Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader — Reading Notes

Bonheur was the greatest woman artist that ever lived.

"The Horse Fair," Rosa Bonheur's most famous painting, was bought by an American gentleman and presented by him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.

ALEXANDER AND THE ROBBER

_Alexander_--What! art thou that Thracian robber, of whose exploits I have heard so much?

_Robber_--I am a Thracian, and a soldier.

_Alexander_--A soldier!--a thief, a plunderer, an assassin, the pest of the country; but I must detest and punish thy crimes.

_Robber_--What have I done of which you can complain?

_Alexander_--Hast thou not set at defiance my authority, violated the public peace and passed thy life in injuring the persons and properties of thy fellow-subjects?

_Robber_--Alexander, I am your captive. I must hear what you please to say, and endure what you please to inflict. But my soul is unconquered; and if I reply at all to your reproaches, I will reply like a free man.

_Alexander_--Speak freely. Far be it from me to take advantage of my power, to silence those with whom I deign to converse.

_Robber_--I must, then, answer your question by another. How have you passed your life?

_Alexander_--Like a hero. Ask Fame, and she will tell you. Among the brave, the bravest; among sovereigns, the noblest; among conquerors, the mightiest.

_Robber_--And does not Fame speak of me too? Was there ever a bolder captain of a more valiant band? Was there ever--but I scorn to boast. You yourself know that I have not been easily subdued.

_Alexander_--Still, what are you but a robber,--a base, dishonest robber?

_Robber_--And what is a conqueror? Have not you too gone about the earth like an evil genius, plundering, killing without law, without justice, merely to gratify your thirst for dominion? What I have done in a single province with a hundred followers, you have done to whole nations with a hundred thousand. What; then, is the difference, but that you were born a king, and I a private man; you have been able to become a mightier robber than I.

_Alexander_--But if I have taken like a king, I have given like a king. If I have overthrown empires, I have founded greater. I have cherished arts, commerce, and philosophy.

_Robber_--I too have freely given to the poor what I took from the rich. I know, indeed, very little of the philosophy you speak of, but I believe neither you nor I shall ever atone to the world for the mischief we have done it.

_Alexander_--Leave me. Take off his chains, and use him well. Are we, then, so much alike? Alexander like a robber? Let me reflect.

Not many generations ago, where you now sit, surrounded with all that makes life happy, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your heads, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; he gazed on the same moon that smiles for you, and here too the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate.

Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, the council fire glared on the wise and daring. Here they warred; and when the strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace.

Here, too, they worshiped; and from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had written His laws for them, not on tables of stone, but He had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the Universe he acknowledged in everything around.

He beheld Him in the star that sunk in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the flower that swayed in the morning breeze; in the lofty trees as well as in the worm that crawled at his feet.

All this has passed away. Four hundred years have changed the face of this great continent, and this peculiar race has been well-nigh blotted out. Art has taken the place of simple nature, and civilization has been too strong for the savage tribes of the red man.

Here and there a few Indians remain; but these are merely the degraded offspring of this once noble race of men.