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I I

WALT WHITMAN

Books are to be called for, and supplied, on the assump-
tion that the process of reading is not a half sleep, but, in
highest sense, an exercise, a gymnast's struggle; that the
reader is to do something for himself, must be on the alert,
must himself or herself construct indeed the poem, argument,
history, metaphysical essay — the text furnishing the hints,
the clue, the start or framework. Not the bodk needs so
much to be the complete thing, but the reader of the book
does. That were to make a nation of siq>ple and athletic
mmds, well-trained, intuitive, used to depend on themselves,
and not on a few coteries of writers.

JOHN RUSKIN

The foundational importance of beautiful speaking has
been disgraced by the confusion of it with diplomatic oratory,
and evaded by the vicious notion that it can be taught by a
master learned in it as a separate art. The management of
the lips, tongue, and throat may, and perhaps should, be so
taught; but this is properly the first function of the singings
master. Elocution is a moral faculty^: and no one is fit to
be the head of a children's school who is not both by nature
and attention a beautiful speaker.

By attention, I say, for fine elocution means first an ex-
quisitel}^ close attention to, and intelligence of, the meaning
of words, and perfect sp/npatfip with what feeling ihejf Je-
scrihe; hut indicated alway^s with reserve. In this reserve,
fine reading and speaking (virtually one art) differ from
"recitation," which gives the statement or sentiment with the
explanatory accent and gesture of an actor. In perfectly
pure elocution, on the contrary, the accent ought, as a rule,
to be much lighter and gentler than the natural or dramatic
one, and the force of it wholly independent of gesture or
expression of feature. A fine reader should read, a great
speaker speak, as a judge delivers his charge ; and the test of
his power should be to read or speak unseen.

Interpretation of the
Printed Page

FOR THOSE WHO WOULD LEARN TO INTERPRET

LITERATURE SILENTLY OR THROUGH

THE MEDIUM OF THE VOICE

,\y

S?^'Hr CLARK

Associate Profsssor of Public Speaking
The University of Chicago

Author of "Ho^ to Teach Reading in the Public Schools.**
"Principles of Vocal Expression and Literary Inter-
pretation'* (Chamberlain and Clark), "Hand-
book of Best Readings,** etc-

CHICAGO - - - NEW YORK

ROW, PETERSON AND COMPANY

\ S-.cj 1 ^ L l>

PREFACE

This book is planned for use in High Schools,
Normal Schools, and as a foundation for advanced
classes in Colleges; but particularly have I had in
mind the iig eds of the teacher o f English w ho has
had no special training or preparation in vocal ex-
pression, locution, problems of voice culture, ges-
ture, and articulation are not touched on, because
there are a number of excellent treatises available for
the professional teacher; and the noii-professional
teacher is more likely to be harmed than helped by
them. Training in voice and gesture cannot be got
out of books, nor from correspondence courses.

The teacher of English can use this book in class
with no other training than that derived from the
study of literature — ^which study must always be an
inseparable part of the training in vocal expression;
and with no other purpose (what higher can there
be?) than to give the students such an insight into
the meaning and beauty of literature that the vocal
interpretation of it will be a simple, unaffected, intel-
ligent, pleasurable illumination of the text.

The teacher of elocution will, I hope, find in these
pages a sound and rational text-book whose lessons
can be supplemented by such other instruction as con-
ditions demand. The principles herein presented are
basic, I believe, to any method.

The method here presented is the first in the realm

8 PBEFAGE

of pedagogy that recognizes practically as well as
theoretically — ^what no one of course denies — that
i^' thought getting must be the basis of vocal interpre-
tation. I am certain that what explains the poor,
inadequate vocal expression in our schools is not lack
of technical exercises, but lack of ability to interpret
^ the printed page; and I am almost as certain that the
absence of interest in literature, and the mediocrity
of results in political economy, history, etc., are very
largely due to lack of interest in, growing out of
inability to grapple with, the printed page. I have
therefore had constantly in mind in preparing this
book not only those who want to read aloud, but every
person who wishes to get more knowledge and more
enjoyment from the printed page. There are hun-
dreds who are interested in increasing their ability to
interpret the printed page to tens who want to learn
to read aloud ; and the method here presented will help
the hundreds as well as the tens.

I am under great obligation to Miss Jessie L.
Newlin, of University College, of the University of
Chicago, for numerous suggestions in connection with
the general plan of the book, and particularly for
valuable assistance rendered in gathering and selecting
the illustrative material.

CONTENTS

Chapter page

Introduction 11

^ I. Grouping 21

> II. Group Sequence 49

;> III. Group Values , 78

IV. Group Sequence with Subordination 90

V. Inversion 98

>VI. Denotation 108

> VII. An Exercise in Analysis 133

^m. Group Motive 189

IX. Central Idea 164

>X. Group Motive and Central Idea. . . 169

XI., Punctuation 178

XII. Punctuation (Continued) . 200

XIII. Review Exercises in Punctuation . . 227

> XrV. Connotation 241

^ XV. Emotion 254

XVI. Suggestions to Teachers 809

INTRODUCTION

JIhe great majority of graduates from public, high,
and normal schools are sadl y deficient in ability to
in terpret t he printeipage. ^Thirty yeatsl ^experience
in teaching forces on me that conclusion. In the fol-
lowing pages will be found what I think is ample
proof of my charge, sweeping and startling as it is;
but in this place I can say only that my statement,
often made in public, is all too frequently challenged
by those who, relying easily and nonchalantly on their
ability to take in at a glance words, phrases, nay,
whole pages, never have learned how much of the
meaning they miss, and how often they misinterpret it.
No system of popular education can be considered^^
adequate from which the graduates have not derived
a serious interest in worth-while things and an ability
to grasp the content of books or journals in which
things worth while are discussed. And_I_belieye, there-
fore, that our school system must lay "greater stress
than it has laid on silent reading — ^the importance of
which seems to be underestimated. It is the only
avenue of approach to the larger world for the boy
and girl, or the man and woman whose school days
are ended. Whether as a citizen who should for
patriotic reasons have a lively interest in history,
politics, sociology; as an artisan who seeks for help
and advice in his life-work ; as a lover of the beautiful
seeking to come into contact with the best that has

12 INTBBPBETATION OP THE PBINTED PAGE

been thought and felt by the human race ; or as a mere,
plain, matter-of-fact everyday man or woman of
affairs who wants to know what is going on, it is the
printed page more than anything else that can help.

There is a loud cry for better reading in our
schools, and as the demand grows louder and more
insistent, we are striving to meet it by classes in elocu-
tion, elocution contests, voice classes, courses in
articulation, and of late, by the giving of plays. In-
deed all of these ways of answering the demand are
helpful (with a little less emphasis on the **all** when
it comes to elocution contests as usually conducted) ;
but while they develop ease and facility in expression,
they do not go to the root of the matter unless they
insist that the only basis for vocal expression must lie
in a thorough apprehension of the meaning.

All this is veriest platitude ; and yet I cannot escape
the conclusion that in spite of all our training in silent
and oral reading (I had almost added ^^and in Eng-
lish"), in spite of accepted theories about "getting
the thought," the average product of our schools,
from grammar grade to college. Cannot be altogether
trusted to interpret a page of reasonably difficult
English.

And the times, too, are none too favorable for such
intensive study as I am pleading for. All is rush and
hurry, and what does not come to us easily as we read,
what is only a short distance removed from the sim-
plicity of thought and language of our everyday life,
is dismissed as being* hard, and hence beyond our
grasp. It is an age when the concrete and tangible

INTRODUCTION 18

are the only things that seem to count with young
people. It is so easy to skim over a text that has to
deal with abstractions as dose to life as ^^virtue" and
"honesty. '* Typewriting, shop, mechanical drawing;
nay, even chemistry, botany, physics, as the pupil
comes into contact with them in the laboratory, are
"easier," far easier, than one page of solid type.

No one is foolish enough to deny the importance of
the vocational and scientific studies. But I would
draw attention to the fact that in those subjects the
material is tangible, easy to get at and to handle;
and above all they aflTord little training in the atten-
tion and concentration necessary to the mastery of the
content of books. The data of science are concrete,
and so novel, so inherently interesting, that students
delight to spend hours in the laboratory learning how
the wheels of the universe go 'round. Yet the very
tangibility of the data is likely to create an impa-
tience in the student for the serious study of books.

It is not that I plead for less of the methods of
science, but for more: I urge that the vocational
student and the young student of science include in
their curricula more of the intangible material of the
printed page.; and that the student of literature in-
clude more of the rigid method of science in pursuing
his courses.

But even in connection with subjects in which books
are frequently used, we accept too easily careless, slip-
shod recitations. How strange it is that in so much
of our teaching of reading from primary up so little
help is given to the pupil to enable him to get the

14 INTEBPBETATION OP THE PRINTED PAGE

full content of the printed page ! In the earlier yean,
the stress is naturally laid on learning letters and
words, but after the child can "read,'* we leave all
the rest to chance. In a few schools some stress is
laid on vocal expression; but alas! too often *^ex-
pression" is synonymous with gush and show and
affectation.

To conclude then : expression is good, valuable, but
it must be the natural, spontaneous response to an
impression. Elocution, or expression, or vocal inter-
pretation, whatever it may be called,^ not the goal
of the reading lesson^ Our schools have made, and
many still make, the fatal mistake of taking it for
granted that because vocal expression may be of con-
siderable importance as the outcome of the reading
lesson, it is of the first importance. It is not. Beau-
tiful as is the adequate vocal interpretation of litera-
ture, it is of infinitesimally less worth in a system of
education than the ability to interpret silently. For
the great majority of men and women, the need for

rrect impression is the most crying of all.

The method here presented consists of a series of
simple progressive steps to master which means the
/ development of ability to get more and more from the
printed page, a greater pleasure in literature through
a clearer grasp of its content, and finally, the growth
\ of a power to express vocally, in a simple, natural,
and effective way, the content of the printed page.

It is not to be supposed for a moment that I would
insist on the making of a clear picture of what every
word and sentence stands for. It would not only be

INTEODUCTION 15

sheer nonsense to expect that; it would cause incal-
culable harm to develop the habit of reading only in
pictures. (However, to be fair to those who insist on
"getting pictures," I believe they use the phrase in the
very general sense of getting the thought.) In fact,
we seldom or never see pictures in our daily inter-
course. If I am told, "Your lesson in history for to-
morrow will be chapter five of Green's History of the
English People/* I certainly do not stop to make a
picture of "lesson" and "tomorrow," etc. It would
positively stand in my way if I had to get ideas and
information in such a fashion. And so it is with all
the ordinary conversation and reading of everyday
life. The larger our experience with books and the
world the easier it is to read mthoiit the aid of pictures.
But now comes a danger. Young students become
so used to understanding people without effort and to
reading rapidly that they skim lightly over the page,
and many come to the point where that which does not
come easily is passed by as being too hard, or not
worth puzzling over. It is only those who are well
acquainted with the subject-matter who can read rap-
idly and still understand. I do not mean that it is
necessary to read every page of every book so care-
fully that nothing can escape us. It is quite pos-
sible we want to read just to get a general idea of
what the author has to say. Some passages are
under some^ conditions to be passed over lightly, and
under others to be studied in minutest detail. For
instance, we cannot be expected to study closely every
word of the baseball news, nor of a railroad accident.

16 INTESPBETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

But when we come to good literature there is no choice.
It was never written for the tired brain, nor for mere
entertainment. Eyery word and phrase has a mean-
ing and a purpose.

In this book I am insisting strongly with Ruskin
thai one must interpret not only sentences, but words,
nay, "letter by letter,'* for with virtually no reserva-
tion the greater part of our educational system is
guilty of total disregard of this fundamental need.
The only way we can test the value of a method of
'teaching literature" is in its results with the students,
and I — ^with the highest appreciation of that small de-
voted body of teachers of English that insists not on
"teaching literature," but on presenting it so that
students may learn what it is — I unhesitatingly de-
clare that, measured by the standard of adequate
results, it is a miserable failure: it has not developed
an interest in literature worth while, let alone a love
for it. I concede the world is too much with us ; that
the cry for practical results drowns out the gentle
voice of poesie ; that the environment of our students
may not be conducive to the study of literature; I
grant everything except that all these are no excuse.
We must find time and means to present literature for
what it is, not as history, not as biography, not as
\ composition, nor philology, nor histology, nor — ^nor
— ^nor anything but the beautiful. ^It can never be
easy to read good literature, thank the gods for that !
but it must be made so interesting, so appealing to
what is best in the students that they will gladly work
over the text in order to enjoy it. There is no

INTRODUCTION

\ -

V'^

time to hurry the study of a poem; it is the ter-\
lest art of pedagogy to dwell on it and have the \ \j
class dwell on it lovingly, longingly, and loath to let \ ' t^

it go; hanging on every word, every group and sen-
tence ; rolling rhyme and rhythm on the tongue as it
were — not trippingly, no, Hamlet, not trippingly —
until we know it as we know the mother's voice, singing
it to ourselves, dwelling on every cadence, flighting yv'

to the blue with Shelley's Skylark, going down with *

majestic steps to Milton's deep within the deep.

There is little love of good literature in America.
We don't read it because we don't care for it ; we don't
care for it because it does not appeal to us; it does
not appeal to us because we don't understand it; we
don't understand because we don't know how to go
about understanding — and our schools seldom show
us how. ^

There is. some tendency nowadays to hold that we
must learn to skim the printed page. It can't be
skimmed unless we want but a bird's-eye view. True,
there are some books written to be skimmed (most of
which, by the way, might better be left alone entirely) ;
others whose subject-matter is so familiar to a certain
reader that he need not dwell on its every detail, be-
cause in the past, through patient study, he had mas-
tered the fundamentals of the subject. But this is
never true of good literature. Never! Never!!
Never!!! The wretched habit of skimming explains
not only our lack of interest in and love of good liter-
ature, but the inability of the average man and woman
to grapple with any book or treatise of weight and

18 INTEEPEETATION OP THE FEINTED PAGE

merit, anything outside of the popular treatment of"
the commonest occurrences of eyeryday life. Nay,
even there, it is appalling how much can be read with-
out understanding, frequently with a perverted under-
standing. For most people the ability to read (!) is
a fatal facility for recognizing words. Their ability
leads them to believe that they know and understand,
when the truth is their skimming, skipping method
destroys their power of concentration, of prolonged
attention, their interest in the serious treatment of any
subject, including even those most nearly touching
their lives. Is it not true that we cannot trust the
average graduate of the average high school to give
us the gist of a leading article or editorial? And only
one child out of nineteen who enter the public school
ever gets as far as high-school graduation. What
can we expect then of those who drop out at twelve
and thirteen and fourteen? Well, at any rate, vaude-
ville prospers, the "movie'* houses are packed, and
the popular monthly magazines sell by the million.
Shakespeare? Oh, yes, "John received a beautiful
set for graduation ; it's on the upper shelf, left-hand
side." In the name of all that is sound in literary
culture, what arraignment more terrible could be made
of our methods than that virtually nobody reads good
literature? Let us at least be honest and not keep
talking about our priceless heritage in Shakespeare
and Milton and Wordsworth and Shelley and Keats
and George Eliot and Emerson, and frankly say they
are not for the busy twentieth century.

How then can there be any adequate vocal expres-^

INTRODUCTION 19

sion when there is so little appreciation? Is it any
wonder that elocution — ^a noble art — ^has fallen into
disrepute ; that it is a synonym of banality, incapacity,
Fant, and affectation ? How can there be good elocu-
tion when the material with which it should deal is
outside of the experience of the elocutionist?

^I believe that the value of reading as reading has
not been fully realized as a truly educative study.
First , it is necessary to have a working vocabulary,
which is analogous to paradigms, declensions, for-
mulae, theorems, etc. Secondly ^ the necessity of care-
ful attention^ tq_ all the facts is not dissimilar from
what is required in the laboratory or in the translation
of foreign languages. (I dare to suggest that be-
cause of the elusiveness and complexity of language
the student's powers are more taxed in careful obser-
vation of the printed page than in many an experi-
ment in the laboratory.) And thirdly, the training
in concentration, in sequential thinking, in logic, in
drawing conclusions from observed facts, in detecting
errors in statements and in conclusions — all this is, in
the highest and best sense of the word, educativ e.

It is my sincere, earnest, humble hope that the
method herein presented may heighten the student's
appreciation of what is best in literature, not through
accepting my views, or anyone's views, as to what is
beautiful in prose and poetry, but through that care-
ful (not necessarily dry), patient study of the text
that alone can reveal its innermost meaning.

Thb University op Chicago
June, 1915

Interpretation of the Printed Page

CHAPTER I

GROUPING

Read aloud these lines with no other object than
just to utter the words :

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream : —
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain ;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed hy foes.
A craven hung along the battle's edge.
And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel —
That blue blade that the king's son bears, — but this
Blunt thing — !" he snapt and flung it from his

hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.
Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead.
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
El^ilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand.
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down.
And saved a great cause that heroic day.

— Sill : Opportuniiff.
21

22 INTEBPBETATION OP THE PBINTED PAGE

Now read the first six lines silently, trying to get
the author's meaning :

This I beheld^ or dreamed it in a dream: —
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain ;
And underneath the cloudy or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.

Have you not noticed in this careful reading a

tendency to break up the lines into groups of words?

Read the poem again to yourself, very carefully, and

note that the more determined you are to get the

meaning the slower will you read and the more groups

will you make. We might rearrange it something

like this :

This I beheld,
or dreamed it in a dream : —
There spread a cloud of dust
along a plain ;
And underneath the cloud,
or in it,

raged A furious battle,
and men yelled,

and swords Shocked upon swords and shields.
A prince's banner Wavered,
then staggered backward,
hemmed by foes.

A craven hung along the battle's edge.
And thought,

"Had I a sword of keener steel —
That blue blade that the king's son bears, —
but this Blunt thing— !"
. he snapt
and flung it from his hand.

GBOUPING 28

And lowering

crept away

and left the field.

Then came the king's son^

wounded,

sore bestead,

And weaponless,

and saw the broken sword,

Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand.

And ran and snatched it,

and with battle-shout Lifted afresh

he hewed his enemy down,

And saved a great cause

that heroic day.

This deliberate study of the grouping has com-
pelled you to read slowly and carefully; and that is
the* sole purpose of the lesson. It is easy to recog^
nize words and then to pronounce them, but if onci
is to £cet the meanins: he must do hard thinkinfic. The'
author of lliia puiiii s a ^i an entire picture, -sam a good

deal of it in one glance — ^just as you can close your
eyes and recall some picture of home, or sea, or land-
scape, or farm — ^but when he wantpd'^us to see what
he ha/i seen he ha^ to describe it group by group.
We must then get these groups one by one and build
them up again into complete pictures. / For instance,
in the lines :

There spread a cloud of dust along a plain ;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields,

we see a cloud of dust spreading along a plain, and in
"the midst of the cloud a battle raging wherein swords

24 INTERPBETATION OP THE PRINTED PAGE

and shields shock, and men yell and scream. If we
were looking at a battlefield we should take in at a
glance all that the author here describes ; but when we
read the words, so acciLstomed are we to read care-
lessly and without conscious determination to get the
meanings most of us get but a small fraction of
the story.

In this first example I have purposely chosen a
simple poem. There are no hard words, and the con-
struction is easy. If there were many strange words,
and sentences long and involved, there would be sev-
eral kinds of difficulties to overcome besides that of
grouping. But we are taking one step at a time.

Some of the grouping difficulties in Opportvmty
are clearly due to the poetic form; but in prose,
because it looks easier than verse, there is more
temptation than in poetry to run words together
without regard for the meaning. Read silently and
hurriedly this passage from Silas Mamer:

The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed at
the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold: the
coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant as
stones brought to complete a house suddenly buried by
an earthquake; the sense of bereavement was too heavy
upon him for the old thrill of satisfaction to rise again
at the touch of the newly-earned coin. And now some-
thing had come to replace his hoard which gave a
growing purpose to the earnings^ drawing his hope and
joy continually onward beyond the money.

Now in order that no part of the picture may pos-
sibly escape us let us group the lines as follows:

6B0UPING 25

The disposition to hoard

had been utterly crushed

at the very first

by the loss of his long^stored gold:

the coins he earned afterwards

seemed as irrelevant

as stones brought to complete a house

suddenly buried by an earthquake;

the sense of bereavement

was too heavy upon him

for the old thrill of satisfaction

to rise again

at the touch of the newly-earned coin.

And now

something had come

to replace his hoard

which gave a growing purpose

to the earnings^

drawing his hope and joy

continually onward

beyond the money.

Of course, the grouping is overdone, but nevertheless
it serves to illustrate the principle we are studying. A
slow reader might be justified in such detailed study,
but after he becomes familiar with the text I think he
will find that a grouping about like the following will
give the best interpretation :

The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed
at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold ;
the coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrel-
evant as stones brought to complete a house sud-
denly buried by an earthquake; the sense of
bereavement was too heavy upon him for the old

thrill of satisfaction to rise again at the touch of the

26 INTEBPEETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

newly-earned coin. And now something had come to
replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to
the earnings^ drawing his hope and joy continually
onward beyond the money.

(The spaces do not indicate a long pause, but a
separation of groups to prevent blurring.)

EXEECISES

The student will prepare to read aloud in class the
following selections to illustrate the principle of
grouping. Do not be misled by the seeming simplic-
ity of these passages. While most of the groups are
easily apprehended there are several places where the
idea will escape you if you are not careful.

Not what we have, but what we use;
Not what we see, but what we choose —
These are the things that mar or bless
The sum of human happiness.

Not as we take, but as we give;
Not as we pray, but as we live —
These are the things that make for peace.
Both now and after time shall cease.

He rose, and clad himself,' and girt his sword.
And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent.

And went abroad into the cold wet fog.

Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's tent.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

I could not love thee, dear, so much
Loved I not honor more.

QEOUPING 27

The dead are niany^ and the living few.
How near to good is what is fair!

A ride of two hundred and odd miles in severe weather
is one of the best softeners of a hard bed that ingenuity
can devise.

The sea ! the sea ! the open sea !

The blue, the fresh, the ever free!

Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions round;

It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies.

Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea,

I am where I would ever be.

With the blue above and the blue below.

And silence wheresoe'er I go.

If a storm should come and awake the deep.

What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh ! how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
Where every mad wave drowns the moon.
And whistles aloft its tempest tune.
And tells how goeth the world below.
And why the southwest wind doth blow !

I never was on the dull, tame shore
But I loved the great sea more and more.
And backward flew to her billowy breast.
Like a bird that seeketh her mother's nest, —
And a mother she was and is to me,
^ For I was born on the open sea.

The waves were white, and red the mom.

In the noisy hour when I was born;

The whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled.

88 INTEBPRETATION OP THE PRINTED PAGE

And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild.
As welcomed to life the ocean child.

I have lived since then, in calm and strife.
Full fifty summers a rover's life,
With wealth to spend, and a power to range.
But never have sought or sighed for change:
And death, whenever he comes to me.
Shall come on the wide, unbounded sea!

— Cornwall: The Sea.

An hour before sunset, on the evening of a day in
the beginning of October, 1815, a man travelling afoot
e nt er ed the little town of D — . It would have beeq
hard to find a passer-by more wretched in appearance.
A slouched leather cap half hid his face, bronzed by
the sun and wind, and dripping with sweat. He wore
a cravat twisted like a rope; coarse blue trousers, worn
and shabby, white on one knee and with holes in the
other; an old, ragged, gray blouse patched on oiie side
with a piece of green cloth sewed with twine; upon his
back was a well-filled knapsack; in his hand he carried
an enormous knotted stick; his stockingless feet were
in hobnailed shoes; his hair was cropped and his beard
long. — Hugo: Les Miserables.

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled.

And still where many a garden flower grows wild;

There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,

The village preacher's modest mansion rose.

A man he was to all the country dear.

And passing rich with forty pounds a year;

Remote from towns he ran his goodly race.

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place:

Unpracticed he to fawn, or seek for power.

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;

Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,

GBOUPING 29

More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wand'rings^ bat relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest^
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift^ now no longer proud^
Claimed kindred there^ and had his claim allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay.
Sat by his fire, and talked the night away ;
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done.
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan.
His pity gave ere charity began.

— Goldsmith: The Deserted Village.

Bruce caused his men to lie down to take some sleep,
at a place about half a mile distant from the river,
while he himself, with two attendants, went down to
watch .the ford, through which the enemy must needs
pass before they could come to the place where King
Robert's men were lying. He stood for some time look-
ing at the ford, and thinking how easily the enemy might
be kept from passing there, provided it was bravely
defended, when he heard at a distance the baying of
a hound, which was always coming nearer and nearer.
This was the bloodhound which was tracing the King's
steps to the ford where he had crossed, and the two
hundred Galloway men were along with the animal, and
guided by it. Bruce at first thought of going back to
awaken his men; but then he reflected that it might be
only some shepherd's dog. "My men," said he, "are
sorely tired; I will not disturb their sleep for the yelp-
ing of a cur, till I know something more of the
matter." So he stood and listened; and by and by, as
the cry of the hound came nearer, he began to hear a

30 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PMNTED PAGE

trampling of horses^ and the voices of men^ and the
ringing and clattering ctf armor, and then he was sure
the enemy were coming to the river side. Then the
King thought, "If I go back to give my men the alarm,
these Galloway men will get through the ford without
opposition; and that would be a pity, since it is a place
so advantageous to make defence against them." So he
looked again at the steep path, and the deep river, and
he thought that they gave him so much advantage, that
he himself could defend the passage with his own hand,
until his men came to assist him. His armor was so
good and strong, that he had no fear of arrows, and
therefore the combat was not so very unequal as it must
"have otherwise been. He therefore sent his followers
to waken his men, and remained alone by the bank of
the river. — Scott: Tales of a Grandfather.

A group may contain a single word only, as :

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!
Were the last words of Marmion.

Hence ! home, you idle creatures, get you home.

One, two, three, fire !

Away, slight man !

King, duke, earl.
Count, baron — whom he smote, he overthrew.

In all reading there is danger of two kinds of mis-
takes: first, where we get no meaning, or only a
partial one; and secondly, where we get the wrong
meaning. We come across examples of both forms
in this first chapter. Students, then, should con-

GEOUPING 81

stantly ask themselves, Do I get any meaning? or,
Is that the right meaning? To be sure, all troubles
do not vanish when you have grouped correctly, but
this is certain : Grouping helps to locate the difficulty^
and that goes a long way towards remedying it. Let
the following illustrations serve as models. The first
shows how impossible it is to get the idea unless we
proceed group by group. There is little trouble in
the words, thought, or style, but the sentence is long
and contains so many ideas that we get no meaning
unless we group carefully.

When^ in the course of human events^ it becomes nec-
essary for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another^ and to assume^
among the powers of the earthy the separate and equal
station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God
entitle them^ a decent respect to the opinions of man-
kind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.

In the following passages you may get a wrong
meaning unless you are particularly careful in your
grouping.

And the Lord God said^ It is not good that the man
should.be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
(Parse "him" after "make.")

With farmer Allan at the farm abode
William and Dora.

The fox was seen three nights running in the barn-
yard.

82 INTERPBETATIOy uF THE PRINTED PAGE

We can hardly jeiie^e there are such villains in the
world; but the fact that there are such shows that we
must always be on our guard.

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea.
The ship was as still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion.
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy, friends of my
youth ! O noble and dear old Elias ! how should he who
knows you not respect you and your calling.

Moses was the daughter of Pharaoh's son.

Everything depended upon the weather, and although
the rough autumn was not 'come yet the prime of the
youthful year was past.

Length of Group in Sii;ent and Osal Reading

No absolute rule can he laid down for the length
of groups. When you read you probably find that
your eye takes in clauses and whole sentences at one
sweep. The more familiar the words and ideas and
the simpler the text the longer will be your groups ;
but no matter how easy the text, the group seldom
exceeds ten to fifteen or twenty words. And ron-
trariwise, the more difficult the text the shorter your
groups. You keep saying to yourself, What does
this mean? and find yourself breaking the difficult
sentences up into small and smaller groups. Of
course, after the difficulties are removed— of words,
style, ideas, and the like — ^the hard passages become
comparatively easy, and as a consequence you can

GBOUPING 38

take in larger and larger units of thought. In
Lowell's beautiful address on Owr Literature he says :

That nation is a mere horde supplying figures to the
census which does not acknowledge a truer prosperity
and a richer contentment in the things of the mind.
Railways and telegraphs reckoned by the thousand
miles are excellent things in their way^ but I doubt
whether it be of their poles and sleepers that the rounds
are made of that ladder by which men or nations scale
the cliffs whose inspiring obstacle interposes itself be-
tween them and the fulfilment of their highest purpose
and function.

There are some hard words in this passage, but
even after you get their meaning you still find your-
self making many groups in order to get the sense.

And when it comes to reading aloud (which is only
a half or a third as rapid as silent reading), -again
there is no absolute rule for the length of groups.
All that can be said is that in reading aloud the
groups become shorter; just how short can be deter-
mined only by the difficulty of the text and the nature
of the audience. When you read silently you scarcely
recognize that you are making groups; but in oral
reading the groups are clearly separated by pauses of
varying lengths. Such a sentence as the following
is so simple that, reading it silently, our groups would
be rather long ; but if we were reading it aloud there
would probably be twice as many groups, marked off
by pauses.

One night when he was climbing the stairs of his
lodging, thinking what he would do the next day^ he

34 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

heard the angry voices of two men in the room he was
about to enter^ and he recognized one as that of an old
man from Paris who shared the room with him and
George.

"Yes/' the man from Paris was saying angrily^ "I am
sure that somebody has broken open my trunk and stolen
the three francs which I had hidden in a little box; and
the man who did the trick can only be one of the two
companions who sleep here^ unless it is Maria^ the serv-
ant. This is your business as much as mine^ since you
are master of the house; and I will hale you to court
if you do not let me at once go through the valises."

Read first silently and then aloud the following
to be sure you understand the principle we are dis-
cussing. You will see that because the excerpt is
hard you make many groups in your silent reading,
and that, in your oral reading, you make still more.

But if our relations with the East are in the future
characterized by sympathy^ tact and fair dealings if we
are not stampeded or unduly agitated by special plead-
ing on either side^ we may be able practically to dem-
onstrate our good-will both for China and for Japan,
and our steadiness to cooperate with other Powers inter-
ested in the maintenance of peace in Eastern Asia. —
The New Republic,

To put the matter briefly: In silent reading we
naturally make more and shorter groups where the
text is difficult than when it is simple; and, whether
the style is easy or hard, we make more groups in oral
reading than in silent.

There are two reasons why there are more groups
in vocal expression than in silent reading. The first

GEOUPING 35

is that we stop for breath. This does not mean that
we do this consciously; but since we cannot read on
and on without pausing for breath, we form the habit
of breaking up sentences into groups shorter than we
should make in silent reading. And this is true^ of
course, whether we read aloud for ourselves or to
others.

And secondly, as we read aloud to an auditor we
come to see that, since he has no text before him, he
cannot grasp the meaning as rapidly as he does in
silent reading, and we therefore more or less uncon-
sciously use the shorter group. It is essential to bear
in miind that as the reader becomes familiar with the
text there is danger that he may forget that
the audience is not familiar with it. This he must
never do. He should decide where is approximately
the best place to pause and then not forget it. Here
is a humorous illustration of the need of much more
frequent pausing when reading to another than when
reading silently :

Esau Wood sawed wood. Esaa Wood would saw
wood. All the wood Esau Wood saw Esau Wood would
saw. In other words^ all the wood Esau saw to saw
Esau sought to saw. Oh, the wood Wood would saw!
And oh! the wood-saw with which Wood would saw
wood! But one day Wood's wood-saw would saw no
wood, and thus the wood Wood sawed was not the wood
Wood would saw if Wood's wood-saw would saw wood.
Now, Wood would saw wood with a wood-saw "that
would saw wood, so Esau sought a saw that would saw
wood. One day Esau saw a saw saw wood as no other
wood-saw Wood saw would saw wood. In fact, of all

36 INTEBPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

the wood-saws Wood ever saw saw wood Wood never
saw a wood-saw that would saw wood as the wood-saw
Wood saw saw wood would saw wood^ and I never saw
a wood-saw that would saw as the wood-saw Wood saw
would saw until I saw Esau Wood saw wood with the
wood-saw Wood saw saw wood. Now Wood saws wood
with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood.

Now while it is true that one can lay down no hard-
and-fast rule for determining the length of the groups
in vocal expression, one can be pretty sure as to their
shortness. For instance, one might group

There spread a cloud of dust
along a pltiin.
or,

There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;

but no one would read

There spread a
cloud of
dust along
a plain.

\ And so we conclude that a group is made up of an
I idea, or picture, or a fairly complete part of an idea
I or picture, and that is about as far as we can go at
] present by way of definition. Fortunately, however,
' conunon sense is all we need to guide us.

As for the length of the group in vocal expression,

\ a good general principle to observe is, The longer the

(group the better y all things being equal. Too many

groups tend to becloud the picture, but don't forget

oB things being eqtial, Make all the groups you

GROUPING 37

think necessary in order to have your listener get a
maximum of your meaning with the minimum of
effort on his part; but after that make as few pauses
as possible^

A very Interesting example of what we have been
discussing is found in the next quotation in the clause,
beginning ^^bending and straightening," where the-
picture is that of one continuous action of a man
bending in order to take the stones from the man
below, and then straightening his back in order to
hand the stones to the workman who is evidently
standing above him. The last eleven words of the
paragraph are better handled as one group :

After a long day passed on the ladder^ in the full
sun^ in the dust^ bending and straightening his back to
take the stones from the hands of the man below him
and to pass them to the man above him^ he came home
to get a meal at the cheap eating house^ dead tired^ his
legs heavy^ his hands burning, and his eyelashes stuck
together by the plaster, but satisfied with himself, and
carrying his well-earned money in the knot of his
handkerchief. — Coppee: The Substitute,

A slight pause after "below him" could be de-
fended, but, on the whole, the clause is better read
without it.

Here are some further examples where longer rather
than shorter groupings seem to be preferable:

Without looking to the right or left to notice the
scene of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated,
he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty
cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most u/icourteously from
the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleep-

38 INTEBPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

ing, diieaming of mountains of com and oats^ and whole
valleys of timothy and clover. — ^Washington Irving:
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

It is reported in the Bohemian story that Saint
Wenceslaus^ their king^ g^ing one winter night to his
devotions in a remote charch^ barefooted in the snow
and sharpness of miequal and pointed ice^ his servant
Podavivus, who waited upon his master's piety and
endeavored to imitate his affections^ began to faint
through the violence of the snow and cold till the king
commanded him to follow him and set his feet in the
same footsteps which his feet should mark for him. —
Jeremy Taylor.

Stand farther from me^ lest I should lay hands on
you^ and I'll tell you what I mean. I mean, taking
advantage of a young girl's foolishness and ignorance
to get her to have secret meetings with you. I mean^
daring to trifle with the respectability of a family that
has a good and honest name to support. . . . Do
you mean to pretend that you didn't know it would be
injurious to her to meet you here week after week?
Do you pretend you have any right to make profes-
sions of love to her when neither her father nor your
father would ever consent to a marriage between you?
— Eliot: The Mill on the Floss.

Grouping and Punctuation

•

Many people believe that grouping depends solely
on punctuation. In a later chapter we shall study in
detail the relation of punctuation to interpretation,
but at this point it is enough to say that punctuation
in itself does not determine the grouping and paus-
ing. The punctuation helps us to get the sense ^ and

GROUPING 39

ihe sensey and the sense alone^ determines the group*
Have we not found in the first place many illustra-
tions of the groups ending where there was no period,
comma, or any other mark? as:

Toe things which I have seen I now can see no more.

Secondly, in making groups in easy reading we
often run over marks of punctuation. When you
say, "No, father," strictly speaking you have two
groups; for you do not mean "No father," and the
comma is inserted to show that you do not mean this ;
not to have you pause after "No." Again, "Stop,
Johnnie" needs the comma to make the sense clear;
but one does not pause after "Stop." Should some-
one ask you, "What are the days of the week?" you
answer virtually without pause between the words,
**Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday," etc. But
if your answer were printed, there would be commas
separating the days. So usually in naming the colors
in our flag we say, "They are red white and blue."
But printed, the sentence reads, "They are red, white,
and blue." Remember, it is not claimed that we always
run such small groups together; but that we fre-
quently and rightly do so when there is no special
emphasis required. (You see, of course, that if we
wanted to impress these colors on one who knew noth-
ing about our flag we should not run the groups to-
gether.) Here then we come to see how punctuation
is used to make the meaning clear. Whether we make
three groups or only one, the sense is the same, and the
commas are necessarv to that sense; but how we ex-

40 INTEEPBETATION OP THE FEINTED PAGE

press ourselves depends on the context or setting.
These illustrations and many similar ones show us
that marks of punctuation do not always indicate a
place to pause. This need never confuse the student
if he will but remember to read as he would speak.

You need not be reminded of the third classifica-
tion, that which includes those groups wherein the
pause and punctuation coincide. Illustrations abound
on every page.

We have now seen that punctuation does not neces-
sarily determine our pauses. It is interesting to know
in this connection that the early Hebrews, snd Greeks,
and Romans had no punctuation at all in their manu-
scripts, and yet these were read and understood. Here
is something in our own language as it might have
been printed if there were no such thing as punctua-
tion, and from it you will see that the sense alone
determines the grouping.

And he said A certain man had two sons and the
younger of them said to his father Father give me the
portion of thy substance that falleth to me And he
divided unto them his living And not many days after
the younger son gathered all together and took his
journey into a far country and there he wasted his
substance with riotous living And when he had spent
all there arose a mighty famine in that country and he
began to be in want And he went and joined himself
to one of the citizens of that country and he sent him
into his fields to feed the swine And he would fain
have been filled with the husks that the swine did eat
and no man gave unto him But when he came to him-
self he said How many hired servants of my father's
have bread enough and to spare and I perish with

GROUPING 41

hunger I will arise and go to my father and will say
unto him Father I have sinned against heaven and in
thy sight I am no more worthy to be called thy son
make me as one of thy hired servants And he arose and
came to his father

Even today an author writes on with no thought of
punctuation until he comes to a place where he sees
that to make his meaning clear, or easier to get, or
to prevent obscurity, some mark of punctuation is
necessary or helpful. Here is an illustration where
the writer must be very careful with his punctuation
because the words may be made to convey two entirely
different meanings:

I don't want your gold; but^ if you will^ stay with us
and be our guest: you are welcome.

I don't want your gold; but if you will stay with us
and be our guest^ you are welcome.

So far as grouping is concerned here, everything de-
pends on the marks after "but** and "will." But
when you have the sense in either case you are
independent of punctuation marks, and do not need
them, let me repeat, to guide your pausing.

The mark, then, is an aid to getting the sense, and
the sense and not the mark determines the group.

Review Exeecises

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun
Up to the people.

-—Tennyson: The Princess.

42 INTEBPBETATION OF THE FEINTED PAGE

The good old rule
Sufficeth them^ the simple plan^
That they should take who have the power
And they should keep who can.

— ^Wordsworth.

His words are bonds^ his oaths are oracles^
His love sincere^ his thoughts immaculate^
His tears pure messengers sent from his hearty
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, vii.

True hope is swift, and flies with swallows' wings;
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.

One who never turned his back but marched breast

forward,
Never doubted clouds would break.
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would

triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to

wake.

— Robert Browning: Asolando.

Be calm in arguing, for fierceness makes error a fault
and truth discourtesy.

From the west there sounded the harsh gong of a
fire engine which was pounding rapidly down the car
tracks. It came, rocking in a whirlwind of galloping
horses and swaying men. The crowd on the street
broke into a run, streaming along the sidewalk in the
wake of the engine. The architect woke from his dead
thoughts and ran with the crowd. Two, three, four
blocks, they sped toward the lake, which curves east-
ward at this point, and as he ran the street became
strangely familiar to him. • The crowd turned south

QBOUPING 43

along a broad avenue that led to the park. Some one
cried: "There it is ! It's the hotel !" — Robert Herrick:
The Common Lot.

(How many groups in the second sentence?)

How the guineas shone as they came pouring out!
He spread them out in heaps and bathed his hands in
them; then he counted them and set them up in regular
piles; and felt their rounded outline between his thumb
and fingers^ and thought fondly of the guineas that
were only half-earned by the work in his loom^ as if
they had been imborn childiven — thought of the guineas
that were coming slowly^ through the coming years,
through all his life^ which spread far away before him,
the end quite hidden by countless days of weaving. No
wonder his thoughts were still with his loom and his
money when he made his journeys through the fields
and the lanes to fetch and carry home his work, so that
his steps never wandered to the hedge-banks and the
lane-side in search of the once familiar herbs: these
too belonged to the past, from which his life had shrunk
away, like a rivulet that has sunk far down from the
grassy fringe of its old breadth into a little shivering
thread, that cuts a groove for itself in the barren sand.
— ^Eliot: Silas Marner,

The weaver had possibly got a lantern, and Dunstan
"was tired of feeling his way. He was still nearly three-
quarters of a mile from home, and the lane was becom-
ing impleasantly slippery, for the mist was passing into
rain. He turned up the bank, not without some fear
lest he might miss the right way, since he was not cer-
tain whether the light were in front or on the side of
the cottage. But he felt the ground before him cau-
tiously with his whip-handle, and at last arrived safely
at the door. He knocked loudly, rather enjoying the
idea that the old fellow would be frightened at the

44 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

sudden noise. He heard no movement in reply: all was
silence in the cottage. Was the weaver gone to bed^
then? If so^ why had he left a light? That was a
strange forgetfulness in a miser. Dunstan knocked still
more loudly^ and^ without pausing for a reply^ pushed
his fingers through the latch-hole, intending to shake
the door and pull the latch-string up and down, not
doubting that the door was fastened. But, to his sur-
prise, at this double motion the door opened, aiid he
found himself in front of a bright fire, which lit up
every comer of the cottage — the bed, the loom, the three
chairs, and the table — and showed him that Mamer was
not there. — Ibid.

Salanio, Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth.
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind.
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads ;
And every object that might make me fear
MisfoEtune to my ventures, out of doubt
Would make me sad.

— The Merchant of Venice, I, i.

Boisanio, 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate.
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance:
Nor do I now make moan to be abridged
From such a noble rate; but my chief care
Is to come fairly off from the great debts
Wherein my time something too prodigal
Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most, in money and in love.
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburden all my plots and purposes
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

—Ibid., I, i.

GROUPING 45

BoMsanio, In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,

I shot his fellow of the self-same flight

The self-same way with more advised watch.

To find the other forth, and by adventuring both

I oft fomid both: I urge this childhood proof.

Because what follows is pure innocence.

I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth.

That which I owe is lost; but if you please

To shoot another arrow that self way

Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt.

As I will watch the aim, or to find both

Or bring your latter hazard back again

And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

— Ibid., I, i.

what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty
to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws
for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree:
such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes
of good coimsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not
in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word
"choose"! I may neither choose whom I would nor
refuse whom I dislike ; so is the will of a living daughter
curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,
Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none? —
Ibid,, I, ii.

Portia, for my own part,

I have toward heaven breathed a secret vow

To live in prayer and contemplation.

Only attended by Nerissa here,

Until her husband and my lord's return.

— Ibid,, III, iv.

46 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE .

Portia, The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended^ and I think
The nightingale^ if she should sing by day^
When every goose is cackling^ would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise and true perfection!

—Ibid., V, i.

Marullus. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings

he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome^
To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?
You blocks^ you stones^ you worse than senseless things !
O you hard hearts^ you cruel men of Rome^
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements^
To towers and windows^ yea> to chimney-tops.
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The livelong day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:
And when you saw his chariot but appear.
Have you not made an universal shout.
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks.
To hear the replication of your sounds-
Made in her concave shores ?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes in triumph over Pompey 's blood ?
Begone !

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees.
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.

— Julius Caesar, I, i.

GROUPING 47

Coitius. I know that virtue to be in you^ Brutus^ >

As well as I do know your outward favor.

Well, honor is the subject of my story.

I cannot tell what you and other men

Think of this life; but, for my single self,

I had as lief not be as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.

— Ibid,, I, ii,

Coisius. I know where I will wear this dagger then;
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius.

— Ibid,, I, iii.

Caesar. What say the augurers?

Servant, They would not have you to stir forth today.

Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,

They could not find a heart within the beast.

Caesar. The gods do this in shame of cowardice;

Caesar would be a beast without a heart.

If he should stay at home today for fear.

No, Caesar shall not: danger knows full well

That Caesar is more dangerous than he:

We are two lions litter'd in one day.

And I the elder and more terrible :

And Caesar shall go forth.

— Ibid., II, ii.

Ligarius, What's to do?

Brutus, A piece of work that will make sick men whole.
Ligarius, But are not some whole that we must make
sick? — Ibid,, II, ii.

Brutus, Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful;
And pity to the general wrong of Rome —
As fire drives out fire, so pity pity —
Hath done this deed on Caesar.

—Ibid., Ill, i.

48 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

•

We have taken our first step in reading. What

have you learned? What have you gained? Do you

fiiink you can ever go back to those loose, careless

habits that marked your reading in the past? And,

more interesting than anything else, fiie process we

have discovered is after all not artificial but merely a

natural process that we have been neglecting.

But why, then, if grouping is natural and not me-
chanical, is there need to call the student's attention
to it? Because most of us have become so familiar
with type, and so careless in our reading, that we rush
on, getting from the text sometimes no meaning,
sometimes but part of it, and frequently the wrong
meaning. Nothing will do more to correct bad habits
of reading than careful grouping. Even though this
process seems at first to be mechanical, we soon find
that it is not so : it merely emphasizes very strikingly
a habit to which we have become so accustomed in our
careful reading that we are unconscious of it.

At the beginning the grouping process seems to be
unnecessarily slow. It is so easy to read a page a
minute that it looks like a great waste of time to go
slowly, group by group; but there is no other way
to master the content of the printed page. An author
can give you his thought or picture only through
groups, and these groups, long or short, must be
gathered together and built up again into the ideas
and pictures he had in mind.

And in time, so expert does the careful grouper
become, that he reads more and more rapidly and gets
more from the printed page at a first reading than
many untrained readers get in a great many.

CHAPTER II

GROUP SEQUENCE
Read aloud the following sentences :

1. They were talking very merrily about the Gen-
eral and Hugh and their friend Mills.

2. They were talking very merrily about the General
and Hugh and their friend Mills^ and were discussing
some romantic plan for the recapture of their horses.

8. They were talking very merrily about the General
and Hugh and their friend Mills^ and were discussing
some romantic plan for the recapture of their horses
from the enemy.

4. They were talking very merrily about the General
and Hugh and their friend Mills> and were discussing
some romantic plan for the recapture of their horses
from the enemy^ when they came out of the path into a
road.

5. They were talking very merrily about the General
and Hugh and their friend Mills^ and were discussing
some romantic plan for the recapture of their horses
from the enemy, when they came out of the path into a
road, and found themselves within twenty yards of a
group of Federal soldiers.

6. They were talking very merrily about the. General
and Hugh and their friend Mills, and were discussing
some romantic plan for the recapture of their horses
from the enemy, when they came out of the path into a
road^ and found themselves within twenty yards of a
group of Federal soldiers, quietly sitting on their horses.

50 INTEBPBETATION OP THE PRINTED PAQE

7. They were talking very merrily about the General
and Hugh and their friend Mills^ and were discussing
some romantic plan for the recapture of their horses
from the enemy, when they came out of the path into a
road, and found themselves within twenty yards of a
group of Federal soldiers, quietly sitting on their horses,
evidently guarding the road.

You observe, sentence 1 presents a complete idea,
but in every succeeding sentence something is added,
something of great importance, without which we
should not get the full meaning. Each sentence stand-
ing alone makes complete sense, and yet sentence 1
when repeated in 2 is not complete without the added
idea of 2. The same principle applies in 3, where two
ideas are added to the first sentence, and one to the
second ; and so on to the end. Hence, in reading the
last sentence the mind keeps looking on from group to
group, until the entire story is finished. In other
] words, our minds continually reach forward for the
complete thought — for what the author wanted us to
see. Briefly, he saw some people who, while talking
and discussing a plan, came to a road and found them-
selves near soldiers, sitting on their horses, guarding
the road.

You have not found this illustration difficult to
understand; but you have learned from it an impor-
tant principle : Group Sequence.

Long years of careless reading have resulted in
what we may call mental laziness. We read along (we
are speaking now of silent reading), getting an idea
here and an idea there, but making no conscious effort

GROUP SEQUENCE 51

to get the complete idea. And this explains why in
reading aloud we so frequently chop up our sentences
regardless of sense, just as the young child learning
to read reads every group as if it were his last. He
says :

I saw a and a on the f

c d s i

a o t . g.

t g r h

e t

e i

t n

but when he gets the whole thought he reads :

f
t i

e g

e h

t g r t

a o t i

c d 8 n

I saw a and a on the g.

Now with this principle in mind, read aloud sentence
7 in such a way that the listener will be virtually com-
pelled to keep looking forward to the end.

Again we have used a very simple example to illus-
trate an important principle; now we will study a
more difficult selection :

The mother hen's cluck^ when the chicken happened
to be hidden in the long grass or mider the squash-
leaves; her gentle croak of satisfaction^ while sure of it
beneath her wing; her note of ill-concealed fear and

62 INTEBPBBTATION OP THE PRINTED PAGE

obstreperous defiance^ when she saw her arch-enemy^ a
neighbor's cat^ on top of the high fence; — one or other
of these sounds was to be heard at almost every moment
of the day. — Hawthorne: The Home of the Seven
Gables,

As you read this silently you find yourself constantly
looking forward for the assertion — for the word that
describes the action — for the verb. When you read
aloud carefully you will keep the listener looking for-
ward, waiting for the complete assertion or picture^
; just as you did when reading to yourself; so that his
mindy following you closely, sums it up about like
this : The mother hen's cluck, etc. ; her gentle croak»
etc.; her note of fear, etc., was to be heard every
moment of the day.

In poetry Group Sequence is even more interesting
than in prose. For instance, in the opening lines of
Longfellow's Patil Revere^s Ride we have:

Listen^ my children^ and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere^
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five.

Here is a temptation to close the thought after **Re-
vere" because the lines make a complete statement;
but on reading the next line you find that it expresses
an idea which must be included with the statement in
the first two, so it is positively wrong to close the
sense at "Revere." Test it for yourself by reading it
both ways:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five ;

OBOUP 8EQUEN0E 53

Apply this principle in the next stanza from the same
poem:

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town tonight.
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, —
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm.
For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

Read aloud the passages, closing the sense whenever
there is a temptation to do so; and then read them
correctly, noting the difference in the two readings.
There are many catches in this excerpt. The care-
less reader, ignoring the fact that there is no punc-
tuation after **arch** closes his statement at that
point; but as he reads on he discovers that he needs
the entire following line for its completion. Then he
continues at the sixth line and closes the statement
at ^^be," until, on reading the next line, he finds that
it is closely connected with the preceding; and if he
is not very careful he will find himself slipping in a
similar way at "alarm," and "farm."

We have a very instructive example in these lines
from Tennyson's Lancelot and Elaine. The fair
£laine is dead, and is being borne on her bier by two
brothers to the barge that is to carry her body to
Camelot. How beautiful is the effect of the sus- |
pended sense ! Even in "Sister, farewell for ever" '
and **Farewell, sweet sister" (where there is great

54 INTBBPBETATION OP THE PBINTED PAGE

temptation to read the lines as the brothers would have
said them — ^as finished speeches), Tennyson's purpose
is not to emphasize them (the very structure shows
that) but to include them merely as a detail among
many others.

So those two brethren from the chariot took
And on the black decks laid her in her bed^
Set in her hand a lily^ o'er her hmig
The silken case with braided blazonings^
And kiss'd her quiet brows, and saying to her
"Sister, farewell for ever/' and again
"Farewell, sweet sister," parted all in tears.

From this study we should learn to be on our guard
against closing the sense at the end of a line, particu-
larly in poetry. While we do not look to the punc-
tuation mark to indicate the complete sense, neverthe-
less the absence of a mark of punctuation should m-
stantly stimulate us to throw the eye and mmd for-
ward, for surely the sense cannot be complete when
there is no punctuation mark. But whether there is a
punctuation mark (comma and semicolon particu-
larly) or not, we must train the mind to look fon(vard
at the end of a line, in order to be certain that we do
not miss the meaning.

Here are some good examples of poetic lines at the
end of which the sense seems to he complete, but where
(as in some of the lines we studied in Paul Revere)
the absence of marks of punctuation should suggest
at once to the student that he must go on to the next
line for the complete idea.

GEOUP SEQUENCE 56

"Hush, child! Your brother Johnny

Meant to give you a fright."
"Mother, he'll go, — I tell you I know

He's listed into the fight."

— Alice Gary: The Young Soldier.

Here's a hand to the boy who has courage

To do what he knows to be right;
When he falls in the way of temptation

He has a hard, battle to fight.

— Phoebe Gary : Our Heroet.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a home^ and rest

And scream among thy fellows.

— Bryant: To a Waterfowl.

(Here a careless reader will, on a first reading, make
**rest" a noun.)

The castle alone in the landscape lay
Like an outpost of winter.

— Lowell: The Vision of Sir LaunfaL

And here are some passages where the sense seems
complete at a comma, and yet, as in the other excerpts,
we don't get the picture until we read on.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad.
An abbot on an ambling pad.
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad.
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad.
Goes by to tower'd Gamelet.

— Tennyson : The Lady of ShalotU

'Mid shouts that hailed her from the shore
And bade her speed, the bark is gone.
The dreary ocean to explore
Whose waters sweep the frigid zone; —

56 INTEBPBETATION OP THE PBINTED PAGE

And bounding on before the gale
To bright eyes shining through their tears
'Twixt sea and sky, her snowy sail
A lessening spark appears.

— ^JoHN Malcolm: The Northwetter.

Long ago.

In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon mountain and plain
Lay the snow.

They fell, — those lordly pines!
Those grand, majestic pines!
'Mid shouts and cheers
The jaded steers.
Panting beneath the goad.
Dragged down the weary, winding road
Those captive Kings so straight and tall.
To be shorn of their streaming hair.
And, naked and bare,
To feel the stress and the strain
Of the wind and the reeling main,
Whose roar

Would remind them for evermore
Of their native forests they should not see again.
— Longfellow: The Building^ of the Ship,

Since semicolons, colons, and exclamation points
frequently indicate more or less complete sense (which
manifests itself in a falling inflection), the following
passages are inserted to show the student that he can-
not rely mechanically on the punctuation marks as a
guide to vocal expression.

As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of

summer.
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the

hailstones

GBOUP SEQUENCE 57

Beats down the farmer's corn in the field and shatters
his windows^

Hiding the sun^ and strewing the ground with thatch
from the house roofs^

Bellowing fly the herds^ and seek to break their en-
closures ;

So on the hearts of the people descended the words of
the speaker.

— Longfellow : Evangeline,

From doubt^ where all is double:

Where wise men are not strong:

Where comfort turns to trouble:

Where just men suffer wrong:

Where sorrow treads on joy:

Where sweet things soonest cloy:

Where faiths are built on dust:

Where love is half mistrust^

Hungry^ and barren^ and sharp as the sea:

Oh^ set us free.

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass^

Catching your heart up at the feel of June^

Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon^

When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;

And you^ warm little housekeeper^ who class

With those who think the candles come too soon^

Loving the fire^ and with your tricksome tune

Nick the glad^ silent moments as they pass ;

O sweet and tiny cousins^ that belong

One to the fields^ the other to the hearth^

Both have your sunshine ; both^ though small^ are strong

At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth

To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song —

In doors and out^ summer and winter^ Mirth.

— Hunt: To the Grasshopper and the Cricket.

58 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

Ye Stars, which, thoagh unseen, yet with me gase
Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth!
Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays
Above it, as to light a favorite hearth !
Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the west
See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers!
And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast
Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers !
Bear witness with me in my song of praise,
And tell the world that, since the world began.
No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays,
Or given a home to man!

— Timrod: The Cotton Boll.

(Here the exclamation points suggest emotion, but do
not indicate that the sense Is complete.)

In similes we find large opportunity to apply our
knowledge of Sequence. Crenerally similes begin with
an "as** clause, and end with a "so** clause. When
they are long It Is helpful to bear this fact in mind,
otherwise one Is likely to become confused. You must
never forget, then, that a simile has two parts and is
never complete until you get both.

And as a hungry lion who has made

A prey of some large beast — a horned stag

Or mountain goat — rejoices, and with speed

Devours it, though swift hounds and sturdy youths

Press on his flank, so Menelaus felt

Great joy when Paris, of the godlike form.

Appeared in sight, for now he thought to wreak

His vengeance on the guilty one, and straight

Sprang from his car to earth with all his arms.

— The Iliad (Bryant's translation).

GBOUP SEQUENCE 59

As on a herd of beeves a lion springs

While midst the shrubs they browse^ and breaks their

necks^ —
Heifer or ox^ — ^so sprang he on the twain
And struck them^ vainly struggling^ from their car^
And spoiled them of their arms^ and took their steeds.
And bade his comrades lead them to the fleet.

—Ibid.
As a lion who has leaped
Into a fold — and he who guards the flock
Has wounded but not slain him — feels his rage
Waked by the blow; — ^the affrighted shepherd then
Ventures not near, but hides within the stalls.
And the forsaken sheep are put to flight.
And, huddling, slain in heaps, till o'er the fence
The savage bounds into the fields again; —
Such was Tydides midst the sons of Troy.

—Ibid.

(Considerable care will be necessary in reading the
last extract aloud. You must make the listener
understand, beyond any possibility of missing it,
that it is the lion that feels; that after "blow" the
mind supplies "and"; and before "slain," "are.")

And as when some courser, fed
With barley in the stall, and wont to bathe
In some smooth-flowing river, having snapped
His halter, gayly scampers o'er the plain.
And in the pride of beauty bears aloft
His head, and gives his tossing mane to stream
Upon his shoulders, while his flying feet
Bear him to where the mares are wont to graze, —
So came the son of Priam — Paris — down
From lofty Pergamus in glittering arms,
And, glorious as the sun, held on his way
Exulting and with rapid feet. — Ibid.

60 INTEEPBETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

But as a troop of peddlers from Cabool,
Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus^
The vast sky-neighhoring mountain of milk snow;
Crossing so high^ that^ as they mounts they pass
Long flocks of traveling birds dead on the snow^
Chok'd by the air^ and scarce can they themselves
Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulber-
ries —
In single file they move and stop their breath.
For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging

snows —
So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.

— ^Arnold: Sohrab and Ruttum,

And dear as the wet diver to the eyes
Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore.
By sandy Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf,
Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night.
Having made up his tale of precious pearls.
Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands —
So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came.

—Ibid.
And as afield the reapers cut a swath
Down through the middle of a rich man's com.
And on each side are squares of standing corn.
And in the midst a stubble, short and bare —
So on each side were squares of men, with spears
Bristling, and in .the midst, the open sand.
And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast
His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw
Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came.

As some rich woman, on a winter's morn.
Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge
Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire —
At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn.
When the frost flowers the whiten'd windowpanes —
And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts

GBOUP SEQUENCE 6X

Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed
The unknown adventurous youth^ who from afar
Came seeking Rustum^ and defying forth
All the most valiant chiefs.

—Ibid.

And he saw that youth^
Of age and looks to be his own dear son^
Piteous and lovely^ lying on the sand^
Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe
Of an unskillful gardener has been cut^
Mowing the garden grassplots near its bed.
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,
On the mown, dying grass — so Sohrab lay.
Lovely in death, upon the common sand.

—Tbid.

Easj 4o>-undec&tand a» i» the principle of Group!
Sequencg^^ has taught us a most important lesson:*
and that is that groups combine in large and larger j
groups and series until thought or picture is complete. !
The inattentive student reads more or less choppily, as
was pointed out at the beginning of this chapter^ and
if the sentence is of considerable length he forgets the
beginning of it before he gets to the end; and when
he reads aloud, this choppiness manifests itself in fall-
ing inflections at the end of almost every group.
And the worst of it is not merely that the vocal
expression is faulty and the listener confused, but
that the poor reading is a sure sign of the reader's
failure to grasp the meaning. -

At this point, however, the student must be warned
that while the thought is often incomplete at a comma,
a semicolon, or even at a colon, it does not follow that

02 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

it may not be complete at such points. Each case
must be decided for itself and, fortunately, the deci-
sion is not hard to make. We found that punctuation
does not necessarily determine grouping, and here,
again, we learn that it does not necessarily determine
continuity, or Group Sequence. Let me illustrate. A
parent gives his child a lot of presents on Christmas
Day, and speaking of them says: **I gave my child
picture books, candies, a hobby horse, a drum, and a
gun'' ; while the child, with great interest in each one
of the separate gifts, thinks of them one at a time.
Now what will be the difference (apart from the feel-
ing) in the way the father and the child enumerate
the gifts? Does not the father regard all gifts as
one gift: and does not the child regard each gift by
itself? Read the list of presents as the father would,
and then as the child (the child beginning his
enumeration with "I got"), and note the difference.
And yet, so far as the punctuation is concerned, the
speeches would be printed exactly alike.

This same principle is beautifully exemplified in a
little poem. Two young women have returned from
a holiday in the country, and they are asked what they
have seen.

The one with yawning made reply:
"What have we seen ? — Not much have I !
Trees^ meadows^ mountains^ groves, and streams.
Blue sky and clouds, and sunny gleams."
The other, smiling, said the same;
But with face transfigured and eye of fiame:
"Trees, meadows, mountains, groves, and streams!
Blue sky and clouds, and sunny gleams."

GBOUP SEQUENCE 63

The first girl saw several things, no one^ of which held
her attention, so that in her reply she threw them all
together; while to the other girl each aspect of the
picture was so important that for the moment it held
her attention to the exclusion of everything else. It
was as if she were saying **I saw grand old trees. I
saw beautiful meadows. I saw majestic mountains,''
etc. So again you see that the commas are used for
grammatical purposes only. When you get the mean-
ing (again, just as in Grouping) you pay no further
attention to the punctuation.

EXESCISES

He had completely lost his voice the following win-
ter^ and had ever since been little better than a cracked
fiddle^ which is good for nothing but firewood. — ^Eliot:
Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story,

Then^ just after their third child was bom^ fever
came^ swept away the sickly mother and the two eldest
children^ and attacked Sarti himself^ who rose from
his sick-bed with enfeebled brain and muscle^ and a
tiny baby on his hands^ scarcely four months old. — Ihid.

Even Mrs. Sharp had been so smitten with pity by
the scene she had witnessed^ as to shed a small tear^
though she was not at all subject to that weakness;
indeed^ she abstained from it on principle^ because^ as
she often said^ it was known to be the worst thing in
the world for the eyes. — Ihid.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and

to figbt^
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came

in sight;

64 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.

"Shall we fight or shall we fly?

Good Sir Richard^ tell us now^

For to fight is but to die !

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set/*

And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English

men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville^ the children of the

devil.
For I never tum'd my back upon Don or devil yet."

— Tennyson: The Revenge.

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hur-
rah, and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe.
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick
below.

—Ibid.

And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us

hand to hand.
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and mus-

queteers.
And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that

shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.

—Ibid.

The next illustration is from The Merchant of
Venice, where Shylock gives his reasons for hating
Antonio :

Salarino. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt
not take his flesh : what's that good for ?

Shylock. To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing
else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me,
and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses.

(9B0UP SEQUENCE g5

mocked at my g^ains^ scorned my nation^ thwarted my
bargains^ cooled my friends^ heated mine enemies; and
what's his reason? I am a Jew.

Now, if you were running over these reasons rapidly,
you would say that Shylock hated Antonio because
Antonio had laughed at his losses, mocked at his gains,
scorned his nation, thwarted his bargains, cooled liis
friends, heated his enemies — merely enumerating the
causes. But to Shylock each offense in itself was
enough to justify revenge. It makes no difference
how rapidly his passion would hurry him along ; each
point in his charge against Antonio is complete in
itself. Perhaps Shy lock's mental attitude will be
made clearer by printing his speech thus :

I hate him because he laughed at my losses. I bate
him because he mocked at my gains. I hate him be-
cause he scorned my nation. I hate him because he
thwarted my bargains. I hate him because he cooled
my friends. I hate him because he heated mine enemies.

It is possible to conceive of this sentence being made
up of a series of contrasts equivalent to

He laughed at my losses and mocked at my gains;
scorned my nation and thwarted my bargains; cooled
my friends and heated mine enemies;'

but I don't think that this is as good an interpretation
as the former. In any case there is closure at
**gains" and at "bargains" ; and if you see that, you
have learned tlie lesson I n^anted to teach you.

I take a final example from Shakespeare's Henry V.
The King is urging his soldiers on to a final assault

66 INTEBPBETATION OP THE PBINTBD PAGE

against the walls of Harfleur, which have been offer-
ing stout resistance. He says:

imitate the action of the tig^r;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
Disguise fair nature with hard- favored rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon.

Each sentence is a complete assertion, and even the sec-
ond line contains two distinct and independent com-
mands. If, however, you were telling someone in an
offhand way what commands Henry gave to his sol-
diers you would be more than likely not to consider
each group as a finished command but as a part of one
idea, and would say, ''he told them to imitate the action
of the tiger, to stiffen the sinews, to summon up the
blood,'' etc.

To summarize: We cannot lay down any absolute
rule, but the principle is not difficult to understand.
In our silent reading we go on and on until the sense

!is finished, and the voice, as we read aloud, instinc-
tively responds to the action of the mind; but on the
other hand, the thought may be complete at any part
of the sentence, regardless of the punctuation.

Review Exercises

Turn back to the poem The Sea and you will find
it offers many opportunities to test your knowledge
of Group Sequence. In every stanza there are deci-

GBOUP SEQUENCE 67

sions to be made; a few of the most important are
found in the third and fourth stanzas.

No mate^ no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor^
— The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door !

— Wordsworth: Lucy Gray^

I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin

At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat^
And the breeches^ and all that^

Are so queer!

— Holmes: The Last Leaf^

Oh may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence.

— Eliot: The Choir Invisible^

Old Tubal Cain was a man of might

In the days when earth was young;

By the fierce red light of his furnace bright

The stroke of his hammer rung;

And he lifted high his brawny hand

On the iron glowing clear^

Till the sparks rushed out in scarlet showers

As he fashioned the sword and spear.

And he sang^ — "Hurrah for my handiwork!

Hurrah for the Spear and Sword!

Hurrah for the hand that shall wield them well^

For he shall be king and lord \"

— Mackay: Tubal Cain^

68 INTEBPEETATION OF THE FEINTED PAGE

Aeneas, with his shield
And his long spear, leaped down to gnard the slain.
That the Achaians might not drag him thence.
There, lion-like, confiding in his strength,
He stalked aromid the corpse, and over it
Held his round shield and lance, prepared to slay
Whoever came, and shouting terribly.

—The Iliad (Bryant's translation).

When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall.
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house.
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart, —
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings.

— Bryant : Thanatopsit.

Noiselessly as the daylight comes, when the night is
done.

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek grows into the
great sun, —

Noiselessly as the springtime her crown of verdure
weaves.

And all the trees on all the hills open their thousand
leaves, —

So, without sound of music or voice of them that wept.

Silently down from the mountain crown the great pro-
cession swept.
— Mrs. C. F. Alexander: The Burial of Moses.

For a long while he used to console himself, when
driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual
club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle person-
ages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench
before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of

GBOUP SEQUENCE 69

his majesty George the Third. — Iryino: Rip Fdn
Winkle.

Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the ques-
tion; when a knowings self-important old gentleman^
in a sharp cocked hat^ made his way through the crowds
putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he
passed^ and planting himself before Van Winkle^ with
one arm akimbo^ the other resting on his cane^ his keen
eyes and sharp hat penetrating^ as it were^ into his very,
soul^ demanded^ in an austere tone^ "what brought him
to the election with a gun on his shoulder^ and a mob at
his heels^ and whether he meant to breed riot in the
viUage?"— /6iU

He listened greedily to the thousand details of a
farmer's labors^ the autumn sowings the winter work^
the splendid feasts of harvest home and vintage, the
flails beating the floor, the sound of the mills by the
edge of the water, the tired horses led to the trough,
the morning hunting in the mists, and above all, the
long evenings around the fire, shortened by tales of
marvel. — Coppee: The Substitute,

(Note the closure at "labors.")

When Mrs. Durgan, widow of the late Sir John Dur-
gan, arrived in their station, and after a short time had
been proposed to by every single man at mess, she put
the public sentiment very neatly when she explained
that they were all so nice that unless she could marry
them all, including the colonel and some majors who
were already married, she was not going to content her-
self with one of them. — Kipling: The Man Who Was,

Silas' hand satisfied itself with throwing the shuttle,
and his eye with seeing the little squares in the cloth
complete themselves under his effort. Then there were
the calls of hunger: and Silas, in his solitude, had to

70 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

provide his own breakfast, dinner, and supper; and all
these immediate promptings helped, along with the
weaving, to reduce his life to the unquestioning activity
of a spinning insect. He hated the thought of the past;
there was nothing that called out his love and fellow-
ship towards the strangers he had come amongst; and
the future was all dark, for there was no unseen Love
that cared for him. — George Eliot: Silas Mamer,

(a. It seems best to regard the thought as incomplete
at "past" and "amongst." Why? '6. How will you
group "breakfast, dinner, and supper"?)

They fought the dogs and killed the cats.

And bit the babies in the cradles.

And ate the cheese out of the vats.

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles.

Split open the kegs of salted sprats.

Made nests inside men's Sunday hats.

And even spoiled the women's chats

By drowning their speaking

With shrieking and squeaking

In fifty different sharps and' flats.

And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the gprumbling grew to a mighty rumbling ;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling —
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats.
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats.
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives
Followed the Piper for their lives.

Out came the children running:

All the little boys and girls.

With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls.

And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls.

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after

The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

GBOUP SEQUENCE 71

The Mayor was dninb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood.
Unable to move a step or cry
To the children merrily skipping by —
And could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper's back.
The Mayor sent east, west, north, and south
To offer the Piper by word of mouth.
Wherever it was man's lot to find him.
Silver and gold to his heart's content.
If he'd only return the way he went.
And bring the children behind him.

— Browning : The Pied Piper of Hamelin,

(Nothing in the text of the first paragraph demands
a rise or a fall of the voice at the end of each of the
first six lines. So long as you have a reason you can
use either ; but after the sixth line there is no choice.

I prefer — though I dop't insist that you should —
to keep the sense open at the end of lines 11 and IS,
but I think it is almost imperative to close it at
**tumbling." But what will you do with all the "rats"
and, particularly, why? And suppose you decide to
close on the "rats,** be careful of "wives." Further,
there are interesting catches in many other lines, where
you will have opportunity to test your knowledge of
closure at commas ; for instance, line 24, at "dumb*' ;
line 26, at "wood."

But remember, finally, that while it is all a question
of interpretation, there must be a reason for all
you do.)

CHAPTER III

GROUP VALUES

Subordination

Here on this beach a hundred years ago.
Three children of three houses, Annie Lee,
The prettiest little damsel in the port.
And Phillip Ray, the miller's only son,
And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad,
Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd
Among the waste and lumber of the shore.

— Tennyson : Enoch Ar4en,

If we omit from the above lines all but the main
idea, the sentence reads :

Here on this beach a hundred years ago.
Three children of three houses .

play'd

Among the waste and lumber of the shore.

In other words, the most important features of the
picture are the three children playing on the shore.
Let us how insert their names, and we have :

Here on this beach a hundred years ago.
Three children of three houses, Annie Lee,

And Phillip Ray,

And Enoch Arden, ......

play'd

Among the waste and lumber of the shore.

GEOUP VALUES: SUBOBDINATION 78

You observe that the names "Annie Lee," "Phillip
Ray," and "Enoch Arden" are explanatory of the
group "three children of three houses." They are,
therefore, subordinate to the main idea ; they are for
the moment of secondary value. The author, after
giving us the names of each of the children, adds
another subordinate group of explanation: Annie
Lee is the prettiest little damsel in the port; Phillip
Ray is the miller's only son ; and Enoch Arden is the
rough saOor's lad, made orphan by a winter's ship-
wreck. Here, then, are groups of three distinct
values, or degrees of importance. The most impor-
tant is the statement that a hundred years ago three
children played on the shore; the next important
group gives the name of each child; and the least
important gives the description of each child. The
entire sentence might be printed as on p. 74.

If all sentences were printed as we have printed the
one from Enoch Arden we should have little trouble
with subordinate values ; but since they are not,\we ;
must train ourselves to recognize different degrees of .
thought values/ks they appear in the ordinary way in >*
type. All type looks alike, one might say ; the most .
important word or group has no greater prominence
than the least necessary ; and for this reason we must
be the more careful in studying the printed page.

What adds to the difficulty is that the sentence be-
comes longer as ^subordinate groups are added, and the
strain of concentration becomes greater and greater
as (1) the subordinate group gets longer; or as (2)
there is more than one successive subordinate group;

■8

•s

» ^"^

•^4

GBOUP VALUES: SUBOBDINATION 75

or as (8) there are groups which themselves are
subordinate to other subordinate groups.

In the passage from Enoch Arden were found illus-
trations of all three phases of the problem. First,
the subordinate main group, from "Annie Lee" to
"sailor's lad," is very long; secondly, "Annie Lee,"
"Phillip Ray," and "Enoch Arden" are subordinate
to "children" ; and, thirdly, each of these subordinate
nouns is followed by another subordinate group.

Now, when it comes to reading this sentence aloud
you must keep in mind continually the main idea and
strive to make the listener see it, and you may be cer- |
tain the vocal expression will take care of itself. All I
our lives we have been expressing subordinate ideas
with little or no thought of what the voice was doing,
and if you will get the thought, make it your very j
own, and read it aloud as though it were your own,
you may be confident the vocal expression will be
adequate. Test this in these fairly simple passages :

Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone — ^too nervous to
bear witnesses — ^to take the pudding up^ and bring it
in. — Dickens: A Christmas Carol.

In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed but
smiling proudly — with the pudding like a speckled
cannon ball, so hard and so firm^ and bedight with
Christmas holly stuck into the top. — Ihid.

Alas ! (thought I^ and my heart beat loud)

How fast she nears and nears !
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,

Like restless gossameres?

— Coleridge: The Ancient Mariner, r

.-""

76 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

But the deacon swore^ (as deacons do.
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou/')
He would build one shay to beat the taown.

— Holmes: The One-Host Shay.

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,
First made and latest left of all the knights.
Told, when the man was no more than a voice
In the white winter of his' age, to those
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds.

— Tennyson: The Passing of Arthur.

Most noble lord, Si^ Lancelot of the Lake,
I, sometime call'd the maid of Astolat,
Come, for you left me taking no farewell.
Hither, to take my last farewell of you.

— Tennyson: Lancelot and Elaine.

I would not enter on my list of friends

(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,

Yet wanting sensibility) the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

— ^William Cowper: Humanity.

The smoke of censers, where heaped ambergris
.And myrrh and sandal-wood and cinnamon
Fragprantly smouldered, through the languid air crept
upward.

— ^Arlo Bates : The Sorrow of Rohab.

Thus early had that one guest — ^the only guest who is
certain, at one time or another, to find his way into
every human dwelling — ^thus early had Death stepped
across the threshold of the House of the Seven Gables ! —
Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables.

At the moment of execution — with the halter about
his neck and while Col. Pyncheon sat on horseback
grimly gazing at the scene — Maule had addressed him

GROUP VALUES: SUBORDINATION 77

from the scaffold^ and muttered a prophecy, of which
history^ as well as fireside tradition, has preserved the
yery words. "God/' said the dying man, pointing his
finger, with a ghastly look, at the undismayed counte-
nance of his enemy, "God will give him blood to
drink"— /6«.

And she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit,
second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons, while
Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan
of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous
shirt-collar, Bob's private property, conferred upon his
son and heir in honor of the day, into his mouth,
rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned
to show his linen in the fashionable parks. — Dickens:
A Christmas Carol, »

The affice was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk,
with the long ends of his white comforter dangling
below his waist, for he boasted no great coat, went
down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys,
twenty times, in honor of its being Christmas Eve, and
then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could
pelt, to play at Blindman's buff. — Ibid*

He held the theory that "all teachers were servants
of the state" ; and on this ground ordered her dismissal.
This act caused a great commotion; and when it had
died down, his theory that "all teachers" — and it made
no difference how many years they had been in service —
"were servants of the state" became the fixed policy of
the board.

He advanced to the council table :

And, "Please your honors," said he, "I'm able

By means of a secret charm, to draw

All creatures living beneath the sun.

That creep or swim or fly or run.

78 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

After me so as you never saw!

And I chiefly use my charm

On creatures that do people harm.

The mole and toad and newt and yiper ;

And people call me the Pied Piper."

(And here they noticed round his neck

A scarf of red and yellow stripe.

To match with his coat of the selfsame check;

And at the scarf's end hung a ]()ipe;

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying

As if impatient to be playing

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled

Over his vesture so old-fangled.)

"And as for what your brain bewilders.

If I can rid your town of rats.

Will you give me a thousand gilders ?"

— Browning: The Pied Piper of Hamelin,

But as the main idea is Interrupted by two or three
subordinate groups It becomes Increasingly difficult to
follow the text. We get lost In a maze of words and
get but a small part or even none of the meaning. If
* then you will but keep on the lookout for the main Idea
\ es expressed In the subject, the predicate verb, and the
object, much If not all of the confusion will disappear.

At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town

Of ancient Roman date, but scant renown.

One of those little places that have run

Half up a hill, beneath a blazing sun.

And then sat down to rest, as if to say,

"I climb no further upward, come what may,"

The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame.

So many monarchs since have borne the name.

Had a great bell hung in the market-place.

— Longfellow: The Bell of Atri.

GJBOUP VALUES: SUBOBDINATION 79

In place of this clause the first edition has: "Her
figure^ her air, her features, — all, in their very minutest
development were those — were identically (I can use no
other sufficient term), were identically those of Roderick
Usher who sat beside me." — Comment by Prof, Mathews
on a passage from Poe.

The Longfellows from America, Professor Owen,
Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands, the son of the
Abyssinian King Theodore, who lost life and kingdom
in his war with the English, and Mr. Darwin — to whom
Tennyson said, "Your theory of Evolution does not
make against Christianity.'^" and Darwin answered,
"No, certainly not" — may be mentioned to exemplify the
variety of his visitors. — Lyall: Alfred Tennyson,

All the public, the great mass of solid and well-dis-
posed people who had got no deep insight into such
matters, were very adverse to it, and the president of
it, old Sir Francis Rous, who translated the Psalms —
those that we sing every Sunday in the church yet — a
very good man and a wise man — the Provost of Eton —
he got the minority, or I don't know whether or not he
did not persuade the majority — he, at any rate, got a
great number of the Parliament to go to Oliver the
Dictator. — Carlyle: Choice of Books,

And grossly that man errs, who should suppose

That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks

Were things indifferent to the shepherd's thoughts.

Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed

The common air; the hills, which he so oft

Had climbed with vigorous steps ; which had impress'd

So many incidents upon his mind

Of hardship, skill, or courage, joy, or fear;

Which like a book preserved the memory

Of the dumb animals, whom he had saved.

Had fed or shelter'd linking to such acts.

80 INTEBPBETATION OP THE FEINTED PAGE

So grateful in themselves, the certainty

Of honorable gain ; these fields, these hills.

Which were his living being, even more

Than his own blood — what could they less ? had laid

Strong hold on his affections, were to him

A pleasurable feeling of blind love.

The pleasure which there is in life itself.

— ^Wordsworth : Michael.

As a result of this study we may have noted in the
reading of the subordinate groups a tendency to
accelerate the speed and to lower the pitch of the
voice. So general is this tendency that in many of
the old text-books on reading (and to some extent
even in our modem ones) is to be found a rule that
subordinate groups must be read in a lower pitch and
faster. But there is great danger in accepting this
rule blindly: although it is of very general applica-
tion it is often seriously misleading; for while a group
may be grammatically subordinate, it may be emotion-
aUy, or because of particular importance^ of the very
greatest value, and will then certainly not be read
"faster and lower.'* Again, it is to be emphasized
that we do not have to think about the voice: this
I takes care of itself; but the student's attention is
i called to it in order that he may not be led astray by
(mechanical rules.

The cunning of Mr. Bucket's eye, and the masterly
manner in which he contrived, without a look or word
against which his watchful auditor could protest, to let
us know that he stated the case according to previous
agreement, and could say much more of Mr. Smallmeed
if he thought advisable, deprived us of any merit in
quite understanding him. — Dickens: Bleak House.

GBOUP VALUES: SUBOEDINATION 81

Once upon a time — of all the good days in the year,
upon a Christmas eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his
counting house. It was cold, bleak, biting, foggy
weather; and the city clocks had only just gone three,
but it was quite dark already — it had not been light all
day — and candles were flaring in the windows of the
neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable
brown air. — Dickens: A Christmas Carol,

The gingham dog and calico cat

Side by side on the table sat;

'Twas half-past twelve and (what do you think !)

Not one nor t'other had slept a wink.

— Field : The Duel.

Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire;
Smitten of gprapeshot and gangprene,
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!)
Specter! such as you seldom see.
Little Giffen of Tennessee!

— Ticknor: Little Giffen,

This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Fland-
ers; this breastplate

(Well I remember the day!) once saved my life in a
skirmish.

— Longfellow: Miles Standish,

And straight the Sun was fleck'd with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)

As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd
With broad and burning face.

— Coleridge: The Ancient Mariner.

I am that man upon whose head
They fix the price, because I hate
The Austrians over us: the State

82 intebAetation of the feinted page

Will give you gold — oh, gold so much ! —
If you l)ctray me to their clutch.

— Browning: The Italian in England.

We of peaceful London City have never beheld — and
please God shall never witness — such a scene of hurry
and alarm as that which Brussels presented. All that
day, from morning until past sunset, the cannon never
ceased to roar. It was dark when the cannonading
stopped. — Thackeray: Vanity Fair,

Queen Kath, Sir,

I am about to weep ; but, thinking that
We are a queen, or long have dream'd so, certain.
The daughter of a king, my drops of tears
I'll turn to sparks of fire.

—King Henry VIII, II, iv.

He went about his work — such work as few
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand —
As one who knows, where there's a task to do,
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace
command.

— Taylor: Abraham Lincoln.

But wasn't it grand.
When they came down the hill over sloughing and sand ?
But we stood — did we not.? — like immovable rock.
Unheeding their balls and repelling their shock.

— ^Watson: The Wounded Soldier.

Little fairy snowflakes
Dancing in the flue;
Old Mr. Santa Claus,
What is keeping you ?
Twilight and firelight;
Shadows come and go;
Merry chime of sleigh-bells

GBOUP VALUES: COOEDINATION 83

Tinkling through the snow;
Mother knitting stockings
(Pussy's got the ball!)
Don't you think that Winter's
Pleasanter than all?

— ^Aldbich: Marjorie't Almanac.

Thou happy, happy elf!
(But stop, — first let me kiss away that tear,)

Thou tiny image of myself I
(My love, he's poking peas into his ear!)

Thou merry, laughing sprite!
With spirits feather-light.

Untouched by sorrow and unsoiled by sin;
(My dear, the child is swallowing a pin !)

Thou little tricksy Puck !
With antic toys so funnily bestuck.

Light as the singing bird that wings the air —
(The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!)

Thou darling of thy sire !
(Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire !)

Thou imp of mirth and joy!
In love's dear chain so strong and bright a link.

Thou idol of thy parents; — (hang the boy!
There goes my ink!)

— Hood : Ode to an Infant Son.

Coordination

Just €is sometimes our reading is ineffective because
we do not recognize that some groups are of lesser
value than others, so there are careless readers who
fail to express the meaning because they consciously
or unconsciously subordinate groups that should be of
first importance. Here is a test :

84 INTEBPBETATION OF THE FEINTED PAGE

Four things a man must learn to do
If he would make his record true:
To think without confusion^ clearly;
To love his fellow-men sincerely;
To act from honest motives purely ;
To trust in God and Heaven securely.

— ^Van Dyke: Four Things.

Frequently the author wants to emphasize certain
ideas, and to do this he uses the same construction in
several successive phrases. In Enoch Arden Tenny-
son is describing the awful monotony of the ship-
wrecked sailor's life. Note how this is done, particu-
larly in the fourth, fifth, and sixth lines, all having the
same value. If we fail to appreciate this equivalence
we lose something of ^ the meaning, and, naturally,
shall fail to communicate it to our audience. If you
strive to bring out the full force of these three lines
you will notice that the vocal expression is virtually
alike in every case.

No sail from day to day^ but every day
The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts
Among the palms and ferns and precipices;
The blaze upon the waters to the east;
The blase upon his island overhead ;
The blaze upon the waters to the west;
Then the g^eat stars that globed themselves

in Heaven^
The hoUower-bellowing ocean, and again
The scarlet shafts of sunrise — but no sail.

(Observe, too, that the two statements "Then the
great stars that globed themselves in Heaven" and

GEOUP VALUES: COORDINATION .85

"The hoUower-bellowing ocean" are equivalent in
thought value.)

In the play of Julius Caesar Marcus Brutus believes
himself to be the equal of any man, and Cassius
knows that if Brutus can be made to feel that Caesar
considers himself his superior, Brutus will join the
conspiracy to overthrow Caesar. See, then, how Cas-
sius, by using a number of sentences of equal value,
drives home this one thought. All his arguments are
of equal weight and set forth in the same structure.
Therefore, to convey the meaning of Cassius we, too,
must express them all in exactly the same way. We
must not forget that Shakespeare probably gave no
thought as he wrote to the details of vocal expression ;
nor, of course, would Cassius (supposing these lines
of his to be a stenographic record of what the real
Cassius said to the real Brutus) be consciously careful
to speak the sentences so as to bring out their coordi-
nate value. The truth, however, is that his mind,
working as it does, reveals itself in this series of equiv-
alent sentences ; and when we perceive this equivalence
the voice instinctively responds in equivalence of vocal
expression.

Cassius, Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that

Caesar ?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours ?
Write them together^ yours is as fair a name ;
Sound them^ it doth become the mouth as well ;
Weigh them^ it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,
"Brutus" will start a spirit as soon as "Caesar."

— Julius Caesar, I, ii.

86- INTEBPBETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

Note the equivalence of value in the subordinate
phrases in the next extract. Queen Guinevere enters
a convent and lives there for many years as a simple
nun:

Then she^ for her good deeds and her pure life^
And for the power of ministration in her.
And likewise for the high rank she had borne.
Was chosen Abbess, there, an Abbess lived
For three brief years, and there, an Abbess, past
To where beyond these voices there is peace.

— Tennyson : Guinevere,

The three groups :

for her good deeds and her pure life.
And for the power of ministration in her.
And likewise for the high rank she had borne,

are clearly subordinate to the rest of the sentence, but
all have exactly the same thought value. In reading
this extract the student must not forget that the prin-
cipal sentence is "Then she . . . was chosen Ab-
bess," and that, let me repeat, the three phrases we
have discussed are subordinate, but all equally so.

Cassius. For Cassius is aweary of the world ;
Hated by one he loves ; braved by his brother ;
Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observed.
Set in a note-book, learn 'd, and conn'd by rote.
To cast into my teeth.

— Julius Caesar, IV, iii.

— Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs.
Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of
work set out for them; three or four and twenty pair
of partners; people who were not to be trifled with;
people who would dance and had no notion of walking.

GEOUP VALUES: COORDINATION 87

But if there had been twice as many — ah! four
times — old Fezziwig would have been enough for them
all, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. — Dickens: A Christ-
mas Carol.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad^
An abbot on an ambling pad.
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad.
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad.
Goes by to tower'd Camelot.

— Tennyson : The Lady of ShalotU

The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung.
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young.
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool.
The playful children just let loose from school.
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering

wind.
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind ; —
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade.
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
— Goldsmith : The Deserted Village*

The year's at the spring.
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven —
All's right with the world.

— Browning: Pippa Passes,

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are
honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if
there be any praise, think on these things. — The Bible.

88 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

God give us men ! A time like this demands
Strong minds^ great hearts^ trne faitb^ and ready

hands ;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill ;

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;

Men who have honor, — men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue.

And damn his treacherous flatteries without
winking !
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog

In public duty and in private thinking:
For while the rabble, with their thumb-^wom creeds.
Their large professions, and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo ! Freedom weeps, ,
Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps !

— Holland : Wanted — Men,

First Voice

Men of thought! be up and stirring, night and day:
Sow the seed, — withdraw the curtain, — clear the way !

Second Voice

Men of action, aid and cheer them, as ye may !

There's a fount about to stream.

There's a light about to beam.

There's a warmth about to glow.

There's a flower about to blow;
There's a midnight blackness changing into gray.

First Voice
Men of thought and men of action, clear the way !

Third Voice

Once the welcome light has broken, who shall say
What the unimagined glories of the day?
What the evil that shall perish in its ray ?

GEOUP VALUES: COORDINATION 89

Fourth Voice

Aid the dawning^ tongue and pen;
Aid it^ hopes of honest men;
Aid it^ paper; aid it^ type;
Aid it^ for the hour is ripe^
And our earnest must not slacken into play.

First Voice
Men of thought and men of action^ clear the way I

Second Voice

Lo ! a cloud's about to vanish from the day ;

And a brazen wrong to crumble into clay.

Lo ! the right's about to conquer : clear the way !

Third Voice

With the right shall many more
Enter smiling at the door;
With the giant wrong shall fall
Many others^ great and small^
That for ages long have held us for their prey.

All

Men of thought and men of action, clear the way !

— Mackay: Clear the Way (arranged). .

CHAPTER IV

GROUP SEQUENCE WITH SUBORDINATION

The problem of Sequence is often complicated by
that of Subordination. It is worth while therefore
to devote an entire chapter to studying some pas-
sages especially chosen to test your ability in both
problems.

Where the subordinate groups are long, or where
there are many in succession, there is likely to be con-
fusion in the reader's mind, and to avoid this it is
advisable to cut them out temporarily and lay stress
on getting the principal idea or statement. When the
student has that clearly in mind let him study care-
fully the subordinate idea or ideas. Then in reading
aloud, when he comes to the point in the sentence where
the main idea is interrupted by the subordinate one,
let him pause an instant and, keeping in mind the privr
cipal sentence so far as it has gone, read the subordi-
nate idea until he comes again to the main statement,
and then finish that without regard to the interruption.

Her fair head^ with all

Its wealth of hair shining and richly brown
Like melon seeds^ its eyes of topaz^ lips
Like twin pomegranate blooms^ its cheeks as smooth
As a flute's note^ and all that loveliness

GROUP SEQUENCE WITH SUBORDINATION 91

Had caught the heart of Rohab as a snare

Tangles the falcon in a coil of deaths

Fell, changed to a thing of horror, drenched in blood.

And beautiful no more.

-Arlo Bates: The Sorrow of Rohab,

As the long train

Of ages glide away, the sons of men, —

The youth, in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid.
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man, —
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side.

By those who in their turn shall follow them.

— Bryant : Thanatopsis.

In the above extracts the principal statements are
intentionally underlined as indicating a simple plan for
students to follow in their own analysis when there is
only one degree of subordination. When the main
idea is interrupted more than once by subordinate
groups the marking is even more helpful.

For artistic reasons Tennyson purposely draws out
the simple statement concerning Sir Bedivere watching
the departure of the barge which bore the body of the
dead king. As you read it hurriedly it is anything
but clear, and there are two places where there is much
danger of getting the wrong meaning. Read it aloud
at sight:

Thereat once more he moved about, and domb
£v'n to the highest he could climb, and saw.
Straining his eye beneath an arch of hand.
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep

92 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

Somewhere far off^ pass on and on^ and go
From less to less and vanish into light.

— Tennyson: The Passing of Arthur.

Now see how the marking I have suggested helps jou
to get the right meaning:

Thereat once more he moved ahout^ and clomh

Ev'n to the highest he could climh, and saw^

Straining his eye heneath an arch of hand,

Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King^

Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off^ pass on and on^ and go

From less to less and vanish into light.

One of the most interesting examples I have ever
come across is this from The Book of Esther. Here
certainly, one might sa}^, is a passage so mixed up that
nobody can be expected to make head or tail out of it.
But study it in the manner I have indicated and all
becomes clear. Perhaps the sentence would not have
been written in that way in our day, but that is not the
question: which is, Can we interpret it as it stands?

Then the king said to the wise men (for so was the
king's manner toward all that knew law and judgment;
and the next unto him was Carshena^ Shethar, Admatha,
Tarshish^ Meres^ Marsena^ and Memucan^ the seven
princes of Persia and Media, which saw the king's face
and sat first in the kingdom) : What shall we do unto
queen Vashti? — Esther, I, IS.

Work it out carefully and don't be afraid of those
strange looking names of the seven princes. Just pass
them over lightly for the present as though they were

GEOUP SEQUENCE WITH SUBORDINATION 93

English names, William, James, and the like. It may
be helpful to diagram the sentence as you have done
in your grammar lessons. Then read it al6ud — ^the
entire class can do this in concert — as I mark it below :

Then the king said to the wise men . • .
What shall we do unto Queen Vpshti ?

Then the king said to the wise men (for so

was the king's manner toward all that knew law and

judgment; . . .)= What shall we do unto Queen
Vashti ?

Then the king said to the wise men (for so

was the king's manner toward all that knew law and

judgment; and the next unto him was Carshena, Shethar,
Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, . • •):

What shall we do unto Queen Vashti ?

Then the king said to the wise men (for so

was the king's manner toward all that knew law and

judgment; and the next unto him was Carshena, Shethar,
Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seren

princes of Persia and Media, . . .): What shall We do UUtO

Queen Vashti ?

Then the king said to the wise men (for so

was the king's manner toward all that knew law and

judgment; and the next unto him was Carshena, Shethar,
Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven

princes of Persia and Media, which mw the king's face and sat first in Jho kingdom) :

What shall we do unto Queen Vashti ?

94 INTERPBETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

Study the next excerpt as you did the preceding.
The speaker is telling of his uncle who had at first
laughed and then grown suddenly serious at a piece of
news of how the speaker — ^then a boy — ^had pelted the
Jews.

No, boy, we must not (so began

My uncle — He's with God long since —
A-petting me^ the good old man !)

W^e must npt (and he seemed to wince,
And lost that laugh whereto had grown

His chuckle at my piece of news.
How cleverly I aimed my stone)

I fear we must not pelt the Jews !

— Browning : Baldinucci.

A final example will drive home the contention that
many long sentences complicated with subordinate
groups will give up their meaning with a little careful
study, and furthermore that when we recognize the
source of the difficulty the vocal expression becomes
relatively easy. In Henry Yllly Cardinal Campeius is
begging Queen Katherine to listen patiently to the
plea of the Duke of York, which up to that time she
had scorned to do ; and moreover had bitterly attacked
him, saying he was her enemy. It is printed with and
without the particular marking to emphasize the fact
that what type does not do (except occasionally when
an author italicizes) we must do for ourselves: learn
to appreciate the diff^erent thought values:

Most honoured madam,
My Lord of York, out of his noble nature.
Zeal and obedience he still bore your Grace,

GBOUP SEQUENCE WITH SUBOEDINATION 95

(Forgetting^ like a good man^ your late censure
Both of his truth and him^ which was too far)
Offers^ as I do^ in a sign of peace^
His service and his counsel.

—Ill, i.

Most honor'd madam^

My Lord of York, out of his noble nature.
Zeal and obedience he still bore your Grace,
(Forgetting, like a good man, your late censure
Both of his truth and him, which was too far)

OlierS, as I do, in a sign of peace,

His service and his counsel.

Review Exercises

As adders held
In a strong grasp writhe to be free and sting.
The hostile tribes had writhed while Rohab's hand
Held them in clutch of steel; but now at last.
When Rohab left the spear to thirst, the sword
To rust undrawn, and heard no sound more harsh
Than the lute's pleading; now that Lutra's love
To him was all in all, to which mere crown
And throne and people counted naught, — ^there rose
A hundred murmurs sinister — the stir
And rustle of his foes who knew their time
Had come.

— Arlo Bates : The Sorrow of Rohab.

At the termination of this sentence I started, and
for a moment paused; for it appeared to me (although
I at once concluded that my excited fancy had de-
ceived me) — ^it appeared to me that, from some very re-
mote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to
my ears what might have been, in its exact similarity

96 INTEEPBETATION OP THE FEINTED PAGE

of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one cer-
tainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which
Sir Lancelot had so particularly described. — Poe: The
Fall of the House of Usher.

The second of Chanticleer's two wives, ever since
Phoebe's arrival, had been in a state of heavy despond-
ency, caused, as it afterwards appeared, by her in-
ability to lay an egg. One day, however, by her self-
important gait, the side- way turn of her head, and the
cock of her eye, as she pried into one and another
nook of the garden, — croaking to herself, all the while,
with inexpressible complacency, — ^it was made evident
that this identical hen, much as mankind undervalued
her, carried something about her person, the worth of
which was not to be estimated either in gold or precious
stones. Shortly after, there was a prodigious cackling
and gratulation of Chanticleer and all his family, in-
cluding the wizened chicken, who appeared to under-
stand the matter quite as well as did his sire, his mother,
or his aunt. That afternoon Phoebe found a diminu-
tive tgg — ^not in the regular nest — ^it was far too precious
to be trusted there — ^but cunningly hidden under the
currant-bushes on some dry stalks of last year's grass.
— Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables.

Through the general hum following the stage pause,
with the change of positions, etc., came the muffled
sound of a pistol shot, which not one-hundredth part
of the audience heard at the time — and yet a moment's
hush — somehow, surely a vague, startled thrill — and
then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr'd and
striped space-way of the President's box, a sudden
figure, a man raises himself with hands and feet, and
stands a moment on the railing, leaps below to the
stage (a distance of perhaps fourteen or fifteen feet),
falls out of position, catching his boot-heel in the copious

GBOUP SEQUENCE WITH SUBOBDINATION 97

drapery (the American flag)^ falls on one knee^ quickly
recovers himself^ rises as if nothing had happen'd (he
really sprains his ankle^ but unfelt then)^ — and so the
figure^ Booths the murderer^ dress'd in plain black
broadcloth^ bare-headed^ with a full head of glossy^
raven hair^ and his eyes like some mad animal's flash-
ing with light and resolution^ yet with a certain strange
calmness, holds aloft in one hand a larg^ knife — ^walks
along not much back from the footlights — ^tums fully
toward the audience his face of statuesque beauty, lit
by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, per-
haps insanity — launches out in a firm and steady voice
the words, Sic semper tyrannis — and then walks with
neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across to
the back of the stage, and disappears. — ^Whitman.

CHAPTER V

INVERSION

We have seen that we must group carefully before
we can hope to understand. But here is a sentence
in which although the grouping is simple, there is a
distinctly new problem:

Meanwhile^ impatient to momit and ride^ .
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.

— Longfellow: Paul Revere' s Ride,

What is the difficulty? The groups are inverted, that
is, not arranged in the order of everyday conversa-
tion. It is rare that we find the subject of a sentence
at the end, and hence in this illustration, we may miss
the meaning unless we rethink it something as follows :
Meanwhile, Paul Revere, impatient to mount and ride,
booted and spurred, walked, with a heavy stride, on
the opposite shore.

Sometimes the inversion may be only a word or two,
as in the following:

Him the Almighty power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky.

— Milton: Paradise Lost

Was Irving not good^ and, of his works^ was not his
life the best part? — Thackeray: Nil Nisi Bonum.

INVEESION 99

But even in such simple cases care must be taken to
avoid blurring the picture. Here is another sentence
that must be straightened out carefully before we can
get the meaning :

With sloping masts and dipping prow.
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe.
And forward b/ends his head.
The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast.
And southward aye we fled.
— Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,

Rewrite the above in the natural order of subject,
modifiers, and predicate. Note also how the difficulty
is increased because of the subordinate clause:

As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head.

But we are greatly helped when we recognize that the
sentence is inverted. We note that "With sloping
masts," etc., is incomplete in its meaning, and hence
we look forward for the group that completes the
sense, which we find in "The ship drove fast," etc.

Review Exercises

So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high.
Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell
On the proud crest of Satan, that no sight.
Nor motion of swift thought, less could his shield.
Such ruin intercept.

— Milton: Paradise Lost,

100 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

High in front advanced.
The brandished sword of God before them blazed
Fierce as a comet. — Milton : Paradise LosL

Him, MenelauSy loved of Mars, beheld
Advancing with large strides before the rest.

— The Iliad (Bryant's translation).

Me master years a hundred since from my parents

sunder'd,
A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is

caught,
Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought.

— ^Whitman : Ethiopia Saluting the Colors.

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-
two.
Did the English fight the French, — woe to France !
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the

blue.
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks
pursue.
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Ranee,
With the English fleet in view.

— Browning: HervS RieL

Whither, 'midst falling dew.

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day.
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

— Bryant: To a Waterfowl.

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown.
Of thee from the hill-top looking down.

— Emerson : Each and All,

INVERSION 101

Thus while they look'd^ a flourish proud^
Where mingled trump, and clarion loud^
And flfe, and kettle-drum^
And sacbut deep, and psalter^.
And war-pipe with discordant cry.
And cymbal clattering to the sky.
Making wild music bold and high.
Did up the moimtain come ;
The whilst the bells, with distant chime,
. Merrily toU'd the hour of prime.
And thus the Lindesay spoke.

— Scott: Marmion,

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west.
The sun, a snow-blown traveler, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank.
We piled with care our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back.

— ^Whittier: Snow-Bound.

It little profits that an idle king.
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race.
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

— Tennyson : Ulysses.

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills !
In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same ;

The village street its haunted mansion lacks.
And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name.

And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks —

Are ye too changed, ye hills?
See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men

To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays 1

Here came I often, often, in old days —
Thyrsis and I ; we still had Thyrsis then.

— Arnold : Thyrsis.

102 INTEEPEETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

Others for language all their care express^

And value books, as women, men for dress.

— Pope: An Essay on Criticism.

%
All night, the dreadless angel, unpursued.

Through Heaven's wide champaign held his waj, till

Morn,

Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand

Unbarred the gates of light.

— Milton: Paradise Lost.

CHAPTER VI

DENOTATION

While we have been studying the preceding chap-
ters we have found ourselves learning to read with
greater ease and thoroughness ; however, it is quite ^
possible to nndfr^t find thft pri n f i ip ir n a nd yat m i m thr
m eaning. Merely to erroup corr pf*t1y dnpg r\n\ ppppR-
sarily impIyreHding with understanding, , In the lines :

No habitation can be seen; but they

Who journey thither find themselves alone

With a few sheep^ with rocks and stones^ and kites

That overhead are sailing in the sky.

It is in truth an utter solitude;

— ^Wordsworth : Michael.

there is a word whose meaning in this place is en-
tirely different from its usual one. Can you find it?
How could the place be without any habitation, one
where those who journey thither find themselves alone
with a few sheep, etc., and yet with "kites" sailing
overhead in the sky ? Would not sailing kites presup-
pose someone sailing them? Look up this word in
the dictionary and note how that one word affects the
picture. Another example:

Do you know the pile-built village where the sago dealers
trade .^

103

104 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

We see that "village" marks the end of the first
group, and yet we may not know what "pile-built"
means. Or again, we can read the second group
and not grasp the meaning of "sago dealers." In
factf a keen student could read the line with perfect
expression and yet fail entirely to understand it. He
would see clearly that the line spoke of some kind
of village where some kind of dealers trade, and that is
all. It is necessary, then, to find out what "pile-built"
means. "Built- on piles," you might say. Yes, but do
you really know what that means ? If you do not, the
author might as well have written, "Do you see the
little village?" or, "the ancient village?" or any other
kind of village. But he wants to bring before your
mind a picture you have seen before, or a new one
which you may make up out of old material. If you
have seen a pile-built village, you can easily picture it
(you can really get the sense in such a case without
recalling the picture) ; but if you haven't seen it, what
materials have you out of which to make it? It is
easy to say a "pile" means "a heavy timber forced
into the earth to form- a foundation for a building,
wharf, or the like"; and "pile-built" means built on
piles ; and "pile-built village" means a village built on
piles. The question is, do you get the meaning? If
not, what is the nearest thing to it you have ever seen?
Have you seen piles that have been driven into sand to
support the foundation of a building? Have you
seen piles that served as a breakwater against the
beating waves? Have you seen a house or a hut
standing on piles? Something like one of these you

DENOTATION 105

must have seen or you can't understand what Kipling
saw in that village. You can substitute your word^A
for the author* s^ hut don*t make the great mistake J
that so many make, of believing that definitions are all j
we need to enable u^ to get the author^s meaning. No, !
the only definition that can satisfy us is the idea, or»
the sense, or the picture. If our experience isn't I
enough, then we must get help from dictionary, or I
encyclopedia, or teacher, or from someone who really .
has seen the picture or something like it. If we can't j
get that help, then, at least we know that we donH |
knoWy and that is far better than deceiving ourselves j
that we are reading because we can define the words. \

In the following scientific extract you will find very
little difficulty, and of what the author has to tell you,
you will get a general idea in one rapid reading.

WHY THE CANVASBACK DUCK LEFT CHESAPEAKE BAY

Chesapeake Bay is no longer the special feeding place
of the canvasback duck^ although sixty years ago it was
one of the most important wintering places for ducks in
the United States^ usually spoken of as a winter resort^
though really there was a time during most winters when
the ducks were forced by the ice farther south for a few
days or weeks.

Here was* the preferred winter home of the celebrated
canvasback^ whence many hundred thousand dollars'
worth of the birds have been shipped to the northern
markets. Today a canvasback is almost a rarity in
Chesapeake Bay^ and the few survivors spend the winter
farther south, on the North Carolina coast.

Chesapeake Bay was formerly the natural goal of a
large proportion of the canvasbacks and redheads which

106 INTEEPEETATION OF THE FEINTED PAGE

nested in central Canada. They had a peculiar migra-
tion route. Nesting in the lake region of Manitoba and
Saskatchewan^ they found stretching thence southeast-
ward an almost continuous chain of lakes supplying an
abundance of food and especially favorable conditions to
tempt a journey in that direction. This flight led^ nat-
urally, to Chesapeake Bay, which used to provide an
almost unlimited quantity of their greatest delicacy —
wild celery — and otherwise was admirably adapted for a
fall, winter, and spring sojourn, except during an occa-
sional week or two of unusually cold weather.

Persistent persecution by gunners from early fall to
late spring has almost annihilated the myriads of fowls^
of the finest varieties that used to blacken the surface
of the bay.

Now read it again with particular care. If you
were reading just for the pleasure of the story you
would not care to stop for each detail, but is it not
true that a second reading gives you many new and
interesting details ? The first time you read it did you
note that sixty years ago Chesapeake Bay was an im-
portant place for ducks ? that occasionally the ice there
would drive them farther south.? for a few days or
weeks? Did you remember, after the first readings
that the few surviving canvasbacks now winter on the
Carolina coast.?

This study, then, has shown us that even in para-

'graphs no more difficult than those in our everyday

I lessons, careful reading is necessary in order to insure

j our not overlooking important statements. It drives

us to see what stands in the way of our getting the

sense : whether it be the meaning of a word, or lack of

familiarity with the idea expressed by the group. In

DENOTATION 107

the following paragraph there is apparently nothing
difficult to understand :

Some birds are protected because of their diet^ as the
wood-peckers and fly-catchers; others for their song —
thrushes and mocking-birds ; others for esthetic reasons —
gulls and terns ; while the protection of ducks and geese
is purely utilitarian; they furnish a highly prized food^
and the sport of hunting them involves an outdoor life
and exercise which is worth far more to the individual
and the community than the dietary value of the game
secured.

The author says, "Some birds are protected because
of their diet, as the wood-peckers and fly-catchers."
You understand that "wood-peckers" and "fly-catch-
ers" are birds, and you know what "protected" and
"diet" are; but do you know that in this sentence
"protected" means protected by laws which prohibit
killing these birds? Again, you know that "diet"
stands for that on which the birds feed ; but it is not
until you know that this diet consists of insects that
destroy our trees and flowers and crops that you get
the complete force of the sentence. It is very easy to
read such a sentence as "Some birds are protected
because of their diet" ; but when you read it once or
twice carefully you are compelled to ask yourself
"why?" and thus you learn that the words have no
value for you until they convey definite meaning.
Grouping narrows down the problem : it shows us what
is clear and what is obscure and then we reach the point
where we recognize that certain words or groups have to
be defined clearly before we can understand the text.

108 INTERPBETATION OP THE PRINTED PAGE

)It is perhaps our very familiarity with the appearance
or sound of words that stands (whether we stop to
think of it or not) in the way of our getting thought.
"Protection" and "diet" and "kite" and "pile" and
^^. "built" are not sufficiently strange in appearance to

^' • ftrrest our attention ; so we read along content to get
a little here and a little there, seldom recognizing how
much has escaped us until we are closely questioned.
:This matter is so important that too much emphasis
cannot be laid on it. I wish it were in my power to
persuade you to read over some lesson you had last
week or some article you read in yesterday's news-
paper, to prove that you had only half read it! I
can only urge upon you then to follow carefully the
rest of this chapter and test to the uttermost the sound-
ness of the principles discussed in it.
I In the foregoing illustrations we should probably
have got at least a fair part of the thought in one
reading. We have found, however, that a second and
a third reading not only gave us more pictures and
j ! ideas, but showed that there were some words that had
I ; to be defined before we could get the idea, no matter
' how carefully we grouped. In the next selection the
. appearance of the words is repellent, and when we
attempt to read in our usual hurried manner, we get
very little from it, and then we are likely to give up
trying^ thinking that the passage is too hard. And
yet it is full of interesting information taken from a
well-known work on psychology, by William James.
The very word "psychology" sounds hard and dry,
but what could be more interesting than to know how

DENOTATION 109

we think, and feel, and see, and taste, and why our
muscles move! These things psychology teaches us.
In the paragraphs that follow, the author is discussing
taste. The first section, if read with a little care,
will give up its meaning when we become acquainted
with a few simple terms. But even here the analysis
of the paragraph group by group will reveal not only
what you know but what you don't, and in the latter
case you will learn exactly what stands in the way of
your getting the meaning.

Taste has been ascribed to all portions of the mouth
from the lips to the stomach, but is properly confined to
those portions of the tongue and soft palate furnished
with taste-buds. Experiments have been directed
towards ascertaining whether certain tastes are confined
or not to certain portions of the organ. The result is
somewhat in doubt, but it is generally believed that bitter
is best tasted on the soft palate and back of the tongue,
and sweet and sour on the tip.

If you have read that discussion carefully, you
have got the gist of it. Now, in the next paragraph
the difficulties are much greater, though the facts are
no less interesting.

The classification of tastes can be reduced to four:
sweet, sour, bitter, and salt. Pungent tastes must be
excluded: as must also alkaline, astringent, and metallic
tastes, which seem to be combinations of touch, taste, and
smell. Many so-called tastes, like that of onions, are
properly odors. The specific taste that distinguishes
one body from another, as an apple from an orange, is
not taste proper, but a combination of various sensory
properties.

110 INTEBPBETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

I am sure many people would say that is too hard ;
only for learned scholars; dry-as-dust; not worth
studying out, anyhow. Let us see. The first sentence
is easy, but when we read the first clause of the second
sentence we stop because we do not know the meaning
of "pungent tastes." What are "pungent tastes'*?
If someone were to ask us what tastes must be ex-
cluded in our classification we might answer correctly,
"pungent tastes," but we should only be deceiving
ourselves if we thought that the answer meant any-
thing. It is only when someone tells us that a pungent
taste is a sharp, or biting taste, like that of pepper or
mustard, that we begin to understand what pungent
tastes are. Then we ask ourselves why must pungent
tastes be excluded, and it is possible we may not be
able to tell. Let us leave it then, for a while, and take
up the next clause, which divides itself into groups
about as follows: "as must also alkaline,

astringent, and metallic tastes, which seem

to be combinations of touch, taste, and smell."

What is an alkaline taste? an astringent taste? a
metallic taste? The dictionary can help us only to a
certain extent. It is not enough to know that to be
astringent is, as the dictionary tells us, to have the
power "to contract or draw together soft organic
tissues"; we must have had some experience of an
astringent taste. But when some one reminds us that
we did have that experience when we tasted the skins
of pecan nuts, or green persimmons, or, more com-
monly still, tea that has been steeped too long, we
see that an astringent taste is merely an unusual name

DENOTATION HI

for a very common experience. But why must an
astringent taste be excluded? When we answer that
question we answer also the question why pungent
tastes must be excluded. And here the author's final
group helps us out : because "they seem to be combina-
tions of three senses.'* One really feels the burning
sensation of pepper and mustard. One feels the pucker
of the lips and tongue after drinking over-steeped tea.
And again we have learned that many groups con-
taining unfamiliar words may really be describing very
familiar ideas and experiences. In the next sentence
the author speaks of "so-called tastes." A moment's
reflection will show us what he means ; but how inter-
esting it is when we get (what he has not given us
before) a clear illustration of a "so-called" taste. He
tells us that what we call the taste of an onion is really
its odor.

The final sentence would be grouped about as fol-
lows : "The specific taste that distinguishes one body
from another (as an apple from an orange),
is not taste proper, but a combination of various

sensory properties." What is a specific taste? When
you have answered the question you can test the cor-
rectness of your answer by asking yourself, "Do I
know what is the specific taste of an apple? or of an
orange?" Now, we have always called this specific
taste a "taste proper," that is, a real taste, yet the
author says that we have been wrong : "It is," he says,
**a combination of various sensory properties." Do
we understand him? If not, why not? Because we
do not know what "sensory properties" means? Then

112 INTEEPBETATION OP THE PBINTED PAGE

someone tells us "sensory" means pertaining to the
senses, such as touch, smell, etc. Now the group's
meaning is clear, and we understand the whole sen-
tence, which means that what we call the taste of, let
us say, an apple, is not a pure taste, but a combina-
tion of a sweet or a sour taste with perhaps an agree-
able odor, and a certain sense of hardness, or softness,
or mealiness, or juiciness.

The chief value of this exercise is that now the
student knows what he knows. He sees where his diffi-
culty has been, and if someone should challenge his
interpretation he can defend it without fear of
being caught off his guard. And if in the course of
the discussion it should appear that his interpretation
is open to doubt, he is in excellent position to listen to
argument and accept correction if he is proved in the
wrong. But I believe that more important than all is
the fact that such a procedure as we have gone
through shows the student exactly where he needs help,
and he cannot then delude himself that Denotation
doesn't matter, or that the author is obscure, or, in
class work, that so long as the teacher doesn't ask any
questions about that particular sentence, nothing else
counts.

If these paragraphs seem hard, compare them with
numberless paragraphs in textbooks used in high
schools and see how much less difficult they are. A
passage illustrating some difficulty has been chosen on
purpose to show you how to study , and to prove that
a passage that looks very hard may prove to be fairly
easy if you go at it in the right way. Many of the

DENOTATION 113

ideas described in the printed page are really not new
to you, but since you never described them in the way
the author does, since you may never have used the
same words that he does, you frequently do not under-
stand him until you become used to his language. It/
cannot be said too often that^after you have the mean-j
ing of the words and of the group, or groups, youl
may then be in possession only of the tools to workf
with./ The test is whether you know the meaning of
the Bcntcn egrr" Have you the thought, the idea, the
picture? Call it what you will, do you understand?
And if you don't, why not? Is it a word, or a phrase,
or a comma, or the construction tHat stands between
you and the author? Do you know why you don't
know ? Your first experience with new words and new
constructions is the crucial one. The dictionary or a
friend will help you get the meaning, and after that
the word or expression is part of your vocabulary and
no longer bothers you in your reading. The danger
is that you may not ask for help, and rest content with
a vague uhderstanding, or with none.

You may ask, "Must I be deprived of the pleasure
of reading a poem or a story simply because I can't
get every picture?" or, "Can't I get enjoyment from
a speech or a play unless I know what every word in it
means?" or, "Must I look up the meaning of every
word in my history or literature lesson in order to
master it?" Let me try to answer you.

It is impossible in the course of our daily reading
to look up the meaning of every word, and since we
are seldom called to account for meanings, we are

114 INTEEPEETATION OF THE FEINTED PAGE

content to go on without them. If we happen to miss
the drift of a whole paragraph through failure to get
the denotation of a word, well, it doesn't happen
often and better luck next time. Then if we come
across a word often enough we somehow or other get
a pretty clear conception of its meaning after a while ;
and so again we are content to take chances in increas-
ing our vocabulary, and sometimes we win and more
often we lose.

Now, as I said before, you are hardly expected to get
the denotation of every word in every sentence, but
where are we to draw the line? Surely when you
write you expect to be understood, and if the reader
happens not to know the meaning of a certain word,
it is possible you may fail utterly in your purpose.
If you say, **Our trip was spoiled because the car-
buretor didn*t work," your friend may learn that your
trip was spoiled because something or other didn't
work, and that information may suffice; but he will
never really know what the trouble was. And if you
write that he can find a given line of The* Merchant
of Venice in an unexpurgated edition, and he ignores
the "unexpurgated," he will hunt forever through an
expurgated text without finding the line.

And so we go on content with a meagre vocabulary,
until we leave school with no power to interpret the
printed page, and what is worse, with no particular
interest in it. Now what is one to do? The answer
can't be absolute. The great need is, however, to read
everything with some care and then decide what words
or expressions it is absolutely necessary to understand

DENOTATION 115

•

in order not to miss the vital points. It depends on the
object we have in mind when we read.

Is it entertainment ? Well, one doesn't need to know
every word in order to enjoy Silas Marner or Ivanhoe
or Julius Caesar, But how many words can be ig-
nored? Can we enjoy a novel and know but three-
quarters of the words? half the words? What is the
.lowest limit? The danger of it all is that we get to
believe that reading for entertainment is like going to
the "movies," where we pay oilr dimes, sit down, let
our brains go to sleep, and the pictures do the rest.

But in serious reading — ^history, literature, science
— one often carries over into it the loose habits ac-
quired in reading for pleasure. Then the trouble be-
gins, for it may be the most serious of matters if one
fails to get the force of a certain word, or group, or
sentence. What then? Of course in some cases one
sees that he must get the meaning: the teacher tells
him he will be examined on it; or there is something
he must do which can't be done unless he understands
a particular passage. And it all comes back at last
to deciding whether one really understands die sen-
tence, and if one does not, whether he thinks it is neces-
sary for his enjoyment or information to find out what
it means. Most articles in popular fiction and news-
papers are written for busy, hurried people, and
students must not forget that great literature, history,
and science cannot be written in popular style. I am
almost prepared to state that instead of the careful
study of the page in school helping us to get more out
of the newspaper, our careless slipshod reading of

116 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

the newspaper is more likely to unfit us for reading
literature and the textbooks of the schoolroom.

It does not follow that because you know the mean-
ing of the individual words in a sentence you neces-
sarily understand the meaning of the whole sentence.
Denotation in the sense in which we are using it stands
for the meaning of the whole as well as of a single
word: the term applies equally to the period and the
poem. We know that in the intercourse of everyday
life and in our ordinary reading it is easy to get the
meaning. And yet unless we are on our guard the
very simplicity of language may be a pitfall. I know
a class of students who failed to see the humor in a
misprinted passage in a well-known book, which read,
"On the receipt of this sad news, his upper jaw fell."
Professor Arlo Bates quotes this example of careless-
ness in writing, which appeared in a popular mag-
azine; but I think many a student might fail to see
the nonsense of it even with the printed word before
him: "As the old men walked toward the west
in the still afternoon, one of them pointed first to the
setting sun and then to the long shadows which moved
on before them.'*

Even Poe's Raven supplies an awful warning. I
quote the closing stanza. You recall that above the
poet's door. is a bust of Pallas, and on that perches the
raven. Now says Poe :

And the Raven^ never flitting^ still is sittings still is

sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber

door;

DENOTATION

1
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's t]

dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his sh

on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on
the floor

Shall be lifted — nevermore !

How could the lamplight "stream over him." in such
a way as to throw the raven's shadow on the iloor?
Where would the lamp have to be to do that, and is it
likely that Poe's lamp was there?

In the second place there is scientific, or economic,
or historical writing that needs aggressive attention
and some hard thinking. We have had examples of
this, and we need dwell no longer on this aspect.

But the third category is by no means to be neg-
lected. Here is Tennyson's The Eagle — only six lines
("Fragment," the poet calls it) and no story, no
moral in it, nothing but beautiful pictures, which you
must see:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands ;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls ;
He watches from his mountain walls.
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

You must build up the scene, step by step. The
title tells you who the "He" is. And you know
enough about eagles to wnderstand what the first line
is about. But that is not enough in this case. You
must see. The second line is incomplete, and you

/■

118 INTEBPEETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

must wait for the end of the third line before you

i can start to build up your next picture ; or at best you

': can only be gathering material, so to speak, for the

[picture. Now we must go back. What does "Ringed

with the azure world'' mean? It isn't sufficient to

answer, "Surrounded by the blue sky" ; you must see

it. But even when you do there is one little word that

you may have missed: "Close." How could he be

: "close" to the sun? But I leave you now to the joy

of finishing the poem, convinced, as I hope you are,

that the poet intended you to see and enjoy, even as

^e did.

Let me suggest a test. Tennyson saw his picture
clearly. To prove whether you see it with equal clear-
ness, suppose yourself a painter putting this picture
on canvas. What colors would you use? Where
would you put the crag? the eagle? the sun? Of
course you couldn't paint all the picture, but the still
life you could put on canvas.

Just when it is necessary to follow the text closely,
to weigh each word and group, to see the complete
picture, and when, on the other hand, only to "sense,"
as it were, its meaning, cannot be set down with cer-
tainty ; but there is no doubt but that in a large part
of great literature the author writes that we may see
all that he saw and share with him the beauty he de-
scribes. Let us close by giving examples of such
writing :

I linger'd there
Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star
Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk.

— Tennyson: The Gardener's Daughter.

DENOTATION 119

The next passage, from the same poem, is much
more difficult, apparently so hard tliat most would pass
it by. And yet how beautiful the picture ! One which
you would stop long to look at were it hanging
in an art gallery. There are few hard words and
nothing particularly hard in the thought. It is the
length and complexity of the sentence, and the need
of building up the picture group by group that make
the passage seem so difficult.

For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose,
That^ flowering high^ the last night's gale had caught.
And blown across the walk. One arm aloft —
Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape —
Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood,
A single stream of all her soft brown hair
Pour'd on one side : the shadow of the flowers
Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering
Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist —
Ah, happy shade — and still went wavering down.
But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced
The greensward into greener circles, dipt.
And mix'd with shadows of the common ground !

Here follows matter that requires closest attention
to follow. It deals with science, religion, psychology,
law, and other subjects without a story in them, and
not appealing very strongly, at any rate not at once,
to our curiosity and desire for knowledge. Yet any
man or woman with the slightest pretension to educa-
tion should be able to read without too great a strain
such matter as I refer to. An author is speaking of
the difficulty of judging sometimes whether an act is
right or wrong. The passage looks hard. It is

120 INTEBPEETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

printed solid. There is no dialogue in it ; and yet it is
packed full of interest. The title wouldn't be a good
one for a popular magazine article, but many a time
you have had experience with that very "intricacy."
Have you not often been puzzled in trying to pass
honest judgment on the act of some fellow student?
Have you yourself not been wronged by student,
teacher, and even parent, largely because they were
judging you by one standard, while you felt you
should be judged by another? Well, the moral judg-
ment was not easy to pass because there were so many
factors entering into your case. So you see again,
"Intricacy of Moral Judgments" is only an educated
man's title for a subject all of us have had much
experience with.

Intbicact of Moral Judgments

If we attempt to reduce this discussion to its psycho-
logical terms^ we may make some such statement as the
following: No person is in a position to pass judgment
upon the moral character of any act unless he under-
stands thoroughly all of the conditions which surround
the act. In order to understand historical relations
fully one needs to have such a view of the historical
situation as it is extremely difficult for a modern stu-
dent to acquire. The modern student is^ in the first
place, guided in all of his judgments by an established
mode of thought which is peculiar to his own genera-
tion. We have certain notions in this day about the
treatment of colonies, for example, that are wholly dif-
ferent from the notions that obtained at the time that
England was in controversy with her American colonies.
The notions that we now entertain are the results of long

DENOTATION 121

historical periods which have recorded themselves in the
literature and language of our people. The youth of
today is introduced directly to these political and ethical
ideas without any special reference to the earlier con-
troversies out of which the present notions have grown.
When, therefore, he is suddenly carried hack in his his-
torical studies to situations that differ altogether from
the situations that now confront him^ he is likely to
carry back, without being fully aware of the fallacy of
his procedure, those standards of judgment and canons
of ethical thought which constitute his present inherit-
ance. He judges, in other words, by modem standards,
situations which are in character wholly different from
those of today. — Judd: Psychology 'of High-School Sulh-
jects.

(I purposely chose a paragraph that was not easy;
that required careful attention ; that meant looking up
new words, and making some careful grouping. But
if you have mastered that paragraph, have you not
done something splendidly worth while? as worth while,
and under some conditions far more worth while, than
finishing a task in the shop or laboratory?)

Review Exercises

Among the following exercises will be found ex-
amples of two kinds of problems: those dealing with
picture making ; and those dealing with the difficulty
of the language, style, and ideas.

The steer forgot to graze.
And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood.
Leaning his horns into the neighbor field,
And lowing to his fellows.

— Tennyson: The Gardener's Daughter.

122 INTBEPBETATION OF THE FEINTED PAGE

Short of stature^ large of limb^
Burly face and russet beard^
All the women stared at him^
When in Iceland he appeared.

' "Look !" they said,
With noddinir head,
"There goes Thangbrand, Olafs Priest."

— Longfellow : Thanghrand the Priest,

And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood
Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent.

— ^Arnold: Sohrab and Rustum,

What picture do you get? Look up "pile" in the
dictionary.

The gray sea and the long black land ;
And the yellow half-moon large and low ;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep.
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears ;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match.
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears.
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

— Browning: Meeting at Night.

Sweet are the uses of adversity.

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous.

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life exempt from public haunt

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks.

Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

— At You Like It, II, i.

DENOTATION 123

Jaques. All the world's a stage^

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances ;
And one man in his time plays many parts^
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant^
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy^ with his satchel
And shining morning face^ creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover^
Sighing like furnace^ with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier^
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard^
Jealous in honour^ sudden and quick in quarrel^
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice^
In fair round belly with good capon lined^
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut.
Full of wise saws and modern instances ;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side.
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice.
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all.
That ends this strange eventful history.
Is second childishness and mere oblivion.
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

— Ihid,, II, vii.

Rosalind. Time travels in divers paces with divers
persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who
Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal and who he
stands still withal.

Orlando. I prithee, who doth he trot withal?

Rosalind. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid
between the contract of her matriage and the day it is

124 INTEBPBETATION OF THE FEINTED PAGE

solemnized: if the interim be but a se'nnight^ Time's
pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year.

Orlando. Who ambles Time withal?

Rosalind. With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich
man that hath not the gout^ for the one sleeps easily
because he cannot study and the other lives merrily
because he feels no pain^ the one lacking the burden of
lean and wasteful learnings the other knowing no burden
of heavy tedious penury ; these Time ambles withal.

Orlando. Who doth he gallop withal?

Rosalind, With a thief to the gallows^ for though he
go as softly as foot can fall^ he thinks himself too soon
there. ,

Orlando. Who stays it still withal?

Rosalind. With lawyers in the vacation; for they
sleep between term and term and then they perceive not
how Time moves.

—Ihid., Ill, ii.

Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age

And high top bald with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair.

Lay sleeping on his back : about his neck

A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself.

Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd

The opening of his mouth ; but suddenly.

Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself.

And with indented glides did slip away

Into a bush: under which bush's shade

A lioness, with udders all drawn dry.

Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch.

When that the sleeping man should stir ; for 'tis

The royal disposition of that beast

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead :

This seen, Orlando did approach the man

And found it was his brother, his elder brother.

— Ibid., IV, iii.

DENOTATION 125

Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge."
So to the barge they came. There those three

Queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
But she, that rose the tallest of them all
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap.
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his

hands.
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud.
And dropping bitter tears against a brow
Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white
And colourless, and like the withered moon
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ;
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops
Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls —
That made his forehead like a rising sun
High from the dais-throne — were parch'd with dust ;
Or clotted into points and hanging loose,
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his

lips.
So like a shatter'd column lay the King;
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest.
From spur to plume a star of tournament.
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

— TENNYSok: The Passing of Arthur.

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail

Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted sn'an

That, fluting a wild carol ere her death.

Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood

With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere

Revolving many memories, till the hull

Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn.

And on the mere the wailing died away.

126 INTEBPEETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

As when a boar
Or lion mid the hounds and huntsmen stands^
Fearfully strongs and fierce of eye, and they
In square array assault him, and their hands
Fling many a javelin; — yet his noble heart
Fears not, nor does he fly, although at last
His courage cause his death ; and oft he turns,
And tries their ranks ; and where he makes a rush
The ranks give way ; — so Hector moved and turned
Among the crowd, and bade his followers cross
The trench.

— The Iliad (Bryant's translation).

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank !
Here will we sit and let the sound of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold :
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings.
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims ;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we can not hear it.

— Merchant of Venice, V, i.

In person, Caesar was tall and slight. His features
were more refined than was usual in Roman faces. The
forehead was wide and high, the nose large and thin, the
lips full, the eyes dark gray like an eagle's, the neck
extremely thick and sinewy. His complexion was pale.
His beard and mustache were kept carefully shaved.
His hair was short and naturally scanty, falling off
toward the end of his life and leaving him partially
bald. His voice, especially when he spoke in public,
was high and shrill. — Froude : Julius Caesar,

DENOTATION 127

In person^ the Prince of Orange was above the middle
height^ perfectly well made and sinewy^ but rather
spare than stout. His eyes^ hair^ beard^ and complexion
were brown. His head was small, symmetrically shaped,
combining the alertness and compactness characteristic
of the soldier, with the capacious brow furrowed pre-
maturely with the horizontal lines of thought, denoting
the statesman and the sage. — Motley: Character of
William of Orange.

One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from
the deck, and lay over on the side, entangled in a maze
of sail and rigging; and in that ruin, as the ship rolled
and beat, — which she did with a violence quite incon-
ceivable, — beat the side as if it would stave it in. Some
efforts were being made to cut this portion of the wreck
away; for as the ship, which was broadside on, turned
toward us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people
at work with axes — especially one active figure, with
long curling hair. But a great cry, audible even above
the wind and water, rose from the shore ; the sea, sweep-
ing over the wreck, made a clean breach, and carried
men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, — heaps of such
toys, into the boiling surge. — Dickens: David Copper-
field.

The Moon arose : she shone upon the lake.
Which lay one smooth expanse of silver light ;
She shone upon the hills and rocks, and cast
Upon their hollows and their hidden glens
A blacker depth of shade.

— Southey: Madoc.

I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that

128 INTEEPEETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were

silver.
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke^ and made
The water which they beat to follow faster.
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person.
It beggar'd all description : she did lie
In her pavilion — cloth-of-gold of tissue —
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-color'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool.
And what they undid, did.

— Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii.

The numerous letters in the newspapers urging con-
scription; the pointed demand by Unionist leaders that
conscription be resorted to; the reports of correspond-
ents on the apparent indifference of the masses to the
great issue — all these indicate that voluntary enlistment
has not brought the desired results.

The next four paragraphs are inserted, first, be-
cause they so strongly support the contention of this
whole book, and secondly, because they are typical
examples of literature that isn't "easy," but which
is nevertheless f uU of interest and instruction for every
student who is fairly serious-minded.

Do you know, if you read this [book] , that you cannot
read that; that what you lose to-day you cannot gain
to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your house-
maid or your stable-boy, when you may talk with
queens and kings; or flatter yourselves that it is with
any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect
that you jostle with the hungry and common crowd for

DENOTATION 129

entree here, and audience there, when all the while this
eternal court is open to you, with its society, wide as the
world, multitudinous as its days, — the chosen and the
mighty of every place and time? Into that you may
enter always; in that you may take fellowship and
rank accordingly to your wish; from that, once
entered into it, you can never be an outcast but by your
own fault; by your aristocracy of companionship there,
your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested,
and the motives with which you strive to take high place
in the society of the living, measured as to all the truth
and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire
to take in this company of the dead. — Ruskin: Of
Kings* Treasuries.

And be sure also, if the author is worth anything,
that you will not get at his meaning all at once, — nay,
that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time
arrive in anywise. Not that he does not say what he
means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it
all, and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden
way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you
want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor
analyze that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men
which makes them always hide their deeper thought.
They do not give it you by way of h'elp, but of reward,
and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before
they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with the
physical type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to you and
me, no reason why the electric forces of the earth should
not carry whatever there is of gold within it at once to
the mountain-tops; so the kings and people might know
that all the gold they could get was there, and without
any trouble of digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste
of time, cut it away, and coin as much as they needed.
But nature does not manage it so. She puts it in little
fissures in the earth, nobody knows where. You may

130 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

dig loBg and find none. You must dig painfully to find
any. — Ibid,

And it is just the same with men's best wisdom.
When you come to a good book^ you must ask yourself^
"Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would?
Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order^ and am I in
good trim^ myself^ my sleeves well up to the elbow, and
my breath good, and my temper?" And keeping the
figure a little longer, even at a cost of tiresomeness, for
it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search
of being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as
the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to
get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit,
and learning; your smelting furnace is your own
thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good
author's meaning without those tools and that fire; often
you will need sharpest, finest chiselling and patientest
fusing before you can gather one grain of the metal. —
Ibid.

And, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and
authoritatively (I know I am right in this) you must
get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and
assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable —
nay, letter by lett^. For though it is only by reason of
the opposition of letters in the function of signs to sounds
in the function of signs, that the study of books is called
"literature," and that a man versed in it is called, by
the consent of nations, a man of letters instead of a man
of books or of words, you may yet connect with that
accidental nomenclature this real fact, — that you might
read all the books in the British Museum (if you could
live long enough) and remain an utterly "illiterate,"
uneducated person; but that if you read ten pages of a
good book, letter by letter, — that is to say, with real
accuracy, — you are forevermore in some measure an

DENOTATION 131

educated person. The entire difference between educa-
tion and non-education (as regards the merely intellec-
tual part of it) consists in this accuracy. A well-
educated gentleman may not know many languages^ may
not be able to speak any but his own^ may have read
very few books. But whatever language he knows, he
knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pro-
nounces rightly. Above all, he is learned in the peerage
of words, knows the words of true descent and ancient
blood, at a glance, from the words of modern canaille,
remembers all their ancestry, their intermarriages, dis-
tant relationships, and the extent to which they were
admitted, and offices they held, among the national
noblesse of words at any time and in any country. But
an uneducated person may know, by memory, many lan-
guages, and talk them all, and yet truly know not a word
of any, — not a word even of his own. Ah ordinarily
clever and sensible seaman will be able to make his way
ashore at most ports, yet he has only to speak a sentence
of any language to be known for an illiterate person;
so also the accent, or turn of expression of a single sen-
tence, will at once mark a scholar. And this is so
strongly felt, so conclusively admitted, by educated per-
sons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough
in the parliament of any civilized nation to assign to a
man a certain degree of inferior standing forever. — Ihid,

As toilsome I wander'd Virginia's woods.

To the music of rustling leaves kick'd by my feet (for

'twas autumn),
I mark'd at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier ;
Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat (easily

all could I understand).
The halt of a mid-day hour, when up ! no time to lose —

yet this sign left.
On a tablet scrawl'd and nail'd on the tree by the grave.
Bold, cautious-, true, and my loving comradr.

132 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

Long^ long I muse^ then on my way go wandering,
Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene

of life,
Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt,

alone, or in the crowded street,
Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave, comes the

inscription rude in Virginia's woods.
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
— ^Whitman: As Toilsome I Wander' d Virginia's Woods,

In the books you use in connection with your litera-
ture, history, civics, etc., will be found on every page
opportunity for further study of this important aspect
of interpretation.

And the more you use the printed page in connec-
tion with your literature, history, civics, etc., the more
will you appreciate the fact that Denotation is for
you at the present time the most vital factor in your
studies.

CHAPTER VII

AN EXERCISE IN ANALYSIS

So far we have been studying separately Grouping,
Group Sequence, Group Values, Inversion, and Deno-
tation. We will now study a piece of literature illus-
trating all these principles except Subordination.

The following is taken from Tennyson's Enoch
Arden, Enoch Arden has been shipwrecked, and
after the death of his companions, is left alone on an
island close to the tropics. Read the extract, keeping
in mind these conditions :

The mountain wooded to the peak^ the lawns

And winding glades high up like ways to heaven^

The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes^

Th^ lightning flash of insect and of bird^

The lustre of the long convolvuluses

That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran

Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows

And glories of the broad belt of the world,

All these he saw ; but what he fain had seen

He could not see, the kindly human face^

Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard

The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean- fowl,

The league-long roller thundering on the reef,

The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd

And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep

133

134 INTERPEETATION OF THE PMNTBD PAGE

Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave^

As down the shore he ranged^ or all day long

Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge^

A shipwrecked sailor^ waiting for a sail.

Unless you have read very deliberately you have
got very few details of the picture. You perhaps
have a vague idea of a ]|nnfi1jLjnim .annifl great..fiC£nic
hpanfy^ rtiH fl, ffiirly invid pirfnrp in fliA la st line of

the shipwrecked sailor waiting for a sail.

There is not much story in the extract and, there-
fore, one is inclined to hurry on without taking time
to see the picture. Let us now take up the lines in
detail, beginning with the groups, referring constantly
to the text during the entire discussion:

The momitain wooded to the peak^

the lawns And winding glades high up like ways to

heaven.
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes,
The lightning flash of insect and of bird.
The lustre of the long convolvuluses
That coil'd around the stately stems,
and ran Ev'n to the limit of the land,
the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world,
All these he saw;

and so on. Already the picture is becoming clearer,
and yet we find a number of words and phrases that
have' no meaning for us. With a little effort we see
the mountain wooded to the peak, but we must know
that "lawns" as used here does not mean lawns like
those in front of our homes, but "a glade or open
space in the woods.'' Now, the dicfionafy tells us

AN EXEECISE IN ANALYSIS 135

further that a glade Is "a clearing or open space in a
wood/' So the two words convey about the same
meaning ; and we must picture the lawns and winding
glades high up like ways to heaven. The next line
is absolutely meaningless until we learn that "coco" is
**the palm-tree that produces cocoanuts : cultivated in
all tropical regions. It has a branchless stem sixty
to ninety feet high, above which are feather-like leaves
eighteen to twenty feet long.'' From this definition
we can see also why the coco is called slender, and why
the author refers to the "feather-like leaves" as
**drooping crown of plumes." Why the poet speaks
of the "lightning flash of insect and of bird," you can
no doubt see for yourself ; but all you can gather from
the next three lines is that something or other has a
lustre and coils around stems and runs all over the
land. When we discover that "convolvuluses" are
creeping and twining herbs with extremely showy,
brilliant, trumpet-shaped flowers, we understand why
the poet speaks of "the lustre" and of "long convol-
vuluses," and we get a picture of the long vines, some
climbing around the trees and others running all over

the island even to the sea.

What does "the broad belt of the world " mean?
Is it the horizon, or is it that broad belt which encircles
the world and is called the tropical zone ? Then, what
picture do you get of the **glows and glories" of this
belt? ^^ ' ^

With a little thought you can get the meaning of the
next five lines, but in the line "Thejaoving 3£his£er,"
etc., must you not stop long enough to see the moving

136 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

leaves and hear their whispering as it passes from tree
to tree, and to ask yourself what is meant by trees
"that branch'd and blossom'd in the zenith" ? We learn
that the zenith is a term used in astronomy to denote the
point in the heavens directly overhead : but how can we
speak of trees that branch and blossom in the
zenith? The explanation is that in the tropical coun-
tries many trees, like the coco, rise straight and tall
and do not begin to send out branches until they are
high in the air.

Why does the author speak of Enoch Arden as
"ranging" instead of "walking"? Here, again, the
picture becomes doubly interesting when we learn that
to range means to walk to and fro as if in search of
something.

We have now prepared ourselves to study the pic-
ture as a whole. We know the meaning of the words
and phrases, and have determined the groups. We
have the parts of the author's picture and these we
must now put together, but unless we are careful we
may lose sight of the picture in one group as we pass
on to the next. In the line, "The mountain wooded to
the peak," we get a picture, but there is no statement
made concerning it; and if you will take the rest of
the pictures down to "the glows And glories of the
broad belt of the world," you will find that there is no
predicate. Then come the words, ^*A11 these he saw,"
and we understand that "these" refers to "the moun-
tain," "the lawns," "the glades," "the plumes," etc.,
and that we cannot get the sense until we come to "All
these he saw." It is as if we were to write "His splen-

AN EXERCISE IN ANALYSIS I37

did work in history, his excellent work in Latin, his
good work in mathematics, and his unusual excellence
in manual training, — all these he received no credit
for."

Turning more particularly to Group Sequence, we
see how the sense is suspended from line to line until
the assertion ends the incomplete groups with "All
these he saw." Now follows a simple statement, "but
what he fain had seen he could not see," in which the
thought is as completely finished as if the sentence
were followed by a period. Then comes the phrase
equivalent to the "what," complete in itself: "the
kindly human face." After this is another entire
statement : "Nor ever hear a kindly voice." But after
that there is suspense in the groups ending with "ocean-
fowl," "reef," "zenith," "wave," "ranged," "gorge,"
and "sailor." Are you following the text, page 133f
As for Inversion, here we have an excellent illus-
tration; and while, after noting the Sequence in
the various groups, we do not need to spend much
time on Inversion, yet it does help us somewhat
in getting the meaning when we recognize that the
opening groups are out of the order in which we
should expect them; it is as if the object of a verb
should begin a sentence.

Your careful preparation enables you to enjoy the
scene in a way that would have been impossible with-
out the details, and there is no reason why such a
study should deprive you of one jot of pleasure in
the picture. There is beauty piled on beauty: the
mountain, the lawns, the glades, the coco's crown of

138 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

plumes, the flash of insect and of bird, and the glori-
ous coloring of the tropics — ^all these that would have
thrilled a lover of nature to Enoch are as nothing.

Now note the change: "All these he saw," but
never "the kindly human face.'* He never heard "a
kindly voice," but instead, the ocean-fowl, the roller,
the whisper of huge trees, and the sweep of the rivulet.

As down the shore he ranged^ or all day long
Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge.

From this apalysis we get two large pictures : what
Enoch saw — ^but not the kindly face ; what he heard —
but not the kindly voice. All the glories of form and
color meant nothing to him; all the sounds of the
tropical world could tell him nothing. His senses
longed for human faces and human voices. The
pathos of his loneliness is made the more terrible by
the beauty of the nature that environs him. What
his heart yearns for is a human face, a human voice ;
but in vain he longs :

A shipwreck'd sailor^ waiting for a sail.

Has our study not brought us a rich reward? The
paragraph which at first seemed so obscure and per-
haps to most of us so dry, has become clear and in-
teresting, full of life and beauty. We have learned,
too, that interest does not necessarily lie in action and
excitement, but, as in this case, often in the beauty of
the picture described, or in sympathy aroused in us
for the people in the story. Now reread the entire
selection, first silently, then aloud.

CHAPTER VIII

GROUP MOTIVE

In the chapter on Group Sequence we learned that
fio long as the thought was incomplete the voice would
rise at the end of the group — a, rising inflection, or
glide upward; and further, that when the thought
was compl ete, when we asserted stronglj^, when we
demanded or commanded, the voice at once responded
with a downward inflection at the end of the group,
whether the group was long or consisted of only a
single word. In this chapter we are to discuss the
subject at length.

When you ask such a question as "Are you going
home?" you hear the rising tune most clearly marked
on "h ome " ; and if you were asked where you were
going and you answered, «I am going home," your
melody would be decidedly downward, and the inflec-
tion would again be particularly noticeable on
**home." To make this more clear hum the two sen-
tences. The tune is more easily recognized in hum-
ming because it is not combined with the words. Very
often in simple sentences one can understand another
by his tune, although he is uttering no words at all.
If someone makes a remark to you which you do not
catch, you may say, "What did you say?" or "What?"

139

140 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

or just "Hm?" In every one of these cases the tune
is the same (although in the first answer you used more
words than in the others) and it asks for informa-
tion. Or, let us take a tune that expresses a demand
or an assertion, such as "I won't go home,'' or "I
won't," or "No," or, what is quite common among us,
just the strong murmur "M — ^m." In ^ these ca ses
it is the tune that conveys the motive behind the
words. And what a big difference in the tunes ! You
probably never noticed before that there were tunes in
speech and that so much depended on them in speak-
ing and reading. Now what caused you to make this
difference in tune? You did not try to make it: you
were not even conscious that you were doing it: you
did not have to learn how to do it. The motive, the
purpose, in the two cases was different, and the melody
changed with the motive.

Now, what applies to these little sentences applies
ito every phrase or sentence you utter: a s the moti ve
[changes your melod y changes wi th it. We saw this in
ithe examples under Group Sequence, but we noticed it
. chiefly at the end of the groups ; now you see that the
principle applies to every word and syllable of the
I group. Speech tune or melody is just rising or faU-
\ing of the voice jgrrietiines by jumps- sometvm fsf fe ?/
\ slides; and is determined soleljf hy the^moiiofi. If we
j change the motive, the melody changes ; if the melody
^changes, the audience gets a different conception with
•every change.

GROUP MOTIVE 141

Notice the melody in "Are you going out?" How
the voice seems to climb a ladder of notes like

t
u
o
going

you
Are

Suppose now you asked the same question of one who
refuses to answer. Then you ask a second time, and
again no answer ; until finally you say

r
e

o
1
n

Grammatically, this is a question ; but since under the
circumstances it really becomes a demand, your melody
runs down the ladder. You are no longer interested
in the purpose of the person to whom you are speak-
iiig^ you do not care, perhaps, whether he is going

142 INTEEPEETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

out or not; but you are insisting on his saying some^
thing; your "Are you going out?*' becomes equivalent
to "Give an answer to my question. I don't care
whether it be yes or no, but an answer I insist upon.'*
Hum the sentence first as a simple question, then as a
demand, and you will see more clearly than before how
much the tune tells of the speaker's motive.

If a teacher asks William to rise, and John rises
instead, and the teacher says, pointing first to William
and then to John, "I mean you, not you," — ^what a
strange twisting of the melody we hear on the two
"yous.'* Hum this sentence, too. If you were asked
to describe these melodies you would be unable to do it,
and yet how naturally and easily and unconsciously
you used them when you wanted another to get the
meaning. That peculiar twist in the tune (called a
circumflex inflection — although you don't have to
bother about that) was really a sign of a double mean-
ing, as the text shows. An example from Julius Caesar
is similar to this. Marc Antony is speaking to the
mob, who believe he is going to say something in
favor of the dead Caesar, whose memory, for the mo-
ment at any rate, they do not hold dear. In order to
get their attention Antony says, "I come to bury
Caesar, not to praise him." As you read that aloud
do you notice how naturally the melody glides up and
down on "bury" and "praise"? Again we have the
double meaning. The mob thought he was going to
praise Caesar, and Antony says. No, not "praise," but
"bury." When, in The Merchant of Venice (Act I,
sc. iii), Shylock says to Antonio: "Hath a dog

GROUP MOTIVE 143

money ?" he is not seeking information. Antonio, who
hates the Jew, has frequently called him a dog, but
now he comes to Shylock and asks for a loan of
money, and Shylock answers :

Hath a dog money? Is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?

The sarcasm, the double idea as it were, in both sen-
tences is brought out by the peculiar tune used on
"dog'' and "cur."

The lesson we learn from these few illustrations
is that we must be exceedingly careful to get the
motive, the purpose, the intention, behind every
phrase, and, having it, must hold it firmly in mind as^
we read, so that the listener cannot possibly miss it.

Here are some examples of greater difficulty to
show what difference tune makes in our vocal expres-
sion. But never forget : our principal reason for dis-
cussing this problem is to make you more careful, first
in your silent reading, and then particularly in the
reading aloud of poetry, drama, and novels.

In Lancelot and Elaine^ after telling us that Elaine,
the lily maid, has the shield of Lancelot, Tennyson
goes on :

How came the lily maid by that good shield
Of Lancelot, she that knew not ev'n his name?
He left it with her, etc. '

Is it the poet's purpose to ask the reader a question
which he could not answer, and which the poet himself
could answer? Certainly not. What is the meaning
then? Supply "Do you ask me" before "How came,"

144 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

and you will get it. And it's all a matter of the
motive behind the question.

Here is a similar problem. Jean Valjean has left
the city and the author asks :

How long did he weep thus? What did he do after
weeping? Where did he go? Nobody ever knew.

Of course the author isn't asking these questions ; it is
just as in the previous illustration.

In The Merchant of Venice^ after Bassanio is sup-
posed to have explained to Shylock that Antonio
wishes to borrow three thousand ducats, for three
months, Bassanio and Shylock enter as the latter says :

Three thousand ducats; well

I have purposely omitted a punctuation mark after
"well." You put it in — now — and we will discuss
your choice a little later on. Bassanio answers :

Ay, sir, for three months.
Shylock continues:

For three months; well
and again Bassanio retorts :

For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.

You have probably decided to put in a question mark
after the "wells." Why.? Because you decided Shy-
lock's motive or intention was to indicate that he
understood so far and wanted Bassanio to continue —
as much as to say, "I understand; go on. What
next?" And the same principle applies to the second

GROUP MOTIVE 145

**welL" Now if I should say this is the way to punc-
tuate the lines:

Three thousand ducats ; well.
For three months; well.

how would you interpret them ? I shall leave it to you
to work out, but no matter what your conclusion is,
will it not be clear that it is all a matter of motive ?

Brutus accuses Cassius of having "an itching
palm," and Cassius angrily replies:

I an itching palm.^
You know that you are Brutus that speak this,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.

Without much doubt Cassius' first four words and
their motive can be paraphrased, "Do you dare to say
to me, Cassius, that I am so low, so debased, that I
would stoop to take what was not mine ?^^ and there is
a challenge in that upward sweep of the melody. But
I have heard the words read with a strong downward
sweep. Paraphrased, in this case the melody con-
veyed the idea that Cassius meant "He has used these
terrible words of accusation to me!" We are not to
decide whether this is the true meaning of Cassius,
but to see how the motive controls the melody, and
how (and this I say again and again) careful we must
be to get the motive.

The reason why so much of our reading is dull and
monotonous is largely because we do not get the
motive; for, the moment we do get this the reading

146 INTEBPEETATION OF THE PBINTED PAGE

becomes full of varietyy vital, and interesting. See
how this works out in a longer passage, from the
opening lines of Julms Caesar.

Caesar has just returned triumphant from the wars.
The citizens are in a holiday mood, laughing and
talking, when one of the rulers in the city, who hates
Caesar, stops them, saying :

Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home;
Is this a holiday?

It is an interesting experiment to read this passage
without any motive except to say the words. That is,
to read it in almost a monotone. How flat and dull it
is ! In fact, if you have any spirit in you at all, it is
only with great difficulty you can keep the monotone.
Now read it so as to make the citizens see just what
the speaker has in mind. Note how animated the
expression becomes ! How alive the words are ! How
the voice jumps and glides up and down the scale!
Read now the speeches of some of the citizens. The
more you see that they are just poking fun at
Flavins and MaruUus, the more will animation show
Wtself through your tu/ne^ or melody, which you zoUl
\not have to make up or study out in advance, but
I which will come spontaneously, just as it comes when
you are talking on the street, or on the playground,
or in the house.

[A scene in Rome, A street.]
[Enter Flavius, Marullus, and certain Commoners.]
Flav. Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home:

Is this a holiday? what! know you not,

Being mechanical, you ought not walk

GBOUP MOTIVE 147

Upon a labouring day without the sign

Of your profession ? Speak^ what trade art thou ?

First Com. Why, sir, a carpenter.

Mar. Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
You, sir, what, trade are you?

Sec. Com, Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman,
I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.

Mar. But what trade art thou? answer me directly.

Sec. Com. A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with
a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of
bad soles.

Mar. What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave,
what trade?

Sec. Com. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with
me: yet, if you be out, sir, I can mend you.

Mar. What meanest thou by that? mend me, thou
flaucy fellow!

Sec. Com. Why, sir, cobble you.

Flav. Thou art a cobbler, art thou ?

Sec. Com. Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the
awl: I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's
matters, but with awl. I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to
old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover
them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather
have gone upon my handiwork.

Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop today?
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

Sec. Com. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get
myself into more work. But, indeed, sir, we make
holiday, to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph.

An example of unusual interest is found in the third
act of OthellOj where the villain lago is trying to
make Othello jealous of his wife Desdemona. Othello
married Desdemona secretly, no one except Michael

148 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

Cassio knowing anything about it until it was pub-
licly announced. With this in mind, you will be able
to follow the dialogue. Particularly your attention
is called to the "indeeds" and "honests.'* The excla-
mation points sometimes indicate strong assertion and
at others strong emotion without necessarily implying
that the remark is not a question :

lago. My noble lord, —

Oih, What dost thou say, lago?

lago. Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady.
Know of your love?

0th, He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask?

lago. But for a satisfaction of my thought;
No further harm.

0th, Why of thy thought, lago?

lago. I did not think he had been acquainted with her.

0th. O, yes ; and went between us very oft.

lago. Indeed !

0th. Indeed! ay, indeed: discern'st thou aught in
that ?
Is he not honest?

lago. Honest, my lord?

0th. Honest! ay, honest.

lago. My lord, for aught I know.

0th. What dost thou think?

lago. Think, my lord ?

0th. Think, my lord !

By heaven, he echoes me.

As if there were some monster in his thought •
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:
I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that.
When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like?
And when I told thee he was of my counsel
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst "Indeed!"
And didst contract and purse thy brow together.

GEOUP MOTIVE

149

As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain
Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me,
Shew me thy thought.

There are at least two ways to interpret the motive
in the following question. Read it aloud :

Beneath what?

In a preceding paragraph I said t hat melo dies
dealt with jnnp^ °^^ gli'Hpfi fff the voice. This is just
as it is in singing. Take any melody you know and
hum it quietly : "Home, Sweet Home," for instance.
What makes that melody? — nothing but a series of
jumps and glides. Keep this principle in mind as you
hum the lines with their speech tunes. The difference
between the speech melody and the song melody is
very great and very marked. In what does it con-
sist? Largely in the different jumps and glides.
Song melodies are invented, spe ech m elo dies are in-
stincti ¥C* natur al. No two persons wouldbe likely to
invent the same tune for given words ; but there will
be very little difference in the speech tunes of a given
meaning in a thousand persons.

Here is an illustration of the way the voice jumps.
Say, "I will," not too emphatically, and the voice
will jump upward between "I" and "will." Say the
words now with greater determination, and the jump
between "I" and "will" becomes longer. Now say
them with the greatest possible determination, and note
how the voice jumps a whole octave! The jump is
between "I" and "will," and the glide is on "will" ; and
the jump and the glide are all there is to melody.

150 INTEEPEETATION OF THE PBINTBD PAttJU

b(^ So you see that (1) interpretation of motive is
/ll necessary; (2) if you have the motive in mind when
you speaky the tune to express that motive comes
I without any conscious effort on your part; (S) the
f I audience without conscious effort get your motive

^<J" I through the melody ; and (4?) if you get no. motive or
I the wrong motive, the audience get no sense or the
wrong sense.

That writers lay considerable stress on motive is
made clear from the following passages from well-
known authors. If they didn't know that characters
often revealed themselves through the tunes as much
as, and often more than, by the mere words, why
should they go to such pains to describe the melodies ?
For, directly or indirectly, that is what they often do.
And certainly we must interpret these melodies both
for ourselves and, when we read aloud, for others.

"Oh^ I know^" said Priscilla^ smiling sarcastically^
"I know the way o' wives; they set one on to abuse
their husband^ and then they turn round on one and
praise 'em as if they wanted to sell *em/' — Eliot: S'das
Marner.

"Well — stay — let me see," said Mr. Snell, like a
docile clairvoyante, who would really not make a mis-
take if she could help it. — Ibid,

Mr. Macey has been advising Silas to get a suit of
Sunday clothes, and continues :

And as for the money for the suit o' clothes, why,
you get a matter of a pound a week at your weaving.
Master Marner, and you're a young man, eh, for all

GBOUP MOTIVE 15X

yon look so mushed. Why^ you couldn't ha' been five-
and-twepty when you come into these parts^ eh?

Then the author adds :

Silas started a little at the change to a questioning
tone. — Ibid,

In some of the following illustrations the authors
speak of the emotion as well as the Motive; but you
should take care to discriminate between them. The
emotion affects the quality of your voice while Motive
affects the tune. Although the passage be emotional
its motive might be differently interpreted were it not
for the authors* comment.

The next three excerpts are from Ruskin's King of
the Golden River:

"How did he get in ?" roared Schwartz.
"My dear brother/* said Gluck, deprecatingly^ "he
was so very wet !"

"Who are you, sir?" demanded Schwartz, turning
upon him.

"Wouldn't it, sir?" said Gluck, very mildly and sub-
missively indeed.

"No," said the dwarf, conclusively. "No, it
wouldn't."

She disappears under the shed where the fat cattle
have already hastened, and soon her voice is heard, as
she caressingly talks with the cow buffalo.

"Won't you stand still! — There, there, now! there,
old lady!" — Tolstoi: The Cossacks.

(If it were not for "caressingly ,'* how different
would your melody be on "Won't you stand still!")

152 INTERPRETATION OF THE PRINTED PAGE

"You are most kind, sir/* he said with mock polite-
ness. "But madame, my wife, has not done wellto inter-
est a stranger in this affair." — Davis: There Were
Ninety and Nine,

"It does the hoots and shoes" the Gryphon replied
very solemnly.

Alice was thoroughly puzzled. "Does the boots and
shoes V* she repeated in a wondering tone. — Carroll :
Alice in Wonderland,

The following are from George Eliot's The Mill on
the Floss:

"It wasn't/' said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. "You
give me the halfpenny: I've won it fair."

"Well," said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory patronizing
tone, as he patted Maggie on the head, "I advise you to
put by the 'History of the Devil,' and read some prettier
book. Have you no prettier books ?"

"Oh, I say nothing," said Mrs. Glegg, sarcastically.
"My advice has never been asked, and I don't give it."

"Well, I don't know what fault you've got to find wi'
me, Mr. Tulliver," said Mr. Moss, deprecatingly : "I
know there isn't a day-laborer works harder."

"My little lady, where are you going to?" the gypsy
said, in a tone of coaxing deference.

"I don't want to wear a bonnet," Maggie said; "I'd
rather wear a red handkerchief like yours" (looking at
her friend by her side). "My hair was quite long till
yesterday, when I cut it off ; but I dare say it will grow
again very soon," she added apologetically, thinking the
gypsies had a strong prejudice in favor of long hair.

<(-

GROUP MOTIVE 153

Mr. Glegg paused from his porridge and looked up —
not with any new amazement^ but simply with that quiet,
habitual wonder with which we regard constant mys-
teries.

'Why, Mrs. G., what have I done now ?"
'Done now, Mr. Glegg? done now? .... I'm
sorry for you."

"Don't lower yourself with using coarse language to
me, Mr. Glegg! It makes you look very small, though
you can't see yourself," said Mrs. Glegg, in a tone of
energetic compassion. "A man in your place should set
an example, and talk more sensible."

"Yes; but will you listen to sense .^" retorted Mr.
Glegg, sharply.

"Go, go !" said Mr. TuUiver, reprovingly, "you mustn't
say so. You must learn what your master tells you. He
knows what it's right for you to learn."

"And you don't mind that?" said Tom, with strong
curiosity.

"No, no, Maggie," said Tom, in his most coaxing tone,
"it's something you'll like ever so."

CHAPTER IX

CENTRAL IDEA

We have learned that sp eech time depends on IVIp-
tiv e ; but if we listen a little more closely to the melody
we shall find there is a certain word or words in every
group standing out prominently above all others.
Observe this in one of the groups we have had:

Hath a dog money?

And this is true ill all groups : there is a center around
which the thought revolves. When Shylock retorts,
"Hath a dog money?" it is the "dog*' which is, as it
were, in the center of his thoughts, but if he were dis-
cussing the features of a dog he might say, "and a
dog hath eyes, ears, and mouth, but hath a dog
money?** In that case the centers would be "eyes,"
**ears," "mouth," and particularly "money."

Motive and Central Idea have much in common.
One can almost say that if we get the right Motive
the Central Idea will take care of itself. But this is
not by any means always true. Motive deals with
p.nn tmni ty, ggg^iH-if^p^ qi iestion* doubt, etc., but one
can assert or^qu pstin ^ concemin|y the wronff Central
dea. For instance : the elder brother of the prodigal
son is annoyed that his father should kill the fatted

154

CENTEAL IDEA 155

calf in honor of the return of the prodigal, who has
come home only after squandering all his money ; and
the elder son, who has stayed at home and saved his
money, says angrily to the father:

Lo, these many years do I serve thee and I never
transgressed a commandment of thine; and yet thou
never gavest me a kid^ that I might make merry with
my friends: but when this thy son came^ which hath
devoured thy living with harlots^ thou killedst for him
the fatted calf.

Now as to the Motive there can be no doubt : note the
assertiveness in almost every sentence of the elder son's
remarks to the old father. But what of the Cen-
tral Idea within that motive? (There are many
words here that stand out prominently, but for our
present purpose we confine ourselves to two.) How
have you read the lines ? Let the class debate on these
two interpretations :

(1) and yet thou never gavest me a kid^ that I might
make merry with my friends;

(2) and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might
make merry with my friends.

The Motive is the same in both cases, but what a great
difi^erence in the Central Ideas !

Count slowly, mechanically, and assertively from
one to ten :

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, e, 7, 8, 9, 10.

In saying these numbers you have no motive but asser-
tion in counting from one to ten. If you were look-
ing forward to the end after each numeral you would

156 INTERPEETATION OF THE PRINTED PAai

have used unconsciously an upward glide on every
one but the last. Now let us suppose that I misun-
derstood your counting and criticized you, saying,

"You said, 1, 2, 8, three, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,"

and you answered,

"I didn't. I said, 1, 2, 3, four, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10."

Here you had an entirely different Central Idea. You
were not thinking of counting up to ton, but of telling
me that you had not omitted the "four." In other
words, your Central Idea was the "four." This same
principle will be noted in the following: