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ulence, admiration, indignation, scorn, irony, indifference, doubt, etc., the identity of the mood being established or confirmed by means of quality and stress.

FINALITY THE ESSENTIAL MEANING OF THE FALLING INFLECTION.

The emphatic falling inflection, slide or wave, may be used, when necessary, at any point in the sentence, -on the first word, often, but on any word, or the accented syllable of any word; and its essential meaning, everywhere, is:

Stop!-take this word as final and absolute. It is so important, so freighted with my meaning, that I must constrain your mind to halt,-to receive and weigh this meaning, before going further.

THE ELLIPTICAL VALUE OF THE EMPHATIC WAVES. THE RISING WAVE.-The Rising Wave, or Circumflex, ~, combines the meanings, as it combines the audible effects, of the falling and the rising slides. The rising constituent expresses the main motive, because it makes the final, and therefore the stronger, impression on the ear. The main motive, then, is incompleteness. The secondary motive, embodied in the falling constituent, designates or affirms the idea of the word itself; while the main motive points away, or refers, to some other idea or thought that is implied, or that has been or is to be expressed.

This wave is heard on the first member of a pointed antithesis; on a negative, in sharp contrast with a positive; in the emphasis of doubt, condition, exception, indifference, concession, suggestion, irony, and warning; and in questions, where it is the speaker's motive to assert or intimate the opposite of the phraseology. For example, in the question,Friendship? is this your friendship?

if the first 'friendship' and 'this' are spoken with strong rising waves and with the right dynamic touch, the speaker unmistakably indicates, by the sarcastic incredulity of the intonation, that he regards the conduct so designated as the very reverse of friendship. The sarcasm will not be 'unmistakable', however, unless the falling constituent of the wave is sharply stressed. If the falling constituent is reduced somewhat in interval and stressed more smoothly and lightly, the expression is that of sad reproach; while, if the last constituent receives a strong expulsive stress, the mood of injured surprise is revealed.

THE FALLING WAVE.-The Falling Wave, or Circumflex, ^, unites the forms and meanings of the rising and falling slides. The secondary motive, embodied in the first constituent, is, to point away to some other contrasting, collateral, or prelusive idea, implied or expressed, or to be expressed; while the main motive, enforced by the final constituent, is, to focus and fix the attention upon the idea of the word itself. In Juliet's line,

Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again!

'God' and 'when' are spoken with emphatic falling waves; so that we apprehend at once and clearly the girl's troubled thought, which she shrinks from putting directly into words: '(Not I, not any one but) God-knows when (if ever!-I fear me, never!) we shall meet again.' The rising constituent, in each case, points off from the word itself to the adjacent bracketed thought.

The question,

Friendship? is this your friendship?—

spoken with a strong falling wave, the falling constituent stressed, on the first 'friendship' and 'this', and an interrogative rising melody on the two closing words, will express

inquiry, moved by surprise and indignant reproach. If, with the same falling waves on the words designated, the closing melody also falls, verbal question is almost lost in the vocal contemptuous rejection. In the former case, the closing melody sides with and enforces the motive of the rising constituents of the emphatic waves; in the latter, the closing melody joins with the falling constituents and confirms their motive.

The falling wave is heard in surprise, admiration, sarcasm, willful assertion, impatience, bold challenge, joy, triumph,stress, quality, quantity, and extent and equality or inequality of interval being the means of specification. It is given to the last member of a pointed antithesis or comparison. In positive-negative or negative-positive antithesis, the positive member, whether first in order of utterance or not, takes the falling wave.

THE DOUBLE WAVE, RISING.-The Double Wave, Rising, ~, is similar in office to the single wave, rising; but the pointing-away intention, by being twice expressed vocally, is more strongly conveyed; and the effect is often, perhaps usually, enhanced by compound stress. It is especially useful in elliptical expression.

A MISNOMER OF THE BOOKS.

Correctly speaking, the wave is a simple inflection, on a single syllable; but, in the case of a polysyllable, a wave effect is frequently produced on the word as a whole, while each individual syllable has probably a simple slide. These slides are so ordered in direction and radical sequence that a Melodic Wave, U, n, N, O, is the result, on the word as a whole. Most writers on elocution treat these word-waves as single inflections,-in fact, call them inflections. They are a striking illustration of the close relation between inflection

and melody, and of the danger of mistaking resemblance for identity.

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In the above sentence, 'impracticable,' as a whole, has the melodic outline, ~, equivalent to the double-wave-rising inflection, ~; and 'ingenuity' has the double-wave falling melody, : but the inflections of the individual syllables are straight slides.

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read with the outline or, if it is intended to contrast poverty and overabundance, simply; but, to intimate the probably-intended ellipsis, the unspoken part of the thought, 'overabundance' requires the outline : that is, the voice must point away from ‘overabundance', as well as from 'poverty', to the 'modest competence' that is probably in the writer's mind. (See 'The Rising Wave' and 'The Double Wave, Rising,' above.)

THE WAVE OF THE SECOND:

MONOTONE.

In grave, stately, noble passages, where the wider intervals would be violent or florid, and the rising and falling slides of the second tame and trite, quantity and volume are given to the extendible accents by means of the Equal Wave of the Second. This is the foundation note of the melodic effect called Monotone. (See 'The Wave of the Second, or Syllabic Note of the Monotone', page 66.)

In the reading of verse, the poetic effect, on the reader's part, depends very greatly upon the judicious employment of this wave, and, on short quantities, the simple rise of the second, in place of the wider rising and falling slides and wider and sharper forms of wave; especially at the close of groups and lines (verses), while the thought is still forming. In this use, it is called the Poetic Monotone.

Poetic prose should be read, in general, with the poetic monotone at most of the pauses of suspension and continuation, so as to secure a stately, smooth-flowing continuity.

The wave of the second has usually more or less of the median swell.

Tranquillity, reverence, solemnity, and kindred moods, are ear-satisfying, only when the words flow smoothly in mellow orotund, in a prevalent monotone melody, and with. all the delicate or forceful music of the subtonics duly heard.

SIDNEY LANIER ON SPEECH MELODY.

Sidney Lanier, in 'The Science of English Verse', says that the speaking scale is largely made up of intervals much smaller than the second and the semitone. He goes on:

These thirds of tones, fourths of tones, fifths of tones, and so on up to ninths of tones, used by the speaking voice, constitute the characteristic peculiarity of its tunes, and present us with the obstacle which has defeated all attempts to note them by the limited resources of the musical staff. There is no musical character for the third of a tone, the fourth of a tone, and so on, or for any less interval than the half of a tone: and thus four-fifths of the tones actually used by the speaking voice are incapable of expression by this system.

Of course, nothing would be easier than to devise a system which would be adequate to the scale of the speaking voice. It would be necessary only to increase very largely the number of lines on the staff, and to note

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