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T. What is the nature of emphasis in determining the sense of a passage?

F. Emphasis is the pivot on which the whole sense of reading turns.

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T. What is emphasis?

G. Emphasis is the power which marks out in a sentence, some significant word or words on which the meaning depends, by just such stress, inflection, pause, quantity, and occasional depression, as best serve to explain and enforce that meaning.

T. Very well: proceed with your examples.

H. Whatever púrifies, fortifies also the heart. The two words in this sentence are made emphatic by opposite curves.

I. Patience, by preserving composure within, resists the impression which trouble mákes from without. Here patience is opposed to trouble; and within to without; each couple rendered emphatic by opposite curves.

J. Sincérity and truth | form the basis of every virtue.

K. Virtuous youth | gradually brings forward accómplished and flourishing mànhood.

L. He who would act like a wise man and build his house on the rock, and not on the sand, should contemplate human life not only in the sunshine, but in the shade.

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A. When Aristotle was asked what a man could gain by telling a falsehood, he replied, "Not to be crédited when he speaks the truth.”

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B. Agesilaus, king of Sparta, being asked what things he thought most proper for boys to learn, án

swered, "Those which they ought to practise | when they come to be mèn." A wiser than Agesilaus has inculcated the same sentiment: "Train up a child in the way he should gó, and when he is òld, he will not depart from it.”

T. Why do you give an emphasis by the falling slide to old? I believe that is not the common way of reading it.

B. That is the way Dr. Parker read it for his text. It means, I suppose, he will not only not depart from it in the season of youth and middle life; but not even when he is old.

T. Very well, Master B., Dr. Parker, I think, has given an improved turn to the reading, and you have proved yourself to be a good hearer. All these examples have been well managed; and I have but one remark to make the words under emphasis were generally brought out with too much prominence; as if you meant to show how well you understood them: and they were not made with a sufficiently smooth and easy swell. When these principles become more familiar, and you surrender your minds wholly to the sense, all such unnatural prominence will cease.

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C. Honor is but a fictitious kind of honesty; a méan, but a nécessary substitute for it, in societies who have none it is a sort of paper crédit, with which men are obliged to tráde, who are deficient in the sterling cash of true morálity and religion. Every prominent thought, as it occurs in this sentence, is distinguished by emphasis. It is a settled principle, that every word conveying some new or important thought in

discourse; and all words in contrast, comparison, correspondence, or opposition, should generally be marked by emphasis.

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D. Study not so much to show | knowledge, as to possèss it.

E. It is not so easy to hide one's faults, as to mend them.

F. Why beholdest thou the móte that is in thy brother's éye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine ownèye?

G. As it is the part of jústice | never to do violence; so it is the part of modesty | never to commit offènce. H. Custom is the plague of wise mén and the ídol of fools.

I. It is pleasant to grow better, for that is to excél oursèlves; it is pleasant to subdue síns, for this is VICTORY; it is pleasant to govern our appetites and pássions, for this is EMPIRE. This example contains a succession of particulars, each rising in importance; and I have increased the emphasis accordingly. I give victory the falling curve, and empire the falling slide, and ourselves, also, the falling slide.

J. What stronger breastplate | than a heárt un-
tainted ?

THRICE | is he armed that hath his quarrel júst ;
And he but naked, though locked up in STEEL |
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

Here, heart is made emphatic by the rising slide and stress; thrice, by the falling slide and increased stress;

steel, by the falling slide, and more increased stress, making three degrees of emphasis.

T. Can any one relate what I told you the other day about Dr. Rush's mode of showing the keys of the voice, and the degrees of emphasis ?

K. I think they were considered as analogous to certain intervals on the scale of music: when the interva1 or skip was from one to two, or from two to one, there was no change of the voice more than that of ordinary accent; when it was to three, an emphasis was formed of the first degree; when to five, the second degree; when to eight, making a full octave, the third, or greatest degree; and these are the several key-notes of the voice in speaking.

T. Please to give an example: but first illustrate what you understand by the interval of one to two, and one to three.

K. I cáme, I saw, I cònquered. From I to came is an ascending interval or skip from one to two, or what is called one tone; from I to saw, an interval of from one to three, producing an emphasis of the first or lowest degree; and from I to conquered is a descending interval of one to three, making also an emphasis of the lowest degree. I will now give the illustration as nearly as I can recollect:

At our house in the country, I see Mr. White, who has rode past: I hail him; for I wish to send to town. At first I say, Mr. White-Mr. White! He does not hear. I say again with increased force, Mr. WhiteMr. White! Still he does not hear. Again I call, yet louder, Mr. WHITE-Mr. WHITE!

I have not yet

reached his ear. And now I go to the very top of my voice-Mr. WHITE—Mr. WHITE! This carries my voice up to the octave.

T. Very well, sir; these are striking analogies: we referred to them only to awaken attention to these natural states of the voice in our colloquial habits; and not to encourage the practice of reading, in any way, after the artificial notes of music. Can any one describe the semitone, as spoken of in the same connection?

L. The semitone occupies but half the space of a

tone. The interval from seven to eight on the diatonic scale is a semitone. It is distinguished for plaintiveness, whether uttered on a high or low pitch: it is employed in expressing tender emotions, as love, pity, compassion; also complaint and humble supplication; or any appeal to sympathy. It is the tone we often use to children, before they can fully comprehend the meaning of words. T. Will you give an example?

A. The mother says, in tones of endearment, "George is a good boy ;" and he answers, "âh." His brother, a little older, says playfully, to show that George understands little else than the language of tones, in the same softened voice, "George is a náughty boy" he again says, "âh." He then adopts the rising and falling slide of a tone-"George is a good boy;" and he cries out, “nô.”

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B. I think we often hear the semitone from little beggars in the street: "Please Please to give me I a penny

to buy my mother a loaf of bread ?"

T. Give some examples now, to show how emphasis sometimes changes the accent.

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