which I have been offering to you, a weary traveller, for the matter of three short hours, into sheer drunkenness and debauchery, vices alike alien to my profession and my disposition."

"Base calumniators!" replied the knight; "I would I had the chastising of them. Nevertheless, Holy Clerk, it is true that all have their enemies; and there be those in this very land whom I would rather speak to through the bars of my helmet than barefaced."

"Get thine iron pot on thy head then, friend Sluggard; as quickly as thy nature will permit," said the hermit, “while I remove these pewter flagons, whose late contents run strangely in mine own pate; and to drown the clatter,- for, in faith, I feel somewhat unsteady strike into the tune which thou hearest me sing. It is no matter for the words; I scarce know them myself."

So saying, he struck up a thundering De profundis clamari, under cover of which he removed the apparatus of their banquet; while the knight, laughing heartily, and arming himself all the while, assisted his host with his voice from time to time as his mirth permitted. (SCOTT: Ivanhoe)

THE COMBAT OF SOHRAB AND RUSTUM

He spoke, and Rustum answer'd not, but hurled
His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came,
As on some partridge in the corn a hawk,
That long has tower'd in the airy clouds,
Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come,
And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear
Hiss'd and went quivering down into the sand,
Which it sent flying wide; then Sohrab threw

In turn, and full struck Rustum's shield; sharp rang,
The iron plates rang sharp, but turned the spear.
And Rustum seized his club, which none but he

Could wield; an unlopped trunk it was, and huge,

Still rough like those which men in treeless plains
To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers,
Hyphasis or Hydaspes, when, high up

By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time
Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack,

And strewn the channels with torn boughs so huge
The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck
One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside,
Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came
Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand.
And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell

To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand;
And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword,
And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay
Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand;
But he look'd on, smiled, nor bared his sword,
But courteously drew back.

(ARNOLD: Sohrab and Rustum)

SUMMER STORM

Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter,
The wind is gathering in the west;

The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter,
Then droop to a fitful rest;

Up from the stream with sluggish flap

Struggles the gull and floats away; Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,—

We shall not see the sun go down to-day:

Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh,
And tramples the grass with terrified feet,
The startled river turns leaden and harsh,

You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat.
Look! Look! that livid flash!

And instantly follows the rattling thunder,
As if some cloud-crag, split asunder,
Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash,
On the earth, which crouches in silence under;
And now a solid grey wall of rain
Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile;

For a breath's space I see the blue wood again, And ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof

Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof;
Against the windows the storm comes dashing,
Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing,
The blue lightning flashes,

The rapid hail clashes,
The white waves are tumbling,

And in one baffled roar,
Like the toothless sea mumbling
A rock bristled shore,
The thunder is rumbling

And crashing and crumbling-
Will silence return nevermore?

(LOWELL: Summer Storm)

CHAPTER VI

PRONUNCIATION

Ability to make the vowel and consonant sounds correctly and distinctly is absolutely essential to good pronunciation. But the ability to make every sound of the language with accuracy does not insure good pronunciation, which is a matter of broader scope. In the first place, it requires in the case of every word a knowledge of the particular values attached to the letters composing that word. A person may, for example, be able to produce the score or more of sounds represented by the letters in machine; but that does not guarantee that he will not pronounce the word mashine, or makēēn, or something else.

Furthermore, good pronunciation requires correct placing of accent; exclusion of silent letters; inclusion of all requisite sounds; avoidance of adding superfluous sounds; utterance of the sounds in their proper order; and freedom from super-accuracy, which constitutes affectation. Each of these factors may now be considered in some detail, with this salient idea in mind: that a person is put in the way of improving his pronunciation when he becomes thoroughly aware of the points of difficulty.

Pronouncing correctly with respect to the accepted values of vowels and consonants is difficult because of the wide range of these values in the English language. To illustrate, the letter a has half a dozen values in

common use (fate, fat, father, fast, fall, opera); the letter o has seven (hole, hot, honey, move, wolf, nor, instructor); the letter g has three (go, gem, rouge); the letters has four (see, sugar, tease, treasurer); and these examples might of course be multiplied. Furthermore, in our spelling, most of the sounds of the language are represented in a variety of ways, as has been specifically shown in the preceding chapters. To recall one or two of the more important examples, the sound of long e (see p. 16) is represented in twelve different ways (mete, beet, beat, receive, believe, people, key, Cæsar, machine, quay, Phænix, Portuguese); the sound of sh (see p. 41) is represented in at least ten ways (shame, machine, vicious, sure, schist, conscious, passion, declension, caution, anxious). From these examples alone, it is clear why rules of pronunciation 1 are futile in the face of the intricacies of English spelling and letter values.

1