4. Tell me for you were there- I appeal to the gallant soldier before me, from whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast; — tell me, for you must needs remember, on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, while death fell in showers, when the artillery of France was leveled with the precision of the most deadly science, when her legions, incited by the voice and inspired by the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset, - tell me if, for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the "aliens" blenched? 5. ALIENS! Good God! Was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, "Hold! I have seen the Aliens do their duty!” POSITIVENESS, CERTAINTY, AND CONFIDENCE, With CONVICTION, AUTHORITY, COMMAND, DEFIANCE, DENUNCIATION, REPREHENSION, AFFIRMATION, INSTRUCTION, PRECEPT, and WARM ARGUMENTATION, as well as DENYING, REPROVING, REFUSING, and FORBIDDING, require for their effective intonation, two or more of the following elements: Marked Downward Inflections; Radical, Median, or Vanishing Stress; Orotund, and sometimes the harsh Guttural Quality; and Direct Equal Waves. These few precepts in thy memory Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 3. But Douglas round him drew his cloak, Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire, And shook his very frame for ire; And "This to me!" he said, "And 'twere not for thy hoary beard, Such hand as Marmion's had not spared Here in thy hold, thy vassals near- And if thou said'st I am not peer On the earl's cheek, the flush of rage Fierce he broke forth: "And darest thou, then, The Douglas in his hall? - And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go? No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no!" 4. (rage) Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free From daily contact with the things I loathe? "Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this? Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head? Banished! I thank you for't! It breaks my chain! I held some slack allegiance till this hour But now, my sword's my own. Smile on, my lords! I have within my heart's hot cells shut up, To leave you in your lazy dignities! But here I stand and scoff you! here I fling Your Consul's merciful-for this, all thanks: "Traitor!" I go-but I return. This-trial? Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel! This day's the birth of sorrow! This hour's work Will breed proscriptions! Look to your hearths, my lords! For there henceforth shall sit, for household gods, Shapes hot from Tartarus! - all shames and crimes! 23048B 5. EARNEST APPEAL. O comrades! warriors! Thracians! If we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let us die under a free sky, by the bright waters, in NOBLE, HONORABLE BATTLE! ANGER, RAGE, REVENGE, WRATH, MALICE, AND HATE, Are expressed by Short Quantity on emphatic words, Quick Time, Soundness, Orotund, Guttural, and Aspirate Qualities, with Downward Inflections, and Direct and Indirect Waves. 1. ANGER. 99.66 (The greatest force should be given to the words " Anger," clash," ""swept," etc.) Next, Anger rushed; his eyes on fire, in lightnings owned his secret stings; with one rude clash he struck the lyre, and swept, with hurried hands, the strings. 2. REVENGE. And longer had she sung-but, with a frown, Revenge impatient rose; he threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down, and, with a withering look, the war-denouncing trumpet took, and blew a blast so loud and dread, were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woes. 3. COURAGE. Strike, till the last armed foe expires! strike, for your altars and your fires! strike, for the green graves of your sires God and your native land! By the tombs of your sires and brothers, the hosts which the traitors have slain by the tears of your sisters and mothers, in secret conceal ing their pain-the grief which the heroine smothers, consuming the heart and the brain - by the sigh of the penniless widow, by the sob of the orphans' despair, where they sit in their sorrowful shadow — kneel, kneel, every freeman, and swear! Swear! [Orotund and guttural.] And hark, the deep voices replying from the graves where your fathers are lying: Swear, oh, Swear!" 7. Blaze with your serried columns! I will not bend the knee! The shackles ne'er again shall bind the arm which now is free! I've mailed it with the thunder, when the tempest muttered low; and where it falls, ye well may dread the lightning of its blow! I loathe ye in my bosom, I scorn ye with my eye; and I'll taunt ye with my latest breath, and fight ye till I die! I ne'er will ask ye quarter, and I ne'er will be your slave; but I'll swim the sea of slaughter, till I sink beneath the wave! JEALOUSY, ENVY, INDIGNATION, AVERSION, SCORN, AND ABHORRENCE, Require less energy in their intonation than the preceding, more deliberation. The elements of the preceding should be moderated by Longer Quantity, Median Stress, and the Wave. 1. JEALOUSY. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed; sad proof of thy distressful state! Of differing themes the veering song was mixed; and now it courted Love; now, raving, called on Hate. 2. SCORN. I've scared ye in the city, I've scalped ye on the plain; go, count your chosen, where they fell beneath my leaden rain! I scorn your proffered treaty the pale-face I defy! revenge is stamped upon my spear, and blood my battle-cry! 3. ANGER AND SCORN. You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate as reek o' the rotten fens!-whose loves I prize as the dead carcasses of unburied men, that do corrupt my air!—I banish you! 4. ENVY. Aside the devil turned for envy; yet, with jealous leer malign, eyed them askance, and to himself 'thus plain'd: Sight hateful! sight tormenting thus these two, imparadised in one another's arms, the happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill of bliss on bliss; while I to hell am thrust, where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire - among our other torments not the least still unfulfilled, with pain of longing, pines. 5. Sir, who was he that disarmed the Thunderer; wrested from his grasp the bolts of Jove; calmed the troubled ocean; became the central sun of the philosophical system of his age, shedding his brightness and effulgence on the whole civilized world; whom the great and mighty of the earth delighted to honor; who participated in the achievement of your independence, prominently assisted in moulding your free institutions, and the beneficial effects of whose wisdom will be felt to the last moment of recorded time? Who, sir, I ask, was he? A Northern laborer-a Yankee tallow-chandler's son- a printer's runaway boy! 6. JEALOUSY. If I do prove her haggard, though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings, I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind, to prey at fortune. Haply, for I am black, and have not those soft parts of conversation that chamberers have; or, for I am declined into the vale of years; — yet, that's not much :-she's gone. I am abused; and my relief must be to loathe her. Oh, curse of marriage! that we can call these delicate creatures ours, and not their appetites! I had rather be a toad, and live upon the vapor of a dungeon, than keep a corner in the thing I love for others' uses! PLAINTIVENESS, AND DEEP PATHOS Are expressed with prevailing softness of voice, by the semitone, Long Quantity, Slow Time, the Semitonic Waves, and Median Stress. Among the sentiments which require the Plaintive Expression, are the following: Complaint, Penitence, Contrition, Petition, Submission, Supplication, Awe, Reverence, Affection, Love, Attention, Pity, Compassion, Commiseration, Grief, Mercy, Sorrow, Lamentation, Bodily Pain, and Mental Suffering. 1. The king stood still till the last echo died; then, throwing off the sackcloth from his brow, and laying back the pall from the still features of his child, he bowed his head upon him, and broke forth in the resistless eloquence of woe: "Alas! my noble boy! that thou should'st die! Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair! that death should settle in thy glorious eye, and leave his stillness in thy clustering hair! How could he mark thee for the silent tomb, my proud boy, Absalom! "Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill, as to my bosom I have tried to press thee! How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill, like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, and hear thy sweet' My father!' from those dumb and cold lips, Absalom! "But death is on thee! I shall hear the gush of music, and the voices of the young; and life will pass me in the mantling blush, and the dark tresses to the soft winds flung;-but thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come to meet me, Absalom!" |