THE INCHCAPE ROCK No stir in the air, no stir in the sea, Without either sign or sound of their shock, The worthy Abbot of Aberbrothock Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock; When the Rock was hid by the surge's swell, The sun in heaven was shining gay, The sea birds screamed as they wheeled around, The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen, He felt the cheering power of spring, His eye was on the Inchcape float; And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothock." The boat is lowered, the boatmen row, Sir Ralph bent over from the boat, And he cut the bell from the Inchcape float. Down sank the bell with a gurgling sound, The bubbles rose and burst around; Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the Rock Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothock." Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away; And now, grown rich with plundered store, On deck the Rover takes his stand; Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon, "Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar? They hear no sound, the swell is strong; Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair; And the vessel sinks beneath the tide. Robert Southey A kind hearted abbot once placed a bell on a dangerous rock where the swaying of the waves caused it to ring, and thus save many lives. But a pirate cut the bell from the float and laughed as it sank, crying: "The next one who comes this way will not bless the abbot." He little thought that the " next one would be himself. If one tells this story with the knave's sarcasm and sneering, and then with feeling for him as he and his band went down, there will be corresponding changes in the voice. Observe that if you naturally think each idea, and picture it in your mind, allowing your imagination to present every situation and identify you with it, you will feel each event as if you were taking part. You will feel the agitation when the pirate hears the breakers roar, and the longing for the bell which had been cut from its float. Then will follow deep anxiety and the terrible shock, and at the last your sympathy for Sir Ralph. THE KNIGHTS AND THE SHIELD In the olden times a British prince set up a statue to the goddess of Victory, at a point where four roads met. In her right hand she held a spear, and her left rested upon a shield. The outside of this shield was of gold, and the inside of silver, and on each side was an inscription. It happened one day that two knights one in black armor, the other in white — arrived at the same time, but from opposite directions, at the statue. As neither of them had seen it before, they stopped to examine the beautiful workmanship and read the inscription. "This golden shield," said the Black Knight, after examining it for some time "this golden shield " "Golden shield!" cried the White Knight, who was as closely observing the other side; "why, if I have my eyes, it is silver." Eyes you have, but they see not," replied the Black Knight; “for if I saw a golden shield in my life, this is one.” "O yes, it is so likely that any one would expose a golden shield on the public road!" said the White Knight, with a sarcastic smile. "For my part I wonder that even a silver one is not too strong a temptation for some people who pass this way." The Black Knight could not bear the smile with which this was spoken, and the dispute grew so warm that it ended in a challenge. The knights turned their horses, and rode back to have sufficient space; then, fixing their spears in their rests, they charged at each other with the greatest fury. The shock was so violent, and the blows on each side were so heavy, that they both fell to the ground, bleeding and stunned. In this condition a good Druid who was traveling that way found them. He was a skillful physician, and had with him a balsam of wonderful healing power. This he applied to their wounds, and when the knights had recovered their senses he began to inquire into the cause of their quarrel. Why, this man," cried the Black Knight," will have it that yonder shield is silver! "And he will have it that it is gold!" cried the White Knight. "Ah!" said the Druid with a sigh, "you are both of you, my brethren, in the right, and both of you in the wrong. If either of you had taken time to look at the opposite side of the shield as well as at that which first met his eye, all this passion and bloodshed might have been avoided. However, there is a very good lesson to be learned from the evils that have befallen you. In the future, never enter into any dispute till you have fairly considered both sides of the question." XXXIV. ASSIMILATION AND IMITATION "Jehovah!" trumpets far the breaking ice! Trans. and adapted from "Chamouni." Beaumont Frederike Brün In giving the names for Deity quoted in the above lines should we imitate successively the breaking ice, the avalanche, the wind in the pines, and the streams, or should we manifest the successive impressions made upon our imagination and feeling? Which rendering degrades the passage and sounds comically profane? Which gives it dignity? The fault which we first observe in expression is monotony, a sameness in everything. This is caused by a certain neutral attitude of mind toward what we speak; it is due to a failure to realize each successive centre of attention. There are two remedies. One is to imitate or to make each word echo the sense; the other is to reveal our personal impression. The false method of expression, styled imitation, although it is universal, violates every principle of assimilation. Imitation is external and mechanical; it has nothing to do with the power to identify ourselves with ideas and situations. It overlooks the real nature of expression and of all art. "We can imitate," says Ruskin, "an ignoble thing but not a noble one." Even true acting is not imitation but assimilation. The dramatic instinct does not result from imitation, but from imagination and sympathy. Imitation seeks to correct monotony from without inward. But the cause of monotony is lack of true imaginative and sympathetic realization, for the external manipulation which always results from imitation lessens attention and superficializes thinking. Assimilation, on the other hand, corrects monotony by making thinking more intense, feeling deeper and by bringing thought and emotion into unity. "Awake, awake, Ring the alarum-bell:- Murder, and treason, Our royal master's murder'd." Suppose someone in giving these lines of Macduff after he had discovered the murder of Duncan, in crying out "Ring the alarum bell" should undertake to imitate the bell, the central thought, the real spirit of the passage would be completely interrupted and ruined by such imitation. And you, ye storms, howl out his greatness! Let your thunders roll like drums in the march of the God of armies! Let your lightnings write his name in fire on the midnight darkness; let the illimitable void of space become one mouth for song; and let the unnavigated ether, through its shoreless depths, bear through the infinite remote the name of Him whose goodness endureth forever! Charles Haddon Spurgeon Suppose that in this passage from Spurgeon, where he describes how God is proclaimed by the voice of nature, one should imitate the drum or the thunder, — the whole passage would be completely degraded. Imitation, therefore, is directly opposed to assimilation. If we wish to mock a person we imitate him. But if we wish to show the beauty of his character we manifest our feeling about him. Artistic expression is not a mechanical production but the revelation of our own struggle to comprehend. This applies to all forms of art. Dramatic art does not imitate character. While dramatic is more representative than lyric art it is none the less the result of assimilation. If you render Maurice Thompson's beautiful description of a brook in his "In the Haunts of Bass and Bream," you find a continual succession of wonderful impressions. A few of these, such as "bubble, bubble," may be taken as descriptive or representative. Observe, however, that if we take the first two lines or the last two and try to represent a brook by "bubble, bubble," we shall emphasize these |