Aletta E. Marty

“ Herminius struck at Seius, And clove him to the teeth: At Picus brave Horatius Darted one fiery thrust; And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms Clashed in the bloody dust.
Here the mind passes in succession from the action of Lartius to that of Herminius and that of Horatius. A long pause is required after "beneath," "teeth," and "dust," with a shorter pause after "Seius" and after "thrust." Further, if the thoughts concern actions far apart, more time is required to make the transition, and hence a longer pause:
All day long that free flag toss'd Over the heads of the rebel host. ”

“ I would I were with Edmund there,35 To reign his Queen of May!
"With burnish'd brand and musketoon, So gallantly you come, I read you for a bold Dragoon, That lists the tuck of drum."—40 "I list no more the tuck of drum, No more the trumpet hear; But when the beetle sounds his hum My comrades take the spear.
"And O! though Brignall banks be fair45 And Greta woods be gay, Yet mickle must the maiden dare Would reign my Queen of May!
"Maiden! a nameless life I lead, A nameless death I'll die!50 The fiend whose lantern lights the mead Were better mate than I! ”

“ All who stood at the bar, save him alone, are gone—culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation which is now in the vigour of life, he is the sole representative of a great age which has passed away. But those who, within the last ten years, have listened with delight till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles, Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of the powers of a race of men among whom he was not the foremost. ”

“ May I ask you, then, to believe, as I do most devoutly believe, that the moral law was not written for men alone in their individual character, but that it was written as well for nations, and for nations great as this of which we are citizens. If nations reject and deride that moral law, there is a penalty which will inevitably follow. It may not come at once, it may not come in our lifetime; but, rely upon it, the great Italian is not a poet only, but a prophet, when he says:
The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite, Nor yet doth linger. ”

“ Courage! vite, vite!" cries their driver, and nobly do the pintos respond. Regardless of bushes and brush heaps, they tear their way through; but as they emerge, the hind bob-sleigh catches a root, and, with a crash, the sleigh is hurled high into the air. Baptiste's cries ring out high and shrill as ever, encouraging his team, and never cease till, with a plunge and a scramble, they clear the brush heap lying at the mouth of the ravine, and are out on the ice on the river, with Baptiste standing on the front bob, the box trailing behind, and Sandy nowhere to be seen. ”

“ I float till all is dark.40 A gentle sound, an awful light! Three angels bear the Holy Grail; With folded feet, in stoles of white, On sleeping wings they sail. Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!45 My spirit beats her mortal bars, As down dark tides the glory slides, And star-like mingles with the stars.
When on my goodly charger borne Thro' dreaming towns I go,50 The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and mail; But o'er the dark a glory spreads,55 And gilds the driving hail. ”

“ Lydia.—Ah, madam! our memories are independent of our wills. It is not so easy to forget.
Mrs. Malaprop.—But I say it is, miss! there is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor dear uncle as if he had never existed—and I thought it my duty so to do; and let me tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young woman.
Sir Anthony.—Why, sure she won't pretend to remember what she's ordered not! Ay, this comes of her reading! ”

“ With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and, in the ardour of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived—how could she until she had lived longer?—the inmost truth of the old monk's outpourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. ”

“ Blow thro' the living world—Let the King reign.
Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm? Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm,5 Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.
Strike for the King and live! his knights have heard That God hath told the King a secret word. Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.
Blow trumpet! he will lift us from the dust!10 Blow trumpet! live the strength, and die the lust! Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.
Strike for the King and die! and if thou diest, The King is King, and ever wills the highest. ”

“ He gives nothing but worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty;70 But he who gives a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all and doth all unite,— The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms,75 The heart outstretches its eager palms, For a god goes with it and makes it store To the soul that was starving in darkness before. ”

“ A mighty augury is laid. It rests with me to wind my horn, Thou art with numbers overborne; It rests with me, here, brand to brand, Worn as thou art, to bid thee stand:65 But not for clan, nor kindred's cause, Will I depart from honour's laws; To assail a wearied man were shame, And stranger is a holy name; Guidance and rest, and food and fire,70 In vain he never must require. Then rest thee here till dawn of day; Myself will guide thee on the way, O'er stock and stone, through watch and ward. ”

“ My Lords, we have a great hereditary peerage here; those who have their own honour, the honour of their ancestors, and of their posterity, to guard, and who will justify, as they always have justified, that precision in the Constitution by which justice is made an hereditary office. My Lords, we have here a new nobility, who have risen and exalted themselves by various merits, by great civil and military services, which have extended the fame of this country from the rising to the setting sun. ”

“ They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands,10 Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly rain from ladies' hands.
How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favours fall! For them I battle till the end,15 To save from shame and thrall: But all my heart is drawn above, My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden's hand in mine.20 More bounteous aspects on me beam, Me mightier transports move and thrill; So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer A virgin heart in work and will. ”

“ The bays, perfectly handled, have gained at the bridge, and in the descent to the ice, and are leading the citizens' team by half a dozen sleigh lengths. Behind both comes Baptiste. It is now or never for the pintos. The rattle of the trailing box, together with the wild yelling of the crowd rushing down the bank, excites the bronchos to madness, and, taking the bits in their teeth, they do their first free running that day. Past the citizens' team like a whirlwind they dash, clear the intervening space, and gain the flanks of the bays. Can the bays hold them? ”

“ If we take an idea for its own sake, if it is independent and complete in itself, the voice has the downward slide or falling inflection on the words which stand for the central idea:
My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. ”

“ Thrice looked he at the dead; And thrice came on in fury, And thrice turned back in dread: And, white with fear and hatred, Scowled at the narrow way Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, The bravest Tuscans lay.
In reading the little poem from The Princess, (page 107) note how we are influenced by the tense emotion of the attendants who speak. We do not try to imitate them; but having made the scene stand out before us, we speak as we in imagination hear them, in an aspirated tone of voice:
She must weep or she will die. ”

“ And a loathing over Sir Launfal came;55 The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, The flesh 'neath his armour 'gan shrink and crawl, And midway its leap his heart stood still Like a frozen waterfall; For this man, so foul and bent of stature,60 Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,— So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn.
The leper raised not the gold from the dust: "Better to me the poor man's crust,65 Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold ”

“ Sir, in all these multiform manifestations of our national and imperial life, history will assign a part of singular dignity and authority to the great Ruler whom we have lost. In external affairs his powerful personal influence was steadily and zealously directed to the avoidance not only of war, but of the causes and pretexts of war, and he well earned the title by which he will always be remembered, "the Peacemaker of the World." ”

“ The German heart is stout and true, the German arm is strong; The German foot goes seldom back where armed foemen throng. But never had they faced in field so stern a charge before,95 And never had they felt the sweep of Scotland's broad claymore. Not fiercer pours the avalanche adown the steep incline, That rises o'er the parent springs of rough and rapid Rhine,— Scarce swifter shoots the bolt from heaven than came the Scottish band Right up against the guarded trench, and o'er it sword in hand.100 In vain their leaders forward press,—they meet the deadly brand! ”

“ Her two little ones were to be as Cupids by her side; while I, in my gown and band, was to present her with my books on the Whistonian controversy. Olivia would be drawn as an Amazon, sitting upon a bank of flowers, dressed in a green joseph richly laced with gold, and a whip in her hand. Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with as many sheep as the painter could put in for nothing; and Moses was to be dressed out with an hat and white feather. Our taste so much pleased the Squire that he insisted on being put in as one of the family, in the character of Alexander the Great, at Olivia's feet. ”

“ The Consul's brow was sad, And the Consul's speech was low, And darkly looked he at the wall And darkly at the foe. "Their van will be upon us5 Before the bridge goes down; And if they once may win the bridge, What hope to save the town?"
Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate:10 "To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers,15 And the temples of his gods? ”

“ O ne'er may the flag beloved Unfurl in a strife unblest, But ever give strength to the righteous arm, And hope to the hearts oppressed!20 It says to the passing ages: "Be brave if your cause be right, Like the soldier saint whose cross of red Still burns on your banner white!"
[Pg 37] Great race, whose empire of splendour25 Has dazzled the wondering world! May the flag that floats o'er thy wide domains Be long to all winds unfurled! Three crosses in concord blended, The banner of Britain's might!30 But the central gem of the ensign fair Is the cross of the dauntless Knight! ”

“ In our relations with foreign countries they have been years of growing friendships, of new understandings, of stronger and surer safeguards for the peace of mankind. Within the Empire during the same time the sense of interdependence, the consciousness of common interests and common risks, the ever-tightening bonds of corporate unity have been developed and vivified as they had never been before. Here at home, as though it were by way of contrast, controversial issues of the gravest kind—economic, social, and constitutional—have ripened into a rapid maturity. ”

“ The accursed wires caught them around the legs until they floundered like trapped wolves, and all the time the rifles of the foe sang the song of death in their ears. They fell back broken and beaten, leaving nearly 1,300 dead and wounded, just where the broad breast of the grassy veldt melts into the embrace of the rugged African hills; and an hour later, the dawning came of the dreariest day that Scotland has known for a generation past. ”

“ And when the winds are low, and when the tides are still, And the round moon rises inland over the naked hill, And o'er her parching seams the dry cloud-shadows pass, And dry along the land-rim lie the shadows of thin grass, Then aches her soul with longing to launch and sink away Where the fine silts lift and settle, and sea-things drift and stray, To make the port of Last Desire, and slumber with her peers In the tide-wash rocking softly through the unnumbered years. ”

“ Time is the rate at which we read. It is fast or slow according to the number and the length of the pauses between words and phrases, and also according to the length of time the reader dwells on the words themselves. There is perhaps no more frequent criticism made on reading than that it is too fast. What does this mean? It means that the reader is not doing enough thinking as he repeats the words. Consequently, he does not dwell on words that are full of meaning, nor pause before and after words and phrases to make the mental picture and to grasp the thought more fully. ”

“ Whatever may be the views which men entertain upon the policy of Home Rule, whether they favour that policy or whether they oppose it, whether they believe in it or whether they do not believe in it, every man, whether friend or foe of that measure, must say that it was not only a bold, but it was a noble thought, that of attempting to cure discontent in Ireland by trusting to Irish honour and Irish generosity. ”

“ We know what the past has cost us, we know how much and how far we have wandered, but we are not left without a guide. It is true, we have not, as an ancient people had, Urim and Thummin—those oraculous gems in Aaron's breast—from which to take counsel, but we have the unchangeable and eternal principles of the moral law to guide us, and only so far as we walk by that guidance can we be permanently a great nation, or our people a happy people. ”