Examples.

"Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven? Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance ?"

"As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

Oh, well for the fisherman's boy

That he shouts with his sister at play!

Oh, well for the sailor lad

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

-Tennyson.

669

'Tis midnight's holy hour: and silence now

Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er

The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling: 'tis the knell
Of the departed year."

66

"Silence how dead, and darkness how profound!

The glooms of night brood o'er a slumb'ring world."

Night gathers slowly around me-the long night of darkness and death. Within mine eye the light of life is fading, as the day is slowly melting from the darkening sky."

"Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory."

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

INFLECTION.

Inflection in voice indicates each passing thought.
Inflections are Rising, Falling, and Monotone.

Rising Inflection.

The Rising Inflection is the rare exception, and excites doubt and incredulity. It also defers to the hearer.

Examples.

None could run so fast as he could;
None could dive so deep as he could;
None could swim so fast as he could;
None had made so many journeys,
None had seen so many wonders,
As the wonderful Iago,

As this marvellous story-teller.

-Hiawatha.

"It is vastly easy for you, Mistress Dial, who have always, as everybody knows, set yourself up above me,—it is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness."

Hamlet. Look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

Ophelia. Nay, 't is twice two months, my lord.

Hamlet. So long?

have a suit of sables. forgotten yet?

Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll
Oh, heavens! die two months ago, and not

-Hamlet.

Look

upon my boy? What mean you? Look upon my boy as though I guessed it,— Guessed the trial you'd have me make?

"You come to teach the people?"

-Knowles.

"Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail? Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?"

"Hear him, my lord; he's wondrous condescending!
Mark the humility of shepherd Norval!"

"Indeed! he is your friend, is he?

What! has he assured you that he is my friend?"

"We!-what page in the last court grammar made you a plural?”

"All this? Ay, more. Fret till your proud heart break:

Go show your slaves how choleric you are,

And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge?

Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch

Under your testy humor?"

Falling Inflection.

The Falling Inflection is the rule, and carries conviction

and pathos.

Examples.

"One more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,

Gone to her death. "

O that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on 't! oh, fie! 'T is an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead; nay, not so much, not two;
So excellent a king; that was to this,
Hyperion to a satyr! so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face two roughly. Heaven and earth!
Let me not think on 't. Frailty, thy name is woman!
-Hamlet.

“When in the silent night all earth lies hushed
In slumber; when the glorious stars shine out,
Each star a sun, each sun a central light
Of some fair system, ever wheeling on
In one unbroken round, and that again
Revolving round another sun; while all
Suns, stars, and systems proudly roll along
In one majestic ever-onward course,
In space uncircumscribed and limitless,-
Oh! think you then the undebasèd soul
Can calmly give itself to sleep,-to rest?”

"Hush! lightly tread! still tranquilly she sleeps ; I've watched, suspending e'en my breath, in fear To break the heavenly spell. Move silently."

"Go stand upon the heights at Niagara, and listen in awe-struck silence to that boldest, most earnest and eloquent, of all Nature's orators! And what is Niagara, with its plunging waters and its mighty roar, but the oracle of God, the whisper of His voice who is revealed in the Bible as sitting above the water-floods forever?"

"The drums are all muffled; the bugles are still;
There's a pause in the valley, a halt on the hill ;
And the bearers of standards swerve back with a thrill
Where the sheaves of the dead bar the way:
For a great field is reaped, heaven's garners to fill,
And stern Death holds his harvest to-day."

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;

The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea;
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

"Forever and forever, all in a blessed home,

you

And there to wait a little while, till and Effie come,-
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast;
And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.”
-Tennyson: "May Queen."

Monotone.

Monotone occurs in those parts of a subject where several words follow each other without requiring any variation. of tone. It should be read or spoken with unvarying sameness. Very low pitch and slow time.

Examples.

As autumn's dark storms pour from two echoing hills. so toward each other approached the heroes. Steel clanging sounded on steel. Helmets are cleft on high; blood bursts and smokes around. As the troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven,—such is the noise of battle.

-Ossian.