and personal nature, when far away at the end of a
corridor you can almost hear Miss ----'s peaceful snore, when as
the poet aptly put it in this morning's English stunt, "darkness
clears our vision which by day is sun-blind"--(I thought Jane and I
would die laughing and give it all away when we came to that line
in Mr. Lanier's stupid poem),--well, as I say, exactly at that hour
my heart began to beat so hard I thought it would wake Madge
without the "punch" I had promised to give her when it was time to
begin preparations for our grand spread.

From Sidney Lanier's _Crystal_.

At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time.
When far within the spirit's hearing rolls
The great soft rumble of the course of things--
A bulk of silence in a mask of sound,--
When darkness clears our vision that by day
Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl
For truth and flitteth here and there about
Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft
Is minded for to sit upon a bough,
Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree
And muse in that gaunt place,--'twas then my heart,
Deep in the meditative dark, cried out: ...

The same hour, _midnight_, is designated by both girl and poet; the same
two words, "at midnight," open the confession and the poem. A pause
must follow these words in the reading of either text, and another pause
must be made after the qualifying phrase which immediately follows the
opening words of either text. But what a difference in the comparative
length of the pauses demanded by the two readings! A very different
atmosphere attends an hour when it is the time chosen for a
school-girl's escapade or set apart for a _poet's meditation_. And the
voice by its use of _pause_ can preserve or destroy either atmosphere.
Try it. Make your pauses in reading the school-girl's text of equal
length with the pauses the reading of Lanier's poem demands. You will
find the result is that _overemphasis_ which has brought such discredit
upon the name of "elocution." I once heard a much-advertised reader
strain all the elements of her vocal vocabulary in announcing a simple
change in her programme. I have heard more than one reader give the
stage directions, indicate the scene setting, and introduce the
characters in exactly the same voice and with the same use of emphasis
which were afterward employed in the most dramatic passages. Of course
al