1. EXAMPLES OF FINAL STRESS. They tell us, sir, that we are weak,-unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. -Patrick Henry. 2. You may, if it be God's will, gain our barren and rugged mountains. But, like our ancestors of old, we will seek refuge in wilder and more distant solitudes; and, when we have resisted to the last, we will starve in the icy wastes of the glaciers. Ay! men, women, and children, we will be frozen into annihilation together, ere one free Switzer will acknowledge a foreign master! 3. -Scott-Anne of Geierstein. Nice clothes I get, too, traipsing through weather like this! My gown and bonnet will be spoiled. Needn't wear 'em, then? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear 'em. No, sir! I'm not going out a dowdy, to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows, it isn't often I step over the threshold. -Jerrold The Caudle Lectures. 4. They dragged forward at her summons a wretch, already half-dead with terror, in whose agonized features I recognized, to my horror and astonishment, my old acquaintance Morris. He fell prostrate before the female chief, with an effort to clasp her knees, from which she drew back, as if his touch had been pollution; so that all he could do, in token of the extremity of his humiliation, was to kiss the hem of her plaid. I never heard entreaties for life poured forth with such agony of spirit. The ecstasy of fear was such that, instead of paralyzing his tongue, as on ordinary occasions, it even rendered him eloquent; and, with cheeks as pale as ashes, hands compressed in agony, eyes that seemed to be taking their last look of all mortal objects, he protested, with the deepest oaths, his total ignorance of any design on the life of Rob Roy, whom he swore he loved and honored as his own soul. In the inconsistency of his terror, he said he was but the agent of others, and he muttered the name of Rashleigh. He prayed but for life; for life he would give all he had in the world; it was but life he asked; life, if it were to be prolonged under tortures and privations; he asked only breath, though it should be drawn in the damps of the lowest caverns of their hills. 5. -Scott-Rob Roy. Don't But I know why you lent the umbrella. Oh, yes; I know very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow, you knew that, and you did it on purpose. tell me; you hate to have me go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't think it, Mr. Caudle. No, sir; if it comes down in bucketfuls, I'll go all the more. No: and I won't have a cab! Where do you think the money's to come from? You've high notions at that club of yours. A cab? indeed! Cost me sixteen-pence at least-sixteenpence?-two-and-eightpence, for there's back again! Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who's to pay for 'em? I can't pay for 'em; and I'm sure you can't, if you go on as you do, throwing away your property, and beggaring your children, buying umbrellas. 6. -Jerrold-The Caudle Lectures. But oh! What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel, 7. 8. 9. Oh! horror! horror! horror! Tongue nor heart. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight I'll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak: I'll have no speaking! I will have my bond. Worcester. Those same noble Scots I'll keep them all; That are your prisoners, Hotspur. By heaven, he shall not have a Scot of them. I'll keep them, by this hand. Worcester. You start away, And lend no ear unto my purposes. Hotspur. Nay, I will, that's flat. He said, he would not ransom Mortimer; Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer; And in his ear I'll holla-Mortimer! Nay, I'll have a starling, shall be taught to speak Nothing but 'Mortimer', and give it him, -Id.-King Henry IV, I. THE INTERMINGLING OF STRESSES. Where there is a drift of abrupt utterance, the Radical or the Final Stress will predominate, according as the speaker assumes the subjective or the objective mood; but, in either case, occasional syllables will receive especial distinction by taking stress which, while abrupt, differs in its type of abruptness from the prevailing form; that is, in the midst of a drift of Radical Stress, a syllable here and there will be heard in Final Stress, and vice versa. This is only natural, for strong feeling and motive are usually complex. The elementary sounds and their order in the syllable, too, determine its possibilities, and largely its likelihood, in the matter of stress. Radical, Final, or Median Stress, any one of them, often pervades a long passage, constituting a Drift; Thorough Stress and Tremor give the prevailing impression, if a syllable here and there has their characteristics; and Compound Stress is comparatively rare, being properly reserved to give especial elliptical, antithetic, or referential significance to an occasional word. In a Thorough-Stress passage, the variable and immutable syllables incline to Final Stress, because of the predominating expulsive energy. In the examples immediately following, while Final Stress rules, some important words may, and quite often should, receive Radical Stress. In the first three examples, a few such words are designated by italics. 1. INTERMINGLING STRESSES. EXAMPLES. Youthful aspirants after intellectual eminence, forget, forget, I entreat you-banish, banish forever-the weak and senseless idea that anything will serve your purpose but study,―intense, unwearied, absorbing study. 2. -Orville Dewey. It was the act of a coward, who raises his arm to strike, but has not the courage to give the blow. I will not call him villain, because it would be unparliamentary, and he is a Privy Councillor. I will not call him fool, because he happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. But I say he is one who has abused the privilege of Parliament and the freedom of debate, to the uttering of language which, if spoken out of the House, I should answer only by a blow! I care not how high his station, how low his character, how contemptible his speech; whether a Privy Councillor or a parasite, my answer would be a blow! I have returned, not, as the honorable member has said, to raise another storm,-I have returned to protect that Constitution, of which I was the parent and founder, from the assassination of such men as the honorable gentleman and his unworthy associates. They are corrupt,-they are seditious, and they, at this very moment, are in a conspiracy against their country. Here I stand, for impeachment or trial. I dare accusation! I defy the honorable gentleman! I defy the Government! I defy their whole phalanx! Let them come forth! I tell the ministers I will neither give quarter, nor take it! 3. -Grattan-Reply to Corry. I felt as one sometimes does in a nightmare dream, when the will is there to do something, only a dreadful fear holds the dreamer back, and he can see danger coming nearer and nearer, and yet can do nothing to avoid it. We neither of us spoke, but stood there, one on each side, leaning forward as helpless as the poor little child in front, till, with almost a yell, I fought clear of the power that seemed to hold me, and, with the feeling that it was all in vain, crept along the side of the engine, and lay down, with my arms extended in front of the cowcatcher. Only moments, but moments that seemed like hours, as, with its strange, hurrying, jumping motion, the engine dashed on, as I told myself, to crush out the life of that poor little |