"Der spiritus im keller brennt,
Und alles steht in flammen."
("The spirits, master, are aflame,
And all things are a-burning.")
In a recent number of Cosmopolis, Prof. Max Müller said:
"Charles Kingsley was a great martyr to stammering, and it was torture to him to keep conversation waiting until he could put his thoughts into words. Singularly enough, at church, Kingsley did not stammer at all in reading or speaking; but on his way home from church he would say to one with whom he was walking: 'Oh, let me stammer now; you won't mind it!'"
While his thoughts were concentrated on his subject, which had probably been elaborated beforehand and was expressed in rhythmic language, besides being obliged to speak slowly and deliberately so as to be heard and understood, he experienced no difficulty. Still, he was under a restraint. As soon as he was by himself again, he commenced to think impulsively, as probably was his habit, and gave vent to a torrent of thoughts, which overleaped each other like waters rushing through a broken dam.
There are two main forms in which this trouble manifests itself. The one is a surfeit, a crowding together of sounds, all of which want to come to the surface at one and the same time, like a crowd of people during a panic trying to rush out through the same door, thus causing a jam. This form, creating a hiatus in vocal utterance, is generally designated by the term "stammering." That which is called "stuttering," on the other hand, consisting, as it does, in a repetition of the same sound, is due to the opposite cause. While the former is due to too great an effort, this is due to a paucity of effort. The sound-furnishing element is not under control; it leaks out against the will, it runs away with you. Hence a repetition of the form once assumed, in consequence of a lack of nerve force, of a rein to keep it in check, of a brake preventing it from rushing down-hill with you; in contradistinction to the act of stammering, in which the brake had been too forcibly applied, the watch wound up too firmly and beyond its requirements.
In the case of stammering the impression has been too quick in shaping itself into words; in the other it has been too slow in so doing. In the former case too many moulds have been formed for proper impression; while in the latter the sound is spoken before the mould has been properly and completely formed; that part only which had been formed being uttered and repeated. In the case of stammering there is a surfeit of impression but a want of sound; in that of stuttering there is a want of impression but a surfeit of sound. A stammerer is one who takes in too much, a stutterer one who takes in too little, air for his hasty way of thinking.
When this trouble happens with one and the same person—as it sometimes does—it first assumes one shape and then the other; it turns a complete somersault in so doing. The balance, the equilibrium, the point of gravitation, previously overleaped on one side, is again overleaped, and the person lands on its extreme other side. While a stammerer he had too much ballast on board, now he has too little.
A stammerer can return to the point of gravitation by throwing some of his surplus ballast overboard. His tongue being tied to his lower jaw, in which position he is constantly taking in more air than he needs, he must raise it in order to let the surplus out from beneath the same.