of himself. There was his old father, an aged, trembling man, happy in the heart and home of his son. And as they started to their home the hands of the old man went down on the young man's shoulders, laying there the unspeakable blessing of the honored and grateful father, and ennobling it with the Knighthood of the Fifth commandment. And I saw the night come down on that home, falling gently as from the wings of an unseen dove, and the old man, while a startled bird called from the forest, and the trees shrilled with the cricket's cry, and the stars were swarming in the sky, got the family around him and, taking the old Bible from the table, called them to their knees, while he closed the record of that simple day by calling down God's blessing on that family and that home. And while I gazed. I said: "O, surely, here in the hearts of the people are lodged at last the strength and responsibilities of this government, the hope and promise of this Republic."

...

(GRADY: The Homes of the People)

GODFREY CASS CONFESSES

"Sit down, Nancy - there," he said, pointing to a chair opposite him. " I came back as soon as I could, to hinder anybody's telling you but me. I've had a great shock - but I care most about the shock it'll be to you."

"It isn't father and Priscilla?" said Nancy with quivering lips, clasping her hands tightly together on her lap.

"No, it's nobody living," said Godfrey, unequal to the considerate skill with which he would have wished to make his revelation. "It's Dunstan - my brother Dunstan, that we lost sight of sixteen years ago. We've found him - found his body-his skeleton."

The deep dread Godfrey's look had created in Nancy made her feel these words a relief. She sat in comparative calmness to hear what else he had to tell. He went on:

"The Stone-pit has gone dry suddenly - from the draining, I suppose; and there he lies - has lain for sixteen years, wedged between two great stones. There's his watch and seals, and there's my goldhandled hunting-whip, with my name on: he took it away, without my knowing, the day he went hunting on Wildfire, the last time he was seen."

Godfrey paused: it was not so easy to say what came next. "Do you think he drowned himself?" said Nancy, almost wondering that her husband should be so deeply shaken by what had happened all those years ago to an unloved brother, of whom worse things had been augured.

"No, he fell in," said Godfrey, in a low but distinct voice, as if he felt some deep meaning in the fact. Presently he added: "Dunstan was the man that robbed Silas Marner."

The blood rushed to Nancy's face and neck at this surprise and shame, for she had been bred up to regard even a distant kinship with crime as a dishonor.

"O Godfrey!" she said with compassion in her tone, for she had immediately reflected that the dishonor must be felt still more keenly by her husband. Presently he lifted his eyes to her face, and kept them fixed on her, as he said

..

"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later. When God Almighty wills it, our secrets are found out.

I've lived with a secret on my mind, but I'll keep it from you no longer. I wouldn't have you know it by somebody else, and not by me - I wouldn't have you find it out after I'm dead. I'll tell you now. It's been 'I will' and 'I won't' with me all my life - I'll make sure of myself now."

Nancy's utmost dread had returned. The eyes of the husband and wife met with awe in them, as at a crisis which suspended affection.

"Nancy," said Godfrey, slowly, "when I married you, I hid something from you - something I ought to have told you. That woman Marner found dead in the

snow

Eppie's mother that wretched woman

my wife; Eppie is my child."

was

(ELIOT: Silas Marner)

CHAPTER XI

FORCE (STRESS)

A third property of voice - force - may be defined as its volume. The volume of any vocal tone depends upon the amount of breath expended, and the skill with which the breath is utilized in the voicebox and the resonance cavities. The more breath used, the stronger is the tone, provided the breath is not allowed to escape wastefully through the vocal bands and resonance cavities. If the reeds on an oboe are set too far apart, or if the tubing of the bell is diminished, it requires a tremendous amount of breath to get a tone of ordinary volume. Similarly, if the vocal bands are not properly set, or if the vocalized breath is driven directly to the front of the mouth without being reinforced in the pharynx and nasal cavities, a large amount of air may be expended without getting commensurate volume of voice. Probably the most practical test for economical breath utilization is vocal quality. If this is clear and resonant, the force, or volume of tone varies directly with the amount of breath used.

Syllabic Accent

As in the case of pitch, the force of the voice is constantly changing as we speak. On individual words, force and pitch ordinarily vary together 1 on the principle that as pitch rises, force increases, and as pitch lowers, force decreases. Observe this in pronouncing the words which were used in the chapter on inflection: no, yes, why, this, when; accent, repeat, confuse, rebate, triumph; partition, article, controvert, readjust, pertinent; transubstantiation, unimpeachable, Trinitarian, solidification, registration. Occasionally, of course, for a particular meaning, the stressed syllable is uttered at a lower pitch than the unstressed; but that is very exceptional. The increase of force on a certain syllable is called stress or accent, and is an important element in pronunciation.

Word Stress

Force as a factor in the expression of thought and feeling begins with the use of varying stress on certain words or groups of words in sentences. Here, too, pitch and force usually, though not always, vary together on the principle that the greater the stress is on any given word, the higher is the pitch, and vice versa. We may, for the sake of variety, stress a word, and at the same time lower the pitch. For example, if we were to stress "not" in the sentence "It is not," we would ordinarily raise the pitch from the beginning of the sentence through the letter "n" and then drop; but if the student will speak the sentence with a rise on "is" and a drop with increased force on "not," he will undoubtedly recognize the result as a type of stress occasionally heard. This there are certain frequent combinations, such as high pitch with energetic force, or low pitch with subdued force, the properties are independent and their various degrees may be used in any combination.