The Brook.

IV.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

TENNYSON.

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet.
LONGFELLOW.

Paul Revere's Ride.

Which, when taken at its flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Julius Cæsar.

SHAKESPEARE.

VI. Handsome women without religion are like flowers without perfume.-HEINE.

Remember, only long vowels and the nasal sounds may be prolonged to advantage.

CAUTIONS. One thing must be guarded against in reading selections in slow rate. Do not overdo the long quantity of the syllables. In reading a solemn selection, or one deeply emotional, there is often a prolongation on the sounds, but the greater time consumed in reading a slow selection lies in the relative length of the pause between the words and phrases, not in the quantity, or the length of time it takes to say the words. Avoid a d-r-a-w-l-i-n-g, l-a-z-y tone unless you desire directly to express imitatively this characteristic.

Examples:

Copy the following selections and mark the pauses with the bar (/); the long quantity of the sounds, syllables, or words with a dash (—) above them. Also, note the transitions.

Give reasons for the kinds of rate, and for the quantity in the selections.

pause and

SLOW RATE.

(From 60 to 100 words a minute.)

I. Eternity, thou pleasing, dreadful thought.-ADDISON.

II.

III.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields
And thinking of the days that are no more.

I cannot make him dead!

His fair sunshiny head

Is ever bounding round my study chair;
Yet when my eyes, now dim

With tears, I turn to him,

The vision vanishes, he is not there.

My Child.

IV.

The Idler.

TENNYSON.

JOHN PIERPONT.

What's the use of all the moiling,

All the haste to get ahead?
You that are so busy toiling
By to-morrow may be dead.
Why keep trying, trying, trying,
Why not halt and call a truce?
You will presently be dying

In the harness! What's the use?

S. E. KISER.

V. The hours pass slowly by-nine, ten, eleven,-how solemnly the last stroke of the clock floats out upon the still air. It dies gently away, swells out again in the distance, and seems to be caught up by spirit-voices of departed years, until the air is filled with melancholy strains. It is the requiem of the dying year.-SELECted.

VI.

Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him:
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening-nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory;

But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye:
I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have:
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.

Henry VIII.

SHAKESPEARE.

MEDIUM RATE.

III. A good life: To think what is true, to feel what is beautiful, and to deserve what is good.-PLATO.

IV.

Reason thus with life,
If I lose thee, I lose a thing
That none but fools would keep.

SHAKESPEARE.

V. Give us, oh, give us, the man who sings at his work! He will do more in the same time, he will do it better,—he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheer

fulness, altogether past calculation in its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous, a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.

Work.

CARLYLE.

VI. Read, not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in less important argument, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things.

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

Essays Of Studies.

BACON.

RAPID RATE.

(From 200 to 250 words a minute.)

I. Pick it up quick, Jack.

II.

L'Allegro.

Haste, thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity,.

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to dwell in dimples sleek;
Come, and trip it as ye go,

On the light fantastic toe.

III. I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

MILTON.

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

How They Brought the Good News from Ghent. BROWNING.

IV. What do you say? "If it's painful, why so often do it?" I suppose you call that a joke-one of your club-jokes. As I say, I only wish I'd any money of my own. If there is anything that humbles a poor woman, it is coming to a man's pocket for every farthing. It's dreadful!-D. W. JERROLD.

V.

The mustang flew, and we urged him on;

There was one chance left-and you have but one-
Halt, jump to the ground, and shoot your horse,
Crouch under his carcass, and take your chance;
And if the steers, in their frantic course,
Don't batter you both to pieces at once,

You may thank your star; if not, good-by

To the quickening kiss and the long-drawn sigh,
And the open air, and the open sky,

Lasca.

In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.

DESPREZ.

VI. I just must talk! I must talk all the time! Of course I talk entirely too much-no one knows that better than I do—yet I can't help it! I know that my continual cackling is dreadful, and I know exactly when it begins to bore people, but somehow I can't stop myself. Aunt Patsey says I am simply fearful and just like a girl she used to know, who lived down East, a Miss Polly Blanton, who talked all the time; told everything, everything she knew, everything she had ever heard; and then when she could think of nothing else, boldly began on the family secrets. Well, I believe I am just like that girl-because I am constantly telling things about our domestic life which is by no means pleasant. Pa and ma lead an awful kind of existencelive just like cats and dogs. Now I ought never to tell that, yet somehow it will slip out in spite of myself.

The Buzz-Saw Girl.

DOUGLASS SHERLEY.

RHYTHM

The second great division of movement is rhythm. The universe abounds in rhythm, pulsations, beats; such as the twitter of song-birds, the chirping of insects, the roar of the ocean waves, the throbs of the heart.

This methodic throb of life is expressed both in poetry and in prose, and it must be heard to be appreciated. Rhythm in speech is a more or less regularly recurring ac