expressive of conceptions which strike the spirit with a sense of grandeur, sublimity, or power, and awaken awe, wonder, or reverence1 No passage in the Bible makes a stronger appeal to the imagination or expresses thoughts that have in them greater power to stir the spirit than do the opening verses of Genesis. Yet this familiar passage is so often read in a business-like, prosaic, and hurried utterance, without giving the imagination time to dwell upon the majesty of the scene and events described, that few seem to realize its sweep, grandeur, and spiritual appeal. It should be read aloud again and again, until something of its power is felt and revealed through the voice. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Genesis, 1, 1–5. 3. Sometimes in expressions of insistence, impatience, intolerance, and antagonism, the greater force of the voice is thrown toward the end of the vowel, with cumulative energy. This is called final stress.This peculiar vocal action is most 1 There is little profit in conscious attempts to acquire this style when the spirit is not moved to such expression. Deliberate efforts to secure “median " stress are apt to sound forced and unnatural. Only as the feelings are deeply stirred will the tone be produced in this way. The chief value of considering it at all is found in the recognition that when full, strong stress is lacking in the utterance of passages of genuine spiritual appeal, when the tone is flat, spiritless, and impassive, the spirit of the reader is not strongly stirred or profoundly impressed. Effort should then be directed to opening the mind and awakening the soul to receive impressions of noble and exalted thoughts. Then only will the expressive power of the voice be realized. 2 The over-use of the final stress is a habit and a fault which some individuals occasionally drop into. Its frequent use gives the impression of peev. 'shness, petulance, or irritability, and of an abnormal state of feeling. Auy. noticeable in prominent and central words, and is seldom the dominant stress of the accented syllables of an entire sentence, 1. A Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! Tennyson: The Passing of Arthur. I am the king, and come to claim mine own A From an impostor, who usurps my throne! Ibid. Longfellow: King Robert of Sicily. PROBLEMS IN VOCAL ENERGY 1. Earnestness, reverence, martial and exultant moods, There is not, throughout the world, a friend of liberty who has not dropped his head when he has heard that Lafayette is no more. Poland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland, the South American republics, every country where man is struggling how, as a modulation of voice for daily, common use, it does n't need much practice. In impressive reading aloud, however, it is required, and is a necessary part of tone vocabulary, since in literature we find all thoughts and moods. If the spirit of the line or selection is caught, the stress will reveal it when once the voice has been trained to responsive obedience. 2. 3. to recover his birthright, — have lost a benefactor, a patron, in Lafayette. And what was it, fellow-citizens, which gave to our Lafayette his spotless fame? The love of liberty. What has consecrated his memory in the hearts of good men? The love of liberty. What nerved his youthful arm with strength, and inspired him, in the morning of his days, with sagacity and counsel? The living love of liberty. To what did he sacrifice power, and rank, and country, and freedom itself? To the horror of licentiousness, to the sanctity of plighted faith, to the love of liberty protected by law. Thus the great principle of your Revolutionary fathers, and of your Pilgrim sires, was the rule of his life- the love of liberty protected by law. Everett: Eulogy on Lafayette. When Freedom, from her mountain height, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there. J. R. Drake: The American Flag. This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream :— A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout Sill: Opportunity 4. 3. 66 A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the signal, ❝ Water, water; send us water! ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered: "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a third and fourth signal for water was answered: "Cast down your bucket where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded. - Booker T. Washington: Up From Slavery.1 It is done! Clang of bell and roar of gun Ring, O bells! Every stroke exulting tells Loud and long, that all may hear, Ring for every listening ear Of Eternity and Time! How they pale, Ancient myth and song and tale, 1 Used with the kind permission of the publishers, Doubleday, age and Company. 6. Macbeth. Hang out our banners on the outward walls; The cry is still, "They come!" Our castle's strength Will laugh a siege to scorn; here let them lie Till famine and the ague eat them up. Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home. (A cry of women within.) What is that noise? Seyton. It is the cry of women, my good lord. (Exit.) The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair |