THE SAILOR'S JOY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM A wet sheet and a flowing sea, And fills the white and rustling sail Away the good ship flies, and leaves O for a soft and gentle wind! But give to me the snoring breeze There's tempest in yon horned moon, The wind is piping loud, my boys, The lightning flashes free While the hollow oak our palace is, Our heritage the sea. THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS THOMAS MOORE Oft in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears Of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken: Now dimm'd and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me. When I remember all The friends so link'd together I've seen around me fall Like leaves in wintry weather, Who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me. O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM PHILLIPS BROOKS O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep Yet in thy dark street shineth The everlasting Light; The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee to-night. For Christ is born of Mary, And gathered all above, While mortals sleep, the angels keep Their watch of wondering love. O morning stars, together And praises sing to God the King, How silently, how silently, Where meek souls will receive Him still, O holy Child of Bethlehem! CHAPTER XII FORCE Argument of the Chapter.-Changes in the degree of force, known as touch, chiefly affect the emotional responses of listeners. A common misconception is that sustained intensity makes for good speaking, whereas the best ends are served by variety of the degree of force. Aspects of force that affect speaking are form and stress, ways in which force is applied to words and syllables. I. DEGREES OF FORCE The second of the elements of tone making is force, the element that has to do with the loudness or quietness of the sound made by the voice. A study of force must not be understood to be a study only of how to make more noise, how to use a bigger and more powerful voice. For though most novices need to develop greater vocal power, yet a study of force as a factor in carrying meaning is just as much taken up with quietness as with loudness. Meaning is every whit as much dependent on mild tones as on loud. It is the contrast between loud and quiet that makes force a factor in the carrying of thought, not noise or volume alone. Touch.-In describing the effect of force in expression. we may profitably borrow a term from the sister art of music-touch. Touch carries the double idea of variety and skill, prime requisites in the application of Force to the use of the voice. Just as some piano players have a touch like a blacksmith and others the touch of a gold beater, some speakers and readers strike their notes with a thump like a pile driver and others like the falling of the rain. To be effective for all possible occasions, one ought to possess both the heavy and the light; neither is necessarily a defect nor necessarily a virtue. Command of each is very much to be desired both for public address and for interpretation and acting. FORCE AND EMOTIONAL RESPONSE Force Is Chiefly Total Reaction.-The factor of force is all a matter of general bodily participation; that is, true emotional reaction. Force is, by the psychologist and physicist, called intensity. Intensity in the use of one set of muscles always tends to radiate into other sets. The man who feels the need of shouting is by the nature of his attitude intense-much tensed up. Examination would show that the muscles of his neck, back, arms, and legs are much tightened. What more to be expected, then, than that his abdomen should also show intensity and should expel air at an intensity calculated to make much noise? Force is thus highly charged with emotional meanings, with general attitudes, and total bodily dispositions. Coming from such a condition in the speaker, it produces imitatively the same type of reaction in the listener. When we hear a loud noise of any kind our reaction is total and intense; when we hear a sound soft and gentle we react with very little intensity and with only slight reverberation in the muscles distant from those of the ears. We prefer most of the time freedom from great noises, being much happier when quiet. Noises wear us out; they keep us at work all over the body; whereas a little at a time of total bodily work is plenty. Noises are strong stimulants and easily bring the listener to a state of numbness. Consequently continuous shouting, in a small room where it strikes each listener hard and noisily, so agitates him all over and so thoroughly wears him out that he has no mechanism left for the differentiations and discriminations needed for activity of an intellectual nature.. A sermon or a campaign speech shouted from start to finish -especially where there are no opposing noises-leaves no intellectual impression, no disposition to catch refinements of meaning: the only thing carried being a general feeling, a total attitude. Yet frankness compels us to note that many audiences delight in just this vagueness and grossness of emotionality; they are none too capable of fine distinctions, and seldom get from a public meeting anything but the |