child, nor is the father entitled to receive it according to the conditions." It will be noticed that the perplexity comes from the fact of self-relation: the one assertion relates to another assertion of the same person; and the one assertion being conditioned upon the other, the difficulty arises. It is the question of self-contradiction-of two mutually contradictory statements; one must be false. It is a sophism, but one that continually occurs among unsophisticated reasoners. It is also a practical sophism, for it is continually being acted in the world around us (e. g., a person seeks pleasure by such means that, while he enjoys himself, he undermines his health, or sins against his conscience, and thus draws inevitably on him physical suffering and an uneasy soul). It is therefore well worthy of study in its purely logical form. All universal negative assertions (and a lie is a negation) are liable to involve the assertion itself in self-contradiction: "I never tell the truth" (if you do now, your assertion is false; if what you say is true, then it is false). Said a selfish clown: “I wish all men were dead except my family; then we would keep a hotel." Suicide is a practical application of this sophism. In the interest of pleasure, to escape physical pain, he precludes also physical pleasure. Murder incurs the punishment of death; self-murder unites crime and punishment. Killing the goose that laid the golden egg" is also another application. 66 LXV. THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE 1. Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death, Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! Rode the six hundred. 2. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew 3. Cannon to right of them, Volleyed and thundered; 4. Flashed all their sabers bare, All the world wondered: Plunged in the battery smoke, Cossack and Russian Reeled from the saber stroke, Shattered and sundered. Then they rode back, but not― 5. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volleyed and thundered; 6. When can their glory fade? Alfred Tennyson FOR PREPARATION.-I. "Balaklava "-find it on the Black Sea. When was this "charge"? What nations were ranged against the Russians? What military object had they in capturing Sevastopol? Who had “blundered "? II. League (leeg), vol'-leyed (-lid), dis-mayed', val'-ley, sa'-bers. III. Explain the meaning given by rs in theirs; why the change of y to i;-why fought instead of fight. IV. Explain "Light Brigade; -"they broke the Russian line; " "half a league." Correct "Cannon to right of 'em." V. "Charging an army "-why a whole army? (They rode, unsupported, into the ranks of the enemy, and thus exposed themselves to the attack of the entire Russian army. See LXVI., § 2.) "Jaws of Death" (personifi, cation). Mark the feet in the first stanza. Does the rhythm seem ap propriate for the description of galloping horses? What passages de scribe well the soldiers' obedience to command? What moral traits did the soldiers of the Light Brigade exhibit? What nation is proud of their deed? FIFTH READER. LXVI. THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 1. The whole brigade scarcely made one effective regiment, according to the numbers of Continental armies, As they and yet it was more than we could spare. rushed toward the front, the Russians opened on them from the guns in the redoubt on the right, with volleys of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendor of war. 2. We could scarcely believe the evidence of our senses! Surely that handful of men are not going to charge an army in position! Alas! it was but too true. Their desperate valor knew no bounds, and far indeed. was it removed from its so-called better part-discretion. 3. They advanced in two lines, quickening their pace as they closed toward the enemy. A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed than by those who beheld these heroes rushing to the arms of death. At the distance of twelve hundred yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth from thirty iron mouths a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain. 4. The first line is broken!-it is joined by the second! -they never halt, or check their speed an instant. With diminished ranks-thinned by those thirty guns, which the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracywith a halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a cheer which was many a noble fellow's death cry, they flew into the smoke of the batteries; but, ere they were the plain was strewed with their bodies, casses of horses. e exposed to an oblique fire from the bats on both sides, as well as to a direct fire "hrough the clouds of smoke we could see hing as they rode up to the guns and them, cutting down the gunners as they light, we saw them returning after breaklumn of Russian infantry, and scattering when the flank fire of the battery on the down, scattered and broken as they were. and dismounted troopers flying toward us e. Demigods could not have done what to do. ery moment when they were about to reous mass of lancers was hurled on their Shewell, of the Eighth Hussars, saw the e his few men straight at them, cutting with fearful loss. The other regiments gaged in a desperate encounter. With at almost for credence, they were breaking gh the columns which enveloped them, place an act of atrocity without parallel varfare of civilized nations. sian gunners, when the storm of cavalry to their guns. They saw their own cavith the troopers who had just ridden over the eternal disgrace of the Russian name, poured a murderous volley of grape and mass of struggling men and horses, minfoe in one common ruin! It was as much valry brigade could do to cover the retreat LXVII. 1. Orphan Hours, t For the Year i 2. As an earthquake In its coffin in |