The second criterion is that of Pitch. By Pitch is meant everything that has to do with the acuteness or gravity of the tone,—in other words, with keys, melodies, inflections and modulations. Again we are indebted to Professor Raymond for a clear statement regarding this most subtle of all the elements of expression. His words are as follows: “The melody of the movement taken by the voice represents, therefore, like the melody in music, the mind’s motive,—indicates its purpose in using the particular phraseology to which the melody is applied; and because pitch, through the kinds of inflections and melody chosen, reveals the motives, we shall find that the use of this element in ordinary conversation is constantly causing precisely the same phraseology to express entirely opposite meanings.” Before proceeding further, it may be well to illustrate this principle, in order that the reader may follow more clearly the subsequent discussion.
Let us suppose some one to ask the question, “Do you think Mr. Jones is a good teacher?” and that the reply is given, “Oh, yes,” with a melody that virtually says, “Oh, I suppose so; he is not a very great teacher; in fact, there are many things about his teaching that might be a great deal better, but he manages to get along.” Now, all of this paraphrase, which reveals the motive, is manifested in the significant melody upon the two words, “Oh, yes.” Let us suppose further that a few days later Mr. Jones comes to us and calls us to account for speaking disparagingly of his teaching. “What,” we reply, “we say anything against your teaching! Why, when Smith asked us whether we considered you a good teacher, we said in the most unequivocal manner, ‘Oh, yes’!” And this time we utter the words with strong, positive assertiveness. The words in both cases are the same, but the different melodies indicate entirely opposite motives behind the words.
Read aloud such a sentence as, “John rode to the park last Christmas,” changing the meaning by transferring the significant inflection successively to all the important words, thus:
John rode to the park last Christmas.
John rode to the park last Christmas.
John rode to the park last Christmas, etc.
Does it not appear that, with each change in the motive, the melody changes?
We often hear it said that in such cases as the last we have been changing the emphasis. This is true. But emphasis is a broad term, and one often confused with force. As a matter of fact, the changes in the successive readings were changes of melody due in every case to changes of motive.
Again, “When we are in our graves our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivities, with bonfires, with joy.” The inflections on the last four nouns would probably be falling. Why? Because each would be held to be of sufficient importance to be emphasized by itself, and cut off from the others. To read them with rising inflections would be to manifest the fact that the mind was thinking of them in the aggregate. Once again, the melody shows the motive.
The melody is an indubitable sign of the discriminative ability of the reader. It is the severest test of his power to perceive sense, or logical, relations. So important a feature of the work is this that it appears necessary to emphasize it and to illustrate it in many ways.
Bassanio desires to show his love for Antonio. He says:
Antonio, I am married to a wife,
Which is as dear to me as life itself;
But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
Are not with me esteem’d above thy life:
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
Here to this devil, to deliver you.
It is evident that he does not wish to assert that he is married, nor that he is married to a wife; but that he is married to a wife as dear as life itself. And yet many a pupil reads the passage as if Bassanio were desirous of insisting upon the fact that he is married to a wife. Not a very remarkable condition of affairs, truly. It is no argument to say that the comma after “wife” indicates the necessity of a rising inflection on that word. As has been already intimated, and as will be later developed, the punctuation has nothing to do with the inflection.
Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate,
Sullen and silent and disconsolate.
Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear,
With look bewildered, and a vacant stare,
Close shaven above the ears, as monks are shorn,
By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn,
His only friend the ape, his only food
What others left,—he still was unsubdued.
In the preceding passage, note that from the third line to the clause at the end of the sentence the mind is glancing forward, and this fact will be evident in the rising inflection at the end of every important statement. Notice, further, that all of these statements will be uttered in what is virtually the same melody. The reason for this is that they are co-ordinate, and having the same motive behind them will be read with the same melody.
Observe the different melodies in the following sentences, and how the difference manifests the varying motive:
When Mark Antony uses the phrase, “honorable men,” in the beginning of his oration, there can be no doubt that he avoids even the slightest indication of sarcasm in his voice. Whatever his ultimate purpose may be, his immediate intention is to conciliate the mob. This purpose, his motive, is shown by the unequivocal melody with which he says:
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,—
For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men,—
Come I to speak on Caesar’s funeral.
It is hardly necessary to consider this aspect farther. Let us, however, examine the subject in detail. The first consideration is that of Key. Key has been defined as “the fundamental tone of a movement to which its modulations are referred, and with which it generally begins and ends; keynote.” (Webster.) Perhaps the meaning of the current phrases “high key” and “low key” will make the definition clear. When we say of one that he speaks in a high key, we should be understood as meaning that his pitch is prevailingly high; and that the reverse is true when we say of one that he speaks in a low key. While it is true that the key differs in individuals, yet experience shows that within a note or two we all use the same keys in expressing the same states of minds. The question for us is, What determines the key? It can be set down as a fixed principle that controlled mental states are expressed in the low keys, while the high keys are the manifestation of the less controlled mental conditions.[1] This principle will be more readily understood when we consider the states finding expression in low or high key in music. We should hardly awaken much enthusiasm by playing Yankee Doodle in a key an octave below that in which it is written; nor should we catch the subtle meaning of Chopin’s Funeral March if it were played in a key an octave higher than the original key. Let the reader study the spirit of the following extracts, and read them aloud. He will find in such practice the best proof of the truth of the principle we are here discussing:
Over his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,
And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument
Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent
Along the wavering vista of his dream.
—The Vision of Sir Launfal. Lowell.
It is but a legend, I know,—
A fable, a phantom, a show,
Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;
Yet the old mediæval tradition,
The beautiful, strange superstition,
But haunts me and holds me the more.
When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,
All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing
Sandalphon the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.
And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.
—Sandalphon. Longfellow.
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished; and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless; and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went,—and came, and brought no day.
The world was void;
The populous and the powerful was a lump,—
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless,—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still;
And nothing stirred within their silent depths:
Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea;
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropped,
They slept on the abyss without a surge;—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave;
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air;
And the clouds perished: Darkness had no need
Of aid from them, She—was the universe.
—Darkness. Byron.
A fool, a fool!—I met a fool i’ th’ forest,
A motley fool;—a miserable world!—
As I do live by food, I met a fool;
Who laid him down, and bask’d him in the sun,
And rail’d on lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms,—and yet a motley fool.
“Good morrow, fool,” quoth I; “No, sir,” quoth he,
“Call me not fool, till heav’n hath sent me fortune;”
And then he drew a dial from his poke:
And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says, very wisely, “It is ten o’clock;
Thus may we see,” quoth he, “how the world wags;
’Tis but an hour ago, since it was nine;
And after one hour more ’twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep contemplative.
And I did laugh, sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.
—As You Like It, Act ii., Sc. 7.
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful jollity,
Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,
And love to dwell in dimple sleek;
Come, and trip it as ye go,
On the light fantastic toe.
—L’Allegro. Milton.
Where sweeps round the mountains
The cloud on the gale,
And streams from their fountains
Leap into the vale,—
Like frighted deer leap when
The storm with his pack
Rides over the steep in
The wild torrent’s track,—
Even there my free home is;
There watch I the flocks
Wander white as the foam is
In stairways of rocks.
Secure in the gorge there
In freedom we sing,
And laugh at King George, where
The eagle is king.
—Song. T. B. Read.
The reason for low pitch or high pitch is psycho-physiological. Nerve tension means muscular tension, and, since the muscles controlling the vocal chords are subject to the same laws as the other muscles, the greater the tension the higher the pitch. Hence, since what we have called the controlled states are accompanied by relatively low muscular tension, it necessarily follows that they will be expressed in relatively low keys.
The desire to communicate thought to another has a tendency to raise the key. To illustrate: if we are addressing an audience in a small room, we shall speak in a moderately low key. If the auditorium is large, the key will be higher. If we are speaking in the open air, the chances are that we shall use a key considerably above that of ordinary conversation. On the other hand, when one is communing with himself, the absence of desire to reach others removes the tension, and in consequence the pitch is low. It is well to bear in mind that all soliloquies are not read in low key. Soliloquies are often full of uncontrolled passion, in which case the principle first laid down would apply, and the pitch would be high, according to the degree of tension. What has been said in this paragraph we may sum up in a few words: those states in which there is strong desire to communicate (objective states) are manifested in high key; while the introspective (subjective) states find expression in the lower keys. Henry V., inciting his soldiers to attack the enemy’s fortifications, says:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace, there’s nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness, and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor’d rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it,
As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height!—On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!—
The game’s afoot;
Follow your spirit: and, upon this charge,
Cry—God for Harry! England! and Saint George!
—Henry V., Act iii., Sc. 1.
The tension of the speaker is evidently high, owing to the exhilaration of the moment, and to the desire to project his voice (of which he may be unconscious), and consequently the key will be high. It is the joy of the English people that Tennyson voices in his Welcome to Alexandra. Again the key is relatively high.
Sea-kings’ daughter from over the sea, Alexandra!
Saxon and Norman and Dane are we,
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee, Alexandra!
Welcome her, thunders of fort and of fleet!
Welcome her, thundering cheer of the street!
Welcome her, all things youthful and sweet,
Scatter the blossoms under her feet!
Break, happy land, into earlier flowers!
Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers!
Blazon your mottoes of blessing and prayer!
Welcome her, welcome her, all that is ours!
Warble, O bugle, and trumpet, blare!
Flags, flutter out upon turrets and towers!
Flames, on the windy headland flare!
Utter your jubilee, steeple and spire!
Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air!
Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire!
Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and higher
Melt into stars for the land’s desire!
Roll and rejoice, jubilant voice,
Roll as a ground-swell dashed on the strand,
Roar as the sea when it welcomes the land,
And welcome her, welcome the land’s desire,
The sea-kings’ daughter as happy as fair,
Blissful bride of a blissful heir,
Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea.
O joy to the people and joy to the throne,
Come to us, love us, and make us your own;
For Saxon or Dane or Norman we,
Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be,
We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee, Alexandra!
—Welcome to Alexandra. Tennyson.
Hamlet’s soliloquy will find expression in moderately low key when one grasps the idea that Hamlet is meditating upon:
To be, or not to be,—that is the question;
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die,—to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die,—to sleep;—
To sleep! perchance to dream!—ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus made
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,—
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveler returns,—puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
—Hamlet, Act iii., Sc. 1.
The following lines are delivered by Hamlet when he appreciates the fact that while his father’s blood cries out for vengeance he stands idle, beset by doubts and fears. The speech is a soliloquy, but it would be rendered in a moderately high pitch owing to the mental tension of the speaker:
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous, that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That from her working all his visage wann’d;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in ’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by th’ nose? gives me the lie i’ the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
’Swounds, I should take it; for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O vengeance!
—Hamlet, Act ii., Sc. 2.
The principle just discussed,—that key depends on the degree of tension, first mental, then physical,—is of very wide application. As a matter of fact, it explains the whole subject of melody. In passing from a controlled to a less controlled state, the voice rises, and vice versa. To illustrate: Brutus says to Cassius, “You yourself are much condemned to have an itching palm”; and Cassius replies, “I an itching palm!” On the word “I” the voice of Cassius strikes upward through, perhaps, an octave of the scale, and this inflection manifests the increasing tension of Cassius’ mind as he utters the exclamation. It is almost impossible to restrain the tension of throat and hand while reading the passage. Note how the muscular tension increases while one is speaking the words of Cassius. Bearing in mind what has been said of the relation of bodily tension to pitch, the explanation of Cassius’ inflection will not be far to seek. Again, Brutus says, “The name of Cassius honors this corruption, and chastisement doth therefore hide his head.” Cassius replies in one word, “Chastisement.” There are two interpretations of this word: one, that Cassius replies, as if questioning, “Do you dare say this to me?” and the other, that, astounded at the bluntness of Brutus’s speech, Cassius replies, speaking to himself, “He dared speak of chastisement to me!” In the first case the inflection would be rising, denoting the increase of tension; in the second case, the inflection would be falling, marking a gradual decrease of tension. Let the reader experiment on this example, and observe how the mental tension corresponds with the physical tension.
The melody in which any phrase or sentence is given consists of a series of waves, the crests of which mark the maximum of tension. It is a difficult matter to indicate speech melody, but it is hoped the following illustrations will be at least sufficiently suggestive to make clear the psychology of melody. In the following sentence there is a gradual ascent of the voice, since the intensity increases from the first word to the end.
Came I not forth upon thy pledge my father’s hand to kiss?
Again, we have a very similar melody in this:
Would you wrest the wreath of fame
From the hand of fate?
The descending melody, denoting that the maximum of tension is at the beginning of the sentence, is found in the following:
All gloom, all silence, all despair!
“Dead” marks the crest of the wave of tension in the following. Observe how the melody rises to that word and descends after it:
For those who have no musical ear, it may be somewhat difficult to catch these speech melodies. But, fortunately, in most cases, an acute musical ear is not necessary. Melody takes care of itself. When we have determined the principal word in each phrase, the melody will rise or fall from that without any effort on our part. And furthermore, even those without an ear for tune recognize instinctively the appropriateness of a given melody which they may be unable to analyze in detail. Nevertheless, the ability to analyze speech tunes is a great aid to the teacher; and it is to be hoped that the foregoing explanation will materially assist him in his work of developing the logical acumen of his class.
Melody is made up of skips and inflections. The inflection needs no definition; the skip is simply a discreet passage from one note to another. As the violinist draws his bow over the string and simultaneously runs his finger up or down the string, we have the analogy of the inflection. The pianist cannot do more than skip from one note to another, although there is an approximation to the glide, or inflection, in legato playing. The skip is found in such a sentence as this:
The psychology of the skip is precisely that of the inflection, i. e., transition from less to more tension, or the reverse. In such an exclamation as, “Thou tattered upstart!” it is next to impossible to use the wide rising inflection that would be natural on the first syllable of “upstart,” owing to the nature of the syllable. Hence, there would be a skip between “up” and “start.” But let it be carefully observed that, including the skip, the voice traverses exactly the interval it would have passed through had it been possible to use one inflection, as, for instance, on “boy” in “Thou tattered boy!” Our attention may now be turned to inflections.
Inflections are not a matter of accident, nor are they a conventional device. Their meaning is definite and fixed, and their force instinctively recognized by all. Although we do not stop to analyze them, they convey to all alike a distinct shade of thought. And further, the same shade of thought will always find expression through the same inflections. We must bear in mind that it is not claimed that all will be moved in the same way by the same stimulus, nor that all will take the same meaning from a given passage. What is claimed is, that the same purpose will find expression, with all, in fundamentally the same melody (of which inflections form the larger part). If this were not so, how should we understand one another? We discern a speaker’s purpose quite as much in his melody as in his words. For example, if one were to ask, “Are you going out?” with the object of acquiring information, he would use instinctively a rising inflection on “out.” If he were surprised at our intention to go out, he would use a wider rising inflection. And if he had asked the question several times without receiving a reply, and were now insisting on an answer (his motive now being to assert his right to an answer) he would use a wide downward inflection on “out.” And so should we all under like conditions, and the meaning of all would be alike understood by all. We need enlarge no further on this. Let it suffice that if given inflections had not always the same meaning and were not always instinctively used to express the same purpose, conversation would be impossible.
The rising inflection is the sign of incomplete sense. Whenever the mind points forward the significant inflection is upward. Test this in the following illustrations. The rising inflection will be particularly noticed on the italicized words, which are not necessarily to be strongly emphasized:
In 1815 M. Charles Myriel was the bishop of D——. He was a man of about seventy-five years of age, and had held the see of D—— since 1806. Although the following details in no way affect our narrative, it may not be useless to quote the rumors that were current about him at the moment when he came to the diocese; for what is said of men, whether it be true or false, often occupies as much space in their life, and especially in their destiny,[2] as what they do.
The beams of the rising sun had gilded the lofty domes of Carthage, and given, with its rich and mellow light, a tinge of beauty even to the frowning ramparts of the outer harbor.
When, for any reason, we do not desire to assert strongly; when what we have to say is trite, trivial, repetitious; when we are uncertain or doubtful; when we entreat; when we ask a question to which the answer yes or no is expected, we also use the rising inflection.
I do not claim this is the only method.
I cannot promise definitely, but I think you may rely upon getting it.
I shall wait for you in the lobby, if you don’t tarry too long.
It doesn’t look like rain, does it?
There are some arguments in its favor, but they are not weighty.
No, nobody claims that.
I grant I may have taken the honorable gentleman by surprise.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life, but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I do not charge the gentleman with wilful misstatement, but I would rather say he is a great economizer of the truth.
I do not like to think that the opposition is purposely delaying the vote on this question.
Never fear that: if he be so resolved,
I can o’ersway him.
You won’t leave me, father.
Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny!
O, Hamlet, speak no more.
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man.
It would be idle to base an opinion on any argument of Mr. Webster.
O, that is of no consequence; you don’t believe that.
It is hardly necessary for me to go over the charges of the attorney for the plaintiff; they are trivial and unimportant.
It goes without saying that you know the early history of these people.
There are very few who haven’t a bowing acquaintance with this subject.
You know me well, and herein spend but time
To wind about my love with circumstance.
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.
It is not that I doubt the gentleman’s honesty, but that I question his authority.
It was at the end of the war that this incident occurred; not at the beginning.
Uncertainty, confusion, hesitation, and other forms of doubt, are really questions,—the mind seeking solution of difficult and perplexing problems.
I wish I could find some way out of this, but—
There ought to be some other method of solving this difficulty: let me see, let me see.
I would I had been there.
Are you the owner of this house?
Can you tell me what time it is?
Care must be taken not to confuse this form of interrogation with Figurative Interrogation. The latter is often strongly assertive. For instance:
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?
This is equivalent to asking a question and answering it at the same time. It asks in words, “was ever?” It answers in inflection, “there never was.” Grammatically, then, it is a question; rhetorically, it is an exclamation. Here is another form of Figurative Interrogation:
Are you going out? (No answer.) Are you going out? (I demand an answer.)
In this case, the second question becomes a demand. The speaker cares for an answer not so much because of any interest in it as such, but because he desires his authority respected.
The following examples of Figurative Interrogation should be carefully studied:
Is there a single atrocity of the French more unprincipled and inhuman than that of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in Poland?
Did he not know that he was making history that hour? Did he not know this, I say?
If I were to propose three cheers for Washington, is there a single man, woman, or child in this vast audience who would refuse to lift his voice?
Have you, gentlemen of the jury, considered the price the state asks the prisoner to pay for what is only an indiscretion at most? I repeat, have you considered the price?
Has the gentleman done? Has he completely done?
A very interesting psychological question arises in connection with Figurative Interrogation. It has been shown how the grammatical question becomes an oratorical assertion; but there is a point in assertion beyond which it may pass and become an intense emotional question. In this sentence, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” we have an illustration. There are three possibilities here. First: a simple question looking for information. Second: an exclamation equivalent to, Who does not know that the Judge of all the earth shall do right? Third: a skeptical question (with considerable emotion) is it possible that any one would deny that the Judge of all the earth shall do right?
It would be easy to multiply examples and make many refinements of this principle underlying the use of the rising inflection. A careful study, however, of those given should suffice to impress upon the reader that the rising inflection will be given whenever for any reason whatsoever there is no desire to assert.
Incompleteness (implied or otherwise) is marked by the rising inflection; completeness by the falling. We are all aware that the falling inflection marks completed sense, so that this principle will require neither elaboration nor illustration. Attention must be called, however, to the fact that we often assert strongly in the middle of a sentence. This phase of the subject has been so well described by another[3] that we quote as follows:
“Momentary Completeness.—This applies to any clause, phrase, or even word, which has, for any reason, enough separate force to constitute, at the moment, an entire thought, and to call for a separate affirmation of the mind. This momentary completeness may arise:
“1. From the logical importance of the clause, phrase, or word requiring a strong affirmative emphasis.
“2. From an elliptical construction—one in which each part could be reasonably expanded into a complete proposition.
“Example of 1 would be this sentence from Webster:
It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force.
“Here the ideas of spontaneity, originality, nativeness, are each so important to the thought that the mind is called upon to make a separate affirmation upon each one.
“Examples of 2 are found in some of the connected clauses in this passage from Byron’s Dream of Darkness:
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander, darkling, in the eternal space,
Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light.
“The ‘loose’ sentence presents a typical case of momentary completeness, each added clause or element giving a separate, subjoined thought.
“In the following cases the period mark inclosed in brackets, [.], indicates the place at which the sentence might close; and the words in parentheses are those which might be supplied in constructing separate complete propositions. The reconstruction suggests the probable process of thought.
The next day he voted for that repeal [.], and he would have spoken for it too [.], if an illness had not prevented it.
The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery—that it is legal slavery, will be no compensation, either to his feelings or his understanding.
“The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery [.]. (The mere fact) that it is legal slavery will (in his estimation) be no compensation (at all). (It will not be (in any degree) satisfactory) either to his feelings or his understanding.
“Completeness is marked in the voice by a falling slide; that indicating finality usually descends at least a fifth (from sol down to do), and is preceded by a more or less distinct rising melody. This cadential melody may carry the voice so high in pitch that the falling slide will be as great as an octave. The indication of momentary completeness is also a falling slide, varying in extent from a third to a fifth, but not so marked as that of finality, and usually not preceded by any special rising melody.
“In the following example note momentary completeness on ‘man,’ ‘woman,’ ‘child,’ and finality on the climacteric word ‘beast.’ Thus: