposite direction, ascends to the surface, and rises above the ground,—this is the stem.
This root and stem are the essential organs of vegetation, without which, when we have excepted certain vegetables of an inferior order, plants adorned with leaves and flowers cannot exist. How vast the difference between the verdant top of a tree, which rises graceful and elegant into mid-air,—not to speak of the flower it bears—and the coarse, tangled mass of its roots and rootlets, without harmony, without symmetry! These organs, so little favored in their appearance, have, however, very important functions in the order of vegetable action.
The chief offices of the root are two: in the first place, it attaches the plant to the soil, holds it in its place, and prevents it from being overwhelmed by the elements. In the second, it feeds the plant by absorbing from the earth the sap necessary to its growth. How is this done?
The root branches again and again as it grows, throwing out numerous smaller branches. These hollow, thread-like rootlets suck up, from the soil, the water and other things, which are to go, through the stem or trunk and the branches, to all the leaves. Here these are made into the perfect sap, which, being distributed, causes the plant to grow, to blossom, and to bear fruit.
The manner in which roots succeed in overcoming obstacles, has always been a subject of surprise to the observer. The roots of trees and shrubs, when cramped or hindered in their progress, have been observed to exhibit considerable mechanical force, throwing down walls or splitting rocks; in other cases, clinging together in bunches, or spreading out their fibres over a prodigious space, in order to follow the course of a rivulet with its friendly moisture.
A celebrated botanist of the last century relates that, wishing to preserve a field of rich soil from the roots of a row of elms, which would soon have exhausted it, he had a ditch dug between the field and the trees in order to cut the roots off from it. But he saw with surprise that those roots, which had not been severed in the operation, had made their way down the slope so as to avoid meeting the light, had passed under the ditch, and were again spreading themselves over the field.
There are some roots which are developed along the stem itself. These supplementary organs come as helps to the roots properly so called, and replace them when by any cause they have been destroyed. In the primrose, for example, both the principal and the secondary roots springing from it, perish after some years of growth, but the supplementary roots, springing from the lower part of the stalk, prevent the plant from dying.
In the tropical forests of America and Asia, the vanilla, whose fruit is so sought after for its sweet aroma, twines its slender stem round the neighboring trees, forming an elegant, flexible, and aerial garland, an ornament in these vast solitudes, at once grateful and pleasing. The underground roots of the vanilla would not be sufficient for the nutriment of the plant, and the rising of the nourishing sap would take place too slowly. But Nature makes up for this inconvenience by the air roots which the plant throws out at intervals along its stem. Living in the warm and humid atmosphere of tropical forests, the stronger shoots soon reach the ground and root themselves in the soil. Others float freely in the atmosphere, inhaling the moisture and conveying it to the parent stem.
A grand tree—the banyan, or the pagoda fig-tree—adorns the landscape of India, and presents the most remarkable development of aerial roots. When the parent stem has attained the height of some fifty or sixty feet, it throws out side branches in every direction, and each branch in its turn throws out supplementary roots, which descend perpendicularly in long slender shoots till they reach the ground. When they have rooted themselves in the soil, they increase rapidly in diameter, and soon form around the parent stem thousands of columns, each throwing out new lateral branches and new roots.
“The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree, a pillared shade.”
The natives love to build their temples in the intervals left between these roots of the wild fig-tree. A famous banyan tree on the Nerbuddah is said by Professor Forbes to have three hundred large and three thousand smaller aerial roots; it is capable of sheltering thousands of men, and thus forms one of the marvels of the vegetable world; it is, in short, a forest within a forest.
Roots constantly endeavor to bury themselves in the earth. They seem to shun the light of day; and this tendency is to be seen from the very first moment when the root shows itself in the seed. The tendency is so decided, and appears so inherent in the life of all vegetables, that if we reverse a germinating seed, placing it with the root upwards, the root and the stem will twist round of themselves,—the stem will stretch upward, and the root will bury itself in the ground.
LXXXI.—THE WATER FOWL.
Bryant.
Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
The desert and illimitable air,—
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o’er thy sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone; the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart:
He, who from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.