66 Thirty days hath September, Which has but twenty-eight in fine, Till leap-year gives it twenty-nine." You notice, in the first line, the word hath is used instead of the word has. You wonder why this is so. Now, if you will read the line with has in the place of hath, this way: "Thirty days has September," you will see that it is not so easy to say as the other, because there are so many sounds of s coming near together. This is one of the reasons it is written hath; and another is, that this was the old-fashioned way of saying it. The fourth and fifth lines of the rhyme are these: "Except the second month alone, Which has but twenty-eight in fine." These lines mean this: The second month, which is February, is the only month which has only twenty-eight days in it; but twenty-eight days in fine. and February has What does in fine mean? I will tell you. In fine is an old-fashioned way of saying, To come to the end. I told you this was an old rhyme, and you see that it has old-fashioned words in it. "Till leap-year gives it twenty-nine." Ah! here is something for you to find out. Copy this "Old Rhyme," and commit it to memory. You know what is meant by emphasis, and why it is used. Now I will show you how and when it should be used. Suppose you should say: "The sun is risen. The sun is too high, and it is too warm for us to walk now. Let us wait until the sun sets." In the first sentence "sun" is a new thing. Before that, you were reading or talking of something else; now you wish the person to whom you are speaking to think of the sun, and you emphasize the word "sun," in order to make him think of it. After the first sentence, "sun" is not any longer a new idea, but the ideas that the sun is "too high" and "too warm" for us to walk "now" are the new ideas about the sun which you wish the person to think of, and so you should emphasize the words which express these new ideas. Now, from this we find that the new ideas and new things spoken of in a sentence should be EMPHASIZED, in order to call attention to them; and we may make it a rule that Words expressing new ideas must be emphasized. I wish you to think out for yourselves answers to these two questions: What do we mean by new ideas? Why do we emphasize words expressing new ideas? You may read the following sentences as they are marked, and answer the questions below them: The robins have come. I heard them singing this morning. Do you think they will build a nest in the apple-tree this year? Why should "robins " be emphasized? What is the new idea in the second sentence? How many new ideas in the last sentence? Copy the following sentences, and draw a line under those words which you think should be spoken with more force than the others: Behind his back, the geese come to examine the loaf. To find out whether it is good or not, they peck a hole in it. Two young bears were chained to a log. They looked like twins. Two young bears were chained to a log near a large hotel among the White Hills. They looked like twins. They were well fed, and fat. A great many children, and grown people too, went every day to see them. When one of the bears would come forward as far as his chain would reach, and stand upon his hind feet, the boys and girls were not afraid to give him apples and other things to eat. It made the children laugh to see these young bears at play. They looked clumsy, but they were very spry. Sometimes, when they played to gether, they would box each other's ears, and roll over and over on the ground. And sometimes they would sit on the ground log, and play with But all the time with their backs against the long sticks, as boys might do. they looked very wise; they never smiled once. Nobody ever saw a bear smile, or heard one laugh. Every evening, after supper, a man would lead the bears to the fountain in front of the hotel. It was amusing to see them then. They would jump into the basin, and stand up and spatter water at each other for a while; then each would try to duck the other. |