and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought successfully all battles but their own. In wit and humor it has no equal; while its harp, like its history, moves to tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos.

Into this fair region God has seen fit to send the most terrible of all those fearful ministers that fulfill His inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed to give her increase. The common mother has forgotten her offspring, and she no longer affords them their accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has seized a nation with its strangling grasp. Unhappy Ireland, in the sad woes of the present, forgets, for a moment, the gloomy history of the past.

O, it is terrible that, in this beautiful world which the good God has given us, and in which there is plenty for us all, men should die of starvation! When a man dies of disease he alone endures the pain. Around his pillow are gathered sympathizing friends, who, if they cannot keep back the deadly messenger, cover his face and conceal the horrors of his visage as he delivers his stern mandate. In battle, in the fullness of his pride and strength, little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sings his sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel.

But he who dies of hunger wrestles alone, day by day, with his grim and unrelenting enemy. He has no friends to cheer him in the terrible conflict; for, if he had friends, how could he die of hunger? He has not the hot blood of the soldier to maintain him; for his foe, vampire-like, has exhausted his veins. Famine comes not up, like a brave enemy, storming, by a sudden onset, the fortress that resists. Famine besieges. He draws his lines round the doomed garrison. He cuts off all supplies. He never summons to surrender, for he gives no quarter.

Alas, for poor human nature! how can it sustain this fearful warfare? Day by day the blood recedes, the flesh deserts, the muscles relax, and the sinews grow powerless. At last the mind, which at first had bravely nerved itself against the contest, gives way under the mysterious influences which govern its union with the body. Then the victim begins to doubt the existence of an overruling Providence. He hates his fellow-men, and glares upon them with the longing of a cannibal; and, it may be, dies blaspheming.

This is one of those cases in which we may without impiety assume, as it were, the function of Providence. Who knows but that one of the very objects of this calamity is to test the benevolence and worthiness of us upon whom unlimited abundance is showered? In the name, then, of common humanity, I invoke your aid in behalf of starving Ireland. Give generously and freely. Recollect that in so doing you are exercising one of the most Godlike qualities of your nature, and at the same time enjoying one of the greatest luxuries of life. Go home and look at your family, smiling in rosy health, and then think of the pale, famine-pinched cheeks of the poor children of Ireland; and I know you will give, according to your store, even as a bountiful Providence has given to you,not grudgingly, but with an open hand. He who is able, and will not aid such a cause, is not a man, and has no right to wear the form. He should be sent back to Nature's mint, and reissued as a counterfeit on humanity of Nature's baser metal.

SECTION III. MOVEMENT

Movement is the rate or degree of rapidity with which a series of sounds or words, or a sentence, is uttered. While Quantity is the length of Time given to words, and Pauses mark the silences between them, Movement measures the speed in which these successive sounds and silences are given.

In nature we hear the various degrees of Movement in the murmuring brook and the roaring torrent, in the howl of the dog and the chatter of birds, in the tranquil sounds of gentle breezes and the terrible crash of the hurricane. We walk slowly in meditation or feebleness and run in excitement; these manifestations are physical, and depend upon the vitality we use. So, under different states of mind and feeling, human utterance partakes of a similar variety of Movement which manifestly represents the Vital nature of man.

The rate of Movement, like all other elements, depends upon the character of the sentiment to be expressed; if lively, joyous, or impulsive, it must be rapid; if important, grave, or

ponderous, it must be slow. In short, if the expressive mood relates to the inner or reflective life, the Movement will be slow; if it is excited, rapid rate will be the natural pace; and in the poised or balanced states of mind the ordinary or moderate Movement is appropriate.

Movement, then, may be divided into (1) Slow, (2) Moderate, and (3) Rapid degrees, each of which may be further subdivided into three parts. Slow Movement, for instance, may have various degrees of slowness to meet the demands of expression. This, like all other scales in elocution, is relative, and is dependent upon the individuality of the speaker and the acoustic conditions. The whole scale of Movement must be slower in a large auditorium or where the difficulties of echo are to be overcome. One person naturally speaks faster or slower than another, but each should change his own scale in order correctly to portray the various shadings of expression.

The utterance in the same length of time of the sentences below consisting of three, nine, and fifteen syllables respectively, as indicated by the following diagram, will illustrate approximately the relative rates of Movement from the slowest to the most rapid:

Moderate. She was conquered by her own factions.

Rapid.

Through his ear the summons stung
As if a battle-trump had rung.

One great cause of monotony in delivery is the lack of variety in Movement. This is so simple an element that it often escapes the attention of the student. It demands the

greatest care until the habit of changing the speed to suit the changes of sentiment becomes fixed. The much-quoted injunction of the great Mrs. Siddons to all aspiring readers, "Take time," is often misconstrued into "Read slowly," and applied to all kinds of reading; but, while one should "take time" and give the proper Quantity to the expressive words of the sentence, the utterance of the unimportant words may be rapid. In other words, the rate of Movement should change with every change of thought or emotion. The criticism, "You speak too fast," is usually a criticism upon articulation which has failed to keep pace with the Movement. Not many persons read or speak too rapidly; Rapid Movement, even in pathos or solemnity, is generally pleasing if the articulation is clear and sufficient Time is given to the emotional words.

Illustrative Selections.

NOTE. In Slow Movement the Pauses and Quantities will necessarily be long, in Moderate Movement they will be of ordinary length, and in Rapid Movement of short duration. The variations will of course depend upon the states of feeling expressed.

(1) Selection for Slow Movement.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES

C. F. ALEXANDER

By Nebo's lonely mountain, on this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab, there lies a lonely grave;
But no man dug that sepulcher, and no man saw it e'er,

For the angels of God upturned the sod, and laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral that ever passed on earth;
But no man heard the tramping, or saw the train go forth;
Noiselessly as the daylight comes when the night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek grows into the great

sun,

Noiselessly as the springtime her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills open their thousand leaves,—
So, without sound of music, or voice of them that wept,
Silently down from the mountain crown the great procession swept.

Lo! when the warrior dieth, his comrades in the war,
With arms reversed, and muffled drum, follow the funeral car.
They show the banners taken, they tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed, while peals the minute gun.

Amid the noblest of the land men lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honored place with costly marble dressed, In the great minster transept, where lights like glories fall,

And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings, along the emblazoned wall.

This was the bravest warrior that ever buckled sword;

This the most gifted poet that ever breathed a word;

And never earth's philosopher traced, with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage, as he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honor, the hillside for his pall;

To lie in state while angels wait with stars for tapers tall;
And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes, over his bier to wave;
And God's own hand, in that lonely land, to lay him in the grave?

Oh, lonely tomb in Moab's land, oh, dark Beth-peor's hill,
Speak to these curious hearts of ours, and teach them to be still.
God hath his mysteries of Grace - ways that we cannot tell;
He hides them deep, like the secret sleep of him he loved so well

(2) Selection for Moderate Movement.

ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL WEALTH

JAMES G. BLAINE

The territory which we occupy is at least three million square miles in extent, within a fraction as large as the whole of Europe. The state of Texas alone is equal in area to the empire of France