tuneful; there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at last.

Direction. Bring in sentences containing the several requisites of elegance, and others whose sound is an "echo to the sense.”

LESSON 73.

ELEGANCE.

Direction.-Do with these sentences as directed with those in Lesson 72:

1. The waters wild went o'er his child, and he was left lamenting. 2. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

3. Ye that pipe and ye that play, ye that through your hearts to-day feel the gladness of the May.

4. And thou, all-shaking Thunder, strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world.

5. In one rude clash he struck the lyre, and swept with hurried hand the strings.

6. But far below I beheld tremulously vibrating on the bosom of some half-hidden lake, a golden pillar of solar splendor which had escaped through rifts and rents in the clouds that to me were as invisible as the sun himself.

7. She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding down through the turning sphere, his ready harbinger, with turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing: and, waving wide her myrtle wand, she strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

8. They my lowing followed through tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns which entered their frail shins.

9. The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind.

10. But tell why the sepulcher, wherein we saw thee quietly inurned, hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again.

II. Not in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God who is our home.

12. When the loud surges lash the sounding shore, the hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.

13. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast.

14. Others might possess the qualities which were necessary to save the popular party in the crisis of danger; Hampden alone had both the power and the inclination to restrain its excesses in the hour of triumph.

15. If, turning back, I could overpass the vale of years and could stand on the mountain-top, and could look back again far before me at the bright ascending morn, we would enjoy the prospect together; we would walk along the summit hand in hand, O Rhodope, and we would only sigh at last when we found ourselves below with others.

16. From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer night, from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight, from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love, suddenly as from the woods and fields, suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in revelation, suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her with the flashing of cataracts, Death, the crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors and the tiger roar of his voice.

17. When I remember what a noble and beautiful woman is, what a manly man; when I reel, dazzled by this glare, drunken by these perfumes, confused by this alluring music, and reflect upon the enormous sums wasted in a pompous profusion that delights no one; when I look around upon all this rampant vulgarity in tinsel and Brussels lace, and think how fortunes go, how men struggle, and lose the bloom of their honesty, how women hide in a smiling pretence, and eye with caustic glances their neighbor's newer house, diamonds, or porcelain, and observe their daughters, such as these; - why, I tremble and tremble, and this scene

to-night, every "crack" ball this winter will be, not the pleasant society of men and women, but, even in this young country, an orgie such as rotting Corinth saw, a frenzied festival of Rome in its decadence.

18. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and [he] hopes to get to heaven and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back by the loud sighings of an Eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant and stay till the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight and did rise and sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here below.

Direction. — Bring in sentences containing the several requisites of elegance, and others whose sound is an "echo to the sense.

Direction. Write an essay that shall illustrate what has been said concerning the ways of securing elegance.

We here end what we have to say on Qualities of Style. We have all along sought for quotations to illustrate and enforce the rules laid down. This course we shall continue. Even if these extracts did not elucidate and establish some point in style, they would cultivate our Taste. It is to literature that under wise direction we are to go for this cultivation. By Taste we mean a power, delicate as well as catholic, to detect the excellencies of an author, and a capacity to enjoy them. We mean a feeling for the best and an instinctive preference of it-the best in thought and the best in expression. We mean a faculty that makes reading a source of constant culture and delight. And we mean more. We talk of the Taste which an author shows in his writings. We have in mind his command of seasonable thought, fit for his purpose and adequate to it. We think of his wisdom shown in omitting what was unsuitable. We think of

his apt expression—the inevitable word, the happy image, the felicitous phrase. We think how each sentence is so ordered and arranged that every part yields up the most and the best that can be got out of it. We think what selfrestraint the author shows, how excess and surplusage are avoided, what moderation prevails and what discipline rules.

It is to Taste that betrays itself in doing as well as to that which makes us appreciative of what others have done that we may all in some measure aspire.

A SCHEME FOR REVIEW.

Elegance Defined.

I. Beauty in the Thought.

II. Euphony in the Words.

(Particulars in which Words can Echo the Sense.)

III. Beauty in the Imagery.

IV. Alliteration.

V. Smooth and Flowing Sentences.

VI. Rhythm.

Taste.

LESSON 74.

STYLE-EXTRACTS FOR THE CRITICAL STUDY OF IT.

Names of Styles. -The prevalence of any quality in one's style may name the style. If imagery abounds in it, we call the style florid; if it is barren of imagery, we say it is plain ; if matter-of-fact and without fancy or imagination, dry or prosy. If the metaphor or the antithesis is in excess, we call the style metaphorical or antithetic. Wit, in some of its forms, makes the style satirical or humorous; a cast of sen

tences fitting the discourse for delivery makes the style forcible or oratorical; if the expression runs along musically, part arising out of part spontaneously and without abruptness, the style is smooth or flowing; and, if, being smooth, the words are chosen for beauty of sound and meaning, the style is graceful, even elegant. Spartan brevity makes the style laconic; freedom from superfluity of words and needless circumstances makes it concise; superfluity of expression and circumstance, and thinness of thought make it diffuse or tedious or prolix; the free use of the idioms of the language makes it idiomatic; the presence of short, pithy, portable sentences makes it sententious or epigrammatic; wordiness makes it verbose; household words and a colloquial cast of sentences make it simple; pedantic terms and a stiff and formal arrangement of them make it stilted; and expression too big for the thought makes the style bombastic. If the common type of the sentences used is the period, the style is periodic; and if climax abounds, the style is climacteric. If the sentence is long and complex, -one clause modifying another, and itself modified by a third, and that by a fourth, and the thought is thus obscured, the style is involved. If the author deals with elevated ideas, with lofty passions, with heroic deeds, or with the imposing objects or the resistless powers of Nature, and the expression is in keeping with the subject-matter, the style is sublime.

Great writers give their names to their style - Miltonic, Shakespearian, Addisonian, Johnsonese.

We give below, for minute study, a few prose extracts from contemporary authors, and some from authors not now living. We ask careful attention to the spirit in which each passage was written, and to the style which characterizes it. In particular, we ask the pupils to note the selection and ordering of the words, the cast of the sentences, their perspicuity, their imagery, its kinds, the