LOWELL.--From among his shorter lyrical poems, read _Our Love is not a Fading Earthly Flower, To the Dandelion, The Present Crisis, The First Snow-Fall, After the Burial, For an Autograph, Prelude to Part I. of The Vision of Sir Launfal._ From _The Biglow Papers,_ read _What Mr. Robinson Thinks_ (No. III., _First Series_), _The Courtin'_ (_Introduction_ to _Second Series_), _Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line_ (No. VI., _Second Series_). From _A Fable for Critics,_ read the lines on Cooper, Poe, and Irving. 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. Compare the humor of these two short poems describing a wooing: _The Courtin'_ (Lowell), _The Ballad of the Oysterman_ (Holmes). Discuss the ideals of these four poems: _A Psalm of Life_ (Longfellow), _For an Autograph_ (Lowell), _An Autograph_ (Whittier), _The Chambered Nautilus_ (Holmes). What difference in the mental characteristics of the authors do these two retrospective poems show: _My Lost Youth_ (Longfellow), _Memories_ (Whittier)? For a more complete answer to this question, compare the girls in these two poems: _Maidenhood_ (Longfellow):-- "Maiden, with the meek, brown eyes, In whose orbs a shadow lies," and _In School Days_ (Whittier), beginning with the lines where he says of the winter sun long ago:-- "It touched the tangled golden curls, And brown eyes full of grieving."