VII. GRAND, SUBLIME AND REVER

ENTIAL STYLES.

OROTUND VOICE.

THE Orotund voice, or the voice that is used in the expression of impassioned selections, needs now to be specially considered, as we are about to treat of various classes of composition that depend upon that voice for their appropriate interpretation.

What is the Orotund voice, and wherein does it differ from the natural or conversational voice? These questions are pertinent to the present discussion.

The Natural and Orotund voices are manufactured in the same way, and differ only in their intensity and volume of sound. If a drum head be tapped by the finger a feeble report is heard; but if you beat the drum with great force a very much louder report follows each blow, and a consequent resonance is heard inside as the sound passes from one head of the drum to the other. So with these voices. In the case of the Natural voice the sound made in the glottis, as we talk, is not sufficiently loud to produce any resonance, except a slight one in the head; but when by the action of the abdominal muscles, the air in the lungs is thrown into the glottis with great force, a loud explosion of sound is heard, and a consequent resonance takes place in the cavities of the body, especially the chest; hence the term, chest tone.

The most direct answer that we can make to the inquiry, what is the Orotund voice and wherein does it differ from the Natural voice, is this. The Orotund voice is that full,

deep and resonant sound heard in all impassioned sublimity, oratory and fierce emotion, and it differs specifically from the Natural voice in that its depth, fullness and roundness arise chiefly from resonance in the cavities of the body.

The use of the Orotund voice in impassioned styles is so common a thing in ordinary life that the mention of a single example may serve to dissipate the absurd notion that elocutionary rules are arbitrary and conventional. For example, when the boy loses a finger he does not talk, he roars: he has so much feeling to get rid of that he cannot find vent in the Natural voice, and is forced by an irresistible impulse to use a larger voice in order that he may find relief. can read an essay, but you must speak an oration. emotion that fills the Orator's soul as he denounces an enemy, or excites his countrymen to heroic deeds, must find an outlet in the full strong and ample tones of the Orotund.

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There are three kinds of Orotund voice, the Effusive, Expulsive and Explosive, each of which will receive a separate consideration.

EFFUSIVE OROTUND.

THIS kind of Orotund is used in the rendition of all grand, sublime, and reverential styles. It is the appropriate voice of prayer, of all the prayer services of the church, of nearly all hymns—since they are but prayers in verse— of the grand passages of the Prophets and Psalms, as well as the sublime utterances of the Revelation. It is also the appropriate voice for the expression of all emotions that are excited by the grandeur, vastness or splendor of natural objects. The prevailing pitch of voice is low, and in profound awe, despair and horror, we descend to the lowest pitch.

Care should be taken to avoid all harshness of tone, as impure qualities of voice are more readily detected in the full, long drawn notes of the Effusive Orotund than in any

other style of reading or speaking. A deep, full, sonorous quality of voice, free from all false intonations, sudden transitions, or conversational inflections, should be cultivated for the proper expression of this style of selections.

GRAND, SUBLIME AND REVERENTIAL SELECTIONS.

HYMN TO MONT BLANC.

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? so long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc!
The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black-
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Did'st vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer,
I worshiped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought-
Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy:
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,

Into the mighty vision passing, there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the Vale!
O, struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,

Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shattered and the same for ever?

Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?-
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!

God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements!

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise!

Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

"And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." Deut. xxxiv. 6.

By Nebo's lonely mountain,
On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
There lies a lonely grave;
But no man dug that sepulchre,
And no man saw it e'er,

For the angels of God upturned the sod,

And laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth;
But no man heard the tramping,
Or saw the train go forth;
Noiselessly as the daylight

Comes when the night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun,—

Noiselessly as the spring-time
Her crown of verdure weaves,