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HOW TO TEACH
READING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

BY

S. H. CLARK, Ph.B.

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Author of “How to Read Aloud” and Associate Author of “Principles of Vocal Expression, Mental Technique and Literary Interpretation”

CHICAGO

SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY

1898

Copyright 1898,

By SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY

PRESS OF
THE HENRY O. SHEPARD CO.,
CHICAGO.

CONTENTS

[PREFACE]

This book is intended as a manual for teachers of reading in the public schools. In its preparation the theory was, first, that the teacher should have a thorough knowledge of how thought and feeling are expressed—in other words he must have the criteria of expression; and, second, that he should have a definite graded method of instruction, in which the simple shall precede the complex, and in which one element, and one only, shall be presented at a time.

The book is, therefore, an endeavor to assist the teacher of reading, first, by explaining the psychology of the criteria of expression; second, by presenting a practical method of instruction; and, third, by discussing certain definite principles of literary interpretation.

Parts of this book have been given to the public by the author, in Principles of Vocal Expression and How to Read Aloud, the latter of which is now out of print. The interest in these two books is a cause for gratitude and it is hoped the present manual may serve its purpose equally well.

S. H. CLARK.

[INTRODUCTION]

It is universally conceded that the public schools fail to give children much power as readers. One authority asserts that, after the child’s twelfth year, his ability as a reader steadily declines. (Up to that time he is gradually acquiring greater mastery over words, and so, in a sense, may be said to be improving.) Testimony can be added that, by the time he reaches the university, the average student cannot read at all.

Many remedies have been suggested, from which two may be selected as typical. One is to call the attention of the child to the mechanics of vocal expression—to inflection, force, movement, and so forth. The other (that commonly employed), to tell the child to get the thought. It cannot be denied that both methods have, in isolated cases, been productive of some good, yet, on the whole, they have been well-nigh barren of results. Let us inquire briefly into the causes.

The mechanical method fails, especially with younger people, because it is dry, technical, unstimulating, and, in the main, uninteresting. It deals with rules for the use of the different elements of vocal expression, telling the child he must use a rising inflection here, a falling inflection there; that he must read parenthetical phrases and clauses in lower pitch and faster time; that this emotion should be manifested in normal quality, that emotion in orotund quality; and so on through weary, dreary rules and principles, the study of which has seldom done any good and oftentimes much harm. The “get-the-thought” method is a revolt against the other plan. Recognizing the fact that drills in the elements have done nothing toward elevating the standard of reading, the conscientious principal or superintendent tells his teachers that they must see to it that the scholars get the thought. This is a step in the right direction, but it must be acknowledged that it does not produce results. And the chief reasons for this are two. First, for one cause or another the finer shades of meaning escape too many teachers. Second, very few teachers have received the necessary training to enable them to discern quickly with what mental conditions various forms of vocal expression are associated. In other words, they have not the criteria of vocal expression; and, in consequence, helpful criticism is impossible.

Why have previous methods of teaching reading practically failed? There are three reasons: first, the lack of appreciation of the best literature on the part of the teacher; second, the complexity of vocal expression; and third, the intangibility of vocal expression.

Appreciation of the meaning and beauty of literature is the first requisite of a successful teacher of reading; and yet there is little opportunity afforded the teacher to get this appreciation. Is it not true that too many teachers have no love for real literature? The fault is not theirs, but that of the method of teaching literature that substitutes grammar, philology, history, and lectures about literature for the study of the meaning and beauty of the literature itself. One may safely assert that thousands of children would be better readers, even with the present faulty methods, if their teachers had a genuine interest in the best literature. Of what avail is it to put good literature into the schoolbooks if its merit does not appeal as well to the instructor as to the pupil? The stream can rise no higher than its source. There is, however, a rapidly growing sentiment against the substitution of parsing, history, philology, or ethics for genuine literary training. We are coming to recognize that literature is art, beauty, spirit; and, when this recognition becomes general, we shall have better teachers and better readers. For there is nothing that so stimulates our vocal expression as the desire to impress upon others the beauty and feeling of what has impressed ourselves.

Complexity may be defined by illustration. A phrase may be read fast or slowly; in high or low key; with one melody or another; with loud or subdued force; with this quality of voice or with that. Now all these elements are present at one time; so that, without proper training, the teacher is unable to discriminate between them and hence unable to give the needful correction, without which there can be no progress.

Intangibility may be explained by showing what is meant by a tangible subject. The spelling lesson is tangible; the arithmetic lesson is tangible. A mistake is easily recognized and corrected. Three months after a paper on these subjects has been handed in, the teacher can go back to it and examine it. But vocal expression is evanescent, and, by the untrained, can be recalled imperfectly, if at all, and then only a short time after it has been heard. In the presence of the combined difficulties due to complexity and intangibility, the teacher is appalled; and, conscientious though he be, he gives up in despair. The teaching becomes perfunctory; the children lose interest; and there is the end of reading. Reading, which should be the brightest and most inspiring of lessons, degenerates into a humdrum, dry-as-dust time-killer. Good reading is as rare as the classical bird. No idea of a pupil’s reading ability can be gained from a knowledge of the class he is in. He is no better reader in the highest public-school grade than he is in the grade two or three below the highest. The teacher has come to recognize the futility of his efforts; and so, in many class rooms, the time set apart for reading is given up to language lessons, composition, and other studies, valuable in themselves, but only incidentally helpful in increasing the pupil’s reading power.

It may be asked, what objects are to be attained as a result of reading lessons? There are two. First, to give us the power to extract thought from the printed page. After we leave school, our information is gained from books; and what we get from these is largely determined by our school training. Our system of education has a great deal to answer for when it fails to provide this training. The value of vocal expression is not to be depreciated, but of the utmost importance is the ability to get the author’s meaning. Our teaching, from the primary grade to the university, is lamentably weak in this direction. A well-known college professor, in response to a school superintendent’s question as to what would better the preparation of secondary-school students for college, replied: “For Heaven’s sake, teach them how to read.” Another college instructor—a learned authority on geology—states that he finds occasion to remark to his classes about once a month, “It’s a great thing to be able to read a page of English.” No one who examines the reading in our schools can fail to be struck, not so much with the absence of expressive power, as with the absence of mental grasp. We are so anxious to get on that we are content with skimming the surface, and do not take the time to get beneath it. The reading lesson should be, primarily, a thinking lesson, and every shade of thought should be carefully determined, no matter how long a time may be consumed. The habit of hurrying over the page, which is so prevalent, is clearly an outgrowth of schoolroom methods. Careless of all the future, we are too prone to push the pupil along, ignoring the simplest and most evident of psychological laws, that thought comes by thinking, and thinking takes time.

One tires of the universal excuse for the laxity of our methods: we have not the time. The reply to teacher, superintendent, and school board is, we have no time to teach a subject poorly. If thought-getting—genuine thought-getting—were insisted on from the outset, without doubt the work which now requires six or seven years to accomplish could be done in five. How much thought power has the public-school graduate? Very little. And yet, if all lessons—history, geography, arithmetic, and the rest—were made thought lessons, a child of fourteen would be on the road to educating himself when he left school. Is it not pitiful to see a bright boy or girl spending three or four hours a day in the preparation of his lessons, and then coming to class only to find that he has wasted and worse than wasted his time? In taking leave of this theme, the teacher is urged to ponder these noble words of a noble man, “When thou readest, look steadfastly with the mind at the things the words symbolize. If there be question of mountains, let them loom before thee; if of the ocean, let its billows roll before thy eyes. This habit will give to thy voice even pliancy and meaning. The more sources of interest we have, the richer is our life. To hold any portion of truth in a vital way is better than to have its whole baggage stored merely in one’s memory.” And, again, “He who thinks for himself is rarely persuaded by another. Information and inspiration he gladly receives, but he forms his own judgment. Arguments and reasons which, to the thoughtful, sound like mockery, satisfy the superficial and ignorant.” And there is no better way to develop such a thinking person than by careful training in reading.

Most readers, like good-natured cows,

Keep browsing and forever browse;

If a fair flower come in their way

They take it too, nor ask, “What, pray!”

Like other fodder it is food,

And for the stomach quite as good.

Training in thought-getting is, then, the first result to be expected from the reading lesson. The second is the power of adequate vocal expression. The temptation to enlarge upon the many benefits to body, voice, mind, and soul, to say nothing of the practical worldly benefits of vocal expression, is resisted. It is taken for granted that they are recognized; so that we pass on to the discussion of a plan that may help us to get these benefits; prefacing the discussion with the statement that the evil results of our present laxity are not to be laid at the door of the individual teacher, but at that of the educational system in general.

This work makes no pretensions to treat in any detail reading as an art. Its sole object is to present the ideal of the reading lesson and suggest ways and means by which that ideal may be brought somewhat nearer to our grasp than it is at present. Nevertheless, to those who may desire to study reading as an art, it can be safely said, that we must first be good readers before we can be artists; and since this is so, there should be much gain to them from a careful, definite study of the fundamental principles herein set forth. For special teachers of elocution, also, it is hoped that the book may prove of some value, as dealing with those elements without the understanding of which successful teaching of advanced work is impossible.

Vocal culture, in the ordinary sense of the word, finds no place in this discussion. The reason for this omission will appear in the following pages. This much, however, may be stated here; except under particularly favorable circumstances, very little can be done in voice training in our public schools; but by the plan herein presented, the voices of our children may be made truly expressive, and that, after all, is of more value to them than mere technical facility.

While the subject of primary school reading is not discussed directly, the primary teacher should derive considerable assistance from the book, inasmuch as it aims to present the standard of criticism and the psychology of reading. With him rests to a great extent the success of any method of oral expression. That he should have a clear conception of the goal of the reading lessons and the manner of reaching it is therefore beyond dispute.

The book has a double purpose. First, to assist the teacher to teach reading; second, to help the teacher to improve his own reading. The latter purpose explains the amount of illustrative matter, and also the fact that some of this is beyond the grasp of young and immature minds.

[PART ONE]
THE CRITERIA OF VOCAL EXPRESSION

[CHAPTER I]
THE CRITERION OF TIME

It must be clear that no progress can be made in the teaching of any subject unless the teacher possess a definite standard of criticism; and, furthermore, it must be granted that the teacher of reading does not possess this standard. We have a standard in spelling, in arithmetic, in geography, but none in reading—at least none clearly apprehended and scientifically applied. It is, therefore, the purpose of the first part of this book to present those elements of vocal expression—the four criteria—a knowledge of which is indispensable to any progress in the teaching of reading. These are, Time, Pitch, Quality, and Force, the first of which we now proceed to study in detail.

In Professor Raymond’s admirable work, The Orator’s Manual, there appear these significant words: “The relative time apportioned to a word indicates the mind’s measurement of it,—represents the speaker’s judgment as to the amount of meaning or importance that it conveys.” A moment’s thought must convince us of the truth of this statement. Making due allowance for certain speakers, who, for one cause or another, have an unusually slow or fast utterance, the principle laid down by Professor Raymond is, without doubt, psychologically sound. In fact, it is a platitude; but like many another platitude, its truth is so close to us that we fail to perceive its meaning and application. An additional proof of the soundness of this principle is found in music. A solemn dirge, a funeral march, an anthem of praise is rendered in slow time; while moderate and fast time seem the fitting expression of the lighter moods.

Time, then, refers to the rate of vocal movement. It may be fast, or moderate, or slow, according to the amount of what may be called the collateral thinking accompanying the reading of any given passage. To put it another way: a phrase is read slowly because it means much; because the thought is large, sublime, deep. The collateral thinking may be revealed by an expansive paraphrase. For instance, in the lines

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corse to the ramparts we hurried,

why do we read slowly? The paraphrase answers the question. It was midnight. There lay our beloved leader, who should have been borne in triumphal procession to his last resting place. Bells should have tolled, cannon thundered, and thousands should have followed his bier. But now, alas! by night, by stealth, without even a single drum tap, in fear and dread, we crept breathless to the ramparts. This, or any one of a hundred other paraphrases, will suffice to render the vocal movement slow. And so it is with all slow time. Let it be remembered that a profound or sublime thought may be uttered in fast time; but that when we dwell upon that thought, when we hold it before the mind, the time must necessarily be slow.

The succeeding passages will have a prevailingly slow movement. Measure the thought carefully, and think the expansive paraphrase. These drills are not to train us to read slowly (for any one can do that), but to think largely. The movement will take care of itself. It is further urged that the student give considerable attention to this part of the subject; for the time so spent will be valuable not only as it results in expressive movement, but because it is only through meditation that the fullest insight into the meaning of a passage can be acquired. Hence, dwelling for a long period upon a phrase or sentence gives opportunity for the enkindling of the imagination and emotion. It has been frequently found that where a student’s movement was out of harmony with the sentiment of the passage, his emotional interpretation was equally poor. A farther careful study of the text to improve the movement has generally resulted in the improvement of the emotional expression.

Mr. Speaker: The mingled tones of sorrow, like the voice of many waters, have come unto us from a sister State—Massachusetts—weeping for her honored son. The State I have the honor in part to represent once endured, with yours, a common suffering, battled for a common cause, and rejoiced in a common triumph. Surely, then, it is meet that in this the day of your affliction we should mingle our griefs.

Search creation round, where can you find a country that presents so sublime a view, so interesting an anticipation? Who shall say for what purpose mysterious Providence may not have designed her! Who shall say that when in its follies or its crimes, the Old World may have buried all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the New! When its temples and its trophies shall have mouldered into dust,—when the glories of its name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of its achievements live only in song, philosophy will revive again in the sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington.

Often have I swept backward, in imagination, six thousand years, and stood beside our great ancestor, as he gazed for the first time upon the going down of the sun. What strange sensations must have swept through his bewildered mind, as he watched the last departing ray of the sinking orb, unconscious whether he should ever behold its return.

Wrapped in a maze of thought, strange and startling, he suffers his eye to linger long about the point at which the sun has slowly faded from view. A mysterious darkness creeps over the face of Nature; the beautiful scenes of earth are slowly fading, one by one, from his dimmed vision.

You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of History will put Phocion for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, La Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, consummate flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown as the ripe fruit of our noonday, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L’Ouverture.

Figure to yourself a cataract like that of Niagara, poured in foaming grandeur, not merely over one great precipice of two hundred feet, but over the successive ridgy precipices of two or three thousand, in the face of a mountain eleven thousand feet high, and tumbling, crashing, thundering down with a continuous din of far greater sublimity than the sound of the grandest cataract. The roar of the falling mass begins to be heard the moment it is loosened from the mountain; it pours on with the sound of a vast body of rushing water; then comes the first great concussion, a booming crash of thunders, breaking on the still air in mid-heaven; your breath is suspended, and you listen and look; the mighty glittering mass shoots headlong over the main precipice, and the fall is so great that it produces to the eye that impression of dread majestic slowness of which I have spoken, though it is doubtless more rapid than Niagara. But if you should see the cataract of Niagara itself coming down five thousand feet above you in the air, there would be the same impression. The image remains in the mind, and can never fade from it; it is as if you had seen an alabaster cataract from heaven. The sound is far more sublime than that of Niagara, because of the preceding stillness in those Alpine solitudes. In the midst of such silence and solemnity, from out the bosom of those glorious, glittering forms of nature, comes that rushing, crashing thunder-burst of sound! If it were not that your soul, through the eye, is as filled and fixed with the sublimity of the vision as, through the sense of hearing, with that of the audible report, methinks you would wish to bury your face in your hands, and fall prostrate, as at the voice of the Eternal.

How lovely are thy dwellings fair!

O Lord of Hosts, how dear

The pleasant tabernacles are

Where thou dost dwell so near!

My soul doth long and almost die

Thy courts, O Lord, to see,

My heart and flesh aloud do cry,

O living God, for thee.

There even the sparrow, freed from wrong,

Hath found a house of rest;

The swallow there, to lay her young,

Hath built her brooding nest;

Even by thy altars, Lord of Hosts,

They find their safe abode;

And home they fly from round the coasts

Towards thee, my King, my God.

The following will illustrate fast movement. Let there be no attempt to accelerate the speed, but let the thought and emotion themselves govern that. No examples are given to illustrate moderate time, since the student gets sufficient practice of this kind in almost everything he reads.

Gloriously, Max! gloriously! There were sixty horses in the field, all mettle to the bone; the start was a picture—away we went in a cloud—pell-mell—helter-skelter—the fools first, as usual, using themselves up. We soon pass them—first your Kitty, then my Blueskin, and Craven’s colt last. Then came the tug—Kitty skimmed the walls—Blueskin flew over the fences—the colt neck-and-neck, and half a mile to run—at last the colt balked a leap and went wild. Kitty and I had it all to ourselves—she was three lengths ahead as we breasted the last wall, six feet, if an inch, and a ditch on the other side. Now, for the first time, I gave Blueskin his head—Ha, ha! Away he flew like a thunderbolt—over went the filly—I over the same spot, leaving Kitty in the ditch—walked the steeple, eight miles in thirty minutes, and scarcely turned a hair.

Nice clothes I get, too, traipsing through weather like this! My gown and bonnet will be spoiled. Needn’t I wear ’em, then? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear ’em. No, sir! I’m not going out a dowdy to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows! it isn’t often that I step over the threshold.

Before a quarter pole was pass’d,

Old Hiram said, “He’s going fast.”

Long ere the quarter was a half,

The chuckling crowd had ceased to laugh;

Tighter his frightened jockey clung

As in a mighty stride he swung,

The gravel flying in his track,

His neck stretched out, his ears laid back,

His tail extended all the while

Behind him like a rat-tail file!

Off went a shoe,—away it spun,

Shot like a bullet from a gun;

The quaking jockey shapes a prayer

From scraps of oaths he used to swear;

He drops his whip, he drops his rein,

He clutches fiercely for the mane;

He’ll lose his hold,—he sways and reels,—

He’ll slide beneath those trampling heels!

The knees of many a horseman quake,

The flowers on many a bonnet shake,

And shouts arise from left and right,

“Stick on! stick on!” “Hould tight! hould tight!

Cling round his neck; and don’t let go,—

That pace can’t hold,—there! steady! whoa!”

Then methought I heard a mellow sound,

Gathering up from all the lower ground;

Narrowing in to where they sat assembled,

Low voluptuous music winding trembled,

Wov’n in circles. They that heard it sigh’d,

Panted hand-in-hand with faces pale,

Swung themselves, and in low tones replied;

Till the fountain spouted, showering wide

Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail.

Then the music touch’d the gates and died;

Rose again from where it seem’d to fail,

Storm’d in orbs of song, a growing gale;

Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,

As ’twere a hundred-throated nightingale,

The strong tempestuous treble throbb’d and palpitated;

Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,

Caught the sparkles, and in circles,

Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,

Flung the torrent rainbow round.

Then they started from their places,

Moved with violence, changed in hue,

Caught each other with wild grimaces,

Half-invisible to the view,

Wheeling with precipitate paces

To the melody, till they flew,

Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,

Twisted hard in fierce embraces,

Like to Furies, like to Graces,

Dash’d together in blinding dew;

Till, kill’d with some luxurious agony,

The nerve-dissolving melody

Flutter’d headlong from the sky.

Let it not be supposed that any one of the foregoing extracts is to be read in uniformly slow or uniformly fast time; that will change with each variation in the importance of the thought. Without attempting to force any interpretation upon the student, an illustration is appended in which he may note how the relative importance of the ideas affects the rate of movement in the various phrases.

It must be evident that it is very difficult to suggest by a word the rate of speed at which one should render a given line. Fast and slow are relative terms. Certain speakers would consider slow reading what another would consider moderate. Yet there is on the whole a pretty general agreement as to the use of these terms. With this statement, we may proceed to an analysis of the selection to justify the marking.

The citizens of Rome have just declared to the tribunes, enemies of Caesar, why the people are making holiday: “We make holiday to see Caesar, and to rejoice in his triumph.” Whereupon Marullus, one of the tribunes, begins his speech, endeavoring to convince the mob that there is absolutely nothing Caesar has done to merit this ovation. After the word “tributaries,” the time is accelerated for the reason that all that follows, to the end of the query, is virtually repetitious, being included in the idea of tributaries. The indicated marking of lines four and five needs no justification. “Knew you not Pompey?” is a question containing reproach. The latter element will tend to retard the movement. “Many a time and oft” is repetitious; he is simply reminding them of well-known facts. When the speaker reaches “yea, to chimney-tops,” the importance of the idea is at once manifest in the slower time, which continues to “arms,” when it again changes to medium and fast. The student may find it a good drill to examine the remaining lines, to see whether he agrees with or differs from the time-markings.

Thus far we have been considering the element of time without regard to details. It is now necessary to note that time may be affected in two ways: by quantity and by pause. By dwelling upon the words the time may be retarded, and the same effect may be produced by frequent or long pauses. In the former instance, the mind is dwelling upon the thought while the voice is giving it expression; and in the latter, the mind is dwelling upon the idea or the collateral thought between the words or groups. The two methods may be illustrated in the following extract: “Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” One may read this with but one pause, after “Heaven”; or he may appropriately pause after “Father,” “Heaven,” and “hallowed.”

GROUPING

Study carefully the following extract, and then read it aloud:

But when the gray dawn stole into his tent,

He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,

And took his horseman’s cloak, and left his tent,

And went abroad into the cold wet fog,

Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa’s tent.

We notice a tendency to break up the sentence into groups of varying length. This tendency is more or less instinctive; and while there may be some difference of opinion as to the number of groups, yet it must be conceded that there is a definite underlying principle, which admits of no exception. For instance, one might read the fourth line as if it were but one group; another, with virtually the same idea in mind, might divide it into two groups at the word “abroad.” On the other hand, no one would read in this way: “And went abroad into the”—“cold wet fog through”—“the dim camp to Peran-Wisa’s tent.”

Read the following sentences aloud carefully, and it will be noticed that the same principle of grouping obtains:

The star of Napoleon was just rising to its zenith as that of Washington was passing away.

The name and memory of Washington will travel with the Silver Queen of Heaven through sixty degrees of longitude, nor part company with her till she walks in her brightness through the Golden Gate of California, and passes serenely on to hold midnight court with her Australian Stars.

The reading of these illustrations shows that grouping is entirely independent of punctuation. It is true that the spoken group may coincide with the grammatical group, but that is merely an accident. We group as we do, not because of punctuation marks, but for more fundamental and less conventional reasons. The function of the punctuation mark is to assist the reader in getting the author’s thought. The following example will illustrate this:

The slaves who were in the hold of the vessel had been captured in Africa.

It is plain that the clause introduced by “who” is a restrictive one, and implies that there were other slaves on the vessel besides those mentioned. If we now insert commas after “slaves” and “vessel,” the sentence becomes equivalent to, The slaves, and they were all in the hold of the vessel, had been captured in Africa.

Note, again, how the sense would be obscured if the author had omitted the comma after “all” in this extract:

For we are all, like swimmers in the sea,

Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate.

We are not like swimmers in the sea, but poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, as swimmers in the sea are poised on waves of water.

To prove that grouping is independent of punctuation, let the student read aloud the following illustrations:

But, look you, Cassius,

The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow.

I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown; and, as I told you, he put it by once; but, for all that, to my thinking he would have had it ... and, for mine own part, I dare not laugh.

In the two preceding extracts, the reader would hardly pause after “But,” “you,” and the “and’s.”

While we are on the subject of punctuation, it may be advisable to look at a few examples in which the understanding of the force of punctuation vitally affects the reading. In these lines from Tennyson’s Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, students carelessly connect the phrase “sad and slow” with “Lead out the pageant.” As a matter of fact, a moment’s thought must show us that the opening sentence is complete in itself, and that “sad and slow” modifies “go.” A careful reading of the text would reveal this, but a mind that had been trained to observe these matters of punctuation would have observed at once that the colon separated the two ideas, and, further, that the word modified by “sad and slow” was to be sought further on. Here is the passage:

Lead out the pageant: sad and slow,

As fits a universal woe,

Let the long long procession go,

And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow,

And let the mournful martial music flow,

The last great Englishman is low.

Another passage, from The Merchant of Venice, is equally interesting and instructive. Shylock says:

Yet his means are in supposition; he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; I understand moreover upon the Rialto, he hath a third to Mexico, a fourth for England; and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad.

Seven students out of ten read the last sentence as if “hath squandered” were the verb. The comma after “hath” shows this to be a mistake, and, moreover, denotes a shade of meaning that is very significant of Shylock’s character.

The object in giving these illustrations has been to free the student from a very common misconception that the group is determined by the punctuation mark, and, further, to draw his attention to the necessity of scanning the punctuation with the utmost care. As a rule, the words are in themselves sufficient index of the author’s meaning; but, as in the cases cited, there are times when carelessness regarding punctuation leads to serious and ridiculous misunderstanding. The punctuation will make the sense clear wherever such help is necessary; but after that, as far as grouping is concerned, the student need give it no further attention. In order to impress the fact that grouping and punctuation are independent of each other, the following examples should be thoughtfully considered and then read aloud:

So every bondman in his own hand bears

The power to cancel his captivity.

And as the greatest only are,

In his simplicity sublime.

Note that “only” modifies “greatest,” and hence should be separated from “are.” If the sentence were prose, it would read, “And as only the greatest are,” in which case there would be no difficulty in the reading. As it is, we must bring out the relation by careful grouping.

The first object of a free people is the preservation of their liberty; and liberty is only to be preserved by maintaining constitutional restraints and just divisions of political power.

Soon after William H. Harrison’s nomination, a writer in one of the leading administration papers spoke of his “log cabin” and his use of “hard cider,” by way of sneer and reproach....

It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised amid the snowdrifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the smoke rose from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man’s habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada.

The following example is an excellent one to illustrate the necessity of paying careful attention to grouping:

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,

In the beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth

Rose out of Chaos.

It is to be remarked that the spirit did not teach the shepherd “in the beginning,” but “how the Heav’ns and Earth rose” in the beginning, “out of Chaos.” If we turn this last sentence into prose, it will assist us in getting the poet’s meaning and consequently in giving the correct rendition.

THE PAUSE AS AN EXPRESSIVE ELEMENT

In the study of grouping, the student noticed that the groups were separated by pauses of varying duration. It may be said that the pauses were the results of the grouping rather than that the grouping was the result of the pauses. In other words, the pause could hardly be called expressive.

We are now to study the pause as an expressive element. No definite rule can be laid down for pausing; that is determined, to a large extent, by the temperament, the nature of the thought, and the occasion. It must be borne in mind, however, that the pause is not mere silence. A very little observation will show us that while the voice ceases, the thought continues to manifest itself in pantomimic expression. What is it, then, that determines the pause? The answer has a twofold aspect. First, pausing is an instinctive process, and comes as the result of certain psychological processes. We think in ideas, not in individual words, and these ideas are separated in our minds by pauses of varying length. We do not stop to consider whether or no we shall pause between the phrases of a sentence; the pause, as has been stated, comes instinctively, and is a manifestation of psycho-psychological action. In the second place, the pause is made as the result, to a greater or less degree, of collateral thinking. In other words, any given idea may call up another train of thought, with which the mind may engage itself, and such engagement would find actual expression in the pause. It must be remembered that the collateral thinking may take the mind backward or forward. According to the amount of this collateral thinking will be the duration of the pause.

An extract from the play of Julius Caesar will illustrate this point. In the fifth act, Brutus and Cassius have taken their “everlasting farewell,” and Brutus ends the interview with these words:

Why then, lead on.—O, that a man might know

The end of this day’s business, ere it come!

But it sufficeth, that the day will end,

And then the end is known.

The first four words of this speech are addressed to the onlookers. The word “on” takes the mind of the thoughtful and considerate leader to the battlefield where the fate of Rome is to be decided. He perceives that the future of his beloved city hangs trembling in the balance. The appearance on the preceding night of the ghost of Caesar, warning him that it will see him at Philippi, fills Brutus with apprehension. And then, how many of his followers, now so ready to do battle under his standard, will, ere night, lie cold in death upon the bloody field! All this and more passes through his mind, and his solicitude and apprehension manifest themselves in his features and in his body. Then even the stoical Brutus cannot repress his anxiety, which we note in the words, “O, that a man might know.” This extract, therefore, well illustrates what was said above,—that the pause, as we here consider it, is not mere silence, but cessation of voice while the expression continues in the body. In the second place, it is plain that the collateral thinking determines the length of the pause.

Another element that determines the duration of the pause is the distance apart of the thoughts separated by the pause. Let us illustrate this:

If this law were put upon our statute books there would not be, five years from to-day, a dissenting voice raised against it from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Let it not be understood that there are no occasions when the phrase “from the Atlantic to the Pacific” would not be uttered with scarcely any pause after Atlantic. This phrase, and others like it, may have become a mere commonplace to describe extent; but in such a passage as the above, where the speaker is hyperbolically expressive, he no doubt intends to convey the idea that not one objection would be heard even in all the three thousand miles between the oceans. If the student will stop for a moment to analyze his own consciousness while uttering this sentence, he will scarcely fail to see the vast extent of territory separating the two oceans.

Many writers on the subject have given emotion as a reason for the pause. Strictly speaking, however, emotion, as distinct from thinking, seldom or never is the cause of the pause, unless it completely choke the utterance. In the example quoted above from Julius Caesar there is no doubt considerable emotion during the pause; but it is the thought, and not the emotion arising out of it, that leads to the silence.

The following excerpt is from the speech of Satan in Paradise Lost. Satan has been cursing his lot and the author of his punishment. Finally, his judgment tells him that he himself, and not God, is responsible for the downfall. The pauses, indicated by the vertical lines, are suggestive of the proper rendition. Of course, the pauses vary in duration from the briefest cessation of voice to pauses of considerable length:

Nay, | curs’d be thou; | since against his | thy will

Chose freely | what it now | so justly rues.

Me | miserable! which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath, | and infinite despair? |

Which way I fly | is Hell; | myself | am Hell;

And in the lowest deep | a lower deep |

Still threat’ning to devour me | opens wide |

To which the Hell I suffer | seems a Heav’n.

But say I could repent | and could obtain |

By act of grace | my former state, | how soon

Would height | recall high thoughts, | how soon unsay |

What feign’d submission | swore.

This | knows my punisher; therefore | as far

From granting | he, as I | from begging | peace.

The student should practice the following examples until he perceives clearly the force of the preceding principles. The group is the thought unit, and the proper rendition of the sentence depends upon our grasp of the units that compose it. Hence, a conscientious study of the phrasing will lead not only to careful grouping, but to a grasp of the thought in its entirety that cannot fail to affect for good the reading of the whole selection:

... and there were drawn

Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women

Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw

Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.

He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.

Those that with haste will make a mighty fire

Begin it with weak straws.

A piece of work that will make sick men whole.

Danger knows full well

That Caesar is more dangerous than he.

We are two lions litter’d in one day,

And I the elder and more terrible.

No more in soldier fashion will he greet

With lifted hand the gazer in the street.

Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court

My mansion is, where those immortal shapes

Of bright aerial spirits lived inspher’d

In regions mild of calm and serene air.

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

And the sunset paled and warmed once more

With a softer, tenderer afterglow;

In the east was moonrise with boats off-shore;

And sails in the distance drifting slow.

O may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In the minds made better by their presence:

Moses, who spake with God as with his friend,

And ruled his people with the twofold power

Of wisdom that can dare and still be meek,

Was writing his last word, the sacred name

Unutterable of that Eternal Will

Which was and is and evermore shall be.

We stood far off and saw the angels lift

His corpse aloft until they seemed a star

That burnt itself away within the sky.

Messer Bernado del Nero was as inexorable as Romola had expected in his advice that the marriage should be deferred till Easter, and in this matter Bardo was entirely under the ascendency of his sagacious and practical friend. Nevertheless, Bernado himself, though he was as far as ever from any susceptibility to the personal fascination in Tito which was felt by others, could not altogether resist that argument of success which is always powerful with men of the world.

Some of the softening effects of advancing age have struck me very much in what I have heard or seen here and elsewhere. I just now spoke of the sweetening process that authors undergo. Do you know that in the gradual passage from maturity to helplessness the harshest characters sometimes have a period in which they are gentle and placid as young children? I have heard it said, but I cannot be sponsor for its truth, that the famous chieftain, Lochiel, was rocked in a cradle like a baby, in his old age. An old man, whose studies had been of the severest scholastic kind, used to love to hear little nursery stories read over and over to him. One who saw the Duke of Wellington in his last years describes him as very gentle in his aspect and demeanor. I remember a person of singularly stern and lofty bearing who became remarkably gracious and easy in all his ways in the later period of his life.

Whatever Lionel had said to his wife that evening she had found something to say to him: that Laura could see though not so much from any change in the simple expression of his little red face and in the vain bustle of his existence as from the grand manner in which Selina now carried herself. She was “smarter” than ever and her waist was smaller and her back straighter and the fall of her shoulders finer; her long eyes were more oddly charming and the extreme detachment of her elbows from her sides conduced still more to the exhibition of her beautiful arms.

At the moment when death so suddenly stayed his course the greatness of Henry the Fifth had reached its highest point. He had won the Church by his orthodoxy, the nobles by his warlike prowess, the whole people by his revival of the glories of Crecy and Poitiers. In France his cool policy had transformed him from a foreign conqueror into a legal heir to the crown; his title of Regent and of successor to the throne rested on the formal recognition of the estates of the realm; and his progress to the very moment of his death promised a speedy mastery of the whole country. But the glory of Agincourt and the genius of Henry the Fifth hardly veiled at the close of his reign the weakness and humiliation of the Crown when the succession passed to his infant son.

PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS

From what has been stated, it must be clear that drills in fast time or slow time are useless and fraught with much danger of affectation. Any of us can read slowly or rapidly; that is merely a matter of mechanics. The object to be attained is the development of such power of discrimination in the child that the value of each phrase and sentence shall be carefully determined; and then the degree of extent, depth, sublimity or grandeur of the thought will determine the rate of movement. Training in Time for its own sake is valueless. From the very beginning, the teacher must use Time as a test, as a standard of criticism; and all corrections must be made with a clear perception on the part of the teacher of the psychology of Time. If a child read too rapidly, it is because his mind is not sufficiently occupied with the thought; if he read too slowly, it is because he does not get the words; or because he is temperamentally slow; or because, and this is the most likely explanation, he is making too much of a small idea.

The only excuse for drills in Time is when a pupil reads everything at about the same rate. In such a case, in the upper grades, the teacher may choose certain selections for the proper expression of which approximately fast or slow movement, as the case may be, would be required. Then let the teacher, through careful analysis and question, lead the child to understand the passages as the teacher understands them, and the proper rate of utterance will follow. This process may seem slow; but let us bear in mind that we are dealing with fundamental principles of thinking, and too much time cannot be spent in building our foundations strong and solid. Furthermore, if the rate of utterance is not the instinctive manifestation of the child’s thought measurement, it is nothing at all. To tell him to read fast or slowly is but to make him affected, and incidentally, even if unconsciously, to impress upon him that reading is a matter of mechanics and not of thought-getting and thought-giving.

In order to teach grouping, various rules have been laid down. Pupils have committed a long list of these without much practical benefit. A few of these rules are given to show the mechanical nature of such a method of teaching. “In every direct period, the principal pause comes at that part where the sense begins to form, or the expectation excited by the first member begins to be answered.” Or, “A loose sentence requires a longer pause between its first member (usually a period direct or inverted), and the additional member which does not modify it.” And, again, “Where the adjective follows the substantive or noun it modifies, and has modifiers of its own, constituting a descriptive phrase, it should be separated from its noun by a short pause.” Now, it may be quite true that these rules are valid, but is it not clear that the pedagogy which makes use of them in the earlier stages approaches the subject from the wrong side? It lays stress upon the objective rather than upon the subjective aspect.

The pause should never be taught merely as pause. If the principles herein discussed have any meaning, they must surely teach us that the pause must come spontaneously. The pedagogic point to be remembered is that the pupil must be trained to extract the thought piece by piece, and to express it. The pause will then appear without consciousness. The attempt to teach pauses as such must result in mechanical silences, during which the face of the pupil is a perfect blank, the indubitable sign of mental blankness.

It should certainly now be clear that it is wrong to draw the attention of the pupil to the pause as such, and that it is useless and often misleading to give him at the beginning rules of pausing. We must approach the printed page in the spirit with which we approach one who is speaking to us, and, having grasped the meaning, repeat the ideas. Then the pauses will come as the unconscious expression of certain definite mental action.

Perhaps there is no better way of bringing home to the reader the psychological action lying behind grouping and pausing than by calling his attention to a chapter from a brief but most attractive work by Ernest Legouvé, of the Conservatoire Française:

To conclude what we have to say on the first portion of our subject, the material part of reading, we must now occupy ourselves a little with what may be called punctuation.

The tongue punctuates as well as the pen.

One day, Samson, sitting at his desk, sees himself approached by a young man apparently pretty well satisfied with himself.

“You wish to take reading lessons, sir?”

“Yes, Monsieur Samson.”

“Have you had some practice in reading aloud?”

“O yes, Monsieur Samson, I have often recited whole passages from Corneille and Molière.”

“In public?”

“Yes, Monsieur Samson.”

“With success?”

“Well, yes, Monsieur, I think I may flatter myself that far.”

“Take up that book, please. It is Fontaine’s Fables. Open it at the Oak and the Reed. Let me hear you read a line or two.”

The pupil begins:

“The Oak one day, said to the Reed——”

“That’s enough, sir! You don’t know anything about reading!”

“It is because I don’t know much, Monsieur Samson,” replies the pupil, a little nettled, “it is precisely because I don’t know much that I’ve come to you for lessons. But I don’t exactly comprehend how from my manner of reading a single verse——”

“Read the line again, sir.”

He reads it again:

“The Oak one day, said to the Reed——”

“There! You can’t read! I told you so!”

“But——”

“But,” interrupts Samson, cold and dry, “but why do you join the adverb to the noun rather than to the verb? What kind of an Oak is an Oak one day? No kind at all! There is no such tree! Why, then, do you say: the Oak one day, said to the Reed? This is the way it should go: the Oak (comma) one day said to the Reed. You understand, of course?”

“Certainly I do,” replies the other, a new light breaking on him. “It seems as if there should be an invisible comma after Oak!”

“You are right, sir,” continues the master. “Every passage has a double set of punctuation marks, one visible, the other invisible; one is the printer’s work, the other the reader’s.”

“The reader’s? Does the reader also punctuate?”

“Certainly he does, quite independently too of the printer’s points, though it must be acknowledged that sometimes both coincide. By a certain cadenced silence the reader marks his period; by a half silence, his comma; by a certain accent, an interrogation; by a certain tone, an exclamation. And I must assure you that it is exclusively on the skillful distribution of these insensible points that not only the interest of the story, but actually its clearness, its comprehensibility, altogether depends.”

[CHAPTER II]
THE CRITERION OF PITCH

The second criterion is that of Pitch. By Pitch is meant everything that has to do with the acuteness or gravity of the tone,—in other words, with keys, melodies, inflections and modulations. Again we are indebted to Professor Raymond for a clear statement regarding this most subtle of all the elements of expression. His words are as follows: “The melody of the movement taken by the voice represents, therefore, like the melody in music, the mind’s motive,—indicates its purpose in using the particular phraseology to which the melody is applied; and because pitch, through the kinds of inflections and melody chosen, reveals the motives, we shall find that the use of this element in ordinary conversation is constantly causing precisely the same phraseology to express entirely opposite meanings.” Before proceeding further, it may be well to illustrate this principle, in order that the reader may follow more clearly the subsequent discussion.

Let us suppose some one to ask the question, “Do you think Mr. Jones is a good teacher?” and that the reply is given, “Oh, yes,” with a melody that virtually says, “Oh, I suppose so; he is not a very great teacher; in fact, there are many things about his teaching that might be a great deal better, but he manages to get along.” Now, all of this paraphrase, which reveals the motive, is manifested in the significant melody upon the two words, “Oh, yes.” Let us suppose further that a few days later Mr. Jones comes to us and calls us to account for speaking disparagingly of his teaching. “What,” we reply, “we say anything against your teaching! Why, when Smith asked us whether we considered you a good teacher, we said in the most unequivocal manner, ‘Oh, yes’!” And this time we utter the words with strong, positive assertiveness. The words in both cases are the same, but the different melodies indicate entirely opposite motives behind the words.

Read aloud such a sentence as, “John rode to the park last Christmas,” changing the meaning by transferring the significant inflection successively to all the important words, thus:

John rode to the park last Christmas.

John rode to the park last Christmas.

John rode to the park last Christmas, etc.

Does it not appear that, with each change in the motive, the melody changes?

We often hear it said that in such cases as the last we have been changing the emphasis. This is true. But emphasis is a broad term, and one often confused with force. As a matter of fact, the changes in the successive readings were changes of melody due in every case to changes of motive.

Again, “When we are in our graves our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivities, with bonfires, with joy.” The inflections on the last four nouns would probably be falling. Why? Because each would be held to be of sufficient importance to be emphasized by itself, and cut off from the others. To read them with rising inflections would be to manifest the fact that the mind was thinking of them in the aggregate. Once again, the melody shows the motive.

The melody is an indubitable sign of the discriminative ability of the reader. It is the severest test of his power to perceive sense, or logical, relations. So important a feature of the work is this that it appears necessary to emphasize it and to illustrate it in many ways.

Bassanio desires to show his love for Antonio. He says:

Antonio, I am married to a wife,

Which is as dear to me as life itself;

But life itself, my wife, and all the world,

Are not with me esteem’d above thy life:

I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all

Here to this devil, to deliver you.

It is evident that he does not wish to assert that he is married, nor that he is married to a wife; but that he is married to a wife as dear as life itself. And yet many a pupil reads the passage as if Bassanio were desirous of insisting upon the fact that he is married to a wife. Not a very remarkable condition of affairs, truly. It is no argument to say that the comma after “wife” indicates the necessity of a rising inflection on that word. As has been already intimated, and as will be later developed, the punctuation has nothing to do with the inflection.

Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate,

Sullen and silent and disconsolate.

Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear,

With look bewildered, and a vacant stare,

Close shaven above the ears, as monks are shorn,

By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn,

His only friend the ape, his only food

What others left,—he still was unsubdued.

In the preceding passage, note that from the third line to the clause at the end of the sentence the mind is glancing forward, and this fact will be evident in the rising inflection at the end of every important statement. Notice, further, that all of these statements will be uttered in what is virtually the same melody. The reason for this is that they are co-ordinate, and having the same motive behind them will be read with the same melody.

Observe the different melodies in the following sentences, and how the difference manifests the varying motive:

I said one, two, three, four, five.
I said one, two, three, four, five.
I said one, two, three, four, five.
I said one, two, three, four, five.
I said one, two, three, four, five.

When Mark Antony uses the phrase, “honorable men,” in the beginning of his oration, there can be no doubt that he avoids even the slightest indication of sarcasm in his voice. Whatever his ultimate purpose may be, his immediate intention is to conciliate the mob. This purpose, his motive, is shown by the unequivocal melody with which he says:

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,—

For Brutus is an honorable man,

So are they all, all honorable men,—

Come I to speak on Caesar’s funeral.

It is hardly necessary to consider this aspect farther. Let us, however, examine the subject in detail. The first consideration is that of Key. Key has been defined as “the fundamental tone of a movement to which its modulations are referred, and with which it generally begins and ends; keynote.” (Webster.) Perhaps the meaning of the current phrases “high key” and “low key” will make the definition clear. When we say of one that he speaks in a high key, we should be understood as meaning that his pitch is prevailingly high; and that the reverse is true when we say of one that he speaks in a low key. While it is true that the key differs in individuals, yet experience shows that within a note or two we all use the same keys in expressing the same states of minds. The question for us is, What determines the key? It can be set down as a fixed principle that controlled mental states are expressed in the low keys, while the high keys are the manifestation of the less controlled mental conditions.[1] This principle will be more readily understood when we consider the states finding expression in low or high key in music. We should hardly awaken much enthusiasm by playing Yankee Doodle in a key an octave below that in which it is written; nor should we catch the subtle meaning of Chopin’s Funeral March if it were played in a key an octave higher than the original key. Let the reader study the spirit of the following extracts, and read them aloud. He will find in such practice the best proof of the truth of the principle we are here discussing:

Over his keys the musing organist,

Beginning doubtfully and far away,

First lets his fingers wander as they list,

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:

Then, as the touch of his loved instrument

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,

First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent

Along the wavering vista of his dream.

—The Vision of Sir Launfal. Lowell.

It is but a legend, I know,—

A fable, a phantom, a show,

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;

Yet the old mediæval tradition,

The beautiful, strange superstition,

But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night,

And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars,

Among them majestic is standing

Sandalphon the angel, expanding

His pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a part

Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,

The frenzy and fire of the brain,

That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,

The golden pomegranates of Eden,

To quiet its fever and pain.

—Sandalphon. Longfellow.

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguished; and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless; and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came, and went,—and came, and brought no day.

The world was void;

The populous and the powerful was a lump,—

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless,—

A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.

The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still;

And nothing stirred within their silent depths:

Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea;

And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropped,

They slept on the abyss without a surge;—

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave;

The moon, their mistress, had expired before;

The winds were withered in the stagnant air;

And the clouds perished: Darkness had no need

Of aid from them, She—was the universe.

—Darkness. Byron.

A fool, a fool!—I met a fool i’ th’ forest,

A motley fool;—a miserable world!—

As I do live by food, I met a fool;

Who laid him down, and bask’d him in the sun,

And rail’d on lady Fortune in good terms,

In good set terms,—and yet a motley fool.

“Good morrow, fool,” quoth I; “No, sir,” quoth he,

“Call me not fool, till heav’n hath sent me fortune;”

And then he drew a dial from his poke:

And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,

Says, very wisely, “It is ten o’clock;

Thus may we see,” quoth he, “how the world wags;

’Tis but an hour ago, since it was nine;

And after one hour more ’twill be eleven;

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,

And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot,

And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear

The motley fool thus moral on the time,

My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,

That fools should be so deep contemplative.

And I did laugh, sans intermission

An hour by his dial. O noble fool!

A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.

—As You Like It, Act ii., Sc. 7.

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee

Jest, and youthful jollity,

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,

Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,

And love to dwell in dimple sleek;

Come, and trip it as ye go,

On the light fantastic toe.

—L’Allegro. Milton.

Where sweeps round the mountains

The cloud on the gale,

And streams from their fountains

Leap into the vale,—

Like frighted deer leap when

The storm with his pack

Rides over the steep in

The wild torrent’s track,—

Even there my free home is;

There watch I the flocks

Wander white as the foam is

In stairways of rocks.

Secure in the gorge there

In freedom we sing,

And laugh at King George, where

The eagle is king.

—Song. T. B. Read.

The reason for low pitch or high pitch is psycho-physiological. Nerve tension means muscular tension, and, since the muscles controlling the vocal chords are subject to the same laws as the other muscles, the greater the tension the higher the pitch. Hence, since what we have called the controlled states are accompanied by relatively low muscular tension, it necessarily follows that they will be expressed in relatively low keys.

The desire to communicate thought to another has a tendency to raise the key. To illustrate: if we are addressing an audience in a small room, we shall speak in a moderately low key. If the auditorium is large, the key will be higher. If we are speaking in the open air, the chances are that we shall use a key considerably above that of ordinary conversation. On the other hand, when one is communing with himself, the absence of desire to reach others removes the tension, and in consequence the pitch is low. It is well to bear in mind that all soliloquies are not read in low key. Soliloquies are often full of uncontrolled passion, in which case the principle first laid down would apply, and the pitch would be high, according to the degree of tension. What has been said in this paragraph we may sum up in a few words: those states in which there is strong desire to communicate (objective states) are manifested in high key; while the introspective (subjective) states find expression in the lower keys. Henry V., inciting his soldiers to attack the enemy’s fortifications, says:

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-favor’d rage:

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let it pry through the portage of the head,

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it,

As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock

O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;

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!—

---

The game’s afoot;

Follow your spirit: and, upon this charge,

Cry—God for Harry! England! and Saint George!

—Henry V., Act iii., Sc. 1.

The tension of the speaker is evidently high, owing to the exhilaration of the moment, and to the desire to project his voice (of which he may be unconscious), and consequently the key will be high. It is the joy of the English people that Tennyson voices in his Welcome to Alexandra. Again the key is relatively high.

Sea-kings’ daughter from over the sea, Alexandra!

Saxon and Norman and Dane are we,

But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee, Alexandra!

Welcome her, thunders of fort and of fleet!

Welcome her, thundering cheer of the street!

Welcome her, all things youthful and sweet,

Scatter the blossoms under her feet!

Break, happy land, into earlier flowers!

Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers!

Blazon your mottoes of blessing and prayer!

Welcome her, welcome her, all that is ours!

Warble, O bugle, and trumpet, blare!

Flags, flutter out upon turrets and towers!

Flames, on the windy headland flare!

Utter your jubilee, steeple and spire!

Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air!

Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire!

Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and higher

Melt into stars for the land’s desire!

Roll and rejoice, jubilant voice,

Roll as a ground-swell dashed on the strand,

Roar as the sea when it welcomes the land,

And welcome her, welcome the land’s desire,

The sea-kings’ daughter as happy as fair,

Blissful bride of a blissful heir,

Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea.

O joy to the people and joy to the throne,

Come to us, love us, and make us your own;

For Saxon or Dane or Norman we,

Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be,

We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee, Alexandra!

—Welcome to Alexandra. Tennyson.

Hamlet’s soliloquy will find expression in moderately low key when one grasps the idea that Hamlet is meditating upon:

To be, or not to be,—that is the question;

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die,—to sleep,—

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die,—to sleep;—

To sleep! perchance to dream!—ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus made

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,—

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

No traveler returns,—puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

—Hamlet, Act iii., Sc. 1.

The following lines are delivered by Hamlet when he appreciates the fact that while his father’s blood cries out for vengeance he stands idle, beset by doubts and fears. The speech is a soliloquy, but it would be rendered in a moderately high pitch owing to the mental tension of the speaker:

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous, that this player here,

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his own conceit,

That from her working all his visage wann’d;

Tears in his eyes, distraction in ’s aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!

For Hecuba!

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do,

Had he the motive and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;

Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,

Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed

The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,

Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,

And can say nothing; no, not for a king

Upon whose property and most dear life

A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?

Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by th’ nose? gives me the lie i’ the throat,

As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?

Ha!

’Swounds, I should take it; for it cannot be

But I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall

To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,

I should have fatted all the region kites

With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

O vengeance!

—Hamlet, Act ii., Sc. 2.

The principle just discussed,—that key depends on the degree of tension, first mental, then physical,—is of very wide application. As a matter of fact, it explains the whole subject of melody. In passing from a controlled to a less controlled state, the voice rises, and vice versa. To illustrate: Brutus says to Cassius, “You yourself are much condemned to have an itching palm”; and Cassius replies, “I an itching palm!” On the word “I” the voice of Cassius strikes upward through, perhaps, an octave of the scale, and this inflection manifests the increasing tension of Cassius’ mind as he utters the exclamation. It is almost impossible to restrain the tension of throat and hand while reading the passage. Note how the muscular tension increases while one is speaking the words of Cassius. Bearing in mind what has been said of the relation of bodily tension to pitch, the explanation of Cassius’ inflection will not be far to seek. Again, Brutus says, “The name of Cassius honors this corruption, and chastisement doth therefore hide his head.” Cassius replies in one word, “Chastisement.” There are two interpretations of this word: one, that Cassius replies, as if questioning, “Do you dare say this to me?” and the other, that, astounded at the bluntness of Brutus’s speech, Cassius replies, speaking to himself, “He dared speak of chastisement to me!” In the first case the inflection would be rising, denoting the increase of tension; in the second case, the inflection would be falling, marking a gradual decrease of tension. Let the reader experiment on this example, and observe how the mental tension corresponds with the physical tension.

The melody in which any phrase or sentence is given consists of a series of waves, the crests of which mark the maximum of tension. It is a difficult matter to indicate speech melody, but it is hoped the following illustrations will be at least sufficiently suggestive to make clear the psychology of melody. In the following sentence there is a gradual ascent of the voice, since the intensity increases from the first word to the end.

Came I not forth upon thy pledge my father’s hand to kiss?

Again, we have a very similar melody in this:

Would you wrest the wreath of fame

From the hand of fate?

The descending melody, denoting that the maximum of tension is at the beginning of the sentence, is found in the following:

All gloom, all silence, all despair!

“Dead” marks the crest of the wave of tension in the following. Observe how the melody rises to that word and descends after it:

As vapors breathed from dungeons cold strike pleasure dead,
So sadness breathes from out the mould where Burns is laid.

For those who have no musical ear, it may be somewhat difficult to catch these speech melodies. But, fortunately, in most cases, an acute musical ear is not necessary. Melody takes care of itself. When we have determined the principal word in each phrase, the melody will rise or fall from that without any effort on our part. And furthermore, even those without an ear for tune recognize instinctively the appropriateness of a given melody which they may be unable to analyze in detail. Nevertheless, the ability to analyze speech tunes is a great aid to the teacher; and it is to be hoped that the foregoing explanation will materially assist him in his work of developing the logical acumen of his class.

Melody is made up of skips and inflections. The inflection needs no definition; the skip is simply a discreet passage from one note to another. As the violinist draws his bow over the string and simultaneously runs his finger up or down the string, we have the analogy of the inflection. The pianist cannot do more than skip from one note to another, although there is an approximation to the glide, or inflection, in legato playing. The skip is found in such a sentence as this:

Give Brutus a statue with his ancestors?

The psychology of the skip is precisely that of the inflection, i. e., transition from less to more tension, or the reverse. In such an exclamation as, “Thou tattered upstart!” it is next to impossible to use the wide rising inflection that would be natural on the first syllable of “upstart,” owing to the nature of the syllable. Hence, there would be a skip between “up” and “start.” But let it be carefully observed that, including the skip, the voice traverses exactly the interval it would have passed through had it been possible to use one inflection, as, for instance, on “boy” in “Thou tattered boy!” Our attention may now be turned to inflections.

Inflections are not a matter of accident, nor are they a conventional device. Their meaning is definite and fixed, and their force instinctively recognized by all. Although we do not stop to analyze them, they convey to all alike a distinct shade of thought. And further, the same shade of thought will always find expression through the same inflections. We must bear in mind that it is not claimed that all will be moved in the same way by the same stimulus, nor that all will take the same meaning from a given passage. What is claimed is, that the same purpose will find expression, with all, in fundamentally the same melody (of which inflections form the larger part). If this were not so, how should we understand one another? We discern a speaker’s purpose quite as much in his melody as in his words. For example, if one were to ask, “Are you going out?” with the object of acquiring information, he would use instinctively a rising inflection on “out.” If he were surprised at our intention to go out, he would use a wider rising inflection. And if he had asked the question several times without receiving a reply, and were now insisting on an answer (his motive now being to assert his right to an answer) he would use a wide downward inflection on “out.” And so should we all under like conditions, and the meaning of all would be alike understood by all. We need enlarge no further on this. Let it suffice that if given inflections had not always the same meaning and were not always instinctively used to express the same purpose, conversation would be impossible.

The rising inflection is the sign of incomplete sense. Whenever the mind points forward the significant inflection is upward. Test this in the following illustrations. The rising inflection will be particularly noticed on the italicized words, which are not necessarily to be strongly emphasized:

In 1815 M. Charles Myriel was the bishop of D——. He was a man of about seventy-five years of age, and had held the see of D—— since 1806. Although the following details in no way affect our narrative, it may not be useless to quote the rumors that were current about him at the moment when he came to the diocese; for what is said of men, whether it be true or false, often occupies as much space in their life, and especially in their destiny,[2] as what they do.

The beams of the rising sun had gilded the lofty domes of Carthage, and given, with its rich and mellow light, a tinge of beauty even to the frowning ramparts of the outer harbor.

When, for any reason, we do not desire to assert strongly; when what we have to say is trite, trivial, repetitious; when we are uncertain or doubtful; when we entreat; when we ask a question to which the answer yes or no is expected, we also use the rising inflection.

I do not claim this is the only method.

I cannot promise definitely, but I think you may rely upon getting it.

I shall wait for you in the lobby, if you don’t tarry too long.

It doesn’t look like rain, does it?

There are some arguments in its favor, but they are not weighty.

No, nobody claims that.

I grant I may have taken the honorable gentleman by surprise.

I cannot tell what you and other men

Think of this life, but, for my single self,

I had as lief not be as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.

I do not charge the gentleman with wilful misstatement, but I would rather say he is a great economizer of the truth.

I do not like to think that the opposition is purposely delaying the vote on this question.

Never fear that: if he be so resolved,

I can o’ersway him.

You won’t leave me, father.

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny!

O, Hamlet, speak no more.

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man.

It would be idle to base an opinion on any argument of Mr. Webster.

O, that is of no consequence; you don’t believe that.

It is hardly necessary for me to go over the charges of the attorney for the plaintiff; they are trivial and unimportant.

It goes without saying that you know the early history of these people.

There are very few who haven’t a bowing acquaintance with this subject.

You know me well, and herein spend but time

To wind about my love with circumstance.

Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

It is not that I doubt the gentleman’s honesty, but that I question his authority.

It was at the end of the war that this incident occurred; not at the beginning.

Uncertainty, confusion, hesitation, and other forms of doubt, are really questions,—the mind seeking solution of difficult and perplexing problems.

I wish I could find some way out of this, but—

There ought to be some other method of solving this difficulty: let me see, let me see.

I would I had been there.

Are you the owner of this house?

Can you tell me what time it is?

Care must be taken not to confuse this form of interrogation with Figurative Interrogation. The latter is often strongly assertive. For instance:

God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

This is equivalent to asking a question and answering it at the same time. It asks in words, “was ever?” It answers in inflection, “there never was.” Grammatically, then, it is a question; rhetorically, it is an exclamation. Here is another form of Figurative Interrogation:

Are you going out? (No answer.) Are you going out? (I demand an answer.)

In this case, the second question becomes a demand. The speaker cares for an answer not so much because of any interest in it as such, but because he desires his authority respected.

The following examples of Figurative Interrogation should be carefully studied:

Is there a single atrocity of the French more unprincipled and inhuman than that of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in Poland?

Did he not know that he was making history that hour? Did he not know this, I say?

If I were to propose three cheers for Washington, is there a single man, woman, or child in this vast audience who would refuse to lift his voice?

Have you, gentlemen of the jury, considered the price the state asks the prisoner to pay for what is only an indiscretion at most? I repeat, have you considered the price?

Has the gentleman done? Has he completely done?

A very interesting psychological question arises in connection with Figurative Interrogation. It has been shown how the grammatical question becomes an oratorical assertion; but there is a point in assertion beyond which it may pass and become an intense emotional question. In this sentence, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” we have an illustration. There are three possibilities here. First: a simple question looking for information. Second: an exclamation equivalent to, Who does not know that the Judge of all the earth shall do right? Third: a skeptical question (with considerable emotion) is it possible that any one would deny that the Judge of all the earth shall do right?

It would be easy to multiply examples and make many refinements of this principle underlying the use of the rising inflection. A careful study, however, of those given should suffice to impress upon the reader that the rising inflection will be given whenever for any reason whatsoever there is no desire to assert.

Incompleteness (implied or otherwise) is marked by the rising inflection; completeness by the falling. We are all aware that the falling inflection marks completed sense, so that this principle will require neither elaboration nor illustration. Attention must be called, however, to the fact that we often assert strongly in the middle of a sentence. This phase of the subject has been so well described by another[3] that we quote as follows:

“Momentary Completeness.—This applies to any clause, phrase, or even word, which has, for any reason, enough separate force to constitute, at the moment, an entire thought, and to call for a separate affirmation of the mind. This momentary completeness may arise:

“1. From the logical importance of the clause, phrase, or word requiring a strong affirmative emphasis.

“2. From an elliptical construction—one in which each part could be reasonably expanded into a complete proposition.

“Example of 1 would be this sentence from Webster:

It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force.

“Here the ideas of spontaneity, originality, nativeness, are each so important to the thought that the mind is called upon to make a separate affirmation upon each one.

“Examples of 2 are found in some of the connected clauses in this passage from Byron’s Dream of Darkness:

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars

Did wander, darkling, in the eternal space,

Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.

Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light.

“The ‘loose’ sentence presents a typical case of momentary completeness, each added clause or element giving a separate, subjoined thought.

“In the following cases the period mark inclosed in brackets, [.], indicates the place at which the sentence might close; and the words in parentheses are those which might be supplied in constructing separate complete propositions. The reconstruction suggests the probable process of thought.

The next day he voted for that repeal [.], and he would have spoken for it too [.], if an illness had not prevented it.

The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery—that it is legal slavery, will be no compensation, either to his feelings or his understanding.

“The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery [.]. (The mere fact) that it is legal slavery will (in his estimation) be no compensation (at all). (It will not be (in any degree) satisfactory) either to his feelings or his understanding.

“Completeness is marked in the voice by a falling slide; that indicating finality usually descends at least a fifth (from sol down to do), and is preceded by a more or less distinct rising melody. This cadential melody may carry the voice so high in pitch that the falling slide will be as great as an octave. The indication of momentary completeness is also a falling slide, varying in extent from a third to a fifth, but not so marked as that of finality, and usually not preceded by any special rising melody.

“In the following example note momentary completeness on ‘man,’ ‘woman,’ ‘child,’ and finality on the climacteric word ‘beast.’ Thus:

They saw not one màn, not one wòman, not one chìld,
not one four footed beast.

“It is especially important to study the relation of momentary completeness in connection with dependent clauses. As a rule, a definitive clause does not stand in the relation of momentary completeness, but in that of subordination or anticipation. A supplemental clause, on the other hand, is distinctively complete. This relation is not always shown, either by the punctuation, or by exact use of relative pronouns. In strictness, ‘who’ and ‘which’, as already said, should always mark supplemental relations; ‘that,’ definitive. Considerations of euphony, however, often overrule grammatical and rhetorical principles. The problem in regard to dependent clauses is; to decide whether the subordinate clause contains additional thought, or only modifying thought. The best practical test will be found in paraphrasing. If a dependent clause is truly definitive, it may be reduced to a brief element,—often to a single word, which may be incorporated in the first clause.

Example.—Lafayette was intrusted by Washington with all kinds of services ... the laborious and complicated, which required skill and patience; the perilous, that demanded nerve.—Everett.

“In this example, it is obvious that the clause introduced by ‘which’ and the one beginning with ‘that’ stand in precisely the same relation, the change being made for euphony. It is obvious also that both dependent clauses are supplemental rather than definitive. In both of these clauses, therefore, there is an added thought, and this gives the relation of momentary completeness at the words ‘complicated’ and ‘perilous.’

“The ear, under the guidance of the logical and rhetorical insight, gives a much more sensitive and more accurate punctuation than can be indicated by printer’s marks or grammarian’s rules. Not the words, nor the grammatical elements, nor the customary and traditional rendering, determine grouping or inflection, but rather the speaker’s immediate purpose at the moment of the utterance.

“The principle of momentary completeness is strikingly exemplified in the case of a ‘division of the question’ in parliamentary proceedings. Division is called for because each item is considered as separately important enough to demand the entire attention. The same is often true in the announcement of a proposition containing several different elements, or of a text of Scripture suggesting many separate thoughts.”

It need hardly be said that the rule so often given, that “the voice should rise at a comma,” is ridiculous. It often does, it is true,—not because of the comma, but because of the motive.

The purpose of the following drills is not to train the student in the manner of making inflections, but rather to impress upon his mind the fact that rhetorically a sentence may be complete even though the point of completion be not marked by a full stop. In other words, the drill is one in mental, rather than vocal, technique.

The student must determine the purpose in every case, and then trust his voice to manifest that purpose.

Hence! home,[4] you idle creatures, get you home.

Speak, what trade art thou?

Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things.

Many a time and oft

Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops.

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

---

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.

Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague

That needs must light on this ingratitude.

Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion;

By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried

Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.

I was born free as Caesar, so were you;

We both have fed as well, and we can both

Endure the winter’s cold as well as he.

His coward lips did from their color fly,

And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world

Did lose his lustre.

Ye gods, it doth amaze me,

A man of such a feeble temper should

---

... bear the palm alone.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Let me have men about me that are fat,

Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights.

Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort,

As if he mocked himself.

Such men as he be never at heart’s ease

Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,

And therefore are they very dangerous.

Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,

And tell me truly what thou think’st of him.

Why, there was a crown offered him; and, being offered him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus.

I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it; it was mere foolery, I did not mark it.

You look pale, and gaze,

And put on fear, and case yourself in wonder,

To see the strange impatience of the heavens.

Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.

How that might change his nature, there’s the question.

But when he once attains the upmost round

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend.

... let us not break with him,

For he will never follow anything

That other men begin.

It is often a matter of judgment whether we shall interpret a phrase as momentarily complete or as pointing forward, incomplete. Sometimes either interpretation would be acceptable, but, as a rule, one conveys the author’s intention better than the other. For instance, in the following extract from The American Indian, the author says:

As a race they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs have dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast fading to the untrodden West.

It seems clear that in the second sentence the author is not enumerating minor details which form one larger whole, but that each statement is a sentence complete in itself, and so important that spontaneously we separate it from the others not merely by a pause but by a downward inflection.

If we were saying to another, “I bought my children firecrackers, torpedoes, skyrockets, and pinwheels,” we should use rising inflections until we closed our sentence on “pinwheels.” But it would be quite natural for the child, greatly excited by his presents, to use the downward inflection on those words, and these inflections would mark the importance, to him, of each separate gift. He would say, “I have firecrackers,—torpedoes,—skyrockets,—and pinwheels.”

Circumflex inflections are the expression of complex mental states. Note this in the following examples:

Not inferior to this was the wisdom of him who resolved to shear the wolf. What, shear a wolf! Have you considered the danger of the attempt? No, says the madman, I have considered nothing but the right.

Oh, no! He wouldn’t accept a bribe; of course not.

You meant no harm; oh, no: your thoughts are innocent.

It isn’t the secret I care about; it’s the slight, Mr. Caudle.

Difficult as is the subject of circumflex inflections, the difficulty is very much reduced when we bear in mind that the elements which compose them are the same as those with which we have been dealing. In Longfellow’s King Robert of Sicily, the Angel asks the king, “Who art thou?” To which Robert answers, sneeringly, “I am the King.” Now, on the word “I” we may expect to hear the rising circumflex (composed of a falling followed by a rising inflection) which the following paraphrase will justify: He dares ask me who I am! What audacity! Do you dare ask such a question of me? Would you know who I am? Perhaps a diagram will make this clearer:

Ĭ.
He dares ask me who I am. Do you not know? I am. etc.

Professor Chamberlain has made this question so clear that we quote from him again:

“Paraphrase for Complex Relations: These, as already seen, are cases of combined ideas, expressed by composite motions of the voice, called circumflexes. In order to justify such double motion of the voice, the mind of the reader needs to recognize the combination implied in the words. He will make himself surer of this by analyzing, or separating into its component parts, each composite idea.

Be not too tâme neither.

“Here is a plain implication of one member of the antithesis; and it might be expanded thus, As you are not to be too extrávagant in your expression, so you are not to be too quìet.

“This combination of separable elements might be illustrated by diagram, thus:

As you are not to be extravagant, so you are not to be too quiet.
Be not too tâme neither.

“Here the negative, or anticipatory, clause is, in the condensed form, suggested by the negative, or rising, part of the circumflex; the positive clause, by the falling part of the tone.

“In a similar way two separate elements, both of which are verbally expressed, may be combined in one elliptical or complex clause; e. g.:

I come to bûry Caesar, not to práise him.

“Inverting clauses:

I come not to praise Caesar. but I come to bury him.
I come to bûry Caesar.

“The same method of illustration may be extended ad libitum.”

There is one feature of circumflex inflection somewhat common but seldom treated, the understanding of which is very helpful to the teacher. This feature is observed when there are assertion and incompleteness in the same word. For instance, “John Brown,” being the important idea in the following sentence, would be uttered with a falling inflection; but since the mind is glancing forward from “Brown” the rising inflection would mark that fact. Hence, the two states of mind would be manifested in a combined inflection the psychology of which should now be clear.

John Brown was one of the most striking figures of the anti-slavery agitation.

We have the same phenomenon on the word “Sicily” in the following extract, except that the falling inflection is on the first two syllables and the rising on the third:

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane

And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine

---

... heard the priests chant the Magnificat.

The extent, or width, of the inflection depends upon the amount of collateral thinking. Thus a simple question as, “Is your name Brown?” will take an inflection of about a third of the musical scale, while the inflection of Cassius on “Chastisement,” in the example previously given, will be probably a full octave. The length of the inflection is explained by the philosophy of “Time”: it is a matter of the importance or non-importance of the idea. The direction of the inflection is explained by the philosophy of “Pitch”: it is determined by the purpose, or motive.

Varied melody is found in the speech of every-day life. Note how the voice continually runs up and down in a conversation on commonplace topics. The moment the subject grows serious and dignified, the discriminative elements largely disappear and with them the varied melody; until in solemn prayer, invocation, and certain forms of meditation in the absence of desire to insist on the importance of any one word, or the absence of the purpose to discriminate between one phase and another, we approach very close to the monotone. Let us remember, however, that it is not the emotion as such that affects the melody, but the mental content of the emotion.

In order that the reader may see the application of the foregoing principles, an analysis of a complete poem is appended. There may be a difference of opinion concerning details, but it must be remembered that the value of this analysis for the student lies in the fact that it should teach him that some interpretation is to be definitely decided on. The average reading is haphazard; so that one must gain a great deal through the mental drill necessary to decide the various questions that come up in the course of such an analysis as that here undertaken. It is a common experience to hear a pupil read a passage one way at one time and a different way at another. It would therefore seem to be better to read a passage incorrectly with some reason behind the error, than to read it correctly as a matter of accident, with the chance that the next time it is read the expression will be quite different. The greatest value of such analyses is found in the improvement in the student’s power of discrimination. The melody, which manifests the purpose, the motive, is the very life of good reading.

Up from the meadows rich with corn,

Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand

Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep, 5

Apple and peach tree fruited deep,

Fair as the garden of the Lord

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall

When Lee marched over the mountain wall; 10

Over the mountains winding down,

Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,

Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun 15

Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,

Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,

She took up the flag the men hauled down; 20

In her attic window the staff she set,

To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,

Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right 25

He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

“Halt!”—the dust-brown ranks stood fast.

“Fire!”—out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;

It rent the banner with seam and gash. 30

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff

Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;

She leaned far out on the window-sill,

And shook it forth with a royal will.

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, 35

But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,

Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred

To life at that woman’s deed and word; 40

“Who touches a hair of yon gray head

Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.

All day long through Frederick street

Sounded the tread of marching feet:

All day long that free flag tost 45

Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell

On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light

Shone over it with a warm good-night. 50

Barbara Frietchie’s work is o’er,

And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.

Honor to her! and let a tear

Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall’s bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie’s grave, 55

Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

Peace and order and beauty draw

Round thy symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down

On thy stars below in Frederick town! 60

—Barbara Frietchie. Whittier.

l. 3.—Note momentary completeness on “Frederick.”

l. 1-3.—These lines are anticipative.

l. 5, 6.—Each line a complete affirmative statement, although separated from the rest of the poem only by commas.

l. 7.—“Lord,” momentary completeness.

l. 8.—Rising inflection on “horde,” since the sense is incomplete until we come to “wall.” A good example, since lines 9 and 10 would make very good sense without the succeeding two.

l. 12.—Momentary completeness on “foot.”

l. 13-14.—The motive being the same in both lines, note that the melody is the same.

l. 16.—“Noon” is contrasted with “morning”; hence the rising circumflex on the former word.

l. 17.—Transition here. Observe the higher key commencing on “up.”

l. 19.—This line is anticipative. Supply “being” before “bravest,” and note how the temptation to use the falling inflection on “town” disappears.

l. 21.—Optional rising or falling inflection on “set.”

l. 23.—Transition in key. Why?

l. 24.—What difference in motive would be conveyed by rising and falling inflections on “Jackson”?

l. 25-28.—Transitions on “under,” “halt,” “the,” “fire,” “out.” Explain.

l. 29.—Note the comma after “window.” What is its function?

l. 31.—Observe that “as it fell” is subordinate. Many read this couplet incorrectly. The idea is not “as it fell from the broken staff,” but that she snatched it “from the broken staff.”

l. 33.—Anticipative.

l. 35.—Transition.

l. 37.—(1) Observe how the key lowers. Why? (2) What shades of meaning are conveyed by the following readings: a, momentary completeness on “sadness,” and “shame”; b, anticipation on “sadness,” momentary completeness on “shame.” Which do you prefer? Why?

l. 41.—Transition. Is the key higher or lower?

l. 43-44, 45-46, 47-48.—Why is the melody about the same in these couplets?

l. 49-50.—Many opportunities for choice of inflection on “hill-gaps,” “light,” “over.”

l. 51.—Rising or falling inflection on “o’er”? Why?

l. 56.—No momentary completeness on “Union.” Why?

l. 59, 60.—Contrast between “above” and “below.”

No attempt has been made in this analysis to do more than direct attention to the portions of the poem in which inflection and melody are affected by the interpretation.

PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS.

Much of what has been said concerning the pedagogical aspects of the discussion of “Time” may be repeated here. Drills in inflections as such are of very little value and potentially very harmful. Occasionally we hear the argument that a pupil has no ear for inflections, and that the drill is to train his ear. Most pupils have no difficulty in making proper inflections, so that for them class drills are time wasted; for those whose reading is monotonous, because of lack of melodic variety, the best drills are those which teach them to make a careful analysis of the sentences, and those which awaken them to the necessity of impressing the thought upon others. We deceive ourselves when we proceed to correct the error of monotony in any mechanical, artificial way.

We have learned that, when a pupil has the proper motive in mind and is desirous of conveying his intention to another, a certain melody will always manifest that intention. The melody, then, is the criterion of the pupil’s purpose. We expect a certain melody with certain phrases. When that melody is heard, we are scarcely conscious of its presence; when another is heard, we are struck as by a discord of music when we expect concord. The moment a pupil loses sight of the exact meaning of a phrase and its relation to the other phrases, that moment his melody betrays him. Now the teacher must be able to translate the false melody. He must determine the pupil’s purpose (or absence of any purpose) behind the incorrect melody, remove the wrong purpose, put in its stead the true purpose, and rely upon natural instincts to do the rest. Herein lies the great value to the teacher of a knowledge of the psychology of the criterion of pitch.

Suppose a pupil reads, “Up from the meadows green with corn,” using a rising circumflex on “meadows.” This would show at once that “meadows” was contrasted in his mind with something else. Remove the contrast, direct his mind forward from that word to the next phrase, and the proper melody will come. Some teachers, especially those engaged in the teaching of young children, have a somewhat patronizing melody in all they say and read. This melody is overflowing with circumflexes, which are soon copied by the class. Let the teacher free himself from this patronizing mental condition and talk to the children as if they were men and women, and the peculiar melody will disappear from the voices of both teacher and pupil. It is rather difficult to present this melody in graphic form, but the following diagram may prove suggestive:

Now children let us all take our books.

It is hardly to be believed that there is so much ignorance as to the meaning of inflection. During the past two years, in schools of our largest cities, the author has heard teachers reprimand their pupils for allowing their voices “to fall at a comma.” As if commas were intended to indicate vocal expression! Once when a bright lad used a falling inflection on “want,” in such a sentence as “What do you want?” a class nearly shook their hands off in their endeavors to attract the teacher’s attention, in order that, when he said, “What’s wrong?” they might shout at the top of their voices, “He let his voice down at a question mark.”

One of the commonest of misunderstandings that prevail among us, is that the rising inflection is always to be given upon words preceding commas, and also that it must never be given at the end of a sentence. It is hoped that these fallacies have been entirely exploded, and that the teacher has learned that motive, and motive only, governs the inflection. We used to be told to count one at a comma, two at a semi-colon, and four at a period. Such admonitions are exactly on a par with those just referred to.

Teachers should bear in mind that pupils do not need to have a musical ear in order to read with correct melody. As we have stated again and again, melody is the result of varying tension, and that has nothing to do with the ability to recognize tones. With singing this is different. There we must strike certain notes, and ear training is necessary; but speech melody is instinctive, and all that is necessary for its development is mental training and practice in reading—not voice drills as such.

The melody of long sentences presents a case of peculiar difficulty. Where the sentence is long, especially where it is long and involved, the pupil’s melody is often faulty because he cannot hold the thought in mind from beginning to end. Pupils should be trained on sentences specially chosen to develop their powers of continuous thinking. These sentences should be carefully analyzed and thoroughly discussed before reading. The following examples, while too difficult for younger pupils, will afford good practice for the teacher:

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured—bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, “What is all this worth?” nor those other words of delusion and folly, “Liberty first, and Union afterward;” but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—“Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.”—Reply to Hayne. Webster.

Note that the force of “may I not see him” continues to “fraternal blood,” and consequently that there should be rising inflections on “Union,” “dissevered,” “discordant,” “belligerent,” “feuds,” and “blood.” And note further that “What is all this worth?” and “Liberty first, and Union afterward,” are anticipative and hence will take a rising inflection on “worth” and “afterward.”

At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town

Of ancient Roman date but scant renown,

One of those little places that have run

Half up the hill, beneath a blazing sun,

And then sat down to rest, as if to say,

“I climb no further upward, come what may,”

The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame,

So many monarchs since have borne the name,

Had a great bell hung in the market place.

—The Bell of Atri. Longfellow.

The town would have used a falling inflection on “may” because for it the sense would have been completed with that word; but with us this phrase is subordinate, and hence the inflection on “may” will be rising.

And as a hungry lion who has made

A prey of some large beast—a hornèd stag

Or mountain goat—rejoices, and with speed

Devours it, though swift hounds and sturdy youths

Press on his flank, so Menelaus felt

Great joy when Paris, of the godlike form,

Appeared in sight, for now he thought to wreak

His vengeance on the guilty one, and straight

Sprang from his car to earth with all his arms.

—The Iliad, Book II. Homer (Bryant).

But when public taste seems plunging deeper and deeper into degradation day by day, and when the press universally exerts such power as it possesses to direct the feeling of the nation more completely to all that is theatrical, affected, and false in art; while it vents its ribald buffooneries on the most exalted truth, and the highest ideal of landscape, that this or any other age has ever witnessed, it becomes the imperative duty of all who have any perception or knowledge of what is really great in art, and any desire for its advancement in England, to come fearlessly forward, regardless of such individual interests as are likely to be injured by the knowledge of what is good and right, to declare and demonstrate, wherever they exist, the essence and the authority of the beautiful and the true.—Modern Painters. Ruskin.

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[CHAPTER III]
THE CRITERION OF QUALITY

Thus far we have been considering the criteria of states essentially intellectual. “Time” has to do with the extent of the thought; “Pitch” with the purpose. Quality manifests emotional states. By Quality we mean that subtle element in the voice by which is expressed at one time tenderness, at another harshness, at another awe, and so on through the whole gamut of feeling.

In order to prove that the quality (timbre, the French call it) of the voice is the result of emotional conditions, we must first understand what we may term the physics of quality. The number of air waves striking the ear in a given time determines the pitch; the width of the waves determines the volume of sound; the shape of the waves determines the quality. But how is the shape of air waves affected? It would take us too far from our subject to discuss this question in detail.[5] Let it suffice that the shape of the air wave, and hence the quality, is dependent upon the texture of the vibrating body. We recognize at once the different qualities respectively of the flute, piano, violin, harp or cornet; it is the difference in the texture of the vibrating substances that enables us to do this. Why will the artist pay thousands of dollars for a Stradivarius or Cremona violin? Not because of its age, but because of the quality of the tone he can bring out on that instrument, which is impossible on other makes of violins. The fashioners of these old instruments possessed a secret of treating or seasoning the wood that gave to their products a tone quality the violin-makers of to-day endeavor in vain to reproduce. This treatment affected the texture of the wood, and hence the quality.

To him who plays upon the human instrument of the voice, is given a great advantage over other artists. He can change the quality of his tone almost at will, while they can only approximate these changes. The tone as it comes from the vocal bands is comparatively colorless, but the size and shape of the reinforcing cavities (the larynx, pharynx, mouth, and nares), and the texture of their membranes, determine the quality of the tone that reaches the ear. Now, the size and shape of some of these can be changed at will, and are often modified unconsciously by emotion. The same may be said of the texture of the surface against which the tone impinges as it comes from the larynx. The shape of the nares and the texture of its membrane are virtually fixed, as is the texture of the roof of the mouth and the pharynx. Herein is the explanation of the individuality of voices. But the shape of the mouth and of the pharynx may be considerably modified by the action of the tongue, the raising, lowering, or contracting of the larynx, and the movements of the soft palate. It is, therefore, clear that the quality of the voice is partly fixed and partly changeable.

Before we proceed to discuss the effect of emotion upon the quality, we must first recognize that voice defects are of three kinds: (1) Those arising from disease or accident, such as catarrh, obstructions in the nose, enlarged tonsils, broken nose, and many others. These require medical or surgical treatment. (2) Those arising from congenital defects, which can be only partially removed, such as cleft palate, abnormally narrow nares, and the like. (3) Those arising out of the temperament of the man and the improper use of his voice.

It should now be plain that when we say that emotion affects the quality of the tone, we mean the peculiar quality of a particular man. If a speaker’s voice is nasal, we do not claim that that quality is expressive of any emotion. On the contrary, nasal quality is the distinguishing characteristic of his voice, but that quality can be modified by emotion. In other words, there can be a nasal-tender quality, or a nasal-harsh quality, the tender or harsh feeling accounting for the difference.

Paul Heyse has said, “The voice is the man.” What did he mean by that? He did not mean that a throaty voice indicated one temperament, and a nasal voice another, but that the emotional man, the spiritual man, has a certain texture of muscle. This texture affects the quality of his natural voice, whatever that voice may be, and consequently the quality of the voice manifests the man. If we will interpret this dictum broadly, no fault will be found with it. Who does not recognize the blustering man by his bellowing tone? the fawning hypocrite by his oily quality? the aggressive, assertive individual by his harsh guttural? In all probability, Heyse meant more than quality, in the sense in which we use it here; but granting this, his saying is of very wide application even in this restricted realm.

How does emotion affect the quality of the voice? Emotion is essentially a muscular condition. This condition is determined by the amount of nervous energy sent to the muscles, and this energy determines the muscular texture. Tender emotions mean tender texture, a relaxed condition of the muscles; while harsh quality is the result not only of throat contraction (change in the shape of the reinforcing cavity) but of constricted muscle, harsh texture. This is all there is to the philosophy of “Quality.”

Dr. Rush, in his Philosophy of the Human Voice, has named many of these qualities. He calls them Normal, Orotund, Guttural, Pectoral, Falsetto, and so on; and mentions the emotional conditions that manifest themselves through these various forms. On the whole, his classification is sound; but there is one gross error, due either to himself or his followers, that must be considered here. The Orotund (the enlarged natural) quality is more than a loud voice. It is a full voice with a quality that cannot better be described than by the term richness. Many students have endeavored to obtain this quality by shouting, or by holding the mouth as if gaping, and have developed only loudness without a trace of soulfulness, or merely a round, hollow hot-potato-in-the-throat kind of voice. There is no objection to the use of the term Orotund to characterize that rich, full tone suggestive of deep, full, enlarged feeling; but we must bear in mind that loudness is not only not necessary for the Orotund, but is often no part of it at all. The Orotund, as we have said, is that quality of which the main characteristics are roundness and richness. One who is restricted is not likely to use this quality. It can come only when there is the utmost freedom of the entire vocal region. When we have removed the tension which may be “the man,” or the result of bad vocal training, we shall get that enlarged quality, which should not, as is so often the case, manifest merely the larger emotional states, but should be the natural voice of the speaker. The Orotund manifests dignity above all else; it manifests the large, grand spirit. Of course, we do not mean an affected Orotund, but an easy, large, unrestricted quality showing the largeness of the soul behind it. To develop this quality, let the student use his imagination. Let him dwell for a long time upon the sublimity and grandeur of such passages as follow. Then let him abandon himself to the emotion aroused through his contemplation, and in time the genuine Orotund will come. And so only can it come. So important is this phase of the subject that we repeat: The tone expressive of elevated feeling “cannot be mechanically produced, or manufactured independently of the general mental and physical conditions.” The imagination must lead, otherwise we shall have big voices without big quality. That peculiar quality expressive of enlarged feeling is not necessarily loud. In fact, the voice may not be strong, but, at the same time, it may suggest grandeur and sublimity far better than a voice that has sheer loudness. But, if the student will practice faithfully, he may be assured that his voice will receive more genuine training through these exercises than through a whole volume of merely technical drills. Develop the imagination, the soul, and the voice will grow through the effort of the soul to go out in expression. But let him avoid mere shouting and vociferating, even if he never gets a voice.

If the student has not the imagination, he must develop it. There are many loud voices, but few with soulful quality. But what avails this loudness? Certainly it enables one to be heard above the din of voices and the roar of the waves, but it never stirs the nobler emotions of an audience; and unless one can do that he is anything but an orator. Mere loudness is rant—nothing less.

Many students, for one reason or another, either have no ability to express elevated feeling in public, or repress it through diffidence or shyness. Let such remember that we are constantly experiencing and expressing this feeling in our everyday life; that it is simply an enlargement of a more or less commonplace feeling; and let him begin with the simple examples that are set down first. Any one can say, What a lovely day this is! Well, that is a mild form of elevated feeling. Let him imagine it is graduation day, and that rain had been threatening to fall all the previous night. It is daylight now; and as he opens his eyes and looks up at the cloudless sky, will he not exclaim with elevated feeling, What a glorious day we’re going to have!

By “elevated feelings” one must not understand those only that are serious and solemn. Whenever the imagination is enkindled by the contemplation of what is large, dignified, grand, sublime, the emotions are stirred, and find expression in enlarged, soulful quality.

Ay, every inch a king.

Think of it! a building that could hold a hundred thousand people!

Here will be their greatest triumph.

Who shall put asunder the best affections of the heart?

We loved the land of our adoption!

A good name is better than precious ointment.

Gird up thy loins now, like a man.

Comfort ye my people.

O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain!

He is as honest a man as ever breathed.

Search creation round, where will you find a country that presents so sublime a spectacle, so interesting an anticipation?

Most of all, fellow-citizens, if your sons ask whose example they shall imitate, what will you say? For you know well it is not music, nor the gymnasiums, nor the schools, that mold young men; it is much more the public proclamations, the public example. If you take one whose life has no high purpose, one who mocks at morals, and crown him in the theater, every boy who sees it is corrupted. When a bad man suffers his deserts, the people learn; on the contrary, when a man VOTES AGAINST WHAT IS NOBLE AND JUST, and then comes home to teach his son, the boy will very promptly say, “Your lesson is impertinent and a bore.” Beware, therefore, Athenians, remembering posterity will rejudge your judgment, and that the character of a city is determined by the character of the men it crowns.

Right forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne; But that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

Humanity, with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

We know what Master laid thy keel,

What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,

Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,

What anvils rang, what hammers beat,

In what a forge, and what a heat,

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!

Fear not each sudden sound and shock;

’Tis of the wave, and not the rock;

’Tis but the flapping of the sail,

And not a rent made by the gale!

In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,

In spite of false lights on the shore,

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee:

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,

Are all with thee,—are all with thee!

—The Ship of State. Longfellow.

See what a grace was seated on this brow;

Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself;

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;

A station like the herald Mercury

New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;

A combination and a form indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,

To give the world assurance of a man.

—Hamlet, Act iii., Sc. 4.

Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise

Thou owest; not alone these swelling tears,

Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy. Awake,

Voice of sweet song! Awake my heart, Awake!

Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn!

—Coleridge.

And the evening star was shining

On Schehallion’s distant head,

When we wiped our bloody broadswords,

And returned to count the dead.

There we found him, gashed and gory,

Stretched upon the cumbered plain,

As he told us where to seek him,

In the thickest of the slain.

And a smile was on his visage,

For within his dying ear

Pealed the joyful note of triumph,

And the clansman’s clamorous cheer: