Chapter XII: Part TWO: Identification of the Reader with the Story, or Sympathetic Reading

FIRST STEP. Getting the author’s MOOD. Catching the author’s vision. Emotional response. Distinguishing between ordinary reading and reading with author’s emotional appreciation. Emphasizing value of MOOD. Discussing control of emotion. Repressed feeling versus expressed feeling.

SECOND STEP. Word meaning—relation of word to group. Associative meaning of words. More vocabulary. Study of tone color. Use of Onomatopœia.

THIRD STEP. Study of Moods. Variety of Moods. Change and inter-change of Moods in a selection. Human nature and Mood. Colloquial expressions of the same Mood in classical language.

“Blessings upon all the books that are the delight of childhood
and youth and unperverted manhood! Precious are the sympathetic
tears which dim the page and which it is so wholesome to
encourage in early life as a check to the growth of selfishness
and egoism.”

—HIRAM CORSON, “The Voice and Spiritual Education,” p. 163.