as has already been shown, show the connection of the ideas with the preceding or the following, the attention of the speaker's mind, or his valuation or relation of an idea to his purpose. When there are many intervals or changes of pitch there will also be frequent inflexions in great variety, rising or falling, short or long, each expressive of some attitude or action of the mind.

Read a passage which you like, and observe all these modulations or elements of vocal expression. Notice that they all imply one another and that as long as you are not mechanical, the more you accentuate them all, the more pleasing and full of meaning each becomes. The law regarding inflexions, and every other voice modulation, is: Think every idea so intensely and feel it so deeply that variations of the voice directly respond as the natural signs of what goes on in your mind.

THE WORLD

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,
With the wonderful water round you curled,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast
World, you are beautifully drest!

The wonderful air is over me,

And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree;
It walks on the water and whirls the mills,
And talks to itself on the top of the hills.

You friendly Earth, how far do you go,

With the wheat-fields that nod and the rivers that flow,
With cities and gardens, and cliffs and isles,

And people upon you for thousands of miles?

Ah, you are so great and I am so small,

I tremble to think of you, World, at all;

And yet, when I said my prayers to-day,

A whisper inside me seemed to say,

"You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot; You can love and think, and the Earth can not."

From the "Lilliput Levee."

W. B. Rands The union of these various modulations is like the mixture of colors. When we mix red and blue we have purple, a very different color; when we mix yellow and blue we have green, also a very different color. In the same way,

when we put Pause and Touch together they make something still more important and still stronger than one of them alone. When we put Change of Pitch and Inflexion together we make something more beautiful and more forcible than either can be of itself.

The analogy does not hold perfectly, however, for the blue and the red are lost in the purple, while the inflexion still retains its original meaning, as does also change of pitch. Moreover, the mixing of colors makes them weak, while a right union of all the modulations of speech gives each more power.

Read some short passage and give the widest possible changes of pitch, and observe that your reading becomes more natural on account of this wideness.

If it were always rain,

The flowers would be drowned;

If it were always sun,

No flowers would be found.

Changes of pitch will be wide in proportion to the length of the pauses in receiving pictures, and to the degree of changes in each picture. We can prove this by reading a passage and making long pauses, and then justifying them by wide changes of pitch.

Locate in some simple, short passage or sentence these four modulations and endeavor to realize their meaning. Then note some of the chief combinations of these modulations. It is impossible to find all of them. They are implied instinctively and we must not analyze too severely, but it is helpful to realize how spontaneously they respond to our thinking. They come of themselves if we let our voices sympathize with our thinking and feeling. When we begin to realize what a wonderful language we are speaking every moment, what deep feeling and intense degrees of conviction we reveal in every sentence and every clause, our ordinary conversation must take on more dignity. If wisdom's ways you'd wisely seek, Five things observe with care: Of whom you speak, to whom you speak, And how and when and where.

THE GUINEA AND THE PENNY

Side by side on the counter of a Bank, lay a new gold guinea and a copper penny. Said the proud gold piece to the penny:

"You are brown copper only, but I am shining gold. No one will care much for you, but when I go out into the world, every one will want me. I shall pass into the hands of lords and ladies; and, at last, the gold of which I am made may be used to form the crown of some emperor."

Just then an old miser came into the bank, and the gold piece was paid out to him. He thrust it into a little bag, carried the bag home and put it into his money chest in the cellar. But he was afraid that his money would not be safe there, so he buried it in the earth. Soon afterward he died, and no one knew where his money was hidden; so the gold piece was lost, and to this day has never been seen.

The man who had charge of the penny saw a poor boy helping an old woman who had fallen down in the street and he called him in, and gave him the new penny. The boy carried it home and gave it to his little sister.

Just then a beggar came limping along the road, and asked for help. The little girl gave him the penny, and told him where it had come from, and why it had been given to her brother.

Before long the beggar met an old man who carried a pilgrim's staff in his hand. He was selling pictures of the city of Jerusalem, to get money to ransom his brother, who had been taken prisoner by the Turks.

The beggar was moved by the pilgrim's story; he gave him the new penny, and told him its story, as he had heard it from the little girl.

The pilgrim set out for Constantinople, and, as soon as he arrived at that city, he went at once to the Turkish governor, and offered him all the money he had gathered for his brother's freedom. The governor, however, wanted more money than he had gathered, and would not let the brother go.

The pilgrim said: "This is all that I have except one copper penny," and then he told the story of the penny. The governor asked for the humble coin that had done so many good actions. "I will keep it," he said, " and wear it next my heart, and perhaps a blessing will come with it." Then he gave back to the pilgrim all the rest of his money, and let his brother go free.

Soon afterward the governor took part in a great battle. An arrow struck him on the breast, but glanced off without hurting

him. It had been turned aside by the coin. He owed his life

to the penny.

When the war was over, the governor went to his master, the emperor. As they talked together, the governor told how the penny had preserved him from death. As the emperor listened, he exclaimed, "Wonderful! Wonderful!”

The governor, noting his master's interest, gave him the penny, and the emperor fastened it with a golden chain to the hilt of his favorite sword. One day the monarch was about to drink a cup of coffee, when the empress asked to see his sword. As he held it up, the penny dropped into the cup.

When he took the coin out, he saw that the copper had become green in color. Some one had mixed poison with the drink. But the change in the color of the penny warned the emperor in time.

Then the emperor had the penny put in his crown, amid the diamonds and other jewels which adorned it. To him the penny seemed the brightest gem of all, for when he looked at it he was reminded of the good deeds it had done.

So, you see, not the golden guinea, but the copper penny was set at last in a royal crown.

They might not need me; but they might.

I'll let my head be just in sight;

A smile as small as mine might be

Precisely their necessity.

A SONG OF THE SLEIGH

Oh, swift we go o'er the fleecy snow,
When moonbeams sparkle round;
When hoofs keep time to music's chime,
As merrily on wé bound.

Emily Dickinson

On a winter's night, when hearts are light,
And health is on the wind,

We loose the rein and sweep the plain,
And leave our cares behind.

With a laugh and song we glide along
Across the fleeting snow!

With friends beside, how swift we ride
On the beautiful track below!

Oh, the raging sea, has joys for me,

When gale and tempests roar;

But give me the speed of a foaming steed,

And I'll ask for the waves no more.

James T. Fields

V

SPONTANEOUS ELEMENTS OF EXPRESSION

XXVII. SPONTANEOUS AND DELIBERATIVE ACTIONS OF THE

"The Valley."

MIND

I know a valley in the summer hills
Haunted by little winds and daffodils;

Faint footfalls and soft shadows pass at noon;
Noiseless, at night, the clouds assemble there;
And ghostly summits hang below the moon
Dim visions lightly swung in silent air.

Edwin Markham

If we analyze our thinking we find that we can control attention by holding it on one idea, and also that as the mind passes from point to point we can often select many points on which the attention is to rest. We can also give certain value to these points of interest. All such mental actions are conscious; we can make ourselves dwell on them. Aside from these deliberative actions however, there are other processes of the mind which come of themselves, which are stimulated and controlled indirectly rather than directly.

Naturalness in reading is dependent on both of these classes of actions. In fact, they must be brought into cooperation and unity. The elements that come to us of themselves as a result or a part of our concentration are fully as important as the deliberative elements of thinking.

THE ROBIN

The robin is the one

That interrupts the morn

With hurried few express reports

When March is scarcely on.

The robin is the one

That overflows the noon

With her cherubic quantity

And April but begun.

The robin is the one

That speechless from her nest

Submits that home and certainty

And sanctity are best.

Emily Dickinson