when not desirous of conveying to others the impression that what he is saying demands their serious consideration, may talk rapidly. But when he wishes to convey the opposite impression-that they should weigh his statements with the utmost care,—he talks slowly. From noticing facts like these, we learn that duration assigns, as has been said, a mental weight or measure to ideas. If these appeared for us in space, we could mete them out in measurements of space. But as they are heard in words, which occupy successive intervals of time, we must indicate their weight or bulk, by shortening or lengthening their duration. Less or more time given to an utterance, gives a hearer less or more time in which to think of the thoughts expressed in it, suggesting, therefore, that, in the opinion of the speaker, they are of less or more relative importance.

This principle we will apply, first, to the elocutionary pause, which leads us in reading to check our utterance not only at the ends of phrases, as already noticed, but also before or after important words, like those preceding the bars in these quotations.

The people will carry us | gloriously | through | this struggle.
He is pleasing; | but is he honest?

The same principle applied to consecutive words causes us to read the unimportant parenthesis in the following, rapidly :

He girt his fisher's coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea.-John xxi., 7.

And the important one in the following, slowly:

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering (for he is faithful that promised), and let us consider one another, to provoke unto love and to good works.-Heb. x., 23, 24.

According to dramatic elocution, fast time indicates that which moves rapidly, and slow time that which moves slowly; e. g.:

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone,

Fast.

{

He swam the Eske River where ford there was none;

Turning now to poetic form, we find that the same principles apply to it. Notice in these stanzas how almost all the important words are placed before the pause at the end of the line, or before the cæsura-pause in the middle of it.

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep.

The river glideth | at his own sweet will.
Dear God, the very houses | seem asleep ;
And all that mighty heart | is lying still.

- Westminster Bridge: Wordsworth.

Of man's first disobedience | and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, | whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world | and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, | till one greater man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse.

-Paradise Lost, 1: Milton.

Comrades, leave me here a little, | while as yet 't is early morn;

Leave me here; and, when you want me, | sound upon the bugle-horn. -Locksley Hall: Tennyson.

Notice, too, the inartistic effects produced, when the voice does not naturally pause where the lines are ended;

Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile

End green.

-Sonnet, On the Detraction, etc.: Milton.

In blank verse, these run-on lines, as they are termed, in contrast to end-stopped, are less objectionable. Yet, considered in themselves, they are inartistic. In another place, I intend to speak of Shakespear's use of them. The following are examples of this.

-and then to breakfast with

What appetite you have.

-Henry VIII., 3, 2.

Yet, if that quarrel, Fortune do divorce

It from the bearer, etc.

-Idem, 2, 3.

The effects of duration, however, are produced not only by the absence or presence of the pause before and after words, but also by shortening or prolonging what is termed the quantity of a syllable. In elocution, quantity may sometimes be prolonged at will; in poetry, it is usually determined by the letter-sounds forming the syllable. The rule is, that syllables composed of short vowel-sounds, and of consonant-sounds easy to pronounce, are short in an absolute sense, as distinguished from a relative sense, of which I shall speak by-and-bye. A predominance of these short sounds in the style fits it to represent comparatively unimportant ideas; e. g.:

At a pleasant evening party, I had taken down to supper
One whom I will call Elvira, and we talked of love and Tupper.

Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto,
And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to.
-Ferdinando and Elvira: Gilbert.

And, also, things that move rapidly, as in the quotation. from Scott above, as well as in these:

And he chirped and sang and skipped about, and laughed with laughter

hearty.

He was wonderfully active for so very stout a party.

-Idem.

Singing through the forests;

Rattling over ridges;

Shooting under arches,

Rumbling over bridges;

Whizzing through the mountains ;

Buzzing o'er the vale,—

Bless me, this is pleasant,
Riding on the rail.

-Railroad Rhyme: Saxe.

A predominance, on the contrary, of decidedly long vowel-sounds, or of consonant-sounds difficult to pronounce, makes the rhythm move slowly, and fits it, therefore, according to the principles already unfolded, to represent important ideas; e. g.:

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,

Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

-Elegy in a Country Church-Yard: Gray.

And also things that move slowly; e. g. :
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

First march the heavy mules securely slow;
O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go.

-Idem.

-Pope's Tr. of the Iliad.

Notice in the following how the short syllables in connection with the irregular accentuation of the rhythm in the earlier lines contrast with the long quantities and strongly marked accents of the last line. Here we have an exact poetic analogue for fast and slow time, as also for weak and strong force, as used in elocution: