Receding now, the dying numbers ring Fainter and fainter, down the rugged dell: And now-'tis silent all-enchantress, fare thee well. Oh, joy to the world! the hour is come, Over the walls of majesty, Upharsin" is writ in words of fire, And the eyes of the bondmen, wherever they be, Soon, soon shall the thrones that blot the world, "ARISE! ARISE! BE FREE!" Tread softly-bow the head, In reverent silence bow, No passing bell doth toll,— T. B. READ. (pl.) Yet an immortal soul Is passing now. MRS. SOUTHEY. SPEAK OUT, my friends; would you exchange it for the DEMON's DRINK, (f) ALCOHOL? A shout, like the roar of a tempest, answered, (0°) NO! (sl.) At length, o'er Columbus slow consciousness breaks, (0°) CAMPBELL "LAND! LAND!" cry the sailors; (f.) "LAND! LAND!"— he awakes, (") He runs,-yes! behold it! it blesseth his sight! THE LAND! O, dear spectacle! transport! delight! SECTION V. THE RHETORICAL PAUSE. RHETORICAL PAUSES are those which are frequently required by the voice in reading and speaking, although the construction of the passage admits of no grammatical point. These pauses should be as manifest to the ear as those which are indicated by the comma, semicolon, or other grammatical point, though not commonly denoted by any visible sign. In the following examples they are denoted thus, (I). 1. 2. EXAMPLES. In slumbers of midnight || the sailor-boy lay, There is a land,|| of every land the pride, O, thou shalt find,|| howe'er thy footsteps roam, That land thy country,|| and that spot thy home! DIMOND. This pause is generally made before or after the utterance of some important word or clause, on which it is especially desired to fix the attention. In such cases it is usually denoted by the use of the dash (—). EXAMPLES. 1. God said "Let there be light!" 2 All dead and silent was the earth, In deepest night it lay; The Eternal spoke creation's word, And called to being-Day! No definite rule can be given with reference to the length of the rhetorical, or grammatical pause. The correct taste of the reader or speaker must determine it. For the voice should sometimes be suspended much longer at the same pause in one situation than in another; as in the two following EXAMPLES. LONG PAUSE, Pause a moment. I heard a footstep. Listen now. I heard it again; but it is going from us. It sounds fainter,-still fainter It is gone. SHORT PAUSE. There John, be quick. Get some water. Throw the powder overboard. "It can not be reached." Jump into the boat, then. Shove off. goes the powder. Thank Heaven. We are safe. REMARKS TO TEACHERS. It is of the utmost importance, in order to secure an easy and elegant style in reading, to refer the pupil often to the more important principles involved in a just elocution. To this end, it will be found very advantageous, occasionally to review the rules and directions given in the preceding pages, and thus early accustom him to apply them in the subsequent reading lessons. For a wider range of examples and illustrations, it is only necessary to refer to the numerous and various exercises which form the body of this book. They have been selected, in many cases, with a special view to this object. SANDERS' RHETORICAL READER. PART SECOND. EXERCISE I. JOHN RUSKIN was born in London in the year 1819. In 1843 he publisher a work, under the title of "Modern Painters," in which he advocates the claims of the moderns over the ancients to superiority in the art of Landscape Painting. In that work he deals, in the most trenchant way, with what are considered the highest authorities in art; yet such is the brilliancy of his diction, and such his power in description, that, though he often fails to secure for his views the assent of professed judges, he never fails to challenge the admiration of all by the splendor of his style. He has published quite a number of works since, and is still devoted to the study of art. THE SKY. JOHN RUSKIN. 1. It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which Nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. 2. There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization; but every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered, if once in three days, or thereabouts, a great, ugly, black rain-cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with, perhaps, a film of morning and evening mist for dew. 3. And, instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our lives, when Nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. 4. The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few; it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of them; he injures them by his presence; he ceases to feel them, if he be always with them; but the sky is for all; bright as it is, it is not "too bright, nor good, for human nature's daily food;" it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it and purifying it from its dross and dust. 5. Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two moments together; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us, is as distinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is essential. 6. And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a subject of thought, but as it has to do with our animal sensations; we look upon all by which it speaks to us more clearly than to brutes, upon all which bears witness to the intention of the Supreme, that we are to receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we share with the weed and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless and monotonous accidents, too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of watchfulness, or a glance of admiration. 7. If, in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky, as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of? One says it has been wet, and another it has been windy, and another it has been warm. Who, among the whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at |
