McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson XXIV · Part 3: Lessons XIII-XXIV: Dickens, Gray and Patrick Henry
30. Short Selections in Prose
Goal: Your student reads several short prose passages and notices antithesis, series and imagery.
You'll need
- The book, or the scan beside this guide
- A notebook and pen
- A dictionary
What's in the book
Four short passages: Dryden and Pope (Samuel Johnson), Las Casas Dissuading from Battle (R. B. Sheridan), Action and Repose (John Ruskin) and Time and Change (Sir Humphry Davy), with short notes.
The lesson, step by step
About the author
The book notes that John Ruskin, born 1819, was a distinguished English art critic and Professor of the Fine Arts at Oxford, and that Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) was an eminent English chemist who invented the miner's safety lamp.
Read it aloud
Read the first lines of each:
Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners.
Is then the dreadful measure of your cruelty not yet complete?
About the river of human life there is a wintry wind, though a heavenly sunshine;
Time is almost a human word, and Change entirely a human idea;
Your student reads all four passages aloud.
Talk about it
SayThe book calls "Dryden and Pope" "a fine example of antithesis." Find three contrasts in it.
SayLas Casas pleads with the chieftains. What is he begging them not to do? The book says it has examples of "series"; find one.
SayWhat does Ruskin mean by the river of human life?
SayWhich of the four did you find most powerful?
Tell it back
Your student summarizes two of the passages in two or three sentences each.
Copywork and memory
Copy:
Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners.
Write (optional)
Write a paragraph comparing two people (or two books) using antithesis, as Johnson does.