VI.  MOUNTAINS. (132)

William Howitt, 1795-1879, was an English author.  He published many books, and was associated with his wife, Mary Howitt, in the publication of many others. ###

There is a charm connected with mountains, so powerful that the merest mention of them, the merest sketch of their magnificent features, kindles the imagination, and carries the spirit at once into the bosom of their enchanted regions.  How the mind is filled with their vast solitude!  How the inward eye is fixed on their silent, their sublime, their everlasting peaks!  How our hearts bound to the music of their solitary cries, to the tinkle of their gushing rills, to the sound of their cataracts!  How inspiriting are the odors that breathe from the upland turf, from the rock-hung flower, from the hoary and solemn pine!  How beautiful are those lights and shadows thrown abroad, and that fine, transparent haze which is diffused over the valleys and lower slopes, as over a vast, inimitable picture!

XXV.  THE JOLLY OLD PEDAGOGUE. (133)

George Arnold, 1834—­1865, was born in New York City.  He never attended school, but was educated at home, by his parents.  His literary career occupied a period of about twelve years.  In this time he wrote stories, essays, criticisms in art and literature, poems, sketches, etc., for several periodicals.  Two volumes of his poems have been published since his death. ###

’T was a jolly old pedagogue, long ago,
  Tall, and slender, and sallow, and dry;
His form was bent, and his gait was slow,
And his long, thin hair was white as snow,
  But a wonderful twinkle shone in his eye: 
And he sang every night as he went to bed,
  “Let us be happy down here below;
The living should live, though the dead be dead,”
  Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He taught the scholars the Rule of Three,
  Reading, and writing, and history too;
He took the little ones on his knee,
For a kind old heart in his breast had he,
  And the wants of the littlest child he knew. 
“Learn while you’re young,” he often said,
  “There is much to enjoy down here below;
Life for the living, and rest for the dead!”
  Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

With the stupidest boys, he was kind and cool,
  Speaking only in gentlest tones;
The rod was scarcely known in his school—­
Whipping to him was a barbarous rule,
  And too hard work for his poor old bones;
Besides it was painful, he sometimes said: 
  “We should make life pleasant down here below—­
The living need charity more than the dead,”
  Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He lived in the house by the hawthorn lane,
  With roses and woodbine over the door;
His rooms were quiet, and neat, and plain,
But a spirit of comfort there held reign,
  And made him forget he was old and poor. 
“I need so little,” he often said;
  “And my friends and relatives here below
Won’t litigate over me when I am dead,”
  Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.