understand. Grasp every idea thoroughly. To do this you must learn to
picture mentally. You should compel yourself to make a mental picture of
every scene described. You are reading Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.”
You come to his incomparable description of the battle of Waterloo. He
tells us at the very commencement that it was the rain that gained the
victory at Waterloo. Observation and reflection on Hugo’s part made
it possible for him to make this declaration. Carefully observe this
statement and what follows.
Picture that great plain, the undulating sweep of ground. Place the two
armies, and then see the attack begin on Hougomont. Watch the changing
scene with your mental eyes. Follow Hugo as he describes the general
confusion from noon until four o’clock in the afternoon. Now prepare
yourself for a great picture of a tremendous day. See Wellington’s
disposal of his troops on the farther side of a long hill, on the
crest of which was a deep trench caused by a road whose ruts during
the centuries had worn down into the earth ten, twenty or more feet.
On the near side of this hill Napoleon’s cavalry are ascending—three
thousand five hundred of them, colossal men on colossal horses. On, up,
they sweep. They seem as irresistible as the passing cyclone. Just as
they reach the crest, to their horror they discover this trench between
themselves and the English. Let Hugo’s own words now complete the picture
for you:
It was a terrible moment. The ravine was there, unexpected,
yawning, directly under the horses’ feet, two fathoms deep
between its double slopes; the second file pushed the first into
it, and the third pushed on the second; the horses reared and
fell backward, landed on their haunches, slid down, all four feet
in the air, crushing and overwhelming the riders; and there being
no means of retreat,—the whole column being no longer anything
more than a projectile,—the force which had been acquired to
crush the English crushed the French; the inexorable ravine could
only yield when filled; horses and riders rolled pell-mell,
grinding each other, forming but one mass of flesh in this gulf:
when this trench was full of living men, the rest marched over
them and passed on. Almost a third of Dubois’s brigade fell into
that abyss.
Take an illustration from the American novel—“Ramona.” Get a real picture
in your mind of the appearance of the country. See the sheep with their
lambs in the fields under the trees. Determine what size, shape, and
color these trees are. Picture Juan Can, the foreman or _major-domo_,
listen to his voice, so that you can definitely sense what kind of
impression it makes upon your mental ear. Do the same with the Señora
Moreno. Can you see that mustard-field described by the author, where
Ramona goes out to meet the good Father Salvierderra? Have you got a
picture in your mind of Ramona, and the father, and how they met, and how
they returned to Camulos together? Picture, _picture_, PICTURE, mentally,
until every scene, every landscape, every character is vividly before you.
This was the method followed by Macaulay, whose memory was so phenomenal
that Sydney Smith called him “an encyclopedia in breeches,” and who used
to say that he owed much of his memory power to the discipline he used
to give himself in mental picturing. He never read in a hurry. He always
allowed himself time enough vividly to bring the scene before his mental
vision, and once done, with him, it was ready to be recalled at any time.
Joaquin Miller used to say that he even pictured abstract ideas. If, for
instance, he was thinking of the abstract quality of coldness, he would
make a picture of some one suffering from cold, or some wintry landscape.
IT IS DIFFICULT TO OBSERVE PROPERLY
By this time, if you have faithfully followed these instructions about
observation, you will have discovered that the mere observation of
unrelated facts amounts to very little. You will begin to see that no
observation of the mind is simple. While you are observing, you are
naturally doing something else, for you are classifying facts, seeing
their relation one to another, recognizing similarities or differences,
contrasts and harmonies. The mind works as a whole, not the memory
separately, nor the judgment by itself. Each part is dependent upon each
other part: they overlap one another; the operations of one faculty imply
the operations of all the other faculties. It is for this reason that the
student must seek to discipline each apparently isolated faculty of the
mind.
In observing, it is not enough mentally to picture what you read. You
must go even more into detail than that. You must observe _words_. Did
you ever read “Martin Eden,” that wonderful study in mental development
and self-analysis, written by Jack London, revealing in retrospect his
own mental processes? It will more than pay you for the trouble of
reading. Follow and practice what he therein describes. Words are things,
but they are things only when you know them so intimately that they bring
real concept to your mind the moment you see them. It is not enough that
you can pronounce a word properly—that you _seem_ to know it. Each word
must _mean_ something to you, and that something must be _definite_, so
definite that no other can mean exactly the same thing.
One of the greatest dialectitians of our day was Monsignore Capel, the
private confessor of Pope Leo XIII. Even in extemporaneous speech every
word he used was the right word. No other word would have done just
as well. He was once asked how he gained his power over words, and he
replied to the effect that when he was a lad he had several tutors. One
only, however, was a real and thorough teacher. He said: “My first day
with him I shall never forget. He gave me a lesson in Cæsar, and then
sent me away with six lines, which I was to translate and bring to him
in the afternoon. That seemed easy. When I went to recite my lesson I
followed my usual wont—gave a free and easy translation, which may have
contained the sense of the original, or may not. He heard me through
without a word. Then he began a dissection of my method of translation
that made my hair stand on end, every drop of my blood tingle, every
faculty of my brain respond, every power of my soul awaken to a sense of
the hitherto untold, undreamed of, unbounded capacities of words. That
man was a genius in quickening a lad’s dormant faculties into living,
driving, whipping forces for good. He took each word of the original
and demanded that I find its equivalent in English, and he showed me
how to do it. I must never take to him an English word whose original
parentage I could not trace. I must know all its mutations and their whys
and wherefores. There could be no such thing as a _free_ translation.
It was either a strictly literal _translation_ or _my version_, lazy or
otherwise, in another language from that in which the author had written.
From that day on, I began the study of words. I learned how to trace the
history of words; the changes that had come into their meanings, and my
teacher helped me to do it during the whole of the time I was in his
hands. To him I owe whatever power I possess to-day.”
Read Trench’s book on words and then study John Ruskin’s “Sesame and
Lilies.” Get hold of all the modern books on the subject. Read Shelley,
Keats, George Sterling, Browning, Swinburne—any author who has great
felicity of phrase, rare delicacy of expression, and seek to discover
his secret, and you will be amazed at the potent force of words. For, of
course, while words themselves are to be studied, it is in their relation
one to another when put into sentences that their power, sweetness,
beauty, charm, and music lie.
And here we come to the real work of observing. All else is preparatory
to grasping the _idea_ of the author. In his idea lies his inspiration.
The words he uses may be good, medium, or indifferent, but if we
grasp his idea, his high, intellectual and spiritual conception and
aspirations, we have gained the chief thing. Words are a wonderful help
in this. His power to arrange them, to give them new settings, new and
richer cadences, will not fail to quicken our own intellect to readier
and keener appreciation of his thought. Hence words should be deeply,
attentively and earnestly studied by all authors and speakers in order
that they may be able to arrange them in this masterly fashion. For this
personal arrangement of words and phrases, this flow and rhythm, is that
marvelous thing we call style. Several times in “Martin Eden” Jack London
refers to this. He has his rude hero who is brought out of the streets,
influenced by the love he feels for the heroine, determine to educate
himself. He studies and begins to write.
He read to her a story [one of his own compositions], one that
he flattered himself was among his very best. He called it “The
Wine of Life,” and the wine of it, that had stolen into his brain
when he wrote it, stole into his brain now as he read it. There
was a certain magic in the original conception, and he adorned
it with more magic and phrase and touch. All the old fire was
reborn in him and he was swayed and swept away so that he was
blind and deaf to the faults of it. But it was not so with Ruth.
Her trained ear detected the weaknesses and exaggerations, the
overemphasis of the tyro, and she was instantly aware each time
the sentence-rhythm tripped and faltered. She scarcely noted the
rhythm otherwise, except when it became too pompous, at which
moments she was disagreeably impressed with its amateurishness.
Just before this he said to her: “I hope I am learning to talk,
there seems to be so much in me I want to say. But it is all so
big. I can’t find ways to say what is really in me. Sometimes
it seems to me that all the world, all life, everything, had
taken up residence inside of me and was clamoring for me to be
spokesman. I feel—oh, I can’t describe it—I feel the bigness
of it, but when I speak, I babble like a child. It is a great
task to transmute feeling and sensation into speech, written
or spoken, that will, in turn, in him who reads or listens,
transmute itself back into the selfsame feeling and sensation.
It is a lordly task. See, I bury my face in the grass, and the
breath I draw in through my nostrils sets me quivering with a
thousand thoughts and fancies. It is a breath of the Universe I
have breathed. I know song and laughter, and success and pain,
and struggle and death; and see visions that arise in my brain
somehow out of the scent of the grass, and I would like to tell
them to you, to the world. But how can I? My tongue is tied. I
have tried, by the spoken word, just now, to describe to you the
effect on me of the scent of the grass. But I have not succeeded.
I have no more than hinted in awkward speech. My words seem
gibberish to me, and yet I am stifled with desire to tell.”
That was her final judgment on the story as a whole—amateurish,
though she did not tell him so. Instead, when he had done, she
pointed out the minor flaws and said that she liked the story.
But he was disappointed. Her criticism was just. He acknowledged
that, but he had a feeling that he was not sharing his work with
her for the purpose of schoolroom correction. The details did
not matter. They could take care of themselves. He could mend
them, he could learn to mend them. Out of life he had captured
something big and attempted to imprison it in the story. It was
the big thing out of life that he had read to her, not sentence
structure and semicolons. He wanted her to feel with him this
big thing that was his, that he had seen with his own eyes,
grappled with his own brain, and placed there on the pages with
his own hands in printed words. Well, he had failed, was his
secret decision. Perhaps the editors were right. He had felt the
big thing, but he had failed to transmute it. He concealed his
disappointment, and joined so easily with her in her criticism
that she did not realize that deep down in him was running a
strong undercurrent of disagreement.
Later he enlarges upon this, and also relates how he gained his mastery:
On the looking-glass were lists of definitions and
pronunciations; when shaving, or dressing, or combing his hair,
he conned these lists over. Similar lists were on the wall over
the oil-stove, and they were similarly conned while he was
engaged in cooking or washing dishes. New lists continually
displaced the old ones. Every strange or partly familiar word
encountered in his reading was immediately jotted down, and
later, when a sufficient number had been accumulated, were typed
and pinned to the wall or looking-glass. He even carried them in
his pockets, and reviewed them at odd moments on the street, or
while waiting in butcher-shop or grocery to be served.
He went farther in the matter. Reading the works of men who had
arrived, he noted every result achieved by them, and worked
out the tricks by which they had been achieved—the tricks of
narrative, of exposition, of style, the points of view, the
contrasts, the epigrams; and of all these he made lists for
study. He did not ape. He sought principles. He drew up lists of
effective and fetching mannerisms, till out of many such, culled
from many writers, he was able to induce the general principle of
mannerism, and, thus equipped, to cast about for new and original
ones of his own, and to weigh and measure and appraise them
properly. In similar manner he collected lists of strong phrases,
the phrases of living languages, phrases that bit like acid and
scorched like flame, or that glowed and were mellow and luscious
in the midst of the arid desert of common speech. He sought
always for the principle that lay behind and beneath. He wanted
to know how the thing was done; after that he could do it for
himself. He was not content with the fair face of the beauty. He
dissected beauty in his crowded little bedroom laboratory, where
cooking smells alternated with the outer bedlam of the Silva
tribe; and, having dissected and learned the anatomy of beauty,
he was nearer being able to create beauty itself.
This latter quotation shows us how Jack London mastered a knowledge of
that subtle thing called “style.” Every student of English literature
knows there are vast differences between the writings of Johnson and
Carlyle, DeQuincey and Coleridge, Ruskin and Newman, Browning and
Tennyson. Yet each uses the English language and possibly it might be
found that the vocabulary of each was not very different from that of the
other. Then wherein lies the difference? It is in that marvelous personal
quality, that individuality expressed in its use of words, that we call
style, that the difference lies.
To aid your memory, study and observe _styles_. Ever be on the alert to
discover why an author appeals to you. In reading Bret Harte ask yourself
why his appeal is so different from that of Sir Walter Scott, Browning
from Longfellow, Whitman from Swinburne, Pope from Sterling.
Observation also applies to hearing as well as seeing. How do you hear?
Carefully, definitely, specifically, or indifferently, generally? Have
you ever sought to disentangle the roar of noises you can hear in the
city’s streets? At first it is a dull confusion of sound that comes
as one great, indistinguishable roar. Listen! Observe, and you will
soon be able to distinguish the clatter of hoofs from the creak of the
car-wheels; the whistle of the traffic-officer from the cry of the
newsboy, or the honking of automobile-horns from the clang of street-car
gongs.
Most people think that only a highly trained musician should be able to
distinguish the various instruments as they are played in a band or an
orchestra, but any well-trained observer should be able to differentiate
between the instruments if he so desires. And this brings us to a very
striking discovery that we should not overlook; namely, that the powers
of observation should be under the personal control of the individual.
For instance, if he desires to observe the effect of the music of an
orchestra of a hundred pieces _as a whole_, he should be able to do so.
He should likewise be able to hear the different instruments, either
alone, or in their relation one to another. The power to do this is one
of the qualifications of a great conductor. His faculties of observation
are highly developed, or are naturally acute in this regard; hence, when
combined with other leadership qualities, he becomes a great director.
As applied to hearing a speech, lecture, or sermon, how shall one
observe? Exactly the same as one observes in reading—by concentration of
attention, seeing details, visualizing or mentally picturing every scene;
listening to the speaker’s choice of words; his power to make euphonic
grouping not only for the sweetness of sound, but for their potency as
well.
Hard work, this observing, is it not? It is intensive and perpetual. The
athlete must keep in training so long as he desires physically to excel;
so with the student or scholar. He must not lag, must not cease in his
efforts, or he will lose his place or power. The will must be evoked
to aid in such concentration of effort. The desire must be more fully
excited, aroused, enthused, or the will will not respond. How many people
go to church, to hear a lecture, an address, with the determination
strong within them to allow nothing to interfere with their observing
to the full what is said by the speaker? Note the turning around as
late-comers take their places. Watch how easily the major part of an
audience’s attention can be diverted. It is pitiable and even ludicrous
were it not so lamentable, because it reveals that in the training of our
youth strict attention has not been demanded.
DEVELOP THE POWER OF REFLECTION
We now come to the second part of Professor Stokes’s rule—_Reflect_. This
word is made up of two Latin words _re_, back or again, and _flecto_, to
bend or turn. The meaning is thus made clear. By observation through one
or more of our senses we perceive things; mental impressions are secured;
these are now to be bent or turned so that we can see them again,
but the process is to be purely mental. Reflection in itself implies
recognition or memory, for without memory there could be nothing upon
which to reflect. Every normal human being has the power to bend again,
to turn back, and over and over again the impressions he has received
through observation. Hence reflect continuously upon that which you wish
to remember. Go over it in every possible way. Dwell upon it, let it
develop within you until you are as familiar with every possible phase,
detail, change, enlargement in it, as a fond mother is with the face
of her precious baby. As you reflect, be sure your mind is not playing
you false. Refresh it by referring to the original again and again if
possible. In this way you deepen the original impressions, make them more
lasting, more secure. Then, too, as you look upon a subject again—reflect
upon it—you get new angles of vision. This enlarges your conception and
provokes original thought. For instance: Newton observed an apple fall.
There we have a simple fact of observation. He began to reflect upon this
fact. As he did so, fresh thought upon the fact leaped into his mind and
in due time the theory of gravitation was born.
Centuries ago men observed the fact that when a string of any kind was
pulled tight and struck upon it gave forth a musical sound. In due time a
man or many men in succession reflected upon this fact, and the guitar,
the banjo, the ukulele, the violin and the piano were invented, born of
the processes of observation and reflection. This is everywhere seen in
fields where the inventive genius of man is at play. It was John Dolland
who observed that glass made of different kinds, or different properties
of sand and silica, etc., had a different color, and produced a different
effect when used in a sidereal telescope. He reflected upon this fact.
This led him to experiment, and by and by he discovered that when he
placed lenses together, one concave and the other convex, and one of
crown and the other of flint glass, a telescope was made that eliminated
the extra and confusing images of the object gazed upon, hitherto found
on the outer rim of all telescopes. In other words, the achromatic
telescope was born—one of the greatest helps to astronomical science—born
of many careful observations and long-continued reflections.
Another case in point is that of Franklin, who saw the lightning in
the clouds—a simple act of observation. He began to reflect upon his
observation. His reflections suggested something. He sent up a kite to
find out if there was any possibility of tapping that inexhaustible
reservoir of electricity in the heavens. Our use to-day of the telegraph,
telephone, wireless, electric light, electric power in the thousand and
one ways it is made to do service to mankind is the result of those acts
of observation and reflection. The same is true with Luther Burbank, who
looked more closely, more attentively, with greater concentration, upon
flowers, vegetables, plants, trees, than most men, observed that extra
fine potatoes resulted when the flowers of the largest and best potatoes
were cross-pollinated. He reflected upon this fact. The results have
astounded the world in the development of improved and even new varieties
of useful and beautiful growths. Also Darwin’s observations, confirmed by
those of thousands of others, duly reflected upon, enabled him to write
his “Origin of Species”; and when Herbert Spencer read (observed) that
book and reflected upon it, and others cognate with it, he formulated
his “Synthetic Philosophy,” which absolutely changed the current of the
thought of the world.
So it is with all sciences, all theories, all working hypotheses, all
steps toward complete knowledge. They, each and all, invariably and
unalterably depend upon the two powers of observation and reflection.
There are no discoveries, no inventions, without these two mental
operations. Hence is it not apparent that no memory student can
_over_-estimate their importance? For, here is a fact that observation
has revealed and reflection and experience confirmed; namely, that he who
has carefully observed the most facts is the best prepared to reflect
profitably. Or to put it in still another way; no one can properly,
completely and successfully reflect unless his mind is stored with many
facts accurately and minutely observed. How could Carlyle have written
his wonderful “Heroes and Hero Worship” unless he had carefully observed,
through his reading, the effect of a great man’s actions upon millions of
his fellowmen? His “Cromwell” and “French Revolution” still more fully
reflect the wealth of his stored facts (observations) and the result of
his constantly turning them over again and again (reflection) in his
powerful, logical and imaginative mind. Helen Hunt Jackson’s “Ramona”
is a similar result of powerful observation of the California Indians
and sympathetic and clear-headed reflection, as was also Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Hence, _Observe_, _Reflect_, with greater
and increasingly greater care.
THOUGHT-LINKING
We now come to Stokes’s third requirement—“Link thought with thought.”
Few things are seen isolated from other things. Indeed, unless one
deliberately shuts out—inhibits—his observing faculties, it is impossible
for him to see one thing alone. Even the solitary star is seen in
relation to the sky, and the solitary vessel, as it moves, in relation
to the ever-changing surface of the deep. And it is this natural
relationship of one idea to another—and its conscious recognition at
the time of observation, or later, during reflection, that one’s memory
is aided. This is what psychologists have always called “the law of
the association of ideas.” It is a natural law, which even a child
unconsciously recognizes. The baby subconsciously or instinctively knows
that food and its pleasant sensations of comfort are associated with its
mother’s breast. Star and sky, sea and ship, automobile and swift travel,
gun and war, cyclone and disaster, are instances of natural and simple
association that all people recognize.
In the cultivation, discipline, strengthening of the powers of the
memory, this natural law can be made to render marvelous service. For
not only can man avail himself of faculties of the mind unconsciously
exercised, he has the additional power of consciously directing their
exercise. Just as our domestic water systems are the result of the
conscious direction of the self-flowing water in the course we wish it
to flow, so is the enlarged power of our memories the result of the
conscious and purposeful direction of our observation, reflection, and
thought-linking to that end. Drawn from personal experience there are
five methods of thought-linking which have proved themselves of great
help. These are: First, _Incidental_. Second, _Accidental_. Third,
_Scientific_. Fourth, _Pictorial_. Fifth, _Constructive_.
THE INCIDENTAL METHOD
The events, the incidents, of the day occur in a natural order: one
follows another. The days of the week with their respective incidents
follow in natural sequence. A full recognition of this fact is of far
greater help to the memory than one would believe on first thought. Many
a man has been able to recall a particularly important event by going
back, step by step, incident by incident, over the occurrences of the
day. It is related of Thurlow Weed, the eminent statesman, that, when
he entered political life, he had so poor and wretched a memory that it
was his bane. He determined to improve it, and, realizing the importance
of observation and reflection, he decided upon the following method: As
the incidents of the day followed each other, in natural sequence, he
would consciously note _how_ they followed. Then at the close of the day
he sat down with his wife, and relating the incidents exactly in the
order they occurred, he would review the events of the day, even to the
most trivial and inconsequential act. At other times he would relate the
incidental order backwards. It was not long before his memory so improved
that he began to be noted for it. Before he died, he had the reputation
of possessing a phenomenal memory. One will find this same method a
great help in seeking to recall a sermon, a lecture or speech. There is
a natural sequence in all well-thought-out addresses, and the listener,
carefully noting the change from one thought to another—the progress of
the address—will find it aid his memory development wonderfully to take
the last thought given, say, and in reverse order, bring up the thoughts,
the ideas given. Then let the address be “incidentally” gone over from
the first thought to the second, the third, and so on to the end. Thus it
can be recalled and put away in the memory securely for future use.
THE ACCIDENTAL METHOD
Another natural method is what may be termed accidental. It is purely
accidental that Pike’s Peak is 14,147 feet high, but see how this fact
enables you to fix the figures in your mind. There are two fourteens
and the last figure is half of fourteen, namely, seven. It is a purely
accidental fact that the two Emperors of Germany died in 1888, but the
fact that they did die in that year, the one year in the whole century
when the three eights occur, indelibly fixes the date in mind. Again the
year 1666 might have passed by unnoticed were it not for the fact that
that was the date of the Great Fire in London.
Now let us see how this accidental association may fix a relative date
for many other important events. The Great Fire purged the city of
London of the horrors caused by the Great Plague. This plague was made
the basis for Eugene Sue’s graphic novel, “The Wandering Jew.” Wherever
he went—so ran the legend—the plague followed as the result of Christ’s
curse. It was the Great Plague that brought into existence the peculiar
custom of all the Latin, as well as the English, peoples exclaiming,
“God bless you!” or its equivalent, upon hearing one sneeze. The reason
for the custom is that sneezing was one of the first symptoms of the
fearful plague, and one, hearing his friend sneeze, immediately felt
afraid he was seized with the dread disease, and gave vent to this pious
exclamation. The custom persists to this day, but few know its origin.
This plague also brings to mind a noble example of heroism that is worthy
of enshrinement in every heart. It was found by those who watched the
progress of the plague that it went from place to place, dying out here
as soon as it appeared elsewhere. It was this phenomenon that gave to
Eugene Sue the dramatic element in his novel, for it appeared to the
ignorant people of those days that the plague actually followed the
cursed Jew. A country pastor, an humble but devoted and true servant of
God, in a little Derbyshire village, had observed this fact. Although
isolation for contagious diseases was not thought of by physicians at
that time, this man seemed to grasp the idea. He determined that if ever
the disease reached his village he would endeavor to isolate his people
from all others so that it would stop there and no longer continue to
slay its helpless victims. In due time the plague did appear in his
village. He had already aroused in his simple-minded flock the spirit of
true heroism, and they pledged themselves to second his endeavors. Food
was brought from a near-by town and deposited near a watering-trough,
in which a small stream was continually flowing. In this flowing water
the villagers placed the money in payment for their food supplies. Thus
there was no contact of peoples, no contamination. The villagers kept to
themselves, no one going away and no one coming in. The result was that
in a very short time the plague was stayed, and Europe breathed a great
sigh of relief, attributing its cessation to the goodness of God, when we
now know it was owing to the self-sacrificing wisdom of men.
But we are not yet through with our associations with the accidental
date of 1666. The most remarkable account we have of the Great Plague is
Daniel DeFoe’s “Journal of the Plague,” which for many years was regarded
as the genuine diary of an eye-witness. As DeFoe, however, was not born
until 1661, five years before the plague, he could have had but the
faintest and most childish remembrances of that dread event. But it was
he who wrote the world-famous, ever-enjoyable “Robinson Crusoe.” This
appeared in 1719, and, while the association of this date with that of
1666 is remote, it does approximately fix the date of the appearance of
that masterpiece.
Another literary masterpiece appeared, however, much nearer the time
of the plague. That was John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which was
written in Bedford Jail during the actual year of the plague and fire.
One of the greatest lawyers of England was Sir Matthew Hale, and it is
a help to fix approximately the time he was on the bench when we recall
that it was he who sentenced John Bunyan to the twelve years’ confinement
that gave to the world his “Pilgrim’s Progress.” On the other hand, Hale
was a great personal friend of Richard Baxter, who, at about the same
time, wrote the well known “Saints’ Everlasting Rest.” Here, then, hung
on to this accidental peg of the year 1666, we find the following facts:
First, the Great Fire; second, the Great Plague; third, Eugene Sue’s
novel “The Wandering Jew;” fourth, the custom of saying “God bless you;”
fifth, the heroism of the Derbyshire villagers that stopped the plague;
sixth DeFoe’s writing of the “Journal of the Plague” and “Robinson
Crusoe;” seventh, Bunyan’s writing of “Pilgrim’s Progress;” eighth, Sir
Matthew Hale on the English bench; ninth, Richard Baxter’s writing of the
“Saints’ Everlasting Rest.”
Every novelist uses this law of accidental association, for it is
habitually used by every class of people. Who is there who does not
recall certain events because they happened on days when other and
perhaps more important events occurred which fixed the date in the mind?
For instance, if an event occurred on the day of her first child’s birth,
and the mother was aware of it, you may rest fully assured she would have
no trouble recalling the date of the event. Its accidental association
will guarantee its remembrance.
Lawyers use this law constantly in seeking to extract evidences from
their witnesses. The dates of certain events are surely fixed in the
mind. Other events, less securely remembered, occurred at, or about,
the same time. The association once clearly established, the memory
invariably responds.
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
This method is merely a phase of reflection, for during that process one
naturally classifies his ideas, received through observation. As David
Pryde says in his “How to Read”:
See every fact and group of facts as clearly and distinctly as
you can; ascertain the fact in your past experience to which it
bears a likeness or relation, and then associate it with that
fact. And this rule can be applied in almost every case. Take
as an example that most difficult of all efforts, namely, the
beginning of a new study, where all the details are strange.
All that you have to do is to begin with those details that can
be associated with your past experience. In science, begin with
the specimens with which you are already familiar, and group
around them as many other specimens as you can. In history and
geography, commence with the facts relating to the places and
scenes which you actually know. And in foreign languages, start
with the words and phrases for the most familiar objects and
incidents of every-day life. In this way you will give all your
mind a clear and safe foundation in your own experience....
The mind cannot master many disconnected details. It becomes
perplexed and then helpless. It must generalize these details.
It must arrange them into groups, according to the three laws of
association—resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect. This,
it will be granted at once, must be the method in all rigidly
systematic studies, such as the sciences, history, biography,
and politics. But it is valuable to ordinary people as well to
know that the same plan can be used in all kinds of descriptions.
Every collection of details can be arranged in groups in such
a way that they can be clearly understood and remembered. The
following is the manner in which this can be done: In studying
any interesting scene, let your mind look carefully at all the
details. You will then become conscious of one or more definite
effects or strong impressions that have been made upon you.
Discover what these impressions are. Then group and describe in
order the details which tend to produce each of the impressions.
You will then find that you have comprised in your description
all the important details of the scene. As an instance, let us
suppose a writer is out in the country on a morning toward the
end of May, and wishes to describe the multitudinous objects
which delight his senses. First of all, he ascertains that
the general impressions as produced on his mind by the summer
landscape are the ideas of _luxuriance_, _brightness_ and _joy_.
He then proceeds to describe in these groups the details which
produce these impressions. He first takes up the _luxuriant_
features, the springing crops of grain completely hiding the red
soil; the rich, living carpet of grass and flowers covering the
meadows; the hedge-rows on each side of the way, in their bright
summer green; the trees bending gracefully under the full weight
of their foliage; and the wild plants, those waifs of nature,
flourishing everywhere, smothering the woodland brook, filling
up each scar and crevice in the rock, and making a rich fringe
along the side of every highway and footpath. He then descants
upon the brightness of the _landscape_; the golden sunshine; the
pearly dew-drops hanging on the tips of every blade of grass,
and sparkling in the morning rays; the clusters of daisies
dappling the pasture-land; the dandelion glowing under the very
foot of the traveler; the chestnut trees, like great candelabra,
stuck all over with white lights, lighting up the woodlands;
and lilacs, laburnums, and hawthorne in full flower, making the
farmer’s garden one mass of variegated blossom. And last of all,
he can dwell upon the _joy_ that is abroad on the face of the
earth: the little birds so full of one feeling that they can only
trill it forth in the same delicious monotone; the lark bounding
into the air, as if eager and quivering to proclaim his joy to
the whole world; the bee humming his satisfaction as he revels
among the flowers; and the myriads of insects floating in the air
and poising and darting with drowsy buzz through the floods of
golden sunshine. Thus we see that, by this habit of generalizing,
the mind can grasp the details of almost any scene.
This desire to unify knowledge, to see unity in variety, is one
of the most noted characteristics of great men in all departures
of learning. Scientific men in the present day are eager to
resolve all the phenomena of nature into force or energy. The
history of philosophy, too, is in a great measure, taken up with
attempts to prove that being and knowing are identical. Emerson
can find no better definition of genius than that it is intellect
constructive. Perhaps, he says, if we should meet Shakspere,
we should not be conscious of any great inferiority, but of a
great equality, only that he possesses a great skill of using—of
classifying—his facts, which we lacked.
Herbert Spencer was a master at the classification of facts. By the
classification of all the known languages of the world, the scientists
are seeking to find out accurately, as never before, the relationships
of mankind. Men have been writing the different languages of widely
diverse people for centuries, but never before has an attempt been
made on so vast a scale to bring all this isolated knowledge to bear
upon the solution of one great question—the origin of the human race.
All scientific knowledge is based upon the association of isolated and
detached facts. These are then reflected upon, and, finally, theories
begin to form themselves in the mind of the student, the philosopher.
He then brings his facts and theories into close relationship and
sees whether they “fit.” If he is assured that they do, he presents
his thought to the world, and, according to its reasonableness, it is
received or rejected.
THE PICTORIAL METHOD
Most children make mental pictures with great ease, but, unfortunately,
as they grow older, they allow this faculty to lose its power by disuse.
In the cultivation and use of the memory, however, it can be of the
greatest possible help. All books of travel and description, all novels,
all history, are made up of a series of word pictures. Do not be content
merely to _read_ the _words_ of these pictures. Go further! Actually
_picture each scene in your imagination_ and you will thus materially
aid your original power of observation. Let your pictures be definite,
positive, explicit as to details, for the more careful you are in making
a picture real to your mind, the easier it will be recalled.
Now, if you desire to recall the whole course of a book, you will find
these vividly-made mental pictures have a natural order of sequence, and
one will recall the next following, and so on. There is great joy in
learning to make pictorial thought-links, and then in the ability they
give to the memory to recall them.
METHODS OF CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHT-LINKING
We now come to the active making of artificial links as aids to the
memory where none naturally appear. A thought-link of this type is the
generally known doggerel:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November,
All the rest have thirty-one
Save February which alone
[18]Has twenty-eight, and one day more
We add to it one year in four.
In like manner how do we remember the order of the prime colors? Few
there are who do not know the coined word, made from the initial letters
of Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red—Vibgyor. Again, the
student of geology, who forgets the order of his great epochs or eras,
might recall them by formulating a sentence that presents the initial
letters of the names of these epochs. Thus, “Careful men pay easily,”
suggests Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic, Eozoic. Of course no one of
common sense presumes to assert that these constructive thought-links
are any other than crutches, footbridges over streams too wide to stride
or jump unaided. They should frankly be recognized as such, and only
reverted to in case of necessity, or as a last resort. But it is equally
foolish in view of the testimony of their almost universal usage and
helpfulness, to deny that they are an aid to most memories.
THINK OF THE IMPRESSIONS
To “think of the impressions.” This is the final admonition of Stokes’s
golden rule of memory. One word conveys his idea—review. The things to
be remembered must be thought over. They must be re-collected—again
collected. You will thus re-observe them, re-reflect upon them,
re-strengthen your original mental impressions and the ideas that have
grown around them. Experience demonstrates that all memory impressions
are lasting. One may have forgotten something for twenty, thirty, forty
years, when suddenly a chance word, sound, sight, or even odor, will
recall it with an intensity and reality that are startling. All works on
mental philosophy give illustrations of this asserted fact. The practical
need of all men, however, is to cultivate the ability to call up mental
impressions at will.
Ready recollection is the great desideratum. Hidden knowledge is of
slight use. It is as if one had a fortune stored away in some hidden
dungeon, carefully locked up, but he had lost the key. Availability,
readiness, promptness are essentials to efficiency. The hat-boy at the
hotel dining-room would be useless did his memory not act promptly,
instantly. To-morrow will not do. Now is the accepted time.
This efficient, prompt, responsive memory is the one you need and desire.
It is worth striving for. The prospector wanders over the mountains,
canyons, deserts, for years, seeking the precious ore in most unlikely
places. He is always buoyed up with the hope, some day, of striking it
rich. Are you as earnest in your desire for memory development as he? If
so, careful, systematic, daily exercise of the various faculties of the
mind and memory will give to you this golden possession. Reread here what
has been quoted earlier from David Pryde’s “What Books to Read and How
to Read.” The hints therein contained are worth their weight in gold to
the really earnest student. But rest assured of this: If you would have a
good memory, you must work for it. Give your whole attention to whatever
you read or hear. Concentrate. Compare the parts of the composition with
the whole. Seek its excellencies, study its deficiencies. Reflect upon it
from every angle. Write out in your own language the facts, or the ideas
of what you have heard or read. Then use daily what you have gained.
Knowledge stored away in the mind is not only useless, it is positively
injurious. _Use is the law of life._ Give your knowledge, your ideas,
your reflections away. Tell them to your intimates, your friends. Write
them to your correspondents. For the more you give the more you will
find you have. There is a giving that increases and a withholding that
impoverishes, and in nothing is this more apparent than in the giving of
the riches of the mind or memory. Each time one recites a well-liked poem
for the benefit and blessing of others, the more firmly he fixes it in
his own mind. “There is that which scattereth, and yet increaseth.” In
the scattering of your gems of mind and heart, you are increasing your
own store.
Not only give freely, but give often. The daily use of what you have
gained is an advantage. Avail yourself of every reasonable opportunity to
use your newly acquired powers, and your newly acquired knowledge. Let me
repeat, _use is the law of life_. To learn something new daily is a good
motto, but to use what you have learned is even better. You gain ease of
recollection by daily exercising the faculty of recollection. And if your
memory balks, refuses to act, compel it to obey you. If you make a demand
upon it and it fails to respond—you cannot remember—do not let the matter
go by. Demand of the memory that it bring back that which you require.
Keep the need before you.
In this constant, persistent, cheerful, willing use of the memory
lies great happiness and content. “It is more blessed to give than
to receive.” The more, in reason, the athlete uses his muscles the
stronger they become. And think of the radiant joy that is the natural
accompaniment of a healthy, vigorous body. What constant pleasure is his
who calls upon a physical body which readily and willingly responds!
Equally so is it with the memory and all the mind. Activity keeps it in
health. In this glorious condition it readily responds to all calls, it
is radiantly alive, and I know of no joy greater that can be given to man
than that in body, mind, and soul he is a radiating center of activity,
receiving and giving on every hand.
In conclusion, here are a few practical words upon the other side of the
question, on forgetting, for there is a forgetting that is of great help
to the power of remembering. Fix these precepts firmly in your mind:
Forget evil imaginations.
Forget the slander you have heard.
Forget the meanness of small souls.
Forget the faults of your friends.
Forget the injuries done you by your enemies.
Forget the misunderstandings of yesterday.
Forget all malice, all fault-finding, all injuries, all hardness, all
unlovely and distressing things.
Start out every day with a clean sheet. Remember only the sweet,
beautiful and lovely things, and you will thus be as a human sun of
righteousness, with healing in your rays.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by George
Wharton James, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington,
D. C.
[2] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by George
Wharton James, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington,
D. C.
[3] Scripture, “Stuttering and Lisping,” p. 3.
[4] Pauline B. Camp, “Correction of Speech Defects in a Public School
System.” “The Quarterly Journal of Public Speaking” for October, 1917, p.
304.
[5] By contact is meant the point of greatest resistance of the vocal
organs to the column of air.
[6] Lawyer, Senator from Nebraska, 1895—born at Montpelier, Vt., 1847.
[7] Pronounced “Sombray.”
[8] Adobe, pronounced A-do´by, a thick clay of which sun-dried bricks are
made.
[9] Robert Lloyd was an English poet of the middle eighteenth century.
[10] This remarkable poem relates to revelry in India at a time when
the English officers serving in that country were being struck down by
pestilence. It has been correctly styled “the very poetry of military
despair.”
[11] Some of the greatest literature of this war has been written by
British Tommies—in the trenches or in hospitals; but nothing finer
or better interpreting the psychology of the men at the front has
yet appeared in print than this poem by Bombardier B. Bumpas, of the
Australian contingent, wounded at Gallipoli and while convalescing in a
hospital at Cairo, minus a leg and an eye.
[12] From “Madrigali.”
[13] From Hiawatha.
[14] Mr. Miller gives the following interesting note to the above poem:
“We had been moving West and West from my birth, at Liberty, Union
County, Indiana, November 10, 1841 or 1842 (the Bible was burned and we
don’t know which year), and now were in the woods of the Miami Indian
Reserve. My first recollection is of starting up from the trundle-bed
with my two little brothers and looking out one night at father and
mother at work burning brush-heaps, which threw a lurid flare against the
greased paper window. Late that autumn I was measured for my first shoes,
and Papa led me to his school. Then a strange old woman came, and there
was mystery and a smell of mint, and one night, as we three little ones
were hurried away through the woods to a neighbor’s, she was very cross.
We three came back alone in the cold, early morning. There was a little
snow, rabbit tracks in the trail, and some quail ran hastily from cover
to cover. We three little ones were all alone and silent, so silent. We
knew nothing, nothing at all, and yet we knew, intuitively, all; but
truly the divine mystery of mother nature, God’s relegation of His last
great work to woman, her partnership with Him in creation—not one of us
had ever dreamed of. Yet we three little lads huddled up in a knot near
the ice-hung eaves of the log cabin outside the corner where mother’s
bed stood and—did the new baby hear her silent and awed little brothers?
Did she feel them, outside there, huddled close together in the cold and
snow, listening, listening? For lo! a little baby cry came through the
cabin wall; and then we all rushed around the corner of the cabin, jerked
the latch and all three in a heap tumbled up into the bed and peered down
into the little pink face against mother’s breast. Gentle, gentle, how
more than ever gentle were we all six now in that little log cabin. Papa
doing everything so gently, saying nothing, only doing, doing. And ever
so and always toward the West, till 1852, when he had touched the sea of
seas, and could go no farther. And so gentle always! Can you conceive
how gentle? Seventy-two years he led and lived in the wilderness and yet
never fired or even laid hand to a gun.”
[15] There is a Scandinavian legend that Siegfried, the “Viking,” feeling
that he was at the point of death, caused himself to be placed on the
deck of his ship; the sails were hoisted, the vessel set on fire, and in
this manner he drifted out to sea, alone, and finished his career.
[16] In the “days of old, the days of gold, and the days of ’49,” water
was brought from the Sierran heights in wooden viaducts, or “flumes,” to
be used in the mines. The fifth stanza refers to the process of hydraulic
mining, where the water, projected through huge nozzles (somewhat after
the fashion used by fire-engines), washed down the mountain-sides into
the sluice-boxes where the dirt was washed away and the gold retained.
Now the flume’s waters are mainly diverted to purposes of irrigation.
[17] “‘The Arrow and the Song’ came into my mind and glanced on to the
paper with an arrow’s speed—literally an improvisation,” said Longfellow.
The poem has been exceedingly popular, both when recited and also when
sung to the beautiful music composed for it by the Italian song-writer,
Ciro Pinsuti.
[18] Here is a variant of the last two lines:
“Has twenty-eight and this in fine
One year in four has twenty-nine.”
INDEX
All titles to chapters are in capitals.
All titles to selections are in italics.
Names of authors are given in ordinary type.
A
_Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight_, 520
Adams, Charles F., 338, 393
_Advance, The Great_, 534
_Adventure, A Startling_, 150
_ ” An Unexpected_, 258
AFTER DINNER SPEAKING, 711
_Ain’t It the Truth_ (exercise), 35
Aldrich, Thomas B., 490, 665
_All in the Emphasis_, 311
Alexander, S. J., 641, 642, 643
_Alexandra, A Welcome to_, 633
_Americanism, Creed of_, 677
_America and Its Flag_, 559
_ ” Music of_, 21
Analysis, Progressive, 112
_Ancient Mariner_, 49
Andersen, Hans C., 191
Anderson, Alexander, 427
_ ” John, My Jo_, 574
_Annabel Lee_, 430
_ ” The Lover of_, 431
_Apostrophe to the Ocean_, 536
_Apple Blossoms_, 588
_Arena, A Combat in the_, 272
_Arrow and the Song, The_, 630
ARTICULATION EXERCISES, 27 _et seq._
_As I Came Down from Lebanon_, 587
Aspirates, 28
_As You Like It_ (quoted), 658-59
_At Grandma’s_, 391
Authors, Study Great, 2
Author’s Thought, Getting the, 7
B
_Baby, Rocking the_, 434
Bacon, Francis, 49
_Bad Night, A_, 131
_Ballad of the King’s Singer, The True_, 498
_Banishment Scene_, 662
Bansman, William, 538
Barnes, W. H. L., 683
Barrett, Wilson, 187
Bashford, Herbert, 414, 416, 456, 460, 612, 624
_Battle Field, The Children of the_, 452
Beecher, Henry Ward, iv, 100
Belief, Author’s Purpose, 113
Bedford-Jones, H., 337
_Bell Buoy, The_, 70
_Bells of San Gabriel_, 631
_ ” of Shandon_, 636
_ ” The Minaret_, 621
Bennett, Henry Holcomb, 525
_Beside the Dead_, 433
_Betty Botter_, 30
_Bill and His Billboard_, 35
_Billee, Little_, 360
_Bishop and the Convict, The_, 220
Bishop, Justin Truitt, 142
_Black Sailor’s Chanty, The_, 408
_Blacksmith of Limerick, The_, 503
Bland, Henry Meade, 568
_Blossom Time, In_, 607
_Blossoms, Apple_, 588
Booth, Gov. Newton, 678
_Boy Wanted, A_, 285
_ ” The Whistling_, 358
Bosher, Kate Langley, 132
_Bravest Battle, The_, 519
_Break! Break! Break!_, 433
Breath Sounds, 28
_Brook and the Wave, The_, 590
_Brook, Song of the_, 603
Brooks, Fred Emerson, 331, 343, 345, 348, 357, 358, 385, 408, 481
_Brookside, The_, 579
_Brotherhood_, 540
Browne, J. Ross, 131, 146, 150, 245
Browning, Elizabeth, 19, 442, 539, 542
Browning, Robert, 57, 63, 64, 66, 99, 304, 305, 321, 429, 548, 627
_Brother, Little_, 177
_Brown Wolf_, 183
Bryant, William Cullen, 53
_Bullets, The Song of the_, 644
Bumpas, Bombardier B., 423
Bunner, Henry C., 336
Burdette, Robert, 24, 148, 157, 158
_Buried Heart, The_, 434
Burns, Robert, 547, 574, 617
_Butterfly, To a February_, 642
Byron, Lord, 536
C
Cable, George W., 204
_California_, 606
_Camp-Meeting at Bluff Springs_, 142
Camp, Pauline B., 76
_Captain, O, My Captain_, 171
Carleton, Will, 507
Carmichael, Sarah B., 67, 453
Carruth, W. H., 469
Cary, Alice, 334, 609
_Castles, Irish_, 344
_Catacombs of Palermo_, 146
_Cavalier’s Song, The_, 473
_Cave, The Tiger’s_, 239
_Champlain, Legend of Lake_, 207
_Channing’s Symphony_, 324
Chapman, Arthur, 587
_Charge, Pickett’s_, 481
_Charlie Jones’s Bad Luck_, 412
Cheney, Annie Elizabeth, 600, 606
Chesterfield, Lord, 27
Child, R. W., 250
_Child of My Heart_, 613
_Child’s Almanac, A_, 392
_Children of the Battlefield, The_, 452
_Chip of the Old Block, A_, 193
_Christmas at Sea_, 510
_ ” in India_, 634
_ ” Present for a Lady, A_, 137
_Christmas Ring, The_, 348
_Cicely_, 332
_Clarence, The Dream of_, 501
Clark, James Gowdy, 452, 594
Classification of Selections, 113
Clearness and Precision in Speech, 85 _et seq._
Clearness of Thought, 113
Coleridge, S. T., 49
Colloquial Selections, 327 _et seq._
Colum, Padraic, 616
_Columbus_, by Joaquin Miller, 626
” Analysis of, 105
” by A. H. Clough, 340
_Combat in the Arena, A_, 272
Combination Sounds, 29
_Co’n Pone’s Hot, When the_, 397
Conversational Style, 672
_Convict, The Bishop and the_, 220
Cooke, Edmund Vance, 396, 404
Coolbrith, Ina, 433, 535, 538, 604, 605, 607
_Cooper, Peter_, 585
_Copper Sin, A Son of_, 262
Cornwall, Barry, 533
_Coronation_, 521
Correct Speech, 12
Corson, Hiram, 97, 101
_Corydon_, 665
_Country, My_, 575
_ ” What Is a_, 678
_Courier of the Czar_, 233
_Courtin’, The_, 399
Cowper, William, 66
Crawford, F. Marion, 213
_Creed of Americanism_, 677
_Crisis, The Present_, 25
Croly, George, 272
_Cuddle Doon_, 427
CULTIVATION OF THE MEMORY, 715 _et seq._
_Cupid Swallowed_, 351
_Cup, The God’s_, 643
_Cy Hopkins, How He Got a Seat_, 155
D
_Daffodils_, 601
Daly, T. A., 437
_Da’ Thief_, 437
Davis, Richard Harding, 202
_Dawn_, 322
_Day and the Work, The_, 637
_Daybreak_, 627
_Deacon’s Drive, The_, 345
_Dead Millionaire, The_, 585
_Death in the Wheat, A_, 279
_Death-Song of the Viking_, 506
_Defiance, Dona Maria’s_, 211
_De Fust Banjo_, 394
Delight in Speech, 12
_Derndest Gal I Ever Knowed_, 414
_Desert Tragedy, A_, 226
Desire to Express, 14
_Destiny of This Republic_, 698
Dialect Selections, 285 _et seq._
Dickens, Charles, 54, 61
_Dickens in Camp_, 462
Directness, Spirit of, 672
_Derelict, The_, 612
Dobell, Sydney, 621
_Dog, Eulogy on the_, 710
_Doing a Woman’s Work_, 125
_Dona Maria’s Defiance_, 211
_Dora_, 445
_Dot Good for Nodings Dog_, 385
_Dot Long Handled Dipper_, 393
Doty, Madeleine Z., 177
_Douglas Squirrel, The_, 16
_Dove, The Voice of the_, 586
Dowling, Bartholomew, 318, 505, 506
_Down the Lane_, 581
Dramatic Selections, 183 _et seq._, 469 _et seq._
_Dream of Clarence, The_, 501
_Drifting_, 571
Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 121, 293, 322, 328, 397, 466
E
_Each in His Own Tongue_, 469
_East and West, The Ballad of the_, 515
Education, Object of, 1
Educational Value of Reading, 14
EFFECTIVE SPEECH, 6 _et seq._
Efficiency, Inventory of Speech, 11
Eliot, Charles W., 671
Elliott, Madge, 285
Eloquence, True, v
_Emphasis, All in the_, 311
Emerson, R. W., 19, 49
_Encouragement_, 397
Enunciation, What Is, 27
” and Pronunciation, 85
_Eulogy of the Dog_, 710
EXERCISES, ARTICULATION, 27 _et seq._
Experience, Reference to, 113
Expression, What Is, 13
” Desire for, 14
” Channels of, 14
Expressive Speech, 299
F
_Face of the Master, The_, 172
_Familiar Faces, The Old_, 436
_Famine, The_, 447
_Fancies, Twilight_, 597
_Far Country, A Voice from a_, 175
_Far Famed Fairy-Tale of Fenella_, 36
_Favorite, His_, 352
_Feel I’m Growing Auld, Gude-Wife, I_, 436
_Fern, The Petrified_, 541
_Few Words from Wilhelm, A_, 389
Field, Eugene, 354, 360, 413
_Fields with God, Out in the_, 539
Finch, Nathan, 440
_Firing Line, The_, 476
_First Furrow, The_, 330
_Fir Tree, The Little_, 191
_Fisherman’s Story, The_, 456
Fitch, Anna M., 598
_Flag Goes By, The_, 525
_Flag, Our_, 554
_Flag, Thanks for America and Its_, 559
_Flower in the Crannied Wall_, 322
_Flume, The Song of the_, 598
Foley, J. W., 392
_Fool’s Prayer, A_, 549
_Forests, Windstorm in the_, 255
_Fortunate Isles, The_, 583
Foss, Samuel Walter, 339
_French Camp, An Incident of the_, 548
_Friendship, A Jolly Good_, 568
_Funeral of Paradise Bar, The_, 364
_Furnace Room, A Hero of the_, 277
_Furrow, The First_, 330
_Fuzzy-Wuzzy_, 417
G
_Gallant Third Party, A_, 362
_Garcia, Carrying a Message to_, 315
Garland, Robert, 522
_Georges, The Two_, 688
Genung, 676
_Germany, To_, 487
_Getting Ready for the Train_, 148
GETTING THE AUTHOR’S MOOD, 99 _et seq._
_Gettysburg Address_, 323, 673
Gillian, Strickland W., 602
Glides, Various, 48 _et seq._
Glover, Ellye Howell, 402
_God, Out in the Fields with_, 539
_God’s Cup, The_, 643
Goethe, 102
_Gold_, 615, 616
_Golden Arm, The_, 316
_Grading the Street_, 383
Grand Rapids Schools, 76
_Grandma’s, At_, 391
_Grass Shall Cover Me, When the_, 535
G, Swallowing the, 43
_Gray Days, The_, 24
_Great Advance, The_, 534
_Great Guest Came, How the_, 479
_Green Things Growing_, 601
Griffin, Gerald, 595
_Guerdon, The Worker’s_, 322
Guiterman, Arthur, 615
_Gunga Din_, 496
H
_Hale, Nathan_, 440
_Hamlet’s Declaration of Friendship_, 656
_Hamlet’s Instructions to the Players_, 669
_Hamlet, Scene from_, 60, 61
Harris, Joel Chandler, 382
Harrison, Frederick, 10
Harte, Bret, 332, 375, 462
_Haul Away, Joe!_, 407
_Heart’s Regret, The Land of_, 638
_Heathen Chinee_, 375
_ ” ” Parody on_, 377
_He Lifteth Them All to His Lap_, 526
Henshaw, Sarah Edwards, 315
_Hero of the Furnace Room, A_, 277
_Hiawatha_ (quoted), 447
_Hieroglyphics of Love, The_, 288
_Hills, The Joy of the_, 610
_His Favorite_, 353
_Hoe, The Return of the_, 164
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 66, 625
_Home Thoughts from Abroad_, 58
_Home, Wounded_, 621
_Honest Poverty_, 547
_Honor of the Woods, The_, 198
Hood, Thomas, 617
_How Cy Hopkins Got a Seat_, 155
_Howdy Song_, 382
_How Oswald Dined with God_, 477
_How the Great Guest Came_, 479
_How the Water Comes Down at Lodore_, 44
HOW TO READ POETRY, 320 _et seq._
Hubbard, Elbert, 9, 315
_Hugh Go Goes_, 32
Hugo, Victor, 220
_Hullo!_, 339
_Humming Bird, The_, 71
Humorous Selections, 121, 375 _et seq._
Hunt, Leigh, 351
_Hunting, Whale_, 245
_Hunt, Travers’ First_, 202
_Hurrah for the Next That Dies_, 318
_Hymn of the Wind, The_, 570
I
_I Feel I’m Growing Auld, Gude-Wife_, 436
_If I Darst_, 413
_If I Were King_ (quoted), 220
_Il Penseroso_, 619
_Ike Templin, The Misfortunes of_, 161
_Ike Walton’s Prayer_, 550
_Immigration_, 421
_Immortality, Intimations of_, 618
IMPERSONATION, 654
_Imph-m_, 382
Impressiveness of Author’s Thought, 113
_Inasmuch_, 485
_Inaugural Address, Lincoln’s Second_, 684
_In Blossom Time_, 607
_Incident of the French Camp, An_, 548
_Indian Mother, Song of the_, 594
_Indirection_, 590
Inflection, 11
” Rising, 45
” Exercises in, 302
Inflectional Agility, 48
Ingelow, Jean, 622
Ingersoll, Robert, 324, 676
_Intervention of Peter, The_, 293
_Intimations of Immortality_, 618
Intelligent Reading, 1, 99
Intelligible Reading, 1, 99
INTRODUCTION, iii
INVENTORY OF SPEECH EFFICIENCY, 11
_Irish Castles_, 344
_Ironsides, Old_, 625
Irwin, Wallace, 389, 421
_Isles, The Fortunate_, 583
J
Jackson, Helen Hunt, 498, 521
James, George Wharton, 119
Jaw, Exercises for the, 27
_Jeanie Morrison_, 424
_Jim, Lucky_, 357
_Jolly Good Friendship, A_, 568
_John Anderson, My Jo_, 574
Jones, Sir William, 55
Jordan, David Starr, 560, 694
_Josiah and Symanthy_, 408
Joyce, Robert Dwyer, 503
_Joy of the Hills, The_, 610
_Joy of the Human Voice_, 100
_Joy of Reading_, 119
K
_Kaweah’s Run_, 275
Keeler, Charles, 407, 408
Kelly, Myra, 137
_Kentucky Philosophy_, 379
_Khaki, A Prayer in_, 522
Kilmer, Joyce, 611
King, Ben, 327
King, Clarence, 275
_King and the Poet, The_, 213
_King’s Singer, The True Ballad of the_, 498
Kipling, Rudyard, 50, 63, 65, 68, 70, 355, 417, 471, 496, 515, 554,
574, 614, 634
_Kissing’s No Sin_, 412
Knowles (William Tell), 68
L
_Labor_, 543, 629
_L’Allegro_, 629
Lamb, Charles, 436
_Land of Heart’s Regret, The_, 638
_Lane, Down the_, 581
_Last Tattoo, The_, 552
_Leap, Peabody’s_, 207
_Lebanon, As I Came Down from_, 587
_Lee, Annabel_, 430
_ ” ” The Lover of_, 431
_Legend of Lake Champlain_, 207
Le Gallienne, Hesper, 581
_L’Envoi_, 554
_Les Miserables_ (quoted), 218
_Lesson, A Singing_, 622
_Lesson of Life, The_, 582
_Lesson of the Tragedy, The_, 694
_Life and Love_, 591
_Limerick, The Blacksmith of_, 503
_Lincoln, Abraham_, 66, 323, 671, 673, 684
_Lincoln, Abraham, Funeral_, 453
_ ” ” Man of the People_, 546
_Lincoln, Abraham, Walks at Midnight_, 520
Lindsay, Nicholas Vachel, 520
Linen, James, 436
Lips and Jaw, Exercises for, 28
Liquid Sounds, 29
Literature, How to Judge, 4
” Ideals in, 2
” Joy in, 4
” Necessity of Love for, 2
” Western, vii
_Little Billee_, 360
_ ” Brother_, 177
_ ” Fir Tree_, 191
_ ” Miss Study and Miss Play_, 343
_ ” Peach, The_, 360
_ ” Lady, When She Fell Ill_, 167
_Living, Daily_, 2
Lloyd, Robert, 299
_Lodore, How the Waters Come Down at_, 44
Longfellow, H. W., 54, 59, 64, 67, 447, 527, 578, 590, 630
London, Jack, 183, 259
_Lotus Eaters, The_, 620
_L’Overture, Toussaint_, 686
_Lost Youth, My_, 527
_Love, Life and_, 591
_ ” of Country_, 475
_ ” The Hieroglyphics of_, 288
_ ” Virtues of_, 22
_Lover of Annabel Lee_, 431
Lover, Samuel, 381
Lowell, James R., 19, 25, 71, 399
_Lucky Jim_, 357
_Lullaby, Mammy’s_, 602
Lyric Selections, 554 _et seq._
M
Mahony, Francis, 635
_Majesty of the Ocean_, 23
Malooney, Mistur, 383
_Mammy’s Lullaby_, 602
_Mandalay_, 614
_Man in the Shadow, The_, 250
_Man Under the Stone, The_, 486
_Man Who Wears the Button, The_, 103
_Man with the Hoe, The_, 470
Markham, Edwin, 311, 470, 477, 479, 485, 486, 540, 546, 610, 613, 637
Martin, William Wesley, 588
_Mary’s Night Ride_, 204
_Mary Cary_ (quoted), 132
_Master, The Face of the_, 172
Mastery of a Selection, 111
_Match, A_, 589
Mathews, Amanda, 288
McCarthy, J. H., 220
McClung, Littell, 362
M’Cluskey, Kate Wisner, 600
McIntyre, Robert, 526
McKillip-Stanwood, 125
_McNeal, The Ride of Jennie_, 507
_McTeague_ (quoted), 226
_Meadow Larks_, 604
MELODIOUS READING, 301 _et seq._
_Memorabilia_, 99
_Memory, Pictures of_, 609
_M-Made Memory Medley, My_, 37
_Mermaid, Who Would Be a_, 73
_Memorial Day Address_, 700
MEMORY, CULTIVATION OF, 714 _et seq._
_Merchant of Venice_ (quoted), 654
_Message to Garcia_, 9, 315
_Michael Strogoff, Courier of the Czar_, 233
_Mighty Majestic Mind_, 40
_Millionaire, The Dead_, 585
Miller, Joaquin, 105, 465, 477, 519, 583, 584, 585, 586, 626
Milnes, Richard Monckton, 579
Milton, John, 619
_Minaret Bells, The_, 621
_Misfortunes of Little Ike Templin_, 161
Mitchell, Ruth Comfort, 351
_Mocking-Bird in California, To a_, 561
Montague, James J., 330
Mood-Analysis, 102, 317
_Moo-Cow-Moo_, 396
_Moon-Cradle, The_, 600
_Morning_, 540
_Morrison, Jeanie_, 424
_Mother and Poet_, 442
Motherwell, William, 424
_Mountain Mist, The_, 581
_Mournful Tale of the Snee Zee Familee_, 353
Muir, John, 16, 255, 258
_ ” Poem on_, 569
Mulock, Dinah, 601
Mundy, Talbot, 50
_Music of America, The_, 21
_My Country_, 575
_My Heart Leaps Up_, 322
_My Love’s Like a Red Rose_, 617
_My Rival_, 355
_My Sword Song_, 628
_Mystic, Song of the_, 531
N
_Napoleon and Coat of Mail_, 20
Nasal Sounds, 29
_Nathan Foster_, 121
_Nathan Hale_, 440
Nattkemper, Leonard G., 403, 419, 420, 621
_Nature in Verse_, 58
_Newbrasky’s Fertile Shore, On_, 416
Newman, Cardinal, 676
_Night, A Bad_, 131
_Night Ride, Mary’s_, 204
Norris, Frank, 226, 279
_No Shootin’ Off This Year_, 406
O
O’Brien, Fitz-James, 344
_O Captain, My Captain_, 171
_Ocean, Apostrophe to the_, 536
_ ” Majesty of_, 23
_Octopus, The_ (quoted), 279
_Oh, I Dunno_, 380
_Old Familiar Faces, The_, 436
_Old Ironsides_, 625
_Old Times_, 595
_Old Woman of the Road, The_, 616
_One, Two, Three_, 337
_On Newbrasky’s Fertile Shore_, 416
_Opportunity_, 476
ORAL READING, 13, 116 _et seq._
” ” AND THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEECH, 671 _et seq._
_Order for a Picture, An_, 344
_Orphan, An Unthankful_, 132
_Oswald Dined with God, How_, 477
_Othello’s Apology_, 657
_Our Flag_, 554
_Out in the Fields with God_, 539
Outline, Condensed, 116
_Overworked Reciter, An_, 156
Owen, J. J., 537
_Ownership_, 605
P
Palate, Exercises for the Soft, 28
_Palermo, Catacombs of_, 146
_Paradise Bar, The Funeral at_, 364
_Passin’ By_, 423
Pathetic Selections, 167 _et seq._, 423 _et seq._
_Patriot, The_, 429
_Pauline Pavlovna_, 490
Paul, St., 22
Pause, A Study of, 311
” Kinds of, 313
_Pavlovna, Pauline_, 490
_Peabody’s Leap_, 207
Perry, James Raymond, 323
Personality, Pleasing, 12
_Pessimist, The_, 327
_Peter Cooper_, 589
_Peter, The Intervention of_, 293
_Petrified Fern, The_, 541
Phillips, Wendell, 686
Phyfe’s Words Mispronounced, 88
_Picture, An Order for a_, 334
_Pictures of Memory_, 609
Pierpont, John, 524
_Pioneer Celebration Speech_, 679
_Pippa Passes, Song from_, 57, 58, 627
_Pisgah Sight_, 321
Pitch, A Study of, 306
Pittsinger, Eliza A., 597
_Plain Language from Truthful James_, 375
Poe, Edgar Allan, 70, 430
_Poet, The King and the_, 213
Poetical Selections, 334 _et seq._
POETRY, HOW TO READ, 328 _et seq._
_Poor Little Birdies, The_, 363
_Potion Scene from Romeo and Juliet_, 660
_Poverty, Honest_, 547
_Prayer, A Fool’s_, 549
_Prayer in Khaki, A_, 522
_President Lincoln’s Funeral_, 453
Pronunciation, What Is, 27
PRONUNCIATION AND ENUNCIATION, 82 _et seq._
Pronunciation, Drill in, 88
” Key to, 88
Prose Selections, 119 _et seq._
Proteus, 23
Progressive Analysis, 112
_Put Flowers on My Grave_, 435
R
_Rainy Day, A_, 402
Read, Thomas Buchanan, 63, 67, 571
READING AND PUBLIC SPEECH, 1 _et seq._
Reading, Intelligent, vii
” Intelligible, vii, 99
READING, MELODIOUS, vii, 301 _et seq._
READING, ORAL, 13
Realf, Richard, 590, 591, 592, 628
_Recessional, The_, 574
_Reciprocity_, 337
_Reciter, An Overworked_, 156
_Red Rose, My Love Is Like a_, 617
_Redwoods, The_, 683
Reed, Myrtle, 172
_Republic, The Destiny of This_, 698
Reese, Lowell Otus, 438
_Return of the Hoe, The_, 164
_Revenge, The_, 512
Rhodes, W. H., 688
Ricker, R., 20
_Ride of Jennie McNeal_, 507
_Righteous Wrath_, 536
Riley, James Whitcomb, 71, 550
Rising Inflection, Overcoming, 45
_Rival, My_, 355
_Rivals, The_, 328
_Roads, The Old Woman of the_, 616
Robertson, Harrison, 379
_Rocking the Baby_, 434
_Romeo and Juliet_ (quoted), 660
_Rory O’More_, 381
Rowan (_Message to Garcia_), 9
Ruskin, John, 3
Russell, Irwin, 394
Ryan, Abram J., 531
S
_Sandpiper and I_, 71
_Sand Storm, The_, 438
_San Gabriel, The Bells of_, 631
_Santa Claus Forgot, Why_, 460
_School’s Commenced_, 403
Scollard, Clinton, 581, 587
Scott, John Milton, 552, 554, 559, 561, 644
Scott, Sir Walter, 51, 55, 64, 70, 305, 472, 475
Scripture, E. W., 75
_Sea, The_, 533
_ ” Christmas at_, 510
_ ” Wolves of the_, 624
_Seamstress, Song of the_, 592
_Seat, How Cy Hopkins Got a_, 155
Selections, How Made, vi
_Settling Under Difficulties_, 157
_Serenade_, 578
_Seven Ages, The_, 658
_S-H-H-H!_, 388
Shakespeare, 9, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 60, 61, 69, 71, 309, 310, 501,
654, 656, 657
_Shandon, The Bells of_, 636
Shortridge, S. M., 700
_She Liked Him Rale Weel_, 387
Shelley, P. B., 51
Shoup, Paul, 364
_Sierra Nevada_, 16
_Sierras, To the_, 537
_Sign of the Cross_, 187
Sill, E. Rowland, 53, 476, 540, 549
_Similar Case, A_, 353
_Simon Short’s Son Samuel_, 33
_Singing Lesson, A_, 622
_Sir Galahad_, 475
_Sleep_, 542
Smart, Frank Preston, 322
_Smike_ (Dickens), 54
Smith, Lewis Worthington, 527
_Snee Zee Familee, The Mournful, Tale of the_, 353
_Sodding as a Fine Art_, 158
_Solitude Preferred to Court Life_, 659
_Sombre_, 267
_Something to Love_, 538
_Somewhere Adown the Years_, 577
_Song, My Sword_, 628
_ ” of the Brook_, 603
_ ” of the Bullets_, 644
_ ” of the Flume_, 598
_ ” of the Indian Mother_, 594
_ ” of the Mystic_, 531
_ ” of the Seamstress_, 592
_ ” of Spring_, 592
_ ” The Arrow and the_, 630
_ ” The Cavalier’s_, 473
_Son of Copper Sin, A_, 262
Soule, Frank, 543
_Soul Sublime_, 41
Southey, Robert, 44
Speaker, How to Become a Good, 2
SPEECH, DEFECTS, CORRECTION OF, 75
SPEECH, EFFECTIVE, 6
SPEECH EFFICIENCY, INVENTORY OF, 11
Speech, Enjoyment of, iii
” Expressive, 299
” Force and Rate of, 62
” Importance of, iii, iv
_Spinning Wheel Song, The_, 580
_Springtime_, 621
_Squirrel, The Douglas_, 16
Stammerer, Characteristics of, 77
Stammering, How to Cure, 75
_Startling Adventure, A_, 150
Stephenson, R. L., 510
Sterling, George, 487, 489
Stewart, Dennar, 432
Stoddard, Charles Warren, 631
Stokes, William, 319
_Straight Jacket, Torture of the_, 259
Story, William Wetmore, 267
” Judge, 698
Stott, Roscoe Gilmore, 21
Stress, A study in, 308
_Strogoff, Michael, Courier of the Czar_, 233
STUTTERING AND LISPING, 75
Sublime Selections in Poetry, 531 _et seq._
Sub-Vocal Sounds, 28
_Sunset_, 538
_Sunshine_, 331
Sutherland, Howard V., 570
Swallowing the G, 43
Swinburne, A. C., 589
_Switch-Engine_ (exercise), 43
Sympathetic Reading, 98
_Symphony, Channing’s_, 324
T
_Tan, Under the_, 527
_Tattoo, The Last_, 552
Teacher’s Great Task, 13
Tennyson, Alfred, 50, 59, 66, 69, 74, 322, 433, 475, 512, 603, 620,
633
Thackeray, W., 360, 621
_Thanks for America and Its Flag_, 559
Thaxter, Celia, 72
Theme, Mastery of, 111
_Theophilus Thistle_ (exercise), 35
_There Was a Man_, 560
_Thief, Da_, 435
_Third Party, A Gallant_, 377
_Thoughts from Bub_, 419
_Thurru’ Rest, A_, 405
Thurston, John Mellen, 103
_Tiger’s Cave, The_, 239
_To a Usurper_, 354
_To Germany_, 487
_Tommy_, 471
Tompkins, Juliet Wilbur, 193
Tongue, Exercises for, 28
” Twisters, 30
Tone, Study of Importance of, 313
_Torture of Strait-Jacket_, 259
_To the War Lords_, 489
_Toussaint L’Overture_, 686
Tracey, Frederick Palmer, 678
_Tragedy, A Desert_, 226
_ ” The Lessons of the_, 694
_Tragic Story, A_, 362
_Trailman, The_, 569
_Tramp, The Young_, 339
_Travers’ First Hunt_, 202
_Trees_, 611
_True Ballad of King’s Singer_, 498
_Truthful James, Plain Language from_, 375
_Truthful James, Parody on_, 377
Twain, Mark, 316
_Twilight Fancies_, 577
_Two Georges, The_, 688
U
_Understaendlich_, 404
_Under the Tan_, 527
_Unexpected Adventure, An_, 258
_Unthankful Orphan, An_, 132
_Usual Way, The_, 341
_Usurper, To a_, 354
V
Van Dyke, Henry, 4, 57, 71, 72, 536
_Vegetable Man, The_, 420
_Vengeance Is Thine_, 641
Verne, Jules, 233
Vest, Senator, 710
_Viking, The Death-Song of the_, 506
_Villon, Story of_, 213
_Vinegar Man, The_, 351
_Virtues of Love_, 22
_Vision Rises, A_, 676
_Vision of War_, 324
Vocalization of Selections, 115
Voice and Spiritual Education, 97
” Use of, 11
_ ” of the Dove_, 586
_ ” from a Far Country_, 174
Vowel Sounds, Various, 89
W
Wagner, Madge Morris, 434
Waller, John Francis, 580
Walsh, Thomas, 534
_Walton’s Prayer, Ike_, 550
_War_, 474
_War Lords, To the_, 489
_Warren’s Address_, 524
_Warren, Joseph_, 310
Waterhouse, A. J., 353, 363, 412, 463
_Wave, The Brook and the_, 590
Webster, Daniel, v
Webster’s International Dictionary, 88
_Welcome to Alexandra_, 633
_West, The_, 600
_West, The Ballad of the East and_, 515
Western Literature, vii
_Whale Hunting_, 245
_What Is Our Country_, 678
_Wheat, A Death in the_, 279
_When de Co’n Pone’s Hot_, 397
_When the Grave Shall Cover Me_, 535
_When the Little Lady Fell Ill_, 167
_When Little Sister Came_, 465
_When the Old Man Dreams_, 463
_When the Old Man Smokes_, 466
_Where the West Begins_, 587
_Whistling Boy, The_, 359
Whitaker, Herman, 262
” Robert, 575, 577
Whitman, Walt, 171
_Why?_, 608
_Why Santa Claus Forgot_, 460
Wilder, Marshall P., 155
_Wilhelm, A Few Words from_, 389
_Wind, Hymn of the_, 570
_Windstorm in the Forests_, 255
_Wilson, Woodrow, Inaugural Address_, 675
_Wilson, Woodrow, Exercise on_, 35
_Wolf, Brown_, 183
_Wolves of the Sea, The_, 624
_Woodchuck Exercise_, 30
_Woods, The Honor of the_, 198
Wordsworth, William, 322, 601, 618
Words Often Mispronounced, 88
_Wordy Wabble on Women_, 42
_Work and the Worker_, 20
_Worker’s Guerdon, The_, 322
_Work, The Day and the_, 637
_Wounded, Home_, 621
_Wrath, Righteous_, 536
Y
_Yankee Man of War, The_, 523
_Years, Somewhere Adown the_, 577
_Yosemite_, 584
_Young Tramp, The_, 339
_Youth, My Lost_, 527