The varieties of movement in utterance are expressed by Time, which is the measure of the duration of the sounds heard in speech, and it is divided into three general divisions; viz.—Moderate, Quick and Slow time, these being sub-divided by the reader, according to the predominate feeling which the subject seems to require.

Time and Stress, properly combined and marked, possesses two essential elementary conditions of agreeable discourse, upon which other excellences may be engrafted. If either be feebly marked, other beauties will not redeem it. A well-marked stress, and a graceful extension of time, are essential to agreeable speech, and give brilliancy and smoothness to it.

MODERATE TIME.

1. Moderate is the rate used in narrative or conversational style.

1.

O bright, beautiful, health-inspiring, heart-gladdening water! Every where around us dwelleth thy meek presence—twin-angel sister of all that is good and precious here; in the wild forest, on the grassy plain, slumbering in the bosom of the lonely mountain, sailing with viewless wings through the humid air, floating over us in curtains of more than regal splendour—home of the healing angel, when his wings bend to the woes of this fallen world.

Elihu Burritt.

2.

But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair!
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail.
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And, from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all her song;
And, where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft, responsive voice, was heard at every close;
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.

Collins.

3.

Tell him, for years I never nursed a thought
That was not his; that on his wandering way,
Daily and nightly, poured a mourner's prayers.
Tell him ev'n now that I would rather share
His lowliest lot,—walk by his side, an outcast,—
Work for him, beg with him,—live upon the light
Of one kind smile from him, than wear the crown
The Bourbon lost.

Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.

QUICK TIME.

Quick Time is used in haste, joy, humour, also in anger, and in exciting scenes of any kind.

1.

Look up! look up, Pauline! for I can bear
Thine eyes! the stain is blotted from my name,
I have redeemed mine honour. I can call
On France to sanction thy divine forgiveness.
Oh, joy! oh rapture! by the midnight watchfires
Thus have I seen thee! thus foretold this hour!
And 'midst the roar of battle, thus have heard
The beating of thy heart against my own!

Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.

2.

Lord Marmion turned,—well was his need!—
And dashed the rowels in his steed,
Like arrow through the archway sprung;
The ponderous gate behind him rung:
To pass there was such scanty room,
The bars, descending, razed his plume.

The steed along the drawbridge flies,
Just as it trembled on the rise;
Not lighter does the swallow skim
Along the smooth lake's level brim;
And when Lord Marmion reached his band,
He halts, and turns with clenched hand,
And shout of loud defiance pours,
And shook his gauntlet at the towers.

Sir Walter Scott.

3.

They bound me on, that menial throng,
Upon his back with many a thong;
Then loosed him with a sudden lash—
Away!—away!—and on we dash!
Torrents less rapid and less rash.

Away!—away!—my breath was gone,
I saw not where he hurried on:
'Twas scarcely yet the break of day,
And on he foamed—away!—away!
The last of human sounds which rose,
As I was darted from my foes,
Was the wild shout of savage laughter,
Which on the wind came roaring after
A moment from that rabble rout:

Byron.

SLOW TIME.

Slow Time is used in all subjects of a serious, deliberate, and dignified character, in solemnity, and grandeur, reverential awe, earnest prayer, denunciation, and in all the deeper emotions of the soul.

1.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:—
I have thee not!—and yet I see thee still!
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind—a false creation,
Proceeding from a heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw!
Thou marshll'st me the way that I was going!
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still!
And on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood!

Shakespeare.

2.

Alon. (c.) For the last time, I have beheld the shadowed ocean close upon the light. For the last time, through my cleft dungeon's roof, I now behold the quivering lustre of the stars. For the last time, O Sun! (and soon the hour) I shall behold thy rising, and thy level beams melting the pale mists of morn to glittering dew-drops. Then comes my death, and in the morning of my day, I fall, which—No, Alonzo, date not the life which thou hast run by the mean reck'ning of the hours and days, which thou hast breathed: a life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line; by deeds, not years. Then would'st thou murmur not, but bless the Providence, which in so short a span, made thee the instrument of wide and spreading blessings, to the helpless and oppressed! Though sinking in decrepit age, he prematurely falls, whose memory records no benefit conferred by him on man. They only have lived long, who have lived virtuously.

Sheridan.

3

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty: the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest alone: who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in the heavens; but thou art forever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunders roll and lightnings fly, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair floats on the eastern clouds or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art, perhaps, like me,—for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou wilt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning.

Ossian.