The five of Lowell's greater literary essays mentioned on page 254 show his
critical powers at their best. The student who wishes shorter selections
may choose those paragraphs which please him and any thoughts from the
political essay _Democracy_ which he thinks his neighbor should know.
HOLMES.--Read The _Deacon's Masterpiece, or the Wonderful One-Hoss Shay_,
_The Ballad of the Oysterman_, _The Boys_, _The Last Leaf,_ and _The
Chambered Nautilus._ From _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,_ the
student may select any pages that he thinks his friends would enjoy
hearing.
THE HISTORIANS.--Selections from Prescott, Motley, and Parkman may be found
in Carpenters _American Prose_.
QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
POETRY.--Compare Emerson's _Woodnotes_ with Bryant's _Thanatopsis_ and _A
Forest Hymn_. Make a comparison of these three poems of motion: _The
Evening Wind_ (Bryant), _The Humble-Bee_ (Emerson), and _Daybreak_
(Longfellow), and give reasons for your preference. Compare in like manner
_The Snow-Storm_ (Emerson), the first sixty-five lines of _Snow-Bound_
(Whittier), and _The First Snow-Fall_ (Lowell). To which of these three
simple lyrics of nature would you award the palm: _To the Fringed Gentian_
(Bryant), _The Rhodora_ (Emerson), _To the Dandelion_ (Lowell)? After
making your choice of these three poems, compare it with these two English
lyrics of the same class: _To a Mountain Daisy_ (Burns), _Daffodils_
(Wordsworth, the poem beginning "I wandered lonely as a cloud"), and again
decide which poem pleases you most.
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