Part 6

It has never been a matter of much regret to me that so little is known of Shakespeare's personal history--the circumstances of his outer life. Of what his interior life was, we can have no doubt. It must have been a life capable of sympathetically reproducing within itself all the great characters, men and women, of the Dramas. But if I could wear the wishing-cap of Fortunatus, I would wish to know what manner of woman, in all particulars, was Mary Arden, the poet's mother. The men whose intellectual and, more especially, spiritual gifts to the world, have been the greatest, and most quickening, have oftener, no doubt, been more indebted, for those gifts, to their mothers than to their fathers. The radiant shapes of the women of Shakespeare's Dramas certainly had their source in the feminine element, the _ewig weibliche_, of his nature, and this element was as certainly, I cannot but think, derived from, and quickened by, his mother. In what was, without doubt, his earliest play, Love's Labor's Lost, Biron, I am quite sure, expresses Shakespeare's own opinion of the peculiar power of women (A. IV. S. III.):

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world.

This was as certainly Shakespeare's own opinion about woman as what Biron says (A. I. S. I.) was his own opinion about study:

Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

Shakespeare must early have felt his superiority in true education (the nimble play of all the faculties) to the merely learned men with whom he came in contact, and must soon have discovered that _he_ drank from fountains of which they knew nothing. His own vitality of soul was responsive to the essential life of men and things; and it was through this responsiveness that he attained to a wisdom inaccessible to mere learning and intellectual enlightenment. It was his mother, I like to think, who initiated him into the mysteries of the spirit.

NOTE 1, PAGE 21.

See Vol. I, pp. 229 _et seq._ of 'Memoirs of Richard Whateley, Archbishop of Dublin. With a glance at his contemporaries and times. By William John Fitzpatrick, J.P. In two volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1864.'

NOTE 2, PAGE 47.

This notation of feet I have used in my 'Primer of English Verse,' _a_ representing an accented, and _x_, an unaccented, syllable.

NOTE 3, PAGE 50.

We cannot help observing, because certain critics observe otherwise, that Chaucer utters as true music as ever came from poet or musician; that some of the sweetest cadences in all our English are extant in his "swete upon his tongue," in completest modulation. Let "Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join" the Io paean of a later age, the "eurekamen" of Pope and his generation. Not one of the "Queen Anne's men," measuring out tuneful breath upon their fingers, like ribbons for topknots, did know the art of versification as the old rude Chaucer knew it. Call him rude for the picturesqueness of the epithet; but his verse has, at least, as much regularity in the sense of true art, and more manifestly in proportion to our increasing acquaintance with his dialect and pronunciation, as can be discovered or dreamed in the French school. Critics, indeed, have set up a system based upon the crushed atoms of first principles, maintaining that poor Chaucer wrote by accent only! Grant to them that he counted no verses on his fingers; grant that he never disciplined his highest thoughts to walk up and down in a paddock--ten paces and a turn; grant that his singing is not after the likeness of their singsong; but there end your admissions. It is our ineffaceable impression, in fact, that the whole theory of accent and quantity held in relation to ancient and modern poetry stands upon a fallacy, totters, rather than stands; and that, when considered in connection with such old moderns as our Chaucer, the fallaciousness is especially apparent. Chaucer wrote by quantity, just as Homer did before him, just as Goethe did after him, just as all poets must. Rules differ, principles are identical. All rhythm presupposes quantity. Organ-pipe or harp, the musician plays by time. Greek or English, Chaucer or Pope, the poet sings by time. What is this accent but a stroke, an emphasis, with a successive pause to make complete the time? And what is the difference between this accent and quantity but the difference between a harp-note and an organ-note? otherwise, quantity expressed in different ways? It is as easy for matter to subsist out of space, as music out of time.--_Mrs. E. B. Browning's 'The Book of the Poets.'_

NOTE 4, PAGE 64.

Avant d'executer son oeuvre, l'artiste la concoit; il enfante au dedans de lui, pour emprunter la langue de Bossuet, 'un tableau, une statue, un edifice qui, dans sa simplicite, est la forme, l'original, le modele immateriel de ce qu'il executera sur la pierre, sur le marbre, sur la toile ou il arrangera toutes ses couleurs.' Ce modele immateriel est pour l'artiste, si l'on veut, un ideal qu'il se propose de realiser dans son oeuvre: c'est le patron sur lequel il travaille et qu'il s'efforce a reproduire le plus exactement possible. Il y met tous ses soins, toute son etude, et il travaille _avec crainte et tremblement_; il craint de defigurer, de mutiler l'image sainte imprimee dans son esprit; il craint que sa main, interprete infidele, ne traduise mal sa pensee; 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 hesitations, des scrupules, des repentirs; souvent il se decourage, il est sur le point d'abandonner l'oeuvre commencee, il a peur de rester au-dessous de son sujet; la perfection du modele immateriel le desespere, et ce desespoir provient d'une illusion. D'ordinaire, ce modele ne lui semble si parfait que parce qu'il est encore vague, confus, indetermine. Nous prenons volontiers l'indefini pour la perfection; individualiser une idee, c'est lui donner on mode particulier a l'exclusion de tous les autres dont elle etait susceptible, et cette exclusion nous coute, c'est une sorte de sacrifice que s'impose notre imagination; elle y a regret, comme l'avare, en depensant un ecu pour se donner un plaisir, regrette tous les autres plaisirs imaginables que cet ecu lui aurait pu procurer. Car il ne faut pas accorder a Schleiermacher que l'oeuvre d'art existe deja tout entiere dans l'esprit de l'artiste avant qu'il ait realise sa pensee dans le marbre ou sur la toile. Cette pensee est toujours plus ou moins enveloppee, plus ou moins confuse; elle n'est pas encore degagee de son delivre, ou plutot c'est un rudiment incomplet, une ebauche indistincte ou l'on n'apercoit que les principaux lineaments de l'oeuvre; c'est un embryon dont les organes ne sont pas encore developpes. C'est en travaillant a executer son plan que l'artiste parvient a concevoir ce plan d'une maniere claire et distincte; c'est en manifestant au dehors sa pensee qu'il se la rend manifeste a lui-meme. La composition et l'execution sont deux periodes de l'activite de l'artiste que l'abstraction seule peut distinguer; dans le fait, elles ne se distinguent point, et le peintre compose encore dans le dernier coup de pinceau qu'il donne a sa toile.--_Victor Cherbuliez: Philosophie du Beau.--Etudes sur le Systeme d'esthetique de M. Th. Vischer. Troisieme article. (Revue Germanique, Tome x, p. 662.)_

NOTE 5, PAGE 83.

My attention was called to this chapter, many years ago, as affording good illustrations of the slighting of speech, by Mr. J. W. Taverner, one of the best teachers of elocution I have ever known. His daughter, Mrs. F. Taverner Graham, has embodied much of his instructions in her valuable text-book, entitled 'Reasonable Elocution,' originally published by A. S. Barnes & Co., in 1874. It is now published by the American Book Company.

NOTE 6, PAGE 99.

John Keats, in his poem entitled 'Sleep and Poetry,' after speaking of the greatness of his favorite poets of the Elizabethan period, continues:

Could all this be forgotten? Yes, a schism Nurtured by foppery and barbarism, Made great Apollo blush for this his land. Men were thought wise who could not understand His glories: with a puling infant's force They sway'd about upon a rocking-horse, And thought it Pegasus.

He alludes, of course, to the rocking-horse movement of the rhyming couplet as used during the Popian period. As used by Chaucer, this rocking-horse movement is not so felt.

NOTE 7, PAGE 101.

Legouve, in his 'L'Art de la lecture,' chap. vii, 'Les vers libres,' says: les vers libres out un rhythme comme les vers alexandrins, comme les vers des strophes, seulement c'est un rhythme cache. Ils obeissent a une regle mysterieuse, mais reelle, que vous ne trouverez dans aucun traite de rhetorique, mais qui est ecrite dans l'imagination de tous les poetes de genie. Voila pourquoi les vers libres du dix-septieme siecle sont excellents, et ceux du dix-huitieme, sauf quelques pieces de Voltaire, mediocres; les poetes n'ont pas devine le secret.

NOTE 8, PAGE 114.

_Socrates._ I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, 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. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything, and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down, they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not; and if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves. _Phaedrus._ That again is most true. _Socrates._ Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than this, and having far greater power--a son of the same family, but lawfully begotten? _Phaedrus._ Whom do you mean, and what is his origin? _Socrates._ I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent. _Phaedrus._ You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and of which the written word is properly no more than an image? _Socrates._ Yes, of course, that is what I mean.--_Plato, Phaedrus, 275 D, 276, Dr. Jowett's translation._

NOTE 9, PAGE 121.

He refers probably to articles in Punch, contained in the 2d volume for the year 1887, pp. 25, 37, 64, _et al._

INDEX

Ames's, Rev. C. G., description of Emerson's voice, 103, 104.

Appreciation of subject-matter, not sufficient for interpretative reading, 10, 11.

Art, its function, 153-157.

Belshazzar's Feast (Daniel v.), as illustrating the slighting of speech, 83-95.

Books, children's, 150-165.

Brain slaughter in the schools, 40.

Browning, Mrs. E. B., quoted on Chaucer's verse, note 3.

Browning, Robert, quoted on processes of art work, 64; on the function of art, 153-155.

Chaucer's verse must be voiced, 44, 45; must be read in time, 50; Mrs. Browning quoted thereupon, note 3.

Cherbuliez, Victor, quoted on processes of art work, note 4.

Child, early education of the, 138 _et seq._

Children's books, 150-165.

Christianity, a religion of the personal and the concrete, 147.

Co-education of the sexes, 167-174.

Coleridge's reading, 12.

Comparisons and similes, reading of, 80-82.

Culture, true, unconscious of the processes which induced it, 20.

De Imitatione Christi, quoted on 'the eternal word,' 147, 148.

De Quincey, Thomas, quoted on Coleridge's reading, 12.

Dogma, the arch-enemy of Christianity, 147.

Dowden, Prof. Edward, quoted on reading, 120, 121.

Education, the danger to which it will be more and more exposed, 38; etymology of the word, 39, 40.

Elocutionary skill, 18.

Elwood, Thomas, quoted as to his reading Latin to Milton, 53.

Emerson, quoted on the human voice, 102, 103; his own voice described, 103, 104.

_Enjambement_, absence of, in Pope's verse, 101.

Estimates of all things, relative, 27.

Eternal Word, The, not exclusive, 149, 150.

Examinations, literary, 55-60; leading object of, 59.

Faith in womankind, a liberal education, 173.

Feeling must precede knowing, in a child, 70, 71.

Femineity _vs._ womanliness, 173, 174.

Garrison, William Lloyd, quoted on Mazzini's advocacy of the equality of the sexes, 177.

Gesture, mimetic, its absurdities, 128-131.

Greek verse must be read aloud, and in time, 46.

Grouping of speech, 28.

Home-life in this country, 139, 140.

Hume, David, quoted on criticism, 37.

Imitation of Christ, quoted on 'the eternal word,' 147, 148.

'Impressions before the letter,' 40.

Inflections, or bends, of the voice, must be always significant, 77-79.

Interior life demanded in reading, 119.

Jesus, teachings of, clothed in circumstance and imagery, 157-160.

Keats, John, quoted on the Popian period of English poetry, note 6.

Language, as addressed to the eye, must be largely supplemented by the voice, 29, 30.

Languages, modern, the study of, 51, 52.

Latin verse, must be read aloud, and in time, 46.

Legouve, Ernest, quoted in regard to reading, in America, as an educational agency, 34; quoted on 'les vers libres,' note 7.

Lewes, G. H., quoted on the stuffing of children with knowledge, 40, 41.

Linguistic studies, importance of vocalization in, 43.

Literary education, leading object of, 122.

Literary examinations, 55; leading object of, 59.

Literary lecture, what it should be, 36, 37.

Manhood, a true, 167.

Mazzini, Giuseppe, quoted on woman, her power, her equality with man, and her rights, 174-177; William Lloyd Garrison quoted on Mazzini, 177.

Melody in reading, 97-101.

Milton's Samson Agonistes, choruses of, must be read in time, 51.

Mimetic gesture, its absurdities, 128-131.

Monotony preferable to non-significant intervals, 79.

Moral influence of the speaking voice, 104-107.

Moral insight of man, 168, 169.

Moral teachers, the greatest, not explicit moralizers, 155.

Mothers, comparatively few, capable, 146; indebtedness of great men to their, 178.

'Natural' reading, 13.

Nature, spiritual relationship with, 142-145.

Perspective of speech, an important element of interpretative reading, 27.

Phenomena not in themselves educative, 148.

Plato quoted on the written and the spoken word, note 8.

Poem, a, not a poem until it is voiced, 30; a true, 62.

Poets cannot always vocalize their own verse, 14.

Pope's verse, its mechanical uniformity, 100, 101; absence of _enjambement_ in, 101.

'Prelude,' Wordsworth's, its great educative value, 145.

Printed, or written, language, deficiencies of, to be supplied by the reader, 29, 30.

Printing, art of, has caused language to be too much known through the eye alone, 114, 115.

Reading, can it be taught?, 9; the main achievable result, 18; extempore, its requirements, 26; the best test of a student's knowledge of language as an organism, 28, 29; must give life to the letter, 29; the conditions for so doing, 30; Shelley quoted thereupon, 31; requirements in early life for its cultivation, 42; art of, its correspondences with that of painting, 68, 69; the requisite physical means of, 72; technique of, 73 _et seq._; is not acting, 126.

Reading matter for the young, 160-164.

Reasoning faculties, the premature exercise of, 70, 152, 153.

Recitation, its evils, 127.

Reverential sentiments, cultivation of, 141.

Ruskin, John, quoted on the power of woman, 169, 170.

Scholarship must not become an end to itself, 124.

Schools do not fit their students for interpretative reading, 123.

Science, power of, 13; Wordsworth quoted on, 137.

Shakespeare, reading of, to boys and girls, 35.

Shakespeare's estimate of the voice, 109-113; his personal history and interior life, 178; quoted on woman, 179; on study, 180; his mother, 178, 181.

Similes and comparisons, reading of, 80-82.

Skill, elocutionary, 18.

Slaughter of the innocents, in schools, 40; G. H. Lewes quoted, 40, 41.

Slighting of speech illustrated, 83-95.

Speaking voice, importance of its cultivation as a moral agency, 102-109.

Speech, slighting of, illustrated, 83-95.

Spiritual education demanded for interpretative reading, 122; means and conditions of, 133-166; must be induced on the basis of the concrete and the personal, 146, 147.

Stories for the young, 153.

Taste, true, an expression of spiritual life, 129.

Taylor, Sir Henry, quoted on reading, 34-36; quoted on Tennyson's reading, 76, 77.

Teacher, the ideal, 32, 33.

Tennyson's reading, 76, 77; his 'Recollections of the Arabian Nights,' 162.

'Thorough' study of a work of genius, 124.

Time, its importance in vocal expression, 79-82.

Unconscious might, in every work of genius, 65.

University of the future, what it must do for the spiritual man, 132.

Verse, accentual and quantitative, 46-49.

Vincent de Lerins, St., quoted on the universal and the eternal, 148, 149.

Vocal exercises, 60-62.

Voice, the speaking, importance of its cultivation as a moral agency, 102-109; Shakespeare's estimate of, 109-113.

Whateley's, Archbishop, theory of 'natural' reading, 14; his own oratorical delivery, 15; his assumptions in regard to elocution, 19.

Woman, her power and rights, Mazzini quoted on, 174-177.

Womanhood, a true, 167, 170.

Womanliness _vs._ femineity, 173, 174.

Wordsworth quoted on hearing, 125; on science, 137; the great educative value of his 'Prelude,' 145.

Written, or printed, language, deficiencies of, to be supplied by the reader, 29, 30.

The Aims of Literary Study.

BY HIRAM CORSON, LL.D.

18mo. Cloth, gilt. 75 cents.

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Transcriber's Note:

The oe ligature has been replaced with oe. A lower case u with breve has been represented by [)u] on page 75.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Voice and Spiritual Education, by Hiram Corson