It seems clear that in the second sentence the author is not enumerating minor details which form one larger whole, but that each statement is a sentence complete in itself, and so important that spontaneously we separate it from the others not merely by a pause but by a downward inflection.
If we were saying to another, “I bought my children firecrackers, torpedoes, skyrockets, and pinwheels,” we should use rising inflections until we closed our sentence on “pinwheels.” But it would be quite natural for the child, greatly excited by his presents, to use the downward inflection on those words, and these inflections would mark the importance, to him, of each separate gift. He would say, “I have firecrackers,—torpedoes,—skyrockets,—and pinwheels.”
Circumflex inflections are the expression of complex mental states. Note this in the following examples:
Not inferior to this was the wisdom of him who resolved to shear the wolf. What, shear a wolf! Have you considered the danger of the attempt? No, says the madman, I have considered nothing but the right.
Oh, no! He wouldn’t accept a bribe; of course not.
You meant no harm; oh, no: your thoughts are innocent.
It isn’t the secret I care about; it’s the slight, Mr. Caudle.
Difficult as is the subject of circumflex inflections, the difficulty is very much reduced when we bear in mind that the elements which compose them are the same as those with which we have been dealing. In Longfellow’s King Robert of Sicily, the Angel asks the king, “Who art thou?” To which Robert answers, sneeringly, “I am the King.” Now, on the word “I” we may expect to hear the rising circumflex (composed of a falling followed by a rising inflection) which the following paraphrase will justify: He dares ask me who I am! What audacity! Do you dare ask such a question of me? Would you know who I am? Perhaps a diagram will make this clearer:
