From “Aesop’s Fables."

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XANTHUS, a Greek poet and historian, who lived in the sixth century before Christ.

Write the plurals of the following words, and tell how they are formed in each case: 

dainty, sauce, eulogy, feast, city, chief, calf, day, lily, copy, loaf, roof, half, valley, donkey.

What words are made emphatic by contrast in the following sentence:  “How should tongues be the best of meat one day and the worst another?”

Memorize what Aesop said in praise of the tongue, and what he said in dispraise of it.

Memory Gem: 

“If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.  The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.  By it we bless God and the Father; and by it we curse men who are made after the likeness of God.”

From “Epistle of St. James."

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48

ap’ pe tite ha rangued’ sus pend’ ed min’ strel sy

THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE GLOWWORM.

       A nightingale, that all day long
       Had cheered the village with his song,
       Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
       Nor yet when eventide was ended,
       Began to feel, as well he might,
       The keen demands of appetite;
       When, looking eagerly around,
       He spied far off, upon the ground,
       A something shining in the dark,
       And knew the glowworm by his spark;
       So, stooping down from hawthorn top,
       He thought to put him in his crop.

       The worm, aware of his intent,
       Harangued him thus, right eloquent: 
       “Did you admire my lamp,” quoth he,
       “As much as I your minstrelsy,
       You would abhor to do me wrong
       As much as I to spoil your song: 
       For ’twas the self-same Power Divine
       Taught you to sing and me to shine;
       That you with music, I with light,
       Might beautify and cheer the night.” 
       The songster heard this short oration,
       And, warbling out his approbation,
       Released him, as my story tells,
       And found a supper somewhere else.

William Cowper.

Why did the nightingale feel “The keen demands of appetite?”

Do you admire the eloquent speech that the worm made to the bird?  Study it by heart.  Copy it from memory.  Compare your copy with the printed page as to spelling, capitals and punctuation.

Memory Gems: 

       I would not enter on my list of friends
       (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
       Yet wanting sensibility) the man
       Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 
       An inadvertent step may crush the snail
       That crawls at evening in the public path;
       But he that has humanity, forewarned,
       Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.