NOTE. If the answers of questions, whether direct or indirect, are given in a careless and indifferent manner, they take the rising inflection. EXAMPLES. Are you desirous to return? Not véry. How are you pleased with the country? Tolerably well. RULE 9. Language of authority, surprise, denunciation, exclamation and terror, generally requires the falling inflection. EXAMPLES. Authority. Charge, Chester! Charge! Surprise. What a piece of work is man! How noble in rèason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and àdmirable ! In action, how like an àngel! In apprehension, how like a God! Denunciation. Woe unto you, Pharisees! Woe unto you, scribes! Paul said unto Elymas, O full of all subtlety, and all mischief! Thou child of the Dèvil, thou enemy of all righteousness! Exclamation and Terror. A month! Oh for a single week! I ask not for years! though an age were too little for the much I have to do! They come ! they come! the Greek! the Grèek! Cæsar cried, help me, Cassius, or I sink! EXCEPTION. When exclamatory sentences become questions, or are expressive of tender emotions, they usually require the rising slide. EXAMPLES. They planted by your cáre! Nò, your oppressions planted them in Amèrica. They nourished by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect. They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence. O my son Ábsalom!— my són, my sòn Absalom! RULE 10. Emphatic succession of particulars, and emphatic repetition, require the falling inflection. QUESTIONS. What is the note? What is Rule Ninth? Give an example. Are there any exceptions to Rule Ninth? What is Rule Tenth? EXAMPLES. Thrice was I beaten with ròds; once was I stòned; thrice I suf fered shipwreck; a night and a day have I been in the deèp. Go and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; the blind sèe, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hèar, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.—Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity ènvieth not; charity vaùnteth not itself; is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseèmly; seeketh not her own; is not easily provóked; thinketh no evil. The sentence is passed; you are condèmned to die. The war is inevitable; and, let it còme! I repeat it, sir, LET IT COME!! EXCEPTION. The penultimate pause has the rising inflection, according to rule Seventh. NOTE. When the principle of emphatic succession of particulars interferes with the pause of suspension, the former requiring the falling slide and the latter the rising, it is frequently difficult for the learner to determine which to employ. In such cases he must be guided by the emphasis, giving the falling inflection when it is intense, and the rising when it is slight. RULE 11. Whenever the sense is complete, whether at the close, or any other part of the sentence, the falling inflection should be employed. EXAMPLE. He that receiveth you, receiveth mè; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sènt me. EXCEPTION. When strong emphasis with the falling slide comes near the end of the sentence, it turns the voice upward at the close. EXAMPLE. If we have no regard for religion in youth, we ought to have some respect for it in age. Circumflex. The CIRCUMFLEX is the union of the falling and rising *This union commonly begins with the falling slide, and ends with the rising. This order, however, is sometines reversed. QUESTIONS. Give an example. What is the exception to this rule? What is Rule Eleventh? Give an example. What is the exception? What is Circumflex? inflections on the same syllable or word, producing a slight undulation or wave of the voice. RULE. 12. The circumflex is used in language of irony, sarcasm, hypothesis, and contrast. EXAMPLES. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; Sarcasm. Hear him, my lord; he's wondrous condescending. Hume said he would go twenty miles, to hear Whitefield preach. Wě are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good. What authority surfeits on, would relieve us. NOTE. In some instances it may be difficult to determine, whether circumflex, or rising inflection should be employed. Care must be taken not to mistake the one for the other. Monotone. MONOTONE is a protracted sameness of sound on successive syllables or words. RULE 13. Language that is grave, grand, or sublime, generally requires the monotone. EXAMPLES.. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhābīteth ēternity, whōse name is Hōly; I dwell in the high and hōly place. And one cried unto another, and said, "Hōly, hōly, hōly, is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Blessing, honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever. The seas shall waste, the skies in smōke decay, QUESTIONS. What is the rule? Give an example where the circumflex arises from irony. From sarcasm. From condition. From contrast. What is monotone? What is Rule Thirteenth? Give an example. But fixed his wōrd- his saving power remains, Resounded, and, hād earth been then, all earth As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vāle, and midway leaves the storm, Soft as the slumbers of a saint fōrgīvēn, And mild as opening gleams of promised heaven. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a Gōd. Man giveth up the ghōst, and where is he? NOTE. MONOTONE is not literally an inflection, but a sameness of sound on the same note. It is not, however, a perfect monotony, but has certain slight variations, peculiar to itself; and is usually numbered among the inflections. EXERCISES ON INFLECTION. Exercise 1.-To Illustrate Rule 1, Page 28. What, then, what was Cæsar's object? Do we select extortioners, to inforce the laws of équity? Do we make choice of profligates, to guard the morals of society? Do we depute atheists, to preside over the rites of religion? I will not prèss the answer; I need not press the answer; the premises of my argument render it unnecessary. What would contènt you? Tálent? No! Enterprise? No! Courage? No! Reputation? No! Virtue? No! The men whom you would select, should possess, not one, but àll, of these. He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not sée? He that chastiseth the hea QUESTIONS. What rule is the first of the miscellanecus exercises designed to illus. trate? What is the rule? then, shall not he correct? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he knów? Are we intended for actors in the grand drama of eternity? Are we candidates for the plaudit of the rátional creation? Are we formed to participate the supreme beatitude in communicating happiness? Are we destined to co-operate with God in advancing the order and perfection of his works? How sublime a creature then is man! Where am I? What sort of a place do I inhàbit? Is it exactly accommodated, in every instance, to my convénience? Is there no excess of cold, none of heat, to offend me? Am I never annoyed by animals, either of my own kind or a different? Is every thing subservient to me, as though I had ordered all myself? No, nothing like it-the farthest from it possible. How then must I determine? Have I no interest at all? If I have not, I am stationed here to no purpose. But why no interest? Can I be contented with none, but one separate and detached? Is a social interest, joined with others, such an absurdity as not to be admitted? Do we not only hear but see? are the victims of ebriety in our country, our state, and neighborhood? may they sometimes be found in our houses, at the tables where we sit, among our near connections? have they appeared among the young, who once gave promise of excellence, among the middle aged and the old, and even in the delicate sex? Has this destroyer brought down the mighty-some who stood high in the world, and had a name for piety as well as talents? and has the evil spread and increased in the body of the community? It is surely a cause of solicitude, of grief, and dismay. Exercise 2.-To Illustrate Rule 2, page 29. Will the trials of this life continue foréver, or will time finally dissipate them? Shall we crown the author of all these public calamities with gárlands, or shall we wrest from him his ill deserved authority? |