under control. At the same time the strongest incentive is given to natural, spontaneous, earnest expression. Reading is something more than the repetition of words. When effectively used, words carry the spirit of the speaker as well as the ideas they stand for. Earnestness, sincerity, and fervor are but ways of saying that the man is back of his words, that he finds life in them and rejoices in bringing his best powers to the expression of thought in the service of others.

26. Poetry as a source of power in speech

For one who would become an effective reader or speaker of his own thought, there is no better general preparation or means of education and growth for the work than the intensive study of poetry.) The culture of mind and spirit gained through the influence of good poetry, such as is found in the Bible, in Shakespeare, and, indeed, in all poets whose work abides, is the kind of culture that is the secret of the reader's and speaker's power, for it must be remembered that whatever qualities speech may have to command attention come from within, from the man himself. Wordsworth defined poetry as "thought fused in feeling" and as "the finer breath and spirit of all knowledge." These definitions might be applied with equal truth to oratory. Both rest deep in the mental and emotional nature of man, The strong speech, like the strong poem, draws its strength from the imagination and the emotions no less than from the mind.1 The appreciative reading of

1 "Poetry and eloquence are both alike the expression or utterance of feeling; but, if we may excuse the antithesis, we should say that eloquence is heard, poetry is overheard. Eloquence supposes an audience. The peculiarity of poetry appears to lie in the poet's utter unconsciousness of a listener. Poetry is feeling confessing itself to itself in moments of solitude, and embodying itself in symbols which are the nearest possible representations of the feeling in the exact shape in which it exists in the poet's mind. Eloquence is feeling pouring itself out to other minds, courting their sympathy,

poetry, whereby one comes in contact with the spirit of it, broadens and quickens the sympathies, strengthens the emotional nature, and educates the very faculties upon which impressive speech depends.

27. Poetry as a means of voice training

(The sincere vocal rendering of verse affords one of the most effective means of bringing the voice under control and of making it responsive to thought, imagination, and feeling. The same might be said of strong passages from orations, were it not for the fact that the delivery of such selections tends too often to a stilted, declamatory style, quite inconsistent with natural expression and foreign to the thought and spirit of the orator. When the situation and conditions under which a particular oration was delivered are thoroughly understood and the occasion is thought of as a very real one, the recitation of it offers valuable training in speaking. (Poetry and impressive speech both take their rise from the same faculties of man's nature. It is reasonable to conclude that the modulations of the voice requisite to the adequate voicing of poetry are the same as those found in the utterance of forceful orations. (The influence of feeling over tone is heard in all expressive reading of verse and in all impressive speech.) It follows, then, that whatever facility of vocal expression may be gained in rendering poetry will be added to the vocal asset of the speaker. The voicing of poems contrasted in thought and spirit offers the best kind of practice for securing range,

or endeavoring to influence their belief, or move them to passion or to action." (John Stuart Mill.)

"At the bottom, the instinct which produces a poem and that which produces an oration is nearly the same thing. Both find their root in emotion. Neither a great poem nor a great speech was ever built upon a purely intellectual foundation; and, in general, the effectiveness of either depends upon the character and force of the emotion which breathes through it." (G. P. Serviss: Eloquence.)

quality, variety in time and force, with all the varied shades of expression of which the voice is capable

Finally, training in the expression of the spirit of literature, of which poetry is the highest and finest type, involves the education and control of the mind, the emotions, and the physical means of expression. True and adequate expression is not possible when one has not the voice and body under control. The voice may be weak and unresponsive and colorless; the body awkward and disobedient to the finer influences of thought and emotion; mannerisms resulting from wrong habits or imitation may hamper expression as a vocabulary of slang mars language. Practice in the problems involved in forceful utterance will help to coördinate the action of the voice with the mind and feeling, will give it range and flexibility, and will help to the acquiring of an individual and normal style of speech. Moreover, such practice will reveal causes of failure in expression, whether the causes be lack of clear understanding, or emotional unreponsiveness, or dullness of imagination, or deficiencies of voice. As a final admonition, it should be repeated that in all reading of selections the aim should be to express the thought and spirit for their sake, not with first attention to the particular modulations of the voice or the way it acts, but to find out how the voice acts of itself under the influence and stimulus of varying thoughts and feelings, and to increase its responsiveness to these impulses.

EXERCISE IN IMPRESSIVE SPEECH

The following adaptation of the latter part of Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow affords excellent material for rendering the voice obedient to the imagination and the

emotions.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW

Washington Irving

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk, withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted short-gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pin-cushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innova tion. The sons, in short square-skirted coats, with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eelskin for the purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair.

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a creature, like himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable, well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their luxurious display of red and white; but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty.

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits

rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor.

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated with content and good-humor, round and jolly as the arvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to “fall to, and help themselves."

And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old grayheaded negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every movement of the bow with a motion of the head; bowing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start.

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle; and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, you would have thought St. Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? the lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner.

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawing out long stories about the war. But these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that succeeded.

The immediate cause of the prevalence of supernatural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, and, as usual, were doling out their