ページの画像
PDF
ePub

something was to pay somewhere. Even the negroes themselves stopped howling, as they saw Nolan's agony, and Vaughan's almost equal agony of sympathy. As quick as he could get words, he said:

"Tell them yes, yes, yes; tell them they shall go to the Mountains of the Moon, if they will. If I sail the schooner through the Great White Desert, they shall go home!"

And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then they all fell to kissing him again, and wanted to rub his nose with theirs.

But he could not stand it long; and getting Vaughan to say he might go back, he beckoned me down into our boat. As we lay back in the stern-sheets and the men gave way, he said to me: "Youngster, let that show you what it is to be without a family, without a home, and without a country. And if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing that shall put a bar between you and your family, your home, and your country, pray God in his mercy to take you that instant home to His own heaven. Stick by your family, boy; forget you have a self, while you do everything for them. Think of your home, boy; write and send, and talk about it. Let it be nearer and nearer to your thought, the farther you have to travel from it; and rush back to it when you are free, as that poor black slave is doing now. And for your country, boy," and the words rattled in his throat, "and for that flag," and he pointed to the ship, "never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those devils there had got hold of her to-day!"

After this cruise I never saw Nolan again. The other men told me that in those fifteen years he aged very fast, as well

he might indeed, but that he was still the same gentle, uncomplaining, silent sufferer that he ever was, bearing as best he could his self-appointed punishment. And now it seems the dear old fellow is dead. He has found a home at last, and a country.

Since writing this, and while considering whether or no I would print it, as a warning to the young Nolans and Vallandighams and Tatnalls of to-day of what it is to throw away a country, I have received a letter which gives an account of Nolan's last hours. It removes all my doubts about telling this story. Here is the conclusion of the letter:

But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to his lips. It was his father's badge of the Order of the Cincinnati. We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the place where he had marked the text:

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

'They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.” On this slip of paper he had written :

66

Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it:

"In Memory of

"PHILIP NOLAN,

"Lieutenant in the Army of the United States.

"He loved his country as no other man has loved
her; but no man deserved less at her hands." 1

1 Used with the kind permission of the publishers, Little, Brown and Company.

CHAPTER IV

EMPHASIS

16. The cause of emphasis

As grouping and pitch variation are the result of thought, so thinking determines emphasis. Words are given prominence according as they serve to reveal the precise meaning the speaker wishes them to convey. Observe the different meanings brought out by shifting the emphasis in the following sentence:

I told you so.

I told you so.

I told you so!

(It was I, not another, who told you.)
(You did n't tell me.)

(It's happened just as I expected, but you
would n't believe me.)

17. Methods of emphasis

The term "emphasis" is often thought of in a limited sense as referring merely to the added vocal force applied to a word to give it prominence; but there are several means of emphasis, of which vocal force, or loudness, is perhaps the least important. The setting out of particular words is effected in several ways, namely: by Inflection, Change of Pitch,1 Pause, Force, and Prolongation of Accented Vowels.2

1 See pages 52-55, sections 10 and 11, for discussion of Inflection and Change of Pitch as means of emphasis.

2 In ordinary, spirited utterance all these forms of emphasis frequently occur together on one word, and rarely is emphasis of a word confined to one form only. But in reading aloud and formal speaking there is a strong tendency to limit emphasis to one or two oft-repeated forms. This is one of the reasons why reading and public speaking often seem unnatural, stilted, or monotonous. In this chapter the different means of emphasis are considered separately in order to demonstrate that we do emphasize words in other ways than by force alone, and to offer exercise in each that may help to extend the use of all conversational means of emphasis to the expression of thought in reading aloud and formal public speaking.

1. Emphasis by pause. A word or phrase is often made emphatic by a pause, which pause may occur either before or after the word it sets out. Read aloud the lines quoted below from Longfellow's King Robert of Sicily, in which is described the action of the king when he finds himself imprisoned at night in the deserted church. First read the lines without pauses or very strict attention to their significance; then picture the situation, imagine the state of mind of the king as you describe his acts, read the sentence with definite pauses, as indicated by the dashes, and note how the pauses add emphasis and make the thought and situation clear and vivid.

He groped towards the door,

but it was locked;

He cried aloud, — then listened, — and then knocked.

In reading aloud, the value of pause is often ignored, chiefly because the thought value of words is ignored. - When the thought of the printed page becomes the clear, yivid thought of the reader, and when the desire to cominunicate it is definite and strong, pauses are frequent and natural. Time given to words is one way of measuring the ideas they stand for. It also gives the speaker and the listener opportunity to consider what is spoken.

د اسدال

others

The quotations below offer good illustrations of emphatic pause.

And yet Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any immediate process of change, not a knocker, but — Marley's face.

[ocr errors]

Dickens: Christmas Carol.

And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faithvirtue; and to virtue-knowledge; and to knowledge - temperance; and to temperance - patience; and to patience-godliness; and to godliness - brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity."

II Peter, I.

2. Emphasis by vocal force. While the emphasis by pause seems to be more usually confined to particular words and phrases, vocal force, in conjunction with inflections, not only helps to make individual words emphatic, but it is also instrumental in showing the logical relation of interdependent ideas.2 Thus:

Whoever hath meant good work with his whole heart hath done good work, whether he lived to sign it or not.

Emphasis by a slight increase of vocal force, in conjunction with pronounced inflection and change of pitch, is illustrated in the lines from the Merchant of Venice (v, i) quoted below:

[blocks in formation]

Nerissa. It is your music, madam, of the house.
Portia. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;

Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
Nerissa. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
Portia. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.

Sometimes in excited commands, exclamations and the like, the emphasis is largely that of vocal force:

1 Emphasis by vocal force and by inflection often go together, and what is sometimes taken for emphasis by added force is chiefly that of inflection. Little drill on emphasis by loudness is needed. The important thing is to recognize the relative values of words and the relation of ideas to each other.

2 The added vocal force usually falls on the accented syllable of the emphatic word, the vowel of that syllable receiving the chief stress. An exception to this is found when words, differing but slightly in appearance and form, are used antithetically. The emphasis in such cases falls not on the similar but on the dissimilar syllables, regardless of the normal accent of the word, since the contrast or comparison centers in these syllables.

One arrives at his conclusions by induction, another by deduction.

Is he honest or dishonest ?

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

« 前へ次へ »