The Pause In Reading

During the last ten years there has been a uuarked increase in the number of professional readers. That fact might suggest to an unobserving persou that we are a nation of good readers, from whom the best have beon called to delight the public car. But the suggestion is not supported by the faots. In .-pite of schools of' elocution and of couimo i schools, too, it is difficult to find in private life a person who can read so as to please and instruct a family group. Perhaps the following dialogues, translated froui the Frcnch, may point out one cause uf bad reading : A youngruan presented himself, one day, in the office of Mr. Samson, saying that he wished to take lessons in elocution, and the following conversation eusued : " You wish to take lessons in reading ?" "Yes, sir." " Have y ou practiced reading aloud ?" "Yes, sir ; I have read uiany of the scènes in Shakspeare. " " Before people?" " Yes." " Successfully ?" "Yes." " Well, take this book and read the fable of the ' Oak and the Reed." The pupil bega a : " An oak one day, said to a reed - ' ' "Thatwilldo. You do not knowhow to read." " I suppose not, as I came here to take lessons. But how can you judge from one line - " " Well, begin again." The young man read asbefore: "An oak one day, stiid to a reed," " I gaw it before. You cannot read. " " But-" " But, yes. Does an adverb belong to a verb, or to a substantive ? ' One day' is here adverbial, and should be joined to ' sajd. ' You should read : 'An oak (com uia) one day said to a reed.' " "That is truel " ezclaimed the young man, somewhat taken by surprise. " One of the inost important points in reading is punctuation." "How! puoctuation in reading, how can that be?" " By the pause. The pause is to the ear what the punutuation marks are to the eye. They do not, however, always coincide. The pause is also sometimes lighter than such as would be indicated by a couima, but by it a sentence is so arranged that the words which belong to each other are brought togetuer, and those which do not bt-long to each otber are separated. 'l One of the first elcments of good reading, cberefore, is attention to the pause. When due attention is not given to this, the '¦mphasis is Hable to be uiisplaced and the sense obscured."