Vocal and Action-language Culture and Expression

V. SPEECH ON AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. - PATRICK

HENRY.

VI.

CASSIUS TO BRUTUS. — SHAKESPEARE.

Dramatic. Notice the shrewd, argumentative method of Cassius. High pitch; "mental " tone; many circumflexes; moderate rate; radical stress; quotations in italics.

Well, honor is the subject of my story.

I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life, but, for my single self,

I had as lief not be as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.

I was born free as Cæsar; so were you:
We both have fed as well; and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he:

For once, upon a raw and gusty day,

The troubled Tyber chafing with her shores,

Cæsar said to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now

Leap in with me into this angry flood,

And swim to yonder point?

Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,

And bade him follow: so indeed he did.
The torent roared, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy;
But, ere we could arrive the point propos'd,
Cæsar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink!

I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tyber
Did I the tired Cæsar: and this man

Is now become a god; and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain;

And when the fit was on him I did mark

How he did shake; 'tis true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their color fly;

And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose his lustre. I did hear him groan :
Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas, it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius,
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,

A man of such a feeble temper should

So get the start of the majestic world,

And bear the palm alone.

Brutus and Cæsar: what should be in that Cæsar?

Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

Write them together, yours is as fair a name;

Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;

Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,

Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,

That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd!

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was fam'd with more than with one man?
When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.

O, you and I have heard our fathers say

There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
Th' eternal Devil to keep his state in Rome,
As easily as a king!

VII. LANGUAGE.

RUSKIN.

Didactic conversational.

Medium pitch inclining to high; slow rate;

downward slides; inclining to pure tone.

With regard to the art of all men, that of language, the chief vices of education have arisen from the one great fallacy of supposing that noble language is a communicable trick of grammar and accent, instead of the careful expression of right thought. All the virtues of language are, in their roots, moral; it becomes accurate if the speaker desires to be true; clear, if he speaks with sympathy and a desire to be intelligible; powerful, if he has earnestness; pleasant, if he has sense of rhythm and order.

There are no other virtues of language producible by art than these; but let me mark more deeply for an instant the significance of one of them. Language, I said, is only clear when it is sympathetic. You can, in truth, understand a man's word only by understanding his temper. Your own word is also as of an unknown tongue to him unless he understands yours. And it is this which makes the art of language, if any one is to be chosen separately from the rest, that which is fittest for the instrument of a gentleman's education.

To teach the meaning of a word thoroughly, is to teach the nature of the spirit that coined it; the secret of language is the secret of sympathy, and its full charm is possible only to

the gentle. And thus the principles of beautiful speech have all been fixed by sincere and kindly speech.

On the laws which have been determined by sincerity, false speech, apparently beautiful, may afterward be constructed; but all such utterance, whether in oration or poetry, is not only without permanent power, but it is destructive of the principles it has usurped. So long as no words are uttered but in faithfulness, so long the art of language goes on exalting itself; but the moment it is shaped and chiselled on external principles, it falls into frivolity and perishes. No noble nor right style was ever yet founded but out of a sincere heart.

No man is worth studying to form your style who does not mean what he says; nor was any great style ever invented but by some man who meant what he said.

And of yet greater importance is it deeply to know that every beauty possessed by the language of a nation is significant of the innermost laws of its being. Keep the temper of the people stern and manly; make their associations courteous, grave, and for worthy objects; occupy them in just deeds, and their tongue must needs be a grand one. Nor is it possible, therefore, that any tongue should be a noble one, of which the words are not so many trumpet calls to action. All great languages invariably utter great things and command them; they cannot be mimicked but by obedience; the breath of them is inspiration because it is not only vocal but vital; and you can only learn to speak as these men spoke, by becoming what these men werc.

VIII. BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. WEBSTER.

Oratoric. Observe the thoughtful, solid utterances. Slow time, medium to low pitch, full voice, downward slides (Webster's delivery was noted for the abundance of strong, downward slides), radical stress

We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely deposited in the universal remembrance of man

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