A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,

It plunged and tacked and veered.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could not laugh nor wail:

Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,

And cried, "A sail! a sail!"

COLERIDGE: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

All night long we had heard the voice of the Sea
Roaming the corridors.

Across the worn and hollow floors

There went a ghostly tread incessantly.

The walls of our old inn,

By windy winters eaten grey and thin
Trembled and shook, the wild night long,
With resonant, vague, hoarse-throated song,
Like a storm-strung violin.

All night we heard vast forces throng

To onset in the dark, indomitably strong,
An army under sable banners flying.
And then, above the din

Of far wild voices crying

And farther, wilder voices dreadfully replying,
Slowly, far down the unseen mysterious shore,
With fearful sibilance and long unintermittent roar,
We heard another, mightier tide begin!

Then our hearts shook, there on the worlds' wild rim
Fronting eternity and neighboring the Abyss.
Had we not cowered all night from the face of Him,
The King of Terrors, from the coil and hiss
Of the pale snakes of death

Writhing about our very door?

Had we not borne his clammy breath

Upon our hair

12 By permission of The Bookman and the author.

Nightlong, and his stealthy footstep on the stair,
His vast voice everywhere?

Had not each echoing wall and hollow floor,
Worn by his winds so grey and spectre-thin,
Resounded like the shell of a fragile violin
That screams once at its death and never more?
Had he not homage of our fear enough before
He sent this last dark cohort crashing in?

ODELL SHEPARD.

CHAPTER XII

THE RHYTHM OF INTERPRETATION

Resonance establishes the general emotional tone of an interpretation, and volume shows emotional meanings of a more subtle nature, with suggestions of intellectual meanings in accentuation and emphasis. More subtle and delicate still in its freighted meaning is the factor of time, or Rhythm of Speech.

I. THE PAUSE

Silences are as necessary in carrying your interpretation as sounds. True eloquence and expressiveness need silences, while every-day plain sense is impossible without breaks in the flow of sound.

Pause during speech is as necessary as breathing; because ordered speech is not possible without stopping for breath. Hence, our simplest utterances are punctuated by pauses. Man has become quite ingenious in making use of the opportunities for expressiveness of meaning. In fact the subtleties of meaning possible from sentient use of the open places of speech are quite beyond calculation.

(a) Phrasing and the Pause. The pause for plain sense has been called Phrasing (see page 128). It arises from the need for breath, but lends itself to all the delicate variations needed to give words the many interpretations of which they are capable. There is no fixed rule for phrasing; only that according as you break up a sentence by pauses—or fail to break it up-you settle the meaning your hearers will get. Phrasing done intelligently carries the interpretation you have decided upon; done carelessly or inadvisably, it tells

things you do not intend. In fact, much of the simplest and most elemental sense of your talk or reading, is a matter of proper phrasing.

Especially is it true that phrasing is one of the chief problems of interpretation of what others have written. When we are inventing our own sentences and picking our own words to express our own ideas in conversation and extempore speech, the very certainty of our idea with which we begin speech helps us to a sensible and expressive phrasing of the words on which we decide. But when we are provided with words first and ideas second as must happen in interpretation, then phrasing becomes a problem and a study. For, once we have determined what our phrasing will be, we have gone far toward deciding the meaning we are putting into our reading. An inadvertent pause or a failure to leave a silent place at the right moment may completely change the meaning.

Exercise

Note the phrasing of the following passages. Observe how the meaning changes with the change in pause:

Esau Wood sawed wood. Esau 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 if Wood's woodsaw would saw wood. Now, Wood would saw wood with a woodsaw 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 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 saw wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood. Now Wood saws wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood.、

He who expends gold properly is its master, who lays it up its keeper, who loves it a fool, who adores it an idolater; the truly wise man is he who despises it.

ΤΟ

I heed not that my earthly lot
Hath little of Earth in it,

That years of love have been forgot

In the hatred of a minute:

I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,

But that you sorrow for my fate
Who am a passer-by.

POE.

PETRARCH.

THE UNKNOWN 1

I do not understand . . .

They bring so many, many flowers to me-
Rainbows of roses, wreaths from every land;
And hosts of solemn strangers come to see
My tomb here on these quiet, wooded heights.
My tomb here seems to be

One of the sights.

The low-voiced men, who speak

Of me quite fondly, call me The Unknown:
But now and then at dusk, Madonna-meek,

Bent, mournful mothers come to me alone
And whisper down-the flowers and grasses through-
Such names as "Jim" and "John".

I wish they knew.

And once my sweetheart came.

...

She did not-nay, of course she could not-know,
But thought of me, and crooned to me the name
She called me by-how many years ago?

A very precious name. Her eyes were wet,
Yet glowing, flaming so . . .

She won't forget!

E. O. LAUGHLIN.

1 By permission of The Ladies' Home Journal and the author.