Vocal Expression Part 13

The Carpenter said nothing but, "Cut us another slice.

I wish you were not quite so deaf-- I've had to ask you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said, "To play them such a trick.

After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!"

The Carpenter said nothing but, "The b.u.t.ter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said; "I deeply sympathize."

With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter, "You've had a pleasant run!

Shall we be trotting home again?"

But answer came there none-- And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one.

We must not deny to humor and fancy the opportunity for creative effort offered to other faculties in our previous studies. What form shall the effort take: fable, fairy tale, a whimsical play of fancy in essay, or merely a nonsense rhyme? I think we must bar the _limerick_ from our serious creative efforts in the study. You may engage as a cla.s.s in an extemporaneous contest in the making of this infectious form of verse if you like.

Meanwhile, there is still another cla.s.s-room test of humor which should be made,--the test of the clever anecdote. There is nothing which so effectually discloses the quality of your sense of humor as your att.i.tude toward so-called funny stories. Judgment in such a case will rest upon three points: What you think is "funny" enough to tell; when you judge it "apropos" to tell; and the manner of the telling. Three warnings are in order at this point. If you find that you must preface your anecdote with the question too often heard, "Do you think you can stand this story?--it really _is_ clever," in the name of clean humor, don't tell it! If you find you must introduce your anecdote with the remark, "Apropos of nothing," or "This is not apropos, but"--in the name of "sulphitic" humor, don't tell it; finally, if you don't know _how_ to tell it, in the name of any and all humor, _don't tell it_.

With these cautions in mind, I shall ask you to bring to cla.s.s to-morrow your best three "funny stories." Conflicting choice is not likely to have appropriated all three of your favorite anecdotes. Should you find that it has done so, never mind. Your taste, though it coincides with another's, can be quite as well questioned or commended; and the manner of your telling will be subjected to trial by comparison, which, if not always comfortable, is always helpful (_when met in the right spirit_).

Remember, the serious creative work you are to produce is to take the form of a fable, fairy story, or humorous essay.

FOURTH STUDY

TO DEVELOP IMAGINATIVE VIGOR

In one of the great manufacturing towns of the Northwest there are some twenty-five thousand girls employed in factories. The city permits conditions of work hostile to the physical life of these girls. Civic reform is trying to control these conditions. In time it doubtless will succeed in doing so; meanwhile it makes efforts in other directions. It establishes working girls' clubs. A cla.s.s in literature in one of these clubs enlisted the services of a comprehending young teacher, who kept the girls interested for more than two years. A little girl from a bag factory entered this cla.s.s. She came to every meeting of the first year.

She did not join in the discussions nor ask questions nor evince unusual intelligence or enjoyment, but she _came_ every night. The cla.s.s began its second year. The little girl from the bag factory was the first to enroll. The teacher could not cover the surprise in her question, "Are you coming into the cla.s.s again?" The girl's breathless "Oh yes" sent her to investigate the case. She went to the factory. She found the child standing at a bench folding bags. Eight hours a day she folded bags. A swing back on her right foot with the stuff of which the bag was made grasped in her hands--a swing forward, and her hands brought the edges of the stuff together evenly. Over and over a thousand times the single motion repeated made up the girl's day. "It used to make me tired," she said, simply. "But it doesn't any more?" "No, because now I forget what I am doing sometimes. I have my book, you see. They let me fasten it here." There it was--a paper copy of Sh.e.l.ley's poems. The print was good; the teacher had seen to that. She had observed that factory girls' eyes are not always very strong. The book was fastened to the front of the desk. The child could catch a line from time to time without interrupting her bag-folding. "But I know most of the poems we have studied in cla.s.s by heart." So she had to recall but a line, and then off she would go through the windows of the stifling factory into the open fields on the wings of her _imagination_. She was a swift, sure, little workman; her eye watched the stuff before her and measured it truly; her hands obeyed her eye, did her work efficiently, and "kept her job." But the eye of her imagination had been opened in the literature cla.s.s and kept her soul alive in spite "of her job." This is a true story. It has significance for you and me.

If through the use of her imagination a little factory girl can escape from the monotony of bag-folding, and find freedom and joy in the lyric world Sh.e.l.ley has created, what limit need be set to our emanc.i.p.ation through the development of this faculty?

But emanc.i.p.ation is but one result of such development. Listen to David as he stands with his harp before the King in Browning's story of _Saul_. Already his song has released the monarch from the depths of his great despair, but now comes the boy's cry:

What spell or what charm (For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urge To sustain him where song had restored him?...

Then fancies grew rife Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep Fed in silence--above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep; And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie 'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky: And I laughed--"Since my days are ordained to be pa.s.sed with my flocks, Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks, Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!

Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains, And the prudence that keeps what men strive for."

And now those old trains Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string Of my harp made response to my spirit....

So the imagination of the young shepherd boy had not only disregarded the limits of his actual environment and escaped in fancy to the great world beyond, but so vividly had he realized that world _through his imagination_ that his sympathies had been made broad to comprehend a monarch's need and his song potent to meet it. Experience alone gives comprehension. We are p.r.o.ne to think that experience is limited by our actual horizon. We need to know that experience has no limit save that which is set by the limit of our imaginative insight. No door of life is closed to the imaginative mind and heart. The world is its playground to wander in at will. Experience, and thorough experience, comprehension of life is at the command of _imagination_.

Life can be intelligently apprehended on the material plane through trained senses. Life can be vividly realized on the spirit's plane only through a trained imagination. It is only vivid realization of life at every point which makes it worth living. You may see the lark long after he is lost to my duller eye in our common sky, you may hear the song when my less keen ear no longer catches a faintest thread of melody; but unless the eye and ear of your imagination match mine you shall not _vividly realize_ flight or song, and so I shall follow both long after they are lost to you. Your skylark will pa.s.s with the moment of his rapturous song-flight, while mine shall remain forever a spirit of joy to be recalled at will for my spirit's refreshing.

Looking then upon imagination as a key to that comprehension of life which clarifies and const.i.tutes its worth, let us eagerly enter upon the cultivation of such power. We have left this question of imaginative development as a definite exercise to a fifth place in our interpretative study, not because it is less vital to effective expression than the first four subjects we have considered, but because _balanced expression_ is our aim, and imagination once given free play may easily impair that harmonious development of all our faculties which makes for balance in expression. Of course there is no phase of the study of interpretation which, when rightly conducted, does not indirectly or directly involve the training of the imagination. On the other hand, training of the imagination wisely conducted may comprehend and carry on development along all other lines of evolution in expression. A sensitive imagination trained and controlled to its highest power of apprehension must make for sympathy and intelligence in thought and feeling, keep humor sane, and give direction to purpose. But imaginative vigor set free to the uses of thought and emotion _already_ disciplined, to _conscious_ purpose and to _good_ humor, becomes a safe master of expressive living.

The material through which we are to exercise the imagination and develop imaginative vigor is the narrative form of discourse. Narration is successful when it records or has the effect of recording actual experience. A story (according to the authority we so often invoke,--Mr.

Gardiner), "whether it be as simple as those of the Book of Genesis or as complex as Mr. James or Mr. Meredith, must carry the effect of the concreteness, and, as it were, the solidity of life." The plot, the characters, the setting of a story _which is to live_, must have the vividness of real experience. This does not mean that the creator of the story must have actually experienced the plot, the people, and the pictures which together make up his tale--they may be the product of actual experience or of imagination--but it does mean that while he is putting these elements together and creating his narrative he must realize _as though it were actual experience_ the incident of his plot with the characters and in the atmosphere of his creation. Such realization can only come through vivid imagination.

Exactly the same demand is made upon the imagination of the interpreter.

When you retell the tale of a master creator of stories your interpretation will be convincing, exactly as was his creation,--through the lucid play of a vivid imagination. You must make me feel that I am in the presence of incidents, characters, pictures which you yourself have experienced. Nay, more, you must make me feel that I myself am actually meeting these people, seeing these pictures, taking part in these incidents, as you relive for me _in imagination_ at the moment of your interpretation the tale you are retelling to me.

SUGGESTIVE a.n.a.lYSIS

We shall use for suggestive a.n.a.lysis in this study not a complete specimen of narration, but several examples ill.u.s.trating two of the three elements necessary to the personnel of a good story. These three recognized elements are the setting or situation which the pictures compose, the atmosphere which the characters create, and the plot or the action in which the characters engage. We shall leave the question of the plot to cla.s.s work upon the selections from epic poetry to be considered later in this study.

Suppose we test our imaginations in the a.n.a.lysis of a situation or setting before we attempt a character study. Remember the situation is to be realized through imagination as though it were actual experience.

It is to be _recreated_. Give your imagination full play in this opening chapter of George Eliot's _Mill on the Floss_. Let us read the first sentence:

A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its pa.s.sage with an impetuous embrace.

Can you see and feel the elements of this picture! You have never experienced a tide river? Never mind! There is enough in the picture which _is_ familiar to your actual senses through experience to brace your imagination for a grasp of the unfamiliar elements. The wide plain, the river hurrying between green banks--no apperceptive background fails thus far in the picture. What do we mean by apperceptive background? Let us investigate for a moment the psychology involved in the art of "making pictures." Let us get back of this word-picture. Rather let us stay this side of it. Look at the page before you not with the inner eye of your imagination, but with the outer eye--the eye which is merely the organ of the sense of sight. Use your eye as a physical sense only.

What does your eye carry to your mind when you look at this page? "Black letters grouped into words on a white surface." Did you get all these qualities at once? Yes, because you have seen other printed pages. Can you wipe out of your mind your knowledge of paper, print, and words? Can you imagine looking on such a page as this for the first time--_perceiving_ it for the first time? If you can do this you will arrive at an understanding of apperceptive background through its elimination. You will realize, that all that is in the back of your mind, stored there by its previous acquaintance with other printed pages, makes up the apperceptive background by which you get a conception of this page. That conception comes first through your physical sense of sight. You may perceive also through touch, through feeling, for instance, the quality of paper. But all that you perceive in this initial process,--the stimulus which comes through the physical senses, yields little to the complete conception as compared with the yield of your so-called _mental senses_. It is when you have fully apperceived the object that your conception is complete. It is when you have brought to bear upon this page (still looked upon, remember, merely as a printed page regardless of the matter behind the print) all your previous knowledge,--it is when you have observed that the paper is of good quality, that the page is closely set, that the print is excellent, that the margin is wide,--it is when you have compared it in memory with other pages in other books,--it is when you have not only perceived but _ap_perceived it that you have really gained a conception of it. Of course, if you are a type-setter, or a proof-reader, or a printer, or an editor, or one connected with book-making in any least or last capacity, you will see a printed page quite lost to me, because your apperceptive background will outmatch mine as to paper, print, margin, and type.

Good! I yield to you from type-setter to editor! But I challenge you to another contest over the same page. Match with me now conceptions gained from another view of this same printed matter. Forget now type, paper, margins, and words--yes, forget the words as printed words--look back of them with me. What do you see now on the page? Still words? Look behind them at the pictures! Now, what do you see? "A wide plain, a river, green banks, the sea!" Yes, but I see more than that! And you do, too? "The river flows between green banks?" You have missed a point. How does she flow? Ah, yes, "She hurries on." Where? "To the sea!" Yes! And what meets her? "The tide!" Yes, the loving tide meets her! But how?

"Rushing, he checks her pa.s.sage in an impetuous embrace!" "You _see_ all this!" you say. Yes, but do you hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it?

Are you, too, caught up in that impetuous embrace? No? Ah, then your imagination is only half awake. No, it is not a question of background or actual experience now. There are enough familiar elements, as I have said before, to rouse your senses to _vividly realize_ the picture as a whole if you will not shut the door to such realization--that door is your imagination. Open it! Open it! Now I shall close the book and ask the cla.s.s to do likewise, while you read once more _to us_ these first sentences, paint for us this picture. Yes, now you are using your imagination to stimulate my senses and awake my imagination, but you must take heed. You must let me enjoy this picture as a whole. You must let me see, feel, taste, smell, all "in the same breath." Remember it is a picture. Don't disregard its perspective. Let all the elements rest in proper relation one to another and to the whole--as George Eliot placed them when she made the setting. The atmosphere is on the whole full of peace. The river "hurries," _but_ the "plain is wide"; the tide "rushes," but it is a "_loving_ tide," even though its embrace be "impetuous." Try it once more! Is there not the joy of creation in such interpretation? Let us read on! You read to us still.

On this mighty tide the black ships--laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with dark glitter of coal--are borne along to the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures and the patches of dark earth, made ready for the seed of broad-leaved, green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of the last year's golden cl.u.s.ters of beehive ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees: the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark, changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is dear and loving. I remember these large, dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.

And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at--perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the gra.s.sy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid gra.s.s, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above.

The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene.

They are like a grand curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses--the strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home!

Look at their grand s.h.a.ggy feet, that seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength of their neck, bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees.

Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is watching it too: she has been standing on just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge.

And that queer white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous, because his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge.

Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver were talking about as they sat by the bright fire in the left-hand parlor on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.

If, in your interpretation of this pa.s.sage, a sensitive imagination free, but controlled by vital thought and intelligent feeling, has found in trained instruments a lucid channel for expression, then, at the close of your reading, _we_, your auditors, shall find our arms really benumbed from pressing our elbows on the arms of our chairs as we dream with you that we are standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill--the Mill on the Floss, which we find on awakening is but the t.i.tle and setting of a great author's great story.

We turn now to the second element of Narration--the _characters_. The setting we have just a.n.a.lyzed has introduced us to the main characters of a great story. Our interest is already awake to the little girl who has been watching with us the unresting wheel of the mill. Why not take Maggie Tulliver for our character study? To follow Maggie but a little way is to find Tom. This is well for us, because we need to study both types. Let us read from the chapter called "Tom Comes Home" in the life of the boy and girl.

TOM COMES HOME

Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound came--that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels--and in spite of the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the door, and even held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting all the griefs of the morning.

"There he is, my sweet lad! But Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoiled the set."

Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo!

Yap--what! are you there?"

Nevertheless, he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England and at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings--a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows--a physiognomy in which it seems impossible to discern anything but the generic character of boyhood; as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed to have molded and colored with the most decided intention. But that same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a pa.s.sive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.

"Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box, and the warm parlor had taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know what I've got in _my_ pockets," nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery.