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5.—Impatience, and Awe.

Impatience: (S. q.)

[CASSIUS, IN THE Quarrel with Brutus.]—Shakspeare.

"Ye gods! ye gods! must I endure all this?"

Awe: (L. q.)

[LEAR, IN THE THUNDER-STORM.]-Ibid.
"Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now."

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6.-Tranquillity, and Despair.

Tranquillity: (M. q.1)

ANONYMOUS LINES.

He in his robe of virtue wraps himself,
And smiles at Fate's caprice!"

Despair: (L. q.)

"Fate! do thy worst!"

PAUSES.

Time, when applied as a measure of speech, prescribes not only the length, or "quantity," of sounds, but also that of the pauses, or cessations of voice, which intervene between sentences and between their parts; as the intermissions of the voice are, virtually, though not nominally, constituents of "expression," whether we regard thought or feeling. Without distinct and appropriate pauses, we cannot understand oral communication; and without occasional impressive cessations of voice, there can be no true sympathy between speaker and hearer.

Pauses, as classified in elocution, are of two kinds: 1st, those which express emotion; 2d, those which modify sense, or meaning. Pausing, like utterance, is regulated by the character of the emotion, or the thought which is the subject of expression. The pauses used in the "expression" of all grave, deep, and solemn emotions, which incline to prolonged

1 Moderate quantity.

"quantities," are comparatively long, and thus correspond, in character, to the vocal sounds between which they occur, and which they aid by their harmonious effect, as in the following instances:

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"Night,' || sable goddess, I from her ebon throne |

In rayless majesty | now stretches forth I

Her leaden sceptre | o'er a slumbering world.

Silence how dead! I and darkness || how profound!"

Brisk, gay, and lively feelings, are distinguished by brief quantities," and corresponding short pauses, as in the following example:

"Haste thee | Nymph, | and bring with thee I

Mirth and youthful jollity,

Quips and cranks I and wanton wiles, |

Nods and becks and wreathed smiles."

The pauses of sense or meaning, are of various lengths, according to the portions of speech which they are employed to separate; thus, we observe the long pauses between the principal parts of a discourse, the somewhat shorter pauses at its subdivisions, the shorter still at paragraphs, and the shorter than even these, at periods. Within a sentence itself, we can trace distinctly, in some instances, a principal pause at the middle, or the pause of compound clauses; and perhaps an inferior one, at or near the middle of each half, or the pause of simple clauses; and, on still closer examination, we find occasional shorter pauses in these subordinate portions, or the pause of phrases; and slight pauses even between words. The following sentence will exemplify these gradations of pausing.

"As we perceive the shadow to have moved along the dialplate, but did not perceive its moving; Il and it appears that the grass has grown, though nobody ever saw it grow: 1 so the advances we make in knowledge, | consist of minute

1 The marks indicate the value or length of the pauses, from III the longest within a sentence, to the shortest.

successive steps; Il and we are unconscious of them until we look back, and thus become aware of the distance I to which we have attained."

Pauses have sometimes been classified as follows: 1st, Poetic and oratorical pauses, or those which express emotion, and which are sometimes termed "impassioned" or "impressive;" 2d, "Rhetorical pauses," or those which divide a discourse into its heads and subdivisions, and those which the sense and structure of a sentence demand, when taken in conjunction, as in the prose example preceding. These pauses are addressed to the ear, and, when they occur in a sentence, may, or may not, be indicated to the eye, by the ordinary punctuation; 3d, Grammatical pauses, the comma, semicolon, colon, and period, which are founded on the syntactical structure and subdivision of sentences. These pauses are addressed to the eye, and are always indicated by the usual points; 4th, Prosodial pauses, which are used only in verse.

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I. POETIC AND ORATORICAL PAUSES.

These pauses of emotion,—as they are sometimes termed,

are produced, for the most part, by feelings of solemnity and pathos, or by the affectation of these,-as in the style of intentional exaggeration and bombast, for the effect of burlesque.

Pauses of this description are sometimes superadded to the usual grammatical points, and sometimes are thrown in before or after, (sometimes both before and after,) an impassioned expression or emphatic word, in vivid passages of poetry or of declamatory prose,- without regard to the grammatical punctuation; and their length depends entirely on the feeling expressed in the passage in which they occur; they are long in solemn, and short in lively style.

Young readers, in particular, are often deficient in this most striking and impressive of all the effects of appropriate reading and recitation. It becomes, therefore, a matter of great moment, in practice, to cultivate the habit of watching the effect of full and long pauses, introduced at appropriate places. Without these the most solemn passages of Scripture, and the poetry of Milton and of Young, produce no effect, comparatively, on the mind; while reading, aided by their expressive silence," seems to be inspired with an unlimited power over the sympathies of the soul.

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It will be useful, here, to review, once, on purpose, the examples prescribed for practice on long "quantities" and "indefinite" syllables, so as to trace the inseparable connection between the effect of

these and of long pauses. The repetition of columns of words from the chapter on enunciation, will also be of great service, if the practice is varied occasionally, so as to produce the pauses of various moods of emotion, from the ordinary rate of "expression" to the most solemn and impressive.

EXAMPLES OF POETIC AND ORATORICAL PAUSES.

(Impassioned and Impressive Style.)

1.- Alarm, and Fear.

[THE BALL AT BRUSSELS, ON THE EVE OF WATERLOO.] — Byron.

“And all went merry as a marriage bell:

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

2.-Awe, and Terror.

[SHIPWRECK.]-Wilson.

"Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast:

Hush! || hush! || thou vain dreamer! || this hour || || is her last. || || Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock; 1

And her planks are torn asunder; |

And down come her masts with a reeling shock, I

And a hideous crash || like thunder!"

3.- Horror.

[BERNARDO DEL CARPIO, DISCOVERING THAT KING ALPHONSO HAS LED HIM

FORTH TO SALUTE, NOT THE LIVING PERSON, BUT THE LIFELESS BODY, OF HIS FATHER.]-Mrs. Hemans.

"A lowly knee to earth he bent, - his father's hand he took - || ||

What was there in its touch, that all his fiery spirit shook? || ||

That hand was cold! || || a frozen thing: - || || it dropped from his like

lead! || ||

He looked up to the face above- || the face was of the dead: || ||

A plume waved o'er the noble brow that brow was fixed and

white: || ||

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He met, at last, his father's eyes — || || but in them was no sight! |||| Up from the ground he sprang, and gazed—|| || but who could paint that gaze? ||

They hushed their very hearts, || that saw its horror and amaze.”

1 Agitating emotions, such as those of alarm, hurry, terror, and confusion, reduce the usual pauses to the shortest possible duration; so as to correspond to the rapid and breathless utterance inseparable from such feelings.

4.-Stillness, and Awe.

[NIGHT, FROM THE "NIGHT THOUGHTS."]-Young

"Creation sleeps: || 't is as the general pulse of life | stood still || And nature made a pause, || an awful pause, || ||

Prophetic of her end!"

5.-Solemnity, and Triumph.

[CATO, EXULTING IN THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.]-Addison.

"The stars | shall fade away, || the sun himself |
Grow dim with age, || and Nature | sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, ||
Unhurt | amidst the war of elements, ||

The wreck of matter, || and the crush of worlds."

6.-Grief.

[ADAM'S LAMENTATION OVER THE FALL OF EVE.]—Milton.
"O fairest of creation! || last | and best |
Of all God's works, || creature in whom excelled
Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,
Holy, | divine, good, | amiable, | or sweet! ||
How art thou lost, || || how on a sudden ' lost, ||
Defaced, || deflowered, || and how to death | devote!"

7.-Contrition.

[EVE IMPLORING FORGIVENESS OF ADAM.]-lbid.

"On me | exercise not

Thy hatred | for this misery befallen,

On me | already lost, || me than thyself

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More miserable! || || both | have sinned, || but thou |
Against God | only, I || against God | and thee; ||
And to the place of judgment will return, ||
There with my cries importune Heaven, that all
The sentence from thy head removed, may light
On me, || sole cause to thee | of all this woe, ||
Me, || me only, || just object of His ire!"

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