of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Lancelot had so particularly described.-PoE: The Fall of the House of Usher.

The second of Chanticleer's two wives, ever since Phoebe's arrival, had been in a state of heavy despondency, caused, as it afterwards appeared, by her inability to lay an egg. One day, however, by her selfimportant gait, the side-way turn of her head, and the cock of her eye, as she pried into one and another nook of the garden,-croaking to herself, all the while, with inexpressible complacency, it was made evident that this identical hen, much as mankind undervalued her, carried something about her person, the worth of which was not to be estimated either in gold or precious stones. Shortly after, there was a prodigious cackling and gratulation of Chanticleer and all his family, including the wizened chicken, who appeared to understand the matter quite as well as did his sire, his mother, or his aunt. That afternoon Phoebe found a diminutive egg-not in the regular nest-it was far too precious to be trusted there-but cunningly hidden under the currant-bushes on some dry stalks of last year's grass. -HAWTHORNE: The House of the Seven Gables.

Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, etc., came the muffled sound of a pistol shot, which not one-hundredth part of the audience heard at the time—and yet a moment's hush-somehow, surely a vague, startled thrill-and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr'd and striped space-way of the President's box, a sudden figure, a man raises himself with hands and feet, and stands a moment on the railing, leaps below to the stage (a distance of perhaps fourteen or fifteen feet), falls out of position, catching his boot-heel in the copious

drapery (the American flag), falls on one knee, quickly recovers himself, rises as if nothing had happen'd (he really sprains his ankle, but unfelt then),—and so the figure, Booth, the murderer, dress'd in plain black broadcloth, bare-headed, with a full head of glossy, raven hair, and his eyes like some mad animal's flashing with light and resolution, yet with a certain strange calmness, holds aloft in one hand a large knife—walks along not much back from the footlights-turns fully toward the audience his face of statuesque beauty, lit by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, perhaps insanity-launches out in a firm and steady voice the words, Sic semper tyrannis-and then walks with neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across to the back of the stage, and disappears.-WHITMAN.

CHAPTER V

INVERSION

We have seen that we must group carefully before we can hope to understand. But here is a sentence in which although the grouping is simple, there is a distinctly new problem:

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
-LONGFELLOW: Paul Revere's Ride.

What is the difficulty? The groups are inverted, that is, not arranged in the order of everyday conversation. It is rare that we find the subject of a sentence at the end, and hence in this illustration, we may miss the meaning unless we rethink it something as follows: Meanwhile, Paul Revere, impatient to mount and ride, booted and spurred, walked, with a heavy stride, on the opposite shore.

Sometimes the inversion may be only a word or two, as in the following:

Him the Almighty power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky.

-MILTON: Paradise Lost.

Was Irving not good, and, of his works, was not his life the best part?-THACKERAY: Nil Nisi Bonum.

But even in such simple cases care must be taken to avoid blurring the picture. Here is another sentence that must be straightened out carefully before we can get the meaning:

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

-COLERIDGE: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Rewrite the above in the natural order of subject, modifiers, and predicate. Note also how the difficulty is increased because of the subordinate clause:

As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head.

But we are greatly helped when we recognize that the sentence is inverted. We note that "With sloping masts," etc., is incomplete in its meaning, and hence we look forward for the group that completes the sense, which we find in "The ship drove fast," etc.

REVIEW EXERCISES

So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high,
Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell
On the proud crest of Satan, that no sight,
Nor motion of swift thought, less could his shield,
Such ruin intercept.

-MILTON: Paradise Lost.

High in front advanced,

The brandished sword of God before them blazed
Fierce as a comet.
-MILTON: Paradise Lost.

Him, Menelaus, loved of Mars, beheld Advancing with large strides before the rest. -The Iliad (Bryant's translation).

Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder'd,

A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is

caught,

Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought. -WHITMAN: Ethiopia Saluting the Colors.

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninetytwo,

Did the English fight the French,-woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the

blue,

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks

pursue,

Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, With the English fleet in view.

-BROWNING: Hervé Riel.

Whither, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

-BRYANT: To a Waterfowl.

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,

Of thee from the hill-top looking down.

-EMERSON: Each and All.