That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I "Come, consecrated lictors, from your thrones; Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free From daily contact of the things I loathe? Tried and convicted traitor! Who says this? Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head? Banished! I thank you for 't. It breaks my chain! I held some slack allegiance till this hour; But now my sword 's my own. Smile on, my lords! I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes, I have within my heart's hot cells shut up, But here I stand and scoff you! here, I fling Your consul's merciful.- For this, all thanks, Catiline to the Senate. - Croly. The Downward Fifth has in many respects a meaning, similar to the octave, but it clothes its sentiments of smiling surprise, admiration, and command with greater dignity. Its concrete, like that of the octave, may be modified in meaning by different applications of stress. Examples. "A thousand hearts are great within my bosom: Upon them! Victory sits on our helms." King, in RICHARD THIRD. Begone! run to your houses, fall upon your knees, That needs must light on this ingratitude!" Marcellus, in JULIUS CESAR. 'Tis Cæsar's sword has made Rome's Senate little, Which conquest and success have thrown upon him; "Lady Clara Vere de Vere, CATO.- Addison. There stands a spectre in your hall: And slew him with your noble birth." LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE.- Tennyson. "The Downward Third has an expression similar to that of the fifth, but of more moderate degree. Dignity of vocal character, like that of personal gesture, consists not only in the slowness of time, and the restraint of effort, but in a limitation within the widest range of movement. As there is most composure in an interrogation by the use of a third, so the expression of surprise and admiration by a downward interval, is most subdued and dignified when heard on the falling third.” As the rising third is used for emphasis alone, independently of its interrogative import, so the falling third may be employed without expressing surprise or command, merely for varying the effect of intonation. Examples. "Lords and Commons of England! consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors; a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit; acute to invent, subtile and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point that human capacity can soar to. . . . Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam; purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means." -AREOPAGITICA.-Milton. "People do not see the strange things which pass them every Jay. The romance of real life' is only one to the romantic spirit. And then they set up for critics instead of pupils; as if the artist's business was not just to see what they cannot see — to open their eyes to the harmonies and the discords, the miracles and the absurdities, which seem to them one uniform gray fog of commonplaces."- Kingsley. "No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes is the object. A chemist may tell his most precious secrets to a carpenter, and he shall be never the wiser, the secrets he would not utter to a chemist for an estate. God screens us evermore from premature ideas. Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream. . . . There are graces in the demeanor of a polished and noble person that are lost upon the eye of a churl. These are like the stars whose light has not yet reached us." - Emerson. "Live while you live, the epicure would say, I live in pleasure when I live to Thee." — Doddridge. "The truth in God's breast Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed: Though He is so bright and we so dim We are made in His image to witness Him; And were no eye in us to tell, Instructed by no inner sense, The light of Heaven from the dark of Hell, Though Justice, Good and Truth were still Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed Law through the worlds, and Right misnamed, Made or in part or in totality, Should win you to give it worship, therefore." "Here's the garden she walked across, Arm in my arm, such a short while since: Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss Hinders the hinges and makes them wince! This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim; Speech half-asleep, or song half-awake? GARDEN FANCIES.-Ibid. "The slender acacia would not shake The lilies and roses were all awake, · Garden Song, in MAUD. -Tennyson. "Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! With all the hopes of future years, We know what Master laid thy keel, "Fear not each sudden sound and shock; Are all with thee are all with thee." THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. - Longfellow. The Interval of the Second is the basis of the diatonic melody; in correct and agreeable elocution, it is more used than any other, being appropriate to those parts of discourse which convey the plain thoughts of the speaker, as contradistinguished from the feelings and emphatic sentiments which call for wider intervals and other forms of expression. "The simple rise and fall of the second, and perhaps its wave, when used for plain narration, or for the mere statement of an unexcited idea, is the only intonated voice of man that does not spring from a passionate, or, in some degree, an earnest condition of his mind. If we listen to his ignorance, doubt, selfishness, arrogance, and injustice, we hear the vivid forms of vocal expression, proceeding from these and related passions. Thus we have the rising intervals of the fifth and octave, for interrogatives, not of wisdom but of envious curiosity; the downward third, fifth, and octave for dogmatic or tyrannical command; waves for the surprise of ignorance, the snarling of ill-humor, and the curling voice, along with the curling lip of contempt; the piercing height of pitch for the scream of terror; the semitone, for the peevish whine of discontent, and for the puling cant of the hypocrite and the knave, who cover, beneath the voice of kindness, the designs of their craft. Then listen to him on those rare occasions, when he forgets himself and his passions, and has to utter a simple idea, or plainly to narrate; and you will hear the second, the least obtrusive interval of the scale, in the admirable harmony of nature, made the simple sign of the unexcited sentiment of her wisdom and truth."Rush. |