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15

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Memorize a goodly passage from this, and interpret the meaning of your selection to the class.

There; my blessing with thee!

And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,

Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

20 For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all; to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man. - Hamlet.

1. Spend at least one recitation discussing the life and works of Shakespeare. Bring to class some interesting accounts of him or his plays.

MERCY

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Antonio, a merchant-shipper of Venice, has met with financial losses. Shylock, his grasping creditor and competitor, demands in court the fulfillment of Antonio's bond, which states that Antonio has forfeited a pound of his own flesh to Shylock. Portia, a young woman who plays the part of attorney for Antonio, makes the following appeal to Shylock for mercy.

HE quality of mercy is not strain'd;

TH

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this scepter'd sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this, -
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

The Merchant of Venice.

1. Read this extract line by line, and interpret its meaning Then read the whole of it aloud as Portia spoke it.

IC

15

HE following list of book titles suggests some good

THE

library browsing for you. Try reading one good book a week outside of school hours. Aside from the immediate pleasure and knowledge derived, you will thus establish an invaluable habit and set up for yourself standards of literary judgment.

Alcott's Eight Cousins

Aldrich's Story of a Bad Boy

Baldwin's Discovery of the Old Northwest

Baldwin's Fifty Famous Rides and Riders
Baldwin's Old Greek Stories
Brown's Rab and his Friends
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
Burnett's Secret Garden

Burroughs's Bird Stories

Burroughs's Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers
Clemens's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Clemens's Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Clemens's Prince and the Pauper

Clemens's Roughing It

Cooke's Stories of the Old Dominion

Cooper's Deerslayer

Cooper's Pathfinder

Cooper's Spy

Dana's Two Years before the Mast
Dickens's Child's History of England

Dickens's Christmas Carol

Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth

Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby

Dickens's Pickwick Papers

Garland's Boy Life on the Prairie

Guerber's Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages

416

GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Hill's On the Trail of Washington
Holland's Historic Boyhoods

Holland's Historic Girlhoods
Howells's Stories of Ohio
Hughes's Tom Brown at Rugby
Irving's Sketch Book

Kipling's Captains Courageous
Kipling's Jungle Books

Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare

London's Call of the Wild

Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish
Lucas's Slowcoach

Mabie's Book of Christmas

Mabie's Book of Old English Ballads

Mabie's Famous Stories Every Child should Know

Marden's Stories from Life

Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle
Pyle's Men of Iron

Roosevelt's Stories of the Great West
Scott's Ivanhoe

Scott's Quentin Durward

Seton's Trail of the Sandhill Stag

Stevenson's Kidnapped

Stevenson's Master of Ballantrae

Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey
Stockton's Stories of New Jersey
Swift's Gulliver's Travels
Tarkington's Penrod

Thompson's Stories of Indiana

Warner's Being a Boy

Whitehead's Standard Bearer

Wiggin's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Yonge's Book of Golden Deeds