From "My Lady Legend," translated from the Swedish by Miss Rydingsvärd.
Used by the special permission of the publishers, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
I want it to be said of me by those who know me best that I have always plucked a thistle and planted a flower in its place wherever a flower would grow.
lux'u ry med'i cine a bun'dant wil'der ness
God might have bade the earth bring forth Enough for great and small, The oak tree, and the cedar tree, Without a flower at all.
He might have made enough, enough, For every want of ours; For luxury, medicine, and toil, And yet have made no flowers.
The ore within the mountain mine Requireth none to grow, Nor doth it need the lotus flower To make the river flow.
The clouds might give abundant rain, The nightly dews might fall, And the herb that keepeth life in man Might yet have drunk them all.
Then wherefore, wherefore were they made All dyed with rainbow light, All fashioned with supremest grace, Upspringing day and night--
Springing in valleys green and low, And on the mountains high, And in the silent wilderness, Where no man passeth by?
Our outward life requires them not, Then wherefore had they birth? To minister delight to man, To beautify the earth;
To whisper hope--to comfort man Whene'er his faith is dim; For whoso careth for the flowers Will care much more for Him!
Give the plural forms of the following name-words: tree, leaf, copy, foot, shoe, calf, life, child, tooth, valley.
Insert the proper punctuation marks in the following stanza:
In the country on every side Where far and wide Like a leopard's tawny hide Stretches the plain To the dry grass and drier grain How welcome is the rain.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
deigned in' va lid lone' li ness smoothed med'i cine be wil'dered gen' ius riv' et ed soul-sub du' ing
In a humble room, in one of the poorer streets of London, little Pierre, a fatherless French boy, sat humming by the bedside of his sick mother. There was no bread in the house; and he had not tasted food all day. Yet he sat humming to keep up his spirits.
Still, at times, he thought of his loneliness and hunger, and he could scarcely keep the tears from his eyes; for he knew that nothing would be so welcome to his poor invalid mother as a good sweet orange; and yet he had not a penny in the world.