'Up! comrades, up! In Rokeby's halls,
Ne'er be it said, our courage falls!'

And the same word, in

'Up! or Freedom breathes her last!'

And in Roderick Dhu's

'Not yet prepared?'

expulsive force and prolongation, with wide rising slide or wave, on 'yet', are necessary, to express the speaker's imperious and scornful energy.

INDEFINITES.

Indefinite syllables are capable of being lengthened according to the needs of expression. They are of two varieties.

a. Long-vowel monosyllables, or accented syllables that end in long vowels; as,

Ah! aye! ay! awe, I, hurrah! O! oh! you, thou, yea, halloo! now, lo! lie, do, woe, ahoy! see, joy, glorious, flow, aha! thee.

b. Syllables in which the vowel, either long or short, is followed by prolongable subtonics; as,

Stars, fame, vines, on, dreams, tolling, Rome, doom, full, flowers, tune, moonshine, buzz, alone, gloom, forlorn, vain, elms, daze, divine, nevermore, freeze, all, gone.

TWO IMPORTANT POINTS TO HEED, IN PRACTICING QUANTITY.

In practicing the prolongation of Mutable and Indefinite syllables, two vital conditions should be kept constantly in mind:

a.

The time must be duly apportioned to tonics and subtonics; not given exclusively, nor always even principally, to the tonics.

b. The syllabic concrete must constantly change its pitch throughout, from radical to vanish. It must not be held on a level of pitch in the slightest degree at any point, on peril of producing drawl and singsong.

On the long tonics and on extendible syllables, practice slow rising and falling slides of fourth, fifth, and octave, and waves of semitone, second, third, fourth, fifth, and octave.

'THE HOLY WHINE.'

The peculiar intonation of the colored exhorter, of the backwoods preacher, and of speakers among the Quakers, is largely made up of a mongrel note on the prolonged emphatic accents, neither speech nor song, but a blend of the two. The body of the note is a level swell (singing note), which has an initial rising or falling glide, sometimes of a semitone, sometimes of a minor third, minor fourth, or minor fifth, and which usually closes with a rising or falling vanishing movement on a chromatic interval. The initial glide and the vanish serve as connecting grace notes from and to the neighboring syllables. The whine of Cromwell's Puritans was probably similar in character. Usually the resonance would be richly musical, but for a decided infusion of nasal twang.

EXAMPLES IN QUANTITY.

IMMUTABLES.

Pick up your cap, and cut it, quick!

Ay, sputter away, thou roasting apple! Spit forth thy spleen; 'twill ease thy heart.

Amen stuck in my throat.

Come, and trip it, as you go,

On the light, fantastic toe!

In the three following examples, treat the italicized accents as if they were immutable.

Here's a pretty kettle of fish!

And Gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers,

Giggling with all the gallants who beset her.

To such music the important pigmy moves forward, bustling and swelling, and aptly compared to a puddle in a

storm.

MUTABLES.

In the following lines, the accents of the first three lines should have the short, sharp staccato of the immutables, in sympathy with the swift dexterity of the rider, the rapid flight of the horse, and the urgency of the race against time and fate. In the last line, the exultant pride gives expulsive force and marked prolongation to all the accents; so that this line occupies nearly or quite as much time as the two lines preceding.

I turned in my saddle, and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

In the following, impatience renders the variables of the second and third lines explosive and short; but in the fourth and fifth lines, settled resolution and hate give the variables strong expulsive force and consequent longer quantity.

But, gentle Heavens,

Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him: if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him, too!

INDEFINITES.

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light?

Boundless, endless, and sublime!

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!

Ring, joyous chords! ring out again!

A swifter still, and a wilder strain!

IMPLICATION.

In practicing the four examples of Indefinites, above, study and strive for the ability to Implicate smoothly the words of groups, the last, consummate grace of speech, in the expression of grandeur, solemnity, languor, gloom, admiration, swelling grief, longing, and, generally, whatever emotion leads to the use of long quantity and median stress. (See Median Stress, p. 205.) The words of a group are to be so implicated, so smoothly consecutive in utterance, that the group reaches the ear as an unbroken stream of sound; each word and syllable having its individual and relative value, but merging and melting into its neighbors, by the skillful management of the vowel and articulate glides. While the vanish of the expiring syllable is smoothly attenuating almost to silence, the organs lightly and alertly adjust themselves for the succeeding syllable, whose radical impulse takes up and continues the vocal flow. The vocules of final abrupt articulates are softened, except, when necessary, at the end of a group.

The first example above resolves itself naturally into five groups, coinciding, as it happens, with the marks of punctuation. I will discuss the first two groups only.

First group: O-thou-thatrollestabove.

The first two words, vanishing on the vowel, are easily implicated. While the vanish of 'O' still lingers, the tonguetip lightly rises to the inner surface of the upper front teeth, where soft, brief contact is made for th, starting a new syllabic impulse, and tongue and jaw promptly and smoothly dropping to mold the vowel ou. The process is repeated in

the transition from 'thou' to 'that.' The final t of 'that' is simply a check, the breath puff, or vocule, being replaced by the vocality of r in 'rollest'; the tongue-tip is slightly detached from the gum for r, then drops to the o position. The t of 'rollest' is again a check, opening without hiatus into the a- of 'above.' "Thatrollestabove' should sound as consecutive as it looks, so printed, the accents well rounded and moderately extended in quantity.

Second group: Roundasthe-shieldofmy-fathers.

It will probably assist you in the vocal execution, if you will look upon this group as two dactyls and a trochee,axx,axx,ax, to be spoken without hiatus between measures or between the syllables of any measure. The vocule of d is replaced, in the first instance, by the vowel radical of 'as', and in the second, by the radical opening of ‘of.'

Some persons, by temperament, have or easily acquire the power to isolate word or syllable by explosive abruptness and short quantity; others are prone to implicate all their speech. The artist must master both types of syllabic touch and quantity, and on occasion use either exclusively, or both alternately, or intermingled, according to the meaning, mental and emotional.

PAUSE. GROUPING.

In the economy of speech, Pause is as important as emphasis; is emphasis; is sometimes the most effective emphasis.

Quantity is, essentially, a pause, or hold, on word or syllable.

Grouping is the resolution of the sentence, by means of pause, into its component thoughts and ideas,-each distinct idea, whether one word or a cluster of words, forming a Group.