Evolution of Expression, Volume 2—Revised

Charles Wesley Emerson

Evolution of Expression, Volume 2—Revised A Compilation of Selections Illustrating the Four Stages of Development in Art As Applied to Oratory; Twenty-Eighth Edition

THE PARTS.

THE ATTRACTIVE OR MELODRAMATIC PERIOD

Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with might,Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.Tennyson.

The power to detach, and to magnify by detaching, is the essence of rhetoric in the hands of the orator and the poet. This rhetoric, or power to fix the momentary eminence of an object, so remarkable in Burke, in Byron, in Carlyle – depends upon the depth of the artist's insight of that object he contemplates.

Emerson.

For use of selections in this volume especial thanks are tendered Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Frederic Lawrence Knowles, Horace Traubel, Secretary Walt Whitman Fellowship, and J. T. Trowbridge.

CHAPTER I.

SLIDE

Thus far in the student's development, his mind has dealt chiefly with each subject as a Whole. Now he begins to find a new interest in showing his hearers that the discourse is made up of a series of definite Parts. He takes delight in fixing their attention upon each part in succession.

As in crossing a brook on stones, a person poises for a moment, first on one stone, then on another, so the speaker balances the minds of his hearers, first on one thought, then another, poising for a moment on each distinct point before leaving it for the next. The teacher should now lead the pupil to attract attention to separate parts as wholes. We are entering the melodramatic stage, where abandon to each part is as necessary as it was in the beginning to the spirit of the whole. The pupil must see the parts and give them to others at any cost.

In the history of art this step is marked by the grotesque; the pupil should be encouraged to stand out the points of thought boldly, regardless of artistic effect. This step is of vital importance in all future development, and unless emphasized now, will require constant effort hereafter.

Sharp contrasts are brought strongly to bear in presenting vividly and distinctly separate points of thought. As the pupil earnestly strives to impress each point of thought, in all its new interest, his voice becomes more decidedly modulated, rising and falling in distinct intervals. Thought of each part as a whole and by contrast, together with the desire to impart it, is reported in varied inflections which add a new charm to expression. Through slides the voice of the speaker may be said to express the tune of the thought.

Analysis. Example: "Tact and Talent." (Page 13.)

Unit, or Whole: A comparison of Tact and Talent.

Parts:

(a) The characteristics of Tact.

Sub-parts:

1. Tact is infinitely resourceful. Paragraph 1, etc.

2. Tact is the power which achieves results. Paragraph 2, etc.

(Other "sub-parts" may be enumerated.)

(b) The characteristics of Talent.

(A number of "sub-parts" are embodied.)

The teacher should view the work of the pupil with special reference to the parts of this selection, leading him to impress these parts, or successive points of thought, upon his audience. The continued antithesis makes this selection a good one for the purpose; parts that are set in contrast easily engage the attention.

CHAPTER II.

VITAL SLIDE

As the mind of the pupil separates each thought from the other main thoughts of the discourse, and holds it before the minds of his hearers, he finds it more and more attractive. His endeavor to interest others deepens his own interest, and the slides in his voice report this increased concentration, in increased vitality. The pupil seeing the spirit and life of the whole in each vital part, or part vital to the life of the unit, desires to make each part live as a whole in the minds of the listeners. He no longer touches it with uncertain stroke; the slide has become a Vital Slide.

Analysis. Example: "The Rising of 1776." (Page 35.)

Unit, or Whole: A pastor of early Revolutionary times who makes his Sunday sermon an appeal for freedom.

Parts:

(a) The spirit of the times. Stanza 1.

(b) The church and the people. Stanzas 2 and 3.

(c) The pastor and his appeal. Stanzas 4, 5, 6 and part of 9.

(d) The effect of the appeal. Stanzas 7, 8 and 9.

Let the student's earnest endeavor be to interest his audience in these essential parts. The words which especially reveal these vital parts of the selection will be given with no uncertain stroke. If the interest of both speaker and listener is fully aroused, the slide has become a vital one. Remember always that the desired effect in the voice results from the mental concept; it is not developed mechanically, but grows out of thought.

CHAPTER III.

SLIDE IN VOLUME

As the mind of the student continues to dwell upon the parts of the subject as separate and distinct wholes, there is gradually developed within him an appreciation of the value of each part. Out of the effort to make each thought live in the minds of the hearers is born the desire to reveal the value of that thought. This desire is reported in the voice through Slide in Volume.

The significance of the term Volume has been explained in an earlier chapter. The valuable parts that the speaker presents are expressed through inflections that suggest breadth and freedom. Each part is felt to have a value of its own, intellectual, moral, esthetic, or spiritual.

Freedom of will is expressed in the voice by slide in volume, for the speaker, convinced of the truth of his thought, is learning obedience to it, and obedience is always the way to freedom.

It must be remembered that the intellect determines the value of the parts. It is true that the discernment is sharpened by the sensibility; but the feelings, unguided by the thought, may be misleading. Feeling is dangerous unless controlled by thought. All sentiment must be directed to the audience "thought foremost" – the thought itself must induce the feeling.

Analysis. Example: "The Bells." (Page 82.)

Unit of thought: Varied bells, expressing varied emotion.

Parts:

(a) The tinkling bells of Merriment. Stanza 1.

(b) The mellow bells of Love. Stanza 2.

(c) The clanging bells of Terror. Stanza 3.

(d) The tolling bells of Menace. Stanza 4.

This poem is well adapted to develop power in emphasizing parts: the several parts are very distinctly differentiated, as the student must reveal through the rendering. He should strive to reveal them as graphically as the author has set them forth. Moreover, he should endeavor to make their value felt. In doing this, he will perceive the varying scale of values; some of the bells reflect great value, others less.

CHAPTER IV.

FORMING PICTURES

The student's persistent endeavor to impress the successive parts of his theme upon the minds in his presence will eventually lead him to see those parts in picturesque groupings. As he flashes these pictures upon the mental vision of the audience, they become clearer to his own vision. His own power of imagery is in proportion to his ability to impart this power to others. Herein lies one of the most helpful means of cultivating the imagination, – the eye of the intellect, – the basis of all sympathy. Every effort to tell a story clearly so as to impress its details upon the minds of others, every attempt to picture a landscape, a meadow, a river, a sunset vividly to others, quickens and strengthens the pupil's own imaging power. His attempt to make his listeners put themselves in the place of another, see through the eyes and from the point of view of a Wordsworth or Shakespeare, quickens his own imagination, broadens his sympathies, and develops his intellect as nothing else can. "The man of imagination has lived all lives, has enjoyed all heavens, and felt the pang of every hell."

The student must continue to watch for the effect of his words in other minds. He cannot afford to be introspective while speaking, for the mind cannot be in the creative and in the critical state at the same time. The pictures, then, must be formed in the minds of the hearers; they are the only canvas upon which he can hope to paint his picturesque parts. They are the mirror in which the pictures of his thought must be reflected, as the stars are mirrored in the waters of the lake.

Analysis. Example: "The Chambered Nautilus." (Page 111.)

Unit, or Whole: The lesson of the Chambered Nautilus.

Parts:

(a) The Nautilus. Stanzas 1, 2.

(b) Its method of growth. Stanza 3.

(c) Its message to the soul. Stanzas 4, 5.

Lead the pupil to present a clear picture of "the ship of pearl," of its own original environment and course of evolution, and of the beautiful figure which embodies the lesson.

CHAPTER I.

SLIDE

TACT AND TALENT

1. Talent is something, but tact is everything. Talent is serious, sober, grave, and respectable; tact is all that, and more too. It is not a sixth sense, but it is the life of all the five. It is the open eye, the quick ear, the judging taste, the keen smell, and the lively touch; it is the interpreter of all riddles, the surmounter of all difficulties, the remover of all obstacles. It is useful in all places, and at all times; it is useful in solitude, for it shows a man his way into the world; it is useful in society, for it shows him his way through the world.

2. Talent is power, tact is skill; talent is weight, tact is momentum; talent knows what to do, tact knows how to do it; talent makes a man respectable, tact will make him respected; talent is wealth, tact is ready money.

3. For all the practical purposes of life, tact carries it against talent, ten to one. Take them to the theatre, and put them against each other on the stage, and talent shall produce you a tragedy that will scarcely live long enough to be condemned, while tact keeps the house in a roar, night after night, with its successful farces. There is no want of dramatic talent, there is no want of dramatic tact; but they are seldom together: so we have successful pieces which are not respectable, and respectable pieces which are not successful.

4. Take them to the bar, and let them shake their learned curls at each other in legal rivalry. Talent sees its way clearly, but tact is first at its journey's end. Talent has many a compliment from the bench, but tact touches fees from attorneys and clients. Talent speaks learnedly and logically, tact triumphantly. Talent makes the world wonder that it gets on no faster, tact excites astonishment that it gets on so fast. And the secret is, that tact has no weight to carry; it makes no false steps; it hits the right nail on the head; it loses no time; it takes all hints; and, by keeping its eye on the weathercock, is ready to take advantage of every wind that blows.

5. Take them into the church. Talent has always something worth hearing, tact is sure of abundance of hearers; talent may obtain a good living, tact will make one; talent gets a good name, tact a great one; talent convinces, tact converts; talent is an honor to the profession, tact gains honor from the profession.

6. Place them in the senate. Talent has the ear of the house, but tact wins its heart, and has its votes; talent is fit for employment, but tact is fitted for it. Tact has a knack of slipping into place with a sweet silence and glibness of movement, as a billiard ball insinuates itself into the pocket. It seems to know everything, without learning anything. It has served an invisible and extemporary apprenticeship; it wants no drilling; it never ranks in the awkward squad; it has no left hand, no deaf ear, no blind side. It puts on no looks of wondrous wisdom, it has no air of profundity, but plays with the details of place as dexterously as a well-taught hand flourishes over the keys of the pianoforte. It has all the air of commonplace, and all the force and power of genius.

London Atlas.

SHYLOCK TO ANTONIO

Signor Antonio, many a time and oftIn the Rialto you have rated meAbout my moneys and my usances:Still I have borne it with a patient shrug;For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,And all for use of that which is mine own.Well, then, it now appears, you need my help:Go to, then; you come to me, and you say> —"Shylock, we would have moneys." You say so;You that did void your rheum upon my beard,And foot me, as you spurn a stranger curOver your threshold; moneys is your suit.What should I say to you? Should I not say —"Hath a dog money? Is it possibleA cur can lend three thousand ducats?" orShall I bend low, and in a bondman's key,With bated breath and whispering humbleness,Say this —"Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;You spurned me such a day; another timeYou called me dog; and for these courtesiesI'll lend you thus much moneys!"Shakespeare.

THE CYNIC

1. The Cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.

2. The Cynic puts all human actions into only two classes – openly bad and secretly bad. All virtue, and generosity, and disinterestedness, are merely the appearance of good, but selfish at the bottom. He holds that no man does a good thing except for profit. The effect of his conversation upon your feelings is to chill and sear them, to send you away sour and morose.

3. His criticisms and innuendoes fall indiscriminately upon every lovely thing like frost upon the flowers. If Mr. A. is pronounced a religious man, he will reply: yes, on Sundays. Mr. B. has just joined the church: certainly, the elections are coming on. The minister of the gospel is called an example of diligence: it is his trade. Such a man is generous: of other men's money. This man is obliging: to lull suspicion and cheat you. That man is upright, because he is green.

4. Thus his eye strains out every good quality, and takes in only the bad. To him religion is hypocrisy, honesty a preparation for fraud, virtue only a want of opportunity, and undeniable purity, asceticism. The livelong day he will coolly sit with sneering lip, transfixing every character that is presented.

5. It is impossible to indulge in such habitual severity of opinion upon our fellow-men, without injuring the tenderness and delicacy of our own feelings. A man will be what his most cherished feelings are. If he encourage a noble generosity, every feeling will be enriched by it; if he nurse bitter and envenomed thoughts, his own spirit will absorb the poison, and he will crawl among men as a burnished adder, whose life is mischief, and whose errand is death.

6. He who hunts for flowers will find flowers; and he who loves weeds will find weeds.

Let it be remembered that no man, who is not himself morally diseased, will have a relish for disease in others. Reject, then, the morbid ambition of the Cynic, or cease to call yourself a man.

H. W. Beecher.

GOOD BY, PROUD WORLD

IGood by, proud world! I'm going home;Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine.Long through the weary crowds I roam,A river-ark on the ocean brine.Long I've been tossed like the driven foamAnd now, proud world, I'm going home.IIGood by to Flattery's fawning face;To Grandeur, with his wise grimace;To upstart Wealth's averted eye;To supple Office, low and high;To crowded halls, to court and street;To frozen hearts and hasting feet;To those who go and those who come;Good by, proud world! I'm going home.IIII am going to my own hearthstone,Bosomed in yon green hills alone —A secret nook in a pleasant land,Whose groves the frolic fairies planned, —Where arches green, the livelong day,Echo the blackbird's roundelay,And vulgar feet have never trod, —A spot that is sacred to thought and God.IVO, when I am safe in my sylvan home,I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;And when I am stretched beneath the pinesWhere the evening star so holy shines,I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;For what are they all, in their high conceit,When man in the bush with God may meet?Ralph Waldo Emerson.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB

IThe Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the seaWhere the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.IILike the leaves of the forest when summer is green,That host with their banners at sunset were seen;Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn.IIIFor the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.IVAnd there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.VAnd there lay the rider distorted and pale,With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.VIAnd the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!Lord Byron.

UNWRITTEN MUSIC

1. There is unwritten music. The world is full of it. I hear it every hour that I wake; and my waking sense is surpassed sometimes by my sleeping, though that is a mystery. There is no sound of simple nature that is not music. It is all God's work, and so harmony. You may mingle, and divide, and strengthen the passages of its great anthem; and it is still melody, – melody.

2. The low winds of summer blow over the waterfalls and the brooks, and bring their voices to your ear, as if their sweetness were linked by an accurate finger; yet the wind is but a fitful player; and you may go out when the tempest is up and hear the strong trees moaning as they lean before it, and the long grass hissing as it sweeps through, and its own solemn monotony over all; and the dripple of that same brook, and the waterfall's unaltered bass shall still reach you, in the intervals of its power, as much in harmony as before, and as much a part of its perfect and perpetual hymn.

3. There is no accident of nature's causing which can bring in discord. The loosened rock may fall into the abyss, and the overblown tree rush down through the branches of the wood, and the thunder peal awfully in the sky; and sudden and violent as their changes seem, their tumult goes up with the sound of wind and waters, and the exquisite ear of the musician can detect no jar.

4. I have read somewhere of a custom in the Highlands, which, in connection with the principle it involves, is exceedingly beautiful. It is believed that, to the ear of the dying (which just before death becomes always exquisitely acute,) the perfect harmony of the voices of nature is so ravishing, as to make him forget his suffering, and die gently, as in a pleasant trance. And so, when the last moment approaches, they take him from the close shieling, and bear him out into the open sky, that he may hear the familiar rushing of the streams. I can believe that is not superstition. I do not think we know how exquisitely nature's many voices are attuned to harmony and to each other.

5. The old philosopher we read of might not have been dreaming when he discovered that the order of the sky was like a scroll of written music, and that two stars (which are said to have appeared centuries after his death, in the very places he mentioned) were wanting to complete the harmony. We know how wonderful are the phenomena of color, how strangely like consummate art the strongest dyes are blended in the plumage of birds, and in the cups of flowers; so that, to the practiced eye of the painter, the harmony is inimitably perfect.

6. It is natural to suppose every part of the universe equally perfect; and it is a glorious and elevating thought, that the stars of Heaven are moving on continually to music, and that the sounds we daily listen to are but part of a melody that reaches to the very centre of God's illimitable spheres.

N. P. Willis.

LAUS MORTIS

INay, why should I fear Death,Who gives us life and in exchange takes breath?He is like cordial SpringThat lifts above the soil each buried thing; —IILike Autumn, kind and briefThe frost that chills the branches, frees the leaf.Like Winter's stormy hours,That spread their fleece of snow to save the flowers.IIIThe loveliest of all things —Life lends us only feet, Death gives us wings!Fearing no covert thrust,Let me walk onward armed with valiant trust.IVDreading no unseen knife,Across Death's threshold step from life to life!Oh, all ye frightened folk,Whether ye wear a crown or bear a yoke,VLaid in one equal bed,When once your coverlet of grass is spread,What daybreak need you fear?The love will rule you there which guides you here!VIWhere Life, the Sower, stands,Scattering the ages from his swinging hands,Thou waitest, Reaper lone,Until the multitudinous grain hath grown.VIIScythe-bearer, when thy bladeHarvest my flesh, let me be unafraid!God's husbandman thou art!In His unwithering sheaves, oh, bind my heart.Frederic Lawrence Knowles.

TAXATION OF THE COLONIES

1. Sir: I agree with the honorable gentleman who spoke last, that this subject is not new to this House. Very disagreeably to this House, very unfortunately to this nation, and to the peace and prosperity of this whole empire, no topic has been more familiar to us. For nine long years, session after session, we have been lashed round and round this miserable circle of occasional arguments and temporary expedients.

2. I am sure our heads must turn and our stomachs nauseate with them. We have had them in every shape. We have looked at them in every point of view. Invention is exhausted; reason is fatigued; experience has given judgment; but obstinacy is not yet conquered.

3. The act of 1767, which grants this tea-duty, sets forth in its preamble, that it was expedient to raise a revenue in America for the support of the civil government there, as well as for purposes still more extensive. About two years after this act was passed, the ministry thought it expedient to repeal five of the duties, and to leave (for reasons best known to themselves) only the sixth standing.

4. But I hear it rung continually in my ears, now and formerly, – "The preamble! what will become of the preamble if you repeal this tax?" The clerk will be so good as to turn to this act, and to read this favorite preamble.

5. "Whereas it is expedient that a revenue should be raised in your Majesty's dominions in America, for making a more certain and adequate provision for defraying the charge of the administration of justice and support of civil government in such provinces where it shall be found necessary, and towards further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the said dominions."

6. You have heard this pompous performance. Now, where is the revenue which is to do all these mighty things? Five-sixths repealed, – abandoned, – sunk, – gone, – lost forever. Does the poor solitary tea-duty support the purposes of this preamble? Is not the supply there stated as effectually abandoned as if the tea-duty had perished in the general wreck? Here, Mr. Speaker, is a precious mockery: – a preamble without an act, – taxes granted in order to be repealed, – and the reason of the grant carefully kept up! This is raising a revenue in America! This is preserving dignity in England!

7. Never did a people suffer so much for the empty words of a preamble. It must be given up. For on what principle does it stand? This famous revenue stands, at this hour, on all the debate, as a description of revenue not as yet known in all the comprehensive (but too comprehensive!) vocabulary of finance – a preambulary tax. It is, indeed, a tax of sophistry, a tax of pedantry, a tax of disputation, a tax of war and rebellion, a tax for anything but benefit to the imposers or satisfaction to the subject.