Vocal Expression: A Class-book of Voice Training and Interpretation

by Katherine Jewell Everts

SUGGESTIVE ANALYSIS

We shall use for suggestive analysis in this study not a complete specimen of narration, but several examples illustrating two of the three elements necessary to the personnel of a good story. These three recognized elements are the setting or situation which the pictures compose, the atmosphere which the characters create, and the plot or the action in which the characters engage. We shall leave the question of the plot to class work upon the selections from epic poetry to be considered later in this study.

Suppose we test our imaginations in the analysis of a situation or setting before we attempt a character study. Remember the situation is to be realized through imagination as though it were actual experience. It is to be recreated. Give your imagination full play in this opening chapter of George Eliot's Mill on the Floss. Let us read the first sentence:

A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.

Can you see and feel the elements of this picture! You have never experienced a tide river? Never mind! There is enough in the picture which is familiar to your actual senses through experience to brace your imagination for a grasp of the unfamiliar elements. The wide plain, the river hurrying between green banks—no apperceptive background fails thus far in the picture. What do we mean by apperceptive background? Let us investigate for a moment the psychology involved in the art of "making pictures." Let us get back of this word-picture. Rather let us stay this side of it. Look at the page before you not with the inner eye of your imagination, but with the outer eye—the eye which is merely the organ of the sense of sight. Use your eye as a physical sense only. What does your eye carry to your mind when you look at this page? "Black letters grouped into words on a white surface." Did you get all these qualities at once? Yes, because you have seen other printed pages. Can you wipe out of your mind your knowledge of paper, print, and words? Can you imagine looking on such a page as this for the first time—perceiving it for the first time? If you can do this you will arrive at an understanding of apperceptive background through its elimination. You will realize, that all that is in the back of your mind, stored there by its previous acquaintance with other printed pages, makes up the apperceptive background by which you get a conception of this page. That conception comes first through your physical sense of sight. You may perceive also through touch, through feeling, for instance, the quality of paper. But all that you perceive in this initial process,—the stimulus which comes through the physical senses, yields little to the complete conception as compared with the yield of your so-called mental senses. It is when you have fully apperceived the object that your conception is complete. It is when you have brought to bear upon this page (still looked upon, remember, merely as a printed page regardless of the matter behind the print) all your previous knowledge,—it is when you have observed that the paper is of good quality, that the page is closely set, that the print is excellent, that the margin is wide,—it is when you have compared it in memory with other pages in other books,—it is when you have not only perceived but apperceived it that you have really gained a conception of it. Of course, if you are a type-setter, or a proof-reader, or a printer, or an editor, or one connected with book-making in any least or last capacity, you will see a printed page quite lost to me, because your apperceptive background will outmatch mine as to paper, print, margin, and type. Good! I yield to you from type-setter to editor! But I challenge you to another contest over the same page. Match with me now conceptions gained from another view of this same printed matter. Forget now type, paper, margins, and words—yes, forget the words as printed words—look back of them with me. What do you see now on the page? Still words? Look behind them at the pictures! Now, what do you see? "A wide plain, a river, green banks, the sea!" Yes, but I see more than that! And you do, too? "The river flows between green banks?" You have missed a point. How does she flow? Ah, yes, "She hurries on." Where? "To the sea!" Yes! And what meets her? "The tide!" Yes, the loving tide meets her! But how? "Rushing, he checks her passage in an impetuous embrace!" "You see all this!" you say. Yes, but do you hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it? Are you, too, caught up in that impetuous embrace? No? Ah, then your imagination is only half awake. No, it is not a question of background or actual experience now. There are enough familiar elements, as I have said before, to rouse your senses to vividly realize the picture as a whole if you will not shut the door to such realization—that door is your imagination. Open it! Open it! Now I shall close the book and ask the class to do likewise, while you read once more to us these first sentences, paint for us this picture. Yes, now you are using your imagination to stimulate my senses and awake my imagination, but you must take heed. You must let me enjoy this picture as a whole. You must let me see, feel, taste, smell, all "in the same breath." Remember it is a picture. Don't disregard its perspective. Let all the elements rest in proper relation one to another and to the whole—as George Eliot placed them when she made the setting. The atmosphere is on the whole full of peace. The river "hurries," but the "plain is wide"; the tide "rushes," but it is a "loving tide," even though its embrace be "impetuous." Try it once more! Is there not the joy of creation in such interpretation? Let us read on! You read to us still.

On this mighty tide the black ships—laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with dark glitter of coal—are borne along to the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures and the patches of dark earth, made ready for the seed of broad-leaved, green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of the last year's golden clusters of beehive ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees: the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark, changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is dear and loving. I remember these large, dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.

And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at—perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above.

The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a grand curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses—the strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home! Look at their grand shaggy feet, that seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength of their neck, bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees.

Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is watching it too: she has been standing on just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge. And that queer white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous, because his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge.

Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver were talking about as they sat by the bright fire in the left-hand parlor on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.

If, in your interpretation of this passage, a sensitive imagination free, but controlled by vital thought and intelligent feeling, has found in trained instruments a lucid channel for expression, then, at the close of your reading, we, your auditors, shall find our arms really benumbed from pressing our elbows on the arms of our chairs as we dream with you that we are standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill—the Mill on the Floss, which we find on awakening is but the title and setting of a great author's great story.

We turn now to the second element of Narration—the characters. The setting we have just analyzed has introduced us to the main characters of a great story. Our interest is already awake to the little girl who has been watching with us the unresting wheel of the mill. Why not take Maggie Tulliver for our character study? To follow Maggie but a little way is to find Tom. This is well for us, because we need to study both types. Let us read from the chapter called "Tom Comes Home" in the life of the boy and girl.

TOM COMES HOME

Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound came—that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels—and in spite of the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the door, and even held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting all the griefs of the morning.

"There he is, my sweet lad! But Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoiled the set."

Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap—what! are you there?"

Nevertheless, he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England and at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings—a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows—a physiognomy in which it seems impossible to discern anything but the generic character of boyhood; as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed to have molded and colored with the most decided intention. But that same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.

"Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box, and the warm parlor had taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know what I've got in my pockets," nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery.

"No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles) or cobnuts?" Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it was "no good" playing with her at those games—she played so badly.

"Marls! no; I've swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see here!" He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket.

"What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit of yellow."

"Why, it's ... a ... new ... guess, Maggie."

"Oh, I can't guess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently.

"Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his hand back into his pocket and looking determined.

"No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I can't bear guessing. Please be good to me."

Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new fish-line—two new uns—one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I wouldn't go halves in the toffee and ginger-bread on purpose to save the money; Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't. And here's hooks—see here! I say, won't we go and fish to-morrow down by Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie, and put the worms on, and everything—won't it be fun?"

Maggie's answer was to throw her arms around Tom's neck and hug him, and hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly unwound some line, saying, after a pause:

"Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You know, I needn't have bought it if I hadn't liked."

"Yes, very, very good. I do love you, Tom."

Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks one by one, before he spoke again.

"And the fellows fought me because I wouldn't give in about the toffee."

"Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?"

"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:

"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know—that's what he got by wanting to leather me; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me."

"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him—wouldn't you, Tom?"

"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions only in the shows."

"No; but if we were in the lion countries—I mean, in Africa, where it's very hot—the lions eat people there. I can show it to you in the book where I read it."

"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."

"But if you hadn't got a gun—we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you do, Tom?"

Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: "But the lion isn't coming. What's the use of talking?"

"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him. "Just think what you would do, Tom?"

"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly—I shall go and see my rabbits."

Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all things—it was quite a different anger from her own.

"Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out-of-doors, "how much money did you give for your rabbits?"

"Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly.

"I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse up-stairs. I'll ask mother to give it you."

"What for?" said Tom. "I don't want your money, you silly thing. I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes, because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're only a girl."

"Well, but, Tom—if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket to spend, you know, and buy some more rabbits with it?"

"More rabbits? I don't want any more."

"Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."

Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie. "You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his color heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. "I'll pitch into Harry—I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits every day." He walked on again.

"Yes. But I forgot—and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast.

"You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm sorry I bought you the fish-line. I don't love you."

"Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you if you forgot anything—I wouldn't mind what you did—I'd forgive you and love you."

"Yes, you're a silly; but I never do forget things—I don't."

"Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie, shaking with sobs, clinging to Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on his shoulder.

Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone: "Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?"

"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsively.

"Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?"

"Ye-ye-es ... and I ... lo-lo-love you so, Tom."

"But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite, all for nothing."

"But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it."

"Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And you're a naughty girl, and you sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow."

With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry.

Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two; then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic, where she sat on the floor, and laid her head against the worm-eaten shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had thought how happy she should be—and now he was cruel to her. What use was anything, if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn't she wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to Tom—had never meant to be naughty to him.

"Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was too miserable to be angry.

These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

This text furnishes an easier exercise in interpretation, does it not? It does not require a great stretch of imagination to slip back five, ten, a dozen years to play with these children. But I cannot let you play with them. We want to meet and know them. The task for your imagination is not so simple as you think. It is called upon to engage in character interpretation. You cannot be allowed to merely watch Maggie and Tom play, or even to play with them. You must use your imagination to get inside the minds, hearts, souls of this boy and girl and reveal them to us. You must relive this scene for us, becoming first Maggie and then Tom. This exercise of your imagination belongs in its final and complete stage to the next and last of our studies, and to work on the drama; so we shall not demand too much of you along this line here, and I shall confine my suggestive analysis of the text to the following questions:

Define the relation existing between this brother and sister indicated by this scene.

Is this scene typical of their relation?

Is it a relation likely to obtain throughout their lives? Why?

Define the dispositions of these two children by applying to each three adjectives.

Will Maggie or Tom make the sacrifices inevitable to such a relation?

Characterize as to inflection and tone-color Maggie's voice and Tom's. (If your use of this book has been intelligently directed you have already made a study of these two elements of a vocal vocabulary—inflection and tone-color.)

Answer these questions and re-read the scene.