very rocks on which the schooner lay, and which the 125 watermen call the "under-tow," Dillon had unknowingly thrown his person; and when the waves had driven him a short distance from the wreck, he was met by a stream that his most desperate efforts could not overcome. He was a light and powerful swimmer, 130 and the struggle was hard and protracted. With the shore immediately before his eyes and at no great distance, he was led, as by a false phantom, to continue his. efforts, although they did not advance him a foot. The old seaman, who at first had watched his motions with 135 careless indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a glance, and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a voice that was driven over the struggling victim to the ears of his shipmates on the sands,

"Sheer to port, and clear the under-tow! Sheer to 140 the southward !"

Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties were too much obscured by terror to distinguish their object; he, however, blindly yielded to the call, and gradually changed his direction until his face was once more 145 turned toward the vessel. The current swept him diagonally by the rocks, and he was forced into an eddy where he had nothing to contend against but the waves, whose violence was much broken by the wreck. In this state he continued still to struggle, but 150 with a force that was too much weakened to overcome the resistance he met. Tom looked around him for a rope, but not one presented itself to his hands; all had gone over with the spars or been swept away by the waves. At this moment of disappointment his eyes 155 met those of the desperate Dillon. Calm and inured to horrors as was the veteran seaman, he involuntarily

ANALYSIS.-137. Name the modifiers of shouted.

passed his hand before his brow as if to exclude the look of despair he encountered; and when, a moment afterward, he removed the rigid member, he beheld the 160 sinking form of the victim as it gradually settled in the ocean, still struggling with regular but impotent strokes of the arms and feet to gain the wreck and to preserve an existence that had been so much abused in its hour of ailotted probation. "He will soon know his God, 165 and learn that his God knows him," murmured the coxswain to himself. As he yet spoke the wreck of the Ariel yielded to an overwhelming sea, and after a universal shudder her timbers and planks gave way, and were swept toward the cliffs, bearing the body of 170 the simple-hearted coxswain among the ruins.

ANALYSIS.-158. Dispose of as if.

161. the victim. Who is meant?

168. overwhelming sea. What figure?

169. universal shudder. Criticise. Point out the figure in the line 171. simple-hearted. What figure?

16. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,

1804-1864.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, an American novelist of raro merit, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804. He entered Bowdoin College, Maine, and graduated in 1825 in the same class with the poet Longfellow. ExPresident Franklin Pierce, who was a member of the class of 1824, was his intimate personal friend.

After quitting college, Hawthorne resided many years in Salem, leading a life of solitude, meditation, and study. It is said he secluded himself even from his own family, walking out alone at night, and spending the days in writing wild and fanciful tales, most of which he burned, but some of which were printed in the periodicals of the day.

His first literary venture was a romance entitled Fanshawe, which was published anonymously in 1828. Hawthorne, however, never acknowledged its authorship, and it was never reprinted.

His first successful work was a collection of tales which he selected from his previously published sketches in the various periodicals, called Twice-Told Tales. Longfellow spoke of it in the North American Review in high praise, but it at first did not attract much attention from the public Gradually, however, it won its way to favor, and in 1842 a new edition was issued.

In 1838, Hawthorne was appointed a weigher and gauger in the custom-house at Salem by the historian Bancroft, who was then surveyor of the port, and he held this position until the Presidency of Harrison in

1841, when he was removed. He then lived for a time at Brook Farm, being one of the founders of the community, but soon removed to Boston, where he married Miss Sophia Peabody, and then took up his residence in the old manse at Concord, where he wrote Mosses from an Old Manse, published in 1846.

In this same year Mr. Hawthorne was appointed surveyor of the port of Salem, and, removing thither, he held the position for three years. His next novel, and the most powerful and popular he ever wrote, The Scarlet Letter, was published in the year 1850. This story gave its author a widespread reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. The next year he published The House of Seven Gables, and in 1852 The Blithedale Romance. During this same year he returned to Concord, but the next year his friend President Pierce appointed him consul at Liverpool, a post which he held until 1857, when he resigned and spent two years in travel through France and Italy. On his return to the United States in 1860 he published The Marble Faun, by many thought to be his best romance. In addition to the above-mentioned works he published True Stories from History and · Biography, The Wonder-Book for Boys and Girls, Tanglewood Tales, Our Old Home, and others.

Hawthorne lived quietly at his Concord home from 1860 to 1864, when he set out on a journey through New Hampshire with his friend ex-President Pierce. Having reached a hotel at Plymouth, he stopped for the night, and was found dead in his bed on the following morning, May 19, 1864.

CRITICISM BY R. H. STODDARD.

THE writings of Hawthorne are marked by subtle imagination, conscious power of analysis, ard exquisite

diction. He studied exceptional developments of cha racter, and was fond of exploring secret crypts of emo tion. His shorter stories are remarkable for originality and suggestiveness, and his larger ones are as absolute creations as Hamlet or Undine. Lacking the accomplishment of verse, he was in the highest sense a poet. His work is pervaded by manly personality and by almost feminine delicacy and gentleness. He inherited the gravity of his Puritan ancestors, without their superstition, and learned in his solitary meditations a knowledge of the night-side of life which would have filled them with suspicion. A profound anatomist of the heart, he was singularly free from morbidness, and in his darkest speculations concerning evil was robustly right-minded. He worshiped conscience with his intellectual as well as his moral nature; it is supreme in all he wrote. Besides these mental traits, he possessed the literary quality of style-a grace, a charm, a perfection of language, which no other American writer ever possessed in the same degree, and which places him among the great masters of English prose.

THE OLD MANSE.

NOTE.-The following extract, which is a part of Hawthorne's description of his home at Concord, is taken from Mosses from an Old Manse. The manse was located near the scene of the Concord fight of April, 1775.

PERHAPS the reader-whom I cannot help considering as my guest in the Old Manse, and entitled to all courtesy in the way of sight-showing, perhaps he will choose to take a nearer view of the memorable spot. We stand now on the river's brink. It may well be 5 called the Concord, the river of peace and quietness, for

ANALYSIS.-4. Why memorable spot!