In palaces are hearts that ask,
In discontent and pride,
Why life is such a weary task,
And all good things denied;
And hearts in poorest huts admire
How love has in their aid

(The love that never seems to tire)

Such rich provision made.

Richard Chenevix Trench

Can you read this poem of the two kinds of people with natural change from the regret and pity of the first four lines to admiration of those who have a true conception of life? The transition in each stanza is a similar contrast of these two classes, but the second stanza differs from the first. It is more intense, more general, less personal, and should be given with sympathy. There is progression here as well as transition.

THE SNOW-DROP

"Dear little snow-drop," murmured the breeze,
"How you do shiver, cold days like these.
Earth is so dreary, hear all things sigh;

Will these dark days ever go by?"

"That's why I am here, joy and gladness I bring,
Take heart, hear, hear how the robins sing.
Hark! Hark! through the valley far and near,

They are welcoming Spring with joyous cheer."

Give the first four lines of the preceding with the discouraged tone of the spring breeze, then with the joyous and cheerful voice of the snow-drop in her answer. Pause between them to observe the difference in your control of breath and the difference you feel in passing from the dreariness of the wind to the joy of the snow-drop.

THE ROYAL VISITOR

Yet if his majesty our sovereign lord
Should of his own accord

Friendly himself invite,

And say "I'll be your guest to-morrow night,"
How should we stir ourselves, call and command

All hands to work! "Let no man idle stand,
Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall,
See they be fitted all;

Let there be room to eat,

And order taken that these want no meat.
See every sconce and candlestick made bright,
That without tapers they may give a light.
Look to the presence: are the carpets spread,
The dais o'er the head,

The cushions in the chairs,

And all the candles lighted on the stairs?
Perfume the chambers, and in any case
Let each man give attendance in his place."
Thus if the king were coming would we do,
And 't were good reason, too;

For 't is a duteous thing

To show all honour to an earthly king,
And after all our travail and our cost,
So he be pleased to think no labour lost.
But at the coming of the King of Heaven
All's set at six and seven:

We wallow in our sin,

Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.
We entertain him always like a stranger,
And as at first still lodge him in the manger.

T. E. Brown

Assimilation means that every successive idea must be fully realized. We can see once more the reason why we must pause and give one thing at a time. The impression does not consist in the understanding. We must not only think but feel each idea and express truly and definitely the experience underlying each phrase. We must not only realize the extreme changes, such as are found in the last lines of the preceding where there is a very notable transition from the first parts of the passage, but we must also feel each successive part and idea. Such changes may mean increase in intensity or change in tone color or variation in the attitude of the mind. Rarely do we experience with the same emotion two successive ideas. If we genuinely think and feel each idea, if we live the situation and allow our minds genuinely to assimilate the real spirit, innumerable changes, not previously noticed, will be found. On the contrary, if we think vaguely or only with general ideas and do not allow imagination and sympathy to realize each successive point, reading or speaking will be a mere monotonous drift.

XXXIII. SYMPATHETIC IDENTIFICATION

"Oh happy sprite of Arcady"

A throned monarch said one day,
"For thy green haunts and flowers gay
I'd gladly give my crown, sweet fay
Then come; exchange this very day!"

"Not I,” the kinglet then replied,
I will not give the needled pine,
Nor golden beam of bright sunshine
That's sifting through the tangled vine,
For all those palaces of thine!"

"The King and the Kinglet."

Author not known

If we read the preceding lines without thinking much about them or without feeling, we may make the king and the kinglet talk alike; but in proportion as we sympathetically observe them and realize the spirit of the speech of each one, we shall identify ourselves with the discouraged and gloomy tone of the king and then with the sprightly, joyous and contented tone of the kinglet.

66
THE THREE BELLS"

Beneath the low-hung night cloud
That raked her splintering mast,
The good ship settled slowly,

The cruel leak gained fast.

Over the awful ocean

Her signal-guns pealed out.
Dear God! was that thy answer
From the horror round about?

A voice came down the wild wind,
"Ho! ship ahoy!" its cry;

"Our stout' Three Bells' of Glasgow
Shall lay till daylight by!"

Hour after hour crept slowly;

Yet on the heaving swells

Tossed up and down the ship-lights,

The lights of the "Three Bells!"

And ship to ship made signals,
Man answered back to man,
While oft, to cheer and hearten,

The "Three Bells" nearer ran;

Ring on, Three Bells" of rescue,

Above the wave and gale!

Whittier Captain Creighton, of the British ship "Three Bells," some years ago rescued the crew of an American vessel sinking in mid-ocean. Unable to take them off in the storm and darkness, he kept by them till morning, running down often during the night, as near to them as he dared, to shout through his trumpet, "Never fear! Hold on! I'll stand by you."

Read Whittier's story of the ship that was wrecked and of another ship that stood by it all night, and whose captain and crew sent cheers and shouted to the shipwrecked sailors. Shout out as if you were calling over a stormy sea, "Take heart! Hold on!" Give the intense pathos and sympathy in the seventh stanza; and the joy of saving every one, and lastly your own admiration for "The Three Bells." All through the story you must be present yourself in imagination and sympathy. Some of the most important changes or modulations are not indicated by quotation marks.

A BALLAD OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN

"O whither sail you, Sir John Franklin,"
Cried a whaler in Baffin's Bay.

"To know if between the land and the Pole
I may find a broad sea-way."

"I charge you back, Sir John Franklin,

As you would live and thrive;

For between the land and the frozen Pole

No man may sail alive."

"And change your cloth for fur clothing,
Your vessel for a sled."

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,
And the crew laughed with him too;
"A sailor to change from ship to sled,
I ween were something new."

All through the long, long polar day
The vessels Westward sped;

And wherever the sail of Sir John was blown,

The ice gave way and fled.

Gave way with many a hollow groan,

And with many a surly roar,

But it murmured and threatened on every side;

And closed where he sail'd before.

"Ho, see ye not, my merry men,
The broad and open sea?
Bethink ye what the whaler said,
Think of the little Indian's sled."
The crew laughed out in glee.

"Sir John, Sir John, it is bitter cold,
The scud drives on the breeze,
The ice comes looming from the North,
The very sunbeams freeze."

"Bright summer goes, dark winter comes,
We cannot rule the year;

But long ere summer's sun goes down
On yonder sea we 'll steer."

The dripping icebergs dipt and rose,

And floundered down the gale;

The ships were stayed, the yards were manned, And furled the useless sail.