PAUSES. Pauses are supensions of the voice between words and sentences. No definite rules can be given to guide the reader or speaker in the use of pauses. Their length and frequency can be determined only by the sentiment. Unimpassioned didactic thought demands but moderate pauses; gay, lively and joyous thought very short pauses; solemnity, sublimity, grandeur and reverence, long pauses; while impassioned thought may demand long or short pauses. A pause should always be made before and after an emphatic word. It will be hardly necessary to say that the pauses referred to are not indicated by the marks of punctuation. These may or may not harmonize with the rhetorical pauses. EXAMPLES: I. DIDACTIC THOUGHT. Moderate Pauses. [From "Expression."- Winthrop.] A woman's voice can tell a long history of sorrow in a single word. This wonderful instrument, our voice, alters its timbre with every note it yields, as the face changes with every look, until at last the dominant emotion is master, and gives quality to tone and character to expression.. Every look, tone, gesture of a man is a symbol of his complete nature. If we apply the microscope severely enough we can discern the fine organism by which the soul sends itself out in every act of the being. And the more perfectly developed the creature the more significant, and yet the more mysterious, is every habit, and every motion mightier than habit, of body and soul. II. SOLEMNITY. Long Pauses. [From "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty."-Shelley | The day becomes more solemn and serene III. SOLEMNITY AND SUBLIMITY. [From "Hamlet's Soliloquy."-Shakspeare.] To be, or not to be, that is the question: To sleep! perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The insolence of office, and the spurns With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear · And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; IV. ANIMATED. Short Puuses. [From "L'Allegro."-Milton.] Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, Russet lawns, and fallows gray, V. LIVELY, ANIMATED DESCRIPTION. Very Short Pauses. [From "How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix."--Browning.] I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he: I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; 66 Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through· Behind shut the postern, the light sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast. The careful observance of the " "rhetorical" pause is one of the chief means of distinctness in the expression of thought. In narration and description, and in plain didactic style, it is equally important that the successive sounds of the voice should be relieved from each other in portions best adapted to present the component parts of the whole in a clear, distinct, impressive manner, according to their comparative length and importance. The thought or sentiment which is thus communicated falls on the ear with a definite and satisfactory succession of sounds, which the mind easily receives and appreciates. The parts being thus exactly given, each takes its own due weight, and at the same time enhances the effect of the whole. The result is that the communication is fully understood and makes its just impression. Young readers in particular are often deficient in this most striking and impressive of all the effects of appropriate reading and recitation. It becomes, therefore, a matter of great moment in practice to cultivate the habit of watching the effect of full and long pauses introduced at appropriate places. Without these the most solemn passages of Scripture, and the poetry of Milton and of Young, produce no effect, comparatively, on the mind; while reading, aided by their "expressive silence," seems to be inspired with an unlimited power over the sympathies of the soul. SECTION XLVII. EMPHASIS. Emphasis is a peculiar utterance given to words and phrases, by which they are rendered specially significant. This may be given by an increase of Force or Stress, by a change in Quality, Form, Pitch, or Movement, or by a change in the combination of two or more of these attributes. Variety and power of emphasis require control of all the previously discussed elements of utterance. The kind and degree of emphasis which is to be given can only be determined by the sentiment, and the occasion or circumstances of the delivery. Where the whole passage is of an earnest or impassioned character the emphatic words require greater prominence. The highly-wrought emphasis of impassioned oratory would be wholly out of place in a parlor reading of the same speech, and in large audiences a much stronger emphasis is in place than in small ones. 66 Emphasis is in speech what coloring is in painting. It admits of all possible degrees, and must, to indicate a particular degree of distinction, be more or less intense according to the ground word or current melody of the discourse." An attentive analysis of Emphasis will discover the fact that in the utterance of any emphatic word or phrase no one mode of emphasis alone prevails, but that a greater or less combination of modes always exists. In Emphasis of Force, though Force may largely predominate as an element of Emphasis, still it will generally be combined with Stress and Pitch, and Emphasis of Pitch will be combined with Force and Stress. The same will be equally true of all other modes. The following illustrations indicate the predominant mode of emphasis in each. SECTION XLVIII. EMPHASIS OF FORCE. Emphasis of force is the utterance of certain words or phrases with an increase or decrease of the prevailing |