13. Obstructionists and oppressors often opposed these operations.

14. Querulous quips were quoted by quiet Queenie Quelp.

15. She sells sea-shells; should he sell sea-shells?

16. They fell like leaves and fill long lists.

17.

Milestones mark the march of time.

18. Willow wands waved weirdly in wild wintry winds. 19. Flags fluttered fretfully from foreign fortifications and fleets.

20.

Our forefathers fought fearlessly for freedom. 21. Opportunities for benefitting the unfortunate and comforting the afflicted are offered often to affluence. 22. Rejoice with them, though then and there they and theirs will be greater than thee and thine.

23.

24. 25.

To-morrow try to talk truly and truthfully.

Breathe with care, do not mouth thy words.

Both were loath to travel the length of the sixth path to reach the fourth booth.

26. Seated on shore, she sees ships with shining sails on the shimmering sea.

27. The chief cheerfully chose the choicest chair.

28. I did not say, wig, heart, ear, hair, and all, but whig, art, hear, air, and hall.

29. Richard chanted in church like a cherub.

30. The yarns of the ubiquitous Yankee used to be humorous, yet you yawned.

31. Dora, defending sound doctrines, discomfited the disputants.

32.

No man need know need in this new nation. 33. Kittens cunningly crept across the cotton coverlet. 34. Little likeliness, laughed the low lawyer, that legibility and liability are linked indissolubly.

35. He spoke reasonably, philosophically, disinterestedly, and yet particularly, of the unceremoniousness of their communicability, and peremptorily, authoritatively, unhesi

tatingly, declared it to be wholly inexplicable.

36. Taciturn and talkative pupils are troublesome to teachers.

37. The pink flowers grew rank on the dank bank near the river's brink.

38. Rude, rocky, rural roads run round rocky ranges. 39. Round the rough and rugged rocks the ragged rascals rudely ran.

40. A lily lying all alone along the lane.

41. Pillercatter, tappekiller, kitterpaller, patterkiller, caterpillar.

42. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

43. Peter Prangle, the prickly, prangly pear picker picked three pecks of prickly, prangly pears from the prickly, prangly pear trees on the pleasant prairies.

44.

The Cataract strong then plunges along,
Striking and raging as if a war waging,
Rising and leaping, sinking and creeping,
Showering and springing, flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing.

Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,

And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

-ROBERT SOUTHEY.

The foregoing exercises are intended to bring out an extra effort for precision. But in reading there is such a thing as overpreciseness, the "prunes, prisms, and potatoes" ar

ticulation sometimes affected by the country school teacher. In good reading one should never call attention to the articulation as such, but he should, nevertheless, be distinct. Without overpreciseness, now, but at the same time with clear articulation, read the following:

1. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spake my lines.-SHAKE

SPEARE.

2. Nature has proved that the great silent Samuel shall not be silent too long.-CARLYLE.

3. From the dark portals of the Star Chamber, and in the stern text of the Acts of Uniformity, the pilgrims received a commission more important than any that ever bore the royal seal.— EVERETT.

4. When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.-ST. JOHN, XXI, 18.

5.

6.

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.-TENNYSON.

The splendor falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

-TENNYSON.

7. And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth; and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him and slew him at the passages of the Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.-JUDGES, XII, 5, 6.

8.

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,-
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask;-But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies; God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts: who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:—
They also serve who only stand and wait.
On His Blindness.

MILTON.

9. To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy until you step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another world.

Sketch Book.

10.

Look how the floor of heaven

IRVING.

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim,-
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Merchant of Venice.

11.

SHAKESPEARE.

Once more: speak clearly, if you speak at all;

Carve every word before you let it fall;

Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star,

Try overhard to roll the British R;

Do put your accents in the proper spot;

Don't let me beg you don't say "How?" for "What?"

And when you stick on conversation's burrs,

Don't strew the pathway with those dreadful urs. Urania.

O. W. HOLMES.

Pronounce the following words; note carefully the exact vowel and consonant sounds: