prominently assisted in moulding your free institutions, and the beneficial effects of whose wisdom will be felt to the last moment of recorded time? Who, sir, I ask, was he? A Northern laborer- a Yankee tallow-chandler's son-a printer's runaway boy! 6. JEALOUSY. If I do prove her haggard, though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings, I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind, to prey at fortune. Haply, for I am black, and have not those soft parts of conversation that chamberers have; or, for I am declined into the vale of years;- yet, that's not much-she's gone. I am abused; and my relief must be to loathe her. Oh, curse of marriage! that we can call these delicate creatures ours, and not their appetites! I had rather be a toad, and live upon the vapor of a dungeon, than keep a corner in the thing I love for others' uses! PLAINTIVENESS AND DEEP PATHOS Are expressed with prevailing softness of voice, by the semitone, Long Quantity, Slow Time, the Semitonic Waves, and Median Stress. Among the sentiments which require the Plaintive Expression are the following: Complaint, Penitence, Contrition, Petition, Submission, Supplication, Awe, Reverence, Affection, Love, Attention, Pity, Compassion, Commiseration, Grief, Mercy, Sorrow, Lamentation, Bodily Pain, and Mental Suffering. I. The king stood still till the last echo died; then, throwing off the sackcloth from his brow, and laying back the pall from the still features of his child, he bowed his head upon him, and broke forth in the resistless eloquence of woe: Alas! my noble boy! that thou should'st die! Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair! that death should settle in thy glorious eye, and leave his stillness in thy clustering hair! How could he mark thee for the silent tomb, my proud boy, Absalom! "Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill, as to my bosom I have tried to press thee! How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill, like a rich harpstring, yearning to caress thee, and hear thy sweet My father!' from those dumb and cold lips, Absalom ' "But death is on thee! I shall hear the gush of music, and the voices of the young; and life will pass me in the mantling blush, and the dark tresses to the soft winds flung;- but thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come to meet me, Absalom!" 2. "Ho! sailor of the sea! How's my boy, my boy?" "What's your boy's name, good wife? And in what good ship sailed he?” My boy John -he that went to sea! What care I for the ship, sailor? My boy's my boy to me! "You come back from sea, and not know my John? I might as well have asked some landsman, yonder, down in the town! There's not an ass in all the parish, but he knows my John! "How's my boy, my boy? And unless you let me know, I'll swear you 90 are no sailor, crown or no ! speak low!" - blue jacket or no! Brass button or no, sailor, anchor or 'Speak low, woman! "And why should I speak low, sailor, about my own boy John? If I was loud as I am proud, I'd sing him over the town! Why should I speak low, sailor?" That good ship went down." 3. Lovely art thou, O Peace! and lovely are thy children; and lovely are the prints of thy footsteps in the green valleys! Blue wreaths of smoke ascend through the trees, and betray the halfhidden cottage; the eye contemplates well-thatched ricks, and barns bursting with plenty: the peasant laughs at the approach of winter. White houses peep through the trees; cattle stand cooling in the pool; the casement of the farm-house is covered with jessamine and honey-suckle; the stately green-house exhales the perfume of summer climates! Children climb the green mound of the rampart; and ivy holds together the half-demolished buttress. 4. "And now depart! and when thy heart is heavy, and thine eyes are dim, lift up thy prayer beseechingly to him, who, from the tribes of men, selected thee to feel his chastening rod! Depart, O leper! and forget not God!" And he went forth-alone! Not one of all the many whom he loved nor she whose name was woven in the fibres of the heart breaking within him now-to come and speak comfort unto him. Yea, he went his way,— sick and heart-broken, and alone to die! For God had cursed the leper! 5. The flames rolled on. He would not go, without his father's word. That father, faint in death below, his voice no longer heard. He called aloud: "Say, father, say if yet my task is done!" He knew not that the chieftain lay, unconscious of his son. Speak, father!" once again he cried, "if I may yet be gone!" And but the booming shots replied, and fast the flames rolled on. HUMOR, IMPATIENCE, AND DISCONTENT, With PETULANCE, PEEVISHNESS, REPINING, VEXATION, CHAGRIN, and DISSATISFACTION, are expressed by the Radical, Vanishing, Compound, or Guttural Stress, the Semitonic Aspiration, and, at times, the Diatonic Melody. On syllables of Long Quantity, the Double and Unequal Wave will heighten the effect of the expression. IMPATIENCE will sometimes raise the voice to Loudness, and the Falsette may be heard in the whine of Peevishness. SECRECY Requires for its expression that Pure Aspiration called the Whisper. APPREHENSION AND MYSTERY, With CURIOSITY, SUSPICION, and EAGERNESS, require Aspiration and a Suppressed Voice. 91 SUPPRESSED FEAR Calls for an Undertone, and combines with it the Tremor or Aspiration. DANGER, FEAR, AND TERROR, Call for great Force of Voice, Loud Concrete, with the Downward Concretes, and marked with Aspiration. The voice of TERROR sometimes breaks forth in a Scream of the Falsette or the Orotund. HORROR Requires Orotund, great Loudness, Guttural Grating, and Aspiration, which are always the symbols of the strongest emotions of the mind. These qualities of voice will be blended on some words, and applied singly on others. I. Now o'er the one-half world Nature seems dead; and wicked dreams abuse Whose howl's his watch, - thus, with his stealthy pace, And take the present horror from the time 2. AWE, EXTENDING TO FEAR. It thunders! Sons of dust, in reverence bow! I hear thy awful voice!— alarmed, afraid, I see the flashes of thy lightning wild, And in the very grave would hide my head! 3. TERROR. The fox fled in terror: the eagle awoke, As, slumbering, he dozed in the shelve of the rock; 92 Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? 5. Hear the loud alarum bells - brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night, how they scream out their affright Out of tune, In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, Oh, the bells, bells, bells! what a tale their terror tells How they clang, and clash, and roar ! what a horror they outpour 6. Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:- Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw! Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going! Mine eyes are made the fools o' th' other senses, Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still! And on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood! THE INTERROGATION May modify some of the elements of expression, in the preceding exercises -chiefly by intensifying the Waves and Inflections. AUTHORITATIVE AND ANGRY INQUIRY Employs a good deal of Force of Voice, Radical, Vanishing, and Thorough Enforcement, and the Wider Intervals, with the Loud Orotund. SNEERING, SCORNFUL INTERROGATION, Or SURPRISE or EXCLAMATION, mixed with INTERROGATION, calls for Van. ishing, Compound, or Thorough Stress, mixed with Aspiration or Guttural Quality of Voice, and the Orotund. 93 PLAINTIVE INTERROGATION Is the opposite of Plaintive Exclamation, and therefore requires the Chromatic Melody and Inverted Wave; the first constituent being a Semitone, and the last a Rising Third, Fourth, Fifth, or Octave. HUMILITY, MODESTY, AND SHAME, With CAUTION, IRRESOLUTION, FATIGUE, APATHY, TRANQUILITY, and WEAKNESS, generally demand the Simple Diatonic Melody, Feebleness of Voice, and Slow Time. We have multiplied Examples from a wide range of authors, selected especially for their variety and appropriateness in exhibiting the sentiment and emotion required; and we now say to the student — PRACTICE, PRACTICE! Do not be easily discouraged. If it is possible for you to form a class, and secure the services of an accomplished master, who can save time and study for you by giving an appropriate model, do so; but do not rely upon this, even. Help yourself! We smile at the enumeration of the formal apparatus of Athenian rhetorical education, which, in addition to its long and classified array of grammarians and rhetoricans, furnished, it is said, five gradations of schools for different species of muscular exercise, and three distinct classes of instructors for the voice-one to superintend practice in Pitch, another to conduct the exercises in Force, and a third to regulate vocal Melody and Inflections. Modern taste forbids this fastidious multiplicity and minuteness of appliances; but it makes, as yet, no adequate provision for the acquiring of that moral and intellectual power, and that expressive force, which result from the blending of a high-toned physical and mental training. The customary routine of academic declamation consists in permitting or compelling a student to "speak,” and pointing out his faults, after they have been committed. But it offers no genial inducement to the exercise and provides no preventive training by which faults might be avoided. This state of things is being changed; and the leading institutions of the country are introducing physical and vocal exercises- thereby intending to keep the connection between thought and its appropriate expression. To aid in this important work, this Book is sent forth. |