tual distinctions, of indicating the constituent and relative parts of a sentiment, as these are subdivided and arranged in the consecutive clauses of a sentence, or of conveying those emotions which predominate in the heart of the speaker, and which he wishes to transfer to those of his audience.

"Inflection," whether it is exemplified in the form of the "slide" or the "wave," may be analyzed scientifically, in the manner exhibited in Dr. Rush's work on the voice, by the application of the musical scale; or it may be studied practically, by attentive observation of the actual turns of voice, in the exercises of reading and speaking. But, in either case, it requires a close and penetrating application of the attention to nice and exact distinctions of sound. It cannot be mastered by ordinary inspection or transient notice. But the due study and practice of this part of elocution will be richly rewarded, in the acquisition of a skilful and effective control over the true "melody" of speech and reading, and, consequently, over that music of the voice which plays, at the will of the orator, the tune of thought or that of feeling. Inflections are, always, the vocal exposition of a sentence : they are the interpreters of speech and enforce its meaning; without them, reading is but the senseless syllabication of the juvenile learner, in his unpractised steps, when the spirit of a passage is merged in the mere sound of words as such. The voice of the skillful reader, aided by appropriate inflections, strikes a thought home to both head and heart, and awakes in the soul every kindred association. Inflection is, in all cases, one of the most useful and effectual instruments of true eloquence. It is the purest and most brilliant of all the ornaments which a consummate elocution confers on the voice. It is the appropriate language of a cultivated intellect and a discerning spirit; and it is, not less distinctively, the melody into which emotion breathes the life and power of expression.*

* The various forms of inflection will be found scientifically arranged

Another distinguishing trait of a cultivated voice, and one which is of the utmost moment to the preacher, is the complete control which it ensures over the “ movement," or rate of time observed in utterance, as adapted to different emotions. A slight observation is sufficient

to enable any ear to detect the common faults, in this particular, which are exhibited in the pulpit. Some preachers, desiring to secure a plain, familiar style of expression, resembling that of conversation, run into the error of too great rapidity. A similar result is produced by the constitutional vivacity of others. In either case, dignity and impressiveness, and even distinctness, are, more or less, sacrificed to impulse and velocity.

The audience which the minister of religion usually addresses, is of a mixed character, as to intellectual discipline and ability, and is largely made up of persons who are daily engaged in the practical pursuits of active business. Minds addicted to habits of this description, do not usually prove rapid in the formation of strictly intellectual associations: they need a comparatively full allowance of time to aid the development of a train of thought. An audience formed of students and professional men, accustomed to facility and rapidity of mental action, can more easily keep up with the succession of ideas created by a reader whose gait of voice inclines to velocity. The habit of silent reading enables the practised student to follow the succession of thought with the utmost rapidity; and his discipline of intellect renders him competent even to foresee a speaker's drift of thought, and anticipate his train of argument. But the man of

and designated in Dr. Rush's Philosophy of the Voice. They are ex. emplified in technical detail, in the volume on Orthophony, formerly mentioned, and practically applied to an appropriate selection of passa ges in the American Elocutionist.

merely operative and practical habit, must move deliberately, and follow, rather than accompany, a speaker. The aged hearer, who has little intellectual facility, often complains of the preacher's rapidity and confusion of utterance. Complaints such as this, are not always well grounded; and the waning faculties of age are, too often in these cases, the chief source of apparent feebleness and indistinctness in the voice of the preacher.

speaker, however, who addresses a mixed audience, should suffer himself to fall into the rapidity of utterance which leaves any passage unintelligible to any individual among his hearers.

Deliberateness of manner is not only an indispensable requisite to intelligible address, but a powerful and natural aid to impressive utterance. Without a moderate rate of “movement” in the voice, there can be no association of grave or grand effect on the ear: the style of utterance is, in such instances, unavoidably rendered light and trivial. Solemnity, in particular, demands the utmost slowness of utterance. The uncultivated reader is always prone to celerity of enunciation, and thus hinders repose and reverence, and every other form of deep and tranquil impression. A style like this, is peculiarly ill-suited to the purposes of reading and speaking, as connected with the duties of the sacred office.

The cultivated reader is taught to appreciate the becoming effect and moral beauty of due slowness, as an attribute of sacred eloquence. He gives, accordingly, ample scope to sound, lengthens the duration of every prominent vowel, and thus makes it the fit vehicle of deep and full emotion: he avoids a crowded utterance as the very bane of serious and grave feeling; he cultivates the habit of moderation in the succession of sounds; and his pauses all naturally receive a proportioned length, by which they become deeply impressive to the ear. These traits of utterance are indispensable to the majesty of style prevalent in all the sublime descriptions of the Old

Testament, and are required, not unfrequently, in the New.

But while taste and feeling demand due slowness in uttering whatever is deeply impressive to the mind; they forbid equally all lagging and drawling, as wholly destructive of every good effect, as only irksome or ridiculous, bespeaking a feeble temperament and habit, and an utter inability to create any deep or powerful effect. This style, however, is proverbially current in pulpit elocution, and forms one of the distinctive and prominent features of its mechanically solemn and exaggerated manner. The discipline of elocution dispels such effects, by the light which it sheds on the nature of " movement," as an element of vocal effect; and, just as the musician obeys, with instinctive readiness, the direction which accelerates or retards his voice, with the most definite precision, and vivid effect on the ear, so does the instructed reader produce the characteristic expression of every sentiment by the instantaneous adaptation of his rate of utterance to the spirit of the language which falls from his lips. Truth, and nature, and propriety, preside, thus, over his whole manner, and render it living and eloquent.

66

"Rhythm" and Pausing.

The discipline of the voice offers to the public speaker a great facility, as regards the proper vocal effect required for his purposes, in the regularity of "rhythm," or the equable succession of sound, and the due length of pauses. Rhythm," as a part of elocution, enables the reader to maintain an equal and symmetrical flow of voice, while it guards him, not less carefully, against a mechanical, prominence of rhythmical accent, which is attended with a hammering effect on the ear.

A true rhythm has been demonstrated by Steel to constitute, as distinctly, a trait of appropriate reading and speaking, as of music. It serves, in the former, the same

purposes as in the latter: it imparts a smooth, agreeable, and symmetrical effect to the voice: it prescribes and facilitates a regular and easy style of breathing: it enables the reader or speaker to pronounce the successive clauses of every sentence with a regulated, easy, fluent style of accent, which renders the effort of full utterance comparatively light, promotes the tranquillity of his emotions, saves his own organic strength, and gives forth his language with an harmonious and pleasing effect to the ear of others.

The uncultivated reader wastes breath and strength, and disturbs his utterance, by want of regularity in the alternate successions of sound and pause. His whole style of voice is like that of a person who, in singing, pays no regard to “ foundation of music.*

time,"

the

very

Emphasis.

Nothing, perhaps, displays so strikingly the benefit of systematic practice in elocution, as the force, the spirit, and the efficacy which it imparts to emphasis. The dull routine of school reading, in its customary forms, deadens the distinctive character of all prominent phrases, and reduces all the words of a sentence to one flat, monotonous level, in which there are no projecting and salient points to arrest the attention; the voice gliding on from beginning to end of a period, as if every clause were of exactly equal weight, and every word of precisely the same significance.

The influence of early habit is so strong with most persons, that few, even among professional readers, seem to

* For exercises in "rhythm," see the manual on Orthophony.

† Dr. Rush has justly given to the word "émphasis " a wider application than that which restricts it to mere comparative force. He comprehends under it, in accordance with its etymology, all the phenomena of voice which render a word significant or impressive.