QUESTIONS TO RECITATION EIGHTH. 1. What is the meaning of quantity, as applicable to speech? 2. What are the conditions which limit its use in syllables? 3. What interval of pitch is most employed in the use of very long quantity? 4. What are the circumstances necessary to give it an agreeable effect? 5. How is a drawl to be avoided? 6. How is song to be avoided? 7. Under what particular circumstances is quantity inadmissible on consonants susceptible of it? 8. What is the classification of elements best adapted to present an elementary view of quantity? 9. State the different classes of elements susceptible of quantity. 10. To what subjects is long quantity applicable? RECITATION NINTH. OF PLAINTIVENESS OF SPEECH, OR THE USE OF THE SEMITONE. I SHALL state merely what is directly practical on this subject. Persons desirous of looking more deeply into it, may consult with great advantage, Dr. Rush's profound disquisition on the chromatic melody of speech, Sec. 18, page 247, of his "Philosophy of the Human Voice." Let the following vowel sounds be uttered with plaintiveness, and they will slide through the interval of a semitone, a, i, o. Let them be sounded with a marked plaintiveness of character, at a high pitch, at a low one, and at one that is intermediate between high and low. This will show that the plaintiveness is inherent in the semitonic slide, wherever it may begin in the compass of the voice. In general, however, a low radical pitch is best adapted to subjects requiring the semitone. All subjects of great pathos and tenderness, require the use of the semitone. It is the natural element of the plaintive emotions. Let the student therefore, acquire a command over it. This will be best effected by turning to the table of the vowels and consonants, and sounding them with strenuous endeavor to give them an unequivocally plaintive character, until it is distinctly marked. Let the following sentences then be read with a conspicuously plaintive expression. My mother, when I learned that thou wast dead, Quantity is always united with the semitone, when it is employed in solemn and serious subjects; it then assumes the form of the wave. The semitone is appropriate to love, pity, complaint, vexation, disappointment, sorrow, penitential supplication and pain of all kinds. EXAMPLE 1. Love. Oh! Mary, dear, departed shade, EXAMPLE 2. Pity. "Oh! sailor boy, sailor boy, peace to thy soul." EXAMPLE 3. Complaint. Q. Kath. Would I had never trod this English earth, Ye have angel's faces, but heaven knows your hearts. EXAMPLE 4. Deep sorrow. "Oh my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died for thee, O Absalom my son, my son." EXAMPLE 5. Disappoinment. "Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither rain upon you; for there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away. The shield of Saul as though it had been anointed with oil." EXAMPLE 6. Penitential supplication. The instance quoted, page 110, is an example. EXAMPLE 7. Bodily pain. "Oh! Griffith sick to death, My legs like loaden branches bow the earth, In most of the above cited examples, the reading contemplated, is that which exhibits personal feeling in the highest degree. If some of them are read in a narrative manner, we may drop the semitone retaining the long quantity. Language effects its objects in two ways; first by the particular words employed, and their connection; and secondly by the intonation put upon them. Words are in themselves symbols of feeling, but their effect is heightened by special conditions of melody. Where the language is in itself solemn and plaintive, the superaddition of long quantity and a predominant use of the monotone, will be sufficient for a moderate degree of pathos. But the highest expression of mournful feeling, can only be effected by the semitone. TREMOR OF THE VOICE. IN plain reading and speaking, this element is seldom required. The gurgling of the throat, and the neighing of a horse are instances of it. T, P, K, as producing entire occlusion, and the aspirates may be laid out of our account as respects the tremor. Let the student turn to the Table, and sound each of the other alphabetic elements with a prolonged tremor, maintaining the same pitch throughout the process of sounding each, with which he begins it. Let him then endeavor to give to each, during the continuance of the tremulous movement, a rising semitone, third, fifth, and octave :—afterwards the same falling movements. Strenuous and persevering efforts will be necessary, in order to rise and fall easily through the different intervals with tremor; but when the student can effect it upon the alphabetic elements, he will find no difficulty in applying it to words. Let him as a practice, sound the words eontained in the table under the head of quantity, page 106, taking care that every element (except those above excluded from consideration) heard in the word, sustains its due portion of the tremor. Let them be sounded through the intervals, in the manner directed for the alphabetic elements. The circumstances to be aimed at in the use of the tremor, are to make the separate tittles as distinct as possible, to make them follow each other with ease and rapidity, to have each well accented, to make them as numerous as possible during the proper pronunciation of the syllables on which they are placed, and to take care that each element contained in them, sustain its due portion of the |