What object are the fountains What fields, or waves, or mountains? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! “To a Skylark.” SHELLEY. EMPHASIS Emphasis consists in giving prominence to words or parts of discourse so as best to express their meaning. The principal means of giving emphasis are by change of force, inflection, pitch, movement, pause, and feeling. Two things are essential to correct emphasis: First, a clear understanding of the thought to be expressed; second, a thorough and practical knowledge of the various modes of emphasis. These modes are usually found in combination, but the best results will be secured by practising them at first separately. The speaker should thoroughly understand thought "values," the order of their importance and their relation to each other. He should be able to concentrate upon one thought at a time. He must carefully avoid over-emphasis. Too many interpreters of literature try to read into the lines meanings never intended by the writers. The form of emphasis most frequently used by untrained speakers is that of force. Many people who speak with varied and appropriate emphasis in conversation, change to a loud 'declamatory style when called upon to address an audience. They endeavor to drive their thought home by force, mere loudness of voice, accompanied by violent physical movements. The difference between conversational style and that of public speaking is illustrated as follows: A cabinet size photograph, if shown to a few individuals, can be seen in all its details. Hold the same picture up before an audience of a hundred or more people, and the result is unsatisfactory. The picture, however, can be enlarged so that everybody in a large audience can see it, and if the process of enlarging it is naturally and symmetrically done the large picture will be as true a likeness as the small one. If it is otherwise enlarged, the result may be a caricature. In like manner, the public speaker who wishes to be natural and effective should enlarge his conversational style to fit the larger occasion, using all the various modulations and modes of emphasis employed in addressing a single individual. The most intellectual use of emphasis is that of inflection, wherein graceful glides of the voice are used to give added prominence. This is particularly noticeable in the voices of well-bred children. To pause immediately before a word gives greater em phasis than to pause after it. The hearer is kept waiting, and the mind, being in a state of expectancy, is likely to be more receptive and impressionable. This accounts, in part, for the effectiveness of a deliberate style over a rapid one. The speaker appears to weigh his words, and the hearer is made to appreciate that which is withheld from him even for a moment. It is said that a person who is thoroughly in earnest will emphasize correctly and naturally. Emphasize: RULES FOR EMPHASIS 1. The leading idea of a new thought. 2. Important words. 3. Words used to establish a comparison. 4. Conjunctions and introductory words making a sud den turn in the thought. 5. In emphatic repetition. 6. In unexpressed antithesis.. 7. Usually both words of an antithesis. Don't emphasize: 1. Expletives. 2. Words that simply carry the thought forward. 3. When false antithesis will be suggested. EXAMPLES FOR ANALYSIS AND PRACTISE 1. To do most, we must employ the most we have to do it with, and not set small functions on great tasks. Attempting the great with the great we do the great; so that one should be all at it, and at it all, doing all he can, and at all he has to do. "How to Succeed." AUSTIN BIERBROWER. LIBRARY UNIVERS 2. Tho I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And tho I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and tho I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And tho I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and tho I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face: now I know. in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity,—these three; but the greatest of these is charity. "1 Corinthians, 13.” THE BIBLE. 3. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind All are but parts of one stupendous whole, All nature is but art, unknown to thee; And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, 4. From these walls a spirit shall go forth that shall survive, when this edifice shall be like an unsubstantial pageant faded. It shall go forth, exulting in, but not abusing, its strength. It shall go forth, remembering, in the days of its prosperity, the pledges it gave in the time of its depression. It shall go forth, uniting a disposition to correct abuses, to redress grievances. It shall go forth, uniting the disposition to improve, with the resolution to maintain and defend, by that spirit of unbought affection which is the chief defense of nations. |