Reading as a FineIrt 
 
 Ernest Legguye 
 
 
 i II 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 ©|ap + ._.,__. §op^ttg|t !f a, 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 
 
 
Reading as a Fine Art. 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST LEGOUVi, 
 
 OF THE ACADEMIE FRANCAISE. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE NINTH EDITION 
 BY 
 
 ABBY LANG-DON ALGER, 
 
 n 
 
 
 PUBLICATION DEPARTMENT : 
 
 THE NATIONAL SCHOOL OF ELOCUTION AND ORATORY, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
nattii 
 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the'year 1886, by 
 
 THE NATIONAL SCHOOL OF ELOCUTION AND ORATORY, 
 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
TO THE SCHOLARS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE HIGH AND NORMAL SCHOOL. 
 
 For you this sketch was written : permit me to dedicate 
 it to you; in fact, to intrust it to your care. Pupils to-day, 
 to-morrow you will be teachers; to-morrow, generation after 
 generation of youth will pass through your guardian hands. 
 An idea received by you, must of necessity reach thousands of 
 minds. Help me, then, to spread abroad the work in which 
 you have some share, and allow me to add to the great 
 pleasure of having numbered you among my hearers the 
 still greater happiness of calling you my assistants, 
 
 E, LEGOUVE. 
 Paris, April, 1877. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Part jffrat. 
 
 Chap. Page 
 
 I. First Steps. — How I learned to read . 7 
 
 II. Should we read as we talk? 18 
 
 III. Technical Part of the Art of Reading. 
 
 The Voice 25 
 
 IV. The Art of Breathing 32 
 
 V. Pronunciation 39 
 
 VI. Stuttering 43 
 
 VII. Punctuation . . . 47 
 
 Part Second 
 
 reading made eloquent in poetry and prose. 
 
 I. Readers and Speakers 51 
 
 II. Reading as a Means of Criticism ... 61 
 
 III. On Reading Poetry 67 
 
 IV A Reading at the House of a Great 
 
 Actress 81 
 
 V. Closing Words 94 
 
READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 oK«o 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FIRST STEPS. — HOW I LEARNED TO READ. 
 
 Nothing is small in the great matter of educa* 
 tion ; and secondary as the question we are to treat 
 may be, it is important, from the simple fact that 
 it points to progress to be made in the art of in- 
 struction. In America, reading aloud is considered 
 one of the chief studies in public schools, — one of 
 the bases of primary education. In France, it is 
 not even reckoned an accomplishment ; it is re- 
 garded as something strange and unnecessary, 
 almost as an affectation. I desire to contest this 
 prejudice, and to contribute my mite towards intro- 
 ducing the art of reading into our customs and the 
 list of school duties. 
 
 In the first place, is reading an art ? Many doubt 
 
8 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 it ; some deny it. For myself, thirty years of study 
 and experience have convinced me that it is an art 
 as difficult as it is substantial, as useful as it is 
 difficult of attainment ; and this I hope to prove 
 logically, but without becoming wearisome. Let 
 me choose my own way to reach this end, and tell 
 you the story of my own progress. 
 
 I was always extremely fond of reading aloud, 
 this being an inherited taste ; for my father was es- 
 teemed one of the most famous readers, I may say, 
 one of the best teachers of his day. When Mile. 
 Duchesnois made her debut, the programme read : 
 " Mile. Duchesnois, pupil of M. Legouve." Does 
 not this prove that elocution and the theatre were 
 more highly valued, if not more honored, then than 
 now ? What member of the Academy would venture 
 now to join his name on a play-bill with that of an 
 actress ? I, of course, am out of the question ; for 
 the love of elocution was born and bred in me, with 
 a fellow-feeling for the actor, for which I have often 
 been blamed, but which I hope I shall never out- 
 live. As a boy at school, I organized a little 
 troop of actors of my own age, who spent their 
 vacation-hours in reciting whole acts of Racine, 
 Corneille, and Moliere to family and friends. All 
 parts seemed good to me, — kings, lovers, servants, 
 
FIRST STEPS. 
 
 and noble fathers ; nothing staggered my youthful 
 ardcr. I even played the tragedy queen, on occa- 
 sion, in imitation of antiquity. Of course, it was 
 rough, unequal, stagey, and bombastic ; my voice 
 was often hoarse : but beneath all the froth and 
 fustian lurked some grains of truth and feeling, 
 which kept my heart warm with the wholesome 
 fever of admiration. 
 
 On leaving school, a happy accident introduced 
 me to a fine teacher of elocution. 
 
 I was to read one of my first poetical efforts, 
 " The Two Mothers,' ' at the Conservatory, before 
 the Philotechnic Society. On reciting it to my 
 master, M. Bouilly, he exclaimed : " My boy, you 
 don't set off your wares for what they 're worth ! 
 Go ask my friend, M. Febve, to give you a few les- 
 sons." These lessons opened my eyes : they taught 
 what I never dreamed, that elocution has its gram- 
 mar; and M. Febve also gave me a most useful bit 
 of advice. " The Conservatory Hall," said he, " is 
 like a good Stradivarius : no violin is more sweetly 
 resonant ; the sounds that you confide to those 
 melodious walls will return to you fuller and more 
 mellow than ever; the voice plays upon them as 
 the fingers on an instrument. Be careful not to 
 raise your voice too much ; and remember one im- 
 
IO READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 portant rule : the voice should always be adapted 
 and proportioned, not only to the size, but to the 
 acoustic qualities of the hall spoken in." 
 
 My next teacher was — my profession. Being a 
 dramatist, I was thrown constantly with that class 
 of artists whose first condition of success is fine 
 elocution, — namely, actors. My successive plays 
 showed me the method of work of the most famous 
 tragedians and comedians of the day, — Samson, 
 Regnier, Delaunay, and Got. I questioned them, 
 studied them, and worked with them. From them 
 I learned the amount of time and trouble required 
 for the mastery of the voice ; they showed me the 
 calculation, close reasoning, and skill requisite to 
 choose between one inflection, one accent, and an- 
 other ; and lastly, a lucky chance brought me into 
 active communion with the three brightest theatri- 
 cal stars of the past forty years, — Mile. Mars, Mile. 
 Rachel, and Mme. Ristori. 
 
 " Louise de Lignerolles, ,, my first play, and one 
 of Mile. Mars's final creations, required no less than 
 sixty-eight rehearsals ; which proved a profitable, 
 though a severe school to me, for Mile. Mars's pow- 
 ers of mimicry served her mocking spirit wondrous 
 well. Although I had some good points as reader 
 and speaker, I had but little experience, and, like 
 
FIRST STEPS. It 
 
 all young men, was given to exaggeration ; but, 
 whenever my directions to the actors became in 
 the least declamatory or bombastic, Mars would 
 imitate me with a grain of caricature that made 
 me ridiculous. I bit my lip with rage, but was 
 silent, accepting the hint and striving to profit 
 by it. 
 
 She once gave me a fine lesson. Coming to re- 
 hearsal, tired, out of sorts, and ill-disposed to forget 
 herself in her part, she found us at the second act, 
 which contains one scene requiring great action 
 and energy. She went through it in an undertone, 
 almost without a motion ; still, every effect, every 
 shade of meaning, was expressed and plainly visible. 
 It was like a picture seen from a distance, or 
 a strain of music heard from afar. This was a 
 revelation to me. I now understood the firm basis 
 upon which the art of delivery must rest, when a 
 great artist could thus extinguish her own person- 
 ality, if I may so express it, without destroying pro- 
 portions, harmony, or general effect. 
 
 The name of Rachel will always be connected to 
 me with a memorable morning which we spent to- 
 gether. The point in question was a certain scene 
 in " Louise de Lignerolles," which Rachel was to 
 play after Mars had done so. It does not contain 
 
12 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 more than thirty lines, ' which thirty lines Mile. 
 Rachel and I studied for three long hours ; and 
 never before did that admirable artist's power of 
 attention, subtle spirit, and true modesty so astound 
 and instruct me. What a lesson it was to us both ! 
 With what ardor we buckled to the task ! She was 
 determined to outdo her immortal predecessor. 
 Not one of the three or four hundred words com- 
 posing the scene but was turned and twisted in 
 every possible way, to discover the truest and most 
 effective rendering. Three such hours were worth 
 months of study. 
 
 Next, chance advanced me yet farther in this 
 department of art. 
 
 My tragedy of " Medea " having brought me into 
 relations with Ristori, our common success soon 
 made us friends. Accordingly, when M. Edouard 
 Thierry, the skilful manager of the Theatre Fran- 
 £ais, on the occasion of a benefit for Racine's 
 granddaughter, desired to use Ristori's name on 
 the bill, he came to me to write something in French 
 and in prose, to be translated into Italian verse for 
 her. I set to work ; but my ideas flowed in poetic 
 measure, and, hastening to Mme. Ristori, I told her 
 of Thierry's desire, which she eagerly seconded, and 
 handed her my manuscript, saying, — 
 
FIRST STEPS. 13 
 
 " Read that." 
 
 " What ! French poetry ? n 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Aloud?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " Because that is what I intend you to recite." 
 
 " On the stage ? " she cried, rising hastily. " On 
 the stage ? French poetry ? Then you are my 
 deadly enemy ! You want me to be hissed ! " 
 
 " Wait a bit, my friend ! if you are hissed, I shall 
 share your fate. So our interests are alike. Sit 
 down, and read that to me." 
 
 My quiet manner pacified her, although she shook 
 her fist at me ; but she began, and read to the end. 
 
 " Well ? " said she. 
 
 " Well ! read it once more ; I 'm not quite sure 
 about it yet." 
 
 This done, I exclaimed, — 
 
 "There's something in it! we must set* to 
 work ! " 
 
 Next day I took M. Regnier to hear her, unwill- 
 ing to trust to my own impressions only. The day 
 after, I took M. Samson ; and a week later, she re- 
 cited the lines at the Theatre Frangais so delight- 
 fully, that M. Samson, standing by, did not hesitate 
 
14 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 to say to two young actresses, his pupils : " Young 
 ladies, take a lesson ! " 
 
 Was her Italian accent entirely gone ? . By no 
 means ; but talent is a kindly mantle, and her suc- 
 cess was such that I attempted a French play for her, 
 entitled, " Beatrice ; or, the Madonna of Art." This 
 was a dangerous task, and I ran the greatest of all 
 risks, — the risk of ridicule. But I knew her, and 
 could count upon her. My play written, I joined 
 her at Florence, where for one month I went over 
 her part with her, line by line, word by word, sylla- 
 ble by syllable. This was my method : There are 
 two great distinctions between French and Italian 
 pronunciation ; the first relating to the accent, the 
 second to the sound itself o£ the vowels. The 
 Italians have no e mute, they pronounce the French 
 u ou ; the French diphthong eu is a dead letter to 
 them. Moreover, the French a, o, and particu- 
 larly the French e have medium sounds not marked 
 by the accents, grave, acute, or circumflex. How 
 explain to a foreigner that the e in cette, for in- 
 stance, is neither as open as in tite, as clear as in 
 colere, nor as sharp as in be'tail? 
 
 The accent is yet more difficult of comprehension, 
 for the Italian language is very rich in accent ; 
 French, very poor. The French glide over the syl- 
 
FIRST STEPS. 15 
 
 lables, merely emphasizing the last. The Italians, 
 on the contrary, consider the accent — its due 
 weight and place — among the chief beauties of their 
 language. How was I to rid my spokeswoman of 
 this feeling ? How accustom her, for instance, to 
 run lightly over the first three syllables of Semir- 
 amis, pausing only on the last, when the Italian 
 Semiramide requires such stress on the ra ? 
 
 After much thought, I had the part of Beatrice 
 written out in a very big black hand, the lines 
 widely spaced. Then I covered the pages with 
 three sorts of signs in red ink: — ^ 
 
 The horizontal lines were to blot out every e 
 mute, a letter not pronounced in French, but which 
 an Italian is always tempted to use. So I wrote : 
 " Madame, faiths moi \% plaisir." The perpendicular 
 lines, placed over vowels whose medium sound is 
 unknown in Italy, recalled to the artist's eye the 
 special intonation which I had taught her ears and 
 lips. The curved lines, starting from the first syl- 
 lable and falling on the final one, said to her : " On, 
 on, no stopping midway!" Her Italian instinct 
 was constantly leading her to linger on one part or 
 other of the word . . . but there was the immova- 
 ble red line ! ... In this way, — thanks to this 
 system of musical notation, thanks to weeks of 
 
1.6 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 work, but above all, thanks to the wonderful intel- 
 lect and yet more wonderful power of will of this 
 artist, — we succeeded, not in removing her accent 
 (that I neither hoped nor attempted), but in leaving 
 nothing but the flavor of the fruit ; just enough 
 to be striking without being strange, interesting 
 without being ridiculous. 
 
 Here, you see, I passed from the r61e of scholar 
 to that of master, which was but another method of 
 learning : for there is no better way to learn than 
 to teach ; and every dramatist must needs turn 
 elocution-teacher. Our mouth-pieces are often 
 beginners, with nothing but a pretty face or sweet 
 voice to recommend them : still, they are so exactly 
 the person of our play that we would not exchange 
 them, and needs must turn us to the task of breathing 
 a soul into the fair statue. But the last and worst trial 
 of all is the day when the author reads his piece to 
 the managers and company, — a task as important 
 as it is hard. The fate of his play is in his own 
 hands, I might say in his voice. It is nothing more 
 nor less than a first performance, without costume, 
 scenery, or actors, — - one person playing every. part; 
 and between reading and acting a play lies a vast 
 difference. The actor has but one part to fill; the 
 reader, all. The actor is a soloist in the orchestra ; 
 
FIRST STEPS. 17 
 
 the reader, the whole orchestra. I know no more 
 difficult task, no more invigorating system of gym- 
 nastics. And if to this, forty years of incessant 
 collaboration with the most distinguished actors are 
 added, it is plain that I have a right to call myself 
 the pupil of the Theatre Frangais. 
 
 Lastly, my third master was the College of 
 France, where, in 1848 and 1866, I delivered a 
 course of lectures on the " Moral History of 
 Woman," and on " Parents and Children in the Nine* 
 teenth Century." Brought for the first time into 
 direct and constant communication with the public, 
 I learned the rules imposed and the resources 
 furnished by a large audience. Here I finished 
 my education ; not that I was or am a master of 
 the art of reading, — I have known too many true 
 artists to arrogate that name to myself, — but I 
 passed my examination, and was licensed to prac- 
 tise. It then occurred to me to collect these scat- 
 tered observations, and I hastened to confide my 
 plan to a friend. 
 
1 8 READING AS A FINE ART, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SHOULD WE READ AS WE TALK? 
 
 In the spring of 1868, there lived not far from me 
 a man of whom I might say, as Mme. de Sevigne 
 said of Montaigne : " What a country neighbor he 
 would make ! " M. St. Marc Girardin, — for of him 
 I speak, — though of a sceptical turn, was the warm- 
 est of friends, best of advisers, and most delight- 
 ful of talkers. To him I submitted my idea, and, 
 after hearing me attentively, he said: "My friend, 
 you may execute brilliant variations and bravuras 
 on your theme, which will call down hearty ap- 
 plause ; but teach a lesson, never ! Reading is not 
 an art ; it is the natural exercise of a natural 
 power. There are people who read well, and people 
 who read ill ; but the former's talent is a gift, a 
 charm, a grace, what you will, but not an acquired 
 art. It is not to be taught. The exercise of this 
 natural power may call for certain useful sugges- 
 
SHOULD WE READ AS WE TALKl 19 
 
 tions : Hygienic rules, such as, ' Do not talk or 
 read to excess, any more than you would walk or 
 eat to excess/ Common-sense rules, such as, * Do 
 not read too loud or too fast/ Rules of good taste, 
 such as, ' Strive to understand, and to make your 
 hearers understand, what you read/ But beyond 
 these brief instructions, there are no direct rules 
 for reading, such as constitute an art. The art of 
 reading is summed up in a single sentence : * Read 
 as you talk/ " 
 
 I had great faith in M. Girardin's taste, and 
 knew his perfect sincerity ; but here I had my 
 own convictions, and perceived the feeling under- 
 lying his words, perhaps unconsciously to him- 
 self : u I, St. Marc Girardin, read very well, and 
 I never was taught ; therefore, no one requires 
 teaching." 
 
 Accordingly, I replied : " My dear friend, there is 
 a grain of truth in what you say, as there always 
 is in the words of a clever man of the world, who 
 talks of a subject which he has not studied." 
 
 This rather provoked him ; but I continued 
 calmly : " Undoubtedly, much depends in reading 
 upon natural talent. It is not like many other 
 arts and trades, absolutely forbidden to those who 
 have not served an apprenticeship. Some men 
 
20 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 read gracefully and pleasantly without study. You 
 are an example of this, for you read effectively ; 
 you are always applauded : but you do not 
 read — excuse my frankness — you do not read 
 well." 
 
 Upon this he smiled slyly, and said : " What ! 
 I don't read well?" 
 
 " No ! and the proof of it is that, if any one else 
 read as you do, he would read very badly." 
 
 " Explain yourself," he exclaimed, laughing 
 
 " Nothing easier. I have heard you read extracts 
 from Lamartine, Corneille, and Victor Hugo, in your 
 lectures at the Sorbonne ; and I 've heard you read 
 your own essays at the Academy. The difference 
 was immense." 
 
 " In what way ? " 
 
 " The verses of the great masters, read by 
 you, were much applauded. Why ? Because you 
 brought all your intellect and superior mind to 
 bear on the reading ; because you have a ringing 
 voice and an air of conviction, — all personal qual- 
 ities which hide your faults." 
 
 "Well, what are my faults, if you please ? " 
 
 " Your voice has certain tones which offend by 
 their very excess. Your delivery is often some- 
 what declamatory and bombastic, — a failing not 
 
SHOULD WE READ AS WE TALK? 21 
 
 displeasing to your youthful listeners. But change 
 the audience, and give your manner to some one 
 without your intellect and authority, and he would 
 not please, just because he imitated you too well. 
 Now nothing is good which may not safely 
 be copied. Therefore, you read with talent, but 
 not as one knowing how to read — even your own 
 addresses, which no one else could read as well as 
 you do, for there your faults become good points, 
 being a part of your personality. Let me illustrate 
 my meaning. Jules Sandeau wrote a charming 
 speech in answer to Camille Doucet, which 
 he begged me to read for him. ' Heaven forbid V 
 said I. 
 
 " Why ? You would read it much better than I." 
 " Yes ! but I should not read it so well. Your 
 speech is a part of yourself. To be sure, I should 
 not make the same mistakes that you would. I 
 should not drop my last syllables, I should make 
 more of the witticisms ; but I should not have your 
 easy attitude, your indolent voice, your indifferent 
 manner, — all which are charming in you, because 
 natural, but which would be disagreeable in me, 
 because acquired. Your speech is fat and fair; I 
 should read it like a thin, dark-haired man : read it 
 yourself.' \ 
 
22 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 " He took my advice, and his success proved me 
 right. But had he read another man's production 
 thus, it would have been sheer treason. " 
 
 u A pretty story," said St. Marc Girardin, " but 
 I don't see what it leads us to. I understand your 
 tale, but don't see what moral you want to draw 
 trom it." 
 
 "Another example may help you. M. Viennet 
 had great fame as a reader, — well deserved when 
 he read his own verses. His hoarse voice, queer 
 gestures, little tuft of hair standing erect like a 
 cock's comb, his jolly intonation, were the exact 
 picture of his style of talent, vivid and somewhat 
 vulgar as it was ; add to this, that he had an 
 immense admiration for every thing that was his 
 own, which gave his delivery of his own verses a 
 spirit and fire that warmed his audience. I was 
 once asked to read a poem by M. Viennet at the 
 Academy, and refused, saying that neither the 
 piece nor myself could succeed, as I lacked the 
 chief element of M. Viennet's success, — a pro- 
 found conviction that what I read was a master- 
 piece of art ! " 
 
 This harmless little epigram amused St. Marc 
 Girardin, and he cried gayly : " The conclusion ! the 
 conclusion ! What do you conclude from that ? " 
 
SHOULD WE READ AS WE TALK? 23 
 
 " I conclude that we should never say a writer 
 reads well because he is applauded for reading his 
 own writings, his very faults often helping his 
 success. I conclude that w r e must except certain 
 rare spirits, certain exceptional natures' like your 
 own, who can dispense with rules, they evade them 
 so gracefully ! Art is not for you ; you need it 
 not ! But I also conclude that the majority of 
 mankind require to be taught to read, and that this 
 knowledge, which may be useful even to superior 
 beings, — for one may have more science without 
 having less talent, — is indispensable to others." 
 
 " But what does this science consist of ? How 
 do you define it ?" 
 
 " The art of speaking and reading correctly." 
 
 " Correctness presupposes rules. What are these 
 rules ? " 
 
 " They are of two sorts, material and intellectual ; 
 for the art of reading depends at the same time 
 upon the exercise of a physical organ, the voice, 
 and of a spiritual organ, the intellect. Shall we 
 take up the voice first ? " 
 
 " With all my heart," said St. Marc Girardin. 
 
 " Then I will write down the results of my obser- 
 vation ; for in such a matter we must be exact." 
 
 But, alas ! The war broke out ; I wrote nothing, 
 
24 READING AS A FINE ART, 
 
 until three months ago, when, at the request of 
 M, Bersot, — a man who does honor to the cause of 
 public education, — I made this epitome of my ex- 
 perience for the pupils of the High and Normal 
 School. 
 
THE VOICE. 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TECHNICAL PART OF THE ART OF READING. 
 
 THE VOICE. 
 
 The technical part of the art of reading is devoted 
 to two objects, — the voice and the pronunciation ; 
 sounds and words. 
 
 The vocal apparatus resembles the optic and 
 auric apparatus, differing from them in one essen- 
 tial point ; i. e. y sight and hearing are involuntary. 
 No sooner are our eyes open and there is light, or 
 our ears open and there is a noise, than we see and 
 hear, whether we wish to do so or not. The voice 
 on the contrary is under the control of the will ; 
 man speaks only when he chooses. 
 
 There is a second difference : we cannot see or 
 hear more or less at pleasure, except by interposing 
 some veil or obstacle between the external world 
 and ourselves. But not so with the voice; we 
 speak fast or slow, loud or low ; we regulate the 
 measure of vocal action as well as the action itself. 
 
26 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 Hence, the natural inference is that we cannot 
 be taught to hear or see (I refer to mere material 
 action), and that consequently there is no art of 
 seeing or hearing ; while we may learn to talk, lan- 
 guage being susceptible to changes resulting from 
 the will. 
 
 One word will suffice to explain this difference. 
 
 The vocal apparatus is not only an apparatus, it 
 is an instrument, like a piano. Now what is the 
 characteristic feature of the piano ? The key-board 
 is composed of from six and a half to seven octaves, 
 divided into three classes of notes, — upper, lower, 
 and middle, — whose tones correspond to strings of 
 various sizes. The voice has its key-board also, 
 divided into two octaves instead of seven, but hav- 
 ing its three species of notes like the piano, and its 
 chords of differing size ; and we can never play 
 upon the voice properly without study, any more 
 than we can on the piano. 
 
 Let me go even farther. On leaving the hands 
 of a good maker, the piano is a complete and per- 
 fect instrument, the sound issuing from it as mu- 
 sical as it is harmonious, when called forth by an 
 artist's fingers. But the little piano given us at 
 birth seldom reaches such perfection. There are 
 missing chords, squeaky keys, false notes ; so that 
 
THE VOICE. 27 
 
 before we can become good pianists we must turn 
 makers and tuners, and set our instruments in 
 order. 
 
 The three varieties of voice, known as high, low, 
 and medium, are all indispensable to artistic read- 
 ing ; but they should be very differently used, their 
 strength being quite unequal. The medium voice 
 is the strongest, most flexible, and natural of the 
 three ; indeed, the famous actor Mole once said, 
 " Without the middle register, no reputation." In 
 fact, the medium voice, being the ordinary one, is 
 used to express all the truest and most natural 
 emotions : the lower notes often have great power, 
 the upper notes great brilliancy ; but they should 
 never be used unseasonably. I might compare 
 the upper notes to the cavalry in an army, to be 
 reserved for sudden, bold attacks, triumphant 
 charges ; the lower notes, like the artillery, are used 
 for feats of strength; but the true dependence of 
 the army, the element on which the tactician 
 chiefly relies, is the infantry, — the medium tones. 
 The first rule in the art of reading establishes the 
 superior value of the middle register. The upper 
 tones are much more fragile, are liable to wear out, 
 or become shrill and discordant if too much used. 
 Sometimes this abuse of the upper notes affects 
 
28 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 the very judgment of a speaker. M. Berryer once 
 told me how he lost an excellent case by uncon- 
 sciously beginning his plea on too high a key. 
 Fatigue soon spread from his larynx to his head, 
 his thoughts became involved, and he lost a part 
 of his brain power, simply because it never occurred 
 to him to descend from the lofty perch to which 
 his voice had climbed at the outset. 
 
 Nor is abuse of the lower notes less serious ; 
 it produces monotony and a certain dulness and 
 deadness of quality. Talma, when young, was 
 much given to this failing. His voice, though pow- 
 erful and eloquent, was rather sombre ; and it was 
 only by dint of hard study that he raised it from 
 the depths where it naturally lingered. Apropos of 
 this, let me relate an anecdote of my father, who, 
 as I said before, was a fine reader, — much of his 
 success at the College of France, where he taught, 
 depending on this talent. He often introduced 
 quotations from the great poets of France in his 
 lectures, which won universal applause. This ap- 
 plause, to which he was naturally susceptible, gained 
 him many envious foes, and at last a criticism ap- 
 peared, as follows: "Yesterday, M. Legouve read 
 two scenes from Racine in his sepulchral voice." 
 This fell under the notice of one of his friends, M. 
 
THE VOICE. 29 
 
 Parseval Grandmaison, who immediately said : 
 " Dear me, Legouve must be very much vexed at 
 this ; I '11 go to see him." He found my father on 
 the sofa in a most melancholy mood. 
 
 " Oh ! it 's you, is it, my dear Parseval ? " 
 
 " Yes. Are you ill, Legouve ? You look sad." 
 
 " No ! there 's nothing the matter ; a slight sore 
 throat. Tell me, Parseval, what do you think of 
 my voice ? " 
 
 " Why, I think it 's beautiful, my boy." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; but what do you consider its char- 
 acter ? Do you call it a brilliant voice ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! no ! not brilliant ! I should rather 
 call it sonorous ; yes, that's it, sonorous." 
 
 " Perhaps it would be better to call it a grave 
 voice ? " 
 
 " Grave be it ! but not melancholy ! No ! no ! 
 not melancholy! And yet there is a certain — " 
 
 " But you don't call it cavernous ? " 
 
 "Not at all! Still — " 
 
 " Oh ! I see," cried my father, u that you agree 
 with that wretched critic, who calls my voice sepul- 
 chral ! " 
 
 The moral of this story is, that from that day 
 forth my father strove to give his lower notes a 
 rest, and to blend them better with the upper and 
 
30 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 medium tones ; and thus he acquired that variety of 
 sound which is at once charming to the listener, 
 and easy for the reader. 
 
 But this intermixture of tone is not the only 
 vocal exercise. The voice must be cultivated in 
 various ways. Cultivation strengthens a weak 
 voice, makes a stiff one flexible, a harsh one soft, 
 and in fact acts upon the speaking voice as musical 
 exercises on the singing voice. We sometimes 
 hear that great artists — M. Duprez, for instance — 
 made their own voices. The expression is incorrect. 
 No one can make a voice who has not one to start 
 with, and this is proved by the fact that the voice is 
 perishable. No voice would ever be lost, could it be 
 made at will ; but it may be changed ; it may gain 
 body, brilliancy, and expression, not only from a 
 series of gymnastics adapted to strengthen the 
 whole organ, but from a certain method of attack- 
 ing the note. Additional notes may also be gained 
 by study. On one occasion, the famous Malibran, 
 when singing the rondo from " Somnambula," fin- 
 ished her cadenza with a trill on d in alt, running up 
 from low d, thus embracing three octaves. These 
 three octaves were no natural gift, but the result 
 of long and patient labor. After the concert, some 
 one expressed his admiration of her d in alt, to which 
 
THE VOICE. 31 
 
 she replied : " Well, I Ve worked hard enough for 
 it. I've been chasing it for a month. I pursued 
 it everywhere, — when I was dressing, when I was 
 doing my hair ; and at last I found it in the toe of 
 a shoe that I was putting on ! " Thus we see that 
 art will not only aid us in governing, but also in 
 extending our kingdom. 
 
32 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ART OF BREATHING. 
 
 The second great lesson in learning to read is 
 how to breathe. Many may think that if there be 
 a natural and instinctive action upon earth with 
 which art has nothing to do, it is the act of taking 
 breath. To breathe is to live, and we breathe un- 
 consciously as we live ; and yet no one can read 
 well without breathing properly, and no one can 
 breathe properly without study : indeed, it is one 
 of the rarest accomplishments in a reader. Let me 
 explain myself. When we breathe in every-day 
 life, the air enters and leaves the lungs like a stream 
 flowing continuously, insensibly, and equably. But 
 this gentle passage of the air through the throat 
 does not suffice to set the vocal chords in vibration, 
 and they are mute like the keys of an untouched 
 piano : the air must strike them a sharp blow 
 before they will resound, as the fingers strike the 
 
THE ART OF BREATHING. 33 
 
 keys of the piano. Some of my readers may have 
 heard an ^Eolian harp : it stood in a doorway or 
 window ; if there was no air it was silent ; but 
 let the air be condensed into wind, and the strings 
 wake to music. A similar phenomenon occurs 
 every time that we speak. We condense and com- 
 press the air contained in the lungs, force it into 
 the throat, and this shock produces speech. But 
 this requires more air than the ordinary act of 
 breathing, and we can no longer use the simile of 
 a flowing stream : we must compare the breath to 
 water gushing from a pump, spurting out faster 
 and faster at every stroke of the handle. The 
 usual conditions of breathing are now set aside. 
 The scant supply of air stored away for ordinary 
 breath-taking is insufficient for the energetic act 
 of speech : a balance must be struck between what 
 we have and what we should have. We must go 
 to headquarters, to the atmosphere itself, and de- 
 mand the necessary amount of air. This demand 
 is called inhalation ; the act of breathing being 
 divided into two parts, — inhalation and expiration. 
 To inhale is to gain a supply for future need ; to 
 exhale, to expend that provision. 
 
 Each of these is an act in itself. The act of in- 
 halation consists in drawing breath from the very 
 
 3 
 
34 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 base of the lungs, from the diaphragm ; for if we 
 breathe from the upper part of the lungs only, we 
 obtain too small a supply of air, which is soon ex- 
 hausted, and if we have a lengthy passage to read 
 we are in the condition of a traveller in the des- 
 ert who starts with his water-skins but half full, — 
 breath fails us ; we are obliged to pause and take 
 in a fresh stock, which is fatiguing both to our- 
 selves and to others, as we shall presently see. 
 The first duty of the reader, who is to fill a long 
 programme, is to take a deep breath at the start, 
 to be sure that his lungs are well furnished. Then 
 comes the second and most difficult part, — expen- 
 diture of this breath. A bad reader does not take 
 breath often enough, and spends it too freely ; he 
 throws this precious treasure out of the window, as 
 it were, squandering it as a spendthrift his gold. 
 The result is that the speaker, reader, actor, or 
 singer, as the case may be, is continually at the 
 pump, giving sudden gasps, which are most dis- 
 agreeable to his audience. An accomplished singer 
 of my acquaintance had this failing ; he was con- 
 stantly taking breath, and the bellows-like sound 
 mingled with his singing was unendurable. He 
 finally perceived and corrected his mistake, proving 
 that it may be cured. M. Stockhausen, an eminent 
 
THE ART OF BREATHING. 35 
 
 artist, astonished all the Swiss guides by never 
 losing breath in climbing the steepest mountains. 
 " My secret is a simple one," said he ; "I .under- 
 stand the art of breathing." The great singer, 
 Rubini, was a thorough master of the art. No one 
 ever heard him breathe. The following anecdote 
 of Talma may serve to explain this seeming 
 mystery. 
 
 While a young man, Talma played Diderot's 
 " Pere de Famille," and on reaching the famous 
 speech, " Fifteen hundred pounds a year and my 
 Sophy," he burst out, stormed, raged, and finally 
 hurrying behind the scenes in a state of complete ex- 
 haustion, sank against the wall, panting like an ox. 
 
 " Fool ! " said Mole; who was standing by, " and 
 you pretend to play tragedy ! Come to me to- 
 morrow, and I '11 teach you how to be impassioned 
 without getting out of breath." 
 
 Talma went ; but whether the master lacked 
 patience or the pupil docility, the lesson did him 
 little good. At that time there was an actor at the 
 theatre named Dorival ; thin, ugly, and weak-voiced, 
 he was nevertheless quite successful as a tragedian. 
 " How does that fellow manage ? " thought Talma. 
 " I am ten times as strong, and yet I fatigue myself 
 ten times more. I must ask him his secret." 
 
36 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 Dorival baffled his querist by this bitter-sweet 
 reply, which has a smack of envy in it : " Oh ! you 
 are so. successful, M. Talma, that you need no 
 lessons." 
 
 " I '11 make you give me one, though," muttered 
 Talma; and the next time that Dorival played 
 Chatillon in " Zaire," the young man hid himself — 
 guess where ! in the prompter's box, where he 
 could hear and see without being seen. There he 
 watched and studied to such good purpose, that, 
 after the great speech in the second act, he left his 
 post, exclaiming, " I've got it! I've hit it /" He 
 saw that Dorival's whole art lay in his genius for 
 breathing, which led him always to take breath 
 before his lungs were quite empty ; and, to conceal 
 this repeated inhalation from the public, he strove 
 to place it before a> e, or o, — that is, at places 
 where, his mouth being already open, he could 
 breathe lightly and imperceptibly. 
 
 We see what an immense part the breath has to 
 play in elocutionary art ; its rules are the only 
 inviolable ones. An actor launched on a stormy 
 passage, carried away by passion, may forget the 
 laws of punctuation, confound commas and periods, 
 and hasten headlong to the conclusion of his phrase; 
 but he must always be master of his breath, even 
 
THE ART OF BREATHING. Z7 
 
 when he seems to lose it ; an accomplished actor 
 is never out of breath except in appearance and 
 for effect. 
 
 Talma reduced these rules to a striking maxim : 
 The artist who tires himself is no genius." 
 
 I hear my readers objection : " This art may be 
 very useful to an actor ; but we are talking of read- 
 ing, not the theatre." Yes, but the reader needs 
 it yet more than the actor ; for, long and important 
 as the latter s part may be, he always has times of 
 forced rest. He is silent when others speak ; and 
 his very gestures, added to his words, help to make 
 them true and touching. But the reader often goes 
 on for an hour without pause, the immobility of his 
 body obliging him to draw all his power from his 
 will alone. Consider, therefore, whether it is use- 
 less for him to understand the management of that 
 precious breath which alone can carry him tri- 
 umphantly and untired to the end. 
 
 Here is a curious example of the science of econ- 
 omy applied to the breath. Take a lighted candle, 
 stand in front of it, and sing a: the light will 
 scarcely flicker ; but, instead of a single tone, sing 
 a scale, and you will see the candle quiver at every 
 note. The singer, Delle Sedie, runs up and down 
 the scale before a flame, and it never wavers. This 
 
38 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 is because he permits only the exact amount oi 
 breath to escape which is requisite to force the 
 sound straight forward ; and the air, being thus 
 occupied in the emission of the note, loses its 
 quality of wind, and is reduced to its quality of 
 sound. You or I, on the contrary, waste a great 
 deal of breath, and send the sound right and left, 
 as well as forward. From this elocutionary rule 
 we may deduce a moral lesson : In every act of 
 life, spend no more than the exact amount of energy 
 required! Every mental emotion is a jewel. Let 
 us hoard them up for fitting use. How many peo- 
 ple waste, in impatience and petty strife, the treas- 
 ure of anger, so sacred when it becomes righteous 
 wrath ! 
 
 Now, for a few final and most necessary sugges- 
 tions to readers. To breathe easily, choose a high 
 seat. Buried in an easy-chair, it is impossible to 
 breathe from the base of the lungs. I would also 
 say, Be careful to sit erect. No one who stoops 
 can breathe otherwise than ill. Lastly, if possible, 
 have a support for your back. Often, when reading 
 in public, I have checked incipient vocal and cere- 
 bral fatigue simply by leaning well back in my 
 chair. The moment that equilibrium was restored, 
 I breathed freely, and my head grew clear. 
 
PRONUNCIA TION. 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 We now pass from the world of sounds to the 
 world of words ; we stopped at vowels, and will now 
 add to them consonants, which are the true frame- 
 work of the word : a word may be reconstructed 
 from its consonants as Cuvier reconstructed an 
 unknown animal from its bones. The union of 
 vowels and consonants constitutes pronunciation, 
 for no consonant can be pronounced without the 
 addition of a vowel ; and the vowel by itself forms 
 a sound which may be uttered, but not a distinct 
 word. Clear speech, correct diction, the very life 
 of language, depend upon good pronunciation ; so 
 that it is most important to study and attain it. 
 All who read in public should strive to give each 
 vowel its appropriate accent and emphasis, for 
 otherwise the effect of the best sentence ever 
 penned may be lost. 
 
40 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 In regard to consonants, the science of pronun- 
 ciation is the science of articulation, the most diffi- 
 cult and most useful art imaginable. Few people 
 are born with perfect articulation ; in some it is 
 harsh, in others lisping, in others thick and indis- 
 tinct. Practice, constant and systematic practice, 
 is the only remedy for these defects. Let me 
 give you a simple but excellent exercise, which 
 every one can try, and which is the result of obser- 
 vation. Suppose that you have a weighty secret 
 to confide to a friend, but you are afraid of being 
 overheard, as the door is open into the next room, 
 where people are sitting. Do you go close up to 
 your friend and whisper in his ear ? No ; you 
 dare not, lest you be surprised in that suspicious 
 attitude. What then will you do ? Let me quote 
 the words of that king of teachers, Regnier. You 
 take your stand directly opposite your friend, and 
 as softly as possible, speaking in an undertone, you 
 trust to distinctness of articulation to convey the 
 words to his eye as well as to his ear, for he watches 
 as well as listens to you. Articulation thus does 
 double duty ; it plays the part of sound itself, and 
 is accordingly obliged to sketch out the words ac« 
 curately, and to emphasize each syllable, that it may 
 penetrate the mind of the hearer. This is an infal- 
 
- PR ON UNCI A TION. 4 1 
 
 lible cure for faulty or harsh enunciation. Practise 
 this exercise for a few months, and your vocal gym- 
 nastics will make the articulatory muscles so strong 
 and supple that they will respond to every turn of 
 thought. Moreover, this method of M. Regnier 
 has been adopted for teaching deaf mutes to speak. 
 The teacher sketches the words on his lips ; no 
 sound, no voice ! nothing but articulation : the deaf 
 man reads from his master s lips ! 
 
 Articulation plays an immense part in the do- 
 main of reading. Articulation, and articulation 
 alone, gives clearness, energy, passion, and force. 
 Such is its power that it can even overcome 
 deficiency of voice in the presence of a large au- 
 dience. There have been actors of the foremost 
 rank, who had scarcely any voice. Potier had no 
 voice. Monvel, the famous Monvel, not only had 
 no voice, he had no teeth ! And yet no one ever 
 lost a word that fell from his lips ; and never 
 was there a more delightful, more moving artist 
 than he, thanks to his perfect articulation. The 
 best reader I ever knew was M. Andrieux, whose 
 voice was not only weak, but worn, hoarse, and 
 croaking. Yet his perfect enunciation triumphed 
 over all these defects. 
 
 Sometimes a lucky hoarseness teaches an actor 
 
42 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 the varied resources of articulation. M. Bouffe was 
 once playing one of his great parts, — Father Gran- 
 det in "The Misers Daughter," — and on reaching 
 the most affecting scene in the play, where the old 
 miser finds that he has been robbed, the actor 
 began to shriek and rant as usual ; but in a few 
 moments the sound died on his lips, and he was 
 compelled to finish in a low voice ! The result was 
 that he was a thousand times more natural and 
 more touching, because he was forced to make up 
 for lack of sound by distinct articulation. No one 
 can speak without a voice ; but the voice alone is 
 so far from being enough for oratory, that there are 
 readers, speakers, and actors, whose very wealth of 
 voice is an embarrassment to them. They cannot 
 enunciate ; sound swallows up their words, vowels 
 devour consonants, and they talk and read so loud, 
 make so much noise about it, that no one can hear 
 them. Sometimes, too, fashion forbids distinct 
 articulation, and it becomes pedantic. An old fre- 
 quenter of the Theatre-Frangais tells me that during 
 the last sixty years fashionable pronunciation has 
 been changed three times. To serious-minded 
 men, however, there is but one true fashion, namely, 
 to pronounce distinctly enough to be understood, 
 but not so much so as to be remarked. 
 
STUTTERING. 43 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 STUTTERING. 
 
 Stuttering is an especial evil, obstinate of cure, 
 and appertaining to both mind and body. When 
 due solely to physical malformation, it naturally 
 comes within the province of medicine ; when result- 
 ing from intellectual causes, it enters into the field 
 of the elocutionist. The tongue often stammers, 
 and stammers habitually, because the mind stam- 
 mers ; because the character stammers ; because 
 the person is never quite sure of what he wants to 
 do or say ; because he is timid, choleric, or hasty. 
 Impatience, timidity, and lack of mental precision 
 are the chief causes of that species of stuttering 
 which is susceptible of cure : let the victim accus- 
 tom himself to speak slowly, to be master of himself 
 and his ideas, and he will cease to stammer. A 
 distinguished singer of my acquaintance stammers 
 slightly when he talks, but never when he sings. 
 Why is this ? Because, when he sings, he is sure 
 
44 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 of his ground ; exercise, practice, and habit have 
 made him master of his voice and diction so soon 
 as he joins words to music; but let him speak, and 
 his natural timidity makes his tongue hesitating 
 and uncertain. The artist vanishes, the man re- 
 mains, and the stammerer reappears. 
 
 Physical stuttering, dependent on the organs of 
 speech only, can be cured by medical aid alone. 
 
 It generally affects all letters impartially, though 
 sometimes a stutterer has special enemies in the 
 alphabet ; that is to say, there are certain letters 
 before which he always hesitates, as a horse pauses 
 before certain obstacles. I can cite a curious fact 
 illustrative of this point. Twenty years ago, M. 
 Scribe and I wrote a play called " Fairy Fingers," 
 in which there was one part written for a stam- 
 merer. The character was meant to be funny, but 
 not ridiculous ; and I even desired it to be touching. 
 M. Got gladly accepted the part ; but, when he came 
 to study it, found himself much puzzled to know 
 how to make it interesting and affecting without 
 ceasing to be funny. At last, he came running in 
 to rehearsal with a radiant face. He hurried up 
 to me, exclaiming : " I Ve hit the secret ! I shall 
 stutter only over two consonants, p and d. Thanks 
 to this plan, suggested by my recent study of stam- 
 
STUTTERING. . 45 
 
 mering, I shall prevent the part from being mo- 
 notonous, rid myself of the insufferable bore of 
 stuttering all the time, and only keep just enough 
 of the trick to be interesting and piquant. But," 
 he added merrily, " it will make more work for you, 
 my dear author ; you will have to add a few more 
 p's and d's to my part. I '11 mark the places where 
 I want them." This was done, and his success was 
 fully equal to his expectations. 
 
 I doubt if organic stammering be curable. Phy- 
 sicians have made many attempts ; I never saw a 
 complete success. Temporary alleviation, or cessa- 
 tion, apparent cures? — yes! but a real cure? — 
 never ! Certain specialists^ advertise the number 
 of their marvellous cures, but a scene which I once 
 witnessed 'makes me rather incredulous in regard 
 to reformed stutterers. I once went to a ball given 
 by a doctor famed for this very specialty, who has 
 done noble service for the art of speech by his 
 theoretical labors. 
 
 " Sir," said I to a gentleman standing by, " will 
 you be my vis-a-vis in the next dance ? " 
 
 " Cer-cer-certainly." 
 
 " Oh ! he stutters," thought I. 
 
 Refreshments were soon passed, and I said to 
 another young man, " Please hand me an ice." 
 
46 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 " Wi-wi-wi-th pl-pl-easure." 
 
 " Ah ! he stammers, too ! " 
 
 I turned and saw an old school-friend, who ex- 
 claimed : " Hullo ! is it you ? Don't you re-re-re- 
 remember how I used to st-st-st-stutter at school ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Well, I came to M. Co-Co-Co-lombat [our 
 host], and from that time forth I've been entirely 
 cur-cur-cur-ed ! " 
 
 It now remains for us to consider the subject of 
 punctuation, if we would complete our survey of 
 reading as a material art. 
 
P UNCTUA TION. 47 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PUNCTUATION. 
 
 We punctuate with words as we punctuate with 
 the pen. 
 
 A self-satisfied young man once went to M. 
 Samson for lessons. Samson inquired, " You wish 
 to take reading-lessons ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," 
 
 " Are you in the habit of reading aloud ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; I have recited a great many scenes 
 from Corneille and Moliere." 
 
 * In public ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Successfully ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Please read the fable of 'The Oak and the 
 Reed,' from this volume of La Fontaine." 
 
 The scholar began: "'The Oak one day, said to 
 the Reed — ' " 
 
48 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 "That will do! Sir, you don't know how to 
 read ! " 
 
 " Certainly not, sir," replied the scholar, somewhat 
 annoyed; "if I did, I should not come to, you for 
 advice. But I don't see how in a single line — " 
 
 " Please read it again." 
 
 He repeated : " ' The Oak one day, said to the 
 Reed — ' " 
 
 " I said you didn't know how to read." 
 
 " But " — 
 
 "But," said Samson, calmly, "do we ever join 
 adverbs to substantives, instead of to verbs ? Was 
 there ever an oak named ' One Day ' ? No ; very 
 well, then why do you read, ' The Oak one day, 
 said to the Reed ' ? Say, ' The Oak (comma), one 
 day said to the Reed.' " 
 
 " That 's true ! " cried the astonished youth. 
 
 " So true," replied his master, with the same 
 quiet manner, "that I have just taught you one of 
 the most important branches of the art of reading 
 aloud, — the art of punctuation." 
 
 "What, sir, do people punctuate in reading?" 
 
 " Why, of course they do ! Such and such a 
 pause denotes a period ; such and such a half-pause, 
 a comma ; such and such an accent, a question- 
 mark : and much of the clearness and interest of 
 
PUNCTUA TION. 49 
 
 your story depends on this skilful distribution of 
 periods and commas, which the reader indicates 
 without mentioning, and the listener hears, although 
 they are not expressly named. " 
 
 Written punctuation varying in every age, spoken 
 punctuation must also vary. Suppose that a tragic 
 poet of our day should use Corneille's phrase, " Let 
 him die ! " 1 he would put one, if not two, big ex- 
 clamation-points after it. Corneille simply put a 
 comma, which speaks loudly. It shows that to 
 Corneille this line was no piece of noisy oratory, 
 but an involuntary cry, instantly amended by the 
 next line, which Voltaire thought weak because he 
 could not feel its exquisite delicacy. The Roman 
 exclaims, " Let him die ! " But the father adds, 
 " Or let proud despair relieve him ! " 
 
 Ellipses, or stars (***), are a modern invention. 
 There is not a solitary example of them in the liter- 
 ature of either the seventeenth or eighteenth century. 
 They are much used in dramatic works, Scribe being 
 one of their chief inventors. They suit the feverish, 
 hurried action of his plays, being the punctuation 
 
 1 From " Horace " (The Horatii). This line is world-re- 
 nowned. Voltaire says that " there is nothing comparable to it in 
 the literature of antiquity ; and that the whole audience was so car- 
 ried away by it on its first hearing as to drown the weak line fol- 
 lowing it in storms of applause." 
 
 4 
 
50 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 of a man in great haste, carried along by the rush 
 of events, — the punctuation of a man who thinks 
 that his meaning will be taken for granted. It is 
 exceedingly hard to punctuate in this style, in 
 reading. 
 
 It is now evident that I was right when I said 
 that reading was an art, and had its special rules ; 
 for we have laid down rules for the production of 
 the voice, for breathing, for pronunciation, artic- 
 ulation, and punctuation, — that is, for every thing 
 relating to the material part of the art of reading. 
 We will now advance to its intellectual side. 
 
READING MADE ELOQUENT IN PROSE 
 AND POETRY. 
 
 o>*Jo. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 READERS AND SPEAKERS. 
 
 a 
 
 Let us suppose a scholar who is mechanically 
 perfect. Practice has made his voice even, agree- 
 able, and flexible. He thoroughly understands the 
 art of blending his medium, upper, and lower tones. 
 He breathes imperceptibly. He pronounces dis- 
 tinctly. His articulation is sharp and clear. All 
 faults in his pronunciation, — if he had any, — have 
 been remedied. He punctuates as he reads. His 
 delivery is neither hurried, jerky, nor drawling; and, 
 what is very rare, he never drops his final syllables, 
 so that every phrase is round and firm. 
 
 Is he a finished reader ? No ; he is only a 
 correct reader. He can, without tiring himself or 
 
52 READING AS A FINE ART. . 
 
 his hearers, read a political report, a scientific 
 speech, a financial statement, or a legal document. 
 All this is very well; reading is thus brought to 
 bear upon almost all the liberal professions, so that 
 it may rightly be ranked under the head of useful 
 knowledge. 
 
 But it does not yet deserve the noble name of 
 art. To be worthy of that, it must extend to works 
 of art ; must become the interpreter of the master- 
 pieces of genius : only, in that case, correctness will 
 not suffice, — talent is also requisite. 
 
 All readers cannot become talented readers, 
 neither can all learn with the same ease and in the 
 same space of time ; but all who are in any way 
 gifted, may learn in proportion to their intellect 
 and natural endowments. Select spirits, blessed 
 with exceptional powers, will of course reap double 
 harvest. Genius is not to be bought or taught, 
 though talent may be acquired. When genius is 
 added to talent, we call it Talma. Of what does 
 this talent consist ; upon what rules does it depend ? 
 
 St. Marc Girardin, we remember, summed them 
 up in the one axiom, "We should read as we 
 speak." But this opinion, which has passed into 
 a principle with many clever men, is subject to 
 more than one restriction. 
 
READERS AND SPEAKERS. 53 
 
 Read as we talk ? So be it ! — but on condition 
 that we talk well. Now almost every one talks very 
 ill. Add to this the fact that conversation admits, 
 even requires, a certain amount of careless pro- 
 nunciation, freedom of diction, and voluntary inac- 
 curacy, which are graceful in their place, but which 
 would certainty be a great defect in reading. To 
 talk as we read would be pedantic; to read as 
 we talk would often be vulgar. 
 
 An amateur who prided himself on his elegant 
 elocution once went to the famous tragedian Lafon 
 for lessons, less desirous of advice than of flattery 
 from so high an authority. Lafon corrected his 
 pronunciation frequently and severely, upon which 
 the offended pupil exclaimed : " But, sir, I pro- 
 nounce just as all fashionable people do." 
 
 " Fashion is fashion," replied Lafon, coldly, " but 
 art is art ; reading is reading, and its rules are not 
 those of conversation." 
 
 The reproof was excellent ; and the conclusion is 
 that there undoubtedly is a truth of inflection, grace 
 of diction, and naturalness in conversation which 
 may be profitably employed in reading aloud ; but 
 that we must never borrow any but its good points, 
 if we would be true to nature, and correct. 
 
 Nor is this all.. People, by a strange confusion 
 
54 READING AS A FINE ART, 
 
 of terms, use indifferently and in the same sense 
 the two words speak and talk. No two words are 
 more unlike in meaning. There are people who, 
 from the standpoint of good diction, talk very well 
 and speak quite as ill. If you wish to prove this fact, 
 go into any court-house; address some lawyer of 
 your acquaintance, and chat with him for a moment. 
 His delivery will be natural and simple. Follow 
 him into the court-room and listen to his plea. He 
 is another man ; all his merits disappear : he was 
 natural, he is now bombastic ; he talked in tune, he 
 speaks out of tune, — for we can speak as well as 
 sing out of tune. Many lawyers seem as if they 
 were playing the part of L' In time in the " Plaid- 
 eurs;" 1 Regnier, Got, and Coquelin imitate them 
 so perfectly, that they seem rather to imitate 
 Coquelin, Got, and Regnier. Everybody knows 
 the lawyer whom Got copies ; Coquelin imitates 
 three ; and as for Regnier, his model was a royal 
 solicitor, who brought such poetic sweetness of 
 pronunciation and such grace of delivery to bear 
 upon his criminal cases, as to remind one of Mile. 
 Mars in her palmy days, and to be perfectly 
 irresistible. 
 
 We must not be too hard on lawyers ; preachers 
 
 1 Comedy by Racine. 
 
READERS AND SPEAKERS. 55 
 
 are quite as bad. I have heard any number of 
 preachers, and never but one who spoke thoroughly 
 well. I will not name him, lest I quarrel with the 
 rest. It is plain, that if we are to learn to read 
 we should also learn to speak; and the curious 
 point is that there is but one true way to learn to 
 speak, and that is to learn to read. Let me explain 
 my meaning. 
 
 A general mounts his horse before going into 
 battle. His first requisite, therefore, is a knowl- 
 edge of horsemanship. Obliged to move rapidly 
 from one point to another, to see that his orders 
 are properly executed, his animal should be the 
 docile instrument of his will, which he can govern 
 almost unconsciously : if obliged to pay attention 
 to his steed, his mind cannot be upon his plan of 
 action. A general, therefore, requires two in- 
 structors, — a warrior, and a riding-master. 
 
 Such is precisely the case with the speaker : his 
 voice is his horse, his weapon of warfare; if he 
 would not have it betray him in action, previous 
 and direct practice must teach him the art of using 
 it. We cannot learn to think and to speak at one 
 and the same time. Vocal exercises and the study 
 of delivery are all the more beneficial that they 
 lead us to consider the ideas of others, and our own 
 mind is free to examine them carefully. 
 
S6 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 I was once intimate with a young deputy, full of 
 talent and learning, who deemed his deputyship 
 merely a stepping-stone to the ministry. On one 
 occasion, he was to deliver an address before the 
 ministers and House of Deputies, and begged me 
 to come and hear him. His speech over, he hur- 
 ried towards me, anxious to learn my opinion. 
 
 " Well, old fellow," said I, " this speech will never 
 get you into the Cabinet." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Because you absolutely don't know how to 
 speak." 
 
 " Don't know how to speak ! " said he, some- 
 what hurt and offended ; " and yet I thought my 
 speech — " 
 
 " Oh, your speech was in excellent taste, — fair 
 and sensible, even witty ; but what avails all that, 
 if no one could hear you ? " 
 
 " Not hear me ! But I began so loud — " 
 
 " That you may say you shrieked ; accordingly, 
 you were hoarse in fifteen minutes/' 
 
 " That's true." 
 
 "Wait; I haven't finished yet. Having spoken % 
 too loud, you spoke too fast." 
 
 " Oh ! too fast ! " he exclaimed, deprecatingly ; 
 " perhaps I did at the end, because I wanted to cut 
 it short." 
 
READERS AND SPEAKERS. $7 
 
 "Exactly; and you did the very opposite — you 
 spun it out. Nothing, on the stage, makes a scene 
 seem so long as to reel it off too fast. An audience 
 is very cunning, and guesses by your very haste 
 that you think the thing drags. Unwarned, the 
 listener might not notice it ; you draw his attention 
 to the fact, and he loses patience." 
 
 "True again I" cried my friend. "I felt the 
 audience slipping from me towards the end ; but 
 how can I remedy this ill ? " 
 
 " Nothing easier. Take a reading-master." 
 
 " Do you know one ? " 
 
 " A splendid one I" 
 
 "And who?" 
 
 " M. Samson." 
 
 " Samson, the actor ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But I can't take lessons of an actor." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 "Just think of it ! A politician! a statesman! 
 All the comic papers would make fun of me if it 
 were known ! " 
 
 ." You are right ! People are just stupid- enough 
 to turn you into ridicule for studying your profes- 
 sion. But rest easy, no one shall know it." 
 
 " You '11 keep my secret ? " 
 
58 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 " Yes ; and Samson too, I promise you." 
 So he set to work. Samson placed his voice, 
 strengthened it, and made it flexible. He made him 
 read aloud page after page of Bossuet, Massillon, 
 and Bourdaloue ; he taught him to begin a speech 
 slowly and in a low voice : nothing so commands 
 silence as a low voice ; people are hushed to hear 
 you, and end by listening. These wise lessons bore 
 their fruit. Six months later, my friend was a min- 
 ister! I don't say a great minister, but still a 
 minister ! I advise all to profit by his example. 
 Not that all can be ministers ; but all may be 
 obliged to speak two or three hours daily, whether 
 as teachers, politicians, or lawyers. Be prepared ! 
 be well armed and equipped ! Remember that ho 
 one can master his public unless he be master of 
 himself; that no one can master himself unless he 
 be master of his voice, and take an elocution-teacher ! 
 I am wrong, take two. If you would know any 
 thing thoroughly, you should have a tutor as well as 
 a teacher ; and that tutor, yourself. Add personal 
 observation to your lesson ! Listen to voices as 
 you study faces ! Search for natural intonations as 
 for sincere friends ; and, above all, study children, 
 for here comes in a very singular fact. 
 
 Children are admirable elocution- teachers. What 
 
READERS AND SPEAKERS. 59 
 
 truth ! what correct intonation ! Their flexible 
 organs yielding readily to their ever-changing emo- 
 tions, they attain more daring inflections than the 
 most skilful actor could imagine ! Did you never 
 hear a child repeat some secret which it has dis- 
 covered, some mysterious scene it has witnessed, 
 like Louisa in the " Malade Imaginaire" ? It will 
 imitate every voice, reproduce every accent ! But 
 ask the same child directly after, to read that very 
 scene from Moliere, and it will begin in the whin- 
 ing, nasal, and monotonous tone characteristic of 
 juvenile reading. These great reading-masters can- 
 not read. In proof of this strange phenomenon, 
 let me cite an anecdote which throws much light 
 on the question in hand. 
 
 In one of my plays, " Louise de Lignerolles," 
 there is one character written for a child, which 
 was originally given to a girl of ten, full of grace 
 and intelligence. At the general rehearsal, my 
 little actress did wonders ; and a spectator, sitting 
 in front of me, applauded her loudly, exclaiming, 
 " What truth ! what simplicity! it's very evident 
 that she 's never been taught to do that ! " 
 
 Now, for a whole month, I had done nothing but 
 teach her that part, intonation by intonation. Not 
 that it was in any way beyond her childish capa- 
 
60 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 city ; for many of the expressions were borrowed 
 from my little actress herself, I being in the habit 
 of seeing her constantly. But so soon as these 
 expressions were embodied in her part, so soon as 
 she had to recite them, every trace of unconscious- 
 ness vanished. What she said to perfection when 
 she spoke for herself, she uttered coldly and un- 
 meaningly when she spoke for another ; and it cost 
 me much time and labor to bring her back to her- 
 self, to re-teach her what she had taught me. 
 
 It thus appears that reading is so deep an art, 
 that it must be taught even to those who reveal it 
 to us ! 
 
 I now come to the most interesting point of our 
 investigations, — reading considered as a means of 
 literary appreciation. 
 
READING AS A MEANS OF CRITICISM. 6 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 READING AS A MEANS OF CRITICISM. 
 
 After listening attentively to my thoughts and 
 ideas on this subject, Sainte-Beuve said : " By your 
 reckoning, then, a skilful reader is a skilful critic. ,, 
 
 " To be sure," said I, " you are closer to the 
 truth than you guessed ; for in what, indeed, does 
 the reader's talent lie, if not in rendering all the 
 beauties of the works which he interprets ? To ren- 
 der them properly, he- must of course understand 
 them. But the astonishing thing is, that it is his 
 very effort to render them well which gives him a 
 clearer comprehension of them. Reading aloud 
 gives a power of analysis which silent reading can 
 never know." 
 
 Sainte-Beuve then asked me to give him an 
 example to illustrate my meaning ; and I quoted 
 Racine's famous speech on Corneille, which con- 
 tains one passage specially remarkable, where he 
 
62 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 draws a comparison between the French theatre 
 before and after Corneille. I had often read this 
 passage to myself, and admired it much ; but on at- 
 tempting to read it aloud, I encountered difficulties 
 which surprised me and gave me cause to reflect. 
 The second part struck me as heavy, and almost 
 impossible to render well. Composed of seventeen 
 lines, it yet forms but a single phrase ! Not a 
 breathing-place ! Not a period, colon, or even semi- 
 colon ! nothing but commas, with clause succeeding 
 clause, prolonging the sense just as you deem it com- 
 plete, and forcing you to follow it, panting for breath, 
 through all its endless mazes ! I reached the end, 
 gasping, but thoughtful. Why, I queried, did Ra- 
 cine write so long and labored a phrase ? Instinc- 
 tively, my eye turned to the first part of the 
 fragment. What did I see?* A perfect contrast! 
 Seven sentences in nine lines ! Exclamation-points 
 everywhere ! Not a single verb ! A disjointed, 
 jerky style ! All was fragmentary and broken ! I 
 uttered a cry of joy ; light dawned upon me ! De- 
 siring to express the two states of the drama, he 
 did more than describe, he painted them in words. 
 To represent what he himself calls the chaotic stage 
 of the dramatic poem, he employed a violent, abrupt, 
 and inartistic style. To give a perfect picture of 
 
READING AS A MEANS OF CRITICISM, 63 
 
 dramatic art as Corneille made it, he imagined a 
 long and well-turned period, harmonious and con- 
 cordant, — similar, in fact, in its labored arrange- 
 ment to Corneille's own tragedies, — " Rodogune " 
 and " Polyeucte," — ■ in the skilful combination of 
 situations and characters. 
 
 This clew once gained, I took up the book, and 
 re-read the fragment. Let any one read it accord- 
 ingly, and judge for himself : — 
 
 " In what a wretched condition was the French 
 stage when Corneille began his labors ! What dis- 
 order ! What irregularity ! No taste, no knowledge 
 of true dramatic beauty. Authors as ignorant as 
 their audience, their themes for the most part extrav- 
 agant and improbable, — no morals, no characters ; 
 the style of delivery even more vicious than the 
 action, miserable puns and witticisms forming the 
 chief ornament ; in a word, every rule of art, and 
 indeed of decency and propriety, violated. 
 
 " In this infancy, or rather this chaotic state, of 
 the dramatic poem in France, Corneille, having long 
 sought the right road, and struggled, if I may ven- 
 ture to say so, against the bad taste of his age, 
 finally, inspired by rare genius and aided by his 
 reading of antique literature, produced upon the 
 
64 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 scene reason, but reason » accompanied by all the 
 pomp and splendor of which the French language 
 ■ is capable, brought the wonderful and the proba- 
 ble into happy harmony, and left far behind him all 
 his rivals, most of whom, despairing of ever keep- 
 ing pace with him, and fearing to dispute the prize 
 with him, confined themselves to impugning the 
 popular plaudits awarded him, and vainly strove, 
 by their words and foolish criticisms, to depreciate 
 a merit which they could not equal." 
 
 I think this proof decisive, this demonstration 
 irrefutable. It is evident that the extract assumes 
 an entirely novel aspect when read aloud. New 
 light falls upon it, and the author's thought is made 
 manifest. Shall I add that the very difficulty of 
 reading this passage makes it an. excellent lesson ? 
 I know nothing harder, and therefore more profita- 
 ble, than to carry to a successful close this terrible 
 seventeen-line-long sentence, without once stop- 
 ping by the way, without seeming fatigued, always 
 marking by your inflections that the sense is not 
 complete, and finally unrolling the whole majestic 
 phrase in all its amplitude and superb suppleness. 
 My studies as a reader were very useful to me that 
 day ; and I inwardly thanked the art which, having 
 
READING AS A MEANS OF CRITICISM. 65 
 
 given me a true understanding of this fine fragment, 
 allowed me to reveal it to others. 
 
 But every medal has its reverse ; and reading 
 aloud has its disillusions. If it teaches us to 
 admire, it also teaches us to discriminate. Sainte- 
 Beuve was right: a reader is a critic, a judge! — 
 a judge to whom many hidden defects are revealed. 
 How many sad discoveries I have made in this 
 way ! How many books and authors whom I ad- 
 mired, — whom others still admire, — failed to resist 
 this terrible proof ! We say that a thing stares us 
 in the face: we may, with equal justice, say that it 
 strikes our ear. The eye runs over the page, skips 
 tedious bits, glides over dangerous spots ! But 
 the ear hears every thing ! The ear makes no 
 cuts ! The ear is delicate, sensitive, and clairvoy- 
 ant to a degree inconceivable by the eye. A word 
 which, glanced at, passed unnoticed, assumes vast 
 proportions when read aloud. A phrase which 
 barely ruffled, now disgusts you. The greater the 
 size of the audience, the more quick-sighted the 
 reader becomes. An electric current is at once 
 established between reader and audience, which 
 becomes a means of mutual instruction. The 
 reader teaches himself while teaching others. He 
 needs not to be warned by their murmurs or signs 
 
 5 
 
66 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 of impatience ; their very silence speaks to him ; 
 he .reads their thoughts, foresees that a certain 
 passage will shock, must shock them, long before he 
 reaches it: it seems as if his critical faculties, 
 roused and set in motion by this formidable con- 
 tact with the public, attained a certain power of 
 divination ! 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON READING POETRY. 
 
 We now come to a most important point in our 
 studies, — the application, namely, of our art to the 
 reading of poetry. How should poetry be read ? 
 Judging by the present style, even on the stage, 
 the great art of reading poetry lies in making peo- 
 ple think it prose. I went to see a new play the 
 other day, and, in a box close by me, were two 
 elegantly dressed ladies. Suddenly, one said to the 
 other, " But, my dear, this is poetry ! " and there- 
 upon both rose and left the theatre. Nor was it 
 the actor's fault that they made this unpleasant 
 discovery. He really did his best to disguise the 
 monster, breaking, mouthing, and mincing his lines 
 to his utmost ability. 
 
 Amateurs, of course, are even worse than pro- 
 fessionals, and for a very simple reason. No one 
 
68 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 can know what he has not learned, and very few 
 suspect that there is any thing to be learned in this 
 direction. Accordingly, I never hear poetry read 
 in public without marvelling at the infinite variety 
 of ways of reading it badly. Some, under pretext 
 of harmony, feel obliged to wrap themselves in an 
 unctuous sweetness, which rounds every angle, 
 destroys all outlines, and finally produces an in- 
 sipid, sickening sensation like that of some muci- 
 laginous draught. Others, feigning to seek truth, 
 let rhythm, rhyme, and reason go ; and when they, 
 by some unlucky chance, remember that the cae- 
 sural pause falls on the sixth foot, read boldly, — 
 
 " My spirit is not meet [pause, comma,] for speculation ! " 
 
 To these, strange errors let me oppose three 
 absolute rules, whose truth I shall hope to exem- 
 plify:— 
 
 I. That the art of reading is never so difficult, 
 nor so necessary, as when applied to poetry ; and 
 that long practice only can make one master of it. 
 
 II. That poetry should be read like poetry, and 
 the poets interpreted by a poet. 
 
 III. That their interpreter becomes their con- 
 fidant, and that they reveal to him secrets unknown 
 to others. 
 
ON READING POETRY. 69 
 
 A single man will suffice to prove these three 
 propositions : I mean La Fontaine. 
 
 Here I must refer to a bit of detail, less a digres- 
 sion than a safer, pleasanter road towards our goal. 
 
 From La Fontaine's works I first learned to read. 
 My master was a very clever man, almost too clever 
 in point of fact. He had a charming voice which he 
 used exceedingly well, an expressive face which he 
 used to excess ; and he gave me two kinds of les- 
 sons, both equally beneficial to me, and by which 
 others may profit as well as I : he taught me what 
 a reader should do, and what he should avoid doing. 
 
 On one occasion, when he was to read some of 
 La Fontaine's fables at the Conservatory,- — among 
 them the " Oak and the Reed," — he invited me to 
 come and hear him, saying : " You shall see how 
 a reader who knows his trade presents himself be- 
 fore a large audience. 
 
 " I begin by glancing round the room ; my look, 
 all-embracing, and accompanied by a very slight 
 smile, must be pleasant ; its object is to collect the 
 suffrages and sympathy of the audience in advance, 
 and to fasten all eyes upon myself. I then make a 
 little noise in my throat — hem ! hem ! — as if about 
 to begin. But not at all, not yet ! No ! I wait for 
 perfect silence to be established. I then extend 
 
70 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 my arm, my right arm, curving my elbow grace- 
 fully, — the elbow is the soul of the arm ! Interest 
 and attention are excited : I give the title. I give 
 it simply, without striving for effect, — I merely act 
 the part of a play-bill. I then begin : ' The oaky — 
 my voice full and round, gesture broad and some- 
 what bombastic ! I desire to paint a giant, who 
 stands with his head in the clouds and his feet in 
 the kingdom of the dead. 
 
 " ' The Oak, one day, said to the Reed — ' 
 
 " Oh ! scarcely a morsel of voice for the word 
 'reed/ Make it as small as you can, poor leaflet ; 
 mark its insignificance by your tone ; despise it 
 thoroughly, look askance at it ! All this very low 
 and faint, — as if you saw it at a distance ! " 
 
 You laugh ! and you are quite right. And you 
 will laugh still more, when I tell you that in the 
 fable of " The Monkey and the Cat," at the lines — 
 
 " One day, our two plunderers watched by the fire 
 Rich, ripe nuts a-roasting, with looks of desire " — 
 
 M. Febve rolled the r's to imitate the chestnuts 
 crackling before the fire ! Yes, all this is funny, 
 is absurd ! And yet, at bottom, it is correct, pro- 
 found, and true. It is true that a reader should 
 
ON READING POETRY. 7 1 
 
 never begin the instant he stands before his audi- 
 ence ; true, that he should exchange communicating 
 glances with his listeners ; true, that he should give 
 his title clearly and simply ; true, finally, that he 
 should represent and, as it were, paint his various 
 characters by the varying tones of his voice, — and 
 if we suppress the exaggeration and affectation 
 resultant, we have an excellent and most useful 
 lesson, especially in regard to La Fontaine. A 
 general impression, now passed into a principle, 
 declares that his fables are to be read simply. Cer- 
 tainly ! but what do we mean by simply ? Do we 
 mean, — let us be plain, — do we mean prosily ? If 
 so, I say, No ! a thousand times, No ! That is not 
 the way to read La Fontaine : that is disfiguring him. 
 It is betraying, not translating, him. La Fontaine 
 is the most complex of all French poets. No other 
 poet unites in himself so many extremes. No 
 poetry is so rich in oppositions. His nickname of 
 good fellow, and his reputation for simplicity, de- 
 ceive us. His character as a man leads us astray 
 in regard to his character as a poet. Pen in hand, 
 he is the most wily, ingenious, I may say the foxi- 
 est, of writers. With La Fontaine, every effect is 
 calculated, premeditated, and worked for ; and at 
 the same time, by a marvellous faculty, every thing 
 
72 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 is harmonious and natural. All is artistic ; nothing 
 artificial. A line, a word, suffices to open vast 
 horizons. He is an incomparable painter, unri- 
 valled narrator. His character-drawing is almost 
 equal to that of Moliere himself. And can we sup- 
 pose that all this may and can be rendered simply 
 and straightforwardly ? Heaven forbid ! Deep 
 study alone confers upon a reader the power of 
 understanding and explaining even in imperfect 
 fashion such profound art. 
 
 Take, for example, the fable of "The Heron :" l 
 
 " One day, — no matter when or where, — 
 A long-legged heron chanced to fare, 
 With his long, sharp beak 
 Helved on his long, lank neck." 
 
 Every one must feel the triple repetition of the 
 word " long " to be a picturesque effect, which must 
 be duly given by the reader. 
 
 " He came to a river's brink, — 
 The water was clear and still." 
 
 These two lines cannot be read in one and the 
 same way ; the first, simply narrative in style, must 
 be simply given. The second is descriptive: the 
 
 1 Adapted from the translation by Elizur Wright. 
 
ON READING POETRY. 73 
 
 image must be visible on the reader's lips, as on 
 the writer's pen. 
 
 " The carp and the pike there at will 
 Pursued their silent fun, 
 Turning up ever and anon 
 A golden side to the sun ! " 
 
 Oh ! you don't know your trade as a reader if your 
 gay, lively, sportive tone does not paint the antics 
 of this frolicsome couple ! 
 
 " With ease the heron might have made 
 Great profits in the fishing-trade : 
 So near came the scaly fry 
 They might be caught by the passer-by." 
 
 Simple narrative style. 
 
 " But he thought he better might 
 Wait for a smarter appetite." 
 
 Mark this ! here we get an insight into the bird's 
 character ! The heron is a sensualist, an epicure, 
 rather than a glutton. Appetite is a pleasure to 
 those of dainty stomach. Give the word appetite 
 that accent of satisfaction always roused by the 
 thought or sight of any thing pleasant : we shall 
 see directly how useful this slight hint will be. 
 
 " For he lived by rule, and could not eat, 
 Except at his hours, the best of meat." 
 
74 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 Second descriptive verse. The heron is an impor- 
 tant personage, and respects himself accordingly. 
 
 "Anon his appetite returned once more.' 
 
 The heron is quite satisfied. 
 
 " Approaching then again the shore, 
 He saw some tench taking their leaps, 
 Now and then, from the lowest deeps." 
 
 A perfect picture! an admirable stanza! It ex- 
 presses that romantic feeling which all of us have 
 experienced in fishing, when a fish rises slowly 
 through the watery veil, faint and vague at first, but 
 growing ever more distinct, until it leaps to the sur- 
 face ! Paint all this with your voice ! 
 
 " With as dainty a taste as Horace's rat, 
 He turned away from such food as that." 
 
 The character-drawing goes on. 
 
 " What ! tench for a heron ? Poh ! 
 I scorn the thought, and let them go." 
 
 Mark the h in heron well ; dwell on it, — make it 
 as prominent as his own long legs. 
 
 "The tench refused, there came a gudgeon, 
 ' For all that,' said the bird, ' I trudge on. ,n 
 
 Here he laughs a laugh of scorn ! 
 
ON READING POETRY. 7$ 
 
 " I '11 ne'er ope my beak, so the gods please, 
 For such mean little fishes as these. 
 
 He did it for less ; 
 
 For it came to pass 
 That not another fish could he see ; 
 And at last, so hungry was he," — 
 
 Hungry ! Do you see the difference now between 
 this and the word " appetite " ? Do you think La 
 Fontaine used this neat, sharp little phrase by mere 
 chance ? No longer an epicure, the very word is 
 brief, pressing, and importunate as the want it 
 expresses ! Give all this with your voice, and also 
 depict the sudden ending of the tale, scornful and 
 summary as a decree of fate : — 
 
 " That he thought it of great avail 
 To find on the bank a single snail ! " 
 
 Almost all La Fontaine's fables are susceptible 
 of a similar amount of study ; and all great poets 
 demand as much research as La Fontaine. Only 
 do not forget that there are as many ways of read- 
 ing as of writing verse. Racine cannot be read 
 like Corneille, Moliere like Regnaud, nor Lamar- 
 tine like Victor Hugo. To read is to translate. 
 Our diction, therefore, to 'be good, should be an 
 exact reflection of the genius that it interprets. 
 
76 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 Diminish certain faults, disguise certain blemishes, 
 hasten over tedious passages, but never be false to 
 nature ! A reader who applied the simple, natural 
 style to " Ruy Bias/' would at once deprive it of its 
 most prominent quality, — richness of coloring. 
 We must be extravagant with the extravagant. 
 When we copy Rubens, we don't make a pencil 
 drawing ! So, too, every style of poetry has its own 
 special manner, in which it should be read. If we 
 read an ode like a fable, a lyric strain like a dra- 
 matic fragment, we instantly draw a dingy veil of 
 uniformity over the superb variety of our literature. 
 But the one invariable, fixed rule, applicable to 
 every style and reader, — the rule which I repeat as 
 the law of laws, — may be summed up in these 
 words : Poetry must be read poetically. If it is 
 rhythmical, give the rhythm ; if it rhymes, give the 
 rhyme. Some may bid you beware of exaggeration 
 and bombast ; to beware lest you forget nature : 
 but, thank God ! the truth is far beyond the petty 
 comprehension of the pedant. 
 
 The next step in our progress leads us to con- 
 sider the voice. A conversation which I recently 
 held with Victor Cousin may serve to illustrate my 
 views of the subject. 
 
 I had been criticising certain poems, and M. 
 
POWER OF THE VOICE. 
 
 Cousin, though agreeing with me, was surprised by 
 my theories, and asked me how I came by such 
 notions. 
 
 " By reading aloud," I replied. " The voice is a 
 revealer, an initiator, whose power is as marvellous 
 as it is unknown." 
 
 " I do not understand.'' 
 
 " Let me explain. Mme. Talma, a famous ac- 
 tress of the last century — " 
 
 " I 've seen her ! " cried Cousin. " What soul ! 
 What sensibility!" 
 
 " Well ! Mme. Talma tells us in her memoirs that, 
 when playing ' Andromache/ she was once so 
 deeply moved that tears flowed, not only from the 
 eyes of all her hearers, but from her own as well. 
 The tragedy over, one of her admirers rushed to 
 her box and, grasping her hand, exclaimed : ' Oh ! 
 my dear friend, it was wonderful ! It was Androm- 
 ache herself! I'm sure that you really felt your- 
 self in Epirus, Hector's widow ! ' 
 
 " Not a bit of it ! " she replied, with a laugh. 
 
 " And yet you were really affected, for you wept ! " 
 
 " To be sure, I did." 
 
 " But why ? why ? What made you weep ? " 
 
 " My voice." 
 
 " What ! your voice ? " 
 
78 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 " Yes, my own voice ! I was touched by the 
 expression which my voice gave to the sorrows of 
 Andromache, not by the sorrows themselves. The 
 nervous shiver which traversed my frame was the 
 electric shock produced on my nerves by my own 
 tones. For the time being, I was both actress and 
 audience. I magnetized myself ! " 
 
 " How strange ! " cried Cousin. 
 
 " And how much light the story throws upon the 
 power of the voice ! Nor was this feeling pecul- 
 iar to Mme. Talma. Rachel once made a rem irk 
 which I can never forget. She was speaking of 
 having recited in the gardens at Potsdam before 
 the czar of Russia, emperor of Germany, king of 
 Prussia, and other crowned heads, and s 1 e said : 
 1 That audience of kings electrified me. Never 
 were my tones more omnipotent ; my voice be- 
 witched my ears ! ' 
 
 " Nor is this all. One of the greatest French 
 actors now living has often told me that he could 
 never reach the pitch of emotion which so deeply 
 stirs his audience, if he did not learn his parts by 
 reciting them aloud. His voice electrifies and 
 guides him ! And this is the explanation of the 
 seemingly inexplicable fact that actors who are 
 utterly stupid may appear brilliantly on the stage." 
 
POWER OF THE VOICE. - 79 
 
 " Impossible ! " 
 
 " I have known such instances ! I have seen 
 men of ordinary intellect and sensibility, on the 
 stage, mould their hearers to their will, — and 
 this because their voice knew, felt, and acted 
 for them. Condemn them to silence, and they fall 
 back into mediocrity. It seems as if a little fairy 
 slumbered in their throat, who woke when they 
 spoke, and by waving her wand, roused unknown 
 powers in them. The voice is an invisible actor 
 hidden within the actor, a mysterious reader 
 concealed within the reader, — and serving both as 
 prompter. I give you this problem to solve, my 
 dear philosopher ; but I draw from it this conclu- 
 sion, which I hope you will grant, — that, inferior 
 as I am to you in many respects, I do know La 
 Fontaine better than you, simply because I read 
 him aloud/' 
 
 " So be it ! " said my friend, smiling ; " but who 
 can say that you do not attribute intentions which 
 they never had to La Fontaine and other great 
 men ? " 
 
 "I answer you by a quotation from Corneille. 
 Some one once showed him certain obscure verses 
 of his own composition, asking for an explanation. 
 1 When I wrote them/ was his artless reply, ' I 
 
8o READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 understood them perfectly ; but now they are as 
 vague to me as to you.' You see that there are 
 certain things in the works of the masters insolu- 
 ble even by themselves. In the fire of creation, 
 they instinctively use expressions which they do 
 not realize, but which are none the less true. 
 Genius, like beauty and childhood, is unconscious 
 of self. When a child enchants us by his inno- 
 cent smile, he does not know that it is innocent. 
 Does this detract from its charm ? One of the 
 chief advantages of reading aloud is the fact that it 
 reveals countless little shades of meaning in an 
 author, ignored even by the hand that wrote them. 
 In this way, the art might be used as a powerful 
 educational instrument. A fine elocution-teacher 
 is often an excellent teacher of literature." 
 
 Upon this we parted, M. Cousin uttering words 
 which were very flattering, from such a source : 
 " Thanks, my friend, you have taught me some- 
 thing new ! " 
 
A READING, ETC. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A READING AT THE HOUSE OF A GREAT ACTRESS. 
 
 I have striven to describe some of the pleasures of 
 the art of reading, and will now conclude with an 
 account of an incident in which my poor skill as a 
 reader did me good service. 
 
 " Adrienne Lecouvreur " was written for Mile. 
 Rachel, at her request, I might say her entreaty ; 
 but she spent the months which we used in writ- 
 ing, in wearying of the idea. Fickle by fancy, she 
 was even more so through her lack of decision ; she 
 consulted every one, and every one influenced her. 
 A critic's sneers sufficed to disgust her with the 
 scheme which most enchanted her five minutes 
 before. Such was the fate of "Adrienne." Her 
 advisers alarmed her as to the result of this incur- 
 sion of the dramatic realm. What ! Hermione 
 and Pauline consent to x speak in prose ? The 
 daughter of Corneille and Racine stoop to become 
 
 6 
 
82 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 the god-child of Scribe ? The very thought was 
 sacrilege ! 
 
 On the day appointed for the reading, therefore, 
 Rachel appeared, determined to refuse the charac- 
 ter. The room was full ; actresses, for they then 
 enjoyed critical rights, mingled with the actors, and 
 a certain air of solemnity pervading the assembly 
 struck me as an evil omen on my entrance. Scribe 
 took the manuscript and began to read ; I en- 
 sconced myself in an arm-chair and watched. 
 Then was unrolled before me a double drama, — our 
 own, and that silently playing in the hearts of our 
 audience. Vaguely aware of the secret purpose of 
 their illustrious comrade, they felt themselves in a 
 delicate position. A work written for Rachel, and 
 refused by her, might prove the source of serious 
 troubles, even legal contests, if accepted by the 
 committee. The committee followed the reading 
 of " Adrienne" on Rachel's face. That face being 
 utterly impassive, so were theirs. During the five 
 long acts she never smiled, she never applauded, 
 nor in any way approved : neither did they. So 
 complete was the general silence, that Scribe, fan- 
 cying one of his hearers on the eve of slumber, 
 fnterrupted his reading to say, " No ceremony, my 
 dear fellow, I beg." The gentleman warmly pro- 
 
A READING, ETC. 83 
 
 tested ; and this was the sole incident of the read- 
 ing. Stay ! I am wrong ; there was another, or an 
 attempt at one : in the fifth act, at the scene before 
 the last, Rachel, involuntarily struck by the situa- 
 tion, leaned forward in her chair, in whose depths 
 she had hitherto been buried, and listened as if 
 deeply interested ; but, seeing that I was looking at 
 her, she instantly fell back and resumed her icy 
 mask. The reading over, Scribe and I went into 
 the managers office, where he soon joined us, 
 and told us with an expression of regret, which we 
 accepted as sincere, that Rachel did not consider the 
 part suited to her, and that, the work having been 
 composed for her, the committee had concluded 
 to consider the reading null and void. " In other 
 words," said Scribe, " our play is rejected ? Very 
 well ! Patient waiters are no losers." Next day, 
 three different managers came for our play. Scribe 
 longed for a speedy vengeance, and desired to accept 
 one of these offers, but I absolutely refused. " My 
 dear friend," said I, " the play was written for the 
 Theatre Frangais, — it must be played there. The 
 part was written for Rachel, — she must play it." 
 " But how can we make her take it ? " 
 "That I don't know. But do it, we must. Dur- 
 ing our labors, so large a share of which fell to you, 
 
84 READING AS A FINE ART, 
 
 you did me the honor to say that I understood the 
 character of Adrienne better than you. And, in- 
 deed, I always felt the entire originality of the great 
 actress, filled by the noble sentiments of the hero- 
 ines she enacts, the interpreter of Corneille, in 
 whose veins runs some portion of Corneille's spirit ! 
 Such a character can appear nowhere save on the 
 stage of Corneille ! " My tone of conviction con- 
 quered Scribe, though he was loath to yield. The 
 managers renewed their offers and entreaties, one 
 of them saying to tempt us : " My leading lady has 
 never died on the stage, and she would be so glad 
 of a chance to take poison ! " But even this argu- 
 ment, powerful as it was, failed to persuade me ; and 
 six months elapsed without fresh results. Scribe 
 then declared that he could wait no longer. 
 
 " Give me a week/' was my reply. " You are 
 going to Sericourt for a week, and if on your re- 
 turn I have gained nothing, I will surrender." 
 
 " So be it ; I '11 expect you to breakfast, a week 
 from to-day, at eleven." 
 
 He set off, and I executed the following plan of 
 action. 1 
 
 1 I am forced in this brief recital to speak much more of my- 
 self than of Scribe ; but I should be very sorry to have any one 
 attribute this to a desire on my part to claim the chief merit of 
 our play : if our shares could be measured, his would certainly 
 be the larger. 
 
A READING, ETC 85 
 
 A new manager had lately been chosen at the 
 Theatre Fran gais; to him I went, and said: "You 
 know that Mile. Rachel refused our play. I don't 
 know whether this refusal was a mistake or not, 
 but the form of it was certainly a great wrong to 
 us. People don't return a piece of ordered work to 
 a man like Scribe; they don't insult a genius of the 
 foremost rank, and, permit me to say it, a young 
 man who is not of the lowest. Rachel should be 
 made to feel this and suffer for it ; even talent like 
 hers should pay some regard to the proprieties of 
 life. Now, there is one way of reconciling every 
 thing, — both her interests and ours. I ask her, not 
 to play our piece, but to hear it ; not at the theatre, 
 in presence of her fellow-actors, but at her own 
 house, before a few friends whom she shall choose : 
 she may invite whom she likes, and I will come alone 
 with my manuscript. If the work displease this 
 new committee, I will accept their opinion as a 
 righteous judgment. If it please them and her, 
 she shall play it : she will make a great hit, and 
 hail me as her savior." The offer was made and 
 accepted, Rachel saying to a friend, " I can't refuse 
 
 Legouve, but I will never play that ." The 
 
 word was too expressive, too vulgar for print. An 
 appointment was made for two days later, and the 
 
86 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 judges chosen by the fair artist were Jules Janin, 
 Merle, Rolle, and the manager of the Theatre 
 Fran^ais. 
 
 I was slightly agitated, no doubt, but master of 
 myself; I was sure that I was right, and was well 
 armed for battle. Scribe was a fine reader, and he 
 read our play wonderfully well, save in one particu- 
 lar. To my mind, he did not sufficiently identify 
 the part of Adrienne with Rachel ; he read it with 
 much grace, spirit, and warmth, but as one would 
 read any young " leading lady's " part : it lacked 
 grandeur ; the heroine was not visible beneath the 
 woman. Now, this was the very point by which 
 I hoped to tame and accustom Rachel to this novel 
 character. The task was both difficult and danger- 
 ous for her ; therefore, the difficulties must be 
 lessened, the dangers smoothed away ; the reader's 
 voice must point out to her, in advance, the 
 gradation from one line of character to another, 
 and convince her that what the public might regard 
 as an utter metamorphosis, to her would be but a 
 change of dress. This was the shade of meaning 
 which I thought Scribe did not sufficiently mark, 
 and which I had been studying for forty-eight 
 hours. 
 
 I arrived, and was most agreeably received with 
 
A READING, ETC. 87 
 
 that caressing grace natural to Rachel. She her- 
 self mixed me a glass of sugar and water, brought 
 me a chair, and even drew the curtains aside to 
 give me better light ! But I, who knew that famous 
 
 phrase, " I'll never play that ," I inwardly 
 
 laughed at this excess of courtesy, especially as I 
 guessed its purpose ! For how could any one sus- 
 pect ill-will or prejudice in a listener so graciously 
 ready to hear ? 
 
 I began. Throughout the first act, Rachel ap- 
 plauded, smiled, and in fact did just the contrary 
 to what she did at the committee meeting. Why ? 
 oh ! why ? I easily guessed her motive ; her plans 
 were well laid. She wanted to give the excuse that 
 the part did not suit her. Now, Adrienne not 
 appearing in the first act, Rachel ran no risk in 
 praising it ; her very eulogies would give an im- 
 partial air to her subsequent reserve, and a flavor 
 of sincerity to the regrets which would accompany 
 her refusal. But her cunning was of no avail, for 
 as soon as her friends saw these signs of satisfac- 
 tion, they joined in them, — their hands became 
 wonted to applause. The reader, cheered by their 
 plaudits, grew animated ; and I began the second 
 act with my public well in hand, all sails set and 
 driven forward by the breezes of success, — by that 
 
88 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 electric current familiar to all dramatists, which sud 
 denly runs around a hall when victory is secure. 
 
 In the second act, Adrienne appears, holding in* 
 her hand her part in " Bajazet," which she is study- 
 ing. The Prince de Bouillon approaches, and asks 
 gallantly, " What are you seeking now ? " She re- 
 plies : " Truth ! " " Bravo ! " cried Janin. Hullo ! 
 thought I, here 's a friend ! for, after all, the phrase 
 did not deserve a bravo. Rachel also turned to Janin, 
 with a look that said : " Have we a traitor in the 
 camp ? " Luckily, the traitor's opinion soon became 
 the general one. Rachel, surprised and somewhat 
 embarrassed at her inability to remain impassive 
 as before, yielded, after a faint resistance, to the 
 universal feeling ; and merely said, after the second 
 act, which was warmly applauded : " Well, I always 
 thought that the best act ! " This was her last 
 semblance of defence : in the third act, she boldly 
 cast her former judgment to the winds, as certain 
 politicians do their early opinions. She ap- 
 plauded, laughed, cried, and constantly exclaimed, 
 " What a fool I was ! " and at the close of the fifth 
 act she fell upon my neck, embraced me heartily, 
 and said, "How is it that you never turned actor?" 
 The reader had saved the author ! This pleased 
 and flattered me much ; for some time previous, on 
 
A READING, ETC. 89 
 
 hearing Guizot speak, she cried : " Oh ! how I 
 should like to play tragedy with that man ! " Next 
 day, at precisely eleven o'clock, I entered Scribe's 
 apartment. " Well ! " said he mockingly, " what 
 have you accomplished ? " My only answer was 
 to pull a paper from my pocket and read aloud : 
 " Theatre Fran^ais, to-day at noon, rehearsal of 
 ■ Adrienne Lecouvreur.' " 
 
 He uttered an exclamation of surprise, and I told 
 him the whole story. A month later, the curtain 
 rose on the first performance. This month greatly 
 enlightened me as to the mysteries and peculiarities 
 of theatrical life, and I well remember one character- 
 istic story. Shortly before the first performance 
 of " Adrienne," there was no performance at the 
 theatre on account of an evening rehearsal. Scribe, 
 being detained at the opera-house by preparations 
 for the "Prophet," did not come ; the first four acts 
 brought us to eleven o'clock. Most of the company 
 went home, leaving Rachel, Regnier, Maillard, and 
 myself alone. Rachel turned to me suddenly, say- 
 ing: " Now we have the theatre to ourselves, let us 
 try the fifth act, which we have never yet rehearsed ! 
 I 've heen working at it alone for three days, and I 
 want to see what I can do with it." There was 
 neither gas nor foot-light ; the only rays that fell 
 
90 READING AS A FINE ART, 
 
 upon the stage came from the traditional lamp 
 standing by the empty prompter's box ; the only 
 spectators were the fireman on duty slumbering in 
 his chair between two side scenes, and myself in 
 the orchestra. From the beginning, I was deeply 
 affected by Rachel's tone ; I never saw her so natu- 
 ral, so simple, so profoundly tragic ; the reflections 
 of the smoky lamp cast a frightfully livid hue 
 over her face, and the empty hall echoed back 
 her voice in weird reverberation : it was mourn- 
 ful in the extreme ! The act over, we left the 
 theatre. As we passed a mirror in the corri- 
 dor, I was struck by my pallor, and even more so 
 by that of Regnier and Maillard. As for Rachel, 
 silent and aloof, shaken by a nervous tremor, she 
 wiped away the tears still flowing from her eyes. 
 I went to her, and, in lieu of any words of praise, 
 showed her the agitated faces of her comrades ; 
 then taking her hand, said : — 
 
 " My dear friend, you played that fifth act as 
 you never will again ! " 
 
 " So I think," she replied ; " and do you know 
 why it was ? " 
 
 " Yes ; because there was no one to applaud 
 you. You had no thought of effect ; and thus 
 you became, for the time being, to yourself, poor 
 
A READING, ETC. 9 1 
 
 Adrienne dying at midnight, in the arms of two 
 faithful friends." 
 
 She was silent for a moment, then replied : — 
 " You are wrong ! A miracle yet more strange 
 was wrought within me : it was not for Adrienne 
 I wept, it was for myself ! Something, I know 
 not what, suddenly told me that I should die young 
 like her. I seemed to be in my own room, at my 
 last hour, assisting at my own death ; and when at 
 the words, * Farewell, dramatic triumphs ! farewell, 
 intoxicating blisses of an art that I have loved so 
 fondly ! ' you saw me shed genuine tears, it was 
 because I was thinking with anguish and despair 
 that time would obliterate every lingering memory 
 of my genius ; and that soon — nothing would be 
 left of her who was Rachel ! " 
 
 Alas ! she was right. A very few years later, 
 she died like her sister Rebecca, and of the same 
 fatal malady, at Cannet, a little village in Southern 
 France. She was received with loving hospitality 
 by one of Sardou's family, at a strange villa where 
 the mystical fancy of the owner had accumulated 
 and mingled in odd confusion images and symbols 
 of various Oriental religions. On the day of her 
 arrival, she was so exhausted by her journey that 
 she went immediately to sleep. But waking at 
 
92 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 midnight, she uttered a shriek of terror. The bed 
 on which she lay was shaped like a tomb, and at 
 the foot was a female figure leaning forward as if 
 to seize her. It was a wood carving, intended to 
 hold back the curtains. " Death ! death ! " she 
 screamed, flinging herself from the bed. Her last 
 days were passed in those alternations of hope and 
 gloomy premonition peculiar to her disease. She 
 often said : " I hope six hours of the day, and the 
 rest of the time despair ! " Her cruel sufferings 
 were ever and anon sculpturesquely translated into 
 the most graceful and beautiful of attitudes, — atti- 
 tudes of which she was well aware ; for never, amid 
 the fiercest agony, whether mental or physical, does a 
 great artist lose self-consciousness: he is an eternal 
 spectacle unto himself ; great as may be his despair, 
 he watches it with argus eyes. Rachel felt her own 
 elegance as she posed for a young invalid : she 
 seemed to herself a beautiful statue of Grief ! 
 
 Chance taking me to Cannet, I hastened to Sar- 
 dou's home; she was unable to see me, but next 
 day sent me a most grateful letter, concluding with 
 these flattering words : " No one else writes female 
 characters as you do ; promise that you will write 
 a play for my re-appearancer Three days later 
 she was dead ! 
 
A READING, ETC. 93 
 
 I feel sure of the pardon of my readers for yield- 
 ing to the thronging memories which crowd upon 
 me ; but this brief digression to one of the greatest 
 exemplars of the elocutionary art seems to me to 
 merit a place in this study of elocution. 
 
94 READING AS A FINE ART, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CLOSING WORDS. 
 
 This sketch is dedicated to the pupils of the High 
 and Normal School. Let me, in conclusion, recom- 
 mend it to the masters, mistresses, and scholars of 
 our primary schools. 
 
 Written for the elect of the University, it may be 
 doubted whether my book is adapted to the more 
 modest representatives of the science of education. 
 
 Let others judge of this. 
 
 Some days since, at the invitation of a superin- 
 tendent of girls' schools, I visited a primary and a 
 normal school in a quarter of Paris by no means 
 poor. I was asked to hear the children and future 
 teachers read ; and, on doing so, two things chiefly 
 struck me in the children, — namely, their weak 
 voices and their absolute lack of punctuation. They 
 read as if their vocal chords had no strength, and 
 their sentences neither periods nor commas. 
 
CLOSING WORDS. 95 
 
 This was not the result of natural weakness of 
 the organs of speech ; for, when they answered 
 questions put to them, their tones instantly became 
 round and clear. It was due to timidity, caused 
 by inexperience, ignorance, and bad habits. They 
 had absolutely no idea how to manage their 
 voices. 
 
 In the young teachers of the future, I found the 
 qualities of correctness and grace of diction ; but 
 the mechanical and technical part of the art of 
 reading was entirely wanting. Their very skilful 
 teacher can afford them but too slight a portion of 
 his time. 
 
 And is it a matter of indifference that the mas- 
 ters, mistresses, and pupils of primary schools re- 
 main in this crass ignorance ? 
 
 Let others, again, be judges. 
 
 The head-teacher of the Normal School tells me 
 that of twenty girls who leave her to teach primary 
 schools, two or three return to her every year, with 
 such severe throat-troubles that they are obliged to 
 give up their profession. 
 
 There is, therefore, no one to whom the art of 
 reading is more necessary, — since learning to read 
 also includes learning to breathe, to punctuate, to 
 spare one's strength ; and since vocal exercises are 
 
g6 READING AS A FINE ART, 
 
 the most wholesome of gymnastics. To strengthen 
 the voice is to strengthen the whole system ; to 
 strengthen the voice is not only to develop vocal 
 power, but also the power of lungs and larynx, as 
 the following anecdote may prove. Previous to 
 1848, M. Fortoul was chosen professor of a pro- 
 vincial college. He hesitated to accept, the morbid 
 delicacy of his throat making him dread the fatigue 
 of teaching. " Accept," said his doctor; "public 
 speaking in a large hall will strengthen your throat, 
 provided you learn to speak properly first. ,, He 
 accepted, studied, strove, succeeded ; and at the 
 end of the year found himself four thousand francs 
 richer and a well man. 
 
 What is true of the technical part of reading is 
 also true of its intellectual part. What a new and 
 powerful means of good might be exerted by any 
 one who would gradually initiate the lower and ru- 
 ral classes, by reading aloud to them, into an even 
 imperfect knowledge of the beauties of literature ! 
 Is not a lesson in a nation's genius a lesson in its 
 history as well ? Is it not a moral duty to rivet 
 and multiply in every way the bonds uniting the 
 people to their country's intellectual glory ? Have 
 not the people hearts, minds, and imaginations ? 
 And, without quitting the field of education, what 
 
CLOSING WORDS. 97 
 
 more potent aid can a scholar have than reading ? 
 Memory is one of the greatest instruments of in- 
 struction, and reading aloud teaches the pupil the 
 best use of this instrument. Does not a child learn 
 a thousand times faster, and remember much longer, 
 if, instead of laboring to hammer words and phrases 
 into his mind by dint of mere mechanical repetition, 
 he absorbs them by his reason and feeling, — that is, 
 by his comprehension of the meaning and beauty 
 of a work ? Nothing is more conducive to learning 
 a thing by rote than to understand and admire it. 
 
 In the name, then, of physical and mental well- 
 being, I demand that the art of reading aloud shall 
 be ranked among the principal branches of public 
 education in France as well as in America ! I claim 
 for the people, first, a thorough course of instruc- 
 tion in reading in our normal schools ; second, a 
 prize for reading in our primary schools. There is 
 no true progress in education save that which 
 begins in childhood and with the people ; and in a 
 democracy, all being done by all, all should be done 
 for all ! 
 
Sj III BOH WARS BEECHES, 
 ~7f~ — ~fr 
 
 Neatly Bound, Cloth, prepaid, 40 Gts% 
 
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 While the different modes of speech are fully described, and the 
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 Pop Reading and Recitation. 
 
 pDAPTED POI^ USB IN BUBLIG AND B^IYACTE. 
 
 The Latest and best Book of Humor Published. 
 
 7T S its name implies, the selections are chosen with 
 rj the greatest care, avoiding the coarse and vulgar 
 •« on the one hand, and the flat and insipid on 
 
 the other. 
 
 The Publishers possess unequaled facilities for secur- 
 ing the best readings of every character, and the present 
 volume may be considered without a rival. 
 
 The pieces are new, but few of them having previ- 
 ously appeared in any similar publication, and the 
 range of subjects is unusually wide. 
 
 The repertoires of many of the best amateur 
 and professional readers have been examined, 
 and the choicest bits of humor have been carefully 
 culled and bound up in this rich, golden sheaf, and 
 are here offered to the public for the first time in book 
 form. 
 
 The book contains eighty-five pieces, is clearly printed 
 on good, strong paper, and is bound in a handsome and 
 appropriately engraved cover. Sold everywhere, or 
 mailed upon receipt of price. 
 
 Taper Binding, 30 cts. ; Cloth, 50 cts. 
 
 Remit otherwise than by 2-cent Stamps, 
 
 THE NATIONAL SCHOOL OF ELOCUTION AND ORATCRY, 
 
 Publication Department, PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
 CHAS. C. SHOEMAKER, Manager. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 027 249 635 3