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tion. When the writer means to convey a certain thought it is the reader's business to convey that thought, not another, and it is his duty to make sure that he understands what is written before he attempts to speak it. No doubt a good deal of the careless, inaccurate, and monotonous reading heard in the classroom is due to the notion, prevalent among students, that an open book and a fair ability to pronounce words are all that is necessary for reading any sort of literature.

5. Thinking during speech

But thorough preparation and ready familiarity with what one reads is not all. It is possible to know a piece of prose or poetry so well, and to be so well rehearsed in it, that it may be repeated by rote, as one says the multiplication table while the mind is occupied with something else. Every one has heard lines repeated in a jingling "singsong" way, without significant pause or emphasis or other evidence that the speaker is thinking about what he is saying. The words follow each other in utterance by force of habit, while the mind may be busy with any number of different things. The boy who speaks "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day," when his mind is occupied with thoughts of his lunch, or the afternoon ball game, or his own discomfort as he stands before his fellows, is not likely to put life or reality into the line. Speech, to be convincing and genuine, must be the expression of active and present thinking. The skilled axeman uses the axe with the ease of long-practiced habit, yet every stroke must be consciously directed and delivered with energy, if it is to count and the chips made to fly. If reading is to have the convincing directness and force of living speech, the keen edge of the mind must be applied with vigor to every word and phrase and sentence when they are spoken.

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6. Conversation the basis of natural style in reading The influence of the action of the mind on the voice may be observed in all natural and unstudied utterance. In such speech every change in the tone and action of the voice means something. Speak the sentence, "Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem as deep as they are," and then mention as many expressive actions of the voice as you can. If you have spoken the sentence naturally, with clear knowledge of its ideas before you uttered the words, you will recall that you did not shout the words loudly, but spoke them with a moderate degree of vocal force; that you did not speak them as rapidly as possible, but with average rate of time; that there were some pauses, and a good deal of rising and falling of the voice throughout the sentence. In all these ways, and others which you may have noted, was your voice serving your mind and making known the thoughts that came to it in the words of the sentence. In conversation these significant variations of voice are unpremeditated. The speaker does not stop to consider them, nor is the listener conscious of them. The thought and the speaker's feeling are the things both are concerned about, and it is the thought that determines how the voice shall act. If the voice is disobedient, so much the worse for the thought, the speaker, and the listener.

Now, if the thought of what is read aloud were as definite as it is in conversation, and the desire as strong to communicate it to others, there would be no great difference between the style of speech in reading and conversation. The person who can speak his own thoughts clearly, naturally, and pleasantly, would be able to read with the same clear, varied, and significant utterance. All depends on whether he makes the sense of the printed page his own, and whether he thinks as vigorously when reading as

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when speaking his own ideas. Rules never made an excellent reader or speaker, but clear thinking and earnest purpose have made many To speak with “the unpretending simplicity of earnest men" is to speak what one thinks and feels, without self-consciousness or affectation or studied effort for effect.

An exercise in clearness of expression

The following adaptation of Irving's story is a good illustration of the principles discussed in the foregoing pages:

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW

Washington Irving

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a High German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching

power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions.

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy

day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated "by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms.

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those everything was snug, happy and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived.

As the enraptured Ichabod rolled his great green eyes over the

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