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heightened.
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT
... At last, the Republican party has appeared. It avows, now,
as the Republican party of 1800 did, in one word, its faith and
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its works, "Equal and exact justice to all men." Even when it
first entered the field, only half organized, it struck a blow
which only just failed to secure complete and triumphant
victory. In this, its second campaign, it has already won
advantages which render that triumph now both easy and certain.
The secret of its assured success lies in that very
characteristic which, in the mouth of scoffers, constitutes its
great and lasting imbecility and reproach. It lies in the fact
that it is a party of one idea; but that is a noble one--an idea
that fills and expands all generous souls; the idea of equality
of all men before human tribunals and human laws, as they all
are equal before the Divine tribunal and Divine laws.
I know, and you know, that a revolution has begun. I know, and
all the world knows, that revolutions never go backward. Twenty
senators and a hundred representatives proclaim boldly in
Congress to-day sentiments and opinions and principles of
freedom which hardly so many men, even in this free State, dared
to utter in their own homes twenty years ago. While the
government of the United States, under the conduct of the
Democratic party, has been all that time surrendering one plain
and castle after another to slavery, the people of the United
States have been no less steadily and perseveringly gathering
together the forces with which to recover back again all the
fields and all the castles which have been lost, and to confound
and overthrow, by one decisive blow, the betrayers of the
Constitution and freedom forever.
--W.H. SEWARD.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: From an editorial by D.C. in Leslie's Weekly, June 4, 1914. Used by permission.]
"1_1_7">CHAPTER VII. EFFICIENCY THROUGH INFLECTION
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet; now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept.
--WILLIAM COWPER, The Task.
Herbert Spencer remarked that "Cadence"--by which he meant the modulation of the tones of the voice in
speaking--"is the running commentary of the emotions upon the propositions of the intellect." How true this
is will appear when we reflect that the little upward and downward shadings of the voice tell more truly what
we mean than our words. The expressiveness of language is literally multiplied by this subtle power to shade
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The Art of Public Speaking
the vocal tones, and this voice-shading we call inflection.
The change of pitch within a word is even more important, because more delicate, than the change of pitch
from phrase to phrase. Indeed, one cannot be practised without the other. The bare words are only so many
bricks--inflection will make of them a pavement, a garage, or a cathedral. It is the power of inflection to
change the meaning of words that gave birth to the old saying: "It is not so much what you say, as how you
say it."
Mrs. Jameson, the Shakespearean commentator, has given us a penetrating example of the effect of inflection;
"In her impersonation of the part of Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Siddons adopted successively three different
intonations in giving the words 'We fail.' At first a quick contemptuous interrogation--'We fail?' Afterwards,
with the note of admiration--'We fail,' an accent of indignant astonishment laying the principal emphasis on
the word 'we'--'we fail.' Lastly, she fixed on what I am convinced is the true reading--We fail--with the
simple period, modulating the voice to a deep, low, resolute tone which settles the issue at once as though she
had said: 'If we fail, why then we fail, and all is over.'"
This most expressive element of our speech is the last to be mastered in attaining to naturalness in speaking a
foreign language, and its correct use is the main element in a natural, flexible utterance of our native tongue.
Without varied inflections speech becomes wooden and monotonous.
There are but two kinds of inflection, the rising and the falling, yet these two may be so shaded or so
combined that they are capable of producing as many varieties of modulation as maybe illustrated by either
one or two lines, straight or curved, thus:
[Illustration of each line]
Sharp rising
Long rising
Level
Long falling
Sharp falling
Sharp rising and falling
Sharp falling and rising
Hesitating
These may be varied indefinitely, and serve merely to illustrate what wide varieties of combination may be
effected by these two simple inflections of the voice.
It is impossible to tabulate the various inflections which serve to express various shades of thought and
feeling. A few suggestions are offered here, together with abundant exercises for practise, but the only real
way to master inflection is to observe, experiment, and practise.
For example, take the common sentence, "Oh, he's all right." Note how a rising inflection may be made to
express faint praise, or polite doubt, or uncertainty of opinion. Then note how the same words, spoken with a
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The Art of Public Speaking
generally falling inflection may denote certainty, or good-natured approval, or enthusiastic praise, and so on.
In general, then, we find that a bending upward of the voice will suggest doubt and uncertainty, while a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]