of history or of fiction; or between yourself and one of your real companions. Be sure that you observe accuracy and good form in every detail of capitalization, punctuation, and paragraphing.

II Written: A full report of some interesting conversation to which you have at some time listened, or in which you have taken part.

III Written: Actual conversations written by the class, arranged in twos either by choice or by assignment of teacher, upon topics selected in each case by those conversing. The writing should be rapid but legible, and the product a genuine conversation. The best of these may be read aloud in class later if your teacher approves.

IV

Written or Oral: After a fictitious character, or an occupation, has been assigned to each member of the class, and due time allowed, a written or an oral conversation between pupils, two by two, each pupil keeping strictly in mind what character he represents.

V Mental and Oral: (1) Select and name in class the conversations you like best in any of your reading books. (2) Try to decide why you like these especially well.

VI Mental: 1 In dramas and other fiction, does the lifelike quality of dialogue depend upon suitability between the words spoken and the persons who speak?

2 You can, if you will, make of nearly every recitation in school a genuine conversation lesson." "conversation lesson." Which subjects afford

the best chance for this?

3 What place is there in enjoyable conversation for each of the following?-sarcasm; irony; twitting about unpleasant facts; contradicting; positive assertion of correctness in one's own views;

whispering in the presence of others; hinting at things not known to all, or to most, of those present; inattention to the one speaking to you; an air of impatience or of annoyance; heated arguments; very much "I" and very little "you."

4 Even if you "know you are right," courtesy demands that you present your ideas without arrogance or conceit. Do you agree that a person may be always correct and yet be a very disagreeable companion because he is constantly putting others in the wrong?

5 Since it is far more agreeable to ourselves to be corrected politely, is it wise and right that we study to use the most courteous manner possible whenever we differ in opinion from our friends ? 6 Can one converse really well who feels ill at ease?

7 Is self-consciousness, or thinking about one's own self, one's appearance, or manner, or what not, the thing that most often makes one ill at ease?

8 Is, then, the forgetting one's self a thing most desirable and important in all enjoyable conversation?

9 Does the Golden Rule" afford a wise and general law whereby we should all strive to order our conversation?

VII Suggested Oral: Class conversation between teacher and pupils upon some subject or subjects previously agreed upon.

VIII Suggested Mental: Get from the library Walter Savage Landor's famous "Imaginary Conversations," and read "Leofric and Godiva." Then read Tennyson's poem, "Godiva."

How many verses have I thrown
Into the fire, because the one
Peculiar word, the wanted most,
Was irrecoverably lost!

Walter Savage Landor.

CHAPTER XVI

THE POWER OF RHYTHM

A poet said long ago, "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast." This is a true saying, but it does not tell all the truth. For music has

charms to soothe not only the savage

breast, but every other human breast also, if one's ears are but trained to listen and hear aright.

If

Everything in nature has rhythm, or a regular measure. you place your fingers in your ears for a moment, at the same time shutting your eyes, you will feel the life-rhythm of your own body, rising and falling, rising and falling, over and over and over again, never to cease while your life shall endure. The great cataract of Niagara falls in a rhythmic roar; and the tiny brook babbles away in a gurgling rhythm which will make accompaniment to your singing, if you let it, thruout the long summer day. The great mill buzzes and hums in a steady rhythm, the teakettle sings its droning, measured song, and even the wheels of the steam cars soothe us to sleep with the lullaby of their steady rhythm.

Just so it is with language. Whether you realize it or not, your words and sentences take on a more or less rhythmic form, according to the keenness of your sense of music and your mastery of the tools of speech. Moreover, if your speech is very jerky and but slightly rhythmic, it will be harder to understand than if your words flow on smoothly in easy, liquid measures.

One good reason for your thinking about rhythm at this time lies in the fact that thereby you may gain power in oral reading. For the rhythm of a stanza should help you in interpreting the thought which the words carry. A poor oral reader may spoil

the music of a poem for himself and for others merely by inattention to its rhythm, while a good oral reader may, by observing the rhythm, carry the thought to others as smoothly as water flows. No one should ever feel that he reads so well as no longer to need practice. Since professional readers never reach this point, no one else should fancy that he has done so.

Whenever regular rhythm is united with thoughts of beauty, of nobility, of grandeur, of awe, or of delicate fancy, the product is poetic verse, which is especially pleasing to most intelligent persons. Verse itself is not poetry; it is merely the garment or dress which poetry usually prefers to wear. In a later lesson, we shall consider just what is needed to make real poetry. Meanwhile you may amuse yourselves as much as you please making rhythmic verses, with or without rimes, and you will find that it is not a hard thing to do. But, I beg, do not fancy that perfect verses and rimes necessarily have anything to do with real poetry.

The word verse, from the Latin versus, a turning, was formerly used to name a single line of words arranged in measured syllables. In prose, or straight-on speech, the writer wrote on to the edge of his page, while in verse, or turned-back speech, he stopped and turned back just so often. The word verse is now used for all forms of writing in which accented, or stressed, syllables alternate regularly with unaccented, or unstressed, syllables. Every group of syllables (or wave-group of the voice) has one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. If the accented syllable comes before the unaccented ones the rhythm is falling, as in the words wil'derness, morn'ing; if the accented syllable comes after the others, the rhythm is rising, as in a-bide', re-main.'

These are the only two kinds of rhythm in English, and all our verse uses one or the other of these alone, or else combines the two. The number of wave-groups in a line determines the rhythmic length of the line; and the place of the accents in the

wave-groups determines the kind of rhythm. This you will see most easily by studying the rhythm of a few lines. Observe the accents, or beats, in the following:

Here we have regular beats, or accents, upon every other syllable, but the place of the accent in the wave-groups is not the same in a as in b. The lines in a have four wave-groups each of single rising rhythm, and the lines in b have four wave-groups each of single falling rhythm.*

Often two unaccented syllables occur with each accented one. Here are examples:

In c we have a double rising rhythm, and in d a double falling rhythm. By counting the accents, you can at once determine the number of wave-groups in each line, four, three, and two.

If so be that a rhythm rises on the whole, or falls on the whole, the single wave-groups may dance along with single or with double steps, just as suits the writer's convenience or fancy. This may result in giving us mixed rising or mixed falling rhythms. Here are lines showing mixed rising rhythm:

For this new, wise, and simple theory of English verse and for the terms used, I am indebted to Mark H. Liddell's recent valuable treatise, "An Introduction to the Scientific Study of English Poetry," chapter xiv.