Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

III.

EXAMPLES OF RELATIVE EMPHASIS.

1. It is more blessed to give than to recèive.

2. Not that I loved Cæsar less, but Rome môre.

3. Science may raise you to éminence; vírtue alone can guide you to happiness.

4. Cùstom is the plague of wise men, and the idol of fools,

5. The man is more knáve than fool.

6. Cówards die many times; the bráre but once.

7. He raised a mortal to the skies;

She drew an angel down.

8. You cannot dó wrong without suffering wrong. 9. All things are double; óne against anòther; tít for tàt; an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; méasure for measure; love for love. Give and it shall be given you. Nothing venture, nothing have.

10. As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fórtunate, I rejoice at it; as he was váliant, I hònor him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.

IV. GENERAL RULE FOR EMPHASIS.

The general rule for emphasis may be stated as follows: Distinguish the most significant words in the sentence by means of force, inflection, or pauses.

The subject and the predicate of a sentence are, in general, emphatic. Prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, and connectives are, in general, unemphatic. Explanatory phrases and clauses are unemphatic.

REVIEW EXERCISES.

I. Breathing Exercises.

II. Recitations. Require each pupil to go upon the platform, and recite some stanza of poetry learned by heart from the Fourth Reader.

13. ON LEARNING PIECES BY HEART.

1. Till he has fairly tried it, I suspect a reader does not know how much he would gain from committing to memory passages of real excellence, precisely because he does not know how much he overlooks in merely reading. Learn one true poem by heart, and see if you do not find it so. Beauty after beauty will reveal itself, in chosen phrase, or happy music, or noble suggestion, otherwise undreamed of. It is like looking at one of Nature's wonders through a microscope.

2. Again, how much in such a poem that you really did feel admirable and lovely on a first reading, passes away, if you do not give it a further and much better reading-passes away utterly, like a sweet sound or an image on the lake, which the first breath of wind dispels! If you could only fix that image, as the photographers do theirs, so beautifully, so perfectly! And you can do so. Learn it by heart, and it is yours for

ever.

3. I have said a true poem, for, naturally, men will choose to learn poetry; from the begining of time they have done so. To immortal verse the memory gives a willing, a joyous, and a lasting home. However, some prose is poetical, is poetry, and altogether worthy to be learned by heart, and the learning is not so very difficult. It is not difficult or toilsome to learn that which pleases us, and the labor once given, is forgotten, while the result remains.

4. Poems and noble extracts, whether of verse or prose, once so reduced into possession and rendered truly our own, may be to us a daily pleasure-better far than a whole library unused. They may come to us in our dull moments to refresh us with spring flowers; in our selfish musings, to win us by pure delight from

the tyranny of foolish castle-building, self-congratulations, and mean anxieties.

5. They may be with us in the workshop, in the crowded streets, by the fireside; our own in times of joy or of tribulation; sometimes, perhaps, on pleasant hill-sides or by sounding shores;-noble friends and companions-our own! never intrusive, ever at hand, coming at our call!

6. Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Burns, Tennyson, Bryant, the words of such men do not stale upon us; they do not grow old or cold. Further, though you are young now, some day you will be old. Some day you may reach that time when a man lives in greater part for memory and by memory.

7. I can imagine a chance renewal, chance visitation of the words long remembered, long garnered in the heart, and I think I see a gleam of rare joy in the eyes of the old man. For those, in particular, whose leisure-time is short, and precious as scant rations to beleaguered men, I believe there could not be a better expenditure of time than deliberately giving an occasional hour-it requires no more-to committing to memory chosen passages from great authors.

8. If the mind were thus daily nourished with a few choice words of the best English poets and writers; if the habit of learning by heart were to become so general that, as a matter of course, any person presuming to be educated amongst us might be expected to be equipped with a few good pieces, I believe it would lead, far more than the mere sound of it suggests, to the diffusion of the best kind of literature and the right appreciation of it, and men would not long rest satisfied with knowing a few stock pieces.

9. The only objection I can conceive to what I have been saying is, that it may be said that a relish for higher literature belongs only to the few; that it is the

result of cultivation, and that there is no use in trying to create what must be in general only a fictitious interest. But I do not admit that literature, even the higher literature, must belong to the few.

10. Poetry is, in the main, essentially catholic— addressed to all men; and though some poetry requires particular knowledge and superior culture, much, and that the noblest, needs only natural feeling and the light of common experience. Such poetry, taken in moderation, followed with genuine good-will, shared in common, will be intelligible and delightful to most men who will take the trouble to be students at all, and ever more and more so.

11. Perhaps, also, there may be a fragment of truth in what Charles Lamb has said, that spouting any thing "withers and blows upon a fine passage;" that there is no enjoying it after it has been "pawed about by declamatory boys and men." But surely there is a reasonable habit of recitation as well as an unreasonable one; there is no need of declamatory pawing.

12. To abandon all recitation is to give up a custom which has given delight and instruction to all the races of articulately speaking men. If our faces are set against vain display and set toward rational enjoyment of one another, each freely giving his best and freely receiving what his neighbor offers, we need not fear that our social evenings will be marred by an occasional recitation, or that the fine passages will wither. And, moreover, it is not for the mere purpose of recitation that I chiefly recommend this most faithful form of reading-learning by heart.

13. I come back, therefore, to this, that learning by heart is a good thing, and is neglected amongst us. Why is it neglected? Partly because of our indolence, but partly, I take it, because we do not sufficiently consider that it is a good thing, and needs to be taken

in hand. We need to be reminded of it: I here remind you. Like a town-crier, ringing my bell, I would say to you, "Oyez, oyez! Lost, stolen, or strayed, a good ancient practice-the good ancient practice of learning by heart. Every finder will be handsomely rewarded." 14. If any ask, "What shall I learn?" the answer is, Do as you do with tunes-begin with what you sincerely like best, what you would most wish to remember, what you would most enjoy saying to yourself or repeating to another. But be careful to discriminate. Do not take tinsel for pure gold. Some of our compilers of reading-books for schools have much to answer for in giving place to worthless pieces, simply because they were new. Thus they who ought to guide the taste deprave it.

15. Better learn what is old, so it be good. The list of memorable poems is growing to be large. Choose the best first. Then "keeping up" is easy. Every one of you has his spare ten minutes; one of the problems of life is how to employ them usefully. You may well spend some in looking after and securing this good property you have won.

DEFINITIONS.

trib u la'tion, severe affliction.

stale, grows old.

be leaguered, besieged.

cath'o lic, liberal; broad.

4

VERNON LUSHINGTON.

fic ti'tious, unreal.

o'yez [o yes], hear ye.

tin'sel, any thing gaudy or showy. wist'ful, attentive.

WRITTEN SPELLING.-WORDS OFTEN MISSPELLED.

Divide into syllables, mark the accented syllable, and use the proper

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »