Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: Oh, hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay,

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh, hear!

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than Thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip the skyey speed

Scarce seem'd a vision, I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth;

And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Shelley.

318 ALL the processes of the ages are God's science; all the flow of history is his poetry. His sculpture is not in marble, but in living and speech-giving forms, which pass away, not to yield place to those that come after, but to be perfected in a nobler studio. What he has done remains, although it vanishes; and he never either forgets what he has once done, or does it even once again. As the thoughts move in the mind of a man, so move the worlds of men and women in the mind of God, and make no confusion there, for there they had their birth, the offspring of his imagination. Man is but a thought of God.

"The Imagination."

MacDonald.

319

THY tyranny,

Together working with thy jealousies, –
Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
For girls of nine, O, think, what they have done,
And then run mad indeed,―stark mad! for all
Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.
That thou betrayedst Polixenes, 'twas nothing; .
Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honor,
To have him kill a king; poor trespasses,
More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon
The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter
To be or none or little, - though a devil
Would have shed water out of fire ere done't,
Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death

Of the young Prince, whose honorable thoughts—
Thoughts high for one so tender-cleft the heart
That could conceive, a gross and foolish sire
Blemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no,

Laid to thy answer: but the last, - lords,

When I have said, cry, Woe!-the Queen, the Queen,

The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead; and vengeance for 't
Not dropp'd down yet.

"Winter's Tale."

Shakespeare.

III.

MODES OF DEVELOPMENT.

ILL FORMS OF EXPRESSION.

SOME of the elemental actions of the mind which cause mod

ulations of the voice have been studied for the better understanding of the true nature of Vocal Expression. We have found that the actions or attitudes of the mind directly, and more or less spontaneously, cause these modulations, and that no artificial system of vocal signs or system of rules can be arranged independent of the direct domination of mind over voice.

The question now arises, what method should be adopted to develop the right actions of the voice, or secure right processes?

Some of the leading elemental acts of expression are these: to talk, to read, to recite, to address an audience, to act and to write, to draw and to sing. Which of these is most effective in developing the expressive power of the man? All should be used. The reason for this is that each of them calls into more immediate activity some special set of the faculties. Practice merely upon one is apt to develop one-sidedness; besides the development of the greatest power in any one of them cannot be attained without some mastery of the others. Not only must the wellrounded man have all of them in some degree, but the special master of each one of them must also have more or less knowledge and command of each of the others. The good speaker, for example, must be able to write, or he will lack accuracy. A little acting also will help him to develop naturalness, and reading and reciting will give a more all-sided discipline to his powers. These exercises will cause him to realize the processes

of the greatest writers and speakers, and will develop the power to see from a different point of view, and even to think in a foreign language.

Exercise in each of these various acts tends to develop that command of the special powers which are necessary for special forms of expression. For instance, to develop the greatest power in acting, the actor must be able to read well and to recite well. A reader, unless he is able to act, will be led into exaggeration, without power to modulate his positions or to make his character think. He must also be able to understand every point of view: he must be able to appreciate the speaker's attitude of mind as well as that of the actor. Even the writer, since all style is founded upon conversation, will receive great help from speaking. Exercise in speaking will enable him to feel the fundamental qualities of naturalness; for the spoken word brings man nearest to a realization of one mind in a state of active communication with another.

The greatest artists have always sought for more than one point of view. The best artists have always studied, and have been noted for their power of appreciating, other arts. In fact, many great artists have practised more than one form of art. The art faculty is broadened by this comparative study. This is true of all the arts, but it is especially true of all forms of speaking. The student should converse, speak, read, recite, debate, and act. Work in all of these acts will develop a flexible and versatile use of the faculties of the mind. Such union of different acts will develop the power to see truth from every possible point of view, to modulate all modes of expression, and to fit every kind of subject and experience, and to adapt them to every kind of audience.

Again, work in all modes of expression tends to prevent artificiality and mannerisms. Work in recitation alone often tends to develop stiltedness; practice in speaking alone often tends to develop an unsympathetic action relative to subject and audi

ence; reading alone tends to eliminate the process of progressive thinking; acting alone tends to develop staginess. As has been already shown, all work in Vocal Expression tends to artificiality and affectation, and to a lack of genuineness in thinking. The same is true of Rhetoric. The reason for this is the tendency of most minds to separate form from thought. The practice in different modes of expression tends to prevent this superficiality and one-sidedness, and to develop simplicity, genuineness and power. It gives greater discipline of the faculties, greater selfcontrol, and greater ability to vary and adapt as well as to employ all modes of expression.

Again, such a method prevents the tendency to mere imitation. If a student is made to read only, he will tend, possibly, to read like his teacher; but if he is made to speak on familiar subjects, his vocal modulations in conversation are so spontaneous, so freely natural, that he rarely imitates. By having him converse upon his feet to the class, and then read or recite, he can be made to feel when he is natural, and when unnatural. Thus the student, as well as the teacher, will be enabled to recognize his fundamental needs and difficulties.

Again, work in different forms of expression will develop originality. The student is not only enabled to study himself, not only prevented from imitation and made natural, but his faculties and powers are stimulated to act in their own way. Some of them will necessarily call for the expression of his own views and convictions.

The method for Vocal Expression here unfolded seeks to keep continually before the student the thought, and especially the process of its creation or realization, as well as modes of delivery. Such a method can be easily applied to speaking or to any form of Vocal Expression. It is notorious that mechanical elocution can only be applied to certain forms of recitation and to a certain kind of literature, and cannot be applied to extemporaneous speaking. This fact proves that such a method is inadequate,