288 "HALT!" once more came the voice of dread;

"Halt! or your blood be on your head!"

Problem LXX. Show how a noble passage may be perverted by loudness and force, and how the most exquisite passage may be emphasized by form without perverting its spirit.

289. A LOST LOVE.

I MEET thy pensive, moonlight face; thy thrilling voice I hear;
And former hours and scenes retrace, too fleeting, and too dear!
Then sighs and tears flow fast and free, though none is nigh to share;
And life has naught beside for me so sweet as this despair.

There are crush'd hearts that will not break; and mine, methinks, is one;
Or thus I should not weep and wake, and thou to slumber gone.

I little thought it thus could be in days more sad and fair -
That earth could have a place for me, and thou no longer there.
Yet death cannot our hearts divide, or make thee less my own:
'Twere sweeter sleeping at thy side than watching here alone.
Yet never, never can we part, while Memory holds her reign;
Thine, thine is still this wither'd heart till we shall meet again.

H. F. Lyte.

THERE

XXXV. MODES OF EMPHASIS.

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HERE are many ways by which a word or phrase may made salient, or an idea emphatic. Among these the most important have been discussed: inflection, change of pitch, pause, movement, texture, and tone-color. These express mental, imaginative, or emotional activity. There are others which show merely physical action, that tend to degrade thought, such as stress, loudness, and muscular force.

Rarely, if ever, is one of the true psychic modes of emphasis found isolated from the others. They are found in free and complex combination; often all of them are present at the same time. Each of them manifests some special aspect of the human being; some, degree of earnestness, or intensity; some, special action or attitude of the man.

It is helpful in the development of emphasis to analyze and study each mode separately, and to practise extracts that illustrate each of them separately and successively, in order to realize and develop the special expressive power of each. This practice develops these various forms and secures an increased vocabulary of vocal actions.

It is well also to practice occasionally some of the undignified modes of emphasis in contrast with the nobler modes, in order to develop a sense of their nature and place in expression, and also to make us realize the effectiveness of inflection, change of pitch, pause, and tone-color, as compared with mere force and volume of voice.

When the practice of all these various modes is neglected, there is a tendency to drift into a monotonous use of one form of emphasis; one mode is exaggerated, and that generally the most undignified one. But even the noblest of these modes, when used to the exclusion of the others, will deteriorate into an artificial and ineffective mannerism. Many have lost the use of the several modes of expression through neglect, and have become totally unconscious of them as natural modes of emphasis. Training stimulates and awakens what is latent; it builds upon nature; it develops nature's highest possibilities according to her own laws and principles.

Artistic power is not the necessary result of mere artistic impulses; a sense of correct form must be awakened, and the ability to manifest this form must be developed. Practice is requisite to master the use of all the modes of expression, but their employment should be spontaneous and natural, and in accordance with the requirements of the thought. Therefore training is preliminary to expression. We may be analytic, and exaggerate in consciousness one specific element in training, but in the act of expression there must be harmonious co-operation. The mind, for example, except in practice for a special aim or need, should not dwell too much upon the length of inflections

or the degree of their abruptness. The attention in expression must be upon the progress of the ideas. There must be developed an instinctive command of form and technical means, and the mind must be concentrated upon the central ideas; otherwise there will be self-consciousness and artificiality. But this facility in the employment of technical actions can only be gained by the faithful practice of definite and adequate exercises.

There are three general ways by which emphasis may be improved. First, by developing flexibility and responsiveness of the voice so that every act of the mind or change of attitude shall cause a change in the voice. Second, by acquiring the use of all the natural modes of emphasis and by developing the ability to distinguish those which are noble from those which are ignoble in significance. Third, by cultivating the penetrative instinct or the proper method of the mind in thinking; by securing earnestness, sincerity, and simplicity; in short, by developing the right action of the powers concerned in expression.

Let the student take the extracts and problems already given and practice them with each mode of emphasis successively, and also with various combinations of these modes. Such practice is helpful, because it does not confine the student to one mode and cause him to become conventional and artificial, but awakens his instincts, and gives him consciousness of his powers and control over his natural modes of expression.

Problem LXXI. Render some strong passage by the harmonious union of all possible modes of emphasis, and also show that by using any one mode exclusively the thought may not only lose its force and beauty, but may be rendered obscure and indefinite.

290. EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO.

Ar the midnight, in the silence of the sleep-time,

When you set your fancies free,

Will they pass to where- by death, fools think, imprisoned —
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,

Pity me?,

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!

What had I on earth to do

With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel,

Being who?

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,

Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday, in the battle of man's work-time,
Greet the unseen with a cheer!

Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
"Strive and thrive!” cry, “Speed, — fight on, fare ever

There as here!"

Browning.

Problem LXXII. Contrast passages entirely different, and show that the modes of emphasis and all the various elements of vocal expression must also vary according to the character of the thought.

291. A DEAD MAN'S MESSAGE.

He who died at Azan sends this, to comfort faithful friends.

FAITHFUL friends! It lies, I know, pale and cold, and still as snow; and you say, “Abdullah's dead!" weeping at its feet and head. I can see your falling tears, I can hear your sighs and prayers; yet I smile and whisper this, "I am not the thing you kiss; cease your wail and let it lie, it was mine; it is not I!" Sweet friends! what the women lave for its last bed in the grave was a hut which I am quitting-was a garment, no more fitting—was a cage, wherefrom, at last like a bird, my soul hath past. Love the inmate, not the room, the wearer, not the garb — the plume of the eagle, not the bars which kept him from the splendid stars. Loving friends! be wise and dry straightway every weeping eye! What you lift upon the bier is not worth a single tear; 'tis a simple sea-shell, one out of which the pearl is gone; the shell is nothing-leave it there -the pearl, the soul, the all is here! 'Tis an earthen pot, whose lid Allah sealed, the while it hid that treasure of His treasury—a mind that loved Him; let it be! Let the shard be earth's once more, since the gold goes to His store! Allah glorious, Allah good, now Thy world is understood! Now the long, long wonder ends; yet you weep, my foolish friends,

while the man you say "is dead" in unspoken bliss instead lives and loves you;-lost, 'tis true, for any light that shines with you; but, in that light you do not see, raised to full felicity, in a perfect Paradise, and a life which never dies. Farewell friends! yet not farewell: where I am you too shall dwell; I am gone beyond your face, a moment's march, a single pace. When you come where I have stepped, you will wonder why you wept; you will see by true life taught, that here is all, and there is nought. Weep a while, if you are fain, sunshine still must follow rain, only not at death; for death now, I see, is that long breath which our souls draw when they enter life that is of all life centre. Be ye certain-all seems love viewed from Allah's seat above; be ye stout of hope, and come bravely onward to your home. From its happy gate my ken sees you, struggling "souls," not "men," all for nameless joys decreed, which your wills may stay or speed; but not one at last- to fail, since at last Love must prevail. "La Allah, illa Allah," yea, thou Love divine! thou Lord alway! He that died at Azan gave this to those who made his grave.

Edwin Arnold.

292 UNDER the slighting light of the yellow sun of October,
Close by the side of the car track, a gang of Dagos were working;
Pausing a moment to catch a note of their liquid Italian,
Faintly I heard an echo of Rome's imperial accents,
Broken-down forms of Latin words from the Senate and Forum,
Now smoothed over by use to the musical lingua Romana.
Then the thought came, why, these are the heirs of the Romans;
These are the sons of the men who founded the empire of Cæsar;
These are they whose fathers carried the conquering eagles
Over all Gaul and across the sea to Ultima Thule.

The race-type persists unchanged in their eyes and profiles and figures.
Muscular, short and thick-set, with prominent noses, recalling
"Romanes rerum dominos, gentemque togatam."

See, Labienus is swinging a pick with rhythmical motion;

Yonder one pushing the shovel might be Julius Cæsar,

Lean, deep-eyed, broad-browed, and bald, a man of a thousand;
Further along stands the jolly Horatius Flaccus;

Grim and grave, with rings in his ears, see Cato the Censor.
On the side of the street, in proud and gloomy seclusion,
Bossing the job, stood a Celt: the race enslaved by the legions,
Sold in the markets of Rome to meet the expenses of Cæsar.

66

And, as I loitered, the Celt cried out: Warruk, ye Dagos!"

"Full up your shovel, Paythro, ye hathen! I'll dock yees a quarther."