here means,
not a long, but a strong one. If this be remembered, all will be clear; but not otherwise.
[§ 100]. I shall attempt, first, to describe the versification of the lines in the Canterbury Tales; it will be easy to explain the shorter lines (of four accents) afterwards.
Speech-waves. In English, accent plays a very important part; and for this reason, we may consider English speech as consisting of a succession of utterances which form, as it were, speech-waves, in which each wave or jet of breath contains a strong syllable; and this strong syllable may either stand alone, or may be preceded or followed by a weak syllable, or may even be both preceded and followed by a weak syllable during the emission of the same jet of breath[[71]].
Thus each jet of breath, due to a slight impulse emitting inhaled air, may be denoted by
, or by
, or by