STUTTERING, STAMMERING
What is all this I am writing?
It is an endeavor at giving expression to an impression obtained of a great subject imperfectly understood. The general ideas underlying it all are on the lines of truth, but the contours are evanescent, the lines representing special features ill-defined, while the finer shadings are almost entirely wanting. It is a stuttering, a stammering, in matters my mind is too narrow to grasp, incapable of comprehending in all their bearings, impotent to take in in their ultimate relations. Still, I am doing what I can with such material as nature has placed at my disposal. Thought failing to make a clear impression, my pen, I fear, cannot give a clear expression to it all.
Regarding the subject of stuttering proper, I must still preface it with some remarks of a general nature. The influx and efflux of streams of air into and out of our system, called breathing, is of a very complicated nature. While we designate the same by the general terms of inspiration and expiration, these streams are of as multiform a nature as the ethereal fabrics they are intended to weave, whose weft they form, and whose warp is of a more material nature. Call these fabrics what you please—actions, speech, feelings, passions, fancies, sensations, etc. While these streams form innumerable separate systems, they are all subject to one and the same law—rhythm. The more perfect the rhythm the higher the development and consequent performance.
While we always breathe, or should breathe, in the same rhythmic order (the octave) for the sustenance of life in general, we unconsciously breathe in various other measures for an endless number of other purposes. Our dual nature, and the duality of the manner in which we breathe, as a rule enable us to go through these various performances without a disturbance as to the harmonious character of our existence. It is a great orchestral performance by instruments of various kinds and orders, each performer playing his own notes, specially adapted to his particular part and instrument; yet all coming together in one harmonious ensemble. This fact finds expression, clearly defined, in the various measures in which metre and rhythm are clad for poetry and song. The introduction into our system of a rhythmic flow of streams of air for the various purposes of vocal utterance is conditioned upon a rhythmic flow of thought.
To perfectly render a poetical conception by words either spoken or sung, the performer's mind must be in accord with the rhythm underlying such conception. In that case only will he breathe and, consequently, speak or sing in the requisite manner for such production. I should have prefaced all this by saying that, in the same manner as inspiration and expiration succeed each other in regular rotation, so do the ordinary measures of long and short (¯˘), or short and long (˘¯), in simple forms of poetry, succeed each other in regular rotation; long (¯), or stress, always standing for expiration, short (˘), or repose, for inspiration. As a matter of fact, however, inspiration is of longer duration than expiration.
All other forms are artistic, and are produced by a mode of thinking, and consequent breathing, as variable as the subject may suggest or demand. For ordinary speech, while the rhythm is not of the same order as that for poetry, a rhythmic order of some kind must be, and always is, observed. That the rhythm is not noticeable is due to the fact that, while inspiration and expiration in prose writing and ordinary conversation follow each other in regular rotation, they are not always accompanied by sound. Hence the rhythmic irregularities of speech exist only in appearance and in the inartistic manner in which speech is generally, and prose writing often, produced. A person who speaks and writes his language well, speaks and writes it rhythmically, always. Good style is synonymous with correct rhythmical expression, superinduced by correct breathing; rhythmic expression depending entirely upon rhythmic impression, and the latter upon rhythmic thought, accompanied by rhythmic breathing.
To write well (that is, a good style), to speak well (as an orator, actor, or elocutionist), to sing well, it is, above all things, necessary that the performer's mind should be in a state of conformity with the situation which is to be described. His flow of thought, and consequent breathing and mode of expression, will then correspond with the scope, drift, and circumstance underlying his performance. Unless this is the case, the latter will be unsatisfactory, unimpressive, unsympathetic. To prove that for a satisfactory performance this must be the case, it will but be necessary to call attention to the fact that under various emotions our mode of breathing undergoes great changes—as under fear, hate, jealousy, indignation, excitement, love, enthusiasm, benevolence, languor, apathy, etc. Our breathing under these different circumstances will, the same as the manner of our expression, undergo various stages of change as to time and measure, as well as to rhythm, emphasis and intonation.
The character and rapidity of the flow of our blood is of the same order as our manner of breathing. It is, in fact, as I expect to prove later on, not only of the same order, but of the same origin and regulated by the same causes. The flow of the blood is not merely of a material order, but of a spiritual one as well. While it is acted upon by the mind it reacts upon the mind.