"Would you make men trustworthy?/ Trust them. Would you We win by tenderness; we con make them true? Believe them. quer by forgiveness." - Robertson. When the sense of a member is suspended, and depends for completion on the succeeding member, the rising inflection is required; as, "The worst is not, So long as we can say,' This is the worst."-Shakespeare. A parenthetical clause generally closes with the same inflection as that used in the preceding member (usually, the rising); as, "He (the American scholar) must be a perpetual inspiration of freedom in politics. He must recognize that the intelligent exercise of political rights,' which is a privilege in a monarchy,' is a duty in a republic." - G. W. Curtis. The parenthetical clause, it should be remembered, is generally read in a lower tone, and with a quicker movement than the rest of the sentence. Contrasted sentences, or words expressing contrasted ideas, generally close with contrasted inflections; - the more important member (generally the second) requiring the falling inflection; as, "He who undertakes to note the defects' of an art, must carry with his censure, a knowledge of its perfections.” — Rush. A concession closes with the rising inflection; as, "Every man loves his ease-loves to please his taste. But into how many homes along this lovely valley came the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill, eighty years ago If it clash with his ease, his retirement, his taste, his study, let it clash, but let him do his duty. The course of events is incessant, and when the good deed is slighted, the bad deed is done." - Curtis. Exceptions to the application of rules for the rising inflection occur in cases of peculiar force or emphasis. In such instances, the falling inflection supersedes the rising; as the former is the invariable indication of energetic expression, and the rule of force displaces every other, in the utterance of thought. It will be observed that the inflection used at the close of a sentence is usually the same as that placed on the principal emphatic word; the former being made to correspond to the latter, and when liffering from that required by the preceding rules, forming exceptions to them. Exclamatory phrases or sentences generally close with the falling inflection; as, "How much have cost us the evils that have never happened!" Jefferson. "Onward in faith, and leave the rest to Heaven!" When expressing tender emotion, surprise, interrogation, the rising inflection may be used; as, "Tis but the falling of a withered leaf, - The rending of a veil'!"-Southey. Sentences expressing tenderness, weakness, indecision, indifference, surprise, uncertainty, implied contrast, &c., close with the rising inflection. Sentences expressing positive declaration, determination, command, sternness, reproach, defiance, astonishment, indignation, contempt, &c.—whether interrogatively, negatively, or affirmatively expressed, close with the falling inflection. ILLUSTRATIONS. Affirmative Sentences. "All high truth is the union of two contradictories." - Robertson. "Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, 22 By fearing to attempt.' - Shakespeare. "It is the greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation of the want of courage." - Henry Clay. "Lowliness is the base of every virtue, And he who goes the lowest builds the safest."— Bailey. "A life of prayer is a life whose litanies are ever fresh acts of self-devoting love." - Robertson. "The beautiful exists only for the sublime essence that seeks it; the infinite exists only for the soul which desires it. If you could endow the smallest insect with the sense of the beautiful and the infinite, this imperceptible atom would comprehend eternity, and would see God, and this vision would render it immortal."—L'Aimè Martin. "Crime and punishment grows out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that, unsuspected, ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it.". Emerson. "Divine justice upon the earth is always the fulfilling of a law: God has arranged all, so that from our actions should arise the penalties or the rewards which they deserve. Good reacts upon good-evil upon evil. The reaction may be more or less speedy, more or less visible; no matter, it exists; it is equal to the action, and if its effects sometimes escape our observation, it is not because the law is inactive, it is simply because the last scene of the drama takes place in the depths of the conscience, between man and his God."- L'Aimè Martin. "Truly we are surrounded with voices. The sacredness and awful responsibilities of speech,—the latent importance of idle words, consists in their ever-present existence. No sound that goes from the lip into the air can ever die, even in a sensual sense, until the atmosphere which wraps our planet in its huge embrace has passed into nothingness. Words, then, have a being of their own; they exist after death, or rather they continue to exist after all memory of them has departed from the minds into which they originally entered." E. P. Whipple. 66 Every man, however good he may be, has a yet better man dwelling within him, which is properly himself, but to whom, nevertheless, he is often unfaithful. It is to the interior and less mutable being that we should attach ourselves, not to the changeable every-day man."- Von Humboldt. “Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great though they make an axception in your favor to all their rules of trade."- Emerson. Negative Sentences. "It is not so far as a man doubts, but so far as he believes, that he can achieve or perfect anything. 'All things are possible to him that believeth."- Robertson. "A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will, or against his will, he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it.”. Emerson. "The mind which does not converse with itself, is an idle wanderer: and all the learning in the world is fruitless and misemployed, whilst in the midst of his boasted knowledge, a man continues in profound ignorance of that, which in point both of duty and advantage, he is most concerned to know.”—T. à Kempis. "The danger to individuality, in reading, is not that we repeat an author's opinions or expressions, but that we be magnetized by his spirit to the extent of being drawn into his stronger life, and losing our particular being. Now, no man is benefited by being thus conquered. . . . Indeed, we can never fully realize and reverence a great nature, never grow through a reception of his spirit, unless we keep our individuality distinct from his.”—E. P. Whipple. ... "Truth itself will not profit us so long as she is but held in the hand, and taken upon trust from other men's minds, not wooed and won and wedded by our own."-Locke. "I know That nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure. No plot so narrow, be but nature there, - Coleridge. "No stream from its source Flows seaward, how lonely soever its course, But that some land is gladdened. No star ever rose And gaze into the Face that makes glorious their own, The heart they have sadden'd, the life they leave dreary? Interrogative Sentences beginning with a Pronoun or Adverb. "What is the abstraction of beauty or excellence worth, if it is not incorporated into your soul, incarnated in your life? It is worth as much as the gold of California was when hid deep in the mine, with the rock binding it, and the river flowing over it, and the forest towering above it, generation after generation passing by it, all unsuspected and vain. But, let the abstract idea be worked out and extended from its lurking-place through your conduct, and it will be like the ore and sand changed into the currency of the nation, bearing enormous business, and inestimable wealth, and endless comfort on the bosom of its boundless stream."- C. A. Bartol. "What constitutes a State? Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain.” Sir Wm. Jones. "Why walk in darkness? Our true light yet shineth, It is not night but day! All healing and all peace His light enshrineth, Are night and shadows better, truer, dearer, Than day, and joy, and love? Do tremblings and misgivings bring us nearer |