The following extracts include examples of all kinds of descriptive gestures, and should be regarded also as studies in Atmosphere.

Through the whole afternoon there had been a tremendous cannonading of the fort from the gunboats and the land forces; the smooth, regular engineer lines were broken, and the fresh-sodded embankments torn and roughened by the unceasing rain of shot and shell. About six o'clock there came moving up the island, over the burning sands and under the burning sky, a stalwart, splendid-appearing set of men, who looked equal to any daring, and capable of any heroism men whom nothing could daunt and few things subdue.

As this regiment, the famous Fifty-fourth, came up the island to take its place at the head of the storming-party in the assault on Wagner, it was cheered on all sides by the white soldiers, who recognized and honored the heroism which it had already shown, and of which it was to give such new and sublime proof.

The evening, or rather the afternoon, was a lurid, sultry one. Great masses of clouds, heavy and black, were piled in the western sky, fringed here and there by an angry red, and torn by vivid streams of lightning. Not a breath of wind stirred the high, rank grass by the water side; a portentous and awful stillness filled the air-the stillness felt by nature before a devastating storm. Quiet, with the like awful and portentous calm, the black regiment, headed by its young, fair-haired, knightly colonel, marched to its destined place and action.

Here the men were addressed in a few brief and burning words by their heroic commander. Here they were besought to glorify their whole race by the luster of their deeds; here their faces shone with a look which said: "Though men, we are ready to do deeds, to achieve triumphs, worthy of the gods!" here the word of command was given :

"We are ordered and expected to take Battery Wagner at the point of the bayonet. Are you ready?"

"Ay, ay, sir! ready!" was the answer.

And the order went pealing down the line: "Ready! Close ranks! Charge bayonets! Forward! Double-quick, march!"— and away they went, under a scattering fire, in one compact line till within one hundred feet of the fort, when the storm of death broke upon them. Every gun belched forth its great shot and shell; every rifle whizzed out its sharp-singing, death-freighted messenger. The men wavered not for an instant; forward-forward they went; plunged

into the ditch; waded through the deep water, no longer a muddy hue, but stained crimson with their blood; and commenced to climb the parapet. The foremost line fell, and then the next, and the next. On, over the piled-up mounds of dead and dying, of wounded and slain, to the mouth of the battery; seizing the guns; bayoneting the gunners at their posts; planting their flag and struggling around it; their leader on the walls, sword in hand, his blue eyes blazing, his fair face aflame, his clear voice calling out: "Forward, my brave boys!"-then plunging into the hell of battle before him.

As the men were clambering up the parapet, their color-sergeant was shot dead, the colors trailing, stained and wet, in the dust beside him. A nameless hero sprang from the ranks, seized the staff from his dying hand, and with it mounted upward. A ball struck his right arm; but ere it could fall shattered by his side, his left hand caught the flag and carried it onward. Even in the mad sweep of assault and death, the men around him found breath and time to hurrah, and those behind him pressed more gallantly forward to follow such a lead. He kept his place, the colors flying (though faint with loss of blood and wrung with agony), up the slippery steep, up to the walls of the fort; on the wall itself, planting the flag where the men made their brief, splendid stand, and melted away like snow before furnace-heat. Here a bayonet thrust met him and brought him down, a great wound in his brave breast, but he did not yield; dropping to his knees, pressing his unbroken arm upon the gaping wound; bracing himself against a dead comrade; the colors still flew, an inspiration to the men about him, a defiance to the foe.

At last, when the shattered ranks fell back, sullenly and slowly retreating, it was seen by those who watched him that he was painfully working his way downward, still holding aloft the flag, bent evidently on saving it, and saving it as flag had rarely, if ever, been saved before. Now and then he paused at some impediment; it, was where the dead and dying were piled so thickly as to compel him to make a détour. Now and then he rested a moment, to press his arm tighter against his torn and open breast.

Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself onward step by step down the hill, inch by inch across the ground-to the door of the hospital; and then, while dying eyes brightened, while dying men held back their souls from the eternities to cheer him, gasped out: "I did but do my duty, boys and the dear-old flag-never oncetouched the ground:" and then, away from the reach and sight of its foes, in the midst of its defenders, who loved and were dying for it, the flag at last fell,

DICKENSON, The Attack on Battery Wagner.

And underneath another sun
Warring on a later day,
Round affrighted Lisbon drew
The treble works, the vast designs
Of his labor'd rampart lines,
Where he greatly stood at bay,
Whence he issued forth anew,
And ever great and greater grew,
Beating from the wasted vines
Back to France her banded swarms,
Back to France with countless blows,
Till o'er the hills her eagles flew
Beyond the Pyrenean pines,
Follow'd up in valley and glen
With blare of bugle, clamor of men,
Roll of cannon and clash of arms,

And England pouring on her foes.

TENNYSON, Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.

But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied: -
"Desire not that, my father! thou must live.
For some are born to do great deeds, and live,
As some are born to be obscured, and die.
Do thou the deeds I die too young to do,
And reap a second glory in thine age;
Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine.
But come! thou seest this great host of men
Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these!
Let me entreat for them; what have they done?
They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star.
Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.

But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,
But carry me with thee to Seistan,

And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,

Thou, and the snow-hair'd Zal, and all thy friends,

And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,
And heap a stately mound above my bones,
And plant a far-seen pillar over all.
That so the passing horseman on the waste
May see my tomb a great way off, and cry:
'Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there,
Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!
And I be not forgotten in my grave.'

13

M. ARNOLD, Sohrab and Rustum.

13. The student should know that Sohrab is lying wounded unto death throughout this entire speech, and that hence what "the passing

horseman will be represented as saying must be uttered in the character of Sohrab.

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges, lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush beds, and clutch'd the sword,
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon,

And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,

Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the Northern Sea.
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur :
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.

Thereat, once more he moved about, and clomb
Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw,
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less and vanish into light.
And the new sun rose bringing the new year.

TENNYSON, The Passing of Arthur.

CHAPTER XVI.

PREPARATION OF RECITATIONS.

THE student has observed that the method adopted in this work has been, first, through careful analysis of the text, to develop his powers of discrimination; second, to teach him to rely upon natural instincts and impulses for proper expression; third, to make clear that to a very great extent this process will develop range, power, flexibility, and quality of voice; and fourth, he has been shown the relation between Recitation and Literature. It must be borne in mind, however, that there is another aspect of this work. Recitation of one's own compositions or those of another is an art, and this phase of the study is to be touched upon in this chapter.

The theory underlying the present method differs from most of those heretofore in vogue, and many still followed, in that it endeavors to develop powers of expression through the power of feeling. Since recitation makes use of inflections and melodies, fast time and slow time, high pitch and low pitch, this quality and that, therefore most previous methods began with a mechanical study of these elements. This was only in a very limited degree educational, and simply gave the pupil the power to execute certain mechanical exercises, often leaving undeveloped the intellect, the imagination, and the emotions. But even when the student has developed these powers of mind,