The culprit's misfortune.

READING
ALOUD.

pose?" "Oh, the jintleman that's brought me here knows my misfortune well enough." But the gentleman was as astonished as the magistrate himself, and as incapable of guessing the culprit's meaning. "You will own, I suppose," said his worship, "that you stopped this gentleman on the highway?" "Oh, yes. I did that same." "And that you took from him fifty pounds in Bank of Wexford bills?" "And there your honor's right again." "Well, then, you perplexing vagabond, what do you mean by your misfortune?" "Sure, I mean that the money was n't in my pocket above a week, when the dirty bank stopped payment, and I was robbed of every shillin'!"

Draper, I think, somewhere in his History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, observes, that if there are disadvantages in the method of acquiring knowledge by reading, there are also signal advantages; for, though upon the printed page the silent letters are mute and unsustained by any scenic help, yet oftena wonderful contradiction- they pour forth. emphatic eloquence, that can make the heart leap with emotion, or kindle on the cheek the blush of shame. The might of

are of the

persuasiveness does not always lie in articulate speech. The strong are of the The strong silent. God never speaks. We are as silent. elastic, says Emerson, as the gas of gunpowder, and a sentence in a book sets free our fancy, and instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the floor of the Pit. Yet on the other hand there are readers so careless, so indifferent, so insensate, as to appear to be proof against emotion-to say nothing of intellectual exaltation. Don Abbondio, the cowardly priest in Manzoni's story, may be cited as an instance; he was very fond of reading a little every day; and a neighboring curate, who possessed something of a library, lent him one book after another, always taking the first that came to hand. All printed matter was alike to him.

aloud as a

physical ex

ercise.

Reading aloud, as a mere physical exer- Reading cise, is of great importance and efficacy. Cicero, in some one of his letters, speaks of curing himself of troublesome and alarming weakness by reading aloud for some hours every day. Certain temperaments are influenced by it as actors are affected by their own playing. It is said of Madame Pasta that she would come home from the opera, and sit in a passion of tears at the

recollection of what she had been acting. It was entirely unaffected. She would say she knew it to be idle, but that she "could not get the thing out of her head."

Cross, in his Life of George Eliot, expresses the belief that reading requires for its perfection a rare union of intellectual, moral, and physical qualities. It cannot be imitated. It is an art, like singing-a personal possession that dies with the possessor, and leaves nothing behind except a memory. Immediately before his wife's George Eli- last illness, they read together the first part ot's reading. of Faust. Reading the poem in the original with such an interpreter was the opening of a new world to him. Nothing in all literature moved her more, he tells us, than the pathetic situation and the whole character of Gretchen. It touched her more than anything in Shakespeare.

In one of Sir Henry Taylor's published letters he speaks of reading Shakespeare to his children, and adds: "Reading of Shakespeare to boys and girls (if it be well read, and if they be apt), I regard as carrying with it a deeper cultivation than anything else that can be done to cultivate them; and I often think how strange it is that amongst all the efforts which are

made in these times to teach young people everything that is to be known, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, the one thing omitted is teaching them to read."

The true standard of reading.

In the book of Nehemiah is given, in a few words, the true standard of reading how Ezra, the learned and pious priest, and the Levites, read to the people the law of Moses: "They read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused the people to understand the reading." They "gave the sense," be it observed, and the people understood it. The Persian poet Saadi tells that a person with a disagreeable voice was reading the Koran aloud, when a holy man, passing by, asked what was his monthly stipend. He answered, "Nothing at all." "But why then do you take so much trouble?" He replied, "I read for the sake of God." The other rejoined, "For God's sake do not read; for if you read the Koran in this manner you will destroy the splendor of The splenIslamism."

How strange, that of the multitudes of readers, so few comparatively should be able to read aloud agreeably and intelligibly. Is reading aloud such a difficult

dor of Islamism in danger.

Causes inscrutable.

The essentialities so rare.

art? or is all the world indifferent about acquiring it? It cannot be that of the many branches of education, the most important should be the most neglected. A thing so preposterous is incredible. There must be causes inscrutable to account for a fact so extraordinary. Considering the pleasure to others derived from agreeable and intelligible oral reading, to say nothing of its economy, one would think that, of all things, it would be most anxiously studied and most diligently practiced. Can it be indeed that good readers are born, and not made? Can it be that the infinite many are wanting in the faculties and qualities necessary to attain the art? Would some one could tell the essentialities so rare! The best vocal readers, we know, are not always the best intellects. Apparently, they only possess a certain ken, which is characteristic, but undefinable. They perceptibly penetrate the words, perceive the sense, and participate the feeling, which they are able unconsciously to interpret, reveal, and enkindle in the reading. If you undertake to analyze the achievement to talk of manner, voice, pronunciation, intonation, inflection, or anything incident to it you are in a