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This accounts for the falling inflection on any emphasised word of such question.

112. A Question repeated because the person speaking has not clearly apprehended what has been said, may be considered as dependent upon another question understood, as if the speaker said, 'May I ask you ?' and will necessarily assume the rising inflection, with emphasis on the interrogative word:

When did you say you were going?

'King Richard. Down, Court! Down, King!

For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.

Bolingbroke. What says his Majesty?

Northumberland. Sorrow and grief of heart

Makes him speak fondly as a frantic man.'

Richard II. iii. 3.

Note that the rising inflection, though generally on the interrogative, will take place on any emphasised word in such questions.

113. Retorted Questions will also be found to be dependent upon a question understood, and so require a rising inflection:

"Falstaff. A plague of all cowards, still say I.

'Prince Henry. What's the matter?

'Falstaff. What's the matter? There be four of us here have taken a thousand pounds this day morning.'-1 Henry IV. ii. 4.

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4 Cit. Are you a married man, or a bachelor?

2 Cit. Answer every man directly.

1 Cit. Ay, and briefly.

4 Cit. Ay, and wisely.

3 Cit. Ay, and truly, you were best.

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Cinna. What is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I dwell?

Am I a married man or a bachelor? Then to answer every man directly, and briefly, wisely, and truly; wisely, I say, I am a bachelor.' -Julius Cæsar, iii. 3.

114. Law of Suspense and Conclusion in Questions. -Do not let the student suppose that the inflection of questions offers any exception to the law of suspense and conclusion. When a question is asked for information, the attention is in suspense till meaning is evolved from the answer. And when a question is put with a knowledge on the part of the interrogator, it is tantamount to an assertion.

115. The Inflection of Imperatives.-Imperatives express either command or entreaty.

116. Commands always take a falling inflection, the extent of the interval varying with the speaker's intensity:

'Thou shalt not steal.'

'Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen.'-Paradise Lost, i.

117. Entreaties, though imperative in Form, partake of the nature of interrogation, and are read with rising inflections.

Commands depend upon the will of the speaker; entreaties upon that of the hearer. Hence the former are uttered positively, the latter suspensively :

'Give me some bread,' says a master to his servant.

But:

'Give me some bread,' says a beggar.

Contrast the command of Hubert to his subordi

nates

'Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.'

King John, iv. 1.

with the supplication of his intended victim:

'Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues
Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes:
Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert;
Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,

So I may keep my eyes: O, spare my eyes,
Though to no use but still to look on you!'—Ibid.

In the former example, we have strong falling inflections; in the latter, plaintive rising inflections.

118. Suspense and Conclusion in Imperatives.Thus, even in imperatives, no less than in assertions and questions, the law of suspense and conclusion will be found to obtain. Moreover, whenever the sentence is complicated, the attention of the hearer must be sustained by the rising inflection, while the falling inflection is restricted to the clause conveying the imperative :

'Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, heavenly Muse.'—Paradise Lost, i.

119. The Inflection of Exclamations.-Exclamations express surprise, admiration, joy, grief, and other sudden emotions of the speaker. Their emphatic syllables receive the falling inflection, either simple or compound,

the interval varying according to the intensity of the speaker's mental state.

'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank !'
Merchant of Venice, v. 1.

'And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to

be queen of the May.'-TENNYSON, May Queen.

'How poor are they that have not patience!'

Othello, ii. 3.

120. Exclamations in series, when appealing rather to the intellect than to the feelings, are governed by the rules relating to assertions in series (§§ 71-75).

'What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God.' Hamlet, ii. 2.

In uncontrolled emotion, however, each exclamation is independent, and should be read with a falling inAection :

'O wretched state! O bosom black as death!

O limed soul! that struggling to be free
Art more engag'd.'—Hamlet, iii. 3.

121. Suspense and Conclusion in Exclamations.The remark upon the law of suspense and conclusion, as applied to imperatives, will apply equally to exclamations. The attention of the hearers must be sustained by the rising inflection on clauses preceding the exclamation:

'But had they guessed, or could they but have dreamed,

The great examples which they died to show

Should fall so flat, should shine so fruitless here,

That men should say, "For liberty they died,

Wherefore let us be slaves;" had they thought this,

Oh, then, with what an agony of shame,

Their blushing faces buried in the dust,

Had their great spirits parted hence for heaven!'

TAYLOR, Philip van Artevelde.

Thus we may trace the law of suspense and conclusion through all sentences. The exceptions, which we have noted as we have proceeded, will be found on examination to be apparent only. When a speaker can fully grasp this law, and apply it spontaneously for himself, he may dispense with the distinctions into which we have somewhat minutely entered.

MODULATION.

122. Modulation in speaking denotes the agreeable arrangement of inflections within the natural compass of the speaker's voice.

In calling to any one at a distance, we naturally pitch our voice high, though we preserve the same tune or scale of inflections which we should use in addressing a person close at hand, when the voice would adapt itself to a lower pitch, while in passion the voice is sounded from its 'lowest note to the top of its compass.' Elocutionists refer these transitions to three general pitches of the voice

Upper,
Middle, and

Lower pitch.

123. The Upper Pitch is used in the expression of joy, rage, triumph, martial enthusiasm, and excited states of mind generally.

124. The Middle Pitch is used in ordinary conversation, narration, reflection, &c.

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