Part 2 (1/2)

Interpretative reading goes on in the sa familiarity with a poem, and when he thinks he has realized all its possibilities of vocal effectiveness, soested, which is a decided contribution to the effect before reached The play of Hale words, even, whose possibilities of expressiveness can hardly be exhausted Every great poet writes, at tinificantly than he knows

In the creation of every great work of genius, a large degree of unconscious ht the reader with the requisite degree of spiritual susceptibility hest order on the part of a reader Melody, harmony, and every mode of forht Deep feeling attracts to itself such elee as serve best to conduct it assonance, especially, is a manifestation of it Paradise Lost abounds with the assonance which the do of the poet induced

When Ha exahost of his father, he asks 'His beard was grisly?' and then adds, 'no' (The word is followed by a period, in the Folio) What a varied expressiveness this little word 'no' admits of! When Macbeth says to his wife, when they are considering the , 'If we should fail?' she replies 'We fail?' Though the interrogative is used in the Folio, the period would, perhaps, be the better pointing However that be, the reading of 'we fail' involvesof thousands of single words in Shakespeare's Plays

But, after all, it is not upon inflections and emphases and other vocal functions which pertainthought, that the true reader chiefly depends Thewith him is the choral atmosphere in which a spiritualized composition requires to be presented And it is in this respect that the art of reading particularly corresponds with the sister art of painting The artist in forht that never was, on sea or land,' or, if not that, in soaudy day denies,'

and which serves to reveal the feeling which he aih the landscape The landscape itself corresponds in painting with the articulating thought in reading; but the spiritual attitude of the artist is exhibited through the light in which the landscape is bathed

And so the spiritual attitude of the reader is exhibited through his intonation, which corresponds with at A susceptible reader will, on the first reading of a poem or an impassioned prose composition, be more or less immediately responsive to the key-note of the co this key-note fully hos, or as fully as ht his own, he is now prepared to interpret the composition to the ears of others A reader's success in interpreting such a poem as Tennyson's In Memoriam, for exaht, and does not vocally reproduce, the key-note, however distinctly he ht It is the tone which spiritualizes and quickens the thought; and it is the ht, to bring it into relation with the spiritual being of the hearer

Vocal training, the most scientific and systematic, will not of itselfmore must be done than is at present done, in homes and schools, especially in homes, for the education of the spiritual nature; and this education un early, must precede the education of the intellect The pre open of the bud of reason, which now prevails to a laree,to be condee Henry Lewes says, in his novel, Ranthorpe, 'the child lorious as it is, can never be the end of life: it is but one of the many means'

It is quite superfluous to say that a reader should have a perfect articulation; that he should be able to corees of force, fro, and compound stress; every variety of inflection, direct upward and direct doard inflection; equal and unequal, upward and doard, single and double waves; accelerated and retarded utterance; many qualities of voice; not to name numerous other vocal functions and attributes which are means to various kinds of interpretative ends He should also have a co organis the successive and involved groups of thought with the requisite distinctness of outline, and with the requisite perspective, determined by their relative value, of which he should have the nicest sense A very important condition of perspective, I would say by the way, is the light touch which needs to be given to whatever is iranted, etc,--the light touch which conveys the impression that thethe sa themselves, so to speak, but is occupied with the ht Any untrained voice can emphasize, but only a trained or a naturally unperverted voice can give the light touch successfully Yet it is possible for the heaviest, cluht touch, to delicacy of tint, just as one who is clay-fisted may, in time, attain to some delicacy of manipulation The voice and the hand have wonderful possibilities, rarely realized; the for, indeed, the'the consureat secret in forcible speech is, that all the force be thrown upon the vowels--the inarticulate eleans of speech are apart, and if the lungs are kept well inflated, the throat is open, and no friction results; while articulating the consonants, certain two of the organs of speech are in contact, and the throat is more or less closed If force be thrown upon the consonants, the articulate elements, or certain of them, such as _r_ and _k_, for example, there isforcibly the word 'struck,' for example, all the force should be thrown upon the _u_, the consonants _str_ and _k_ being about the same as in ordinary utterance

The music of speech is chiefly in the vowels But the consonants must, of course, be distinctly articulated and not be drowned in the vocality

Sir Henry Taylor writes to Lady Taunton, May 23, 1862 (Correspondence, edited by Edward Dowden), of Tennyson's reading: 'As to his reading, he is a very deep-rand; but I rather need to know by heart what he is reading, for otherwise I find the sense to be lost in sounds from time to time; and, even when I do knohat the words are, I think ive the consonantal effects of the rhythm; for without these effects the melodious sinks into the mellifluous in any ordinary utterance; and even when intoned by such an organ as Alfred's, if the poetry be of a high order, the rhyth of its nificance In the best verse, not every word only, but every letter, should speak Nevertheless, his reading is very fine of its kind, and it is a very rare thing to hear fine reading of any kind'

In regard to inflections, or bends, of the voice, of every kind, direct upward, or doard, or co a combination of doard and upward inflections, or bends, and doaves the reverse, and double waves being a combination of upward and doaves, or the reverse), I would say, what I have said in lish Verse,' that a reader must have a sub-consciousness of a dead level, by which, or froraduate all his departures; and it is only by avoiding all non-significant departures that he imparts to his hearers a sub-consciousness of his own standard There should never be in reading a non-significant departure fronificant vocal intervals lose their effectiveness when they are nificant ones Great effects can be secured through very simple means by a reader who strictly observes this principle Every little bend of the voice tells But a wriggling voice, the general tenor of which is a violation of this principle, cannot secure such effects The hearer is presented with a junificant intervals, which is less effective than a pureis shown as much, perhaps, in what I will call _time_ melody, as in almost any other feature of vocalization A reader's sense of the relative values of successive and involved groups of thought, is largely indicated by his varied (melodious) rate of utterance And much of the pleasure which an appreciative listener derives fro, is this indication on the part of the reader of a nice estimate of relative values He feels that the reader is a qualified interpreter This estimate cannot always be determined by what a writer makes, syntactically, principal, and what subordinate, in the construction of his language Of course, a mere variation of time is not, of itself, sufficient There must be an appropriate variation of tone-color, etc

A simile or comparison, for example, must be so read as to indicate the reader's estimate of what it illustrates; and this is particularly shown by the accelerated or retarded utterance of it, and by the tone-color given to it

The following striking sis, xxi 13, should be read with an accelerated utterance, i the ease hich the act illustrated will be performed: 'And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I ipe Jerusale it upside down_'

The following comparison (Isaiah, lv 10, 11) should be read in slower time, in itself considered, and, partly, for the reason that it precedes what it illustrates (a due expectation must be awakened as to what follows): '_As the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and iveth seed to the sower and bread to the eater_; so shall oeth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall acco whereto I sent it'

In still slower time, every appreciative reader would spontaneously read the following comparison (Milton's Paradise Lost, Book I, w 591-600):

his forhtness; nor appeared Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured: _as when the sun, new risen, Looks thro' the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beaht sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes el

An increased tiable vowels and consonants, rather than through pauses, though the latter must also be somewhat extended Accelerated utterance must not impress as hurry

The fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel, descriptive of Belshazzar's feast, affords good illustrations of the slighting of speech (Note 5) Take, for exahted are indicated by sreat feast =to a thousand of his lords=, and drank wine =before the thousand=

2 Belshazzar, =whiles he tasted the wine=, coolden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the te, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines=, olden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusale and his princes, his wives and his concubines=, drank =in theold, =and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone=

5 In the saers =of a ainst the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace=; and the king saw =the part of the hand that wrote=

The parts in srees of subordinate value, which the nicely appreciative reader would indicate by his reading; but they all belong to the background of the description Any of these parts, if brought fully into the foreground, would be given an undue importance, and would reduce somewhat the prominence and distinctness of the other parts