CHAPTER XI

FORCE

In addition to making speech sounds of the suitable quality, it is necessary to master the technique of making them as loud or as gentle as the passage demands. Many of the effects necessary to all good oral expression are to be got only by mastery of the many shades and nuances of volume, sometimes called Force.

Under volume there are three main techniques to be mastered before capable interpretation is assured. They are:

1. Attack

2. Touch

3. Climax

1. Attack. Many of our most palpable emotional expressions get their specific emotic effects because of the way the various vocal sounds are attacked. To hit sounds and words with a quick staccato reveals, or is taken to mean, a certain frame of mind, whereas a soft, gentle approach to sounds means something quite different.

To say, "Give me what I ask" with a sharp, vigorous attack is urgent or impolite or at least importunate; whereas to say it with a gentle easing into the sound suggest manners and a spirit under control.

There are three main types of attack to be mastered; these can be remembered easily by their old-fashioned names:

Effusive
Expulsive
Explosive

The Effusive is gentle, soft, approaching easily and without suddenness or break, as:

Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in.

The Expulsive attacks vigorously but not violently—its chief characteristic is firmness and definiteness. It is particularly useful in public address which is not overpoweringly vigorous. It is practically obligatory for speakers addressing more than a dozen people. It is the commonest mark of earnestness and controlled vigor. It is one of the chief necessities for orational delivery, as:

Mr. President, there are those who say that the affairs of Cuba are not the affairs of the United States, who insist that we can stand idly by and see that island devastated and depopulated, its business interests destroyed, its commercial intercourse with us cut off, its people starved, degraded, and enslaved.

The Explosive hits suddenly and hard. When we hear it we have a right to understand that somebody is not merely in earnest, but excited, even to the nth degree. It gives a series of short, sharp shouts; not always loud, but shouts just the same, as:

Develop the proper attack for each of the following passages:

Awake, awake!

Ring the alarum-bell.-Murder and treason!—
Banquo and Donalbain!-Malcolm! awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself! up, up, and see

The great doom's image!-Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,
To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.

SHAKESPEARE: Macbeth.

You may wrest provinces from Mexico by war; you hold them by the right of the strongest; you may rob her; but a treaty of peace to that effect with the people of Mexico, legitimately and freely made, you will never have. I thank God that it is so, as well for the sake of the Mexican people as ourselves; for, unlike the Senator from Alabama, I do not value the life of a citizen of the United States above the lives of a hundred thousand Mexicans and children—a rather cold sort of philanthropy, in my judgment. For the sake of Mexico, then, as well as our own country, I rejoice that it is an impossibility that you can obtain by treaty from her those territories under the existing state of things.

THOMAS CROWIN: War With Mexico.

In my wine cup grim, filled to battered brim,
Foam twinkling, bloody stars.

O list ye well what I have to tell,

The toast of the war-god Mars!

O the life of the slain and the racking pain
And the agony are mine.

All that men can be, they must offer me,
With the blood of their hearts for wine.

Turn not away; in my goblet gray

Foam twinkling, bloody stars.

To the dregs I quaff; with a mocking laugh
I give you the toast of Mars!

MARY E. OAKES.

LEAR DEFIES THE WINDS

Lear. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanes, spout

Till you have drenched our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

1 By permission of The Stratford Company, Boston.

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!

Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters joined
Your high engender'd battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul!

SHAKESPEARE: King Lear.

TO ARMS!

There was a sound of revelry by night
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

Did ye not hear it?—No; 'twas but the wind,

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet

To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet

But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! Arm! it is-it is-the cannon's opening roar!

BYRON: Childe Harold.

MY LUVE'S LIKE A RED ROSE

Oh, my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
Oh, my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in love am 1:
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my love,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

BURNS.

DIXIE

I love to live in the land of Dixie, under the soft Southern skies, where summer pours out her flood of sunshine and showers, and the generous earth smiles with plenty. I love to live on Southern soil, where the cottonfields wave their white banners of peace, and the wheatfields wave back their banners of gold from the hills and valleys which were once drenched with the blood of heroes. I love to live where the mocking-birds flutter and sing in the shadowy coves, and bright waters ripple in eternal melody by the graves where our heroes are buried. I love to breathe the Southern air, that comes filtered through jungle of roses, whispering the story of Southern deeds of bravery.

ROBERT TAYLOR: Address to Ex-Confederates.

A COUNTRY

Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it.