After performing these good offices, the bright stranger fluttered sportively over the children's heads and looked so sweetly at them that they both began to think it not so very much amiss to have opened the box, since otherwise their cheery guest must have been 5 kept a prisoner among those naughty imps with stings in their tails. "Pray, who are you, beautiful creature?" inquired Pandora. "I am to be called Hope!" answered the sunshiny 10 figure. "And because I am such a cheery little body, I was packed into the box to make amends to the human race for that swarm of ugly Troubles which was destined to be let loose among them. Never fear! we shall do pretty well in spite of them all." "Your wings are colored like the rainbow!" exclaimed Pandora. "How very beautiful!" "How "Yes, they are like the rainbow," said Hope, "because, glad as my nature is, I am partly made of tears as well as smiles." "And will you stay with us," asked Epimetheus, "forever and ever?" 15 20 "As long as you need me," said Hope, with her pleasant smile, "and that will be as long as you live in the world, -I promise never to desert you. 25 There may come times and seasons, now and then, when you will think that I have utterly vanished. But again, and again, and again, when perhaps you least dream of it, you shall see the glimmer of my wings on the ceiling 5 of your cottage. Yes, my dear children, and I know something very good and beautiful that is to be given you hereafter!" "Oh, tell us!" they exclaimed, "tell us what it is!" "Do not ask me," replied Hope, putting her finger on her rosy mouth. "But do not despair even if it should never happen while you live on this earth. Trust in my promise, for it is true." "We do trust you!" cried Epimetheus and Pandora, 10 both in one breath. And so they did; and not only they, but so has everybody that has since been alive, trusted Hope. And to tell you the truth, I cannot help being glad (though, to be sure, it was an uncommonly naughty thing for 15 her to do) -but I cannot help being glad that our foolish Pandora peeped into the box. No doubt -no doubt the Troubles are still flying about the world, and have increased in multitude, rather than lessened, and are a very ugly set of imps, and carry most veno20 mous stings in their tails. I have felt them already, and expect to feel them more as I grow older. But then that lovely and lightsome little figure of Hope! What in the world could we do without her? Hope spiritualizes the earth; Hope makes it always new; and, 25 even in the earth's best and brightest aspect, Hope shows it to be only the shadow of an infinite bliss hereafter. 1. What QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION were which Pandora had let the creatures 7. Who was knocking inside the box? When Pandora asked Epimetheus if she should open the box again, he said: "Just as you please. You have done so much mischief already that perhaps you may as well do a little more.' Does this sound cares as you can think 2. What has poor Pandora's 3. How did she and Epimetheus try to get rid of their troubles? Can you think of any hidden meaning in the fact that the children just like some man who really wanted to know what was in the box but did not wish to share in the blame if a mistake were made? let their troubles out of 8. What made Pandora's heart the windows so that they troubled other people? Do most persons distribute their troubles thus? 4. What happened to all live things after the troubles got out among them? 5. How did Pandora and Epimetheus act toward each other after they saw 10. what Pandora's curiosity had brought upon them? 6. In the greatest of their troubles, what peculiar sound did they hear? grow lighter when she heard the cheerful little voice begging to be let out of the box? What hidden meaning has this for us? 9. What was the name of the dear little creature in the box? What does this part of the story mean? Why did the lid seem so heavy when the children. tried to let Hope out? Is it sometimes very hard to hope when troubles are very heavy? never happen while you live on this earth "? Why does Hawthorne say, "I cannot help being glad that our foolish Pandora peeped into the box"? What is always left us What is meant by the last of smiles"? Turn to page 297, and read aloud the poem "Hope." Nathaniel Hawthorne, the great American novelist, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804. He was graduated from Bowdoin College, Maine, where he was a fellow student with the poet Longfellow and Franklin Pierce, afterwards president of the United States. He wrote several famous novels and a number of volumes of beautiful stories for children. "The Paradise of Children," which you have just read, is taken from Hawthorne's "A Wonder Book." Hawthorne died in 1864, having achieved lasting fame as a writer. AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW This poem is about as full of pictures as so short a poem possibly could be. See whether you can find fourteen eye-pictures and two ear-pictures in the poem. There are four pictures in the first short stanza, which has only fifteen words in it. Now read the poem silently, and very slowly, line by line. After each line close your eyes, and try hard to see the picture. Try the first line carefully, striving to recall the ending of a day in February. It should take several minutes to see this picture. Don't hurry. Look for a picture in every line. Learn the meanings of the following words before reading the poem: a funeral train: a line of car-pealing: tolling. riages following the body of a dismal knell (něl): the tolling dead person. of a church bell. AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY 1 The day is ending, The night is descending; The marsh is frozen, The river dead! |