adjectives, or on the adjective rather than on the noun, is a common fault.

Example:

Our fathers raised their flag against a power to which Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared; a power that has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts; whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.-WEbster.

CLIMAX. Climax is the artistic building up of a dramatic effect by means of increased emphasis. The climactic arrangement of the author's thoughts and ideas affords a very effective means of arousing the emotions. It is often used in oratory in making an appeal. Each succeeding emphasis should be stronger than the last, though all need not be of the same kind.

Appropriately express the thought relationship in the following examples. Be sure that it has an accumulative effect. The Stress-emphasis is usually used in the climax. Sometimes the Stress-emphasis is used on all words except the last, Intensity-emphasis being used on the last word or phrase. This is often very dramatic.

Examples:

1.

Mr. Calhoun, while in the Senate one day, made a speech in which he stated that he was Henry Clay's master. Mr. Clay arose, shaking his finger at Mr. Calhoun, and said in tones and looks in which were concentrated the greatest scorn and defiance: "He my master! He my master! HE my master! Sir, I would not own him for my SLAVE !”

2. If I were an American as I am an Englishman, and a foreign troop were landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms. Never! Never! NEVER!-BURke.

3. The merchants say to you, the constitutionalists say to you, the Americans say to you,—and I, I now say, and say to your beard, Sir,-You are not an honest man.- -CURRAN.

4. You remember the story J. Russell Lowell tells of Webster, when we in Massachusetts were about to break up the Whig party. Webster came home to Faneuil Hall to protest. Drawing himself up to his loftiest proportions, his brow charged with thunder, he exclaimed: "Gentlemen, I am a Whig, a Massachusetts Whig, a revolutionary Whig, a constitutional Whig, a Faneuil Hall Whig, and if you break up the Whig party, where am I to go?" "And," says Lowell, "we all held our breath wondering where he could go.'

Eulogy on O'Connell.

PHILLIPS.

5. When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from

sleep,

And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like a wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and
their flags,

And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd
navy of Spain,

And the little Revenge herself went down by the island

crags,

To be lost evermore in the main.

The Revenge.

A FEW CAUTIONS

TENNYSON.

I. Avoid emphasizing too much, or none at all, or at random.

That voice all modes of passion can express

Which marks the proper word with proper stress;
But none emphatic can that speaker call

Who lays an equal emphasis on all.

II. Avoid emphasizing the next to the last word in a sentence irrespective of the thought expressed. This lends to the "ministerial" tone so much disliked.

III. Avoid emphasizing a word at certain regular intervals. This is characteristic of the "darky preacher tone."

IV. Avoid using only one kind of emphasis. Practice all methods. No one mode will be best at all times.

V. Avoid a monotonous chant. Plutarch relates that

Julius Cæsar, while yet a youth, hearing some person read in a chanting tone, said: "Are you reading or singing? If you sing, you sing badly; if you read, you nevertheless sing."

After all, formal rules are of little value. Unless the reader gets the thought, he will be unable to emphasize properly. Still, there are some who may know when to emphasize but are unable to pull the right strings so as to manipulate the machinery. But it is very important that we know how to emphasize and that we do emphasize. As Professor S. H. Clark says: "One's emphasis is the gauge of one's ability to understand. Whatever else a man may be he is not a reader if he fails to emphasize correctly. One who emphasizes correctly is more likely to do justice to his author in other regards. Nothing else betrays our ignorance of the text like bad emphasis.'

EXERCISES:

Practice the following, using each of the five principal methods of emphasis on as many examples as possible. Then decide which would be most effective.

I. To be or not to be-that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them?-To die-to sleep-
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to-'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die—to sleep—

To sleep?-perchance to dream-aye, there's the rub!
For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause! There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns
The patient merit of the unworthy takes-
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of!
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all:
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Hamlet's Soliloquy.

SHAKESPEARE.

II. Talent is something, but tact is everything. Talent is serious, sober, grave and respectable; tact is all that, and more too. It is not a sixth sense, but it is the life of all the five. It is the open eye, the quick ear, the judging taste, the keen smell and the lively touch; it is the interpreter of all riddles, the surmounter of all difficulties, the remover of all obstacles. It is useful in all places and at all times; it is useful in solitude, for it shows a man his way into the world; it is useful in society, for it shows him his way through the world. Talent is power, tact is skill; talent is weight, tact is momentum; talent knows what to do, tact knows how to do it; talent makes a man respectable, tact will make him respected; talent is wealth, tact is ready money.-London Atlas.

III. So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Thanatopsis.

BRYANT.

IV.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul.

He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of

death,

I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.

Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine

enemies;

Thou hast anointed my head with oil;

My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Psalms xxiii.

DAVID.

V. When I came to my castle, for so I think I called it ever after this, I fled into it like one pursued; whether I went over by the ladder as first contrived, or went in at the hole in the rock, which I called a door, I cannot remember; no, nor could I remember the next morning; for never frighted hare fled to cover, or fox to earth, with more terror of mind than I to this retreat.-DEFOE.

VI.

The Past.

I said, "The past is dead,

I will bury it deep and still

With a tablet over its head

'Of the dead one may speak no ill.''

I dug down in the loam,

I sealed up the grave with prayer;
But the past was the first one home,
And waited to greet me there.

JEANNETTE BLISS GILLESPY.

VII. In the following poem, note that the key-word in the first stanza is "arrow"; and in the second "song." In the last stanza, do not omit emphasizing “oak” and "heart of a friend."