PRINCIPLE FOR RELATIVE OR EMPHATIC FORCE.

Taking the standard force' for the unemphatic words, give additional force to the emphatic ideas, according to their relative importance.

"Learning is better than wealth;
Culture is better than learning;

Wisdom is better than culture.”

ANALYSIS.

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The

The general spirit' or 'kind' is unemotional.' 'standard force' is, therefore, moderate.' The words "better" and "wealth" in the first line must have just enough additional force to distinguish them from the unemphatic words "is" and "than." Learning" is more important than "wealth," and must have enough more force than "wealth " to express its relative importance. Culture" is more important than “learning," and must therefore be read with more force. "Wisdom" is still more important than "culture," and must be read with still more force, to distinguish it as the most important of all.

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Hence, to read this simple paragraph naturally, that is, to express distinctly the general spirit and the relative. importance of the different ideas, we need five distinct degrees of force.

Let us mark the least degree of emphatic force by italics, the second by small capitals, the third by large capitals, the fourth by larger capitals, and express the same in reading.

"LEARNING is better than wealth;

CULTURE is better than LEARNING;

WISDOM is better than CULTURE.”

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Unemotional' examples for moderate' standard force.

1. "I am charged with ambition.

The charge is true,

Cæsar was

and I GLORY in its truth. Who ever achieved anything GREAT in letters, arts, or arms, who was NOT ambitious?

not more ambitious than Cicero. It was but in another way. ALL GREATNESS is born of ambition. Let the ambition be a NOBLE one, and who shall blame it?"

2. "The plumage of the mocking-bird, though none of the homeliest, has nothing gaudy or brilliant in it; and had he nothing else to recommend him, would scarcely entitle him to notice; but his figure is well-proportioned, and even HANDSOME. The ease, elegance, and rapidity of his movements, the animation of his eye, and the INTELLIGENCE he displays in listening, and laying up lessons from almost every species of the feathered creation within his hearing, are really SURPRISING, and mark the peculiarity of his genius."

3. "Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn :

4.

The first in MAJESTY of thought surpassed;
The next in GRACEFULNESS; in BOTH, the last."

[UNMARKED EXAMPLES.*]

"Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.

"Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait."

5. "In every period of life, the acquisition of knowledge is one of the most pleasing employments of the human mind. But in youth, there are circumstances which make it produc

* Some examples under Force, Time, and Slides are given without elocutionary marks, that teachers and pupils may exercise their own judgment and taste in analyzing and reading them according to the principles.

tive of higher enjoyment. It is then, that everything has the charm of novelty; that curiosity and fancy are awake, and that the heart swells with the anticipations of future eminence and utility."

'Bold' examples for loud' standard force.

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Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned ; we have REMONSTRATED; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to ARREST the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced ADDITIONAL violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been SPURNED, with contempt, from the foot of the throne!

The land

2. My friends, our country must be FREE!
Is never lost, that has a son to right her,
And here are troops of sons, and LOYAL ones!
Strong in her children should a mother be:

Shall ours be HELPLESS, that has sons like us?
God SAVE our NATIVE land, whoever pays

The ransom that redeems her! Now what wait we?

For Alfred's word to move upon the foe?

UPON him then! Now think ye on the things

You most do love! Husbands and fathers, on

Their WIVES and CHILDREN; lovers on their BELOVED;
And ALL upon their COUNTRY!"

3. "The gentleman, sir, has misconceived the spirit and tendency of Northern institutions. He is ignorant of North ern character. He has forgotten the history of his country. Preach insurrection to the Northern laborers? Who are the Northern laborers? The history of your country is their history. The renown of your country is their renown. brightness of their doings is emblazoned on its every page.

The

Where is Concord, and Lexington, and Princeton, and Trenton, and Saratoga, and Bunker Hill, but in the North? And what, sir, has shed an imperishable renown on the names of those hallowed spots, but the blood, and the struggles, the high daring, and patriotism, and sublime courage of Northern laborers? The whole North is an everlasting monument of the freedom, virtue, intelligence, and indomitable independence of Northern laborers? Go, sir, go preach insurrection to men like these!"

4. “Our Fatherland is in danger! Citizens! to arms! to arms! Unless the whole Nation rise up, as one man, to defend itself, all the noble blood already shed is in vain; and, on the ground where the ashes of our ancestors repose, the Russian knout will rule over an enslaved People! We have nothing to rest our hopes upon, but a righteous God, and our own strength. And if we do not put forth that strength, God will also forsake us. Hungary's struggle is no longer our struggle alone. It is the struggle of popular freedom against tyranny. In the wake of our victory, will follow liberty to the Italians, Germans, Poles. With our fall, goes down the star of freedom over all."

Examples of the subdued or pathetic' kind for 'soft' standard force.

1. "Little Nell was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature FRESH from the hand of GoD, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who HAD lived and suffered DEATH. Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter-berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. When I die, put near me something that has loved the LIGHT, and had the SKY above it always.' Those were her words."

3.

4.

"His few surviving comrades saw

His smile, when rang their proud HURRAH,

And the red field was won:

Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,

Like flowers at set of sun.”

"I have known deeper wrongs.

I, that speak to ye, I had a brother once, a gracious boy,

Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope,

Of sweet and quiet joy, — there was the look
Of Heaven upon his face, which limners give
To the beloved disciple. How I loved
That gracious boy! Younger by fifteen years,
Brother at once, and son! He left my side,
A summer bloom on his fair cheeks,
a smile
Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour,
The pretty, harmless boy was slain !"

"There is a calm for those who weep,

A rest for weary pilgrims found;
They softly lie and sweetly sleep,
Low in the ground.

"The storm that sweeps the wintry sky,
No more disturbs their deep repose,
Than summer evening's latest sigh,
That shuts the rose."

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'Soft force' is also appropriate for the 'grave' kind of sentiments, and loud force' for the joyous' and 'noble,' and 'very loud force' for the impassioned; but since other elements of the voice, such as time,' 'slides,' 'quality,' &c., have more characteristic prominence than force' in the finished expression of these classes, we shall be more likely to secure naturalness in the end, if we call attention first to the MOST characteristic elements.