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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES

INTERPRETIVE READING

INTERPRETIVE
READING

By
COHA MARSLAND

Professor of Elocution and Oratory in the Kansas
State Normal School

" The books which help you most are those which make you
think most. The hardest way of learning is by easy read-
ing ; but a great book that comes from a great thinker — it
is a ship of thought — deep-freighted with truth and with

■'' Theodore Parker.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

FOURTH AVENUE cr 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS

I9I4

, J J > J'
J J J J

Longmans, Green, and Co.

First Edition.— September, 1902

Reprinted with Revision. — May, 1903

Reprinted with Re\'ision.— September, 1906.

Reprinted. — May, 1908

Reprinted. — April, 1912

Reprinted. — September, 1914

* CC( v**.*^ *tc». c c •«

M36'

I)c0fcate5 to

THE STUDENTS OF THE KANSAS
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL

.^'{jU^Jf^

PREFACE.

The creation of literature demands the united effort of
mind and heart and will. The study of literature also de-
mands the united effort of mind and heart and will. Ana-
lytic or critical study alone calls forth only mental effort.
Creative study makes demands upon the emotions and the
will. No literature has been truly studied or its beauty
truly felt until it has been studied for interpretive or crea-
tive readmg.

In the study for interpretation the mind must dwell longer
on the thought, and in consequence must find deeper mean-
ing in it. In the effort to interpret the thought, the thought
in a flash seems to be the speaker's own, emotion is aroused,
and a finer appreciation of the thought developed.

Interpretation demands not only understanding and emo-
tion, but also will power. A noble interpretation of any
great work of literature makes great demands upon the
speaker's will power. The giving of uplifting thought to
others develops the mind and heart and will.

The mind finds its expression through voice and body ;
hence these agents of expression should be trained to act
in harmony with the mind.

All study of reading, when the realm of literature is en-
tered, should lead to an intellectual and spiritual under-
standing of the selection studied. Like all art, reading
should be sincere and natural.

This volume is designed as a text-book on reading and
speaking, in colleges, normal schools, and secondary schools.

PEEFACE.

Rhetoric and this method of study for interpretation are
so correlated that the illustrative material here used will
doubtless be of service to teachers of English as well as to
teachers of reading.

The author wishes to express her appreciation of the
courtesy of the following publishers for permission to use
material published by them : Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. ;
Messrs. Maynard, Merrill & Co. ; Messrs. Lee & Shepard;
Messrs. Harper; Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co.; Messrs.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ; the Fleming H. Revell Com-
pany, and Messrs. Edgar S. Werner & Co.

She wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness to Mr.
Booker T. Washington for permission to use an extract
from one of his speeches; to Dr. A. R. Taylor, president
of James Milliken University, and to Mr. Frank Nelson,
state superintendent of public instruction, Kansas, for
their criticism of, and suggestions in regard to, her manu-
script; and to Dr. C. W. Emerson, who jfirst led her to
discover the true principles of the art of expression.

CONTENTS

• PAOK

Preface vii

Part First
INTERPRETIVE READING

DIVISION I
Interpretive Reading that Appeals to the Under-
standing

Chapter I. Literary analysis 1

Chapter II. Sequence of thought 8

Chapter III. Clearness of enunciation 15

Chapter IV. Forms of emphasis 23

DIVISION II

Interpretive Reading that Appeals to the Emotions

Chapter I. Word pictures 29

Chapter II. Atmosphere 61

Chapter III. Tone color 84

Chapter IV. Rhythm. Movement 95

Chapter V. Personation 109

DIVISION III
Interpretive Reading or Speaking that Appeals to the
Will

Chapter I. Directness 143

Chapter II. Vigor or strength 149

Chapter III. Seriousness 158

Chapter IV. Alliance with the audience 163

Chapter V. Persuasion » 166

X CONTENTS

Part Second
BREATHING

DIVISION I

PAGE

TiiK Respiratory Organs 179

DIVISION II
Breathing Exercises 182

Part Third
VOCAL CULTURE

DIVISION I
The Vocal Organs 184

DIVISION II
The Production op Tone 190

DIVISION III
Vocal Culture 190

DIVISION IV
The Organs of Articulation 196

Part Fourth
GESTURE

DIVISION I
Relaxing Exercises

1. Exercises for the limbs 198

a. The arms and hands 198

b. The legs and feet 200

COl^TENTS xi

PAGE

3. Exercises for the trunk 203

3. Exercises for the head 203

DIVISION II
Poising Exercises

1. Backward poise of the hips 204

2. Standing positions 205

3. Oblique transition and bow 20?

4. Transition and kneeling 207

5. Preparatory exercise for walking 208

6. Poising of the-head 209

DIVISION III
Pkinciples of Gesture 210

DIVISION rv

Responsive Gesture Exercises

1. Gestures of salutation, affirmation or assertion, cheering 218

2. Gestures of sacred address, adoration, entreaty, direct

assertion or affirmation 219

3. Gestures of command to be silent, prohibition, suppres-

sion, or destruction 220

4. Double gestures of command to be silent, prohibition or

destruction, and benediction 221

5. Gestures of sacred deprecation, revelation, life, taking of

oath 221

6. Gestures of listening, playful warning or threat 222

7. Gesture of parallelism 223

8. Gesture of supplication or sublimity 223

9. Double gesture of supplication or sublimity 224

10. Single descriptive gestures of rising and falling, and up-

ward designation 224

11. Double gestures descriptive of expansive rising and fall

ing 225

13. Double gestures of grandeur, exaltation of feeling, mag-
nitude, vastness, parallel repulsion, successive repul-
sion, entreaty, and dejection 336

13. Single gestures of direct presentation or address, and
general address; appellation, declaration, mystery, re-
jection, negation or denial, designation 337

xii CONTENTS

PAGE

14. Double gestures of direct presentation or address, uni-

versality, separation coupled with vastness, expansive
covering, calm or diffusion 230

15. Single gestures of command to go or come 231

16. Single gestures of invitation to go and come 231

INDEX OF SELECTIONS

PAGE

Literary Analysis •
A Christmai? Invi
The Cheerful Locksmith Charles DickeDs

A Christmas Invitation Charles Dickens.

Sequence op Thought

Lord Chatham's Eloquence T. B. Macaulay 8

The Rhodora Ralph Waldo Emerson . . 11

The Fall of Antwerp John Lothrop Motley. . . 13

Clearness of Enunciation

Hamlet's Advice to the Players. . Shakespeare 20

Forms of Emphasis

Lochinvar Sir "Walter Scott 23

The Apostrophe to the Ocean. . . . Lord Byron 26

Speech of Henry V Shakespeare 26

The Lost Chord Adelaide Procter 28

Word Pictures

The Faun of Praxiteles Nathaniel Hawthorne. . . 30

Moonlight on the Alhambra Washington Irving 33

A Christmas at Bob Cratchit's. . . Charles Dickens 36

The Witch's Cavern Lord Lytton 41

Beauty Ralph Waldo Emerson . . 44

Jean Valjean and the Bishop, Victor Hugo 49

Part I

Jean Valjean and the Bishop, Victor Hugo 56

Part II

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner S. T. Coleridge 58

xiv INDEX OF SELECTION'S

PAGE

Atmosphere

The Ride for Life Cliarles Gordon 61

Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale

of Cbamouni S. T. Coleridge 67

The Sunrise William Wordsworth ... 69

The Sunset William Wordsworth ... 70

Psalm XXIV Bible 72

The Open Sky John Ruskin 73

Cloud Beauty John Ruskin 75

Pippa Passes Robert Browning 78

Enoch Ai"den Lord Tennyson 81

Tone Color

Appledore James Russell Lowell. . . 84

When the Cows Come Home Mrs. Agnes Mitchell 86

Discord (Paradise Lost) John Milton 88

Concord (Paradise Lost) John Milton 89

The Cataract bf Lodore Robert Sou they 89

The Culprit Fay Joseph Rodman Drake . . 93

Rhythm. Movement

Ode on St. Cecilia's Day John Dryden 95

Come into the Garden, Maud Lord Tennyson 98

The Charms of Rural Life Washington Irving 100

Flow Gently, Sweet Afton Robert Burns 103

Lucy William Wordsworth. . . 104

To a Skylark Percy B. Shelley 106

Personation

The Rivals Richard B. Sheridan 109

Act II., Scene I

The Rivals Richard B. Sheridan 113

Act III. , Scene I

As You Like It Shakespeare 117

Act I., Scene III

As You Like It Shakespeare 121

Act v.. Scene I
Hamlet's First Soliloquy Shakespeare 123

INDEX OF SELECTI0:J^S XV

PAGK

Hamlet Shakespeare 134

Act L, Scene IV

Julius Caesar Shakespeare 128

Act IV., Scene III
Macbeth Shakespeare 132

Act I., Scene V
Macbeth Shakespeare 135

Act v., Scene I

Antigone . .-•. Sophocles 137

Scene I

Nydia and lone Lord Lytton 141

••

Oratory—Directness

Toussaint L'Ouverture Wendell Phillips 144

Extract from " Reply to Hayne ". Daniel Webster 146

Vigor or Strength

Our Duty to the Philippines William McKinley 149

The Character of Washington. . . Edward Everett 153

Napoleon Bonaparte Charles Phillips 155

Seriousness

Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln 158

Farewell Address George Washington .... 159

Alliance with the Audience

Marc Antony's Oration Shakespeare 164

Persuasion

Speech on the American War Lord Chatham 166

True Eloquence Daniel Webster 169

Extract from the First Bunker

Hill Monument Oration Daniel Webster 170

Extract from the Second Bunker

Hill Monument Oration Daniel Webster 173

The Better Part Booker T. Washington. . 174

PART I

INTEKPKETIVE READING

The following s^ps in interpretive reading are based
upon the principles of literary art. The steps are arranged
in three groups : those that appeal to the understanding
alone ; those that appeal through the understanding to the
emotions ; and those that appeal through the understanding
and the emotions to the will.

The first group includes the following steps :

Chapter I. Literary analysis.

Chapter II. Sequence of thought.

Chapter III. Clearness of enunciation.

Chapter IV. Forms of emphasis, — melody, inflection,
slide, volume, force, pause.

DIVISION I

INTERPRETIVE READING THAT APPEALS TO THE
UNDERSTANDING

Chapteb, I

Literary Analysis

The preparation for interpretive reading is study of the
thought. Study a selection to determine its general theme,
and the subdivisions of the theme. Then study the selec-
1 1

2 INTERPEETIVE BEADING

tion line by line to understand the meaning and force of
the words. Eead the selection aloud at least one hour a
day. Hold the dominant thought in mind as you read.
This gives iinity to delivery. Dwell on the thought until
you read with animation.

SELECTIONS
A CHRISTMAS INVITATION.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he
might keep his eye upon his clerk, who, in a dismal little
cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge
had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much
smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't re-
plenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room ;
and, so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the
master predicted that it would be necessary for them to
part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and
tried to warm himself at the candle ; in which effort, not
being a man of strong imagination, he failed.

" A merry Christmas, uncle ! God save you ! " cried a
cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who
came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation
he had of his approach.

*' Bah ! " said Scrooge. " Humbug ! "

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog
and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a
glow ; his face was ruddy and handsome ; his eyes sparkled ,
and his breath smoked again.

''Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew,
"You don't mean that, I am sure ? "

"I do," said Scrooge. " Merry Christmas ! What right
have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry ?
You're poor enough. . . . Out upon merry Christmas!

LITEEAEY ANALYSIS 3

Wtat's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills
without money ; a time for finding yourself a year older,
and not an hour richer ; a time for balancing your books,
and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of
months presented dead against you? If I could work my
will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes
about with ' Merry Christmas ' on his lips should be boiled
with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly
through his heart. He should! "

" Uncle ! " pleaded the nephew.

" Nephew ! " returned the uncle, sternly, " keep Christmas
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you
don't keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done
you ! "

" There are many things from which I might have derived
good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned
the nephew, " Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I
have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come
round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name
and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from
that — as a good time ; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleas-
ant time ; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of
the year, when men and women seem by one consent to
open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people
below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the
grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other
journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put
a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has
done me good, and will do me good ; and I say, God bless
it!"

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becom-

4 INTERPEETIVE READING

ing immediately sensible of the impropriety, lie poked the
fire, and extinguished the last frail spark forever.

"Let me hear another sound from you," said Scrooge,
" and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation !
You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning
to his nephew. "I wonder you don't go into Parliament."

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-mor-
row. "

Scrooge said that he would see him Yes, indeed he did.

He went the whole length of the expression, and said that
he would see him in that extremity first.

" But why? " cried Scrooge's nephew. " Why? "

"Why did you get married? " said Scrooge.

"Because I fell in love."

" Because you fell in love ! " growled Scrooge, as if that
were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than
a merry Christmas. " Good afternoon ! "

" Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that
happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now? "

" Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

" I want nothing from you ; I ask nothing of you ; why
cannot we be friends? "

" Good afternoon ! " said Scrooge.

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute.
We have never had any quarrel to which I have been a
party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas,
and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So A
Merry Christmas, uncle ! "

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

" And A Happy New Year ! "

" Good afternoon! " said Scrooge.

His nephew left the room without an angry word, not-
withstanding.

Charles Dickens (adapted).

LITERAEY ANALYSIS 5

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. From what work is this selection taken?

2. What is the general theme, or dominant thought, of
the selection?

3. How is the Christmas invitation introduced?

4. "What do you find in this introduction that is the key-
note to the character of Scrooge?

5. How does the environment accord with the character
of Scrooge?

6. What part does the clerk play in the development of
the story?

7. At what line does the dialogue in regard to Christmas
begin?

8. Draw a contrast between Scrooge and his nephew.

9. What atmosphere does the nephew carry with him?

10. Notice the nephew's tribute to Christmas. What
contrast do you discover? What lesson is indirectly taught?

11. Show how the nephew's Christmas humor was tested.

12. What is the conclusion of the Christmas invitation?

THE CHEERFUL LOCKSMITH

From the workshop of the Golden Key there issued forth
a tinkling sound, so merry and good-humored that it sug-
gested the idea of some one working blithely, and made
quite pleasant music. No man who hammered on at a
dull monotonous duty could have brought such cheerful
notes from steel and iron ; none but a chirping, healthy,
honest-hearted fellow, who made the best of everything,
and felt kindly towards everybody, could have done it for
an instant. He might have been a coppersmith, and still
been musical. If he had sat in a jolting wagon, full of

6 INTERPEETIVE READING

rods of iron, it seemed as if he would have brought some
harmony out of it. Tink, tink, tink— clear as a silver
bell, and audible at every pause of the streets' harsher
noises, as though it said, " I don't care ; nothing puts me
out ; I am resolved to be happy. "

Women scolded, children squalled, heavy carts went
rumbling by, horrible cries proceeded from the lungs of
hawkers ; still it struck in again, no higher, no lower, no
louder, no softer; not thrusting itself on people's notice a
bit the more for having been outdone by louder sounds —
tink, tink, tink, tink, tink.

It was a perfect embodiment of the still, small voice,
free from all cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness
of any kind; foot-passengers slackened their pace, and
were disposed to linger near it ; neighbors who had got up
splenetic that morning, felt good-humor stealing on them
as they heard it, and by degrees became quite sprightly;
mothers danced their babies to its ringing ; still the same
magical tink, tink, tink, came gaily from the workshop of
the Golden Key.

Who but the locksmith could have made such music? A
gleam of sun shining through the unsashed window, and
checkering the dark workshop with a broad patch of light,
fell full upon him, as though attracted by his sunny heart.
There he stood working at his anvil, his face all radiant with
exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed
off his shining forehead — the easiest, freest, happiest man
in all the world.

Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the
light, and falling every now and then into an idle doze, as
from excess of comfort. . . . The very locks that hung
around had something jovial in their rust, and seemed, like
gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their
infirmities.

LITERARY ANALYSIS 7

There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene.
It seemed impossible that any one of the innumerable keys
could fit a churlish strong-box or a prison door. . . . Rooms
where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter
— these were their proper sphere of action. Places of dis-
trust and cruelty, and restraint, they would have quadruple
locked for ever.

Charles Dickens (adapted).

DIVISION I

Chapter II

Sequence of Thought

Literature has sequence of thought when each consecu-
tive sentence is the outgrowth of the preceding sentence.

Oral reading has sequence of thought when the reader
holds the connected thought hi mind as he reads.

Study each selection to understand the relation of sen-
tence to sentence. Read aloud until the reading has con-
tinuity and smoothness. Lack of understanding of the
thought is indicated by the constant and incorrect use of
the falling inflection. This makes the reading broken and
disconnected. To overcome broken and disconnected de-
livery, concentrate your mind on the connected thought,
and read aloud.

SELECTIONS

LORD CHATHAM'S ELOQUENCE

His figure, when he first appeared in Parliament, was
strikingly graceful and commanding, his features high and
noble, his eye full of fire. His voice, even when it sunk
to a whisper, was heard to the remotest benches ; and when
he strained it to its full extent, the sound rose like the
swell of the organ of a great cathedral, shook the house
with its peal, and was heard through lobbies and down
staircases, to the Court of Requests and the precincts of
Westminster Hall. He cultivated all these eminent ad-
vantages with the most assiduous care. His action is de-
scribed by a very malignant observer as equal to that of

SEQUEN^CE OF THOUGHT 9

Garrick. His play of countenance was wonderful ; he fre-
quently disconcerted a hostile orator by a single glance of
indignation or scorn. Every tone, from the impassioned
cry to the thrilling aside, was perfectly at his command.
It is by no means improbable that the pains which he took
to improve his great personal advantages had, in some re-
spects, a prejudicial operation, and tended to nourish in him
that passion for theatrical effect which, as we have already
remarked, was one of the most conspicuous blemishes in
his character. ^

But it was not solely or principally to outward accomplish-
ments that Pitt owed the vast influence which, during near-
ly thirty years, he exercised over the House of Commons.
He was undoubtedly a great orator ; and from the descrip-
tions given by his contemporaries, and fragments of his
speeches which still remain, it is not difficult to discover the
nature and extent of his oratorical powers.

He was no speaker of set speeches. His few prepared
discourses were complete failures. The elaborate panegyric
which he pronounced on General Wolfe was regarded as
the very worst of all his performances. "No man," says
a critic who had often heard him, " ever knew so little of
what he was going to say." Indeed his facility amounted
to a vice. He was not the master, but the slave, of his own
speech. So little self-command had he when once he felt
the impulse, that he did not like to take part in a debate
when his mind was full of an important secret of state. " I
must sit still," he once said to Lord Shelburne on such an
occasion ; " for, when once I am up, everything that is in
my mind comes out."

Yet he was not a great debater. That he should not
have been so when first he entered the House of Commons
is not strange. Scarcely any person has ever become so
without long practice and many failures. It was by slow

10 INTERPEETIVE READING

degrees, as Burke said, that Charles Fox became the most
brilliant and powerful debater that ever lived. Charles
Fox himself attributed his own success to the resolution
which he formed when very young, of speaking, well or ill,
at least once every night. " During five whole sessions,"
he used to say, " I spoke every night but one ; and I regret
only that I did not speak on that night too." Indeed,
with the exception of Mr. Stanley, whose knowledge of the
science of parliamentary defense resembles an instinct, it
would be difficult to name any eminent debater who has not
made himself a master of his art at the expense of his
audience.

But, as this art is one which even the ablest men have
seldom acquired without long practice, so it is one which
men of respectable abilities, with assiduous and intrepid
practice, seldom fail to acquire. It is singular that, in
such an art, Pitt, a man of great parts, of great fluency, of
great boldness, a man whose whole life was passed in par-
liamentary conflict, a man who, during several years, was
the leading minister of the crown in the House of Com-
mons, should never have attained to high excellence. He
spoke without premeditation ; but his speech followed the
course of his own thoughts, and not the course of the pre-
vious discussion. He could, indeed, treasure up in his
memory some detached expression of an opponent, and
make it the text for lively ridicule or solemn reprehension.
Some of the most celebrated bursts of his eloquence were
called forth by an unguarded word, a laugh, or a cheer.
But this was the only sort of reply in which he appears to
have excelled. He was, perhaps, the only great English
orator who did not think it any advantage to have the last
word, and who generally spoke by choice before his most
formidable antagonists. His merit was almost entirely
rhetorical. He did not succeed either in exposition or in

SEQUENCE OF THOUGHT 11

refutation ; but his speeches abounded with lively illustra-
tions, striking apothegms, well-told anecdotes, happy allu-
sions, passionate appeals. His invective and sarcasm were
terrific. Perhaps no English orator was ever so much
feared.

But that which gave most effect to his declamation was
the air of sincerity, of vehement feeling, of moral elevation,
which belongad to all that he said. His style was not
always in the purest taste. Several contemporary judges
pronounced it too ^.orid. Walpole, in the midst of the
rapturous eulogy which he pronounces on one of Pitt's
greatest 'orations, owns that some of the metaphors were
too forced. Some of Pitt's quotations and classical stories
are too trite for a clever school-boy. But these were nice-
ties for which the audience cared little. The enthusiasm
of the orator infected all who heard him ; his ardor and his
noble bearing put fire into the most frigid conceit, and
gave dignity to the most puerile allusion.

T. B. Macaulay.

THE EHODORA*

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods.
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool.

Made the black water with their beauty gay ;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

* Used by special arrangrement with and permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin
& Co., the authorized publishers of the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

12 INTERPRETIVE READING

Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being :
Why thou wert there, 0 rival of the rose !

I never thought to ask, I never knew :
But, in my simple ignorance suppose

The self -same Power that brought me there brought you.

Ralph Waldo Emeeson.

THE FALL OF ANTWERP*

Meantime, the Spanish cavalry had cleft its way through
the city. On the side farthest removed from the castle,
along the Horse-market, opposite the New-town, the states
dragoons and the light horse of Beveren had been posted,
and the flying masses of pursuers and pursued swept at last
through this outer circle. Champagny was already there.
He essayed, as his last hope, to rally the cavalry for a
final stand, but the effort was fruitless. Already seized by
the panic, they had attempted to rush from the city through
the gate of Eeker. It was locked ; they then turned and
fled towards the Red-gate, whei-e they were met face to face
by Don Pedro Tassis, who charged upon them with his
dragoons. Retreat seemed hopeless. A horseman in com-
plete armor, with lance in rest, was seen to leap from the
parapet of the outer wall into the moat below, whence, still
on horseback, he escaped with life. Few were so fortunate.
The confused mob of fugitives and conquerors, Spaniards,
Walloons, Germans, burghers, struggling, shouting, strik-
ing, cursing, dying, swayed hither and thither like a stormy
sea. Along the spacious Horse-market the fugitives fled
onward toward the quays. Many fell beneath the swords
of the Spaniards, numbers were trodden to death by the

* From "The Rise of the Dutch Republic," by John Lothrop Motley. By per-
mission of Harper & Brothers.

SEQUENCE OF THOUGHT 13

hoofs of horses, still greater multitudes were hunted into
the Scheld. Champagny, who had thought it possible,
even at the last moment, to make a stand in the New-town,
and to fortify the Palace of the Hansa, saw himself de-
serted. With great daring and presence of mind, he effected
his escape to the fleet of the Prince of Orange in the river.
The marquis of Havre — of whom no deeds of valor on that
eventful day have been recorded — was equally successful.
The unlucky Oberstein, attempting to leap into a boat,
missed his footing,;, and oppressed by the weight of his
armor, was drowned.

Meantime, while the short November day was fast de-
clinmg, the combat still raged in the interior of the city.
Various currents of conflict, forcmg their separate way
through many streets, had at last mingled in the Grande
Place. Around this irregular, not very spacious square,
stood the gorgeous Hotel de Ville, and the tall, many storied,
fantastically gabled, richly decorated palaces of the guilds.
Here a long struggle took place. It was terminated for a
time by the cavalry of Vargas, who, arriving through the
streets of Saint Joris, accompanied by the traitor Van Ende,
charged decisively into the melee. The masses were broken,
but multitudes of armed men found refuge in the buildings,
and every house became a fortress. From every window
and balcony a hot fire was poured into the square, as, pent
in a corner, the burghers stood at last, at bay. It was
difficult to carry the houses by storm, but they were soon
set on fire. A large number of sutlers and other varlets had
accompanied the Spaniards from the citadel, bringing torches
and kindling materials for the express purpose of firing the
town. With great dexterity, these means were now applied,
and in a bi-ief interval the City-hall and other edifices on
the square were in flames. The conflagration spread with
rapidity, house after house, street after street, taking fire.

14 INTEEPRETIVE READING

Nearly a thousand buildings, in the most splendid and
wealthy quarter of the city, were soon in a blaze, and multi-
tudes of human beings were burned with them. In the City-
hall many were consumed, while others leaped from the
windows to renew the combat below. The many tortuous
streets which led down a slight descent from the rear of
the Town-house to the quays were all one vast conflagration.
On the other side, the magnificent cathedral, separated from
the Grande Place by a single row of buildings, was lighted
up, but not attacked, by the flames. The tall spire cast its
gigantic shadow across the last desperate conflict. In the
street called the Canal au Sucre, immediately behind the
Town-house, there was a fierce struggle, a horrible massacre.
A crowd of burghers, grave magistrates, and such of the
German soldiers as remained alive, still confronted the
ferocious Spaniards. There, amid the flaming desolation,
Goswyn Verreyck, the heroic margrave of the city, fought
with the energy of hatred and despair. The burgomaster.
Van der Meere, lay dead at his feet; senators, soldiers,
citizens, fell fast around him, and he sank at last upon a
heap of slain. With him effectual resistance ended. The
remaining combatants were butchered, or were slowly forced
downward to perish in the Scheld. Women, children, old
men, were killed in countless numbers, and still, through
all this havoc, directly over the heads of the struggling
throng, suspended in mid-air above the din and smoke of
the conflict, there sounded, every half -quarter of every hour,
as if in gentle mockery, from the belfry of the cathedral,
the tender and melodious chimes.

John Lothrop Motley.

DIVISION I

Chapter III

Clearness of Enunciation

The exercises for enunciation are arranged in the follow-
ing groups :

Group I. The elanentary sounds.

Stud;^ the elementary sounds to tram the ear to recognize
shades of sound, and to train the organs of articulation to
accuracy of position.

Drill in molding sounds, and in pronunciation.

Group II. Enunciation of initial and final consonant
sounds.

Group III. Spacing of words.

Group IV. Enunciation of final words in sentences.

Group I
The Elementary Sounds

The elementary sounds of a language are divided into
vowel sounds and consonant sounds.

The vowel sounds are unobstructed tones of the vocal
cords, molded into distinctive character by the shape of the
cavity or tube in which they resound. The vowel cavity
or tube sometimes consists of the mouth and oro-pharynx,
sometimes of the mouth alone. For all the vowel sounds
except a (ah), the soft palate pushes back into the pharynx,
and closes the opening into the upper pharynx.

By the action of the tongue and soft palate, the size and
shape of the vowel tube varies. This affects the size and
shape of the posterior orifice of the mouth cavity, and in

16 INTERPRETIVE READING

tum affects the character of the tone resounded. The lips
axe also instrumental in giving to each vowel sound its in-
dividual character. It is therefore inii)ortant that the lips
be trained to accuracy of position.

The consonant sounds are the tones of the vocal cords, or
else mere emissions of breath, molded into distinctive char-
acter by obstructions by the organs of articulation. The
consonant sounds that have vocalization are sometimes
called " subtonics," and sometimes "subvocals." The con-
sonant sounds that are mere breathings are sometimes called
"atonies" and sometimes "aspirates."

" A diphthong is the coalition or union of two vowel
sounds pronounced in one syllable."

Diacritical Marks

Diacritical marks are the characters used to designate
the various sounds of vowels and consonants.

Vowel marks. Consonant marks.

— macron — bar

^ breve ^ cedilla

.. diaeresis . semidiaeresis

. semidiaeresis -i- suspended bar

- tilde ( brace

A caret ~ tilde

— dotted bar

The Elementary Sounds
Vowel Sounds

£ as in May §, as in c§,re = 6

3, as in mat S as in senate

a as in ask a as in many = 6

a as in arm e as in be = i'

a as in all = 6 6 as in m6t

^ as in what = 6 g as in thgre = a

CLEARNESS OF ENUNCIATION

e as in fern = T =

o as iu worm = u

e as in they = a
e as in event

66 as in l66p = o = u
o6 as in look = o = u

1 as in isle = y

6 as in obey

I as in win = y

u as in mute = y66

1 as in machine =

tl as in niiill = 6

1 as in bird = e =

■J

u as in rude = 66 = o

1 as in idea
0 as in note
6 as in God = a

u as in full = 66 = o
vl as in vinite
u as in urn = o

o as in dp = 66 ^ u

y as in my = i

6 as in son = u

y as in myth = I

0 as in wolf = do

= V'

y as in myrrh = e = '

6 as in for = a

y as in hyena

Diphthongs
oi or oy as in oil, toy ou or ow as in out; owl

Consonant Sounds

b as in bin k as in kick

r s as in reqeive 1 as in loop
c = ^ k as in eome m as in moon

[ z as in suffice f as in no

rtsh as in chimney n = J ng as in bank
ch = i sh as in qhamois [ ny as in caiion

p as in pray
ph = f as in phonic

( k as in pique
q (^) = -j kw as in quill

[ k as in Tronic
d as in do

V as in of
f

f as in for
fj as in gem
g = ^ g as in go

l^zh as in mirage
gh = f as in laugh
h as in have
j =L dzh as in joy
2

r =

trilled r as in strong
glide r as in fern
z as in rije
3 as in sing

t as in tell

18 INTERPEETIVE EEADING

fth (aspirate) fksasinaxe

, , _ J as iu thin x = ^ gz as in ejist

I tfe (vocalized) I z as in Xerxes

[ as in tfeis y as in you

V as in voice ( z as in zone

w as in way "~ ") zh as in azure
wh (hw) as in when

Cognates

Cognates are pairs of consonant sounds, one subvocal and
one aspirate, made with the organs of articulation in the
same position for both.

Table

of Cognates

Subvocals

Aspirates

Subvocals

Aspirates

Molding Elements

Mold with the lips the words in the following sentences

1. Merry maidens make mirth.

2. Will to work and will to win.

3. Over the ocean old.

4. Arm, patriots, arm.

Mold with the tongue the sounds in the following syllables ;

1. lo la loo le

2. to ta ta te

3. do da doo de

4. ro ra ra re

CLEAEKESS OF EK^UNCIATION 19

Group II

Enunciate with. Vigor tlie Initial and Final Consonant
Sounds of the Following Words :

Bring, brag, brogue, boy, Rest, roast, rill, rinse,

Call, cling, christen, cast, Stir, run, fur, burn.

Fling, frost, felt, frozen. Stove, sill, soft, last.

Govern, give,, gagging, Tool, turn, test, wept,

Hall, ha, happy, haste, This, that, those, then,

Joke, jail, joist, ju&t, Thin, think, myth,

King, kaiser, kale, cake, Vain, vault, varnish, vogue.

Long, look, lake, mull, Waist, was, worth, word,

Morning, mamma, mist, lame, When, white, what, whine,

North, sunny, noon, night, Xenophon, Xerxes,

Sing, bring, string, fling. Exist, exert, exalt,

Pray, pull, papa, paper. Youth, young, yarrow. Yule,

Quiet, quest, quill, quince, Zone, zebra, zeal, zounds.

Group III
Avoid Running Words Together

Enunciate the words of the following sentences distinctly.
Separate word from word, taking care that the final conso-
nant sound of the one word shall not coalesce with the
vowel sound of the following word.

EXERCISES

1. " At last, with creeping, crooked pace forth came

An old, old man, with beard as white as snow."

2. " He cried, as raging seas are wont to roar.

When wintry storm his wrathful wreck does threat."

3. " I must go seek some dewdrops here.

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear."

4. "Come, now a roundel and a fairy song."

20 INTEEPEETIVE EEADING

5. "That you have wronged me doth appear in this."
G. " Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt! "

7. " Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

8. " Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star in his

steep course? "

9. " Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows like har-

mony in music."

10. " Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up

Fostered alike by beauty and by fear."

11. "Now o'er the one-half world nature seems dead, and

wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep."

12. " Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime

Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl."

Group IV
Enunciate Clearly the Final Word in Each Sentence
Practice reading "Hamlet's Advice to the Players."

SELECTIONS

HAMLET'S ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue ; but if you mouth it, as many
of your players do, I had as lief the town -crier spoke my
lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand,
thus ; but use all gently ; for in the very torrent, tempest,
and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must
acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smooth-
ness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags,
to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most
part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows

cleae:n^ess of enunciation^ 21

and noise; I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-
doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod; pray you avoid
it.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be
your tutor ; suit the action to the word, the word to the
action; with this special observance: that you o'erstep not
the modesty of nature ; for anything so overdone is from
the purpose bf playing, whose end, both at the first and
now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror uj) to na-
ture ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,
and the^very age and body of the time his form and press-
ure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it
make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious
grieve ; the censure of the which one must in your allowance
o'erweigh a whole theater of others. Oh, there be play-
ers that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and
that highly, not to speak it profanely, that neither having
the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan,
nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought
some of nature's journeymen had made them and not
made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

Shakespeare.

DIVISION I

Chapter IV

Forms of Emphasis

Emphasis is the prominence given to a word or group of
words in order to make the meaning clear.

The forms of emphasis are melody, inflection, slide, vol-
ume, force, and pause. Any of these forms may be com-
bined and re-enforced by gesture.

Melodt

The emphasis of melody is the wavelilce change of the
pitch of the speaking voice due to the mental recognition
of the relative importance of the words in sentences.

Lochin ^
young ^^^- ^1

0, "^ come out of the "^

X best;

all wide ^ his was

Through the steed

And save his good 'J' he weapons had

He rode all un % and he rode all ^;

'«,

FORMS OF ET^IPHASIS 23

^v.

^<'/ . %o

^o %,

m "^^ in war,

«►

There >, ^

was^ like the young Lochin ^

Notice the melody of the following lines as you read
them aloud. *"

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone,

He swam the Eske river where ford there was none ;

But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,

The bride had consented, the gallant came late ;

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,

Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

Sir Walter Scott.

INFLECTION

The emphasis of inflection is a mere bending of the voice
from the main pitch up or down, thus: Shall you ^^
I shall re ^

The rising inflection is also used in asking a direct ques-
tion, and in the expression of joyousness and life.

The falling inflection is also used to express will, gravity,
the completion of a thought, and to ask an indirect ques-
tion.

Sometimes the rising and falling inflections are con-
trasted, to express antithesis. Sometimes the two are com-
bined, giving a double bend to the voice, when they are

24 INTEEPEETIVE EEADING

called circumflex. When the voice falls and rises, the in-
flection is called the falling circumflex. This expresses
irony. When the voice rises and falls, the inflection is
called the rising circumflex. This expresses sarcasm or
insinuation.

Falling circumflex : Hath a dog money?

Eising circumflex : Oh, you ^a^^ hear !

Notice the inflections in the following stanzas as you read
them aloud :

So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,
Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all :
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,)
" 0 come ye in peace here, or come ye in Avar,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar? "

" I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied ; —
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide —
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine.
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."

Sir Walter Scott.

The Slide.

The slide is a stronger form of emphasis than the inflec-
tion. It is used in stronger emotion. The voice leaves
the main pitch and moves through a greater gamut of tone

on the emphatic words ; thus \ or

When there is antithesis or contrast of thought, the em-
phasis is marked by contrasting slides.

FOEMS OF EMPHASIS 25

Notice the slides in the following :

The bride kissed the goblet : the knight took it up,
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup.
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips, and a tear m her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, —
" Now tread we a measure ! " said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face.
That never a hall such a galliard did grace ;
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bride-maidens whispered, " 'Twere better by far
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

Sir Walter Scott.

I had rather be a dog and bay the moon.

Than such a Roman !

Shakespeare.

Volume.

The emphasis of volume is largeness or fullness of tone
added to the forms of emphasis already noticed. It is
never used alone. It expresses magnitude, vastness, deep
and noble emotion.

Hold the thought of the following in mind until the
volume of voice comes naturally, not mechanically.

Around thee and above

Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black.

An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it

As with a wedge! But when I look again.

It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,

Thy habitation from eternity !

S. T. Coleridge.

26 INTEEPEETIVE EEADII^G

Eoll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean — roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths Avith bubbling groan.
Without a grave, unknelled, uncofiined, and unknown.

LoBD Byron.

FOKCE.

The emphasis of force is greater stress of voice on words
or syllables. The emphasis of volume has breadth and
vastness; the emphasis of force, strength, will, directness.
It gives strength and decision to speech.

Study the thought of the following selection until you
feel its fire and its force. Kead it aloud repeatedly, en-
deavoring each time to speak to your audience, directly,
earnestly, and with determination in your voice :

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;

Hold hard the breath, and bind up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noble English :

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

for:\is of emphasis 27

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot;
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ' God for Harry, England and Saint George ! '

Shakespeare.

Shylock [^Aside]. How like a fawning publican he looks!
I hate him for he is a Christian ;
But more for 'that in. low simplicity
He lends out money gratis and brings down
The rate of usance iere with us in Venice.
If I can catch him once upon the hip,
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation ; and he rails,
Even there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift.
Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe,
If I forgive him 1

Shakespeare.

The Pause.*

The emphasis of pause is that lingering of the voice on
an important word or words, or that pause before or after
an important word, which is due to deep feeling. Mere
mechanical pauses are the marks of the unskilled workman ;
pauses packed with thought and feeling are the marks of
the artist.

As you read the following selection, think of the poet
improvising at the organ, and imagine the music. Read
slowly. Think ahead, and feel the beauty of the thought
before you utter it.

*For emphasis of pause, read "The Ballad of Baby Belle," by
T. B. Aldrich.

'28 INTERPRETIVE READING

THE LOST CHORD

Seated one day at the Organ,

I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly

Over the noisy keys ;

I know not what I was playing.

Or what I was dreaming then ;
But I struck one chord of music,

Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight.

Like the close of an Angel's Psalm,

And it lay on my fevered spirit,
With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow.

Like love overcoming strife ;
It seemed the harmonious echo

From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexed meanings

Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence

As if it were loth to cease.

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,

That one lost chord divine.
That came from the soul of the Organ,

And entered into mine.

It may be that Death's bright angel
Will speak in that chord again.

It may be that only in Heaven
I shall hear that grand Amen.

Adelaide Procter.

DIVISION II

INTERPRETIVE READING THAT APPEALS TO THE

EMOTIONS

The steps in Dij-ision I. deal with the study of the
thought and the mechanics of delivery that will make the
thought' clear to the understanding of the listener.

The steps in Division II. appeal not only to the under-
standing, but to the emotions of the listener.

The steps in Division II. are as follows:

I. Word pictures.

II. Atmosphere.

III. Tone color.

rV. Rhythm. Movement.
V. Personation.

Chapter I
Word Pictures

First, concentrate the mind on the literature studied in
order to see the word pictures vividly. Give the imagina-
tion full play, because you cannot make others see vividly
what you do not yourself see.

By expression of voice and face and body, try to inter-
pret to others the picture that you see.

In locating the parts of a picture, place them a little to
the right or left rather than directly front. Ai)ply the
laws of perspective in the composition of gesture pictures.

30 INTERPEETIVE READING

In locating a distant object that would be about on a level
with the eye, do not raise the arm above the level of the
eye, as that would make the distant object seem colossal.
When objects of a picture are near by, do not lower the
arm too much, as that would make the objects seem diminu-
tive. Keep the parts of a picture clearly defined. If the
arm takes the same position to designate diiferent parts of
a picture, it produces confusion. All the parts of the
picture will seem to be in a pile.

SELECTIONS
THE FAUN OF PRAXITELES*

The Faun is the marble image of a young man, leaning
his right arm on the trunk or stump of a tree ; one hand
hangs carelessly by his side ; in the other he holds the
fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan instrument of
music. His only garment — a lion's skin, with the claws
upon his shoulder — falls half-way down his back, leaving
the limbs and entire front of the figure nude. The form,
thus displayed, is marvellously graceful, but has a fuller
and more rounded outline, more flesh, and less of heroic
muscle, than the old sculptors were wont to assign to their
types of masculine beauty. The character of the face cor-
responds with the figure ; it is most agreeable in outline
and feature, but rounded and somewhat voluptuously de-
veloped, especially about the throat and chin ; the nose is
almost straight, but very slightly curves inward, thereby
acquiring an indescribable charm of geniality and humor.
The mouth, with its full yet delicate lips, seems so nearly
to smile outright, that it calls forth a responsive smile.

*From "The Marble Faun," by Nathaniel Hawthorne. By per-
mission of the publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

WORD PICTUEES 31

The whole statue — unlike anything else that ever was
wrought in that severe material of marble — conveys the
idea of an amiable and sensual creature, easy, mirthful,
apt for jollity, yet not incapable of being touched by pathos.
It is impossible to gaze long at this stone image with-
out conceiving a kindly sentiment towards it, as if its sub-
stance were warm to the touch, and imbued with actual
life. It comes very close to some of our pleasantest sym-
pathies.

Perhaps it is in the very lack of moral severity, of any
high and heroic ingredient in the character of the Faun,
that makes it so delightful an object to the human eye and
to the frailty of the human heart. The being here repre-
sented is endowed with no principle of virtue, and would
be incapable of comprehending such ; but he would be true
and honest by dint of his simplicity. We should expect
from him no sacrifice or effort for an abstract cause ; there
is not an atom of martyr's stuff in all that softened marble;
but he has a capacity for strong and warm attachment, and
might act devotedly through its impulse, and even die for
it at need. It is possible, too, that the Faun might be
educated through the medium of his emotions, so that
the coarser animal portion of his nature might event-
ually be thrown into the background, though never utterly
expelled.

The animal nature, indeed, is a most essential part of the
Faun's composition; for the characteristics of the brute
creation meet and combine with those of humanity in this
strange yet true and natural conception of antique poetry
and art. Praxiteles has subtly diffused throughout his work
that mute mystery which so hopelessly perplexes us when-
ever we attempt to gain an intellectual or sympathetic
knowledge of the lower orders of creation. The riddle is
indicated, however, only by two definite signs; these are

32 INTERPEETIVE EEADING

the two ears of the Pauu, which are leaf-shaped, terminat-
ing in little peaks, like those of some species of animals.
Though not so seen in the marble, they are probably to be
considered as clothed in fine, downy fur. In the coarser
representations of this class of mythological creatures, there
is another token of brute kindred, — a certain caudal ap-
pendage ; which, if the Faun of Praxiteles must be sup-
posed to possess it at all, is hidden by the lion's skin that
forms his garment. The pointed and furry ears, therefore,
are the sole indications of his wild, forest nature.

Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most deli-
cate taste, the sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic skill
— in a word, a sculptor and a poet too — could have first
dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and then have succeeded
in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in marble.
Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster, but a being
in whom both races meet on friendly ground. The idea
grows coarse as we handle it, and hardens in our grasp.
But, if the spectator broods long over the statue, he will
be conscious of its spell ; all the pleasantness of sylvan life,
all the genial and happy characteristics of creatures that
dwell in fields and woods, will seem to be mingled and
kneaded into one substance, along with the kindred qualities
in the human soul. Trees, grass, flowers, woodland stream-
lets, cattle, deer, and unsophisticated man. The essence
of all these was compressed long ago, and still exists, within
that discolored marble surface of the Faun of Praxiteles.

And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but
rather a poet's reminiscence of a period when man's affinity
with nature was more strict, and his fellowship with every
living thing more intimate and dear.

Nathaniel Hawthokne.

WOED PICTURES 33

MOONLIGHT ON THE ALHAMBRA*

The Mysterious Chambers

As I was rambliug one day about the Moorish halls, my
attention was, for the first time, attracted to a door in a
remote gallery, communicating apparently with some part
of the Alhambra which I had not yet explored. I attempted
to open it, but it was locked. I knocked, but no one an-
swered, and the sound seemed to reverberate through the
empty chambers. Here then was a mystery. Here was
the haunted wing of the castle. How was I to get at the
dark secrets here shut up from the public eye? Should I
come privately at night with lamp and sword, according to
the prying custom of heroes of romance ; or should I en-
deavor to draw the secret from Pepe the stuttering gar-
dener ; or the ingenuous Dolores, or the loquacious Mateo?
Or should I go frankly and openly to Dame Antonia the
chatelaine, and ask her all about it? I chose the latter
course, as being the simplest though the least romantic;
and found, somewhat to my disappointment, that there was
no mystery in the case. I was welcome to explore the
apartment, and there was the key.

When I returned to my quarters, in the governor's apart-
ment, every thing seemed tame and common- place after the
poetic region I had left. The thought suggested itself:
Why could I not change my quarters to these vacant cham-
bers? that would indeed be living in the Alhambra, sur-
rounded by its gardens and fountains, as in the time of the
Moorish sovereigns. I proposed the change to Dame An-
tonia and her family, and it occasioned vast surprise. They

* Copied from Putnam's latest edition of "The Alhambra," as it
was revised by Mr. Irving in 1851.
3

34 INTERPRETIVE READING

could not conceive any rational inducement for the clioice
of an apartment so forlorn, remote and solitary. ... I
was not to be diverted from my humor, however, and my
will was law with these good people. So, calling in the
assistance of a carpenter, and the ever officious Mateo
Xemenes, the doors and windows were soon placed in a
state of tolerable security, and the sleeping-room . . . pre-
pared for my reception. Mateo kindly volunteered as a
body-guard to sleep in my antechamber; but I did not
think it worth while to put his valor to the proof.

With all the hardihood I had assumed and all the pre-
cautions I had taken, I must confess the first night passed
in these quarters was inexpressibly dreary. I do not think
it was so much the apprehension of dangers from without
that affected me, as the character of the place itself, with
all its strange associations : the deeds of violence committed
there ; the tragical ends of many of those who had once
reigned there in splendor. . . .

The whole family escorted me to my chamber, and took
leave of me as of one engaged on a perilous enterprise; and
when I heard their retreating steps die away along the
waste antechambers and echoing galleries ; and turned the
key of my door, I was reminded of those hobgoblin stories,
where the hero is left to accomplish the adventure of an
enchanted house.

In the course of a few evenings a thorough change took
place in the scene and its associations. The moon, which
when I took possession of my new apartments was invisi-
ble, gradually gained each evening upon the darkness of
the night, and at length rolled in full splendor above the
tewers, pouring a flood of tempered light into every court
and hall. The garden beneath my window, before wrapped
in. gloom, was gently lighted up, the orange and citron trees

WOED PICTUEES 35

were tipped with silver ; the fountain sparkled in the moon-
beams, and even the blush of the rose was faintly visible.

I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription on
the walls : " How beauteous is this garden ; where the flow-
ers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven. What can
compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled with
crystal water? nothing but the moon in her fulness, shining
in the midst ef an unclouded sky ! "

On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours at my
window inhaling the sweetness of the garden, and musing
on the checkered fortunes of those whose history was dimly
shadowed out in the elegant memorials around. Some-
times, when all was quiet, and the clock from the distant
cathedral of Granada struck the midnight hour, I have
sallied out on another tour and wandered over the whole
building ; but how different from my first tour ! . . .

Who can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate
and such a place? The temperature of a summer midnight
in Andalusia is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into
a purer atmosphere ; we feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy
of spirits, an elasticity of frame, which render mere exist-
ence happmess. But when moonlight is added to all this,
the effect is like enchantment. Under its plastic sway the
Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. Every rent
and chasm of time ; every mouldering tint and weather-stain
is gone ; the marble resumes its original whiteness ; the long
colonnades brighten in the moonbeams ; the halls are illu-
minated with a softened radiance, we tread the enchanted
palace of an Arabian tale !

"What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to the little
airy pavilion of the queen's toilet, . . . which, like a bird-
cage, overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from its
light arcades upon the moonlight prospect! To the right,
the swelling mountains of the Sierra Nevada, robbed of

36 INTEEPRETIVE READING

their ruggeduess and softened into a fairy land, with their
snowy suuiniits gleaming like silver elouds against the deep
blue sky. And then to lean over the parapet of the Tocador
and gaze down upon Granada and the Albaycin spread out
like a map below ; all buried in deep repose ; the white
palaces and convents sleeping in tlie moonshine, and beyond
all these the vapory Vega fading away like a dream-land in
the distance.

Sometimes the faint click of castanets rises from the
Alameda, where some gay Audalusians are dancmg away
the summer night. Sometimes the dubious tones of a
guitar and the notes of an amorous voice, tell perchance the
whereabout of some moon-struck lover serenading his lady's
window.

Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights I have
passed loitering about the courts and halls and balconies of
this most suggestive pile ; " feeding my fancy with sugared
suppositions," and enjoying that mixture of reverie and
sensation which steal away existence in a southern climate;
so that it has been almost morning before I have retired to
bed and been lulled to sleep by the falling waters of the
fountain of Lindaraxa.

Washington Irving.

A CHRISTMAS AT BOB CRATCHIT'S

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I
learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you
have aught to teach me, let me profit by it."

" Touch my robe ! "

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

WORD PICTURES 37

. . perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor
men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there
he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe ;
and, on the threshold of the door, the Spirit smiled, and
stopped to bless Bob rjratchit's dwelling with the sprin-
klings of his torch. Think of that ! Bob had but fifteen
" Bob " * a week himself ; he pocketed on Saturdays but
fifteen copies of hj^ Christian name ; and yet the Ghost of
Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house !

Thed tip rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,
which are cheap, and make a goodly show for sixpence; and
she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of
her daughters, also brave in ribbons, while Master Peter
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and,
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's
private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor
of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gal-
lantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashion-
able Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl,
came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they
had smelt the goose, and known it for their own ; and, bask-
ing in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young
Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter
Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his
collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow
potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan lid
to be let out and peeled.

""What has ever got your precious father, then?" said
Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim! And
Martha warn't as late last Christmas-day by half an hour I "

* An English shilling.

i ^

38 INTEEPEETIYE READII^G

"Here's Martha, mother! " said a girl, appearing as she
spoke.

" Here' s Martha, mother !" cried the two young Cratchits.
" Hurrah ! There's such a goose, Martha! "

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you
are ! " said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and
taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied
the girl, " and had to clear away this morning, mother ! "

"Well! never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs.
Cratchit. " Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have
a warm. Lord bless ye ! "

"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. " Hide, Martha,
hide ! "

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,
with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe,
hanging down before him ; and his threadbare clothes darned
up and brushed to look seasonable ; and Tiny Tim upon
his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch,
and had his limbs supported by an iron frame !

"Why, Where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, look-
ing round.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

" Not coming ! " said Bob with a sudden declension in
his high sjiirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the
way from church, and had come home rampant. "Not
coming upon Christmas-day ! "

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were
only in joke, so she came out prematurely from behind the
closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young
Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the
wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the
copper.

WOED PICTURES 39

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had
hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow,
he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks
the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming
home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, be-
cause he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to
remember upon Christmas-day, who made lame beggars
walk and blind meij. see."

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing
strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and
back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken,
escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the
fire ; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs — as if, poor fel-
low, they were capable of being made more shabby — com-
pounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons,
and stirred it round and round, and put it on the hob to sim-
mer. Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits
went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in
high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose
the rarest of all birds ; a feathered phenomenon, to which
a black swan was a matter of course — and, in truth, it was
something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made
the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing
hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible
vigor ; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce ; Martha
dusted the hot plates ; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a
tiny corner at the table ; the two young Cratchits set chairs
for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and, mounting
guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths,

40 INTERPRETIVE BEADING

lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to
be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was
said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs.
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, pre-
pared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and
when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one
murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny
Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table
with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah.

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't be-
lieve there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness
and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal
admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes,
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as
Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small
atom of a bone on the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last!
Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in
particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows !
But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs.
Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear witnesses
— to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it
should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should
have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it,
while they were merry with the goose — a supposition at
which the two young Cratchits became livid ! All sorts of
horrors were supposed.

Hello ! A great deal of steam I The pudding was out
of the copper. A smell like a washing-day ! That was the
cloth. A smell like an eating-house, and a pastry cook's next
door to each other, with a laundress, next door to that ! That
was the pudding ! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered —
flushed, but smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a
speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of

WORD PICTURES 41

half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christ-
mas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and
calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success
achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs.
Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she
would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of
flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but no-
body said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large
family. It would ^ave been flat heresy to do so. Any
Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

Then Bob proposed : — " A merry Christmas to us all, my
dears. God bless us! "

Which all the family re-echoed.

" God bless us every one ! " said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

Charles Dickens (adapted).

THE WITCH'S CAVERN*
A fire burned in the far recess of the cave ; and over it was
a small caldron ; on a tall and thin column of iron stood
a rude lamp; over that part of the wall, at the base of
which burned the fire, hung in many rows, as if to dry, a
profusion of herbs and weeds. A fox, couched before the
fire, gazed upon the strangers with its bright and red eye
— its hair bristling — and a low growl stealing from between
its teeth ; in the centre of the cave was an earthen statue,
which had three heads of singular and fantastic cast. A
low tripod stood before this.

• • • • • ■ •

But it was not these appendages . . of the cave that

thrilled the blood of those who gazed fearfully therein — it

was the face of its inmate. Before the tire, with the light

shining full upon her features, sat a woman of considerable

* Adapted from " The Last Days of Pompeii."

42 INTEEPRETIVE EEADING

age. Her countenance betrayed the remains of a regular, but
high and aquiline order of feature : with stony eyes turned
upon them — with a look that met and fascmated theirs —
they beheld in that fearful countenance the very image of
a corpse !

Glaucus. It is a dead thing.

lone. Kay — it stirs — it is a ghost !

Slave. Oh, away — away ! It is the witch of Vesuvius !

Witch. Who are ye? And what do ye here?

Glaucus. We are storm-beaten wanderers from the
neighboring city ; we crave shelter and the comfort of your
hearth.

Witch. Come to the fire if ye will ! I never welcome
living thing — save the owl, the fox, the toad, and the viper
— so I cannot welcome ye ; but come to the fire without
welcome — why stand upon form?

lone. We disturb you, I fear.

Witch. Tell me, are ye brother and sister?

lone. No.

Witch. Are ye married?

Glaiicus. Not so.

Witch. Ho, lovers! ha! ha! ha!

Glaucus. Why dost thou laugh, old crone?

Witch. Did I laugh?

Glaucus. She is in her dotage.

Witch. Thou liest.

lone. Hush ! Provoke her not, dear Glaucus.

Witch. I will tell thee why I laughed when I discovered
ye were lovers. It was because it is a pleasure to the old
and withered to look upon young hearts like yours — and
to know the time will come when you will loathe each
other — loathe — loathe — ha ! — ha ! — ha ! —

lone. The gods forbid. Yet, poor woman, thou knowest
little of love, or thou wouldst know that it never chants.

WOED PICTURES 43

Witch. Was I young once, think ye? And am I old,
and hideous, and deathly now? Such as is the form, so is
the heart.

Glaiiciis. Hast thou dwelt here long?

Witch. Ah, long! — yes.

Glaucus. It is but a drear abode.

Witch. Ha! thou mayst well say that — Hell is beneath
us ! And I will tell thee a secret — the dim things below
are preparing wrath for ye above.

Glaucus. Thou ijtterest but evil words. In the future,
I will brave the tempest rather than thy welcome.

Witch. ' Thou wilt do well. None should ever seek me,
save the wretched !

Glaucus. And why the wretched?

Witch. I am the witch of the mountain ; my trade is to
give hope to the hopeless : for the crossed in love, I have
philtres ; for the avaricious, promises of treasure ; for the
happy and the good, I have only what life has — curses !
Trouble me no more.

As Glaucus now turned towards the witch, he perceived
for the first time, just under her seat, the bright gaze and
crested head of a large snake : whether it was that the vivid
coloring of the Athenian's cloak, thrown over the shoulders
of lone, attracted the reptile's anger — its crest began to
glow and rise, as if menacing and preparing itself to spring
upon the Neapolitan;— Glaucus caught quickly at one of
the half -burned logs upon the hearth— and, as if enraged
at the action, the snake came forth from its shelter, and
with a loud hiss raised itself on end, till its height nearly

approached that of the Greek.

. • • •

Glaucus. Witch, command thy creature, or thou wilt

868 it dead !

44 INTERPEETIVE READING

Witch. It has been despoiled of its venom.

Ere the words had left her lips, the snake had sprung
upon Glaucus; the agile Greek leaped lightly aside, and
struck so fell a blow on the head of the snake, that it fell
prostrate and writhing among the embers of the fire.

The hag sprung up, and stood confronting Glaucus with
a face which would have befitted the fiercest of the Furies.

Witch. Thou hast had shelter under my roof, and
warmth at my hearth; thou hast returned evil for good;
thou hast smitten and slain the thing that loved me and was
mine : now hear thy punishment. I curse thee ! and
thou art cursed ! May thy love be blasted — may thy name
be blackened — may the infernals mark thee — may thy heart
wither and scorch — may thy last hour recall to thee the
prophet voice of the Saga of Vesuvius!

Long and loud rang the echoes of the cavern with the
dread laugh of the saga.

The lovers gained the open air.

"Alas!" said lone, "my soul feels the omen of evil.
Preserve us, oh, ye gods ! " Lord Lttton.

BEAUTY *

A nobler want of man is served by nature, namely, the
love of Beauty.

The ancient Greeks called the world, beauty. Such
is the constitution of all things, or such the plastic
power of the human eye, that the primary forms, as
the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us delight
in and for themselves ; a pleasure arising from outline, color,
motion, and grouping. This seems partly owing to the eye

*Used by special arrangement with and permission of Messrs.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the authorized publishers of the works of
Ralph Waldo Emeraon.

WORD PICTUEES 45

itself. The eye is the best of artists. By the mutual
action of its structure and of the laws of light, perspective
is produced, which integrates every mass of objects, of
what character soever, into a well-colored and shaded globe,
so that where the particular objects are mean and unaffect-
ing, the landscape which they compose is round and sym-
metrical. And as the eye is the best composer, so light is
the iirst of painters. There is no object so foul that intense
light will not make beautiful. And the stimulus it affords
to the sense, and si. sort of infinitude which it hath, like
space and time, make all matter gay. Even the corpse
has its own beauty. But besides this general grace diffused
over nature, almost all the individual forms are agreeable
to the eye, as is proved by our endless imitations of some
of them, as the acorn, the grape, the pine-cone, the wheat-
ear, the egg, the wings and forms of most birds, the lion's
claw, the serpent, the butterfly, sea-shells, flames, clouds,
buds, leaves, and the forms of many trees, as the palm.

For better consideration, we may distribute the aspects
of Beauty in a threefold manner,

1. First, the simple perception of natural forms is a de-
light. The influence of the forms and actions in nature is
so needful to man, that, in its lowest functions, it seems
to lie on the confines of commodity and beauty. To the
body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or
company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The
tradesman, the attorney, comes out of the din and craft of
the street, and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man
again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself. The health
of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired,
so long as we can see far enough.

But in other hours. Nature satisfies by its loveli-
ness, and without any mixture of corporeal benefit.
I see the spectacle of morning from the hilltop over

46 IXTEKPEETIVE BEADING

against my house, from daybreak to sunrise, with emotions
which an angel might share. The long slender bars of
cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From
the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I
seem to partake its rapid transformations : the active en-
chantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with
the morning wind. How does Nature deify us with a few
and cheap elements! Give me health and a day, and
I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn
is my Assyria; the sunset and moonrise my Paphos, and
unimaginable reahns of faerie ; broad noon shall be my Eng-
land of the senses and the understanding ; the night shall
be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams.

Not less excellent, except for our less susceptibility in
the afternoon, was the charm, last evening, of a January
sunset. The western clouds divided and subdivided them-
selves into pink flakes modulated with tints of unspeakable
softness ; and the air had so much life and sweetness, that
it was a pain to come within doors. What was it that
nature would say? Was there no meaning in the live
repose of the valley behind the mill, and which Homer
or Shakspeare could not re-form for me in words? The
leafless trees became spires of flame in the sunset, with
the blue east for their background, and the stars of the
dead calices of flowers, and every withered stem and stub-
ble rimed with frost, contribute something to the mute
music.

The inhabitants of cities suppose that the country land-
scape is pleasant only half the year. I please myself with
the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that we are as
much touched by it as by the genial influences of summer.
To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own
beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a
picture which was never seen before, and which shall never

WOED PICTUEES 47

be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and
reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath. The
state of the crop in the surrounding farms alters the ex-
pression of the earth from week to week. The succession
of native plants in the pastures and roadsides, which makes
the silent clock by which time tells the summer hours, will
make even the divisions of the day, sensible to a keen
observer. The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants
punctual to their time, follow each other, and the year
has room for all. I^ water-courses, the variety is greater.
In July, the blue pontederia or pickerel-weed blooms in
large be'ds in the shallow parts of our pleasant river,
and swarms with yellow butterflies in continual motion.
Art cannot rival this pomp of purple and gold. Indeed,
the river is a perjDetual gala, and boasts each month a new
ornament.

But this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty,
is the least part. The shows of day, the dewy morning,
the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars,
moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like, if too
eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with
their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon, and
'tis mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines
upon your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers
in the yellow afternoons of October, — who ever could clutch
it? Go forth to find it, and it is gone : 'tis only a mirage
as you look from the windows of diligence.

2. The presence of a higher, namely, of the spiritual,
element is essential to its perfection. The high and divine
beauty which can be loved without effeminacy, is that
which is found in combination with the human will.
Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every
natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also
decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.

48 INTEEPRETIVE EEADING

We are taught by great actions that the universe is the
property of every individual in it. Every rational creature
has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is liis, if he
will. He may divest himself of it ; he may creep into a
corner, and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do, but lie is
entitled to the world by his constitution. In proportion to
the energy of his thought and will, he takes up the world
into himself. "All those things for which men plow, build,
or sail, obey virtue," said Sallust. "The winds and
waves," said Gibbon, "are always on the side of the
ablest navigators," So are the sun and moon and all
the stars of heaven. When a noble act is done, — per-
chance in a scene of great natural beauty ; when Leonidas
and his three hundred martyrs consume one day in dying,
and the sun and moon come each and look at them once in
the steep defile of Thermopylae ; when Arnold Winkelried,
in the high Alps, under the shadow of the avalanche, gathers
in his side a sheaf of Austrian spears to break the line
for his comrades ; — are not these heroes entitled to add the
beauty of the scene to the beauty of the deed? When the
bai'k of Columbus nears the shore of America ; — before it, the
beach lined with savages, fleeing out of all their huts of
cane; the sea behind; and the purple mountains of the In-
dian Archipelago around, can we separate the man from
the living picture? Does not the New World clothe his
form with her palm-groves and savannas as fit drapery?
Ever does natural beauty steal in like air, and envelop great
actions. When Sir Henry Vane was dragged up the Tower-
hill, sitting on a sled to suffer death, as the champion of the
English laws, one of the multitude cried out to him, " You
never sat on so glorious a seat." Charles II., to intimi-
date the citizens of London, caused the patriot Lord Rus-
sell to be drawn in an open coach, through the principal
streets of the city, on his way to the scaffold. "But,"

WOED PICTUEES 49

his biographer says, "the multitude imagined they saw
liberty and virtue sitting by his side." In. private places,
among sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems
at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, the
sun as its candle. Nature stretcheth out her arms to em-
brace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness.
Willingly does she follow his steps with the rose and the
violet, and bQ.nd her lines of grandeur and grace to the
decoration of her darling child. Only let his thoughts be
of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture.

Ealph Waldo Emerson.

JEAN VALJEAN AND THE BISHOP
Part I

The door was thrown open wide. A man entered and
stopped, leaving the door open behind him. He had his
knapsack on his shoulder, his stick in his hand, and a
rough, bold, wearied, and violent expression in his eyes.
The firelight fell on him ; he was hideous ; it was a sinister
apparition.

The bishop fixed a quiet eye on the man, as he opened
his mouth, doubtless to ask the new-comer what he wanted.
The man leant both his hands on his stick, looked in turn
at the two aged females and the old man, and, not waiting
for the bishop to speak, said in a loud voice,

" My name is Jean Valjean, I am a galley-slave, and
have spent nineteen years in the bagne. I was liberated
four days ago, and started for Pontarlier, which is my des-
tination. I have been walking for four days since I left
Toulon, and to-day I have marched twelve leagues. This
evening on coming into the town I went to the inn, but was
sent away in consequence of my yellow passport, which I
had shown at the police office. I went to another inn, and
4

50 INTEEPEETIVE EEADING

the landlord said to me, Be off. It was the same every-
where, and no one would have any dealings with me. I
went to the prison, but the jailer would not take me in. I
got into a dog's kennel, but the dog bit me and drove me
ofE, as if it had been a man ; it seemed to know who I was.
I went into the fields to sleep in the star-light, but there
were no stars. I thought it would rain, and as there was
no God to prevent it from raining, I came back to the town
to sleep in a doorway. I was lying down on a stone in
the square, when a good woman pointed to your house and
said. Go and knock there. What sort of a house is this?
Do you keep an inn? I have money, 100 francs 15 sous,
which I earned at the bagne by my nineteen years' toil. I
will pay, for what do I care for that, as I have money ! I am
very tired and frightfully hungry ; will you let me stay here?"

"Madame Magloire," said the bishop, "you will lay an-
other knife and fork."

The man advanced three paces, and approached the lamp
which was on the table. "Wait a minute," he continued,
as if he had not comprehended, " that will not do. Did
you not hear me say that I was a galley-slave, a convict,
and have just come from the bagne? " He took from his
pocket a large yellow paper, which he unfolded. " Here is
my passport, yellow, as you see, which turns me out where-
ever I go. Will you read it? I can read it, for I learned
to do so at the bagne, where there is a school for those who
like to attend it. This is what is written in my passport :
* Jean Valjean, a liberated convict, native of ' — but that
does not concern you — ' has remained nineteen years at the
galleys. Five years for robbery with house-breaking, four-
teen years for having tried to escape four times. The man
is very dangerous.' All the world has turned me out, and
are you willing to receive me? is this an inn? will j^ou give
me some food and a bed? have you a stable? "

WORD PICTURES 51

"Madame Magloire," said the bishop, "you will put
clean sheets on the bed in the alcove."

The bishop turned to the man. " Sit down and warm
yourseK, sir? We shall sup directly, and your bed will be
got ready while we are supping."

The man understood this at once. The expression of
his face, which had hitherto been gloomy and harsh, was
marked with stupefaction, joy, doubt, and became extraor-
dinary. He began stammering like a lunatic.

"Is it true? wliat? You will let me stay, you will not
drive me out, a convict? You call me Sir, you do not
* thou ''me. ' Get out, dog' ; that is what is always said
to me ; I really believed you would turn me out, and hence
told you at once who I am ! Oh what a worthy woman
she was who sent me here! I shall have supper, a bed
with mattress and sheets, like everybody else ! For nine-
teen years I have not slept in a bed ! You really mean
that I am to stay. You are worthy people ; besides, I have
money and will pay handsomely. By the way, what is
your name, Mr. Landlord? I will pay anything you please,
for you are a worthy man. You keep an inn, do you not? "

"I am," said the bishop, "a priest living in this house."

"A priest!" the man continued. While speaking, he
deposited his knapsack and stick in a corner, returned liis
passport to his pocket, and sat down. " You are humane,
sir, and do not feel contempt. A good priest is very good.
Then you do not want me to pay? "

"No," said the bishop, "keep your money. How long
did you take in earning these 100 francs? "

"Nineteen years."

"Nineteen years! " the bishop gave a deep sigh.

The man went on, — " I have all my money still ; in four
days I have only spent 25 sous, which I earned by helping
to unload carts at Grasse. As you are an abb6 I will tell

52 INTERPRETIVE READING

you : we had a chaplain at the bagne, and one day I saw a
bishop, monseigneur, as they call him. He is the cure over
the cures ; but, pardon me, you know that, placed as we
are, we (convicts) know and explain such things badly, and
for me in particular it is so far away in the past. He said
mass in the middle of the bagne at an altar, and had a
pointed gold thing on his head, which glistened in the
bright sunshine; we were drawn up on three sides of a
square, with guns and lighted matches facing us. He
spoke, but was too far off, and we did not hear him. That
is what a bishop is. "

While he was speaking the bishop had gone to close the
door, which had been left open. Madame Magloire came
in, bringing a silver spoon and fork, which she placed on
the table.

" Madame Magloire," said the bishop, " lay them as near
as you can to the fire ; " and, turning to his guest, he said,
" The night breeze is sharp on the Alps, and you must be
cold, sir."

Each time he said the word Sir with his gentle grave
voice the man's face was illumined. Sir to a convict is the
glass of water to the shipwrecked sailor of the Meduse.
Ignominy thirsts for respect.

" This lamp gives a very bad light," the bishop continued.
Madame Magloire understood, and fetched from the chimney
of monseigneur' s bedroom the two silver candlesticks, which
she placed on the table ready lighted.

''Monsieur le Cure," said the man, "you are good and
do not despise me. You receive me as a friend, and
light your wax candles for me, and yet I have not hid-
den from you whence I come, and that I am an unfor-
tunate fellow."

The bishop, who was seated by his side, gently touched
his hand. " You need not have told me who you were j

WOED PICTUEES 53

this is not my house, but the house of Chxist. This door
does not ask a man who enters whether he has a name, but
if he has sorrow ; you are suffering, you are hungry and
thirsty, and so be welcome. And do not thank me, or say
that I am receiving you in my house, for no one is at home
here excepting the man who has need of an asylum. I tell
you, who are a passer-by, that you are more at home here
than I am myself, and all there is here is yours. Why do
I want to know your name? besides, before you told it to
me you had one wjiich I knew."

The man opened his eyes in amazement.

" Is 'that true? you know my name? "

"Yes," the bishop answered, "you are my brother."
" You have suffered greatly? "

"Oh! the red jacket, the cannon ball on your foot, a
plank to sleep on, heat, cold, labor, the set of men, the
blows, the double chain for a nothing, a dungeon for a
word, even when you are ill in bed, and the chain-gang.
The very dogs are happier. Nineteen years ! and now I
am forty-six ; and at present, the yellow passport ! "

"Yes," said the bishop, "you have come from a place of
sorrow. Listen to me ; there will be more joy in heaven
over the tearful face of a repentant sinner than over the
white robes of one hundred just men. If you leave that
mournful place with thoughts of hatred and anger against
your fellow-men you are worthy of pity ; if you leave it
with thoughts of kindliness, gentleness, and peace, you are
worth more than any of us."

After bidding his sister good-night, Monseigneur Wel-
come took up one of the silver candlesticks, handed the
other to his guest, and said, —

"I will lead you to your room, sir."

The bishop led his guest to the alcove, where a clean bed

54 INTEEPRETIVE READING

was prepared for liim ; the man placed the branched candle-
stick on a small table.

"I trust you will pass a good night," said the bishop.

"Thank you, Monsieur I'Abbe," the man said. He sud-
denly turned to the old gentleman, folded his arms, and
fixing on him a savage glance, he exclaimed hoarsely, —

" What ! you really lodge me so close to you as that? "
He broke off and added with a laugh, in which there was
something monstrous, — " Have you reflected fully? Who
tells you that I have not committed a murder? "

The bishop answered, "That concerns God."

Then gravely moving his lips, he stretched out his right
hand and blessed the man, who did not bow his head, and
returned to his bedroom, without turning or looking behind
him. 'When the alcove was occupied, a large serge curtain
drawn right across the oratory concealed the altar. The
bishop knelt down as he passed before this curtain, and
offered up a short prayer ; a moment after he was in his
garden, walking, dreaming, contemplating, his soul and
thoughts entirely occupied by those grand mysteries which
God displays at night to eyes that remain open. Midnight
was striking as the bishop returned from his garden to the
room, and a few minutes later everybody was asleep in the
small house.

• •••>••••

As two o'clock pealed from the cathedral bell, Jean Val-
jean awoke. He rose, hesitated for a moment and listened;
all was silent in the house, and he went on tiptoe to the
window, through which he peered. . . After taking this
glance, he went boldly to the alcove, opened his knapsack,
took out something which he laid on the bed, put his shoes
in one of the pouches, placed the knapsack on his shoulders,
put on his cap, the peak of which he pulled over his eyes,
groped for his stick, which he had placed in the window-

WOED PICTUEES 55

nook, and then returned to the bed, and took up the object
he had laid on it. It resembled a short iron bar, sharpened
at one of its ends. It would have been difficult to distin-
guish in the darkness for what purpose this piece of iron
had been fashioned; perhaps it was a lever, perhaps it was
a club. By daylight it could have been seen that it was
nothing but a miner's candlestick. The convicts at that
day were sometimes employed in extracting rock from the
lofty hills that surround Toulon, and it was not infrequent
for them to have mining tools at their disposal. The
miners' candlesticks are made of massive steel, and have a
point "at the lower end, by which they are dug into the
rock. He took the bar in his right hand, and holding his
breath and deadening his footsteps he walked toward the
door of the adjoining room. On reaching this door he
found it ajar — the bishop had not shut it.

• . • •

Jean Valjean listened, but there was not a sound; he
pushed the door with the tip of his finger lightly. He
heard from the end of the room the calm and regular
breathing of the sleeping bishop. Suddenly he stopped,
for he was close to the bed ; he had reached it sooner than
he anticipated. For nearly half an hour a heavy cloud had
covered the sky, but at the moment when Jean Valjean
stopped at the foot of the bed, this cloud was rent asunder
as if expressly, and a moonbeam passing through the tall
window suddenly illumined the bishop's pale face. The
moon in the heavens, the hour, the silence, the moment,
added something solemn and indescribable to this man's
venerable repose, and cast a majestic and serene halo round
his white hair and closed eyes, his face, in which all was
hope and confidence, his aged head, and his infantine
slumbers. There was almost a divinity in this uncon-
sciously august man. Jean Valjean was standing in the

56 INTEEPEETIVE EEADING

shadow with his crowbar in his hand, motionless and ter-
rified by this luminous old man. He had never seen any-
thing like this before, and such confidence horrified him.
The moral world has no greater spectacle than this, a
troubled restless conscience, which is on the point of com-
mitting a bad action, contemplating the sleep of a just man.

• ••••••«

All at once Jean Valjean put on his cap again, then
walked rapidly along the bed, without looking at the bishop,
and went straight to the cupboard. The first thing he saw
was the plate-basket, which he seized. He hurried across
the room, opened the window, seized his stick, put the
silver in his pocket, threw away the basket, leaped into the
garden, bou,nded over the wall like a tiger, and fled.

JEAN VALJEAN AND THE BISHOP

Part II

The next morning at sunrise Monseigneur Welcome was
walking about the garden, when Madame Magloire came
running toward him in a state of great alarm.

" Monseigneur, monseigneur ! " she screamed, " does your
grandeur know where the plate-basket is? "

"Yes," said the bishop.

" The Lord be praised," she continued ; *' I did not know
what had become of it. "

The bishop had just picked up the basket in a flower-
bed, and now handed it to Madame Magloire. ''Here it
is," he said,

** Well! " she said, "there is nothing in it; where is the
plate? "

"Ah! " the bishop replied, "it is the plate that troubles
your mind. Well, I do not know where that is."

WOED PICTURES 67

" Good Lord ! it is stolen, and that man who came last
night is the robber."

A strange and violent group appeared. Three men were
holding a fourth by the collar. The three men were gen-
darmes, the fourth was Jean Valjean. A corporal, who
apparently commanded the party, came in and walked up
to the bishop with a military salute.

Monseigneur Welcome had advanced as rapidly as his
great age permitted.

"Ah! there you are," he said, looking at Jean Valjean.
" I am glad to see you. Why, I gave you the candlesticks too,
which are also silver, and will fetch you 200 francs. Why
did you not take them away with the rest of the plate? "

Jean Valjean opened his eyes, and looked at the bishop
with an expression which no human language could render.

" Monseigneur," the corporal said, " what this man told us
was true then? We met him, and as he looked as if he were
running away, we arrested him. He had this plate "

"And he told you," the bishop interrupted with a smile,
" that it was given to him by an old priest at whose house
he passed the night? I see it all. And you brought him
back here? That is a mistake."

"In that case," the corporal continued, "we can let him
go?"

"Of course," the bishop answered.

The gendarmes loosed their hold of Jean Valjean, who
tottered back.

"Is it true that I am at liberty? " he said, in an almost
inarticulate voice, and as if speaking in his sleep.

"Yes, you are let go; don't you understand?" said a
gendarme.

"My friend," the bishop continued, "before you go take
your candlesticks."

58 INTEEPEETIVE EEADII^G

He went to the mantel-piece, fetched the two caudle-
sticks, and handed them to Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean
was trembling in all his limbs; he took the candlesticks
mechanically, and with wandering looks.

"Now," said the bishop, "go in peace."

Then turning to the gendarmes, he said, — "Gentlemen,
you can retire."

They did so. The bishop walked up to Jean Valjean,
and said in a low voice, "Never forget that you have
promised me to employ this money in becoming an honest
man."

Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of having promised
anything, stood silent. The bishop continued solemnly,—

" Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil,
but to good. I have bought your soul of you. I withdraw
it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and give
it to God."

Victor Hugo.

Adapted from "Les Miserables."

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
Part II

The Sun now rose upon the right:

Out of the sea came he.
Still hid in mist, and on the left

Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,

But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day, for food or play

Came to the mariners' hollo!

WORD PICTURES 59

And I had done a hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe :
For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.
'Ah, wretch ! ' said they, ' the bird to slay,

That made the breeze to blow ! '

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,

The glorious Sun uprist :
Then all^^verred, I had killed the bird

That brought the fog and mist.
' 'Twas right,' said they, ' such birds to slay,

That bring the fog and mist. '

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky.

The bloody Sun, at noon.
Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day.

We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;

As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere.

And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.

60 IIsrTEEPEETIVE BEADING

The very deep did rot : 0 Christ !

That ever this should be !
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night ;

The water, like a witch's oils.
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

And some in dreams assured were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so:

Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root ;
"We could not speak, no more than if

We had been choked with soot.

Ah ! well-a-day ! what evil looks

Had I from old and young !
Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

Samuel Taylok Coleridge.

DIVISION n
Chapter II
Atmosphere

The atmosphere of literature is the feeling or spirit that
pervades it. Atmosphere in interpretive reading is the
response of voice and face and body to the feeling aroused
in the speaker by the literature. This response comes from
repeated sympathetic study of the thought and sentiment.
To read understandingly is not all. The heart must enter
in. The reader should make others feel the power and
beauty of the literature read as he feels it. This is the
spiritual interpretation of literature.

Study a selection as in all previous steps. Memorize the
lines. Let your thoughts dwell on the Hues. Eecite them
over and over. Study again, give yourself out to those to
whom you read. Live your thoughts. Have a beautiful
message for others that may be helpful to them. Feel
what you say.

SELECTIONS

THE RIDE FOR LIFE*

The night was clear, with a touch of frost in the air, yet
with the feeling in it of approaching spring. A dim light
fell over the forest from the half-moon and the stars, and
seemed to fill up the little clearing in which the manse
stood, with a weird and mysterious radiance. Far away

* Reprinted by permission from "The Man from Glengarry."
Copyright, 1901, by Fleming H. Revell Company.

62 INTEEPEETIVE READING

in the forest the long-di-awn howl of a wolf rose and fell,
and in a moment sharp and clear came an answer from the
bush just at hand. Mrs. Murray dreaded the wolves, but
she was no coward and scorned to show fear.

"The wolves are out, Ranald," she said, carelessly, as
Ranald came up with the pony.

"They are not many, I think," answered the boy as
carelessly, "but — are you — do you think — perhaps I could
just take the medicine — and you will come "

" Nonsense, Ranald ! bring up the pony. Do you think
I have lived all this time in Indian Lands to be afraid of a
wolf? "

"ludeed you are not afraid, I know that well! "

Ranald shrank from laying the crime of being afraid at
the door of the minister's wife, whose fearlessness was pro-
verbial in the community — " but maybe " The truth

was, Ranald would rather be alone if the wolves came out.

But Mrs. Murray was in the saddle, and the pony was
impatient to be off.

'^" We will go by the Camerons' clearing, and then take
their wood-track. It is a better road," said Ranald, after
they had got through the big gate.

"Now, Ranald, you think I am afraid of the swamp,
and by the Camerons' is much longer."

" Indeed, I hear them say that you are not afraid of the
— of anything," said Ranald, quickly, "but this road is
better for the horses."

"Come on, then, with your colt," and the pony darted
away on her quick-springing gallop, followed by the colt
going with a long, easy, loping stride. For a mile they
kept side by side until they reached the Camerons' lane^__,
when Ranald held in the colt and allowed the pony to lead.
As they passed through the Camerons' yard the big black
dogs, famous bear-hunters, came baying at them. The

ATMOSPHERE 63

pony regarded tliem with indifference, but the colt shied
and plunged.

" Whoa, Liz ! " Liz was Ranald's contraction for Lizette,
the name the French horse-trainer and breeder, Jules La
Rocque, gave to her mother, who in her day was queen of
the ice at L' Original Christmas races.

" Be quate, Nigger, will you ! " The dogs, who knew
Ranald well, ceased their clamor, but not before the kitchen
door opened and Don Cameron came out.

Don was about- a year older than Ranald and was his
friend and comrade.

"It's me, Don — and Mrs. Murray there."

Don gazed speechless.

"And what ? " he began.

"Father is not well. He is hurted, and Mrs. Murray
is going to see him, and we must go."

Ranald hurried through his story, impatient to get on.

" But are you going up through the bush? " asked Don.

" Yes, what else, Don? " asked Mrs. Murray. " It is a
good road, isn't it? "

"Oh, yes, I suppose it is good enough," said Don, doubt-
fully, " But I heard "

" We will come out at our own clearing at the back, you
know," Ranald hurried to say, giving Don a kick. " Whist,
man! She is set upon going." At that moment, away off
toward the swamp, which they were avoiding, the long,
heart-chilling cry of a mother wolf quavered on the still
night air. In spite of herself Mrs. Murray shivered, and
the boys looked at each other.

" There is only one," said Ranald in a low voice to Don,
but they both knew that where the she-wolf is there is a
pack not far off. " And we will be through the bush in
five minutes."

"Come, Ranald! Come away, you can talk to Don any

64 INTERPEETIVE READING

time. Good-night, Don." And so saying she headed her
pony toward the clearing and was off at a gallop, and
Ranald, shaking his head at his friend, ejaculated:

"Man alive! what do you think of that?" and was off
after the pony.

Together they entered the bush. The road was well
beaten and the horses were keen to go, so that before many
minutes were over they were half through the bush. Ra-
nald's spirits rose, and he began to take some interest in
his companion's observations upon the beauty of the lights
and shadows falling across their path.

" Look at that very dark shadow from the spruce there,
Ranald," she cried, pointing to a deep black turn in the
road. For answer there came from behind them the long,
mournful hunting-cry of the wolf. He was on their track.
Immediately it was answered by a chorus of howls from
the bush on the swamp-side, but still far away. There
was no need of command ; the pony sprang forward with a
snort and the colt followed, and after a few minutes' run-
ning, passed her.

" Whow-oo-oo-oo-ow," rose the long cry of the pursuer
summoning help, and drawing nearer.

" Wow-ee-wow," came the shorter, sharper answer from
the swamp, but much nearer than before and more in front.
They were trying to head off their prey.

Ranald tugged at his colt till he got him back with the
pony.

" It is a good road, " he said, quietly. " You can let the
pony go. I will follow you." He swung in behind the
pony, who was now running for dear life and snorting with
terror at every jump.

" God preserve us ! " said Ranald to himself. He had
caught sight of a dark form as it darted through the gleam
of light in front.

ATMOSPHEEE 65

"What did you say, Kanald?" The voice was quiet
and clear.

"It is a great pony to run whatever," said Ranald,
ashamed of himself.

" Is she not? "

Ranald glanced over his shoulder. Down the road, run-
ning with silent, awful swiftness, he saw the long, low
body of the leading wolf flashing through the bars of moon-
light across the road, and the pack following hard.

"Let her go, Mrs. Murray," cried Ranald. " Wliip her
and never stop." But there was no need; the pony was
wild with fear, and was doing her best running.

Ranald meantime was gradually holding in the colt, and
the pony drew away rapidly. But as rapidly the wolves
were closing in behind him. They were not more than a
hundred yards away, and gaining every second. Ranald,
remembering the suspicious nature of the brutes, loosened
his coat and dropped it on the road ; with a chorus of yelps
they paused, then threw themselves upon it, and in another
minute took up the chase.

But now the clearing was in sight. The pony was far
ahead, and Ranald shook out his colt with a yell. He was
none too soon, for the pursuing pack, now uttering short,
shrill yelps, were close at the colt's heels. Lizette, fleet
as the wind, could not shake them off. Closer and ever
closer they came, snapping and snarling. Ranald could
see them over his shoulder. A hundred yards more and
he would reach his own back lane. The leader of the pack
seemed to feel that his chances were slipping swiftly away.
"With a spurt he gained upon Lizette, reached the saddle-
girths, gathered himself in two short jumps, and sprang
for the colt's throat. Instinctively Ranald stood up in
his stirrups, and, kicking his foot free, caught the wolf
under the jaw. The brute fell with a howl under the
5

66 INTEEPEETIVE BEADING

colt's feet, and next moment they were in tlie lane and
safe.

The savage brutes, discouraged by their leader's fall,
slowed down their fierce pursuit, and, hearing the deep
bay of the Macdonalds' great deerhound. Bugle, up at the
house, they paused, sniffed the air a few minutes, then
turned and swiftly and silently slid into the dark shadows.
Ranald, knowing tliat they would hardly dare enter the
lane, checked the colt, and, wheeling, watched them dis-
appear.

" I'll have some of your hides some day," he cried, shak-
ing his fist after them. He hated to be made to run.

He had hardly set the colt's face homeward when he
heard something tearing down the lane to meet them. The
colt snorted, swerved, and then, dropping his ears, stood
still. It was Bugle, and after him came Mrs, Murray on
the pony.

" Oh, Ranald ! " she panted, " thank God you are safe.

-T was afraid you — you " Her voice broke in sobs.

Her hood had fallen back from her white face, and her eyes
were shining like two stars. She laid her hand on Ranald's
arm, and her voice grew steady as she said, " Thank God,
my boy, and thank you with all my heart. You risked
your life for mine. You are a brave fellow ! I can never
forget this ! "

" Oh, pshaw ! " said Ranald, awkwardly. " You are
better stuif than I am. You came back with Bugle. And
I knew Liz could beat the pony whatever." Then they
walked their horses quietly to the stable, and nothing more
was said by either of them, but from that hour Ranald had
a friend ready to offer life for him, though he did not
know it then nor till years afterwards.

Charles Gordon.

ATMOSPHEEE 67

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, 0 sovran Blanc!
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful Form !
Kisest from forth thy silent sea of pmes,
How silently! ground thee and above
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,
An cTdou mass : methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge ! But when I look again.
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity !

0 dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense.

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer

1 worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet, beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought,

Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret joy:

Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,

Into the mighty vision passing — there

As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven !

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.

Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the Vale !
0 struggling with the darkness all the night,

68 INTERPRETIVE READING

And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Com})anion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald : wake, O wake, and utter praise !
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?
Who fiU'd thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad !

Who called you forth from night and utter death,

From dark and icy caverns called you forth,

Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,

For ever shattered and the same for ever?

Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury and your joy,

Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded (and the silence came),

Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountam's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain —
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge i
Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts !
Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? —
God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God !
God ! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice !
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul- like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God I

ATMOSPHEEB 69

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost !
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm !
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds !
Ye signs and wonders of the elements !
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise !

Thou, too, hoar Mount ! with thy sky-pointing peaks,

Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,

Shoots downwaixl, glittering through the pure serene

Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast —

Thou too again, stupendous Mountain ! thou

That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low

In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,

Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud.

To rise before me — Kise, 0 ever rise,

Eise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!

Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,

Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,

Great Hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky.

And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

S. T. Coleridge.

THE SUNRISE

From early childhood, even as hath been said,

From his sixth year, he had been sent abroad

In summer to tend herds : such was his task

Thenceforward till the later day of youth.

0 then what soul was his, when, on the tops

Of the high mountains, he beheld the sun

Eise up, and bathe the world in light! He look'd—

Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth

70 INTERPRETIVE READING

And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay

In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched,

And in their silent faces did he read

Unutterable love. Sound needed none.

Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank

The spectacle ; sensation, soul, and form

All melted into him ; they swallowed up

His animal being ; m them did he live,

And by them did he live : they were his life.

In such access of mind, in such high hour

Of visitation from the living God,

Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired.

No thanks he breath' d, he proffer' d no request;

Rapt into still communion that transcends

The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.

His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power

That made him ; it was blessedness and love !

William Wordsworth,

THE SUNSET

Soft heath this elevated spot supplied,

With resting-place of mossy stone ; and there

We sate reclined, admiring quietly

The frame and general aspect of the scene;

And each not seldom eager to make known

His own discoveries ; or to favorite points

Directing notice, merely from a wish

T' impart a joy, imperfect while unshared.

That rapturous moment ne'er shall I forget

When these particular interests were effaced

From every mind ! Already had the sun,

Sinking with less than ordinary state,

Attained his western bound ; but rays of light —

ATMOSPHERE 71

Now suddenly diverging from the orb,
Retired behind the mountain tops or veiled
By the dense air — shot upwards to the crown
Of the blue firmament— aloft — and wide;
And multitudes of little floating clouds,
Pierced through their thin ethereal mould, ere we,
Who saw, of change were conscious, had become
Vivid as fire — clouds separately poised.
Innumerable multitude of forms
Scattered thuough half the circle of the sky ;
And giving back, and shedding each on each,
With prodigal communion, the bright hues
Which from the unapparent fount of glory
They had imbibed, and ceased not to receive.
That which the heavens displayed, the liquid deep
Repeated ; but with unity sublime !

While from the grassy mountain's open side

We gazed, in silence hushed, with eyes intent

On the refulgent spectacle, diffused

Through earth, sky, water, and all visible space,

The Priest, in holy transport, thus exclaim' d: —

" Eternal Spirit ! Universal God !

Power inaccessible to human thought

Save by degrees and steps which thou hast deign'd

To furnish ; for this image of Thyself,

To the infirmity of mortal sense

Vouchsafed ; this local, transitory type

Of thy paternal splendors, and the pomp

Of those who fill thy courts in highest heaven,

The radiant cherubim ; — accept the thanks

Which we, thy humble creatures, here convened,

Presume to offer ; we, who from the breast

Of the frail earth, permitted to behold

72 INTEEPRETIVB READING

The faint reflections only of thy face,
Are yet exalted, and in soul adore !
Such as they are who in thy presence stand,
Unsullied, incorruptible, and drink
Imperishable majesty stream' d forth
From thy empyreal throne, the elect of earth
Shall be — divested at the appointed hour
Of all dishonour — cleansed from mortal stain.
Accomplish, then, their number ; and conclude
Time's weary course! Or if, by th}' decree.
The consummation that will come by stealth
Be yet far distant, let thy Word prevail.
Oh ! let thy Word prevail, to take away
The sting of human nature. Spread the law,
As it is written in thy holy book.
Throughout all lands ; let every nation hear
The high behest, and every heart obey ! "

William Wordsworth.

PSALM XXIV

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the
world, and they that dwell therein.

For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it
upon the floods.

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall
stand in his holy place?

He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who
hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn de-
ceitfully.

He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righte-
ousness from the God of his salvation.

This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek
thy face, O Jacob.

ATMOSPHERE 73

Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates ; and be ye lift up, ye
everlasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and
mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; even lift them up, ye
everlasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is
the King of glory.

A Psalm of David.

THE OPEN SKY

It is a strange thing how little in general people know
about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature
has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the
sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching
him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part
in which we least attend to her. There are not many of
her other works in which some more material or essential
purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by
every part of their organization ; but every essential pur-
pose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered, if
once in three days, or thereabouts, a great ugly black rain
cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well
watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with per-
haps a film of morning and evening mist for dew. And
instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our
lives, when nature is not producing scene after scene, pic-
ture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon
such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect
beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and in-
tended for our perpetual pleasure. And every man, wher-
ever placed, however far from other sources of interest or
of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The noblest
scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few ; it

r4 INTEEPEETIVE EEADIN^G

is not intended that man should live always in the midst
of them, he injures them by his presence, he ceases to feel
them if he be always Avith them ; but the sky is for all ;
bright as it is, it is not " too Inight, nor good, for human
nature's daily food " ; it is fitted in all its functions for the
perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the sooth-
ing it and purifying it from its dross and dust. Sometimes
gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful, never the
same for two moments together ; almost human in its pas-
sions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in
its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us, is as dis-
tinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blesssing to what
is mortal is essential. And yet we never attend to it, we
never make it a subject of thought, but as it has to do with
our animal sensations ; we look upon all by which it speaks
to us more clearly than to brutes, upon all which bears wit-
ness to the intention of the Supreme, that we are to receive
more from the covering vault than the light and the dew
which we share with the weed and the worm, only as a
succession of meaningless and monotonous accident, too
common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of watch-
fulness, or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of
utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last
resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of? One
says it has been wet, and another it has been windy, and
another it has been warm. Who among the whole chatter-
ing crowd can tell me of the forms and the precipices of
the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon
at noon yesterday? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that
came out of the south, and smote upon their summits until
they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain?
Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight
left them last night, and the west wind blew them before
it like withered leaves? All has passed, unregretted as

ATMOSPHERE 75

unseen ; or if the apathy be ever shaken off, even for an
instant, it is only by what is gross, or what is extraordinary ;
and yet it is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of
the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the
drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the
sublime are developed. God is not in the earthqiiake, nor
in the fire, but in the still, small voice. They are but the
blunt and the low faculties of our nature, which can only
be addressed through lamp-black and lightning. It is in
quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the
deep, and the calm, and the perpetual, — that which must
be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood, —
things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet
vary eternally, which are never wanting, and never re-
peated, which are to be found always yet each found but
once ; it is through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly
taught, and the blessing of beauty given.

John Euskin.

CLOUD BEAUTY

That mist which lies in the morning so softly in the
valley, level and white, through which the tops of the trees
rise as if through an inundation — why is it so heavy? and
why does it lie so low, being yet so thin and frail that it
will melt away utterly into splendor of morning, when the
sun has shone on it but a few moments more? Those
colossal pyramids, huge and firm, with outlines as of rocks,
and strength to bear the beating of the high sun full on
their fiery flanks — why are tliey so light, — their bases high
over our heads, high over the heads of Alps? why will
these melt away, not as the sun rises, but as he descends,
and leave the stars of twilight clear, while the valley vapor
gains again upon the earth like a shroud?

76 INTEEPEETIVE BEADING

Or that ghost of a cloud, which steals by yonder clump
of pines ; nay, which does not steal by them, but haunts
them, wreathing yet round them, and yet — and yet, slowly :
now falling in a fair waved line like a woman's veil; now
fading, now gone : we look away for an instant, and look
back, and it is again there. What has it to do with that
clump of pines, that it broods by them and weaves itself
among their branches, to and fro? Has it hidden a cloudy
treasure among the moss at their roots, which it watches
thus? Or has some strong enchanter charmed it into fond
returning, or bound it fast within those bars of bough? And
yonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer's bow above the
snowy summit, the highest of all the hill, — that white arch
which never forms but over the supreme crest, — how is it
stayed there, repelled apparently from the snow — nowhere
touching it, the clear sky between it and the mountain edge,
yet never leaving it — poised as a white bird hovers over its
nest?

Or those war-clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon-
crested, tongued with fire ; — how is their barbed strength
bridled? what bits are these they are champing with
their vaporous lips; flinging off flakes of black foam?
Leagued leviathans of the Sea of Heaven, out of their
nostrils goeth smoke, and their eyes are like the eye-
lids of the morning. The sword of him that layeth at
them cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor the haber-
geon. Where ride the captains of their armies? Where
are set the measures of their march? Fierce murmur-
ers, answering each other from morning until evening —
what rebuke is this which has awed them into peace?
what hand has reined them back by the way by which
they came?

I know not if the reader will think at first that questions
like these are easily answered. So far from it, I rather

ATMOSPHEEE 77

believe that some of the mysteries of the clouds never will
be understood by us at all. .....

• < • • . • • •

Clouds close to us may be blue, but far off, golden, — a strange
result, if the air is blue. And again, if blue, why are rays
that come through large spaces of it red ; and that Alp, or
anything else that catches far-away light, why colored red,
at dawn and sunset? No one knows, I believe. It is true
that many siibstances, as opal, are blue, or green, by re-
flected light, yellow by transmitted ; but air, if blue at all,
is blue always by transmitted light. I hear of a wonderful
solution of nettles, or other unlovely herb, which is green
when shallow, — red when deep. Perhaps some day, as the
motion of the heavenly bodies by help of an apple, their light
by help of a nettle, may be explained to mankind.

But farther : these questions of volatility, and visibility,
and hue, are all complicated with those of shape. How
is a cloud outlined? Granted whatever you choose to ask,
concerning its material, or its aspect, its loftiness and lumi-
nousness, — how of its limitation? What hews it into a heap,
or spins it into a web? Cold is usually shapeless, I sup-
pose, extending over large spaces equally, or with gradual
diminution. You cannot have, in the open air, angles, and
wedges, and coils, and cliffs of cold. Yet the vapor stops
suddenly, sharp and steep as a rock, or thrusts itself across
the gates of heaven in likeness of a brazen bar ; or braids
itself in and out, and across and across, like a tissue of
tapestry ; or falls into ripples, like sand ; or into waving
shreds and tongues, as fire. On what anvils and wheels
is the vapor pointed, twisted, hammered, whirled, as the
potter's clay? By what hands is the incense of the sea
built up into domes of marble?

JOHU EUSKIN.

78 INTEEPEETIVE READING

PIPPA PASSES

(^A large, 7>iean, airij chavilmr. A girl, Pippa, from the

silk-mills, springing out of bed.^
Day!

Faster and more fast,

O'er night's brim, day boils at last:

Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim,

Where spurting and suppressed it lay,

For not a froth-flake touched the rim

Of yonder gap in the solid gray

Of the eastern cloud, an hour away ;

But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,

Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,

Rose, reddened, and its seething breast

Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

Oh Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee,

A mite of my twelve-hours' treasure.

The least of thy gazes or glances,

(Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above measure)

One of thy choices or one of thy chances,

(Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy

pleasure)
— My Day, if I squander such labor or leisure.
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me !

Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flowing.
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good —
Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going.
As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood — ■
All shall be mine ! But thou must treat me not
As prosperous ones are treated, those who live
At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot.
In readmess to take what thou wilt give.

ATMOSPHEEE 79

And free to let alone what thou refusest;

For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest

Me, who am only Pippa, — old-year's sorrow,

Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow :

Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow

Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's sorrow.

All other men and women that this earth

Belongs to, who all days alike possess.

Make general plenty cure particular dearth,

Get more joy one way, if another, less :

Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven

What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven, — ■

Sole light that helps me through the year, thy sun's 1

• • • • • •

And here I let time slip for naught!

Aha, you foolhardy sunbeam, caught

With a single splash from my ewer !

You that would mock the best pursuer,

Was my basin over-deep?

One splash of water ruins you asleep,

And up, up, fleet your brilliant bits,

Wheeling and counterwheeling,

Eeeling, broken beyond healing :

Now grow together on the ceiling !

That will task your wits.

AVlioever it was quenched fire first, hoped to see

Morsel after morsel flee

As merrily, as giddily . . .

Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on.

Where settles by degrees the radiant cripple?

Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon?

• ••••• •

Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ripple
Of ocean, bud there, — fairies watch unroll

80 INTERPEETIVE EEADING

Such turbau-flowers ; I say, such lamps disperse

Thick red flame through that dusk green universe I

I am queen of thee, floweret!

And each fleshy blossom

Preserve I not (safer

Than leaves that embower it,

Or shells that embosom)

— From weevil and chafer?

Laugh through my pane then ; solicit the bee ;

Gibe him, be sure ; and, in midst of thy glee,

Love thy queen, worship me !

— Worship whom else? For am I not, this day,

Whate'er I please? What shall I please to-day?

My morn, noon, eve and night — how spend my day?

To-morrow I must be Pippa, who winds silk.

The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk:

But, this one day, I have leave to go.

And play out my fancy's fullest games ;

I may fancy all day — and it shall be so —

That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the names

Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo!

. . • ■ • •

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven —
All's right with the world!

Robert Browning.

ATMOSPHERE 81

ENOCH ARDEN

As the year
Eoll'd itself round again to meet the day
When Enoch had return' d, a languor came
Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually
Weakening the man, till he could do no more,
But kept the house, his chair, and last his bed.
And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully.
For sure no glgidlier does the stranded wreck
See thro' the gray skirts of a lifting squall
Th'e boat that bears the hope of life approach
To save the life despaired of, than he saw
Death dawning on him, and the close of all.

For thro' that dawning gleam'd a kindlier hope
On Enoch, thinking, " after I am gone.
Then may she learn I loved her to the last."
He call'd aloud for Miriam Lane and said
"Woman, I have a secret — only swear.
Before I tell you — swear upon the Book
Not to reveal it, till you see me dead,"
"Dead," clamored the good woman, " Hear him talk!
I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round."
"Swear," added Enoch sternly, "on the book."
And on the book, half- frighted, Miriam swore.
Then Enoch, rolling his gray eyes upon her,
"Did you know Enoch Arden of this town? "
"Know him? " she said " I knew him far away.
Ay, ay, I mind him coming down the street ;
Held his head high, and cared for no man, he."
Slowly and sadly Enoch answered her :
" His head is low, and no man cares for him.
I think I have not three days more to live ;
I am the man." At which the woman gave
6

82 INTERPEETIVE READING

A half -incredulous, half-hysterical cry.

"You Arden, you! iiay, — sure he was a foot

Higher than you be." Enoch said again,

" My God has bowed me down to what I am ;

My grief and solitude have broken me ;

Nevertheless, know you that 1 am he

Who married — but that name has twice been changed-

I married her who married Philip Ray.

Sit, listen." Then he told her of his voyage.

His wreck, his lonely life, his coming back.

His gazing in on Annie, his resolve.

And how he kept it. As the woman heard,

Fast flowed the current of her easy tears.

While in her heart she yearn' d incessantly

To rush abroad all round the little haven.

Proclaiming Enoch Arden and his woes ;

But awed and promise-bounden she forbore.

Saying only " See your bairns before you go!

Eh, let me fetch 'em, Arden," and arose

Eager to bring them down, for Enoch hung

A moment on her words, but then replied :

"Woman, disturb me not now at the last,
But let me hold my purpose till I die.
Sit down again ; mark me and understand.
While I have power to speak. I charge you now,
When you shall see her, tell her that I died
Blessing her, praying for her, loving her;
Save for the bar between us, loving her
As when she laid her head beside my own.
And tell my daughter Annie, whom I saw
So like her mother, that my latest breath
Was spent in blessing her and praying for her.
And tell my son that I died blessing him.

ATMOSPHEEE 83

And say to Philip that I blest him too;
He never meant us anything but good.
But if my children care to see me dead,
Who hardly knew me living, let them come,
I am their father; but she must not come,
For my dead face would vex her after-life.
And now there is but one of all my blood
Who will embrace me in the world-to-be.
This hair is his : she cut it off and gave it.
And I have borne it with me all these years.
And thought to bear it with me to my grave ;
But now my mind is changed, for I shall see him,
My babe in bliss : wherefore when I am gone.
Take, give her this, for it may comfort her :
It will moreover be a token to her,
That I am he."

He ceased ; and Miriam Lane
Made such a voluble answer promising all.
That once again he rolled his eyes upon her
Repeating all he wished, and once again
She promised.

Then the third night after this.
While Enoch slumbered motionless and pale.
And Miriam watched and dozed at intervals,
There came so loud a calling of the sea,
That all the houses in the haven rang.
He woke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad,
Crying with a loud voice "A sail! a sail!
I am saved ; " and so fell back and spoke no more.

So past the strong heroic soul away.
And when they buried him the little port
Had seldom seen a costlier funeral.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

DIVISION II
Chapter III
Tone Color*

Tone color is the suiting of sound to sense.

Authors use alliteration and assonance to convey certain
ideas to the mind. Tone here serves an important part in
relation to thought. Certain tones are associated with cer-
tain ideas, thus giving added beauty to language and litera-
ture. Read aloud literature in which sound is suited to
sense. In Mr. Lowell's '' Appledore," for example, notice
how the harsher consonant sounds are used to picture the
rugged coast. Notice how these consonant sounds are re-
peated. Notice the use of liquids and the repetition of
certain vowel sounds to suggest the sound of the ocean.
The voice must interpret the sound or music element of
literature.

SELECTIONS

APPLEDORE f

A heap of bare and splintery crags

Tumbled about by lightning and frost,

With rifts and chasms and storm-bleached jags,

That wait and growl for a ship to be lost;

No island, but rather the skeleton

Of a wrecked and vengeance-smitten one,

Where, aeons ago, with half-shut eye,

*See Lanier's "Science of English Verse."

f Used by special arrangement with and permission of Messrs.
Houghton, Miiflin & Co., the authorized publishers of the works of
James Russell Lowell.

TONE COLOE 85

The sluggish saurian crawled to die,

Gasping under titanic ferns ;

Eibs of rock that seaward jut,

Granite shoulders and boulders and snags.

Round which, though the winds in heaven be shut.

The nightmared ocean murmurs and yearns.

Welters, and swashes, and tosses, and turns,

And the dreary black sea-weed lolls and wags ;

Only rock from shore to shore,

Only a moan through the bleak clefts blown,

With sobs in the rifts where the coarse kelp shifts.

Falling and lifting, tossing and drifting,

And under all a deep, dull roar,

Dying and swelling, forevermore, —

Rock and moan and roar alone.

And the dread of some nameless thing unknown,

These make Appledore.

These make Appledore by night :

Then there are monsters left and right;

Every rock is a different monster ;

All you have read of, fancied, dreamed,

When you waked at night because you screamed,

There they lie for half a mile.

Jumbled together in a pile,

And (though you know they never once stir),

If you look long, they seem to be moving

Just as plainly as can be,

Crushing and crowding, wading and shoving

Out into the awful sea,

Where you hear them snort and spout

With pauses between, as though they were listening,

Then tumult anon when the surf breaks glistening

In the blackness where they AvalloAV about.

James Russell Lowell.

86 INTEEPRETn^ READING

WHEN THE COWS COME HOME*

With kliiigle, klangle, klingle,

Way down the dusty dingle,

The cows are coming home ;
Now sweet and clear, and faint and low,
The airy tinklings come and go.
Like chimings from some far-off tower,
Or patterings of an April shower
That makes the daisies grow —

Ko-kling, ko-klang, koklinglelingle.

Way down the darkening dingle

The cows come slowly home.

With jingle, jangle, jingle.

Soft sounds that sweetly mingle,

The cows are coming home ;
Malime, and Pearl, and Florimel,
DeKamp, Redrose, and Gretchen Schell,
Queen Bess, and Sylph, and Spangled Sue —
Across the fields I hear loo-oo.
And clang her silver bell.

Go-ling, go-lang, golingleliugle.

With faint far sounds that mingle,

The cows come slowly home ;
And mother-songs of long-gone years.
And baby joys, and childish fears.
And youthful hopes, and youthful fears,

When the cows come home.

With ringle, rangle, ringle,
By twos and threes and single,
The cows are coming home.

* By permission of the publishers, Messrs. A. C. McChirg & Co.

to:n^e COLOE 87

Through the violet air we see the town,
And the summer sun a-slippiug clown ;
The maple in the hazel glade
Throws down the path a longer shade,

And the hills are growing brown.

To-riug, to-rang, toringleringle,

By threes and fours and single.

The cows come slowly home.
The same sweet sound of wordless psalm,
The same sw^et June-day rest and calm,
TJie same sweet scent of bud and balm.

When the cows come home.

With a tinkle, tankle, tinkle.

Through fern and periwinkle,

The cows are coming home ;
A-loitermg in the checkered stream.
Where the sun-rays glance and gleam,
Starine,Peachbloom, and Phoebe Phyllis
Stand knee deep in the creamy lilies.
In a drowsy dream,

To-link, to-lank, tolinklelinkle.

O'er banks with buttercups a-twinkle

The cows come slowly home ;
And up through memory's deep ravine
Come the brook's old song and its old-time sheen,
And the crescent of the silver queen.

When the cows come home.

With a klingle, klangle, klingle.
With a loo-oo, and moo-oo, and jingle.
The cows are coming home ;
And over there on Merlin hill.
Hear the plaintive cry of the whippoorwill ;

88 INTEEPEETIVE BEADING

The dew-drops lie on the tangled vines,
And over the poplars Venus shines.
And over the silent mill;
Ko-ling, ko-lang, kolinglelingle,
With a ting-a-liug and jingle,
The cows come slowly home.
Let down the bars ; let in the train
Of long-gone songs, and flowers, and rain ;
For dear old times come back again
When the cows come home.

Mrs. Agnes E. Mitchell.

DISCORD

Thus saying, from her side the fatal key,

Sad instrument of all our woe, she took ;

And, towards the gate rolling her bestial train.

Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew.

Which, but herself, not all the Stygian Powers

Could once have moved ; then in the key-hole turns

The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar

Of massy iron or solid rock with ease

Unfastens. On a sudden open fly.

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,

The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate

Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook

Of Erebus. She opened ; but to shut

Excelled her power ; the gates wide open stood.

That with extended wings a bannered host.

Under spread ensigns marching, might pass through

With horse and chariots ranked in loose array;

So wide they stood, and like a furnace-mouth

Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.

John Milton.

TONE COLOR 89

CONCORD

The multitude of Angels, with a shout
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest voices, uttering joy — Heaven rung
With jubilee, and loud hosannas filled
The eternal regions. Lowly reverent
Toward either throne they bow, and to the ground
With solemn adoration down they cast
Their crowns, inwove with amarant and gold, —
Immo.rtal amarant, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life,
Began to bloom, but, soon for Man's offence,
To Heaven removed where first it grew, there grows
And flowers aloft, shading the Fount of Life,
And where the River of Bliss through midst of Heaven
Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream!
With these, that never fade, the Spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks, inwreathed with beams.
Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright
Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone,
Impurpled with celestial roses smiled.
Then^ crowned again, their golden harps they took —
Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side
Like quivers hung ; and with preamble sweet
Of charming symphony they introduce
Their sacred song, and waken raptures high :
No voice exempt, no voice but well could join
Melodious part ; such concord is in Heaven.

John Milton.

THE CATARACT OF LODORE

"How does the Water come down at Lodore? "
My little boy asked me thus once on a time ;

90 II^TEEPEETIVE EEADI:N^G

And, moreover he tasked me to tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word, there first came one daughter,
And then came another, to second aud third
The request of their brother, and to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore, with its rush and its roar.
As many a time they had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme, for of rhymes I had store :
And 'twas in my vocation for their recreation
That so I should sing, because I was laureate to them and
the King.

From its sources which well in the Tarn on the fell ;

From its fountains in the mountains,

Its rills and its gills, — through moss and through brake

It runs and it creeps for awhile, till it sleeps

In its own little Lake. And thence at departing.

Awaking and starting, it runs through the reeds,

And away it proceeds through meadow and glade.

In sun and in shade, and through the wood-shelter,

Among crags in its flurry, helter-skelter,

Hurry-skurry. Here it comes sparkling.

And there it lies darkling ; now smoking and frothing

Its tumult and wrath in, till, in this rapid race

On which it is bent, it reaches the place

Of its steep descent.

The Cataract strong then plunges along,
Striking and raging, as if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among ; rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping, swelling and sweeping.
Showering and springing, flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing, eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking, turning and twisting,
Around and around with endless rebound!
Smiting and fighting, a sight to delight in ;

TOXE COLOE 91

Confounding, astounding, dizzying, and deafening
The ear with its sound.

Collecting, projecting, receding and speeding.
And shocking and rocking, and darting and parting,
And threading and spreading, and whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping, and hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining, and rattling and battling.
And shaking and quaking, and pouring and roaring.
And waving and paving, and tossing and crossing.
And flowing and going, and runnmg and stunning.
And fbaming and roaming, and dinnmg and spinning.
And dropping and hopping, and working and jerking.
And guggling and struggling, and heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;

And glittering and flittering, and gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening, and quivering and shiver-
ing,
And hurrying and skurrying, and thundering and flounder-

. ing ;

Dividing and gliding and sliding.

And falling and brawling and sprawling.

And driving and riving and striving,

And sprinklmg and twinkling and wrinkling.

And sounding and bounding and rounding.

And bubbling and troubling and doubling,

And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,

And clattering and battering and shattering ;

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying.
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling.
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,

92 INTEEPEETIYE READING

And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumpuig and bumping and jumping.
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending.
Sounds and motions forever and ever are blending,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar.
And this way the Water comes down at Lodore.

Robert Southet.

THE CULPRIT FAY

'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell :
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well ;
He has counted them all with click and stroke,
Deep in the heart of the mountain oak.
And he has awakened the sentry elve

Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,
To bid him ring the hour of twelve

And call the fays to their revelry :
Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell
('Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell) —

" Midnight comes, and all is well !

Hither, hither, wing your way ;

'Tis the dawn of the fairy day."

They come from beds of lichen green,

They creep from the miillein's velvet screen;

Some on the backs of beetles fly

From the silver tops of moon-touched trees.
Where they swung in their cobweb-hammocks high.

And rocked about in the evening breeze ;
Some from the hum-bird's downy nest —

They had driven him out by elfin power.
And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast,
Had slumbered there till the charmed hour ;

TONE COLOR 93

Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,

With glittering rising stars inlaid ;
And some had opened the four-o' -clock

And stole within its purple shade.

And now they throng the moonlit glade :
Above — below — on every side,

Their little minim forms arrayed
In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride !

. . • • • • •

He put his ac'brn helmet on ;

It- was plumed of the silk of the thistle down ;

The corselet plate that guarded his breast

Was once the wild bee's glittering vest;

His cloak of a thousand mingled dyes,

Was formed of the wings of butterflies ;

His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen.

Studs of gold on the ground of green ;

And the quivering lance which he brandished bright.

Was the sting of a wasp he had slaia in fight.

Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed ;

He bared his blade of the bent grass blue,
He drove his spurs of cockle-seed,

And away like a glance of thought he flew
To skim the heavens and follow far
The fiery trail of the rocket-star.

The moth-fly, as he shot in air.

Crept under the leaf, and hid her there j

The katydid forgot its lay,

The prowling gnat fled fast away.

The fell mosquito checked his drone.

And folded his wings till the Fay was gone ;
And the wily beetle dropped his head.
And fell on the ground as if he were dead.

94 INTEEPRETIVE BEADING

They crouched them close in the darksome shade,
They quaked all o'er with awe and fear,

For they had felt the blue-bent blade,
And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear.

Many a time on a summer's night.

When the sky was clear and the moon was bright,
They had been roused from the haunted ground
By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound ;
They had heard the tiny bugle-horn,
They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string

When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn.

And the needle-shaft through air was borne.
Feathered with down of the hum -bird's wing;
And now they deemed the courier Ouphe

Some hunter-sprite of the elfin ground.
And they watched till they saw him mount the roof

That canopies the world around ;
Then glad they left their covert lair.
And freaked about in the midnight air.

Joseph Rodmak Drake.

DIVISION II
Chapter IV

Rhythm, Movement*

Rhythm, in speech, is the more or less regular recurrence
of accent or iuipukes of the voice. In music and in lyric
poetry, these impulses occur at regular intervals ; but in
other forms of poetry and in prose, the rhjrthmic movement
is less marked. Rhythm is one of the beauties of litera-
ture, and must be heard to be appreciated. Read aloud
frequently. Bring out the music of the rhjrthm, but avoid
sing-song reading. Modulate the voice so that it will in-
terpret the music as well as the thought of literature.

The rate, or movement, of reading varies with the char-
acter of the literature. If solemn or grave, the movement
is slow ; if gay or exciting, the movement is rapid. The
movement should vary as the thought or emotion varies.

ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began :
When nature underneath a heap

Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head.
The tuneful voice was heard from high,

Arise, ye more than dead.
The cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap.

And Music's power obey.
*See Lanier's "Science of English Verse."

96 INTEEPEETIVE BEADING

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began :

From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.

II.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
His listening brethren stood around.

And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.
Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell.
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

III.

The trumpet's loud clangor

Excites us to arms.
With shrill notes of anger

And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat

Of the thundering drum

Cries, hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat.

IV.

The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers.
Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.

EHYTHM, MOVEMENT 97

Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs, and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion,

Tor the fair, disdainful, dame.

VI.

But oh ! what art can teach,

"WJiat human voice can reach,
The sacred organ's praise?

Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways

To mend the choirs above.

VII.

Orpheus could lead the savage race ;
And trees uprooted left their place.

Sequacious of the lyre :
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given.
An angel heai-d, and straight appeared
Mistaking earth for heaven.

Grand Chorus
As from the power of sacred lays

The spheres began to move.
And sung the great Creator's praise

To all the blessed above ;

So when the last and dreadful hour

This crumbling pageant shall devour

The trumpet shall be heard on high,

The dead shall live, the living die.

And Music shall untune the sky.

John Dryden.
7

98 INTERPRETIVE READING

COME INTO THE GARDEN

Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown,

Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone ;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves.
And the planet of Love is on high.

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky.

To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon ;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd

To the dancers dancing in tune;
Till a silence fell with the waking bird.

And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, " There is but one

With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?

She is weary of dance and play."
Now half to the setting moon are gone.

And half to the rising day ;
Low on the sand and loud on the stone

The last wheel echoes away.

EHYTHM, MOVEMENT 99

I said to the rose, " The brief night goes

In babble and revel and wine.
0 young lord-lover, what sighs are those,

For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose,

"For ever and ever, mine."

»■

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

'As the music clashed in the hall ;
And long by the garden lake I stood.

For I heard your rivulet fall
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,

Our wood, that is dearer than all ;

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet

That whenever a March-wind sighs
He sets the jewel-print of your feet

In violets blue as your eyes,
To the woody hollows in which we meet

And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake

One long milk-bloom on the tree ;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,

Knowing your promise to me ;
The lilies and roses were all awake.

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.

100 INTERPEETIVE EEADING

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,

Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,

Queen lily and rose in one ;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,

To the flowers, and be their sun.

10.

There has fallen a splendid tear.

From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my love, my dear,

She is coming, my life, my fate ;
The red rose cries, " She is near, she is near " ;

And the white rose weeps, " She is late " ;
The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear " ;

And the lily whispers, "I wait."

11.

She is coming, my own, my sweet ;

Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,

Were it earth in an earthy bed ;
My dust would hear her and beat.

Had I lain for a century dead ;
Would start and tremble under her feet,

And blossom in purple and red.

Alfred Tennyson.

THE CHARMS OF RURAL LIFE

In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing.
It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and
beauty ; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind,
operated upon by the purest and most elevating of external

EHYTHM, MOVEMENT 101

influences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he
cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore, finds
nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders
in rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the
■ lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and re-
serve, and is glad to waive the distinctions of rank, and to
enter into the honest, heartfelt enjoyments of common life.
Indeed, the very amusements of the country bring men
more and more together ; and the sound of hound and horn
blend all feelings Into harmony. I believe this is one great
reason why the nobility and gentry are more popular among
the inferior orders in England than they are in any other
country ; and why the latter have endured so many exces-
sive pressures and extremities, without repining more gen-
erally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege.
To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may also
be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British
literature ; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life ;
those incomparable descriptions of nature that abound
in the British poets, that have continued down from " The
Flower and the Leaf " of Chaucer, and have brought into
our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy
landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear
as if they had paid nature an occasional visit, and become
acquainted with her general charms ; but the British poets
have lived and revelled with her — they have wooed her in
her most secret haunts — they have watched her mmutest
caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze— a leaf
could not rustle to the ground— a diamond drop could not
patter in the stream— a fragrance could not exhale from the
humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the
morning, but it has been noticed by these impassioned anft
delicate observers, and wrought up into some beautiful
morality.

102 INTERPRETIVE READII^G

The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural oc-
cupations has been wonderful on the face of the country.
A great part of the island is rather level, and would be
monotonous were it not for the charms of culture : but it is
studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces,
and embroidered with parks and gardens. It does not
abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little
home scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every
antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture :
and as the roads are continually winding, and the view is
shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a
continual succession of small landscapes of captivating
loveliness.

The great charm, however, of English scenery is the
moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in
the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober well-estab-
lished principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom.
Every thing seems to be the growth of ages of regular and
peaceful existence. The old church of remote architecture,
with its low, massive portal ; its gothic tower ; its windows
rich with tracery and painted glass, in scrupulous preserva-
tion ; its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of the
olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil ; its
tombstones, recording successive generations of sturdy yeo-
manry, whose progeny still plough the same fields, and kneel
at the same altar — the parsonage, a quaint irregular pile,
partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the tastes of
various ages and occupants — the stile and footpath lead-
ing from the churchyard, across pleasant fields, and along
shady hedge-rows, according to an immemorial right of
way — the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages,
its public green sheltered by trees, under which the fore-
fathers of the present race have sported — the antique family
mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but

EHYTHM, MOVEMENT 103

looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding
scene : all these common features of English landscape
evince a calm and settled security, and hereditary trans-
mission of home bred virtues and local attachments, that
speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the
nation.

It is a pleasing sight of a Sunday morning, when the
bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to
behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces
and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the
green lanes to church ; but it is still more pleasing to see
them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors,
and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embel-
lishments which their own hands have sj^read around them.

It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affec-
tion in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of
the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments.

Washington Irving.

FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON

Elow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen,
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,
Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear,
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills,
Far marked with the courses of clear winding rills ;
There daily I wander as morn rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.

104 INTEKPEETIVE BEADING

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft as mild evening creeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides.
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides ;
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As gathering sweet flow'rets she stems thy clear wave.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes.
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays ;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream.
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

Robert Burns.
LUCY

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise,

And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye !
Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be ;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me !

William Wordsworth.

LUCY

Three years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, " A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown :

EHYTHM, MOVEMENT 105

This child I to myself will take :
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own."

" Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse ; and with me

The girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,

Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindl* or restrain.

" She shall be sportive as the fawn.
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs ;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

" The floating clouds their state shall lend

To her ; for her the willow bend ;

Nor shall she fail to see

E'en in the motions of the storm

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

"The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her ; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.

" And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell ;

106 INTERPRETIVE READING

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell."

Thus Nature spake. The work was done —

How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene ;

The memory of what has been

And never more will be.

William Wordsworth

TO A SKYLARK

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it

Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

II.

Higher still, and higher.

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire ;

The blue deep thou wingest.
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever, singest

III.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun.
O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run.
Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

EHYTHM, MOVEMEl^T 107

IV.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight ;
Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

• • • • • •

VII.

Whatjihou art we know not ;

What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody

VIII.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden.

Till the world is wrought
I'd sympathy with hopes and fears it heedeth not;

• • • • •

XIII.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine :

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

XIV.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chant,
Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt —
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

108 INTERPRETIVE READING

XV.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?
What fiekls, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

XVII.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream.
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

XVIII.
We look before and after,

And pine for what is not :
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught ;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

XIX.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear ;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

XX.

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound.
Better than all treasures,

That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground !

Percy Bysshe Shellby.

DIVISION II

Chapter V
Personation

Personation is the interpretation of character.

The study of personation should begin with life study.
Study seme person, noting his voice, manner of speech,
gestures, vocabulary, habits of thought, etc. Try to repre-
sent or interpret this character for several minutes, preserv-
ing the character assumed until a class has time to analyze
it. Study a character in literature. Study it from every
point of view. Memorize the lines that the character
speaks, imagine yourself the character, then act and speak
as you think he would.

Interpretation of the great drama calls for creative power.

SELECTIONS

THE RIVALS
Act II., Scene I.

Captain Absolute. Now for a parental lecture.
{Enter Sir Ajithony Absolute.)

Sir, I am delighted to see you here, and looking so well!
Your sudden arrival at Bath made me apprehensive for your
health.

Sir Anth. Very apprehensive, I dare say, Jack. What,
you are recruiting here, hey?

Abs. Yes, sir, I am on duty.

Sir Anth. Well, Jack, I am glad to see you, though I

110 INTERPEETIYE READING

did not expect it, for I was going to write you on a little
matter of business. Jack, I have been considering that I
grow old and infirm, and shall probably not trouble you
long.

Abs. Pardon me, sir, I never saw you look more strong
and hearty ; and I pray frequently that you may continue so.

Sir A?ith. I hope your prayers may be heard, with all
my heart. Well, then. Jack, I have been considering that
I am so strong and hearty I may continue to plague you a
long time. Now, Jack, I am sensible that the income of
your commission, and what I have hitherto allowed you, is
but a small pittance for a lad of your spirit.

Abs. Sir, you are very good.

Sir Anth. And it is my wish, while yet I live, to have
my boy make some figure in the world. I have resolved,
therefore, to fix you at once in a noble independence.

Abs. Sir, your kindness overpowers me — such generosity
makes the gratitude of reason more lively than the sensa-
tions even of filial affection.

Sir Anth. I am glad you are so sensible of my atten-
tion— and you shall be master of a large estate in a few
weeks.

Abs. Let my future life, sir, speak my gratitude; I
cannot express the sense I have of your munificence. Yet,
sir, I presume you would not wish me to quit the army?

Sir Anth. Oh, that shall be as your wife chooses.

Abs. My wife, sir!

Sir Anth. Ay, ay, settle that between you— settle that
between you.

Abs. A wife, sir, did you say?

Sir Anth. Ay, a wife — why, did not I mention her be-
fore?

Abs. Not a word of her, sir.

Sir Anth. Odd so!— I mustn't forget her, though.—

PEESOI^ATION 111

Yes, Jack, the iudepeudence I was talking of is by a mar-
riage— the fortune is saddled with a wife — but I suppose
that makes no difference.

Abs. Sir ! sir ! you amaze me !

Sir Anth. Why, what the devil's the matter with the
fool? Just now you were all gratitude and duty.

Abs. I was, sir, — you talked tome of independence and
a fortune, but not a word of a wife.

Sir Anth. Why — what difference does that make?
Odds life, sir! if y^w have the estate, you must take it
with the live stock on it, as it stands.

Abs. If my happiness is to be the price, I must beg
leave to decline the purchase. — Pray, sir, who is the lady?

Sir Anth. "What's that to you, sir? — Come, give me
your promise to love, and to marry her directly.

Abs. Sure, sir, this is not very reasonable, to summon
my affections for a lady I know nothing of !

Sir Ayith. I am sure, sir, 'tis more unreasonable in you
to object to a lady you know nothing of.

Abs. You must excuse me, sir, if I tell you, once for
all, that in this point I cannot obey you.

Sir Anth. Hark'ee, Jack; — I have heard you for some
time with patience — I have been cool — quite cool ; but take
care — you know I am compliance itself — when I am not
thwarted ; — no one more easily led — when I have my own
way; — but don't put me in a frenzy.

Abs. Sir, I must repeat it — in this I cannot obey you.
But hear me.

Sir Ajith. Sir, I won't hear a word — not a word ! not
one word! so give me your promise by a nod; and I'll tell
you what. Jack — I mean, you dog — if you don't, by

Abs. What, sir, promise to link myself to some mass
of ugliness ! to

Sir Anth. Zounds ! sirrah ! the lady shall be as ugly as

112 INTEEPRETIVE READING

1 choose: she shall have a hump on each shoulder; she
shall be as crooked as the Crescent; her one eye shall roll
like the bull's in Cox's Museum; she shall have a skin like
a mummy, and the beard of a Jew — she shall be all this,
sirrali ! yet I will make you ogle her all day, and sit up
nights to write sonnets on her beauty.

Abs. This is reason and moderation indeed!

Sir Anth. None of your sneering, puppy ; no grinning,
jackanapes !

Abs. Indeed, sir, I never was in a worse humour for
mirth in my life.

Sir Anth. 'Tis false, sir, I know you are laughing in
your sleeve; I know you'll grin when I am gone, sirrah!

Abs. Sir, I hope I know my duty better.

Sir Anth. None of your passion, sir ! none of your vio-
lence, if you please! — It won't do with me, I promise you.

Abs. Indeed, sir, I never was cooler in my life.

Sir Anth. 'Tis a confounded lie! — I know you are in a
passion in your heart; I know you are, you hypocritical
young dog! but it won't do.

Abs. Nay, sir, upon my word

Sir Anth. So you will fly out! can't you be cool like
me? What the devil good can passion do? Passion is of
no service, you impudent, insolent, overbearing reprobate ! —
There, you sneer again! don't provoke me! — but you rely
upon the mildness of my temper — you do, you dog ! — you
play upon the meekness of my disposition ! — Yet take care
— the patience of a saint may be overcome at last !^ — but
mark ! I give you six hours and a half to consider of this •
if you then agree, without any condition, to do everything
on earth that I choose, why — confound you! I may in
time forgive you ! \_Exit Sir Anthony.

Abs. Mild, gentle, considerate father! I kiss your
hands !

PERSONATIOIS 113

{Enter Fag.)

Fag. Assuredly, sir, your father is wrath to a degree ;
he comes down stairs eight or teu steps at a time — mutter-
ing, growling, and thumping the banisters all the way : I
and the cook's dog stand bowing at the door — rap! he gives
me a stroke on the head with his cane ; bids me carry that
to my master. Upon my credit, sir, were I in your place,
and found my father such very bad company, I should
certainly drop his acquaintance.

Abs. _ Cease your impertinence, sir, at present. — Did you
come in for nothing more? — Stand out of the way!

[Pushes him aside, and exit.

Fag. Soh ! Sir Anthony trims my master ; he is afraid
to reply to his father — then vents his spleen on poor Fag!
"When one is vexed by one person, to revenge one's self on
another, who happens to come in the way, is the vilest in-
justice 1 Ah, it shows the worst temper — the basest

{Enter Errand Boy.)

Boy. Mr. Fag ! Mr. t'ag ! Your master calls you.

Fag. Well, you little dirty puppy, you need not bawl
so ! — The meanest disposition ! the

Boy. Quick, quick, Mr. Fag!

Fag. Quick! quick! you impudent jackanapes! am I
to be commanded by you too? you little impertinent, in-
solent, kitchen-bred —

Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

THE RIVALS

Act III, Scene I

(Enter Captain Absolute.)

Abs. 'Tis just as Fag told me, indeed. Whimsical

enough, faith ! My father wants to force me to marry the

114 INTEEPEETIVE BEADING

very girl I am plotting to run away with ! He must not
know of my connection with her yet awhile. He has too
summary a method of proceeding in these matters. How-
ever, I'll read my recantation instantly. My conversion is
something sudden, indeed — but I can assure him it is very
sincere. So, so — here he comes. He looks plaguy gruff.

\_Ste_ps aside.

{Enter Sir Anthony Absolute.)

Sir Anth. — No— I'll die sooner than forgive him.
Die, did I say? I'll live these fifty years to plague him.
At our last meeting, his impudence had almost put me out
of temper. An obstinate, passionate, self-willed boy!
Who can he take after? But I have done with him; he's
anybody's son for me. I never will see him more — never
— never — never.

Abs. (aside, coming forward. ) Now for a penitential face.

Sir Anth. Fellow, get out of my way !

Abs. Sir, you see a penitent before you.

Sir Anth. I see an impudent scoundrel before me.

Abs. A sincere penitent. I am come, sir, to acknowl-
edge my error, and to submit entirely to your will.

Sir Anth. What's that?

Abs. I have been revolving, and reflecting, and consider-
ing on your past goodness, and kindness, and condescension
to me.

Sir Anth. Well, sir?

Abs. I have been likewise weighing and balancing what
you were pleased to mention concerning duty, and obedi-
ence, and authority.

Sir Anth. Well, puppy?

Abs. Why, then, sir, the result of my reflections is — a
resolution to sacrifice every inclination of my own to your
satisfaction.

PEESONATION 115

Sir Anth. AVhy, now you talk sense — absolute sense — I
never heard anything more sensible in my life. Confound
you ! you shall be Jack again.

Ahs. I am happy in the appellation.

Sir Anth. Why then, Jack, my dear Jack, I will now
inform you who the lady really is. Kothiag but your
passion and violence, you silly fellow, prevented my telling
you at first. Prepare, Jack, for wonder and rapture — pre-
pare. What think you of Miss Lydia Languish?

Abs. Languish r ^Vhat, the Languishes of Worcester-
shire?

Sir Anth. Worcestershire! no. Did you never meet
Mrs. Malaprop and her niece, Miss Languish, who came
into our country just before you were last ordered to your
regiment?

Abs. Malaprop! Languish! I don't remember ever
to have heard the names before. Yet, stay — I think I do
recollect something. Languish ! Languish ! She squints,
don't she? A little red-haired girl?

Sir Anth. Squints ! A red-haired girl ! Zounds ! no !

Abs. Then I must have forgot; it can't be the same
person.

Sir Anth. Jack! Jack! AVhat think you of blooming,
love-breathing seventeen?

Abs. As to that, sir, I am quite indifferent. If I can
please you in the matter, 'tis all I desire.

Sir Anth. Nay, but Jack, such eyes ! such eyes ! so in-
nocently wild! so bashfully irresolute ! Not a glance but
speaks and kindles some thought of love ! Then, Jack, her
cheeks ! her cheeks. Jack !

Abs. That's she, indeed. Well done, old gentleman.

[^Aside.

Sir Anth. Then, Jack, her neck ! 0 Jack ! Jack !

Ms. And which is to be mine, sir, the niece or the aunt?

116 INTEEPEETIVE EEADING

Sir Anth. Why, you unfeeling, insensible puppy, I de-
spise you! The aunt, indeed! But, Jack, you are not
sorry to find your mistress is so beautiful?

Ahs. Sir, I repeat it — if I please you in this affair, 'tis
all I desire. Not that I think a woman the worse for being
handsome; but, sir, if you please to recollect, you before
hinted something about a hump or two, one eye, and a few
more graces of that kind. Now, without being very nice,
I own I should rather choose a wife of mine to have the
usual number of limbs, and a limited quantity of back ; and
though one eye may be very agreeable, yet as the prejudice
has always run in favor of two, I would not wish to affect
a singularity in that article.

Sir Anth. Why, sirrah! you're an anchorite! — a vile,
insensible stock ! You a soldier! — you're a walking block,
fit only to dust the company's regimentals on! Odds life!
i have a great mind to marry the girl myself !

Ahs. I am entirely at your disposal, sir : if you should
think of addressing Miss Languish yourself, I suppose you
would have me marry the aunt ; or if you should change
your mind, and take the old lady — 'tis the same to me — I'll
marry the niece.

Sir Anth. Upon my word. Jack, thou'rt either a very
great hypocrite, or — but, come, T know your indifference on
such a subject must be all a lie— I'm sure it must — come,
now — come, confess. Jack — you have been lying — ha'n't
you? You have been playmg the hypocrite, hey! I'll
never forgive you, if you ha'n't been lying and playing the
hypocrite.

Ahs. I'm sorry, sir, that the respect and duty which I
bear to you should be so mistaken.

Sir Anth. Hang your respect and duty ! But come
along with me, I'll write a note to Mrs. Malaprop, and
you shall visit the lady directly. Her eyes shall be the

PEESOXATION 117

Promethean torch to you — come along. I'll never forgive
you, if you don't come back stark mad with rapture — if
you don't, egad, I will marry the girl myself!

Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

AS YOU LIKE IT
, Act I. Scene III.

(^Enter Cel'ia and Rosalind.)

Celia. Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have
mercy L not a word?

Rosalind. J^ot one to throw at a dog.

Cel. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away
upon curs ; throw some of them at me ; come, lame me with
reasons.

Ros. Then there were two cousins laid up; when the
one should be lamed with reasons and the other mad with-
out any.

Cel. But is all this for your father?

Ros. No, some of it is for my child's father. 0, how
full of briers is this working-day world !

Cel. They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in
holiday foolery : if we walk not in the trodden paths, our
very petticoats will catch them.

Ros. I could shake them off my coat : these burs are in
my heart.

Cel. Hem them away.

Ros. I would try, if I could cry hem and have him.

Cel. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.

Ros. 0, they take the part of a better wrestler than
myself !

Cel. 0, a good wish upon you ! You will try in time
in despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of service,
let us talk in good earnest : is it possible, on such a sud-

118 INTEEPEETIVE EEADING

den, you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir
Rowland's youngest son?

Jios. The Duke my father loved his father dearly.

Cel. Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his
son dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him, for
my father hated his father dearly ; yet I hate not Orlando.

Hos. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.

Cel. Why should I not? doth he not deserve well?

Bos. Let me love him for that, and do you love him
because I do. Look, here comes the Duke,

Cel. With his eyes full of anger.

(Enter Duke Frederick, with Lords.)

Duke. Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste
And get you from our court.

Hos. Me, uncle?

Duke. You, cousin:

Within these ten days if that thou be'st found
So near our public court as twenty miles,
Thou diest for it.

Bos. I do beseech your Grace,

Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me :
If with myself I hold intelligence,
Or have acquaintance with mine own desires ;
If that I do not dream, or be not frantic, —
As I do trust I am not, — then, dear uncle,
Never so much as in a thought unborn
Did I offend your Highness.

Duke. Thus do all traitors ;

If their purgation did consist in words.
They are as innocent as grace itself :
Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.

Bos. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor :
Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

PERSOXATION 119

Duke. Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.

Ros. So was I when your Highness took his dukedom ;
So was I when your Highness banish' d him:
Treason is not inherited, my lord ;
Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
What's that to me? my father was no traitor:
Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
To think my poverty is treacherous.

Cel. Dear sove;'eign, hear me speak.

Duke. Ay, Cefia; we stay'd her for your sake,
Else had she with her father ranged along.

Cel. I did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure and your own remorse :
I was too young that time to value her ;
But now I know her : if she be a traitor.
Why so am I ; we still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn' d, play'd, eat together.
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.

Duke. She is too subtle for thee; and her smooth-
ness,
Her very silence and her patience,
Speak to the people, and they pity her.
Thou art a fool : she robs thee of thy name ;
And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
When she is gone. Then open not thy lips :
Firm and irrevocable is my doom
Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish' d.

Cel. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege :
I cannot live out of her company.

Duke. You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself :
If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
And in the greatness of my word, you die.

[^Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords.

120 INTEEPRETIYE READING

Cel. 0 my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?
Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.

Bos. I have more cause.

Cel. Thou hast not, cousin ;

Prithee, be cheerful: know'st thou not, the Duke
Hath banished me, his daughter?

Ros. That he hath not.

Cel. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I are one :
Shall we be sunder' d? shall we part, sweet girl?
No : let my father seek another heir.
Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us ;
And do not seek to take the change upon you,
To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out ;
For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.

JRos. Why, whither shall we go?

Cel. To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden.

Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

Cel. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire
And with a kind of umber smirch my face ;
The like do you : so shall we pass along
And never stir assailants.

Ros. Were it not better.
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand ; and — in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will —
We'll have a swashing and a martial outside.

PEESONATION 121

As many other mannish cowards have
That do outface it with their semblances.

Cel. What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page;
And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
But what will you be call'd?

Cel. Something that hath a reference to my state :
No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Ros. But, cousin, what if we assay' d to steal
The clownish fool oTit of your father's court?
Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

Cel. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,
And get our jewels and our wealth together;
Devise the fittest time and safest way
To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight. Now go we in content
To liberty and not to banishment.

William Shakespeare.

AS YOU LIKE IT
Act V. Scene I. — The Forest.

(Enter Touchstone and Audrey.)

Touch. We shall find a time, Audrey ; patience, gentle
Audrey.

And. Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old
gentleman's sayings.

Touch. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile
Mar text ! But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest
lays claim to you.

Aud. Ay, I know who 'tis : he hath no interest in me
in the world : here comes the man you mean.

122 INTERPEETIYE EEADING

(Enter William.)

Touch. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown:
by my troth, we that have good wits have much to an-
swer for ; we shall be flouting ; we cannot hold.

Will. Good even, Audrey.

Aud. God ye good even, William.

Will. And good even to you, sir.

Touch. Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head,
cover thy head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are
you, friend?

Will. Five and twenty, sir.

Touch. A ripe age. Is thy name William?

Will. AVilliam, sir.

Touch. A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here?

Will. Ay, sir, I thank God.

Touch. " Thank God " ; a good answer. Art rich?

Will. Faith, sir, so so.

Touch. ''So so" is good, very good, very excellent
good; and yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?

Will. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.

Touch. Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a
saying, "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man
knows himself to be a fool.'-" The heathen philosopher,
when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips
when he put it into his mouth; meaning thereby that
grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do love
this maid?

Will. I do, sir.

Touch. Give me your hand. Art thou learned?

Will. No, sir.

Touch. Then learn this of me : to have, is to have ; for
it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a
cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other;

PEESONATION" 123

for all your writers do consent that ipse is lie : now, you
are not ipse, for I am he.

Will. Which he, sir?

Touch. He, sir, that must marry this woman. There-
fore, you clown, abandon, — which is in the vulgar leave, —
the society, — which in the boorish is company,— of this
female, — which in the common is woman ; which together
is, abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou
perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to
wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into
death, thy liberty into bondage : I will deal in poison with
thee, or in bastinado, or in steel ; I will bandy with thee
in faction ; I will o'errun thee with policy ; I will kill thee
a hundred and fifty ways : therefore tremble, and depart.

Aud. Do, good William.

Will. God rest you merry, sir.

{Exit
• • • . ,

Touch. Trip, Audrey ! trip, Audrey ! I attend, I attend

[^Exeunt
William Shakespeare.

SELECTIONS

HAMLET'S FIRST SOLILOQUY

O that this too, too solid flesh would melt.

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew !

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! 0 God I

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to ine all the uses of this Avorld !

Fie on't! 0 fie! 't is an unweeded garden.

That grows to seed ; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this !

But two months dead ! nay, not so much, not two :

124 INTEEPEETIVE EEADING

So excellent a king ; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr j so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth !
Let me not think on't — Frailty, thy name is woman! —
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears, — why she, even she, —
0 God ! a beast, that wants discourse of reason.
Would have mourn' d longer — married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Thau I to Hercules. Within a month?

It is not, nor it cannot come to good ; —

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Shakespeare.

HAMLET

Act I. Scene IV. — The Platform.

(^Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.)

Hamlet. The air bites shrewdly ; it is very cold.

Horatio. It is a nipping and an eager air.

Ham. What hour now?

Hor. I think it lacks of twelve.

Ham. No, it is struck.

Hor. Indeed? I heard it not: it then draws near the
season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

{A flourish of trumpets and ordnance shot off withiti.)
What does this mean, my lord?

Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels ;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,

PEESONATION 125

The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

Hor. Is it a custom?

Ham. Ay, marry is't;
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition ; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform' d at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men.
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth — wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origm —
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion.
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men.
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, —
Their virtues else — be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo —
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault : the dram of eale
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal.

Hor. Look, my lord, it comes !

{Enter Ghost.)

Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!—
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,

126 INTERPRETIVE READING

Bring with thee airs from heavea or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou comest in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,

King, father ; royal Dane, 0 answer me !

Let me not burst in ignorance ; but tell

Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements ; why the sepulchre,

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd.

Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,

To cast thee up again. What may this mean.

That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel

Revisit' st thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous ; and we fools of nature

So horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?

[^Ghost beckons Mamlet.

Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action.
It waves you to a more removed ground :
But do not go with it.

Hor. No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak ; then I will follow it.

Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham. Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee ;
And for my soul, what can it do to that.
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again; I'll follow it.

Hor. What if it tem|)t you toward the flood, my lord.
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff

PEESONATION 127

That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? think of it;
The very place puts toys of desperation.
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.

Ham. It waves me still. —
Go on; I'll follow tj^ee.

Mar. You shall not go, my lord.

Ham. ' Hold off your hands !

Hor. Be rul'd; you shall not go.

Ham. My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Kemean lion's nerve.
Still am I call'd. — Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! — Go on; I'll follow thee.

\_Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet

Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.

Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

Hor. Have after. — To what issue will this come?

Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Hor. Heaven will direct this.

Mar. Kay, let's follow him. \_Exeunt,

William Shakespeare.

128 INTEEPRETIVE EEADING

JULIUS C^SAR

Act IV. Scene III.

{Enter Brutus and Cassius.)

Cassius. That you have wrong' d me doth appear in this :
You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella
For taking bribes here of the Sardians ;
Wherein my letters, praying on his side,
Because I knew the man, were slighted off.

Brutus. You wrong' d yourself to write in such a case.

Cassius. In such a time as this it is not meet
That every nice offence should bear his comment.

Brutus. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemn' d to have an itching palm,
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.

Cassius. I an itching palm?
You know that you are Brutus that speaks this,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.

Brutus. The name of Cassius honors this corruption,
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.

Cassius. Chastisement?

Brutiis. Remember March, the ides of March remember :
Did not great Julius bleed for justice sake?
What villain touch' d his body, that did stab,
And not for justice? What, shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honors
For so much trash aa may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

PEESOIs^ATION 129

Cassius. Brutus, bay not me ;
I'll not endure it: you forget yourself,
To hedge me in ; I am a soldier, I,
Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.

Brutus. Go to ; you are not, Cassius.

Cassius. I am.

Brutus. I say you are not.

Cassius. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself;
Have mind upon y#ur health, tempt me no further.

Brutus. Away, slight man !

Cassius. Is't possible?

Brutus. Hear me, for I will speak.
Must I give way and room to your rash choler?
Shall I be frightened when a madman stares?

Cassius. 0 ye gods, ye gods! must I endure all
this?

Brutus. All this ! ay, more : fret till your proud heart
break ;

Go show your slaves how choleric you are.
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge,
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humor? By the gods,
You shall digest the venom of your spleen.
Though it do split you ; for, from this day forth,
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspi«h.

Cassius. Is it come to this?

Brutus. You say you are a better soldier :
Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true.
And it shall please me well : for mine own part,
I shall be glad to learn of abler men.

Cassius. You wrong me every way; you wrong me,
Brutus ;

130 INTERPEETIVE READING

I Said, an elder soldier, not a better :
Did I say better?

Brutus. If you did, I care not.

Cassius. When Csesar liv'd, he durst not thus have
mov'd me.

Brutus. Peace, peace ! you durst not so have tempted

him.

Cassius. I durst notl

Brutus. No.

Cassius. What, durst not tempt him !

Brutus. For your life you durst not.

Cassius. Do not presume too much upon my love ;
I may do that I shall be sorry for.

Brutus. You have done that you should be sorry for.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats ;
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty
That they pass by me as the idle wind.
Which I respect not. I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me :
For I can raise no money by vile means :
By heaven, I had rather coin my heart.
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wrmg
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection : I did send
To you for gold to pay my legions.
Which you denied me : was that done like Cassius?
Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous.
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces !

Cassius. I denied you not.

Brutus. You did.

Cassius I did not : he was but a fool

PEESONATION 131

That brought my answer back. Brutus hath riv'd my heart :
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

Brutus. I do not, till you practise them on me.

Cassius. You love me not.

Brutus. I do not like your faults.

Cassius. A friendly eye could never see such faults.

Brutus. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear
As huge as high Olympus.

Cassius. Com*, Antony, and young Octavius, come.
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,
For Cassius is aweary of the world ;
Hated by one he loves; brav'd by his brother;
Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observ'd,
Set in a note-book, learn' d and conn'd by rote,
To cast into my teeth. 0, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes ! There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast ; within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold :
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth;
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart:
Strike, as thou didst at Csesar ; for I know.
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

Brutus. Sheathe your dagger:
Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor.
0 Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb
That carries anger as the flint bears fire,
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark
And straight is cold again.

Cassius. Hath Cassius liv'd
To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,
When grief and blood ill-temper' d vexeth him?

132 INTEEPEETIVE EEADING

Brutus. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper' d too.

Cassias. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

Brutus. And my heart too.

Cassias. 0 Brutus!

Bratas. What's the matter?

Cassias. 1 Fave not you love enough to bear with me,
When that rash humor which my mother gave me
Makes me forgetful?

Brutus. Yes, Cassius, and from henceforth,
"Wlien you are over-earnest with your Brutus,
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

William Shakespeare.

MACBETH

Act I, Scene V.

(Enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.)

Lady M. '' They met me in the day of success ; and I
have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in
them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire
to question them further, they made themselves air, into
which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder
of it, came missives from the king, who all-hailed me,
' Thane of Cawdor ; ' by which title, before, these weird
sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of
time, with, 'Hail, king that shalt be!' This have I
thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of great-
ness ; that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by
being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay
it to thy heart, and farewell."
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promised : yet do I fear thy nature ;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness.
To catch the nearest way: thou would'st be great j

PEESONATION 133

Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it : what thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily ; wouldst not play false.

And yet wouldst wrongly win : thou'ldst have, great Glamis,

That which cries " Thus thou must do, if thou have it " ;

And that which rather thou dost fear to do

Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,

And chastise with the valor of my tongue

All that impedes»thee from the golden round,

Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crown' d withal.

(Winter a 3Iessenger.)

What is your tidings?

Mess. The king comes here to-night.

Ladij 31. Thou'rt mad to say it :
Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
Would have inform' d for preparation.

Mess. So please you, it is true : our thane is coming :
One of my fellows had the speed of him.
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.

Lady M. Give him tending ;
He brings great news. \_Exit Messenger.

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood.
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

134 INTERPEETIVE READING

The effect and it!

• • • • • • a

Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, "Hold, hold!"

{Enter 3Iad>eth.)

Great Glamis ! worthy Cawdor !
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.

Mach. My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.

Lady M. And when goes hence?

Mach. To-morrow, as he purposes.

Lady M. Oh, never
Shall sun that morrow see !
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time ; bear welcome in your eye.
Your hand, your tongue : look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under 't. He that's coming
Must be provided for : and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch;
"Which shall to all our nights and days, to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

Macb. We will speak further.

Lady M. Only look up clear ;
To alter favor ever is to fear :

Leave all the rest to me. {Exeunt

William Shakespeare.

PEESONATIOIJ 135

MACBETH
Act v. Scene I. — Lady Macbeth's Room in the Cabtlk at

DUNSINANE.

{Enter Gentlewoman and Physician.)

Phys. I have two nights watched with you, but can
perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last
walked?

Gent. Since hiS majesty went into the field, I have seen
her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, un-
lock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon 't,
read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed ; yet all
this while in a most fast sleep.

Phys. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at
once the benefit of sleep and do the eifects of watching !
In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other
actual performances, what at any time, have you heard her
say?

Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her.

Phys. You may to me, and 'tis most meet you should.

Gent. Neither to you nor any one, having no witness
to confirm my speech.

{Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper.)

Lo you, here she comes ! This is her very guise, and,
upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.

Phys. How came she by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her : she has light by her con-
tinually; 'tis her command.

Phys. You see, her eyes are open.

Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Phys. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs
her hands.

Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus

136 INTERPRETIVE READING

washing her hands : I have known her continue in this a
quarter of an hour.

Lady M. Yet here's a spot.

Phys. Hark! she speaks: I will set down what
comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more
strongly.

Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say! One: two:
why, then 'tis time to do 't. Hell is murky. Fie, my
lord, lie ! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who
knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet
who would have thought the old man to have had so much
blood in him?

Phys. Do you mark that?

Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife ; where is she
now? What, will these hands ne'er be clean? No more
o' that, my lord, no more o' that : you mar all with this
starting.

Phys. Go to, go to : you have known what you should
not. ^

Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of
that : heaven knows what she has known.

Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh,
oh, oh!

PJujs. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely
charged.

Ge7it. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for
the dignity of the whole body.

Phys. Well, well, well,—

Gent. Pray God it be, sir.

Phys. This disease is beyond my practice : yet I have
known those which have walked in their sleep who have
died holily in their beds.

Lady M. Wash your hands ; put on your nightgown ;

PEESOI^ATION 137

look not so pale: I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried;
he cannot come out on's grave.

Phys. Even so?

Lady M. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate:
come, come, come, come, give me your hand: what's
done cannot be undone ; to bed, to bed, to bed,

[Exit.

Phys. Vf\l\ she go now to bed?

Gent. Directly.

Phys. Foul wMsperings are abroad : unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles : infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets :
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all ! Look after her ;
Kemove from her the means of all annoyance.
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night :
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight :
I think, but dare not speak.

Gent. Good night, good doctor. [Exeunt.

William Shakespeare.

ANTIGONE *

Scene I.

(Antigone, Ismene.)

Antigone. 0 my dear sister, my best-loved Ismene!
Is there an evil, by the wrath of Jove
Reserved for (Edipus' unhappy race,
We have not felt already? Sorrow and shame,
And bitterness and anguish, — all that's sad.
All that's distressful, hath been ours; and now

*From "Antigone" of Maynard's English Classic Series by per-
mission of publishers.

138 INTERPEETIVE BEADING

This dreadful edict from the tyraut comes
To double our misfortunes. Hast thou heard
What harsh commands he hath imposed on all?
Or art thou still to know what future ills
Our foes have yet in store to make us wretched?

Ismene. Since that unhappy day, Antigone!
When by each other's hand our brothers fell,
And Greece dismissed her armies, I have heard
Naught that could give joy or grief to me.

Ant. I thought thou wert a stranger to the tidings ;
And therefore called thee forth, that here alone
I might impart them to thee.

Ism. 0, what are they?

For something dreadful labors in thy breast.

Ant. Know, then, from Creon, our indulgent lord,
Our hapless brothers met a different fate ;
To honor one, and one to infamy.
He hath consigned : with funeral rites he graced
The body of our dear Eteocles,
While Polynices' wretched carcass lies
Unburied, unlamented, left exposed
A feast for hungry vultures on the plain.
No pitying friend will dare to violate
The tyrant's harsh command, for public death
Awaits the offender : Creon comes himself
To tell us of it, such is our condition.
This is the crisis, this the hour, Ismene !
That must declare thee worthy of thy birth.
Or show thee mean, base, and degenerate.

Ism. What wouldst thou have me do? Defy his power?
Contemn the laws?

Ant. To act with me, or not:

Consider, and resolve.

Ism. What daring deed

peeso:n^ation 139

Wouldst thou attempt? What is it? Speak!

Ant. To join

And take the body, my Ismene !

Is)ji. Ha !

And wouldst thou dare to bury it, when thus
We are forbidden?

Ant. Ay, to bury him :

He is my brother, and thine too, Ismene !
Therefore, consent or not, I have determined
I'll not disgrace mj^ birth.

Ism. ^ Hath not the king

Pronounced it death to all?

Ant. He hath no right,

No power to keep me from my own.

Is7n. Alas !

Remember our unhappy father's fate;
His eyes torn out by his own fatal hand.
Oppressed with shame and infamy, he died:
Fruit of his crimes, a mother and a wife.
Dreadful alliance! self-devoted, fell;
And last, in one sad day, Eteocles
And Polynices, by each other slain.
Left as we are, deserted and forlorn.
What from our disobedience can we hope.
But misery and ruin? Poor, weak women,
Helpless, nor formed by nature to contend
With powerful man; we are his subjects too.
Therefore to this, and worse than this, my sister.
We must submit ; for me, in humblest prayer
Will I address me to the infernal powers
For pardon of that crime, which, well they know.
Sprang from necessity, and then obey ;
Since to attempt what we can never hope
To execute, is folly all, and madness.

140 INTERPRETIVE READING

Ant. Wert thou to proffer what I do not ask,—
Thy poor assistance, I would scorn it now.
Act as thou Avilt; I'll bury him myself;
Let me perform but that, and death is welcome.
I'll do the pious deed, and lay me down
By my dear brother ; loving and beloved,
We'll rest together: to the powers below
'Tis fit we pay obedience; longer there
We must remain, than we can breathe on earth;
There I shall dwell forever; thou, meantime,
What the gods hold most precious mayst despise.

Ism. I reverence the gods ; but, in defiance
Of laws, and unassisted, to do this.
It were most dangerous.

A7it. That be thy excuse.

While I prepare the funeral pile.

Ism . Alas !

I tremble for thee.

Ant. Tremble for thyself.

And not for me.

Ism. Oh, do not tell thy purpose,

I beg thee, do not! I shall ne'er betray thee.

Ant. I'd have it known; and I shall hate thee more
For thy concealment, than if loud to all
Thou wouldst proclaim the deed.

Ism. Thou hast a heart

Too daring, and ill-suited to thy fate.

Ant. 1 know my duty, and I'll pay it there
Where 'twill be best accepted.

Is7)i. Couldst thou do it;

But 'tis not in thy power.

Ant. When I know that,

It will be time enough to quit my purpose.

Ism. It cannot be; 'tis folly to attempt it.

PEESONATION 141

Ant. Go on, and I shall hate thee : our dead brother,
He too shall hate thee as his bitterest foe.
Go, leave me here to suffer for my rashness ;
Whate'er befalls, it cannot be so dreadful
As not to die with honor.

Is7n. Then farewell,

Since thou wilt have it so ; and know, Ismene
Pities thy weakness, but admires thy virtue. \_Exeunt.

Sophocles.

NYDIA AND lONE*

(^A room in the house of lone. lone seated. Enter Nydia.
Nydia delivers Glaucus's message of love.)

Nydia. I may give these flowers to none but thee. . .
This will, perhaps, explain why he who sent me chose so
unworthy a messenger to lone.

[Gives to lone a lettter from Glaucus.

lone. " Glaucus to lone sends more than he dares to
utter. For five days I have been banished from thy pres-
ence. Deign to see me, to listen to me, and after that ex-
clude me if thou wilt. I meant not so soon to say I loved.
But those words rush to my heart — they will have way.
We met first at the shrine of Pallas ; shall we not meet be-
fore a softer and a more ancient altar?

I send these flowers by one whom thou wilt receive for
her own sake, if not for mine. She, like us, is a stranger.
Less happy than we, she is blind and a slave. I ask per-
mission to place her with thee. She is skilled in music,
and is a very Chloris to the flowers. She thinks thou wilt
love her: if thou dost not, send her back to me.

Let me be bold, lone. Can it be that Arbaces hath
wronged me to thee? I think it, for I left him with thee.

* Adapted from "The Last Days of Pompeii."

142 INTERPRETIVE READING

Since then, thou hast not admitted me. Believe nothing
that he can say. Farewell. Glaucus."

Wilt thou sit while I write an answer to this letter?

What is thy name, fair girl?

Nydia. They call me Nydia.

lone. Your country?

Nydia. The land of Olympus — Thessaly.

lone. Thou shalt be to nie a friend, as thou art already
a countrywoman. Meanwhile, I beseech thee, stand not
on these cold marbles. Now I can leave thee for an instant.

[Exit lone.

(^Re-enter lone.')

Nydia. You have written to Glaucus?

lone. I have.

Nydia. And will he thank the messenger who gives him
thy letter? The lightest word of coldness from thee will
sadden him — the lightest kindness rejoice. If it be the
last, let me take thy answer back. I will return this even-
ing.

lone. Glaucus is amiable in thy eyes?

Nydia. Noble lone, Glaucus has been that to me which
neither fortune nor the gods have been — 2i friend!

lone. Why should I blush to say that Glaucus is worthy
of thy gratitude? Go, my Nydia — take to him thyself this
letter — but return again. Nydia, I have no sister, wilt
thou be one to me?

Nydia. One favor, fair lone. They tell me thou art
beautiful beyond the loveliness of earth. I cannot see.
Wilt thou suffer me to pass my hand over thy face? That
is my sole criterion of beauty. . . .

I know now that thou art beautiful, and I can picture
thee to my darkness forever. Lord Lytton.

DIVISION III

INTERPRETIVE READING OR SPEAKING THAT
APPEALS TO THE WILL.

The steps in Diwsion III. appeal not only to the under-
standing and the emotions, but also to the will of the audi-
ence. The purpose of oratory is to mold thought, and to
persuade men to a course of action. An orator must exert
his own will, and must move the wills of others.

The steps in this division are as follows :

I. Directness.

II. Vigor or strength.

III. Seriousness.

IV. Alliance with the audience.

V. Persuasion.

Chapter I
Directness

Take an easy, dignified position. Gain the attention of
your audience by speaking directly to them, not at them,
in natural conversational tones. Think of the audience as
a unit rather than as individuals. This will overcome the
tendency to pivot the head and body.

Speak extemporaneously when alone, and, when possible,
before an audience. But do not speak unless you have
something to say. Say what you have to say simply and
directly.

144 INTEEPEETIVE BEADING

TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE*

If I stood here to-night to tell yon the stoiy of Napoleon,
I should take it from the lips of Frenc^hnien, wlio find no lan-
guage rich euough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth
century. Were I here to tell you the story of Washington, I
should take it from your hearts, — you, who think no marble
white enough on which to carve the name of the Father of
his Country. I am to tell you the story of a negro, who
has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it from
the reluctanttestimony of Britons, Frenchmen, Spaniards —
men who despised him as a negro and a slave, and hated
him because he had beaten them in many a battle.

Cromwell manufactured his own army; Napoleon, at
the age of twenty-seven, — was placed at the head of the best
troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw an army till
he was forty ; this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty.
Cromwell manufactured his own army — out of what?
Englishmen, — the best blood in Europe. Out of the middle
class of Englishmen, the best blood of the island. And
with it he conquered what? Englishmen, — their equals.
This man manufactured his army out of what? Out of
what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, de-
moralized by two hundred years of slavery, one hundred
thousand of them imported into the island within four years,
unable to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other.
Yet out of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable mass, he
forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at what? At the
proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home
conquered ; at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French,
and put them under his feet; at the pluckiest blood in
Europe^ the English, and they skulked home to Jamaica.

* By permission of the publishers, Messrs. Lee & Shepard.

DIEECTNESS 145

Now if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a
soldier.

• t • • •

Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with
me to the commencement of the century, and select what
statesman you please. Let him be either American or
European ; let him have a brain the result of six generations
of culture ; Ifet him have the ripest training of university
routine ; let him add to it the better education of practical
life; crown his "temples with the silver of seventy
years ; and show me the man of Saxon lineage for whom his
most sanguine admirer will wreathe a laurel rich as em-
bittered foes have placed on the brow of this negro, — rare
military skill, profound knowledge of human nature, con-
tent to blot out all party distinctions, and trust a state to
the blood of its sons, — anticipating Sir Eobert Peel fifty
years, and taking his station by the side of Roger Williams
before any Englishman or American had won the right ;
and yet this is the record which the history of rival states
makes up for this inspired black of St. Domingo.

• • ■ • •

Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to Hayti, and
stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best soldiers
France ever had, and ask them what they think of the
negro's sword.

I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way
to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood.
This man never broke his word. I would call him Crom-
well, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the state he
founded went down with him into his grave. I would call
him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This
man risked his empire rather than permit the slave-trade in
the humblest village of his dominions.

You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not with
10

146 INTEEPRETIVE READING

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, Brutus for tlie Koman, Hampden
for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as
the bright, consummate flower of our earlier civilization,
then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear
blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the states-
man, the martyr, TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTUEE.

Wendell Phillips.

EXTRACT FROM "REPLY TO HAYNE"*

Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my
dissent to the doctrines which have been advanced and
maintained, I am conscious of having detained you and
the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate,
with no previous deliberation, such as is suited to the dis-
cussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a
subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been
willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous senti-
ments.

I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it,
without expressmg once more my deep conviction, that,
since it respects nothing less than the Union of the States,
it is of most vital and essential importance to the public
happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have
kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole
country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is
to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our considera-
tion and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are
chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our
country. That Union we reached only by the discipline
of our virtues in the severe school of adversity.

* By permission of the publishers, Messrs. Little, Brown & Co.

DIEECTNESS 147

It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance,
prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign
influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as
from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every
year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its
utility and its blessings; and although our territory has
stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread
farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or
its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of
national, social, p'ersonal happiness.

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union,
to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I
have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty
when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken
asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the
precipice of disunion, to see whether, ^with my short sight,
I can fathom the depth of the abyss below ; nor could I
regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this govern-
ment, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on consider-
ing, not how the Uuion might be best preserved, but how
tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should
be broken up and destroyed.

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 th^ 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 fra-
ternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance
rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now

148 INTEEPEETIVE READING

known and honored throughout the earth, still full high
advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star ob-
scured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogat-
ory as "What is all this worth? " nor those other words of
delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and Union afterwards,"
but everjnvhere, 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 Ameri-
can heart, — Liberty and Union noiv and forever, one and
inseparable! Daniel Webster.

DIVISION III

Chapter II

Vigor or Strength

Speeches of great force require strength of tone and vigor
of action, but neither should be so overdone as to become
"rant." Memorize great orations that ilkxstrate vigor of
thought.

Hold the thought of the oration in mind until you are
aroused to intense earnestness. Then speak with convic-
tion in your tones.

Practise speaking extemporaneously, using vigor of action.

SELECTIONS
OUR DUTY TO THE PHILIPPINES

I do not know why in the year 1899 this Republic has
unexpectedly had placed before it mighty problems which
it must face and meet. They have come and are here, and
they could not be kept away. . , .

The Philippines, like Cuba and Porto Rico, were intrusted
to our hands by the war, and to that great trust, under the
providence of God and in the name of human progress and
civilization, we are committed. It is a trust we have not
sought ; it is a trust from which we will not flinch.

The American people willholdupthe handsof their servants
at home to whom they commit its execution, while Dewey and
Otis and the brave men whom they command will have the
support of the country in upholding our flag where it now
floats, the symbol and assurance of liberty and justice. . . .

150 INTEEPEETIVE READING

There is universal agreement that the Philippines shall
not be turned back to Spain. No true American consents
to that. Even if unwilling to accept them ourselves, it
would have been a weak evasion of manly duty to require
Spain to transfer them to some other power or powers and
thus shirk our own responsibility. Even if we had had, as
we did not have, the power to compel such a transfer, it
could not have been made without the most serious inter-
national complications.

Such a course could not be thought of. And yet had we
refused to accept the cession of them we should have had
no power over them, even for their own good. We could
not discharge the responsibilities upon us until these islands
became ours, either by conquest or treaty. There was
but one alternative, and that was either Spain or the United
States in the Philippines.

The other suggestions — first, that they should be tossed
into the arena of contention for the strife of nations, or,
second, be left to the anarchy and chaos of no protectorate
at all, were too shameful to be considered. The treaty
gave them to the United States. Could we have required
less and done our duty?

Could we, after freeing the Filipinos from the domina-
tion of Spain, have left them without government and with-
out power to protect life or property, or to perform the in-
ternational obligations essential to an independent state?
Could we have left them in a state of anarchy and justified
ourselves in our own consciences or before the tribunal of
mankind? Could we have done that in the sight of God

and man?

• • • • • • •

The future of the Philippine Islands is now in the hands
of the American people. Until the treaty was ratified or
rejected the executive department of this Government could

VIGOR OR STRENGTH 151

only preserve the peace and protect life and property.
That treaty now commits the free and enfranchised Filipi-
nos to the guiding hand and the liberalizing influences, the
generous sympathies, the uplifting education, not of their
American masters, but of their American emancipators. . . .

• •••••••

Until Congress shall direct otherwise, it will be the duty
of the Executive to possess and hold the Philippines, giving
to the people thereof peace and order and beneficent gov-
ernment, affording them every opportunity to prosecute
their lawful pursuits, encouraging them in thrift and in-
dustry, making them feel and know that we are their
friends, not their enemies ; that their good is our aim ; that
their welfare is our welfare, but that neither their as})ira-
tions nor ours can be realized until our authority is ac-
knowledged and unquestioned.

That the inhabitants of the Philippines will be benefited
by this Republic is my unshaken belief: that they will
have a kindlier government under our guidance, and that
they will be aided in every possible way to be a self-
respecting and self-governing people is as true as that the
American people love liberty and have an abiding faith in
their own Government and in their own institutions.

No imperial designs lurk in the American mind. They
are alien to American sentiment, thought, and purpose.
Our priceless principles undergo no change under a tropical
sun. They go with the fiat :

" Why read ye not the changeless truth,
The free can conquer but to save? "

If we can benefit these remote peoples, who will object?
If in the years of the future they are established in govern-
ment under law and liberty, who will regret our perils and
sacrifices? Who will not rejoice in our heroism and hu-
manity? Always perils, and always after them safety;

152 INTERPRETIVE READING

always darkness and clonds, but always shining through
them the light and the sunshine ; always cost and sacrifice,
hut always after them the fruition of liberty, education,
and civilization.

I have no light or knowledge not common to my country-
men. I do not prophesy. The present is all-absorbing to
me, but I can not bound my vision by the blood-stained
trenches around Manila, where every red drop, whether
from the veins of an American soldier or a misguided Fili-
pino, is anguish to my heart, but by the broad range of
future years, when that group of islands, under the impulse
of the year just past, shall have become the gems and glories
of these tropical seas, a land of plenty and of increasing
possibilities ; a people redeemed from savage indolence and
habits, devoted to the arts of peace, in touch with the com-
merce and trade of all nations, enjoying the blessings of
freedom, of civil and religious liberty, of education and of
homes, and whose children and children's children shall
for ages hence bless the American Republic because it
emancipated and redeemed their fatherland and set them
in the pathway of the world's best civilization.

William McKinlet.

THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON*

Common sense was eminently a characteristic of Washing-
ton ; so called, not because it is so very common a trait of
character of public men, but because it is the final judgment
on great practical questions to which the mind of the com-
munity is pretty sure eventually to arrive. Few qualities
of character in those who influence the fortunes of nations
are so conducive both to stability and progress. But it is
a quality which takes no hold of the imagination ; it in-

* By permission of the publishers, Messrs. Little, Brown & Co.

VIGOR OR STRENGTH 153

spires no enthusiasm, it wins no favor ; it is well if it can
stand its ground against the plausible absurdities, the hol-
low pretences, the stupendous impostures of the day.

But, however these unobtrusive and austere virtues may
be overlooked in the popular estimate, they belong unques-
tionably to the true type of sterling greatness, reflecting as
far as it can be done within the narrow limits of humanity
that deep repose and silent equilibrium of mental and moral
power which governs the universe. To complain of the
character of Washington that it is destitute of brilliant
qualities, is to complain of a circle that it has no salient
points' and no sharp angles in its circumference ; forget-
ting that it owes all its wonderful properties to the
unbroken curve of which every point is equidistant from
the centre. Instead, therefore, of being a mark of
inferiority, this sublime adjustment of powers and vir-
tues in the character of Washington is in reality its glory.
It is this which chiefly puts him in harmony with more
than human greatness. The higher we rise in the scale of
being, — material, intellectual, and moral, — the more certain-
ly we quit the region of the brilliant eccentricities and daz-
zling contrasts which belong to a vulgar greatness. Order
and proportion characterize the primordial constitution of
the terrestrial system ; ineffable harmony rules the heavens.

All the great eternal forces act in solemn silence. The
brawling torrent that dries up in summer deafens you with
its roaring whirlpools in March ; Avhile the vast earth on
which we dwell, with all its ocean, and all its continents
and its thousand millions of inhabitants, revolves unheard
upon its soft axle at the rate of a thousand miles an hour,
and rushes noiselessly on its orbit a million and a half miles
a day. Two storm-clouds encamped upon opposite hills on a
sultry summer's evening, at the expense of no more electric-
ity, according to Mr. Faraday, than is evolved in the de-

154 INTEEPEETIYE EEADING

composition of a single drop of water, will shake the sur-
rounding atmosphere with their thunders, which, loudly
as they rattle on the spot, will yet not be heard at the dis-
tance of twenty miles ; while those tremendous and unutter-
able forces which ever issue from the throne of God, and
drag the chariot wheels of Uranus and Neptune along the
uttermost pathways of the solar system, pervade the illimit-
able universe in silence. . .

And did I say, my friends, that I was unable to furnish
an entirely satisfactory answer to the question, in what the
true excellence of the character of Washington consists?
Let me recall the word as unjust to myself and unjust to
you. The answer is plain and simple enough; it is this,
that all the great qualities of disposition and action, which
so eminently fitted him for the service of his fellow-men,
were founded on the basis of a pure Christian morality,
and derived their strength and energy from that vital source.
He was great as he was good ; and I believe, as I do in
my existence, that it was an important part in the design
of Providence in raising him up to be the leader of the
revolutionary struggle, and afterwards the first President
of the United States, to rebuke prosperous ambition and
successful intrigue ; to set before the people of America,
in the morning of their national existence, a living example
to prove that armies may be best conducted and govern-
ments most ably and honorably administered, by men of
sound moral principle ; to teach to gifted and aspiring in-
dividuals, and the parties they lead, that, though a hundred
crooked paths may conduct to a temporary success, the one
plain and straight path of public and private virtue can
alone lead to a pure and lasting fame and the blessings of
posterity.

Edward Everett.

YIGOR OR STRENGTH 155

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

He is fallen ! We may now pause before that splendid
prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin,
whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted.
Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a
sceptered hermit, wraptinthe solitude of his own originality.

A mind bold, independent, and decisive — a will, despotic
in its dictates — slx^ energy that distanced expedition, and a
conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the
outline of this extraordinary character — the most extra-
ordinary, perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever
rose, or reigned, or fell.

Flung into life in the midst of a Revolution that quick-
ened every energy of a people who acknowledged no superior,
he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar
by charity !

With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but
his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and wealth,
and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled
from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no
motive but interest — he acknowledged no criterion but suc-
cess— he worshiped no God but ambition, and with an
Eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry.

Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not
profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate ;
in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the Crescent ; for the
sake of a divorce, he bowed before the Cross : the orphan of
St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the Republic:
and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the
throne and tribune, he reared the throne of his desjootism.

A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope ; a pretended
patriot, he impoverished the country ; and in the name of

156 INTEEPEETIVE BEADING

Brutus, he grasped without remorse, and wore without
shame, the diadem of the Caesars !

Through this pantomime of policy. Fortune played the
clown to his caprices. At his touch, crowns crumbled, beg-
gars reigned, systems vanished, the wildest theories took
the color of his whim, and all that was venerable, and all
that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama.

Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of victory ;
his flight from Egypt confirmed his destiny — ruin itself
only elevated him to empire.

But if his fortune was great, his genius was transcendent ;
decision flashed upon his councils ; and it was the same to
decide and to perform. To inferior intellects, his com-
binations appeared perfectly impossible, his plans perfectly
impracticable; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their
development, and success vindicated their adoption.

His person partook the character of his mind — if the one
never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field.

Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmount— space
no opposition that he did not spurn ; and whether amid
Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or polar snows, he seemed
proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity ! The
whole continent of Europe trembled at beholding the audacity
of his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Skepti-
cism bowed to the prodigies of his performance ; romance
assumed the air of history ; nor was there aught too in-
credible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the
world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag
over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity
became commonplaces in his contemplation; kings were
his people — nations were his outposts; and he disposed of
courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets,
as if they were the titular dignitaries of the chessboard !
Amid all these changes he stood immutable as adamant.

VIGOR OR STRENGTH 157

It mattered little whether in the field or in the drawing-
room — with the mob or the levee — wearing the Jacobin bon-
net or the iron crown — banishing a Braganza, or espousing
a Haps burg — dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia,
or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic — he was
still the same military despot ! Cradled in the camp, he
was to the last hour the darling of the army ; and whether
in the camp or the cabinet he never forsook a friend or for-
got a favor. . . ,

In this wonderful combination, his affectation of litera-
ture must not be omitted. The jailer of the press, he af-
fected the patronage of letters — the proscriber of books, he
encouraged philosophy — the persecutor of authors, and the
murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of
learning. . . . Such a medley of contradictions, and at the
same time such an individual consistency, were never
united in the same character. A Royalist — a Republican and
an Emperor — a Mohammedan — a Catholic, and a patron of
the Synagogue — a Subaltern and a Sovereign — a Traitor and
a Tyrant — a Christian and an Infidel — he was, through all his
vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible original —
the same mysterious, incomprehensible self — the man with-
out a model and without a shadow.

Chakles Phillips (adapted).

DIVISION ra

Chapter III

Seriousness

All great orations are profoundly serious.

The occasion, the theme, and its treatment, are of mo-
ment. The orator should regard every such opportunity to
move the hearts and minds of men as a critical hour in his
life. Jocoseness and flippancy in such an hour would be
strangely out of place. The orator and his oration must
have a seriousness that will command the respectful atten-
tion of men. The true orator gives a message to the world.

Eead great orations to know the best thought of the seers
of the past and present. Memorize great passages from
these orations and recite them frequently. Try to feel what
the original speakers must have felt when they gave the
orations. Familiarize yourself with the historic facts and
events associated with the orations.

SELECTIONS

REMARKS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NATIONAL
CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG, NOV. 19, 1863

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth
upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,
can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that

SEEIOUSI^ESS 159

war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as
the final resting-place for those who gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper
that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot con-
secrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men,
living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it
far above our power to add or detract. The world will lit-
tle note nor long remember what we say here, but it can
never forget what, they did here. It is for us, the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which
they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us ; that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the
last full measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ; and that
government of the people, by the people, and for the peo-
ple, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln.

EXTRACT FROM "THE FAREWELL ADDRESS"

Friends and Fellow-Citizens : In looking forward to
the moment which is intended to terminate the career of
my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend
the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I
owe to my beloved country, for the many honors it has
conferred upon me ; still more for the steadfast confidence
with which it has supported me ; and for the opportunities
I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attach-
ment, by services faithful and persevering, though, in use-
fulness, unequal to my zeal.

If benefits have resulted to our country from these ser-

160 INTEEPEETIVE EEADING

vices, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as
an instructive example in our annals, that, under circum-
stances iu which the passions, agitated in every direction,
were liable to mislead ; amidst appearances sometimes dubi-
ous ; vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging ; in situations
in which not unf requently want of success has countenanced
the spirit of criticism, — the constancy of your support was
the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the
plans by which they were effected.

Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it
with me to the grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing
vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens
of its beneficence ; that your union and brotherly afi'ection
may be perpetual ; that the free Constitution, which is the
work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its
administration in every department may be stamped with
wisdom and virtue ; that, in fine, the happiness of the peo-
ple of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be
made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent
a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of
recommending to it the applause, the affection, and the
adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to
it.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign
nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have
with them as little political connection as possible. So far
as we have already formed engagements, let them be ful-
filled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have
none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be en-
gaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are
essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it
must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial
ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordi-

SERIOUSNESS 161

nary combinations and collisions of her friendships or
enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us
to pursue a different course. If we remain one people,
under an efficient government, the period is not far off
when we may defy material injury from external annoy-
ance ; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the
neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupu-
lously respected ; when belligerent nations, under the im-
possibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly
hazard the giving us provocation ; when we may choose
peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

"Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?
Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why,
by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe,
entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European
ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances
with any portion of the foreign world ; so far, I mean, as
we are now at liberty to do it ; for let me not be understood
as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements.
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private
affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat
it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their
genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and
would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable estab-
lishments, in a respectable defensive posture, we may safely
trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recom-
mended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our
commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand ;
neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or references ;
consulting the natural course of things ; diffusing and di-
ll

162 INTEEPRETIYE BEADING

versifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but
forcing nothing ; establishing, with powers so disposed, in
order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of
our merchants, and to enable the government to support
them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that pres-
ent circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but
temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned
or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate;
constantly keeping in view that it is folly for one nation to
look for disinterested favors from another ; that it must pay
with a portion of its independence for whatever it may ac-
cept under that character ; that, by such acceptance, it may
place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for
nominal favors, and yet with being reproached with ingrati-
tude for not givmg more. There can be no greater error
than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to
nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure,
which a just pride ought to discard.

George Washington.

DIVISION III

Chapter IV

, Alliance •with the Audience

In order to persuade aji audience, an orator must form a
sort of mental aWiance with them, and secure the co-opera-
tion pf their wills. Practise reciting passages from great
orations, and as you do so, exert your mind to gain and
hold the attention of your audience. Speak extemporane-
ously, with a sincere desire to give helpful or uplifting
thoughts to your audience. Be in sympathy with them.

SELECTIONS

MARC ANTONY'S ORATION

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them ;

The good is oft interred with their bones ;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious :

If it were so, it was a grievous fault.

And grievously hath Caesar answer' d it.

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 in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious ;

And Brutus is an honorable man.

164 INTEEPEETIVE READING

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill :
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, CiEsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff :
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse : was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ;
And, sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke.
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause :
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
0 judgment ! thou art fled to brutish beasts.
And men have lost their reason ! Bear with me ;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world ; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

0 masters, if I were dispos'd to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,

1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men :

I will not do them wrong ; I rather choose

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you.

Than I will wrong such honorable men.

But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar;

I found it in his closet; 'tis his will:

Let but the commons hear this testament —

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read —

ALLIANCE WITH THE AUDIENCE 165

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood,
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.

William Shakespeare.

DIVISION III

Chapter V

Persuasion

The influence of oratory is transient that does not per-
suade men to think and act more nobly. Oratory should
make a course of action clear to the minds of the audience.
It should convince the intellect, influence the judgment,
arouse the emotions, and persuade or move the wills of men.

Recite passages illustrating persuasion. Speak extem-
poraneously. Be full of resources. Speak with the elo-
quence born of deep feeling and strong conviction. Inspire
with your own lofty idealism. Impress with your own
resistless will. Attract with your personality. Have
faith in yourself and in your message.

SPEECH ON THE AMERICAN WAR

I cannot, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on
misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous
and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation.
The smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged
and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne
in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the
illusion and the darkness which envelop it, and display, in
its full danger and genuine colors, the ruin which is brought
to our doors.

Can ministers still presume to expect support in their
infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity
and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded

PEESUASIOlf 167

and forced upon them? Measures, my lord, which, have
reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt!
But yesterday, and England might have stood against the
world ; now, none so poor to do her reverence.

The people whom we at first desjDised as rebels, but whom
we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us ;
supplied with every military store, their interest consulted
and their ambassadors entertained by our inveterate enemy !
— and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity
or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in
part known. No man more highly esteems and honors the
British troops than I do ; I know their virtues and their
valor ; I know they can achieve anything but impossibili-
ties ; and I know that the conquest of English America is
an ivi2iossihUitij.

You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America.
What is your present situation there? We do not know
the worst; but we do know that in three campaigns we
have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell
every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend
your traffic to the shambles of every German desjiot : your
attempts will be forever vain and impotent — doubly so, in-
deed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely ; for it
irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your ad-
versaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine
and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the
rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I
am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my
country, I would never lay down my arms — never, neveVf
never !

But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the
disgrace and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize
and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping knife
of the savage? — to call into civilized alliance the wild and

168 INTEEPRETIYE READING

inhuman inhabitants of the woods? — to delegate to the
merciless Indian the defense of disputed rights, and to
wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren?
My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punish-
ment.

But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended,
not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also
on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable," says
Lord Suffolk, " to use all the means which God and Nature
have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked,
to hear such principles confessed ; to hear them avowed in
this House, or in this country !

My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much upon
your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel
myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon
as members of this House, as men, as Christian men, to
protest against such horrible barbarity. " Which God and
Nature have put into our hands ! " What ideas of God and
Nature that noble lord may entertain I know not ; but I
know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent
to religion and humanity.

What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and Na-
ture to the massacres of the Indian scalping knife ! — to the
cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking
the blood of his mangled victims! Such notions shock
every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every
sentiment of honor. These abominable principles, and this
more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive
indignation.

I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned
bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support
the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to
interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn ; — upon the
judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us

PERSUASION 169

from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your lord-
ships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and main-
tain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of
your country and mine to vindicate the national character.

Lord Chatham.

TRUE ELOQUENCE*

When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous
occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong
passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther than
it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments.
Clearness, force and earnestness are the qualities which
produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not
consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor
and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain.

Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but
they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the
subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense
expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after
it, but cannot reach it. It comes, if it comes at all, like
the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the burst-
ing forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native
force.

The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments
and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men
when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their
children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour.
Then words have lost their power ; rhetoric is vain ; and
all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then
feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher
qualities.

Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, self-devotion is elo-
quent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions

* By permission of the publishers, Messrs. Little, Brown & Co.

170 INTEEPEETIYB BEADING

of logic, tlie high purpose of firm resolve, the dauntless
spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, in-
forming every feature, and urging the whole man onward,
right onward to his object, — this is eloquence ; or, rather,
is something greater and higher than all eloquence. It is
action, noble, sublime, godlike action !

Daniel Webster.

EXTRACT FROM FIRST BUNKER HILL MONUMENT

ORATION*

Venerable men ! you have come down to us from a former
generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your
lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are
now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with
your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in
the strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The
same heavens are indeed over your heads ; the same ocean
rolls at your feet : but all else how changed ! You hear
now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of
smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The
ground strowedwith the dead and the dying; the impetuous
charge ; the steady and successful repulse ; the loud call to
repeated assault ; the summoning of all that is manly to
repeated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly
bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in
war and death ; — all these you have witnessed, but you
witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of
yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then
saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in dis-
tress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for
the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with
the sight of its whole happy population come out to wel-

* By permission of the publishers, Messrs. Little, Brown & Co.

PEESUASION 171

come and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud
ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the
foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it,
are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's own
means of distinction and defence. All is peace; and God
has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere
you slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold
and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils ; and he
has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you
here, and iu the* name of the present generation, in the
name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you !
But, alas ! you are not all here ! Time and the sword
have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks,
Kead, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain
among this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers,
and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance
and your own bright example. But let us not too much
grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You
lived at least long enough to know that your work had
been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to
see your country's independence established, and to sheathe
your swords from war. On the light of Liberty you saw
arise the light of peace, like

" another morn,
Risen on midnoon " ;

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless.

But ah ! Him ! the first great martyr in this great cause !
Him ! the premature victim of his own self -devoting heart !
Him! the head of our civil councils and the destined leader
of our military bands, whom nothing brought hither but the
unquenchable fire of his own spirit ! Him ! cut off by
Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick
gloom ; falling ere he saw the star of his country rise ;

172 INTEEPRETIVE READING

pouring out liis generous blood like water, before he knew
whether it Avould fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage !
how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the
utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but
thine shall endure ! This monument may moulder away ;
the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level
with the sea ; but thy memory shall not fail ! Wheresoever
among men a heart shall be found that beats to the trans-
ports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to
claim kindred with thy spirit !

Daniel Webster.

EXTRACT FROM SECOND BUNKER HILL MONUMENT

ORATION.*

America has furnished to the world the character of
Washington. And, if our American institutions had done
nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the
respect of mankind.

Washington ! " First in war, first in peace, and first in
the hearts of his countrymen ! " Washington is all our
own ! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the
people of the United States hold him prove them to be
worthy of such a countryman ; while his reputation abroad
reflects the highest honor on his country. I would cheer-
fully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe
and the world. What character of the century, upon the
whole, stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most
respectable, most sublime? and I doubt not, that, by a
suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be
Washington !

The structure now standing before us, by its uprightness,
its solidity, its durability, is no unfit emblem of his char-

* By permission of the publishers, Messrs. Little, Brown & Co.

PEESUASION 173

acter. His public virtues and public principles were as
firm as the earth on which it stands ; his personal motives,
as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is lost.
But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem.
Towering high above the column which our hands have
builded, beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city or
a single State, but by all the families of man, ascends the
colossal grandeur of the character and life of Washington.
In all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the
other, in all its titles to immortal love, admiration, and re-
nown, it is an American production. It is the embodiment
and vindication of our Transatlantic liberty. Born upon
our soil, of parents also born upon it ; never for a moment
having had sight of the Old World ; instructed, according
to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but
wholesome elementary knowledge which our institutions
provide for the children of the people ; growing up beneath
and penetrated by the genuine influences of American so-
ciety ; living from infancy to manhood and age amidst our
expanding, but not luxurious civilization ; partaking in our
great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed
nature and uncivilized man, our agony of glory, the war of
Independence, our great victory of peace, the formation of
the Union, and the establishment of the Constitution, he
is all, all our own ! Washington is ours. That crowded
and glorious life,

"Where multitudes of virtues passed along,
Each pressing foremost, in the mighty throng
Ambitious to be seen, then making room
For greater multitudes that were to come," —

that life was the life of an American citizen.

I claim hijn for America. In all the perils, in every
darkened moment of the state, in the midst of the reproaches

174 INTERPRETIVE READING

of enemies and the misgivings of friends, I turn to that
transcendent name for courage and for consolation. To
him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty can
be combined with law, with order, with the security of
property, with the pursuits and advancement of happiness ;
to him who denies that our forms of government are capable
of producing exaltation of soul and the passion of true
glory ; to him who denies that we have contributed anything
to the stock of great lessons and great examples; — to all
these I reply by pointing to Washington !

Daniel Webster.

THE BETTER PART*

On an important occasion in the life of the Master, when
it fell to Him to pronounce judgment on two courses of
action, these memorable words fell from His lips: "And
Mary hath chosen the better part." This was the supreme
test in the case of an individual. It is also the highest
test in the case of a race or a nation. Let us apply this
test to the American negro.

In the life of our Republic, when he has had the oppor-
tunity to choose, has it been the better or worse part?
When in the childhood of this nation the negro was asked
to submit to slavery or choose death and extinction, as did
the aborigines, he chose the better part, that which per-
petuated the race. When in 1776 the negro was asked to
decide between British oppression and American independ-
ence, we find him choosing the better part, and Crispus
Attucks, a negro, was the first to shed his blood on State
Street, Boston, that the white American might enjoy liberty
forever, though his race remained in slavery.

When in 1814, at New Orleans, the test of patriotism

* Used by permission of the author.

PEESUASION 175

came again, we find the negro choosing the better part, and
Gen. Andrew Jackson himself testifying that no heart was
more loyal and no arm more strong and useful in defence
of righteousness. When the long and memorable struggle
came between Union and separation, when he knew that
victory, on the one hand, meant freedom, and defeat on the
other his continued enslavement, with a full knowledge of
the portentous meaning of it all, when the suggestion and
the temptation came to burn the home and massacre wife
and children during the absence of the master in battle,
and thus insure his liberty, we find him choosing the better
part, and for four long years protecting and supporting the
helpless, defenceless ones intrusted to his care.

When in 1863 the cause of the Union seemed to quiver
in the balance, and there was doubt and distrust, the negro
was asked to come to the rescue in arms, and the valor he
displayed at Fort Wagner and Port Hudson and Fort Pillow
testifies most eloquently again that the negro chose the
better part. When a few months ago the safety and honor
of the Kepublic were threatened by a foreign foe, when
the wail and the anguish of the oppressed from a distant
isle reached his ears, we find the negro forgetting his own
wrongs, forgetting the laws and customs that discriminate
against him in his own country, and again we find our black
citizen choosing the better part.

If you would know how he deported himself in the field
at Santiago, apply for an answer to Shafter and Eoosevelt
and Wheeler. Let them tell how the negro faced death
and laid down his life in defence of honor and humanity ;
and when you have gotten the full story of the heroic con-
duct of the negro in the Spanish- American War, heard it
from lips of Northern soldiers and Southern soldiers, from
ex-abolitionist and ex-master, then decide within yourselves
whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country

176 INTERPRETIVE READING

should not be given the highest opportunity to live for its
country?

In the midst of all the complaints of suffering in the
camp and Held, suffering from fever and hunger, where is
the official or citizen that has ever heard a word of com-
plaint from the lips of a black soldier? The only request
that has come from the negro soldier has been that he
might be permitted to replace the white soldier when heat
and malaria began to decimate the ranks of the white regi-
ment, and to occupy, at the same time, the post of greatest
danger. This country has been most fortunate in her
victories. She has twice measured arms with England and
won. She has met the spirit of rebellion within her own
borders and was victorious. She has met the proud Span-
iard, and he lies prostrate at her feet. All this is well ; it
is magnificent.

But there remains one other victory for Americans to
win, a victory as far-reaching and important as any that
has occupied our army and navy. We have succeeded in
every conflict except in the effort to conquer ourselves in
the blotting out of racial prejudices. We can celebrate the
era of peace in no more effectual way than by a firm resolve
on the part of Northern men and Southern men, black men
and white men, that the trendies which we together dug
around Santiago shall be the eternal burial-place of all that
which separates us in our business and civil relations. Let
us be as generous in peace as we have been brave in battle.
Until we thus conquer ourselves, I make no empty state-
ment when I say that we shall have a cancer gnawing at
the heart of the Republic that shall one day prove as danger-
ous as an attack from an ai-my from without or within.

In this presence and on this auspicious occasion I want
to present the deep gratitude of nearly ten millions of my
people to our wise, patient, and brave Chief Executive for

PEESUASION 177

the generous manner in whicli my race has been recognized
during this conflict ; a recognition that has done more to
blot out sectional and racial lines than any event since the
dawn of our freedom. I know how vain and impotent is
all abstract talk on this subject. In your efforts to " rise on
stepping-stones of your dead selves," we of the black race
shall not leave you unaided. We shall make the task easier
for you by acquiring property, habits of thrift, economy,
intelligence and character, by each making himself of indi-
vidual worth in his own community. We shall aid you in
this as we did a few days ago at El Caney and Santiago,
when we helped you to hasten the peace which we here
celebrate. You know us. You are not afraid of us. When
the crucial test comes you are not ashamed of us. We have
never betrayed or deceived you. You know that as it has
been so it will be, whether in war or in peace, whether in
slavery or in freedom, we have always been loyal to the
Stai'S and Stripes.

BooKEK T. Washington.

178

INTERPEETIVE READING

FIG. 1.— The Larynx, Trachea, and Lungs.

1. Epiglottis.

2. Hyoid bone.

3. Superior horn of thyroid cartilage.

4. The larynx.

5. Thyroid cartilage.

6. Cricoid cartilage.

7. Thyroid gland.

8. Trachea.

9. Bronchial tubes.

10. Left bronchus.

11. Two lobes of left lung.

12. Right lobe of lung.

Adapted from Mr. Oskar Guttmann's "Gymnastics of the Voice." By
permission of the publisher, Mr. Edgar S. Werner.

PART II

BKEATHING

DIVISION I

THE EESPIRATORY ORGANS

The organs of respiration are tlie trachea, bronchial
tubes, and lungs. They, with the muscles that act upon
the lungs, are the motor power of the voice.

The trachea, or windpipe, extends from the larynx down-
ward, dividing into the right bronchus and the left bronchus.
The bronchial tubes are ramifications of each bronchus, and
terminate in the air-cells of the lungs. The trachea and
bronchial tubes and their twigs consist of rings of cartilage
connected by fibres of elastic tissue. These rings finally
disappear in the bronchial twigs. The air passages are all
lined with mucous membrane, from which flows a substance
like white of Q^^, called mucus. This keeps the air moist
and catches particles of dust. The mucus moves in a steady
current upward, by the action of the cilia. The cilia are
numerous hairlike projections in the trachea, each one hav-
ing the power of bending back and forth, making a quick
movement toward the larynx, and a slower return movement.

The bronchial tubes end in tiny pouches or air-cells,
somewhat resembling soap-bubbles. Each cell connects
through an opening with a division of the bronchial tubes.
The walls of these cells are thin and highly elastic. In

180

INTERPEETIVE READING

the walls of the cells is a delicate network of small blood-
vessels called capillaries. Here purification of the blood
takes place, the blood giving up waste matter, and in return
receiving oxygen from the air.

Respiration

Respiration consists of two acts, — inspiration and expira-
tion.

Inspiration

In inspiration the principal active forces are the diaphragm
and intercostal muscles. The secondary forces are the ab-
dominal muscles.

The diaphvmjm is the transverse muscle that separates
the thorax from the abdomen. It consists of two parts,

the larger one arising from
the ensiform cartilage of the
sternum, and the ends of the
lower ribs on either side.
These fibres converge, and
unite in a central tendon. The
inferior muscle springs from
the vertebrae of the loins by
two processes attached to the
lumbar vertebrae. These fibres
also converge, and ultimately
unite with the central tendon,
forming one muscle. When relaxed, the diaphragm
curves upward. When its fibres contract, the diaphragm
is pulled down, or flattened somewhat. In moving down,
it presses upon the muscles of the abdomen, causing the
abdomen to protrude.

The intercostal muscles are the muscles of the chest that
directly or indirectly connect the upper ten pairs of ribs

Fig. 2.— Upper View of Diaphragm.

BEEATHING

181

Fig. 3.— Lower View of Diaphragm.

with the sternum. These muscles elevate the ribs and
sternum. The movement of the diaphragm and chest mus-
cles thus increases the
capacity of the chest.
The air already in the
chest expands to fill
the larger space.
When expanded, it ex-
erts less jjressure than
before, and the denser
air outside rushes in.
It presses on the in-
side of the elastic lung
cells, expands the
lungs, and they fill the
larger chest cavity.
Inspiration requires effort because of the resistance of the
muscles and organs of the abdomen.

Expiration.

At the close of inspiration there is a rebound of the elas-
tic walls of the air-cells of the lungs. As these cells con-
tract, the air is forced upward through the bronchial tubes
toward the larynx ; the diaphragm relaxes and presses up-
ward, the clavicle and sternum lower slightly, and the ribs
are drawn downward and inward by the intercostal muscles.
In this way the chest cavity decreases in size and air is
forced from the lungs.

Breathing sliould be entirely through the tiose. In the
lower part of the nares (the cavities just back of the nos-
trils) are tiny capillaries that heat the air as it passes
through. The hairs in the nostrils and the mucus of the
nasal cavities catch the particles of dust in the air breathed
and thus prevent the entrance of impurities into the lungs.

182

INTERPEETIVE READING

Correct breathing depends largely upon dress and habit.
The clothing about the waist should be loose enough to
allow perfect freedom of movement of the ribs. During

FIG. 4.

Inspiration.

Expiration.

1. Tractiea.

3. Diaphragm

2. Sternum.

4. Abdomen.

inspiration, the ribs should press outward like the staves
of a barrel. The clothing about the throat should be loose
enough to give room for the action of the trachea and
larynx.

If the habit of deep breathing be formed, it will promote
the health of the body and improve the quality of the
voice.

DIVISION II

BREATHING EXERCISES

1. Upper chest breathing.

Take the weight on the balls of both feet. Touch the
fingers lightly on either side of the sternum. Inhale slowly

BEEATHING 183

and gently through the nostrils. Breathing should not be
audible. Hold the breath during eight counts, then exhale.
Repeat.

2. Middle chest breathing.

Place the palms of the hands at the sides against the ribs,
with the fingers pointing directly front. Inhale quickly
through the nostrils, letting the ribs push outward like the
staves of a barrel. Hold the breath during eight counts,
then exhale and repeat.

3. Lower cheat breathing.

Place the thumbs on either side of the spine, a little
above the belt line. Inhale very slowly and deeply through
the nostrils. Hold the breath during sixteen counts. Ex-
hale quickly. Repeat.

4. Apex breathing.

Inhale quickly and deeply through the nostrils. Hold
the breath during sixteen counts. While holding the
breath, move both arms up in front of the body, over and
down back of the body twice. Exhale quickly. Repeat.

PART III

VOCAL CULTURE

The development of the singing voice and the speaking
voice depends first of all upon control of the breath. This
is gained by systematic practice of breathing exercises and
vocal exercises. The first step in importance in vocaliz-
ation is the placing of the tone so that the overtones of
the vocal cords shall be re-enforced. This is accomplished
by the co-operation of the mind. The one who would place
tone forward must think the tone forward during every
vocal exercise. The tone thus directed will resound in
the nares and sinuses.

The mind and the vocal organs are so related that when
the mind forms an ideal tone the voice approximates the
ideal. Every student of vocal culture should think the
tone he is about to give before he gives it, and as he gives it.

DIVISION I

THE VOCAL ORGANS

The organs of the voice are the larynx and the cavities
of resonance.

Cartilages of the Larynx

The larynx is an expansion of the trachea. It consists
of several cartilages and muscles.

THE VOCAL OEGANS

185

At the top of the trachea, and seeming a part of it, is
the cricoid cartilage, which is almost circular. It resembles
a signet ring, the broad surface being at the back.

Above the cricoid cartilage is the thyroid cartilage,
which forms the front and sides of the larynx. This con-
sists of two lateral carti-
laginous plates joined in
front at an acute angle.
These plates are widely
apart behind. The pos-
terior edge of each is con-
tinuecl in upper and lower
horns on either side. The
upper horns are connect-
ed with the hyoid bone.
The lower horns are con-
nected with the cricoid
cartilage by means of a
joint which allows one
surface to move freely on
the other.

There are two arytenoid
cartilages. These are
small triangular pyramids
that rest upon the upper
edge of the back part of
the cricoid cartilage at the
back of the larynx. Each
cartilage articulates with
the cricoid cartilage by
means of a joint which al-
lows freedom of motion.

The anterior angle of the base of each arytenoid cartilage
unites with the posterior end of a vocal cord, and is one of

Fig. 5.— The Larynx.

1. Epiglottis.

2. Thyro-hyold ligament.

3. Thyroid cartilage.

4. Cricoid cartilage.

5. Hyoid bone.

6. Superior horn of thyroid cartilage.

7. Crico-thyroid muscle.

8. Trachea.

186

INTEEPEETIVE BEADING

the most important means of changing the tension of the

vocal cords.

The cartilages of Santorini are two small cartilages at the

apex of each arytenoid cartilage.

The cartilages of Wrisbei'g are two small cartilages

found in the folds of membrane between the apex of each

arytenoid cartilage and the
sides of the epiglottis.

The epiglottis is a leaf-
shaped cartilage between the
root of the tongue and the
larynx. During respiration
or vocalization the epiglottis
is raised, but during the pro-
cess of swallowing it closes
tightly over the larynx.

The Muscles and the Liga-
ments OF THE Larynx.

Fig. 6.— The Vocal Cords.

1. Vocal cord.

■£. Arytenoid cartilage.

3. Thyro-arytenoid muscle.

4. Connective tissue.

5. Thyroid cartilage.

6. Hyold bone.

7. Glottis.

8. ffisophagus.

9. riiyro-hyoid ligament.

The vocal cords are two
ligaments in the membranous
lips within the larynx. Near
the edge of each lip, just with-
in the covering of mucous membrane, is stretched a band of
glistening white elastic fibres. These two bands are at-
tached to the angle of the thyroid cartilage, in front, and to
the anterior angles of the bases of the arytenoid cartilages
at the back of the larynx.

The vocal cords of men are longer than the vocal cords
of women. Those of men are a little over a half -inch in
length ; those of women, less than a half-inch.

The opening between the vocal cords is called the glottis.
Just above the vocal cords are little cavities called ven-
tricles. Just above the ventricles are fleshy edges called

THE VOCAL OEGANS 187

false vocal cords, or ventricular folds. The false vocal
cords are the lower edges of membrane extending from the
sides of the epiglottis in front to the arytenoid cartilages at
the back.

The thyro-hyoid ligament connects the thyroid carti-
lage with the hyoid bone.

The crico-thyroid muscles extend from the front of the
cricoid cartilage to the lower horns of the thyroid cartilage,
and connect the cricoid and thyroid cartilages.

The thyro-arytenoid muscles lie next to the vocal
cords, attached at one end to the thyroid cartilage, and at
the other end to the arytenoid cartilages. They are at-
tached to the vocal cords by tiny fibres, and in this way
modify the action of the cords.

A mesh of muscles lies next to the thyro-arytenoid
muscles, and connects them with the walls of the thyroid
cartilage.

The arytenoid muscle lies at the back of the larynx,
and joins the arytenoid cartilages. This indirectly modifies
the tension of the vocal cords.

The posterior crico-arytenoid muscles run from the
back or " signet " of the cricoid cartilage to the outer angle
of the arytenoid cartilage.

The lateral crico-arytenoid muscles run from the outer
angles of the arytenoid cartilages to the upper part of the
cricoid cartilage.

The depressor of the epiglottis is attached to the
epiglottis and arytenoid cartilages.

The Cavities of Resonance

The cavities of resonance are the trachea, the larynx,
the pharj^nx, the mouth, the two narcs, and the eight
sinuses.

188

INTERPRETIVE READING

The trachea is the cavity of resonance for tones low-
in pitch. It extends from the larynx to the lungs.

The ventricles, or small cavities above the voice lips, are
the cavities in which the vibrations of the cords are trans-
mi tted to the air.
They modify the tone
but little.

The pharynx is the
cavity extending from
the larynx to the
nares. Its sides and
posterior surface are
covered with highly
elastic muscles, and
these in turn are
covered with mucous
membrane. By con-
tracting and expand-
ing, the muscles vary
the size and shape of
this cavity, and so
modify the tone. For
beautiful tone, these
muscles should be re-
laxed. The pharynx
serves principally to
direct or project tone.
The mouth is the
resonant cavity that
varies most in size
and shape during the production and molding of tone.
This is due to the moliility of the tongue and soft palate.
The tongue is composed of muscles running in every direc-
tion, and it is capable of almost infinite variety of position.
* Turbinated processes of the ethmoid bone.

Fig. 7.— Cavities of Resonance.

1. Frontal sinus.

2. Sphenoidal sinus.

3. Upper, middle, and

lower meatus of one
of the nares.

4. Turbinated bone.*

5. Hard palate.

6. Soft palate.

7. Uvula.

8. Mouth.

9. Pharynx.

10. Epiglottis.

11. Hyoid bone.
13. Trachea.

THE VOCAL ORGANS 189

It is attached at its root to the hyoid bone, and for the greater
part of its length it is attached below to the lower jaw.
The palate, or covering of the mouth cavity, consists of two
parts, — the hard or bony palate, and the soft palate or
velum. The soft palate is very elastic. Sometimes it is
perfectly relaxed, as in breathing, and shuts the pharynx
oft' from the mouth. In tone production and speech the
soft palate rises and presses back against the pharynx, thus
closing the opening into the upper pharynx. In the head
tones, the soft palate pushes up into the upper phar3'nx.

The parts of the soft palate important in the voice work
are the uvula, or pendent portion, and the muscular bands
at the sides called the pillars of fauces. These help to
form the transient cavities that mold tone.

The nasal cavities extend from the base of the cranium to
the roof of the mouth. The anterior portions, opening at
the face, are called yiostrils. The posterior portions, open-
ing at the back into the pharynx, are called nares. The two
nares are separated by a thin partition, called the sep)tum.
In each of the nares the convolutions of the ethmoid bone
produce three fissures, known as the upper, middle, and
lower meatus. These fissures resound or re-enforce the tones
high in pitch. It has been discovered that the overtones of
the vocal cords are re-enforced in the nares and sinuses.

Each of the nares communicates with four small cavities,
called sinuses — the frontal above in the forehead, the
sphenoidal behind, and the maxillary and ethmoidal on
either side. When tone is held a moment in the nares, it
will resound in the sinuses also. In this way tone is fur-
ther re-enforced, and the voice becomes more resonant.

190 INTERPEETIVE READING

DIVISION n

THE PRODUCTION OF TONE

In respiration the membranous lips of the larynx are re-
laxed, but in vocalization they approach each other. Their
approach obstructs the outward passage of air, and the
cords are set to vibrating. Tliese vibrations are transmitted
to the air passmg through, and cause tone. "NVlien this
tone is re-enforced by the chambers of resonance, it becomes
voice ; and when it is still further modified by the organs
of articulation, it becomes speech.

When the vocal cords vibrate, they vibrate as does any
cord, — as a whole, and in parts. The vibration of a cord
as a whole is called o. fundamental tone. At the same time
that a cord vibrates as a whole, it vibrates in parts that
have a certain mathematical relation, as halves, quarters,
etc. ; or thirds, ninths, etc. These vibrations of parts are
called overtones. The overtones are higher in pitch than
the fundamental tone, and all in perfect accord with
it. It is the presence of overtones in the human voice
that gives it a rich, musical quality. Without the re-
enforcement of the overtones, the voice would be thin and
harsh.

DIVISION III

STEPS AND EXERCISES IN VOCAL CULTURE

1. Placing of tone in the two nares.
a. Directions, —

Sing a tone mentally. Then imagine it coming
up and out of the center of the face, and falling

VOCAL CULTUEE 191

in curves in front of the face, as spray from a
fountain. Then sing the tone aloud.

Speak a tone mentally, then aloud.

Always think the tone during vocalization.

b. The object, —

The object of this step is to place tone in the
nares, so that the overtones may be re-enforced.

c. The exercises, —

(1) Hum mng softly and musically. Vary the
pitch. ,

(2) Speak lo la la le.

(3) Eecite the following.

" With klingle, klangle, klingle,
Way down the dusty dingle,
The cows are coming home ;
Now sweet and clear and faint and low,
The airy thiklings come and go
Like chimings from some far-off tower,
Or patterings of an April shower
That makes the daisies grow."

— Mrs. Agnes E. Mitchell.

2. Pervasiveness of tone. Resonance in tlie nares and
sinuses.
a. Directions, —

Think mng as before, and imagine it spreading
through the face, coming out through every part
of the face, and filling the air with delicate reso-
nant tone. Then hum mng. Hold the tone as
long as possible. Do not force it. Let it seem
to make itself. As the tone is thus held, the tones
already re-enforced in the nares are re-enforced in
the sinuses, and become more musical.

192 INTERPEETIYE READING

h. The object, —

The object of this step is to perfect the resonant

quality of the voice, and so increase its carrying

power.
c. The exercises, —

(1) Take a long breath. Hum mng, and sus-
tain the tone until it grows very musical, and
until its vibrations are felt throughout the face.

(2) Recite the following:

" With klingle, klangle, klingle,
Way down the dusty dingle,
The cows are coming home."

3. Support of tone by the diaphragm and the abdomi-
nal, dorsal, and intercostal muscles.

a. Directions, —

Take a deep full breath. Support of tone is
based upon the control of the breath. Relax the
muscles of the throat by yawning. There should
be no effort of the throat muscles. All effort
should be confined to the muscles that control the
breath. Sing a tone that sounds full, steady,
firm, and sweet. Then speak a tone in like man-
ner. Think of the tone as passing over through
the front of the face, and forward in a steady
stream.

b. The object, —

The object of this step is to secure freedom and
support of tone.

c. The exercises, —

(1) Practice the breathing exercises.

(2) Sing lo 16 lo lo in a full, firm, and sweet tone.

(3) Recite the following :

"Around thee and above deep is the air and dark."

VOCAL CULTUEE 193

4. Smoothness of tone.

a. Directions, —

Sing mentally a musical tone so continuous,
fine, steady, and sweet as to seem spun out. Take
a long breath, then siug or speak aloud, keeping
the tone steady, continuous, and smooth. Let the
tone seem spun out and elastic.

b. The object, —

The object of this exercise is to secure control
of the bueath and the muscles of the throat, so
that tone shall be both s7tiooth and resonant.

c. The exercises, —

(1) The breathing exercises.

(2) Take a long breath, and sing the syllable lo

repeatedly as long as possible.

(3) Recite the following :

" Flow gently, sweet Afton, amang thy green braes ;
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise."

5. Flexibility of tone.

a. Directions, —

Think a descending singing scale. Sing that
scale. Think a descending speaking scale. Speak
that scale. Be careful to preserve the true rela-
tion of tones in the singmg scales and the speak-
ing scales.

b. The object, —

The object of this step is to make the voice
flexible.

c. The exercises, —

First sing, then speak the descending scales.
Later use the ascending as well as the descending
scales. Use the following syllables: to, ta, ta,
te, or lo, la, lu, le.
13

194 INTERPRETIVE READING

6. Volume of tone.

a. Direetious, —

Think of something grand or vast, or of an im-
mense space to be filled. Breathe deeply. Then
let every muscle of the trunk enter into the effort
of song or speech. The imagination should be
kindled in order tliat the tone may gain largeness
of expression.

This step differs from support of tone only in
degree. Volume of tone is support of tone en-
larged. Volume of tone should have fullness,
depth, and power. It depends upon the physique
and upon the mind. The mind must first con-
ceive the great tone, and the muscles of the re-
spiratory and vocal organs produce it.

b. The object, —

The object of this step is to increase the power
of the singing voice and of the speaking voice.

c. The exercises, —

(1) Practice breathing exercises.

(2) Recite the following :

"And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called ye forth from night and utter death,
Prom dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Porever shattered, and the same forever. "

— S. T. Coleridge.

7. Porce of tone.
a. Directions, —

Sing mentally a strong, direct, forceful tone.
Sing that tone aloud. Think a speaking tone
that would command. Speak that tone directly,
strongly, forcefully, right out. Let the tone ex-

VOCAL CULTUEE 195

press determination or will. Speak to, not at, an
audience.

b. The object, —

The object of this step is to secure directness
and strength of tone.

c. The exercises, —

(1) Practice the breathing exercises.

(2) Sing in a full tone lo 16 l6 lo.

(3) Count slowly and with great vigor from 1 to
10.

8. Tone color.

a. Directions, —

Hold in mind a joyous thought. Express that
thought through tone alone. Hold in mind a sor-
rowful thought. Express that thought throi>gh
tone alone, using only a syllable, as ah, or oh, or
lo. In the same way express surprise, fear,
warning, distrust, horror, content, vastness, dis-
tance, harshness, lullaby tones, cold, warmth,
calm, fury, etc.

Eecite passages of literature, suiting sound to
sense. The shading of the voice should be very
delicate and very exact.

b. The object, —

The object of this step is to suit sound to sense,
or to give expression to the voice.

c. The exercises, —

(1) Speak the syllable lo or oh, expressing many
different shades of thought or feeling.

(2) Recite the following, and suit the sound to
the sense :

" How beautiful this night ! The balmiest sigh
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in Evening's ear,

196 INTEKPEETIVE EEADING

Were discord to the speaking quietude

That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault

Studded with stars unutterably bright,

Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,

Seems like a canopy which Love hath spread

To curtain her sleeping world."

—P. B. Shelley.

* " A heap of bare and splintery crags

Tumbled about by lightning and frost,
With rifts and chasms and storm-bleached jags,
That wait and growl for a ship to be lost.

Ribs of rock that seaward jut.

Granite shoulders and boulders and snags.
Round which, though the winds in heaven be shut,

The nightmared ocean murmurs and yearns,
Welters, and swashes, and tosses, and turns.

And the dreary black sea-weed lolls and wags ;"

— J. R. Lowell.

DIVISION IV

THE ORGANS OF ARTICULATION

The organs of articulation are the lips, teeth, tongue,
and hard and soft palate.

Clearness of enunciation depends upon the strength and
precision of position of these organs in forming the elemen-
tary sounds.

Every exercise in reading or speaking should be, indi-
rectly, an exercise in enunciation.

*By permission of the publisliers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin
&Co.

PART IV

GESTURE

The cultivated body, as an agent of expression, is an in-
valuable means of conveying thought. Action should never
call attention to itself. The body should be so trained
that no one will think of the gestures of the speaker while
listening to a discourse. There should be such harmony
between mind and body that gesture will illuminate and re-
enforce thought.

Gesture may be defined as a motion of the head, trunk,
or limbs to express thought or feeling, or to enforce an
argument or command.

The agents in producing gesture are the muscular system
and the nervous system.

The peculiar function of the muscles is the power of
contraction. They contract whenever stimulatedj and are
therefore the motor power of the different parts of the
body. The cerebrum is the originator of nervous force.
All emotion origmates here. The thought or feeling thus
originated is reflected in the sympathetic nervous system,
which in turn affects the spinal cord, and through its
nerves the spinal cord now stimulates the muscles. These,
contracting, cause action of the body, or gesture.

To cultivate expression of the body the muscles must be
trained to flexibilit}-, firmness, steadiness, and harmony of
movement. When the body is so trained and aroused,

198 INTERPEETTYB READING

there will be muscular response, or gesture. Back of every
true, every artistic gesture, must be thought.

The exercises of Part Fourth are arranged in the follow-
ing groups: Division I, Relaxing Exercises; Division II,
Poising Exercises; Division III, Principles of Gesture;
Division IV, Responsive Gesture Exercises.

DIVISION I

RELAXING EXERCISES

The object of this set of exercises is to free the muscles
of the body so that it will be perfectly iiexible.

1. Exercises for the limbs,
a. The arms and hands.

(1) Relaxation of the arms, front.

(a) Description,—

Take the weight on the balls of both feet. With
hands prone (palms downward) and relaxed, raise
the arms to the horizontal position, front. Relax
the arms, letting them fall lightly and rapidly to
the sides. Repeat.

(b) The counts, —

Weight on balls of the feet,
Arms horizontal, front,
Relax arms.
Arms horizontal, front,
Relax arms.

(2) Relaxation of arms at the sides,
(a.) Description, —

With hands prone and relaxed, raise the arms
to a horizontal position at the sides. Relax the
arms. Repeat.

RELAXING EXERCISES 199

(b) The counts, —

Arms horizontal at sides,
Relax arms. Repeat.

(3) Relaxation of the arms by pivoting at the ankles.

(a) Description, —

Pivot the body at the ankles, first to the right,
then left, right, left, front. Move so rapidly
that the arms are thrown outward.

(b) The counts, —
Pivot right.
Pivot left.
Pivot right.
Pivot left,
Pivot front.

(4) Vibration of the hands.

(a) Description, —

Raise the forearms to a horizontal position front,
the elbows being just below the belt line, the fore-
arms parallel to the floor, and the hands supine
(palms upward) . By energy from the upper arm,
make the hands vibrate. The hand should be
open and relaxed during this exercise.

(b) The counts, —
Forearms horizontal, 2, 3, 4,
Vibrate hands, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

(5) Relaxation of the wrists.

(a) Description, —

Keep the forearms in the position of the pre-
vious exercise. Turn the palms downward. By
energy from the forearms, shake the hands rapidly
up and down during eight counts, shaking the
hands twice to each count.

(b) The counts, —
Forearms horizontal, 2, 3, 4,

200 INTEEPEETIVE BEADING

Up and down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

(6) Rotary movement of the hands,
(ff) Description, —

Keep the forearms in the same position as in
the previous exercise. Swing the forearms in an
outward rotary movement during eight counts,
then in an inward rotary movement during eight
counts, causing an outward and inward rotary
movement of the hands.
(b) The counts, —

Out, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
In, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

(7) Relaxation of the fingers.

(a) Description, —

Keep the forearms in the same position as in
the previous exercise. Turn the hands edgewise
(small finger parallel to the floor). Give the
arms a short, rapid movement up and down four
times, relaxing the fingers.

(b) The counts, —
Hands edgewise, 2, 3, 4,
Snap fingers, 1 — 2 — 3 — 4.

b. The legs and feet.

(1) Relaxation of the legs.

(a) Description, —

Take the weight on the right foot and swing
the left foot forward and backward twice. Bring
the left foot to the side of the other and transfer
the weight to the left foot. Swing the right foot
forward and backward twice.

(b) The counts, —
Right foot, 2, 3, 4,
Left foot forward,
Backward,

EEL AXING EXEECISE8 201

Forward,

Backward,

Weight on left foot, 2, 3, 4,

Eight foot forward,

Backward,

Forward,

Backward,

Position at side.

(2) Eotary swing of the legs.

(a) Description, —

Take the weight on the right foot. Swing the
left leg in a circle, first in front of the body to the
right, during the counts 1, 2, 3, 4, then return to
the left during the counts 1, 2, 3, 4, then back of
the body to the right during the counts 1, 2, 3, 4,
then return to the left during the counts 1, 2, 3,
4, in the line of the circle, keeping the foot free
from the floor during the entire movement. Glide
the left foot to the left of the right foot during
counts 1, 2, and transfer the weight to it during
the counts 3, 4. Repeat for the right side.

(b) The counts, —

Weight on right foot, 2, 3, 4,

Swing left foot, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Glide left foot, 2

Transition, 4,

Swing right foot, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Glide right foot, 2,

Transition, 4.

(3) Eelaxation of the feet,
(a) Description, —

The weight is already on the right foot. Ad-
vance the left foot at the angle of 45°. Eaise the
toe of the foot, then lower it until the toe lightly

202 INTEEPEETIVE READING

touches the floor. Do this four times. Then re-
peat the exercise for the right foot.
(b) The counts, —
Advance left foot,

Left foot up, down,
Up, down,
Up, down.
Up, down.

Weight on left foot, 2, 3, 4,
Advance right foot, 2, 3, 4,
Right foot up, down,
Up, down.
Up, down.
Up, down,
2, Exercises for the trunk.

(1) Relaxation of the upper half of the trunk.

(a) Description, —

Take the weight on the balls of both feet. Re-
lax the upper half of the trunk forward. Take
an erect position. Relax backward. Take an
erect position. Relax to the right. Take an erect
position. Relax to the left. Take an erect posi-
tion.

(b) The counts, —

Weight on balls of feet, 2, 3, 4,
Front, Right,

Erect, Erect,

Back, Left,

Erect, Erect.

(2) Rotary movement of the upper half of the trunk,
(a) Description,—^

The weight is already on the balls of the feet.
Relax the upper half of the trunk toward the
front, bending in front just below the sternum.

EELAXIKG EXERCISES 203

Then move the body iu a circle to the right, back,

left, front, and return. During this movement

the center of the chest should lead, and the trunk,

head, and arms should be relaxed.

(b) The counts, —

Front, 2, 3, 4. Left, 2, 3, 4. Right, 2, 3, 4.

Right, 2, 3, 4. Front, 2, 3, 4. Front, 2, 3, 4.

Back, 2, 3, 4. Left, 2, 3, 4. Position, 2, 3, 4.

Back, 2, 3, 4.
(3) Relaxatioa of the chest.

(a) Description, —

Lower the chest as far as possible, then raise it
as far as possible, relaxing the shoulders during
both movements. Repeat the exercise.

(b) The counts,—
Depress chest, 2, 3, 4,
Raise chest, 2, 3, 4,
Depress chest, 2, 3, 4,
Raise chest, 2, 3, 4.

3. The head.

(1) Rotary movement of the head.

(a) Description, —

Relax the head to the front. Move the head in
a circle to the right, back, left, front, and return.
This movement should be steady and smooth, and
the muscles of the neck should be relaxed.

(b) The counts, —

Head front,

2, 3, 4,

Left,

2, 3, 4,

Right,

2, 3, 4,

Back,

2, 3, 4,

Back,

2, 3, 4,

Right,

2, 3, 4,

Left,

2, 3, 4,

Front,

2, 3, 4,

Front,

2, 3, 4,

Position,

2, 3, 4.

204 INTEEPRETIVE EEADING

DIVISION II

POISING EXERCISES

The object of these exercises is to strengthen the mus-
cles of the feet, ankles, and legs, and the muscles of the
trunk, so that in sitting, standing, or walking the body
may be well poised or balanced.

1. Backward poise of the hips.
(a) Description, —

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.
Push the right hip far out at the right. Let the
head respond until it takes the slant of the right
hip. Continue pushing in a curved line backward,
then to the left, pushing the hip far out to the left.
Let the head respond to the line of the left hip.
Bring the body to an erect position by raising the
chest. Then repeat the backward movement, re-
turning to the first position at the right, the hip
being pushed far out. Then raise the chest, taking
the natural, erect position over the right foot. Dur-
ing the movement left, transfer the weight from
the right foot to the left foot at the close of counts
1, 2, 3, 4.

This exercise is intended to bring the body into
normal poise and to overcome the tendency to push
the hips and abdomen forward.

(h) The counts, —

Right foot, 2, 3, 4, Raise chest, 2, 3, 4,

Right hip, 2, 3, 4, Backward, 2, 3, 4,

Backward, 2, 3, 4, Right, 2, 3, 4,

Left, 2, 3, 4, Raise ches-t, 2, 3, 4.

POISING EXEECISES

205

The standing positions.

(a) Description, —

For ordinary address, reading, oratory, or debate
there are three main positions — the normal po-
sition, the advanced position, and the retired
position.

The Normal Position

Place the feet side by side, with the heels slightly
apart, and the toes pointing outward, making an angle of
about 60°. Place the weight entirely on the
ball of one foot, and let the leg that bears
the weight slant outward. The other foot
should lightly touch the floor, and the knee
should be relaxed. Raise the chest, push
upward with the crown of the head, and
relax the arms at the sides.

This position is used fre-
quently in calm, unimpassioned
discourse.

Advanced Position *^^ ^^

Advance one foot, and place ^ >o

the weight on the ball of that F'g. 8.-Normai

° Position,

foot. Place the heel of the re-
tired foot back of the heel of the advanced
foot, a slight distance apart. The toes
should point outward, making an angle of
about 90°. Raise the chest, push upward
with the crown of the head, and relax the
arms at the sides.

This position is used in direct address,
FIG. 9— Ad- , ,,

vancedPosition. earnestness, or sympathy.

20G

INTERPKETIVE READING

Retired Position

Transfer the Aveight to the retired foot. The retired
foot will pivot slightly during this transfer, making with
the toes of the other foot an angle of about
70°. Raise the chest, push upward with the
crown of the head, and relax the arms at the
sides.

This position expresses repose, or reflec-
tion, or will, or determination.

General Directioks for Standing

The weight of the body should be on one
foot. The hip of the leg that bears the
weight should be curved outward a little,
and the line the head takes should be in
harmony with the slant of the limbs. When
the response of the head is perfect, a double
curve is thus formed. The body should be
erect over the strong foot, the chest high,
the head easily poised, with the chin drawn
in slightly. The hips and abdomen should be well back,
and the shoulders and arms relaxed.
(b) The counts, —

Transfer weight to left foot 2, 3, 4,

Raise chest, 2, 3, 4,

Relax chest, 2, 3, 4,

Transition to right foot, 2, 3, 4,

Raise chest, 2, 3, 4,

Relax chest, 2, 3, 4,

Advance left foot (45°), 2, 3, 4,

Forward, 2, 3, 4,

Raise chest, 2, 3, 4,

Fig. 10. — Re-
tired Position.

POISING EXEECISES 207

Kelax chest, 2, 3, 4,

Advance right foot (45°), 2, 3, 4,

Forward, 2, 3, 4,

E-aise chest, 2, 3, 4,

Relax ohest, 2, 3, 4,

Backward to left foot, 2, 3, 4,

Raise chest, 2, 3, 4,

Relax «hest, 2, 3, 4,

Glide right foot back, 2, 3, 4,

Transition to right foot, 2, 3, 4,

Raise chest, 2, 3, 4,

ilelax chest, 2, 3, 4.

3. Oblique transition and bow.

(a) Description, —

The weight is already on the right foot. Ad-
vance the left foot at the angle of about 45°, and
make the transition obliquely forward and backward,
bowing the body slightly in the backward movement.
Then make the transition again to the left foot.
Advance the right foot at 45°, and make the transi-
tion backward and forward as before, returning to
an erect position over the right foot at the close.

(b) The counts, —
Advance left foot, 2, 3, 4,
Forward, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Backward and bow, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Erect (over left foot), 2, 3, 4,
Advance right foot, 2, 3, 4,
Forward, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Backward, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Erect (over right foot), 2, 3, 4.

4. Oblique transition and kneeling,
(a) Description, —

Advance the left foot. Move the body forward

208 INTERPEETIVE READING

to tlie left foot during counts 1, 2, 3, 4, and during
the next counts 1, 2, 3, 4, slowly kneel, bending
the left knee, and touching the right knee to the
floor. Kneel during four counts. Rise slowly over
the left foot. Advance right foot. Move the body
forward and kneel on the left knee. Rise slowly
over the right foot.

(b) The counts, —

Advance left foot, 2, 3, 4,
Forward, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Kneel, 2, 3, 4,
Hold, 2, 3, 4,
Rise, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Advance right foot, 2, 3, 4,
Forward, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Kneel, 2, 3, 4,
Hold, 2, 3, 4,
Rise, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
5. Exercise for walking.

(a) Description, —

The weight is already on the right foot. As
walking is but a series of transitions, all that has
been learned from transition exercises should be
applied here. Imagine each foot to swing forward
in its own line, not disturbing the poise of the head
or shoulders. Swing the left foot forward about
twice the length of the foot, the foot being turned
slightly outward — 30° from the direct line in front
— and touch the ball of the foot to the floor at the
first count. Then transfer the weight to the left
foot. Swing the right leg forward, and touch the
ball of the right foot to the floor. Then transfer
the weight to the right foot.

Take ten steps forward, counting four to each step.

POISING EXEECISES 209

This exercise should be practised until the walk of

the individual is easy, graceful, and dignified.
(b) The counts, —

Weight on right foot, 2, 3, 4,

Left, 2, 3, 4,

Right, 2, 3, 4,

Left, 2, 3, 4,

Right, 2, 3, 4, etc.
6. Poising of the head.
(a) Description, —

There are three movements in this exercise :

First Movement

Poise the head from the erect position toward the right
chest, letting the right cheek lead. This is the attitude
of affection. Move the head backward in the same line
toward the back of the left shoulder, the cheek being
turned upward. This is the attitude of adoration. Take
the erect position, the attitude of life, and repeat this
poising exercise for the opposite side.

Second Movement

Push the head back at the crown toward the right shoul-
der, letting the crown of the head lead. This is the atti-
tude of defiance or will. Poise the head forward in the
same line to the left chest, until the chin almost touches
the chest. This is the attitude of mentality. It may ex-
press reflection or sorrow. Poise the head to an erect posi-
tion, and repeat the exercise for the opposite side.

Third Movement

Poise the head backward toward the right shoulder, let-
ting the chin lead. This is the attitude of pertness or dis-
14

210 INTERPEETIVE READING

dain. Poise the head toward the right chest until the
cheek nearly touches the chest, and the shoulder rises in
response. This is the attitude of timidity or shyness.
Poise the head to the erect position and repeat the exercise
for the opposite side.
(b) The counts, — •
First movement,

Right chest, 2, 3, 4,

Back, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Erect, 2, 3, 4,

Left chest, 2, 3, 4,

Back, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Erect, 2, 3, 4.
Second movement,

Back (right), 2, 3, 4,

Left chest, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Erect, 2, 3, 4,

Back (left), 2, 3, 4,

Right chest, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Erect, 2, 3, 4.
Third movement.

Back (right), 2, 3, 4,

Right chest, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Erect, 2, 3, 4,

Back (left), 2, 3, 4,

Left chest, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

DIVISION III

PRINCIPLES OF GESTURE

The meaning of gestures of the arm is modified by the
following :

1. By the part that leads,

2. By the line in which the arm moves,

PEINCIPLES OF GESTUEE 211

3. By the angle of the arm,

4. By the altitude of the arm,

5. By the rate of movement,

6. By the degree of force of the movement,

7. By the position of the hand,

8. By the response of the body.

1. The Part that Leads

The middle of tie forearm should lead in the arm move-
ments. The hand should never lead except in the persona-
tion of the awkward and grotesque. In movements of the
trunk the chest should lead.

In all free-arm gestures the arm should be straight, but
relaxed, and not bent at the elbow. In colloquial gestures
the arm may be bent at the elboAv.

2. The Line in which the Arm Moves

All free-arm gestures are arcs of circles. The lines in
which the arm moves in gesture are the ascending and
descending curved lines, the outward and inward curved
lines, and the spiral line.

The ascending gestures are expressive of elevation of
thought, feeling, or position. The descending gestures
are expressive of emphasis, determination, will, or some-
thing lowly in thought, feeling, or position.

The outward gestures are expressive of sympathy, mag-
nanimity, growth, or expanse.

The inward gestures are expressive of limitation. They
are more personal and subjective.

The spiral gestures are expressive of winding ascent, as
the flight of a bird, the rising of smoke, the coil of a ser-
pent.

212

INTERPEETIVE READING

3. The Angle of the Arm

Gestures are modified by the angle of the arm, or the
relation that the arm sustains to the line directly front from
the shoulder bone. Gestures made directly front of the
shoulder bone, or at 0°, are most direct and personal.
Those made half-way between that point and the side, or

Fig. 11.— Angle of Gesture.

at 45°, are more general and less direct. Those made at
the side, or at 90°, are impersonal and are suggestive of
greatness or extent. The oblique backward gestures, or
those at 135°, express allusion to the past.

4. The Altitude of the Arm

In earnest public speech the altitude of gestures of the
arm constantly varies, from the lowest plane the hand can
move in at the side to the highest point the hand can reach
when the arm is uplifted. Gestures in the lowest plane
are expressive of contempt, lowliness, or address to an
inferior. Gestures made in the plane of the belt are largely
colloquial, those made in the plane of the shoulder have
more dignity, but when gestures rise in bold curves above

PEIXCIPLES OF GESTUEE 213

the jjlane of the head they express exaltation of thought or
feeling, power or force.

5. The Rate of Movement

A very slow outward movement may suggest distance,
or a receding object, or expanse, or calm, or delicacy. A
rapid outward movement may suggest a short duration of
time, rapidity of action, intensity of excitement, or a short
distance. A slow outward movement may suggest length
of time, calmness, igravity, or distance.

The slow movements are grave and stately; the rapid
movements are vivacious, vital, or emphatic.

6. The Degree of Force of the Movement

Any gesture may be made emphatic by giving the ictus,
or gesture proper, with force. A gesture may also be made
emphatic by vibration of the hand, by an impulse of the
wrist, by wider gamut, by being arrested and sustained,
and by repeating it. Gestures that are indicative or de-
scriptive of quiet scenes or experiences should be given
gently.

7. The Position of the Hand

(a) Hand supine (palm upward). Fig. 12.

This position expresses giving, receiving, asking,
sustaining, communicating.

Fig. 12.— Hand Supine. Fig. 13.— Hand Prone.

(h) Hand prone (palm downward). Fig. 13.

This position expresses covering, protection, prohi-
bition, depression, force.

214

INTERPEETIVE EEADING

This position expresses repulsion,
revelation, or tak-
ing of an oath.

(d) Hand clinched
(fingers pressed into the
palm, thumb pressed
over the second joint of
the first finger to the
Fig. 15.

This position expresses will, threat,
force.

(e) Hand in uuemphatic index position (first finger

straight, other fingers pressed
against the palm, thumb pressed
against the side of the second
finger). Fig. 16.

This position expresses un-
emphatic limitation, defi-
nition, or pointing out.

Fig. 14.— Hand
Vertical.

second finger).

Fig. 15.— Hand
Clinched.

Fig. 16.

-Unfiiiphatic Index
Position.

(/) Hand in emphatic index
position (first finger straight,
other fingers pressed against the
palm, the thumb pressed over the

second joint

Fig. 18.— Hand Averted.

Fig. 17.— Emphatic Index Position.

of the second finger). Fig. 17.

This position expresses em-
phatic limitation, or definition, or
pointing out.
(g) Hand averted (hand slanting,
palm away from the body). Fig. 18.
This position expresses aver-
sion.

PEII^CIPLES OF GESTUEE

215

Fig. 19.— Hand Partly
Closed.

(A) Hand partly closed (hand re-
laxed, thumb attracted toward the
fingers). Fig. 19.

This position expresses sympa-
thy, affection, gentleness.
(i) Hand distended (fingers sepa-
rate, distended, thumb strongly op-
posed to first fin-
ger). Fig. 20.

This position expresses vehe-
mence.
(j) Hand gently closed (fingers
pressed lightly against the palm,
thumb straight, pressed gently against
the first fin-

FlG. 30.— Hand Distended. „„,.\ -p-„ oi

ger). J^ig.-^l.
This position expresses
power, or repose, or author-
ity.
(k) Hand edgewise (palm of
hand at right angle with the floor,

fourth finger ^^^'' -l— Hand GenUy Closed.

parallel to the floor, hand straight,
thumb free).

This position expresses declara-
tion or defini-
tion.
(/) Hands clasp-
ed (palms nearly
FIG. 23.-Hands Clasped, parallel, fingers in-
terlacing). Fig. 22.

This position expresses deep emo-
tion, prayer, or supjdication.
(m) Hands folded (fingers of right fig. 23.-Hand8 Folded.

216 INTERPEETIVE READING

hand placed between the thumb and first finger of the left
hand, thumbs crossed). Fig. 23.

This position expresses entreaty, or prayer, or rest.

8. The Eesponse of the Body

In the response of the body, nothing is more important
than the response of the chest. The chest rises high in
vitality or life ; it leans toward an object of vital attrac-
tion; it sinks low and is opposed to an object of repulsion
or fear ; it rises and broadens in will, disdain, or defiance ;
it sinks low in sorrow, remorse, or discouragement ; it con-
tracts in physical or mental distress.

Next in im^^ortance in the response of the body is the
response of the head. In the ascending arm movements
the head is usually attracted to the arm ; in the descend-
ing arm movements the head is usually opposed until it
reaches the erect position. The head pivots freely in the
expression of life ; it bends toward the object in affection
or tenderness ; it pushes strongly back at the crown in dis-
dain ; it turns upward in prayer or adoration ; it sinks on
the chest in sorrow, reflection, dejection, or despair; it
turns toward the shoulder in pride or indifference ; it turns
from the object in aversion, repulsion, or distrust; it bows
low before an object of scrutiny.

The /ace also responds to thought. It lights up with
intelligence, or becomes blank through stupidity. The
lower lid is raised in animation or amusement ; the upper
lid is lowered in affection or sorrow ; the eyes open wide
in will or terror ; the brows lower and draw together in
mentality, perplexity, or rage.

The nostrils are important in facial expression. They
dilate in strong emotion ; they contract in pain. The nose
becomes pinched in suffering.

The mouth, as well as the jaw, reveals character. The

PEIXCIPLES OF GESTUEE 217

thought which finds expression in the gesture of the arm
finds expression in the muscles of the mouth also. The
lips slightly part in the center in animation or life ; the
upper lip lowers in the center in kindliness, tenderness, or
amusement ; the lips close firmly in will, determination,
energy ; the lips push out in sulkiness ; they part in terror ;
they become pursed in mentality ; they open vacantly and
the jaw relax-es in stu.j)idity.

The feet vary in position as the thought varies. In ani-
mation, the weight^s placed on the ball of one foot, or the
balls of both feet. In suspense or excitement, the weight is
placed on the toes of the advanced foot, with the heel of
the free foot behind the instep of the strong foot, with the
toes of the free foot lightly touching the floor, and the
knees straight. In intensity of interest, the weight is placed
on the toes of the advanced foot, with the knee of the ad-
vanced leg slightly bent and the feet some distance apart.
In repose or reflection, the weight is placed on the heel of
the foot that is back, with the knee of the strong leg
straight and the free leg bent or relaxed. In defiance or
haughtiness or scorn or will, the weight is placed on the
heel of the foot that is back, with the free leg well ad-
vanced and the knee of each leg straight. In prostration
or recoil, the weight is placed on the heel of the foot that
is back, with the feet far apart, and the body sunk low
upon the strong leg, and the free leg straight. In defer-
ence to a superior, the heels are near together, toes point
outward, and weight on toes of both feet. In servility,
the feet are nearly parallel and close together, with the
weight on the toes of both feet, and knees slightly bent. In
insolence, the weight is on the heels of both feet, the feet
far apart, and the toes pointing outward. In vulgarity, the
weight is placed on the balls of both feet, which are far
apart, the toes pointing outward.

218 INTERPRETIVE READING

DIVISION IV

RESPONSIVE GESTURE EXERCISES*

The following exercises are applications of the preceding
principles. At first these exercises should be practised for
precision-, steadiness, and smoothness of movement. Then
they should be practised to secure different kinds of re-
sponse. This should be followed by original work and
analysis of gestures.

Descriptive gestures are either indicative or imitative.
They are indicative when they point out, locate, or picture.
They are imitative or sympathetic when they act out what
is being described. Imitative gestures are usually inartis-
tic. They are permissible only when they are the result of
strong emotion. In such a case, they add vividness and
life to the description. Imitative gestures should not be
confused with personation.

1. Gestures of salutation^ affirmation or assertion, and
cheering.

(a) Description, — •

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.
Raise the right arm, at the angle of 0°, to the bead,
the hand being supine and relaxed in the upward
movement. As the hand approaches the head, the
fingers should droop toward the head, the index
finger leading, as though designating self. This is
a gesture of salutation. Move the arm downward
in the same curve, maintaining a curve of the arm
from the shoulder to the finger tips, until the arm
is relaxed at the side. This downward movement
is the gesture of affirmation. When given with

* For musical accompaniment use "Narcissus," by Ethelbert
Nevin.

GESTURE EXERCISES 219

emphasis, it is forcible demand. It can be made em-
phatic by a strong movement from the wrist. Re-
peat the upward and downward movements. Swing
the right arm from the right side across the front of
the body, in a curved line, up above and over and
beyond the head, and then give the arm two rotary
swings above the head, as in a cheer. At the close
of the second swing, move the arm out at the angle
of 45° and lower to the side.

Repeat tlie " cheer " movement.

Then repeat the whole exercise for the left side.
(h) The counts, —
Right foot, 2, 3, 4,

Right arm up (salutation), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down (affirmation), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Over (cheer), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Over, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Glide left, 2,
Transition, 4,

Left arm up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Over, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Over, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
2. Gestures of direct entreaty, assertion, or affirmation,
(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the balls of the feet. With

220 INTEEPEETIVE EEADIN^G

hands supine, arms relaxed, and forearms leading,
raise the arms directly in front to the plane of the
head. On count 3 give a slight impulse to the
hands, to strengthen the expression of entreaty.
Lower the arms slowly to the sides on the counts
down, 2, 3j 4. The downward movement expresses
assertion or affirmation. In the downward move-
ments the wrists should curve downward.

{b) The counts, —
Both feet, 2, 3, 4,
Both arms up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4.
3. Gestures expressive of command to be silent, or calm,
prohibition, or destruction.

(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.
With hand prone and relaxed, and forearm leading,
raise the right arm at 0° to the plane of the shoul-
der. Move the prone hand slowly outward in this
plane to about 45°, then lower gently to the side.
The outward impulse of the hand expresses a com-
mand to be silent. Move the arm upward again at
0°. At the last count 2, give a short, rapid, em-
phatic stroke downward to the sides.

{b) The counts, —
Right foot, 2, 3, 4,
Right arm up, 2, 3, 4,
Out (silence), 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4,
Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2,

Down (to sides. Prohibition or destruction). 4.
Glide left foot, 2,
Transition, 4,

GESTURE EXERCISES 221

Left arm up, 2, 3, 4,
Out, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4,
Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2,
Down, 4.

4. Double gestures of command to be silent, calm or
diffusion, prohibition or destruction, and benediction.

(«) Directions, —

Take the weight on the balls of the feet. With
hands prone^and forearms leading, raise the arms at
0° to a point directly in front of the chest. At the
count 4, move the arms slowly outward to about 45°,
as in the preceding exercise. This gesture expresses
a command to be silent. Then lower to the sides.
Raise both arms, with hands prone, at 0°, to the
level of the head, then lower emphatically to the
sides. This gesture expresses destruction. With
hands prone, raise both arms at 0° to the plane of
the head, open the palms as though they were float-
ing on air. This is the gesture of benediction.
Sustain a moment, then lower to the sides.

(b) The counts, —
Both feet, 2, 3, 4,
Both arms up, 2, 3, 4,
Out, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4,
Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2,
Down (to sides), 4,
Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Hold, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

5. Gestures of sacred deprecation, solemn pledge, reve-
lation, or repulsion.

222 INTERPEETIVE READING

(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.
With hand pioue, move the arm directly up in
front at 0° until it reaches the level of the head.
At the last count 3, raise the hand to a vertical po-
sition with the palm facing front. This is the ges-
ture of sacred deprecation, etc. Sustain the posi-
tion during four counts, then move the arm slowly
down to the side.

(i) The counts, —
Right foot, 2, 3, 4,
Right arm up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Hold, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Glide left foot, 2,
Transition, 4,

Left arm up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Hold, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
6. Gestures of listening and playful warning, or threat.

(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.
With hand edgewise and relaxed, move the arm
upward at 45° toward the cheek until the hand is in
front of the cheek, palm toward cheek, hand partly
closed, with the index finger leading. This is the
gesture of listening.

With the hand still in the same position, move
the arm directly down at 45° to about the level of
the belt, giving two impulses to the wrist on the
counts 1 and 3, letting the face and body respond
as though giving a playful warning or threat. Then
slowly lower the arm to the side and repeat the
movement.

GESTUEE EXERCISES 223

(b) The counts, —
Right foot, 2, 3, 4,
Right arm up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down (to belt line), 2, 3, 4,
Down (to side), 2, 3, 4,
Glide left foot, 2,
Transition, 4,

Left arm up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down (to belt line), 2, 3, 4,
Down (to sid^), 2, 3, 4.
T. Gesture of parallelism or comparison.

(a) T)irections, —

Take the weight on the balls of both feet. With
hands edgewise, move both arms upward at 0° to
about the shoulder level, giving a downward impulse
of the wrists for emphasis at the close of the ascent.
Then repeat this emphatic stroke — the gesture of
comparison. Turn the hands to a prone position,
and slowly lower them to the sides.

(b) The counts, —
Both feet, 2, 3, 4,
Both arms up, 2, 3, 4,
Impulse, 2,
Impulse, 4,

Down, 2, 3, 4.
8. The gesture of supplication or sublimity.
(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.
With the hand supine and relaxed, raise the arm at
an angle of 45° to a point high above the head. At
the close of this upward movement, the hand should
be opened as though about to receive something.
The thought of supplication or prayer or sacred as-
cription should be held in mind until face and form

224 INTEEPRETIVE READING

respond, and there is unity throughout the body.

Move the arm slowly down to the side, without

turning the arm. Repeat for the left side.
(b) The counts, —

Right foot, 2, 3, 4,

Right arm up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Hold, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Hold, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Glide left foot, 2,

Transition, 4,

Left arm up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Hold, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Hold, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
9 The double gesture of supplication,
(o) Directions, —

Take the weight on the balls of the feet. With

hands supine and relaxed, raise both arms at 45° to

their greatest height. Sustain the hands during

four counts, then lower the arms to the sides.
(b) The counts, —

Both feet, 2, 3, 4,

Both arms up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Hold, 2, 3, 4,

Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
10. Descriptive gestures of rising and falling, and up-
ward designation.

(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.

GESTUEE EXEECISES 225

With the haud prone and relaxed, raise the arm at
the angle of 45° to its greatest height, letting the
whole body respond to the upward movement. At
the close of the ascent the arm and head should ap-
proach each other, and the hand and fingers be
relaxed. Move the arm in the same line down to
the side.

In the downward movement the fingers should
not be lifted. The hand should remain in its droop-
ing position;until the wrist is depressed and lowers
the hand. Then the hand should be spread open
and seem to float downward on the air. Eaise and
lower the arm again. At the close of the second
upward movement raise the hand, letting the first
finger and thumb be straight, and the other fingers
relaxed. This is the gesture of upward designation,
Eepeat for left side.
(b) The counts, —
Eight foot, 2, 3, 4,
Eight arm up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Glide left foot, 2,
Transition, 4,

Left arm up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
11. Descriptive gestures of the rising of something vast
and the falling of something vast.
(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the balls of the feet. With

the hands prone and relaxed, raise both arms at 45°
15

226 INTERPRETIVE READING

to their greatest height. Lower the arms slowly to
the sides. Repeat the upward and downward move-
ments.
(b) The counts, —
Both feet, 2, 3, 4,
Both arms up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Up, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
12. Double gestures expressive of elevation of thought
or feeling, magnitude, vastness, parallel repulsion, en-
treaty, successive repulsion, and dejection,
(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the balls of the feet. With
hands prone and relaxed, raise the arms at 0° to
their full height above the head. With hands su-
pine, move the arms downward at 90° to the sides
— a gesture of magnitude. With hands supine, re-
turn to a point directly over the head. At this
point the wrists should curve inward and the fingers
bend outward, forming the curves of an oriental urn.
Turn the palms outward, so that the hands will be
prone in the next movement. Lower both arms at
90° to the sides — a gesture of magnitude coupled
with separation. Raise them again to a point di-
rectly over the head. At this place the backs of
the wrists should curve toward each other and the
fingers bend outward.

Turn the palms toward the front, push strongly
forward and downward — the gesture of parallel re-
pulsion. Raise the arms again to 0°, high over the
head. Then move the arms in succession from that
height to the right shoulder level — the gesture of
successive repulsion. Droop the hands and move

GESTUEE EXERCISES 227

the arms up in front of the head, during counts 2,
3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. At the second count 3 fold the
hands — the gesture of entreaty. Unfold the hands,
then move the arms in succession from that heiglit
to the left shoulder level. Return to the position of
entreaty. Unfold the hands.

Turn the palms downward and lower the arms
at 0° to the sides. In this last downward move-
ment the face and body should express dejec-
tion, •
(J)\ The counts, —
Both feet, 2, 3, 4,

Both arms up (0°), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down (90°, magnitude), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Up (90% vast uplifting), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down (90°, vast falling— depth), 2, 3, 4, 1,

2, 3, 4,
Up (90°, vast rismg), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down (0°, double repulsion), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Up (0°), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, right (45°, successive repulsion), 2, 3, 4, 1,

2, 3, 4,
Up (0°, entreaty), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down, left (45°, successive repulsion), 2, 3, 4, 1,

2, 3, 4,
Up (0°), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Down (0°, dejection), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
13. Gestures of direct address, or challenge, or ques-
tion; extension of time or place ; appellation; declaration;
mystery or limitation ; rejection; negation or denial ; desig-
nation or description.
(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.
With the hand supine, raise the arm directly

228 INTEEPEETIVE READING

front (0°), almost to the level of the shoulder.
This expresses direct address, challenge, or nues-
tion.

With hand still supine, move the arm outward
horizontally to 90°. This expresses extension of
time and place, or inclusive address.

At 90", turn the palm so that the hand will be
edgewise and the palm toward the body in the re-
turn movement. Move the arm steadily back to the
opposite side of the chest, letting the hand, with the
index linger leading, approach the chest. This is
the gesture of aiypellation.

With hand still edgewise and the back of the
forearm leading, move the arm outward horizontally
to 45°. This is the gesture of declaration. Return
to the position at the opposite side of the chest,
with palm toward the chest. This is the gesture
of mystery or limitation.

Turn the palm outward and move the arm out-
ward to 90°. During this outward movement the
head should move in the opposite direction from the
arm. This outward arm movement is the gesture of
rejection. With the hand in the same position, move
the arm back to position over the chest.

Turn the palm downward and move the arm out-
ward to 90°. During this movement the head
should move in the opposite direction. This is the
gesture of negation or denial.

With the hand still prone, move the arm back
to the chest. With hand prone and index linger
straight, move the arm out horizontally to 45°, let-
ting the head move in response in the same direc-
tion. This is the gesture of designation or descrip-
tion.

GESTUEE EXERCISES 229

At 45°, lower the arm to the side.
Bepeat these gesture exercises for the left side.
(b) The counts, —

Right foot, 2, 3, 4,

Right arm up (hand supine, 0". Direct address),
2, 3, 4,

Out (hand supine, 90°. Extension or general ad-
dress), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Return (hand edgewise, palm inward. Appella-
tion), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Arm out (hand edgewise, back of hand outward, 45°.
Declaration), 2, 3, 4,

Return (hand edgewise), 2, 3, 4,

Arm out (hand edgewise, palm outward, 90°. Re-
jection), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Return (hand edgewise), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Arm out (hand prone, 90°. Negation or denial),
2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Return (hand prone), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Arm out (hand prone, 45°. Designation), 2, 3, 4,

Down, 2, 3, 4,

Left foot, 2,

Transition, 4,

Left arm, 2, 3, 4,

Out, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Return, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Arm out, 2, 3, 4,

Return, 2, 3, 4,

Arm out, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Return, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Arm out, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Return, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Arm out, 2, 3, 4,

Down, 2, 3, 4.

230 INTERPRETIVE READING

14. Double gestures of direct and emphatic presentation
and universality; separation combined with the idea of
vastness ; expansive covering, calm, or diffusion.
((() Directions, —

Take the weight on the balls of the feet. "With
hands supine, raise the arms at 0° almost to the
level of the shoulders. This is the gesture of dhect
and emphatic 2)resentation. With the hands still in
the supine position, move the arms outward horizon-
tally to 90°. This is the gesture of general address,
or universality. Turn the palms inward. Return
to a position at arm's length directly in front of the
chest. Do not change the position of the hands,
except to let them follow the leading of the fore-
arms. Move the arms outward to 90°. This is
also a gesture of extent. Return to position directly
in front of the chest. Turn the palms outward, and
move the arms out horizontally to 90°. This is the
gesture of separation and implies vastness. Return
to front position.

Turn the palms downward, and move the arms out-
ward to 90°. This is the gesture of expanse, or ex-
tensive covering, calm, or diffusion.

Lower the arms from 90° to the sides.
(6) The counts, —
Both feet, 2, 3, 4,
Both arms up (hands supine. 0° Presentation), 2,

3, 4,

Arms out (hands supine. 90° Universality), 2, 3,

4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Return (hands edgewise, palms inward. 0° Limita-
tion), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Arms out (hands edgewise, palms inward. 90°
Extent), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

GESTUEE EXEECISES 231

Return (hands edgewise, palms inward), 2, 3, 4, 1,

2, 3, 4,
Arms out (hands edgewise, palms outward. 90°

Separation), 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Return (hands edgewise, palms outward), 2, 3, 4,

1, 2, 3, 4,

Arms out (hands prone. 90° Calm or diffusion),

2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Down (hands prone, 90°), 2, 3, 4.

15. Emphatic ge^stures expressing a command to go and
a command to come.

(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.
With the hand prone, move the arm in a bold curve
from the side, up and over in the plane of the shoul-
der, outward from the body. This should be a ges-
ture of force, and should be accompanied with re-
sponse of the body. This is the gesture of com-
mand to go. The head should be turned toward the
object addressed, and the gesture be made in the
direction of the means of exit.

From the last position, describe a downward curve
toward the body. This gesture expresses the com-
mand to come. The glance should still be toward
the object addressed.

(b) The counts, —
Right foot, 2, 3, 4,

Right arm out (command to go), 2,

Return (command to come), 4,

Glide left foot, 2,

Transition, 4,

Left arm out (command to go), 2,

Return (command to come), 4.

16. Gestures of invitation to go and invitation to come.

232 INTERPEETIVE EEADING

(a) Directions, —

Take the weight on the ball of the right foot.
Swing the arm gently in a downward arc from the
side outward. This is the invitation to go. At the
close of this gesture, swing the arm up and over in
an upward arc, the hand, with the index finger
prominent, moving toward the face. This is an in-
vitation to come.

(b) The counts, —
Eight foot, 2, 3, 4,
Eight arm out (under), 2,
Eight arm return (over), 4,
Glide left foot, 2,
Transition, 4,

Left arm out (under), 2,
Left arm return (over), 4.

OUTLINE OF COURSES OF STUDY

* ELOCUTION.

First Week —

Physiology. — The respiratory and vocal organs.
Lecture. — The interpretation of literature.
Reading. — Literary analysis.

Second Week —

Breathing. — Exercises for upper and middle chest

breathing.
Vocal Culture. — Placing tone.
Reading. — Literary analysis.
Gesture. — Relaxing exercises.

Third Week —

Breathing. — Exercises for lower chest and apexes of

the lungs.
Vocal Culture. — Placing tone. Pervasiveness of tone.
Beading. — Sequence of thought.
Gesture. — Relaxing exercises.

Fourth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Support of tone.
Beading. — Clearness — the elementary sounds.
Gesture. — Backward poise of the hips and standing
positions.

234 OUTLINE OF COURSES OF STUDY

Fifth Week —

Recital from standard literature.
Lessons in criticism.

Sixth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Smoothness.

Beading. — Clearness. Drill in molding elementary-
sounds.
Drill in vigor of enunciation.
Drill in spacing of words.

Drill in enunciation of final words in sentences.
Study of "Hamlet to the Players."
Gesture — Oblique transition and bow. Oblique tran-
sition and kneeling.

Seventh Week —

Brea th ing. — Four exercises .

Vocal Culture. — Review four steps.

Beading. — Forms of emphasis.

Definition of emphasis.

Emphasis of melody.

Emphasis of inflection.

Emphasis of slide.
Gesture. — Preparatory exercise for walking.

Poising of the head.

Eighth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Review first four steps.

Beading. — Forms of emphasis.

Emphasis of volume.

Emphasis of force.

Emphasis of pause.
Gesture. — Review.

OUTLIXE OF COUESES OF STUDY 235

Ninth Week —

Reviews and written tests three days.
Tennyson recitals two days.

Tenth Week —

Tennyson recitals.
Criticism of rendering.

Eleventh Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal CwZiwre.— Flexibility.
Reading. — Word pictures.

Gestwe. — Principle s .

Twelfth Week —

Breathing — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Volume. Force.

Reading. — Atmosphere.

Gesture. — Eesponsive exercises 1 to 5.

Thirteenth Week — •

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Tone color.

Reading. — Tone color.

Gesture. — Responsive exercises 6 to 11.

Fourteenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Review volume, force and tone color.
Reading. — Rhythm . Movement.

Gesture. — Responsive exercises 12 to 16.

Fifteenth Week —

Recital from standard literature to illustrate word

pictures and atmosphere in delivery.
Criticism.

236 OUTLINE OF COURSES OF STUDY

Sixteenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Review first four steps.
Reading. — Rhythm. Movement.
Gesture. — Responsive exercises 1 to 8.

Seventeenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Review last four steps.

Reading. — Personation.

Gesture. — Responsive exercises 9 to 16.

Eighteenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Review eight steps.

Reading. — Personation.

Gesture. — Review responsive exercises.

Nineteenth Week —

Recital of selections from Shakespeare's dramas.

Twentieth Week —

Reviews and examinations.

INTERPRETATIOISr OF THE DRAMA.

First Week —

Physiology. — The respiratory and vocal organs.
Vocal Culture. — Placing tone. Pervasiveness.
Reading. — "The Rivals," Act II., Scene I. Selec-
tion of play to be interpreted by the class at the
close of the term.

Second Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Placing tone. Pervasiveness.

Reading.— ''^n^^ Rivals," Act III., Scene I.

OUTLINE OF COUESES OF STUDY 237

Gesture. — Principles.

Extemporaneous Speaking. — The plot of "As You

Like It."
Rehearsal of the term play.

Third Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal C^dture. — Support of tone. Smoothness.
Reading. — "As You Like It," Act I., Scene III.
Gesture. — Responsive exercises 1 to 5.
Lecture. — The history of the drama.

Fourth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Review first four steps.

Reading. — "As You Like It," Act V., Scene L
Gesture. — Responsive exercises 6 to 11.
Lecture. — The structure of the drama.
Rehearsal of term play.

Fifth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Review four steps.

Reading. — Hamlet's first soliloquy.

Gesture. — Responsive exercises 12 to 16.

Extemporaneous Speaking. — The plot of "Hamlet."

Rehearsal of the term play.

Sixth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Flexibility.
Reading. — Hamlet's first soliloquy.
Gesture. — Review of responsive exercises.
Lecture. — The structure of the scenes of the drama.

238 OUTLINE OF COURSES OF STUDY

Seventh Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Flexibility.

Reading. — "Hamlet," Act I., Scene IV.

Gesture. — Pantomime. Personation from life. An-
alysis of the personation.

Extemjjoraneous Speaking. — The structure of "Ham-
let."

Eighth Week —

Rehearsals of the term play.

Ninth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Volume.
Beading. — "Hamlet," Act I., Scene IV.
Gesture. — Pantomime. Personation from life.
Extemporaneous Speaking. — Informal discussion of the
term play.

Tenth Week —

Reviews and examinations.

Eleventh Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Volume.

Beading. — "Julius Caesar," Act IV., Scene III.
Gesture. — Pantomime. Personation from life.
Extemporaneous Speaking. — The plot of "Julius
Caesar."

Twelfth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Direction of tone.
Beading. — "Macbeth," Act I., Scene V.
Gesture. — Pantomime. Personation of Shakespeare's
characters. Analysis of the personation.

OUTLINE OF COURSES OF STUDY 239

Extemporaneous Speaking. — The plot of "Macbeth."
Rehearsal of the term play, with stage business.

Thirteenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Force.

i?earfm^.— "Macbeth," Act V., Scene I.

Gesture. — Pantomime. Personation of Shakespeare's

characters.
Extemjjoraneous Speaking. — The characters of Mac-
beth and Lady Macbeth.

Fourteenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Tone color.

Reading. — "Macbeth," Act V., Scene I.

Gesture. — Pantomime. Personation of Shakespeare's

characters.
Extemporaneous Speaking. — The structure of "*Mac-

beth."

Fifteenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Tone color.

Reading. — Antigone.

Gesture. — Pantomime. Personation of Shakespeare's

characters.
Lecture. — Antigone.
Rehearsal of the term play, with stage business.

Sixteenth Week —

Vocal Culture. — Peview.

Presentation of "Julius Csesar," Act IV., Scene III.,

by groups of students.
Stage business.

240 OUTLINE OF COURSES OF STUDY

Seventeenth Week —

Presentation of "Macbeth," Act I., Scene V., by-
groups of students.
Stage business.

Eighteenth Week —

Presentation of "Macbeth," Act V., Scene 1'., by

groups of students.
Stage business.

Nineteenth Week —

Extemporaneous Speaking on the following subjects :
The History of the Ancient Classical Drama.
History of the English Drama.
Structure of the English Drama. The Structure

of Scenes of the Drama.
Essentials of Dramatic Interpretation.
Character Studies from the Term Play.

Twentieth Week —

Presentation of the term play.

'Boolis.

Giles : Human Life in Shakespeare.

Snider, Denton J. : The Shakespearian Drama.

Coleridge, Samuel T. : Shakespeare and the Drama-
tists.

Moulton, Richard C : Shakespeare as a Dramatic Ar-
tist.

Moulton, Richard G. : The Ancient Classical Drama.

Freytag, Gustav: Technique of the Drama.

Golden, W. E. : History of the English Drama.

Dow den, Edward: Shakespeare.

Schlegel, A. W. von : Lectures on Dramatic Art and
Literature.

Jameson, Mrs. : Characteristics of Women.

OUTLINE OF COURSES OF STUDY 241

Mabie, Hamilton W. : Shakespeare : Poet, Drama-
tist, and Man.
Shakespeariana. Vol. I. Portraits of Shakespeare.
Hudson: Shakespeare's Life, Art, and Character.
Warner: English History in Shakespeare's Plays.

ORATORY.

First Week —

Physiology. — fhe respiratory and vocal organs.
i?ea(Zmy.— Directness. "Toussaint L'Ouverture."

Seconb Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Lecture. — Structure of the oration.

Reading. — Vigor or strength.

Gesture. —Principles.

Extemporaneo}! s Speaking. — Read one oration and give

biography of either the Earl of Chatham or William

Pitt.

Third Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture.— FldiCin^ tone. Pervasiveness.

Reading. — Seriousness.

Gesture. — Responsive exercises 1 to 5.

Extemporaneous Speaking. — Read one oration and give

biography of Charles James Fox or Richard Brins-

ley Sheridan.

Fourth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Support of tone.
Reading. — Alliance with the audience.
Extemporaneous Sjjeaking. — Read one oration and give
biography of Edmund Burke.
16

242 OUTLINE OF COURSES OF STUDY

Fifth Week —

Recitation of memorized oratorical selections of the
text-book. Criticism by teacher. Commeudatiou
and suggestion.

Sixth Week —

Breathing . — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Smoothness of tone.
Reading. — Persuasion.
Gesture. — Responsive exercises 12 to 16.
Extemporaneous Speaking. — Read one oration and give
biography of Henry Grattan or Daniel O'Connell.

Seventh Week —

Breath ing. — Four exercises .
Vocal Culture. — Smoothness of tone.
Reading. — Persuasion .

Extemporaneous Speahing. — Read one oration and give
biography of Lord Erskine or John Bright.

Eighth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.
Vocal Culture. — Flexibility.
Reading. — Volume.
Gesture. — Review responsive exercises.
ExtemporaMeous Speaking. — Read one oration and give
biography of Lord Beaconsfield or William Ewart
Gladstone.

Ninth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Volume.
Reading. — Volume .

Gesture. — Review principles of gesture.

Tenth Week —
Debate.

OUTLi:f^E OF COUESES OF STUDY 243

Eleventh Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Force of tone.
Reading. — Direction of voice.

Gesture. — Original work — gestures of emphasis.
Extemporaneous Speaking. — Give biography of Samuel
Adams, or James Otis, or Fisher Ames.

Twelfth Week —

Bi'eathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Tone color.

Beading.— Vigov or strength.

Gesture. — Original work in connection with delivery

of orations. Accompanying gesture, suggestive

gesture, arrested gesture.
Extemporaneous Speaking. — Give biography of Patrick

Henry or Alexander Hamilton.

Thirteenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Tone color.

Beading. — Seriousness.

Gesture. — Original work. Paragraph and climax in

gesture.
Extemporaneous Speaking. — Read one oration and give

biography of John C Calhoun or Daniel Webster.

Fourteenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Volume. Tone color.

Beading. — Alliance with the audience.

Gesture. — Original work. Appeal, invective, chal-
lenge, accusation, etc.

Extemporaneous Speaking. — Read one oration and give
biography of Henry Clay, or Rufus Choate, or Rob-
ert Y. Hayne.

244 OUTLINE OF COURSES OF STUDY

Fifteenth Week —

Recital of extracts from great orations. Criticism.

Sixteenth Week —

Breathing— ¥o\\v exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Volume. Tone color.

Reading. — Persuasion.

Gesture. — Descriptive pantomime from dictation.

Extemporaneous Speaking. — Read one oration and give
the biography of Edward Everett or Wendell Phil-
lips.

Seventeenth Week —

Breathing. — Four exercises.

Vocal Culture. — Review and explanation of steps in
voice work.

Reading. — Volume.

Gesture. — Descriptive pantomime from dictation.

Extemporaneous Speaking. — Read one oration and give
biography of Charles Sumner, or Henry Ward
Beecher, or Phillips Brooks, or Henry W. Grady.

Eighteenth Week —

Extemptoraneous Speaking. — The essentials of ora-
tory. After-dinner speeches.

Nineteenth Week —

Recital of orations written and memorized during the
term.

Twentieth Week —

Reviews and examinations.

Books.

The World's Great Orations.

Adams, Charles Kendall (editor): Representative

British Orations.
Johnston, Alexander (editor) : American Orations.

OUTLII^E OF COUESES OF STUDY 245

Hardwicke, Henry : History of Oratory and Orators.

Sears, Lorenzo : The History of Oratory.

Holyoake, George J. : Public Speaking and Debate.

Genung, J. F. : Rhetoric.

Mead, W. E. : Elementary Composition and Rhetoric.

Baker, George P. : The Principles of Argumentation.

Lives of the orators in histories of American and Eng-
lish literature. Lives of the American orators in
The American Statesmen Series.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
This book is DUE on the last date stamped "below

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DEC 1'7
AUG 1 3 I94i

DEC 2 3 ^552

WAY 15 1953

NOV 6 IQB'^
DEC 2 6 1962

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