accomplishments are more rare, though few more desirable, than that of
reading aloud with ease and grace. Great are the sufferings inflicted on
a sensitive ear by listening to one's favourite passages, touching in
pathos, or glorious in sublimity, travestied into twaddle by the false
taste or the want of practice of the reader. For it is not always from
false taste that the species of reading above complained of proceeds; on
the contrary, there may be a very correct perception of the writer's
meaning and object, while from want of practice, from mere mechanical
inexpertness, there may be an incapability of giving effect to that
meaning: hence arises false emphasis, and a thousand other
disagreeables.

In this art, this important art of reading aloud, simplicity ought to be
the grand object of attainment, at the same time that it is the last
that can be attained. It is a point to reach after long efforts; not to
start from, as those of uncultivated or artificial taste would imagine.
I must repeat, that it cannot be acquired without persevering practice.
The best time to set vigorously about such practice would be when you
have but just listened with dismay to the injuries inflicted on some
favourite poet by the laboured or tasteless reading of an unpractised
performer.

From reading aloud, I pass on to a still more important subject,--that
of writing: both are intimately connected branches of the main
one--cultivation of the mind. When this latter is attained in the first
place, a slight individual direction of previously acquired powers will
enable you to succeed in both the former. In your own case, however, as
in that of all those who have not the active organisation which involves
great facilities for mechanical efforts, it will be quite necessary to
give a special direction to your studies for the attainment of any