 Lessons one to four from a complete grammar of Esperanto, the International Language, with graded exercises for reading and translation, together with full vocabularies by Ivy Kellerman, A. M. P. H. D., in the 1910 Multilingual Collection. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A complete grammar of Esperanto, lesson one. Alphabet. One. The Esperanto alphabet contains the following letters. A. B. C. C. D. E. F. G. J. H. H. I. Y. Z. C. L. M. N. O. P. R. S. Sh. D. U. W. V. Z. Vowels. Two. The vowels of the alphabet are pronounced as follows. R. As in far. A. As in fiance. Like A in fate. This long A sound in English frequently ends with a vanish, a brief terminal sound of E, which makes the vowels slightly dipthongle as in day I. Such a vanish must not be given to any of the Esperanto vowels. E. As in machine. O. As in toll. Four. O. As in rude. Rural. Consonants. Three. The consonants. B. D. F. H. C. L. M. N. P. D. V. Z. Are pronounced as in English and the remaining eleven as follows. T. O. Like T. In hats. Tsi-tsi. Ch. O. Like T. In chin. Much. G. O. Like G. In go. Big. J. O. Like J. In gem. J. In jar. Ch. Is pronounced by expelling the breath forcibly, with the throat only partially open. As in pronouncing German and Scottish C-H, Spanish J, Irish G-H, Russian X, classical Greek X, etc. There are only a few words containing this consonant. Y. O. Like y. In yes. Beyond. J. O. Like j. In azure. J. In visual. R. O. Is slightly trilled or rolled. S. O. Like s. In sea. Basis. S. O. Like sh. In shine. Rash. Sh. In machine. W. Like w. Or continental U. See diphthongs five. Names of the letters. Four. The vowels are named by their sounds, as given in two. The names of the consonants are B, C, C, D, F, G, J, H, H, Y, Z, C, L, M, N, P, R, S, Sh, T, W, V, Z. These are used in speaking of the letters, in pronouncing them in abbreviations, as C-O-T-O-B-O, F-O-K-T-P, meaning etc. And in spelling words as B-O-I-R-O-D-O, B-I-R-D-O. Diphthongs five. Diphthongs are combinations of two vowels uttered as a single sound by one breath impulse. The diphthongs in Esperanto contain an E or U sound as the second element, but in order to avoid confusion with combinations of vowels not forming diphthongs, as in naeva, like English naive, etc., they are written with yaw and war instead. Their pronunciation is as follows. I, like I in isle. A, like A in vein, A in they. Oy, like oy in coin, oy in boy, oy, like oy in ruin, oy in glue, eow, like eow in wayward, or like eow pronounced together. Ow, like ow in out, ow in owl. Combinations of consonants. Six. Each consonant in a combination of two or more consonants is pronounced with its full value, whether within a word or at its beginning. There are no silent letters. Thus both consonants are clearly sounded in the groups kn, qu, gva, sva in such words as knabo, quin, quidi, sviso. B, the combination x as in existi, exameno, must not be modified to the x or x represented by x in exist execute. C, the combination sts, as in escepti, stsias, is equivalent to the combination sts in last said first song pronounced together rapidly. The so in a word beginning with sts, may be sounded with the end of the preceding word if that word ends in a vowel as mistsias for mistsias. D, the no and go are pronounced separately in the combination ng, in such words as lingvo, angulo, pronouncing the sound of ng heard in linga, not that in singer. E, each of two similar letters is clearly sounded as interilato, ellasi, like interrelate, well-laid. Syllables, seven. Each word contains as many syllables as it has vowels and diphthongs. The division of syllables within a word is as follows. A, a single consonant goes with the following vowel as pano, bela, aero. B, a consonant followed by lo or ro, which are liquids, goes with the lo or ro as in tablo, acra, agrabla. C, otherwise the syllable division is made before the last consonant of the group as suspekti, sancta, dextra. D, prefixes are separated from the words to which they are attached as dismeti, malacra, and compound words are divided into their component parts as chefurbo, sun ombrello. Accent, eight. Words of more than one syllable are accented upon the syllable before the last as tablo, agrabla, suspekti. Words for practice, nine, to be pronounced aloud and correctly accented. Aferro, trairi, naibarro, aero, hodiau, pazienso, centono, cielo, ecci, samideano, treeghe, obei, obei. Eu, europo, quidi, gioio, ciuin, justa, giuste, giugi, giaudo, lingvo, knabo, largia, paghi, quietezzo, example, elerni, foio, crayono, forraidi, quireio, cevaleio, sanctezzo, stzio, nestzio, ezzo, mese, duobla, shipo, chargi, posho, svingi, sclavo, palai, shafajo, atmosfero, monacho, geometrio, laudi, vasta, explodi, sencesa, sensensaggio, malluma, arbaranoi, mangio, frecia, ausculti, dauri. Lesson 2, nouns. Ten. Words which are the names of persons or things are called nouns. The ending or final letter of nouns in Esperanto is o, knabo, boy, knabo, pomo, apple, pomo, cevalo, horse, cevalo, tablo, table, tablo. The article. Eleven. The definite article is la, the, as knabo, the boy, la knabo, la cevalo, the horse, la cevalo, la tablo, the table, la tablo, la pomo, the apple, la pomo. In English there is an indefinite article, a, an, for the singular, but none for the plural. Esperanto has no indefinite article for either singular or plural. Therefore, knabo may mean boy or aboy, pomo may mean apple or an apple. Adjectives. Twelve. A word used with a noun expressed or understood to express a quality or characteristic is called an adjective. The ending of adjectives in Esperanto is a, beila, beautiful, beila, grande, large, grande, flava, yellow, flava, forta, strong, forta. Attributive adjectives. Thirteen. An adjective is said to modify a noun whose quality it expresses. When directly proceeding or following its noun, it is called an attributive adjective. La grande cevalo. The large horse. La grande cevalo. Beila birdo. A beautiful bird. Beila birdo. Floro flava. A yellow flower. Floro flava. Forta knabo. A strong boy. Forta knabo. Present tense of the verb. Fourteen. Words which express action or condition are called verbs. When expressing an act or condition as a fact and dealing with the present time, they are said to be in the present tense. The ending of all Esperanto verbs in the present tense is us. Curras. Runs. Is running. Curras. Brilas. Shines. Is shining. Brilas. Flugas. Flies. Is flying. Flugas. Dormas. Sleeps. Is sleeping. Dormas. Fifteen. The person or thing whose action or condition the verb expresses is called the subject of the verb. La su no brilas. The sun shines. Is shining. La su no brilas. Subject su no. Knabo curras. A boy runs. Is running. Knabo curras. Subject knabo. Vocabulary. To be memorized in this and in all following lessons. Bela. Beautiful. Bela. Birdo. Bird. Birdo. Blanca. White. Blanca. Buona. Good. Buona. Brilas. Shines. Is shining. Brilas. Civalo. Horse. Civalo. Dormas. Sleeps. Is sleeping. Dormas. Flava. Yellow. Flava. Floro. Flower. Floro. Flugas. Flies. Is flying. Flugas. Forta. Strong. Forta. Grande. Large. Grande. Cai. And. Cai. Cantas. Sings. Is singing. Cantas. Knabo. Boy. Knabo. Curras. Runs. Is running. Curras. La. The. La. Luna. Moon. Luna. Marchas. Walks. Is walking. Marchas. Pomo. Apple. Pomo. Suno. Sun. Suno. Tablo. Table. Tablo. Viola. Violet. Viola. Viro. Man. Viro. Reading lesson. One. Buona. Viro. Buona. Viro. Two. La grande. Table. La grande. Table. Three. Blanca. Floro. Blanca. Floro. Four. Flava. Birdo. Flava. Birdo. Five. La bella. Birdo. Cantas. La bella. Birdo. Cantas. Six. Fortacnabo. Curras. Fortacnabo. Curras. Seven. La buona. Viro. Marchas. La buona. Viro. Marchas. Eight. La bella. Cevalo. Curras. La bella. Cevalo. Curras. Nine. La suno. Brilas. La suno. Brilas. Ten. Birdo. Flugas. Cai. Knabo. Curras. Birdo. Flugas. Cai. Knabo. Curras. Eleven. Cevalo. Blanca. Marchas. Cevalo. Blanca. Marchas. Twelve. La bella. Luna. Brilas. La bella. Luna. Brilas. Thirteen. La Knabo. Cantas. Cai. La Viro. Dormas. La Knabo. Cantas. Cai. La Viro. Dormas. Fourteen. Bella. Grande. Pomo. Bella. Grande. Pomo. Fifteen. La buona. Knabo. Cantas. La buona. Knabo. Cantas. Sixteen. La grande. Cevalo. Dormas. La grande. Cevalo. Dormas. Seventeen. La suno. Brilas. Cai. La luno. Brilas. La suno. Brilas. Cai. La luno. Brilas. Eighteen. Grande. Forta. Tablo. Grande. Forta. Tablo. Nineteen. Violo. Flava. Violo. Flava. Twenty. La buona. Flava. Pomo. La buona. Flava. Pomo. Sentences for translation. One. A beautiful flower. Two. A good large table. Three. A yellow violet and a white violet. Four. The sun is shining, shines. Five. The good boy is walking, walks. Six. The beautiful yellow bird is flying, flies. Seven. The strong man is sleeping, sleeps. Eight. The white bird is singing, sings. Nine. A strong horse runs, and a man walks. Ten. The sun shines, and the boy is singing, sings. Eleven. The large yellow apple. Twelve. An apple large and good. Lesson three. The plural number. Sixteen. The plural number of nouns, that is, the form which indicates more than one person or thing, is made by adding yaw to the noun, as viroy, men, viroy. From virro, man, virro. Tabloy. Tables. Tabloy. From tablo, table, tablo. Oy is pronounced like oy in boy. See five. Seventeen. An adjective modifying a plural noun agrees with it in number, being given the plural form by the addition of the ending yaw. An adjective modifying two or more nouns used together is, of course, given the plural form. Bonai viroy. Good men. Bonai viroy. Grandai chevaloi. Large horses. Grandai chevaloi. Belai birdo caifloro. Belai birdo caifloro. Beautiful bird and flower. Belai birdo caifloro. Beautiful bird and beautiful flower. Belai birdo caifloro. Beautiful bird and beautiful flower. Ai is pronounced like ai in isle. See five. Eighteen. The article is invariable, that is, does not change in form when used with plural nouns, as la virro. The man. La virro. La virro. The men. La virro. The verb is also invariable in form. La virro marches. The men walk. The men are walking. La virro marches. La suno cai la luno brilas. The sun and the moon are shining. La suno cai la luno brilas. La virro estas. The man is. La virro estas. La virro estas. The men are. La virro estas. Predicate adjective and noun. Nineteen. When the adjective is a part of that which is told or predicated of the subject of the verb as when used with the verbs to be, to seem, etc. It is called a predicate adjective. La birdo estas bela. The bird is beautiful. La birdo estas bela. La knabo shainas bona. The boy seems good. La knabo shainas bona. La virro estas fortai. The men are strong. La virro estas fortai. Twenty. A noun may also be used as part of the predicate and is then called a predicate noun. Viola estas floroi. Violets are flowers. Viola estas floroi. La colombo estas birdo. The dove is a bird. La colombo estas birdo. Twenty one. Predicate nouns and adjectives agree in number with the word or words with which they are in predicate relation. Rosoi estas bela. Roses are beautiful. Rosoi estas bela. La knabo and la virro shainas fortai. The boy and the man seem strong. La knabo and la virro shainas fortai. Vocabulary. Alta, hai, toll, alta, arbo, tree, arbo, ciambro, room, ciambro, domo, house, domo, in, in, in. Estas is are. Estas folio, leaf, folio, fresha, fresh, fresha, giardeno, garden, giardeno. Campo, field, campo. Colombo, dove, colombo. Cushas, lies, is lying, lie, cushas. Longa, longa, longa. Rosa, rose, rosa. Rugia, red, rugia. Sejo, chair, sejo. Seidas, sits, sit, is sitting. Seidas. Sur, on, sur. Shainas, seams, seam, shainas. Verda, green, verda. Reading lesson. One, la alta virro estas in la giardeno. La alta virro estas in la giardeno. Two, blanca cevalo estas in la campo. Blanca cevalo estas in la campo. Three, belai pirdoi, sedas sur la verda arbo. Belai pirdoi, sedas sur la verda arbo. Four, la bona iknavoi estas in la domo. Five, la ciambroi in la bela domo estas grande. Six, freshai floroi cushas sur la tablo. Seven, la violoi in la campo estas belai. Eight, la luno cailasuno shainas grandai. Nine, la colomboi estas belai pirdoi. Ten, la knaboi shainas fortai. La knaboi shainas fortai. Eleven, rugai pomoi estas sur la tablo in la ciambro. Twelve, la fortai viroi sida sur sedjoi in la longa ciambro. Twelve, la fortai viroi sida sur sedjoi in la longa ciambro. The fortai viroi sida sur sedjoi in la longa ciambro. Thirteen, la arboi estas altai cai verdai. The trees are tall and green. La arboi estas altai cai verdai. Fifteen, la colomboi sur la arboi cantas. Fifteen, fortai cevaloi marsas cai curas in la verdai campoi. Fifteen, fortai cevaloi marsas cai curas in la verdai campoi. Fifteen, fortai cevaloi marsas cai curas in la verdai campoi. Sixteen, la knaboi dormas in la granda domo. Seventeen, rugai flavai cai verdai folio. Seventeen, rugai flavai cai verdai folio. Seventeen, rugai flavai cai verdai folio. Eighteen, longa tablo estas in la domo. Seventeen, rugai flavai cai verdai folio. Nineteen, beelae beerdoi flugas cae cantas in la campo. Beelae beerdoi flugas cae cantas in la campo. Twenty, freeshae rosoi shainas beelae. Freeshae rosoi shainas beelae. Twenty one, la folioe estas verdae cae rujae. La folioe estas verdae cae rujae. Sentences for translation. One, the trees in the garden are tall and green. Two, the rooms in the house are long. Three, the flowers on the table are red, yellow and white. Four, the leaves are long and green. Five, the men are sitting, sit, on chairs in the garden. Six, in the garden are yellow roses. Seven, the birds in the field are doves. Eight, the boys in the room in the house seem tall. Nine, fresh violets are beautiful flowers. Ten, the horses in the green fields seem strong. Eleven, doves are singing sing in the garden. Twelve, the men in the large house sleep. Thirteen, the house is long and high, and the rooms in the house are large. Fourteen, red and yellow apples lie on the big table. Fifteen, green leaves are on the trees in the large garden. Lesson four, transitive verbs. Twenty-two, the verbs so far given have been in transitive verbs, expressing a state or an action limited to the subject and not immediately affecting any other person or thing as Laknabo kuras, the boy runs. Laknabo kuras. On the other hand, a transitive verb expresses an act of the subject upon some person or thing as Laknabo drovas, the boy finds. Laknabo drovas. The accusative case. Twenty-three, the person or thing acted upon is called the direct object of a transitive verb and is given the ending no. This is called the accusative ending, and the word to which it is attached is said to be in the accusative case. Laviro havas sejon. The man has a chair. Laviro havas sejon. Laknabo drovas florein. The boy finds flowers. Laknabo drovas florein. The ending no follows the ending you if the word to be put in the accusative case is in the plural number. Twenty-four, an attributive adjective modifying a noun in the accusative case is made to agree in case by addition of the same accusative ending no. This prevents any doubt as to which of two or more nouns in a sentence is modified by the adjective and permits a variation in the order of the words. Laknabo drovas belan florein. The boy finds a beautiful flower. Laknabo drovas belan florein. Florein belain la virro havas. The man has beautiful flowers. Florein belain la virro havas. Laviro havas grandan sejon. The man has a large chair. Laviro havas grandan sejon. Rujan roson. Laknabo havas. The boy has a red rose. Rujan roson. Laknabo havas. Twenty-five, a predicate adjective or noun nineteen is never in the accusative case nor is the accusative ending ever attached to the article which is invariable as stated in eighteen. The conjunction cai. Twenty-six, in the expression both and the conjunction cai is used for both words being merely repeated. Laviro cai marshas cai curas. The man both walks and runs. Laviro cai marshas cai curas. La cevalo estas cai grande cai forta. The horse is both large and strong. La cevalo estas cai grande cai forta. Laknabo havas cai roson cai violon. The boy has both roses and violets. Laknabo havas cai roson cai violon. Cai Laknabo cai la virro estas altae. Both the boy and the man are tall. Cai Laknabo cai la virro estas altae. The negative ne. Twenty-seven, the negative word meaning not when forming part of a sentence and no when used as an answer to a question is ne. When used as a sentence negative it usually immediately precedes the verb, for emphatic negation of some other word than the verb ne may precede that word. Violoi ne estas rugai. Violets are not red. Violoi ne estas rugai. Laviro ne sedas surseggioi. The men are not sitting on chairs. Laviro ne sedas surseggioi. La colombo cantas ne flugas. The dove is singing not flying. La colombo cantas ne flugas. La domo estas blanca ne verda. The house is white, not green. La domo estas blanca ne verda. Vocabulary. Apud nea in the vicinity of apud. Benco benc benco. Brancho branch prancho. Diversa various diversa. Feliccia happy feliccia. Fructo fruit fructo havas have has havas. Herbo grass herbo. Ili vei ili. Collectas gather collect collectas. Coloro color color. Larja wide broad larja. Manjas eat eats manjas. Mola soft mola. Nigra black nigra. Ne not no ne. Rompas break breaks rompas. Sed but sed. Trovas find finds trovas. Vidas si si's vidas. Reading lesson. One lacnavoi ne estas en la chambro en la blanca domo. Lacnavoi ne estas en la chambro en la blanca domo. Tu ili estas en la granda giardeno. Ili estas en la granda giardeno. Fri la giardeno shainas kai longa kai larja. La giardeno shainas kai longa kai larja. Fo la felicia iknavoi vidas la belan giardeno. La felicia iknavoi vidas la belan giardeno. Five ili vidas floron apud alta arbo. Ili vidas floron apud alta arbo. Six la floroi havas diversain coloron. La floroi havas diversain coloron. Seven lacnavoi collectas kai rujain kai flavain floron. Lacnavoi collectas kai rujain kai flavain floron. Eight sed ili ne trovas fructain en la giardeno. Sed ili ne trovas fructain en la giardeno. Nine floron blancain ili ne vidas. Floron blancain ili ne vidas. La alta arbo havas verdain folioin sur la branchoi. La alta arbo havas verdain folioin sur la branchoi. Eleven lacnavoi rompas branchon kai collectas la fructain. Lacnavoi rompas branchon kai collectas la fructain. Twelve ili vidas floron sur la branchoi. Sed la floron ili ne collectas. Ili vidas floron sur la branchoi sed la floron ili ne collectas. Thirteen lacnavoi ne sedas sur branchoi en la giardeno. Sed cusas sur la mola herb. Lacnavoi ne sedas sur branchoi en la giardeno sed cusas sur la mola herb. Fortin la colomboi sedas sur la arboi kai ili estas felicai. La colomboi sedas sur la arboi kai ili estas felicai. Fifteen lacnavoi vidas labelaen birdoin. Lacnavoi vidas labelaen birdoin. Sixteen fortai nigrai cevaloi manjas la herbon en la campo. Fortai nigrai cevaloi manjas la herbon en la campo. Seventeen lacnavoi vidas la cevaloi sed la cevaloi ne vidas lacnavoin. Lacnavoi vidas la cevaloi sed la cevaloi ne vidas lacnavoin. Seventeen lacnavoi nedormas ili manjas la cevaloi nedormas ili manjas. Nineteen la fresha herb o estas verda kai mola. La fresha herb o estas verda kai mola. Twenty felicai estas kai lacnavoi kai la cevaloi. Felicai estas kai lacnavoi kai la cevaloi. Twenty one la pomo estas bona fructa. La pomo estas bona fructa. Four. Sentences for translation. One. Green leaves are on the trees. Two. The boys break branches and gather the apples. Three. They are near the tall tree in the garden. Four. They find leaves on the tree, but they do not see the fruit. Five. The house is long, broad and high. Six. The rooms in the house are both long and wide. Seven. The men have strong black horses. Eight. The horses eat the fresh green grass in the field. Nine. The men sit on benches in the garden. Ten. The boys do not sleep, but they lie on the soft grass. Eleven. They see both the birds and the flowers, and they seem happy. Twelve. The flowers have various colors, but the grass is green. Thirteen. The doves are not sitting on the tree. They are flying near the trees. Fourteen. Beautiful red roses are lying on the table in the house. Fifteen. The large red apples are near the yellow roses. End of Lessons 1-4 from a complete Grammar of Esperanto, the International Language, with graded exercises for reading and translation, together with full vocabularies by Ivy Kellerman. Principles of Conservation from The Fight for Conservation by Gifford Pinschott, read for the Multilingual 1910 Collection. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The principles which the word conservation has come to embody are not many, and they are exceedingly simple. I have had occasion to say a good many times that no other great movement has ever achieved such progress in so short a time or made itself felt in so many directions with such vigor and effectiveness as the movement for conservation of natural resources. Forestry made good its position in the United States before the conservation movement was born. As a forester, I am glad to believe that conservation began with forestry and that the principles which govern the Forest Service in particular and forestry in general are also the ideas that control conservation. The first idea of real foresight in connection with natural resources arose in connection with the forest. From its sprang the movement which gathered impetus until it culminated in the Great Convention of Governors at Washington in May 1908, then came the second official meeting of the National Conservation Movement, December 1908, in Washington. Afterward came the various gatherings of citizens in convention, come together to express their judgment on what ought to be done and to contribute as only such meetings can to the formation of effective public opinion. The movement so begun and so prosecuted has gathered immense swing and impetus. In 1907 few knew what conservation meant, now it has become a household word. While at first conservation was supposed to apply only to forests, we see now that its sweep extends even beyond the natural resources. The principles which govern the conservation movement, like all great effective things, are simple and easily understood, yet it is often hard to make the simple easy and direct facts about a movement of this kind known to the people generally. The first great fact about conservation is that it stands for development. There has been a fundamental misconception that conservation means nothing but the husbanding of resources for future generations. There could be no more serious mistake. Conservation does mean provision for the future, but it means also, and first of all, the recognition of the right of the present generation to the fullest necessary use of all the resources with which this country is so abundantly blessed. Conservation demands the welfare of this generation first and afterward the welfare of the generations to follow. The first principle of conservation is development, the use of the natural resources now existing on this continent for the benefit of the people who live here now. There may be just as much waste in neglecting the development and use of certain natural resources as there is in their destruction. We have a limited supply of coal and only a limited supply. Whether it is to last for a hundred or a hundred and fifty or a thousand years, the coal is limited in amount. Unless through geological changes which we shall not live to see, there will never be any more of it than there is now. But coal is in a sense the vital essence of our civilization. If it can be preserved, if the life of the mines can be extended, if by preventing waste there can be more coal left in this country after we of this generation have made every needed use of this source of power, then we shall have deserved well of our descendants. Conservation stands emphatically for the development and use of water power now, without delay. It stands for the immediate construction of navigable waterways under a broad and comprehensive plan as assistance to the railroads. More coal and more iron are required to move a ton of freight by rail than by water, three to one. In every case and in every direction, the conservation movement has development for its first principle and at the very beginning of its work. The development of our natural resources and the fullest use of them for the present generation is the first duty of this generation. So much for development. In the second place conservation stands for the prevention of waste. There has come gradually in this country an understanding that waste is not a good thing and that the attack on waste is an industrial necessity. I recall very well indeed how in the early days of forest fires they were considered simply and solely as acts of God against which any opposition was hopeless and any attempt to control them not merely hopeless but childish. It was assumed that they came in the natural order of things as inevitably as the seasons or the rising and setting of the sun. Today we understand that forest fires are wholly within the control of men. So we are coming in like manner to understand that the prevention of waste in all other directions is a simple matter of good business. The first duty of the human race is to control the earth it lives upon. We are in a position more and more completely to say how far the waste and destruction of natural resources are to be allowed to go on and where they are to stop. It is curious that the effort to stop waste like the effort to stop forest fires has often been considered as a matter controlled wholly by economic law. I think there could be no greater mistake. Forest fires were allowed to burn long after the people had means to stop them. The idea that men were helpless in the face of them held long after the time had passed when the means of control were fully within our reach. It was the old story that as a man thinketh so he is. We came to see that we could stop forest fires and we found that the means had long been at hand. When at length we came to see that the control of logging in certain directions was profitable we found it had long been possible. In all these matters of waste of natural resources the education of the people to understand that they can stop the leakage comes before the actual stopping and after the means of stopping it have long been ready at our hands. In addition to the principles of development and preservation of our resources there is a third principle. It is this. The natural resources must be developed and preserved for the benefit of the many and not merely for the profit of a few. We are coming to understand in this country that public action for the public benefit has a very much wider feel to cover and a much larger part to play than was the case when there were resources enough for everyone and before certain constitutional provisions had given so tremendously strong a position to vested rights and property in general. A few years ago President Hadley of Yale wrote an article which has not attracted the attention it should. The point of it was that by reason of the 14th amendment to the Constitution property rights in the United States occupy a stronger position as their country in the civilized world. It becomes then a matter of multiplied importance since property rights once granted are so strongly entrenched to see that they shall be so granted that the people shall get their fair share of the benefit which comes from the development of the resources which belong to us all. The time to do that is now. By so doing we shall avoid the difficulties and conflicts which will surely arise if we allow vested rights to accrue outside the possibility of governmental and popular control. The conservation idea covers a wider range than the field of natural resources alone. Conservation means the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time. One of its great contributions is just this that it has added to the worn and well-known phrase the greatest good to the greatest number the additional words for the longest time thus recognizing that this nation of ours must be made to endure as the best possible home for all its people. Conservation advocates the use of foresight prudence, thrift, and intelligence in dealing with public matters for the same reasons and in the same way that we each use foresight, prudence, thrift, and intelligence in dealing with our own private affairs. It proclaims the right and duty of the people to act for the benefit of the people. Conservation demands the application of common sense to the common problems for the common good. The principles of conservation thus described development, preservation, the common good have a general application which is growing rapidly wider. The development of resources and the prevention of waste and loss the protection of the public interest by foresight, prudence, and the ordinary business and homemaking virtues all these apply to other things as well as to the natural resources. There is in fact no interest of the people to which the principles of conservation do not apply. The conservation point of view is valuable in the education of our people as well as in forestry. It applies to the body politic as well as to the earth and its minerals. A municipal franchise is as properly within its sphere as a franchise for water power. The same point of view governs in both. It applies as much to the subject of good roads as to waterways and the training of our people in citizenship is as germane to it as the productiveness of the earth. The application of common sense and the problem for the nations good will led directly to national efficiency were ever applied. In other words, and that is the burden of the message, we are coming to see the logical and inevitable outcome that these principles which arose in forestry and have their bloom in the conservation of natural resources will have their fruit in the increase in promotion of national efficiency along other lines of national life. The outgrowth of conservation, in the great commercial struggle between nations which is eventually to determine the welfare of all national efficiency will be the deciding factor. So from every point of view conservation is a good thing for the American people. The national forest service, one of the chief agencies of the conservation movement is trying to be useful to the people of this nation. The service recognizes and recognizes it more and more strongly all the people of this nation. The national forest service is a good thing for the people of this nation. The national forest service is a good project and that object is the welfare of the plain American citizen. Unless the forest service has served the people and is able to contribute to their welfare, it has failed in its work and should be abolished. But just so far as by cooperation, by intelligence, by mutual assistance, by the at the level of the private population, by cooperation with the community across the Western country, because its work cannot be done effectively and properly without the closest contact and the most hearty cooperation with the western people. It is the duty of the forest service to see that the timber, water powers, mines, and every other resource of the forest is land to conserve a fundamental resource without which this nation cannot prosper. End of The Principles of Conservation by Gifford Pinchot. Hard times from cowboy songs by various, collected by John A. Lomax, MA. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Bologna Times. Hard times. Come listen a while, and I'll sing you a song. Concerning the times, it will not be long. When everybody is striving to buy and cheating each other, I cannot tell why. And it's hard, hard times. From father to mother, from sister to brother, from cousin to cousin, they're cheating each other. Since cheating has grown to be so much the fashion, I believe to my soul it will ruin the whole nation. And it's hard, hard times. Now there is the talker, by talking he eats, and so does the butcher by killing his mates. He'll toss the still-yards, and weigh it right down, and swear it's just right if it lacks forty pounds, and it's hard, hard times. And there is the merchant, as honest we're told, whatever he sells you, my friend, you are sold. Believe what I tell you, and don't be surprised, to find yourself cheated half out of your eyes, and it's hard, hard times. And there is the lawyer, you plainly will see, he will plead your case for a very large fee. He'll law you and tell you the wrong side is right, and make you believe that a black horse is white, and it's hard, hard times. And there is the doctor I like to forgot. I believe to my soul he's the worst of the lot. He'll tell you he'll cure you for half you possess, and when you're buried he'll take all the rest, and it's hard, hard times. And there's the old bachelor, all hated with scorn. He's like an old garment, all tattered and torn. The girls and the widows all toss him a sigh, and think it quite right, and so do I, and it's hard, hard times. And there's the young widow, coquettish and shy, with a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye, but when she gets married she'll cut quite a dash, she'll give him the reins, and she'll handle the cash, and it's hard, hard times. And there's the young lady I like to have missed, and I believe to my soul she'd like to be kissed. He'll tell you she loves you with all pretence, and ask you to call again some time hence, and it's hard, hard times. And there's the young man, the worst of the whole, oh he will tell you with all of his soul, he'll tell you he loves you, and for you will die, and when he's away he will swear it's a lie, and it's hard, hard times. The Golden Poppy by Jack London From Revolution and Other Essays, 1910 The Golden Poppy by Jack London I have a poppy field, that is, by the grace of God and the good nature of editors, I am enabled to place each month diverse gold pieces into a clerical gentleman's hands, and in return for said gold pieces I am each month reinvested with certain proprietary rights in a poppy field. This field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills. Beneath lies all the world. In the distance, across the silver sweep of bay, San Francisco smokes on her many hills like a second roam. Not far away, Mount Tammelpe, thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky, and midway between is the Golden Gate, where seamists love to tlinger. From the poppy field we often see the shimmering blue of the Pacific beyond, and the busy ships that go forever out and in. We shall have great joy in our poppy field, said Bess. Yes, said I, how the poor city folk will envy when they come to see us, and how we will make all well again when we send them off with great golden armfuls. But those things will have to come down, I added, pointing to numerous obtrusive notices, relics of the last tenet, displayed conspicuously along the boundaries, and bearing each and all this legend. Private grounds, no trespassing. Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over our field, because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our acquaintance? How I abhor such things, said Bess, the arrogant symbols of power. They disgrace, human nature, said I. They shamed the generous landscape, she said, and they are abominable. Pigish, quote I, hotly, down with them. We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Bess and I, looked forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been long denied. I have forgotten to mention the existence of a house above the city-field, a squat and wandering bungalow, in which we had elected two forsake town traditions, and live in fresher and more vigorous ways. The first poppies came, orange-yellow and golden, in the standing grain, and we went about gleefully, as though drunken, with their wine, and told each other that the poppies were there. We laughed at unexpected moments, in the midst of silences, and at times grew ashamed, and stole forth secretly, to gaze upon our treasury. But when the great wave of poppy flame finally spilled itself down the field, we shouted aloud, and danced, and clapped our hands freely, and frankly mad. And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of the first invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out on my beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl, and a little boy, their arms filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwanted benevolence, burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight. It is sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All summer shall they pick poppies in my field, but they must be little children, I added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the lower end. This last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows knotting in the wheat beneath my window. Then the razor descended. Shaving was always an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the window again until the operation was completed. And then I was bewildered. Surely this was not my poppy field. No, and yes, for there were the tall pines clustering austerely together on one side. The magnolia tree burdened with bloom, and the Japanese quinces splashing the driveway hedge with blood. Yes, it was the field, but no wave of poppy flame spilled down it, nor did the great golden fellows knot in the wheat beneath my window. I rushed into a jacket, and out of the house. In the far distance were disappearing two huge balls of color, orange and yellow, for all the world like perambulating poppies of cyclopean breed. Johnny, said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, Johnny, whenever little girls come into her field to pick poppies, you must go down to them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner tell them it is not allowed. Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free bosomed earth, whereupon a neighbor's little girl at the behest of her mother dilly-craved and received permission from Bess to gather a few poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and when I described her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a semaphore against the sky. Little girl, called I, little girl, the little girl's legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and in high elation I asked Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. Nobly she came to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of conciliation and explanation to the little girl's mother. But to this day the little girl seeks cover at sight of me, and I know the mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise had been. Came dark, overcast days, stiff driving winds and pelting rains day on day without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling-places like flood-bisset rats, and like rats half-drowned and gasping, when the weather cleared they crawled out and up the green Piedmont slopes to bask in the blessed sunshine, and they invaded my field in swarms and droves, crushing this sweet wheat into the earth and with lustful hands ripping the poppies out by the roots. I shall put up the warnings against trespassing, I said. Yes, said Bess, with a sigh, I'm afraid it is necessary. The day was yet young when she sighed again. I'm afraid, O man, that your signs are of no avail. People have forgotten how to read these days. I went out on the porch, a sitting nymph in cool summer gown and picture hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read it through with care. Profound deliberation characterized her movements. She was statuously tall, but with a toss of the head and a flirt of the skirt, she dropped on hands and knees, crawled under the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in both her hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, and she went away. Then I put up more signs. At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As between the destructive forces and the will to live, the poppies maintained an equilibrium with their environment, but the city folk constituted a new and terrible destructive force. The equilibrium was overthrown and the poppies well nigh perished. Since the city folk plucked those with the longest stems and biggest bowls, and since it is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed big-bowl poppies fell to go to seed, and a stunted short-stemmed variety remained to the hills. And not only was it stunted and short-stemmed, but sparsely distributed as well. Each day and every day, for years and years, the city folk swarmed over the peat-mont hills, and only here and there did the genius of the race survive in the form of miserable little flowers, close clinging and quick blooming like children of the slums dragged hastily and precariously through youth to a shriveled and futile maturity. On the other hand the poppies had prospered in my field, and not only had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the birds. Long ago the field had sown and wheat, which went to seed unharvested each year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy seeds were hidden from the keen-eyed songsters. And further, climbing after the sun through the wheat-stocks, the poppies grew taller and taller and more royal, even than the primordial ones of the open. So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing burning field, were sorely tempted, and it must be told as sorely fell. But no soarer was there fall than that of my beloved poppies. Where the grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun, the soil is moist, and in such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the roots than to break the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk, are inclined to move along the line of least resistance, and for each flower they gathered, there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds, and with them all the possibilities and future beauties of the plant for all time to come. One of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman with white hands and shifty eyes, especially made my life interesting for me. We called him the repeater. What of his ways? When from the porch we implored him to desist, he was wont slowly and casually to direct his steps toward the fence, simulating finally the actions of a man who had not heard, but whose walk instead had terminated of itself or of his own volition. To heighten this effect, now and again, still casually and carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another poppy. Thus did he deceitfully save himself the indignity of being put out, and rob us of the satisfaction of putting him out. But he came, and he began, each time getting away with an able-bodied man's share of plunder. It is not good to be of the city folk. Of this I am convinced. There is something in the mode of life that breeds an alarming condition of blindness and deafness, or so it seems, with the city folk that come to my poppy field. Of the many to whom I have talked ethically, not one has been found who ever saw the warnings so meticulously displayed, while of those called out to from the porch, possibly one in fifty has heard. Also I have discovered that the relation of city folk to country flowers is quite analogous to that of a starving man to food. No more than the starving man realized that five pounds of meat is not so good as an ounce. Do they realize that five hundred poppies crushed and bunched are less beautiful than two or three in a free cluster, where the green leaves and golden bulls may expand to their full loveliness? Less forgivable than the unesthetic or the mercenary, hordes of young rascals plunder me and rob the future that they may stand on street corners and retail California poppies only five cents a bunch. In spite of my precautions some of them made a dollar a day out of my field. One horde do I remember with keen regret. Reconnoitering for a possible dog they applied at the kitchen door for a drink of water, please. While they drank they were besought not to pick any flowers. They nodded, wiped their mouths and proceeded to take themselves off by the side of the bungalow. They smote the poppy field beneath my windows, spread out fan-shaped six wide, picking with both hands and ripped a swath of destruction through the very heart of the field. No cyclone traveled faster or destroyed more completely. I shouted after them but they sped on the wings of the wind great regal poppies broken stocked and mangled trailing after them or cluttering their wake. The most high-handed act of piracy I am confident ever committed off the high seas. One day I went a fishing and on that day a woman entered the field, appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon her. Bess dispatched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more poppies. The woman calmly went on picking. Then Bess herself went down through the heat of the day, but the woman went on picking and while she picked she discussed property and proprietary rights, denying Bess's sovereignty until deeds and documents should be produced in proof thereof. And all the time she went on picking, never once overlooking her hand. She was a large woman, belligerent of aspect, and Bess was only a woman and not prone to fisticuffs. So the invader picked until she could pick no more, set good day and sailed majestically away. People have really grown worse in the last several years, I think, said best to me in a tired sort of voice that night as we sat in the library after dinner. Next day I was inclined to agree with her. There's a woman and a little girl heading straight for the poppies, said May, a maid about the bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited there at vent. They plunged through the pine trees and into the fields and as the roots of the first poppies were pulled I called to them. They were about a hundred feet away. The woman and the little girl turned to the sound of my voice and looked at me. Please do not pick the poppies, I pleaded. They pondered this for a minute. Then the woman said something in an undertone to the little girl and both backs jackknifed as the slaughter recommenced. I shouted, but they had become suddenly deaf. I screamed and so fiercely that the little girl wavered dubiously. And while the woman kept on picking I could hear her in low tones heartening the little girl. I recollected a siren whistle with which I was want to summon Johnny, the son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing of a kind to wake the dead, and I blew and blew, but the jackknifed backs never unclasped. I do not mind with men, but I have never particularly favoured physical encounters with women. Yet this woman, who encouraged a little girl in iniquity, tempted me. I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle, flourishing it in a sanguinary manner and scowling fiercely I charged upon the invaders. The little girl fled, screaming to the shelter of the pines, but the woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least notice. I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was embarrassing. There was I charging down the field like a wild bull upon a woman who would not get out of the way. I could only slow down, supremely conscious of how ridiculous it all was. At a distance of ten feet she straightened up and dained to look at me. I came to a halt and blushed to the roots of my hair. Perhaps I really did frighten her. I sometimes tried to persuade myself that this is so, or perhaps she took pity on me, but at any rate she stalked out of my field with great composure, nay Majesty her arms brimming with orange and gold. Nevertheless thenceforward I saved my lungs and flourished my rifle. Also I made fresh generalizations. To commit robbery women take advantage of their sex. Men have more respect for property than women. Men are less insistent in crime than women. And women are less afraid of guns than men. Likewise we conquer the earth in hazard and battle by the virtues of our mothers. We are a race of land robbers and sea robbers, we Anglos axons, and small wonder when we suckle at the breasts of a breed of women such as Maraud, my poppy-field. The pillage went on. Sirens and gun flourishings were without avail. The city folk were great of heart and undismayed, and I noted the habit of repeating was becoming general. What booted it how often they were driven forth if each time they were promoted to carry away their ill-gotten plunder. When one has turned the same person away twice and thrice, an emotion arises somewhat akin to homicide, and when one has once become conscious of this sanguinary feeling his whole destiny seems to grip hold of him and drag him into the abyss. More than once I found myself unconsciously pulling the rifle into position to get a sight on the miserable trespassers. In my sleep I slew them in manifold ways and threw their carcasses into the reservoir. Each day the temptation to shoot them in the legs became more luring, and every day I felt my fate calling to me imperiously. Visions of the gallows rose up before me, and with the hemp about my neck I saw stretched out the pitiless future of my children dark with disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself and best went about with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends to entice me into taking a vacation. Then and at the last gasp came the thought that saved me. Why not confiscate? If their forays were bootless in the nature of things their forays would cease. The first to enter my field thereafter was a man. I was waiting for him and, oh joy, it was the repeater himself smugly complacent with knowledge of past success. I dropped the rifle negligently across the hollow of my arm and went down to him. I am sorry to trouble you for those poppies I said in my oilyest tones, but really, you know, I must have them. He regarded me speechlessly. It must have made a great picture. It surely was dramatic. With the rifle across my arm and my suave request still ringing in my ears I felt like Black Bart and Jesse James and Jack Shepard and Robin Hood and whole generations of highwaymen. Come, come! I said a little sharply and in what I imagined was the true fashion. I am sorry to inconvenience you believe me, but I must have those poppies. I absently shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. Without a word he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence but no longer casual and careless was his carriage. I nor he did stoop to pick the occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of the repeater. I could see by his eyes that he did not like me and his back reproached me all the way down the field and out of sight. From that day the bungalow has been flooded with poppies. Every face and earthen jar is flooded with them. They blaze on every mantel and run riot through all the rooms. I present them to my friends and huge bunches and still the kind city folk come and gather more for me. Sit down for a moment, I say, to the departing guest. And there we sit in the shade of the porch while aspiring city creatures pluck my poppies and sweat under the brazen sun. And when their arms are sufficiently weighted with my yellow glories I go down with the rifle over my arm and disburden them. Thus have I become convinced that this situation has its compensations. Confiscation was successful so far as it went but I had forgotten one thing namely the vast number of the city folk. Though the old transgressors came no more new ones arrived every day and I found myself confronted with the titanic task of educating a whole city full to the inexpediency of raiding my poppy field. During the process of disburdening them I was accustomed to explaining my side of the case but I soon gave this over. It was a waste of breath. They could not understand. To one lady who insinuated that I was miserly, I said, my dear madam, no hardship is worked upon you. Had I not been parsimonious yesterday and the day before these poppies would have been picked by the city whores of that day and the day before and your eyes which today have discovered this field would have beheld no poppies at all. The poppies you may not pick today are the poppies I did not permit to be picked yesterday and the day before. Therefore, believe me, you are denied nothing. But the poppies are here today," she said, glaring carnivorously upon their glow and splendor. I will pay you for them," said a gentleman at another time. I had just relieved him of an armful. I felt a sudden shame. I know not why, unless it be that his words had just made clear to me that a monetary as well as an aesthetic value was attached to my flowers. The apparent sordidness of my position overwhelmed me and I said weakly, I do not sell my poppies. You may have what you have picked, but before the week was out I confronted the same gentleman again. I will pay you for them," he said. Yes, I said, you may pay me for them. Twenty dollars, please. He gasped, looked at me searchingly, gasped again and silently and sadly put the poppies down. But it remained, as usual, for a woman to attain the surest pitch of audacity. When I declined payment and demanded my plucked beauties she refused to give them up. I picked these poppies, she said, and my time is worth money. When you have paid me for my time you may have them. Her cheeks, flamed rebellion and her face, with all a pretty one was set and determined. Now I was a man of the hill-tribes and she a mere woman of the city folk and though it is not my inclination to enter into details it is my pleasure to state that that bunch of poppies subsequently glorified the bungalow and started to the city unpaid. Anyway, they were my poppies. They are God's poppies, said the radiant young radical democratically shocked its sight of me turning city folk out of my field and for two weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. I sought her out and explained. I explained at length. I told the story of the poppy as Meta Link had told the life of the bee. I treated the question biologically, psychologically and sociologically. I discussed it ethically and aesthetically. I grew warm over it and impassioned and when I had done she professed conversion but in my heart of hearts I knew it to be compassion. I fled to other friends for consolation. I retold the story of the poppy. They did not appear supremely interested. I grew excited. They were surprised and pained. They looked at me curiously. It ill befits your dignity to squabble over poppies, they said. It is unbecoming. I fled away to yet other friends. I sought vindication. The thing had become vital and I needs must put myself right. I felt called upon to explain though well knowing that he who explains is lost. I told the story of the poppy over again. I went into the minutest details. I added to it and expanded. I talked myself hoarse and when I could talk no more they looked bored. Also they said insipid things and soothing things and things concerning other things and not at all to the point. I was consumed with anger and there and then I renounced them all. At the bungalow I lie and wait for chance visitors. Craftily I broached the subject watching their faces closely the while to detect first signs of disapprobation whereupon I empty long storied vials of wrath upon their heads. I wrangle for hours with whosoever does not say I am right. I am become like Guy D. Mappaslan, old man who picked up a piece of string. I am incessantly explaining and nobody will understand. I have become more brusque in my treatment of the predatory city folk. No longer do I take delight in their dis-burdenment, for it has become an onerous duty, a wearer-some and distasteful task. My friends look at scants and murmur pityingly on the side when we meet in the city. They rarely come to see me now. They are afraid. I am an embedded and disappointed man and all the light seems to have gone out of my life into my blazing field. So one pays for things. End of The Golden Poppy by Jack London Stories of Authors British and American by Edwin Watts Chubb Chapter 58 Henry David Thoreau in the multilingual 1910 collection This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Read by Amy Graymore Chapter 58 Henry David Thoreau During his lifetime Thoreau published but two books, Walden The Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. These had but limited sale while the author was living. Over 700 copies of The Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers were returned to Thoreau by his publisher. Thoreau must have had a helpful sense of humor for after lugging the burden upstairs he complacently remarks, I have now a library of nearly 900 volumes over 700 of which I wrote myself. In recent times a costly edition of all Thoreau's writings has been published. Walden is one of the rare spirits whose fame increases with the years. But of all his voluminous writings Walden, so it seems to me is the most readable, the freshest, the most stimulating. Higginson says that it is, perhaps the only book yet written in America that can bear an annual reading. Walden is a record of Thoreau's sojourn for about two years in the woods by Walden Pond. He went about two miles from his mother's door built a little house or hut bringing nature into a great extent avoiding society. Some people have condemned him as selfish others have defended him. His best defense is his work. If anything so fresh and readable as Walden be the result we might be willing to deny ourselves the society of some of our urban friends without charging them with selfishness. Thoreau was sometimes called a wild man. In a sense he is untamed. He himself confessed, there is in my nature, me thinks that he is a man who has been fighting towards all wildness. Yet he was a true lover of men. He hated slavery and went to jail rather than pay his taxes because he disbelieved in supporting a government that upheld slavery. When his friend the philosophic Emerson peered into the prison cell and said Henry why are you here? The quick retort was, why are you not here? It must be remembered that Thoreau lived in a time of social experiment. Why should not Thoreau make an experiment of his own? Why not live the simple life before Wagner wrote about it? He was tired of the conventionalities of society, of the incessant interruptions of steady thought. Society is not but a conspiracy to compel imitation. The head monkey of Paris puts on a traveller's cap and all the monkeys in America do the same. So Thoreau moves out into the woods by the side of Walden Pond. Before he can live there he must build his house. Near the end of March 1845 I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house. I began to cut down some tall arrowy pines still in their youth for timber. It was difficult to begin without borrowing but perhaps it is the most generous cost thus to permit your fellow men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye. But I returned it sharper than I received it. His house, when finished, was ten feet wide and fifteen long. The exact cost was twenty-eight dollars, twelve and one half cents. In Walden he gives an itemized account of the cost, and then he adds, with a twinkle of his eye, I think I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord and grandeur and luxury as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than my present one. Thoreau also finds some satisfaction that his house cost him less than the year's rent of a college room in Concord. For there the mere rent of a student's room, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each year, though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two side-by-side and under one roof. In this book he gives a very interesting account of what his food cost him during the eight months from July 4th to March 1st. Here is the list. Rice, one dollar seventy-three and a half cents. Malasses, a dollar seventy-three. Rye meal, one dollar four and three-quarter cents. Indian meal, ninety-nine and three-quarter cents. Pork, twenty-two cents. Flour, eighty-eight cents. Sugar, eighty cents. Lod, sixty-five cents. Apples, twenty-five cents. Dried apple, twenty-two cents. Sweet potatoes, ten cents. One pumpkin, six cents. One watermelon, two cents. Salt, three cents. Yes, says he. I did eat eight dollars and seventy-four cents, all told. But I should not thus unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print. In this connection one may call to mind a reported saying of Mrs. Emerson's to the effect that Henry never got very far away from the sound of the dinner horn. It is not hard to imagine that the hospitable Emerson often invited the kindred-spirited Thoreau into his house for a warm and abundant dinner. Another writer recently has advanced also this thought. Thoreau was not so much of a selfish hermit as it might appear. He went into the woods to make his house or hut a station on the underground railroad. If this be true, a new and different light is thrown upon Thoreau's conduct. Thoreau was a great lover of nature and the things of nature loved him. Dr. Channing gives us this glimpse of the man. Thoreau named all the birds without a gun, a weapon he never used in mature years. He neither killed nor imprisoned any animal unless driven by acute needs. He brought home a flying squirrel, studied its mode of flight, but quickly carried it back to the wood. He possessed true instincts of topography and could conceal choice things in the bush and find them again. If Thoreau needed a box in his walk, he would strip a piece of birch bark off the tree, fold it when cut straightly together, and put his tender lichen or brittle creature therein. Emerson supplements this picture with the following account of a visit he once made to Walden. The naturalist waded into the pool of plants and his strong legs were no insignificant part of his armor. On this day he looked for the many anthes and detected it across the wide pool. Dawn examination of the floret cleared that it had been in flower five days. He drew out of his breast pocket a diary and read the names of all the plants that should bloom that day whereof he kept account as a banker does when his notes are due. He could pace rods more accurately than another man could measure them with a chain. He could find his way in the woods at night better by his feet than by his eyes. He knew every track in the snow and on the ground at what creature had taken the path in the snow before him. Thoreau could write the most beautiful descriptions when he was so inclined. Here is an exquisite description of a snowstorm. Did you ever admire the steady, silent windless fall of the snow in some lead-colored sky? Silent saved the little ticking of the flakes as they touched the twigs. It is chased silver molded over the pines and oak leaves. Soft shades hang like curtains along the closely draped wood paths. Frozen apples become little cider vats. The old crooked apple trees frozen stiff in the pale shivering sunlight that appears to be dying of consumption gleam forth like the heroes of one of Dante's cold hells. We would mind any change in the mercury of the dream. The snow crunches under the feet. The chopper's axe rings funerally through the tragic air. At early morn the frost on button bushes and willows with silvery in every stem and minutest twig in filamentary weed came up a silver thing. All the cottage smoke rose salmon-colored into that oblique day. At the base of ditches were shooting crystals, like the blades of an ivory-handled penknife, the rosettes in favors fretted of silver on the flat ice. The little cascades in the brook were ornamented with transparent shields and long candelabrums and spermaceti-colored fool's caps and plated jellies and white globes with the black water whirling along transparently underneath. The sun comes out and all at a glance rubies sapphires, diamonds and emeralds start into intense life on the angles of the snow crystals. End of Henry David Thoreau How Dorothy Became a Princess Chapter 5 of The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum in the multi-lingual 1910 collection This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org When the people of the Emerald City heard that Dorothy had returned to them everyone was eager to see her for the little girl was a general favored in the land of Oz. From time to time some of the folk from the great outside world had found this fairyland, but all except one had been companions of Dorothy and had turned out to be very agreeable people. The exception I speak of was the wonderful Wizard of Oz a sleight-of-hand performer from Omaha who went up in a balloon and was carried by a current of air to the Emerald City. His queer and puzzling tricks made the people of Oz believe him a great wizard for a time and he ruled over them until Dorothy arrived on her first visit and showed the wizard to be a mere humbug. He was a gentle, kind-hearted little man and Dorothy grew to like him afterward. When, after an absence, the wizard returned to the land of Oz, Ozma received him graciously and gave him a home in a part of the palace. In addition to the wizard two other personages from the outside world had been allowed to make their home in the Emerald City. The first was a quaint shaggy man and Ozma had made the governor of the royal storehouses and the second, a yellow hen named Belina who had a fine house in the garden's back of the palace where she looked after a large family. Both these had been old comrades of Dorothy so you see the little girl was quite an important personage in Oz and the people thought she had brought them good luck and loved her next best to Ozma. During her several visits this little girl had been the means of destroying two wicked witches people and she had discovered a live scarecrow who was now one of the most popular personages in all the fairy country. With the scarecrow's help she had rescued Nick Chopper a tin woodman who had rusted in a lonely forest and the tin man was now the emperor of the country of the Winkies and much beloved because of his kind heart. No wonder the people thought Dorothy had brought them good luck. Yet, strange as it may seem she had accomplished all these wonders not because she was a fairy or at any magical powers whatever but because she was a simple, sweet and true little girl who was honest to herself and to all whom she met. In this world in which we lived simplicity and kindness are the only magic wands that work wonders and in the land of Oz Dorothy found these same qualities had won for her the love and admiration of the people. Indeed the little girl had made many and the only real grief the Ozites had ever experienced was when Dorothy left them and returned to her Kansas home. Now she received a joyful welcome although no one except Ozma knew at first that she had finally come to stay for good and all. That evening Dorothy had many callers and among them were such important people as TikTok, a machine man who thought and spoke and moved by clockwork, her old companion the genial shaggy man whose body was brushwood and whose head was a ripe pumpkin with a face carved upon it the cowardly lion and the hungry tiger two great beasts from the forest who served Princess Ozma and Professor H.M. Wogglebug T.E. This Wogglebug was a remarkable creature he had once been a tiny little bug crawling around in a school room but he was discovered and highly magnified so that he could be seen more plainly and while in this magnified condition he had escaped he had always remained big and he dressed like a dandy and was so full of knowledge and information which are distinct requirements that he had been made a professor and the head of the Royal College. Dorothy had a nice visit with these old friends and also talked a long time with the wizard who was little and old and withered and dried up but as merry and active as a child. Afterward she went to see Belina's growing family of chicks. Toto, Dorothy's little black dog, also met with a cordial reception. Toto was a special friend of the shaggy man and he knew everyone else. Being the only dog in the land of Oz he was highly respected by the people who believed animals entitled to every consideration if they behaved themselves properly. Dorothy had four lovely rooms in the palace which were always reserved for her use and were called Dorothy's rooms. These consisted of a beautiful sitting room, a dressing room, a dainty bed chamber and a big marble bathroom. And in these rooms were everything that Hart could desire placed there with loving thoughtfulness by Osma for her little friend's use. The Royal Dressmakers had the little girl's measure so they kept the closets in her dressing room filled with lovely dresses of every description and suitable for every occasion. No wonder Dorothy had refrained from bringing with her old calico and gingham dresses. Here everything that was dear to a little girl's heart was supplied in profusion and nothing so rich and beautiful could ever have been found in the biggest department stores in America. Of course Dorothy enjoyed all these luxuries and the only reason she had cared for preferred to live in Kansas was because her uncle and aunt loved her and needed her with them. Now however all was to be changed and Dorothy was really more delighted to know that her dear relatives were to share in her good fortune and enjoyed the delights of the land of Oz than she was to possess such luxury for herself. Next morning at Osma's request Dorothy dressed herself in a pretty sky blue gown of rich silk trimmed with real pearls. The buckles of her shoes were set with pearls too and more of these priceless gems were on a lovely coronet which she wore upon her forehead. Four, said her friend Osma, from this time forth my dear you must assume your rightful rank as a princess of Oz and being my chosen companion you must dress in a way befitting the dignity of your position. Dorothy agreed to this although she knew that neither gowns nor jewels could make her anything else than the simple, unaffected little girl she had always been. As soon as they had breakfasted the girls eating together in Osma's pretty boudoir, the ruler of Oz said, now dear friend, we will use the magic belt to transport your uncle and aunt from Kansas to the Emerald City but I think it would be fitting in receiving such distinguished guests for us to sit in my throne room. Oh, they're not very distinguished, Osma. Said Dorothy they're just plain people, like me. Being your friends and relatives, Princess Dorothy they are certainly distinguished. Despite the ruler with a smile they won't hardly know what to make of all your splendid furniture and things, protested Dorothy gravely. It may scare him to see your great throne room and perhaps we'd better go into the backyard, Osma, where the cabbages grow and the chickens are playing. Then it would seem more natural to Uncle Henry and Aunt M. No, they shall first see me in my throne room. Replied Osma decidedly and when she spoke in that tone Dorothy knew it was not wise to oppose her for Osma was accustomed to having her own way. So together they went into the throne room an immense domed chamber in the center of the palace. Here stood the royal throne made of solid gold and encrusted with enough precious stones to stock a dozen jewelry stores in our country. Osma, who was wearing the magic belt seated herself in the throne and Dorothy sat at her feet. In the room were assembled many ladies and gentlemen of the court clothed in rich apparel and wearing fine jewelry. Two immense animals squatted one on each side of the throne the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. In a balcony high up in the dome an orchestra played sweet music and beneath the dome two electric fountains that sprays of colored perfumed water shooting up nearly as high as the art ceiling. Are you ready Dorothy? asked the ruler. I am, replied Dorothy but I don't know whether Aunt M and Uncle Henry are ready. That won't matter, declared Osma. The old life can have very little interest to them and the sooner they begin the new life here the happier they will be. Here they come, my dear. As she spoke there before the throne appeared Uncle Henry and Aunt M who for a moment stood motionless glaring with white and startled faces at the scene that confronted them. If the ladies and gentlemen present had not been so polite I am sure they would have laughed at the two strangers. Aunt M had her Calico dress skirt tucked up and she wore a faded blue-checked apron. Her hair was rather straggly and she had on a pair of Uncle Henry's old slippers. In one hand she held a dish towel and the other a cracker than wear plate which she had been engaged in wiping when so suddenly transported to the land of Oz. Uncle Henry, when the summons came had been in the barn due in chores. He wore a ragged and much-soiled straw hat, a checked shirt without any collar and blue overalls tucked into the tops of his old cow-hide boots. By gum. Gasped Uncle Henry looking around as if bewildered. Pong gurgled Aunt M in a horse-frightened voice. Then her eyes fell upon Dorothy and she said, Don't that look like our little girl, our Dorothy Henry? Ah, there. Look out, M. exclaimed the old man as Aunt M advanced the step. Take care of the wild beasts or you're a goner. But now Dorothy sprang forward and embraced and kissed her and Uncle affectionately holding their hands in her own. Don't be afraid, she said to them. You are now in the land of Oz where you are to live always and be comfortable and happy. You'll never have to worry over anything again because there won't be anything to worry about and you'll owe it all to the kindness of my friend, Princess Osma. Here she led them before the throne and continued, Your Highness, this is Uncle Henry and this is Aunt M. Aunt M tried to slick her hair and she hid the dish towel and dish under her apron while she bowed to the lovely Osma. Uncle Henry took off his straw hat and held it awkwardly in his hands. But the ruler of Oz rose and came from her throne to greet her newly arrived guests and she smiled as sweetly upon them as if they had been a king and queen. You are very welcome here where I have brought you for Princess Dorothy's sake. She said graciously, you will be quite happy in your new home. Then she turned to her courteous who were silently and gravely regarding the scene and added, I present to my people our Princess Dorothy's beloved Uncle Henry and Aunt M who will hereafter be subjects of our kingdom. It will please me to have you show them every kindness and honor in your power and to join me in making them happy and contented. Hearing this all those assembled bowed low and respectfully to the old farmer and his wife who bobbed their own heads in return. And now, said Osma to them, Dorothy will show you the rooms prepared for you. I hope you will like them and shall expect you to join me at luncheon. So Dorothy led her relatives away and as soon as they were out of the throne room and alone in the corridor Aunt M squeezed Dorothy's hand and said, Child, child, how in the world did we ever get here so quick and are we to stay here as she says and what does it all mean anyhow? Dorothy laughed. Why didn't you tell us what you were going to do? Inquired Uncle Henry reproachfully. If I'd known about it I'd have put on my Sunday clothes. I'll explain everything as soon as we get to your rooms, promised Dorothy. You're in great luck Uncle Henry and Aunt M and so am I and oh I'm so happy to have got you here at last. As he walked by the little girl's side Uncle Henry stroked his whiskers thoughtfully. Piers for me Dorothy we won't make bang up fairies. He remarked. And my back hair looks like a fright, wailed Aunt M. Never mind, said the little girl reassuringly. You won't have anything to do now but to look pretty Aunt M and Uncle Henry won't have to work till his back aches, that's certain. Sure? They asked wonderingly and in the same breath. Of course I'm sure, said Dorothy. You're in the fairyland of Oz now and what's more you belong to it. End of Chapter 5 of the Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum Read by Miriam Esther Goldman