General.-A song of starlight should be quiet and tender, shy and glim- mering, like the light of stars. Does this song suit the theme? How should it be read? What lights other than starlight are mentioned? Which lights are left out? If you shut your eyes and say "lamplight, " what picture do you see? Now try " candle-light, " now " camp-fire, " now "moonlight, " now " electric light, " now "daylight, " now " twilight. " Which one do youlike best? How did the poem come to Sheila McLeod? At what time? Her lagoon is an arm of the sea; coquetry is flirtation; gossamer, spider"s web. What are the stars? How many colours have the stars of night? Look if you are not sure.
Lesson 49
KING LEAR
Many people, well able to judge, have ranked Shake- speare"s King Lear as one of the finest dramas ever written. It tells the story of Lear, a headstrong monarch of ancient Britain, who resolves to divide his realm into three parts, and bestow it upon his three daughters in accordance with the amount of love that each professes for him.
Goneril, the eldest daughter, says she loves him more than words can tell, no less than life itself, as much as child ever loved. She receives a rich portion.
Regan, the second daughter, says she loves him even better than does Goneril, and the only joy in life she finds is to think her father loves her. She, too, receives a generous share of Lear"s dominions.
Cordelia, the youngest of the daughters and her father"s favourite ( " her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low-an excellent thing in woman ") cannot bring herself to talk like hersisters. She says she loves him neither more nor less than sheought. This offends the proud and testy old man. He casts her off penniless, and she would have been poor indeed if the King of France, who divined her true nature, had not straightwayclaimed her as his bride and queen.
Having parted with most of his possessions, Lear imagines that the two daughters on whom he has bestowed them will still show him the respect and affection that they had vauntedFrom a drawing by Sir John Gilbert, R.A
Lear casts off Cordelia
so highly. Alas!he is mistaken. They and their husbands treat him so badly that, one stormy night, he rushes out with bursting brain to a lonely heath. In the pauses of the tempest, we hear him rave about his daughters, while, now and then, the faithful fool who is with him utters pointed chatter which in its own way is not less bitter.
Old and broken, the poor king at length is reunited with Cordelia, who with French forces has come to his aid. But the French are defeated, and Lear is next seen bearing the body of Cordelia from prison, where her sisters had caused her to be put to death.
The guilty sisters perish, and their party is overthrown; but Lear dies of a broken heart- " a man more sinned against than sinning, " and " every inch a king. "Author.-William Shakespeare, the plot of whose tragedy of King Lear is here outlined, was born at Stratford-on-Avon in 1564, and died there in 1616. He is regarded as the world"s greatest dramatist and poet. Among his early plays are Love"s Labour"s Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Comedy of Errors; to the second period belong-A Midsummer Night"s Dream,As You Like It, etc.; to the third period the great tragedies of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra; to the last period Cymbeline, A Winter"s Tale, The Tempest, and the Sonnets.
General.-What was the character of Goneril? Of Regan? Of Cordelia? Did Lear deserve his hard fate? Did Cordelia deserve hers? Why didn"t Shakespeare give them a happier lot?
Lesson 50
THE LAST MINSTREL
The way was long, the wind was cold,
The minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek and tresses grey, Seemed to have known a better day; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy;The last of all the bards was he, Who sang of Border chivalry;For, well-a-day! their day was fled, His tuneful brethren all were dead; And he, neglected and oppressed, Wished to be with them, and at rest. No more, on prancing palfrey borne, He carolled, light as lark at morn; No longer courted and caressed, High placed in hall a welcome guest, He poured to lord and lady gayThe unpremeditated lay.
Old times were changed, old manners gone;
A stranger filled the Stuart"s throne;
The bigots of the iron time
Had called his harmless art a crime;
A wandering harper, scorned and poor, He begged his bread from door to door, And tuned to please a peasant"s ear The harp a king had loved to hear.
Sir Walter Scott
A uthor.-Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), the greatest of Scottish novelists and one of the greatest of Scottish poets, was born at Edinburgh. Nearly all of his works deal with history, his chief poems being-The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, Rokeby, Lord of the Isles; his chief prose works Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian, Ivanhoe, and Quentin Durward. He wrote also a History of Scotland and Tales of a Grandfather. " Scott exalted and purified the novel, and made Scotland known throughout the world. " He has been called " the Wizard of the North. "General.-A cold winter day, a poor old beggar-man, followed by a boywith a harp, the castle in the background, and the cottages clustering near it for protection-can you see the picture? Go back a few years and you will have another picture, the minstrel in his palmy days. Can you visualize that after reading the poem? What is an unpremeditated lay? Who was the stranger that filled the Stuart"s throne? Read the whole of Scott"s "Lay of the Last Minstrel. " It will be a delight.
Lesson 51
THE DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN
The little prince is ill. The little prince is going to die In all the churches of the kingdom, by night and day candles are burning, and prayers are being offered for his recovery. The streets of the old town are sad and noiseless, no clocks striking, carriages creeping softly by.
