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Show SECOND AIM: ATMOSPHERE 71 artist, in early manhood passed every evening at the Harper's Publishing Company, over hour, the ferry, to his home in Brooklyn. He became so enthusiastic. and astonished with the differing sunsets which he saw over New York Bay each evening, that he decided to make a picture record of them, one January, sketching the same scene, the same time, every evening. Tliese thirty-one sunsets were so unusual and so dissimilar that it was hard to believe that they were all of the same scene, painted at the same time of day-not on selected days-but for thirty-one cansecutive evenings during what is con sidered the dullest month of the year. The literary artist, in the same way, paints his facts seen through and modified by his created atmosphere. It may help us to understand this step if we think of atmosphere as the larger cosmos into which the little world of the speech, poem, story, or play is immersed. In Key. Two important developments should come from the practice put upon this step; to perceive the differences in vary ing literary selections and to develop the ability to produce nice differentiations by means of voice and action. The habit of mak ing a definite, aggressive, individual, specific reaction to each new water color same from his office in printed page should be cultivated. The reader is apt to take the printed page for granted, merely calling all the signs by name, not realizing that although these hieroglyphics may represent sim ilar sounds, these sounds vary in meaning, with the purpose of the author, and with the mood or with the atmosphere into which the author had baptized his purpose. In order to interpret an author, the reader should be in key with the author's purpose, and in harmony with his atmosphere, and then he will re-create the author's aim and atmosphere. The pupil must be stirred to a reali zation of the fact that printed forms can never be taken for granted; that no two printed pages are alike; that in order to read well, one must sense, feel, and endeavor to produce atmosphere. Sight Reading. Sight reading should not be permitted in classes, except with very advanced readers, and then practiced only on very simple texts. Literature cannot be thrown at the heads of the pupils, to be read without preparation. Sight reading is nerve-racking to the conscientious pupil, because such a student |
