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CHAPTER V

MODULATION (Continued)

TIME

Time as applied to speech embraces three important elements: Rate, Quantity, and Pausing. The rate at which one speaks may be Medium, Slow, Very Slow, Rapid, or Very Rapid. Quantity is the time given to syllables and individual words. Pausing has reference to time between words and is divided into two kinds: Grammatical and Rhetorical.

Medium:

RATE

1. Read, not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in less important argument, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things.

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

"Essays Of Studies."

BACON.

2. Not eloquence, but truth, is to be sought in the Holy Scriptures, every part of which must be read with the same spirit by which it was written. In these, and all other books, it is improvement in holiness, not pleasure in the subtlety of thought, or the accuracy of expression, that must be principally regarded. We ought to read those parts that are simple and devout, with the same affection and delight as those of high speculation or profound erudition. Whatever book thou readest, suffer not thy mind to be influenced by the character of the writer, whether his literary accomplishments be great or small. Let thy only motive to read be the love of truth; and, instead of inquiring who it is that writes, give all thy attention to the nature of what is written. Man passeth away like the shadows of the morning; but "the word of the Lord endureth forever": and that word, without respect of persons, in ways infinitely various, speaketh unto all.

"Reading the Scriptures."

THOMAS A'KEMPIS.

3. Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

"The Christmas Carol."

DICKENS.

4. We have demonstrations enough, fortunately, to show that truth alone is not sufficient; for truth is the arrow, but man is the bow that sends it home. There be many men who are the light of the pulpit, whose thought is profound, whose learning is universal, but those offices are unspeakably dull. They do make known the truth; but without favor, without grace, without beauty, without inspiration; and discourse upon discourse would fitly be called the funeral of important subjects.

BEECHER.

Slow:

1. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

2. Hear the tolling of the bells-
Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night
How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

"The Bells."

Very Slow:

1. To be or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep perchance to dream! ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

POE.

When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who'd these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

"Hamlet."

SHAKESPEARE.

2. Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam.

When that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again bome.

Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell, when I embark; For the from out our bourn of time and place the flood may bear me far.

I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crost the bar. Crossing the Far"

TENNYSON.

3 The bars pass slowly by-nine, ten, eleven.-bow solemnly the last stroke of the clock fours out upon the still air. It dies gedy away, swells out again in the distance, and seems to be ap by spirit-voices of departed years and the air is led vil mencholy strains It is the requiem of the dying

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Tenderly, mournfully it lingers upon the ear and sinks into the heart; slowly and softly it dies away. The clock strikes twelve; the grave opens and closes, and the old year is buried. BROOKS.

Rapid:

1. Haste, thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity,

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to dwell in dimple sleek;
Come, and trip it as ye go,

On the light fantastic toe.

"L'Allegro."

2. We come! we come! and ye feel our might,
As we're hastening on in our boundless flight;
And over the mountains, and over the deep,
Our broad invisible pinions sweep

Like the spirit of liberty, wild and free,
And ye look on our works, and own 'tis we;
Ye call us the Winds; but can ye tell
Whither we go, or where we dwell?

MILTON.

Our dwelling is in the Almighty's hand;
We come and we go at his command,
Tho joy or sorrow may mark our track,
His will is our guide, and we look not back;
And if in our wrath, ye would turn us away,
Or win us in gentle airs to play,

Then lift up your hearts to him who binds, Or frees, as he wills, the obedient Winds! "The Winds."

H. F. GOULD.

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