God's gift was that man should conceive of truth,And yearn to gain it, catching at mistakeAs midway help, till he reach fact indeed.The statuary ere he mould a shapeBoasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and nextThe aspiration to produce the same;So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout,Cries ever, 'Now I have the thing I see':Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought,From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself.God only makes the live shape at a jet.
God's gift was that man should conceive of truth,And yearn to gain it, catching at mistakeAs midway help, till he reach fact indeed.The statuary ere he mould a shapeBoasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and nextThe aspiration to produce the same;So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout,Cries ever, 'Now I have the thing I see':Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought,From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself.God only makes the live shape at a jet.
God's gift was that man should conceive of truth,And yearn to gain it, catching at mistakeAs midway help, till he reach fact indeed.The statuary ere he mould a shapeBoasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and nextThe aspiration to produce the same;So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout,Cries ever, 'Now I have the thing I see':Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought,From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself.
God only makes the live shape at a jet.
Interpretative reading goes on in the same way. After a reader's long familiarity with a poem, and when he thinks he has realized all its possibilities of vocal effectiveness, some new vocal movement on a single word, it may be, is suggested, which is a decided contribution to the effect before reached. The play of Hamlet abounds in little speeches, and single words, even, whose possibilities of expressiveness can hardly be exhausted. Every great poet writes, at times, more significantly than he knows.
In the creation of every great work of genius, a large degree of unconscious might enters; and this unconscious might the reader with the requisite degree of spiritual susceptibility may respond to. This is an activity of the highest order on the part of a reader. Melody, harmony, and every mode of form, are, to some extent, the product of an unconscious might. Deep feeling attracts to itself such elements of language as serve best to conduct it. Assonance, especially, is a manifestation of it. Paradise Lost abounds with the assonance which the dominant feeling of the poet induced.
When Hamlet is subjecting his friends to a searching examinationin regard to the appearance of the ghost of his father, he asks 'His beard was grisly?' and then adds, 'no.' (The word is followed by a period, in the Folio.) What a varied expressiveness this little word 'no' admits of! When Macbeth says to his wife, when they are considering the murder of the king, 'If we should fail?' she replies 'We fail?' Though the interrogative is used in the Folio, the period would, perhaps, be the better pointing. However that be, the reading of 'we fail' involves much consideration; and so does the reading of thousands of single words in Shakespeare's Plays.
But, after all, it is not upon inflections and emphases and other vocal functions which pertain more especiallyto the interpretation of the articulating thought, that the true reader chiefly depends. The most important thing with him is the choral atmosphere in which a spiritualized composition requires to be presented. And it is in this respect that the art of reading particularly corresponds with the sister art of painting. The artist in form and color bathes his landscape in 'the light that never was, on sea or land,' or, if not that, in some light or other, some 'tender light which heaven to gaudy day denies,' and which serves to reveal the feeling which he aimed to express through the landscape. The landscape itself corresponds in painting with the articulating thought in reading; but the spiritual attitude ofthe artist is exhibited through the light in which the landscape is bathed. And so the spiritual attitude of the reader is exhibited through his intonation, which corresponds with atmosphere in painting. A susceptible reader will, on the first reading of a poem or an impassioned prose composition, be more or less immediately responsive to the key-note of the composition. An increased familiarity will finally bring this key-note fully home to his feelings, or as fully as may be; and if he has made the articulating thought his own, he is now prepared to interpret the composition to the ears of others. A reader's success in interpreting such a poem as Tennyson's In Memoriam, for example, can be but partial if he has notadequately caught, and does not vocally reproduce, the key-note, however distinctly he may present the articulating thought. It is the tone which spiritualizes and quickens the thought; and it is the main object in reading, to spiritualize and quicken thought, to bring it into relation with the spiritual being of the hearer.
Vocal training, the most scientific and systematic, will not of itself make readers, that is, vocal interpreters of genius. Something more must be done than is at present done, in homes and schools, especially in homes, for the education of the spiritual nature; and this education must be begun early, must precede the education of the intellect. The prematureforcing open of the bud of reason, which now prevails to a lamentable degree, must receive its due condemnation. It is a thing to be condemned from Christian pulpits. As George Henry Lewes says, in his novel, Ranthorpe, 'the child mustfeelbefore it canknow; and knowledge, great and glorious as it is, can never be the end of life: it is but one of the many means.'
ITis quite superfluous to say that a reader should have a perfect articulation; that he should be able to command a wide range of pitch; all degrees of force, frompianissimotofortissimo; radical, median, vanishing, and compound stress; every variety of inflection, direct upward and direct downward inflection; equal and unequal, upward and downward, single and double waves; accelerated and retarded utterance; many qualities of voice; not to name numerous other vocal functions and attributes which are means to various kinds of interpretative ends. He should also have a complete knowledgeof the language he is rendering, as a living organism,—an indispensable condition of his presenting the successive and involved groups of thought with the requisite distinctness of outline, and with the requisite perspective, determined by their relative value, of which he should have the nicest sense. A very important condition of perspective, I would say by the way, is the light touch which needs to be given to whatever is implied, has been anticipated, should be taken for granted, etc.,—the light touch which conveys the impression that the mind of the reader does not come down upon the parts receiving the same, those parts saying themselves, so to speak, but isoccupied with the main current of thought. Any untrained voice can emphasize, but only a trained or a naturally unperverted voice can give the light touch successfully. Yet it is possible for the heaviest, clumsiest voice to be trained to the light touch, to delicacy of tint, just as one who is clay-fisted may, in time, attain to some delicacy of manipulation. The voice and the hand have wonderful possibilities, rarely realized; the former, when converted from the error of its ways, being, indeed, the most expressive organ of the soul; the latter being 'the consummation of all perfection as an instrument.'
One great secret in forcible speech is, that all the force be thrown uponthe vowels—the inarticulate elements. While sounding them, the organs of speech are apart, and if the lungs are kept well inflated, the throat is open, and no friction results; while articulating the consonants, certain two of the organs of speech are in contact, and the throat is more or less closed. If force be thrown upon the consonants, the articulate elements, or certain of them, such asrandk, for example, there is more or less friction in the throat. In uttering forcibly the word 'struck,' for example, all the force should be thrown upon theŭ, the consonantsstrandkbeing about the same as in ordinary utterance.
The music of speech is chiefly in the vowels. But the consonants must,of course, be distinctly articulated and not be drowned in the vocality.
Sir Henry Taylor writes to Lady Taunton, May 23, 1862 (Correspondence, edited by Edward Dowden), of Tennyson's reading: 'As to his reading, he is a very deep-mouthed hound, and the sound of it is very grand; but I rather need to know by heart what he is reading, for otherwise I find the sense to be lost in sounds from time to time; and, even when I do know what the words are, I think more of articulation is wanted to give the consonantal effects of the rhythm; for without these effects the melodious sinks into the mellifluous in any ordinary utterance; and even when intoned by such an organ as Alfred's, if the poetrybe of a high order, the rhythm so sounded loses something of its musical and more of its intellectual significance. In the best verse, not every word only, but every letter, should speak. Nevertheless, his reading is very fine of its kind, and it is a very rare thing to hear fine reading of any kind.'
In regard to inflections, or bends, of the voice, of every kind, direct upward, or downward, or combinations of both, which are called waves (upward waves being a combination of downward and upward inflections, or bends, and downward waves the reverse, and double waves being a combination of upward and downward waves, or the reverse), I would say, what I havesaid in my 'Primer of English Verse,' that a reader must have a sub-consciousness of a dead level, by which, or from which, to graduate all his departures; and it is only by avoiding all non-significant departures that he imparts to his hearers a sub-consciousness of his own standard. There should never be in reading a non-significant departure from a pure monotony. Significant vocal intervals lose their effectiveness when they are mixed up with non-significant ones. Great effects can be secured through very simple means by a reader who strictly observes this principle. Every little bend of the voice tells. But a wriggling voice, the general tenor of which is a violation of this principle, cannot securesuch effects. The hearer is presented with a jumble of non-significant and would-be significant intervals, which is less effective than a pure monotony would be.
Appreciative reading is shown as much, perhaps, in what I will calltimemelody, as in almost any other feature of vocalization. A reader's sense of the relative values of successive and involved groups of thought, is largely indicated by his varied (melodious) rate of utterance. And much of the pleasure which an appreciative listener derives from reading, as reading, is this indication on the part of the reader of a nice estimate of relative values. He feels that the reader is a qualified interpreter. This estimatecannot always be determined by what a writer makes, syntactically, principal, and what subordinate, in the construction of his language. Of course, a mere variation of time is not, of itself, sufficient. There must be an appropriate variation of tone-color, etc.
A simile or comparison, for example, must be so read as to indicate the reader's estimate of what it illustrates; and this is particularly shown by the accelerated or retarded utterance of it, and by the tone-color given to it.
The following striking simile from II Kings, xxi. 13, should be read with an accelerated utterance, implying the ease with which the act illustrated will be performed: 'And I will stretch overJerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalemas a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.'
The following comparison (Isaiah, lv. 10, 11) should be read in slower time, in itself considered, and, partly, for the reason that it precedes what it illustrates (a due expectation must be awakened as to what follows): 'As the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish thatwhich I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.'
In still slower time, every appreciative reader would spontaneously read the following comparison (Milton's Paradise Lost, Book I., w. 591-600):
his form had not yet lostAll her original brightness; nor appearedLess than archangel ruined, and the excessOf glory obscured:as when the sun, new risen,Looks thro' the horizontal misty airShorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight shedsOn half the nations, and with fear of changePerplexes monarchs.Darken'd so, yet shoneAbove them all the archangel.
his form had not yet lostAll her original brightness; nor appearedLess than archangel ruined, and the excessOf glory obscured:as when the sun, new risen,Looks thro' the horizontal misty airShorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight shedsOn half the nations, and with fear of changePerplexes monarchs.Darken'd so, yet shoneAbove them all the archangel.
his form had not yet lostAll her original brightness; nor appearedLess than archangel ruined, and the excessOf glory obscured:as when the sun, new risen,Looks thro' the horizontal misty airShorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight shedsOn half the nations, and with fear of changePerplexes monarchs.Darken'd so, yet shoneAbove them all the archangel.
An increased time of utterance must be secured through the prolongable vowels and consonants, rather than through pauses, though the latter must also be somewhat extended. Acceleratedutterance must not impress as hurry.
The fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel, descriptive of Belshazzar's feast, affords good illustrations of the slighting of speech.(Note 5.) Take, for example, the first five verses (the parts which should be slighted are indicated by smaller type):
1. Belshazzar,the king, made a great feastto a thousand of his lords, and drank winebefore the thousand.
2. Belshazzar,whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem;that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein.
3.Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, drankin them.
4.They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold,and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
5. In the same hour came forth fingersof a man's hand, and wroteover against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace; and the king sawthe part of the hand that wrote.
The parts in smaller type have various degrees of subordinate value, which the nicely appreciative reader would indicate by his reading; but they all belong to the background of the description. Any of these parts, if brought fully into the foreground,would be given an undue importance, and would reduce somewhat the prominence and distinctness of the other parts.
In the first verse, 'the king,' should be read with an abatement of voice, being an understood appositive; 'to a thousand of his lords' ('thousand' being used for an indefinite large number), is sufficiently implied in 'gave a great feast,' and the voice should be reduced upon it, and should not descend upon 'lords,' as it is assumed that the feast was given to the chief men of the kingdom; 'and drank winebefore the thousand:' the voice after descending upon 'wine,' should drift lightly over 'before the thousand.'
In the second verse, 'whiles hetasted the wine' should, as it were, say itself; and then the command of the king, in regard to the sacred vessels of the temple, should be brought to the front; 'that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines,' should be thrown back with a reduced and somewhat accelerated voice, and prominence given to 'might drink therein,' the purpose being to invite chief attention to the sacrilegious act of making such use of the sacred vessels. A distinct noting of the different kinds of people present at the feast is not called for here. The voice has other business on hand, namely, the bringing forward of the sacrilegious purpose to drink wine from the sacred vessels of the temple. Further on inthe chapter, in the speech of Daniel to the king (v. 23), it is necessary to bring these people fully to the front, the melodious movement of the voice being adapted to the special emphasizing of 'thou' and 'concubines,' thus: 'and thòu, and thy lórds, thy wíves, and thy còncubines,' a somewhat increased pitch and force being given to 'concubines.'
In the third verse, 'Then they brought the golden vessels,' etc., should be read as a matter of course, and not as if it were necessary to invite the attention of the hearer to the fact that the command of the king was obeyed. The latter mode of reading would be wholly gratuitous (as it should be assumed that the command of the king was obeyed),and would waste attention; 'and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines' should be again thrown back, and, the voice should descend somewhat forcibly upon 'drank,' thus marking distinctly the sacrilege.
In the fourth verse, 'They drank wine,' being a mere repetition, should say itself (the mind of the reader not coming down upon it, but keeping along on the upper plane of expression), and the voice should come out strongly upon 'and praised the gods of gold'; but it should be reduced, and somewhat accelerated, upon, 'and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.' Their idolatry having been sufficiently brought out through 'and praised the gods of gold,' it wouldwaste attention to bring forward also the several other materials of which their gods were composed. These should be expressed, as it were, by the way. The mind of the reader is done with the fact of idolatry.
In the fifth verse, 'In the same hour, came forth fingers ... and wrote,' should be brought fully to the front, an increase of time being given to 'In the same hour,' to mark distinctly the fact that divine vengeance followed close upon the sacrilege of drinking from the sacred vessels of the temple, which was aggravated by their idolatry (the words 'hour,' 'fingers,' and 'wrote,' receiving each the falling inflection); but 'of a man's hand' should be slighted, the voice being kept up on 'hand,' itbeing assumed that the fingers were, of course, those of a man's hand, or, at least, of a human hand. The place justwherethe writing was done, 'over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace,' being of no special importance, under the circumstances, should be slighted. To bring it to the front would cause an entirely unnecessary expenditure of attention on the part of the hearer. It should be left to its own intrinsic value, without any enforcement from the voice; 'and the king saw' comes to the front, the voice falling upon 'saw,' and drifting down over 'the part of the hand that wrote.'
As additional examples, take the last seven verses of the chapter: they affordillustrations, too, of the marking of the new idea, as distinguished from the important idea, of a sentence considered by itself:
25. And thisis the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
26. This is the interpretationof the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom,and finished it.
27.TEKEL: Thou art weighed in the balances, and artfound wanting.
28.PERES: Thy kingdomis divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
29.Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
30. In that night was Belshazzarthe king of the Chaldeans slain.
31.And Darius the Mediantookthe kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.
In the twenty-fifth verse, 'And this' stands out, 'this' being the new idea, the voice drifting, with some acceleration, over 'is the writing that was written'; 'MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN,' that is, 'numbered, numbered, weighed, divisions,' 'mene, mene' being an emphatic repetition. In the twenty-eighth verse, 'peres,' having the same root, and meaning 'divided,' is substituted for 'upharsin.'
In the twenty-sixth verse, 'This is the interpretation' stands out, the voice coming down on 'interpretation' and drifting over, and slighting, 'of the thing.' When 'mene' is pronouncedby Daniel, it must be supposed that its meaning is understood, but not its application; the word 'kingdom' must, therefore, be marked with the emphasis; 'and finished it' must be somewhat slighted, as the meaning of the phrase is anticipated in 'numbered.'
In the twenty-seventh verse, the voice moves along with some acceleration, over 'thou art weighed in the balances,' the idea of 'weighed' being anticipated in 'tekel,' and 'art found wanting' is brought strongly out.
In the twenty-eighth verse, 'kingdom' must receive the emphasis, 'divided' being anticipated in 'peres'; 'and given to the Medes and Persians' we must suppose is not altogether new information to Belshazzar, after his havingbeen informed that the division of his kingdom is at hand. He knows who will come into possession of it. This phrase, therefore, must not be brought fully to the front. It must be uttered with some acceleration of the voice and in a way to indicate the supposed feeling of Daniel in regard to the quick work which is to be made of the kingdom.
The twenty-ninth verse should be read with some acceleration of voice, and without any special expression, the reader assuming that the promise made by the king to Daniel, in the sixteenth verse, if he can interpret the writing, was fulfilled. This twenty-ninth verse must not, therefore, be read as imparting new information.
In the thirtieth verse, 'In that night' must be brought fully out, through a time emphasis, to mark how immediate was the fulfilment of Daniel's interpretation; there must be some acceleration of voice upon 'was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans,' and a quite strong emphasis given to 'slain.'
In the thirty-first verse, 'took' is the foreground word, the emphasis of it implying an accordance with Daniel's interpretation; 'being about threescore and two years old,' should be read as a gratuitously affixed fact, having no particular bearing upon what has been related.
Cultivated people cannot away with what is generally understood by 'elocution,'which is rather a vocal and Delsartian display than an honest vocalization, which good reading should be, of what has been intellectually and spiritually assimilated. Reading is not acting. The first thing to be done to bring 'elocution' into good repute (it is certainly not in good repute at present) is to free reading from allstrainof expression—to reduce emphasis and attain to the greatest degree of simplicitycompatible with the subject-matter. And one important feature of reading which should receive special attention, as a means to this end, is the light touch, which conveys the impression that the mind of the reader does not come down upon the parts receiving the same, those parts expressingwhat has been anticipated, or should be taken for granted, etc., and constituting the remote background of expression.
The highest result which can be exhibited of literary culture and a corresponding vocal culture, is an organic melody, in the reading of a great poem, the outcome of the poem's organic life. By melody, in reading, is meant that organic variety in the use of all the vocal functions and affections, that arabesqueness of expression, which does not allow the ear of the hearer to detect a regular recurrence of any of these functions and affections. There is melody of pause, of inflection, of rhyme, of rhythm, of time, of force, of emphasis, and of every vocal affection.In truly melodious reading, the design or figure, so to speak, is so arabesque that it is not taken in by the ear of the hearer, and does not come to his consciousness, but it tells effectively on his feelings. And by 'effectively' I specially mean that the feelings are brought into harmony with, into a state of elective attraction for, the contriving creative spirit which moulds the poetic form. Such reading of high poetry is the extreme merit of vocal expression. Some of its principles may betaught; but the vitality of it must be the result of the spiritual education of the reader, must be exhaled spontaneously from hisbeing.
A reader with a nice sense of melody may conceal a deficiency of melodyin the poem he is reading; and he may do this, without arbitrarily imposing variety. An imposed variety is not true melody, which must be vital, organic. In the reading of Pope's uniform couplets, for example, he may keep down the rocking-horse movement of the verse(Note 6) by a skilful management of the pauses (which come so uniformly in the middle and at the end of the verses), and of the rhyming words, by an acceleration and retardation of voice wherever these are permissible, by the light touch, and by various other means. To counteract the uniform construction of such verse as the following, for example, from the Essay on Man, without arbitrarily imposing variety,the reader's art must approach the artful:
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,Spreads undivided, operates unspent; etc.
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,Spreads undivided, operates unspent; etc.
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,Spreads undivided, operates unspent; etc.
or the following, descriptive of the heroine, in The Rape of the Lock:
On her white breast, a sparkling cross she wore,Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those:Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;Oft she rejects, but never once offends.Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,Might hide her faults, if Belles had faults to hide:If to her share some female errors fall,Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
On her white breast, a sparkling cross she wore,Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those:Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;Oft she rejects, but never once offends.Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,Might hide her faults, if Belles had faults to hide:If to her share some female errors fall,Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
On her white breast, a sparkling cross she wore,Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those:Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;Oft she rejects, but never once offends.Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,Might hide her faults, if Belles had faults to hide:If to her share some female errors fall,Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
The absence ofenjambementmakes it somewhat difficult so to keep down the rhyme emphasis that it may not pester the ear.(Note 7.)
Where a reader's feelings have been melodized by culture, they will protect him against the influence of a too artificial construction of the verse. He will not impose variety, but he will utter humdrum verse, as far as possible, under the conditions of his melodized feeling.
THEimportance of cultivating the speaking voice is quite as great as that of cultivating the reading voice. Perhaps it is greater; for the speaking voice has a wider and more constant influence—an influence which is exerted in all the relations of life, an influence calming or irritating, an influence bringing men into friendly or unfriendly attitudes toward each other. How demulcent the effect of a gracious voice, and how rasping that of a snappish one! 'The sweetest music,' says Emerson, 'is not in the oratorio, but in the human voice when it speaks from its instant life tones of tenderness,truth, or courage. The oratorio has already lost its relation to the morning, to the sun, and the earth, but that persuading voice is in tune with these.'
Of Emerson's own voice, the Rev. Charles G. Ames, in 'A Memorial Address,' says: 'His speech had a subtle spell,—a charm like Nature's own, so that he affected men like Old Honesty ... so silvery, cheery, sane, fearless!... There was no false ring, no trick to catch applause or to turn off attention from the message to the messenger; noshowof knowledge or power or art. One might forget it all next hour, through sheer moral inability to stay at such an unwonted altitude; but while listening to thathigh discourse it certainly did seem as if we belonged up there,—as if a man ought to make the very earth a pedestal of honor for his feet and wear the sky about his brow as an aureole.'
How much wrath, with its evil consequences, might be averted by soft answers! How much pleasanter an arrival at a hotel might be than it often is, if the slapdash clerk in the office had a voice better attuned to a courteous reception of a guest! or an arrival in New York, from abroad, if a custom-house official knew how to ask, in a civilized way, 'What's in that box?' The question is often asked in a way which has a decidedly indurating effect upon the conscience of a traveller, in regard to dutiablethings he may have brought with him. How afflicting the chaotic clatter of high-pitched voices, at a reception, or an evening party! A room jam-full of standing people, 'unaimed prattle flying up and down' (true conversation is out of the question) is hard to endure, even with the prospect of lobster and of chicken salad, ice cream, and numerous other unwholesome things about to be. American girls, before they 'come out,' may talk in a quiet way; but so soon as they 'come out,' many of them think they must show that theyhave'come out,' by the high pitch and rapidity of their voices, which quite deprive a nervous man of his self-possession.
How much 'the charm of beauty'spowerful glance' may be heightened or lowered by the character of the voice which goes along with it! Woman tells on others by a gracious manner, by the beauty of holiness as it is manifested in all her ways, in all her relations, domestic and social, and especially by her voice. A woman with a sweet and gracious voice, the index of a sweet and gracious nature, may exert through it, in the ordinary relations of life, without even knowing it, a better influence than she could by advisedly devoting herself to doing good, even if such devotion took the form of distributing religious tracts! The moral atmosphere of a home may be not a little due to the voice of the wife and mother. The memory, even,of a voice which was toned by love and sympathy, may continue to be a sweet influence long after the voice itself has been hushed in death. The influence of the voice for good or evil, in the domestic, social, and all other relations of life, cannot be estimated. A voice may even have a good or bad reflex action upon its possessor. A slovenly articulation, for example, may be the index of a moral slovenliness, and may react upon the latter. Subtle, indeed, and imperceptible, are the influences upon ourselves, for good or evil, of all our commonest doings.
A fond, worldly mother may be anxiously ambitious that her daughter shall have all the accomplishments required for her fullest attractiveness when she'comes out.' Years may be spent upon her musical education, with the poor result, perhaps, of 'fine sleights of hand and unimagined fingering, shuffling off the hearer's soul through hurricanes of notes to a noisy Tophet'; she may be taught dancing which rivals that of a Taglioni, and French, and drawing, and painting; she may be sent abroad to snatch the graces beyond the reach of art, of the most elegant European society; and yet, in the grand scheme of accomplishments, the speaking voice is left out and entirely neglected, though she have a voice unpleasantly pitched, and with other remediable defects which are far, very far, from idealizing, transfiguring her! If the time devoted to the piano, withthe supposed poor result, had been devoted to a careful cultivation of her voice, her power to charm (that being the end proposed) would be much more increased than by any or all of her other accomplishments.
It is easy to infer what Shakespeare's opinions were on many subjects, although his Plays are regarded by some critics as peculiarly impersonal; but they are charged with his personality, and shadow forth, not dimly, his views in regard to many things. The evidence is abundant that the voice was to him very significant, apart from his estimate of its importance, as a professional actor, and that he was most susceptible to its charms and to its defects. It is her voice which thegrief-stricken Lear is made to speak of, when he bends over the dead Cordelia: 'Her voice,' he says, 'was ever soft, gentle, and low'; and to this he adds, 'an excellent thing in woman'; Shakespeare, no doubt, meaning that he had in his mind, at the time, the cruel voices, expressive of their hard and wicked hearts, of Regan and Goneril. After the death of Antony, Cleopatra, in her rapturous praise of him, says,—-
His voice was propertiedAs all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,It was as rattling thunder.
His voice was propertiedAs all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,It was as rattling thunder.
His voice was propertiedAs all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,It was as rattling thunder.
Hamlet's advice to the players we may take as an expression of Shakespeare's own standard of vocal delivery,and as his protest against a stilted and ranting declamation, which, no doubt, characterized many of the actors of his day.
There is evidence in the Plays that, in the process of composition, he must either have heard imaginatively what he was writing, or have actually voiced his language as he went along. He did not write for the eye, but for the ear. And the high vocal capabilities of his language may be somewhat attributable to his hearing of what he wrote. Must he not have heard the effect of monosyllabic words, uttered with the tremor and semi-tone of old age, when he wrote King Lear's speeches?—'You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, as full of grief as age,' etc.,and 'When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools,' etc. And must he not have heard the effect of polysyllabic words as expressive of Macbeth's sense of the vastness of his guilt, when he wrote, 'this my hand will rather themultitudinousseasincarnadine,' etc.? of the guttural emphasis, expressive of detestation, in the speech of Coriolanus to the rabble?—'Youcommoncry ofcurs! whose breath Ihate asreek o' therotten fens,' etc.
An interesting compilation might be made from the Plays, of passages expressive of strong passion of various kinds, the several vocabularies of which testify to Shakespeare's having imaginatively or actually voiced what hewrote. The speech of the Bastard to Hubert, in King John (A. iv. S. 3), is a signal example:
Bastard.Here's a good world!—Knew you of this fair work?Beyond the infinite and boundless reachOf mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,Art thou damn'd, Hubert.Hubert.Do but hear me, sir.Bastard.Ha! I'll tell thee what;Thou'rt damn'd as black—nay, nothing is so black;Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer:There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hellAs thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.
Bastard.Here's a good world!—Knew you of this fair work?Beyond the infinite and boundless reachOf mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,Art thou damn'd, Hubert.Hubert.Do but hear me, sir.Bastard.Ha! I'll tell thee what;Thou'rt damn'd as black—nay, nothing is so black;Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer:There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hellAs thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.
Bastard.Here's a good world!—Knew you of this fair work?Beyond the infinite and boundless reachOf mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,Art thou damn'd, Hubert.
Hubert.Do but hear me, sir.
Bastard.Ha! I'll tell thee what;Thou'rt damn'd as black—nay, nothing is so black;Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer:There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hellAs thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.
I fancy that Shakespeare had a fine voice. If he had not, it is quite certain that he had the highest estimate and appreciation of the voice as the organ of the soul. His creative spirit,too, attracted to itself the most effective vocabulary for the vocal expression of every kind of passion—the most effective by reason of their monosyllabic or their polysyllabic character, of their vowel or their consonantal elements. To him, language was for the ear, not for the eye. The written word was to him what it was to Socrates, 'the mere image or phantom of the living and animated word.'(Note 8.)
The art of printing has caused language to be overmuch transferred from its true domain, the sense of hearing, to the sense of sight. The lofty idealized language of poetry is known, in these days, chiefly through the eye, and its true power is consequently quiescent for the generality of silent readers.In silent reading, an appreciation of matter and form must be largely due to an imaginative transference to the ear of what is taken in by the eye.
THEimpression seems to be getting stronger and stronger, in these days of excessive teaching and excessive learning, that no one can do anything or learn anything without being taught,—without 'taking a regular course,' as the phrase is. This seems to be especially true in the matter of vocal cultivation. People go to schools of oratory with nothing within themselves which is clamorous for expression; not even a very 'still small voice' urging them to express something. Many who desire, or think they do, to be readers, as there are many who desire, or think they do,to be artists, evidently believe that if they be trained in technique they can be readers or artists.
But suppose some one is impelled to cultivate vocal power because of his desire to express what he has sympathetically and lovingly assimilated, of a work of genius: if he endeavor to give an honest expression, so far as in him lies, to what he feels, and avoid trying to express what he does not feel, and if he persevere in his endeavor, with always a coefficient ideal back of his reading, he may—in time, he certainly will—become a better reader than another could if he should set out, with malice prepense, to be an elocutionist, and with that malicious purpose, were to employ a mere voice-trainer who should teach him to perpetrate all sorts of vocal extravagances, to make faces, and to gesticulate when reading what does not need any gesture. Such an one, after passing out of the hands of his trainer, is most likely to go forth and afflict the public with his performances, which will be wholly a pitiable exhibition of himself.
Some of the best readers I have ever known have been of the former class, who honestly voiced what they had sympathetically assimilated, and did not strain after effect. But it seems that when one sets out to read, with no interior capital, he or she, especially she, is apt to run into all kinds of extravagances which disgust people of culture and taste. The voice, insteadof being the organ of the soul, is the betrayer of soullessness.
Without that interior life which can respond to the indefinite life of a work of genius (indefinite, that is, to the intellect), a trained voice can do nothing of itself in the way of real interpretation. It may bring out the definite articulating thought, in a way, but the electric aura in which the thought should be enveloped, will be wanting; and where this is wanting, in the expression of spiritualized thought, the true object of reading is but imperfectly realized. What can be got through the eye, it is not the main function of the voice to deliver. There must be the requisite 'drift' and choral intonation—drift, the air,the pervading, ruling spirit, 'the dominant's persistence,' the prevailing tone color.
I am pleased to quote, in this connection, what Professor Edward Dowden writes in his article on 'The teaching of English literature,' contained in his recent volume, 'New Studies in Literature': 'Few persons nowadays seem to feel how powerful an instrument of culture may be found in modest, intelligent, and sympathetic reading aloud. The reciter and the elocutionist of late have done much to rob us of this which is one of the finest of the fine arts. A mongrel something which, at least with the inferior adepts, is neither good reading nor yet veritable acting, but which sets agape thehalf-educated with the wonder of its airs and attitudinizing, its pseudo-heroics and pseudo-pathos, has usurped the place of the true art of reading aloud, and has made the word "recitation" a terror to quiet folk who are content with intelligence and refinement. Happily in their behalf the great sense-carrier to the Empire, Mr. Punch, has at length seen it right to intervene.(Note 9.) The reading which we should desire to cultivate is intelligent reading, that is, it should express the meaning of each passage clearly; sympathetic reading, that is, it should convey the feeling delicately; musical reading, that is, it should move in accord with the melody and harmony of what is read, be it in verse or prose.'
A training of the organs of speech which brings them into complete obedience to the will and the feelings, and a perfect technique, important and indispensable as they are, cannot, of themselves, avail much in the interpretation of spiritualized thought. This must be mainly the result of such education as induces an inward preparedness for responding to and assimilating the essential life of a work of genius.Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis(whatever is received, is received according to the measure of the recipient). And it is, or should be, the leading object of literary education to enlarge the spiritual measure of the recipient.
Now it must be said that the schools, with all their grammars, their rhetorics, their philologies, their psychologies, their histories and cheap philosophies of literature, their commentaries and annotations, do not prepare their students to know works of genius in their absolute character; for such knowledge implies an adequate education of the absolute, that is, spiritual man, and such education is not induced by the above studies as at present conducted. It demands spiritual life to respond to spiritual life; or, in the words of St. Paul, 'the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.'
What is generally understood in the schools as a thorough study of a work of genius, is occupied quite exclusively with the language and with that part of the subject-matter which can be intellectually formulated. That part which demands a spiritual response and which it is the main object of reading to vocalize for the purpose of calling forth such response, is not included in the so-called thorough study. The latter may do much, indeed, to shut off any spiritual response which a student might give if he were not subjected to such study. In this statement no depreciation of scholarship is meant to be implied. Let us have the most thorough scholarship possible; but it must not become an end to itself; itmust be a means to the higher end of intellectual and spiritual life.
What chiefly afflicts a cultivated hearer, in 'elocution,' is the conspicuous absence of spiritual assimilation on the part of the reader. At best, he voices only what the eye of an ordinary reader could take in, and leaves the all-important part to his face, arms, and legs, and various attitudes of the body. But the spiritual in literature must be addressed to the ear. 'A spirit aërial informs the cell of Hearing,' says Wordsworth, in his great poem, 'On the power of sound.'
READING,I have said, is not acting. It is the acting which usually accompanies the reading or recitation of the professional elocutionist which cultivated people especially dislike. When they wish to see acting, they prefer going to a theatre. When they listen to reading, they want serious interpretative vocalization; only that and nothing more is necessary, unless it be a spontaneous and graceful movement of the hands, occasionally, such as one makes in animated conversation.
Again, the most elegant way of vocally interpreting a poem, is to readit from a book, rather than to recite it. Recitation has much to do with this acting business. In fact, elocutionists recite in order to have their arms free to act—to illustrate the thought they are expressing. Thought should not be helped out by gesture. Gesture results, or should result, from emotion, and should, therefore, be indefinite. Mimetic gesture, or mimetic action of any kind, is rarely, if ever, in place. If a speaker, addressing averyignorant audience, had to use the word 'rotatory,' for example, he might make a cyclic movement or two with his hand, to illustrate its meaning. But to do so before an audience presumably intelligent enough to know the meaning of the word, would beimpertinent—a 'wasteful and ridiculous excess.' So, too, it would be, to illustrate the word 'somersault,' before an audience of ordinary intelligence. The absurdity of mimetic action is well illustrated in the following: 'I have heard,' says a writer in 'Expression' (Vol. I., No. 2), published in Boston, 'of a popular public reader of Boston giving last season Wordsworth's "Daffodils"; and as she came to the last two lines,—