Rule-Similes.

SIMILES demand a minor stress with de

scending third.

Examples.

Like caverned winds the hollow accents came.

BYRON.

The squadron swept like a torrent over the plain.
Like a spectre he stood, silent as the grave.

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,

The armed rhinoceros, or Hyrcan tiger.

Rule.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE addition of aggravating circumstances, or attributes of extraordinary power, terror, or the like, to a fact or predicate, requires emphasis, with stress, and quantity on the mutables or indefinites.

Examples.

He was put to death with torments.

It filled my mind with terror to look at him.

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold.

The Almighty is, in his nature, omniscient, infinite,

eternal.

It harrows me with fear-and-wonder !

SHAKSPEARE.

In a declaratory sentence, when there is a subject with two predicates with the copulative 'as well as for their conjunction, the first of the two predicates is emphatic, with radical stress and descending third; the second has an imperfect cadence of the upward third, with stress less marked.

(This takes place universally in good natural speech, and must be adopted in reading.)

Examples.

Julius Cæsar was a fine writer, as well as a great general.

The Christian doctrine is the best of philosophies, as well as the purest of religions.

It is the glory of a great conqueror to be merciful as well as just.

Justice is lame as well as blind amongst us.

OTWAY.

To succeed well in the world a man must act with boldness as well as with prudence.

On the contrary, when two predicates are conjoined by not only' and 'but,' then the second predicate is emphatic in cadence, and the first has the ascending third.

Examples.

Julius Cæsar was not only a great general, but a fine writer.

The Christian doctrine is not only the purest of religions, but the best of philosophies.

It is the glory of a great conqueror to be not only just, but merciful.

In Venice Justice was not only blind, but lame.

To succeed well in the world a man must act not only with prudence, but with boldness.

OBSERVE that it is the added fact, or the additional quality—either unusual or unexpected, or not necessarily belonging to the subject-that has radical stress under both this and the last rule. For everyone knows that Julius Cæsar was a great general; but it is not an essential or usual quality of a general to be a fine writer; but Cæsar possessed it, and so it was in him a superadded and emphatic distinction.

So it is admitted as an essential quality of Christianity that it is the purest of religions; but that it should also be the best of philosophies is an emphatic addition.

So Justice is always represented as blind; but that, in Venice, she should be lame as well, is an emphatic distinction in corruption that it is to be hoped cannot be predicated of any other city-except, perhaps, in one other, which we will not mention particularly.

ECONOMY OF RADICAL STRESS.-DI-TONICS.

Emphasis by radical stress and ascending or descending thirds must be reserved for the words that carry the salient points of the meaning, or mark the force or will of the speaker strongly.

It is a great fault, indeed, not uncommon though by any means, to give force to prepositions and conjunctions, &c., that are merely useful as links and ties connecting and binding together the sense and meaning, or showing the due separation or relative bearing of one phrase with another. Some over-emphatic but very dull readers and speakers are very strong on ands and buts and fors; they seem to make them the very buttresses of their sentences. But these slight but necessary dovetails of the meaning are not to be made prominent by force or stress at all; they are to be lightly passed over, not struck loudly or dwelt upon, either concretely or discretely.

Thus we say:

He went-for-a-purpose.

He was going to Rome when I met him.

They told their story and went away.

Here, you see, and in all such phrases, the force lies on the verbs and nouns. A preposition, of course, may be emphatic by contrast thus:

They went with the stream, not against it.

But, unless emphatic by contrast, expressed or implied, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions have no accent in a phrase. Standing alone they are accented syllables; but with a noun the weight goes to the noun, and under this prominent stress the pro-noun loses its accent-force. Thus we say:

Well, give me my hat, and I'll go away.

He said he would bring it with him in an hour. You see the pronouns have no stress at all; they become, relatively, unaccented syllables.

It is otherwise when there is an expressed or implied contrast; as:

This is my book, that is yours.

Yours is the glory, mine the shame.

In such cases as these it is the contrast that demands the stress, under absolute or necessary emphasis.

STILL, emphasis may sometimes be made with great effect on a little, and in itself a trivial, word, which by being emphasised may add greatly to the point and intention of the whole passage.

H