Hiram Corson

“ For, after all, it is not so much the cultivated voice as spiritual appreciation, which tells in reading. I have heard 'poor, but honest' voices read some poems very effectively, and I have heard rich, but dishonest voices read very afflictingly. To adapt the French saying, le style, c'est l'homme, it may be said that la lecture à haute voix c'est l'homme. Reading reveals the reader's spiritual appreciation or the absence of it. And it is only to the extent that a reader assures his hearers that he has himself experienced the sentiments to which he gives utterance, that he impresses them. ”

“ Any untrained voice can emphasize, but only a trained or a naturally unperverted voice can give the light touch successfully. Yet it is possible for the heaviest, clumsiest voice to be trained to the light touch, to delicacy of tint, just as one who is clay-fisted may, in time, attain to some delicacy of manipulation. The voice and the hand have wonderful possibilities, rarely realized; the former, when converted from the error of its ways, being, indeed, the most expressive organ of the soul ”

“ Woman tells on others by a gracious manner, by the beauty of holiness as it is manifested in all her ways, in all her relations, domestic and social, and especially by her voice. A woman with a sweet and gracious voice, the index of a sweet and gracious nature, may exert through it, in the ordinary relations of life, without even knowing it, a better influence than she could by advisedly devoting herself to doing good, even if such devotion took the form of distributing religious tracts! ”

“ Acquirement is made the all in all, and education is left to take care of itself. The acquisition of knowledge, too, becomes a mere indulgence with thousands of people, in these days—an indulgence which renders them more and more averse to any of that independent activity of mind upon which education so largely depends.
I am quite surprised at what M. Ernest Legouvé says, in his 'Petit Traité de lecture à haute voix à l'usage des écoles primaires,' of the importance attached, in America, to reading aloud. ”

“ Sensibility, sympathy, enthusiasm, I repeat, are the elements of the atmosphere in which the intellectual, the moral, and the religious nature of a child can alone germinate and healthily grow, and in later years, bloom and shed a wholesome fragrance.
Stories written for the young must be concrete representations of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good; in other words, they must be works of art. ”

“ Could there be any better test than reading, of a student's knowledge of the organic structure of the language, and the extent to which the thought is spiritualized? Hardly. The ordinary examinations [29] of the schools, through questions, are wholly inadequate for getting at such knowledge—for evoking a student's sense of the life of the language as an organ of the intellectual and the spiritual.
Technical knowledge is a good thing in its way, but a knowledge of life, in whatever form, is a far better thing. And it is only life that can awaken life. ”

“ It is the tone which spiritualizes and quickens the thought; and it is the main object in reading, to spiritualize and quicken thought, to bring it into relation with the spiritual being of the hearer.
Vocal training, the most scientific and systematic, will not of itself make readers, that is, vocal interpreters of genius. Something more must be done than is at present done, in homes and schools, especially in homes, for the education of the spiritual nature; and this education must be begun early, must precede the education of the intellect. ”

“ Like two distinct branches springing from the same trunk, man and woman are varieties springing from the common basis—Humanity. There is no inequality between them, but—even as is the [176] case among men—diversity of tendency and of special vocation.
'Are two notes of the same musical chord unequal or of different nature? Man and woman are the two notes without which the Human chord is impossible. They fulfil different functions in Humanity, but these functions are equally sacred, equally manifestations of that Thought of God which He has made the soul of the universe. ”

“ Many have studied literature, as the phrase goes, but have no literary education, however well they may have 'passed' in the kind of work done. And such students pursue the study of elocution, with a sufficiently pitiable result. They have never had awakened in them the faculties which are demanded for assimilating the life of a work of genius, and consequently can do nothing in the way of vocal interpretation. They cannot give through the voice, however well trained it may be, what is not theirs to give. ”

“ In the creation of every great work of genius, a large degree of unconscious might enters; and this unconscious might the reader with the requisite degree of spiritual susceptibility may respond to. This is an activity of the highest order on the part of a reader. Melody, harmony, and every mode of form, are, to some extent, the product of an unconscious might. Deep feeling attracts to itself such elements of language as serve best to conduct it. Assonance, especially, is a manifestation of it. Paradise Lost abounds with the assonance which the dominant feeling of the poet induced. ”

“ In truly melodious reading, the design or figure, so to speak, is so arabesque that it is not taken in by the ear of the hearer, and does not come to his consciousness, but it tells effectively on his feelings. ”

“ I cannot help feeling, Phædrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. ”

“ Il y met tous ses soins, toute son étude, et il travaille avec crainte et tremblement; il craint de défigurer, de mutiler l'image sainte imprimée dans son esprit; il craint que sa main, interprète infidèle, ne traduise mal sa pensée; il craint que la copie ne soit qu'une caricature de l'original, et il efface, il corrige, il rature, il retouche, il refait, il a des hésitations, des scrupules, des repentirs; souvent il se décourage, il est sur le point d'abandonner l'œuvre commencée, il a peur de rester au-dessous de son sujet ”

“ There is a time to feel the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, and a time to regard all these, as far as may be, under intellectual relations. If 'the years that bring the philosophic mind' be anticipated in a child's education, it will be likely, by reason of the premature philosophy served out to it, to become a stupid man or woman, with a plentiful lack of both intellect and soul. ”

“ To read naturally is a common and a very vague phrase. The question is, what is nature? It is the object of the science and art of reading, to realize as fully as possible the imperfectly realized instincts of the voice. ”

“ A fond, worldly mother may be anxiously ambitious that her daughter shall have all the accomplishments required for her fullest attractiveness when she [108] 'comes out.' Years may be spent upon her musical education, with the poor result, perhaps, of 'fine sleights of hand and unimagined fingering, shuffling off the hearer's soul through hurricanes of notes to a noisy Tophet'; she may be taught dancing which rivals that of a Taglioni, and French, and drawing, and painting; she may be sent abroad to snatch the graces beyond the reach of art, of the most elegant European society ”

“ The moral insight of man, to say nothing of his finer spiritual insight, [169] owes much of its penetrating clearness to the feminine element of his nature; and unless this element be developed in due proportion to the intellectual element, he can have, at best, but distorted views of right and wrong, justice and injustice. On this side of his nature, the rays of an unclouded womanhood must strike, before it can be awakened into a genial vitality, and thus impart health, vigor, and subtlety to the intellectual side. ”

“ The artist in form and color bathes his landscape in 'the light that never was, on sea or land,' or, if not that, in some light or other, some 'tender light which heaven to gaudy day denies,' and which serves to reveal the feeling which he aimed to express through the landscape. ”

“ Call on a college student to read any prose passage extempore, and what is the result in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred? Why, he will read it, experto credite, in a most bungling way, with an imperfect articulation, without any proper grouping or perspective; and if the passage be an involved and long-suspended period, which his eye should run along and grasp as a whole, in advance of his voice, he will be lost in it before he get half way through [26] it. He has had little or no practice in reading aloud. ”

“ The highest result which can be exhibited of literary culture and a corresponding vocal culture, is an organic melody, in the reading of a great poem, the outcome of the poem's organic life. By melody, in reading, is meant that organic variety in the use of all the vocal functions and affections, that arabesqueness of expression, which does not allow the ear of the hearer to detect a regular recurrence of any of these functions and affections. There is melody of pause, of inflection, of rhyme, of rhythm, of time, of force, of emphasis, and of every vocal affection. ”

“ A susceptible reader comes, in time, to feel, to some extent, what the intonation, also, of the verse, must have been. To inspire students with a permanent interest in 'the morning star of song,' the teacher must be an accomplished reader of his verse, and must train his students [45] to the best reading of it of which they are capable. Of course, a knowledge of the language in its historical development, previous to Chaucer, is desirable, though not indispensable, to appreciate his poetry; but the best vocalization, in the fullest sense of the word, which can be attained to, is indispensable. ”

“ Blessings upon all the books that are the delight of childhood and youth and unperverted manhood! Precious are the sympathetic tears which dim the page and which it is so wholesome to encourage in early life as a check to the growth of selfishness and egoism. ”

“ Interpretative reading goes on in the same way. After a reader's long familiarity with a poem, and when he thinks he has realized all its possibilities of vocal effectiveness, some new vocal movement on a single word, it may be, is suggested, which is a decided contribution to the effect before reached. The play of Hamlet abounds in little speeches, and single words, even, whose possibilities of expressiveness can hardly be exhausted. Every great poet writes, at times, more significantly than he knows. ”

“ The permanent, the eternal, that which is alive for evermore, should, indeed, be the object of all education. Phenomena, in themselves, are not educative. A feeding on them alone, if that were possible (man naturally, whatever his condition, seeks other pabulum) , would soon result in a general atrophy of all the faculties, intellectual and spiritual. ”

“ The moral atmosphere of a home may be not a little due to the voice of the wife and mother. The memory, even, [107] of a voice which was toned by love and sympathy, may continue to be a sweet influence long after the voice itself has been hushed in death. The influence of the voice for good or evil, in the domestic, social, and all other relations of life, cannot be estimated. A voice may even have a good or bad reflex action upon its possessor. A slovenly articulation, for example, may be the index of a moral slovenliness, and may react upon the latter. ”

“ It is the type of an eternal truth—that the soul's armor is never well set to the heart unless a [170] woman's hand has braced it; and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood fails.' On the other hand, woman can be a true woman, only to the degree to which she is permitted to share with man all his highest interests, to sympathize with all his noblest aims, and to work side by side with him in the regeneration of the world. ”

“ University of the Future, in order to be a vastly greater power than the University of the Present, must, at least, rank spiritual education with intellectual training and discipline. This the University of the near Future must do; the University of a more remote Future, we must believe, if we believe that the spiritual is the crowning attribute of man—that by which he is linked with the permanent, the eternal, will make all intellectual training and discipline, even all physical training, so far as may be, subservient to the spiritual man. ”

“ Vain is the attempt to awaken the religious sentiment in a child, to cause it to feel the real significance of the words, as it utters them, 'Our Father who art in heaven,' in whom the filial and the reverential sentiments are quite extinguished. ”