Besides the inflection proper to a series, increasing force should be given to the delivery of each additional member; so that the sound and volume of voice shall swell and increase in the same proportion as the sense grows and is amplified,-until both reach the climax together. This will be more fully explained and illustrated in the Third Division, under the head of INTONATION. The reader may now practise the following EXERCISE ON SERIES. 1. If you look about you, and consider the lives of others as well as your own; if you think how few are born with honor, and how many die without name or children; how little beauty we see, and how few friends we hear of; how many diseases and how much poverty there is in the world; you will fall down upon your knees; and, instead of repining, at one infliction, will admire so many blessings you have received at the hand of God! 2. It was a loathsome herd,-which could be compared to nothing so fitly as to the rabble of Comus,— Grotesque monsters,— half human, half bestial, dropping with wine, bloated with gluttony, and reeling in obscene dances. 3. This decency, this grace, this propriety of manners to character, is so essential to princes in particular, that, whenever it is neglected, their virtues lose a great degree of lustre, and their defects acquire much aggravation. Nay, more; by neg lecting this decency, and this grace, and for want of a sufficient regard to appearances, even their virtues may betray them into failings, their failings into vices, and their vices into habits unworthy of princes and of men. NEGATIVE Series: (as a simple concluding series.) RULE. A series of negative members is read with a rising inflection on every member but the last: (note, that the inflection falls on the word or thing negatived.) EXAMPLE. Charity envieth not charity vaunteth not itself is not puffed up; Doth not behave itself unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil.-1 Cor. c. xiii. INTERROGATIVE SERIES. A series of interrogations may be read either 1. Under the rule for single Questions, see p. 81; or, 2. With the same inflections as simple concluding series; or, 3. As the compound concluding series. It is well, in delivery, to vary them, when they occur frequently, or when several series follow closely on each other. For example, the following, from Romans, c. viii., admits of being read under either of the three rules: 1. As single interrogations: Who shall separate us from the cross of Christ ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or the sword.? Thus read, great and equal force is given to each interrogation; but there is no climax. 2. With the same inflections as the simple concluding Series: Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine- or nakedness- or the sword? Thus read, the climax is made, by the falling inflection, on the sword; as if he said, or even the sword itself; that is, the fiercest and bloodiest violence and persecution. 3. As the compound concluding Series: Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or the sword? So read, it amounts to a declaration,-put interrogatively,— that none of the evils enumerated are of power to separate the Christian from the Cross;-and there is much force in this reading. I should, myself, prefer the second reading given, as conveying the most forcible contempt for persecution. But the choice is a matter of taste. ANTITHETICAL SERIES. [See ante, "ANTITHESIS."] An Antithetical Series—that is, a series of members in Antithesis-commencing or concluding—is read under the same rules of inflection as the Compound Series; each perfect antithesis-and not each branch of it-forming a member of the series. F EXAMPLES. Antithetical Series-(single Antithesis) Commencing and Concluding. Commencing. Fire and water oil and vinegar heat and cold light and darkness are not more opposed to each other, than is Concluding. honesty to fraud or vice to virtue. Double Antithetical Series—(double Antithesis.) Prudent in debate but rash in action moderate in peace vindictive in war patient in adversity overbearing in prosperity his character was a compound of singular contradictions. Concluding. He presented the contradictory character of a man prudent in debate but rash in action moderate in peace vindictive in war patient in adversity overbearing in prosperity. Note. In this last species of Series, the middle pause has place after each member; that is, after each perfect antithesis. PRONOMINAL SERIES. [See ante, PRONOMINAL PHRASE.] A series of verbs or other parts of speech having, in concordance, the same pronoun or pronominal phrase (or quasi pronominal phrase,) in Series is read with the inflections proper to simple series (for the pronouns and pronominal phrases have no inflection.) EXAMPLES. I told [him], I warned [him] I advised [him] I implored [him] to act with [you] near [you] through [you] under [you]. He speaks clearly [he speaks] truly [he speaks] boldly. Charity beareth all things, believeth [all things] hopeth [all things] endureth [all things]. When I was a child, I spake [as a child] I understood [as a child] I thought [as a child]. |