Chapter X: Part II: The Pillar of Fire by Night (1)

By next morning our storm of sleet had turned into a half-blizzard of snow and we put another great birch log on the fire, got out a new can of Prunier's favorite pipe tobacco, and generally made ready to extract the rest of his story from him when he had finished straightening up the kitchen.

“Yaas,” he said, “the next day to the day I was telling you about was just such another as this. All that morning I walked toward _le bon Dieu's_ pillar of smoke, and in the afternoon I reached it, rising from the great whirling pool of steaming water into the gray sky that was thickening for a great snow--the real beginning of winter.

“Not far from the Smoky Pool, just as the dead man had said it would be, rode the schooner in the ice-locked cove where she had been wrecked. All was as still as a scared mouse. Behind me rose that white wavering pillar; and in front the vessel leaned a little, as if to subside into a wave-trough that would never receive her. But silence covered all, and I dreaded to enter that ship for fear of what I should see.

“But the dead man had been a better brother than he had been a ship-pilot, for he had left his sister most of the food; and when my foot-falls sounded uncannily loud upon the deck, she came running out of the cabin, a thin-cheeked, pale, slim woman. How she smiled! How the smile died from her face when she saw it was not her brother, but a stranger, torn, bloody-bandaged, ready to drop for fatigue!

“'Tell me, tell me quickly, what has happened. Who are you?' She steadied herself against the cabin doorway. 'Is my brother--not living?'

“I had not the heart or the words to tell her at that moment that I had left her brother closing his eyes in death in my little cabin so far away. I think I asked _le bon Dieu_ to put words in my mouth that would not cause her to faint. Anyway, the words came from me: 'Your brother sent me. I left him--happy.'

“'I knew God would not desert me entirely,' she said. 'When will he return?'

“'When _le bon Dieu_ leads the way,' I said, and I told her about the pillar of cloud which had guided me to her.

“She pointed aloft, and I saw a lantern tied to the masthead. 'I have put it there to light every night until he returns,' she said. 'It will be lit many a night,' said I to myself; and I must have sighed aloud, for she looked curiously at me. 'I am cruel!' she exclaimed; 'I must show you your room.' She said it with almost a laugh, for it was a funny little bunk she led me to. Into it I crawled, and off to sleep I went, scarcely conscious that she washed the blood from my face and ministered to my other wounds. When I woke, it was the next day.

“And such a day as it was! one thick smother of snow coming up the great valley of the St. Lawrence on a bitter wind. And bitter cold it was, too, in the little cabin of our schooner, though the fire in the stove did its best. I was too sick, though, to know much what was going on. Several times I heard the chopping of a hatchet. Several times she came to me with hot food. And as the day passed, strength came back to my blood and I got up. I surprised her lighting the lantern and taking it out into the wild evening. I tried to stop that, fearing some accident to her in the roar and rush of the storm, but she said her brother must be lighted back, and so in the end it was I who had to haul the swaying lantern to the masthead.

“For three days the snow flew by and heaped an ever-increasing drift across the deck, around the cabin door. On the fourth day we looked out on a scene of desolation. The sun shone dimly in skies of pinching cold. There was no pillar of smoke, the pool having at last been frozen over. There was a wide river of ice, piled in fantastic floes, a wider plain, spotted here and there with thickets. And far off ran the dark line of forest, inhabited by wolves which would speedily become fiercer. In the forest far away stood my little cabin with its dead man keeping guard. It would be long before I should see it, if I ever did. Without snow-shoes, it would be impossible to cross the forest now; without food, we could live only a short time longer on the ship. And then I made the discovery that our stove fire was being maintained by schooner wood. That had accounted for her chopping and for her grave face as she carried in the wood. She had been breaking up a part of the ship each day to keep the fire going!

“The responsibilities upon me made me forget my sorrows, the death of ole Pierre, the lost time for trapping, the pinch of hunger. I made a makeshift pair of skees from two plankings of the schooner, and journeyed daily to some thicket by the shore wherein I had set my snares, and we lived on rabbit stew. With much labor I cut a hole in the ice, through which, with much patience, she fished. But days went by when it was too stormy either to hunt or to fish, and we sat huddled about the stove in which we burned as little wood as we could to keep from freezing.

“During such times we talked, but not of the future, only of the past. She told me how they, she and her brother, had set out on a rumor of gold in the Laurentians; how the crew had deserted in a body with most of the stores; how she and her brother had been unable to man the ship sufficiently to keep it from this disaster. A dozen times she described the scene where he had said farewell to her on the morning of the day he had found me. A hundred times she asked me to tell her of our meeting; and a thousand, I may well say, she wondered how soon he would return.

“Every evening she had me hang the lantern to the mast to guide him back. I could not prevent it, except by telling of his death, and that I could not do. I feared that the news, coupled with our desperate situation, would end her life. As it was, she was far too weak to travel now, even if I had had the snow-shoes for her.

“Thus passed the first days. Then I saw that something must be done or else we should soon have burned up the house that sheltered us, deck, mast, and hull, before Christmas. Even then we were beginning on the walls of the schooner, since she would not let me chop down the mast.

“'There will be no place to hang the lantern if you destroy that!' she cried, when she had rushed out on deck one morning, to find me half-way through the strong oak.

“'Your brother will not travel by night,' I said.

“'How do you know?' she asked, a new harshness in her tired voice; 'you, who will tell me so little about my brother!'

“This was an unkind reproach, for I had indeed stretched the facts too much already in order to comfort her.

“'We cannot freeze,' I replied. 'You would not want him to arrive and find us dead. I have measured out the fuel and know it is unwise not to begin on these unnecessary parts of the ship first.'

“'Do you call my signal-mast unnecessary?' she called, her two thin hands beating upon the wood. 'You are cruel. You would keep my brother from me.'

“From that morning there began a sullenness between us, which was nourished by too little food, and by being shut up in that bit of a schooner cabin too long together. For relief's sake, when I was not off snaring rabbits or looking for some stray up-river seal with my revolver in my hand, I began building an igloo, a hut of snow you know, not far from the ship. I thought that the time must be prepared for when we should have chopped up our shelter, and have pushed our home piecemeal into that devouring stove.

“She made no comment on my preparations. In fact, we did not talk now, except to say the most necessary things. I was not sorry, for it relieved me from telling over and over that impossible story of her brother's return. I was convinced now that he had died, and my heart grieved for her final discovery of the news. But the saddest thing was to see the hunger for him grow daily stronger on her face. And it was pitiful, too, to watch her light the lantern with hands weak enough to tremble, to attach it to the signal-rope, and pull it to the masthead. She would never let me assist her in this act.

“'To-morrow we must move,' I said one night. 'I have completed the igloo. It will economize our fuel.'

“She nodded, weakly, as if she cared little what happened on the morrow.

“'And unless we catch a seal, we must save oil,' I added. The waste of burning a lantern to attract a dead man's notice had got upon my nerves. 'Please do not light it to-night, else we will go into the new year dark.'

“'I shall not give up my brother!' she cried, with all her strength, 'for he will not give up me. But why does he not come? Why does he not come?'

“It was heart-wringing to see her--to know what was in store. But it would have been less kind of me to let this deception go on.

“'He will never come,' I said, as softly as I could; 'there is no use in the light. Let us save oil.'

“Her weary, searching eyes questioned my face for the first time in days, and then she struck a match and applied it to the wick.

“'He will come,' she said calmly, 'for God will guide him, and I am helping God.' She went out into the dusk, and I heard the futile lantern being pulled up to the masthead. I could not bear to interfere.

“So, since save fuel we must, I began practising deceit by stealing out the next evening, lowering the signal and extinguishing it, then hoisting the black lantern into place. But she guessed; and on the second night, as I had my hand upon the rope to lower it, she grasped my arm, her eyes flashing, her weak voice vibrant like the storm-wind.

“'Do you dare?' she said; 'do you dare betray me? You do not _want_ my brother.' And with fury she grasped the rope and jerked it from my hand. A sudden anger filled me.

“'Unreasonable woman,' I cried, 'we must have the mast for firewood; we must have the oil for light in the igloo! Let me alone.'

“'Let _me_ alone!' she screamed, struggling for the rope.

“It must have been insecurely fastened. At any rate, we had not been contending many seconds in the darkness for the control of the light above our heads when we heard a rattle and saw it coming down upon us. I pushed her away just in time. The lantern struck some metal, burst, and the spattering oil caught fire in the swiftness of a thought.

“For the first moment we were dumb; in the second, horror-struck. As a serpent darts its tongue, rills of oil spread down the plank-seams of the deck; and from each rill, flame leaped and ran about the ship. With a wild shriek, the woman began to carry snow from a drift on the prow and sprinkle it on the spreading conflagration. She might as well have tried to extinguish it with her tears. In two minutes, yellow tongues were running up the mast--that mast I had hoped would warm our igloo for a fortnight. In three, there was no hope of a splinter of the cold-dried boat remaining. I made one plunge into the cabin and grabbed an arm-load of clothes and food, and ran with them to the igloo. But when I had returned, there was no chance for a second try. The cabin was a furnace of eager flame.

“The woman, the weeping cause of this, and I were beaten back by the heat, and at the opening of our only refuge now, the hut of snow, we stood and watched the swift destruction of the schooner's hulk. About us, the night's darkness was driven to its dusky horizons. Overhead, the zenith was lit by the up-roaring pillar of fire which had so lately been a mast, a deck, a ship. We looked in silence, while the tower of flame rushed into the sky, like a signal to the wilderness. But a signal of what? Two houseless individuals, robbed of their store of food, with no means of moving, and nowhere to move.”

Prunier paused, and Essex Lad drew a long breath. It was his first for minutes.

“So that was your pillar of fire?” I said, “It seems to me more like one of Satan's than the Lord's.”

Prunier made an expressive gesture with his pipe. “_Le bon Dieu_ does all things for the best,” he said reverently. “_Alors._ We stood there watching, the heat reaching us, and even eating maliciously into the white walls of our last hiding-place. But that did not go on long, for the ship was pouring its soul too lavishly into that hot pyre to last.

“'Quick,' I said to my fellow-outcast, 'drink in all the heat you can, for this is the end.'

“'And it is my fault!' she said; 'can you forgive me?'

“'Can _you_?' I asked. 'We must be brave now. Let us warm ourselves while there are coals to warm us. Let us warm our wits and think, for before day dawns we must have a plan.'

“'It is too hard,' she said hopelessly.

“'Trust God for one night more. Perhaps I can make a sledge and pull you to my cabin. There is food there.'

“'You are too weak,' she said. And I knew that she was right.

“As the pillar of fire died down until it was a mere bright spiral of gilded smoke, and after the sides of the schooner had burned to the water-line, leaving great benches of blackened ice about, we drew nearer and nearer to the lessening warmth. Darkness and cold and the northern silence shut us in.

“We spoke in whispers, but hope died in me with the fading fire. What chance for escape was there with a half-starved woman across a great snow-plain; and then through forests deep with the first snows and roamed by wolves, whose savageries I had tasted?

“Luckily there was no wind. Smaller and smaller was the circle of light, weaker and weaker the heat. And tireder and more tired grew our heads that could see no light of safety ahead.

“I think, sitting close together there, we dozed. Certainly not for long, however, because the pillar of fire, though now a mere thread, was still pointing a finger into _le bon Dieu's_ heaven, when I heard a _crunch_, _crunch_!

“'Wolves!' I said to myself, coming to my senses with a jerk. I felt for a revolver, but the only one had been left in the cabin.

“'Dear Lord,' I prayed, 'spare us this.'

“But the crunch came nearer, nearer, like the soft foot-falls of many beasts, yet not quite like them either. I grasped a black-charred spar; ran it into a heap of red ashes to make it as deadly a weapon as possible. A little flame sprang from the pile, and in its light I went to grapple with this new danger.

“The woman had heard, and, with a little scream, sprang to her feet and

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quickly came up behind me, put her hand upon me, and cried: 'He has come! It is my brother who has come!'

“And, as in the Bible, where Monsieur Moses spoke to the rock and the water gushed from it, so the woman cried into the dark and an answering voice sprang from it--a voice as from the dead.

“I stood trembling, too weak to move.

“'You made a fine signal,' the voice said. 'Thank God for it!'

“'Yes, thank _le bon Dieu_, for it was His pillar of fire,' I said. 'Who are you?'

“'The rescued come to rescue,' he replied; 'her brother.'

“His sister had sunk upon the snow. As he bent to pick her up, I saw the extra pairs of snow-shoes on his back, I noticed my toboggan that he was pulling, and the stores of food upon it.

“'You are strong again,' I said, wishing to pinch him to see whether he was he, or a trick of some werewolf who was deceiving me.

“'Thanks to your food,' “'But you have been long coming, brother,' said she, weakly. 'Why so long?'

“'All the bays are much alike,' he explained; 'and when the Smoky Pool was frozen, I lost my only clue. I was getting always farther away on my hunt, when the Lord turned and led me here by His pillar of fire.'

“And the three of us, standing there in the dark of earliest dawn beneath the Great Bear, we keep still and say three--four prayers from ourselves to that same Jehovah who had guided Monsieur Moses, for the making of us safe.”

* * * * *

Prunier ceased abruptly and knocked out his pipe upon the hearth-side, then gazed reminiscently out into the falling snow.

I was busy with the picture in my brain of that blackened hulk, the frail woman and her almost helpless companion standing there in the midst of that gray waste of coming dawn. But the Lad's mind had already gone scouting on before.

“And were you made safe, Prunier?” he asked.

“Oh, _certainement_!” said the guide, almost drolly. “_Voyez_, I am here.”

“Then tell us--” commanded the insatiable youth.

“_Mais, cette une longue histoire_,” was all we heard.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. What means does the author employ to lead naturally into the
story of romantic adventure?

2. What is the advantage of introducing two ordinary people in the
very beginning of the story?

3. What is the character of Prunier?

4. How do Prunier's peculiar characteristics aid the story?

5. How does the author indicate Prunier's way of speaking?

6. Why is the entire story not told in dialect?

7. How does the author present the setting of the story?

8. What part does the dog play in the story?

9. What part does superstition play?

10. Point out the three or four most exciting parts of the story.

11. Explain how the characters are saved from threatening dangers.

12. In what respects is the story a narrative of contest?

13. Why is the narrative divided into two sections?

14. Why are the two ordinary people mentioned throughout the story?

15. What part does religious faith play?

16. In what respects is the second part of the story more intense
than the first part?

17. What is the character of the sister?

18. What is the character of the brother?

19. How does misfortune turn into blessing?

20. How is the climax made emphatic?

21. What did Prunier omit?

22. Point out the most romantic episodes in the story.

23. Point out the most realistic touches in the story.

24. What noble qualities does the story emphasize?

25. How does the story affect the reader?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. Prunier's Return 11. Prunier's First Moose
2. The Brother's Adventures 12. Why Prunier Lived in
the North
3. The Story of the Shipwreck 13. The Sister's Return to
Civilization
4. The Mutiny of the Crew 14. In Prunier's Hut
5. Prunier's Boyhood 15. The Strange Visitor
6. How Prunier Obtained Pierre 16. The End of the Wolves
7. Prunier's Longest Journey 17. Prunier Tells Another Story
8. Why Prunier Was Superstitious 18. The Sister Tells a Story
9. The Rescue of Pierre 19. The Fate of the Deserters
10. How Prunier Lost a Companion 20. Prunier's Last Day

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

In the introduction of your romance use familiar scenes, events or characters that will lead naturally to a narrative of startling events. Say enough to indicate the setting of your story and to make it a vital factor in producing effect but do not write any long-drawn descriptions or explanations. Let your characters tell the story and present its setting.

Make all the action hinge on worthy effort, and contribute to awakening respect for the characters. Tell a series of most unusual events. In telling every incident make full use of suspense and of climax. Tell the incidents in such a way that one will lead naturally to another.

Your story will produce the most startling effect if you show your hero apparently defeated but able, at the last moment, to find a means of escape from danger.

Keep your story true to human nature, and to the best ideals of human nature.

THE DIDACTIC ESSAY

THE AMERICAN BOY
By THEODORE ROOSEVELT

_(1858-1919). Twenty-sixth President of the United States. One of
the most vigorous, courageous and picturesque figures in the public
life of his day. Soon after his graduation from Harvard, and from
Columbia Law School he entered public life, and gave invaluable
service in many positions, becoming President in 1901, and again
in 1904. His work as an organizer of the “Rough Riders,” his skill
in horsemanship, his courage as an explorer and hunter, and his
staunch patriotism and high ideals all made him both interesting
and beloved. His work as an author is alone sufficient to make
him great. Among his many books are_ The Winning of the West; The
Strenuous Life; African Game Trails; True Americanism.

=_The American Boy_ is a didactic essay,--an essay that expresses
the writer's individuality and opinions and at the same time
conveys instruction in the form of inspiration. Such an essay
approaches the oration and the treatise. It differs from the
oration in being less strongly didactic, and from the treatise in
being less formal and comprehensive.=

=Mr. Roosevelt's personality is particularly evident in _The
American Boy_. In every paragraph the reader feels the virile
strength, the masterful force, the firm-set manhood, the
broad-minded attitude toward all things that are good, and the
intense hatred of cowardice and evil that always characterized Mr.
Roosevelt. The writer is not so much telling a boy what to do as he
is telling what sort of boy he admires.=

=The force of such an essay is great. No one, boy or man, can read
_The American Boy_ without being the better for it, without himself
admiring manliness, the right balance between athletics and study,
and the ideals of courage and fair-play.=

Of course, what we have a right to expect of the American boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man. Now, the chances are strong that he won't be much of a man unless he is a good deal of a boy. He must not be a coward or a weakling, a bully, a shirk, or a prig. He must work hard and play hard. He must be clean-minded and clean-lived, and able to hold his own under all circumstances and against all comers. It is only on these conditions that he will grow into the kind of American man of whom America can be really proud.

There are always in life countless tendencies for good and for evil, and each succeeding generation sees some of these tendencies strengthened and some weakened; nor is it by any means always, alas! that the tendencies for evil are weakened and those for good strengthened. But during the last few decades there certainly have been some notable changes for good in boy life. The great growth in the love of athletic sports, for instance, while fraught with danger if it becomes one-sided and unhealthy, has beyond all question had an excellent effect in in-reared manliness. Forty or fifty years ago the writer on American morals was sure to deplore the effeminacy and luxury of young Americans who were born of rich parents. The boy who was well off then, especially in the big Eastern cities, lived too luxuriously, took to billiards as his chief innocent recreation, and felt small shame in his inability to take part in rough pastimes and field sports. Nowadays, whatever other faults the son of rich parents may tend to develop, he is at least forced by the opinion of all his associates of his own age to bear himself well in manly exercises and to develop his body--and therefore, to a certain extent, his character--in the rough sports which call for pluck, endurance, and physical address.

Of course, boys who live under such fortunate conditions that they have to do either a good deal of outdoor work or a good deal of what might be called natural outdoor play, do not need this athletic development. In the Civil War the soldiers who came from the prairie and the backwoods and the rugged farms where stumps still dotted the clearings, and who had learned to ride in their infancy, to shoot as soon as they could handle a rifle, and to camp out whenever they got the chance, were better fitted for military work than any set of mere school or college athletes could possibly be. Moreover, to mis-estimate athletics is equally bad whether their importance is magnified or minimized. The Greeks were famous athletes, and as long as their athletic training had a normal place in their lives, it was a good thing. But it was a very bad thing when they kept up their athletic games while letting the stern qualities of soldiership and statesmanship sink into disuse. Some of the boys who read this paper will certainly sometime read the famous letters of the younger Pliny, a Roman who wrote, with what seems to us a curiously modern touch, in the first century of the present era. His correspondence with the Emperor Trajan is particularly interesting; and not the least noteworthy thing in it is the tone of contempt with which he speaks of the Greek athletic sports, treating them as the diversions of an unwarlike people which it was safe to encourage in order to keep the Greeks from turning into anything formidable. So at one time the Persian kings had to forbid polo, because soldiers neglected their proper duties for the fascinations of the game. To-day, some good critics have asserted that the reverses suffered by the British at the hands of the Boers in South Africa are in part due to the fact that the English officers and soldiers have carried to an unhealthy extreme the sports and pastimes which would be healthy if indulged in with moderation, and have neglected to learn as they should the business of their profession. A soldier needs to know how to shoot and take cover and shift for himself--not to box or play football. There is, of course, always the risk of thus mistaking means for ends. English fox-hunting is a first-class sport; but one of the most absurd things in real life is to note the bated breath with which certain excellent Englishmen, otherwise of quite healthy minds, speak of this admirable but not over-important pastime. They tend to make it almost as much of a fetish as, in the last century, the French and German nobles made the chase of the stag, when they carried hunting and game-preserving to a point which was ruinous to the national life. Fox-hunting is very good as a pastime, but it is about as poor a business as can be followed by any man of intelligence. Certain writers about it are fond of quoting the anecdote of a fox-hunter who, in the days of the English Civil War, was discovered pursuing his favorite sport just before a great battle between the Cavaliers and the Puritans, and right between their lines as they came together. These writers apparently consider it a merit in this man that when his country was in a death-grapple, instead of taking arms and hurrying to the defense of the cause he believed right, he should placidly have gone about his usual sports. Of course, in reality the chief serious use of fox-hunting is to encourage manliness and vigor, and keep a man so that in time of need he can show himself fit to take part in work or strife for his native land. When a man so far confuses ends and means as to think that fox-hunting, or polo, or football, or whatever else the sport may be, is to be itself taken as the end, instead of as the mere means of preparation to do work that counts when the time arises, when the occasion calls--why, that man had better abandon sport altogether.

No boy can afford to neglect his work, and with a boy work, as a rule, means study. Of course, there are occasionally brilliant successes in life where the man has been worthless as a student when a boy. To take these exceptions as examples would be as unsafe as it would be to advocate blindness because some blind men have won undying honor by triumphing over their physical infirmity and accomplishing great results in the world. I am no advocate of senseless and excessive cramming in studies, but a boy should work, and should work hard, at his lessons--in the first place, for the sake of what he will learn, and in the next place, for the sake of the effect upon his own character of resolutely settling down to learn it. Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference in studying, are almost certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life. Of course, as a boy grows older it is a good thing if he can shape his studies in the direction toward which he has a natural bent; but whether he can do this or not, he must put his whole heart into them. I do not believe in mischief-doing in school hours, or in the kind of animal spirits that results in making bad scholars; and I believe that those boys who take part in rough, hard play outside of school will not find any need for horse-play in school. While they study they should study just as hard as they play football in a match game. It is wise to obey the homely old adage, “Work while you work; play while you play.”

A boy needs both physical and moral courage. Neither can take the place of the other. When boys become men they will find out that there are some soldiers very brave in the field who have proved timid and worthless as politicians, and some politicians who show an entire readiness to take chances and assume responsibilities in civil affairs, but who lack the fighting edge when opposed to physical danger. In each case, with soldiers and politicians alike, there is but half a virtue. The possession of the courage of the soldier does not excuse the lack of courage in the statesman, and even less does the possession of the courage of the statesman excuse shrinking on the field of battle. Now, this is all just as true of boys. A coward who will take a blow without returning it is a contemptible creature; but, after all, he is hardly as contemptible as the boy who dares not stand up for what he deems right against the sneers of his companions who are themselves wrong. Ridicule is one of the favorite weapons of wickedness, and it is sometimes incomprehensible how good and brave boys will be influenced for evil by the jeers of associates who have no one quality that calls for respect, but who affect to laugh at the very traits which ought to be peculiarly the cause for pride.

There is no need to be a prig. There is no need for a boy to preach about his own good conduct and virtue. If he does he will make himself offensive and ridiculous. But there is urgent need that he should practise decency; that he should be clean and straight, honest and truthful, gentle and tender, as well as brave. If he can once get to a proper understanding of things, he will have a far more hearty contempt for the boy who has begun a course of feeble dissipation, or who is untruthful, or mean, or dishonest, or cruel, than this boy and his fellows can possibly, in return, feel for him. The very fact that the boy should be manly and able to hold his own, that he should be ashamed to submit to bullying without instant retaliation, should, in return, make him abhor any form of bullying, cruelty, or brutality.

There are two delightful books, Thomas Hughes's “Tom Brown at Rugby,” and Aldrich's “Story of a Bad Boy,” which I hope every boy still reads; and I think American boys will always feel more in sympathy with Aldrich's story, because there is in it none of the fagging, and the bullying which goes with fagging, the account of which, and the acceptance of which, always puzzle an American admirer of Tom Brown.

There is the same contrast between two stories of Kipling's. One, called “Captains Courageous,” describes in the liveliest way just what a boy should be and do. The hero is painted in the beginning as the spoiled, over-indulged child of wealthy parents, of a type which we do sometimes unfortunately see, and than which there exist few things more objectionable on the face of the broad earth. This boy is afterward thrown on his own resources, amid wholesome surroundings, and is forced to work hard among boys and men who are real boys and real men doing real work. The effect is invaluable. On the other hand, if one wishes to find types of boys to be avoided with utter dislike, one will find them in another story by Kipling, called “Stalky & Co.,” a story which ought never to have been written, for there is hardly a single form of meanness which it does not seem to extol, or of school mismanagement which it does not seem to applaud. Bullies do not make brave men; and boys or men of foul life cannot become good citizens, good Americans, until they change; and even after the change scars will be left on their souls.

The boy can best become a good man by being a good boy--not a goody-goody boy, but just a plain good boy. I do not mean that he must love only the negative virtues; I mean he must love the positive virtues also. “Good,” in the largest sense, should include whatever is fine, straightforward, clean, brave, and manly. The best boys I know--the best men I know--are good at their studies or their business, fearless and stalwart, hated and feared by all that is wicked and depraved, incapable of submitting to wrongdoing, and equally incapable of being aught but tender to the weak and helpless. A healthy-minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward, and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or tortures animals. One prime reason for abhorring cowards is because every good boy should have it in him to thrash the objectionable boy as the need arises.

Of course, the effect that a thoroughly manly, thoroughly straight and upright boy can have upon the companions of his own age, and upon those who are younger, is incalculable. If he is not thoroughly manly, then they will not respect him, and his good qualities will count for but little; while, of course, if he is mean, cruel, or wicked, then his physical strength and force of mind merely make him so much the more objectionable a member of society. He cannot do good work if he is not strong, and does not try with his whole heart and soul to count in any contest; and his strength will be a curse to himself and to every one else if he does not have thorough command over himself and over his own evil passions, and if he does not use his strength on the side of decency, justice, and fair dealing.

In short, in life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is:

Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard!

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. In a single sentence express Mr. Roosevelt's principal thought.

2. Point out the subordinate thoughts that aid the development of
the essay.

3. Point out examples of antithesis.

4. Show how Mr. Roosevelt gains power by the use of short and
common words.

5. Describe the sort of boy whom Mr. Roosevelt does not admire.

6. Describe the sort of boy whom Mr. Roosevelt does admire.

7. What is Mr. Roosevelt's opinion of the value of athletics?

8. What is Mr. Roosevelt's opinion of the relative position of
study and of athletics?

9. What sort of books for boys does Mr. Roosevelt admire?

10. What is the effect of the last sentence?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. The American Girl 11. Fearlessness
2. The American Man 12. Physical Strength
3. The American Woman 13. Fair Play
4. The Good Athlete 14. Energy
5. The Good Student 15. The Under Dog
6. The True Aristocrat 16. American Ideals
7. The Truly Rich 17. Success in Life
8. The Ideal of Work 18. Skill
9. Good Reading 19. A Good Time
10. Good Citizenship 20. Manliness

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Your subject must be one on which you have strong convictions as the result of personal experience. In a certain sense, your essay must represent your own life. Try to hold forward no ideals that you yourself do not uphold.

Formulate a strong central thought, and two or three subordinate and supporting thoughts. When you have done this develop your essay step by step, giving examples drawn from history or from well-known facts. Mention books that set forward the ideals you wish to emphasize.

Write in a strong, forceful, almost commanding style, but do not say “Thus and so shalt thou do.” Speak in strong terms of the principles that you admire but leave your readers to draw value from the enthusiasm of your words rather than information from directions given.

THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE
By HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE

_Daughter of Julian Hawthorne, and grand-daughter of Nathaniel
Hawthorne. She writes with rare charm and literary power, and
contributes regularly to many periodicals. Among her books are_: A
Country Interlude; The Lure of the Garden; Old Seaport Towns of New
England; Girls in Bookland.

=The article that follows is much like an oration or an editorial
article in that it is directed to “you” rather than expressive of
“I”. The true essay is not concerned with “you”: it is concerned
only with “I”.=

=Both the oration and the editorial article have much in common
with the essay type; for both turn aside frequently into the happy
fields of meditation.=

=The first three paragraphs of _The Spirit of Adventure_ are purely
personal in nature and therefore wholly in keeping with the spirit
of the essay form. Furthermore, those paragraphs--so reminiscent
of the fancy of the writer's famous grandfather, Nathaniel
Hawthorne,--represent poetic prose. Throughout the article the
personal note mingles with the directing voice of the editorial
article. Indeed, it would be easy to drop from _The Spirit of
Adventure_ everything that is not personal, and thereby to leave
pure essay.=

=As it stands, _The Spirit of Adventure_ is a didactic essay, brave
and strong in its thought, and poetic in its style.=

Wind has always seemed wonderful and beautiful to me.

Invisible as it is, it pervades the whole world. It has the very quality of life. Without wind, how dead and still the world would be! In the autumn, wind shakes the leaves free and sends them flying, gold and red. It takes the seeds of many plants and sows them over the land. It blows away mists and sets clouds to voyaging, brings rain and fair weather the year round, builds up snow in fantastic palaces, rolls the waves high, murmurs a fairy music in the pines and shouts aloud in storms. Wind is the great adventurer of nature. Sometimes it is so fierce and terrible that nothing can stand before it--houses are torn to shreds, trees are felled, ruin follows where it goes. At other times, it comes marching wet and salt from the sea, or dry and keen from the mountains on hot summer days, bringing ease and rest and health. Keen as a knife, it whips over the frozen ground in winter and screams wildly round the farm-house, taps the panes with ghost fingers, and whistles like a sprite in the chimney. It brings sails from land to land, turns windmills in quaint foreign places, and sets the flags of all the countries of the world fluttering on their high staffs.

Wind is nature's spirit of adventure, keeping her world vigorous, clean, and alive.

For us, too, the spirit of adventure is the fine wind of life, and if we have it not, or lose it, either as individual or nation, then we begin to die, our force and freshness depart, we stop in our tracks, and joy vanishes. For joy is a thing of movement and energy, of striving forward, a thing of hope as well as fruition. You must be thoroughly alive to be truly joyful, and all the great things accomplished by men and nations have been accomplished by vigorous and active souls, not content to sit still and hold the past, but eager to press on and to try undiscovered futures.

If ever a nation was founded on, and built up by, the spirit of adventure, that nation is our own. The very finding of it was the result of a splendid upspring of that spirit. From then on through centuries it was only men in whom the spirit of adventure was strong as life itself who reached our shores. Great adventurers, on they came, borne as they should be, by wind itself! Gallant figures, grim figures, moved by all sorts of lures and impulses, yet one and all stirred and led by the call of adventure, that cares nothing for ease of body or safety, for old, tried rules and set ways and trodden paths, but passionately for freedom and effort, for what is strange and dangerous and thrilling, for tasks that call on brain and body for quick, new decisions and acts.

The spirit of adventure did not die with the settling of our shores. Following the sea adventures came those of the land, the pioneers, who went forward undismayed by the perils and obstacles that appeared quite as insurmountable as did the uncharted seas to Columbus's men. Think of the days, when next you ride across our great continent in the comfort of a Pullman, when it took five months and more to make the same journey with ox-teams. Think how day followed day for those travelers across the Great Plains in a sort of changeless spell, where they topped long slow rise after long slow rise only to see the seemingly endless panorama stretch on before them. Think how they passed the ghastly signs of murdered convoys gone before, and yet pressed on. Think how they settled here and there in new strange places where never the foot of men like themselves had been set before, and proceeded to build homes and till the land, rifle in hand; think how their wives reared their children and kept their homes where never a white child or a Christian home had been before.

Where should we be to-day but for such men and women--if this wind of the spirit had never blown through men's hearts and fired them on to follow its call, as the wind blows a flame?

Wherever you look here in America you can see the signs and traces of this wonderful spirit. In old towns, like Provincetown or Gloucester,[59] you still hear tales of the whale-fisheries, and still see boats fare out to catch cod and mackerel on the wild and dangerous Banks. But in the past, the fishers sailed away for a year or two, round the globe itself, after their game! You see the spirit's tracks along the barren banks of the Sacramento,[60] where the gold-seekers fronted the wilderness after treasure, and in Alaska it walks incarnate. It is hewing its way in forests and digging it in mines; it is building bridges and plants in the deserts and the mountains. Out it goes to the islands of the Pacific, and in Africa it finds a land after its heart.

How much of this spirit lives in you?

I tell you, when I hear a girl or a boy say: “This place is good enough for me. I can get a good job round the corner! I know all the folks in town; and I don't see any reason for bothering about how they live in other places or what they do away from here”; when I hear that sort of talk from young people, my heart sinks a bit.

For such boys and girls there is no golden call of adventure, no lure of wonder by day and night, no desire to measure their strength against the world, no hope of something finer and more beautiful than what they have as yet known or seen.

I like the boy or girl who sighs after a quest more difficult than the trodden trail, who wants more of life than the assurance of a good job. I know very well that the home-keeping lad has a stout task to perform and a good life to live. But I know, too, that if the youth of a nation loses its love of adventure, if that wild and moving spirit passes from it, then the nation is close to losing its soul. It has about reached the limit of its power and growth.

So much in our daily existence works against this noble spirit, disapproves it, fears it. People are always ready to prove that there is neither sense nor profit in it. Why should you sail with Drake[61] and Frobisher,[62] or march with Fremont[63] or track the forest with Boone,[64] when it is so much easier and safer and pays better to stay at home? Why shouldn't you be content to do exactly like the people about you, and live the life that is already marked out for you to live?

That is what most of us will do. But that is no reason why the glorious spirit of adventure should be denied and reviled. It is the great spirit of creation in our race. If it stirs in you, listen to it, be glad of it.

A mere restless impulse to move about, the necessity to change your environment or else be bored, the dissatisfaction with your condition that leads to nothing but ill temper or melancholy, these are not part of the spirit of which I am speaking. You may develop the spirit of adventure without stirring from home, for it is not ruled by the body and its movements. Great and high adventure may be yours in the home where you now live, if you realize that home as a part of the great world, as a link of the vast chain of life. Two boys can sit side by side on the same hearth-stone, and in one the spirit of adventure is living and calling, in the other it is dead. To the first, life will be an opportunity and a beckoning. He will be ready to give himself for the better future; he will be ready to strike hands with the fine thought and generous endeavor of the whole world, bringing to his own community the fruit of great things, caring little for the ease and comfort of his body, but much for the possibilities of a finer, truer realization of man's eternal struggle toward a purer liberty and a nobler life. The spirit of adventure is a generous spirit, kindling to great appeals. Of the two boys, sitting there together, the second may perhaps go round the world, but to him there will be no song and no wonder. He will not find adventure, because he has it not. The old phrase, “adventures to the adventurous,” is a true saying. The selfish and the small of soul know no adventures.

As I think of America to-day, I say the spirit that found and built her must maintain her. There are great things to be done for America in the coming years, in your years. Her boundaries are fixed, but within those boundaries marvelous development is possible. Her government has found its form, but there is work for the true adventurer in seeing that the spirit of that government, in all its endless ramifications and expressions, fulfils the intention of human liberty and well-being that lie within that form. Her relations with the world outside of herself are forming anew, and here too there is labor of the noblest. The lad who cares only for his own small job and his own small comforts, who dreads the rough contacts of life and the dangers of pioneering will not help America much.

In the older days the Pilgrim Fathers cast aside every comfort of life to follow the call of liberty, coming to a wilderness so remote, that for us a voyage to some star would scarcely seem more distant or strange. None of us will be called upon to do so tremendous a thing as that act of theirs, so far as the conditions of existence go, since the telegraph and the aëroplane and turbine knit us close. But there are adventures quite as magnificent to be achieved.

The spirit of adventure loves the unknown. And in the unknown we shall find all the wonders that are waiting for us. Our whole life is lived on the very border of unknown things, but only the adventurous spirit reaches out to these and makes them known, and widens the horizons for humanity. The very essence of the spirit of adventure is in doing something no one has done before. Every high-road was once a trail, every trail had its trail-breaker, setting his foot where no man's foot had gone before through what new forests and over what far plains.

It is good to ride at ease on the broad highway, with every turning marked and the rules all kept. But it is not the whole of life. The savor of lonely dawns, the call of an unknown voice, the need to establish new frontiers of spirit and action beyond any man has yet set, these are also part of life. Do not forego them. You are young and the world is before you. Be among those who perceive all its variety, its potentialities, who can see good in the new and unknown, and find joy in hazard and strength in effort. Do not be afraid of strange manners and customs, nor think a thing is wrong because it is different.

Throw wide the great gates of adventure in your soul, young America!

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. Point out effects that have been gained by the use of figures of
speech.

2. What is the relation of the first three paragraphs to the
remainder of the essay?

3. Point out the parts of _The Spirit of Adventure_ that depart
from the strict form of the essay.

4. Indicate what may be omitted in order to make _The Spirit of
Adventure_ truly an essay.

5. How many historical allusions are made in the essay?

6. Explain the most important historical allusions.

7. What does the writer mean by “the spirit of adventure”?

8. What does she say is the importance of such a spirit?

9. How can an ordinary person carry out the writer's wishes?

10. How does the style of the essay strengthen the presentation of
thought?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. Love of Truth 11. The Snow
2. The Spirit of Fair Play 12. Falling Leaves
3. The Sense of Honor 13. The Ocean
4. Stick-to-it-iveness 14. The Storm
5. Faithfulness 15. Moonlight
6. School Spirit 16. The Voice of Thunder
7. Loyalty 17. Flowers
8. The Scientific Spirit 18. The Friendly Trees
9. Work 19. Country Brooks
10. The Spirit of Helpfulness 20. Gentle Rain

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

If you wish to write two or three paragraphs of poetic prose in imitation of the first three paragraphs of _The Spirit of Adventure_ choose one of the topics in the second column. Write, first of all, a sentence that will summarize your principal thought, a sentence that will correspond with the sentence that forms the third paragraph of Miss Hawthorne's essay. Then lead up to this sentence by writing a series of sentences full of fancy. Use figures of speech freely. Arrange your words, phrases or clauses so that you will produce both striking effects and also rhythm.