To conclude what we have to say on the first portion of our subject, the material part of reading, we must now occupy ourselves a little with what may be called punctuation.

The tongue punctuates as well as the pen.

One day, Samson, sitting at his desk, sees himself approached by a young man apparently pretty well satisfied with himself.

“You wish to take reading lessons, sir?”

“Yes, Monsieur Samson.”

“Have you had some practice in reading aloud?”

“O yes, Monsieur Samson, I have often recited whole passages from Corneille and Molière.”

“In public?”

“Yes, Monsieur Samson.”

“With success?”

“Well, yes, Monsieur, I think I may flatter myself that far.”

“Take up that book, please. It is Fontaine’s Fables. Open it at the Oak and the Reed. Let me hear you read a line or two.”

The pupil begins:

“The Oak one day, said to the Reed——”

“That’s enough, sir! You don’t know anything about reading!”

“It is because I don’t know much, Monsieur Samson,” replies the pupil, a little nettled, “it is precisely because I don’t know much that I’ve come to you for lessons. But I don’t exactly comprehend how from my manner of reading a single verse——”

“Read the line again, sir.”

He reads it again:

“The Oak one day, said to the Reed——”

“There! You can’t read! I told you so!”

“But——”

“But,” interrupts Samson, cold and dry, “but why do you join the adverb to the noun rather than to the verb? What kind of an Oak is an Oak one day? No kind at all! There is no such tree! Why, then, do you say: the Oak one day, said to the Reed? This is the way it should go: the Oak (comma) one day said to the Reed. You understand, of course?”

“Certainly I do,” replies the other, a new light breaking on him. “It seems as if there should be an invisible comma after Oak!”

“You are right, sir,” continues the master. “Every passage has a double set of punctuation marks, one visible, the other invisible; one is the printer’s work, the other the reader’s.”

“The reader’s? Does the reader also punctuate?”

“Certainly he does, quite independently too of the printer’s points, though it must be acknowledged that sometimes both coincide. By a certain cadenced silence the reader marks his period; by a half silence, his comma; by a certain accent, an interrogation; by a certain tone, an exclamation. And I must assure you that it is exclusively on the skillful distribution of these insensible points that not only the interest of the story, but actually its clearness, its comprehensibility, altogether depends.”