2. Wide as the world is His command, Firm as a rock His truth shall stand, When rolling years shall cease to move. 3. Here, then, is a support which will never fàil; here is a foundation which can never be mòved, the everlasting Creator of countless worlds, "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth etèr nity." What a sublime concèption! He inhabits etèrnity, óccupies this inconceivable duràtion, pervades and fills throughòut this boundless dwelling. VI. FORCE. HE degree of force or loudness required in reading depends upon the space to be filled by the reader's voice or the distance it must reach; upon the number of persons presumed to be addressed, and upon the emotion expressed. What is wanted in every-day use of the voice, in the schoolroom or elsewhere, is a clear tone and easy, natural utterance. The practice of loud and sustained tones is an excellent means of improving the voice, but is to be the exception, not the rule, in ordinary reading. Yet the softest tone must be elastic and full of life. To be natural it is not necessary to be dull. I. Gentle. 1. The day is done, and the darkness As a feather is wafted downward 2. "How sweetly," said the trembling maid, "How sweetly does the moonbeam smile 3. I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing, or climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea; or to gaze upon the piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own; or to watch the gentle undulating billows rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shòres. 4. How still the morning of the hallowed dày! The ploughboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song. 5. See how beneath the moonbeam's smile Thus màn, the sport of bliss and care, II. Moderate Force. 1. If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of rívers, of lákes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves. Their àttitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics ín it, all conduce to show their excess of spìrits, and are simply the effècts of that excess. 2. People talk of liberty as if it meant the liberty of doing what a man likes. The only liberty that a man worthy the name of a man ought to ask for, is to have all restrictions, inward and outward, removed, to prevent his doing what he dught. 3. Once more: speak clearly, if you speak at all; Carve every word before you let it fall; Do put your àccents in the proper spot; Don't let me bèg you-don't say “How?" for "What?" 4. Exert your talents and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sòrry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness, drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as Ì do, and bàrk. 5. Do not look for wrong and évil- Look for goodness, look for glàdness, If you bring a smiling visage To the gláss, you mèet a smile. III. Loud. 1. It is done! Clang of bell and roar of gùn! How the bèlfries rock and rèel! 2. The storm is out; the land is ròused; Man by man! Swing the battle-sword who can! 3. Hò, trumpets, sound a wàr-note! Hò, lictors, clear the wày! The knights will ride, in all their pride, IV. Very Loud. 1. Up drawbridge, groom! What, warder, hò! 2. Call the watch! call the watch! 3. Forward, the light brigàde! 4. They strike! hurrah! the fort has surrèndered! And wave your càp, and clap your hands for joy. "Victory! victory! victory!" Is the shout. Shout! for the fiery fort is òurs, and the fièld TH VII. PITCH, OR MODULATION. HE proper modulation of the voice is one of the most important elements of expression. In nothing is a reader's good taste more manifest than in his adaptation of pitch and quality of tone to every different shade of thought and emotion. There can be no expressive reading without such variation. The most musical voice becomes monotonous when continued in one unvarying pitch. Nothing but an appreciation of the sentiment can be a correct guide to the application of these tones. But the broader distinctions may be indicated as follows: A high pitch is used in the expression of light and joyous emotions; in pity, tenderness, and sorrow; and in acute pain, grief and fear. The middle pitch is that of ordinary conversation, and is required in unemotional reading. The pitch becomes lower in proportion to the gravity or solem nity of a passage. I. High Pitch. 1. The wind, one morning, sprang up from sleep, 2. Iò, they come, they còme, Strike lyres to greet them home, Swell, swell the Dorian flùte Through the blue triumphal sky, 3. Oh! then, I see Queen Màb hath been with you. She comes, In shape no bigger than an àgate-stone Drawn by a team of little atomies Athwart men's nòses, as they lie asleep; Her wagon-spokes made of long spìnner's legs; The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams: |
