William H. Elson

“ As for Gareth and Gaheris, they could not bear the sight, and stood with their faces covered in their mantles. Then, just as the torch was to be applied to the fagots, there was a sound as of many horses galloping, and the next instant a band of knights rushed upon the astonished throng, their leader cutting down all who crossed his path until he had reached the Queen, whom he lifted to his saddle and bore from the press. Then all men knew that it was Sir Lancelot, come knightly to rescue the Queen, and in their hearts they rejoiced. ”

“ That night, as King Arthur slept, he thought that Sir Gawain stood before him, looking just as he did in life, and said to him:
“My uncle and my King, God in his great love has suffered me to come unto you, to warn you that in no wise ye fight on the morrow; for if ye do, ye shall be slain and with you the most part of the people on both sides. Make ye, therefore, treaty for a month and within that time, Sir Lancelot shall come to you with all his knights and ye shall overthrow the traitor and all that hold with him.” ”

“ Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and, dwelling with angels as friend with friends, he had imbibed the sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm of household words. So thought the poet. ”

“ Before Dickens was thirty he was the most popular writer in England. He attacked the cruelty and stupidity with which the children of the poor were treated in English schools; he opened the eyes of the people to the injustice that was suffered by laborers and all poor people; he saw also, like Robert Burns, the sincerity and simple happiness that often make the poor more to be envied than the rich. No other novelist has invented so many characters that seem flesh and blood; they appeal to us because they are “folks,” not imaginary dwellers in an unreal world. ”

“ Then answered the King in anger: “Full well I see that thou art in league with evil and that thou but seekest to turn me from my purpose. I defy thee, foul sorceress. Do thy worst; though thou slay me, thou shalt never sway me to thy will”; and therewith, the King raised his cross-hilted sword before her. Then the lady quailed at that sight. Her heart was filled with hate, but she said:
“Go your way, proud King of a petty realm. Rule well your race of miserable mortals, since it pleases you more than to bear sway over the powers of the air. I keep you not against your will.” ”

“ Let us then twine each thread of the glorious tissue of our country’s flag about our heartstrings; and looking upon our homes and catching the spirit that breathes upon us from the battlefields of our fathers, let us resolve, come weal or woe, we will, in life and in death, now and forever, stand by the Stars and Stripes. They have been unfurled from the snows of Canada to the plains of New Orleans, in the halls of the Montezumas and amid the solitude of every sea; and everywhere, as the luminous symbol of resistless and beneficent power, they have led the brave to victory and to glory. ”

“ Thus, then, Sir Gawain wrote: “To Sir Lancelot, the noblest of all knights, I, Gawain, send greeting before I die. For I am smitten on the wound ye gave me before your castle of Benwick in France, and I bid all men bear witness that I sought my own death and that ye are innocent of it. I pray you, by our friendship of old, come again into Britain and, when ye look upon my tomb, pray for Gawain of Orkney. Farewell.”
So Sir Gawain died and was buried in the Chapel at Dover. ”

“ Thereupon the King, his heart nigh broken with grief for the loss of his true knights, cried with a loud voice, “Traitor! now is thy doom upon thee!” and with his spear gripped in both hands, he rushed upon Sir Modred and smote him that the weapon stood out a fathom behind. And Sir Modred knew that he had his death-wound. With all the might that he had, he thrust him up the spear to the haft and, with his sword, struck King Arthur upon the head that the steel pierced the helmet and bit into the head; then Sir Modred fell back, stark and dead. ”

“ Bird-song and flower, the west wind as it drives the dead leaves before it or hurries the clouds across the sky or piles up in great masses the waters of the sea; the mountain that rises stark and stern above the plain, the ocean over which men’s ships pass in safety or into whose depths they plunge to their grave—all these things the poet helps us to see and to feel. ”

“ Thus while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover’s eloquence.
I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won. ”

“ Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth,
Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words but of actions,
Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier.
Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning;
I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases.
You, who are bred as a scholar, can say it in elegant language,
Such as you read in your books of the pleadings and wooings of lovers,
Such as you think best adapted to win the heart of a maiden. ”

“ So once more our Aladdin’s lamp brings us into scenes of enchantment, multiplies our lives, opens our eyes to things that the fairy-folk know right well, but which are forbidden to mortal eye and ear until the spell has worked its will.
These, then, are the three joys of reading: First, to be able to travel at will in any country and in any period of time and to taste the salt of adventure; to hear the great stories that the human race has garnered through centuries of living; to know earth’s heroes and to become a part of the company that surrounds them. ”

“ Suddenly, there was seen the figure of an ancient man, who seemed to have emerged from among the people, and was walking by himself along the center of the street, to confront the armed band. He wore the old Puritan dress, a dark cloak and a steeple-crowned hat, in the fashion of at least fifty years before, with a heavy sword upon his thigh, but a staff in his hand to assist the tremulous gait of age.
When at some distance from the multitude, the old man turned slowly round, displaying a face of antique majesty, rendered doubly venerable by the hoary beard that descended on his breast. ”

“ And the Lady Annoure, admiring his knightly courage, desired more earnestly even than before to win him to her will, and she said:
“Sir Arthur, I know well your courage and knightly fame, and greatly do I desire to keep you with me. Stay with me and I promise that ye shall bear sway over a wider realm than any that ye ever heard of, and I, even I, its mistress, will be at your command. And what lose ye if ye accept my offer? Little enough; for never think that ye shall win the world from evil, and men to loyalty and truth.” ”

“ But before Pellinore could strike, Merlin caused a deep sleep to come upon him; and raising King Arthur from the ground, he stanched his wounds and recovered him of his swoon.
But when the King came to himself, he saw his foe lie, still as in death, on the ground beside him; and he was grieved, and said:
“Merlin, what have ye done to this brave knight? Nay, if ye have slain him, I shall grieve my life long; for a good knight he is, bold and a fair fighter, though something wanting in knightly courtesy.” ”

“ I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? ”

“ It is already the main branch of the English people; and in the days that are at hand the main current of that people’s history must run along the channel not of the Thames or the Mersey, but of the Hudson and the Mississippi.
But distinct as these currents are, every year proves more clearly that in spirit the English people are one. The distance that parted England from America lessens every day. The ties that unite them grow every day stronger. The social and political differences that threatened a hundred years ago to form an impassable barrier between them grow every day less. ”

“ For it is a world of wonder in which we live as truly as that fairy world which so delighted you when Mother told you stories or when you read your fairy books. The journey of Captain Scott in search of the South Pole was as thrilling as the voyage of Sinbad. Those brave men who made the first flight in an airplane across the ocean the other day were as venturesome as Columbus, and their journey was as wonderful as that journey in 1492. But Captain Scott did not leave his comfortable and safe life at home merely to seek adventure. ”

“ Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! ”

“ According to the belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the sunshine.
As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their cottage-door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The child’s name was Ernest.
“Mother,” said he, while the Titanic visage smiled on him, “I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a face, I should love him dearly.” ”

“ No knight might occupy it until the coming of Sir Galahad; for, without danger to his life, none might sit there who was not free from all stain of sin.
With pomp and ceremony did each knight take upon him the vows of true knighthood: to obey the King; to show mercy to all who asked it; to defend the weak; and for no worldly gain to fight in a wrongful cause; and all the knights rejoiced together, doing honor to Arthur and to his Queen. And all men of worship said it was merry to be under such a chieftain, that would put his person in adventure as other poor knights did. ”

“ Then Sir Lancelot spoke again: “Now, my Lord Arthur, in my own defense it behooves me to say that never in aught have I been false to you. That I slew certain knights is true, but I hold me guiltless, seeing that they brought death upon themselves. For no sooner had I gone to the Queen’s bower, as she had commanded me, than they beset the door with shameful outcry, that all the court might hear, calling me traitor and felon knight.” ”

“ I suppose if we had all stood atop of a mountain, and seen the whole remainder of the world sink away from under us, we could hardly have felt more shocked and solitary than we did when we knew we were alone on the wide ocean, and that the beautiful ship in which most of us had been securely asleep within half an hour was gone for ever. There was an awful silence in our boat, and such a kind of palsy on the rowers and the man at the rudder, that I felt they were scarcely keeping her before the sea. ”

“ There are people who try to find America in some motto or symbol. One of our great cities has for its motto the words “I will,” and the people who live in that city like to think that the enterprise by which they build great industries and give work to great numbers of people is the expression of their Americanism. And some people see in the Statue of Liberty in the New York harbor, a statue holding aloft a blazing torch to give light to all people, the symbol that best expresses the spirit of America. ”

“ The sunset music of the British regiments was heard as usual throughout the town. The shrill fife and rattling drum awoke the echoes in King Street while the last ray of sunshine was lingering on the cupola of the Town House, And now all the sentinels were posted. One of them marched up and down before the custom-house, treading a short path through the snow and longing for the time when he would be dismissed to the warm fireside of the guard-room. Meanwhile, Captain Preston was perhaps sitting in our great chair before the hearth of the British Coffee House. ”

“ This spirit of adventure that makes men willing to face danger, and even death, to get some new experience or to render some service, the spirit that makes some men explore strange places, or seek for the South Pole, or fight in great battles—this spirit of adventure never dies. Sometimes the story is of a knight clad in armor, and sometimes it is about a man in khaki who died the other day that his fellows might live—the spirit is the same. ”

“ Then Sir Lancelot sighed heavily and said, “Full well I see that no sorrow of mine for what is past availeth me.”
Then he went to the Queen where she sat, and said: “Madam, the time is come when I must leave this fair realm that I have loved. Think well of me, I pray you, and send for me if ever there be aught in which a true knight may serve a lady.” Therewith he turned him about and, without greeting to any, passed through the hall, and with his faithful knights, rode to the Joyous Garde, though ever thereafter, in memory of that sad day, he called it the Dolorous Garde. ”

“ If it were the vast old sea, even the deep immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by the emotions of the song. Thus the world assumed another and a better aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with his happy eyes. The Creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork. Creation was not finished till the poet came to interpret, and so complete it. ”

“ Sir Lancelot has come under surety of my word that none shall do him harm. Elsewhere, and at another time, fasten a quarrel upon him, if quarrel ye must.”
“I care not,” cried Sir Gawain fiercely. “The proud traitor trusts so in his own strength that he thinks none dare meet him. But here I defy him and swear that, be it in open combat or by stealth, I shall have his life. And know, mine uncle and King, if I shall not have your aid, I and mine will leave you for ever and, if need be, fight even against you.” ”

“ When Lincoln set out for home, the sun was still shining, but the edge of the cloud had crept, or more properly slid, across the sun’s disk, and its light was growing cold and pale. In fifteen minutes more the wind from the south ceased—there was a moment of breathless pause, and then, borne on the wings of the north wind, the streaming clouds of soft, large flakes of snow drove in a level line over the homeward-bound scholars, sticking to their clothing and faces and melting rapidly. It was not yet cold enough to freeze, though the wind was colder. The growing darkness troubled Lincoln most. ”

“ Then the Red Knight answered and said, “Sir Gareth, ye shall understand that I have been at the court of King Arthur and Sir Persant and his brethren and there we have done our homage as ye commanded us. Also, I have taken upon me with Sir Persant and his brethren to hold part against my lord, Sir Lancelot and the knights of that court. And this have I done for the love of you, my lord Sir Gareth.”
“Ye have well done,” said Sir Gareth, “but you must know you shall be matched with the most noble knights of the world; therefore we must provide us with good knights, wherever we may get them.” ”

“ The swift, deep current meanders between tall lines of trees; beyond these, on either side, there is water also—a thousand shallow rivulets lapsing past the bases of a multitude of trees.
Along the edges of the stream every tree-trunk, sapling, and stump is wrapped about with a close-growing vine. The edges of the stream are also defined by flowers and water-leaves. The tall blue flags, the lilies sitting on their round lily-pads like white queens on green thrones, the tiny stars and long ribbons of the water-grasses—all these border the river in an infinite variety of adornment. ”

“ Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice.
These reflections arose on casually looking through a volume of early colonial history, wherein are recorded, with great bitterness, the outrages of the Indians, and their wars with the settlers of New England. ”

“ Arthur is King! We will have no King but Arthur”; and, though the great barons scowled and threatened, they fell on their knees before him while the Archbishop placed the crown upon his head, and they swore to obey him faithfully as their lord and sovereign.
Thus Arthur was made king; and to all he did justice, righting wrongs and giving to all their dues. Nor was he forgetful of those that had been his friends; for Kay, whom he loved as a brother, he made seneschal and chief of his household, and to Sir Ector, his foster father, he gave broad lands. ”