6. I saw their chief tall as a rock of ice; his spear the blasted fir; his shield the rising moon; he sat on the shore like a cloud of mist upon the hill. 7. There was such silence through the host, as when 8. It is on the death-bed, on the couch of sorrow and of pain, that the thought of one purely virtuous action is like the shadow o a lofty rock in the desert-like the light footsteps of that little child who continued to dance before the throne of the unjust king, when his guards had fled, and his people had forsaken him—like the single thin stream of light which the unhappy captive has at last learned to love-like the soft sigh before the breeze that wafts the becalmed vessel and her famished crew to the haven where they would be. - 9. 10. Sweet is the scene when virtue dies! So fades a summer cloud So dies a wave along the shore. A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun: WATTS. 11. 12. COMPARATIVE STATEMENTS, OR SIMILES. Emblem, methought, of the departed soul, JOHN WILSON. He spoke and Sohrab kindled at his taunts, Come rushing down together from the clouds, MATTHEW ARNOLD. as she rose As when some hunter in the spring hath found more As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, MATTHEW ARNOLD.* 75 1. This verse is from Professor Longfellow's Wreck of the Hesperus. 2. That is, true power of expression. 3. The common, but deceptive belief. 4. This simile is from Ossian. (To pp. 73 and 74.) *These two similes-from the poem of Sohrab and Rustum-are among the finest similes in all literature. The simple and adequate expression is as fine and satisfactory as the truth of the conception. [The teacher should listen to these with his book shut.] THE object of these Gymnastics is to perfect the pupil in a clear and distinct articulation. Every child has his own besetting fault in pronunciation or articulation; and one pupil will require more practice in one part of these exercises, and another in another. It would be advisable that, where considerable defects exist, the pupil should draw up a set of exercises himself on the points where he happens to be defective. Errors in the pronunciation of vowels are most easily corrected by imitating the teacher; but errors in consonants are best overcome by continued practice in such words as contain several consonants together. Words like facts should have all the three final consonants brought clearly out. The tendency is to lose altogether or to do injustice to the t. INTERJECTIONAL OR EXCLAMATORY STATEMENTS. THESE statements are still more impassioned, and in a more excited key, than the questions of appeal. The "rising inflection" is therefore predominant; and the main point to be observed the chief difficulty to be got over-is to settle on what word this inflection ought to culminate. An indiscriminate raising of the voice becomes mere "spouting," which destroys all right feeling in the listener, and therefore defeats its own object. The reader must try never to forget that he is addressing an object; but he must and ought at the same time to forget the presence of any listeners in the room-he must have his mind full of the object he is supposed to be speaking to. 1. 2. 3. 4. "Come back! come back!" he cried in grief, And I'll forgive your Highland chief, Oh, by thy father's head! by thine own soul! Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail, Awake! arise! or be for ever fallen!4 5. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings! 5 Sweet pleasing sleep! of all the powers the best! *This is said by King Lear, when his madness is beginning. He thinks that under some roof or other, one of his undutiful daughters may be found. |