2. A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:

That was all. And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

"Paul Revere's Ride."

3. The sea, the sea, the open sea,
The blue, the fresh, the ever free;
Without a mark, without a bound,

LONGFELLOW.

It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies,
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea,

I am where I would ever be,

With the blue above and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go.

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

"The Sea."

BARRY CORNWALL.

4. "Yo-ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig; "no more work to-night, Christmas Eve, Dick! Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up before a man can say Jack Robinson! Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here!"

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have done, or couldn't have done, with old Fezziwig standing by. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off as if it were dismissed from public life forevermore. The floor was swept and watered, lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire, and the warehouse was as snug and warm and dry and bright a ball-room as you could desire to see upon a winter night. In came a fiddler with a music-book and walked up to the lofty desk and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomachaches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast, substantial smile. In came the two Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and amiable. In came

the six young followers, whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In they all came anyhow and everyhow! Away they all went, twenty couples at once, hands half round and back again the other way, up the middle and down again, round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up at the wrong place, new top couple starting off again as soon as they got there, all top couple at last with not a bottom one to help them.

When this result was brought about old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, specially provided for that purpose. And there were more dances, and then there were forfeits, and then there were more dances, and there was cake and there was negus, and there was a great piece of cold roast, and there was great piece of cold boiled, and there were mince pies and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the roast and boiled, when the fiddler struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley!" Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig, top couple too with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them, three or four and twenty pairs of partners, people who were not to be trifled with, people who would dance and had no notion of walking.

But if there had been twice as many, or four times as many, old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As for her, she was worthy of being his partner in every sense of the term. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves, they shone in every part of the dance. You couldn't have predicted at any given moment where they would have turned up next, and when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had been all through the dance, advance and retire, turn your partner, bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread the needle and back again to your own place, Fezziwig cut, cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs. At eleven o'clock the domestic ball broke up. Then old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig stood one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with each of their guests individually as he or she went out wished him or her "A Merry Christmas!" DICKENS.

CHAPTER X

CONVERSATION

The habitual use of language and manner of expression in daily conversation will greatly influence a speaker's style in public address. The difference in conversation, public speaking and reading is, briefly, as follows:

Conversation is dialogue and the simplest and most direct form of vocal expression. It is the beginning of speech culture and no effort should be spared to acquire ease and correctness in its use.

Public speaking is monologue and the utterance is necessarily more prolonged to suit the circumstances of space and number. Such an occasion demands increased definiteness and deliberation in style.

Reading differs from either of the foregoing styles, because of a certain formality of utterance required by the strangeness of the thought and its construction. The reader does not here utter his own thoughts but those of another, and in consequence the words and phraseology are not familiar to his lips.

In his admirable book on "The Art of Conversation," Mahaffy names as subjective conditions to conversation: 1. Physical (a) A sweet tone of voice; (b) Absence of local accent; (c) Absence of tricks and catch-words. 2. Mental (a) Knowledge which may be either special (great topics, the topic of the day), or general (books, men); (b) Quickness. 3. Moral: Modesty, simplicity, unselfishness, sympathy, and tact.

Conversation affords constant opportunity for improvement in speech. The student should criticize his own utterance and discriminate between pure and breathy tones, softness and harshness of voice, and correct and faulty enunciation. He should also cultivate intelligent variety in modulation and feeling. A good conversational style has a distinct charm and should be persistently cultivated. Hamilton Wright Mabie tells of a man of nervous organization who gained immense benefit by simply watching the modulations of his voice and persistently resisting the inclination to run into high tones. He had found not only relief for the vocal chords, but a steadiness and calmness of thought and feeling which made him conscious of the great blunder of wasting nervous strength by suffering the vocal chords to sympathize with an excited condition rather than keeping them under steady control.

Practise the following with ease, naturalness, and variety of good conversation, avoiding loudness:

EXAMPLES

1. Did you ever see a dandy fisherman? He has the correct suit on, his pole is a beauty from Conroy's, his line is of the best gut, his book is full of artificial flies, plenty of artificial flies,— his fish-basket hangs behind him; and he is a fisherman. May be. Let us go to the stream. Standing with a knowing air, he throws his fly; but the fish do not rise at it; and he throws again, and again they do not rise. And all the while, a barefooted, coatless boy on the other side of the brook is catching fish as fast as he can pull them in. He has just a rough hook on a bit of string, and a worm for bait, but he gets the fish.

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

2. As soon as Macaulay had finished his rough draft, he began to fill it in at the rate of six sides of foolscap every morning, written in so large a hand, and with such a multitude of erasures, that the whole six pages were, on an average, compressed into two pages of print. This portion he called his "Task"; and he was never quite easy unless he completed it daily. More he seldom sought to accomplish; for he had learned by long experience that this was as much as he could do at his best; and except when at his best he never would work at all.

"Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay."

G. O. TREVELYAN.

3. There was a certain elderly gentleman who lived in a court of the Temple, and was a great judge and lover of port wine. Every day he dined at his club and drank his bottle or two of port wine, and every night came home to the Temple and went to bed in his lonely chambers. This had gone on many years without variation, when one night he had a fit on coming home, and fell and cut his head deep, but partly recovered and groped about in the dark to find the door. When he was afterwards discovered, dead, it was clearly established by the marks of his hands about the room that he must have done so. Now, this chanced on the night of Christmas Eve, and over him lived a young fellow who had sisters and young country-friends, and who gave them a little party that night, in the course of which they played at Blindman's Buff. They played that game, for their greater sport, by the light of the fire only; and once, when they were all quietly rustling and stealing about, and the blindman was trying to pick out the prettiest sister (for which I am far from blaming him), somebody cried "Hark! The man below must be playing Blindman's Buff by himself to-night!" They listened, and they heard sounds of some one falling about and stumbling against furniture, and they all laughed at the conceit, and went on with their play, more light-hearted and merry than ever. Thus, those two so different games of life and death were played out together, blindfolded, in the two sets of chambers.

DICKENS.