When you come to a comma in reading, you must generally make a short pause. Sometimes you must use the falling inflection of the voice, when you come to a comma; and sometimes you must keep your voice suspended, as if some one had stopped you before you had read all that you intended. The general rule, when you come to a comma, is, to stop just long enough to count one.

EXAMPLES.

Diligence, industry, and proper improvement of time, are material duties of the young.

He is generous, just, charitable, and humane.

By wisdom, by art, by the united strength of a civil community, men have been enabled to subdue the whole race of lions, bears, and serpents.

[Sometimes a comma must be read like a question.]

Do you pretend to sit as high in school as Anthony? Did you read as correctly, articulate as distinctly, speak as loudly, or behave as well, as he?

Did he recite his lesson correctly, read audibly, and appear to understand what he read?

Was his copy written neatly, his letters made handsomely, and did no blot appear on his book?

Was his wealth stored fraudfully, the spoil of orphans wronged, and widows who had none to plead their rights?

Have not you, too, gone about the earth like an evil genius, blasting the fair fruits of peace and industry?

Is that a map which you have before you, with the leaves blotted with ink?

Will you say that your time is your own, and that you have a right to employ it in the manner you please?

[Sometimes a comma is to be read like a period, with the falling inflection of the voice.]

The teacher directed him to take his seat, to study his lesson, and to pa.s.s no more time in idleness.

It is said by unbelievers that religion is dull, unsocial, uncharitable, enthusiastic, a damper of human joy, a morose intruder upon human pleasure.

Charles has brought his pen instead of his pencil, his paper instead of his slate, his grammar instead of his arithmetic.

Perhaps you have mistaken sobriety for dullness, equanimity for moroseness, disinclination to bad company for aversion to society, abhorrence of vice for uncharitableness, and piety for enthusiasm.

Henry was careless, thoughtless, heedless, and inattentive.

[Sometimes the comma is to be read like an exclamation.]

O, how can you destroy those beautiful things which your father procured for you! that beautiful top, those polished marbles, that excellent ball, and that beautiful painted kite,--oh, how can you destroy them, and expect that he will buy you new ones!

O, how canst thou renounce the boundless store of charms that Nature to her votary yields! the warbling woodland, the resounding sh.o.r.e, the pomp of groves, the garniture of fields, all that the genial ray of morning gilds, and all that echoes to the song of even, all that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, and all the dread magnificence of heaven, oh, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!

[Sometimes the comma, and other marks, are to be read without any pause or inflection of the voice.]

You see, boys, what a fine school-room we have, in which you can pursue your studies.

You see, my son, this wide and large firmament over our heads, where the sun and moon, and all the stars, appear in their turns.

Therefore, my child, fear, and worship, and love G.o.d.

He that can read as well as you can, James, need not be ashamed to read aloud.

He that can make the mult.i.tude laugh and weep as you can, Mr.

Shakspeare, need not fear scholars.

[Sometimes the pause of a comma must be made where there is no pause in your book. s.p.a.ces are left, in the following sentences, where the pause is proper.]

James was very much delighted with the picture which he saw.

The Europeans were hardly less amazed at the scene now before them.

The inhabitants were entirely naked.

Their black hair, long and curled, floated upon their shoulders, or was bound in tresses around their head.

Persons of reflection and sensibility contemplate with interest the scenes of nature.

The succession and contrast of the seasons give scope to that care and foresight, diligence and industry, which are essential to the dignity and enjoyment of human beings.

[The pupil may read the following sentences; but before reading them, he may tell after what word the pause should be made. The pause is not printed in the sentences, but it must be made when reading them. And here it may be observed, that the comma is more frequently used to point out the grammatical divisions of a sentence than to indicate a rest or cessation of the voice. Good reading depends much upon skill and judgment in making those pauses which the sense of the sentence dictates, but which are not noted in the book; and the sooner the pupil is taught to make them, with proper discrimination, the surer and the more rapid will be his progress in the art of reading.]

While they were at their silent meal a horseman came galloping to the door, and, with a loud voice, called out that he had been sent express with a letter to Gilbert Ainslee.

The golden head that was wont to rise at that part of the table was now wanting.

For even though absent from school I shall get the lesson.

For even though dead I will control the trophies of the capitol.

It is now two hundred years since attempts have been made to civilize the North American savage.

Doing well has something more in it than the fulfilling of a duty.

You will expect me to say something of the lonely records of the former races that inhabited this country.

There is no virtue without a characteristic beauty to make it particularly loved by the good, and to make the bad ashamed of their neglect of it.

A sacrifice was never yet offered to a principle, that was not made up to us by self-approval, and the consideration of what our degradation would have been had we done otherwise.

The following story has been handed down by family tradition for more than a century.

The succession and contrast of the seasons give scope to that care and foresight, diligence and industry, which are essential to the dignity and enjoyment of human beings, whose happiness is connected with the exertion of their faculties.

A lion of the largest size measures from eight to nine feet from the muzzle to the origin of the tail, which last is of itself about four feet long. The height of the larger specimens is four or five feet.

The following anecdote will show with what obstinate perseverance pack-horses have been known to preserve the line of their order.