baths.

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed all that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward."-Lam. i., 1-8.

THOROUGH STRESS.

What Constitutes a State?—Sir William Jones.

"What constitutes a state?

Not high-raised battlements or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate;

Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports,

Where, laughing at the storms, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts,

Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.

"No; men, high-minded men,

With powers as far above dull brutes endued, In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain— Prevent the long-aimed blow,

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain.

"These constitute a state;

And sovereign law, that state's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.

Smit by her sacred frown,

The fiend, dissension, like a vapor sinks;

And e'en the all-dazzling crown

Hides its faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks."

CHAPTER IX.

INFLECTION OR SLIDE.

THE impulse for expression proceeds chiefly from feeling, rather than from thought. Even passages which appear to be altogether unimpassioned are delivered with a desire to make them known, so that the impelling power is more than purely intellectual. The study of the use of the slides of the voice will lead us naturally to the emotional expression which they convey.

Slides of Emotion.-In the strongest degrees of feeling these are very distinctly marked as compassing a full octave in their scope. It is only, however, in highly wrought feeling that this occurs. Indignant astonishment, which would induce the upward slide, represents such a compass of the voice on an emphatic syllable. For an illustration, we will imagine that the preacher is expostulating with the apathetic and the wavering in regard to religious duty. He has occasion, we will say, to repeat the excuse of the procrastinator not yet prepared. He rehearses the opportunities, the blessings, the years that have passed, the office of Christ, the love of God, and in view of all these considerations repeats the question with indignant astonishment: "Not yet prepared ?" And as surely as he has the feeling in full degree, just so certainly will his voice slide through the compass of the rising octave.

We pass from such a slide to one much more frequently used, that of the musical fifth, both upward and downward. This is characteristic of heart-felt earnestness. Energetic feeling of all kinds requires this interval to make it truly expressive. Feeble and plaintive uses of the voice will be altogether lacking in the "earnest" slide of the fifth. It is the language of strong and emphatic assertion, and the leading element in manly decision of expression. "Rhetorical inquiry" becomes impressive and forcible

under such delivery, while strength of language, and even energy of feeling, are completely hindered if it be lacking. The student who is seeking to develop all utterance of manly properties of delivery must give much time and attention to this natural and expressive element. It is like the bold action impelled by bodily vigor-striking, full of meaning, and appropriate. No speaker can be commanding in his vocal effects without the use of this interval in the slides of his voice. He may be otherwise pleasing, attractive, and expressive, as a speaker, but without it he can not produce the first manly element of energetic expres

sion.

There is an unimpassioned delivery, where the thought is not quickened into energy, which finds utterance through the rise and fall of the musical third. The purpose of this seems to be the expression of quiet and unemphatic communication. Proper mastery of this slide imparts agreeable variety to reading and speaking. If it be excessive in its interval, the expression becomes too emotional, and if it be insufficient, a suppressed or monotonous effect is produced. It belongs to all spirited communication, and the absence of it is a very serious defect.

From a consideration of the general drift of the slide we may pass to its use in clauses and phrases. In all cheerful, animated, and agreeable expression, if these are the dominant elements, the voice, through whatever interval, slides upward. If, on the other hand, gravity, solemnity, emphatic and commanding expression be aimed at, the falling slide becomes the chief medium. Earnest supplication naturally throws the voice downward, in its general course, as unemphatic communication lifts the voice on the upward slide. But the varieties are as great as the changes of thought and its grammatical forms of expression, so that every sentence becomes properly a separate study.

Rise and Fall of the Second.-As the more marked intervals of the third, fifth, and octave are especially charac

terized at the pauses of the voice, so the still more contracted drift of unimpassioned sentences limits the passages between the pauses and the emphatic words by the rise and fall of the second, as from do to re, re to do, on the musical scale. Where this varied and natural play of the voice is wanting we have dull and monotonous expression as the result.

The four preceding divisions give the voice an emotional and intellectual expressiveness, to which it is ever a pleasure to listen. Carried to excess they beget a mechanical and unnatural vivacity, which has no place in natural discourse. They are then in oratory what excessive sprightliness would be to manner in the social circle. While avoiding the fault of unmeaning sameness, therefore, we must also escape an equally meaningless variety in the use of the slides.

The Monotone. Like the recitative music, this sustained effort in the delivery of the voice is, at times, the only mode appropriate. Wherever majesty, dignity, sublimity, mystery, or awe, separately or combined, find utterance, there the superior weight of the feeling tends to more or less repetition of the same note. In the grandeur, sublimity, and awe of several of the descriptive passages of the Revelation, the ordinary varieties of inflection destroy all the mystery and the vision-like effect of the narrative. The cause of this sustained effort is, unquestionably, the unusual weight and depth of feeling, which prevents the elastic play of the muscles and confines the voice to its simplest intervals. It should be observed, however, that the monotone, a legitimate mode of utterance in its place, is vastly different from the inexpressive and inappropriate effect of monotony.

The Semitone. This slide is produced by carrying the voice half a note short of the ordinary intervals by which the previously described degrees of feeling are expressed. It is the medium of pathos, with all its kindred shades of

feeling, and the natural expression of marked degrees of tenderness. When used in excess it is characterized as the whine, and the reader of quick susceptibility and extreme sensitiveness should be on his guard, lest that which is naturally expressive of tenderest feeling become the habitual accompaniment of the voice in all forms of expression. It is simply pitiable to hear the plaintive effect of the minor intervals sounding through some majestic passages of the Church Service, and the lachrymose style of some speakers suggests merely a weakness and effeminacy which are out of character with manly and forcible expression of thought or feeling. The clergyman who reported that his friends assured him that he was "happy at funerals" must have been one of the many who are addicted to the unduly pathetic effect of the minor intervals.

There is still another use of slide called the circumflex or wave. This is used in a train of thought which involves close and distinctive reasoning. It is employed also in irony and sarcasm. When a deeper meaning is given to a word than is found in its ordinary significance, the circumflex serves the same purpose in vocalizing that italicizing does in printing-e. g., "Let any man resolve to do right now, leaving then to do as it can, and he will never do wrong." The taunting cry of Elijah to the priests of Baal, "Cry aloud, for he is a god," etc., would be a good example of the circumflex of irony.

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It should be observed that much of the vivacity and effectiveness of speech comes from variety in the slides. We have in every clause slight variations of slide, giving musical and rhythmical effect to the ear. To read or speak without this natural play of the voice deprives it of flexibility and of all animation. In antithetical clauses and sentences, the answering of the melody in the contrasted slides is very marked, and, to give both members of the antithesis the same slide will almost assuredly destroy the contrast in the meaning. The inexpressive reader or speak