6

The ocean pales where'er I sweep,
To hear my strength rejoice,
And the monsters of the briny deep
Cower, trembling, at my voice.

I carry the wealth and the lord of earth,
The thoughts of his god-like mind,
The wind lags after my flying forth,
The lightning is left behind.

7

In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine,
My tireless arm doth play,

Where the rocks never saw the sun decline,
Or the dawn of the glorious day.
I bring earth's glittering jewels up

From the hidden cave below,

And I make the fountain's granite cup
With a crystal gush o'erflow.

8

I blow the bellows, I forge the steel,
In all the shops of trade;

I hammer the ore and turn the wheel,

Where my arms of strength are made;
I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint;
I carry, I spin, I weave;

And all my doings I put into print,
On every Saturday eve.

I've no muscle to weary, no breast to decay,
No bones to be "laid on the shelf,"
And soon I intend you may "go and play,"

While I manage this world myself.

But harness me down with your iron bands,
Be sure of your curb and rein;

For I scorn the strength of your puny hands,
As the tempest scorns a chain.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

5

SILAS MARNER AND LITTLE EPPIE

GEORGE ELIOT

Have you ever thought that only a century and a half ago, all kinds of cloth, now made in great factories and with hardly the touch of a hand, were made on hand looms and wholly by "hand”? Even the cloth in the robes of kings and queens was woven by hand on these small looms. In all European countries, there were many thousands of weavers who, on such looms in their homes, wove cloth for the markets of the world; but the invention of the steam engine (1769), the spinning jenny (1767), and the power loom changed all that, and the poor weaver of cloth, with his hand loom, had to "go out of business."

The following selection is taken from the long story, "Silas Marner," which was written by George Eliot, an English novelist. To understand the selection, you should know something of the longer story.

Silas Marner, according to George Eliot's story, was a poor young English weaver in the days when all kinds of cloth were made on hand looms. There came to him a sorrow so great that he wanted to go away from every one he had ever known. So he left his native village, and in an old stone cottage near the village of Raveloe, he set up his loom and began again his life as a weaver. In his lonely cottage, his heart full of bitterness towards all the world because of his sorrow, he toiled day and night at his loom. He spoke to no one unless it was necessary. He brooded over his wrongs and hated everything except the shining gold and silver for which he sold the cloth that he wove.

Every one must have something to love; and as Silas Marner hated the world, his heart turned to his money. This he loved as only a miser loves his yellow gold. Under his loom, he removed some bricks and beneath it made a hiding place for his treasure. At night, with doors closed and windows darkened, he would get out his bags of yellow coins and count them over and over and gloat over them as only a true miser can.

But one night while Silas was in the village, a thief broke into the stone cottage, and the weaver came home to find his treasure stolen. The savings of a lifetime were gone.

The discovery of his loss almost unbalanced his mind. When he realized that his precious treasure was gone, he screamed in agony. From that time on, he thought only of his lost yellow gold.

A few weeks after Silas Marner's treasure was stolen, a poor woman carrying in her arms her little golden-haired daughter was lost in a great storm and perished in the snow near Silas's cottage. But the little girl, seeing the light in the cottage, toddled towards it. Into the cottage she went, and sat down on the hearth before the warm fire, where she fell asleep.

Silas, dreaming of his lost gold, had not heard her enter. Finally he walked over to his fireplace. There on the hearth, to his astonishment, he saw the yellow of his lost gold. He stooped to run his hands through it, but found instead the golden ringlets of Little Eppie, the tiny girl who had wandered in from her mother, dead in the snow.

The story that you are about to read will tell you how Silas Marner, in Eppie's golden hair, found his lost yellow gold, and how in his care of her and his love for her, he found again his lost joy of living.

As you read the story, try hard to see all that it tells you. Try to see Silas Marner as he works at his loom, as he broods over his sorrow, and as he counts over his yellow gold.

Picture the poor mother in the storm and Little Eppie as she

wanders through the snow and into the cottage, and imagine how her yellow hair on the hearth looked like the miser's lost gold.

Imagine Silas Marner when he sees her and mistakes her hair for his lost treasure.

You cannot fail to see the picture of Silas Marner, the weaver who had lost his treasure and found it again in the little goldenhaired girl, playing with her among the wild flowers of the meadow, listening to a bird's song and pretending that they are keeping still lest the bird may not sing again, while the little girl straightens her small back and laughs and gurgles when it does sing.

Read over these names and words with their meanings first, so that you may not miss any of the story:

Raveloe (răv'ê-lō): the town where Silas Marner lived. pallid: pale.

solitude: loneliness; absence of

other persons. pulsation: here, meaning that he did not really live, but that his heart beat on with no desire but for gold.

guineas (gin'iz): English pieces

of gold money worth $5.11. half-crowns: English pieces of silver money worth 60.8 cents each.

torpor unconsciousness.
trance: partial unconsciousness.
automatically: done from force
of habit.

instinctive without thought or
reasoning.

SILAS MARNER AND LITTLE EPPIE

PART I

In the days when the spinning wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses, and when even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning wheels of polished oak, there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the