NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, [see page 80].

Discussion. 1. Read the history of the Pilgrims’ settlement at Plymouth. 2. Describe the Plymouth of the first year of the settlement. 3. How long had the Pilgrims been in their new home at the time this story opens? 4. What tells you this? 5. Find lines that tell how hard the first winter had been. 6. What tells you that the Captain had read his Cæsar many times? 7. What principle of conduct did he learn from Cæsar’s victories? 8. When did he entirely disregard this principle? 9. What excuse did he give for not acting upon it? 10. Read the words in which John Alden tells why he will undertake the Captain’s errand. 11. What ideal of friendship had he? 12. What do you think of Alden’s description of his friend’s character? 13. Read the lines in which Priscilla shows her love of truth and loyalty. 14. When does Miles Standish show himself most noble? 15. Who is the real hero of this poem? 16. Commit to memory lines which seem to you to express the moral truths and the high ideals which the poem puts before us. 17. Make a brief outline of the story. 18. Pronounce the following: athletic; sinews; memoirs; taciturn; aerial; impious; capacious; stalwart; subtle; hearth.

Phrases

AMERICAN SCENES AND LEGENDS