LITERATURE A FIFTH READER BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE, JR., PH.D. PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN UNION COLLEGE AND ADALINE WHEELOCK STERLING B GLOBE SCHOOL BOOK COMPANY PREFACE THE object of this Reader is in the main to serve as an introduction to literature. With this idea, the extracts have been very carefully selected so as to be representative of all the chief literary forms, and of the main periods, of our literature. As the book is for American children it contains a generous proportion of American writers. The extracts are generally quite representative of their authors. They are of considerable length: an extract of two or three pages, unless it be an independent piece, is not often representative. The length of the extracts cuts down number, but increases the quality. In some cases it was naturally impossible to find really representative passages which were suitable to the grade of students for which this book is designed. In two or three instances, therefore, the editors have allowed themselves to insert something perhaps a little beyond the possibilities of ordinary pupils, as, for instance, with Wordsworth and Carlyle, in order to represent authors and forms of literature which ought not to be omitted. But such cases are very few: almost all the extracts will be easily apprehended by the pupil who begins at the beginning and comes to each extract in due course. The Introduction aims to give a suggestion of two lines of literary study, as an indication of the princi |