Problem LXVI. Show by the texture and color of the voice the difference between the objective and the subjective, the literal and the figurative, or the spiritual.

278 COME down, ye graybeard mariners, unto the wasting shore!

The morning winds are up, the gods bid me to dream no more.
Come, tell me whither I must sail, what peril there may be,
Before I take my life in hand and venture out to sea!
"We may not tell thee where to sail, nor what the dangers are;
Each sailor soundeth for himself, each hath a separate star:
Each sailor soundeth for himself, and on the awful sea
What we have learned is ours alone; we may not tell it thee.”
Come back, O ghostly mariners, ye who have gone before!
I dread the dark impetuous tides; I dread the farther shore.
Tell me the secret of the waves; say what my fate shall be—
Quick! for the mighty winds are up, and will not wait for me.
"Hail and farewell, O voyager! thyself must read the waves;
What we have learned of sun and storm lies with us in our graves:
What we have learned of sun and storm is ours alone to know.
The winds are blowing out to sea, take up thy life and go.”

Ellen M. Hutchinson.

279 THE day is dark and the night to him that would search their heart, no lips of cloud that will part, nor morning song in the light: only, gazing alone, to him wild shadows are shown, deep under deep unknown, and height above unknown height.

...

The sky leans dumb on the sea aweary with all its wings-and oh! the song the sea sings is dark everlastingly. Our past is clean forgot, our present is and is not, our future's a sealed seed-plot, and what betwixt them are we? We who say as we go, "Strange to think by the way, whatever there is to know, that we shall know one day."

Rossetti.

280 THE ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have not where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my corn and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be? layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

So is he that
And he said

unto his disciples, Therefore say I unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. For the life is more than the food, and the body than the raiment. Consider the ravens, that they sow not, neither reap; which have no store-chamber nor barn; and God feedeth them: of how much more value are ye than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a cubit unto his stature? If then ye are not able to do even that which is least, why are ye anxious concerning the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass in the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more shall he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

XXXIV. FORCE AND LOUDNESS.

EMPHASIS has been defined as "a greater stress of voice

placed upon a word or syllable." This, however, except when stress is used in the sense of touch, is an undignified form of emphasis. To emphasize by merely increasing the stress of voice upon a word is the way a dog emphasizes a bark or a growl.· It is a mode of emphasis common to all ranters and demagogues. The use of loudness or a thrust of force is a method employed by undisciplined and uncultured men.

Hamlet's speech to the players, the noble words of Henry Fifth at Harfleur, or the most dignified sentences of a prince or king, delivered with mere stress are made those of a vulgar clown. Loudness is a purely physical element, and does not manifest thought. It is not even the chief means by which a speaker makes himself heard. Support, purity of tone, good vocal quantity, changes of pitch between words, resonance, and distinct articulation are much more important.

Emphasis by loudness is an appeal to the animal instinct. It is expressive of anger, uncontrolled excitement, and the lower emotions. But inflection, changes of pitch, pause, and movement appeal to the rational nature of man. The extension of the conversational melody or form is the most dignified and

most normal method of emphasis. In proportion to the dignity of any character, the sincerity and nobleness of any human being, will these elements predominate over loudness and mere force in delivery. In proportion to the nobleness of an emotion or thought, we find a tendency to accentuate these elements. Such a method of emphasis is appropriate to all forms of literature. The highest is not degraded but exalted by it; the most sublime and most tender are made more noble.

Force and loudness, however, degrade any form of literature which is not already low. These modes of emphasis, therefore, are used by undignified characters, and manifest that which is degraded. Such methods, therefore, are only appropriate in the dramatic representation of that which is ignoble. They may be adopted by an actor or a reader to show a moment of uncontrolled passion, where there is no appeal to reason but an aim to awaken fear or to dominate another by force; to contrast a vulgar man with one who is noble. But even here they must be only suggestive. Loudness of itself will divert and not win attention. Its use as a mode of emphasis must be rare.

Problem LXVII. Give a noble speech first with stress and force, as directed in many books on elocution, then give it with a simple natural tone, accentuating the inflections, and extending the changes of pitch, range, and pauses, and note the difference.

281 SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,— trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

282 CONSIDER all that lies in that one word, Past! What a pathetic, sacred, in every sense poetic, meaning is implied in it; a meaning growing ever the clearer, the farther we recede in Time, — the more of that same Past we have to look through! . . . History, after all, is the true Poetry; Reality, if rightly interpreted, is grander than Fiction; nay, even in the right interpretation of Reality and History does genuine Poetry consist.

Problem LXVIII. Take the speech of a queen or a prince and see how easily the dignity may be destroyed by the use of force as a means of emphasis; and how indignation can be given by pause, inflection, and change of pitch without losing the character.

283 I WILL not tarry; no, nor ever more, upon this business my appearance make in any of their courts.

Queen Catherine in "Henry VIII.”

Shakespeare.

284 ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,

Or close the wall up with our English dead!

In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

...

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage. .
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height!-on, on, ye noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument. . .
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:

Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge

Cry Heaven for Harry! England! and Saint George! "Henry V."

Problem LXIX. Show how an ignoble speech may be ennobled by giving it the emphasis by form and inflection; and show also the difference in expression between anger and indignation.

285 PALE, trembling coward! there I throw my gage.

286 Hotspur. I'LL keep them all, - by Heaven! he shall not have a Scot of them: no, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not: I'll keep them, by this hand!

287 IF ye are brutes, then stand here like fat oxen waiting for the butcher's knife; if ye are men, follow me! strike down yon sentinel, and gain the mountain-passes, and there do bloody work as did your sires at old Thermopyla!

288 "HALT!" once more came the voice of dread;

"Halt! or your blood be on your head!"

Problem LXX. Show how a noble passage may be perverted. by loudness and force, and how the most exquisite passage may be emphasized by form without perverting its spirit.

289. A LOST LOVE.

I MEET thy pensive, moonlight face; thy thrilling voice I hear;
And former hours and scenes retrace, too fleeting, and too dear!
Then sighs and tears flow fast and free, though none is nigh to share;
And life has naught beside for me so sweet as this despair.

There are crush'd hearts that will not break; and mine, methinks, is one;
Or thus I should not weep and wake, and thou to slumber gone.
I little thought it thus could be in days more sad and fair-
That earth could have a place for me, and thou no longer there.
Yet death cannot our hearts divide, or make thee less my own:
'Twere sweeter sleeping at thy side than watching here alone.
Yet never, never can we part, while Memory holds her reign;
Thine, thine is still this wither'd heart till we shall meet again.

H. F. Lyte.

THERE

XXXV. MODES OF EMPHASIS.

HERE are many ways by which a word or phrase may be made salient, or an idea emphatic. Among these the most important have been discussed: inflection, change of pitch, pause, movement, texture, and tone-color. These express mental, imaginative, or emotional activity. There are others which show merely physical action, that tend to degrade thought, such as stress, loudness, and muscular force.

Rarely, if ever, is one of the true psychic modes of emphasis found isolated from the others. They are found in free and complex combination; often all of them are present at the same time. Each of them manifests some special aspect of the human being; some, degree of earnestness, or intensity; some, special action or attitude of the man.