Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seemed forms of giant height;
Their armor, as it caught the rays,
Flashed back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.--SCOTT.

It is a restful chapter in any book of Cooper's when somebody
doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites
for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in
peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he
is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred handier
things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper
requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't
do it, go and borrow one. In fact the Leather Stocking Series
ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series.
MARK TWAIN.

Live and love,
Doing both nobly, because lowlily;
Live and work, strongly, because patiently!
And, for the deed of Death, trust to God
That it be well done, unrepented of,
And not to loss. And thence with constant prayers
Fasten your souls so high, that constantly
The smile of your heroic cheer may float
Above all floods of earthly agonies,
Purification being the joy of pain.--MRS. BROWNING.

NOTE

The autobiographic elements in Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" and "Vicar
of Wakefield," in Charlotte Bronte's "Shirley" and "Villette," in
Dickens's "David Copperfield" and George Eliot's "Mill on the Floss,"
will be found interesting and helpful studies. In each case a good
biography of the author will give the necessary information to the
student.

CHAPTER III

SOME AESTHETIC PRINCIPLES

+25. AEsthetics.+ The science of beauty in general is called AEsthetics,
to which we have to look for some of the principles that are to guide
our critical judgment. Unfortunately for us, the science of beauty has
not yet been fully and satisfactorily wrought out, and the ablest
writers, from Aristotle to Herbert Spencer, exhibit great diversity of
view. There are two main theories of beauty: the one makes beauty
subjective, or an emotion of the mind; the other makes it objective, or
a quality in the external object. Without entering into the intricacies
and difficulties of the discussion, beauty will here be regarded as that
quality in literature which awakens in the cultivated reader a sense of
the beautiful. Th