OF PAUSE. They wept, and turning homeward, cried, 66 'In heaven we all shall meet," When in the snow the mother spied The print of Lucy's feet. 19 In this verse, it will have to be explained to the reader that he must make a pause after snow and then allow the sense to run into the next line. Nothing is more common than this necessity; and were poetry written otherwise, it would become intolerably monotonous. This is a case in which there is only an apparent pause-a pause made by the printer, and yet no real pause in the sense. The general rule may be laid down thus: Take care of the SENSE; and the verse will take care of itself. But it is excellent practice and will conduce to the early formation of good taste in reading, if the teacher will make a selection of verses in which the sense overflows from one line to another. This can easily be done by making a certain mark against such verses in the ordinary Reading-book, and by having them read separately now and then as practice. The following are a few examples* which may serve for introductory practice: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. EXAMPLES OF OVERFLOWING SENSE. No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew; The sweetest thing that ever grew You yet may spy the fawn at play, But the sweet face of Lucy Gray Will never more be seen. And all the neighbourhood could tell 'Twas autumn-and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back. 'Twas evening, and the frozen streets Were cheerless to behold. * It would be well if the teacher gave some information to place the pupil in the right mental attitude for reading them. See p. 22. 6. 7. 8. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. And therefore was it she was sent We saw a woman sitting down She turned her head, and bade the child And therefore to her parish she chill; Sudden and swift a whistling ball "The bird and cage they both were his; The singing bird had gone with him." For-when the morn came, dim and sad, Her quiet eyelids closed-sbe had "Is he there now?" said Mahmoud.-No;-he left And laughed me down the street, because I vowed I'd bring the prince himself to lay him in his shroud." 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. OF PAUSE. Now light the light, the Sultan cried aloud. That was the grandest funeral We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing The skeletons of nations were Up to the throne of God is borne Nor will He turn His ear aside A church in every grove that spreads ""Tis well that such seditious words are sung Only by priests From an impostor who usurps my throne!" 26. 27. "I am the king and come to claim my own 28. And 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. The passion of his woe Burst from him in resistless overflow lifting high his forehead he would fling The Pope received them with great pomp and blare And through the chant a second melody Rose Some beloved mother, bending O'er the infant she is tending. Or that other pleasures be These, these are things that may demand But, lovely child! thy magic stole 21 35. They love thee well; thou art the queen Pauses, then, have a two-fold use: 1°, They throw the words of each sentence into certain groups, and thus enable the ear to catch more quickly the relations of the clauses to each other; and— 2°, They enable the reader to express and the listener to sympathize with the feeling of each sentence. 3. From Southey's Ballad of Bishop Hatto. 11. This and the next three are from Mr. Browning's poem, Incident in the French Camp. 18. This and the next are from Leigh Hunt's poem, Mahmoud. 20. Said of the funeral of Moses. 22. Said of the Last Man, by T. Campbell. "Emphasis is the key to GooD READING." SULLIVAN "The laws of EMPHASIS form a study of the highest intellectual value. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any study is more directly calculated to exercise the mind in all its faculties than the investigation of the precise meaning of a standard author." BELL. Ir we see a company of soldiers marching past, we know, or we find out, that all the soldiers are not of equal rank, and have not the same function, but that, while most of them are private soldiers, some are captains, some lieutenants, some sergeants, and some corporals. And as, in war, these higher officers form the centres and the pivots round which all movements of importance take place, so-in the case of a sentence-the emphatic words are the words round which the others cluster, on which they depend for their power and force, and without which, the other words are nothing. The emphatic words in a sentence are the words which carry the greatest weight of meaning. The same is the case with a word. Every word of two or more syllables has one syllable which is much more important than the others-which, in fact, is the syllable to which the others attach themselves and on which they depend. This important syllable is the accented syllable. Thus remarkable, habitual, contemporary, have the accent on the second syllable. Now, what takes place with a certain syllable in a word takes place also with a certain word in a clause or sentence. There is always one word which has a certain stress or accent upon it, and which attracts and supports all the others. Even in a sentence so simple as: "This is my brother," there is a slight accent upon this, and the word this |