carries the other words with it. This word is called the emphatic word; and the accent put upon it is called an emphasis. What an accent is to a syllable, then, an emphasis is to a whole word. As it is the sense which regulates on what word the accent is to be placed, we may fairly define an emphasis as a sense-accent. Emphasis is placed upon a word in two ways-first, by putting a certain force or stress on the emphatic word, and secondly, by making a pause after it. These two ways are generally combined. Let us take, for example, the old instance usually given in books on elocution. (5) Shall you ride to town to-day ? Yes: what made you think would not? Emphasis, like pause, has been divided into (a) Emphasis of Sense and (b) Emphasis of Feeling. (a) Examples of Emphasis of Sense have been given above; and it is quite plain from them, that, if the emphasis is not placed upon the proper word, the sense of the sentence is completely altered. (b) Examples of Emphasis of Feeling abound in all impassioned writing, and especially in Poetry. Thus, in the burial of Sir John • Moore, the feeling of the line naturally induces us to put a mournful and heavy emphasis on the words slowly and sadly. Slowly and sadly we laid him down. In the following lines, the words very few have a weighty and mournful emphasis upon them. She dwelt among untrodden ways A maid whom there were none to praise OF ACCENT AND EMPHASIS. 25 And in the next verse, there is a most tragic emphasis on difference. She lived unknown; and few could know When she had ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and oh! The difference to me. Before attempting to read a sentence, it is our duty to find out the emphatic word or words, and so to read the other group of words as to make them work up to the emphasis, to make them serve the effect of the emphasis,-and to allow the emphatic word or words to stand out in clear relief. How strong this relief will be, of course depends on the strength of the emphasis; and that is a question which can only be solved in each individual case by the good sense and by the feeling of teacher and pupil.,* The following are a few exercises on this important subject. In reading these exercises, each passage should be preceded by two questions: 1. What is the strongest or most emphatic word in these lines? 2. Why? Or,-In opposition to what other idea is this word emphatic? EXERCISES ON EMPHASIS. Find out the emphatic word or words in the following lines : 1. "Bring forth another horse!" he cried aloud. Another, as he wanted to pursue his journey. 2. Give true hearts but earth and sky! True (and not false hearts); earth and sky, because they are the only things wanted or needed. 3. Smile! and we smile, the lords of many lands. We, because if Fortune smile, then we smile too. 4. His pity gave ere charity began. Pity, because his pity came into exercise before he thought of charity as a duty. 5. Sweet were his words when last we met. 6. They only saw the cloud of night. 7. They only heard the roar of Yarrow. I have stood on many a field 8. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek the foe. 9. And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. 10. O sir, thou art more fortunate than I. 11. Truth sits upon the lips of dying men. 12. He perished, but his wreath was won. 13. Our business is like men to fight And, hero-like, to die. 14. With eyes turned to heaven in calm resignation, They sang their last song to the God of salvation. 15. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send; He gave to misery all he had a tear; He gained from Heaven-'twas all he wished—a friend. 16. 'Twas no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. 17. Forty flags with their silver stars, Forty flags with their crimson bars, 18. The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died. 19. But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave. 20. Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. 21. And art thou gone, and gone for ever? Like thee, where shall I find another, The world around? 22. We carved not a line, we raised not a stoneBut we left him alone in his glory. 23. His people's heart is his funeral urn. 24. They also serve who only stand and wait. 26. It comforts me in this one thought to dwell, That I subdued me to my Father's will. 27. When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better Than ever thou lovedst Cassius. 28. And in his hand he bare a mighty bow, No man could bend of those that battle now. OF ACCENT AND EMPHASIS. 29. And in his wake along the rippling brine 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. Breathed a warm wind, exceeding soft and sweet, A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; To my sweet native village, so far, far away, It is the last of all my flock. And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Here shall he see No enemie But winter and rough weather. A country life is sweet. He prayeth best who loveth best They ran, and with a desperate leap 27 In reading poetry, the constant and the great difficulty which arises is that which is produced by a contradiction between the verseaccent and the emphasis. The verse-accent strikes some quite unimportant word, such as in, upon, there, was, and so on; and the line, if read according to the verse-accent, obtains a false emphasis from the reader. Children have a good and quick ear for the music and the rhythm of verse; and they catch that long before they seize the It pleases them, and they hasten to enjoy the pleasure. Thus nine children out of ten read the first line of CASABIANCA thus: sense. The boy stood on the burning deck; because the line is divided into feet, each of two syllables with the accent upon the last syllable. Hence the words boy, on, burn, and deck, receive the accent and seem to have an emphasis. But, if the right attention is given to the sense, and the verse allowed to take care of itself, we should read it thus: The boy stood-on-the-burning-deck. The words The boy would take a slight pause after them, and the statement of what the boy was doing would be read like an ordinary statement in prose. Again, further on in the same poem, we have the lines: He knew not that the chieftain lay The usual way of reading these lines is : He knew not that the chieftain lay because the verse-accent in both lines strikes the quite unimportant words that and of. The only way to avoid these flagrant errors is to make a slight pause after the words He knew not and the word Unconscious, to slur over that and of, and to hasten to the important words chieftain and son. The lines will then be read in this manner: He knew not that-the-chieftain lay Southey's poem, The Complaints of the Poor, is written in a style so very colloquial and easy, that the verse-accent is every now and then striking unimportant words and bringing them into ridiculous prominence. Thus we have, And wherefore do the poor complain? The rich man asked of me. A still more striking example of the same difficulty is to be found in the first four lines of Cowper's poem, On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture. These are sometimes read thus: Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed |