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quet-hall deserted, whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, and all but he departed! Thus in the stilly night ere slumber's chain has bound me, sad Memory brings the light of other days around me.

Moore.

WHERE sweeps round the mountains the cloud on the gale, and streams from their fountains leap into the vale, — like frighted deer leap when the storm with his pack rides over the steep in the wild torrent's track, even there my free home is; there watch I the flocks wander white as the foam is Secure in the gorge there in freedom we sing, and where the Eagle is king.

on stairways of rocks. laugh at King George,

Wild Wagoner of the Alleghanies.

Buchanan Read.

XXIII. MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: CHANGE OF PITCH.

CHANGE of pitch is one of the most fundamental of all modulations of the voice. It is a universal characteristic of naturalness; there is in fact a change of pitch between every word in conversation. Change of pitch is one of the first effects of thinking, over the voice.

There is, however, an unusual change of pitch which might be called change of key, that is very imaginative. It suggests a similar effect to that of light and shade.

Observe, for example, in the following extract, how the voice distinguishes between each of the pictures by both color and pitch, in proportion to the vividness and character of the picture of each successive object or scene. How widely different is the picture of the river from that of the brook, and of both from the ocean! But when we come to the predication of all these pictures, there is a much greater change of pitch, with corresponding changes in the texture and color.

THE hills,

Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between ;

The venerable woods; rivers that move

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadow green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man.

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Bryant.

Such changes as these are especially important in deep feeling; and while intense emotion calls for an increase of tone-color and texture, yet the change of pitch and the touch are especially important from the fact that they manifest volitional control over the emotion. Whenever there is a tendency to drift in feeling, the true imaginative touch, which is always radical, tends to drift into a meaningless swell, or a so-called medium stress; while the changes of pitch become merely passive drops of the voice, which tend, on being exaggerated, to sing-song.

There is one peculiarity about changes of pitch: they are not regular or rhythmic in natural expression. Rhythm is the regulation or continuity of force, and is always normally manifested through touch; whenever there is a rhythmic modulation of inflection or changes of pitch, we have an elimination of thinking in all its forms and a sing-song melody. Force is acting without being dominated by thinking; the feeling is acting without being stimulated by the mental pictures. For this reason, there should be practice especially of change of pitch as directly expressive of the imaginative action of the mind.

LITTLE BOY BLUE.

THE little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands ;

And the little toy soldier is red with rust,

And his musket moulds in his hands.

Time was when the little toy dog was new,

And the soldier was passing fair;

And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue

Kissed them and put them there.

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And they wonder, as waiting these long years through
In the dust of that little chair,

What has become of our Little Boy Blue

Since he kissed them and put them there.

Eugene Field.

XXIV. INTENSITY AND REPOSE.

ARE there any general qualities or characteristics which show the presence of the imagination, or any peculiarities which show its absence in different forms of art, but especially in vocal expression?

When there is absence of imagination, there is a tendency merely to reproduce facts. Imagination breathes the life of personality into art; it unites the feeling and the fact. Absence of imagination is denoted by labor, by stiltedness, by loudness, by any crude modulation of the voice, by sudden and violent changes, by extravagant surprises of any kind; the presence of imagination is noted by directness and simplicity, by unity in the midst of the most complex elements, by great variation and naturalness in the modulations of the voice, by a sense of hidden life and mystery, by a sympathetic response and co-operation of the powers of the whole man. Absence of imagination is indicated by the use of only one modulation of the voice at the expense of the others; by the use of volitional, deliberative, or conscious force; by selfconsciousness, and by a lack of natural vocabulary. Imagination brings a large vocabulary of the modulations of the voice, freedom from self-consciousness, with ease and naturalness.

Among the many qualities of expression which are characteristic of imagination may be mentioned intensity.

Intensity is in proportion to the activity at the centre. It proceeds from control without destruction, the retention or the reserve of the excitement which any emotion arouses without repressing it. Steam is intense in proportion to its compression

or confinement, and so with emotion. If there is no control over emotion, if the reader passively surrenders himself to the first impulse, passion causes mere noise or outward motions, and runs to waste.

A normal human being is one whose thought and emotion are balanced by will. Thought without will or emotion is not natural, and nor is will or emotion without thought. In the strong man there is co-ordinate action of the three elemental powers of his being.

Hence, emotion naturally implies control. When emotion is controlled, its activity is diffused through the whole body. Emotion must especially affect the breathing, or the muscles regulating the breathing, so as to cause activity in the middle of the body. When the breath is elastically and naturally retained in connection with emotion, the least touch of the voice will have character and power. This is the primary characteristic of the right use of the voice, and of a modulation of the texture and color of the tone. With such a retention of breath, every modulation suggests situation, feeling, and imaginative action.

Weakness is the result of a want of intensity in the expression of emotion.

There are noble and ignoble elements in nearly every emotion. Sorrow, for example, may degenerate into a passive whine; but controlled, retained, and suggested, it awakens sympathy, and is noble and heroic. There are always two emotions which seem very much alike, but which are far apart. One is weak, and the other is strong. Brass may be so polished as to look like gold. Who can tell the difference between melted lead and melted silver? But the difference is brought out by time. Anger and indignation, sympathy and pity, excitement and hurry, intensity and nervousness, are only a few of the emotions too often confused with one another.

The chief difference between emotions so closely akin is in the element of imaginative, stimulous, and volitional control. Sorrow, for example, implies a struggle for control over a certain emotion, while sadness is a passive indulgence of possibly the same feeling. The difference in these emotions consists more or less in the atti

tude of the man. In fact, expression does not always directly manifest the feeling, but rather displays the attitude of the man towards it, his victory over it, or his yielding to it. Hence, control of breath is the most fundamental agent in the control of passion, and the chief element in the expression of emotion. This is especially true of sorrow. It is the struggle to control sorrow that indicates the strong man. It is only a weak man who yields, and exhibits his tears and other effects of feeling. The strong man treasures his tears; he struggles with his breath until his voice is clear. Sorrow is thus an emotion which demands intensity and suggestiveness.

All emotion represents either a stage of cumulation and progression, or of retrogression and prostration. An emotion in its retrogressive or prostrate stage is indicative of weakness. Repose demands that emotion be expressed in a stage of accumulation and control. The steam that runs a locomotive is not merely the small amount that escapes in the piston. Steam has no power except from the energy of an accumulated and restrained mass behind that which is used.

Emotion in the speaker or reader awakens sympathy and a corresponding condition in the hearer, in proportion as its cause is suggested. No one can give an emotion to another: feeling can only be awakened; for the roused imagination of each hearer is the cause of his own emotion. It is for this reason that suggestion of the accumulation of emotion indicates strength, while an advertisement of exhaustion indicates weakness. In the expression of any emotion, the control or the retention of the condition, the sustaining of the cause, is most important.

There can be no laughter without control of breath. The activity given by the emotion to the respiratory muscles causes the laugh. An artistic or voluntary laugh is most difficult: few can laugh naturally before an audience. Few of the best actors have a good laugh. One explanation for this is the lack of control over breath, or the lack of the response of the vocal mechanism to imaginative feeling.

One who tells a comical story must have control over himself in order to have any effect upon others. There is a comical picture

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