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READING    TO    OTHERS 


Reacting  to  Others 


by     ARGUS     TRESIDDER 
Madison  College,  Virginia 


SCOTT,   FORESMAN   AND    COMPANY 


Chicago    Atlanta    Dallas    New  York 


Copyright,  1940,  by  Scott,  Foresman  and  Company 

PRINTED  IN   THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


To  trie  Teach 


er 

I  HA  VE  TALKED  to  the  student  all  the  way  through  this  book. 
For  a  moment,  though,  I'd  like  to  speak  directly  to  the  teacher 
who  will  use  Reading  to  Others  as  a  text. 

Not  all  of  us  agree  on  what  to  call  the  course  for  which  this 
material  is  intended;  we  even  disagree  on  what  shall  be  included 
in  it.  Nearly  every  convention  of  speech  teachers  has  at  least 
one  sectional  program  during  which  somebody  asks,  "Just  what 
are  speech  fundamentals?"  or  "What  exactly  should  be  the  subject- 
matter  of  a  course  in  Oral  Interpretation?"  And  nobody  ever 
knows  the  answers. 

I  am  not  concerned  with  what  you  may  call  your  course.  My  pur- 
pose has  been  to  write  a  comprehensive  book,  meeting  the  require- 
ments of  teachers  with  different  teaching  problems.  For  example, 
in  many  institutions  only  one  course  in  Interpretation  is  offered. 
In  it  the  teacher  may  have  to  present  all  the  formal  study  of  speech 
that  his  students  will  ever  get  (except,  perhaps,  for  a  course  in 
Public  Speaking).  Other  institutions  have  several  courses,  in  one 
of  which  Speech  Fundamentals  are  taught,  in  another  Voice  and 
Diction,  in  others  Oral  Interpretation,  and  so  on.  Some  teachers 
deprecate  speech  mechanics;  others  dwell  on  mechanics.  Speech 
clinics  are  not  numerous.  Each  teacher,  therefore,  is  bound  to 
have  individual  problems  in  correction. 

You  may  take  your  choice  of  the  chapters  in  this  book  that 
meet  your  special  needs.  I  have  tried  to  include  ample  material 
for  those  who  like  the  technical  approach,  as  well  as  for  those 
who  prefer  to  work  chiefly  in  meaning  and  emotion.  The  Ap- 
pendix on  diction,  which  has  many  carefully  planned  exercises, 
will  serve  for  drill  in  speech  correction  as  well  as  for  special  study 
in  the  problems  of  diction.  The  chapters  on  application  of  reading 
techniques  should  be  useful  for  both  specialized  and  general 
courses  in  Interpretation. 

There  may  be  some  difference  of  opinion  about  the  proper 
order  in  which  to  take  up  the  various  parts  of  this  book.  One 
way  (and  a  perfectly  good  way  to  follow  if  the  teacher  doesn't 
mind  taking  up  the  chapters  to  come  in  another  order)  is  to  study 
first  the  mechanics  of  speech.  It  is  true  that  we  cannot  effectively 


vi  To  the  Teacher 

communicate  until  we  know  something  about  our  voices  and  the 
best  use  of  them.  On  the  other  hand,  unless  we  can  get  at  the 
meaning  and  feeling  of  what  we  are  going  to  say,  the  most  beauti- 
ful diction  in  the  world  will  not  make  us  good  interpreters.  I 
shall  start  with  meaning,  as  fundamental  to  interpretation,  going 
next  to  emotion.  Then,  unless  you  prefer  to  skip  that  part,  I 
shall  plunge  into  the  physiology  of  voice  and  the  formation  of 
speech  sounds  through  phonetics,  taking  up  finally  the  special 
applications  of  reading  techniques  to  informal  situations,  dramatic 
interpretation,  acting,  radio,  and  verse  speaking. 

I  should  like  to  express  here  my  gratitude  to  those  who  have 
helped  me  in  the  preparation  of  this  book:  to  Professor  C.  K. 
Thomas,  of  Cornell  University,  who  has  patiently  read  at  least 
twice  all  the  technical  material  and  who  has  offered  suggestions 
throughout  the  manuscript;  to  Professor  Alan  Monroe,  of  Purdue 
University,  who  made  a  careful  report  on  the  first  draft;  to  my 
colleague,  Dr.  Leland  Schubert,  with  whom  I  have  talked  over 
many  questions  and  upon  whose  good  sense  and  understanding 
I  have  leaned  heavily;  to  my  colleague,  Professor  Conrad  Logan, 
who  has  given  me  many  useful  hints  about  style  and  a  liberal 
attitude;  to  Professor  Louis  Eich,  of  the  University  of  Michigan, 
who  read  the  proof  and  said  helpful  and  encouraging  things;  to 
my  secretary,  Miss  Ellen  Miner,  who  took  a  weight-reducing 
interest  in  the  problem  of  reprint  permissions. 

MAY  15,  1940  A.  T. 


The  author  gratefully  acknowledges  the  kindness  of  authors 
and  publishers  in  giving  permission  to  reproduce  material  in 
Reading  to  Others  as  follows: 

American  Red  Cross:  "Why  She  Didn't  Go  to  the  Dance."  Used  by  permis- 
sion of  the  American  Red  Cross. 

American  Speech:  "The  Young  Rat."  Used  by  permission  of  American  Speech. 
The  phonetic  transcriptions  of  President  Roosevelt's  inaugural  speech 
and  Dorothy  Thompson's  speech  which  appeared  in  American  Speech. 
Used  by  permission  of  Columbia  University  Press. 

Anderson  House:  the  selection  from  Mary  of  Scotland  by  Maxwell  Anderson. 
Used  by  permission  of  Anderson  House. 

D.  Appleton-Century  Company:  the  selection  from  American  Adventure  by 
Julian  Street.  Used  by  permission  of  D.  Appleton-Century  Company, 

The  Atlantic  Monthly:  the  selections  from  "On  Reading  Verse  Aloud"  by 
Robert  Hillyer  and  "The  Scholar  in  a  Troubled  World"  by  Walter  Lipp- 
mann.  Used  by  permission  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly  and  the  authors. 

The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company:  "The  Man  in  the  Moon"  from  Rhymes  of 
Childhood  by  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  copyright  1890,  1918.  Used  by 
special  permission  of  the  publishers,  The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company. 

Albert  &  Charles  Boni,  Inc.:  the  selection  from  "Prospectus  for  the  Remodeled 
Chewing  Gum  Corporation"  by  Will  Rogers.  Used  by  permission  of 
Albert  &  Charles  Boni,  Inc. 

James  Branch  Cabell:  the  selection  from  Beyond  Life.  Reprinted  by  permis- 
sion of  the  author. 

The  Christian  Science  Monitor:  "The  Monitor  Views  the  News."  Used  by 
permission  of  The  Christian  Science  Monitor. 

Covici  Friede,  Inc.:  the  selection  from  The  Wind  Increases  by  William  Carlos 
Williams.  Used  by  permission  of  Covici  Friede,  Inc. 

Coward  McCann,  Inc.:  the  selection  from  From  Morn  to  Midnight  by  Georg 
Kaiser.  Used  by  permission  of  Coward  McCann,  Inc. 

F.  S.  Crofts  &  Co.:  the  selection  from  Everyman  His  Own  Historian  by  Carl 
Becker.  Used  by  permission  of  F.  S.  Crofts  &  Co. 

The  Dial  Press,  Inc.:  the  selection  from  England  by  Marianne  Moore.  Used 
by  permission  of  The  Dial  Press,  Inc. 

Doubleday,  Doran  and  Company,  Inc.:  the  selections  from  Trivia  by  Logan 
Pearsall  Smith,  copyright  1917,  Leaves  of  Grass  by  Walt  Whitman,  copy- 
right 1924,  Personal  History  by  Vincent  Sheean,  copyright  1934,  1935, 
1936,  Life  and  Living  by  Amelia  Josephine  Burr,  copyright  1916,  A  World 
of  Windows  by  Charles  Hanson  Towne,  copyright  1919,  The  Old  Wives' 
Tale  by  Arnold  Bennett,  The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus  by  Joseph  Conrad, 
copyright  1897,  1914,  Cyrano  De  Bergerac  by  Edmond  Rostand,  copy- 
right 1898,  1926,  Specimen  Days,  Democratic  Vistas  and  Other  Prose  by 
Walt  Whitman,  copyright  1935,  "An  Acceptance  in  the  Third  Person" 

vii 


viii  Acknowledgments 

from  Smire  by  James  Branch  Cabell,  copyright  1937.  Reprinted  by  per- 
mission of  Boubleday,  Doran  and  Company,  Inc. 

E.  P.  Button  &  Co.,  Inc.:  "The  Legend  of  the  First  Cam-u-el"  from  Lyric 
Laughter  by  Arthur  Guiterman,  the  selections  from  The  Flowering  of 
New  England  by  Van  Wyck  Brooks,  Far  Away  and  Long  Ago  by  W.  H. 
Hudson.  Used  by  permission  of  E.  P.  Button  &  Co.,  Inc. 

Educational  Radio  Script  Exchange,  Federal  Radio  Education  Committee: 
"The  Man  Without  a  Country."  Used  by  permission  of  the  Educational 
Radio  Script  Exchange,  Federal  Radio  Education  Committee. 

Esquire:  the  selection  from  "Babies  Leave  Me  Cold"  by  Stanley  Jones.  Re- 
printed, with  permission,  from  the  January,  1940,  issue  of  Esquire,  copy- 
right 1940  by  Esquire,  Inc. 

Farrar  &  Rinehart,  Inc.:  the  selections  from  The  Fall  of  the  City,  a  verse  play 
for  radio,  by  Archibald  MacLeish,  copyright  1937,  "May-Eve"  and  "Be- 
yond" from  Shadow  of  a  Perfect  Rose,  collected  poems  of  Thomas  S. 
Jones,  Jr.,  with  a  memoir  and  notes  by  John  L.  Foley,  copyright  1937, 
Magnus  Merriman  by  Eric  Linklater,  copyright  1934.  Reprinted  by  per- 
mission of  Farrar  8c  Rinehart,  Inc. 

Victor  Gollancz,  Ltd.:  the  selection  from  Life  and  Andrew  Otway  by  Neil 
Bell,  and  Canadian  rights  on  the  selection  from  The  Way  of  a  Transgres- 
sor by  Negley  Farson.  By  permission  of  Victor  Gollancz,  Ltd. 

Leigh  Hanes:   "Mountains  in  Twilight."  Used  by  permission  of  Leigh  Hanes. 

Harcourt,  Brace  and  Company,  Inc.:  "Yes  and  No"  and  "Prayer"  from 
Selected  Poems  and  Parodies  of  Louis  Untermeyer,  "Just  Off  the  Con- 
crete" by  Morris  Bishop  from  The  New  Yorker  Book  of  Verse,  copyright 
1935,  by  the  F-R  Publishing  Corporation,  "Befinitions  of  Poetry"  from 
Good  Morning  America,  copyright  1928,  by  Carl  Sandburg,  the  selections 
from  The  Making  of  Americans  by  Gertrude  Stein,  What  Price  Glory? 
copyright  1926,  by  Maxwell  Anderson  and  Laurence  Stallings,  The  Way 
of  a  Transgressor,  copyright  1936,  by  Negley  Farson,  The  Study  and 
Appreciation  of  Literature  by  Ralph  Philip  Boas,  Arrowsmith  by  Sinclair 
Lewis,  copyright  1925,  The  Fight  for  Life  by  Paul  de  Kruif,  copyright 
1938.  Reprinted  by  permission  of  Harcourt,  Brace  and  Company,  Inc. 

Harper  &  Brothers:  "How  I  Learned  Tennis"  from  From  Bed  to  Worse  by 
Robert  Benchley,  the  selections  from  Profits  and  Prosperity  by  Henry 
Pratt  Fairchild,  Life  on  the  Mississippi  and  A  Tramp  Abroad  by  Mark 
Twain.  Used  by  permission  of  Harper  &:  Brothers. 

Rosalie  Hickler:  "Prayer  for  Any  Occasion."  By  permission  of  Rosalie  Hickler. 

Henry  Holt  and  Company,  Inc.:  "Wind  in  the  Pines"  by  Lew  Sarett,  "With 
Rue  My  Heart  Is  Laden"  by  A.  E.  Housman,  "Suppose"  and  "Silver"  by 
Walter  de  la  Mare,  "The  Road  Not  Taken"  and  "The  Beath  of  the 
Hired  Man"  by  Robert  Frost,  the  selections  from  "The  Listeners"  by 
Walter  de  la  Mare,  "Terence  This  Is  Stupid  Stuff"  by  A.  E.  Housman, 
"Four  Little  Foxes"  by  Lew  Sarett,  "Chicago"  by  Carl  Sandburg.  Re- 
printed by  permission  of  Henry  Holt  and  Company,  Inc. 

Hough  ton  Mifflin  Company:  "The  Song  of  the  Turtle  and  Flamingo"  by 
J.  T.  Fields,  the  selections  from  "Red  Slippers"  and  "Nostalgia"  by  Amy 
Lowell,  "The  Plaint  of  the  Camel"  by  Guy  Wetmore  Carryl,  Mont-Saint- 
Michel  and  Chartres  by  Henry  Adams,  The  Question  of  Our  Speech  by 


A  cknowledgments  ix 

Henry  James,  Greenmantle  by  John  Buchan.  Used  by  permission  of 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 

Bruce  Humphries,  Inc.:  "Overture  to  a  Dance  of  Locomotives"  from  Sour 
Grapes  by  William  Carlos  Williams,  copyright  1920  by  The  Four  Seas  Co., 
the  selection  from  Geography  and  Plays  by  Gertrude  Stein,  copyright 
1922  by  The  Four  Seas  Co.  Used  by  permission  of  Bruce  Humphries,  Inc. 

Robert  M.  Hutchins:  the  selection  from  the  speech  "What  Is  a  University" 
by  Robert  M.  Hutchins.  Used  by  permission  of  the  author. 

Alfred  A.  Knopf,  Inc.:  "Brass  Spittoons"  by  Langston  Hughes,  the  selection 
by  Stephen  Crane,  "Escape"  by  Elinor  Wylie,  the  selections  from  "Triad" 
by  Adelaide  Crapsey,  Life  With  Father  by  Clarence  Day,  Verdun  by 
Jules  Romains,  The  Story  of  a  Country  Town  by  E.  W.  Howe,  "Puri- 
tanism As  a  Literary  Force"  from  A  Book  of  Prefaces  and  The  American 
Language  by  H.  L.  Mencken.  Reprinted  by  permission  of  and  special 
arrangement  with  Alfred  A.  Knopf,  Inc.,  authorized  publishers. 

T.  Werner  Laurie,  Ltd.:  the  selection  from  Spoon  River  Anthology  by  Edgar 
Lee  Masters.  Used  by  permission  of  T.  Werner  Laurie,  Ltd.,  and  the 
author. 

Life:  selection  from  the  March  18,  1940,  issue  of  Life.  Used  by  permission 
of  Life. 

J.  B.  Lippincott  Company:  the  selection  by  Christopher  Morley.  Used  by 
permission  of  J.  B.  Lippincott  Company,  East  Washington  Square,  Phila- 
delphia, Pennsylvania. 

Little,  Brown  &  Company:  the  selections  from  The  Nonsense  Books  by 
Edward  Lear,  "The  Co-eds:  God  Bless  Them"  from  Forays  and  Rebuttals 
by  Bernard  DeVoto.  Used  by  permission  of  Little,  Brown  &  Company. 

Liveright  Publishing  Corporation:  the  selections  from  "Lachrymae  Christi" 
by  Hart  Crane,  "Death"  by  Maxwell  Bodenheim,  "Composition"  by 
George  O'Neill.  Used  by  permission  of  Liveright  Publishing  Corporation. 

Longmans,  Green  &  Co.:  the  selection  from  The  Moral  Equivalent  of  War 
by  William  James.  Used  by  permission  of  Longmans,  Green  &  Co. 

The  Macmillan  Company:  "Burial  Party"  from  Poems  by  John  Masefield, 
"The  Flower  of  Mending"  and  "In  Memory  of  a  Child"  from  Collected 
Poems  by  Vachel  Lindsay,  Away  Goes  Sally  by  Elizabeth  Coatsworth, 
"Blue  Squills"  from  Collected  Poems  by  Sara  Teasdale,  "Let  Me  Live  Out 
My  Years"  from  The  Quest  by  John  G.  Neihardt,  "The  Secret  Heart" 
from  Collected  Poems  by  Robert  P.  Tristram  Coffin,  "Mr.  Flood's  Party" 
from  Collected  Poems  by  E.  A.  Robinson,  two  limericks  by  Lewis  Carroll, 
the  selections  from  "The  Hunting  of  the  Snark"  and  "Jabberwocky"  by 
Lewis  Carroll,  Emile  Zola's  Paris  translated  by  E.  A.  Vizetelly,  Survivals 
and  New  Arrivals  by  Hillaire  Belloc,  Poetry  and  Myth  by  Frederick  Pres- 
cott,  Words  and  Their  Ways  in  English  Speech  by  J.  B.  Greenough  and 
G.  L.  Kittredge,  Homer's  Odyssey  translated  by  Butcher  and  Lang,  "Trist- 
ram" by  E.  A.  Robinson,  Gone  With  the  Wind  by  Margaret  Mitchell. 
Used  by  permission  of  The  Macmillan  Company,  publishers. 

David  McKay  Company:  the  selections  from  Out  of  the  Cradle  by  Walt 
Whitman,  "Eulogy  at  His  Brother's  Grave"  by  Robert  G.  Ingersoll.  Used 
by  permission  oi  David  McKay  Company. 

G.  &  C.  Merriam  Company:    the  selections  from  The  Little  Red  Schoolhouse 


x  Acknowledgments 

of  the  Air,  copyright  1939,  A  Guide  to  Pronunciation  from  Webster's 
New  International  Dictionary,  Second  Edition,  copyright  1934,  1939.  Used 
by  permission  of  G.  &  C.  Merriam  Company. 

William  Morrow  &  Company,  Inc.:  the  selection  from  About  Women  by  John 
Macy,  copyright  1926,  1927,  1928,  1930  by  John  Macy.  Used  by  permis- 
sion of  William  Morrow  8c  Company,  Inc. 

George  Jean  Nathan:  the  selection  from  The  Code  of  a  Critic  by  George 
Jean  Nathan.  Used  by  permission  of  the  author. 

The  Nation:  "Confessions  of  a  Sun  Worshipper"  by  Stuart  Chase.  Reprinted 
by  permission  of  The  Nation. 

Thomas  Nelson  and  Sons:  the  selection  from  The  Study  of  Poetry  by  Paul 
Landis  and  A.  R.  Entwistle.  Used  by  permission  of  Thomas  Nelson  and 
Sons. 

The  New  Yorker:  the  selections  from  "How  to  Tell  a  Major  Poet  from  a 
Minor  Poet"  by  E.  B.  White,  "The  Case  Against  Women"  by  James 
Thurber,  "'Farewell,  My  Lovely"  by  E.  B.  White  and  Lee  Strout.  Re- 
printed by  permission  of  The  New  Yorker  and  the  authors. 

The  New  York  Times:  the  editorial  "Lost  Generations,"  March  3,  1940,  the 
selections  by  Brooks  Atkinson  ("Drama  Rule-Book"),  January  14,  1940, 
Edgar  C.  Hanford  ("The  Sun  Still  Shines"),  April  23,  1939.  Used  by 
permission  of  The  New  York  Times  and  the  authors. 

New  York  World-Telegram:  the  selection  from  "Neckware"  by  Heywood 
Broun.  Used  by  permission  of  the  New  York  World-Telegram. 

W.  W.  Norton  fe  Company,  Inc.:  the  selections  from  Discovering  Poetry  by 
Elizabeth  Drew,  "A  Free  Man's  Worship"  from  Mysticism  and  Logic  by 
Bertrand  Russell.  Used  by  permission  of  W.  W.  Norton  &  Company,  Inc. 

The  Open  Court  Publishing  Company:  "A  Night  by  the  Sea"  from  Heinrich 
Heine's  North  Sea  translated  by  Howard  Mumford  Jones.  Used  by  per- 
mission of  The  Open  Court  Publishing  Company  and  the  translator. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons:  selections  from  Apes,  Men,  and  Morons  by  E.  A. 
Hooton,  Enchanted  Aisles  by  Alexander  Woollcott.  Used  by  permission 
of  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

Random  House,  Inc.:  the  selections  from  "Sunday  Morning"  by  Louis  Mac- 
Neice,  copyright  1937  by  Louis  MacNeice,  Ulysses  by  James  Joyce,  copy- 
right 1934  by  Modern  Library,  Inc.,  "Night"  by  Robinson  Jeffers,  copy- 
right 1935  by  Modern  Library,  Inc.,  The  Hairy  Ape  by  Eugene  O'Neill, 
copyright  1922  by  Eugene  O'Neill,  Strange  Interlude  by  Eugene  O'Neill. 
Reprinted  by  permission  of  Random  House,  Inc.  New  York. 

The  Reilly  &  Lee  Co.:  the  selection  from  "It  Couldn't  Be  Done"  from  The 
Path  to  Home  by  Edgar  A.  Guest.  Used  by  permission  of  The  Reilly 
&  Lee  Co. 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons:  "The  Stirrup-Cup,"  "Opposition"  and  "Song  of  the 
Chattahoochee"  by  Sidney  Lanier,  "By  the  Gray  Sea"  by  John  Hall 
Wheelock,  "Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe"  by  Henry  Cuyler  Bunner,  the 
selections  from  The  Enjoyment  of  Poetry  by  Max  Eastman,  Diana  of  the 
Crossways  by  George  Meredith,  The  Golden  Honey-Moon  by  Ring 
Lardner,  "Aunt  Juley's  Courtship"  from  On  Forsyte  'Change  by  John 
Galsworthy,  "Only  the  Dead  Know  Brooklyn"  and  Of  Time  and  the 


Acknowledgments  xi 

River  by  Thomas  Wolfe,  The  Silver  Cord  by  Sidney  Howard,  Reunion 
in  Vienna  by  Robert  Sherwood,  What  Every  Woman  Knows  by  James  M. 
Barrie,  "Virginia  through  the  Eyes  of  Her  Governor,"  Scribner's,  June, 
1928,  by  Harry  F.  Byrd,  Virginibus  Puerisque  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
Axels  Castle  by  Edmund  Wilson,  the  selection  by  Josiah  Gilbert  Holland. 
Used  by  permission  of  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

The  Sewanee  Review:  "Mountain  Water,"  "Storm/*  "On  Greenbrier  Pin- 
nacle." Used  by  permission  of  The  Sewanee  Review. 

Simon  and  Schuster,  Inc.:  "The  Clean  Platter"  by  Ogden  Nash,  the  selections 
from  The  Arts  by  Hendrik  Willem  Van  Loon,  With  Malice  Toward  Some 
by  Margaret  Halsey.  Used  by  permission  of  Simon  and  Schuster,  Inc. 

Time:  "Trees"  from  the  December  25,  1939,  issue.  Used  by  permission  of 
Time. 

The  Town  Hall,  Inc.:  the  selection  from  Town  Meeting.  Reprinted  from 
Town  Meeting,  bulletin  of  "America's  Town  Meeting  of  the  Air,"  Vol.  II, 
No.  I,  published  by  Columbia  University  Press,  2960  Broadway,  New  York. 

The  Viking  Press,  Inc.:  "Willa  the  Weeper"  from  In  One  Ear  by  Frank  Sul- 
livan, copyright  1933  by  Frank  Sullivan,  "Greater  Love"  from  The  Poems 
of  Wilfred  Owen,  "Resume^'  from  Not  So  Deep  As  a  Well  by  Dorothy 
Parker,  copyright  1926,  1928,  1931,  1936,  the  selections  from  The  Journal 
of  Arnold  Bennett,  copyright  1932,  3933,  The  Grapes  of  Wrath  by  John 
Steinbeck,  copyright  1939  by  John  Steinbeck,  "Mrs.  Packletide's  Tiger" 
from  The  Short  Stories  of  Saki  (H.  H.  Munro),  copyright  1930,  Philos- 
ophers Holiday  by  Irwin  Edman,  copyright  1938  by  Irwin  Edman.  Re- 
printed by  permission  of  The  Viking  Press,  Inc.,  New  York. 

Vital  Speeches:  the  selections  from  "So  Long;  So  Long!"  by  George  Bernard 
Shaw,  "The  Position  of  Germany  Today"  by  Adolf  Hitler,  and  "The 
Absurdity  of  Eternal  Peace"  by  Benito  Mussolini.  Reprinted  by  per- 
mission from  Vital  Speeches  Magazine. 

The  Washington  Post:  the  selection  from  "The  Snows  of  Yesteryear"  from 
the  Post  Impressionist  column  by  Paul  Oehser.  Used  by  permission  of 
The  Washington  Post. 

Yale  University  Press:  the  selection  from  The  Greek  Genius  and  Its  Influence 
by  Lane  Cooper.  Used  by  permission  of  the  Yale  University  Press. 

Hodder  8c  Stoughton  (Canada)  Ltd.,  Toronto:  Canadian  rights  for  the  selec- 
tion from  The  Old  Wives'  Tale  by  Arnold  Bennett.  Published  and  copy- 
righted by  Hodder  &  Stoughton. 


TT  TJ       r  iT* 

1  able  of   Contents 


INTRODUCTION: 
CHAPTER  i 

CHAPTER  2 

CHAPTER  3 

CHAPTER  4 

CHAPTER  5 

CHAPTER  6 

CHAPTER  7 

CHAPTER  8 

CHAPTER  9 

CHAPTER  1O 

CHAPTER  11 

CHAPTER  12 

CHAPTER  13 

APPENDIX: 

INDEX 


What  It's  All  About  i 

Interpreting  Meaning  5 

Interpreting  Emotion  60 

How  the  Voice  Works  120 

The  Sounds  of  Speech  132 

Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  155 

Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  176 

Movement  and  Manners  215 

Informal  Reading  228 

Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  252 

Across  the  Footlights  285 

Before  the  Microphone  311 

In  Chorus  337 

Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  369 

Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement       397 

Prose  for  Oral  Reading  449 

513 


xiii 


INTRODUCTION 


at  If  s 


All  Ai 


out 


MOST  OF  us  are  highly  susceptible  to 
the  warnings  and  cajolery  of  advertisements.  We  like  to  eat  break- 
fast foods  of  champions,  to  have  school-girl  complexions  and  fash- 
ionable figures  and  white  teeth,  to  avoid  dandruff,  dishpan  hands, 
and  the  numerous  other  offenses  against  society  described  by  candid 
advertisers.  That  is,  consciously  or  unconsciously  we  are  tre- 
mendously influenced  by  what  we  are  told  in  advertisements 
about  our  appearance,  our  personal  habits,  our  manners,  even  our 
characters.  No  one,  however,  has  so  far  thought  of  a  way  to  make 
money  by  exploiting  the  voice  as  an  element  in  social  acceptability. 
We  are  "cosmetic-conscious,"  "style-conscious,"  "breath-conscious," 
"athlete's-foot-conscious,"  but  not  "voice-conscious." 

A  favorite  subject  of  modern  advertising  is  that  of  an  attractive 
young  man  or  woman  discouraged  because,  in  spite  of  charm  and 
intelligence,  he  or  she  is  not  popular.  Then  along  comes  a  real 
friend  who  drops  a  hint  about  dandruff  or  blotchy  skin,  and  within 
a  short  time  all  is  well.  One  dentifrice  advertiser  varies  this  theme 
by  showing  the  picture  of  a  beautiful  girl  with  the  sinister  com- 
ment, "She  was  the  belle  of  the  ball  until  she  opened  her  mouth." 
This  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  accurate  statements  in  all  adver- 
tising, but  not  simply  because  the  young  lady's  teeth  do  not  gleam. 
How  many  women  there  are— and  men,  too— who  are  good  to  look 
at  and  apparently  charming,  until  they  open  their  mouths  and 
begin  to  talk! 

Only  within  the  last  twenty  years  have  educators    (outside  of 


2  Reading  to  Others 

the  old-fashioned  "schools  of  expression")  realized  that  people 
need  to  be  taught  to  use  their  voices  properly  as  well  as  to  dis- 
sect frogs  and  read  Paradise  Lost  and  learn  the  date  of  the  Battle 
of  Marathon.  There  is  still  a  foolish  attitude  among  the  die-hards 
that,  since  most  of  us  start  making  vocal  sounds  a  few  minutes 
after  we  enter  this  world  and  become  within  a  short  time  so  pro- 
ficient in  the  use  of  our  native  language  that  nearly  everyone  can 
understand  us,  there  is  no  need  to  study  speech.  They  argue  that 
speech  is  natural,  like  breathing,  and  insist  that  English  teachers 
can  take  care  of  such  incidental  difficulties  as  faulty  pronunciation 
and  give  adequate  instruction  in  reading.  Why,  everybody  learns 
to  read  in  grammar  school!  What's  the  use  of  hiring  high-school 
and  college  teachers  of  reading? 

In  the  first  place,  the  teachers  of  reading  in  the  elementary 
schools  put  far  too  much  stress  on  silent  reading,  sacrificing  diction 
—that  is,  enunciation,  pronunciation,  and  melody— for  the  sake  of 
speed.  Most  of  them  have  had  no  work  in  speech  themselves  and 
are  not  interested  in  it.  In  the  second  place,  there  are  about  thir- 
teen million  people  with  speech  defects  in  this  country  alone. 
Three  million  school  children  have  speech  faults,  many  of  which 
could  be  remedied  by  the  ear  training  and  correctional  work 
of  well-directed  reading  aloud.  In  the  third  place,  the  occasions 
for  speaking  and  reading  are  multiplying  so  rapidly  in  this  age  of 
public  discussion  and  radio  that  people  are  beginning  to  feel  their 
lack  of  articulate  skill  and  are  demanding  instruction. 

The  social  value  of  good  speech  is  beginning  to  be  recognized 
even  though  the  advertisers  have  not  discovered  any  profit  in  it. 
Beyond  any  doubt  one  of  the  important  qualities  in  the  poised, 
cultivated  person  is  a  pleasing  voice  which  is  well  used  and  free 
of  defects  in  diction  and  of  conspicuous  provincialism.  People  are 
becoming  more  and  more  critical  of  badly  pitched  voices,  errors 
in  enunciation  and  pronunciation,  and  inability  to  express  ideas. 
Radio  and  talking  pictures  are  helping  to  make  us  aware  that 
how  people  sound  is  as  important  as  how  they  look. 

Even  Mrs.  Malaprop,  who  had  no  wish  to  make  her  niece  a 
"progeny  of  learning/*  was  anxious  that,  more  than  anything  else, 
she  should  be  "mistress  of  orthodoxy,  that  she  might  not  mis-spell, 
and  mispronounce  words  so  shamefully  as  girls  usually  do;  and 
likewise  that  she  might  reprehend  the  true  meaning  of  what  she 


What  It's  All  About  3 

is  saying."  They  understood,  back  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
social  requirements  of  speech.  We  could  still  use  Mrs.  Malaprop's 
words,  slightly  edited,  as  a  description  of  a  course  in  oral  inter- 
pretation. Some  things  might  have  to  be  added,  and  there  would 
be  less  stress  on  spelling,  but  the  chief  emphasis  is  still  on  "repre- 
hending" the  true  meaning  of  what  we  read  and  say. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  social  argument  for  the  study  of  oral  inter- 
pretation: Since  others  count  our  voices  and  speech  habits  in  their 
estimate  of  us,  we  should  give  those  things  some  attention.  On  the 
professional  side  are  many  other  reasons:  As  executives,  we  want  to 
be  able  to  communicate  ideas  clearly,  and  we  cannot  afford  to  mis- 
pronounce or  misuse  words  (unless  we  are  Samuel  Goldwyns!);  as 
speakers,  teachers,  salesmen,  lawyers,  we  should  have  the  greatest 
possible  control  over  our  speech;  as  gregarious  beings,  we  want  to 
improve  all  the  conditions  of  personality  because  they  are  elements 
in  success. 

WHAT  Is  ORAL  INTERPRETATION?  It  is  the  study  of_yoicejind  the 
problems  of  communicating  ideas  from  the  printed  page  to  a  lis- 
tener. That  is,  the  oral  part  of  the  name  means  everything  relating 
to  J:he  speaking  apparatus:  the  physiology  of  voice  plus  diction, 
which  includes  the  proper  shaping  of  sounds,  the  proper  choice 
of  sounds,  and  the  whole  pattern  of  speaking.  Interpretation 
mearisj:he  examination  of  ideas,  usually  not  the  reader's,  taken 
from  a  page  of  some  sort,  and  the  projection  of  those  ideas  to  an 
audience.  One  half  is  more  or  less  technical,  dealing  with  the 
mechanics  of  breathing  and  phonation  (the  production  of  voice), 
speech  sounds,  and  the  correction  of  speech  faults.  The  other 
half  is  psychological  and  emotional,  taking  up  the  meaning  and 
mood  of  the  material  to  be  communicated. 

We  are  not  concerned  in  this  book  with  any  form  of  public 
speaking,  which  usually  lays  its  stress  on  organization  of  material 
or  speech  composition  and  then  upon  delivery.  The  interpreter 
does  not  need  to  worry  about  outlines  or  rules  of  argumentation 
or  exposition  or  the  speaker's  special  problems  of  interest.  He  is 
reading  someone  else's  words  (or  perhaps  his  own,  written  out  or 
memorized).  We  shall  start  with  the  printed  page,  leaving  to  the 
rhetoricians  and  teachers  of  composition  the  actual  writing.  Our 
job  is  to  learn  all  we  can  about  the  thought  and  feeling  of  the 
author  and  about  the  best  ways  in  which  to  transmit  them  to  hear- 


4  Reading  to  Others 

ers.  The  interpreter  must  ask  himself  two  questions.  The  first  is, 
''How  can  I  most  intelligently  and  most  responsively  present  the 
thought  and  feeling  of  what  I  am  to  read?"  The  second  is,  "How 
can  I  best  employ  my  peculiar  equipment  for  speaking  so  that  my 
audience  will  hear  me  easily  and  accept  my  voice  as  reasonably 
free  from  defects  in  diction?" 

In  short,  we  are  studying  reading.  It  is  a  practical  subject  be- 
cause all  of  us,  at  one  time  or  another,  either  publicly  or  in  front 
of  the  fireplace,  will  have  to  read  aloud.  It  is  a  universal  subject 
because  we  must  learn  to  read  everything,  from  the  football  scores 
to  a  paper  before  the  Shakespeare  Club.  It  is  a  cultural  subject 
because  through  it  we  should  not  only  acquire  the  speech  habits 
expected  in  educated  people  but  also  a  sensibly  critical  appre- 
ciation of  literature.  Oral  interpretation  is  the  ideal  meeting-point 
of  the  English  department  and  the  Speech  department.  By  its 
help  we  should  be  able  to  understand  and  enjoy  and  share  with 
others  the  things  that  time  and  the  scholars  have  left  to  us.  "All 
that  the  university  or  final  highest  school  can  do  for  us  is  to  teach 
us  to  read,"  said  Carlyle. 


CHAPTER    1 


Interpreting  Aieaning 


WHEN  SOMEONE  reads  aloud,  what- 
ever his  purpose— giving  a  scripture  lesson,  offering  directions  for 
assembling  a  vacuum  cleaner  or  a  model  airplane,  sharing  a  letter 
or  editorial  or  story,  or  interpreting  literature  to  an  audience— we 
may  expect  certain  things  of  him.  We  may  want  him  to  be  clear, 
interesting,  charming,  to  have  a  fine  voice,  beautiful  diction,  a 
sense  oT  humor,  imagination.  Nature,  however,  does  not  distrib- 
ute favors  with  an  impartial  hand.  We  cannot  all  be  brilliant  and 
attractive  or  have  excellent  voices.  But  we  can  know  what  we  are 
talking  about  and  be  able  to  communicate  that  knowledge  to 
others. 

All  reading  aloud,  whether  of  prose  or  of  verse,  has  the  same 
ultimateTpurpose:  that  of^capturing  and  sustaining  attention.  No 
matter  how  good  the  interpreter's  voice,  no  matter  how  well  he  is 
dressed,  no  matter  how  auspicious  the  occasion,  his  performance 
is  a  poor  one  if  the  audience  is  not  interested.  It  is  interested  only 
if  it  has  willingly  given  attention  (since,  as  William  James  said, 
"What  we  attend  to  and  what  interests  us  are  synonymous  terms"). 
The  chief  problem  of  the  reader,  therefore,  is  "How  can  I  most 
successf ull^  mtein^^mj^  audience  and  thereby  makejujre  of  its 
attention?" 

""There  is  no  easy  road  to  good  interpretation.  An  audience  is 
not  long  fooled  by  a  superficial  reader,  because  if  he  is  only  glibly 
forming  words,  without  taking  the  trouble  to  analyze  either  the 
thought  or  the  mood  of  what  he  reads,  if  he  is  not  himself  inter- 


6  Reading  to  Others 

ested  in  what  he  says,  or  if  he  is  unable  to  make  his  audience 
interested  in  it,  he  cannot  communicate  ideas,  and  his  hearers  are 
inevitably  confused  or  bored.  Good  interpretation  demands  five 
things:  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  all  wordp, 
names,  allusions,  and  images;' a  clear  comprehension  of  the  ideas 
jgresented;^  knowledge  of  the  interrelationships  of  phrases  and 
the  ability  to  express  those  interrelationships;*knd  an  insight  into 
the  attitude  of  the  writer,  as  well  as^the  skill  to  express  that 
attitude.  '  ~ 

In  this  chapter  we  shall  take  up  the  problems  of  meaning,  leav- 
ing to  the  following  chapter  the  discussion  of  emotion. 

.    THE    MEANING    OF    WORDS 

The  purpose  of  any  communication  is  to  convey  meaning. 
Speech  undoubtedly  began  when  some  savage  ancestor  of  man 
discovered  that  he  could  express  meanings  in  varying  patterns  of 
grunts  and  head-shakings.  He  was  not  concerned  with  ornament- 
ing his  symbols,  though  eventually  he  learned  that  if  he  grunted 
and  shook  dramatically,  his  audience  was  more  likely  to  be  inter- 
ested than  if  he  were  apathetic  or  monotonous.  The  infant,  shak- 
ing its  head  and  rejecting  the  bottle  or  crying  or  smiling,  is 
communicating  simple  meanings.  It  may  even  devise  a  technique, 
getting  what  it  wants  by  shrewdly  modulating  its  symbols. 

Most  of  us  can  get  along  quite  well  within  a  limited  range  of 
expression  because  the  simple  wants  of  life  can  be  filled  through 
very  elementary  symbols  of  meaning.  Bush  tribes  manage  to  get 
food,  carry  on  family  life,  and  have  some  form  of  social  organiza- 
tion, even  though  their  language  may  consist  of  a  very  few  articu- 
late words.  A  traveler  in  a  foreign  country  whose  speech  is  unfa- 
miliar to  him  quickly  picks  up  the  dozen  or  so  indispensable 
phrases  and  manages  successfully  to  ask  where  something  is  and 
how  much  something  costs,  to  order  meals  and  lodging,  and  to 
phrase  the  everyday  courtesies.  Deaf  mutes  learn  to  communicate 
essential  meanings  by  a  system  of  swift,  stark  movements  of  the 
fingers.  Brokers  on  the  curb  exchange  in  New  York  waste  no 
words  but  communicate  by  meaningful  gestures.  The  director  of 
a  radio  broadcast,  insulated  by  sound-proof  studio  walls,  con- 
veys meanings  to  the  performers  by  signals  through  a  plate-glass 
window.  ,  : 


Interpreting  Meaning  7 

The  duty  of  any  communicator  is  to  perfect  his  control  over  the 
^symbols  at  his  command.  The  telegraph  operator  must  know  the 
significance  of  all  the  dots  and  dashes  that  he  receives  and  trans- 
mits; the  court  reporter  must  be  able  to  jot  down  all  that  he  hears 
in  his  quick  shorthand;  the  African  native  beating  his  jungle 
drum  must  be  able  to  relay  news  efficiently;  the  Boy  Scout  waving 
his  flags  must  know  exactly  how  to  send  his  message  so  that  the 
distant  observer  will  not  mistake  his  meaning.  Similarly  the 
speaker  or  the  reader  must  be  in  complete  command  of  his  me- 
dium of  communication. 

Everyone  can  express  the  basic  ideas:  I  am  hungry;  I  want  to 
sleep;  I  am  sick;  I  hate  you;  I  love  you.  The  interpreter,  however, 
is  called  on  to  communicate  not  only  simple  but  also  complex 
things  in  all  their  infinite  shadings  of  meaning.  And  we  expect 
of  him  that  he  be  interesting  and  vivid  as  well  as  clear.  Now 
exactly  how  can  the  interpreter  achieve  clarity  of  thought,  com- 
prehensibility? 

In  the  first  place,  he  must  unequivocably  know  the  meanings 
of  all  the  words  he  uses.  Take  a  few  sentences  at  random  from 
the  Victorian  writers: 

On  the  thick  Hyperborean  cherubic  reasoning,  seraphic  eloquence 
were  lost.  THOMAS  CARLYLE,  Sartor  Resartus 

Picturesqueness  ...  is  Parasitical  Sublimity. 

JOHN  RUSKIN,  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture 

The  perverse  irregularity  of  his  hours,  the  slovenliness  of  his  person, 
his  fits  of  strenuous  exertion,  interrupted  by  long  intervals  of  sluggish- 
ness, his  strange  abstinence,  and  his  equally  strange  voracity,  his  active 
benevolence  contrasted  with  the  constant  rudeness  and  the  occasional 
ferocity  of  his  manners  in  society,  made  him,  in  the  opinion  of  those 
with  whom  he  lived  during  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life,  a  com- 
plete original.  ...  It  was  natural  that,  in  the  exercise  of  his  power,  he 
should  be  "eo  immitior,  quia  toleraverat,"  that  though  his  heart  was 
undoubtedly  generous  and  humane,  his  demeanor  in  society  should  be 
harsh  and  despotic.  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY,  Samuel  Johnson 

The  whole  course  of  my  intellectual  cultivation  had  made  precocious 
and  premature  analysis  the  inveterate  habit  of  my  mind. 

i  JOHN  STUART  MILL,  Autobiography 


8  Reading  to  Others 

Yet  the  romanticists  are  antinomian,  too,  sometimes,  because  the  love 
of  energy  and  beauty,  of  distinction  in  passion,  tended  naturally  to  be- 
come a  little  bizarre,  plunging  into  the  Middle  Age,  into  the  secrets  of 
old  Italian  story.  WALTER  PATER,  Romanticism 

Or  bring  the  point  up  to  date  with  some  quotations  from  contem- 
porary writers: 

"For  you,  Smire,"  Smike  continued,  "are  the  production  of  a  dreamer 
whose  dreams  nowanights  are  superficial  and  bogus— of  one  who  had 
the  taste  and  talent  of  the  dilettante  along  with  such  aspirations  and 
pretensions  as  nothing  would  satisfy  short  of  creating  a  vast  and  many- 
volumed  cosmos  which  has  been  vitiated  throughout  into  a  necropolis 
by  its  basic  venality  and  miscomprehension  of  economics/' 

JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL,  Smire 

The  onset  of  exophthalmic  goitre  may  be  mistaken  for  neurasthenia, 
especially  if  there  be  no  exophthalmos  at  the  beginning.  The  emotional 
disturbances  and  the  irritability  of  the  heart  may  mislead  the  physician. 
Jn  pronounced  cases  of  nervous  prostration  the  differential  diagnosis 
from  the  various  psychoses  may  be  extremely  difficult. 

SIR  WILLIAM  OSLER,  The  Principles  and  Practices  of  Medicine 

Religion  lost  all  its  old  contemplative  and  esoteric  character,  and 
became  a  frankly  worldly  enterprise,  a  thing  of  balance-sheets  and  pon- 
derable profits,  heavily  capitalized  and  astutely  manned.  There  was  no 
longer  any  room  for  the  spiritual  type  of  leader,  with  his  white  choker 
and  his  interminable  fourthlies. 

H.  L.  MENCKEN,  Puritanism  As  a  Literary  Force 

Before  attempting  to  read  any  of  these  passages,  the  interpreter 
would  have  to  be  sure  of  the  words  Hyperborean,  seraphic,  para- 
sitical, perverse,  voracity,  ferocity,  precocious,  demeanor,  invet- 
erate, despotic,  antinomian,  bizarre,  bogus,  dilettante,  cosmos, 
vitiated,  necropolis,  venality,  exophthalmic,  neurasthenia,  dif- 
ferential, psychoses,  esoteric,  ponderable,  astutely,  fourthlies.  The 
dictionary,  of  course,  would  give  him  the  literal  meanings.  Words, 
however,  have  a  way  of  lying  inert  and  colorless  in  dictionary 
definitions.  They  come  alive  only  when  to  their  denotation  (that 
is,  their  explicit  meaning) ,  is  added  their  connotation,  or  implicit 
meaning.  But  connotation  depends  almost  entirely  on  the  past 
experience  and  knowledge  of  the  speaker.  Richness  of  association 
and  implication  are  given  to  words  only  by  those  who  are  ob- 


Interpreting  Meaning  9 

servant  and  informed.  In  short,  to  bring  out  the  author's  exact 
ideas,  the  interpreter  should  have  not  only  a  direct  knowledge  of 
the  meaning  of  what  he  says  but  a  background  of  reading  and 
association. 

By  looking  up  the  words  in  the  sentence  from  Carlyle,  for  ex- 
ample, we  could  easily  discover  that  a  Hyperborean  is  one  who 
lives  beyond  the  north  wind,  and  that  cherubic  and  seraphic  refer 
to  angelic  creatures.  Literally  the  sentence  means  that  heavenly  rea- 
soning and  eloquence  would  be  wasted  on  a  mythical  dweller  in  a 
far  northern  country.  Knowing  Carlyle  (and  having  the  help  of  the 
context),  we  would  understand  that  his  Hyperborean  metaphori- 
cally describes  any  northern  barbarian,  in  this  case  a  Russian.  Cher- 
ubic and  seraphic  are  exaggerated  ways  of  saying  "unusually  good." 

We  would  have  to  know  Ruskin's  peculiar  explanation  of  the 
word  parasitical  to  understand  its  application  to  sublimity.  He 
believed  that  picturesqueness  in  art  is  the  overstressing  of  acci- 
dental lights  and  shades  and  of  other  merely  pictorial  qualities, 
as  opposed  to  the  essential  forms  of  things.  Picturesqueness  is  sub- 
lime, but  subordinate  to  those  essential  forms. 

The  thoughts  in  Macaulay's  and  Mill's  sentences  are  made  clear 
when  the  literal  meanings  of  the  words  are  established.  But  note 
how  much  more  vivid  the  pictures  become  if  the  connotations  of 
such  words  as  voracity  (from  the  Latin  word  meaning  to  devour), 
despotic  (like  a  tyrannical  master),  and  precocious  (developing 
early,  as  of  something  cooked  beforehand)  are  understood.  Ma- 
caulay's Latin  phrase  needs  translation,  of  course.  It  means  "there- 
fore the  more  bitter  because  he  had  suffered."  Pater's  antinomian, 
literally  "opposed  to  the  law,"  had  a  special  significance  to  him 
that  the  ecclesiastical  sense  of  the  word  does  not  convey. 

Cabell's  words  are  often  annoyingly  obscure,  but  he  does  chal- 
lenge us  to  use  our  dictionaries.  Dilettante,  which  has  come  to 
have  more  meaning  than  the  simple  Italian  of  "one  who  takes 
delight  in  something,"  and  necropolis,  "city  of  the  dead,"  are  inter- 
esting words  here.  Osier's  words  are  mainly  technical.  Mencken 
is  an  unconventional  user  of  words,  about  which  he  knows  a  great 
deal.  You  may  have  some  trouble  in  getting  at  his  meaning  of 
fourthlies.  Try  to  figure  it  out. 

Words,  then,  mean  not  only  what  they  say  but  (i)  what  they 
may  have  once  figuratively  meant,  (2)  what  changes  occurred  in 


io  Reading  to  Others 

their  meaning  over  a  long  period  of  time,  and  (3)  what  they  may 
specifically  mean,  because  of  special  experience,  to  the  writer  and 
to  the  interpreter ._ 

The  good  speaker  or  reader  must  become  interested  in  words. 
He  must  use  the  dictionary  not  merely  as  a  handbook  of  literal 
meanings  which  he  impatiently  consults  but  as  a  treasure  house  of 
imagination  and  wisdom.  Every  time  he  learns  a  new  word  or  a 
new  meaning  for  an  old  word  or  discovers  an  interesting  deriva- 
tion, he  adds  to  his  ability  to  express  himself  forcefully  and 
flexibly.  For  the  speaker  a  flair  for  the  exact  word  is  a  tremendous 
asset;  for  the  interpreter  an  instinctive  recognition  of  word  values 
and  the  subtleties  of  meaning  and  implication  marks  the  difference 
between  a  good  reader  and  a  dull  reader. 

Use  your  dictionary  (which  should  be  a  good  one,  such  as 
Webster's  New  International  or,  for  desk  use,  Webster's  Colle- 
giate, both  published  by  G.  &  C.  Merriam  Co.)  with  enthusiasm 
and  insatiable  curiosity.  Let  one  word  lead  you  to  another,  perhaps 
at  random.  That  is  the  way  to  make  the  rich  discoveries  that 
await  you  in  the  formidable  small  print.  Look  up  some  of  your 
words  in  the  Oxford  English  Dictionary,  which  takes  differences 
in  meanings  back  to  the  exact  time  in  which  they  were  first  used. 
Do  what  the  novelist  Norman  Douglas  once  advised  a  friend  to  do: 
Read  a  page  of  the  dictionary  every  day  and  learn  the  words  that 
amuse  you. 

Exercises 

i.  Look  up  the  following  words,  making  sure  of  their  pro- 
nunciation and  writing  down  notes  on  their  etymology  and 
various  meanings,  if  there  are  more  than  one.  A  bad  habit  of  inex- 
perienced readers  is  to  jot  down  the  first  meaning  listed  under  the 
word  they  are  investigating,  confusing  nouns  with  verbs  and 
archaic  with  colloquial  usages: 

assassin  thermodynamics         proscenium 

automobile  quarantine  villain 

agenda  affidavit  amanuensis 

holograph  amortization  protocol 

euthanasia  deciduous  .     hagiology 

claustrophobia  narcissism  lithography 

schizophrenia  congregation  ambidextrous 


Interpreting  Meaning  1 1 

somnambulism  paleontology  ambition 

syncopation  parthenogenesis          tantalize 

poliomyelitis  brachycephalic  pantomime 

2.  Look  up  all  unfamiliar  words  in  the  sentences  on  pages  7 
and  8.    Make  certain  that  the  meanings  you  apply  are  the  ones 
intended  by  the  authors. 

3.  Be  sure  that  you  know  the  pronunciation  as  well  as  the 
denotation  and  connotation  of  each  of  the  words  in  the  following 
selections,  so  that  you  can  discuss  them  in  class: 

A.  To  these  hereditary  imputations,  of  which  no  man  sees  the  justice, 
till  it  becomes  his  interest  to  see  it,  very  little  regard  is  to  be  shown; 
since  it  does  not  appear  that  they  are  produced  by  ratiocination  or  in- 
quiry, but  received  implicitly,  or  caught  by  a  kind  of  instantaneous  con- 
tagion, and  supported  rather  by  willingness  to  credit,  than  ability  to 
prove  them. 

SAMUEL  JOHNSON,  "Crabbed  Age  and  Youth,"  from  The  Rambler 

B.  Induction,  A  POSTERIORI,  would  have  brought  phrenology  to  admit, 
as  an  innate  and  primitive  principle  of  human  action,  a  paradoxical 
something,  which  we  may  call  PERVERSENESS  for  want  of  a  more  char- 
acteristic term.  EDGAR  ALLAN  POE,  The  Imp  of  the  Perverse 

c.    I  shoved  the  timber  ope  wf  my  omoplat; 
And  IN  VESTIBULO— -,  i'  the  lobby,  to-wit,  .  .  . 
Donned  galligaskins,  antigropiloes, 
And  so  forth;  and,  complete  with  hat  and  gloves, 
One  on  and  one  a-dangle  f  my  hand, 
And  ombrifuge  (Lord  love  you/)  case  o'  rain, 
I  flopped  forth,  'sbiiddikins/  on  my  own  ten  toes. 

C.  S.  CALVERLY,  The  Cock  and  the  Bull 
(a  parody  of  Robert  Browning) 

D.  The  sublimated  wisdom 

Of  China,  Egyptian  discernment,  the  cataclysmic  torrent 
Of  emotion  compressed  in  the  verbs  of  the  Hebrew  language  .  .  . 

MARIANNE  MOORE,  England 

E.  I  have  always  found  that  this  composition  [sassafras  tea]  is  sur- 
prisingly gratifying  to  the  palate  of  a  young  chimney-sweeper—the  oily 
particles  (sassafras  is  slightly  oleaginous)  do  attenuate  and  soften  the 
fuliginous  concretions;  which  are  sometimes  found  (in  dissections)  to 
adhere  to  the  roof  of  the  mouth  of  these  unfledged  practitioners  .  .  . 

;>     CHARLES  LAMB,  In  Praise  of  Chimney-Sweepers 


12  Reading  to  Others 

F.  Occasionally  he  still  read  Kant,  and  he  would  be  as  deep  in  abso- 
lutes, categories,  moments  of  negation,  and  definitions  of  a  concept,  as 
she  with  all  her  complicated  and  extensive  paraphernalia  of  phobias, 
complexes,  fixations,  and  repressions. 

THOMAS  WOLFE,  Of  Time  and  the  River 

NAMES    AND    ALLUSIONS 

Unfamiliar  proper  names  should  be  looked  up  as  well  as  unta- 
miliar  words.  Someone  has  said  that  the  test  of  education  is  the 
number  of  names  you  can  identify.  An  excellent  way  to  be  pre- 
pared for  any  such  test  is  to  let  no  opportunity  slip  to  find  out 
what  you  can  about  the  people  (and  places  and  things)  mentioned 
in  your  reading.  Good  dictionaries  have  biographical  notes  and 
gazetteers  that  give  brief,  bare  facts  about  people  and  places.  En- 
cyclopedias, especially  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  are  much  more 
detailed.  For  facts  about  eminent  English  men  and  women  the 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography  is  the  best  source.  The  Diction- 
ary of  American  Biography  does  the  same  thing  for  distinguished 
Americans.  Who's  Who  (English)  and  Who's  Who  in  America 
will  tell  you  about  living  people.  Many  professional  groups  have 
their  own  lists  of  those  who  have  become  known  in  their  special 
fields:  Examples  are  Who's  Who  in  Education,  Who's  Who  in 
the  Theatre,  etc.  Living  Authors  (Wilson,  1939),  Authors  Today 
and  Yesterday  (Wilson,  1938),  and  American  Authors,  1600-1900 
(Wilson,  1938)  give  short  biographies  of  literary  people. 

Some  names  from  literature  and  mythology  may  require  search 
in  special  books:  The  Oxford  Companion  to  English  Literature, 
compiled  by  Sir  Paul  Harvey  (Oxford,  1932),  is  a  very  useful  refer- 
ence work,  as  are  the  Cambridge  Histories  of  English  and  Amer- 
ican Literature.  For  more  recent  allusions  you  may  refer  to  Con- 
temporary American  Literature  (1929)  and  Contemporary  British 
Literature  (1935),  edited  by  J.  M.  Manly  and  E.  Rickert.  Ebe- 
nezer  Brewer's  Reader's  Handbook  and  Brewer's  Dictionary  of 
Phrase  and  Fable,  though  over  thirty  years  old,  are  still  standard 
reference  works.  Chamber's  Cyclopedia  of  English  Literature  has 
been  revised  and  brought  up  to  date.  Mythological  names  may  be 
found  in  Charles  Mills  Gayley's  Classic  Myths. 

Other  special  reference  books  are  John  Champlin's  Cyclopedia 
of  Painters  and  Painting  (1913),  Josephus  Lamed's  History  for 


Interpreting  Meaning  13 

Ready  Reference  (1913),  Harpers  Encyclopedia  of  Art  (1937), 
Grove's  Dictionary  of  Music  and  Musicians  (1928),  Percy  Scholes's 
The  Oxford  Companion  to  Music  (1938),  James  Cattell's  Ameri- 
can Men  of  Science  (1927). 

Allusions  and  quotations  may  be  traced  in  Bartlett's  Familiar 
Quotations  and  Hoyt's  New  Cyclopedia  of  Practical  Quotations. 

Exercises 

i.  Look  up  and  write  down  the  main  facts  about  the  proper 
names  in  the  following  selections: 

A.  The  DUOMO,  work  of  artists  from  beyond  the  Alps,  so  fantastic 
to  the  eye  of  a  Florentine  used  to  the  mellow,  unbroken  surfaces  of 
Giotto  and  Arnolfo,  was  then  in  all  its  freshness,  and  below,  in  the 
streets  of  Milan,  moved  a  people  as  fantastic,  changeful,  and  dreamlike. 

WALTER  PATER,  The  Renaissance 

B.  Taking  the  roll  of  our  chief  poetical  names,  besides  Shakespeare 
and  Milton,  from  the  age  of  Elizabeth  downwards,  and  going  through 
it— Spenser,  Dryden,  Pope,  Gray,  Goldsmith,  Cowper,  Burns,  Coleridge, 
Scott,  Campbell,  Moore,  Byron,  Shelley,  Keats  ...  —I  think  it  cer- 
tain that  Wordsworth's  name  deserves  to  stand,  and  will  finally  stand, 
above  them  all.  MATTHEW  ARNOLD,  Essays  in  Criticism 

c.  The  great  poet  is  not  Cowley,  imitated  and  idolized  and  repro- 
duced by  every  scribbler  of  his  time;  nor  Pope,  whose  trick  of  style  was 
so  easily  copied  that  to  this  day  we  cannot  trace  his  own  hand  with  any 
certainty  in  the  ILIAD,  nor  Donne,  nor  Sylvester,  nor  the  Delia  Crus- 
cans.  Shakespere's  blank  verse  is  the  most  difficult,  and  Jonsons  the 
most  easy  to  imitate,  of  all  the  Elizabethan  stock. 

ROBERT  BUCHANAN,  The  Fleshly  School  of  Poetry 

D.  I  claim  part  of  the  honor,  I  partake  in  the  pride,  of  her  great  names 
[South  Carolina's].  I  claim  them  for  countrymen,  one  and  all,  The 
Laurenses,  the  Rutledges,  the  Pinckneys,  the  Sumpters,  the  Marions- 
Americans,  all—whose  fame  is  no  more  to  be  hemmed  in  by  State  lines 
than  their  talents  and  patriotism  were  capable  of  being  circumscribed 
within  the  same  narrow  limits.  DANIEL  WEBSTER,  Reply  to  Hayne 

E.   There  are,  who  to  my  person  pay  their  court. 
I  cough  like  Horace,  and,  though  lean,  am  short. 
Great  Ammon's  son  one  shoulder  had  too  high, 
Such  Ovid's  nose,  and  "Sir,  you  have  an  eye"— 
Go  on,  obliging  creatures,  make  me  see 


14  Reading  to  Others 

All  that  disgraced  my  betters  met  in  me. 
Say  for  my  comfort,  languishing  in  bed, 
Just  so  immortal  Mars  held  his  head, 
And  when  I  die,  be  sure  you  let  me  know, 
Great  Homer  died  three  thousand  years  ago. 

ALEXANDER  POPE,  The  Dunciad 

F.   Sometimes  let  gorgeous  Tragedy 
In  sceptered  pall  come  sweeping  by, 
Presenting  Thebes,  or  Pelops'  line, 
Or  the  tale  of  Troy  divine, 
Or  what  (though  rare)  of  later  age 
Ennobled  hath  the  buskined  stage. 
But,  O  sad  Virgin/  that  thy  power 
"  Might  raise  Musseus  from  his  bower; 
Or  bid  the  soul  of  Orpheus  sing 
Such  notes  as,  warbled  to  the  string, 
Drew  iron  tears  down  Pluto's  cheek, 
And  made  Hell  grant  what  love  did  seek; 
Or  call  him  up  that  left  half-told, 
The  story  of  Cambuscan  bold, 
Of  Cam  ball,  and  of  Algarsife, 
And  who  had  Canace  to  wife  .  .  . 

JOHN  MILTON,  II  Penseroso 

G.  No  work,  and  the  ineradicable  need  of  work,  give  rise  to  new  very 
wondrous  life-philosophies,  new  very  wondrous  life-practices/  Dilettant- 
ism, Pococurantism,  Beau-Brummelism,  with  perhaps  an  occasional,  half- 
mad,  protecting  burst  of  Byronism,  establish  themselves. 

THOMAS  CARLYLE,  Past  and  Present 

H.  Equally  in  the  Middle  Ages  did  literature  avoid  deviation  into  the 
credible.  When  carpets  of  brocade  were  spread  in  April  meadows  it 
was  to  the  end  that  barons  and  ladies  might  listen  with  delight  to  pecu- 
liarly unplausible  accounts  of  how  Sire  Roland  held  the  pass  at  Ronce- 
vaux  single-handed  against  an  army,  and  of  Lancelot's  education  at  the 
bottom  of  a  pond  by  Elfin  pedagogues,  and  of  how  Virgil  builded  Naples1 
upon  eggshells.  When  English-speaking  tale-tellers  began  to  concoct 
homespun  romance^,  they  selected  such  themes  as  Bevis  of  Southamp- 
ton's addiction  to  giant-killing,  and  Guy  of  Warwick's  encounter  with 
a  man-eating  cow  eighteen  feet  long,  and  the  exploits  of  Thomas  of 
Reading,  who  exterminated  an  infinity  of  dragons  and  eloped  with 
Prester  John's  daughter  after  jilting  the  Queen  of  Fairyland. 

JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL,  Beyond  Life 


Interpreting  Meaning  15 

1.  Romanticism,  as  everyone  has  heard,  was  a  revolt  of  the  individual. 
The  "Classicism*'  against  which  it  was  a  reaction  meant,  in  the  domain 
of  politics  and  morals,  a  preoccupation  with  society  as  a  whole;  and,  in 
art,  an  ideal  of  objectivity.  In  LE  MISANTHROPE,  in  BERENICE,  in  THE 
WAY  OF  THE  WORLD,  in  GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS,  the  artist  is  out  of  the 
picture:  he  would  consider  it  artistic  bad  taste  to  identify  his  hero  with 
himself  and  to  glorify  himself  with  his  hero,  or  to  intrude  between  the 
reader  and  the  story  and  give  vent  to  his  personal  emotions.   But  in 
REN£,  in  ROLLA,  in  CHILDE  HAROLD,  in  THE  PRELUDE,  the  writer  is 
either  his  own  hero,  or  unmistakably  identified  with  his  hero,  and  the 
personality  and  emotions  of  the  writer  are  presented  as  the  principal 
subject  of  interest.  EDMUND  WILSON,  Axel's  Castle 

j.   Magnifying  and  applying  come  I, 

Outbidding  at  the  start  the  old  cautious  hucksters, 
Taking  myself  the  exact  dimensions  of  Jehovah, 
Lithographing  Kronos,  Zeus  his  son,  and  Hercules  his  grandson, 
Buying  drafts  of  Osiris,  Isis,  Belus,  Brahma,  Buddha, 
In  my  portfolio  placing  Manito  loose,  Allah  on  a  leaf,  the  cruci- 
fix engraved 
With  Odin  and  the  hideous  faced  Mexitli,  and  every  idol  and 

image, 
Taking  them  all  for  what  they  are  worth  and  not  a  cent  more. 

WALT  WHITMAN,  Song  of  Myself 

K.  I'm  a  buffoon,  he  thought:  I'm  Troilus  with  a  cold  in  his  nose, 
not  sighing  but  sneezing  towards  the  Grecian  tents.  I'm  Romeo  under 
the  wrong  window,  Ajax  with  a  boil  in  his  armpit,  Priam  with  a  hun- 
dred harelipped  daughters,  Roland  with  a  pair  of  horns. 

ERIC  LINKLATER,  Magnus  Merriman 

2.  Look  up  and  record  all  words  new  to  you,  identify  quota- 
tions and  allusions,  and  master  all  the  meaning  of  the  following: 

A.    Why,  if  'tis  dancing  you  would  be, 
There's  brisker  pipes  than  poetry. 
Say,  for  what  were  hop-yards  meant, 
Or  why  was  Burton  built  on  Trent? 
Oh,  many  a  peer  of  England  brews 
Livelier  liquor  than  the  Muse, 
And  malt  does  more  than  Milton  can 
To  justify  God's  ways  to  man. 

A.  E.  HOUSMAN,  The  Shropshire  Lad,  LXII 


i6  Reading  to  Others 

B.  How  fine  it  is  to  enter  some  old  town,  walled  and  turreted,  j'ust  at 
the  approach  of  nightfall,  or  to  come  to  some  straggling  village,  with 
the  lights  streaming  through  the  surrounding  gloom;  and  then  after 
inquiring  for  the  best  entertainment  that  the  place  affords,  to  "take 
one's  ease  at  one's  inn/"  These  eventful  moments  in  our  lives'  history 
are  too  precious,  too  full  of  solid,  heartfelt  happiness  to  be  frittered  and 
dribbled  away  in  imperfect  sympathy.  I  would  have  them  all  to  myself, 
and  drain  them  to  the  last  drop:  they  will  do  to  talk  of  or  to  write  about 
afterwards.  What  a  delicate  speculation  it  is,  after  drinking  whole  gob- 
lets of  tea— 

'The  cups  that  cheer,  but  not  inebriate—*' 

and  letting  the  fumes  ascend  into  the  brain,  to  sit  considering  what  we 
shall  have  for  supper— eggs  and  a  rasher,  a  rabbit  smothered  in  onions, 
or  an  excellent  veal-cutlet/  Sancho  in  such  a  situation  once  fixed  upon 
cow-heel;  and  his  choice,  though  he  could  not  help  it,  is  not  to  be  dis- 
paraged. Then  in  the  intervals  of  pictured  scenery  and  Shandean  con- 
templation, to  catch  the  preparation,  and  the  stir  in  the  kitchen. — 
PROCUL,  O  PROCUL  ESTE  PROFANI!  These  hours  are  sacred  to  silence  and 
to  musing,  to  be  treasured  up  in  the  memory,  and  to  feed  the  source  of 
smiling  thoughts  hereafter. 

WILLIAM  HAZLITT,  On  Going  a  Journey 

c.   While  Waterloo  with  Cannae's  carnage  vies, 
Morat  and  Marathon  twin  names  shall  stand; 
They  were  true  Glory's  stainless  victories, 
Won  by  the  unambitious  heart  and  hand 
Of  a  proud,  brotherly,  and  civic  band, 
All  unbought  champions  in  no  princely  cause 
Of  vice-entailed  Corruption;  they  no  land 
Doomed  to  bewail  the  blasphemy  of  laws 
Making  Kings'  rights  divine,  by  some  Draconic  clause. 

LORD  BYRON,  Childe  Harold's 
Pilgrimage,  Canto  III 

D.   Much  have  I  travell'd  in  the  realms  of  gold 
And  many  goodly  states  and  kingdoms  seen; 
Round  many  western  islands  have  I  been 
Which  bards  in  fealty  to  Apollo  hold. 
Oft  of  one  wide  expanse  had  I  been  told 
That  deep-brow'd  Homer  ruled  as  his  demesne: 
Yet  did  I  never  breathe  its  pure  serene 
Till  I  heard  Chapman  speak  out  loud  and  bold; 
—Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken; 


Interpreting  Meaning  17 

Or  like  stout  Cortez,  when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific— and  all  his  men 
Look'd  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise- 
Silent,  upon  a  peak  in  Darien. 

JOHN  KEATS,  On  First  Looking  into  Chapman's  Homer 

E.  Some  things  are  so  completely  ludicrous  that  a  man  MUST  laugh, 
or  die.  To  die  laughing  must  be  the  most  glorious  of  all  glorious  deaths/ 
Sir  Thomas  More — a  very  fine  man  was  Sir  Thomas  More — Sir  Thomas 
More  died  laughing,  you  remember.  Also  in  the  ABSURDITIES  of  Ranisius 
Textor  there  is  a  long  list  of  characters  who  came  to  the  same  mag- 
nificent end.  Do  you  know,  however,  .  .  .  that  at  Sparta— which  is 
now  Palaeochori— at  Sparta,  I  say,  to  the  west  of  the  citadel,  among  a 
chaos  of  scarcely  visible  ruins,  is  a  kind  of  SOCLE  upon  which  are  still 
legible  the  letters  AASM.  They  are  undoubtedly  part  of  TEAAZMA. 
Now  at  Sparta  were  a  thousand  temples  and  shrines  to  a  thousand  dif- 
ferent divinities.  How  exceedingly  strange  that  the  altar  of  Laughter 
should  have  survived  all  the  others/ 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE,  The  Assignation 

GRAMMAR 

That  a  knowledge  of  English  grammar  should  be  desirable  in 
the  interpreter  is  not  an  astonishingly  original  idea.  Yet  many  a 
reader  gets  stuck  in  a  complex  sentence  because  he  doesn't  under- 
stand the  grammatical  relationship  of  the  parts.  Sometimes  he 
just  doesn't  think  to  apply  rules  of  grammar.  Most  sentences  will 
break  down  under  analysis  and  yield  their  reluctant  meanings, 
though  they  remain  stony  enigmas  to  the  interpreter  who  tries  to 
force  his  way  to  their  secrets  by  clumsy  reasoning. 

Study  the  following  excerpts: 

i.  Two  little  visual  Spectra  of  men,  hovering  with  insecure  enough 
cohesion  in  the  midst  of  the  UNFATHOMABLE,  and  to  dissolve  there- 
in, at  any  rate,  very  soon— make  pause  at  the  distance  of  twelve  paces 
asunder;  whirl  round;  and,  simultaneously  by  the  cunningest  mechanism, 
explode  one  another  into  Dissolution. 

THOMAS  CARLYLE,  Sartor  Resartus 

2.   But  only  a  host  of  phantom  listeners 
That  dwelt  in  the  lone  house  then 
Stood  listening  in  the  quiet  of  the  moonlight 
To  that  voice  from  the  world  of  men. 

WALTER  DE  LA  MARE,  The  Listeners 


i8  Reading  to  Others 

3.   If  you  were  April's  lady, 

And  I  were  lord  in  May, 
We'd  throw  with  leaves  for  hours 
And  draw  for  days  with  flowers. 

ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE,  A  Match 

4.   Some  men  a  forward  motion  love, 
But  I  by  backward  steps  would  move; 
And  when  this  dust  falls  to  the  urn, 
In  that  state  I  came,  return. 

HENRY  VAUGHAN,  The  Retreat 

5.   For  thy  sweet  love  remembered  such  wealth  brings 
That  then  I  scorn  to  change  my  state  with  Icings. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  Sonnet  29 

6.   Creeds  and  schools  in  abeyance, 

Retiring  back  a  while  sufficed  at  what  they  are,  but  never  forgotten, 
I  harbor  for  good  or  bad,  I  permit  to  speak  at  every  hazard, 
Nature  without  check  with  original  energy. 

WALT  WHITMAN,  Song  of  Myself 

7.   Now  fades  the  glimmering  landscape  on  the  sight, 
And  all  the  air  a  solemn  stillness  holds. 

THOMAS  GRAY,  Elegy 

8.   She,  men  would  have  to  be  your  mother  once, 
Old  Gandolf  envied  me,  so  fair  she  was. 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  The  Bishop  Orders  His  Tomb 

9.  And  here  be  it  submitted  that,  apparently  going  to  corroborate  the 
doctrine  of  man's  fall— a  doctrine  now  popularly  ignored— it  is  observable 
that  where  certain  virtues  pristine  and  unadulterate  peculiarly  character- 
ize anybody  in  the  external  uniform  of  civilization,  they  will  upon  scru- 
tiny seem  not  to  be  derived  from  custom  or  convention  but  rather  to  be 
out  of  keeping  with  these,  as  if  indeed  exceptionally  transmitted  from  a 
period  prior  to  Cain's  City  and  citified  man. 

HERMAN  MELVILLE,  Billy  Budd,  Foretopman 

jo.   I  sent  thee  late  a  rosy  wreath, 
Not  so  much  honoring  thee 
As  giving  it  a  hope  that  there 

It  could  not  withered  be.       BEN  JONSON,  To  Celia 


Interpreting  Meaning  19 

Some  of  these  constructions  may  be  made  clear  by  careful  search 
for  the  proper  grammatical  relationships.  In  Gray's  line,  "And  all 
the  air  a  solemn  stillness  holds/'  "solemn  stillness"  is  the  object  of 
"holds/'  not  the  subject.  Shakespeare's  "For  thy  sweet  love  re- 
membered such  wealth  brings"  might  seem  in  hasty  reading  to 
mean  that  the  love  remembered  the  wealth.  Of  course  "remem- 
bered" modifies  "love,"  which  is  the  subject  of  the  verb  "brings." 
In  de  la  Mare's  lines  the  grammatical  point  at  issue  is  the  syntax 
of  "then."  Does  it  modify  "dwelt"  or  "stood"?  Browning's  "she" 
should  properly  be  an  objective  case,  object  of  "envied":  Old  Gan- 
dolf  envied  me  her  who  men  once  thought  was  your  mother,  be- 
cause she  was  so  beautiful. 

Sometimes  the  grammar  is  more  obscure.  What  is  the  subject 
of  "to  dissolve"  in  the  sentence  from  Carlyle?  Swinburne's 

We'd  throw  with  leaves  for  hours 
And  draw  for  days  with  flowers 

is  very  puzzling  until  the  emergence  of  the  image  shows  that  "for 
hours"  and  "for  days"  do  not  mean  the  length  of  time  the  throw- 
ing and  drawing  go  on,  but  are  the  prizes  for  throwing  (as  with 
dice,  here  leaves)  and  drawing  (as  with  cards,  here  flowers).  The 
meaning  of  the  lines  from  Whitman  requires  a  good  deal  of 
examination  of  the  grammatical  construction.  What  is  the  object 
of  the  verb  "I  harbor"?  What  do  "in  abeyance"  and  "sufficed" 
refer  to?  Should  there  be  a  pause  after  "check"  so  that  "with  orig- 
inal energy"  modifies  "nature"  and  not  "check"?  Melville's  in- 
volved sentence  takes  some  study  before  its  meaning  is  revealed. 
The  pronouns  are  rather  vague,  for  one  thing  (as  are  the  two  it's 
in  the  lines  from  Jonson).  "They,"  at  the  beginning  of  the  main 
clause,  refers  to  "virtues,"  rather  than  to  "anybody."  "Pristine" 
and  "unadulterate"  modify  "virtues."  "Going,"  in  the  first  line, 
is  what  the  composition  books  call  a  dangling  participle,  modify- 
ing no  apparent  noun.  What  are  the  syntax  and  exact  meaning 
of  "late"  and  "there"  in  Ben  Jonson's  lines? 

One  of  the  commonest  forms  of  grammatical  construction  is 
that  of  the  subordinate  clause  or  phrase.  Yet  readers  constantly 
muddle  meanings  by  failing  to  express  the  proper  relationship 
between  the  dependent  idea  and  the  main  idea.  In  the  following 
sentence,  taken  from  a  speech  by  former  Governor  Ritchie  of 


20  Reading  to  Others 

Maryland,  the  subordination  of  the  first  clauses  is  absolutely  ne- 
cessary to  a  clear  understanding  of  his  point: 

But  when  you  view  the  "New  Deal"  policies  as  a  whole — particularly 
those  which  change  the  basic  structure  of  the  American  government,  and 
threaten  if  they  do  not  destroy  the  self-governing  functions  of  the  States 
and  the  free  and  independent  spirit  of  the  people — then  I  believe  we  see 
that  the  hope  of  these  United  States  lies,  as  it  always  has,  in  the  strength 
of  a  virile,  unshaJcen,  and  abiding  faith  in  the  Constitution  of  the  land, 
and  in  its  adaptability  to  changing  times  and  changing  conditions. 

This  is  far  from  being  a  model  sentence,  since  it  is  very  long 
and  involved  and  full  of  cliches,  but  it  is  the  sort  of  thing  that 
often  faces  interpreters.  Subordination  is  grammatically  apparent 
in  conjunctions  and  pronouns  like  if,  which,  when,  that,  as,  etc. 
When  ideas  are  equal,  they  are  usually  connected  by  coordinating 
conjunctions  like  and,  or,  and  but.  The  reader  should  express 
these  interrelationships  by  changes  of  pitch  and  volume  and  by 
pauses. 

In  poetry,  as  the  illustrations  above  indicate,  grammar  is  less 
orthodox  than  in  most  prose.  A  poet  under  the  compulsion  of 
meter  or  rhyme  may  with  impunity  violate  one  or  another  of  the 
established  rules.  Sentences  normally  have  subjects  and  verbs, 
number  and  case  follow  patterns  of  agreement,  adjectives  ordi- 
narily modify  nouns,  and  pronouns  usually  have  discoverable 
antecedents.  But  the  reader  must  know  that  in  poetry  many  of 
these  rules  or  conventions  may  be  altered.  Sentences  may  be  in- 
complete or  run  together,  adjectives  may  modify  verbs,  and  pro- 
nouns may  wander  around  without  antecedents.  The  reader's 
task  is  to  apply  his  knowledge  of  grammar  in  an  effort  to  unravel 
the  complexities;  then  if  that  doesn't  work,  to  apply  his  common 
sense  as  well  as  his  imagination. 

Exercises 

Study  the  following  selections,  making  sure  you  understand  the 
grammatical  relationships  in  every  sentence.  Be  prepared  to  ex- 
plain and  defend  your  interpretation.  If  you  are  doubtful  about 
usage,  consult  a  good  handbook  like  Garland  Greever  and  Easley 
Jones,  Century  Collegiate  Handbook  (Appleton-Century,  1939), 
or  Porter  G.  Perrin,  An  Index  to  English  (Scott,  Foresman,  1939). 


Interpreting  Meaning  21 

i.   Let  man's  soul  be  a  sphere,  and  then,  in  this, 
Th'  intelligence  that  moves,  devotion  is; 
And  as  the  other  spheres,  by  being  grown 
Subject  to  foreign  motion,  Jose  their  own, 
And  being  by  others  hurried  every  day, 
Scarce  in  a  year  their  natural  form  obey; 
Pleasure  or  business,  so,  our  souls  admit 
For  their  first  mover,  and  are  whirl'd  by  it. 
Hence  is't,  that  I  am  carried  towards  the  West, 
This  day,  when  my  soul's  form  bends  to  the  East. 
There  I  should  see  a  Sun  by  rising  set, 
And  by  that  setting  endless  day  beget. 
But  that  Christ  on  His  cross  did  rise  and  fall, 
Sin  had  eternally  benighted  all. 
Yet  dare  I  almost  be  glad,  I  do  not  see 
That  spectacle  of  too  much  weight  for  me. 
Who  sees  God's  face,  that  is  self-life,  must  die; 
What  a  death  were  it  then  to  see  God  die? 
It  made  His  own  lieutenant,  Nature,  shrink; 
It  made  His  footstool  crack,  and  the  sun  winlc. 
Could  I  behold  those  hands,  which  span  the  poles 
And  tune  all  spheres  at  once,  pierced  with  those  holes? 
Could  I  behold  that  endless  height,  which  is 
Zenith  to  us  and  our  antipodes, 
Humbled  below  us?  or  that  blood,  which  is 
The  seat  of  all  our  souls,  if  not  of  His, 
Made  dirt  of  dust,  or  that  flesh  which  was  worn 
By  God  for  His  apparel,  ragged  and  torn? 
If  on  these  things  I  durst  not  look,  durst  I 
On  His  distressed  Mother  cast  mine  eye, 
Who  was  God's  partner  here,  and  furnish'd  thus 
Half  of  that  sacrifice  which  ransom'd  us? 
Though  these  things  as  I  ride  be  from  mine  eye, 
They're  present  yet  unto  my  memory, 
For  that  looks  towards  them;  and  Thou  look'st  towards  me, 

0  Saviour,  as  Thou  hang'st  upon  the  tree. 

1  turn  my  back  to  Thee  but  to  receive 
Corrections  till  Thy  mercies  bid  Thee  leave. 
O  think  me  worth  Thine  anger,  punish  me, 
Burn  off  my  rust,  and  my  deformity; 
Restore  Thine  image,  so  much,  by  Thy  grace, 
That  Thou  mayst  know  me,  and  I'll  turn  my  face. 

JOHN  DONNE,  Good  Friday,  1613,  Riding  Westward 


22  Reading  to  Others 

2.   Down  the  road  someone  is  practising  scales, 

The  notes  like  little  fishes  vanish  with  a  wink  of  tails, 

Man's  heart  expands  to  tinker  with  his  car 

For  this  is  Sunday  morning,  Fate's  great 

Regard  these  means  as  ends,  concentrate  on  this  Now, 

And  you  may  grow  to  music  or  drive  beyond  Hindhead  anyhow, 

Take  corners  on  two  wheels  until  you  go  so  fast 

That  you  can  clutch  a  fringe  or  two  of  the  windy  past, 

That  you  can  abstract  this  day  and  make  it  to  the  week  of  time 

A  small  eternity,  a  sonnet  self-contained  in  rhyme. 

But  listen,  up  the  road,  something  gulps,  the  church  spire 
Opens  its  eight  bells  out,  skull's  mouths  which  will  not  tire 
To  tell  how  there  is  no  music  or  movement  which  secures 
Escape  from  the  weekday  time.  Which  deadens  and  endures. 

Louis  MACNEICE,  Sunday  Morning 

3.    Lead,  Kindly  Light,  amid  the  encircling  gloom, 

Lead  Thou  me  on! 
The  night  is  dark,  and  I  am  far  from  home! 

Lead  Thou  me  on. 

Keep  Thou  my  feet;  I  do  not  ask  to  see 
The  distant  scene— one  step  enough  for  me. 

I  was  not  ever  thus,  nor  prayed  that  Thou 

Shouldst  lead  me  on. 
I  loved  to  choose  and  see  my  path,  but  now 

Lead  Thou  me  on/ 

I  loved  the  garish  day,  and,  spite  of  fears, 
Pride  ruled  my  will:  remember  not  past  years. 

So  long  Thy  power  hath  blest  me,  sure  it  still 

Will  lead  me  on, 
O'er  moor  and  fen,  o'er  crag  and  torrent  till 

The  night  is  gone, 

And  with  the  morn  those  angel  faces  smile 
Which  I  have  loved  long  since,  and  lost  awhile. 

JOHN  HENRY,  CARDINAL  NEWMAN,  The  Pillar  of  the  Cloud 

4.   Mr  Bloom  entered  and  sat  in  the  vacant  place.    He  pulled  the 
door  to  after  him  and  slammed  it  tight  till  it  shut  tight.  He  passed  an 


Interpreting  Meaning  23 

arm  through  the  armstrap  and  looked  seriously  from  the  open  carnage 
window  at  the  lowered  blinds  of  the  avenue.  One  dragged  aside:  an  old 
woman  peeping.  Nose  whiteflattened  against  the  pane.  Thanking  her 
stars  she  was  passed  over.  Extraordinary  the  interest  they  take  in  a  corpse. 
Glad  to  see  us  go  we  give  them  such  trouble  coming.  Job  seems  to  suit 
them.  Huggermugger  in  corners.  Slop  about  in  slipperslappers  for  fear 
he'd  wake.  Then  getting  it  ready.  Laying  it  out.  Molly  and  Mrs  Flem- 
ing making  the  bed.  Pull  it  more  to  your  side.  Our  windingsheet.  Never 
know  who  will  touch  you  dead.  Wash  and  shampoo.  I  believe  they  clip 
the  nails  and  the  hair.  Keep  a  bit  in  an  envelope.  Grow  all  the  same 
after.  Unclean  job. 

JAMES  JOYCE,  Ulysses 

5.   How  soon  hath  Time,  the  subtle  thief  of  youth, 
Stolen  on  his  wing  my  three  and  twentieth  year/ 
My  hasting  days  fly  on  with  full  career, 
But  my  late  spring  no  bud  or  blossom  shew'th. 
Perhaps  my  semblance  might  deceive  the  truth, 
That  I  to  manhood  am  arrived  so  near, 
And  inward  ripeness  doth  much  Jess  appear, 
That  some  more  timely-happy  spirits  endu'th. 
Yet  be  it  less  or  more,  or  soon  or  slow, 
It  shall  be  still  in  strictest  measure  even 

To  that  same  lot,  however  mean  or  high, 
Toward  which  Time  leads  me,  and  the  will  of  Heaven. 
All  is,  if  I  have  grace  to  use  it  so, 

As  ever  in  my  great  Task-master's  eye. 

JOHN  MILTON,  On  His  Being  Arrived  at  the 
Age  of  Twenty-Three 

PUNCTUATION 

In  the  schools,  punctuation  is  all  too  often  made  into  a  kind  of 
painful  mystery.  Its  chief  purpose  seems  to  be  to  harass  students 
of  composition,  who  doggedly  supply  commas,  apostrophes,  semi- 
colons, and  the  like  in  the  proper  places  and,  when  they  graduate, 
triumphantly  ignore  punctuation  all  the  rest  of  their  lives.  When 
any  attention  at  all  is  given  to  reading  aloud,  the  staple  of  instruc- 
tion as  far  as  punctuation  is  concerned  is  "Drop  the  voice  at 
commas"  and  "Have  an  upward  inflection  when  you  come  to  a 
question  mark." 


24  Reading  to  Others 

Punctuation  should  be  rather  more  to  the  interpreter  than 
these  two  doubtful  rules.  On  the  other  hand  it  should  not  be  a 
mere  leaning  post.  That  it  is  useful  in  establishing  meaning  is 
apparent  when  we  try  to  decipher  a  passage  without  punctuation. 
Children  who  scribble  along,  running  ideas  together  without  sepa- 
ration, and  adults  who  write  their  letters  in  the  same  way  are 
likely  to  be  fuzzy  thinkers.  So  are  readers  who  disregard  the 
pauses  in  what  they  are  interpreting,  whether  or  not  the  places 
are  marked  off  by  punctuation. 

A  few  points  about  punctuation  for  the  interpreter  may  be 
stated  definitely: 

1.  Full  stops— periods,  semicolons,  colons,  question  marks,  ex- 
clamation points— always  mark  the  ends  of  phrases  and  should 
therefore  be  indicated  by  pauses  long  enough  for  new  breath,  a 
quick  survey  of  the  next  phrase,  and  possibly  a  change  in  em- 
phasis. 

2.  Dashes  usually  indicate  long  pauses  with  change  in  tone- 
color  or  tempo. 

°r  Commas  ficquently  mark  phrase  endings  but  not  always. 
Unless  the  meaning  requires  a  conclusive  inflection,  the  reader 
will  do  well  if  he  tends  to  keep  his  inflections  level  and  forward- 
looking  after  commas.  There  is  nothing  so  detrimental  to  inter- 
esting meaning  as  a  melancholy  series  of  dropped  inflections. 

4.  Question  marks  may  or  may  not  demand  an  upward  inflec- 
tion. In  normal  conversation  we  do  not  really  ask  as  many  ques- 
tions with  the  final  upward  inflection  as  elementary  school  teachers 
often  prescribe.  "Did  he  come?"  we  say,  or,  "Is  this  all  we  get?" 
or,  "Shall  I  say  anything  about  it?"  all  with  upward  inflection. 
But  many  of  our  questions  end  with  a  downward  inflection:  "How 
do  you  do?"  "Where  were  you?"  "Hasn't  the  weather  been  fine?" 
There  is  no  rule  that  applies  to  all  questions.  If  it  "feels"  right, 
the  inflection,  whether  upward  or  downward,  is  probably  acccu- 
rate.  But  beware  of  asking  all  questions  in  the  same  way.  Varia- 
tion is  still  the  secret  of  lively  meaning. 

Very  often  punctuation  determines  meaning.  Notice  how  the 
meaning  changes  with  the  punctuation  in  the  following  passages: 

i.   Woman,  without  her  man,  would  be  a  savage. 
Woman/  Without  her,  man  would  be  a  savage. 


Interpreting  Meaning  25 

2.   The  sun  went  down  in  a  red  haze; 
The  duchess  had  her  tea; 
With  a  live  minnow  the  fisherman  baited  his  line. 

The  sun  went  down;  in  a  red  haze 

The  duchess  had  her  tea  with  a  live  minnow; 

The  fisherman  baited  his  line. 

3.    You  can't  take  it  with  you. 
You  can't?  Take  it  with  you/ 

4.   O  Romeo,  Romeo/  wherefore  art  thou,  Romeo? 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  Romeo  and  Juliet 

O  Romeo,  Romeo/  wherefore  art  thou  Romeo? 

5.   Some  folks  I  know  arc  always  worried. 
Some  folks,  I  know,  are  always  worried. 

6.  One,  who  is  not,  we  see:  but  one,  whom  we  sec  not,  is; 
Surely  this  is  not  that:  but  that  is  assuredly  this. 

ALGERNON  SWINBURNE,  The  Higher  Pantheism  in  a  Nutshell 

One  who  is  not  we  see  but  one;  whom  we  see  not  is 
Surely  this;  is  not  that  but  that;  is  assuredly  this. 

7.  The  world  is  too  much  with  us;  late  and  soon, 
Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers. 

WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH 

The  world  is  too  much  with  us  late  and  soon; 
Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers. 

8.    I  bring  fresh  showers  for  the  thirsting  flowers, 

From  the  seas  and  the  streams; 
J  bear  light  shade  for  the  leaves  when  laid 

In  their  noonday  dreams. 
From  my  wings  are  shaken  the  dews  that  waken 

The  sweet  birds  every  one. 

PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY,  The  Cloud 


26  Reading  to  Others 

I  bring  fresh  showers  for  the  thirsting  flowers; 

From  the  seas  and  the  streams 
I  bear  light  shade  for  the  leaves;  when 

Laid  in  their  noonday  dreams, 
From  my  wings  are  shaken  the  dews  that  waken 

The  sweet  birds  every  one. 

9.   If  it  were  done— when  'tis  done— then  'twere  well 
It  were  done  quickly:  if  th'  assassination 
Could  trammel  up  the  consequence,  and  catch, 
With  his  surcease,  success. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  Macbeth 

If  it,  were  done  when  'tis  done,  then  'twere  well. 
It  were  done  quickly  if  th'  assassination 
Could  trammel  up  the  consequence,  and  catch, 
With  his  surcease,  success. 

10.    If  we  offend,  it  is  with  our  good  will. 

That  you  should  think,  we  come  not  to  offend, 

But  with  good  will.  To  show  our  simple  skill, 

That  is  the  true  beginning  of  our  end. 

Consider,  then,  we  come  but  in  despite. 

We  do  not  come  as  minding  to  content  you, 

Our  true  intent  is.  All  for  your  delight, 

We  are  not  here.  That  you  should  here  repent  you, 
The  actors  are  at  hand;  and,  by  their  show, 
You  shall  know  all  that  you  are  like  to  know. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 

What  does  the  Prologue  mean  when  he  speaks  the  lines  above  in 
the  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  play  within  the  play?  Theseus,  Lysander, 
and  Hippolyta,  listening  to  the  play,  comment  on  the  Prologue's 
delivery: 

THESEUS 

This  fellow  doth  not  stand  upon  points— 

LYSANDER 

He  hath  rid  his  prologue  like  a  rough  cold;  he  knows  not  the  stop. 
A  good  moral,  my  lord:  it  is  not  enough  to  speak,  but  to  speak  true. 


Interpreting  Meaning  27 

HIPPOLYTA 

Indeed  he  hath  play'd  on  his  prologue  like  a  child  on  a  recorder; 
A  sound,  but  not  in  government. 

THESEUS 

His  speech  was  like  a  tangled  chain:  nothing  impaired,  but  all  dis- 
ordered. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 

For  all  readers  there  is  also  a  good  moral  in  the  principle,  "It  is 
not  enough  to  speak,  but  to  speak  true." 

11.   I  saw  a  peacock  with  a  fiery  tail 

I  saw  a  blazing  comet  pour  down  hail 

I  saw  a  cloud  all  wrapt  with  ivy  round 

I  saw  a  lofty  oak  creep  on  the  ground 

I  saw  a  beetle  swallow  up  a  whale 

I  saw  a  foaming  sea  brimful  of  ale 

I  saw  a  pewter  cup  sixteen  feet  deep 

I  saw  a  well  full  of  men's  tears  that  weep 

I  saw  wet  eyes  in  flames  of  living  fire 

I  saw  a  house  as  high  as  the  moon  and  higher 

I  saw  the  glorious  sun  at  deep  midnight 

I  saw  the  man  who  saw  this  wondrous  sight. 

I  saw  a  pack  of  cards  gnawing  a  bone 

I  saw  a  dog  seated  on  Britain's  throne 

I  saw  King  George  shut  up  within  a  box 

I  saw  an  orange  driving  a  fat  ox 

I  saw  a  butcher  not  twelvemonth  old 

I  saw  a  great-coat  all  of  solid  gold 

I  saw  two  buttons  telling  of  their  dreams 

I  saw  my  friends  who  wished  I'd  quit  these  themes. 

ANONYMOUS 

Put  a  comma  after  the  first  noun  in  each  line  and  observe  the 
difference  in  meaning. 

Notice  the  effect  of  the  following  lines: 

12.   Thine  eyes,  dear  one,  dot,  dot,  are  like,  dash,  what? 
They,  pure  as  sacred  oils,  bless  and  anoint 
My  sin-swamped  soul  which  at  thy  feet  sobs  out, 
O  exclamation  point,  O  point,  O  point/ 


28  Reading  to  Others 

Ah,  had  I  words,  blank,  blank,  which,  dot,  IVe  not, 
I'd  swoon  in  songs  which  should'st  illume  the  dark 
With  light  of  thee.  Ah,  God  (it's  strong  to  swear) 
Why,  why,  interrogation  mark,  why,  mark? 

Dot  dot  dot  dot.  And  so,  dash,  yet,  but  nay/ 
My  tongue  takes  pause;  some  words  must  not  be  said. 
For  fear  the  world,  cold  hyphen-eyed,  austere, 
Should' st  shake  thee  by  the  throat  till  reason  fled. 

One  hour  of  love.weVe  had.  Dost  thou  recall 
Dot  dot  dash  blank  interrogation  mark? 
The  night  was  ours,  blue  heaven  over  all 
Dash,  God/  dot  stars,  keep  thou  our  secret  dark/ 

MARION  HILL 

13.  "The  Sun  Brothers  are  down  on  the  bills  for  a  colossal  exhibi- 
tion under  canvas  at  the  showgrounds  east  of  the  square  Monday  and 
Tuesday  and  Tuesday  matinee.  It  is  said  there  will  be  tumblers,  iron- 
jawed  wonders,  clowns,  acronasts  and  gymbats.  The  bills  say  it  will  be 
mighty,  moral  and  meritorious,  but  do  not  leave  out  the  comma/' 

EDGAR  HANFORD,  "The  Sun  Still  Shines," 
New  York  Times,  Apr.  23,  1939 

Exercises 

Observe  the  crisp  effect  of  the  punctuation  in  the  following  selec- 
tions by  reading  them  aloud: 

1.  "H'm,  what's  he  like?" 

"Bit  snuffy.  Pillar  of  local  Baptist  Chapel.  Good  Templar-— believe 
that's  what  they  call  'em— doesn't  smoke,  swear,  or  tread  any  path  of 
dalliance.  Lives  alone;  chick  nor  child.  Fond  of  work,  money,  and  Sun- 
days. About  five  feet  high  and  stoops  at  that;  no  color  anywhere;  nose 
large  and  usually  decorated  with  dew-drop;  steel-rimmed  glasses,  bald- 
ish,  grayish,  loose  lips,  looks  all  gums,  teeth  brown  ruins." 

NEIL  BELL,  Life  and  Andrew  Otway 

2.  So  dem  boids  don't  tink  I  belong,  neider.   Aw,  to  hell  wit  'em/ 
Dey're  in  de  wrong  pew— de  same  old  bull— soapboxes  and  Salvation 
army— no  guts/  Cut  out  an  hour  offen  de  job  a  day  and  make  me  happy/ 
Three  square  a  day,  and  cauliflowers  in  de  front  yard— ekal  rights— a 
woman  and  kids— a  lousy  vote— and  I'm  all  fixed  for  Jesus,  huh?   Aw, 
hell/  What  does  dat  get  you?  Dis  ting's  in  your  inside,  but  it  ain't  your 
belly.    Feedin'  your  face— sinkers  and  coffee— dat  don't  touch  it.    It's 


Interpreting  Meaning  29 

way  down— at  de  bottom.  You  can't  grab  it,  and  yuh  can't  stop  it.  It 
moves,  and  everything  moves.  It  stops  and  de  whole  woild  stops.  Dat' s 
me  now— I  don't  tick,  see?— I'm  a  busted  Ingersoll,  dat's  what.  Steel 
was  me,  and  I  owned  de  woild.  Now  I  ain't  steel,  and  de  woild  owns 
me.  Aw  hell/  I  can't  see— it's  all  dark,  get  me?  It's  all  wrong/  Say, 
youse  up  dere,  Man  in  de  Moon,  you  look  so  wise,  gimme  de  answer, 
huh?  Slip  me  de  inside  dope,  de  information  right  from  the  stable- 
where  do  I  get  off  at,  huh?  EUGENE  O'NEILL,  The  Hairy  Ape 

3.  Books  are  the  best  of  things,  well  used;  abused,  among  the  worst. 
What  is  the  right  use?  What  is  the  one  end  which  all  means  go  to  effect? 
They  are  for  nothing  but  to  inspire.  I  had  better  never  see  a  book  than 
to  be  warped  by  its  attraction  clean  out  of  my  own  orbit,  and  made  a 
satellite  instead  of  a  system.  The  one  thing  in  the  world,  of  value,  is  the 
active  soul.  This  every  man  is  entitled  to;  this  every  man  contains  within 
him,  although  in  almost  all  men  obstructed,  and  as  yet  unborn.    The 
soul  active  sees  absolute  truth  and  utters  truth,  or  creates.  In  this  action 
it  is  genius;  not  the  privilege  of  here  and  there  a  favorite,  but  the  sound 
estate  of  every  man.  In  its  essence  it  is  progressive.  The  book,  the  col- 
lege, the  school  of  art,  the  institution  of  any  kind,  stop  with  some  past 
utterance  of  genius.  This  is  good,  say  they— let  us  hold  by  this.  They  pin 
me  down.   They  look  backward  and  not  forward.  But  genius  looks  for- 
ward: the  eyes  of  man  are  set  in  his  forehead,  not  in  his  hind  head:  man 
hopes:  genius  creates.  Whatever  talents  may  be,  if  the  man  create  not, 
the  pure  efflux  of  the  Deity  is  not  his;— cinders  and  smoke  there  may 
be,  but  not  yet  flame.    There  are  creative  manners,  there  are  creative 
actions,  and  creative  words;  manners,  actions,  words,  that  is,  indicative  of 
no  custom  or  authority,  but  springing  spontaneous  from  the  mind's  own 
sense  of  good  and  fair. 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON,  The  American  Scholar 

4.  He  stood— for  I  repeat  it,  to  take  the  picture  of  him  in  one  view, 
with  his  body  swayed,  and  somewhat  bent  forwards— his  right  leg  from 
under  him,  sustaining  seven-eighths  of  his  whole  weight— the  foot  of  his 
left  leg,  the  defect  of  which  was  no  disadvantage  to  his  attitude,  ad- 
vanced a  little— not  laterally,  nor  forwards,  but  in  a  line  betwixt  them;— 
his  knee  bent,  but  that  not  violently  but  so  as  to  fall  within  the  limits 
of  the  line  of  beauty;— and  I  add,  of  the  line  of  science  too;— for  con- 
sider, it  had  one-eighth  part  of  his  body  to  bear  up;— so  that  in  this  case 
the  position  of  the  leg  is  determined  because  the  foot  could  be  no  far- 
ther advanced,  or  the  knee  more  bent,  than  what  would  allow  him, 
mechanically  to  receive  an  eighth  part  of  his  whole  weight  under  it,  and 
to  carry  it  too.  LAURENCE  STERNE,  Tristram  Shandy 


go  Reading  to  Others 

PHRASING   AND    CENTERING 

PHRASING.  The  phrase  is  the  basic  unit  of  interpretation.  It  is 
the  grouping  of  logically  related  words  (not  necessarily  gram- 
matical phrases)  unseparated  by  stops  for  breathing.  Phrasing  de- 
pends upon  meaning,  of  course.  A  good  illustration  of  the  neces- 
sity of  phrasing  is  the  well-known  sentence,  "That  that  is  is  that 
that  is  not  is  not."  Read  fast  and  without  attention  to  pauses,  it  is 
meaningless.  Properly  phrased,  it  becomes  "That— that  is— is;  that 
—that  is  not—  is  not."  Only  the  slovenly  or  stupid  or  low-powered 
reader  breaks  up  natural  groups  by  interrupting  them  for  breath 
or  for  meter  or  for  any  other  reason  except  that  of  deliberate  em- 
phasis. For  example,  the  reader  who  stops  after  "dreams"  in  the 
lines 

For  the  moon  never  beams,  without  bringing  me  dreams 
Of  the  beautiful  Annabel  Lee, 

is  falsely  phrasing  and  probably  jingling.  After  "beams"  is  a  short 
pause,  concluding  a  logical  group.  The  next  phrase  should  end 
only  at  "Lee."  In  Lew  Sarett's  lines, 

Let  me  go  down  to  dust  and  dreams 
Gently,  O  Lord,  with  never  a  fear 
Of  death  beyond  the  day  that  is  done, 

a  pause  after  "dreams"  (always  made  by  the  unwary  or  unpre- 
pared reader  of  these  lines,  simply  because  the  verse  ends)  would 
make  the  next  phrase  absurd.  "Gently"  logically  and  grammati- 
cally belongs  with  "Let  me  go  down  to  dust  and  dreams."  "With 
never  a  fear"  needs  "of  death"  to  complete  its  meaning.  If  the 
phrase  is  ended  at  "fear,"  the  hearer's  mind  must  adjust  itself  to 
an  abruptly  added  qualification  of  fear.  "Let  me  go  down  to  dust 
and  dreams  .  .  .  with  never  a  fear"  makes  sense.  But  Sarett  does 
not  say  that;  he  says,  "With  never  a  fear  of  death.'9 

Since  phrasing  is  closely  associated  with  breathing  (indeed, 
phrases  are  sometimes  identified  with  breath  groups),  poorly  con- 
trolled spacing  of  inhalation  may  do  fearful  things  to  the  logical 
phrases.  Then  the  unfortunate  reader  may  break  up  his  sentences 
into  groups  like  these: 

On  our  recent— visit  to  the  mountains  we  saw  much  rhododendron— 
and  azalea  our  visit  covered  several  of  the  Southern  states. 


Interpreting  Meaning  31 

The  sinner  guilty  of  such  pitiful  reading  is  either  blind  to  mean- 
ing, short-winded,  or  simply  careless  about  pauses  (which  provide 
rest-stops  and  opportunities  for  re-fueling).  Worst  offenders  are 
those  who  either  self-consciously  or  heedlessly  read  along  until 
their  breath  supply  gives  out;  whereupon  they  take  new  breath, 
regardless  of  the  cost  to  meaning,  and  go  on  until  they  have  to 
gasp  again.  Nearly  as  bad  are  those  too  fragile  or  indolent  to  take 
deep  breath,  who  must  sip  daintily  at  air  every  three  or  four  words. 
Phrases  are,  then,  marked  off  by  pauses  of  varying  length.  The 
brief  pause  which  indicates  a  shade  of  meaning  or  special  em- 
phasis (pausing  just  before  a  word  makes  it  stand  out  from  the 
rest  of  its  phrase)  does  not,  strictly  speaking,  mark  a  phrase;  it 
should  not  be  a  stop  for  breath.  The  longer  pause,  always  at 
full  sentence  stops  and  at  breaks  within  sentences  which  gram- 
matically or  logically  separate  one  part  from  another,  may  be  and 
usually  should  be  accompanied  by  inhalation.  At  these  pauses 
the  reader  should 

1.  Take  new  breath. 

2.  Quickly  survey  the  next  phrase  and  determine  its  re 

lationship  to  the  last. 

3.  Give  his  hearers  a  chance  to  catch  up. 

4.  Change  tempo,  volume,  pitch,  or  vocal  quality,  if  de- 

sirable (and  some  change  is  nearly  always  desirable). 

Phrasing  is  not  an  established  thing,  governed  by  regular  rules. 
Most  of  the  long  pauses  are  dictated  by  meaning,  which  may 
differ  according  to  the  reader's  interpretation.  For  the  most  part, 
however,  the  principal  stops  in  a  given  selection  would  be  more  or 
less  the  same  for  all  speakers,  though  their  tone  color  and  inflec- 
tions and  force  might  vary  widely.  The  shorter  pauses  would 
probably  not  agree  at  all.  Very  precise  reading  too,  as  to  children, 
or  formal  reading  or  speaking  makes  for  frequent  pausing  (and 
therefore  short  phrases);  excited  or  informal  reading  makes  for 
long  phrases. 

Too  long  phrases  are  objectionable  because  they  crowd  ideas 
together  and  encourage  speed  in  speech.  Even  more  objectionable 
are  phrases  that  are  too  short,  cutting  ideas  into  ragged  fragments, 
setting  up  an  artificial  rhythm,  and  constantly  intruding  noisy 
little  snatches  after  breath.  The  following  passage  from  Thack- 


32  Reading  to  Others 

eray's  Newcomes  may  illustrate  phrases  that  are  too  long  or  too 
short: 

As  the  last  bell  struck,  a  peculiar  sweet  smile  shone  over  his  face,  and 
he  lifted  up  his  head  a  little.,  and  quickly  said,  "Adsum/"  and  fell  back. 
It  was  the  word  we  used  at  school,  when  names  were  called;  and  lo,  he, 
whose  heart  was  as  that  of  a  little  child,  had  answered  to  his  name,  and 
stood  in  the  presence  of  The  Master. 

If  you  ignore  Thackeray's  punctuation  and  pause  only  at  the  full 
stops,  you  will  lose  the  flavor  of  these  gentle  words.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  you  observe  the  punctuation  too  closely,  waiting  at  every 
comma,  your  reading  will  pant  asthmatically. 

Punctuation  is  in  general  significant  in  determining  phrases. 
But  not  all  punctuation  calls  for  pauses  and  not  all  pauses  are 
marked  by  punctuation.  Much  more  dependable  is  intelligent 
understanding  of  the  material,  so  that  when  the  idea  changes  the 
voice  pauses  and  changes  correspondingly.  The  old  rule  that  one 
should  pause  at  commas  is,  of  course,  to  be  disregarded  unless 
the  sense  of  the  passage  demands  a  pause.  A  fairly  safe  procedure 
is  to  make  the  pauses  for  breath— the  long  stops—come  only  at  the 
unmistakable  sentence  breaks,  but  to  make  the  fleeting  pauses  for 
emphasis  or  dramatic  effect  as  frequent  as  the  meaning  and  mood 
of  the  material  allows. 

The  two  following  passages  are  acceptably  phrased.  Single  bars 
indicate  short  pauses,  double  bars  full  phrase  endings: 

i.  The  future  of  poetry  is  immense,  |(  because  in  poetry  ||  where  it  is 
worthy  of  its  high  destinies,  1 1  our  race,  as  time  goes  on,  |  will  find  an 
ever  surer  and  surer  stay.  1 1  2.  There  is  not  a  preed  which  is  not  shaken,  1 1 
not  an  accredited  dogma  which  is  not  shown  to  be  questionable,  1 1  not 
a  received  tradition  which  docs  not  threaten  to  dissolve.  ||  3.  Our  religion 
has  materialized  itself  in  the  fact,  |  in  the  supposed  fact;  1 1  it  has  attached 
its  emotion  to  the  fact,  ||  and  now  the  fact  is  failing  it.  ||  4.  But  for 
poetry  the  idea  is  everything;  1 1  the  rest  is  a  world  of  illusion,  1 1  of  divine 
illusion.  ||  5.  Poetry  attaches  its  emotion  to  the  idea;  |  the  idea  is  the 
fact.  ||  6.  The  strongest  part  of  our  religion  today  is  its  unconscious 
poetry.  || 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD,  The  Study  of  Poetry 

There  may  be  other  short  pauses,  according  to  different  inter- 
pretations, as  for  example  after  "poetry"  in  sentence  4,  or  after 
the  first  "is"  in  the  same  sentence,  or  after  "today"  in  the  last 


Interpreting  Meaning  33 

sentence.  Others  might  not  pause  at  all  for  "as  time  goes  on*'  in 
sentence  i.  The  important  element  is  the  meaning,  which  is  never 
determined  by  arbitrary  grouping  of  words. 

1  And  the  high  gods  took  in  hand 

2  Fire,  ||  and  the  falling  of  tears,  || 

3  And  a  measure  of  sliding  sand 

4  From  tinder  the  feet  of  the  years;  || 

5  And  froth  |  and  drift  of  the  sea;  1 1 

6  And  dust  of  the  laboring  earth;  1 1 

7  And  bodies  of  things  to  be  | 

8  In  the  houses  of  death  and  of  birth;  1 1 

9  And  wrought  with  weeping  and  laughter,  || 

10  And  fashioned  with  loathing  and  love,  || 

11  With  life  before    and  after  1 1 

12  And  death  beneath  \  and  above.  |[ 

13  For  a  day  [  and  a  night    and  a  morrow,  | 

14  That  his  strength  might  endure  for  a  span  | 

15  With  travail  and  heavy  sorrow,  |[ 

16  The  holy  spirit  of  man.  || 

ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE,  Atalanta  in  Calydon 

Poetry  must  be  read  in  phrases,  not  in  metrical  lines.  As  in  the 
reading  of  prose,  interpretation  may  greatly  change  many  of  the 
shorter  pauses.  In  the  above  example,  some  readers  might  not 
want  a  pause  after  "froth"  (line  5)  or  after  "before"  and  "be- 
neath" (lines  11  and  12)  or  might  make  brief  pauses  after  "death" 
(line  8)  and  "weeping"  (line  9)  and  "loathing"  (line  10).  Most 
of  the  full  stops,  however,  both  in  prose  and  the  verse,  would  be 
the  same  for  all  readers. 

Intelligent  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  each  line  or  sen- 
tence usually  results  in  good  phrasing.  There  is  little  excuse  for 
poor  phrasing,  which  means  carelessness  or  inadequate  control 
of  the  breathing  mechanism  or  lack  of  understanding.  Good 
phrasing,  indeed,  partly  because  of  the  usually  dependable  as- 
sistance of  punctuation,  is  a  rather  easy  skill.  More  difficult  is  the 
problem  of  centering. 

CENTERING.  Centering  means  emphasis  on  the  word  or  words 
within  a  phrase  that  most  clearly  and  most  effectively  bring  out 
the  thought  of  the  phrase.  Centering,  like  phrasing,  is  not  arbi- 
trary. The  same  passage  may  be  read  with  equal  meaningfulness 
in  different  ways  by  different  readers  according  to  their  interpre- 


34  Reading  to  Others 

tation.  The  good  reader  goes  by  no  rigid  rules  in  determining 
which  words  to  center  on;  he  gives  emphasis  according  to  mean- 
ing, emphasis  that  he  flexibly  directs  and  controls  through  proper 
use  of  the  voice. 

In  general,  nouns  and  verbs  carry  the  most  weight  in  phrases; 
prepositions,  articles,  conjunctions,  and  pronouns  ordinarily  are 
not  centered;  adjectives  and  adverbs  may  or  may  not  be  centers, 
depending  on  how  much  they  contribute  to  the  meaning.  Thus, 
in  the  lines  by  Robert  Frost, 

Something  there  is  that  doesn't  love  a  wall, 
That  sends  the  frozen  ground-swell  under  it, 

the  centers  might  be  "something,"  "love,"  "wall,"  "sends," 
"frozen,"  "ground-swell":  two  nouns,  a  strong  pronoun,  two  verbs, 
one  adjective.  If  the  reader  wanted  to  bring  out  the  idea  of 
"under,"  it  too  might  be  centered.  But  the  center  on  "doesn't," 
made  by  many  new  readers,  is  probably  wrong  because  it  stresses 
an  auxiliary  and  usually  subordinates  "love." 

Most  faulty  centering  comes  from  overstress  on  meter  (in  read- 
ing verse),  on  lack  of  comprehension,  or  on  over-careful  emphasis 
(as  well  as  on  too  great  speed  in  reading).  Children,  taught  metrical 
rhythm  by  some  hopeful  teacher,  bounce  along  with  complete  dis- 
regard for  meaning  in  poetry,  carefully  banging  at  each  accented 
syllable.  Thus  we  have 

To  him  who  in  the  love  of  Nature  holds 
Communion  with  her  visible  form,  she  speaks 
A  various  language;  for  his  gayer  hours 
She  has  a  voice  of  gladness. 

This  habit  of  jingling  reading  is  hard  to  overcome.  The  stout- 
hearted iambic  measure  triumphs  even  over  a  desire  to  break 
rhythms.  Shakespeare's 

When  in  disgrace  with  Fortune  and  men's  eyes 

comes  with  relentless  stress  on  in  and  and;  Blake's  Tiger  burns 
brightly  "in  the  forests  of  the  night";  Millay's 

AH  £  could  see  from  where  I  stood 
Was  three  long  mountains  and  a  wood, 


Interpreting  Meaning  35 

marches  bravely  along  with  nearly  every  sense-stress  obscured  by 
the  meter.  Occasionally  the  rhythmically  intoxicated  reader  comes 
a  cropper  on  an  irregular  line  and  looks  very  hurt  when  his  regu- 
lar beat  fails: 

Yet  ever  and  anon  a  trumpet  sounds 
From  the  hid  battlements  of  Eternity. 

Here  the  second  line  has  an  extra  syllable  that  breaks  up  the  iambic 
measure.  The  meaning  determines  the  rhythm. 

What  the  sturdy  observer  of  iambs  and  trochees  doesn't  always 
realize  is  that  the  great  poets  were  as  interested  in  breaking  their 
rhythms  as  he  should  be,  that  meter  is  after  all  only  a  poetic  device 
for  securing  form.  As  such  it  has  no  necessary  connection  with 
meaning.  Good  advice  for  the  reader  of  poetry  is:  Emphasize  the 
words  that  carry  the  essential  meanings  and  let  the  meter  take  care 
of  itself.  In  good  poetry  rhythm  is  far  from  being  synonymous 
with  meter,  which  will  be  discussed  in  Chapter  2. 

Compare  the  following  stanzas: 

Somebody  said  it  couldn't  be  done, 

But  he  with  a  chuckle  replied, 
That  "maybe  it  couldn't,"  but  he  would  be  one 

Who  wouldn't  say  so  till  he'd  tried. 

It  is  an  ancient  Mariner, 

And  he  stoppeth  one  of  three. 
"By  thy  long  gray  beard  and  glittering  eye, 

Now  wherefore  stopp'st  thou  me?" 

In  the  first  stanza  the  centers  unmistakably  fall  on  the  metrically 
accented  syllables.  It  is  impossible  to  make  the  verses  anything 
else  than  trivial,  the  writing  of  an  adroit  but  uninspired  craftsman 
who  has  little  to  say,  but  who  has  caught  popular  fancy  with  his 
jingling  rhythms.  The  second  stanza,  of  course,  is  by  a  poet  known 
for  his  musical  cadences.  Yet  see  how  intelligent  centering  breaks 
up  the  meter.  Notice  how  three  stressed  words  together,  as  in 
"long  gray  beard,"  slow  up  the  line  so  that  there  is  interesting 
variation  in  tempo. 

Lack  of  comprehension  is  the  second  (and  probably  most  com- 


3 6  Reading  to  Others 

mon)  reason  for  faulty  centering.  The  reader  may  center  on  the 
right  word  but  give  it  the  wrong  emphasis,  or  he  may  miss  the 
center  entirely.  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning's  line  is  often  misread: 

I  love  thee  to  the  depth  and  breadth  and  height 
My  soul  can  reach,  when  feeling  out  of  sight 
For  the  ends  of  Being  and  ideal  Grace. 

The  phrase,  "When  feeling  out  of  sight  for  the  ends  of  Being 
and  ideal  Grace"  must  have  stress  on  ''feeling,"  "sight,"  and  "ends" 
to  make  clear  the  image  of  the  soul  groping  beyond  vision  for  the 
ideal  purposes  of  life.  Here,  of  course,  the  meaning  of  the  words 
and  the  imagery  must  be  understood  before  any  centering  at  all 
will  be  satisfactory. 

In  the  epigram  by  Alexander  Pope, 

Sir,  I  admit  your  genial  rule, 

That  every  poet  is  a  fool, 

But  you  yourself  may  serve  to  show  it, 

That  every  fool  is  not  a  poet, 

the  force  of  the  neat  insult  depends  upon  the  sly  inference  in  the 
centering  of  the  words  "fool"  and  "poet"  in  the  last  line.  In  an- 
other epigram, 

Thou  swearest  thou'lt  drink  no  more:  kind  heaven,  send 
Me  such  a  coolc,  or  coachman:  but  no  such  friend, 

the  point  is  entirely  lost  without  proper  centering  on  "friend." 
Limericks  demand  especially  careful  centering  if  the  wit  of  their 
final  lines  is  to  be  brought  out.    See  the  effect  of  the  following 
jingles  if  the  reader  misses  the  points  and  centers  vaguely; 

There  was  a  young  lady  of  station. 
"I  love  man!"  was  her  sole  exclamation. 
But  when  men  cried,  "You  flatter/7' 
She  replied,  "Oh,  no  matter/ 
Isle  of  Man,  is  the  true  explanation/' 

LEWIS  CARROLL 

There  was  an  old  lady  from  Hyde. 
Of  eating  green  apples  she  died. 

The  apples  fermented 

Within  the  lamented, 
And  made  cider  inside  her  inside. 


Interpreting  Meaning  37 

The  third  cause  of  faulty  centering  is  over-careful  emphasis. 
Giving  stressed  value  to  the  vowels  of  the  and  a  and  making  every 
of  and  from  stick  out  like  a  sore  thumb  are  very  irritating  tricks. 

Let  me  live  in  a  house  by  the  side  of  the  road 

Where  the  race  of  men  go  by— 
The  men  who  are  good  and  the  men  who  are  bad, 

As  good  and  as  bad  as  I, 

solemnly  chants  the  wretched  interpreter,  making  the  sentimental 
lines  sound  even  worse  than  they  are.  Some  people  seem  to  be 
inherently  unable  to  subordinate  syllables  when  they  read  or  to 
recognize  the  difference  between  weak  and  strong  words.  They 
whoop  up  all  the  unimportant  words  and  divide  up  long  words 
as  if  they  were  doing  primer  work: 

This  is  the  for-est  pri-inc-val.  The  mur-mur-ing  pines  and  the  hem-locks, 
Beard-ed  with  moss,  and  in  gar-ments  green,  in-dis-tinct  in  the  twi-Iight, 
Stand  like  Dru-ids  of  eld. 

CONTRASTS  AND  ECHOES.  Though  there  are  no  rigorous  rules  for 
centering,  two  forms  of  emphasis  should  have  some  attention. 
All  contrasts  (or  comparisons,  words  or  ideas  balanced  against 
each  other,  showing  conflict,  denial,  or  difference)  must  be  cen- 
tered, whether  contrasts  of  single  words  or  of  whole  phrases. 
"Don't  run;  walk"  is  a  simple  illustration  of  contrast.  "This 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people  shall 
not  perish  from  the  earth"  is  another.  Notice  the  contrasts  in 
the  following  lines: 

. . .  the  glory  that  was  Greece 
And  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome. 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

Thee,  dear  friend,  a  brother  soothes, 
Not  with  flatteries,  but  truths, 
Which  tarnish  not,  but  purify 
The  light  which  dims  the  morning's  eye. 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 


38  Reading  to  Others 

Poems  are  made  by  fools  like  me, 
But  only  God  can  make  a  tree. 

JOYCE  KILMER 

Here  lies  our  Sovereign  Lord  the  King, 

Whose  word  no  man  relies  on, 
Who  never  said  a  foolish  thing, 

Nor  ever  did  a  wise  one. 

JOHN  WILMOT,  Epitaph  on  Charles  II 

To  be,  or  not  to  be:  that  is  the  question: 

Whether  'tis  nobler  in  the  mind  to  suffer 

The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune, 

Or  to  take  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles, 

And  by  opposing  end  them?  To  die:  to  sleep; 

No  more:  and,  by  a  sleep  to  say  we  end 

The  heart-ache  and  the  thousand  natural  shocks 

That  flesh  is  heir  to,  'tis  a  consummation 

Devoutly  to  be  wished.  To  die,  to  sleep; 

To  sleep;  perchance  to  dream:  ay,  there's  the  rub. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  second  kind  of  emphasis  is  the  echo,  which  is  the  repetition 
of  a  word  or  phrase.  Any  word  or  group  of  words  which  exactly 
or  nearly  repeats  what  has  already  been  said  may  be  called  an  echo. 
For  example,  in  the  lines, 

A  heart  as  soft,  a  heart  as  kind, 

A  heart  as  sound  and  free 
As  in  the  whole  world  thou  canst  find, 

That  heart  I'll  give  to  thee, 

ROBERT  HERRICK 

"heart"  in  lines  i,  2,  and  4  echo  the  first  "heart"  in  line  i.  In 
the  lines, 

Speak  gently,  Spring,  and  make  no  sudden  sound; 
For  in  my  windy  valley,  yesterday  I  found 
New-born  foxes  squirming  on  the  ground- 
Speak  gently, 

LEW  SARETT 

the  second  "speak  gently"  is  an  echo  of  the  first.  In  the  following 
excerpt  from  Burke's  speech  on  Conciliation  with  America  notice 
how  often  the  word  "peace"  is  echoed.  The  passage  has  been  ac- 


Interpreting  Meaning  39 

ceptably  phrased  and  centered.  The  subdued  emphasis  on  the 
echoes  is  indicated  by  the  dotted  underlines. 

The  proposition  is  peace.  1 1  Not  peace  through  the  medium  of  war;  1 1 
not  peace  to  be  hunted  through  the  labyrinth  of  intricate  and  endless 
negotiations;  ||  not  peace  to  arise  out  of  universal  discord,  |  fomented 
from  principles,  |  in  all  parts  of  the  empire;  1 1  not  peace  to  depend  on 
the  juridical  determination  of  perplexing  problems.  ||  It  is  the  simple 
peace,  |  sought  in  its  natural  course  and  its  ordinary  haunts.  ||  It  is  peace 
sought  in  the  spirit  of  peace,  |  and  laid  in  principles  purely  pacific.  || 

The  first  appearance  of  an  emphatic  word  or  idea  is  the  most 
important  one.  Echoes  are  almost  inevitably  subordinated,  cer- 
tainly varied  in  emphasis  from  the  word  or  phrase  first  used.  In 
Burke's  speech  the  word  "peace/'  after  the  first  vigorous  "The 
proposition  is  peace"  is  subordinated  to  other  words  in  each 
phrase.  A  dull  reader  would  say,  "To  Dillman,  the  hero  was  now 
more  than  a  hero/'  with  equal  stress  on  both  appearances  of  the 
word  "hero."  The  correct  centering  would  be  "To  Dillman,  the 
hero  was  now  more  than  a  hero/'  Poe's 

The  leaves  they  were  crisped  and  sere, 
The  leaves  they  were  withering  and  sere, 

would  have  most  of  the  stress  of  the  second  line  on  the  one  new 
idea,  "withering." 

Synonyms  may  be  echoes,  like  the  words  "sepulcher"  and  "tomb" 
in  Poe's 

In  her  sepulcher  there  by  the  sea, 
In  her  tomb  by  the  sounding  sea. 

If  most  pronouns  could  be  thought  of  as  echoes,  as  they  unmis- 
takably are  when  they  have  a  definite  antecedent,  they  would  not 
be  so  often  over-stressed  in  reading: 

I  knew  a  black  beetle,  who  lived  down  a  drain, 
And  friendly  he  was,  though  his  manners  were  plain; 

When  I  took  a  bath  he  would  come  up  the  pipe, 
And  together  we'd  wash  and  together  we'd  wipe. 

CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY 


40  Reading  to  Others 

"I,"  "who,"  "he,"  "his,"  "I,"  "he,"  "we'd"  in  these  lines  should 
all  be  read  without  being  centered.  In  general,  good  advice  to  in- 
experienced readers  is,  "Let  up  on  pronouns.  Center  the  nouns 
and  verbs.  Bring  out  the  contrasts.  Subordinate  the  echoes." 

Exercises 

Mark  off  the  phrases  and  centers  in  the  following  passages, 
using  the  single  bar  to  indicate  short  pauses,  the  double  bar  to 
indicate  long  pauses,  and  underscoring  the  centers.  Remember 
that  this  is  simply  a  mechanical  device  useful  in  the  early  stages 
of  learning  how  to  read.  It  is  not  under  any  circumstances  to  be 
made  an  ineyitable  part  of  preparation  for  reading  or  speaking. 
Correct  phrasing  becomes  automatic  as  the  student  studies  mean- 
ing. To  depend  regularly  on  diacritical  marks  of  any  kind  in 
reading  is  to  return  us  to  the  days  of  the  elocutionists.  The  reader 
who  knows  what  he  is  talking  about  does  not  need  guide  posts  in 
his  script.  Nevertheless,  a  very  good  part  of  the  spade  work  in  oral 
interpretation  is  deliberate  marking  off  of  phrases.  Don't  do  these 
exercises  in  the  book  and  don't  use  a  marked  paper  in  actual  read- 
ing. Learn  to  recognize  the  phrases  without  mechanical  assistance. 

1.  One  for  the  blackbird,  one  for  the  crow, 
One  for  the  cutworms,  and  one  to  grow. 

2.  Boast  not  thyself  of  to-morrow,  for  thou  Jcnowest  not  what  a  day 
may  bring  forth.  PROVERBS 

3.  The  wicked  flee  when  no  man  pursueth;  but  the  righteous  are 
bold  as  a  lion.  PROVERBS 

4.  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath. 

MARK 

5.  I  have  been  young,  and  now  am  old;  yet  have  I  not  seen  the 
righteous  forsaken,  nor  his  seed  begging  bread.  PSALM  34 

6.  Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing;  therefore  get  wisdom;  and  with 
all  thy  getting  get  understanding.   PROVERBS 

7.  A  man  that  hath  friends  must  show  himself  friendly;  and  there  is 
a  friend  that  sticketh  closer  than  a  brother.  PROVERBS 

8.  It  is  better  to  dwell  in  a  corner  of  the  housetop  than  with  a 
brawling  woman  in  a  wide  house.  PROVERBS 

9.  He  that  is  slow  to  anger  is  better  than  the  mighty;  and  he  that 
ruleth  his  spirit  than  he  that  taketh  a  city.  PROVERBS 

10.   He  that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow.  ECCLESIASTES 


Interpreting  Meaning  41 

11.    One  man  among  a  thousand  have  I  found;  but  a  woman  among 
all  those  have  I  not  found.  ECCLESIASTES 

12.  If  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  both  shall  fall  into  the  ditch.  MATTHEW 

13.  Old  men's  prayers  for  death  are  lying  prayers,  in  which  they  abuse 
old  age  and  long  extent  of  life.  But  when  death  draws  near,  not  one  is 
willing  to  die,  and  age  no  longer  is  a  burden  to  them.  EURIPIDES 

14.  It  is  better  not  to  live  at  all  than  to  live  disgraced.  SOPHOCLES 

15.  There  is  a  fine  circumstance  connected  with  the  character  of  a 
Cynic— that  he  must  be  beaten  as  an  ass,  and  yet  when  beaten  must 
love  those  who  beat  him,  as  the  father,  as  the  brother  of  all.  EPICTETUS 

16.  Though  thou  be  destined  to  live  three  thousand  years  and  as 
many  myriads  besides,  yet  remember  that  no  man  loseth  other  life  than 
that  which  he  livcth,  nor  liveth  other  than  that  which  he  loseth. 

MARCUS  AURELIUS 

17.  Time  is  a  sort  of  river  of  passing  events,  and  strong  is  its  current; 
no  sooner  is  a  thing  brought  to  sight  than  it  is  swept  by  and  another 
takes  its  place,  and  this  too  will  be  swept  away.  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

iS.    I  wish  to  preach  not  the  doctrine  of  ignoble  ease,  but  the  doctrine 
of  the  strenuous  life.  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

19.    A  Moment's  Halt— a  momentary  taste 

Of  BEING  from  the  Well  amid  the  Waste— 
And,  Lo!  the  phantom  Caravan  has  reached 

The  NOTHING  it  set  out  from.  Oh,  make  haste/ 

EDWARD  FITZGERALD,  Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam 

20.    God  give  us  men.   The  time  demands 

Strong  minds,  great  hearts,  true  faith,  and  willing  hands; 
Men  whom  the  lust  of  office  does  not  kill; 

Men  whom  the  spoils  of  office  cannot  buy; 
Men  who  possess  opinions  and  a  will; 

Men  who  have  honor;  men  who  will  not  lie; 
Men  who  can  stand  before  a  demagogue 

And  damn  his  treacherous  flatteries  without  winking. 
Tall  men,  sun-crowned,  who  live  above  the  fog 

In  public  duty  and  in  private  thinking. 

JOSIAH  GILBERT  HOLLAND 

21.    The  sky  is  changed— and  such  a  change/   O  night 
And  storm  and  darkness/  ye  are  wondrous  strong, 
Yet  lovely  in  your  strength,  as  is  the  light 
Of  a  dark  eye  in  woman/  Far  along, 
From  peak  to  peak,  the  rattling  crags  among, 
Leaps  the  live  thunder. 

LORD  BYRON,  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage 


42  Reading  to  Others 

22.  Ill  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey, 
Where  wealth  accumulates,  and  men  decay, 
Princes  and  lords  may  flourish  or  may  fade— 
A  breath  can  make  them,  as  a  breath  has  made; 
But  a  bold  peasantry,  their  country's  pride, 
When  once  destroyed,  can  never  be  supplied. 

OLIVER  GOLDSMITH,  The  Deserted  Village 

23.   On  his  death-bed  poor  Lubin  lies: 

His  spouse  is  in  despair; 
With  frequent  cries,  and  mutual  sighs, 
They  both  express  their  care. 

"A  different  cause,"  says  Parson  Sly, 

"The  same  effect  may  give: 
Poor  Lubin  fears  that  he  may  die; 

His  wife,  that  he  may  live." 

MATTHEW  PRIOR,  A  Reasonable  Affliction 

24.    Our  fathers'  God,  to  thee, 
Author  of  liberty, 
To  thee  I  sing; 
Long  may  our  land  be  bright 
With  freedom's  holy  light; 
Protect  us  by  thy  might, 
Great  God,  our  King. 

SAMUEL  FRANCIS  SMITH 

25.  Brief  and  powerless  is  Man's  life;  on  him  and  all  his  race  the  slow, 
sure  doom  falls  pitiless  and  dark.  Blind  to  good  and  evil,  reckless  of  de- 
struction, omnipotent  matter  rolls  on  its  relentless  way;  for  Man,  con- 
demned to-day  to  lose  his  dearest,  to-morrow  himself  to  pass  through 
the  gate  of  darkness,  it  remains  only  to  cherish,  ere  yet  the  blow  falls, 
the  lofty  thoughts  that  ennoble  his  little  day;  disdaining  the  coward 
terrors  of  the  slave  of  Fate;  to  worship  at  the  shrine  that  his  own  hands 
have  built;  undismayed  by  the  empire  of  chance,  to  preserve  a  mind 
free  from  the  wanton  tyranny  that  rules  his  outward  life;  proudly  defiant 
of  the  irresistible  forces  that  tolerate,  for  a  moment,  his  knowledge  and 
his  condemnation,  to  sustain  alone,  a  weary  but  unyielding  Atlas,  the 
world  that  his  own  ideals  have  fashioned  despite  the  trampling  march 
of  unconscious  power. 

BERTRAND  RUSSELL,  "A  Free  Man's  Worship,"  from 

Mysticism  and  Logic 


Interpreting  Meaning  43 

26.  TOM  BROWN'S  SCHOOL  DAYS  is  a  book  more  people  have  heard 
of  than  read.  Its  author,  Thomas  Hughes,  was  English  as  a  mutton 
chop.  Chief  interests  of  his  life  were  cricket  and  Utopia. 

In  1880,  around  a  tract  of  land  which  he  had  bought  in  northeastern 
Tennessee,  Utopia-hunting  Tom  Hughes  founded  a  colony.  Invited  to 
join  were  the  younger  sons  of  English  gentlemen,  who  were  barred  by 
tradition  from  inheritance,  by  custom  from  working  for  their  living.  The 
colony  was  named  Rugby  after  Tom  Hughes' s  old  school,  and  more  than 
1,000  younger  sons  saw  an  opportunity,  came  from  England  to  the  U.  S., 
where  it  was  no  shame  to  work. 

A  London  barrister,  an  idealist,  but  no  businessman,  pink-faced  Tom 
Hughes  set  the  younger  sons  to  laying  out  cricket  fields,  tennis  courts, 
organizing  a  Rugby  football  team,  dramatic  societies,  a  cornet  band.  In 
the  Tennessee  mountains  old  English  homes  sprang  up,  a  "Tabard 
Inn,"  a  church,  a  library  which  included  a  practically  complete  set  of 
Hughes  first  editions,  a  rare  Dickens  item,  pamphlets  by  the  younger 
Pitt,  the  entire  series  of  Illustrator  Kate  Greenaway.  Tom  Hughes's 
mother  moved  there,  lived  out  her  life  in  "Uffington  House."  But  Tom 
Hughes's  wife  thought  the  whole  thing  was  silly.  She  insisted  that  he 
return  to  England.  There,  he  settled  down  to  a  /udgeship,  and  never 
went  back  to  Utopia. 

For  three  years  after  its  founder  deserted,  the  Tennessee  Utopia  lasted. 
Then  typhoid  fever,  the  rigors  of  manual  labor,  and  an  alien  soil  thinned 
the  colonists'  ranks.  Only  a  handful  stayed,  and  Rugby  crumbled  away 
into  sleepy  decadence,  while  the  Tennessee  pines  sprouted  on  the  cricket 
field,  hid  the  little  church. 

Fifty  years  later  Lumberman  George  T.  Webb  heard  about  these 
pines,  took  a  look,  last  September  bought  up  the  stock  of  the  Rugby 
Land  Co.  for  $15,000.  Soon  his  loggers  began  to  fell  the  timber  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  tract,  getting  closer  and  closer  to  the  little  village,  until 
one  pine  crashed  across  the  church  fence.  Aroused,  tree  lovers,  his- 
torians, librarians  of  Tennessee,  the  few  surviving  Rugbyans  protested. 
To  their  appeal  for  help,  Congressman  Bruce  Barton  of  New  York,  who 
was  born  nine  miles  from  Rugby,  wired  earnestly  but  distantly:  "Only 
God  can  make  a  tree  and  it  takes  Him  over  100  years/'  To  the  Chat- 
tanooga Woman's  Press  Club,  Secretary  of  State  Cordell  Hull  was  less 
aloof:  "Assuming  that  the  trees  are  the  ones  I  know,  I  join  with  you 
...  in  earnestly  urging  that  they  shall  not  be  destroyed." 

Woodman  Webb  said  he  would  spare  the  trees  for  30  days,  to  give 
Rugby's  friends  time  to  buy  the  land  back.  His  price,  including  the  trees: 
$60,000. 

Time  Magazine,  "Trees,"  Dec.  25,  1939 


44  Reading  to  Others 

27.  Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true  minds 
Admit  impediments.  Love  is  not  love 
Which  alters  when  it  alteration  finds, 
Or  bends  with  the  remover  to  remove: 
O,  no/  it  is  an  ever-fixed  mark 
That  looks  on  tempests  and  is  never  shaken; 
It  is  the  star  to  every  wandering  bark, 
Whose  worth's  unknown,  although  his  height  be  taken. 
Love's  not  Time's  fool,  though  rosy  lips  and  cheeks 
Within  his  bending  sickle's  compass  come; 
Love  alters  not  with  his  brief  hours  and  weeks, 
But  bears  it  out  even  to  the  edge  of  doom. 
If  this  be  error  and  upon  me  proved, 
I  never  writ,  nor  no  man  ever  loved. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  Sonnet  116 

28.  There  have  been  times  in  the  history  of  the  world  when  you  had 
two  or  three  nations  that  for  the  time  being  have  been  the  trustees  of 
civilization.    One  after  another  they  have  failed.    They  have  not  dis- 
charged their  functions,  and  in  spite  of  the  efforts  and  the  power  they 
enjoyed  in  the  days  of  their  might  one  after  another  they  went  and  new 
nations  sprang  up  to  take  their  place.   The  commission  of  trusteeship 
for  civilization  does  not  come  from  kings;  it  does  not  come  from  Senates 
and  Parliaments  nor  councils.  It  comes  from  on  high.  When  it  comes, 
it  does  not  come  from  the  choice  of  the  people;  it  comes  from  the  will 
of  God.  DAVID  LLOYD  GEORGE,  Our  Commission 

29.  James  Wylie  is  about  to  make  a  move  on  the  dambrod,  and  in 
the  little  Scotch  room  there  is  an  awful  silence  befitting  the  occasion. 
James  with  his  hand  poised—for  if  he  touches  a  piece  he  has  to  play  it; 
Alick  will  see  to  that— raises  his  red  head  suddenly  to  read  Alick's  face. 
His  father,  who  is  Alick,  is  pretending  to  be  in  a  panic  lest  James  should 
make  this  move.   James  grins  heartlessly,  and  his  fingers  are  about  to 
close  on  the  'man'  when  some  instinct  of  self-preservation  makes  him 
peep  once  more.  This  time  Alick  is  caught:  the  unholy  ecstasy  on  his 
face  tells  as  plain  as  porridge  that  he  has  been  luring  James  to  destruc- 
tion.  James  glares,  and,  too  late,  his  opponent  is  a  simple  old  father 
again.  James  mops  his  head,  sprawls  in  the  manner  most  conducive  to 
thought  in  the  Wylie  family,  and  protruding  his  underlip,  settles  down 
to  a  reconsideration  of  the  board.   Alick  blows  out  his  cheeks,  and  a 
drop  of  water  settles  on  the  point  of  his  nose. 

Stage  direction  at  beginning  of  SIR  JAMES  BARRIE'S 
What  Every  Woman  Knows 


Interpreting  Meaning  45 

30.  Come,  my  tan-faced  children, 

Follow  well  in  order,  get  your  weapons  ready; 
Have  you  your  pistols?  have  you  your  sharp-edged  axes? 
Pioneers/  O  Pioneers/ 

For  we  cannot  tarry  here, 

We  must  march,  my  darlings,  we  must  bear  the  brunt  of  danger, 
We,  the  youthful  sinewy  races,  all  the  rest  on  us  depend, 

Pioneers/   O  Pioneers/ 

O  you  youths,  Western  youths, 

So  impatient,  full  of  action,  full  of  manly  pride  and  friendship, 
Plain  I  see  you,  Western  youths,  see  you  trampling  with  the  fore- 
most, 

Pioneers/  O  Pioneers/ 

Have  the  elder  races  halted? 
Do  they  droop  and  end  their  lesson,  wearied  over  there  beyond 

the  seas? 
We  take  up  the  task  eternal,  and  the  burden  and  the  lesson, 

Pioneers/  O  Pioneers/ 

All  the  past  we  leave  behind, 

We  debouch  upon  a  newer,  mightier  world,  varied  world, 
Fresh  and  strong  the  world  we  seize,  world  of  labor  and  the 
march, 

Pioneers/   O  Pioneers/ 

We  detachments  steady  throwing, 

Down  the  edges,  through  the  passes,  up  the  mountains  steep, 
Conquering,  holding,  daring,  venturing  as  we  go  the  unknown 
ways, 

Pioneers/   O  Pioneers/  .  .  . 

Has  the  night  descended? 

Was  the  road  of  late  so  toilsome?  did  we  stop  discouraged  nod- 
ding on  our  way? 
Yet  a  passing  hour  I  yield  you  in  your  tracks  to  pause  oblivious, 

Pioneers/   O  Pioneers/ 

Till  with  sound  of  trumpet, 
Far,  far  off  the  daybreak  call— hark/  how  loud  and  clear  I  hear 

it  wind, 

Swift/  to  the  head  of  the  army/— swift/  spring  to  your  places, 
Pioneers/   O  Pioneers/ 

WALT  WHITMAN,  Pioneers!  O  Pioneers! 


46  Reading  to  Others 

THE    PRECIS 

With  the  meaning  of  the  selection  clearly  established  in  all  its 
parts,  the  next  step  for  the  beginning  reader  or  for  the  advanced 
reader  when  he  is  preparing  a  difficult  selection  is  the  making  of 
a  precis.  A^  jgr6cis_is  a  condensation  in  your  own  words  of  the 
original.  It  is  not  a  paraphrase;  it  is  not  a  critical  estimate;  it  adds 
frothing  in  the  way  of  interpretation  that  the  original  does  not 
explicitly  say.  Through  such  a  summary  or  synopsis  you  can  test 
your  understanding  of  the  selection.  The  precis  must  be  unequiv- 
ocably  clear,  omitting  no  significant  point  of  the  original,  but 
discarding  all  ornamentation.  It  should  as  far  as  possible  depart 
from  the  wording  of  the  original  without  changing  the  person,  the 
attitude,  or  the  emphasis.  In  length  precis  vary,  becoming  shorter 
in  proportion  to  the  original  as  the  selections  get  longer.  The 
customary  length  for  precis  of  selections  like  most  of  those  in  this 
book  is  about  a  third  the  length  of  the  original.  Extreme  con- 
densation is  usually  undesirable,  but  very  short  selections  can  be 
admirably  summarized  in  one  sentence.  Keep  between  a  third 
and  a  fourth  the  length  of  the  original  and  you'll  be  safe.  Make 
sure  you  are  making  a  precis  of  the  whole  selection,  not  simply  of 
the  beginning.  Keep  the  ideas  in  the  order  of  the  original.  Elimi- 
nate all  figures  of  speech  and  quotations.  Keep  the  central  thought 
uncluttered.  Don't  paraphrase. 

A  good  precis  should  catch  the  mood  of  the  original,  without 
omitting  any  essential  ideas  or  adding  anything.  It  should  be  a 
stripped  but  grammatically  correct  and  structurally  acceptable 
condensation.  Poe's  "Ulalume"  might  be  summarized  as  follows: 

I  walked  with  Psyche,  my  Soul,  down  a  lane  of  cypress  trees,  in  the 
mysterious,  haunted  forest  of  Weir,  near  the  lake  of  Auber.  It  was  on  a 
night  in  October  that  marked  an  unhappy  anniversary  for  me,  but  we 
did  not  realize  what  night  it  was  or  where  we  were.  Toward  morning  we 
saw  a  curious  light  at  the  end  of  the  lane,  out  of  which  arose  the  crescent 
of  Astarte,  the  moon-goddess.  I  said,  "This  beautiful  light  has  come  to 
point  out  to  us  the  path  to  the  stars."  But  Psyche  was  frightened  and 
begged  me  to  go  back.  I  calmed  her  fears,  and  we  went  on  until  we  came 
to  the  door  of  a  tomb,  on  which  was  the  name  "Ulalume."  Then  I  re- 
membered, to  my  deep  sorrow,  that  on  that  very  day  the  year  before  I 
had  brought  my  dead  beloved  Ulalume  to  that  very  spot.  We  wondered 
if  the  merciful  spirits  of  the  forest  of  Weir  had  tried  to  hide  the  grim 
secret  of  the  lost  Ulalume  by  setting  the  phantom  light  before  her  tomb. 


Interpreting  Meaning  47 

This  precis  is  181  words  long,  approximately  one-fourth  the 
length  of  the  original.  A  shorter  precis  of  this  selection  might  be: 

I  walked  with  my  Soul  one  night  in  October  in  the  haunted  forest  of 
Weir.  We  talked  without  realizing  what  night  it  was  or  where  we  were. 
Suddenly  we  saw  a  light,  and  Psyche  was  frightened.  I  persuaded  her  to 
go  on.  The  light  was  before  the  tomb  of  Ulalume.  Then  I  remembered 
that  on  that  same  night  the  year  before  I  had  come  to  bury  my  lost 
beloved. 

This  shorter  precis  is  69  words  long.  The  original  poem  is  as 
follows: 

The  skies  they  were  ashen  and  sober; 

The  leaves  they  were  crisped  and  sere— 

The  leaves  they  were  withering  and  sere: 
It  was  night,  in  the  lonesome  October 

Of  my  most  immemorial  year: 
It  was  hard  by  the  dim  lake  of  Auber, 

In  the  misty  mid  region  of  Weir — 
It  was  down  by  the  dank  tarn  of  Auber, 

In  the  ghoul-haunted  woodland  of  Weir. 

Here  once,  through  an  alley  Titanic, 
Of  cypress,  I  roamed  with  my  Soul—- 
Of cypress,  with  Psyche,  my  Soul. 
These  were  days  when  my  heart  was  volcanic 
As  the  scoriae  rivers  that  roll- 
As  the  lavas  that  restlessly  roll 
Their  sulphurous  currents  down  Yaanek 

In  the  ultimate  climes  of  the  pole- 
That  groan  as  they  roll  down  Mount  Yaanek 
In  the  realms  of  the  boreal  pole. 

Our  talk  had  been  serious  and  sober, 
But  our  thoughts  they  were  palsied  and  sere — 
Our  memories  were  treacherous  and  sere; 

For  we  knew  not  the  month  was  October, 
And  we  marked  not  the  night  of  the  year 
(Ah,  night  of  all  nights  in  the  year/)— 

We  noted  not  the  dim  lake  of  Auber 

(Though  once  we  had  journeyed  down  here)— 

We  remembered  not  the  dank  tarn  of  Auber, 
Nor  the  ghoul-haunted  woodland  of  Weir. 


48  Reading  to  Others 

And  now,  as  the  night  was  senescent 

And  star-dials  pointed  to  morn— 

As  the  star-dials  hinted  of  morn— 
At  the  end  of  our  path  a  liquescent 

And  nebulous  luster  was  born, 
Out  of  which  a  miraculous  crescent 

Arose  with  a  duplicate  horn— 
Astarte's  bediamonded  crescent 

Distinct  with  its  duplicate  horn. 

And  I  said:  "She  is  warmer  than  Dian; 

She  rolls  through  an  ether  of  sighs- 
She  revels  in  a  region  of  sighs; 
She  has  seen  that  the  tears  are  not  dry  on 

These  cheeks,  where  the  worm  never  dies 
And  has  come  past  the  stars  of  the  Lion, 

To  point  us  the  path  to  the  skies— 

To  the  Lethean  peace  of  the  skies- 
Come  up,  in  despite  of  the  Lion, 

To  shine  on  us  with  her  bright  eyes- 
Come  up  through  the  lair  of  the  Lion, 

With  love  in  her  luminous  eyes/' 

But  Psyche,  uplifting  her  finger, 
Said:  "Sadly  this  star  I  mistrust— 
His  pallor  I  strangely  mistrust: 
Ah,  hasten/— oh,  let  us  not  linger/ 

Ah,  fly/— let  us  fly/— for  we  must/' 
In  terror  she  spoke,  letting  sink  her 

Wings  till  they  trailed  in  the  dust- 
In  agony  sobbed,  letting  sink  her 
Plumes  till  they  trailed  in  the  dust- 
Till  they  sorrowfully  trailed  in  the  dust. 

I  replied:  "This  is  nothing  but  dreaming: 

Let  us  on  by  this  tremulous  light/ 

Let  us  bathe  in  this  crystalline  light/ 
Its  Sibyllic  splendor  is  beaming 

With  Hope  and  in  Beauty  to-night:— 

See  it  flickers  up  the  sky  through  the  night/ 
Ah,  we  safely  may  trust  to  its  gleaming, 

And  be  sure  it  will  lead  us  aright— 


Interpreting  Meaning  49 

We  surely  may  trust  to  a  gleaming, 
That  cannot  but  guide  us  aright, 
Since  it  flickers  up  to  Heaven  through  the  night." 

Thus  I  pacified  Psyche  and  kissed  her, 
And  tempted  her  out  of  her  gloom— 
And  conquered  her  scruples  and  gloom; 

And  we  passed  to  the  end  of  the  vista, 
But  were  stopped  by  the  door  of  a  tomb- 
By  the  door  of  a  legended  tomb; 

And  I  said:  "What  is  written,  sweet  sister, 
On  the  door  of  this  legended  tomb?" 
She  replied:  "Ulalume—  Ulalume/— 
Tis  the  vault  of  thy  lost  Ulalume." 

Then  my  heart  it  grew  ashen  and  sober 
As  the  leaves  that  were  crisped  and  sere— 
As  the  leaves  that  were  withering  and  sere; 

And  I  cried:  "It  was  surely  October 
On  THIS  very  night  of  last  year 
That  I  journeyed— I  journeyed  down  here— 
That  I  brought  a  dread  burden  down  here— • 
On  this  night  of  all  nights  in  the  year, 
Ah,  what  demon  hath  tempted  me  here? 

Well  I  know,  now,  this  dim  lake  of  Auber— 
This  misty  mid  region  of  Weir— 

Well  I  know,  now,  this  dank  tarn  of  Auber, 
This  ghoul-haunted  woodland  of  Weir." 

Said  we,  then— the  two,  then:  "Ah,  can  it 
Have  been  that  the  woodlandish  ghouls— 
The  pitiful,  the  merciful  ghouls— 
To  bar  up  our  way  and  to  ban  it 
From  the  secret  that  lies  in  these  wolds— 
From  the  thing  that  lies  hidden  in  these  wolds- 
Have  drawn  up  the  specter  of  a  planet 

From  the  limbo  of  lunary  souls— 
This  sinfully  scintillant  planet 
From  the  Hell  of  the  planetary  souls?" 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

Don't  write  precis  like  this  one  of  "Ulalume":    "In  this  poem 
this  fellow  is  going  along  some  kind  of  a  shore.   It's  all  very  mys- 


5O  Reading  to  Others 

terious,  with  haunted  woods  in  October.  Psyche—that's  his  soul- 
is  walking  with  this  poet.  They  see  a  sort  of  a  light,  and  Psyche 
gets  nervous,  but  the  fellow  says  it  isn't  anything  and  kisses  her. 
All  of  a  sudden  they  see  a  tomb,  and  the  fellow  finds  out  that  it's 
the  grave  of  Ulalume,  who  was  probably  his  wife." 

For  a  brief  selection,  appropriate  for  an  exercise  in  the  class- 
room (where  a  long  poem  might  take  up  too  much  time),  the  fol- 
lowing might  be  a  satisfactory  precis: 

The  church  might  wisely  turn  in  upon  itself  its  reforming  instinct: 
For  example,  the  ringing  of  bells  to  tell  people  it  is  time  for  church  is 
unnecessary  now  that  clocks  are  common;  so  is  the  reading  of  notices 
already  printed  in  the  papers;  so  too  is  the  reading  of  the  hymn  by  the 
clergyman.  Moreover,  the  average  clergyman  is  an  extremely  bad  reader. 
He  does  not  even  read  the  Lord's  prayer  well  because  he  does  not  know 
the  value  of  pauses. 

This  precis  is  81  words  long  or  less  than  one-third  of  the  original. 
The  original  selection  of  268  words  follows: 

The  church  is  always  trying  to  get  other  people  to  reform;  it  might 
not  be  a  bad  idea  to  reform  itself  a  little,  by  way  of  example.  It  is  still 
clinging  to  one  or  two  things  which  were  useful  once,  but  which  are 
not  useful  now,  rather  are  they  ornamental.  One  is  the  bell  ringing  to 
remind  a  clock-caked  town  that  it  is  church  time,  and  another  is  the 
reading  from  the  pulpit  of  a  tedious  list  of  "notices"  which  everybody 
who  is  interested  has  already  read  in  the  newspaper.  The  clergyman  even 
reads  the  hymn  through— a  relic  of  an  ancient  time  when  hymn  books 
were  scarce  and  costly;  but  everybody  has  a  hy/nn  book,  now,  and  so 
the  public  reading  is  no  longer  necessary.  It  is  not  merely  unnecessary, 
it  is  generally  painful;  for  the  average  clergyman  could  not  fire  into  his 
congregation  with  a  shotgun  and  hit  a  worse  reader  than  himself,  unless 
the  weapon  scattered  shamefully.  I  am  not  meaning  to  be  flippant  and 
irreverent,  I  am  only  meaning  to  be  truthful.  The  average  clergyman, 
in  all  countries  and  of  all  denominations,  is  a  very  bad  reader.  One 
would  think  he  would  at  least  learn  how  to  read  the  Lord's  prayer,  by 
and  by,  but  it  is  not  so.  He  races  through  it  as  if  he  thought  the  quicker 
he  got  it  in,  the  sooner  it  would  be  answered.  A  person  who  does  not 
appreciate  the  exceeding  value  of  pauses,  and  does  not  know  how  to 
measure  their  duration  judiciously,  cannot  render  the  grand  simplicity 
and  dignity  of  a  composition  like  that  effectively. 

MARK  TWAIN,  A  Tramp  Abroad 


Interpreting  Meaning  51 

Here  is  a  precis  for  a  brief  poem: 

Sometimes  I  am  afraid  that  I  may  die  before  I  have  written  all  the 
wonderful  things  I  have  to  say  and  before  IVe  expressed  all  my  love  for 
you.  Then  I  am  isolated  in  spirit,  thinking  until  Love  and  Fame  fade 
into  nothingness. 

This  precis  of  43  words  is  about  one-third  the  length  of  Keats's 
sonnet  which  numbers  112  words  as  follows: 

When  I  have  fears  that  I  may  cease  to  be 
Before  my  pen  has  glean'd  my  teeming  brain, 
Before  high-piled  books,  in  charact'ry 
Hold  like  rich  garners  the  full-ripen'd  grain; 
When  I  behold,  upon  the  night's  starred  face, 
Huge  cloudy  symbols  of  a  high  romance, 
And  think  that  I  may  never  live  to  trace 
Their  shadows,  with  the  magic  hand  of  chance; 
And  when  I  feel,  fair  Creature  of 'an  hour/ 
That  I  shall  never  look  upon  thee  more, 
Never  have  relish  in  the  fairy  power 
Of  unreflecting  love— then  on  the  shore 
Of  the  wide  world  I  stand  alone,  and  think 
Till  Love  and  Fame  to  nothingness  do  sink. 

JOHN  KEATS,  Sonnet 

A  good  exercise  is  the  oral  precis.  Before  you  read  a  selection 
aloud,  try  putting  it  briefly  into  your  own  words.  Even  though  you 
may  have  worked  out  a  precis  on  paper  beforehand,  you  may  still 
be  tempted  to  disregard  the  meaning  of  what  you  are  to  read. 
Running  over  the  thought-chain  aloud  will  concentrate  attention 
on  meaning  again. 

Exercises 

Write  precis  and  word  lists,  including  pronunciation  and  defi- 
nition or  identification  of  all  unfamiliar  words  and  names,  and 
mark  off  the  phrases  and  centers  for  the  following  selections.  In 
practicing  them  for  reading  aloud,  try  to  attend  to  the  details  of 
punctuation  and  grammar  and  all  the  other  elements  of  meaning 
developed  in  this  chapter. 

i.  What  is  the  present?  Is  it  this  minute,  or  day,  or  year?  Is  it  our 
era?  And  what  is  our  era?  Not  the  past  ten  years  certainly.  Strictly 
speaking,  the  present  can  hardly  be  anything  that  is  past;  the  very  form 


52  Reading  to  Others 

of  words  precludes  this.  We  may  describe  the  present  as  an  advancing 
line,  and  only  a  line  between  the  future,  of  which  we  know  nothing 
(save  through  a  study  of  the  past),  and  the  past,  from  which,  if  we 
choose  our  methods  wisely,  we  may  learn  much.  Paradoxically  enough, 
we  can  only  know  the  present  when  it  has  ceased  to  be  such,  and  has 
become  history.  The  past  is  the  field  of  human  experience;  if  recorded, 
it  is  the  field  of  human  knowledge.  Accordingly,  for  the  individual, 
speaking  more  generally,  the  present  is  so  much  of  human  experience 
as  he  may  at  any  moment  revive  within  himself.  For  the  artisan  it  may 
include  his  memory  of  the  last  strike;  for  the  statesman  it  may  embrace 
the  political  and  economic  history  of  Europe  and  America  from  the  age 
of  Pericles  in  Athens  to  this  very  day.  It  is  one  thing  for  Milton,  who 
first  relived  the  life  of  antiquity  as  a  scholar,  then  served  his  country  as 
an  officer  of  state,  and  finally  bequeathed  the  best  he  knew  in  human 
life  to  succeeding  ages  in  his  immortal  poetry.  It  is  another  thing  for 
the  modern  youth  who  hears  the  word  "Czar"  or  "Kaiser,"  and  does  not 
recognize  in  it  a  Latin  word  which  for  twenty  centuries  has  issued  daily 
from  the  lips  of  living  men;  and  who  does  not  know  that  Christ  is  a 
Greek  word  that  will  never  die. 

LANE  COOPER,  Introduction  to  The  Greek 
Genius  and  Its  Influence 

2.  There  is  only  one  thing  by  which  I  continue,  with  a  foolish  and 
persistent  naivete,  to  be  surprised.  I  expect,  somehow,  that  a  student 
ten  years  after  college  will  still  have  the  brightness  and  enthusiasm,  the 
disinterested  love  of  ideas,  and  the  impersonal  passion  for  them  that 
some  develop  during  their  undergraduate  days.  Time  and  again  I  have 
run  into  them,  and  wondered  what  the  world  has  done  to  them  that 
that  passionate  detachment  should  have  gone.  I  know  some  of  the 
things,  brutal  or  familiar  enough  to  the  point  almost  of  banality:  a  fam- 
ily, the  struggle  for  a  living,  a  disillusion  with  the  status  of  contempla- 
tion in  the  nightmare  of  a  violent  world.  But  it  is  not  revolution  or 
disillusion  that  surprises  me;  both  are  intelligible.  It  is  the  death-in-life 
that  assails  the  spirits  of  young  men  who  had  been  alive  when  I  knew 
them  at  college.  A  fierce  hate,  a  transcendent  revolutionary  contempt 
for  ideas,  especially  traditional  ones,  a  revolt  against  the  academy;  all 
these  things  are  not  dismaying.  They  are  symptoms  that  life  is  not  dead 
and  that  spirit  lives  in  some  form,  however  tortured  or  fantastic  or  un- 
precedented. It  is  when  spirit  is  utterly  dead,  when  the  one-time  eager 
youth  becomes  precociously  middle-aged,  that  one  feels  above  all  that 
education  is  a  failure.  One  awakened  something  for  a  short  time.  But  did 
one?  Perhaps  I  have,  like  a  good  many  teachers,  flattered  myself.  It  was 
not  we  who  awakened  them;  it  was  the  season  of  their  lives,  and  the 


Interpreting  Meaning  53 

things  and  ideas  which,  despite  us,  for  a  moment—if  only  for  a  mo- 
ment—stirred them.  There  are  times  when,  if  one  thought  about  former 
students  too  much,  one  could  not  go  on  teaching.  For  the  teacher 
meeting  his  former  students  is  reminded  of  the  fact  that  Plato  long  ago 
pointed  out  in  the  REPUBLIC.  It  is  not  what  the  teacher  but  what 
the  world  teaches  them  that  will  in  the  long  run  count,  and  what  they 
can  learn  from  the  latter  comes  from  habits  fixed  soon  after  birth  and 
temperaments  fixed  long  before  it.  There  are  just  a  few  things  a  teacher 
can  do,  and  that  only  for  the  sensitive  and  the  spirited.  He  can  initiate 
enthusiasms,  clear  paths,  and  inculcate  discipline.  He  can  communi- 
cate a  passion  and  a  method;  no  more.  His  most  serious  triumph  as  a 
teacher  is  the  paradoxical  one  of  having  his  students,  while  he  is  teach- 
ing them  and  perhaps  afterwards,  forget  him  in  the  absorption  of  the 
tradition  or  the  inquiry  of  which  he  is  the  transient  voice.  Lucky  for 
him  if  later  his  students  feel  his  voice  was  ;ust.  As  in  the  playing  of 
music,  it  is  the  music,  not  the  musician,  that  is  ultimate.  And  in  the 
art  of  teaching,  it  is  what  is  taught  that  counts,  not  the  teacher.  It 
is  a  great  tribute  to  an  artist  to  say  that  he  plays  Beethoven  or  Bach, 
and  puts  nothing  between  them  and  his  audience.  But  in  so  doing 
he  becomes  one  with  both  the  composer  and  the  listener.  In  the  lis- 
tener's memory  he  anonymously  shares  the  composer's  immortality. 
The  teacher,  too,  is  best  remembered  who  is  thus  forgotten.  He  lives  in 
what  has  happened  to  the  minds  of  his  students,  and  in  what  they  re- 
member of  things  infinitely  greater  than  themselves  or  than  himself. 
They  will  remember,  perhaps,  that  once  in  a  way,  in  the  midst  of  the 
routine  of  the  classroom,  it  was  something  not  himself  that  spoke,  some- 
thing not  themselves  that  listened.  The  teacher  may  well  be  content 
to  be  otherwise  forgotten,  or  to  live  in  something  grown  to  ripeness  in 
his  students  that  he,  however  minutely,  helped  bring  to  birth.  There 
are  many  students  thus  come  to  fruition  whom  I  should  be  proud  to 
have  say:  "He  was  my  teacher."  There  is  no  other  immortality  a  teacher 
can  have. 

IRWIN  EDMAN,  Philosopher's  Holiday 

3.  By  our  best  enemies  we  do  not  want  to  be  spared,  nor  by  those 
either  whom  we  love  from  the  very  heart.  So  let  me  tell  you  the  truth/ 

My  brethren  in  war/  I  love  you  from  the  very  heart.  I  am,  and  was 
ever,  your  counterpart.  And  I  am  also  your  best  enemy.  So  let  me  tell 
you  the  truth. 

I  know  the  hatred  and  envy  of  your  hearts.  Ye  are  not  great  enough 
not  to  know  of  hatred  and  envy.  Then  be  great  enough  not  to  be 
ashamed  of  them/  .  . . 


54  Reading  to  Others 

Ye  shall  love  peace  as  a  means  to  new  wars— and  the  short  peace  more 
than  the  long. 

You  I  advise  not  to  work,  but  to  fight.  You  I  advise  not  to  peace,  but 
to  victory.  Let  your  work  be  a  fight,  let  your  peace  be  a  victory/  .  .  . 

Ye  say  it  is  the  good  cause  which  halloweth  even  war?  J  say  unto  you: 
It  is  the  good  war  which  halloweth  every  cause. 

War  and  courage  have  done  more  great  things  than  charity.    Not 
your  sympathy,  but  your  bravery  hath  hitherto  saved  the  victims. 

"What  is  good?"  ye  ask.   To  be  brave  is  good.   Let  the  little  girls 
say:  "To  be  good  is  what  is  pretty,  and  at  the  same  time  touching."  .  .  . 

Resistance— -that  is  the  distinction  of  the  slave.   Let  your  distinction 
be  obedience.  Let  your  commanding  itself  be  obeying! 

To  the  good  warrior  soundeth  "thou  shalt"  pleasanter  than  "I  will." 
And  all  that  is  dear  unto  you,  ye  shall  first  have  it  commanded  unto  you. 

Let  your  love  to  life  be  love  to  your  highest  hope;  and  let  your  highest 
hope  be  the  highest  thought  of  life/ 

Your  highest  thought,  however,  ye  shall  have  it  commanded  unto  you 
by  me— and  it  is  this:  man  is  something  that  is  to  be  surpassed. 

So  live  your  life  of  obedience  and  of  war/  What  matter  about  long 
life?  What  warrior  wisheth  to  be  spared/ 

I  spare  you  not,  I  love  you  from  my  very  heart,  my  brethren  in  war/- 
Thus spake  Zarathustra. 

FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE,  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra 


4.  One  of  the  oldest  jokes  in  the  world,  which  recurs  in  almost  every 
number  of  every  humorous  periodical,  in  comic  strips  and  stage  farces, 
is  a  variant,  without  much  variety,  of  the  idea  that  woman  talks  too 
much,  that  she  talks  more  and  says  less  than  her  superior  brother,  who, 
of  course,  invented  the  joke.  Many  centuries  ago  the  unknown  author 
of  that  excellent  book,  "Ecclesiasticus,"  which  is  relegated  to  the  APOC- 
RYPHA, wrote:  "As  the  climbing  of  a  sandy  way  is  to  the  feet  of  the 
aged,  so  is  a  wife  full  of  words  to  a  quiet  man."  The  ancient  scribe  was 
not  a  woman-hater,  for  he  says  a  few  lines  later:  "A  married  woman  is  a 
tower  against  death  to  her  husband."  Much  sympathy  has  been  wasted 
on  Socrates  because  his  wife  Xantippe  had  a  shrewd  and  tireless  tongue, 
but  it  was  not  the  abundance  of  her  words  so  much  as  her  ill  temper 
that  vexed  the  philosopher.  He  was  not  a  silent  man;  indeed,  if  he  had 
not  spent  much  of  his  time  talking  (outside  his  house),  we  should  never 
have  heard  of  him. 

The  theme  of  the  loquacious  lady  has  been  turned  over  and  over 
again  in  the  comedies  of  all  nations.  Ben  Jonson  played  with  it  in 


Interpreting  Meaning  55 

EPICCENE,  or  THE  SILENT  WOMAN.  In  Anatole  France's  amusing  skit, 
THE  MAN  WHO  MARRIED  A  DUMB  WIFE,  when  the  woman  is  cured 
of  her  malady  and  finds  her  tongue  she  finds  very  much  of  it/  The  many 
jests  on  the  lingual  exuberance  of  women  would  fill  volumes.  Some  are 
stupid.  Others  are  witty,  like  the  remark  of  the  Yankee  sailor  that  his 
wife  talked  so  fast  that  the  last  word  came  first.  .  .  . 

There  is  underneath  this  joke  an  important  fact  entirely  creditable  to 
the  fairer  half  of  the  human  race  and  necessary  to  the  intellectual  de- 
velopment of  the  entire  race,  male  and  female  alike,  as  God  created  us. 

This  is  the  momentous  truth:  women  ought  to  talk  as  much  as  they 
do,  or,  if  possible,  more.  If  women  were  not  natural,  instinctive,  uncon- 
scious chatterers,  civilization  would  perish,  and  we  should  all  grow  up 
more  stupid,  ignorant,  and  uneducated  than  we  arc.  Women  are  the 
source  and  fountain  of  language,  pouring  it  forth  at  the  time  when  we 
most  need  language,  in  the  earliest  years  of  childhood.  We  owe  all  that 
is  most  vital  in  our  education  to  the  provision  of  Nature  that  mother, 
grandmother,  aunt,  sister,  nurse  were  garrulous  women  and  kept  the 
very  air  we  breathed  swarming  with  words  from  morning  till  night.  From 
the  moment  when  we  wake  up  in  the  cradle  and  begin  to  cry  for  food 
until  the  hour  when  we  are  sung  to  sleep,  it  is  women  who  flood  our 
ears  and  brains  with  language. 

JOHN  MACY,  "Why  Women  Should  Talk/' 
from  About  Women 

5.  Once  in  awhile,  when  doors  are  closed  and  curtains  drawn  on  a 
group  of  free  spirits,  the  miracle  happens,  and  Good  Talk  begins.  'Tis 
a  sudden  illumination— the  glow,  it  may  be  of  sanctified  candles,  or  more 
likely,  the  blaze  around  a  cauldron  of  gossip. 

Is  there  an  ecstasy  or  any  intoxication  like  it?  Oh,  to  talk,  to  talk  peo- 
ple into  monsters,  to  talk  one's  self  out  of  one's  clothes,  to  talk  God  from 
His  heaven,  to  say  everything,  and  turn  everything  in  the  world  into 
a  bright  tissue  of  phrases/ 

These  Pentecosts  and  outpourings  of  the  spirit  can  only  occur  very 
rarely,  or  the  Universe  itself  would  be  soon  talked  out  of  existence. 

LOGAN  PEARSALL  SMITH,  "Talk,"  from  Trivia 

6.   Yes 

Is  made  to  bless 
By  natural  largesse. 
Yes  is  full  sun, 
Day  well  begun, 
And  labor  done; 


56  Reading  to  Others 

The  high 

Response  of  the  beloved  eye; 

Approving  sky; 

Rich  laughter;  open  hands; 
The  bright  expanse 
Of  casual  circumstance. 

Yes 

Is  no  less 

Than  God's  excess. 

No 

Is  the  slow 
Finality  of  snow, 
The  soft  blow  deadening 
all  that  grow; 

Locked  brain; 

The  tight-lipped  tugging 

at  the  rein; 
The  blood  stopped  in  the  vein; 

Dull  dying  without  death; 

Lost  faith 

Sick  of  its  own  breath. 

No  is  the  freezing  look, 
The  closed  book, 
The  dream  forsook. 

Louis  UNTERMEYER,  Yes  and  No 

I 

7.   Men  with  picked  voices  chant  the  names 
of  cities  in  a  huge  gallery:  promises 
that  pull  through  descending  stairways 
to  a  deep  rumbling. 

The  rubbing  feet 

of  those  coining  to  be  carried  quicken  a 
grey  pavement  into  soft  light  that  rocks 
to  and  fro,  under  the  domed  ceiling, 
across  and  across  from  pale 
earthcoloured  walls  of  bare  limestone. 


Interpreting  Meaning  57 

Covertly  the  hands  of  a  great  clock 
go  round  and  round/  Were  they  to 
move  quickly  and  at  once  the  whole 
secret  would  be  out  and  the  shuffling 
of  all  ants  be  done  forever. 

A  leaning  pyramid  of  sunlight,  narrowing 
out  at  a  high  window,  moves  by  the  clock: 
disaccordant  hands  straining  out  from 
a  center:  inevitable  postures  infinitely 
repeated— 

II 

Two — twofour — two  eight/ 

Porters  in  red  hats  run  on  narrow  platforms. 

this  way  ma'am/ 

—important  not  to  take 
the  wrong  train/ 

Lights  from  the  concrete 
ceiling  hang  crooked  but — 

Poised  horizontal 

on  glittering  parallels  the  dingy  cylinders 
packed  with  a  warm  glow— inviting  entry- 
pull  against  the  hour.  But  brakes  can 
hold  a  fixed  posture  till— 

The  whistle/ 

Not  twoeight.  Not  twofour.  Two/ 

Gliding  windows.  Colored  cooks  sweating 
in  a  small  kitchen.  Taillights— 

In  time:  twofour/ 
In  time:  twoeight/ 

—rivers  are  tunneled:  trestles 
cross  oozy  swampland:  wheels  repeating 
the  same  gesture  remain  relatively 
stationary:  rails  forever  parallel 
return  on  themselves  infinitely. 

The  dance  is  sure. 

WILLIAM  CARLOS  WILLIAMS,  Overture  to  a  Dance 

of  Locomotives 


58  Reading  to  Others 

8.   ("The  best/'  "the  only,"  "the  most  costly/") 
Gilt  frames  melt  into  their  donors'  gold; 
Stone  floors  glide  smugly; 
Ground-glass  skylights  shine  too  debonairly. 
Blue  and  crimson  oils  shriek  their  gaucherie 
Of  impression. 

A  Botticelli  shrinks  into  embarrassment, 
Reluctant  to  become  part  of  garishness, 
Only  owned  and  counted. 

("Biggest  endowment  in  the  country  outside  of  New  York/') 
A  Rembrandt  hides  its  eyes  in  gloom, 
As  if  our  briskness  intruded  on  the  quiet 
Of  three  hundred  years  in  mellowed  galleries. 
Vermeers,  Romneys,  Diirers,  Titians 
Cannot  live  in  all  this  light  and  civic  pride. 
("A  smart  city's  got  to  have  culture/") 

ARTHUR  J.  THOMAS,  Art  Gallery 

9.    Death,  thou'rt  a  cordial  old  and  rare: 
Look  how  compounded,  with  what  care/ 
Time  got  his  wrinkles  reaping  thee 
Sweet  herbs  from  all  antiquity. 

David  to  thy  dis tillage  went, 
Keats,  and  Gotama  excellent, 
Omar  Khayyam,  and  Chaucer  bright, 
And  Shakespeare  for  a  king-delight. 

These  were  to  sweeten  thee  with. song; 
The  blood  of  heroes  made  thee  strong. 
What  heroes/  Ah,  for  shame,  for  shame/ 
The  worthiest  dies  without  a  name. 

Then,  Time,  let  not  a  drop  be  spilt: 
Hand  me  the  cup  whene'er  thou  wilt; 
'Tis  thy  rich  stirrup-cup  to  me; 
I'll  drink  it  down  right  smilingly. 

SIDNEY  LANIER,  The  Stirrup-Cup 

10.   I  have  a  bookcase,  which  is  what 
Many  much  better  men  have  not. 
There  are  no  books  inside,  for  books, 
I  am  afraid,  might  spoil  its  looks. 


Interpreting  Meaning  59 

But  I've  three  busts,  all  second-hand, 
Upon  the  top.  You  understand 
I  could  not  put  them  underneath— 
Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

Shake  was  a  dramatist  of  note; 
He  lived  by  writing  things  to  quote. 
He  long  ago  put  on  his  shroud; 
Some  of  his  works  are  rather  loud. 
His  bald-spot's  dusty,  I  suppose. 
I  know  there's  dust  upon  his  nose. 
I'll  have  to  give  each  nose  a  sheath- 
Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

Mulleary's  line  was  quite  the  same; 
He  has  more  hair,  but  far  less  fame. 
I  would  not  from  that  fame  retrench- 
But  he  is  foreign,  being  French. 
Yet  high  his  haughty  head  he  heaves, 
The  only  one  done  up  in  leaves, 
They're  rather  limited  on  wreath — 
Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

Go-ethe  wrote  in  the  German  tongue: 
He  must  have  learned  it  very  young. 
His  nose  is  quite  a  butt  for  scoff, 
Although  an  inch  of  it  is  off. 
He  did  quite  nicely  for  the  Dutch; 
But  here  he  doesn't  count  for  much. 
They  all  are  off  their  native  heath- 
Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

They  sit  there,  on  their  chests,  as  bland 
As  if  they  were  not  second-hand. 
I  do  not  know  of  what  they  think, 
Nor  why  they  never  frown  or  wink. 
But  why  from  smiling  they  refrain 
I  think  I  clearly  can  explain: 
They  none  of  them  could  show  much  teeth- 
Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

HENRY  CUYLER  BUNNER,  Shake,  Mulleary 

and  Go-ethe 


CHAPTER    2 


=         ~=       jr  irr 

H  J^I   Interpret  hi s  ^motion 


THOUGH  meaning  is  a  primary 
requisite  in  good  interpretation,  meaning  alone,  drained  of  feeling, 
is  mechanical  and  colorless.  Unless  the  reader  sympathetically 
responds  to  the  mood  of  the  author  and  to  the  emotions  induced 
by  the  material,  and  unless  he  is  able  to  communicate  the  mood 
and  the  emotions  to  his  audience,  he  is  not  a  good  reader,  how- 
ever well  he  understands  what  he  reads. 

Frederick  Prescott,  in  his  book,  Poetry  and  Myth,  takes  up  the 
question:  "Is  poetry  expressive  of  feeling  or  of  thought?"  He 
agrees  with  Middleton  Murry,  who  said,  "The  feelings  communi- 
cated by  art  are  not  simply  feelings.  They  partake  of  the  nature 
of  feelings,  they  partake  of  the  nature  of  thoughts;  yet  they  are 
neither  one  nor  the  other."  Professor  Prescott  goes  on,  "That 
is  about  as  near  as  we  can  come  to  it;  the  burden  of  poetry  is  a 
'thought-feeling.'  Perhaps  we  may  go  a  little  further  and  say 
that  as  the  poet's  conscious  thoughts  are  colored  by  his  unconscious 
feelings,  so  his  unconscious  feelings  are  in  part  instructed— given 
new  values  and  directions— by  his  conscious  thoughts.  Thus  is  his 
mental  experience  as  a  whole,  if  normal,  made  integral.  But  if 
there  is  this  mingling  and  reaction  between  thought  and  feeling, 
it  is  perhaps  finally  the  feelings,  as  so  instructed,  that  are  responsible 
for  poetry.  In  other  words,  the  poet's  feelings,  instead  of  being 
the  mere  elementary  and  instinctive  emotions,  are  the  workings 
of  the  heart  of  every  sort,  as  these  have  been  gradually  improved- 
organized,  elevated,  and  refined— not  only  by  their  contact  with 
his  intellectual  thought,  but  by  any  other  exercise  or  experience 

60 


Interpreting  Emotion  61 

whatsoever.  Thus  are  developed  the  high  intuitions  as  well  as  the 
delicacies  and  graces  of  feeling  which  are  the  poet's  best  subject 
matter." 

In  this  chapter  we  shall  discuss  emotion  in  mood,  the  reader's 
personal  reaction,  imagery,  sound,  and  poetic  devices.  Under 
poetic  devices  are  included  rhyme,  assonance,  alliteration,  meter, 
rhythm,  repetition,  and  unconventional  rhythms  and  stanza  pat- 
terns. The  description  of  poetic  devices  necessarily  takes  up  more 
space  than  the  other  elements  of  emotion,  but  you  must  not 
overestimate  their  importance  in  relation  to  mood,  imagery,  and 
sound. 

EMOTION    IN    MOOD 

Many  readers  are  tripped  up  even  by  rather  easy  material  be- 
cause they  do  not  recognize  the  attitude  of  the  author.  Only  too 
common  is  the  pathetic  spectacle  of  an  interpreter  reading  solemnly 
what  is  supposed  to  be  funny  or  taking  literally  a  piece  of  irony. 
Mood  is  the  state  of  mind  of  the  author  at  the  moment  of  writing, 
expressed  in  a  usually  definite  attitude  toward  himself,  toward 
the  person  or  thing  he  is  writing  about,  or  toward  the  world  in 
general.  Thus  a  man  might  write  in  a  mood  of  anger,  as  Alexander 
Pope  often  did,  or  in  a  mood  of  indignation,  as  Wordsworth  did 
in  his  sonnet,  "The  World  Is  Too  Much  with  Us/'  He  might 
write  in  a  mood  of  despair,  as  Shelley  did  in  his  * 'Stanzas  Written 
in  Dejection  near  Naples,"  or  in  a  mood  of  sorrow,  as  Tennyson 
did  in  many  stanzas  of  "In  Memoriam."  Or  the  mood  might  be 
cynical  like  that  of  Byron  in  "Don  Juan,"  or  ecstatic  like  that  of 
Francis  Thompson  in  his  "Hound  of  Heaven."  The  list  of  moods 
could  be  extended  indefinitely.  There  are  moods  of  joy,  pity, 
humility,  satire,  bitterness,  pride,  surprise,  horror,  tranquility, 
ardor,  arrogance,  candor,  rage,  suspicion,  impudence,  indifference, 
and  so  on. 

How  can  you  as  a  reader  determine  the  mood  of  the  author? 
There  is  no  simple  way  through  convenient  signs.  In  music  the 
composer  often  describes  the  mood  of  a  passage  by  labeling  it 
"amoroso"  or  "misterioso"  or  "dolce."  But  you  must  search  out 
the  mood  of  a  poet  or  an  essayist  or  an  orator  for  yourself.  He 
does  not  usually  keep  it  a  secret.  Unless  he  speaks  entirely  in  the 
person  of  a  character,  as  a  dramatist  must  do,  you  can  learn  by 
study  of  the  ideas  presented  and  the  nature  of  their  expression 


62  Reading  to  Others 

how  the  author  felt  about  them.  No  one  but  a  dull  person  could 
mistake  the  mood  of  sincerity  and  idealism  in  Lincoln's  words: 

With  malice  toward  none;  with  charity  for  all;  with  firmness  in  the 
right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work 
we  are  in;  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds;  to  care  for  him  who  shall 
have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow,  and  his  orphan—to  do  all 
which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace  among  ourselves 
and  with  all  nations. 

Similarly,  the  mood  of  indignation  is  immediately  apparent  in 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes's  "Old  Ironsides": 

Ay,  tear  her  tattered  ensign  down/ 

Long  has  it  waved  on  high, 
And  many  an  eye  has  danced  to  see 

That  banner  in  the  sky; 
Beneath  it  rung  the  battle  shout, 

And  burst  the  cannon's  roar;— 
The  meteor  of  the  ocean  air 

Shall  sweep  the  clouds  no  more. 

Her  deck,  once  red  with  heroes'  blood, 

Where  knelt  the  vanquished  foe, 
When  winds  were  hurrying  o'er  the  flood, 

And  waves  were  white  below, 
No  more  shall  feel  the  victor's  tread, 

Or  know  the  conquered  knee; — 
The  harpies  of  the  shore  shall  pluck 

The  eagle  of  the  sea/ 

Oh,  better  that  her  shattered  hulk 

Should  sink  beneath  the  wave; 
Her  thunders  shook  the  mighty  deep, 

And  there  should  be  her  grave; 
Nail  to  the  mast  her  holy  flag, 

Set  every  threadbare  sail, 
And  give  her  to  the  god  of  storms, 

The  lightning  and  the  gale. 

The  sophisticated,  gay  mood  of  Suckling's  "Why  So  Pale  and 
Wan"  should  be  immediately  apparent  in  the  tone  of  the  poem, 


Interpreting  Emotion  63 

but  many,  many  times  are  the  bright  lines  read  with  grim 
seriousness: 

Why  so  pale  and  wan,  fond  lover? 

Prithee,  why  so  pale? 
Will,  when  looking  well  can't  move  her, 

Looking  ill  prevail? 

Prithee,  why  so  pale? 

Why  so  dull  and  mute,  young  sinner? 

Prithee,  why  so  mute? 
Will,  when  speaking  well  can't  win  her, 

Saying  nothing  do't? 

Prithee,  why  so  mute? 

Quit,  quit  for  shame/   This  will  not  move; 

This  cannot  take  her. 
If  of  herself  she  will  not  love, 

Nothing  can  make  her: 

The  devil  take  her/ 

Knowing  something  about  Sir  John  Suckling  and  the  little  group 
of  worldly  Cavalier  poets  of  the  seventeenth  century  would  help 
establish  the  mood  proper  to  their  work.  Their  attitude  towaid 
life  is  visible  in  every  line  they  wrote,  however,  and  the  aleit 
interpreter  can  adjust  himself  to  their  moods  even  though  he 
knows  nothing  about  the  authors. 

The  mood  of  satire  is  often  grievously  misinterpreted.   Stephen 
Crane's  candid  lines, 

A  man  said  to  the  universe, 
"Sir,  I  exist/" 

"However/'  replied  the  universe, 
"The  fact  has  not  created  in  me 

A  sense  of  obligation," 

need  more  than  an  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  the  words. 
So  with  the  mood  of  bitterness,  as  in  Byron's  Childe  Harold's 
Pilgrimage 

1  have  not  loved  the  world,  nor  the  world  me; 
I  have  not  flattered  its  rank  breath,  nor  bowed 
To  its  idolatries  a  patient  knee, 


64  Reading  to  Others 

NOT  coined  my  cheek  to  smiles— nor  cried  aloud 

In  worship  of  an  echo:  in  the  crowd 

They  could  not  deem  me  one  of  such— I  stood 

Among  them,  but  not  of  them—in  a  shroud 

Of  thoughts  which  were  not  their  thoughts,  and  still  could, 

Had  I  not  filed  [defiled]  my  mind,  which  thus  itself  subdued. 

The  delicate  mood  of  fantasy  can  be  only  too  easily  destroyed 
by  clumsy,  insensitive  reading,  just  as  the  mood  of  fierceness  or 
roughness  or  power  can  be  ruined  by  too  gentle  a  manner.  Note 
the  difference  in  mood  between  de  la  Mare's 

Suppose  .  .  .  and  suppose  that  a  wild  little  Horse  of  Magic 

Came  cantering  out  of  the  sky, 
With  bridle  of  silver,  and  into  the  saddle  I  mounted, 

To  fly-and  to  fly, 

and  Carl  Sandburg's 

Hog  Butcher  for  the  World, 

Tool  Maker,  Stacker  of  Wheat, 

Player  with  Railroads  and  the  Nation's  Freight  Handler; 

Stormy,  husky,  brawling, 

City  of  the  Big  Shoulders. 

Or  see  what  adjustment  must  be  made  in  tone  and  manner  between 
the  mood  of  playfulness  in  Coventry  Patmore's 

"I  saw  you  take  his  kiss/"   "  Tis  true/' 

"O  modesty/"    "  Twas  strictly  kept: 
He  thought  me  asleep— at  least,  I  knew 
He  thought  I  thought  he  thought  I  slept," 

and  the  mood  of  mysticism  in  Henry  Vaughan's 

I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night, 

Like  a  great  ring  of  pure  and  endless  light, 

All  calm,  as  it  was  bright; 
And  round  beneath  it,  Time,  in  hours,  days,  years, 

Driv'n  by  the  spheres, 
Like  a  vast  shadow  moved,  in  which  the  world 

And  all  her  train  were  hurled. 

In  narrative  and  dramatic  writing  the  mood  of  a  writer  is 
subordinated  to  the  mood  of  the  character  represented,  as  in 
Amy  Lowell's  "Patterns"  or  Browning's  "My  Last  Duchess." 


Interpreting  Emotion  65 

Then  the  interpreter  may  have  to  apply  some  of  the  conditions 
of  dramatic  interpretation,  which  will  be  dealt  with  in  a  later 
chapter.  Narrative  prose  or  poetry,  too,  usually  revealing  an 
author's  general  tone  (as  Thomas  Hardy  frequently  displays  a 
mood  of  desolation  in  his  descriptions  or  as  Milton's  mood  of 
austerity  comes  through  his  lines),  requires  shifts  in  mood  from 
character  to  character.  This  is  also  a  problem  of  dramatic 
interpretation. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  more  than  one  mood  is  possible 
in  the  same  piece.  Shelley's  "Ode  to  the  West  Wind"  reveals 
both  anguish  and  zeal;  Dickens  may  slip  from  sentiment  into 
caricature;  Chaucer  may  be  both  ironic  and  reverent  within  a 
few  lines. 

Exercises 

Prepare  to  read  the  following  selections  aloud  so  that  your 
reading  correctly  interprets  the  mood  of  each.  Be  sure  that  you 
suit  the  expression  to  the  mood,  not  letting  a  melancholy  tone 
tear  the  spirit  out  of  a  gay  song  or  a  harsh  tone  break  the  delicacy 
of  an  imaginative  piece. 

i.   My  aunt/  my  dear  unmarried  aunt/ 

Long  years  have  o'er  her  flown; 
Yet  still  she  strains  the  aching  clasp 

That  binds  her  virgin  zone; 
I  know  it  hurts  her—though  she  looks 

As  cheerful  as  she  can; 
Her  waist  is  ampler  than  her  life, 
For  life  is  but  a  span. 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES,  My  Aunt 

2.  The  war  against  war  is  going  to  be  no  holiday  excursion  or  camp- 
ing party.  The  military  feelings  are  too  deeply  grounded  to  abdicate 
their  place  among  our  ideals  until  better  substitutes  are  offered  than 
the  glory  and  shame  that  come  to  nations  as  well  as  to  individuals  from 
the  ups  and  downs  of  politics  and  the  vicissitudes  of  trade.  There  is 
something  highly  paradoxical  in  the  modern  man's  relation  to  war.  Ask 
all  our  millions,  north  and  south,  whether  they  would  vote  now  (were 
such  a  thing  possible)  to  have  our  war  for  the  Union  expunged  from 
history,  and  the  record  of  a  peaceful  transition  to  the  present  time  sub- 
stituted for  that  of  its  marches  and  battles,  and  probably  a  handful  of 


66  Reading  to  Others 

eccentrics  would  say  yes.  Those  ancestors,  those  efforts,  those  memo- 
ries and  legends,  are  the  most  ideal  part  of  what  we  now  own  together, 
a  sacred  spiritual  possession  worth  more  than  all  the  blood  poured  out. 
Yet  ask  those  same  people  whether  they  would  be  willing  in  cold  blood 
to  start  another  civil  war  now  to  gain  another  similar  possession,  and  not 
one  man  or  woman  would  vote  for  the  proposition.  In  modern  eyes, 
precious  though  wars  may  be,  they  must  not  be  waged  solely  for  the  sake 
of  the  ideal  harvest.  Only  when  forced  upon  one,  only  when  an  enemy's 
injustice  leaves  us  no  alternative,  is  a  war  now  thought  permissible. 

WILLIAM  JAMES,  The  Moral  Equivalent  of  War 

3.   Such  was  he,  our  Martyr-Chief, 

Whom  late  the  Nation  he  had  led, 

With  ashes  on  her  head, 
Wept  with  the  passion  of  an  angry  grief: 
Forgive  me,  if  from  present  things  I  turn 
To  speak  what  in  my  heart  will  beat  and  burn, 
And  hang  my  wreath  on  his  world-honored  urn. 

Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 

And  cannot  make  a  man 

Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 

Repeating  us  by  rote: 
For  him  her  Old- World  moulds  aside  she  threw 

And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 

Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and  true. 

How  beautiful  to  see 

Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed, 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to  lead; 
; ,  One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed  to  be, 

Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth, 

But  by  his  clear-grained  human  worth, 
And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity/  .  .  . 

His  was  no  lonely  mountain-peak  of  mind, 

Thrusting  to  thin  air  o'er  our  cloudy  bars, 

A  sea-mark  now,  now  lost  in  vapors  blind; 

Broad  prairie  rather,  genial,  level-lined, 

Fruitful  and  friendly  for  all  human  kind, 
Yet  also  nigh  to  heaven  and  loved  of  loftiest  stars  .  .  . 

He  knew  to  bide  his  time, 

And  can  his  fame  abide, 


Interpreting  Emotion  67 

Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sublime, 

Till  the  wise  years  decide. 
Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 
Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 

But  at  last  silence  comes; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame. 

The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 

New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American. 
JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL,  Ode  Recited  at  the  Harvard 

Commemoration 

4.  How  solemn  and  beautiful  is  the  thought  that  the  earliest  pioneer 
of  civilization,  the  van-leader  of  civilization,  is  never  the  steamboat,  never 
the  railroad,  never  the  newspaper,  never  the  Sabbath-school,  never  the 
missionary— but  always  whiskey/  Such  is  the  case.  Look  history  over; 
you  will  see.  The  missionary  comes  after  the  whiskey— I  mean  he  ar- 
rives after  the  whiskey  has  arrived;  next  comes  the  poor  immigrant,  with 
axe  and  hoe  and  rifle;  next,  the  trader;  next,  the  miscellaneous  rush;  next, 
the  gambler,  the  desperado,  the  highwayman,  and  all  their  kindred  in 
sin  of  both  sexes;  and  next,  the  smart  chap  who  has  bought  up  an  old 
grant  that  covers  all  the  land;  this  brings  the  lawyer  tribe;  the  vigilance 
committee  brings  the  undertaker.  All  these  interests  bring  the  news- 
paper; the  newspaper  starts  up  politics  and  a  railroad;  all  hands  turn  to 
and  build  a  church  and  a  jail— and  behold/  civilization  is  established 
forever  in  the  land.  But  whiskey,  you  see,  was  the  van-leader  in  this 
beneficent  work.  It  always  is.  It  was  like  a  foreigner— excusable  in  a 
foreigner— to  be  ignorant  of  this  great  truth,  and  wander  off  into  astron- 
omy to  borrow  a  symbol.  But  if  he  had  been  conversant  with  the  facts, 
he  would  have  said,  Westward  the  Jug  of  Empire  takes  its  way. 

MARK  TWAIN,  Life  on  the  Mississippi 

5.   And  did  those  feet  in  ancient  time 

Walk  upon  England's  mountains  green? 
And  was  the  holy  Lamb  of  God 
On  England's  pleasant  pasture  seen? 

And  did  the  Countenance  Divine 

Shine  forth  upon  our  clouded  hills? 
And  was  Jerusalem  builded  here 

Among  these  dark  satanic  mills? 


68  Reading  to  Others 

Bring  me  my  bow  of  burning  gold/ 

Bring  me  my  arrows  of  desire/ 
Bring  me  my  spear/  O  clouds,  unfold/ 

Bring  me  my  chariot  of  fire/ 

I  will  not  cease  from  mental  fight, 
Nor  shall  my  sword  sleep  in  my  hand, 

Till  we  have  built  Jerusalem 
In  England's  green  and  pleasant  land. 

WILLIAM  BLAKE,  Milton 


THE    READER   S    PERSONAL     REACTION 

We  have  been  considering  emotion  as  initiated  by  the  author 
and  expressed  by  the  reader.  But  there  is  another  aspect  of  emotion 
that  may  be  quite  independent  of  the  mood  of  the  author.  It  is 
the  excitement  of  poetry  itself,  the  sensuous  pleasure  of  re-creating 
the  beauty  of  sound  and  image,  and  the  personal  satisfaction  of 
saying  something  that  one  may  have  deeply  felt  but  never  been 
able  to  express.  Emily  Dickinson  described  this  subjective  effect  of 
poetry  when  she  said,  "If  I  read  a  book  and  it  makes  my  whole 
body  so  cold  no  fire  can  ever  warm  me,  I  know  that  is  poetry. 
If  I  feel  physically  as  if  the  top  of  my  head  were  taken  off,  I  know 
that  is  poetry.  These  are  the  only  ways  I  know  it.  Is  there  any 
other  way?"  Poe  too  believed  that  the  most  important  manifesta- 
tion of  what  he  called  the  poetic  principle  is  "an  elevating  excite- 
ment of  the  Soul"  in  the  reader. 

The  first  emotional  requirement  of  the  interpreter  is  that  he 
faithfully  represent  the  mood  of  the  author  as  manifest  in  the 
spirit  of  the  selection.  But  beyond  that  he  should  express  some- 
thing of  what  he  himself  feels.  Part  of  that  feeling  may  be  traced 
to  the  rhythms  and  choice  of  words  (either  for  meaning  or  musical 
sound)  of  the  writer  or  to  technical  devices  like  rhyme,  stanza 
patterns,  and  so  on.  Part  may  be  aroused  by  imagery.  In  the 
sincere  interpreter  much  of  the  emotional  response  will  be  the 
sheer  pleasure  of  repeating  what  Coleridge  called  "the  best  words 
in  their  best  order"  and  the  often  inexplicable  "sensations  sweet, 
felt  in  the  blood,  and  felt  along  the  heart/'  as  Wordsworth 
described  the  joy  of  nature.  That  pleasure  may  be  the  product 
of  experience.  The  more  we  have  lived  and  done  and  read,  the 
better  able  we  are  to  understand  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of 


Interpreting  Emotion  6g 

others.  Or  the  pleasure  may  be  instinctive,  through  some  uncon- 
scious association.  That  is,  in  some  measure,  the  reader  makes 
what  he  reads  his  own.  To  it  he  brings  not  only  what  he  is  and 
thinks  and  feels,  but  the  changing  spirit  of  a  changing  world.  He 
interprets  in  the  light  of  his  own  personality  and  in  the  light  of 
contemporary  thought  brought  to  bear  upon  what  became  a  part 
of  the  past  as  soon  as  it  was  written. 

When  we  try  to  analyze  this  personal  emotional  reaction  to 
literature,  we  discover  something  of  the  fundamental  value  of 
great  prose  and  poetry.  TheL  purpose  of  any  art  is  to  give  pleasure; 
the  highest  forms  of  art  satisfy  our  highest  moral,  ethical,  and 
aesthetic  needs.  The  interpreter,  that  is,  not  only  shares  with  the 
writer  the  powerful  feelings  that  we  have  called  mood,  but  he 
also  experiences  other,  more  personal  emotions  that  come  to  him 
through  the  revelation  of  truth  and  greatness  of  mind. 

Let  us  try  to  illustrate  this  kind  of  emotion.  Take  for  example 
Prospero's  magnificent  lines  in  The  Tempest: 

Our  revels  now  are  ended.   These  our  actors, 
As  I  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits  and 
Are  melted  into  air,  into  thin  air; 
And,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision, 
The  cloud-capped  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind.   We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep 

The  mood  of  the  speaker  is  philosophical.  An  interpreter  might 
take  pleasure  in  the  beauty  of  the  words  and  images:  "the  baseless 
fabric  of  this  vision,"  "insubstantial  pageant,"  "our  little  life  is 
rounded  with  a  sleep,"  "cloud-capped  towers."  To  the  sensitive 
reader,  however,  there  is  something  more  than  the  beauty  of 
phrase  and  even  something  more  than  the  beauty  of  thought. 
It  is  the  indefinable  joy  of  contact  with  greatness,  the  sense  of 
communion  with  someone  whom  we  are  proud  to  know.  It  is, 
moreover,  our  own  peculiar  reaction  to  the  ideas  and  feelings 
presented,  depending  on  our  experience  and  personality.  If  to 
us  at  some  time  has  occurred  the  wistful  thought  that  all  of  our 


yo  Reading  to  Others 

selves  and  all  of  our  achievements  will  one  day  vanish  into  thin 
air,  Prospero's  words  have  a  special  significance. 

Exercises 

What  emotional  suggestiveness  do  you  find  in  the  following 
selections?  Try  to  explain  it  in  terms  of  personal  experience, 
not  stressing  the  emotions  aroused  by  imagery  or  sound  or  mood. 
That  is,  explain  or  describe  the  feelings  of  pleasure  in  the  genius, 
nobility,  sweetness  of  mind,  or  sincerity  of  the  writer  that  you 
experience  when  you  read  these  passages. 

i.    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  canons  'gainst  self-slaughter/   O  God!   O  God! 
How  weary,  stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable 
Seem  to  me  all  the  uses  of  this  world. 
Fie  on't!  O  fie/  'tis  an  unweeded  garden, 
That  grows  to  seed;  things  rank  and  gross  in  nature 
Possess  it  merely.  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  Hamlet 

2.  Poetry  is  indeed  something  divine.  It  is  at  once  the  centre  and 
circumference  of  knowledge;  it  is  that  which  comprehends  all  science, 
and  that  to  which  all  science  must  be  referred  ...  It  is  the  perfect 
and  consummate  surface  and  bloom  of  all  things;  it  is  as  the  odour  and 
the  colour  of  the  rose  to  the  texture  of  the  elements  which  compose 
it,  as  the  form  and  splendour  of  unfaded  beauty  to  the  secrets  of  anatomy 
and  corruption.  What  were  virtue,  love,  patriotism,  friendship— what 
were  the  scenery  of  this  beautiful  universe  which  we  inhabit;  what  were 
our  consolations  on  this  side  of  the  grave — and  what  our  aspirations 
beyond  it,  if  poetry  did  not  ascend  to  bring  light  and  fire  from  those 
eternal  regions  where  the  owl-winged  faculty  of  calculation  dare  not 
ever  soar?  .  .  . 

Poetry  is  the  record  of  the  best  and  happiest  moments  of  the  happiest 
and  best  minds  .  .  .  Poetry  thus  makes  immortal  all  that  is  best  and 
most  beautiful  in  the  world;  it  arrests  the  banishing  apparitions  which 
haunt  the  interlunations  of  life,  and  veiling  them,  or  in  language  or  in 
form,  sends  them  forth  among  mankind,  bearing  sweet  news  of  kindred 
joy  to  those  with  whom  their  sisters  abide— abide,  because  there  is  no 
portal  of  expression  from  the  caverns  of  the  spirit  which  they  inhabit 
into  the  universe  of  things.  Poetry  redeems  from  decay  the  visitations  of 
the  divinity  in  man. 


Interpreting  Emotion  71 

3.    Oh,  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill, 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will, 
Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood; 

That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet; 

That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 

Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete; 

That  not  a  worm  is  cloven  in  vain; 

That  not  a  moth  with  vain  desire 

Is  shriveird  in  a  fruitless  fire, 
Or  but  subserves  another's  gain. 

Behold,  we  know  not  anything; 

I  can  but  trust  that  good  shall  fall 

At  last— far  off— at  last,  to  all, 
And  every  winter  change  to  spring. 

So  runs  my  dream:  but  what  am  I? 

An  infant  crying  in  the  night: 

An  infant  crying  for  the  light: 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry. 

ALFRED  TENNYSON,  In  Memoriam 

4.   With  rue  my  heart  is  laden 
For  golden  friends  I  had, 
For  many  a  rose-lipt  maiden 
And  many  a  lightfoot  lad. 

By  brooks  too  broad  for  leaping 

The  lightfoot  boys  are  laid; 
The  rose-lipt  girls  are  sleeping 

In  fields  where  roses  fade. 

A.  E.  HOUSMAN 

5.  Wherefore,  O  judges,  be  of  good  cheer  about  death,  and  know 
this  of  a  truth— that  no  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man,  either  in  life  or 
after  death.  He  and  his  are  not  neglected  by  the  gods;  nor  has  my  own 
approaching  end  happened  by  mere  chance.  But  I  see  clearly  that  to 
die  and  be  released  was  better  for  me;  and  therefore  the  oracle  gave  no 


72  Reading  to  Others 

sign.  For  which  reason  also,  I  am  not  angry  with  my  accusers,  or  my 
condemners;  they  have  done  me  no  harm,  although  neither  of  them 
meant  to  do  me  any  good;  and  for  this  I  may  gently  blame  them. 

Still  I  have  a  favor  to  ask  of  them.  When  my  sons  are  grown  up,  I 
would  ask  you,  O  my  friends,  to  punish  them;  and  I  would  have  you 
trouble  them,  as  I  have  troubled  you,  if  they  seem  to  care  about  riches, 
or  anything,  more  than  about  virtue;  or  if  they  pretend  to  be  something 
when  they  are  really  nothing— then  reprove  them,  as  I  have  reproved 
you,  for  not  caring  about  that  for  which  they  ought  to  care,  and  think- 
ing that  they  are  something  when  they  are  really  nothing.  And  if  you 
do  this,  I  and  my  sons  will  have  received  justice  at  your  hands. 

The  hour  of  departure  has  arrived,  and  we  go  our  ways— I  to  die,  and 
you  to  live.  Which  is  better,  God  only  knows. 

PLATO,  Apology 


EMOTION    IN    IMAGERY 

Before  a  reader  can  get  a  full  comprehension  of  his  material, 
he  must  understand  the  imagery  used  by  his  author.  Of  course 
there  must  also  be  a  sharing  of  the  imaginative  flight,  an  emo- 
tional response  to  the  author's  pictures,  appreciation,  sympathetic 
reaction— but  before  the  interpreter  can  experience  any  of  these, 
he  must  know  the  meaning  of  the  images. 

Imagery  may  be  expressed  in  deliberate  figures  of  speech,  such 
as  metaphors  or  similes.  (Similes  express  an  explicit  likeness. 
Something  is  like  something  else:  "My  love  is  like  a  red,  red  rose." 
Metaphors  are  implied  likenesses;  something  is  something  else: 
"God  is  a  vessel  of  wrath.")  But  more  often  imagery  lies  in  the 
suggestibility  of  words  and  sentences  and  in  sense  impressions.  A 
poet  puts  on  paper  his  "spontaneous  overflow  of  powerful  feel- 
ings" or  "rhythmically  creates  beauty"  out  of  recollected  vivid  im- 
pressions. He  chooses  his  words  carefully  so  that  they  will  convey 
not  only  the  bare  outlines  of  what  he  is  attempting  to  say,  but 
something  of  the  excitement  of  his  experience.  He  hopes  that 
the  reader  will  know  exactly  what  he  is  describing  and  also  feel 
some  of  the  same  emotion  that  he  felt.  That  emotion  is  expressed 
either  through  the  connotation  of  the  words  (that  is,  the  pictures 
that  they  conjure  up  in  the  mind  of  the  reader)  or  through 
powerful  or  beautiful  description  of  a  scene  or  a  mood  or  through 
direct  sensory  images. 


Interpreting  Emotion  73 

When  Edgar  Lee  Masters  wrote  of  Anne  Rutledge  in  The  Spoon 
River  Anthology: 

Out  of  me  unworthy  and  unknown 
The  vibrations  of  deathless  music; 
"With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all/' 

he  was  employing  first  the  imagery  of  metaphor,  then  the  imagery 
of  rich  connotation  of  a  phrase  familiar  to  all  Americans.  "Death- 
less music"  means  the  beautiful  spirit  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Masters  says  in  a  few  lyrical  words  that  Anne  inspired  some  of 
the  greatness  of  her  lover.  The  quotation  of  one  of  Lincoln's 
best-known  phrases  sums  up  Lincoln's  broadness  of  vision.  The 
words  arouse  some  of  the  same  instinctive  emotion  that  we  all 
feel  when  we  see  a  picture  or  a  statue  of  the  Great  Emancipator. 
Keats,  in  the  first  lines  of  his  "Ode  to  a  Nightingale,"  uses 
sensory  images  as  well  as  similes  to  establish  his  mood: 

My  heart  aches,  and  a  drowsy  numbness  pains 
My  sense,  as  though  of  hemlock  I  had  drunk, 
Or  emptied  some  dull  opiate  to  the  drains 
One  minute  past,  and  Lethe-wards  had  sunk. 

The  words  "aches,"  "drowsy,"  "numbness,"  "pains,"  "dull"  suggest 
vivid  physical  sensations.  To  sensitive  readers  these  images  will 
bring  either  sympathetic  muscular  reactions  or  mental  symbols  of 
the  ideas  they  express.  Then  the  poet  brings  in  a  figurative  image, 
"as  though  of  hemlock  I  had  drunk."  He  says  that  his  mind  is  as 
torpid  as  if  he  had  taken  a  deadly  poison.  The  word  "hemlock," 
usually  associated  with  the  execution  of  Socrates,  may  suggest 
the  picture  of  a  condemned  man  drinking  poison  from  a  Gre- 
cian goblet.  Keats  goes  on,  "Or  emptied  some  dull  opiate  to 
the  drains."  The  word  "opiate"  has  many  sinister  connotations. 
It  literally  means  a  narcotic,  but  to  most  of  us  it  suggests 
a  De  Quincey  drinking  laudanum  or  a  stupefied  Oriental  smok- 
ing opium.  We  might  have  to  look  up  the  word  "drains"  to 
learn  its  meaning  of  "dregs";  it  suggests  the  picture  of  draining 
a  cup  or  glass.  Then  "Lethe-wards"  brings  up  the  image  of  the 
River  of  Forgetf ulness  in  Hades.  Every  line  must  be  closely  studied 
to  reveal  the  imagery.  And  how  much  more  meaningful  and 
beautiful  does  a  poem  become  when  we  can  see  all  the  pictures 
painted  by  the  author! 


74  Reading  to  Others 

Sir  Thomas  Browne,  in  the  Religio  Medici,  wrote: 
Yet  have  I  not  so  shaken  hands  with  those  desperate  resolutions,  who 
had  rather  venture  at  large  their  decayed  bottom,  than  bring  her  in  to  be 
new  trimmed  in  the  dock;  who  had  rather  promiscuously  retain  all,  than 
abridge  any,  and  obstinately  be  what  they  are,  than  what  they  have  been, 
as  to  stand  in  diameter  and  swords  point  with  them. 

Before  a  reader  could  possibly  interpret  this  difficult  selection, 
he  would  have  to  untangle  the  parts.  The  image  implied  in  the 
words,  "I  have  not  .  .  .  shaken  hands"  is  a  figurative  one.  Tech- 
nically it  is  called  metonymy,  a  figure  of  speech  in  which  one  phrase 
is  used  which  suggests  another.  Here,  the  act  of  shaking  hands 
suggests  an  attitude  of  friendliness  or  approval.  "Resolutions" 
refers  to  the  men  who  have  resolutions.  It  is  another  figure  of 
speech,  called  synecdoche,  in  which  the  part  is  substituted  for  the 
whole.  The  imagery  of  the  next  part  of  the  sentence  is  that  of 
metaphor.  The  men  of  desperate  resolutions  are  compared  with 
foolhardy  masters  of  ships  who  prefer  to  risk  their  rotting  hulks 
on  the  sea  than  go  to  the  expense  of  having  them  repaired.  The 
word  "bottom"  is  another  example  of  synecdoche,  the  part  being 
taken  for  the  whole.  The  figure  begun  in  the  first  phrase  is 
amplified  by  the  completing  of  the  grammatical  construction  in 
"as  to  stand  in  diameter  and  swords  point  with  them."  Browne's 
image  suggests  an  application  of  the  whole  idea  of  friendship  in 
willingness  to  stand  on  the  same  line,  as  in  fencing,  engaging 
mutual  antagonists.  The  whole  sentence  literally  means,  "I  am  not 
at  all  in  sympathy  with  those  who  rashly  depend  upon  their  own 
resources,  however  meager,  refusing  the  advice  and  assistance  of 
others."  The  passage  would  be  judged  needlessly  obscure  in  any 
modern  estimate  of  Browne's  style.  Without  a  thorough  under- 
standing of  its  imagery  no  one  could  attempt  to  interpret  it. 

The  appeal  of  imagery  is  universal.  Most  great  literature  is 
based  on  imaginative  concepts.  Our  language  is  a  storehouse  of 
what  some  one  has  called  "buried  metaphors."  Much  of  our 
slang  is  the  result  of  vigorous  play  of  imagination.  In  general,  men 
are  visual-minded  and  respond  far  more  quickly  to  vivid  pictures 
than  to  abstract  reasoning.  The  reader  who  because  of  unimagina- 
tiveness  or  dullness  of  perception  or  poverty  of  experience  cannot 
re-create  the  imagery  of  what  he  is  attempting  to  interpret  can 
never  make  the  printed  page  come  alive. 


Interpreting  Emotion  75 

Exercises 

i.  Discover  the  "buried  metaphors"  in  the  following  words, 
making  notes  for  class  discussion  on  their  etymology  and  changes 
in  meaning: 


candidate 

curfew 

melancholy 

tantalize 

abominate 

enthusiasm 

pedagogue 

carnation 

agony 

ambition 

rehearse 

gladiolus 

auspicious 

assassin 

salary 

narcissus 

bonfire 

extravagant 

sarcophagus 

rhododendron 

canopy 

impediment 

supercilious 

dandelion 

companion 

investigate 

symposium 

nasturtium 

2.  Identify  the  sensory  images  in  the  following  selections, 
labeling  them  images  of  motion,  touch,  sound,  sight,  smell,  taste: 

A.   St.  Agnes'  Eve— ah,  bitter  chill  it  was; 
The  owl,  for  all  his  feathers,  was  a-cold; 
The  hare  limped  trembling  through  the  frozen  grass, 
And  silent  was  the  flock  in  woolly  fold: 
Numb  were  the  Beadsman's  fingers,  while  he  told 
His  rosary,  and  while  his  frosted  breath, 
Like  pious  incense  from  a  censer  old, 
Seemed  taking  flight  for  heaven,  without  a  death, 
Past  the  sweet  Virgin's  picture,  while  his  prayer  he  saith. 

JOHN  KEATS,  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes 

B.   Whenas  in  silks  my  Julia  goes, 

Then,  then,  methinks,  how  sweetly  flows 
The  liquefaction  of  her  clothes. 
Neat,  when  I  cast  mine  eyes,  and  see 
That  brave  vibration,  each  way  free, 
O,  how  that  glittering  taketh  me/ 

ROBERT  HERRICK,  Upon  Julia's  Clothes 

c.  Nothing  can  be  more  imposing  than  the  magnificence  of  English 
park  scenery.  Vast  lawns  that  extend  like  sheets  of  vivid  green,  with 
here  and  there  clumps  of  gigantic  trees  heaping  up  rich  piles  of  foliage; 
the  solemn  pomp  of  groves  and  woodland  glades  with  the  deer  trooping 
in  silent  herds  across  them,  the  hare  bounding  away  to  the  covert,  or  the 
pheasant  suddenly  bursting  upon  the  wing;  the  brook,  taught  to  wind 
in  natural  meanderings  or  expand  into  a  glassy  lake;  the  sequestered  pool, 
reflecting  the  quivering  trees,  with  the  yellow  leaf  sleeping  on  its  bosom, 


76  Reading  to  Others 

and  the  trout  roaming  fearlessly  about  its  limpid  waters;  while  some 
rustic  temple  or  sylvan  statue,  grown  green  and  dank  with  age,  gives  an 
air  of  classic  sanctity  to  the  seclusion. 

WASHINGTON  IRVING,  The  Sketch  Book 

3.  Analyze  the  imagery  in  the  following  selections.  There  is 
seldom  much  value,  except  to  the  rhetorician,  in  giving  technical 
names  to  them.  But  be  sure  you  understand  their  full  significance 
so  that  you  can  report  on  them  in  class. 

A.   Peace/  and  no  longer  from  its  brazen  portals 

The  blast  of  War's  great  organ  shakes  the  skies/ 
But  beautiful  as  songs  of  the  immortals 

The  holy  melodies  of  love  arise. 
HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW,  The  Arsenal  at  Springfield 

B.  My  book  should  smell  of  pine  and  resound  with  the  hum  of  in- 
sects. The  swallow  over  my  window  should  interweave  that  thread  or 
straw  he  carries  in  his  bill  into  my  web  also.  We  pass  for  what  we  are. 
Character  teaches  above  our  wills.  Men  imagine  that  they  communi- 
cate their  virtue  or  vice  only  by  overt  actions,  and  do  not  see  that  virtue 
or  vice  emit  a  breath  every  moment. 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON,  Self-Reliance 

c.  Drama  .  .  .  is— to  me— one  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  seven 
arts.  With  music  and  literature,  it  appeals  to  me  more  than  all  the  others 
in  combination.  Unlike  sculpture  and  painting,  it  is  alive.  It  is  quick, 
electric;  genius  in  flame.  It  is  literature:  they  are  Siamese  twins.  It  is,  in 
Shakespeare  and  even  in  such  as  Rostand,  music;  music  on  the  violins 
of  metaphor,  on  the  'cellos  of  phrase,  on  the  drums  of  rumbling  ad/ec- 
tives  and  verbs. 

GEORGE  JEAN  NATHAN,  The  Code  of  a  Critic 

D.  Flagg:  Quirt,  youVe  signed  on  for  a  cruise  with  this  woman,  and 
you  can't  jump  ship.  I  can  tell  Aldrich  to  stand  out  of  the  way  and  let 
that  old  man  go  to  headquarters  with  his  story  about  you  .  .  .  And 
what  chance  has  a  lousy  Marine  sergeant  got  before  an  army  court- 
martial  when  the  majors  start  the  iron  ball  rolling?  .  .  .  Don't  be  a 
hayshaker,  Quirt.  You  can't  play  guardhouse  lawyer  in  this  country. 
You're  in  the  army  now,  with  a  lot  of  western  shysters  sitting  in  the 
judge  advocate  general's  room. 

MAXWELL  ANDERSON  and  LAWRENCE  STALLINGS,  What  Price  Glory? 


Interpreting  Emotion  77 

E.  When  to  the  sessions  of  sweet  silent  thought 
I  summon  up  remembrance  of  things  past, 
I  sigh  the  lack  of  many  a  thing  I  sought, 
And  with  old  woes  new  wail  my  dear  time's  waste: 
Then  can  I  drown  an  eye,  unused  to  flow, 
For  precious  friends  hid  in  death's  dateless  night, 
And  weep  afresh  love's  long  since  cancelled  woe, 
And  moan  the  expense  of  many  a  vanished  sight- 
Then  can  I  grieve  at  grievances  foregone, 
And  heavily  from  woe  to  woe  tell  o'er 
The  sad  account  of  fore-bemoaned  moan, 
Which  I  new  pay  as  if  not  paid  before, 

But  if  the  while  I  think  on  thee,  dear  friend, 
All  losses  are  restored  and  sorrows  end. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  Sonnet  30 

EMOTION    IN    SOUND 

When  Lanier  said,  "Music  is  Love  in  search  of  a  word,"  he 
was  really  defining  poetry.  Poe,  like  Lanier,  was  tremendously 
interested  in  the  relationship  between  music  and  poetry.  He  said, 
in  his  Poetic  Principle, 

Contenting  myself  with  the  certainty  that  Music,  in  its  various  modes 
of  meter,  rhythm,  and  rhyme,  is  of  so  vast  a  moment  in  Poetry  as  never 
to  be  wisely  rejected— as  so  vitally  important  an  adjunct  that  he  is  simply 
silly  who  declines  its  assistance— I  will  not  now  pause  to  maintain  its 
absolutely  essentiality.  It  is  in  Music,  perhaps,  that  the  soul  most  nearly 
attains  the  great  end  for  which,  when  inspired  by  the  Poetic  Sentiment, 
it  struggles— the  creation  of  supernal  Beauty.  .  .  .  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  in  the  union  of  Poetry  with  Music  in  its  popular  sense,  we 
shall  find  the  widest  field  for  the  Poetic  development.  The  old  Bards 
and  Minnesingers  had  advantages  which  we  do  not  possess. 

Poetry,  as  all  students  of  literature  know,  was  first  of  all  an 
exclusively  spoken  art,  carried  on  by  traveling  minstrels,  most  of 
them  probably  unable  to  read,  who  recited  their  repertories  at 
various  courts.  The  very  word  lyric  is  a  reminder  of  the  custom 
of  using  a  stringed  instrument  as  accompaniment  to  the  chanting. 
The  ballads  that  were  handed  down  from  one  generation  to 
another,  mainly  improvisations  of  anonymous  minstrels,  remain 
today  excellent  illustrations  of  the  effectiveness  of  sound  and 


7 8  Reading  to  Others 

rhythm  in  poetry.  Ballads  are  still  spontaneously  composed,  cele- 
brating events  like  "The  Execution  of  Sacco  and  Vanzetti,"  "Floyd 
Collins  in  the  Cave/'  and  "The  Wreck  of  the  97."  Carl  Sandburg, 
Louise  Pound,  John  Lomax,  and  others  have  done  much  to  pre- 
serve the  best  of  these.  Sandburg's  American  Songbag  (1927)  is 
probably  the  best  ballad  collection  since  Child's  English  and  Scot- 
tish Popular  Ballads  (1883-98).  In  their  crudest  form,  modern  bal- 
lads seem  to  be  most  vital  among  "hill-billy"  singers,  who  nar- 
rate their  monotonous  tales  in  countless  radio  broadcasts.  That 
such  entertainment  is  extremely  popular  in  this  country  is  evi- 
dence of  the  deep  roots  of  similar  spoken  forms  of  poetry.  The 
twanging,  slow  stories  about  minor  domestic  tragedies,  sung  or 
chanted  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  guitar  or  fiddle,  are  the  direct 
descendants  of  the  nobler  tales  of  the  bards. 

The  old  ballads  made  direct  appeal  to  the  emotions  not  only 
through  the  stirring  nature  of  the  actions  presented,  but  also,  and 
especially,  through  the  music  of  the  words,  the  rhyme,  the  rhythm 
of  the  lines,  and  devices  like  repetitions  of  phrases  and  choruses. 
Take  for  example  the  ballad,  "The  Two  Sisters  of  Binnorie": 

There  were  two  sisters  sat  in  a  bower; 

Binnorie,  O  Binnorie; 
There  came  a  knight  to  be  their  wooer; 

By  the  bonnie  mill-dams  of  Binnorie. 

The  second  and  fourth  lines  were  repeated  after  the  first  and 
third  lines  of  the  numerous  stanzas.  Audiences  picked  up  the 
words,  which  were  pleasing  to  the  ear,  and  doubtless  added  their 
voices  to  the  minstrel's  voice.  Note  the  simple  rhythm,  character- 
istic of  the  ballad,  usually  alternating  four-  and  three-foot  lines. 
In  the  following  stanzas  from  ballads  observe  carefully  the 
use  of  sound  as  productive  of  emotional  response: 

i.   There  were  three  ravens  sat  on  a  tree, 

Downe  a  downe,  hay  downe,  hay  downe. 

There  were  three  ravens  sat  on  a  tree, 
With  a  downe, 

There  were  three  ravens  sat  on  a  tree, 

They  were  as  blacke  as  they  might  be. 
With  a  downe  derrie,  derrie,  derrie,  downe,  downe. 


Interpreting  Emotion  79 

2.   Hynd  Horn's  bound,  love,  and  Hynd  Horn's  free, 
With  a  hey  lillelu  and  a  how  lo  Ian, 
Where  was  ye  born,  or  in  what  countrie? 
And  the  birk  and  the  broom  blows  bonnie. 

3.    O  whare  hae  ye  been  a'  day,  my  bonnie  wee  croodlin  dow? 
O  whare  hae  ye  been  a'  day,  my  bonnie  wee  croodlin  dow? 
"I've  been  at  my  step-mother's;  oh,  mak  my  bed,  mammie,  now/ 
I've  been  at  my  step-mother's;  oh,  mak  my  bed,  mammie,  now/" 

The  use  of  musical  or  onomatopoetic  (sound-imitative)  words 
is  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  devices  employed  by  writers 
for  emotional  effect.  The  poet's  feeling  for  color  and  melody  in 
words  contributes  greatly  to  the  emotions  suggested  by  his  writing. 

The  liquid  consonants  1  and  r  are  pleasant  to  the  ear.  So,  in 
general,  are  the  "long"  vowels,  e,  a,  6,  and  do,  and  the  diphthongs, 
a,  6,  ou,  and  I.  Matthew  Arnold  made  full  use  of  the  liquids 
in  his  lines, 

But  now  I  only  hear 

Its  melancholy,  long,  withdrawing  roar. 

Poe  was  especially  interested  in  harmonious  combinations  of 
vowels  and  consonants.  He  tells  in  his  "Philosophy  of  Compo- 
sition" how  he  came  to  choose  the  famous  haunting  refrain 
"Nevermore"  for  "The  Raven."  "That  such  a  close,"  he  says, 
"to  have  force,  must  be  sonorous  and  susceptible  of  protracted 
emphasis,  admitted  no  doubt,  and  these  considerations  inevitably 
led  me  to  the  long  o  as  the  most  sonorous  vowel  in  connection 
with  r  as  the  most  producible  consonant." 

Keats  uses  many  musical  vowels  and  several  combinations  of 
-er,  -or,  and  -ar  in  the  lines, 

When  I  have  fears  that  I  may  cease  to  be 
Before  my  pen  has  gleaned  my  teeming  brain, 
Before  high-piled  books,  in  charactery, 
Hold  like  rich  garners  the  full  ripened  grain  .  .  . 

Tennyson  had  a  good  ear  for  musical  consonants  in  "Sweet  and 
Low": 

Sweet  and  low,  sweet  and  low, 
Wind  of  the  western  sea, 


8o  Reading  to  Others 

Low,  low,  breathe  and  blow, 

Wind  of  the  western  sea/ 
Over  the  rolling  waters  go, 
Come  from  the  dying  moon,  and  blow, 

Blow  him  again  to  me; 
While  my  little  one,  while  my  pretty  one,  sleeps. 

Sleep  and  rest,  sleep  and  rest, 

Father  will  come  to  thee  soon; 
Rest,  rest,  on  mother's  breast, 

Father  will  come  to  thee  soon; 
Father  will  come  to  his  babe  in  the  nest, 
Silver  sails  all  out  of  the  west 

Under  the  silver  moon: 
Sleep,  my  little  one,  sleep,  my  pretty  one,  sleep. 

Much,  of  course,  depends  on  the  connotation  of  the  sound-word. 
Some  beautiful  combinations  of  sounds  may  mean  disagreeable 
or  distasteful  things.  The  -or  sound  that  Poe  thought  exquisite 
is  a  horse  of  a  different  color  in  the  words  snore  and  sore.  The 
name  of  Helen  is  euphonious.  Many  poets  have  thought  so,  anyway. 
Yet  its  rhymes  yellin  and  felon  are  unpleasant.  A  few  years  ago 
there  was  passing  interest  in  lists  of  most  beautiful  and  most  ugly 
words  in  the  language.  Reporters  asked  people  everywhere  for 
their  opinions.  Mr.  Wilfred  Funk's  list  has  probably  been  the 
most  often  reprinted  since  that  time.  He  believed  that  the  most 
beautiful  words  ,are  dawn,  hush,  lullaby,  murmuring,  tranquil, 
mist,  luminous,  chimes,  golden,  melody.  He  said  when  he  com- 
piled the  list,  "The  long  vowel  sounds  and  the  soft  consonants 
make  these  words  flow  smoothly/'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however, 
his  words  have  a  greater  number  of  short  vowels  than  long  ones. 
Other  people  made  lists,  some  of  them  facetious,  including  words 
like  cardiac  and  garbage,  which  one  man  said  were  lovely  words,  if 
only  they  meant  something  pleasant.  Edwin  Markham's  list  in- 
cluded reverberating,  chryselephantine,  empyrean,  coliseum,  Cali- 
fornian,  Plutonian,  ideal.  Gouverneur  Morris  liked  words  with 
v's  in  them,  like  vial,  violet,  vine,  vermilion.  Best  of  all  he  claimed 
to  like  syzygy.  About  thirty  years  ago  a  New  York  lawyer  won  a 
contest  for  a  list  of  what  he  considered  the  twenty-five  most  beau- 
tiful words.  His  list  follows:  melody,  splendor,  adoration,  grace, 


Interpreting  Emotion  81 

eloquence,  virtue,  innocence,  modesty,  faith,  truth,  peace,  nobil- 
ity, joy,  honor,  love,  divine,  heaven,  hope,  harmony,  happiness, 
purity,  justice,  liberty,  radiance,  sympathy.  The  judges  ruled  out 
grace,  divine,  justice,  and  truth  as  harsh  or  metallic.  The  Italian 
Mazzini  is  said  to  have  called  cellar-door  our  most  beautiful  word. 
Among  the  ugly  words  were  cacophony,  spit,  belch,  giggle,  retch, 
gripe,  egg,  pug,  belly,  stink,  and  many  others.  Notice  that  much 
of  the  beauty  of  the  so-called  beautiful  words  is  in  their  connota- 
tion rather  than  in  their  vowels,  though  their  sound  values  are 
important. 

The  deliberate  use  of  imitation  of  sound  is  called  onomatopoeia. 
Many  common  English  words,  such  as  buzz,  whizz,  hum,  hiss,  are 
onomatopoetic  in  origin.  And  many  a  forceful  line  in  poetry  is 
an  artificial  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  writer  to  make  the  words 
sound  as  much  as  possible  like  what  they  represent.  Some  examples 
of  onomatopoeia  are  Milton's 

Brusht  with  the  hiss  of  rustling  wings; 
and  Gray's 

Now  fades  the  glimmering  landscape  on  the  sight, 

And  all  the  air  a  solemn  stillness  holds, 
Save  where  the  beetle  wheels  his  droning  flight, 

And  drowsy  tinklings  lull  the  distant  folds; 

and  Keats's 

The  silver,  snarling  trumpets  'gan  to  chide; 
and  Carlyle's 

And  so  it  roars,  and  rages,  and  brays:  drums  beating,  steeples  pealing; 
and  Stevenson's 

We  live  the  time  that  a  match  flickers;  we  pop  the  cork  of  a  ginger-beer 
bottle,  and  the  earthquake  swallows  us  on  the  instant; 

and  Tennyson's 

I  heard  the  ripple  washing  in  the  reeds, 
And  the  wild  water  lapping  on  the  crag; 

and  Browning's 

Bang-whang-whang  goes  the  drum,  tootle-te-tootle  the  fife 


82  Reading  to  Others 

Poe's  famous  tour  de  force,  "The  Bells,"  is  an  illustration  of 
onomatopoeia  on  a  large  scale: 

Hear  the  sledges  with  the  bells, 

Silver  bells/ 

What  a  world  of  merriment  their  melody  foretells/ 
How  they  tinkle,  tinkle,  tinkle, 

In  the  icy  air  of  night/ 
While  the  stars,  that  oversprinkle 
All  the  heavens,  seem  to  twinkle 

With  a  crystalline  delight; 
Keeping  time,  time,  time, 
In  a  sort  of  Runic  rime, 

To  the  tintinnabulation  that  so  musically  wells 
From  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells, 

Bells,  bells,  bells- 
From  the  jingling  and  the  tinkling  of  the  bells. 

Hear  the  mellow  wedding  bells, 

Golden  bells/ 

What  a  world  of  happiness  their  harmony  foretells/ 
Through  the  balmy  air  of  night 
How  they  ring  out  their  delight/ 
From  the  molten-golden  notes, 

And  all  in  tune, 
What  a  liquid  ditty  floats 
To  the  turtle-dove  that  listens,  while  she  gloats 

On  the  moon/ 

Oh?  from  out  the  sounding  cells. 
What  a  gush  of  euphony  voluminously  wells/ 
How  it  swells/ 
How  it  dwells 
On  the  Future/  how  it  tells 
Of  the  rapture  that  impells 
To  the  swinging  and  the  ringing 

Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells, 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells, 

Bells,  bells,  bells— 
To  the  riming  and  the  chiming  of  the  bells/ 

Hear  the  loud  alarum  bells, 

Brazen  bells! 
What  a  tale  of  terror,  now,  their  turbulency  tells! 


Interpreting  Emotion  83 

In  the  startled  ear  of  night 
How  they  scream  out  their  affright/ 
Too  much  horrified  to  speak, 
They  can  only  shriek,  shriek, 

Out  of  tune, 

In  a  clamorous  appealing  to  the  mercy  of  the  fire, 
In  a  mad  expostulation  with  the  deaf  and  frantic  fire, 
Leaping  higher,  higher,  higher, 
With  a  desperate  desire, 
And  a  resolute  endeavor 
Now— now  to  sit  or  never, 
By  the  side  of  the  pale-faced  moon. 
Oh,  the  bells,  bells,  bells/ 
What  a  tale  their  terror  tells 

Of  Despair/ 

How  they  clang,  and  clash,  and  roar/ 
What  a  horror  they  outpour 
On  the  bosom  of  the  palpitating  air/ 
Yet  the  ear  it  fully  knows, 
By  the  twanging 
And  the  clanging, 
How  the  danger  ebbs  and  flows; 
Yet  the  ear  distinctly  tells, 
In  the  /angling 
And  the  wrangling, 
How  the  danger  sinks  and  swells— 
By  the  sinking  or  the  swelling  in  the  anger  of  the  bells, 

Of  the  bells, 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells, 

Bells,  bells,  bells- 
In  the  clamor  and  the  clangor  of  the  bells/ 

Hear  the  tolling  of  the  bells, 

Iron  bells/ 

What  a  world  of  solemn  thought  their  monody  compels/ 
In  the  silence  of  the  night 
How  we  shiver  with  affright 
At  the  melancholy  menace  of  their  tone/ 
For  every  sound  that  floats 
From  the  rust  within  their  throats 

Is  a  groan. 

And  the  people — ah,  the  people, 
They  that  dwell  up  in  the  steeple, 


84  Reading  to  Others 

All  alone, 
And  who  tolling,  tolling,  tolling 

In  that  muffled  monotone, 
Feel  a  glory  in  so  rolling 

On  the  human  heart  a  stone— 
They  are  neither  man  nor  woman — 
They  are  neither  brute  nor  human— 

They  are  Ghouls:— 
And  their  king  it  is  who  tolls:— 
And  he  rolls,  rolls,  rolls, 

Rolls 

A  p^ean  from  the  bells, 
And  his  merry  bosom  swells 

With  the  pcEan  of  the  bells, 
And  he  dances,  and  he  yells: 
Keeping  time,  time,  time, 
Jn  a  sort  of  Runic  rime, 

To  the  paean  of  the  bells, 

Of  the  bells: 

Keeping  time,  time,  time, 
In  a  sort  of  Runic  rime, 

To  the  throbbing  of  the  bells, 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells— 

To  the  sobbing  of  the  bells; 
Keeping  time,  time,  time, 

As  he  knells,  knells,  knells, 
In  a  happy  Runic  rime, 

To  the  rolling  of  the  bells, 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells: 

To  the  tolling  of  the  bells, 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells, 

Bells,  bells,  bells- 
To  the  moaning  and  the  groaning  of  the  bells. 

Exercises 

i.  For  some  of  the  selections  in  this  book  there  are  recordings 
by  either  the  authors  or  well-known  actors  and  interpreters. 
Among  these  recordings,  which  are  made  by  the  RCA  Manufac- 
turing Company  (Camden,  N.  J.),  the  Columbia  Recording 
Company  (New  York),  The  National  Council  of  Teachers  of 
English  (Chicago),  and  the  Linguaphone  Institute  (New  York),  are 


Interpreting  Emotion  85 

the  following.  They  may  be  obtained  from  the  Gramophone 
Shop,  18  East  48th  Street,  New  York,  New  York. 

Shakespearean  Readings  (Irom  nine  plays  and  two  sonnets),  read 
by  John  Gielgud;  scenes  from  Richard  II,  read  by  Maurice  Evans 

Other  Shakespearean  readings  by  Sir  Johnston  Forbes- 
Robertson,  Henry  Ainley,  John  Barrymore,  Sybil  Thorndike, 
Dame  Ellen  Terry,  and  Sir  Herbert  Beerbohm  Tree 

Noel  Coward's  Private  Lives  and  Tonight  at  8:30,  read  by  Noel 
Coward  and  Gertrude  Lawrence 

T.  S.  Eliot's  Murder  in  the  Cathedral,  read  by  Robert  Speaight 

T.  S.  Eliot's  The  Hollow  Men  and  Gerontion,  read  by  T.  S.  Eliot 

Robert  Erost's  The  Death  of  tlte  Hired  Man  and  eleven  Other 
Poems,  read  by  Robert  Frost 

Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Address,  read  by  Charles  Laugh  ton 

Walter  de  la  Mare's  Silver  Penny,  England,  and  eleven  Other 
Poems,  read  by  Walter  de  la  Mare 

Gertrude  Stein's  The  Making  of  Americans,  Matisse,  etc.,  read 
by  Gertrude  Stein 

Poetry  Recital  (Milton's  Samson  Agonistes,  Shakespeare's 
When  to  the  Sessions  of  Sweet  Silent  Thought,  Blake's  The  Tiger, 
Browning's  Prospice,  etc.),  read  by  Clifford  Turner 

Passages  of  Standard  Prose  (Carlyle,  Kingslake,  Cowper,  Addi- 
son,  Lamb,  Blackmore,  Hazlitt),  read  by  Walter  Ripman 

Robert  Tristram  Coffin's  The  Secret  Heart,  The  Fog,  Lantern 
in  the  Snow,  read  by  Robert  Tristram  Coffin 

E.  E.  Cummings's  Poem  or  Beauty  Hurts  Mr.  Vinal  and  six 
Other  Poems,  read  by  E.  E.  Cummings 

James  Joyce's  Anna  Livia  Plurabelle,  from  Finnegans  Wake, 
read  by  James  Joyce 

Vachel  Lindsay's  Tlie  Congo,  read  by  Vachel  Lindsay 

The  Voice  of  Poetry:  thirty  Poems  by  Shakespeare,  Keats, 
Herrick,  Masefield,  etc.,  read  by  Edith  Evans 

Edwin  Markham's  The  Man  with  the  Hoe,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
and  thirteen  Other  Poems,  read  by  Edwin  Markham 

Shakespeare's  Julius  Caesar,  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  and 
Twelfth  Night,  complete  Mercury  Theatre  texts,  by  Orson  Welles 
and  Mercury  Theatre  Company 

Robert  Sherwood's  Abe  Lincoln  in  Illinois,, read  by  Raymond 
Massey,  and  others 


86  Reading  to  Others 

Students  will  find  study  of  these  records  instructive  in  improving 
their  own  readings.  Notice,  for  example,  Lindsay's  changes  of 
tempo  in  his  recording  of  The  Congo.  Compare  the  record  with 
the  printed  poem  (in  several  anthologies),  and  see  whether  or  not 
he  follows  his  own  directions  printed  in  the  margins. 

2.  Practice  reading  aloud  the  following  selections,  studying  them 
for  imagery  and  beauty  of  sound,  determining  the  mood  of  the 
author,  and  considering  the  emotional  effect  of  the  ideas  on  your- 
self as  interpreter.  It  might  be  good  practice  to  list  the  images 
and  examples  of  musical  words  and  phrases. 

A.       Then  by  the  bed-side,  where  the  faded  moon 
Made  a  dim,  silver  twilight,  soft  he  set 
A  table,  and,  half-anguished,  threw  thereon 
A  cloth  of  woven  crimson,  gold,  and  jet: — 
O  for  some  drowsy  Morphean  amulet/ 
The  boisterous,  midnight,  festive  clarion, 
The  kettle-drum,  and  far-heard  clarionet, 
Affray  his  ears,  though  but  in  dying  tone: — 
The  hall-door  shuts  again,  and  all  the  noise  is  gone. 

And  still  she  slept  an  azure-lidded  sleep, 
In  blanched  linen,  smooth,  and  lavendered, 
While  he  from  forth  the  closet  brought  a  heap 
Of  candied  apple,  quince,  and  plum,  and  gourd; 
With  /ellies  soother  than  the  creamy  curd, 
And  lucent  syrops,  tinct  with  cinnamon; 
Manna  and  dates,  in  argosy  transferred 
From  Fez;  and  spiced  dainties,  every  one, 
From  silken  Samarcand  to  cedared  Lebanon. 

JOHN  KEATS,  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes 

B.   Of  fret,  of  dark,  of  thorn,  of  chill, 

Complain  no  more;  for  these,  O  heart, 
Direct  the  random  of  the  will 
As  rhymes  direct  the  rage  of  art. 

The  lute's  fixt  fret,  that  runs  athwart 
The  strain  and  purpose  of  the  string, 

For  governance  and  nice  consort 
Doth  bar  his  wilful  wavering. 


Interpreting  Emotion  87 

The  dark  hath  many  dear  avails; 

The  dark  distils  divinist  dews; 
The  dark  is  rich  with  nightingales, 

With  dreams,  and  with  the  heavenly  Muse. 

Bleeding  with  thorns  of  petty  strife, 

I'll  ease  (as  lovers  do)  my  smart 
With  sonnets  to  my  lady  Life 

Writ  red  in  issues  from  the  heart. 

What  grace  may  lie  within  the  chill 

Of  favor  frozen  fast  in  scorn/ 
When  Good's  a-freeze,  we  call  it  111/ 

This  rosy  Time  is  glacier-born. 

Of  fret,  of  dark,  of  thorn,  of  chill, 
Complain  thou  not,  O  heart;  for  these 

Bank-in  the  current  of  the  will 
To  uses,  arts,  and  charities. 

SIDNF.Y  LANIER,  Opposition 

c.    Now  I  will  do  nothing  but  listen, 

To  accrue  what  I  hear  into  this  song,  to  let  sounds  contribute 
toward  it. 

I  hear  bravuras  of  birds,  bustle  of  growing  wheat,  gossip  of  flames, 

clack  of  sticks  cooking  my  meals, 
I  hear  the  sound  I  love,  the  sound  of  the  human  voice, 
I  hear  all  sounds  running  together,  combined,  fused  or  following, 
Sounds  of  the  city  and  sounds  out  of  the  city,  sounds  of  the  day 

and  night, 
Talkative  young  ones  to  those  that  like  them,  the  loud  laugh  of 

work-people  at  their  meals, 

The  angry  base  of  disjointed  friendship,  the  faint  tones  of  the  sick, 
The  judge  with  hands  tight  to  the  desk,  his  pallid  lips  pronounc- 
ing a  death-sentence, 
The  heave'e'yo  of  stevedores  unlading  ships  by  the  wharves,  the 

refrain  of  the  anchor-lifters, 
The  ring  of  alarm-bells,  the  cry  of  fire,  the  whirr  of  swift-streaking 

engines  and  hose-carts  with  premonitory  tinkles  and  color'd 

lights, 
The  steam-whistle,  the  solid  roll  of  the  train  of  approaching  cars, 


88  Reading  to  Others 

The  slow  march  play'd  at  the  head  of  the  association  marching 

two  and  two, 
(They  go  to  guard  some  corpse,  the  flag-tops  are  draped  with  black 

muslin.) 

I  hear  the  violoncello,  ('tis  the  young  man's  heart's  complaint,) 
I  hear  the  key'd  cornet,  it  glides  quickly  in  through  my  ears, 
It  shakes  mad-sweet  pangs  through  my  belly  and  breast. 

I  hear  the  chorus,  it  is  a  grand  opera, 
Ah,  this  indeed  is  music— this  suits  me. 

A  tenor  large  and  fresh  as  the  creation  fills  me, 
The  orbic  flex  of  his  mouth  is  pouring  and  filling  me  full. 

I  hear  the  trained  soprano  (what  work  with  hers  is  this?) 

The  orchestra  whirls  me  wider  than  Uranus  flies, 

It  wrenches  such  ardors  from  me  I  did  not  know  I  possessed  them, 

It  sails  me,  I  dab  with  bare  feet,  they  are  lick'd  by  the  indolent 

waves, 

I  am  cut  by  bitter  and  angry  hail,  I  lose  my  breath, 
Steep'd  amid  honey' d  morphine,  my  windpipe  throttled  in  fakes 

of  death, 

At  length  let  up  again  to  feel  the  puzzle  of  puzzles, 
And  that  we  call  Being. 

WALT  WHITMAN,  Song  of  Myself 

D.  In  Xanadu  did  Kubla  Khan 

A  stately  pleasure-dome  decree: 

Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  ran 

Through  caverns  measureless  to  man 

Down  to  a  sunless  sea. 
So  twice  five  miles  of  fertile  ground 
With  walls  and  towers  were  girdled  round: 
And  there  were  gardens  bright  with  sinuous  rills, 
Where  blossomed  many  an  incense-bearing  tree; 
And  here  were  forests  ancient  as  the  hills, 
Enfolding  sunny  spots  of  greenery. 

But  oh/  that  deep  romantic  chasm  which  slanted 
Down  the  green  hill  athwart  a  cedarn  cover/ 
A  savage  place/  as  holy  and  enchanted 


Interpreting  Emotion  89 

As  e'er  beneath  a  waning  moon  was  haunted 

By  woman  wailing  for  her  demon-lover/ 

And  from  this  chasm,  with  ceaseless  turmoil  seething, 

As  if  this  earth  in  fast  thick  pants  were  breathing, 

A  mighty  fountain  momently  was  forced: 

Amid  whose  swift  half-intermitted  burst 

Huge  fragments  vaulted  like  rebounding  hail, 

Or  chaffy  grain  beneath  the  thresher's  flail: 

And  'mid  these  dancing  rocks  at  once  and  ever 

It  flung  up  momently  the  sacred  river. 

Five  miles  meandering  with  a  mazy  motion 

Through  wood  and  dale  the  sacred  river  ran, 

Then  reached  the  caverns  measureless  to  man, 

And  sank  in  tumult  to  a  lifeless  ocean: 

And  'mid  this  tumult  Kubla  heard  from  far 

Ancestral  voices  prophesying  war/ 

The  shadow  of  the  dome  of  pleasure 

Floated  midway  on  the  waves; 

Where  was  heard  the  mingled  measure 

From  the  fountain  and  the  caves. 
It  was  a  miracle  of  rare  device, 
A  sunny  pleasure-dome  with  caves  of  ice/ 

A  damsel  with  a  dulcimer 

In  a  vision  once  I  saw: 

It  was  an  Abyssinian  maid, 

And  on  her  dulcimer  she  played, 

Singing  on  Mount  Abora. 

Could  I  revive  within  me, 

Her  symphony  and  song, 

To  such  a  deep  delight  'twould  win  me, 
That  with  music  loud  and  long, 
I  would  build  that  dome  in  air, 
That  sunny  dome/  those  caves  of  ice/ 
And  all  who  heard  should  see  them  there, 
And  all  should  cry,  Beware/  Beware/ 
His  flashing  eyes,  his  floating  hair/ 
Weave  a  circle  round  him  thrice, 
And  close  your  eyes  with  holy  dread, 
For  he  on  honey-dew  hath  fed, 
And  drunk  the  milk  of  Paradise. 

SAMUEL  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE,  Kubla  Khan 


go  Reading  to  Others 

E.  Full  fathom  five  thy  father  lies; 
Of  his  bones  are  coral  made; 
Those  are  pearls  that  were  his  eyes; 
Nothing  of  him  that  doth  fade, 
But  doth  suffer  a  sea  change 
Into  something  rich  and  strange. 
Sea-nymphs  hourly  ring  his  knell; 

Ding-dong/ 
Hark/  now  I  hear  them— ding-dong,  bell/ 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  The  Tempest 

F.  The  voice  of  my  beloved/  behold/  he  cometh  leaping  upon  the 
mountains,  skipping  upon  the  hills. 

My  beloved  is  like  a  Roe,  or  a  young  Hart:  behold,  he  standeth  behind 
our  wall,  he  looketh  forth  at  the  windows,  showing  himself  through  the 
lattice. 

My  beloved  spake,  and  said  unto  me,  Rise  up,  my  Love,  my  fair  one, 
and  come  away. 

For  lo,  the  winter  is  past,  the  rain  is  over,  and  gone. 

The  flowers  appear  on  the  earth,  the  time  of  the  singing  of  birds  is 
come,  and  the  voice  of  the  turtle  is  heard  in  our  land. 

The  fig  tree  putteth  forth  her  green  figs,  and  the  vines  with  the  tender 
grape  give  a  good  smell.  Arise,  my  love,  my  fair  one,  and  come  away. 

Oh,  my  dove/  that  art  in  the  clefts  of  the  rock,  in  the  secret  places  of 
the  stairs:  let  me  see  thy  countenance,  let  me  hear  thy  voice,  for  sweet 
is  thy  voice,  and  thy  countenance  is  comely. 

Take  us  the  foxes,  the  little  foxes,  that  spoil  the  vines:  for  our  vines 
have  tender  grapes. 

My  beloved  is  mine,  and  I  am  his:  he  feedeth  among  the  lilies. 

Until  the  day  break,  and  the  shadows  flee  away:  turn  my  beloved  and 
be  thou  like  a  Roe,  or  a  young  Hart,  upon  the  mountains  of  Bether. 

The  Song  of  Solomon 

G.  I  have  of  late— but  wherefore  I  know  not— lost  all  my  mirth, 
forgone  all  custom  of  exercises;  and  indeed  it  goes  so  heavily  with  my 
disposition  that  this  goodly  frame,  the  earth,  seems  to  me  a  sterile 
promontory;  this  most  excellent  canopy,  the  air,  look  you,  this  brave 
overhanging  firmament,  this  ma/estical  roof  fretted  with  golden  fire, 
why,  it  appears  no  other  thing  to  me  than  a  foul  and  pestilent  congre- 
gation of  vapours.  What  a  piece  of  work  is  a  man/  How  noble  in  rea- 
son/ how  infinite  in  faculty/  in  form  and  moving,  how  express  and 


Interpreting  Emotion  91 

admirable/  in  action  how  like  an  angel/  in  apprehension  how  like  a 
god/  the  beauty  of  the  world/  the  paragon  of  animals/  And  yet,  to 
me,  what  is  this  quintessence  of  dust?  Man  delights  not  me;  no,  nor 
Woman  neither,  though,  by  your  smiling,  you  seem  to  say  so. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  Hamlet 

H.    Thou  wast  not  born  for  death,  immortal  Bird/ 

No  hungry  generations  tread  thee  down; 
The  voice  I  hear  this  passing  night  was  heard 

In  ancient  days  by  emperor  and  clown: 
Perhaps  the  self-same  song  that  found  a  path 
Through  the  sad  heart  of  Ruth,  when,  sick  for  home, 
She  stood  in  tears  amid  the  alien  corn; 

The  same  that  oft-times  hath 
Charmed  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn. 

Forlorn/  the  very  word  is  like  a  bell 

To  toll  me  back  from  thee  to  my  sole  self/ 
Adieu/  the  fancy  cannot  cheat  so  well 

As  she  is  famed  to  do,  deceiving  elf. 
Adieu/  Adieu/  thy  plaintive  anthem  fades 
Past  the  near  meadows,  over  the  still  stream, 
Up  the  hill-side;  and  now  'tis  buried  deep 

In  the  next  valley-glades: 
Was  it  a  vision,  or  a  waking  dream? 

Fled  is  that  music:— Do  I  wake  or  sleep? 

JOHN  KEATS,  Ode  to  a  Nightingale 

EMOTION    IN    POETIC    DEVICES 

Closely  related  to  the  sound-values  brought  about  by  meaning 
and  association  are  those  resulting  from  the  artificial  poetic  devices 
of  rhyme,  assonance,  and  alliteration.  Rhyme  is  the  repetition  of 
final  vowels  and  consonants  in  words  that  are  more  or  less  regularly 
arranged;  in  true  rhymes  initial  consonants  are  always  different. 
Assonance  is  simply  the  repetition  of  vowel  sounds,  regardless  of 
consonants.  That  is,  fleet  and  green  are  examples  of  assonance 
because  the  sound  e  is  repeated;  green  and  clean  are  rhymes  be- 
cause both  the  e  and  the  final  n  are  repeated.  Alliteration  is 


gg  Reading  to  Others 

the  repetition  of  a  consonant,  usually  an  initial  consonant,  as 
in  Swinburne's 

The  full  streams  ^eed  on  flower  of  rushes, 

Ripe  grasses  trammel  a  traveling  foot, 
The  faint,  fresh  flame  of  the  young  year  flushes 

From  leaf  to  flower  and  flower  to  fruit. 

RHYME.  Because  most  of  us  take  pleasure  in  what  is  symmetrical 
and  orderly,  we  enjoy  the  patterns  established  through  rhyme.  Such 
patterns  are  by  no  means  essential  in  the  composition  of  poetry. 
Blank  verse  (which  has  a  regular  metrical  pattern  without  rhyme) 
and  free  verse  (without  either  regular  meter  or  rhyme)  are  just  as 
common  as  rhymed  verse.  Nevertheless,  rhyme  and  the  other 
technical  apparatus  of  verse  remain  valuable  aids  to  the  poet  in 
creating  mood  and  arousing  emotional  response.  The  repetition 
of  melodious  or  solemn  or  quick  or  slow  or  mysterious  or  gay  sound- 
combinations  may  do  much  to  make  clear  the  poet's  mood. 

There  is  little  need  here  to  outline  the  various  stanza  forms, 
many  with  elaborately  interlocked  rhyme,  except  to  indicate  that 
the  poet  usually  has  a  definite  purpose  in  selecting  a  particular 
rhyme  scheme  and  that  the  reader  must  try  to  determine  that 
purpose  in  his  study  of  the  poem.  The  Italian  sonnet,  for  example, 
with  either  four  or  five  rhymes  in  fourteen  lines,  has  a  significant 
stanza  break  at  the  end  of  the  first  eight  lines.  The  Shakespearean 
sonnet  has  seven  rhymes,  with  a  rhymed  couplet  at  the  end.  Com- 
pare the  following  sonnets,  examining  especially  the  difference 
in  mood  evident  in  the  stanza  patterns.  The  Italian  type  of  sonnet 
is  in  general  more  compact,  more  serious  than  the  Elizabethan  or 
Shakespearean  type.  In  the  following  examples  the  letters  indicate 
rhymes: 

Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair;  a 

Dull  would  he  be  of  soul  who  could  pass  by  b 

A  sight  so  touching  in  its  rria/esty.  b 

This  City  now  doth,  like  a  garment,  wear  a 

The  beauty  of  the  morning;  silent,  bare,  a 

Ships,  towers,  domes,  theaters,  and  temples  lie  b 

Open  unto  the  fields,  and  to  the  sky;  b 

AH  bright  and  glittering  in  the  smokeless  air.  a 

Never  did  sun  more  beautifully  steep  c 


Interpreting  Emotion  95 

In  his  first  splendor,  valley,  rock,  or  hill;  d 

Ne'er  saw  I,  never  felt,  a  calm  so  deep/  c 

The  river  glide th  at  his  own  sweet  will;  d 

Dear  God/  the  very  houses  seem  asleep,  c 

And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still/  d 

WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH 

That  time  of  year  thou  may'st  in  me  behold  a 

When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few,  do  hang  b 

Upon  those  boughs  which  shake  against  the  cold,  a 

Bare  ruined  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang.  b 

In  me  thou  see'st  the  twilight  of  such  day  c 

As  after  sunset  fadeth  in  the  west,  d 

Which  by  and  by  black  night  doth  take  away,  c 

Death's  second  self,  that  seals  up  all  in  rest.  d 

In  me  thou  see'st  the  glowing  of  such  fire  e 

That  on  the  ashes  of  his  youth  doth  lie,  f 

As  the  death-bed  whereon  it  must  expire,  e  % 

Consumed  with  that  which  it  was  nourished  by.  f 
This  thou  perceivest,  which  makes  thy  love  more  strong,  g 

To  love  that  well  which  thou  must  leave  ere  long.  g 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  stanza  of  the  ballad,  illustrated  in  "The  Ancient  Mariner," 

He  prayeth  best,  who  loveth  best 

All  things  both  great  and  small; 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us, 

He  made  and  loveth  all, 

has  quite  a  different  effect  from  that  of  Pope's  rhymed  couplets: 

True  ease  in  writing  comes  from  Art,  not  Chance, 

As  those  move  easiest  who  have  learned  to  dance. 

'Tis  not  enough  no  harshness  gives  offense, 

The  sound  must  seem  an  echo  to  the  sense: 

Soft  is  the  strain  when  zephyr  gently  blows, 

And  the  smooth  stream  in  smoother  numbers  flows; 

But  when  loud  surges  lash  the  sounding  shore, 

The  hoarse  rough  verse  should  like  the  torrent  roar. 

When  A/ax  strives  some  rock's  vast  weight  to  throw, 

The  line,  too,  labours,  and  the  words  move  slow: 

Not  so  when  swift  Camilla  scours  the  plain, 

Flies  o'er  the  unbending  corn,  and  skims  along  the  main. 

ALEXANDER  POPE,  Essay  on  Criticism 


94  Reading  to  Others 

Do  his  lines  succeed  in  creating  sounds  that  are  "echoes  to  the 
sense"? 

Internal  rhymes  (rhyming  words  within  lines  as  well  as  at  the 
ends  of  lines)  may  speed  up  the  tempo  and  create  a  feeling  of 
lightness  and  delicacy,  as  in  Shelley's  "The  Cloud": 

I  bring  fresh  showers  for  the  thirsting  flowers, 

From  the  seas  and  the  streams; 
I  bear  light  shade  for  the  leaves  when  laid 

In  their  noonday  dreams. 
From  my  wings  are  shaken  the  dews  that  waken 

The  sweet  buds  every  one, 
When  rocked  to  rest  on  their  mother's  breast, 

As  she  dances  about  the  sun. 
I  wield  the  flail  of  the  lashing  haiI7 

And  whiten  the  green  plains  under, 
And  then  again  I  dissolve  it  in  rain, 
'  And  laugh  as  I  pass  in  thunder. 

But  such  manipulation  of  rhyme  may  easily  become  monotonous 
and  sing-song.  Emerson  (who  once  had  the  arrogance  to  call  Poe 
"the  jingle  man")  had  a  poor  ear  for  music  in  poetry.  He 
solemnly  experimented  with  stanza  forms,  but  all  too  often 
produced  such  poor  specimens  as  his  poem,  "The  Past": 

The  debt  is  paid, 

The  verdict  said, 

The  Furies  laid, 

The  plague  is  stayed, 

All  fortunes  made; 

Turn  the  key  and  bolt  the  door, 

Sweet  is  death  forevermore. 

Nor  haughty  hope,  nor  swart  chagrin, 

Nor  murdering  hate,  can  enter  in  .  .  . 

Byron  used  rhyme  for  humorous  effect,  boldly  rhyming  two  and 
sometimes  even  three  syllables: 

Such  names  [Wordsworth,  Southey,  Coleridge]  at 
present  cut  a  convict  figure, 

The  very  Botany  Bay  in  moral  geography; 
Their  loyal  treason,  renegado  rigor, 

Are  good  manure  for  their  more  bare  biography. 


Interpreting  Emotion  95 

Wordsworth's  last  quarto,  by  the  way?  is  bigger 
Than  any  since  the  birthday  of  typography; 
A  drowsy,  frowsy  poem,  called  the  "Excursion," 
Writ  in  a  manner  which  is  my  aversion. 

LORD  BYRON,  Don  Juan 

ASSONANCE.  Except  within  lines,  assonance  is  now  chiefly  found 
in  the  lyrics  of  popular  songs.  Swinburne  used  it  a  great  deal,  as 
in  the  lines,  "The  full  streams  feed  on  flower  of  rushes,"  etc., 
quoted  on  page  92  to  illustrate  alliteration.  "Streams"  and  "feed"; 
"grasses,"  "trammel,"  and  "traveling";  "faint"  and  "flame"; 
"young"  and  "flushes"  are  some  examples  of  this  device.  In  older 
poetry  it  was  more  acceptable  (at  the  ends  of  lines)  than  it  is  today. 
Thus,  Keats  rhymed  rejoice  and  noise,  and  James  Russell  Lowell 
rhymed  Patience  and  libations.  Assonance  is  not  false  rhyme,  like 
Shakespeare's  fever  and  never  and  Spenser's  Beast  and  detest,  which 
do  not  have  the  same  vowel  sounds.  Anne  Bradstreet's  sacrifice 
and  skies  and  Hood's  Rome  and  come  were  two  rhymes  in  their 
day,  though  the  first  is  an  example  of  assonance  and  the  second  of 
false  rhyme  today.  Edith  Sitwell  rhymes  walk  with  stork  and 
W.  H.  Auden  rhymes  horse  with  across.  These  are  perfect  rhymes 
in  their  speech,  not  examples  of  assonance.  Within  the  line  a  poet 
may  make  effective  use  of  assonance,  as  in  Tennyson's  repetition 
of  the  6  sound  in 

And  some  through  wavering  lights  and  shadows  broke 
Rolling  a  slumbrous  sheet  of  foam  below. 

For  the  most  part,  however,  assonance  is  made  use  of  in  slovenly 
rhymes  like  dry  and  eyes  or  seem  and  clean  in  folk  ballads  and 
popular  songs. 

ALLITERATION.  Alliteration  is  a  very  old  poetical  device,  going 
back  to  the  ballads  and  the  early  epics.  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  which 
had  no  rhyme,  had  a  wealth  of  alliterative  words,  as  in  the  line  from 
Beowulf, 

Weltering  waves,  coldest  of  weathers. 

Notice  the  effect  of  alliteration  in  the  lines  from  a  poem  by  the 
Anglo-Saxon  poet  Cynewulf: 

Who  so  wary  and  so  wise  of  the  warriors  lives, 
That  he  dare  declare  who  doth  drive  me  on  my  way, 
When  I  start  up  in  my  strength/ 


96  Reading  to  Others 

Dryden  used  it  in  "Alexander's  Feast": 

Softly  sweet,  in  Lydian  measures 
Soon  he  soothed  his  soul  to  pleasures. 

Tennyson  and  Swinburne  are  famous  for  their  use  of  alliteration: 

The  shattering  trumpet  shrilleth  high, 
The  hard  brands  shiver  on  the  steel, 

The  splintered  spear-shafts  crack  and  fly, 
The  horse  and  rider  reel. 

ALFRED  TENNYSON,  Sir  Galahad 

Bird  of  the  bitter  bright  gray  golden  morn, 
Scarce  risen  upon  the  dusk  of  dolorous  years, 

First  -of  us  all  and  sweetest  singer  born, 

Whose  far  shrill  note  the  world  of  new  men  hears 
Cleave  the  cold  shuddering  shade  as  twilight  clears  .  .  . 
ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE,  A  Ballad  of  Francois  Villon 

METER.  Another  poetical  device  is  meter,  which  is  the  syste- 
matic rhythmic  pattern  of  lines,  arranged  in  stressed  and  un- 
stressed syllables.  The  poet's  choice  of  measure  in  his  lines  is  very 
important  in  bringing  out  emotional  reaction  in  the  reader.  The 
mood  of  the  poet  is  reflected  in  the  sprightly,  somber,  sedate,  im- 
passioned, harsh,  gentle,  dainty,  or  witty  combinations  of  metrical 
feet.  That  is,  meter,  helping  to  establish  rhythms,  enhances  the 
emotional  content  of  the  lines.  Feel  the  difference  in  mood  pro- 
duced by  the  differences  in  meter  and  differences  in  line  length 
in  the  following  lines.  The  technical  names  used  to  denote  the 
meter  of  a  poem  (iambic,  trochaic,  aiiapestic,  dactyllic,  and  spon- 
daic) do  not  really  matter  so  long  as  the  reader  recognizes  the 
changes  in  rhythm,  which  are  just  as  often  caused  by  variations 
in  the  length  of  lines  and  subtle  shifts  in  metrical  patterns  as  by 
the  fundamental  meters. 

i.    Get  up,  get  up  for  shame/  The  blooming  morn 
Upon  her  wings  presents  the  god  unshorn. 
See  how  Aurora  throws  her  fair 
Fresh-quilted  colors  through  the  air: 
Get  up,  sweet  slug-a-bed,  and  see 
The  dew  bespangling  herb  and  tree/ 
Each  flower  has  wept  and  bowed  toward  the  east 


Interpreting  Emotion  97 

Above  an  hour  since;  yet  you  not  dressed; 

Nay.'  not  so  much  as  out  of  bed? 

When  all  the  birds  have  matins  said 

And  sung  their  thankful  hymns,  'tis  sin 

Nay,  profanation,  to  keep  in, 
Whereas  a  thousand  virgins  on  this  day 
Spring,  sooner  than  the  lark,  to  fetch  in  May. 

ROBERT  HERRICK,  Corinna's  Going-a-Maying 

2.  Five  years  have  past;  five  summers,  with  the  length 
Of  five  long  winters/  and  again  I  hear 

These  waters,  rolling  from  their  mountain-springs 
With  a  soft  inland  murmur.— Once  again 
Do  I  behold  these  steep  and  lofty  cliffs, 
That  on  a  wild,  secluded  scene  impress 
Thoughts  of  more  deep  seclusion. 

WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH,  Tintern  Abbey 

The  two  selections  above  have  the  same  kind  of  metrical  foot, 
the  iambic,  which  is  the  dominant  measure  in  English  poetry; 
yet  their  emotional  suggestiveness  differs  widely.  Herrick's  lines 
change  in  length  from  five  feet  (a  foot  is  a  combination  of 
syllables  usually  containing  one  accented  and  one  or  more 
unaccented  syllables)  to  four;  the  rhymes  are  bright  and  gay; 
the  words  are  short.  Wordsworth's  lines  are  all  of  the  same 
length;  there  is  no  rhyme  scheme;  the  words  are  long  and  slow. 
Make  similar  observations  about  the  selections  below. 

3.  It  was  the  season,  when  through  all  the  land 

The  merle  and  mavis  build,  and  building  sing 
Those  lovely  lyrics,  written  by  his  hand, 

Whom  Saxon  Casdmon  calls  the  Blithe-heart  King; 
When  on  the  boughs  the  purple  buds  expand, 

The  banners  of  the  vanguard  of  the  Spring, 
And  rivulets  re/oicing,  rush  and  leap, 
And  wave  their  fluttering  signals  from  the  steep. 

HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW,  The  Birds  of  Killingworth 

4.  Whither,  midst  falling  dew, 

While  glow  the  heavens  with  the  last  steps  of  day, 
Far  through  their  rosy  depths  dost  thou  pursue 
Thy  solitary  way? 


98  Reading  to  Others 

Vainly  the  fowler's  eye 

Might  mark  thy  distant  flight  to  do  thee  wrong, 
As,  darkly  seen  against  the  crimson  sky, 
Thy  figure  floats  along. 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT,  To  a  Waterfowl 

5.    Roll  forth,  my  song,  like  the  rushing  river, 

That  sweeps  along  to  the  mighty  sea; 
God  will  inspire  me  while  I  deliver 
My  soul  of  thee/ 

JAMES  MANGAN,  The  Nameless  One 

All  that  I  know 

Of  a  certain  star 
Is,  it  can  throw 

(Like  the  angled  spar) 
Now  a  dart  of  red, 

Now  a  dart  of  blue, 
Till  my  friends  have  said 

They  would  fain  see,  too, 
My  star  that  dartles  the  red  and  the  blue/ 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  My  Star 

RHYTHM.  The  rhythm  of  poetry  (and  of  prose)  is  its  most  abun- 
dant source  of  emotion.  Rhythm,  as  one  writer  describes  it,  "is 
the  universal  rise  and  fall  of  things."  It  is  the  flowing  and  ebbing 
of  tides,  the  march  of  armies,  the  contour  of  mountains  and  val- 
leys, the  lights  and  shadows  of  painting,  the  suspense  and  d£noue- 
ment  of  drama,  day  and  night,  waves  on  the  shore,  sorrow  and 
happiness,  the  repetition  of  a  theme  in  different  voices  in  music 
(which  employs  many  of  the  same  devices  for  arousing  emotion 
that  poetry  does).  In  literature,  rhythm  is  more  than  a  stanza 
form,  it  is  more  than  meter,  it  is  more  than  any  recurrent  thought 
or  feeling  or  word  stress.  It  is  the  pattern,  or  design,  of  expres- 
sion, implicitly  pleasing  to  the  observer  and  in  harmony  with  the 
meaning  and  spirit  of  the  author's  idea. 

REPETITION.  Repetition  is  another  artificial  poetic  device.  It 
was  especially  important  in  the  old  ballads,  not  only  because  the 
essential  points  of  the  tale  had  to  be  emphasized  for  the  audiences 
but  because  the  minstrels  could  vary  emotional  expression  through 


Interpreting  Emotion  99 

simple  changes  in  tempo  and  pitch.  Notice  the  effect  of  repetition 
in  the  following  stanzas: 

1.  There  was  twa  sisters  in  a  bowr, 

Edinburgh,  Edinburgh, 
There  was  twa  sisters  in  a  bowr, 

Stirling  for  ay; 

There  was  twa  sisters  in  a  bowr, 
There  came  a  knight  to  be  their  wooer; 

Bonny  Saint  Johnson  stands  upon  Tay. 

2.  "Why  does  your  brand  sac  drop  wi'  blude, 

Edward,  Edward? 
Why  does  your  brand  sac  drop  wi  blude, 

And  why  sae  sad  gang  ye,  O?" 
"O  I  hae  killed  my  hawk  sae  gude, 

Mither,  mither; 

O  I  hae  killed  my  hawk  sae  gude, 
And  I  had  nae  mair  but  he,  O." 

The  emotional  effects  of  sound  and  repetition  have  been  sought 
by  poets  for  centuries,  especially  by  the  Elizabethan  writers: 

1.  Blow,  blow,  thou  winter  wind/ 
Thou  art  not  so  unkind 

As  man's  ingratitude; 
Thy  tooth  is  not  so  keen, 
Because  thou  art  not  seen, 

Although  thy  breath  be  rude. 
Heigh-ho/  sing,  heigh-ho/  unto  the  green  holly; 
Most  friendship  is  feigning,  most  loving  mere  folly. 

Then,  heigh-ho,  the  holly/ 

This  life  is  most  /oily. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  As  You  Like  It 

2.  Where  the  bee  sucks,  there  suck  I, 
On  a  cowslip's  bell  I  lie; 

There  I  crouch  when  owls  do  cry. 

On  the  bat's  back  I  do  fly 

After  summer  merrily. 
Merrily,  merrily,  shall  I  live  now 
Under  the  blossom  that  hangs  on  the  bough. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  The  Tempest 


too  Reading  to  Others 

3.  Hey  nonny  no/ 

Men  are  fools  that  wish  to  die/ 

Is't  not  fine  to  dance  and  sing, 

When  the  bells  of  death  do  ring? 

Is't  not  fine  to  swim  in  wine, 

And  turn  upon  the  toe, 

And  sing  hey  nonny  no, 

When  the  winds  blow  and  the  seas  flow? 

Hey  nonny  no/  ANONYMOUS 

Exercises 

Read  the  following  poems,  noting  their  use  of  the  various 
poetical  devices  of  rhyme,  assonance,  alliteration,  meter,  and  repeti- 
tion, attending  to  the  underlying  rhythms.  Remember  that  rhythm 
is  not  to  be  confused  with  meter,  but  is  the  combination  of  mood 
and  form  that  makes  it  the  essence  of  poetry. 

i.       Little  Lamb,  who  made  thee? 

Dost  thou  know  who  made  thee? 
Gave  thee  life,  and  bid  thee  feed, 
Gave  thee  clothing  of  delight, 
Softest  clothing,  woolly,  bright; 
Gave  thee  such  a  tender  voice, 
Making  all  the  vales  re/oice? 

Little  Lamb,  who  made  thee? 

Dost  thou  know  who  made  thee? 

Little  Lamb,  I'll  tell  thee, 

Little  Lamb,  I'll  tell  thee: 
He  is  called  by  thy  name, 
For  He  calls  Himself  a  Lamb, 
He  is  meek,  and  He  is  mild; 
He  became  a  little  child. 
I  a  child,  and  thou  a  lamb, 
We  are  called  by  His  name. 

Little  Lamb,  God  bless  thee/ 

Little  Lamb,  God  bless  thee/ 

WILLIAM  BLAKE,  The  Lamb 

2.   Soldier,  rest/  thy  warfare  o'er, 

Sleep  the  sleep  that  knows  not  breaking; 
Dream  of  battled  fields  no  more, 
Days  of  danger,  nights  of  waking. 


Interpreting  Emotion  101 

In  our  isle's  enchanted  hall 

Hands  unseen  thy  couch  are  strewing; 

Fairy  strains  of  music  fall, 

Every  sense  in  slumber  dewing. 

Soldier,  rest/  thy  warfare  o'er, 

Dream  of  fighting  fields  no  more; 

Sleep  the  sleep  that  knows  not  breaking, 

Morn  of  toil,  nor  night  of  waking  .  .  . 

Huntsman,  rest/  thy  chase  is  done; 

While  our  slumbrous  spells  assail  ye 
Dream  not,  with  the  rising  sun, 

Bugles  here  shall  sound  reveille. 
Sleep/  the  deer  is  in  his  den; 

Sleep/  thy  hounds  are  by  thee  lying; 
Sleep/  nor  dieam  in  yonder  glen 

How  thy  gallant  steed  lay  dying. 
Huntsman,  rest/  thy  chase  is  done; 
Think  not  of  the  rising  sun, 
For,  at  dawning  to  assail  ye, 
Here  no  bugles  sound  reveille. 

SIR  WALTER  SCOTT,  The  Lady  of  the  Lake 

3.        Out  of  the  hills  of  Habersham, 

Down  the  valleys  of  Hall, 
I  hurry  amain  to  reach  the  plain, 
Run  the  rapid  and  leap  the  fall, 
Split  at  the  rock  and  together  again, 
Accept  my  bed,  or  narrow  or  wide, 
And  flee  from  folly  on  every  side 
With  a  lover's  pain  to  attain  the  plain 

Far  from  the  hills  of  Habersham, 

Far  from  the  valleys  of  Hall. 

All  down  the  hills  of  Habersham, 

All  through  the  valleys  of  Hall, 
The  rushes  cried,  ABIDE,  ABIDE, 
The  willful  waterweeds  held  me  thrall, 

The  laving  laurel  turned  my  tide, 
The  ferns  and  the  fondling  grass  said  STAY, 
The  dewberry  dipped  for  to  work  delay, 
And  the  little  reeds  sighed  ABIDE,  ABIDE, 

HERE  IN  THE  HILLS  OF  HABERSHAM, 

HERE  IN  THE  VALLEYS  OF  HALL. 


102  Reading  to  Others 

High  o'er  the  hills  of  Habersham, 

Veiling  the  valleys  of  Hall, 
The  hickory  told  me  manifold 
Fair  tales  of  shade,  the  poplar  tall 
Wrought  me  her  shadowy  self  to  hold, 
The  chestnut,  the  oak,  the  walnut,  the  pine, 
Overleaning,  with  flickering  meaning  and  sign, 
Said,  PASS  NOT,  so  COLD,  THESE  MANIFOLD 

DEEP  SHADES  OF  THE  HILLS  OF  HABERSHAM, 

THESE  GLADES  IN  THE  VALLEYS  OF  HALL. 

And  oft  in  the  hills  of  Habersham, 

And  oft  in  the  valleys  of  Hall, 

The  white  quartz  shone,  and  the  smooth  brook-stone 
Did  bar  me  of  passage  with  friendly  brawl, 
And  many  a  luminous  jewel  lone 
—Crystals  clear  or  a-cloud  with  mist, 
Ruby,  garnet,  and  amethyst- 
Made  lures  with  the  lights  of  streaming  stone 

In  the  clefts  of  the  hills  of  Habersham, 

In  the  beds  of  the  valleys  of  Hall. 

But  oh,  not  the  hills  of  Habersham, 

And  oh,  not  the  valleys  of  Hall 
Avail:  I  am  fain  for  to  water  the  plain. 
Downward  the  voices  of  Duty  call- 
Downward,  to  toil  and  be  mixed  with  the  main, 
The  dry  fields  burn,  and  the  mills  are  to  turn, 
And  a  myriad  flowers  mortally  yearn, 
And  the  lordly  main  from  beyond  the  plain 

Calls  o'er  the  hills  of  Habersham, 

Calls  through  the  valleys  of  Hall. 

SIDNEY  LANIER,  The  Song  of  the  Chattahoochee 

4.   Over  the  hill,  over  the  hill, 

The  dews  are  wet  and  the  shadows  long; 
Twilight  lingers  and  all  is  still 
Save  for  the  call  of  a  faery-song. 

Calling,  calling  out  of  the  west, 
Over  the  hill  in  the  dusk  of  day, 


Interpreting  Emotion  103 

Over  the  hill  to  a  land  of  rest, 
A  land  of  peace  with  the  world  away. 

Never  again  where  grasses  sweep, 

And  lights  are  low,  and  the  cool  brakes  still — 

Never  a  song,  but  a  dreamless  sleep, 
Over  the  hill  .  .  .  over  the  hill. 

THOMAS  S.  JONES,  JR.,  May-Eve 


To  ladies'  eyes  around,  boy, 

We  can't  refuse,  we  can't  refuse, 
Tho'  bright  eyes  so  abound,  boy, 

Tis  hard  to  choose,  'tis  hard  to  choose. 
For  thick  as  stars  that  lighten 

Yon  airy  bow'rs,  yon  airy  bow'rs, 
The  countless  eyes  that  brighten 

This  earth  of  ours,  this  earth  of  ours. 
But  fill  the  cup— where'er,  boy, 

Our  choice  may  fall,  our  choice  may  fall, 
We're  sure  to  find  love  there,  boy, 

So  drink  them  all/  so  drink  them  all/ 

Some  looks  there  are  so  holy, 

They  seem  but  giv'n,  they  seem  but  giv'n 
As  shining  beacons,  solely 

To  light  to  heav'n,  to  light  to  heav'n. 
While  some—oh/  ne'er  believe  them— 

With  tempting  ray,  with  tempting  ray, 
Would  lead  us  (God  forgive  them/) 

The  other  way,  the  other  way. 

But  fill  the  cup— where'er,  boy, 

Our  choice  may  fall,  our  choice  may  fall, 
We're  sure  to  find  love  there,  boy, 

So  drink  them  all/  so  drink  them  all/ 
In  some,  as  in  a  mirror, 

Love  seems  portray'd,  love  seems  portray'd, 
But  shun  the  flattering  error, 

Tis  but  his  shade,  'tis  but  his  shade. 
Himself  has  fix'd  his  dwelling 


104  Reading  to  Others 

In  eyes  we  know,  in  eyes  we  know, 
And  lips— but  this  is  telling— 

So  here  they  go/  so  here  they  go/ 
Fill  up,  fill  up— where'er,  boy, 
Our  choice  may  fall,  our  choice  may  fall, 
We're  sure  to  find  love  there,  boy, 

So  drink  them  all/  so  drink  them  all/ 

THOMAS  MOORE,  To  Ladies'  Eyes 


6.   I  wonder  why  I  cannot  write 
Even  a  simple  sort  of  verse? 
When  thoughts  desert  me,  late  at  night, 
I  wonder  why  I  cannot  write 
The  triolet  I  must  indite; 
My  poems  go  from  bad  to  worse— 
I  wonder  why?  I  cannot  write 
Even  a  simple  sort  of  verse. 

SPENSER  FINCH,  Triolet 

7.   I  intended  an  Ode, 

And  it  turned  to  a  Sonnet. 
It  began  a  la  mode, 
I  intended  an  Ode; 
But  Rose  crossed  the  road 

In  her  latest  new  bonnet; 
I  intended  an  Ode; 

And  it  turned  to  a  Sonnet. 

AUSTIN  DOBSON,  Urceus  Exit 


MODERN    UNCONVENTIONAL    DEVICES 

Something  should  be  said  here  about  the  unconventional 
rhythms  and  stanza  patterns  of  the  modern  experimentalists.  There 
is  nothing  really  new  about  tricky  arrangements  of  lines,  like  those 
of  E.  E.  Cummings  (except  that  he  shows  little  respect  for  punctua- 
tion and  capital  letters)  and  William  Carlos  Williams.  Lewis 
Carroll,  in  "The  Mouse's  Tale,"  and  other  poems,  W.  S.  Gilbert, 
and,  more  seriously,  John  Dryden,  John  Donne,  William  Blake, 
and  many  others  were  quite  as  unorthodox  as  the  current  revolu- 
tionaries. 


Interpreting  Emotion  105 

The  modern  "rebels,"  as  they  are  often  called,  do  not  always 
deny  the  values  in  established  literary  devices.  They  are  simply 
seeking  new  sensuous  and  intellectual  effects.  Many  of  them, 
indeed,  use  traditional  forms,  depending  upon  the  shock  of  what 
they  have  to  say  to  make  their  points.  Some,  belonging  to  what 
Max  Eastman  calls  the  "cult  of  unintelligibility,"  are  apparently 
following  the  antagonists  of  realism  in  the  other  arts.  They  coin 
words  and  speak  in  gibberish  (as  James  Joyce  does),  chant  fierce 
litanies  of  repeated  words  (as  Gertrude  Stein  does),  throw  ideas 
into  disconnected,  fragmentary  sentences  (as  John  dos  Passos  and 
William  Faulkner  do),  empty  words  of  normal  denotations  (as 
Hart  Crane  does).  Their  purpose  seems  to  be  to  express  their 
inner  selves  or  some  intense  aspect  of  observed  experience  without 
really  trying  to  share  their  thoughts.  Eastman  says  that  this  ten- 
dency is  "toward  privacy  combined  with  a  naive  sincerity  in 
employing  as  material  the  instruments  of  social  communication." 
Edmund  Wilson,  who  admires  them  very  much,  says  in  his  Axel's 
Castle,  "Though  it  is  true  that  they  have  tended  to  overemphasize 
the  importance  of  the  individual,  that  they  have  been  preoccupied 
with  introspection  sometimes  almost  to  the  point  of  insanity,  that 
they  have  endeavored  to  discourage  their  readers,  not  only  with 
politics,  but  with  action  of  any  kind— they  have  yet  succeeded  in 
effecting  in  literature  a  revolution  analogous  to  that  which  has 
taken  place  in  science  and  philosophy:  they  have  broken  out  of 
the  old  mechanistic  routine,  they  have  disintegrated  the  old 
materialism,  and  they  have  revealed  to  the  imagination  a  new 
flexibility  and  freedom." 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  merit  of  such  experi- 
mentalism.  Our  job  is  to  learn  to  read  all  kinds  of  writing.  Joyce, 
Stein,  the  Sitwells,  Cummings,  and  their  followers  will  probably 
never  give  pleasure  to  any  considerable  number  of  readers.  There 
must,  however,  be  some  reason,  some  inspiration  in  their  work,  or 
they  would  never  have  aroused  so  much  attention  and  stirred  up 
so  much  controversy  as  they  have.  Perhaps  reading  aloud  is  the 
way  to  an  understanding  of  these  writers,  though  some  believe 
that  fast  silent  skimming  is  the  only  way.  Any  reading  of  Joyce,  for 
one,  will  have  to  be  without  the  usual  aid  of  complete  knowledge 
of  his  word  meanings,  for  the  author  alone  can  explain  many  of  his 
coinages.  Nevertheless,  there  is  power  in  suggestion  and  impres- 


io6  Reading  to  Others 

sion,  even  though  the  ideas  may  be  vague.    Try  reading  slowly 
the  following  lines  from  Ulysses: 

A  black  crack  of  noise  in  the  street  here,  alack,  bawled,  back.  Loud 
on  left  Thor  thundered:  in  anger  awful  the  hammer-hurler.  Came  now 
the  storm  that  hist  his  heart.  And  Master  Lynch  bade  him  have  a 
care  to  flout  and  witwanton  as  the  god  self  was  angered  for  his  hellprate 
and  paganry.  And  he  that  had  erst  challenged  to  be  so  doughty  waxed 
pale  as  they  might  all  mark  and  shrank  together  arid  his  pitch  that  was 
before  so  haught  uplift  was  now  of  a  sudden  quite  plucked  down  and 
his  heart  shook  within  the  cage  of  his  breast  as  he  tasted  the  rumour  of 
that  storm. 

Gertrude  Stein  repeats  words  and  phrases  until  they  create 
strange  emphases.  You  can  learn  something  about  how  she  wants 
her  writing  read  by  listening  to  the  National  Council  of  Teachers 
of  English  recording  of  her  "Matisse."  Try  to  get  the  meaning 
out  of  this  passage  from  her  The  Making  of  Americans: 

When  one  is  a  young  one  one  is  a  young  one.  Certainly  when  one 
is  a  young  one  one  is  then  a  young  one.  In  a  way  one  is  knowing  then 
that  one  is  not  then  a  young  one,  in  a  way  one  is  knowing  it  then  that 
one  is  then  a  young  one.  When  one  is  a  middle  aged  one  one  is  then 
a  middle  aged  one.  In  a  way  one  is  knowing  then  that  one  is  then  a 
middle  aged  one,  in  a  way  one  is  knowing  then  that  one  is  not  then  a 
middle  aged  one.  When  one  is  an  old  one  one  is  then  an  old  one.  In 
a  way  one  is  knowing  then  that  one  is  then  an  old  one,  in  a  way  one  is 
knowing  then  that  one  is  not  then  an  old  one. 

Cummings  is  quite  understandable  if  you  read  his  poems  as 
prose,  supplying  the  punctuation  he  has  omitted.  Hart  Crane  and 
Edith  Sitwell  require  some  close  application  in  silent  study  before 
you  try  to  read  them  aloud.  Search  for  inner  meaning  through 
emotional  suggestion.  No  poet  is  so  revolutionary  that  he  can  do 
without  imagination  and  feeling,  even  if  he  does  disdain  ordinary 
meaning.  Here  is  one  of  Hart  Crane's  poems  that  will  test  the 
application  of  the  reader: 

Whitely,  while  benzine 

Rinsings  from  the  moon 

Dissolve  all  but  the  windows  of  the  mills 

(Inside  the  sure  machinery 

Is  still 

And  curdled  only  where  a  sill 

Sluices  its  one  unyielding  smile) 


Interpreting  Emotion  107 

Immaculate  venom  binds 
The  fox's  teeth,  and  swart 
Thorns  freshen  on  the  year's 
First  blood.  From  flanks  unfended, 
Twanged  red  perfidies  of  spring 
Are  trillion  on  the  hill. 

And  the  nights  opening 

Chant  pyramids — 

Anoint  with  innocence— recall 

To  music  and  retrieve  what  perjuries 

Had  galvanized  the  eyes. 

While  chime 
Beneath  and  all  around 
Distilling  clemencies — worms' 
Inaudible  whistle,  tunneling 
Not  penitence 
But  song,  as  these 
Perpetual  fountains,  vines — 

Thy  Nazarcne  and  tinder  eyes. 

(Let  sphinxes  from  the  ripe 

Borage  of  death  have  cleared  my  tongue 

Once  and  again;  vermin  and  rod 

No  longer  bind.  Some  sentient  cloud 

Of  tears  flocks  through  the  tendoned  loam: 

Betrayed  stones  slowly  speak.) 

Names  peeling  from  Thine  eyes 
And  their  undimming  lattices  of  flame, 
Spell  out  in  palm  and  pain 
Compulsion  of  the  year,  O  Nazarene. 

Lean  long  from  sable,  slender  boughs, 
Unstanched  and  luminous.  And  as  the  nights 
Strike  from  Thee  perfect  spheres, 
Lift  up  in  lilac-emerald  breath  the  grail 
of  Earth  again— 

Thy  face 

From  charred  and  riven  stakes,  O 
Dionysus,  Thy 
Unmangled  target  smile. 

HART  CRANE,  Lachrymae  Christi 


io8  Reading  to  Others 

This  very  difficult  poem  illustrates  the  complexity  of  much  of  the 
"rebels'  "  imagery.  The  scene  seems  to  be  that  of  a  mill  town  in 
spring.  The  details  of  machinery  are  suggested  in  "sill,"  "sluice," 
and  "fox's  teeth."  All  through  the  poem  the  pictures  are  strange 
and  unorthodox:  "benzine  rinsings  from  the  moon/'  thorns  which 
"twanged,"  "immaculate  venom"  (moonlight),  "ripe  borage  of 
death,"  "Thy  Nazarene  and  tinder  eyes."  Into  the  poet's  vision 
of  industrial  ugliness  softened  under  spring  moonlight  comes  the 
thought  of  Christ,  who  is  finally  blended  with  the  pagan  god 
Dionysus.  The  inevitable  subjective  element  appears  in  the 
obscure  lines, 

Let  sphinxes  from  the  ripe 

Borage  of  death  have  cleared  my  tongue 

Once  and  again. 

The  reader  must  decide  whether  "let"  is  a  verb  or  an  unusual 
adjective.  One  editor  says  that  this  is  a  prayer,  Crane's  hope  that  he 
might  be  resurrected.  Whatever  is  the  exact  meaning  of  the  poem, 
it  is  interesting  for  its  vivid  words. 

General  Exercises 

Analyze  the  following  selections  for  class  reading,  with  especial 
attention  to  the  emotional  elements  mentioned  in  this  chapter. 
In  analyzing  the  selections  in  this  chapter,  try  to  get  a  definite  im- 
pression of  the  value  and  purpose  of  the  rhythm  employed,  as  well 
as  a  clear  understanding  of  mood,  imagery,  and  sound,  and  the  po- 
etic devices  of  rhyme,  assonance,  alliteration,  repetition,  and  meter. 

i.       Gaily  bedight, 

A  gallant  knight, 
In  sunshine  and  in  shadow, 

Had  journeyed  long, 

Singing  a  song, 
In  search  of  Eldorado. 

But  he  grew  old— 

This  knight  so  bold— 
And  o'er  his  heart  a  shadow 

Fell  as  he  found 

No  spot  of  ground 
That  looked  like  Eldorado. 


Interpreting  Emotion  109 

And,  as  his  strength 

Failed  him  at  length, 
He  met  a  pilgrim  shadow— 

"Shadow,"  said  he, 

"Where  can  it  be— - 
This  land  of  Eldorado?" 

"Over  the  Mountains 

Of  the  Moon, 
Down  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow, 

Ride,  boldly  ride," 

The  shade  replied— 
"If  you  seek  for  Eldorado." 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE,  Eldorado 


2.  Forth  rushed  with  whirlwind  sound 
The  chariot  of  Paternal  Deity, 

Flashing  thick  flames,  wheel  within  wheel;  undrawn, 

Itself  instinct  with  spirit,  but  convoyed 

By  four  cherubic  shapes.  Four  faces  each 

Had  wondrous;  as  with  stars,  their  bodies  all 

And  wings  were  set  with  eyes;  with  eyes  the  wheels 

Of  beryl,  and  careering  fires  between; 

Over  their  heads  a  crystal  firmament, 

Whereon  a  sapphire  throne,  inlaid  with  pure 

Amber  and  colors  of  the  showery  arch 

He,  in  celestial  panoply  all  armed 

Of  radiant  Urim,  work  divinely  wrought, 

Ascended;  at  his  right  hand  Victory 

Sat  eagle- winged;  beside  him  hung  his  bow, 

And  quiver,  with  three-bolted  thunder  stored; 

And  from  about  him  fierce  effusion  rolled 

Of  smoke  and  bickering  flame  and  sparkles  dire. 

Attended  with  ten  thousand  thousand  Saints, 

He  onward  came. 

JOHN  MILTON,  Paradise  Lost,  Book  VI 

3.  Spring,  the  sweet  Spring,  is  the  year's  pleasant  king; 
Then  blooms  each  thing,  then  maids  dance  in  a  ring, 
Cold  doth  not  sting,  the  pretty  birds  do  sing, 

Cuckoo,  jug-jug,  pu-we,  to-witta-woo/ 


no  Reading  to  Others 

The  palm  and  may  make  country  houses  gay, 
Lambs  frisk  and  play,  the  shepherds  pipe  all  day, 
And  we  hear  aye  birds  tune  this  merry  lay, 
Cuckoo,  jug-jug,  pu-we,  to-witta-woo/ 

The  fields  breathe  sweet,  the  daisies  kiss  our  feet, 
Young  lovers  meet,  old  wives  a-sunning  sit, 
In  every  street  these  tunes  our  ears  do  greet, 
Cuckoo,  ;ug-;ug,  pu-we,  to-witta-woo/ 
Spring/  the  sweet  Spring/ 

THOMAS  NASH,  Spring 

4.    Go  and  catch  a  falling  star, 

Get  with  child  a  mandrake  root, 
Tell  me  where  all  past  years  are, 
Or  who  cleft  the  devil's  foot; 
Teach  me  to  hear  mermaids  singing, 
Or  to  keep  off  envy's  stinging, 
And  find 
What  wind 
Serves  to  advance  an  honest  mind. 

If  thou  be'st  born  to  strange  sights, 

Things  invisible  go  see, 
Ride  ten  thousand  days  and  nights 

Till  Age  snow  white  hairs  on  thee; 
Thou,  when  thou  return'st,  wilt  tell  me 
All  strange  wonders  that  befell  thee, 
And  swear 
No  where 
Lives  a  woman  true  and  fair. 

If  thou  find'st  one,  let  me  know; 
Such  a  pilgrimage  were  sweet. 
Yet  do  not;  I  would  not  go, 

Though  at  next  door  we  might  meet. 
Though  she  were  true  when  you  met  her, 
And  last  till  you  write  your  letter, 
Yet  she 
Will  be 
False,  ere  I  come,  to  two  or  three. 

JOHN  DONNE,  Song 


Interpreting  Emotion  1 1  j 

5.  Give  a  man  a  horse  he  can  ride, 

Give  a  man  a  boat  he  can  sail; 
And  his  rank  and  wealth,  his  strength  and  health, 
On  sea  nor  shore  shall  fail. 

Give  a  man  a  pipe  he  can  smoke, 

Give  a  man  a  book  he  can  read: 
And  his  home  is  bright  with  a  calm  delight, 

Though  the  room  be  poor  indeed. 

Give  a  man  a  girl  he  can  love, 

As  I,  O  my  love,  love  thee; 
And  his  heart  is  great  with  the  pulse  of  Fate, 

At  home,  on  land,  on  sea. 

JAMES  THOMSON,  Gifts 

6.  Slowly,  silently,  now  the  moon 
Walks  the  night  in  her  silver  shoon; 
This  way,  and  that,  she  peers,  and  sees 
Silver  fruit  upon  silver  trees; 

One  by  one  the  casements  catch 

Her  beams  beneath  the  silvery  thatch, 

Crouched  in  his  kennel,  like  a  log, 

With  paws  of  silver  sleeps  the  dog; 

From  their  shadowy  cote  the  white  breasts  peep 

Of  doves  in  a  silver-feathered  sleep; 

A  harvest  mouse  goes  scampering  by, 

With  silver  claws,  and  silver  eye; 

And  moveless  fish  in  the  water  gleam, 

By  silver  reeds  in  a  silver  stream. 

WALTER  DE  LA  MARE,  Silver 

7.  Had  we  but  world  enough,  and  time, 
This  coyness,  Lady,  were  no  crime. 

We  would  sit  down  and  think  which  way 
To  walk  and  pass  our  long  love's  day. 
Thou  by  the  Indian  Ganges'  side 
Shouldst  rubies  find;  I  by  the  tide 
Of  Humber  would  complain.  I  would 
Love  you  ten  years  before  the  Flood, 
And  you  should,  if  you  please  refuse 
Till  the  conversion  of  the  Jews. 


i  12  Reading  to  Others 

My  vegetable  love  should  grow 
Vaster  than  empires,  and  more  slow; 
An  hundred  years  should  go  to  praise 
Thine  eyes  and  on  thy  forehead  gaze; 
Two  hundred  to  adore  each  breast, 
But  thirty  thousand  to  the  rest; 
An  age  at  least  to  every  part, 
And  the  last  age  should  show  your  heart. 
For,  Lady,  you  deserve  this  state, 
Nor  would  I  love  at  lower  rate. 
But  at  my  back  I  always  hear 
Time's  winged  chariot  hurrying  near; 
And  yonder  all  before  us  lie 
Deserts  of  vast  eternity. 
Thy  beauty  shall  no  more  be  found, 
Nor,  in  thy  marble  vault,  shall  sound 
My  echoing  song;  then  worms  shall  try 
That  long  preserved  Virginity, 
And  your  quaint  honor  turn  to  dust, 
And  into  ashes  all  my  lust: 
The  grave's  a  fine  and  private  place, 
But  none,  I  think,  do  there  embrace. 

Now  therefore,  while  the  youthful  hue 
Sits  on  thy  skin  like  morning  dew, 
And  while  thy  willing  soul  transpires 
At  every  pore  with  instant  fires, 
Now  let  us  sport  us  while  we  may, 
And  now,  like  amorous  birds  of  prey, 
Rather  at  once  our  time  devour 
Than  languish  in  his  slow-chapped  power. 
Let  us  roll  all  our  strength  and  all 
Our  sweetness  up  into  one  ball, 
And  tear  our  pleasures  with  rough  strife 
Thorough  the  iron  gates  of  life: 
Thus,  though  we  cannot  make  our  sun 
Stand  still,  yet  we  will  make  him  run. 

ANDREW  MARVELL,  To  His  Coy  Mistress 

8.   Come  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love; 
And  we  will  all  the  pleasures  prove 
That  hills  and  valleys,  dales  and  fields, 
Woods,  or  steepy  mountain  yields. 


Interpreting  Emotion  1 1 3 

And  we  will  sit  upon  the  rocks, 
Seeing  the  shepherds  feed  their  flocks 
By  shallow  rivers,  to  whose  falls 
Melodious  birds  sing  madrigals. 

And  I  will  make  thee  beds  of  roses, 
And  a  thousand  fragrant  posies; 
A  cap  of  flowers,  and  a  kirtle 
Embroidered  all  with  leaves  of  myrtle; 

A  gown  made  of  the  finest  wool 
Which  from  our  pretty  Iambs  we  pull; 
Fair-lined  slippers  for  the  cold, 
With  buckles  of  the  purest  gold; 

A  belt  of  straw  and  ivy-buds, 
With  coral  clasps  and  amber  studs; 
An  if  these  pleasures  may  thee  move, 
Come  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love. 

The  shepherd-swains  shall  dance  and  sing 
For  thy  delight  each  May  morning; 
If  these  delights  thy  mind  may  move, 
Then  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love. 
CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE, 
The  Passionate  Shepherd  to  His  Love 


'Tis  the  middle  of  night  by  the  castle  clock, 

And  the  owls  have  awakened  the  crowing  cock, 

Tu-whit/— Tu— whoo/ 

And  hark,  again!  the  crowing  cock, 

How  drowsily  it  crew. 

Sir  Leoline,  the  Baron  rich, 
Hath  a  toothless  mastiff,  which 
From  her  kennel  beneath  the  rock 
Maketh  answer  to  the  clock, 
Four  to  the  quarters,  and  twelve  for  the  hour; 
Ever  and  aye,  by  shine  and  shower, 
Sixteen  short  howls,  not  over  loud; 
Some  say,  she  sees  my  lady's  shroud, 


1 14  Reading  to  Others 

Is  the  night  chilly  and  dark? 
The  night  is  chilly,  but  not  dark. 
The  thin  gray  cloud  is  spread  on  high, 
It  covers  but  not  hides  the  sky. 
The  moon  is  behind,  and  at  the  full; 
And  yet  she  looks  both  small  and  dull. 
The  night  is  chill,  the  cloud  is  gray: 
'Tis  a  month  before  the  month  of  May, 
And  the  Spring  comes  slowly  up  this  way. 

SAMUEL  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE,  Christahel 

JO.        The  sky  is  changed/— and  such  a  change/   Oh,  Night, 
And  Storm,  and  Darkness,  ye  are  wondrous  strong, 
Yet  lovely  in  your  strength,  as  is  the  light 
Of  a  dark  eye  in  Woman!  Far  along, 
From  peak  to  peak,  the  rattling  crags  among 
Leaps  the  live  thunder/  Not  from  one  lone  cloud 
But  every  mountain  now  hath  found  a  tongue, 
And  Jura  answers,  through  her  misty  shroud, 
Back  to  the  joyous  Alps,  who  call  to  her  aloud/ 

And  this  is  in  the  Night:— Most  glorious  Night/ 
Thou  were  not  sent  for  slumber/  let  me  be 
A  sharer  in  thy  fierce  and  far  delight  — 
A  portion  of  the  tempest  and  of  thee/ 
How  the  lit  lake  shines,  a  phosphoric  sea, 
And  the  big  rain  comes  dancing  to  the  earth/ 
And  now  again  'tis  black  —and  now,  the  glee 
Of  the  loud  hills  shakes  with  its  mountain-mirth, 
As  if  they  did  re/oice  o'er  a  young  Earthquake's  birth. 

LORD  BYRON,  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,  Canto  III 

11.  Hast  thou  given  the  horse  strength?  Hast  thou  clothed  his  neck 
with  thunder?  Canst  thou  make  him  afraid  as  a  grasshopper?  The  glory 
of  his  nostrils  is  terrible.  He  paweth  in  the  valley,  and  re/oiceth  in  his 
strength;  he  goeth  on  to  meet  the  armed  men.  He  mocketh  at  fear, 
and  is  not  affrighted.  Neither  turneth  he  back  from  the  sword.  The 
quiver  rattleth  against  him,  the  glittering  spear  and  the  shield.  He 
swalloweth  the  ground  with  fierceness  and  rage:  neither  believeth  he 
that  it  is  the  sound  of  the  trumpet.  He  saith  among  the  trumpets,  Ha, 
ha;  and  he  smelleth  the  battle  afar  off,  the  thunder  of  the  captains,  and 
the  shouting. 

39th  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Job 


Interpreting  Emotion  115 

12.  O  how  well  doth  a  faire  colour  and  a  shining  face  agree  with 
glittering  hair/  Behold,  it  encountereth  with  the  beams  of  the  Sunne, 
and  pleaseth  the  eye  marvellously.   Sometimes  the  beauty  of  the  haire 
resembleth  the  colour  of  gold  and  honey,  sometimes  the  blew  plumes 
and  azured  feathers  about  the  neckes  of  Doves,  especially  when  it  is 
either  anointed  with  the  gumme  of  Arabia,  or  trimmely  tuft  out  with 
the  teeth  of  a  fine  combe,  which  if  it  be  tyed  up  in  the  pole  of  the 
necke,  it  seemeth  to  the  lover  that  beholdeth  the  same,  as  a  glasse  that 
yeeldeth  forth  a  more  pleasant  and  gracious  comeliness  than  if  it  should 
be  sparsed  abroad  on  the  shoulders  of  the  woman,  or  hang  downe  scat- 
tering behind.  Finally  there  is  such  a  dignity  in  the  haire,  that  whatso- 
ever shee  be,  though  she  be  never  so  bravely  attyred  with  gold,  silkes, 
prctious  stones,  and  other  rich  and  gorgeous  ornaments,  yet  if  her  hair 
be  not  curiously  set  forth  shee  cannot  seeme  faire. 

The  Golden  Asse  of  Lucius  Apuleius 

13.  Passion  of  sudden  death/  that  once  in  youth  I  read  and  inter- 
preted by  the  shadows  of  thy  averted  signs/— rapture  of  panic  taking  the 
shape  (which  amongst  tombs  in  churches  I  have  seen)  of  woman  burst- 
ing her  sepulchral  bonds — of  woman's  Ionic  form  bending  forward  from 
the  ruins  of  her  grave  with  arching  foot,  with  eyes  upraised,  with  clasped 
adoring  hands — waiting,  watching,  trembling,  praying  for  the  trumpet's 
call  to  rise  from  dust  for  ever/    Ah,  vision  too  fearful  of  shuddering 
humanity  on  the  brink  of  almighty  abysses/— vision  that  didst  start  back, 
that  didst  reel  away,  like  a  shrivelling  scroll  from  before  the  wrath  of 
fire  racing  on  the  wings  of  the  wind/  Epilepsy  so  brief  of  horror,  where- 
fore is  it  that  thou  canst  not  die?   Passing  so  suddenly  into  darkness, 
wherefore  is  it  that  still  thou  sheddest  thy  sad  funeral  blights  upon  the 
gorgeous  mosaics  of  dreams?   Fragment  of  music  too  passionate,  heard 
once,  and  heard  no  more,  what  aileth  thce,  that  thy  deep  rolling  chords 
come  up  at  intervals  through  all  the  worlds  of  sleep,  and  after  forty 
years  have  lost  no  element  of  horror? 

THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY,  Dream-Fugue 
( marked  "Tumultuosissimamente" ) 

34.    The  castled  crag  of  Drachenfels 

Frowns  o'er  the  wide  and  winding  Rhine, 
Whose  breast  of  waters  broadly  swells 
Between  the  banks  which  bear  the  vine, 
And  hills  all  rich  with  blossom'd  trees, 
And  fields  which  promise  corn  and  wine, 
And  scattered  cities  crowning  these, 
Whose  far  white  walls  along  them  shine. 


1 16  Reading  to  Others 

Have  strew'd  a  scene,  which  I  should  see 
With  double  /by  wert  THOU  with  me. 

And  peasant  girls,  with  deep  blue  eyes, 
And  hands  which  offer  early  flowers, 
Wallc  smiling  o'er  this  paradise; 
Above,  the  frequent  feudal  towers 
Through  green  leaves  lift  their  walls  of  gray; 
And  many  a  roclc  which  steeply  lowers, 
And  noble  arch  in  proud  decay, 
Look  o'er  this  vale  of  vintage-bowers; 
But  one  thing  want  these  banks  of  Rhine  — 
Thy  gentle  hand  to  clasp  in  mine/ 

I  send  the  lilies  given  to  me; 
Though  long  before  thy  hand  they  touch, 
I  know  that  they  must  withered  be, 
But  yet  re/ect  them  not  as  such; 
For  I  have  cherished  them  as  dear, 
Because  they  yet  may  meet  thine  eye, 
And  guide  thy  soul  to  mine  even  here, 
When  thou  behold'st  them  drooping  nigh, 
And  know'st  them  gathered  by  the  Rhine, 
And  offer' d  from  my  heart  to  thine/ 

The  river  nobly  foams  and  flows, 

The  cha/m  of  this  enchanted  ground, 

And  all  its  thousand  turns  disclose 

Some  fresher  beauty  varying  round: 

The  haughtiest  breast  its  wish  might  bound 

Through  life  to  dwell  delighted  here; 

Nor  could  on  earth  a  spot  be  found 

To  nature  and  to  me  so  dear, 

Could  thy  dear  eyes  in  following  mine 

Still  sweeten  more  these  banks  of  Rhine/ 

LORD  BYRON,  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage 

15.    Oft  have  I  seen  at  some  cathedral  door 

A  laborer,  pausing  in  the  dust  and  heat, 
Lay  down  his  burden,  and  with  reverent  feet 

Enter,  and  cross  himself,  and  on  the  floor 

Kneel  to  repeat  his  paternoster  o'er; 
Far  off  the  noises  of  the  world  retreat; 


Interpreting  Emotion  1 1 7 

The  loud  vociferations  of  the  street 
Become  an  undistinguishable  roar. 
So,  as  I  enter  here  from  day  to  day, 

And  leave  my  burden  at  this  minster  gate, 
Kneeling  in  prayer,  and  not  ashamed  to  pray, 

The  tumult  of  the  time  disconsolate 
To  inarticulate  murmurs  dies  away, 

While  the  eternal  ages  watch  and  wait. 

HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW, 
Sonnet  I  from  Divina  Commedia 

16.    Bright  star/  would  I  were  steadfast  as  thou  art— 

Not  in  lone  splendor  hung  aloft  the  night, 
Arid  watching,  with  eternal  lids  apart, 

Like  Nature's  patient  sleepless  Eremite, 
The  moving  waters  at  their  priestlike  task 

Of  pure  ablution  round  earth's  human  shores, 
Or  gazing  on  the  new  soft-fallen  mask 

Of  snow  upon  the  mountains  and  the  moors — 
No— yet  still  steadfast,  still  unchangeable, 

Pillowed  upon  my  fair  love's  ripening  breast, 
To  feel  forever  its  soft  fall  and  swell, 
Awake  forever  in  a  sweet  unrest, 

Still,  still  to  hear  her  tender-taken  breath, 
And  so  live  ever— or  else  swoon  to  death. 

JOHN  KEATS,  Bright  Star 

17.    Whatever  you  dream  with  doubt  possest, 
Keep,  keep  it  snug  within  your  breast, 
And  lay  you  down  and  take  your  rest; 
Forget  in  sleep  the  doubt  and  pain, 
And  when  you  wake,  to  work  again. 
The  wind  it  blows,  the  vessel  goes, 
And  where  and  whither,  no  one  knows. 

'Twill  all  be  well:  no  need  of  care; 
Though  how  it  will,  and  when,  and  where, 
We  cannot  see,  and  can't  declare. 
In  spite  of  dreams,  in  spite  of  thought, 
7Tis  not  in  vain,  and  not  for  nought, 
The  wind  it  blows,  the  ship  it  goes, 
Though  where  and  whither,  no  one  knows. 

ARTHUR  HUGH  CLOUGH,  All  Is  Well 


1 18  Reading  to  Others 

18.   I  do  not  love  thee/— no/  I  do  not  love  thee/ 

And  yet  when  thou  art  absent  I  am  sad; 
And  envy  even  the  bright  blue  sky  above  thee, 
Whose  quiet  stars  may  see  thee  and  be  glad. 

I  do  not  love  thee/— yet,  I  know  not  why, 

Whatever  thou  dost  seems  still  well  done,  to  me: 

And  often  in  my  solitude  I  sigh 

That  those  I  do  love  are  not  more  like  thee/ 

I  do  not  love  thee/— yet,  when  thou  art  gone, 

I  hate  the  sound  (though  those  who  speak  be  dear) 

.Which  breaks  the  lingering  echo  of  the  tone 
Thy  voice  of  music  leaves  upon  my  ear. 

I  do  not  love  thee/— yet  thy  speaking  eyes, 
With  their  deep,  bright,  and  most  expressive  blue, 

Between  me  and  the  midnight  heaven  arise, 
Oftener  than  any  eyes  I  ever  knew. 

I  know  I  do  not  love  thee/  yet,  alas/ 

Others  will  scarcely  trust  my  candid  heart; 

And  oft  I  catch  them  smiling  as  they  pass, 
Because  they  see  me  gazing  where  thou  art. 
CAROLINE  ELIZABETH  SARAH  NORTON,  I  Do  Not  Love  Thee 


19.    the  harried 
earth  is  swept. 

The  trees 
the  tulip's  bright 
tips 

sidle  and 
toss- 
Loose  your  love 
to  flow 

Blow/ 

Good  Christ  what  is 
a  poet— if  any 

exists? 


Interpreting  Emotion  119 

a  man 

whose  words  will 
bite 

their  way 

home— being  actual 
having  the  form 

of  motion 

At  each  twigtip 

new 

upon  the  tortured 
body  of  thought 
gripping 
the  ground 
a  way 

to  the  last  leaftip 
WILLIAM  CARLOS  WILLIAMS.  The  Wind  Increases 


20.    In  after  days  when  grasses  high 
O'er-top  the  stone  where  I  shall  lie, 

Though  ill  or  well  the  world  adjust 

My  slender  claim  to  honored  dust, 
I  shall  not  question  nor  reply. 

I  shall  not  see  the  morning  sky; 
I  shall  not  hear  the  night- wind  sigh; 
I  shall  be  mute,  as  all  men  must 
In  after  days/ 

But  yet,  now  living,  fain  would  I 
That  someone  then  should  testify, 
Saying:  "He  held  his  pen  in  trust 
To  Art,  not  serving  shame  or  lust." 
Will  none?— Then  let  my  memory  die 
In  after  days/ 

AUSTIN  DOBSON,  In  After  Days 


CHAPTER     3 


I J  J     1  /         H  y5  /    7 

/TOW   f/zc  Vo/re  VYorA:$ 


ArOTF  THAT  we  have  made  a  fair 
start  on  the  interpretative  part  of  oral  interpretation,  let  us  inter- 
rupt it  for  a  discussion  of  the  physiological  part.  A  thorough 
understanding  of  the  mechanism  of  speech  is  certainly  important 
in  searching  for  the  answer  to  the  reader's  question,  "How  can  I 
best  employ  my  peculiar  equipment  for  speaking  so  that  my 
audience  will  hear  me  easily  and  accept  my  voice  as  reasonably 
free  from  defects  in  diction?"  Unless  you  have  a  clear  picture 
of  exactly  what  happens  when  you  breathe  and  when  you  vocalize, 
you  cannot  intelligently  attack  your  speech  faults.  Bad  habits  of 
long  standing  are  hard  to  break  if  the  faulty  speaker  is  vague 
about  the  basic  operations  of  his  physical  equipment.  Haphazard 
attempts  to  correct  speech  defects  are  like  trying  to  make  a  stalled 
automobile  start  by  hopeful  but  ignorant  fussing  writh  wires.  The 
good  driver  ought  to  know  how  his  engine  runs. 

BREATHING 

The  trunk  of  the  body  is  divided  into  two  parts  by  the  dia- 
phragm, a  muscle  which  extends  completely  across  the  body  and 
is  attached  to  the  sternum  or  breastbone  in  front,  to  the  lower 
ribs  at  the  sides,  and  to  the  spinal  column,  somewhat  below  the 
sternum,  in  back.  In  its  relaxed  position  (that  is,  after  exhalation) 
the  diaphragm  is  dome-shaped,  like  a  rather  wai~ped,  inverted 
bowl.  It  forms  the  floor  of  the  thorax,  or  chest  cavity,  and  the  roof 
of  the  abdomen.  The  diaphragm  is  the  chief  muscle  of  inhalation. 


120 


How  the  Voice  Works  121 

In  the  thoracic  cavity  are  the  lungs,  masses  of  spongy,  elastic 
non-muscular  tissue.  These  are  connected  by  numerous  bronchial 
tubes  to  the  bronchi,  the  two  branches  of  the  trachea  or  windpipe, 
which  leads  to  the  pharynx  or  throat  region.  Also  within  the 
thoracic  cavity  are  the  heart  and  its  principal  arteries,  and  the 
esophagus  which  connects  the  pharynx  with  the  stomach. 

INHALATION.  Inhalation  is  accomplished  by  the  enlarging  of 
the  thorax  so  that  the  pressure  of  air  within  the  cavity  is  reduced. 
Expansion  is  possible  in  three  directions:  downward,  as  the  dia- 
phragm contracts  and  flattens  out,  and  sideward  and  frontward,  as 
the  ribs  are  raised  and  the  sternum  is  lifted.  The  muscles  between 
the  ribs  (the  intercostals)  and  various  other  muscles  of  the  chest 
and  shoulders  help  effect  this  increase  in  the  size  of  the  thorax. 
Atmospheric  pressure  outside  the  body  immediately  forces  air 
into  the  elastic  lungs  until  their  expansion  compresses  the  air  in 
the  thorax  and  the  pressure  inside  and  outside  is  equalized. 

It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  lungs  do  not  directly 
"take  in"  air.  Only  when  through  an  enlargement  of  the  thorax 
there  is  a  difference  of  pressure  inside  and  outside  the  body,  can 
the  lungs  receive  air.  Another  way  of  describing  this  phenomenon 
is  to  say  that  as  the  thorax  is  enlarged  and  the  air  surrounding  the 
lungs  is  rarefied,  atmospheric  pressure  outside  the  body  forces 
air  into  the  lungs,  filling  them  until  they  take  up  as  much  room 
as  the  thorax  was  increased  in  size,  thereby  balancing  the  pressures. 

When  the  diaphragm  flattens  out  across  the  body,  it  exerts 
pressure  on  the  abdominal  organs,  which  crowd  up  into  the  dome 
of  the  relaxed  diaphragm.  The  pelvic  girdle  prevents  expansion 
of  the  abdomen  downward,  just  as  the  spinal  column  prevents 
expansion  in  back.  The  organs  are  therefore  forced  outward. 
There  is  a  definite  bulging  of  the  front  wall  (and  to  a  lesser 
degree,  of  the  side  walls)  of  the  abdomen  in  diaphragmatically 
controlled  inhalation. 

To  summarize:  The  thorax  is  enlarged.  A  partial  vacuum  is 
formed  in  the  thoracic  cavity.  Atmospheric  pressure  forces  air 
into  the  lungs.  The  abdominal  wall  bulges  outward. 

EXHALATION.  In  exhalation  other  sets  of  muscles  (antago- 
nistically opposed  to  the  muscles  active  in  inhalation)  reduce  the 
size  of  the  thorax  and  force  the  air  out  of  the  lungs.  The  muscles 
of  inhalation,  except  for  the  diaphragm,  which  is  a  kind  of 


Reading  to  Others 

boundary  muscle,  are  all  thoracic.    The  muscles  of  exhalation, 
except  for  one  which  helps  cover  the  ribs,  are  all  abdominal. 

The  muscles  in  the  front  and  side  walls  of  the  abdomen  con- 
tract, pressing  inward  on  the  bulge  of  the  abdominal  viscera, 
which  return  to  their  original  place,  forcing  the  diaphragm  up- 
ward into  its  relaxed  position.  The  diminishing  of  the  size  of 
the  thorax  compresses  the  lungs  and  expels  a  portion  of  the  air 
in  them. 

To  summarize:  The  ribs  are  lowered,  abdominal  muscles  con- 
tract and  force  the  stomach  and  liver  inward  and  upward,  restor- 
ing the  diaphragm  to  its  relaxed  dome  shape,  and  expelling  the 
breath. 

The  type  of  breathing  that  has  just  been  described  is  active 
(distinguished  from  passive,  or  casual,  breathing),  allowing  for 
sufficient  support  of  the  breath  stream  to  vibrate  the  vocal  bands 
in  phonation.  For  ordinary  breathing  without  vocalization  much 
less  energetic  intake  and  controlled  expulsion  of  air  are  necessary. 
Enough  air  to  carry  on  the  life  process  is  as  well  supplied  by 
"chest"  breathing  (or  even  by  clavicular  or  extreme  upper-chest 
breathing)  as  by  "abdominal"  breathing,  and  exhalation  is  satis- 
factorily accomplished  by  simple  relaxation  of  the  muscles  of 
inhalation.  For  purposes  of  speech,  however,  active  breathing  is 
desirable,  if  not  necessary.  That  is,  some  people  manage  to  get 
along  very  well  in  the  world  without  any  exercise  of  their  dia- 
phragms, even  for  speaking.  It  may  be  that  the  diaphragmatic 
inhalation  is  less  important  than  teachers  have  been  willing  to 
admit.  For  vigorous  support  of  tone,  however,  which  depends 
upon  well-filled  lungs,  the  use  of  the  diaphragm  seems  to  be  physi- 
ologically important. 

Even  though  the  chest-breather  may  have  nearly  as  much  effi- 
ciency in  inhalation  as  the  diaphragmatic-,  or  abdominal-breather, 
exhalation  should  be  chiefly  abdominal.  The  old  advice  to  "pack 
your  voice  behind  your  belt"  or  to  "speak  from  the  diaphragm" 
is  still  valid  in  describing  firmly  controlled  abdominal  exhalation. 
Effective  breathing  results  in  the  use  of  steady,  controlled  tones. 
Volume  depends  upon  breathing.  The  good  speaker  must  be  able 
to  modulate  his  voice  either  powerfully  or  gently.  Shallow 
breathers  are  all  too  often  lazy  breathers,  lacking  muscle  tone  not 
only  in  the  diaphragm  but  also  in  the  abdominal  muscles  of  ex- 


How  the  Voice  Works  123 

halation.  They  tend  to  produce  speech  on  a  flabby  relaxation  of 
the  intercostals  and  pectoral  muscles,  with  the  result  that  their 
voices  are  wheezy  or  confidential,  and  they  must  frequently  gasp 
for  air.  If  they  can  be  persuaded  to  practice  deep  breathing  until 
there  is  a  tangible  bulging  of  the  abdominal  viscera  under  the 
downward  pressure  of  a  well-managed  diaphragm,  there  is  usually 
an  improvement  in  their  phrasing  and  their  control  of  volume. 

Moreover,  diaphragmatic  breathing  is  normal  for  most  people 
in  sleep  and  in  vigorous  physical  action.  The  runner  or  swimmer 
usually  has  a  well-developed  diaphragm,  which  strongly  thrusts 
downward  in  the  quick  intake  of  breath  required  by  the  sports. 
In  a  prone  position,  the  body,  freed  from  the  strain  of  tight  cloth- 
ing or  faulty  posture,  nearly  always  breathes  diaphragmatically. 
In  short,  this  kind  of  breathing  is  demonstrably  a  healthy  and 
efficient  exercise  of  the  respiratory  mechanism.  You  may  be  pleased 
to  think  that  one  type  of  breathing  is  as  good  as  another,  but  if 
you  have  something  definite  to  work  toward— the  strengthening 
of  certain  muscles  wrhose  correct  functioning  will  have  a  certain 
effect  on  the  wall  of  the  abdomen— you  are  likely  to  improve  your 
whole  speaking  power. 

Regular  exercises  in  breathing  are  of  the  utmost  value  to  the 
student  of  voice.  You  should  be  able  to  control  your  breathing 
apparatus  so  that  you  can  hold  your  breath  for  at  least  forty-five 
seconds  (better  sixty)  and  to  hold  a  tone  without  wravering  for  from 
twenty  to  thirty  seconds. 

Exercises 

Practice  the  following  exercises  faithfully,  not  just  for  one  class 
assignment,  but  throughout  the  term,  until  you  definitely  improve 
your  breathing  habits.  Some  of  the  exercises  are  intended  for 
practice  at  home.  Most,  however,  can  be  done  in  class  as  well, 
i.  Place  the  finger  tips  of  the  left  hand  on  the  chest  and  the 
finger  tips  of  the  right  hand  on  the  abdomen  about  a  palm's 
breadth  below  the  end  of  the  sternum,  or  breast-bone.  Inhale 
slowly  until  the  lungs  are  filled;  exhale.  Notice  whether  or  not 
the  movement  of  the  upper  hand  is  greater  than  that  of  the  lower. 
If  it  is  greater,  the  breathing  is  probably  thoracic.  The  shoulders 
should  not  rise.  In  forceful  diaphragmatic  breathing  the  lower 
hand  should  be  vigorously  pushed  outward  on  inhalation  and 


124  Reading  to  Others 

"arched  in"  on  exhalation.  There  should  be  little  or  no  movement 
of  the  chest  wall. 

2.  Lie  down  on  your  back  and  repeat  Exercise  i.  The  abdom- 
inal action  will  probably  be  more  apparent. 

3.  Stand  and  try  to  keep  the  muscular  response  of  the  prone 
position. 

4.  Hold  the  breath  and  harden  the  abdominal  wall  as  if  some- 
one were  going  to  punch  you.  Relax.  Do  this  several  times,  rapidly. 

5.  Now  combine  the  hardening  and  relaxing  of  the  abdomen 
with  inhalation  and  exhalation.    Push  outward  and  harden  the 
muscles  on  inhalation.    Pull  in  sharply  on  exhalation,  trying  to 
bring  the  front  wall  of  the  abdomen  as  near  the  spinal  column  as 
possible.  Do  this  many  times  until  the  two  actions  begin  to  come 
together  without  special  effort. 

6.  Lying  on  the  back,  place  two  or  three  books  on  the  ab- 
domen.   Practice  lifting  them  with  the  downward  movement  of 
the  diaphragm,  then  relaxing. 

7.  Pant  in  quick  strokes  with  the  mouth  open,  taking  care  not 
to  lift  the  shoulders.    The  thrust  of  the  abdominal  wall  should 
be  vigorous. 

8.  Sip  the  breath  in  short  sniffs,  packing  it  into  the  lungs  until 
they  are  full.  Then  exhale  with  a  violent  in-thrust  of  the  abdom- 
inal wall. 

9.  Bend  the  body  at  the  hips,  letting  the  arms  hang  down.   In 
this  position,  which  compresses  the  front  of  the  chest  and  the 
abdomen,  take  a  series  of  short  panting  breaths.  Then  gradually 
raise  the  body  while  continuing  to  pant. 

10.  Inhale  deeply.    As  you  exhale,  whistle  softly  or  blow  the 
breath  between  the  lips  in  a  long,  drawn-out  [fj.   Hold  the  sound 
as  steadily  as  you  can.    Time  it.  Work  until  you  can  hold  the  [f] 
at  least  fifteen  seconds. 

11.  Cough  or  laugh  with  increasing  force,  keeping  your  hands 
just  below  the  sternum.  Feel  the  powerful  muscular  action.  The 
abdominal  muscles  sharply  convulse,  thrusting  the  viscera  against 
the  diaphragm  so  that  air  is  violently  expelled. 

12.  Say  "hah"  several  times,  holding  it  briefly,  taking  a  quick 
breath  before  each  repetition.    Keep  the  hand  over  the  front  of 
the  diaphragm,  making  certain  that  the  inhalation  is  being  done 
abdominally.   Keep  the  throat  and  jaw  muscles  relaxed. 


How  the  Voice  Works  125 

1 3.  Repeat  the  following  words,  holding  the  vowel  or  diphthong 
of  each  as  long  as  possible  without  losing  a  steady  tone:  heel,  hit, 
hate,  fret,  hat,  hot,  nought,  note,  hut,  foot,  hoot,  hurt,  hay,  high, 
ahoy. 

14.  While  walking,  inhale,  doing  two  steps  for  inhalation;  hold 
for  two  steps,  exhale  doing  two  steps;  pause  for  two  steps  before 
taking  new  breath.    Repeat  twenty  times.    Increase  rate  to  four, 
then  to  six,  then  to  eight  steps  for  each  stage.  Don't  try  to  increase 
the  rate  too  rapidly.    Practice  at  one  rate  several  times  over  a 
period  of  days;  then  increase. 

15.  An  interesting  illustration  of  diaphragmatic  breathing  is 
an  easily  made  adaptation  of  the  Hering  jar.    Tightly  close  the 
narrow  end  of  a  large  glass  funnel  with  a  cork  through  which  is 
passed  a  glass  tube,  which  branches  into  two  parts  within  the 
funnel.  Over  the  two  branches,  which  correspond  to  the  bronchi, 
fasten  the  mouths  of  two  small  toy  balloons.    Over  the  wide  end 
of  the  funnel  stretch  a  single  piece  of  rubber    (a  balloon  split 
down  the  center  or  part  of  a  lastex  bathing  cap),  which  corre- 
sponds to  the  human  diaphragm.   When  the  diaphragm  is  pressed 
inward,  the  air  in  the  two  balloons  (representing  the  lungs)  is 
forced  out,   and  when   the  diaphragm   is  released,   atmospheric 
pressure  fills  the  balloons.   Thoracic  movement,  of  course,  is  not 
illustrated  by  this  jar,  since  the  sides  of  the  funnel  are  inflexible. 

A  practical  device  for  measuring  lung  capacity  is  the  Res- 
pirometer,  sold  by  the  Central  Scientific  Company,  1700  Irving 
Park  Boulevard,  Chicago,  Illinois,  but  simple  enough  in  construc- 
tion so  that  it  could  be  roughly  made,  since  accurate  measurement 
is  not  necessary.  It  consists  of  a  cylindrical  metal  vessel  in  which 
a  slightly  smaller  vessel  is  suspended  by  means  of  cords  with 
counterweights  hung  over  pulleys.  At  the  bottom  of  the  outer 
vessel  are  a  petcock  for  draining  off  water  and  a  tight  valve  con- 
nected with  a  rigid  metal  tube,  which  rises  nearly  to  the  rim 
within  the  tank,  and  a  short  piece  of  rubber  tubing  outside  the 
tank.  The  second  tank  (preferably  enameled  to  resist  corrosion), 
with  a  valve  at  the  bottom  which  can  be  opened  to  let  out  air,  is 
placed  upside  down  within  the  first  tank,  which  is  filled  with  water 
to  a  point  just  below  the  top  of  the  enclosed  metal  tube.  An  indi- 
cator on  the  outside  vessel  marks  the  volume  of  air  it  contains  by 
rising  against  a  scale  graduated  to  300  cubic  inches  in  50  cubic- 


126  Reading  to  Others 

inch  divisions  on  one  of  the  vertical  uprights  holding  the  pulleys. 
To  test  your  lung  capacity,  you  exhale  into  the  inner  vessel 
through  the  rubber  tube  connected  with  the  inlet.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  the  Respirometer  measures  only  the  capacity  of 
the  lungs  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  determining  the  efficient 
use  of  the  respiratory  system  in  phonation. 

PHONATION 

The  sound-producing  apparatus  of  the  body,  like  all  musical 
instruments,  has  three  main  parts:  the  motor  (the  mechanism  of 
breathing),  the  vibrator  (the  inner  edges  of  the  vocal  bands,  two 
ligaments  backed  by  muscle,  fastened  at  the  ends  and  on  the  outer 
edges  to  the  cartilages  of  the  larynx,  at  the  top  of  the  windpipe), 
and  the  resonator  (the  chambers  of  the  throat  and  head).  In  addi- 
tion, it  has  another  part,  possessed  by  no  other  musical  instrument: 
the  articulator  (the  tongue,  lips,  jaws,  teeth,  and  palates).  We  shall 
take  up  phonation,  or  the  vibration  and  resonation  of  sound,  in 
this  chapter,  leaving  the  subject  of  articulation  to  a  later  chapter. 

When  air  is  expelled  from  the  lungs  in  exhalation,  it  must  pass 
through  the  trachea  and  between  the  vocal  bands.  In  ordinary 
breathing,  these  bands,  which  act  as  a  muscular  valve,  roughly 
like  a  small  coin  divided  in  the  middle,  are  separated  so  that  the 
air-passage  is  not  obstructed.  In  vocalization  the  vocal  bands  are 
brought  together.  The  air,  forced  out  between  the  bands,  pro- 
duces vibration,  which  sets  up  sound  waves  in  the  pharynx,  mouth, 
and  nasal  passages. 

Sound  \vaves  are  progressive  disturbances  in  some  medium, 
whose  characteristics  depend  upon  the  vibration  rate  or  frequency 
of  the  vibrator,  the  nature  of  the  vibrator  and  the  resonator,  and 
the  force  of  the  vibration.  In  air,  under  normal  conditions,  sound 
travels  at  the  rate  of  1100  feet  per  second.  Let  us  take  the  illus- 
tration of  a  violin.  The  performer  passes  his  bow  across  the  string, 
which  is  tuned  to  a  certain  frequency.  As  the  string  vibrates, 
powerfully  or  gently  according  to  the  force  of  the  bowing,  it  sets 
up  sound  waves,  one  for  each  vibration  (plus  the  many  more 
vibrations  of  the  overtones).  These  sound  waves,  resonated  and 
amplified  by  the  hollow  box  of  the  violin,  travel  swiftly  in  all 
directions  until  they  strike  the  eardrums  of  a  listener. 

The  vibrating  instrument  not  only  vibrates  as  a  whole  but  also 


How  the  Voice  Works  127 

in  segments.  That  is,  a  string  or  reed  producing  a  sound  at  the 
pitch  of  middle  C  vibrates  256  times  per  second  as  a  whole.  Each 
half  simultaneously  vibrates  512  times  per  second  (since  the  pitch 
rises  as  the  string  is  shortened).  Each  quarter  vibrates  1024  times 
per  second,  and  so  on.  There  may  be  as  many  as  twenty-one 
overtones,  or  partials  (as  the  simultaneous  vibration  of  segments 
is  called),  in  one  string.  These  overtones  make  up  the  "quality" 
of  a  sound.  A  "pure"  sound  from  an  instrument  (vibrating  only 
as  a  whole,  actually  of  rare  occurrence  except  in  non-musical 
objects)  is  a  very  uninteresting  sound.  Only  when  the  resonators 
pick  out  for  amplification  certain  of  the  overtones  of  the  desired 
sound  is  the  result  pleasing. 

When  a  speaker  makes  the  sound  of  "ah,"  let  us  say,  at  middle  C 
on  the  musical  scale,  he  adjusts  the  tension  of  his  vocal  bands  so 
that  the  air  forced  out  through  the  glottis  (the  opening  between 
the  vocal  bands)  vibrates  them  about  256  times  per  second.  The 
sound  waves  set  up  by  these  vibrations  and  by  the  vibrations  of 
the  overtones  resound  in  the  throat,  mouth,  and  nasal  passages  so 
that  the  resulting  tone  has  complexity,  amplification,  and  "qual- 
ity." The  tongue  is  flattened  and  the  lips  opened,  shaping  the 
flexible  articulators  for  the  sound  of  "ah." 

Analogies  of  other  musical  instruments  may  make  clearer  this 
matter  of  phonation.  Hold  a  rubber  band  between  the  fingers 
and  pluck  it.  Visibly  vibrating,  it  makes  a  flat,  harsh  sound.  When 
you  stretch  the  band,  the  pitch  of  the  sound  rises.  Holding  the 
vibrating  band  over  the  mouth  of  a  glass  slightly  amplifies  the 
sound.  The  violin  string  performs  in  exactly  the  same  way. 
Stretched  between  two  nails  on  a  board  and  bowed,  it  vibrates 
according  to  its  tension  and  sends  out  a  thin  sound,  more  musical 
than  that  of  the  rubber  band,  but  still  far  short  of  the  brilliant 
tone  that  a  musician  can  produce  with  the  same  string  stretched 
over  the  bridge  of  a  costly  violin.  The  difference  between  the 
two  sounds  lies  in  the  size  and  shape  and  quality  of  the  resonator. 
In  the  one  case  the  resonator  was  a  plain  board;  in  the  other  it 
was  a  scientifically  shaped  box  made  out  of  rare,  carefully  seasoned 
wood.  The  board  acted  as  a  mere  sound  reenforcer.  The  violin 
augmented  and  harmonized  the  beautiful  overtones.  The  dif- 
ference between  one  violin  and  another,  or  the  difference  between 
a  violin  and  a  piano  or  the  voices  of  two  people,  is  determined  by 


128  Reading  to  Others 

the  overtones  of  each  individual  instrument.  The  Bell  Telephone 
Laboratories  have  put  out  a  very  interesting  series  of  records  illus- 
trating acoustical  phenomena.  Among  them  is  one  (B.T.L.-4-A) 
showing  that,  with  all  the  overtones  filtered  out,  three  instruments, 
a  piano,  a  cello,  and  a  French  horn,  all  sounded  at  the  same  funda- 
mental pitch,  are  practically  indistinguishable. 

The  vocal  mechanism  is  not  like  a  string  or  reed  instrument, 
such  as  the  violin  or  the  clarinet,  because  the  vocal  bands  are  not 
vibrated  quite  like  strings  or  reeds.  The  nearest  analogy  is  the 
bugle,  which  has  no  reed  or  valves.  In  playing  on  a  bugle  the 
performer's  lips  are  shaped  and  vibrated  and  the  sound  is  resonated 
in  the  tube.  The  vocal  bands  are  like  the  bugler's  lips,  which 
change  their  tension  for  changes  in  pitch.  The  trumpet,  played 
like  the  bugle,  adds  several  frequencies  by  changing  the  length 
of  the  tube  through  plungers  or  valves.  All  reed  instruments,  like 
saxophones  and  clarinets,  depend  upon  similar  changes  in  the 
length  of  the  resonators  for  pitch  change,  since  the  vibrators  can- 
not change  their  shape.  So  with  wind  instruments  like  the  flute 
and  organ,  whose  vibrators  are  interrupted  blasts  of  air.  The 
human  voice,  however,  has  no  plungers  or  stops  or  keys  to  change 
the  size  of  the  resonators;  its  vibrator  changes  pitch  mainly  by 
changing  shape  and  tension.  Its  resonators  are  wonderfully  flexible 
and  constructed  so  that  part  may  be  shut  off. 

The  first  part  of  the  production  of  voice  is  like  the  stretching 
of  the  neck  of  an  inflated  toy  balloon.  As  the  air  forces  its  way 
out,  it  vibrates  the  rubber  between  the  fingers  and  sends  out  a 
wailing  squawk.  The  addition  of  resonators  makes  the  difference 
between  the  shrill  lamentation  of  the  balloon  and  the  rich  com- 
plexity of  the  spoken  sound. 

The  phenomenon  of  overtones  and  their  resonance  is  rather 
hard  to  grasp.  If  you  will  remember  that  the  resonance  chamber 
simply  does  to  the  complex  sound  waves  set  up  by  the  vocal  bands 
(that  is,  the  fundamental  pitch  and  its  overtones)  what  the  violin 
box  and  the  bass  horn's  tube  and  the  organ  pipe  do  to  their 
peculiar  vibrations,  then  you  will  understand  the  effect  even  if 
you  are  not  quite  sure  of  its  cause.  The  vocal  sounds  and  their  re- 
flection from  the  resonators  are  simply  blended  in  the  pharynx,  the 
mouth,  and  the  nasal  passages.  For  different  sounds  and  pitches, 


How  the  Voice  Works  129 

different  overtones  are  brought  out  by  the  flexible  resonators. 
That  is,  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  selectivity  in  resonance:  Some 
of  the  overtones  are  suppressed,  others  augmented  by  the  resona- 
tors. A  vibrating  tuning-fork  placed  on  a  desk  is  slightly  resonated. 
If  it  is  placed  on  a  hollow  box  tuned  to  its  frequency,  the  resulting 
sound  is  much  stronger  and  better  in  tone.  So  with  the  voice. 
The  best  tones  are  those  whose  resonators  are  tuned  to  their 
frequencies. 

SUMMARY  OF  PHONATION.  A  good  voice  is  one  which  is  firmly 
supported  by  the  proper  control  of  the  muscles  of  exhalation,  pro- 
duced by  healthy  vocal  bands  that  are  neither  too  thin  nor  too 
thick  nor  too  tense  nor  too  lax,  resonated  in  well-shaped  head 
chambers,  and  clearly  formed  by  the  oral  articulators.  It  has,  more- 
over, pure  tone,  pleasing  quality,  forceful  projection,  and  adequate 
range. 

Exercises 

The  following  exercises  are  intended  to  illustrate  more  fully 
the  process  of  phonation.  Where  possible,  the  student  should  get 
a  teacher  of  physics  to  explain  sound  in  the  laboratory,  getting  at 
the  characteristics  of  pitch,  quality,  and  volume  that  will  be 
applied  to  voice  in  chapters  5  and  6.  Most  laboratories  are 
equipped  to  demonstrate  overtones. 

1.  Strike  a  tuning-fork  and  watch  its  tines  blur  as  they  vibrate. 
Put  its  stem  on  a  desk  and  notice  the  amplification  of  tone.  Try 
it  on  hollow  boxes  of  various  sizes,  observing  the  differences  in 
resonation. 

2.  Hum  or  speak  while  you  place  your  finger  on  your  larynx, 
then  on  the  bridge  of  your  nose  and  the  cheekbones.  You  should 
be  able  to  feel  the  vibrations. 

3.  Tap  your  cheek  with  your  forefinger.    Keep  tapping  as 
you  open  and  close  your  mouth,  stretching  and  relaxing  the  cheek. 
With  practice  you  can  work  out  a  scale  and  hear  simple  tunes. 
You  are  illustrating  pitch  changes  through  changes  in  the  size 
of  the  vibrator,  which  is  here  the  air  in  the  mouth. 

4.  Blow  across  the  mouths  of  bottles  of  various  sizes.    The 
pitch  changes  with  the  size  of  the  bottle,  being  highest  for  the 
smallest  bottle.    On  a  violin  or  guitar,  bow  or  pluck  a  string. 


130  Reading  to  Others 

Shorten  the  string  by  pressing  a  finger  on  various  frets.  See  how 
the  pitch  rises  as  the  string  gets  shorter. 

5.  Whistle  up  the  scale  to  your  highest  note.    Notice  how 
your  lips  strain  to  make  the  smallest  possible  opening.    At  the 
low  notes  the  opening  is  perceptibly  larger.   Again  you  are  illus- 
trating pitch  change  through  change  in  the  tension  of  the  vibrating 
lips.    Whistling  is  closely  analogous  to  speaking,  though  it  has 
neither  resonators  nor  articulators.    Try  whistling  into  a  glass  or 
bowl  and  notice  how  much  better  the  tone  sounds.  You  have  added 
a  resonator. 

6.  Watch  a  locomotive  from  a  distance.    When  its  whistle 
blows,  you  can  see  the  steam  that  produced  the  sound  before  you 
hear  the  sound  itself.  You  can  see  the  hammer  of  a  distant  worker 
fall  a  surprisingly  long  time  before  you  hear  the  sound  of  the 
blow.    Light  travels  more  than  186,000  miles  per  second,  sound 
only  1,100  feet  per  second. 

7.  Auditoriums  for  speaking  or  music  are  acoustically  treated 
so  that  there  will  not  be  too  much  echoing  of  sounds.   A  certain 
amount  of  reverberation,  however,  is  desirable,  making  the  whole 
room  into  an  extra  resonance  chamber.  For  music,  which  sustains 
tones  longer  than  the  speaking  voice,  this  reverberation  rate  can 
be  several  seconds  longer  than  in  a  hall  for  speaking  alone.  In  the 
big  NBC  studio  at  Radio  City,  from  which  the  most  important 
symphonic  concerts  are  broadcast,  there  is  no  reverberation  at 
all  because  of  the  requirements  of  transmission.   To  audiences  in 
the  hall  itself  the  music  is  more  muffled  and  deadened  than  in 
other  halls.    How  are  the  acoustics  in  your  classroom?   In  your 
auditorium? 

8.  Get  hold  of  a  set  of  dinner  chimes  (the  bar  kind,  mounted 
on  a  box),  such  as  is  sometimes  used  before  "station  breaks"  in 
broadcasting  studios.    Slip  a  piece  of  paper  between  the  metal 
vibrators  and  the  sound-box  and  strike  the  chimes.    Without  a 
resonator  the  sound  is  flat  and  unmusical. 

9.  All  objects  vibrate  when  struck.  A  board,  of  course,  has  a 
lower  vibration  rate  than  a  steel  girder,  but  each  has  its  funda- 
mental frequency.    A  bridge  can  be  shattered  if  the  tramp  of 
marching  men  coincides  in  vibration  rate  with  that  of  the  bridge. 
Therefore,  soldiers  break  step  in  going  across  a  bridge.   Notice 


How  the  Voice  Works  131 

how  vases  or  glasses  in  a  room  may  dance  if  certain  notes  are 
played  on  a  violin  or  a  piano.  This  is  called  sympathetic  vibration. 
The  sound  waves  set  up  similar  vibrations  in  objects  with  the 
same  vibration  rate  of  the  tone.  Caruso  could  break  a  fragile  glass 
by  powerfully  singing  a  note  at  its  frequency. 

10.  People  whose  larynxes  have  been  surgically  removed  be- 
cause of  disease  or  accident  are  sometimes  taught  to  speak  by 
swallowing  air  through  the  mouth  and  pushing  it  out  again  by 
means  of  the  abdominal  muscles.  The  ejected  air  is  vibrated  much 
like  belching  and  is  shaped  by  the  usual  articulators.  Try  to  form 
sounds  in  this  way.  It  isn't  easy. 


CHAPTER     4 


/~TTI     (j        f     r  c7        i 
1  he  jouiids  or  Jpeecn 


ONLY  THROUGH  a  study  of  the  sci- 
ence of  speech  sounds  can  we  really  understand  the  working  of  our 
vocal  apparatus.  Phonetics  supplies  a  convenient  system  of  gener- 
ally accepted  symbols  that  exactly  represent  the  different  speech 
sounds,  both  alone  and  as  modified  by  other  sounds.  By  means  of 
phonetics  we  may  discover  errors  in  the  formation  of  sounds  that 
might  otherwise  go  unidentified  and  at  the  same  time  master  a 
tangible  body  of  knowledge  that  will  help  us  in  all  speech  training. 

One  of  the  main  uses  of  phonetics  is  to  clarify  the  bewildering 
effects  of  English  spelling.  Since  we  have  only  five  vowels  in  our 
alphabet,  but  fifteen  in  actual  pronunciation,  we  must  make  each 
one  do  the  work  of  several  others.  The  a,  for  example,  is  used  to 
represent  several  sounds  in  the  words  bat,  hate,  aisle,  beam., 
Thames,  all,  father,  float.  Similarly,  the  sound  of  e  may  be  repre- 
sented by  i  (machine),  ei  (receive),  ie  (believe),  e  (even),  ea  (sneak), 
ee  (lee),  ae  (Caesar).  This  confusion  is  immeasurably  reduced  by 
the  application  of  the  phonetic  alphabet  with  a  symbol  for  each 
sound  (or  rather,  according  to  the  phoneme  theory,  with  a  symbol 
for  each  group  of  closely  related  sounds). 

Another  function  of  phonetics  is  to  record  the  differences  among 
various  speakers'  pronunciations  of  the  same  word.  Through 
phonetics  scholars  may  classify  dialects,  showing  exactly  how  a 
Yorkshireman  pronounces  been  or  a  Virginian  says  garden  or  a 
German  says  father.  It  allows  for  a  scientific  comparison  of  British 
and  American,  for  example,  or  Southern  American  and  General 

132 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  133 

American.  It  is  not  only  a  scientific  approach  to  accuracy  in  speech 
but,  by  and  large,  a  fascinating  study.  Try  the  subject  of  pronun- 
ciation in  any  social  gathering  which  is  beginning  to  droop  con- 
versationally. The  talk  will  usually  brighten  immediately.  People 
are  interested  in  pronunciation,  and  the  phonetician  has  much  to 
contribute  to  their  information. 

For  voice  training,  phonetics  provides  an  admirable  method  of 
examining  speech  habits.  It  is  the  only  way  to  show  exactly  what  we 
say,  instead  of  what  we  think  we  say,  and  it  is  in  addition  a  splendid 
form  of  speech  exercise.  Other  advantages  of  the  study  of  phonetics 
are  that  it  trains  the  ear  (which  is  closely  associated  with  the  speech 
equipment);  it  fosters  clear  enunciation  and  the  establishing  of 
patterns  of  good  speech;  it  is  the  basis  of  intelligent  observation  of 
the  speech  of  others. 

Dictionary  pronunciations  are  indicated  by  key  words  which  set 
up  standards  acceptable  to  some  but  by  no  means  to  all  English- 
speaking  people.  Some  flexibility  is  apparent  in  the  recent  editions 
of  dictionaries,  which  recognize  changes  in  the  language  and  differ- 
entiate English  and  American  pronunciations.  But  we  are  still 
waiting  for  the  phonetic  dictionary  which  will  approve  of  the  vary- 
ing pronunciations  in  different  parts  of  America. 

Current  dictionaries  are  still  deeply  attached  to  the  past,  and 
they  change  slowly.  For  example,  the  vowel  of  ear  is  still  listed  as  e 
(as  in  see)  in  most  dictionaries.  The  second  edition  of  the  Merriam 
Webster  New  International  (1934),  under  the  guidance  of  a  dis- 
tinguished phonetician,  J.  S.  Kenyon,  now  admits  that  most  people 
do  not  say  e  in  ear  but  another  sound  represented  by  the  symbol  f . 
This  edition  of  the  New  International  dumps  overboard  a  great 
many  old  unyielding  pronunciations,  accepting  general  usage  in 
some  disputed  words,  such  as  adult,  romance,  abdomen.  Yet  many 
words  are  still  dogmatically  recorded  with  hard  and  fast  vowel 
sounds,  though  there  may  be  quite  acceptable  variations  in  different 
sections  of  the  country.  One  such  word  is  odd,  which  is  used  as  a 
key  word.  Yet  in  some  sections  odd  is  pronounced  wdth  the  vowel 
closer  to  that  of  all  than  to  that  of  father  (which  also  has  variations). 
The  makers  of  dictionaries  still  insist  that  horrid  and  forest  be 
pronounced  with  the  vowel  of  odd,  yet  the  majority  of  Americans 
use  the  vowel  of  all  in  these  words. 

Obviously,  phonetics  cannot  establish  universal  standards  any 


134  Reading  to  Others 

more  than  the  dictionaries  can.  It  is  useful  not  necessarily  in  re- 
cording what  ought  to  be  heard,  but  what  actually  is  heard.  Pho- 
neticians can  usually  afford  to  be  more  liberal  about  matters  of 
usage  than  lexicographers.  It  must  be  remembered  that  phonetics 
is  a  tool,  a  system  of  arbitrary  symbols,  not  a  language.  Its  correct 
use  depends  entirely  upon  an  accurate  perception  of  the  formation 
of  speech  sounds. 

The  International  Phonetic  Alphabet  provides  a  complete  sys- 
tem of  recording  speech  sounds.  It  is,  however,  unnecessary  for  the 
beginner  to  plunge  into  the  deeply  controversial  problems  of  pho- 
netics, mastering  all  the  symbols  for  all  possible  sounds.  A  some- 
what abridged  table  is  given  here,  together  with  key  words  for  each 
symbol.  You  must  understand  that  the  key  words  are  by  no  means 
absolute.  They  are  chosen  on  the  basis  of  average  General  Ameri- 
can pronunciation  and  are  not  intended  to  be  universal  standards 
of  correct  pronunciation.  Variations  in  the  key  words  from  the 
sounds  represented  by  the  given  symbols  must  be  carefully  noted 
by  the  individual  speaker.  For  example,  he  may  pronounce  father 
with  the  sound  of  [3]  rather  than  with  the  sound  of  [a],  or  he  may 
pronounce  house  with  the  sounds  of  [au]  or  [aeu]  or  [au]  rather 
than  with  [or].  In  every  case  the  student  must  verify  his  own  pro- 
nunciation of  the  key  words. 

THE    VOWELS 

1.  [i]  —  dictionary  e,  as  in  eat,  lee:  [it],  [li]. 

2.  [i]  =  dictionary  I,  |(r),  I,  e,  as  in   hit,  tin,  Itere,  charity, 

event:  [hit],  [tin],  [hir],  ['tjienti],  [I'vtnt]. 

3.  [e]  =  dictionary  a,  as  in  debris,  locate:  [de'bri],  ['louket]. 

(Stressed  a,  as  in  late,  main,  is  a  diphthong,  written  [ei]: 
[leu],  [mem].) 

4.  [e]  =  dictionary  e,  a(r),  as  in  met,  ten,  care:  [met],  [ten], 

[ker]  (sometimes  [kaer]). 

5.  [ae]  =  dictionary  a,  as  in  hat,  tan:  [haet],  [tacn], 

*6.    [a]  =  dictionary  a,  as  in  some  pronunciations  of  dance,  bath: 
[dans],  [ba6];  (more  often  in  General  American  [dasns], 

[b*e]). 

7.    [a]  =  dictionary  a,  6,  as  in  father,  arm,  odd:  ['faffa],  [arm], 
[adj. 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  135 

*8.    [D]  —  dictionary  o,  6,  as  in  some  pronunciations  of  not,  hot, 
God,  soft,  long,  sorry:    [not],   [hot],  [god],  [soft],  [log], 
[SDH]  (more  often  in  G.A.  [nat],  [hat],  [gad],  [ssft],  [bq], 
['sari]). 
9.    [i]  =  dictionary  6,  6,  as  in  law,  all:  [b],  [D!]. 

10.  [A]  =  dictionary  u,  as  in  but,  tub:  [bAt],  [tAb]. 

11.  [o]  =  dictionary  6,  as  in  obey,  tobacco:  [o'bei],  [ta'baeko]. 

(Stressed  6,  as  in  old,  snow,  is  a  diphthong,  written  [ou]: 
[ould],  [snou].) 

12.  [u]  =  dictionary  06,  as  in  pull,  foot:  [pul],  [fut]. 

13.  [u]  =  dictionary  ob,  as  in  fool,  blue:  [ful],  [blu]. 

14.  [^  —  dictionary  d,  a,  e,  d,  u,  as  in  account,  sofa,  silent, 

connect,  circus:    [a'kaunt],   ['soufo],   ['saibnt],   [k 


**[a1]:  unstressed  er  =  dictionary  er,  as  in  butter: 

as  pronounced  in  G.A.  When  the  r  is  not  pronounced  in 


unstressed  er,  the  symbol  is  [9]: 

**15-    [y]  =  dictionary  u,  as  in  bird,  her:  [b^d],  [hs1],  when  the  r 
is  pronounced. 

[3]  represents  the  sound  in  bird,  her,  when  the  r  is  not 
pronounced:  [bsd],  [ha]. 

*  Be  sure  that  these  sounds  are  characteristic  of  your  natural  speech 
before  applying  them  to  yourself,  [ae]  is  more  common  than  [a], 
which  is  an  acquired  sound  in  this  country. 

**  [a1]  and  [31]  are  not  in  the  International  Phonetic  Alphabet.  For 
their  source  see  J.  S.  Kenyon,  American  Pronunciation,  Wahr, 
1940. 

THE    DIPHTHONGS 

1.  [ai]  =  dictionary  I,  as  in  ice,  aisle:  [ais],  [ail], 

2.  [au]  =  dictionary  ou,  as  in  house,  bough:  [haus],  [bau]. 

3.  [31]  =  dictionary  oi,  as  in  oil,  void:  [DI!],  [vDid]. 

4.  [ei]  —  dictionary  a,  as  in  late,  main:  [leit],  [mem].  (See  Vow- 

el  3-) 

5.  [ou]  =  dictionary  6,  as  in  old,  snow:  [ould],  [snou].  (See 

Vowel  11.) 


136  Reading  to  Others 

6.  [ju]  =  dictionary  u,  as  in  you,  feud:  [ju],  [fjud]. 

This  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  true  diphthong.  Tune  and 
tube  are  pronounced  [tjun],  [tjub],  but  also,  commonly, 
[tun],  [tub].  Some  speakers  combine  [i]  and  [u]  for  the 
long  u  sound. 

7.  [ju]  =  dictionary  u,  as  in  unite:  [ju'nait]. 

Speakers  who  "drop  their  r's"  have  five  more  diphthongs:  [is],  [es], 
[us],  [39],  [09],  as  in  here,  [his],  there,  [$es],  moor,  [mus],  pour, 
[p3s]  or  [pos].  For  speakers  who  pronounce  the  r,  these  words 
would  be  recorded  [hir],  [$er],  [mur],  [p^r]  or  [por]. 

THE     CONSONANTS 

1.  [b],  as  in  bid,  cab:  [bid],  [kaeb]. 

2.  [d],  as  in  dip,  bad:  [dip],  [baed]. 

3.  [f],  as  in  fine,  leaf:  [fain],  [lifj. 

4.  [g],  as  in  go,  egg:  [gou],  [eg]. 

5.  [h],  as  in  ham,  humor:  [haem],  ['hjuma1]. 

6.  [j],  as  in  yes,  yet,  onion:  [jes],  [jet], 

7.  [k],  as  in  count,  key:  [kaunt],  [ki]. 

8.  [1],  as  in  let,  tell:  [let],  [td]. 

9.  [m],  as  in  mad,  dam:  [maed],  [da^m]. 

10.  [n],  as  in  nod,  man:  [nad],  [maen]. 

11.  [p],  as  in  peace,  pip:  [pis],  [pip]. 

12.  [r],  as  in  red,  drip:  [red],  [drip]. 

13.  [s],  as  in  cent,  sits:  [sent],  [sits]. 

14.  [t],  as  in  team,  tight:  [tim],  [tait]. 

15.  [v],  as  in  veil,  dive:  [veil],  [daiv]. 

16.  [w],  as  in  watch,  war:  [watj]  or  [w.-nj], 

17.  [z],  as  in  zero,  buzz:  [ziro]  or  [ziro],  [bAz]. 

Eight  new  symbols  for  consonant  sounds  not  included  in  the  con- 
ventional letters  are  added: 

18.  [q],  as  in  hung,  sing:  [hAq],  [sir)]. 

19.  [J],  as  in  ship,  dish:  [Jip],  [dij]. 

20.  [g],  as  in  pleasure,  casual:  ['ptega1],  ['kaegusl]. 

21.  [6],  as  in  thin,  width:  [6m],  [widO]. 

22.  [5],  as  in  thine,  lithe:  [Sam],  [laift]. 

23.  [M],  as  in  where,  what:  [Aver],  Mat]. 

24.  [tj],  as  in  church,  choose:  [tj^tj],  [tjuz]. 

25.  [dj],  as  in  judge,  gem:  [dgAdj],  [djem]. 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  137 

Some  notes: 

[g]  is  always  as  in  go.  "Soft  g"  is  usually  [dg]. 

[j]  has  the  sound  of  y.  j,  as  in  jump,  is  [dg]. 

[s]  and  [z]:  [s]  is  always  a  hissed,  voiceless  sound;  [z]  is  voiced: 

ghost,  [goust];  goes,  [gouz]. 

Written  c=  [s]  or  [k]:  cent,  [sent];  crush,  [krAJ*]. 
Written  q  =  [kw]:  quick,  [kwik].    But  note  unique,  [ju'nik]. 
Written  x  =  [ks]  or  [gs]:  expect,  [ak'spekt];  exult,  [ig'zAlt]. 
Written  y  =  [j]:  yacht,  [jat]. 

In  unstressed  syllables,  the  vowel  sounds  are  usually  [3]  or  [i] 
(sometimes  [u]).  Look  in  an  unabridged  dictionary  for  a  list  of 
stressed  and  unstressed  forms.  In  connected  speech  we  use  the 
weak  (unstressed)  form  of  many  words.  The,  for  instance,  is 
usually  [Sa]  before  a  word  beginning  with  a  consonant,  [Si] 
before  one  beginning  with  a  vowel.  To  is  [ta]  before  a  con- 
sonant, [tu]  before  a  vowel. 

When  the  r  (between  vowels  or  final)  is  pronounced,  it  is  writ- 
ten as  [r]  after  [e],  [3],  [a],  [i],  [u],  [ae],  [o].  [31]  is  the  stressed 
symbol  for  syllables  with  the  vowel  of  bird.  When  the  er  syl- 
lable is  unstressed,  as  in  father,  the  symbol  is  [a1].  In  both 
these  examples,  if  the  r  is  not  pronounced,  the  symbols  are 
[3]  and  [a], 

Note  that  when  er,  either  stressed  or  unstressed,  is  followed 
by  another  syllable  beginning  with  a  vowel  the  [r]  is  pro- 
nounced: [fr]  or  [fa],  but  [fan];  [bAta1]  or  [bAta],  but 


For  simple  phonetics  these  symbols  are  adequate.  By  means  of 
them  nearly  every  American  sound  can  be  recorded.  A  few  dia- 
critical marks  may  help  in  exact  transcriptions:  '  =  the  primary 
accent,  made  above  and  to  the  left  of  the  stressed  syllable,  as  in 
['praimari];  ,  =  the  secondary  accent,  below  and  to  the  left  of  the 
stressed  syllable,  as  in  [ig^semi'neiji?];  :  =  the  sign  of  lengthening, 
as  in  [ka:],  the  pronunciation  of  car  without  an  r;  ~,  the  sign  of 
nasalization,  as  in  [ksent],  can't;  a  mark  under  [9],  [}],  [rp],  or 
[f]  indicates  that  it  is  a  consonant  with  the  quality  and  value  of  a 
vowel,  a  syllabic  consonant. 

You  may  notice  that  often  there  are  differences  within  the  same 
sound.  For  example,  the  two  sounds  of  [i]  in  city,  [siti],  or  the  ini- 
tial and  final  [1]  of  the  word  lull  are  not  quite  alike.  Yet  they  are 


138  Reading  to  Others 

recorded  with  the  same  symbols.  In  other  words,  each  phonetic 
symbol  stands  for  a  group  of  very  closely  related  sounds.  We  call 
such  groups  phonemes.  Variations  within  the  same  phoneme  may, 
however,  be  disregarded  by  the  beginning  student. 

You  can  better  understand  the  vowels  if  you  know  something  of 
their  physical  formation.  Vowels  are  unobstructed  speech  sounds 
made  by  changing  the  size  and  shape  of  the  mouth  cavity.  The  de- 
sired vowel  is  instinctively  formed  by  shifts  in  the  position  of  the 
tongue  and  lips.  The  relative  placement  of  the  vowels  may  be 
represented  graphically  as  follows: 


Front 

Middle 


Half-high 

E 


Low 


Back 


This  figure,  which  must  be  regarded  merely  as  an  aid  to  the  clas- 
sification of  vowels,  rather  than  as  an  anatomically  accurate  dia- 
gram, represents  the  position  of  the  front,  central,  and  back  parts 
of  the  tongue,  [i]  is  pronounced  with  the  front  of  the  tongue 
raised  as  high  as  possible,  [i],  [e],  [e],  [ae],  and  [a],  all  known  as 
front  vowels,  are  pronounced  with  the  front  of  the  tongue  and 
the  lower  jaw  in  a  gradually  lowered  position,  [a]  is  formed  with 
the  back  of  the  tongue  as  low  as  possible  in  the  mouth.  The  other 
back  vowels  are  made  by  gradually  raising  the  back  of  the  tongue 
and  the  lower  jaw.  The  remaining  vowels  are  known  as  the  middle 
vowels  and  are  formed  by  raising  the  middle  of  the  tongue.  (Vowel 
classification  is  sometimes  made  by  description  of  the  placement  in 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  139 

the  mouth,  by  the  tension  of  the  tongue,  and  by  the  position  of  the 
lips.  Thus  [i]  is  a  high,  front,  tense,  unrounded  vowel;  [o]  is  a  half- 
high,  back,  relaxed,  rounded  vowel.)  The  tip  of  the  tongue  is  held 
behind  the  lower  front  teeth  in  pronouncing  all  vowels.  What  is 
called  the  front  of  the  tongue  is  actually  some  distance  behind  the 
tip  and  blade.  Following  is  a  tongue  diagram: 


The  diphthongs  are  combinations  of  vowel  sounds  blending 
into  what  to  the  untrained  ear  may  seem  to  be  single  sounds.  Be- 
cause of  the  rapidity  of  tongue  shifts,  diphthongs  are  often  badly 
formed.  Thus  [ai]  may  shade  off  into  [a],  or  the  first  element  of  [au] 
may  become  [as]  or  [ae],  or  [31]  may  become  [ar]  or  [?].  Care  must 
be  taken  to  place  the  sounds  correctly. 

Consonants  are  sounds  obstructed  by  the  lips,  tongue,  teeth,  etc. 
They  are  not,  like  the  vowels,  primarily  musical  sounds  depending 
for  their  quality  on  the  resonators  (though  [m],  [n],  [q],  [r],  and  [1] 
have  some  of  the  characteristics  of  vowels).  Many  of  them  are  ac- 
tually voiceless,  such  as  [s],  [t],  [f],  [0],  and  are  simply  the  inter- 
ference with  the  breath  stream  without  vibration  of  the  vocal 
cords.  Vowels  properly  formed  and  resonated  produce  good  tone 
color;  consonants,  properly  formed,  produce  clarity  of  articulation. 
Much  of  our  speech  is  faulty,  not  because  we  have  poor  vocal 
equipment,  but  because  we  fail  to  use  our  lips  and  tongues  vigor- 
ously in  forming  our  consonants.  The  result  is  slovenly  enuncia- 
tion. 

Sometimes  consonants  are  classified  according  to  the  places  in 
which  they  are  formed,  as 

The  Labials  (lip-consonants):  [m],  [p],  [b],  [w],  [M],  [f],  [v]. 


140  Reading  to  Others 

The  Dentals  (teeth-consonants):  [6],  [8]. 

The  Alveolars  (gum-ridge  consonants):  [t],  [d],  [n],  [1],  [r],  [s], 

M.  [/]•  bl- 

The  Velars  (back-of-tongue  consonants):  [k],  [g],  [q]. 

A  better  classification  is  according  to  the  type  of  obstruction  (or 
what  Kenyon  calls  the  kind  of  contact  or  narrowing  of  the  speech 
organs).  The  stops,  or  plosives,  for  which  the  breath  is  completely 
stopped  by  the  contacts  of  lips  or  tongue  and  velum  (the  soft  pal- 
ate), are  [p],  [b],  [t],  [d],  [k],  and  [g].  The  fricatives,  friction-sounds, 
are  [f],  [v],  [0],  [8],  [h],  [M].  Among  the  fricatives  are  listed  the 
sibilants,  or  hissed  consonants:  [s],  [T],  [J],  [5].  The  affricates,  com- 
bining stopped  sounds  with  the  fricatives,  are  [tj]  and  [dj].  The 
sonorants  include  the  nasals,  [m],  [n],  [q],  the  lateral  [1],  and  the 
glides,  [w],  [j],  and  [r]. 

A  further  classification  into  voiced  and  voiceless  consonants  may 
be  helpful.  The  voiced  consonants  are  [b],  [d],  [g]  [v],  [8],  [z],  [5], 
[dg],  [m],  [n],  [q],  [1],  [w],  [j],  [r];  the  voiceless  consonants  are 
[p],  [t],  [k],  [f],  [6],  [s],  [f],  [tj],  [M],  [h].  All  the  consonants  except 
[h],  [m],  [n],  [q],  [1],  [j],  [r]  are  paired.  The  pairs  are  as  follows,  the 
first  of  each  pair  being  the  voiceless  sound,  the  second  voiced: 

[Pi-  M  [f],  [v]  [J],  M 

[t],  [d]  [9],  [S]  [M],  [w] 

M-  [9]  [s],  [z]  [tj],  [d5] 

Each  pair  is  formed  in  exactly  the  same  way,  except  that  one  mem- 
ber of  the  pair  involves  the  vibration  of  the  vocal  cords,  while  the 
other  does  not.  Try  the  two  sounds  of  [t]  and  [d].  Notice  that  the 
blade  of  the  tongue  is  held  against  the  upper  teeth  and  then  sep- 
arated in  a  little  explosion  in  exactly  the  same  way  for  both.  The 
only  difference  is  that  the  vocal  cords  are  used  in  producing  the  [d] 
and  only  the  interrupted  breath  stream  for  the  [t]. 

In  recording  your  speech  phonetically  you  must  not  make  pre- 
cise transcription  an  end  in  itself.  The  process  of  listening  to  all 
the  sounds  of  every  word  will  sharpen  your  ear  and  make  you 
sensitive  to  variations  in  pronunciation.  It  should  also  make  you 
go  more  slowly  and  form  your  sounds  more  carefully,  thus  improv- 
ing your  enunciation.  Don't  give  too  much  attention  to  overnice 
shades  of  pronunciation. 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  141 

STANDARDS    OF    SPEECH 

There  is  some  danger  of  too  great  emphasis  on  "correctness." 
Often  the  dictionary  is  taken  too  literally,  or  an  arbitrary  standard 
of  English  (usually  that  of  New  England)  is  forced  upon  those 
whose  natural  speech  may  not  seem  to  conform.  We  are  not  very 
seriously  fooled  these  days  by  any  hangover  of  British  standards. 
Few  of  us  have  any  intention  of  saying  ['/edjul]  for  schedule  or 
[bin]  for  been,  any  more  than  we  would  ask  for  petrol  at  the 
gasoline-station  or  go  up  in  a  ////.  However,  some  teachers  with  an 
air  of  elegance  demand  ['laibn]  for  library,  ['laebratn]  or  [te'bDratn] 
for  laboratory,  ['ai&>]  for  either,  etc.  A  profound  respect  lingers  for 
[a]  in  words  of  the  class  of  ask,  half,,  dance,  a  survival  of  the  days 
when  the  speech  of  Southern  England  was  regarded  as  the  ne  plus 
ultra.  This  sound  is,  of  course,  deeply  entrenched  in  New  England 
and  in  stage  speech.  There  is  nothing  quite  so  absurd  as  those  who 
would  normally  say  [a?]  in  words  like  task,  master,  advantage,  but 
who  suddenly  learn  that  [a]  in  words  like  these  is  supposed  to  be 
more  refined  and  thereupon  self-consciously  use  it  whenever  they 
run  across  any  manifestation  of  what  they  consider  the  vulgar  [ae]. 
They  are  responsible  for  such  affectations  as  [hand],  [and],  [bat], 
and  [grand]  for  hand,  and,  bat,  and  grand. 

On  the  whole,  of  course,  the  dictionary  is  a  dependable  reference 
book.  We  may  confidently  consult  it  for  authority  on  stress,  which 
is  the  chief  bugbear  of  most  problems  of  pronunciation.  That  is, 
twenty  people  will  be  troubled  about  what  syllable  to  accent  in 
irrevocable,  let  us  say,  or  exquisite,  to  one  who  will  notice  the 
difference  between  ['Drmdg]  and  ['anndg]  or  [ruf]  and  [ruf],  and 
want  to  know  which  is  right.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  most  of  us  are 
fairly  indifferent  to  dictionary  standards,  except  for  long  "reading" 
words.  We  say  ['roumams]  and  ['aebdoman]  and  ['ris^tj]  and  [!aedAlt] 
in  spite  of  what  the  dictionaries  have  ruled  in  the  past.  Now  the  dic- 
tionaries are  coming  around  to  accept  these  as  pronunciations  estab- 
lished by  usage.  But  there  are  still  some  definite  rights  and  wrongs, 
although  no  one  knows  what  changes  will  be  accepted  in  the  fu- 
ture. It  is  probable,  for  example,  that  in  spite  of  common  army 
practice  the  cavalry  unit  will  be  pronounced  ['kaevaln],  not  ['kael- 
vari],  and  that  illegible  will  not  become  [m'elidgibl],  mischievous, 
[mis'tfivias]  and  height  [haitG].  Yet  who  would  have  thought  that 


142  Reading  to  Others 

the  combined  efforts  of  filling-station  men,  motorists,  and  news- 
boys could  have  any  effect  on  the  language?  They  have  put  their 
pronunciation  of  route  into  the  dictionaries  as  [raut],  in  spite  of 
those  of  us  who  know  it  should  be  [rut].  We  must  certainly  be 
careful  not  to  be  too  dogmatic  about  pronunciation.  A  hundred 
fifty  years  ago  ['fae^j,  [bail],  ['sarvant],  and  [gud]  were  correct 
for  father,  boil,,  servant,  and  good.  Who  knows  what  changes  are 
to  come? 

We  must  in  any  event  avoid  establishing  any  rigid  rules  apply- 
ing to  words  that  may  be  differently  pronounced  in  different 
parts  of  the  country.  The  Northerner  who  says  [blaus]  and  [grisi] 
and  [hag]  is  no  more  or  no  less  right  than  die  Southerner  who 
says  [blauz],  [grizi],  and  [hog].  The  man  from  ['bastri]  or  [brogan] 
or  [na'vaeda]  may  disagree  with  those  who  prefer  ['b^stn]  and 
['aragan]  and  [na'vada],  but  all  are  probably  right.  The  Kaiisan 
who  says  f'wta1]  and  [ai'dia]  and  [greit]  and  [cent]  might  wonder 
at  the  Virginian  who  says  ['wata]  and  ['aidia]  and  [gret]  and  [ant], 
and  he  would  certainly  be  amused  at  the  Virginian's  [nit]  and 
[absut],  but  neither  of  them  would  look  up  such  simple  words  in 
the  dictionary  to  decide  which  pronunciation  was  right  and  which 
wrong.  Both  might  be  right  in  most  of  these  words,  though  both 
might  have  colloquial  errors  that  are  definitely  wrong.  That  is, 
while  we  must  be  liberal  about  some  vowel  differences,  especially 
among  [ae],  [a],  and  [a]  and  among  [a],  [D],  and  [D],  we  must  not 
overlook  stupid,  vulgar,  or  provincial  mistakes  in  pronunciation. 
For  example  [Ien6]  for  length  is  wrong  wherever  it  is  heard;  so 
are  [rmtj]  for  rinse,  ['t3ribl]  for  terrible,  ['sirjg^]  for  singer, 
['madran]  for  modern,  [,prespi'reijn]  for  perspiration,  [puj]  for 
push,  pfASa1]  for  further,  [srimp]  for  shrimp.  In  short,  let's  not  be 
too  "pure"  in  our  requirements  about  pronunciation.  Between 
[fi'naens]  and  ['fainaens],  fisolet]  and  ['aisolet],  [ad'vstizmant] 
and  [jasdv^'taizmant],  [glaedi'oubs]  and  [glo'daiabs],  ['mard^rin] 
and  ['margarm],  ['kdgnd]  and  ['lidgnd],  ['ilastret]  and  [I'Ustret], 
[?b]  and  [h^b],  ['sinik]  and  ['senik],  [ta'meito]  and  [ta'mato],  and 
many,  many  others  there  is  no  choice  worth  fighting  about.  But 
let's  not  be  too  generous  about  pronunciations  that  are  still  (what- 
ever they  may  be  in  ig8o)  wrong! 

There  is,  then,  no  absolute  standard  of  American  English  pro- 
nunciation. Other  countries  have  traditional  bodies,  academies 
or  stage  societies  or  governmental  agencies,  or,  as  in  England,  a 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  143 

dominant  social  group,  to  establish  standards  of  speech.  All  other 
languages,  even  British  English,  are  broken  up  into  many  dialects, 
some  speakers  of  the  same  race  not  being  able  to  understand  each 
other's  speech.  The  pronunciation  in  Bavaria,  for  example,  is 
markedly  different  from  that  in  Prussia.  Yorkshiremen  and  Cock- 
neys in  England  might  as  well  be  speaking  different  languages.  In 
America,  we  have  no  dialects  so  divergent  that  a  speaker  cannot  be 
understood  in  any  part  of  the  country.  There  are  differences,  of 
course,  and  a  New  Yorker  may  find  himself  occasionally  confused 
by  the  speech  of  Mississippians,  or  a  traveler  from  Maine  might 
get  into  difficulties  in  Iowa,  But  on  the  whole,  except  for  varia- 
tions in  language  tune  (that  is,  the  patterns  of  pitch  changes),  a  few 
pronunciations,  and  still  fewer  idioms,  the  differences  in  American 
usage  are  comparatively  slight. 

For  those  who  want  to  have  some  definite  aim  in  seeking  good 
speech,  the  best  model  might  be  that  of  the  educated,  intelligent, 
traveled  people  in  their  owrn  community.  Dr.  J.  S.  Kenyon,  in  "A 
Guide  to  Pronunciation,"  Webster's  New  International  Diction- 
ary, writes:  "The  standard  of  English  pronunciation,  so  far  as  a 
standard  may  be  said  to  exist,  is  the  usage  that  now  prevails  among 
the  educated  and  cultured  people  to  whom  the  language  is  ver- 
nacular; but,  .  .  .  since  somewhat  different  pronunciations  are  used 
by  the  cultured  in  different  regions  too  large  to  be  ignored,  we 
must  frankly  admit  the  fact  that  at  present,  uniformity  of  pronun- 
ciation is  not  to  be  found  throughout  the  English-speaking  world, 
though  there  is  a  very  large  percentage  of  practical  uniformity." 
This  so-called  regional  standard  of  speech  admits  differences  in 
pronunciation  in  three  major  speech  areas  in  the  United  States. 

These  three  main  dialects  are  the  Eastern  (usually  thought  of  as 
including  New  York  City  and  New  England,  though  there  is  some 
difference  between  these  two  sections),  the  Southern  (including 
all  the  states  south  of  Pennsylvania,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  ex- 
cept West  Virginia,  and  most  of  Texas),  and  the  General  American 
(beginning  east  of  the  Hudson  River  in  New  York  and  western 
New  England,  and  spreading  fanwise  to  include  most  of  the  coun- 
try all  the  way  to  the  Pacific).  Within  these  dialects  are  many 
smaller  dialects  peculiar  to  certain  groups  of  people,  such  as  the 
mountain  speech  of  the  Appalachians,  the  Gullah  dialect  of  South 
Carolina  negroes,  and  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch  speech.  And,  of 
course,  it  must  be  understood  that  the  divisions  are  by  no  means 


144  Reading  to  Others 

mutually  exclusive.  Especially  on  the  geographical  borders  of  the 
main  regions  there  is  a  mingling  of  the  dialects.  The  influence  of 
the  radio  and  the  moving  pictures,  too,  may  account  for  some  level- 
ing of  the  speech  differences  in  various  parts  of  the  country. 

The  actual  differences  among  the  three  dialects  are  not  nu- 
merous, except  in  the  qualities  of  pitch,  tempo,  and  intonation  that 
we  call  "accent"  (to  be  taken  up  in  the  next  two  chapters).  Some 
of  these  differences  are  as  follows.  In  both  the  Eastern  and  Southern 
dialects  the  "r"  sound  following  after  a  vowel  is  usually  not  pro- 
nounced; in  General  American  there  is  a  clear,  sometimes  burred 
"r."  In  parts  of  New  England  (and  occasionally  in  Eastern  Vir- 
ginia) [a]  or  [a]  in  words  of  the  class  of  ask,  command,  half  is  the 
usual  sound;  General  American  prefers  [ae].  The  Southerner  and 
New  Englander  usually  say  [tjun]  and  [njuz];  the  General  Ameri- 
can speaker  says  [tun]  and  [nuz].  [w]  and  [M]  get  mixed  up  in  words 
of  the  which,  when  group.  Professor  C.  K.  Thomas,  of  Gornell  Uni- 
versity, says  that  in  GA  [w]  is  "primarily  a  big-city  pronunciation 
in  words  of  this  type;  [M]  is  a  small-city,  country  pronunciation." 
The  GA  speaker  prefers  the  [s]  in  words  like  greasy,  hussy,  blouse. 
The  Southerner  prefers  [z]. 

This  is  far  from  being  a  complete  list  of  differences  among  the 
three  dialects.  Here  it  is  enough  to  recognize  that  there  are  dif- 
ferences, even  though  in  our  restless  migratory  habits  we  tend  to 
mix  up  speech  classifications  rather  badly,  and  our  radio  listening 
is  bringing  in  new  standards  of  speech  to  imitate,  so  that  more  and 
more  we  tend  to  sound  alike.  The  ideal  seems  to  be  something  like 
a  general  standard  in  which  our  speech  would  not  obviously  belong 
in  any  class  or  locality.  That  is  an  important  requirement  in  the 
announcers  in  our  big  broadcasting  studios.  Nevertheless,  we  have 
no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  our  regional  differences  and  should  be 
in  no  hurry  to  set  up  any  rigorous  rules  for  a  universal  standard 
of  speech. 

The  following  three  selections  are  transcribed  from  the  speech 
of  representatives  of  various  parts  of  the  United  States: 

Franklin  D.  Roosevelt:  Eastern  Speech: 

'prezadant  'hu:va,  'mists  'tjif  'dgAStis,  'mai  'frendz.  Sis  iz  a  'dei  DV 
naejnl  kansi'kreijn,  and  ai  aem  S3tn  Sat  an  Sis  'dei  mai  'felou  a'menknz 
ak'spekt  Sat  an  mai  m'dAkJn  inta  Sa  'prezadansi  ai  wil  a'dres  Sem  wiS 
ei  'kaenda  aend  ei  da'srgn  witj  Sa  'prezant  sitju'eijn  av  'a:a  'pipl  im'pelz. 
Sis  iz  pri'emananth  Sa  'taim  ta  'spi:k  Sa  tru:6,  Sa  houl  tru:0,  'fraerjklr 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  145 

send  'bouldli.  n3:3  nird  wi  'Jrirjk  frsm  'ansstli  'feisirj  ksn'dijnz  in  a:3 
'kAntri  ts'dei.  Sis  greit  'neijn  wil  in'djus  aez  it  haez  m'djusd,  wil  r^'vaiv 
aend  wil  'prasps.  so  f3:st  3v  3:1  let  mi  3's3:t  mai  f3:m  ba'lif  Saet  Si  ounli 
Girj  wi  haev  tu  fi3  iz  fi3r  it 'self,  'neimbs,  An'dgAStifaid  ter3  witj  'perslaizsz 
'niidad  'efat  tu  kan'vit  re'trit  intu  sd'vaents. 

Inaugural  Address,  March  4,  1933 
From  American  Speech,  February,  1934 


Dorothy  Thompson:  General  American 

ai  3m  'aebssluth  kan'vmst  Saet  it  iz  S3  most  'sinas  po'litikl  mi'steik  tu 
3' tempt  t3  t:)k  daun  t^  61  s'menkan  pipl  aet  5is  'moumsnt  AV  ar  'histsri. 
f  )r  3n  3'mens  a'maunt  3v  'dgcnjum  'pAblik  ed^u'keijn  Ii9z  bin  '9011]  an 
in  <5is  'kAntri,  ed^u'keijn  in  'pAblik  a'ferz,  aend  Br  Saet  Si  oupn  'f^ram 
'smnli  di'z^vz  9  greit  dil  ov  'kredit.  di'zairabl  abAv  3!  ts  mai  maind  iz  $3 
ra'vaivl  3v  di'beit  aend  Si  an'kAnd^m^nt  3v  Sa  'pAbhk  'hekla1.  Sa  'reidio, 
ivn  in  'kAntnz  M3r  it  i/  nal  kan'trould,  haez  'sirias  disa'bilatiz.  it 
m'tnntfi/  S,i  WAII  wci  'spitf. 

Speech  made  at  America's  Town  Meeting 
of  the  Air,  Nov.  5,  1936.  From  American 
Speech,  October,  1938 

Student  speaker  from  Eastern  Virginia: 

311  SD  nait  ov  'fcbju,cri  fif,  a'nAS^  feto  nd  ai  meid  au  a'skeip  fram  au3 
'haeu/iz  rait  hia  in  tseuii  nd  'aefta  'aeskirj  au3  wei  6ru  3  'teribl  £39  set  3Ut  in 
niai  ka:  3'pAn  3  su'pab  'siment  roud  t3dz  S3  hius  3v  mai  ant,  MitJ  iz  'raS3 
ni3  Si  rdg  3v  3  'farost.  ai  W3z  193  nat  t3  snqk  fram  S3  Im3r3l  'djudi  ai  h3d 
im'pouzd  spAn-mai'self  3v  'cjivirj  h3  n  'aekjsnt  'aidi3  3v  S3  'pradsstsnt 
ksn'sepfn  3v  god.  ai  m  3  'baeptist,  nd  mai  frend  3  prezbi'tinsn.  wi  W3 
'eibl  t3  'fab  S3  mem  raut  'raS3  'izili,  nd  3t  lerjB  3'raivd  3t  hs  'dos.  Ji  aesk 
3s  in  nd  i'midi3tli  put  s3m  'w3t3  3n  S3  'fai3  t3  b3l.  ai  haed  'k3h,  meid  in  3 
'p3kJ3leit3,  b3t  dgou  pri'i3d  hat  'tfaklit,  nd  Ji  hs'self  tuk  milk. 

Study  your  own  speech  and  that  of  the  people  around  you. 
Learn  to  detect  differences  in  use  of  vowels  and  accent  of  syllables. 
Use  your  dictionary  but  be  careful  that  you  do  not  accept  a  pro- 
nunciation that  is  at  variance  with  that  of  the  majority  of  well- 
educated  people  in  your  own  region,  even  though  it  is  the  only 
one  given.  Discard  pronunciations  that  are  apparently  provincial. 
But  don't  surrender  to  affectations.  Don't  try  to  be  overnice.  On 
the  other  hand,  don't  think  that  correct  speech  is  only  for  high- 
brows. 


146  Reading  to  Others 

Exercises 

1.  Transcribe  phonetically  the  following  sentences,  recording 
as  nearly  as  you  can  the  pronunciations  that  may  be  considered 
standard  for  your  speech.  Note  carefully  differences  between  what 
you  actually  say  and  what  you  think  you  ought  to  say.    Compare 
your  transcriptions  with  those  of  other  students  from  other  sec- 
tions of  the  country  or  state,  observing  differences  in  pronuncia- 
tions: 

A.  The  student  body  at  our  college  is  just  large  enough  so  that  classes 
are  not  too  crowded,  nor  is  it  too  small  to  have  interesting  exchange  of 
ideas  from  many  parts  of  the  country. 

B.  From  the  post-office  she  got  a  huge  box  of  oranges  and  a  smaller 
one  of  chocolates. 

c.   We  take  courses  in  history,  English,  geography,  and  chemistry. 

D.  A  fog  came  up,  and  we  had  to  take  refuge  in  an  old  house,  whose 
roof  was  half  fallen  in  and  all  the  windows  out. 

E.  My  friend  was  a  lieutenant  in  a  Massachusetts  regiment. 

2.  The  following  selection  contains  many  words  that  have  vari- 
ant forms  in  different  parts  of  the  country.    It  may  be  used  as  a 
general  test  of  your  pronunciation: 

On  the  night  of  February  fifth,  another  fellow  and  I  made  our  escape 
from  our  houses  right  here  in  town  and  after  asking  our  way  through  a 
terrible  fog  set  out  in  my  car  upon  a  superb  cement  road  towards  the 
house  of  my  aunt,  which  is  rather  near  the  edge  of  a  forest.  I  was  eager 
not  to  shrink  from  the  moral  duty  I  had  imposed  upon  myself  of  giving 
her  an  accurate  idea  of  the  Protestant  conception  of  God.  I  am  a  Bap- 
tist, and  my  friend  a  Presbyterian.  We  were  able  to  follow  the  main 
route  rather  easily,  and  at  length  arrived  at  her  door. 

She  asked  us  in  and  immediately  put  some  water  on  the  fire  to  boil. 
I  had  coffee,  made  in  a  percolator,  but  Joe  preferred  hot  chocolate,  and 
she  herself  took  milk.  I  saw  a  dish  of  shrimp  and  some  delicious  oranges 
in  the  ice-box,  but  she  did  not  offer  us  anything  else.  Then  we  had  to 
rinse  and  wash  the  dishes,  and  I  got  myself  into  a  horrid  perspiration 
getting  a  can  of  coal-oil  from  the  floor  of  a  sort  of  coop  behind  the  house 
and  putting  some  of  it  in  the  stove.  I  did  not  mind  trying  to  help,  for 
I  thought  that  it  was  important  to  get  her  into  the  right  spirit. 

"How  is  your  mother?"  she  finally  asked.  "I've  been  afraid  that  she 
might  be  sick  again.  She  does  such  absurd  things.  I  heard  that  she  went 
to  a  dance  with  too  much  rouge  on." 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  147 

"You've  got  to  humor  her/'  I  replied  with  a  laugh.  "She's  collecting 
United  Cigar  coupons  now.  I  wish  she'd  get  a  better  hobby:  keep  a  gar- 
den, make  needle-point  pillows,  learn  to  be  a  singer,  or  even  push  on 
further  and  try  to  paint  pictures/' 

Just  then  my  aunt  gave  a  great  shriek,  and  I  saw  that  the  roof  must  be 
leaking;  there  was  already  quite  a  bulge  in  the  plaster.  I  went  up  to  fix 
it,  and  by  the  time  I  came  down  it  was  late.  My  aunt  was  telling  Joe 
about  some  fellow  who  had  the  cruelty  to  whip  his  poor  child  to  death 
and  then  to  bury  its  naked  body  in  his  garden.  After  a  short  period  of 
time,  however,  he  had  been  convicted  by  the  presence  of  a  significant 
lock  of  hair. 

3.  "The  Young  Rat"  is  another  test  in  general  pronunciation. 
It  has  been  used  very  widely,  and  many  records  of  American 
Speech  have  been  issued  by  the  Victor  Talking  Machine  Co.  (now 
made  by  the  Linguaphone  Institute),  based  on  the  reading  of  "The 
Young  Rat"  by  speakers  from  many  sections. 

Once  there  was  a  young  rat  who  couldn't  make  up  his  mind.  When- 
ever the  other  rats  asked  him  if  he  would  like  to  come  out  with  them,  he 
would  answer,  "I  don't  know."  And  when  they  said,  "Would  you  like 
to  stop  at  home?"  he  wouldn't  say  yes  or  no  either.  He  would  always 
shirk  making  a  choice.  One  day  his  aunt  said  to  him,  "Now,  look  here. 
No  one  will  ever  care  for  you  if  you  carry  on  like  this.  You  have  no 
more  mind  than  a  blade  of  grass."  The  young  rat  coughed  and  looked 
wise  as  usual,  but  said  nothing. 

"Don't  you  think  so?"  said  his  aunt,  stamping  with  her  foot,  for  she 
couldn't  bear  to  see  the  young  rat  so  cold-blooded.  "I  don't  know,"  was 
all  the  young  rat  ever  answered.  And  then  he  would  walk  off  to  think 
for  an  hour  whether  he  would  stay  in  his  hole  in  the  ground  or  go  out 
in  the  loft. 

One  night  the  rats  heard  a  great  noise  in  the  loft.  It  was  a  very  dreary 
old  loft.  The  roof  let  in  the  rain;  the  beams  and  rafters  were  all  rotten, 
so  that  the  place  was  rather  unsafe.  At  last  one  of  the  joists  gave  way 
and  the  beams  fell  with  one  end  on  the  floor.  The  walls  shook  and  all 
the  rats'  hair  stood  on  end  with  fear  and  horror. 

"This  won't  do,"  said  the  chief.  "We  must  leave  this  place."  So  they 
sent  out  scouts  to  search  for  a  new  home.  In  the  night  the  scouts  came 
back  and  said  they  had  found  an  old  coop  of  a  barn  where  there  would 
be  room  and  board  for  them  all.  At  once  the  chief  gave  the  order,  "Form 
in  line/"  The  rats  crawled  out  of  their  holes  and  stood  on  the  floor  in 
a  long  line. 


148  Reading  to  Others 

Just  then  the  old  rat  caught  sight  of  young  Grip  (that  was  the  name 
of  the  shirker).  He  wasn't  in  the  line  and  he  wasn't  exactly  outside  of  it. 
He  stood  just  by  it.  "Why  don't  you  speak?"  said  the  old  rat  coarsely. 
"Of  course  you  are  coming."  "I  don't  know/'  said  Grip  calmly.  "The 
idea  of  it/  Why,  you  don't  think  it  is  safe,  do  you?"  "I  am  not  cer- 
tain/' said  young  Grip,  undaunted.  "The  roof  may  not  come  down  yet." 
"Well,"  said  the  old  rat,  "we  can't  wait  for  you  to  join  us.  Right  about 
face/  March/"  And  the  long  line  marched  out  of  the  loft  while  the 
young  rat  watched  them.  "I  think  I'll  go  tomorrow/'  he  said  to  him- 
self. "But  then  again  I  don't  know.  It's  so  nice  and  snug  here.  I  think 
I'll  go  back  to  my  hole  under  the  log  for  a  bit  just  to  make  up  my  mind." 

That  night  there  was  a  big  crash.  Down  came  beams,  rafters,  joists, 
the  whole  roof.  Next  morning  it  was  a  foggy  day.  Some  men  came  to 
look  at  the  loft.  They  thought  it  odd  that  it  wasn't  haunted  by  rats,  but 
at  last  one  of  them  happened  to  move  a  board,  and  he  caught  sight  of  a 
young  rat  quite  dead,  half  in  and  half  out  of  the  hole.  Thus  the  shirker 
had  his  due. 

4.  Read  the  following  sentences  phonetically  transcribed  in 
the  General  American  dialect.  Note  pronunciations  that  differ 
from  your  own.  Notice  that  in  connected  speech  the  unstressed 
words  receive  the  unstressed  vowels,  and  that  some  short  words 
like  and  may  lose  their  vowel  altogether.  Strictly  speaking,  there 
should  be  no  conventional  punctuation  in  phonetic  transcription. 
It  is  included  here  for  the  sake  of  convenience.  The  stress  marks 
for  accented  syllables  may  be  omitted  except  in  words  whose  pro- 
nunciation might  otherwise  be  doubtful. 

A.  an  aur  'dresa1  wi  kip  rug,  'pauda1,  koum  nd  brAj,  nd  'jugu9li  9  veis 


B.  ai  haev  9  'hond  kould  in  mai  tjest,  $9  n'zAlt  9v  'sitirj  in  9  draeft. 

c.  aur  'fa6>  hu  art  in  'hevn,  'haelod  bi  5ai  neim.  5ai  'kiqcbm 
Sai  wil  bi  cUn  an  ^G  9z  it  iz  in  'hevn.  giv  9s  5is  dei  aur  'deih  bred  nd 
br'giv  9s  aur  'tresp9S9z  DZ  wi  fsr'giv  Souz  hu  'tresp9s  9'genst  9s.  lid  9s  nat 
mt9  temp'teijn  b9t  cb'liv^  9s  fr9m  ivl.  f^  5am  iz  $9  'kirjcbm,  59  'paud*, 
nd  89  'gbn  fjr'eva1. 

D.  89  moust  im'p3rt9nt  part  9v  edgu'keijn  iz  its  'sivilaiziq  9'fekt  an 
'stud9nts. 

E.  69   Idist9nt  'mauntnz  Joun  6ru  9  heiz  MitJ  hAq  ouva1  89  houl 
aep9'leitj9n  tjein. 

F.  ,Dtomo'bilz   ar  S9    'traiAmf  9v   'sai9ns,   9m'badnrj    D!   59   moust 
'ekskwizit  di'teilz  9v  'kAmf^t,  'bjuti,  nd  n^'kaemkl  p^'fekjn. 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  149 

G.  in    smart    'kasturn    di'/ain    83    sig'mfikns    DV    sk'sesanz    iz    nat 
'despikabl. 

5.    Look  up  the  following  words  in  the  dictionary  and  record 
the  correct  pronunciations: 


quintuplets 

armistice 

apparatus 

chimera 

pajamas 

formidable 

acclimate 

anchovy 

lilac 

lamentable 

pantomime 

inquiry 

absorb 

adult 

forehead 

indecorous 

interesting 

larynx 

umbrella 

lichen 

trespass 

dormitory 

diphthong 

luxury 

height 

respiratory 

vegetable 

mayonnaise 

mischievous 

harass 

peony 

envelope 

abdomen 

performance 

athletic 

Byzantine 

literature 

government 

gesture 

dictator 

pecan 

perspiration 

guarantee 

debut 

comparable 

comfortable 

industry 

Elizabethan 

diphtheria 

kimono 

bicycle 

dour 

drama 

cupola 

pronunciation 

obscenity 

Colorado 

pergola 

research 

nephew 

Nevada 

casual 

streptococcic 

promenade 

Iowa 

zoology 

vehicle 

peremptory 

municipal 

Los  Angeles 

valet 

renaissance 

dirigible 

despicable 

cynosure 

sinecure 

syrup 

flaccid 

population 

stirrup 

6.    Transcribe  the  following  passages  phonetically: 

A.  Speech  is  the  only  benefit  man  hath  to  express  his  excellency  of 
mind  above  other  creatures.  It  is  the  Instrument  of  Society.  Therefore 
MERCURY,  who  is  the  President  of  Language,  is  called  DEORUM  HOMI- 
NUMQUE  INTERPRES.  In  all  speech,  words  and  sense  are  as  the  body  and 
the  soul.  The  sense  is  as  the  life  and  soul  of  Language,  without  which  all 
words  are  dead.  Sense  is  wrought  out  of  experience,  the  knowledge  of 
human  life  and  actions,  or  of  the  liberal  Arts.  .  .  .  Words  are  the  Peo- 
ple's; yet  there  is  a  choice  of  them  to  be  made,  for  "the  selection  of 
words  is  the  source  of  eloquence." 

BEN  JONSON,  "The  Dignity  of  Speech/'  from  Discoveries 

B.  George  bounded  down  the  stair,  his  sword  under  his  arm,  run- 
ning swiftly  to  the  alarm  ground,  where  the  regiment  was  mustered,  and 


Reading  to  Others 

whither  trooped  men  and  officers  hurrying  from  their  billets;  his  pulse 
was  throbbing  and  his  cheeks  flushed:  the  great  game  of  war  was  going 
to  be  played,  and  he  one  of  the  players.  What  a  fierce  excitement  of 
doubt,  hope,  and  pleasure/  What  tremendous  hazards  of  loss  or  gain/ 
What  were  all  the  games  of  chance  he  had  ever  played  compared  to  this 
one?  Into  all  contests  requiring  athletic  skill  and  courage,  the  young 
man,  from  his  boyhood  upwards,  had  flung  himself  with  all  his  might. 
The  champion  of  his  school  and  his  regiment,  the  bravos  of  his  com- 
panions had  followed  him  everywhere;  from  the  boys'  cricket  match  to 
the  garrison  races,  he  had  won  a  hundred  of  triumphs;  and  wherever 
he  went,  women  and  men  had  admired  and  envied  him.  What  qualities 
are  there  for  which  a  man  gets  so  speedy  a  return  of  applause  as  those  of 
bodily  superiority,  activity,  and  valour?  Time  out  of  mind  strength  and 
courage  have  been  the  theme  of  bards  and  romances;  and  from  the  story 
of  Troy  down  to  to-day,  poetry  has  always  chosen  a  soldier  for  a  hero. 
I  wonder  is  it  because  men  are  cowards  in  heart  that  they  admire  bravery 
so  much,  and  place  military  valour  so  far  beyond  every  other  quality  for 
reward  and  worship? 

WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY,  Vanity  Fair 

c.  Say  to  yourself,  I  will  make  a  figure  in  parliament,  and  in  order  to 
do  that,  I  must  not  only  speak,  but  speak  very  well.  Speaking  mere  com- 
mon sense  will  by  no  means  do;  and  I  must  speak  not  only  correctly  but 
elegantly;  and  not  only  elegantly  but  eloquently.  In  order  to  do  this, 
I  will  first  take  pains  to  get  an  habitual,  but  unaffected,  purity,  correct- 
ness and  elegance  of  style  in  my  common  conversation,  I  will  seek  for 
the  best  words,  and  take  care  to  re/ect  improper,  inexpressive  and  vulgar 
ones.  I  will  read  the  greatest  masters  of  oratory,  both  ancient  and  mod- 
ern, and  I  will  read  them  singly  in  that  view.  I  will  study  Demosthenes 
and  Cicero,  not  to  discover  an  old  Athenian  or  Roman  custom,  nor  to 
puzzle  myself  with  the  value  of  talents,  minas,  drachms,  and  sesterces, 
.  .  .  but  to  observe  their  choice  of  words,  their  harmony  of  diction,  their 
method,  their  distribution,  their  exordia,  to  engage  the  favor  and  atten- 
tion of  their  audience  .  .  .  Nor  will  I  be  pedant  enough  to  neglect  the 
modern;  for  I  will  likewise  study  Atterbury,  Dryden,  Pope,  and  Boling- 
broke;  nay,  I  will  read  everything  that  I  do  read  in  that  intention,  and 
never  cease  improving  and  refining  my  style  upon  the  best  models,  till 
at  last  I  become  a  model  of  eloquence  myself,  which,  by  care,  it  is  in 
every  man's  power  to  be. 

LORD  CHESTERFIELD,  Letters  to  His  Son,  September  26,  1752 

D.  To  write  and  speak  correctly  gives  a  Grace,  and  gains  a  favourable 
attention  to  what  one  has  to  say;  and,  since  it  is  ENGLISH  that  an  ENGLISH 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  i5i 

Gentleman  will  have  constant  use  of,  that  is  the  Language  he  should 
chiefly  cultivate,  and  wherein  most  care  should  be  taken  to  polish  and 
perfect  his  Style.  To  speak  or  write  better  Latin  than  English  may  make 
a  man  be  talked  of;  but  he  would  find  it  more  to  his  purpose  to  express 
himself  well  in  his  own  tongue,  that  he  uses  every  moment,  than  to  have 
the  vain  commendation  of  others  for  a  very  insignificant  quality.  This  I 
find  universally  neglected,  and  no  care  taken  anywhere  to  improve  Young 
Men  in  their  own  Language,  that  they  may  thoroughly  understand  and 
be  Masters  of  it.  If  any  one  among  us  have  a  facility  or  purity  more  than 
ordinary  in  his  Mother  Tongue,  it  is  owing  to  Chance,  or  his  Genius,  or 
anything,  rather  than  to  his  Education,  or  any  care  of  his  Teacher  .  .  . 
I  am  not  here  speaking  against  GREEK  and  LATIN;  I  think  they  ought 
to  be  studied,  and  the  LATIN,  at  least,  understood  well,  by  every  Gentle- 
man. But  whatever  foreign  Languages  a  Young  Man  meddles  with  (and 
the  more  he  knows,  the  better),  that  which  he  should  critically  study  and 
labour  to  get  a  facility,  clearness,  and  elegancy  to  express  himself  in, 
should  be  his  own,  and  to  this  purpose  he  should  daily  be  exercised  in  it. 

JOHN  LOCKE,  On  the  Teaching  of  English 

E.  It  used  to  be  believed  that  the  broad  A  was  historically  the  more 
respectable,  and  that  the  flat  A  hud  come  into  American  and  into  some 
of  the  English  dialects  as  a  corruption,  but  the  exhaustive  researches  of 
Krapp  have  disposed  of  that  notion.  During  most  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  in  fact,  2  broad  A  was  regarded  in  both  England  and  America 
as  a  rusticism,  and  careful  speakers  commonly  avoided  it.  When  Thomas 
Sheridan  published  his  "General  Dictionary  of  the  English  Language" 
in  London  in  1780  he  actually  omitted  it  from  his  list  of  vowels.  He  had 
room  for  an  A  approximating  AW,  as  in  HALL,  but  none  for  the  A  sounding 
like  AH,  as  in  BARN.  He  gave  the  pronunciation  of  PAPA  as  if  both  its 
A'S  were  that  of  PAP,  and  even  ordained  the  same  flat  A  before  R,  as  in 
CAR  and  FAR.  Ben/amin  Franklin,  whose  "Scheme  for  a  New  Alphabet 
and  a  Reformed  Mode  of  Spelling"  was  published  in  Philadelphia  in 
1768,  was  in  complete  accord  with  Sheridan.  He  favored  the  flat  A,  not 
only  in  all  the  words  which  now  carry  it  in  America,  but  also  in  CALM, 
FAR,  HARDLY  and  even  WHAT,  which  last  was  thus  made  to  rhyme  with  HAT. 
Franklin's  pronunciations  were  presumably  those  of  the  best  circles  in  the 
London  of  his  time,  and  it  seems  likely  that  they  also  prevailed  in  Phila- 
delphia, then  the  center  of  American  culture.  But  the  broad  A  continued 
common  in  the  folk-speech  of  New  England,  as  it  was  in  that  of  Old 
England,  and  in  1780  or  thereabout  it  suddenly  became  fashionable  in 
Standard  London  English.  How  and  why  this  fashion  arose  is  not  known, 
nor  is  it  known  what  influence  it  had  upon  the  educated  speech  of  New 
England.  It  may  be  that  the  New  Englanders  picked  it  up,  as  they  picked 


152  Reading  to  Others 

up  so  many  other  English  fashions,  or  it  may  be  that  they  simply  yielded 
to  the  folk-speech  of  their  region.  Whatever  the  fact,  they  were  using 
the  broad  A  in  many  words  at  the  time  Noah  Webster  published  his 
"Dissertations  on  the  English  Language"  at  Boston  in  1789.  In  it  he 
gave  QUALITY,  QUANTITY  and  QUASH  the  sound  of  A  in  HAT,  but  he  gave 

ADVANCE,  AFTER,  ASK,  BALM,  CLASP,  and   GRANT  the  A  of  ARM  .  .  . 

Webster's  immense  authority  was  sufficient  to  implant  the  broad  A 
firmly  in  the  speech  of  the  Boston  area.  Between  1830  and  1850,  accord- 
ing to  C.  H.  Grandgent,  it  ran  riot,  and  was  used  even  in  such  words  as 

HANDSOME,   MATTER,   APPLE,   CATERPILLAR,  PANTRY,   HAMMER,    PRACTICAL, 

SATURDAY  and  SATISFACTION.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  protested  against  it 
in  "The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table"  in  1857,  but  it  survived  his 
onslaught.  It  has  been  somewhat  modified  in  sound  with  the  passing  of 
the  years.  Says  Grandgent:  "The  broad  A  of  New  Englanders,  Italianafe 
though  it  be,  is  not  so  broad  as  that  of  Old  England.  .  .  .  Our  GRASS 
really  lies  between  the  GRAHS  of  a  British  lawn  and  the  GRASS  of  the  bound- 
less prairies." 

H.  L.  MENCKEN,  The  American  Language 

7.  Translate  the  following  passages,  all  hut  one  of  which  have 
been  transcribed  in  the  General  American  dialect,  carefully  noting 
variations  from  your  own  pronunciations: 

A.  sins  'kAStam  iz  Sa  'pnnsipl  'msedgi^stret  av  maenz  laif,  let  nun  bar 
3}  minz  sn'devd1  tu  ab'tem  gud  'kAstam.  's^tnli  'kAstam  iz  moust  'p^fikt 
Men  it  bi'gmiB  in  JAIJ  jirz.  Sis  wi  k:>l  edgu'keifn;  MitJ  iz  in  a'fekt  bat  n 
'^li  'kAstam.  sou  wi  si  in  'laeqgwidgaz  Sa  tAij  iz  mor  'plaiant  tu  :>1 
ak'sprejnz  nd  sounds,  S3  djpints  a1  iror  'sApl  tu  D!  fits  av  aek'tiviti  nd 
'moujnz,  in  ju0  San  'aetowa^dz.  far  it  iz  tru  Sat  leit  'ten^z  'kaenat  so  wel 
teik  Sa  plai;  ak'sept  it  bi  in  SAIII  rnaindz  Sat  v  nat  'sAfa^d  Ssm'sclvz 
t3  fiks,  bat  v  kept  Ssm'selvz  'oupn  nd  prs'perd  t3  ri'siv  kan'tmjual 
a'mendmant,  MitJ  iz  sk'sidiq  rer. 

'fraensis  'beikn,  3v  'kAst3m  nd  edju'keijn. 


B.  in  'meikir)  'switnas  nd  Ian  t3  bi  'kaerakt^z  3v  pa^fekjn,  'kAltfa1  iz  3v 
laik  'spirit  wiS  'poustn,  'faloz  WAD  b  wiS  'pouatri.  far  niDr  Ssn  an  aur 
'fridam,  aur  ,papju'leijn,  nd  aur  in'dAStrislizm,  'mcni  3'mAqst  AS  n'lai 
span  aur  n'lidgas  ^rgani'zeijnz  t3  seiv  3s.  ai  hav  kDld  n'lidgn  3  jet  niDr 
im'pDrtnt  ^aenifas'teijn  av  'hjuman  'neitja1  San  'pouatn  bi'kDz  it  haz 
w^kt  an  3  'boda1  skeil  fa1  p^'fekjn,  nd  wiS  'greita1  'maesiz  3v  men.  bst  Si 
ai'dia  av  'bjuti  nd  3v  3  'hjuman  'neitja1  'p^fikt  an  3\  its  saidz,  MitJ  iz  Sa 
'dominant  ai'di3  3v  'poustn,  iz  3  tru  nd  in'vaeljusbl  ai'di3,  Sou  it  hsz 
not  jet  haed  Sa  ssk'ses  Saet  Si  ai'dia  av  'kaqksnq  Si  'abviss  fDlts  3v  aur 


The  Sounds  of  Speech  i5g 

aeni'maeliti,  nd  ov  o  'hjumon  'neitja1  'p^fikt  an  $9  'rmrol  said,—  A\itJ  iz  So 
'dammont  ai'dio  ov  ri'hdgn—  hoz  bin  o'neibld  to  haev;  nd  it  iz  'destmd, 
'aedirj  tu  it'self  So  n'lidgos  ai'dio  ov  o  di'vaut  'en^dgi,  to  traens'form  nd 
Si  'ASa1.  'maeOju  'arn^ld,  'switn9s  nd  lait, 

fr9m  'kAltJa1  nd  'a 


c.  ai  wint  t9  m9'gwairz  weik  bes  wik.  Sei  geiv  im  9  'deisint  sind  of. 
nou  'porSa1.  aen  him'self  lukt  'naetjral,  9z  fain  9  korps  9z  'iva^  'gaevin  leid 
out.  'gaevin  tould  mi  sou  him  'self,  hi  W9Z  9z  praud  iv  m9'gwair  9z  if  i 
ound  im.  fctjt  haef  <^9  tauii  in  t9  luk  9t  im  n  giv  'ivri  wan  iv  8im  kardz. 
hi  nir  'fraitnd  oul  maen  'dugin  int9  9  feint.  'nnsOai1  'dugin,  hau  ould  ar 
jo?  'sivinti  faiv,  Oaenks  bi,  soz  'dugin.  Sin,  S9z  'gaevin,  teik  wan  iv  mi 
kardz,  hi  sez.  ai  houp  jil  nat  fa1  'git  mi,  hi  sez. 

tw9z  l5t:r  ai  gat  &>  la  grip.  'leist,waiz  it  iz  mi  9!pinJ9n  iv  it,  Sou  S9 
'dakOa1  scd  ai  'swalicl  9  bAg.  it  dount  sim  rait,  fa1  89  m9'gwairz  iz  9  klein 
'faemli;  bst  So  'dakGo1  scd  9  bAg  gat  int9  mi  'sist9m.  Mat  sort  iv  bAg,  soz 
ai.  o  la  grip  bAg,  hi  sez.  ji  haev  'mikroubz  in  jir  IAFJZ,  hi  sez.  Mats  Sim,  S9z 
ai.  Simz  So  la  grip  bAgz,  S9z  i.  ji  tuk  wan  in  n  wormd  it,  hi  sez,  n  it  9z 
groud  n  'mAlti,plaid  til  jir  'sist9m  dAZ  bi  ful  iv  Sim,  hi  sez,  'mi!J9nz  iv 
Sim,  hi  sez,  'mart  Jin  n  'kaunO^'martJm  0ru  ji.  'gbri  bi  t9  S9  seints,  soz 
ai,  haed  ai  'beSa1  'swali  SAHI  'insekt  'pauda1,  ai  sez? 

'dull  in  S9  harts  ov  iz 
,  S9  grip    • 


D.  ou.  Sen,  ai  si  kwin  maeb  hae0  bin  wiS  ju. 
Ji  iz  So  'feriz  'mid,  waif,  nd  Ji  kAinz 
in  Jeip  no  'biga1  Son  n  'aegot  stoun 
an  So  'for^irjgo1  9v  n  'olda^mon, 
dron  wiS  o  tim  ov  'litl  'aet9miz 
9'GwDrt  menz  'nouziz  9z  Sei  lai  9'slip: 
ha1  'waegn  spouks  meid  9v  lorj  'spina^z  leg/; 
S9  kAVO1,  9v  S9  winz  ov  Igraes,hap3tz; 
So  'treisiz,  ov  S9  'smol9st  'spaida^z  web; 
S9  'kala^z,  9v  S9  'munjainz  'w3t9n  bimz; 
ha*1  Aiip,  ov  krik9ts  boun;  So  laej  ov  film; 
ha1  'waegona1,  o  smol  grci  'koutid  naet, 
nat  haef  so  big  oz  o  round  'litl  warn 
pnkt  from  So  'leizi  'firjga1  ov  o  meid; 
ha1  'tjeriot  iz  n  'empti  'heizl  nAt, 
meid  bai  So  'dgoma1  skw^l  a1  ould  grAb, 
taim  aut  o  mamd  So  'feriz  koutj  'meika^z. 

'wiljom  'Jeikspir,  'roumio  nd 


154  Reading  to  Others 

E.  if  Sou  m9st  IAV  mi,  let  it  bi  fa1  nst 
9k  'sept  fa1  IAVZ  seik  'ounli.  du  nat  sei, 
ai  IAV  h^  far  ha1  small,  ha4  luk,  ha1  wei 
9v  'spikiij  'dgentli,  fa1  9  tnk  9v  GDI 
Saet  biz  in  wel  wiS  mam,  nd  'sa'tiz  brat 
9  sens  9v  'pleznt  iz  an  SAtJ  9  dei— 
fa1  Siz  9irjz  in  Sam'selvz,  bi'lAV9d,  mei 
bi  tfeind^d,  a1  tjemdj  fa1  Si—  nd  IAV,  so  rat, 
mei  bi  'Aiiot  sou.  'niSa1  IAV  mi  fDr 
Sain  oun  dir  'pitiz  'warpirj  mai  tjiks  drai: 
9  'kritja*  mait  fa^'get  t9  wip,  hu  tor 
Sai  'kAmfa^t  bn,  nd  luz  Sai  IAV  ,Ser'bai. 
b9t  IAV  mi  fa1  IAVZ  seik,  Sat  Ievaijni3r 
Sau  meist  IAV  an,  9ru  IAVZ  I'tymti. 

'braumn,  'samt 


F.  Iouv3ilstcitm9nt,  Ibitatn9s,  vai,tup9!reijn,  nd  ?fo  'bitirj  9v 
h9v  k9n'tnbjut9cl  'maitili  tu  il  'filnj  nd  wjrz  bi'twin  'neijnz.  if  Si/ 
Anlnes9,seri  nd  An'pleznt  'aekjnz  ar  'harmf9l  in  Si  intat'naejonl  fild,  Sei 
or  also  'Imfal  in  Sa  d9'ni£stik  sin.  pis  9'mAi]  aur'sdvz  wad  sim  to  haev 
SAm  9v  Si  9d'vaenud;$iz  9v  pis  bi'twin  AS  nd  'ASa1  'neijnz.  nd  in  Sa  bij  IAII 
'hist9n  'aempli  'drmanstrets  Sat  'aengn  'kantro^'^si  'Jurli  winz  ks  S.in 
katn  dis'kAjn. 

in  S9  'spirit  'Serbr  9v  9  'greita1  An'selfijiias,  Irek9g,naizirj  Saet  SD  w^ld, 
m'kludirj  Si  ju'nait9d  steits  9v  9!me:rik9,  'paesiz  9ru  'penbs  taimz,  ai  m 
'veri  'houpf9l  Saet  S9  'klouzirj  'sejn  9v  S9  'sev9nti  siks9  'kangr9s  wil 
k9n'sidai  S9  nidz  9v  S9  'neijn  nd  9v  hju'maeniti  wiS  'kamn9S,  't 
nd  ko'ap9r9tiv  'wizdam. 

mei  S9  jir  'naintin  'forti  bi  'pDint9d  out  bai  aur  'tjildr9n  sez 
'piri9d  Men  d9'makr9si  'd^AStijfaid  its  ig'zist9ns  9z  S9  best  Iinstr9m9nt 
9V  lgAV3lnm9nt  jet  di'vaizd  bai  jmaen'kamd. 

'fraerjklm  di  'rouz9,velt, 
'mesidg  t9  'kangr9s, 

'dgaenjuen  9^,  'naintin 


CHAPTER 


I    Co/? fro llm$    volume 
ana   litcn 


UNTIL  a  very  few  years  ago,  the  main 
emphasis  in  speech  training  was  on  the  development  of  technical 
skill  among  those  who  were  already  blessed  with  good  voices  and 
who  were  interested  in  debating,  oratory,  or  acting,  or  among 
those  who  were  vaguely  trying  to  cure  some  organic  speech  de- 
fect. It  was  usually  assumed  that  the  eloquent  speaker  was  born, 
not  made,  though  there  were  certain  rules  that  could  be  learned. 
He  had  a  fine  rich  voice  and  "a  gift  of  gab"  which  led  him  through 
literary  societies  and  debating  contests  and  Fourth  of  July  cele- 
brations to  the  lecture  platform  or  the  legislative  hall.  He  was  a 
student  of  Cicero  and  Quintilian  and  Edmund  Burke  and  Daniel 
Webster.  Through  frequent  practice  he  learned  a  traditional  sys- 
tem of  gestures  and  mastered  the  subtleties  of  the  pectoral,  oro- 
tund, and  aspirate  tones,  which  could  be  summoned  at  will  to 
express  shades  of  emotion.  He  was  familiar  with  the  formal  prin- 
ciples of  logic  and  loved  nothing  better  than  to  describe  the  horns 
of  an  opponent's  dilemma  or  to  accuse  him  of  argumentum  ad 
hominem  or  the  deductive  fallacy  of  the  undistributed  middle 
term. 

Little  attention  was  paid  to  the  needs  of  average  speech.  If  a 
man  wanted  to  be  a  speaker,  he  could  join  one  of  the  numerous 
debating  societies  or  be  elected  to  a  public  office.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  suffered  from  some  speech  defect,  he  could  go  to  a  sur- 
geon or  to  one  of  the  self-styled  experts  who  would  torture  him 
with  cruel  devices  or  take  his  money  for  some  less  painful,  but 

155 


156  Reading  to  Others 

equally  worthless,  treatment.  A  few  people  were  interested  in 
correct  diction,  but  almost  no  one  thought  that  it  was  any  more 
desirable  to  study  ordinary  speech  than  it  was  to  study  eating  or 
any  other  "natural"  habit. 

Within  recent  years,  however,  a  new  and  intelligent  interest  in 
speech  has  developed.  For  the  most  part,  this  is  an  interest  in  ordi- 
nary speech.  We  still  have  schools  of  oratory,  private  instructors 
in  expression  and  elocution,  even  a  few  old-fashioned  literary  soci- 
eties, and  many,  many  declamation  contests,  but  the  interest  now 
is  in  everyday  speech.  Just  as  housewives  are  beginning  to  realize 
that  they  can  profit  from  courses  in  budgeting  and  child  psy- 
chology and  just  as  farmers  now  send  their  sons  to  college  to  learn 
about  methods  of  fertilization  and  crop  rotation,  so  business  men, 
teachers,  salesmen,  and  engineers  are  beginning  to  see  the  impor- 
tance of  speech  as  a  part  of  professional  equipment. 

Voice  training  for  the  average  person,  we  have  discovered,  is 
not  only  possible  but  in  most  cases  absolutely  necessary.  Of  1372 
high-school  students  tested  in  a  recent  survey,1  34  were  stutterers, 
245  had  defects  involving  articulation,  477  had  such  defects  as 
nasality,  denasality,  and  hoarseness,  and  406  showed  emotional 
inadequacy  in  speech  situations.  That  is,  about  82%  were  in  need 
of  some  kind  of  voice  training.  The  average  voice  is  not  a  good 
voice.  In  one  way  or  another,  it  can  be  improved.  Common  faults 
are  breathiness,  lack  of  relaxation,  high  pitch,  poor  support  of 
tone,  weak  projection,  and  slovenly  enunciation.  All  these  things 
can  be  corrected  through  proper  voice  training.  As  William  Jen- 
nings Bryan  said,  "The  ability  to  speak  effectively  is  an  acquire- 
ment rather  than  a  gift." 

THE    PHYSICAL    PROPERTIES    OF    VOICE 

The  four  elements  of  tone  are  volume,  pitch,  tempo,  and  qual- 
ity. Speech  improvement  usually  begins  with  one  or  another  of 
these  elements.  Volume,  or  force,  depends  upon  the  breathing 
mechanism  (and,  to  a  lesser  degree,  upon  the  resonators).  Pitch 
(depends  upon  the  vocal  bands  and  upon  the  muscular  system  of 
the  throat.  Tempo,  or  duration,  depends  upon  the  will  of  the 
speaker  and  upon  his  ability  to  control  breathing  and  vibration. 

1  Earl  S.  Kalp,  "A  Summary  of  the  Des  Moines  High  School  Speech  Course  of 
Study,"  Quarterly  Journal  of  Speech,  February,  1938,  pp.  90  ff. 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  157 

Quality  depends  mainly  upon  the  resonators.  The  speech  im- 
provement that  follows  on  treatment  of  functional,  emotional, 
or  organic  disorders  will  be  discussed  in  the  Appendix  under 
Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement,  as  well  as  the  speech 
improvement  that  is  concerned  with  diction  (enunciation,  pro- 
nunciation, and  language  tune).  In  this  chapter  we  shall  take  up 
volume  and  pitch;  in  the  next  chapter,  tempo  and  quality. 

VOLUME 

Some  books  define  volume  as  loudness.  That  is  a  misleading 
definition,  for  volume  means  softness  as  well  as  loudness  of  tone. 
It  is,  physically,  the  amplitude  of  the  sound  waves,  the  extent  to 
which  the  vocal  bands  are  vibrated.  Changes  in  volume  are  pro- 
duced by  changes  in  the  amount  of  air  that  is  exhaled  in  phona- 
tion  (as  well  as  by  changes  in  the  use  of  the  resonators).  In  a 
diagrammatic  representation  of  sound,  volume  is  the  bigness  or 
srnallness  of  the  wave. 

To  develop  volume,  the  speaker  must  first  get  the  mechanism 
of  exhalation  firmly  under  control.  He  must  make  sure  that  he  is 
not  wasting  breath  by  vibrating  vocal  bands  that  are  not  closely 
enough  approximated  or  by  speaking  on  the  last  half  of  an  exhala- 
tion, and  he  must  have  unconstricted  resonance  chambers.  More 
than  that,  he  must  have  confidence  in  his  desire  to  speak  out,  a 
reserve  supply  of  energy,  and  an  intelligent  evaluation  of  volume 
as  a  means  of  emphasis.  Well-projected  and  vigorously  articulated 
speech  usually  has  an  adequate  range  of  volume.  Loudness  alone 
is  not  necessary.  A  clear  voice,  with  good  enunciation,  is  infinitely 
to  be  preferred  to  a  blasting  voice.  The  unrelieved,  bellowing 
voice  is  as  much  a  problem  as  the  mousy  voice,  though  it  is  of 
rarer  occurrence.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  changes  in  volume  alone 
are  probably  the  weakest  kind  of  centering. 

One  of  the  commonest  speech  faults  is  a  thin,  overconfidential 
tone.  Speakers  otherwise  healthy  and  vigorous  are  satisfied  with 
a  weak  voice  that  cannot  be  distinctly  heard  ten  feet  away.  When 
charged  with  inaudibility,  they  usually  declare  that  they  are  speak- 
ing as  loudly  as  they  can.  Among  women  in  particular  there  seems 
to  be  an  endemic  plague  of  small  voices.  Some  of  them  seem  to 
think  that  it  is  unladylike  to  speak  with  any  evidence  of  force. 
Others  are  too  indolent  to  energize  their  tones.  Too  many  people, 


158  Reading  to  Others 

both  men  and  women,  fail  to  notice  that,  in  general,  the  person 
with  a  forceful  personality  communicates  forcefully. 

You  can  measure  the  volume  level  of  your  voice  by  getting  a 
report  from  a  candid  audience.  Their  answers  to  the  question, 
"Can  I  be  easily  heard  in  all  parts  of  the  auditorium?"  should  tell 
you  what  to  do.  Since  most  audiences  are  little  interested  in  such 
problems  of  technique,  except  as  they  affect  their  comfort  and 
pleasure,  you  can  place  observers  in  various  parts  of  the  room, 
arranging  some  kind  of  signal  if  you  cannot  be  heard.  You  can 
test  your  voice  in  the  classroom,  if  you  have  access  to  a  recording 
machine,  by  watching  the  needle  of  the  ammeter  swing  as  you 
speak  into  the  microphone.  Listen  to  someone  with  plenty  of 
volume  and  see  to  what  point  the  indicator  goes  under  the  impact 
of  his  voice.  That  will  be  a  definite  standard  toward  which  to 
work. 

SUMMARY.  Speak  out  incisively.  Don't  let  stage  fright  reduce 
your  voice  to  a  despairing  whimper.  Remember  that  a  good,  clear, 
confident,  audible  tone  will  do  much  to  break  down  your  timidi- 
ties. Make  use  of  all  your  breath.  Don't  puff  half  of  it  out  in  a 
windy  first  word  and  then  struggle  with  diminishing  force  to  the 
next  breath.  Realize  that  you  are  not  a  good  judge  of  your  own 
volume.  Ask  somebody  else.  Don't  hammer  at  a  few  words,  hop- 
ing that  they  will  convey  your  meaning,  letting  the  rest  sink  into 
a  mumble.  Sudden  spurts  of  force  are  usually  artificial.  Don't 
run  down  hill,  starting  off  a  phrase  with  high-powered  vigor  and 
fading  toward  the  end  as  your  breath  gets  weak.  Don't  yell. 
Excessive  loudness  antagonizes  an  audience  more  quickly  than  any- 
thing else.  Modulate  your  tones.  That  is,  use  some  loudness, 
some  softness  as  the  ideas  change.  As  in  all  the  other  elements 
of  voice,  variety  in  volume  is  all-important.  Don't  say  everything 
loudly  or  everything  softly.  Constantly  vary.  Bring  out  the  cen- 
ters, but  avoid  stressing  each  one  in  the  same  way. 

Exercises 

Work  on  these  exercises  until  your  instructor  assures  you  that 
your  range  of  volume  is  adequate.  If  you  are  over-confidential  or 
without  energetic  control  of  your  breath  stream,  you  may  have 
to  do  the  exercises  in  special  drills,  extending  over  a  long  period. 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  159 

1.  Begin   with   the   exercises  in   breathing    (in   Chapter   3), 
working  toward  firmly  supported  tones.    Strengthen  the  abdomi- 
nal muscles. 

2.  Lie  on  the  floor.    Hook  your  feet  under  a  dresser  or  heavy 
chair.    Raise  yourself  to  a  sitting  position.    Repeat  until  the  ab- 
dominal muscles  are  tired. 

3.  Lie  on  your  back,  your  arms  outstretched  above  your  head, 
holding  a  medicine  ball  or  heavy  pillow.    Rise  to  a  sitting  posi- 
tion, throwing  the  ball  to  a  friend  who  is  sitting  with  his  feet  to 
your  feet.  The  force  of  the  throw  sends  him  into  a  supine  position 
with  the  ball  above  his  head.    He  then  comes  into  a  sitting  posi- 
tion and  throws  the  ball  to  you.   Repeat  ten,  fifteen,  twenty  times. 

4.  Sound  the  vowels  [a],  [D],  [ou],  and  [u]  first  quietly,  next  with 
increased  force,  and  then  loudly.    Keep  the  tones  steady,  holding 
each  one  several  seconds  and  being  careful  not  to  raise  the  pitch. 
Increase  the  duration  of  each  tone  from  four  to  six  to  eight  seconds. 

5.  Find  a  volume  level  that  is  judged  to  be  sufficient  for  a  small 
room,  a  large  room,  an  auditorium.   Hold  an  [a]  sound  on  each  of 
these  levels,  timing  it.  You  should  be  able  to  sustain  the  tone  com- 
fortably for  from  twenty  to  thirty  seconds  without  wavering  or 
changing  pitch. 

6.  Instead  of  sustaining  the  single  tones,  try  a  series  of  short 
repetitions  of  each  of  the  vowels  [a],   [^],[ou],   [u],  [i],  [ei],  [ai], 
initiating  them  smoothly,  without  wasting  breath:  a,  a,  a,  a,  a; 
3,  D,  D,  3,  3;  ou,  ou,  ou,  ou,  ou;  u,  u,  u,  u,  u,  etc.  Increase  the  repeti- 
tions to  seven,  to  nine,  to  twelve  on  one  breath. 

7.  Check  on  your  muscular  response  to  the  support  of  tone. 
As  you  vocalize  in  any  of  the  preceding  exercises,  put  your  hand 
on  your  abdomen  and  observe  whether  or  not  it  sinks  inward  as 
the  air  is  forced  out  of  the  lungs.   Of  course,  the  abdomen  should 
pull  inward  not  outward.   Don't  let  your  shoulders  rise  and  fall. 

8.  Keeping  an  even,  steady  tone,  without  losing  musical  qual- 
ity and  without  *  'clicking"   (too  abruptly  separating  the  closed 
vocal  bands),  softly  begin  each  of  the  vowels  in  Exercise  6  in  turn. 
Gradually  increase  their  volume  until  you  are  nearly  shouting. 
Stop  each  tone  before  it  begins  to  crack. 

9.  Repeat  Exercise  8,  but  diminish  the  tone  again  after  it 
reaches  its  greatest  volume.    Keep  it  under  control  and  don't  be 
fooled  into  raising  the  pitch  instead  of  increasing  the  intensity. 


160  Reading  to  Others 

10.  Now  start  at  the  loud  point  on  each  of  the  vowels  and  de- 
crease to  a  very  soft  tone,  gradually  increasing  again  to  the  full 
volume.  These  exercises  should  be  faithfully  done  every  day  over 
a  period  of  several  weeks. 

11.  Add  the  consonants  [k],  [g],  [m],  [v],  [w]  to  each  of  the 
vowels  in  Exercise  6,  keeping  the  vowel  sound  clear  and  sharply 
articulating  the  consonants.   Repeat  each  combination  five,  seven, 
nine  times  on  one  breath:  ka,  ka,  ka,  ka,  ka;  k:>,  k3,  ks,  k:>,  ko;  etc. 
Then  ga,  ga,  ga,  ga,  ga;  etc.  g:> .  .  . ,  gou .  .  . ,  gu .  .  . ,  gei .  .  . ,  gi .  .  . , 
gai .  .  . ;  ma .  .  . ,  rrp  .  .  . ,  mou .  .  . ,  mu .  .  . ,  mei .  .  . ,  mi .  .  . ,  mai .  .  . ; 
va .  .  . ,  V3 .  .  . ,  vou .  .  . ,  vu .  .  . ,  vei .  .  . ,  vi .  .  . ,  vai .  .  . ;  wa .  .  . ,  WD  .  .  . , 
wou .  .  . ,  wu .  .  . ,  wei .  .  . ,  wi .  .  . ,  wai .... 

12.  Repeat  the  following  lines,  holding  the  vowel  sounds  and 
firmly  articulating  the  consonants.    Speak  first  as  if  to  a  small 
group,  then  to  a  larger  one,  and  finally  to  a  big  crowd: 

A.  Boomlay,  boomlay,  boomlay,  boom/ 

B.  Hi-ho,  hi-ho,  hi-ho-hi-ho-hi-ho/ 

c.    Can't  you  hear  their  paddles  chunking  from  Rangoon 
to  Mandalay? 

D.  O-lee-ay-ee-ho/  o-Iee-ay-ee-ho/   (ou,  li,  ei?  i,  hou) 

E.  There  she  blows/ 

F.  Sail  ho/ 

G.  Stand  by  for  boarding/ 

H.    Hold  that  line,  hold  that  line,  hold  that  line/ 
i.   We  want  a  touchdown;  we  want  a  touchdown/ 
j.    Company,  attention/  Forward  march/  One-two-three-four/ 
At  ease/  Present  arms/  Dismissed/ 

(Army  men  often  blur  consonants  or  substitute  h  for  other  con- 
sonants so  that  they  can  be  heard  better  and  so  that  their  voices 
will  not  get  tired  quickly:  "Forward  march!  1-2-3-4!"  sounds 
something  like  "Fawe  hahtch,  hun,  hu,  he,  haw"  [fa  ws  hatf,  IIAII, 
hu,  hi,  h.V|.) 

13.  Read  aloud  the  following  selections,  paying  especial  atten- 
tion to  volume  changes: 

A.   Out  of  the  night  that  covers  me, 

Black  as  the  pit  from  pole  to  pole, 
/  thank  whatever  gods  may  be 
For  my  unconquerable  soul. 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  161 

In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 

I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud. 
Under  the  bludgeonings  of  chance 

My  head  is  bloody,  but  unbow'd. 

Beyond  this  place  of  wrath  and  tears 
Looms  but  the  Honor  of  the  shade, 

And  yet  the  menace  of  the  years 
Finds  and  shall  find  me  unafraid. 

It  matters  not  how  strait  the  gate, 
How  charged  with  punishments  the  scroll, 

I  am  the  master  of  my  fate; 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul. 

W.  E.  HENLEY,  Invictus 


B.    Fear  death?— to  feel  the  fog  in  my  throat, 

The  mist  in  my  face, 
When  the  snows  begin,  and  blasts  denote 

I  am  n earing  the  place, 
The  power  of  the  night,  the  press  of  the  storm, 

The  post  of  the  foe; 
Where  he  stands,  the  Arch  Fear  in  a  visible  form, 

Yet  the  strong  man  must  go: 
For  the  journey  is  done  and  the  summit  attained, 

And  the  barriers  fall, 
Though  a  battle's  to  fight  ere  the  guerdon  be  gained, 

The  reward  of  it  all. 
I  was  ever  a  fighter,  so— one  fight  more, 

The  best  and  the  last/ 
I  would  hate  that  death  bandaged  my  eyes,  and  forbore, 

And  bade  me  creep  past. 
No/  let  me  taste  the  whole  of  it,  fare  like  my  peers 

The  heroes  of  old, 
Bear  the  brunt,  in  a  minute  pay  glad  life's  arrears 

Of  pain,  darkness,  and  cold. 
For  sudden  the  worst  turns  the  best  to  the  brave, 

The  black  minute's  at  end, 
And  the  elements'  rage,  the  fiend-voices  that  rave, 

Shall  dwindle,  shall  blend, 
Shall  change,  shall  become  first  a  peace  out  of  pain, 


i6s  Reading  to  Others 

Then  a  light,  then  thy  breast, 
O  thou  soul  of  my  soul!  I  shall  clasp  thee  again, 
And  with  God  be  the  rest/ 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  Prospice 

c.  With  the  most  crushing  of  victories,  in  one  of  the  most  just  wars, 
Italy,  with  war  in  Africa,  has  acquired  an  immense,  rich,  imperial  ter- 
ritory, where  for  many  decades  she  will  be  able  to  carry  out  the  achieve- 
ments of  her  labors  and  of  her  creative  ability.  For  this  reason,  but 
only  for  this  reason,  will  we  re/ect  the  absurdity  of  eternal  peace,  which 
is  foreign  to  our  creed  and  to  our  temperament. 

We  desire  to  live  a  long  time  at  peace  with  all;  we  are  determined 
to  offer  our  lasting,  concrete  contribution  to  the  project  of  collabora- 
tion among  peoples.  But  after  the  catastrophic  failure  of  the  disarma- 
ment conference,  in  the  face  of  an  armaments  race  already  under  way 
and  irresistible  from  this  time  on,  and  in  the  face  of  certain  political 
situations  which  now  are  in  the  course  of  uncertain  development,  the 
order  of  the  day  for  Italians,  for  fascist  Italians,  can  be  only  this:  We 
must  be  strong.  We  must  be  always  stronger.  We  must  be  so  strong 
that  we  can  face  any  eventualities  and  look  directly  in  the  eye  whatever 
may  befall.  To  this  supreme  principle  must  be  subordinated  all  the  life 
of  the  nation. 

The  conquest  of  the  empire  was  not  obtained  by  compromises  on 
that  table  of  diplomacy.  It  was  obtained  by  fine,  glorious,  and  victo- 
rious battle,  fought  with  the  spirit  which  has  overcome  enormous 
material  difficulties  and  an  almost  world-wide  coalition  of  nations.  It 
is  the  spirit  of  the  Black  Shirt  revolution,  the  spirit  of  this  Italy,  the 
spirit  of  this  populous  Italy,  warlike  and  vigilant  on  sea,  on  land,  and 
in  the  heavens.  It  is  the  spirit  I  have  seen  shining  in  the  eyes  of  the 
soldiers  who  have  maneuvered  in  these  past  days,  the  spirit  we  shall 
see  shine  when  King  and  country  call  them. 

BENITO  MUSSOLINI,  Absurdity  of  Eternal  Peace 

D.  The  theory  that  you  can  save  democracy  through  an  alliance  with 
democracy  is  a  misleading  theory.  An  alliance  is  an  alliance,  with  all 
its  burdens  and  dangers,  its  debts,  controversies,  and  wars.  Such  an 
alliance  would  have  all  the  vices  and  none  of  the  virtues  of  the  old 
balance  of  power.  It  would  be  potent  enough  to  get  us  into  all  kinds 
of  involvements  but  not  strong  enough  to  get  us  out,  for  when  the 
crucial  test  came,  the  question  of  democracy  would  give  way  to  national 
interests,  or  more  likely,  national  ambitions. 

The  problems  of  democracy,  especially  our  democracy— and  I  believe 
of  all  democracies— lie  closer  home  and  are  to  be  worked  out  along 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  163 

wholly  different  lines.  After  we  have  provided  adequate  defense  for  our 
nation,  as  we  shall  do,  the  problems  of  democracy  remain.  Democracies 
are  bleeding  inwardly.  The  healing  is  not  to  be  found  in  armaments, 
but  in  bringing  contentment,  happiness,  and  prosperity  to  the  harried, 
confused,  and  discouraged  citizen.  There  is  greater  danger  to  our  democ- 
racy in  that  vast  army  of  unemployed  encamped  in  every  city,  town,  and 
village  throughout  the  land,  in  the  fifty  million  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren living  in  constant  sight  of  the  poverty  line,  poorly  clad  and  poorly 
fed,  in  the  hundreds  of  thousands,  with  the  number  increasing  every 
year,  of  malformed  and  rickety  children,  of  the  five  million  girls  and 
boys  who  leave  colleges  and  universities  finding  no  avenue  in  which  to 
engage  their  energies,  their  genius — more  danger  here  by  far  than  in  any 
fleet  of  battleships  which  any  nation,  or  group  of  nations,  may  choose 
to  send  against  us.  The  danger  coming  from  the  latter  is  remote,  highly 
problematical.  But  the  danger  as  to  the  former  is  here  in  all  its  hideous 
ugliness,  eating  away  at  the  moral  fiber  of  our  people.  Widespread 
poverty,  want,  and  suicide  walking  with  want,  will  in  time  break  the 
morale  and  destroy  the  faith  in  government  of  any  people.  I  care  not 
what  flag  floats  over  a  people,  what  their  traditions  as  to  liberty  may  be, 
how  well  their  institutions  of  government  express  the  aspirations  and 
hopes  of  a  people,  crushing  taxes  and  hunger  and  disease  and  broken 
families  will  in  time  undermine  and  destroy  all  these  things.  These  are 
the  things  which  make  for  communism  and  fascism  and  which  today 
wage  war  against  every  democracy  in  the  world.  This  is  the  problem 
of  democracy. 

WILLIAM  E.  BORAH,  Our  Imperative  Task: 
To  Mind  Our  Own  Business 

E.  But  it  cannot,  shall  not  be  [the  breaking  up  of  the  federation  of 
states  into  independent  units]:  this  great  woe  to  our  beloved  country, 
this  catastrophe  for  the  cause  of  national  freedom,  this  grievous  calamity 
for  the  whole  civilized  world — it  cannot,  shall  not  be.  No,  by  the  glori- 
ous igth  of  April,  1775.'  No,  by  the  precious  blood  of  Bunker  Hill,  of 
Princeton,  of  Saratoga,  of  King's  Mountain,  of  Yorktown/  No,  by  the 
undying  spirit  of  'j6l  No,  by  the  sacred  dust  enshrined  at  Mount  Ver- 
12011  /  No,  by  the  dear  immortal  memory  of  Washington,  that  sorrow 
and  shame  shall  never  be/  Washington  in  the  flesh  is  taken  from  us, 
but  his  memory  remains,  and  let  us  cling  to  his  memory.  Let  us  make 
a  national  festival  and  holiday  of  his  birthday;  and  ever  as  it  returns  let 
us  remember  that  while  we  celebrate  the  great  anniversary  our  fellow 
citizens  on  the  Hudson,  on  the  Potomac,  from  the  Southern  plains  to 
the  Western  lakes,  are  engaged  in  the  same  offices  of  gratitude  and  love. 
Nor  we,  nor  they  alone;  beyond  the  Ohio,  beyond  the  Mississippi,  along 


164  Reading  to  Others 

that  stupendous  trail  of  immigration  from  East  to  West,  which,  burst- 
ing into  states  as  it  moves  westward,  is  swarming  through  the  portals  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  and  winding  down  their  slopes,  the  name  and 
the  memory  of  Washington  on  that  gracious  night  will  travel  with  the 
silver  queen  of  heaven,  through  sixty  degrees  of  longitude,  nor  part  com- 
pany with  her  till  she  walks  in  her  brightness  through  the  Golden  Gate 
of  California  and  passes  serenely  on  to  hold  midnight  court  with  her 
Australian  stars.  There  and  there  only,  in  barbarous  archipelagoes,  as  yet 
untrodden  by  civilized  man,  the  name  of  Washington  is  unknown;  and 
there,  too,  when  they  swarm  with  enlightened  millions,  new  honors 
shall  be  paid  with  ours  to  his  memory. 

EDWARD  EVERETT,  The  Memory  of  Washington 

PITCH 

The  vibration  rate  of  the  vocal  bands,  which  determines  pitch, 
is  dependent  upon  the  length,  tension,  and  thickness  of  the  bands. 
The  shorter  and  more  tightly  stretched  are  the  bands,  the  more 
frequently  they  vibrate  and  therefore  the  higher  the  pitch.  Wom- 
en's voices  are  pitched  about  an  octave  higher  than  men's  because 
their  bands  are  shorter  and  less  thick.  The  stage-frightened  voice 
is  sometimes  high  pitched  because  the  vocal  bands  are  stretched 
tightly  by  nervous  tensions.  The  average  voice  has  a  pitch  range 
of  about  two  octaves.  Trained  singers  may  have  at  their  com- 
mand another  octave.  Different  pitch  ranges  in  speakers  and 
singers  are  classified  as  bass  and  contralto  for  the  lower-pitched 
voices,  baritone  and  mezzo-soprano  for  the  middle  range  of  pitch, 
and  tenor  and  soprano  for  the  higher-pitched  voices. 

In  all  speakers,  though  a  considerable  variety  of  inflection  may 
be  observed  in  their  speaking,  there  is  a  natural  pitch  level.  This 
is  the  average  level,  above  and  below  which  the  pitch  may  rise  or 
fall  for  different  emphases.  It  is  approximately  the  pitch  at  which 
you  comfortably  produce  the  "ah"  sound  for  throat  examination. 
In  many  speakers  this  level  is  too  high,  especially  among  women, 
who  tend  in  excited  speech  to  become  shrill  and  who  even  in 
casual  voice  production  are  likely  to  keep  the  vocal  bands  under 
too  great  tension. 

Very  little  can  actually  be  done  to  change  the  natural  pitch. 
The  vocal  bands  are  standard  equipment  in  human  bodies  and 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  165 

no  substitutions  are  possible.  If  Nature  is  generous  in  her  gifts, 
we  are  provided  with  healthy  larynxes  whose  vocal  bands  are 
adjusted  to  naturally  pleasing  pitch  levels.  Some  of  us,  however, 
are  born  with  bands  too  thin  or  too  sensitive  to  infection.  No 
plastic  surgery  and  no  exercises  will  change  the  size  and  shape  of 
the  vocal  apparatus.  An  illustration  of  the  influence  of  pitch  on 
career  was  the  wistful  failure  of  the  late  John  Gilbert  to  carry  his 
success  in  silent  films  into  talking  pictures.  The  matinee  idol  of 
thousands  of  women,  who  saw  his  handsome  face  and  fine  physique 
but  could  not  hear  him,  he  was  rejected  in  talking  pictures  be- 
cause his  voice  was  unheroically  high  pitched. 

Acoustical  tests  prove  that  low  frequencies  of  sound  are  more 
easily  heard  than  high  frequencies.  High  pitch,  too,  is  associated 
with  effeminacy  in  men,  with  affectation  or  immaturity  in  women, 
with  speed,  agitation,  suspense,  and  strain,  with  the  shriek  of  the 
wind  and  the  piercing  wail  of  lamentation,  with  sirens  and  whis- 
tles and  the  skirl  of  the  pibroch  and  fife,  and  with  the  sometimes 
almost  intolerable  high  tones  of  the  violin  and  flute.  Low  tones 
are  usually  admired  in  both  men  and  women  (though  good  tenors 
and  sopranos  are  the  darlings  of  opera).  They  seem  to  imply 
strength  and  confidence  and  mellowness.  The  cello  is  a  richer, 
more  warming  instrument  than  the  more  brilliant,  more  flexible 
violin.  When  we  describe  John  Milton  as  the  "organ  voice  of  Eng- 
land/* we  think  of  depth,  power,  deliberateness,  majesty.  There  is 
in  his  noble  blank  verse  none  of  the  lyrical  shrillness  that  we  may 
find,  for  example,  in  Shelley.  Our  common  phrase,  "a  high  pitch 
of  excitement,"  is  literally  true. 

The  radio  has  conclusively  demonstrated  that  low-pitched  voices 
are  more  pleasing  than  high-pitched  ones.  A  recent  survey,  which 
granted  reluctant  praise  to  Eleanor  Roosevelt,  Dorothy  Thomp- 
son, and  a  few  others  for  having  acceptable  radio  voices,  reported 
that  women  as  a  whole  do  not  make  good  radio  speakers  because 
of  their  high-pitched  voices. 

There  is  no  dependable  physiological  method  of  lowering  pitch 
unless  the  speaker  habitually  uses  a  pitch  higher  than  his  natural 
pitch  level.  In  some  instances  "thinking"  the  tones  down  will 
help.  But  if  the  natural  pitch  is  high,  all  the  exercises  in  the  world 
will  not  lower  it.  Such  speakers  need  to  work  for  better  quality, 


i66  Reading  to  Others 

clarity  of  diction,  and  support  of  tone,  and  to  stop  worrying  about 
pitch.  For  those  who  through  strain  or  nervousness  use  higher 
pitch  than  their  natural  level  some  corrective  work  is  possible. 

To  determine  the  best  level  for  any  given  voice,  any  of  the  fol- 
lowing methods  may  be  satisfactory: 

1.  Find  the  upper  and  lower  limits  of  your  voice  by  singing 
up  and  down  the  scale  to  the  highest  and  lowest  tones  that  you 
can  comfortably  produce.   Check  these  tones  by  hunting  for  the 
corresponding  key  on  the  piano.  Your  best  pitch  should  be  about 
two  full  notes  below  the  middle  tone  of  this  range. 

2.  Sing  down  the  scale  to  the  lowest  tone  you  can  reach  with 
out  straining.   Your  best  pitch  should  be  about  five  full  tones  up 
the  scale  from  this  note. 

3.  Search  for  the  key  on  the  piano  that  is  nearest  to  your  cus- 
tomary pitch  level.    If  you  feel  that  your  pitch  is  too  high  or  if 
you  have  been  told  that  it  is  too  high,  try  to  pitch  your  voice  to 
the  key  farther  down  the  scale  which  seems  to  be  the  one  you 
want.    Play  the  note  frequently  until  its  pitch  level  is  fixed  in 
your  mind.   It  should  be  near  F  (above  middle  C)  for  a  soprano, 
E  for  a  mezzo-soprano,  C  to  D  for  an  alto;  F  below  middle  C  for 
a  tenor,  D  for  a  baritone,  C  for  a  bass.    Don't  depend  too  much 
on  the  piano,  don't  sing  the  tone,  and  don't  let  the  effort  to  lower 
pitch  pull  your  voice  back  into  your  throat. 

Once  you  have  found  your  own  best  pitch  level,  practice  speak- 
ing in  it  at  every  possible  opportunity.  Too  often  speech  students 
fail  to  realize  that  if  they  want  to  effect  permanent  improvement 
in  their  voices  they  must  make  use  of  every  speaking  experience, 
and  not  limit  their  conscious  efforts  to  a  few  formal  exercises. 

Pitch  changes  are  important  means  of  emphasis,  requiring  more 
penetrating  interpretation  of  an  author's  meaning  and  mood  in 
reading  and  more  subtle  expression  of  thought  in  speaking  than 
the  easier  emphasis  of  volume  change.  These  pitch  changes  are 
called  intonation  or  inflection  patterns.  They  may  be  worked  out 
schematically,  following  Klinghardt,  to  show  the  rise  and  fall  of 
pitch  within  phrases.  (See  Appendix,  p.  434.)  Formally  diagram- 
ming inflections,  however,  is  an  artificial  way  to  study  the  patterns 
of  good  speaking.  Something  can  be  learned,  of  course,  by  com- 
paring the  characteristic  intonations  of  different  types  of  speakers 
(as  for  example  in  examining  the  difference  between  an  American 
speaker  and  a  British  speaker  or  in  helping  a  foreigner  learn  Eng- 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  167 

lish  by  imitating  a  typical  English  speech  melody).  But  by  and 
large,  intelligent  interpretation  takes  care  of  most  inflectional 
patterns,  and  mechanical  stress  on  pitch  frequently  results  in  affec- 
tation. Richard  Whately,  in  his  Elements  of  Rhetoric  (1846),  said 
a  century  ago:  "Impress  the  mind  fully  with  the  sentiments,  etc., 
to  be  uttered;  withdraw  the  attention  from  the  sound,  and  fix  it 
on  the  sense;  and  nature,  or  habit,  will  spontaneously  suggest  the 
proper  delivery." 

THE  THREE  DIVISIONS  OF  PITCH.  It  is  enough  here  to  say  that  the 
three  chief  divisions  of  pitch  are  key,  the  average  pitch  from  which 
the  tone  rises  and  falls;  inflection,  the  gliding  of  the  voice  from 
one  pitch  to  another;  and  step,  the  change  in  pitch  between  words 
and  syllables,  within  pauses.  There  are  different  keys  for  the  same 
voice,  besides  the  natural  level,  usually  depending  011  the  emo- 
tional and  physical  condition  of  the  speaker  at  the  moment  of 
utterance.  For  example,  a  person  laboring  under  excitement  is 
likely  to  speak  in  a  higher  key  than  a  calmer  person,  and  a  person 
suffering  deep  grief  may  speak  in  a  lower  key.  Unless  the  speaker 
is  a  monotone,  however,  there  are  inflections  up  and  down,  no 
matter  what  the  key  is.  Upon  these  inflections  depends  much  of 
the  subtlety  of  speaking.  One  writer  describes  inflections  as  the 
most  "intellectual'*  of  the  modifications  of  the  voice.  Step  is  the 
typical  pitch  change  of  singing,  but  it  is  also  the  means  of  varia- 
tion between  words  and  phrases. 

The  good  speaker  must  learn  to  control  his  step  and  inflection 
patterns.  An  examination  of  casual  conversation  will  indicate  that, 
whatever  the  faults  of  voice  and  selection  of  words,  the  inflectional 
patterns  are  usually  rather  good.  In  reading,  however,  stiltedness 
or  singsong  rhythm  or  monotony  often  intrudes.  Attention  to 
meaning  and  an  honest  search  for  something  like  a  conversational 
manner  will  do  much  to  overcome  these  defects.  A  certain  amount 
of  deliberate  consideration  of  pitch  may  also,  in  some  cases,  be 
helpful. 

PITCH  FAULTS.  One  of  the  worst  faults  of  speech  is  pitch  monot- 
ony, which  is  the  result  of  insensitiveness  to  shades  of  meaning 
and  of  lack  of  emotional  response  to  what  is  being  said.  We  can 
speak  with  usually  unerring  inflections  when  we  ask  someone  to 
pass  the  salt  at  table  or  when  we  express  indignation  at  the  state 
of  the  weather.  Yet  many  of  us  may  read  the  same  words  with  a 
total  absence  of  inflectional  expression.  Such  mechanical  readers 


168  Reading  to  Others 

must  learn  to  bring  out  the  conversational  quality  in  their  own 
reading  and  speaking  and  to  observe  the  wide  range  of  pitch 
employed  by  good  radio  and  platform  speakers. 

There  are,  of  course,  many  people  who  simply  carry  over  a  long- 
established  habit  of  monotony  from  their  daily  speech  into  their 
reading.  Sometimes  these  are  what  are  called  monotones,  persons 
unable  to  carry  tunes  or  to  distinguish  between  raised  and  low- 
ered pitch.  They  provide  a  troublesome  problem  for  the  speech 
teacher,  who  must  usually  approach  the  subject  of  inflection  by 
making  them  feel  the  physical  difference  between  one  pitch  and 
another.  Scale  work  on  the  piano  and  tests  of  descending  and 
ascending  thirds  may  help  the  monotone.  Some  teachers  try  to 
establish  a  definite  impression  of  pitch  changes  on  pitch-deaf  stu- 
dents by  making  them  go  up  steps  for  a  raised  pitch  and  down 
for  a  lowered  pitch. 

Most  monotonous  speakers  are  simply  unobservant  or  emotion- 
ally inhibited  or  dull,  rather  than  tone  deaf.  They  must  learn  the 
value  of  energy  and  animation  in  speech.  Almost  never  is  the 
alert,  vigorous,  interested  speaker  monotonous.  And  the  place  to 
practice  is  not  merely  in  the  classroom  but  in  everyday  speaking 
situations. 

Just  as  objectionable  as  unvaried  pitch  level  is  unvaried  repeti- 
tion of  the  same  inflection  patterns.  Many  speakers  begin  and  end 
every  phrase  in  exactly  the  same  way,  usually  by  a  gradual  descent 
to  a  misleadingly  conclusive  inflection,  from  which  the  pitch  is 
despairingly  dragged  to  a  new  beginning  of  a  phrase  and  the 
process  repeated.  It  is  comparable  to  the  singsong  of  too  regu- 
larly stressed  words.  Any  form  of  overly  insistent  rhythm  or  un- 
relieved emphasis  is  likely  to  be  unpleasant  in  speech. 

Overinflection  is  one  of  the  manifestations  of  social  artificiality 
and  "piece  speaking."  Though  monotonous  voices  are  dreary,  some- 
times they  are  a  relief  from  the  excessive  brightness  and  affectation 
of  those  who  wave  around  in  octaves  of  graciousness,  the  "too- 
too!"  or  the  "oh,  my  dear!"  school.  What  we  are  seeking  in  this 
study  of  good  reading  is  the  conversational  norm,  which  is  suffi- 
ciently varied  in  pitch  to  be  interesting  but  not  overloaded  with 
cuteness  or  elegance  or  dramatic  intensity.  The  reading  of  poetry, 
however,  as  we  shall  see  later,  should  nearly  always  be  less  in- 
flected than  the  reading  of  prose  or  ordinary  speaking.  The  "feel" 
of  a  sentence  read  aloud  is  often  a  very  dependable  thing.  Don't 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  i6g 

force  your  inflections  into  what  you  think  a  teacher  wants,  if  it 
feels  wrong.  Recasting  the  sentence  in  your  own  words  and  listen- 
ing to  the  new  inflection  pattern  may  help  you.  Read  the  original 
sentence  in  the  pattern  of  your  sentence.  Nine  times  out  of  ten 
it  will  be  the  right  one. 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  INFLECTION.  Observe  the  variations  in 
the  pitch  patterns  of  skilful  speakers.  Notice  how  deftly  delicate 
shades  of  meaning  may  be  conveyed  by  adjustments  in  the  pitch 
level.  See  for  yourself  the  truth  of  Charles  H.  Woolbert's  state- 
ment that  "mastery  of  the  changes  of  pitch  is  man's  highest  com- 
municative achievement."  Realize  the  value  of  a  * 'forward-looking 
tone"  in  speaking  or  reading  aloud,  a  tone  which  seems  to  carry 
the  thought  interestingly  ahead  and  does  not  allow  it  to  fall  into 
the  dull  series  of  unrealized  conclusions  that  many  speakers 
habitually  use.  This  "forward-looking"  is  chiefly  the  result  of 
holding  up  inflections  except  at  the  logical  full  stops  and  except 
where  the  sense  dictates  dropped  inflections.  When  readers  lower 
their  pitch  lugubriously  at  every  pause,  they  create  the  impres- 
sion of  melancholy,  sometimes  suitable,  more  often  not. 

In  singing  there  is  little  use  of  inflection.  Changes  of  pitch  are 
effected  by  stepping  from  one  held  pitch  level  to  another.  Much 
of  the  bombastic  tone  of  the  "ministerial"  or  "stump"  type  of 
speaker  is  due  to  a  chanting  or  intonation  of  words  on  held  pitch 
levels,  which  change  only  in  steps,  without  adequate  inflection 
or  glide  from  one  pitch  to  another. 

This  gliding  is  the  most  important  characteristic  of  all  colorful, 
meaningful  voice  production.  Here  is  the  way  Somerset  Maugham 
describes  the  effect  of  a  voice  without  glides:  "The  most  remark- 
able thing  about  her  was  her  voice,  high,  metallic,  and  without 
inflection;  it  fell  on  the  ear  with  a  hard  monotony,  irritating  to  the 
nerves  like  the  pitiless  clamour  of  the  pneumatic  drill."  Speech 
that  lacks  varied,  wide-ranging  inflection  is  usually  dull  and  me- 
chanical, like  the  perfunctory  reading  of  children  not  interested 
in  books  or  that  of  very  bad  amateur  actors.  Have  you  ever  seen 
an  early  rehearsal  of  a  play  in  which  an  inexperienced  actor  has 
to  read  emotional  lines?  Embarrassed  by  the  requirement  to  feel 
what  he  says,  he  usually  suppresses  most  of  his  inflections  and 
speaks  in  a  flat,  insincere  tone.  Compare  the  inflections  of  the  boy 
coached  by  his  mother  to  say  to  a  hostess,  'Tve  had  a  very  nice 
time,  thank  you,"  and  the  inflections  of  the  same  boy  using  prac- 


Reading  to  Others 

tically  the  same  words  in  telling  someone  his  own  age  about  a 
trip.  Spontaneity,  genuineness,  alertness  of  mind,  poise,  vividness 
are  all  expressed  in  constantly  varied  inflection  patterns.  More- 
over, pitch  changes  are  closely  associated  with  the  clarity  of  the 
speaker's  thinking  and  with  his  ability  to  discriminate  intellectual 
values  and  to  indicate  the  relationships  of  ideas. 

Exercises 

Work  on  the  following  exercises,  always  seeking  interesting 
variations  in  pitch.  Remember  that  you  have  at  your  command 
about  two  octaves  of  pitch  changes.  Don't  be  satisfied  with  a  few 
often-repeated  inflections. 

1.  Closely  observe  the  constant  variation  in  inflection  patterns 
of  good  speakers.   President  Roosevelt's  voice  ranges  between  96 
and  256  vibrations  per  second.   The  average  speaker  should  have 
variation  of  pitch  that  extends  over  at  least  an  octave.   Notice  dif- 
ferences in  key,  inflection,  and  step,  observing  the  effect  of  each 
in  varying  interpretation.  Be  prepared  to  report  on  these  observa- 
tions in  class. 

2.  Test  the  range  of  your  voice  on  the  piano,  searching  for  the 
upper  and  lower  limits.  Remember  that  the  chanted  or  sung  tone 
is  held  on  a  sustained  pitch  and  is  not  a  true  speaking  tone. 

3.  Chant  [a],  [ou],  [D],  [u],  [i],  [ae]  first  through  an  octave  in 
steps,  then  inflecting  each  vowel  through  an  octave. 

4.  Reverse  Exercise  3,  chanting  first  in  steps  and  then  in  inflec- 
tions down  the  scale  from  the  middle  range  as  far  as  you  can 
comfortably  go. 

5.  Try  to  express  different  shades  of  meaning  by  changing  the 
inflection  of  the  following  words:   "Oh!"   "I  see!"   "Well!"   "So!" 
"No!"    "Yes!"   "Not  at  all!"   "Ah!" 

6.  Read  the  following  sentences  in  high,  normal,  and  low  keys, 
being  careful  to  make  frequent  changes  in  inflection,  determining 
the  most  appropriate  to  the  meaning: 

A.  The  funeral  procession  wound  slowly  up  the  grim  hill,  pausing 
frequently  for  breath. 

B.  We  all  jumped  into  the  canoes,  and  boy/  what  a  grand  time  we  had 
paddling  around  the  moonlit  lake/ 

c.   What  a  shame  it  is  that  his  mother  makes  such  a  baby  of  him. 
If  he  were  my  boy,  I  wouldn't  mollycoddle  him. 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  171 

D.  I  tell  you  I  saw  him  down  by  the  swamp  standing  beside  a  dead 
tree.  He  called  out  to  me,  but  I  was  afraid  and  ran  as  hard  as  I 
could  until  I  got  here. 

E.  Will  all  of  you  please  turn  to  page  64  and  carefully  read  the 
sentence  at  the  end  of  the  second  paragraph? 

F.  Was  THAT  a  party/  I'm  telling  you,  more  funny  things  happened 
that  night  than  I've  ever  seen  before  in  all  my  life. 

c.    I  have  something  serious  to  tell  you,  something  that  may  come 

as  a  shock.  Please  sit  down,  won't  you? 
H.    ''Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  on  this 

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

proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal."       ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
i.    So  you  thought  you  were  going  to  get  away,  did  you,  you  young 

whippersnapper? 
j.    'The  problem  which  confronts  the  modern  world  is  to  find  for 

itself  a  satisfactory  faith  and  a  philosophy  in  accord  with  reality/' 

ALDOUS  HUXLEY 
K.    "Versailles  is  filled  with  thousands  of  tons  of  statuary— very  neat, 

very  white,  and  overwhelmingly  reminiscent  of  coated  almonds." 

MARGARET  HALSEY 

7.  Read  the  following  passages,  looking  for  the  most  appro- 
priate keys  and  experimenting  with  a  wide  range  of  inflections 
and  steps,  but  avoiding  artificiality.  Too  much  inflection  is  almost 
as  bad  as  too  little. 

A.   God's  bread/  it  makes  me  mad. 

Day,  night,  hour,  tide,  time,  work,  play. 

Alone,  in  company,  still  my  care  hath  been 

To  have  her  matched;  and  having  now  provided 

A  gentleman  of  noble  parentage, 

Of  fair  demesnes,  youthful,  and  nobly  trained, 

Stuffed,  as  they  say,  with  honorable  parts, 

Proportioned  as  one's  thoughts  would  wish  a  man/ 

And  then  to  have  a  wretched  puling  fool, 

A  whining  mammet,  in  her  fortune's  tender, 

To  answer,  "I'll  not  wed;  I  cannot  love; 

I  am  too  young;  I  pray  you,  pardon  me." 

But,  an  you  will  not  wed,  I'll  pardon  you. 

Graze  where  you  will,  you  shall  not  house  with  me: 

Look  to  't,  think  on  't,  I  do  not  use  to  jest. 

Thursday  is  near;  lay  hand  on  heart;  advise. 

An  you  be  mine,  Til  give  you  to  my  friend; 


172  Reading  to  Others 

An  you  be  not,  hang,  beg,  starve,  die  in  the  streets. 
For  by  my  soul,  I'll  ne'er  acknowledge  thee. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  Romeo  and  Juliet 

B.  You  might  have  said,  dear  me,  there  are  a  thousand  things  .  .  . 
varying  the  tone  .  .  .  For  instance  .  .  .  here  you  are:— Aggressive:  "I, 
monsieur,  if  I  had  such  a  nose,  nothing  would  serve  but  I  must  cut  it 
off/"  Amicable:  "It  must  be  in  your  way  while  drinking;  you  ought  to 
have  a  special  beaker  made/"  Descriptive:  "It  is  a  crag/  ...  a  peak/ 
...  a  promontory/  ...  A  promontory,  did  I  say?  ...  It  is  a  penin- 
sula/" Inquisitive:  "What  may  the  office  be  of  that  oblong  receptacle? 
Is  it  an  inkhorn  or  a  scissor-case?"  Mincing:  "Do  you  so  dote  on  birds, 
you  have,  fond  as  a  father,  been  at  pains  to  fit  the  little  darlings  with 
a  roost?"  Blunt:  "Tell  me,  monsieur,  you,  when  you  smoke,  is  it  pos- 
sible you  blow  the  vapor  through  your  nose  without  a  neighbor  crying, 
The  chimney  is  afire'?"  Anxious:  "Go  with  caution,  I  beseech,  lest 
your  head,  dragged  over  by  that  weight,  should  drag  you  over/"  Tender: 
"Have  a  little  sunshade  made  for  it/  It  might  get  freckled/"  Learned: 
"None  but  the  beast,  monsieur,  mentioned  by  Aristophanes,  the  hip- 
pocampclephaiitocamelos,  can  have  borne  beneath  his  forehead  so  much 
cartilege  and  bone/"  Off-hand:  "What,  comrade,  is  that  sort  of  peg  in 
style?  Capital  to  hang  one's  hat  upon/"  Emphatic:  "No  wind  can  hope, 
O  lordly  nose,  to  give  the  whole  of  you  a  cold,  but  the  Nor- Wester/" 
Dramatic:  "It  is  the  Red  Sea  when  it  bleeds/"  Admiring:  "What  a  sign 
for  a  perfumer's  shop/"  Lyrical:  "Art  thou  a  Triton,  and  is  that  thy 
conch?"  Simple:  "A  monument/  When  is  admission  free?"  Deferent: 
"Suffer,  monsieur,  that  I  should  pay  you  my  respects:  that  is  what  I  call 
possessing  a  house  of  your  own/"  Rustic:  "Hi,  boys/  Call  that  a  nose? 
Ye  don't  gull  me/  It's  either  a  prize  carrot  or  else  a  stunted  gourd/" 
Military:  "Level  against  the  cavalry/"  Practical:  "Will  you  put  it  up 
for  raffle?  Indubitably,  sir,  it  will  be  the  feature  of  the  game/"  And 
finally  in  parody  of  weeping  Pyramus:  "Behold,  behold  the  nose  that 
traitorously  destroyed  the  beauty  of  its  master/  and  is  blushing  for  the 
same/"— That,  my  dear  sir,  or  something  not  unlike,  is  what  you  would 
have  said  to  me,  had  you  the  smallest  leaven  of  letters  or  of  wit;  but 
of  wit,  O  most  pitiable  of  objects  made  by  God,  you  never  had  a  rudi- 
ment, and  of  letters,  you  have  just  those  that  are  needed  to  spell  "Fool/" 

EDMUND  ROSTAND,  Cyrano  de  Bergerac 

c.  This  brave  and  tender  man  in  every  storm  of  life  was  oak  and 
rock,  but  in  the  sunshine  he  was  vine  and  flower.  He  was  the  friend 
of  all  heroic  souls.  He  climbed  the  heights  and  left  all  superstitions 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  173 

here  below,  while  on  his  forehead  fell  the  golden  dawning  of  a  grander 
day.  He  loved  the  beautiful,  and  was  with  color,  form,  and  music 
touched  to  tears.  He  sided  with  the  weak,  the  poor,  the  wronged,  and 
lovingly  gave  alms.  With  loyal  heart  and  with  purest  hands  he  faith- 
fully discharged  all  public  trusts.  He  was  a  worshiper  of  liberty  and  a 
friend  of  the  oppressed.  A  thousand  times  I  have  heard  him  quote  these 
words:  'Tor  justice,  all  place  a  temple,  and  all  season,  summer."  He 
believed  that  happiness  was  the  only  good,  reason  the  only  torch,  justice 
the  only  worship,  humanity  the  only  religion,  and  love  the  only  priest. 
He  added  to  the  sum  of  human  joy,  and  were  everyone  for  whom  he  did 
some  loving  service  to  bring  a  blossom  to  his  grave,  he  would  sleep 
to-night  beneath  a  wilderness  of  flowers. 

Life  is  a  narrow  vale  between  the  cold  and  barren  peaks  of  two  eterni- 
ties. We  strive  in  vain  to  look  beyond  the  heights.  We  cry  aloud,  and 
the  only  answer  is  the  echo  of  our  wailing  cry.  From  the  voiceless  lips 
of  the  unreplying  dead,  there  comes  no  word;  but  in  the  night  of  death, 
hope  sees  a  star,  and  listening  love  can  hear  the  rustle  of  a  wing. 

He  who  sleeps  here,  when  dying,  mistaking  the  approach  of  death 
for  the  return  of  health,  whispered  with  his  latest  breath:  "I  am  bet- 
ter now/'  Let  us  believe,  in  spite  of  doubts  and  dogmas,  of  fears  and 
tears,  these  dear  words  are  true  of  all  the  countless  dead. 

ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL,  Eulogy  at  His  Brother's  Grave 

D.  I  was  angry  and  alarmed,  on  arriving  in  London,  to  discover  that 
the  old  world  of  comfort,  pleasure,  taste,  diversion  and  amusement  still 
powerfully  appealed  to  me;  that  the  misery  of  nine  tenths  of  the  human 
race  could  seem  dim  and  distant  when  considered  from  the  midst  of  a 
well-supplied  bourgeois  dining  room;  that  the  things  a  Bolshevik  .  .  . 
had  to  give  up  were  things  I  valued.  The  material  seductiveness  of  the 
bourgeois  world  was  strengthened  by  an  attack  on  the  revolutionary 
idea  itself:  I  was  always  having  /.  M.  Keynes  quoted  at  me,  and  being 
told  that  the  waste  of  life  and  wealth  (i.e.,  productive  machinery)  inci- 
dental to  revolutions  was  uneconomic.  My  English  friends,  who  were 
not  themselves  doing  a  thing  to  bring  about  the  social  rearrangement, 
always  assured  me  that  the  rearrangement  would  take  place;  only,  they 
said,  it  would  take  place  in  an  orderly  democratic  fashion  under  the  par- 
liamentary tradition.  They  pointed  to  their  advanced  social  legislation— 
unemployment  insurance;  death  duties  and  income  taxes  scaled  up  to 
attack  accumulations  of  capital;  their  pension  system  and  the  rest— as 
a  proof  of  the  capacity  of  a  capitalist  state  to  submit  to  orderly,  progres- 
sive reformation.  That  these  arrangements  were,  after  all,  at  the  mercy 
of  political  accident,  and  that  the  so-called  "social  legislation"  of  bour- 


174  Reading  to  Others 

geois  governments  could  not  possibly  protect  the  workers  against  the 
results  of  such  crises  as  war,  over-production  and  speculation  (the  char- 
acteristic crises  of  capitalism  according  to  the  Marxist  view)  were  objec- 
tions ruled  out  by  the  Englishmen  I  knew  with  a  succinct  phrase:  "You 
want  too  much." 

VINCENT  SHEEAN,  Personal  History 

E.  Children  are  poetic.  They  love  to  feel  of  things.  I  suppose  it  is 
necessary  to  their  preservation  that  they  should  be,  for  by  random  exer- 
cise of  their  organs  of  feeling  they  develop  them  and  make  them  fit  for 
their  practical  function.  But  that  is  not  the  chief  reason  why  they  are 
poetic;  the  chief  reason  is  that  they  are  not  practical.  They  have  not  yet 
felt  the  necessity,  or  got  addicted  to  the  trick,  of  formulating  a  purpose 
and  then  -achieving  it.  Therefore,  this  naive  impulse  of  nature,  the  im- 
pulse toward  realization,  is  free  in  them.  Moreover,  it  is  easy  of  satis- 
faction. It  is  easy  for  children  to  taste  the  qualities  of  experience, 
because  experience  is  new,  and  its  qualities  are  but  loosely  bound  to- 
gether into  what  we  call  "Things."  Each  is  concrete,  particular,  unique, 
and  without  an  habitual  use. 

Babies  have  no  thought,  we  may  say,  but  to  feel  after  and  find  the 
world,  bringing  it  so  far  as  possible  to  their  mouths  where  it  becomes 
poignant.  They  become  absorbed  in  friendship  with  the  water  they 
bathe  in.  The  crumple  noise  of  papers  puts  them  in  ecstasy,  and  later 
all  smells  and  sounds,  brightness,  and  color,  and  form,  and  motion, 
delight  them.  We  can  see  them  discover  light  by  putting  their  hands 
before  their  eyes  and  taking  them  away  quickly,  and  again,  at  a  later 
age,  discover  sound  by  stopping  their  ears  and  opening  them  again. 

Who  does  not  remember  in  his  own  childhood  testing  the  flavors  of 
things— of  words,  perhaps,  saying  them  over  and  over  until  he  had  de- 
feated his  own  wish,  for  they  became  pulpy  and  ridiculous  in  his  mouth? 
Anything  which  invades  the  sense  like  cinnamon,  or  sorrel,  or  neat 
flowers,  or  birds'  eggs,  or  a  nut,  or  a  horn,  is  an  object  of  peculiar  aflec- 
tion.  It  is  customary  in  books  about  children  to  say  that  they  care  little 
for  the  actual  qualities  of  an  object,  and  are  able  to  deal  with  it  as 
though  it  were  anything  that  they  choose  to  imagine.  But  I  think  only 
the  positive  part  of  this  statement  is  true.  Undoubtedly  their  imagina- 
tions are  active  in  more  various  directions,  and  they  draw  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  real  and  the  ideal  in  perception  less  clearly  than 
grown-up  people  do.  But  the  most  pronounced  characteristic  of  chil- 
dren is  that  they  are  perfectly  free  to  feel  the  intrinsic  qualities  of  things 
as  they  merely  are.  What  we  call  objects  are  for  the  most  part  prac- 
tically determined  coordinations  of  qualities.  And  what  we  call  the 


Controlling  Volume  and  Pitch  175 

ACTUAL  quality  of  an  object  is  usually  the  quality  which  indicates  its 
vital  use.  When  we  say  actual,  therefore,  we  really  mean  practical.  But 
so  far  as  actuality  from  the  standpoint  of  the  things  is  concerned,  the 
children  come  nearer  to  it,  and  care  more  about  it,  then  we  do.  To  us 
a  derby  hat  is  for  covering  the  head,  and  that  is  about  all  it  is;  but  to 
them  it  is  hard,  smooth,  hollow,  deep,  funny,  and  may  be  named  after 
the  mixing-bowl  and  employed  accordingly.  And  so  it  is  with  all  things. 
The  child  loves  a  gem  with  its  pure  and  serene  ray,  as  the  poet  loves  it, 
for  its  own  sake. 

MAX  EASTMAN,  The  Enjoyment  of  Poetry 

F.  It  is  humiliating  that  I  cannot  get  through  one  single  day  without 
wounding  or  lightly  abrading  the  sensibility  of  others,  without  wasting 
time  and  brain-power  on  thoughts  that  I  do  not  desire  to  think,  without 
yielding  to  appetites  that  I  despise/  I  am  so  wrapped  up  in  myself  that 
I,  if  any  one,  ought  to  succeed  in  a  relative  self-perfection.  I  aim  at  as 
much,  from  love  of  perfection  and  scorn  of  inefficiency  as  for  my  own 
happiness.  I  honestly  think  I  care  quite  as  much  for  other  people's  hap- 
piness as  for  my  own;  and  that  is  not  saying  much  for  my  love  of  my 
own  happiness.  Love  of  justice,  more  than  outraged  sensibility  at  the 
spectacle  of  suffering  and  cruelty,  prompts  me  to  support  social  reforms. 
I  can  and  do  look  at  suffering  with  scientific  (artistic)  coldness.  I  do  not 
care.  I  am  above  it.  But  I  want  to  hasten  justice,  for  its  own  sake.  I 
think  this  is  fairly  sincere;  perhaps  not  quite.  I  don't  think  I  scorn  peo- 
ple; I  have  none  of  that  scorn  of  inferior  people  (i.e.,  of  the  vast  majority 
of  people)  which  is  seen  in  many  great  men.  I  think  my  view  is  greater 
than  theirs.  Clumsiness  in  living  is  what  I  scorn:  systems,  not  people. 
And  even  systems  I  can  excuse  and  justify  to  myself.  No,  my  leading 
sentiment  is  my  own  real  superiority,  not  the  inferiority  of  others.  It 
depends  on  how  you  look  at  it. 

ARNOLD  BENNETT,  The  Journal, 
May  23,  1908 


CHAPTER       6 


«  nr  7 

mprovms  1  empo  and 

u&lity 


WE  HA  VE  discussed  the  amount  of 
sound  a  speaker  makes  and  its  effective  or  detrimental  use.  We 
have  also  briefly  investigated  the  pitch  pattern  of  his  voice  and 
its  application  to  pleasing  speech.  Now  we  shall  consider  the 
remaining  elements  of  voice,  tempo,  and  quality. 


TEMPO 

The  third  element  of  voice  is  tempo  (time),  which  is  not,  like 
volume,  pitch,  and  quality,  dependent  on  the  vocal  mechanism. 
Tempo  is  first  of  all  the  rate  of  speed  at  which  sounds  are  pro- 
duced, literally  the  number  of  words  per  minute.  Secondly,  it 
is  the  use  of  pause,  which  serves  to  punctuate  reading,  to  assist  in 
the  clarification  of  meaning  by  marking  off  logical  phrases  and 
breath  groups,  and  to  indicate  special  emphasis.  Thirdly,  it  is 
quantity,  the  duration  of  sound  in  the  formation  of  words  and 
parts  of  words.  Finally,  it  is  the  chief  element  in  rhythm. 

RATE.  Everyone  speaks  at  a  characteristic  rate,  very  much  as 
everyone  has  a  normal  level  of  pitch.  Like  pitch,  too,  rate  is  likely 
to  increase  or  decrease  according  to  the  emotional  state  of  the 
speaker.  Under  excitement  we  tend  to  speak  more  rapidly  and 
more  shrilly.  In  sober  mood  we  both  slow  our  rate  of  utterance 
and  lower  our  key.  Serious  ideas,  tragic  drama,  reflective  poetry 
are  all  best  expressed  slowly;  gay  thought,  comedy,  light  lyrics  are 
swifter.  Phlegmatic  people  usually  speak  slowly,  nervous  people 
swiftly.  In  the  United  States  northerners  in  general  speak  more 

176 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  177 

rapidly  than  southerners.  French  and  Italian  speakers  articulate 
faster  than  the  Germans  and  English. 

An  average  rate  of  140  words  a  minute  is  considered  a  satisfac- 
tory speed  for  speech.  Possessors  of  very  crisp  enunciation,  how- 
ever, can  go  faster  and  still  be  clear.  On  the  other  hand,  those 
with  poor  enunciation  cannot  be  understood  at  even  a  slower 
pace.  Some  radio  announcers  have  made  reputations  as  very  fast 
speakers.  The  late  Floyd  Gibbons  was  proud  of  his  average  of 
220  words  a  minute,  and  a  few  sports  announcers  have  an  even 
higher  rate.  Such  speed  however  is  hard  on  both  the  speaker  and 
the  listener  and  is  seldom  truly  effective.  Franklin  D.  Roosevelt 
speaks  from  1 10  to  134  words  per  minute.  In  general,  good  speak- 
ers stay  under  150  words  per  minute,  except  for  special  emphasis. 

Most  speakers  and  readers  go  too  fast  to  be  fully  understood 
by  their  audiences.  They  fail  to  realize  that  comprehension  of 
heard  ideas  necessarily  lags  behind  comprehension  of  read  ideas 
because  the  ear  does  not  take  in  groups  of  words  as  rapidly  as  the 
eye  does.  An  audience  must  be  given  time  to  assimilate  each  group 
of  words  before  the  speaker  goes  on  to  the  next.  On  the  other 
hand,  of  course,  the  speaker  who  is  too  deliberate  either  annoys 
or  antagonizes  his  audience. 

It  is  possible  that  in  the  reading  of  some  writers,  like  William 
Faulkner  and  James  Joyce,  an  interpreter  will  most  successfully 
get  an  impressionistic  or  symbolic  point  by  skimming,  avoiding 
most  of  the  customary  phrases,  almost  in  a  monotone.  In  Chap- 
ter 2  you  were  advised  to  read  a  passage  from  Joyce  slowly, 
trying  to  work  out  his  meanings.  Now  go  back  and  try  that  pas- 
sage (on  p.  106)  swiftly,  not  bothering  with  full  comprehension, 
following  the  images  in  the  flitting  way  that  the  mind  receives 
impressions.  Does  it  make  any  difference  in  the  interpretation? 
Do  you  like  it  any  better?  Religious  "exhorters"  and  political 
spellbinders  like  Hitler  often  make  use  of  this  device  of  arousing- 
emotion  more  through  the  rhythm  and  passion  of  words  than 
through  meaning,  speaking  in  unintelligible  swiftness,  with  ca- 
dences and  occasional  key  ideas  marked.  This  is  not,  however, 
the  method  of  good  reading  (except  perhaps  of  non-realistic 
material). 

More  important  than  either  slowness  or  rapidity  of  speech  is 
variation  of  rate.  There  is  no  monotony  more  deadly  than  unre- 
lieved tempo  in  speaking.  The  swift  speaker  may  go  faster  than 


178  Reading  to  Others 

his  audience  can  think,  and  the  slow  speaker  may  get  his  next 
word  long  after  most  of  his  audience  have  already  mentally  sup- 
plied it,  but  if  they  change  their  pace  frequently,  much  may  be  for- 
given them.  The  only  unpardonable  sin  in  speaking  is  monotony. 
In  the  reading  of  poetry,  variations  in  tempo  are  of  greater 
importance  than  variations  in  pitch.  That  is,  the  pitch-level  of 
poetry  may  be  more  or  less  sustained,  in  some  good  reading  even 
approaching  a  chant.  Most  poets  reading  their  own  poems  come 
very  close  to  chanting  them.  The  pitch  variations  of  poetry  are 
certainly  fewer,  though  perhaps  more  pronounced,  than  those  of 
prose.  The  reader  of  poetry,  therefore,  must  be  doubly  careful  to 
make  frequent  changes  in  tempo  (in  pause  and  quantity,  as  well 
as  in  rate).  In  so  doing  he  should  be  able  to  avoid  overemphasis 
on  force,  which  is  often  the  beating  out  of  metrical  rhythm,  and 
on  too  great  a  variety  of  pitch  changes,  without  being  monotonous. 
If  pitch  variation  is  primarily  intellectual,  time  variation  is  pri- 
marily emotional. 

Exercises 

i.    Read  the  following  passages  slowly,  at  medium  speed,  then 
fast.    Determine  for  yourself  the  most  suitable  tempo. 

A.  Mother  wants  you  to  go  to  the  store  /list  as  fast  as  you  can  go. 
Hurry  up/ 

B.  Inspector,  the  man  is  dead,  shot  through  the  back.  It  looks  like  a 
murder  case. 

c.  "There  was  a  South  of  slavery  and  secession— that  South  is  dead. 
There  is  a  South  of  union  and  freedom—that  South,  thank  God, 
is  living,  breathing,  growing  every  hour/*  BENJAMIN  HILL 

D.  "She  was  small  of  her  age,  with  no  glow  of  complexion,  nor  any 
other  striking  beauty;  exceedingly  timid  and  shy,  and  shrinking 
from  notice;  but  her  air,  though  awkward,  was  not  vulgar,  her  voice 
was  sweet,  and  when  she  spoke  her  countenance  was  pretty." 

JANE  AUSTEN 

E.   Blow,  winds,  and  crack  your  cheeks/  rage/  blow! 
You  cataracts  and  hurricanoes,  spout 
Till  you  have  drench'd  our  steeples,  drown  d  the  cocks! 
You  sulphurous  and  thought-executing  fires, 
Vaunt-couriers  to  oak-cleaving  thunderbolts, 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  179 

Singe  my  w/iite  head/  And  thou,  all-shaking  thunder, 
Strike  flat  the  thick  rotundity  o'  the  world/ 
Crack  nature's  moulds,  all  germens  spill  at  once, 
That  make  ingrateful  man. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  King  Lear 

2.  Read  the  sentences  on  pp.  170  and  171,  under  Exercises 
lor  Pitch,  observing  the  differences  in  rate  as  well  as  in  pitch. 

3.  Read  the  following  passages,  constantly  varying  the  tempo, 
being  careful  not  to  read  too  fast,  but  suiting  the  rate  to  the 
probable  mood  of  the  writer. 

A.   Here,  where  the  world  is  quiet, 

Here,  where  all  trouble  seems 
Dead  winds'  and  spent  waves'  riot 

In  doubtful  dreams  of  dreams; 
I  watch  the  green  field  growing 
For  reaping  folk  and  sowing, 
For  harvest  time  and  mowing, 

A  sleepy  world  of  streams. 

I  am  tired  of  tears  and  laughter, 

And  men  that  laugh  and  weep; 
Of  what  may  come  hereafter 

For  men  that  sow  to  reap: 
I  am  weary  of  days  and  hours, 
Blown  buds  of  barren  flowers, 
Desires  and  dreams  and  powers 

And  everything  but  sleep. 

Here  life  has  death  for  neighbour, 

And  far  from  eye  or  ear 
Wan  waves  and  wet  winds  labour, 

Weak  ships  and  spirits  steer; 
They  drive  adrift,  and  whither 
They  wot  not  who  make  thither; 
But  no  such  winds  blow  hither, 

And  no  such  things  grow  here  .  .  . 

We  are  not  sure  of  sorrow, 

And  ;oy  was  never  sure; 
To-day  will  die  to-morrow; 

Time  stoops  to  no  man's  lure; 


180  Reading  to  Others 

And  love,  grown  faint  and  fretful, 
With  lips  but  half  regretful, 
Sighs,  and  with  eyes  forgetful 
Weeps  that  no  loves  endure. 

From  too  much  love  of  living, 

From  hope  and  fear  set  free, 
We  thank  with  brief  thanksgiving 

Whatever  gods  may  be 
That  no  life  lives  for  ever; 
That  dead  men  rise  up  never; 
That  even  the  weariest  river 

Winds  somewhere  safe  to  sea. 

Then  star  nor  sun  shall  waken, 

Nor  any  change  of  light: 
Nor  sound  of  waters  shaken, 

Nor  any  sound  or  sight: 
Nor  wintry  leaves  nor  vernal, 
Nor  days  nor  things  diurnal; 
Only  the  sleep  eternal 

In  an  eternal  night. 

ALGERNON  SWINBURNE,  The  Garden  of  Proserpine 


Two  roads  diverged  in  a  yellow  wood, 
And  sorry  I  could  not  travel  both 
And  be  one  traveler,  long  I  stood 
And  looked  down  one  as  far  as  I  could 
To  where  it  bent  in  the  undergrowth; 

Then  took  the  other,  as  just  as  fair, 
And  having  perhaps  the  better  claim, 
Because  it  was  grassy  and  wanted  wear; 
Though  as  for  that  the  passing  there 
Had  worn  them  really  about  the  same, 

And  both  that  morning  equally  lay 
In  leaves  no  step  had  trodden  black. 
Oh,  I  kept  the  first  for  another  day/ 
Yet  knowing  how  way  leads  on  to  way, 
I  doubted  if  I  should  ever  come  back. 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  181 

I  shall  be  telling  this  with  a  sigh 
Somewhere  ages  and  ages  hence: 
Two  roads  diverged  in  a  wood,  and  I— 
I  took  the  one  less  traveled  by, 
And  that  has  made  all  the  difference. 

ROBERT  FROST,  The  Road  Not  Taken 

c.  It  will  be  all  the  easier  for  us  to  conduct  ourselves  as  belligerents 
in  a  high  spirit  of  right  and  fairness  because  we  act  without  animus,  not 
in  enmity  towards  a  people  or  with  the  desire  to  bring  any  injury  or 
disadvantage  upon  them,  but  only  in  armed  opposition  to  an  irrespon- 
sible government  which  has  thrown  aside  all  considerations  of  humanity 
and  of  right  and  is  running  amuck.  We  are,  let  me  say  again,  the  sin- 
cere friends  of  the  German  people,  and  shall  desire  nothing  so  much  as 
the  early  reestablishment  of  intimate  relations  of  mutual  advantage  be- 
tween us — however  hard  it  may  be  for  them,  for  the  time  being,  to 
believe  that  this  is  spoken  from  our  hearts.  We  have  borne  with  their 
present  Government  through  all  these  bitter  months  because  of  that 
friendship — exercising  a  patience  and  forbearance  which  would  other- 
wise have  been  impossible.  We  shall,  happily,  still  have  an  opportunity 
to  prove  that  friendship  in  our  daily  attitude  and  actions  towards  the 
millions  of  men  and  women  of  German  birth  and  native  sympathy  who 
live  amongst  us  and  share  our  life,  and  we  shall  be  proud  to  prove  it 
towards  all  who  are  in  fact  loyal  to  their  neighbors  and  to  the  Govern- 
ment in  the  hour  of  test.  They  are,  most  of  them,  as  true  and  loyal 
Americans  as  if  they  had  never  known  an}'  other  fealty  or  allegiance. 
They  will  be  prompt  to  stand  with  us  in  rebuking  and  restraining  the 
few  who  may  be  of  a  different  mind  and  purpose.  If  there  should  be 
disloyalty,  it  will  be  dealt  with  with  a  firm  hand  of  stern  repression;  but, 
if  it  lifts  its  head  at  all,  it  will  lift  it  only  here  and  there  and  without 
countenance  except  from  a  lawless  and  malignant  few. 

It  is  a  distressing  and  oppressive  duty,  Gentlemen  of  the  Congress, 
which  I  have  performed  in  thus  addressing  you.  There  are,  it  may  be, 
many  months  of  fiery  trial  and  sacrifice  ahead  of  us.  It  is  a  fearful  thing 
to  lead  this  great  peaceful  people  into  war,  into  the  most  terrible  and 
disastrous  of  all  wars,  civilization  itself  seeming  to  be  in  the  balance. 
But  the  right  is  more  precious  than  peace,  and  we  shall  fight  for  the 
things  which  we  have  always  carried  nearest  our  hearts— for  democracy, 
for  the  right  of  those  who  submit  to  authority  to  have  a  voice  in  their 
own  Governments,  for  the  rights  and  liberties  of  small  nations,  for  a 
universal  dominion  of  right  by  such  a  concert  of  free  peoples  as  shall 
bring  peace  and  safety  to  all  nations  and  make  the  world  itself  at  last 


i8a  Reading  to  Others 

free.  To  such  a  task  we  can  dedicate  our  lives  and  our  fortunes,  every- 
thing that  we  are  and  everything  that  we  have,  with  the  pride  of  those 
who  know  that  the  day  has  come  when  America  is  privileged  to  spend 
her  blood  and  her  might  for  the  principles  that  gave  her  birth  and  hap- 
piness and  the  peace  which  she  has  treasured.  God  helping  her,  she  can 
do  no  other. 

WOODROW  WILSON,  War  Message 

D.  No  man  has  ever  had  a  finer  birthday  remembrance  from  his 
friends  and  fellows  than  you  have  given  me  to-night.  It  is  with  a  hum- 
ble and  thankful  heart  that  I  accept  this  tribute  through  me  to  the 
stricken  ones  of  our  great  national  family.   I  thank  you,  but  lack  the 
words  to  tell  you  how  deeply  I  appreciate  what  you  have  done,  and  I 
bid  you  good  night  on  what  to  me  is  the  happiest  birthday  I  ever  have 
known. 

FRANKLIN  ROOSEVELT,  Speech,  Jan.  30,  1934 

E.  One  morning  after  breakfast,  to  get  out  of  the  heat,  I  took  up  a 
Nieuport.   The  only  thing  f  had  ever  noticed  that  was  particularly  dif- 
ficult about  Nieuports,  was  their  habit  of  slewing  right  or  left  the  instant 
their  wheels  touched  the  ground,  when  the  torque  counter-action  came 
off.  But  this  one  must  have  been  tricky,  or  perhaps  it  was  that  unbeliev- 
able heat  and  thin  air.  At  any  rate,  at  four  hundred  feet  J  found  myself 
in  a  violent  spin. 

There  was  a  Flying  Corps  commandment  in  Egypt  that  no  one  should 
turn  a  scout  below  five  hundred  feet  in  taking  off.  But  on  this  frying 
morning,  as  I  walked  out  to  the  bus,  a  group  of  bored  people  in  the 
shade  of  a  hanger,  said:  "Give  us  something  to  look  at/' 

I  took  off  in  a  climbing  turn.  It  was  at  about  four  hundred  that  I  felt 
that  slew  and  wrench  that  told  me  I  was  spinning.  It  all  happened  so 
quickly  that  I  did  not  have  time  to  think  over  my  past  life,  as  people  are 
supposed  to  do  when  facing  death;  I  did  not  have  time  enough  even  to 
be  frightened.  I  simply  knew  that  this  was  IT!  And  it  was  happening 
to  ME/  I  would  end  up  with  a  crankshaft  through  my  chest  as  many 
of  my  friends  had  done. 

"Your  engine  has  failed/"  my  brain  roared  to  my  heart.  "Open  her 
up  wide  and  dive  for  it!" 

So  I  opened  the  bus  up  full  wide  and  tried  to  dive  out  of  it.  It  was 
a  futile  attempt,  because  I  couldn't  have  been  a  hundred  feet  up.  But 
that  was  the  thing  that  saved  me.  Just  as  the  sands  swirled  into  my  face, 
I  heard  a  crash  like  the  sound  of  a  peach-crate  smashing  before  I  passed 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  183 

into  the  darkness.  J  went  clean  through  the  bus,  the  crankshaft  passing 
under  my  arm,  to  end  up  against  the  sharp  fins  of  the  rotary  cylinders. 

NEGLEY  PARSON,  The  Way  of  a  Transgressor 

PAUSE.  For  most  newcomers  to  the  study  of  speech  the  hardest 
thing  to  acquire  is  the  courage  to  pause.  To  the  timid  speaker  or 
reader  silences  are  terrible.  They  rush  on,  therefore,  heedless  of 
nothing  but  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  air  full  of  sound  waves, 
taking  fresh  breath  on  the  fly,  and  stopping  only  at  the  blessed 
final  word.  Then  they  sit  down  panting  and  nervous,  having  out- 
stripped meaning,  effective  expression,  and  the  audience's  ability 
to  follow.  Fear  alone  keeps  pace  with  them,  growing  stronger  in 
the  panic  of  flight.  If  for  a  stricken  moment  no  sound  comes,  they 
fill  in  the  gap  with  an  "ah,"  which  promptly  becomes  an  insistent, 
repeated  grunt. 

Pause,  judiciously  used,  is  first  of  all  a  weapon  against  stage 
fright.  The  good  speaker,  before  he  launches  into  his  discourse, 
takes  time  to  gather  his  forces  about  him.  He  looks  at  his  audi- 
ence appraisingly,  gets  a  couple  of  good  deep  breaths,  and  then 
begins.  He  is  avoiding  the  psychological  effect  of  yielding  to  his 
natural  impulse  to  be  afraid.  When  a  small  boy,  sent  to  the  cellar 
for  something,  turns  his  back  on  a  dark  corner  and  starts  upstairs, 
he  may  either  run  like  the  mischief  and  get  back  to  the  light 
trembling,  or  he  may  compel  himself  to  walk  slowly,  sternly  crush- 
ing his  fear  of  cobras  and  lurking  pirates.  We  apply  the  same 
psychological  law  of  emotion  when  we  make  ourselves  count 
ten  before  we  say  the  bitter  or  angry  word.  In  the  moment  of 
pause  we  may  think  better  of  our  anger  or  our  fear  and  adjust 
ourselves  physically  and  mentally  to  the  situation. 

In  the  second  place,  pause  is  an  important  aid  in  interpreta- 
tion. When  we  read  silently,  we  recognize  visual  interruptions, 
punctuation  marks,  indentations,  paragraph  endings,  which  clarify 
meanings  and  indicate  the  relationships  of  parts.  Unless  the  reader 
or  speaker,  through  change  of  tempo,  volume,  pitch,  and  tone 
color,  and,  especially,  by  intelligent  and  meaningful  pauses,  marks 
off  punctuation  and  expresses  the  relationships  between  groups  of 
words,  the  hearer  may  be  thoroughly  confused.  Pauses  are  the 
indicators  of  phrasing,  as  has  been  explained  in  Chapter  i. 


184  Reading  to  Others 

In  the  third  place,  pause  is  a  means  of  emphasis  in  itself.  It  is 
the  chief  means  of  creating  suspense  within  the  phrase.  Deliber- 
ately pausing  before  a  word  awakens  curiosity  in  the  hearer,  who 
wonders  what  is  to  come.  We  often  read  in  novels  sentences  like 
"He  paused  significantly"  and  "There  was  an  eloquent  pause" 
and  "She  paused  dramatically."  These  are  examples  of  different 
values  of  silence  during  speech.  Much  of  the  force  of  what  we 
say  depends  upon  how  we  look,  what  we  do,  and  how  long 
we  make  a  listener  wait  during  our  pauses.  The  speaker  whose 
pauses  drag  is  probably  hesitating  rather  than  pausing  (and  there 
is  a  difference!).  The  good  interpreter  is  fully  aware  that  phrases, 
which  are  the  basic  unit  of  interpretation,  should  be  a  continu- 
ous flow  of  sound,  begun  and  ended  with  pauses,  and  interrupted 
only  for  the  sake  of  intentional  emphasis. 

Exercises 

Reread  the  section  in  Chapter  i,  Interpreting  Meaning  (pp. 
30-33),  which  deals  with  phrasing.  Then  interpret  aloud  the  fol- 
lowing passages,  with  special  attention  to  the  pauses.  Try  them 
first  with  few  pauses,  then  with  many,  and  decide  which  method 
is  more  suitable  to  each  selection: 

i.  A  ship  captain  is  a  good  man  to  marry  if  it  is  a  marriage  of  love, 
for  absences  are  a  good  influence  in  love  and  keep  it  bright  and  delicate; 
but  he  is  just  the  worst  man  if  the  feeling  is  more  pedestrian,  as  habit 
is  too  frequently  torn  open  and  the  solder  has  never  time  to  set.  Men 
who  fish,  botanize,  work  with  the  turning-lathe,  or  gather  seaweeds,  will 
make  admirable  husbands;  and  a  little  amateur  painting  in  water-color 
shows  the  innocent  and  quiet  mind.  Those  who  have  a  few  intimates  are 
to  be  avoided;  while  those  who  swim  loose,  who  have  their  hat  in  their 
hand  all  along  the  street,  who  can  number  an  infinity  of  acquaintances 
and  are  not  chargeable  with  any  one  friend,  promise  an  easy  disposition 
and  no  rival  to  the  wife's  influence.  I  will  not  say  they  are  the  best  of 
men,  but  they  are  the  stuff  out  of  which  adroit  and  capable  women 
manufacture  the  best  of  husbands.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  those  who 
have  loved  once  or  twice  already  are  so  much  the  better  educated  to  a 
woman's  hand;  the  bright  boy  of  fiction  is  an  odd  and  most  uncom- 
fortable mixture  of  shyness  and  coarseness,  and  needs  a  deal  of  civilizing. 
Lastly  (and  this  is,  perhaps,  the  golden  rule),  no  woman  should  marry 
a  teetotaler,  or  a  man  who  does  not  smoke.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that 
this  "ignoble  tabagie,"  as  Michelet  calls  it,  spreads  over  all  the  world. 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  185 

Michelet  rails  against  it  because  it  renders  you  happy  apart  from  thought 
or  work;  to  provident  women  this  will  seem  no  evil  influence  in  married 
life.  Whatever  keeps  a  man  in  the  front  garden,  whatever  checks  wan- 
dering fancy  and  all  inordinate  ambition,  whatever  makes  for  lounging 
and  contentment,  makes  just  so  surely  for  domestic  happiness. 

ROBERT  Louis  STEVENSON,  Virginibus  Puerisque 

2.  We  were  near  enough  even  to  blackguard  one  another.  Some  of 
the  JBoches  used  to  shout  insults  at  us  at  night.  Nothing  very  serious — 
rather  like  the  rude  jokes  that  fly  about  between  two  gangs  of  boys,  two 
classes  at  school,  two  dormitories.  Since  there  was  a  good  deal  of  foliage 
still  left  in  the  wood  (it  was  eventually  thinned  out  a  good  deal  by  gun- 
fire), some  of  the  Germans  had  a  way  of  climbing  the  trees  and  sniping 
into  our  trenches.  Our  fellows  paid  them  out  by  crawling  out  after  dark 
on  all  fours  and  throwing  grenades  into  their  lines.  You  remember  at 
school,  how  we  used  to  shout  at  each  other  from  our  study  windows? 
Well,  it  was  all  rather  like  that.  In  Haudromont  Valley  the  game  used 
to  result,  as  a  rule,  in  a  few  dead  on  either  side.  But  that  was  because 
the  two  gangs  of  boys  concerned  happened  to  be  playing  with  real  rifles, 
with  live  grenades,  and  with  bombs  that  could  blow  a  man  to  pieces. 
What  one's  apt  to  forget  in  thinking  about  this  war  is  that,  for  the  most 
part,  it's  being  conducted  by  very  young  men.  A  few  fathers  of  families 
pull  it  back  to  a  serious  level,  contribute  a  bit  of  humbug,  but  they're  the 
exceptions:  they  don't  set  the  tone.  The  young  fellows  soon  get  used  to 
the  dirt,  the  crudity,  the  Lick  of  comfort.  They  don't  bother  about  the 
future,  and  they're  not  easily  moved  to  compassion.  They  can  be  fierce 
with  a  grin  on  their  lips.  .  .  .  One  day  the  ration  parties  of  I  don't  know 
how  many  units  were  blown  to  bits  with  the  limbers  round  which  they 
were  waiting  for  the  night's  issue.  That  was  the  beginning  of  a  frightful 
time.  Movement  of  any  kind  became  almost  impossible.  We  were  three 
days  without  food,  and  we  had  practically  no  reserve  rations  to  fall  back 
on.  Men  don't  die  of  hunger,  I  agree,  in  three  days,  if  they're  spending 
the  time  in  bed.  But  just  think  what  it's  like  for  fellows  in  the  last  stages 
of  exhaustion,  who  get  hardly  any  chance  to  drop  off  to  sleep,  and  when 
they  do,  can't,  who  spend  ever}7  day  and  every  night  in  bitter  cold  and 
damp,  with  their  nerves  continuously  on  the  stretch  because  of  the  day- 
to-day  risks  which  they  have  to  face,  with  a  corresponding  expenditure 
of  nervous  energy,  and  then  think  what  they  must  feel  like  when  there's 
not  a  bite  to  eat  or  a  drop  to  drink  except  what  they  can  scrape  out  of 
the  bottom  of  their  mess-tins  and  collect  from  dirty  pools  of  water,  for 
twenty-four  hours  at  a  stretch,  and  then  for  another  twenty-four  hours; 
and  then  a  third  day  dawns  which  there's  no  reason  to  think  will  be  any 
different  from  the  days  that  have  gone  before. 

JULES  ROMAIN,  Verdun 


i86  Reading  to  Others 

3.   What  is  it  to  grow  old? 

Is  it  to  lose  the  glory  of  the  form, 
The  lustre  of  the  eye? 
Is  it  for  beauty  to  forego  her  wreath? 
— Yes,  but  not  this  alone. 

Is  it  to  feel  our  strength—- 
Not our  bloom  only,  but  our  strength— decay? 
Is  it  to  feel  each  limb 
Grow  stiffer,  every  function  less  exact, 
Each  nerve  more  loosely  strung? 

Yes,  this,  and  more;  but  not— 

Ah,  'tis  not  what  in  youth  we  dream'd  'twould  be/ 

7Tis  not  to  have  our  life 

Mellow'd  and  soften  d  as  with  sunset-glow, 

A  golden  day's  decline. 

'Tis  not  to  see  the  world 

As  from  a  height,  with  rapt  prophetic  eyes, 

And  heart,  profoundly  stirr'd: 

And  weep,  and  feel  the  fulness  of  the  past, 

The  years  that  are  no  more. 

It  is  to  spend  long  days 

And  not  once  feel  that  we  were  ever  young; 

It  is  to  add,  immured 

In  the  hot  prison  of  the  present,  month 

To  month  with  weary  pain. 

It  is  to  suffer  this, 

And  feel  but  half,  and  feebly,  what  we  feel. 

Deep  in  our  hidden  heart 

Festers  the  dull  remembrance  of  a  change, 

But  no  emotion— none. 

It  is— last  stage  of  ail- 
When  we  are  frozen  up  within,  and  quite 
The  phantom  of  ourselves, 
To  hear  the  world  applaud  the  hollow  ghost 
Which  blamed  the  living  man. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD,  Growing  Old 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  187 

4.  Red  slippers  in  a  show-window;  and  outside  in  the  street,  flaws  of 
gray,  windy  sleet/ 

Behind  the  polished  glass  the  slippers  hang  in  long  threads  of  red, 
festooning  from  the  ceiling  like  stalactites  of  blood,  flooding  the  eyes  of 
passers-by  with  dripping  color,  jamming  their  crimson  reflections  against 
the  windows  of  cabs  and  tram-cars,  screaming  their  claret  and  salmon 
into  the  teeth  of  the  sleet,  plopping  their  little  round  maroon  lights 
upon  the  tops  of  umbrellas. 

The  row  of  white,  sparkling  shop-fronts  is  gashed  and  bleeding,  it 
bleeds  red  slippers.  They  spout  under  the  electric  light,  fluid  and  fluctu- 
ating, a  hot  rain— and  freeze  again  to  red  slippers,  rnyriadly  multiplied 
in  the  mirror  side  of  the  window. 

They  balance  upon  arched  insteps  like  springing  bridges  of  crimson 
lacquer;  they  swing  up  over  curved  heels  like  whirling  tanagers  sucked 
in  a  wind-pocket;  they  flatten  out,  heellcss,  like  July  ponds,  flared  and 
burnished  bv  red  rockets. 

Snap,  si  Kip,  they  are  cracker  sparks  of  scarlet  in  the  white,  monotonous 
block  of  shops. 

They  plunge  fhe  clangor  of  billions  of  vermilion  trumpets  into  the 
crowd  outside,  and  echo  in  faint  rose  over  the  pavement. 

People  hurrv  by,  for  these  arc  only  shoes,  and  in  a  window  farther 
down  is  a  big  lotus  bud  of  cardboard,  whose  petals  open  every  few  min- 
utes and  reveal  a  wax  doll,  with  staring  bead  eyes  and  flaxen  hair,  lolling 
aukuardly  in  its  flower  chair. 

One  has  often  seen  shoes,  but  whoever  saw  a  cardboard  lotus  bud 
before" 

The  flaws  of  grav,  windv  sleet  beat  on  the  shop-window  where  there 
are  only  red  slippers.  AMY  LOWELL,  Red  Slippers 

5.  Anne  Ilathaway's  cottage  and  Man*  Ardcn's  cottage  are  sufficiently 
beautiful,  with  their  brilliant  gardens,  to  soften  the  most  obdurate  foe 
of  quaintness.  But  like  all  the  other  high  spots  in  Stratford,  they  have 
been  provided  with  posteard  stands  and  with  neat  custodians  whose 
easy,  mechanical  Poet-worship  had  me  looking  sharply  to  see  if  they 
were  plugged  into  the  wall.  All  of  Stratford,  in  fact,  suggests  powdered 
history— add  hot  water  and  stir  and  you  have  a  delicious,  nourishing 
Shakespeare.  The  inhabitants  of  the  town  occupy  themselves  with 
painting  SWEET  ARE  THE  USES  OE  ADVERSITY  around  the  rims 
of  moustache  cups  for  the  tourist  trade;  the  wide,  cement-paved  main 
street  is  fringed  with  literary  hot  dog  stands;  and  in  the  narrow  lanes 
adjoining,  wrinkled  little  beldames  of  Tudor  houses  wearily  serve  out 
their  time  as  tea  rooms. 


i88  Reading  to  Others 

It  costs  a  shilling  to  cross  any  doorstep  in  Stratford,  and  once  inside, 
the  visitor  finds  himself  on  the  very  spot  where  Shakespeare  signed  his 
will  or  wrote  THE  TEMPEST  or  did  something  or  other  which  makes  it 
necessary  to  charge  an  additional  sixpence  for  the  extra  sanctity  involved. 
Through  all  the  shrines  surge  English  and  American  tourists,  either  peo- 
ple who  have  read  too  much  Shakespeare  at  the  expense  of  good,  healthy 
detective  stories  or  people  who  have  never  read  him  at  all  and  hope  to 
get  the  same  results  by  bumping  their  heads  on  low  beams.  Both  cate- 
gories try  heroically  to  -appear  deeply  moved,  an  effort  which  gives  their 
faces  a  draped  look.  Were  it  not  for  the  countryside  round  about,  I 
would  not  stay  an  hour  in  Stratford— I  keep  expecting  that  somebody  all 
dressed  up  as  the  immortal  bard  will  come  rushing  out  with  a  jingle  of 
bells  and  a  jovial  shout,  and  I  will  have  to  confess  apologetically  that 
I  am  a  big  girl  now  and  too  old  to  believe  in  Shakespeare. 

MARGARET  HALSEY,  With  Malice  Toward  Some 

QUANTITY.  Beginners  are  nearly  always  baffled  by  the  charac- 
teristic of  tempo  called  quantity  or  duration.  They  understand 
rate  and  pause,  which  are  tangibles  like  miles  per  hour  and  start- 
ing and  stopping  in  an  automobile.  But  quantity  requires  defi- 
nite sensitiveness  to  word  values.  It  is  the  duration  of  sound 
within  a  word.  That  is,  some  vowel  sounds  are  measurably  longer 
than  others.  Some  words,  either  through  connotation  or  emo- 
tional or  intellectual  emphasis  or  through  physical  extent  of 
sound,  take  a  longer  or  shorter  time  in  utterance. 

Much  of  the  majesty  of  Greek  epic  poetry,  which  is  read  quan- 
titatively, according  to  long  or  short  sounds  instead  of  in  accented 
syllables  as  in  English,  comes  from  the  many  long  syllables.  Latin 
poetry  is  also  read  in  patterns  of  long  and  short  syllables.  In  Eng- 
lish, because  we  depend  too  much  upon  accent,  we  often  lose  the 
richness  of  quantitative  verse  or  prose  and  move  along  in  an 
unchanging  tempo,  alternating  stressed  and  unstressed  vowels. 
Much  of  the  secret  of  good  reading  lies  in  recognition  of  quan- 
tity. It  is  a  constantly  dependable  form  of  change,  the  surest  safe- 
guard against  monotony,  for  it  is  closely  related  to  tone  color, 
which  is  quality  of  voice.  When  tempo  and  quality  are  frequently 
varied,  there  is  little  danger  that  inflection  and  force  will  be 
monotonous. 

The  long  and  short  sounds  in  English  afford  the  simplest  ap- 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  189 

proach  to  quantity.  No  trained  ear  is  needed  to  know  that  the  [ou] 
of  snow  is  a  longer  sound  than  the  [e]  of  met,  that  the  [i]  of  feet  is 
longer  than  the  [i]  of  fit,  that  the  [a]  of  father  is  longer  than  the  [ae] 
of  hat,  that  [u]  in  fool  is  longer  than  [u]  in  put.  [1],  [m],  [n],  and  [r] 
are  longer  consonants  than  [p],  [b],  [d],  and  [t].  Many  words,  per- 
haps because  of  their  vowels  and  consonants,  but  certainly  also  be- 
cause of  their  meaning,  are  faster  or  slower  than  others.  Slow  is  a 
slower  word  than  fast;  mile  is  a  slower  word  than  foot;  lie  is  a 
slower  word  than  sit;  roar  is  a  slower  word  than  snap.  Compare 
Arnold's  "tremulous  cadence  slow"  with  Gilbert's  "short,  sharp 
chop,"  or  Swinburne's  "a  sleepy  world  of  streams"  with  Browning's 
"Cavaliers,  up!  Lips  from  the  cup." 

Exercises 

i.    Notice  that  most  of  the  words  in  the  following  passages 
are  slow: 

A.   /Eonian  music  measuring  out 

The  steps  of  Time— the  shocks  of  Chance— 
The  blows  of  Death. 

ALFRED  TENNYSON,  In  Memoriam 

B.   Doubt  had  darkened  into  unbelief;  .  .  .  shade  after  shade  goes 
grimly  over  your  soul,  till  you  have  the  fixed,  starless,  Tartarean  black. 

THOMAS  CARLYLE,  Sartor  Resartus 

c.   Where  the  c/iriet-coloured  end  of  evening  smiles, 

Miles  and  miles 
On  the  solitary  pastures  where  our  sheep 

Half  asleep 
Tinkle  homeward  thro'  the  twilight,  stray  or  stop 

As  they  crop- 
Was  the  site  once  of  a  city  great  and  gay  .  .  . 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  Love  Among  the  Ruins 

D.   A  land  of  streams!  some,  like  a  downward  smoke, 
Slow-dropping  veils  of  thinnest  lawn,  did  go; 
And  some  thro'  wavering  lights  and  shadows  broke, 
Rolling  a  slumbrous  sheet  of  foam  below. 

ALFRED  TENNYSON,  The  Lotos-Eaters 


190  Reading  to  Others 

E.    The  tide,  moving  the  nighfs 
Vastness  with  lonely  voices. 
Turns,  the  deep  dark-shining 
Pacific  leans  on  the  land, 
Feeling  his  cold  strength 

To  the  outmost  margins:  you  Night  will  resume 
The  stars  in  your  time. 

ROBINSON  JEFFERS,  Night 

2.    Notice  how  most  of  the  words  in  the  following  passages 
are  fast: 

A.  You're  a  regular  wreck,  with  a  crick  in  your  neck,  and  no  wonder 
you  snore,  for  your  head's  on  the  floor,  and  you're  needles  and  pins  from 
your  sole  to  your  shins,  and  your  flesh  is  a-creep,  for  your  left  leg's  asleep, 
and  youVe  a  cramp  in  your  toes,  and  a  fly  on  your  nose,  and  some  fluff 
in  your  lung,  and  a  feverish  tongue,  and  a  thirst  that's  intense,  and  a  gen- 
eral sense  that  you  haven't  been  sleeping  in  clover. 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  The  Sleeper 

B.  Ere  you  open  your  eyes  in  the  city,  the  blessed  church-bells  begin. 
No  sooner  the  bells  leave  off  than  the  diligence  rattles  in: 

You  get  the  pick  of  the  news,  and  it  costs  you  never  a  pin. 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  Up  at  a  Villa— Down  in  the  City 

c.   Swift  things  are  beautiful: 
Swallows  and  deer, 
And  lightning  that  falls 
Bright-veined  and  clear, 
Rivers  and  meteors, 
Wind  in  the  wheat, 
The  strong-withered  horse, 
The  runner's  sure  feet. 

Compare  the  second  stanza  of  the  same  poem  with  the  first: 

And  slow  things  are  beautiful: 

The  closing  of  day, 

The  pause  of  the  wave, 

That  curves  downward  to  spray, 

The  ember  than  crumbles, 

The  opening  flower, 

And  the  ox  that  moves  on 

In  the  quiet  of  power. 

ELIZABETH  COATSWORTH,  Away  Goes  Sally 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  191 

D.   Razors  pain  you; 
Rivers  are  damp; 
Acids  stain  you; 
And  drugs  cause  cramp. 
Guns  aren't  lawful; 
Nooses  give; 
Gas  smells  awful; 
You  might  as  well  live. 

DOROTHY  PARKER,  Resume 

E.    As  bees  bizz  out  wi'  an  angry  fyke, 

When  plundering  herds  assail  their  byke; 

As  open  pussie's  mortal  foes, 

When,  pop/  she  starts  before  their  nose; 

As  eager  runs  the  market  crowd, 

When  "Catch  the  thief/"  resounds  aloud, 

So  Maggie  runs;  the  witches  follow, 

Wi'  monie  an  eldritch  skriech  and  hollo. 

ROBERT  BURNS,  Tarn  O'Shanter 

SUMMARY.  Careful  attention  to  the  quantitative  values  of  words 
will  do  more  to  slow  down  high-speed  readers  than  drill  in  paus- 
ing which  often  produces  mere  gaps,  abruptly  separating  blurred 
phrases.  On  the  other  hand  the  limp,  droopy,  plodding  reader 
must  come  alive  if  he  becomes  aware  of  quickened  pace  within 
words.  Attend  to  quantity,  and  rate  will  take  care  of  itself. 
Through  quantity,  too,  you  may  avoid  the  dogged  timing  of 
metrical  accents. 

RHYTHM.  Rhythm  is  the  more  or  less  regular  recurrence  of 
stress  and  time  patterns  in  both  prose  and  poetry.  We  have  already 
taken  up  some  of  the  problems  of  metrical  rhythm  under  Center- 
ing in  Chapter  i  and  again  under  the  relationship  of  poetic  de- 
vices to  Emotion,  in  Chapter  2.  The  dictionary  defines  rhythm 
as  "the  flow  of  cadences  in  written  or  spoken  language,  .  .  .  the 
regular  rise  and  fall  of  sounds  (whether  in  pitch,  stress,  or  speed) 
in  verse  when  read  with  attention  to  quantities  of  syllables, 
accents,  and  pauses."  It  may  also  be,  of  course,  a  metrical  repe- 
tition of  stress  or  quantity,  dictated  by  a  prevailing  type  of  foot. 
All  good  writing  is  rhythmic,  though  the  rhythm  may  be  emo- 
tional or  rational,  rather  than  metrical.  The  structure  of  a 
gracefully  written  sentence  is  in  itself  rhythmical,  comprising  a 


Reading  to  Others 

varied  pattern  of  important  and  unimportant  words.  In  the  first 
sentence  of  the  Gettysburg  Address,  for  example,  the  word  cen- 
ters and  phrases  are  as  follows: 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth 
on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  ||  conceived  in  Liberty  ||  and 
dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  || 

Properly  phrased,  the  sentence  must  be  read  with  a  "flow  of  ca- 
dences" that  is  unmistakably  rhythmical. 

In  poetry  the  rhythms  are  usually  more  obvious.  The  poet  may 
follow  regular  patterns  of  stressed  and  unstressed  syllables,  as  in 
the  iambic  lines 

My  heart  |  leaps  up     when  I     behold  | 
A  rain  |  bow  in  |  the  sky, 

or  the  iambic-anapestic  lines 

For  not  |  to  desire  [  or  admire,  j  if  a  man  j  could  learn  |  it  were  more  | 
Than  to  wall:  |  all  day  |  like  the  suljtan  of  old  in  a  gar  den  of  spice.  | 

But  the  good  reader  must  quickly  learn  the  difference  between 
metrical  rhythm  and  "meaning"  rhythm.  In  the  lines  just  quoted 
intelligent  centering  and  phrasing,  as  we  have  already  learned, 
would  change  the  too  regular  repetition  of  stresses  to 

My  heart  leaps  up  |  when  I  behold 

A  rainbow  in  the  sky,  1 1 
and 

For  not  to  desire  or  admire  II  if  a  man  could  learn  it  1 1  were  more 


Than  to  walk  all  day,  |  like  the  sultan  of  old  |  in  a  garden  of  spice.  1 1 

The  rhythm  now  is  not  radically  different  from  that  of  the  line 
of  prose.  Only  the  thoughtless  reader  would  stress  such  words  as 
up  and  in  in  the  lines  from  Wordsworth  or  break  up  the  lines 
from  Tennyson  into  two-  and  three-syllabled  feet.  True  rhythm 
is  felt  rather  than  beaten  out.  Much  of  it  is  determined  by  accu- 
rate variation  of  tempo. 

Professor  Robert  Hillyer,  of  Harvard,  in  a  recent  article,  "On 
Reading  Verse  Aloud,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  July,  1939,  presents  an 
interesting  but  debatable  guiding  principle  of  rhythmic  grouping 
for  reading  verse  aloud.  "All  lines  in  English  verse,  more  than 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  193 

one  foot  in  length,  divide  into  two  equal  time  units.  These  units 
cut  across  feet,  accent,  syllables,  and  may  even  split  a  single  word. 
More  often  than  not  there  is  no  pause  between  them,"  he  says. 
His  theory  is  based  directly  on  the  length  (quantity,  duration)  of 
words,  which,  with  pauses,  make  up  these  almost  Anglo-Saxon 
line  divisions.  He  admits  that  theoretically,  at  least,  the  best  way 
to  read  English  is  to  a  metronome.  All  this  seems  very  mechanical 
and  unnecessary  if  we  remember  that  rhythm  is  best  established 
by  the  meaning  and  that  all  devices  like  meter  and  time-unit 
divisions  will  take  care  of  themselves  when  we  phrase  and  center 
according  to  the  ideas  and  the  emotions.  Hillyer's  other  princi- 
ples for  reading  aloud,  however,  are  sound  and  bear  repetition  by 
way  of  summary  here.  Notice  his  prohibition  of  chanting,  which 
is,  as  such,  objectionable  but  which  may  be  approached  in  good 
verse  reading  by  reducing  inflectional  changes.  Notice  too  his 
advice  about  the  run-on,  or  enjambed,  line,  where  the  phrase  does 
not  end  with  the  end  of  the  line: 

1.  Read  out  in  a  full  but  unstrained  voice. 

2.  Do  not  dramatize  the  poem. 

3.  Do  not  chant  it. 

4.  Stress  only  the  syllables  that  would  be  stressed  in  ordinary 
conversation;  indeed,  let  the  stress  take  care  of  itself. 

5.  Read  short  syllables  in  a  hurry  and  long  ones  at  leisure. 

6.  Observe  all  pauses  extravagantly.    Silence  can  never  make 
a  mistake. 

7.  Vary  the  pitch  eagerly. 

8.  When  lines  overflow  into  each  other,  draw  out  the  last  sylla- 
ble of  the  overflowing  line  and,  without  pause  or  change  of  pitch, 
collide  with  the  first  syllable  of  the  line  that  follows. 

Free  verse  cuts  across  the  boundaries  of  meter  and  establishes 
its  own  rhythms.  There  is  nothing  revolutionary  about  such 
rhythms  for  those  who  know  that  all  poetry  must  be  read  in 
phrases  and  not  marked  off  in  singsong  repetitions  or  in  prosaic 
matter-of-factness.  Whitman's  free  lines  are  just  as  rhythmical  as 
Milton's  iambic  pentameter  lines: 

Afoot  and  light-hearted  |  I  take  to  the  open  road,  |[ 

Healthy,  1 1  free,  1 1  the  world  before  me,  1 1 

The  long  brown  path  before  me  leading  wherever  I  choose.  1 1 

WALT  WHITMAN 


Reading  to  Others 


High  on  a  throne  of  royal  state,  1  1 

Which  far  outshone  the  wealth  of  Ormus  and  of  Ind, 


Or  where  the  gorgeous  East,     with  richest  hand,  1 1 
Showers  on  her  kings  barbaric  pearl  and  gold,  1 1 

Satan  exalted  sat. 

JOHN  MILTON 

Exercises 

In  the  following  selections  try  to  determine  the  rhythm,  both 
in  prose  and  verse,  being  careful  not  to  overstress  meter.  Mark  off 
the  phrases  and  centers,  thinking  in  terms  of  rhythmic  groups 
(which  should  not  be  too  rhythmic).  As  you  read  aloud,  keep  in 
mind  what  you  have  learned  about  pitch  and  volume  as  well  as 
time.  When  you  underscore  a  whole  word,  remember  that  you 
are  not  therefore  to  stress  all  syllables  equally. 

1.  If  ignorance  and  corruption  and  intrigue  control  the  primary  meet- 
ing, and  manage  the  convention,  and  dictate  the  nomination,  the  fault 
is  in  the  honest  and  intelligent  workshop  and  office,  in  the  library  and 
the  parlor,  in  the  church  and  the  school.   When  they  are  as  constant 
and  faithful  to  their  political  rights  as  the  slums  and  the  grogshops,  the 
pool-rooms  and  the  kennels;  when  the  educated,  industrious,  temperate, 
thrifty  citizens  are  as  zealous  and  prompt  and  unfailing  in  political 
activity  as  the  ignorant  and  venal  and  mischievous,  or  when  it  is  plain 
that  they  cannot  be  roused  to  their  duty,  then,  but  not  until  then— if 
ignorance  and  corruption  always  carry  the  day — there  can  be  no  honest 
question  that  the  republic  has  failed.  But  let  us  not  be  deceived.  While 
good  men  sit  at  home,  not  knowing  that  there  is  anything  to  be  done, 
nor  caring  to  know;  cultivating  a  feeling  that  politics  are  tiresome  and 
dirty,  and  politicians,  vulgar  bullies  and  bravoes;  half  persuaded  that  a 
republic  is  the  contemptible  rule  of  a  mobr  and  secretly  longing  for  a 
splendid  and  vigorous  despotism— then  remember,  it  is  not  a  govern- 
ment mastered  by  ignorance,  it  is  a  government  betrayal  by  intelligence; 
it  is  not  the  victory  of  the  slums,  it  is  the  surrender  of  the  schools;  it  is 
not  that  bad  men  are  brave,  but  that  good  men  are  infidels  and  cowards. 

GEORGE  W.  CURTIS,  The  Public  Duty  of  Educated  Men 

2.  To  burn  always  with  this  hard,  gemlike  flame,  to  maintain  this 
ecstasy,  is  success  in  life.  In  a  sense  it  might  even  be  said  that  our  fail- 
ure is  to  form  habits:  for,  after  all,  habit  is  relative  to  a  stereotyped 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  195 

world,  and  meantime  it  is  only  the  roughness  of  the  eye  that  makes  any 
two  persons,  things,  situations,  seem  alike.  While  all  melts  under  our 
feet,  we  may  well  catch  at  any  exquisite  passion,  or  any  contribution 
to  knowledge  that  seems  by  a  lifted  horizon  to  set  the  spirit  free  for  a 
moment,  or  any  stirring  of  the  senses,  strange  dyes,  strange  colours,  and 
curious  odours,  or  work  of  the  artist's  hands,  or  the  face  of  one's  friend. 
Not  to  discriminate  every  moment  some  passionate  attitude  in  those 
about  us,  and  in  the  brilliancy  of  their  gifts  some  tragic  dividing  of 
forces  on  their  ways,  is,  on  this  short  day  of  frost  and  sun,  to  sleep  before 
evening.  With  this  sense  of  the  splendour  of  our  experience  and  of  its 
awful  brevity,  gathering  all  we  are  into  one  desperate  effort  to  see  and 
touch,  we  shall  hardly  have  time  to  make  theories  about  the  things  we 
see  and  touch.  What  we  have  to  do  is  to  be  for  ever  curiously  testing 
new  opinions  and  courting  new  impressions,  never  acquiescing  in  a  facile 
orthodoxy  of  Compte,  or  of  Hegel,  or  of  our  own.  Philosophical  theories 
or  ideas,  as  points  of  view,  instruments  of  criticism,  may  help  us  to 
gather  up  what  might  otherwise  pass  unregarded  by  us.  "Philosophy  is 
the  microscope  of  thought/'  The  theory  or  idea  or  system  which  re- 
quires of  us  the  sacrifice  of  any  part  of  this  experience,  in  consideration 
of  some  interest  into  which  we  cannot  cuter,  or  some  abstract  theory 
we  have  not  identified  with  ourselves,  or  what  is  only  conventional,  has 
no  real  claim  upon  us. 

WALTER  PATER,  The  Renaissance 

3.    I  reached  the  highest  place  in  Spoon  River, 
But  through  what  bitterness  of  spirit/ 
The  face  of  my  father,  sitting  speechless, 
Child-like,  watching  his  canaries, 
And  looking  at  the  court-house  window 
Of  the  county  judge's  room, 
And  his  admonitions  to  me  to  seek 
My  own  life,  and  punish  Spoon  River 
To  avenge  the  wrong  the  people  did  him, 
Filled  me  with  furious  energy 
To  seek  for  wealth  and  seek  for  power. 
But  what  did  he  do  but  send  me  along 
The  path  that  leads  to  the  grove  of  the  Furies? 
I  followed  the  path  and  I  tell  you  this: 
On  the  way  to  the  grove  you'll  pass  the  Fates, 
Shadow-eyed,  bent  over  their  weaving. 
Stop  for  a  moment,  and  if  you  see 
The  thread  of  revenge  leap  out  of  the  shuttle 
Then  quickly  snatch  from  Atropos 


196  Reading  to  Others 

The  shears  and  cut  it,  lest  your  sons, 

And  the  children  of  them  and  their  children 

Wear  the  envenomed  robe. 

EDGAR  LEE  MASTERS,  "Henry  C.  Calhoun," 
Spoon  River  Anthology 

4.  A  gentle  wind  followed  the  rain  clouds,  driving  them  on  north- 
ward, a  wind  that  softly  clashed  the  drying  corn.  A  day  went  by  and  the 
wind  increased,  steady,  unbroken  by  gusts.  The  dust  from  the  roads 
fluffed  up  and  spread  out  and  fell  on  the  weeds  beside  the  fields,  and 
fell  into  the  fields  a  little  way.  Now  the  wind  grew  strong  and  hard 
and  it  worked  at  the  rain  crust  in  the  corn  fields.  Little  by  little  the  sky 
was  darkened  by  the  mixing  dust,  and  the  wind  felt  over  the  earth, 
loosened  the  dust,  and  carried  it  away.  The  wind  grew  stronger.  The 
rain  crust  broke  and  the  dust  lifted  up  out  of  the  fields  and  drove  gray 
plumes  into  the  air  like  sluggish  smoke.  The  corn  threshed  the  wind 
and  made  a  dry,  rushing  sound.  The  finest  dust  did  not  settle  back  to 
earth  now,  but  disappeared  into  the  darkening  sky. 

The  wind  grew  stronger,  whisked  under  stones,  carried  up  straws  and 
old  leaves,  and  even  little  clods,  marking  its  course  as  it  sailed  across  the 
fields.  The  air  and  the  sky  darkened  and  through  them  the  sun  shone 
redly,  and  there  was  a  raw  sting  in  the  air.  During  a  night  the  wind 
raced  faster  over  the  land,  dug  cunningly  among  the  rootlets  of  the  corn, 
and  the  corn  fought  the  wind  with  its  weakened  leaves  until  the  roots 
were  freed  by  the  prying  wind  and  then  each  stalk  settled  wearily  side- 
ways toward  the  earth  and  pointed  the  direction  of  the  wind. 

The  dawn  came,  but  no  day.  In  the  gray  sky  a  red  sun  appeared,  a 
dim  red  circle  that  gave  a  little  light  like  dusk;  and  as  that  day  advanced, 
the  dusk  slipped  back  toward  darkness,  and  the  wind  cried  and  whim- 
pered over  the  fallen  corn. 

Men  and  women  huddled  in  their  houses,  and  they  tied  handkerchiefs 
over  their  noses  when  they  went  out,  and  wore  goggles  to  protect  their 
eyes. 

When  the  night  came  again  it  was  black  night,  for  the  stars  could  not 
pierce  the  dust  to  get  down,  and  the  window  lights  could  not  even  spread 
beyond  their  own  yards.  Now  the  dust  was  evenly  mixed  with  the  air,  an 
emulsion  of  dust  and  air.  Houses  were  shut  tight,  and  cloth  wedged 
around  doors  and  windows,  but  the  dust  came  in  so  thinly  that  it  could 
not  be  seen  in  the  air,  and  it  settled  like  pollen  on  the  chairs  and  tables, 
on  the  dishes.  The  people  brushed  it  from  their  shoulders.  Little  lines 
of  dust  lay  at  the  door  sills. 

JOHN  STEINBECK,  The  Grapes  of  Wrath 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  197 

5.   O,  wert  thou  in  the  cauld  blast 

On  yonder  lea,  on  yonder  lea, 
My  plaidie  to  the  angry  airt, 

I'd  shelter  thee,  I'd  shelter  thee. 
Or  did  Misfortune's  bitter  storms 

Around  thee  blaw,  around  thee  blaw, 
Thy  bicld  should  be  my  bosom, 

To  share  it  a',  to  share  it  a'. 

Or  were  I  in  the  wildest  waste, 

Sae  black  and  bare,  sae  black  and  bare, 
The  desert  were  a  paradise, 

If  thou  were  there,  if  thou  were  there. 
Or  were  I  monarch  of  the  globe, 

Wi   thee  to  reign,  wi'  thee  to  reign, 
The  brightest  jewel  in  my  crown 
Wad  be  my  queen,  wad  be  my  queen. 

ROBERT  BURNS,  O,  wert  thou  in  the  cauld  blast 

6.  Set  me  as  a  seal  upon  thine  heart,  as  a  seal  upon  thine  arm:  for 
love  is  as  strong  as  death;  /ealousy  is  cruel  as  the  grave:  the  coals  thereof 
are  coals  of  fire,  which  hath  a  most  vehement  flame.  Many  waters  can- 
not quench  love,  neither  can  the  floods  drown  it:  if  a  man  would  give 
all  the  substance  of  his  house  for  love,  it  would  utterly  be  contemned. 

Song  of  Solomon 

QUALITY 

The  most  elusive  vocal  element  is  quality.  Pitch,  volume,  and 
tempo  are  measurable  things.  Quality,  however,  which  is  deter- 
mined by  the  relationship  between  the  fundamental  tone  and  its 
overtones,  by  the  physical  condition  of  the  resonating  apparatus, 
and  by  the  mood  and  health  of  the  speaker,  is  not  as  easily  de- 
scribed. We  know  that  one  voice  is  different  from  another  and 
that  one  musical  instrument  is  different  from  another,  even  when 
both  are  producing  the  same  note,  because  of  differences  in  qual- 
ity. We  know  when  a  voice  is  harsh  or  nasal  or  throaty,  or  when 
it  is  pleasing.  But  exactly  what  makes  up  the  pleasing  quality  is 
difficult  to  say.  Good  voices  are  variously  praised  as  rich,  inter- 
esting, colorful,  pure,  resonant,  clear,  effortless.  Yet  no  one  of 
these  adjectives  explains  good  quality. 


198  Reading  to  Others 

RESONANCE.  One  tangible  characteristic  of  quality  is  resonance. 
The  complexity  of  overtones,  blending  with  the  fundamental  tone 
(or,  in  poor  voices,  possibly  conflicting  with  the  fundamental  tone), 
picked  out  and  reinforced  or  suppressed  by  the  resonance  cham- 
bers, makes  up  the  chief  part  of  quality.  The  difference  between 
^ices  is  in  the  main  the  difference  in  the  resonance  of  overtones. 
All  voices,  if  by  some  magic  they  could  be  produced  without  heads, 
would  sound  very  much  alike  except  for  differences  in  pitch,  and 
the  sound  would  be  little  more  than  a  squawk.  The  quality  of 
any  given  person's  voice  is,  therefore,  the  result  of  his  peculiar 
resonating  apparatus.  If  his  head  chambers  are  so  shaped  that 
they  bring  out  the  most  harmonious  overtones  and  if  he  has  no 
obstructions  to  the  projection  of  tones,  such  as  enlarged  tonsils  or 
adenoids,  sluggish  palate,  or  clogged  sinuses  or  nasal  passages,  he 
is  likely  to  have  good  vocal  quality.  Other  conditions  may  inter- 
fere, of  course.  The  muscles  of  the  larynx  and  throat  may  be  so 
unrelaxed  that  the  vocal  bands  do  not  vibrate  freely,  thus  inhibit- 
ing the  production  of  overtones.  The  pharyngcal  muscles  may  be 
flabby  so  that  the  tone  is  muffled.  The  vocal  bands  themselves  mav 
be  impaired  in  some  way  or  not  closely  enough  approximated,  so 
that  the  tone  is  hoarse  or  breathy. 

When  two  people,  one  with  a  good  voice,  one  with  a  poor  voice, 
for  example,  make  the  same  sound,  the  first  instinctively  adjusts 
his  flexible  resonators  (the  mouth  and  pharynx)  so  that  they  select 
the  best  overtones  for  a  pleasing  tone  on  the  chosen  pitch.  The 
other  cramps  or  over-relaxes  his  throat  and  laryngeal  muscles  or 
incorrectly  shapes  the  resonators.  Both  these  operations  are  auto- 
matic, and  the  speakers  do  not  consciously  go  through  the  com- 
plex process  which  invohes  the  tuning  of  the  resonators  to  the 
various  frequencies  of  overtones.  Take  the  sound  of  [ai].  The 
speaker  with  good  quality  makes  sure  that  he  properly  forms  with 
his  lips  and  tongue  the  parts  of  this  sound,  using  the  front  of  the 
tongue  for  both  vowels.  The  speaker  with  poor  quality  may  sub- 
stitute another  sound,  getting  something  like  fa]  or  [a]  or  even 
[DI],  or  be  nasal  or  throaty.  Poor  quality,  however,  is  the  total 
voice  pattern,  not  the  faulty  production  of  a  few  individual 
sounds. 

We  sometimes  hear  crude  or  slovenly  speakers  with  excellent 
voices.  They  provide  the  most  fertile  ground  for  speech  training. 
Rough,  provincial,  or  careless  habits  can  be  eliminated  and  the 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  199 

articulators  developed.  Good  diction  is  always  possible  unless  the 
speaker  has  some  organic  defect  like  a  cleft  palate  or  bad  dental 
or  jaw  structure.  Good  quality  may  be  achieved  through  honest 
exercises  in  projection  (i.e.,  cleanly  launching  the  tones)  and  reso- 
nance, unless  the  speech  mechanism  is  definitely  defective.  Then 
the  problem  should  be  turned  over  to  a  speech  pathologist.  Reso- 
nance, that  is,  depends  entirely  upon  anatomical  structure  and  on 
the  physiological  action  of  the  speech  mechanism.  Cultivation, 
character,  "background,"  and  the  emotion  of  the  moment  add 
intangible  elements  to  voice  quality.  It  is  true  that  the  best  voices 
are  natural  gifts,  but  much  can  be  done  to  improve  the  average 
voice. 

TONE  COLOR  AND  TIMBRE.  Other  names  for  quality  are  "tone 
color"  and  "timbre."  The  first  suggests  the  speaker's  emotional 
response  to  what  he  is  saying.  Indeed,  changes  in  voice  quality, 
or  tone  color,  are  almost  always  the  result  of  emotional  shifts  in 
the  speaker.  Timbre  suggests  the  characteristic  tone  of  a  musical 
instrument.  Botli  connotations  add  to  the  complete  picture  of  the 
voice.  Color  is  an  almost  literal  analogy.  Good  voice  quality  may 
call  to  mind  the  reds  and  oranges  and  yellows  of  the  spectrum, 
the  warm  colors;  or  it  may  take  on  the  blues  and  greens,  the  cold 
colors.  On  the  one  hand  it  expresses  vitality,  joy,  elevated  thought, 
warmth;  on  the  other  it  expresses  desolation,  fear,  anger,  coldness. 
The  human  voice,  moreover,  should  be  a  true  musical  instrument, 
capable  of  producing  tones  with  musical  quality.  Good  timbre 
means  i^ood  musical  quality. 

The  expression  of  emotional  changes  is  brought  about  in  every- 
day speech  by  unmistakable  changes  in  voice  quality,  except  in 
lazy,  stupid,  or  monotonous  speakers.  The  fundamental  emotions 
of  love,  anger,  fear,  and  sorrow,  at  least,  are  within  the  expres- 
sible range  of  nearly  everyone,  though  perhaps  the  appropriate 
vocal  qualities  cannot  be  summoned  on  demand.  That  is,  one 
who  under  stress  of  the  real  emotion  clearly  expresses  it  may  fail 
miserably  to  express  the  same  emotion  when  he  must  imagine  it, 
as  in  reading  or  acting.  Amateur  actresses  who  vainly  try  to  be 
contemptuous  or  angry  under  pressure  of  a  director  will  probably 
say.  "So  what?"  offstage  with  withering  scorn  or  fly  into  a  real  rage 
over  a  costume.  Control  of  the  mechanism  of  vocal  quality  in- 
volves the  whole  psychological  and  nervous  system.  The  reader 
or  speaker  or  actor  should  have  at  his  command  as  many  tones  as 


200  Reading  to  Others 

possible,  expressive  of  different  states  of  emotion.  Practice  the 
shifts  in  tone  color  that  accompany  shifts  in  feeling,  beginning 
with  the  fundamental  emotions  and  working  up  through  com- 
plex emotions. 

THE  KINDS  OF  QUALITY.  Most  discussions  of  quality  include  the 
classifications  of  the  various  types  of  quality,  usually  eight,  ac- 
cording to  the  list  first  made  out  by  Dr.  James  Rush,  an  early 
pioneer  in  speech  work.  Deliberate  application  of  these  types: 
aspirate,  guttural,  pectoral,  nasal,  oral,  falsetto,  normal,  and  oro- 
tund, was  of  considerably  more  use  to  the  old  student  of  elocution 
than  it  is  to  modern  students  of  the  "natural"  method.  We  tend 
to  believe  today  that  the  sincere  speaker  or  reader,  intelligently 
interpreting,  will  find  the  right  tone  color  to  express  emotion 
without  learning  a  lot  of  rules  about  the  proper  time  to  shift  from 
chest  resonance  (pectoral  quality)  to  the  lighter  oral  quality  or 
from  the  aspirate  (whispered  quality)  to  the  orotund  (deep,  full 
quality). 

For  those  who  want  to  study  the  effects  of  different  tone  colors, 
seeking  to  increase  the  range  of  expression,  the  following  brief 
descriptions  of  the  eight  types  may  be  helpful: 

1.  Aspirate:   a  partially  voiced  whispeied   tone,  more  breath 
than  sound;  may  express  fear  or  suspense. 

2.  Guttural:    a   throaty   tone,   produced   by   rough   forcing  of 
breath   through   tense  vocal   bands,  with   resonance  impeded  by 
constricted  pharyngeal  muscles;  may  express  coarseness  or  "tough- 
ness." 

3.  Pectoral:  a  hollow  tone,  in  which  the  chief  resonator  seems 
to  be  the  pharynx;  may  express  fear  or  morbidity.   It  is  the  favor- 
ite tone  of  the  Ghost  in  Hamlet. 

4.  Nasal:   a   twangy   tone,  produced   by  directing  the   breath 
stream  into  the  nasal  passages;   used  in  hill-billy  or  down-East 
characters  to  express  rusticity.    In  some  denasalized  speech  (with- 
out any  nasal  resonance)  similar  effects  may  be  obtained. 

5.  Oral:  a  light  tone,  for  which  the  main  resonator  is  the  mouth 
cavity;  may  express  quietness,  age,  gentleness,  fatigue,  weakness. 

6.  Falsetto:  a  thin,  shrill  tone  made  by  the  vocal  bands  adjusted 
to  unnaturally  high  pitch;  may  express  querulousness  or  may  be 
employed  for  broad  comic  effect. 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  201 

7.  Normal:  the  usual  tone  of  the  speaker,  in  which  all  the  reso- 
nators are  used. 

8.  Orotund:  the  "round"  tone  made  by  increasing  the  volume 
and  resonance  of  the  normal  tone.   It  may  degenerate  to  the  mag- 
niloquent ''ministerial"  tone  or,  simply  and  unaffectedly  used, 
may  express  dignity  and  deep  emotional  meaning.  It  is  not  a  con- 
versational tone. 

Some  of  these  qualities  may  be  the  result  of  organic  or  functional 
defects  in  the  speech  mechanism,  i.e.,  guttural,  nasal,  or  aspirate 
(breathy)  speech.  As  such  they  will  be  discussed  in  the  appendix 
chapter  on  diction,  Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement, 
page  397. 

FREE  BODILY  ACTION.  Vocal  quality  is  the  product  of  many 
physiological  and  psychological  conditions.  But  all  other  things 
being  equal,  without  free  bodily  action  it  cannot  be  good  vocal 
quality.  We  have  seen  how  all  the  elements  of  expression  are 
made  less  effective  by  the  presence  of  uncontrolled  tensions.  In 
all  physical  activity  a  proper  balance  between  alert  use  of  muscles 
and  relaxation  is  necessary.  A  football  player  waits  for  signals  with 
muscles  ready  to  spring  into  instant  action.  When  he  is  tackled, 
he  knows  that  he  must  relax  in  order  to  fall  without  hurting 
himself.  The  tennis  player  must  always  be  on  his  toes,  poised 
for  swift  movement.  But  if  his  wrist  is  cramped  and  his  body  rigid 
with  tension,  he  will  not  play  a  good  game.  Watch  the  easy  flow 
of  muscles  in  the  billiard  player.  Observe  the  free  swing  of  a 
cross-country  runner.  The  nervous,  tense,  straining  race  horse 
may  win  a  short  race,  but  he  would  wear  himself  out  on  a  long 
ride.  For  endurance  and  comfortable  riding  you  would  prefer 
the  hunter,  rising  easily  to  jumps  and  running  tirelessly,  a  beau- 
tiful example  of  effortless  power. 

Free  bodily  action  not  only  helps  the  speaker  develop  a  good 
voice  and  gain  poise  and  confidence  on  the  platform,  but  releases 
the  constricting  forces  that  inhibit  emotion  and  clear  thinking. 
Stage  fright  is  little  more  than  a  state  of  muscular  and  mental 
tension  which  may  be  relieved  by  sensible  relaxation. 

Before  you  begin  the  exercises  in  quality,  work  on  relaxation, 
trying  to  relax  all  your  strained  bodily  tensions.  Then  start  the 
exercises  in  quality,  thinking  in  terms  of  beautiful  tone  color, 
striving  to  increase  your  range  of  expression. 


2ost  Reading  to  Others 

Exercises  in  Relaxation 

1.  Bend  at  the  waist,  letting  your  arms  hang  limply  and  drop- 
ping your  chin  to  your  chest.    Feel  yourself  relax.    Dangle  your 
arms  to  be  sure  that  they  are  not  under  any  tension.   Slowly  rise 
to  an  erect  position,  keeping  your  arms  limp  and  raising  the  head 
only  after  the  trunk  is  straight. 

2.  Slowly  oscillate  your  head,  bending  it  forward,  then  to  the 
right,  then  back,  to  the  left,  and  so  on.   Try  to  use  the  least  pos- 
sible  amount  of  muscular  exertion,   simply  rolling  your  head 
loosely. 

3.  Drop  your  head  until  the  chin  rests  on  the  chest.    Slowly 
raise  the  head,  leaving  the  lower  jaw  limp.    Keeping  the  mouth 
loosely  agape,  bend  the  head  backward  until  the  mouth  is  opened 
to  its  fullest  extent.  Try  to  yawn.  Repeat  this  several  times.  Then 
lower  the  head  again,  closing  the  limp  jaws  by  the  weight  of  the 
head  against  the  chest. 

4.  Yawn  repeatedly.   If  deliberate  yawning  is  hard  for  you,  try 
to  feel  the  loosening  of  tongue  and  jaws  that  goes  with  yawning. 
Say  [i],  [e],  [ai],  [a],  [ou],  [u]  after  each  yawn,  passing  from  the 
yawn  to  the  sound  without  pause. 

5.  Waggle  your  lower  jaw  from  side  to  side  as  effortlessly  as 
possible.    Be  sure  that  it  doesn't  move  in  cramped  jerks.    Next 
shake  it  gently  up  and  down  between  your  thumb  and  forefinger 
without  clashing  the  teeth. 

Exercises  in  Vocal  Quality 

1.  Hum  on  the  [m]  sound  until  you  feel  vibration  in  the  bridge 
of  the  nose  and  the  cheekbones. 

2.  Begin  with  a  vigorous  hum,  continuing  it  until  it  takes  up 
about  half  your  breath  supply,  and  then  go  directly  into  the  follow- 
ing vowel  sounds,  humming  before  each  one. 

,  m-m-m-u-u-u  m-m-m-ai-ai-ai 

m-m-m-ou-ou-ou  m-m-m-ei-ei-ei 

m-m-mooo  m-m-m-i-i-i 
m-m-m-a-a-a 

The  sounds  are  not  repeated,  but  sustained. 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality 


203 


3.    Reverse  Exercise  2,  chanting  the  vowel  first  on  a  sustained 
pitch  and  ending  with  a  prolonged  hum: 


u-u-u-m-m-m 
ou-ou-ou-m-m-m 
D-oo-m-m-m 
a-a-a-m-m-m 


ai-ai-ai-m-m-m 
ei-ei-ei-m-m-m 
i-i-i-m-m-m 


4.  Vocalize  [mi],  [mi],  [mi],  [mi],  [mi]  as  fast  as  possible  (as 
many  singers  do,  loosening  up  their  voices  and  trying  out  resonance, 
just  before  a  concert).   Then  after  each  rapid  series  of  five  repeti- 
tions of  [mi],  repeat  the  combinations  of  Exercise  2,  taking  less 
time  for  both  the  nasal  and  the  vowel:  [mi],  [mi],  [mi],  [mi],  [mi]; 
[mu];  [mou];  [nr>];  [ma];  [mai];  [mei]. 

5.  Repeat  the  following  words,  reading  down  the  columns, 
holding  the  nasals  until  they  ring  out  clearly,  and  forming  the 
vowels  cleanly.    Make  initial  consonants  crisp: 


ring 

stone 

prim 

gleam 

bean 

shine 

loom 

sing 

known 

rim 

cream 

clean 

pine 

broom 

wing 

drone 

skim 

team 

sheen 

spine 

gloom 

ding 

long 

strung 

deem 

mean 

vine 

tomb 

fling 

wrong 

tongue 

town 

moon 

line 

groom 

king 

song 

young 

frown 

spoon 

den 

ban 

cling 

dong 

sung 

crown 

soon 

fen 

ran 

sling 

tong 

flung 

drown 

boon 

glen 

clan 

string 

thong 

hung 

noun 

noon 

hen 

man 

spring 

prong 

sprung 

gown 

loon 

men 

fan 

thing 

strong 

swung 

clown 

croon 

then 

tan 

bone 

bung 

stun 

chrome 

swoon 

wren 

chum 

cone 

clung 

shun 

dome 

June 

spin 

drum 

flown 

rung 

run 

foam 

rune 

thin 

glum 

grown 

lung 

son 

home 

mine 

pin 

numb 

moan 

grim 

spun 

loam 

swine 

inn 

scum 

loan 

limb 

beam 

green 

dine 

chin 

slum 

prone 

hymn 

scream 

keen 

thine 

grin 

strum 

mown 

slim 

seem 

queen 

twine 

room 

mum 

throne 

swim 

dream 

screen 

whine 

doom 

dumb 

6.    Read  the  following  selections,  attending  first  of  all  to  mean- 
ings, trying  to  read  with  the  best  possible  vocal  quality.   When 


2O4  Reading  to  Others 

the  meaning  changes,  sensitive  interpretation  may  suggest  a  change 
of  quality,  certainly  some  kind  of  change  in  one  or  more  of  the 
properties  of  voice.  Accurately  express  the  shades  of  emotion. 

A.  If  we  could  first  know  where  we  are,  and  whither  we  are  tending, 
we  could  better  judge  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are  now  far 
into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed  object 
and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation.  Under  the 
operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased  but  has 
constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis 
shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  "A  house  divided  against  itself  can- 
not stand."  I  believe  that  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  union  to  be  dissolved—I  do 
not  expect  the  house  to  fall—but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided. 
It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of 
slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public 
mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction; 
or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in 
all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  Springfield  Speech,  June  16,  1858 

B.  He  was  a  tall,  thin  old  man  with  a  bald  head,  which  shone  pink- 
ishly  dirty,  and  a  grizzled  beard  so  long  he  could  tuck  it  in  his  belt.  He 
was  over  sixty,  to  judge  by  his  hard,  seamed  face,  but  there  was  no  sag 
of  age  to  his  body.  He  was  lank  and  ungainly,  but,  even  with  his  wooden 
peg,  he  moved  as  swiftly  as  a  snake. 

He  mounted  to  the  steps  and  came  toward  her  and,  even  before  he 
spoke,  revealing  in  his  tone  a  twang  and  a  burring  of  "r's"  unusual  in 
the  lowlands,  Scarlett  knew  that  he  was  mountain  born.  For  all  his  dirty, 
ragged  clothes  there  was  about  him,  as  about  most  mountaineers,  an 
air  of  fierce  silent  pride  that  permitted  no  liberties  and  tolerated  no  fool- 
ishness. His  beard  was  stained  with  tobacco  juice  and  a  large  wad  in  his 
jaw  made  his  face  look  deformed.  His  nose  was  thin  and  craggy,  his 
eyebrows  bushy  and  twisted  into  witches'  locks  and  a  lush  growth  of  hair 
sprang  from  his  ears,  giving  them  the  tufted  look  of  a  lynx's  ears. 
Beneath  his  brow  was  one  hollow  socket  from  which  a  scar  ran  down 
his  cheek,  carving  a  diagonal  line  through  his  beard.  The  other  eye  was 
small,  pale  and  cold,  an  unwinking  and  remorseless  eye.  There  was  a 
heavy  pistol  openly  in  his  trouser  band  and  from  the  top  of  his  tattered 
boot  protruded  the  hilt  of  a  bowie  knife. 

MARGARET  MITCHELL,  Gone  With  the  Wind 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  205 

c.  It  will  be  found  that  the  fundamental  fault  of  the  female  character 
is  that  it  has  NO  SENSE  OF  JUSTICE.  This  is  mainly  due  to  the  fact  .  .  . 
that  women  are  defective  in  the  powers  of  reasoning  and  deliberation; 
but  it  is  also  traceable  to  the  position  which  Nature  has  assigned  to  them 
as  the  weaker  sex.  They  are  dependent,  not  upon  strength,  but  upon 
craft;  and  hence  their  instinctive  capacity  for  cunning,  and  their  inerad- 
icable tendency  to  say  what  is  not  true.  For  as  lions  are  provided  with 
claws  and  teeth,  and  elephants  and  boars  with  tusks,  bulls  with  horns, 
and  the  cuttlefish  with  its  cloud  of  inky  fluid,  so  Nature  has  equipped 
woman,  for  her  defence  and  protection,  with  the  arts  of  dissimulation; 
and  all  the  power  which  Nature  has  conferred  upon  man  in  the  shape 
of  physical  strength  and  reason  has  been  bestowed  upon  woman  in  this 
form.  Hence  dissimulation  is  innate  in  women,  and  almost  as  much 
a  quality  of  the  stupid  as  the  clever.  It  is  as  natural  for  them  to  make 
use  of  it  on  every  occasion  as  it  is  for  those  animals  to  employ  their 
means  of  defence  when  they  are  attacked;  they  have  a  feeling  that  in 
doing  so  they  are  only  within  their  rights. 

ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER,  On  Women 

D.  From  the  window  of  the  governor's  mansion,  as  I  begin  this  effort 
to  make  you  understand  better  modern  Virginia,  I  can  see  the  monu- 
ments to  old  Virginia.  The  heroic  figure  of  Washington  rides  his  horse 
high  above  Capitol  Square;  surrounded  by  Patrick  Henry,  who  lit  the 
flame  of  American  revolution;  George  Mason,  who  asserted  the  rights 
of  the  individual  to  be  free;  Thomas  /efferson,  who  declared  the  right  of 
the  colonies  to  be  independent;  Thomas  Nelson,  who  offered  the  resolu- 
tion instructing  the  Virginia  delegates  at  Philadelphia  to  propose  a 
declaration  of  independence;  Meriwether  Lewis,  who  explored  the  wil- 
derness that  stretched  from  the  mouth  of  the  Missouri  to  where  the 
Columbia  enters  the  Pacific;  and  John  Marshall,  who  found  in  the  Con- 
stitution implied  power  to  make  a  nation  out  of  the  restricted  union 
of  the  several  states. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  account  for  our  national  existence  unless 
we  recalled  some  of  these  Virginians  here  standing  about  the  Father  of 
our  Country.  At  that  the  group  is  by  no  means  inclusive  of  the  Vir- 
ginians who  helped  to  make  this  nation,  for  two  Virginia  Presidents, 
Madison  and  Monroe,  are  not  there,  and  Richard  Henry  Lee  is  also 
absent. 

HARRY  F.  BYRD,  Virginia  Through  the  Eyes 

of  Her  Governor 


2o6  Reading  to  Others 

E.  Lo  you  now,  how  vainly  mortal  men  do  blame  the  gods/  For  of 
us  they  say  comes  evil,  whereas  they  even  of  themselves,  through  the 
blindness  of  their  own  hearts,  have  sorrows  beyond  that  which  is  or- 
dained. Even  as  of  late  Aegisthus,  beyond  that  which  was  ordained,  took 
to  him  the  wedded  wife  of  the  son  of  Atreus  and  killed  her  lord  on  his 
return,  and  that  with  sheer  doom  before  his  eyes,  since  we  hgd  warned 
him  by  the  embassy  of  Hermes  the  keen-sighted,  the  slayer  of  Argos,  that 
he  should  neither  kill  the  man  nor  woo  his  wife.  For  the  son  of  Atreus 
shall  be  avenged  at  the  hand  of  Orestes,  so  soon  as  he  shall  come  to 
man's  estate  and  long  for  his  own  country.   So  spake  Hermes,  yet  he 
prevailed  not  on  the  heart  of  Aegisthus,  for  all  his  good  will;  but  now 
hath  he  paid  one  price  for  all. 

HOMER,  Odyssey,  translated  by  Butcher  and  Lang 

F.  I  am  credibly  informed,  that  there  is  still  a  considerable  hitch  or 
hobble  in  your  enunciation,  and  that  when  you  speak  fast  you  some- 
times speak  unintelligibly  .  .  .  Your  trade  is  to  speak  well,  both  in  pub- 
lic and  in  private.  The  manner  of  your  speaking  is  full  as  important  as 
the  matter,  as  more  people  have  ears  to  be  tickled,  than  understandings 
to  judge.  Be  your  productions  ever  so  good,  they  will  be  of  no  use,  if 
you  stifle  and  strangle  them  in  birth  .  .  .  Remember  of  what  impor- 
tance Demosthenes,  and  one  of  the  Gracchi,   thought  ENUNCIATION; 
and  read  what  stress  Cicero  and  Quintilian  lay  upon  it;  even  the  herb- 
women  at  Athens  were  correct  judges  of  it.  Oratory,  with  all  its  graces, 
that  of  enunciation  in  particular,  is  full  as  necessary  in  our  government 
as  it  ever  was  in  Greece  or  Rome.  No  man  can  make  a  fortune  or  a  fig- 
ure in  this  country,  without  speaking,  and  speaking  well  in  public.   If 
you  will  persuade,  you  must  first  please;  and  if  you  will  please,  you  must 
tune  your  voice  to  harmony,  you  must  articulate  every  syllable  distinctly, 
your  emphasis  and  cadences  must  be  strongly  and  properly  marked;  and 
the  whole  together  must  be  graceful  and  engaging.  If  you  do  not  speak 
in  that  manner,  you  had  much  better  not  speak  at  all  .  .  .  Let  me  con- 
jure you,  therefore,  to  make  this  your  only  object,  till  you  have  abso- 
lutely conquered  it,  for  that  is  in  your  power;  think  of  nothing  else,  read 
and  speak  for  nothing  else.  Read  aloud,  though  alone,  and  read  articu- 
lately and  distinctly,  as  if  you  were  reading  in  public,  and  on  the  most 
important  occasion.  Recite  pieces  of  eloquence,  declaim  scenes  of  trag- 
edies to  Mr.  Harte,  as  if  he  were  a  numerous  audience.  If  there  is  any 
particular  consonant  which  you  have  a  difficulty  in  articulating,  as  I 
think  you  had  with  the  R,  utter  it  millions  and  millions  of  times,  till  you 
have  uttered  it  right.   Never  speak  quick,  till  you  have  first  learned  to 
speak  well.  In  short,  lay  aside  every  book,  and  every  thought,  that  does 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  207 

not  directly  tend  to  this  great  object,  absolutely  decisive  of  your  future 
fortune  and  figure. 

LORD  CHESTERFIELD,  Letters  to  His  Son, 
Letter  CXVII,  July  9,  1750 

G.  There  is  no  individual  portion  of  the  architecture  and  decoration 
of  that  bridal  chamber  which  is  not  now  visibly  before  me  .  .  .  The 
room  lay  in  a  high  turret  of  the  castellated  abbey,  was  pentagonal  in 
shape,  and  of  capacious  size.  Occupying  the  whole  southern  face  of  the 
pentagon  was  the  sole  window— an  immense  sheet  of  unbroken  glass 
from  Venice— a  single  pane,  and  tinted  of  a  leaden  hue,  so  that  the  rays 
of  cither  the  sun  or  moon,  passing  through  it,  fell  with  a  ghastly  luster 
on  the  objects  within.  Over  the  upper  portion  of  this  huge  window 
extended  the  trellis-work  of  an  aged  vine,  which  clambered  up  the  massy 
walls  of  the  turret.  The  ceiling,  of  gloomy-looking  oak,  was  excessively 
lofty,  vaulted,  and  elaborately  fretted  with  the  wildest  and  most  gro- 
tesque specimens  of  a  semi-Gothic,  semi-Druidical  device.  From  out  the 
most  central  recess  of  this  melancholy  vaulting  depended,  by  a  single 
chain  of  gold  with  long  links,  a  huge  censer  of  the  same  metal,  Saracenic 
in  pattern,  and  with  many  perforations  so  contrived  that  there  writhed 
in  and  out  of  them,  as  if  endued  with  a  serpent  vitality,  a  continual  suc- 
cession of  parti-colored  fires. 

Some  few  ottomans  and  golden  candelabra,  of  Eastern  figure,  were  in 
various  stations  about;  and  there  was  the  couch,  too— the  bridal  couch— 
of  an  Indian  model,  and  low,  and  sculptured  of  solid  ebony,  with  a 
pall-like  canopy  above.  In  each  of  the  angles  of  the  chamber  stood  on 
end  a  giant  sarcophagus  of  black  granite,  from  the  tombs  of  the  kings 
over  against  Luxor,  with  their  aged  lids  full  of  immemorial  sculpture. 
But  in  the  draping  of  the  apartment  lay,  alas!  the  chief  fantasy  of  all. 
The  lofty  walls,  gigantic  in  height,  even  unproportionably  so,  were  hung 
from  summit  to  foot,  in  vast  folds,  with  a  heavy  and  massive-looking 
tapestry— tapestry  of  a  material  which  was  found  alike  as  a  carpet  on 
the  floor,  as  a  covering  for  the  ottomans  and  the  ebony  bed,  as  a  canopy 
for  the  bed,  and  as  the  gorgeous  volutes  of  the  curtains  which  partially 
shaded  the  window.  The  material  was  the  richest  cloth  of  gold.  It  was 
spotted  all  over,  at  irregular  intervals,  with  arabesque  figures,  about  a 
foot  in  diameter,  and  wrought  upon  the  cloth  in  patterns  of  the  most 
jetty  black.  But  these  figures  partook  of  the  true  character  of  the  ara- 
besque only  when  regarded  from  a  single  point  of  view.  By  a  contrivance 
now  common,  and  indeed  traceable  to  a  very  remote  period  of  antiquity, 
they  were  made  changeable  in  aspect.  To  one  entering  the  room,  they 
bore  the  appearance  of  simple  monstrosities;  but  upon  a  farther  advance, 


so8  Reading  to  Others 

this  appearance  gradually  departed;  and,  step  by  step,  as  the  visitor 
moved  his  station  in  the  chamber,  he  saw  himself  surrounded  by  an 
endless  succession  of  the  ghastly  forms  which  belong  to  the  superstition 
of  the  Norman,  or  arise  in  the  guilty  slumbers  of  the  monk.  The  phan- 
tasmagoric effect  was  vastly  heightened  by  the  artificial  introduction  of  a 
strong  continual  current  of  wind  behind  the  draperies,  giving  a  hideous 
and  uneasy  animation  to  the  whole. 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE,  Ligeia 

H.  If  it  were  not  for  the  BIBLE  and  COMMON  PRAYER  BOOK  in  the 
Vulgar  Tongue,  we  should  hardly  be  able  to  understand  anything  that 
was  written  among  us  an  hundred  years  ago;  which  is  certainly  true:  for 
those  books,  being  perpetually  read  in  Churches,  have  proved  a  kind  of 
standard  for  language,  especially  to  the  common  people.  And  I  doubt 
whether  the  alterations  since  introduced  have  added  much  to  the  beauty 
or  strength  of  the  English  Tongue,  though  they  have  taken  off  a  great 
deal  from  that  SIMPLICITY  which  is  one  of  the  greatest  perfections  in 
any  language  ...  I  am  persuaded  that  the  Translators  of  the  BIBLE 
were  masters  of  an  ENGLISH  style  much  fitter  for  that  work  than  any 
we  see  in  our  present  writings:  which  I  take  to  be  owing  to  the  SIM- 
PLICITY that  runs  through  the  whole.  Then,  as  to  the  greatest  part  of 
our  LITURGY,  compiled  long  before  the  Translation  of  the  BIBLE  now  in 
use,  and  little  altered  since,  there  seem  to  be  in  it  as  great  strains  of  true 
sublime  eloquence  as  are  anywhere  to  be  found  in  our  language;  which 
every  man  of  good  Taste  will  observe  in  the  COMMUNION  SERVICE,  that 
of  BURIAL,  and  other  parts. 

JONATHAN  SWIFT,  Letter  Dedicatory  to  the  Earl  of  Oxford 

i.  In  the  following  selection  Caponsacchi  is  testifying  before  the 
ecclesiastical  court  which  is  trying  Guido  for  the  murder  of  Pompilia: 

I  have  done  with  being  judged. 
J  stand  here  guiltless  in  thought,  word,  and  deed, 
To  the  point  that  I  apprise  you—in  contempt 
For  all  misapprehending  ignorance 
O'  the  human  heart,  much  more  the  mind  of  Christ— 
That  I  assuredly  did  bow,  was  blessed 
By  the  revelation  of  Pompilia.   There! 
Such  is  the  final  fact  I  fling  you,  Sirs, 
To  mouth  and  mumble  and  misinterpret:  there/ 
"The  priest's  in  love,"  have  it  the  vulgar  way/ 
Unpriest  me,  rend  the  rags  o'  the  vestment,  do- 
Degrade  deep,  disenfranchise  all  you  dare— 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  209 

Remove  me  from  the  midst,  no  longer  priest 
And  fit  companion  for  the  like  of  you— 
Your  gay  Abati  with  the  well-turned  leg 
And  rose  i'  the  hat-rim,  Canons,  cross  at  neck 
And  silk  mask  in  the  pocket  of  the  gown, 
Brisk  bishops  with  the  world's  musk  still  unbrushed 
From  the  rochet;  I'll  no  more  of  these  good  things: 
There's  a  crack  somewhere,  something  that's  unsound 
I'  the  rattle/ 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  The  Ring  and  the  Book 

j.    Here  Pompilia  speaks  from  her  deathbed: 

Yes,  my  end  of  breath 
Shall  bear  away  my  soul  in  being  true/ 
He  is  still  here,  not  outside  with  the  world, 
Here,  here,  I  have  him  in  his  rightful  place/ 
'Tis  now,  when  I  am  most  upon  the  move, 
I  feel  for  what  I  verily  find— again 
The  face,  again  the  eyes,  again,  through  all, 
The  heart  and  its  immeasurable  love 
Of  my  one  friend,  my  only,  all  my  own, 
Who  put  his  breast  between  the  spears  and  me. 
Ever  with  Caponsacchi/   Otherwise 
Here  alone  would  be  failure,  loss  to  me— 
How  much  more  loss  to  him,  with  life  debarred 
From  giving  life,  love  locked  from  love's  display, 
The  day-star  stopped  its  task  that  makes  night  morn/ 
O  lover  of  my  life,  O  soldier-saint, 
No  work  begun  shall  ever  pause  for  death/ 
Love  will  be  helpful  to  me  more  and  more 
I'  the  coming  course,  the  new  path  I  must  tread— 
My  weak  hand  in  thy  strong  hand,  strong  for  that/ 
Tell  him  that  if  I  seem  without  him  now, 
That's  the  world's  insight/   Oh,  he  understands/ 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  The  Ring  and  the  Book 

K.   In  Reading  gaol  by  Reading  town 

There  is  a  pit  of  shame, 
And  in  it  lies  a  wretched  man 

Eaten  by  teeth  of  flame, 
In  a  burning  winding-sheet  he  lies, 

And  his  grave  has  got  no  name. 


210  Reading  to  Others 

And  there,  till  Christ  call  forth  the  dead, 

In  silence  let  him  lie: 
No  need  to  waste  the  foolish  tear, 

Or  heave  the  windy  sigh: 
The  man  had  killed  the  thing  he  loved, 

And  so  he  had  to  die. 

And  all  men  kill  the  thing  they  love, 

By  all  let  this  be  heard, 
Some  do  it  with  a  bitter  look, 

Some  with  a  flattering  word, 
The  coward  does  it  with  a  kiss, 

The  brave  man  with  a  sword/ 

OSCAR  WILDE,  The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol 

L.   Some  painters  paint  the  sapphire  sea, 
And  some  the  gathering  storm. 
Others  portray  young  lambs  at  play, 
But  most,  the  female  form. 
'Twas  trite  in  that  primeval  dawn 
When  painting  got  its  start, 
That  a  lady  with  her  garments  on 
Is  Life,  but  is  she  Art? 
By  undraped  nymphs 
I  am  not  wooed; 
Td  rather  painters  painted  food. 

Food, 

Yes,  food, 

Just  any  old  kind  of  food. 

Pooh  for  the  cook, 

And  pooh  for  the  price/ 

Some  of  it's  nicer,  but  all  of  it's  nice. 

Pheasant  is  pleasant,  of  course, 

And  terrapin,  too,  is  tasty, 

Lobster  I  freely  endorse, 

In  pate  or  patty  or  pasty. 

But  there's  nothing  the  matter  with  butter, 

And  nothing  the  matter  with  /am, 

And  the  warmest  of  greetings  I  utter 

To  the  ham  and  yam  and  clam. 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  211 

For  they're  food, 

All  food 

And  I  think  very  highly  of  food. 

Though  I  am  broody  at  times 

When  bothered  by  rhymes, 

I  brood 

On  food. 

Food, 

Just  food, 

Just  any  old  kind  of  food. 

Let  it  be  sour 

Or  let  it  be  sweet, 

As  long  as  you're  sure  it  is  something  to  eat. 

Go  purloin  a  sirloin,  my  pet, 

If  you'd  win  a  devotion  incredible; 

And  asparagus  tips  vinaigrette, 

Or  anything  else  that  is  edible. 

Bring  salad  or  sausage  or  scrapple, 

A  berry  or  even  a  beet, 

Bring  an  oyster,  an  egg,  or  an  apple, 

As  long  as  it's  something  to  eat. 

For  it's  food, 

It's  food; 

Never  mind  what  kind  of  food. 

Through  thick  and  through  thin 

I  am  constantly  in 

The  mood 

For  food. 

Some  singers  sing  of  ladies'  eyes, 

And  some  of  ladies'  lips, 

Refined  ones  praise  their  ladylike  ways, 

And  coarse  ones  hymn  their  hips. 

The  Oxford  Book  of  English  Verse 

Is  lush  with  lyrics  tender; 

A  poet,  I  guess,  is  more  or  less, 

Preoccupied  with  gender. 

Yet  I,  though  custom  call  me  crude, 

Prefer  to  sing  in  praise  of  food. 

OGDEN  NASH,  The  Clean  Platter 


Reading  to  Others 

M.   Yet  must  I  leave  thee,  woman,  to  thy  shame. 
I  hold  that  man  the  worst  of  public  foes 
Who  either  for  his  own  or  children's  sake, 
To  save  his  blood  from  scandal,  lets  the  wife 
Whom  he  knows  false,  abide  and  rule  the  house: 
For  being  thro'  his  cowardice  allow'd 
Her  station,  taken  everywhere  for  pure, 
She  like  a  new  disease,  unknown  to  men, 
Creeps,  no  precaution  used,  among  the  crowd, 
Makes  wicked  lightnings  of  her  eyes,  and  saps 
The  fealty  of  our  friends,  and  stirs  the  pulse 
With  devils'  leaps,  and  poisons  half  the  young. 
Worst  of  the  worst  were  that  man  he  that  reigns/ 
Better  the  King's  waste  hearth  and  aching  heart 
Than  thou  reseated  in  thy  place  of  light, 
The  mockery  of  my  people,  and  their  bane. 

ALFRED  TENNYSON,  Idylls  of  the  King 

N.  A  mumbling  throng  sits  awkwardly 
In  the  iridescent  glare  of  a  high  sky-light. 
The  taut,  white-rimmed,  black-squared  net 
Separates  bleak,  three-spaced  courts. 
Upon  an  elevated  throne  reigns  the  umpire, 
Ruling  the  points  "out,"  "in,"  "out,"  "in." 
The  flogged  balls  moan  and  leap;  the  writhing  viscera 
Of  the  animated  whips  emit  a  treble  roar; 
Rows  of  staring  faces  turn  with  precise  dexterity, 
In  monotonous  harmofty,  right,  left,  right,  left; 
The  toiling,  lithe  flagellants  eagerly  ply  their  scourges. 

A  truant  dog  is  haled  away  whining; 

The  hiss  of  escaping  steam  suddenly  ceases, 

And  a  silent  dulness  oppresses  the  tympana; 

A  hollow  snap  reverberates  from  the  struck  floor; 

The  lofty  arbiter  endlessly  drones  fantastic  numbers; 

The  players  run  whitely;  the  faces  move: 

LEFT— right,  THiRty— love,  GOOD— shot,  DOUB!C— fault, 

LET— ball,  'vANtage— server,  CLAP— clap,  RIGHT— left  .  . 

ARTHUR  }.  THOMAS,  An  Indoor  Tennis  Match 

o.  How  many  million  Aprils  came 
Before  I  ever  knew 


Improving  Tempo  and  Quality  213 

How  white  a  cherry  bough  could  be, 

A  bed  of  squills  how  blue—- 
And many  a  dancing  April, 

When  life  is  done  with  me, 
Will  lift  the  blue  flame  of  the  flower 

And  the  white  flame  of  the  tree. 

Oh,  burn  me  with  your  beauty  then— 

Oh,  hurt  me,  tree  and  flower, 
Lest  in  the  end  death  try  to  take 

Even  this  glistening  hour. 

O  shaken  flowers,  O  shimmering  trees, 

O  sunlit  white  and  blue, 
Wound  me,  that  I  through  endless  sleep 

May  bear  the  scar  of  you. 

SARA  TEASDALE,  Blue  Squills 


p.    Thus  were  my  sympathies  enlarged,  and  thus 
Daily  the  common  range  of  visible  things 
Grew  dear  to  me:  already  I  began 
To  love  the  sun;  a  boy  I  loved  the  sun, 
Not  as  I  since  have  loved  him,  as  a  pledge 
And  surety  of  our  earthly  life,  a  light 
Which  we  behold  and  feel  we  are  alive; 
Nor  for  his  bounty  to  so  many  worlds— 
But  for  this  cause,  that  I  had  seen  him  lay 
His  beauty  on  the  morning  hills,  had  seen 
The  western  mountain  touch  his  setting  orb, 
In  many  a  thoughtless  hour,  when,  from  excess 
Of  happiness,  my  blood  appeared  to  flow 
For  its  own  pleasure,  and  I  breathed  with  ;oy. 
And,  from  like  feelings,  humble  though  intense, 
To  patriotic  and  domestic  love 
Analogous,  the  moon  to  me  was  dear; 
For  I  could  dream  away  my  purposes, 
Standing  to  gaze  upon  her  while  she  hung 
Midway  between  the  hills,  as  if  she  knew 
No  other  region,  but  belong  to  thee, 


214  Reading  to  Others 

Yea,  appertained  by  a  peculiar  right 

To  thee  and  thy  grey  huts,  thou  one  dear  Vale! 

WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH,  The  Prelude 

Q.   Red  lips  are  not  so  red 

As  the  stained  stones  kissed  by  the  English  dead. 
Kindness  of  wooed  and  wooer 
Seems  shame  to  their  love  pure. 
O  Love,  your  eyes  lose  lure 

When  I  behold  eyes  blinded  in  my  stead/ 

Your  slender  attitude 

Trembles  not  exquisite  like  limbs,  knife-skewed, 
Rolling  and  rolling  there 
Where  God  seems  not  to  care; 
Till  the  fierce  Love  they  bear 

Cramps  them  in  death's  extreme  decrepitude. 

Your  voice  sings  not  so  soft—- 
Though even  as  wind  murmuring  through  raftered  loft—- 
Your dear  voice  is  not  dear, 
Gentle,  and  evening  clear, 
As  theirs  whom  none  now  hear 
Now  earth  has  stopped  their  piteous  mouths  that  coughed. 

Heart,  you  were  never  hot, 

Nor  large,  nor  full  like  hearts  made  great  with  shot; 
And  though  your  hand  be  pale, 
Paler  are  all  which  trail 
Your  cross  through  flame  and  hail: 

Weep,  you  may  weep,  for  you  may  touch  them  not. 

WILFRED  OWEN,  Greater  Love 


CHAPTER 


ovement  ana 

T 

anners 

WHILE  YOU  communicate  ideas  and 
emotions  in  interpretation,  your  body  is  no  less  active  than  your 
mind.  You  are  standing  before  an  audience,  using  the  muscles  of 
your  feet,  legs,  and  torso  to  keep  yourself  balanced.  You  are 
holding  a  book  and  perhaps  turning  pages,  or  your  hands  are 
free  and  you  are  making  gestures.  You  may  move  about  on  the 
platform.  Your  facial  muscles  may  produce  smiles  or  frowns.  Your 
breathing  apparatus  is  working  steadily,  sending  out  air  to  vibrate 
your  vocal  cords,  and  your  lips,  tongue,  and  jaws  are  busy  forming 
sounds.  Just  how  much  of  this  bodily  activity  can  you  consciously 
direct?  We  have  already  described  the  mechanism  of  speech. 
Here  we  shall  briefly  discuss  general  bodily  action  and  its  various 
divisions  of  walking,  posture,  gesture,  and  poise. 

The  importance  of  vigorous,  controlled  general  bodily  activity 
in  speech  work  is  very  great.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  a  fairly 
accurate  index  of  personality.  Some  alert  minds  may  lurk  within 
torpid,  undisciplined  bodies,  but  it  is  far  more  likely  that  the 
brains  of  inert  people  are  as  sluggish  as  their  muscles.  When  a  man 
or  woman  stands  poised  for  action,  remaining  capable  of  graceful 
relaxation,  or  moves  with  energy,  possessing  visible  coordination 
of  mind  and  body,  you  can  usually  be  sure  that  he  or  she  is  worth 
knowing.  In  the  second  place,  vigorous  bodily  action  is  a  means 
of  forceful  communication  on  the  platform.  In  the  third  place, 
it  is  a  valuable  aid  in  overcoming  stage  fright. 

Let  us  take  some  examples:    A  large,  slovenly,  apathetic  man 


216  Reading  to  Others 

pours  himself  reluctantly  out  of  a  chair  and  begins  to  address  an 
audience.  His  listeners  give  him  courteous  attention,  but  at  the 
same  time  they  are  saying  to  themselves,  "What  a  sloppy  fellow 
he  is!  He  sounds  as  if  he  didn't  give  a  hang  about  whether  he 
has  anything  to  say  or  not/'  Then  as  he  drones  on,  the  dead  weight 
of  his  words  and  the  mass  of  his  physical  appearance  begin  to 
bear  down  on  the  minds  and  bodies  of  his  hearers,  and  their  minds 
and  bodies  become  imitatively  limp.  The  next  speaker  is  an  eager 
chap  who  bounds  up  dynamically  when  his  turn  arrives.  He  walks 
to  the  front  of  the  platform,  smiles,  and  opens  his  talk  briskly. 
He  is  so  much  awake  that  he  shares  some  of  his  energy  with  his 
audience,  and  their  dulled  senses  are  aroused.  Their  bodies  imi- 
tatively accept  his  animation.  We  sometimes  say  that  such  speakers 
tire  us  physically,  but  on  the  whole,  which  would  you  prefer  to 
listen  to,  the  first  man  or  the  second? 

A  well-known  poet  once  addressed  a  large  audience  in  a  northern 
university.  He  had  many  admirers  in  the  group,  people  who  had 
read  his  poems  and  were  anxious  to  hear  him  read  them.  After 
his  introduction  he  remained  seated,  opened  a  book,  and  began 
to  read  languidly.  Much  of  what  he  read  was  beautiful,  and  surely 
no  one  in  the  world  was  better  qualified  than  the  author  to  inter- 
pret it.  Yet  he  read  so  confidentially  that  half  his  audience  could 
not  hear  him  and  so  indifferently  that  the  other  half  was  bored. 
Many  of  his  hearers  that  night  never  again  read  his  poetry  with 
the  same  pleasure  they  had  felt  before  he  ruined  it  by  wretched 
reading.  They  always  remembered  his  lounging,  contemptuous 
manner.  On  the  other  hand,  another  contemporary  poet,  Carl 
Sandburg,  always  charms  his  audiences  with  his  energetic  recita- 
tions. The  late  Vachel  Lindsay  also  put  great  intensity  into  his 
reading,  expressing  with  his  body  as  well  as  with  his  voice  the 
spirited  rhythms  of  his  poems. 

EMPATHY 

The  imitative  muscular  effect  of  one  person  on  another  is 
called  empathy.  It  means  a  "feeling  into."  A  listener  "feels  into" 
the  facial  expressions,  the  gestures,  and  the  movements  of  a  per- 
former. We  "feel  into"  someone's  yawn  or  giggle,  and  we  too 
have  an  impulse  to  yawn  or  giggle.  In  other  words,  the  physical 
activity  of  a  person  we  are  watching  can  set  up  in  us  muscular 


Movement  and  Manners  217 

action  of  which  we  may  or  may  not  be  aware.  For  example,  we 
emphatically  beat  time  to  a  band  or  put  on  imaginary  brakes 
when  we  are  passengers  in  a  car  that  approaches  danger.  We  feel 
all  kinds  of  exciting  tensions,  not  always  pleasant  ones,  when  we 
see  an  acrobat  on  a  high  trapeze,  or  a  rope-walker,  or  a  man 
repairing  a  tall  flag  pole,  or  a  bob-sled  tearing  around  hazardous 
curves,  or  a  ski-jumper  falling.  These  are  all  perfectly  tangible 
responses.  But  have  you  ever  analyzed  your  feeling  of  physical 
depression  in  the  presence  of  a  gloomy  person  whose  eyes  are  sad 
and  the  corners  of  whose  mouth  are  drawn  down?  Do  you  know 
why  the  smile  of  a  cheerful  person  can  make  you  feel  happy?  The 
pleasure  we  get  out  of  watching  good  dancers  or  skaters  is  empathic. 
So  is  a  great  deal  of  our  satisfaction  in  the  theater  or  in  moving 
pictures.  Some  aestheticians  say  that  even  our  enjoyment  of  music 
and  painting  is  empathic. 

Since  so  much  of  our  experience  is  based  on  obvious  or  hidden 
empathies,  we  can  profitably  consider  their  value  to  the  inter- 
preter. No  mean  part  of  his  job  is  to  arouse  the  right  empathies 
in  the  minds  of  his  audience.  Some  of  these  may  be  beyond  his 
immediate  control.  We  like  or  dislike  a  person  on  sight  because 
of  subtle  empathies,  often  the  effect  of  appearance  or  dress.  Some 
people  look  unclean  or  untidy  or  wear  too  much  or  too  little 
make-up  or  let  their  face  muscles  droop  disagreeably.  Others 
have  nice  mouths  or  hair,  or  dress  becomingly,  or  look  pleasant. 
These  first  impressions  should  be  of  grave  concern  to  all  of  us, 
whether  as  interpreters  or  as  everyday  people  living  in  a  social 
world.  That  is  to  say,  some  of  the  effect  we  have  on  others  goes 
back  to  early  training  and  the  establishing  of  personal  habits. 
The  interpreter  can,  of  course,  look  and  behave  his  best;  then 
the  empathies  that  he  arouses  while  he  speaks,  will  determine  the 
success  of  his  communication.  He  may  even  be  able  to  overcome 
an  initial  bad  impression;  a  beautiful  voice,  a  challenging  intellect, 
a  significant  message  may  do  much  to  offset  bad  empathies  begun 
by  unattractive  appearance  or  manner.  The  poet  who  slouched  in 
his  chair  and  did  not  exert  himself  to  make  his  reading  alive  and 
glowing  produced  the  wrong  empathies.  Carl  Sandburg  nearly 
always  produces  the  right  ones.  Alertness  of  mind,  vigor  of  body, 
and  coordination  of  both  are  important  elements  in  the  speaker's 
personality. 


218  Reading  to  Others 

STAGE   FRIGHT 

Most  of  us  have  heard  others  say,  "I  just  can't  get  up  and  face 
an  audience.  They  scare  me  to  death!"  Maybe  you've  said  it 
yourself.  Does  the  thought  of  reciting  in  class  or  speaking  to  a 
group  make  your  pulse  leap,  your  palms  sweat,  and  your  back 
shiver  in  a  spasm  of  anticipated  terror?  Does  the  sight  of  faces 
all  looking  toward  you  expectantly  make  your  knees  weak  and 
your  mouth  dry?  As  you  begin  to  speak,  does  your  brain  seem 
to  be  swollen  and  vague,  and  do  your  words  seem  to  come  from  far 
away?  Do  you  feel  that  if  you  can't  hang  on  to  something  you'll 
fall  down?  Do  your  eyes  seek  refuge  on  a  friendly  rear  wall  or  a 
building  across  the  street  through  the  window?  Do  you  finish  with 
such  a  surge  of  relief  that  you  can't  remember  what  you  have 
said?  Do  you  escape  from  the  platform  on  trembling  legs,  feeling 
ashamed  of  your  cowardice?  If  so,  cheer  up.  You've  had  one  of 
the  commonest  of  experiences.  You  needn't  be  embarrassed  about 
it  or  very  sorry  for  yourself.  Everybody  goes  through  the  same 
struggle.  You'd  be  a  rare  specimen  of  speaker  or  actor  if  you 
didn't  have  some  of  these  symptoms  of  stage  fright.  Indeed,  some 
great  actors  and  speakers  have  said  that  when  you  stop  being 
stage-frightened  (though,  of  course,  not  panic-stricken)  you  stop 
being  a  truly  effective  performer. 

We've  been  hinting  at  the  desirability  of  control  in  bodily 
action.  It  has  its  use,  we  discovered,  in  setting  up  good  empathies 
in  others.  But  nowhere  has  it  more  value  than  in  combating  some 
of  the  foolish  possibilities  of  stage  fright,  such  as  wild  alarm, 
high  speed,  frantic  stammering,  and  collapse.  Control  means  the 
intelligent  supervision  of  thought  processes  and  bodily  activity. 
When  we  allow  ourselves  to  get  out  of  control,  we  cease  to  be 
rational  beings.  The  hopelessly  stage-frightened  person  is  as  much 
out  of  control  as  an  idiot  or  a  baby.  What  we  should  be  ashamed 
of  in  stage  fright  is  not  the  quaking  knees  or  the  cotton-dry  mouth, 
but  mental  surrender  to  these  outward  manifestations.  If  the  mind 
stays  in  control,  the  physical  agitation  will  either  stop  or  lose  its 
power  of  terror.  Granted,  the  first  minutes  of  any  speaking  expe- 
rience are  likely  to  be  painful.  What  of  it?  Don't  think  about 
how  unhappy  you  are.  Think  about  what  you  are  saying,  feel  it 
sincerely,  and  very  promptly  you  should  begin  to  lose  your  fear. 


Movement  and  Manners  219 

You  may  argue,  "That's  easy  to  say,  but  I've  tried,  and  I'm  still 
paralyzed."  Be  honest  with  yourself.  Have  you  really  tried  to  be 
so  absorbed  in  what  you  have  to  say  that  you  forget  how  you 
feel?  Most  people  with  a  cause,  an  idea  which  they  passionately 
believe  in,  can  talk  about  it  without  fear.  Pretend  that  what  you 
have  to  say  means  a  very  great  deal  to  you.  Ignore  your  shaking; 
that's  merely  external.  Then,  if  you  are  still  badly  frightened, 
there  is  another  way.  Put  your  body  into  the  physical  attitude 
of  confidence.  Look  straight  at  your  audience,  stand  firmly,  hold 
your  head  up.  A  psychological  law  of  emotion  (which  we  shall 
discuss  in  greater  detail  in  the  chapter  on  acting)  is  that  if  we  set 
up  in  ourselves  the  muscular  pattern  of  an  emotion,  we  tend  in 
some  measure  to  feel  that  emotion.  If  you  draw  down  the  corners 
of  your  mouth,  you'll  tend  to  feel  forlorn.  If  you  turn  them  up, 
you'll  probably  smile  and  feel  cheerful.  Isn't  that  the  technique 
a  mother  sometimes  uses  in  comforting  a  pouting  child?  Try  it. 

In  summary,  don't  be  afraid  of  stage  fright.  Everybody  has  it. 
Accept  it  and  do  your  best  to  disregard  it  by  attending  to  what 
you  have  to  say.  Keep  your  head  in  all  emergencies.  If  you  still 
don't  feel  confident,  pretend  that  you  do!  Finally,  remember  that 
with  experience  you  will  undoubtedly  gain  ease.  The  unfor- 
givable error  is  to  assure  yourself  that  you  are  a  hopeless  case. 
Be  thoroughly  prepared  for  whatever  you  must  do  and  fight  down 
your  tensions  by  controlling  your  bodily  activity  and  using  good 
psychology. 

WALKING 

Many  people  walk  badly.  They  shamble  along,  lifting  their 
feet  as  little  as  possible,  or  tip  on  heels  that  are  too  high  or  run- 
over  at  the  edge,  or  take  too  long  or  too  mincing  steps,  or  stumble 
over  their  own  feet.  We  are  concerned  here  chiefly  with  the  way 
you  walk  from  your  place  to  the  platform,  but  actually  all  your 
movements  contribute  to  the  total  bodily  action,  which  should  be 
properly  trained  and  ready  for  any  test.  That  is,  just  as  good 
speaking  habits  are  established  by  long  practice  in  many  situa- 
tions, so  should  the  body  be  constantly  under  the  discipline  of 
good  habits.  To  do  things  well  in  the  classroom  but  to  do  the 
same  things  negligently  outside  will  not  make  you  an  expert. 

Here  are  a  few  suggestions  for  walking.  Put  a  little  spring  into 


22O  Reading  to  Others 

your  step.  You  needn't  bounce  along  like  a  fawn  in  May,  but 
neither  should  you  put  your  heels  down  as  heavily  as  if  you  were 
stamping  out  a  grass-fire.  Don't  land  flat-footed,  but  rock  from 
the  heel  to  the  ball  of  the  foot,  pushing  vigorously  forward  to 
the  next  step.  If  you  rise  from  a  chair  on  the  platform  and  move 
right  to  the  center,  start  off  with  the  right  foot.  If  you  move  to 
the  left,  start  with  the  left  foot.  If  you  must  go  up  or  down  stairs, 
watch  where  you  are  going.  You  may  add  to  the  enjoyment  of  the 
audience  if  you  fall  up  or  down  a  couple  of  steps,  but  you  may 
also  deal  your  composure  a  fatal  blow.  Before  you  stand  to  walk, 
uncross  your  legs. 

POSTURE 

Good  posture  is  part  of  the  general  good  health  which,  with 
good  thinking,  good  imagination,  good  humor,  and  good  physical 
action,  goes  to  make  up  the  well-equipped  person  who  should 
make  a  satisfactory  interpreter.  The  speaker  who  slumps  on  the 
platform,  shoulders  drooping,  stomach  forward,  produces  uncom- 
fortable empathies  in  his  hearers.  The  speaker  who  stands  easily, 
weight  forward,  shoulders  back,  his  body  dynamic,  tends  to  ener- 
gize his  audience.  Good  posture  not  only  adds  to  confidence  and 
good  appearance,  but  also  frees  the  body  from  tensions  that  cramp 
the  lungs  and  vocal  apparatus. 

Stand  with  your  weight  slightly  forward  so  that  you  are  not 
planted  on  your  heels.  Keep  one  foot  a  little  advanced  beyond 
the  other,  carrying  more  of  the  body's  weight  than  the  foot  in 
back.  Search  for  a  position  that  will  give  you  greatest  comfort 
and  freedom  of  movement.  Don't  spread  your  feet  too  far  apart 
and  don't  try  to  stand  on  the  smallest  possible  space.  Keep  your 
knees  straight.  Beware  of  bending  one  or  both  of  them  back- 
ward so  that  they  make  your  legs  look  slightly  deformed  or  so 
that  you  stand  in  a  concave  curve.  Pull  your  shoulders  back  and 
keep  your  chin  up.  Avoid  the  awkward  appearance  of  "lordosis," 
with  spine  curved  in,  stomach  out.  Avoid  just  as  heartily  the 
reverse  effect,  which  brings  the  derriere  into  too  great  promi- 
nence. When  reading,  don't  hold  the  book  so  far  from  your  face 
that  your  neck  has  to  crane  forward.  On  the  other  hand,  don't 
hold  it  too  close  to  your  face  or  in  front  of  it.  When  you  speak 
without  a  book,  try  to  find  some  inconspicuous,  natural  thing  for 


Movement  and  Manners  221 

your  hands  to  do.  Don't  put  them  in  your  pockets  or  behind  your 
back.  Let  them  hang  easily  at  your  sides  if  you  can't  think  of 
any  better  place  for  them.  A  woman  looks  better  if  her  hands 
are  folded  near  the  waistline.  If  one  hand  holds  a  manuscript, 
let  the  other  one  hang  at  the  side.  A  reading  stand  is  often  a  great 
source  of  comfort  to  those  with  hand  trouble.  But  don't  depend 
on  it  too  desperately. 

Never  take  a  constrained  position  of  any  kind.  Tense  muscles 
tire  quickly,  and  you  will  probably  shift  clumsily.  Good  posture 
is  the  graceful,  vigilant,  well-poised  position  from  which  muscles 
which  are  neither  too  tense  nor  too  relaxed  can  most  readily 
function  in  free  bodily  action. 

Sit  and  stand  still  until  you  have  a  reason  to  move.  Don't  fidget 
or  fuss  or  stamp  about  while  you  are  addressing  an  audience. 
Movement  is  always  distracting  unless  it  has  a  purpose.  Very 
often,  however,  movement  relieves  the  speaker  or  emphasizes  ideas 
or  indicates  changes  in  mood,  character,  or  thought.  Then  shifts 
in  weight  from  one  foot  to  the  other  and  changes  in  position  and 
even  pacing  may  add  variety  and  vividness  to  interpretation. 

GESTURE 

Gesture  includes  all  visible  action  of  the  body  except  change 
in  posture  or  position.  The  head,  mouth,  eyebrows,  eyes,  and 
shoulders  gesture  as  well  as  the  hands  and  arms.  In  everyday  life 
all  of  us  make  frequent  use  of  gestures.  We  shrug  our  shoulders 
and  shake  our  heads  and  lift  our  eyebrows  and  beckon  and  point, 
each  movement  eloquently  communicating  without  speech.  Our 
language  is  full  of  words  and  phrases  referring  to  gesture.  Super- 
cilious, for  example,  comes  from  Latin  words  meaning  "over  the 
eyebrow,"  or  a  raised  eyebrow.  "Thumbs  down"  goes  back  to 
the  supposed  Roman  custom  of  indicating  after  a  gladiatorial 
combat  whether  the  defeated  warrior  was  to  be  killed.  Time 
magazine  has  revived  an  old  phrase,  "to  cock  a  snook,"  which 
describes  a  gesture  of  insult.  George  Bernard  Shaw's  Australian 
cousin,  writing  about  the  Shaw  family  in  a  recent  book,  uses  the 
phrase,  "making  a  snoot,"  to  describe  a  form  of  gesture  prevalent 
among  small  children. 

From  the  time  when  man  as  an  infant  shakes  his  head  to  show 
that  he  doesn't  want  more  milk,  to  his  last  feeble  signal  from  the 


222  Reading  to  Others 

death-bed,  he  makes  good,  meaningful  gestures.  His  gestures  be- 
fore an  audience,  however,  are  almost  inevitably  stiff,  unreal,  and 
embarrassed.  He  may  learn  to  read  or  speak  excellently,  and  he 
may  lose  almost  every  vestige  of  stage  fright.  Nevertheless,  his 
gestures  will  probably  lag  far  behind  his  other  controls  in  spon- 
taneity and  effectiveness. 

Since  gestures  are  natural  to  us,  since  they  free  the  body  from 
restraints,  and  since  they  give  variety  and  zest  to  what  we  say  or 
read,  we  should  certainly  learn  how  to  use  them.  Don't  worry 
about  them  at  first.  Simply  work  on  posture,  unhampered  by 
tensions.  As  you  grow  in  confidence  and  experience,  try  to  express 
emphasis  by  occasional  broad  gestures.  Don't  be  too  precise  or 
dainty.  Fling  out  your  hands.  Let  your  whole  body  enter  abun- 
dantly into  the  emphasis.  In  the  early  stages  of  gesture  training, 
you  should  not  be  concerned  with  accuracy  or  grace.  Simply  let 
yourself  gol  If  you  really  want  to  free  your  body  from  inhibiting 
tensions,  encourage  every  impulse  toward  physical  action,  no 
matter  how  rough  or  awkward  or  absurd  it  may  be.  Later  you 
can  work  on  timing  and  gracefulness  and  aptness.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  greatest  value  in  practicing  gestures  is  in  the  relaxing 
of  tensions  and  the  breaking  down  of  mental  constraint.  You  must 
not  suppose  that  these  extravagant  gestures  must  necessarily  be 
carried  over  to  public  performance.  They  will  do  very  well  in 
private  practice  and  even  in  the  classroom,  but  before  a  strange 
audience  you  should  be  careful  to  use  gestures  in  moderation. 
In  any  event,  gestures  with  a  book  in  your  hand  are  not  very 
satisfying.  Only  in  reciting  from  memory  can  you  use  hands  and 
arms  freely. 

Good  gestures  are  made  in  curved  lines  rather  than  in  angles. 
They  are  timed  so  that  they  usually  precede  momentarily  the 
words  they  emphasize.  They  are  not  repeated  so  often  as  to 
become  monotonous.  Deliberately  planned,  unspontaneous  ges- 
tures, however  elegant,  seldom  seem  right.  The  same  gesture 
made  in  the  same  place  by  different  readers  may  be  right  for  one, 
wrong  for  the  other.  How  can  you  know  when  a  gesture  is  good? 
If  you  feel  at  ease  in  making  it,  if  it  comes  instinctively  as  a 
reenforcement  of  an  idea,  if  you  do  not  attend  to  it  rather  than 
to  what  you  are  saying,  it  is  likely  to  be  a  good  gesture. 

The  timing  of  gestures  should  have  special  attention.   Observe 


Movement  and  Manners  223 

the  difference  between  indicating  with  your  hand  an  approaching 
person  and  then  saying,  "There  he  comes,"  and  making  the  state- 
ment before  the  gesture.  The  first  is  the  normal,  natural  way  to 
direct  attention;  the  second  merely  emphasizes  the  gesture.  Badly 
timed  gestures  may  seriously  interfere  with  mood  and  confuse 
meaning.  Before  you  abandon  yourself  too  unreservedly  to  the 
impulse  to  gesture,  be  sure  that  the  impulse  is  trustworthy  and 
that  the  gesture  is  more  than  a  vague  flapping  of  hands. 

There  are  three  main  kinds  of  gesture— descriptive,  allusive, 
and  emphatic.  You  use  descriptive  gestures  when  you  raise  your 
hand  to  show  how  tall  someone  is  or  draw  an  imaginary  pistol. 
When  some  one  asks  your  opinion  of  another  and  you  slightly 
shrug  your  shoulders,  lifting  your  hands,  palms  upward,  as  if  to 
say,  "I  don't  need  to  put  it  into  words,  but  I  don't  think  much  of 
him.  You  know  how  it  is,"  you  are  using  an  allusive  gesture.  When 
you  bang  the  table  or  drive  your  fist  into  the  palm  of  the  other 
hand,  you  are  using  an  emphatic  gesture. 

It  is  a  profound  error  in  the  interpreter  to  be  too  literal  about 
gesture.  When  a  reader  takes  the  good  news  from  Ghent  to  Aix, 
he  must  not  try  to  post  his  vivid  horse.  When  Porphyro  and  the 
fair  Madeline  flee  along  the  gusty  halls,  the  interpreter  must  not 
be  so  carried  away  by  the  romantic  scene  that  he  pussyfoots  softly 
with  them  along  the  platform.  When  Roderick  Dhu  summons 
the  clansmen,  the  interpreter  must  not  blow  an  imaginary  blast. 
The  shades  of  meaning  given  by  the  changes  in  an  expressive  face, 
by  the  movement  of  the  head,  and,  especially,  by  the  effect  of  the 
eyes  are  much  more  to  the  interpreter's  purpose  than  too  dramatic 
activity  of  the  hands  and  arms.  When  in  doubt  stand  still.  In 
general,  use  arm  and  hand  gestures  sparingly.  But  remember 
that  any  kind  of  gesture  is  sign  language  and,  put  to  good  use, 
may  convey  meaning  as  well  as  emphasize  meaning.  Gestures  are 
indeed  a  valuable  means  of  communication.  Don't  neglect  them 
in  your  speech  training. 

POISE 

Poise  is  really  the  sum-total  of  effective  bodily  action.  Its  orig- 
inal meaning  had  something  to  do  with  weight,  which  is  significant 
in  that  aspect  of  poise  referring  to  carriage  and  balance.  But  poise 
is  more  than  distribution  of  weight.  It  now  suggests  self-possession 


224  Reading  to  Others 

and  dignity  as  well.  A  person  is  said  to  have  poise  when  he  carries 
himself  well  and  when  he  has  an  admirable  mixture  of  self-disci- 
pline and  self-assurance.  The  physical  attributes  of  poise  can  be 
acquired.  You  can  learn  to  keep  your  head  up,  your  back  straight, 
and  your  eyes  alert.  The  eyes  have  much  to  do  with  poise.  If  they 
are  shifty  and  frightened,  you  do  not  have  poise.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  eyes  are  clear  and  interested,  seeking  other  eyes  and 
communicating  by  the  direct  glance,  you  probably  do  have  poise. 
What  goes  on  behind  the  physical  mask  of  composure  depends, 
of  course,  on  your  background,  your  training,  your  intelligence 
quotient,  and  the  various  other  intangibles  of  personality  that  are 
beyond  the  scope  of  a  class  in  oral  interpretation. 

Exercises 

1.  Analyze  the  bodily  activity  of  several  speakers  or  readers 
you  have  heard.   Tell  the  class  whether  or  not  it  contributed  to 
your  enjoyment  or  your  discomfort,  giving  reasons. 

2.  Describe  your  empathies  at  a  " Western"  moving  picture,  at 
a  symphony  concert,  at  a  football  game,  at  a  prize-fight,  at  a  diving 
exhibition,  in  watching  a  stunt  flier,  in  seeing  a  near-accident  or 
actual  accident,  in  seeing  a  bad  amateur  play  with  shaky  scenery 
and  equally  shaky  lines,  in  seeing  a  good  play,  in  looking  at  a  piece 
of  modernistic  architecture  or  sculpture,  in  looking  at  a  figure 
like  Michelangelo's  David,  Rodin's  The  Thinker,  or  Manship's 
Prometheus,  in  front  of  Radio  City. 

3.  Jot  down  answers  to  the  following  questions  with  reference 
to  a  speaker  at  an  assembly  program  or  one  of  the  members  of  the 
class,  in  recitation,  or  a  faculty  member  giving  a  lecture: 

A.  Is  he  visibly  frightened?   If  so,  does  he  master  the  fear? 

B.  How  does  he  stand?    Does  he  shift  his  position  frequently? 
Are  the  shifts  intrusive,  or  do  they  add  variety? 

c.    Is  he  personally  attractive?   Well-dressed?   Neat? 

D.  Is  he  physically  vigorous?   Apathetic?   Shy?   Aggressive? 

E.  Does  he  move  about  easily?  Is  his  walk  elastic?  Does  he  step 
off  with  the  proper  foot? 

F.  What  does  he  do  with  his  hands?    Does  he  toy  with  some- 
thing on  the  desk  or  speaker's  stand  or  in  his  pocket? 

G.  What  kinds  of  gestures  does  he  make?  Are  they  meaningful? 
Are  they  forceful?  Would  the  talk  be  better  without  them?  With 
more  of  them? 


Movement  and  Manners  225 

H.  Is  his  facial  expression  lively?  Does  it  indicate  close,  vivid 
attention  to  what  he  says?  Or  is  he  "dead-pan"?  Does  he  look  at 
his  audience  occasionally  (if  he  is  reading)  or  constantly  (if  he  is 
speaking)?  Are  his  eyes  evasive?  Does  he  address  one  side  of  his 
audience  more  than  the  other? 

i.  Does  he  have  any  annoying  tricks  of  winking  or  raising  his 
eyebrows  or  repeating  the  same  gesture  too  often? 

j.    Does  he  have  poise? 

4.  Describe  your  personal  experience  with  stage  fright.    Tell 
whether  or  not  you  think  you  have  conquered  it.    If  you  have, 
tell  how;  if  you  haven't,  try  to  analyze  your  attitude  and  ask  the 
class  for  suggestions  that  may  help  you  in  the  future. 

5.  Demonstrate  the  proper  methods  of  going  to  the  platform, 
getting  in  position  for  a  recitation,  moving  easily  from  one  side 
of  the  platform  to  the  other,  leaving  the  platform.   Sit  down  in  a 
chair  on  the  platform;  get  up  and  move  right,  left. 

6.  Go  up  and  down  a  flight  of  stairs  with  a  book  on  your  head. 
This  is  supposed  to  help  your  carriage.   It  might  be  well  to  keep 
a  wary  eye  on  your  footing. 

7.  Extend  your  arms  straight  out  from  your  shoulders.   Then 
let  them  drop  limply  to  your  sides.   Don't  help  them  down.   Now 
lift  them  straight  out  to  the  sides  and  drop  them.    Let  them  slap 
smartly  against  your  body.   If  there  is  any  tension,  any  unwanted 
resistance  to  the  dropping  of  the  arms,  practice  until  you  acquire 
complete  relaxation. 

8.  Bend  the  body  forward,  backward,  sideward.    Concentrate 
on  the  freeing  of  all  muscular  constriction.  See  also  the  exercises 
in  Relaxation,  p.  201. 

9.  Rise  on  your  toes,  hands  lifted  above  the  head.    Keeping 
your  back  straight,  bend  the  knees  until  you  sit  on  your  heels, 
lowering  the  arms  sideways.    Rise  on  the  toes  again,  lifting  the 
arms  above  the  head.    Then  come  back  to  an  easy  good  posture. 
Repeat  several  times. 

10.  Illustrate  the  four  principal  hand  gestures:  palms  up,  palms 
down,  fist  clenched,  forefinger  lifted.   Think  of  a  sentence  to  go 
with  each  one.    Make  the  ideas  more  emphatic  by  means  of  the 
gestures.  Vary  the  positions  of  the  hands  and  arms. 

1 1 .  Describe  by  means  of  gesture  the  size  of  a  book,  the  shape 
of  a  mountain  peak,  the  height  of  a  desk  from  the  floor,  the  com- 
parative thinness  and  fatness  of  two  people,  the  way  to  throw  a 


226  Reading  to  Others 

ball,  to  handle  a  tennis  racket,  to  pour  liquid  from  a  jug,  to  sew 
on  a  button,  to  pick  up  a  heavy  object,  to  pick  up  a  light  object, 
to  hang  a  picture,  to  draw  a  sword,  to  shoot  a  rifle,  to  look  through 
binoculars,  to  cast  a  line,  to  whittle,  to  play  a  violin,  to  use  a 
"candid  camera,"  to  open  a  window,  to  light  a  cigarette,  to  hold 
a  baby,  to  open  a  can,  to  grind  coffee,  to  wash  dishes. 

12.  Think  of  ten  people  you  know  who  have  poise.    Describe 
them  to  the  class  and  tell  exactly  what  you  mean  by  poise  and  in 
what  ways  they  meet  your  standards. 

13.  Speak  the  following  sentences,  accompanying  them  with 
what  you  consider  appropriate  gestures.   Don't  forget  that  mean- 
ing and  emotion  are  still  the  most  important  things  in  interpre- 
tation and  that  many  gestures,  especially  descriptive  gestures,  are 
unnecessary: 

A.  Well,  there's  the  situation:  On  the  one  hand  you  have  a  pack  of 
crooJcs;  on  the  other  a  Jot  of  driveling  sentimentalists. 

B.  What  do  you  know  about  that?    Those  hens  scratched  up  every 
one  of  my  seeds. 

c.  I  felt  for  a  minute  as  if  I  were  being  lifted  by  invisible  hands  and 
carried  very  gently  along  to  a  mountaintop. 

D.  There  they  were,  one  in  this  corner,  one  over  by  the  window,  and 
the  third  sound  asleep  on  the  davenport. 

E.  He  walked  through   the  crowd,  shouldering  his  way,   bumping 
people  on  one  side  and  then  the  other,  paying  not  the  slightest  attention 
to  where  he  was  going. 

F.  Why,  you  mean  little  devil/   I  could  beat  down  your  ears/ 

G.  Oh,  it's  you,  is  it?    I  didn't  think  you  would  show  your  face 
around  here  again  right  away. 

H.  The  wind  was  coming  from  the  lake  about  forty  miles  an  hour. 
I  tried  several  times  to  get  across  the  square,  but  was  literally  blown 
back  every  time.  I  was  doing  my  best  to  keep  my  skirt  down  and  my 
hat  on  and  was  feeling  very  desperate  when  a  kind  gentleman  offered 
me  his  arm  and  escorted  me  across. 

i.  This  is  the  way  he  escaped:  out  of  his  window  up  there  on  the 
second  floor,  down  the  drainspout,  and  over  the  fence. 

j.   I  can't  say  I  care  very  much.  It  was  an  old  dress  anyway. 

K.  Do  you  mean  to  say  youVe  been  standing  over  there  all  this  time, 
while  I  was  right  here  looking  for  you  every  minute? 

L.  I  dreamed  that  I  was  going  up  and  down  ladders,  up  and  down 
until  I  was  worn  out.  Finally  an  old  man  with  a  peculiar  bandage 
around  his  head  beckoned  to  me,  and  I  felt  a  terrible  disgust  for  him. 


Movement  and  Manners  227 

M.  Me?  Why,  I'd  rather  die  than  give  him  the  satisfaction  of  know- 
ing that  he  hurt  me. 

N.    Watch  your  step,  lady/  That  cab  pretty  nearly  had  you. 

o.  Let  me  warn  you,  ladies  and  gentlemen.  The  man  who  sits  at 
home,  smoking  his  pipe  and  reading  his  paper,  quite  indifferent  to  what's 
going  on  in  the  world,  is  the  real  criminal/ 

p.  Look  up  there  toward  that  beam  of  light.  Doesn't  it  seem  to  you 
that  the  whole  mass  is  beginning  to  move  slightly,  rocking  back  and  forth? 

Q.   What  do  you  want  for  a  nickel?  A  sizzling  steak  and  pie  alamode? 

R.  Listen,  that  fellow's  finished,  washed  up.  He  hasn't  got  a  chance 
in  the  world  of  being  re-elected.  You're  tying  up  with  a  has-been. 

s.  The  horse  went  over  the  hedge,  just  floating.  It  was  beautiful/ 
But  his  dumb  rider  fairly  turned  a  somersault,  head  over  heels  into  the 
water.  Was  he  a  sight  when  they  fished  him  out/  His  red  coat  was 
all  rnud,  and  one  eye  began  to  get  black  from  where  he'd  hit  the  horse's 
head  on  the  way  over. 

T.  I  haven't  the  slightest  idea  what  you  are  talking  about.  You  cer- 
tainly don't  think  that  I  had  anything  to  do  with  it? 

u.  I  held  the  light  to  a  crack  in  the  door,  and  one  ray  fell  on  the 
staring  eye  of  the  man  on  the  bed.  A  terrible  shudder  went  over  me  as 
I  listened  to  the  steady  pounding,  one,  two,  one,  two,  of  his  heart. 

v.    It's  settled,  then/  We  must  get  him  this  time.  It's  his  life  or  ours. 

w.  That  was  the  biggest  snake  I  ever  saw,  as  thick  as  a  baseball  bat 
in  the  middle,  and  all  coiled  up  with  his  ugly  tongue  darting  in  and  out 
and  his  rattles  buzzing  away  like  mad.  Was  I  scared/  I  got  away  from 
there  so  fast  that  my  shadow  had  a  job  keeping  up  with  me.  Every  time 
I  think  of  it  now  my  skin  creeps. 

x.  Here's  the  crossroads,  friends.  If  you  take  the  one  way,  you  are 
lost  forever;  if  you  take  the  other,  you  will  be  saved. 

Y.  That  isn't  enough,  and  you  know  it.  Give  me  the  rest  of  what 
you  owe  me. 

z.  Don't  move/  It's  a  black  widow  spider/  .  .  .  Hold  on  a  minute 
until  I  can  .  .  .  There/  I  got  her/ 

14.  Try  reading  some  of  the  sentences  in  Exercise  13,  gesturing 
after  the  words  to  be  emphasized  or  described.  Note  the  difference 
in  force  of  communication.  Again,  try  the  sentences  with  delib- 
erately inappropriate  gestures.  Note  the  prevalent  comic  effect. 
When  you  correct  the  gestures  for  purposes  of  comparison,  be 
sure  that  you  are  varying  them  sufficiently. 


CHAPTER      8 


r*  T     ~ir^i        i 

rormal  ^J^ea  di 


nrorma    ^ea     ng 


UP  TO  this  point  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing the  problems  and  techniques  of  reading  aloud  in  gen- 
eral. Now  we  can  apply  these  techniques  to  the  special  problems 
encountered  in  group  reading,  in  reading  dramatic  and  narra- 
tive selections,  in  acting,  in  facing  a  microphone,  and  in  verse 
speaking. 

Here  is  the  place  to  say  a  word  about  fireside  reading,  or  what- 
ever we  may  call  simple,  informal  group  reading.  Most  instruc- 
tion in  interpretation  seems  to  imply  a  vague,  potential  public 
service  on  the  part  of  the  student,  as  if  he  must  inevitably  be  a 
teacher  or  actor  or  radio  speaker,  who  will  have  professional  use 
for  a  course  in  speech.  Some  stress,  naturally,  is  put  on  voice  im- 
provement and  such  corollary  advantages  as  love  for  literature 
and  increase  in  poise.  But  not  much  is  said  about  those  spon- 
taneous, unprepared-for  occasions  for  reading  that  come  to  nearly 
everyone.  The  children  want  their  mother  to  read  them  a  story 
before  they  go  to  bed.  Jerry  is  elected  secretary  of  his  club  and 
must  read  the  minutes.  Bill  likes  to  read  scraps  out  of  the  eve- 
ning paper  to  his  wife.  Anne  gets  the  idea  that  the  crowd  has  been 
spending  too  many  evenings  at  bridge  and  suggests  reading  plays 
aloud.  Helen  has  received  a  very  interesting  letter  from  abroad, 
and  someone  asks  her  to  read  it  at  the  party. 

The  average  man  or  woman  suddenly  called  upon  to  read  aloud 
shows  up  very  poorly.  Children,  who  are  quick  to  respond  to 
effective  reading— and  are  embarrassingly  contemptuous  of  poor 

228 


Informal  Reading  2 29 

reading—confess  to  their  mother  that  they'd  rather  have  her  read 
to  them  than  daddy,  because  "he  just  mumbles"  or  "he  isn't  inter- 
ested in  the  stories"  or  "he  goes  too  fast."  Reports  of  committees 
and  minutes  of  meetings  are  appallingly  butchered.  And  the  per- 
son who  dauntlessly  proposes  an  evening  of  poetry  or  play  reading 
wishes  for  the  bridge  table  before  the  experiment  is  far  advanced. 

Lack  of  articulate  skill  is  a  genuine  handicap  whenever  it  appears. 
It  is  professionally  disadvantageous,  of  course,  when  a  nurse  is 
unable  to  comfort  a  fretting  patient  by  reading  to  him  soothingly, 
when  a  teacher  cannot  interest  a  class  in  her  reading,  or  when  a 
minister  puts  his  congregation  to  sleep  while  he  intones  the  scrip- 
ture lesson.  But  it  is  no  less  a  disadvantage  to  the  layman  in  his 
personal  development  (especially  at  this  time  when  "making 
friends"  and  "influencing  people"  seem  to  be  a  frantic  necessity) 
if  he  cannot  read  aloud  a  letter  to  his  wife  or  interpret  the  funny 
paper  to  his  children  or  have  a  social  evening  with  literate  friends 
without  gasping  for  breath,  mutilating  words,  and  setting  up  a 
dreary  singsong. 

Group  reading  is  a  very  pleasant  and  profitable  pastime.  The 
satisfaction  to  be  gained  from  a  session  of  Shakespeare  or  Noel 
Coward,  Byron  or  Robert  Frost,  Dickens  or  Dorothy  Parker  might 
surprise  those  whose  concept  of  a  social  thrill  is  the  triumphant 
completion  of  a  doubled  and  redoubled  six  no-trump  bid.  Even 
for  a  generation  that  saves  its  precious  time  by  reading  digests 
instead  of  books,  there  should  be  an  occasional  leisure  hour  in 
which  to  hear  plays  and  poems  read  aloud  in  their  original  form. 
Many  husbands  and  wives  bolster  the  harmony  of  their  home  by 
sharing  with  each  other  the  books  they  enjoy,  putting  aside  a  little 
while  every  day  to  read  aloud  from  an  old  or  new  book.  College 
students  sometimes  discover  that  they  can  do  assignments  effi- 
ciently by  reading  in  a  group.  In  group  reading  too  they  may  also 
find  the  answers  to  such  bewildered  or  sophomoric  questions  in- 
volving appreciation  as  "Why  is  that  supposed  to  be  so  good?"  or 
"Suppose  I  just  don't  like  poetry?"  or  "Who  reads  that  classical 
stuff  these  days  except  in  assignments  for  professors?"  or  "What 
fun  is  there  in  reading  that  slow  way,  especially  when  there  are 
so  many  good  radio  programs  on?" 

The  responsibility  of  reading  well  to  children  should  concern 
many  more  parents  than  it  does.  Grown-ups  grow  too  easily  weary 


2 go  Reading  to  Others 

of  Little  Black  Sambo  and  Winnie  the  Pooh  and  read  perfunctor- 
ily, not  realizing  that  love  for  books  should  be  instilled  at  a  very 
early  age.  Bad  reading  to  a  young  child  can  make  literature  dis- 
tasteful to  him  and  retard  his  own  reading.  Good  reading  may 
make  him  eager  for  books  and  will  certainly  spur  on  his  desire 
for  knowledge.  There  is  no  domestic  scene  more  completely  sat- 
isfying than  that  of  a  mother  or  father  holding  the  fascinated 
attention  of  the  children  by  reading  to  them  from  a  good  book. 

In  reading  to  children  don't  be  condescending  or  so  full  of  coy 
rapture  that  you  may  betray  yourself.  Such  devices  as  interrupting 
for  questions  or  for  suspense  are  good  as  long  as  you  don't  become 
unctuous  or  irritating.  Read  simply  and  sincerely,  explaining  un- 
familiar xvords  and  making  difficult  ideas  clear.  Don't  repeat  fool- 
ish "this's"  ("Now  this  man  met  this  witch  in  this  woods  .  .  .") 
and  "all  right's"  and  "well's."  There  is  no  need  to  bellow.  Chil- 
dren like  quiet,  well-modulated  voices.  Your  audience  will  give 
you  more  flattering  attention  than  any  other  you  will  ever  have  if 
you  perform  even  half-way  well.  Remember  that  the  child's  mind 
is  primarily  visual;  make  him  see  the  pictures  vividly.  Then  train 
his  sense  of  sound  by  helping  him  love  words,  reading  warmly, 
colorfully,  and  musically. 

The  principles  of  all  good  reading  obviously  apply  to  group 
reading.  The  ideal  is  easy,  informal,  conversational  interpreta- 
tion of  the  material  in  a  pleasing,  well-controlled  voice.  All  affec- 
tation and  contest-platform  magniloquence  are  out  of  place.  If 
the  group  reads  a  play,  each  reader  should  try  to  understand  the 
character  assigned  to  him  and  to  express  emotion  sincerely  with- 
out the  need  for  movement.  Occasionally  the  readers  may  want 
to  walk  through  the  action.  Without  rehearsal,  however,  stage 
movement  and  business  are  likely  to  be  very  poor.  This  is  not 
meant  to  be  advice  to  informal  groups  to  act  out  plays.  Quiet 
reading  from  comfortable  chairs  is  certainly  to  be  preferred  to 
abortive  histrionics.  But  walking  through  the  principal  action, 
such  as  exits  and  entrances,  may  make  the  play  more  vivid.  The 
first  rehearsal  of  a  play  is  likely  to  be  this  kind  of  reading.  In  read- 
ing a  novel,  one  person  may  read  a  few  pages  and  then  turn  the  book 
over  to  another,  and  so  on.  Don't  invite  self-consciously  inept 
readers  to  your  reading  parties.  And  when  guests  vehemently  de- 
clare that  they'd  rather  listen  than  take  part,  be  merciful  to  them 
and  to  yourself  and  don't  insist  on  their  reading! 


Informal  Reading  231 

Exercises 

For  most  informal  reading,  novels,  short  stories,  and  plays  are 
the  best  material.  For  class  practice  a  few  short  selections,  in- 
cluding some  for  children,  are  given  here.  Any  of  the  selections 
in  this  book  may  be  used.  Simulate  the  conditions  of  a  fireside 
gathering,  placing  a  few  chairs  in  front  of  the  class,  and  try  reading 
very  informally. 

1.  Once  upon  a  time  a  Hare,  who  thought  she  had  many  friends 
among  the  other  animals,  heard  some  dogs  not  far  away.    As  she  was 
afraid  they  would  catch  her,  she  ran  to  the  Horse  and  asked  him  to  take 
her  into  safety.  He  was  sorry,  he  said,  but  he  was  very  busy;  he  added 
that  she  could  easily  get  another  friend  to  do  so.  She  then  asked  the  Bull 
to  drive  away  the  dogs  with  his  horns.  He  too  was  sorry,  but  he  was  to 
meet  a  friend  at  once.  "No  doubt  the  Goat  will  do  what  you  want;  he 
can  do  it  just  as  well."  The  Goat  said,  however,  that  he  feared  he  might 
hurt  the  Hare  and  suggested  she  ask  the  Ram  for  help.   So  the  Hare 
went  to  the  Ram.    "Unfortunately/'  answered  the  Ram,  "dogs  eat 
sheep  as  well  as  hares/'  and  he  refused  to  risk  his  life.   Turning  to  the 
Calf  as  her  last  chance,  she  begged  him  to  help  her.  He  replied  he  did 
not  like  to  attempt  what  the  older,  wiser  persons  had  refused  to  do.  At 
this  the  Hare  made  one  great  effort  to  escape  without  aid,  for  the  dogs 
were  very  near.  As  she  ran  off  unharmed,  she  said  to  herself,  "One  who 
has  many  friends  has  really  no  friends." 

AESOP,  The  Hare  with  Many  Friends 

2.  There  was  once  a  prince,  and  he  wanted  a  princess,  but  then  she 
must  be  a  real  princess.  He  traveled  right  round  the  world  to  find  one, 
but  there  was  always  something  wrong.  There  were  plenty  of  princesses, 
but  whether  they  were  real  princesses  he  had  great  difficulty  in  discover- 
ing; there  was  always  something  which  was  not  quite  right  about  them. 
At  last  he  had  to  come  home  again,  and  he  was  very  sad  because  he 
wanted  a  real  princess  very  badly. 

One  evening  there  was  a  terrible  storm;  it  thundered  and  lightninged 
and  the  rain  poured  down  in  torrents;  indeed  it  was  a  fearful  night.  In 
the  middle  of  the  storm  somebody  knocked  at  the  town  gate,  and  the 
old  King  himself  went  to  open  it. 

It  was  a  princess  who  stood  outside,  but  she  was  in  a  terrible  state 
from  the  rain  and  the  storm.  The  water  streamed  out  of  her  hair  and 
her  clothes,  it  ran  in  at  the  top  of  her  shoes  and  out  at  the  heel,  but  she 
said  that  she  was  a  real  princess. 

"Well,  we  shall  soon  see  if  that  is  true/'  thought  the  old  Queen,  but 
she  said  nothing.  She  went  into  the  bedroom,  took  all  the  bedclothes 


232  Reading  to  Others 

off,  and  laid  a  pea  on  the  bedstead:  then  she  took  twenty  mattresses  and 
piled  them  on  the  top  of  the  pea,  and  then  twenty  feather  beds  on  the 
top  of  the  mattresses.  This  was  where  the  princess  was  to  sleep  that 
night.  In  the  morning  they  asked  her  how  she  had  slept. 

"Oh,  terribly  badly/"  said  the  Princess.  "I  have  hardly  closed  my  eyes 
the  whole  night/  Heaven  knows  what  was  in  the  bed.  I  seemed  to  be 
lying  upon  some  hard  thing,  and  my  whole  body  is  black  and  blue  this 
morning.  It  is  terrible/" 

They  saw  at  once  that  she  must  be  a  real  princess  when  she  had  felt 
the  pea  through  twenty  mattresses  and  twenty  feather  beds.  Nobody  but 
a  real  princess  could  have  such  a  delicate  skin. 

So  the  prince  took  her  to  be  his  wife,  for  now  he  was  sure  he  had 
found  a  real  princess,  and  the  pea  was  put  into  the  Museum,  where  it 
may  still  be  seen  if  no  one  has  stolen  it. 

Now  this  is  a  true  story. 

HANS  CHRISTIAN  ANDERSEN,  The  Real  Princess 

3.   There  was  an  Old  Man  in  a  tree, 
Who  was  horribly  bored  by  a  Bee; 
When  they  said,  "Does  it  buzz?"  he  replied, 

"Yes  it  does/ 
It's  a  regular  brute  of  a  Bee." 

There  was  an  old  man  in  a  tree, 

Whose  whiskers  were  lovely  to  see; 

But  the  birds  of  the  air  pluck'd  them  perfectly  bare, 

To  make  themselves  nests  in  that  tree. 

There  was  a  Young  Lady  whose  nose 

Was  so  long  that  it  reached  to  her  toes; 

So  she  hired  an  Old  Lady,  whose  conduct  was  steady, 

To  carry  that  wonderful  nose. 

There  is  a  young  lady  whose  nose 

Continually  prospers  and  grows; 

When  it  grew  out  of  sight,  she  exclaimed  in  a  fright, 

"Oh/  Farewell  to  the  end  of  my  nose/" 

There  was  an  Old  Man  on  whose  nose 
Most  birds  of  the  air  could  repose; 
But  they  all  flew  away  at  the  closing  of  day, 
Which  relieved  that  Old  Man  and  his  nose. 


Informal  Reading  233 

There  was  an  Old  Man  who  said,  "Hush/ 
I  perceive  a  young  bird  in  this  bush/" 
When  they  said,  "Is  it  small?"  he  replied, 

"Not  at  all; 
It  is  four  times  as  big  as  the  bush/" 

There  was  an  old  man  on  the  Border, 

Who  lived  in  the  utmost  disorder; 

He  danced  with  the  cat,  and  made  tea  in  his  hat, 

Which  vexed  all  the  folks  on  the  Border. 

There  was  an  old  man,  who  when  little 
Fell  casually  into  a  kettle; 
But,  growing  too  stout,  he  could  never  get  out, 
So  he  passed  all  his  life  in  that  kettle. 

EDWARD  LEAR,  Limericks 

4.  In  a  "dim,  silent  room  at  Oxford"  a  few  days  ago  Viscount  Halifax, 
the  British  Foreign  Secretary,  who  is  also  Chancellor  of  Oxford  Uni- 
versity, spoke  to  the  undergraduates  who  are  about  to  go  to  war.  There 
must  have  been  an  emotional  tension  behind  the  well-ordered  speech, 
for  except  by  a  miracle  many  of  these  young  men  will  not  come  back, 
and  others  will  be  crippled,  maimed  and  disfigured  in  body  and  soul. 
But  Viscount  Halifax,  a  man  approaching  60,  did  not  apologize.  He  did 
not  believe  that  "this  waste  land  in  which  we  live"  had  been  "brought 
to  its  present  pass  merely  by  the  mistakes  of  pride  and  selfishness  of  the 
older  generation." 

Perhaps  enough  has  been  said  of  the  evil  old  men  and  middle-aged 
men  who  drive  the  young  to  slaughter.  Any  such  statement  evades  the 
question.  The  old  and  middle-aged  are  the  young  of  yesterday.  If  they 
are  evil  now,  they  were  evil  yesterday,  and  likewise  we  may  expect  the 
young  of  today  to  be  the  hard-hearted  barbarians  of  tomorrow.  It  is  not 
age  that  makes  men  good  or  bad.  It  merely  happens  that  young  men 
fight  wars  and  that  older  men  direct  the  fighting.  If  all  the  young  men 
of  any  generation  hated  war  more  than  they  desired  anything  to  be 
gained  by  war,  there  would  be  no  fighting  to  direct.  Viscount  Halifax 
delivered  himself  of  a  terrible  truth  when  he  said  that  "the  driving  force 
behind  the  Nazi  movement  in  Germany,"  and  consequently  behind  the 
present  war,  "has  been  German  youth." 

One  cannot  justly  indict  a  generation  any  more  than  one  can  justly 
indict  a  nation.  Nazi  youth  is  the  product  of  its  environment.  Its  en- 
vironment, in  turn,  was  determined  by  many  things— the  German  defeat 


234  Reading  to  Others 

of  1918,  the  Allied  blockade  which  cut  the  food  supply  of  Germany 
between  1914  and  1919,  the  hysteria  of  the  post-war  years,  the  foul  trav- 
esty which  has  been  called  education  in  Germany  for  the  past  half  dec- 
ade. If  the  youthful  German  Nazis  had  been  reared  in  France,  England 
or  the  United  States,  they  would  not  be,  in  most  cases,  Nazis.  The  fact 
remains  that  they  are  what  they  are,  and  that  these  young  men-— many 
of  them,  as  the  photographs  show,  splendid  physical  specimens,  not 
altogether  lacking  in  good  humor  and  intelligence— are  enemies  of  the 
peace,  security  and  freedom  of  Europe. 

The  dead  of  1914-18  are  one  "lost  generation."  These  misguided  boys 
are  another.  The  horrifying  fact  which  they  prove  is  that  you  can  take 
good  human  material  and  by  controlling  its  environment  turn  it  into  a 
destructive  force.  It  is  an  equally  horrifying  fact  that  the  only  method 
which  civilization  has  found  by  which  to  annul  this  destructive  force  is 
to  send  British  and  French  youth  to  kill  German  youth. 

The  moral  certainly  is  that  one  "war  aim"  is  paramount.  This  is, 
simply,  to  make  it  impossible  for  any  government  so  to  corrupt  its  youth 
as  to  make  the  new  generation  a  menace  to  civilization.  Force  alone 
cannot  accomplish  this  objective,  though  as  long  as  the  Nazi  (and  Com- 
munist) force  prevails,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  the  first  steps  can  be  taken. 
It  is  a  problem  with  which  the  neutral  countries,  including  this  one, 
must  wrestle,  just  as  must  the  democratic  belligerents.  Civilization  is  no 
national  heritage.  It  must  be  shared  by  the  youth  of  all  lands  if  lasting 
peace  is  ever  to  come. 

New  York  Times  Editorial,  Lost  Generations,  March  3,  1940 

5.  I  don't  like  babies  on  ANY  basis.  The  very  appearance  of  a  baby  is 
as  unpleasant  to  me  as  is  any  evidence  of  a  new,  raw  project.  Ugly,  form- 
less, pointless,  and  indicative  in  no  sense  of  the  architect's  rosy  mental 
sketch,  it  certainly  has  no  eye  appeal.  Some  babies,  to  be  sure,  enjoy 
barely  perceptible  advantages  in  form,  pigmentation,  and  awareness  of 
surroundings.  But  in  no  sense  can  one  compete  in  lively  interest,  warm 
response,  or  common  sense  with  a  puppy,  a  kitten,  or  even  a  suckling 
pig.  Small  pigs  are  infinitely  diverting,  with  their  frank  and  jolly  pig- 
gishness  and  suspicious  shoebutton  eyes.  Not  so  a  baby. 

Lying  there  in  pink  arrogance  like  a  slug  on  a  lettuce  leaf,  he  takes 
all  and  screams  for  more.  Almond-headed,  vacant-faced,  toothless—it 
staggers  human  credulity  to  imagine  this  phenomenon  in  any  role  not 
bounded  by  the  canvas  of  a  side  show.  To  this  day,  I  am  utterly  unable 
to  imagine  a  handsome  man  or  a  breathtaking  bit  of  feminine  pastry 
as  ever  having  been  a  baby.  Having  seen  the  one,  I  simply  cannot  believe 
the  other.  Nature,  for  all  her  magic,  couldn't  have  done  it. 


Informal  Reading  235 

When  someone  tells  me,  "The  Dexters  have  a  baby  and  it's  the  most 
beautiful  thing  you  ever  saw/"  I  listen  politely.  But  I  know  the  state- 
ment is  untrue.  It  is  simply  the  hysterical  reiteration  of  an  enthusiasm 
which  generated  in  the  blind  hopes  of  the  Dexters,  and  has  been  trans- 
mitted to,  and  amplified  by,  a  friend  of  the  delirious  couple.  The  new 
Dexter  may  be  less  unpleasant  than  hundreds  of  other  babies,  true.  It 
may  have  more  hair  and  less  howl.  But  I  do  not  have  to  see  it  to  dis- 
credit the  courier's  statement  in  toto.  If  it  is  a  baby— ANY  baby— it  is  NOT 
the  most  beautiful  thing  that  I  ever  saw,  and  let's  have  no  more  talk 
about  it.  Let  us  simply  say  that  "some  babies  are  less  offensive-looking 
than  others,"  and  not  run  hog-wild  on  so  perfectly  obvious  a  point. 

Aside  from  appearance,  I  do  not  like  babies  on  account  of  their  habits. 
Their  habits  are  definitely  bad,  and  don't  think  you  can  crowd  me  off  by 
telling  me  that  I  was  a  baby  once  myself,  and  probably  just  as  bad— or 
worse.  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  concede  it,  and  to  admit  that  I  would 
have  disliked  myself  just  as  much  as  the  next  one  I  see.  Moreover,  I 
would  probably  have  respected  the  honest  adult  whose  frozen  smile 
proclaimed  the  discomfort  of  his  position. 

Babies  have  no  manners.  They  lie  there  in  a  mess  of  silks  and  satins, 
grunting  and  insolent.  Put  a  finger  in  the  little  rosebud  mouth  (YOUR 
finger,  not  MINE)  at  the  insistence  of  a  doting  parent  to  feel  that  world- 
shaking  first  incisor,  and  you're  apt  to  withdraw  it  bearing  a  nasty  gash. 
This  is  generally  accounted  a  capital  jest  by  the  company.  "Ain't  nobody 
going  to  impose  on  that  little  feller,"  chuckles  father,  thumbs  hooked 
in  the  arrnholes  of  his  vest.  Of  course,  it  proves  nothing  of  the  sort.  I 
have  known  savage  babies,  veritable  fledgling  catamounts,  who  grew  up 
to  be  the  Milquetoasts  of  the  community.  Yet  so  eager  are  the  poor 
parents  to  detect  signs  of  future  greatness  that  the  most  primitive  ges- 
tures of  their  offspring  are  instantly  broadcast  as  proof  positive  of  a 
genius  not  to  be  denied/ 

I  have  seen  a  baby  return  the  most  exquisite  gush  of  a  beautiful  and 
talented  actress  with  a  yawn  and  a  rousing  belch  which  tore  the  feathers 
off  the  gusher's  hat.  I  have  received,  personally,  even  more  direct  critical 
response  for  my  pains— but  that  was  long  ago,  when  I  still  picked  one 
up  after  insistent  prodding.  Appreciation  is  not  in  their  small,  weazened 
souls.  How  they  suffer  by  contrast  with  a  puppy,  who  capers  after  favors, 
or  even  a  kitten,  who  will  drink  your  milk  and  then  curl  up  in  your  lap 
and  purr  a  paean  which  warms  your  soul.  .  .  . 

I  AM  married,  and  I  HAVE  children  and  I  AM  as  reasonably  happy  in 
my  home  as  any  man  I  know.  But  babies  STILL  leave  me  cold/ 

STANLEY  JONES,  Babies  Leave  Me  Cold 
Esquire,  January,  1940 


236  Reading  to  Others 

6.  Executive  Mansion 

Washington,  21  November,  1864 

Mrs.  Bixby,  Boston,  Mass. 

Dear  Madam:  I  have  been  shown  in  the  files  of  the  War  Department 
a  statement  of  the  Ad/utant-General  of  Massachusetts  that  you  are  the 
mother  of  five  sons  who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle.  I  feel 
how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any  words  of  mine  which  should  attempt 
to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of  a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But  I  cannot 
refrain  from  tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be  found  in  the 
thanks  of  the  republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray  that  our  Heavenly  Father 
may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereavement,  and  leave  you  only  the 
cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the  solemn  pride  that  must 
be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 

Yours  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 
Abraham  Lincoln 

7.  Thursday  Evening 

Postmark,  December  20,  1845 

Dearest,  you  know  how  to  say  what  makes  me  happiest,  you  who  never 
think,  you  say,  of  making  me  happy/  For  my  part  I  do  not  think  of  it 
cither;  I  simply  understand  that  you  ARE  my  happiness,  and  that  there- 
fore you  could  not  make  another  happiness  for  me,  such  as  would  be 
worth  having— not  even  YOU!  Why,  how  could  you?  THAT  was  in  my 
mind  to  speak  yesterday,  but  I  could  not  speak  it— to  write  it,  is  easier. 

Talking  of  happiness— shall  I  tell  you?  Promise  not  to  be  angry  and 
I  will  tell  you.  I  have  thought  sometimes  that,  if  I  considered  myself 
wholly,  I  should  choose  to  die  this  winter— now— before  I  had  disap- 
pointed you  in  anything.  But  because  you  are  better  and  dearer  and 
more  to  be  considered  than  I,  I  do  NOT  choose  it.  I  CANNOT  choose  to  give 
you  any  pain,  even  on  the  chance  of  its  being  a  less  pain,  a  less  evil,  than 
what  may  follow  perhaps  (who  can  say?),  if  I  should  prove  the  burden 
of  your  life. 

For  if  you  make  me  happy  with  some  words,  you  frighten  me  with 
others— as  with  the  extravagance  yesterday— and  seriously— TOO  seriously, 
when  the  moment  for  smiling  at  them  is  past— I  am  frightened,  I  trem- 
ble/ When  you  come  to  know  me  as  well  as  I  know  myself,  what  can 
save  me,  do  you  think,  from  disappointing  and  displeasing  you?  I  ask 
the  question,  and  find  no  answer. 

It  is  a  poor  answer,  to  say  that  I  can  do  one  thing  well  .  .  .  that  I  have 
one  capacity  largely.  On  points  of  the  general  affections,  I  have  in 
thought  applied  to  myself  the  words  of  Mme.  de  Stael,  not  fretfully,  I 
hope,  not  complainingly,  I  am  sure  (I  can  thank  God  for  most  affection- 


Informal  Reading  237 

ate  friends/)  not  complainingly,  yet  mournfully  and  in  profound  convic- 
tion—those words— "jamais  je  n'ai  pas  etc  aimee  comme  faime."  The 
capacity  of  loving  is  the  largest  of  my  powers  I  think— I  thought  so  before 
knowing  you— and  one  form  of  feeling.  And  although  any  woman  might 
love  you— EVERY  woman— with  understanding  enough  to  discern  you 
by— (oh,  do  not  fancy  that  I  am  unduly  magnifying  mine  office),  yet  I 
persist  in  persuading  myself  that/  Besides  I  have  the  capacity,  as  I  said— 
and  besides  I  owe  more  to  you  than  others  could,  it  seems  to  me;  let  me 
boast  of  it.  To  many,  you  might  be  better  than  all  things  while  one  of 
all  things:  to  me  you  are  instead  of  all— to  many,  a  crowning  happiness— 
to  me,  the  happiness  itself.  From  out  of  the  deep  dark  pits  men  see  the 
stars  more  gloriously— and  de  profundis  amavi— 

It  is  a  very  poor  answer/  Almost  as  poor  an  answer  as  yours  could  be  if 
I  were  to  ask  you  to  teach  me  to  please  you  always;  or  rather,  how  not 
to  displease  you,  disappoint  you,  vex  you— what  if  all  those  things  were 
in  my  fate? 

And— (to  begin/)— I  am  disappointed  to-night.  I  expected  a  letter 
which  does  not  come— and  I  had  felt  so  sure  of  having  a  letter  to-night 
.  .  .  unreasonably  sure  perhaps,  which  means  doubly  sure. 

Letter  from  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  to  Robert  Browning 

8.  Cheyne  Walk,  February  23, 1842 

I  am  continuing  to  mend.  If  I  could  only  get  a  good  sleep,  I  shall  be 
quite  recovered;  but,  alas/  we  are  gone  to  the  devil  again  in  the  sleeping 
department.  That  dreadful  woman  next  door,  instead  of  putting  away 
the  cock  which  we  so  pathetically  appealed  against,  has  produced  an- 
other. The  servant  has  ceased  to  take  charge  of  them.  They  are  stuffed 
with  ever  so  many  hens  into  a  small  hencoop  every  night,  and  left  out 
of  doors  the  night  long.  Of  course  they  are  not  comfortable,  and  of 
course  they  crow  and  screech  not  only  from  daylight,  but  from  mid- 
night, and  so  near  that  it  goes  through  one's  head  every  time  like  a 
sword.  The  night  before  last  they  woke  me  every  quarter  of  an  hour, 
but  I  slept  some  in  the  intervals;  for  they  had  not  succeeded  in  rousing 
HIM  above.  But  last  night  they  had  him  up  at  three.  He  went  to  bed 
again,  and  got  some  sleep  after,  the  "horrors"  not  recommencing  their 
efforts  till  five;  but  I,  listening  every  minute  for  a  new  screech  that  would 
send  him  down  a  second  time  and  prepare  such  wretchedness  for  the 
day,  could  sleep  no  more. 

What  is  to  be  done,  God  knows/  If  this  goes  on,  he  will  soon  be  in 
Bedlam;  and  I  too,  for  anything  I  see  to  the  contrary:  and  how  to  hinder 
it  from  going  on?  The  last  note  we  sent  the  cruel  woman  would  not 
open.  I  send  for  the  maid  and  she  will  not  come.  I  would  give  them 


238  Reading  to  Others 

guineas  for  quiet,  but  they  prefer  tormenting  us.  In  the  LAW  there  is  no 
resource  in  such  cases.  They  may  keep  beasts  wild  in  their  back  yard  if 
they  choose  to  do  so.  Carlyle  swears  he  will  shoot  them,  and  orders  me 
to  borrow  Mazzini's  gun.  Shoot  them  with  all  my  heart  if  the  conse- 
quences were  merely  having  to  go  to  a  police  officer  and  pay  the  damage. 
But  the  woman  would  only  be  irritated  thereby  in  getting  fifty  instead 
of  two.  If  there  is  to  be  any  shooting,  however,  I  will  do  it  myself.  It 
will  sound  better  my  shooting  them  on  principle  than  his  doing  it  in 
a  passion. 

This  despicable  nuisance  is  not  at  all  unlikely  to  drive  us  out  of  the 
house  after  all,  just  when  he  had  reconciled  himself  to  stay  in  it.  How 
one  is  vexed  with  little  things  in  this  life/  The  great  evils  one  triumphs 
over  bravely,  but  the  little  eat  away  one's  heart. 

Jane  Welsh  Carlyle  to  Mrs.  Welsh 

9.  La  Solitude,  Hy£res-les-PaImiers,  Var, 

March  16,  1884 

My  dear  Monkhouse— You  see  with  what  promptitude  I  plunge  into 
correspondence;  but  the  truth  is,  I  am  condemned  to  a  complete  inac- 
tion, stagnate  dismally,  and  love  a  letter.  Yours,  which  would  have  been 
welcome  at  any  time,  was  thus  doubly  precious. 

Dover  sounds  somewhat  shiveringly  in  my  ears.  You  should  see  the 
weather  I  have— cloudless,  clear  as  crystal,  with  just  a  punkah-draft  of 
the  most  aromatic  air,  all  pine  and  gum  tree.  You  would  be  ashamed  of 
Dover;  you  would  scruple  to  refer,  sir,  to  a  spot  so  paltry.  To  be  idle  at 
Dover  is  a  strange  pretension;  pray,  how  do  you  warm  yourself?  If  I  were 
there,  I  should  grind  knives  or  write  blank  verse.  But  at  least  you  do  not 
bathe?  It  is  idle  to  deny  it:  I  have— I  may  say  I  nourish— a  growing 
jealousy  of  the  robust,  large-legged,  healthy  Britain-dwellers,  patient  of 
grog,  scorners  of  the  timid  umbrella,  innocuously  breathing  fog:  all  which 
I  once  was,  arid  I  am  ashamed  to  say  liked  it.  How  ignorant  is  youth/ 
grossly  rolling  among  unselected  pleasures;  and  how  nobler,  purer, 
sweeter,  and  lighter,  to  sip  the  choice  tonic,  to  recline  in  the  luxurious 
invalid  chair,  and  to  tread,  well-shawled,  the  little  round  of  the  consti- 
tutional. Seriously,  do  you  like  to  repose?  Ye  gods,  I  hate  it.  I  never  rest 
with  any  acceptation;  I  do  not  know  what  people  mean  who  say  they  like 
sleep  and  that  damned  bedtime  which,  since  long  ere  I  was  breeched,  has 
rung  a  knell  to  all  my  day's  doings  and  beings.  And  when  a  man,  seem- 
ingly sane,  tells  me  he  has  "fallen  in  love  with  stagnation,"  I  can  only 
say  to  him,  "You  will  never  be  a  Pirate/"  This  may  not  cause  any  regret 
to  Mrs.  Monkhouse;  but  in  your  own  soul  it  will  clang  hollow— think  of 
it/  Never/  After  all  boyhood's  aspirations  and  youth's  immoral  day- 


Informal  Reading  239 

dreams,  you  are  condemned  to  sit  down,  grossly  draw  in  your  chair  to  the 
fat  board,  and  be  a  beastly  Burgess  till  you  die.  Can  it  be?  Is  there  not 
some  escape,  some  furlough  from  the  Moral  Law,  some  holiday  jaunt 
contrivable  into  a  Better  Land?  Shall  we  never  shed  blood?  This  pros- 
pect is  too  grey: 

"Here  lies  a  man  who  never  did 

Anything  but  what  he  was  bid; 

Who  lived  his  life  in  paltry  ease, 

And  died  of  commonplace  disease/' 

To  confess  plainly,  I  had  intended  to  spend  my  life  (or  any  leisure  I 
might  have  from  Piracy  upon  the  high  seas)  as  the  leader  of  a  great  horde 
of  irregular  cavalry,  devastating  whole  valleys.  I  can  still,  looking  back, 
see  myself  in  many  favourite  attitudes;  signalling  for  a  boat  from  my 
pirate  ship  with  a  pocket-handkerchief,  I  at  the  /etty  end,  and  one  or  two 
of  my  bold  blades  keeping  the  crowd  at  bay;  or  else  turning  in  the  sad- 
dle to  look  back  at  my  whole  command  (some  five  thousand  strong) 
following  me  at  the  hand-gallop  up  the  road  out  of  the  burning  valley: 
this  last  by  moonlight. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson  to  Cosmo  Monkhouse 

10.  Passy,  January  26,  1784 
For  my  own  part,  I  wish  that  the  bald  eagle  had  not  been  chosen  as 

the  representative  of  our  country;  he  is  a  bird  of  bad  moral  character; 
he  does  not  get  his  living  honestly  .  .  .  With  all  this  injustice  he  is 
never  in  good  case;  but,  like  those  among  men  who  live  by  sharping  and 
robbing,  he  is  generally  poor,  and  often  very  lousy.  Besides  he  is  a  rank 
coward;  the  little  king-bird,  not  bigger  than  a  sparrow,  attacks  him  boldly 
and  drives  him  out  of  the  district. 

I  am,  on  this  account,  not  displeased  that  the  figure  is  not  known  as 
a  bald  eagle,  but  looks  more  like  a  turkey.  For,  in  truth,  the  turkey  is  in 
comparison  a  much  more  respectable  bird,  and  withal  a  true  original 
native  of  America.  Eagles  have  been  found  in  all  countries,  but  the 
turkey  was  peculiar  to  ours  ...  He  is,  besides  (though  a  little  vain  and 
silly,  it  is  true,  but  not  the  worse  emblem  for  that),  a  bird  of  courage, 
and  would  not  hesitate  to  attack  a  grenadier  of  the  British  guards,  who 
should  presume  to  invade  his  farm-yard  with  a  RED  coat  on. 

Benjamin  Franklin  to  his  daughter 

11.  Amerikans  love  caustick  things;  they  would  prefer  turpentine  tew 
colone-water,  if  they  had  tew  drink  either. 

So  with  their  relish  of  humor;  they  must  hav  it  on  the  half-shell  with 
cayenne. 


240  Reading  to  Others 

An  Englishman  wants  hiz  fun  smothered  deep  in  mint  sauce,  and  he  iz 
willin  tew  wait  till  next  day  before  he  tastes  it. 

If  you  tickle  or  convince  an  Amerikan  yu  hav  got  tew  do  it  quick. 

An  Amerikan  luvs  tew  laff,  but  he  don't  luv  tew  make  a  bizzness  ov 
it;  he  works,  eats,  and  haw-haws  on  a  canter. 

I  guess  the  English  hav  more  wit,  and  the  Amerikans  more  humor. 

We  havn't  had  time,  yet,  tew  bile  down  our  humor  and  git  the  wit 
out  ov  it. 

The  English  are  better  punsters,  but  i  konsider  punning  a  sort  ov 
literary  prostitushun  in  which  future  happyness  iz  swopped  oph  for  the 
plezzure  ov  the  moment. 

There  is  one  thing  i  hav  noticed;  evryboddy  that  writes  expeckts  tew 
be  wise  or  witty— so  duz  evrybody  expect  tew  be  saved  when  they  die; 
but  thare  is  good  reason  tew  beleave  that  the  goats  hereafter  will  be  in 
the  majority,  just  az  the  sheep  are  here. 

Don't  forget  ONE  thing,  yu  hav  got  tew  be  wize  before  yu  kan  be  witty; 
and  don't  forget  TWO  things,  a  single  paragraff  haz  made  sum  men  im- 
mortal, while  a  volume  haz  bin  wuss  than  a  pile-driver  tew  others— but 
what  would  Amerikans  dew  if  it  want  for  their  sensashuns? 

Sumthing  new,  sumthing  startlin  iz  necessary  for  us  az  a  people,  and 
it  don't  make  mutch  matter  what  it  iz — a  huge  defalkashun — a  red 
elephant— or  Jersee  clams  with  pearls  in  them  will  answer  if  nothing 
better  offers. 

Englishmen  all  laff  at  us  for  our  sensashuns,  and  sum  ov  them  fret 
about  it,  and  spred  their  feathers  in  distress  for  us,  az  a  fond  and  fool- 
ish old  hen,  who  haz  hatched  out  a  setting  ov  ducks'  eggs,  will  stand  on 
the  banks  ov  a  mill  pond,  wringing  her  hands  in  agony  to  see  her  brood 
pitch  in  and  take  a  sail.  SHE  kant  understand  it,  but  the  DUCKS  know 
awl  about  it. 

N.B.— Yu  kan  bet  50  dollars  the  Ducks  know  all  about  it. 

N.B.— Yu  kan  bet  50  dollars  more  that  it  makes  no  difference  who 
hatches  out  an  Amerikan,  the  fust  thing  he  will  do,  iz  to  pitch  into 
sumthing. 

N.B.— No  more  bets  at  present. 

HENRY  W.  SHAW,  Josh  Billings'  Meditations 

12.  During  my  association  with  Model  T's,  self-starters  were  not  a 
prevalent  accessory.  They  were  expensive  and  under  suspicion.  Your 
car  came  equipped  with  a  serviceable  crank,  and  the  first  thing  you 
learned  was  how  to  Get  Results.  It  was  a  special  trick,  and  until  you 
learned  it  (usually  from  another  Ford  owner,  but  sometimes  by  a  period 
of  appalling  experimentation)  you  might  as  well  have  been  winding  up  an 


Informal  Reading  241 

awning.  The  trick  was  to  leave  the  ignition  switch  off,  proceed  to  the 
animal's  head,  pull  the  choke  (which  was  a  little  wire  protruding  through 
the  radiator),  and  give  the  crank  two  or  three  nonchalant  upward  lifts. 
Then,  whistling  as  though  thinking  about  something  else,  you  would 
saunter  back  to  the  driver's  cabin,  turn  the  ignition  on,  return  to  the 
crank,  and  this  time,  catching  it  on  the  down  stroke,  give  it  a  quick  spin 
with  plenty  of  That.  If  this  procedure  was  followed,  the  engine  almost 
always  responded— first  with  a  few  scattered  explosions,  then  with  a 
tumultuous  gun-fire,  which  you  checked  by  racing  around  to  the  driver's 
seat  and  retarding  the  throttle.  Often,  if  the  emergency  brake  hadn't 
been  pulled  all  the  way  back,  the  car  advanced  on  you  the  instant  the 
first  explosion  occurred  and  you  would  hold  it  back  by  leaning  your 
weight  against  it.  I  can  still  feel  my  old  Ford  nuzzling  me  at  the  curb, 
as  though  looking  for  an  apple  in  my  pocket. 

The  lore  and  legend  that  governed  the  Ford  were  boundless.  Owners 
had  their  own  theories  about  everything;  they  discussed  mutual  prob- 
lems in  that  wise,  infinitely  resourceful  way  old  women  discuss  rheuma- 
tism. Exact  knowledge  was  pretty  scarce,  and  often  proved  less  effective 
than  superstition.  Dropping  a  camphor  ball  into  the  gas  tank  was  a 
popular  expedient;  it  seemed  to  have  a  tonic  effect  on  both  man  and 
machine.  There  wasn't  much  to  base  exact  knowledge  on.  The  Ford 
driver  flew  blind.  He  didn't  know  the  temperature  of  his  engine,  the 
speed  of  his  car,  the  amount  of  his  fuel,  or  the  pressure  of  his  oil  (the 
old  Ford  lubricated  itself  by  what  was  amiably  described  as  the  "splash 
system").  A  speedometer  cost  money  and  was  an  extra,  like  a  windshield- 
wiper.  The  dashboard  of  the  early  models  was  bare  save  for  an  ignition 
key;  later  models,  grown  effete,  boasted  an  ammeter  which  pulsated 
alarmingly  with  the  throbbing  of  the  car.  Under  the  dash  was  a  box  of 
coils,  with  vibrators  which  you  adjusted,  or  thought  you  adjusted.  What- 
ever the  driver  learned  of  his  motor,  he  learned  not  through  instru- 
ments but  through  sudden  developments.  I  remember  that  the  timer 
was  one  of  the  vital  organs  about  which  there  was  ample  doctrine.  When 
everything  else  had  been  checked,  you  "had  a  look"  at  the  timer.  It  was 
an  extravagantly  odd  little  device,  simple  in  construction,  mysterious  in 
function.  It  contained  a  roller,  held  by  a  spring,  and  there  were  four 
contact  points  on  the  inside  of  the  case  against  which,  many  people  be- 
lieved, the  roller  rolled.  I  have  had  a  timer  apart  on  a  sick  Ford  many 
times,  but  I  never  really  knew  what  I  was  up  to— I  was  just  showing  off 
before  God.  There  were  almost  as  many  schools  of  thought  as  there 
were  timers.  Some  people,  when  things  went  wrong,  just  clenched  their 
teeth  and  gave  the  timer  a  smart  crack  with  a  wrench.  Other  people 
opened  it  up  and  blew  on  it.  There  was  a  school  that  held  that  the  timer 


242  Reading  to  Others 

needed  large  amounts  of  oil;  they  fixed  it  by  frequent  baptism.  And  there 
was  a  school  that  was  positive  it  was  meant  to  run  dry  as  a  bone;  these 
people  were  continually  taking  it  off  and  wiping  it.  I  remember  once 
spitting  into  a  timer;  not  in  anger,  but  in  a  spirit  of  research.  You  see  the 
Model  T  driver  moved  in  the  realm  of  metaphysics.  He  believed  his  car 
could  be  hexed. 

E.  B.  WHITE  and  LEE  STROUT,  Farewell,  My  Lovely! 


13.  In  the  first  place,  I  hate  women  because  they  always  know  where 
things  are.  At  first  blush,  you  might  think  that  a  perverse  and  merely 
churlish  reason  for  hating  women,  but  it  is  not.  Naturally,  every  man 
enjoys  having  a  woman  around  the  house  who  knows  where  his  shirt- 
studs  and  his  brief-case  are,  and  things  like  that,  but  he  detests  having 
a  woman  around  who  knows  where  EVERYTHING  is,  even  things  that  are 
of  no  importance  at  all,  such  as,  say,  the  snapshots  her  husband  took 
three  years  ago  at  Elbow  Beach.  The  husband  has  never  known  where 
these  snapshots  were  since  the  day  they  were  developed  and  printed; 
he  hopes,  in  a  vague  way,  if  he  thinks  about  them  at  all,  that  after  three 
years  they  have  been  thrown  out.  But  his  wife  knows  where  they  are, 
and  so  do  his  mother,  his  grandmother,  his  great-grandmother,  his  daugh- 
ter, and  the  maid.  They  could  put  their  fingers  on  them  in  a  moment, 
with  that  quiet  air  of  superior  knowledge  which  makes  a  man  feel  that 
he  is  out  of  touch  with  all  the  things  that  count  in  life.  .  .  . 

I  hate  women  because  they  have  brought  into  the  currency  of  our  lan- 
guage such  expressions  as  "all  righty"  and  "yes  indeedy"  and  hundreds 
of  others.  I  hate  women  because  they  throw  baseballs  (or  plates  or  vases) 
with  the  wrong  foot  advanced.  I  marvel  that  more  of  them  have  not 
broken  their  backs.  I  marvel  that  women,  who  co-ordinate  so  well  in 
languorous  motion,  look  ugly  and  sillier  than  a  goose-stepper  when  they 
attempt  any  form  of  violent  activity. 

I  had  a  lot  of  other  notes  jotted  down  about  why  I  hate  women,  but  I 
seem  to  have  lost  them  all,  except  one.  That  one  is  to  the  effect  that 
I  hate  women  because,  while  they  never  lose  old  snapshots  or  anything 
of  that  sort,  they  invariably  lose  one  glove.  I  believe  that  I  have  never 
gone  anywhere  with  any  woman  in  my  whole  life  who  did  not  lose  one 
glove.  I  have  searched  for  single  gloves  under  tables  in  crowded  restau- 
rants and  under  the  feet  of  people  in  darkened  movie-theatres.  I  have 
spent  some  part  of  every  day  or  night  hunting  for  a  woman's  glove.  If 
there  were  no  other  reason  in  the  world  for  hating  women,  that  one 
would  be  enough.  In  fact,  you  can  leave  all  the  others  out. 

JAMES  THURBER,  The  Case  Against  Women 


Informal  Reading  243 

14.  A  great  many  people  have  asked  me  "How  did  you  learn  to  play 
tennis?"  (Maybe  it  was  "Why  DON'T  you  learn  to  play  tennis?"  I  don't 
pay  strict  attention  to  everything  that  people  ask  me.)  So  I  have  decided 
to  put  down  on  paper  the  stages  through  which  I  went  in  order  to  attain 
the  game  that  I  play  today. 

"Work— work— and  then  more  work"  is  the  motto  which  everyone 
must  adopt  who  has  any  ambition  to  fall  down  on  the  center  court  at 
Wimbledon.  Tennis  is  not  a  game  that  one  picks  up  over  night,  like 
"Truth  and  Consequences,"  or  abandons  over  night,  like  "Truth  and 
Consequences."  It  is  a  game  calling  for  eternal  practice,  constant  study, 
and  easily  opened  pores.  An  extra  set  of  arms  and  legs  also  comes  in 
handy. 

My  interest  in  tennis  began  when  I  was  4  years  old,  when  I  used  to 
watch  my  brothers  and  sisters  playing  on  the  court  ;ust  outside  our 
house.  (A  short  trolley-car  ride  to  the  end  of  the  line  and  then  by  buck- 
board  through  virgin  forest  to  the  Tennis  Club.)  I  used  to  stand  by  the 
sidelines  and  help  them  by  running  out  into  the  court  whenever  a  ball 
was  served.  Sometimes  I  even  succeeded  in  actually  intercepting  a  serve 
before  it  hit  the  ground,  but  always  managed  to  be  on  the  spot  when  it 
was  returned. 

"That  kid  will  play  tennis  some  day,"  said  one  of  my  brothers,  proudly, 
"either  that,  or  end  in  the  electric  chair."  The  popular  vote,  at  that  time, 
was  for  the  electric  chair. 

Then  came  the  day  when  I  was  given  my  first  racket.  It  was  my  sis- 
ter's racket,  and  I  was  given  it  across  the  neck  and  shoulders,  but 
there  wasn't  a  prouder  little  boy  in  town  that  day.  I  had  won  (for 
my  sister's  opponent)  the  Ladies'  Singles  Championship  of  the  Wor- 
cester Country  Club. 

Then  I  began  the  practice  for  myself.  I  got  an  old  ball  (all  tennis 
balls  are  old  balls)  and  a  racket,  and  would  get  up  at  six  every  morning 
and  bat  the  ball  against  the  side  of  the  house  where  our  guest-room  was. 
This  took  perseverance  and  stamina,  as  complaints  began  to  pour  in  and 
my  ball  and  racket  were  locked  up  in  my  parents'  room  until  ten  a.m. 
But  I  overcame  this  obstacle  by  riding  my  bicycle  back  and  forth  at 
six  a.m.  and  ringing  the  bell  constantly.  You  see,  I  was  a  determined 
little  cuss. 

When  I  went  away  to  school,  each  boy  had  to  choose  one  form  of 
athletic  sport  and  indulge  in  it  every  day  between  the  hours  of  two  and 
four  p.m.  I  chose  tennis,  as  the  courts  were  quite  a  distance  from  the 
school  buildings  and,  as  they  were  always  full,  I  could  sometimes  get  in 
a  whole  two  hours'  sleep  under  the  trees  without  being  reported.  And 
J  may  say,  incidentally,  th^t  aJJ  during  my  tenjiis  career  I  have  always 


244  Reading  to  Others 

found  the  courts  full  enough  to  justify  a  little  snooze  now  and  then,  or 
even  a  trip  to  a  neighboring  town  for  a  movie. 

As  my  form  gradually  improved  to  the  point  where  I  did  not  rely 
entirely  on  the  lob  for  returning  the  ball,  I  developed  a  system  which 
has  been  the  backbone  of  my  game,  both  in  tournament  play  and  ran- 
dom rallying.  The  idea  back  of  it  is  to  get  your  opponent  to  laughing 
so  hard  that  he  is  unable  either  to  serve  or  get  the  ball  back.  (A  good- 
natured  opponent  is  almost  a  necessity  in  this  form  of  play.) 

This  I  do  by  making  comical  faces,  striking  grotesque  poses,  and  fall- 
ing down  occasionally  with  a  loud  clatter.  This  trick  (for  I  suppose  it  is 
a  trick,  really)  came  to  me  accidentally,  when  I  found  that  what  I  was 
doing  naturally  was  making  my  opponent  practically  helpless  in  my 
hands.  He  sometimes  would  even  give  me  the  game  by  default  and  retire 
to  the  side-lines  in  hysteria. 

So  I  cultivated  this  knack  of  mine,  and  to  it  I  lay  what  success  I  have 
had  in  the  game  today.  Naturally,  I  prefer  singles  to  doubles,  as  a  part- 
ner does  not  always  think  it  so  funny. 

Then,  about  seven  years  ago,  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  throw  my  left 
knee  badly  out  of  joint  at  a  wedding,  with  the  result  that  practically  any 
physical  exertion  on  my  part  now  results  in  its  bending  backward  as  well 
as  forward.  So,  while  other  people  are  lashing  themselves  into  a  lather 
at  tennis,  I  can  sit  under  the  trees  and  knit,  with  the  excuse,  "My  old 
knee,  you  know.  Darn  it/"  Thus  I  have  acquired  an  outlook  on  the 
game  which  few  professionals  have,  which,  after  all,  is  my  only  justifica- 
tion for  these  few  notes. 

ROBERT  BENCHLEY,  How  I  Learned  Tennis 


The  day  is  done,  and  darkness 
From  the  wing  of  night  is  loosed, 

As  a  feather  is  wafted  downward 
From  a  chicken  going  to  roost. 

I  see  the  lights  of  the  baker 

Gleam  through  the  rain  and  mist, 

And  a  feeling  of  sadness  comes  o'er  me 
That  I  cannot  well  resist. 

A  feeling  of  sadness  and  LONGING, 

That  is  not  like  being  sick, 
And  resembles  sorrow  only 

As  a  brickbat  resembles  a  brick. 


Informal  Reading  245 

Come,  get  for  me  some  supper— 

A  good  and  regular  rneal, 
That  shall  soothe  this  restless  feeling, 

And  banish  the  pain  I  feel. 

Not  from  the  pastry  baker's, 

Not  from  the  shops  for  cake, 
J  wouldn't  give  a  farthing 

For  all  that  they  can  make. 

For,  like  the  soup  at  dinner, 

Such  things  would  but  suggest 
Some  dishes  more  substantial 

And  tonight  I  want  the  best. 

Go  to  some  honest  butcher, 

Whose  beef  is  fresh  and  nice 
As  any  they  have  in  the  city, 

And  get  a  liberal  slice. 

Such  things  through  days  of  labor, 

And  nights  devoid  of  ease, 
For  sad  and  desperate  feelings 

Are  wonderful  remedies. 

They  have  an  astonishing  power 

To  aid  and  reinforce, 
And  come  like  the  "Finally,  brethren, ' 

That  follows  a  long  discourse. 

Then  get  me  a  tender  sirloin 

From  of?  the  bench  or  hook, 
And  lend  to  its  sterling  goodness 

The  science  of  the  cook. 

And  the  night  shall  be  filled  with  comfort, 

And  the  cares  with  which  it  begun 
Shall  fold  up  their  blankets  like  Indians, 
And  silently  cut  and  run. 

PHOEBE  GARY,  Parody  of  Longfellow's 
"The  Day  Is  Done" 


246  Reading  to  Others 

16.  Come,  landlord,  fill  the  flowing  bowl 

Until  it  doth  run  over; 
For  to-night  we'll  merry  merry  be, 
To-morrow  we'll  be  sober. 

The  man  who  drinketh  small  beer 

And  goes  to  bed  quite  sober, 
Fades  as  the  leaves  do  fade 

That  drop  off  in  October. 

But  he  who  drinks  just  what  he  likes 

And  getteth  half-seas  over. 
Will  live  until  he  dies  perhaps, 

And  then  lie  down  in  clover. 

The  man  who  kisses  a  pretty  girl 
And  goes  and  tells  his  mother, 
Ought  to  have  his  lips  cut  off, 
And  never  kiss  another. 

ANONYMOUS,  Come,  Landlord, 
Fill  the  Flowing  Bowl 

17.  Gay  go  up,  and  gay  go  down, 

To  ring  the  bells  of  London  town. 

Bull's  eyes  and  targets, 

Say  the  bells  of  St.  Marg'ret's. 

Brickbats  and  tiles, 

Say  the  bells  of  St.  Giles'. 

Halfpence  and  farthings 
Say  the  bells  of  St.  Martin's. 

Oranges  and  lemons, 

Say  the  bells  of  St.  Clement's. 

Pancakes  and  fritters, 
Say  the  bells  of  St.  Peter's. 

Two  sticks  and  an  apple, 
Say  the  bells  at  Whitechapel. 


Informal  Reading  247 

Old  Father  Baldpate, 

Say  the  slow  bells  at  Aldgate. 

Maids  in  white  aprons, 

Say  the  bells  at  St.  Catherine's. 

Poker  and  tongs, 

Say  the  bells  at  St.  Johns. 

Kettles  and  pans, 

Say  the  bells  at  St.  Ann's. 

You  owe  me  ten  shillings, 
Say  the  bells  at  St.  Helen's. 

When  will  you  pay  me? 
Say  the  bells  at  Old  Bailey. 

When  I  grow  rich, 

Say  the  bells  at  Fleetditch. 

When  will  that  be? 
Say  the  bells  at  Stepney. 

I  am  sure  I  don't  know, 
Says  the  great  bell  at  Bow. 

When  I  am  old, 

Say  the  bells  at  St.  Paul's. 

Here  comes  a  candle  to  light  you  to  bed, 

And  here  comes  a  chopper  to  chop  off  your  head. 

ANONYMOUS,  London  Bells 

18.    There  were  three  jovial  Welshmen, 

As  I  have  heard  them  say, 
And  they  would  go  a-hunting,  boys, 

Upon  St.  David's  Day. 
All  the  day  they  hunted, 

And  nothing  could  they  find, 
But  a  ship  a-sailing, 
A-sailing  with  the  wind. 
And  a-hunting  they  did  go. 


248  Reading  to  Others 

One  said  it  was  a  ship. 

The  other  he  said,  Nay; 
The  third  said  it  was  a  house 

With  the  chimney  blown  away. 
And  all  the  night  they  hunted, 

And  nothing  could  they  find, 
But  the  moon  a-gliding, 

A-gliding  with  the  wind. 
And  a-hunting  they  did  go. 

One  said  it  was  the  moon, 

The  other  he  said,  Nay; 
The  third  said  it  was  a  cheese 

And  half  o't  cut  away. 
And  all  the  day  they  hunted, 

And  nothing  could  they  find, 
But  a  hedgehog  in  a  bramble  bush, 

And  that  they  left  behind. 
And  a-hunting  they  did  go. 

The  first  said  it  was  a  hedgehog. 

The  second  he  said,  Nay; 
The  third,  it  was  a  pincushion, 

The  pins  stuck  in  wrong  way. 
And  all  the  night  they  hunted, 

And  nothing  could  they  find, 
But  a  hare  in  a  turnip  field, 

And  that  they  left  behind. 
And  a-hunting  they  did  go. 

The  first  said  it  was  a  hare, 

The  second  he  said,  Nay; 
The  third,  he  said  it  was  a  calf, 

And  the  cow  had  run  away. 
And  all  the  day  they  hunted, 

And  nothing  could  they  find, 
But  an  owl  in  a  holly-tree 

And  that  they  left  behind. 
And  a-hunting  they  did  go. 

One  said  it  was  an  owl, 

The  second  he  said,  Nay; 
The  third  said  t'was  an  old  man 


Informal  Reading  249 

And  his  beard  was  growing  gray. 
Then  all  three  jovial  Welshmen 

Came  riding  home  at  last, 
Tor  three  days  we  have  nothing  killed, 
And  never  broke  our  fast/' 
And  a-hunting  they  did  go. 

ANONYMOUS,  The  Three  Huntsmen 

19.    I  bite  the  scraping  grind  of  sand  between  my  teeth. 

The  waves  run  high. 
A  steamer's  smoke-scrawls  mock  the  purple  twilight  clouds 

In  the  eastern  sky, 
As  if  some  painter  cleaned  his  brush  upon  the  winds, 

Which  beautify 
With  movement  all  the  pageantry  of  evening's  fall. 

Sandpipers  cry 
And  run,  pursuing  foam-edged  ripples  on  the  shore, 

Then  blithely  fly, 
Exchanging  for  their  long,  bare  wading  legs  the  grace 

Of  wings.  I  lie 
Upon  a  dune,  my  scalp  stretched  taut  with  sand's  dry  touch. 

A  gull  soars  by. 
The  surf  is  murmuring  soft  thunder  down  the  beach; 

The  waters  try 
To  take  away  in  churning  froth  the  limp,  brown  sand, 

But  amplify 
The  land  by  building  serried  bars  which  thwart  their  force. 

The  sand-toads  ply 
Their  busy  way  in  frightened,  awkward  leaps.  The  night 

Sounds  prophesy 
A  coming  calm,  as  if  my  own  tranquility 

Might  pacify 
The  spirit  of  the  lake  by  giving  of  its  peace. 

KEVIN  KILLEEN,  Sunset  on  Lake  Erie 

20.   Starless  and  chill  is  the  night; 
The  sea  yawns  wide, 

And  stretched  on  the  sea,  flat  on  his  paunch 
Lies  the  shapeless  form  of  the  North- Wind 
Who  snivels  and  groans  in  stealthy  mumblings, 
A  peevish  old  grumbler  in  garrulous  humor, 
Babbling  down  to  the  waves. 


250  Reading  to  Others 

And  he  tells  them  wild,  lawless  stories, 

Giant  tales  of  gloom  and  murder, 

Ancient  sagas  from  Norway, 

And  again,  with  wide-clanging  laughter  he  bellows 

The  witching  spells  of  the  Edda 

And  crafty  rime-runes, 

So  darkly  strong  and  so  potent  with  magic 

That  the  snowy  sea-children 

Leap  up  the  waves  with  shouting, 

Hissing  in  wild  joy. 

But  meanwhile  across  the  flat  sea-beach 

Over  the  clinging,  spray-soaked  sand 

Strideth  a  stranger,  whose  heart  within  him 

Is  far  more  wild  than  winds  and  waters. 

Where'er  he  steps 

Sparks  are  scattered  and  sea-conches  crackle; 

And  he  wraps  him  close  in  his  gloomy  mantle 

And  presses  on  through  the  wind-driven  night, 

Safely  led  by  the  tiny  candle, 

Enticing  and  sweet,  that  glimmers 

From  a  lonely  fisher  cottage. 

Father  and  brother  are  out  at  sea, 

And  lone  as  a  mother's  soul  she  lives 

In  the  cottage,  the  fisher-maiden, 

The  wondrous  lovely  fisher-maiden. 

And  by  the  fireside 

Sits  harkening  to  the  kettle 

Purr  in  sweet  and  secret  surmise, 

And  heaps  the  crackling  boughs  on  the  fire, 

And  blows  on  it 

Till  the  flapping  flames  of  crimson 

Mirrored  are  in  wizard  beauty 

On  her  face,  set  a-glowing, 

On  her  white  and  tender  shoulders 

That  peer  so  piteously 

From  her  coarse  and  faded  costume, 

And  on  the  heedful  little  hand 

Which  more  closely  binds  the  under-garment 

Round  her  slender  hips. 

Then  suddenly  the  door  springs  wide, 

And  he  enters  there,  the  nocturnal  stranger; 


hi  formal  Reading  251 

Sure  of  love,  his  eyes  he  resteth 

On  the  pale  and  slender  maiden 

Who  shrinks  before  his  gaze 

Like  a  frail,  terrified  lily; 

And  he  throws  to  the  ground  his  mantle 

And  laughs  and  speaks: 

"Behold,  my  child,  I  keep  our  troth. 

f  am  come,  and  with  me  come 

The  ancient  years  when  the  gods  from  the  heavens 

To  the  daughters  of  mortals  descended 

And  the  daughters  of  mortals  embraced  them 

And  with  them  engendered 

Kingly  races,  the  scepter-carriers, 

And  heroes,  wonders  o'  the  world  .  .  . 

Don't  puzzle,  my  child,  any  further 

About  my  divinity, 

But  I  beg  of  you,  mix  me  some  tea  with  rum; 

For  outside  'twas  cold— 

Before  such  a  night-wind 

Even  we  gods  might  freeze,  though  eternal, 

And  easily  catch  the  godliest  sneezings, 

A  cough  like  the  gods  without  ending." 

HEINRICH  HEINE,  A  Night  by  the  Sea, 
translated  by  Howard  Mumford  Jones 


CHAPTER 


m  D. 


Dramatic  an 


arrative 


P       J- 

Aeaa/j 


ins 


'  I  •"  i PF£  HA  VE  been  more  or  less  dodging 
the  difficulties  of  reading  narrative  and  dramatic  subject-matter, 
because  in  ''straight"  reading  the  interpreter  usually  has  to  con- 
sider only  the  author's  and  his  own  mental  and  emotional  reac- 
tions. Now  a  third  element  enters  in,  the  relationship  between 
the  interpreter  and  the  characters  of  the  story  or  play  or  dramatic 
poem.  If  he  is  simply  reading  about  dramatic  people  and  situa- 
tions, he  must  observe  certain  conditions.  If,  however,  the  inter- 
preter becomes  a  character,  taking  part  in  a  dramatic  production 
and  reading  a  mental  manuscript,  still  other  conditions  obtain. 
We  shall  try  in  this  chapter  to  analyze  the  first  of  these  special 
problems  of  interpretation,  the  interpretation  but  not  the  acting 
of  narrative  and  dramatic  material. 

When  reading  to  an  audience,  the  interpreter  is  in  a  sense  one 
of  the  audience,  even  though  he  may  be  bringing  to  them  much 
of  his  own  personality  in  the  interpretation.  The  focus  of  atten- 
tion is  the  book  from  which  he  is  reading.  He  does  not  pretend 
to  be  anybody  else  than  himself.  To  distinguish  one  character 
from  another  or  to  vary  the  mood,  he  may  speak  in  dialect  or 
change  his  voice,  but  he  is  not  acting.  No  one  identifies  him  with 
any  character  he  may  be  presenting. 

When  he  appears  on  the  stage  as  a  character  in  a  play,  however, 
he  suppresses  not  only  himself  as  a  person  but  the  author.  He  is 
still  interpreting  (and  in  good  acting  he  is  still  detached  enough 
to  be  critical  at  the  same  time  that  he  is  absorbed  in  the  part),  but 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  253 

he  must  no  longer  be  a  member  of  the  audience,  and  he  does  not 
directly  communicate  with  the  audience.  He  is  now  the  focus  of 
attention  himself.  Between  the  actor  as  interpreter  and  the  reader 
as  interpreter  there  is  a  fundamental  difference  in  attitude.  The 
actor  must  seem  to  the  audience  to  feel  the  emotions  he  presents, 
to  be  an  actual  part  of  the  experience  he  is  enacting.  The  reader 
expresses  emotion  sympathetically,  but  must  not  seem  to  initiate  it. 

Let  us  take  up  the  reading  of  dramatic  material  before  an  audi- 
ence without  acting.  The  telling  of  stories  to  audiences  involves 
no  new  techniques.  It  is  very  simply  the  concentration  on  the 
characters  and  incidents  presented.  The  author's  and  interpreter's 
thoughts  about  the  people  and  situations  may  appear,  but  they 
must  not  intrude.  The  story  is  the  thing!  There  is  usually  a  wide 
range  of  pitch  and  tempo  in  narrative  and  dramatic  selections, 
and  the  skilful  reader  learns  how  to  make  use  of  suspense  and 
emotional  shifts  through  pause  and  change  in  tonal  color.  The 
reading  of  dialogue  requires  not  only  a  thorough  understanding 
of  the  characters  whose  words  you  are  reading,  but  a  knowledge 
of  dialect  and  speech  differentiation.  It  is  not  necessary,  how- 
ever, to  turn  on  full  the  faucets  of  dialect  in  most  narrative  mate- 
rial. Most  efforts  to  reproduce  Negro,  French-Canadian,  Bowery, 
or  Italian-English  are  rather  painful.  But  some  differentiation 
of  inflection  or  volume  or  tempo  in  the  speeches  of  various  peo- 
ple should  be  made.  Don't  strut,  displaying  your  command  of 
Teutonic  consonants  or  French  vowels  to  the  detriment  of  the 
narrative.  Try  to  follow  the  author's  phonetic  aids  to  pronuncia- 
tion without  seeming  to  demonstrate  your  talent  as  a  mimic. 
Remember— you  are  not  acting. 

Dramatic  reading  contests  have  done  much  harm  to  the  cause  of 
good  interpretation  because  the  mannered  diction  and  overly  en- 
thusiastic gestures  of  contestants  have  made  people  think  that  all 
public  reading  requires  a  streak  of  exhibitionism  in  the  performer. 
Far  too  much  melodramatic  waving  of  arms  and  emphasis  on 
pectoral  and  orotund  tone  qualities  have  turned  public  reading 
into  what  Stevenson  calls  schools  of  posturing  and  self-deceit. 
Piece-speaking,  as  it  is  usually  coached  by  romantic  teachers,  is 
one  of  the  worst  enemies  of  good  oral  interpretation.  Too  many 
children  have  made  foolish  spectacles  of  themselves  by  repeating 
in  melancholy  semi-quavers  that  the  curfew  must  not  ring  tonight, 


254  Reading  to  Others 

or  that  Barbara  Frietchie's  gray  head  should  not  be  harmed,  or 
that  Antony  has  come  to  bury  Caesar,  not  to  praise  him! 

We  Americans  are  like  the  English  in  our  distrust  of  display 
of  emotion.  We  are  willing  to  accept  emotional  situations,  up  to 
a  certain  point,  in  the  theater  where  our  empathies  are  actively 
engaged.  But  histrionics  off  the  stage  are  embarrassing  or  silly 
to  most  of  us.  Therefore,  readers  of  dramatic  selections  must  be 
careful  about  tearing  passions  to  tatters.  Restraint  is  an  excellent 
virtue  at  any  time,  and  it  is  particularly  admirable  in  the  dramatic 
reader.  This  is  not  to  say  that  in  any  reading  we  should  be 
ashamed  to  express  emotion.  Enough  has  been  said  in  the  chap- 
ter on  Interpreting  Emotion  to  show  how  important  it  is.  What 
we  must  avoid  is  an  insincere  or  extravagant  display  of  feel- 
ing. Tears,  lugubrious  tones,  stamping  about  on  a  platform,  loud- 
ness  are  not,  ordinarily,  unmistakable  manifestations  of  emotion. 
You  can  gain  far  more  belief  in  the  depth  of  your  feeling  by  quiet 
control  than  by  all  the  ranting  in  the  world. 

Many  an  ambitious  performer  reciting  a  dialogue  feels  that  he 
must  twist  himself  into  a  different  shape  for  each  character.  The 
result  is  a  succession  of  grim  contortions  that  add  nothing  to  the 
interpretation.  Let  us  repeat  the  warning  that  an  interpretive 
reader  is  not  an  actor.  A  slight  change  in  the  voice  or  movement 
of  the  head  may  be  all  that  is  necessary— not  a  futile  effort  by 
a  girl  to  imitate  a  bold  bass  voice  or  by  a  boy  to  pipe  in  dulcet 
feminine  tones,  and  not  a  prancing  around  the  platform  trying 
to  be  several  people  at  one  time.  Stand  still!  Keep  the  hands 
folded  at  the  waistline  or  at  the  sides  (if  you  are  not  holding  a 
book),  and  if  the  impulse  to  gesture  comes,  don't  stifle  it,  but 
be  sure  it  is  not  too  realistic.  Good  gestures  are  in  curves  rather 
than  in  angles.  It  is  better  to  err  on  the  side  of  moderation  in 
movement  than  to  make  the  audience  think  you  have  St.  Vitus's 
dance. 

Let's  try  an  example,  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson's  Mr.  Flood's 
Party: 

i.    Old  Eben  Flood,  climbing  alone  one  night 
Over  the  hill  between  the  town  below 
And  the  forsaken  upland  hermitage 
That  held  as  much  as  he  should  ever  know 
On  earth  again  of  home,  paused  warily. 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  255 

The  road  was  his  with  not  a  native  near; 
And  Eben,  having  leisure,  said  aloud, 
For  no  man  else  in  Tilbury  Town  to  hear: 

2.  "Well,  Mr.  Flood,  we  have  the  harvest  moon 
Again,  and  we  may  not  have  many  more; 
The  bird  is  on  the  wing,  the  poet  says, 

And  you  and  I  have  said  it  here  before. 
Drink  to  the  bird."  He  raised  up  to  the  light 
The  jug  that  he  had  gone  so  far  to  fill, 
And  answered  huskily:  "Well,  Mr.  Flood, 
Since  you  propose  it,  I  believe  I  will/' 

3.  Alone,  as  if  enduring  to  the  end 

A  valiant  armor  of  scarred  hopes  outworn, 
He  stood  there  in  the  middle  of  the  road 
Like  Roland's  ghost  winding  a  silent  horn. 
Below  him,  in  the  town  among  the  trees, 
Where  friends  of  other  days  had  honored  him, 
A  phantom  salutation  of  the  dead 
Rang  thinly  till  old  Eben's  eyes  were  dim. 

4.  Then,  as  a  mother  lays  her  sleeping  child 
Down  tenderly,  fearing  it  may  awake, 

He  set  the  jug  down  slowly  at  his  feet, 

With  trembling  care,  knowing  that  most  things  break; 

And  only  when  assured  that  on  firm  earth 

It  stood,  as  the  uncertain  lives  of  men 

Assuredly  did  not,  he  paced  away, 

And  with  his  hand  extended  paused  again: 

5.  "Well,  Mr.  Flood,  we  have  not  met  like  this 
In  a  long  time;  and  many  a  change  has  come 
To  both  of  us,  I  fear,  since  last  it  was 

We  had  a  drop  together.  Welcome  home/" 
Convivially  returning  with  himself, 
Again  he  raised  the  jug  up  to  the  light; 
And  with  an  acquiescent  quaver  said: 
"Well,  Mr.  Flood,  if  you  insist,  I  might. 

6.  "Only  a  very  little,  Mr.  Flood— 

For  auld  lang  syne.  No  more,  sir;  that  will  do." 


256  Reading  to  Others 

So,  for  the  time,  apparently  it  did, 

And  Eben  evidently  thought  so  too; 

For  soon  amid  the  silver  loneliness 

Of  night  he  lifted  up  his  voice  and  sang, 

Secure,  with  only  two  moons  listening, 

Until  the  whole  harmonious  landscape  rang— 

7.   "For  auld  lang  syne."  The  weary  throat  gave  out, 
The  last  word  wavered;  and  the  song  being  done, 
He  raised  again  the  /ug  regretfully 
And  shook  his  head,  and  was  again  alone. 
There  was  not  much  that  was  ahead  of  him, 
And  there  was  nothing  in  the  town  below— 
Where  strangers  would  have  shut  the  many  doors 
That  many  friends  had  opened  long  ago. 

EDWIN  ARLINGTON  ROBINSON,  Mr.  Flood's  Party 

The  first  lines  give  the  setting  for  the  little  story.  An  old  man 
is  climbing  the  hill  leading  from  Tilbury  Town  to  his  lonely 
house.  The  author's  opinion  of  Eben  Flood  does  not  appear,  but 
there  is  a  sly  suggestion  in  the  word  "warily."  Read  the  stanza 
as  simple,  factual  narrative,  giving  a  little  confidential  shading  to 
the  tone  color  of  "warily/* 

In  stanza  two  don't  try  to  imitate  the  cracked  voice  of  an  old 
man.  You  are  presenting  Eben  in  his  own  words,  but  you  must 
not  pretend  to  be  Eben.  You  might  slow  up  the  tempo  a  bit  in 
his  speeches,  indicating  the  unsteadiness  of  his  increasing  drunk- 
enness. Make  "The  bird  is  on  the  wing"  a  jovial  line,  keeping 
your  voice  up  at  the  comma.  The  address  to  himself  must  be  very 
hearty:  "Well,  Mr.  Flood,"  with  rising  inflection.  Be  careful  of 
the  run-on  lines;  don't  break  up  the  phrases.  "Drink  to  the  bird" 
is  a  cordial  invitation.  You  might  emphasize  the  vigor  of  it  by 
slightly  tossing  your  head. 

Stanza  three  introduces  some  of  the  author's  ironic  pity.  Bring 
out  the  pathos  in  the  picture  of  the  old  man  drinking  from  his 
jug  in  the  moonlight,  all  alone  in  the  road,  like  "Roland's  ghost, 
winding  a  silent  horn."  Try  to  show  that  the  simile  holds  no  ridi- 
cule for  Eben,  that  there  is  a  similarity  between  his  loneliness  and 
Roland's.  In  his  tipsiness  the  old  man  realizes  that  his  friends  are 
dead  and  that  he  is  alone  with  his  memories. 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  257 

Let  the  comic  scene  of  stanza  four  have  its  full  value.  But  read 
it  very  seriously.  You  can  easily  ruin  the  fragile  quality  of  humor 
by  heavy  handedly  pointing  it  out  as  humor.  Enter  into  the  spirit 
of  the  party  but  don't  be  superior  to  it.  Laugh,  but  laugh  gently. 
And  don't  lift  the  jug  yourself  and  set  it  down  again!  There  may 
be  some  gestures,  of  course,  but  not  descriptive  ones.  You  are  not 
Eben,  remember.  Recognize  Robinson's  wry  smile  in  the  phrase, 
"as  the  uncertain  lives  of  men  assuredly  did  not."  Say  it  appre- 
ciatively, as  if  it  were  a  profound  observation. 

Eben's  words  take  on  a  reminiscent  tone,  the  inflections  marking 
a  vivid  pattern.  Changes  in  tone  color  are  important  in  bringing 
out  the  old  fellow's  character.  "Welcome  home!'*  he  says,  with  a 
will.  The  answer  may  suggest  an  "acquiescent  quaver."  It  is  prob- 
ably the  only  differentiation  between  Mr.  Flood  and  Mr.  Flood 
that  you  will  need.  The  conversation,  however,  must  seem  to  be 
very  real,  and  you  must  believe  in  it  as  much  as  Eben  does. 

Even  the  line  about  "only  two  moons  listening"  (in  stanza  six) 
must  be  gentle.  Robinson  is  far  from  making  fun  of  his  lonely 
tippler.  For  the  moment  Eben  is  happily  singing  "for  auld  lang 
syne"  with  a  companion,  no  less  real  because  it  is  himself.  There 
is  nothing  undignified  or  absurd  in  the  scene.  You  must  convey 
to  the  hearer  this  sympathetic  understanding  of  Eben.  But  let  the 
old  man  reveal  himself.  Don't  seem  to  be  elaborately  analytical. 

In  the  last  stanza  the  pathetic  comedy  fades,  and  Mr.  Flood  is 
desolate  again.  The  last  lines  are  bleak,  but  their  irony  is  directed 
against  the  ways  of  men,  not  against  the  drunken  Eben. 

And  there  was  nothing  in  the  town  below—- 
Where strangers  would  have  shut  the  many  doors 
That  many  friends  had  opened  long  ago. 

Read  these  words  very  quietly,  bringing  out  the  contrasts  between 
"strangers"  and  "friends"  and  "shut"  and  "opened."  Your  voice 
should  seem  to  say,  "And  that's  what  a  good  many  of  us  have  to 
look  forward  to." 

Do  not  accept  this  analysis  of  the  poem  blindly;  other  interpre- 
tations are  certainly  possible.  You  must  not  let  any  mechanical 
method  of  studying  a  poem  make  you  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
your  own  meaning  and  your  own  emotional  response  are  of  pri- 
mary importance  in  sincere  reading. 


258  Reading  to  Others 

Exercises 

Read  the  following  selections,  bringing  out  characters  and  dra- 
matic conflict.  Recognize  the  value  of  suspense,  but  don't  let  it 
be  artificial  and  merely  breathless.  Tell  the  story  honestly,  enjoy- 
ing it  objectively,  that  is,  as  a  member  of  the  audience,  but  with 
a  special  responsibility  of  interpretation,  never  losing  yourself  so 
much  that  you  act  out  the  parts.  Until  you  get  some  of  the  con- 
fidence that  comes  with  experience,  omit  the  dialect  poems  and 
even  then  practice  carefully  before  you  do  them  before  an  audi- 
ence. You  can  check  your  pronunciations  by  the  dialect  lists  in 
Dialects  for  Oral  Interpretation,  by  G.  E.  Johnson  (Century, 
1922),  Phonetic  Studies  in  Folk  Speech  and  Broken  English,  by 
A.  Darrow  (Expression  Co.,  n.d.),  or  in  Applied  Phonetics,  by 
Claude  Merton  Wise  and  C.  K.  Thomas  (Harper,  1940). 

i.   So  all  day  long  the  noise  of  battle  roll'd 
Among  the  mountains  by  the  winter  sea; 
Until  King  Arthur's  table,  man  by  man, 
Had  fallen  in  Lyonnesse  about  their  Lord, 
King  Arthur:  then,  because  his  wound  was  deep, 
The  bold  Sir  Bedivere  uplifted  him, 
Sir  Bedivere,  the  last  of  all  his  knights, 
And  bore  him  to  a  chapel  nigh  the  field, 
A  broken  chancel  with  a  broken  cross, 
That  stood  on  a  dark  strait  of  barren  land. 
On  one  side  lay  the  Ocean,  and  on  one 
Lay  a  great  water,  and  the  moon  was  full. 

Then  spake  King  Arthur  to  Sir  Bedivere: 
"The  sequel  of  to-day  unsolders  all 
The  goodliest  fellowship  of  famous  knights 
Whereof  this  world  holds  record.  Such  a  sleep 
They  sleep— the  men  I  loved.  I  think  that  we 
Shall  never  more,  at  any  future  time, 
Delight  our  souls  with  talk  of  knightly  deeds, 
Walking  about  the  gardens  and  the  halls 
Of  Camelot,  as  in  the  days  that  were. 
I  perish  by  this  people  which  I  made— 
Tho'  Merlin  sware  that  I  should  come  again 
To  rule  once  more— but  let  what  will  be,  be, 
I  am  so  deeply  smitten  thro'  the  helm 
That  without  help  I  cannot  last  till  morn. 
Thou  therefore  take  my  brand  Excalibur, 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  259 

Which  was  my  pride:  for  thou  rememberest  how 

In  those  old  days,  one  summer  noon,  an  arm 

Rose  up  from  out  the  bosom  of  the  lake, 

Clothed  in  white  samite,  mystic,  wonderful, 

Holding  the  sword—and  how  I  row'd  across 

And  took  it,  and  have  worn  it,  like  a  king: 

And,  wheresoever  I  am  sung  or  told 

In  aftertime,  this  also  shall  be  known: 

But  now  delay  not:  take  Excalibur, 

And  fling  him  far  into  the  middle  mere: 

Watch  what  thou  seest,  and  lightly  bring  me  word/' 

To  him  replied  the  bold  Sir  Bedivere: 
"It  is  not  meet,  Sir  King,  to  leave  thee  thus, 
Aidless,  alone,  and  smitten  thro'  the  helm. 
A  little  thing  may  harm  a  wounded  man. 
Yet  I  thy  hest  will  all  perform  at  full, 
Watch  what  I  see,  and  lightly  bring  thee  word/' 

So  saying,  from  the  ruin'd  shrine  he  stept 
And  in  the  moon  athwart  the  place  of  tombs, 
Where  lay  the  mighty  bones  of  ancient  men, 
Old  knights,  and  over  them  the  sea-wind  sang 
Shrill,  chill,  with  flakes  of  foam.   He,  stepping  down 
By  zig-zag  paths,  and  juts  of  pointed  rock, 
Came  on  the  shining  levels  of  the  lake. 

There  drew  he  forth  the  brand  Excalibur, 
And  o'er  him,  drawing  it,  the  winter  moon, 
Brightening  the  skirts  of  a  long  cloud,  ran  forth 
And  sparkled  keen  with  frost  against  the  hilt: 
For  all  the  haft  twinkled  with  diamond  sparks, 
Myriads  of  topaz-lights,  and  jacinth-work 
Of  subtlest  /ewellery.  He  gazed  so  long 
That  both  his  eyes  were  dazzled,  as  he  stood, 
This  way  and  that  dividing  the  swift  mind, 
In  act  to  throw:  but  at  the  last  it  seem'd 
Better  to  leave  Excalibur  conceal'd 
There  in  the  many-knotted  waterflags, 
That  whistled  stiff  and  dry  about  the  marge. 
So  strode  he  back  slow  to  the  wounded  King. 

Then  spake  King  Arthur  to  Bedivere: 
"Hast  thou  perform'd  my  mission  which  I  gave? 
What  is  it  thou  hast  seen?  or  what  hast  heard?" 

And  answer  made  the  bold  Sir  Bedivere: 
"I  heard  the  ripple  washing  in  the  reeds, 


Reading  to  Others 

And  the  wild  water  lapping  on  the  crag/' 

To  whom  replied  King  Arthur,  faint  and  pale: 
'Thou  hast  betray'd  thy  nature  and  thy  name, 
Not  rendering  true  answer  as  beseem'd 
Thy  fealty,  nor  like  a  noble  knight: 
For  surer  sign  had  followed,  either  hand, 
Or  voice,  or  else  a  motion  of  the  mere. 
This  is  a  shameful  thing  for  men  to  lie. 
Yet  now,  I  charge  thee,  quickly  go  again 
As  thou  art  lief  and  dear,  and  do  the  thing 
I  bade  thee,  watch,  and  lightly  bring  me  word"  .  .  . 

LORD  TENNYSON,  Morte  d'Arthur 

2.   You  know,  we  French  stormed  Ratisbon: 

A  mile  or  so  away 
On  a  little  mound,  Napoleon 

Stood  on  our  storming-day; 
With  neck  out- thrust,  you  fancy  how, 

Legs  wide,  arms  locked  behind, 
As  if  to  balance  the  prone  brow 

Oppressive  with  its  mind. 

Just  as  perhaps  he  mused,  ''My  plans 

That  soar,  to  earth  may  fall, 
Let  once  my  army-leader  Lannes 

Waver  at  yonder  wall"— 
Out  'twixt  the  battery-smokes  there  flew 

A  rider,  bound  on  bound 
Full-galloping;  nor  bridle  drew 

Until  he  reached  the  mound. 

Then  off  there  flung  in  smiling  joy 

And  held  himself  erect 
By  just  his  horse's  mane,  a  boy: 

You  hardly  could  suspect— 
(So  tight  he  kept  his  lips  compressed, 

Scarce  any  blood  came  through) 
You  looked  twice  ere  you  saw  his  breast 

Was  all  but  shot  in  two. 

"Well,"  cried  he,  "Emperor,  by  God's  grace 

WeVe  got  you  Ratisbon/ 
The  Marshall's  in  the  market-place, 

And  you'll  be  there  anon 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  261 

To  see  your  flag-bird  flap  his  vans 

Where  I,  to  heart's  desire, 
Perched  him/"  The  Chief's  eye  flashed;  his  plans 

Soared  up  again  like  fire. 

The  Chief's  eye  flashed;  but  presently 

Softened  itself,  as  sheathes 
A  film  the  mother-eagle's  eye 

When  her  bruised  eaglet  breathes: 
"You're  wounded/"   "Nay,"  his  soldier's  pride 

Touched  to  the  quick,  he  said: 
"I'm  killed,  Sire/"  And  his  Chief  beside, 

Smiling  the  boy  fell  dead. 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  Incident  of  the  French  Camp 

3.  Helen  Furr  had  quite  a  pleasant  home.  Mrs.  Furr  was  quite  a 
pleasant  woman.  Mr.  Furr  was  quite  a  pleasant  man.  Helen  Furr  had 
quite  a  pleasant  voice  a  voice  quite  worth  cultivating.  She  did  not  mind 
working.  She  worked  to  cultivate  her  voice.  She  did  not  find  it  gay  liv- 
ing in  the  same  place  where  she  had  always  been  living.  She  went  to  a 
place  where  some  were  cultivating  something,  voices  and  other  things 
needing  cultivating.  She  met  Georgine  Skeene  there  who  was  cultivat- 
ing her  voice  which  some  thought  was  quite  a  pleasant  one.  Helen  Furr 
and  Georgine  Skeene  lived  together  then.  Georgine  Skeene  liked  trav- 
elling. Helen  Furr  did  not  care  about  travelling,  she  liked  to  stay  in  one 
place  and  be  gay  there.  They  were  together  then  and  travelled  to  an- 
other place  and  stayed  there  and  were  gay  there. 

They  stayed  there  and  were  gay  there,  not  very  gay  there,  just  gay 
there.  They  were  both  gay  there,  they  were  regularly  working  there  both 
of  them  cultivating  their  voices  there,  they  were  both  gay  there.  Georg- 
ine Skeene  was  gay  there,  and  she  was  regular,  regular  in  being  gay, 
regular  in  not  being  gay,  regular  in  being  a  gay  one  who  was  one  not 
being  gay  longer  than  was  needed  to  be  one  being  quite  a  gay  one.  They 
were  both  gay  then  there  and  both  working  there  then. 

They  were  in  a  way  both  gay  there  where  there  were  many  cultivating 
something.  They  were  both  regular  in  being  gay  there.  Helen  Furr  was 
gay  there,  she  was  gayer  and  gayer  there  and  really  she  was  just  gay  there, 
she  was  gayer  and  gayer  there,  that  is  to  say  she  found  ways  of  being  gay 
there  that  she  was  using  in  being  gay  there.  She  was  gay  there,  not  gayer 
and  gayer,  just  gay  there,  that  is  to  say  she  was  not  gayer  by  using  the 
things  she  found  there  that  were  gay  things,  she  was  gay  there,  always 
she  was  gay  there. 

GERTRUDE  STEIN,  "Miss  Furr  and  Miss  Skeene," 
from  Geography  and  Plays 


262  Reading  to  Others 

4.   John  of  Tours  is  back  with  peace, 
But  he  comes  home  ill  at  ease. 

"Good-morrow,  mother/'    "Good-morrow,  son, 
Your  wife  has  borne  you  a  little  one/' 

"Go  now,  mother,  go  before, 
Make  me  a  bed  upon  the  floor. 

"Very  low  your  feet  must  fall, 
That  my  wife  hear  not  at  all." 

As  it  neared  the  midnight  toll, 
John  of  Tours  gives  up  his  soul. 

"Tell  me  now,  my  mother  dear, 
What's  the  crying  that  I  hear?" 

"Daughter,  it's  the  children  wake 
Crying  with  their  teeth  that  ache." 

"Tell  me,  though,  my  mother  dear, 
What's  the  knocking  that  I  hear?" 

"Daughter,  it's  the  carpenter 
Mending  planks  upon  the  stair." 

"Tell  me,  too,  my  mother  dear, 
What  is  the  singing  that  I  hear?" 

"Daughter,  it's  the  priests  in  rows 
Going  round  about  our  house." 

"Tell  me  then,  my  mother,  my  dear, 
What's  the  dress  that  I  should  wear?" 

"Daughter,  any  reds  or  blues, 
But  the  black  is  most  in  use." 

"Nay,  but  say,  my  mother,  my  dear, 
Why  do  you  fall  weeping  here?" 

"Oh,  the  truth  must  be  said- 
It's  that  John  of  Tours  is  dead." 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  263 

"Mother,  let  the  sexton  know 
That  the  grave  must  be  for  two; 

"Aye,  and  still  have  room  to  spare, 
For  you  must  shut  the  baby  there/' 

Anonymous  Ballad,  John  of  Tours,  translated 
from  the  French  by  D.  G.  Rossetti 

5.   Lord  Lovel  he  stood  at  his  castle-gate, 

Combing  his  milk-white  steed, 

When  up  came  Lady  Nancy  Belle, 

To  wish  her  lover  good  speed. 

"Where  are  you  going,  Lord  Lovel?"  she  said, 

"Oh,  where  are  you  going?"  said  she. 
"I'm  going,  my  Lady  Nancy  Belle, 

Strange  countries  for  to  see." 

"When  will  you  be  back,  Lord  Lovel?"  she  said, 
"Oh  when  will  you  come  back?"  said  she. 

"In  a  year,  or  two,  or  three  at  the  most, 
I'll  return  to  my  fair  Nancy." 

But  he  had  not  been  gone  a  year  and  a  day, 

Strange  countries  for  to  see, 
When  languishing  thoughts  came  into  his  head, 

Lady  Nancy  Belle  he  would  go  see. 

So  he  rode,  and  he  rode,  on  his  milk-white  steed, 

Till  he  came  to  London  town, 
And  there  he  heard  St.  Pancras'  bells, 

And  the  people  all  mourning  round. 

"Oh,  what  is  the  matter?"  Lord  Lovel  he  said. 

"Oh  what  is  the  matter?"  said  he; 
"A  lord's  lady  is  dead,"  a  woman  replied, 

"And  some  call  her  Lady  Nancy." 

So  he  order'd  the  grave  to  be  open'd  wide, 

And  the  shroud  he  turned  down, 
And  there  he  kiss'd  her  clay-cold  lips, 

Till  the  tears  came  trickling  down. 


264  Reading  to  Others 

Lady  Nancy  she  died,  as  it  might  be,  today, 

Lord  Lovel  he  died  as  tomorrow; 
Lady  Nancy  she  died  out  of  pure,  pure  grief, 

Lord  Lovel  he  died  out  of  sorrow. 

Lady  Nancy  was  laid  in  St.  Pancras'  Church, 

Lord  Lovel  was  laid  in  the  choir; 
And  out  of  her  bosom  there  grew  a  red  rose, 

And  out  of  her  lover's  a  briar. 

They  grew,  and  they  grew,  to  the  church-steeple  top, 

And  then  they  could  grow  no  higher; 
So  there  they  entwined  in  a  true-lovers'  knot, 

For  all  lovers  true  to  admire. 

Anonymous  Ballad,  Lord  Lovel 

6.   "Just  the  place  for  a  Snark/"  the  Bellman  cried, 

As  he  landed  his  crew  with  care; 
Supporting  each  man  on  the  top  of  the  tide 
By  a  finger  entwined  in  his  hair. 

"Just  the  place  for  a  Snark/  I  have  said  it  twice: 

That  alone  should  encourage  the  crew. 
Just  the  place  for  a  Snark/  I  have  said  it  thrice: 

What  I  tell  you  three  times  is  true/' 

The  crew  was  complete:  it  included  a  Boots— 

A  maker  of  Bonnets  and  Hoods— 
A  Barrister,  brought  to  arrange  their  disputes— 

And  a  Broker,  to  value  their  goods. 

A  Billiard-marker,  whose  skill  was  immense, 

Might  perhaps  have  won  more  than  his  share- 
But  a  Banker,  engaged  at  enormous  expense, 
Had  the  whole  of  their  cash  in  his  care. 

There  was  also  a  Beaver,  that  paced  on  the  deck, 

Or  would  sit  making  lace  in  the  bow: 
And  had  often  (the  Bellman  said)  saved  them  from  wreck 

Though  none  of  the  sailors  knew  how. 

There  was  one  who  was  tamed  for  the  number  of  things 
He  forgot  when  he  entered  the  ship: 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  265 

His  umbrella,  his  watch,  all  his  jewels  and  rings, 
And  the  clothes  he  had  bought  for  the  trip. 

He  had  forty-two  boxes,  all  carefully  packed, 

With  his  name  painted  clearly  on  each: 
But,  since  he  omitted  to  mention  the  fact, 

They  were  all  left  behind  on  the  beach. 

The  loss  of  his  clothes  hardly  mattered,  because 

He  had  seven  coats  on  when  he  came, 
With  three  pairs  of  boots— but  the  worst  of  it  was, 

He  had  wholly  forgotten  his  name. 

He  would  answer  to  "Hi/"  or  to  any  loud  cry, 

Such  as  "Fry  me/"  or  "Fritter  my  wig/" 
To  "What-you-may-call-urn/"  or  "What-was-his-name/" 

But  especially  "Thing-um-a-;ig/" 

While,  for  those  who  preferred  a  more  forcible  word, 

He  had  different  names  from  these: 
His  intimate  friends  called  him  "Candle-ends/' 

And  his  enemies  "Toasted-cheese." 

"His  form  is  ungainly — his  intellect  small — " 

(So  the  Bellman  would  often  remark)— 
"But  his  courage  is  perfect/  And  that,  after  all, 

Is  the  thing  that  one  needs  with  a  Snarl:/" 

He  would  joke  with  hyaenas,  returning  their  stare 

With  an  impudent  wag  of  the  head: 
And  he  once  went  a  walk,  paw-in-paw,  with  a  bear, 

"Just  to  keep  up  its  spirits,"  he  said. 

He  came  as  a  Baker:  but  owned,  when  too  late— 

And  it  drove  the  poor  Bellman  half-mad— 
He  could  only  bake  Bride-cake— for  which,  I  may  state, 

No  materials  were  to  be  had. 

The  last  of  the  crew  needs  especial  remark, 

Though  he  looked  an  incredible  dunce: 
He  had  just  one  idea— but,  that  one  being  "Snark," 

The  good  Bellman  engaged  him  at  once. 


266  Reading  to  Others 

He  came  as  a  Butcher:  but  gravely  declared, 
When  the  ship  had  been  sailing  a  week, 

He  could  only  kill  Beavers.  The  Bellman  looked  scared, 
And  was  almost  too  frightened  to  speak: 

But  at  length  he  explained,  in  a  tremulous  tone, 

There  was  only  one  Beaver  on  board; 
And  that  was  a  tame  one  he  had  of  his  own, 

Whose  death  would  be  deeply  deplored. 

The  Beaver,  who  happened  to  hear  the  remark, 

Protested,  with  tears  in  its  eyes, 
That  not  even  the  rapture  of  hunting  the  Snark 

Could  atone  for  that  dismal  surprise/ 

it  strongly  advised  that  the  Butcher  should  be 

Conveyed  in  a  separate  ship: 
But  the  Bellman  declared  that  would  never  agree 

With  the  plans  he  had  made  for  the  trip. 

Navigation  was  always  a  difficult  art, 

Though  with  only  one  ship  and  one  bell: 

And  he  feared  he  must  really  decline,  for  his  part, 
Undertaking  another  as  well. 

The  Beaver's  best  course  was,  no  doubt,  to  procure 

A  second-hand  dagger-proof  coat — 
So  the  Baker  advised  it— and  next,  to  insure 

Its  life  in  some  Office  of  note: 

This  the  Banker  suggested,  and  offered  for  hire 

(On  mo4erate  terms),  or  for  sale, 
Two  excellent  Policies,  one  Against  Fire 

And  one  Against  Damage  From  Hail. 

Yet  still,  ever  after  that  sorrowful  day, 

Whenever  the  Butcher  was  by, 
The  Beaver  kept  looking  the  opposite  way, 
And  appeared  unaccountably  shy. 

LEWIS  CARROLL,  "Fit  the  First:  The  Landing" 
The  Hunting  of  the  Snark 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  267 

7.   "He's  deader  'n  nails,"  the  fo'c's'le  said,  "'n'  gone  to  his  long 

sleep"; 
"'N'  about  his  corp,"  said  Tom  to  Dan,  "d'ye  think  his  corp'll 

keep 
Till  the  day's  done,  'n'  the  work's  through,  'n'  the  ebb's  upon 

the  neap?" 

"He's  deader  'n  nails,"  said  Dan  to  Tom,  "'n'  I  wish  his  sperrit 

i'y; 

He  spat  straight  'n'  he  steered  true,  but  listen  to  me,  say  I, 
Take  'n'  cover  'n'  bury  him  now,  'n'  I'll  take  'n'  tell  you  why. 

"It's  a  rummy  rig  of  a  guffy's  yarn,  'n'  the  juice  of  a  rummy  note, 

But  if  you  buries  a  corp  at  night,  it  takes  'n'  keeps  afloat, 

For  its  bloody  soul's  afraid  o'  the  dark  'n'  sticks  within  the  throat. 

"'N'  all  the  night  till  the  grey  o'  the  dawn  the  dead  'un  has  to 

swim 

With  a  blue  'n'  beastly  Will  o'  the  Wisp  a-burnin'  over  him, 
With  a  herring,  maybe,  a-scoflin'  a  toe  or  a  shark  a-chewin'  a  limb. 

"'N'  all  the  night  the  shiverin'  corp  it  has  to  swim  the  sea, 
With  its  shudderin'  soul  inside  the  throat  (where  a  soul's  no  right 

to  be), 
Till  the  sky's  grey  'n'  the  dawn's  clear,  'n'  then  the  sperrit's  free. 

"Now  Joe  was  a  man  was  right  as  rain.  I'm  sort  of  sore  for  Joe. 

'N'  if  we  bury  him  durin'  the  day,  his  soul  can  take  'n'  go; 

So  we'll  dump  his  corp  when  the  bell  strikes  'n'  we  can  get  below. 

"I'd  fairly  hate  for  him  to  swim  in  a  blue  'n'  beastly  light, 
With  his  shudderin'  soul  inside  of  him  a-feelin'  the  fishes  bite, 
So  over  he  goes  at  noon,  say  I,  'n'  he  shall  sleep  to-night." 

JOHN  MASEFIELD,  Burial  Party 

8.  Dere's  no  guy  livin'  dat  knows  Brooklyn  t'roo  an'  t'roo,  because 
it'd  take  a  guy  a  lifetime  just  to  find  his  way  aroun'  duh  damn'  town. 

So  like  I  say,  I'm  waitin'  for  my  train  t'  come  when  I  sees  dis  big  guy 
standin'  deh— dis  is  duh  foist  I  eveh  see  of  him.  Well,  he's  lookin'  wild, 
y'know,  an'  I  can  see  dat  he's  had  plenty,  but  still  he's  holdin'  it;  he 
talks  good  an'  is  walkin'  straight  enough.  So  den,  dis  big  guy  steps  up 
to  a  little  guy  dat's  standin'  deh,  an'  says,  "How  d'yuh  get  t'  Eighteent' 
Avenoo  an*  Sixty-sevent'  Street?"  he  says. 


268  Reading  to  Others 

"Jesus/  Yuh  got  me,  chief/'  duh  little  guy  says  to  him.  "I  ain't  been 
heah  Jong  myself.  Where  is  duh  place?"  he  says.  "Out  in  duh  Flatbush 
section  somewhere?" 

"Nah,"  duh  big  guy  says.  "It's  out  in  Bensoiihoist.  But  I  was  neveh 
deh  befoeh.  How  d'yuh  get  deh?" 

"Jesus/'  duh  little  guy  says,  scratchin'  his  head,  'y'know—yuh  could 
see  duh  little  guy  didn't  Jcnow  his  way  about— "yuh  got  me,  chief.  I 
neveh  hoid  of  it.  Do  any  of  youse  guys  know  where  it  is?"  he  says  to  me. 

"Sure,"  I  says.  "It's  out  in  Bensonhoist.  Yuh  take  duh  Fourt'  Avenoo 
express,  get  off  at  Fifty-nint'  Street,  change  to  a  Sea  Beach  local  deh,  get 
off  at  Eighteent'  Avenoo  an'  Sixty-toid,  an'  den  walk  down  foeh  blocks. 
Dat's  all  yuh  got  to  do,"  I  says. 

"G'wan/"  some  wise  guy  dat  I  neveh  seen  befoeh  pipes  up.  "Whatcha 
talkin'  about?"  he  says— oh,  he  was  wise,  y'know.  "Duh  guy  is  crazy/ 
I  tell  yuh  what  yuh  do,"  he  says  to  duh  big  guy.  "Yuh  change  to  duh 
West  End  line  at  Toity-sixt',"  he  tells  him.  "Get  off  at  Noo  Utrecht  an' 
Sixteent'  Avenoo,"  he  says.  "Walk  two  blocks  oveh,  foeh  blocks  up," 
he  says,  "An'  you'll  be  right  deh."  Oh,  a  WISE  guy,  y'know. 

"Oh,  yeah?"  I  says.  "Who  told  YOU  so  much?"  He  got  me  sore  be- 
cause he  was  so  wise  about  it.  "How  long  you  been  livin'  heah?"  I  says. 

"All  my  life,"  he  says.  "I  was  bawn  in  Williamsboig,"  he  says.  "An* 
I  can  tell  you  t'ings  about  dis  town  yuh  neveh  hoid  of/'  he  says. 

"Yeah?"  I  says. 

"Yeah,"  he  says. 

THOMAS  WOLFE,  Only  the  Dead  Know  Brooklyn 

9.  While  I  was  playing  checkers,  Mother  would  set  and  listen  to  the 
band,  as  she  loves  music,  classical  or  no  matter  what  kind,  but  anyway 
she  was  setting  there  one  day  and  between  selections  the  woman  next  to 
her  opened  up  a  conversation.  She  was  a  woman  about  Mother's  own 
age,  seventy  or  seventy-one,  and  finally  she  asked  Mother's  name  and 
Mother  told  her  name  and  where  she  was  from  and  Mother  asked  her 
the  same  question,  and  who  do  you  think  the  woman  was? 

Well,  sir,  it  was  the  wife  of  Frank  M.  Hartsell,  the  man  who  was 
engaged  to  Mother  till  I  stepped  in  and  cut  him  out,  fifty-two  years  ago/ 

Yes,  sir/ 

You  can  imagine  Mother's  surprise/  And  Mrs.  Hartsell  was  surprised, 
too,  when  Mother  told  her  she  had  once  been  friends  with  her  husband, 
though  Mother  didn't  say  how  close  friends  they  had  been,  or  that 
Mother  and  I  was  the  cause  of  Hartsell  going  out  West.  But  that's  what 
we  was.  Hartsell  left  his  town  a  month  after  the  engagement  was  broke 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  269 

off  and  ain't  never  been  back  since.  He  had  went  out  to  Michigan  and 
become  a  veterinary,  and  that  is  where  he  had  settled  down,  in  Hillsdale, 
Michigan,  and  finally  married  his  wife. 

Well,  Mother  screwed  up  her  courage  to  ask  if  Frank  was  still  living 
and  Mrs.  Hartsell  took  her  over  to  where  they  was  pitching  horseshoes 
and  there  was  old  Frank,  waiting  his  turn.  And  he  knowed  Mother  as 
soon  as  he  seen  her,  though  it  was  over  fifty  years.  He  said  he  knowed  her 
by  her  eyes. 

"Why,  it's  Lucy  Frost/"  he  says,  and  he  throwed  down  his  shoes  and 
quit  the  game. 

Then  they  come  over  and  hunted  me  up  and  I  will  confess  I  wouldn't 
of  knowed  him.  Him  and  J  is  the  same  age  to  the  month,  but  he  seems 
to  show  it  more,  some  way.  He  is  balder  for  one  thing.  And  his  beard 
is  all  white,  where  mine  has  still  got  a  streak  of  brown  in  it.  The  very 
first  thing  I  said  to  him,  I  said: 

"Well,  Frank,  that  beard  of  yours  makes  me  feel  like  I  was  back  north. 
It  looks  like  a  regular  blizzard." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  guess  yourn  would  be  just  as  white  if  you  had  it 
dry  cleaned." 

But  Mother  wouldn't  stand  that. 

"Is  that  so/"  she  said  to  Frank.  "Well,  Charley  ain't  had  no  tobacco 
in  his  mouth  for  over  ten  years/" 

And  I  ain't/ 

RING  LARDNER,  The  Golden  Honeymoon 

jo.  "Now,  Master  Cyril,"  Amy  protested,  "will  you  leave  that  fire 
alone?  It's  not  you  that  can  mend  my  fires." 

A  boy  of  nine,  great  and  heavy  for  his  years,  with  a  full  face  and  very 
short  hair,  bent  over  the  smoking  grate.  It  was  about  five  minutes  to 
eight  on  a  chilly  morning  after  Easter.  Amy,  hastily  clad  in  blue,  with 
a  rough  brown  apron,  was  setting  the  breakfast  table.  The  boy  turned 
his  head,  still  bending. 

"Shut  up,  Ame,"  he  replied,  smiling.  Life  being  short,  he  usually 
called  her  Ame  when  they  were  alone  together.  "Or  I'll  catch  you  one 
in  the  eye  with  the  poker." 

"You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself,"  said  Amy.  "And  you  know 
your  mother  told  you  to  wash  your  feet  this  morning,  and  you  haven't 
done.  Fine  clothes  is  all  very  well,  but—" 

"Who  says  I  haven't  washed  my  feet?"  asked  Cyril,  guiltily. 

Amy's  mention  of  fine  clothes  referred  to  the  fact  that  he  was  that 
morning  wearing  his  Sunday  suit  for  the  first  time  on  a  week-day. 


270  Reading  to  Others 

"I  say  you  haven't/'  said  Amy. 

She  was  more  than  three  times  his  age  still,  but  they  had  been  treat- 
ing each  other  as  intellectual  equals  for  years. 

"And  how  do  you  know?"  asked  Cyril,  tired  of  the  fire. 

"I  know,"  said  Amy. 

"Well,  you  just  don't  then/"  said  Cyril.  "And  what  about  YOUR  feet? 
I  should  be  sorry  to  see  your  feet,  Ame." 

Amy  was  excusably  annoyed.  She  tossed  her  head.  "My  feet  are  as 
clean  as  yours  any  day,"  she  said.  "And  I  shall  tell  your  mother." 

But  he  would  not  leave  her  feet  alone,  and  there  ensued  one  of  those 
endless  monotonous  altercations  on  a  single  theme  which  occur  so  often 
between  intellectual  equals  when  one  is  a  young  son  of  the  house  and 
the  other  an  established  servant  who  adores  him.  Refined  minds  would 
have  found  the  talk  disgusting,  but  the  sentiment  of  disgust  seemed  to 
be  unknown  to  either  of  the  wranglers.  At  last,  when  Amy  by  superior 
tactics  had  cornered  him,  Cyril  said  suddenly: 

"Oh,  go  to  hell/" 

Amy  banged  down  the  spoon  for  the  bacon  gravy.  "Now  I  shall  tell 
your  mother.  Mark  my  words,  this  time  I  SHALL  tell  your  mother." 

Cyril  felt  that  in  truth  he  had  gone  rather  far.  He  was  perfectly  sure 
that  Amy  would  not  tell  his  mother.  And  yet,  supposing  that  by  some 
freak  of  her  nature  she  did/  The  consequences  would  be  unutterable; 
the  consequences  would  more  than  extinguish  his  private  glory  in  the 
use  of  such  a  dashing  word.  So  he  laughed,  a  rather  silly,  giggling  laugh, 
to  reassure  himself. 

"You  daren't,"  he  said. 

"Daren't  I?"  she  said  grimly.  "You'll  see.  I  don't  know  where  you 
learn/  It  fair  beats  me.  But  it  isn't  Amy  Bates  as  is  going  to  be  sworn 
at.  As  soon  as  ever  your  mother  comes  into  this  room/" 

ARNOLD  BENNETT,  The  Old  Wives'  Tale 

11.  Danvers  accompanied  Mr.  Dacier  to  the  house-door.  Climbing 
the  stairs,  she  found  her  mistress  in  the  drawing-room  still. 

"You  must  be  cold,  ma'am,"  she  said,  glancing  at  the  fire-grate. 

"Is  it  a  frost?"  said  Diana. 

"It's  midnight  and  midwinter,  ma'am." 

"Has  it  struck  midnight?" 

The  mantel-piece  clock  said  five  minutes  past. 

"You  had  better  go  to  bed,  Danvers,  or  you  will  lose  your  bloom. 
Stop;  you  are  a  faithful  soul.  Great  things  are  happening  and  I'm  agi- 
tated. Mr.  Dacier  has  told  me  news.  He  came  back  purposely." 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  said  Danvers.  "He  had  a  great  deal  to  tell." 

"Well,  he  had/'   Diana  coloured  at  the  first  tentative  impertinence 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  2*p 

she  had  heard  from  her  maid.  "What  is  the  secret  of  you,  Danvers? 
What  attaches  you  to  me?" 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know,  ma'am.  I'm  romantic." 

"And  you  think  me  a  romantic  object?" 

"I'm  sure  I  can't  say,  ma'am.  I'd  rather  serve  you  than  any  other  lady; 
and  I  wish  you  was  happy." 

"Do  you  suppose  I  am  unhappy?" 

"I'm  sure — but  if  I  may  speak,  ma'am:  so  handsome  and  clever  a  lady/ 
and  young/  I  can't  bear  to  see  it." 

"Tush/  you  silly  woman/  You  read  your  melting  tales,  and  imagine." 

GEORGE  MEREDITH,  Diana  of  the  Crossways 

12.  I  was  standing  stark  naked  next  morning  in  that  icy  bedroom,  try- 
ing to  bathe  in  about  a  quart  of  water,  when  Stumm  entered.  He  strode 
up  to  me  and  stared  me  in  the  face.  I  was  half  a  head  shorter  than  he 
to  begin  with,  and  a  man  does  not  feel  his  stoutest  when  he  has  no 
clothes,  so  he  had  the  pull  of  me  every  way. 

"I  have  reason  to  believe  that  you  are  a  liar,"  he  growled. 

I  pulled  the  bed-cover  round  me,  for  I  was  shivering  with  cold,  and 
the  German  idea  of  a  towel  is  a  pocket-handkerchief.  I  own  I  was  in  a 
pretty  blue  funk. 

"A  liar/"  he  repeated.  "You  and  that  swine  Pienaar." 

With  my  best  effort  at  surliness  I  asked  what  we  had  done. 

"You  lied,  because  you  said  you  knew  no  German.  Apparently  your 
friend  knows  enough  to  talk  treason  and  blasphemy." 

This  gave  me  back  some  heart. 

"I  told  you  I  knew  a  dozen  words.  But  I  told  you  Peter  could  talk  it 
a  bit.  I  told  you  that  yesterday  at  the  station."  Fervently  I  blessed  my 
luck  for  that  casual  remark. 

He  evidently  remembered,  for  his  tone  became  a  trifle  more  civil. 

"You  are  a  precious  pair.  If  one  of  you  is  a  scoundrel,  why  not  the 
other?" 

"I  take  no  responsibility  for  Peter,"  I  said.  I  felt  I  was  a  cad  in  saying 
it  but  that  was  the  bargain  we  had  made  at  the  start.  "I  have  known 
him  for  years  as  a  great  hunter  and  a  brave  man.  I  know  he  fought  well 
against  the  English.  But  more  I  cannot  tell  you.  You  have  to  judge  him 
for  yourself.  What  has  he  done?" 

I  was  told,  for  Stumm  had  got  it  that  morning  on  the  telephone. 
While  telling  it  he  was  kind  enough  to  allow  me  to  put  on  my  trousers. 

It  was  just  the  sort  of  thing  I  might  have  foreseen.  Peter,  left  alone, 
had  become  first  bored  and  then  reckless.  He  had  persuaded  the  lieu- 
tenant to  take  him  out  to  supper  at  a  big  Berlin  restaurant.  There,  in- 
spired by  the  lights  and  music— novel  things  for  a  backvdd  hunter— and 


Reading  to  Others 

no  doubt  bored  stiff  by  his  company,  he  had  proceeded  to  get  drunk. 
That  had  happened  in  my  experience  with  Peter  about  once  in  three 
years,  and  it  always  happened  for  the  same  reason.  Peter,  bored  and 
solitary  in  a  town,  went  on  the  spree.  He  had  a  head  like  a  rock,  but 
he  got  to  the  required  condition  by  wild  mixing.  He  was  quite  a  gentle- 
man in  his  cups,  and  not  in  the  least  violent,  but  he  was  apt  to  be  very 
free  with  his  tongue.  And  that  was  what  occurred  at  the  Franciscana. 

He  had  begun  by  insulting  the  Emperor,  it  seemed.  He  drank  his 
health,  but  said  he  reminded  him  of  a  wart-hog,  and  thereby  scarified  the 
lieutenant's  soul.  Then  an  officer— some  tremendous  swell— at  an  adjoin- 
ing table  had  objected  to  his  talking  so  loud,  and  Peter  had  replied 
insolently  in  respectable  German.  After  that  things  became  mixed. 
There  was  some  kind  of  a  fight,  during  which  Peter  calumniated  the 
German  army  and  all  its  female  ancestry.  How  he  wasn't  shot  or  run 
through  I  can't  imagine,  except  that  the  lieutenant  loudly  proclaimed 
that  he  was  a  crazy  Boer.  Anyhow  the  upshot  was  that  Peter  was 
marched  off  to  gaol,  and  I  was  left  in  a  pretty  pickle. 

"I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it,"  I  said  firmly.  I  had  most  of  my  clotnes 
on  now  and  felt  more  courageous.  "It  is  all  a  plot  to  get  him  into  dis- 
grace and  draft  him  of?  to  the  front." 

JOHN  BUCHAN,  Greenmantle 

13.    Mary  sat  musing  on  the  lamp-flame  at  the  table 
Waiting  for  Warren.  When  she  heard  his  step, 
She  ran  on  tip-toe  down  the  darkened  passage 
To  meet  him  in  the  doorway  with  the  news 
And  put  him  on  his  guard.  "Silas  is  back/' 
She  pushed  him  outward  with  her  through  the  door 
And  shut  it  after  her.  "Be  kind,"  she  said. 
She  took  the  market  things  from  Warren's  arms 
And  set  them  on  the  porch,  then  drew  him  down 
To  sit  beside  her  on  the  wooden  steps. 

"When  was  I  ever  anything  but  kind  to  him? 
But  I'll  not  have  the  fellow  back/'  he  said. 
"I  told  him  so  last  haying,  didn't  I? 
'If  he  left  then,'  I  said,  That  ended  it/ 
What  good  is  he?  Who  else  will  harbour  him 
At  his  age  for  the  little  he  can  do? 
What  help  he  is  there's  no  depending  on. 
Off  he  goes  always  when  I  need  him  most. 
'He  thinks  he  ought  to  earn  a  little  pay, 
Enough  at  least  to  buy  tobacco  with, 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  273 

So  he  won't  have  to  beg  and  be  beholden/ 

'All  right/  I  say,  'I  can't  afford  to  pay 

Any  fixed  wages,  though  I  wish  I  could/ 

'Someone  else  can/  'Then  someone  else  will  have  to/ 

I  shouldn't  mind  his  bettering  himself 

If  that  was  what  it  was.  You  can  be  certain, 

When  he  begins  like  that,  there's  someone  at  him 

Trying  to  coax  him  off  with  pocket-money— 

In  haying  time,  when  any  help  is  scarce. 

In  winter  he  comes  back  to  us.  I'm  done/' 

"Sh/  not  so  loud:  he'll  hear  you,"  Mary  said. 
"I  want  him  to:  he'll  have  to  soon  or  late." 

"He's  worn  out.  He's  asleep  beside  the  stove. 
When  I  came  up  from  Rowe's  I  found  him  here, 
Huddled  against  the  barn-door  fast  asleep, 
A  miserable  sight,  and  frightening,  too — 
You  needn't  smile—I  didn't  recognize  him— 
I  wasn't  looking  for  him— and  he's  changed. 
Wait  till  you  see." 

"Where  did  you  say  he'd  been?" 

"He  didn't  say.  I  dragged  him  to  the  house, 
And  gave  him  tea  and  tried  to  make  him  smoke. 
I  tried  to  make  him  talk  about  his  travels. 
Nothing  would  do:  he  /ust  kept  nodding  off." 

"What  did  he  say?  Did  he  say  anything?" 

"But  little." 

"Anything?  Mary,  confess 
He  said  he'd  come  to  ditch  the  meadow  for  me/' 

"Warren/" 

"But  did  he?  I  /ust  want  to  know." 

"Of  course  he  did.  What  would  you  have  him  say? 
Surely  you  wouldn't  grudge  the  poor  old  man 
Some  humble  way  to  save  his  self-respect. 
He  added,  if  you  really  care  to  know, 


274  Reading  to  Others 

He  meant  to  clear  the  upper  pasture,  too. 
That  sounds  like  something  you  have  heard  before? 
Warren,  I  wish  you  could  have  heard  the  way 
He  jumbled  everything.  I  stopped  to  look 
Two  or  three  times— he  made  me  feel  so  queer- 
To  see  if  he  was  talking  in  his  sleep. 
He  ran  on  Harold  Wilson— you  remember— 
The  boy  you  had  in  haying  four  years  since. 
He's  finished  school,  and  teaching  in  his  college. 
Silas  declares  you'll  have  to  get  him  back. 
He  says  they  two  will  make  a  team  for  work: 
Between  them  they  will  lay  this  farm  as  smooth/ 
The  way  he  mixed  that  in  with  other  things. 
He  thinks  young  Wilson  a  likely  lad,  though  daft 
On  education—  you  know  how  they  fought 
All  through  July  under  the  blazing  sun, 
Silas  up  on  the  cart  to  build  the  load, 
Harold  along  beside  to  pitch  it  on/' 

"Yes,  I  took  care  to  keep  well  out  of  earshot." 

"Well,  those  days  trouble  Silas  like  a  dream. 

You  wouldn't  think  they  would.  How  some  things  linger/ 

Harold's  young  college  boy's  assurance  piqued  him. 

After  so  many  years  he  still  keeps  finding 

Good  arguments  he  sees  he  might  have  used. 

I  sympathize.  I  know  just  how  it  feels 

To  think  of  the  right  thing  to  say  too  late. 

Harold's  associated  in  his  mind  with  Latin. 

He  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  Harold's  saying 

He  studied  Latin  like  the  violin 

Because  he  liked  it— that  an  argument/ 

He  said  he  couldn't  make  the  boy  believe 

He  could  find  water  with  a  hazel  prong— 

Which  showed  how  much  good  school  had  ever  done  him. 

He  wanted  to  go  over  that.  But  most  of  all 

He  thinks  if  he  could  have  another  chance 

To  teach  him  how  to  build  a  load  of  hay—" 

"I  know,  that's  Silas'  one  accomplishment. 

He  bundles  every  forkful  in  its  place, 

And  tags  and  numbers  it  for  future  reference, 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  275 

So  he  can  find  and  easily  dislodge  it 

In  the  unloading.  Silas  does  that  well. 

He  takes  it  out  in  bunches  like  big  birds'  nests. 

You  never  see  him  standing  on  the  hay 

He's  trying  to  lift,  straining  to  lift  himself/' 

"He  thinks  if  he  could  teach  him  that,  he'd  be 
Some  good  perhaps  to  someone  in  the  world. 
He  hates  to  see  a  boy  the  fool  of  books. 
Poor  Silas,  so  concerned  for  other  folk, 
And  nothing  to  look  backward  to  with  pride, 
And  nothing  to  look  forward  to  with  hope, 
So  now  and  never  any  different/' 

Part  of  a  moon  was  falling  down  the  west, 
Dragging  the  whole  sky  with  it  to  the  hills. 
Its  light  poured  softly  in  her  lap.  She  saw  it 
And  spread  her  apron  to  it.  She  put  out  her  hand 
Among  the  harp-like  morning-glory  strings, 
Taut  with  the  dew  from  garden  bed  to  eaves, 
As  if  she  played  unheard  some  tenderness 
That  wrought  on  him  beside  her  in  the  night. 
"Warren,"  she  said,  "he  has  come  home  to  die: 
You  needn't  be  afraid  he'll  leave  you  this  time." 

"Home,"  he  mocked  gently. 

"Yes,  what  else  but  home? 
It  all  depends  on  what  you  mean  by  home. 
Of  course  he's  nothing  to  us,  any  more 
Than  was  the  hound  that  came  a  stranger  to  us 
Out  of  the  woods,  worn  out  upon  the  trail/' 

"Home  is  the  place  where,  when  you  have  to  go  there, 
They  have  to  take  you  in." 

"I  should  have  called  it 
Something  you  somehow  haven't  to  deserve." 

Warren  leaned  out  and  took  a  step  or  two, 
Picked  up  a  little  stick,  and  brought  it  back 
And  broke  it  in  his  hand  and  tossed  it  by. 


276  Reading  to  Others 

"Silas  has  better  claim  on  us  you  think 
Than  on  his  brother?  Thirteen  little  miles 
As  the  road  winds  would  bring  him  to  his  door. 
Silas  has  walked  that  far  no  doubt  to-day. 
Why  didn't  he  go  there?  His  brother's  rich, 
A  somebody— director  in  the  bank/' 

"He  never  told  us  that/' 

"We  know  it  though/' 

"I  think  his  brother  ought  to  help,  of  course. 

Til  see  to  that  if  there  is  need.  He  ought  of  right 

To  take  him  in,  and  might  be  willing  to — 

He  may  be  better  than  appearances. 

But  have  some  pity  on  Silas.  Do  you  think 

If  he  had  any  pride  in  claiming  kin 

Or  anything  he  looked  for  from  his  brother, 

He'd  keep  so  still  about  him  all  this  time?" 

"I  wonder  what's  between  them." 

"I  can  tell  you. 

Silas  is  what  he  is—we  wouldn't  mind  him— 
But  just  the  kind  that  kinsfolk  can't  abide. 
He  never  did  a  thing  so  very  bad. 
He  don't  know  why  he  isn't  quite  as  good 
As  anybody.  Worthless  though  he  is, 
He  won't  be  made  ashamed  to  please  his  brother/' 

"I  can't  think  Si  ever  hurt  anyone." 

"No,  but  he  hurt  my  heart  the  way  he  lay 

And  rolled  his  old  head  on  that  sharp-edged  chair-back. 

He  wouldn't  let  me  put  him  on  the  lounge. 

You  must  go  in  and  see  what  you  can  do. 

I  made  the  bed  up  for  him  there  to-night. 

You'll  be  surprised  at  him— how  much  he's  broken. 

His  working  days  are  done;  I'm  sure  of  it." 

"I'd  not  be  in  a  hurry  to  say  that." 

"I  haven't  been.  Go,  look,  see  for  yourself. 
But,  Warren,  please  remember  how  it  is: 
He's  come  to  help  you  ditch  the  meadow. 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  277 

He  has  a  plan.  You  mustn't  laugh  at  him. 
He  may  not  speak  of  it,  and  then  he  may. 
I'll  sit  and  see  if  that  small  sailing  cloud 
Will  hit  or  miss  the  moon." 

It  hit  the  moon. 

Then  there  were  three  there,  making  a  dim  row, 
The  moon,  the  little  silver  cloud,  and  she. 

Warren  returned— too  soon,  it  seemed  to  her, 
Slipped  to  her  side,  caught  up  her  hand  and  waited. 

"Warren?"  she  questioned. 

"Dead,"  was  all  he  answered. 
ROBERT  FROST,  The  Death  of  the  Hired  Man 


Now  by  the  crossroads,  in  the  filling  station, 
The  boys  assemble.  Out  of  the  winter  night 
Salting  the  stubbled  face,  peppering  the  lungs, 
They  enter  the  hot  smell  of  burning  wood, 
And  thawing  wool,  the  heady  gasoline. 
The  radio,  the  household  imbecile, 
Slavers  and  crows  unheeded.  Pop  flows  free. 
And  the  old  tales  are  told,  born  of  the  earth, 
Ripened  like  grain,  and  harvested  for  winter. 

It  seems  the  village  veterinarian 

Suggested  to  the  village  constable 

A  little  expedition  after  rabbits. 

The  constable,  he  likes  a  little  shooting, 

And  so  they  met  up  at  the  doctor's  house. 

Well,  Doc  he  had  some  prime  old  apple/ack, 

And  just  in  case  they  should  get  struck  by  lightning 

Or  something,  why  they  hit  it  pretty  hard. 

Well,  they  were  feeling  good  when  they  got  started, 

And  when  they  got  down  by  the  Weaver  place, 

The  Doc  he  says:  "You  see  that  cow  in  the  pasture? 

Bet  you  five  dollars  I  could  hit  that  cow, 

Setting  right  here."  "Well,  bet  you  couldn't/" 

The  constable  he  says.  And  just  like  that, 


278  Reading  to  Others 

The  Doc  he  reaches  back  and  grabs  a  rifle 

Out  of  the  back  seat,  and  he  draws  a  bead, 

And  drops  that  cow  as  dead  as  butcher  meat/ 

"By  gosh,  I  guess  I  DID  kill  Weaver's  cow/" 

The  Doc  says.  And  "By  gosh,  I  guess  you  did, 

You  gol-durn  fool/"  the  cop  says.  Well,  they  turned 

Around,  and  bust  all  records  back  to  town, 

And  had  a  couple,  quick.  The  constable 

Went  to  the  drugstore,  and  he  bought  some  gum, 

And  hung  around  the  rest  of  the  afternoon, 

Establishing,  you  know,  an  alibi. 

It  wasn't  hardly  evening  when  the  sheriff 

Went  to  the  drugstore.  All  the  boys%  were  there. 

And  he  goes  right  up  to  the  constable. 

And  says  to  him:  "Say,  Alfred,  where  was  you 

At  three  o'clock  this  afternoon?"   The  cop 

Says:  "I  was  out  to  my  garage,  I  guess. 

My  carburetor,  she  don't  work  so  good." 

"Then  you  ain't  seen  the  vet?"  the  sheriff  says. 

"No,  I  ain't  seen  him,  not  since  yesterday." 

"You  don't  know  who  went  hunting  with  the  vet?" 

"Gosh,  no.  I  only  know  it  wasn't  me." 

"Must  have  been  someone  looked  a  lot  like  you." 

"Well,  Judas  priest,  they's  plenty  looks  like  me." 

"Well,  I  got  witnesses  to  say  'twas  you. 

You  ain't  heard  nothing,  then,  of  Weaver's  cow?" 

"My  gosh,  I  didn't  know  he  had  a  cow/ 

I  ain't  been  near  the  Weaver  place  today/ 

I  swear  I  didn't  touch  his  gol-durn  cow/ 

If  the  vet  says  I  did,  I  say  he  lies/ 

What  happened  to  the  durn  cow,  anyhow?" 

"Why,"  says  the  sheriff,  "Arthur  Weaver  says 

He  had  to  have  her  killed,  she  was  so  old, 

And  don't  give  down  no  more.  And  so  the  vet, 

He  went  and  shot  her  there  this  afternoon/" 

Well,  up  to  town  the  boys  are  laughing  still. 

Drowsiness  gathers  in  the  filling  station. 

Stirring  their  courage  in  the  warmth  and  laughter, 

The  boys  turn  homeward.  On  the  frozen  ruts 

Of  the  hill  roads  the  little  cars  are  shaken. 

All  the  lights  cease.  The  pond  ice  cracks  with  cold. 

MORRIS  BISHOP,  Just  Off  the  Concrete 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  279 

15.  Time  was  aware  of  them, 

And  would  beat  soon  upon  his  empty  bell 
Release  from  such  a  fettered  ecstasy 
As  fate  would  not  endure.  But  until  then 
There  was  no  room  for  time  between  their  souls 
And  bodies,  or  between  their  silences, 
Which  were  for  them  no  less  than  heaven  and  hell, 
Fused  cruelly  out  of  older  silences 
That  once  a  word  from  either  might  have  ended, 
And  so  annihilated  into  life 

Instead  of  death— could  her  pride  then  have  spoken, 
And  his  duped  eyes  have  seen,  before  his  oath 
Was  given  to  make  them  see.  But  silences 
By  time  are  slain,  and  death,  or  more  than  death, 
May  come  when  silence  dies.  At  last  Isolt 
Released  herself  enough  to  look  at  him. 
With  a  world  burning  for  him  in  her  eyes, 
And  two  worlds  crumbling  for  him  in  her  words: 
"What  have  I  done  to  you,  Tristram/"  she  said; 
''What  have  you  done  to  me/  What  have  we  done 
To  Fate,  that  she  should  hate  us  and  destroy  us, 
Waiting  for  us  to  speak.  What  have  we  done 
So  false  or  foul  as  to  be  burned  alive 
And  then  be  buried  alive— as  we  shall  be- 
As  I  shall  be/" 

He  gazed  upon  a  face 
Where  all  there  was  of  beauty  and  of  Jove 
That  was  alive  for  him,  and  not  for  him, 
Was  his  while  it  was  there.  "I  shall  have  burned 
And  buried  us  both/'  he  said.  "Your  pride  would  not 
Have  healed  my  blindness  then,  even  had  you  prayed 
For  God  to  let  you  speak.  When  a  man  sues 
The  fairest  of  all  women  for  her  love, 
He  does  not  cleave  the  skull  first  of  her  kinsman 
To  mark  himself  a  man.  That  was  my  way; 
And  it  was  not  the  wisest— if  your  eyes 
Had  any  truth  in  them  for  a  long  time. 
Your  pride  would  not  have  let  me  tell  them  more- 
Had  you  prayed  God,  I  say." 

"I  did  do  that, 

Tristram,  but  he  was  then  too  far  from  heaven 
To  hear  so  little  a  thing  as  I  was,  praying 


280  Reading  to  Others 

For  you  on  earth.  You  had  not  seen  my  eyes 

Before  you  fought  with  Morhaus;  and  for  that, 

There  was  your  side  and  ours.  All  history  sings 

Of  two  sides,  and  will  do  so  till  all  men 

Are  quiet;  and  then  there  will  be  no  men  left, 

Or  women  alive  to  hear  them.  It  was  long 

Before  I  learned  so  little  as  that;  and  you 

It  was  who  taught  me  while  I  nursed  and  healed 

Your  wound,  only  to  see  you  go  away/' 

"And  once  having  seen  me  go  away  from  you, 
You  saw  me  coming  back  to  you  again, 
Cheerful  and  healed,  as  Mark's  ambassador. 
Would  God  foresee  such  folly  alive  as  that 
In  any  thing  he  had  made,  and  still  make  more? 
If  so,  his  ways  are  darker  than  divines 
Have  drawn  them  for  our  best  bewilderments. 
Be  it  so  or  not,  my  share  in  this  is  clear. 
I  have  prepared  a  way  for  us  to  take, 
Because  a  king  was  not  so  much  a  devil 
When  I  was  young  as  not  to  be  a  friend, 
An  uncle,  and  an  easy  counsellor. 
Later,  when  love  was  yet  no  more  for  me 
Than  a  gay  folly  glancing  everywhere 
For  triumph  easier  sometimes  than  defeat, 
Having  made  sure  that  I  was  blind  enough, 
He  sealed  me  with  an  oath  to  make  you  his 
Before  I  had  my  eyes,  or  my  heart  woke 
From  pleasure  in  a  dream  of  other  faces 
That  now  are  nothing  else  than  silly  skulls 
Covered  with  skin  and  hair.  The  right  was  his 
To  make  of  me  a  shining  knight  at  arms, 
By  fortune  may  be  not  the  least  adept 
And  emulous.  But  God/  for  seizing  you, 
And  having  you  here  tonight,  and  all  his  life 
Having  you  here,  by  the  blind  means  of  me, 
I  could  tear  all  the  cords  out  of  his  neck 
To  make  a  rope,  and  hang  the  rest  of  him. 
Isolt,  forgive  me/  This  is  only  sound 
That  I  am  making  with  a  tongue  gone  mad 
That  you  should  be  so  near  me  as  to  hear  me 
Saying  how  far  away  you  are  to  go 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  281 

When  you  go  back  to  him,  driven  by— me/ 
A  fool  may  die  with  no  great  noise  or  loss; 
And  whether  a  fool  should  always  live  or  not  .  .  . " 

EDWIN  ARLINGTON  ROBINSON,  Tristram 

16.  When  he  had  a  cold,  Father's  method  of  dealing  with  it  was  to 
try  to  clear  it  out  by  main  force,  either  by  violently  blowing  his  nose  or, 
still  better,  by  sneezing.  Mother  didn't  like  him  to  sneeze,  he  did  it  with 
such  a  roar.  She  said  she  could  feel  it  half  across  the  room,  and  she  was 
sure  it  was  catching.  Father  said  this  was  nonsense.  He  said  his  sneezes 
were  healthy.  And  presently  we'd  hear  a  hearty,  triumphant  blast  as 
he  sneezed  again. 

Aside  from  colds,  which  he  had  very  seldom,  his  only  foes  were  sick 
headaches.  He  said  headaches  only  came  from  eating,  however.  Hence 
a  man  who  knew  enough  to  stop  eating  could  always  get  rid  of  one  that 
way.  It  took  time  to  starve  it  out  thoroughly.  It  might  take  several 
hours.  But  as  soon  as  it  was  gone,  he  could  eat  again  and  en/oy  his  cigar. 

When  one  of  these  headaches  started,  Father  lay  down  and  shut  his 
eyes  tight  and  yelled.  The  severity  of  a  headache  could  be  judged  by 
the  volume  of  sound  he  put  forth.  His  idea  seemed  to  be  to  show  the 
headache  that  he  was  just  as  strong  as  it  was,  and  stronger.  When  a 
headache  and  he  went  to  bed  together,  they  were  a  noisy  pair. 

Father's  code  required  him  to  be  game,  I  suppose.  He  never  spoke 
or  thought  of  having  a  code;  he  wasn't  that  sort  of  person;  but  he  de- 
nounced men  whose  standards  were  low,  as  to  gameness  or  anything 
else.  It  didn't  occur  to  him  to  conceal  his  sufferings,  however;  when 
he  had  any  pains,  he  expressed  them  as  fully  as  he  knew  how.  His  way 
of  being  brave  was  not  to  keep  still  but  to  keep  on  fighting  the  headache. 

Mother  used  to  beg  him  to  be  quiet  at  night,  even  if  he  did  have  a 
headache,  and  not  wake  up  the  whole  house.  He  never  paid  the  slightest 
attention  to  such  a  request.  When  she  said,  "Please  don't  groan  so 
much,  Clare,"  he'd  look  at  her  in  disgust,  as  though  he  were  a  warrior 
being  asked  to  stifle  his  battle-cries. 

One  evening  he  found  Mother  worrying  because  Aunt  Emma  was  ill 
with  some  disease  that  was  then  epidemic. 

"Oh,  pooh!"  Father  said.  "Nothing  the  matter  with  Emma.  You  can 
trust  people  to  get  any  ailment  whatever  that's  fashionable.  They  hear 
of  a  lot  of  other  people  having  it,  and  the  first  thing  you  know  they  get 
scared  and  think  they  have  it  themselves.  Then  they  go  to  bed,  and 
send  for  the  doctor.  The  doctor/  All  poppycock." 

"Well,  but  Clare  dear,  if  you  were  in  charge  of  them,  what  would  you 
do  instead?" 


282  Reading  to  Others 

"Cheer  'em  up,  that's  the  way  to  cure  'em/' 

"How  would  you  cheer  them  up,  darling?"  Mother  asked  doubtfully. 

"I?  I'd  tell  'em,  'BAH!'  " 

CLARENCE  DAY,  Life  with  Father 

17.  Nothing  remarkable  happened  on  the  road  till  their  arrival  at  the 
inn  to  which  the  horses  were  ordered;  whither  they  came  about  two  in 
the  morning.  The  moon  then  shone  very  bright;  and  Joseph,  making 
his  friend  a  present  of  a  pint  of  wine,  and  thanking  him  for  the  favour 
of  his  horse,  notwithstanding  all  entreaties  to  the  contrary,  proceeded 
on  his  journey  on  foot 

He  had  not  gone  above  two  miles,  charmed  with  the  hope  of  shortly 
seeing  his  beloved  Fanny,  when  he  was  met  by  two  fellows  in  a  narrow 
lane,  and  ordered  to  stand  and  deliver.  He  readily  gave  them  all  the 
money  he  had,  which  was  somewhat  less  than  two  pounds;  and  told  them 
he  hoped  they  would  be  so  generous  as  to  return  him  a  few  shillings,  to 
defray  his  charges  on  his  way  home. 

One  of  the  ruffians  answered  with  an  oath,  "Yes,  we'll  give  you  some- 
thing presently:  but  first  strip  and  be  d — n'd  to  you." — "Strip,"  cried  the 
other,  "or  I'll  blow  your  brains  to  the  devil."  Joseph,  remembering  that 
he  had  borrowed  his  coat  and  breeches  of  a  friend,  and  that  he  should 
be  ashamed  of  making  any  excuse  for  not  returning  them,  replied,  he 
hoped  they  would  not  insist  on  his  clothes,  which  were  not  worth  much, 
but  consider  the  coldness  of  the  night.  "You  are  cold,  are  you,  you 
rascal?"  said  one  of  the  robbers:  'Til  warm  you  with  a  vengeance";  and, 
damning  his  eyes,  snapped  a  pistol  at  his  head;  which  he  had  no  sooner 
done  that  the  other  levelled  a  blow  at  him  with  his  stick,  which  Joseph, 
who  was  expert  at  cudgel-playing,  caught  with  his,  and  returned  the 
favour  so  successfully  on  his  adversary,  that  he  laid  him  sprawling  at  his 
feet,  and  at  the  same  instant  received  a  blow  from  behind,  with  the  butt 
end  of  a  pistol,  from  the  other  villain,  which  felled  him  to  the  ground, 
and  totally  deprived  him  of  his  senses. 

The  thief  who  had  been  knocked  down  had  now  recovered  himself; 
and  both  together  fell  to  belabouring  poor  Joseph  with  their  sticks,  till 
they  were  convinced  they  had  put  an  end  to  his  miserable  being:  they 
then  stripped  him  entirely  naked,  threw  him  into  a  ditch,  and  departed 
with  their  booty. 

HENRY  FIELDING,  Joseph  Andrews 

18.  Captain  Aylmer  brought  his  bride  Lady  Emily  to  Belton  Park, 
and  a  small  fatted  calf  was  killed,  and  the  Askertons  came  to  dinner— 
on  which  occasion  Captain  Aylmer  behaved  very  well,  though  we  may 


Dramatic  and  Narrative  Reading  283 

imagine  that  he  must  have  had  some  misgivings  on  the  score  of  his  young 
wife.  The  Askertons  came  to  dinner,  and  the  old  rector,  and  the  squire 
from  a  neighboring  parish,  and  everything  was  very  handsome  and 
very  dull. 

"I  was  as  sure  of  it  as  possible,"  Clara  said  to  her  husband  that  night. 

"Sure  of  what,  my  dear?" 

"That  she  would  have  a  red  nose." 

"Who  has  got  a  red  nose?" 

"Don't  be  stupid,  Will.  Who  should  have  it  but  Lady  Emily?" 

"Upon  my  word  I  didn't  observe  it." 

"You  never  observe  anything,  Will,  do  you?  But  don't  you  think  she 
is  very  plain?" 

"Upon  my  word,  I  don't  know.  She  isn't  as  handsome  as  some 
people." 

"Don't  be  a  fool,  Will.  How  old  do  you  suppose  her  to  be?" 

"How  old?  Let  me  see.  Thirty,  perhaps." 

"If  she's  not  over  forty,  Til  consent  to  change  noses  with  her/' 

"No;— we  won't  do  that;  not  if  I  know  it." 

"I  cannot  conceive  why  any  man  should  marry  such  a  woman  as 
that.  Not  but  what  she's  a  very  good  woman,  f  dare  say;  only  what  can 
a  man  get  by  it?  To  be  sure  there's  the  title,  if  that's  worth  anything." 

But  Will  Belton  was  never  good  for  much  conversation  at  this  hour, 
and  was  too  fast  asleep  to  make  any  re/oinder  to  this  last  remark. 

ANTHONY  TROLLOPE,  The  Belton  Estate 

19.  And  then— so  providential/— HE  asked  if  he  might  escort  her  back 
to  her  hotel,  and  what  COULD  she  say  except  that  she  would  be  flattered/ 
He  looked  so  tall  and  aristocratic  walking  beside  her,  with  his  full  beard, 
and  a  puggaree  round  his  hat,  and  his  white,  green-lined  umbrella.  She 
hoped,  indeed,  that  people  might  be  thinking:  "What  a  distinguished 
couple/"  Many  hopes  flitted  in  her  mind  while  they  strolled  along  the 
front,  and  watched  the  common  people  eating  winkles,  and  smelled  the 
tarry  boats.  And  something  tender  welled  up  in  her  so  that  she  could 
not  help  stopping  to  call  his  attention  to  the  sea,  so  blue  with  little  white 
waves. 

"I  DO  love  Nature,"  she  said. 

"Ah/  Miss  Julia,"  he  answered— she  always  remembered  his  words— 
"the  beauties  of  Nature  are  indeed  only  exceeded  by  those  of— Tut/— I 
have  a  fly  in  my  eye/" 

"Dear  Mr.  Septimus,  let  me  take  it  out  with  the  corner  of  my  hand- 
kerchief." 

And  he  let  her.  It  took  quite  a  long  time;  he  was  so  brave,  keeping 


284  Reading  to  Others 

his  eye  open;  and  when  at  last  she  got  it  out,  very  black  and  tiny,  they 
both  looked  at  it  together;  it  seemed  to  her  to  draw  them  quite  close, 
as  if  they  were  looking  into  each  other's  souls.   Such  a  wonderful  mo- 
ment/ And  then— her  heart  beat  fast— he  had  taken  her  hand.  Her  knees 
felt  weak;  she  looked  up  into  his  face,  so  thin  and  high-minded  and 
anxious,  with  a  little  streak  where  the  eye  had  watered;  and  something 
of  adoration  crept  up  among  her  pinkness  and  her  pouts,  into  her  light 
grey  eyes.  He  lifted  her  hand  slowly  till  it  reached  his  beard,  and  stooped 
his  lips  to  it.  Fancy/  On  the  esplanade/  All  went  soft  and  sweet  within 
her;  her  lips  trembled,  and  two  large  tears  rolled  out  of  her  eyes. 
"Miss  Julia,"  he  said,  "Julia— may  I  hope?" 
"Dear  Septimus,"  she  answered,  "indeed  you  MAY." 
And  through  a  mist  she  saw  his  puggaree  float  out  in  the  delicious 
breeze,  and  under  one  end  of  it  a  common  man  stop  eating  winkles,  to 
stare  up  at  her,  as  if  he  had  seen  a  rainbow. 

JOHN  GALSWORTHY,  "Aunt  Juley's  Courtship,  1855," 

from  On  Forsyte  '  Change 


C  HA  P  T  E  R    10 


Icross  the  loottt'snts 


THIS  is  not  a  textbook  primarily  for 
actors.  We  are  not  concerned  here  with  traditional  stage  business, 
pantomime,  or  any  of  the  problems  of  the  actor  except  that  of 
interpreting  his  manuscript.  The  difference  in  attitude  between 
the  reader  and  the  actor  has  already  been  pointed  out:  One  partici- 
pates with  the  audience;  the  other  is  detached  from  the  audience. 
One  must  seem  to  be  the  character  he  represents;  the  other  inter- 
prets characters  while  remaining  unmistakably  himself.  Both  use 
the  same  equipment,  have  the  same  fundamental  need  to  know  all 
the  meaning  of  what  they  read  and  to  be  able  to  communicate 
that  meaning  effectively.  Both  must  be  able  to  feel  and  to  ex- 
press emotion. 

The  actor,  however,  is  part  of  a  whole  and  must  have  a  good 
sense  of  ensemble  playing.  He  requires  a  more  flexible  bodily  con- 
trol than  the  reader  (although  there  is  no  reason  why  one  should 
not  be  the  other,  as  occasion  demands).  Most  dramatic  schools  pre- 
scribe a  regimen  of  fencing,  dancing,  pantomime,  eurhythmies,  and 
other  training  for  harmonious  movement  that  the  ordinary  reader 
would  probably  never  need.  Since  the  actor  identifies  himself  with 
the  character  he  represents,  he  has  to  study  details  of  dress  and 
appearance  and  definite  patterns  of  speech  that  the  reader,  who  has 
only  to  suggest  character,  need  not  learn.  Above  all,  he  has  to 
learn  the  secret  of  wide  range  of  voice,  the  ability  to  express  him- 
self convincingly  in  representing  different  ages  and  different  types 
of  characters. 


286  Reading  to  Others 

FOLLOWING   THE    LINES 

In  the  first  place,  the  actor  is  speaking  from  memory,  which  is 
often  a  treacherous  tiling.  Some  actors  have  a  trick  of  revising 
their  manuscripts  as  they  memorize,  supplying  words  and  even 
ideas  not  apparent  in  the  original.  On  the  stage  they  may  allow 
personal  values  to  intrude,  reading  a  script  liberally  and  arbitrarily 
edited,  often  doing  violence  to  the  author's  purpose.  The  actor 
should  accept  his  responsibility  of  learning  his  part  exactly  as  it 
is  written  by  the  author  or  changed  by  the  director.  He  must  be 
careful  not  to  memorize  mechanically  so  that  he  recites  mere 
empty  words.  Such  colorless,  vapid  delivery  is  the  curse  of  all  act- 
ing and  the  ever-present  cause  of  failure  in  amateur  groups. 

EMOTION    ON    STAGE 

Secondly,  the  tendency  either  to  exaggerate  or  to  falsify  emo- 
tion on  the  stage  is  a  source  of  trouble.  The  young  actor  especially 
is  tempted  to  expose  with  excessive  zeal  the  emotions  that  he  con- 
siders suitable  to  his  part.  The  lad  who  in  real  life  might  break 
an  arm  without  whimpering  or  face  sorrow  with  no  outward 
demonstration  too  often  thinks  there  is  no  other  way  to  express 
simulated  feeling  except  through  unrestrained  excitement.  He 
must  bellow  with  pain  or  roll  his  eyes  and  get  oratorically  tragic 
when  he  reveals  grief. 

Emotion  is  a  delicate  thing.  A  shade  too  much  or  too  little  spoils 
it  irrevocably,  making  it  either  absurd  or  insincere.  Since  drama 
presents  human  beings  or  ideas  in  conflict,  it  is  tremendously  con- 
cerned with  emotions.  The  actor,  who  must  seem  himself  actually 
to  be  the  person  who  suffers  or  experiences  happiness  or  grief, 
must  be  able  to  express  these  feelings  accurately  and  convincingly. 
He  should  therefore  understand  the  psychology  and  physiology  of 
emotion. 

We  have  already  discussed  the  place  of  emotion  in  interpreta- 
tion, emphasizing  sound,  color,  and  connotation  in  words  and  the 
use  of  imagery.  Now  we  must  consider  a  little  more  specifically 
its  physical  expression.  The  James-Lange  theory,  in  which  emo- 
tion is  declared  to  be  the  result  of  physical  action  rather  than  the 
cause  of  it,  still  hangs  on  in  psychology  texts  as  a  fertile  source  of 
controversy.  Many  a  professor  has  eloquently  argued  that  we're 
afraid  because  we  run,  not  run  because  we're  afraid,  that  we're 


Across  the  Footlights  287 

sorry  because  we  cry,  not  cry  because  we're  sorry,  that  the  more 
we  shake  our  fists,  the  more  angry  we  get.  In  studies  of  acting  and 
public  speaking,  as  well  as  in  courses  in  psychology  and  philos- 
ophy, the  idea  that  the  physical  action  comes  first  and  then  the 
emotion  has  been  widely  applied.  Actually,  it  doesn't  matter  in 
the  least  to  us  here  which  comes  first  or  whether  emotion  is  a 
conditioned  reflex  or  a  configurational  response  or  whether  we 
feel  with  the  soul,  the  viscera,  or  the  diencephalon.  The  important 
fact  is  that  there  is  a  close  relationship  between  emotion  and  the 
physical  attitude  attendant  upon,  or  causing,  emotion. 

The  actor  or  reader  or  speaker  should  know  this  much  about 
the  James-Lange  theory:  that,  however  the  emotion  begins,  it  is 
increased  or  diminished  by  the  physical  action  that  expresses  it. 
We  do  feel  more  anger  if  we  increase  the  physical  manifestations 
of  anger,  like  shaking  the  fist  or  shouting  or  striding  about.  We 
do  tend  to  feel  less  anger  if  we  "count  to  ten"  or  control  the  mus- 
cular movement.  We  usually  feel  more  confident  on  the  platform 
if  we  put  ourselves  into  the  physical  attitude  of  confidence,  just 
as  we  can  surrender  to  cringing  fear  if  we  droop  and  look  afraid. 
This  application  of  the  law  of  emotion  is  valuable  in  overcoming 
stage  fright  in  its  various  forms.  But  the  actor  has  extraordinary 
use  for  such  a  theory.  He  finds  that  by  putting  his  body  into  the 
attitude  of  the  emotion  he  wishes  to  express  he  will  not  only 
seem  to  the  audience  to  feel  the  emotion,  but  will,  to  some  extent, 
really  feel  it. 

There  is  some  danger,  of  course,  that  the  actor  will  let  the 
bodily  appearance  of  emotion  do  instead  of  actual  feeling  or  that 
he  will  exaggerate  it  in  the  fond  belief  that  the  more  physical  the 
demonstration,  the  more  convincing  and  brilliant  will  be  the  re- 
sulting emotion.  This  point  suggests  another  old  theatrical  de- 
bating subject— whether  the  actor  should  simply  seem  to  feel  or 
really  should  feel  the  emotion  he  expresses.  Obviously,  if  the 
James-Lange  theory  has  any  truth  in  it  at  all,  no  one  who  physi- 
cally represents  an  emotion  can  help  feeling  it  in  some  measure. 
There  is,  indeed,  the  opposite  evil  of  feeling  too  much,  getting 
too  close  to  the  play  and  actually  feeling  pain  and  sorrow.  In  any 
artistic  experience  there  must  always  be  a  certain  amount  of 
detachment.  What  is  ideally  true  is  probably  that  an  actor  must 
feel  emotion  before  he  can  sincerely  express  it  but  that  he  must 
keep  it  under  critical  control.  Meanwhile,  his  body  can  help  in 


288  Reading  to  Others 

the  creation  of  emotion,  which,  however,  should  never  be  merely 
external  or,  except  where  the  part  demands,  extravagant. 

The  amateur  actor  or  interpreter  might  say,  "I  understand  that 
emotion  is  closely  related  to  its  physical  expression,  but  how  can 
I  sincerely  feel  emotion  that  really  belongs  to  somebody  else?" 
The  answer  to  the  actor  is  that  he  is  wrong;  the  emotion  properly 
belongs  to  him  in  his  part.  He  is  somebody  else.  The  interpreter, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  further  from  the  actual  emotion  because  most 
of  the  feeling  he  displays  is  his  own  or  the  author's,  unless  he  tries 
to  act  out  dramatic  pieces.  Then  he  must  accept  the  actor's  con- 
ventions. Some  theorists  advise  the  actor  to  pretend  the  whole 
emotion,  working  out  a  pattern  of  behavior  appropriate  to  anger, 
hatred,  love,  indignation,  etc.  Some  of  the  real  emotion  will  fol- 
low, according  to  the  James-Lange  theory.  But  a  wiser  plan  is  the 
Stanislavsky  method  of  remembering  emotion.  Stanislavsky,  the 
great  founder  of  the  Moscow  Art  Theater,  taught  his  actors  not 
to  try  to  establish  an  entirely  new  pattern  of  emotion  for  each  situ- 
ation but  to  remember  some  similar  or  analogous  emotion  in  their 
own  lives  and,  in  rehearsal,  to  try  to  recapture  the  details  of  the 
past  experience  until  some  of  the  physical  and  mental  associations 
of  the  emotion  might  be  reawakened.  For  example,  most  of  us  can 
recall  moments  of  anger  or  indignation,  even  though  the  situa- 
tions arousing  them  may  have  been  in  no  way  like  the  dramatic 
incidents  we  want  to  present.  Stanislavsky  once  told  an  actor 
who  complained  that  he  could  not  call  up  a  personal  experience 
with  murderous  feelings,  because  he  had  never  tried  to  kill  any- 
body, that  he  should  remember  how  he  felt  when  a  mosquito 
buzzed  around  his  ear  in  the  middle  of  the  night. 

Miss  Ina  Claire  has  summed  up  the  actor's  opinion:  "I  believe 
that  an  actor  will  play  a  part  better  if  he  renews  the  emotion  in 
Ins  mind  every  time  he  assumes  it  on  the  stage.  Of  course  he 
should  partly  feel  it,  but  his  mind  should  direct  and  control  his 
feeling.  Heart  and  Art!  It  can  be  quite  a  mechanical  process. 
But  the  important  thing,  in  the  end,  is  not  how  you  feel  a  part,  but 
how  you  make  an  audience  feel  it." 

THE  ACTOR'S  RELATION  TO  THE  PLAY 

The  third  fact  about  the  actor  is  that  he  is  part  of  a  whole,  not 
an  independent  entity.  The  reader  usually  performs  alone;  he 


Across  the  Footlights  289 

need  not  worry  about  such  things  as  stage  pictures,  shifting  em- 
phasis on  character,  the  timing  of  cues,  and  so  forth.  The  actor, 
however,  must  have  a  good  sense  of  cooperation,  accepting  the 
center  of  attention  when  it  is  logically  his,  stepping  aside  when 
the  focus  changes  to  another  character.  He  must  give  his  fellow 
actors  the  right  cues,  work  out  his  movement  and  business  so  that 
he  will  not  interfere  with  anyone  else,  take  his  part  as  a  single 
instrument  in  a  symphony.  The  art  of  the  theater  is  a  complex 
art,  depending  upon  the  united  efforts  of  many  others  besides  the 
actor  for  its  total  effect.  We  are  here  considering  only  the  actor, 
but  we  must  not  forget  that  the  play  brought  before  an  audience 
is  the  joint  product  of  the  playwright,  the  director,  the  actor,  the 
scene  designer,  the  electrician,  and  perhaps  others. 

MOVEMENT    AND   DIALOGUE 

Fourth,  much  of  the  actor's  interpretation  is  through  panto- 
mime. Eva  Alberti,  in  her  Handbook  of  Acting  (Samuel  French, 
1932),  says,  "Acting  is  pantomime  combined  with  speech.  Panto- 
mime is  the  emotional  element  of  acting;  speech  the  intellectual. 
If  one  considers  a  play  an  emotional  and  intellectual  outlet  for 
both  audience  and  player,  one  first  sees  it  as  a  pantomime,  second 
hears  it  as  expressive  sounds,  and  lastly  perceives  it  as  an  intellec- 
tual process  through  the  spoken  word.  Pantomime  is  the  silent 
drama;  it  is  the  foundation  of  all  spoken  drama;  it  is  the  back- 
bone of  a  play."  Madame  Alberti  may  be  a  little  too  enthusiastic 
about  pantomime,  but  there  is  much  truth  in  what  she  says.  Many 
of  the  most  moving  scenes  in  drama  may  be  played  without  a  word. 
The  shaking  of  the  head  in  sorrow,  the  limp,  sagging  lines  of  the 
back,  expressing  defeat,  the  palm  outflung  in  resignation  may 
tell  more  than  pages  of  eloquent  dialogue.  The  actor  must  learn 
to  use  his  whole  body,  as  well  as  his  voice  and  facial  expression. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  a  thorough  study  of  the  technique  in 
using  hands,  feet,  shoulders,  trunk,  etc.  We  shall  simply  point  out 
here  the  relationship  between  speech  and  movement.  As  Samuel 
Selden,  in  A  Player's  Handbook  (Crofts,  1937)  says,  "Every  line 
of  speech  and  every  bodily  movement,  to  be  effective  on  the  stage, 
must  be  perfectly  synchronized.  The  torso,  the  head,  the  hands 
and  the  feet  must  add,  to  what  the  voice  is  saying,  their  own  well- 
timed  and  forceful  expression  of  the  same  idea.  The  body  must 


2 go  Reading  to  Others 

respond  quickly  and  surely  to  every  expressional  demand  of  the 
scene,  and  it  must  respond  as  a  unit,  the  torso,  the  limbs,  and  the 
voice  moving  in  the  same  rhythm."  An  old  axiom  of  the  theater 
is  that,  in  general,  action  should  precede  speech.  It's  a  good  rule 
for  all  interpreters.  Complete  the  gesture  before  saying  what  the 
gesture  emphasizes.  If  the  gesture  comes  in  the  middle  of  a  line, 
pause  to  complete  it  before  ending  the  line.  Another  rule  is  that 
the  actor  should  move  on  his  own  lines,  not  taking  attention  by 
unnecessary  movement  while  someone  else  is  speaking.  Move- 
ment and  speech  must  be  carefully  timed  so  that,  for  example,  an 
exit  may  come  on  a  line  and  not  after  a  long  silent  crossing  (unless 
that  is  the  desired  effect). 

Let  us  take  a  scene  from  Ibsen's  Hedda  Gabler  to  illustrate  the 
relationship  between  movement  and  speech.  The  original  stage 
directions  have  been  amplified.  Ibsen's  own  directions  appear  in 
small  capitals.  Notice  how  all  the  movements  and  gestures  are 
intended  to  precede  the  words  of  the  player  so  that  his  actions 
emphasize  what  he  says. 

Hedda  and  Eilert  Lovborg  are  standing  in  the  living  room  of 
Hedda's  house.  She  has  hidden  his  precious  manuscript,  which 
her  husband  has  found.  Eilert  thinks  he  has  shamefully  and  irrev- 
ocably lost  it. 

LOVBORG:  I  will  only  try  to  make  an  end  of  it  all— the  sooner  the 
better. 

HEDDA  (A  STEP  NEARER  TO  HIM.  The  tension  of  her  body  and  the  eager- 
ness in  her  voice  reveal  her  cruel,  egoistic  desire  to  control  a  man's 
destiny) :  Eilert  Lovborg— listen  to  me.  (She  puts  her  hand  on  his  arm 
as  he  turns  toward  her.)  Will  you  not  try  to— to  do  it  beautifully? 

LOVBORG:  Beautifully?  (SMILING)  With  vine  leaves  in  my  hair,  as 
you  used  to  dream  in  the  old  days? 

HEDDA:  No,  no.  (She  takes  her  hand  from  his  arm,  moving  slightly 
away  from  him.)  I  have  lost  my  faith  in  the  vine  leaves.  But  beautifully, 
nevertheless/  For  once  in  a  way/— Good-bye/  You  must  go  now.  (She 
moves  toward  the  door,  compelling  him  to  go.)  And  do  not  come  here 
any  more. 

LOVBORG:  Good-bye,  Mrs.  Tesman.  And  give  George  Tesman  my 
love.  (HE  is  ON  THE  POINT  OF  GOING.  His  hand  is  on  the  doorknob.  All 
the  lines  of  his  body  indicate  defeat  and  hopelessness.) 

HEDDA  (holding  up  her  hand  to  stop  him):  No,  wait!  I  must  give 
you  a  memento  to  take  with  you. 


Across  the  Footlights  291 

(SHE  GOES  TO  THE  WRITING-TABLE  AND  OPENS  THE  DRAWER  AND  THE 
PISTOL-CASE;  THEN  RETURNS  TO  LOVBORG  WITH  ONE  OF  THE  PISTOLS.  She 
moves  deliberately,  bringing  back  the  pistol  butt  foremost,  as  if  she  were 
offering  it  to  a  dueller.  Eva  LeGallienne,  in  her  interpretation  of  the 
character  of  HEDDA,  goes  to  the  writing-table,  where  the  manuscript  is 
hidden,  and  reaches  first  toward  the  drawer  containing  the  manuscript, 
as  if  that  were  the  memento  she  intended.  Pausing  with  hand  extended 
toward  the  drawer,  she  finally  seems  to  change  her  mind  and  reaches  for 
the  pistol  instead.  This  is  undeniably  a  dramatic  interpretation,  but  is 
probably  not  what  Ibsen  intended.  His  HEDDA  is  too  consistently  ruthless 
to  have  any  other  memento  in  mind  than  the  pistol.) 

LOVBORG  (LOOKS  AT  HER,  aware  of  her  relentless  nature.  He  slightly 
withdraws  his  hand,  which  he  has  held  out  for  the  memento,  feeling  the 
studied  cruelty  of  her  gift) :  This?  Is  this  the  memento? 

HEDDA  (NODDING  SLOWLY,  extending  the  pistol  toward  him):  Do  you 
recognize  it?  It  was  aimed  at  you  once. 

LOVBORG  (deeply  stirred) :   You  should  have  used  it  then. 

HEDDA  (with  a  peremptory  gesture) :   Take  it— and  do  you  use  it  now. 

LOVBORG  (PUTS  THE  PISTOL  IN  HIS  BREAST  POCKET  with  an  air  of  finality. 
He  has  made  up  his  mind) :  Thanks/ 

HEDDA  (moving  closer  and  putting  her  hand  on  his  arm,  enjoying  her 
domination  over  him):  And  beautifully,  Eilert  Lovborg.  Promise  me 
that/ 

LOVBORG  (taking  her  hand  from  his  arm  with  his  other  hand  and  bend- 
ing down  to  kiss  it,  in  a  final  act  of  submission):  Good-bye,  Hedda 
Gabler.  (HE  GOES  our  BY  THE  HALL  DOOR.) 

(HEDDA  LISTENS  FOR  A  MOMENT  AT  THE  DOOR.  THEN  SHE  GOES  UP  TO 
THE  WRITING-TABLE,  TAKES  OUT  THE  PACKET  OF  MANUSCRIPT,  PEEPS  UNDER 
THE  COVER,  DRAWS  A  FEW  OF  THE  SHEETS  HALF  OUT,  AND  LOOKS  AT  THEM. 
NEXT  SHE  GOES  OVER  AND  SEATS  HERSELF  IN  THE  ARM-CHAIR  BESIDE  THE 
STOVE,  WITH  THE  PACKET  IN  HER  LAP.  PRESENTLY  SHE  OPENS  THE  STOVE 
DOOR,  AND  THEN  THE  PACKET.  Her  movements  are  feline,  fierce.) 

HEDDA  (THROWS  ONE  OF  THE  QUIRES  INTO  THE  FIRE  AND  WHISPERS  TO 
HERSELF)  :  Now  I  am  burning  your  child,  Thea/— Burning  its  curly  locks/ 
(THROWING  ONE  OR  TWO  MORE  QUIRES  INTO  THE  STOVE.  Her  voice  gets 
louder  and  shriller  with  triumph  and  excitement.)  Your  child  and  Eilert 
Lovborg's.  (THROWS  THE  REST  IN  and  slams  shut  the  door.  She  stands, 
still  looking  at  the  stove.)  I  am  burning— I  am  burning  your  child. 
(CURTAIN.) 

The  action  is  closely  interwoven  with  the  dialogue  and  in  every 
line  emphasizes  the  words  that  follow.  Notice  how  in  this  scene 


292  Reading  to  Others 

the  movement  brings  out  the  conflict  and  hurries  the  dialogue 
toward  a  climax.  Notice  too  how  forces  are  balanced,  the  external 
conditions  of  stage  setting,  costume,  and  light  assisting  to  produce 
dramatic  intensity  and  completing  the  picture  in  which  a  designed, 
significant  scene  is  centered. 

A  few  general  rules  of  stage  movement  may  be  useful  here: 

1.  Learn  to  stand  still. 

2.  When  you  walk  to  the  right,  start  off  with  your  right  foot 
after  pivoting  on  the  balls  of  both  feet.    Keep  the  weight  on  the 
left  foot.   When  you  walk  to  the  left,  start  off  with  the  left  foot. 
This  is  the  easy,  natural  way,  but  many  actors  get  their  feet  awk- 
wardly tangled. 

3.  In  pacing,  pivot  with  most  of  your  weight  on  the  foot  that 
is  upstage  before  you  turn.  Then  step  off  with  the  other  foot,  turn- 
ing toward  the  downstage  shoulder.    (Upstage  means  away  from 
the  audience,  downstage  toward  it.   Right  and  left  are  the  actor's 
right  and  left,  not  the  audience's.) 

4.  Learn  to  shift  weight  before  stepping  off  so  that  you  can 
start  with  the  foot  nearer  the  direction  you  are  going.   When  ris- 
ing from  a  chair,  put  most  of  your  weight  on  the  pivoting  foot 

(which  will  be  the  right  foot  if  you  are  going  left  and  the  left  foot 
if  you  are  going  right). 

5.  Be  careful  to  "dress  the  stage,"  keeping  groups  balanced, 
moving  to  the  level  of  a  second  actor  when  two  are  speaking,  cen- 
tering action,  avoiding  being  covered  by  an  actor  in  front.    Most 
of  this  is  the  director's  job,  but  a  good  actor  should  have  a  sense  of 
good  grouping.    Since  many  scenes  are  between  two  actors,  it  is 
important  that  both  be  on  about  the  same  level  parallel  with  the 
audience,  so  that  one  will  not  have  to  turn  upstage  to  talk  to  the 
other.   When  more  than  two  are  on  the  stage,  some  variation  of 
a  triangular  arrangement  is  desirable.    Most  important  action 
should  be  centered. 

6.  Wherever  possible,  gestures  and  business  should  be  done 
with  the  upstage  hand  so  that  there  is  no  danger  of  hiding  the 
face  from  the  audience. 

7.  Kneel  on  the  downstage  knee.  Stand  with  the  upstage  foot 
slightly  advanced.   Both  these  traditional  rules  are  meant  to  keep 
the  actor's  face  toward  the  audience. 

8.  Be  sure  every  movement  has  a  purpose. 


Across  the  Footlights  293 

g.    Time  most  exit  speeches  so  that  you  say  the  last  words  at 
the  door  just  before  going  out. 

10.  Gesture  should  be  graceful  and  easy,  broader  than  in  real 
life,  with  supple  wrist  action.  Consider  Miriam  Franklin's  tech- 
nique of  gesture  (in  Rehearsal,  Prentice-Hall,  1938):  thought, 
look,  gesture,  and  word,  in  that  order.  Don't  use  bodily  movement 
so  much  that  it  is  distracting.  Be  especially  careful  with  the  hands. 

VOICE    CONTROL 

In  the  fifth  place,  not  only  must  the  actor's  body  express  a  wide 
variety  of  meanings,  but  his  voice  must  have  great  range  and 
flexibility.  Constance  Smedley,  in  her  little  book  on  speech  in  the 
theater  (Greenleaf  Theatre  Elements,  II,  London,  Duckworth), 
says,  "An  actor  must  be  blessed  with  a  pleasing  voice,  musical  and 
vibrant,  in  his  natural  daily  use  of  it;  but  on  the  stage,  he  needs 
many  voices,  capable  of  infinite  variation,  and  he  must  start  with 
the  point  of  view  that  a  voice  is  something  that  can  be  built  up 
and  moulded  into  many  forms."  She  discusses  the  voice  problems 
of  the  actor  under  the  seven  divisions  of  pronunciation,  accent, 
pitch,  speed,  volume,  tone,  and  rhythm— all  of  which  have  been 
taken  up  in  other  parts  of  this  book.  We  shall  simply  note  a  few 
brief  points  of  special  emphasis  for  the  actor. 

For  the  actor  as  for  any  other  interpreter  there  is  the  same 
fundamental  necessity  of  knowing  the  meaning,  both  inner  and 
outer,  of  what  he  says  and  being  able  to  communicate  that  mean- 
ing effectively.  All  speakers  have  equal  need  of  relaxation  of 
faulty  tensions,  powerful,  controlled  breathing,  and  good  vocal 
quality.  Because  the  actor  may  have  to  speak  above  others  speak- 
ing at  the  same  time,  or  above  onstage  or  offstage  noises,  he  must  be 
able  to  project  his  voice  with  vigor  and  assurance.  Since  he  must 
express  a  wide  range  of  emotions,  he  must  have  at  his  command 
a  practiced  variety  of  emphasis  through  pitch  and  tempo. 

All  speakers  should  be  easily  heard  by  every  member  of  their 
audiences.  The  actor  must  be  especially  concerned  with  audibility. 
When  Macbeth  or  The  Admirable  Crichton  or  St.  Joan  takes  the 
stage  and  issues  commands  or  defies  the  heavens,  the  spectators  in 
the  back  rows  ought  not  to  wonder  what  he  is  mumbling  about. 
The  reader  whose  tone  is  too  confidential  may  bring  wrinkles  to 


Reading  to  Others 

the  brows  of  those  trying  to  hear  him,  but  they  will  probably 
object  to  him  rather  than  to  the  characters  he  is  depicting.  The 
actor's  delivery,  on  the  other  hand,  is  bound  up  with  the  char- 
acter he  presents;  his  own  way  of  speaking,  good  or  bad,  will  af- 
fect the  audience's  reaction  to  the  part  he  plays.  He  has  especial 
need  of  strong  abdominal  breathing,  good  head  resonance,  and 
correct  placement  of  his  tones. 

To  what  has  already  been  said  about  the  intellectual  and  emo- 
tional values  in  pitch  and  tempo  variation,  we  may  add  simply 
that  the  actor  must  be  able  to  speak  unerringly  in  any  part  of  his 
vocal  register.  That  is,  he  must  first  determine  the  key  appropriate 
to  his  character  and  be  ready  to  change  inflections  to  express  all 
possible  shifts  in  feeling.  He  should  be  prepared  to  run  the  gamut 
of  pitch  changes  from  the  shrill,  angry  cursing  of  Lear  in  his  mad 
moments  to  the  deep  grief  of  his  speech  at  the  death  of  Cordelia; 
he  must,  like  Bottom,  roar  as  gently  as  any  sucking  dove,  whisper 
like  the  vengeful  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father,  sullenly  cry  out  in  the 
coarse  overtones  of  Caliban,  snarl  like  the  gunmen  in  Winterset, 
thicken  his  tones  in  drunken  good  nature  like  Sean  O'Casey's  Pay- 
cock.  The  actress,  too,  must  master  the  despairing  frenzy  of  Lady 
Macbeth,  awaken  to  speech  in  the  awful  silence  of  Juliet's  tomb, 
call  out  in  wise  Scotch-tempered  applause  to  John  Shand  in  What 
Every  Woman  Knows,  capture  Candida's  warmth  and  strength. 
We  all  know  the  story  of  Modjeska  bringing  tears  to  the  eyes  of 
an  English  audience  by  reciting  emotionally  the  multiplication 
table  in  Polish.  She  was  merely  demonstrating  that  the  good  actor 
can  get  results  more  from  the  way  in  which  he  speaks  than  from 
what  he  says.  We  don't  have  to  know  German  or  be  musicians 
to  get  the  excitement  of  Goethe's  Erlkonig  when  sung  by  a  dra- 
matic baritone.  Most  of  us  can  enjoy  plays  in  unfamiliar  tongues 
if  they  are  skilfully  interpreted  because  the  tones  of  the  actors' 
voices  and  their  pantomime  tell  as  much  as  the  words  about  the 
emotional  conflicts. 

ACTOR  AND    AUDIENCE 

These  five  elementary  pieces  of  "advice  to  the  players"  have 
been  concerned  mainly  with  the  actor  alone.  Except  in  the  sug- 
gestions about  the  use  of  the  voice,  we  have  not  sufficiently  con- 
sidered the  matter  of  communication  with  an  audience.  In  the 


Across  the  Footlights  295 

theater  we  call  this  communication  ''projection,"  because  it  must 
carry  across  the  footlights  action,  emotion,  words,  facial  expression, 
and  design  without  breaking  the  artistic  detachment  which  must 
exist  between  actors  and  their  audience.  In  brief,  the  actor  must 
"project"  his  idea  of  his  character  and  his  relationship  with  other 
characters  to  all  the  members  of  his  audience  while  appearing  to 
be  completely  occupied  with  the  situation  on  stage. 

The  actor  who  "plays  to  the  gallery"  is  ignoring  this  principle 
of  indirect  projection.  He  is  obviously  speaking  and  acting  for  the 
sake  of  the  audience  alone,  careless  of  his  responsibility  to  present 
a  credible  holding  of  the  mirror  up  to  Nature.  He  says,  unsubtly, 
'Tm  quite  a  fellow.  Do  you  all  hear  my  good  voice,  notice  my  fine 
figure,  recognize  me  as  an  important  character  in  this  play,  which 
exists  chiefly  as  a  vehicle  for  my  talents?"  The  real  actor  is  by  no 
means  unaware  of  the  audience,  but  he  plays  only  on  his  side  of 
the  footlights.  He  projects  his  voice  so  that  everyone  can  hear  him 
and  understand  him,  though  not  with  noticeable  loudness  or  over- 
careful  diction.  He  projects  his  facial  expressions  without  "mug- 
ging," honestly  showing  emotion,  but  not  exploiting  it  for  mere 
effect.  He  projects  his  movements  and  gestures,  making  them 
meaningful,  seeing  that  no  significant  action  is  missed  by  the  au- 
dience, without  overplaying.  He  projects  his  idea  of  the  play,  its 
essential  comedy  or  tragedy,  its  farce  or  melodrama,  by  all  the  de- 
vices of  technique  at  his  disposal,  but  he  never  shows  that  it  is 
technique. 

In  all  art  there  is  a  large  measure  of  artificiality.  That  is,  art  is 
the  product  of  skill  and  genius;  it  is  not  a  "natural"  phenomenon, 
but  is  created  by  deliberate  application  of  special  conventions. 
Like  houses  and  clothes  and  books,  it  requires  deliberate  and 
therefore  artificial  planning  and  execution.  Of  course,  the  best 
art  conceals  its  artificiality.  In  the  art  of  the  theater  much  depends 
upon  the  deliberate  technique  of  the  performer,  which  includes 
not  only  a  knowledge  of  the  special  devices  of  the  stage  but  a  thor- 
ough control  of  body  and  voice.  Good  technique,  however,  is 
never  obtrusive.  The  true  actor  may  intentionally  bring  out  a 
line  or  a  piece  of  action,  or  he  may  enhance  his  comic  business  by 
expert  timing,  but  the  audience  should  see  the  play  as  an  artistic 
whole,  not  as  an  exhibition  of  professional  skill.  "The  play's  the 
thing,"  not  the  individual  who  is  acting. 


296  Reading  to  Others 

Exercises 

Apply  the  principles  of  good  reading  to  the  following  selections, 
practicing  the  dialogues  with  other  students.  Some  of  the  selec- 
tions can  be  studied  with  the  help  of  recordings,  a  list  of  which 
is  given  on  pages  84-5. 

i.  Of  comfort  no  man  speak: 

Let's  talk  of  graves,  of  worms  and  epitaphs; 
Mate  dust  our  paper,  and  with  rainy  eyes 
Write  sorrow  on  the  bosom  of  the  earth; 
Let's  choose  executors  and  talk  of  wills: 
And  yet  not  so—for  what  can  we  bequeath 
Save  our  deposed  bodies  to  the  ground? 
Our  lands,  our  lives,  and  all  are  Bolingbroke's. 
Aud  nothing  can  we  call  our  own  but  death, 
And  that  small  model  of  the  barren  earth 
Which  serves  as  paste  and  cover  to  our  bones. 
For  God's  sake,  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground 
And  tell  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  kings: 
How  some  have  been  deposed,  some  slain  in  war, 
Some  haunted  by  the  ghosts  they  have  deposed, 
Some  poisoned  by  their  wives,  some  sleeping  kill'd; 
All  murder'd:  for  within  the  hollow  crown 
That  rounds  the  mortal  temples  of  a  king 
Keeps  Death  his  court,  and  there  the  antic  sits, 
Scoffing  his  state  and  grinning  at  his  pomp; 
Allowing  him  a  breath,  a  little  scene, 
To  monarchize,  be  fear'd,  and  kill  with  looks, 
Infusing  him  with  self  and  vain  conceit 
As  if  this  flesh  which  walls  about  our  life 
Were  brass  impregnable;  and  humour'd  thus 
Comes  at  the  last,  and  with  a  little  pin 
Bores  through  his  castle  wall,  and  farewell  king/ 
Cover  your  heads,  and  mock  not  flesh  and  blood 
With  solemn  reverence:  throw  away  respect, 
Tradition,  form,  and  ceremonious  duty, 
For  you  have  but  mistook  me  all  this  while: 
I  live  with  bread  like  you,  feel  want, 
Taste  grief,  need  friends:  subjected  thus, 
How  can  you  say  to  me,  J  am  a  king? 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  Richard  II,  Act  III,  Scene  ii 


Across  the  Footlights  297 

2.  FALSTAFF:  Hal,  if  thou  see  me  down  in  the  battle,  and  bestride 
me,  so;  'tis  a  point  of  friendship. 

PRINCE:  Nothing  but  a  colossus  can  do  thee  that  friendship.  Say  thy 
prayers,  and  farewell. 

FALSTAFF:   I  would  'twere  bed-time,  Hal,  and  all  well. 

PRINCE:  Why,  thou  owest  God  a  death. 

FALSTAFF:  Tis  not  due  yet:  I  would  be  loath  to  pay  him  before  his 
day.  What  need  I  be  so  forward  with  him  that  calls  not  on  me?  Well, 
'tis  no  matter;  honour  pricks  me  on.  Yea,  but  how  if  honour  prick  me 
off  when  I  come  on?  how  then?  Can  honour  set  to  a  leg?  No.  Or  an 
arm?  No.  Or  take  away  the  grief  of  a  wound?  No.  Honour  hath  no 
skill  in  surgery  then?  No.  What  is  honour?  a  word.  What  is  that  word, 
honour?  Air.  A  trim  reckoning/  Who  hath  it?  he  that  died  o'Wednes- 
day.  Doth  he  feel  it?  No.  Doth  he  hear  it?  No.  It  is  insensible,  then? 
Yea,  to  the  dead.  But  will  it  not  live  with  the  living?  No.  Why?  De- 
traction will  not  suffer  it.  Therefore  I'll  none  of  it:  honour  is  a  mere 
scutcheon;  and  so  ends  my  catechism. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,  King  Henry  the  Fourth, 

Part  I?  Act  V,  Scene  i 

5-      MARY  OF  SCOTLAND 

Elizabeth— I  have  been  here  a  Jong  while 
Already— it  seems  so.  If  it's  your  policy 
To  keep  me— shut  me  up—.  I  can  argue  no  more- 
No— I  beg  now.  There's  one  I  love  in  the  north, 
You  know  that— and  my  life's  there,  my  throne's  there,  my 

name 

To  be  defended— and  I  must  lie  here  darkened 
From  news  and  from  the  sun— lie  here  impaled 
On  a  brain's  agony— wondering  even  sometimes 
If  I  were  what  they  said  me— a  carrion-thing 
In  my  desires— can  you  understand  this?— I  speak  it 
Too  brokenly  to  be  understood,  but  I  beg  you 
As  you  are  a  woman  and  I  am— and  our  brightness  falls 
Soon  enough  at  best— let  me  go,  let  me  have  my  life 
Once  more— and  my  dear  health  of  mind  again— 
For  I  rot  away  here  in  my  mind— in  what 
I  think  of  myself— some  death-tinge  falls  over  one 
In  prisons. 

MAXWELL  ANDERSON,  Mary  of  Scotland,  Act  III 

4.  CHRISTINA:  I  know  all  about  the  legend  of  yourself  as  a  great 
woman  that  you've  built  up  these  thirty  years  for  your  sons  to  worship. 


298  Reading  to  Others 

It  hasn't  taken  me  long  to  see  that  you're  not  fit  to  be  anyone's  mother/ 

DAVID:   Chris/ 

ROBERT:  See  here,  now/ 

MRS.  PHELPS  (all  three  speaking  at  the  same  time) :  Let  her  go  on/  Let 
her  go  on/  She  will  explain  that  or  retract  it! 

CHRISTINA:  I'm  only  too  glad  to  explain.  It's  just  what  I've  been 
leading  up  to.  And  I'll  begin  by  saying  than  if  my  baby  ever  feels  about 
me  as  your  sons  feel  about  you,  I  hope  that  somebody  will  take  a  little 
enameled  pistol  and  shoot  me,  because  I'll  deserve  it! 

MRS.  PHELPS  (determinedly):   I've  been  insulted  once  too  often/ 

CHRISTINA:  I  don't  mean  to  insult  you.  I'm  being  as  scientific  and 
impersonal  as  possible. 

ROBERT:   Good  God/ 

CHRISTINA:  Speaking  of  insults,  though,  what  explanation  can  YOU 
offer  ME  for  your  rudeness  to  me  as  a  guest  in  your  house? 

MRS.  PHELPS:   I  have  not  been  rude  to  you. 

CHRISTINA:  You  have  been  appallingly  rude.  Second  question:  Why 
do  you  resent  the  fact  that  I  am  going  to  have  a  baby? 

MRS.  PHELPS:   I  don't  resent  it. 

CHRISTINA:  Then  why  are  you  so  churlish  about  it? 

MRS.  PHELPS:   Your  indelicacy  about  it  would  have  .  .  . 

CHRISTINA  (from  this  point  abandons  her  restraint— her  impeachment 
growing  more  intense) :  That's  an  evasion.  You're  afraid  that  baby  will 
give  me  another  and  stronger  hold  on  David,  and  you  mean  to  separate 
David  and  me  if  it's  humanly  possible. 

MRS.  PHELPS  (with  emphatic  gesture) :  I  do  not/  I  do  not/ 

CHRISTINA:  Did  you,  or  did  you  not,  bend  every  effort  to  separate 
Hester  and  Robert? 

MRS.  PHELPS:   I  most  certainly  did  not/ 

CHRISTINA:  Then  how  do  you  account  for  the  deliberate  and  brutal 
lies  you  told  Hester  about  Robert?  Because  she  did  lie  to  Hester  about 
you,  Robert.  She  told  Hester  that  you  never  wanted  to  marry  her. 

ROBERT  (aghast):   Mother,  you  didn't/ 

MRS.  PHELPS:   Of  course  I  didn't/ 

CHRISTINA  (Joan  of  Arc  raising  the  siege  of  Orleans):  I  heard  her. 
And  I  heard  her  call  both  of  you  back,  last  night,  when  you  ran  out  to 
save  Hester  from  drowning.  I  heard  her  call  you  back  from  saving  a 
drowning  girl,  for  fear  of  your  catching  cold.  I  heard  her/  I  heard  her/ 

DAVID  (somewhat  shaken) :   You  shouldn't  have  called  us,  Mother/ 

CHRISTINA:  Can  she  deny  that  her  one  idea  is  to  keep  her  sons  de- 
pendent on  her?  Can  she  deny  that  she  opposed  any  move  that  either 


Across  the  Footlights  299 

one  of  you  makes  towards  independence?  Can  she  deny  that  she  is  out- 
raged by  your  natural  impulses  towards  other  women? 

MRS.  PHELPS  (who  has  been  clinging  first  to  one,  then  to  the  other  of 
her  sons,  rises  in  fury) :  I  deny  all  of  it! 

CHRISTINA:  You  may  deny  it  until  you're  black  in  the  face;  every  accu- 
sation I  make  is  true/  You  belong  to  a  type  that's  very  common  in  these 
days,  Mrs.  Phelps— -a  type  of  self-centered,  self-pitying,  son-devouring 
tigress. 

DAVID,  MRS.  PHELPS,  ROBERT  (all  together) :  Chris!  Dave/  Really/ 

CHRISTINA:  Oh,  there  are  normal  mothers  around:  mothers  who  WANT 
their  children  to  be  men  and  women  and  take  care  of  themselves;  moth- 
ers who  are  people,  too,  and  don't  have  to  be  afraid  of  loneliness  after 
they've  outlived  their  motherhood;  mothers  who  look  on  their  children 
as  people  and  en/oy  them  as  people  and  not  be  forever  holding  on 
to  them  and  pawing  them  and  fussing  about  their  health  and  singing 
them  lullabies  and  tucking  them  up  as  though  they  were  everlasting 
babies/  But  you're  NOT  one  of  the  normal  ones,  Mrs.  Phelps/  Look  at 
your  sons,  if  you  don't  believe  me.  You've  swallowed  Robert  up  until 
there's  nothing  left  of  him  but  an  effete  make-believe.  Now  he's  gone 
melancholy  mad  and  disgraced  himself.  And  Dave/  Poor  Dave/  How 
he  survived  at  all  is  beyond  me.  If  you're  choking  a  bit  on  David  now, 
that's  my  fault  because  you'd  have  swallowed  him  up,  too,  if  I  hadn't 
come  along  to  save  him/  Talk  about  cannibals/  You  and  your  kind  beat 
any  cannibals  I've  ever  heard  of/  And  what  makes  you  doubly  deadly 
and  dangerous  is  that  people  admire  you  and  your  kind.  They  actually 
admire  you/  You  professional  mothers/  .  .  .  You  see,  I'm  taking  this 
differently  from  that  poor  child  upstairs.  She's  luckier  than  I  am,  too. 
She  isn't  married  to  one  of  your  sons.  Do  you  remember  what  she  said 
about  children  yesterday?  "Have  'em.  Love  'em.  And  leave  'em  be." 

SIDNEY  HOWARD,  The  Silver  Cord,  Act  III 

5.  OSWALD:  Mother,  isn't  it  the  case  that  you  said  this  evening  there 
was  nothing  in  the  world  you  would  not  do  for  me  if  I  asked  you? 

MRS.  ALVING:  Yes,  certainly  I  said  so. 

OSWALD:  And  will  you  be  as  good  as  your  word,  mother? 

MRS.  ALVING:  You  may  rely  upon  that,  my  own  dear  boy.  I  have  noth- 
ing else  to  live  for,  but  you. 

OSWALD:  Yes,  yes;  well,  listen  to  me,  mother.  You  are  very  strong- 
minded,  I  know.  I  want  you  to  sit  quite  quiet  when  you  hear  what  I  am 
going  to  tell  you. 

MRS.  ALVING:  But  what  is  this  dreadful  thing—? 


goo  Reading  to  Others 

OSWALD:  You  mustn't  scream.  Do  you  hear?  Will  you  promise  me 
that?  We  are  going  to  sit  and  talk  it  over  quite  quietly.  Will  you  prom- 
ise me  that,  mother? 

MRS.  ALVING:   Yes,  yes,  I  promise— only  tell  me  what  it  is. 

OSWALD:  Well,  then,  you  must  know  that  this  fatigue  of  mine— and 
my  not  being  able  to  think  about  my  work— all  that  is  not  really  the  ill- 
ness itself— 

MRS.  ALVING:  What  is  the  illness  itself? 

OSWALD:  What  I  am  suffering  from  is  hereditary;  it  (touches  his  fore 
head,  and  speaks  very  quietly)— it  lies  here. 

MRS.  ALVING  (almost  speechless) :    Oswald!  No!— no! 

OSWALD:  Don't  scream;  I  can't  stand  it.  Yes,  I  tell  you,  it  lies  here, 
waiting.  And  any  time,  any  moment,  it  may  break  out. 

MRS.  ALVING:  How  horrible — / 

OSWALD:  Do  keep  quiet.  That  is  the  state  I  am  in — 

MRS.  ALVING:   My  child  has  his  mother  to  tend  him. 

OSWALD:  No,  never;  that  is  just  what  I  won't  endure/  I  dare  not  think 
what  it  would  mean  to  linger  on  like  that  for  years— to  get  old  and  grey 
like  that.  And  you  might  die  before  I  did.  Because  it  doesn't  neces- 
sarily have  a  fatal  end  quickly,  the  doctor  said.  He  called  it  a  kind  of 
softening  of  the  brain— or  something  of  that  sort.  (Smiles  mournfully.) 
]  think  that  expression  sounds  so  nice.  It  always  makes  me  think  of 
cherry-coloured  velvet  curtains— something  that  is  soft  to  stroke. 

MRS.  ALVING  (with  a  scream):   Oswald/ 

OSWALD  (jumps  up  and  walks  about  the  room) :  And  now  you  have 
taken  Regina  from  me/  If  I  had  only  had  her,  she  would  have  given 
me  a  helping  hand,  I  know. 

MRS.  ALVING:  What  do  you  mean,  my  darling  boy?  Is  there  any  help 
in  the  world  I  would  not  be  willing  to  give  you? 

OSWALD:  When  I  had  recovered  from  the  attack  I  had  abroad,  the 
doctor  told  me  that  when  it  recurred— and  it  will  recur— there  would  be 
no  more  hope. 

MRS.  ALVING:  And  he  was  heartless  enough  to— 

OSWALD:  I  insisted  on  knowing.  I  told  him  I  had  arrangements  to 
make—.  (Smiles  cunningly.)  And  so  I  had.  (Takes  a  small  box  from 
his  inner  breast-pocket. )  Mother,  do  you  see  this? 

MRS.  ALVING:  What  is  it? 

OSWALD:   Morphia  powders. 

MRS.  ALVING  (looking  at  him  in  terror) :   Oswald— my  boy/ 

OSWALD:  I  have  twelve  of  them  saved  up— 

MRS.  ALVING  ( snatching  at  it) :   Give  me  the  box,  Oswald/ 

OSWALD:  Not  yet,  mother.   (Puts  it  back  in  his  pocket.) 

MRS.  ALVING:  I  shall  never  get  over  this/ 


Across  the  Footlights  301 

OSWALD:  You  must.  If  I  had  had  Regina  here  now,  I  would  have  told 
her  quietly  how  things  stand  with  me— and  asked  her  to  give  me  this  last 
helping  hand.  She  would  have  helped  me,  I  am  certain. 

MRS.  ALVING:    Never/ 

OSWALD:  Well,  now  you  have  got  to  give  me  that  helping  hand, 
mother. 

MRS.  ALVING  (with  a  loud  scream) :   11 

OSWALD:  Who  has  a  better  right  than  you? 

MRS.  ALVING:   11   Your  mother/ 

OSWALD:  Just  for  that  reason. 

MRS.  ALVING:  I,  who  gave  you  your  life/ 

OSWALD:  I  never  asked  you  for  life.  And  what  kind  of  life  was  it  that 
you  gave  me?  I  don't  want  it/  You  shall  take  it  back/ 

MRS.  ALVING:   Oswald/  Oswald/-— my  child/ 

OSWALD:  Have  you  a  mother's  heart — and  can  bear  to  see  me  suffering 
this  unspeakable  terror? 

MRS.  ALVING  (controlling  herself,  after  a  moment's  silence):  There  is 
my  hand  upon  it. 

OSWALD:   Will  you — ? 

MRS.  ALVING:  If  it  becomes  necessary.  But  it  shan't  become  necessary. 
No,  no,  it  is  impossible  it  should/ 

OSWALD:  Let  us  hope  so.  And  let  us  live  together  as  long  as  we  can. 
Thank  you,  mother. 

(He  sits  down  in  the  armchair.   Day  is  breaking.) 

MRS.  ALVING  (coming  cautiously  nearer) :   Do  you  feel  calmer  now? 

OSWALD:    Yes. 

MRS.  ALVING  (bending  over  him) :  It  has  only  been  a  dreadful  fancy  of 
yours,  Oswald.  Nothing  but  fancy.  All  this  upset  has  been  bad  for  you. 
But  now  you  will  get  some  rest,  at  home  with  your  own  mother,  my 
darling  boy.  You  shall  have  everything  you  want,  just  as  you  did  when 
you  were  a  little  child.— There,  now.  The  attack  is  over.  You  see  how 
easily  it  passed  off/  I  knew  it  would.— And  look,  Oswald,  what  a  lovely 
day  we  are  going  to  have?  Brilliant  sunshine.  Now  you  will  be  able  to 
see  your  home  properly. 

OSWALD  (who  has  been  sitting  motionless  in  the  armchair,  with  his 
back  to  the  scene  outside,  suddenly  says) :  Mother,  give  me  the  sun. 

MRS.  ALVING  (standing  at  the  table  and  looking  at  him  in  amazement) : 
What  do  you  say? 

OSWALD  (repeats  in  a  dull,  toneless  voice) :   The  sun—the  sun. 

MRS.  ALVING  (going  up  to  him) :  Oswald,  what  is  the  matter  with  you? 
(OSWALD  seems  to  shrink  up  in  the  chair;  all  his  muscles  relax;  his  face 
loses  its  expression,  and  his  eyes  stare  stupidly.  MRS.  ALVING  is  trembling 
with  terror.)  What  is  it!  (Screams.)  Oswald/  What  is  the  matter  with 


Reading  to  Others 

you/  (Throws  herself  on  her  knees  beside  him  and  shakes  him.)  Oswald/ 
Oswald/  Look  at  me/  Don't  you  know  me/ 

OSWALD  (in  an  expressionless  voice,  as  before) :   The  sun — the  sun. 

MRS.  ALVING  (jumps  up  despairingly,  beats  her  head  with  her  hands, 
and  screams) :  I  can't  bear  it!  (Whispers  as  though  paralyzed  with  fear.) 
I  can't  bear  it/  Never/  (Suddenly.)  Where  has  he  got  it?  (Passes  her 
hand  quickly  over  his  coat.)  Here/  (Draws  back  a  little  way  and  cries: ) 
No,  no,  no/— Yes/—  no,  no/  (She  stands  a  few  steps  from  him,  her  hands 
thrust  into  her  hair,  and  stares  at  him  in  speechless  terror.) 

OSWALD  (sitting  motionless,  as  before) :    The  sun— the  sun. 

HENRIK  IBSEN,  Ghosts,  Act  III 

6.  ALGERNON:  What  you  really  are  is  a  Bunburyist.  I  was  quite  right 
in  saying  you  were  a  Bunburyist.  You  are  one  of  the  most  advanced 
Bunburyists  I  know. 

JACK:   What  on  earth  do  you  mean? 

ALGERNON:  You  have  invented  a  very  useful  younger  brother  called 
Ernest  in  order  that  you  may  be  able  to  come  up  to  town  as  often  as 
you  like.  I  have  invented  an  invaluable  permanent  invalid  called  Bun- 
bury,  in  order  that  I  may  be  able  to  go  down  into  the  country  when- 
ever I  choose.  Bunbury  is  perfectly  invaluable.  If  it  wasn't  for  Bunbury's 
extraordinary  bad  health,  for  instance,  I  wouldn't  be  able  to  dine  with 
you  at  Willis's  to-night;  for  I  have  been  really  engaged  to  Aunt  Augusta 
for  more  than  a  week. 

JACK:   I  haven't  asked  you  to  dine  with  me  anywhere  to-night. 

ALGERNON:  I  know.  You  are  absolutely  careless  about  sending  out 
invitations.  It  is  very  foolish  of  you.  Nothing  annoys  people  so  much  as 
not  receiving  invitations. 

JACK:   You  had  much  better  dine  with  your  Aunt  Augusta. 

ALGERNON:  I  haven't  the  smallest  intention  of  doing  anything  of  the 
kind.  To  begin  with,  I  dined  there  on  Monday,  and  once  a  week  is 
quite  enough  to  dine  with  one's  own  relatives.  In  the  second  place, 
whenever  I  do  dine  there  I  am  always  treated  as  a  member  of  the  family, 
and  sent  down  with  either  no  woman  at  all,  or  two.  In  the  third  place, 
I  know  perfectly  well  whom  she  will  place  me  next  to,  to-night.  She  will 
place  me  next  Mary  Farquhar,  who  always  flirts  with  her  own  husband 
across  the  dinner-table.  That  is  not  very  pleasant.  Indeed,  it  is  not  even 
decent  .  .  .  and  that  sort  of  thing  is  enormously  on  the  increase.  The 
amount  of  women  in  London  who  flirt  with  their  own  husbands  is  per- 
fectly scandalous.  It  looks  so  bad.  It  is  simply  washing  one's  clean  linen 
in  public.  Besides,  now  that  I  know  you  to  be  a  confirmed  Bunburyist 
I  naturally  want  to  talk  to  you  about  Bunburying.  I  want  to  tell  you 
the  rules. 


Across  the  Footlights  303 

JACK:  I  am  not  a  Bunburyist  at  all.  If  Gwendolen  accepts  me,  I  am 
going  to  kill  my  brother;  indeed,  I  think  I'll  kill  him  in  any  case.  Cecily 
is  a  little  too  much  interested  in  him.  It  is  rather  a  bore.  So  I  am  going 
to  get  rid  of  Ernest.  And  I  strongly  advise  you  to  do  the  same  with 
Mr.  .  .  .  with  your  invalid  friend  who  has  the  absurd  name. 

ALGERNON:  Nothing  will  induce  me  to  part  with  Bunbury,  and  if  you 
ever  get  married,  which  seems  to  me  extremely  problematic,  you  will  be 
very  glad  to  know  Bunbury.  A  man  who  marries  without  knowing  Bun- 
bury  has  a  very  tedious  time  of  it. 

JACK:  That  is  nonsense.  If  I  marry  a  charming  girl  like  Gwendolen, 
and  she  is  the  only  girl  I  ever  saw  in  my  life  that  I  would  marry,  I  cer- 
tainly won't  want  to  know  Bunbury. 

ALGERNON:  Then  your  wife  will.  You  don't  seem  to  realize,  that  in 
married  life  three  is  company  and  two  is  none. 

JACK  (sententiously) :  That,  my  dear  young  friend,  is  the  theory  that 
the  corrupt  French  Drama  has  been  propounding  for  the  last  fifty  years. 

ALGERNON:  Yes;  and  that  the  happy  English  home  has  proved  in  half 
the  time. 

JACK:  For  heaven's  sake,  don't  try  to  be  cynical.  It's  perfectly  easy 
to  be  cynical. 

ALGERNON:  My  dear  fellow,  it  isn't  easy  to  be  anything  now-a-days. 
There's  such  a  lot  of  beastly  competition  about. 

OSCAR  WILDE,  The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest,  Act  I 

7.  In  the  following  selection,  the  characters  speak  part  of  their 
lines  to  each  other,  part  as  the  "stream  of  consciousness,"  saying 
their  thoughts  aloud  as  if  no  one  else  could  hear  them.  The  spoken 
thoughts  should  be  delivered  in  ordinary  tones,  with  perhaps  a 
lower  pitch  level.  The  other  characters  "freeze"  during  the 
thinking  aloud,  giving  no  indication  of  having  heard.  Darrell 
is  Gordon's  real  father,  though  the  child  does  not  know  it. 

GORDON  (appears  in  the  doorway  in  rear.  He  carries  a  small,  expensive 
yacht's  model  of  a  sloop  with  the  sails  set.  He  is  in  a  terrific  state  of  con- 
flicting emotions,  on  the  verge  of  tears  yet  stubbornly  determined ) : 

I  got  to  do  it/  .  .  .  Gosh,  it's  awful  .  .  .  this  boat  is  so  pretty  .  .  . 

why  did  it  have  to  come  from  him?  ...  I  can  get  Dad  to  buy  me 

another  boat  .  .  .  but  now  I  love  this  one  .  .  .  but  he  kissed  Mother 

.  .  .  she  kissed  him  .  .  . 

(He  walks  up  defiantly  and  confronts  DARRELL,  who  turns  to  him  in  sur- 
prise.)   Hey— Darrell— did  you—?    (He  stops  chokingly.) 

DARRELL  (immediately  realizing  what  is  coming— thinking  with  somber 


304  Reading  to  Others 

anguish):  So  this  has  to  happen/  .  .  .  what  J  dreaded/  ...  my  fate  is 

merciless,  it  seems/  .  .  . 

(With  strained  kindliness.)  Did  what? 

GORDON  (Growing  hard— stammers  angrily) :  I  found  this— out  in  the 
hall.  It  can't  be  from  anybody  else.  Is  this— your  present? 

DARRELL  (Hard  and  defiant  himself) :  Yes. 

GORDON  (In  a  rage— trembling) :  Then— here's  what— I  think  of  you/ 
(Beginning  to  cry,  he  breaks  off  the  mast,  bowsprit,  breaks  the  mast  in 
two,  tears  the  rigging  off  and  throws  the  dismantled  hull  at  DARRELL'S 
feet.)  There/  You  can  keep  it/ 

DARRELL  (His  anger  overcoming  him  for  an  instant) :  You— you  mean 
little  devil,  you/  You  don't  get  that  from  me— (He  has  taken  a  threat- 
ening step  forward.  GORDON  stands  white-faced,  defying  him.  DARRELL 
pulls  himself  up  short— then  in  a  trembling  voice  of  deeply  wounded 
affection.)  You  shouldn't  have  done  that,  son.  What  difference  do  I 
make?  It  was  never  my  boat.  But  it  was  your  boat.  You  should  con- 
sider the  boat,  not  me.  Don't  you  like  boats  for  themselves?  It  was  a 
beautiful  little  boat,  I  thought.  That's  why  I— 

GORDON  (Sobbing  miserably) :  It  was  awful  pretty/  I  didn't  want  to 
do  it/  (He  kneels  down  and  gathers  up  the  boat  into  his  arms  again.) 
Honest  I  didn't.  I  love  boats/  But  I  hate  you/  (This  last  with  passion- 
ate intensity.) 

DARRELL  (Dryly):   So  I've  observed. 

(Thinking  with  angry  anguish.)    He  hurts,  damn  him/  .  .  . 

GORDON:  No,  you  don't  know.  More'n  ever  now/  More'n  ever/  (The 
secret  escaping  him.)  I  saw  you  kissing  Mother/  I  saw  Mother,  too/ 

DARRELL  (Startled,  but  immediately  forcing  a  smile) :  But  I  was  say- 
ing good-bye.  We're  old  friends.  You  know  that. 

GORDON:  You  can't  fool  me/  This  was  different/  (Explosively.)  It 
would  serve  you  good  and  right— and  Mother,  too— if  I  was  to  tell  Dad 
on  you/ 

DARRELL:  Why,  I'm  Sam's  oldest  friend.  Don't  make  a  little  fool  of 
yourself. 

GORDON:  You  are  not  his  friend.  YouVe  always  been  hanging  around 
cheating  him — hanging  around  Mother/ 

DARRELL:  Keep  still/  What  do  you  mean  cheating  him? 

GORDON:  I  don't  know.  But  I  know  you  aren't  his  friend.  And  some- 
time I'm  going  to  tell  him  I  saw  you— 

DARRELL  (With  great  seriousness  now— deeply  moved) :  Listen/  There 
are  things  a  man  of  honor  doesn't  tell  anyone— not  even  his  mother  or 
father.  You  want  to  be  a  man  of  honor,  don't  you?  (Intensely.)  There 
are  things  we  don't  tell,  you  and  11 


Across  the  Footlights  305 

(He  has  put  his  hand  around  Gordon's  shoulder  impulsively.) 

This  is  my  son/  ...  I  Jove  him/  .  .  . 

GORDON  (Thinking— terribly  torn):  Why  do  I  like  him  now?  .  .  . 
I  like  him  awful/  .  .  . 

(Crying.)  We?— who  d'you  mean?— I've  got  honor/— more'n  you/- 
you don't  have  to  tell  me/— I  wasn't  going  to  tell  Dad  anyway,  honest  I 
wasn't/  We?— what  d'you  mean,  we?— I'm  not  like  you/  I  don't  want 
to  be  ever  like  you/  (There  is  the  sound  of  a  door  being  flung  open  and 
shut.) 

DARRELL  (Slapping  Gordon  on  the  back) :  Buck  up,  son/  Here  he  is/ 
Hide  that  boat  or  he'll  ask  questions. 

EUGENE  O'NEILL,  Strange  Interlude,  Act  VII 

8.  RUDOLF:  Now/  I  suggest  that  we  discuss  briefly  your  husband, 
before  we  pass  on  to  more  mutually  agreeable  subjects  ...  Do  you 
love  him? 

KLENA:   Very  much. 

RUDOLF:   I  have  no  objection  to  that  .  .  .  He's  a  doctor,  isn't  he? 

ELENA:   A  psychoanalyst. 

RUDOLF:  Ah/  A  practitioner  of  Vienna's  sole  remaining  industry  .  .  . 
/Ye  been  told  he's  quite  brilliant.  Written  a  book,  hasn't  he? 

ELENA:   Yes— eight  volumes. 

RUDOLF:  I  must  meet  him  and  let  him  study  me.  He  could  derive 
enough  material  for  eight  volumes  more. 

ELENA:   He  knows  all  about  you  already. 

RUDOLF:  Ah— you've  told  him/ 

ELENA:  Yes.  You'll  find  your  type  analyzed  in  one  of  his  books  under 
the  heading,  "Elephantiasis  of  the  Ego." 

RUDOLF:  I  doubt  that  I'd  be  interested.  Have  you  any  children? 

ELENA:   No. 

RUDOLF:  I  extend  my  condolences.  These  purely  intellectual  hus- 
bands are  not  very  productive,  are  they? 

ELENA:  It  isn't  his  fault  that  there  are  no  children.  It's  my  fault  .  . 
Are  there  any  more  questions? 

RUDOLF:  Let  me  see  ...  No— I  think  there  aren't.  We  can  dismiss 
the  dreary  topic  of  your  domestic  life— and  press  on  to  considerations  of 
my  own.  But  I  suppose  you  know  all  about  it. 

ELENA:  No,  Rudolf .  I  have  not  followed  your  later  career  very  closely. 

RUDOLF:  No? 

ELENA:  No.  How  have  you  supported  yourself? 

RUDOLF:  In  various  ways.  Now  and  then  a  good  run  at  baccarat.  One 
or  two  engagements  in  the  cinema  studios— did  you  see  me  in  "The 
Shattered  Idol"? 


306  Reading  to  Others 

ELENA:  No,  I  missed  that,  deliberately. 

RUDOLF:  You  did  well.  As  it  turned  out,  I  was  virtually  invisible. 
Then  I  conceived  a  great  scheme  for  mulcting  American  tourists,  but 
the  authorities  got  wind  of  it,  and  took  over  the  idea  themselves.  There 
have  been  other  occupations. 

ELENA:  Some  one  told  me  youVe  been  running  a  taxi. 

RUDOLF:  Merely  an  amusing  whim.  I've  only  driven  people  I  know. 

ELENA:  And  if  you  don't  know  them  when  you  start  the  drive,  you  do 
before  it's  finished. 

RUDOLF  (laughing):   YouVe  evidently  been  listening  to  gossip. 

ELENA:  Yes.  I've  heard  how  charming  you  are  to  your  fares.  You 
must  have  collected  many  delightful  friends  that  way. 

RUDOLF  (Wistfully):   Friends?  You  can  hardly  call  them  that. 

ELENA:  No— I  suppose  not. 

RUDOLF:  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Elena,  Nice  is  a  bore.  I  have  been  very 
lonely. 

ELENA:   I've  been  waiting  for  you  to  say  that. 

RUDOLF:   You  have  no  sympathy  for  me? 

ELENA:  No. 

RUDOLF:   Your  heart  wasn't  always  cold. 

ELENA:  You  have  never  been  lonely— never  deserved  one  atom  of 
sympathy,  from  anyone. 

RUDOLF:  You  don't  understand  me.  No  one  has  ever  understood  me. 
It's  because  I'm  inscrutable. 

ELENA:   Perhaps.  But  I  remain  unimpressed  by  your  appeal  for  pity. 

RUDOLF:  PITY!  Have  you  the  effrontery  to  suggest  that  I  want  you  to 
pity  me? 

ELENA:   Yes/ 

RUDOLF:  I  see  ...  Then  I  shall  abandon  that  tack.  (He  laughs.) 
Elena— it  has  always  seemed  miraculous  to  me  that  any  one  could  be  as 
intelligent  as  you  are  and  still  alluring.  And  you  ARE  alluring/ 

ELENA  (Bowing) :   You're  overwhelmingly  kind. 

RUDOLF:  Oh— that  wasn't  intended  as  a  tribute  to  you.  It's  a  tribute 
to  my  own  flawless  taste. 

ELENA:  Ah/  I  see. 

RUDOLF:  I'm  proud  to  think  that  it  was  I  who  first  realized  you,  for 
the  sight  of  you  now  assures  me  that,  by  God,  I  was  right  .  .  .  You're  so 
beautiful,  Elena.  You  delight  me/  You  refresh  me— and  I  am  speaking 
nothing  less  than  the  truth  when  I  tell  you  that  refreshment  is  what  I 
most  urgently  need. 

ROBERT  SHERWOOD,  Reunion  in  Vienna,  Act  II 


Across  the  Footlights  307 

9.  The  following  selection  is  an  illustration  of  expressionism, 
the  movement  in  theater,  art,  and  literature  toward  non-realism. 
The  ideas  are  exaggerated,  often  fantastic,  in  some  plays  having  a 
distinct  ring  of  grinding  axes.  The  lines  should  be  read  for  the 
underscored  thought;  character  is  not  important  in  the  expression- 
ist play,  and  many  of  the  characters  are  anonymous.  The  whole 
should  be  stylized,  giving  a  twist  that  will  heighten  the  unreality 
and  identify  the  underlying  ideas. 

(Aslant  a  field  deep  in  snow,  through  a  tangle  of  low-hanging  branches, 
blue  shadows  are  cast  by  the  midday  sun.) 

CASHIER  (comes  backward,  shoveling  snow  with  his  hands,  and  cover- 
ing his  footprints.  He  stands  upright):  How  wonderful  a  toy  is  every 
man/  The  mechanism  runs  silently  in  his  joints.  Suddenly  the  faculties 
are  touched  and  transformed  into  a  gesture.  What  gave  animation  to 
these  hands  of  mine?  A  moment  ago  they  were  straining  to  heave  the 
masses  that  the  drifting  snowflakes  had  strewn/  My  footprints  across  the 
field  are  blotted  out.  With  my  own  hands  I  have  accomplished  nothing- 
ness. (Taking  off  his  wet  shirtcuffs.)  Frost  and  damp  breed  chills;  fever 
comes  unaware  and  works  upon  the  mind.  The  mechanism  creaks  and 
falters;  the  control  is  lost;  and  once  a  man  is  thrown  upon  a  sick-bed, 
he's  as  good  as  done  for.  (He  unfastens  his  sleeve-links  and  throws  the 
cuffs  away.)  Soiled.  There  they  he.  Missing  in  the  wash.  The  mourn- 
ers will  cry  through  the  kitchen:  A  pair  of  cuffs  are  lost/  A  catastrophe 
in  the  boiler/  A  world  in  chaos/  (He  picks  up  the  cuffs  and  thrusts  them 
into  his  overcoat  pocket.)  Queer.  Now  my  wits  begin  to  work  again.  I 
see  with  infallible  clearness.  I'm  drudging  here  in  a  snowdrift,  fooling 
with  two  bits  of  dirty  linen.  These  are  the  gestures  which  betray  a  man. 
Hop-la/  (He  swings  into  a  comfortable  seat  in  a  forked  bough.)  But 
I'm  inquisitive.  My  appetite  is  whetted.  My  curiosity  is  hugely  swollen. 
I  feel  that  great  discoveries  he  before  me.  To-day's  experience  opens  up 
the  road.  This  morning  I  was  still  a  trusted  employee.  Fortunes  were 
passing  through  my  hands:  the  building  society  made  a  big  deposit.— At 
noon  I'm  a  cunning  scoundrel,  an  expert  in  embezzlement,  a  leaf  in  the 
wind,  a  cork  on  the  water.  Wonderful  accomplishment/— And  but  half 
the  day  gone  by/ 

(He  props  his  chin  on  his  clenched  hand.)  I'll  open  my  breast  to 
Fate;  all  comers  are  welcome.  I  can  prove  that  I'm  free  man.  I'm  on 
the  march— there's  no  turning  back,  no  falling  out.  No  shuffling  either— 
so  out  with  your  trumps/  Ha/  ha/  I've  put  sixty  thousand  on  a  single 
card— it  must  be  trumps.  I'm  playing  too  high  to  lose.  Out  with  them— 


308  Reading  to  Others 

cards  on  the  table— none  of  your  sharping  tricks— d'ye  understand?  (He 
laughs  hoarsely.)   .  .  . 

(He  pulls  out  his  bundle  of  notes  and  slaps  it  on  the  palm  of  his 
hand.)  I'm  paying  cash  down/  Here  are  my  liquid  assets;  the  buyer  is 
waiting.  What's  for  sale?  (Looking  across  the  field.)  Snow.  Sunlight. 
Stillness.  (He  shakes  his  head  and  puts  away  the  money.)  Blue  snow  is 
dear  at  the  price;  I  won't  encourage  shameful  profiteering.  I  decline  the 
bargain.  The  proposition's  not  serious/  (Stretching  his  arms  to  heaven.) 
But  I  must  pay/  I  must  spend/  I  have  the  ready  money/  Where  are  the 
goods  I  can  buy  for  cash  on  the  nail?  For  the  whole  sixty  thousand— and 
the  whole  buyer  thrown  in,  flesh  and  bone,  body  and  soul/  (Crying  out.) 
Deal  with  me/  Sell  to  me/  I  have  the  money,  you  have  the  goods;  bring 
them  together/ 

(The  sun  is  overcast.  He  climbs  out  of  the  forked  bough.)  The  earth 
is  in  labour— spring  storms  are  threatening.  It  comes  to  pass,  it  comes 
to  pass/  I  knew  my  cry  would  not  be  in  vain.  The  call  was  pressing. 
Chaos  is  affronted,  and  shudders  at  this  morning's  monstrous  deed.— Of 
course  I  know  such  cases  can't  be  overlooked.  It's  down  with  your 
trousers,  and  a  good  hard  whipping  at  the  least/ 

GEORG  KAISER,  From  Morn  to  Midnight,  Scene  III 

10.  MRS.  MALAPROP:  There,  Sir  Anthony,  there  sits  the  deliberate 
simpleton  who  wants  to  disgrace  her  family,  and  lavish  herself  on  a  fel- 
low not  worth  a  shilling. 

LYDIA:   Madam,  I  thought  you  once— 

MRS.  MALAPROP:  You  thought,  miss/  I  don't  know  any  business  you 
have  to  think  at  all— thought  does  not  become  a  young  woman.  But  the 
point  we  would  request  of  you  is,  that  you  will  promise  to  forget  this 
fellow— to  illiterate  him,  I  say,  quite  from  your  memory. 

LYDIA:  Ah,  madam/  our  memories  are  independent  of  our  wills.  It  is 
not  so  easy  to  forget. 

MRS.  MALAPROP:  But  I  say^it  is,  miss;  there  is  nothing  on  earth  so  easy 
as  to  forget,  if  a  person  chooses  to  set  about  it.  I'm  sure  I  have  as  much 
forgot  your  poor  dear  uncle  as  if  he  had  never  existed— and  I  thought 
it  my  duty  to  do  so;  and  let  me  tell  you,  Lydia,  these  violent  memories 
don't  become  a  young  woman. 

SIR  ANTHONY:  Why  sure  she  won't  pretend  to  remember  what  she's 
ordered  not/— ay,  this  comes  of  her  reading/ 

LYDIA:  What  crime,  madam,  have  I  committed,  to  be  treated  thus? 

MRS.  MALAPROP:  Now  don't  attempt  to  extirpate  yourself  from  the 
matter;  you  know  I  have  proof  controvertible  of  it.— But  tell  me,  will 
you  promise  to  do  as  you're  bid?  Will  you  take  a  husband  of  your 
friends'  choosing? 


Across  the  Footlights  309 

LYDIA:  Madam,  I  must  tell  you  plainly,  that  had  I  no  preference  for 
any  one  else,  the  choice  you  have  made  would  be  my  aversion. 

MRS.  MALAPROP:  What  business  have  you,  miss,  with  preference  and 
aversion?  They  don't  become  a  young  woman;  and  you  ought  to  know, 
that  as  both  always  wear  off,  'tis  safest  in  matrimony  to  begin  with  a 
little  aversion.  I  am  sure  I  hated  your  poor  dear  uncle  before  marriage 
as  if  he'd  been  a  blackamoor— and  yet,  miss,  you  are  sensible  what  a 
wife  I  made/— and  when  it  pleased  Heaven  to  release  me  from  him,  'tis 
unknown  what  tears  I  shed/  But  suppose  we  were  going  to  give  you 
another  choice,  will  you  promise  us  to  give  up  this  Beverley? 

LYDIA:  Could  I  belie  my  thoughts  so  far  as  to  give  that  promise,  my 
actions  would  certainly  as  far  belie  my  words. 

MRS.  MALAPROP:  Take  yourself  to  your  room.  You  are  fit  company  for 
nothing  but  your  own  ill-humours. 

LYDIA:   Willingly,  ma'am— I  cannot  change  for  the  worse.    (Exit.) 

MRS.  MALAPROP:   There's  a  little  intricate  hussy  for  you/ 

SIR  ANTHONY:  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  ma'am— all  this  is  the  natu- 
ral consequence  of  teaching  girls  to  read.  Had  I  a  thousand  daughters, 
by  Heaven/  I'd  as  soon  have  them  taught  the  black  art  as  their  alphabet/ 

MRS.  MALAPROP:  Nay,  nay,  Sir  Anthony,  you  are  an  absolute  misan- 
thropy. 

SIR  ANTHONY:  In  my  way  hither,  Mrs.  Malaprop,  I  observed  your 
niece's  maid  coming  forth  from  a  circulating  library!— She  had  a  book 
in  each  hand— they  were  half-bound  volumes,  with  marble  covers/- 
From that  moment  I  guessed  how  full  of  duty  I  should  see  her  mistress/ 

MRS.  MALAPROP:   Those  are  vile  places,  indeed/ 

SIR  ANTHONY:  Madam,  a  circulating  library  in  a  town  is  as  an  ever- 
green tree  of  diabolical  knowledge/  It  blossoms  through  the  year/— and 
depend  on  it,  Mrs.  Malaprop,  that  they  who  are  so  fond  of  handling  the 
leaves,  will  long  for  the  fruit  at  last. 

MRS.  MALAPROP:  Fy,  fy,  Sir  Anthony,  you  surely  speak  laconically. 

SIR  ANTHONY:  Why,  Mrs.  Malaprop,  in  moderation  now,  what  would 
you  have  a  woman  know? 

MRS.  MALAPROP:  Observe  me,  Sir  Anthony.  I  would  by  no  means 
wish  a  daughter  of  mine  to  be  a  progeny  of  learning;  I  don't  think  so 
much  learning  becomes  a  young  woman;  for  instance,  I  would  never  let 
her  meddle  with  Greek,  or  Hebrew,  or  algebra,  or  simony,  or  fluxions, 
or  paradoxes,  or  such  inflammatory  branches  of  learning — neither  would 
it  be  necessary  for  her  to  handle  any  of  your  mathematical,  astronomical, 
diabolical  instruments.— But,  Sir  Anthony,  I  would  send  her,  at  nine 
years  old,  to  a  boarding-school,  in  order  to  let  her  learn  a  little  ingenuity 
and  artifice.  Then,  sir,  she  should  have  a  supercilious  knowledge  in 


Reading  to  Others 

accounts;— and  as  she  grew  up,  f  would  have  her  instructed  in  geometry, 
that  she  might  know  something  of  the  contagious  countries;— but  above 
all,  Sir  Anthony,  she  should  be  mistress  of  orthodoxy,  that  she  might  not 
mis-spell,  and  mis-pronounce  words  so  shamefully  as  girls  usually  do; 
and  likewise  that  she  might  reprehend  the  true  meaning  of  what  she  is 
saying.  This,  Sir  Anthony,  is  what  I  would  have  a  woman  know;— and 
I  don't  think  there  is  a  superstitious  article  in  it. 

RICHARD  BRINSLEY  SHERIDAN,  The  Rivals,  Act  I 


CHAPTER    11 


Before,  me  Microph 


one 


THE  RADIO  imposes  certain  condi- 
tions on  the  interpreter  that  he  does  not  encounter  in  other  reading 
situations:  i.  He  speaks  into  a  microphone  at  a  volume  level  suf- 
ficient only  to  fill  a  small  room;  2.  He  cannot  see  his  audience; 
3.  He  must  seem  to  be  speaking  conversationally  even  though  he 
is  reading  from  a  manuscript;  4.  He  is  addressing  a  much  more 
diversified  and  usually  larger  audience  than  he  would  have  in  an 
auditorium. 

The  microphone  is  a  mechanical  demon  that  stands  up  before 
a  tormented  performer  and  ruthlessly  transmits  his  voice  with  all 
its  hissing  sibilants,  all  its  mispronunciations,  all  its  unprotected 
faults  to  the  critical  ears  of  listeners.  It  makes  unnecessary  the 
normal  courtesy  and  forbearance  of  an  audience,  and  even  the 
most  gracious  hearer,  who  would  not  think  of  walking  out  of  an 
auditorium  while  someone  is  speaking,  can  express  his  opinion 
by  tuning  off  a  speaker  who  displeases  him.  It  is  a  sensitive  ma- 
chine, controlled  by  an  engineer  who  measures  voice  only  in  terms 
of  decibels  and  to  whom  shades  of  feeling  and  meaning  are  no 
more  than  fluctuations  of  a  needle.  It  is  a  merciless  instrument 
on  whom  all  the  blandishments  of  attractive  appearance,  dramatic 
gestures,  and  high-powered  personality,  applied  through  smiles, 
masterful  presence,  and  so  on,  are  wasted.  The  radio  speaker  sub- 
mits only  his  voice  and  the  force  of  what  he  has  to  say  to  a  very 
exacting  audience,  without  knowing  how  many  listeners  are  inter- 
ested enough  in  him  not  to  change  stations  on  their  receivers. 


g  12  Reading  to  Others 

THE    VOCAL    ELEMENTS 

VOLUME.  Volume,  tempo,  pitch,  and  quality  are  all  under  the 
influence  of  the  microphone.  Instead  of  speaking  out  to  fill  an 
auditorium,  as  he  would  from  a  platform,  the  radio  interpreter 
uses  no  more  than  a  conversational  level  of  speech.  Announcers 
sometimes  instruct  those  unfamiliar  with  studio  technique  by  say- 
ing to  them,  "Talk  to  the  microphone  as  if  it  were  another  person. 
Don't  raise  your  voice  any  more  than  you  would  in  speaking  to 
someone  three  or  four  feet  away  from  you.  Stay  the  same  dis- 
tance from  the  microphone.  Don't  rock  back  and  forth,  because 
you  will  change  the  volume  level.'* 

Experts  who  must  speak  many  hours  a  day  over  the  air  save  their 
voices  by  getting  closer  to  the  microphone  and  diminishing  the 
volume.  It  is  easier  for  the  occasional  speaker,  however,  to  main- 
tain an  ordinary  tone.  In  any  event,  the  level  is  kept  up  in  the 
control  room,  where  the  operator  can  increase  or  decrease  the 
volume  at  will.  If  this  operator  has  to  make  too  many  changes, 
either  reducing  too  much  volume  or  building  up  insufficient  vol- 
ume, the  transmission  of  the  voice  will  be  somewhat  mechanical. 
The  speaker  should  try  to  be  consistent  in  the  matter  of  force, 
neither  dropping  into  too  low  a  tone  nor  suddenly  shouting  out 
his  emphasis.  He  must  be  especially  careful  about  these  unex- 
pected explosions  of  force,  which  the  man  at  the  controls  cannot 
anticipate  and  which  overload  the  transmitting  apparatus,  pro- 
ducing "blasts"  in  the  receiver.  Even  such  normal  phenomena  as 
throat  clearing,  coughs,  and  nose  blowing  must  be  guarded  against 
because  of  blasting.  Many  a  speaker  otherwise  quite  satisfactory 
has  been  unsuccessful  in  radio  broadcasting  because  of  habits  of 
raucous  throat  clearing.  There  are  records  of  coughs  so  devas- 
tating as  to  shock  transmitting  apparatus  completely  off  the  air, 
requiring  expensive  repairs. 

TEMPO.  High  speed  in  speaking  is  no  more  desirable  on  the 
air  than  in  an  auditorium,  though  some  news  and  sports  announc- 
ers have  reached  astonishing  rates  of  still  intelligible  speaking. 
Ted  Husing  is  said  to  have  made  a  record  of  four  hundred  words 
a  minute.  It  is  impossible  to  be  effectively  clear  at  speeds  of  over 
two  hundred  words  a  minute.  Almost  inevitably  such  speakers  get 
tangled  up  in  words  that  cannot  possibly  be  formed  correctly  at  a 


Before  the  Microphone  513 

gallop,  or  they  slur  consonants  atrociously,  often  developing  mo- 
mentary bad  stammers.  The  best  rate  for  ordinary  radio  speaking 
is  about  140  words  a  minute,  though  the  excitement  of  big  news 
announcements  or  the  swiftness  of  a  boxing  match  or  football 
game  will  quicken  the  pace.  The  British  Broadcasting  Corpora- 
tion considers  134  to  140  words  a  minute  as  good  average  delivery. 
Franklin  D.  Roosevelt  stays  somewhat  under  140  words  per  minute. 
PITCH.  A  pleasing  pitch  is  vital  in  successful  radio  speaking.  In 
platform  interpretation  personal  charm  or  enthusiasm  or  dynamic 
manner  will  do  much  to  offset  a  poorly  pitched  voice.  But  over 
the  air,  which  is  still  blind  to  visible  attractiveness  in  the  speaker, 
bad  pitch  is  fatal.  Nervousness  due  to  "mike-fright"  often  pro- 
duces tensions  in  the  throat  and  jaw  that  raise  pitch  unnaturally. 
Pitch  faults  caused  by  improper  placement  and  inadequate  relaxa- 
tion can,  of  course,  be  corrected.  Many  voices,  however,  are 
fundamentally  unsuitable  for  radio  broadcasting,  even  though 
they  may  be  quite  satisfactory  for  acting  or  platform  speaking. 
The  microphone  favors  certain  frequencies  in  the  middle  regis- 
ter, and  receivers  are  seldom  sensitive  enough  to  respond  to  all  the 
overtones  of  high-pitched  voices.  Such  voices,  therefore,  sound 
thinner  and  more  shrill  over  the  air  than  in  normal  communica- 
tion. Baritone  and  contralto  voices  record  most  successfully.  The 
speaker  does  well  to  cultivate  the  lower  register  of  his  pitch  range. 
Women's  voices  are,  in  general,  less  pleasing  than  men's  on  the 
radio  and  tire  the  hearer  more  quickly.  A  few  women,  like  Mrs. 
Roosevelt,  Dorothy  Thompson,  Helen  Claire,  and  Cobina  Wright, 
by  cultivated  diction,  low  pitch,  and  dynamic  manner,  attract 
radio  audiences.  But  even  women  will  usually  admit  that  they 
don't  like  to  hear  women  speak  on  the  radio.  Rossetti's  Blessed 
Damozel,  whose 

.  .  .  voice  was  like  the  voice  the  stars 
Had  when  they  sang  together, 

probably  did  not  have  a  good  radio  voice,  for  the  singing  of  the 
stars,  though  somewhat  vague,  seems  a  little  high-pitched.  Cor- 
delia's voice,  as  described  by  her  father,  would  have  been  much 
more  satisfactory  for  radio: 

Her  voice  was  ever  soft, 
Gentle  and  low,  an  excellent  thing  in  woman. 


g  14  Reading  to  Others 

QUALITY.  The  quality  of  the  voice  is  important  on  the  air  as 
well  as  off.  Listeners  recognize  good  voices  over  the  radio  with 
rich  quality,  low  pitch,  and  perfect  diction,  even  more  quickly 
than  voices  from  the  platform,  where  other  conditions,  like  bad 
posture,  slovenly  appearance,  or  even  the  distracting  presence  of 
an  audience  may  intrude.  Hoarse,  throaty,  nasal,  thin,  furry, 
metallic,  twanging,  muffled,  and  breathy  voices,  like  badly  pitched 
voices,  almost  instantly  condemn  themselves.  Good  voices  are 
usually  improved  by  transmission  over  the  air;  poor  voices  often 
sound  worse  than  they  are.  Notice  the  difference  between  the 
smooth  vocal  quality  of  Lowell  Thomas  and  the  aggressive  nasality 
of  Walter  Winchell  or  the  mannered  high  pitch  of  Jimmy  Fidler. 

THE    SPEECH    MANNER 

The  radio  performer  must  speak  conversationally.  He  is  address- 
ing a  large  audience,  but  one  made  up  of  little  independent  units. 
In  other  words,  he  is  speaking  into  small  rooms  to  family  groups 
or  to  more  or  less  isolated  individuals.  They  want  him  to  speak 
to  them  directly,  without  affectation,  in  a  friendly,  pleasant  voice, 
as  if  he  had  come  in  for  a  few  moments'  chat.  His  good  voice, 
polished  diction,  and  cultured  personality  will  do  him  no  good 
if  he  does  not  have  this  conversational  speech  manner. 

THE  ANNOUNCER'S  PROBLEM.  Radio  announcers  have  the  most 
difficult  of  all  speaking  assignments.  They  must  read  from  all 
kinds  of  manuscripts,  day  after  day,  commercial  "spots"  for  mov- 
ing pictures,  church  suppers,  bargain  days,  and  what-not,  dramatic 
skits,  music  program  "continuity"  (the  running  comment),  news 
announcements,  introductions  to  women's  club  speakers,  chil- 
dren's programs,  hill-billy  musicians,  college  professors,  "farm  and 
home"  programs,  and  so  on.  No  boredom,  no  patronizing  tone, 
no  insincerity,  no  gushing  can  creep  into  their  voices.  No  mat- 
ter how  tired  they  are  or  how  fed  up  with  endless  requests  for 
"Mother  Machree"  or  Benny  Goodman  or  Uncle  Ezra,  they  must 
sound  urbane  and  enthusiastic  and  cordial.  A  great  many  people 
are  fond  of  drivel,  as  is  apparent  in  the  popularity  of  cowboy 
movies,  "mountain  music,"  and  cheap  thrillers  in  pulp  magazines. 
In  radio,  driveling  programs  are  very  common.  But  even  these  the 
reader  of  scripts  must  do  sincerely. 

Sometimes  announcers  cultivate  the  eager,  intimate  tone  so  per- 


Before  the  Microphone  315 

severingly  that  they  defeat  their  own  purposes,  making  the  de- 
struction of  Poland  sound  no  more  important  or  exciting  than  the 
coming  Bingo  party  for  the  benefit  of  the  Firemen's  Association. 
That  is,  they  lose  their  sense  of  values,  selling  Tchaikovsky,  the 
reports  of  Supreme  Court  decisions,  cabbage  at  five  cents  a  pound, 
"twilight  poetry/'  helpful  hints  about  fertilizers,  and  dining- 
room  "suits"  with  equal  gusto  and  no  apparent  discrimination. 

Two  PITFALLS  FOR  RADIO  READERS.  The  technique  of  effective 
radio  speaking  should  present  few  new  difficulties  to  the  earnest 
student  of  interpretation.  To  begin  with,  there  is  an  old  familiar 
obligation  upon  him  to  know  what  he  is  talking  about  at  the 
moment  of  speaking.  The  poor  reader's  stupid  trick  of  recogniz- 
ing words  with  the  eyes  and  speaking  with  undirected  lips  is  dis- 
astrous on  the  air.  If  one  virtue  is  more  important  than  others 
in  the  radio  speaker,  it  is  that  of  alertness.  As  soon  as  indifference 
or  fatigue  or  crowding  busy-ness  distracts  the  reader  from  his  manu- 
script, he  will  fail  in  presenting  his  message.  It  is  practically  im- 
possible to  bluff  a  microphone  by  means  of  a  bold  front,  an  air  of 
knowingness,  or  unsupported  sex  appeal.  No  matter  how  often  he 
has  said  the  words  before,  no  matter  how  crashingly  tiresome  is 
the  matter  of  the  announcement,  the  radio  speaker  must  think 
about  the  meaning  and  emotional  possibilities  of  what  he  says 
with  full  concentration.  The  announcer  on  a  certain  daily  na- 
tional program  who  ends  each  broadcast  with  "Good  luck,  every- 
body," sounds  as  sincere  and  vigorous  about  it  as  if  he  were  saying 
it  for  the  first,  instead  of  the  three  thousandth  time.  Think 
through  what  you  read. 

A  second  caution  to  the  radio  speaker  is  that  he  realize  early  in 
his  career  that  elocutionary  display  is  highly  objectionable  on  the 
air,  perhaps  even  more  so  than  on  the  platform,  where  our  gener- 
ous instincts  often  prompt  us  to  forgive  the  exhibitionists  as  mis- 
guided actors.  There  is  little  place  for  affected  speech  in  radio, 
which  is,  in  general,  the  domain  of  the  common  man.  Mr.  Com- 
mon Man  is  a  prolific  writer  of  postcards  to  broadcasters,  to  whom 
he  utters  the  abundant  complaints  of  an  habitual  examiner  of 
gift  horses.  He  is  likely  to  protest  against  highbrow,  declamatory, 
and  stilted  speech  in  announcers  and  program  readers.  Sometimes 
a  highfalutin  style  may  help  a  radio  reader  into  popularity.  To  an 
intelligent  hearer,  however,  false  rhetoric  is  anathema. 


316  Reading  to  Others 

RADIO    DICTION 

Clear  enunciation  is  a  major  requirement  in  radio  work.  The 
National  Broadcasting  Company  demands  of  its  announcers,  be- 
fore anything  else,  "a  good  voice,  clear  enunciation,  and  pronun- 
ciation free  of  dialect  or  local  peculiarities/'  One  of  the  greatest 
contributions  of  radio  is  its  influence  on  diction  throughout  the 
country.  The  announcers  and  most  successful  performers  over  the 
national  networks  have  admirable  diction,  which  is  setting  good 
standards  for  millions  of  listeners.  The  radio  has  made  us  all 
acutely  conscious  of  the  spoken  word,  as  people  all  over  the  coun- 
try begin  to  notice  differences  between  what  carefully  trained 
speakers  say  and  what  they  themselves  say.  Up  until  ten  years  ago 
most  additions  to  our  vocabularies  were  reading  words,  found  in 
newspapers  and  books.  Now  we  hear  words.  There  is  wider  inter- 
est in  pronunciation  than  ever  before  and  more  critical  observa- 
tion of  "hot  potato/'  overhasty,  and  blurred  delivery.  We  cannot 
only  learn  much  from  first-rate  radio  speakers,  but  their  example 
also  forces  upon  us  high  standards  of  achievement  when  we  venture 
before  the  microphone. 

DIFFICULT  SPEECH  SOUNDS.  Perhaps  the  most  difficult  of  speech 
sounds  to  produce  well  in  broadcasting  are  the  sibilants,  not  only 
because  many  of  us  pronounce  those  sounds  poorly,  but  because 
the  microphone  does  not  perfectly  transmit  them.  Many  speakers 
sound  like  popcorn  wagons  doing  brisk  trade;  others  hiss  like 
ganders;  some  j's  blow  in  like  approaching  simoons.  A  little  prac- 
tice with  exercises  in  [s],  [z],  [J],  and  [5]  may  help  prevent  some  of 
the  whistling  and  lisping.  Speaking  across  the  microphone  instead 
of  directly  into  it  is  also  advisable  for  those  with  faulty  j's. 

[0]  and  [ft]  cause  trouble  along  with  the  hissing  j's.  So  do  final 
consonants,  especially  [t]  and  [d],  the  full  diphthongal  values  of  [ai], 
[DI],  [au],  [ei],  and  [ou],  and  the  common  provincial  variations  in 
vowel  sounds.  All  of  the  average  troubles  in  articulation  show  up 
glaringly  in  radio  broadcasting.  Many  speakers  crowd  their  words 
together,  cutting  off  consonants  and  barely  suggesting  the  vowels, 
which  become  very  slight  departures  from  the  ugly  mid-vowel  [A]. 
Some  of  these  persons  are  lip-lazy;  others  are  simply  too  much  in  a 
hurry.  A  few  over-articulate  their  words,  pounding  out  final  [d] 
and  [t]  with  smug  clarity  and  giving  all  vowels  equal  stress.  They 


Before  the  Microphone  317 

make  of,  from,  to,  the,  a,  was,  and,  etc.,  as  important  as  the  nouns 
and  verbs  and  scorn  to  subordinate  any  of  the  syllables  of  poly- 
syllables with  differentiation  of  quantity. 

Relaxation  of  throat  and  jaws  is  absolutely  essential  in  good 
diction.  Forward  placement  prevents  much  throatiness  and  blur- 
ring. Think  the  tones  forward,  carefully  shaping  the  lips.  In  this 
way  many  of  the  difficulties  of  poor  enunciation  will  be  cleared 
up.  The  exercises  in  the  chapter  on  Diction  (in  the  Appendix) 
should  be  useful  to  the  radio  speaker. 

CORRECT  PRONUNCIATION.  Faulty  pronunciation  is  the  unfor- 
givable sin  of  radio  speech.  Not  all  speakers  can  sound  like  Milton 
Cross,  Orson  Welles,  or  Deems  Taylor,  but  they  can  at  least  pro- 
nounce words  correctly.  Dictionaries  change,  becoming  more  lib- 
eral, and  many  words  are  listed  differently  in  the  various  dic- 
tionaries. Few  will  quarrel  with  the  speaker  wrho  says  either 
[ad'vstizmant]  or  [aedv^'taizmont],  ['isoleit]  or  ['aisoleit],  ['prougras] 
or  ['pragrasj.  There  will  be  some  objection  in  strict  quarters  to 
many  of  the  secondary  pronunciations  now  allowed  in  words  like 
adult,  romance,  detail,  abdomen,  route.  But  if  the  speaker  has 
authority  for  his  usage,  he  is  comparatively  safe.  The  blunders  that 
draw  down  the  wrath  of  fastidious  listeners  are  the  ignorant  and 
careless  violations  of  generally  accepted  pronunciations.  Announc- 
ers in  local  stations,  usually  underpaid  and  undertrained,  are  fa- 
mous for  their  prodigious  errors.  They  are  responsible  (though  not 
alone,  for  many  national  broadcasters  make  the  same  blunders)  for 
such  bungles  as  of/en,  impotent,  harass,  genu-wine  ['d^enjiijWain], 
reconnaissance  [reksn'eisans],  pontifical,  exryu/site,  gover'ment, 
compromise,  grievous,  athaletic,  and  even  u-ni-que  ['junikju]. 
Some  of  the  most  common  errors  of  radio  speakers  are  consonant 
substitutions:  impordent,  tremendous,  greatest,  Babtist;  consonant 
omission:  len'th,  ar'tic,  iden'ical,  ask'  for  asks,  mos'  for  most,  fax 
for  facts,  bon's  for  bonds-,  consonant  additions:  bat-uhl  ['bret^l], 
sing-ger  ['siqga1],  idear,  rawr,  asphalt;  pronunciation  of  silent 
letters:  glis/en,  psa/m,  forehead,  sufctle;  vowel  shifts  of  all  kinds: 
[hand],  [hav]  for  hand  and  have,  in  a  false  imitation  of  supposedly 
cultivated  "broad-a"  speech,  squoils  and  boids  for  squirrels  and 
birds  ([31]  for  [?]),  caounty  for  county  ([aeu]  for  [au]),  ['radio]  and 
['radiet^J  for  radio,  radiator,  [ai'taeljan]  and  ['rufan]  for  Italian, 
Russian,  f'wmda1]  and  ['fela*]  for  window,  fellow. 


318  Reading  to  Others 

STANDARD  SPEECH.  The  old  question  of  speech  standards  raises 
its  snarling  head  in  all  broadcasting.  Since  the  big  networks  spread 
their  programs  over  all  sections  of  the  country,  they  must  be  cer- 
tain that  their  announcers  are  free  from  conspicuous  local  speech 
habits.  At  the  same  time,  they  must  not  establish  such  strict  rules 
for  pronunciation  that  announcers  will  seem  stilted  and  uncol- 
loquial.  The  British  Broadcasting  Corporation  issues  lists  of  cor- 
rect pronunciations  for  its  announcers.1  In  this  country  we  have 
nothing  so  formal  as  a  committee  which  makes  final  decisions 
in  matters  of  pronunciation.  Announcers  in  radio  stations  are 
expected  to  study  the  latest  editions  of  such  dictionaries  as 
Webster's  New  International,  Second  Edition,  to  discover  the  pre- 
ferred pronunciations  of  all  doubtful  words.  But  no  dogmatic 
criteria  are  set  up,  certainly  not  the  New  England  or  Southern 
British  speech  that  is  still  considered  by  some  people  the  criterion 
of  usage.  Announcers  are  urged  to  follow  the  rather  liberal  stan- 
dards of  general  American,  educated,  intelligent  speakers.  Collo- 
quial speech  is  always  in  advance  of  dictionary  sanction.  Often  it 
becomes  the  accepted  standard  of  the  future.  The  alert  announcer 
consults  the  dictionary,  remembers  what  is  general  cultured  usage, 
and  then  applies  his  good  judgment. 

In  short,  the  radio  speaker,  whether  announcer  or  occasional 
broadcaster,  will  do  well  to  avoid  both  provincial  and  over-refined 
pronunciation.  Under  the  first  heading  he  will  not  be  either  mark- 
edly Southern  or  Eastern  or  Middle  Western,  splitting  vowels 
like  a  South  Carolinian  talking  about  the  "lawr  of  the  Lawd"  and 
['haevad]  College  in  ['bastan]  like  a  New  Englander,  or  burring  r's 
and  speaking  of  [nuz]  like  a  Kansan.  Under  the  second  heading  he 
will  not  insist  on  pronunciations,  even  though  right,  which  may 
antagonize  listeners,  ['aiSa1]  and  ['naiSa^],  for  example,  annoy  most 
radio  enthusiasts  and  so  must  be  abandoned,  in  spite  of  the  dic- 
tates of  stage  diction.  There  is  even  a  tendency  to  oversimplify. 
Some  sponsors  in  rural  areas  stipulate  that  suite  be  pronounced 
[sut]  because  prospective  buyers  of  their  furniture  associate  the  cor- 
rect pronunciation  only  with  candy.  Waldo  Abbott,  in  his  excellent 

1  The  advisory  Committee  on  Spoken  English  for  the  B.B.C.  includes  such  eminent 
men  as  G.  B.  Shaw,  Logan  P.  Smith,  Daniel  Jones,  and  Lascelles  Abercrombie.  The 
records  issued  under  their  supervision,  giving  their  approved  pronunciations,  should 
be  of  interest  to  American  speakers.  On  the  subject  of  speech  standards,  George 
Bernard  Shaw  has  recorded  a  delightful  series  of  disks  on  "Spoken  English  and 
Broken  English"  (Linguaphone). 


Before  the  Microphone  319 

Handbook  of  Broadcasting  (McGraw-Hill,  1937),  says,  "The  an- 
nouncers must  remember  that  the  intelligent  listener's  ear  is 
always  right."  That  listener  is  usually  not  pleased  either  with 
what  he  considers  highbrow  English  or  substandard  English. 

PROPER  NAMES.  Place  names,  titles  of  musical  compositions  and 
names  of  composers,  foreign  names,  and  unusual  domestic  names 
are  headaches  for  announcers.  The  invasion  of  Poland  by  the  Ger- 
mans, headlining  many-consonanted  names,  was  a  nightmare  in 
radio  stations  all  over  the  country.  The  news  services  try  to  give 
phonetic  pronunciations  in  their  copy,  but  news  is  often  too  urgent 
to  be  held  up  while  someone  figures  out  pronunciations.  In  the 
realm  of  music,  too,  what  atrocities  have  been  committed!  Inex- 
perienced announcers  whose  knowledge  of  music  goes  no  further 
back  than  Guy  Lombardo,  introduce  recorded  programs  of  "Chop- 
pin,0  "Paderooski,"  and  others,  though  most  transcription  services 
send  out  handbooks  of  pronunciation  to  member  stations  contain- 
ing ingenious  but  remarkably  inaccurate  phonetic  advice.  For  place 
names  and  difficult  family  names,  dictionaries  have  pronouncing 
ga/etteers  and  biographical  notes.  Other  references  for  names  are 
F.  H.  Vizetelly's  How  to  Speak  English  Effectively  (Funk  and  Wag- 
nails,  1933)  ,  L.  C.  Elson's  Book  of  Musical  Knowledge  (Tudor, 
1934),  T.  Baker's  Dictionary  of  Musical  Terms  (G.  Schirmer, 
1928),  C.  O.  S.  Mawson's  International  Book  of  Names  (Thomas 
Y.  Crowe!  1  Co.,  1935). 

SOME    POINTERS    TO    BROADCASTERS 

1.  Speak    quietly    into    the   microphone   and   don't   rely   for 
emphasis  upon  a  wide  range  of  volume  changes. 

2.  Stand  at  a  comfortable  distance  from  the  microphone.  The 
old-fashioned  carbon  microphone  requires  the  speaker  to  be  about 
eight   inches   away,   preferably   speaking   across   the   diaphragm; 
eighteen  inches  to  two  feet  is  the  best  distance  for  the  ribbon  or 
velocity  microphone. 

3.  Don't  brush  against  the  microphone  or  touch  it  with  your 
manuscript.   Keep  papers  from  rattling.  Your  listeners  may  think 
you  are  reporting  a  volcano  or  forest  fire. 

4.  Don't  cough  or  sneeze  or  clear  your  throat  directly  into  the 
microphone. 


320  Reading  to  Others 

5.  Keep  your  tone  conversational.  Don't  be  unctuous  or  over- 
enthusiastic  or  supercilious  or  unbending  or  perfunctory. 

6.  Look  up  words  and  names  before  you  use  them. 

7.  Phrase  carefully,  avoiding  very  long  phrases  that  may  make 
you  gasp  for  breath,  but  not  chopping  sentences  into  jerky  small 
pieces. 

8.  Make  your  centering  meaningful.   Don't  emphasize  prepo- 
sitions and  conjunctions.    Don't  use  the  same  kind  of  emphasis 
too  often. 

9.  Vary  rhythm,  tempo,  voice  quality,  pitch. 

10.  Remember   that  level   and   upward   inflections  carry  the 
hearer  along,  indicating  "something  more."  Downward  inflections 
are  conclusive.   Robert  West,  in  his  lively  So-o-o-o  You  re  Going 
on  the  Air  (Rodin,  New  York,  1934),  says,  "Ministers  who  strive 
for  reverent  effects  overdo  the  upward  inflection.   Political  speak- 
ers overwork  the  downward  inflection  with  dogmatic  monotony. 
Many  radio  speakers  engaged  in  commercial  ballyhoo  overdo  the 
circumflex  inflection." 

11.  Don't  take  in  air  so  convulsively  that  you  sound  like  an 
overstrained  vacuum  pump. 

12.  Place  your  vowels  correctly,  keeping  them  from  becoming 
throaty.   Keep  your  pitch  level  low. 

13.  Use  your  lips  vigorously. 

14.  Keep  your  body  relaxed,  gesturing  if  you  feel  the  impulse 
to  do  so,  even  if  you  have  no  audience  to  see  you. 

15.  Watch  your  ss. 

16.  Try  to  sound  as  if  you  were  speaking  spontaneously,  not 
reading  from  a  manuscript. 

17.  Strictly  observe  your  time  limits. 

PUBLIC  ADDRESS  SYSTEMS.  Most  of  what  has  been  said  about 
radio  speaking  applies  as  well  to  the  public  address  systems  that 
confront  readers  and  speakers  in  large  auditoriums.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  audience  makes  necessary  some  kind  of  contact  with 
them  through  use  of  the  eyes  and  gestures,  as  well  as  through  the 
microphone.  But  though  posture,  appearance,  and  speaking  man- 
ner are  more  important  before  a  public  address  microphone  than 
in  a  radio  studio  (unless,  as  often  happens  in  big  broadcasts,  a 
studio  audience  is  present),  there  is  no  difference  in  the  use  of  the 
voice.  Be  especially  careful  not  to  overload  the  transmitter  bv 


Before  the  Microphone  321 

sudden  spurts  of  intensity,  or  the  loud  speaker  may  simply  turn  your 
address  into  a  series  of  whines  and  snorts.  And  don't  let  your  zeal 
carry  you  too  far  from  the  microphone.  If  it  does,  you  will  fade 
out  absurdly,  turning  into  a  little,  thin  voice  on  a  platform,  far 
away. 

Exercises 

These  exercises,  illustrating  several  types  of  radio  manuscripts, 
should  be  practiced,  if  possible,  before  a  microphone, 
i.    "The  Christian  Science  Monitor  Views  the  News" 

OPENING  ANNOUNCEMENT:  We  shall  now  present  a  com- 
mentary on  national  and  international  events  based  upon  news  appearing 
in  the  Christian  Science  Monitor,  an  international  daily  newspaper,  pub- 
lished at  Boston,  Massachusetts. 

A.  The  new  United  States  Neutrality  Law  may  receive  a  stricter  con- 
struction at  the  hands  of  President  Roosevelt  than  many  Washington 
observers  expected.  If  so,  one  can  chalk  up  a  triumph  for  Secretary  of 
State  Cordell  Hull,  for  the  Congressmen  who  indicated  their  views  on 
the  proposal  to  transfer  ships  to  Panama  registry,  and  for  vigilant  Amer- 
ican public  opinion.  All  wished  to  see  the  spirit,  as  well  as  the  letter,  of 
the  new  Act  respected.  Their  vigilance  should  be  continued. 

President  Roosevelt's  press  conference  remarks,  in  which  he  indicated 
that  he  would  veto  any  plan  to  circumvent  the  Neutrality  Law  by  trans- 
ferring American  ships  to  the  flag  of  Panama,  has  shown  how  the  wind 
is  blowing. 

The  President  gave  an  added  reason  for  opposing  Panama  registry.  He 
said  that  it  would  be  unfair  of  the  United  States  to  involve  a  sister 
American  Republic  in  a  different  Neutrality  position  from  that  of  the 
United  States.  This  is  in  keeping  with  the  Good-Neighbor  doctrine,  and 
should  please  Latin  America.  However,  President  Roosevelt  also  may 
have  been  hinting  at  another  way  of  avoiding  the  shipping  restrictions. 
He  spoke  only  of  American  Republics.  Suppose  a  European  neutral- 
Ireland  for  instance— should  step  up  and  suggest  that  American  ships 
should  sail  to  Irish  ports  under  the  flag  of  Eire  ( Air'eh) .  How  would  the 
President  react  to  that? 

The  Chief  Executive,  at  the  same  time,  headlined  one  point  which 
bears  serious  consideration.  Too  many  Americans,  he  said,  overlooked 
the  fact  that  thousands  of  seamen  are  put  out  of  work  by  the  new 
Neutrality  restrictions.  And  he  might  have  added,  that  the  shipping 
concerns  have  had  to  do  almost  all  the  sacrificing,  so  far,  under  the  Neu- 
trality Act.  Congress  made  no  provision  for  equalizing  these  sacrifices 


322  Reading  to  Others 

necessary  to  maintain  American  Neutrality.  Fortunately,  the  Maritime 
Commission  and  the  W-P-A  have  completed  plans  to  assist  some  13 
thousand  seamen  "beached"  by  the  Neutrality  Law.  Now,  how  about 
the  shipping  companies  which  have  been  "beached"? 

B.  Japan  has  just  settled  several  American  claims  arising  out  of  the 
Japanese  military  operations  in  China.  For  example,  the  Japanese  have 
repaired  Shanghai  (Shahng'high')  University  property,  paid  13  hundred 
yen  (yehn)  to  a  Lutheran  Mission  in  Shantung  (Shahn'dung')  Prov- 
ince, and  another  sum  to  the  United  Brethren  Church  in  Canton  (Kan- 
tohn')  Province. 

The  payments  indicate  that  Japan  finally  is  becoming  aware  of  Amer- 
ican opinion  regarding  the  China  war.  Today,  the  Christian  Science 
Monitor's  Fireside  Series,  or  "current-events  course,"  dips  into  this  sub- 
ject of  how  Japan  has  been  misjudging  foreign  opinion,  world  events, 
and  national  attitudes.  Randall  Gould,  Monitor  correspondent  in  the 
Far  East,  lists  some  of  the  Japanese  mistakes  of  judgment. 

For  example:  Germany.  Japan  counted  upon  the  eternal  menace  of 
the  Bolshevik  (Ball'sheh-vik)  Bogy  to  keep  Germany  permanently 
aligned  against  Russia.  Japan  was  surprised  and  hurt  when  economic 
and  political  realities  brought  Nazi  Germany  and  Soviet  Russia  together. 
Japan  also  misjudged  Britain.  Tokyo  (Toe'kyo)  thought  contemptu- 
ously of  Britain  as  being  "washed  up"  and  abandoning  its  Far-East  inter- 
ests. So  Japan  was  considerably  jarred  when  Britain  finally  stood  firm 
after  the  Tokyo  talks  failed  to  produce  the  desired  conciliation.  Japan 
also  misread  Chiang  Kai-shek's  (Djee-ahng'  Gah'ee'shehks')  Govern- 
ment in  China—thinking  that  it  was  a  semibandit  regime.  Japan  was 
astonished  to  discover  that  a  Japanese-sponsored  state  under  Wang 
Ching-wei  (Wang  Ching-wy)  wasn't  welcome.  And  Japan  had  no  idea 
of  American  disapproval  until  Washington's  treaty  denunciation  and 
Ambassador  Crew's  plain  speaking  brought  home  the  truth.  Now,  with 
Japan  slowly  awakening  to  the  facts,  Tokyo  may  be  able  to  set  its  world 
course  more  correctly. 

2.    A  Typical  News  Broadcast: 

Liverpool:  The  sinking  of  the  5,300  ton  British  freighter  BRONTE  by  a 
German  submarine  was  disclosed  today  by  the  landing  of  40  crew  mem- 
bers and  a  passenger  at  an  English  port.  The  survivors  said  that  the 
Bronte  was  torpedoed  in  the  Atlantic  several  days  ago,  but  did  not  sink 
immediately.  A  rescue  vessel  tried  unsuccessfully  to  tow  the  leaking 
vessel  into  port.  There  were  no  casualties. 

Paris:  Tribute  was  paid  today  to  the  dead  in  the  present  European 
war  at  the  annual  memorial  services  of  the  Paris  Post  of  the  American 


Before  the  Microphone  323 

Legion.  In  his  address  at  the  services,  Commander  Bernhard  Ragner  of 
the  Paris  Legion  post  said,  "This  year  our  ceremony  has  a  more  universal 
significance,  since  we  are  not  merely  thinking  of  our  own.  In  this  solemn 
moment  we  also  remember  the  youthful  soldiers,  sailors,  and  aviators 
who  during  the  present  war  have  given  their  lives  to  a  sacred  cause  and 
a  holy  principle.  Today  as  we  exalt  their  heroism,  we  are  stirred  by  their 
sacrifice,  whether  they  are  Polish,  British,  or  French."  The  services  were 
attended  by  General  Douglas  MacArthur,  former  chief  of  staff  of  the 
United  States  army,  the  Canadian  Minister,  Lieutenant  Colonel  G.  P. 
Vanicr,  and  representatives  of  several  other  countries  took  part  in  the 
Legion  services. 

Akron,  Ohio:  Admiral  Byrd's  Antarctic  snow  cruiser  was  on  its  last  lap 
across  northern  Ohio  today.  The  giant  machine  left  Akron  this  morning 
and,  if  all  goes  well,  it  is  scheduled  to  reach  Erie,  Pa.,  tonight.  The  37- 
ton  monster  set  some  kind  of  record  yesterday  when  it  traveled  the  full 
day  without  an  accident  for  the  first  time  since  it  left  Chicago  on  the 
journey  to  Boston. 

Oxford,  Ohio:  Miami  University  students  and  Oxford  City  officials 
were  at  swords'  points  today  following  a  series  of  clashes. 

The  first  incident  occurred  several  weeks  ago  when  three  students  were 
arrested  and  fined  $50  each  for  attempting  to  paint  the  freshman  class 
numerals,  '43,  on  the  city's  So-foot-high  water  tower.  Resentment  smol- 
dered among  the  students.  Then  the  corner-stone  of  the  new  town  hall 
was  stolen  from  the  front  of  the  building.  Students  were  suspected,  but 
police  could  find  no  proof. 

Things  were  quiet  until  police  /ailed  a  newsman  and  alumnus  of  the 
school  after  it  was  revealed  that  the  corner-stone  was  buried  on  a  farm 
outside  the  city.  Student  resentment  reached  a  climax  when  a  crowd 
gathered  in  the  downtown  district  and  defied  officials  and  police  while 
two  freshmen  climbed  the  top  of  the  water  tower  and  painted  the  class 
numerals.  They  threatened  to  tear  down  the  city  /ail  if  police  interfered. 
Order  was  restored  only  when  the  school  president  addressed  the  stu- 
dents and  told  them  they  were  acting  like  babies. 

Now,  Mayor  Verlin  Pulley  promises  drastic  reprisals  if  the  incidents 
are  repeated.  He  declared:— "The  situation  is  getting  serious  and  stu- 
dents are  not  going  to  run  this  town— even  if  I  have  to  call  out  the 
militia." 

3.    Commercial  "Spot"  material: 

Well,  there's  the  LAST  play  of  our  LAST  game  for  this  year/  And  now, 
here's  an  important  announcement:  Dick  Dunkel's  final  ratings  on  all 
the  ma/or  college  teams,  for  the  Atlantic  Forecast  Sheet,  will  be  posted 


324  Reading  to  Others 

by  your  neighborhood  Atlantic  Dealer  on  WEDNESDAY,  DECEMBER  SIXTH. 
So  don't  forget  the  date/  .  .  .  because  in  addition  to  the  final  team- 
ratings,  the  Atlantic  Forecast  Sheet  will  also  pick  the  probable  winners 
of  all  the  various  bowl  games/ 

And  now  we'd  like  to  say  that  this  has  been  a  great  football  season—- 
and it's  been  110  end  of  fun  to  broadcast  these  games  to  you  with  the 
compliments  of  the  Atlantic  Refining  Company  and  your  neighborhood 
Atlantic  Dealer.  Part  of  the  fun,  of  course,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  so 
MANY  people  have  listened  in  ...  and  a  LOT  OF  YOU  have  said  some 
MIGHTY  NICE  things  about  us. 

We  CAN'T  end  this  season  without  thanking  you  for  THAT  .  .  .  and 
telling  you  that  we're  NOT  going  to  forget  YOU  and  hope  YOU  won't  forget 
us  or  the  man  who  has  made  these  broadcasts  possible— and  I  mean  YOUR 
NEIGHBORHOOD  ATLANTIC  DEALER.  See  HIM  when  you  need  gasoline  or 
motor  oil  or  have  to  have  your  car  lubricated.  And,  of  course,  you  won't 
lose  anything  by  THAT,  either/  Because  Atlantic's  Famous  Three  are  de- 
signed to  help  you  get  "MORE  MILES  FOR  YOUR  MONEY!" 

4.  Excerpt  from  a  Radio  Address,  "So  Long;  So  Long!"  by 
George  Bernard  Shaw,  broadcast  from  England,  November  2,  1937: 

What  about  this  danger  of  war  which  is  making  us  all  shake  in  our 
shoes  at  present?  I  am  like  yourself:  I  have  an  intense  objection  to  hav- 
ing my  house  demolished  by  a  bomb  from  an  airplane  and  myself  killed 
in  a  horribly  painful  way  by  mustard  gas.  I  have  visions  of  streets  heaped 
with  mangled  corpses  in  which  children  wander  crying  for  their  parents 
and  babes  gasp  and  strangle  in  the  arms  of  dead  mothers. 

That  is  what  war  means  nowadays. 

This  is  what  is  happening  in  Spain  and  in  China,  while  I  speak  to  you, 
and  it  might  happen  to  us  tomorrow.  And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  it  does 
not  matter  two  straws  to  Nature,  the  mother  of  us  all,  how  dreadfully  we 
misbehave  ourselves  in  this  way  or  in  what  hideous  agonies  we  die.  Na- 
ture can  produce  children  enough  to  make  good  any  extravagance  of 
slaughter  of  which  we  are  capable.  London  may  be  destroyed,  Paris, 
Rome,  Berlin,  Vienna,  Constantinople  may  be  laid  in  smoking  ruins, 
and  the  last  shrieks  of  their  women  and  children  may  give  way  to  the 
silence  of  death.  No  matter,  Nature  will  replace  the  dead;  she  is  doing 
so  every  day.  The  new  men  will  replace  the  old  cities  and  perhaps  come 
to  the  same  miserable  end.  To  Nature  the  life  of  an  empire  is  no  more 
than  an  hour  to  you  and  me. 

Now  the  moral  of  that  is  that  we  must  not  depend  on  any  sort  of 
Divine  Providence  to  put  a  stop  to  war.  Providence  says,  "Kill  one  an- 
other, my  children;  kill  one  another  to  your  heart's  content.  There  are 
plenty  more  where  you  came  from."  Consequently,  if  we  want  the  war 


Before  the  Microphone  325 

to  stop,  we  must  all  become  conscientious  objectors.  I  dislike  war  not 
only  for  its  dangers  and  inconveniences,  but  because  of  the  loss  of  so 
many  young  men,  one  of  whom  may  be  a  Newton  or  an  Einstein,  a 
Beethoven,  Michelangelo,  a  Shakespeare,  or  even  a  Shaw.  Or  he  may 
be  what  is  of  much  more  immediate  importance,  a  good  baker  or  a  good 
weaver  or  builder.  If  you  think  of  a  pair  of  carpenters  as  a  heroic  British 
Saint  Michael  bringing  the  wrath  of  God  upon  a  German  Lucifer,  then 
you  may  exult  in  the  victory  of  St.  Michael  if  he  kills  Lucifer,  or  burn 
for  vengeance  if  his  dastardly  adversary  mows  him  down  with  a  machine 
gun  before  he  can  get  to  grips  with  him. 

From  Vital  Speeches 

5.    "Continuity"  for  a  Music  Program: 

THEME:  "SERENATA"  (39  sees— fading  behind) 

ANNCR:  Introducing  the  CONCERT  MASTER,  ladies  and  gentle- 
men, who  engages  our  attention  for  the  following  half-hour  with  his 
personal  exploration  in  the  vast  field  of  transcribed  musical  literature. 
His  medium  of  expression  ....  Ferdinand  Strack  and  his  Salon  Group 
....  Margit  Hcgedus  directing  the  Classic  Strings,  tenor  soloist,  Robert 
Royce,  and  the  Standard  Mixed  Choir. 

THEME:   (Up  15  sees— fade  behind  and  out) 

ANNCR:  The  feeling  of  Spain  is  so  faithfully  reflected  in  the  music 
of  Bizet's  opera,  "Carmen,"  and  so  unmistakable  is  the  atmosphere, 
that  its  success  is  no  matter  of  wonder.  A  delightful  extract  is  the 
ARAGONAISE. 

ARAGONAISE  (Carmen)  2:20 

ANNCR:  There  is  no  national  music  more  individual  than  that  of  the 
old  Spain.  Its  picturesque  and  romantic  character  has  given  it  world- 
wide popularity  and  it  always  finds  favor.  Robert  Royce  sings  in  Span- 
ish, NOCHES  BLANCAS. 

NOCHES  BLANCAS  3:20 

ANNCR:  Kreisler's  TAMBOURIN  CHINOIS  gives  us  a  charming 
picture  of  a  Chinese  fete.  The  fascinating  oriental  tones  present  the 
changing  colors  of  a  street  gay  with  lanterns  and  crowded  with  a  minc- 
ing, chattering  multitude. 


TAMBOURIN  CHINOIS 


3:30 


ANNCR:   At  every  point  in  Smetana's  DANCE  OF  THE  COME- 
DIANS, one  is  reminded  that  the  dance  was  father  to  the  music,  a 


326  Reading  to  Others 

dance  of  unconventional  movements  where  the  dancer  seems  to  avoid 
the  step  which  one  expected  him  to  take,  and  instead  substitutes  a  queer 
but  graceful  jerk. 

DANCE  OF  THE  COMEDIANS  3:15 

THEME:   SERENATA  (Up  15  sccs-fade) 

ANNCR:  Again  the  sparkling  gems  of  our  tuneful  CONCERT 
MASTER  have  revealed  to  us  more  of  his  artistic  personality  and  the 
ambitious  works  of  gifted  composers.  We  have  heard  the  transcribed 
efforts  of  Ferdinand  Srrack  and  his  Concert  Group. 

STANDARD  PROGRAM  LIBRARY  SERVICE 

6.    An  Educational  Program: 

THE  LITTLE  RED  SCHOOL1IOUSE  OF  THE  AIR 

Good  afternoon*  students.  The  Little  Red  Schoolhouse  is  on  the  air. 
For  those  who  may  be  new  to  the  Little  Red  Schoolhouse  may  we  say 
that  the  Schoolmaster  holds  weekly  sessions  at  this  hour  for  anyone  who 
likes  to  play  with  words,  and,  at  the  same  time,  wants  to  develop  power 
in  using  them.  Stanley  Baldwin  once  said,  "No  small  part  of  education 
lies  in  learning  the  right  use  of  words,  in  tracing  their  birth  and  be- 
havior, in  fitting  them  closely  to  facts  and  ideas."  We  all  use  words 
every  day  of  our  lives.  To  increase  OUT  general  knowledge  of  words,  to 
become  more  skilful  in  their  use,  to  learn  more  of  the  histories  of  words 
— these  are  all  things  of  interest  to  us  in  the  Little  Red  Schoolhouse  of 
the  Air  .  .  . 

Let's  get  on  with  our  combined  vocabulary  and  spelling  bcc.  I  shall 
read  a  few  sentences  or  phrases  taken  from  the  morning  newspaper  and 
identify  a  word  in  each.  After  each  sentence  or  phrase,  I  shall  read  five 
words,  and  you  are  to  select  the  one  that  comes  closest  in  meaning  to 
the  word  I  have  identified.  After  that  we  shall  spell  the  word.  Are  you 
ready? 

(1)  The  first  sentence  comes  from  the  editorial  page:  "Even  during 
the  Spanish  days  there  had  been  a  kind  of  madness  in  that  pellucid  air/' 
The  word  I  want  to  know  the  meaning  of  is  PELLUCID.  Does  it  mean  one 
of  the  following,  and  if  so  which  one:  transparent,  cold,  hot,  damp,  or 
opaque?  (Pause)  PELLUCID  is  synonymous  with  TRANSPARENT.  Now  can 
you  spell  PELLUCID?  Try  it.  (Pause)  The  correct  spelling  is  p-e-1-l-u-c-i-d. 

(2)  The  next  sentence  comes  from  a  news  story  of  the  sea:  "The  pas- 
sengers, generally  voluble,  had  been  requested  not  to  discuss  the  details 
of  the  trip  with  anyone/'    The  word  I  am  seeking  the  meaning  of  is 
VOLUBLE.    Does  it  mean:  taciturn,  joyous,  seasick,  talkative,  or  quiet? 
(Pause)  TALKATIVE  is  the  answer.  And  now,  how  do  you  spell  VOLUBLE? 
(Pause)  V-oJ-u-b-1-e  is  the  correct  spelling. 


Before  the  Microphone  327 

(3)  Our  third  question  comes  from  a  critic's  report  on  a  new  musical 
comedy.  From  it  we  take  this  sentence:  "The  action  seems  hardly  in 
accord  with  the  natural  proclivities  of  co-eds  in  college/'  What  does  the 
word  PROCLIVITIES  mean?  Is  it:  inclinations,  studiousness,  waywardness, 
modesty,  or  good  times?  (Pause)  The  correct  answer  is  INCLINATIONS. 
Can  you  spell  PROCLIVITIES  for  me?  Try  it.  (Pause)  P-r-o-c-l-i-v-i-t-i-e-s  is 
the  correct  spelling.  Did  you  get  all  the  fs  in? 

Now  we  shall  have  some  pronunciations  of  personal  and  place  names 
current  in  the  day's  news.  The  pronunciations  of  these  names  have  just 
been  passed  upon  by  the  editors  of  Webster's  New  International  Dic- 
tionary, Second  Edition.  It  is  difficult  to  give  more  than  a  close  approxi- 
mation of  these  names  without  full  explanation  of  pronunciation  sym- 
bols; however,  I  shall  do  my  best. 

The  first  name  today  is  that  of  the  commander  in  chief  of  the  Allied 
forces.  He  is  very  much  in  the  news  these  days  and  his  name  is  MAURICE 
GUSTAVE  GAMELIN  fmoh-rees'  gus-tavv'  gamm-Iann').  Let's  jump  from  the 
Allied  side  to  the  German  side  with  the  name  of  Germany's  foreign  min- 
ister. He,  too,  is  very  prominent  in  the  day's  news  and  his  name  is 
JOACHIM  VON  RIBBENTROP  (yoh'ah-icimm  fawn  ribb'entrawp).  Getting 
away  from  foreign  affairs  for  a  minute,  we  have  the  name  of  a  noted  Amer- 
ican designer.  You  will  remember  that  he  is  responsible  for  many  of  the 
outstanding  exhibits  at  the  World's  Fair.  The  name  is  that  of  NORMAN 
BEL  GEDDES  (ged'dies— rhymes  with  EDDIES).  From  a  designer  to  a  superb 
concert  artist  and  director  is  the  next  step.  I  am  sure  you  are  all  familiar 
with  the  name;  it  is  JOSE  ITURBI  (hoh-say'  ee-toor'bee).  The  last  name  we 
have  today  is  that  of  the  Soviet  ambassador  to  the  United  States,  CON- 
STANTINE  OUMANSKY  (kunn-stun-tyecn'  oo-mun-skee'). 

7.  A  Typical  Radio  Play:  excerpt  from  "The  Man  without  a 
Country" 

ANNCR:  To-day's  classic  is  "The  Man  Without  a  Country/'  which 
might  have  been  called  a  Story  without  an  Author  when  it  appeared, 
unsigned,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  seventy-four  years  ago.  This  story  was 
so  realistic  in  treatment  that  many  people  even  today  believe  that  its 
hero,  Philip  Nolan,  actually  lived  and  suffered  his  strange  fate.  Edward 
Everett  Hale  would  have  become  famous  for  this  one  story  even  if  he 
had  not  written  sixty  other  books  besides.  It  was  directly  inspired  by  the 
oft-recounted  tale  of  his  great  uncle's  patriotism,  which  he  never  tired  of 
hearing  as  a  child.  You,  too,  have  often  heard  that  story.  In  the  chill 
of  a  grey  September  morning  a  young  American  officer  still  wearing  the 
disguise  in  which  he  was  captured  faces  a  British  firing  squad  .  .  . 

SOUND:  (DRUMS  BEATING  A  HEAVY  FUNERAL-LIKE 
SOUND) 


328  Reading  to  Others 

BRITISH  OFFICER:  I  regret  my  duty,  sir.  But  you  knew  the  con- 
sequences when  you  came  into  our  lines  disguised/ 

HALE  (firmly);  I  knew  them  well.   I  was  prepared  for  them. 

BRITISH  OFFICER:  Have  you  any  last  request? 

HALE;  I  would  ask  that  these  letters  to  my  mother  and  my  sweet- 
heart should  be  sent  to  them. 

BRITISH  OFFICER:  I'm  sorry.  They  might  be  in  code. 

SOUND:   (TEARING  PAPER) 

HALE:  I  am  a  Captain  in  Knowlton's  Rangers;  I  claim  an  officer's 
privilege  of  dying  like  a  soldier/ 

BRITISH  OFFICER;  A  rifle  squad  is  too  good  for  traitors/ 

ANOTHER  OFFICER;  Fling  a  rope  over  that  tree  limb/ 

OTHERS:  (MURMUR  OF  ASSENT) 

BRITISH  OFFICER:  If  you  have  anything  more  to  say,  say  it 
quickly/ 

HALE  (ringing  voice);  I  only  regret  that  I  have  but  one  life  to  lose 
for  my  country/ 

SOUND:   (DRUM  ROLL.   PROLONG.  FADE) 

ANNCR:  And  so  died  Nathan  Hale,  martyr  to  his  love  of  country, 
patriot  of  deathless  fame/  And  little  Edward  Everett  Hale,  his  great 
nephew,  listened  to  the  story  and  dreamed  of  doing  something  great  for 
his  country  some  day.  The  same  patriotism  that  led  the  uncle  to  his 
death  burned  in  the  heart  of  the  nephew  when  he  wrote  the  story  we 
bring  you  today,  "The  Man  Without  a  Country." 

MUSIC:  "My  Country  'Tis  of  Thee"  (FEW  BARS  AND  THEN 
UNDER) 

ANNCR;  Philip  Nolan  was  as  fine  a  young  officer  as  you  could  find 
in  the  United  States  army  when  he  first  met  Aaron  Burr.  But  the  dash- 
ing, romantic  Burr  confided  to  him  his  dream  of  founding  an  empire  in 
the  Mississippi  Valley  with  himself  as  King,  and  the  impressionable  boy 
threw  his  lot  in  with  him,  body  and  soul.  The  crumbling  of  that  fan- 
tastic adventure  brought  Burr  to  trial  on  the  charge  of  treason,  and 
Philip  Nolan  before  a  court  martial  as  a  conspirator.  And  now  the  trial 
is  almost  over,  and  Colonel  Morgan,  holding  the  court,  calls  on  the 
prisoner  to  stand. 

SOUND;  (RAPPING) 

MORGAN;  Philip  Nolan— you  have  been  found  guilty  of  treason  to 
the  United  States.  Have  you  anything  to  say  to  show  that  you  have  been 
faithful  to  the  United  States? 

NOLAN  (frenziedly);  Curse  the  United  States/  I'm  sick  of  having 
that  name  dinned  into  my  ears/ 

CROWD;  (OFF  MIKE  MURMUR  OF  SHOCKED  VOICES) 
Shocking/  Terrible/ 


Before  the  Microphone  329 

MORGAN:  You  don't  mean  that. 

NOLAN  (still  hysterical):  J  do/  I  wish  that  I  might  never  hear  of  the 
United  States  again/ 

CROWD:  (MURMUR  OF  SHOCKED  VOICES  AD  LIB)  What? 
Terrible/  Shocking/ 

MAN'S  VOICE:   (AWAY)  Treason/   Treason/ 

SOUND:   (RAPPING) 

MORGAN:  Order  in  the  court.  (SILENCE)  Mr.  Nolan,  the  United 
States  has  fed  you  for  all  the  years  you  have  been  in  her  army.  The 
United  States  gave  you  the  uniform  you  wear — the  sword  at  your  side. 
And  you  curse  your  country/  Then  this  shall  be  your  sentence/  The 
court  decided,  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  President,  that  you  never 
hear  the  name  of  the  United  States  again/ 

NOLAN  (laughing  hysterically):   What  kind  of  joke  is  this? 

SOUND:   (RAPPING.  LAUGHING  SUBSIDES) 

MORGAN:  Mr.  Marshal,  take  the  prisoner  to  Orleans  in  an  armed 
boat  and  deliver  him  to  the  naval  Commander  there  to  be  put  on  a  gov- 
ernment boat  bound  on  a  long  cruise.  Request  the  commander  to  order 
that  no  one  shall  mention  the  United  States  in  his  hearing  while  he  is 
on  board  ship.  The  court  is  adjourned  without  delay. 

UNITED  STATES  DEPARTMENT  OF  THE  INTERIOR,  OFFICE 
OF  EDUCATION,  EDUCATIONAL  RADIO  SCRIPT  EXCHANGE1 

8.    A  Red  Cross  Radio  Play:  "Why  She  Didn't  Go  to  the  Dance" 

ANNCR:  As  we  look  into  the  Bartlett  home  on  a  Saturday  morning 
we  see  Marian  Bartlett  going  to  the  door  to  welcome  her  friend  Dorothy 
Brown. 

DOROTHY:  Well,  for  Heaven's  sake,  will  you  tell  me  why  you  didn't 
go  to  the  dance  at  Riverside  Tavern  last  night?  We  had  the  swellest 
time  we  have  had  this  year.  Bob  was  there  alone,  but  he  left  before  I 
had  a  chance  to  ask  him  about  you.  Didn't  you  expect  to  go  with  him? 

MARIAN:  Yes,  but  I  went  to  the  Red  Cross  chapter  house,  to  the 
class  in  Home  Hygiene  and  Care  of  the  Sick. 

DOROTHY:  Babe  Hunt  did  too,  but  she  was  at  the  dance.  She  wore 
her  formal  to  the  class— kept  her  coat  on,  I  guess,  or  maybe  she  put  on 
an  apron  while  she  was  there.  Gladys  went  home  after  class  and  changed 
there,  and  she  was  at  the  Tavern  in  time  for  the  dance. 

MARIAN:  That's  what  I  meant  to  do.  But  you  see  when  I  got  home 
I  found  work  to  do  and  I  forgot  the  dance;  I  forgot  to  telephone  Bob, 

1  This  script  remains  the  property  of  the  Government  and  must  not  he  sponsored 
commercially.  The  Educational  Script  Exchange  has  more  than  500  scripts  which  are 
available  to  educational  broadcasters.  Send  to  the  Office  of  Education,  Department 
of  the  Interior,  Washington,  D.  C. 


330  Reading  to  Others 

too,  and  I  guess  he's  mad;  but  I  think  he'll  understand  when  he  hears 
the  story. 

DOROTHY:  For  pity's  sake,  fell  me  what  the  story  is! 

MARIAN:  Well,  you  know  the  Harris  family  that  lives  next  door  to 
us?  She  has  such  lovely  roses,  you  know.  Well,  it  seems  that  yesterday 
she  was  spraying  them  with  nicotine.  She  knew  of  course  that  the  spray 
was  poisonous,  and  to  make  it  safe  for  the  children  she  put  the  bottle  in 
a  room  in  the  basement  where  the  children  never  go. 

But  Mr.  Harris  took  last  night  of  all  times  to  make  a  play  pen  for  the 
baby,  and  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  he  took  her  to  the  basement.  The 
door  of  the  room  in  which  the  deadly  insecticide  had  been  put  was  open. 
The  child  toddled  in  there,  got  the  bottle,  and  took  some  of  the  poison. 
Just  too  late  the  father  saw  the  bottle  in  her  hand  and  knew  what  she 
had  done. 

Just  as  I  got  home  from  class  little  Jimmy  Harris  came  over  screaming 
for  Mother.  She  wasn't  there,  and  she  wouldn't  have  known  what  to  do 
if  she  had  been,  except  to  telephone  for  the  doctor,  which  the  Harrises 
had  already  done.  I  saw  it  was  up  to  me  to  do  what  I  could  before  the 
doctor  came,  when  it  might  be  too  late  to  do  any  good. 

I  can't  tell  you  how  I  felt.  I  didn't  know  how  much  poison  had  been 
taken,  or  how  long  ago  it  was.  But  this  I  did  know,  that  my  first  aid 
and  home  hygiene  training  had  to  help  me  if  anything  could,  and  with 
a  prayer  on  my  lips  and  faith  in  my  heart  I  didn't  run  but  literally  flew 
over  the  ground  between  the  two  houses. 

The  child  was  in  her  uncle's  arms.  He  had  once  been  a  life  saver,  and 
he  had  enough  presence  of  mind  to  put  his  finger  down  the  child's  throat 
to  induce  vomiting.  But  his  knowledge  ended  there,  and  when  he  saw 
that  the  baby  was  drowsy  he  began  patting  her  back  to  lull  her  to  sleep. 

You  know  what  Miss  Crowder  told  us  about  that,  with  poison  vic- 
tims/ I  told  him  it  was  the  wrong  thing  to  do,  and  asked  for  milk  and 
eggs.  I  whipped  up  the  whites  of  the  eggs  into  the  milk  and  asked  some- 
one to  put  on  more  milk  to  warm  if  it  was  needed  later.  Then  I  forced 
the  milk  and  egg  down  the  child's  throat,  using  a  tablespoon  so  she 
wouldn't  strangle.  It  meant  putting  my  fingers  between  her  teeth  to  pry 
her  mouth  open,  and  the  child  fought  me  off.  But  I  knew  I  had  to  keep 
on  with  the  treatment  and  I  did,  until  the  return  flow  from  her  mouth 
was  the  same  color  as  the  milk  and  eggs  when  I  gave  them  to  her. 

So  far,  so  good;  but  then  the  child  began  to  close  her  eyes  and  was 
ready  to  doze  off.  I  recognized  this  as  a  symptom  of  drug  poisoning,  and 
I  knew  sleep  was  the  last  thing  she  ought  to  have.  I  interrupted  the 
father's  soothing  talk  to  the  child  and  told  him  what  Miss  Crowder  said 
about  poisoning.  I  told  him  he  had  to  fight  for  the  baby's  life  now  if  he 


Before  the  Microphone  331 

never  fought  before.  I  knew  she  would  die  if  we  let  her  sleep  before  her 
stomach  was  entirely  free  of  the  poison. 

I  wonder  now  that  the  family  listened  to  me;  but  they  seemed  to  feel 
that  I  knew  what  I  was  talking  about— blessings  on  Miss  Crowder  for 
the  care  she  took  with  the  lesson  on  poisons,  and  between  us  we  kept 
the  baby  awake  until  the  doctor  came. 

When  he  did  get  there,  I  told  him  of  the  antidote  I  had  used  and  also 
told  him  I  had  some  warm  milk  waiting  if  he  needed  it.  And  never  in 
my  life  will  I  forget  when  he  said,  'That  is  very  fine;  you  couldn't  have 
done  better.  She  looks  all  right  now,  but  just  to  play  safe  we'll  wash  out 
her  stomach  and  be  sure  it  is  empty  of  poison.  Will  you  help  me?" 

Would  I  help?  And  was  I  proud  when  he  said  after  I  had  made  some 
comment  on  the  child's  appearance,  "You  are  to  be  commended  for 
your  quick  observation." 

I  was  not  surprised  that  the  return  flow  from  her  stomach  was  the 
color  of  the  warm  milk  she  had  taken,  because  even  before  the  doctor 
came  her  pulse  had  become  more  nearly  normal,  and  the  color  was 
coming  back  into  her  cheeks.  The  doctor  gave  an  injection  of  castor  oil 
right  after  the  warm  treatment,  and  then  he  left.  Just  before  he  left 
he  said,  "She  can  go  to  sleep  now,  because  she  is  out  of  danger.  But  it 
would  probably  have  meant  death  if  she  had  been  allowed  to  fall  asleep 
at  the  beginning." 

By  this  time  Mother  came,  and  she  gave  her  own  kind  of  first  aid. 
She  made  coffee  and  toast  for  us  all,  and  as  we  ate  and  drank,  with  the 
baby  safe  and  quiet  again,  fright  gradually  left  the  family  and  I  could 
feel  their  nerves  relaxing. 

I  went  over  again  this  morning— after  calling  up  Miss  Crowder  to  be 
sure  what  to  look  for  today.  And  maybe  I  wasn't  glad  to  find  her  all 
right  again. 

DOROTHY:  You  deserve  your  certificate  all  right,  when  it  comes. 
Three  cheers  for  Home  Hygiene  and  Care  of  the  Sick/  I'm  proud  of  the 
class,  and  I  only  hope  I  could  have  done  half  as  well  if  the  crisis  had 
come  to  me. 

But  just  the  same,  I'm  sorry  you  missed  the  trip  to  Riverside.  The 
moonlight  was  simply  divine  when  we  drove  back  along  the  river  after 
the  dance. 

MARIAN:  It  was  divine  when  I  came  back  from  the  Harrises,  too. 
And  do  you  know,  I  believe  I  enjoyed  it  just  a  little  bit  more  than  I 
ever  did  before  because  I  remembered  that  little  Betty  Harris  was  alive 
to  see  it  too,  and  to  grow  up  to  go  to  dances  at  Riverside  Tavern. 

RADIO  SCRIPT  EXCHANGE,  PUBLIC  INFORMATION  SERVICE, 
AMERICAN  RED  CROSS,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


Reading  to  Others 

9.    Radio  Play:   from  "The  Fall  of  the  City,"  by  Archibald 
MacLeish 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  STUDIO  DIRECTOR   (orotund  and 

professional) 
Ladies  and  gentlemen: 
This  broadcast  conies  to  you  from  the  city 
Listeners  over  the  curving  air  have  heard 
From  furthest-off  frontiers  of  foreign  hours- 
Mountain  Time:  Ocean  Time:  of  the  islands: 
Of  waters  after  the  islands— some  of  them  waking 
Where  noon  here  is  the  night  there:  some 
Where  noon  is  the  first  few  stars  they  see  or  the  last  one. 

For  three  days  the  world  has  watched  this  city— 

Not  for  the  common  occasions  of  brutal  crime 

Or  the  usual  violence  of  one  sort  or  another 

Or  coronations  of  kings  or  popular  festivals: 

No:  for  stranger  and  disturbing  reasons— 

The  resurrection  from  death  and  the  tomb  of  a  dead  woman. 

Each  day  for  three  days  there  has  come 

To  the  door  of  her  tomb  at  noon  a  woman  buried/ 

The  terror  that  stands  at  the  shoulder  of  our  time 

Touches  the  cheek  with  this:  the  flesh  winces. 

There  have  been  other  omens  in  other  cities 

But  never  of  this  sort  and  never  so  credible. 

In  a  time  like  ours  seemings  and  portents  signify. 

Ours  is  a  generation  when  dogs  howl  and  the 

Skin  crawls  on  the  skull  with  its  beast's  foreboding. 

All  men  now  alive  with  us  have  feared. 

We  have  smelled  the  wind  in  the  street  that  changes  weather. 

We  have  seen  the  familiar  room  grow  unfamiliar: 

The  order  of  numbers  alter:  the  expectation 

Cheat  the  expectant  eye.  The  appearance  defaults  with  us. 

Here  in  this  city  the  wall  of  the  time  cracks. 

We  take  you  now  to  the  great  square  of  this  city  .  .  . 

(The  shuffle  and  hum  of  a  vast  patient  crowd  gradually  rises;  swells:  fills 
the  background.) 


Before  the  Microphone  333 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  ANNOUNCER  (matter-of-fact) 
We  are  here  on  the  central  plaza. 
We  are  well  off  to  the  eastward  edge. 
There  is  a  kind  of  terrace  over  the  crowd  here. 
It  is  precisely  four  minutes  to  twelve. 
The  crowd  is  enormous:  there  might  be  ten  thousand: 
There  might  be  more:  the  whole  square  is  faces. 
Opposite  over  the  roofs  are  the  mountains. 
It  is  quite  clear:  there  are  birds  circling. 
We  think  they  are  kites  by  the  look:  they  are  very  high  .  .  . 

The  tomb  is  off  to  the  right  somewhere— 
We  can't  see  it  for  the  great  crowd. 
Close  to  us  here  are  the  cabinet  ministers: 
They  stand  on  a  raised  platform  with  awnings. 
The  farmers'  wives  are  squatting  on  the  stones: 
Their  children  have  fallen  asleep  on  their  shoulders. 
The  heat  is  harsh:  the  light  dazzles  like  metal. 
It  dazes  the  air  as  the  clang  of  a  gong  does  .  .  . 

News  travels  in  this  nation: 
There  are  people  here  from  away  off— 
Horse-raisers  out  of  the  country  with  brooks  in  it: 
Herders  of  cattle  from  up  where  the  snow  stays— 
The  kind  that  cook  for  themselves  mostly: 
They  look  at  the  girls  with  their  eyes  hard 
And  a  hard  grin  and  their  teeth  showing  .  .  . 

It  is  one  minute  to  twelve  now: 
There  is  still  no  sign:  they  are  still  waiting: 
No  one  doubts  that  she  will  come: 
No  one  doubts  that  she  will  speak  too; 
Three  times  she  has  not  spoken. 

(The  murmur  of  the  crowd  changes— not  louder  but  more  intense: 
higher.) 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  ANNOUNCER  (low  but  with  increas- 
ing excitement) 

Now  it  is  twelve:  now  they  are  rising: 
Now  the  whole  plaza  is  rising: 
Fathers  are  lifting  their  small  children: 
The  plumed  fans  on  the  platform  are  motionless  .  .  . 


334  Reading  to  Others 

There  is  no  sound  but  the  shuffle  of  shoe  leather  .  .  . 

Now  even  the  shoes  are  still  .  .  . 

We  can  hear  the  hawks:  it  is  quiet  as  that  now  .  .  . 

It  is  strange  to  see  such  throngs  so  silent  .  .  . 
Nothing  yet:  nothing  has  happened  .  .  . 

Wait/  There's  a  stir  here  to  the  right  of  us: 
They're  turning  their  heads:  the  crowd  turns: 
The  cabinet  ministers  lean  from  their  balcony: 
There's  no  sound:  only  the  turning  .  .  . 

(A  woman's  voice  comes  over  the  silence  of  the  crowd:  it  is  a  weak  voice 
but  penetrating:  it  speaks  slowly  and  as  though  with  difficult)'.) 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  DEAD  WOMAN 
First  the  waters  rose  with  no  wind  .  .  . 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  ANNOUNCER  (whispering) 
Listen:  that  is  she/  She's  speaking/ 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  DEAD  WOMAN 
Then  the  stones  of  the  temple  kindled 
Without  flame  or  tinder  of  maize-leaves  .  .  . 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  ANNOUNCER  (whispering) 
They  see  her  beyond  us;  the  crowd  sees  her  .  .  . 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  DEAD  WOMAN 
Then  there  were  cries  in  the  night  haze: 
Words  in  a  once-heard  tongue:  the  air 
Rustling  above  us  as  at  dawn  with  herons. 

Now  it  is  I  who  must  bring  fear: 
I  who  am  four  days  dead:  the  tears 
Still  unshed  for  me— all  of  them:  I 
For  whom  a  child  still  calls  at  nightfall. 

Death  is  young  in  me  to  fear/ 

My  dress  is  kept  still  in  the  press  in  my  bedchamber: 

No  one  has  broken  the  dish  of  the  dead  woman. 


Before  the  Microphone  335 

Nevertheless  I  must  speak  painfully: 
I  am  to  stand  here  in  the  sun  and  speak: 

(There  is  a  pause.  Then  her  voice  comes  again  loud,  mechanical,  speak- 
ing as  by  rote.) 

The  city  of  masterless  men 
Will  take  a  master. 
There  will  be  shouting  then: 
Blood  after/ 

(The  crowd  stirs.  Her  voice  goes  on  weak  and  slow  as  before.) 

Do  not  ask  what  it  means:  I  do  not  know: 
Only  sorrow  and  no  hope  for  it. 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  ANNOUNCER 

She  has  gone  .  .  .  No,  they  are  still  looking. 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  DEAD  WOMAN 
It  is  hard  to  return  from  the  time  past.  I  have  come 
In  the  dream  we  must  learn  to  dream  where  the  crumbling  of 
Time  like  the  ash  from  a  burnt  string  has 
Stopped  for  me.  For  you  the  thread  still  burns: 
You  take  the  feathery  ash  upon  your  fingers. 
You  bring  yourselves  from  the  time  past  as  it  pleases  you. 
It  is  hard  to  return  to  the  old  nearness  .  .  . 

Harder  to  go  again  .  .  . 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  ANNOUNCER 

She  is  gone. 

We  know  because  the  crowd  is  closing. 
All  we  can  see  is  the  crowd  closing. 
We  hear  the  releasing  of  held  breath— 
The  weight  shifting:  the  lifting  of  shoe  leather. 
The  stillness  is  broken  as  surface  of  water  is  broken—- 
The sound  circling  from  in  outward. 

(The  murmur  of  the  crowd  rises.) 

Small  wonder  they  feel  fear. 

Before  the  murders  of  the  famous  kings— 


336  Reading  to  Others 

Before  imperial  cities  burned  and  fell— 

The  dead  were  said  to  show  themselves  and  speak. 

When  dead  men  came  disaster  came.  Presentiments 

That  let  the  living  on  their  beds  sleep  on 

Woke  dead  men  out  of  death  and  gave  them  voices. 

All  ancient  men  in  every  nation  knew  this. 

10.    The  Announcer's  Test: 

Some  aspirants  regard  an  announcer's  audition  as  a  chance  for  a  coup; 
others  with  all  the  apparent  symptoms  of  the  ague.  However  formidable 
it  may  appear  to  be,  it  is  best  to  enter  into  it  with  all  the  savoir  faire  at 
your  command;  much  as  an  Irishman  enters  a  melce—to  be  en/oyed,  win 
or  lose.  A  bona  fide  announcer  will  do  the  best  he  can  with  words  he 
doesn't  know,  and  will  try  sincerely,  even  though  he  misses. 

The  comptroller  of  currency  in  any  radio  station  hears  many  things 
about  announcers  which  are  refutable;  but  a  man's  status  as  an  an- 
nouncer is  never  improved  by  a  listener's  vagary,  and  often  a  machina- 
tion, if  repeated  ad  infinitum,  will  ricochet  until  it  results  in  the  final 
ultimatum  for  the  announcer. 

Confidence,  with  the  paprika  of  energy  added,  is  one  of  the  surest 
ways  to  avoid  being  impotent  in  this  profession.  Here,  too,  caution  must 
be  used,  since  in  the  sacerdotalism  of  announcing,  co-workers  are  prone 
to  immerse  an  egotistic  neophyte  in  the  natatorium  of  ridicule.  To  avoid 
being  embroiled  in  any  such  imbroglio,  the  newcomer  should  be  made 
to  revere  those  who  have  precedence  over  him,  and  who  regard  (name 
of  local  station)  as  their  alma  mater  and  sanctuary. 

En  route  to  this  estimable  estate,  via  long  hours  and  probably  medio- 
cre menus,  the  embryonic  announcer  must  have  inherent  strength  in  his 
abdomen,  viz.,  in  order  to  cope  with  such  men  as  Bizet,  Paderewski, 
Benes,  Mussolini,  Petain,  Lenin,  Saint  Saens  and  Roosevelt;  with  such 
things  as  lingerie,  eggs,  programs,  carnivora,  news  and  exigencies. 

Even  in  closing,  not  to  jest,  it's  time  to  say  this  /oust  has  just  been 
marked  "finis." 


CHAPTER    12 


InCh 


orus 


DURING  the  past  few  years  a  form 
of  group  reading,  called  verse  speaking,  or  choral  reading,  has 
become  very  popular  both  in  this  country  and  in  England.  It  is 
the  recitation  of  poetry,  in  different  arrangements  for  combina- 
tions of  voices,  by  a  choir  or  chorus.  To  those  taking  part  it  is 
a  novel  and  delightful  sharing  of  the  pleasures  of  reading  aloud. 
To  an  audience  it  may  bring  the  enlightenment  and  enjoyment  of 
skilful  interpretation.  Everywhere  choruses  have  sprung  up,  giv- 
ing many  public  performances,  taking  poetry  to  people  who  have 
never  before  understood  or  liked  it.  In  some  schools  and  colleges 
these  choruses,  beautifully  robed  and  expertly  drilled,  rival  the 
dramatic  and  glee  clubs  in  popularity. 

Verse  speaking  is  not  actually  a  new  method.  Reciting  in  unison 
has  always  been  done  by  groups,  as  in  the  choruses  of  the  Greek 
plays  and  the  lefrains  of  the  minstrels.  Responsive  reading  and 
antiphonal  chanting  in  churches  are  forms  of  choral  speaking.  So 
are  such  things  as  the  "pledges  of  allegiance"  to  the  flag  and 
group  repetition  of  oaths  and  prayers.  Sometimes  these  demon- 
strations of  group  participation  are  effective,  but  usually  only 
when  the  group  is  well  trained,  as  in  the  beautiful  antiphonal 
chanting  between  the  priest  and  choir  during  high  mass  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  church.  More  often  the  reading  is  slovenly  and 
dreary,  dragging  out  in  unconquerable  inertias.  One  of  the  most 
depressing  of  sounds  is  the  repetition  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  by  a 
large  congregation. 

3*7 


338  Reading  to  Others 

VIRTUES    AND    DANGERS    OF    CHORAL 
READING 

The  virtues  of  verse  speaking  are  many.  It  is  excellent  for  the 
timid  speaker,  allowing  him  to  gain  confidence  along  with  experi- 
ence by  making  him  one  of  a  group.  It  is  a  splendid  approach  to 
the  problem  of  stage  fright.  It  is  an  effective  way  of  learning 
phrasing  and  rhythm  through  practice  in  control  of  breath  and 
voice.  It  may  be  used  for  exercises  in  overcoming  speech  diffi- 
culties. Verse  speaking  is  an  all-around  good  way  for  children— 
and  adults—to  learn  to  read.  It  has  been  found  useful  in  helping 
foreigners  learn  English.  It  should  add  to  the  participants'  pleasure 
in  reading  and  direct  them  to  good  literature,  establishing  habits 
of  intelligent  criticism  and  appreciation. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  some  disadvantages  in  verse  speak- 
ing. The  worst  is  its  heedless  practice  by  uninformed  or  insensi- 
tive teachers  who  simply  encourage  monotony  and  affectation. 
Another  is  false  emphasis  on  the  end  of  public  performance.  Still 
another  might  be  the  sinking  of  the  individual  in  the  group.  In 
a  great  many  choruses  the  directors  have  taken  the  easy  way  of 
beating  out  metrical  rhythms,  ignoring  proper  phrasing  and  cen- 
tering, and  hurrying  everything  along  at  a  relentless  pace  which 
destroys  both  the  thought  and  any  possible  emotional  connota- 
tions. The  use  of  the  chorus  as  merely  another  medium  for  public 
display  is  unfortunate.  A  well-trained  chorus  is  interesting  and 
attractive  to  an  audience,  but  perhaps  less  so  than  many  zealous 
directors  believe.  The  infliction  of  youthful,  hasty,  unvarying  in- 
terpretation on  audiences  is  very  painful,  and  its  damage  to  the 
cause  of  good  reading  is  great. 

BENEFITS  TO  BE  GAINED  FROM  VERSE  SPEAKING.  The  greatest  val- 
ues in  verse  speaking  lie  in  the  group  participation  of  individuals. 
Practice  in  verse  speaking  should  be  an  end  in  itself.  Of  course,  the 
answer  to  the  objection  that  the  individual  is  lost  in  the  group  is 
that  he  gains  in  confidence  and  understanding  by  the  stimulus 
of  group  activity.  There  is,  moreover,  plenty  of  opportunity  for 
solo  work  in  the  many  different  kinds  of  arrangements. 

Imagination,  range,  flexibility  of  voice  and  body,  and  apprecia- 
tion are  the  ends  to  be  sought  in  the  study  of  verse  speaking,  not 
opportunities  for  willowy  young  ladies  in  semi-Greek  costumes 
to  pose  on  staircases,  The  student  should  keep  in  mind  that  choral 


hi  Chorus  339 

speaking  is  most  valuable  as  a  method  rather  than  as  an  art  in 
itself.  Marjorie  Gullan,  who  has  done  more  than  anyone  else  to 
promote  choral  speaking,  believes  that  the  first  purpose  of  a 
speech  choir  is  "cultural"  with  social  and  psychological  purposes 
in  secondary  place.  She  says,  "Choirs  are  concerned  not  only  with 
the  study  and  appreciation  of  poetry  by  means  of  speaking  it 
(though  that  is  the  chief  aim),  but  necessarily  also  with  the  achieve- 
ment of  such  technique  of  speech  and  voice  as  shall  do  justice  to 
the  words  spoken."1  Some  of  her  followers,  unfortunately,  have 
tended  to  overstress  the  "cultural"  aims,  neglecting  the  value  of 
verse  speaking  as  a  method  in  interpretation  and  as  a  speech 
exercise. 

The  choral  reading  suggested  here  is  intended  mainly  as  an  aid 
to  the  student  in  mastering  the  problems  of  interpretation.  It  is 
possible  that  he  can  learn  to  apply  the  conditions  of  good  reading 
quickly  and  pleasantly,  by  working  with  a  group,  improving  in 
enunciation,  voice,  quality,  sense  of  timing,  and  appreciation.  If 
so,  these  instructions  are  justified.  There  is  a  danger,  however,  of 
spending  too  much  time  in  group  reading  and  not  enough  in 
individual  drill. 

ORGANIZATION    OF    A    VERSE-SPEAKING    CHORUS 

It  is  better  at  the  outset  not  to  divide  the  group  into  parts  but 
to  practice  simple  unison  work.  The  director  or  teacher  must  first 
make  verse  speaking  interesting  and  attractive  to  the  group,  or 
they  will  respond  with  lackadaisical  repetition  of  lines.  Leading 
a  chorus  requires  a  tremendous  amount  of  energy  since,  for  some 
reason,  the  average  reader's  inclination  to  be  cautious  and  a  little 
melancholy  seems  to  be  magnified  in  a  group.  The  result  is  that 
worst  defect  of  verse  speaking,  a  dreary,  unvaried  pattern.  By  a 
combination  of  good-natured  teasing,  cajolery,  and  some  of  the 
tactics  of  a  lively  cheer-leader  the  director  has  to  whip  a  chorus 
into  shape.  The  most  efficient  number  for  a  chorus  is  about  fif- 
teen; twenty  are  too  many;  ten  are  too  few. 

Begin  with  nursery  rhymes  which  are  familiar  to  everybody,  so 
that  the  whole  group  can  watch  the  leader  without  the  distrac- 
tion of  manuscripts.  The  entire  group  must  freely  enter  into  the 
recitation,  following  closely  the  commands  of  the  director,  who 
arranges  simple  hand-signals  for  starting  and  stopping,  speeding 

1  Gullan,  Marjorie,  The  Speech  Choir,  Harper,  1937,  p.  9. 


340  Reading  to  Others 

and  slowing  the  tempo.  There  should  be  variation  of  pitch  within 
the  phrase,  but  the  tempo  must  be  the  same  for  everybody.  Watch 
closely  for  opportunities  to  improve  the  phrasing.  Too  many 
short  phrases  are  choppy,  but  the  quantity  of  sounds  within  words 
must  not  be  sacrificed  to  produce  long  phrases.  For  example,  in 
"Old  Mother  Hubbard"  the  phrases  are  very  obvious: 

OJd  Mother  Hubbard  went  to  the  cupboard  | 
To  get  her  poor  dog  a  bone  1  1 

When  she  got  there 

The  cupboard  was  bare  || 
And  so  the  poor  dog  had  none  1  1 

The  second  phrase  might  possibly  be  added  to  the  first  to  avoid 
jingling;  then  the  word  "cupboard"  must  not  be  hurried.  Notice 
what  an  improvement  you  can  make  in  interpretation  by  center- 
ing on  both  "poor"  and  "dog"  in  line  2,  rather  than  on  "dog" 
alone,  and  on  "got"  in  line  3,  rather  than  on  "there."  Try  not  to 
bring  out  the  rhymes. 

Now  try  other  simple  poems  in  unison,  such  as  "Hickory-Dick- 
ory-Dock,"  "Little  Boy  Blue,"  "Little  Bo-Peep,"  "Thirty  Days 
Hath  September,"  "Red  Sky  at  Morning,"  and  any  others  sug- 
gested by  the  group  itself.  The  first  feeling  that  it's  all  rather 
silly  will  probably  disappear  when  the  participants  see  how  dif- 
ficult perfect  unison  is.  The  following  short  poems  make  good 
pieces  for  unison  speaking,  both  for  mixed  groups  and  for  groups 
with  all  boys  or  all  girls. 


i.  Mountains  have  a  dreamy 
Of  folding  up  a  noisy  day 
Jn  quiet  covers,  cool  and  gray. 

Only  mountains  seem  to  Jcnow 
That  shadows  come  and  shadows  go, 
Till  stars  are  caught  in  pools  below. 

Only  mountains,  dim  and  far, 
Kneeling  now  beneath  one  star, 
Know  how  calm  dark  valleys  are. 

LEIGH  BUCKNER  HANES,  Mountains  in  the  Twilight 


In  Chorus  341 

2.   Never,  O  God,  to  be  afraid  to  love, 

Since  out  of  love  comes  every  lovely  thing: 

To  find  new  courage  fallen  at  my  feet, 

A  flaming  feather  from  an  angel's  wing; 

To  know  the  merciful,  high-hearted  dreams 

Born  to  all  men  that  cleanse  and  make  them  whole; 

To  take  the  gifts  of  life  with  fearless  hands, 

And  when  I  give,  to  give  with  all  my  soul. 

ROSALIE  HICKLER,  Prayer  for  Any  Occasion 

3.    E'en  as  a  lovely  flower, 

So  fair,  so  pure  thou  art; 
I  gaze  on  thee,  and  sadness 
Comes  stealing  o'er  my  heart. 

My  hands  I  fain  had  folded 

Upon  thy  soft  brown  hair, 
Praying  that  God  may  keep  thee 
So  lovely,  pure,  and  fair. 

HEINRICH  HEINE,  Du  Bist  Wie  Eine  Blume, 
translated  by  Kate  Freiligrath  Kroeker 

4.    The  angels  guide  him  now, 

And  watch  his  curly  head, 
And  lead  him  in  their  games, 
The  little  boy  we  led. 

He  cannot  come  to  harm, 

He  knows  more  than  we  know, 

His  light  is  brighter  far 
Than  daytime  here  below. 

His  path  leads  on  and  on, 

Through  pleasant  lawns  and  flowers, 

His  brown  eyes  open  wide 
At  grass  more  green  than  ours. 

With  playmates  like  himself, 

The  shining  boy  will  sing, 
Exploring  wondrous  woods, 

Sweet  with  eternal  spring. 

VACHEL  LINDSAY,  In  Memory  of  a  Child 


342  Reading  to  Others 

5.   Care-charming  Sleep,  thou  easer  of  all  woes. 
Brother  to  Death,  sweetly  thyself  dispose 
On  this  afflicted  Prince;  fall  like  a  cloud 
In  gentle  showers;  give  nothing  that  is  loud 
Or  painful  to  his  slumbers;  easy,  light, 
And  as  a  purling  stream,  thou  son  of  Night, 
Pass  by  his  troubled  senses;  sing  his  pain 
Like  hollow  murmuring  wind  or  silver  rain; 
Into  this  Prince  gently,  oh,  gently  slide, 
And  kiss  him  into  slumbers  like  a  bride/ 

JOHN  FLETCHER,  Song  to  Sleep 

6.    I'll  sail  upon  the  Dog-star, 
And  then  pursue  the  morning; 
I'll  chase  the  Moon  till  it  be  noon, 
But  I'll  make  her  leave  her  horning. 

I'll  climb  the  frosty  mountain, 
And  there  I'll  coin  the  weather; 
I'll  tear  the  rainbow  from  the  sky 
And  tie  both  ends  together. 

The  stars  pluck  from  their  orbs  too, 
And  crowd  them  in  my  budget; 
And  whether  I'm  a  roaring  boy? 
Let  all  the  nation  judge  it. 

THOMAS  DURFEY,  I'll  Sail  upon  the  Dog-star 

7.   My  mind  lets  go  a  thousand  things, 
Like  dates  of  wars  and  deaths  of  kings, 
And  yet  recalls  the  very  hour— 
'Twas  noon  by  yonder  village  tower, 
And  on  the  last  blue  noon  in  May—- 
The wind  came  briskly  up  this  way, 
Crisping  the  brook  beside  the  road; 
Then,  pausing  here,  set  down  its  load 
Of  pine-scents,  and  shook  listlessly 
Two  petals  from  that  wild-rose  tree. 

THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH,  Memory 

8.    The  sky  is  gray  as  gray  may  be, 
There  is  no  bird  upon  the  bough, 
There  is  no  leaf  on  vine  or  tree. 


In  Chorus  343 

In  the  Neponset  marshes  now 
Willow-stems,  rosy  in  the  wind, 
Shiver  with  hidden  sense  of  snow. 

So  too  'tis  winter  in  my  mind, 

No  light-winged  fancy  comes  and  stays: 

A  season  churlish  and  unkind. 

Slow  creep  the  hours,  slow  creep  the  days, 
The  black  ink  crusts  upon  the  pen- 
Wait  till  the  bluebirds  and  the  /ays 
And  golden  orioles  come  again/ 

THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH,  No  Songs  in  Winter 

After  some  preliminary  work  in  unison  speaking,  the  group 
should  be  divided  into  sections.  The  usual  arrangement  is  to  have 
three  parts  for  mixed  choruses,  the  men  forming  one  part  and  the 
women  two,  one  "light,"  one  "dark."  "Light"  voices  are  higher  in 
pitch  and  thinner  or  lighter  in  texture  than  "dark"  voices.  The 
distinction  is  not  always  easy  to  make.  Expert  directors  insist  that 
the  pitch  difference,  as  in  the  parts  of  a  singing  group,  is  not 
enough,  that  timbre  or  texture  is  stressed  in  speaking.  Neverthe- 
less, the  type  of  singing  voice  usually  places  the  speaker:  Sopranos 
and  tenors  have  lighter  voices  than  contraltos  and  basses.  The 
medium  voices,  mezzo  sopranos  or  baritones,  can  be  made  into  a 
third  grouping,  but  they  usually  fall  into  the  light  or  dark  types 
according  to  the  quality  of  their  voices.  If  the  speaker  himself  is 
in  doubt  about  which  group  he  belongs  in,  the  director  may  test 
his  varying  pitch  levels.  If  the  chorus  is  made  up  entirely  of  men 
or  entirely  of  women,  it  is  usually  divided  into  the  two  parts  only. 

The  groups  should  work  toward  perfect  timing  and  sensitive- 
ness to  the  leader's  directions.  Part  work  depends  for  its  effective- 
ness on  careful  picking  up  of  cues  and  responsiveness  to  changes 
in  mood.  The  director  may  appoint  a  leader  for  each  group,  mak- 
ing him  responsible  for  setting  the  pace  and  keeping  the  inter- 
pretation alive  and  flexible.  As  the  chorus  gains  experience  and 
confidence,  the  director  should  retire  as  far  as  possible  from  active 
control.  The  groups  should  become  accustomed  to  a  minimum  of 
hand-  or  baton-waving  (though  many  directors  prefer  to  remain 
in  more  or  less  unobtrusive  charge).  Many  good  choruses  have  no 
visible  leader.  One  of  the  leaders  of  the  groups  acts  as  general 


344  Reading  to  Others 

leader  as  well,  giving  signals,  usually  by  counting,  for  the  begin- 
ning of  pieces  and  marking  the  pauses  that  have  been  agreed  on 
in  practice.  Each  group  leader,  of  course,  takes  command  during 
part  work.  The  guiding  is  done  not  by  louder  tones  or  gestures 
of  any  kind,  but  by  rehearsed  counting  for  the  starts  after  long 
pauses  and  by  an  esprit  de  corps  that  is  established  with  surprising 
rapidity  after  a  few  meetings.  There  will  be  false  starts  and  break- 
ings from  the  ranks  at  first,  but  after  the  best  phrasing  is  estab- 
lished in  any  given  poem,  usually  by  discussion  and  trial,  very  little 
overt  direction  is  necessary.  The  leaders,  however,  must  have 
authority  and  assurance,  so  that  the  groups  may  confidently  accept 
their  pace  and  interpretation,  accurately  feeling  the  guidance  with- 
out being  either  ahead  of,  or  behind,  the  leaders. 

An  easy  arrangement  of  a  simple  poem,  like  "Three  Blind 
Mice,"  is  a  good  start  for  group  work.  Let  us  assume  that  the 
chorus  is  in  two  parts  (if  in  three  parts,  the  men  can  form  one 
group  and  the  women  one  for  this  exercise): 

LIGHT  Three  blind  mice, 

DARK  Three  blind  mice, 

LIGHT  See  how  they  run, 

DARK  See  how  they  run. 

LIGHT  They  all  ran  after  the  fanner's  wife. 

DARK  She  cut  off  their  tails  with  a  carving  knife. 

ALL  Did  you  ever  see  such  a  sight  in  your  life 
As  three  blind  mice/ 

The  following  short  poems  are  suitable  for  simple  two-part 
arrangements: 

i.   LIGHT         The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God; 
DARK  And  the  firmament  showeth  his  handywork. 

LIGHT         Day  unto  day  uttereth  speech, 
DARK  And  night  unto  night  showeth  knowledge. 

LIGHT         There  is  no  speech  nor  language 

Where  their  voice  is  not  heard. 
DARK  Their  line  is  gone  out  through  all  the  earth, 

And  their  words  to  the  end  of  the  world. 

ALL  Let  the  words  of  my  mouth  and  the  meditation  of 

my  heart  be  acceptable  in  thy  sight,  O  Lord,  my 
strength  and  my  redeemer. 

Psalm  19 


In  Chorus  345 

2.  ALL  Oh,  I  can  hear  you,  God,  above  the  cry 

Of  the  tossing  trees-— 

DARK          Rolling  your  windy  tides  across  the  sky, 
And  splashing  your  silver  seas 

Over  the  pine, 
LIGHT         To  the  water-line 

Of  the  moon. 
ALL  Oh,  I  can  hear  you,  God, 

Above  the  wail  of  the  lonely  loon— 
DARK  When  the  pine-tops  pitch  and  nod— 

LIGHT  Chanting  your  melodies 

Of  ghostly  waterfalls  and  avalanches, 
DARK  Swashing  your  wind  among  the  branches 

LIGHT  To  make  them  pure  and  white. 

ALL  Wash  over  me,  God,  with  your  piney  breeze, 

And  your  moon's  wet-silver  pool; 
Wash  over  me,  God,  with  your  wind  and  night, 
And  leave  me  clean  and  cool. 

LEW  SARETT,  Wind  in  the  Pine 

3.  LIGHT          I  wonder  if  the  tides  of  Spring 

Will  always  bring  me  back  again 
Mute  rapture  at  the  simple  thing 

Of  lilacs  blowing  in  the  rain. 
DARK  If  so,  my  heart  will  ever  be 

Above  all  fears,  for  I  shall  know 
There  is  a  greater  mystery 
Beyond  the  time  when  lilacs  blow. 

THOMAS  S.  JONES,  JR.,  Beyond 

4.  ALL  Shine/  shine/  shine/ 

LIGHT  Pour  down  your  warmth,  great  sun/ 

DARK  While  we  bask,  we  two  together. 

ALL  Two  together/ 

LIGHT  Winds  blow  south,  or  winds  blow  north, 

DARK  Day  come  white,  or  night  come  black, 

LIGHT  Home,  or  rivers  and  mountains  from  home, 

DARK  Singing  all  time,  minding  no  time, 

LIGHT  While  we  bask,  we  two  together. 

ALL  Two  together/ 

ALL  Blow/  blow/  blow/ 

LIGHT         Blow  up  sea-winds  along  PaumaanocFs  shore. 


346 


ALL 

LIGHT 

DARK 

ALL 


5.    LIGHT 
DARK 
LIGHT 

DARK 
DARK 
LIGHT 
ALL 

6.     LIGHT 
DARK 
LIGHT 
DARK 
LIGHT 
LIGHT 

LIGHT 
ALL 

LIGHT 

DARK 

LIGHT 

DARK 

LIGHT 

LIGHT 
LIGHT 
ALL 


Reading  to  Others 

Soothe/  soothe!  soothe/ 

Close  on  its  wave  soothes  the  wave  behindy 

And  again  another  behind  embracing  and  lapping,  every 

one  close  .  .  . 
Loud/  loud/  loud/ 
Loud  I  call  to  you,  my  love. 

WALT  WHITMAN,  Out  of  the  Cradle 

Jenny  kiss'd  me  when  we  met, 
Jumping  from  the  chair  she  sat  in; 
Time,  you  thief,  who  love  to  get 
Sweets  into  your  list,  put  that  in/ 
Say  fin  weary,  [LIGHT]  say  I'm  sad, 
Say  that  health  and  wealth  have  miss'd  me, 
Say  I'm  growing  old,  but  add 
Jenny  kiss'd  me/ 

LEIGH  HUNT,  Jenny  Kiss'd  Me 

A  British  tar  is  a  soaring  soul, 

As  free  as  a  mountain  bird, 

His  energetic  fist  should  be  ready  to  resist 

A  dictatorial  word. 

His  nose  should  pant  [DARK]  and  his  lips  should  curl, 

His  cheeks  should  flame  [DARK]  and  his  brow  should 

furl, 
His  bosom  should  heave  [DARK]  and  his  heart  should 

glow, 
And  his  fist  be  ever  ready  for  a  knock-down  blow. 

His  eyes  should  flash  with  an  inborn  fire, 

His  brow  with  scorn  be  wrung; 

He  never  should  bow  down  to  a  domineering  frown, 

Or  the  tang  of  a  tyrant  tongue. 

His  foot  should  stamp  [DARK]  and  his  throat  should 

growl, 

His  hair  should  twirl  [DARK]  and  his  face  should  scowl; 
His  eyes  should  flash  [DARK]  and  his  breast  protrude, 
And  this  should  be  his  customary  attitude. 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  H.M.S.  Pinafore 


After  the  chorus  has  shaken  down  into  a  fairly  self-reliant  group, 
whose  members  may  be  trusted  to  follow  their  leaders  scrupulously 
and  to  overcome  both  too  much  rugged  individualism  and  too 
much  diffidence,  it  may  go  on  to  experiment  with  more  compli- 


In  Chorus  347 

cated  arrangements.  Besides  unison  and  simple  two-part  or  anti- 
phonal  reading  there  are  many  possibilities  of  interesting  work  in 
solo  parts,  with  choral  refrains;  in  group  reading  varied  by  solo 
lines;  in  "cumulative"  or  "diminishing"  reading  (the  adding  or 
subtracting  of  voices  in  some  regular  pattern);  in  "sequence"  read- 
ing (the  use  of  several  groups,  each  presenting  a  part  of  a  whole 
theme)  ;  and  so  on. 

Poems  must  be  chosen  with  care,  since  not  all  poems,  by  any 
means,  are  satisfactory  for  group  work.  Several  anthologies1  have 
been  published,  with  arrangements  for  choral  reading  already 
made;  in  some  of  them  the  poems  are  analyzed  and  classified,  with 
suggestions  for  performance.  Any  student,  however,  can  choose 
and  arrange  his  own  poems,  bringing  them  to  rehearsals  for  try- 
out  and  discussion.  An  unsuitable  poem  usually  betrays  itself 
instantly  in  group  reaction.  The  best  poems  are  those  with  much 
color,  sound,  and  movement,  those  with  repeated  or  balanced 
lines  that  groups  can  seize  upon,  those  with  vivid  contrasts  in  mood 
or  thought,  and  those  with  marked  rhythm.  Introspective  and 
long  narrative  and  thoughtful,  abstract  poems  are  seldom  good  for 
group  reading.  Ballads  and  many  children's  poems  are  usually 
good;  so  are  vigorous  onomatopoetic  poems  like  Vachel  Lindsay's 
Congo  and  Alfred  Noyes's  Highwayman.  A  great  many  humorous 
poems,  like  those  of  the  Carryls  and  Ogden  Nash,  make  interesting 
choral  selections,  and  most  lyrics  can  be  satisfactorily  adapted. 
Some  plays  have  been  especially  written  for  choric  groups  by  Gor- 
don Bottomley,  Mona  Swann,  and  others.  Greek  plays  and  some 
modern  plays  in  verse,  like  T.  S.  Eliot's  Murder  in  the  Cathedral, 
make  good  material  for  experienced  choruses.  Some  successful 
attempts  have  been  made  to  combine  verse-speaking  groups  with 
dance  groups  for  varied  interpretation.  Writers  whose  poems  are 
recommended  for  verse  speaking  are  John  Masefield,  Lew  Sarett,  A. 
A.  Milne,  Vachel  Lindsay,  Arthur  Guiterman,  Walter  de  la  Mare, 
Ogden  Nash,  Alfred  Noyes,  John  Keats,  Alfred  Tennyson,  William 
Blake,  Dorothy  Parker,  Rudyard  Kipling,  Walt  Whitman,  Sid- 

1  Gullan,  Marjorie,  Choral  Speaking,  Expression  Company,  1936,  and  The  Speech 
Choir,  Harper,  1937;  Hamm,  A.  C.,  Selections  for  Choral  Speaking,  Expression  Com- 
pany, 1935;  Swann,  Mona,  Many  Voices,  W.  H.  Baker,  1934;  Robinson,  M.  P.,  and 
Thurston,  R.  L.,  Poetry  Arranged  for  the  Speaking  Choir,  Expression  Company,  1936; 
Sutton,  V.  R.,  Seeing  and  Hearing  America,  Expression  Company,  1936;  Hicks,  H.  G., 
Reading  Chorus,  Noble,  1939.  There  are  also  several  recordings  of  choral  speaking 
available,  notably  the  readings  of  "The  Koralites"  on  Victor  records,  and  two  records 
of  English  festival  choruses  obtainable  at  The  Gramophone  Shop,  New  York  City. 


348 


Reading  to  Others 


ney  Lanier,  Carl  Sandburg,  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  James  Stephens, 
Lewis  Carroll,  William  Gilbert,  Christina  Rossetti,  James  Weldon 
Johnson,  Robert  Herrick,  Guy  Wetmore  and  Charles  Edward 
Carryl,  Louis  Untermeyer,  Amy  Lowell,  and  many  others. 

Let  us  examine  a  poem  as  it  might  be  studied  by  a  choral  group. 
We  shall  assume  that  the  director  or  some  member  of  the  chorus 
has  already  arranged  it  (though  no  arrangement  should  be  con- 
sidered final.  The  only  test  is  trial). 


3-PART  2-PART 

MEN  LIGHT 

WOMEN  L  DARK 

WOMEN  D  LIGHT 


MEN 


WOMEN 


ALL 


DARK 


LIGHT 


1  MAN  LIGHT  1 

WOMEN  L        DARK 
WOMEN  D 


ALL 


Let  me  LIVE  out  my  YEARS  in  HEAT  of  BLOOD!  || 
Let  me  LIE  DRUNKEN  with  the  DREAMER'S  WINE!  || 
Let  me  not  SEE  this  SOUL  HOUSE  BUILT  of  MUD 

Go  TOPPLING  tO  the  DUST  || — a  VACANT  SHRINE.   || 

Let  rne  go  QUICKLY,  1 1  like  a  CANDLE  LIGHT 
SNUFFED  out  just  at  the  HEYDAY  of  its  GLOW.  || 
GIVE  me  HIGH  NOON  ||— and  let  it  THEN  be 

NIGHT!  || 

THUS  would  I  GO.  || 

And  GRANT  that  when  I  FACE  the  GRISLY  THING,  | 
My  SONG  may  TRUMPET  down  the  GREY  PER- 
HAPS. || 

O  let  me  be  a  TIME-SWEPT  FIDDLE  STRING  | 
That  FEELS  the  MASTER-MELODY  |—  and  SNAPS!  || 
JOHN  G.  NEIHARDT,  Let  Me  Live  Out  My  Years 


This  is  a  strong,  forthright  piece  that  would  be  ruined  by 
namby-pamby  reading.  Each  of  the  imperatives  beginning  with 
"let  me"  or  "give  me"  or  "grant"  must  be  emphatic  and  cogent. 
The  poem  will  die  an  anemic  death  if  phrases  like  "heat  of  blood" 
and  "drunken  with  the  dreamer's  wine"  are  read  without  convic- 
tion. The  exclamation  points  are  good  indicators  of  force.  Undue 
attention  to  meter  will,  of  course,  make  the  poem  monotonous. 
Choruses  must  understand  phrasing  and  centering.  Remember  to 
avoid  stress  on  prepositions,  pronouns  (ordinarily),  and  all  weak 
adjectives,  conjunctions,  etc.  Let  the  verbs  and  nouns  carry  the 
chief  burden  of  emphasis. 

In  line  2  bring  out  the  word  "dreamer's." 

The  tempo  is  fairly  brisk,  about  what  a  musician  would  label 
allegro.  But  watch  for  changes  of  pace,  especially  at  the  dashes. 


In  Chorus  349 

Line  3  is  "run-on,"  carrying  the  phrase  over  into  the  next  line. 
Here  will  be  some  trouble  in  practice.  Some  readers,  anxious  not 
to  pause  after  "mud"  and  break  up  the  phrase,  will  go  on  too  fast 
and  blur  the  unison  by  getting  ahead  of  the  others.  The  thing  to 
remember  is  that  the  final  word  in  a  line  which  runs  over  to  the 
next  should  get  exactly  the  emphasis  it  would  get  if  the  phrase 
were  written  out  in  one  line— no  more,  but  certainly  no  less.  Care- 
less speakers  too  often  ignore  final  consonants  in  words  like  this 
and  spoil  the  line. 

The  phrasing  and  centering  have  been  marked,  for  the  sake  of 
convenience,  though  changes  may  be  made  if  the  director  feels 
that  other  stresses  would  be  more  significant. 

The  dashes  in  lines  4,  7,  and  12  must  be  marked  by  forceful 
pauses. 

Line  5  is  another  run-on  line.  Be  careful  of  the  final  t  in  "light." 

Don't  forget  to  give  full  sound  value  to  musical  words  like 
"glow,"  "light,"  "night,"  "noon,"  "trumpet,"  "grey,"  "melody," 
"feels." 

A  good  way  to  bring  in  the  short  line  (8)  is  to  have  a  single 
speaker  read  it  boldly,  summarizing  the  vigorous  statements  that 
have  preceded  it. 

The  last  stanza  must  ring  out  vehemently,  ending,  after  a  dra- 
matic pause,  on  snaps  with  crisp  finality.  The  effect  of  snapping 
can  be  made  by  a  sharp  cutting  off  of  the  sound.  Notice  the  slow 
line  (11),  with  several  stressed  words. 

A    FEW    WORKING    SUGGESTIONS 

1.  Precision  in  tempo  is  absolutely  necessary. 

2.  There  should  be  variation  within  the  group  in  pitch  and 
quality. 

3.  Volume  shifts  should  be  frequent  and  must  be  planned 
and  rehearsed. 

4.  Broken  rhythm  is  important.    Otherwise,  choral  reading 
is  monotonous. 

5.  Leaders  must  be  alert. 

6.  The  most  valuable  contribution  of  a  verse-speaking  chorus 
is  its  aid  to  good  diction.    Affectation  must  be  avoided  like  the 
plague.  Remember  that  offenses  in  the  individual  are  multiplied 
when  a  whole  group  offends.  Watch  the  final  consonants. 


Reading  to  Others 


7.  Enthusiasm  may  make  all  the  difference  between  success 
and  failure  in  the  chorus. 

8.  Choose  poems  that  have  spirit  and  substance.    Too  much 
sentiment  and  pale,  delicate  stuff  may  make  the  chorus  finicky. 
The  boys  need  occasional  swashbuckling  material,  just  as  the  girls 
need  occasional  elegance,  and  all  need  frequent  doses  of  humor. 

9.  The  different  voices  should  blend  harmoniously. 

10.  Understanding  should  come  before  production,  and  appre- 
ciation should  be  a  major  purpose. 

1 1 .  Use  many  solo  parts.  The  leaders  may  be  the  chief  soloists, 
but  several  speakers  from  each  group  should  be  ranked  as  soloists. 


POEMS    FOR    CHORAL    SPEAKING 

The  suggested  arrangements  are  by  no  means  absolute.  Changes 
may  be  made  as  the  director  and  the  members  of  the  chorus  find 
other  groupings  desirable. 


i.   GROUP  i 

GROUP  2 
GROUP  3 
ALL 

LIGHT  1 
DARK  1 
LIGHT  2 
DARK  2 

LIGHT 
DARK 


LIGHT 


LIGHT  1 


ALL 


God,  though  this  life  is  but  a  wraith, 

Although  we  know  not  what  we  use, 
Although  we  grope  with  little  faith, 

Give  me  the  heart  to  fight— and  lose. 

Ever  insurgent  let  me  be, 

Make  me  more  daring  than  devout; 
From  sleek  contentment  keep  me  free, 

And  fill  me  with  a  buoyant  doubt. 

Open  my  eyes  to  visions  girt 

With  beauty,  and  with  wonder  lit— 
But  let  me  always  see  the  dirt, 

And  all  that  spawn  and  die  in  it. 

Open  my  ears  to  music;  [DARK]  let 

Me  thrill  with  Spring's  first  flutes  and  drums— 
But  never  let  me  dare  forget 

The  bitter  ballads  of  the  slums. 

From  compromise  and  things  half-done, 
Keep  me,  with  stern  and  stubborn  pride. 

And  when,  at  last,  .the  fight  is  won, 
God,  keep  me  still  unsatisfied. 

Louis  UNTERMEYER,  Prayer 


In  Chorus  351 

2.   ALL  Suppose  .  .  .  and  suppose  that  a  wild  little  Horse  of 

Magic 

Came  cantering  out  of  the  sky, 
With  bridle  of  silver,  and  into  the  saddle  I  mounted, 
DARK  To  fly— [LIGHT]  and  to  fly; 

LIGHT  And  we  stretched  up  into  the  air,  fleeting  on  in  the 

sunshine, 

A  speck  in  the  gleam, 

On  galloping  hoofs,  his  mane  in  the  wind  out-flowing, 
In  a  shadowy  stream; 

DARK  And  oh,  when,  all  alone,  the  gentle  star  of  evening 

Came  crinkling  into  the  blue, 
A  magical  castle  we  saw  in  the  air,  like  a  cloud  of 

moonlight, 
As  onward  we  flew; 

LIGHT  And  across  the  green  moat  on  the  drawbridge  we 

foamed  and  we  snorted, 
And  there  was  a  beautiful  Queen 
Who  smiled  at  me  strangely;  and  spoke  to  my  wild 

little  Horse,  too— 
A  lovely  and  beautiful  Queen; 

ALL  And  she  cried  with  delight— and  delight— to  her  deli- 

cate maidens, 

LIGHT  i  "Behold  my  daughters— my  dear/" 

DARK  And  they  crowned  me  with  flowers,  and  then  to  their 

harps  sat  playing, 
Solemn  and  clear; 

LIGHT  And  magical  cakes  and  goblets  were  spread  on  the 

table; 

And  at  window  the  birds  came  in; 
Hopping  along  with  bright  eyes,  pecking  crumbs  from 

the  platters, 
And  sipped  of  the  wine; 

DARK  And  splashing  up— up  to  the  roof  tossed  fountains  of 

crystal; 

And  Princes  in  scarlet  and  green 
Shot  with  their  bows  and  arrows,  and  kneeled  with 

their  dishes 
Of  fruits  for  the  Queen; 


352 


LIGHT 


ALL 


DARK  1 

LIGHT 
DARK 
LIGHT 
DARK 

LIGHT 
DARK 
LIGHT 
DARK 

LIGHT 
DARK 
LIGHT 
DARK 

LIGHT 
DARK 
LIGHT 
DARK 

ALL 

LIGHT  1 
DARK  1 
LIGHT  2 
DARK  2 
LIGHT  3 
DARK  3 


Reading  to  Others 

And  we  walked  in  a  magical  garden  with  rivers  and 

bowers, 

And  my  bed  was  of  ivory  and  gold; 
And  the  Queen  breathed  soft  in  my  ear  a  song  or  en- 
chantment—- 
And I  never  grew  old  .  .  . 

And  I  never,  never  came  back  to  the  earth,  oh,  never 

and  never; 

How  mother  would  cry  and  cry/ 
There'd  be  snow  on  the  fields  then,  and  all  these  sweet 

flowers  in  the  winter 
Would  wither  and  die  .  .  . 

Suppose  .  .  .  and  suppose  .  .  . 

WALTER  DE  LA  MARE,  Suppose 

Does  the  road  wind  up-hill  all  the  way? 

Yes,  to  the  very  end. 
Will  the  day's  journey  take  the  whole  long  day? 

From  morn  to  night,  my  friend. 

But  is  there  for  the  night  a  resting-place? 

A  roof  for  when  the  slow  dark  hours  begin. 
May  not  the  darkness  hide  it  from  my  face? 

You  cannot  miss  that  inn. 

Shall  I  meet  other  wayfarers  at  night? 

Those  who  have  gone  before. 
Then  must  I  knock,  or  call  when  just  in  sight? 

They  will  not  keep  you  standing  at  that  door. 

Shall  I  find  comfort,  travel-sore  and  weak? 

Of  labour  you  shall  find  the  sum. 
Will  there  be  beds  for  me  and  all  who  seek? 

Yes,  beds  for  all  who  come. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI,  Up-Hill 

Before  the  beginning  of  years, 

There  came  to  the  making  of  man 
Time,  with  a  gift  of  tears; 

Grief,  with  a  glass  that  ran; 
Pleasure,  with  pain  for  leaven; 

Summer,  with  flowers  that  fell; 
Remembrance,  fallen  from  heaven, 

And  madness  risen  from  hell; 


In  Chorus 


353 


LIGHT  4          Strength  without  hands  to  smite; 
DARK  4  Love  that  endures  for  a  breath; 

LIGHT  5          Night,  the  shadow  of  light, 
DARK  5  And  life,  the  shadow  of  death. 

ALL  And  the  high  gods  took  in  hand 

Fire,  and  the  falling  of  tears, 
And  a  measure  of  sliding  sand 

From  under  the  feet  of  the  years; 
And  froth  and  drift  of  the  sea; 

And  dust  of  the  laboring  earth; 
And  bodies  of  things  to  be 

In  the  houses  of  death  and  of  birth; 
DARK  And  wrought  with  weeping  and  laughter, 

And  fashioned  with  loathing  and  love, 
With  life  before  and  after 

And  death  beneath  and  above, 
For  a  day  and  a  night  and  a  morrow, 

That  his  strength  might  endure  for  a  span 
With  travail  and  heavy  sorrow, 

The  holy  spirit  of  man. 
ALL  From  the  winds  of  the  north  and  the  south 

They  gathered  as  unto  strife; 
They  breathed  upon  his  mouth, 
They  filled  his  body  with  life; 
Eyesight  and  speech  they  wrought 
For  the  veils  of  the  soul  therein, 
LIGHT  i  A  time  for  labor  and  thought, 

DARK  i  A  time  to  serve  and  to  sin; 

LIGHT  2  They  gave  him  light  in  his  ways, 

DARK  2  And  love,  and  a  space  for  delight, 

LIGHT  3  And  beauty  and  length  of  days, 

DARK  3  And  night,  and  sleep  in  the  night. 

ALL  His  speech  is  a  burning  fire; 

With  his  lips  he  travaileth; 
In  his  heart  is  a  blind  desire, 

In  his  eyes  foreknowledge  of  death; 
He  weaves,  and  is  clothed  with  derision; 

Sows,  and  he  shall  not  reap; 
His  life  is  a  watch  or  a  vision 
Between  a  sleep  and  a  sleep. 

ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE,  "Man,"  from 

Atalanta  in  Calydon 


354 


Reading  to  Others 


5.   DARK  i  Time  goes,  you  say?  [ALL]  Ah  no/ 

DARK  Alas,  Time  stays,  WE  go/ 

LIGHT  Or  else,  were  this  not  so, 

What  need  to  chain  the  hours, 

For  Youth  were  always  ours? 
DARK  i  Time  goes,  you  say?  [ALL]  Ah  no/ 

DARK  Ours  is  the  eyes'  deceit 

Of  men  whose  flying  feet 

Lead  through  some  landscape  low; 
LIGHT  We  pass,  and  think  we  see 

The  earth's  fixed  surface  flee: 
DARK  i  Alas,  time  stays.   [ALL]   We  go. 

ALL  See,  in  what  traversed  ways, 

What  backward  Fate  delays 

The  hopes  we  used  to  know; 
LIGHT  Where  are  our  old  desires? 

DARK  Ah,  where  those  vanished  fires? 

DARK  i  Time  goes,  you  say?   [ALL]  Ah  no/ 

LIGHT  How  far,  how  far,  O  Sweet, 

The  past  behind  our  feet 
Lies  in  the  even-glow/ 
DARK  Now,  on  the  forward  way, 

Let  us  fold  hands,  and  pray; 
DARK  i  Alas/  Time  stays.   [ALL]   WE  go. 

AUSTIN  DOBSON,  The  Paradox  of  Time 


6.   ALL 


LIGHT 


7.     LIGHT  1 
DARK  1 

LIGHT 


These  be 

Three  silent  things: 
The  falling  snow  .  . 
Before  the  dawn  .  . 
Just  dead. 


[DARK]   The  hour 

[DARK  i]   The  mouth  of  one 

ADELAIDE  CRAPSEY,  Triad 


I  shall  walk  down  the  road; 

I  shall  turn  and  feel  upon  my  feet 

The  kisses  of  Death,  like  scented  rain. 

For  Death  is  a  black  slave  with  little  silver  birds 

Perched  in  a  sleeping  wreath  upon  his  head. 


In  Chorus 


355 


LIGHT  i          He  will  tell  me,  [LIGHT  2]  his  voice  like  jewels 

Dropped  into  a  satin  bag, 

LIGHT  3          How  he  has  tip-toed  after  me  down  the  road, 
DARK  2  His  heart  made  a  dark  whirlpool  with  longing  for  me. 

DARK  3  Then  he  will  graze  me  with  his  hands, 

DARK  And  I  shall  be  one  of  the  sleeping,  silver  birds 

Between  the  cold  waves  of  his  hair,  as  he  tip-toes  on. 
MAXWELL  BODENHEIM,  Death 

8.  LIGHT  If  there  were  dreams  to  sell, 
DARK  What  would  you  buy? 
LIGHT  i  Some  cost  a  passing  bell; 
DARK  i  Some  a  light  sigh 

LIGHT  That  shakes  from  life's  fresh  crown 

Only  a  rose-leaf  down. 

GROUP  OF  4  If  there  were  dreams  to  sell, 

GROUP  OF  8  Merry  and  sad  to  tell, 

GROUP  OF  12  And  the  crier  rang  the  bell, 

LIGHT  i  What  would  you  buy? 

LIGHT  A  cottage  lone  and  still, 

With  bowers  nigh, 
DARK  Shadow}7,  my  woes  to  still, 

Until  I  die. 
ALL  Such  pearl  from  Life's  fresh  crown 

Fain  would  I  shake  me  down. 
LIGHT  Were  dreams  to  have  at  will, 

DARK  This  would  best  heal  my  ill, 

ALL  This  would  I  buy. 

THOMAS  LOVELL  BEDDOES,  Dream  Pedlary 

9.  LIGHT  We  have  seen  thee,  O  Love,  thou  art  fair;  [DARK]  thou 

art  goodly,  O  Love; 

LIGHT  Thy  wings  make  light  in  the  air  as  the  wings  of  a  dove. 

DARK  Thy  feet  are  as  winds  that  divide  the  streams  of  the 

sea; 

LIGHT  Earth  is  thy  covering  to  hide  thee,  the  garment  of  thee. 

DARK  Thou  art  swift  and  subtle  and  blind  as  a  flame  of  fire; 

LIGHT  i  Before  thee  the  laughter,  [DARK  i]  behind  thee  the 

tears  of  desire. 
ALL  And  twain  go  forth  beside  thee,  a  man  with  a  maid; 


356 


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10.  ALL 


LIGHT  1 
ALL 

GROUP  1 
GROUP  2 


GROUP  3 


ALL 


11.  LEADER 

ALL 

LEADER 

ALL 

LEADER 

ALL 

LEADER 

ALL 

LEADER 

ALL 

LEADER 

ALL 

LEADER 

ALL 

LEADER 


Her  eyes  are  the  eyes  of  a  bride  whom  delight  makes 

afraid; 

As  the  breath  in  the  buds  that  stir  is  her  bridal  breath: 

But  Fate  is  the  name  of  her;  and  his  name  is  Death. 

ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE, 

Atalanta  in  Calydon 

They're  always  abusing  the  women 

As  a  terrible  plague  to  men; 
They  say  we're  the  root  of  all  evil, 

And  repeat  it  again  and  again— 
Of  war,  [LIGHT  2]  and  quarrels,  [DARK  i]  and  bloodshed, 

All  mischief,  be  what  it  may. 

And  pray,  then,  why  do  you  marry  us, 

If  we're  all  the  plagues  you  say? 
And  why  do  you  take  such  care  of  us, 

And  keep  us  so  safe  at  home, 
And  arc  never  easy  a  moment 

If  ever  we  chance  to  roarn? 
When  you  ought  to  be  thanking  Heaven 

That  your  plague  is  out  of  the  way, 
You  all  keep  fussing  and  fretting— 

"Where  is  my  Plague  to-day?" 

ARISTOPHANES,  Thesmophoriazusae 

Echo,  I  know,  will  in  the  woods  reply, 
And  quaintly  answer  questions:  shall  I  try? 

Try. 

What  must  we  do  our  passion  to  express? 

Press. 

What  most  moves  women  when  we  them  address? 

A  dress. 

Say,  what  can  keep  her  chaste  whom  I  adore? 

A  door. 

If  music  softens  rocks,  love  tunes  my  lyre. 

Liar. 

Then  teach  me,  Echo,  how  shall  I  come  by  her. 

Buy  her. 

What  must  I  do  so  women  will  be  kind? 

Be  kind. 
What  must  I  do  when  women  will  be  cross? 


In  Chorus 


357 


ALL  Be  cross. 

LEADER  Lord,  what  is  she  that  can  so  turn  and  wind? 
ALL  Wind. 

LEADER  If  she  be  wind,  what  stills  her  when  she  blows? 

ALL  B10WS. 

LEADER  But  if  she  bang  again,  still  should  I  bang  her? 

ALL  Bang  her. 

LEADER  Is  there  no  way  to  moderate  her  anger? 

ALL  Hang  her. 

LEADER  Thanks,  gentle  Echo/  right  thy  answers  tell 

What  woman  is  and  how  to  guard  her  well. 
ALL  Guard  her  well/ 

JONATHAN  SWIFT,  A  Gentle  Echo  on  Women 

12.   ALL  Because  I  have  loved  life,  I  shall  have  no  sorrow  to  die. 

LIGHT  i  I  have  sent  up  my  gladness  on  wings,  to  be  lost  in  the 

blue  of  the  sky. 
DARK  i  I  have  run  and  leaped  with  the  rain,  I  have  taken  the 

wind  to  my  breast. 
LIGHT  2  My  cheek  like  a  drowsy  child  to  the  face  of  the  earth 

I  have  pressed. 

ALL  Because  I  have  loved  life,  I  shall  have  no  sorrow  to  die. 

DARK  2  I  have  kissed  young  Love  on  the  lips,  I  have  heard  his 

song  to  the  end. 
LIGHT  3  I  have  struck  my  hand  like  a  seal  in  the  loyal  hand  of 

a  friend. 
DARK  3  I  have  known  the  peace  of  heaven,  the  comfort  of 

work  done  well. 
LIGHT  4  I  have  longed  for  death  in  the  darkness  and  risen  alive 

out  of  hell. 

ALL  Because  I  have  loved  life,  I  shall  have  no  sorrow  to  die. 

DARK  4  I  give  a  share  of  my  soul  to  the  world  when  my  course 

is  run. 
LIGHT  5          I  know  that  another  shall  finish  the  task  I  must  leave 

undone. 
DARK  5  I  know  that  no  flower,  nor  flint  was  in  vain  on  the 

path  I  trod. 
LIGHT  6          As  one  looks  on  a  face  through  a  window,  through  life 

I  have  looked  on  God. 

ALL  Because  I  have  loved  life,  I  shall  have  no  sorrow  to  die. 

AMELIA  JOSEPHINE  BURR,  A  Song  of  Living 


358  Reading  to  Others 

13.  DARK  i  "To  sleep:  perchance  to  dream  .  .  ."  [ALL]  He  turned 

his  head 

And  saw  day's  flare  behind  the  heavy  tower. 

DARK  i  "Ay,  there's  the  rub;  for  in  that  sleep"— [ALL]  he  said, 

And  stared  into  the  river  for  an  hour. 

DARK  i  "The  pangs  of  disprized  love  .  .  ."  [ALL]  He  frowned 

and  shifted. 

GROUP  i          Fog  crept  upon  the  unawakened  town; 
GROUP  2          Out  on  the  muddy  flow  a  dark  swan  drifted, 
GROUP  3          And  far  along  the  shore  vague  bells  came  down. 

DARK  i  "The  undiscovered  country    .    .    ."  [ALL]  There  he 

turned 

And  saw  a  woman  weeping  in  the  street, 
And  saw  a  window  where  a  candle  burned 
And  caught  the  echo  of  departing  feet. 

DARK  i  "Thus  conscience  does  make,  cowards    .    .    ."  [ALL] 

Morning  drew 

Pale  silver  to  the  marsh  through  willow  stems. 
He  scraped  the  edges  of  a  muddy  shoe 
LIGHT  i  And  spat  into  the  Thames. 

GEORGE  O'NEIL,  Composition 

14.  LIGHT  i  Where  the  gray  sea  lay  sad  and  vast 

You  turned  your  head  away, 
And  we  sat  silently  at  last. 
There  was  no  word  to  say. 

ALL  By  the  thunder, 

By  the  iron  thunder  of  the  sea. 

LIGHT  i          We  could  not  speak,  for  the  lost  hope 

Of  the  glad  days  before; 
We  sat  beside  the  long  sea-slope 
Watching  the  endless  shore. 

ALT.  By  the  thunder, 

By  the  iron  thunder  of  the  sea. 

LIGHT  i          So  that,  as  in  the  old  despair, 

I  reached  you  pleading  hands; 
But  you  sat  pale  and  helpless  there, 
Beside  the  barren  sands: 


In  Chorus 


359 


ALL  By  the  thunder, 

By  the  iron  thunder  of  the  sea. 

JOHN  HALL  WHEELOCK,  By  the  Gray  Sea 

15.   LIGHT  "Through  pleasures  and  palaces"— 

DARK  Through  hotels,  and  Pullman  cars,  and  steamships  . . . 

GROUP  i          Pink  and  white  camellias 

floating  in  a  crystal  bowl, 
GROUP  2          The  sharp  smell  of  firewood, 
GROUP  3          The  scrape  and  rustle  of  a  dog  stretching  himself 

on  a  hardwood  floor, 
GROUP  4          And  your  voice,  reading— reading— 

to  the  slow  ticking  of  an  old  brass  clock  .  .  . 

ALL  "Tickets  please/" 

LIGHT  And  I  watch  the  man  in  front  of  me 

Fumbling  in  fourteen  pockets, 
DARK  While  the  conductor  balances  his  ticket-punch 

Between  his  fingers. 

AMY  LOWELL,  Nostalgia 

j6.    ALL  "Tick-tock/  Tick- took/" 

LIGHT  i  Sings  the  great  time  clock. 

DARK  And  the  pale  men  hurry 

LIGHT  And  flurry  and  scurry 

DARK  i  To  punch  their  time 

LIGHT  2  Ere  the  hour  shall  chime. 

ALL  "Tick-tock/   Tick-tock," 

LIGHT  i  Sings  the  stern  time-clock. 

ALL  "It-is-time-you-were-come/" 

DARK  i  Says  the  pendulum. 

ALL  "Tick-took!  Tick-tock/" 

LIGHT  i  Moans  the  great  time-clock. 

DARK  They  must  leave  the  heaven 

Of  their  beds  .  .  .  [LIGHT]  It  is  seven, 

And  the  sharp  whistles  blow 

In  the  city  below. 

DARK  They  can  never  delay— 

LIGHT  If  they're  late,  they  must  pay. 

LIGHT  2          "God  help  them/"  I  say. 
LIGHT  i  But  the  great  time-clock 

Only  says  [ALL]  "Tick-tock/" 


Reading  to  Others 

LIGHT  They  are  chained,  they  are  slaves 

From  their  birth  to  their  graves/ 
DARK  And  the  clock 

Seems  to  mock 

With  its  awful  [ALL]  "Tick-tock/" 
LIGHT  There  it  stands  at  the  door 

Like  a  brute,  as  they  pour 

Through  the  dark  little  way 

Where  they  toil  night  and  day. 

DARK  They  are  goaded  along 

By  the  terrible  song 

Of  whistle  and  gong, 

And  the  endless  [ALL]  "Tick-tock/" 
LIGHT  i  Of  the  great  time-clock. 

ALL  "Tick-tock/  Tick-tock/" 

LIGHT  i  Runs  the  voice  of  the  clock. 

LIGHT  Some  day  it  will  cease/ 

They  will  all  be  at  peace, 
And  dream  a  new  dream 
Far  from  shuttle  and  steam. 
And  whistles  may  blow, 
And  whistles  may  scream— 
They  will  smile — even  so, 
And  dream  their  new  dream. 

DARK  But  the  clock  will  tick  on 

When  their  bodies  are  gone; 

And  others  will  hurry, 

And  scurry  and  worry, 

While  [ALL]  "Tick-tock/  Tick-tock/" 
LIGHT  i  Whispers  the  clock. 

ALL  "Tick-tock/  Tick-tock/ 

Tick-tock/  Tick-tock/" 
LIGHT  i  Forever  runs  on  the  song  of  the  clock. 

CHARLES  HANSON  TOWNE,  The  Time  Clock 


GROUP  OF  4     When  Dragon-fly  would  fix  his  wings, 
GROUP  OF  8        When  Snail  would  patch  his  house, 
GROUP  OF  12  When  moths  have  marred  the  overcoat 
Of  tender  Mister  Mouse, 


In  Chorus 


LIGHT  The  pretty  creatures  go  with  haste 

To  the  sunlit  blue-grass  hills, 
Where  the  Flower  of  Mending  yields  the  wax 
And  webs  to  help  their  ills. 

DARK  The  hour  the  coats  are  waxed  and  webbed, 

They  fall  into  a  dream, 
And  when  they  wake,  the  ragged  robes 
Are  joined  without  a  seam. 

GROUP  OF  4     My  heart  is  but  a  dragon-fly, 
GROUP  OF  8     My  heart  is  but  a  mouse, 
GROUP  OF  12  My  heart  is  but  a  haughty  snail 
In  a  little  stony  house. 


ALL 


l8.  LIGHT 
DARK 
ALL 

DARK  1 

ALL 

LIGHT 

DARK 

ALL 

LIGHT  1 

ALL 

LIGHT 

DARK 

ALL 

DARK  1 
ALL 


Your  hand  was  honey-comb  to  heal, 

Your  voice  a  web  to  bind. 
You  were  a  Mending  Flower  to  me 

To  cure  my  heart  and  mind, 

VACHEL  LINDSAY,  The  Flower  of  Mending 

Across  the  sands  of  Syria, 

Or,  possibly,  Algeria, 

Or  some  benighted  neighborhood  of  barrenness  and 
drouth, 

There  came  the  Prophet  Sam-u-el, 

Upon  the  Only  Cam-u-el— 
A  bumpy,  grumpy  (Quadruped  of  discontented  mouth. 

The  atmosphere  was  glutinous; 

The  Cam-u-el  was  mutinous; 

He  dumped  the  pack  from  off  his  back;  with  horrid 
grunts  and  squeals 

He  made  the  desert  hideous; 

With  strategy  perfidious 
He  tied  his  neck  in  curlicues,  he  kicked  his  paddy  heels. 

Then  said  the  gentle  Sam-u-el, 
"You  rogue,  I  ought  to  lam  you  well/ 
Though  zealously  I've  shielded  you  from  every  grief 

and  woe, 

It  seems,  to  voice  a  platitude, 
You  haven't  any  gratitude. 

Td  like  to  hear  what  cause  you  have  for  doing  thus 
and  so!" 


362 


Reading  to  Others 


LIGHT  To  him  replied  the  Cam-u-el, 

DARK  "I  beg  your  pardon,  Sam-u-el. 

ALL  I  know  that  I'm  a  Reprobate,  I  know  that  I'm  a  Freak; 

LIGHT  i  But,  oh/  this  utter  loneliness/ 

My  too-distinguished  Onliness/ 

ALL  Were  there  but  other  Cam-u-els  I  would  not   be 

unique/' 

LIGHT  The  Prophet  beamed  beguilingly, 

DARK  "Aha,"  he  answered,  smilingly, 

ALL  "You  feel  the  need  of  company?  I  clearly  understand. 

DARK  i  We'll  speedily  create  for  you 

The  corresponding  mate  for  you;— 

ALL  Ho/  Presto,  change-o,  dinglebat"— he  waved  a  potent 

hand, 

LIGHT  And  lo/  from  out  Vacuity 

DARK  A  second  Incongruity, 

ALL  To  wit,  a  Lady  Cam-u-el  was  born  through  magic  art; 

LIGHT  i  Her  structure  anatomical, 

Her  face  and  form  WERE  comical; 
ALL  She  was,  in  short,  a  Cam-u-el,  the  other's  counterpart. 

LIGHT  As  Spaniards  gaze  on  Aragon, 

DARK  Upon  that  Female  Paragon 

ALL  So  gazed  the  Prophet's  Cam-u-el,  that  primal  Desert 

Ship. 
LIGHT  i  A  connoisseur  meticulous, 

He  found  her  that  ridiculous 
ALL  He  grinned  from  ear  to  auricle  UNTIL  HE  SPLIT  HIS  LIP! 

LIGHT  Because  of  his  temerity 

DARK  That  Cam-u-el's  posterity 

ALL  Must  wear  divided  upper  lips  through  all  their  solemn 

lives/ 
LIGHT  i  A  prodigy  astonishing, 

Reproachfully  admonishing 
ALL  All  wicked,  heartless  married  men  who  ridicule  their 

ARTHUR  GUITERMAN,  The  Legend 
of  the  First  Cam-u-el 


29.   LIGHT  i  Canary-birds  feed  on  sugar  and  seed, 

DARK  i  Parrots  have  crackers  to  crunch; 


In  Chorus  363 

DARK  2  And  as  for  the  poodles,  they  tell  me  the  noodles 

Have  chickens  and  cream  for  their  lunch. 

ALL  But  there's  never  a  question 

About  MY  digestion— 
ANYTHING  does  for  me/ 

LIGHT  i  Cats,  you're  aware,  can  repose  in  a  chair, 

DARK  i  Chickens  can  roost  upon  rails; 

DARK  2  Puppies  are  able  to  sleep  in  a  stable, 

LIGHT  2  And  oysters  can  slumber  in  pails. 

ALL  But  no  one  supposes 

A  poor  camel  dozes— 

ANY  PLACE  does  for  me/ 

LIGHT  i  Lambs  are  enclosed  where  it's  never  exposed, 

DARK  i  Coops  are  constructed  for  hens; 

DARK  2  Kittens  are  treated  to  houses  well  heated, 

LIGHT  2  And  pigs  are  protected  by  pens. 

ALL  But  a  Camel  comes  handy 

Wherever  it's  sandy — 

ANYWHERE  does  for  me/ 

LIGHT  i  People  would  laugh  if  you  rode  a  giraffe, 

DARK  i  Or  mounted  the  back  of  an  ox; 

DARK  2  It's  nobody's  habit  to  ride  on  a  rabbit, 

LIGHT  2  Or  try  to  bestraddle  a  fox. 

ALL  But  as  for  a  Camel,  he's 

Ridden  by  families— 

ANY  LOAD  does  for  me/ 

LIGHT  i  A  snake  is  as  round  as  a  hole  in  the  ground; 

DARK  i  Weasels  are  wavy  and  sleek; 

DARK  2  And  no  alligator  could  ever  be  straighter 

Than  lizards  that  live  in  a  creek. 
ALL  But  a  Camel's  all  lumpy 

And  bumpy  and  humpy — 
ANY  SHAPE  does  for  me/ 

GUY  WETMORE  CARRYL,  The  Plaint 
of  the  Camel 

20.   LIGHT  i          Knitting  is  the  maid  o'  the  kitchen,  Milly, 
DARK  i  Doing  nothing  sits  the  chore  boy,  Billy; 

LIGHT  "Seconds  reckoned,  seconds  reckoned, 

Sixty  in  it. 


Reading  to  Others 

ALL  Milly,  Billy, 

Billy,  Milly, 
DARK  Tick-tock,  tock-tick, 

Nick-nock,  nock-nick, 

Knockety-nick,  nickety-nock"— 
ALL  Goes  the  kitchen  clock. 

LIGHT  i  Closer  to  the  fire  is  rosy  Milly, 

DARK  i  Every  whit  as  close  and  cosy,  Billy: 

LIGHT  "Time's  a-flying,  worth  your  trying; 

LIGHT  i  Pretty  Milly— 

DARK  i  Kiss  her,  Billy/ 

ALL  Milly,  Billy, 

Billy,  Milly, 
DARK  Tick-tock,  tock-tick, 

Now — now,  quick — quick/ 

Knockety-nick,  nickety-nock,"— 
ALL  Goes  the  kitchen  clock. 

LIGHT  i  Weeks  gone,  still  they're  sitting,  Milly,  Billy, 

DARK  i  O  the  winter  winds  are  wondrous  chilly/ 

LIGHT  "Winter  weather,  close  together; 

Wouldn't  tarry,  better  marry, 
ALL  Milly,  Billy, 

DARK  Two-one,  one-two, 

Don't  wait,  'twon't  do, 

Knockety-nick,  nickety-nock"— 
ALL  Goes  the  kitchen  clock. 

LIGHT  i          Winters  two  have  gone,  and  where  is  Milly? 

DARK  i  Spring  has  come  again,  and  where  is  Billy? 

LIGHT  "Give  me  credit,  for  I  did  it: 

LIGHT  i  Treat  me  kindly, 

DARK  i  Mind  you  wind  me. 

ALL  Mister  Billy,  Mistress  Milly, 

DARK  My-O,  O-my, 

By-by,  by-by, 

Nickety-nock,  cradle  rock"— 
ALL  Goes  the  kitchen  clock. 

JOHN  VANCE  CHENEY,  The  Kitchen  Clock 

21.   ALL  Said  the  Raggedy  Man  on  a  hot  afternoon, 

LIGHT  i  "My/ 

DARK  i  Sakes/ 


In  Chorus 


365 


GROUP  OF  4  What  a  lot  of  mistakes 

LIGHT  Some  little  folks  makes  on  the  Man  in  the  moon. 

DARK  But  people  that's  been  up  to  see  him  like  Me, 

And  calls  on  him  frequent  and  intimutly, 

LIGHT  Might  drop  a  few  hints  that  would  interest  you 
LIGHT  i  Clean/ 

DARK  i  Through/ 

GROUP  or  4  If  you  wanted  'em  to — 

ALL  Some  actual  facts  that  might  interest  you/ 

ALL  "O  the  Man  in  the  Moon  has  a  crick  in  his  back. 
LIGHT  i  Wheel 

DARK  i  Whimml 

GROUP  OF  4  Ain't  you  sorry  for  him? 

LIGHT  And  a  mole  on  his  nose  that  is  purple  and  black; 

DARK  And  his  eyes  are  so  weak  that  they  water  and  run 
If  he  dares  to  DREAM  even  he  looks  at  the  sun,— 

LIGHT  So  he  jes'  dreams  of  stars,  as  the  doctors  advise— 
LIGHT  i  My/ 

DARK  i  Eyes/ 

GROUP  OF  4  But  isn't  he  wise— 

ALL  To  /es'  dream  of  stars,  as  the  doctors  advise? 

ALL  "And  the  Man  in  the  Moon  has  a  boil  on  his  ear— 

LIGHT  i  Wheel 

DARK  i  Whing/ 

GROUP  OF  4  What  a  singular  thing/ 

LIGHT  I  know/  but  these  facts  are  authentic,  my  dear,— 

DARK  There's  a  boil  on  his  ear;  and  a  corn  on  his  chin,— 

He  calls  it  a  dimple,— but  dimples  stick  in— 
LIGHT  Yet  it  might  be  a  dimple  turned  over,  you  know/ 
LIGHT  i  Whang/ 
DARK  i  Ho/ 
GROUP  OF  4  Why  certainly  SO- 
ALL  It  might  be  a  dimple  turned  over,  you  know/ 

ALL  "And  the  Man  in  the  Moon  has  a  rheumatic  knee, 
LIGHT  i  Gee/ 

DARK  i  Whizz/ 

GROUP  OF  4  What  a  pity  that  is/ 

LIGHT  And  his  toes  have  worked  round  where  his  heels  ought 
to  be. 


366 


DARK 


LIGHT 
LIGHT  1 
DARK  1 
GROUP  OF  4 
ALL 

ALL 

LIGHT  1 
DARK  1 
GROUP  OF  4 
LIGHT 
DARK 

LIGHT 
LIGHT  1 
DARK  1 
GROUP  OF  4 
ALL 


22.  ALL 

LIGHT  1 
ALL 
DARK  1 
ALL 

DARK  1 
ALL 

ALL 


Reading  to  Others 

So  whenever  he  wants  to  go  North  he  goes  South, 
And  comes  back  with  porridge  crumbs  all  round  his 

mouth, 

And  he  brushes  them  off  with  a  Japanese  fan, 
Whing/ 

Whann/ 

What  a  marvellous  man/ 
What  a  very  remarkably  marvellous  man/ 

"And  the  Man  in  the  Moon/'  sighed  the  Raggedy 

Man, 
"Gits/ 
So/ 

Sullonesome,  you  know/ 
Up  there  by  himself  since  creation  began/- 
That when  I  call  on  him  and  then  come  away, 
He  grabs  me  and  holds  me  and  begs  me  to  stay— 
Till— well,  if  it  wasn't  for  /immy-cum-Jim, 
Dadd/ 
Limb/ 

I'd  go  pardners  with  him/ 
Jes'  jump  my  job  here  and  be  pardners  with  him/" 

JAMES  W.  RILEY,  The  Man  in  the  Moon 

The  Owl  and  the  Pussy-Cat  went  to  sea 

In  a  beautiful  pea-green  boat: 
They  took  some  honey,  [LIGHT  2]  and  plenty  of  money 

Wrapped  up  in  a  five-pound  note. 
The  Owl  looked  up  to  the  stars  above, 

And  sang  to  a  small  guitar, 
"Oh,  lovely  Pussy,  oh,  Pussy,  my  love, 

What  a  beautiful  Pussy  you  are, 
You  are, 
You  are/ 
What  a  beautiful  Pussy  you  are/" 

Pussy  said  to  the  Owl,  [DARK  i]  "You  elegant  fowl, 

How  charmingly  sweet  you  sing/ 
Oh,  let  us  be  married;  too  long  we  have  tarried: 

But  what  shall  we  do  for  a  ring?" 
They  sailed  away  for  a  year  and  a  day, 

To  the  land  where  the  bong-tree  grows; 
And  there  in  the  wood  a  Piggy-wig  stood, 


In  Chorus 


367 


DARK  i  With  a  ring  at  the  end  of  his  nose, 

ALL  His  nose, 

His  nose, 
DARK  i  With  a  ring  at  the  end  of  his  nose. 

ALL  "Dear  Pig,  are  you  willing  to  sell  for  one  shilling, 

Your  ring?"  Said  the  Piggy,  [LIGHT  i]  "I  will." 

ALL  So  they  took  it  away  and  were  married  next  day 

By  the  Turkey  who  lives  on  the  hill. 

LIGHT  i  They  dined  on  mince  [LIGHT  2]  and  slices  of  quince, 

Which  they  ate  with  a  runcible  spoon; 

ALL  And  hand  in  hand,  on  the  edge  of  the  sand, 

DARK  i  They  danced  by  the  light  of  the  moon, 

ALL  The  moon, 

The  moon, 

DARK  i  They  danced  by  the  light  of  the  moon. 

EDWARD  LEAR,  The  Owl  and  the  Pussy-Cat 

23.   ALL  A  lively  young  turtle  lived  down  by  the  banks 

Of  a  dark  rolling  stream  called  the  Jingo; 
And  one  summer  day,  [LIGHT  i]  as  he  went  out  to  play, 

ALL  Fell  in  love  with  a  charming  flamingo— 

DARK  i  An  enormously  genteel  flamingo/ 

4  An  expansively  crimson  flamingo/ 

8  A  beautiful,  bouncing  flamingo/ 

Spake  the  turtle,  in  tones  like  a  delicate  wheeze: 

'To  the  water  I've  oft  seen  you  in  go, 

And  your  form  has  impressed  itself  deep  on  my  shell, 

You  perfectly  modelled  flamingo/ 

You  tremendously  A-i  flamingo/ 

You  inexpressible  flamingo/ 

'To  be  sure,  I'm  a  turtle,  and  you  are  a  belle, 
And  my  language  is  not  your  fine  lingo; 
But  smile  on  me,  tall  one,  and  be  my  bright  flame, 
You  miraculous,  wondrous  flamingo! 
4  You  blazingly  beauteous  flamingo/ 

8  You  turtle-absorbing  flamingo/ 

ALL  You  inflammably  gorgeous  flamingo/" 

ALL  Then  the  proud  bird  blushed  redder  than  ever  before, 

LIGHT  i  And  that  was  quite  un-nec-es-SA-ry, 

ALL  And  she  stood  on  one  leg  and  looked  out  of  one  eye, 


ALL 

LIGHT  1 
LIGHT 
DARK  1 


LIGHT  1 


ALL 
DARK  1 


368  Reading  to  Others 

The  position  of  things  for  to  vary— 
DARK  i  This  aquatical,  musing  flamingo/ 

4  This  dreamy,  uncertain  flamingo/ 

8  This  embarrassing,  harassing  flamingo/ 

ALL  Then  she  cried  to  the  quadruped,  greatly  amazed: 

LIGHT  i  "Why  your  passion  toward  ME  do  you  hurtle? 

DARK  I'm  an  ornithological  wonder  of  grace, 

LIGHT  And  you're  an  illogical  turtle— 

DARK  i  A  waddling,  impossible  turtle/ 

4  A  low-minded,  grass-eating  turtle/ 

8  A  highly  improbable  turtle/" 

JAMES  THOMAS  FIELDS,  The  Turtle 
and  the  Flamingo 


CHAPTER    13 


Jin/oyment  01  Reacting 
Aloud 

HA  SIT  occurred  to  you,  in  your  study 
of  interpretation,  that  we  may  be  putting  too  much  stress  on  our 
responsibilities  as  readers  and  not  enough  on  our  pleasure  as  read- 
ers? There  is  something  a  little  grim  about  the  way  we  struggle 
to  learn  how  to  do  what  we  may  not  especially  like  to  do.  The 
honest  truth  is  that  a  great  many  people  do  not  enjoy  reading, 
either  aloud  or  silently.  And  not  a  few  such  people  take  courses 
in  oral  interpretation,  arguing  perhaps  that  what  is  good  for  us  is 
usually  not  very  palatable.  They  learn  rules  and  dutifully  prac- 
tice exercises,  choosing  material  to  read  by  a  negative  standard  of 
what  is  "least  boring"  or  "easiest  to  understand/'  They  doubtless 
expect  to  profit  through  some  vague  discipline  or  the  acquisition 
of  a  detached  skill.  It  is  apparent  that  one  of  the  neglected  pur- 
poses of  a  course  like  this  is  the  establishing  of  critical  standards 
and  a  directed  search  for  appreciation. 

How  can  we  get  at  appreciation?  One  way,  according  to  psy- 
chology, is  to  keep  everlastingly  at  what  we  want  to  appreciate. 
What  we  attend  to  seriously  will  eventually  interest  us.  Another 
way  is  to  study  the  principles  of  literary  appreciation.  Let  us  see 
what  some  writers  on  this  subject  have  said  about  it: 

One  of  the  unconscious  functions  of  poetry,  and  the  chief  conscious 
function  of  the  interpreter  of  poetry,  is  to  waken  the  dead.  Not  that 
those  with  any  sort  of  appreciation  are  actually  dead,  but  they  are  fre- 
quently in  a  state  of  perpetual  hibernation.  Mediocre  poetry  of  all  kinds 
is  popular  simply  because  people  are  willing  to  let  their  taste  remain 

369 


370  Reading  to  Others 

mediocre,  that  is  all  ....  Poetry  is  the  most  concentrated  and  complex 
use  of  language  there  is,  and  it  is  used  as  a  means  of  communication  by 
men  and  women  who  live  more  richly  and  intensely  than  we  do.  The 
result  naturally  needs  all  that  we  can  give  of  ourselves  to  meet  it  and 
make  it  our  own  .... 

We  must  always  remember  poetry  is  to  be  read  for  delight.  If  after 
reading  a  poem  several  times  as  carefully  and  whole-heartedly  as  we  can 
(aloud  for  preference)  it  still  does  not  "suit  the  need  of  the  moment/' 
and  we  have  no  sense  of  flying  to  Parnassus,  put  it  by  and  try  something 
else.  For,  for  every  manner  of  person  and  for  every  shifting  phase  of  per- 
sonality there  is  the  poetry  which  satisfies. 

ELIZABETH  DREW,  Discovering  Poetry 

Of  all  things  poetry  is  most  unlike  deadness.  It  is  unlike  ennui,  or 
sophistication.  It  is  a  property  of  the  alert  and  beating  hearts.  Those 
who  are  so  proud  that  they  cannot  enter  precipitately  into  the  enter- 
prise of  being,  are  too  great  for  poetry.  Poetry  is  unconditionally  upon 
the  side  of  life.  But  it  is  also  upon  the  side  of  variety  in  life.  It  is  the 
offspring  of  a  love  that  has  many  eyes,  as  many  as  the  flowers  of  the  field. 
There  is  no  poetry  for  him  whose  look  is  straitened,  and  whose  heart  lives 
but  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  single  taste.  He  had  the  power  of  poetry,  and 
lost  it. 

MAX  EASTMAN,  The  Enjoyment  of  Poetry 

The  advantage  of  literature  over  a  bare  record  of  facts  is  that  it  does 
not  merely  give  information;  it  imaginatively  re-creates  experience  so  that 
the  reader  can  see  every  facet  of  human  life  presented  in  such  a  way  that 
if  he,  too,  has  imagination  and  sympathy,  he  can  live  it  with  none  of  the 
inconvenience  of  the  actual  experience.  The  broadening  of  experience 
which  literature  provides  is  probably  its  greatest  value.  No  thoughtful 
reader  of  literature  need  remain  narrow,  limited,  ignorant  of  the  marvel- 
ous variety  of  human  life  and  its  infinite  shadings.  He  has  at  hand  the 
attempts  which  men  have  made  for  centuries  to  interpret  life  to  the 
utmost  extent  of  their  imaginative  power.  No  one  attempt  is  complete, 
authoritative  or  unprejudiced.  From  each,  however,  the  careful,  creative 
reader,  entering  fully  into  the  spirit  of  the  writer,  can  find  something 
which  will  satisfy  the  greatest  human  need,  the  need  for  the  enlighten- 
ing, broadening  and  clarifying  of  our  limited  human  experience. 

RALPH  PHILIP  BOAS,  The  Study  and  Appreciation  of  Literature 

The  cultivation  of  a  sound  literary  taste  is  a  normal  process  with  those 
who  read  widely  and  carefully,  and  for  most  people  all  that  is  necessary 
is  access  to  books  and  a  love  of  reading.  The  process,  however,  is  usually 
slow,  and  is  often  interrupted  by  intense  but  short-lived  loyalties.  To  be 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  371 

deeply  stirred  by  literature  is  itself  a  healthy  symptom.  Even  the  rapid 
transference  of  homage  from  one  writer  to  another  may  be  a  proof  of 
aesthetic  development.  Taste  is  the  one  aspect  of  literary  study  about 
which  one  is  least  entitled  to  dogmatize,  partly  because  of  this  tendency 
to  change,  partly  because  one's  own  taste  may  be  an  individual  thing  ("I 
know  what  I  like,  and  that's  good  enough  for  me/'  with  the  implication 
that  it  is  therefore  good  enough  for  YOU),  and  partly  because  the  unthink- 
ing acceptance  of  one  person's  standards  of  taste  by  another  may  lead  to 
intellectual  dishonesty  and  affectation. 

PAUL  LANDIS  and  A.  R.  ENTWISTLE,  The  Study  of  Poetry 

Criticism,  real  criticism  .  .  .  obeys  an  instinct  prompting  it  to  try  to 
know  the  best  that  is  known  and  thought  in  the  world,  irrespective  of 
practice,  politics,  and  everything  of  the  kind;  and  to  value  knowledge 
and  thought  as  they  approach  their  best,  without  the  intrusion  of  any 
other  consideration  whatever. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD,  Essays  in  Criticism 

In  poetry  the  distinction  between  excellent  and  inferior,  sound  and 
unsound  or  only  half-sound,  true  and  untrue  or  only  half-true,  is  of  para- 
mount importance.  It  is  of  paramount  importance  because  of  the  high 
destinies  of  poetry.  In  poetry,  as  a  criticism  of  life  under  the  conditions 
fixed  for  such  a  criticism  by  the  laws  of  poetic  truth  and  poetic  beauty, 
the  spirit  of  our  race  will  find,  we  have  said,  as  time  goes  on  and  as  other 
helps  fail,  its  consolation  and  stay.  But  the  consolation  and  stay  will  be 
of  power  in  proportion  to  the  power  of  the  criticism  of  life.  And  the 
criticism  of  life  will  be  of  power  in  proportion  as  the  poetry  conveying  it 
is  excellent  rather  than  inferior,  sound  rather  than  unsound  or  half- 
sound,  true  rather  than  untrue  or  half-true. 

The  best  poetry  is  what  we  want;  the  best  poetry  will  be  found  to  have 
a  power  of  forming,  sustaining,  and  delighting  us,  as  nothing  else  can  .... 
So  high  is  that  benefit,  the  benefit  of  clearly  feeling  and  of  deeply  en- 
joying the  really  excellent,  the  truly  classic  in  poetry,  that  we  do  well,  I 
say,  to  set  it  fixedly  before  our  minds  as  our  object  of  studying  poets  and 
poetry,  and  to  make  the  desire  of  attaining  it  the  one  principle  to  which, 
as  the  IMITATION  says,  whatever  we  may  read  or  come  to  know,  we  always 
return. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD,  Essays  in  Criticism 

Poetry  is  a  series  of  explanations  of  life,  fading  off  into  horizons  too 
swift  for  explanations  .  .  . 

Poetry  is  a  sliver  of  the  moon  lost  in  the  belly  of  a  golden  frog  .  .  . 

Poetry  is  the  silence  and  speech  between  a  wet  struggling  root  of  a 
flower  and  a  sunlit  blossom  of  that  flower  ,  ,  , 


Reading  to  Others 

Poetry  is  the  opening  and  closing  of  a  door,  leaving  those  who  look 
through  to  guess  about  what  is  seen  during  a  moment  .  .  . 

Poetry  is  a  section  of  river-fog  and  moving  boat-lights,  delivered  be- 
tween bridges  and  whistles,  so  one  says  "Oh"  and  another,  "How?*' 

Poetry  is  the  achievement  of  the  synthesis  of  hyacinths  and  biscuits. 

Poetry  is  a  mystic,  sensuous  mathematics  of  fire,  smokestacks,  waffles, 
pansies,  people,  and  purple  sunsets. 

CARL  SANDBURG,  Poetry  Considered 

There  is  first  the  literature  of  KNOWLEDGE;  and  secondly,  the  literature 
of  POWER.  The  function  of  the  first  is— to  TEACH;  the  function  of  the 
second  is— to  MOVE.  The  first  is  a  rudder,  the  second  an  oar  or  a  sail. 
The  first  speaks  to  the  MERE  discussive  understanding,  the  second  speaks 
ultimately,  it  may  happen,  to  the  higher  understanding  or  reason,  but 
always  THROUGH  affections  of  pleasure  and  sympathy. 

THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY,  Essays  on  the  Poets 

Poetry  is  the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge;  it  is  the  impas- 
sioned expression  which  is  in  the  countenance  of  all  Science.  Emphat- 
ically may  it  be  said  of  the  Poet,  as  Shakespeare  hath  said  of  man,  "that 
he  looks  before  and  after."  He  is  the  rock  of  defence  for  human  nature; 
an  upholder  and  preserver,  carrying  everywhere  with  him  relationship 
and  love. 

WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH,  Preface  to  the  Lyrical  Ballads1 

"That's  all  very  well,"  you  may  say  (if  you  haven't  skipped  the 
quotations),  "and  I'm  perfectly  willing  to  believe  that  literature 
should  be  everything  that  Arnold  and  Wordsworth  and  the  rest  say 
it  is.  But  the  fact  remains  that  I  still  don't  really  like  to  read  clas-' 
sical  stuff.  I  don't  mind  some  of  the  moderns,  but  I'm  not  much 
of  a  hand  at  reading  anything,  outside  of  The  Reader's  Digest  and 
the  papers.  Of  course,  if  I've  got  to  read  it  for  a  class  or  something, 
Fve  got  to,  that's  all.  But  that  doesn't  mean  I've  got  to  like  it." 

Here's  an  attitude  that  neither  psychology  nor  the  principles  of 
criticism  can  combat.  Continued  application  would  only  harden 
the  hostility  of  such  a  person.  Proof  that  poetry  is  "a  drainless 
shower  of  light"  or  "the  utterance  of  a  passion  for  truth,  beauty, 
and  power"  or  "the  image  of  man  and  nature"  would  probably  be 
met  with  a  snort.  What  can  be  done  to  produce  a  sense  of  appre- 
ciation in  people  who  are  apparently  hardened  against  it?  It  is 
certainly  possible  that  nothing  can  be  done,  that  such  frank 

1  See  also  Shelley's  A  Defense  of  Poetry,  p.  70. 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  373 

confession  of  Philistinism  should  be  honored— and  let  alone. 
There  will  aways  be  some  people  like  these.  They  are  the  ones 
who  insist  on  happy  endings  in  books  and  movies  and  who  say, 
"There's  enough  trouble  in  the  world;  we  read  or  go  to  the  theater 
to  be  entertained,  not  to  have  to  think."  They  like  such  phrases 
as  "That's  over  my  head"  or  "That's  too  deep  for  me"  or  "That's 
highbrow"  or  "Give  me  the  sporting  page;  poetry's  sissy  stuff"  or 
"I  read  Shakespeare  and  all  that  when  I  was  in  school;  I  don't  have 
any  time  for  that  sort  of  thing  any  more"  or  "We're  in  a  world  of 
realities;  you  can't  escape  'em  by  burying  your  head  in  a  book." 

Perhaps  we  should  have  started  this  discussion  of  appreciation 
at  the  other  end,  telling  those  who  do  like  to  read  some  of  the  rea- 
sons why  they  are  virtuous  and  why  those  who  don't  like  to  read 
are— shall  we  say?— lowbrow.  But  there  should  be  some  way  of 
making  out  a  reasonable  case  for  appreciation  that  will  apply  to 
everybody. 

In  the  first  place  (we  might  begin),  the  love  of  literature  is  not 
an  easy  acquirement.  It's  like  most  fine  things;  we've  got  to  work 
for  it.  If  you  have  the  common  illusion  that  the  purpose  of  the 
arts  should  be  to  entertain  you,  get  that  idea  out  of  your  head.  In 
order  to  understand  Brahms's  symphonies  or  Rembrandt's  por- 
traits or  Chekhov's  plays,  you  must  have  patient  study  and  percep- 
tion and  sensitiveness  and  knowledge.  Anybody  can  read  a  comic 
strip,  smile,  and  forget  it;  anybody  can  be  amused  by  a  conven- 
tional "whodunnit"  or  "boy-meets-girl"  movie.  But  not  just  any- 
body can  recognize  the  full  beauty  and  nobility  of  one  of  Keats's 
sonnets  or  feel  the  majesty  of  Beethoven's  Ninth  Symphony  or 
know  wrhat  the  walls  and  ceiling  of  the  Vatican  Chapel  really 
mean.  These  things  demand  a  humble  and  often  laborious  search 
for  truth.  You  might  learn  now,  if  you  haven't  already,  the  differ- 
ence between  being  entertained  and  experiencing  pleasure— or 
rather,  you  might  learn  that  the  pleasure  of  an  educated  person 
(whether  he's  been  to  college  or  not)  is  the  product  of  cultivation. 
It  does  not  grow  wild,  to  be  plucked  at  will.  And  pleasure  is  the 
purpose  of  the  arts. 

In  the  second  place,  whatever  your  opinion  about  the  high  merit 
of  thinking  only  your  own  realistic  thoughts,  there  is  much  to  be 
gained  through  sharing  the  thoughts  and  experiences  of  those  who 
have  lived  more  significant  lives  than  yours.  You  see,  we're  not 


374  Reading  to  Others 

very  original,  any  of  us;  we  borrow  most  of  our  ideas  from  other 
people,  just  as  we  imitate  their  behavior.  You  believe  that  those 
* 'realistic"  thoughts  are  your  own:  It's  very  likely  that  they  are 
somebody  else's,  a  barber's,  a  neighbor's,  a  radio  commentator's, 
a  magazine  writer's.  Don't  you  think  that  you  would  have  a  more 
orderly  mind  and  certainly  a  more  intelligent  collection  of  opin- 
ions if  you  were  more  discriminating  in  your  authorities? 

In  the  third  place,  you're  probably  very  suspicious  of  emotion. 
You  think  it  effeminate  or  gushing  or  exhibitionistic.  And  yet 
aren't  there  moments  of  deep  feeling  in  your  own  life  which  lack 
articulate  words,  even  as  you  remember  them?  Haven't  you  ever 
wanted  to  tell  some  one  how  a  superb  thing,  a  sunset,  or  a  view 
from  a  mountain-top,  or  an  Easter  service,  or  a  beautiful  song 
moved  you?  Haven't  you  wanted  to  express  a  great  happiness  or  a 
great  grief  in  more  than  embarrassed,  mumbled  phrases?  Haven't 
you  wanted  to  make  love  eloquently  or  to  tell  how  you  feel  about 
God,  about  spring  flowers,  about  the  peace  of  a  summer  night? 
Don't  you  think  that  there  should  be  some  satisfaction  in  know- 
ing what  people  who  have  been  able  to  express  their  emotions 
about  these  universal  experiences  have  said? 

There  are  many  other  arguments.  But  they  may  all  be  sum- 
marized in  the  one  piece  of  advice  that  you  work  at  understand- 
ing, without  impatiently  dismissing  it  before  you've  sincerely 
applied  your  thinking  and  emotional  equipment.  Try  to  remem- 
ber that  your  ability  to  appreciate  anything  depends  upon  your 
quality  as  a  person  and  the  extent  of  your  past  experience,  as  well 
as  on  the  nature  of  what  you  are  examining.  The  difficulty  may 
be  in  the  poverty  of  your  experience  rather  than  in  the  unattrac- 
tiveness  of  the  stimulus. 

Some  antagonism  to  literature  is  the  result  of  overmuch  stress 
on  poetry.  Many  people  are  honestly  allergic  to  poetry,  just  as 
they  may  be  to  ragweed  pollen  or  cats  or  stewed  tomatoes.  There 
is  no  known  inoculation  that  will  cure  them;  they  had  better 
simply  keep  out  of  the  way  of  stray  iambs  and  anapests.  But  they 
should  remember  that  literature  is  made  up  of  other  elements 
besides  poetry.  They  can  love  good  novels  and  plays  and  essays  and 
stories  with  just  as  much  discrimination  as  the  connoisseur  of 
poetry,  though  he  may  think  he  alone  has  literarv  taste. 

Of  course,  most  dislike  of  literature  is  based  on  unfamiliarity 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  375 

with  it.  The  radio  has  brought  serious  music  to  many  people  who 
never  knew  it  before.  If  only  the  radio  could  take  great  literature 
to  those  who  do  not  know  it  or  who  profess  not  to  enjoy  it,  we 
could  enormously  increase  the  world's  pleasure.  But  reading  is 
not  quite  like  music;  it  depends  more  on  individual  performance. 
We  can  enjoy  someone  else's  reading,  but  our  ultimate  pleasure 
lies  in  our  own  ability  to  get  meaning  and  emotion  out  of  what 
we  read.  Perhaps  the  best  suggestion  to  those  who  don't  like  to 
read  is  that  they  try  books  for  awhile  just  as  they  might  try  spinach 
or  parsnips  or  anything  else  that  they  think  might  be  good  for  them. 

We've  been  talking  here  mostly  about  reading  in  general.  If 
you  have  carefully  read  the  first  part  of  this  book,  you  know  that 
what  we  have  said  applies  especially  to  reading  aloud.  Look  back 
to  the  chapters  on  meaning  and  emotion  in  interpretation  and  see 
if  they  have  any  new  values  for  you.  All  the  pleasures  of  reading 
should  be  increased  by  reading  aloud.  To  the  greatness  of  men's 
thoughts  and  the  grace  and  power  of  their  words  are  added  the 
beauties  of  sound  and  the  almost  three-dimensional  attribute  of 
harmonious  structure.  Silent  reading  gives  enjoyment  through 
recognition  of  meaningful  symbols.  Reading  aloud  makes  those 
symbols  alive,  important  in  themselves  as  connotative  and  deno- 
tative combinations  of  sounds.  Something  more,  too,  is  added  by 
the  personality  of  the  interpreter.  In  brief,  the  pleasure  of  literary 
appreciation  is  strengthened  and  enhanced  by  the  special  charac- 
teristics of  oral  interpretation. 

Something  might  be  said  about  the  pleasure  of  oral  reading  to 
the  listener.  We  have  been  discussing  appreciation  as  if  it  applied 
only  to  the  reader.  Actually,  of  course,  if  only  the  interpreter  gets 
pleasure  out  of  his  reading,  he  might  better  do  it  silently  and 
spare  a  suffering  audience.  One  of  the  most  important  values  of 
oral  interpretation  is  in  the  reader's  sharing  with  an  audience  the 
enjoyment  that  his  disciplined  mind  has  experienced  and  that  his 
resources  of  technique  and  imagination  make  him  peculiarly  able 
to  communicate.  This  is  a  rather  significant  matter  to  be  taken 
up  so  late  in  our  study.  One  explanation,  however,  is  that  if  we 
go  through  the  training  necessary  to  make  us  good  readers,  we 
should  have  the  keenness  of  understanding  to  make  us  good  hearers 
too.  The  trouble  is  that  most  of  those  who  will  listen  to  us  will 
not  have  had  a  course  in  speech.  How  can  we  be  sure  that  they 


Reading  to  Others 

will  have  pleasure  in  our  reading?  Well,  we  can't  be  sure,  but  we 
should  know  that  if  we  ourselves  truly  appreciate  what  we  are 
interpreting  and  have  a  sincere  desire  to  communicate  it,  the 
people  who  listen  to  us  will  probably  be  interested. 

One  more  word.  In  all  this  tangle  of  instructions  and  principles, 
we  must  not  forget  that  with  the  growth  of  our  power  of  appre- 
ciation should  come  discernment  and  a  sense  of  values.  No  one 
is  so  dull  as  to  think  that  all  good  things  are  equally  good.  Some 
of  us  are  satisfied  when  we  learn  to  distinguish  the  obviously  bad 
in  art  from  the  good.  That  is  certainly  the  next  task,  after  assur- 
ing ourselves  that  we  sincerely  accept  the  definition  of  what  is 
good.  Here,  however,  we  may  be  intruding  on  the  province  of 
aesthetics  and  literary  criticism.  This  is  probably  a  good  place  for 
a  book  on  oral  interpretation  to  stop. 

Exercises 

Read  the  following  selections,  as  mindful  as  you  can  be  of  the 
technique  of  reading,  but  stressing  especially  those  aspects  of  mean- 
ing and  emotion  that  most  contribute  to  your  pleasure  in  reading. 
That  is,  pick  out  the  thoughts  that  you  particularly  like  and  at- 
tempt to  communicate  your  pleasure  in  them  to  an  audience.  By 
this  time  you  should  attend  almost  automatically  to  the  technical 
details.  You  might  try  a  little  preliminary  critical  analysis  of  each 
selection  before  you  present  it,  deciding  why  it  is  good  and 
whether  it  is  as  good  as  some  other  selection  on  the  same  subject. 
Even  if  you  are  not  directly  concerned  with  literary  criticism,  you 
might  see  what  you  know  about  it.  Talk  over  the  selections  with 
your  classmates,  thinking  about  them  in  terms  of  human  experi- 
ence, rather  than  in  terms  of  material  to  be  interpreted. 

i.   Next  morning,  at  daylight,  the  NARCISSUS  went  to  sea.  * 

A  slight  haze  blurred  the  horizon.  Outside  the  harbour  the  measure- 
less expanse  of  smooth  water  lay  sparkling  like  a  floor  of  jewels,  and  as 
empty  as  the  sky.  The  short  black  tug  gave  a  pluck  to  windward,  in  the 
usual  way,  then  let  go  the  rope,  and  hovered  for  a  moment  on  the  quar- 
ter with  her  engines  stopped;  while  the  slim,  long  hull  of  the  ship  moved 
ahead  slowly  under  lower  topsails.  The  loose  upper  canvas  blew  out  in 
the  breeze  with  soft  round  contours,  resembling  small  white  clouds 
snared  in  the  maze  of  ropes.  Then  the  sheets  were  hauled  home,  the 
yards  hoisted,  and  the  ship  became  a  high  and  lonely  pyramid,  gliding, 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  377 

all  shining  and  white,  through  the  sunlit  mist.  The  tug  turned  short 
round  and  went  away  towards  the  land.  Twenty-six  pairs  of  eyes  watched 
her  low  broad  stern  crawling  languidly  over  the  smooth  swell  between 
the  two  paddle-wheels  that  turned  fast,  beating  the  water  with  fierce 
hurry.  She  resembled  an  enormous  and  aquatic  black  beetle,  surprised  by 
the  light,  overwhelmed  by  the  sunshine,  trying  to  escape  with  ineffectual 
effort  into  the  distant  gloom  of  the  land.  She  left  a  lingering  smudge  of 
smoke  on  the  sky,  and  two  vanishing  trails  of  foam  on  the  water.  On  the 
place  where  she  had  stopped  a  round  black  patch  of  soot  remained, 
undulating  on  the  swell— an  unclean  mark  of  the  creature's  rest. 

The  NARCISSUS  left  alone,  heading  south,  seemed  to  stand  resplend- 
ent and  still  upon  the  restless  sea,  under  the  moving  sun.  Flakes  of  foam 
swept  past  her  sides;  the  water  struck  her  with  flashing  blows;  the  land 
glided  away,  slowly  fading;  a  few  birds  screamed  on  motionless  wings 
over  the  swaying  mastheads.  But  soon  the  land  disappeared,  the  birds 
went  away;  and  to  the  west  the  pointed  sail  of  an  Arab  dhow,  running 
for  Bombay,  rose  triangular  and  upright  above  the  sharp  edge  of  the 
horizon,  lingered  and  vanished  like  an  illusion.  Then  the  ship's  wake, 
long  and  straight,  stretched  itself  out  through  a  day  of  immense  solitude. 
The  setting  sun,  burning  on  the  level  of  the  water,  flamed  crimson  below 
the  blackness  of  heavy  rain  clouds.  The  sunset  squall,  coming  up  from 
behind,  dissolved  itself  into  the  short  deluge  of  a  hissing  shower.  It  left 
the  ship  glistening  from  trucks  to  water-line,  and  with  darkened  sails. 
She  ran  easily  before  a  fair  monsoon,  with  her  decks  cleared  for  the  night; 
and,  moving  along  with  her,  was  heard  the  sustained  and  monotonous 
swishing  of  the  waves,  mingled  with  the  low  whispers  of  men  mustered 
aft  for  the  setting  of  watches;  the  short  plaint  of  some  block  aloft;  or, 
now  and  then,  a  loud  sigh  of  wind. 

JOSEPH  CONRAD,  The  Nigger  of  the  "Narcissus" 

2.  The  square  finger,  moving  here  and  there,  lighted  suddenly  on 
Bitzer,  perhaps  because  he  chanced  to  sit  in  the  same  ray  of  sunlight 
which,  darting  in  at  one  of  the  bare  windows  of  the  intensely  white- 
washed room,  irradiated  Sissy.  For,  the  boys  and  girls  sat  on  the  face  of 
the  inclined  plane  in  two  compact  bodies,  divided  up  the  centre  by  a 
narrow  interval;  and  Sissy,  being  at  the  corner  of  a  row  on  the  sunny  side, 
came  in  for  the  beginning  of  a  sunbeam,  of  which  Bitzer,  being  at  the 
corner  of  a  row  on  the  other  side,  a  few  rows  in  advance,  caught  the  end. 
But,  whereas  the  girl  was  so  dark-eyed  and  dark-haired,  that  she  seemed 
to  receive  a  deeper  and  more  lustrous  color  from  the  sun,  when  it  shone 
upon  her,  the  boy  was  so  light-eyed  and  light-haired  that  the  self-same 
rays  appeared  to  draw  out  of  him  what  little  color  he  ever  possessed. 
His  cold  eyes  would  hardly  have  been  eyes,  but  for  the  short  ends  of 


378  Reading  to  Others 

lashes  which,  by  bringing  them  into  immediate  contrast  with  something 
paler  than  themselves,  expressed  their  form.  His  short-cropped  hair 
might  have  been  a  mere  continuation  of  the  sandy  freckles  on  his  fore- 
head and  face.  His  skin  was  so  unwholesomely  deficient  in  the  natural 
tinge,  that  he  looked  as  though,  if  he  were  cut,  he  would  bleed  white. 

"Bitzer,"  said  Thomas  Gradgrind.  "Your  definition  of  a  horse." 

"Quadruped.  Graminivorous.  Forty  teeth,  namely  twenty-four  grind- 
ers, four  eye-teeth,  and  twelve  incisive.  Sheds  coat  in  the  spring;  in 
marshy  country,  sheds  hoofs,  too.  Hoofs  hard,  but  requiring  to  be  shod 
with  iron.  Age  known  by  marks  in  mouth/'  Thus  (and  much  more) 
Bitzer. 

"Now  girl  number  twenty/'  said  Mr.  Gradgrind.  "You  know  what  a 
horse  is/' 

She  courtesied  again,  and  would  have  blushed  deeper,  if  she  could 
have  blushed  deeper  than  she  had  blushed  all  this  time.  Bitzer,  after 
rapidly  blinking  at  Thomas  Gradgrind  with  both  eyes  at  once,  and  so 
catching  the  light  upon  his  quivering  ends  of  lashes  that  they  looked  like 
the  antennae  of  busy  insects,  put  his  knuckles  to  his  freckled  forehead, 
and  sat  down  again. 

CHARLES  DICKENS,  Hard  Times 

3.  One  day  when  I  went  out  to  my  wood-pile,  or  rather  my  pile  of 
stumps,  I  observed  two  large  ants,  the  one  red,  the  other  much  larger, 
nearly  half  an  inch  long,  and  black,  fiercely  contending  with  one  another. 
Having  once  got  hold  they  never  let  go,  but  struggled  and  wrestled  and 
rolled  on  the  chips  incessantly.  Looking  farther,  I  was  surprised  to  find 
that  the  chips  were  covered  with  such  combatants,  that  it  was  not  a 
DUELLUM,  but  a  BELLUM,  a  war  between  two  races  of  ants,  the  red  always 
pitted  against  the  black.  The  legions  of  these  Myrmidons  covered  all  the 
hills  and  vales  in  my  wood-yard,  and  the  ground  was  already  strewn  with 
the  dead  and  dying,  both  red  and  black.  It  was  the  only  battle-field 
which  I  have  ever  witnessed,  the  only  battle-field  I  ever  trod  while  the 
battle  was  raging;  internecine  war;  the  red  republicans  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  black  imperialists  on  the  other.  On  every  side  they  were  engaged 
in  deadly  combat,  yet  without  any  noise  that  I  could  hear,  and  human 
soldiers  never  fought  so  resolutely.  I  watched  a  couple  that  were  fast 
locked  in  each  other's  embraces,  in  a  little  sunny  valley  amid  the  chips, 
now  at  noon-day  prepared  to  fight  till  the  sun  went  down,  or  life  went 
out.  The  smaller  red  champion  had  fastened  himself  like  a  vice  to  his 
adversary's  front,  and  through  all  the  tumblings  on  that  field  never  for 
an  instant  ceased  to  gnaw  at  one  of  his  feelers  near  the  root,  having 
already  caused  the  other  to  go  by  the  board;  while  the  stronger  black  one 
dashed  him  from  side  to  side,  and,  as  I  saw  on  looking  nearer,  had  already 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  379 

divested  him  of  several  of  his  members.  They  fought  with  more  perti- 
nacity than  bull-dogs.  Neither  manifested  the  least  disposition  to  retreat. 
It  was  evident  that  their  battle-cry  was  Conquer  or  die.  In  the  mean- 
while there  came  along  a  single  red  ant  on  the  hill-side  of  this  valley, 
evidently  full  of  excitement,  who  either  had  despatched  his  foe,  or  had 
not  yet  taken  part  in  the  battle;  probably  the  latter,  for  he  had  lost  none 
of  his  limbs;  whose  mother  had  charged  him  to  return  with  his  shield  or 
upon  it.  Or  perchance  he  was  some  Achilles,  who  had  nourished  his 
wrath  apart,  and  had  now  come  to  avenge  or  rescue  his  Patroclus.  He 
saw  this  unequal  combat  from  afar— for  the  black  were  nearly  twice  the 
size  of  the  red— he  drew  near  with  rapid  pace  till  he  stood  on  his  guard 
within  half  an  inch  of  the  combatants;  then,  watching  his  opportunity, 
he  sprang  upon  the  black  warrior,  and  commenced  his  operations  near 
the  root  of  his  right  fore-leg,  leaving  the  foe  to  select  among  his  own 
members;  and  so  there  were  three  united  for  life,  as  if  a  new  kind  of 
attraction  had  been  invented  which  put  all  other  locks  and  cements  to 
shame.  I  should  not  have  wondered  by  this  time  to  find  that  they  had 
their  respective  musical  bands  stationed  on  some  eminent  chip,  and 
playing  their  national  airs  the  while,  to  excite  the  slow  and  cheer  the 
dying  combatants.  I  was  myself  excited  somewhat  even  as  if  they  had 
been  men.  The  more  you  think  of  it,  the  less  the  difference.  And  cer- 
tainly there  is  not  the  fight  recorded  in  Concord  history,  at  least,  if  in 
the  history  of  America,  that  will  bear  a  moment's  comparison  with  this, 
whether  for  the  numbers  engaged  in  it,  or  for  the  patriotism  and  heroism 
displayed.  For  numbers  and  for  carnage  it  was  an  Austerlitz  or  Dresden. 
Concord  Fight/  Two  killed  on  the  patriots'  side  and  Luther  Blanchard 
wounded/  Why  here  every  ant  was  a  Buttrick— "Fire/  for  god's  sake 
fire/"— and  thousands  shared  the  fate  of  Davis  and  Hosmer.  There  was 
not  one  hireling  there.  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  principle  they 
fought  for,  as  much  as  our  ancestors,  and  not  to  avoid  a  three-penny  tax 
on  their  tea;  and  the  results  of  this  battle  will  be  as  important  and 
memorable  to  those  whom  it  concerns  as  those  of  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill  at  least. 

HENRY  THOREAU,  Walden 

4.  The  terms  "popular"  and  "learned,"  as  applied  to  words,  are  not 
absolute  definitions.  No  two  persons  have  the  same  stock  of  words,  and 
the  same  word  may  be  "popular"  in  one  man's  vocabulary  and  "learned" 
in  another's.  There  are  also  different  grades  of  "popularity";  indeed  there 
is  in  reality  a  continuous  gradation  from  infantile  words  like  MAMMA 
and  PAPA  to  such  erudite  derivatives  as  CONCATENATION  and  CATACLYSM. 
Still,  the  division  into  "learned"  and  "popular"  is  convenient  and  sound. 
Disputes  may  arise  as  to  the  classification  of  any  particular  word,  but 


380  Reading  to  Others 

there  can  be  no  difference  of  opinion  about  the  general  principle.  We 
must  be  careful,  however,  to  avoid  misconception.  When  we  call  a  word 
"popular,"  we  do  not  mean  that  it  is  a  favorite  word,  but  simply  that  it 
belongs  to  the  people  as  a  whole— that  is,  it  is  everybody's  word,  not  the 
possession  of  a  limited  number.  When  we  call  a  word  "learned,"  we  do 
not  mean  that  it  is  used  by  scholars  alone,  but  simply  that  its  presence  in 
the  English  vocabulary  is  due  to  books  and  the  cultivation  of  literature, 
rather  than  to  the  actual  needs  of  ordinary  conversation. 

Here  is  one  of  the  main  differences  between  a  cultivated  and  an  uncul- 
tivated language.  Both  possess  a  large  stock  of  "popular"  words;  but  the 
cultivated  language  is  also  rich  in  "learned"  words,  with  which  the  ruder 
tongue  has  not  provided  itself  simply  because  it  has  never  felt  the  need 
of  them. 

In  English  it  will  usually  be  found  that  the  so-called  learned  words 
are  of  foreign  origin.  Most  of  them  are  derived  from  French  or  Latin, 
and  a  considerable  number  from  Greek.  7"he  reason  is  obvious.  The 
development  of  English  literature  has  not  been  isolated,  but  has  taken 
place  in  close  connection  with  the  earnest  study  of  foreign  literatures. 
Thus,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  when  our  language  was  assuming  sub- 
stantially the  shape  which  it  now  bears,  the  literary  exponent  of  English 
life  and  thought,  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  the  first  of  our  great  poets,  was  pro- 
foundly influenced  by  Latin  literature  as  well  as  by  that  of  France  and 
Italy.  In  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  the  Greek  and  Latin 
classics  were  vigorously  studied  by  almost  every  English  writer  of  any 
consequence,  and  the  great  authors  of  antiquity  were  regarded  as  models, 
not  merely  of  general  literary  form,  but  of  expression  in  all  its  details. 
These  foreign  influences  have  varied  much,  in  character  and  intensity. 
But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  has  been  no  time  since  1350  when  English 
writers  of  the  highest  class  have  not  looked  to  Latin,  French,  and  Italian 
authors  for  guidance  and  inspiration.  From  1600  to  the  present  day  the 
direct  influence  of  Greek  literature  and  philosophy  has  also  been  enor- 
mous, affecting  as  it  has  the  finest  spirits  in  a  peculiarly  pervasive  way, 
and  its  indirect  influence  is  quite  beyond  calculation.  Greek  civilization, 
we  should  remember,  has  acted  upon  us,  not  merely  through  Greek  lit- 
erature and  art,  but  also  through  the  medium  of  Latin,  since  the  Romans 
borrowed  their  higher  culture  from  Greece. 

J.  B.  GREENOUGH  and  G.  L.  KITTREDGE,  Words  and  Their 

Ways  in  English  Speech 

5.  In  addition  to  the  anxieties  which  he  shares  with  all  other  men  in 
days  like  these,  there  is  a  special  uneasiness  which  perturbs  the  scholar. 
He  feels  that  he  ought  to  be  doing  something  about  the  world's  troubles, 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  381 

or  at  least  to  be  saying  something  which  will  help  others  to  do  some- 
thing about  them.  The  world  needs  ideas;  how  can  he  sit  silently  in  his 
study  and  with  a  good  conscience  go  on  with  his  thinking  when  there  is 
so  much  that  urgently  needs  to  be  done?  And  yet,  at  the  same  time  he 
hears  the  voice  of  another  conscience,  the  conscience  of  the  scholar, 
which  tells  him  that  as  one  whose  business  it  is  to  examine  the  nature  of 
things,  to  imagine  how  they  work,  and  to  test  continually  the  proposals 
of  his  imagination,  he  must  preserve  a  quiet  indifference  to  the  imme- 
diate and  a  serene  attachment  to  the  processes  of  inquiry  and  under- 
standing. 

As  in  Browning's  Grammarian,  there  is  in  him  the  peculiar  grace  that 
before  living  he  would  like  to  learn  how  to  live.  But  as  a  man  of  his 
time  he  is  impelled  against  his  instincts  to  enter  the  arena,  to  speak  with 
a  certainty  he  does  not  possess  about  measures  which  he  knows  to  be  a 
mere  gamble  with  the  unknown.  When  the  telephone  begins  to  ring, 
calling  him  to  give  out  interviews  and  to  draft  memoranda,  and  to  attend 
conferences,  he  is  afraid  to  say  with  the  high  assurance  of  the  Gram- 
marian: "Leave  Now  for  dogs  and  apes/  Man  has  Forever."  He  drops 
his  studies,  he  entangles  himself  in  affairs,  murmuring  to  himself:  "But 
time  escapes:  Live  now  or  never/'7 

Thus  his  spirit  is  divided  between  the  urgency  of  affairs  and  his  need 
for  detachment.  If  he  remains  cloistered  and  aloof,  he  suffers  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  public,  which  asks  impatiently  to  know  what  all  this 
theorizing  is  good  for  anyway  if  it  does  not  show  a  way  out  of  all  the 
trouble.  If  he  participates  in  affairs,  he  suffers  no  less.  For  it  will  quickly 
be  revealed  that  the  scholar  has  no  magic  of  his  own,  and  to  the  making 
of  present  decisions  he  may  have  less  to  contribute  than  many  who  have 
studied  his  subject  far  less  than  he.  But  most  of  all  he  suffers  in  his  own 
estimation:  he  dislikes  himself  as  he  pronounces  conclusions  that  he  only 
half  believes;  he  distrusts  himself,  and  the  scholarly  life,  because,  when 
the  practical  need  for  knowledge  is  so  great,  all  the  books  in  all  the 
libraries  leave  so  much  unsettled. 

WALTER  LIPPMANN,  The  Scholar  in  a  Troubled  World 

6.  There  has  been  endless  argumentation  about  the  purpose  and  end 
of  education.  One  of  the  most  modern  and  popular  theories  is  that  edu- 
cation is  to  teach  us  to  think.  To-day  this  doctrine  is  wholly  inadequate. 
The  purpose  of  education  should  be  to  train  us  to  LIVE.  Thinking  is  a 
part  of  the  art  of  living,  but  it  is  by  no  means  all  of  it.  We  already  have 
machines  to  do  a  good  deal  of  our  thinking  for  us.  What  we  need  to 
learn  is  what  life  is  really  for,  what  it  has  potentially  to  offer,  what  is  its 
relative  scale  of  values,  and  how  each  of  us,  as  a  person,  may  best  attain 


382  Reading  to  Others 

these  values.  What  changes  this  new  concept  may  induce  in  the  aver- 
age curriculum,  time  alone  can  tell.  But  the  change  in  basis  for  evalu- 
ating courses  is  revolutionary.  Education  in  the  past  has  been  almost 
exclusively  focussed  on  work  time;  the  education  of  the  future  must  be 
centered  on  leisure  time.  As  already  intimated,  a  part  of  this  new  system 
of  education  must  be  the  development  of  an  inclusive  theoretical  science 
and  practical  art  of  consumption.  This  will  involve  the  working  out  of 
formulas  to  enable  us  to  establish  the  correct  ratios  between  productive 
time  and  consumptive  time.  We  must  learn  to  recognize  that  consump- 
tion takes  time  just  as  truly  as  production,  and  we  must  discover  pre- 
cisely the  amount  of  productive  time  which  is  required,  under  varying 
social  and  economic  conditions,  to  provide  ;ust  that  combination  of 
material  goods  and  leisure  time  that  will  yield  the  maximum  degree  of 
satisfaction  in  consumption. 

And  when  this  is  all  done,  when  all  these  philosophical  revolutions 
have  been  accomplished,  and  their  teachings  put  into  effect,  we  shall 
probably  discover  that  work,  in  the  ancient  sense  of  the  word,  has  almost 
disappeared,  vanished  into  thin  air.  All  the  drudgery,  all  the  dirty  and 
disagreeable  tasks,  will  be  done  by  machinery,  and  the  others  will  have 
lost  the  characteristic  features  of  work.  The  machines  will  be  so  intelli- 
gently administered  that  they  will  operate  only  in  such  ways  and  for 
such  periods  of  time  as  are  necessary  to  turn  out  the  goods  required  for 
the  most  efficient  consumption  of  the  community.  The  residuum  of 
activity  still  necessary  to  be  done  by  human  agencies  will  be  so  limited 
in  quantity,  and  so  evenly  distributed  among  all  the  individuals  in  the 
community,  that  it  will  be  at  worst  neutral,  and  for  the  most  part  posi- 
tively pleasurable.  For,  as  already  observed,  the  distinction  between 
work  and  play  is  not  what  is  done  but  how,  to  what  extent,  and  for  what 
purpose  it  is  done.  There  is  practically  nothing  which  is  done  by  masses 
of  people  as  work  that  is  not  also  done  by  individuals  for  pleasure  and 
recreation.  When  mechanization  has  been  carried  to  its  ultimate  per- 
fection, there  will  be  so  little  of  routine  production  left  for  human  hands 
and  minds  to  do  that  in  all  probability  there  will  be  actual  competition 
for  the  doing  of  it  for  its  own  sake,  for  the  interest,  variety,  and  stimula- 
tion that  it  has  to  offer. 

Thus  the  distinction  between  work  and  recreation  will  at  last  be 
wiped  out  altogether.  Everyone  will  be  left  free  for  genuinely  creative 
activities.  Type  will  still  be  set,  clothes  made,  furniture  built,  gardens 
planted,  and  ditches  dug  by  hand.  But  these  things  will  be  done  in  just 
the  same  spirit  as  now  pictures  are  painted,  songs  sung,  and  doilies  em- 
broidered—for the  delight  and  pleasure  in  doing  them,  for  the  expres- 
sion and  development  of  personality.  Few  enjoyments  are  higher  than 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  383 

those  which  come  from  impressing  one's  own  individuality  upon  a  mate- 
rial medium,  especially  if  it  be  in  measurably  permanent  form.  Mankind 
is  endowed  with  limitless  capacities  for  creating  beautiful  and  useful 
things  in  varied  and  individual  forms.  The  men  of  the  future — and  not 
such  a  distant  future,  either— will  devote  themselves  to  these  and  kindred 
pursuits,  and  will  look  back  upon  their  ancestors  who  spent  their  time 
and  energy  in  the  routine  production  of  standardized,  conventional,  and 
largely  superfluous  material  objects  in  much  the  same  attitude  with 
which  we  regard  the  savages  who  knock  out  their  teeth,  brand  their  skin, 
or  cut  off  the  joints  of  their  fingers  for  some  traditional  reason  that  they 
do  not  even  think  of  trying  to  understand,  but  just  blindly  obey. 

HENRY  PRATT  FAIRCHILD,  Exit  the  Gospel  of  Work 

7.  The  times  are  such  that  every  liberal  may  well  ask  himself,  not  so 
much  how  far  he  is  willing  to  carry  the  principle  of  free  speech,  but  rather 
how  far  the  principle  is  capable  of  carrying  him. 

It  seems  necessary  to  ask  what  we  mean  by  freedom  of  speech,  since 
people  often  have  disconcerting  ideas  about  it.  A  woman  once  asked  me 
what  all  the  pother  was  about.  Weren't  people  always  free  to  say  what 
they  thought?  Of  course  one  must  be  prepared  to  face  the  consequences. 
I  didn't  know  the  answer  to  that  one.  Last  summer  a  Columbia  Uni- 
versity student  explained  to  me  that  all  governments,  being  based  on 
force,  were  dictatorships,  and  that  there  was  no  more  freedom  of  speech 
in  the  U.  S.  A.  than  in  the  U.  S.  S.  R.,  the  only  difference  being  in  the 
things  one  was  permitted  to  say.  I  suggested  that,  supposing  freedom  of 
speech  to  be  a  good  thing,  a  poor  way  of  getting  more  of  it  than  we 
already  had  would  be  to  adopt  a  philosophy  which  denied  that  it  was 
worth  having.  The  editors  of  THE  NATION  do  not  say  that  the  laws  guar- 
anteeing freedom  of  speech  are  always  effective.  They  say  that  freedom 
of  speech,  as  defined  in  our  fundamental  law,  is  the  foundation  of  free 
government,  and  should  therefore  never  be  denied  to  anyone— "even  to 
the  Nazis." 

The  fundamental  law  guaranteeing  freedom  of  speech  was  well  formu- 
lated in  the  Virginia  constitution  of  1780:  "Any  person  may  speak,  write, 
and  publish  his  sentiments  on  any  subject,  being  responsible  for  the 
abuse  [as  defined  by  law]  of  that  liberty/'  As  thus  defined,  freedom  of 
speech  was  the  principal  tenet  of  the  eighteenth-century  doctrine  of 
liberal  democracy.  Its  validity,  for  those  who  formulated  it,  rested  upon 
presuppositions  which  may  be  put  in  the  form  of  a  syllogism.  MAJOR 
PREMISE:  The  sole  method  of  arriving  at  truth  is  the  application  of  hu- 
man reason  to  the  problems  presented  by  the  universe  and  the  life  of 
men  in  it.  MINOR  PREMISE:  Men  are  rational  creatures  who  can  easily 


384  Reading  to  Others 

grasp  and  will  gladly  accept  the  truth  once  it  is  disclosed  to  them.  CON- 
CLUSION: By  allowing  men  freedom  of  speech  and  the  press,  relevant 
knowledge  will  be  made  accessible,  untrammeled  discussion  will  recon- 
cile divergent  interests  and  opinions,  and  laws  acceptable  to  all  will  be 
enacted.  ...  In  the  light  of  liberal  democracy  as  we  know  it,  the  minor 
premise  is  obviously  false,  the  conclusion  untenable.  There  remains 
the  ma/or  premise.  What  can  we  do  with  it? 

CARL  BECKER,  Everyman  His  Own  Historian 


8.  This,  we  are  informed,  is  Autumn  Neckwear  Week  and  we  have 
decided  to  co-operate  by  wearing  a  necktie  throughout  the  period  as- 
signed to  the  celebration. 

However,  we  are  not  disposed  to  dismiss  the  subject  of  neckties  casu- 
ally, because  it  is  a  problem  which  enlists  our  emotions.  Nobody  ever 
has  taken  neckties  with  sufficient  seriousness.  We  have  known  men  who 
went  into  the  haberdasher's  and  said,  "Let  me  have  a  necktie,"  which 
seems  to  us  just  as  ignominious  as  the  not  unfamiliar  formula  of  "Please 
let  me  have  a  book." 

The  one  suggestion  in  the  festival  proclamation  which  worries  us  is 
the  qualifying  word  "autumn."  The  necktie  men,  we  fear,  are  seeking 
to  promote  the  theory  that  during  the  sadder  seasons  some  recognition 
of  the  fading  glories  of  the  world  should  be  expressed  in  cravats.  We 
know  that  there  is  such  a  notion  abroad  in  the  world,  because  only  the 
other  day  we  asked  a  friend,  "How  do  you  like  this  necktie?"  (It  hap- 
pened to  be  the  one  in  two  blues  with  red  and  yellow  splotches.)  And 
he  replied,  "It  might  be  all  right  for  summer." 

We  are  prepared  to  fight  any  such  craven  surrender.  We  purpose  to 
stand  by  the  colors.  The  leaves  may  go  into  dull  browns  if  they  please 
and  the  trees  turn  black,  but  give  us  a  scarf  with  sap  in  it  for  any  sort 
of  weather. 

Man  was  not  meant  to  be  the  slave  of  the  seasons.  He  may  win  a  moral 
victory  of  sorts  by  putting  on  his  gayest  and  bravest  shades  to  indicate 
his  indifference  to  the  most  chilling  blasts.  Indeed,  throughout  the  year 
no  necktie  is  worthy  unless  it  contains  some  hint  of  revolt.  We  are  all 
dun  by  the  cruelty  of  customary  clothes.  Nothing  more  than  a  stripe  of 
red  or  some  dim  checks  of  purple  and  green  are  allowed  to  us  on  coat  and 
trousers.  But  the  cravat  is  an  escape.  They  have  taken  away  our  doublet 
and  hose,  the  ruffles  from  our  wrists,  the  plumes  from  our  hats,  and  so 
no  man  of  any  spirit  should  ever  wear  a  necktie  without  being  able  to  say 
as  he  puts  it  on:  "Oh,  you  would,  would  you?" 

HEYWOOD  BROUN,  Neckwear 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  385 

9.   Clean  the  spittoons,  boy. 

Detroit, 

Chicago, 

Atlantic  City, 

Palm  Beach. 
Clean  the  spittoons. 
The  steam  in  hotel  kitchens, 
And  the  smoke  in  hotel  lobbies, 
And  the  slime  in  hotel  spittoons: 
Part  of  my  life. 

Hey,  boy/ 

A  nickel, 

A  dime, 

A  dollar, 
Two  dollars  a  day. 

Hey,  boy/ 

A  nickel, 

A  dime, 

A  dollar, 

Two  dollars 

Buys  shoes  for  the  baby. 
House  rent  to  pay. 
Church  on  Sunday. 

My  God/ 
Babies  and  church 
and  women  and  Sunday 
all  mixed  up  with  dimes  and 
dollars  and  clean  spittoons 
and  house  rent  to  pay. 

Hey,  boy/ 

A  bright  bowl  of  brass  is  beautiful  to  the  Lord. 
Bright  polished  brass  like  the  cymbals 
Of  King  David's  dancers, 
Like  the  wine  cups  of  Solomon. 

Hey,  boy/ 

A  clean  spittoon  on  the  altar  of  the  Lord. 
A  clean  bright  spittoon  all  newly  polished  — 
At  least  I  can  offer  that. 

Com'mere,  boy/ 

LANGSTON  HUGHES,  Brass  Spittoons 

10.   When  foxes  eat  the  last  gold  grape, 
And  the  last  white  antelope  is  killed, 


386  Reading  to  Others 

I  shall  stop  fighting  and  escape 
Into  a  little  house  I'll  build. 

But  first  I'll  shrink  to  fairy  size, 
With  a  whisper  no  one  understands, 
Making  blind  moons  of  all  your  eyes, 
And  muddy  roads  of  all  your  hands. 

And  you  may  grope  for  me  in  vain 
In  hollows  under  the  mangrove  root, 
Or  where,  in  apple-scented  rain, 
The  silver  wasp-nests  hang  like  fruit. 

ELINOR  WYLIE,  Escape 

11.  Across  the  years  he  could  recall 
His  father  one  way  best  of  all. 

In  the  stillest  hour  of  night 
The  boy  awakened  to  a  light. 

Half  in  dreams,  he  saw  his  sire 
With  his  great  hands  full  of  fire. 

The  man  had  struck  a  match  to  see 
If  his  son  slept  peacefully. 

He  held  his  palms  each  side  the  spark 
His  love  had  kindled  in  the  dark. 

His  two  hands  were  curved  apart 
In  the  semblance  of  a  heart. 

He  wore,  it  seemed  to  his  small  son, 
A  bare  heart  on  his  hidden  one, 

A  heart  that  gave  out  such  a  glow 
No  son  awake  could  bear  to  know. 

It  showed  a  look  upon  a  face 
Too  tender  for  the  day  to  trace. 

One  instant,  it  lit  all  about, 

And  then  the  secret  heart  went  out. 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  387 

But  it  shone  long  enough  for  one 

To  know  that  hands  held  up  the  sun. 

ROBERT  P.  TRISTRAM  COFFIN,  The  Secret  Heart 

12.  It  was  Mrs.  Packletide's  pleasure  and  intention  that  she  should 
shoot  a  tiger.  Not  that  the  lust  to  kill  had  suddenly  descended  on  her, 
or  that  she  felt  that  she  would  leave  India  safer  and  more  wholesome 
than  she  had  found  it,  with  one  fraction  less  of  wild  beast  per  million 
of  inhabitants.  The  compelling  motive  for  her  sudden  deviation  towards 
the  footsteps  of  Nimrod  was  the  fact  that  Loona  Bimberton  had  recently 
been  carried  eleven  miles  in  an  aeroplane  by  an  Algerian  aviator,  and 
talked  of  nothing  else;  only  a  personally  procured  tiger-skin  and  a  heavy 
harvest  of  Press  photographs  could  successfully  counter  that  sort  of  thing. 
Mrs.  Packletide  had  already  arranged  in  her  mind  the  lunch  she  would 
give  at  her  house  in  Curzon  Street,  ostensibly  in  Loona  Bimberton's 
honour,  with  a  tiger-skin  rug  occupying  most  of  the  foreground  and  all 
of  the  conversation.  She  had  also  already  designed  in  her  mind  the  tiger- 
claw  brooch  that  she  was  going  to  give  Loona  Bimberton  on  her  next 
birthday.  In  a  world  that  is  supposed  to  be  chiefly  swayed  by  hunger 
and  by  love  Mrs.  Packletide  was  an  exception;  her  movements  and  mo- 
tives were  largely  governed  by  dislike  of  Loona  Bimberton. 

Circumstances  proved  propitious.  Mrs.  Packletide  had  offered  a  thou- 
sand rupees  for  the  opportunity  of  shooting  a  tiger  without  overmuch 
risk  or  exertion,  and  it  so  happened  that  a  neighbouring  village  could 
boast  of  being  the  favoured  rendezvous  of  an  animal  of  respectable  ante- 
cedents, which  had  been  driven  by  the  increasing  infirmities  of  age  to 
abandon  game-killing  and  confine  its  appetite  to  the  smaller  domestic 
animals.  The  prospect  of  earning  the  thousand  rupees  had  stimulated 
the  sporting  and  commercial  instinct  of  the  villagers;  children  were 
posted  night  and  day  on  the  outskirts  of  the  local  jungle  to  head  the 
tiger  back  in  the  unlikely  event  of  his  attempting  to  roam  away  to  fresh 
hunting-grounds,  and  the  cheaper  kinds  of  goats  were  left  about  with 
elaborate  carelessness  to  keep  him  satisfied  with  his  present  quarters. 
The  one  great  anxiety  was  lest  he  should  die  of  old  age  before  the  date 
appointed  for  the  memsahib's  shoot.  Mothers  carrying  their  babies  home 
through  the  jungle  after  the  day's  work  in  the  fields  hushed  their  singing 
lest  they  might  curtail  the  restful  sleep  of  the  venerable  herd-robber. 

SAKI  (H.  H.  MUNRO),  Mrs.  Packletide's  Tiger 

13.   Of  Heaven  or  Hell  I  have  no  power  to  sing, 
I  cannot  ease  the  burden  of  your  fears, 
Or  make  quick-coming  death  a  little  thing, 
Or  bring  again  the  pleasure  of  past  years, 
Nor  for  my  words  shall  ye  forfeit  your  tears, 


388  Reading  to  Others 

Or  hope  again  for  aught  that  I  can  say, 
The  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day. 

But  rather,  when,  aweary  of  your  mirth, 
From  still  hearts  still  unsatisfied  ye  sigh, 
And,  feeling  kindly  unto  all  the  earth, 
Grudge  every  minute  as  it  passes  by, 
Made  the  more  mindful  that  the  sweet  days  die- 
Remember  me  a  little  then,  I  pray, 
The  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day. 

The  heavy  trouble,  the  bewildering  care 

That  weighs  us  down  who  live  and  earn  our  bread, 

These  idle  verses  have  no  power  to  bear; 

So  let  me  sing  of  names  remembered, 

Because  they,  living  not,  can  ne'er  be  dead, 

Or  long  time  take  their  memory  quite  away 

From  us  poor  singers  of  an  empty  day. 

Dreamer  of  dreams,  born  out  of  my  due  time, 
Why  should  I  strive  to  set  the  crooked  straight? 
Let  it  suffice  me  that  my  murmuring  rhyme 
Beats  with  light  wing  against  the  ivory  gate, 
Telling  a  tale  not  too  importunate 
To  those  who  in  the  sleepy  region  stay, 
Lulled  by  the  singer  of  an  empty  day. 

Folk  say,  a  wizard  to  a  northern  king 
At  Christmas-tide  such  wondrous  things  did  show, 
That  through  one  window  men  beheld  the  spring, 
And  through  another  saw  the  summer  glow, 
And  through  a  third  the  fruited  vines  a-row, 
While  still,  unheard,  but  in  its  wonted  way, 
Piped  the  drear  wind  of  that  December  day. 

So  with  this  Earthly  Paradise  it  is, 
If  ye  will  read  aright,  and  pardon  me, 
Who  strive  to  build  a  shadowy  isle  of  bliss 
Midmost  the  beating  of  the  steely  sea, 
Where  tossed  about  all  hearts  of  men  must  be; 
Whose  ravening  monsters  mighty  men  shall  slay, 
Not  the  poor  singer  of  an  empty  day. 

WILLIAM  MORRIS,  "An  Apology/'  from 
Prologue  to  The  Earthly  Paradise 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  389 


Eat  thou  and  drink;  to-morrow  thou  shalt  die. 

Surely  the  earth,  that's  wise  being  very  old, 

Needs  not  our  help.  Then  loose  me,  love,  and  hold 
Thy  sultry  hair  up  from  my  face;  that  I 
May  pour  for  thee  this  golden  wine,  brim-high, 

Till  round  the  glass  thy  fingers  glow  like  gold. 

We'll  drown  all  hours;  thy  song,  while  hours  are  tolled, 
Shall  leap,  as  fountains  veil  the  changing  sky. 
Now  kiss,  and  think  that  there  are  really  those, 

My  own  high-bosomed  beauty,  who  increase 
Vain  gold,  vain  lore,  and  yet  might  choose  our  way/ 
Through  many  years  they  toil;  then  comes  a  day 

They  die  not — never  having  lived — but  cease; 
And  round  their  narrow  lips  the  mould  falls  close. 

II 

Watch  thou  and  fear;  to-morrow  thou  shalt  die. 

Or  art  thou  sure  thou  shalt  have  time  for  death? 

Is  not  the  day  which  God's  word  promiseth 
To  come  man  knows  not  when?  In  yonder  sky, 
Now  while  we  speak,  the  sun  speeds  forth:  can  I 

Or  thou  assure  him  of  his  goal?  God's  breath 

Even  at  this  moment  haply  guickeneth 
The  air  to  a  flame;  till  spirits,  always  nigh 
Though  screened  and  hid,  shall  walk  the  daylight  here. 

And  dost  thou  prate  of  all  that  man  shall  do? 
Canst  thou,  who  hast  but  plagues,  presume  to  be 
Glad  in  his  gladness  that  comes  after  thee? 

Will  HIS  strength  slay  THY  worm  in  Hell?  Go  to: 
Cover  thy  countenance,  and  watch,  and  fear. 

Ill 

Think  thou  and  act;  to-morrow  thou  shalt  die. 
Outstretched  in  the  sun's  warmth  upon  the  shore, 
Thou  say'st:  "Man's  measured  path  is  all  gone  o'er; 

Up  all  his  years,  steeply,  with  strain  and  sigh, 

Man  clomb  until  he  touched  the  truth;  and  I, 
Even  I,  am  he  whom  it  was  destined  for/' 
How  should  this  be?  Art  thou,  then,  so  much  more 

Than  they  who  sowed,  that  thou  shouldst  reap  thereby? 

Nay,  come  up  hither.  From  this  wave-washed  mound 


3  go  Reading  to  Others 

Unto  the  furthest  flood-brim  loot  with  me; 
Then  reach  on  with  thy  thought  till  it  be  drowned. 

Miles  and  miles  distant  though  the  grey  line  be, 
And  though  thy  soul  sail  leagues  and  leagues  beyond—- 

Still,  leagues  beyond  those  leagues,  there  is  more  sea. 

DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI,  The  Choice 

15.   "No,  you  are  not  the  first  to  say  you  love 
This  mountain  water  for  its  sparkling  life. 
We  never  think  it  sentimental  here 
To  speak  about  our  water  as  you  have. 
The  gaunt  and  ragged  mountaineers  themselves, 
Though  one  would  not  in  casual  judgment  call 
Their  kind  romantic,  all  but  worship  creeks, 
Or  'branches/  as  they  call  them,  near  their  homes. 
With  streams  like  this  from  virgin  mountain  springs 
These  men  identify  their  happiness; 
The  'home-place'  spirit  is  within  the  'branch/ 
An  uncouth  Naiad,  half-defined,  yet  real 
To  minds  like  theirs  which  are  more  sensitive 
Than  ours  to  simple  loveliness,  in  them 
'A  natural  piety/  It  might  surprise 
The  scornful  people  who  call  folk  like  these 
Degenerate,  to  know  how  lyrical 
Is  even  common  speech  upon  their  lips, 
How  deeply  they  can  feel  about  the  things 
That  we  call  stuff  of  poetry. 

"I  seem 

To  be  digressing.  No,  you  need  not  be 
Ashamed  of  what  you  said.  We  understand. 
We  hikers  come  to  have  a  sense  of  what 
We  vaguely  call  the  mountain-lust,  a  joy 
In  Tugged  land,  in  peaks  and  knobs  and  balds, 
In  all  high  majesty  of  earth.  We  feel 
The  same  clear,  breathless  pride  of  ownership 
In  vast  and  intimate  tranquility 
That  native  mountaineers  must  feel,  and  too, 
Like  them,  we  seldom  put  into  blind  words 
So  personal  a  passion. 

"Not  alone 

Is  our  content  in  mountains,  but  in  all 
They  hold:  their  rhododendrons  and  their  pines, 
Their  dog-tooth  violets  and  galax  leaves, 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  391 

Their  snows  and  streams  and  boulders.  So,  you  see, 
In  loving  this  bright  liquid  which  has  passed 
Between  the  mossy  stones  and  over  roots— 
The  mountain's  breathing-through— you  are  of  us/" 

ARTHUR  THOMAS,  Mountain  Water 

16.  Rules  do  no  harm  if  they  are  kept  in  their  proper  place,  which  is 
a  humble  one.    They  are  interesting  curiosities  which  patient  minds 
remove  from  the  squirming  bodies  of  living  works  of  art.   They  provide 
a  vocabulary  of  terms,  so  that  people  can  discuss  art  intelligibly  and  bore 
each  other  into  a  state  of  intellectual  respectability.  They  become  meas- 
uring rods.   They  are  especially  useful  in  the  classroom  which  needs  to 
have  something  to  talk  about  and  cannot  wait  silently  until  the  professor 
is  seized  with  an  inspiration. 

But  in  order  to  keep  things  in  proportion,  it  is  necessary  to  remember 
that  rules  are  only  a  by-product  of  creation,  which  is  the  sole  business  of 
art;  that,  unless  they  are  so  general  as  to  be  meaningless,  they  will  have 
to  be  revised  when  a  genuine  artist  comes  along  and  kicks  over  the  rule- 
book;  that  they  are  dull,  engendering  a  stupor  in  those  who  pay  atten- 
tion to  them;  and  finally  that  any  art  that  is  rule-ridden  is  moribund. 
Only  the  exceptional  man  can  pass  through  the  discipline  of  a  formal 
education  without  losing  the  spontaneity  and  enthusiasm  that  art  re- 
quires; and  only  an  exceptional  artist  can  listen  to  rules  without  being 
ham-strung  by  them.  Ben  /onson,  the  industrious  son  of  a  bricklayer, 
was  Master  of  Arts  from  Cambridge  University,  and  he  wrote  in  the 
correct  tradition  of  the  classics.  Shakespeare,  apparently,  had  only  a 
common  education.  Yet  Shakespeare  was  a  great  poet  with  dash  and 
abundance  who  could  flood  the  world  with  illumination.  Nor  was  his 
genius  corrupted  by  the  verbosity  and  the  skittish  grammar  that  /onson 
deplored.  There  was  a  time  when  /onson  was  vexed  by  the  "facetious 
grace"  that  made  it  possible  for  the  Swan  of  Avon  to  turn  cartwheels 
while  /onson  was  laboriously  hammering  out  correct  verse  in  the  classical 
tradition.  Rules  restricted  his  scope. 

Too  nicely  /onson  knew  the  critick's  part, 
Nature  in  him  was  almost  lost  in  art. 

BROOKS  ATKINSON,  "Drama  Rule-Book/' 
from  New  York  Times,  Jan.  14,  1940 

17.  Our  house  in  up-state  New  York  stood  several  hundred  feet  back 
from  the  street.  One  sidewalk  led  up  (it  was  really  up-hill,  and  a  wind- 
swept hill,  at  that)  to  the  front  door,  and  another  to  the  side  door.  When 
it  snowed,  the  side-door  walk  had  to  be  done  first,  and  finished  before 
school,  too. 


392  Reading  to  Others 

Often  by  the  time  you  had  reached  the  street,  the  snow  had  sifted  the 
path  nearly  full  again.  Shoveling  snow  was  something  like  washing 
dishes— so  futile,  yet  so  everlastingly  necessary.  And  what,  we  argued, 
was  the  sense  of  shoveling  to  the  front  door  when,  except  for  an  unac- 
customed peddler  or  two,  everyone  in  winter  used  the  side  door?  "Well/' 
said  Father,  "it'll  give  you  some  exercise  and,  besides,  it'll  look  better/' 
So  we  shoveled. 

The  walk  paralleling  the  street  was  covered,  after  a  fashion,  by  the 
horse-drawn  snow  plow  furnished  by  the  town.  But  it  happened  that 
right  in  front  of  our  house  (it  would  be/)  was  a  stretch  where  the  snow 
always  drifted  adamant,  as  the  wind  swept  it  down  over  the  knoll.  As 
the  snow  plow  never  got  quite  to  the  bottom  of  this,  there  was  nothing 
left  to  do  but  shovel  it  out  manually,  for  the  sake  of  the  life  and  limbs 
of  a  few  pedestrians  who  ventured  as  far  as  our  part  of  town. 

Snow,  then,  did  not  endear  itself  to  me  in  any  marked  fashion,  even 
considering  a  few  winter  sports  that  depended  on  it.  I  would  have,  had 
it  been  chronologically  possible,  hilariously  concurred  with  Ogden  Nash, 
who  says: 

Man  is  said  to  want  but  little  here  below, 

And  I  have  an  idea  that  what  he  wants  littlest  of  is  snow. 

And  there  was  also  ice.  Nine  times  out  of  ten  the  pump  would  be 
frozen  solid  and  would  have  to  be  released  from  its  rigor  mortis  with  a 
teakettleful  of  boiling-hot  water  poured  around  and  into  its  glottis. 
Gasping,  crackling,  steaming,  gurgling,  it  would  finally  give. 

PAUL  H.  OEHSER,  "The  Snows  of  Yesteryear/' 
from  The  Washington  Post,  Jan.  19,  1940 

18.  I  have  lost  an  old  friend  to-day,  as  loyal  a  companion  as  any  man 
ever  had.  It  was  my  venerable,  shabby  automobile,  which  has  had  an 
important  share  in  my  life  for  five  years.  Never  for  longer  than  a  day  or 
two  at  a  time  was  it  away  from  me,  never  did  it  fail  me  when  I  depended 
on  it,  never  did  it  deserve  less  than  loving  attention.  And  I  loved  every 
inch  of  its  greasy,  rusty  body,  every  bolt  and  wire,  every  rattle  and  gasp. 

My  grief  to-night  is  as  real  as  if  a  living,  cherished  comrade  had 
died.  I  know  how  Byron  felt  when  he  lost  his  dog  Boatswain,  and  I 
understand  the  wistfulness  of  Gray  when  his  favorite  cat  was  drowned 
in  a  bowl  of  goldfish.  Sorrowing  Juno,  when  Mercury  killed  her  devoted 
hundred-eyed  Argus,  put  his  eyes  into  the  tail  of  the  peacock.  I  wish 
I  could  put  some  worn,  shiny  bearing  or  weary  clutch-disk  from  my  old 
friend  into  an  idealized,  immortal,  poised  machine,  or  weave  a  piece  of 
its  worn  purple  velour  into  some  deathless  tapestry.  Surely  the  faithful- 


Enjoyment  of  Reading  Aloud  393 

ness,  the  unstinting  labor  in  my  service,  the  intimacy  of  my  aged  car 
should  be  repaid  more  generously  than  with  ruthless  consignment  to 
the  junk-yard.  Yet  that  will  be  the  old  fellow's  fate.  I  cannot  put  it  into 
a  pasture,  like  a  superannuated  horse;  I  cannot  let  it  wheeze  out  an 
asthmatic  old  age,  like  Mrs.  Browning's  Flush;  I  cannot  send  it  grate- 
fully back  to  its  maker,  as  King  Arthur  did  Excalibur.  Somewhere  it  will 
stand  rotting  and  ashamed. 

ANONYMOUS,  Eheu  Fugaces 

19.  Helen  had  never  before  been  in  a  boarding  house.  From  her  read- 
ing of  O.  Henry  and  impressions  from  the  movies,  she  had  a  picture  of 
boarding  houses  as  places  in  which  people  cultivated  boorish  manners, 
ate  hurriedly,  talked  with  their  mouths  full,  and  began  mild  romances. 
In  her  American  literature  course  they  had  read  selections  from  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes's  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST  TABLE,  which  had  de- 
scribed a  boarding  house  that  could  not  have  been  typical  even  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Helen  expected  that  in  places  not  blessed  with 
gifted  conversationalists  like  Dr.  Holmes,  the  boarders  would  all  race 
through  their  meals,  reaching  madly. 

The  American  institution  of  the  boarding  house,  however,  had  been 
grossly  maligned  in  fiction,  she  discovered.  At  any  rate,  Mrs.  Brown's 
house  was  frequented  by  an  extraordinarily  placid  lot  of  diners.  Most  of 
them  were  elderly  women  with  modest  incomes,  serenely  approaching 
the  ends  of  their  lives  with  no  more  profound  concerns  than  the  condi- 
tions of  their  livers,  the  superiority  of  fried  oysters  to  roast  beef,  and  the 
fact  that  Clark  Gable  had  not  been  so  effective  in  his  latest  picture  as  he 
had  been  in  THE  MUTINY  ON  THE  BOUNTY.  Helen  came  to  marvel  at  the 
happiness  and  sweetness  of  these  old  creatures,  whose  curiosity  about 
everything  that  happened  around  them  was  as  innocent  as  it  was  inde- 
fatigable. 

Mrs.  Whaley  was  the  house  character.  She  was  the  widow  of  a  once 
prosperous  lawyer,  who  had  died  leaving  her  with  little  more  than 
enough  to  live  on.  Through  a  shrewd  business  sense  and  parsimonious 
frugality,  however,  she  had  made  a  good  deal  of  money,  the  amount  of 
which  was  the  subject  of  much  conjecture  in  town.  Her  eccentricities 
were  notorious;  behind  her  back  she  was  called  Mrs.  "Hell-blisters" 
Whaley,  after  her  favorite  expletive;  according  to  those  who  had  dealt 
with  her  in  the  way  of  business,  her  vocabulary  of  profanity  would  have 
amazed  an  army  sergeant.  At  Mrs.  Brown's  this  particular  virtue  was  not 
often  in  evidence,  unless  a  servant  was  unusually  careless.  At  meal-time 
Mrs.  Whaley  marched  in  and  sat  very  straight  in  her  place  at  a  corner 
table,  acknowledging  all  greetings  with  impartial,  stern-faced  nods.  With 


394  Reading  to  Others 

uncompromising  firmness  she  fastened  her  napkin  across  in  front  of  her 
from  shoulder  to  shoulder,  anchoring  it  with  two  large  safety-pins.  As 
she  consumed  her  food,  shoveling  it  in  with  rapidity  and  precision,  she 
conversed  with  herself,  audibly  commenting  on  the  quality  of  the  lima 
beans  or  the  poorness  of  the  service.  Sometimes  she  calmly  listened  to 
the  talk  at  the  tables  around  her,  boldly  entering  in  whenever  she  dis- 
agreed with  a  speaker.  When  she  finished  a  dish,  she  scraped  it  clean 
with  vigorous,  clanking  strokes,  removing  all  morsels  from  sides  and  edge. 

KEVIN  KILLEEN,  This  Petty  Pace 

20.   Over  on  the  hill  the  crest  has  vanished; 

Lightning  streaks  point  out  the  colossal  erasure. 

Nothing  sublime  shows  the  tumult-hidden  edge  of  my  brain  .  .  . 

I  am  the  poplar  leaf,  turning  belly-up  before  the  storm, 

Afraid,  except  for  a  trembling  moment,  of  thought. 

I  am  the  fly,  dampwinged  and  listless, 

Confused,  beaten  down  by  the  storm's  presence. 

I  am  the  eaves-gutter,  weeping  futilely 

After  the  storm  passes. 

I  am  the  hour  of  sunshine  following  the  storm, 

Cloudy,  faltering,  tear-marked. 

ARTHUR  J.  THOMAS,  Storm 


Appendix 

Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement 
Prose  for  Oral  Reading 


Special   I  rob  [cms  in    Voice 

f 

Improvement 


THE  MOST  important  aspect  of  speech  correction  is  speech 
improvement,  with  stress  on  breathing  and  relaxation  and  the 
four  elements  of  expression:  tempo,  volume,  pitch,  and  quality. 
Most  slovenly,  breathy,  weak,  monotonous,  overhurried,  and  harsh 
voices  can  be  improved  through  faithful  practice  of  exercises  such 
as  those  in  Chapters  3,  5,  and  6. 

SPEECH    DEFECTS 

ORGANIC  DEFECTS.  Defective  speech  caused  by  an  organic  mal- 
formation is  a  problem  of  the  physician  rather  than  of  the  speech 
class.  Pathological  speech  cases  should  be  treated  by  competent 
medical  specialists,  and  no  corrective  exercises  such  as  those  in  this 
book  should  be  used  until  the  patient  has  been  properly  examined 
and  the  physician  approves  of  the  proposed  treatment.  Those 
handicapped  by  malocclusive  lisps  (caused  by  failure  of  the  front 
teeth  to  meet),  cleft  palate,  chronic  hoarseness  (usually  involving  a 
pathological  condition  in  the  larynx  or  throat),  tongue-tie,  or 
nasality  or  denasality  due  to  some  physiological  obstruction  or  in- 
fection should  consult  dental  or  medical  authorities  before  they  be- 
gin corrective  work  of  any  kind. 

Many  organic  speech  disorders  can  be  cured  (certainly  helped 
very  materially)  if  they  are  treated  when  the  patient  is  young. 
Tongue-tie  is  eliminated  by  a  simple  operation  in  which  the 
frenum,  a  cord  binding  down  the  underside  of  the  tongue,  is 
clipped.  If,  however,  the  condition  is  allowed  to  persist,  habit  may 

397 


398  Reading  to  Others 

create  permanent  havoc  among  the  [s],  [z],  [t],  [d],  [n],  [1],  [J],  and 
[g]  sounds,  even  if  the  child  outgrows  the  physical  fault  or  an  opera- 
tion is  performed  later  on  in  life. 

Malocclusion,  caused  by  some  malformation  of  the  jaw,  may 
possibly  be  corrected  by  a  good  orthodontist  while  the  bones  are 
still  pliable.  Even  a  slight  irregularity  of  the  "bite,"  as  the  dentist 
calls  the  meeting  of  the  front  teeth,  not  serious  enough  to  demand 
the  long,  painful  process  of  reshaping  the  structure  of  the  jaw  or  of 
forcing  the  teeth  into  proper  alignment,  may  result  in  faulty  pro- 
duction of  the  sibilants.  Corrective  exercises  (see  exercises  for  cor- 
recting lisping,  pp.  400-03)  may  help  even  malocclusive  lispers. 

Self-consciousness  in  those  with  faulty  dental  structure  or  irregu- 
lar or  yellow  teeth  may  result  in  a  blurring  of  the  entire  speech 
pattern  when  the  patient  tries  to  hide  his  defect  by  keeping  his 
upper  lip  down  over  the  teeth.  If  this  is  your  trouble,  you  will 
overcome  it  only  by  strenuous  application  of  speech  sense,  especial- 
ly in  energizing  lip  action,  and  in  the  beating  down  of  inhibitions 
(see  exercises  in  articulation,  pp.  420  ff.,  and  exercises  in  lip- 
rounding,  pp.  431-33). 

Cleft  palate,  a  congenital  deformity  in  which  either  the  hard 
or  soft  palate  or  both  are  split  (often  apparent  externally  in  hare- 
lip), sometimes  successfully  responds  to  operations  performed  dur- 
ing the  very  early  years,  when  a  soft  palate  of  normal  length  and 
flexibility  is  shaped  and  developed.  When  surgical  treatment  is 
left  until  later,  the  patient  must  undergo  a  thorough  re-education 
of  the  speech  organs.  The  cleft-palate  speaker  cannot  properly 
form  [s],  [z],  [k],  [g],  [p],  [b],  [t],  and  [d].  Because  of  the  opening 
between  the  oral  and  the  nasal  cavities,  the  cleft-palate  speaker 
nasalizes  all  sounds  and  buries  his  fricative  consonants  in  the 
breath  stream  that  escapes  through  the  nose.  Exercises  in  redirect- 
ing the  breath  stream,  for  those  surgically  repaired  or  provided 
with  false  palates,  and  in  proper  forming  of  all  the  distorted  sounds 
may  be  carried  on  under  the  direction  of  a  good  speech  teacher.1 

Other  speech  defects  may  be  caused  by  diseased  tonsils  or  ade- 
noids, streptococcic  infections  in  the  throat  (which  often  result  in 
permanent  injury  to  the  vowel  cords),  chronic  laryngitis,  sinus 

1  See  West,  Kennedy,  and  Carr,  The  Rehabilitation  of  Speech,  Harper,  1937,  pp. 
270  ff.  Special  exercises  in  correcting  organic  speech  faults  will  not  be  given  in 
this  text. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  399 

trouble,  severe  cases  of  catarrh,  growths  in  the  organs  of  speech  or 
in  the  pharynx  and  nasal  passages,  and  other  pathological  condi- 
tions. Sometimes,  too,  voices  are  ruined  by  unrestrained  screaming 
or  shouting.  Obviously  these  faults  are  outside  the  province  of 
the  speech  class. 

NERVOUS  OR  EMOTIONAL  DEFECTS.  These  defects  include  stammer- 
ing, neurotic  poor  voice,  and  nervous  tics  accompanying  speech. 
They  also  require  special  treatment.  Usually  the  result  of  social  or 
physical  inadequacy,  they  must  be  approached  through  careful 
study  of  the  background,  habits,  and  neuro-physical  causes  of  the 
disorders.  No  explanation  for  stammering  has  ever  been  universal- 
ly accepted. 

If  you  are  a  stammerer,  you  should  consult  a  speech  specialist  or 
a  psychiatrist.  There  are  many  speech  clinics  which  do  admirable 
work  with  this  type  of  defect.  The  expert  will  probably  try  to 
eliminate  as  many  as  possible  of  the  reasons  for  the  feelings  of  in- 
feriority and  conspicuousness  that  frequently  harass  the  stammerer. 
Unhappy  environment,  morbid  sensitiveness,  some  physical  weak- 
ness may  be  causing  the  nervous  cramping  of  the  larynx,  the  breath- 
ing apparatus,  and  indeed  of  the  whole  body,  which  results  in  stam- 
mering or  stuttering.  Even  if  he  has  no  access  to  a  clinic,  however, 
the  stammerer  should  approach  the  task  of  overcoming  his  difficul- 
ty with  a  healthy  mind,  never  permitting  himself  to  believe  that  he 
is  abnormal.  When  attempting  speech,  he  must  rigorously  seek  to 
relax  his  muscular  tensions  and  not  permit  wild,  swift  forcing  of 
words.  The  problem  is  one  of  control  and  deliberate,  dogged  pa- 
tience. Stammering  is  in  general  a  disorder  of  childhood  and  in 
time,  with  proper  treatment,  may  diminish  in  seriousness  or  even 
disappear,  if  the  stammerer  does  not  become  morbid  about  his 
condition.1 

FUNCTIONAL  DEFECTS.  Functional  defects  in  speech,  appearing  in 
greater  or  lesser  degree  in  nearly  everyone,  usually  respond  very 
quickly  to  correction.  Sound  substitution,  the  habitual  use  of  one 

1  See  Blanton,  Smiley,  and  Blanton,  Margaret  Gray,  Speech  Training  for  Children, 
New  York,  Appleton-Century,  1919,  and  For  Stutterers,  New  York,  Appleton-Century, 
1936;  Stinchneld,  Sara  M.,  Speech  Pathology,  Boston,  Expression  Co.,  1928;  Travis, 
Lee  E.,  Speech  Pathology,  New  York,  Appleton-Century,  1931;  Ward,  Ida  C.,  Dejects 
of  Speech:  Their  Nature  and  Cure,  rev.  ed.,  New  York,  Dutton,  1936;  West,  Robert, 
Diagnosis  of  Disorders  of  Speech,  Evanston,  Northwestern  University  Press,  1932; 
West,  Kennedy,  and  Carr,  The  Rehabilitation  of  Speech,  New  York,  Harper,  1937. 


400  Reading  to  Others 

sound  for  another,  is  the  most  widespread  of  the  functional  speech 
defects.  Pronunciation  like  ['wutnt],  ['kutnt]  for  ['wudnt],  ['kudnt]; 
['sidi]  for  ['siti];  [is]  for  [iz];  [bi'kAz]  for  [bi'kDz];  [dis],  [dset]  for  [Sis], 
[Saet];  [t/AtJ]  for  [dgAdg];  ['wilitfl  for  [Vilidg];  [witj]  for  [Mitj]; 
[b3id]  for  [b^d]  or  [bad];  and  baby  talk  are  all  simple  sound  substi- 
tutions, some  of  which  go  unnoticed  in  everyday  speaking  and  some 
of  which  are  obvious  in  the  speech  of  foreigners. 

Lisping.  When  lisping  has  no  organic,  nervous,  or  emotional 
cause  it  is  a  careless  fault  which  habit  makes  very  stubborn.  Some 
lisping  is  imitative.  Children  whose  parents  or  teachers  or  plav- 
mates  lisp  often  pick  up  the  practice  from  them,  either  through 
smartness  or  "cuteness"  or  through  unconscious  influence.  But 
most  lisping  is  either  the  result  of  functional  error  in  the  articula- 
tion of  the  sibilants  or,  less  commonly,  of  badly  formed  teeth  and 
jaws. 

The  substitution  of  [0]  for  [s]  and  [S]  for  [z],  thought  by  some  to 
be  an  attractive  juvenile  trick,1  is  comparatively  infrequent.  This 
form  of  lisping,  called  the  lingual  protrusion  lisp,  is  often  found  in 
children  who  have  lost  their  front  teeth  and  established  the  habit  of 
putting  their  tongues  in  the  empty  space.  Adults  with  the  lingual 
protrusion  lisp  may  simply  be  carrying  on  a  faulty  usage  begun  in 
childhood,  or  they  may  have  faulty  dentures.  Literature  is  full  of 
precious  maiden  ladies  who  think  that  they  enhance  their  charms 
by  cultivating  lisps. 

Another  form  of  lisp  is  that  in  which  the  tip  of  the  tongue  is 
pressed  against  the  front  teeth,  forcing  the  air  out  along  the  sides  of 
the  tongue.  This,  the  lateral  emission  lisp,  is  a  common  cause  for 
badly  formed  sibilants.  It  is  often  so  slight  that  speakers  are  un- 
aware of  it.  Radio  broadcasting  and  recording  apparatus,  however, 
bring  out  bad  sibilants  with  a  vengeance,  exaggerating  all  their 
whistles  and  hisses.  More  than  ever  before,  speakers  and  actors  are 
being  made  aware  of  lisps. 

Exercises  for  [s]  and  [z] 

i.  The  lisper  must  first  learn  the  correct  formation  of  the 
sibilant  sounds  [s]  and  [z].  Both  sounds  are  produced  by  grooving 
the  tongue,  whose  tip  either  rests  lightly  against  the  lower  gum  or  is 

1  Alcibiades  "had  a  lisping  in  his  speech,  which  became  him,  and  gave  a  grace  and 
persuasive  turn  to  his  discourse."   Plutarch's  Lives. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  401 

turned  slightly  down  behind  the  upper  front  teeth  (without  touch- 
ing them),  and  directing  the  air  stream  down  the  narrow  groove. 
[s]  is  a  voiceless  fricative;  [z]  is  the  same  sound,  voiced.  Most  of  the 
trouble  comes  in  the  [s],  usually  as  a  result  of  getting  the  tongue  too 
close  to  the  teeth,  so  that  either  a  bad  hiss  or  a  blurred  sound  fol- 
lows. It  may  help  to  put  [t]  or  [p]  before  the  [s],  using  it  in  early 
practice  as  [ts],  [ts],  [ts],  [ts],  [ts];  [ps],  [ps],  [ps],  [ps],  [ps]. 

2.  Stick  out  the  tongue  and  roll  its  sides  up  into  a  deep  groove. 
Blow  down  the  groove.  Now  retract  the  tongue,  keeping  it  grooved, 
and  try  to  blow  down  it  after  the  teeth  are  closed.   Don't  let  the  tip 
touch  the  teeth.  The  sound  should  be  a  good  [s]. 

3.  Practice  the  hissed  [s]  alone  until  it  is  clear.  Then  beginning 
with  a  sustained  [s]  pronounce  the  words  5-0,  s-awt  s-ee,  s-igh,  s-ow, 
s-ue.   Repeat  each  one  five  times,  making  sure  that  the  initial  [s]  is 
held  for  several  counts.  Then  put  the  sounds  together. 

4.  Pronounce  the  following  words,  saying  the  [s]  separately  and 
holding  it.   Don't  try  to  say  the  whole  word  alone  at  first.   Say  the 
first  part  without  the  [s],  following  it  with  a  clear,  distinct  [s].  Then 
gradually  put  the  [s]  with  the  rest  of  the  word.   Don't,  in  general, 
exaggerate  the  value  of  final  [s],  which  is  normally  weak: 

sights 

truss 

mouse 

race 

farce 

5.  Be  careful  of  the  [s]  in  the  following  words,  pausing  before  it 
to  shape  the  tongue  for  correct  pronunciation: 


close  [klou-s] 

class 

moss 

docks 

rice  [rai-s] 

house 

fuss 

packs 

niece  [ni-s] 

loss 

moose 

puffs 

ace  [ei-s] 

miss 

ruts 

lass 

fierce  [fir-s] 

curse 

force 

nurse 

ecstasy 
precise 
rescue 

concise 
listen 
blasted 

chasten 
thistle 
custom 

rostrum 
foster 
excite 

peaceful 
lastex 
elastic 

flotsam 
plaster 

hasten 
boatsman 

restrain 
footsore 

esteem 
itself 

spastic 
whatsoever 

6.  Among  the  most  difficult  combinations  of  sibilants,  even  for 
non-lispers,  are  all  [sts],  [sks],  [sps],  and  [Os]  endings.  Practice  saying 
the  \vords  at  the  top  of  the  following  page,  first  adding  the  final  [s] 
as  a  prolonged,  separate  sound,  then  putting  the  sounds  together, 
remembering  always  that  final  [s]  should  not  in  normal  speech 
be  too  prominent. 


402 


Reading  to  Others 


cysts 

lists 

assists 

casts 

blasts 

masts 

grotesques 

asks 

tasks 

masks 

risks 

frisks 


rests 

bests 

nests 

costs 

frosts 

accosts 

basilisks 

husks 

dusks 

tusks 

lisps 

crisps 


roosts 

boosts 

jousts 

crusts 

adjusts 

disgusts 

wisps 

clasps 

grasps 

asps 

sixths 

breaths 


beasts 

priests 

feasts 

bursts 

desks 

burlesques 

myths 

fourths 

tenths 

sevenths 

widths 

norths 


7.  The  [si]  combination  is  usually  most  conspicuously  faulty  in 
the  lisper's  speech  because  the  following  [1]  sound  is  practically  the 
reverse  of  the  [s],  being  a  lateral  consonant  formed  by  touching  the 
tip  of  the  tongue  to  the  upper  gum  ridge  and  the  blade  to  the  hard 
palate,  so  that  the  air  stream  goes  along  the  edges  of  the  tongue.1 
The  shift  from  the  groove  of  the  [s]  to  the  position  of  the  [1]  is  hard 
to  make.  Practice  the  two  sounds  separately.  Then  in  the  follow- 
ing words  form  the  [s]  as  in  Exercise  3,  separating  it  from  the  rest 
of  the  word  until  the  [s]  and  [1]  are  absolutely  clear. 

slap        slay  slipshod    slope  slouch  slut  hustle 

slot  sluice  sly  castle 

slough  slum  slogan  whistle 

slow  slumber  sleeve  tassel 

slue  slur  Slavic  parcel 

slug  slush  slim  rustle 


slack  sled  slit 

slam  sleep  slither 

slash  slew  slob 

slave  slip  sloop 

slow  slipper  slop 


8.    Practice  the  following  words,  carefully  forming  the  initial  [s] 
before  pronouncing  the  rest  of  the  word: 

A.  scab,  scalp,  scale,  scarf,  scamp,  school,  schedule,  scan,  scholar, 
scorch,  scoff. 

B.  speak,  specimen,  specious,  species,  special,  spice,  spell,  spirit, 
spire,  spider,  spoil,  spill,  splint,  splash,  spray,  spontaneous,  spur, 

1  Sec  diagram  of  tongue  on  page  1 39. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement 


403 


c.  star,  stand,  statistics,  statuesque,  steadfast,  stop,  stiff,  stitch, 
style,  strap,  strip,  strong. 

D.  smack,   small,   smash,   smear,   smell,   smirk,   smite,   smoke, 
smithy,  smug,  smother. 

E.  sneer,  snap,  sneeze,  snow,  snare,  snob,  snipe,  snort,  snub, 
snuff,  sniff,  snip. 

9.  The  [z]  sound  gives  less  trouble  than  the  [s],  but  final  [z]  is 
sometimes  confused  with  [s],  and  in  words  with  both  sounds  one  or 
the  other  may  be  badly  formed.  Practice  the  following  words,  re- 
membering that  the  [z]  is  voiced  and  that  there  is  definite  vibration 
in  the  larynx. 


resists 
classes 
oozes 
restlessnesses 


breezinesses 
misunderstands 
susceptibilities 
zinc  oxide 


stealthinesses    astigmatism 


goes  jazz  glazed  razor 

waves  choose  cousin  Aztec 

his  arouse  roses  stands 

plays  blaze  lousy  dresses 

raise  mazda  frozen  festers 

bags  spasm  Brazil  disasters     essentials  disorganize 

10.  [s]  and  [J]:  sin,  shin;  sip,  ship;  sop,  shop;  save,  shave;  sigh, 
shy;  sole,  shoal;  crass,  crash;  lass,  lash;  mass,  mash. 

11.  There  is  trouble  in  some  regions  in  forming  [Jr],  which 
often  becomes  [sr]  or  even  [sw].   Practice  carefully:  shrill,  shrink, 
shrift,  shrewd,  shrimp,  shrine,  shroud,  shrub,  shred,  shriek,  shrap- 
nel, shrew,  shrivel. 

12.  Read   aloud   the    following   sentences,   working  for   clear 
sibilants: 

A.  Sam  shipped  six,  slippery,  slimy  eels  in  separate  crates. 

B.  His  sister  is  a  slender,  reserved  person. 

c.    The  ship's  masts  were  splintered  in  the  sharp  December  blasts. 

D.  Wisps  of  mist  stretch  across  the  street  as  dusk  descends. 

E.  The  slumbering  beasts  stand  still,  their  steaming  breaths  rising  in 
the  frosty  sunshine. 

F.  She  was  the  one  who  said  that  the  slasher  must  be  a  sadist  and 
explained  the  fascination  of  seeing  the  shedding  of  blood. 

G.  "Surely  no  spirit  or  sense  of  a  soul  that  was  soft  to  the  spirit  and 

soul  of  our  senses, 

Sweetens  the  stress  of  suspiring  suspicion  that  sobs  in  the  sem- 
blance and  sound  of  a  sigh/'  SWINBURNE 


404  Reading  to  Others 

Infantile  Speech.  Another  form  of  sound  substitution  is  in- 
fantile speech,  which  affects  the  pronunciation  of  [r],  [1],  [S],  [6], 
[k].  Thus,  red  roses  becomes  [wed  'wouzaz];  the  [1]  is  badly  formed 
or  ignored  or  shifted  to  [w],  as  in  lap,  which  becomes  [waep];  [S]  be- 
comes [v],  as  in  another,  which  is  pronounced  [s'nAva1];  [9]  may  be- 
come [f],  as  in  thin,  which  is  pronounced  [fin],  or  [d],  as  [dis], 
[daet];  [k]  becomes  [t],  as  in  candy,  which  is  pronounced  ['taendi]. 

A  child  may  say  ['wedi  a4  nat,  hi  ai  tAm],  "Ready  or  not,  here  I 
come"  or  ['itnt  si  a  tjut  'its  dsl],  "Isn't  she  a  cute  little  girl?"  or  [mai 
'fava1  sez  'tutnt  u  tAm  waund  bai  vi  'Ava1  woud],  "My  father  says, 
'Couldn't  you  come  round  by  the  other  road?'  " 

Very  often  the  parents,  thinking  the  sounds  made  by  their  off- 
spring, however  grotesque,  are  nothing  short  of  miraculous,  imitate 
the  sounds  themselves  and  foolishly  extend  the  period  of  error. 
Most  books  on  bringing  up  children  now  condemn  "baby  talk," 
but  young  parents  cannot  always  control  their  ecstasies.  Many  is 
the  grandmother  who  goes  through  her  declining  years  labeled 
"Nana"  or  "Gaga"  because  of  an  infant's  early  efforts  to  say  Grand- 
ma. Name  substitutions  like  this,  of  course,  are  harmless,  but  when 
other  mutilated  words  are  adopted  by  a  household  under  the  as- 
sumption that  they  are  cute,  a  child  is  under  a  serious  phonetic 
handicap.  "Mommy's  itsy-bitsy  'ittle  tweetheart"  may  suggest 
charming  simplicity  in  a  young  mother,  but  in  the  business  of 
straightening  out  a  child's  speech  such  jargon  is  bad.  Nursery- 
school  and  kindergarten  teachers  may  do  much  to  offset  bad  speech 
habits  unchecked  or  encouraged  by  fond  parents,  if  they  are  them- 
selves trained  in  speech  production  and  can  recognize  sound  sub- 
stitutions. All  too  often,  however,  the  bad  speech  goes  on  into 
adolescence  and  even  later. 

Foreign  Speech.  Foreign  speech  offers  special  problems  in 
sound  substitutions  and  intonation  patterns.  The  phonetic  diffi- 
culties are  mainly  with  the  consonants:  [t],  [d],  [0],  [s],  [z],  [w],  [v], 
U]'  [sl*  [nl»  M»  [1]'  W-  With  patient  attention  to  the  correct  forma- 
tion of  these  sounds  the  person  who  has  brought  over  speech  habits 
from  another  language  may  do  much  to  approach  acceptable  pro- 
nunciation of  English  words.  The  intonation  patterns,  however, 
are  harder  to  deal  with  since  they  involve  almost  imperceptible  up- 
ward and  downward  flow  of  pitch.  Yet  a  German  who  says  ['wihdg] 
or  ['wilitj]  for  [Vilidg]  or  who  uses  the  German  guttural  initial  r, 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  405 

[R],  so  that  red  sounds  like  a  harsh  [Red],  sometimes  almost  [wed],  or 
[daet]  for  [$set]  may  learn  by  constant  practice  how  to  make  the 
English  sounds  that  have  no  equivalent  in  his  own  tongue  or  that 
he  uses  only  in  other  combinations.  The  process  is  exactly  the 
same  as  in  eliminating  infantile  speech,  except  for  the  differences 
in  motivation  and  mental  capacity  of  the  subject. 

The  foreign  speaker  must  carefully  master  a  list  of  key  words, 
each  illustrating  an  English  speech  sound  (such  as  the  list  on  p.  134 
or  the  key  words  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  in  any  good  dictionary). 
Then  he  should  regularly  apply  the  sounds  in  increasingly  more 
difficult,  words.  He  must  clearly  articulate  every  syllable.  To  do  so, 
of  course,  he  must  understand  the  formation  of  each  sound,  and  he 
must  be  quite  certain  which  of  the  English  sounds  he  fails  to  make 
correctly. 

Lisping,  Infantile  Speech,  and  Foreign  Speech  are  all  special  and 
comparatively  unusual  examples  of  sound  substitution.  Nearly  all 
of  us  are  guilty  of  less  conspicuous  but  almost  equally  faulty  sub- 
stitutions. In  every  case  of  faulty  formation  of  a  sound  the  first  step 
in  correction  is  the  proper  shaping  of  the  organs  of  articulation. 
The  following  exercises  are  intended  to  correct  the  simple  func- 
tional speech  faults.  If  you  know  what  sounds  are  hard  for  you  to 
make,  study  the  correct  formation  of  those  sounds  and  set  to  work 
on  the  exercises.  No  matter  how  trivial  the  error,  however,  it 
would  be  better  to  consult  a  good  speech  teacher  and  to  do  the 
exercises  under  competent  direction. 

The  order  of  exercises  is  as  follows: 

I.  Exercises  for  [r].  Page  406 

II.  Exercises  for  [1],  Page  409 

III.  Exercises  for  [6]  and  [S].  Page  409 

IV.  Exercises  for  [k]  and  [t].  Page  411 
V.  Exercises  for  [t]  and  [d].  Page  411 

VI.  Exercises  for  [M],  [w],  and  [v].  Page  412 

VII.  Exercises  for  [J]  and  [g].  Page  4 13 

VIII.  Exercises  for  [tj]  and  [dj].  Page  413 

IX.  Exercises  for  [f]  and  [v].  Page  4 14 

X.  Exercises  for  [n],  [q],  [qg],  and  [qk].  Page  414 

XL  Exercises  for  [p]  and  [b].  Page  4 16 

XII.  Exercises  for  Nasality.  Page  416 


406  Reading  to  Others 

XIII.  Exercises  for  Tongue  and  Lips.  Page  418 

XIV.  Exercises  in  Articulation.  Page  420 
XV.    Exercises  for  [ae],  [a],  and  [a].  Page  424 

XVI.  Exercises  for  [e]  and  [i].  Page  425 

XVII.  Exercises  for  [3],  [?],  and  [DI].  Page  426 

XVIII.  Exercises  for  [au].  Page  427 

XIX.  Exercises  for  [u]  and  [ju].  Page  428 

XX.  Exercises  for  [ai].  Page  428 

XXI.  Exercises  for  [i]  and  [i].  Page  429 

XXII.  Exercises  for  [u]  and  [u].  Page  430 

XXIII.  Front- Vowel  Comparisons.   Page  430 

XXIV.  Lip-Rounding  and  Placement.  Page  431 
XXV.  Intonation.  Page  433 

XXVI.    Sentences  and  Passages  for  General  Diction.  Page  435 

L  Exercises  for  [r] 

Initial  [r]  and  [r]  following  a  consonant  are  formed  by  slightly 
curling  the  tip  of  the  tongue  upward  toward  the  hard  palate.  In 
some  speakers  the  tongue-tip  is  curled  back  more  than  in  others, 
and  sometimes  the  palate  is  tapped,  as  in  the  trilled  [r].  C.  K. 
Thomas,  in  his  chapter  on  voice  in  J.  R.  Winans's  Speech  Making 
(Appleton-Century,  1938),  suggests  that  the  [r]  be  made  by  pro- 
longing a  [z]  sound  and  then  gradually  pulling  the  tongue  back 
from  the  gum  ridge  toward  the  hard  palate  until  an  [r]  is  formed. 
It  differs  from  the  [w]  mainly  in  that  for  the  [w]  the  lips  are 
rounded  and  the  tip  of  the  tongue  is  lowered. 

1.  [w]  and  [r]:  witch,  rich;  weal,  real;  went,  rent;  wick,  rick; 
wing,  ring;  wine,  Rhine;  war,  roar;  wink,  rink;  womb,  room;  wait, 
rate;  wage,  rage;  wake,  rake;  wear,  rare;  weighs,  raise;  weed,  read; 
wane,  rein;  wound,  round. 

2.  [Or]  and  [tr]:  thrill,  trill;  three,  tree;  throw,  trow;  thread, 
tread;  thrash,  trash;  threw,  true;  throve,  trove;  thrust,  trust. 

3.  [dr]:   drive,  drip,  drew,  drain,  dreary,  droop,  drill,  dress, 
dredge,  dread,  dragon,  draw,  drift,  droll,  driver,  drudge,  drink, 
drown. 

4.  Initial  [r]  in  general:  rabid,  race,  radiator,  rear,  receive,  red, 
repair,  reward,  roast,  rose,  rubric,  reproach,  reprimand,  represent, 
reprobate,  reparable,  repartee,  repercussion,  reproduce,  research, 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  407 

reserve,  roar,  rosary,  rural,  rhetoric,  reverse,  reverberation,  rasp- 
berry, reread,  reverie,  rusty. 

5.  Medial   [r]:    breast,  creates,  creature,  dream,  erase,  erupt, 
error,  frame,  great,  weary,  wary,  very,  tirade,  sprawl,  strength, 
through,   spring,   spread,   grope,   fratricide,   protect,   proportion, 
prorate,  proscribe,  trivial. 

6.  Practice  the  following  sentences: 

A.  Wrongly  prepared  research  results  in  ruin. 

B.  The  rare  reality  of  rich  fruit,  ripened  to  perfection,  is  true  in 
Florida  and  California. 

c.    Bright  red  roses  rest  irresistibly  on  her  breast. 

D.  Revolutionary  orators  reluctantly  reaffirm   the  principles  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

E.  "Fainter  with  fear  of  the  fires  of  the  future  than  pale  with  the 
promise  of  pride  in  the  past/'  SWINBURNE 

F.  "There  is  a  fever  that  reddens  with  radiance  of  rathe  recreation." 

SWINBURNE 

G.    rThe  sweet  vision  of  the  Holy  Grail 
Drove  me  from  all  vainglories,  rivalries, 
And  earthly  heats  that  spring  and  sparkle  out 
Among  us  in  the  /ousts. 

TENNYSON 

H.   Robert  Browning's  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra"  and  "Andrea  del  Sarto"  are 
greatly  admired  in  literary  circles. 

i.    "Roll  on,  thou  dark  and  deep  blue  ocean,  roll."  BYRON 

j.   If  this  be  error  and  upon  me  proved, 
I  never  writ,  nor  no  man  ever  loved. 

SHAKESPEARE 

7.  Intrusive  [r]:  In  the  speech  of  some  persons,  especially  in 
New  England  and  in  some  parts  of  the  South,  words  ending  in 
a  vowel  are  sometimes  pronounced  with  a  superfluous  [r]  following 
the  vowel.    The  original  reason  for  such  an  addition  is  that  in 
"r-less"  speech  the  [r]  is  often  pronounced  in  a  word  which  ends  in 
[r]  when  the  following  word  begins  with  a  vowel.    For  example, 
one  who  normally  says  [fa:]  for  far  might  say  ['fa^wei]  for  faraway. 
Thus  we  have  the  common  inconsistency  of  ['far'fars.wei].  Words 


Reading  to  Others 

ending  in  a  vowel  followed  by  a  word  beginning  with  another 
^owel  might  receive  an  [r]  by  analogy  with  constructions  like 
"'farawei].  This  usage  is  not  incorrect  and  may  even  be  rather 
:harming.  In  some  speech,  however,  the  intrusive  [r]  appears  even 
vhen  there  is  no  following  word  or  none  beginning  with  a  vowel. 
Words  like  ['fate],  ['jd»],  ['windy],  [ta'bzrk*],  ['kaenad*],  ['soufe], 
?tc.,  are  distinctly  objectionable,  and  the  careful  speaker  will  do 
\rell  to  avoid  them. 

There  is  perhaps  some  vividness  about  the  Down  Kaster's  [fri 
u'diy  9v  it]  or  [Sa  br  3v  <5a  bd]  or  [a  r>r  t*g]  or  [a'menka1  nd  frans]  for 
'the  idea  of  it,"  "the  law  of  the  Lord,"  "a  raw  egg,"  or  "America 
uid  France."  But  [ma'raia1]  for  Maria,  ['aida1]  for  Ida,  ['eidy]  for 
4 da,  ['haenai1]  for  Hannah,  jW'djmja1]  for  Virginia,  [kab'rada1]  or 
kab'raeda1]  for  Colorado,  [ns'vada1]  or  [na'vaeda1]  for  Nevada,  [Jir] 
or  S/fflu',  ['flandy]  or  ['fbrid:*]  {or  Florida,  etc.,  are  usually  regarded 
LS  vulgarisms.  (Some  provincial  speakers  change  the  final  vowel 
n  words  ending  in  vowels  to  [i]:  Ida  becomes  ['aidi],  Canada 
'kaensdi],  Utica  ['jutiki],  California  [jkaeli'fDrm]. 

Avoid  the  intrusive  [r]  in  the  following  exercises: 

1.  tobacco,  pillow,  fellow,  bellow,  hollow,  billow,  Ithaca,  Ala- 
>ama,  Ina,  Dinah,  Delia,  Rebecca,  vanilla,  piano,  California,  data, 
omato,  potato,  swallow,  verandah,  piazza,  lava,  memoranda,  Sheu- 
ndoah,  follow,  poinsettia,  dahlia,  verbena,  spirea,  Carolina,  strata, 
])oca-Cola,  cafeteria,  antenna,  formula,  gala,  guana,  ague,  Anna, 
iiama,  papa,  Toronto,  Costa  Rica,  Batavia,  Asia,  Australia,  Africa, 
usanna,  Rhoda,  Nora,  Julia,  Athena,  Amanda. 

2.  The   intrusive   [r]   sometimes   appears   after   vowels   within 
yords,  as  in  ['worta1]  for  water,  ['dDrta1]  for  daughter.  Avoid  it  in  the 
allowing  words: 

Washington,  wash,  water,  daughter,  superb,  ballad,  lost,  mock, 
ush,  hollihock,  Auburn,  towel,  gosh,  coal  oil,  boil,  gaiety,  oyster, 
&oyd,  toilet,  coffee,  off,  dog,  drawing,  Mrs. 

3.  Practice  the  following  sentences: 

A.  The  sofa  is  new. 

B.  America  and  England  are  a  law  in  themselves. 
c.    The  data  of  the  idea  are  on  this  pad. 

D.  A  couple  of  fellows  bought  tobacco  and  followed  the  main  road 
3  North  Carolina. 

E.  Philadelphia,  Chicago,  and  Cincinnati  are  big  cities. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  409 

II.  Exercises  for 


[1]  is  formed  by  pressing  the  tip  of  the  tongue  against  the  upper 
gum  ridge  and  sending  the  voiced  breath  along  the  sides  of  the 
tongue.  Sound  [n]  and  then  suddenly  clamp  shut  the  nostrils  so 
that  the  air  is  forced  out  along  the  sides  of  the  tongue.  This  should 
result  in  a  well-articulated  [1]. 

1.  Initial  [1]:  lallation,  lowland,  landlord,  labial,  laurel,  least, 
leal,  legal,  lethal,  liberal,  libel,  level,  lidless,  likelihood,  likable, 
limelight,  linoleum,  listless,  literal,  little,  lively,  local,  luckless, 
lovely,  loyal,  lull,  lullaby,  lustral,  lollipop. 

2.  Medial  [1]:  mellow,  revolve,  slash,  believe,  belt,  relate,  blister, 
pillar,  island,  tallow,  falter,  bellow,  Scotland,  frailty,  whaling,  split, 
fellow,  filling,  dollar,  killer,  solvent,  malcontent. 

3.  Final  [1]:  scale,  tall,  mole,  Pall  Mall,  toil,  cool,  masterful, 
control,  stroll,  genteel,  reveal,  corral,  install,  philomel,  parallel, 
canal,  molecule,  drill,  dole,  vessel,  bottle,  cattle,  quill. 

4.  Read  the  following  sentences  with  good  [1]  sounds: 

A.  The  little  lowland  lubber  was  a  lively  lad,  lucky,  liberal,  and  likable. 

B.  I  believe  I'll  be  blamed  for  blowing  up  the  building. 

c.    The  tall  fellow  followed  the  parallel  lines  of  the  trolley  to  Pall  Mall. 

D.    "Life  is  the  lust  of  a  lamp  for  the  light  that  is  dark  till  the  dawn 

of  the  day  when  we  die/'  SWINBURNE 

III.  Exercises  for  [e]  and  [ff] 

These  sounds,  the  one  voiceless,  the  other  voiced,  are  made  by 
letting  the  tip  of  the  tongue  slightly  protrude  between  the  parted 
teeth  so  that  the  blade  of  the  tongue  rests  lightly  on  the  edges  of 
the  teeth.  The  breath  is  sent  down  the  slight  groove  of  the  tongue. 
(Kenyon:  "Tongue  blade  on  points  of  upper  teeth,  velum  closed, 
breath  fricative  between  tongue  and  teeth,  vocal  cords  apart." 
American  Pronunciation,  p.  42.) 

[0],  [v],  and  [d]  are  frequently  substituted  for  [S],  as  in  this,  that, 
thine,  these,  teething,  worthy,  mother.-  [OisJ,  [daet],  [Gain],  [diz], 
['tieirj],  ['wsGi],  ['HIAV^]. 

[f]  and  [t]  are  sometimes  substituted  for  [0],  as  in  fifth,  thing, 
thick:  [fift],  [tig]  or  [fig],  [tik]. 


4io  Reading  to  Others 

A  thick,  coarse  [0]  or  [$]  is  made  by  an  unrelaxed  tongue,  which 
presses  too  heavily  on  the  teeth. 

1.  [$]  and  [9]:   this,  thistle;   that,  thatch;   then,  theme;   thee, 
theater;  there,  theory;  thither,  thirteen;  thy,  thyroid;  thus,  thrust; 
scythe,  thigh;  wither,  pith;  clothe,  cloth;  paths,  path;  loathe,  loth; 
writhe,   arithmetic;   though,   thought;    sheathe,   sheath;    breathe, 
breath;  mother,  moth. 

2.  [d]  and  [ft]:  dance,  than;  Diesel,  these;  doze,  those;  distance, 
this;  den,  then;  dare,  there;  dime,  thine;  bayed,  bathe;  seed,  seethe; 
lied,  lithe;  reed,  wreathe;  udder,  other;  bladder,  blather;  fodder, 
father;    gadder,   gather;    header,   heather;    ladder,    lather;    sued, 
soothe;  breed,  breathe. 

3.  [v]  and  [ft]:  hover,  other;  vine,  thine;  fever,  either;  leaves, 
teethes;  braves,  bathes;  swerve,  worthy;  lave,  lathe;  lever,  leather; 
clever,  weather;  clove,  clothe;  never,  nether;  cave,  scathe;  ovum, 
owe  them. 

4.  [z]  and  [ft]:  lies,  lithe;  bays,  bathe;  whizzer,  whither;  razzer, 
rather;  Lazarus,  lather;  breeze,  breathe;  sees,  seethe;  booze,  booths; 
trees,  wreathes;  ties,  tithes;  wise,  withes;  the  colloquial  and  dic- 
tionary pronunciations  of  clothes. 

5.  [t]  and  [6]:  tank,  thank;  attach,  thatch;  teem,  theme;  teary, 
theory;  tin,  thin;  tree,  three;  tread,  thread;  true,  threw;  trill,  thrill; 
tick,  thick;  tear,  therapy;  kit,  kith;  bat,  bath;  rat,  wrath;  sheet, 
sheath;  heat,  heath;  oat,  oath;  wrote,  wroth;   toot,  tooth;  boast, 
both;  loot,  Duluth. 

6.  [f]  and  [0]:  loaf,  loth;  baffle,  bath;  fret,  threat;  Fred,  thread; 
free,  three;  fumble,  thumb;  fro,  throw;  for,  Thor;  fin,  thin;  fall, 
thaw;  laugh,  lath;  offer,  author;  oaf,  oath;  roof,  Ruth. 

7.  Practice  the  following  sentences: 

A.  Those  lazy  mothers  throw  their  clothes  on  rather  thoughtlessly. 

B.  They  bathed  the  child  three  times,  though  their  instructions  were 
otherwise. 

c.    In  theory  the  theater  is  worthy  of  laurel  wreaths. 

D.  The  brother  of  that  dithering  Math  teacher  mouths  his  words. 

E.  This  thick  thatch  thrusts  its  sheath  into  the  thin  breath  of  the 
breeze. 

F.  "These  that  we  feel  in  the  blood  of  our  blushes  that  thicken  and 
threaten  with  throbs  through  the  throat/'  SWINBURNE 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  411 

IV.  Exercises  for  [k]  and  [*] 

[k]  is  a  voiceless  stopped  consonant  made  by  raising  the  back  of 
the  tongue  to  the  soft  palate  and  exploding  the  breath,  which  is 
momentarily  cut  off;  [t]  is  a  voiceless  stopped  consonant  made  by 
touching  the  tip  and  sides  of  the  tongue  on  the  upper  gum  ridge 
and  exploding  the  breath. 

1.  cap,  tap;  cry,  try;  key,  tea;  coal,  toll;  cool,  tool;  kick,  tick; 
cat,  tat;  coy,  toy;  kale,  tail;  came,  tame;  coil,  toil;  croup,  troop; 
crust,  trust;  cower,  tower;  cress,  tress;  crick,  trick;  choir,  tire;  cake, 
take;  crate,  trait;  crack,  track;  sack,  sat;  kill,  till;  beck,  bet. 

2.  Read  the  following  sentences: 

A.  The  coroner  capped  the  climax  by  discovering  a  fractured  skull. 

B.  The  coy  cat  cowered  in  the  corner,  waving  her  tail,  till  someone 
beckoned. 

c.  Tell  the  tall  tramp  that  there's  advantage  to  him  and  to  the  com- 
munity if  he  keeps  on  traveling. 

V.  Exercises  for  [f]  and  [d] 

[t]  is  a  voiceless  tongue-gum  stopped  consonant  formed  by  plac- 
ing the  tip  of  the  tongue  on  the  gum  ridge;  [d]  is  the  voiced  equiva- 
lent of  [t]. 

1.  Initial:  town,  down;  tawny,  dawn;  ten,  den;  tin,  din;  tap, 
dapper;  teal,  deal;  tray,  dray;  tie,  die;  to,  due;  tot,  dot;  toll,  dole; 
tire,  dire;  tool,  duel;  tram,  dram;  train,  drain;  trunk,  drunk;  troll, 
droll;  tab,  dab;  taffy,  daffy;  tale,  dale;  tame,  dame. 

2.  Final:  bat,  bad;  brat,  brad;  plot,  plod;  hat,  had;  brought, 
brood;  grant,  grand;  great,  grade;  spate,  spade;  let,  lead;  trot,  trod; 
moot,  mood;  lout,  loud;  krait,  cried;  fright,  fried;  late,  laid;  tote, 
toad;  heat,  heed;  chart,  chard. 

3.  Medial:  loiter,  avoiding;  motley,  modern;  daughter,  dodder; 
mettle,  medal;  patting,  padding;  grating,  grading;  city,  insidious; 
important,    poured;    gratitude,    gradually;    latter,   ladder;    satin, 
saddle;  bitten,  bidden;  certain,  burden;  boating,  boding. 

4.  Practice  the  following  sentences: 

A.  We  went  downtown  in  a  bad  windstorm. 

B.  Two  terribly  tedious,  tiresome  talkers  took  advantage  of  the  debat- 
ing team. 


418  Reading  to  Others 

c.  We  avoided  dealing  with  the  dreaded  demonstration  of  dramatic 
tactics. 

D.  She  was  putting  the  pudding  in  the  oven. 

E.  The  madder  he  gets,  the  less  appearances  matter. 

VI.  Exercises  for  [*],  [w],  and  [v] 

[w]  is  a  glide  consonant  formed  by  closely  rounding  the  lips, 
"tongue  back  raised  towards  velum  (position  for  [u]),  lips  and 
tongue  gliding  to  position  for  the  following  vowel,  velum  closed, 
vocal  cords  vibrating."  (Kenyon,  op.  cit.,  p.  44.) 

[M],  for  all  practical  purposes,  may  be  considered  the  voiceless 
equivalent  of  [w]. 

[v]  is  a  labiodental  voiced  consonant  made  with  lower  lip  on 
upper  teeth  and  the  breath  escaping  between  the  teeth  and  lip. 

1.  The  sounds  in  combination:  wine,  vine;  wade,  evade;  wide, 
divide;  whale,  wail,  veil;  wheel,  weal,  veal;  witches,  vicious;  which, 
witch;  what,  watt;  while,  wile,  vile;  why,  vie;  wicker,  vicar;  west, 
vest;  whisper,  vesper;  worse,  verse;  wary,  very;  went,  vent;  wane, 
vein;  wear,  vair;  when,  wen,  ven;  wayward,  favored;  weird,  veered; 
where,  wear,  vary;  white,  wight,  vital;  whether,  weather,  level; 
whirl,  world,  reverse;  whither,  wither;  while,  wile;  whey,  way; 
whacks,  wax;  whirr,  were,  aver. 

2.  [M]  alone:  whale,  wharf,  what,  whatever,  somewhat,  wheat, 
where,  wheeze,  whelp,  when,  overwhelm,  whence,  where,  which, 
whiff,  Whig,  while,  whim,  whip,  whiplash,  whirl,  whisk,  whisker, 
whiskey,  whisper,  white,  whittle. 

3.  Be  careful  not  to  be  confused  by  the  spelling  wh,  which  is 
sometimes  pronounced  [h],  as  in  who,  whole,  whoop,  whore. 

4.  [v]  alone:  village,  valve,  vagabond,  volt,  vanity,  vestment, 
verb,  virgin,  viper,  vital,  virtue,  vocal,  voyage,  vulgar,  vulnerable. 

5.  Practice  the  following  sentences: 

A.  Whichever  way  you  wander,  watch  out  for  wagons  and  other  vehi- 
cles in  the  villages. 

B.  The  white  waves  waged  war  as  the  wild  winds  whistled. 

c.   Vigorous  and  vital  living  is  the  safety  valve  of  virtuous  minds. 

D.  The  whippoorwill  called,  the  dog  whined,  and  the  child  whim- 
pered, but  he  went  on  wherever  he  wished. 

E.  While  we  waited  for  the  whiskey  on  the  wharf,  we  whittled  vigor- 
ously on  the  white  weatherboards. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  413 

VII.  Exercises  for  [J]  and  [s] 

[J]  is  a  voiceless  sibilant,  made  with  "tongue-blade  farther  from 
teethridge  than  for  [s]  and  more  spread  laterally,  tongue  raised 
nearer  to  hard  palate."  (Kenyon,  op.  cit.,  p.  42.)  The  breath  flows 
down  the  wide  groove  of  the  tongue.  [g]  is  the  voiced  equivalent 

of  [J]- 

1.  Initial  [f]:  ship,  shame,  shade,  shallow,  sham,  shed,  shears, 
shark,  shiftless,  shilling,  shrapnel,  shriek,  shrine,  shut,  shy,  sherbet, 
shellshock,  sheepshearing,  sheath,  shake. 

2.  Final  [J]:  Irish,  crash,  wash,  crush,  mackintosh,  thrash,  smash, 
dash,  flesh,  refresh,  wish,  blush. 

3.  Medial    [J]:   vicious,  delicious,   initiation,  civilization,   pre- 
cious, ocean,  appreciation,  mansion,  rashly,  tactician,   dietitian, 
expression,  anxious,  insertion,  blandishment,  conscious. 

4.  [g]  alone:  pleasure,  rouge,  television,  illusion,  erosion,  in- 
cision, usual,  azure,  measure,  casual,  mirage,  invasion,  division, 
usurer,  mu/hik,  evasion,  composure,  persuasion. 

5.  Practice  the  following  sentences: 

A.  The  sharp,  shrill  shriek  of  the  bat  shatters  the  shadowy  silence. 

B.  With  a  crash  the  crowd  rushed  through  the  gracious  mansion. 
c.    The  seizure  of  their  treasure  followed  the  invasion. 

D.   Shudders  shook  him  when  he  envisaged  the  smash-up. 

VIII.  Exercises  for    tJ    and    dg 


[tj]  is  a  voiceless  affricate,  made  by  raising  the  tip  of  the  tongue 
to  the  gum  ridge  for  [t]  and  quickly  lowering  it  to  the  position  of 
[J].  [dg]  is  formed  by  the  lips  and  tongue,  in  position  first  for 
the  [d]  and  then  the  [g].  It  is  the  voiced  equivalent  of  [tj]. 

1.  Initial  [tj]  and  [dg]:   church,   jerk;  chap,  Jap;  chip,  gyp; 
chum,  Jumbo;  chump,  jump;  chew,  Jew;  chalice,  jealous;  chain, 
Jane;  cherry,  Jerry;  chaw,  jaw;  chin,  gin;  chest,  jest;  chill,  Jill; 
chess,  Jess;  choke,  joke;  cheer,  jeer;  chasten,  Jason;  choice,  joist. 

2.  Medial  and  final  [tj]  and  [dg]:  catch,  cadge;  etch,  edge;  batch, 
badge;  match,  Madge;  leech,  legion;  fitch,  fidget;  pitch,  pigeon; 
rich,  ridge;  Mitchell,  midget;  wretched,  register;  blotchy,  Blodgett; 
smutch,  smudge;  slouch,  sludge;  treachery,  dredge;  crutch,  trudge; 
fetch  it,  ledger;  breeches,  bridge;   latch,  lodge;   urgent,  urchin; 


414  Reading  to  Others 

lecher,  ledger;  match  it,  magic;  aitch,  age;  lunch,  lunge;  crunch, 
cringe. 

3.    Practice  the  following  sentences: 

A.  Three  Chinese  chaps  ate  chow  mein  with  chopsticks. 

B.  The  rich  etcher  snatched  his  pictures  from  the  walls  of  the  charm- 
ing church. 

c.  It  was  a  joyful  joke  when  the  Jewish  gypsy  told  the  judge  and  jury 
his  age. 

D.  The  ridge  tends  to  catch  the  edge  of  chilly  light  in  the  wretched, 
grudging  sunset. 

E.  John  and  George  had  charge  of  the  registering  of  Legion  mem- 
bers, and  each  wore  a  badge. 

IX.  Exercises  for  [f]  and  [v] 

[f]  and  [v]  are  paired  labiodental  fricatives,  [f]  is  voiceless,  [v] 
voiced.  Both  are  formed  by  raising  the  lower  lip  to  touch  the 
upper  teeth. 

1.  Initial  [fj  and  [v]:  fine,  vine;  fair,  vair;  fetch,  vetch;  face, 
vase;  fist,  vista;  fan,  van;  fault,  vault;  few,  view;  fiscal,  viscous. 

2.  Final  [f]  and  [v]:  na'if,  naive;  leaf,  leave;  belief,  believe;  safe, 
save;  luff,  love;  hoof,  hooves;  waif,  wave;  graph,  grave;  staff,  stave; 
sheaf,  sheave;  thief,  thieves;  fife,  five;  strife,  strive;  life,  lives. 

3.  Keep  [f]  and  [v]  clear  in  the  following  sentences: 

A.  Five  fine  fellows  felt  fists  in  their  faces. 

B.  The  vast  vault  had  few  graves,  and  thieves  had  often  visited  it. 

c.  The  view  from  the  veranda  gave  forth  on  a  fine  vista  of  waves  and 
leafy  foliage. 

D.  The  various  officers  of  the  first  cavalry  reserves  were  afraid  that  the 
village  was  vulnerable. 

E.  Some  varieties  of  fish  are  fiercely  vicious,  fighting  vigorously  and 
often  inflicting  physical  hurt  on  the  fisherman. 

X.  Exercises  for  [n],  [q],  [qg],  and  [nk] 

[n]  is  a  nasal  consonant  made  by  placing  the  tip  of  the  tongue 
on  the  gum  ridge,  with  the  sides  touching  the  gum  ridge.  The 
velum  is  lowered. 

[q]  is  a  nasal  consonant  made  by  raising  the  back  of  the  tongue 
to  the  soft  palate,  the  edges  touching,  so  that  the  air  stream  goes 
through  the  nasal  passages. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  415 

[g]  is  a  voiced  tongue-back  stopped  consonant;  [k]  is  its  voiceless 
equivalent. 

i.  [n]  and  [rj]:  sin,  sing;  ton,  tongue;  bun,  bung;  done,  dung; 
ran,  rang;  span,  spang;  kin,  king;  pan,  pang;  ban,  bang;  thin, 
thing;  son,  sung;  run,  rung;  gone,  gong;  win,  wing;  fan,  fang;  tan, 
tang;  hand,  hang. 

2-  [D9]  ar}d  [*)]:  finger,  singer;  hunger,  hanger;  wrangle,  ring- 
ing; shingling,  stinging;  longer,  thronging;  angling,  clanging; 
linger,  wringer;  mingler,  gingham;  English,  kingly;  dangling, 
swinging;  fungus,  among  us;  hunger,  hung  her;  anger,  haranguer; 
kangaroo,  gang;  diphthongal,  Shanghai. 

3.  [rjk]  and  [q]:  rink,  ring;  think,  thing;  sank,  sang;  rank,  rang; 
hanker,  hanger;  sprinkle,  springer;  stinking,  stinging;  slunk,  slung; 
hunk,  hung;  slinking,  slinging;  sunk,  sung;  spank,  pang;  monk, 
among;    wink,    wing;    brinking,    bringing;    gangplank;    winking, 
winging;  kink,  king;  flank,  fang. 

4.  [ijg]  and  [i]k]:  mangle,  ankle;  bungle,  bunker;  jungle,  junk- 
er; sanguine,  thanker;  tingle,  tinkle;  singled,  inkled;  fungus,  bunk; 
anguish,  handkerchief;  conger,  conquer;  linger,  linker. 

5.  In  the  following  phrases  avoid  inserting  a  [g]  sound  before 
the  initial  vowel  of  the  word  following  the  [13]: 

Long  Island;  sing  it;  sing  on  key;  coming  in  and  going  out; 
climbing  every  hill  and  falling  over  everything;  among  us;  strong 
arm;  wrapping  it;  seeing  America  first;  being  honest;  getting  old; 
fading  out;  picking  apples;  going  after  it;  pleasing  every  mood; 
filling  ink  bottles;  grading  oranges;  Song  of  India;  wrong  eye; 
thronging  out;  young  eagle;  unsung  ode;  meringue  ice;  swing  and 
sway;  an  underslung  airplane. 

6.  Practice  the  following  sentences: 

A.  Reading,   writing,  and  spelling  are   the  young  Icing's  principal 
studies. 

B.  I  am  longing  to  go  back  to  Long  Island  and  be  a  singer. 

c.    Sing  out  the  glad  tidings;  ring  out  the  old,  ring  in  the  new  year. 

D.  He  mangled  his  ankle  as  he  bungled  a  shot  out  of  the  bunker. 

E.  My  hunger  for  lemon  meringue  in  Binghamton  led  to  my  looking 
up  a  good  restaurant. 

F.  The  Englishman  in  Singapore,  after  drinking  heavily,  leaning  on 
the  strong  arm  of  his  strapping  friend,  was  singing  a  jangling  tune. 

G.  Hang  up  your  hat  and  get  going  in  the  Big  Apple. 


41 6  Reading  to  Others 

XL  Exercises  for  [p]  and  [b] 

[p]  is  a  voiceless  labial  stopped  consonant,  pronounced  with  lips 
closed  and  velum  raised;  [b]  is  the  voiced  equivalent  of  [p]. 

1.  Initial:  pit,  bit;  pack,  back;   patch,  batch;  pill,  bill;  pike, 
bike;  bomb,  aplomb;  pall,  ball;  pie,  buy;  pig,  big. 

2.  Final:  lip,  glib;  nap,  nab;  slap,  slab;  Jap,  job;  gyp,  jib;  lope, 
lobe;  grumble,  crumple;  cop,  cob;  nip,  nib. 

3.  Practice  the  following  sentences: 

A.  The  pain  of  the  punch  practically  paralyzed  him,  and  I  expected 
him  to  pass  up  the  pennant. 

B.  We  apprehensively  battled  with  the  bragging  apprentices,  but  they 
broke  away,  from  our  blows  and  beat  a  poor  retreat. 

c.   A  box  of  big  brown  beavers  was  battered  to  bits  in  the  bad  accident. 

XII.  Exercises  for  Nasality 

Nasality  is  a  common  vocal  fault.  Sometimes  it  is  the  result  of  a 
nervous  or  psychological  condition  which  must  be  treated  before 
there  can  be  any  improvement  in  speech.  Often,  especially  in 
children,  it  is  caused  by  enlarged  tonsils  which  deflect  the  breath 
stream  into  the  nasal  passages,  or  by  some  trouble  in  the  nose  itself. 
Obviously,  medical  treatment  is  the  only  cure  for  these  kinds  of 
trouble,  as  it  is  for  the  nasality  caused  by  a  cleft  palate. 

Nasality  is  usually  caused  by  the  dropping  of  the  velum  (the 
soft  palate)  from  the  rear  wall  of  the  throat  on  other  sounds  than 
the  proper  nasal  consonants  [m],  [n],  and  [rj].  The  velum  should 
normally  be  lifted,  blocking  off  the  breath  stream  from  the  nasal 
passages,  on  all  sounds  except  [m],  [n],  and  [rj].  Some  speakers 
nasalize  only  a  few  sounds  besides  the  regular  nasal  consonants, 
especially  [as],  [31],  [ai],  [au],  and  the  variations  of  [au]:  [aeiT], 
[au],  [3u].  Some  habitually  nasalize  many  sounds  because  of  a  slug- 
gish palate  or  because  they  speak  with  too  much  tension  of  the 
throat  and  jaw,  which  results  in  involuntary  relaxation  of  the 
velum. 

i.  Study  the  action  of  the  uvula  (the  flexible  tip  of  the  velum) 
and  velum  in  a  mirror.  Touch  the  back  of  the  throat  with  a  clean 
rubber  eraser  at  the  end  of  a  pencil  and  notice  how  the  palate  is 
retracted.  Sing  [a].  The  uvula  should  pull  up  out  of  the  way  and 
the  soft  palate  rise. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  417 

2.  Test  your  speech  for  nasality  by  saying  the  following  sen- 
tences while  you  hold  a  small  mirror  under  your  nostrils.  If  a  mist 
forms  on  the  glass,  some  of  the  breath  stream  is  getting  into  the 
nasal  passages,  though  the  sentences  contain  no  nasal  sounds. 

A.  The  proper  way  to  be  happy  is  to  avoid  worry. 

B.  A  little  trivial  talk  goes  very  far. 

c.    That  fat  fellow  has  bad  habits,  especially  as  Speaker  of  the  House. 

D.  I  like  to  go  out  after  breakfast  to  take  a  vigorous  walk  about  the 
square. 

E.  The  wretched  lad  tried  to  get  out  by  crawling  over  the  roof. 

3.  Try  reading  the  sentences  first  in  the  usual  way,  then  while 
clamping  the  nostrils  shut  so  that  no  air  can  escape.    If  there  is  a 
serious  difference  in  the  sound  of  the  words  (more  than  the  flat- 
ness of  any  completely  denasalized  voice)  or  if  there  is  apparent 
breath  pressure  in  the  nose  when  the  nostrils  are  held  closed,  nasal- 
ity is  present.   Work  at  the  sentences,  holding  the  nose,  until  the 
pressure  in  the  nasal  chambers  is  reduced. 

4.  [;e]  and  dialectal  variations  of  [au]  and  [ai]  often  become 
nasal  because  the  front  vowel  [ae]  or  [a]  is  raised  too  high  and  made 
too  tense,  so  that  the  velum  drops  down.  This  is  true  of  [a]  and  [3] 
in  [au]  and  [DI],   It  is  especially  true  when  the  following  sound  is  a 
nasal.    Be  careful  not  to  anticipate  the  relaxing  of  the  velum  for 
[m],  [n],  and  [q]  so  that  the  preceding  sounds  are  nasalized.  Practice 
the  following,  making  the  vowels  and  diphthongs  without  strain, 
being  sure  that  the  velum  is  raised  (using  the  mirror  again  to  test 
for  escape  of  air),  then  combining  them  with  the  consonants: 

A.  se-ae-ae-ae-ae;   au-au-au-au-au;   ai-ai-ai-ai-ai;   DIOIOIOIOI;   hae-hae-hae- 
hae-hae;    hau-hau-hau-hau-hau;    hai-hai-hai-hai-hai;    hDi-toi-liDi-tni-hoi; 
hael-had-hael-hael-had;  haul-haul-haul-haul-haul;  hail-hail-hail-hail-hail; 

h3ll-h3ll-hDll-h3ll-hDll. 

B.  rat,  sag,  rap,  clap,  slap,  tan,  mat,  rascal,  matter,  black,  slam,  mallet, 
add,  lamb. 

c.   hand,  canned,  cant,  land,  fanned,  planned,  slant,  rant,  pant,  stand, 
grant,  sand,  expand,  supplant,  grand,  disband. 

D.  cow,  bow,  sow,  allow,  sour,  hour,  crowd,  howl,  spout,  prowl,  scowl, 
foul,  devout,  slough,  drought. 

E.  crown,  down,  noun,  town,  brown,  renown,  county,  hound,  floun- 
der, drown,  round,  bound,  sound,  frowned,  astound,  confound,  expound, 
profound,  compound,  found,  clown. 


41 8  Reading  to  Others 

F.  I'll,  ivy,  ivory,  idle,  reside,  right,  flight,  sigh,  fly,  triumph,  cried, 
stipend,  quiet,  pliant,  idle,  shy,  ice,  eyes,  strive,  ripe. 

G.  I'm,  mine,  resign,  kind,  behind,  rind,  Rhine,  eyeing,  rhymes,  chime, 
wind,  mankind,  swine,  whine,  nine,  define,  decline,  lifetime,  sunshine. 

5.  A  certain  amount  of  nasal  resonance  is  necessary  in  any  good 
vocal  quality  (see  Chapter  6).   Practice  the  following  consonants, 
followed  by  nasal  sounds,  vigorously  changing  from  the  oral  to  the 
nasal  sound,  avoiding  linking  vowels: 

f-m;  f-n;  f-rj  r-m;  r-n;  r-rj  6-m;  6-n;  6-rj 

k-m;  k-n;  k-rj  s-m;  s-n;  s-rj  S-m;  ft-n;  5-rj 

1-m;  1-n;  1-rj  v-m;  v-n;  v-rj  z-m;  z-n;  z-rj 

6.  Reverse  Exercise  5,  putting  the  nasal  sounds  before  the  oral 
consonants. 

7.  Practice  the  following  sentences,  avoiding  nasality  and  being 
especially  careful  of  the  vowels  and  diphthongs  preceding  nasals: 

A.  The  crowd  shouted  and  clapped  at  the  grand  tableau. 

B.  This  soil,  ad/oining  a  point  opposite  the  boys'  land,  has  been  ex- 
ploited. 

c.   He  swam  out  from  the  sand  bar  until  he  began  to  have  a  bad  cramp. 

D.  He  browsed  around  the  house,  now  pouting,  now  grousing,  until 
he  roused  himself  and  went  out. 

E.  We  sang  and  danced,  refreshing  ourselves  with  ham  sandwiches, 
and  finally  went  home. 

F.  We  climbed  up  the  high  incline,  deciding  to  visit  the  shrine  re- 
minding mankind  not  to  be  unkind. 

Denasalized  speech,  entirely  lacking  in  nasal  resonance,  is  caused 
by  some  pathological  condition  of  the  nose  or  throat,  such  as  in- 
fected sinuses,  chronic  catarrh,  or  growths  in  the  throat,  especially 
enlarged  adenoids  that  shut  off  the  opening  to  the  nasal  chambers. 
(After  diseased  adenoids  are  removed,  positive  nasality  often  re- 
sults because  the  soft  palate  has  been  allowed  to  become  sluggish.) 
A  typical  example  of  denasalized  speech  is  the  speech  of  one  af- 
flicted with  a  bad  cold  in  the  head.  When  the  condition  remains 
unrelieved,  a  physician  should  be  consulted. 

XIII.  Tongue  and  Lip  Exercises 

Much  faulty  speech  is  the  result  not  of  abuse  of  a  few  specific 
sounds  but  of  general  indistinctness.  Such  slovenly  enunciation 
may  be  checked  in  most  speakers  by  attention  to  two  procedures, 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  419 

speaking  slowly  (see  pp.  176-77)  and  using  the  lips  vigorously.  Speak- 
ing slowly  will  allow  the  speaker  time  to  form  his  sounds  carefully 
and  to  avoid  the  ignoring  of  syllables  as  if  they  were  poor  relatives. 
Using  the  lips  vigorously  will  tend  to  bring  the  sounds  up  out  of 
the  throat  and  to  shape  the  consonants  clearly.  Remember  that 
the  consonants  are  the  tools  of  good  enunciation;  the  vowels  are 
the  musical  elements.  Try  singing  "My  Old  Kentucky  Home" 
without  consonants.  You  may  achieve  pleasant  tone  quality,  but 
what  you  say  will  be  unintelligible. 

In  some  cases  of  poor  diction  the  trouble  is  tight  jaws  or  un- 
relaxed  throat  muscles.  Pipe-smokers  often  speak  with  the  pipe 
held  between  their  teeth,  holding  their  jaws  rigid  or,  at  best,  speak- 
ing with  their  mouths  nearly  closed.  Many  lazy  speakers,  not 
troubling  to  move  their  lips  more  than  is  absolutely  necessary,  suc- 
ceed in  muffling  most  of  their  words.  On  the  other  hand,  the  swift- 
tongued  speakers  ruthlessly  abandon  a  fair  share  of  the  short,  un- 
stressed words  and  a  syllable  or  two  in  every  long  word. 

Exercises  in  relaxation  may  help  shake  lose  the  clenched  jaws  and 
dogged  grip  on  life  of  the  tense  speakers  (see  p.  202).  Try  the  fol- 
lowing exercises  for  tongue  and  lips: 

A.    TONGUE. 

1.  With  the  tip  of  the  tongue  touch  the  upper  gum  ridge,  the 
hard  palate,  the  soft  palate,  and  the  lower  gum  ridge. 

2.  Touch  each  tooth  writh  the  tip  of  the  tongue,  lifting  it  after 
each  contact. 

3.  Without  vocalizing  at  first,  place  the  tongue  in  the  positions 
of  various  sounds,  holding  it  in  each  position  for  several  seconds 
completely  relaxed: 

A.  Touch  the  tip  to  the  upper  gum  ridge,  allowing  the  sides  to 
be  in  contact  with  the  teeth  and  gums  (as  for  [d]  and  [t]).    Allow 
the  tongue  to  drop  to  the  floor  of  the  mouth.  Raise  to  the  position 
of  [t]  again.    Repeat.    Try  the  exercise,  pronouncing  the  [t].    In 
the  lowered  position  pronounce  a  weak  [a]. 

B.  Groove  the  tongue,  keeping  the  top  in  back  of  the  upper 
teeth  without  touching  them  or  the  lower  gum  (as  for  [s]).   The 
sides  of  the  tongue  must  be  touching  the  side  teeth.    Change  to 
the  position  for  [0],  with  the  tip  of  the  tongue  slightly  protruding 
between  the  teeth.  Shift  back  and  forth  slowly.   Repeat,  using  the 
voiceless  sounds  [s]  and  [9], 


420  Reading  to  Others 

c.  Place  the  tip  of  the  tongue  on  the  hard  palate,  the  sides 
spread  (as  for  [n]).  Shift  to  the  [g]  sound,  formed  by  raising  the 
tongue  in  back  to  the  soft  palate.  Shift  from  one  to  the  other 
soundlessly  at  first,  then  saying  [n]  and  [g]. 

4.  Stretch  the  tip  of  the  tongue  toward  the  nose.   Withdraw  it. 
Then  stretch  it  toward  the  chin.   Alternate  fairly  rapidly,  seeking 
a  relaxed,  controlled  tongue. 

5.  Curl  the  tongue,  stretching  the  tip  backward  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, pressing  down  on  the  bottom  of  the  tongue  with  the  upper 
teeth.    Relax.    Repeat  several  times. 

6.  Without  vocalizing,  start  with   the  high   front  vowels,   go 
around  the  vowel  quadrangle  (see  p.  138),  getting  the  tongue  in 
the  proper  position  and   tension:    [i],    [i],    [e],    [e],    [ae],    [a],    [a], 
[D]»  W»  [°]»  [u]'  [u]»  anc*  finally  [?J  and  [A].  Repeat  slowly,  this  time 
vocalizing. 

B.    LIPS. 

1.  Round  the  lips,  exaggerating  their  protrusion.   Unround  and 
open  them.    Repeat  several  times.    Pronounce  [tu]  with  careful 
rounding.    Relax,  saying  [ti].    Repeat  several  times. 

2.  Press  the  lips  lightly  together  without  pursing  them.    Force 
air  between  them  so  that  they  vibrate  swiftly.   The  cheeks  should 
be  slightly  puffed  out  and  share  in  the  vibration. 

3.  Whistle  up  and  down  the  scale,  observing  the  change  in  lip- 
tension  as  you  reach  your  highest  notes  and  the  comparative  relax- 
ation of  the  lowest  notes. 

4.  Firmly  repeat  the  following  combinations,  from  lips  nearly 
or  entirely  closed  on  the  first  sound  to  the  open  position  of  [a]: 
bar,  ba:,  ba:,  ba:,  ba:;  pa:,  pa:,  pa:,  pa:,  pa:;  na:,  na:,  na:,  na:, 
na:;  ma:,  ma:,  ma:,  ma:,  ma:;  ta:,  ta:,  ta:,  ta:,  ta:;  da:,  da:,  da:, 
da:,  da:;  fa:,  fa:,  fa:,  fa:,  fa:;  va:,  va:,  va:,  va:,  va:. 

XIV.  Exercises  in  Articulation 
A.    FINAL  [t]  AND  [d]. 

Do  the  exercises  under  [t],  [d],  and  [s]  (especially  [-sts]  and  [-fts]) 
that  apply  in  this  division. 

i.  Final  [t]:  clamped,  stepped,  rehearsed,  stopt,  leaped,  slept, 
rapped,  slapped,  crept,  slipped,  chopped,  hooked,  clashed,  dashed, 
meshed,  fished,,  washed,  tossed,  kissed,  cracked,  crashed,  backed, 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  421 

shocked,  locked,  looked,  joked,  cooked,  mashed,  drenched,  dreamt, 
laughed,  coughed,  stuffed,  staffed,  matched,  watched,  latched 
itched,  coached. 

2.  Final  [d]:  learned,  leaned,  shined,  caned,  planned,  rained 
stoned,   swooned,  coined,  loomed,  aimed,   damned,   condemned 
roamed,   rhymed,   turned,   buzzed,  raised,   prized,  closed,   oozed 
poised,   roused,  arrived,  raved,   moved,  roved,  swerved,   bagged 
begged,  clogged,  judged,  cadged,  edged,  rouged,  lodged,  starred 
battered,  reared,  spared,  roared,  scoured,  cured,  squired,  wronged 
winged,  clanged,  hanged,  longed. 

3.  Final  [od]:  wretched,  ragged,  united,  grated,  dogged,  righted 
started,    granted,    demanded,    irritated,    seated,    sighted,    jagged 
rugged,  haunted,  hinted,  rented,  landed,  hunted,  acquainted. 

B.    SYLLABIC  CONSONANTS. 

1.  [ij]:  button,  rotten,  bitten,  tighten,  mitten,  cotton,  rosin,  kit- 
ten, open,  eaten,  risen,  beaten,  batten,  curtain. 

2.  Final  [r],  often  [a1]  (where  pronounced):  butter,  rotter,  bitter, 
cutter,  batter,  spatter,  blotter,  quitter,  winter,  summer,  loiter. 

3.  [}]:  battle,  bottle,  cattle,  spittle,  little,  noodle,  addle,  yokel, 
bundle,  startle,  tickle,  brittle,  fiddle,  twiddle,  cradle,  ladle,  crackle, 
scuttle,  fuddle,  muddle,  rattle,  tattle,  model,  huddle. 

4.  [qi]:   spasm,  chasm,  socialism,  bosom,  schism,  communism, 
chrism,  atheism,  prism,  criticism,  organism,  egoism,  heroism,  en- 
thusiasm. 

THE  GLOTTAL  STOP.  The  glottal  stop  is  the  complete  closing  of 
the  opening  between  the  vocal  cords  at  the  end  of  a  sound  or  just 
before  a  sound  so  that  the  air  must  forcibly  blast  its  way  through 
the  cords  in  a  little  explosive  gust,  as  in  coughing.  For  some  speak- 
ers there  is  danger  of  either  inserting  a  glottal  stop  before  a  syllabic 
consonant  or  substituting  the  stop  for  another  consonant.  Thus 
bottle  becomes  ['batfl]  or  ['ba^lj;  butter  becomes  f'bAtV]  or  ['bAVj. 
Except  for  special  emphasis  there  is  no  proper  place  for  the  glottal 
stop  in  American  speech,  though  many  otherwise  good  speakers 
use  it  with  surprising  frequency.  Those  who  detect  it  in  their 
speech  should  practice  the  words  above  in  Exercises  i,  2,  3,  4,  under 
Articulation,  being  careful  to  keep  the  glottis  open,  especially  after 
[t]  and  [d]  in  words  ending  in  [n],  [r],  and  [1],  and  to  be  sure  that 
they  pronounce  the  [t]  or  [d]  and  not  the  glottal  stop. 

This  stop  is  also  often  heard  within  phrases,  especially  before 


422 


Reading  to  Others 


words  beginning  with  vowels.  Diffident  speakers  sometimes  choke 
off  whole  series  of  words  by  putting  the  glottal  stop  before  each 
word. 

1.  Try  the  following  sentences,  keeping  the  glottis  open  before 
the  vowels: 

A.  An  awfully  antagonistic  attitude  appalled  us. 

B.  The  answer  is  as  easy  as  eggs  at  Easter. 

c.    Out  of  the  opposition  an  eloquent  orator  arose. 

D.  In  India  individual  effort  is  intensified. 

E.  He  usually  urges  an  umbrella  upon  us. 

2.  Repeat  the  sounds  [i],  [ei],  [ai],  [ou],  [u],  [a],  [:>].   If  you  click 
between  the  vowels,  try  taking  a  breath  before  each  one.  When  you 
put  an  [f]  before  each,  notice  how  there  is  no  tendency  to  close  off 
the  glottis  before  you  form  the  sounds. 

3.  Try  the  following  combinations  without  clicking  before  the 
words  beginning  with  vowels: 

one  ounce  eight  elephants 

I  allow  it  an  ideal  entrance 

an  eager  eye  he  always  acts 

always  alert  I'd  immediately  exit 


any  attitude 
idle  orders 
an  eagle 
easy  of  aspect 


4.    Practice  the  following  sentences,  avoiding  the  glottal  stop: 

A.  The  crackle  and  rattle  of  the  battle  muddled  my  mind. 

B.  A  rotten  button  on  the  cotton  mitten  made  me  lose  it. 

c.   All  summer  he  loitered  in  the  gutter  until  he  became  a  rotter. 

C.    DIFFICULT  COMBINATIONS  OF  CONSONANTS. 

i.    threnody,    throttle,    threshold,    thrifty,    thrombosis,    thrush, 


thrust. 

2.    accessorily 
anachronistic 
anesthetist 
assiduity 
authoritatively 
calisthenics 
Calvary 
cavalry 
chastisement 
constitutionality 
deciduous 


epistemological 

esthetics 

etymological 

extraordinary 

homogeneity 

hospitable 

ignominy 

illegibly 

impecuniousness 

inapplicable 

incalculable 


indefatigably 

indisputably 

indissoluble 

ineligibly 

inestimable 

inexplicable 

innocuous 

inoculation 

insidious 

insouciance 

intermolecular 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement 


423 


intuitivism 

pamphlet 

simultaneity 

irreconcilable 

paroxysm 

specific 

irrefragable 

presumptuous 

spontaneity 

irrefutable 

recidivism 

stalactite 

irremediably 

reconnaissance 

stalagmite 

irresistibly 

recognize 

statistician 

irrevocably 

regularly 

statu  table 

laryngitis 

renaissance 

supererogatory 

midst 

significant 

thesaurus 

3.    acquisitiveness 
amicable 
Brobdingnagiaii 
caricature 
chrysanthemum 
conscientious 
despicable 
etymologically 
hypochondriac 
impracticable 
incommensurably 
incorrigible 


indistinguishably 

indomitable 

inextricable 

inimical 

intelligibility 

inviolable 

irrelevant 

irreparably 

magnanimity 

negligible 

onomatopoetic 

palpable 


particularly 

perspicacity 

perspicacious 

philanthropically 

philological 

practicable 

superfluous 

synthesis 

tentatively 

unanimity 

ubiquitous 

verisimilitude1 


4.  fifths,  twelfths,  widths,  breadths,  hundredths,  sixths,  lengths, 
strengths,  eighths,  myths,  sevenths,  twentieths,  scythes,  writhes, 
nymphs. 

I).    MIDDLE  CONSONANTS. 

Care  must  be  taken  not  to  change  or  slur  middle  consonants  or 
whole  mid-syllables.  Read  the  following  words,  being  especially 
careful  of  the  italicized  sounds: 

shouldn't,  couldn't,  wouldn't,  important,  city,  significant,  rented, 
genl/emen,  beautiful,  geography,  twenty,  hundred,  party,  partner, 
government,  generally,  particu/arly,  association,  absurd,  accurate, 
arctic,  allitude,  Baptist,  better,  bu/ter,  Chevrolet,  children,  county, 
duty,  escape,  February,  gelling,  immediately,  tremendous,  intellec- 
tual, Lalin,  Massachusetts,  pattern,  perspiration,  picture,  Protes- 
tant, pulling,  salin,  Salurday,  wraler,  daughter,  writer,  wriling, 
beau/y,  lillle,  reckon,  absorb,  silling,  winter. 

1  Some  of  the  words  in  Exercise  3  were  suggested  by  J.  M.  Steadman,  "Tongue 
Twisters,"  in  American  Speech,  April,  1936,  p.  203.  He  mentions  O.  O.  Mclntyre's 
difficult  combinations:  antithesis,  assiduously,  and  asterisk.. 


424  Reading  to  Others 

In  these  words  avoid  changing  the  voiceless  sound  of  a  consonant 
to  a  voiced  sound,  as  changing  [t]  to  [d],  leaving  out  consonants, 
transposing  sounds,  etc. 

XV.  Exercises  for  [«],  [a],  and  [a] 

The  sound  of  [ae],  looked  on  with  much  scorn  by  the  over- 
fastidious  and  often  ignored  by  them  even  in  words  which  should 
have  it,  is  normally  neither  a  vulgar  nor  a  faulty  sound.  Some- 
times, it  is  true,  [x]  is  raised  and  flattened  or  nasalized  until  it  is 
ugly  to  hear.  The  correction  is  in  lowering  and  relaxing  the 
tongue,  but  not  as  low  as  [a]  or  [a],  so  that  there  is  danger  of  arti- 
ficial pronunciation  in  the  direction  of  [a].  Do  not,  unless  the 
broad  [a]  is  natural  to  you  in  words  like  laugh  and  ask,  indiscrimi- 
nately substitute  it  for  [ae].  The  following  classes  of  words  should 
always  have  the  sound  of  [a?]  in  American  speech: 

bag,  brag,  drag,  wag,  etc. 

add,  bad,  fad,  had,  lad,  plaid,  etc. 

back,  black,  tack,  slack,  ransack,  etc. 

bab,  grab,  drab,  jab,  stab,  etc. 

canal,  palp,  shalt,  corral,  Alp,  scalp,  etc. 

am,  clam,  swam,  lamb,  slam,  epigram,  telegram,  sham,  etc. 

ash,  clash,  dash,  slash,  smash,  crash,  axe,  flax,  wax,  abash,  etc. 

at,  brat,  slat,  cravat,  batch,  hatch,  dispatch,  etc. 

camp,  clamp,  scamp,  tramp,  stamp,  etc. 

fan,  bran,  plan,  began,  caravan,  etc. 

fang,  hang,  sang,  sprang,  blank,  rank,  tank,  sank,  frank,  etc. 

chap,  clap,  strap,  snap,  tap,  wrap,  etc. 

lapse,  collapse,  apt,  wrapt,  tap,  etc. 

hand,  sand,  brand,  grand,  etc. 

The  following  words  may  have  either  [x]  or  [a].  The  most 
general  usage  in  this  country  is  [ae].  [a]  in  America  is  nearly  always 
an  acquired  sound,  chosen  by  speakers  to  avoid  the  flatness  of  [ae] 
and  the  over-refinement  of  [a], 

chaff,  graph,  staff,  autograph,  phonograph,  photograph,  calf, 
laugh,  half,  .etc. 

aft,  craft,  draft,  graft,  raft,  aircraft,  shaft,  etc. 

chance,  dance,  glance,  trance,  advance,  expanse,  finance,  circum- 
stance, etc. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  4*5 

aunt,  ant,  can't,  grant,  plant,  enchant,  slant,  supplant,  transplant, 
recant,  etc. 

ask,  bask,  cask,  flask,  mask,  task,  etc. 

asp,  clasp,  gasp,  grasp,  hasp,  etc. 

ass,  brass,  class,  glass,  grass,  pass,  surpass,  etc. 

blast,  cast,  fast,  last,  mast,  vast,  forecast,  etc. 

bath,  lath,  path,  wrath,  etc. 

answer,  basket,  after,  casket,  advantage,  advance,  advancement, 
castle,  demand,  command. 

disaster,  fasten,  master,  nasty,  pastime,  pastor,  plaster,  rascal, 
raspberry,  castor,  ghastly,  rather,  salve. 

Some  American  speakers,  usually  in  the  Eastern  group  (and  in 
eastern  Virginia),  use  [a]  in  the  words  immediately  above.  In 
Southern  British  speech  they  regularly  have  [a]. 

Spelled  a  before  [r]  and  [1]  is  always  pronounced  [a].  Words  of 
the  stop  class  may  be  pronounced  with  either  [a]  or  [D]  (occasional- 

iyW). 

ballade,  facade,  barrage,  garage,  mirage,  suave  (may  be  [sweiv]). 

bar,  car,  far,  scar,  star,  tar,  catarrh,  garter,  caviar,  seminar,  farce, 
sparse,  harsh. 

barb,  garb,  arch,  march,  starch,  hard,  card,  guard,  yard,  discard, 
disregard,  barge,  large. 

ark,  dark,  mark,  spark,  remark,  patriarch,  arm,  charm,  farm, 
harm,  carp,  harp,  sharp. 

art,  chart,  heart,  depart,  smart,  start. 

stop,  chop,  top,  shop,  adopt,  mosque,  blot,  clot,  knot,  yacht,  for- 
got, blotch,  notch,  papa,  mama,  Rajah,  alms,  bargain,  llama,  palm, 
psalm. 

father,  artery,  marble,  lark,  qualm,  sarcastic. 

XVI.  Exercises  for  [e]  and  ['] 

1.  [i]  and  [e],  paired:  pin,  pen;  sin,  send;  India,  any;  Minnie, 
many;  tin,  ten;  kin,  ken;  wrist,  rest;  sill,  sell;  hid,  head;  pick,  peck; 
him,  hem;  within,  then;  limb,  Lem. 

2.  [e]  alone:  breath,  web,  neck,  wreck,  correct,  bed,  fled,  elect, 
subject,  correct,  hedge,  cleft,  beg,  keg,  bell,  spell,  swell,  belt,  gem, 
stem,   strategem,    dreamt,    tempt,    contempt,    glen,    men,    again, 
dense,  fence,  confidence,  bench,  bend,  friend,  attend,  defend,  ex- 
tend, offend,  comprehend,  bent,  spent,  tent,  dent,  resent,  step, 
crept. 


426  Reading  to  Others 

3.  [i]  alone:  milk,  wind,  stick,  cliff,  build,  big,  hill,  brim,  hymn, 
brink,  rim,  swim,  flint,  think,  thing,  swing,  string,  interest. 

4.  Read  the  following  sentences: 

A.  We  sent  the  pen  to  India,  where  many  men  will  use  it. 

B.  Any  friend  who  has  his  confidence  and  who  attends  to  his  inter- 
ests can  comprehend  this  business. 

c.  I  spent  ten  cents  in  Memphis,  Tennessee,  to  buy  a  big  pin  for 
Minnie. 

D.  Sid  said  to  tell  him  that  Ben  hid  the  penny  many  years  ago. 

E.  I  meant  that  the  mint  will  not  let  any  men  escape  this  Christmas. 

XVII.  Exercises  for  [*],   [*],  and  ["] 

Some  speakers,  especially  in  New  York  City  and  in  several  parts 
of  the  deep  South,  change  the  sound  of  [3]  or  [?]  in  words  like  bird, 
third,  etc.,  to  [31]  so  that  they  are  pronounced,  according  to  dialect 
writers,  bold,  thoid,  though  only  in  extreme  pronunciation  does 
[3]  or  [Vj  actually  become  [31],  The  cause  is  a  diphthongizing  of  the 
[3],  possibly  as  a  substitute  for  an  omitted  [rj.  [DI]  is  occasionally 
changed  to  [V|  or  [31]  in  words  like  oyster  and  oil,  or,  in  some  sec- 
tions, to  [DF],  as  in  [srl],  [barl],  for  oil,  boil.  Practice  the  following 
exercises,  being  careful  to  make  [3]  or  [>]  a  clear  vowel  and  [DI]  a 
clear  diphthong.  The  General  American  pronunciation  of  the 
words  in  exercise  i  is  [y]  rather  than  [3]. 

1.  [V]  or  [3]  alone:  world,  word,  term,  worm,  third,  bird,  stir, 
blur,  dirge,  adverse,  curse,  nurse,  perverse,  blurt,  skirt,  dirt,  burst, 
slur,  pert,  firm,  germ,  heard,  birch,  church,  search,  surf,  turf,  clerk, 
jerk,  perk,  girl,  curl,  earl,  pearl,  whirl,  furl,  burn,  spurn,  yearn, 
fern,  churn,  earn,  chirp,  squirrel,  nasturtium,  further,  furnish, 
termite,  terminal,  terminology,  surgeon,  sirloin,  murmur,  nervous, 
lurch,  virtue. 

2.  [31]  and  [>]  or  [3]:  boil,  burn;  boy,  burr;  oil,  earl;  adjoin,  ad- 
journ; loin,  learn;  poise,  purrs;  coil,  curl;  foil,  furl;  avoid,  averred; 
voice,  verse;  foist,  first;  hoist,  rehearsed;  coy,  cur;  joyful,  jersey; 
gargoyle,  girl;  Hoyle,  hurl;  boil,  burl;  oily,  early. 

3.  [DI]   alone:    toilet,   cloister,   oyster,   decoy,   destroy,   rejoice, 
loiter,  quoit,  Roister-Doister,  moisten,  noise,  poise,  spoil,  moist, 
asteroid,  recoil,  exploit,  disappoint,  coin,  groin,  join,  toy,  hoist. 

4.  Practice  reading  the  following  sentences: 

A.   He  is  the  third  person  I  have  heard  murmuring  in  church. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  427 

B.  Boil  the  oysters  first,  avoiding  too  much  oil,  stirring  firmly  so  they 
will  not  burn. 

c.    The  boy  destroyed  the  coin,  disappointing  his  noisy  employer. 

D.  The  nurse  works  on  Thirty-third  Street,  earning  about  as  much  as 
a  clerk. 

E.  The  squirrels  and  birds  hurry  about  in  the  birches,  while  the  girl 
points  at  their  loitering. 

XVIII.  Exercises  for  [™] 

1.  Be  careful  to  make  the  first  sound  of  [au]  a  low  vowel.  Some 
phoneticians  think  that  the  first  element  of  this  diphthong  is  [a] 
rather  than  [a].    In  either  case  keep  the  vowel  low,  avoiding  the 
half-high  front  vowel  [ae].  The  diphthong  ends  with  a  rounded  [u]. 
Avoid  too  much  fronting  of  any  part  of  the  diphthong.    First  get 
straight  the  vowel  [a]:  stop,  cot,  arm,  bottle,  rock,  shop,  clock,  art, 
mark,  concoct,  plod,  dodge,  blond,  chop,  adopt,  yacht,  pond,  nod, 
mob.   (There  may  be  variations  toward  [D]  or  [3]  in  these  sounds.) 

2.  Now  pronounce  the  following  pairs  of  words,  keeping  the  [a] 
of  the  first  in  the  [au]  of  the  second: 

rot,  rout;  doll,  dowel;  pond,  pound;  got,  gout;  spot,  spout;  bond, 
bound;  fond,  found;  wand,  wound;  scar,  scour;  clot,  clout;  dot, 
doubt;  shot,  shout;  lot,  lout;  not,  knout;  pot,  pout;  Scott,  scout; 
shot,  shout;  tot,  tout;  trot,  trout;  bar,  bower;  tar,  tower;  car,  cower; 
clod,  cloud;  prod,  proud;  crotch,  crouch;  Don,  down. 

3.  In  the  following  words  first  pronounce  the  vowel  as  [a];  then 
carefully  try  the  diphthong  [au]: 

bow  ([ba:]-[bau]),  brow  ([bra:]-[brau]),  cow  ([ka:]-[kau]),  how 
([ha:]-[hau]),  now  ([na:]-[nau]),  plow,  prow,  row,  scow,  slough,  sow, 
thou,  vow,  allow,  avow,  endow,  fowl,  owl,  howl,  scowl,  growl,  cowl, 
prowl,  brown,  clown,  crown,  down,  frown,  gown,  noun,  town,  bout, 
clout,  doubt,  gout,  lout,  scout,  sprout,  shout,  shower,  bower,  bound, 
found,  ground,  hound,  mound,  mountain,  fountain,  count,  sur- 
mount, devour,  hour,  house,  mouse,  blouse,  pouch,  grouch,  crouch, 
slouch,  county. 

4.  Read  the  following  sentences,  slowly  pronouncing  the  words 
containing  [au]: 

A.  Out  on  the  mountain  we  allow  for  about  two  showers  a  day. 

B.  The  scout,  scowling  in  the  sun,  shouted  to  us  to  get  down  from 
our  mounts. 


4*8  Reading  to  Others 

c.  He  crouched  near  the  ground,  in  doubt  about  whether  to  count 
the  hours  where  he  was  or  to  howl  out  that  they  were  surrounded. 

D.  The  nouns,  gout,  gown,  fountain,  and  mouse,  all  contain  the  same 
sound. 

E.  Out  of  town,  but  still  in  this  county,  we  found  a  good  cow  and 
two  growling  hounds. 

XIX.  Exercises  for  [u]  and  [Ju] 

General  American  has  [u]  in  words  like  new,  tune,  tube,  [ju], 
considered  by  many  a  more  pleasing  sound  in  these  words,  is  some- 
times exaggerated  to  [Ju]  or  [tju]  or  is  put  in  words  that  should 
have  only  [u]. 

1.  Words  regularly  with  [u]:  blue,  flew,  chew,  rule,  brew,  prune, 
true,  threw,  rude,  flute,  brute,  moot,  moon,  spoon,  tomb,  clue,  cool, 
rooster,  shoe,  tool,  room,  tooth. 

2.  Words  regularly  with  [ju]:  music,  feud,  beauty,  cube,  human, 
view,  fumes,  mutiny,  fusion,  putrid,  fuse,  pewter,  cute,  reputation, 
puny,  future. 

3.  Words  pronounced  with  both  [u]  and  [ju].    Either  sound  is 
correct,  depending  on  regional  standards:  tube,  tune,  suit,  duty, 
assume,  constitution,  resume,  enthusiasm,  news,  duke,  opportunity, 
suitable,  revenues,  due,  neurotic,  neutral,  neuter,  consume,  super- 
stition. 

4.  Exercises  in  pairs:  beauty,  booty;  feud,  food;  hew,  who;  dew, 
do;  cue,  coo;  mewed,  mood;  pew,  pooh;  fuel,  fool. 

5.  Practice  these  sentences: 

A.  I  assume  it  is  my  duty  to  know  the  tunes  of  the  new  music. 

B.  The  Duke  had  the  opportunity  to  find  a  clue  to  the  tomb  of  the 
mutineer. 

c.  Human  enthusiasm  for  news  of  the  future  is  due  once  in  a  blue 
moon. 

XX.  Exercises  for  [ai] 

This  diphthong  is  often  mispronounced.  Some  speakers  retract 
the  first  element  [a]  toward  [a]  or  even  [D],  so  that  a  word  like  time 
is  pronounced  [taim]  or  [t>im],  or  possibly  [taim],  usually  with  the 
[i]  prolonged.  New  York  City  speakers  are  frequent  offenders  in 
the  use  of  this  sound.  They  must  be  sure  that  the  [a]  is  the  sound 
in  some  pronunciations  of  ask  and  not  that  in  father  or  all,  and 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  429 

they  must  not  split  the  diphthong  into  two  separate  vowels.  Other 
speakers,  usually  in  the  South,  drop  the  second  element  of  the 
diphthong,  making  it  a  pure  vowel,  as  in  tight,  which  becomes 
[ta:t]  or  [ta:t].  Many  speakers  nasalize  this  diphthong,  raising  the 
[a]  too  high  and  lowering  the  velum. 

1.  [ai]  and  [DI]:  tie,  toy;  buy,  boy;  try,  Troy;  bile,  boil;  tide, 
toyed;  ally,  alloy;  tile,  toil;  kind,  coined;  silo,  soil;  plight,  exploit; 
isle,  oil;  file,  foil. 

2.  [ai],  [31],   [a]:   pint,  point,  pontoon;   light,  loiter,  lot;   pies, 
poise,  Pa's;  mice,  moist,  mosque;  high,  ahoy,  ha;  guide,  Goya,  god; 
fire,  foyer,  far;  line,  loin,  elan. 

3.  [ai],  [a],  [ae]:  night,  not,  gnat;  right,  rot,  rat;  sight,  sot,  sat; 
tight,  tot,  tat;  like,  lock,  lack;  spite,  spot,  spat;  fined,  fond,  fanned; 
bind,  bond,  banned;  type,  top,  tap;  height,  hot,  hat;  slight,  slot,  slat. 

4.  [ai]  and  [:e]  or  [a]:  grind,  grand;  mind,  demand;  signed,  sand; 
ice,  ass;  mice,  mass;  feist,  fast;  stifle,  staff;  blight,  blot;  kite,  cot; 
mine,  man;  trite,  trot;  hive,  have;  spine,  span;  crime,  cram;  kind, 
canned;  bite,  bat;  pile,  pal:  pine,  pan. 

5.  Read  the  following  sentences  carefully: 

A.  The  light  was  shining  in  the  sky  high  above  the  icy  island. 

B.  The  royal  right  to  sign  the  bonds  was  a  point  in  his  spiteful 
demand. 

c.  "Might  makes  right"  is  the  kind  of  vile  idea  that  we  find  in  rninds 
like  Genghis  Khan's. 

D.  The  guide  bribed  the  nine  high  squires  to  deny  the  bride  the  right 
to  recite  tonight. 

K.  I  like  my  height  of  five  feet  nine,  though  my  wife  desires  me  to  be 
slightly  taller. 

XXI.  Exercises  for  [*]  and  ['] 

[i]  is  sometimes  replaced  by  [i]  in  foreign-born  speakers.  In 
forming  [i]  the  tongue  is  slightly  lowered  from  the  high  front 
humping  for  [i].  [i]  is  a  relaxed  sound;  [i]  is  tense. 

1.  [i]  and  [i],  paired:  beat,  bit;  heat,  hit;  seat,  sit;  scene,  sin; 
keen,  kin;  he's,  his;  feast,  fist;  feet,  fit;  steel,  still;  squeal,  squill; 
feel,  fill;  deem,  dim;  weal,  will;  deep,  dip. 

2.  [i]  and  [ir]:  need,  near;  bead,  beard;  steed,  steer;  feed,  fear; 
speed,  spear;  deed,  dear;  mead,  mere;  bean,  beer;  lead,  leer;  queen, 
queer. 


430 


Reading  to  Others 


3.    Read  the  following  sentences: 

A.  They  built  the  city  bridge  higher,  making  it  very  pretty  indeed. 

B.  They  feared  that  the  deer  would  be  killed  before  it  got  near  the 
rear  line. 

c.  The  history  of  the  kings  of  England's  beards  is  a  picture  in  minia- 
ture of  civilization. 

D.  The  mean,  fierce  look  on  his  features  keeps  him  from  being  re- 
ceived with  any  hospitality. 

E.  Riches  and  princely  cheer  will  be  your  gifts  if  you  stay  here  in 
Illinois. 

XXII.  Exercises  for  [u]  and  [u] 

Some  foreign  speakers  raise  the  back  vowel  [u]  to  [u],  making 
good  [gud],  look  [luk].  In  some  parts  of  the  South  push  and  bush 
become  [puJJ  and  [buj].  Keep  the  tongue  relaxed  and  slightly 
lowered  in  back  for  [u]. 

1.  [u]  and  [u]:  pool,  pull;  fool,  full;  boot,  book;  hoot,  hook; 
loot,  look;  spoon,  puss;  boon,  bush;  tool,  push;  shoe,  poor;  boom, 
boor;  grew,  good;  goose,  shook. 

2.  [u]:  bull,  sure,  fury,  lure,  hood,  could,  wood,  stood,  secure, 
moor,  cook,  book,  should,  push,  pullet. 

3.  Read  the  following  sentences: 

A.  The  wooden  pulley  should  surely  be  good. 

B.  We  pulled  the  poor  bull  out  of  the  brook. 

XXIII.    Front  Vowel  Comparisons 


[i] 
beat 

['] 
bit 

[ei] 
bait 

deem 

dim 

dame 

feed 

fiddle 

fade 

feet 

fit 

fate 

keep 
bean 

kipper 
bin 

cape 
bane 

neat 

knit 

Nate 

steel 

still 

stale 

beal 

bill 

bale 

seal 

sill 

sale 

teal 

till 

tale 

bet 

bat 

demonstrate 

dam 

fed 

fad 

fetter 

fat 

kept 
Ben 

cap 
ban 

net 
Estelle 

gnat 
stallion 

bell 

ballast 

sell 

salad 

tell 

talent 

Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement 


43' 


speak 
reel 
reach 

spick 
rill 
rich 

spake 
rail 
Rachel 

speck 
relevant 
wretch 

horseback 
rally 
ratchet 

keel 
feel 
mean 

kill 
fill 
Min 

kale 
fail 
mane 

kelp 
fell 
men 

scalp 
fallacy 
man 

scene 

sin 

sane 

scent 

sand 

bead 
reek 

bid 
rick 

bayed 
rake 

bed 
wreck 

bad 
rack 

green 
lease 
least 

grin 
lisp 
list 

grain 
lace 
laced 

grenadier 
less 
lest 

grand 
lass 
last 

heat 

hit 

hate 

heterodox 

hat 

lead 

lid 

laid 

led 

lad 

ease 

is 

A's 

Ezra 

as 

kneel 

nil 

nail 

knell 

canal 

reap 
leafed 

rip 
lift 

rape 
Lafe 

reputation 
left 

rap 
laughed  (G.  A.) 

Less  attention  is  given  to  vowels  than  to  consonants  in  this  chap- 
ter  on  diction  because  drill  on  vowels  is  suggested  in  Chapter  4 
under  phonetics. 

XXIV.   Lip  Rounding  and  Placement 

Much  of  the  poor  enunciation  prevalent  among  students  could 
be  reduced  if  the  speakers  would  take  care  of  four  things:  avoid- 
ance of  excessive  speed,  precision  in  the  formation  of  consonants, 
proper  placing  of  all  sounds,  and  vigorous  use  of  the  lips.  The 
proper  formation  of  consonants,  of  course,  requires  good  lip  action. 
Much  clarity  could  be  added  to  all  of  the  back  vowels  except  [a] 
if  attention  were  given  to  careful  lip  rounding.  The  vowels  af- 
fected are  [D],  [o],  [u],  [u]. 

[a],  the  lowest  of  the  back  vowels,  is  unrounded  (as  are  all  the 
front  vowels).  Beginning  with  [D],  however,  as  the  back  of  the 
tongue  is  raised  for  the  vowels  [D],  [o],  [u],  and  [u],  the  lips  are  in- 
creasingly more  rounded.  In  [au],  the  lips,  unrounded  for  the  first 
part  of  the  sound,  change  quickly  to  the  rounded,  relaxed  position 
for  [u]. 

Placement  refers  to  the  part  of  the  mouth  in  which  sounds  are 
shaped.  We  have  mentioned  "forward  placement"  under  reso- 


432  Reading  to  Others 

nance.  It  is  not  a  very  tangible  idea.  Teachers  recommend  that 
speakers  and  singers  get  their  tones  forward  in  their  mouths,  * 'di- 
recting sounds  to  the  back  of  the  front  teeth,"  or  "forming  words 
seemingly  just  in  front  of  the  lips."  But  the  advice  is  somewhat 
vague,  like  "speaking  from  the  diaphragm,"  which  is  physically 
impossible  though  perhaps  psychologically  good  advice.  Yet  there 
is  a  good  physiological  reason  for  "forward  placement."  Only  six 
of  the  fifteen  vowels  are  back  vowels.  Four  of  these  are  made  with 
rounded  lips,  which  should  send  the  sounds  toward  the  front  of  the 
mouth.  Of  the  consonants,  only  [k],  [g],  [rj],  and  [h]  are  made  in 
the  back  of  the  mouth,  [au]  and  [ou]  are  the  only  diphthongs  made 
entirely  with  the  back  of  the  tongue.  Forward  placement  then 
should  help  make  sounds  clear  and  prevent  the  throatiness  that 
afflicts  some  speakers.  Of  course,  the  back  vowels  [a],  [D],  [3],  [o], 
[u],  and  [u]  must  not  be  displaced  by  the  effort  to  "get  tones  for- 
ward." Otherwise  they  will  have  bad  quality. 

Practice  the  following  exercises,  keeping  the  vowels  separate  and 
trying  to  place  tones  forward  in  the  mouth,  carefully  rounding  the 
lips: 

1.  ao,  a-o,  a-u,  a-u,  a-au  (repeat  5  times) 

D-d,    D-O,    3-U,    3-U,    3-CUJ 

o-a,  oo,  o-u,  o-u,  o-au 
r-a,  uo,  u-o,  u-u,  u-ar 
u-a,  uo,  u-o,  u-u,  u-ar 

2.  uo-u-o-a,  uo-u-o-a,  uo-u-o-a 
oo-oo-o,    oo-oo-o,    oo-oo-o 
ao-o-r-u,  ao-o-u-u,  ao-o-u-u 

3.  Be  very  careful  in  the  placement  of  the  vowels  in  the  follow- 
ing groups.    In  each  group  the  first  word  has  a  front  vowel,  the 
second  a  mid  vowel,  the  third  a  back  vowel.    Don't  let  the  front 
vowels  be  pulled  too  far  back,  and  don't  let  the  back  vowels  be 
pulled  too  far  forward. 

very,  furry,  foray;  terrible,  turf,  toff;  Harry,  hurry,  hoary;  fill, 
furl,  full;  track,  truck,  trawl;  flash,  flush,  flaw;  hair,  her,  whore; 
wear,  were,  wore;  barrel,  burl,  ball;  beard,  bird,  board;  care,  cur, 
core;  blare,  blur,  Blore;  steer,  stir,  store;  air,  err,  oar;  bare,  burr, 
bore;  spear,  spur,  spore;  tin,  ton,  tawny;  beck,  Burke,  book;  bit, 
but,  bought;  sheer,  shirt,  short. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement 


433 


4.  Read  the  following  words  horizontally,  watching  lips  and 
placement.  All  contain  back  vowels  or  diphthongs  all  of  which 
are  formed  with  rounded  lips,  except  [a]. 


[«] 

w 

[ou] 

M 

M 

[ou] 

abolish 

ball 

bowl 

bull 

Boole 

bowel 

column 

call 

coal 



cool 

cowl 

rot 

wrought 

wrote 



rude 

rowel 

botch 

bought 

boat 

butcher 

boot 

bout 

falderol 

fall 

foal 

full 

fool 

foul 

cod 

cawed 

code 

could 

cooed 

cowed 

shod 

pshawed 

showed 

should 

shoed 

shroud 

collar 

called 

cold 



cooled 

cowled 

poll 

pall 

pole 

pull 

pool 

Powell 

god 

gaud 

goad 

good 

gooed 

ground 

cot 

caught 

coat 



coot 

clowned 

spot 

pawed 

pone 

push 

spoon 

prowl 

father 

fall 

phone 

poor 

typhoon 

towel 

car 

cause 

cone 

sure 

coon 

crown 

guard 

gone 

groan 

stood 

groom 

growl 

bond 

bawd 

bone 

boor 

boon 

bound 

XXV.   Intonation 

The  most  elusive  of  all  the  phenomena  of  speaking  is  the  intona- 
tion pattern  of  the  voice.  The  real  difference  between  the  speech 
of  a  Northerner  and  that  of  a  Southerner  is  not  in  varying  vocabu- 
lary or  in  widely  divergent  pronunciations.  It  is  in  their  language 
tunes,  in  the  melodic  pattern  of  their  sentences.  The  Southerner 
may  say,  "I  stumped  my  toe"  and  'Tin  waiting  on  you*'  and  "I'm 
sick  on  my  stomach"  where  a  Northerner  will  say,  "I  stubbed  my 
toe"  and  "I'm  waiting  for  you"  and  "I'm  sick  to  my  stomach." 
And  both,  of  course,  will  have  some  differences  in  pronunciation. 
Yet  these  are  minor  differences.  The  quality  that  most  vividly  dis- 
tinguishes a  Northern  speaker  from  a  Southern  one  (or  one  of  Ger- 
man origin  from  a  Frenchman,  when  both  are  speaking  English, 
or  an  Englishman  from  an  American)  is  what  is  called  "accent," 
"distinctive  modulation,"  or  "intonation  pattern."  Intonation 
means  the  melodic  pattern  or  the  total  effect  of  pitch  changes  in  a 
whole  phrase.  It  must  not  be  confused  with  inflection,  which 


434  Reading  to  Others 

refers  only  to  changes  of  pitch  within  syllables.  We  do,  however, 
sometimes  say  "inflection  pattern,"  meaning  intonation. 

Intonations  not  only  distinguish  between  different  groups  of 
speakers  but  also  between  individual  speakers.  They  are  the  chief 
expression  of  speech  personality.  One  who  lacks  a  vigorous  intona- 
tion pattern  is  dull  and  monotonous.  One  with  too  great  a  range 
of  pitch  changes  within  phrases  may  be  affected  or  overemphatic. 

There  are  no  established  principles  of  intonation.  Any  change 
in  interpretation  may  change  the  intonation  of  a  phrase  so  that  the 
same  words  may  express  quite  different  ideas.  For  example,  the 
intonation  of  the  sentence,  "I'll  see  to  that,"  may  be  (using  Kling- 

hardt's  system): =  a  general  pitch  level  (key),  above 

and  below  which  individual  syllables  may  rise  or  fall  in  pitch; 
^  =  a  downward  inflection;  */=an  upward  inflection.  A  large 
dot  =  a  stressed  syllable;  a  small  dot  =  an  unstressed  one: 

^    .  *   .  ^ 

•    •/  •  *  •   •    • 


/'//  see  to  that         or         I'll  see  to  that         or         I'll  see  to  THAT. 


or         I'll  see  to  that 

Intonation  really  involves  tone  color  and  volume  and  tempo,  as 
well  as  pitch.  The  only  definite  rule  is  that  the  intonations  be 
varied,  interesting,  and  meaningful.  We  have  said  earlier  that  if 
the  interpreter  is  attentive  to  meaning  and  mood,  intonation  is 
likely  to  take  care  of  itself. 

In  foreign  speech,  however,  some  correction  may  be  necessary. 
The  foreigner  is  accustomed  to  certain  characteristic  pitch  patterns 
which  he  brings  over  to  English.  Often  a  German  accent  may 
carry  over  for  two  or  three  generations.  Such  a  speaker  must  train 
his  sense  of  hearing  to  differentiate  between  the  patterns  of  Ameri- 
can speech  and  his  own.  Then  he  should  repeat  sentences  in  a 
monotone,  resisting  all  temptation  to  inflect.  By  patient  practice 
he  may  learn  to  approach  the  intonations  of  American  speakers. 
He  must  keep  in  mind  in  this  kind  of  work  that  the  syllable  is  the 
unit  of  inflection  in  speech,  not  the  word. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  435 

Study  the  following  sentences,  learning  to  recognize  the  intona- 
tion patterns  as  they  are  used  by  cultured  American  speakers: 

i.  Good  morning.  (Notice  the  difference  between  English  and 
American  inflection.  The  Englishman  usually  starts  with  a  high  pitch 
and  comes  down  in  the  greeting,  "Good  morning."  An  American  starts 
low,  goes  up,  and  comes  down  again.) 

2.  How  do  you  do? 

3.  What  can  I  do  for  you? 

4.  What  do  you  think  of  the  weather? 

5.  It's  been  a  lovely  day,  hasn't  it? 

6.  Will  you  please  pass  the  salt? 

7.  Would  you  like  to  go  for  a  drive? 

8.  I'm  very  glad  to  know  you. 

9.  Can  you  tell  me  what  time  it  is? 
jo.    At  what  time  does  the  train  leave? 

XXVI.  Sentences  and  Passages  for 
General  Diction 

1.  Rubber  buggy  bumpers  bump  buggy  rubbers. 

2.  The  seething  sea  ceaseth  and  so  sufficeth  us. 

3.  I'm  aluminuming  'em,  Mum. 

4.  Six,  slick,  slimy  snails  slid  slowly  seawards. 

5.  Six  thick  thistle  sticks;  six  thick  thistles  stick. 

6.  She  sells  sea  shells;  shall  Susan  sell  sea  shells? 

7.  Ten  drops  of  black  bugs'  blood  in  a  bucket. 

8.  The  shiny  silk  sashes  shimmered  when  the  sun  shone  on  the  shop. 

9.  A  swan  swam  across  the  sea; 

Swim,  swan,  swim. 
The  swan  swam  back  again. 
Well  swum,  swan. 

10.  Some  shun  sunshine.  Do  you  shun  sunshine? 

11.  Esau  saw  the  buck  and  the  buck  saw  Esau. 

12.  Around  the  rugged  rock  the  ragged  rascal  ran. 

13.  Amidst  the  mists  and  coldest  frosts, 

With  stoutest  wrists  and  loudest  boasts, 
He  thrusts  his  fists  against  the  posts 
And  still  insists  he  sees  the  ghosts. 

14.  A  tree-toad  loved  a  she-toad 
That  lived  up  in  a  tree. 

She  was  a  three-toed  she-toad, 

But  a  two- toed  tree- toad  tried  to  win 


436  Reading  to  Others 

The  she-toad's  friendly  nod, 

For  the  two-toed  tree-toad  loved  the  ground 

That  the  three-toed  she-toad  trod. 

15.  I  hang  it  angrily  high  on  the  hanger,  singing  and  beating  time 
with  my  finger. 

16.  Theophilus  Thistle,  the  successful  thistle  sifter,  in  sifting  a  sieve 
full  of  unsifted  thistles,  thrust  three  thousand  thistles  through  the  thick 
of  his  thumb.   Now  if  Theophilus  Thistle,  the  successful  thistle  sifter, 
in  sifting  a  sieve  full  of  unsifted  thistles,  thrust  three  thousand  thistles 
through  the  thick  of  his  thumb,  see  that  thou  in  sifting  a  sieve  full  of 
unsifted  thistles,  thrust  not  three  thousand  thistles  through  the  thick  of 
thy  thumb.  Success  to  the  successful  thistle  sifter. 

YJ .    A  skunk  sat  on  a  burning  stump. 
The  stump  said  the  skunk  stunk. 
The  skunk  said  the  stump  stunk. 
Which  stunk— the  skunk  or  the  stump? 

18.  Things  are  seldom  what  they  seem. 

Skim  milk  masquerades  as  cream; 
Highlows  pass  as  patent  leathers; 
Jackdaws  strut  in  peacock's  feathers. 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  H.M.S.  Pinafore,  Act.  II 

19.  Prithee,  pretty  maiden— prithee  tell  me  true 
(Hey,  but  I'm  doleful,  willow  wallow  waly). 

Have  you  e'er  a  lover  a-dangling  after  you? 
Hey,  willow  waly  Of 

I  would  fain  discover 
If  you  have  a  lover? 
Hey  willow  waly  O/ 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  Patience,  Act.  I 

20.    There  is  beauty  in  the  bellow  of  the  blast, 
There  is  grandeur  in  the  growling  of  the  gale, 

There  is  eloquent  outpouring 

When  the  lion  is  a-roaring, 
And  the  tiger  is  a-lashing  of  his  tail/ 

Yes,  I  like  to  see  a  tiger, 

From  the  Congo  or  the  Niger, 
And  especially  when  lashing  of  his  tail/ 
Volcanoes  have  a  splendour  that  is  grim, 
And  earthquakes  only  terrify  the  dolts, 

But  to  him  who's  scientific 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  437 

There's  nothing  that's  terrific 
In  the  falling  of  a  flight  of  thunderbolts/ 

Yes,  in  spite  of  all  my  meekness, 

If  I  have  a  little  weakness, 
It's  a  passion  for  a  flight  of  thunderbolts/ 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  The  Mikado,  Act  II 

21.    I  know  our  mythic  history,  King  Arthur's  and  Sir  Caradoc's; 
I  answer  hard  acrostics,  I've  a  pretty  taste  for  paradox, 
I  quote  in  elegiacs  all  the  crimes  of  Heliogabalus, 
In  conies  I  can  floor  peculiarities  parabolous. 
I  can  tell  undoubted  Raphaels  from  Gerard  Dous  and  Zoffanies, 
I  know  the  croaking  chorus  from  the  FROGS  of  Aristophanes. 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  The  Pirates  of  Penzance,  Act  I 

22.  Loudly  let  the  trumpet  bray/ 

Tantantara/ 
Proudly  bang  the  sounding  brasses/ 

Tzing/  Boom/ 
As  upon  its  lordly  way 
This  unique  procession  passes, 

Tantara/  Tzing!  Boom! 
Bow,  bow,  ye  lower  middle  classes/ 
Bow,  bow,  ye  tradesmen,  bow,  ye  masses/ 
Blow  the  trumpets,  bang  the  brasses/ 

Tantara/  Tzing!  Boom! 
We  are  peers  of  highest  station, 
Paragons  of  legislation, 
Pillars  of  the  British  nation! 

Tantara/  Tzing/  Boom/ 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  lolanthe,  Act  I 

23.  Tripping  hither,  tripping  thither, 
Nobody  knows  why  or  whither; 
Why  you  want  us  we  don't  know, 
But  you've  summoned  us,  and  so 

Enter  all  the  little  fairies 

To  their  usual  tripping  measure/ 
To  oblige  you  all  our  care  is— 

Tell  us,  pray,  what  is  your  pleasure/ 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  lolanthe,  Act  I 


438  Reading  to  Others 

24.   After  mighty  tug  and  tussle- 
It  resembled  more  a  struggle- 
He,  by  dint  of  stronger  muscle— 

Or  by  some  infernal  juggle- 
From  my  clutches,  quickly  sliding— 

I  should  rather  call  it  slipping— 
With  a  view,  no  doubt,  of  hiding— 

Or  escaping  to  the  shipping— 
With  a  gasp  and  with  a  quiver— 

I'd  describe  it  as  a  shiver- 
Down  he  delved  into  the  river, 
And,  alas,  I  cannot  swim. 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  The  Yeoman  of  the  Guard,  Act  II 

25.    Dance  a  cachucha,  fandango,  bolero, 

Xeres  we'll  drink— A/fanzanilla,  Montcro— 
Wine,  when  it  runs  in  abundance,  enhances 
The  reckless  delight  of  that  wildest  of  dances/ 
To  the  pretty  pitter-pitter-patter, 
And  the  clitter-clitter-clitter-clatter- 
Clitter-clitter-clatter, 
Pitter-pitter-patter, 

Patter,  patter,  patter,  patter,  we'll  dance. 
Old  Xeres  we'll  drink— Manzanilla,  Montero; 
For  wine,  when  it  runs  in  abundance,  enhances 
The  reckless  delight  of  that  wildest  of  dances/ 

W.  S.  GILBERT,  The  Gondoliers,  Act  II 

26.    Or,  there's  Satan/— one  might  venture 
Pledge  one's  soul  to  him,  yet  leave 
Such  a  flaw  in  the  indenture 
As  he'd  miss  till,  past  retrieve, 
Blasted  lay  that  rose-acacia 
We're  so  proud  of/  HY,  ZY,  HINE  .  .  . 
Ave,  Virgo/  Gr-r-r,  you  swine/ 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  Soliloquy  of  the 
Spanish  Cloister 

27.    For  I  dipt  into  the  future,  far  as  human  eye  could  see, 

Saw  the  Vision  of  the  world,  and  all  the  wonder  that  would  be; 

Saw  the  heavens  fill  with  commerce,  argosies  of  magic  sails, 
Pilots  of  the  purple  twilight,  dropping  down  with  costly  bales; 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  439 

Heard  the  heavens  fill  with  shouting,  and  there  rained  a  ghastly 

dew 
From  the  nations'  airy  navies  grappling  in  the  central  blue; 

Far  along  the  world-wide  whisper  of  the  south-wind  rushing  warm, 
With  the  standards  of  the  peoples  plunging  thro'  the  thunder 
storm; 

Till  the  war-drum  throbb'd  no  longer,  and  the  battle-flags  were 

furf'd 
In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the  world. 

ALFRED  TENNYSON,  Locksley  Hall 


Ring  out,  wild  bells,  to  the  wild  sky, 
The  flying  cloud,  the  frosty  light: 
The  year  is  dying  in  the  night; 

Ring  out,  wild  bells,  and  let  him  die. 

Ring  out  the  old,  ring  in  the  new, 
Ring,  happy  bells,  across  the  snow: 
The  year  is  going,  let  him  go; 

Ring  out  the  false,  ring  in  the  true. 

Ring  out  the  grief  that  saps  the  mind, 
For  those  that  here  we  see  no  more; 
Ring  out  the  few  of  rich  and  poor, 

Ring  in  redress  to  all  mankind. 

Ring  out  a  slowly  dying  cause, 
And  ancient  forms  of  party  strife; 
Ring  in  the  nobler  modes  of  life, 

With  sweeter  manners,  purer  laws. 

Ring  out  the  want,  the  care,  the  sin, 
The  faithless  coldness  of  the  times; 
Ring  out,  ring  out  my  mournful  rhymes, 

But  ring  the  fuller  minstrel  in. 

Ring  out  false  pride  in  place  and  blood, 
The  civic  slander  and  the  spite; 
Ring  in  the  love  and  truth  and  right, 

Ring  in  the  common  love  of  good. 


44-O  Reading  to  Others 

Ring  out  old  shapes  of  foul  disease; 

Ring  out  the  narrowing  Just  of  gold; 

Ring  out  the  thousand  wars  of  old, 
Ring  in  the  thousand  years  of  peace. 

Ring  in  the  valiant  man  and  free, 
The  larger  heart,  the  kindlier  hand; 
Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land, 

Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be. 

ALFRED  TENNYSON,  In  Memoriam 

29.  All  the  breath  and  the  bloom  of  the  year  in  the  bag  of  one  bee: 

All  the  wonder  and  wealth  of  the  mine  in  the  heart  of  one  gem: 
In  the  core  of  one  pearl  all  the  shade  and  the  shine  of  the  sea: 
Birth  and  Doom,  shade  and  shine— wonder,  wealth,  and— how 
far  above  them — 

Truth,  that's  brighter  than  gem, 
Trust,  that's  purer  than  pearl- 
Brightest  Truth,  purest  Trust  in  the  universe — all  were  for  me 
In  the  kiss  of  one  girl. 

ROBERT  BROWNING,  Summum  Bonum 

30.  All  delicate  days  and  pleasant,  all  spirits  and  sorrows  are  cast 
Far  out  with  the  foam  of  the  present  that  sweeps  to  the  surf  of 

the  past: 

Where  beyond  the  extreme  sea-wall,  and  between  the  remote  sea- 
gates, 

Waste  water  washes,  and  tall  ships  founder,  and  deep  death  waits: 

Where,  mighty,  with  deepening  sides,  clad  about  with  the  seas 
as  with  wings, 

And  impelled  of  invisible   tides,  and  fulfilled  of  unspeakable 
things, 

White-eyed  and  poisonous-finned,  shark-toothed  and  serpentine- 
curled, 

Rolls,  under  the  whitening  wind  of  the  future,  the  wave  of  the 
world. 

ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE,  Hymn  to  Proserpine 

31.  From  the  depth  of  the  dreamy  decline  of  the  dawn  through  a 

notable  nimbus  of  nebulous  moonshine, 

Pallid  and  pink  as  the  palm  of  the  flag-flower  that  flickers  with 
fear  of  the  flies  as  they  float, 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  441 

Are  the  looks  of  our  lovers  that  lustrously  lean  from  a  marvel  of 

mystic  miraculous  moonshine, 
These  that  we  feel  in  the  blood  of  our  blushes  that  thicken  and 

threaten  with  throbs  through  the  throat? 
Thicken  and  thrill  as  a  theatre  thronged  at  appeal  of  an  actor's 

appalled  agitation, 
Fainter  with  fear  of  the  fires  of  the  future  than  pale  with  the 

promise  of  pride  in  the  past. 

ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE,  Nephilidia 

32.    Six  bacillus-shaped  black  capsules, 

Turning  deftly  on  the  rim  of  an  invisible  tube, 

Diminishing  in  perspective;  so   the  sun  on  my  palpitant  eye- 
balls .  .  . 

Lying  parch-tongued  on  the  peak  rock,  I  squint  into  the  sky 

And  clutch  at  moments  of  my  climb, 

The  sudden  emotions  which  merge  too  easily  with  the  passive- 
ness  of  memory, 

As  a  gorgeous  autumn  leaf  falls  and  becomes  compost: 

The  mountain  laurel,  mitre-budded,  expanding  pink 

With  ten  ribbed  dots  networking  the  blossom's  center; 

The  flaming  azalea  licking  out  long  fire-pistils, 

Poppy-red  in  the  background  of  spruce; 

The  dragon-fly,  four- winged,  taking  flight  majestically, 

Curving  his  wicked  abdomen  behind  the  sheen  of  wings, 

Tingling  my  ears  with  an  old  superstition; 

The  buzzard  tilting  up  against  the  wind, 

An  outstretched  balance  of  sunny  blackness; 

In  my  throat  the  thick  richness  of  water, 

Poured  from  the  canteen's  nearness  that  turns  deep  the  blue  of 
the  sky  beyond; 

In  my  eyes  the  stretch  of  perspiration; 

In  my  hair  stringing  damp. 

From  the  wet  of  my  shirt  comes  the  compact,  saturated  odor  of 
wool. 

ARTHUR  J.  THOMAS,  On  Greenbriar  Pinnacle 

33.   'Twas  brillig,  and  the  slithy  toves 

Did  gyre  and  gimble  in  the  wabe; 
All  mimsy  were  the  borogoves, 
And  the  mome  raths  outgrabe. 


442  Reading  to  Others 

"Beware  the  /abberwock,  my  son/ 

The  jaws  that  bite,  the  claws  that  catch/ 
Beware  the  Jubjub  bird,  and  shun 

The  frumious  Bandersnatch/" 

He  took  his  vorpal  sword  in  hand: 

Long  time  the  manxome  foe  he  sought. 
So  rested  he  by  the  Turn  turn  tree, 

And  stood  awhile  in  thought. 

And  as  in  uffish  thought  he  stood, 

The  /abberwock  with  eyes  of  flame, 
Came  whiffling  through  the  tulgey  wood, 

And  burbled  as  it  came/ 

One,  two/  One,  two/  And  through,  and  through 

The  vorpal  blade  went  snicker-snack/ 
He  left  it  dead,  and  with  its  head 

He  went  galumphing  back. 

"And  hast  thou  slain  the  /abberwock? 

Come  to  my  arms,  my  beamish  boy! 
Oh,  frab/ous  day/   Callooh/  Callay/" 

He  chortled  in  his  ;oy. 

'Twas  brillig,  and  the  slithy  tovcs 

Did  gyre  and  gimble  in  the  wabe; 
All  mimsy  were  the  borogoves 

And  the  mome  raths  outgrabc. 

LEWIS  CARROLL,  Jabberwocky 


34.    Sudden  swallows  swiftly  skimming, 
Sunset's  slowly  spreading  shade, 
Silvery  songsters  sweetly  singing, 
Summer's  soothing  serenade. 

Susan  Simpson  strolled  sedately, 
Stifling  sobs,  suppressing  sighs. 

Seeing  Stephen  Slocum,  stately 
She  stopped,  showing  some  surprise. 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  443 


/'  said  Stephen,  "sweetest  sigher; 
Say,  shall  Stephen  spouseless  stay?" 
Susan,  seeming  somewhat  shyer, 
Showed  submissiveness  straightway. 

Summer's  season  slowly  stretches, 

Susan  Simpson  Slocum  she— 
So  she  signed  some  simple  sketches- 

Soul  sought  soul  successfully. 

Six  Septembers  Susan  swelters; 

Six  sharp  seasons  snow  supplies; 
Susan's  satin  sofa  shelters 

Six  small  Slocums  side  by  side. 

AUTHOR  UNKNOWN,  Susan  Simpson 

35.    "How  does  the  water 
Come  down  at  Lodore?" 
My  little  boy  asked  me 
Thus,  once  on  a  time; 
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  and  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; 


444  Reading  to  Others 

From  its  fountains 
Jn  the  mountains, 
Its  rills  and  its  gills; 
Through  moss  and  through  brake, 

It  runs  and  it  creeps 
For  a  while  till  it  sleeps 
In  its  own  little  lake. 
And  thence  at  departing, 
Awakening  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, 
Huny-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, 
Singing  and  creeping, 
Swelling  and  sweeping, 
Showering  and  springing, 
Flying  and  flinging, 
Writhing  and  wringing. 
Eddying  and  whisking, 
Spouting  and  frisking, 
Turning  and  twisting 
Around  and  around 
With  endless  rebound: 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  445 

Smiting  and  fighting, 
A  sight  to  delight  in; 
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  raving, 
And  tossing  and  crossing, 
And  flowing  and  going, 
And  running  and  stunning, 
And  foaming  and  roaming, 
And  dinning  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  frittering, 
And  gathering  and  feathering. 
And  whitening  and  brightening, 
And  quivering  and  shivering, 
And  hurrying  and  skurrying, 
And  thundering  and  floundering; 

Dividing  and  gliding  and  sliding, 

And  falling  and  brawling  and  sprawling, 

And  driving  and  riving  and  striving 

And  sprinkling  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; 


446  Reading  to  Others 

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, 
And  rushing  and  flushing  and  brushing  and  gushing, 
And  flapping  and  rapping  and  clapping  and  slapping, 
And  curling  and  whirling  and  purling  and  twirling, 
And  thumping  and  plumping  and  bumping  and  /limping, 
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  SOUTHEY,  The  Cataract  of  Lodore 


36.   No  longer,  O  scholars,  shall  Plautus 

Be  taught  us. 

No  more  shall  professors  be  partial 
To  Martial. 
No  ninny 
Will  stop  playing  "shinney" 

For  Pliny. 
Not  even  the  veriest  Mexican  Greaser 

Will  stop  to  read  Caesar. 
No  true  son  of  Erin  will  leave  his  potato 
To  list  to  the  love-lore  of  Ovid  or  Plato. 

Old  Homer 

That  hapless  old  roamer, 
Will  ne'er  find  a  rest  'neath  collegiate  dome  or 
Anywhere  else.  As  to  Seneca, 

Any  cur 

Safely  may  snub  him,  or  urge  ill 
Effects  from  the  reading  of  Virgil. 
Cornelius  Nepos 
Won't  keep  us 
Much  longer  from  pleasure's  light  errands— 

Nor  Terence. 

The  irreverent  now  may  all  scoff  in  ease 
At  the  shade  of  poor  old  Aristophanes. 
And  moderns  it  now  doth  behoove  in  all 


Special  Problems  in  Voice  Improvement  447 

Ways  to  despise  poor  old  Juvenal; 
And  to  chivvy 

Livy. 

The  class-room  hereafter  will  miss  a  row 
Of  eager  young  students  of  Cicero. 
The  'longshoreman— yes,  and  the  dock-rat,  he's 
Down  upon  Socrates. 

And  what' II 

Induce  us  to  read  Aristotle? 
We  shall  fail  in 
Our  duty  to  Galen. 
No  tutor  henceforward  shall  rack  us 
To  construe  old  Horatius  Flaccus. 
We  have  but  a  wretched  opinion 

Of  Mr.  Justinian. 
In  our  classical  pabulum  mix  we've  no  wee  sop 

Of  Aesop. 
Our  balance  of  intellect  asks  for  no  ballast 

From  Sallust. 

With  feminine  scorn  no  fair  Vassar-bred  lass  at  us 
Shall  smile  if  we  own  that  we  cannot  read  Tacitus. 
No  admirer  shall  ever  now  wreathe  with  begonias 

The  bust  of  Suetonius. 
And  so  if  you  follow  me, 
We'll  have  to  cut  Ptolemy. 
Besides,  it  would  just  be  considered  facetious 
To  look  at  Lucretius. 
And  you  can 

Not  go  in  Society  if  you  read  Lucan 
And  we  cannot  have  any  fun 
Out  of  Xenophon. 

ANONYMOUS,  The  Future  of  the  Classics 


Irose  for  \Jral 


i.  It  was  drawing  towards  winter,  and  very  cold  weather,  when  one 
day  the  two  elder  brothers  had  gone  out,  with  their  usual  warning  to 
little  Gluck,  who  was  left  to  mind  the  roast,  that  he  was  to  let  nobody 
in,  and  give  nothing  out.  Gluck  sat  down  quite  close  to  the  fire,  for  it 
was  raining  very  hard,  and  the  kitchen  walls  were  by  no  means  dry  or 
comfortable  looking.  He  turned  and  turned,  and  the  roast  got  nice  and 
brown.  "What  a  pity,"  thought  Gluck,  "my  brothers  never  ask  anybody 
to  dinner.  I'm  sure,  when  they've  got  such  a  nice  piece  of  mutton  as 
this,  and  nobody  else  has  got  so  much  as  a  piece  of  dry  bread,  it  would 
do  their  hearts  good  to  have  somebody  to  eat  it  with  them." 

Just  as  he  spoke,  there  came  a  double  knock  at  the  house  door,  yet 
heavy  and  dull,  as  though  the  knocker  had  been  tied  up— more  like  a 
puff  than  a  knock. 

"It  must  be  the  wind,"  said  Gluck;  "nobody  else  would  venture  to 
knock  double  knocks  at  our  door." 

No;  it  wasn't  the  wind;  there  it  came  again  very  hard,  and  what  was 
particularly  astounding,  the  knocker  seemed  to  be  in  a  hurry,  and  not 
to  be  in  the  least  afraid  of  the  consequences.  Gluck  went  to  the  window, 
opened  it,  and  put  his  head  out  to  see  who  it  was. 

It  was  the  most  extraordinary  looking  little  gentleman  he  had  ever 
seen  in  his  life.  He  had  a  very  large  nose,  slightly  brass-colored;  his 
cheeks  were  very  round,  and  very  red,  and  might  have  warranted  a 
supposition  that  he  had  been  blowing  a  refractory  fire  for  the  last  eight- 
and-forty  hours;  his  eyes  twinkled  merrily  through  long  silky  eyelashes, 
his  mustaches  curled  twice  round  like  a  corkscrew  on  each  side  of  his 
mouth,  and  his  hair,  of  a  curious  mixed  pepper-and-salt  color,  descended 
far  over  his  shoulders.  He  was  about  four-feet-six  in  height,  and  wore 
a  conical  pointed  cap  of  nearly  the  same  altitude,  decorated  with  a  black 
feather  some  three  feet  long.  His  doublet  was  prolonged  behind  into 
something  resembling  a  violent  exaggeration  of  what  is  now  termed  a 
"swallow  tail,"  but  was  much  obscured  by  the  swelling  folds  of  an  enor- 
mous black,  glossy-looking  cloak,  which  must  have  been  very  much  too 
long  in  calm  weather,  as  the  wind,  whistling  round  the  old  house, 

449 


450  Reading  to  Others 

carried  it  clear  out  from  the  wearer's  shoulders  to  about  four  times  his 
own  length. 

Gluck  was  so  perfectly  paralyzed  by  the  singular  appearance  of  his 
visitor,  that  he  remained  fixed  without  uttering  a  word,  until  the  old 
gentleman,  having  performed  another,  and  a  more  energetic  concerto 
on  the  knocker,  turned  round  to  look  after  his  fly-away  cloak.  In  so 
doing  he  caught  sight  of  Gluck's  little  yellow  head  jammed  in  the  win- 
dow, with  its  mouth  and  eyes  very  wide  open  indeed. 

"Hollo! "  said  the  little  gentleman,  "that's  not  the  way  to  answer  the 
door:  I'm  wet,  let  me  in!" 

To  do  the  little  gentleman  justice,  he  was  wet.  His  feather  hung 
down  between  his  legs  like  a  beaten  puppy's  tail,  dripping  like  an  um- 
brella; and  from  the  ends  of  his  mustaches  the  water  was  running  into 
his  waistcoat  pockets,  and  out  again  like  a  mill  stream. 

JOHN  RUSKIN,  The  King  of  the  Golden  River 

2.  One  day  in  much  good  company  I  was  asked  by  a  person  of  quality, 
whether  I  had  seen  any  of  their  Struldbrugs,  or  Immortals.  I  said  I  had 
not,  and  desired  he  would  explain  to  me  what  he  meant  by  such  an 
appellation  applied  to  a  mortal  creature.  He  told  me,  that  sometimes, 
though  very  rarely,  a  child  happened  to  be  born  in  a  family  with  a  red 
circular  spot  in  the  forehead,  directly  over  the  left  eyebrow,  which  was 
an  infallible  mark  that  it  should  never  die.  The  spot,  as  he  described 
it,  was  about  the  compass  of  a  silver  threepence,  but  in  the  course  of 
time  grew  larger,  and  changed  its  colour;  for  at  twelve  years  old  it  be- 
came green,  so  continued  till  five  and  twenty,  then  turned  to  a  deep 
blue;  at  five  and  forty  it  grew  coal  black,  and  as  large  as  an  English 
shilling,  but  never  admitted  any  further  alteration.  He  said  these  births 
were  so  rare,  that  he  did  not  believe  there  could  be  above  eleven  hundred 
Struldbrugs  of  both  sexes  in  the  whole  kingdom,  of  which  he  computed 
about  fifty  in  the  metropolis,  and  among  the  rest  a  young  girl  born 
about  three  years  ago.  That  these  productions  were  not  peculiar  to  any 
family,  but  a  mere  effect  of  chance;  and  the  children  of  the  Struldbrugs 
themselves,  were  equally  mortal  with  the  rest  of  the  people. 

After  this  preface,  he  gave  me  a  particular  account  of  the  Struldbrugs 
among  them.  He  said  they  commonly  acted  like  mortals,  till  about 
thirty  years  old,  after  which  by  degrees  they  grew  melancholy  and  de- 
jected, increasing  in  both  till  they  came  to  fourscore.  This  he  learned 
from  their  own  confession :  for  otherwise  there  not  being  above  two  or 
three  of  that  species  born  in  an  age,  they  were  too  few  to  form  a  general 
observation  by.  When  they  came  to  fourscore  years,  which  is  reckoned 
the  extremity  of  living  in  this  country,  they  had  not  only  all  the  follies 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  451 

and  infirmities  of  other  old  men,  but  many  more  which  arose  from  the 
dreadful  prospect  of  never  dying.  They  were  not  only  opinionative, 
peevish,  covetous,  morose,  vain,  talkative,  but  uncapable  of  friendship, 
and  dead  to  all  natural  affection,  which  never  descended  below  their 
grandchildren.  Envy  and  impotent  desires  are  their  prevailing  passions. 
But  those  objects  against  which  their  envy  seems  principally  directed, 
are  the  vices  of  the  younger  sort,  and  the  deaths  of  the  old.  By  reflecting 
on  the  former,  they  find  themselves  cut  off  from  all  possibility  of  pleasure; 
and  whenever  they  see  a  funeral,  they  lament  and  repine  that  others 
have  gone  to  a  harbour  of  rest,  to  which  they  themselves  never  can  hope 
to  arrive.  They  have  no  remembrance  of  anything  but  what  they  learned 
and  observed  in  their  youth  and  middle  age,  and  even  that  is  very  im- 
perfect. And  for  the  truth  or  particulars  of  any  fact,  it  is  safer  to  depend 
on  common  traditions  than  upon  their  best  recollections.  The  least 
miserable  among  them  appear  to  be  those  who  turn  to  dotage,  and 
entirely  lose  their  memories;  these  meet  with  more  pity  and  assistance, 
because  they  want  many  bad  qualities  which  abound  in  others. 

JONATHAN  SWIFT,  Gulliver's  Travels 

3.  Three  white  wands  had  been  stuck  in  the  sand  to  mark  the  Poet's 
grave,  but  as  they  were  at  some  distance  from  each  other,  we  had  to 
cut  a  trench  thirty  yards  in  length,  in  the  line  of  the  sticks,  to  ascertain 
the  exact  spot,  and  it  was  nearly  an  hour  before  we  came  upon  the  grave. 

In  the  meantime  Byron  and  Leigh  Hunt  arrived  in  the  carriage,  at- 
tended by  soldiers,  and  the  Health  Officer,  as  before.  The  lonely  and 
grand  scenery  that  surrounded  us  so  exactly  harmonised  with  Shelley's 
genius,  that  I  could  imagine  his  spirit  soaring  over  us.  The  sea,  with 
the  islands  of  Gorgona,  Capraji,  and  Elba,  was  before  us;  old  battle- 
mcnted  watch-towers  stretched  along  the  coast,  backed  by  the  marble- 
crested  Apennines  glistening  in  the  sun,  picturesque  from  their  diversified 
outlines,  and  not  a  human  dwelling  was  in  sight.  As  I  thought  of  the 
delight  Shelley  felt  in  such  scenes  of  loneliness  and  grandeur  whilst 
living,  I  felt  we  were  no  better  than  a  herd  of  wolves  or  a  pack  of  wild 
dogs,  in  tearing  out  his  battered  and  naked  body  from  the  pure  yellow 
sand  that  lay  so  lightly  over  it,  to  drag  him  back  to  the  light  of  day; 
but  the  dead  have  no  voice,  nor  had  I  power  to  check  the  sacrilege — 
the  work  went  on  silently  in  the  deep  and  unresisting  sand,  not  a  word 
was  spoken,  for  the  Italians  have  a  touch  of  sentiment,  and  their  feelings 
are  easily  excited  into  sympathy.  Even  Byron  was  silent  and  thoughtful. 
We  were  startled  and  drawn  together  by  a  dull  hollow  sound  that  fol- 
lowed the  blow  of  a  mattock;  the  iron  had  struck  a  skull,  and  the  body 
was  soon  uncovered.  Lime  had  been  strewn  on  it;  this,  or  decompo- 


452  Reading  to  Others 

sition,  had  the  effect  of  staining  it  of  a  dark  and  ghastly  indigo  colour. 
Byron  asked  me  to  preserve  the  skull  for  him;  but  remembering  that 
he  had  formerly  used  one  as  a  drinking-cup,  I  was  determined  Shelley's 
should  not  be  so  profaned.  The  limbs  did  not  separate  from  the  trunk, 
as  in  the  case  of  Williams's  body,  so  that  the  corpse  was  removed  entire 
into  the  furnace.  I  had  taken  the  precaution  of  having  more  and  larger 
pieces  of  timber,  in  consequence  of  my  experience  of  the  day  before  of 
the  difficulty  of  consuming  a  corpse  in  the  open  air  with  our  apparatus. 
After  the  fire  was  well  kindled  we  repeated  the  ceremony  of  the  previous 
day;  and  more  wine  was  poured  over  Shelley's  dead  body  than  he  had 
consumed  during  his  life.  This  with  the  oil  and  salt  made  the  yellow 
flames  glisten  and  quiver.  The  heat  from  the  sun  and  fire  was  so  intense 
that  the  atmosphere  was  tremulous  and  wavy.  The  corpse  fell  open  and 
the  heart  was  laid  bare.  The  frontal  bone  of  the  skull,  where  it  had 
been  struck  with  the  mattock,  fell  off;  and,  as  the  back  of  the  head  rested 
on  the  red-hot  bottom  bars  of  the  furnace,  the  brains  literally  seethed, 
bubbled,  and  boiled  as  in  a  cauldron,  for  a  very  long  time. 

Byron  could  not  face  this  scene,  he  withdrew  to  the  beach  and  swam 
off  to  the  Bolivar.  Leigh  Hunt  remained  in  the  carriage.  The  fire  was 
so  fierce  as  to  produce  a  white  heat  on  the  iron,  and  to  reduce  its  con- 
tents to  grey  ashes.  The  only  portions  that  were  not  consumed  were 
some  fragments  of  bones,  the  jaw,  and  the  skull,  but  what  surprised  us 
all,  was  that  the  heart  remained  entire.  In  snatching  this  relic  from  the 
fiery  furnace,  my  hand  was  severely  burnt;  and  had  any  one  seen  me  do 
the  act  I  should  have  been  put  into  quarantine. 

EDWARD  JOHN  TRELAWNY,  Recollections  of  the  Last 

Days  of  Shelley  and  Byron 

4.  Round  and  round  the  pond,  Henry  followed  the  footpath  worn 
by  the  feet  of  Indian  hunters,  old  as  the  race  of  men  in  Massachusetts. 
The  critics  and  poets  were  always  complaining  that  there  were  no 
American  antiquities,  no  ruins  to  remind  one  of  the  past,  yet  the  wind 
could  hardly  blow  away  the  surface  anywhere,  exposing  the  spotless 
sand,  but  one  found  the  fragments  of  some  Indian  pot  or  the  little  chips 
of  flint  left  by  some  aboriginal  arrow-maker.  When  winter  came,  and 
the  scent  of  the  gale  wafted  over  the  naked  ground,  Henry  tramped 
through  the  snow  a  dozen  miles  to  keep  an  appointment  with  a  beech- 
tree,  or  a  yellow  birch  perhaps,  or  some  old  acquaintance  among  the 
pines.  He  ranged  like  a  grey  moose,  winding  his  way  through  the  shrub- 
oak  patches,  bending  the  twigs  aside,  guiding  himself  by  the  sun,  over 
hills  and  plains  and  valleys,  resting  in  the  clear  grassy  spaces.  He  liked 
the  wholesome  colour  of  the  shrub-oak  leaves,  well-tanned,  seasoned  by 
the  sun,  the  colour  of  the  cow  and  the  deer,  silvery-downy  underneath, 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  453 

over  the  bleached  and  russet  fields.  He  loved  the  shrub-oak,  with  its 
scanty  raiment,  rising  above  the  snow,  lowly  whispering  to  him,  akin 
to  winter,  the  covert  which  the  hare  and  the  partridge  sought.  It  was 
one  of  his  own  cousins,  rigid  as  iron,  clean  as  the  atmosphere,  hardy  as 
all  virtue,  tenacious  of  its  leaves,  leaves  that  did  not  shrivel  but  kept 
their  wintry  life,  firm  shields,  painted  in  fast  colours.  It  loved  the 
earth,  which  it  over-spread,  tough  to  support  the  snow,  indigenous, 
robust.  The  squirrel  and  the  rabbit  knew  it  well,  and  Henry  could  under- 
stand why  the  deermouse  had  its  hole  in  the  snow  by  the  shrub-oak's 
stem.  Winter  was  his  own  chosen  season.  When,  for  all  variety  in  his 
walks,  he  had  only  a  rustling  oak-leaf  or  the  faint  metallic  cheep  of  a 
tree-sparrow,  his  life  felt  continent  and  sweet  as  the  kernel  of  a  nut. 
Alone  in  the  distant  woods  or  fields,  in  the  unpretending  sprout-lands 
or  pastures  tracked  by  rabbits,  on  a  bleak  and,  to  most,  a  cheerless  day, 
when  a  villager  would  be  thinking  of  his  fire,  he  came  to  himself  and 
felt  himself  grandly  related.  Cold  and  solitude  were  his  dearest  friends. 
Better  a  single  shrub-oak  leaf  at  the  end  of  a  wintry  glade,  rustling  a 
welcome  at  his  approach,  than  a  ship-load  of  stars  and  garters  from  the 
kings  of  the  earth.  By  poverty,  if  one  chose  to  use  the  word,  monotony, 
simplicity,  he  felt  solidified  and  crystallized,  as  water  and  vapour  are 
crystallized  by  cold. 

VAN  WYCK  BROOKS,  'Thoreau  at  Walden,"  from  The 
Flowering  of  New  England 

5.  The  MUEL  is  haf  hoss,  and  haf  Jackass,  and  then  kums  tu  a  full 
stop,  natur  diskovering  her  mistake.  Tha  weigh  more,  akordin  tu  their 
helft,  than  enny  other  kreeture,  except  a  crowbar.  Tha  kant  hear  any 
quicker,  nor  further  than  the  hoss,  yet  their  ears  are  big  enuff  for  snow 
shoes.  You  kan  trust  them  with  enny  one  whose  life  aint  wirth  any 
more  than  the  muels.  The  only  wa  tu  keep  them  into  a  paster,  is  tu 
turn  them  into  a  medder  jineing  and  let  them  jump  out.  Tha  are 
reddy  for  use,  just  as  soon  as  they  will  du  tu  abuse.  Tha  haint  got  enny 
friends,  and  will  live  on  huckel  berry  brush,  with  an  ockasional  chanse 
at  Kanada  thissels.  Tha  are  a  modern  invenshun,  I  don't  think  the 
Bible  deludes  to  them  at  tall.  Tha  sel  for  more  money  than  enny  other 
domestik  animile.  You  kant  tell  their  age  by  looking  into  their  mouth, 
enny  more  than  you  kould  a  Mexican  cannons. 

Tha  never  have  no  disease  that  a  good  club  wont  heal.  If  tha  ever 
die  tha  must  kum  tu  life  agin,  for  I  never  heard  nobody  sa  "Ded  muel." 
Tha  are  like  some  men,  very  korrupt  at  harte;  I've  known  them  tu  be 
good  muels  for  6  months,  just  to  git  a  good  chance  to  kick  sumbody. 
I  never  owned  one,  nor  never  mean  to,  unless  there  is  a  United  States  law 
passed,  requiring  it.  The  only  reason  wha  tha  are  pashunt,  is  bekause 


454  Reading  to  Others 

tha  are  ashamed  ov  themselfs.  I  have  seen  eddikated  muels  in  a  sirkus. 
Tha  kould  kick,  and  bite*  tremenjis.  I  would  not  sa  what  I  am  forced 
to  sa  agin  the  muel,  if  his  birth  want  an  outrage  and  man  want  to  blame 
for  it.  Enny  man  who  is  willing  tu  drive  a  muel  ought  to  be  exempt  by 
law  from  running  for  the  legislatur.  Tha  are  the  strongest  creetures  on 
earth,  and  heaviest,  ackording  tu  their  size;  I  herd  tell  ov  one  who  fell 
oph  the  two  path,  on  the  Eri  Kanawl,  and  sunk  as  soon  as  he  touched 
bottom,  but  he  kept  rite  on  towing  the  boat  tu  the  nex  stashun,  breathing 
thru  his  ears,  which  stuck  out  ov  the  water  about  2  feet  6  inches; 
I  didn't  see  this  did,  but  an  auctioneer  told  me  ov  it,  and  I  never  knew 
an  auctioneer  tu  lie  unless  it  was  absolutely  convenient. 

JOSH  BILLINGS,  On  the  Mule 

6.  All  poetry  falls  into  two  classes:  serious  verse  and  light  verse. 
Serious  verse  is  verse  written  by  a  major  poet;  light  verse  is  verse  written 
by  a  minor  poet.  To  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other,  one  must  have 
a  sensitive  ear  and  a  lively  imagination.  Broadly  speaking,  a  major  poet 
may  be  told  from  a  minor  poet  in  two  ways:  (i )  by  the  character  of  the 
verse,  (2)  by  the  character  of  the  poet.  (Note:  it  is  not  always  advisable 
to  go  into  the  character  of  the  poet.) 

As  to  the  verse  itself,  let  me  state  a  few  elementary  rules.  Any  poem 
starting  with  "And  when"  is  a  serious  poem  written  by  a  major  poet. 
To  illustrate — here  are  the  first  two  lines  of  a  serious  poem  easily  dis- 
tinguished by  the  "And  when:" 

And  when,  in  earth's  forgotten  moment,  I 
Unbound  the  cord  to  which  the  soul  was  bound  .  .  . 

Any  poem,  on  the  other  hand,  ending  with  "And  how"  comes  under 
the  head  of  light  verse,  written  by  a  minor  poet.  Following  are  the  last 
two  lines  of  a  "light"  poem,  instantly  identifiable  by  the  terminal  phrase: 

Placing  his  lips  against  her  brow 

He  kissed  her  eyelids  shut.    And  how.  .  .  . 

So  much  for  the  character  of  the  verse.  Here  are  a  few  general  rules 
about  the  poets  themselves.  All  poets  who,  when  reading  from  their 
own  works,  experience  a  choked  feeling,  are  major.  For  that  matter, 
all  poets  who  read  from  their  own  works  are  major,  whether  they  choke 
or  not.  All  women  poets,  dead  or  alive,  who  smoke  cigars  are  major. 
All  poets  who  have  sold  a  sonnet  for  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
dollars  to  a  magazine  with  a  paid  circulation  of  four  hundred  thousand 
are  major.  A  sonnet  is  composed  of  fourteen  lines;  thus  the  payment  in 
this  case  is  eight  dollars  and  ninety-three  cents  a  line,  which  constitutes 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  455 

a  poet's  majority.    (It  also  indicates  that  the  editor  has  probably  been 
swept  off  his  feet.)  .  .  . 

A  poet  who,  in  a  roomful  of  people,  is  noticeably  keeping  at  a  little 
distance  and  "seeing  into"  things  is  a  major  poet.  This  poet  commonly 
writes  in  unrhymed  six-foot  and  seven-foot  verse,  beginning  something 
like  this: 

When,  once,  finding  myself  alone  in  a  gathering  of  people, 

I  stood,  a  little  apart,  and  through  the  endless  confusion  of  voices  .  .  . 

This  is  a  major  poem  and  you  needn't  give  it  a  second  thought. 

There  are  many  more  ways  of  telling  a  major  poet  from  a  minor  poet, 
but  I  think  I  have  covered  the  principal  ones.  The  truth  is,  it  is  fairly 
easy  to  tell  the  two  types  apart;  it  is  only  when  one  sets  about  trying 
to  decide  whether  what  they  write  is  any  good  or  not  that  the  thing 
really  becomes  complicated. 

E.  B.  WHITE,  How  to  Tell  a  Ma/or  Poet  from  a  Minor  Poet 

7.  "Now/'  said  Wardle,  after  a  substantial  lunch,  with  the  agreeable 
items  of  strong  beer  and  cherry-brandy,  had  been  done  ample  justice  to, 
"what  say  you  to  an  hour  on  the  ice?  We  shall  have  plenty  of  time." 

"Capital!"  said  Mr.  Benjamin  Allen. 

"Prime!"  ejaculated  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer. 

"You  skate,  of  course,  Winkle?"  said  Wardle. 

"Ye— yes;  oh,  yes,"  replied  Mr.  Winkle.  "I— I— am  rather  out  of 
practice." 

"Oh,  do  skate,  Mr.  Winkle,"  said  Arabella.  "I  like  to  see  it  so  much." 

"Oh,  it  is  so  graceful,"  said  another  young  lady. 

A  third  young  lady  said  it  was  elegant,  and  a  fourth  expressed  her 
opinion  that  it  was  "swan-like." 

"I  should  be  very  happy,  I'm  sure,"  said  Mr.  Winkle,  reddening;  "but 
I  have  no  skates." 

This  objection  was  at*  once  overruled.  Trundle  had  a  couple  of  pair, 
and  the  fat  boy  announced  that  there  were  half  a  dozen  more  down- 
stairs; whereat  Mr.  Winkle  expressed  exquisite  delight,  and  looked 
exquisitely  uncomfortable. 

Old  Wardle  led  the  way  to  a  pretty  large  sheet  of  ice;  and  the  fat 
boy  and  Mr.  Weller,  having  shovelled  and  swept  away  the  snow  which 
had  fallen  on  it  during  the  night,  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer  adjusted  his  skates 
with  a  dexterity  which  to  Mr.  Winkle  was  perfectly  marvellous,  and 
described  circles  with  his  left  leg,  and  cut  figures  of  eight,  and  inscribed 
upon  the  ice,  without  once  stopping  for  breath,  a  great  many  other 


456  Reading  to  Others 

pleasant  and  astonishing  devices,  to  the  excessive  satisfaction  of  Mr. 
Pickwick,  Mr.  Tupman,  and  the  ladies;  which  reached  a  pitch  of  positive 
enthusiasm,  when  old  Wardle  and  Benjamin  Allen,  assisted  by  the  afore- 
said Bob  Sawyer,  performed  some  mystic  evolutions,  which  they  called 
a  reel. 

All  this  time,  Mr.  Winkle,  with  his  face  and  hands  blue  with  the  cold, 
had  been  forcing  a  gimlet  into  the  soles  of  his  feet,  and  putting  his 
skates  on,  with  the  points  behind,  and  getting  the  straps  into  a  very 
complicated  and  entangled  state,  with  the  assistance  of  Mr.  Snodgrass 
who  knew  rather  less  about  skates  than  a  Hindoo.  At  length,  however, 
with  the  assistance  of  Mr.  Weller,  the  unfortunate  skates  were  firmly 
screwed  and  buckled  on,  and  Mr.  Winkle  was  raised  to  his  feet. 

"Now,  then,  sir,"  said  Sam,  in  an  encouraging  tone;  "off  with  you, 
and  show  'em  how  to  do  it." 

"Stop,  Sam,  stop!"  said  Mr.  Winkle,  trembling  violently,  and  clutch- 
ing hold  of  Sam's  arms  with  the  grasp  of  a  drowning  man.  "How  slip- 
pery it  is,  Sam!" 

"Not  an  uncommon  thing  upon  ice,  sir,"  replied  Mr.  Weller.  "Hold 
up,  sir!" 

This  last  observation  of  Mr.  Weller's  bore  reference  to  a  demonstra- 
tion Mr.  Winkle  made  at  the  instant,  of  a  frantic  desire  to  throw  his 
feet  in  the  air,  and  dash  the  back  of  his  head  on  the  ice. 

"These— these— are  very  awkward  skates;  ain't  they,  Sam?"  inquired 
Mr.  Winkle,  staggering. 

"I'm  afeerd  there's  a  orkard  gen'l'm'n  in  'em,  sir,"  replied  Sam. 

"Now,  Winkle,"  cried  Mr.  Pickwick,  quite  unconscious  that  there 
was  anything  the  matter.  "Come;  the  ladies  are  all  anxiety." 

"Yes,  yes,"  replied  Mr.  Winkle,  with  a  ghastly  smile.  "I'm  coming." 

"Just  a-goin'  to  begin,"  said  Sam,  endeavouring  to  disengage  himself. 
"Now,  sir,  start  off!" 

"Stop  an  instant,  Sam,"  gasped  Mr.  Winkle,  clinging  most  affec- 
tionately to  Mr.  Weller.  "I  find  I've  got  a  couple  of  coats  at  home  that 
I  don't  want,  Sam.  You  may  have  them,  Sam." 

"Thank'ee,  sir,"  replied  Mr.  Weller. 

"Never  mind  touching  your  hat,  Sam,"  said  Mr.  Winkle  hastily. 
"You  needn't  take  your  hand  away  to  do  that.  I  meant  to  have  given 
you  five  shillings  this  morning  for  a  Christmas  box,  Sam.  I'll  give  it  to 
you  this  afternoon,  Sam." 

"You're  wery  good,  sir,"  replied  Mr.  Weller. 

"Just  hold  me  at  first,  Sam!  will  you?"  said  Mr.  Winkle.  "There— 
that's  right.  I  shall  soon  get  in  the  way  of  it,  Sam.  Not  too  fast,  Sam; 
not  too  fast/' 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  457 

Mr.  Winkle,  stooping  forward,  with  his  body  half  doubled  up,  was 
being  assisted  over  the  ice  by  Mr.  Weller,  in  a  very  singular  and 
un-swan-like  manner,  when  Mr.  Pickwick  most  innocently  shouted 
from  the  opposite  bank— 

"Sam!" 

"Sir?" 

"Here.   I  want  you." 

"Let  go,  sir,"  said  Sam.  "Don't  you  hear  the  governor  a-callin'?  Let 
go,  sir." 

With  a  violent  effort,  Mr.  Weller  disengaged  himself  from  the  grasp 
of  the  agonised  Pickwickian,  and,  in  so  doing,  administered  a  consider- 
able impetus  to  the  unhappy  Mr.  Winkle.  With  an  accuracy  which  no 
degree  of  dexterity  or  practice  could  have  insured,  that  unfortunate 
gentleman  bore  swiftly  down  into  the  centre  of  the  reel,  at  the  very 
moment  when  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer  was  performing  a  flourish  of  unparalleled 
beauty.  Mr.  Winkle  struck  wildly  against  him,  and  with  a  loud  crash 
they  both  fell  heavily  down.  Mr.  Pickwick  ran  to  the  spot.  Bob  Sawyer 
had  risen  to  his  feet,  but  Mr.  Winkle  was  far  too  wise  to  do  anything 
of  the  kind,  in  skates.  He  was  seated  on  the  ice,  making  spasmodic 
efforts  to  smile;  but  anguish  was  depicted  on  every  lineament  of  his 

countenance.  CHARLES  DICKENS,  Pickwick  Papers 

8.  To  every  thing  there  is  a  season,  and  a  time  to  every  purpose 
under  the  heaven:  A  time  to  be  born,  and  a  time  to  die;  a  time  to 
plant,  and  a  time  to  pluck  up  that  which  is  planted;  a  time  to  kill,  and 
a  time  to  heal;  a  time  to  break  down,  and  a  time  to  build  up;  a  time 
to  weep,  and  a  time  to  laugh;  a  time  to  mourn,  and  a  time  to  dance; 
a  time  to  cast  away  stones,  and  a  time  to  gather  stones  together;  a 
time  to  embrace,  and  a  time  to  refrain  from  embracing;  a  time  to  get, 
and  a  time  to  lose;  a  time  to  keep,  and  a  time  to  cast  away;  a  time  to 
rend,  and  a  time  to  sew;  a  time  to  keep  silence,  and  a  time  to  speak; 
a  time  to  love,  and  a  time  to  hate;  a  time  of  war,  and  a  time  of  peace. 
What  profit  hath  he  that  worketh  in  that  wherein  he  laboureth?  I  have 
seen  the  travail,  which  God  hath  given  to  the  sons  of  men  to  be  exer- 
cised in  it.  He  hath  made  every  thing  beautiful  in  his  time:  also  he 
hath  set  the  world  in  their  heart,  so  that  no  man  can  find  out  the  work 
that  God  maketh  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  I  know  that  there 
is  no  good  in  them,  but  for  a  man  to  rejoice,  and  to  do  good  in  his  life. 
And  also  that  every  man  should  eat  and  drink,  and  enjoy  the  good  of 
all  his  labour,  it  is  the  gift  of  God.  I  know  that,  whatsoever  God  doeth, 
it  shall  be  for  ever:  nothing  can  be  put  to  it,  nor  any  thing  taken  from 
it:  and  God  doeth  it,  that  men  should  fear  before  him.  That  which 


458  Reading  to  Others 

hath  been  is  now;  and  that  which  is  to  be  hath  already  been;  and  God 
requireth  that  which  is  past. 

And  moreover  I  saw  under  the  sun  the  place  of  judgment,  that 
wickedness  was  there;  and  the  place  of  righteousness,  that  iniquity  was 
there.  I  said  in  mine  heart,  God  shall  judge  the  righteous  and  the 
wicked:  for  there  is  a  time  there  for  every  purpose  and  for  every  work. 
I  said  in  mine  heart  concerning  the  estate  of  the  sons  of  men,  that  God 
might  manifest  them,  and  that  they  might  see  that  they  themselves  are 
beasts.  For  that  which  befalleth  the  sons  of  men  befalleth  beasts;  even 
one  thing  befalleth  them:  as  the  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the  other;  yea, 
they  have  all  one  breath;  so  that  a  man  hath  no  preeminence  above  a 
beast:  for  all  is  vanity.  All  go  unto  one  place;  all  are  of  the  dust,  and 
all  turn  to  dust  again.  Who  knoweth  the  spirit  of  man  that  goeth 
upward,  and  the  spirit  of  the  beast  that  goeth  downward  to  the  earth? 
Wherefore  I  perceive  that  there  is  nothing  better,  than  that  a  man 
should  rejoice  in  his  own  works;  for  that  is  his  portion:  for  who  shall 
bring  him  to  see  what  shall  be  after  him? 

EccJesiastes,  Chapter  3 

9.  All  their  life  was  spent  not  in  laws,  statutes,  or  rules,  but  accord- 
ing to  their  own  free  will  and  pleasure.  They  rose  out  of  their  beds 
when  they  thought  good:  they  did  cat,  drink,  labor,  sleep,  when  they 
had  a  mind  to  it,  and  were  disposed  for  it.  None  did  awake  them,  none 
did  offer  to  constrain  them  to  eat,  drink,  nor  to  do  any  other  thing; 
for  so  had  Gargantua  established  it.  In  all  their  rule,  and  strictest  tie 
of  their  order,  there  was  but  this  one  clause  to  be  observed, 

DO  WHAT  THOU  WILT. 

Because  men  that  are  free,  well-born,  well-bred,  and  conversant  in 
honest  companies,  have  naturally  an  instinct  and  spur  that  prompteth 
them  unto  virtuous  actions,  and  withdraws  them  from  vice,  which  is 
called  honor.  Those  same  men,  when  by  base  subjection  and  constraint 
they  are  brought  under  and  kept  down,  turn  aside  from  that  noble  dis- 
position, by  which  they  formerly  were  inclined  to  virtue,  to  shake  off 
and  break  that  bond  of  servitude,  wherein  they  are  so  tyrannously  en- 
slaved; for  it  is  agreeable  with  the  nature  of  man  to  long  after  things 
forbidden,  and  to  desire  what  is  denied  us. 

By  this  liberty  they  entered  into  a  very  laudable  emulation,  to  do  all 
of  them  what  they  saw  did  please  one.  If  any  of  the  gallants  or  ladies 
should  say,  Let  us  drink,  they  would  all  drink.  If  any  one  of  them 
said,  Let  us  play,  they  all  played.  If  one  said,  Let  us  go  a  walking  into 
the  fields,  they  all  went.  If  it  were  to  go  a  hawking  or  a  hunting,  the 
ladies  mounted  upon  dainty  well-paced  nags,  seated  in  a  stately  palfrey 
saddle,  carried  on  their  lovely  fists,  miniardly  begloved  every  one  of 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  459 

them,  either  a  sparhawk,  or  a  laneret,  or  a  merlin,  and  the  young  gallants 
carried  the  other  kinds  of  hawks.  So  nobly  were  they  taught,  that  there 
was  neither  he  nor  she  amongst  them,  but  could  read,  write,  sing,  play 
upon  several  musical  instruments,  speak  five  or  six  several  languages, 
and  compose  in  them  all  very  quaintly,  both  in  verse  and  prose.  Never 
were  seen  so  valiant  knights,  so  noble  and  worthy,  so  dexterous  and 
skillful  both  on  foot  and  a  horseback,  more  brisk  and  lively,  more  nim- 
ble and  quick,  or  better  handling  all  manner  of  weapons,  than  were 
there.  Never  were  seen  ladies  so  proper  and  handsome,  so  miniard  and 
dainty,  less  forward,  or  more  ready  with  their  hand,  and  with  their 
needle,  in  every  honest  and  free  action  belonging  to  that  sex,  than  were 
there.  For  this  reason,  when  the  time  came,  that  any  man  of  the  said 
abbey,  either  at  the  request  of  his  parents,  or  for  some  other  cause,  had 
a  mind  to  go  out  of  it,  he  carried  along  with  him  one  of  the  ladies, 
namely  her  whom  he  had  before  that  chosen  for  his  mistress,  and  they 
were  married  together.  And  if  they  had  formerly  in  Theleme  lived  in 
good  devotion  and  amir}',  they  did  continue  therein  and  increase  it  to 
a  greater  height  in  their  state  of  matrimony:  and  did  entertain  that 
mutual  love  till  the  very  last  day  of  their  life,  in  no  less  vigor  and  fer- 
vency, than  at  the  very  day  of  their  wedding. 

FRANCOIS  RABELAIS,  Gargantua 

10.    "Look  out,  here  he  comes!" 

Who  had  spoken?  A  slight  noise,  that  of  the  opening  gate,  made 
every  heart  throb.  Necks  were  outstretched,  eyes  gazed  fixedly,  there 
was  labored  breathing  on  all  sides.  Sal  vat  stood  on  the  threshold  of  the 
prison.  The  chaplain,  stepping  backwards,  had  come  out  in  advance 
of  him,  in  order  to  conceal  the  guillotine  from  his  sight,  but  he  had 
stopped  short,  for  he  wished  to  see  that  instrument  of  death,  make 
acquaintance  with  it,  as  it  were,  before  he  walked  towards  it.  And  as 
he  stood  there,  his  long,  aged,  sunken  face,  on  which  life's  hardships 
had  left  their  mark,  seemed  transformed  by  the  wondrous  brilliancy 
of  his  flaring,  dreamy  eyes.  Enthusiasm  bore  him  up— he  was  going  to 
his  death  in  all  the  splendor  of  his  dream.  When  the  executioner's 
assistants  drew  near  to  support  him,  he  once  more  refused  their  help, 
and  again  set  himself  in  motion,  advancing  with  short  steps,  but  as 
quickly  and  as  straightly  as  the  rope  hampering  his  legs  permitted.  .  .  . 

"Long  live  Anarchy!" 

It  was  Salvat  who  had  raised  this  cry.  But  in  the  deep  silence  his 
husky,  altered  voice  seemed  to  break.  The  few  who  were  near  at  hand 
had  turned  very  pale;  the  distant  crowd  seemed  bereft  of  life.  The 
horse  of  one  of  the  Gardes  de  Paris  was  alone  heard  snorting  in  the 
center  of  the  space  which  had  been  kept  clear. 


460  Reading  to  Others 

Then  came  a  loathsome  scramble,  a  scene  of  nameless  brutality  and 
ignominy.  The  headsman's  helps  rushed  upon  Salvat  as  he  came  up 
slowly  with  brow  erect.  Two  of  them  seized  him  by  the  head,  but 
finding  little  hair  there,  could  only  lower  it  by  tugging  at  his  neck. 
Next  two  others  grasped  him  by  the  legs  and  flung  him  violently  upon 
a  plank  which  tilted  over  and  rolled  forward.  Then,  by  dint  of  pushing 
and  tugging,  the  head  was  got  into  the  "lunette,"  the  upper  part  of 
which  fell  in  such  wise  that  the  neck  was  fixed  as  in  a  ship's  port-hole— 
and  all  this  was  accomplished  amidst  such  confusion  and  with  such 
savagery  that  one  might  have  thought  that  head  some  cumbrous  thing 
which  it  was  necessary  to  get  rid  of  with  the  greatest  speed.  But  the 
knife  fell  with  a  dull,  heavy,  forcible  thud,  and  two  long  jets  of  blood 
spurted  from  the  severed  arteries,  while  the  dead  man's  feet  moved 
convulsively.  Nothing  else  could  be  seen.  The  executioner  rubbed 
his  hands  in  a  mechanical  way,  and  an  assistant  took  the  severed  blood- 
streaming  head  from  the  little  basket  into  which  it  had  fallen  and 
placed  it  in  the  large  basket  into  which  the  body  had  already  been 

turned'  EMILE  ZOLA,  Paris,  translated  by  E.  A.  Vizetelly 

11.  I  went  to  see  Camille  the  other  night  and  was  much  moved.  I 
wept  frankly  at  the  familiar  old  tale  of  love  and  sacrifice  and  was  not 
ashamed,  because  I  feel  with  the  poet  that 

A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that, 
And  born  to  blush  unseen, 
For  many  a  gem  of  ray  serene 
Is  coy  and  hard  to  please. 

—Ray  Serene,  1784-1790 

I  always  cry  at  Camille.  I've  seen  them  all— Duse,  Bernhardt,  Rejane, 
Eva  Le  Gishienne,  Booth,  Salvini,  Dockstader,  and  Grover  Cleveland 
the  Elder.  What  aroused  my  curiosity  at  Camille  was  the  fact  that  so 
little  crying  was  going  on.  I  was  the  only  one  crying  where  I  sat  and  I 
assume  conditions  were  about  the  same  in  the  first  balcony  and  orchestra. 
What's  the  matter?  Don't  people  cry  any  more?  People  weren't 
ashamed  to  cry  in  the  days  when  I  was  a  young  blade.  Or  even  later, 
when  I  got  to  be  an  old  blade  and  they  tried  to  throw  me  into  the 
Grand  Canyon  (there  was  a  tussle  for  you). 

In  the  old  days  there  were  weepers  in  the  grand  tradition.  Weeping 
was  an  art.  That  was  before  the  woman's  handkerchief  started  to  de- 
cline. A  woman's  handkerchief  was  still  a  commodious  affair  into  which 
a  woman  could  weep  comfortably  for  an  hour  at  a  stretch  without 
stopping  to  wring  it  out.  But  little  by  little  civilization  has  made  in- 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  461 

roads  on  the  lady's  handkerchief,  while  at  the  same  time  the  gent's 
handkerchief  has  been  increasing  by  leaps  and  bounds  until  today  it 
practically  amounts  to  a  toga.  Well,  let  them  do  their  worst.  The 
lady's  handkerchief  will  never  take  the  place  of  the  postage  stamp. 

FRANK  SULLIVAN,  "Willa  the  Weeper," 
from  In  One  Ear 

12.  I  concluded  at  length,  that  the  People  were  the  best  Judges  of 
my  Merit;  for  they  buy  my  Works;  and  besides,  in  my  Rambles,  where 
I  am  not  personally  known,  I  have  frequently  heard  one  or  other  of 
my  Adages  repeated,  with  as  Poor  Richard  says,  at  the  End  on't;  this 
gave  me  some  Satisfaction,  as  it  showed  not  only  that  my  Instructions 
were  regarded,  but  discovered  likewise  some  Respect  for  my  Authority; 
and  I  own,  that  to  encourage  the  Practice  of  remembering  and  repeating 
those  wise  Sentences,  I  have  sometimes  quoted  myself  with  great 
Gravity. 

Judge,  then  how  much  I  must  have  been  gratified  by  an  Incident  I 
am  going  to  relate  to  you.  I  stopt  my  Horse  lately  where  a  great  Num- 
ber of  People  were  collected  at  a  Vendue  of  Merchant  Goods.  The 
Hour  of  Sale  not  being  come,  they  were  conversing  on  the  Badness  of 
the  Times,  and  one  of  the  Company  call'd  to  a  plain  clean  old  Man, 
with  white  Locks,  'Tray,  Father  Abraham,  what  think  you  of  the 
Times?  Won't  these  heavy  Taxes  quite  ruin  the  Country?  How  shall 
we  be  ever  able  to  pay  them?  What  would  you  advise  us  to  do?"  Father 
Abraham  stood  up,  and  reply'd,  "If  you'd  have  my  Advice,  I'll  give  it 
you  in  short,  for  A  Word  to  the  Wise  is  enough,  and  many  Words 
won't  fill  a  Bushel,  as  Poor  Richard  says."  They  all  join'd  in  desiring 
him  to  speak  his  Mind,  and  gathering  round  him,  he  proceeded  as 
follows: 

"Friends,"  says  he,  "and  Neighbours,  the  Taxes  are  indeed  very 
heavy,  and  if  those  laid  on  by  the  Government  were  the  only  Ones  we 
had  to  pay,  we  might  more  easily  discharge  them;  but  we  have  many 
others,  and  much  more  grievous  to  some  of  us.  We  are  taxed  twice  as 
much  by  our  Idleness,  three  times  as  much  by  our  Pride,  and  four  times 
as  much  by  our  Folly;  and  from  these  Taxes  the  Commissioners  cannot 
ease  or  deliver  us  by  allowing  an  Abatement.  However,  let  us  harken  to 
good  Advice,  and  something  may  be  done  for  us;  God  helps  them  that 
help  themselves,  as  Poor  Richard  says,  in  his  Almanack  of  1733. 

"It  would  be  thought  a  hard  Government  that  should  tax  its  People 
one-tenth  Part  of  their  Time,  to  be  employed  in  its  Service.  But  Idleness 
taxes  many  of  us  much  more,  if  we  reckon  all  that  is  spent  in  absolute 
Sloth,  or  doing  of  nothing,  with  that  which  is  spent  in  idle  Employ- 


462  Reading  to  Others 

ments  or  Amusements,  that  amount  to  nothing.  Sloth,  by  bringing  on 
Diseases,  absolutely  shortens  Life.  Sloth,  like  Rust,  consumes  faster 
than  Labour  wears;  while  the  used  Key  is  always  bright,  as  Poor  Richard 
says.  But  dost  thou  love  Life,  then  do  not  squander  Time,  for  that's  the 
stuff  Life  is  made  of,  as  Poor  Richard  says.  How  much  more  than  is 
necessary  do  we  spend  in  sleep,  forgetting  that  The  sleeping  Fox  catches 
no  Poultry,  and  that  There  will  be  sleeping  enough  in  the  Grave,  as 
Poor  Richard  says."  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN,  The  Way  to  Wealth 

1 3.  The  person  of  this  illustrious  old  gentleman  was  formed  and  pro- 
portioned, as  though  it  had  been  moulded  by  the  hands  of  some  cun- 
ning Dutch  statuary,  as  a  model  of  majesty  and  lordly  grandeur.  He 
was  exactly  five  feet  six  inches  in  height,  and  six  feet  five  inches  in  cir- 
cumference. His  head  was  a  perfect  sphere,  and  of  such  stupendous 
dimensions,  that  dame  Nature,  with  all  her  sex's  ingenuity,  would  have 
been  puzzled  to  construct  a  neck  capable  of  supporting  it;  wherefore 
she  wisely  declined  the  attempt,  and  settled  it  firmly  on  the  top  of 
his  backbone,  just  between  the  shoulders.  His  body  was  oblong  and 
particularly  capacious  at  bottom;  which  was  wisely  ordered  by  Provi- 
dence, seeing  that  he  was  a  man  of  sedentary  habits,  and  very  averse  to 
the  idle  labor  of  walking.  His  legs  were  short,  but  sturdy  in  proportion 
to  the  weight  they  had  to  sustain;  so  that  when  erect  he  had  not  a  little 
the  appearance  of  a  beer-barrel  on  skids.  His  face,  that  infallible  index 
of  the  mind,  presented  a  vast  expanse,  unfurrowed  by  any  of  those  lines 
and  angles  which  disfigure  the  human  countenance  with  what  is  termed 
expression.  Two  small  gray  eyes  twinkled  feebly  in  the  midst,  like  two 
stars  of  lesser  magnitude  in  a  hazy  firmament;  and  his  full-fed  cheeks, 
which  seemed  to  have  taken  toll  of  everything  that  went  into  his  mouth, 
were  curiously  mottled  and  streaked  with  dusky  red,  like  a  spitzenberg 
apple. 

His  habits  were  as  regular  as  his  person.  He  daily  took  his  four 
stated  meals,  appropriating  exactly  an  hour  to  each,  he  smoked  and 
doubted  eight  hours,  and  he  slept  the  remaining  twelve  of  the  four-and- 
twenty.  Such  was  the  renowned  Wouter  Van  Twiller— a  true  philos- 
opher, for  his  mind  was  either  elevated  above,  or  tranquilly  settled  be- 
low, the  cares  and  perplexities  of  this  world.  He  had  lived  in  it  for 
years,  without  feeling  the  least  curiosity  to  know  whether  the  sun  re- 
volved round  it,  or  it  round  the  sun;  and  he  had  watched,  for  at  least 
half  a  century,  the  smoke  curling  from  his  pipe  to  the  ceiling,  without 
once  troubling  his  head  with  any  of  those  numerous  theories  by  which 
a  philosopher  would  have  perplexed  his  brain,  in  accounting  for  its 
rising  above  the  surrounding  atmosphere. 

WASHINGTON  IRVING,  A  History  of  New  York 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  463 

14.  Man  frequently  distinguishes  himself  from  other  animals  by 
what  he  proudly  calls  "the  gift  of  articulate  speech."  Some  years  ago, 
when  the  late  William  Jennings  Bryan  was  crusading  against  evolution, 
I  was  inveigled  into  introducing  him  to  an  undergraduate  audience. 
I  managed  to  avoid  serving  as  the  target  of  his  wit  and  satire  by  sug- 
gesting that,  if  articulate  speech  be  taken  as  the  criterion  of  distinction 
between  man  and  ape,  Mr.  Bryan  of  all  human  beings  could  most  justly 
disclaim  a  simian  ancestry. 

To  an  anthropoid  ape  the  range,  quality,  and  volume  of  human  vocal- 
ization would  not  be  remarkable.  A  gorilla,  for  example,  can  both  out- 
scream  a  woman  and  roar  in  a  deep  bass  roll  like  distant  thunder,  which 
can  be  heard  for  three  or  four  miles.  Even  the  small  gibbon  has  a  voice 
described  by  a  musician  as  "much  more  powerful  than  that  of  any 
singer  he  had  ever  heard/'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  anthropoid  apes 
have  laryngeal  sacs  which  are  extensions  of  the  voice-box,  capable  of 
inflation  and  use  as  resonance  chambers.  There  is  also  ample  evidence 
that  the  voice  as  an  organ  for  the  expression  of  emotion  is  utilized  by 
the  great  apes  with  a  variation  and  efficacy  in  no  whit  inferior  to  that 
manifested  by  the  human  voice,  and  with  far  greater  power.  In  fact, 
one  might  conclude  that  an  anthropoid  ape  would  regard  a  Metro- 
politan opera  star  as  next-door  to  dumb. 

The  ape,  unimpressed  with  the  range  and  volume  of  the  human  voice, 
would  nevertheless  be  appalled  at  its  incessant  utilization.  Lacking, 
presumably,  the  ability  to  fabricate  lofty  and  complicated  thoughts,  he 
would  not  understand  man's  continuous  compulsion  to  communicate 
these  results  of  his  cerebration  to  his  fellows,  whether  or  not  they  care 
to  listen.  In  fact,  it  would  probably  not  occur  to  an  ape  that  the  cease- 
less waves  of  humanly  vocalized  sound  vibrating  against  his  ear  drums 
are  intended  to  convey  thoughts  and  ideas.  Nor  would  he  be  altogether 
wrong.  Man's  human  wants  are  not  radically  dissimilar  to  those  of 
other  animals.  He  wakes  and  sleeps,  eats,  digests,  and  eliminates,  makes 
love  and  fights,  sickens  and  dies,  in  a  thoroughly  mammalian  fashion. 
Why,  then,  does  he  eternally  discuss  his  animalistic  affairs,  preserving 
a  decent  silence  but  once  a  year,  for  two  minutes,  on  Armistice  Day? 
"But,"  I  say  (in  my  role  of  apologist),  "human  culture  is  based  upon 
the  communication  of  knowledge  through  the  medium  of  speech." 
This  is,  of  course,  a  statement  which  no  anthropoid  ape  is  in  a  position 
to  contradict.  It  is  probably  true.  However,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that 
the  record  of  human  culture  is  far  more  ancient  than  that  of  language, 
possibly  because  no  material  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the  latter  is 
available  before  the  invention  of  writing.  Nevertheless,  beginning  with 
the  dawn  of  the  Pleistocene,  perhaps  one  million  years  ago,  we  possess 
an  almost  unbroken  sequence  of  man-made  stone  tools,  which  manifest 


464  Reading  to  Others 

a  continuous  and  ever  improving  tradition  of  craftsmanship.  These 
ancient  implements  doubtless  represent  only  the  few  elements  which 
have  survived  because  of  the  durability  of  the  material  used.  Pleistocene 
human  culture  must  have  included  much  more  than  stone  axes  and 
scrapers.  It  is  a  fact  that  many  competent  anatomists  who  have  examined 
the  various  fragmentary  skulls  and  brain  cases  of  the  earliest  known 
fossil  men— undoubtedly  the  fabricators  of  some  of  the  more  advanced 
types  of  implements— have  questioned  their  ability  to  employ  articulate 
speech.  I  myself  disagree  with  this  view  and  think  that  Pithecanthropus, 
for  example,  was  probably  excessively  garrulous,  though  undoubtedly 
incoherent  and  nonsensical  in  most  of  his  linguistic  offerings.  I  should 
think  that  man  originated  from  an  irrepressibly  noisy  and  babbling  type 
of  ape. 

EARNEST  ALBERT  HOOTON,  Apes,  Men  and  Morons 

15.  Another  verse  of  the  hymn  arose,  a  slow  and  mournful  strain, 
such  as  the  pious  love,  but  joined  to  words  which  expressed  all  that  our 
nature  can  conceive  of  sin,  and  darkly  hinted  at  far  more.  Unfathom- 
able to  mere  mortals  is  the  lore  of  fiends.  Verse  after  verse  was  sung, 
and  still  the  chorus  of  the  desert  swelled  between,  like  the  deepest  tone 
of  a  mighty  organ.  And,  with  the  final  peal  of  that  dreadful  anthem, 
there  came  a  sound,  as  if  the  roaring  wind,  the  rushing  streams,  the 
howling  beasts,  and  every  other  voice  of  the  unconverted  wilderness, 
were  mingling  and  according  with  the  voice  of  guilty  man,  in  homage 
to  the  prince  of  all.  The  four  blazing  pines  threw  up  a  loftier  flame,  and 
obscurely  discovered  shapes  and  visages  of  horror  on  the  smoke-wreaths, 
above  the  impious  assembly.  At  the  same  moment,  the  fire  on  the  rock 
shot  redly  forth,  and  formed  a  glowing  arch  above  its  base,  where  now 
appeared  a  figure.  With  reverence  be  it  spoken,  the  apparition  bore  no 
slight  similitude,  both  in  garb  and  manner,  to  some  grave  divine  of  the 
New  England  churches. 

"Bring  forth  the  converts! "  cried  a  voice,  that  echoed  through  the 
field  and  rolled  into  the  forest. 

At  the  word,  Goodman  Brown  stepped  forth  from  the  shadow  of  the 
trees,  and  approached  the  congregation,  with  whom  he  felt  a  loathful 
brotherhood,  by  the  sympathy  of  all  that  was  wicked  in  his  heart.  He 
could  have  well-nigh  sworn,  that  the  shape  of  his  own  dead  father  beck- 
oned him  to  advance,  looking  downward  from  a  smoke-wreath,  while  a 
woman,  with  dim  features  of  despair,  threw  out  her  hand  to  warn  him 
back.  Was  it  his  mother?  But  he  had  no  power  to  retreat  one  step,  nor  to 
resist,  even  in  thought,  when  the  minister  and  good  old  Deacon  Gookin 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  465 

seized  his  arms,  and  led  him  to  the  blazing  rock.  Thither  came  also 
the  slender  form  of  a  veiled  female,  led  between  Goody  Cloyse,  that 
pious  teacher  of  the  catechism,  and  Martha  Carrier,  who  had  received 
the  devil's  promise  to  be  queen  of  hell.  A  rampant  hag  was  she!  And 
there  stood  the  proselytes,  beneath  the  canopy  of  fire. 

"Welcome,  my  children/'  said  the  dark  figure,  "to  the  communion 
of  your  race!  Ye  have  found,  thus  young,  your  nature  and  your  destiny.' 
My  children,  look  behind  you!" 

They  turned;  and  flashing  forth,  as  it  were,  in  a  sheet  of  flame,  the 
fiend-worshippers  were  seen;  the  smile  of  welcome  gleamed  darkly  on 
every  visage. 

"There,"  resumed  the  sable  form,  "are  all  whom  ye  have  reverenced 
from  youth.  Ye  deemed  them  holier  than  yourselves,  and  shrank  from 
your  own  sin,  contrasting  it  with  their  lives  of  righteousness,  and  prayer- 
ful aspirations  heavenward.  Yet,  here  are  they  all,  in  my  worshipping 
assembly!  This  night  it  shall  be  granted  you  to  know  their  secret  deeds; 
how  hoary-bearded  elders  of  the  church  have  whispered  wanton  words 
to  the  young  maids  of  their  households;  how  many  a  woman,  eager  for 
widow's  weeds,  has  given  her  husband  a  drink  at  bed-time,  and  let  him 
sleep  his  last  sleep  in  her  bosom;  how  beardless  youths  have  made  haste 
to  inherit  their  father's  wealth;  and  how  fair  damsels— blush  not,  sweet 
ones!— have  dug  little  graves  in  the  garden,  and  bidden  me,  the  sole 
guest,  to  an  infant's  funeral.  By  the  sympathy  of  your  human  hearts 
for  sin,  ye  shall  scent  out  all  the  places— whether  in  church,  bed-chamber, 
street,  field,  or  forest— where  crime  has  been  committed,  and  shall  exult 
to  behold  the  whole  earth  one  stain  of  guilt,  one  mighty  blood-spot. 
Far  more  than  this!  It  shall  be  yours  to  penetrate,  in  every  bosom,  the 
deep  mystery  of  sin,  the  fountain  of  all  wicked  arts,  and  which  in- 
exhaustibly supplies  more  evil  impulses  than  human  power— than  my 
power,  at  its  utmost!— can  make  manifest  in  deeds.  And  now,  my  chil- 
dren, look  upon  each  other/' 

They  did  so;  and,  by  the  blaze  of  the  hell-kindled  torches,  the 
wretched  man  beheld  his  Faith,  and  the  wife  her  husband,  trembling 
before  that  unhallowed  altar. 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE,  Young  Goodman  Brown 

16.  On  that  day,  two  men  were  lingering  on  the  banks  of  a  small 
but  rapid  stream,  within  an  hour's  journey  of  the  encampment  of  Webb, 
like  those  who  awaited  the  appearance  of  an  absent  person,  or  the  ap- 
proach of  some  expected  event.  The  vast  canopy  of  woods  spread  itself 
to  the  margin  of  the  river,  overhanging  the  water  and  shadowing  its 


466  Reading  to  Others 

dark  current  with  a  deeper  hue.  The  rays  of  the  sun  were  beginning 
to  grow  less  fierce,  and  the  intense  heat  of  the  day  was  lessened,  as  the 
cooler  vapors  of  the  springs  and  fountains  rose  above  their  leafy  beds, 
and  rested  in  the  atmosphere.  Still,  that  breathing  silence,  which  marks 
the  drowsy  sultriness  of  an  American  landscape  in  July,  pervaded  the 
secluded  spot,  interrupted  only  by  the  low  voices  of  the  men,  the  occa- 
sional and  lazy  tap  of  a  woodpecker,  the  discordant  cry  of  some  gaudy 
jay,  or  a  swelling  on  the  air  from  the  dull  roar  of  a  distant  waterfall. 

These  feeble  and  broken  sounds  were,  however,  too  familiar  to  the 
foresters  to  draw  their  attention  from  the  more  interesting  matter  of 
their  dialogue.  While  one  of  these  loiterers  showed  the  red  skin  and 
wild  accoutrements  of  a  native  of  the  woods,  the  other  exhibited, 
through  the  mask  of  his  rude  and  nearly  savage  equipments,  the  brighter, 
though  sunburnt  and  long-faded  complexion  of  one  who  might  claim 
descent  from  a  European  parentage.  The  former  was  seated  on  the  end 
of  a  mossy  log,  in  a  posture  that  permitted  him  to  heighten  the  effect 
of  his  earnest  language  by  the  calm  but  expressive  gestures  of  an  Indian 
engaged  in  debate.  His  body,  which  was  nearly  naked,  presented  a  ter- 
rific emblem  of  death,  drawn  in  intermingled  colors  of  white  and  black. 
His  closely  shaved  head,  on  which  no  other  hair  than  the  well-known 
and  chivalrous  scalping-tuft  was  preserved,  was  without  ornament  of  any 
kind,  with  the  exception  of  a  solitary  eagle's  plume  that  crossed  his 
crown  and  depended  over  the  left  shoulder.  A  tomahawk  and  scalping- 
knife,  of  English  manufacture,  were  in  the  girdle;  while  a  short  military 
rifle,  of  that  sort  with  which  the  policy  of  the  whites  armed  their  savage 
allies,  lay  carelessly  across  his  bare  and  sinewy  knee.  The  expanded 
chest,  full-formed  limbs,  and  grave  countenance  of  this  warrior  would 
denote  that  he  had  reached  the  vigor  of  his  days,  though  no  symptoms 
of  decay  appeared  to  have  yet  weakened  his  manhood. 

The  frame  of  the  white  man,  judging  by  such  parts  as  were  not  con- 
cealed by  his  clothes,  was  like  that  of  one  who  had  known  hardships 
and  exertion  from  his  earliest  youth.  His  person,  though  muscular,  was 
rather  attenuated  than  full;  but  every  nerve  and  muscle  appeared  strung 
and  indurated  by  unremitted  exposure  and  toil.  He  wore  a  hunting- 
shirt  of  forest  green,  fringed  with  faded  yellow,  and  a  summer  cap  of 
skins  which  had  been  shorn  of  their  fur.  He  also  bore  a  knife  in  a  girdle 
of  wampum,  like  that  which  confined  the  scanty  garments  of  the  Indian, 
but  no  tomahawk.  His  moccasins  were  ornamented  after  the  gay  fashion 
of  the  natives,  while  the  only  part  of  his  under-dress  which  appeared 
below  the  hunting-frock  was  a  pair  of  buckskin  leggins  that  laced  at  the 
sides,  and  which  were  gartered  above  the  knees  with  the  sinews  of  a 
deer.  A  pouch  and  horn  completed  his  personal  accoutrements,  though 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  467 

a  rifle  of  great  length,  which  the  theory  of  the  more  ingenious  whites 
had  taught  them  was  the-  most  dangerous  of  all  fire-arms,  leaned  against 
a  neighboring  sapling.  The  eye  of  the  hunter,  or  scout,  whichever  he 
might  be,  was  small,  quick,  keen,  and  restless,  roving  while  he  spoke, 
on  every  side  of  him,  as  if  in  quest  of  game,  or  distrusting  the  sudden 
approach  of  some  lurking  enemy.  Notwithstanding  these  symptoms  of 
habitual  suspicion,  his  countenance  was  not  only  without  guile,  but  at 
the  moment  at  which  he  is  introduced,  it  was  charged  with  an  expres- 
sion of  sturdy  honesty. 

JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER,  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans 

17.  It  was  largely  in  the  woods,  and  quite  a  general  engagement.  The 
night  was  very  pleasant,  at  times  the  moon  shining  out  full  and  clear,  all 
Nature  so  calm  in  itself,  the  early  summer  grass  so  rich,  and  foliage  of 
the  trees— yet  there  the  battle  raging,  and  many  good  fellows  lying  help- 
less, with  new  accessions  to  them,  and  every  minute  amid  the  rattle  of 
muskets  and  crash  of  cannon  (for  there  was  an  artillery  contest  too), 
the  red  life-blood  oozing  out  from  heads  or  trunks  or  limbs  upon  that 
green  and  dew-cool  grass.  Patches  of  the  woods  take  fire,  and  several 
of  the  wounded,  unable  to  move,  are  consumed — quite  large  spaces  are 
swept  over,  burning  the  dead  also— some  of  the  men  have  their  hair  and 
beards  singed— some,  burns  on  their  faces  and  hands— others  holes 
burnt  in  their  clothing.  The  flashes  of  fire  from  the  cannon,  the  quick 
flaring  flames  and  smoke,  and  the  immense  roar— the  musketry  so  gen- 
eral, the  light  nearly  bright  enough  for  each  side  to  see  the  other— the 
crashing,  tramping  of  men— the  yelling— close  quarters— we  hear  the 
secesh  yells— our  men  cheer  "loudly  back,  especially  if  Hooker  is  in  sight- 
hand  to  hand  conflicts,  each  side  stands  up  to  it,  brave,  determined  as 
demons,  they  often  charge  upon  us — a  thousand  deeds  are  done  worth 
to  write  newer  greater  poems  on — and  still  the  woods  on  fire — still  many 
arc  nor  only  scorch'd — too  many,  unable  to  move,  are  burn'd  to  death. 

Then  the  camps  of  the  wounded— O  heavens,  what  scene  is  this?— 
is  this  indeed  humanity—these  butchers'  shambles?  There  are  several 
of  them.  There  they  lie,  in  the  largest,  in  an  open  space  in  the  woods, 
from  two  hundred  to  three  hundred  poor  fellows— the  groans  and 
screams— the  odor  of  blood,  mixed  with  the  fresh  scent  of  the  night, 
the  grass,  the  trees— that  slaughter-house!  O  well  is  it  their  mothers, 
their  sisters  cannot  see  them— cannot  conceive,  and  never  conceived, 
these  things.  One  man  is  shot  by  a  shell,  both  in  the  arm  and  leg— both 
are  amputated— there  lie  the  rejected  members.  Some  have  their  legs 
blown  off— some  bullets  through  the  breast— some  indescribably  horrid 
wounds  in  the  face  or  head,  all  mutilated,  sickening,  torn,  gouged  out— 


468  Reading  to  Others 

some  in  the  abdomen— some  mere  boys— many  rebels,  badly  hurt— they 
take  their  regular  turns  with  the  rest,  just  the  same  as  any— the  surgeons 
use  them  just  the  same.  Such  is  the  camp  of  the  wounded — such  a 
fragment,  a  reflection  afar  off  of  the  bloody  scene— while  over  all  the 
clear,  large  moon  comes  out  at  times  softly,  quietly  shining.  Amid  the 
woods,  that  scene  of  flitting  souls — amid  the  crack  and  crash  and  yelling 
sounds— the  impalpable  perfume  of  the  woods— and  yet  the  pungent, 
stifling  smoke— the  radiance  of  the  moon,  looking  from  heaven  at  inter- 
vals so  placid— the  sky  so  heavenly— the  clear-obscure  up  there,  those 
buoyant  upper  oceans— a  few  large  placid  stars  beyond,  coming  silently 
and  languidly  out,  and  then  disappearing— the  melancholy,  draperied 
night  above,  around.  And  there,  upon  the  roads,  the  fields,  and  in  those 
woods,  that  contest,  never  one  more  desperate  in  any  age  or  land— both 
parties  now  in  force— masses— no  fancy  battle,  no  semi-play,  but  fierce 
and  savage  demons  fighting  there— courage  and  scorn  of  death  the  rule, 
exceptions  almost  none. 

WALT  WHITMAN,  A  Night  Baffle 

18.  One  hot  day  in  December  I  had  been  standing  perfectly  still  for 
a  few  minutes  among  the  dry  weeds  when  a  slight  rustling  sound  came 
from  near  my  feet,  and  glancing  down  I  saw  the  head  and  neck  of  a 
large  black  serpent  moving  slowly  past  me.  In  a  moment  or  two  the 
flat  head  was  lost  to  sight  among  the  close-growing  weeds,  but  the  long 
body  continued  moving  slowly  by— so  slowly  that  it  hardly  appeared  to 
move,  and  as  the  creature  must  have  been  not  less  than  six  feet  long, 
and  probably  more,  it  took  a  very  long  time,  while  I  stood  thrilled  with 
terror,  not  daring  to  make  the  slightest  movement,  gazing  down  upon  it. 
Although  so  long,  it  was  not  a  thick  snake,  and  as  it  moved  on  over  the 
white  ground  it  had  the  appearance  of  a  coal-black  current  flowing  past 
me— a  current  not  of  water  or  other  liquid  but  of  some  such  clement  as 
quick-silver  moving  on  in  a  rope-like  stream.  At  last  it  vanished,  and 
turning  I  fled  from  the  ground,  thinking  that  never  again  would  I  ven- 
ture into  or  near  that  frightfully  dangerous  spot  in  spite  of  its  fascination. 
Nevertheless  I  did  venture.  The  image  of  that  black  mysterious  ser- 
pent was  always  in  my  mind  from  the  moment  of  waking  in  the  morning 
until  1  fell  asleep  at  night.  Yet  I  never  said  a  word  about  the  snake  to 
anyone:  it  was  my  secret,  and  I  knew  it  was  a  dangerous  secret,  but  I 
did  not  want  to  be  told  not  to  visit  that  spot  again.  And  I  simply  could 
not  keep  away  from  it;  the  desire  to  look  again  at  that  strange  being 
was  too  strong.  I  began  to  visit  the  place  again,  day  after  day,  and  would 
hang  about  the  borders  of  the  barren  weedy  ground  watching  and  listen- 
ing, and  still  no  black  serpent  appeared.  Then  one  day  I  ventured, 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  469 

though  in  fear  and  trembling,  to  go  right  in  among  the  weeds,  and  still 
finding  nothing,  began  to  advance  step  by  step  until  I  was  right  in  the 
middle  of  the  weedy  ground  and  stood  there  a  long  time,  waiting  and 
watching.  All  I  wanted  was  just  to  see  it  once  more,  and  I  had  made 
up  my  mind  that  immediately  on  its  appearance,  if  it  did  appear,  I 
would  take  to  my  heels.  It  was  when  standing  in  this  central  spot  that 
once  again  that  slight  rustling  sound,  like  that  of  a  few  days  before, 
reached  my  straining  sense  and  sent  an  icy  chill  down  my  back.  And 
there,  within  six  inches  of  my  toes,  appeared  the  black  head  and  neck, 
followed  by  the  long,  seemingly  endless  body.  I  dared  not  move,  since 
to  have  attempted  flight  might  have  been  fatal.  The  weeds  were  thinnest 
here,  and  the  black  head  and  slow-moving  black  coil  could  be  followed 
by  the  eye  for  a  little  distance.  About  a  yard  from  me  there  was  a  hole 
in  the  ground  about  the  circumference  of  a  breakfast-cup  at  the  top, 
and  into  this  hole  the  serpent  put  his  head  and  slowly,  slowly  drew  him- 
self in,  while  I  stood  waiting  until  the  whole  body  to  the  tip  of  the  tail 
had  vanished  and  all  danger  was  over. 

W.  H.  HUDSON,  Far  Away  and  Long  Ago 

19.  The  proper  force  of  words  lies  not  in  the  words  themselves,  but 
in  their  application.  A  word  may  be  a  fine-sounding  word,  of  an  unusual 
length,  and  very  imposing  from  its  learning  and  novelty,  and  yet  in  the 
connection  in  which  it  is  introduced,  may  be  quite  pointless  and  irrele- 
vant. It  is  not  pomp  or  pretension,  but  the  adaptation  of  the  expression 
to  the  idea  that  clenches  a  writer's  meaning:— as  it  is  not  the  size  or 
glossiness  of  the  materials,  but  their  being  fitted  each  to  its  place,  that 
gives  strength  to  the  arch;  or  as  the  pegs  and  nails  are  as  necessary  to  the 
support  of  the  building  as  the  larger  timbers,  and  more  so  than  the  mere 
showy,  unsubstantial  ornaments.  I  hate  anything  that  occupies  more 
space  than  it  is  worth.  I  hate  to  see  a  load  of  band-boxes  go  along  the 
street,  and  I  hate  to  see  a  parcel  of  big  words  without  anything  in  them. 
A  person  who  does  not  deliberately  dispose  of  all  his  thoughts  alike  in 
cumbrous  draperies  and  flimsy  disguises,  may  strike  out  twenty  varieties 
of  familiar  every-day  language,  each  coming  somewhat  nearer  to  the 
feeling  he  wants  to  convey,  and  at  last  not  hit  upon  that  particular  and 
only  one,  which  may  be  said  to  be  identical  with  the  exact  impression 
in  his  mind.  This  would  seem  to  show  that  Mr.  Cobbett  is  hardly  right 
in  saying  that  the  first  word  that  occurs  is  always  the  best.  It  may  be  a 
very  good  one;  and  yet  a  better  may  present  itself  on  reflection  or  from 
time  to  time.  It  should  be  suggested  naturally,  however,  and  spon- 
taneously, from  a  fresh  and  lively  conception  of  the  subject.  We  seldom 
succeed  by  trying  at  improvement,  or  by  merely  substituting  one  word 


470  Reading  to  Others 

for  another  that  we  are  not  satisfied  with,  as  we  cannot  recollect  the 
name  of  a  place  or  person  by  merely  plaguing  ourselves  about  it.  We 
wander  farther  from  the  point  by  persisting  in  a  wrong  scent;  but  it 
starts  up  accidentally  in  the  memory  when  we  least  expected  it,  by 
touching  some  link  in  the  chain  of  previous  association. 

WILLIAM  HAZLITT,  On  Familiar  Style 

20.  A  poor  Relation— is  the  most  irrelevant  thing  in  nature—a  piece 
of  impertinent  correspondency— an  odious  approximation— a  haunting 
conscience — a  preposterous  shadow,  lengthening  in  the  noontide  of  our 
prosperity— an  unwelcome  remembrancer— a  perpetually  recurring  mor- 
tification— a  drain  on  your  purse — a  more  intolerable  dun  upon  your 
pride— a  drawback  upon  success— a  rebuke  to  your  rising— a  stain  in 
your  blood — a  blot  on  your  'scutcheon — a  rent  in  your  garment — a 
death's  head  at  your  banquet— Agathocles'  pot— a  Mordecai  in  your  gate 
— a  Lazarus  at  your  door — a  lion  in  your  path — a  frog  in  your  chamber — 
a  fly  in  your  ointment — a  mote  in  your  eye — a  triumph  to  your  enemy, 
an  apology  to  your  friends— the  one  thing  not  needful— the  hail  in 
harvest — the  ounce  of  sour  in  a  pound  of  sweet. 

He  is  known  by  his  knock.  Your  heart  telleth  you,  "That  is  Mr. ." 

A  rap,  between  familiarity  and  respect;  that  demands,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  seems  to  despair  of,  entertainment.  He  entereth  smiling  and— 
embarrassed.  He  holdeth  out  his  hand  to  you  to  shake,  and — draweth 
it  back  again.  He  casually  looketh  in  about  dinner-time — when  the  table 
is  full.  He  offereth  to  go  away,  seeing  you  have  company,  but  is  induced 
to  stay.  Fie  filleth  a  chair,  and  your  visitor's  two  children  are  accom- 
modated at  a  side  table.  He  never  cometh  upon  open  days,  when  your 

wife  says  with  some  complacency,  "My  dear,  perhaps  Mr. will 

drop  in  today."  He  remembereth  birthdays— and  professeth  he  is  fortu- 
nate to  have  stumbled  upon  one.  He  declareth  against  fish,  the  turbot 
being  small— yet  suffereth  himself  to  be  importuned  into  a  slice  against 
his  first  resolution.  He  sticketh  by  the  port— yet  will  be  prevailed  upon 
to  empty  the  remainder  glass  of  claret,  if  a  stranger  press  it  upon  him. 
He  is  a  puzzle  to  the  servants,  who  are  fearful  of  being  too  obsequious, 
or  not  civil  enough,  to  him.  The  guests  think  "they  have  seen  him 
before."  Everyone  speculateth  upon  his  condition;  and  the  most  part 
take  him  to  be— a  tide  waiter.  He  calleth  you  by  your  Christian  name, 
to  imply  that  his  other  is  the  same  with  your  own.  He  is  too  familiar 
by  half,  yet  you  wish  he  had  less  diffidence.  With  half  the  familiarity 
he  might  pass  for  a  casual  dependent;  with  more  boldness  he  would  be 
in  no  danger  of  being  taken  for  what  he  is.  He  is  too  humble  for  a 
friend,  yet  taketh  on  him  more  state  than  befits  a  client.  He  is  a  worse 
guest  than  a  country  tenant,  inasmuch  as  he  bringeth  up  no  rent— yet 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  471 

'tis  odds,  from  his  garb  and  demeanor,  that  your  guests  take  him  for  one. 
He  is  asked  to  make  one  at  the  whist  table;  refuseth  on  the  score  of 
poverty,  and— resents  being  left  out.  When  the  company  break  up,  he 
proffereth  to  go  for  a  coach— and  lets  the  servant  go.  He  recollects  your 
grandfather;  and  will  thrust  in  some  mean  and  quite  unimportant  anec- 
dote of— the  family.  He  knew  it  when  it  was  not  quite  so  flourishing  as 
"he  is  blest  in  seeing  it  now/'  He  reviveth  past  situations  to  institute 
what  he  calleth — favorable  comparisons.  With  a  reflecting  sort  of  con- 
gratulation, he  will  inquire  the  price  of  your  furniture:  and  insults  you 
with  a  special  commendation  of  your  window-curtains.  He  is  of  opinion 
that  the  urn  is  the  more  elegant  shape,  but,  after  all,  there  was  something 
more  comfortable  about  the  old  tea-kettle — which  you  must  remember. 
He  dare  say  you  must  find  a  great  convenience  in  having  a  carriage  of  your 
own,  and  appealeth  to  your  lady  if  it  is  not  so.  Inquireth  if  you  have 
had  your  arms  done  on  vellum  yet;  and  did  not  know,  till  lately,  that 
such-and-such  had  been  the  crest  of  the  family.  His  memory  is  unsea- 
sonable; his  compliments  perverse;  his  talk  a  trouble;  his  stay  pertina- 
cious; and  when  he  goeth  away,  you  dismiss  his  chair  into  a  corner,  as 
precipitately  as  possible,  and  feel  fairly  rid  of  two  nuisances. 

CHARLES  LAMB,  Poor  Relations 

21.  If  we  may  not  be  said  to  be  able  to  converse  before  we  are  able 
to  talk  (and  study  is  essentially  your  opportunity  to  converse  with  your 
teachers  and  inspirers),  so  we  may  be  said  not  to  be  able  to  "talk"  be- 
fore we  are  able  to  speak:  whereby  you  easily  see  what  we  thus  get.  We 
may  not  be  said  to  be  able  to  study— and  a  fortiori  do  any  of  the  things 
we  stud)r  for— unless  we  are  able  to  speak.  All  life  therefore  comes  back 
to  the  question  of  our  speech,  the  medium  through  which  we  communi- 
cate with  each  other;  for  all  life  comes  back  to  the  question  of  our  rela- 
tions with  each  other.  These  relations  are  made  possible,  are  registered, 
are  verily  constituted,  by  our  speech,  and  are  successful  in  proportion 
as  our  speech  is  worthy  of  its  great  human  and  social  function;  is  devel- 
oped, delicate,  flexible,  rich— an  adequate  accomplished  fact.  The  more 
it  suggests  and  expresses  the  more  we  live  by  it— the  more  it  promotes 
and  enhances  life.    Its  quality,  its  authenticity,  its  security,  are  hence 
supremely  important  for  the  general  multifold  opportunity,  for  the 
dignity  and  integrity,  of  our  existence. 

HENRY  JAMES,  The  Question  of  Our  Speech 

22.  Now  of  all  sciences  is  our  poet  the  monarch.   For  he  doth  not 
only  show  the  way,  but  giveth  so  sweet  a  prospect  into  the  way  as  will 
entice  any  man  to  enter  into  it.  Nay,  he  doth,  as  if  your  journey  should 
lie  through  a  fair  vineyard,  at  the  very  first  give  you  a  cluster  of  grapes, 


472  Reading  to  Others 

that  full  of  that  taste  you  may  long  to  pass  further.  He  beginneth  not 
with  obscure  definitions,  which  must  blur  the  margent  with  interpreta- 
tions, and  load  the  memory  with  doubtfulness.  But  he  cometh  to  you 
with  words  set  in  delightful  proportion,  either  accompanied  with,  or 
prepared  for,  the  well-enchanting  skill  of  music;  and  with  a  tale,  for- 
sooth, he  cometh  unto  you,  with  a  tale  which  holdeth  children  from 
play,  and  old  men  from  the  chimney-corner,  and,  pretending  no  more, 
doth  intend  the  winning  of  the  mind  from  wickedness  to  virtue;  even 
as  the  child  is  often  brought  to  take  most  wholesome  things,  by  hiding 
them  in  such  other  as  have  a  pleasant  taste— which,  if  one  should  begin 
to  tell  them  the  nature  of  the  aloes  or  rhubarb  they  should  receive, 
would  sooner  take  their  physic  at  their  ears  than  at  their  mouth.  So  is 
it  in  men,  most  of  which  are  childish  in  the  best  things,  till  they  be 
cradled  in  their  graves— glad  they  will  be  to  hear  the  tales  of  Hercules, 
Achilles,  Cyrus,  yEneas. 

SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY,  The  Defense  of  Poetry 

23.  My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well  upon  this 
whole  subject.  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  taking  time.  If  there 
be  an  object  to  hurry  any  of  you  in  hot  haste  to  a  step  which  you  would 
never  take  deliberately,  that  object  will  be  frustrated  by  taking  time; 
but  no  good  object  can  be  frustrated  by  it.  Such  of  you  as  are  now  dis- 
satisfied still  have  the  old  Constitution  unimpaired,  and,  on  the  sensitive 
point,  the  laws  of  your  own  framing  under  it;  while  the  new  administra- 
tion will  have  no  immediate  power,  if  it  would,  to  change  either.  If  it 
were  admitted  that  you  who  are  dissatisfied  hold  the  right  side  in  the 
dispute,  there  still  is  no  single  good  reason  for  precipitate  action.  In- 
telligence, patriotism,  Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance  on  Him  who  has 
never  yet  forsaken  this  favored  land,  are  still  competent  to  adjust  in 
the  best  way  all  our  present  difficulty. 

In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  in  mine,  is 
the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  government  will  not  assail  you. 
You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors.  You 
have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  government,  while  I 
shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  "preserve,  protect,  and  defend  it." 

I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must  not 
be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our 
bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every 
battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  all 
over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union  when  again 
touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  First  Inaugural  Address 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  473 

24.  The  man  who  was  engaged  in  being  hanged  was  apparently  about 
thirty-five  years  of  age.  He  was  a  civilian,  if  one  might  judge  from  his 
habit,  which  was  that  of  a  planter.  His  features  were  good— a  straight 
nose,  firm  mouth,  broad  forehead,  from  which  his  long  dark  hair  was 
combed  straight  back,  falling  behind  his  ears  to  the  collar  of  his  well- 
fitting  frock-coat.  He  wore  a  mustache  and  pointed  beard,  but  no 
whiskers;  his  eyes  were  large  and  dark  gray,  and  had  a  kindly  expression 
which  one  would  hardly  have  expected  in  one  whose  neck  was  in  the 
hemp.  Evidently  this  was  no  vulgar  assassin.  The  liberal  military  code 
makes  provision  for  hanging  many  kinds  of  persons,  and  gentlemen  are 
not  excluded. 

The  preparations  being  complete,  the  two  private  soldiers  stepped 
aside  and  each  drew  away  the  plank  upon  which  he  had  been  standing. 
The  sergeant  turned  to  the  captain,  saluted  and  placed  himself  imme- 
diately behind  that  officer,  who  in  turned  moved  apart  one  pace.  These 
movements  left  the  condemned  man  and  the  sergeant  standing  on  the 
two  ends  of  the  same  plank,  which  spanned  three  of  the  cross-ties  of  the 
bridge.  The  end  upon  which  the  civilian  stood  almost,  but  not  quite, 
reached  a  fourth.  This  plank  had  been  held  in  place  by  the  weight  of 
the  captain;  it  was  now  held  by  that  of  the  sergeant.  At  a  signal  from 
the  former  the  latter  would  step  aside,  the  plank  would  tilt  and  the 
condemned  man  go  down  between  two  ties.  The  arrangement  com- 
mended itself  to  his  judgment  as  simple  and  effective.  His  face  had  not 
been  covered  nor  his  eyes  bandaged.  He  looked  a  moment  at  his  "un- 
steadfast  footing/'  then  let  his  gaze  wander  to  the  swirling  water  of  the 
stream  racing  madly  beneath  his  feet.  A  piece  of  dancing  driftwood 
caught  his  attention  and  his  eyes  followed  it  down  the  current.  How 
slowly  it  appeared  to  move!  What  a  sluggish  stream! 

He  closed  his  eyes  in  order  to  fix  his  last  thoughts  upon  his  wife  and 
children.  The  water,  touched  to  gold  by  the  early  sun,  the  brooding 
mists  under  the  banks  at  some  distance  down  the  stream,  the  fort,  the 
soldiers,  the  piece  of  drift—all  had  distracted  him.  And  now  he  became 
conscious  of  a  new  disturbance.  Striking  through  the  thought  of  his 
dear  ones  was  a  sound  which  he  could  neither  ignore  nor  understand, 
a  sharp,  distinct,  metallic  percussion  like  the  stroke  of  a  blacksmith's 
hammer  upon  the  anvil;  it  had  the  same  ringing  quality.  He  wondered 
what  it  was,  and  whether  immeasurably  distant  or  near  by— it  seemed 
both.  Its  recurrence  was  regular,  but  as  slow  as  the  tolling  of  a  death 
knell.  He  awaited  each  stroke  with  impatience  and — he  knew  not  why — 
apprehension.  The  intervals  of  silence  grew  progressively  longer;  the 
delays  became  maddening.  With  their  greater  infrequency  the  sounds 
increased  in  strength  and  sharpness.  They  hurt  his  ear  like  the  thrust 


474  Reading  to  Others 

of  a  knife;  he  feared  he  would  shriek.   What  he  heard  was  the  ticking 
of  his  watch. 

He  unclosed  his  eyes  and  saw  again  the  water  below  him.  "If  I  could 
free  my  hands/'  he  thought,  "I  might  throw  off  the  noose  and  spring 
into  the  stream.  By  diving  I  could  evade  the  bullets  and,  swimming 
vigorously,  reach  the  bank,  take  to  the  woods  and  get  away  home.  My 
home,  thank  God,  is  as  yet  outside  their  lines;  my  wife  and  little  ones 
are  still  beyond  the  invader's  farthest  advance." 

As  these  thoughts,  which  have  here  to  be  set  down  in  words,  were 
flashed  into  the  doomed  man's  brain  rather  than  evolved  from  it,  the 
captain  nodded  to  the  sergeant.  The  sergeant  stepped  aside. 

AMBROSE  BIERCE,  An  Occurrence  at  Owl  Creek  Bridge 

25.  We  saw  her  in  her  last  June.  There  she  sat  in  her  little,  cheerful 
sitting  room  up  in  the  musty,  frowsy,  old  house  in  the  Boulevard  Pereire, 
which  belongs,  they  say,  to  some  South  American  government,  but 
from  which,  since  the  day  when  an  infatuated  Minister  had  grandly 
placed  it  at  her  disposal,  she  had  never  been  ousted.  She  was  resplendent 
in  a  dressing  gown  of  white  satin  with  a  saucy,  fur-edged  overjacket  of 
blue  Indian  silk,  and  there  were  blazing  rings  on  the  ancient  fingers 
which  now  and  again  adjusted  the  jacket  so  that  there  should  always  be 
a  good  view  of  the  scarlet  Legion  of  Honor  badge  on  her  breast.  It  had 
taken  her  so  many  years  and  so  much  trouble  to  get  it.  Her  face  was  a 
white  mask  on  which  features  were  painted,  but  no  craft  of  make-up 
could  have  wrought  that  dazzling  smile  which  lighted  the  room.  Just 
as  in  the  glory  of  her  early  years,  she  had  never  suggested  youth  but 
seemed  an  ageless  being  from  some  other  world,  so  now,  in  her  seventy- 
eighth  year,  it  was  not  easy  to  remember  that  she  was  old. 

There  she  sat,  mutilated,  sick,  bankrupt  and,  as  always,  more  than  a 
little  raffish— a  ruin,  if  you  will,  but  one  with  a  bit  of  gay  bunting  flut- 
tering jauntily  and  defiant  from  the  topmost  battlement.  There  she  sat, 
a  gaudy  old  woman,  if  you  will,  with  fainter  and  fainter  memories  of 
scandals,  ovations,  labors,  rewards,  intrigues,  jealousies  and  heroisms, 
notoriety  and  fame,  art  and  the  circus.  But  there  was  no  one  in  that 
room  so  young  and  so  fresh  that  this  great-grandmother  did  not  make 
her  seem  colorless.  She  was  nearly  four-score  years  of  age  and  had  just 
finished  a  long,  harassing  season.  But  she  was  in  no  mood  to  go  off  to 
the  shore  for  her  rest  until  she  had  adjusted  her  plans  for  this  season. 
There  were  young  playwrights  to  encourage  with  a  pat  on  the  head, 
there  were  scene  designers  and  costumiers  to  be  directed,  there  were 
artists  to  be  interviewed  and  there  was  need  of  some  sort  of  benign 
intervention  in  behalf  of  a  new  play  struggling  along  in  her  own  theater. 

ALEXANDER  WOOLLCOTT,  Enchanted  Aisles 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  475 

26.  Skepticism  seems  to  be  indispensable  for  education,  but  the  col- 
lege man  neither  possesses  it  nor  respects  its  possession  in  others.   He 
relies  on  the  commercial  honesty  of  the  institution  that  accepts  his 
tuition:  surely  no  professor  would  accept  money  for  saying  something 
that  was  not  true.  A  text-book  cannot  lie,  and  a  professor  will  not.  Logic, 
evidence,  experimentation,  and  verification  are  all  very  well,  no  doubt, 
but  an  uneconomic  waste  of  time.    In  a  pinch,  I  would  undertake  to 
convince  a  class  of  men  of  nearly  anything,  merely  by  repeating  many 
times  that  it  was  so  because  I  said  it  was  so.  One  does  not  teach  women 
that  way.    One  painstakingly  examines  all  the  facts,  goes  over  the  evi- 
dence, caulks  the  seams  of  one's  logic,  and  in  every  way  prepares  oneself 
for  intelligent  opposition.   It  may  be  the  devilish  obstinacy  of  the  sex. 
No  doubt  it  is,  but  also,  whatever  its  place  in  the  ultimate  synthesis  of 
wisdom,  it  is  the  beginning  of  knowledge. 

All  this  narrows  down  to  one  very  simple  thing.  Democracy  has 
swamped  the  colleges,  and,  under  its  impetus,  college  men  tend  more 
and  more  to  reverse  evolution  and  to  develop  from  heterogeneity  to 
homogeneity.  They  tend  to  become  a  type,  and,  our  civilization  pro- 
viding the  mold,  the  type  is  that  of  the  salesman.  The  attributes  that 
distinguish  it  are  shrewdness,  craftiness,  alertness,  high-pressure  affabil- 
ity and,  above  all,  efficiency.  There  seems  to  me  little  reason  to  believe 
that  the  tendency  will  change  in  any  way.  I  have  not,  indeed,  any  rea- 
son to  believe  that  for  the  Republic  any  change  is  desirable.  The  mass- 
production  of  salesmen,  we  may  be  sure,  will  not  and  cannot  stop.  But, 
at  least,  there  is  one  force  that  moves  counter  to  this  one.  The  co-eds, 
in  general,  develop  into  individuals;  and,  in  general,  they  oppose  and 
dissent  from  the  trend  of  college  education.  I  do  not  pretend  to  say 
whether  their  opposition  is  conscious  or  merely  instinctive,  nor  can  I 
hazard  any  prophecy  about  its  possible  influence  on  our  national  life. 
But  if,  hereafter,  our  colleges  are  to  preserve  any  of  the  spirit  that  was 
lovely  and  admirable  in  their  past,  I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  the 
co-eds,  those  irresponsible  and  overdressed  young  nitwits,  will  save  it 
unassisted. 

BERNARD  DE  Voxo,  The  Co-Eds,  God  Bless  Them/ 

27.  Whatever  Chartres  may  be  now,  when  young  it  was  a  smile.  To 
the  Church,  no  doubt,  its  cathedral  here  has  a  fixed  and  administrative 
meaning,  which  is  the  same  as  that  of  every  other  bishop's  seat  and  with 
which  we  have  nothing  whatever  to  do.   To  us,  it  is  a  child's  fancy,  a 
toy-house  to  please  the  Queen  of  Heaven— to  please  her  so  much  that 
she  would  be  happy  in  it— to  charm  her  till  she  smiled. 

The  Queen  Mother  was  as  majestic  as  you  like;  she  was  absolute;  she 
could  be  stern;  she  was  not  above  being  angry;  but  she  was  still  a  woman, 


476  Reading  to  Others 

who  loved  grace,  beauty,  ornament— her  toilette,  robes,  jewels;  who 
considered  the  arrangements  of  her  palace  with  attention,  and  liked  both 
light  and  colour;  who  kept  a  keen  eye  on  her  Court,  and  exacted  prompt 
and  willing  obedience  from  king  and  arch-bishops  as  well  as  from  beg- 
gars and  priests.  She  protected  her  friends  and  punished  her  enemies. 
She  required  space,  beyond  what  was  known  in  the  Courts  of  kings,  be- 
cause she  was  liable  at  all  times  to  have  ten  thousand  people  begging 
her  for  favours— mostly  inconsistent  with  law— and  deaf  to  refusal.  She 
was  extremely  sensitive  to  neglect,  to  disagreeable  impressions,  to  want 
of  intelligence  in  her  surroundings.  She  was  the  greatest  artist,  as  she 
was  the  greatest  philosopher  and  musician  and  theologist,  that  ever 
lived  on  earth,  except  her  Son,  Who,  at  Chartres,  is  still  an  Infant  under 
her  guardianship.  Her  taste  was  infallible;  her  sentence  eternally  final. 
This  church  was  built  for  her  in  this  spirit  of  simple-minded,  practical, 
utilitarian  faith— in  this  singleness  of  thought,  exactly  as  a  little  girl  sets 
up  a  doll-house  for  her  favourite  blonde  doll.  Unless  you  can  go  back 
to  your  dolls,  you  are  out  of  place  here.  If  you  can  go  back  to  them, 
and  get  rid  for  one  small  hour  of  the  weight  of  custom,  you  shall  see 
Chartres  in  glory. 

HENRY  ADAMS,  Mont-Saint-Mich  el  and  Chartres 

28.  I  now  became  aware  of  something  interposed  between  the  page 
and  the  light— the  page  was  overshadowed:  I  looked  up,  and  I  saw 
what  I  shall  find  it  difficult,  perhaps  impossible,  to  describe. 

It  was  a  darkness  shaping  itself  forth  from  the  air  in  very  undefined 
outline.  I  can  not  say  it  was  of  a  human  form,  and  yet  it  had  more 
resemblance  to  a  human  form,  or  rather  shadow,  than  to  anything  else. 
As  it  stood,  wholly  apart  and  distinct  from  the  air  and  the  light  around 
it,  its  dimensions  seemed  gigantic,  the  summit  nearly  touching  the 
ceiling.  While  I  gazed,  a  feeling  of  intense  cold  seized  me.  An  iceberg 
before  me  could  not  more  have  chilled  me;  nor  could  the  cold  of  an 
iceberg  have  been  more  purely  physical.  I  feel  convinced  that  it  was 
not  the  cold  caused  by  fear.  As  I  continued  to  gaze,  I  thought— but 
this  I  can  not  say  with  precision— that  I  distinguished  two  eyes  looking 
down  on  me  from  the  height.  One  moment  I  fancied  that  I  distin- 
guished them  clearly,  the  next  they  seemed  gone;  but  still  two  rays  of 
a  pale-blue  light  frequently  shot  through  the  darkness,  as  from  the 
height  on  which  I  half-believed,  half-doubted,  that  I  had  encountered 
the  eyes. 

I  strove  to  speak— my  voice  utterly  failed  me;  I  could  only  think  to 
myself:  "Is  this  fear?  it  is  not  fear!"  I  strove  to  rise— in  vain;  I  felt  as 
if  weighed  down  by  an  irresistible  force.  Indeed,  my  impression  was 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  477 

that  of  an  immense  and  overwhelming  power  opposed  to  my  volition— 
that  sense  of  utter  inadequacy  to  cope  with  a  force  beyond  man's,  which 
one  may  feel  physically  in  a  storm  at  sea,  in  a  conflagration,  or  when 
confronting  some  terrible  wild  beast,  or  rather,  perhaps,  the  shark  of 
the  ocean,  I  felt  morally.  Opposed  to  my  will  was  another  will,  as  far 
superior  to  its  strength  as  storm,  fire,  and  shark  are  superior  in  material 
force  to  the  force  of  man. 

And  now,  as  this  impression  grew  on  me— now  came,  at  last,  horror- 
horror  to  a  degree  that  no  words  can  convey.  Still  I  retained  pride,  if 
not  courage;  and  in  my  own  mind  I  said:  'This  is  horror,  but  it  is  not 
fear;  unless  I  fear  I  can  not  be  harmed;  my  reason  rejects  this  thing;  it 
is  an  illusion— I  do  not  fear."  With  a  violent  effort  I  succeeded  at  last 
in  stretching  out  my  hand  toward  the  weapon  on  the  table:  as  I  did  so, 
on  the  arm  and  shoulder  I  received  a  strange  shock,  and  my  arm  fell  to 
my  side  powerless.  And  now,  to  add  to  my  horror,  the  light  began 
slowly  to  wane  from  the  candles— they  were  not,  as  it  were,  extinguished, 
but  their  flame  seemed  very  gradually  withdrawn;  it  was  the  same  with 
the  fire— the  light  was  extracted  with  the  fuel;  in  a  few  minutes  the 
room  was  in  utter  darkness.  The  dread  that  came  over  me,  to  be  thus 
in  the  dark,  with  that  dark  Thing,  whose  power  was  so  intensely  felt, 
brought  a  reaction  of  nerve.  In  fact,  terror  had  reached  that  climax, 
that  either  my  senses  must  have  deserted  me,  or  I  must  have  burst 
through  the  spell.  I  did  burst  through  it.  I  found  voice,  though  the 
voice  was  a  shriek. 

EDWARD  BULWER-LYTTON,  The  House  and  the  Brain 

29.  When  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  becomes  necessary  for 
one  people  to  dissolve  the  political  bands  which  have  connected  them 
with  one  another,  and  to  assume  among  the  powers  of  the  earth  the 
separate  and  equal  station  to  which  the  Laws  of  Nature  and  of  Nature's 
God  entitle  them,  a  decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind  re- 
quires that  they  should  declare  the  causes  which  impel  them  to  the 
separation. 

We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created 
equal,  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable 
Rights,  that  among  these  are  Life,  Liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness.— That  to  secure  these  rights,  Governments  are  instituted  among 
Men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed. — 
That  whenever  any  Form  of  Government  becomes  destructive  of  these 
ends,  it  is  the  Right  of  the  People  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it,  and  to  insti- 
tute new  Government,  laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles  and 
organizing  its  powers  in  such  form,  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely 


478  Reading  to  Others 

to  effect  their  Safety  and  Happiness.  Prudence,  indeed,  will  dictate 
that  Governments  long  established  should  not  be  changed  for  light  and 
transient  causes;  and  accordingly  all  experience  hath  shewn,  that  man- 
kind are  more  disposed  to  suffer,  while  evils  are  sufferable,  than  to  right 
themselves  by  abolishing  the  forms  to  which  they  are  accustomed.  But 
when  a  long  train  of  abuses  and  usurpations,  begun  at  a  distinguished 
period,  pursuing  invariably  the  same  Object,  evinces  a  design  to  reduce 
them  under  absolute  Despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty,  to 
throw  off  such  Government,  and  to  provide  new  Guards  for  their  future 
security. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON,  Declaration  of  Independence 

30.  In  proportion  as  I  drew  near  the  city,  the  tokens  of  its  calamitous 
condition  became  more  apparent.  Every  farmhouse  was  filled  with 
supernumerary  tenants,  fugitives  from  home,  and  haunting  the  skirts 
of  the  road,  eager  to  detain  every  passenger  with  inquiries  after  news. 
The  passengers  were  numerous;  for  the  tide  of  emigration  was  by  no 
means  exhausted.  Some  were  on  foot,  bearing  in  their  countenances  the 
tokens  of  their  recent  terror,  and  filled  with  mournful  reflections  on  the 
forlornness  of  their  state.  Few  had  secured  to  themselves  an  asylum; 
some  were  without  the  means  of  paying  for  victuals  or  lodging  for  the 
coming  night;  others,  who  were  not  thus  destitute,  yet  knew  not  whither 
to  apply  for  entertainment,  every  house  being  already  overstocked  with 
inhabitants,  or  barring  its  inhospitable  doors  at  their  approach. 

Families  of  weeping  mothers  and  dismayed  children,  attended  with  a 
few  pieces  of  indispensable  furniture,  were  carried  in  vehicles  of  every 
form.  The  parent  or  husband  had  perished;  and  the  price  of  some  mov- 
able, or  the  pittance  handed  forth  by  public  charity,  had  been  expended 
to  purchase  the  means  of  retiring  from  this  theater  of  disasters,  though 
uncertain  and  hopeless  of  accommodation  in  the  neighboring  districts. 

Between  these  and  the  fugitives  whom  curiosity  had  led  to  the  road, 
dialogues  frequently  took  place,  to  which  I  was  suffered  to  listen.  From 
every  mouth  the  tale  of  sorrow  was  repeated  with  new  aggravations. 
Pictures  of  their  own  distress,  or  of  that  of  their  neighbors,  were  exhib- 
ited in  all  the  hues  which  imagination  can  annex  to  pestilence  and 
poverty. 

My  preconceptions  of  the  evil  now  appeared  to  have  fallen  short  of 
the  truth.  The  dangers  into  which  I  was  rushing  seemed  more  nu- 
merous and  imminent  than  I  had  previously  imagined.  I  wavered  not 
in  my  purpose.  A  panic  crept  to  my  heart,  which  more  vehement  exer- 
tions were  necessary  to  subdue  or  control;  but  I  harbored  not  a  mo- 
mentary doubt  that  the  course  which  I  had  taken  was  prescribed  by 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  479 

duty.  There  was  no  difficulty  or  reluctance  in  proceeding.  All  for  which 
my  efforts  were  demanded  was  to  walk  in  this  path  without  tumult  or 
alarm. 

Various  circumstances  had  hindered  me  from  setting  out  upon  this 
journey  as  early  as  was  proper.  My  frequent  pauses  to  listen  to  the  narra- 
tives of  travellers  contributed  likewise  to  procrastination.  The  sun  had 
nearly  set  before  I  reached  the  precincts  of  the  city.  I  pursued  the  track 
which  I  had  formerly  taken,  and  entered  High  Street  after  nightfall. 
Instead  of  equipages  and  a  throng  of  passengers,  the  voice  of  levity  and 
glee,  which  I  had  formerly  observed,  and  which  the  mildness  of  the 
season  would  at  other  times  have  produced,  I  found  nothing  but  a  dreary 
solitude. 

The  market-place,  and  each  side  of  this  magnificent  avenue,  were 
illuminated,  as  before,  by  lamps;  but  between  the  verge  of  Schuylkill 
and  the  heart  of  the  city,  I  met  not  more  than  a  dozen  figures,  and  these 
were  ghost-like,  wrapped  in  cloaks,  from  behind  which  they  cast  upon 
me  glances  of  wonder  and  suspicion,  and,  as  I  approached,  changed  their 
course,  to  avoid  touching  me.  Their  clothes  were  sprinkled  with  vinegar, 
and  their  nostrils  defended  from  contagion  by  some  powerful  perfume. 

CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN,  Arthur  Mervyn 

31.  There  seemed  no  sign  of  common  bodily  illness  about  him,  nor  of 
the  recovery  from  any.  He  looked  like  a  man  cut  away  from  the  stake, 
when  the  fire  has  overrunningly  wasted  all  the  limbs  without  consuming 
them,  or  taking  away  one  particle  from  their  compacted  aged  robustness. 
His  whole  high,  broad  form  seemed  made  of  solid  bronze,  and  shaped  in 
an  unalterable  mould,  like  Cellini's  cast  Perseus.  Threading  its  way  out 
from  among  his  grey  hairs,  and  continuing  right  down  one  side  of  his 
tawny  scorched  face  and  neck,  till  it  disappeared  in  his  clothing,  you 
saw  a  slender  rod-like  mark,  lividly  whitish.  It  resembled  that  per- 
pendicular seam  sometimes  made  in  the  straight,  lofty  trunk  of  a  great 
tree,  when  the  upper  lightning  tearingly  darts  down  it,  and  without 
wrenching  a  single  twig,  peels  and  grooves  out  the  bark  from  top  to 
bottom  ere  running  off  into  the  soil,  leaving  the  tree  still  greenly  alive, 
but  branded.  Whether  that  mark  was  born  with  him,  or  whether  it 
was  the  scar  left  by  some  desperate  wound,  no  one  could  certainly  say. 
By  some  tacit  consent,  throughout  the  voyage  little  or  no  allusion  was 
made  to  it,  especially  by  the  mates.  But  once  Tachtego's  senior,  an  old 
Gay-Head  Indian  among  the  crew,  superstitiously  asserted  that  not  till 
he  was  full  forty  years  old  did  Ahab  become  that  way  branded,  and 
then  it  came  upon  him,  not  in  the  fury  of  any  mortal  fray,  but  in  an 
elemental  strife  at  sea.  Yet,  this  wild  hint  seemed  inferentially  nega- 


480  Reading  to  Others 

tived,  by  what  a  grey  Manxman  insinuated,  an  old  sepulchral  man,  who, 
having  never  before  sailed  out  of  Nantucket,  had  never  ere  this  laid  eye 
upon  wild  Ahab.  Nevertheless,  the  old  sea-traditions,  the  immemorial 
credulities,  popularly  invested  this  old  Manxman  with  preternatural 
powers  of  discernment.  So  that  no  white  sailor  seriously  contradicted 
him  when  he  said  that  if  ever  Captain  Ahab  should  be  tranquilly  laid 
out— which  might  hardly  come  to  pass,  so  he  muttered— then,  whoever 
should  do  that  last  office  for  the  dead,  would  find  a  birth  mark  on  him 
from  crown  to  sole. 

So  powerfully  did  the  whole  grim  aspect  of  Ahab  affect  me,  and  the 
livid  brand  which  streaked  it,  that  for  the  first  few  moments  I  hardly 
noted  that  not  a  little  of  this  overbearing  grimness  was  owing  to  the 
barbaric  white  leg  upon  which  he  partly  stood.  It  had  previously  come 
to  me  that  this  ivory  leg  had  at  sea  been  fashioned  from  the  polished 
bone  of  the  sperm  whale's  jaw.  "Aye,  he  was  dismasted  off  Japan,"  said 
the  old  Gay-Head  Indian  once;  "but  like  his  dismasted  craft,  he  shipped 
another  mast  without  coming  home  for  it.  He  has  a  quiver  of  'em/' 

I  was  struck  with  the  singular  posture  he  maintained.  Upon  each 
side  of  the  Pequod's  quarter  deck,  and  pretty  close  to  the  mizzen  shrouds, 
there  was  an  auger  hole,  bored  about  half  an  inch  or  so,  into  the  plank. 
His  bone  leg  steadied  in  that  hole;  one  arm  elevated,  and  holding  by  a 
shroud;  Captain  Ahab  stood  erect,  looking  straight  out  beyond  the 
ship's  ever-pitching  prow.  There  was  an  infinity  of  firmest  fortitude,  a 
determinate,  unsurrenderable  wilfulness,  in  the  fixed  and  fearless,  for- 
ward dedication  of  that  glance.  Not  a  word  he  spoke;  nor  did  his  officers 
say  aught  to  him;  though  by  all  their  minutest  gestures  and  expressions, 
they  plainly  showed  the  uneasy,  if  not  painful,  consciousness  of  being 
under  a  troubled  master-eye.  And  not  only  that,  but  moody  stricken 
Ahab  stood  before  them  with  a  crucifixion  in  his  face;  in  all  the  name- 
less regal  overbearing  dignity  of  some  mighty  woe. 

HERMAN  MELVILLE,  Moby  Dick 

32.  Barker's  widowed  sister,  Mrs.  Tremaine,  whose  husband  had  been 
a  drunkard  and  a  doctor,  was  his  housekeeper  (when  she  was  at  home, 
which  was  seldom  the  case).  I  believe  she  was  originally  called  Betts, 
or  Bett,  but  this  was  shortened  to  B.,  and  by  this  name  she  was  generally 
known.  It  was  understood  that  Dr.  Tremaine  had  been  unkind  to  her 
before  his  death,  and  that  their  married  life  had  been  very  miserable, 
though  I  never  heard  either  Barker  or  herself  say  so.  But  such  was  gen- 
erally thought  to  be  the  case  nevertheless,  for  certainly  the  excellent 
woman  had  had  trouble.  It  was  also  understood  that  he  died  in  drink, 
probably  from  catching  fire  on  the  inside,  and  that  with  his  last  breath 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  481 

he  referred  to  his  wife  as  a  snake,  and  to  his  neighbors  as  devils.  This 
impression,  like  the  other  one  with  reference  to  his  disposition,  had  no 
foundation  I  ever  heard  of  except  that  his  relict  worried  a  great  deal 
about  people  who  were  going  to  ruin  from  drink.  We  supposed,  of 
course,  that  she  was  prompted  to  this  by  the  memory  of  her  late  hus- 
band, as  she  was  prompted  to  insist  on  everybody's  being  religious  by 
the  wickedness  of  her  brother,  the  miller.  Having  no  other  place  to  go 
after  her  husband's  death,  she  determined  to  move  West  and  live  with 
her  brother.  Although  there  was  not  a  drunkard  in  the  county,  she  im- 
mediately began  a  war  on  rum,  and  when  I  first  encountered  the  words 
"Delirium  Tremens,"  in  connection  with  drunkenness,  I  remember 
thinking  I  was  acquainted  with  his  widow. 

Next  to  her  desire  to  save  everybody  from  drunkenness,  she  wanted 
to  save  everybody  from  sin,  and  spent  most  of  her  time  in  discussing 
these  two  questions;  but  she  had  little  opposition,  for  everybody  in  that 
country  was  religious  as  well  as  temperate.  When  she  became  acquainted 
with  the  Rev.  John  Westlock  she  at  once  hailed  him  as  a  man  raised  up 
to  do  a  great  work,  and  was  always  with  him  in  the  meetings  he  held  in 
different  places,  nothing  being  thought  of  it  if  he  took  her  with  him 
and  brought  her  back  again. 

Together  they  established  a  lodge  of  Good  Templars  at  Fairview, 
although  the  people  were  all  sober  and  temperate,  and  once  a  week  they 
met  to  call  upon  the  fallen  brother  to  shun  the  cup,  and  to  redeem  the 
country  from  debauchery  and  vice.  Barker  said  they  spent  one-half  the 
evening  in  "opening"  and  the  other  half  in  "closing."  Barker  often 
criticized  her,  half  in  jest  and  half  in  earnest,  and  once  when  Jo  and  I  were 
at  his  house  for  dinner,  and  something  had  been  lost,  he  remarked 
that  if  B.  were  as  familiar  with  her  home  as  she  was  familiar  with  the 
number  of  gallons  of  liquor  consumed  annually,  or  with  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  things  would  be  more  comfortable.  I  think  he  disliked  her 
because  she  paid  so  much  attention  to  other  people's  faults  and  so  little 
to  her  own. 

E.  W.  HOWE,  The  Story  of  a  Country  Town 

33.  Nautilus  was  one  of  the  first  communities  in  the  country  to  de- 
velop the  Weeks  habit,  now  so  richly  grown  that  we  have  Correspond- 
ence School  Week,  Christian  Science  Week,  Osteopathy  Week,  and 
Georgia  Pine  Week. 

A  Week  is  not  merely  a  week. 

If  an  aggressive,  wide-awake,  live-wire,  and  go-ahead  church  or  cham- 
ber of  commerce  or  charity  desires  to  improve  itself,  which  means  to 
get  more  money,  it  calls  in  those  few  energetic  spirits  who  run  any  city, 


482  Reading  to  Others 

and  proclaims  a  Week.  This  consists  of  one  month  of  committee  meet- 
ings, a  hundred  columns  of  praise  for  the  organization  in  the  public 
prints,  and  finally  a  day  or  two  on  which  athletic  persons  flatter  in- 
appreciative  audiences  in  churches  or  cinema  theaters,  and  the  prettiest 
girls  in  town  have  the  pleasure  of  being  allowed  to  talk  to  male  stran- 
gers on  the  street  corners,  apropos  of  giving  them  extremely  undecora- 
tive  tags  in  exchange  for  the  smallest  sums  which  these  strangers  think 
they  must  pay  if  they  are  to  be  considered  gentlemen. 

The  only  variation  is  the  Weeks  in  which  the  object  is  not  to  acquire 
money  immediately  by  the  sale  of  tags  but  by  general  advertising  to 
get  more  of  it  later. 

Nautilus  had  held  a  Pep  Week,  during  which  a  race  of  rapidly  talking 
men,  formerly  book-agents,  but  now  called  Efficiency  Engineers,  went 
about  giving  advice  to  shopkeepers  on  how  to  get  money  away  from  one 
another  more  rapidly,  and  Dr.  Almus  Pickerbaugh  addressed  a  prayer- 
meeting  on  'The  Pep  of  St.  Paul,  the  First  Booster."  It  had  held  a 
Gladhand  Week,  when  everybody  was  supposed  to  speak  to  at  least 
three  strangers  daily,  to  the  end  that  infuriated  elderly  travelling  sales- 
men were  back-slapped  all  day  long  by  hearty  and  powerful  unknown 
persons.  There  had  also  been  an  Old  Home  Week,  a  Write  to  Mother 
Week,  a  We  Want  Your  Factory  in  Nautilus  Week,  an  Eat  More  Corn 
Week,  a  Go  to  Church  Week,  a  Salvation  Army  Week,  and  an  Own 
Your  Own  Auto  Week. 

Perhaps  the  bonniest  of  all  was  Y.  Week,  to  raise  eighty  thousand 
dollars  for  a  new  Y.  M.  C.  A.  building. 

On  the  old  building  were  electric  signs,  changed  daily,  announcing 
"You  Must  Come  Across,"  "Young  Man,  Come  Along"  and  "Your 
Money  Creates  'Appiness."  Dr.  Pickerbaugh  made  nineteen  addresses 
in  three  days,  comparing  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  to  the  Crusaders,  the  Apostles, 
and  the  expeditions  of  Dr.  Cook— who,  he  believed,  really  had  dis- 
covered the  North  Pole.  Orchid  sold  three  hundred  and  nineteen  Y. 
tags,  seven  of  them  to  the  same  man,  who  afterward  made  improper 
remarks  to  her.  She  was  rescued  by  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  secretary,  who  for  a 
considerable  time  held  her  hand  to  calm  her. 

No  organization  could  rival  Almus  Pickerbaugh  in  the  invention  of 
Weeks. 

He  started  in  January  with  a  Better  Babies  Week,  and  a  very  good 
week  it  was,  but  so  hotly  followed  by  Banish  the  Booze  Week,  Tougher 
Tooth  Week,  and  Stop  the  Spitter  Week  that  people  who  lacked  his 
vigor  were  heard  groaning,  "My  health  is  being  ruined  by  all  this  fret- 
ting over  health." 

SINCLAIR  LEWIS,  Arrowsmith 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  483 

34.  In  a  village  dwelt  a  poor  old  woman,  who  had  gathered  together 
a  dish  of  beans  and  wanted  to  cook  them.  So  she  made  a  fire  on  her 
hearth,  and  that  it  might  burn  the  quicker,  she  lighted  it  with  a  handful 
of  straw.  When  she  was  emptying  the  beans  into  the  pan,  one  dropped 
without  her  observing  it  and  lay  on  the  ground  beside  a  straw,  and  soon 
afterwards  a  burning  coal  from  the  fire  leapt  down  to  the  two.  Then 
the  straw  began  and  said,  "Dear  friends,  from  whence  do  you  come 
here?"  The  coal  replied,  "I  fortunately  sprang  out  of  the  fire,  and  if  I 
had  not  escaped  by  main  force,  my  death  would  have  been  certain— I 
should  have  been  burnt  to  ashes/'  The  bean  said,  "I  too  have  escaped 
with  a  whole  skin,  but  if  the  old  woman  had  got  me  into  the  pan,  I 
should  have  been  made  into  broth  without  any  mercy  like  my  com- 
rades/' "And  would  a  better  fate  have  fallen  to  my  lot?"  said  the  straw. 
"The  old  woman  has  destroyed  all  my  brethren  in  fire  and  smoke;  she 
seized  sixty  of  them  at  once,  and  took  their  lives.  I  luckily  slipped 
through  her  fingers/' 

"But  what  are  we  to  do  now?"  said  the  coal. 

"I  think,"  answered  the  bean,  "that  as  we  have  so  fortunately  escaped 
death,  we  should  keep  together  like  good  companions,  and  lest  a  new 
mischance  should  overtake  us  here,  we  should  go  away  together,  and 
repair  to  a  foreign  country." 

The  proposal  pleased  the  two  others,  and  they  set  out  on  their  way 
in  company.  Soon,  however,  they  came  to  a  little  brook,  and  as  there 
was  no  bridge  or  foot-plank,  they  did  not  know  how  they  were  to  get 
over  it.  The  straw  hit  on  a  good  idea,  and  said,  "I  will  lay  myself 
straight  across,  and  then  you  can  walk  over  on  me  as  on  a  bridge."  The 
straw  therefore  stretched  itself  from  one  bank  to  the  other,  and  the  coal, 
who  was  of  an  impetuous  disposition,  tripped  quite  boldly  on  to  the  newly 
built  bridge.  But  when  she  had  reached  the  middle  and  heard  the  water 
rushing  beneath  her,  she  was,  after  all,  afraid  and  stood  still  and  ven- 
tured no  farther.  The  straw,  however,  began  to  burn,  broke  in  two 
pieces,  and  fell  into  the  stream.  The  coal  slipped  after  her,  hissed  when 
she  got  into  the  water,  and  breathed  her  last.  The  bean,  who  had 
prudently  stayed  behind  on  the  shore,  could  not  but  laugh  at  the  event, 
was  unable  to  stop,  and  laughed  so  heartily  that  she  burst.  It  would 
have  been  all  over  with  her,  likewise,  if,  by  good  fortune,  a  tailor  who 
was  travelling  in  search  of  work  had  not  sat  down  to  rest  by  the  brook. 
As  he  had  a  compassionate  heart,  he  pulled  out  his  needle  and  thread 
and  sewed  her  together.  The  bean  thanked  him  most  prettily,  but  as 
the  tailor  used  black  thread,  all  beans  since  then  have  a  black  seam. 

GRIMM'S  HOUSEHOLD  TALES, 
The  Straw,  the  Coal,  and  the  Bean 


484  Reading  to  Others 

35.  The  flat  county  schoolhouse,  built  of  brown  sandstone  which  had 
been  carved  out  of  the  hills  nearby,  was  crowded  with  people.    They 
had  come  from  many  miles  around  to  hear  ''the  speaking  at  the  school." 
The  occasion  was  rather  a  solemn  one,  for  it  had  to  take  the  place  of 
the  church  service  customary  at  that  hour,  eleven  o'clock  on  a  Sunday 
morning.   On  the  stage  sat  the  ladies'  and  men's  clubs  of  the  church, 
responsible  for  the  success  of  the  gathering.   Some  of  the  men  were  in 
shirt-sleeves;  most,  however,  had  on  the  dark,  badly  fitting  suits  sacred 
to  farmers'  Sundays.  On  all  who  wore  vests  were  colossal  watch  chains. 
The  women,  tremendously  fluttered  by  their  importance,  sat  self-con- 
sciously, purple  lips  pursed,  in  front  of  a  gaudy  backdrop.   These  were 
one  kind  of  the  Southern  agrarians  about  whom  books  have  been  written 
during  the  past  few  years.  They  did  not  seem  to  be  aware  of  the  sanctity 
inherent  in  the  soil;  perhaps  they  were  less  interested  in  the  back-to-the- 
land  movement  than  in  their  own  hard  times.   Not  many  years  before, 
these  same  people  had  supported  the  legislature  which  passed  and  later 
confirmed  the  famous  Tennessee  anti-evolution  law.  Their  friendliness 
now  to  the  liberalism  that  Mr.  Thomas  has  always  represented  was  the 
result  of  many  lean  days,  not,  probably,  of  any  change  of  standards. 

Norman  Thomas  took  his  place  at  the  front,  concealing  a  smile  at 
the  wryly  draped  crepe  paper  on  his  chair.  He  is  a  tall  man,  pleasantly 
awkward.  His  retreating  hair,  the  color  of  aluminum  dust,  leaves  wide 
a  smooth  forehead,  nearly  unlined,  except  for  two  vertical  creases  above 
his  beautiful  nose.  Indeed,  all  of  Norman  Thomas's  lines  are  vertical 
ones:  his  dolichocephalic  head,  the  strong  cheek  lines,  his  long,  well- 
shaped  body.  As  he  speaks,  his  eyes  shine  with  a  remarkably  clear,  blue 
kindliness,  and  his  smile  runs  crookedly  up  the  right  side  of  his  mouth. 
There  is  about  him  the  radiant,  direct  light  of  gentle  fanaticism.  His 
voice  is  deep,  and  he  sometimes  mockingly  makes  it  deeper,  imitating 
the  reactionary  orators  of  the  other  parties. 

ANTON  THORWALD,  A  Day  in  Tennessee  with 
Norman  Thomas 

36.  Dominant  in  the  literature  of  the  Victorian  period  was  a  spirit 
of  social  unrest  and  skepticism  and  reform,  closely  paralleling  the  devel- 
opment of  philosophical  and  economic  thought.   Among  the  strongest 
forces  in  the  fight  for  social  justice  were  the  novels  of  Dickens  and  Mrs. 
Gaskell  and  Charles  Kingsley  and  George  Eliot.  This  consciousness  of 
social   responsibility  found  expression   in  the  poetry  and  essays  and 
plays  of  the  period,  as  well  as  in  the  novels— in  the  writing  of  Carlyle, 
Browning,   Newman,  Tennyson,   Ruskin,  Arnold,   Morris,   and   many 
others.   Arnold's  dictum  that  poetry  is  the  criticism  of  life  was  often 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  485 

taken  more  literally  than  he  intended.  The  early  passionate  romanti- 
cism of  Keats  and  Byron  and  the  pronouncements  from  Wordsworth's 
ivory  tower  had  been  replaced  by  the  moral  earnestness  of  Vic- 
torian literature.  Carlyle  cried  out  in  gnarly  phrases  against  the  insin- 
cerity of  a  mechanized  age,  and  writhed  under  the  opposite  compulsions 
of  the  Everlasting  No  and  the  Everlasting  Yea.  Tennyson  wrestled  with 
the  inchoate  doctrine  of  evolution  and  fought  against  the  materialism 
which  threatened  to  destroy  not  only  religion  but  art,  finally  forcing 
peace  and  faith  from  doubt  and  confusion.  In  one  poem  he  took  up 
the  question  of  higher  education  for  women,  and  in  another  piously 
showed  that  though  "social  lies"  "warp  us  from  the  living  truth/' 

Yet  I  doubt  not  through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  with  the  process  of  the  suns. 

Dickens  graphically  pointed  out  abuses  in  the  penal  system,  in  charity 
schools,  in  child  labor,  in  the  law  courts.  Ruskin  was  the  advocate  of  a 
system  of  esthetics  based  on  socialism.  He  was  the  sponsor  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelites,  a  group  of  young  writers  and  painters,  including  the  Ros- 
settis,  Morris,  Burne-Joncs,  arid  others,  who  sought  escape  from  mate- 
rialism in  a  sort  of  medieval,  sophisticated  simplicity.  Matthew  Arnold 
tried  to  inculcate  sweetness  and  light  into  a  world  whose  brutality  he 
regarded  with  stoic  dejection. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  century  came  a  revolt  against  the  Victorian 
obsession  with  social  and  religious  problems  in  literature.  Growing  out 
of  the  principles  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites  arose  a  strong  interest  in  art  for 
art's  sake.  This  was  the  period  of  The  Yellow  Book  and  Oscar  Wilde 
and  Walter  Pater  and  Impressionism  in  painting.  At  the  same  time, 
Continental  literature  began  to  be  fashionable:  the  "realism"  of  Flaubert 
and  Maupassant  and  Zola  and  Turgenev  was  preferred  to  the  "romanti- 
cism" of  Scott  and  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  Critics  became  aware  of 
"style,"  and  the  exquisite  craftsmanship  of  the  French  school  was  much 
admired. 

Shaw,  Meredith,  Hardy,  and  Butler  had  long  since  begun  their  attack 
on  Victorianism.  As  early  as  1869  Meredith  had  dared  to  say  about  the 
exemplar  of  Victorian  virtue,  the  Poet  Laureate,  Tennyson,  "Isn't  there 
a  scent  of  damned  hypocrisy  in  all  this  lisping  and  vowelled  purity  of 
the  Idylls/"  The  two  influences  that  were  born  in  this  revolt  against 
subjective  romanticism  were  the  French  interest  in  structure  and  style 
and  the  Russian  tendency  towards  "naturalistic"  treatment— the  stress- 
ing of  the  grim  elements  of  realism,  together  with  a  gradual  abandon- 
ment of  firm  construction. 

ALBERT  TIMMONS,  The  End  of  the  Century 


486  Reading  to  Others 

37.  As  they  were  discoursing,  they  discovered  some  thirty  or  forty 
windmills,  that  are  in  that  plain;  and  as  soon  as  the  knight  had  spied 
them,  "Fortune/'  cried  he,  "directs  our  affairs  better  than  we  ourselves 
could  have  wished:  look  yonder,  friend  Sancho;  there  are  at  least  thirty 
outrageous  giants,  whom  I  intend  to  encounter;  and  having  deprived 
them  of  life,  we  will  begin  to  enrich  ourselves  with  their  spoils :  for  they 
are  lawful  prize,  and  the  extirpation  of  that  cursed  brood  will  be  an 
acceptable  service  to  Heaven/' 

"What  giants?"  quoth  Sancho  Panza. 

"Those  whom  thou  seest  yonder/'  answered  Don  Quixote,  "with  their 
long,  extended  arms.  Some  of  that  detested  race  have  arms  of  so  im- 
mense a  size,  that  sometimes  they  reach  two  leagues  in  length." 

"Pray  look  better,  sir/'  quoth  Sancho:  "those  things  yonder  are  no 
giants,  but  windmills;  and  the  arms  you  fancy  are  their  sails,  which, 
being  whirled  about  by  the  wind,  make  the  mill  go/' 

"Tis  a  sign/'  cried  Don  Quixote,  "that  thou  art  but  little  acquainted 
with  adventures!  I  tell  thee,  they  are  giants:  and  therefore,  if  thou  art 
afraid,  go  aside  and  say  thy  prayers,  for  I  am  resolved  to  engage  in  a 
dreadful  unequal  combat  against  them  all." 

This  said,  he  clapped  spurs  to  his  horse  Rozinante,  without  giving 
ear  to  his  squire  Sancho,  who  bawled  out  to  him,  and  assured  him  that 
they  were  windmills,  and  no  giants.  But  he  was  so  fully  possessed  with 
a  strong  conceit  of  the  contrary,  that  he  did  not  so  much  as  hear  his 
squire's  outcry,  nor  was  he  sensible  of  what  they  were,  although  he  was 
already  very  near  them:  far  from  that,  "Stand,  cowards!"  cried  he,  as  loud 
as  he  coulcl;  "stand  your  ground,  ignoble  creatures,  and  fly  not  basely 
from  a  single  knight,  who  dares  encounter  you  all."  At  the  same  time 
the  wind  rising,  the  mill-sails  began  to  move,  which  when  Don  Quixote 
spied,  "Base  miscreants!"  cried  he,  "though  you  move  more  arms  than 
the  giant  Briareus,  you  shall  pay  for  your  arrogance." 

He  most  devoutly  recommended  himself  to  his  Lady  Dulcinea,  im- 
ploring her  assistance  in  this  perilous  adventure;  and  so  covering  himself 
with  the  shield,  and  couching  his  lance,  he  rushed  with  Rozinante's 
utmost  speed  upon  the  first  windmill  he  could  come  at,  and  running 
his  lance  into  the  sail,  the  wind  whirled  it  about  with  such  swiftness, 
that  the  rapidity  of  the  motion  presently  broke  the  lance  into  shivers, 
and  hurled  away  both  knight  and  horse  along  with  it,  till  down  he  fell, 
rolling  a  good  way  off  in  the  field.  Sancho  Panza  ran  as  fast  as  his  ass 
could  drive  to  help  his  master,  whom  he  found  lying,  and  not  able  to 
stir,  such  a  blow  he  and  Rozinante  had  received.  "Mercy  o'me!"  cried 
Sancho,  "did  not  I  give  your  worship  fair  warning?  Did  not  I  tell  you 
they  were  windmills,  and  that  nobody  could  think  otherwise,  unless  he 
had  also  windmills  in  his  head?" 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  487 

"Peace,  friend  Sancho,"  replied  Don  Quixote:  "there  is  nothing  so 
subject  to  the  inconstancy  of  fortune  as  war.  I  am  verily  persuaded, 
that  cursed  necromancer  Freston,  who  carried  away  my  study  and  my 
books,  has  transformed  these  giants  into  windmills,  to  deprive  me  of  the 
honour  of  the  victory;  such  is  his  inveterate  malice  against  me:  but  in 
the  end,  all  his  pernicious  wiles  and  stratagems  shall  prove  ineffectual 
against  the  prevailing  edge  of  my  sword/' 

"Amen,  say  I,"  replied  Sancho.  And  so  heaving  him  up  again  upon 
his  legs,  once  more  the  knight  mounted  poor  Rozinante,  that  was  half 
shoulder-slipped  with  his  fall. 

CERVANTES,  Don  Quixote 

38.  Old  Henry  Reifsneider  and  his  wife  Phoebe  were  a  loving  couple. 
You  perhaps  know  how  it  is  with  simple  natures  that  fasten  themselves 
like  lichens  on  the  stones  of  circumstance  and  weather  their  days  to  a 
crumbling  conclusion.  The  great  world  sounds  widely,  but  it  has  no 
call  for  them.  They  have  no  soaring  intellect.  The  orchard,  the  meadow, 
the  corn-field,  the  pig-pen,  and  the  chicken-lot  measure  the  range  of 
their  human  activities.  When  the  wheat  is  headed  it  is  reaped  and 
threshed;  when  the  corn  is  browned  and  frosted  it  is  cut  and  shocked; 
when  the  timothy  is  in  full  head  it  is  cut,  and  the  haycock  erected. 
After  that  comes  winter,  with  the  hauling  of  grain  to  market,  the  saw- 
ing and  splitting  of  wood,  the  simple  chores  of  fire-building,  meal- 
getting,  occasional  repairing  and  visiting.  Beyond  these  and  the  changes 
of  weather — the  snows,  the  rains,  and  the  fair  days — there  are  no  imme- 
diate, significant  things.  All  the  rest  of  life  is  a  far-off,  clamorous  phan- 
tasmagoria, flickering  like  Northern  lights  in  the  night,  and  sounding  as 
faintly  as  cow-bells  tinkling  in  the  distance. 

Old  Henry  and  his  wife  Phoebe  were  as  fond  of  each  other  as  it  is 
possible  for  two  old  people  to  be  who  have  nothing  else  in  this  life  to 
be  fond  of.  He  was  a  thin  old  man,  seventy  when  she  died,  a  queer, 
crotchety  person  with  coarse  gray-black  hair  and  a  beard,  quite  straggly 
and  unkempt.  He  looked  at  you  out  of  dull,  fishy,  watery  eyes  that  had 
deep-brown  crow's-feet  at  the  sides.  His  clothes,  like  the  clothes  of 
many  farmers,  were  aged  and  angular  and  baggy,  standing  out  at  the 
pockets,  not  fitting  about  the  neck,  protuberant  and  worn  at  elbow  and 
knee.  Phoebe  Ann  was  thin  and  shapeless,  a  very  umbrella  of  a  woman, 
clad  in  shabby  black,  and  with  a  black  bonnet  for  her  best  wear.  As 
time  had  passed,  and  they  had  only  themselves  to  look  after,  their  move- 
ments had  become  slower  and  slower,  their  activities  fewer  and  fewer. 
The  annual  keep  of  pigs  had  been  reduced  from  five  to  one  grunting 
porker,  and  the  single  horse  which  Henry  now  retained  was  a  sleepy  ani- 
mal, not  over-nourished  and  not  very  clean.  The  chickens,  of  which  for- 


488  Reading  to  Others 

merly  there  was  a  large  flock,  had  almost  disappeared,  owing  to  ferrets, 
foxes,  and  the  lack  of  proper  care,  which  produces  disease.  The  former 
healthy  garden  was  now  a  straggling  memory  of  itself,  and  the  vines  and 
flower-beds  that  formerly  ornamented  the  windows  and  dooryard  had 
now  become  choking  thickets.  Yet  these  two  lived  together  in  peace 
and  sympathy,  only  that  now  and  then  old  Henry  would  become  unduly 
cranky,  complaining  almost  invariably  that  something  had  been  neg- 
lected or  mislaid  which  was  of  no  importance. 

THEODORE  DREISER,  The  Lost  Phoebe 

39.  If  it  wasn't  for  Chewing  Gum,  Americans  would  wear  their  teeth 
off  just  hitting  them  against  each  other.  Every  Scientist  has  been  figur- 
ing out  who  the  different  races  descend  from.  I  don't  know  about  the 
other  tribes,  but  I  do  know  that  the  American  Race  descended  from 
the  Cow.  And  Wrigley  was  smart  enough  to  furnish  the  Cud.  He  has 
made  the  whole  World  chew  for  Democracy. 

That's  why  this  subject  touches  me  so  deeply.  I  have  chewed  more 
Gum  than  any  living  Man.  My  Act  on  the  Stage  depended  on  the  grade 
of  Gum  I  chewed.  Lots  of  my  readers  have  seen  me  and  perhaps  noted 
the  poor  quality  of  my  jokes  on  that  particular  night.  Now  I  was  not 
personally  responsible  for  that.  I  just  happened  to  hit  on  a  poor  piece 
of  Gum.  One  can't  always  go  by  the  brand.  There  just  may  be  a  poor 
stick  of  Gum  in  what  otherwise  may  be  a  perfect  package.  It  may  look 
like  the  others  on  the  outside  but  after  you  get  warmed  up  on  it,  why, 
you  will  find  that  it  has  a  flaw  in  it.  And  hence  my  act  would  suffer. 
I  have  always  maintained  that  big  Manufacturers  of  America's  greatest 
necessity  should  have  a  Taster—a  man  who  personally  tries  every  Piece 
of  Gum  put  out. 

Now  lots  of  People  don't  figure  the  lasting  quality  of  Gum.  Why, 
I  have  had  Gum  that  wouldn't  last  you  over  half  a  day,  while  there  are 
others  which  are  like  Wine— they  improve  with  Age. 

I  had  a  certain  piece  of  Gum  once,  which  I  used  to  park  on  the  Mirror 
of  my  dressing  room  after  each  show.  Why,  you  don't  know  what  a 
pleasure  it  was  to  chew  that  Gum.  It  had  a  kick,  or  spring  to  it,  that  you 
don't  find  once  in  a  thousand  Packages.  I  have  always  thought  it  must 
have  been  made  for  Wrigley  himself. 

And  say,  what  jokes  I  thought  of  while  chewing  that  Gum!  Ziegfeld 
himself  couldn't  understand  what  had  put  such  life  and  Humor  into 
my  Work. 

Then  one  night  it  was  stolen,  and  another  piece  was  substituted  in 
its  place,  but  the  minute  I  started  in  to  work  on  this  other  Piece  I  knew 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  489 

that  someone  had  made  a  switch.  I  knew  this  was  a  Fake.  I  hadn't  been 
out  on  the  Stage  3  minutes  until  half  the  audience  were  asleep  and  the 
other  half  were  hissing  me.  So  I  just  want  to  say  you  can't  exercise  too 
much  care  and  judgment  in  the  selection  of  your  Gum,  because  if  it 
acts  that  way  with  me  in  my  work,  it  must  do  the  same  with  others, 
only  they  have  not  made  the  study  of  it  that  I  have.  .  .  . 

Now,  some  Gum  won't  stick  easy.  It's  hard  to  transfer  from  your 
hand  to  the  Chair.  Other  kinds  are  heavy  and  pull  hard.  It's  almost 
impossible  to  remove  them  from  Wood  or  Varnish  without  losing  a 
certain  amount  of  the  Body  of  the  Gum. 

There  is  lots  to  be  said  for  Gum.  This  pet  Piece  of  mine  I  after- 
wards learned  had  been  stolen  by  a  Follies  Show  Girl,  who  two  weeks 
later  married  an  Oil  Millionaire.  WILL  ROGERS,  Prospectus  for 

Remodeled  Chewing  Gum  Corporation" 


40.  My  worthy  booksellers  and  friends,  Messieurs  Dilly  in  the  Poul- 
try, at  whose  hospitable  and  well-covered  table  I  have  seen  a  greater 
number  of  literary  men  than  at  any  other,  except  that  of  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  had  invited  me  to  meet  Mr.  Wilkes  and  some  more  gentle- 
men on  Wednesday,  May  15.  'Tray  (said  I)  let  us  have  Dr.  Johnson." 
—"What!  with  Mr.  Wilkes?  not  for  the  world  (said  Mr.  Edward  Dilly) 
Dr.  Johnson  would  never  forgive  me."—  "Come,  (said  I)  if  you'll  let 
me  negotiate  for  you,  I  will  be  answerable  that  all  shall  go  well."  DILLY. 
"Nay,  if  you  will  take  it  upon  you,  I  am  sure  I  shall  be  very  happy  to 
see  them  both  here." 

Notwithstanding  the  high  veneration  I  entertained  for  Dr.  Johnson, 
I  was  sensible  that  he  was  sometimes  a  little  actuated  by  the  spirit  of 
contradiction,  and  by  means  of  that  I  hoped  I  should  gain  my  point. 
I  was  persuaded  that  if  I  had  come  upon  him  with  a  direct  proposal, 
"Sir,  will  you  dine  in  company  with  Jack  Wilkes?"  he  would  have  flown 
into  a  passion,  and  would  probably  have  answered,  "Dine  with  Jack 
Wilkes,  Sir!  I'd  as  soon  dine  with  Jack  Ketch."  I  therefore,  while  we 
were  sitting  quietly  by  ourselves  at  his  house  in  an  evening,  took  occa- 
sion to  open  my  plan  thus:—  "Mr.  Dilly,  Sir,  sends  his  respectful  com- 
pliments to  you,  and  would  be  happy  if  you  would  do  him  the  honour 
to  dine  with  him  on  Wednesday  next  along  with  me,  as  I  must  soon 
go  to  Scotland."  JOHNSON.  "Sir,  I  am  obliged  to  Mr.  Dilly.  I  will  wait 
upon  him—"  BOSWELL.  "Provided,  Sir,  I  suppose  that  the  company 
which  he  is  to  have,  is  agreeable  to  you."  JOHNSON.  "What  do  you  mean, 
Sir?  What  do  you  take  me  for?  Do  you  think  I  am  so  ignorant  of  the 
world,  as  to  imagine  that  I  am  to  prescribe  to  a  gentleman  what  company 


490  Reading  to  Others 

he  is  to  have  at  his  table?"  BOSWELL.  "I  beg  your  pardon,  Sir,  for  wish- 
ing to  prevent  you  from  meeting  people  whom  you  might  not  like. 
Perhaps  he  may  have  some  of  what  he  calls  his  patriotic  friends  with 
him."  JOHNSON.  "Well,  Sir,  and  what  then?  What  care  I  for  his  patri- 
otic friends?  Poh!"  BOSWELL.  "I  should  not  be  surprised  to  find  Jack 
Wilkes  there."  JOHNSON.  "And  if  Jack  Wilkes  should  be  there,  what 
is  that  to  me,  Sir?  My  dear  friend,  let  us  have  no  more  of  this.  I  am 
sorry  to  be  angry  with  you;  but  really  it  is  treating  me  strangely  to  talk 
to  me  as  if  I  could  not  meet  any  company  whatever,  occasionally." 
BOSWELL.  "Pray  forgive  me,  Sir:  I  meant  well.  But  you  shall  meet  who- 
ever comes,  for  me."  Thus  I  secured  him,  and  told  Dilly  that  he  would 
find  him  very  well  pleased  to  be  one  of  his  guests  on  the  day  appointed. 
Upon  the  much-expected  Wednesday,  I  called  on  him  about  half  an 
hour  before  dinner,  as  I  often  did  when  we  were  to  dine  out  together, 
to  see  that  he  was  ready  in  time,  and  to  accompany  him.  I  found  him 
buffeting  his  books,  as  upon  a  former  occasion,  covered  with  dust,  and 
making  no  preparation  for  going  abroad.  "I low  is  this,  Sir/'  said  I. 
"Don't  you  recollect  that  you  are  to  dine  at  Mr.  Billy's?"  JOHNSON. 
"Sir,  I  did  not  think  of  going  to  Dilly 's:  it  went  out  of  my  head.  1  have 
ordered  dinner  at  home  with  Mrs.  Williams."  BOSWELL.  "But,  my  dear 
Sir,  you  know  you  were  engaged  to  Mr.  Dilly,  and  I  told  him  so.  He 
will  expect  you,  and  will  be  much  disappointed  if  you  don't  come." 
JOHNSON.  "You  must  talk  to  Mrs.  Williams  about  this." 

JAMES  BOSWELL,  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson 

41.  It  happened  one  day  about  noon,  going  towards  my  boat,  I  was 
exceedingly  surprised  with  the  print  of  a  man's  naked  foot  on  the  shore, 
which  was  very  plain  to  be  seen  in  the  sand.  I  stood  like  one  thunder- 
struck, or  as  if  I  had  seen  an  apparition;  I  listened,  I  looked  round  me, 
I  could  hear  nothing,  nor  see  anything!  I  went  up  to  a  rising  ground 
to  look  farther;  I  went  up  the  shore  and  down  the  shore,  but  it  was  all 
one,  I  could  see  no  other  impression  but  that  one.  I  went  to  it  again  to 
see  if  there  were  any  more,  and  to  observe  if  it  might  not  be  my  fancy; 
but  there  was  no  room  for  that,  for  there  was  exactly  the  very  print  of  a 
foot,  toes,  heel,  and  every  part  of  a  foot.  How  it  came  thither  I  knew 
not,  nor  could  in  the  least  imagine.  But  after  innumerable  fluttering 
thoughts,  like  a  man  perfectly  confused  and  out  of  myself,  I  came  home 
to  my  fortification,  not  feeling,  as  we  say,  the  ground  I  went  on,  but 
terrified  to  the  last  degree,  looking  behind  me  at  every  two  or  three  steps, 
mistaking  every  bush  and  tree,  and  fancying  every  stump  at  a  distance 
to  be  a  man.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  describe  how  many  various  shapes 
affrighted  imagination  represented  things  to  me  in;  how  many  wild 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  491 

ideas  were  found  every  moment  in  my  fancy,  and  what  strange  un- 
accountable whimsies  came  into  my  thoughts  by  the  way. 

When  I  came  to  my  castle— for  so  I  think  I  called  it  ever  after  this— 
I  fled  into  it  like  one  pursued.  Whether  I  went  over  by  the  ladder  as 
first  contrived,  or  went  in  at  the  hole  in  the  rock,  which  I  called  a  door, 
I  cannot  remember.  No,  nor  could  I  remember  the  next  morning;  for 
never  frighted  hare  fled  to  cover,  or  fox  to  earth,  with  more  terror  of 
mind  than  I  to  this  retreat. 

I  slept  none  that  night.  The  farther  I  was  from  the  occasion  of  my 
fright,  the  greater  my  apprehensions  were— which  is  something  contrary 
to  the  nature  of  such  things  and  especially  to  the  usual  practice  of  all 
creatures  in  fear.  But  I  was  so  embarrassed  by  my  own  frightful  ideas 
of  the  thing  that  I  formed  nothing  but  dismal  imaginations  to  myself, 
even  though  I  was  now  a  great  way  off  it.  Sometimes  I  fancied  it  must 
be  the  devil;  and  reason  joined  with  me  upon  this  supposition,  for  how 
should  any  other  thing  in  human  shape  come  into  this  place?  Where 
was  the  vessel  that  brought  them?  What  marks  were  there  of  any  other 
footsteps?  And  how  was  it  possible  a  man  should  come  there?  But 
then  to  think  that  Satan  should  take  human  shape  upon  him  in  such  a 
place  where  there  could  be  no  manner  of  occasion  for  it,  but  to  leave 
the  print  of  his  foot  behind  him— and  that  even  for  no  purpose  too,  for 
he  could  not  be  sure  I  should  see  it.  This  was  an  amusement  the  other 
way.  I  considered  that  the  devil  might  have  found  out  abundance  of 
other  ways  to  have  terrified  me  than  this  of  the  single  print  of  the  foot; 
that  as  I  lived  quite  on  the  other  side  of  the  island,  he  would  never 
have  been  so  simple  to  leave  a  mark  in  a  place  where  it  was  ten  thou- 
sand to  one  whether  I  should  ever  see  it  or  not,  and  in  the  sand  too, 
which  the  first  surge  of  the  sea  upon  a  high  wind  would  have  defaced 
entirely.  All  this  seemed  inconsistent  with  the  thing  itself,  and  with  all 
the  notions  we  usually  entertain  of  the  subtlety  of  the  devil. 

DANIEL  DEFOE,  Robinson  Crusoe 

42.  A  fair  and  happy  milkmaid  is  a  country  wench,  that  is  so  far  from 
making  herself  beautiful  by  art,  that  one  look  of  hers  is  able  to  put  all 
face-physic  out  of  countenance.  She  knows  a  fair  look  is  but  a  dumb 
orator  to  commend  virtue,  therefore  minds  it  not.  All  her  excellencies 
stand  in  her  so  silently,  as  if  they  had  stolen  upon  her  without  her 
knowledge.  The  lining  of  her  apparel  (which  is  herself)  is  far  better 
than  the  outsides  of  tissue:  for  though  she  be  not  arrayed  in  the  spoil 
of  the  silkworm,  she  is  decked  in  innocency,  a  far  better  wearing.  She 
doth  not,  with  lying  long  abed,  spoil  both  her  complexion  and  condi- 
tions; nature  hath  taught  her,  too  immoderate  sleep  is  rust  to  the  soul: 


492  Reading  to  Others 

she  rises  therefore  with  chanticleer,  her  dame's  cock,  and  at  nights  makes 
the  lamb  her  curfew.  The  golden  ears  of  corn  fall  and  kiss  her  feet 
when  she  reaps  them,  as  if  they  wished  to  be  bound  and  led  prisoners 
by  the  same  hand  that  felled  them.  Her  breath  is  her  own,  which  scents 
all  the  year  long  of  June,  like  a  new  made  haycock.  She  makes  her  hand 
hard  with  labour,  and  her  heart  soft  with  pity:  and  when  winter  eve- 
nings fall  early  (sitting  at  her  merry  wheel),  she  sings  a  defiance  to  the 
giddy  wheel  of  fortune.  She  doth  all  things  with  so  sweet  a  grace,  it 
seems  ignorance  will  not  suffer  her  to  do  ill,  being  her  mind  is  to  do 
well.  She  bestows  her  year's  wages  at  next  fair;  and  in  choosing  her 
garments,  counts  no  bravery  in  the  world,  like  decency.  The  garden  and 
the  bee-hive  are  all  her  physic  and  chirurgery,  and  she  lives  the  longer 
for  it.  She  dares  go  alone,  and  unfold  sheep  in  the  night,  and  fears  no 
manner  of  ill,  because  she  means  none:  yet  to  say  truth,  she  is  never 
alone,  for  she  is  still  accompanied  with  old  songs,  honest  thoughts,  and 
prayers,  but  short  ones;  yet  they  have  their  efficacy,  in  that  they  are  not 
palled  with  ensuing  idle  cogitations.  Lastly,  her  dreams  are  so  chaste, 
that  she  dare  tell  them;  only  a  Friday's  dream  is  all  her  superstition:  that 
she  conceals  for  fear  of  anger.  Thus  lives  she,  and  all  her  care  is 
that  she  may  die  in  the  spring-time,  to  have  store  of  flowers  stuck  upon 
her  winding  sheet. 

SIR  THOMAS  OVERBURY,  Characters 

43.  "Well,  sir/'  said  Mr.  Dooley,  "I  ain't  much  on  th'  theayter.  1 
niver  wint  to  wan  that  I  didn't  have  to  stand  where  I  cud  see  a  man  in 
blue  overalls  scratchin'  his  leg  just  beyant  where  the  heeroyne  was 
prayin'  on  th'  palace  stairs,  an'  I  don't  know  much  about  it;  but  it  seemed 
to  me,  an'  it  seemed  to  Hartigan,  th'  plumber,  that  was  with  me,  that 
'twas  a  good  play  if  they'd  been  a  fire  in  th'  first  act.  They  was  a  lot  iv 
people  there;  an',  if  it  cud've  been  arranged  f'r  to  have  ingine  company 
fifteen  with  Cap'n  Duffy  at  th'  head  iv  them  come  in  through  a  window 
an'  carry  off  th'  crowd,  'twud've  med  a  hit  with  me.  .  .  . 

"But  with  this  here  play  iv  'Cyrus  O'Bergerac,'  'tis  far  diff'rent.  .  .  . 
All  at  wanst  up  stheps  me  bold  Hogan  with  a  nose  on  him — glory  be, 
such  a  nose!  I  niver  see  th'  like  on  a  man  or  an  illyphant. 

"Well,  sir,  Hogan  is  Cy  in  th'  play;  an'  th'  beak  is  pa-art  iv  him.  What 
does  he  do?  He  goes  up  to  Toolan,  an'  says  he:  Te  don't  like  me  nose. 
It's  an  ilicthric  light  globe.  Blow  it  out.  It's  a  Swiss  cheese.  Cut  it  off,  if 
ye  want  to.  It's  a  brick  in  a  hat.  Kick  it.  It's  a  balloon.  Hang  a  basket 
on  it,  an'  we'll  have  a'  ascinsion.  It's  a  dure-bell  knob.  Ring  it.  It's  a 
punchin'  bag.  Hit  it,  if  ye  dahr.  F'r  two  pins  I'd  push  in  th'  face  iv  ye.' 
An',  mind  ye,  Hinnissy,  Toolan  hadn't  said  wan  wurrud  about  th'  beak— 
not  wan  wurrud.  An'  ivry  wan  in  th'  house  was  talkin'  about  it,  an' 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  493 

wondhrin'  whin  it'd  come  off  an*  smash  somewan's  fut.   I  looked  f  r  a 

fight  there  an'  thin.  But  Toolan's  a  poor-spirited  thing,  an'  he  wint  away/' 

FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE,  Mr.  Dooley  in  the  Hearts  of  His 

Countrymen:  Cyrano  de  Bergerac 

44.  We  approached  the  church  through  the  avenue  of  limes,  and 
entered  by  a  Gothic  porch,  highly  ornamented  with  carved  doors  of 
massive  oak.  The  interior  is  spacious,  and  the  architecture  and  embellish- 
ments superior  to  those  of  most  country  churches.   There  are  several 
ancient  monuments  of  nobility  and  gentry,  over  some  of  which  hang 
funeral  escutcheons,  and  banners  dropping  piecemeal  from  the  walls. 
The  tomb  of  Shakespeare  is  in  the  chancel.   The  place  is  solemn  and 
sepulchral.  Tall  elms  wave  before  the  pointed  windows,  and  the  Avon, 
which  runs  at  a  short  distance  from  the  walls,  keeps  up  a  low  perpetual 
murmur.  A  flat  stone  marks  the  spot  where  the  bard  is  buried.  There 
are  four  lines  inscribed  on  it,  said  to  have  been  written  by  himself,  and 
which  have  in  them  something  extremely  awful.   If  they  are  indeed  his 
own,  they  show  that  solicitude  about  the  quiet  of  the  grave,  which  seems 
natural  to  fine  sensibilities  and  thoughtful  minds: 

Good  friend,  for  Jesus'  sake,  forbeare 

To  dig  the  dust  inclosed  here. 
Blest  be  he  that  spares  these  stones, 

And  curst  be  he  that  moves  my  bones. 

WASHINGTON  IRVING,  Stratford-on-Avon 

45.  It  is  good,  in  discourse  and  speech  of  conversation,  to  vary  and 
intermingle  speech  of  the  present  occasion  with  arguments,  tales  with 
reasons,  asking  of  questions  with   telling  of  opinions,  and  jest  with 
earnest:  for  it  is  a  dull  thing  to  tire,  and,  as  we  say  now,  to  jade,  any 
thing  too  far.   As  for  jest,  there  be  certain  things  which  ought  to  be 
privileged  from  it;  namely,  religion,  matters  of  state,  great  persons,  any 
man's  present  business  of  importance,  and  any  case  that  deserveth  pity. 
Yet  there  be  some  that  think  their  wits  have  been  asleep,  except  they 
dart  out  somewhat  that  is  piquant,  and  to  the  quick.   That  is  a  vein 
which  would  be  bridled.  And  generally,  men  ought  to  find  the  differ- 
ence between  saltness  and  bitterness.   Certainly,  he  that  hath  a  satirical 
vein,  as  he  makcth  others  afraid  of  his  writ,  so  he  had  need  be  afraid  of 
others'  memory.  He  that  questioneth  much  shall  learn  much.  And  let 
him  be  sure  to  leave  other  men  their  turns  to  speak.  Speech  of  a  man's 
self  ought  to  be  seldom,  and  well  chosen.   I  knew  one  was  wont  to  say 
in  scorn,  He  must  needs  be  a  wise  man,  he  speaks  so  much  of  himself: 
and  there  is  but  one  case  wherein  a  man  may  commend  himself  with 
good  grace;  and  that  is  in  commending  virtue  in  another.  Discretion  of 


494  Reading  to  Others 

speech  is  more  than  eloquence;  and  to  speak  agreeably  to  him  with 
whom  we  deal,  is  more  than  to  speak  in  good  words  or  in  good  order. 

FRANCIS  BACON,  Of  Discourse 

46.  "We  had  the  best  of  educations—in  fact,  we  went  to  school 
every  day—" 

"I've  been  to  a  day-school,  too/'  said  Alice.  "You  needn't  be  so  proud 
as  all  that." 

"With  extras?"  asked  the  Mock  Turtle,  a  little  anxiously. 

"Yes/'  said  Alice:  "we  learned  French  and  music." 

"And  washing?"  said  the  Mock  Turtle. 

"Certainly  not!"  said  Alice  indignantly. 

"Ah!  Then  yours  wasn't  a  really  good  school,"  said  the  Mock  Turtle 
in  a  tone  of  great  relief.  "Now  at  ours,  they  had,  at  the  end  of  the  bill, 
Trench,  music,  and  washing— extra/  " 

"You  couldn't  have  wanted  it  much,"  said  Alice;  "living  at  the  bottom 
of  the  sea." 

"I  couldn't  afford  to  learn  it,"  said  the  Mock  Turtle  with  a  sigh.  "I 
only  took  the  regular  course." 

"What  was  that?"  inquired  Alice. 

"Reeling  and  Writhing,  of  course,  to  begin  with,"  the  Mock  Turtle 
replied;  "and  then  the  different  branches  of  Arithmetic — Ambition,  Dis- 
traction, Uglification,  and  Derision." 

"I  never  heard  of  'Uglification/  "  Alice  ventured  to  say.  "What  is  it?" 

The  Gryphon  lifted  up  both  its  paws  in  surprise.  "Never  heard  of 
uglifying!"  it  exclaimed.  "You  know  what  to  beautify  is,  I  suppose?" 

"Yes,"  said  Alice  doubtfully:  "it  means— to— make— anything— 
prettier." 

"Well,  then,"  the  Gryphon  went  on,  "if  you  don't  know  what  to 
uglify  is,  you  are  a  simpleton." 

Alice  did  not  feel  encouraged  to  ask  any  more  questions  about  it:  so 
she  turned  to  the  Mock  Turtle,  and  said,  "What  else  had  you  to  learn?" 

"Well,  there  was  Mystery/'  the  Mock  Turtle  replied,  counting  off  the 
subjects  on  his  flappers— "Mystery,  ancient  and  modern,  with  Seaog- 
raphy:  then  Drawling— the  Drawling-master  was  an  old  conger-eel,  that 
used  to  come  once  a  week:  he  taught  us  Drawling,  Stretching,  and  Faint- 
ing in  Coils." 

"What  was  that  like?"  said  Alice. 

"Well,  I  can't  show  it  to  you  myself,"  the  Mock  Turtle  said.  "I'm 
too  stiff.  And  the  Gryphon  never  learnt  it." 

"Hadn't  time/'  said  the  Gryphon:  "I  went  to  the  Classical  master, 
though.  He  was  an  old  crab,  he  was." 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  495 

"I  never  went  to  him,"  the  Mock  Turtle  said  with  a  sigh.  "He  taught 
Laughing  and  Grief,  they  used  to  say/' 

"So  he  did,  so  he  did/'  said  the  Gryphon,  sighing  in  his  turn;  and 
both  creatures  hid  their  faces  in  their  paws. 

"And  how  many  hours  a  day  did  you  do  lessons?"  said  Alice,  in  a 
hurry  to  change  the  subject. 

"Ten  hours  the  first  day,"  said  the  Mock  Turtle:  "nine  the  next, 
and  so  on." 

"What  a  curious  plan!"  exclaimed  Alice. 

"That's  the  reason  they're  called  lessons,"  the  Gryphon  remarked: 
"because  they  lessen  from  day  to  day." 

This  was  quite  a  new  idea  to  Alice,  and  she  thought  it  over  a  little 
before  she  made  her  next  remark.  "Then  the  eleventh  day  must  have 
been  a  holiday?" 

"Of  course  it  was,"  said  the  Mock  Turtle. 

"And  how  did  you  manage  on  the  twelfth?"  Alice  went  on  eagerly. 

"That's  enough  about  lessons,"  the  Gryphon  interrupted  in  a  very 
decided  tone. 

LEWIS  CARROLL,  Alice  in  Wonderland 

47.  "Billy"  Hull,  father  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  is  a  legend  in  north- 
ern Tennessee.  The  favorite  tale  is  about  the  time  when,  as  a  young 
Union  bushwhacker  raiding  Rebel  farms  on  the  border  during  the  Civil 
War,  he  got  into  a  feud  with  a  fellow  raider  named  Jim  Stepp  over  a 
prize  piece  of  loot,  "silver-mounted  hawg  rifle."  Billy  was  "just  a  little 
feller— just  big  enough  to  pull  the  trigger"  but  "nervy  as  a  tomcat."  So 
Stcpp  persuaded  a  slow-witted,  hard-drinking  member  of  the  gang  named 
Riley  Piles  that  Billy  had  been  trafficking  with  the  Rebs.  Piles  met  Billy 
and  his  crony  Alec  Smith  at  the  home  of  a  neighbor  named  Cindy  Love- 
lace one  clay  and  started  shooting.  Alec  Smith  fell  dead  and  Billy  dropped 
with  a  bullet  through  his  head,  clean  from  between  his  nose  and  right 
eye  to  the  back  of  his  neck.  Riley  Piles  rushed  up  for  another  shot  but 
"Cindy  wrapped  her  apron  around  his  head  and  shouted,  'Lod  a'mercy, 
don't  shoot  him  again,  he's  daid  now.'  " 

Tough  Billy  Hull  came  to  next  day  muttering,  "I'm  not  daid,  do  some- 
thin'  fur  me."  When  the  wound  had  healed,  he  ignored  dumb  Riley 
Piles,  went  after  Stcpp.  Trailing  him  into  Kentucky,  he  found  him  one 
day  sitting  on  a  fence  talking  to  another  man.  Stepp  jumped  down  and 
said,  "Why,  hello,  Billy."  Billy  shrilled,  "God-dang  you,  don't  you  speak 
to  me,"  and  jerked  a  pistol  from  under  his  left  armpit.  Stepp  started  to 
run  and  Billy  shot  him  "right  a'tween  the  galluses."  Stepp  fell,  but  Billy, 
who  had  learned  his  lesson,  shot  him  again  to  make  sure.  Back  across 


496  Reading  to  Others 

the  river  in  Tennessee,  nobody  ever  said  a  word  to  him  about  the  kill- 
ing. "To  his  dying  day/'  says  Bud  Hull,  one  of  his  surviving  brothers, 
"he  felt  no  more  worry  over  it  than  if  he  had  killed  a  rabbit." 

Says  Secretary  of  State  Cordell  Hull  of  his  father's  deed:  "He  only 
did  what  any  real  person  would  do.  Everyone  thought  well  of  him  for  it." 

Billy  Hull  soon  went  over  the  mountains  into  Ovcrton  (now  Pickett) 
County,  bought  some  land  and  married  a  tall,  dark  Virginia  girl  (named 
Elizabeth  Riley)  with  Cherokee  blood  in  her  veins.  For  a  while  he  "had 
a  bus'ness"  (Tennesseean  for  moonshining),  setting  up  his  still  in  the 
mouth  of  nearby  Ole  Bunkum  cave.  By  the  time  he  got  caught  and  fined 
$25,  he  had  $1,000  saved  up  and  was  ready  to  quit.  With  the  money 
he  bought  a  stand  of  poplars  and  rafted  them  down  the  Cumberland 
to  Nashville. 

In  the  .years  that  followed,  Billy  grew  rich  at  timbering,  moved  on 
to  a  fine  big  house  at  Celina,  then  to  another  at  Carthage,  40  miles  down 
the  Cumberland.  But  even  after  he  was  worth  a  quarter  of  a  million 
dollars,  mostly  invested  in  Tennessee  farms  and  Florida  real  estate,  he 
remained  an  "ornery-dressin'  fella/'  often  going  to  Nashville  "wearin' 
no  more  than  five  dollars'  worth  of  clothes."  In  his  last  years,  when  he 
spent  his  winters  in  Florida,  he  would  pack  all  his  clothes  in  a  cardboard 
valise,  tie  a  tin  cup  to  the  handle  and  ride  down  in  a  caboose  with  the 
brakeman. 

Bill}'  Hull  is  dead  17  years  now,  and  for  more  years  than  that  Cordell 
Hull  has  made  his  home  in  Washington.  But  in  the  haze-hung  Ten- 
nessee mountains,  among  the  flowering  laurel,  sweet-burning  hickory 
and  gravelly  creeks,  uncounted  Hull  kinfolk  still  dwell.  There,  like  their 
fathers  for  generations  before  them,  they  cuss  and  fight  and  drive  their 
mules  along  the  red  mud  roads,  bake  hoecake,  sing  Little  Hugh  and  hark 
to  a  rooster's  crow  at  night  as  a  sign  that  rain  is  coming. 

LIFE  MAGAZINE,  March  18,  1940 

48.  If  we  wish  to  be  free— if  we  mean  to  preserve  inviolate  those 
inestimable  privileges  for  which  we  have  been  so  long  contending—if 
we  mean  not  basely  to  abandon  the  noble  struggle  in  which  we  have  been 
so  long  engaged,  and  which  we  have  pledged  ourselves  never  to  abandon, 
until  the  glorious  object  of  our  contest  shall  be  obtained— we  must  fight! 
I  repeat  it,  sir,  we  must  fight!  An  appeal  to  arms  and  to  the  God  of 
Hosts  is  all  that  is  left  us! 

They  tell  us,  sir,  that  we  are  weak— unable  to  cope  with  so  formidable 
an  adversary.  But  when  shall  we  be  stronger?  Will  it  be  the  next  week, 
or  the  next  year?  Will  it  be  when  we  are  totally  disarmed,  and  when  a 
British  guard  shall  be  stationed  in  every  house?  Shall  we  gather  strength 
by  irresolution  and  inaction?  Shall  we  acquire  the  means  of  effectual 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  497 

resistance  by  lying  supinely  on  our  backs  and  hugging  the  delusive  phan- 
tom of  hope,  until  our  enemies  shall  have  bound  us  hand  and  foot? 

Sir,  we  are  not  weak  if  we  make  a  proper  use  of  those  means  which 
the  God  of  nature  has  placed  in  our  power.  Three  millions  of  people 
armed  in  the  holy  cause  of  liberty,  and  in  such  a  country  as  that  which 
we  possess,  are  invincible  by  any  force  which  our  enemy  can  send  against 
us.  Besides,  sir,  we  shall  not  fight  our  battles  alone.  There  is  a  just  God 
who  presides  over  the  destinies  of  nations,  and  who  will  raise  up  friends 
to  fight  our  battles  for  us.  The  battle,  sir,  is  not  to  the  strong  alone;  it 
is  to  the  vigilant,  the  active,  the  brave.  Besides,  sir,  we  have  no  election. 
If  we  were  base  enough  to  desire  it,  it  is  now  too  late  to  retire  from  the 
contest.  There  is  no  retreat  but  in  submission  and  slavery!  Our  chains 
are  forged!  Their  clanking  may  be  heard  on  the  plains  of  Boston!  The 
war  is  inevitable— and  let  it  come!  I  repeat  it,  sir,  let  it  come. 

It  is  vain,  sir,  to  extenuate  the  matter.  Gentlemen  may  cry,  Peace, 
peace — but  there  is  no  peace.  The  war  is  actually  begun!  The  next  gale 
that  sweeps  from  the  North  will  bring  to  our  ears  the  clash  of  resound- 
ing arms!  Our  brethren  are  already  in  the  field!  Why  stand  we  here 
idle?  What  is  it  that  gentlemen  wish?  Is  life  so  dear,  or  peace  so  sweet, 
as  to  be  purchased  at  the  price  of  chains  and  slavery?  Forbid  it,  Almighty 
God!  I  know  not  what  course  others  may  take;  but  as  for  me,  give  me 
liberty,  or  give  me  death!  PATRICK  HENRY 

49.  Then  there  are  the  apple-polishers.  They  may  also  be  bluffers,  but 
often  the  earnest,  hard-working  students  find  apple-polishing  profitable. 
They  systematically  flatter  their  professors,  lingering  after  class  to  ask 
questions  that  show  how  deeply  interested  they  are,  making  notes  on 
the  answers  or  breathlessly  listening  to  the  words  of  wisdom.  Few  men 
are  invulnerable  to  this  form  of  attention.  Even  when  they  cynically 
regard  it  as  insincere,  they  like  it,  nevertheless.  Sub-species  of  the  genus 
apple-polisher  are  the  nodders,  who  beam  at  everything  you  say  in  class, 
showing  their  complete  agreement  with  your  opinions;  the  conversation- 
alists, who  neglect  no  opportunity  to  talk  to  you,  always  discussing  aca- 
demic shop  or  asking  your  advice  on  personal  matters;  the  nominators, 
who  refer  to  you  in  undergraduate  periodicals  or  appoint  you  honorary 
something  or  other  at  their  celebrations  or  dedicate  term  papers  and 
year  books  to  you;  the  card-writers,  who  send  you  effusive  Christmas 
cards  and  even  respectful  Valentines;  the  sex-appealers,  who  try  to  make 
you  think  that,  given  the  proper  opportunity,  you'd  be  their  dream  man. 

This  last  group  needs  further  comment.  They  are  the  most  insidious 
of  undergraduate  menaces.  Many  of  them  have  genuine  blood-quicken- 
ing potentialities,  and  it  takes  a  truly  humble  man  to  realize  that  their 
tentative  ardors  are  merely  technical.  When  they  demonstrate  their 


498  Reading  to  Others 

respect  and  admiration  and  even,  in  the  intimacy  of  a  dance  (at  which 
they  do  the  "breaking"),  unobtrusively  press  your  hand,  it's  hard  not  to 
believe  that  there's  a  lot  of  fire  in  the  old  boy  yet.  Some  of  these  astute 
emotionalists  flatter  you  by  consulting  you  about  their  private  romances, 
avoiding  the  rather  obvious  overt  approach  and  making  you  think  that 
you  are  recognized  as  an  experienced  man,  probably  too  dignified  for 
an  undergraduate  affair,  but  certainly  a  man  admired  by  women.  Occa- 
sionally one  of  them  confesses  to  you  that  you  are  her  ideal,  that  though 
she  can  never  expect  you  to  condescend  to  a  mere  student,  she  will  adore 
forever.  The  resulting  scene  is  likely  to  be  painful.  You  feel  like  a  fool 
in  the  presence  of  such  immature  vapors,  but  you  can't  simply  say,  "Get 
the  devil  out  of  here  and  grow  up/' 

BY  AN  ANONYMOUS  PROFESSOR,  I  Teach  Women 


50.  I  deny  not,  but  that  it  is  of  greatest  concernment  in  the  church 
and  commonwealth,  to  have  a  vigilant  eye  how  books  demean  themselves 
as  well  as  men;  and  thereafter  to  confine,  imprison  and  do  sharpest  jus- 
tice on  them  as  malefactors;  for  books  are  not  absolutely  dead  things, 
but  do  contain  a  potency  of  life  in  them  to  be  as  active  as  that  soul  was 
whose  progeny  they  are;  nay,  they  do  preserve  as  in  a  vial  the  purest 
efficacy  and  extraction  of  that  living  intellect  that  bred  them.    I  know 
they  are  as  lively,  and  as  vigorously  productive,  as  those  fabulous  dragons' 
teeth;  and  being  sown  up  and  down,  may  chance  to  spring  up  armed 
men.  And  yet  on  the  other  hand,  unless  wariness  be  used,  as  good  almost 
kill  a  man  as  kill  a  good  book:  who  kills  a  man  kills  a  reasonable  creature, 
God's  image;  but  he  who  destroys  a  good  book,  kills  reason  itself,  kills 
the  image  of  God,  as  it  were,  in  the  eye.  Many  a  man  lives  a  burden  to 
the  earth;  but  a  good  book  is  the  precious  lifeblood  of  a  master  spirit, 
embalmed  and  treasured  up  on  purpose  to  a  life  beyond  life.   It  is  true 
no  age  can  restore  a  life,  whereof  perhaps  there  is  no  great  loss;  and 
revolutions  of  ages  do  not  oft  recover  the  loss  of  a  rejected  truth,  for  the 
want  of  which  whole  nations  fare  the  worse.  We  should  be  wary,  there- 
fore, what  persecution  we  raise  against  the  living  labours  of  public  men, 
how  we  spill  that  seasoned  life  of  man,  preserved  and  stored  up  in  books; 
since  we  see  a  kind  of  homicide  may  be  thus  committed,  sometimes  a 
martyrdom;  and  if  it  extend  to  the  whole  impression  a  kind  of  massacre, 
whereof  the  execution  ends  not  in  the  slaying  of  an  elemental  life,  but 
strikes  at  that  ethereal  and  fifth  essence,  the  breath  of  reason  itself;  slays 
an  immortality  rather  than  a  life.  JOHN  MILTON,  Areopagitica 

51.  "For  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  shall  not  perish,  but  have  ever- 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  499 

lasting  life."  That  whosoever  believeth  in  Him— whosoever  believeth  in 
loving  neighbor  as  self;  whosoever  believeth  in  doing  unto  others  as  he 
would  have  them  do  unto  him;  whosoever  believeth  that  the  meek  are 
blessed  and  shall  inherit  the  earth;  whosoever  believeth  that  God  was 
kind  and  God  was  wise  when  He  gave  to  Moses  the  ten  laws  upon  which 
all  good  laws  are  founded. 

'Tor  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son"— 
And  the  little  child  was  born  in  a  manger— no  better  place— but  He 
smiled— He  understood.  As  a  small  boy  He  worked  in  the  carpenter 
shop  of  Joseph.  There,  among  the  laborers,  the  village  gossips,  the  wise 
and  the  foolish  of  the  town,  He  learned  to  know  men  and  to  under- 
stand them.  He  was  still  a  boy  when  His  wisdom  amazed  the  learned 
doctors  of  the  temple.  They  wondered  at  His  knowledge.  They  were 
helpless  at  His  questions,  and  startled  by  His  answers.  He  knew  things 
that  they  would  never  know.  He  understood  life  and  man's  way  of  living. 

For  nearly  thirty  years  he  went  about  his  business  of  building  things 
for  men  to  use.  Years  of  toil  and  years  of  preparation. — Preparation  for 
the  building  of  a  greater  structure,  set  upon  an  eternal  foundation— a 
shelter  fashioned  to  stand  longer  than  the  oldest  man. 

He  hadn't  been  about  this  new  business  long  when  one  day  someone 
asked  the  dreaded  question,  the  inevitable,  but  unfortunate  question: 
"Art  Thou  the  Messiah?"— "Thou  sayest  that  I  am,"  He  answered,  and 
it  was  the  beginning  of  the  end— or  the  end  of  the  beginning.—He 
had  to  answer  that  way,  because  He  knew.— He  knew  the  truth,  and 
He  dreaded  the  question. 

A  cock  crowed,  and  Peter  had  denied  Him.— He  knew  that  Peter 
would.  He  understood. — Thirty  pieces  of  silver  changed  hands,  and 
Judas  had  betrayed  Him.  He  knew  that  Judas  would  betray  Him,  and 
He  felt  sorry  because  Judas  didn't  really  want  to  betray  Him.  Christ 
Jcncw.  He  understood.  They  nailed  Him  up  on  a  cross.  Sharp  nails! 
But  strong  flesh— and  a  stronger  mind— and  an  understanding  com- 
passion. Between  two  robbers  He  was  crucified;  and  at  the  foot  of  His 
cross,  soldiers  gambled  for  His  clothing.— "Father,  forgive  them,  for  they 
know  not  what  they  do."  He  knew.  He  understood. 

He  died  that  God's  will  might  be  done,  that  His  Kingdom  might  come 

on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  He  died  that  men  might  learn  to  live  together 

happily  and  peacefully,  and  according  to  God's  will.    He  died— "that 

whosoever  believeth  in  Him  shall  not  perish  but  have  everlasting  life." 

LELAND  SCHUBERT,  from  an  unpublished  play,  "The  Snowball" 

52.  We  hear  a  great  deal  nowadays  about  bringing  art  to  the  masses. 
We  have  brought  the  masses  liberty,  equality,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness, and  now  we  are  going  to  bring  them  art,  It  seems  very  simple,  but 


500  Reading  to  Others 

I  doubt  whether  it  can  be  done.  The  people  of  India  have  a  saying: 
"The  Holy  Man  does  not  leave  the  shrine/'  The  Holy  Man  (or  "the 
Whole  Man/'  for  that  is  what  the  word  "holy"  means— something  that 
is  "whole"  or  "hale")  was  one  who  had  been  set  apart  from  the  rest  of 
the  community.  The  artist  in  a  way  is  such  a  Holy  Man  in  the  sense 
of  "one  set  apart."  For  all  art  is  essentially  a  one-man  experience  and 
therefore  something  innately  aloof  and  aristocratic. 

The  artist  himself  in  his  daily  relationship  with  his  fellow  men  may 
be  as  democratic  as  Abraham  Lincoln.  But  let  us  remember  that  the 
moment  honest  old  Abe  found  himself  a  quiet  corner  and  took  a  pad 
of  paper  on  his  knee  to  jot  down  a  few  lines  of  his  sublime  prose,  he 
became  a  million  miles  removed  from  the  rest  of  humanity.  We  remem- 
ber him  for  what  he  did  when  he  was  apart  from  humanity,  not  for  the 
funny  stories  he  told  as  a  means  of  keeping  the  crowd  at  a  distance. 

There  have,  of  course,  been  periods  in  history  when  the  community 
at  large  felt  very  deeply  upon  certain  religious  or  patriotic  subjects,  and 
on  such  occasions  the  artist  was  often  able  to  give  such  a  clear  expres- 
sion to  the  spirit  of  his  own  time— what  we  sometimes  call  "the  voice 
of  the  people" — that  his  own  identity  thereupon  seemed  to  have  been 
lost  among  that  of  the  millions.  But  a  careful  study  of  such  an  era 
shows  that  that  was  not  really  so.  It  was  very  easy  in  an  age  without 
any  newspapers  or  other  means  of  publicity  and  information  for  a  name 
to  get  lost  in  the  shuffle.  But  just  because  we  do  not  happen  to  know 
the  names  of  the  men  who  built  the  Pyramids  or  who  drew  up  the  plans 
for  many  of  the  medieval  cathedrals  or  who  composed  those  ancient 
tunes  that  have  since  become  known  as  "folk  songs"— that  does  not  really 
mean  that  their  own  contemporaries  did  not  know  all  about  them.  They 
merely  took  them  for  granted  as  we  ourselves  take  our  great  engineers  for 
granted.  We  walk  twice  a  day  through  the  Grand  Central  Terminal  of 
New  York  City  or  we  pass  through  the  St.  Gotthard  tunnel  in  Switzer- 
land or  we  spend  all  our  days  crossing  and  rccrossing  the  old  Brooklyn 
Bridge  without  ever  having  the  vaguest  notion  about  the  men  who  had 
the  vision  to  draw  the  plans  for  those  sublime  pieces  of  engineering. 

No,  I  cannot,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  take  much  stock  in  those  theories 
about  art  being  in  any  way  connected  with  the  masses.  The  true  artist 
is  almost  invariably  a  very  lonely  fellow  and,  like  all  lonely  people  (pro- 
vided he  has  strength  enough  to  survive  his  spiritual  loneliness),  he  will 
insist  upon  maintaining  his  own  integrity  as  his  most  valued  possession. 
He  may  drink  with  the  crowd  and  swap  jokes  with  his  neighbors,  and 
he  may  even  affect  a  slovenliness  of  attire  and  a  carelessness  of  language 
that  make  people  think  he  is  one  of  them.  But  within  his  own  domain 
he  is,  and  insists  upon  remaining,  "the  Master." 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  501 

Like  poor  Vincent  van  Gogh,  he  may  love  the  masses  when  he  is  off 
duty,  or,  like  Ludwig  von  Beethoven,  he  may  refuse  to  lift  his  hat  to  a 
mere  king,  but  the  moment  he  smears  his  paints  on  his  canvases  or 
fishes  his  little  notes  out  of  his  ten-cent  bottle  of  ink,  he  stands  apart  and 
recognizes  no  law  but  the  law  that  bids  him  be  himself. 

In  the  olden  days  we  would  have  called  such  men  aristocrats.  Today 
we  do  not  bother  to  give  them  a  name.  There  are  so  few  of  them  left. 

HENDRIK  WILLEM  VAN  LOON,  The  Arts 

53.  Is  it  that,  till  these  past  one  hundred  years,  humankind  was  so 
bad-hearted  that  even  its  best  medical  men  wanted  to  see  women  tor- 
tured? No.  There  is  a  sounder  explanation  for  their  wait  for  the  sooth- 
ing of  childbirth's  pain.  Till  past  the  Middle  Ages,  men,  physicians,  were 
not  allowed  at  childbed's  side  while  women  had  their  babies.  As  a  last 
resort,  doctors  were  called  in  only  when  the  labor  was  most  difficult, 
when  the  baby  wouldn't  come  at  all,  when  mothers  were  about  to  die 
from  pain  and  exhaustion.  Then  the  ministrations  of  these  physicians, 
their  obstetrical  science  if  you  want  to  call  it  science,  consisted  in  using 
long  sharp  hooks  to  pull  a  mutilated  baby  from  its  mother  who  would 
then  almost  surely  die.  Even  so,  religion  demanded  that  mothers  be 
considered  secondary  to  their  unborn  children. 

When  their  travail  was  hard,  they  were  tied  down  and  jumped  upon 
to  shake  the  baby  from  its  place.  Or,  to  hasten  childbirth,  the  childbed 
was  lifted  up  and  then  let  down,  wham,  upon  the  floor.  Until  at  last, 
the  obstetrical  forceps  were  invented,  and  that  began  the  turning  of 
birth-helping  into  a  respectable  art,  into  a  new  kind  of  surgery.  So  that, 
at  last,  shortly  after  9  o'clock  on  the  evening  of  January  19,  1847,  a  Scot- 
tish doctor,  James  Y.  Simpson— his  face  beamed  like  a  full  moon  from 
the  middle  of  a  funny  encircling  fringe  of  beard— gave  the  first  recorded 
whiff  of  pain-killing  ether  to  a  woman  in  her  last  extreme  of  agony. 

She  was  one  of  those  unfortunates  whose  pelvis  was  so  deformed  that, 
when  her  first  baby  wanted  to  be  born,  its  head  had  to  be  crushed  before 
the  child  could  be  taken  from  her.  Now,  against  her  doctor's  advice,  she 
had  risked  the  coming  of  a  second  child.  Now  again  it  was  no  go.  Again 
it  was  unbearable.  So  that  our  full-moon-faced  Scotchman  Simpson  made 
bold  to  hold  an  ether-soaked  handkerchief  over  her  face  at  the  moment 
of  that  recurring  hell  of  her  pain. 

There  was  a  sigh— could  there  be  a  sound  more  wonderful?— and  then, 
oblivion.  There  was  a  hitherto  unheard-of  nirvana.  And  then  Simpson 
reached  in  and  turned  that  baby's  body  inside  the  mother's  womb  with- 
out her  ever  knowing,  and  now  here  at  last  was  the  baby,  born,  and 
gasping.  "She  quickly  regained  consciousness— and  talked  with  grati- 


502  Reading  to  Others 

hide  and  wonderment  of  her  delivery— and  of  her  not  feeling  the  pains 
of  it,"  wrote  James  Y.  Simpson. 

Before  he  tried  it  he  had  had  nights  of  doubts  and  worry.  Would 
the  pain-killing  power  of  ether,  would  its  sleep-producing  magic,  kill  the 
womb's  work  as  well?  Now  Simpson  tested  this  new  pain-killer  upon 
woman  after  tortured  woman.  He  worked  in  an  entranced  enthusiasm. 
Then,  with  never  a  doubt,  he  published  his  discovery,  he  told  the  world : 
"Physical  suffering  is  annulled,  but  the  needed  muscular  contractions  are 
not  interfered  with—"  Or  so  he  believed.  And  he  reported  upon  iden- 
tical miracles  wrought  upon  one  hundred  and  fifty  women,  with  no 
damage  to  mother  or  baby!  pAUL  DE  KRUIF,  The  Fight  for  Life 

54.  PHILLIPS:  In  honor  of  this  occasion,  with  your  kind  indulgence, 
I  shall  relate  to  you  the  latest  addition  to  my  treasury  of  Scotch  anec- 
dotes. 

HAL:  This  is  going  to  be  bad,  Brad.  But  if  you  stay  at  our  house,  you 
have  to  get  used  to  Dad's  sense  of  humor.  He's  district  governor  for  the 
Rotary  Club,  you  know,  and  his  idea  of  an  after-dinner  speech  is  to  tell 
a  lot  of  jokes  that  everybody's  heard  before.  He  keeps  in  practice  by 
telling  them  over  and  over  again  to  poor  Mother  and  Sarah  and  me, 
when  I'm  here. 

PHILLIPS:  Please  disregard  the  irreverence  of  my  son,  Brad.  I'm  sure 
you've  never  heard  the  story  I  am  about  to  tell. 

BRAD:   I  like  your  stories,  Mr.  Phillips.  Please  go  ahead. 

PHILLIPS:  Well,  it  seems  that  in  the  capital  city  of  Caledonia  a  seri- 
ous accident  occurred  recently.  On  her  brisk,  busy  streets  two  taxicabs 
collided,  and  seventeen  people  were  injured. 

HAL:   Oh,  Dad,  that's  terrible. 

(Brad  laughs  heartily,  more  at  Phillips's  pleased,  pompous  manner  of 
telling  than  at  the  joke.) 

PHILLIPS:  Thank  you,  Brad,  for  your  courteous  reception  to  my  little 
quip.  A  prophet  or  a  raconteur  is  without  honor  in  his  own  family. 
Now,  if  you  will  sit  beside  me  on  the  divan,  I  shall  tell  you  my  favorite 
story  about  gondolas.  My  son,  Hamilton,  junior,  who  is  so  disdainful 
of  my  poor  efforts,  may  indeed  have  heard  this  tale,  but  he  may  keep 
himself  occupied  in  replenishing  our  glasses.  I  am  not  sure  that  what 
I  am  about  to  say  is  for  the  chaste  ears  of  Miss  Sarah,  though  she  may 
listen,  if  she  cares  to,  at  a  modest  distance. 

HAL:  I  warn  you,  Brad,  you  let  yourself  in  for  something  when  you 
laugh  at  his  stories.  He  can  go  on  for  hours  remembering  all  the  cracks 
that  have  been  pulled  at  Rotary  meetings  for  the  past  five  years. 

BRAD:  Another  cocktail,  and  I'm  ready  for  the  last  ten  years  of  'em. 
(They  sit  down  on  sofa,  Hal  on  arm  left.) 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  503 

PHILLIPS:  A  number  of  years  ago,  when  the  frontiers  of  our  great 
country  were  still  being  pushed  westward,  before  the  amenities  of  effete 
civilization  had  reached  the  furthest  outposts,  a  community  in  the 
abundant  oil  fields  of  Oklahoma  suddenly  prospered.  Her  citizens,  none 
of  them  conspicuously  educated,  rough,  hard  men,  accustomed  to  the 
rigors  of  pioneering,  began  to  feel  the  need  of  some  artistic  influences 
in  their  daily  lives.  Great  gushers  had  been  brought  in  on  their  lands, 
and  they  were  rich.  They  looked  around  at  the  unpainted  shacks  that 
were  their  homes  and  at  the  muddy  cowpaths  that  were  their  streets,  and 
they  decided  that  they  must  have  immediate  civic  improvement.  Calling 
together  a  committee  of  the  most  distinguished  residents,  they  made 
plans  for  beautifying  their  city.  One  member  mentioned  that  a  neigh- 
boring town,  also  made  wealthy  by  the  oil,  had  established  a  beautiful 
park  with  a  bandstand.  At  this  piece  of  information,  a  gaunt  gentleman, 
with  drooping  mustaches  and  fierce  eyebrows,  arose,  hitched  his  gunbelt 
to  one  side,  shifted  his  quid  of  tobacco,  and  said,  "Mister  Chairman, 
we  cain't  let  them  varmints  over  to  Oil  City  get  ahaid  of  us.  We've  got 
a  dang  sight  more  oil  and  money  and  culture  right  here  in  Derrickville 
than  they'll  have  in  ten  years.  I  move  that  we  have  not  only  a  park, 
but  a  lake  and  gondolas  on  it.  I'll  donate  the  property  myself/' 

There  was  loud  applause,  and  the  idea  was  unanimously  adopted,  the 
necessary  money  being  generously  contributed.  After  some  discussion, 
a  member  of  the  committee  arose,  spat,  and  said,  "Now  about  them 
gondolas.  If  we're  really  goin'  to  impress  Oil  City,  we'll  have  to  get  at 
least  a  dozen.  I'll  finance  'em."  At  this  out  spoke  other  public-minded 
citizens.  "Why  stop  at  a  dozen?  I'll  make  it  fifty."  "A  hundred."  "Two 
hundred."  Then  one,  more  cautious  than  the  rest,  took  the  floor.  "Gen- 
tlemen," he  said,  "I'm  in  favor  of  not  sparin'  expense  in  makin'  this  the 
rip-snortin'est  town  in  Oklahoma,  but  let's  not  waste  money  on  so  many 
gondolas.  I  say  just  get  a  pair  of  'em,  and  let  Nature  take  its  course." 

ANTHONY  TRASK,  Oread 

55.  At  last  I  resigned  myself  to  the  will  of  God;  and  not  knowing 
what  to  do,  I  climbed  up  to  the  top  of  a  great  tree,  from  whence  I 
looked  about  on  all  sides  to  see  if  there  was  anything  that  could  give  me 
hope.  When  I  looked  towards  the  sea,  I  could  see  nothing  but  sky  and 
water,  but  looking  towards  the  land  I  saw  something  white;  and,  com- 
ing down  from  the  tree,  I  took  up  what  provision  I  had  left  and  went 
towards  it,  the  distance  being  so  great  that  I  could  not  distinguish 
what  it  was. 

When  I  came  nearer,  I  thought  it  to  be  a  white  bowl  of  a  prodigious 
height  and  bigness;  and  when  I  came  up  to  it  I  touched  it,  and  found 
it  to  be  very  smooth.  I  went  around  to  see  if  it  was  open  on  any  side, 


504  Reading  to  Others 

but  saw  it  was  not,  and  that  there  was  no  climbing  up  to  the  top  of 
it,  it  was  so  smooth.  It  was  at  least  fifty  paces  round. 

By  this  time  the  sun  was  ready  to  set,  and  all  of  a  sudden  the  sky 
became  as  dark  as  if  it  had  been  covered  with  a  thick  cloud.  I  was  much 
astonished  at  this  sudden  darkness,  but  much  more  when  I  found  it  was 
occasioned  by  a  bird,  of  a  monstrous  size,  that  came  flying  toward  me. 
I  remember  a  fowl,  called  roc,  that  I  had  often  heard  mariners  speak  of, 
and  conceived  that  the  great  bowl,  which  I  so  much  admired,  must 
needs  be  its  egg.  In  short,  the  bird  lighted  and  sat  over  the  egg  to  hatch 
it.  As  I  perceived  her  coming,  I  crept  close  to  the  egg,  so  that  I  had 
before  me  one  of  the  legs  of  the  bird,  which  was  as  big  as  the  trunk  of 
a  tree.  I  tied  myself  strongly  to  it  with  the  cloth  that  went  round  my 
turban,  in  hopes  that  when  the  roc  flew  away  next  morning,  she  would 
carry  me  with  her  out  of  this  desert  island.  And,  after  having  passed  the 
night  in  this  condition,  the  bird  really  flew  away  next  morning,  as  soon 
as  it  was  day,  and  carried  me  so  high  that  I  could  not  see  the  earth.  Then 
she  descended  all  of  a  sudden,  with  so  much  rapidity  that  I  lost  my 
senses;  but  when  the  roc  was  settled,  and  I  found  myself  upon  the 
ground,  I  speedily  untied  the  knot,  and  had  scarcely  done  so  when  the 
bird,  having  taken  up  a  serpent  of  a  monstrous  length  in  her  bill, 
flew  away. 

The  place  where  she  left  me  was  a  very  deep  valley,  encompassed  on 
all  sides  with  mountains,  so  high  that  they  seemed  to  reach  above  the 
clouds,  and  so  full  of  steep  rocks  that  there  was  no  possibility  of  getting 
out  of  the  valley.  This  was  a  new  perplexity,  so  that  when  I  compared 
this  place  with  the  desert  island  from  which  the  roc  brought  me,  I 
found  that  I  had  gained  nothing  by  the  change. 

As  I  walked  through  this  valley  I  perceived  it  was  strewn  with  dia- 
monds, some  of  which  were  of  surprising  bigness.  I -took  a  great  deal 
of  pleasure  in  looking  at  them;  but  speedily  I  saw  at  a  distance  such 
objects  as  very  much  diminished  my  satisfaction,  and  which  I  could  not 
look  upon  without  terror;  they  were  a  great  number  of  serpents,  so  big 
and  so  long  that  the  least  of  them  was  capable  of  swallowing  an  ele- 
phant. They  retired  in  the  daytime  to  their  dens,  where  they  hid  them- 
selves from  the  roc,  their  enemy,  and  did  not  come  out  but  in  the 
nighttime. 

"The  Second  Voyage  of  Sindbad  the  Sailor," 
from  Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments 

56.  Marriage  being  the  destination  appointed  by  society  for  women, 
the  prospect  they  are  brought  up  to,  and  the  object  which  it  is  intended 
should  be  sought  by  all  of  them,  except  those  who  are  too  little  attrac- 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  505 

tive  to  be  chosen  by  any  man  as  his  companion;  one  might  have  sup- 
posed that  everything  would  have  been  done  to  make  this  condition  as 
eligible  to  them  as  possible,  that  they  might  have  no  cause  to  regret 
being  denied  the  option  of  any  other.  Society,  however,  both  in  this,  and, 
at  first,  in  all  other  cases,  has  preferred  to  attain  its  object  by  foul  rather 
than  fair  means:  but  this  is  the  only  case  in  which  it  has  substantially 
persisted  in  them  even  to  the  present  day.  Originally  women  were  taken 
by  force,  or  regularly  sold  by  their  father  to  the  husband.  Until  a  late 
period  in  European  history,  the  father  had  the  power  to  dispose  of  his 
daughter  in  marriage  at  his  own  will  and  pleasure,  without  any  regard 
to  hers.  The  Church,  indeed,  was  so  far  faithful  to  a  better  morality  as 
to  require  a  formal  "yes"  from  the  woman  at  the  marriage  ceremony; 
but  there  was  nothing  to  show  that  the  consent  was  other  than  com- 
pulsory; and  it  was  practically  impossible  for  the  girl  to  refuse  compliance 
if  the  father  persevered,  except  perhaps  when  she  might  obtain  the  pro- 
tection of  religion  by  a  determined  resolution  to  take  monastic  vows. 
After  marriage,  the  man  had  anciently  (but  this  was  anterior  to  Chris- 
tianity) the  power  of  life  and  death  over  his  wife.  She  could  invoke  no 
law  against  him;  he  was  her  sole  tribunal  and  law.  For  a  long  time  he 
could  repudiate  her,  but  she  had  no  corresponding  power  in  regard  to 
him.  By  the  old  laws  of  England,  the  husband  was  called  the  lord  of 
the  wife;  he  was  literally  regarded  as  her  sovereign,  inasmuch  that  the 
murder  of  a  man  by  his  wife  was  called  treason  (petty  as  distinguished 
from  high  treason),  and  was  more  cruelly  avenged  than  was  usually  the 
case  with  high  treason,  for  the  penalty  was  burning  to  death.  Because 
these  various  enormities  have  fallen  into  disuse  (for  most  of  them  were 
never  formally  abolished,  or  not  until  they  had  long  ceased  to  be  prac- 
ticed), men  supposed  that  all  is  now  as  it  should  be  in  regard  to  the 
marriage  contract;  and  we  are  continually  told  that  civilization  and 
Christianity  have  restored  to  the  woman  her  just  rights.  Meanwhile  the 
wife  is  the  actual  bond-servant  of  her  husband:  no  less  so,  as  far  as  legal 
obligation  goes,  than  slaves  commonly  so  called.  She  vows  a  lifelong 
obedience  to  him  at  the  altar,  and  is  held  to  it  all  through  her  life  by 
law.  Casuists  may  say  that  the  obligation  of  obedience  stops  short  of 
participation  in  crime,  but  it  certainly  extends  to  everything  else.  She 
can  do  no  act  whatever  but  by  his  permission,  at  least  tacit.  She  can 
acquire  no  property  but  for  him;  the  instant  it  becomes  hers,  even  if  by 
inheritance,  it  becomes  ipso  facto  his.  In  this  respect  the  wife's  position 
under  the  common  law  of  England  is  worse  than  that  of  slaves  in  the 
laws  of  many  countries. 

JOHN  STUART  MILL,  The  Subjection  of  Women 


506  Reading  to  Others 

57.  Regardless  of  other  accomplishments,  the  man  who  built  the 
University  of  Virginia  and  the  house  at  Monticello  was  great.  It  is  more 
true  of  these  buildings  than  of  any  others  I  have  seen  that  they  are  the 
autobiography,  in  brick  and  stone,  of  their  architect.  To  see  them,  to 
see  some  of  the  exquisitely  margined  manuscript  in  Jefferson's  clean 
handwriting,  preserved  in  the  university  library,  and  to  read  the  Declara- 
tion, is  to  gain  a  grasp  of  certain  sides  of  Jefferson's  nature  which  can  be 
achieved  in  no  other  way. 

Monticello  stands  on  a  lofty  hilltop,  with  vistas,  between  trees,  of 
neighboring  galleys,  hills,  and  mountains.  It  is  a  supremely  lovely  house, 
unlike  any  other,  and,  while  it  is  too  much  to  say  that  one  would  recog- 
nize it  as  the  house  of  the  writer  of  the  Declaration,  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that,  once  one  does  know  it,  one  can  trace  a  clear  affinity  result- 
ing from  a  common  origin— an  affinity  much  more  apparent,  by  the 
way,  than  may  be  traced  between  the  work  of  Michelangelo  on  St. 
Peter's  at  Rome,  on  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  in  his  "David." 

The  introductory  paragraph  to  the  Declaration  ascends  into  the  body 
of  the  document  as  gracefully  and  as  certainly  as  the  wide  flights  of  easy 
steps  ascend  to  the  doors  of  Monticello;  the  long  and  beautifully  bal- 
anced paragraph  which  follows,  building  word  upon  word  and  sentence 
upon  sentence  into  a  central  statement,  has  a  form  as  definite  and  grace- 
ful as  that  of  the  finely  proportioned  house;  the  numbered  paragraphs 
which  follow,  setting  forth  separate  details,  are  like  rooms  within  the 
house,  and  as  there  are  twenty-seven  of  the  numbered  paragraphs  in  the 
Declaration,  so  there  are  twenty-seven  rooms  in  Monticello.  Last  of  all 
there  are  two  little  phrases  in  the  Declaration  (the  phrases  stating  that 
we  shall  hold  our  British  brethren  in  future  as  we  hold  the  rest  of  man- 
kind—"enemies  in  war;  in  peace,  friends"),  which  I  would  liken  to  the 
small  twin  buildings,  one  of  them  Jefferson's  office,  the  other  that  of 
the  overseer,  which  stand  on  either  side  of  the  lawn  at  Monticello,  at 
some  distance  from  the  house.  These  office  buildings  face,  and  balance 
upon  each  other,  and  upon  the  mansion,  but  they  are  so  much  smaller 
that  to  put  them  there  required  daring,  while  to  make  them  "compose" 
(as  painters  say)  with  the  great  house,  required  the  almost  superhuman 
sense  of  symmetry  which  Jefferson  assuredly  possessed. 

JULIAN  STREET,  American  Adventures 

58.  At  eleven  o'clock  he  attended  Professor  Southerland's  class  in 
Poets  of  the  Romantic  Period.   It  was  a  very  popular  junior  course,  so 
unwieldy  in  size  that  Mr.  Southerland  conducted  it  in  an  unorthodox 
way,  taking  no  attendance,  and  depending  for  his  records  on  periodical 
searching  examinations.   He  lectured  very  little,  believing  that  poetry 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  507 

can  best  be  taught  by  reading  it  aloud.  Some  of  his  colleagues,  not  so 
successful  in  attracting  students,  felt  that  they  too  could  have  large  fol- 
lowings  if  they  were  willing  to  fill  their  class  hours  with  exhibitions  of 
skill  in  reading.  According  to  that  method,  they  argued  among  them- 
selves, anybody  with  good  diction  and  dramatic  presence  could  be  a  uni- 
versity teacher  of  English.  The  fact  remained,  however,  that  Souther- 
land's  courses  were  very  successful. 

To-day  Southerland  was  dealing  with  Wordsworth.  He  was  a  sincere 
admirer  of  the  man  who,  he  explained  each  year,  felt  that  poetry  was  a 
holy  service  and  the  task  of  the  poet  a  priest-like  duty.  Wordsworth's 
poetry  was  to  him  a  great  expression  of  sensitive  youth.  "Joy  was  ^  *n 
that  dawn  to  be  alive,  but  to  be  young  was  very  heaven/'  was  one  of  his 
favorite  quotations.  The  stuffy,  self-deceiving,  sanctimonious  Words- 
worth of  the  later  poems  he  preferred  to  ignore.  But  the  glowing  eager- 
ness and  simplicity  of  the  earlier  poems  he  considered  the  authentic 
voice  of  that  period  in  life  most  interesting  to  him. 

David  had  not  taken  enthusiastically  to  Wordsworth.  He  wanted  to 
accept  Southerland's  declaration  that  Wordsworth  was  one  of  the  five 
greatest  English  poets,  but  the  naivete  of  the  narrative  poems  and  some 
of  the  "Poems  of  Sentiment  and  Reflection"  seemed  very  silly  to  him. 
On  Saturday,  however,  he  had  read  "Tintern  Abbey"  and  two  or  three 
books  of  "The  Prelude,"  which  had  deeply  interested  him.  Now  as  Mr. 
Southerland  read  aloud  from  these  pages  of  Wordsworth's  autobiog- 
raphy, Dave  began  to  realize  that  the  poet  of  Windermere  was  indeed 
a  kindred  spirit.  He  too  had  felt  "the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight  of  all 
this  unintelligible  world."  He  too  knew  "those  fleeting  moods  of  shadowy 
exultation"  and  "the  treasonable  growth  of  indecisive  judgments."  Dave 
felt  that  Southerland  was  looking  straight  at  him  as  he  read  the  lines 
from  "The  Prelude": 

Ah!  is  there  one  who  ever  has  been  young, 
Nor  needs  a  warning  voice  to  tame  the  pride 
Of  intellect  and  virtue's  self-esteem? 

Rapturously  he  took  down  in  his  notes  Southerland's  closing  words: 
"Wordsworth  felt  too  keenly  the  value  of  'those  strong,  permanent,  and 
universal  passions  which  are  found  in  the  cottage  as  well  as  in  the  palace.' 
He  partially  realized  that  the  truth  of  great  mankind  is  not  in  'Man 
2nd  his  noble  nature,'  nor  in  the  'high  destiny  of  the  human  race,'  nor 
in  'the  universal  heart  of  man,'  nor  in  'the  government  of  equal  rights 
and  individual  worth,'  but  in  'the  virtue  of  one  paramount  mind/  " 

"One  paramount  mind."  Yes,  that  was  it.  That  was  the  ideal  of  the 
perfect  intellectual.  What  else  was  worth  seeking  in  life?  In  an  adoles- 


508  Reading  to  Others 

cent  ecstasy  of  contemplation  he  left  the  classroom  at  the  end  of  the 
hour  and  walked  across  the  snowy  campus  to  the  library. 

ALLISON  THORNDIKE,  In  That  Dawn 

59.  Anybody  who  has  real  familiarity  with  higher  education  will  not 
hesitate  to  assert  that  professors  are  not  engaged  in  subversive  teaching. 
They  will  also  remind  the  public  that  professors  are  citizens.  They  are 
not  disfranchised  when  they  take  academic  posts.  They  therefore  enjoy 
all  the  rights  of  free  speech,  free  thought,  and  free  opinion  that  other 
citizens  have.  No  university  would  permit  them  to  indoctrinate  their 
students  with  their  own  views.  No  university  would  permit  them  to  turn 
the  classroom  into  a  center  of  propaganda.  But  off  the  campus,  outside 
the  classroom,  they  may  hold  or  express  any  political  or  economic  views 
that  it  is  legal  for  an  American  to  express  or  hold.  Any  university  would 
be  glad  to  have  Mr.  Einstein  among  its  professors.  Would  anybody 
suggest  that  he  should  be  discharged  because  he  is  a  "radical"? 

All  parties,  groups,  and  factions  in  this  country  should  be  interested  in 
preserving  the  freedom  of  the  universities.  Some  of  our  states  now  have 
radical  administrations  which  have  reached  out  to  absorb  the  universi- 
ties. The  only  hope  in  those  states  for  the  preservation  of  another  point 
of  view  is  in  adhering  to  the  doctrine  that  if  a  professor  is  a  competent 
scholar  he  may  hold  his  post,  no  matter  how  his  political  views  differ 
from  those  of  the  majority.  Not  only  so,  the  newspapers,  the  broad- 
casters, the  churches,  and  every  citizen  should  uphold  the  traditional 
rights  of  the  scholar.  Wherever  freedom  of  inquiry,  discussion,  and 
teaching  have  been  abolished,  freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  of  religion, 
and  freedom  of  speech  have  been  threatened  or  abolished,  too. 

Look  at  the  universities  of  Russia  and  see  how  they  have  sunk  to  be 
mere  mouthpieces  of  the  ruling  party.  Look  at  the  universities  of  Italy, 
where  only  those  doctrines  which  the  government  approves  may  be 
expounded.  Look  at  the  universities  of  Germany,  once  among  the  great- 
est in  the  world,  now  a  mere  shadow,  because  their  freedom  is  gone. 
These  are  the  ways  of  communism  and  fascism. 

In  America  we  have  had  such  confidence  in  democracy  that  we  have 
been  willing  to  support  institutions  of  higher  learning  in  which  the  truth 
might  be  pursued,  and  when  found  might  be  communicated  to  our  peo- 
ple. We  have  not  been  afraid  of  the  truth,  or  afraid  to  hope  that  it 
might  emerge  from  the  clash  of  opinion.  The  American  people  must 
decide  whether  they  will  longer  tolerate  the  search  for  truth.  If  they 
will,  the  universities  will  endure  and  give  light  and  leading  to  the  nation. 
If  they  will  not,  then  as  a  great  political  scientist  has  put  it,  we  can  blow 


Prose  for  Oral  Reading  509 

out  the  light  and  fight  it  out  in  the  dark;  for  when  the  voice  of  reason  is 
silenced,  the  rattle  of  machine  guns  begins. 

ROBERT  HUTCHINS,  What  Is  a  University? 

60.  Germany  has  no  territorial  demand  against  England  and  France, 
apart  from  that  for  the  return  of  our  colonies.  While  the  solution  of 
this  question  would  contribute  greatly  to  the  pacification  of  the  world, 
it  is  in  no  sense  a  problem  which  could  cause  a  war.  If  there  is  any  ten- 
sion in  Europe  today  it  is  primarily  due  to  the  irresponsible  activity  of 
an  unscrupulous  press,  which  scarcely  permits  a  day  to  go  by  without 
disturbing  the  peace  of  mankind  with  alarming  news  which  is  as  stupid 
as  it  is  mendacious.  The  efforts  of  various  organs  to  poison  the  mind 
of  the  world  in  this  connection  must  be  regarded  as  nothing  short  of 
criminal.  .  .  . 

In  what  way  do  the  interests  of  England  and  Germany,  for  example, 
conflict?  I  have  stated  over  and  over,  again  and  again,  that  there  is  no 
German,  and,  above  all,  no  National  Socialist,  who  even  in  his  most  secret 
thought  has  the  intention  of  causing  the  British  Empire  any  kind  of 
difficulties.  From  England,  too,  the  voices  of  men  who  think  reasonably 
and  calmly  express  a  similar  attitude  with  regard  to  Germany.  It  would 
be  a  blessing  for  the  whole  world  if  mutual  confidence  and  cooperation 
would  be  established  between  the  two  peoples. 

The  same  is  true  of  our  relations  with  France. 

We  have  just  celebrated  the  fifth  anniversary  of  the  conclusion  of 
our  non-aggression  pact  with  Poland.  There  can  scarcely  be  any  differ- 
ence of  opinion  today  among  the  true  friends  of  peace  with  regard  to 
the  value  of  this  agreement.  One  need  only  ask  one's  self  what  might 
have  happened  to  Europe  if  this  agreement  which  brought  such  relief 
had  not  been  entered  into  five  years  ago.  In  signing  it  the  great  Polish 
marshal  and  patriot  rendered  his  people  just  as  great  a  service  as  the 
leaders  of  the  National  Socialist  state  rendered  the  German  people. 
During  the  troubled  months  of  the  last  year,  the  friendship  between 
Germany  and  Poland  was  one  of  the  reassuring  factors  in  the  political 
life  of  Europe.  .  .  . 

Our  relations  with  the  United  States  are  suffering  from  a  campaign 
of  defamation  carried  on  to  serve  obvious  political  and  financial  inter- 
ests which,  under  the  pretense  that  Germany  threatens  American  inde- 
pendence or  freedom,  are  endeavoring  to  mobilize  the  hatred  of  an  entire 
continent  against  the  European  states  which  are  nationally  governed. 
We  all  believe,  however,  that  this  does  not  reflect  the  will  of  the  millions 
of  American  citizens  who,  despite  all  that  is  said  to  the  contrary  by  a 


5 10  Reading  to  Others 

gigantic  Jewish  capitalistic  propaganda  through  the  press,  the  radio,  and 
cinema,  cannot  fail  to  realize  that  there  is  not  one  word  of  truth  in  all 
these  assertions.  Germany  wishes  to  live  in  peace  and  on  friendly  terms 
with  all  countries,  including  America.  Germany  refrains  from  any  inter- 
vention in  American  affairs,  and  likewise  repudiates  any  American  inter- 
vention in  German  affairs.  .  .  . 

The  Germany  of  today  is  no  different  from  that  of  ten,  twenty,  or 
thirty  years  ago.  Since  then  the  number  of  Germans  has  not  increased 
to  any  considerable  extent.  Capabilities,  genius,  energy  cannot  be  con- 
sidered more  plentiful  than  in  former  times.  The  one  thing  which  has 
changed  considerably  is  the  way  in  which  these  values  are  utilized  to  the 
full  by  the  manner  of  this  organization  and  thanks  to  the  formation  of  a 
new  method  of  selection  of  leaders. 

A  community  such  as  this,  however,  cannot  primarily  be  created  by 
the  power  of  compulsion,  but  only  by  the  compelling  power  of  an  idea, 
by  the  strenuous  exertion  of  constant  education.  National  Socialism  aims 
at  the  establishment  of  a  real  national  community.  This  is  the  difference 
between  the  party  programs  of  the  vanished  past  and  the  ultimate  aim 
of  National  Socialism.  They  contained  variously  formulated  conceptions 
of  aims  of  an  economic,  political,  or  denominational  factor.  They  were, 
however,  only  applicable  to  their  age  and  consequently  limited.  National 
Socialism,  on  the  other  hand,  has  set  itself  an  aim  in  its  community  of 
the  nation  which  can  be  attained  and  held  only  by  continuous  and 
constant  education.  We  really  are  engaged  in  a  tremendous  struggle, 
making  use  of  every  ounce  of  the  united  strength  and  energy  of  our  peo- 
ple. And  we  shall  win  this  struggle  completely;  in  fact,  we  have  already 
won  it. 

ADOLF  HITLER,  "The  Position  of  Germany  Today." 

Speech  delivered  before  the  Reichstag, 

January  30,  1939 

61.  I've  been  lingerin  by  the  Tomb  of  the  lamentid  Shakespeare.  It 
is  a  success.  .  .  , 

Yes.  I've  been  to  Stratford  onto  the  Avon,  the  birthplace  of  Shak- 
speare.  Mr.  S.  is  now  no  more.  He's  been  dead  over  three  hundred 
( 300)  years.  The  peple  of  his  native  town  are  justly  proud  of  him.  They 
cherish  his  mem'ry,  and  them  as  sells  picturs  of  his  birthplace,  &c,  make 
it  prof'tible  cherishin  it.  Almost  everybody  buys  a  pictur  to  put  into 
their  Albiom.  .  .  . 

William  Shakspeare  was  born  in  Stratford  in  1564.  All  the  com- 
mentaters,  Shaksperian  scholars,  etsetry,  are  agreed  on  this,  which  is  about 
the  only  thing  they  are  agreed  on  in  regard  to  him,  except  that  his  man- 


frose  jor  urai  JKeaamg  511 

tie  hasn't  fallen  onto  any  poet  or  dramatist  hard  enough  to  hurt  said 
poet  or  dramatist  much.  And  there  is  no  doubt  if  these  commentaters 
and  persons  continner  investigatin  Shakspeare's  career,  we  shall  not,  in 
doo  time,  know  anything  about  it  at  all.  When  a  mere  lad  little  William 
attended  the  Grammer  School,  because,  as  he  said,  the  Grammer  School 
wouldn't  attend  him.  This  remarkable  remark,  comin  from  one  so  young 
and  inexperunced,  set  peple  to  thinkin  there  might  be  somethin  in  this 
lad.  He  subsequently  wrote  Hamlet  and  George  Barnwell.  When  his 
kind  teacher  went  to  London  to  accept  a  position  in  the  office  of  the 
Metropolitan  Railway,  little  William  was  chosen  by  his  fellow  pupils  to 
deliver  a  farewell  address.  "Go  on  Sir,"  he  said,  "in  a  glorus  career.  Be 
like  a  eagle  and  soar,  and  the  soarer  you  get  the  more  we  shall  all  be 
gratified!  That's  so." 

My  young  readers,  who  wish  to  know  about  Shakspeare,  better  get 
these  vallyable  remarks  framed. 

ARTEMUS  WARD,  At  the  Tomb  of  Shakespeare 

62.  Some  people  collect  postage  stamps,  others,  old  masters.  I  collect 
ultra-violet  rays,  preferably  non-synthetic.  In  the  city  where  I  was 
reared,  the  institution  I  regard  more  sentimentally  than  any  other  is  the 
L  Street  Bathhouse  in  South  Boston.  Here  on  a  warm  spring  day  nearly 
a  score  of  years  ago,  I  made  my  debut  into  the  society  of  sun-worshipers. 
Passing  through  the  old  warren  of  a  bathhouse  with  its  tier  on  tier  of 
lockers,  one  emerged  upon  a  strip  of  sandy  beach,  perhaps  a  hundred 
yards  wide,  flanked  by  high  board  fences  that  ran  far  into  the  water. 
Along  the  east  fence,  for  the  sun  was  in  the  west,  lay  and  squatted  and 
dozed  a  hundred  naked  men,  nine  out  of  ten  of  them  colored  like  South 
Sea  Islanders— and  it  was  only  early  May.  Naked  they  did  not  seem, 
but  clothed  in  the  most  just  and  timeless  covering  of  homo  sapiens.  But 
how  naked  I  felt,  creeping  out  to  lie  among  them,  a  pale  white  wraith 
in  a  field  of  bronzes.  Thereupon  I  resolved  to  clothe  myself  aright,  and 
from  that  day  to  this  the  resolution  has  been  kept. 

I  came  again  and  again  to  L  Street.  Slowly  the  stark  white  gave  way 
to  ever-deepening  shades  of  brown.  Slowly  I  learned  the  laws  and  dogmas 
of  my  cult  .  .  .  Interminable,  drowsy  conversations  were  always  in 
process.  We  talked  of  law,  science,  government,  women,  crime,  sports, 
history,  races-— without  passion,  with  a  detached  philosophy  which  held, 
I  am  convinced,  an  authentic  wisdom.  The  sun  nourished  that  wisdom, 
that  all-pervading  tolerance.  Beating  down  upon  us,  it  ironed  out  the 
taut  impetuosities,  the  nervous,  hasty  judgments,  the  bile  and  the  bit- 
terness of  men  who  walk  in  the  streets  of  modern  cities  in  their  clothes. 
Unclothed  and  in  our  right  minds  we  lay,  at  peace  with  the  world, 


gi2  Reading  to  Others 

detached  and  lazy  as  the  gods  upon  Olympus,  speculating  on  the  foibles 
of  humanity,  but  not  caring  greatly  where  the  race  was  going  or  why. 

The  only  real  concern  was  that  cloud  to  the  south.  It  was  moving 
toward  the  sun.  How  thick  was  it?  Was  it  pierced  with  apertures,  or 
solid?  Would  it  drift  high  enough  to  escape  the  face  of  the  sun  alto- 
gether? But  we  were  fatalists.  If  our  god  was  blotted  out,  he  was  blotted 
out.  His  was  not  the  fault,  but  the  vagaries  of  the  atmosphere  upon  the 
planet.  We  never  grumbled,  never  cursed.  We  lay  and  waited,  chilled 
but  patient,  the  conversation  lagging— waiting  for  the  moment  when  the 
cloud  should  pass,  and  warm,  warmer,  blazing  hot,  the  royal  wine  smote 
into  our  veins  again. 

But  if  the  cloud  was  bell-wether  to  a  herd— and  we  learned  to  know 
the  sky  like  so  many  Gloucester  fishermen— silently  we  arose,  silently 
we  scanned  the  whole  surface  of  the  sky,  silently  and  sadly  we  dressed, 
nodded  to  one  another,  and  disappeared  to  heaven  knows  what  remote 
corners  of  the  city,  leaving  the  beach  to  outlanders  who  came  only  to 
bathe,  or  the  uninitiated  who  thought  the  sun  would  shine  again.  It 
never  did. 

Our  rules  were  few  but  strict.  One  never  stood  in  a  brother's  sun- 
light. One  never  yelled,  threw  sand,  or  broke  into  conversation  vio- 
lently. It  was  mandatory  to  "take  the  water*'  at  least  once,  whatever  the 
time  of  year.  It  was  a  grievous  breach  of  etiquette  to  come  back  from  the 
dip  and  shake  water  on  a  reclining  brother's  form.  Indeed  practical  jokes 
of  all  kinds  excluded  one  from  the  fellowship.  And  why  should  they  not? 
An  utterly  relaxed  body  is  in  no  physiological  condition  for  practical 
jokes.  Indeed  I  have  never  visited  a  club  where  good  manners  and  due 
regard  for  the  comfort  of  one's  fellows  were  more  in  evidence.  Nor  did 
the  civilities  run  to  talk,  but  always  to  tangible  physical  behavior.  No 
instruction  was  given;  one  learned  by  watching.  The  probationary  period 
was  many  weeks. 

STUART  CHASE,  Confessions  of  a  Sun-Worshiper 


ABBOTT,  WALDO,  318 

Abcrcrornbie,  Lascelles,  318 

About  Women,  54 

"Absurdity  of  Eternal  Peace"  162 

Acting,  285;  and  interpretation, 
285;  technique  of,  295 

Action,  bodily,  201,  215;  exercises 
in,  224 

Actor,  and  audience,  294;  and  in- 
terpreter, 285;  and  the  play, 
288;  technique  of  the,  295 

ADAMS,  HENRY,  475 

Advertisements,  1 

AESOP,  231 

Aesthetics,  376 

ALBERTI,  EVA,  289 

ALDRICH,  THOMAS  BAILEY,  342 

"Alexander's  Feast,"  96 

Alice  in  Wonderland,  494 

"All  Is  Well"  117 

Alliteration,  91,  95 

Allusions,  tracing,  13 

Alphabet,  International  Phonetic, 
134 

American  Adventures,  506 

American  Authors,  12 

American  Language,  The,  151 

American  Men  of  Science,  13 

American  Pronunciation,  135 

American  Scholar,  The,  29 

American  Songbag,  78 

Analysis,  of  plays,  290;  of  poetry, 
19,  108,  254,  348 

Anapestic  foot,  96 

"Ancient  Mariner,  The"  93 

ANDERSEN,  HANS  CHRISTIAN,  231 

ANDERSON,  MAXWELL,  76  (and 
LAWRENCE  STALLINGS)  ,  297 

Anger,  61  (See  also  Mood.) 


Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  95 

Announcers,  314;  test  for,  336  (See 
also  Broadcasters.) 

Apes,  Men  and  Morons,  463 

Apology,  71 

"Apology,  An,"  387 

Appreciation,  369;  and  verse  speak- 
ing, 338,  339,  350;  exercises  in, 
376;  of  literature,  69;  principles 
of  literary,  369  (See  also  Litera- 
ture.) 

APULEIUS,  Lucius,  115 

Arabian  Nights'  Entertainment, 
503 

Areopagitica,  498 

ARISTOPHANES,  356 

ARNOLD,  MATTHEW,  13,  32,  79,  186, 
189,  371 

Arrowsmith,  481 

"Arsenal  at  Springfield,  The"  76 

Art,  artificiality  of,  295;  of  the 
theater,  289;  purpose  of,  373 

"Art  Gallery;9  58 

Arthur  Mervyn,  478 

Articulation,  exercises  in,  420 

Articulator,  126 

Artificiality  of  art,  295 

Arts,  The,  499 

Assignation,  The,  17 

Assonance,  91,  95 

As  You  Like  It,  99 

"Atahmta  in  Ccilydon"  33,  352, 
355 

ATKINSON,  BROOKS,  391 

Atlantic  Monthly,  192 

Atmospheric  Pressure,  121  (See 
also  Inhalation.) 

Attention,  keeping  the  audience's, 

5  (See  also  Interest.) 
At  the  Tomb  of  Shakespeare,  510 
AUDEN,  W.  H.,  95 


5*3 


514 

Audibility  of  voice,  293 

Audience  and  actor,  294  (See  also 
Listener.) 

"Aunt  Juley's  Courtship,    1855," 
283 

AURELIUS,  MARCUS,  41 

AUSTEN,  JANE,  1 78 

Authors  Today  and  Yesterday,  12 

Autobiography,  7 

Average  speech,  155 

"Away  Goes  Sally/'  J90 

Axel's  Castle,  15,  105 

B 

"Babies  Leave  Me  Cold,"  234 

Baby  talk,  404 

BACON,  FRANCIS,  493 

"Ballad  of  Francois  Villon,  A,"  96 

"Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,   The," 

209 

Ballads,  77,  93,  98 
Bands,  vocal,  126 
BARRIE,  SIR  JAMES,  44 
BECKER,  CARL,  383 
BEDDOES,  THOMAS  LOVELL,  355 
Beethoven,  373 
BELL,  NEIL,  28 
"Bells,  The,"  82 

Bell  Telephone  Laboratories,  128 
Belton  Estate,  The,  282 
BENCHLEY,  ROBERT,  243 
BENNETT,  ARNOLD,  175,  269 
Beowulf,  95 
"Beyond"  345 
Beyond  Life,  14 
BIERCE,  AMBROSE,  473 
BILLINGS,  JOSH,  453 
Billy  Budd,  Foretopman,  18 
"Birds  of  Killing-worth,  The"  97 
BISHOP,  MORRIS,  277 
"Bishop  Orders  His  Tomb,  The," 

18 

Bitterness,  63  (See  also  Mood.) 
BLAKE,  WILLIAM,  67,  100,  104 
Blank  verse,  92 


Index 

"Blasting,"  312 

"Blessed  Dam ozc I .  The"  313 
"Blue  Squills"  212 
BOAS,  RALPH  PHILIP,  370 
BODENHEIM,  MAXWLLL,  351 
BORAH,  WILLIAM  E.,  162 
BOSWELL,  JAMES,  489 
BRADSTREET,  ANNE,  95 
Brahms,  373 
"Brass  Spittoons,"  385 
Breath   groups,    30   (Sec   also 

Phrases.) 
Breathing,    30,     120;    abdominal 

294;   diaphragmatic,   122;   exer 

cises  in,  123  (See  also  Phrasing 

Inhalation,  Exhalation.) 
Brewer's  Dictionary  of  Phrase  and 

Fable,  12 
"Bright  Star,"  117 
British  Broadcasting  Corporation, 

313,318 
Broadcast,  commercial  "spot,"  323; 

continuity    for,    325;    dramatic, 

327,  329,  332;  educational,  326; 

news,  322 
Broadcasters,  pointers  to,  319  (See 

also  Announcers.) 
BROOKS,  VAN  WYCK,  452 
BROUN,  HEYWOOD,  384 
BROWN,  CHARLES  BROCKDEN,  478 
BROWNE,  SIR  THOMAS,  74 
BROWNING,    ELIZABETH    BARRETT, 

36,  236 
BROWNING,  ROBERT,  18,  64,  81,  98, 

161,  189,  190,  208,  260,  438,  440 
BRYAN,  WILLIAM  JENNINGS,  156 
BRYANT,  WILLIAM  CULLEN,  97 
BUCHAN,  JOHN,  271 
BUCHANAN,  ROBERT,  13 
Bugle,  128 

BULWER-LYTTON,  EDWARD,  476 
BUNNER,  HENRY  CUYLER,  58 
"Burial  Party"  267 
BURKE,  EDMUND,  38,  155 
BURNS,  ROBERT,  191,  196 


Index 

BURR,  AMELIA  JOSEPHINE,  357 

BUTCHER  AND  LANG,  206  (transla- 
tors) 

BYRD,  HARRY  F.,  205 

BYRON,  LORD,  16,  41,  61,  63,  94, 
114,  115,229,407 

"liy  the  Gray  Sea"  358 

C 

CABELL,  JAMES  BRANCH,  8,  14 
CALVKRLY,  C.  S.,  1 1 
CARLYLE,  JANE  WELSH,  237 
CARLYLE,  THOMAS,  4,  7,  14,  17,  81, 

189 
CARROLL,  LEWIS,  36,  104,  264,  441, 

494 

CARRYL,  GUY  WETMORE,  362 
Caruso,  131 
CARY,  PHOEBE,  244 
Case  Against  Women,  The,  242 
"Cataract  of  Lodore,  The,"  443 
Centering,  33;  by  contrasts,  37;  by 

echoes,  38;  exercises  in,  40,  51; 

nouns  and  verbs  in,  34 
Century  Collegiate  Handbook,  20 
Characters,  491 
CERVANTES,  486 
CHASE,  STUART,  5 1 1 
CHAUCER,  65 
Chekov,  373 

CHENEY,  JOHN  VANCE,  363 
CHESTERFIELD,  LORD,  150,  206 
Childe    Harold's    Pilgrimage,    16, 

41,  63,  114,  115 
"Choice,  The,"  389 
Choral  reading  (See  Verse  Sjieak- 

ing-) 

"Christabel,"  113 
"Christian  Science  Monitor  Views 

the  News,  The"  321 
CICERO,  155 
Claire,  Helen,  313 
Classic  Myths,  12 
Classification  of  consonants,  139 
Clauses,  subordinate,  19 


515 

"Clean  Platter,  The"  210 
Cleft  palate,  398 
"Cloud,  The"  25,  94 
CLOUGH,  ARTHUR  HUGH,  117 
COATSWORTH,  ELIZABETH,  190 
"Cock  and  the  Bull,  The"  11 
Code  of  a  Critic,  The,  76 
Co-Eds,  God  Bless  Them,  The,  475 
COFFIN,  ROBERT  P.  TRISTRAM,  386 
COLERIDGE,   SAMUEL  TAYLOR,   68, 

88,  113 
"Come,  landlord,  fill  the  flowing 

bowl"  246 

Commas,   24   (See   also   Punctua- 
tion.) 

Commercial  "spot"  broadcast,  323 
Communication,  of  meaning,  293; 

symbols  of,  6 
"Composition "  358 
Conciliation  with  America,  38 
Confessions  of  a  Sun-Worshiper, 

511 

"Congo,  The"  86 
Connotation,  8,  72 
CONRAD,  JOSEPH,  376 
Consciousness,  stream  of,  303 
Consonants,  classification  of,  139; 
harmonious     combinations     of 
vowels  and,  79;  sounds  in  pho- 
netics, 136 

Contemporary    America?!    Litera- 
ture, 12 
Contemporary  British  Literature, 

12 

Continuity  for  broadcasts,  325 
Contrasts  in  centering,  37  (See  also 

Centering.) 
Control,  218,  287 
COOPER,  JAMES  FENIMORE,  465 
COOPER,  LANE,  51 
Coordination  of  mind  and  body, 

215 

"Corinna's  Going-a-Maying"  96 
Corrective  exercises,  general,  406; 
index  to,  405;  with  phonetics, 
406 


516 

Couplet,  93 

COWARD,  NOEL,  229 

"Crabbed  Age  and  Youth,"  11 

CRANE,  HART,  105,  106 

CRANE,  STEPHEN,  63 

CRAPSEY,  ADELAIDE,  354 

Criticism,  376 

Cross,  Milton,  317 

"Cult  of  intelligibility,"  105 

Cummings,  E.  E.,  104,  106 

Curtis,  George  W.,  194 

Cyclopedia  of  English  Literature, 
12 

Cyclopedia  of  Painters  and  Paint- 
ing, 12 

CYNEWULF,  95 

Cynicism,  61  (See  also  Mood.) 

Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  172 

D 

Dactyllic  foot,  96 

D  ARROW,  A.,  258 

Dashes,  24  (See  also  Punctuation.) 

DAY,  CLARENCE,  281 

Day  in  Tennessee  with  Norman 
Thomas,  A,  484 

''Death;'  354 

"Death  of  the  Hired  Man,  The" 
272 

Declaration  of  Independence,  477 

Defects  of  speech,  155,  397;  func- 
tional, 399;  nervous  or  emo- 
tional, 399;  organic,  397 

Defense  of  Poetry,  A,  70 

Defense  of  Poetry,  The,  471 

DEFOE,  DANIEL,  490 

DE  KRUIF,  PAUL,  501 

DE  LA  MARE,  WALTER,  17,  64,  111, 
351 

Denotation,  8 

DE  QUINCEY,  THOMAS,  115,  372 

"Deserted  Village,  The,"  42 

Design,  295 

Despair,  61  (See  also  Mood.) 


Index 

Detachment,  287 

Devices,  exercises  in  poetic,  100; 
modern  unconventional,  104; 
poetic,  91 

DE  VOTO,  BERNARD,  475 

Diagram,  of  tongue,  139;  of  vowels, 
138 

Dialect,  Eastern,  143,  144;  Eastern 
Virginian,  145;  General  Amer- 
ican, 143,  144,  145;  Gullah,  143; 
in  reading,  253;  Pennsylvania 
Dutch,  143;  Southern,  143 

Dialects  for  Oral  Interpretation, 
258 

Dialogue,  and  movement,  289;  ex- 
ercises in  dramatic,  296 

Diana  of  tJie  Crossways,  270 

Diaphragm.  120  (Sec  also  Breath- 

in8-) 
DICKENS,   CHARLLS,   65,   229,   377, 

455 
DICKINSON,  EMILY,  68 

Diction,  2,  3,  156,  397;  exercises  in, 
406;  in  verse  speaking,  349; 
radio,  316  (See  also  Radio  speak- 
ing-) 

Dictionaries,  10:  Oxford,  10;  pro- 
nunciations, 133,  318;  Webster's, 
10 

Dictionary  of  American  Biogra- 
phy, 12' 

Dictionary  of  Music  and  Mu- 
sicians, 13 

Dictionary  of  National  Biography, 
12 

"Dignity  of  Speech,  The"  149 

Diphthongs  in  phonetics,  135 

Discoveries,  149 

Discovering  Poetry,  369 

tfDivina  Commedia,"  116 

DOBSON,  AUSTIN,  104,  119,  354 

"Dem  Juan,"  61,  94 

DONNE,  JOHN,  21,  104,  110 

Don  Quixote,  486 

dos  Passos,  John,  105 


Index 


517 


Drama,  Greek,  337;  radio,  327, 329, 
332 

"Drama  Rule-Book,11  391 

Dramatic,  broadcasts,  327,  329, 
332;  dialogue,  exercises  in,  296; 
interpretation,  65;  reading,  252; 
reading  contests,  253;  reading, 
exercises  in,  258  (See  also  Inter- 
pretation.) 

Dream-Fugue,  115 

"Dream  Pedlary,"  355 

DREISER,  THEODORE,  487 

DREW,  ELIZABETH,  369 

DRYDEN,  JOHN,  96,  104 

"Du  Bist  Wie  Eine  Blume"  341 

"Dunciad,  The,"  13 

DUNNE,  FINLEY  PETER,  492 

DURFEY,  THOMAS,  342 


Earthly  Paradise  (Prologue),  387 

Eastern  dialect,  143;  speech,  144; 
Virginian  speech,  145 

EASTMAN,  MAX,  105,  174,  370 

Ecclesiastes,  40,  41,  457 

Echoes,  in  centering,  38;  pronoun, 
39;  subordinated,  39;  synonym, 
39 

Ecstasy,  61  (See  also  Mood.) 

EDMAN,  IRWIN,  52 

Educational  broadcast,  326 

Educators,  1 

Eheu  Fugaccs,  392 

"Eldorado"  108 

tf  Elegy"  18 

Elocution,  156;  in  radio  speaking, 
315 

Eloquence,  155 

EMERSON,  RALPH  WALDO,  29,  37, 
76,  94 

Emotion,  374;  and  rhythm,  98; 
displaying,  254;  exercises  in  in- 
terpreting, 108;  fundamental, 
199;  in  poetic  devices,  91;  in 
sound,  77;  interpreting,  60; 
James-Lange  theory  of,  183, 
219,  286;  on  stage,  286 


Empathy,  216 

Enchanted  Aisles,  474 

Encyclopedia  Britannica,  12 

End  of  the  Century,  The,  484 

"England,"  11 

English  and  Scottish  Popular  Bal- 
lads, 78 

Enjoyment  of  Poetry,  The,  174, 
370 

ENTWISTLE,  A.  R.,  370  (and  PAUL 
LANDIS) 

Enunciation  in  verse  speaking,  339 

EPICTETUS,  41 

Epigrams,  36 

"Epitaph  on  Charles  II, "  38 

"Escape,"  385 

Esquire,  234 

Essays  in  Criticism,  13,  371 

"Essay  on  Criticism,"  93 

Essays  on  the  Poets,  372 

Eulogy  at  His  Brother's  Grave,  172 

EURIPIDES,  41 

"Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  The"  75,  86 

EVERETT,  EDWARD,  163 

Everyman  His  Own  Historian,  383 

Exhalation,  121,  157 

Exit  the  Gospel  of  Work,  381 

Experimentalists,  104  (See  also 
"Rebels.") 

Expression,  156 

Expressionism,  307 


FAIRCHILD,  HENRY  PRATT,  381 
"Fall  of  the  City,  The"  332 
Familiar  Quotations,  13 
Fantasy,  64  (See  also  Mood.) 
Far  Away  and  Long  Ago,  468 
Farewell,  My  Lovely!  240 
FARSON,  NEGLEY,  182 
FAULKNER,  WILLIAM,  105,  177 
Faults  of  pitch,  167 
Fidler,  Jimmy,  314 


518 


Index 


FIELDING,  HENRY,  282 
FIELDS,  JAMES  THOMAS,  367 
Fight  for  Life,  The,  501 
Figures  of  Speech,  72  (See  also 

Speech.) 

FINCH,  SPENSER,  104 
First  Inaugural  Address,  472 
"Fit  the  First:  The  Landing,"  264 
Fleshly  School  of  Poetry,  The,  13 
FLETCHER,  JOHN,  342 
Flowering  of  New  England,  The, 

452 

"Flower  of  Mending,  The"  360 
Foot,  anapestic,  96;  dactyllic,  96; 
iambic,   96;    spondaic,   96;    tro- 
chaic, 96 
Forcefulness,  157 
Foreign  speech,  404 
Forms,  stanza,  92 
FRANKLIN,  BENJAMIN,  239,  461 
Franklin,  Miriam,  293 
"Free  Man's  Worship,  A"  42 
Free  verse,  92,  193 
From  Morn  to  Midnight,  307 
FROST,  ROBERT,  34,  180,  229,  272 
Full  stops,  24  (See  also  Punctua- 
tion.) 

FUNK,  WILFRED,  80 
"Future  of  the  Classics,  The"  446 


GALSWORTHY,  JOHN,  283 

"Garden  of  Proserpine,  The,"  179 

Gargantua,  458 

General  American,  pronunciation, 
134,  143; speech,  145 

"Gentle  Echo  on  Women,  A,"  356 

Geography  and  Plays,  261 

GEORGE,  DAVID  LLOYD,  44 

Gestures,  221;  in  reading,  254;  tim- 
ing of,  222;  types  of,  223 

"Gettysburg  Address ,"  192 

Ghosts,  299 

GIBBONS,  FLOYD,  177 


"Gifts,"  111 

Gilbert,  John,  165 

GILBERT,  W.  S.,  104,  190,  346,  436, 
437,  438 

Glottal  stop,  421 

Glottis,  127 

Goethe,  294 

Golden  Asse  of  Lucius  Apuleius, 
The,  115 

Golden  Honeymoon,  The,  268 

GOLDSMITH,  OLIVER,  42 

GOLDWYN,  SAMUEL,  3 

Gondoliers,  The,  438 

Gone  With  the  Wind,  204 

"Good  Friday,  1613,  Riding  West- 
ward:' 21  ' 

Goodman,  Benny,  314 

Grammar,  17;  exercises  in,  20;  in 

poetry,  20 

Grapes  of  Wrath,  The,  196 
GRAY,  THOMAS,  18,81 
"Greater  Love"  214 
Greek    Genius  and  Its   Influence, 

The,  51 

Gicenmantlc,  271 
GRLENOUGH.  J.  B.  (and  G.  L.  Kn- 

TREDGL),  379 

Grimms   Household  Tales,  483 
Grouping  in  verse  speaking,  343, 

347 

"Growing  Old:'  186 
GUITERMAN,  ARTHUR,  361 
Gullah  dialect,  M3 
GULLAN,  MARJORIK,  339 
Gulliver  s  Travels,  450 

H 

Hairy  Ape,  The,  28 

HALSEY,  MARGARET,  171,  187 

Hamlet,  70,  90 

HANES,  LEIGH  BUCKNER,  340 

HANFORD,  EDGAR,  28 

Hard  Times,  377 

HARDY,  THOMAS,  65 


Index 


5*9 


Hare  with  Many  Friends,  The,  231 

Harper's  Encyclopedia  of  Art,  13 

HAWTHORNE,  NATHANIEL,  464 

HAZLITT,  WILLIAM,  16,  469 

Hedda  Gabler,  290 

HEINE,  HEINRICH,  249,  341 

HENLEY,  W.  E.,  160 

"Henry  C.  Calhoun"  195 

HENRY,  JOHN  (CARDINAL  NEW- 
MAN), 22 

HENRY,  PATRICK,  496 

Heringjar,  125 

HERRICK,  ROBERT,  38,  75,  96 

HICKLER,  ROSALIE,  341 

"Higher  Pantheism  in  a  Nutshell, 
The"  25 

HILL,  BENJAMIN,  178 

Hill-Billy  Singers,  78 

HILL,  MARION,  27 

HILLYER,  ROBERT,  192 

History  for  Ready  Reference,  12 

History  of  New  York,  A,  462 

HITLER,  ADOLF,  177,  509 

H.  M.  S.  Pinafore,  346,  436 

HOLLAND,  JOSIAH  GILBERT,  41 

HOLMES,  OLIVER  WENDELL,  62,  65 

HOMER,  206 

HOOTON,  ERNEST  ALBERT,  463 

"Hound  of  Heaven,"  61 

House  and   the  Brain,   The,  476 

HOUSMAN,  A.  E.,  15,  71 

HOWARD,  SIDNEY,  297 

HOWE,  E.  W.,  480 

How  I  Learned  Tennis,  243 

How  to  Tell  a  Major  Poet  from  a 
Minor  Poet,  454 

HUDSON,  W.  H.,  468 

HUGHES,  LANGSTON,  385 

HUNT,  LEIGH,  346 

Hunting  of  the  Snark,  The,  264 

Husing,Ted,312 

HUTCHINS,  ROBERT,  508 


HUXLEY,  ALDOUS,  171 

"Hymn  to  Proserpine "  440 

I 

Iambic  foot,  96 

IBSEN,  HENRIK,  290,  299 

Ideas,  expression  of,  7 

"I  Do  Not  Love  Thee,"  118 

Idylls  of  the  King,  212 

"I'll  Sail  upon  the  Dog-star,"  342 

"//  Penseroso,"  14 

Imagery,  and  feeling,  68;  emotion 

in,  72;  exercises  in,  75;  sensory, 

72 

Imagination,  74,  338 
Imp  of  the  Penrerse,  The,  1 1 
Importance  of  Being  Earnest,  The, 

302 

Impressions,  first,  217 
"In  After  Days"  119 
"Incident  of  the  French   Camp" 

260 

Index  to  English,  An,  20 
Indignation,  61  (See  also  Mood.) 
"Indoor  Tennis  Match,  An"  212 
Inflection,    167   (See  also  Pitch.) 
Informal  reading,  228;  exercises  in, 

231 

INGERSOLL,  ROBERT  G.,  172 
Inhalation,  121 

"In  Memoriam"  61,  71,  189,  439 
"In  Memory  of  a  Child"  341 
In  One  Ear,  460 

In  Praise  of  Chimney -Sweepers,  11 
Instruments,  musical,  128 
"Intelligibility,  cult  of,"  105 
Interest,  attracting  the  audience's, 

5  (See  also  Attention.) 

International  Phonetic  Alphabet, 
134 

Interpretation,  as  re-creation,  68; 
dramatic,  65;  of  emotion,  60;  of 
meaning,  5;  requirements  of,  5 


520 


Index 


(See  also  Oral  Interpretation, 
Meaning,  Emotion,  Dramatic  In- 
terpretation.) 

In  That  Dawn,  506 

Intonation,  433 

"Introduction  to  the  Greek  Genius 
and  Its  Influence,"  51 

"Invictus"  160 

lolanthe,  437 

IRVING,  WASHINGTON,  75,  462,  493 

Italian  sonnet,  92 

1  Teach  Women,  497 

J 

"JabberwocKy,"  441 

JAMES,  HENRY,  471 

James-Lange  theory  of  emotion, 
183,  219,  286 

JAMES,  WILLIAM,  5,  65 

JEFFERS,  ROBINSON,  190 

JEFFERSON,  THOMAS,  477 

"Jenny  Kiss'd  Me"  346 

Jingling  reading,  34  (See  also 
Meter.) 

Job,  Book  of,  114 

"John  of  Tours"  262 

JOHNSON,  G.  E.,  258 

JOHNSON,  SAMUEL,  1 1 

Jones,  Daniel,  318 

JONES,  HOWARD  MUMFORD,  249 

(translator) 
JONES,  STANLEY,  234 
JONES,  THOMAS  S.,  JR.,   102,  345 
JONSON,  BEN,  18,  149 
Joseph  Andrews,  282 
Josh  Billings'  Meditations,  239 
Journal,  The,  175 
JOYCE,  JAMES,  22,  105,  177 
"Just  Off  the  Concrete,91  277 

K 

KAISER,  GEORG,  307 
KEATS,  JOHN,  16,  51,  73,  75,  79,  81, 

86,91,95,117,373 
KENYON,  J.  S.,  133,  135,  140,  143 


Key,  167  (See  also  Pitch.) 

KILLEEN,  KEVIN,  249,  393 

KILMER,  JOYCE,  38 

King  Henry  the  Fourth,  297 

King  Lear,  178 

King  of  the  Golden  River,  The, 

449 
KITTREDGE,     G.     L.     (and    J.     B. 

GREENOUGH),  379 
"Kitchen  Clock,  The,"  363 
Klinghardt,  Hermann,  166,  434 
KROEKER,  KATE  FREILIGRATH,  341 

(translator) 
"Kubla  Khan,"  88 


"Lachrymae  Christi,"  106 

"Lady  of  the  Lake,  The,"  100 

"Lamb,  The,"  100 

LAMB,  CHARLES,  11,  470 

LANDIS,  PAUL,  370  (AND  A.  R.  ENT- 
WISTLE) 

LANIER,  SIDNEY,  58,  77,  86,  101 

LARDNER,  RING,  268 

Last  of  the  Mohicans,  The,  465 

LEAR,  EDWARD,  232,  366 

LeGallienne,  Eva,  291 

"Legend    of    the    First    Cam-u-el, 

The/'  361 

"Let  Me  Live  Out  My  Years"  348 
Letter  Dedicatory  to  the  Earl  of 

Oxford,  208 

Letters  to  His  Son,  150,  206 
LEWIS,  SINCLAIR,  481 
Life  and  Andrew  Otway,  28 
Life  Magazine,  495 
Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  489 
Life  on  the  Mississippi,  67 
Life  with  Father,  281 
Ligeia,  207 
Light,  speed  of,  1 30 
Limericks,  36 
Limericks,  232 

LINCOLN,  ABRAHAM,  62,  73,   171, 
204,  236,  472 


Index 


LINDSAY,  VACHEL,  86,  216,  341,  360 
Lines,  following  the,  286;  run-on, 
193,  349 

LlNKLATER,  ERIC,  15 

Lip  exercises,  420;  rounding  and 
placement,  431 

LIPPMANN,  WALTER,  380 

Lisping,  400 

Listener,  The,  375 

"Listeners,  The''  17 

Literature,  appreciation  of,  69;  val- 
ues of,  69 

Little  Red  Schoolhouse  of  the  Air, 
The,  326 

Living  Authors,  12 

LOCKE,  JOHN,  150 

"Loc  ksley  Hall"  438 

Logic,  155 

LOMAX,  JOHN,  78 

Lombardo,  Guy,  319 

"London  Bells,"  246 

LONGFELLOW,  HENRY  WADSWORTH, 
76,97,  116 

"Lord  Love!"  263 

Lordosis,  220  (See  also  Posture.) 

"Lost  Generations"  233 

Lost  Phoebe,  The,  487 

"Lotos-Eaters,  The,"  189 

"Love  Among  the  Ruins,"  189 

LOWELL,  AMY,  64,  187,  359 

LOWELL,  JAMES  RUSSELL,  66,  95 

Lungs,   121   (See  also  Breathing.) 

Lyric,  77 

M 

MACAULAY,  THOMAS  BABINGTON,  7 
Macbeth,  26 
MACNEICE,  Louis,  22 
MACY,  JOHN,  54 
Magnus  Merriman,  15 
Making  of  Americans,   The,   106 
Malocclusion,  398 
"Ma??,"  352 
MANGAN,  JAMES,  98 


"Man  in  the  Moon,  The,'1  364 

Manners,  and  movement,  215;  con- 
versational speech,  314 

"Man  without  a  Country,  The" 
327 

Mark,  40 

MARKHAM,  EDWIN,  80 

MARLOWE,  CHRISTOPHER,  112 

MARVELL,  ANDREW,  1 1 1 

Mary  of  Scotland,  297 

MASEFIELD,  JOHN,  267 

MASTERS,  EDGAR  LEE,  73,  195 

"Match,  A"  18 

Matthew,  41 

MAUGHAM,  SOMERSET,  169 

"May-Eve"  102 

MAZZINI,  81 

Meaning,  exercises  in  interpreting, 
51;  in  radio  speaking,  315;  inter- 
preting, 5;  rhythm,  192;  without 
emotion,  60 

Mechanism,  of  breathing,  126;  of 
speech,  120 

MELVILLE,  HERMAN,  18,  479 

Memorization,  286 

"Memory,"  342 

"Memory  of  Washington,  The" 
163 

MENCKEN,  H.  L.,  8,  151 

MEREDITH,  GEORGE,  270 

Metaphors,  72;  buried,  74  (See  also 
Figures  of  speech.) 

Meter,  96;  and  rhythm,  191;  in 
reading  poetry,  33,  34  (See  also 
Jingling  reading.) 

Methods  of  determining  good 
pitch  level,  166 

Metonymy,  74  (See  also  Figures  of 
speech.) 

Microphone,  311 

Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  A,  26 

Mikado,  The,  436 

"Mike-Fright,"  313 

MILL,  JOHN  STUART,  7,  504 


522 


Index 


MILLAY,  EDNA  ST.  VINCENT,  34 

"Milton"  67 

MILTON,  JOHN,  14,  23,  65,  81,  109, 
165,  193,  498 

Minstrels,  77 

"Miss  Fur  and  Miss  Skeene"  261 

MITCHELL,  MARGARET,  204 

Moby  Dick,  479 

Modjeska,  294 

Monotony,  in  rhyme,  94;  in  tempo, 
177 

Mont-Saint-Michel  and  Chartres, 
475 

Mood,  emotion  in,  61 ;  exercises  in, 

65 

MOORE,  MARIANNE,  1 1 
MOORE,  THOMAS,  103 
Moral  Equivalent  of  War,  The,  65 
MORLEY,  CHRISTOPHER,  39 
MORRIS,  GOUVERNEUR,  80 
MORRIS,  WILLIAM,  387 
"Morte  d' Arthur"  258 
Moscow  Art  Theater,  288 
"Mountain  Water"  390 
"Mountains  in  the  Twilight"  340 
Movement,  and  dialogue,  289;  and 
manners,  215;  stage,  rules  of,  292 
Mr.  Dooley  in  the  Hearts  of  His 
Countrymen:    Cyrano   de   Ber- 
gerac,  492 

"Mr.  Flood's  Party,"  254,  257 
Mrs.  Malaprop,  2,  308 
Mrs.  Packletide's  Tiger,  387 
MURRAY,  MIDDLETON,  60 
Muscles,    intercostal,    121;    tense, 

221 

Music  and  poetry,  77 
Musical  instruments,  128 
MUSSOLINI,  BENITO,  162 
"My  Aunt:'  65 
"My  Last  Duchess"  64 
"My  Star;'  98 

Mysticism,  64   (See  also  Mood.) 
Mysticism  and  Logic,  42 


N 

NASH,  OGDEN,  210 
NASH,  THOMAS,  109 
"Nameless  One,  The"  98 
Names,  identifying,  12;  exercises  in 

identifying,  13,  51;  proper,  319 
Narrative,  65;  exercises  in  reading, 

258;  reading,  252 
Nasality,  exercises  for,  416 
NATHAN,  GEORGE  JEAN,  76 
National  Broadcasting  Company, 

316 

"Neckwear"  384 
NEIHARDT,  JOHN  G.,  348 
"Nephilidia,"  440 
Newcomes,  The,  32 
New  Cyclopedia  of  Practical  Quo- 
tations, 13 
NEWMAN,  CARDINAL  (  JOHN  HENRY), 

22 

News  broadcast,  322 
New  York  Times,  28,  233,  391 
NIETZSCHE,  FRIEDRICH,  53 
Nigger  of  the  "Narcissus"   The, 

376 

"Night,"  190 
Night  Battle,  A,  467 
"Night  by  the  Sea,  A"  249 
NORTON,  CAROLINE  ELIZABETH 

SARAH, 118 

"No  Songs  in  Winter,"  342 
"Nostalgia,"  359 
Nouns  in  centering  and  phrasing, 

34 

O 

O'CASEY,  SEAN,  294 

Occurrence  at  Owl  Creek  Bridge, 
An,  473 

"Ode  Recited  at  the  Harvard  Com- 
memoration, 66 

"Ode  to  a  Nightingale"  73,  91 

"Ode  to  the  West  Wind"  65 

Odyssey,  206 

OEHSER,  PAUL  H,  391 


Index 

Of  Discourse,  493 

Of  Time  and  the  River,  12 

"Old  Ironsides"  62 

"Old  Mother  Hubbard,"  340 

Old  Wives'  Tale,  The,  269 

O'NEIL,  GEORGE,  358 

O'NEILL,  EUGENE,  28,  303 

On  Familiar  Style,  469 

"On  First  Looking  into  Chap- 
man's Homer"  16 

On  Forsyte  'Change,  283 

On  Going  a  Journey,  16 

"On  Greenbriar  Pinnacle,"  441 

"On  His  Being  Arrived  at  the  Age 
of  Twenty-Three,"  23 

Only  the  Dead  Know  Brooklyn, 
267 

Onomatopoeia,  79 

"On  Reading  Verse  Aloud"  192 

On  the  Mule,  453 

On  the  Teaching  of  English,  150 

On  Women,  205 

"Opposition"  86 

Oral  interpretation,  definition,  3; 
problems  of,  4;  subject-matter 
of,  4  (See  also  Interpretation.) 

Oratory,  156 

Oread,  502 

OSLER,  SIR  WILLIAM,  8 

Our  Commission,  44 

"Our  Imperative  Task:  To  Mind 
Our  Own  Business"  162 

"Out  of  the  Cradle ,"  345 

OVERBURY,  SIR  THOMAS,  491 

Overtones,  126,  197,  198 

"Overture  to  a  Dance  of  Locomo- 
tives," 56 

OWEN,  WILFRED,  214 

"O,  wert  thou  in  the  cauld  blast" 
197 

"Owl  and  the  Pussy-Cat,  The,1'  366 

Oxford  Companion  to  English  Lit- 
erature, The,  12 


523 

Oxford  Companion  to  Music,  The, 

13 
Oxford  English  Dictionary,  10 


Pantomime,  289 

Paradise  Lost,  2,  109 

"Paradox  of  Time,  The,"  354 

Paris,  459 

PARKER,  DOROTHY,  191,  229 

"Parody  of  Longfellow's  'The  Day 

Is  Done,9 "  244 
"Passionate  Shepherd  to  His  Love, 

The,"  112 
"Past,  The,"  94 
Past  and  Present,  14 
PATER,  WALTER,  8,  13,  194 
Patience,  436 
PATMORE,  COVENTRY,  64 
"Patterns,"  64 
Pause,   183;   exercises  in,   184;  in 

phrasing,  31 

Pennsylvania  Dutch  dialect,  143 
Personal  History,  173 
Personality,  215,  217 
Pharynx,  121  (See  also  Breathing.) 
Philosopher's  Holiday,  52 
"Philosophy  of  Composition ,"  79 
Phonation,  126;  exercises  in,  129 
Phonemes,  138 
Phonetic  Studies  in  Folk  Speech 

and  Broken  English,  258 

Phonetics,  132;  exercises  in,  146; 
International  Alphabet  of,  134 

Phrases,  as  the  basic  unit  of  inter- 
pretation, 30;  subordinate,  19 

Phrasing,  30,  183;  and  verse  speak- 
ing, 338,  340;  exercises  in,  40, 
51;  illustrations  of,  32;  proce- 
dure for,  31  (See  also  Breathing, 
Breath  Groups.) 

Physical  properties  of  voice,  156 

Physiology  of  voice,  120 

Pickwick  Papers,  455 


524 


Index 


Piece-speaking,  253 

"Pillar  of  the  Cloud,  The;'  22 

Pinafore,  H.M.S.,  346,  436 
"Pioneers!  O  Pioneers!"  45 

Pirates  of  Penzance,  The,  437 

Pitch,  156,  164;  changes,  294;  exer- 
cises in,  170;  faults,  167;  for  ra- 
dio speaking,  313;  fundamental, 
128;  high,  165;  in  verse  speak- 
ing, 349;  low,  165;  methods  of 
determining  good  level  of,  166; 
natural  level  of,  164;  three  divi- 
sions of,  167  (See  also  Voice.) 

"Plaint  of  the  Camel,  The"  362 

PLATO,  71 

Play  analysis,  290 

Playfulness,   64    (See  also   Mood.) 

Playing,  ensemble,  285 

POE,  EDGAR  ALLAN,  11,  17,  37,  39, 
47,  68,  77,  82,  108,  207 

Poetic  Principle,  77 

Poetry,  374;  analysis  of,  19,  108, 
254,  348;  Anglo-Saxon,  95;  ex- 
citement of,  68;  for  verse  speak- 
ing, 339;  reading  of,  178;  subjec- 
tive element  in,  68 

Poetry  and  Myth,  60 

Poetry  Considered,  371 

Pointers,  for  verse  speaking,  349; 
to  broadcasters,  319 

Poise,  223 

Poor  Relations,  470 

POPE,  ALEXANDER,  13,  61,  93 

"Position  of  Germany  Today, 
The"  509 

Posture,  220 

POUND,  LOUISE,  78 

"Prayer"  350 

"Prayer  for  Any  Occasion"  341 

Precis,  46;  exercises  in  writing,  51; 
illustrations  of,  46;  length  of, 
46;  oral,  51;  requirements  for, 
46 

"Preface  to  the  Lyrical  Ballads" 
372 


"Prelude,  The"  213 

PRESCOTT,  FREDERICK,  60 

Pressure,  atmospheric,  121  (See 
also  Inhalation.) 

Principles  and  Practices  of  Medi- 
cine, The,  8 

PRIOR,  MATTHEW,  42 

Projection,  of  voice,  293;  to  audi- 
ence, 294 

"Prologue  to  the  Earthly  Para- 
dise?' 387 

Pronouns  as  echoes,  39 

Pronunciation,  General  American, 
134;  in  radio  speaking,  317;  pho- 
netics applied  to,  132  (See  also 
Radio.) 

Proper  names,  319 

Prospectus  for  "The  Remodeled 
Chewing  Gum  Corporation" 
488 

"Prospicc,"  161 

Proverbs,  40 

Psalms,  40,  344 

Public  Address  Systems,  320 

Public  Duty  of  Educated  Men, 
The,  194  ' 

Public  Speaking,  3 

Punctuation,  23;  exercises  in,  24; 
in  determining  phrases,  32  (See 
also  Full  Stops,  Dashes,  Com- 
mas, Question  Marks.) 

"Pure"  sound,  127 

Puritanism  As  a  Literary  Forte,  8 


Quality,  156,  197;  exercises  in  vo- 
cal, 202;  for  radio  speaking,  314; 
kinds  of,  200;  in  verse  speaking, 
349  (See  also  Voice.) 

Quantity,  188;  exercises  in,  189;  in 
verse  speaking,  340 

Question  marks,  24  (See  also  Punc- 
tuation.) 

Question  of  Our  Speech,  The,  471 

QUINT1LIAN,  155 


Index 


525 


R 

RABELAIS,  FRANCOIS,  458 

Radio,  announcers  (See  Announc- 
ers.) ;  City,  130;  programs  (See 
Broadcast.);  speaking  (See  Ra- 
dio speaking.) 

Radio  speaking,  311;  exercises  in, 
321;  pitch  for,  313;  quality  for, 
314;  tempo  for,  312;  volume  for, 
312 

Rambler,  The,  11 

Rate,  exercises  in,  178;  of  speak- 
ing, 176;  of  sound  vibration, 
126;  variation  of,  177  (See  also 
Tempo.) 

"Rnvcn,  The"  79 

Reaction,  reader's  personal,  68 

Render's  Handbook,  12 

Reading,  children's,  338;  choral. 
337;  contests,  253;  dramatic,  252; 
exercises  in  informal,  231;  exer- 
cises in  narrative  and  dramatic, 
258;  fireside,  228;  group  228,  229; 
informal,  228;  jingling,  34;  nar- 
rative, 252;  of  poetry,  178;  re- 
sponsive, 337;  to  children,  228 
(See  also  Verse  speaking.) 

Realism,  373 

Real  Prhu  ess,  The,  231 

Reasonable  Afflic  tion,  A,  42 

"Rebels ,"  105  (See  also  Experimen- 
talists.) 

Recollections  of  the  Last  Days  of 
Shelley  and  Byron,  451 

Recordings,  84 

Re-creation  through  interpreta- 
tion, 68 

"Red  SUppers"  187 

Relaxation,  419;  exercises  in,  202; 
in  radio  speaking,  317  (See  also 
Radio.) 

Rcligio  Medici,  74 

Rembrandt,  373 

Renaissance,  The.  13,  194 

Repetition,  98 


Reply  to  Hayne,  13 

Resonance,  157,  197 

Resonator,  126,  127,  128,  129,  156, 
157 

Respirometer,  125 

Restraint,  254 

Resume,  191 

"Retreat,  The"  18 

Reunion  in  Vienna,  305 

Rhyme,  91;  internal  94;  monoto- 
nous, 94;  nursery,  339 

Rhythm,  and  feeling,  68,  98;  and 
meter,  96,  191;  and  verse  speak- 
ing, 338,  349;  exercises  in,  194; 
in  poetry,  35 

Richard  II,  296 

RILEY,  JAMES  W.,  364 

Ring  and  the  Book,  The,  208 

RITCHIE,  GOVERNOR,  19 

Rivals,  The,  308 

"Road Not  Taken,  The,"  180 

Robinson  Crusoe,  490 

ROBINSON,  EDWARD  ARLINGTON, 
254,  257,  279 

ROGERS,  WILL,  488 

ROMAIN,  JULES,  185 

Romanticism,  8 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  25,  171 

Roosevelt,  Eleanor,  165,  313 

ROOSEVELT,  FRANKLIN  D.,  177,  182, 
313 

ROOSEVELT,  THEODORE,  41 

ROSSETTI,  CHRISTINA,  352 

ROSSETTI,  DANTE  GABRIEL,  262 
(translator),  313,  389 

ROSTAND,  EDNCUND,  172 

Rubdiydt  of  Omar  Khayyam,  41 

Rules  of  stage  movement,  292 

Run-on  lines,  193,349 

Rush,  James,  200 

RUSKIN,  JOHN,  7,  449 

RUSSELL,  BERTRAND,  42 

Rutledge,  Anne,  73 


526 


SAKI  (H.  H.  MONRO),  387 

Samuel  Johnson,  7 

SANDBURG,  CARL,  64,  78,  216,  217, 

371 

SARETT,  LEW,  30,  38,  345 
Sartor  Resartus,  7, 17, 189 
Satire,  63  (See  also  Mood.) 
Scholar  in  a  Troubled  World,  The, 

380 

SCHOPENHAUER,  ARTHUR,  205 
SCHUBERT,  LELAND,  498 
SCOTT,  SIR  WALTER,  100 
"Secret  Heart,  The"  386 
"Second    Voyage   of  Sindbad   the 

Sailor,  The,"  503 
SELDEN,  SAMUEL,  289 
Self-consciousness,  398 
Self-Reliance,  76 
Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  1 
"Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe"  58 
Shakespearean  sonnet,  92  (See  also 

Sonnet.) 
SHAKESPEARE,  WILLIAM,  18,  25,  26, 

34,38,44,  70,77,90,93,99,  171, 

178,  229,  296,  297,  407 
SHAW,  HENRY  W.,  239 
SHAW,  GEORGE  BERNARD,  318,  324 
Sheean,  Vincent,  173 
SHELLEY,  PERCY  BYSSHE,  25,  61,  65, 

70,  94,  165 

SHERIDAN,  RICHARD  BRINSLEY,  308 
SHERWOOD,  ROBERT,  305 
Shropshire  Lad,  The,  15 
SIDNEY,  SIR  PHILIP,  471 
"Silver,"  111 
Silver  Cord,  The,  297 
Similes,   72  (See  also  Figures  of 

Speech.) 

Sincerity,  62  (See  also  Mood.) 
"Sir  Galahad,"  96 
Sitwell,  Edith,  95,  106 
Sitwells,  The,  105 


Index 

Sketch  Book,  The,  75 

"Sleeper,  The,'9  190 

SMEDLEY,  CONSTANCE,  293 

Smire,  8 

SMITH,  LOGAN  PEARSALL,  55,  318 

SMITH,  SAMUEL  FRANCIS,  42 

"Snowball,  The,"  498 

"Snows  of  Yesteryear,  The,"  391 

"Soliloquy  of  the  Spanish  Clois- 
/<?r,"438 

"So  Long;  So  Long!"  324 

"Song"  110 

"Song  of  Living,  A,"  357 

"Song  of  Myself,"  15,  18,87 

Song  of  Solomon,  The,  90,  197 

"Song  of  the  Chattahoochee"  101 

"Song  to  Sleep"  342 

Sonnets,  18,44,51,  77,92,93,  116 

Sophistication,  62  (See  also  Mood.) 

SOPHOCLES,  41 

Sorrow,  61  (See  also  Mood.) 

Sound,  emotional  effects  of,  99; 
emotion  in,  77;  exercises  in  mus- 
ical sound,  84;  long,  188;  of 
speech,  132;  "pure,"  127;  qual- 
ity of,  127;  short,  188;  speed  of, 
126,  130;  substitution,  399; 
vowel,  134;  waves,  126  (See  also 
Emotion.) 

Southern  dialect,  143 

SOUTHEY,  ROBERT,  443 

Speaking,  radio  (See  Radio  speak- 
ing.) ;  verse  (See  Verse  speak- 
ing-) 

Speed,  of  light,  130;  of  sound,  126, 
130 

Speech,  average,  155;  clinics,  399; 
defects,  2,  155,  397;  denasalized, 
418;  figures  of,  72;  foreign,  404; 
infantile,  404;  manner  of,  314; 
mechanism  of,  120;  professional, 
229;  social,  229;  sounds  of,  132; 
standards,  133,  141,  318;  teachers 
of,  2;  value  of  good,  2  (See  also 
Defects,  Figures  of  Speech.) 


Index 


5*7 


Spelling,  phonetics  applied  to,  132 
SPENSER,  EDMUND,  95 
Spondaic  foot,  96 
Spoon  River  Anthology,  The,  73, 

195 

"Spring,"  109 
"Springfield  Speech"  204 
Stage,  fright,   183,  201,  218,  287, 

338;   movement,  rules  of,  292; 

voice  for  the,  293 
STALLINGS,    LAWRENCE,    76    (and 

MAXWELL  ANDERSON) 
Stammering,  399 
Standards  of  speech,  133,  141;  for 

radio,  318  (See  also  Radio.) 
Stanislavsky,  Constantine,  288 
Stanza  forms,  92  (See  also  Forms.) 
"Stanzas  Written  iji  Dejection  near 

Naples"  61 

STEIN,  GERTRUDE,  105,  106,  261 
STEINBECK,  JOHN,  196 
Step,  167  (See  also  Pitch.) 
STERNE,  LAURENCE,  29 
Sternum,  120  (See  also  Breathing.) 
STEVENSON,  ROBERT  Louis,  81,  184, 

238 

"Stirrup-Cup,  The"  58 
"Storm,"  394 

Story  of  a  Country  Town,  The,  480 
Strange  Interlude,  303 
Strat ford-on- Avon,  493 
Straw,    the    Coal,   and    the   Bean, 

The,  483 

Stream  of  consciousness,  303 
STREET,  JULIAN,  506 
STROUT,  LEE,  240  (and  E.  B. 

WHITE) 

Study  and  Appreciation  of  Litera- 
ture, The,  370 

Study  of  Poetry,  The,  32,  370 
Subjection  of  Women,   The,  504 
Subordination,   in   echoes,   39;  in 

reading,  37  (See  also  Echoes.) 
SUCKLING,  SIR  JOHN,  63 


Suggestiveness,  exercises  in  emo- 
tional, 70 

SULLIVAN,  FRANK,  460 

"Summum  Bonum,"  440 

"Sunday  Morning"  22 

"Sunset  on  Lake  Erie,"  249 

"Sun  Still  Shines,  The,"  28 

"Suppose"  351 

"Susan  Simpson"  442 

Suspense,  253 

"Sweet  and  Low,"  79 

SWIFT,  JONATHAN,   208,   356,  450 

SWINBURNE,  ALGERNON  CHARLES, 
18,  19,25,33,92,95,96,179,189, 
352,  355,  403,  407,  409,  410,  440 

Sympathetic  vibration,  131 

Synecdoche,  74  (See  also  Figures  of 
Speech.) 

Synonyms  as  echoes,  39 

T 

"Talk  "55 

"Tarn  O'Shanter,"  191 
Taylor,  Deems,  317 
Tchaikovsky,  315 
TEASDALE,  SARA,  212 
Technique  of  the  actor,  295 
Tempest,  Thet  69,  90,  99 
Tempo,  156,  176;  exercises  in,  178; 

for  radio  speaking,  312;  in  verse 

speaking,   340,   349;    monotony 

in,  177  (See  also  Voice,  Rate.) 
TENNYSON,  ALFRED,  LORD,  61,  71, 

79,81,95,96,  189,  192,212,258, 

407,  438,  439 
Tense  muscles,  221 
THACKERAY,  WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE, 

32,  149 
Theater,  art  of  the,  289;  Moscow 

Art,  288 

Thesmophoriazusae,  356 
This  Petty  Pace,  393 
THOMAS,  ARTHUR  J.,  58,  212,  390, 

394,  441 
THOMAS,  C.  Kv  144 


Index 


Thomas,  Lowell,  314 

Thompson,  Dorothy,  165,  313 

THOMPSON,  FRANCIS,  61 

THOMSON,  JAMES,  1 1 1 

Thorax,  120  (See  also  Breathing.) 

"Thoreau  at  Walden,"  452 

THOREAU,  HENRY,  378 

THORNDIKE,  ALLISON,  506 

THORWALD,  ANTON,  484 

"Three  Blind  Mice  "34A 

"Three  Huntsmen,  The:'  247 

THURBER,  JAMES,  242 

Thus  Spake  Zarathustra,  53 

Timbre,  199 

"Time  Clock,  The/'  359 

Time  Magazine,  43 

TIMMONS,  ALBERT,  484 

"T intern  Abbey/'  97 

"To  a  Waterfowl,"  97 

"ToCelia"  18 

"To  His  Coy  Mistress/'  1 1 1 

"To  Ladies'  Eyes/'  103 

Tone,  color,  199;  ministerial,  169, 

320;  pure,  127;  thin,  157 
Tongue   exercises,   419;    diagram, 

139;  -tie,  397 

TOWNE,  CHARLES  HANSON,  359 
Trachea,  121,  126  (See  also  Breath- 
ing-) 

Tramp  Abroad,  A,  50 

TRASK,  ANTHONY,  502 
"Trees,"  43 

TRELAWNY,  EDWARD  JOHN,  451 
"Triad,"  354 
"Triolet,"  104 
"Tristram"  279 
Tristram  Shandy,  29 
Trivia,  55 
Trochaic  foot,  96 
TROLLOPE,  ANTHONY,  282 
Trumpet,  128 

"Turtle  and  the  Flamingo,  The" 
367 


TWAIN,  MARK,  50,  67 

"Two  Sisters  of  Binnorie,  The"  78 

U 

"Ulalume,"  47 
Ulysses,  22,  106 
Understanding,  374 
UNTERMEYER,  Louis,  55,  350 

"Up    at    a    Villa— Down    in    the 

City"  190 
"Up-Hill,"  352 
"Upon  Julia's  Clothes,"  75 
"Urceus  Exit"  104 

V 

Values,  of  good  speech,  2,  3;  of  lit- 
erature, 69  (See  also  Literature, 
Speech.) 

Vanity  Fair,  149 

VAN  LOON,  HENDRIK  WILLEM,  499 

Variation  in  rate,  177 

VAUGHAN,  HENRY,  18,  64 

Verbs  in  centering  and  phrasing, 

34 
Verdun,  185 

Verse,  blank,  92;  free,  92,  193; 
speaking  (See  Verse  speaking.) 

Verse  speaking,  337;  appreciation 
in,  338,  339,  350;  diction  in,  349; 
exercises  in,  350;  grouping  in, 
344,  347;  imagination  in,  338; 
leaders  for,  343;  organization  of, 
339;  phrasing  for,  338,  340;  pitch 
for,  349;  poems  for,  340;  quality 
in,  349;  quantity  in,  340;  rhythm 
in,  338,  349;  suggestions  for,  349; 
tempo  for,  340,  349;  volume  in, 
349 

Vibration,  rate,  126;  sympathetic, 
131 

Vibrator,  126 

Vigor,  215 

Virginia  through  the  Eyes  of  Her 
Governor,  205 

Virginibus  Puerisque,  184 

Vital  Speeches,  324,  509 


Index 

VIZETELLY,  E.  A.,  459  (translator) 

Vocal  bands,  126,  127 

Voice,  3;  audibility  of,  293;  exer- 
cises in  quality  of,  202;  for  the 
stage,  293;  good,  129;  improve- 
ment, 228;  improvement,  special 
problems  in,  397;  physical  prop- 
erties of,  156;  physiology  of,  120; 
projection  of,  293;  training  and 
phonetics,  133;  women's,  157, 
313 

Volume,  156;  exercises  in,  158;  for 
radio  speaking,  312;  in  verse 
speaking,  349  (See  also  Voice.) 

Vowels,  diagram  of,  138;  harmoni- 
ous combinations  of  consonants 
and,  79;  sounds  in  phonetics,  134 

W 

Walden,  378 

Walking,  219 

WARD,  ARTKMUS,  510 

"War  Message"  181 

Washington  Post,  The,  391 

Waves,  sound,  126 

Way  of  the  Transgressor,  The,  182 

Way  to  Wealth,  The,  461 

WEBSTER,  DANIEL,  13,  155 

Webster's  Collegiate  Die  tionary,  10 

Webster's  New  International  Dic- 
tionary, 10,  133,  143,318 

WELLES,  ORSON,  317 
West,  Robert,  320 
WHATELY,  RICHARD,  167 
What  Every  Woman  Knows,  44 
"What  Is  a  University?"  508 
What  Price  Glory?  76 
WHEELOCK,  JOHN  HALL,  358 
WHITE,    E.     B.,    240    (and    LEE 

STROUT),  454 
WHITMAN,  WALT,  15,  18,  45,  87, 

193,  345,  467 
Who's  Who,  12 
Who's  Who  in  America,  12 


529 

Who's  Who  in  Education,  12 
Who's  Who  in  the  Theatre,  12 
"Why    She    Didnt     Go     to     the 

Dance,"  329 

"Why  So  Pale  and  Wan,"  63 
"Why  Women  Should  Talk"  54 
WILDE,  OSCAR,  209,  302 
"Willa  the  Weeper"  460 
WILLIAMS,  WILLIAM  CARLOS,  56, 

118 

WILMOT,  JOHN,  38 
WILSON,  EDMUND,  15,  105 
WILSON,  WOODROW,  181 
Winchell,  Walter,  314 
"Wind  Increases,  The"  118 
"Wind  in  the  Pine"  345 
With  Malice  Toward  Some,  187 
WOLFE,  THOMAS,  12,  267 
WOOLBERT,  CHARLES  H.,  169 
WOOLLCOIT,  ALEXANDER,  474 
Words,  analysis  of,  9;  exercises  in, 

10;   lists  of  most  beautiful,  80; 

meaning  of,  6 

Words  a  fid  Their  Ways  in  English 

Speech,  379 
WORDSWORTH,  WILLIAM,  25,  61,  92, 

97,  192,213,372 
"World   Is    Too   Much    with    Us, 

The"  61 

Wright,  Cobina,  313 

Writers,   contemporary,   8;   Victo- 
rian, 7 
WVI.IF,  ELINOR,  385 


Yeoman  of  the  Guard,  The,  438 
"Yes  and  No  "  55 
Young  Goodman  Brown,  464 
"Young  Rat,  The"  147 

Z 

ZOLA,  £MILE,  459 


A  NOTE   CONCERNING   THE   TYPES   USED    IN  THIS   BOOK 

The  main  portion  of  Reading  to  Others  has  been  set  on  the  Linotype 
machine  in  BASKERVILLE,  a  contemporary  replica  of  the  famous  type 
designed  by  John  Baskerville  in  the  eighteenth  century.  In  order  to 
distinguish  between  this  main  portion  and  the  accompanying  quoted 
passages  the  latter  have  been  set  in  ELECTRA,  a  modern  Linotype  face 
designed  by  William  A.  Dwiggins.  The  chapter  titles  and  other  dis- 
play lines  have  been  hand  set  in  EVE  LIGHT  ITALIC,  an  original  creation 
by  Rudolph  Koch. 


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