THE ART OF ELOCUTION
The subject of preaching would be incomplete without a chapter on the important and graceful art of elocution.
What books should we read?
If asked what works would a student read on the subject, the wisest answer would be, every book he can lay hold of. The number of works dealing with rhetoric are few, but if a man can get half-a-dozen new ideas from any one of them his labour is more than repaid. Even should he meet the same thought repeated, the fact that it is clothed in different language and set in a new light invests it with a freshness that is sure to fix it permanently in his mind.
If, however, the question be narrowed down to which are the three best books on this subject? without pretending to give a decisive answer to this difficult question we have no hesitation in saying that, for the ecclesiastical student, "Potter's Sacred Eloquence," "The Making of an Orator," by Mr. John O'Connor Power, and Mr. McHardy Flint's little work, "Natural Elocution," will be found most useful.
Some of the thoughts in this chapter are borrowed from the last two authors.
With this general acknowledgment both gentlemen will, we are sure, be content when we spare the reader repeated references to either titles or pages of their works.
What is rhetoric?
Cicero
At the threshold of our subject we are met by the question—What is rhetoric? Mr. Power gives the answer—"The resources of rhetoric are natural resources, and rules for composition are only records intended for the guidance of those who have not discovered the originals for themselves. The first speakers had no rules and no experience to draw upon but their own. In course of time speeches came to be reported, and then the secret of their eloquence disclosed itself. All the qualities of the orator were then observed; the highest and the best were chosen and combined and erected into an art, which was named Rhetoric. This art was designed to aid speakers and not as a means of fettering their natural ability." Cicero has put almost the same thoughts in different words—"I consider that, with regard to all precept, the case is this; not that orators by adhering to them have obtained distinction in eloquence, but that certain persons have noticed what men of eloquence have practised of their own accord, and formed rules accordingly; so that eloquence has not sprung from art, but art from eloquence." This is not only sound theory, but sound sense. It shatters a time-worn fallacy and gives hope and encouragement to the student. Every man can become an orator in a greater or a less degree. The powers slumber within him; and the teacher's duty is not to create but awaken, draw out, develop and guide these inborn gifts.
Now, the question is—By what standard shall the speaker be trained? The master-hand of Shakespere has framed a set of rules that will stand for all time as the most pregnant piece of wisdom ever penned on the art of elocution. Though Hamlet's advice is addressed to actors, there is scarcely a line which the young orator can afford to ignore. He would do well to commit the entire piece to memory.
Shakespere's advice to speakers
"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus: but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'er-step not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your allowance, o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly—not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of christians, nor the gait of christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably."
Avoid extremes
It will be well to observe that throughout this advice the poet is careful to warn us against extremes—neither to tear a passion to rags nor to be too tame—he insists on moderation. Even in the very tempest of passion one must not lose self-control nor make extravagant use of the hands. The "overdone" and the "come tardy off" are the two poles to be shunned.
"Speak the speech as I pronounced it." By placing the two words "speak" and "pronounce" in contrast, Hamlet leads us to infer that in reading the play over for the actors his principal care was to give perfect articulation. "Speak the speech as I pronounced it."
"Trippingly on the tongue." Evidently the slow, thick utterance of the mumbling speaker, to the roof of whose mouth the words seem to cling, was not unknown in Shakespere's day. As a remedy against this he tells them to "speak it trippingly." No word in the English language could so clearly convey the case. Nimble, airy resonance is suggested by the very sound of the word "trippingly."
Two errors
Having given this advice he hastens to warn them against the opposite extreme: "But if you mouth it." He wants no boisterous notes of artificial passion: he would as lief the town-crier spoke his lines. The office of that humble functionary demands not the graces of finished elocution, only strong lungs with which to shout; hence a piece of delicate pathos or varied passions would probably receive scant justice at his hands. But even the town-crier is tolerable—he is nature's product— compared with the workmanship of nature's journeymen—those who strut and bellow. "They imitate humanity so abominably" that their delivery touches the extremest limit of all that is reprehensible in elocution.
Gesture
"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." Here we have the fundamental law for the use of gesture.
Gesture is not an artificial action standing apart from, or added to, the words. It is thought seeking spontaneous, visible, outward expression through the movements of the hand or eye or features just at the moment when that same thought is receiving articulate birth on the tongue. Its purpose is to make the words grow large, as it were; to expand and emphasise their meaning; hence the wisdom of the advice—"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." If the action distract the listeners' attention from the word its purpose is defeated.
Now that we have an idea of what elocution is, and analysed the wisest set of rules ever framed for its government, we turn to the mechanical agencies by which it is produced—breathing, resonance, inflection.
How to inhale
When a person draws in the air through the mouth, the cold, unpurified stream strikes directly on the back of the roof, causing dryness and irritation. To avoid this the preacher, except when actually engaged in speaking, should inhale through the nose. The advantages of so doing are considerable. The air inhaled through the nasal organs is drawn over the roof of the mouth and soft palate, and thus warmed by contact with the blood-vessels; so that it is rendered innoxious by the time it reaches the throat. Again, any particles of dust or other impurities it might contain are caught by the filterers or hairs situated in the nasal cavities for that purpose. Thus it reaches the tender vocal chords both warmed and purified. To these may be added another advantage: it is more becoming to inhale with closed lips—the picture of a speaker gasping open-mouthed is not a graceful one.
How use the lungs
We now come to the important question—How shall I increase my vocal powers? As is well known, there are two methods of inhaling and expelling the air from the lungs. One is by means of the rising and falling of the ribs. This is called "the costal method." The other is by the contraction and distention of the midriff or diaphragm. The diaphragm is the movable floor to the thorax or box that encloses the lungs. This is called "the diaphragmatic method." Now, since God has furnished us with both methods, He evidently intended that we should use both, as we use our two eyes or our two ears. They are given, not as alternative, but as simultaneous instruments of action. The weakness in many a speaker's voice, its want of volume and its failure when a sustained effort is demanded, is due to the fact that he breathes by means of his ribs alone, throwing all the pressure on the upper portion of the lungs, not asking the large areas to contribute anything. He thus robs himself of breathing capacity, and consequently of voice power.
Diaphragmatic breathing
To get a perfect mastery over the "diaphragmatic" method and make it as serviceable as possible, practise breathing while lying on your back, filling the lungs to the utmost, and exhausting them as completely as possible. Inhale rapidly and exhale slowly. Then reverse the order; inhale slowly and exhale rapidly. Again let "slow" and "rapid" alternately make both movements.
By this exercise you acquire flexibility of the midriff muscles, you enlarge the cubic dimensions of the breathing area, you distribute the burden generally; and when the occasion comes to send your voice over four thousand heads you will discover that the reserve fund of voice and strength acquired by this practice is at your service. This plan bears that highest and safest sanction—in practical experience it has proved a genuine success.
A clergyman's sore throat
The ailment known as "a clergyman's sore throat" is too common and too serious to be passed over—the raucous, husky voice sawn across the throat, the congested blood-vessels, the strained muscles, the throat lining as raw as a beefsteak. Here you have evident results of some unnatural effort. What is it? In ordinary conversation we employ the throat, back of the mouth and vocal chords mainly: very little demand is made on the lungs. The voice we use is the "head voice." Now, when called on to fill a large building, the centre of stress should instantly be shifted from the mouth and throat to the lungs. On them the whole weight should be flung—then you produce the "chest voice." It is the want of this transference of strain from the throat to the lungs that causes the misery called "a clergyman's sore throat." Men endeavour to fill a large building with precisely the same set of organs that they use when speaking by the fireside. The strain intended for the broad-based, strong-fibred lungs is kept on the delicate vocal chords, palate and throat. These were never built for that purpose, and nature kicks against the outrage. The throat becomes congested, parched, torn and raw; the voice grows husky, cracked, and finally ends in a scream. Here is the genesis of the fatal "clergyman's sore throat" explained.
An illustration
Analogy makes this clearer still. Our back teeth were built for the purpose of grinding; hence their broad crowns, strong shafts, and firm roots; the teeth in the front of the mouth were intended for tasks not at all so arduous. Tamper with this arrangement; transfer the laborious work of mastication to the front teeth, and see how nature will punish you. This illustrates the outrage committed when the strain and effort that should be shifted to the lungs are allowed to rest on the slender organs intended for the entirely different purpose of modulation.
How acquire a chest voice
One question remains—How can a person cultivate a chest voice? How bring the voice directly from the lungs without in the least distressing the throat? This is all important. The young speaker should practise for a short time daily the method of lifting, first, words and then sentences straight from the lungs without making the least possible demand on the throat or vocal chords, stealing each word out of the depths of the lungs, afraid, as it were, of awakening the upper organs. When he has acquired this habit of speaking words and sentences, let him practise a verse or two of declamation. In a short time he will be surprised at his progress in acquiring a chest voice. In public speaking it will become his ordinary voice; for not only does the established habit assist him, but the organs daily develop and fit themselves to his purpose, and he learns to transfer the stress from his throat to his lungs as easily and quickly and instinctively as the pianist passes his fingers from the treble to the base notes on the keyboard.
The test of any theory is—How has it worked in practice? The method of voice production here recommended has given the writer advantages that it would be difficult to overestimate. Lungs naturally weak grew to three times their former size and strength; his voice increased in depth, richness and resonance; though constantly speaking in large churches for years, he has never known what hoarseness, sore throat or huskiness is.
A method that to him has been worth untold gold may not be without advantage to his readers.
Resonance
We must, however, have more than speech; we must have musical speech. This is acquired by resonance and inflection.
To send a stream of air from the lungs and vocalise it on its outward passage is not enough; by this you produce only a tiny, impoverished voice that conveys no force and awakens no emotion. There is something wanting; that something is—Resonance. It supplies richness and effectiveness to the stream of sound.
An illustration
The difference between speech stripped of resonance and accompanied with it is best illustrated by a simple experiment. Take a violin-string in your hand: touch it, and mark the sound produced—how weak and thin. Now, attach the string to the violin: touch it again, and see how the resonating instrument converts the feeble sound of the detached string into a sonorous wave of vibrating music. Now, the vocal chords are placed in the throat midway between two resonators—the chest and the head. These are to the chords what the body of the violin is to the string. When the stream of air has passed the chords it is already accompanied by the vibrations of the chest, but the head is the main contributor. The residual air in the upper portions of the throat, mouth and nasal cavities is thrown into vibration.
Here the importance of the subject reveals itself. The art that can convert a screech into pleasing cadences of soft sound is no trifle. Nasal resonance must not be confounded with nasal twang. The one is produced by vibrating the air in the cavities, the twang by expelling it from them. The part played by each organ in voice production may be briefly summarised:—The lungs send out a stream of air; the vocal chords, principally, modulate it; the head and chest give it resonance.
Now, that it is clearly evident God intended us to speak and sing to the accompaniment of these aerial orchestras concealed in the head and chest, the only remaining question is—How we shall use them?
Advice how to avoid screech
Take care never to exhaust these reservoirs of air; if you do the result will be screech and shout. No matter what demand is made on you, be sure to hold a reserve supply of residual air: set it vibrating, and your voice on its outward passage will receive an enrichment of volume, force, and music.
Inflection: its necessity
"Go slowly and articulate well" are not sufficient. "Inflect your language" must be added. A student should practise assiduously till his sentences become as flexible as a cutting whip, capable of being bent to every mood and of lending themselves to every passion. In pathos his words should sink almost to a sob, tearful in their plaintiveness; in denunciation they should rise, muttering the voices of the storms; and in narrative the proper pitch is ordinary middle tone.
French and English want inflection
It is in this want of inflective grace that English, and more especially French, speakers lose so much of their force. Both read admirably and articulate with precision, but the unvaried straight line tone, so suited to reading, will not serve the purpose when we not only wish to make people understand, but also endeavour to move their passions.
The secret power of a good story-teller
Recall a good story-teller or speaker of whom you never wearied; go back in memory and see how much he owed to the power contained in the inflected voice—the varied tones that sank or swelled as suited the mood or passion.
As you sat by the winter's fire your flesh was made to creep and your hair stood on end in terror while you furtively stole a glance around looking for the apparition described in the weird ghost story. The secret power that somewhere lay enthralled you. Was it not in the husky whisper or the hush of restraint? Let that speaker tell the same story in the middle pitched narrative tone, and lo! the spell is vanished. If the thunder thrills that rocked and vibrated through his voice were taken from Demosthenes, would he have ever driven Eschines into exile?
Two advantages of inflection
The practice of varied cadences in speech has two genuine advantages—it saves the speaker from fatigue and the hearers from weariness.
When a man varies his tone of voice he breaks up the arrangement in the group of muscles that till then bore the stress of effort: a new combination is formed, and the work transferred to fresh muscles. This brings instant relief. A similar sense of refreshment comes to his hearers.
In speaking, as in singing, we must have melody, but there is no melody without variety. People would rush even from a Melba if she sang every note in the same key. Inflection not only constitutes the melody of speech, but imparts to it rhetorical significance and logical force.
The want of success in many a speaker who has both a good voice and good matter may be found in the fact that his voice, instead of being as flexible as a piece of whalebone, is as unbending as a bar of iron; or, worse still, perhaps he adopts the dreary monotony of the sing-song tone: the two unvarying notes so suggestive of the up and down movements of a pump-handle. This "cuckoo" tone would blight the best written sermon.
Two impediments to good preaching
Nothing now remains except to warn the young preacher against the two most common defects—affectation of voice and word-dropping at the end of the sentences.
An artificial tone of voice
"Preach," says Dr. Ireland, "in a manner that the people will understand, and that goes straight to their hearts, and not in the stilted phraseology of the seventeenth century sermon." Sage advice! The comic stage has set the world laughing at the grotesque inflections of the parson preacher; but is his counterpart never found amongst ourselves. Is the Catholic pulpit free from speakers whose ridiculous cadences at once class them amongst the disciples of the Rev. Mr. Spalding?
Artificiality means failure
We have met priests, typical of a considerably large class, who, in ordinary conversation, could speak in a manner both natural and pleasing; who, when roused, could be even eloquently convincing; who, at the dinner-table and even on the platform, are listened to with pleasure, yet let one of them go into a pulpit, and fifteen minutes exhausts the patience of the most charitable congregation. Should he exceed this limit there are suppressed sighs and ominous consulting of watches. Why? Because in the pulpit he adopts an artificial tone of voice. In some instances it takes the shape of a pious whine, in others of a drone. But in whatever shape it finds expression the hollow ring of the unreal is there to damn it.
How he came to acquire it
A hoary tradition made it venerable in his eyes. As a boy he heard it from a pastor to whom he was accustomed to look with reverence.
He came to persuade himself that, like a "judge's gravity" or a "soldier's step," a priest too should bear a professional hallmark, and this should be a "preacher's voice," so he acquired it. Fatal acquisition!
The peculiarity of it is that this tone is reserved exclusively for the pulpit. Not a whisper of it heard during the week. It is his "preaching voice," and like his "preaching stole" or "preaching surplice" it is laid aside till Sunday brings him again before the congregation.
The result of the artificial tone
What madness! Adopting this tone is like drawing the lead from the pistol or putting a foil on the rapier: it defeats his purpose, it renders his weapon ineffective. So far from setting his congregation on fire he sets them asleep; instead of sending them away with clenched convictions they leave the church tittering, or perhaps in bad temper.
Priests never use in moments of serious issues
I would like to ask such a man—If you were pleading in a court for your character or before an angry mob for your life is it on this antiquated weapon you would rely? Would not nature's unerring instinct tell you to fling it to the winds and stake your fortunes on the untrammeled outpouring of head and heart? Every tone would ring with earnestness: every sentence thrill with passion.
The thoughts, how clear! How convincing the arguments! Nature's unfettered strength would then, like a tidal wave, sweep you triumphantly onward to the goal.
Yet when you stand in the pulpit to plead a brief for Christ the simple, unaffected earnestness that everywhere else carries conviction is abandoned for such a musty instrument as an unctuous whine or a holy drone. The young priest should avoid it: it spells ruin.
Voice dropping
It is wonderful how few the speakers are who sustain the same pitch and energy of voice from the beginning of a sentence to its closing syllable.
Cause of the defect
The temptation to exhaust the air in the lungs, and therefore permit the final words to drop, is so strong that unless a student watch it and assiduously guard against it he will discover that he has fallen victim to this weak point before he is twelve months a priest.
It destroys a sermon
Whenever you hear the last words of each sentence of a sermon growing faint, like Marathon runners staggering feebly towards the goal, and the final word dropping completely under, that sermon, no matter how beautiful its conception or eloquent its composition, is doomed to failure.
The entire meaning of many a sentence is completely lost if the last words fail to reach the listeners' ears. Very often the last word is the important member of a sentence, the others being merely ancillary to it. In oratory, especially, many a sentence has to depend for its driving force on the energy with which the final words are sent home.
Now, when people give a preacher attentive interest, the least they are entitled to expect is that he should let them hear every word. But finding themselves invariably baffled by the last word becoming inaudible, it is small wonder if, tantalised and disgusted, they abandon all effort to follow him.
The cure
It is therefore of great importance that this defect, so fatal yet so common, should be provided against in time. But how?
Since it comes from exhaustion, consequent on the mismanagement of the voice, the remedy is obvious.
Let the student daily practise reading aloud in the open air, preferably sermons or speeches by the best authors.
Let him nervously guard against allowing his voice to show the slightest trace of fatigue in the final words of each sentence. This can be accomplished by inhaling fully, going slowly, and not only giving full value to the punctuation stops, but resting at the rhetorical and logical pauses.
Advantages of the remedy
By this excellent practice he strengthens his lungs and vocal organs, cultivates his ear, and acquires a control over his voice so perfect that he can husband his reserve fund of breath and strength to impart at will freshness to the final syllable.
This practice should be continued till it becomes a rooted habit, till it has grown to be his normal method of speaking.
When he goes into the pulpit I would give him an advice, the value of which time and experience can alone enable him to appreciate.
Direct your voice not to the end of the church, but to the side wall about three-quarters way down from the pulpit to the door. Fix your eye on some person there; to him address your sermon, but pitch your voice against the wall about two feet above his head.
By this plan you not only secure your voice against unnecessary fatigue, but you take the surest method of sending it into every ear, and the reverberations of your own voice will act electrically on you.
As ring after ring of your sentences comes back from the sounding spot against which you have discharged them you are filled with courageous confidence and an assurance that every word has found its mark.
A recent writer in the Quarterly Review discloses in one luminous sentence the qualities that go to make an orator, and every priest should struggle with all his might to be an orator in the best sense of the word.
He says: "Nor is any man a great orator who has not many of the gifts of a great actor—his command of gesture, his variety and grace of elocution, his mobility of features, his instant sympathy with the ethical tone of this or that situation, his power of evoking that sympathy in every member of his audience; and this is surely what Demosthenes meant by making acting not action the secret of all oratory."
What a vista these words open up! What a variety of accomplishments demanded that can only be acquired, even by the most gifted, by long study and patient practice! And since learning to speak in public is like learning to swim, or to skate, or to ride a bicycle, in this sense at least, that no amount of previous theoretical instruction will enable one to realise the initial difficulties or find out how to overcome them without actual experiment, it would be arrant folly on the part of the future priest to neglect this subject during his student years.
These questions—Culture, English, and Preaching—should occupy a foremost place in the curricula of our colleges. It is only by training the student from the start, by fostering literary, dramatic and debating societies where not alone the practical art of speaking is developed, but the social amenities of good society are practised, that the young priest can be equipped to efficiently discharge the high office awaiting him, and so reflect a lasting credit on the Church of God at home and abroad.