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audience, as they glide gradually but perceptibly down the successive stages of emotion, from serious attention, to grave listening, and solemn impression.

The attainment of a perfect control over "pitch," renders the practice of all its gradations highly important. The following examples require attentive practice in conjunction with the repetition of the elements and of words selected from the exercises in enunciation.

EXAMPLES OF LOW" PITCH.

Grave and Impressive Thought.

(“Pure tone :” “Moderate" force: "Unimpassioned radical” and moderate "median stress.")

AGE.-Godman.

"Now comes the autumn of life,-the season of the sere and yellow leaf.' The suppleness and mobility of the limbs diminish; the senses are less acute; and the impressions of external objects are less remarked. The fibres of the body grow more rigid; the emotions of the mind are more calm and uniform; the eye loses its lustrous keenness of expression. The mind no longer roams abroad with its original excursiveness: the power of imagination is, in great degree, lost. Experience has robbed external objects of their illusiveness: the thoughts come home: it is the age of reflection.— It is the period in which we receive the just tribute of veneration and confidence from our fellow-men, if we have so lived as to deserve it, and are entitled to the respect and confidence of the younger part of mankind, in exact proportion to the manner in which our own youth has been spent, and our maturity improved."

Grave, Austere, Authoritative Manner.

("Expulsive orotund:" "Declamatory" force: Firm "median stress.")

CATO, [IN REPLY TO CESAR'S MESSAGE THROUGH DECIUS.]-Addison.

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'My life is grafted on the fate of Rome.

Would he save Cato, bid him spare his country;
Bid him disband his legions,

Restore the commonwealth to liberty,
Submit his actions to the public censure,
And stand the judgment of a Roman senate.
Bid him do this, and Cato is his friend.”

III. "Very Low" Pitch.

This designation applies to the notes of those emotions which are of the deepest character, and which are accordingly associated with the deepest utterance. These are. chiefly, the following: deep solemnity, awe, amazement, horror, despair, melancholy, and deep grief.

The exceedingly "low pitch" of these and similar states of feeling, is one of those universal facts which necessarily become laws of vocal expression, and, consequently, indispensable rules of elocution. Any passage, strongly marked by the language of one of these emotions, becomes utterly inexpressive without its appropriate deep notes. Yet this fault is one of the most prevalent in reading, especially with youth. That absence of deep and powerful emotion of an expressive character and active tendency, which usually characterizes the habits of the student's life, often leaves a great deficiency in this element of vocal effect, even in individuals who habitually drop into the fault of a slackness of organic action which causes too low a pitch in serious or in grave style. The " very low" pitch is not a mere accidental or mechanical result: it requires the aid of the will, and a special exertion of organ, to produce it.

This lowest form of pitch is one of the most impressive means of powerful natural effect, in the utterance of all deep and impressive emotions. The pervading and absorbing effect of awe, amazement, horror, or any similar feeling, can never be produced without low pitch and deep successive notes; and the depth and reality of such emotions are always in proportion to the depth of voice with which they are uttered. The grandest descriptions in the Paradise Lost, and the profoundest meditations in the Night Thoughts, become trivial in their effect on the ear, when read with the ineffectual expression inseparable from the pitch of ordinary conversation or dis

course.

The vocal deficiency which limits the range of expression to the middle and higher notes of the scale, is not, by any means, the unavoidable and necessary fault of organization, as it is so generally supposed to be. Habit is in this, as in so many other things, the cause of defect. There is truth, no doubt, in the remark so often made in defence of a high and feeble voice, that it is natural to the individual, or that it is difficult for some readers to attain to depth of voice without incurring a false and forced style of utterance. But, in most cases, it is habit, not organization, that has made certain notes natural or unnatural, — in other words, familiar to the ear, or

the reverse. The neglect of the lower notes of the scale, and, consequently, of the organic action by which they are produced, may render a deep-toned utterance less easy than it would otherwise be. But most teachers of elocution are, from day to day, witnesses to the fact, that students, from the neglect of muscular action, and from all the other enfeebling causes involved in sedentary habits and intellectual application, sometimes commence a course of practice, with a high-pitched, thin, and feminine voice, which seems at first incapable of expressing a grave or manly sentiment, and, in some instances, appears to forbid the individual from ever attempting the utterance of a solemn thought, lest his treble tone should make the effect ridiculous; but that a few weeks' practice of vocal exercise on bass notes and deep emotions, as embodied in rightly selected exercises, often enables such readers to acquire a round and deep-toned utterance, adequate to the fullest effects of impressive eloquence.

The exercise of singing bass, if cultivated as an habitual practice, has a great effect in imparting command of deep-toned expression, in reading and speaking. Reading and reciting passages from Milton and from Young, and particularly from the Book of Psalms, or from hymns of a deeply solemn character, are exercises of great value for securing the command of the lower notes of the voice.

The practice of the following examples should be accompanied by copious exercises on the elements, and on words selected for the purpose. These exercises should be repeated till the student can, at any moment, strike the appropriate note of awe or solemnity, with as much certainty as the vocalist can execute any note of the scale.

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("Effusive and Expulsive orotund:" "Subdued and Suppressed force: "Median stress.")

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Plato, thou reasonest well!

Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,

This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us:
"Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates Eternity to man.
Eternity!-thou pleasing,- dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it."

Awe, Dismay, and Despair.

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("Aspirated pectoral Quality:" Suppressed" force: "Median

stress.")

THE PESTILENCE.-Porteous

"At dead of night,

In sullen silence stalks forth PESTILENCE:
CONTAGION, close behind, taints all her steps
With poisonous dew: no smiting hand is seen;
No sound is heard; but soon her secret path
Is marked with desolation: heaps on heaps
Promiscuous drop. No friend, no refuge, near:
All, all is false and treacherous around,

All that they touch, or taste, or breathe, is DEATH!”

Deep Grief.

AFFLICTION AND DESOLATION. -Young.

("Effusive and expulsive orotund:" "Impassioned" and "subdued" force: "Vanishing" and "median stress.")

"In every varied posture, place, and hour,
How widowed every thought of every joy!
Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace!
Through the dark postern of time long elapsed,
Led softly, by the stillness of the night,

Led like a murderer, (and such it proves!)
Strays, (wretched rover!) o'er the pleasing past:
In quest of wretchedness perversely strays,

And finds all desert now!"

IV. "High" Pitch.

The analysis of vocal expression, as regards the effect of "pitch," leads us now to the study of those modes of utterance which lie above the middle, or ordinary, level of the voice.

The higher portion of the musical scale is associated with

the notes of brisk, gay, and joyous emotions, with the exception of the extremes of pain, grief, and fear, which, from their preternaturally exciting power, compress and render rigid the organic parts that produce vocal sound, and cause the peculiarly shrill, convulsive cries and shrieks which express those passions.

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Tracing the voice upward, as it ascends from the usual pitch of 99 serious or of "animated expression," we observe it obviously rise, when it passes from the "animated," or lively, to the " gay or brisk style, which implies a positive exhilaration, or vivid excitement of the animal spirits. Cheerfulness will suffice to produce animation;" ;" but joy is requisite to cause gaiety." The properties of voice, in the utterance of these feelings, are correspondent to their gradations of sensibility. "Animation" is expressed by "pure tone, unimpassioned radical stress," and "middle pitch :" gaiety, by "expulsive orotund," vivid "radical and median stress," and high pitch."

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The command over "pitch," in its application to joyous emotions, is not, it is true, of so much importance to the public speaker, as the power of adopting the appropriate tone of serious, grave, and solemn feeling. It is, however, an indispensable accomplishment in elocution, for the purposes of private and social reading; as much of the pleasure, as well as the true effect, of expression, in the reading of pieces adapted to the parlor, and the family or the social circle, depends on the vivid utterance and comparatively high pitch which occasionally prevail in the appropriate style of such reading; since it is not unfrequently marked by gay delineation and high-wrought graphic effect of incident, description, and sentiment.

A "pitch" too low for the natural effect of gay and exhilarated feeling deadens the effect of wit and vivacity, and renders, perhaps, a most expressive strain of composition, tame and dull, when it should abound in the tones of life and brilliancy.

Juvenile readers, from diffidence, often withhold the true effect of the voice in the reading of scenes of gaiety and joyousness, by allowing the pitch to remain too low. The gravity and austerity of the student's life, incline him to the same mode of utterance, as a habit, and hence impair that freshness of effect, even in serious communication, which comes from the frequent practice of utterance in strains of joy and gaiety. The proverbial dulness arising from "all work and no play," is felt nowhere more deeply than in the habits of the voice. Long-continued, intense mental application, betrays itself, uniformly, in a tendency to hollow, pectoral " tone; and the uniform "drowsy bass" of some public speakers, is but the unconscious yielding to this natural effect.

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To give the voice suppleness, pliancy, and mobility, much attention must be bestowed on practice for the regulation of pitch. The following examples should be carefully repeated in conjunction with the elements and detached words, till the "high pitch " of joy is perfectly at command.

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