Take something of a playful nature and give it with great enjoyment. Observe, for example, the boy and the robin that got mixed. Make the robin talk like the boy who thinks it manly to kill little birds. Think and feel it genuinely. Let every action of your mind really affect your voice. Notice that you make an unusual change in pitch as you begin stanza three. This is because your mind changes greatly at that point.

THE STORMY PETREL

A thousand miles from land are we,
Tossing about on the roaring sea;
From billow to bounding billow cast,
Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast:
The sails are scatter'd abroad, like weeds,
The strong masts shake like quivering reeds,
The mighty cables, and iron chains,

The hull, which all earthly strength disdains,
They strain and they crack, and hearts like stone
Their natural hard, proud strength disown.

Up and down! Up and down!

From the base of the wave to the billow's crown,
And midst the flashing and feathery foam
The Stormy Petrel finds a home,

A home, if such a place may be,

For her who lives on the wide, wide sea,

On the craggy ice, in the frozen air,

And only seeketh her rocky lair

To warm her young, and to teach them to spring

At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing.

O'er the Deep! O'er the Deep!

Where the whale, and the shark, and the sword-fish sleep,
Outflying the blast and the driving rain,

The Petrel telleth her tale — in vain;

For the mariner curseth the warning bird

Who bringeth him news of the storms unheard!

Ah! thus does the prophet, of good or ill,

Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still:

Yet he ne'er falters:

- So, Petrel! spring
Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing!

Bryan Waller Proctor (Barry Cornwall)

The stormy petrel is a bird which flies over the waves and seems to live on the sea. He goes before a storm, and sailors know that a storm is coming when they see him.

In this "Stormy Petrel," take the last stanza where the whale " and the shark and the "sword-fish" sleep. Notice how "whale," "shark" and "sword-fish" all are given differently, likewise "blast" and "rain." Then notice how we make a more extreme change of pitch and pause longer before or after the words "in vain," for one would expect the sailor to thank the little bird for telling of the storm, instead of blaming him as if he brought it.

Read this description and let your voice swing freely up and down between your phrases as you introduce point after point. Give these wide changes of pitch quite naturally. The degree with which you change pitch is always in proportion to the degree of the change in the mind.

Observe also that as you increase the number of pauses as well as their length you must also introduce more changes of pitch in direct union with them. There is even a natural proportion between the length of the pause and the extent of the change of pitch.

In your conversation, you will find that these pauses and changes of pitch in response to your thinking are signs of naturalness. They show that you mean what you say. In proportion as you use pauses, phrase accent and changes of pitch you show that you really think and feel what you are saying. By these we know that you are reading naturally. To read as you talk you must think in reading as you think in talking.

Read these lines, not only lengthening the pauses and gathering your words into groups with definite phrase accent, but accentuating as much as you can changes of pitch between phrases; and notice how much more natural, pleasing and intelligible will be your reading.

For flowers that bloom about our feet,
For tender grass so fresh, so sweet,
For song of bird and hum of bee,
For all things fair we hear or see,
For blue of stream and blue of sky,
For pleasant shade of branches high,
For fragrant air and cooling breeze,
For beauty of the blooming trees,

For mother-love and father-care,
For brothers strong and sisters fair,
For love at home and here each day,
For guidance lest we go astray,
For this new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything His goodness sends,

Father in heaven, we thank thee.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

XX. RHYTHMIC PULSATION IN THINKING AND FEELING
Oh! blest art thou whose steps may rove
Through the green paths of vale and grove.
For thee the stream in beauty flows,
For thee the gale of summer blows,
And, in deep glen and wood-walk free,
Voices of joy still breathe for thee.

Felicia Hemans

Pause in itself means nothing. It may show that we are stopping because we have nothing to say or to do. We may stop for lack of a word, or for lack of a thought. A pause, to mean something, must be associated with the taking of an idea, and we can know that it has a meaning only from what follows it. The phrase accent which follows it shows that we were thinking in the period of silence.

The length of the silence and the vigor of the phrase accent are in proportion, and this proportion between pause and phrase accent or their necessary union gives both their meaning. This meaning comes indeed from the fact that in thinking there are peculiar beats or pulsations. In thinking your mind pauses upon one thing and pictures that; then moves and takes another. That is to say, attention goes by a series of alternations or rhythmic pulsations, and this causes the union and proportion of pause and touch and makes them reveal thinking. Hence, the necessity of the pause in order to centre the mind's attention and get the idea, and hence also the need of the phrase accent to assert it.

On the other hand, if you pause at random, you break the whole current of your own thought and that of anyone

listening to you. But, if you read again, this time concentrating your attention, and using pauses and phrase accents in order to make the words correspond with the rhythm of your thinking, you will discover that the pulsation of your expression, the very taking of your breath, the force which you give to the central word of your phrase, directly reveal your thinking and feeling. This is the first thing to master: to think, and then to use a group of words to express your thought. Live an idea and then give it; live another one and give that. This union of pause and touch illustrates an important thing in reading. When you write a letter or when you are talking you search for just the word or phrase to stand for an idea in your mind. You reject at the same time all others because they will not give just what you mean. In reading, however, a pause brings with it a phrase accent as well as a change of pitch. You cannot eliminate either of them. If the pause means something alone it means ten times as much united with phrase accent. If one can chase a thousand, two can put ten thousand to flight."

You never choose a pause instead of a touch or instead of any other modulation, but you choose pause and touch together. One introduces the other; they imply each other, or both may be meaningless.

Rhythm expresses life. Your heart beats rhythmically; you breathe rhythmically; you must speak and read in rhythm.

If you really live each successive idea there will be a continual rhythmic alternation between the pause during which you receive your idea and the touch by which you give it. The living of each idea causes a pulsation of force which gives a vigorous accent to the centre of each phrase, which is the necessary expression of true force.

In the first of the two following passages we shall pause less frequently than in the second, especially if we try, in reading them, to realize their true spirit.

Again, in the stanza by Edgar Fawcett you find that you pause longer in the third and fourth lines, in proportion to your earnestness, in proportion as you realize the force of the thought.

We may pause frequently or seldom. The frequency of the pause depends on the number of things we find to interest us, the number of points to rouse our attention. The more genuine we are, the more we wish to have people think with us, the more frequently we pause.

In the preceding you can hurry along and not breathe frequently or very fully. Then you may meditate upon it and definitely impress it upon yourself and upon the one to whom you are speaking. When you do this you will breathe more frequently and deeper and the rhythm will be more pronounced.

We find also that there is a striking variation in the force of the stroke or phrase accent, and that the force of this phrase accent will increase in proportion to the length of the pause.

Fill these lines of Mr. Markham's with great enjoyment, intensify the feeling and read them over slowly with long