I that denied thee gold, will give my heart. A good man loves himself too well to lose an estate by gaming; and his neighbor too well to win one. Cass. I may do that I shall be sorry for. Brut. You have done that you should be sorry for. Oh, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous CHAPTER VIII. GRADED VARIATIONS OF PITCH. Hitherto we have been treating of inflections; that is to say, such variations of the voice upon the scale as consist of concrete slides, and bends which mark pauses, and begin and end upon a single word. But the subject of MELODY IN SPEECH cannot be completely presented without referring to another class of variations in pitch according to which the voice ascends or descends by grades, consisting of clauses, sometimes words and sometimes entire sentences; and that without reference to the inflections which may more intimately belong to them. Such variations occur in the following instances :1. The voice rises by grades: a. When the succession of clauses or sentences implies an increasing interest of any sort; as, "All that I have, all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it." 66 Awake, Sir King, the gates unspar! The sea flows over bolt and bar!" OBSERVATION.--If the emotion gains in excitement, the voice rises, if in force, it descends, in pitch. Change of pitch from medium to higher and higher, or to lower and lower, always shows a change in the feeling of the speaker, either greater intensity or greater force. b. In passages of solemnity and sublimity, apostrophes to the Deity (as in the opening sentences of prayers), to mountains and other grand objects, earnest oratorical appeals, etc.; as, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." "O thou Eternal One! whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide, Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight, Thou only God! There is no God beside." NOTE. In the above quatrain, and in passages of similar type, the clauses rise successively in pitch about half a semitone* (the ascent being on the last word in each clause, which gives the pitch for the one succeeding), until a natural climax is reached, when the descent begins, and continues to the close. Following is an imperfect representation of the process by typographical arrangement: * Gardiner, in his "Music of Nature," gives us a vivid description of the opening sentence of a prayer by the Rev. Edward Irving, the celebrated Scotch divine: "His voice is that of a sonorous basso; in manner he is slow and reverential. His prayer, commencing with the words, 3 4 Almighty and most merciful Father; in whom we live, move, and have our being, reminded me of that slow and solemn strain of deep holding notes, gradually ascending, which describes the rising of the moon in Haydn's 'Creation.'" 2. The voice descends by grades: a. After such a climax of an ascending series as is described in the foregoing rule; as, "The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And like this unsubstantial pageant, faded,- NOTE. The first part of the passage rises, the second part (beginning with “shall dissolve”) descends in pitch. as, b. When climax is to be made by lowering the tone; "What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife!to the cannibal, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims!" c. When anything in the sentiment expressed requires a descending tone; as, "And didst thou visit him no more? Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter dear; The waters laid thee at his door Ere yet the early dawn was clear. Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, The lifted sun shone on thy face, d. In parentheses, to indicate that the parenthetic clause is not a necessary part of the sentence; as, "If there's a power above us (And that there is all Nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue." NOTE. That part of the sentence which precedes the parenthesis, should be a little stronger in tone to suggest the difference between it and the parenthesis. To this rule there is one exception. Thus : Sometimes, under the influence of emotion, the parenthesis is given on a higher level; as, "And more I tell thee, haughty peer, Ev'n in thy pitch of pride: Here in thy hold, thy vassals near (Nay, never look upon your lord, And lay your hand upon your sword!) OBSERVATION.-This depression of the pitch, in a degree somewhat less decided, is used also in subordinate clauses, and phrases of circumstance or description, thrown in between the parts of the leading clauses to qualify the assertion. These, though set off by commas only, are really parenthetic in their character, and should be distinguished from the leading member more or less according to the degree of interruption they occasion to the construction and flow of the sentence; as, "I have known few authors, and many instances have fallen in my way, who did not read their own compositions exactly as they would those of another." Here the clause "and many instances have fallen in my way," is connected with what precedes, not in construction, but by a shade of thought-out of the many I have known, there were but few, etc. EXAMPLES FOR PRACTICE IN THE USE OF PITCH. Graded Rise, Increasing Interest. Here I stand for impeachment or trial! I dare accu sation! I defy the honorable gentleman! I defy the government! I defy their whole phalanx! Let them come forth! I tell the ministers I will neither give them quarter, nor take it! We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. I would invoke those who fill the seats of justice, and all who minister at her altar, that they execute the wholesome and necessary severity of the law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim its denunciation of these crimes, and add its solemn sanctions to the authority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent, whenever or wherever there may be a sinner, bloody with this guilt, within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust. I see the smoke of the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who by stealth and at midnight labor in this work of hell, foul and dark, as may become the artificers of such instruments of misery and torture. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they of the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more. Up drawbridge, grooms! What warder, ho! Call the watch! call the watch! "Ho! the starboard watch ahoy!" Forward, the light brigade! Charge for the guns! |