their appropriate and most striking lights, and fall upon the mind with their full force of effect. His hearers instead of reïterating the old complaint regarding the Sabbath, "What a weariness is it!" will leave the sanctuary with hearts refreshed and reinvigorated, and minds "stirred up" anew to every good work and every noble purpose. MANNERISM, ADAPTATION, APPROPRIATENESS. - One of the common results of inadequate or misdirected early culture, in regard to elocution, is, that the style of young speakers, is so soon permitted to settle into fixed mannerism. An observer who has opportunity of tracing the successive stages of development in individuals subjected to the customary routine of education, will perceive that the preacher in the pulpit bears, upon his style of delivery, the stamp of the same characteristics by which he was distinguished as a youth at college, and as a boy at school. This fact, were it the natural consequence of the growth and evolution of individual character and original tendency, were it a spontaneous product of genius, would be not only tolerable but positively agreeable, as a trait of elocution. The objection lies in the obvious fact, that the manner is arbitrary and conventional, a mere matter of acquired habit,—a compound result of the influence of academic precedent and example, blending with a few accidental peculiarities of personal tendency. For the speaker in the pulpit is often found reading his sermon with precisely the same tones and inflections, and the same gestures, with which he declaimed at school, when doing his best to play the juvenile representative of Cicero pleading against Verres, or Chatham rebuking the inhumanity of Lord Suffolk. The preacher may be discoursing on the worth of the soul, and the vastness of eternal interests, and the danger of tampering with them; but habit has set so irrevocably the key of his voice, that the whole sermon sounds, sentence for sentence, cadence for cadence, an exact copy of the utterance with which, when a candidate for college honors, he read his essay on the rhetorical traits of eminent writers. The habit of reading and declaiming sentences as such, which results from the uniformity of custom at school, converts every paragraph into a succession of detached sentiments, each marked by an identical "beginning, middle and end" of tone in the voice: no matter what the difference of style or of subject. A similar effect is produced on gesture. Action is limited to two or three forms, perhaps, not even more than one, perpetually recurring, whether the natural emotion connected with the language of the sentence be joy or grief, complacency or aversion, courage or fear. - An early culture adapted to the purposes of expression, would make the young pupil sensitively alive to the difference of character and effect in the feelings of the heart, as expressed in the various tones of the voice, and the diversified language of mien and action, in the body. It would convert the human organs into so many instruments obedient to the skilful touch; uttering, with unerring certainty, the exact music of each emotion, as it rose in the soul of the speaker. It would impart pliancy and grace and power to every member of the corporeal frame, in the act of executing the forms in which imagination naturally embodies the thoughts and feelings of the mind, when animated by the spirit of communication. Eloquence, in its external shape, would thus resemble the natural effect of the shifting lights and shades and the changing colors of the mental scene. Elocution, were it duly cultivated, would teach the student that the perpetual recurrence of one tone, one pitch,' one force, one inflection, one uniform melody, and one - sing-song cadence, is as untrue to nature, and to the facts of language and sentiment, as it is false to feeling, and to the ear. The study of elocution would teach the indispensable lesson, that one sentiment inspires one look and action, and another, another, that there is no more truth or consistency in using one movement of the arm, or one attitude of the body, for every sentiment and every sentence, than there would be in using one form of words, for the structure of every period in a discourse. The natural shadings of emotion and sympathy, are, in fact, infinitely more diversified in the aspect and expression of the countenance and the person of the speaker, than they can ever become in the most pliant phrases of speech. The negligent speaker often justifies his mannerism, on the ground of personality. Speaking of his prominent faults, he will say, "This is my natural manner: I like to see individuality of style in delivery, as in all other forms of expression; and this trait constitutes mine. I cannot change it for another; because that other, though perhaps better in itself, would not be natural to me." This reasoning would be as sound as it is plausible in itself and comforting to indolence, were habit and nature invariably the same in individuals, and were manner inevitable and immutible, like Richter's cast-metal king. But manner in expression is the most plastic of all things: it can be moulded, at will, to whatever shape a decisive resolution and a persevering spirit determine. Attentive cultivation will reform, renovate, and re-create, here, as extensively as elsewhere. It will enable the individual to shake off the old and put on the new vesture of habit, and to wear it, too, with perfect ease, as the true and the natural garb of expression. For all genuine culture is but the cherishing or the resuscitating of nature. A good writer is recognized by that perfect command of his pen, which enables him to vary his language with his subject; and he is the most successful in written ex. pression, who can most easily and effectually give the changing aspect of thought its shifting hue of style. So it is with the good speaker: his manner ever varies with his subject with him, every passing emotion has its appropriate mode of utterance. He is like the skilful and accomplished performer who ranges over the whole compass of his instrument, and forever draws forth new echoes of sympathy from the heart, in response to its changing tones. The natural and effective speaker, by the eloquence of his varying utterance, infuses fresh life. into thought, and affects the soul of his hearers as the breath of morning or of spring. The factitious style of the mannerist, when it is strongly marked, attracts our attention to itself, and obscures our impression of his thought; but, even when it is comparatively weak, it still hangs as a veil between the subject and the hearer's mind: its tendency is not to add but subtract effect; it deducts something from the impression which would otherwise have been made. A manner well adapted to matter, is not merely a transparent medium: it sheds light on the objects of the mental scene: it has the kindling effect of sunlight on the landscape; it brings out into distinct and impressive effect, the form, color, and character of whatever it touches. To remove the defects of mannerism, and to secure the advantages of adaptation and appropriateness in delivery, the speaker's great aim should be to lose himself in his subject, and in every successive part of it, as it is developed in the progress of his discourse. His style will thus acquire its proper analogy to the sunlight and the shade, the life and the repose, the alternate brilliancy and the depth of effect, which nature gives when sun and shadow are shifting over the field, in correspondence with the passing cloud. The mannerist holds to himself, and to his accidents of personal habit, and these perhaps quite artificial, — rather than to the current of his thoughts and their natural accompaniment of emotion. The speaker who is desirous of possessing the charm of fitting manner, will train his voice to the genuine utterance of every tone of emotion; he will endeavor to acquire all that depth which the most impressive of his themes demand, in those tones which are the natural expression of solemnity and awe; he will cultivate the power of giving voice to those thrilling notes of joy and rapture, in which the lofty strains of sacred lyrics so frequently abound; he will study the effect of force and grandeur and sublimity in swelling the tones of praise and triumph; he will watch the transition to the subdued and softened strains of penitence and contrition; he will distinguish the slow movement of pathetic and solemn emotion from the accelerated utterance of cheerful and lively expression. His outward manner, in attitude and action, will be as various as his voice: he will evince the inspiration of appropriate feeling in the very posture of his frame; in uttering the language of adoration, the slowmoving, uplifted hand will bespeak the awe and solemnity which pervade his soul; in addressing his fellowmen in the spirit of an ambassador of Christ, the gentle yet earnest spirit of persuasive action, will be evinced in the pleading hand and aspect; he will know, also, how' to pass to the stern and authoritative mien of the reprover of sin; he will, on due occasions, indicate, in his kindling look and rousing gesture, the mood of him who is empowered and commanded to summon forth all the energies of the human soul; his subdued and chastened address will carry the sympathy of his spirit into the bosom of the mourner; his moistening eye and his gentle action will manifest his tenderness for the suffering: his whole soul will, in a word, become legible in his features, in his attitude, in the expressive eloquence of his hand; his whole style will be felt to be that of heart communing with heart. The mannerist in speaking is often cut off from the possibility of attaining to the effects of genuine eloquence, by the inappropriateness of his fixed habit to the language |
