5. And in a coaxing tone he cries,
"Charco'! charco'!"

And baby with a laugh replies,
"Ah, go! Ah, go!"
"Charco'!"-"Ah, go!"

VI. THE SEMITONE.

When the voice slides through the interval of a semitone only, it gives the plaintive tones expressive of sadness, grief, or pathetic entreaty. If the inflection. runs through the interval of a tone and a half-a minor third in music-it becomes more plaintive, and marks a stronger degree of pathos or sadness; and when the inflection extends into the minor fifth, it denotes still stronger pathetic feeling.

The semitone, then, is the plaintive tone in reading, corresponding to the minor key in music. It should be used delicately, for, in excess, it runs into the whine, or becomes the affectation of cant.

SEMITONE DRILL.

1. Sound the vocals, ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, three times, on the interval between C and C sharp; then on the minor third; then on the minor fifth.

2. Count from one to twenty on the same notes as above.

EXAMPLES OF SEMITONE.

1. O come in life, or come in death,

O lost my love, Elizabeth.

2. For I am poor and miserably old.

3. How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father and will say to him,

"Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants!”

4. MY CHILD.

I can not make him dead!
His fair sunshiny head

Is ever bounding round my study chàir;
Yet, when my eyes, now dim

With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vánishes, he is not there!

I walk my parlor floor,

And, through the open door,

I hear a footfall on the chamber stàir;

I'm stepping toward the hall

To give the boy a call;

And then bethink me that he is not there!

5. HIAWATHA.

O the long and dreary Winter!

O the cold and cruel Winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Froze the ice on lake and river;
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper

Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.
O the famine and the fever!
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever!
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!

All the earth was sick and famished;
Hungry was the air around them,

Hungry was the sky above them,

PIERPONT.

And the hungry stars in heaven

Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!

"Give your children food, O Father!
Give us food, or we must perish!
Give me food for Minnehaha,
For my dying Minnehaha!"
Through the far-resounding forest,
Through the forest vast and vacant
Rang that cry of desolation;
But there came no other answer
Than the echo of his crying,
Than the echo of the woodlands,
Minnehaha! Minnehaha!"

6. BABIE BELL.

It came upon us by degrees,

We saw its shadow ere it fell,

The knowledge that our God had sent
His messenger for Babie Bell.

LONGFELLOW.

We shuddered with unlanguaged pain, And all our thoughts ran into tears, Like sunshine into rain.

We cried aloud in our belief,
"Oh, smite us gently, gently, God!
Teach us to bend and kiss the rod,

And perfect grow through grief."
Ah, how we loved her, God can tell;
Her heart was folded deep in ours;
Our hearts are broken, Babic Bell.

7. MACBETHI.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools.
The way to dusty death.

ALDRICH.

SHAKESPEARE.

8. NEW YEAR'S EVE.

You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn

shade;

And you'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.

I shall not forget you, mother; I shall hear you when you pass,

With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.

Good-night, good-night! When I have said good-night for evermore,

And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door,

Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing

green

She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.

9.

TENNYSON'S May Queen.

66
FROM BERTHA IN THE LANE."

[This extract should be read with subdued force, slow movement, and prevailing poetic monotone and semitone.]

Colder grow my hands and feet;-
When I wear the shroud I made,
Let the folds lie straight and neat,
And the rosemary be spread;—
That if any friend should come
(To see thee, sweet!), all the room
May be lifted out of gloom.

And, dear Bertha, let me keep

On my hand this little ring-
Which at nights, when others sleep,
I can still see glittering.

Let me wear it out of sight,
In the grave-where it will light
All the dark up, day and night.

On that grave drop not a tear!
Else, though fathom-deep the place,
Through the woolen shroud I wear
I shall feel it on my face.
Rather smile there, blessed one,
Thinking of me in the sun;
Or forget me-smiling on!

E. B. BROWNING.

VII. RECAPITULATION OF QUALITY.

1. Pure tone is the tone of ordinary conversation, and of unimpassioned didactic, narrative, or descriptive reading.

2. The orotund is the tone expressive of deep feeling, of reverence, of sublimity, and of grandeur. It prevails in oratorical declamation, and in the reading or recitation of lyric or dramatic poetry.

3. Aspirated quality is expressive of secrecy, feebleness, terror, horror, and amazement.

4. Guttural quality is expressive of disgust, impatience, hatred, and revenge.

5. The semitone is the plaintive expression, in the minor key, of pathos, pity, grief, or entreaty.

EXAMPLES OF QUALITY.

PURE TONE.

Was it the chime of a tiny bell

That came so sweet to my dreaming ear?

1. Build thee more

OROTUND.

stately mansions, O my soul! 2. And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow.

WHISPER.

To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate.
Come, come, come, give me your hand.