Evolution of Expression Volume I Part 12

ROBERT BURNS.

CHAPTER IV.

FORMING THE ELEMENTS.

HAMLET TO THE PLAYERS.

1. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I p.r.o.nounced 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 pa.s.sion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness.

2. Oh, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig- pated fellow tear a pa.s.sion 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'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

3. 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'erstep 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.

4. 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'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh, 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.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL.

Morning, evening, noon and night, "Praise G.o.d!" sang Theocrite.

Then to his poor trade he turned, Whereby the daily meal was earned.

Hard he labored, long and well; O'er his work the boy's curls fell.

But ever, at each period, He stopped and sang, "Praise G.o.d!"

II.

Then back again his curls he threw, And cheerful turned to work anew.

Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done; I doubt not thou art heard, my son: As well as if thy voice to-day Were praising G.o.d, the Pope's great way.

This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome Praises G.o.d from Peter's dome."

III.

Said Theocrite, "Would G.o.d that I Might praise him, that great way, and die!"

Night pa.s.sed, day shone, And Theocrite was gone.

With G.o.d a day endures alway, A thousand years are but a day.

G.o.d said in heaven, "Nor day nor night Now brings the voice of my delight."

IV.

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, Spread his wings and sank to earth; Entered, in flesh, the empty cell, Lived there, and played the craftsman well; And morning, evening, noon and night, Praised G.o.d in place of Theocrite.

And from a boy, to youth he grew: The man put off the stripling's hue:

V.

The man matured and fell away Into the season of decay: And ever o'er the trade he bent, And ever lived on earth content.

(He did G.o.d's will; to him, all one If on the earth or in the sun.) G.o.d said, "A praise is in mine ear; There is no doubt in it, no fear:

VI.

"So sing old worlds, and so New worlds that from my footstool go.

Clearer loves sound other ways; I miss my little human praise."

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell The flesh disguise, remained the cell.

'Twas Easter Day: he flew to Rome, And paused above Saint Peter's dome.

VII.

In the tiring-room close by The great outer gallery, With his holy vestments dight, Stood the new Pope, Theocrite; And all his past career Came back upon him clear, Since when, a boy, he plied his trade, Till on his life the sickness weighed;

VIII.

And in his cell, when death drew near, An angel in a dream brought cheer: And rising from the sickness drear, He grew a priest, and now stood here.

To the East with praise he turned, And on his sight the angel burned.

"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell, And set thee here; I did not well,

IX.

"Vainly I left my angel-sphere, Vain was thy dream of many a year.

Thy voice's praise seemed weak: it dropped-- Creation's chorus stopped!

Go back and praise again The early way, while I remain.

With that weak voice of our disdain, Take up creation's pausing strain.

X.

"Back to the cell and poor employ; Resume the craftsman and the boy!"

Theocrite grew old at home; A new Pope dwelt at Peter's dome.

One vanished as the other died: They sought G.o.d side by side.

ROBERT BROWNING.

SPEECH AND SILENCE.

1. He who speaks honestly cares not, needs not care, though his words be preserved to remotest time. The dishonest speaker, not he only who purposely utters falsehoods, but he who does not purposely, and with sincere heart, utter Truth, and Truth alone; who babbles he knows not what, and has clapped no bridle on his tongue, but lets it run racket, ejecting chatter and futility--is among the most indisputable malefactors omitted, or inserted, in the Criminal Calendar.

2. To him that will well consider it, idle speaking is precisely the beginning of all Hollowness, Halfness, Infidelity (want of Faithfulness); it is the genial atmosphere in which rank weeds of every kind attain the mastery over n.o.ble fruits in man's life, and utterly choke them out: one of the most crying maladies of these days, and to be testified against, and in all ways to the uttermost withstood.

3. Wise, of a wisdom far beyond our shallow depth, was that old precept, "Watch thy tongue; out of it are the issues of Life!" Man is properly an incarnated word: the word that he speaks is the man himself. Were eyes put into our head, that we might see, or that we might fancy, and plausibly pretend, we had seen? Was the tongue suspended there, that it might tell truly what we had seen, and make man the soul's brother of man; or only that it might utter vain sounds, jargon, soul-confusing, and so divide man, as by enchanting walls of Darkness, from union with man?

4. Thou who wearest that cunning, heaven-made organ, a Tongue, think well of this. Speak not, I pa.s.sionately entreat thee, till thy thought have silently matured itself, till thou have other than mad and mad-making noises to emit: hold thy tongue till some meaning lie behind, to set it wagging.

5. Consider the significance of SILENCE: it is boundless, never by meditating to be exhausted, unspeakably profitable to thee! Cease that chaotic hubbub, wherein thy own soul runs to waste, to confused suicidal dislocation and stupor; out of Silence comes thy strength. "Speech is silvern, silence is golden; speech is human, silence is divine."

6. Fool! thinkest thou that because no one stands near with parchment and blacklead to note thy jargon, it therefore dies and is harmless? Nothing dies, nothing can die. No idlest word thou speakest but is a seed cast into Time, and grows through all Eternity! The Recording Angel, consider it well, is no fable, but the truest of truths: the paper tablets thou canst burn; of the "iron leaf" there is no burning.

THOMAS CARLYLE.