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Part Third.-Expressive Delivery.

I. PAUSES.

1. Much of the effect of good reading depends on sufficient and appropriate pauses. Ordinary punctuation is no guide for oratorical pausing. The effective reader will make many more stops than typography indicates. The use of the marks of punctuation is merely grammatical: no system of comparative duration of pauses can be founded on it.

2. The comma is used to separate words or clauses in apposition, and to disjoin explanatory or qualifying clauses from the principal members of a sentence, and from each other; the semicolon is employed at the conclusion of a dependent sentence; or of one from which a direct inference is drawn ; or of one of a series of connected sentences; or sometimes at the end of an important division of a complex sentence: the colon serves to aggregate into one period sentences in themselves complete, but more or less connected in subject; or it is used after any recurrence of semicolons, to mark a greater division than they indicate: and the period shows the completion of an independent sentence, or of a series of collateral sentences. A paragraph is a typographical division, which shows the end of a collection of collateral periods.

3. The shortest pauses are those slight suspensions which are made at the end of an accentual group or oratorical word; the next in duration are those which separate subordinate clauses from the principal members, and from each other; next are those which separate two or more subjects, predicates, objects, or complemental clauses in apposition; somewhat longer are those which introduce and conclude parentheses, similes, series, and important relative or conditional sentences; the conclusion of a dependent sentence requires a slightly increased hiatus; of an independent sentence a greater one still; and

the end of a paragraph, or leading division of a subject, a more protracted pause. Besides these regular stops, accidental, expectant or reflective pauses will occur before or after important words, to render them emphatic; and longest of all will be those Expressive Pauses, (see page 116) which denote listening, anxious watching, &c. 4. There can be no good reading without frequent and, sometimes, long pauses. They convey an effect of spontaneity, which rivets the attention of the hearer; while unbroken fluency, especially in the reading of complex sentences, will never sustain attention, because it is manifestly accompanied with no thought on the part of the reader. Appropriate clausular pausing will lead the reader to THINK,- to exercise his judgement as he reads;

and it will make him seem to do so even when he does not. For he must always,

"Assume this virtue, if he have it not."

II. MODULATION.

5. MODULATION has reference to the prevailing pitch of the inflexions in a passage,--to the "key" in which sentences are pronounced.

6. A change of modulation is always necessary to distinguish Interrogations or Appeals from Responses; Assertions from Proofs or Illustrations; General Statements from Inferences or Corollaries; to introduce Quotations; to denote the commencement of a new subject or new division of a subject, or of any marked change in the style of composition-as from Narration to Description, or from Literal to Figurative Language, and vice versa; to express feeling, and changes of sentiment; to distinguish what has been previously expressed or implied, or what is merely expletive, from what is new and emphatic to the sense; to detach from the main body of the sentence words or clauses which are explanatory or parenthetic; and to distinguish generally those parts of a sentence which are necessary to its construction from those that are subordinate and dispensable. The degree in which the Modulation is changed, and often even the direction of the change, whether to a higher or lower key,— must depend on the reader's Judgement, Taste, Temperament, &c. The use of a modulative NOTATION will assist the

student in the cultivation of the first two of these qualities, and, mainly, in forming the habit of making modulative changes at those places where all good readers must agree in applying the principle of change, however widely they may differ in the degree and direction in which they apply it.

7. A HARMONY of modulation must prevail in the reading of parts that are syntactically connected,- especially when they are separated in composition, by intervening clauses or sentences. The subjective and predicative clauses should always stand out in correspondent modulation from the circumstantial passages by which they are frequently separated and broken up. These interpolating clauses will generally be pronounced in a lower modulation than the principal members of a sentence; but they may require a higher key: whatever their relative modulation, it must always be distinctive from that of the subject and predicate.

8. In the NOTATION of modulative pitch, five degrees are assumed;-a middle or conversational key (No. 3,) and two keys respectively higher and lower than this :as represented in the following diagram.

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9. A Low key is the natural modulation of solemnity, awe, fear, humility, and sadness: and a HIGH key, of levity, boldness, pride, and joy. Nearly all violent passions take a high modulation.

10. Besides the modulative NUMBERS, the use of which is confined to principal members of sentences, the following marks are employed to denote the comparative elevation or depression of subordinate passages. Thus, (D) elevate; (L) depress. A simple vertical line() denotes the end of the modulated passage.

11. These angular marks may be placed before a modulative number, to indicate a progressive elevation or depression of pitch. Thus, [3 signifies a progressive ascent above the conversational key; and [4, a progressive descent from the pitch denoted by No. 4.

III. FORCE AND TIME.

12. The modulative varieties may be accompanied by any degree of FORCE. Low keys may be strong, and high ones weak; and vice versa. Our notation includes five degrees of force :-a middle, or moderate degree. and two relatively stronger, and two feebler degrees.

13. A similar notation is employed for the TIME, or rate of utterance :—including an ordinary degree, and two degrees relatively quicker and slower.

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14. PROGRESSIVE increase of FORCE is denoted by the mark, or by Cres. (Crescendo ;) and of TIME, by Ac. (Accellerate ;) and progressive decrease of FORCE, by the mark>, or by Dim. (Diminuendo;) and of TIME, by Ret. (Retard.)

15. A great deal of pleasing and expressive variety may be produced by slight variations of Modulation. Force, and Time. The musician's consummate skill, and delicacy of execution, in keeping the simple air running with a separate current in the midst of a river of variations, has its counterpart in the reader's vocal adaptation of sound to sense. The painter's artistic excellence in selecting objects to be "struck out" with varied effects, or "covered down" for contrast, is emulated by the skilful reader, in the due subordination and prominence of every thought and circumstance, according to its relative importance. A Master of Ceremonies is not more punctilious in his arrangements than the voice of a tasteful and judicious reader.

16. Public speakers too commonly confound force or loudness with a HIGH key; for we find them accompany every increase of force by an elevation of pitch. But Force is an entirely different quality from Pitch ;—and its most violent efforts must often be associated with the lowest modulation.

17. The speaker should use the middle tones chiefly:varying the intensity of the voice according to the distance of his farthest auditor. Any continued address in the same modulation should be avoided. Monotony is spiritless. The commencement of a sentence or of a paragraph affords opportunity for changing the modulation-usually to a lower, but it may be to a higher pitch.

18. Simple narrative generally requires a medium force and rate of utterance; animated description an increase of both; violent passions, a greater increase; and tender emotions, a decrease. Pathos and solemnity require a slow movement. Subordinate clauses and sentences, parentheses, &c., are generally but not always, pronounced with less force, and in quicker time than the principal members.

IV. EMOTIVE EXPRESSION,

19. The most finely toned voice, with all the charms of graceful and distinct articulation, will not suffice to make an effective reader, if there be not a constant current of SENTIMENT streaming through the inflexions and articulate utterances. Speech, though chiefly mechanical, and therefore.- so far as articulation, force, time. and musical changes are concerned,―imitable by artificial contrivances, receives a higher and inimitable expressiveness from the feeling of the speaker. There is a Vocal Logic; a Rhetoric of Inflexion; a Poetry of Modulation; a Commentator's explanatoriness of Tone,-and these are combined in effective reading. Reading fails of half its proper effect, and of its highest purpose, if it do not furnish, besides a vocal transcript of the written language, a commentary upon its sentiment, and a judgement upon its reasoning. The language of Emotion must accompany every utterance that is naturally delivered. Yet how many merely mechanical speakers there are, whose voices know no thrill of feeling, and who throw off their tame monotonous oratory, "coldly correct, and regularly dull," nerveless, and passionless as automata. Let it be the object of the elocutionary student to awaken in himself a sympathetic sensibility with every utterance; -to learn to feel ;"—and to keep the fine-strung organs of expressiveness in a state of delicate susceptibility. Let him make the language he reads his own, and, always, in

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