PART I

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VOCAL EXPRESSION

A Class-Book of Voice Training and Interpretation

by

KATHERINE JEWELL EVERTS

Author of "The Speaking Voice"

Harper & Brothers New York and London

MCMXI

* * * * *

BOOKS BY

KATHERINE JEWEL EVERTS

VOCAL EXPRESSION net $1.00

THE SPEAKING VOICE. Post 8vo net 1.00

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY HARPER & BROTHERS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1911

* * * * *

PLAN OF THE BOOK

TO THE PUPIL

INTRODUCTION

PART I

STUDIES IN VOCAL INTERPRETATION

PRELIMINARY STUDY:--To Establish a Conscious

Purpose.

DISCUSSION:--The Relation of the Speaker to His

Audience.

MATERIAL:--Direct Appeal in Prose and Verse, with

Suggestive Analysis.

SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION.

FIRST STUDY:--To Establish Vitality in Thinking.

DISCUSSION:--Action of the Mind in Reading Aloud.

MATERIAL:--The Essay and Didactic Poetry, with

Suggestive Analysis.

SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION.

SECOND STUDY:--To Establish Intelligence in Feeling.

DISCUSSION:--Emotional Response and Abandon.

MATERIAL:--Lyric Poetry, with Suggestive Analysis.

SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION.

THIRD STUDY:--To Develop the Whimsical Sense.

DISCUSSION:--Humor and Fancy.

MATERIAL:--Fairy Story, Fable, and Nonsense

Rhyme, with Suggestive Analysis.

SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION.

FOURTH STUDY:--To Develop Imaginative Vigor.

DISCUSSION:--The Picture, the Atmosphere, the

Action.

MATERIAL:--Short Story and Epic Poetry, with

Suggestive Analysis.

SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION.

FIFTH STUDY:--To Develop Dramatic Instinct.

DISCUSSION:--Impersonation and Characterization.

MATERIAL:--Monologue and Play, with Suggestive

Analysis.

SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION.

PART II

STUDIES IN VOCAL EXPRESSION

INTRODUCTORY DISCUSSION:--The Vocal Vocabulary.

STUDY IN PAUSE AND CHANGE OF PITCH.

STUDY IN INFLECTION.

STUDY IN TONE COLOR.

PART III

STUDIES IN VOCAL TECHNIQUE

INTRODUCTORY DISCUSSION:--Tuning the Instrument.

HOW TO SUPPORT THE TONE.

Directions and Exercises.

HOW TO FREE THE TONE.

Directions and Exercises.

HOW TO RE-ENFORCE THE TONE.

Directions and Exercises.

TO THE PUPIL

Let me trace the evolution which has led to the plan of this text-book.

A class in elocution of which you are a member is given a paragraph from

_Modern Eloquence_, a bit from an oration or address of Beecher or

Phillips or Beveridge, to study. The passage appeals to you. You are

roused by it to an eager, new appreciation of courage, conservatism or

of the character of some national hero. You "look" your interest. You

are asked to go to the platform. You are glad. You want to repeat the

inspired word of the prophet. You begin confidently to voice the words

of the great orator--the words which you had lifted alive from the

page--but in your voice they sound now formal, cold, lifeless. You

hesitate, your emotion is killed, your thought inhibited, your eagerness

gone, your impulse dead--but you have made a discovery. You have become

conscious of a great need, and your teacher, if she be wise, has

discovered the nature of that need. You consult together and find three

things have failed you, and, through you, the orator you wished to

interpret. These things are your mind, your vocabulary, and your voice.

You find that your need is threefold--it is the need to feel

intelligently and to think vitally _on your feet_; the need to acquire a

vocal vocabulary; the need to train your instruments of

expression--voice and body.

To help you and your teacher to meet this threefold need is the wish of

this book; and the book's plan is the result of the author's experience

with her own pupils in watching the evolution of their skill in vocal

expression, the development, along natural lines, of their ability to

speak effectively.

VOCAL EXPRESSION

INTRODUCTION

The strongest impulse of the human heart is for self-expression. The

simplest form of expression is speech. Speech is the instinctive use of

a natural instrument, the voice. The failure to deal justly with this

simple and natural means of expression is one of the serious failures of

our educational system. Whether the student is to wait on another's

table or be host at his own; whether he is to sell "goods" from one side

of a counter or buy them from the other; whether he is to enter one of

the three great professions of law, medicine, or theology; "go on the

stage" or platform; become Minister to France or President of the United

States, it remains precisely true that to speak effectively will be

essential to his success, and should be as essential to his own

happiness as it will be to that of all involved in his pursuit of

success.

Yet, if we give heed at all to the question of voice and speech, it is

our last, not our first, consideration. We still look upon the mind as a

storehouse instead of a clearing-house. We continue to concern ourselves

with its ability to take in, not its capacity to give out. Voice and

speech are still left to shift for themselves during the period of

school life when they should be guarded and guided as a most essential

equipment for life after school days are over. To convert the resultant

hard, high-pitched, nasal tone which betrays the American voice into the

adequate agent of a temperament which distinguishes the American

personality, and to help English speech in this country to become an

efficient medium of lucid intercourse, such is the object of this book.

In an address upon the "Question of Our Speech" delivered before a

graduating class at Bryn Mawr, several years ago, Mr. Henry James said:

"No civilized body of men and women has ever left so vital an interest

to run wild, to shift, as we say, all for itself, to stumble and

flounder, through mere adventure and accident, in the common dust of

life, to pick up a living, in fine, by the wayside and the ditch.

"The French, the Germans, the Italians, the English, perhaps, in

particular, and many other people, Occidental and Oriental, I surmise,

not excluding the Turks and the Chinese, have for the symbol of

education, of civility, a tone-standard; we alone flourish in

undisturbed and in something like sublime unconsciousness of any such

possibility."

So searching an arraignment by so eminent a scholar before an audience

of so high a degree of intelligence and culture seems to have been

necessary to command an adequate appreciation of the condition of "Our

Speech" and to incite an adequate effort toward reform. Since the

arraignment was made and afterward published, classes have been

organized, books written, and lectures delivered in increasing

abundance, forming a veritable speech crusade--and the books and the

classes and the lectures have availed much, but the real and only

"reliable remedy" lies with the teacher in the public and private

schools and colleges of the United States. And it is to the teacher of

English and Elocution that this _Class Book on Vocal Expression_ is

offered.

_Learning to Talk_ might have been a truer, as it had been a simpler,

title, yet the more comprehensive phrase has justifiable significance,

and we have chosen it in the same spirit which discards for the

text-book in Rhetoric or English Composition the inviting title

_Learning to Write_.

There is a close analogy between the evolution of vocal and the

evolution of verbal expression. The method of instruction in the study

of the less heeded subject of the "Spoken Word" throws an interesting

light on the teaching of the more regarded question of the "Written

Word." An experience as teacher of expression and English in a normal

school in Minnesota has influenced the author of these pages to so large

an extent in the formulation of her own method of study, and so in the

plan of this volume, that it seems advisable to record it. To the work

of reading or expression to which she was originally called two classes

in composition were added. The former teacher of composition had

bequeathed to the work as a text-book a rhetoric which consisted of

involved theory plus one hundred and twenty-five separate and distinct

rules for the use of words, and the teacher of expression found, to her

amazed dismay, that the students had been required to learn these rules,

not only "by heart," but by number, referring to them as rule six or

thirty-six or one hundred and twenty-five, according to the demanded

application.

A week, possibly a fortnight, passed in silent struggle, then the

distracted teacher of expression went to the president of the school

with these questions: "Of what avail are one hundred and twenty-five

rules for the use of words when these children have less than that

number of words to use, and no desire to acquire more? Could you make

teachers of these normal students by giving a hundred and more laws for

the governing of pupils and the imparting of the material of knowledge,

if you furnished neither pupils nor material upon which to test the

laws?" "Certainly not!" was the restful reply of one of the wisest of

the educators I have known. "May I lay aside the text-book and read with

these students in English for a little?" "You may teach them to write

English in any way you can!"

The next day the class in composition was discovered eagerly reading

Tennyson's _Holy Grail_, stopping to note this felicitous phrase, that

happy choice of words, the pertinent personnel of a sentence or

paragraph. The first examination of the term consisted in a series of

single questions, written on separate slips of paper and laid face down

on the teacher's desk. Each student took one of these slips which read,

"Tell in your own words the story of _The Coming of Arthur_, the _Holy

Grail_, _Lancelot and Elaine_ or _Guinevere_," as the chance of the

chooser might allot a given idyl. The experiment was a success. The

president was satisfied with the papers in English composition. Each

student had had "something to say" and had said it. Each student had

words at his command little dreamed of in his vocabulary before the

meeting with the Knights of the Round Table.

The first step toward a mastery of Verbal Expression had been

successfully taken! The consciousness of need--the need of a

vocabulary--had been awakened. The desire to supply that need--to

acquire a vocabulary--had been aroused. A way to acquire a vocabulary

had been made manifest. Out of such consciousness alone is born the

willingness to work upon which progress in the mastery of any art

depends. To the teacher of expression it seemed no more advisable now

than it had seemed before, to ask the students to learn either "by

heart" or by number the one hundred and twenty-five rules of technique.

But the great laws governing the use of a vocabulary she now found her

students eager to study, to understand, and to apply. She found her

class willing to enter upon the drudgery which a mastery of technique in

any art demands.

So in the teaching of Vocal Expression, he who _begins_ with rules for

the use of this change of pitch or that inflection, this pause or that

color of tone, before he has aroused in the pupil the desire to express

a vivid thought, and so made him conscious of the need to command subtle

changes of pitch, swift contrasts in tone and turns of inflection, will

find himself responsible for mechanical results sadly divorced from true

and natural speech. But let the teacher of expression begin, not with

rules of technique, but with the material for inspiration and

interpretation; let him rouse in the pupil the impulse to express and

then furnish the material and means for study which shall enrich the

vocabulary of expression and he will find the instruments of the

art--voice and speech--growing into the free and efficient agents of

personality they are intended by nature to be.

* * * * *

In March, 1906, the editor of _Harper's Bazar_ began a crusade in the

interest of the American voice and speech. Through the issues of more

than a year the magazine published arraignment, admonition, and advice

on this subject. It was the privilege of the author of this volume to

contribute the last four articles in that series. In response to a

definite demand from the readers of the Bazar these articles were later

embodied in a little book called _The Speaking Voice_. In a preface to

this book the author confesses her "deliberate effort to simplify and

condense the principles fundamental to all recognized systems of vocal

instruction," making them available for those too occupied to enter upon

the more exhaustive study set forth in more elaborate treatises. The

book was not intended for hours of class-room work in schools or

colleges, but for the spare moments of a business or social life, and

its reception in that world was gratifying. But, to the author's

delight, the interest aroused created a demand in the schools and

colleges for a real text-book, a book which could be put into the hands

of students in the departments of English and expression in public and

private institutions and colleges, and especially in normal schools. It

is in response to that appeal that this class-book in _Vocal

Expression_ is issued; and it is to the teachers whose impelling

interest and enthusiasm in the subject justify the publication of this

volume that the author desires first to express her grateful

appreciation.

To Miss Frances Nash, of the Lincoln High School in Cleveland, for her

invaluable advice in determining the exact nature of the need which the

book must meet, and for her assistance in choosing the material for

interpretation, my gratitude and appreciation are especially due.

To others whose influence through books or personal instruction has made

this task possible, acknowledgment made in _The Speaking Voice_ is

reiterated.

PART I

STUDIES IN VOCAL INTERPRETATION

PRELIMINARY STUDY

TO ESTABLISH A CONSCIOUS PURPOSE

"The orator must have something in his very soul he feels to be

worth saying. He must have in his nature that kindly sympathy that

connects him with his fellow-men and which so makes him a part of

the audience that his smile is their smile, his tear is their tear,

the throb of his heart the throb of the hearts of the whole

assembly."--HENRY WARD BEECHER.

We have said that whatever part in the world's life we choose or are

chosen to take, it remains precisely true that to speak effectively is

essential to fulfilling, in the highest sense, that function. Whether

the occupation upon which we enter be distinguished by the title of

cash-girl or counsellor at law; dish-washer or debutante; stable-boy or

statesman; artist in the least or the highest of art's capacities,

crises will arise in that calling which demand a command of effective

speech. The situation may call for a slow, quietly searching

interrogation or a swift, ringing command. The need may be for a use of

that expressive vocal form which requires, to be efficient, the rugged

or the gracious elements of your vocabulary; the vital or the velvet

tone; the straight inflection or the circumflex; the salient or the

slight change of pitch; the long or the short pause. Whatever form the

demand takes, the need remains for command of the efficient elements of

tone and speech if we are to become masters of the situation and to

attain success in our calling. How to acquire this mastery is our

problem. How to take the first step toward acquiring that command is the

subject of this first study.

Is there a student reader of these pages who has not already faced a

situation requiring for its mastery such command? Listen to Mr. James

again:

"All life, therefore, comes back to the question of our speech, the

medium through which we communicate with each other; for all life comes

back to the question of our relations with each other. These relations

are possible, are registered, are verily constituted by our speech, and

are successful in proportion as our speech is worthy of its human and

social function; is developed, delicate, flexible, rich--an adequate

accomplished fact. The more we live by it, the more it promotes and

enhances life. Its quality, its authenticity, its security, are hence

supremely important for the general multifold opportunity, for the

dignity and integrity, of our existence."

Is there one among you whose relations with others would not have been

rendered simpler, truer, clearer at some critical moment had your

"speech been more worthy of its great human and social function?" Then,

do you hesitate to enter upon a study which shall make for clarified

relations and a new "dignity and integrity of existence?" Anticipating

your reply, I invite you to take a first step in Vocal Expression. How

shall we approach the subject? How did you begin to master any one of

the activities in which you are more or less proficient? How did you

learn to swim, or skate, or play the violin? Not by standing on the

shore and gazing at the water or ice! Not by looking at violins in shop

windows! No! You began by leaping into the water, putting on your skates

and going out on the ice; taking the violin into your hands and drawing

the bow across the strings. But you say: "We have taken the step which

corresponds to these in speech! We can talk!" Exactly! But what command

of the art of skating or swimming or playing the violin would the artist

in any of these activities have achieved had he been content to stop

with the act of jumping into the water, going out on the ice, or drawing

the bow across the violin? The question's answer calls up an

illuminating analogy. Are not most of us in regard to our mastery of

speech in the condition of the skater, the swimmer, the fiddler in the

first stage of those expressive acts? Are we not floundering in the

water, fallen on the ice, or alienating the ears of our friends? "We are

so! We confess it!"--every time we speak.

And so to-day we shall offer no argument against entering upon an

_introductory_ study--we shall take our first step in the Art of Vocal

Expression. But we shall take it in a new spirit--the spirit of an

artist bent upon the mastery of his art. If we flounder or fall, we

shall not be more content in our ignominy than is the choking swimmer or

the prostrate skater. If we produce painful instead of pleasing sounds

with our instrument, we shall not persist in a merciless process of tone

production; but we shall proceed to study diligently the laws governing

the control of the instrument until we have mastered its technique and

made it an agent of harmonious intercourse. We shall take the first

steps with a conscious purpose, the purpose to make our speech worthy of

its great social and human function.

Then in this spirit I invite you "to plunge." I furnish as the material

for your experiment these sentences:

DISCUSSION OF DIRECT APPEAL

Do you ask me, then, what is this Puritan principle?

The Puritan principle in its essence is simply individual

freedom!--CURTIS.

Mind your own business with your absolute will and soul, but see

that it is a good business first.--RUSKIN.

Back to the bridge and show your teeth again,

Back to the bridge and show to God your eyes!--MACKAYE.

What news, and quickly!--MACKAYE.

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal

to your tasks.--PHILLIPS BROOKS.

Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home. Is this a

holiday?--SHAKESPEARE.

And so, gentlemen, at this hour we are not Republicans, we are not

Democrats, we are Americans!--CURTIS.

I shall not discuss the interpretation of these sentences with you. I

shall not interpret them for you. Such discussion and interpretation is

your part in this study. But you are not to discuss them with a pencil

on paper; you are to interpret them with your voice to another mind.

Let us stop here and consider together for a few moments this act which

we call Vocal Interpretation (which might be more simply designated as

Reading Aloud), and with which these first studies are concerned. What

does it mean to vocally interpret a piece of literature--a poem, a play,

a bit of prose; a paragraph, a sentence, or even a single word? It means

that you, the interpreter, must transfer the thought contained in that

word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph from the printed page to the mind

of an auditor. It means that you must take the thought out of the safety

vault and put it into circulation. That is your problem, and it presents

three factors. You cannot slight any one of these factors and expect to

successfully solve your problem. These factors are: your author's

thought, your own voice, and your auditor's mind.

We shall concern ourselves in this first study with the last of these

three factors--the mind of the auditor, or, to put it more definitely,

your attitude toward the mind of your auditor. We shall make this our

first concern, not because it is more essential to successful delivery

than the other two elements of the problem, but because failure at this

point is a fundamental failure. Such failure involves the whole

structure in ruin.

Let me make this point explicit. Failure of the speaker to direct the

thought toward a receiving mind--the mind of an auditor--results in

blurred thought, robs the voice of all aim, and reduces the

interpretation to a meaningless recital of words. Consider the first

factor in the problem of interpretation--the thought of the author. Take

these first two sentences:

Do you ask me, then, what is this Puritan principle?

The Puritan principle in its essence is simply individual freedom!

A wholly satisfying interpretation of these lines involves a knowledge

of the speech from which they are taken, and a knowledge of the

circumstances under which it was delivered. Complete possession of the

thought, which alone insures perfect expression, requires a grasp of

the situation out of which it was born and an appreciation of the mind

which conceived it. But with no context and no knowledge of these

conditions, and so only an approximate appreciation of the thought in

all its fulness, the interpreter, under the stimulus of an intent to

convince another of the truth contained in the detached sentence, may

deliver the lines convincingly! And to carry conviction is the first and

fundamental requisite of all good delivery.

So it is with the second factor in your problem. Your voice may fail at

a dozen different points, but _directed_ thought can employ so skilfully

even an inefficient instrument that the resultant expression, while

never satisfying, may still carry conviction.

But let the one who speaks these lines feel no responsibility toward

another, let him fail to direct the idea toward another mind, and the

most complete possession of the author's thought, plus the most perfect

control of the voice, will fail to make the interpretation convincing.

You must establish a relation with your auditor! You must have an aim.

You must "have something to say," but you must also have some one "to

say it at." You cannot hope to become an expert marksman by "shooting

into the air."

Then once more I bid you approach the subject of Vocal Interpretation in

a new spirit. Let your study of the thought in these sentences hold in

its initial impulse this idea: "I have something I _must tell you_!" Try

prefacing your interpretation with some such phrase as this: "Listen to

me!" or, "I want to tell you something."

I would suggest as a preliminary exercise that you should try "shooting

at a mark" these single words: "No!" "Yes!" "Come!" "Go!" "Aim!" "Fire!"

"Help!" "What ho!"

Listen to me!

"You will find the gayest castles in the air far better for comfort

and for use than the dungeons that are daily dug and caverned out

by grumbling, discontented people."--EMERSON.

Let me tell you something!

"Might is right, say many, and so it is. Might is the right to bear

the burdens of the weak, to cheer the faint, to uplift the fallen,

to pour from one's own full store to the need of the

famishing."--NAPIER.

It is the angel-aim and standard in an act that consecrates it. He

who aims for perfection in a trifle is trying to do that trifle

holily. The trier wears the halo, and, therefore, the halo grows as

quickly round the brows of peasant as of king.--GANNETT.

Think twice before you speak, my son; and it will do no harm if you

keep on thinking while you speak.--ANONYMOUS.

Sweet friends

Man's love ascends,

To finer and diviner ends

Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends.

--LANIER.

SUGGESTIVE ANALYSIS

HAMLET'S SPEECH TO THE PLAYERS

_Hamlet:_ Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,

trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your

players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not

saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for

in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your

passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it

smoothness....

Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your

tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with

this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of

nature, for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing,

whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as

'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,

scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form

and pressure.

--SHAKESPEARE.

Let us consider together the problem of vocally interpreting this speech

of Hamlet's, keeping the mind of the auditor constantly before us, the

special factor in our problem which is the concern of this study. What

is the first point to be determined? The situation, is it not? Remember,

in our previous discussion I have made it clear that it is not essential

_to our present purpose_ that we should know, in determining our

situation, the exact conditions under which this speech was delivered.

Neither is it essential _to our present purpose_ that we should make an

exhaustive study of the play of "Hamlet" or of the character of the

Prince of Denmark. Lest you mistake me I must reiterate the fact that

an interpretation of these lines, looked upon as Hamlet's speech, would

require just such exhaustive study of context and character--study which

would lead to that complete possession which alone insures perfect

expression; but it is legitimate at this point in our study of vocal

expression to use this text quite apart from its context as a perfect

example of direct appeal. It is legitimate to _imagine_ a situation of

our own in which this thought could be pertinently expressed. We must

then first determine what you, the speaker, are to represent, and the

nature of the audience you are to address. One word in the text more

than any other, perhaps, determines these points--the word "players."

With this word as a key to a probable situation, let us imagine that

you, the one who must "speak this speech," are a stage-director of your

own play, and that we, the class to whom you must speak, are a company

of players (actors, as we now call them) which is about to present your

play. The fact that this is exactly the situation in Shakespeare's play

from which this speech is taken is interesting, but does not affect our

attitude toward the text. But that we should assume the state of mind

which animated the author of the _Mouse-trap, is_ vital to our problem.

Hamlet was intent upon getting an effect incalculably potent from the

delivery of the "speech" he "had pronounced." You must imagine that you

have written not merely a play, but a play which you intend shall have a

powerful influence upon the lives of the people who are to hear it. Once

more, then, let us determine the exact situation. You, the author of a

moving play--you, its stage-director--have called us, your actors,

together for rehearsal. You know just how you wish the lines of your

play delivered. It is absolutely vital to the success of your venture

that we, the actors, should grasp your ideal of delivery and act upon

it. You must convince us that this is the only way in which you will

permit the text to be handled. You are the orator as Mr. Beecher has

drawn him for us. You will realize, in thinking your way through this

appeal, that, while the stage-director is addressing the whole company

of players, he has singled out from the others one who is to deliver a

particular speech from his play. It is well to follow this idea of the

situation. Include us all, then, as a class in your chosen cast, but

single out one of us, and speak directly at the mind of that one. Look

him straight in the eye. Direct your thought in the main to his mind,

even while your thought reaches out and draws us all into the circle of

its enthusiasm. Now, with this attitude and intent toward an audience,

try to vocally interpret, to _think aloud_ this thought. What is the

trouble? "Speak the speech" you say, "is a difficult combination of

words to utter"? "'Trippingly' trips up your tongue"? "You don't

understand the reference to a 'town-crier'"?

Ah, what discoveries we are making!

"You feel that you should be able to illustrate your own ideal of

delivery by delivering these directions after the very manner you ask

your players to observe"? That might legitimately be expected of you, I

think. "But this you cannot do!" What a shocking confession! Yes, but

how good to have this new knowledge of your own ability, or, in this

case, disability. How appalling to find that you cannot easily utter the

simple combination of words, "Speak the speech, I pray you," without

stumbling; that any word, a plain, simple English word, trips your

tongue. How appalling, but how encouraging it is! For the discovery of

this fact, the consciousness of these limitations, "constitutes half the

battle" before us. It is a battle. But you shall be equipped to meet it.

Turn to the chapters on "Freeing the Tone." Find the exercises for

training the tongue. Faithful practice of these exercises (even

_without_ direction, but, if you are a member of the class in expression

for which this book was made, _under_ direction) will very shortly

conquer the unruly tongue for use in uttering any difficult combination

of words. And your teacher will patiently "pick you up" (_in this first

study_) every time you trip over a word or phrase, and she will

patiently refer you to the corner of history which will explain any

unfamiliar portions of your text if _you_ will persistently try to do

_your_ part at this point. That part is, to think the thought before you

directly at another's mind. That is all we ask at this point. Make this

direct appeal for simplicity in delivery straight to the mind of him

whom you have chosen to receive, and act upon it. Talk to me if I am

your chosen player! Convince me! Make me realize what you expect of me!

Make me want to meet your expectation! Make me afraid to fail you!

With these suggestions and this direct appeal to you, I leave you with

your teacher and with the following material chosen for your preliminary

study in _Vocal Interpretation_.

SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION

There was once a noble ship full of eager passengers, straining at

full speed from England to America. Two-thirds of a prosperous

voyage thus far were over, and in our mess we were beginning to

talk of home.

Suddenly a dense fog came, shrouding the horizon, but, as this was

a common occurrence in the latitude we were sailing, it was hardly

mentioned in our talk. A happier company never sailed upon an

autumn sea. When a quick cry from the lookout, a rush of officers

and men, and we were grinding on a ledge of rocks off Cape Race. I

heard the cry, "Every one on deck!" and knew what that meant--the

masts were in danger of falling. A hundred pallid faces were

huddled together near the stern of the ship where we were told to

go and wait.

Suddenly we heard a voice up in the fog in the direction of the

wheel-house ringing like a clarion above the roar of the waves. As

the orders came distinctly and deliberately through the captain's

trumpet to "Shift the cargo," to "Back her," to "Keep her steady,"

we felt, somehow, that the commander up there in the thick mist

knew what he was about.

When, after weary days of anxious suspense, the vessel leaking

badly, we arrived safely in Halifax, old Mr. Cunard, agent of the

line, on hearing from the mail officer that the steamer had struck

on the rocks and been saved by the captain's presence of mind and

courage, replied, simply: "Just what I might have expected. Captain

Harrison is always master of the situation."

No man ever became master of the situation by accident or

indolence. "He happened to succeed" is a foolish, unmeaning phrase.

No man happens to succeed. "What do you mix your paints with?"

asked a visitor of Opie, the painter. "With brains, sir," was the

artist's reply. * * *

There are men who fail of mastery in the world from too low an

estimate of human nature. "Despise nothing, my son," was the

advice a mother gave to her boy when he went forth into the untried

world to seek his fortune, and that boy grew up into Sir Walter

Scott. * * *

In case of great emergency it took a certain general in our

army several days to get his personal baggage ready. Sheridan

rode into Winchester without even a change of stockings in his

saddle-bags. * * *

All great leaders have been inspired with a great belief. In nine

cases out of ten, failure is borne of unbelief.--_Masters of the

Situation_, JAMES T. FIELDS.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead!

In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger:

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage: * * *

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit

To his full height! On, on, you noblest English,

Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!

Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought,

And sheathed their swords for lack of argument. * * *

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:

Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge

Cry--God for Harry! England! and St. George!--_Henry V._, SHAKESPEARE

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this

continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the

proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a

great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so

conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great

battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that

field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives

that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper

that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot

consecrate--we cannot hallow--this ground. The brave men, living

and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our

power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long

remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did

here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the

unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly

advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great

task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take

increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full

measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead

shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall

have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by

the people, for the people, shall not perish from the

earth.--_Address at Gettysburg_, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

From an address delivered in the Auditorium, at Chicago, on the

afternoon of February 22, 1902, on the occasion of the celebration of

Washington's Birthday.

The meaning of Washington in American history is discipline. The

message of Washington's life to the American people is discipline.

The need of American character is discipline.

Washington did not give patriotism to the American colonies. The

people had that as abundantly as he. He did not give them courage.

That quality was and is in the American blood. He did not even give

them resource. There were intellects more productive than his. But

Washington gave balance and direction to elemental forces. He was

the genius of order. He was poise personified. He was the spirit of

discipline. He was the first Great Conservative. It was this

quality in him that made all other elements of the Revolution

effective. It was this that organized our nebulous independence

into a nation of liberty. The parts of a machine are useless until

assembled and fitted each to its appropriate place. Washington was

the master mechanic of our nation; so it is that we are a people.

But we are not yet a perfect people. We are still in the making. It

is a glorious circumstance. Youth is the noblest of God's gifts.

The youth of a nation is like the youth of a man. The American

people are young? Yes! Vital? Yes! Powerful? Yes! Disciplined? Not

entirely. Moderate? Not yet, but growing in that grace. And

therefore on this, his day, I bear you the message of

Washington--he, whose sanity, orderliness, and calm have reached

through the century, steadying us, overcoming in us the untamed

passions of riotous youth.--_Conservatism; the Spirit of National

Self-Restraint_, ALBERT BEVERIDGE.

We have noted in our introduction the close analogy which exists between

the evolution of vocal expression and the evolution of verbal

expression. Let us not fail to follow this analogy through the various

studies which make up this one study of interpretation. We have begun

our work in vocal expression with the subject of direct appeal. What

corresponds to this step in the evolution of verbal expression?

Mr. J. H. Gardiner, in his illuminating text for the student of English

composition, called _The Forms of Prose Literature_,[1] discusses these

forms first under the two great heads of the "Literature of Thought" and

the "Literature of Feeling," and then under the four sub-titles which

all instruction in rhetoric recognizes as the accepted divisions of

literature: Exposition, Argument, Description, and Narrative. We do not

find the _exact_ parallel for our study in direct appeal under these

subheads. Do we? No. In order "to take the plunge" in the study of

English composition which shall correspond to our preliminary effort in

interpretation, we must set aside for the moment the question of

_exposition_, to be entered upon as a "first study" in verbal expression

corresponding to the question of _vitality in thinking_, which is our

first study in vocal expression, and look for a parallel "preliminary

study" in composition.

[1] _The Forms of Prose Literature_, courtesy of Messrs. Charles

Scribner's Sons.

In his comparative study of exposition and argumentation Mr. Gardiner

says: "An exceedingly good explanation may leave its reader quite

unmoved: a good argument never does. Even if it does not convert him, it

should at least make him uncomfortable. Now, when we say that argument

must move its reader, we begin to pass from the realm of pure thought,

in which exposition takes rise, to that of feeling, for feeling is a

necessary preliminary to action. How large a part feelings play in

argument you can see if you have ever heard the speech of a demagogue to

an excited crowd. It is simply a crass appeal to their lower passions,

aided by all the devices of oratory, often, perhaps, also by a moving

presence. A better example is Henry Ward Beecher's Liverpool speech, in

which he won a hearing from a hostile mob by an appeal to their sense of

fair play. Such cases show how far argument may get from the simple

appeal to the understanding, how little it may be confined to the

element of thought. The prime quality, therefore, of argument is

_persuasiveness_."

Not argument, then, but the element in argument, called persuasion,

furnishes the study in composition which corresponds to direct appeal in

interpretation. And just as truly as your intent to convince another

mind of the truth of your author's thought will often take care of all

other elements in the problem of its vocal expression and result in

_convincing interpretation_, so the intent to persuade another mind of

the truth of your own thought will often take care of all other elements

in the problem of verbal expression and result in _moving composition_.

Following Mr. Gardiner a little further in his discussion of persuasion,

we find our study in interpretation in direct accord with his advice in

the study of composition, for he says: "This element of persuasion

belongs to that aspect of literature which has to do with the feelings;

and, as depending on the personal equation of the writer, it is much

less easy than the intellectual element to catch and generalize from,

and almost impossible to teach. All that I can do is to examine it in

good examples, and then make very tentatively a few suggestions based on

these examples. For it cannot too often be written down in such a

treatise as this that the teacher of writing can no more make a great

writer than the teacher of painting can turn out a new Rembrandt or a

Millet; in either case the most that the teacher can do is to furnish

honest and illuminating criticism, and to save his pupil unnecessary and

tedious steps by showing him the methods and devices which have been

worked out by the masters of the craft."

In treating the question of pure style, as another division of the power

of persuasion, Mr. Gardiner says: "It is almost impossible to give

practical help toward acquiring this gift of an expressive style; the

ear for the rhythm and assonance of style is like an ear for music,

though more common, perhaps. It is good practice to read aloud the

writing of men who are famous for the quality, and, when you read to

yourself, always to have in mind the sound of what you read. The more

you can give yourself of this exercise, the more when you write,

yourself, will you hear the way your own style sounds."

With our idea for a combined study of the two great forms of expression

reinforced by such authority, let us, in taking our next step in this

preliminary study in vocal expression, make it also a preliminary study

in verbal expression by using as our next selection for interpretation,

not a fragment of an address or a part of an oration, but a complete

example of persuasive discourse. Such an example we find in this sermon

of Mr. Gannett's "Blessed be Drudgery." And, as we try our growing

powers of lucid interpretation upon this subject-matter, let us stop to

note its verbal construction and its obedience to the laws of persuasive

discourse. The interpretation must be made in the class-room, because

interpretation needs an immediate audience; the analysis of the literary

form may be made in your study: the two processes should be carried on

as far as possible together.

BLESSED BE DRUDGERY[2]

[2] This sermon is published with the kind permission of the author and

the publisher.

I

Of every two men probably one man thinks he is a drudge, and every

second woman is _sure_ she is. Either we are not doing the thing we

would like to do in life; or, in what we do and like, we find so

much to dislike that the rut tires even when the road runs on the

whole, a pleasant way. I am going to speak of the _Culture that

comes through this very drudgery_.

"Culture through my drudgery!" some one is now thinking: "This

treadmill that has worn me out, this grind I hate, this plod that,

as long ago as I remember it, seemed tiresome--to this have I owed

'culture'? Keeping house or keeping accounts, tending babies,

teaching primary school, weighing sugar and salt at a counter,

those blue overalls in the machine shop--have these anything to do

with 'culture'? Culture takes leisure, elegance, wide margins of

time, a pocket-book; drudgery means limitations, coarseness,

crowded hours, chronic worry, old clothes, black hands, headaches.

Culture implies college: life allows a daily paper, a monthly

magazine, the circulating library, and two gift-books at Christmas.

Our real and our ideal are not twins--never were! I want the

books,--but the clothes-basket wants me. The two children are

good,--and so would be two hours a day without the children. I

crave an outdoor life,--and walk down-town of mornings to perch on

a high stool till supper-time. I love Nature,--and figures are my

fate. My taste is books,--and I farm it. My taste is art,--and I

correct exercises. My taste is science,--and I measure tape. I am

young and like stir,--the business jogs on like a stage-coach. Or I

am _not_ young, I am getting gray over my ears, and like to sit down

and be still,--but the drive of the business keeps both tired arms

stretched out full length. I hate this overbidding and this

underselling, this spry, unceasing competition, and would

willingly give up a quarter of my profits to have two hours of my

daylight to myself,--at least I would if, working just as I do, I

did not barely get the children bread and clothes. I did not choose

my calling, but was dropped into it--by my innocent conceit, or by

duty to the family, or by a parent's foolish pride, or by our hasty

marriage; or a mere accident wedged me into it. Would I could have

my life over again! Then, whatever I _should_ be, at least I would

_not_ be what I am to-day!"

Have I spoken truly for any one here? I know I have. Goes not the

grumble thus within the silent breast of many a person, whose pluck

never lets it escape to words like these, save now and then on a

tired evening to husband or to wife?

There is often truth and justice in the grumble. Truth and justice

both. Still, when the question rises through the grumble, Can it be

that drudgery, not to be escaped, gives "culture"? the true answer

is--Yes, and culture of the prime elements of life; of the very

fundamentals of all fine manhood and fine womanhood.

Our _prime_ elements are due to our drudgery--I mean that

literally; the _fundamentals_ that underlie all fineness and

without which no other culture worth the winning is even possible.

These, for instance--and what names are more familiar? Power of

attention; power of industry; promptitude in beginning work; method

and accuracy and despatch in doing work; perseverance; courage

before difficulties; cheer under straining burdens; self-control

and self-denial and temperance. These are the prime qualities;

these the fundamentals. We have heard these names before! When we

were small mother had a way of harping on them, and father joined

in emphatically, and the minister used to refer to them in church.

And this was what our first employer meant--only his way of putting

the matter was, "Look sharp, my boy!"--"Be on time, John!"--"Stick

to it!" Yes, that is just what they all meant: these _are_ the very

qualities which the mothers tried to tuck into us when they tucked

us into bed, the very qualities which the ministers pack into their

platitudes, and which the nations pack into their proverbs. And

that goes to _show_ that they are the fundamentals. Reading,

writing, and arithmetic are very handy, but these fundamentals of a

man are handier to have; worth more; worth more than Latin and

Greek and French and German and music and art-history and painting

and wax flowers and travels in Europe added together. These last

are the decorations of a man or woman: even reading and writing are

but conveniences: those other things are the _indispensables_. They

make one's sit-fast strength and one's active momentum, whatsoever

and wheresoever the lot in life be--be it wealth or poverty, city

or country, library or workshop. Those qualities make the solid

substance of one's self.

And the question I would ask of myself and you is, How do we get

them? How do they become ours? High-school and college can give

much, but these are never on their programmes. All the book

processes that we go to the schools for, and commonly call "our

education," give no more than _opportunity_ to win these

indispensables of education. How, then, do we get them? We get them

somewhat as the fields and valleys get their grace. Whence is it

that the lines of river and meadow and hill and lake and shore

conspire to-day to make the landscape beautiful? Only by long

chiselings and steady pressures. Only by ages of glacier crush and

grind, by scour of floods, by centuries of storm and sun. These

rounded the hills, and scooped the valley-curves, and mellowed the

soil for meadow-grace. There was little grace in the operation, had

we been there to watch. It was "drudgery" all over the land. Mother

Nature was down on her knees doing her early scrubbing work! That

was yesterday: to-day, result of scrubbing-work, we have the

laughing landscape.

Now what is true of the earth is true of each man and woman on the

earth. Father and mother and the ancestors before them have done

much to bequeath those elemental qualities to us; but that which

scrubs them into us, the clinch which makes them actually ours, and

keeps them ours, and adds to them as the years go by--that depends

on our own plod, our plod in the rut, our drill of habit; in one

word, depends upon our "drudgery." It is because we have to go,

and _go_, morning after morning, through rain, through shine,

through toothache, headache, heartache, to the appointed spot, and

do the appointed work; because, and only because, we have to stick

to that work through the eight or ten hours, long after rest would

be so sweet; because the school-boy's lesson must be learned at

nine o'clock and learned without a slip; because the accounts on

the ledger must square to a cent; because the goods must tally

exactly with the invoice; because good temper must be kept with

children, customers, neighbors, not seven, but seventy times seven

times; because the besetting sin must be watched to-day, to-morrow,

and the next day; in short, without much matter _what_ our work be,

whether this or that, it is because, and only because, of the rut,

plod, grind, humdrum _in_ the work, that we at last get those

self-foundations laid of which I spoke,--attention, promptness,

accuracy, firmness, patience, self-denial, and the rest. When I

think over that list and seriously ask myself three questions, I

have to answer each with _No_:--Are there any qualities in the list

which I can afford to spare, to go without, as mere show-qualities?

Not one. Can I get these self-foundations laid, save by the weight,

year in, year out, of the steady pressures? No, there is no other

way. Is there a single one in the list which I cannot get in some

degree by undergoing the steady drills and pressures? No, not one.

Then beyond all books, beyond all class-work at the school, beyond

all special opportunities of what I call my "education," it is

this drill and pressure of my daily task that is my great

school-master. _My daily task_, whatever it be--_that is what

mainly educates me_. All other culture is mere luxury compared with

what that gives. That gives the indispensables. Yet fool that I am,

this pressure of my daily task is the very thing that I so growl at

as my "drudgery"!

We can add right here this fact, and practically it is a very

important fact to girls and boys as ambitious as they ought to

be,---the higher our ideals, the _more_ we need those foundation

habits strong. The street-cleaner can better afford to drink and

laze than he who would make good shoes; and to make good shoes

takes less force of character and brain than to make cures in the

sick-room, or laws in the legislature, or children in the nursery.

The man who makes the head of a pin or the split of a pen all day

long, and the man who must put fresh thought into his work at every

stroke,--which of the two more needs the self-control, the method,

the accuracy, the power of attention and concentration? Do you sigh

for books and leisure and wealth? It takes more "concentration" to

use books--head tools--well than to use hand tools. It takes more

"self-control" to use leisure well than workdays. Compare the

Sundays and Mondays of your city; which day, all things considered,

stands for the city's higher life,--the day on which so many men

are lolling, or the day on which all toil? It takes more knowledge,

more integrity, more justice, to handle riches well than to bear

the healthy pinch of the just-enough.

Do you think that the great and famous escape drudgery? The native

power and temperament, the outfit and capital at birth, counts for

much, but it convicts us common minds of huge mistake to hear the

uniform testimony of the more successful geniuses about their

genius. "Genius is patience," said who? Sir Isaac Newton. "The

Prime Minister's secret is patience," said who? Mr. Pitt, the great

Prime Minister of England. Who, think you, wrote, "My imagination

would never have served me as it has, but for the habit of

commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention"?

It was Charles Dickens. Who said "The secret of a Wall Street

million is common honesty"? Vanderbilt; and he added as the recipe

for a million (I know somebody would like to learn it), "Never use

what is not your own, never buy what you cannot pay for, never sell

what you haven't got." How simple great men's rules are! How easy

it is to be a great man! Order, diligence, patience, honesty,--just

what you and I must use in order to put our dollar in the

savings-bank, to do our school-boy sum, to keep the farm thrifty,

and the house clean, and the babies neat. Order, diligence,

patience, honesty! There is wide difference between men, but truly

it lies less in some special gift or opportunity granted to one and

withheld from another, than in the differing degree in which these

common elements of human power are owned and used. Not how much

talent have I, but how much will to use the talent that I have, is

the main question. Not how much do I know, but how much do I do

with what I know? To do their great work the great ones need more

of the very same habits which the little ones need to do their

smaller work. Goethe, Spencer, Agassiz, Jesus, share, not

achievements, but conditions of achievement, with you and me. And

those conditions for them, as for us, are largely the plod, the

drill, the long disciplines of toil. If we ask such men their

secret, they will uniformly tell us so.

Since we lay the firm substrata of ourselves in this way, then, and

only in this way; and since the higher we aim, the more, and not

the less, we need these firm substrata,--since this is so, I think

we ought to make up our minds and our mouths to sing a hallelujah

unto Drudgery: _Blessed be Drudgery_,--the one thing that we cannot

spare!

II

But there is something else to be said. Among the people who are

drudges there are some who have given up their dreams of what, when

younger, they used to talk or think about as their "ideals"; and

have grown at last, if not content, resigned to do the actual work

before them. Yes, here it is,--before us, and behind us, and on all

sides of us; we cannot change it; we have accepted it. Still, we

have not given up one dream,--the dream of _success_ in this work

to which we are _so_ clamped. If we cannot win the well-beloved

one, then success with the ill-beloved,--this at least is left to

hope for. Success may make _it_ well-beloved, too,--who knows?

Well, the secret of this success still lies in the same old word,

"drudgery." For drudgery is the doing of one thing, one thing, one

thing, long after it ceases to be amusing; and it is this "one

thing I do" that gathers me together from my chaos, that

concentrates me from possibilities to powers, and turns powers into

achievements. "One thing I do," said Paul, and, apart from what his

one thing was, in that phrase he gave the watchword of salvation.

That whole long string of habits--attention, method, patience,

self-control, and the others--can be rolled up and balled, as it

were, in the word "concentration." We will halt a moment at the

word:

"I give you the end of a golden string:

Only wind it into a ball,--

It will lead you in at Heaven's gate,

Built in Jerusalem's wall."

Men may be divided into two classes,--those who have a "one thing,"

and those who have no "one thing," to do; those with aim, and those

without aim, in their lives: and practically it turns out that

almost all of the success, and, therefore, the greater part of the

happiness, go to the first class. The aim in life is what the

backbone is in the body: without it we are invertebrate, belong to

some lower order of being not yet man. No wonder that the great

question, therefore, with a young man is, What am I to be? and that

the future looks rather gloomy until the life-path opens. The lot

of many a girl, especially of many a girl with a rich father, is a

tragedy of aimlessness. Social standards, and her lack of true

ideals and of real education, have condemned her to be frittered:

from twelve years old she is a cripple to be pitied, and by thirty

she comes to know it. With the brothers the blame is more their

own. The boys we used to play our school games with have found

their places; they are winning homes and influence and money, their

natures are growing strong and shapely, and their days are filling

with the happy sense of accomplishment,--while _we_ do not yet know

what we are. We have no meaning on the earth. Lose us, and the

earth has lost nothing; no niche is empty, no force has ceased to

play, for we have got no aim, and therefore we are still--nobody.

_Get your meaning_ first of all! Ask the question until it is

answered past question, What am I? What do I stand for? What name

do I bear in the register of forces? In our national cemeteries

there are rows on rows of unknown bodies of our soldiers,--men who

did a work and put a meaning to their lives; for the mother and the

townsmen say, "He died in the war." But the men and women whose

lives are aimless reverse their fates. Our _bodies_ are known, and

answer in this world to such or such a name,--but as to our inner

_selves_, with real and awful meaning our walking bodies might be

labeled, "An unknown man sleeps here!"

Now, since it is concentration that prevents this tragedy of

failure, and since this concentration always involves drudgery,

long, hard, abundant, we have to own again, I think, that that is

even more than what I called it first,--our chief school-master;

besides that, drudgery is the gray Angel of Success. The main

secret of any success we may hope to rejoice in is in that angel's

keeping. Look at the leaders in the profession, the "solid" men in

business, the master-workmen who begin as poor boys and end by

building a town in which to house their factory hands; they are

drudges of the single aim. The man of science, and to-day more than

ever, if he would add to the world's knowledge, or even get a

reputation, must be, in some one branch at least, a plodding

specialist. The great inventors, Palissy at his pots, Goodyear at

his rubber, Elias Howe at his sewing-machine, tell the

secret,--"One thing I do." The reformer's secret is the same. A

one-eyed, grim-jawed folk the reformers are apt to be: one-eyed,

grim-jawed, seeing but the one thing, never letting go, they have

to be, to start a torpid nation. All these men as doers of the

single thing drudge their way to their success. Even so must we,

would we win ours. The foot-loose man is _not_ the enviable man. A

wise man will be his own necessity and bind himself to a task, if

by early wealth or foolish parents or other lowering circumstances

he has lost the help of an outward necessity.

Again, then, I say, Let us sing a hallelujah and make a fresh

beatitude: _Blessed be Drudgery!_ It is the one thing we cannot

spare.

III

This is a hard gospel, is it not? But now there is a pleasanter

word to briefly say. To lay the firm foundations in ourselves, or

even to win success in life, we _must_ be drudges. But we _can_ be

_artists_, also, in our daily task. And at that word things

brighten.

"Artists," I say,--not artisans. "The difference?" This: the artist

is he who strives to perfect his work,--the artisan strives to get

through it. The artist would fain finish, too; but with him it is

to "finish the work God has given me to do!" It is not how great a

thing we do, but how well we do the thing we have to, that puts us

in the noble brotherhood of artists. My Real is not my Ideal,--is

that my complaint? One thing, at least, is in my power: if I cannot

realize my Ideal, I can at least _idealize my Real_. How? By trying

to be perfect in it. If I am but a rain-drop in a shower, I will

be, at least, a perfect drop; if but a leaf in a whole June, I will

be, at least, a perfect leaf. This poor "one thing I do,"--instead

of repining at its lowness or its hardness, I will make it glorious

by my supreme loyalty to its demand.

An artist himself shall speak. It was Michael Angelo who said:

"Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavor to

create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever

strives for it strives for something that is godlike. True painting

is only an image of God's perfection,--a shadow of the pencil with

which he paints, a melody, a striving after harmony." The great

masters in music, the great masters in all that we call artistry,

would echo Michael Angelo in this; he speaks the artist essence

out. But what holds good upon their grand scale and with those

whose names are known, holds equally good of all pursuits and all

lives. That true painting is an image of God's perfection must be

true, if he says so; but no more true of painting than of

shoemaking, of Michael Angelo than of John Pounds, the cobbler. I

asked a cobbler once how long it took to become a good shoemaker;

he answered, promptly, "Six years,--and then you must travel!" That

cobbler had the artist soul. I told a friend the story, and he

asked his cobbler the same question: How long does it take to

become a good shoemaker? "All your life, sir." That was still

better,--a Michael Angelo of shoes! Mr. Maydole, the hammer-maker,

of central New York, was an artist: "Yes," said he to Mr. Parton,

"I have made hammers here for twenty-eight years." "Well, then, you

ought to be able to make a pretty good hammer by this time." "No,

sir," was the answer, "I _never_ made a pretty good hammer. I make

the best hammer made in the United States." Daniel Morell, once

president of the Cambria Railworks in Pittsburgh, which employed

seven thousand men, was an artist, and trained artists. "What is

the secret of such a development of business as this?" asked the

visitor. "We have no secret," was the answer; "we always try to

beat our last batch of rails. That's all the secret we have, and we

don't care who knows it." The Paris bookbinder was an artist, who,

when the rare volume of Corneille, discovered in a book-stall, was

brought to him, and he was asked how long it would take him to bind

it, answered, "Oh, sir, you must give me a year, at least; _this_

needs all my care." Our Ben Franklin showed the artist when he

began his own epitaph, "Benjamin Franklin, printer." And Professor

Agassiz, when he told the interviewer that he had "no time to make

money"; and when he began his will, "I, Louis Agassiz, teacher."

In one of Murillo's pictures in the Louvre he shows us the interior

of a convent kitchen; but doing the work there are, not mortals in

old dresses, but beautiful white-winged angels. One serenely puts

the kettle on the fire to boil, and one is lifting up a pail of

water with heavenly grace, and one is at the kitchen dresser

reaching up for plates; and I believe there is a little cherub

running about and getting in the way, trying to help. What the old

monkish legend that it represented is, I hardly know. But, as the

painter puts it to you on his canvas, all are so busy, and working

with such a will, and so refining the work as they do it, that

somehow you forget that pans are pans and pots pots, and only think

of the angels, and how very natural and beautiful kitchen-work

is,--just what the angels would do, of course.

It is the angel-aim and standard in an act that consecrates it. He

who aims for perfectness in a trifle is trying to do that trifle

holily. The _trier_ wears the halo, and therefore, the halo grows

as quickly round the brows of peasant as of king. This aspiration

to do perfectly,--is it not religion practicalized? If we use the

name of God, is this not God's presence becoming actor in us? No

need, then, of being "great" to share that aspiration and that

presence. The smallest roadside pool has its water from heaven, and

its gleam from the sun, and can hold the stars in its bosom, as

well as the great ocean. Even so the humblest man or woman can live

splendidly! That is the royal truth that we need to believe,--you

and I who have no "mission," and no great sphere to move in. The

universe is not quite complete without _my_ work well done. Have

you ever read George Eliot's poem called "Stradivarius"?

Stradivarius was the famous old violin-maker, whose violins, nearly

two centuries old, are almost worth their weight in gold to-day.

Says Stradivarius in the poem:

"If my hand slacked,

I should rob God,--since He is the fullest good,--

Leaving a blank instead of violins.

_He_ could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins

Without Antonio."

That is just as true of us as of our greatest brothers. What, stand

with slackened hands and fallen heart before the littleness of your

service! Too little, is it, to be perfect in it? Would you, then,

if you were Master, risk a greater treasure in the hands of such a

man? Oh, there is no man, no woman, so small that they cannot make

their life great by high endeavor; no sick crippled child on its

bed that cannot fill a niche of service _that_ way in the world.

This is the beginning of all gospels,--that the kingdom of heaven

is at hand just where _we_ are. It is just as near us as our work is,

for the gate of heaven for each soul lies in the endeavor to do

that work perfectly.

But to bend this talk back to the word with which we started: will

this striving for perfection in the little thing give "culture"?

Have you ever watched such striving in operation? Have you never

met humble men and women who read little, who knew little, yet who

had a certain fascination as of fineness lurking about them? Know

them, and you are likely to find them persons who have put so much

thought and honesty and conscientious trying into their common

work--it may be sweeping rooms, or planing boards, or painting

walls--have put their ideals so long, so constantly, so lovingly

into that common work of theirs, that finally these qualities have

come to permeate not their work only, but so much of their being

that they are fine-fibred within, even if on the outside the rough

bark clings. Without being schooled, they are apt to instinctively

detect a sham,--one test of culture. Without haunting the

drawing-rooms, they are likely to have manners of quaint grace and

graciousness,--another test of culture. Without the

singing-lessons, their tones are apt to be gentle,--another test of

culture. Without knowing anything about Art, so called, they know

and love the best in _one_ thing,--are artists in their own little

specialty of work. They make good company, these men and

women,--why? Because, not having been able to realize their Ideal,

they have idealized their Real, and thus in the depths of their

nature have won true "culture."

You know all beatitudes are based on something hard to do or to be.

"Blessed are the meek": is it easy to be meek? "Blessed are the

pure in heart": is that so very easy? "Blessed are they who mourn."

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst--who _starve_--after

righteousness." So this new beatitude by its hardness only falls

into line with all the rest. A third time and heartily I say

it,--"Blessed be Drudgery!" For thrice it blesses us: it gives us

the fundamental qualities of manhood and womanhood; it gives us

success in the thing we have to do; and it makes us, if we choose,

artists,--artists within, whatever our outward work may be.

_Blessed be Drudgery_,--the secret of all culture!

And now, as a final step in this preliminary study, a step which shall

again give practice in both forms of expression, you are to choose from

your vital interests one concerning which you hold intense convictions.

First you are to set forth these convictions in the strongest piece of

persuasive prose you can command: this is work for your study. Second,

you are to summon all your vocal resources, and, with the one idea of

persuading us of the truth of your convictions, make to us for them a

direct appeal: this work is for the class-room. So shall we have

combined the preliminary study in vocal expression of _direct appeal_

with the preliminary study in verbal expression of _persuasion_.

FIRST STUDY

TO ESTABLISH VITALITY IN THINKING

Among the axioms of our subject-matter already formulated stands this

one: reading aloud is thinking aloud. If reading aloud is thinking aloud

the quality of the reading will depend, of course, upon the quality of

the thinking. But while clear thinking does not assure lucid reading

(since there are other elements in the problem), the converse is true,

that good reading implies clear thinking. For it is impossible to read

convincingly unless one is thinking vitally, which brings us to the

object of this study: _To Establish Vitality in Thinking._

Do you know what it means to think vitally in reading? It means a

concentration of your mind upon the thought before you until you,

yourself, seem to be thinking that thought for the first time,--until

you seem to be bringing forth a thought of your own conception instead

of rethinking the conception of another's mind. Is this a familiar

experience? It must become one if you are to become a true interpreter.

For the true interpreter is first of all the keen thinker.

We do not say of the great actor, after a performance of Hamlet, "He

played Hamlet wonderfully!" We say, rather, "He was Hamlet." The great

actor creates the part he plays each time he plays it. He creates the

part by living the part. Even in the same way the great interpreter

creates the thought he voices through a concentration of mind which

appropriates the thought and makes it his own to voice.

We have said that the greatest need of the human heart is for

self-expression. To satisfy the heart that act of expression must be a

creative act. True interpretation is creative expression. The

fundamental step toward creative expression is complete possession of

the thought to be expressed. Complete possession depends upon your power

to concentrate your mind upon a thought until it is your own. The first

step in interpretation is to establish vitality in thinking.

The new arithmetic trains the mind to see the relation behind the

mathematical statement of the relation. The child who "says his tables"

to-day is not repeating by rote words and figures, he is realizing vital

relations, he is developing a sense of proportion, he is learning to

think vitally. The old method in arithmetic left the statement "two

times one is two" a cold mathematical fact; the new method makes it a

key to living relations. One in the "tables" of the child in mathematics

to-day stands for a definite object, and the statement "two times one is

two" is an interesting and significant fact. The statement through

imaginative thinking, which is vital thinking, may be invested with

personal significance and become a personally interesting fact. Try it!

Say your "tables of one" up to ten times one is ten, _thinking vitally_,

which means getting behind the statement of the relation to the relation

itself, behind the sign to the thing signified. Let your "one" stand

each time for something you desire--as a small boy might desire pieces

of candy, or a miser "pieces of eight"; now think vitally in this way

and say, "Ten times one is ten!" What has happened to the mathematical

fact? It has become a living expression!

This might be called _interpreting_ our mathematics. Why not? That is

the surest way to master them! It is the surest way to mastery of any

subject, of any art, of Life itself. It is the only real way. But we

have leaped from the part to the whole, from the study of a detail to an

application of the law governing the whole subject. Back we must go to

our special point. If we can turn the statement of a cold mathematical

fact into the expression of a living vital relation by thinking vitally,

so investing the fact with personal significance and making it our own,

what can we not do with the more easily appropriated thought which poets

and philosophers and play-writers have given us, and with which rests

our especial concern as interpreters? Let us see what we can do! But

first there is one other point to be considered in this question of

_vital thinking_. We have spoken of one aspect of the process of the

mind in thinking,--the _concentration_ upon an idea until it is one's

own. But there is the passing of the mind from idea to idea to be noted.

This phase the psychologists name "transition." This alternate

concentration and transition constitutes the "pulsing of the mind" in

reading, which Doctor Curry discusses so vitally in his _Lessons in

Vocal Expression_. Now transition is an inevitable result of

concentration and follows it as naturally as expiration follows

inspiration. This being true, we need only note, in our study of the

process of the mind in reading aloud, the question of transition,

letting it follow naturally the fundamental act of concentration which

is our chief concern. If the intense concentration is accomplished the

clean transition will follow. In choosing material which shall require

for adequate interpretation this intense concentration of the mind, we

find our source, of course, to be the literature of thought rather than

the literature of feeling. The literary form which seems to furnish the

best examples for our purpose at this point is the essay where the

appeal is, primarily, at least, an intellectual appeal. For my own

suggestive analysis and for our preliminary study in vital thinking I

have chosen paragraphs from Emerson's essays because Emerson's almost

every paragraph is an essay in miniature. The story is told of the

gentle seer that once in the midst of a lecture he dropped all the pages

of his manuscript over the front of the pulpit. The incident disturbed

his auditors greatly until they saw Mr. Emerson gather up the leaves and

without any effort at rearrangement in the old order begin to read as

though nothing had happened. Every sentence was almost equally pertinent

to the main theme, and suffered not from a new juxtaposition. So in

printing extracts from this source we feel no sense of incompleteness.

SUGGESTIVE ANALYSIS

Let us read this passage from Emerson's _Experience_:

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of

the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. It

is not the part of men, but of fanatics--or of mathematicians, if

you will--to say that, the shortness of life considered, it is not

worth caring whether for so short a duration we were sprawling in

want or sitting high. Since our office is with moments, let us

husband them. Five minutes of to-day are worth as much to me as

five minutes in the next millennium. Let us be poised, and wise,

and our own, to-day. I settle myself ever the firmer in the creed

that we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do broad

justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with, accepting our

actual companions and circumstances, however humble or odious, as

the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated its whole

pleasure for us.

If you do not think your way through this paragraph clearly, concisely,

logically, intensely, when you read it aloud your voice will betray you.

In what way? Your tone will lack resonance, your speech will lack

precision, your pitch will be monotonous, your touch will be uncertain,

your inflections will be indefinite. Your reading will be unconvincing,

because it will fail in lucidity and variety. In approaching this

passage let us study first the question of proper emphasis. What is

emphasis? The dictionaries tell us that, in delivery, it is a special

stress of the voice on a given word. But we must use it in a broader

sense than this. To emphasize a word is not merely to put a special

stress of the voice upon that word. Such an attack might only make the

word conspicuous and so defeat the aim of true emphasis. True emphasis

is the art of voicing the words in a phrase so that they shall assume a

right relation to one another and, so related, best suggest the thought

of which they are the symbols. I do not emphasize one word in a phrase

and not the others. I simply vary my stress upon each word, in order to

gain the proper perspective for the whole sentence. Just so, in a

picture, I make one object stand out, and others fall into the

background, by drawing or painting them in proper relation to one

another. I may use any or all of the "elements of vocal expression" to

give that proper relation of values to the words in a single phrase. I

may pause, change my pitch, vary my inflection, and alter my

tone-color, in order to give a single word its full value. Let us try

experiments in emphasis with some isolated sentences before analyzing

the longer passage. Here is one of Robert Louis Stevenson's beautifully

wrought periods:

"Every man has a sane spot somewhere."

Let us vary, vocally, the relative values of the words in this sentence,

and study the effect upon the character of the thought. Let us look upon

the statement as a theme for discussion. With a pause before the second

word, "man," a lift of the voice on that word, a whimsical turn of the

tone, and a significant inflection, we may convert an innocent statement

of fact into an incendiary question for debate on the comparative sanity

of the sexes. A plea for endless faith and charity becomes a back-handed

criticism of women. Now let us read the sentence, giving it its true

meaning. "Every man has a sane spot somewhere." Let your voice make of

the statement a plea, by dwelling a bit on the first word and again on

the last word. Hyphenate the first two words (they really stand for one

idea). Compound also the words "sane" and "spot." Lift them as a single

word above the rest of the sentence. Now put "somewhere" a little higher

still above the level of the rest of the sentence. So, only, have we the

true import of this group of words:

some

where.

sane-spot

Every-

man has a

Analyze the rest of these sentences from Stevenson in the same way, and

experiment with them vocally.

That is never a bad wind that blows where we want to go.

For truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of

the enemy.

Some strand of our own misdoing is involved in every quarrel.

Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance.

You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometime fight it out

or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?

An aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not

to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.

The world was not made for us; it was made for ten hundred millions

of me, all different from each other and from us; there's no royal

road, we just have to sclamber and tumble.

Now, once more, and this time with detailed analysis, let us study

the passage from _Experience_. Let us first consider for a moment

some of the words which make this passage powerful: _finish_,

_journey's-end_, _good hours_, _wisdom_, _fanatics_, _mathematicians_,

_sprawling-in-want_, _sitting-high_, _firmer_, _poised_, _postpone_,

_justice_, _humble_, _odious_, _mystic_, _pleasure_. When spoken with a

keen sense of its inherent meaning, with full appreciation of its form,

and with delight in molding it, how efficient each one of these words

becomes! When shall we, as a people, learn reverence for the words which

make up our language--reverence that shall make us ashamed to mangle

words, offering as our excuse that we are "Westerners" or "Southerners"

or from New York or New England or Indiana. The clear-cut thought calls

for the clean-cut speech. Let us say these words over and over until

they assume full value. And now we pass from words to groups of words.

The mind and the tone must move progressively through the first three

phrases which make up this first sentence: "To finish the moment, to

find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest

number of good hours, is wisdom." The phrases must be held together by

an almost imperceptible suspension and upward reach of the voice at the

end of each group of words, and yet each phrase must be allowed to be

momentarily complete. Read the sentence, making each phrase a

conclusion, and then again letting each phrase look forward to the next.

Each phrase is really a substantive, looking forward to its predicate

through a second substantive which is a little more vital than the

first, and again through a third substantive which is a little more

vital than either of the other two. Bring this out in reading the

sentence. The next sentence depends for its significance upon your

contrasting inflections of the three words "men," "fanatics," and

"mathematicians"; and again upon your sympathetic inflection of

"sprawling-in-want" and "sitting-high." "It is not the part of men, but

of fanatics--or of mathematicians, if you will--to say that, the

shortness of life considered, it is not worth caring whether for so

short a duration we were sprawling in want or sitting high." In your

utterance of these words can you make "men" MEN, and "fanatics"

_fanatics_, and consign "mathematicians" to the cold corner of human

affairs designed for them? Can you so inflect "sprawling in want" and

"sitting high" as to suggest a swamp and a mountain-top, or a frog and

an angel? Let your voice leap from the swamp to the mountain-top. Let it

climb. Now comes the swift, concise, admonitory sentence: "Since our

office is with moments, let us husband them." Pause before you speak the

word "husband," and _husband_ it. "Five minutes of to-day are worth as

much to me as five minutes in the next millennium." Make "five minutes

of to-day" one word, and accent the last syllable, thus:

five-minutes-of-_to-day_. Let the tone retard and take its time on the

last seven words. Now poise your tone for the next sentence. "Let us be

poised, and wise, and our own, to-day." The paragraph closes with a more

complex statement of the theme. Let your voice search out the meaning.

Let it settle down into the conclusion, and utter it convincingly. Give

a definite touch to the words which I shall put in italics. "I settle

myself ever _firmer_ in the _creed_ that we should not _postpone_ and

_refer_ and _wish_, but do _broad-justice_ where we _are_, by

_whomsoever_ we deal with, accepting our _actual_ companions and

circumstances, however _humble_ or _odious_, as the _mystic officials_

to whom the _universe_ has dedicated its _whole pleasure_ for _us_."

Analyze vocally the following paragraph:

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the

conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that

he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that

though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing

corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of

ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in

him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he

can do, nor does he know until he has tried.... What I must do is

all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally

arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole

distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder

because you will always find those who think they know what is your

duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after

the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own;

but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with

perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.--_Self-Reliance._

SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION

By choosing as further material for vocal interpretation selections

which shall also be good examples for examination as to their literary

construction, we shall serve the double purpose of adapting our studies

in vocal interpretation to the uses of English composition.

The following selections are to be: first, read aloud (in class);

second, examined as to their literary construction (in class); third,

analyzed and reported upon as specimens of exposition and argumentation

(in the study).

Exposition is an explanation, a setting forth, or an expounding. It

is an attempt to render something plain, an effort to convey to the

reader a train of thought which represents the conclusions of the

writer upon a subject. The writer, it is at once evident, must be

acquainted with the subject with which he deals. He is presuming to

teach, and must be in a position which justifies him in so doing.

He is prepared to write an exposition only when he is able, in

regard to the topic in hand, to take frankly and unreservedly the

attitude of a teacher.

A teacher must have many good gifts and graces; and whoever else

may fail to be well acquainted with a given lesson, he must have

mastered it thoroughly. To teach he must first know. Whoever has

taught understands how completely different is the attitude of the

teacher from that of the pupil. While the pupil is hardly expected

to be able to do more than reasonably well to understand the

subject in hand, the teacher must be able to explain, to justify,

to make clear relations, and to impart the whole matter. The pupil

is excused with a sort of hearsay knowledge, but the teacher must

have a vital experience of what he teaches. Especially must he be

able to comprehend and to represent a subject as a whole. He is

responsible for the student's being able in turn to co-ordinate

facts and theories so as to produce unity; and it is therefore

essential that he himself have power to hold and to make clear a

continuous train of thought.

The teacher, moreover, must have over his mind discipline so firm

that he is not dependent upon moods. He must cover the wide

difference between the train of thought which springs spontaneously

in the mind and that which is laboriously worked out as a logical

sequence of ideas relating to a subject forced upon the attention.

The pupil may, to a certain extent, indulge the vagaries of his

inclination, but the teacher must respond to the need of the

moment. He must have trained his mind to give an intelligent

judgment upon any matter presented to it. He is not equipped for

instructing--nor is any individual ready for life--until he can

command the resources of his inner self to the utmost. The trained

person is one who can take a subject which may not at the outset

especially appeal to him, which is full of complications, which is

not in itself, perhaps, attractive, and can insist with himself

that his mind shall master it thoroughly. He is able so to expend

his whole mental strength, if need be, upon any necessary topic

that the subject shall be examined, acquired, assimilated, and then

shall be so organized, so illumined, and so presented that others

shall be instructed. The mind of the teacher, in a word, is so

disciplined that it will work when it is ordered.

The ideal state of mind for him who wishes to communicate knowledge

is that of being absolute master of all its resources. Many who

possess no inconsiderable powers of thought are practically unable

to command the best powers of their intelligence. They depend upon

the whim of the moment, upon some outward pressure or inward

impulse, to arouse their intellect. They fail to reflect that while

any ordinary intellect naturally forms some opinion upon any

subject which interests it, only the trained mind is able to judge

clearly and lucidly of an indifferent or uninteresting matter. In

this mastery of thought lies the difference between the sterile and

the productive mind. Only one brain in a thousand has not the

disposition to shirk work if it is allowed, and every student has

moments when his intelligence seems almost to act like a spoiled

child that hates to get up when called on a cold morning. To

establish the power of the will over the intellect is the object of

education, and the ability to exercise this power is what is meant

by the proper use of the word "cultivation."

The mental process of the cultivated thinker when considering any

subject is likely to be: first, to become sure of his terms; then,

clearly to set before his mind the facts and conditions; and,

lastly, to make the possible and resulting deductions and

conclusions. This gives a hint, and indeed practically affords a

rule for the writer of exposition.

An exposition, broadly speaking, may be said to consist of three

steps which nearly correspond to the three steps of mental

activity just set down: the Definition, the Statement, and the

Inference.

Definition is making clear to self or to the reader what is under

discussion.

Statement is the setting forth of whatever is to be said of the

facts, conditions, relations, and so on, which it is the object of

the exposition to make clear.

Inference is the conclusion or conclusions drawn.

These three parts will seldom be found as formal divisions in any

ordinary exposition, but in some sort they are always present; and

the writer must at least have them clear in his mind if he hopes to

render his work well ordered, comprehensive, and symmetrical.

Together they are woven as the strands which give a firmness of

texture to the whole.

To illustrate the bearing of this analysis on the composition of an

exposition, we may imagine that a student has been required to

write a theme on "The Influence of College Life." He has first to

concern himself with definition. He must decide what he means by

college life as a molding influence; whether its intellectual, its

social, its moral aspects, or all these. He must consider, too,

whether he is to deal with the effect upon specific characters or

upon types; whether upon boys during the time they are in college

or as a training for after life; whether at a special institution

or as the result of any college. If he limits himself to one phase

of influence, he must in the same way decide fully in what sense

he intends to treat that phase. If he is to consider the social

effect of college life, for instance, he has to define for himself

the sense in which he will use the word "social." Is it to mean

simply formal society, adaptation to the more conventional and

exclusive forms of human intercourse, or to imply all that renders

a man more self-poised, more flexible, and more adaptable in any

relations with his fellows? If, on the other hand, it is the

intellectual influence of college life which is to be studied, the

first step is to decide what is to be considered for this purpose

the range of the term "intellectual"; whether it is to be taken to

mean the mere acquirement of information; whether it has relation

to acquirement or to modification of mental conditions; whether it

means change in the mind in the way of development or of

modification; whether it shall be applied to an alteration in the

student's attitude toward knowledge or toward life in general. All

this is in the line of definition, and it is naturally connected

with the statement of whatever facts bear upon the topic under

discussion.

Statement has largely to do with fact. Theory belongs rather to

whatever inference is part of an exposition. In the statement will

come the observations of the writer; whatever he knows of general

conditions at college, or such individual examples as bear upon the

question in hand. From these he will inevitably draw some

conclusions, and the value of the exposition will depend upon the

reasonableness and convincingness of these inferences, as these

will, in turn, depend upon the clearness of the writer's original

knowledge in regard to his intentions and the logic of his

statements.

Composition, it should be remembered, is the art of communicating

to others what is in the mind of the writer. To write without

having the subject abundantly in mind is to invite the reader to a

Barmecide feast of empty dishes. The necessity of insisting upon

such particulars as those just given of the process of making an

exposition arises from the stubborn idea of the untrained student

that writing is something done with paper and ink. It is, on the

contrary, something which is done with brains; it is less putting

things on paper than it is thinking things out in the mind.

Before leaving the illustration of a theme on the influence of

college life we may glance a moment more at the difficulty, even

with so simple a subject, of attaining perfect clarity of thinking.

One of the first things which must be determined is the essential

difference of life in a college from ordinary existence. If the

subject be given out to a class of students half the themes handed

in will begin with a remark upon the great change which comes to a

boy who finds himself for the first time freed from the restraints

of home. The moment this idea is presented to the mind it is to be

looked at, not as something with which to fill so much paper, but

as a stepping-stone toward ideas beyond. It is necessary, for

instance, to determine the distinctions between freedom at college

and freedom elsewhere; to decide wherein lie the differences in

the conditions which surround a boy in a university and one who

escapes from the restrictions of home by going away to live in a

city or in a country village, on shipboard or in the army. To be of

value, every thought in an exposition must have been tested by a

comparison with allied ideas as wide and as exhaustive as the

thinker is equal to making.

To learn to think is, after all, the prime essential in

exposition-writing, and the beginning of thought is the realization

of what is already known. The student who patiently examines his

views on the subject of which he is to write, who determines to

discover exactly how much he knows and what is the relative

importance of each of his opinions, is likely soon to come to find

that he is considering the theme chosen not only deeply, but with

tangible results. The value of any exposition, to sum the matter up

in a word, rests primarily and chiefly on the thoroughness of the

thought which produces it.--ARLO BATES.[3]

[3] This selection from Prof. Arlo Bates's _Talks on Writing

English_ is printed by permission of the author and his publishers,

Houghton Mifflin Company.

The _Idylls of the King_ has been called a quasi-epic. Departing

from the conventional epic form by its lack of a closely continuous

narrative, it has yet that lofty manner and underlying unity of

design which leads us to class it with the epics, at least, in the

essentials. It consists of a series of chivalric legends, taken

chiefly from the _Morte d'Arthur_ of Sir Thomas Malory, grouped so

as to exhibit the establishment, the greatness, and the downfall of

an ideal kingdom of righteousness among men. "The Coming of

Arthur," the ideal ruler, shows us the setting up of this kingdom.

Before this was disorder, great tracts of wilderness,

Wherein the beast was ever more and more,

But man was less and less.

Arthur slays the beast and fells the forest, and the old order

changes to give place to new. Then the song of Arthur's knights

rises, a majestic chorus of triumph:

Clang battle-axe and clash brand. Let the king reign.

In "Gareth and Lynette" the newly established kingdom is seen doing

its work among men. Arthur, enthroned in his great hall, dispenses

impartial justice. The knights

Ride abroad redressing human wrongs.

The allegory shows us, in Gareth's contests with the knights "that

have no law nor King," the contest of the soul with the temptations

that at different periods of life successively attack it:

The war of Time against the soul of man.

Then follow the "Idylls," which trace the entrance and growth of an

element of sin and discord, which, spreading, pulls down into ruin

that "fellowship of noble knights," "which are an image of the

mighty world." The purity of the ideal kingdom is fouled, almost at

its source, by the guilty love of Lancelot and the Queen. Among

some the contagion spreads; while others, in an extremity of

protest, start in quest of the Holy Grail, leaving the duty at hand

for mystical visions. Man cannot bring down heaven to earth; he

cannot sanctify the mass of men by his own rapturous anticipations;

he cannot safely neglect the preliminary stages of progress

appointed for the race; he "may not wander from the allotted field

before his work be done."

So by impurity and by impatience the rift in the kingdom widens,

and in "The Last Tournament," in the stillness before the impending

doom, we hear the shrill voice of Dagonet railing at the King, who

thinks himself as God, that he can make

Honey from hornet-combs

And men from beasts.

In "Guinevere," unequaled elsewhere in the "Idylls" in pure poetry,

the blow falls; at length, in the concluding poem, Arthur passes to

the isle of Avilion, and once more

The old order changeth, yielding place to new.

Tennyson himself tells us that in this, his longest poem, he has

meant to shadow "sense at war with soul," the struggle in the

individual and in the race, between that body which links us with

the brute and the soul which makes us part of a spiritual order.

But the mastery of the higher over the lower is only obtained

through many seeming failures. Wounded and defeated, the King

exclaims:

For I, being simple, thought to work His will,

And have but stricken with the sword in vain;

And all whereon I lean'd, in wife and friend,

Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm

_Reels back into the beast_, and is no more.

But he also half perceives the truth which it is the poet's purpose

to suggest to us. It is short-sighted to expect the immediate

sanctification of the race; if we are disheartened, striving to

"work His will," it is because "we see not the close." It is

impossible that Arthur's work should end in failure--departing, he

declares, "I pass, but shall not die," and when his grievous wound

is healed, he will return. The _Idylls of the King_ is thus the

epic of evolution in application to the progress of human society.

In it the teachings of "In Memoriam" assume a narrative form.

Move upward, working out the beast,

may be taken as a brief statement of its theme: and we read in it

the belief in the tendency upward and an assurance of ultimate

triumph:

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet,

That not one life shall be destroyed,

Or cast as rubbish to the void

When God hath made the pile complete.

--PANCOAST.[4]

[4] Reprinted by permission from Pancoast's _Introduction to English

Literature_. Copyright, 1907, by Henry Holt and Company.

As an interlude study which shall look back to the step we have just

taken, and forward to the one we are about to take, let us test our

growth in _vitality in thinking_ and our need of _intelligence in

feeling_, by voicing the following selections from didactic poetry. This

form affords the best exercise in both activities because it makes a

double appeal, and so a double demand upon the interpreter--an appeal

through form to emotion, through aim to intelligence, and through

message and atmosphere to both. I have chosen examples of this form in

which the beauty and fascination of meter, rhythm, and rhyme, and the

didactic nature of the thought do not seem to overbalance each other. If

either should predominate you must, by your interpretation, strike the

balance. In reading Robert Browning's _Rabbi Ben Ezra_ (from which I

shall quote but a few verses) you must carry to your auditor the full

import of the philosophy, but in doing so you must not lose the beauty

of the verse in which the poet has set it.

RABBI BEN EZRA

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith, "A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

Not that, amassing flowers,

Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours,

Which lily leave and then as best recall?"

Not that, admiring stars,

It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars;

Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"

Not for such hopes and fears

Annulling youth's brief years,

Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!

Rather I prize the doubt

Low kinds exist without,

Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

* * * * *

Then, welcome each rebuff

That turns earth's smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

Be our joys three-parts pain!

Strive and hold cheap the strain,

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence--a paradox

Which comforts while it mocks--

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:

What I aspired to be,

And was not, comforts me:

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

* * * * *

Now, who shall arbitrate?

Ten men love what I hate,

Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;

Ten, who in ears and eyes

Match me: we all surmise,

They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass

Called "work," must sentence pass,

Things done, that took the eye and had the price;

O'er which, from level stand,

The low world laid its hand,

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb

And finger failed to plumb,

So passed in making up the main account:

All instincts immature,

All purposes unsure,

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

All I could never be,

All, men ignored in me,

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

* * * * *

--BROWNING.

FORBEARANCE

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?

Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?

At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse?

Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust?

And loved so well a high behavior,

In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,

Nobility more nobly to repay?

O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

EACH AND ALL

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown

Of thee from the hill-top looking down;

The heifer that lows in the upland farm,

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;

The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,

Deems not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse and lists with delight,

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;

Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.

All are needed by each one;

Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,

Singing at dawn on the alder bough;

I brought him home, in his nest, at even;

He sings the song, but it cheers not now,

For I did not bring home the river and sky;--

He sang to my ear,--they sang to my eye.

The delicate shells lay on the shore;

The bubbles of the latest wave

Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,

And the bellowing of the savage sea

Greeted their safe escape to me.

I wiped away the weeds and foam,

I fetched my sea-born treasures home;

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things

Had left their beauty on the shore

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.

The lover watched his graceful maid,

As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,

Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by the snow-white choir.

At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;--

The gay enchantment was undone,

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;

I leave it behind with the games of youth":--

As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,

Running over the club-moss burrs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Over me soared the eternal sky,

Full of light and of deity;

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird;--

Beauty through my senses stole;

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

--EMERSON.

As a final step in this study which has for its aim an increase in your

power to _think vitally_ you are to choose from the "great heap of your

knowledge" a subject about which you have sufficient understanding and

enthusiasm to justify your discussion of it, and with this as a topic

you are "to unmuzzle your wisdom" in the form of _exposition_ or

_argumentation_.

SECOND STUDY

TO ESTABLISH INTELLIGENCE IN FEELING

Art is in bondage in this country: its internal polity to the

temperamental ideal; its external polity to the commercial ideal.

Business and social life are in the same bondage. In music, in drama, in

letters, in society, and in trade we permit personality to exploit

itself for commercial purposes. The result is either chaotic or

calculated expression on every side. When temperament seeks restraint in

technique, and policy, whether business or social, seeks freedom in

service, then shall we have that balanced expression in art, in society,

and in trade which should proceed from the American personality and

distinguish American life.

It may seem a far cry from a comment upon American life to the subject

of this second study--_intelligence in feeling_. Carry the idea of

balanced expression from the introduction to the body of this exposition

and the transition is not difficult to make.

"Wonderful technique, but no heart in her singing!" "Tremendous

temperament, but no technique!" "She moves me profoundly, but oh, what a

method!" "Her instrument is flawless, but she leaves me absolutely

unmoved." Have you ever heard such comment, or made such comment, or

been the subject of like comment? Diagnosis of the case, whether it be

yours or another's, should be the same--lack of poise in expression,

producing the undesirable effect upon the auditor of no emotion at all,

or of unintelligent emotion. To determine just what we mean by

intelligent emotion is our first problem for this study.

An experience I had in visiting a class in interpretation in a

well-known school of oratory some years ago will illustrate the point.

The selection for interpretation was the prelude to the first part of

_The Vision of Sir Launfal_.

"And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,

And over it softly her warm ear lays; ..."

The work was well under way when I entered the class-room. My entrance

did not disturb the expression on the face of the student who was "up

before" the class. A Malvolio smile was never more deliciously

indelible. I thought at first my request to see some work in

interpretation had been mistaken and I had been ushered into a class in

facial gymnastics. Then I concluded that Mr. Lowell's poem was being

employed as text for an exercise in smiling. Finally the awful truth

came upon me that this teacher of interpretation was seriously

attempting to secure from her pupils an expression which should suggest

the spirit of the June day by asking them to assume the outward sign of

joy known as smiling. The result was a ghastly series of facial

contortions, which left at least one auditor's day as bleak as the

bleakest December. No intelligent feeling can be induced in interpreter

or auditor by assuming the outward sign of an inward emotion. Some of

you are recalling Mr. James's _talk to students_, on the reflex theory

of emotion, and are being confused at this point. Let us stop and

straighten out the confusion. Mr. James says:

"Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go

together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct

control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is

not.

"Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous

cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully,

and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such

conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that

occasion can. So to feel brave, act as if we _were_ brave, use all our

will to that end, and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of

fear."

The application of this principle to the reading of these lines would

seem to justify the method the teacher was pursuing. A smile is

acceptedly the indication of happy emotion, the outward symbol of inward

rejoicing or joy. The June day is full of joyful emotion,--the joy of

awakening life. Applying Mr. James's theory, a legitimate way to induce

the inward emotion would seem to be to assume the outward sign. But wait

a moment. Let us look to our premises. Mr. Lanier, who sings of Nature

with joyful understanding, cries in _Sunrise_:

"Tell me, sweet burly-bark'd, man-bodied Tree

That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know

From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow?

They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps.

Reason's not one that weeps.

What logic of greeting lies

Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of the eyes?"

Here is a great master of verbal expression whose inward joy finds its

outward symbol not in a smile but in a tear. So you and I may respond to

Mr. Lowell's "high tide of the year" with smiles or with tears, with

bowed head and closed eyes, or with eyes wide and head raised to meet

the returning flood of life.

The effect upon me of the beauty of this day as Mr. Lowell has painted

it, my personal emotional response is interesting psychology, but is not

my concern as an interpreter. My own emotion and its personal response

belong to my preparatory interpretative efforts in the study; but when

the interpretation is ready for the audience-room, the emotion must be

assimilated into the interpretative act and appear only as part of the

illumination of the bit of life I am presenting.

The object of all great art, whether creative or interpretative, is not

to exploit the personality of the artist, but to disclose at some point

the personality of the very God himself, which is life. The revelation

not of personal emotion but of universal life is the legitimate aim of

all artistic effort.

Emotional response will accompany every vital mental conception.

Abandonment to that response is a legitimate and necessary part of full

comprehension. But such abandonment, as I have said, belongs to our

preparation for expression. Such abandonment must not be taken out of

the study on to the stage. No temperamental expression along any line is

fit for the public until it is controlled by technique, the technique

which has been worked out by the masters of every art, not excluding the

art of living.

It is not the effect of June upon you I want from your interpretation,

it is the spirit of June itself. You must let me have my own emotion.

Your emotional response was the result of your mental concept; mine, to

be intelligent, must find the same impulse. If you impose your own

emotion upon me mine will be merely an unintelligent reflection of

yours. Taking as our ideal of the interpreter, the absolutely pure

medium, bars out every manifestation which calls attention to the

interpreter, and so interferes with the direct message.