good rule for singing, but it is not a good rule for talking or writing.

8. Thirdly, and always: Use your own language. I mean the language you are accustomed to use in daily life. If your everyday language is not fit for a letter or for print, it is not fit for talk. And if, by any series of joking or fun, at school or at home, you have got into the habit of using slang in talk, which is not fit for print, why, the sooner you get out of it the better.

9. Remember that the very highest compliment paid to any thing printed is paid when a person hearing it read aloud thinks it is the remark of the reader made in conversation. Both writer and reader then receive the highest possible praise.

10. A short word is better than a long one. Here is a piece of weak English. It is not bad in other regards, but simply weak.

“Entertaining unlimited confidence in your intelligent and patriotic devotion to the public interest, and being conscious of no motives on my part which are separable from the honor and advancement of my country, I hope it may be my privilege to deserve and secure, not only your cordial coöperation in great public measures, but also those relations of mutual confidence and regard, which it is always so desirable to cultivate between members of coördinate branches of the government."

11. Take that for an exercise in translating into shorter words. Strike out the unnecessary words, and

see if it does not come out stronger. I think this sentence would have been better if it had been couched in thirty-five words instead of eighty-one. I think we should have lost nothing of the author's meaning if he had said,

"I have full trust in you. I am sure that I seek only the honor and advance of the country. I hope, therefore, I may earn your respect and regard, while we heartily work together."

12. I am fond of telling the story of the words which a distinguished friend of mine used in accepting a hard post of duty. He said,

But my

"I do not think I am fit for this post. friends say I am, and I trust them. I shall take it, and when I am in it, I shall do as well as I can." 13. It is a very grand speech. Observe that it has not one word which is more than one syllable. As it happens, also, every word is Saxon, there is not one spurt of Latin. Yet this was a learned man, who, if he chose, could have said the whole in Latin. But he was one American gentleman talking to another American gentleman, and therefore he chose to use the tongue to which they both were born.

LANGUAGE STUDY.

I. Write the analysis of: evidently (see videre)1; curious (cura); secure (cura); relation (ferre); translate (ferre).

1 The Latin roots (given in Italic in parentheses) will be found alphabetically arranged in the Appendix.

II. In paragraph 1, how many complex sentences? How many compound sentences? In paragraph 2, which sentence is simple, which complex, and which compound? In paragraph 6, why is the comparative degree "smaller" used?

Π.

Is the first sentence a period, or a loose sentence? (Definitions 15-16.) What period in paragraph 8? In the last sentence of paragraph 5, what words contrast with " very easy"? What with "for you"? What figure of speech is here illustrated? (See Definition 5.)

What long series of words, in the piece of "weak English," in paragraph 10, corresponds with "I have full trust in you," paragraph 11? Contrast the other verbose forms with the corresponding terse expressions in these two passages.

chime, sound harmoniously with, | round, full, pompous, sounding.

accord with.

fay, elf, fairy.

sõre, afflicted, distressed.
theme, subject, topic.

I.

Think not that strength lies in the big round word,
Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak.
To whom can this be true who once has heard
The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak
When want or woe or fear is in the throat,

So that each word gasped out is like a shriek
Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange, wild note
Sung by some fay or fiend? There is a strength
Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine,
Which has more height than breadth, more depth
than length.

Let but this force of thought and speech be mine,
And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase
Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine;
Light, but not heat- a flash, but not a blaze!

II.

Nor mere strength is it that the short word boasts:
It serves of more than fight or storm to tell
The roar of waves that clash on rock bound coasts,
The crash of tall trees when the wild winds swell,
The roar of guns, the groans of men that die

On blood stained fields. It has a voice as well
For them that far off on their sick beds lie,

For them that weep, for them that mourn the dead; For them that laugh, and dance, and clap the hand.

To Joy's quick step as well as Grief's slow tread, The sweet, plain words we learn at first keep time; And though the theme be sad or gay or grand, With each, with all, these may be made to chime, In thought or speech or song, in prose or rhyme.

LANGUAGE STUDY.

This interesting poem, by Rev. Joseph Addison Alexander (18091860), affords a striking exemplification of its title, for it will be noted that only monosyllables are used in it. And of these, all but the following are of Anglo-Saxon origin: round, brief, plain, cry, pressed, strange, note, fay, fine, force, phrase, serves, coasts, voice, dance, joy, grief, theme, gay, grand, chime, prose, rhyme.

Of the remaining (Anglo-Saxon) words, write the nouns in one column, the adjectives in a second, and the verbs in a third. Note what strong words these are, and how they deserve the praise given them by Mr. Hale in the previous lesson.

hew'ing, cutting and shaping

This fascinating narrative is from the "True Stories" of Nath Hawthorne (1804-1864), one of the most illustrious of American of letters. He was master of all the felicities of style.

(1) Sir William Phipps figured in the colonial history of N chusetts, of which he was governor in the latter part of the sevent century. (4) follow the sea: enter on a seafaring life. (5) Plata: a seaport of Haiti.-(5) cast away, i. e., shipwrecked. made him a knight: gave him the title of Sir.

1. William Phipps was a poor man's son, and born in the Province of Maine, at the time when country was under British rule.

2. In his boyhood and youth he used to tend s upon the hills, and until he had grown to be a ma did not even know how to read and write. Tire tending sheep, he next apprenticed himself to a carpenter, and spent about four years in hewing crooked limbs of oak trees into knees for vessels.

3. In 1673, when he was twenty-two years old went to Boston, and soon afterwards was married rich widow. It was not long, however, before he all the money that he had acquired by his marr