contrast, and dramatic insight here must be very clear. Our sympathetic identification and realization of each speech is most important, but the greatest line, the one that calls for the deepest and most intense sympathy, is not dramatic but epic, when we simply describe his death.

To test the weakness of imitation try to imitate the little girl's quivering voice and the literal voice of the old skipper, or his manner of speaking. That is not dramatic art. Imitation is not the basis of dramatic intensity. Sympathetic insight, assimilation and identification, - these are the causes of genuine dramatic instinct and expression. The evils of imitation were long ago perceived and many efforts were made to discover some other method as the basis of delivery. One of these is the so-called Rush System. This finds some of the mechanical elements of conversation, such as the direction and length of inflexion. A short sentence is analyzed upon a blackboard and every student must read it according to the marks.

Such a method is not founded in the study and development of thinking or of assimilation. It tends to makes the student mechanical. The rules laid down dethrone thinking as much as does imitation, all the spontaneous actions of the mind are ignored by such a process. Tone color and all the indirect or involuntary modulations or elements of delivery need to be awakened in us, and the personal differences of every individual, as well as the directly voluntary and conscious elements.

So universally have mechanical and imitative methods prevailed that it may be well to summarize the general principles of expression which the student needs to study seriously. There is an endeavor in all these books to obey these principles, which are the result of very careful study of nature.

1. The method centres in thinking. The student must find the fundamentals of his own thinking and talking, and so accentuate the mental actions as to develop better thinking and voice modulation.

2. Attention must always be given to fundamentals. 3. No step must be taken that does not recognize the

spontaneous elements of delivery. Such work upon fundamentals must be undertaken as will stimulate all elements in unity.

4. Impression must always be co-ordinated with expression.

5 The causes of all faults in reading and speaking are primarily in the mind.

6. The chief aim must be to awaken all faculties and bring them into harmonious activity.

7. Reading and speaking are direct modulations of voice by the actions of the mind. These modulations are not symbols but signs.

XXXV. TRANSITIONS

"The Builders."

Only a little shriveled seed,

It might be a flower, or grass, or weed;
Only a box of earth on the edge
Of a narrow, dusty window-ledge;
Only a few scant summer showers;
Only a few clear shining hours;
That was all. Yet God could make
Out of these, for a sick child's sake,
A blossom-wonder, as fair and sweet
As ever broke at an angel's feet.

Henry Van Dyke

The developing of true sympathetic identification or dramatic instinct in reading and speaking as distinguished from mechanical imitation is of great importance. One of the most valuable practices for this purpose is the mastering of sudden changes or extreme transitions in different passages.

The practice of transitions will help to correct monotony, get more sympathetic response out of the voice, stimulate deeper breathing and secure better control of all the conditions of vocal expression.

In addition to this must come development of the dramatic sense and of the imagination, and a stimulation, education and control of right emotion.

In practicing these transitions observe the necessity of a pause. Any change in ideas or in situation causes change of pitch; change of feeling will cause change in sympathetic

vibration or tone color. Besides these, there is nearly always a change in the degree of intensity and also in importance. These changes nearly always take place together. Do not think that they are artificial. They are the expression of imagination and of feeling. They not be made mechanically. If ideas are alive they

be

different. Life causes progression, contrast, Vanation. A machine is always monotonous. Let your ideas live, and dominate your sympathies.

What is the chief cause of the neutral, negative, monotonous reading and speaking which are so often heard?

Only a little observation will show us that it is a lack of sympathy, or identification with what is read. We can conceive of things in a cold, intellectual way and keep ourselves entirely aloof from the spirit of our words. Professor Monroe used to say: "There are three great words in reading, - imagination, sympathy and suggestion." Imagination gives the situation. Sympathy puts us in that situation; and suggestion or intimating the expression makes it alive.

When he heard the owls at midnight,
Hooting, laughing in the forest,
"What is that?" he cried in terror;
"What is that?" he said, "Nokomis?”
And the good Nokomis answered:
"That is but the owl and owlet,

Talking in their native language."

In the preceding lines, we must not only hear the owl, but hear it as Hiawatha heard it, and we must feel as he felt; we must trust our instinct to reveal this impression in a natural, simple way.

Transitions are not expressed where assimilation or sympathetic identification is lacking. Do not let transitional passages become mere words or be twined into abstract neutral thought. To render them truly you must live every idea as you give it.

Transitions mean that you must take time. You must not only see but also feel before you speak.

The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums,
His bravoes of Alsatia, and pages of Whitehall;

They are bursting on our flanks. Grasp your pikes, close your ranks, For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall.

They are here! They rush on! We are broken! We are gone!

orne before them like stubble on the blast.

orth thy might! O Lord, defend the right!

ack to back, in God's name, and fight it to the last.

Stout Skippon hath a wound; the centre hath given ground;

Hark! hark! What means this trampling of horsemen in our rear?
Whose banner do I see, boys? 'T is he, thank God! 't is he, boys.
Bear up another minute: brave Oliver is here.

Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row,
Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykes;
Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst,
And at a shock have scattered the forest of his pikes.
"The Battle of Naseby."

Thomas Babington Macaulay

In Macaulay's description of "The Battle of Naseby" there are some very sudden and extreme transitions. You feel that you are identified with the fierceness of the enemy, the furious Germans. Then comes the realization, "We are broken!" Then a prayer, and in the next line a resolution to stand back to back and "fight it to the last." Another line brings excitement about the leader being wounded, the centre giving ground. At last with "Hark" there comes great relief and joy, for Cromwell is coming.

A GEM

Once from a cloud, a drop of rain

Fell, trembling, in the sea,

And when she saw the wide-spread main,

Shame veiled her modesty:

"What place on this wide sea have I?

What room is left for me?

Sure it were better that I die
In this immensity!"

But while her self-abasing fear
Its lowliness confessed,

A shell received and welcomed her,
And pressed her to its breast.

And nourished there, the drop became
A pearl for royal eyes
Exalted by its lowly shame,

And humbled but to rise!

Author not known

There must be a difference with each idea. Nothing can be at a standstill. Everything is progressive, not only in a story but in all thinking. If you genuinely think and live your ideas and all your faculties are awake you will never read monotonously. There will be many transitions, changes and modulations of voice. You find these in simple passages. If a student is careless, he will overlook them, but one who keeps his imagination vivid and his sympathy true, will never neglect them.

The air for the wing of the sparrow,

The bush for the robin and wren,

But always the path that is narrow

And straight, for the children of men.

From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay, in his shroud of snow.

"The Old Clock on the Stair."

Alice Cary

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

The practice of transitions should be very definite. Take a short passage with only one such transition and repeat it many times until all the variations of experience and the response to these in the voice and body are realized. This will develop elasticity of tone and cause emotion to diffuse itself through the body and bring about a more responsive condition of the body and of the mental and emotional action. It will minimize the tendency to monotony and