Walter K. Fobes

“ In personation of character, as in dramatic scenes, your eye must look at those to whom you are supposed to be speaking, as, in common conversation, you usually look at the person to whom you speak. Never look in an undecided way, as if you did not have a purpose in looking, but look in the face and eyes of your audience when emotional expression does not require you to look elsewhere. ”

“ The one attracts the admiring gaze and tickles the fancy of an audience: the other sounds an alarm that vibrates through the tingling ears to the soul, and drives back the rushing blood upon the aching heart. The one falls upon the multitude like April showers glittering in the sunbeams, animating, and bringing nature into mellow life: the other rouses the same mass to deeds of noble daring, and imparts to it the terrific force of an avalanche. ”

“ It is possible for you to feel intense emotion, and not be capable of properly expressing it, so as to make others feel it. You may not have had training that will give you command of sound and motion, those channels of expression through which the body is made to obey mind and soul, and express their thought and feeling. | No expression without feeling.| It is impossible to express, even with the best cultivation, what, at the moment of utterance, you do not feel: therefore you must sink your own personality in your subject ”

“ A good tone in speech is as much to be desired as it is in song. Some have it as a gift of nature; and all can acquire it, in a degree, by judicious practice. If you have an excellent voice, you can make it still more excellent by practice; and, if you have a poor voice, you can, by practice, make it full, pleasant, and effective, and excel that one who has a good voice, but makes no effort to improve it. ”

“ The look upon the face, the gestures of the arm, the attitude of the body, all speak the language of emotion as plainly to the eye as elocution proper does to the ear. This action will be prompted by the feelings, as the voice is; and it will be expressive or not, it will be appropriate or not, it will be graceful or not, according as you have natural or acquired ability. Natural ability will be much aided by a knowledge and practice of gesture as a language, and much may be acquired by any one with practice. ”

“ The quality of voice, its purity or harshness, its aspiration, &c., will vary with the kind of feeling; the degree of force will vary according to the intensity of feeling; the pitch will be according to what we may call the height or depth of your feeling; the movement, or time, will be according as the emotion is quick or slow. After having cultivated the voice well in these elements of emotional expression, your own common sense ought to be your best guide in the application of them to reading and speaking. You, for the time being, should be the author of what you read. ”

“ The one is the finely-finished statue of a Cicero or Demosthenes, more perfect in its lineaments than the original, pleasing the eye, and enrapturing the imagination: the other is the living man, animated by intellectual power, rousing the deepest feelings of every heart, and electrifying every soul as with vivid lightning. ”

“ Force of voice depends on the management of the muscles below the lungs; and you should have perfect freedom from all effort on the part of lungs, throat, or mouth, on any pitch, high, middle, or low. If any effort is perceptible to you, it will be a feeling of strength and power at the waist; and experience and practice must teach you how much or how little effort to make at that point. The loudest force, and at the same time the purest quality, is secured when it seems to make itself without the slightest feeling of effort on your part. ”

“ Holland says, "When a minister goes before an audience, it is reasonable to ask and expect that he shall be accomplished in the arts of expression; that he shall be a good writer and speaker. It makes little difference that he knows more than his audience, is better than his audience, has the true matter in him, if the art by which he conveys his thought is shabby. ”

“ Conquer yourself. All art, elocution included, is but a means of expression for man's thoughts and feelings; and, if you have no thought or feeling to express, art is useless to you.
Breathing.
Do not let your audience be reminded that you breathe at all. Take breath quietly through nostrils or mouth, or both. Form the habit of keeping the chest, while speaking, active, as recommended in all vocal exercises; and the breath will flow in unobstructed whenever needed. Breathe as nearly as possible as you would if you were not speaking, that is, do not interfere with right action of the lungs. ”

“ O young men and women! there is no picture of ideal excellence of manhood and womanhood that I ever draw that seems too high, too beautiful, for your young hearts. What aspirations there are for the good, the true, the fair, and the holy! The instinctive affections—how beautiful they are, with all their purple prophecy of new homes and generations of immortals that are yet to be! ”

“ You speak like a boy,—like a boy who thinks the old gnarled oak can be twisted as easily as the young sapling. Can I forget that I have been branded as an outlaw, stigmatized as a traitor, a price set on my head as if I had been a wolf, my family treated as the dam and cubs of the hill-fox, whom all may torment, vilify, degrade, and insult ”

“ If you have faithfully practised Parts One and Two, you have gained some control of voice, and can now begin elocution, or expression of thought and feeling. In each of the short extracts you will find some thought and feeling to express; and if you will take pains to understand thoroughly what you have to speak, and then speak earnestly as the thought and feeling prompts you, you will certainly improve. Speak to some person; and, if no one is present, imagine that there is, and talk to them: for you need never speak aloud, unless it is for some one besides yourself to hear. ”

“ When you stand to speak, the first thing that strikes your audience is the position you assume. Therefore be careful to assume and keep the speaker's position until some other position is needed for expression; and return to the speaker's position, as the one which is an active position, but gives the idea of repose and confidence, without that disagreeable self-consciousness which to an audience is disgusting. While you are speaking, avoid all swaying or motion of body, unless it means something. ”

“ The general pitch of voice varies with the emotion. Some feelings we are prompted to express in the high tones, as joy; some in the lower tones, as awe: but, without practice, very few have command of the higher and lower tones; and, when they attempt to read, they cannot give the requisite variety to make it expressive. ”

“ You will call to mind the fact, that, when we say we cannot hear a speaker, it is not that we do not hear the sound of his voice, but that we cannot understand the words. Bearing this in mind, you will see that perfect articulation is what is wanted, and that fulness added to your voice in middle pitch will make the voice reach, will require less effort, and will produce better effect. ”

“ In the art of singing you have to exercise the voice in many ways to get command of it. So, in the art of elocution, it is necessary to practise the mechanics of physical and vocal culture, that you may be prepared to express properly your thought and feeling.
You need first a healthy body, elastic and strong in muscles, and especially in those muscles used in the production of voice. For this latter purpose I will describe as clearly as I can Monroe's system of gymnastics, and for the former recommend any other gymnastics that will give health, strength, and especially elasticity. ”

“ Can there be conceived a more atrocious injury than to filch from its possessor this inestimable benefit; to rob society of its charm, and solitude of its solace; not only to outlaw life, but to attaint death, converting the very grave, the refuge of the sufferer, into the gate of infamy and of shame? ”

“ When you read, then, or speak from memory, if you will let thought create feeling before you speak, you will avoid mechanical reading and speaking, and be effective in conveying the thought and feeling both together. ”

“ Active and Passive Chest.—Your chest in its ordinary position is what, in elocution, is called passive chest. The active chest is that assumed in the standing position, where the chest is raised up slightly and expanded, with the shoulders drawn back. Practise as an exercise the active and passive chest, alternating from one to the other without breathing, or moving the shoulders. The active chest must be kept in all the physical and vocal gymnastics, and at all time during speech. With practice it will soon become established as a habit ”

“ Don't sway the body, or nod the head, or shrug the shoulders, or move the feet, or make motions or gestures, unless the proper expression call for it, and your emotion prompts.
The eye.
The eye is particularly effective in expression, as there the [Pg 92] emotion first shows itself; and by it you can get and keep the attention of your audience. In reading, keep your eye off the book as much as possible, and on your audience. In recitation or extempore speaking, look at your audience. The eye leads in gesture, and, in many cases, looks in the direction of the gesture. ”

“ In inflection the voice slides up or down in pitch on a word, and by so doing impresses your meaning on the listener. Inflections are infinite in number; but a few of them practised will be of benefit in getting command over them. When the voice slides up, it is called rising inflection; if down, a falling. If it slides both ways on the same word, it is called circumflex; and if it varies but little, and is very like a chant in song, it is called monotone. A major inflection gives an effect of strength ”

“ Orotund Quality.—This quality is seldom to be heard in uncultivated voices, but is much to be desired in a speaker. It can only be acquired slowly and with much practice. It will be easily recognized when heard, as it possesses a fulness and richness of tone very pleasing. It is not high, but seems low in pitch; and, although it does not sound loud, it seems to be effective, and reach a long distance. To acquire it, practise, as recommended in "Pitch," the chanting and reading of sentences on the conversational and lower tones of the voice ”

“ Stress is the manner of applying force to a word or accented syllable. Prof. L. B. Monroe, in his book on vocal culture, enumerates six kinds. The marks he uses to represent them exhibit clearly to the eye what the voice is required to do. With radical, terminal, and compound stress, after facility is gained by use of stroke from the shoulder, omit it, and do them forcibly without movement of any part of the body.
1. Radical Stress.—So called, because the stress is on the beginning of the word, and marked thus (>) . Assume standing position with active chest, and take breath ”

“ There are plenty of men who can develop the voice, and so instruct in the arts of oratory that no man need go into the pulpit unaccompanied by the power to impress upon the people all of wisdom that he carries." The same writer says of
STUDENTS.
"Multitudes of young men are poured out upon the country, year after year, to get their living by public speech, who cannot even read well. The art of public speech has been shamefully neglected in all our higher training-schools. It has been held subordinate to every thing else, when it is of prime importance. ”

“ VOCAL GYMNASTICS.
You have no need to take any special exercise in walking for the ordinary purposes of life; but, if you wished to be a "walkist," you would need special practice to train and develop the muscles for that purpose. You may be a good singer, able to sing for your own amusement or that of your friends, without specially training the singing-voice; but, if you wished to sing in public, you would, if you were wise, train your singing-voice very carefully. As in these cases, so with the voice in speaking. ”

“ The emphatic word is usually brought out by inflection and added force; but it may be made emphatic by particular stress, or a pause before it or after it, or both before and after, or by a change of quality. Your own common sense will tell you when these may be proper and effective and natural.
Fulness and power.
You must also make your audience hear you; and this requires, not a loud, high-pitched voice, but—unless dramatic expression requires otherwise—your middle or conversational pitch, with fulness of voice, that shall give you power. ”

“ All apparent effort must be avoided; that is, in the expression of the strongest passion or emotion, you must not give the audience the slightest indication of want of power. You will give that impression if you try to express more than you actually feel. In emotional expression it must seem as if it overflowed because of excess, and you could hardly control it; but you must never lose control of it. This control will give the audience the impression that you feel more than you express, and is what is called reserved power. ”

“ Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? ”