—Said you found me somewhere (scold me!)
Was it prose or was it rhyme,
Greek or Latin?
When the woman comes to “somewhere,” she finds she has forgotten the source of the original story. That means so much to him! It is so important! With a quizzical look, she pretends to rack her brains for the missing information, knowing all the time she will not find it, and knowing equally well that it makes no difference in the story. Then, with a coy expression and a look of mock humility on her face, she lets fall her eyes, meekly acknowledging her awful guilt, and stands prepared to accept her just punishment, saying, Scold me! I deserve it. I have sinned; my punishment is just.
Many students find it no easy task to make these transitions naturally. Some do not make them at all, but run the two phases of thought or emotion together. Others anticipate the coming idea, and hurry the last two or three words before the break. The proper training is to write or think out the incomplete sentence, then let it more or less quickly vanish from the mind as the new conception grows clearer, without betraying the fact that one is conscious of a coming interruption. For instance, in the second example, one must read up to and through “it” without the slightest suggestion of the coming of Gismond, and even think the conclusion of the sentence. Then hear or suddenly see Gismond just as the word “it” falls from the lips, and dismissing from the mind the former idea, conclude with the joyous, wifely welcome and question.
It might be proper to remark here that the same principle applies to the reading of dialogue. Except in rare cases the reader should not in any way anticipate the speech of one character while rendering the words of another.
For those who do not intend to become readers, but who would be preachers or lawyers, the practice here recommended will prove of great value. Too many speakers, in their excitement on the one hand and in their spiritlessness on the other, glide along line after line in one monotonous drift. A study of these exercises will teach the necessity of transitions, and train in the control of the mental action in this regard,—a control antecedent to that most important requisite, variety. After almost every paragraph or stanza there is more or less of change in the thought, and the apprehension of this change will be sufficient to modulate the vocal expression.
Even where there is no abrupt change in the flow of ideas, there is often a gradual transition from one emotion to another, and these transitions may occur several times within one paragraph. Take the following excerpt from Webster’s reply to Hayne. It is one paragraph; but it is divided into four smaller paragraphs, each of which is a marked “phase” of the thinking. Practice in the analysis of selections to determine these phases is the best and only rational training in transitions. But its value does not stop here; for the student not only makes transitions, but is led, through careful analysis, to discern shades of meaning and emotion he might otherwise overlook:
Sir, the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of a reply. Why was he singled out? If an attack has been made on the East he, he assures us, did not begin it; it was made by the gentleman from Missouri.