and shields shock, and men yell and scream.

If we

were looking at a battlefield we should take in at a glance all that the author here describes; but when we read the words, so accustomed are we to read carelessly and without conscious determination to get the meaning, most of us get but a small fraction of the story.

In this first example I have purposely chosen a simple poem. There are no hard words, and the construction is easy. If there were many strange words, and sentences long and involved, there would be several kinds of difficulties to overcome besides that of grouping. But we are taking one step at a time.

Some of the grouping difficulties in Opportunity are clearly due to the poetic form; but in prose, because it looks easier than verse, there is more temptation than in poetry to run words together without regard for the meaning. Read silently and hurriedly this passage from Silas Marner:

The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold: the coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant as stones brought to complete a house suddenly buried by an earthquake; the sense of bereavement was too heavy upon him for the old thrill of satisfaction to rise again at the touch of the newly-earned coin. And now something had come to replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to the earnings, drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money.

Now in order that no part of the picture may possibly escape us let us group the lines as follows:

The disposition to hoard

had been utterly crushed

at the very first

by the loss of his long-stored gold:
the coins he earned afterwards
seemed as irrelevant

as stones brought to complete a house.
suddenly buried by an earthquake;
the sense of bereavement

was too heavy upon him

for the old thrill of satisfaction

to rise again

at the touch of the newly-earned coin.

And now

something had come

to replace his hoard

which gave a growing purpose

to the earnings,

drawing his hope and joy

continually onward

beyond the money.

Of course, the grouping is overdone, but nevertheless it serves to illustrate the principle we are studying. A slow reader might be justified in such detailed study, but after he becomes familiar with the text I think he will find that a grouping about like the following will give the best interpretation:

The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold; the coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelas stones brought to complete a house suddenly buried by an earthquake; the sense of bereavement was too heavy upon him

evant

for the old

thrill of satisfaction to rise again at the touch of the

newly-earned coin.

And now something had come to replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to the earnings, drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money.

(The spaces do not indicate a long pause, but a separation of groups to prevent blurring.)

EXERCISES

The student will prepare to read aloud in class the following selections to illustrate the principle of grouping. Do not be misled by the seeming simplicity of these passages. While most of the groups are easily apprehended there are several places where the idea will escape you if you are not careful.

Not what we have, but what we use;
Not what we see, but what we choose-
These are the things that mar or bless
The sum of human happiness.

Not as we take, but as we give;

Not as we pray, but as we live—

These are the things that make for peace,
Both now and after time shall cease.

He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,
And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent,
And went abroad into the cold wet fog,

Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's tent.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

I could not love thee, dear, so much

Loved I not honor more.

The dead are many, and the living few.

How near to good is what is fair!

A ride of two hundred and odd miles in severe weather is one of the best softeners of a hard bed that ingenuity can devise.

The sea! the sea! the open sea!

The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,

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.

I love, oh! how I love to ride

On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
Where every mad wave drowns the moon,
And whistles aloft its tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the southwest wind doth blow!

I never was on the dull, tame shore
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh her mother's nest,-
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea.

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
The whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,

And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild,
As welcomed to life the ocean child.

I have lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a rover's life,
With wealth to spend, and a power to range,
But never have sought or sighed for change:
And death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wide, unbounded sea!

-CORNWALL: The Sea.

An hour before sunset, on the evening of a day in the beginning of October, 1815, a man travelling afoot entered the little town of D-. It would have been hard to find a passer-by more wretched in appearance. A slouched leather cap half hid his face, bronzed by the sun and wind, and dripping with sweat. He wore a cravat twisted like a rope; coarse blue trousers, worn and shabby, white on one knee and with holes in the other; an old, ragged, gray blouse patched on one side with a piece of green cloth sewed with twine; upon his back was a well-filled knapsack; in his hand he carried an enormous knotted stick; his stockingless feet were in hobnailed shoes; his hair was cropped and his beard long.-HUGO: Les Misérables.

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his goodly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place:
Unpracticed he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,