Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-05-08
PROFESSIONAL READERS.

PROFESSIONAL READERS. A Now and Pleasant Occupst ton for Gen.
 tle, Cultured Young Women.
 As the elegancies and luxuries of life grow more common, the increase of wealth produces new needs which are constantly creating new employments, writes Garry Owen Gaines in the Country Gentleman. One of the latest of these, and to which women are admirably and specially adapt ed, is the vocation of reader to invalids or elderly people. In number of cities ladies follow this as a business and make good living by it, and it seems destined to be one of the increasing occupations of the future as education, intelligence and wealth be- come moro general. There wilt always be invalids and always a crop of well-to-do old people for patrons, and the woman who can make herself useful in this way will not lack for employment. There is no schoolroom drudgery connected with 1t to wear her out, body and soul, befoye her time, as is the usual lot of teachers in our graded schools, but rather 1t is delightful ministering to her intellectual peers, and one can readily imagine the work to be in entire consonance with the tastes of the most cultivated, refined lady who is forced to be self-supporting.
 In many families among the wealthy classes there are aged parents, whose dim eyes can no longer see the printed page. Children are too busy and full of cares in thls rushing American life, and grand children often too needless, to stop their work or their pleasures to read to these forlorn old folks, who, though surrounded by luxuries on every side, actually suffer from starvation of the mind! Think, then, what beam of light is this visiting read CT, who forms the Ink that connects them with the bustling circles of humanity, of which they have been hitherto only silent part-''the world forgetting, by the world forgot"-because they could no longer see!
 Perhaps 1t is blind or partially blind scholar, or one of literary tastes, who, but for the kindness of others-a kindness too often given grudgingly, to the shame of humanity be 1t said must ever sit in that | darkness which is greater anguish than physical night Perhaps 1t is a sick man or woman slowly convalescing, whose keen | interest in the outside world has become intensified by long weeks of deprivation of the accustomed daily journal. To all such | the visiting reader is a prize for which they
 are willing to pay good sum.
 l Reading seems such an easy thing that doubtless many young women will catch at
 this prospect of a new and less laborious l field than many of the paths trodden by inn
 pecunous womankind, but the fact is that
 good reading is one of the rarest of accom-
 plishments. Hundreds of girls are good
 piano players, and creditable artists and
 painters, who will mangle essay or
 poem beyond all recognition by its author,
 were he so unfortunate as to be present to
 listen to it.
 There are some persons who read an
 anecdote or humorous sketch about as spir-
 itedly as they would the Lamentations of | Jeremiah, while scarcely one person in
 twenty knows enough to give the proper
 infections, and therefore utterly fails to
 read conversational passages intelligbly.
 1t is simply because tho writer's meanin g
 is not understood. We might almost say
 that readers, like poets, are born and not
 made. Lacking that subtle insight, that
 sympathy with the author, the possession
 or absence of which constitutes the diff
 ference between good and poor readers, they lack every thing, and all the schools of
 elocution and labor of voice drill in the world will not supply what nature has failed to give.
 An hour or two spent in the cheerful morning room of a brown-stone mansion, reading the news of the day to a bright,
 companionable old gentleman, then a brisk
 walk in the pleasant air to the house o1 some refined old lady or sweet invalid girl,
 who is lon gins to hear the latest sermon o1
 noted divine or the choice things in the
 last magazine, certainly seems the very l acme of the agreeable in the way of earn
 ing one's bread; but please to bear in mind 3 dear miss or madam who aspire to this pro fession, that to secure such places you must know your business thoroughly.
 Know that if there is one thing more } irritating than another to a sensitive au t ditor, it is to have a reader stumble oyer o,,a NrIc nr hn y,1n c1,rn n
 the entire article by ear-torturing mispro e nunciation. It is like sitting on needles an( = pins for nervous persons to be compelled I to listen to botchy reading, to anticipat' 1 two or three seconds in advance of thu @ drony voice and measured sing-song sen l. tences just what will come next, and ge 0 themselves into a fever speculating hoy J. many times more you will come to a dea' h stop at an innocent comma, and thus ma 2 the whole meaning.
 l. A really fine reader has it in his power t V confer so much pleasure on others that tn 1t wonder is why 1t has been allowed to a d most become one of the Host arts" Tn l. hostess of country party blesses he e lucky stars when she discovers among he 1. guests one who knows how to read, feelin & that she has secured an attraction as Tar ID as it is pleasurable, and instances are nc a uncommon where popular minister's hol Ou a COuRreSdIlOu IS us UeduIIlu LII Teuuel e ing of the Scriptures and the hymns " In a greater measure, because reachin Q those who are cut off by age or sicknes from the usual channels of information a does the visiting reader give enjoyment { "a others, and earn her daily bread as well, b
 means of a clear articulation, a symp' ,s thetic voice that carries the listener wit 70 her through moods, merry or tender, as d.
 picted on the page, and, lastly, quick al ,- preciation and comprehension of the al n thor's meaning
 m A Lovers Strange Dream. 1e The Pall Mall Gazette records a lover extraordinary dream. A girl at Hackne
 aged nineteen, with her two brothers and as younger sister, were left in charge of u
 house while their parents attended fune ld al in the country. In the evening the girl
 sweetheart called. As she was alarmed h. noises which she fancied she heard,