The gesture analogous to median stress is a large motion, curving, often “ascending oblique," with expanding, stretching palm; frequently using both hands. Practice gesture with swell on the vowels. Imagine you are stretching a band of India-rubber. Never allow the tone to become hard or rough. Full swell should produce full resonance. Paraphrase for this type of energy.-Interlinear expansion will be the most natural means. For an example of the Energy of Uplift expressing the idea of encouragement,—a buoyant bearing up of the emotion, while bearing out upon the will,—take the following stanza, and interline reasons and incentives: by all that is noble and worthy, I entreat you there O fear not is no possible reason why you should be dismayed; everything is on the side of him who is right: banish all dread and hesitation; launch out fearlessly, courageously, buoyantly, assuredly in a world like in which, to be sure, the forces of good and evil seem to be this, contending, with the odds sometimes against the good, and yet with the assurance as firm as the eternal truth itself, that right shall ultimately prevail : surely, absolutely not by faith or trust alone, but by personal and positive experience ere as soon as the present turmoil is over, and things stand out in C darkened aims of time-serving souls, how lofty, how noble, how in- a thing it is, To suffer appointment, pain, or loss you may meet for the little moment of this in spite of all this,-nay, because of these things,-patiently, life, and courageously, hopefully, heroically to be strong. In connection with the above paraphrase it is worth while to repeat, that to stop and say in words what appears in the interlineations, would of course be a wretched distortion of the form of Longfellow's thought. Both the form and the full sense may, however, be preserved by thinking such interlineations while saying the words of the stanza. The expanding thoughts which are interlined will, of course, tend to increase slightly the length of the pauses and to enhance quite perceptibly the quantity and volume of the vowels. Such work must be studied both mentally and physically. It will accomplish little to prepare the mind by comment and expansion, unless the voice learn to make the subtile and minute representations of such mental expansions. On the other hand, the voice alone might be trained mechanically to produce the needed pauses and enlargement of quantity; and yet secure nothing but hesitation and drawling. The combination of mental with vocal measurements cannot fail to produce vivid, intense, and rational utterance; this is expression. CHAPTER XX ENERGY OF ESTABLISHMENT. THIS type of energy occurs in all utterances of great dignity and weight, which do not seek to impress themselves upon the listener so much by insistence or cumulation as by the display of an even, firm, and elevated property, typifying the greatest possible appreciation of nobility and resistless strength. It will be accompanied by emotional conditions belonging under either "enlargement" or "sternness" in its nobler varieties. EXAMPLES.-And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.-Ex. xx. I, 2. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man, As modest stillness, and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Let it pry through the portage of the head, O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide; Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!— Have in these parts from morn till even fought, That those whom you call fathers did beget you! Be copy now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war!-and you, good yeomen, That you are worth your breeding: which I doubt not; I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Cry-God for Harry! England! and Saint George! --Henry the Fifth III., 1. The symbol of this form of energy is the Thorough Stress (-), expressing, generically, sustained force. It is approximately equal throughout the phrase or passage so emphasized. This quality of force will tend to produce also monotony of inflection; both together will give the stateliness, the staid and solid effect, which this type of energy requires. The tone is to be prepared by first singing and chanting with full voice, then practicing passages with the “calling tone," sustaining the force as nearly equal as possible throughout the passage. In drilling on this form of energy it will often be useful to employ prolonged or repeated gesture, oblique, horizontal, or ascending. Full extension of arm will usually be suitable, accompanying the thorough stress. |